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Kevin Schmidlin
Should your podcast be on YouTube right now in 2024? Should you launch a YouTube version of your podcast in 2025? This is Grow the Show, the podcast that grows your podcast. My name is Kevin Schmidlin. I am your podcast growth coach. And last week I asked you to fill out the Grow the Show audience survey. The deadline to fill it out was yesterday. So if you're hearing this now and you haven't done so, you missed the deadline, that's okay. You can always fill it out for next year. And in next week's episode of Grow the Show, I will be announcing who won the hour long one on one strategy session with me. But in the meantime, I figured I would pop in and answer a question that came up in many of the responses that I got from the Grow the Show audience survey. A lot of you have said that you are not sure about whether you should be on YouTube. Some of you have no YouTube presence and you feel the pressure that you should be on YouTube because everybody says that you should. Some of you publish episodes to YouTube regularly, but you don't really pay much attention to YouTube. The episodes don't really have a video component. There might just be an image. It's just the audio. Or maybe, you know, you're just kind of throwing episodes up there. They're not getting many views and you're not paying it much attention. Some of you are really putting time and energy into YouTube and you're not really seeing any results. But all of you are asking this question, should my podcast be on YouTube now? Is it something that I should prioritize now? If you've been a Grow the show listener for a while, you may have noticed that last year I published an episode with a similar title where it said, should you be on YouTube? And in that episode, I walked through the three stages that I talk about of being on YouTube. And those stages are, stage one, you're not on YouTube at all, and you feel pressure to be on YouTube. Stage two is you're kind of on YouTube. You're throwing stuff up there, but, you know, it's not really getting any attention, but you're there. And stage three is you are on YouTube, right? So those are the three main stages. And so if you want to hear me talk through those in more detail, go ahead and listen to that episode of Grow the Show. If you just search, you know, should you be on YouTube? It'll come up. Today though. What I want to address is what I have learned since publishing that episode. You see, around this time last year, I decided to go all in, quote, unquote, on YouTube. And what I mean by all in is, I mean, I'm going to take this seriously. I'm going to learn how this works, and I'm going to make it a part of my regular content cadence. And I have done that. I have published several episodes of the Grow the Show podcast on YouTube over the last year, and I have learned a lot. So much so that it is time for me to check in with you again on this. And my goal is, is that by the time you're done listening to this episode, you can decide either that you're going to do YouTube or you're not going to do YouTube. Both are fine. And my goal is to make that little voice that's like, oh, I really should be doing that. Oh, I'm really missing out. I want to make that voice go away. I want you to decide to do YouTube or decide not to, because you can thrive in both cases. And so let's talk about what those cases are. Now, since I have started publishing on YouTube, I've learned a lot. I've learned how the audience on YouTube is different than the audience on the podcast apps. I've learned a lot about what makes YouTube videos do well, and I've learned enough to make you a better recommendation than I made you last year. And so here is what I've learned, in no particular order. The first thing that I've learned by publishing on YouTube fairly regularly for the last year is that the people who consume podcast content on YouTube and the people who consume podcast content on the listening apps, Spotify, Apple, and the many different apps are generally two different audiences. While yes, there are some people who do do both, in most cases there are people who consume podcasts on YouTube and there are people who consume podcasts on the apps, and there is not a lot of overlap. So what does that mean for you? Well, you want to think about YouTube and the podcast listening apps as two different ponds. And if you are an angler, a fisherman or fisher woman who is looking to catch fish, it is generally not good advice to say, I want to catch more fish, so let me fish in two ponds at once, right? I think the same thing is true with audio podcasting versus video podcasting on YouTube. If you want to fish in two ponds, you need to have multiple people fishing in those different ponds. I think it's extremely, exceedingly difficult for a solo person to fish in two ponds at once. Just take the analogy further. Imagine having two fishing rods in two different ponds. Can you really catch two fish at the same time? Not really. If you want to fish in two ponds, you got to hire somebody else to handle fishing in one pond while you handle fishing in the other. And it really took me diving into the podcasting on YouTube space to understand this, because before I did, I thought that it was kind of all the same. I thought it was one audience, right? I want to grow my audience, and so I need to be in these two different places. That way I'm not missing out on the