PodSchool Podcast | Can you have a successful podcast without video?

Hello. Welcome to the show.

Today I'm going to talk about something that just is a bit of a hot button topic and that is video.

In podcasting, everybody is obsessed with it and there seems to be this real kind of feeling in the industry, outside of the industry, for people who want to get into the industry, that if you do not have full episodes of your podcast uploaded on YouTube, then you will never be able to have a successful podcast. And that ain't true at all.

Video is definitely an important part of your podcasting strategy, but what you can accomplish is going to be entirely dependent on what time you have available, your skill set, whether you can afford to outsource things. And the impact of uploading full episodes of your content onto platforms like YouTube or Spotify are not as big as the hype is suggesting.

For some shows, it will work brilliantly, but not for everybody.

And I have seen a lot of shows step into the video space and edit full videos of their full episodes and put them up on these platforms because there is a real sense of FOMO in the industry, that this is what needs to be done. And it hasn't worked. They haven't been able to generate the kind of audience numbers that they are able to generate on their audio-only product.

It takes a lot of additional resources to edit a full video of a full episode. And for a lot of podcasters, the return on the investment is not going to be enough to continue that.

So I don't think if you want to have a successful podcast, it needs to be video first.

Video can be a really excellent thing to have in your mix and a great way to promote your show to get it in front of people that might not know you, that might not have heard of your content. It is much more engaging to watch a video of a clip of something being recorded than it is to have a static image or an audiogram.

So video is very important in promotion, but I think it's much more important in promoting your show than it is in retaining your audience. Yes, some people like to listen to podcasts on YouTube, but a lot of the commentary around that is that people are putting it on in the background.

Now if you can afford to set up a full studio and edit your episodes and do all of that, and you're going to do it anyway and you're uploading, you don't mind if people are watching it in the background, and by background I mean they're in the kitchen and they're listening to it, then great. But you can do the same thing with the podcast.

So if you want to get into podcasting and you're not getting into it because you think you can't do the video side of things, don't let that worry you. If you can do video in other ways and then if you want to try the full episode stuff, that's great, give it a burl.

But I really feel like you are better off having a YouTube strategy for your podcast if you do want to incorporate video, and then having an audio-only strategy for it, because you need to think about those platforms differently.

And ultimately a lot of the hype around video is kind of trying to push podcasting into being something that everybody said was the reason it became so massive.

And that was because it wasn't video, because you didn't have to be attached to a screen to watch it, because it was an antidote to screen time, because it could be fit in with your life.

When you're walking the dog, doing the shopping, you can just have it on in your ears and you don't need to worry about having to be somewhere or sitting in front of something. All of those things were what everybody said was the reason that podcasting became so massive.

And I find it so interesting that now everybody is trying to shove it back into video. Like we've forgotten why everybody came to podcasting and loved podcasting in the first place.

So I'm definitely not one of those audio purists. You would have seen on my social media, I have videos. I promote my shows via video. I think it is a very good promotional tool.

But am I cutting up every episode into a full-length video and putting it up on YouTube? No, I'm not. Are some shows going to work brilliantly with that? Yes. And if you can lean into that, fantastic.

But a lot of this push towards video is being led by the platforms that can monetize it. So that is your YouTubes, your Spotifys, that can't really monetize your audio.

Well, YouTube certainly couldn't monetize your audio when they had Google Podcasts.

They can monetize the audio if you're uploading your RSS feed into the backend and then that's turned into video and then they can put ads on that video. Similarly with Spotify, they can monetize the video.

So there is some of that to be considered when you're thinking about whether or not you have to do it. If you want to do it and your audience is responding to it well, and you trial it and it works for you, fantastic, that's great.

But you won't know that until you give it a try.

And you certainly should not stop starting your show because you're like, well, I can't upload the full videos because I just can't afford to get somebody to do that, or I haven't got a set, or all those kinds of things. Just get started on the audio stuff, record your videos on your phone and cut up a few promo videos.

And even if you cut up two videos and shared those out each week, that's better than just telling people, hey, there's an episode out. If you cut two really strong highlights, there's plenty of software online that makes that process really easy.

You can use that to promote your show, but you certainly do not need to upload full-length episodes.

I think one of the other things to note about the push by some of the platforms is that they are leaning into creators who are making this kind of content. So they are serving their content more.

So those algorithms and those platforms are making people think, oh, look how successful that is for that person. I should do that too. And it is really kind of because the platforms want it to look like this is something that you should be doing.

And so there is going to definitely be benefit for people who leap into video in this way because they will be surfaced more consistently on those platforms and that will probably yield more views. But it's not the only way to do things.

And I think probably in a year, or maybe less than that, we're going to have a more realistic picture of what video means within the podcasting mix and how important it is, because more and more creators will have tried it.

I've already seen plenty of creators and professional networks step into this space, invest a lot of money in it, and then go, this ain't returning. So they're pulling back from it already. So we're going to be seeing what it means.

But what it means for your show is very different to what it means for other shows. So don't just say, well, Joe Rogan did it, because Joe Rogan's an outlier. So you need to work out what's the best strategy for your show.

