One of the most common questions I get is, “should I be using YouTube or podcast?”. And the reality is, it’s not “YouTube or podcasting”. There doesn’t have to be one or the other. In fact, there are lots of ways to use these tools together and that’s where we’re going to talk about today because YouTube, spoiler alert, is not a replacement for the word video. The question should be how to use YouTube to SUPPORT your podcast.
First, let’s unravel this question when I first started talking about podcasting, most frequently, the question was, “Should I do video or have a podcast? Should I create video or audio content?”, was really the question. And now, the question is, “should I do YouTube or should I launch a podcast?”, and I think that’s because YouTube is sort of becoming a replacement word for video. And in fact, lots of versions of your podcast could exist on YouTube. Some with videos, some with graphics, all sorts of things.
I want to dig in today, I’ll sort of the good, better, best option. As far as how deep in the water you want to get it, we’re going to talk about the context of each of those things because the reality of this is there’s not a uniform answer and I know I’d like a couple of minutes into this episode, I shouldn’t be, you know, saying this but like if this is all you need to know, it’s there, that’s not a good question.
YouTube is not a content type. YouTube is a distribution Tool.
YouTube is Apple podcast, is Spotify. You wouldn’t ask me, “Should I use Overcast, or Apple podcast, or Spotify, or Amazon music? Because the reality, is again, they’re just distribution points.
Now, this question does make more sense if we start to talk about the context of, “should I be using Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube?”, and in that question, in that phrasing, it gets a whole lot easier to understand the “and of it all”, because ultimately you’re probably not using Facebook, or Instagram, or TikTok, or YouTube. You’re probably using an “and” in there and maybe it’s not Facebook “and” Instagram. Maybe it’s LinkedIn, and Instagram, and YouTube. And those are the places you want to be distributing your content to drive traffic back to your stuff, your site, your home base as it were. And so I want you to really tweak your perspective a little bit. Tweak your vantage point on this question of YouTube versus podcasting, by first remembering that YouTube, again, is not a content type.
There are lots of ways we can create content on that platform and that’s what’s really going to drive us into this good, better, best of it all because this looks like lots of things and I want to talk about the nuances of these things because it’s critical that we’re remembering our own sort of energetic capacity. For most of us. Our content is not what’s paying the bills. Our content is driving us to sales conversations. Those sales conversations are driving conversion, which is leading people to work with us and that’s the stuff we get paid for. If you’re somebody who is, you know, like me selling services. Getting stuck in hours, and hours, and hours of content for platform, after platform, after platform is not beneficial. It’s going to distract from the work you actually get paid to deliver.
The same is true if you’re running a membership, or you’re running a coaching practice, you’re still providing a service, that services more of information than it is sort of an end result. It’s the difference between done with you and done DIY. But ultimately again, you need to be able to show up for the work. Show up for the people paying you. And so I don’t want you to get stuck in, “I have to go create all these things”, as we’re talking through this, I want you to remember your own energetic capacity. And as we sort of talk through this, I’ll talk about my own show and what we’re developing and why we’re making the decisions at the points in which we’ve made decisions because I think, it’s easy to get distracted by all of the opportunity, that is a new platform or expanding your platforms or new content types, or new options. And absolutely, there are a ton of incredible opportunities and I want you to take as many of them as it feels comfortable. As many of them as it feels doable because all of these platforms, and YouTube, and podcasting are certainly at the tippity-top of this list in my opinion, require consistency, require showing up time and time again, and delivering especially in the early days. I’m really lucky. I’ve been doing this for nine years. We’ve done 560 episodes. This is a well-established machine. And so if I want to tap out for a little while, I can. If I want to create some space, I can. If I get sick and I want to give myself a little leeway, I can. You may have noticed, that I haven’t been many episodes this month, Do you want to know why? I was sick. Thank goodness, not COVID. But man alive, where’s my cold vaccine? Because it lasted long. I have friends who got COVID. In the two weeks, I had a cold, who did better than I did? So first of all, cold vaccines work on that. Second of all, wear a mask, sanitize, and stay healthy. Not just for COVID because the gold sucks too, guys. But the point of that is, I needed to tap out. I needed to create some space and I had some stuff ready to go but the timing wasn’t right. The distribution wasn’t right. And so I’ve pushed some of those back. I’m actually recording this ahead of when those will go out because I wanted to make sure we had this conversation this month. And so I decided to hit the pause button and I could because I had other content to do the lifting for me. I had years of consistency to lean on in those times. My download numbers this month look a lot like they do every other month. Guess what? I’ve released a whole lot of content. I’ve got email opt-ins. I’ve got sales conversations booked. I’ve got sales. We’ve closed sales. We’ve signed new clients this month. So, this can happen in a way that serves you and allows you to take care of yourself, but you also have to show up for it, consistently when you can show up for it.
