With the constant rise of video content, you can be missing out as a podcaster if you don’t convert your show to video. Where else will you upload it than on a platform with 2 billion active users? On YouTube. In this episode, Tom Hazzard and Tracy Hazzard dive deep into the fairly new YouTube Podcasts. They break down the things you need to know to decide if it’s worth your time or not. Should you cast a wider net? Are you ready to expand from a pond of audience to an ocean? Tune in now and discover the benefits of YouTube Podcasts.

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

YouTube Podcasts: What You Need To Know To Decide If It’s Worth Your Time

In this episode, we’re going to talk about YouTube Podcasts.

Not YouTube videos, YouTube Podcasts, which happen to be videos. Let’s be clear here.

YouTube Podcasts, if you didn’t know it, are a thing. It became a thing only about two months ago.

I think it was a little before that and parts of it are still in beta.

Within the last quarter. This is pretty new stuff. As we’re doing this, it’s that new. We’re going to talk about what you need to know to decide if it’s worth your time. I have an opinion on that. You probably do too, Tracy. Let’s talk about it. If you’re doing a YouTube Podcast, the first question on a lot of the audience’s minds, is, “Does it need to be a video?” That’s probably the first question, don’t you think, Tracy?

It does need to be a video. Let’s talk about this as a general concept. What is a YouTube Podcast? A YouTube Podcast is a separate section. If you are a YouTube creator, you can see it very easily. It’s super easy to be loading in. It must be a video. On YouTube, if you’re using the desktop version of YouTube, or even if you’re using it and you’re subscribed to someone, you might see the podcast as a playlist, which many of you were already doing. If you’re a podcaster and have been in a podcast for a while, you probably created a playlist for your podcast channel anyway. Now, you need to easily convert it over to being an official podcast within the system.

Here’s what I want to say to you. If you’re not on YouTube at all, you are missing out. That’s the number one reason a podcaster should be thinking about, a YouTube version of their podcast. That is that there are 2 billion active users of YouTube. That’s crazy numbers. On the podcasting side, the last number check I had was 464 million worldwide podcast listeners. You’re tripling the access you have. Just access, not how many listeners are going to listen to your show or viewers that are going to view it. You’re opening your access to three times more people than you have in the podcast eco-space.

 

 

I will admit. I know of very few, probably counting on the fingers of one hand out of 1,000 podcasts that we work with at Podetize, that have a larger YouTube viewing audience than they do a podcast listening audience. We’re not necessarily saying you are going to have a bigger audience because you put a YouTube video out there. Right, Tracy?

No, I’m not guaranteeing you anything like that. I just want you to understand that, don’t we all want more? We want more access to listeners, to viewers, to people who want to find our message.

More exposure.

It’s a bigger pond. It’s an ocean, not a pond. Think about it that way. That’s the first reason why you should consider YouTube Podcasts. The second reason is it’s new. When anything is new, like YouTube Shorts, at YouTube, they dump more energy and focus into it. Here’s what happened, since I converted my show, The Binge Factor, our sister show here, to Feed Your Brand, and the same thing goes for Feed Your Brand.

To understand the difference, when I converted a couple of months ago, when they first alerted us that it was available, I converted it. I did it immediately. We did a training for all of you out there, which we have if you need it. If you’re one of our clients, it’s in our resource library, but you can ask anyone, but we’ve already done it for you, so you don’t have to worry about that.

If you’re done with your production company, we already did this for you.

It’s already happened, but it’s an episode on how to designate your podcast as a YouTube playlist. That’s all it is. It takes one minute. It’s super easy. If you don’t have your podcast as a video, that’s going to take a lot longer. Let’s think about that. We’ll table that for later. Here’s the thing. Once I converted our existing podcast playlist to a YouTube Podcast playlist under the official model, all of our podcast episodes were being aired as YouTube Podcasts because we do have a video version, so that’s already happening.

