Growing your podcast audience by having a presence on video streaming sites can be easily achieved once you create a working plan that supports your goals.
Social media is made for video , not for audio. YouTube is gigantic, over 1.9 billion people log into YouTube every month and that’s the main reason Youtube could be rocket fuel for growing your audience.
We gathered a few simple-to-use web tools that could be very helpful for you in creating video podcasts to share your story on social media in style and promote your podcast, radio show or blog.
| Table of contents
What is a Video Podcast? And Why You should Try One
Audience Growth with Podcast Video Sharing
The Different Video Podcast Formats
Background music for your podcast video
Wrapping Up
What is a Video Podcast? And Why You should Try One
A Video Podcast is simply a podcast with an added element of video. The video element could be as simplistic as a one static image or as interactive video formats like the interview podcast, panel podcast, conversational podcast, and other formats that we’ll discuss here.
Thankfully, efficient tools are available now that have made it easy to convert your audio podcast into a video. Interestingly, 51% of the US population older than 12 have listened to a podcast at least once in 2020. With that, there is a mammoth opportunity for podcasters. Video Podcasts, on the top of that, can be a lethal marketing tool in 2020.
Video Podcast – Does it worth the effort?
Creating video podcasts takes a plethora of extra work. So is it really advisable to shift on video? Well, in this age of YouTube, YES.
On logical grounds, here is an explanation of the importance of videos that must reflect itself in podcasts.
Video Captures Attention More Fully
Video is a super effective medium whether you’re trying to feed a new story to your audience, spark a new agenda, or spread awareness about anything. With video, the engagement level gets a huge boost that can go a long way.
You must be familiar with binge-watching Netflix. Have you ever heard of the term “binge-listening”? Maybe yes, but not as frequently for sure.
Let’s say you are going to listen to a full-fledged podcast on youth problems. Are you sure you can focus on this long audio for 2 long hours?
Only few of you can. For the rest of you, especially the younger ones, your mind wanders and twenty minutes in, you realize you haven’t absorbed anything. Sounds reminiscent? Well, this is true.
Video has way more engagement power and story-telling capability than audios.
Making your content visually interesting is more probable to engross your audience, hence they are less likely to drift off. After all, we humans are visual creatures and we love moving scenes.
Don’t use a simple static image!
More than 90% of the Static Image Podcasts lose their audience on YouTube in the first two minutes.
Showing your face is important if you want to build trust with your audience.
Putting your face in front and making a head-on convo makes people feel more attached, and it has an emotional impact as well.
Plus, video podcasts give you a wider ground to play on and communicate in an exact impactful way, whatever sensitive or abstruse the topic. You can gesticulate and take massive power from things like facial expressions and body language.
Listen to this guy from Pod Sound School talking about why your podcast should be on YouTube:
Audience Growth with Podcast Video Sharing
Audience growth with a podcast boils down to this: Prompt your audience to chase your content, attract them towards you.
With two billion users worldwide and one billion minutes watched every day on YouTube, you can easily imagine the power of video marketing. Acourding to YouTube, Longer videos rank better than shorter ones so it’s actually a great fit to a podcast format.
On Popular Social Apps like Facebook and Instagram, videos are muted by default. So, the visuals must be able to prompt the user to click so he can listen to what your video podcast has to offer. This also emphasises the need for shifting to video.
YouTube is the official gateway to a new and huge audience. Posting on YouTube can help you reach a lot more people. More than 80% of US adults happen to watch Auto-Suggested videos on YouTube.
Enhanced Visibility means increased access to people. So if your podcast is niche-oriented, which it should be, you will get added traffic. Plus, this is good for your SEO as Google also knows that Video is the future, so it promotes YouTube content. Moreover, video monetization options could be your new revenue stream as a podcast creator.
The Core Steps For Audience Growth with Video:
First, you should try to make video podcasts and use YouTube as the main streaming medium. You may consider making a short video on key points from your episodes and share it on YouTube and other social media platforms.
The Different Video Podcast Formats
Choosing the right video podcast format depends on the kind of content you present on your episodes, your your audience type, your budget and resources, and other parameters. Here is a list of some popular video formats that could fit your podcast style:
The Interview podcast format
This podcast format features a host who interviews new guests in each episode. There is a brief intro, then the host leads the discussion and leaves the ground open to the guest who brings his expertise, opinion, and stories to the table.
Top Benefits & Features:
- You don’t need to prepare much around the content as most of the talking is done by the guests.