Whatever you decide as far as the good, better, best of it all, as we go through these, keep that in mind. Keep in mind your own energetic capacity. And I would point to a conversation I had with Sarah Cottrell. Sarah, and I talked about her DIY in her show, and then handed it off to Uncommonly More. A big part of that was so that she could create space to try something new. She wanted to create video content for YouTube. And so we created that space by working together, and guess what? She did those things one at a time. And she tried that, and now she’s making evolutions to that because she had figured out one brick first. And so again, none of this is critical right now, and none of this is now or never. None of us is either-or. It’s the best fit and the best option for you right now.
That can change. There was a time when I swore up and down. I’d never go on TikTok. Now honestly, you may very well see some TikTok content from me soon because I’m finding fun ways that are easy on my energy, serve my goals, and sound fun.
And at this stage in my business, heck I’ve been doing this. Oh goodness, 11 years. We’ve had the agency for three years, almost four years. So I’ve been doing this a while. We’ve built a lot, and I’ve been doing the show for nine years. And so I have room to evolve, I have room to play with some fun stuff. So think about that, remember what’s not a fit now, may be a fit later. Okay?
The Good/Better/Best of using YouTube to Support Your Podcast
It’s not even good, better best. So much is like, easy, intermediate, advanced. A small amount of effort, a medium amount of effort, and a large amount of effort.
Let’s start with the easy amount of effort.
The number one way that you can be using YouTube to support your podcast is just to use it as a distribution point. If you’re with Lipson or Buzzsprout, these tools make it really easy for you to connect to your YouTube account. Your YouTube account can automatically distribute it.
If you’ve ever noticed, this show each and every week that it goes out is also on YouTube, full video, the whole thing. All it is is the graphic from this video and the audio so you can play it in the background. You can still play it in the car. You can listen to it wherever you are. Does this get a ton of use? No. I get some. More often than not, I find people find it there and then go listen to it somewhere else, or at least, that’s the experience I’ve heard the most when they’ve talked to me after discovering the show on YouTube. But it’s there. It’s available. And guess what? It takes zero effort on my part. I set it up initially in my Libsyn account, as a distribution point. And now, when it gets pushed out to Spotify, and well, not Spotify because this shows’ not on Spotify anymore. Apple podcast, if you want to know why, listen to the podcast Newsroom. Apple podcast, Pandora, and Overcast, and all of those things, also go to YouTube, just as it would for Apple podcasts.
And so, this really is the easy button of YouTube “and” podcasting instead of YouTube “or” podcasting. Let it be just another distribution point. The thing I like about this is, as often as we use YouTube as a replacement for the word video. It’s actually much, much closer to being a replacement for the word Google because YouTube, as I’m sure you know but I’m going to remind you anyway, is owned by, that’s right, the overlord, Google. And so Google search results include YouTube videos, the SEO work, and the algorithm, all of those things are impacted by YouTube as much as they are anything else. And so having my content optimized the way our show notes are optimized, titled the way our episodes are titled, and built for discoverability in platforms, like Apple Podcasts, Pandora and Amazon music, and all of the places that this podcast is also works on YouTube.
And so in addition to my website show notes coming up in search results, and the episode on any myriad of podcast players and collection sites showing up in search results, the YouTube video will also show up in search results without much effort. And so this one, this first the easy button way of it all, the good way of it all, however you want to categorize this first one, is for me, a no-brainer. Straight up, no brainer. It’s just another distribution point, but let’s talk about how we can make it a little more engaging. How can we be using this tool to really and truly be a platform-appropriate experience?
Let’s move into the intermediate amount of effort.
Take your audio and produce some graphics. This could be slides. This could be a screen flow of additional sort of supplemental examples. This could be an animation. I don’t know, it depends on your show, your brand, and your experience, but upgrade the graphics. And instead of pushing it through your podcast player, actually, record it natively, or I’m sorry, upload it natively to YouTube. And so you have more control over the quality. And here’s a great idea. If you’re going to add a minimum amount of effort, don’t put the whole podcast there. Use this as an actual marketing tool, cut the episodes into clips. You could release five clips for every one episode and now you’ve just turned one podcast into five videos.