potential audience growth on YouTube. But again, the analogy is the same. It's like saying you're missing out on fish because there's another pond that has fish in it. Don't you think you'll catch more fish if you focus on getting better at fishing in the pond that you're currently in or on. In a pond? On a pond. I don't know. What I've also learned in line with this is that in general, this goes for all content, not just podcasts. Some people read stuff, some people listen to stuff, everybody watches stuff, but people generally have a favorite way to consume things. There's a really famous creator that I follow who I heard recently say that, you know, he has a book available. There's a video version of the book, so it's an online course. There is an audio version of the book on Audible, and there is the text version of the book, which is the book. And he has been surprised to see that it has been an almost equal distribution of 33% of people read it, 33% of people listen to it, 33% of people watched it. And I think the same thing is true to all content. So if you have a podcast, that means that you publish long form content. And there's three ways to publish long form content. You can write a book, you can put on an audio podcast, or you can make YouTube videos. That is the biggest distinction I want you to take away from here. We'll get back to the show in one second, but real quick, I am sharing everything I'm learning about how to use a podcast to grow a business here on the audio feed. And you are more than welcome to continue using this show as a resource in your podcast and business growth journey. But it can be hard to sift through all of these episodes to find that one piece of knowledge you need in order to achieve a breakthrough with your show. If you'd rather have a roadmap, expert guidance, and several tools to help you achieve growth even faster, then I invite you to join us in The Grow the Show Academy. The Academy is my online community where I've gathered all the tools, templates, and training that you need to take your podcast to the next level. You'll gain access to strategies that are working today, along with live coaching from me, a community of podcasters who have joined forces to grow together all of my AI chatbots and tools that power the production and promotion of my show, and regular community events like masterclasses and Expert Q&As. So if you're ready to take our relationship to the next level, work with me directly and speed up your podcast's growth and monetization. Join us in the Grow the Show Academy. You can join month to month and cancel anytime. To get more details and hop in, you can go to growtheshowacademy.com or just click the link in the Show Notes. I'll see you on the inside. All right, back to the show. Because if you're a podcaster, who's asking, should I be on YouTube? The real question is, do I want to switch to making videos instead of making audio? I have yet to see a podcast be successful on YouTube, where YouTube is an afterthought. The most successful podcasts that I see on YouTube are ones who are really it's a YouTube show, it's a TV show, it's a YouTube channel that happens to publish on the audio feed that actually works a little bit better than an audio feed who happens to publish on YouTube. I've never seen that work. So if you want to, quote, unquote, tap into the audience growth on YouTube, the first thing you need to understand is if you're going to do that and you want it to actually work, you really need to go all in on becoming a YouTuber. You have to have a good video setup. You have to understand good video editing. You have to understand titles and thumbnails and the algorithms. All these things that if you're not on YouTube, you don't know yet. And that's okay, you can learn it. But to probably take the fishing metaphor way too far, it's like a completely different type of fishing. It's a totally different boat. I don't know, steamboat versus rowboat versus engine boat. Totally different boats, right? Sure, you could probably run all of them. But okay, I think I've taken this too far. Now, I can hear some of you saying, yes, but everybody says you should be on YouTube. And you, Kevin, have even said that some of the biggest audience growth you've seen has come from people who are on YouTube. And yes, that is true. Everybody says that and I have said that. But I have also seen shows, audio podcasts grow by not being on YouTube. And in fact, some of the biggest, most famous, most popular audio podcasts of all are not on YouTube. It is a different pond, it is a different audience. By the way, I've also, in my year of study on YouTube, gotten in touch with several producers on big time podcasts that are on YouTube, shows that you've heard the name of. And I've been in touch with these producers and every single one of them has said, our audio audience, the ones that listen on Spotify and Apple and all the apps and our YouTube audience are totally and completely different audiences. We don't treat them the same. And we know that if we do something on YouTube, the audio audience isn't going to know about it and vice versa. So really, again, you don't want to think, oh, let me go on YouTube to grow my audience. It's actually what you're considering doing is going on YouTube to grow a second audience. If you're having trouble growing your first audience, trying to grow a second audience probably isn't going to make it easier. It's like