Video podcasts, once just something a handful of podcasters were producing, have gone mainstream in the past year. But at last week’s Brand Podcast Summit, industry veterans said marketers approaching the space still have the option of being audio-only. The say that speaks to the role video is playing today for podcasters.
Darius Derakshan. Head of Podcasts at LA Times Studios, said the message he thinks consumers are sending is that they want options. “They want audio. They want video. They want both,” he says. It is why the LA Times Studios has built four video podcast studios on its Los Angeles campus, which will release four video podcasts in the coming months.
“We can reach new audiences and do it in a way that creates an even better story,” Derakshan said. The long-term play is to grow ad revenue, and he said LA Times Studios is currently breaking even on its video projects, but longer-term he expects it to double their podcast revenue.
AJ Feliciano, General Manager of The Roost Podcast Network, said they too focus on “content efficiency,” which takes advantage of the flexibility of distributing video to all sorts of venues, including using it as social promo clips. “We don’t currently think of social clips as anything other than marketing at the moment,” he said.
Why Video Matters
Video may not be the right path for all podcasters, but a growing number are looking to use it for at least some promotional elements. Research shows there’s good reason to even further. The recent Podcast Landscape report found that even among listeners who spend most of their time listening, not watching podcasts, YouTube is where nearly half (48%) of the adults surveyed said they discovered new shows to listen to. The result was nearly a third (31%) said finding a new podcast was easy.
“What this data is suggesting to us is that video is playing a very key role in the discovery and in the ease of discovery of new podcast content,” Sounds Profitable’s Tom Webster said.
Stephanie Chan, Strategic Partner Manager at YouTube, said that the video site can be overwhelming for many marketers with lots of different content and many verticals available in many different formats. As basic as it might sound, her advice is to just leap in anywhere they can.
“It’s better for you to get onto YouTube in whatever form you can today and start building that presence, rather than stay on the sidelines until you have the perfect video,” Chan said. She said even if it means bringing an audio-only show to YouTube with a static image, it’s better to be on the platform and start building the listener engagement and use the data to help decide future strategy. “It’s better to do that than to not be there at all,” she advised marketers.
Chan also explained that there is a “spectrum” of video on YouTube, ranging from multicamera setups to video shot on an iPhone to recordings of Zoom calls, and everything in between. She says the biggest realization is that the most polished video isn’t always the most successful. Instead, YouTube users often prefer more casual, vlog-style videos that feel more authentic. “You can see in the podcasts that are successful on YouTube, there’s a lot of different approaches that can work,” she said.
Chan said creators should spend more time considering a show’s packaging, such as the title and thumbnail ad how they organize their channel on YouTube since most viewers come from an algorithmic source. She also suggested marketers and other podcast creators consider options other than putting up video of a full episode, saying a clip that is a couple of minutes long, or even a YouTube Short exposing users to a show or brand may be a better way to drive engagement. “On YouTube, every new video is a new opportunity for you to reach people,” she said.
Audio Or Video?
When approaching a project, Paige Hymson, Head of Podcasts at Almost Friday Media, said their approach has been to consider what is driving the conversation and who the creator’s audience is. For many of their younger creators, she said video has been a successful strategy.
“We’re thinking about the different places that our audience, specifically these younger consumers of content, are going to be, whether that’s on YouTube or on social media,” Hymson said. That means continually thinking how to take long-form products and convert them into smaller bite-sized content pieces that can be shared across multiple channels. “A lot of us are from just audio-only. But younger creators grew up on social media, and so we like to follow their lead a lot of the time,” Hymson said.
That has meant in some situations taking something video-first and bringing it into audio podcasting.
“We’re sort of like demystifying what it means to be a podcast. And that that sometimes deviates from the traditional definition,” Hymson said. “There’s always going to be new formats and things to try and experiment, and that’s something that I think is exciting about the podcast space.”
Derakshan agreed, saying for LA Times Studios there wasn’t much debate internally about whether to invest in video. “It wasn’t much of a decision. This is where the space is moving,” he said. Derakshan said video has also allowed the LA Times Studios to expand into the always-on, hosts chatting format. “If you’re trying to reach new audiences with engaging storytelling, you have to be in the video space,” he said.
Perfection Isn’t The Goal
One of the hurdles many podcasters need to overcome, according to executives, is the idea that episodes need to be as polished as a network TV show. The user-generated vibe that many shows embrace instead gives some video podcasts an added layer of authenticity, they say.
Feliciano agreed that video podcasting doesn’t need to be as polished as a TV show, and that allows creators who may not be able to afford $150,000 or more for an episode to launch a video series at a fraction of the cost.
“There’s no stopping you from creating something quality with the technology that exists today. All you need is your iPhone, a good light and a good mic,” he said.
Chan thinks too many first-time YouTube creators give up too soon, and consistency of releases is often underestimated.
“Sometimes it takes months of consistent posting just to match up the right audiences with this content,” she said. “It really does help to just post consistently.”
Watch a replay of the panel HERE.
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