 

 

It’s available in the YouTube music app. Now, it’s on a different app anywhere that you watch it. It’s not only available within the regular YouTube ecosystem as a playlist, but it’s also available separately in the YouTube music app. Now it’s giving us more focus. Keep in mind, this is US only because it’s in beta. It’s not worldwide. You won’t get a worldwide audience, but it is still a subset, and it’s still being tested out. Whenever someone watches one of our videos, you know what happens on YouTube when they watch a video, they get a whole bunch of other stuff that they sell them?

That drives me nuts. I watch a video, and then that video ends, and all this other stuff on YouTube is throwing all these tennis balls at me of all sorts of other content. I’m like, “Whoa.” Usually, I’m like, “I’m getting out of here. I’m overwhelmed.”

Here’s the benefit of being a part of the YouTube Podcast community. When you’re on the watch page, you have a podcast badge, which you may not realize, and it doesn’t always show up in everybody. They’re testing the program. Sometimes it shows, and sometimes it doesn’t, I found. For the most part, you get this badge that says podcast. If you have been seeing it on YouTube Shorts, you get a YouTube Shorts badge, so it’s very similar. Your playlist and the rest of your episodes are being served up. If somebody watches one of your podcast episodes, they’re being served up the rest of the podcast episode playlist, first and foremost.

You’re keeping your potential for getting subscribers from it much higher by participating in the YouTube Podcast program, as opposed to just putting up YouTube videos. You’re giving yourself a benefit by doing it. The next episodes that you have are clearer. The links to all of them are much clearer to anyone. It’s all happening on that single video-watch page that is happening. Once they watch one episode, they’re getting and seeing all of that.

Secondly, when you go and have this double-the-footprint opportunity, I’m seeing a boost already. What I’ve seen is that my video view is about a third. If we have a general video view or some of the older episodes that weren’t in the podcast playlist, I’m seeing at least 2x to 3X minimum on the views that are happening on YouTube from previous to now.

You’ve seen a lift.

I’m already seeing a boost.

 

 

You’ve seen a lift in listenership.

Viewership, if you want to think of it. Not really listenership because I’m not necessarily seeing that in my overall stats.

You’re seeing a lift, and it’s probably because of two key things. 1) You mentioned that your viewers are not being distracted by other people’s content when they’re viewing it. 2) Probably it’s because YouTube is shining a pretty bright light on YouTube Podcasts because it’s new.

It’s not only that. Here are a couple of reasons why I’m going to say bullish on YouTube Podcasts right now. What we’re seeing is that not only do you double the size of the footprint. We’re seeing a lift in it that is at least double in terms of viewership what we were getting before from our regular YouTube videos. There are dedicated stats within the YouTube creator studio that are specific for podcasts. You’ll be able to track your stats there. In those areas, I’m already seeing that lift. They’re giving you an overview of the number of views, and the watch time hours specifically to the YouTube videos.

It gets muddy in our YouTube channels because sometimes we have a lot of promo videos that are landing pages and they have high viewing hours or things that were webinars, but they’re not our regular product production content. They’re not the stuff that we do every week. Just because this is separated, you can see that differently. I’m seeing a 66% lift in just the last month, and it’s only been, if you want to think, about 45 days even that we’ve been in this program. It’s just over that. I’ve seen a 66% lift in my watch time hours on my podcast episodes from the prior month.

That’s a big lift. I’m seeing at least twice as many views. On some videos, I’m seeing 3 to 4 times that, but it’s building over time. I can also take a look at my audience when you’re looking at the stats. You can see when someone comes back who watched one video returns to watch more. I’m seeing a lift in returning viewers, but I’m also seeing a lot more unique viewers than I used to see before.

I used to see a lot of my subscribers watching those videos, and that was it. I wasn’t seeing new people. I wasn’t seeing a big percentage of new people. Now I’m seeing a larger percentage of new people, and I’m seeing more of those people return and watch more videos. That’s a big deal. Also, they’re watching all the way through for longer periods of time, because if you’re getting more watch hours, you’re seeing that significant lift.

