Video Shorts Grow Your Podcast Exponentially!!!

Summary

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The Podcast Gauntlet – "Video Shorts Grow Your Podcast Exponentially!!!"

Hosts: Mike Wilkerson & Bryan Entzminger
Date: February 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Podcast Gauntlet dives deep into the ever-growing phenomenon of video shorts within the podcasting industry. Mike and Bryan critically examine the widely touted claim that video shorts can "instantly grow your podcast exponentially." Through candid discussion, they explore the realities behind this advice, including the real workload, brand considerations, potential pitfalls, and the nuanced role of micro content in podcast growth and audience engagement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rise (and Hype) of Video Shorts

• Mike introduces the main theme, explaining the massive impact and appeal of video shorts for podcast growth but immediately punctures the myth of “effortless” exponential growth.
• The hosts acknowledge that shorts are widespread and often treated as an essential strategy.
  • "Video has become one of the most prolific tools that we as podcasters have. ...video will instantly grow your podcast exponentially, especially video shorts." — Mike [00:18]
• Key Insight: Many podcasters believe in the transformative power of shorts, often without questioning the real effort involved.

2. The Reality Check: Time, Work, and Quality

• Bryan shares his firsthand experience creating shorts for a client—not even as a podcast growth tool, but for other messaging purposes.
  • The process is labor-intensive: finding relevant 90-second clips from a 30-45 minute episode can take up to 1.5 hours, even with software assistance.
  • Quote: "This whole myth of fast and easy shorts, personally, I've not seen it. I've seen fast and terrible shorts. ...But like, not saying they don't work, I'm saying they're a lot of work." — Bryan [02:17]
• AI and automation tools exist, but often fall short in delivering natural, engaging, and on-brand content.

3. Context & Character: The Value (and Danger) of Shorts

• Mike expands on production risks: Shorts require attention not only to timing, text, and visuals, but also faithful representation of character and context.
  • Editing out of context or using provocative language can turn well-meaning content into “a landmine waiting to happen.” [04:03]
  • Quality control and brand alignment are non-negotiable.
• Memorable Moment: Mike likens the process to a potentially volatile chemistry set:
  • "It is a chemistry set. ...With one little element out of the balance of the thing, it will not work. ...It is such a minefield..." — Mike [06:13]

4. Ethical and Brand Considerations: Who’s Doing the Work?

• On outsourcing and “intern culture”: Mike criticizes the industry’s reliance on unpaid labor, making a strong case for fair pay and genuine involvement in content creation.
  • "...none of the people that have ever edited any content on my podcast network ...has ever not been paid for the time that they have offered to edit content." — Mike [06:13]
• The content creator’s legacy is discussed: If you can’t stand by your work, “is it enough to just say you got paid?” [08:45]

5. The Real Goal: Clarity Drives Value

• Bryan reframes the ultimate purpose of micro content: Before jumping on the shorts bandwagon, podcasters must ask, why do you want shorts and for whom?
  • For some, it’s about disseminating resonant ideas, not just chasing clicks or growth.
  • "You have to be crystal clear on who it’s for and why you're doing it. Because if you're not, you'll choose the wrong thing." — Bryan [09:35]
• Shorts, if pulled from episodes, must be chosen with intention—otherwise they risk devaluing your podcast or confusing your brand.

6. Measuring Success: Are Shorts a Must?

• Mike voices skepticism about shorts as a “must-do” for every podcaster.
  • The impact of video is real, but results are rarely instant or even easily measurable, especially with small libraries or early efforts.
  • Each platform has different rules and engagement mechanics.
  • "...Can it be shown quickly with a very small library showcase? No way. There's no way. The building of something visually...it is a chemistry set..." — Mike [13:00]
• Call to Action: The hosts welcome listener stories about the positive or negative results using shorts in podcast promotion.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bryan [02:17]:
  “This whole myth of fast and easy shorts, personally, I've not seen it. I've seen fast and terrible shorts. …not saying they don't work, I'm saying they're a lot of work.”

• Mike [06:13]:
  "It is a chemistry set. ...With one little element out of the balance of the thing, it will not work. ...It is such a minefield..."

• Bryan [09:35]:
  "You have to be crystal clear on who it’s for and why you're doing it. Because if you're not, you’ll choose the wrong thing."