- The usually sensitive listeners become forgiving when the guests make little mistakes (ums, eye-rollings, and brief pauses), that gives you a lot of space to keep it original.
Drawbacks:
- It’s a big challenge and takes a lot of social and business clout to find a new guest for each episode.
- From one angle, you are relying on your guest’s ability to entertain and deliver information which can be a risky decision if your audience is not super loyal.
Panel Video Podcast
Another similar style is the Panel podcast. The only change here is the involvement of more guests. Single host interviews and engages with a group of people.
Conversational Podcast
Unlike the Interview podcast format, in this format, there are two people, both hosts. They usually have an interesting chemistry together and make candid conversations on different topics, mostly contemporary ones.
The Solo Podcast
This is the most common style of podcast. Anyone who thinks he has a specific kind of expertise, can simply turn his camera on, and start communicating and sharing. There isn’t much fluff and filler, or setup.
Solo podcast is the perfect way for new podcasters to make a start as this is simple and doesn’t cost much.
Looking into your audience’s eyes builds a powerful relationship with them and that’s a huge advantage with video podcasts.
Top Benefits & Features:
- No need to rely on any external help or involvement. You are free to execute everything on your own schedule and with the comforts of home.
- An intimate relationship between you and your users can help develop deep and enduring trust that is helpful for brand building.
- Editing and stuff are no burden here.
Drawbacks:
- Mostly, one episode lasts for 25 to 40 minutes. It’s a lot of talking and you have to be a well-educated and informed person.
- You don’t have any partner to side your views or bounce ideas off (unless there is assistance behind the scenes.)
Storytelling Podcast
Podcast episodes feature non-fictional stories about real-life events. You might start a series of crimes, chronicle an expedition up Antarctica, or recreate a historical event in several episodes. It can also be one story per episode or single-story across a long series.
This is an excellent podcast to expose people to new concepts, developments, and ideas.
Top Benefits & Features:
- A highly addictive style for a certain audience so there will be a handsome amount of following.
- Other audio elements like movie clips, news broadcasts, sound-effects can be spliced in to enhance user engagement.
Drawbacks:
- It’s difficult to maintain a consistent publishing schedule.
- Mostly, you are not sure about the preciseness of the information you are conveying whereas listeners of such format are sensitive to little details.
- This is a demanding format, heavy research and resources are required to nail it, thus, can be a challenge if you are not a resourceful team.
Theater Format Podcast
In this format, podcasters tell fictional stories across multiple episodes, similar to TV shows.
This is a great format for fiction creators who like to craft stories, virtual worlds, and sensationalize things.
Your Personalized Podcast Format
One of the most likable things about podcasts is that it’s just as customizable as Art or Literature. So, if you want to bring in your own style or mix several formats together to create something new.
Background music for your podcast video
Music gives your podcast an exclusive character that elevates its brand power. Be it a champion podcast like Camp Monsters or Girl in Space, a close inspection will prove that it is background music that has made them a success.
Before you select any music for your podcast, it’s important to double-check that you are using podsafe music so you are not infringing any music copyrights or ignoring licensing terms.
What is Fair Use of Music?
Fair use is often regarded as a way to Use-But-Not-Violate terms of the media license. The problem with the FAIR USE is that it is a wide & open concept that varies from one regulatory body or country to another.
It doesn’t matter if you credit the original composer or not, use the music for reasonably less time (say 5 seconds) or more, make money with it or not, FAIR USE is something permitted only under the terms supplied by the music composer itself or the music rights holders.
There are two main ways you can use music for your podcasts:
Licensed music
You have to purchase a license to use certain music only in certain ways.
Creative Commons
An open-source licensing where music creators share their productions and you can use them under strict and transparent agreements.
Here at Foximusic we offer a one-time-fee standard license that allows you to use the music on your podcasts to be distributed on YouTube or any online platform! You can use your licensed tracks without any limitation for a life-long period of time. You can find all about our pricing and licensing terms here: http://www.foximusic.com/licensing/
Simple Online Video Editing Tools
Converting a podcast into video means everything from selecting images, to selecting themes, to mixing audios, etc.
Only hitting the record button and going after it isn’t enough to land you lots of audience.
Your supportive aunt Jenny might give you an empathetic listen. But, most audiences today expect something extra in terms of quality and engagement than a thumbnail-added, unedited, thirty-five minutes piece of audio.
