Should You Put Your Podcast on YouTube?

Casually putting a company podcast on YouTube is a recipe for disaster.

Podcasting and YouTube are completely different vehicles to connect with your audience. YouTube is owned by Google and is the second most popular search engine. Much like Google, people search YouTube to get an answer to a specific question. 

· A typical YouTube search will answer with a short video. 

· A typical podcast listener subscribes to six podcasts and listens for 30 minutes.   

Thousands of podcasts have been launched in the last couple of years. In April of 2020, Apple announced it had one million podcasts in its directory. If you do not think you are getting the results you want, think about making your podcast easy to find on Apple and developing your podcast promotion before making the jump to hyperspace. 

However, if you still want to explore putting your podcast on YouTube, let us look at four popular arguments: it’s easy; an image and an audio on YouTube is harmless; everyone is doing it; and, video is the future.

1. It’s easy  

You cannot argue this point. Companies like Libsyn makes it a snap to send your podcast to YouTube. 

Just because it is easy does not make it desirable.  

The reality is that most folks do not spend time to promote their podcast effectively and think a move to YouTube will provide magic results.    

When it comes to podcast promotion, how does your company stack up?

Here is a basic podcast promotion checklist

• Record interview with high-quality audio; normalize audio, bolt-on bumpers, send to podcast hosting
• Get images reduced for social media
• Write a summary, assemble varying sized images, and a new call to action for each episode
• Examine social media accounts of guests to get key phrases and hashtags
• Choose two past podcasts and put links on the show notes page
• Send audio to REV to get a transcript. Correct transcript, load on the show notes page
• Listen to the podcast to select quotes for show notes and social media
• Structure a distribution grid for LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook  
• Design email promotion, email on Tuesday, resend to “no opens” on Saturday  
• Reach out to thought leaders in LinkedIn Groups and Facebook Forums to inform about the new episode 

Putting a podcast on YouTube will not make up for your lack of effort at promotion.  

OK, for the sake of argument, let us say you are a champion at podcast promotion and spend ten hours of promotion for every podcast. 

To be successful on YouTube you will want to have at least that much time and a written strategy for your channel and videos, something apart from your podcast strategy. If you are going to appear on YouTube, you might as well become familiar with some of the basics of video promotion.

Here is a basic YouTube promotion checklist

• With YouTube, you must have a strong visual hook, and it must vary with each video. Design two thumbnails that will sell the video 
• Take the transcript, proof it, and convert it to the YouTube caption 
• Select keywords that would appeal to YouTube listeners. Front-load the keyword in the title
• Choose tags for YouTube – just three but they must appeal to different audiences. You will need to research these because they will differ from the tags in other social media
• Write a video description of 200 words; include links to other videos
• Aggressively promote video during the first 24 hours (You can promote a podcast over months and months, effective YouTube promotion relies on the first day)
• Establish a method to A/B test thumbnails
• Set up a way to moderate comments. These are key signals to YouTube to recommend your video to others in “suggested videos”
• Standard best practices: Info Card, End screen, pinned comment, liked on Facebook, comment hearted
• Analysis – On YouTube, a play is defined as 30 seconds. Most podcasters expect listeners to listen for a good chunk of a 25-minute episode

If you have not budgeted time to promote your podcast, how will you ever set aside time for the proper way to promote a video on YouTube?  

We have not even mentioned the kinds of videos that are popular – lots of pattern interrupts, great visual structure, and high energy.  

2. What harm can it do? 

Just posting a video on YouTube certainly seems innocuous. Hit one button and it is there.  

The reality is it can impact your ability to rank other videos on your channel. YouTube likes signals from viewers: retention, likes, comments, and subscriptions. If you get no interaction you can get your podcast downranked on YouTube.

Most podcasts have a goal of developing a mail list where they can further engage the audience. That is why they have mid-roll reads with a call to action to visit the show notes page. You will have to rethink your podcast strategy for YouTube.

YouTube does not like calls to action that take viewers off YouTube. So, your call to action may have to include watching more videos. What videos will you use?  

People come to YouTube to get a quick answer to a question. The presentation of the answer is normally a visually engaging thumbnail with video content involving a human being. If you merely post your cover art and audio, YouTube may look at it as deception, possibly spam.  

Some will provide anecdotal evidence that argues that most auto-posted YouTube videos get no views. Anyone searching through YouTube will come to the same conclusion.   

3. Everyone is talking about repurposing 

Popular marketing gurus will tell you to merely pop your podcast on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, then LinkedIn, then Instagram . . . ad infinitum. Even the venerable blog at HubSpot mentions omnichannel marketing. 

Please remember the self-appointed marketing leaders have huge budgets and staff to accomplish this marketing miracle. Be wary of millionaire marketers who talk about the ease of going multichannel. 

If you are enjoying this article, you may want to read, “Do you make these five mistakes with Apple Podcasts? 

I have listened to many digital marketing leaders use the phrase, “Just bust out your iPhone.” What is ironic is this advice is given from an expensively produced video.  

Podcasts are inexpensive to put together, videos can cost four to six times as much. How much do you want to sink into this video adventure?  

4. Video is the future

When you look around at people in the supermarket wearing masks, how can anybody predict anything? 

All the self-anointed marketing gurus shout from rooftops that video is the future. How can you argue with their income statements they so proudly display? 

Be careful. The most successful podcast, Serial, is audio-only. 

The final argument for podcasting-to-video is Joe Rogan’s $100 million contract. Joe Rogan makes it look easy, but he is the outlier. His interview skills are outstanding. He has been in the entertainment business for twenty years and has been building a podcast audience for the past decade.

CONCLUSION

Do not jump to video without putting in the requisite hours promoting your company podcast. There are 31 million active YouTube channels compared to only one million podcasts. It is much easier working in a smaller market.

You can damage your presence on YouTube with a sloppy video presentation. Omnichannel is great if you have a team but can get expensive if you do not. It is possible to cut up a podcast into chunks and place them on YouTube, but it comes with a high degree of difficulty. 

People listen to podcasts and audiobooks because they can walk, run, or cut the grass while enjoying the experience. Please remember that watching a video is different. 

Enjoy your podcast promotion!