If you have got the skills and maybe you're starting a podcast and actually you're a video editor and it's just easier for you to edit the video and then export the audio and have a listen to that and fine-tune that, well, great, go for your life. There is absolutely no disadvantage to adding that as part of what you're doing.

But some of the difficulties of bringing video in is it makes the whole process so much more complex and time-consuming. You have to think about lighting, what you're wearing.

I have been working on a podcast recently and the other day I was trying to get a few episodes recorded and I couldn't link my camera up. Then there was some issue with the lighting and all these things happened.

And by the time I actually sat down and recorded an episode, I was like, I could have recorded four audio-only episodes in the time that it has taken me to get this stuff set up and sorted. So there are all of these considerations that can add hours to your timeframe.

And if you are doing this in the additional hours that you have in your life, that might just not be possible for you. And that's really important to consider because you need to be able to maintain the consistency of releasing your episodes.

And if adding in this layer of complexity is meaning I just can't actually get this done, then you're better off just focusing on the audio and thinking about the video later.

I would still, if you can, record video. Because even if you could get time later, you could cut up some promo videos or you might want to edit the video later.

And if you've got it recorded, if you're recording in a program like Riverside and you just hook up the camera, even if you're solo recording and you just record the videos, or you do it on your phone and you sync up the audio, that can be really useful to have. So it's a good thing to have that content there. And then if you want to do something with it in the future, you can.

But it does take a lot of additional time, so that's something to consider when you're thinking about video, especially if you are not currently monetizing your show via ads.

So I think one of the biggest hurdles with the video content stuff is that if you are a show that is monetizing via ads and those ads are being served dynamically, when you upload a video to Spotify or YouTube, those ads do not get pulled through. So you are not getting the benefit of that audience hearing that ad if you sold it.

Now, if you are not selling ads that way and you just want to have your videos on YouTube and have that as a separate channel, and then maybe see if you can get enough views to get to a point where you can monetize that channel, and then you've also got your podcast and that's there as well, and then maybe you want to experiment with Spotify.

They have just recently implemented a payment system, but it is based off people's premium subscriptions, and so you get a fraction of that for the watch time. I can't work out how much money you'd actually walk away with, but I feel like you'd have to have a lot of views to make anything significant.

But I don't know, I haven't experimented with that channel yet.

If you're independent, it might be worth experimenting with some of these things if you don't have the limitations of needing your ads served onto those platforms.

The thing is that video is definitely a great thing to think about with your podcast.

You want to try, if you can, to have some video elements to your podcast. Like I said, I still think that the best return on investment is using video for promotional purposes.

I have yet to see, except in a few very rare cases, where having full episodes of your podcast is the best strategy.

It does work for some shows, but the vast majority of shows that I've seen, it's not the best way to do things. But having video content on social media is definitely the best way to go. That is the most engaging form of promoting your show.

So you do want to try and bring video in, in some way, because it can be very strategic and it can help you to grow your audience.

Because people like to watch stuff on their social media when they're scrolling through.

They're much more likely to engage in something, especially if they don't know you, if your content is just really good. I watch videos all the time where I'm like, I don't know these people, but this is funny.

And that might then make me look into something that they're doing and listen to that show.

So if you have the time and the skill to experiment with it, do it. By all means, give it a crack.

But really think what is right for you individually and your show. Don't be caught up in the FOMO where everyone's like, unless you do this and do it this way, you're never going to be a success.

That's just not true. Stay in your lane. Do what you can. Get your show out.

Make sure you are doing it in a way that means you can deliver your content consistently, because consistency is the single biggest factor in podcasting success. If you want your show to be successful, you have to release it consistently.

And if video is making that process too hard for you, you are better off not focusing on that and keeping this show going. Then see if you can build an audience up and maybe throw some video into the promotional mix, rather than thinking this has to be a video podcast.

So hopefully that has helped to kind of dampen some of the hysteria around video.

Every time I say I don't think it is the silver bullet everybody says it is, people look at you like you're nuts. Because people can't quite understand, when something is this hyped, that there wouldn't be something to it. And there is something to it.

But the something is not that all shows have to be video podcasts to be successful. And that is, I think, what people are really feeling.

And it shouldn't be something that holds you back. Because you can get started if video is something that you're going to think about introducing later, or that you can introduce a little bit now and then maybe improve on later. But the whole full episode thing, you don't need to do that. You can have a successful podcast without it. I promise.

I have seen it done time and time and time again.

If you've got a question, then please submit it via the link in the show notes. I would love to answer it.

This was actually inspired by a lot of questions that I get about video podcasting every single day. Because people are like, is this something that I have to be thinking about?

So I definitely know it's something that a lot of people are worried about, because they feel like they're going to be left behind if they don't do it.

But it's okay. You won't be left behind. You can make it happen without it.

And I will see you in next week's episode.

Oh, and if you are enjoying this show, then please share it with somebody that you know that might be interested in starting up their podcast.

And if you want some help with yours, then make sure you check out my online podcasting course too at podschool.com.au. See ya.