Now, that would mean that there were five videos worth of valuable information in your podcast, but you can use it as a way to tease the larger episode and then link it to the full episode. You could include all the kinds. I could release, for this episode today, I could release four videos. I’d argue, I can actually release five videos. I think I could do five. We cut the intro where we talked about the “either-or” and the “and of it all”, and the one. We could actually cut the energetic capacity, probably into one video. And then each of these sections, the good, better, best. The easy, intermediate, and advanced, however, we want to categorize these. That’s three videos. So we’re at five there. And oh, by the way, I could still include that easy way we mentioned in our first option, which is the whole episode, which is the simple cover, the whole audio version. So what, we get six videos for one podcast recording.
And that’s if, I do it this way and I don’t actually record me as a video and that brings us into our third way, our advanced way, our best way.
Let’s wrap up with the advanced amount of effort.
I’ll be honest, if you have the capacity, this is the best way because it’s video, it’s engaging. It’s you talking. So full video and audio. Record your podcast as I’m doing now, but include a video camera. Use your webcam. However, you want to include that. And the same process can be done that we just talked about. The whole episode goes up. Teaser Clips, go up.
If you can’t pull three teaser videos out of a podcast episode, don’t release the podcast episode. Really, because that content needs to be of value if it’s not of value, it’s a waste of your time. Not even getting into the listeners’ time, but your time. And so absolutely, the advanced way to do this, the most effort way to do this, record everything, video, and audio and then break it up. So you’ve got a full video to work with for huge content.
That’s it. There are three ways. You can be rolling YouTube and podcasting in together.
What does using YouTube to support the podcast look like for Uncommonly More?
For me for this show right now, we sitting good. We sitting minimum viable product on YouTube as I shared, this gets pushed out through our host automatically to YouTube. For me, I’d like to supplement the show with some videos. So later this year, in early 2023 we’ll start adding some video content. These will likely be clip versions of the show. This will likely be that medium. So audio-only more, but better-produced graphics. Probably quote cards, something more akin to like a lyric video. So a stylized video.
And to be completely honest with you, right now, I don’t have any intention of going for the best or the advanced. I am going to circle us back to this idea of energetic capacity and it is certainly for 2022, I don’t know for 2023. We’ll see. June and July are my planning months. We’ll see if this changes in a month, but I don’t have a big intention of rolling-out full-video content for me right now because it doesn’t currently work in my workflow.
Now, by the end of 2023, as we look at 2024, maybe, because there are some changes we will be making in 2023 internally, that will give us some space to, well, give me some space to be more in my content creation. So maybe, If I’m going to add videos in 2022 or 2023, it’ll probably be TikTok before it’ll be a video version of this podcast. Because I’m looking at my own energy, I’m looking at my own ability to what I can show up to, consistently. And I’m looking at what makes the most sense for me, that’s what you need to be looking at. Be looking at what makes sense for you to show up for consistently. Pay attention to the kind of content your audience consumes.
I asked again and again and every time I talk to you, specifically, my clients not just people in the audience, but my actual clients, more and more and more and more. They’re not sitting down and watching a video. Certainly not for the 25 minutes I’ve been talking to you, but you made it to and from school drop-off, or you rocked the treadmill workout, or we got the dog walked, right? All of those things would have been hard to do with the video. And so that impacts how I prioritize things.
So I want you to stop, sort of deciding it’s got to be one or the other, and start thinking about what’s the way that makes sense for me right now? And it’s absolutely okay. It is 100% acceptable that the answer to what’s best for me right now be, “I’m not doing anything with YouTube, not good, not better, or not best, not minimum, not easy, not intermediate, and not advanced. It’s a no for me.”, and that’s cool. It gets to be, you get to decide that.
The thing I want you to hear most in this is that, this decision is too based on the circumstances of you, your business, and your audience.
To ask someone else, which is best. It’s too nuanced of a question. There is not a universal, this is better, or that’s better, for anything. Like literally apply this to anything in marketing. Literally, apply this to anything in life. We have to lean into the nuance of it. We have to lean into, “this is what works best for me right now.”. That can change. It’s allowed.
Alright, if you want some support on making these decisions, executing those decisions. We will welcome two new clients in June. If you want to sit down and talk about what this looks like for you, head over to UncommonlyMore.com and let’s book a conversation. Let’s talk about what this looks like for you.
All right? With that, I will see you over in the podcast Newsroom, and I will see you back here next week. Talk soon.