those people who say, my dog is too much energy, so I'm going to get a second dog. Hope they cancel out. Not how it works. Okay, so there's one other thing about YouTube that I understand now way better that I wanted to share with you, and that is this. When you put episodes on YouTube, the people who see your YouTube videos, a higher percentage of those people are going to be people who have never heard of you compared to your audio podcast. Pretty much 100% of the people who listen to your audio podcast will have heard of you before they press play. And that's because they're going to need to have found out about you elsewhere. That's pretty much the only way to grow a podcast, is they need to find out about you somewhere else and then tune in. That somewhere else can be social media, it can be YouTube, although it's rare. It can be you being a guest on another podcast. It could be you having done a collaboration with another podcast. It could be their friend mentioned you and mentioned your show, but they still found out about your show somewhere else. YouTube has an algorithm where YouTube will just show your stuff to people while they're on YouTube. They didn't ask for it, they weren't recommended it, it just popped up and they clicked on it. Really large percent of the people who see your YouTube videos are going to be those People who don't know who you are, and a lot of times they don't know the stuff that you talk about. So what that means for me and what I've learned is that the episodes of mine that perform the best here on the audio feed are the ones like this, where I'm talking to you from a pretty advanced perspective. I know you know who I am. You've probably heard some of my episodes before. You probably have even heard some of my frameworks, like Cat 1 premise or targeted podcast pitching. And I can reference those things, and you generally know what they are. Whereas on YouTube, I can't use those words. Everybody who sees my YouTube video, they have no idea who I am, what I talk about. And I kind of have to talk to those people as their basic beginners because they have no background on me or the things that I've talked about. So while YouTube can be really great for getting new people in the door, it's actually way harder than audio is to build upon a body of knowledge. And yes, you do have YouTube subscribers who watch all of your videos. That does exist. You will have people who get to know you and watch every episode that you put out, but it's just going to be a much smaller percentage. So in my YouTube videos, I have to say more about what my background is and why they should listen to me and my experience as a podcast growth coach. And like I said before, I have to speak more, basically, because they're just not going to have known things that I've said in the past, and I have to cram as much background knowledge as I can into each video. What's also true is that again, on my podcast feed, the advanced episode topics are the ones that do the best, because you've been listening to me for a while. For the most part, you're kind of around. You've listened to a couple episodes, and you're looking for more than just the basics. Whereas the videos that I publish on YouTube that will do the best are the ones where I'm talking to beginners or people who haven't even launched their podcast yet. So it's not only that the audience is fragmented on where they consume content, but the audience is also fragmented with their level of depth and understanding with you. So do you see how Putting stuff on YouTube complicates things and how it's very different than publishing your audio podcast? It's going to be a different set of people in terms of how they consume and a different set of people in terms of what they're aware of. So if you're a podcaster who has an audio podcast, you like being an audio podcaster and you want your show to grow. You don't have to be on YouTube to make it happen. Putting your show on YouTube is going to introduce tons of complexity, and what I haven't even mentioned so far is how expensive it is. Because here's the thing. With an audio podcast, you have to get good at storytelling. Your intros, keeping people's attention, all of that stuff, YouTube podcast episodes, you have to do all of that on expert mode. So you have less of people's attentions for two reasons. Number one, because they don't know you as well here, you kind of get the benefit of the doubt. But number two, on an audio podcast, people are kind of doing something else while they're listening to you. So for them to turn off your episode, they have to, like, pull out their phone and opt out of the episode. Whereas on YouTube, they're sitting there looking at your video. You have their full attention for the most part, and if you lose their full attention, you will lose them. Whereas with you listening to me here, I can lose your full attention and you're probably less likely to turn the episode off. So on YouTube, you have to keep people's attention even harder. You, you have to keep their attention visually in addition to the stuff that you're saying, which takes skill. You're either going to have to edit videos, which takes tons of time, or you're going to have to hire an editor, which takes money, right? You also have to understand titles and thumbnails, because you can have the best YouTube video in the world. But if your titles and thumbnails aren't good, YouTube is not going to show your