Ep 169: Unpacking the Potential: Is YouTube the Next Big Thing for Podcasting?
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Welcome back to the B word, everyone. You guys, we're going to sit down and have a little bit of a coffee chat this morning. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you know, I've got my favorite coffee mug. It says sometimes good moms say bad words, and I'm going to warn you in advance. I may throw some out on this episode.

I just returned from PodFest, which is a conference for real estate agents. And out of all of the things that blew my mind and not in a good way this weekend, I was actually astounded by the level of what we were learning. Most of the speakers there, I will tell you, sorry, PodFest, they were not quality speakers. They were not quality leaders. In fact, no lie.

The people who led the audience growth track, which y'all know me, I'm all about some audience growth. They were on their 30th or 34th, somewhere around in that episode. They have less than a thousand followers on Instagram. And I thought, hang on, these are the people teaching me how to grow an audience. They don't have one themselves, but I digress. Here's what I really wanted to jump in with you all today. The...

keynote speaker on our Lunch and Learn session was from Lisbon, which is a podcast hosting platform. And one of the things that he just made my mind go nuts over was as he was going through the state of the industry of podcasting, and he was talking all about the changes that have occurred and the statistics and the numbers, and I'm a numbers nerd. You guys know this, like my spreadsheets have spreadsheets, but he said, and I firmly disagree with this,

He said, video podcasting is not going to take off in 2024. Hold the bus. I wanted to just stand up and argue him at that point. My Enneagram 8 was just bouncing to get out of her seat, but

I guess his theory behind this was if you look at the 2023 statistics, it is true. Video podcasting wasn't huge. And most of our audience, we do consume a podcast in a situation where we're not watching video. So we're either cooking dinner, we're in the shower, we're on a run, we're in the car. So I will grant him that your consumption of the podcast probably

probably isn't going to be on video. Like there's no doubt about that in my mind. However, I will also point out that Google podcast is gone. And he also gave statistics for Google podcasts on his slides. And I was like, dude, why are we even looking at this? They are gone. It almost doesn't matter to me what their 2023 stats are because they're shutting down.

With the ingestion of RSS feeds into YouTube, I firmly believe that as you step into 2024 and you want to grow your podcast audience and you want to grow your authority on whatever subject you're talking about and grow the monetization and revenue of your business, I don't care how bad your video is, get it out there as part of your podcast.

Because Google and YouTube are search engines and search engines are meant for the consumer to go and find out information. So if someone wants to know how to run a business on a podcast or how to incorporate one into their business, they might find me on YouTube.

And all it takes is someone watching one or two videos for now, they're going to hit the almighty subscribe button on their podcast player of choice so that when they're in the car, when they're on that run, when they're cooking that dinner,

The B word is one of the podcasts that comes into their player and that they actually download and listen to the episode. And ultimately that is what we want as podcasters. The way to get the message out about your business and the way to convert your clients is to constantly be in front of them. It just is what it is. So why would we ignore video? I will tell you why I think it is so.

And I'm going to actually loop back around to my real estate days. You guys know, I spent 20 plus years running a $56 million producing team. When Zillow began coming out of the woodwork with the ability to click a button and put in an offer and basically buy a home online, the real estate community lost their shit. They did.

They were so afraid that the real estate agent would be taken out of the equation that all they wanted to do was attack. They went on the offensive.

Let's attack Zillow as an organization. Let's attack Zillow as, oh, you can't possibly really know what you're getting into. You can't possibly, you can't possibly. And what was being told to us by the brokers and the people in charge of the real estate offices were, don't worry, Zillow doesn't know what they're doing. Just make sure your audience knows they don't know what they're doing and it will all be okay. They're never gonna get rid of the real estate agent.

Real estate agents basically put their head in the sand because they didn't like that the technology was out there. They didn't want to have to compete with it. Therefore, the answer was to make it without the industry seem irrelevant.

Now let's take this back into what we're talking about, YouTube and podcasting. The same thing is what I saw occur this past weekend. We as podcasters love the concept that you can show up

Give your voice a message, give your business a voice and do this without video. Do this without your face being a big piece of it. However, just because we don't like that YouTube is now ingesting our RSS feeds and that they are in fact a video platform does not mean that we can ignore it.

Now, if you are getting a million downloads on your podcast already, you do you boo, don't change anything. But I will encourage every newer or micro-sized podcaster out there. And again, I don't really care how bad your video is. You can always improve the quality. You can change your situation up, your lighting, what you're streaming on. You can adjust and get better.

Just like when you first started your podcast, your first 15 episodes probably sucked. Let's just be honest. Like you didn't really know what you were doing and your voice probably didn't have great inflections.

You kept going and you got better. So take the first part of 2024 as your opportunity to keep going and get better. Because if you do, you're going to leave behind those that don't. You're really just giving every other podcaster out there permission to drop in the rankings while you rise higher because you paid attention to video.

Why do I think you might as well do video on YouTube? Because they'll adjust your RSS feed, even if it's audio only, and they will play your audio with just your cover art. And that seemed to be okay for a while. But if you really think about it, here's the one thing I want you to take away from this. Ultimately, YouTube is a video platform.

And platforms like it when you play in their sandbox how they want you to. So if you are a video podcast, now YouTube may not come out and say this, but I would bet YouTube is going to push your RSS feed higher when someone searches for something that meets your topic. That algorithm is going to push you higher because you are in video.

You're not just an audio with one picture on it because they are a video platform. So play in their sandbox how they want you to.

It's no different than any other platform. It may not be the one you've gotten used to, but it's the new norm in 2024. And I highly encourage you to jump on, jump in, get to know it, get to love it, play around with your captions. Make sure you're not really sending people off the YouTube platform because YouTube wants you on their platform, but give video podcasting a try.

I would bet that if you track your statistics and you track your numbers in third quarter, if you are consistently showing up on video and also utilizing the shorts feature, you know, take that video podcast, clip it up, potentially even create a channel that's just the shorts, but everything you do on YouTube,

utilize that searchability, utilize what they're helping you do, help them help you. And I bet your podcast downloads will actually increase. And when we increase download, we are increasing the amount of people we impact, the people we reach, and your monetization and revenue will reap the rewards.

So that's it for now. That's my little give, you know, my little takeaway from PodFest this weekend was don't always listen to the people in charge. Now, I'm not saying he's completely wrong. I'm not saying I'm completely right. But my gut and intuition says,

I think he's wrong. I think we've got to pay attention to YouTube. So if you're going to play hard on one long form platform this year, make YouTube your year. And I will see you guys same time, same place. And also on YouTube now next week.

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