VIDEO Podcasts and the POWER Behind them

Eric Beels 0:01
anchor.fm recently opened up video podcast to all podcasters should you use it? Let's talk about it. You're listening to Practical Podcast Tips.

My name is Eric Beels. And today I'm going to cover tip number 23, video podcasts and the power behind them. So traditionally, podcasts are audio only. That's what a lot of people think of when they think of a podcast, they think of just audio, right, because that's what it's traditionally been traditionally, they've we've just had audio for podcasts. But recently that has been changing. So if you haven't heard the news, Spotify recently opened up their video podcasts platform to all podcasters. So they've had this for some time, they've been experimenting with it and using it for, I'd say, I think about a year or so by now. And but it was only is like an invite only it was, you know, Joe Rogan had it and other some other podcasts had it as well. But it was tightly controlled, it was like an invite only type of thing. But they've recently enabled that for everyone now. Now there are a couple of caveats with that, first of all, you have to use anchor.fm to do it. So I see what Spotify is doing with this, they want to get people over on to anchor.fm. And it's a pretty effective way of doing it because they're the only ones who've really been able to integrate video with podcasts in a podcast manner. So traditionally, there hasn't really been a good way to do video podcasts, you had to upload them on YouTube. And that's still a very effective way to do it. And you should upload them to YouTube, because it really is an effective way of getting your podcasts out there. But there hasn't really been a good way to like combine it into like one file system, right. So it's like both the audio and video is tied to your RSS feed and all of that, right. And so Spotify has really been the one to change that with enabling video podcasts. And so I think what we'll be seeing is a lot of changes on a lot of apps, because to stay competitive, a lot of other apps are going to start doing video podcasts, or at least adding that feature in I'm sure we'll probably see that from Apple, either sooner or later. But namely, there's also been talks with YouTube doing that as well. So YouTube is looking into having podcasts connected onto the YouTube platform. So instead of even uploading your podcasts directly to YouTube, we might be seeing a feature to basically pull the video from an RSS feed directly. So some podcast hosts transistor can actually integrate with YouTube. So you post your audio file on transistor, and then it will it has the ability to upload onto YouTube automatically, right? I generally suggest doing it separately. And that's only because you can add extra videos, you can do things whereas the transistor integration won't allow you to do that. And so one thing I want to talk about too is you know, what's the reason like why why do video like like extra work, right? And it is extra work, there is some extra things to think about, you know, you shouldn't be in a dark closet, right where no one can see you anyways, right. So one of the reasons to do a video podcast is seeing someone talk is a lot different from just hearing them. There's actually a lot of visual body language that gets transmitted. I'm not going to talk about anything like that in this episode here. But there is some some visual body language that gets transmitted that really gets lost over on a just an audio podcast. It also can build some trust as well where people can see you, they can see your guest, right. If you have guests on your show, it also allows you to show things visually. So let's say you had a podcast that has a visual medium on it, maybe you have a podcast about tattooing. That's just something that came to mind on a whim. Right now, tattooing is a very visual medium. And so you might be talking about a specific tattoo or something right, or maybe a specific technique. If your show is targeted towards other tattooists you might want to be able to show that and this will really just make it easier. And people can use the Spotify app now and you'll be able to show that right within the Spotify app. So it's it's a pretty big deal. There are some things I wanted to talk about because I'm not crazy, huge fan of anchor.fm. But you know, this does make me think that okay, there's this is a huge reason to start potentially using anchor. And I'm still figuring that out myself. As I'm talking right now I gotta look into it and kind of see if it makes sense or, and just see how all that works. But there are a couple things to keep in mind of some reasons to to not potentially use anchor dot.fm. One of the reasons is they have generally bad terms that I am a little weary of like they have a lot of like you own your content on Anchor. But they do have like an unlimited use, like they can use your they can legally use your podcasts as much as they want. Essentially, I'm not you're not restricted to, you know, move your podcast or anything like that. But that is something to keep in mind. Other hosts don't have nearly as much many terms as usage, right? They have like one line of usage, just like you're just giving them permission to like, publish it on their platform, that's basically all it is. Whereas anchor has a lot more. So that's something to keep in mind. Another thing is they tend to have lower quality files, they because it's it is a free host. There's a lot to think about in that regard. So like if you have a lot of music, you might get reduced quality on Anchor from that. They also have generally simple integrations that I've seen, not as in depth integrations with other platforms like lead lists, mailing lists, things like that, things like transistor, integrate in a little bit better, as you could tell a big fan of transistor, which I am, which is why I mentioned them a lot. Now some of the reasons that you might want to switch over to anchor.fm though, video is an obvious very big reason. If you have a very visual medium, like you use YouTube very heavily for your podcast, maybe you can start using anchor.fm more heavily and promoting Spotify, the video version on there. And that makes a really seamless integration because the way Spotify works, it's so it's very, very seamless between the audio and video files and set essentially, you can just hit play on Spotify. And then if there's a video, it'll just show up, right. But if you lock the phone, it'll still keep playing the audio. You know, that's a very seamless way to present your video to all of your own. It's just your audio only as well as your video ones.

I think we'll see other platforms doing it. But that is a huge reason to use Spotify. If you're not already doing video, you may not need to switch to anchor.fm. Like I wouldn't say start don't start adding video just for no reason, right? Like even this podcast, we're not adding video, mainly because we don't feel like we necessarily need to yet. It is something that I would like to add, but it is more work. And frankly, I'm just not ready to do that myself yet. That's not to say that you shouldn't do video, I think you definitely should do videos, you just got to look at where you're currently at and ready to handle for your podcasts. But this will also be an app thing. So one thing to keep in mind that's really, really, really important is right now, as of April 25. The apps that can play video, currently is just Spotify. I don't know of the of any other apps that can play video within the app. I think there is a way to get Apple to work with it. But the one thing that I've had issues with is a lot of the podcast apps they don't support. If you have any video on your, your podcast that you actually can't won't be able to like connect it up right on some of the apps. And so that's something to keep in mind. There's like a weird incompatibility thing. I don't know, I'm not sure if anchor.fm has that limitation, I think it makes multiple files. So you can still submit your the audio version to all the other other apps, right, but then you can let you have the video version available on Spotify. Okay. So video podcasts, they're a relatively easy addition to your show. But there are some things to think about with that. And anchor.fm has really changed the game in terms of adding that. So what I hope to see is I hope to see like transistor and other like pod bean, other hosts start adding video a lot easier and integrated to share that across apps. All right, I will see you in the next episode. I hope you liked that. Feel free to comment if there's something I mentioned on here that I was wrong about because I very well might be on this. This is all relatively new stuff. Let me know I'd like to know if there's an app that you know that can also handle video, particularly a podcast app like you know, Apple podcast, Spotify, podcasts, overcast, that sort of thing. Let me know. And if you know of a way to get videos into Spotify, outside of anchor, I'd love to know that as well. And I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Hey, thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, feel free to leave us a review. I'd love to hear how it helped. Also, if you know somebody else that could benefit from it. Go ahead and share it with them. Thanks again and see you in the next episode.