• Mike [13:00]:
  "...Can it be shown quickly with a very small library showcase? No way. There's no way. The building of something visually...it is a chemistry set..."

• Bryan [15:53], with a wink:
  "No, man, I'm just scared to go make another short now."

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Key Timestamps

• 00:18 – Introduction and the pitch for video shorts in podcasting
• 02:17 – Bryan’s deep dive on the real workload of making quality shorts
• 04:03 – Mike expands on context, character, and pitfalls of automation
• 06:13 – Ethical considerations and the legacy of content creation
• 09:35 – Framing the “why” of making shorts and the importance of intentionality
• 12:43 – Assessing whether shorts are a podcasting necessity
• 15:53 – Light-hearted wrap-up and call for listener stories

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Tone and Style

The hosts maintain a friendly, candid, and insightful tone—balancing skepticism and curiosity while sharing their hard-earned podcasting lessons. They champion creator integrity and meaningful content over “shiny object” tactics and industry pressure.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Shorts can aid podcast growth, but meaningful results demand significant work, clear strategy, and understanding your audience.
• Quality, context, and brand alignment matter more than rapid content churn.
• Podcasters should think critically before outsourcing shorts, prioritizing fairness and direct involvement.
• There is no “one size fits all,” and results take time and strategic effort.
• The hosts invite listeners’ real-world experiences with video shorts to continue the conversation.

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For more, visit podcastgauntlet.com or engage with the hosts on YouTube and podcast platforms.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

You're listening to the two guys talking podcast network.

[A]

Video has become one of the most prolific tools that we as podcasters have. And, you know, the truth is, video will instantly grow your podcast exponentially, especially video shorts. That's the focus of this episode of the podcast Gauntlet. Greetings, everybody. I'm Mike Wilkerson, one of your hosts.

[B]

And I'm Brian Ensminger, the other one

[A]

of your hosts, Brian. Video shorts are easily one of the things that have become not only prolific in the land of podcast ville, but also for the people who not only have a podcast, but now have a podcast that is specifically based inside of video. And the short game, as I will always probably call it, is a hard one to deny because it checks all of the commonsensical boxes where if you have an interesting topic and if you have an interesting visitor or guest to your podcast, or if you have some select information that a snippet of which can be shared and instantly garner attention inside of any one of a number of video short platforms or, well, then that will instantly translate to the growth exponentially of your podcast. Yeah, and that's exactly what we're talking about inside of this episode. Again, I can't deny the impact of video. For those of you that are watching our video of this episode over on YouTube, by the way, would you mind hitting the like button here and then the subscribe button over here? I really appreciate that. For those of you that are watching over there, you likely know the value of all of the video that's available. But I have one question. How did you get to this episode? Did you get here by one of the shorts that Brian and I have made? Because if you have, make sure you leave where you found it in the comments, because we haven't made any.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And there's a reason for that, too. Brian, do you want to start with some other background? Do you want to jump right in?

[B]

Yeah, I think I'd just like to maybe augment right, because we're probably going to seem like we're shorts bashing right now, and that's not my perspective. But I will say that in my experience, because I do some shorts for one client, and they have a very specific reason, and it's not to grow their podcast. It's actually related to something completely different. They are a lot of work. Yes, there's software that can do AI stuff and all that. I've not seen one that does that well. And for me, maybe it's just because I'm terrible at it, but going through a 30 to 45 minute episode to find 90 or less seconds, concurrent seconds that fit together well or that can be edited down to that. And then keeping everything. It's a live performance so the camera's moving around. You've got to keep everything in that vertical video where the person filming was in, you know, 16 by 9, right? They're filming high def, but they're filming widescreen. To make all of that stuff work and look natural is a lot of work. We're talking like an hour and a half to make a 90ish second video using, you know, some shortcuts to help find that spot, like transcriptions and things like that. And noting what I want to do. It takes a lot of time to do it. Well, I'll probably get better at it. But like this whole myth of fast and easy shorts, personally, I've not seen it. I've seen. I've seen fast and terrible shorts. Fast and mediocre shorts maybe. But like, not saying they don't work, I'm saying they're a lot of work.

[A]

Boy, I wish he hadn't stolen every piece of thunder I've gotten to the actual manufacturing.

[B]

Oh, no, take it back.