video to anybody, and so nobody's going to see it. The same thing is kind of true in audio. You do need to have really good titles, but you can also get by as an audio podcaster with having subpar titles. I don't recommend it, but it's possible. Finally, there's, of course, lighting, cameras, action, right? Getting everything set up so that things look good. Sure, if your show is super niche, you can put out YouTube videos that don't have high production value. But the rule of thumb is the less niche your show is and the more broad your content is, the more fancy you have to make your setup, because the more you are going to be competing with people who have fancy setups. So this is another opportunity where it'll be easier if you niche down today because you'll have less competition. But if you're going for something that has a lot of competition, you're going to have to make your stuff look really good. So as far as what I'm doing moving forward over the next few months, what you're going to see from me is, you're going to hear is first of all, you will see me occasionally put out YouTube videos on the Grow the Show channel. But it's not necessarily going to be one to one. While with every episode I'm going to try to record video, I'm not going to prioritize making every single episode a video version of the episode. Some of the episode topics are just not going to play well on video because it's too advanced. And also sometimes I'm just not going to have the time or money to make it into a full on video. What's good for you though? Because by the way, in case you haven't guessed, this is an audio only episode. This isn't going on the YouTube channel. So you are the only person who gets this. And that's going to continue to happen a little bit as well. I'm going to be publishing stuff on this audio feed that is only for you, only for my audio consumers, whereas I probably am not going to publish anything on the YouTube feed that doesn't also hit the audio feed. However, what YouTube is also going to push me to to do over the next year is to make more beginner content. So I really don't have anything online about how to launch a show, how to choose your hosting provider, the like really, really beginner stuff. And I can see opportunity for me in putting that stuff on YouTube because there's a lot of search volume on those types of things. So it's an opportunity for me to get people into my sphere a little bit earlier and I'm going to be doing that. But there's a chance I won't put the beginner stuff on this feed because again, in order for you to be here on the feed, you kind of have to already have discovered me somewhere. So bringing it all home in, helping you decide. If you're an audio podcaster who's not on YouTube and you're like I should really be doing that, you have a choice. Either do it and go all in and decide to do it now or decide not to do it, decide that you don't have the time, you don't have the money or the interest in becoming a YouTuber and don't do it and let yourself be at peace without doing it. Try to resist the feeling of fomo. And if you feel like you are missing out on audience growth because you're not on YouTube, but you don't want to be on YouTube, replace that FOMO with the other ways of growing an audio podcast. Maybe social media more than anything else, collaborations with other shows. And if you want to commit to being audio only, then make your growth strategy audio only. Because in either case, if your podcast is not growing, that's because you have not yet learned how to grow it. Whatever your podcast is, I promise you it is growable. You just don't have the skill of getting and keeping people to listen to it yet. And you can get it. Growing a YouTube channel and growing an audio feed are two different skills with different skill sets. If you don't have either of them, pick one of them to develop. Pick one pond to fish in, and you're going to have success faster. And if you're one of those podcasters, that's kind of toeing the line, right? You're like kind of on YouTube, but not really. Just understand that the reason why you're not getting a lot of views is because you haven't spent the time or money or energy to getting good at it and learning how to optimize your episodes so that they grow so that they get attention on YouTube. And if that's the case, that's fine. Just know that. And just know whenever you log into your YouTube channel and see that you only get 50 views per video, know that that is a decision that you have made to only get 50 views for video because you have not prioritized learning how to get more. All right, so that's going to do it for this episode. On next week's episode of Grow the show, I'm going to announce publicly who won the one on one session with me after filling out the audience survey. However, if you filled out the survey and you did it by the deadline, keep an eye on your email because I will be contacting you this week and you will have 48 hours from the time that I contact you to accept the free growth session. If you don't accept within 48 hours, I will move on to somebody else. And that happened. Two people last year didn't respond to my email. One of them, I suspect, never got the email. The other one reached out and it was too late. So if you filled out the survey, keep an eye on your email this week. You will hear from me whether or not you won. And for everyone else, I will see you next week here on Grow. The show.