To make your podcast make strides, I used and reviewed some of the best podcast video tools based on their features, supported platforms, and pricing:
Headliner
Key Features:
- Headliner is actually one of the easiest tools for creating video content from podcasts.
- Video transcription is done automatically and captions are just perfect.
- Turn your podcast episodes into easily shareable waveforms called audiograms.
- Both full-length videos (up to 2 hours in length) and shorter snippets of a longer episode can be uploaded.
- Headliner updates the sizing options of the content itself so you don’t have to manage it manually.
However, you have to buy the pro version to enjoy the freedom to upload as many videos as you want. Plus, given the usefulness and hype of Headliner, it should have given 4K support as well, which is still awaited.
Pricing: Pro at $20/month with unlimited videos and customer watermarks, Basic at $8/month with 10 videos.
Veed.io
Key Features:
- With Veed.io tool you can quickly trim and filter videos and give them desired shapes easily.
- Beginner-friendly and also clamming to provides robust customer support.
- One of the most distinguished storytelling creativity that makes your online video campaigns easy to do with personalized branding touch and attractive call-to-action.
- Fully optimized for converting podcasts into videos for promotion.
- Effective team collaboration. No need to download and share heavy files in that tedious traditional manner.
However, there is no 3D video editing (as with most tools) plus the free version has considerably limited usability. As far as pricing is concerned, I think it’s a bit expensive.
Pricing: Basic package costs $12/month for basic editing needs while the Pro package is available at $24/month for advanced branding needs and remote collaboration.
FlexClip
Key Features:
- FlexClip has a free version with no hidden charges.
- You can combine different multiple videos and trim them without losing the quality and premium render. And you don’t need any editing expertise to do that.
You can easily mount videos of changing complexity. - The voice-over feature helps you record your voice on-the-go as well as insert the narration in video clips.
However, watermark comes with the free version and only one-minute videos and at most twelve projects. Even in the Business package, video length is just 30 minutes max. Moreover, it lacks the undo button and video output duration is also low.
Pricing: Basic package costs $5/month with 50 projects, Plus package costs $8/month 200 projects, Business’s price is $20/month with 1000 projects.
Wavve
Key Features:
However, you can only rollover limited unused minutes (without having them counted) which is something I didn’t like. Again there is no 3D or 4k support that makes for the possible shortcomings of this tool. Prices, as well, seems high.
Pricing: Alpha package costs $10/month for a total of 10 minutes of video, Beta costs $18/month for a total of 30 minutes of video and Gamma is available at $32/month for a total of 300 minutes of video with a significant length of a single video clip.
Vokal
Vokal is a web application that makes it easy to create marketing videos with waveforms and subtitles.
Create beautiful social media videos for audio clips from your podcast, radio show, music, and more.
Video editing is usually more complicated than it should be.
Timelines and layers, I removed all of that. Create or modify a designer-made template.
Add your audio, generate subtitles, and render your video.
Video creation has never been this easy.
Key Features
- Vokal has a subscription that is free forever.
- Choose from premium designer-made video templates
- Automatically generate a transcription in any language for your audio
- Add waveforms and time progress bars to visualize your audio
- Use the editor to quickly and easily add videos, animated GIFs and stickers, images, texts, and more.
Pricing: Basic plan costs $10/month with max 5 minutes video length (up to 20 minutes per month) and the Pro version’s price is $20/month with a max of 15 minutes and up to 60 minutes per month. There is also a free branded version to get you started.
Adobe Spark
Key Features
- Adobe Spark is one of the most popular and reliable short video editing tools in the market
- A variety of templates and Custom options are available.
- Creative commons licensed icons, images, graphics, etc.
- You can store and work on all the projects within you adobe account and invite teams to work along with you. Access it from anywhere as this is a cloud-based service.
However, free projects contain a watermark. Also, the icons and text placing options are limited. Moreover, the voice-over tool works best in a quiet environment. Adobe Spark has no noise reduction feature.
Pricing: Premium pricing starts at $9.79/month annual plan. free trial contains a watermark.
Wrapping Up
If you’re a podcaster and you’re not podcasting on YouTube, you’re really missing out.
This is the time to seriously think about recording a monthly, or even weekly video podcast to maximize your listener reach.
This is probably the easiest and most recommended way to establish that loyal following, and keep them attached by catering to the latest user expectations. Fortunately, there are enough details available to see what tool fits your customized needs.
I hope our detailed reviews covered you enough to help you to get started with video podcasting.