 

If you’re going for YouTube monetization, this is essential. There are three reasons for that. One, your watch hours matter in terms of your qualifications. You have to have a continual number of watch hours. Every single month, you have to meet a minimum in order to stay enrolled in a monetization program with YouTube. That’s critically important. By increasing the number of minutes that someone’s watching, you are increasing your watch hours without having to serve them up more content. You have to do a lot more work on YouTube Shorts to get the same number of watch hours.

Much shorter videos.

You can increase your views, but you can’t necessarily increase your minutes. This is a great way to supplement that and make both happen. Two, the regular CPM for a regular YouTube video is somewhere between $2 to $10, depending on the keywords, depending on the demand, and depending on the type of video.

For those new audiences to Feed Your Brand, let’s quickly define CPM. Clicks Per Mille or per thousand. You’re getting paid an amount of money for 1,000 views, is what that means.

Think about it on the low end, $2 for every 1,000 views.

Up to $10.

That’s low. It’s pretty average on the internet in general, but it’s low. The CPM average for YouTube Podcasts is between $18 and $50 right now, 9 to 10 times more.

We want more access to listeners, viewers, and people who want to find our message, and YouTube Podcasts is an ocean for that. Click To Tweet

When your YouTube channel, which is inclusive of YouTube Podcasts, reaches the level of watching that you can monetize, the views that are coming through your videos, and YouTube Podcasts, you’re being paid a higher rate for those ads. Did I hear you correctly there?

Yes.

It seems significantly higher.

The reason is simply for what we know and what we see everywhere else. Everything that I can find documented from YouTube is that they understand that conversion is higher on a podcast than it is in general videos.

People are choosing to watch it. This wasn’t random.

Because of that, the conversion’s higher, which is why the dollar amount is higher here. They’re seeing that, but I also think it’s because it’s a new program, they want to encourage more creators into the program. Now’s the time to get in because there are not as many people competing for those CPMs. Your likelihood of qualifying is high because there’s more push happening right now as well. This is the time. If you’re looking to monetize your YouTube channel, this is the time to make sure that you have a podcast.

If you don’t have one already, you better get one. If you have one already, convert it. That’s what we’re telling you. Just convert it. Here’s the key. If you don’t do video, if you have audiograms, and that’s what you’re doing, they must be full-length audiograms. It has to be the complete episode, not shorts or anything like that. Audiograms have half the viewership of ones with a host feature.

 

You’re saying videos that are like what you and I are doing, we’re recording this as a video live to our community right now. It’s being published as a podcast and a YouTube video later. We’re using Zoom to record. It is two talking heads that we have here, you and me, but we put this out as a video in YouTube Podcasts. That’s the kind of video you’re saying is getting more engagement because it’s a video of us, as opposed to an audiogram.

It is a static image that has the audio file and the captioning running.

It’s a still image with some motion for the captions and the audio waveform. You’re converting what was audio into video when you create that, but it has to be the full length.

Here’s my advice to you. If you don’t have video recorded for all your older episodes, that’s okay. Use the audiogram, it’s better than nothing, but understand that you’ll get half the viewership that you would get if it were live. Switch over now, do a live video, and start putting those videos in. Do live action, meaning person. Do people. Put those into your YouTube Podcast going forward because you’re going to double your potential for the listenership, and then viewership. That’s essential, especially if you want to monetize on the other side of it.

The three reasons that monetization is going is the CPM is higher. There’s a bigger audience, and there’s a bigger push, but there are also good stats to be able to be watching right now. Those stats, honestly, are better than the podcast stats that we’re getting from Apple and Spotify and all the other places in terms of who’s watching, and what’s happening with that. We’re getting more data than we are on who’s listening.

That’s valuable to you in the long run. If you truly want to take ads on your show eventually, you want to have a different model of monetization. It’s a great proof that you can monetize. These are all the reasons I’m bullish on YouTube Podcasts, and you should jump on board, but make sure you have human videos, humans in your video. Not audiograms. It’s going to do better. It’s more worth your time and effort.

About half of our production customers do record and have us produce and publish videos on YouTube and their website, and half don’t. Usually, some people are like, “It’s just two talking heads. I don’t want to do it.” I remember Tracy in the very beginning when we started podcasting a decade ago. You’re like, ” I’m not recording video. I don’t want to have to do my hair and makeup and worry about what I’m wearing every time.” Do you remember that?