[A]

No, the big one is the work part, right? Because again, for those of you that have not ever done this, for those of you that think you can just go get insert name of X product and there are now at least four or five that I get regular feed announcements about that can go and make this copious library of video shorts from any long form video that you've got that'll be the perfect reel filler for insert name of platform. It will, it will go and it will make a giant library of stuff, no question. But the two pieces that Brian exemplified there that I want to hit on doubly so like with a hammer, is the amount of time it takes to compile a good one. Because between the text really needing to be on there of what they're saying in some way that captures attention to it being something salient, to it being something in character for the people that are speaking, this is one that I think a lot of people miss. There are many times, and Brian and I have had probably, I don't know, probably six or eight episodes over the course of the last year where we finished out. Brian says, you know, man, I've never seen you get this worked up about something. And I kind of stepped outside my body and I'm like, I never really noticed that, but it's true. And I think a lot of people, especially people that either don't think about or don't mind throwing grenades into their content. You've got to be incredibly careful with stuff like that, especially in today's climate, because the context and even just the, the vocabulary words that are used inside of what you're saying and how inside of short form, automated, edited content, man, it is an instant landmine waiting to happen. Now, obviously, I'm hoping that somewhere in the publishing process there is a series of proctoring that's happening, especially between the host or hosts or the host and guests or something where you're doing a little bit of quality control so that you're not throwing out the bombs and the unexploded ordinance that can become something very, very damaging for anybody's reputation. That's the first one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The second one is the actual. You mentioned the time. And I cannot emphasize enough how big a deal it is not only to make something good, not only to make something that's got really solid quality, but that also matches brand, but more importantly, that is done by somebody that you pay. Something that you and I talk about a lot inside of this program, and I always try to emphasize it, is that the concept of having an intern that is somebody that is at the end of a cracked whip that will instantly work and slave away long dead hours for no money or very little money, I have real trouble with that. And I have for a long time, none of the people that have ever edited any content on my podcast network over@2guys talking.com has ever not been paid for the time that they have offered to edit content. They've always been paid. And so when especially, especially frustrating when I go into a radio environment where not only is it done, it's expected that interns will be at the end of a cracked whip and work long, long hours on stuff that takes far longer than they will ever get paid for. And by the way, is it done yet? And that is, it's a quirk of not only the radio business, but many other professions as well, where, you know, if we can just shove somebody that we don't pay into this, everything will be fine. And I don't like to foster that at all. And so when Brian's talking about, and I think Brian was being conservative, especially about the format piece, that is another piece of what, what I think is a huge part of what we're talking about here. Having a format that is not only engaging, but matches on brand, that tends to go and grab pieces that you want people to see, but more importantly then causes them to do something that you want. Guys, this is a. It is a chemistry set. It's like so many other things in people's lives that they don't realize that with one little element out of the balance of the thing, it will not work. It is such. It is such a minefield for things like that. And this also goes back to something else that I don't think we actually talk about this often, but I don't think it hurts to look, layer it here. What if, quote, the customer doesn't care? I gotta tell you, if the customer doesn't care not only about the quality, how long it is, what it looks like, is it matching on brand? They don't care. If there's a quality control element that decides what is said and how it's issued, I gotta tell you, as a content creator, walk away. Because if you can't point at something that you're working on unless there's a confidentiality contract involved, what are you doing? This goes back to another episode that Brian and I have done. Talks about legacies that you fashion online. Especially as a content creator and especially for me, especially as a podcaster. Everything that I've put out, whether I'm visiting on another program, whether it's a program like what Brian and I are doing here, that's podcast centric or something inside of my entertainment Reviews now over 20 years, it's all a piece of my legacy. And if I can't point to it and say I did that or had a hand in that, or I helped craft that, is it enough to just say you got paid? Because for me, it's not, Brian.

[B]

No, it's definitely not. And actually, I'm really glad that you talked about that because I want to kind of take a slightly different tack on as far as, like, what's it supposed to accomplish? For me, I think the value of video shorts or really any. What I'll call micro content. I pulled that from Kevin Schmidt, who has process for marketing your shows. Right. This micro content, you have to be crystal clear on who it's for and why you're doing it. Because if you're not, you'll choose the wrong thing. Right. So format is a thing. Doing it well is a thing. Being able to find those snippets, absolutely a thing. But the first question is, what's the goal for this? I shared that the client that I do this for, they're not trying to grow a podcast. What they're trying to do is expand a message by sharing parts of it that are resonating or potentially resonating with people, or potentially shocking to people that we're not like, we're not doing any, anything shady or anything like that. But maybe things that might be a little surprising or maybe a little bit, I'll call it countercultural or counter norm. And that's fine.

[A]

We're not even, even eyebrow raising. I'm fine with that.

[B]

Or maybe just a slightly different way to think about something that people commonly think about. And so the value there is not even so much in terms of growing their community in like numbers and everything like that, but going, these are the things that we're sharing, maybe it will have a little bit of an impact on your life as well. So that's where that works. If your goal is to grow your show using short form content like this, specifically if it's pulled from your episode, you need to be really clear on your listener. We talked about this on a recent episode we recorded about knowing your listener, knowing what they want, making what they want. This is an extension of that. Knowing what they want and providing them something that is so engaging that when they see that little thing, it will either one, re cement in their minds who you are and why what you're doing matters and might matter to them, or two, tease them just enough to make them think about clicking that like button or that listen button, going, going after their favorite podcast app and taking the time to listen to an episode. That's probably not going to happen the first or the second or the third or maybe even the 15th time they see something. They're probably going to have to see micro content for a while. And you need to be aware of that. It's an investment. It's sowing seed that might grow into a listener. I think if you do it well, it can absolutely work. I'm not going to say that AI tools will never get us there, but I haven't seen it yet. But it's something. You have to be really intentional with what you choose. Even if some machine learning algorithm pulled out 15 pieces for you to choose from, you got to choose the right one, because otherwise you're just throwing out stuff that's either filler at best or actually devaluing your brand in front of people that either do care about you or could have cared about you. Mike.

[A]

Oh, man. Yeah, Brandt. The eroding of your brand with counter content, man, there's another episode that we've got to try and figure through. Again. It's one of the wonderful pieces of this program that I love doing with Brian, is that as we simply sit here and talk about the things that we're passionate about, we instantly find another series of things to talk about that we have not yet talked about. It is the perfect engine and I love it so much. Which, by the way, I know all of you guys love this content also. So make sure you're hitting the like button if you're over watching us in the video presentation over on YouTube or make sure you stop and give us a review on any one of the podcast platforms directories that allow you to provide a review of this podcast. Oh man, Shorts. Are they a necessity? Are they a must be piece of fabric inside of the tapestry of your program? I really don't know. I've got to tell you, I've met many a podcaster that say, hey man, I've got a face for podcasting. And you know that begins to change now as video is incorporated, right? But the fact is that there is real impact on having a visual element, but also being able to back up your visual elements with things that you're saying that have impact. Which again gets us back to what I think this is a core element of not only everything I do, but everything I try to participate in when it comes to content creation on any level, whether it be video, audio, or just static content making thumbnails for a variety of customers. Is that what you leave behind after it's done is easily as important as anything you're ever going to conjure. And if you can't point back to it and go, that's something I did to help insert whatever it is you were doing, then I think you're missing the boat. Which is why something like shorts, guys, it can be done. Does it help you? I'm guessing that there is probably an element that this does help you and that it can be shown. Can it be shown quickly? I don't think so. Can it be shown quickly with a very small library showcase? No way. There's no way. The building of something visually, especially something that involves something like a video short, to somehow use the mechanics that, by the way, are all different inside of each platform, to go to every single platform to then send you to something to make there be a statistic that gives you a designated number and data. I do not see it. But that's a call to you out in the audience because you know what you guys have? You have it. You have it out there, don't you? Well, Brian, and I want to know all about it. So remember, leave your comments and the details below if you're watching the video presentation, or you can go over to our website [e-mail], click on the contact form, fill out the quick web form, and tell us more about how you are utilizing shorts inside of a video presentation inside of whatever platform to have impact for your podcast programming. Brian, any last bits?

[B]

No, man, I'm just scared to go make another short now.

[A]

I'm going to make 30 in about 10 seconds with this new piece of software I got. It's so awesome, Brian. Have you seen it? 4 exclamation points with a question mark on the end. Okay, great. Well, good. Again, we want to hear from you. Let us know what you think. This has been another episode of the podcast Gauntlet, where we throw down, discuss rise and shine in podcasting. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.