Reality moment: Nobody was thinking that your hair is not what it should be except you right now. Click To Tweet

If you’re not watching the video right now, you should check out my hair because this is what my hair looks like normally when I don’t get it done. This is a post-pool day hair.

Reality moment here on this show. Nobody was thinking that your hair is not what it should be except you right now. I’m just putting that out there.

Which is my point that I got over it. I’ll just show up like this.

How many podcast episodes do you record now in 2023, Tracy, that is audio only versus audio and video?

I’m trying to think. I can’t think of any.

Are there any? I don’t think there are.

There aren’t any. It never happens. Even if I’m not going to use the video for some weird reason, occasionally, in the resource library, we will use an audio-only. It’s very rare, but it does happen, but I’ll record the video just to have it.

 

The majority of the tools people are using to record their podcasts have the capability to record video if they’re not already automatically recording it. A lot of people aren’t using it. Especially when we are having a discussion with someone or interviewing someone remotely, we want to see each other. You read the emotion of the other person, and you feed off the emotion of the other person. It makes even the audio publication as a podcast episode much more dynamic than if you didn’t see them. Most people have videos.

This is an interesting thing because I don’t have the full statistics on it. The stats say that a lot of people watch with the sound off on their video, but they’d rather watch human beings than watch with their sound off and just straight look at the captions on an audiogram. That’s such a weird dynamic when you think about it. It’s because we prefer to watch people’s emotions, even if we’re reading the captions.

That could be, but the reality is, some people ask me, “If I publish a video, am I going to have fewer podcast listens or vice versa?” I can tell you from long, hard experience here at Podetize, I don’t believe so. Ultimately, people have their preferences. Some people prefer to listen. Some people prefer to watch. On social media, video catches people’s attention more because that’s just in social media. The little video clips and things get people’s attention when it’s pushed on you. For content, people are seeking to learn from to educate themselves, they have a preference, and they will want to either listen, watch, or read if they refer to read an article or a blog.

While I do think that there is a crossover, and when we record a podcast, if there is a real visual moment that the podcast listener, it’s going to be over their head because they’re not seeing it, I’ll make a point of saying, “All of you listening out there on your podcast app, you’re going to want to go to the blog post at FeedYourBrand.com and look at this portion of the video. You have got to see the expression on Tracy’s face.”

Whatever it is that is the visual thing, we’re showing something in a SlideShare, and we describe what we’re showing. “Go to the blog post, watch the video, and see that.” We might just have a screenshot of that as a still image there. You can give people a reason to go watch part of the other medium when it makes sense.

I want to reiterate and push that YouTube Podcasts are succeeding at this stage. They’re new, which is getting a little bump, and we’ve seen this happen before, but YouTube doesn’t do things that often where it isn’t the case that they are dedicated to it. They rarely do something and then pull back on it. We’ve seen Apple pull back on their videos. We’ve seen Spotify not succeed with the videos at the same rate they thought. Probably because they underestimated the fact that people join Spotify to listen, not to watch.

Especially to listen to music more than anything.

They’ve got the wrong demographics if you want to think of it that way. As you were talking about, they’re auditory people, and then they try to throw in visual. It just doesn’t work as well. YouTube already has visual learners. They already have that audience and they’ve decided that this is something worth pushing and putting into their whole ecosystem. I’m bullish on it. It’s working right now. I suggest you go out there and try it. It’s worth your time and energy. It shouldn’t cost you anything extra. If you get into the monetization program, it should make you more money if you qualify over there. It will be worth it. Go ahead, join a YouTube Podcast, and make it work.

Tracy, this sounds like a great place to drop the mic on this episode. There’s a great search feature if you have something you’re looking for in podcasting here at Podetize.com. There’s a Feed Your Brand page. Go and check that out.

Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. We will be back next time with another episode of our podcast tips and advanced tactics here.

We’ll see you all in the next episode.

 

Important Links

• The Binge Factor