Podcasting is Asking the Wrong Question About Video
A video strategy that doesn't compromise the magic of audio
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I recently attended Podcast Movement Evolutions in Chicago to do a couple of talks about attention strategy and differentiation strategy and there was one big issue that dominated the conference:
VIDEO.
In particular, YouTube.
There was a Video Village area at the conference, with a YouTube-sponsored stage. There were talks by team members at YouTube. There was fresh research from Coleman Insights and Amplifi Media showing a massive increase in the consumption of video podcasts, and almost all of it on YouTube.
And in every coffee meeting, every drink in the bar, and every business lounge meetup, there was talk of video, video, video. While many were excited and there were great examples of people thriving in video, the majority of people I talked to seemed, well… anxious. In some cases, it was full-on existential angst.
What does this mean for audio? What does this mean for the definition of the word “podcasting”? What does this mean for monetization?
I’ve already written a couple of posts about this, but I need to write one more. And even if you’re not a podcaster and you’re not contemplating a video strategy, the strategy below is applicable to any form of content.
WARNING: this might be unpopular with many podcasters!
When it comes to video and YouTube, I think too much of the podcasting industry is asking the wrong question. The wrong question is, “How do I turn my audio podcast into video that works on YouTube?”
It’s the wrong question because it starts with the assumption that the audio product is the focal point. Instead, the focal point has to be serving your audience in the best way possible, wherever you happen to connect with them.
And that requires a different strategy…
Defining By Platform
When you start your video strategy through the starting point of an audio podcast, you’re defining yourself by your primary platform. You’re a podcaster and your default medium is audio.
When you define yourself by a single platform, everything else ends up in service to that one platform. Your social media isn’t about finding social media success. It’s an attempt to get people to leave social media to listen to your podcast, because that’s where you want them to go.
Radio stations are often a great example of platform-first businesses. What kind of companies are they? RADIO. A platform. They’re not a music service. Or a news service. They’re defined by their mode of distribution. RADIO.
For a long time, podcasting has been defined as a mode of distribution. It’s been an audio file delivered over an RSS feed. Many, many podcasters currently define themselves by platform. PODCASTING.
So why is defining yourself by a single platform problematic?
Designing for Context
Audio occupies a sacred space in the media landscape. As James Cridland put it during a presentation this past week, audio is for your ears when your eyes are busy.
Audio is the only option for contexts where you can’t use a screen.
Driving a car.
Walking a dog.
Working out.
Cleaning your house.
Cooking.
Great audio producers know this and play to the strengths of audio, using visual language and sound design to create deep engagement and to make listeners see pictures in their minds.
Screens are not, and will not be, a threat to audio in any of these contexts. There are a lot of places where you just can’t use a screen. This is why audio is so resilient.
On the other hand, there are many contexts in which spoken word audio is not a great experience.
Sitting in front of a giant television in your living room.
Checking your phone when you have five minutes between meetings.
While you’re reading a book, an article, the news or anything else that requires your full foreground attention.
Taking audio-first content designed for contexts where people can’t look at a screen and putting it on a screen… isn’t a great screen experience. And yet that is what happens when you define yourself by platform and try to use your audio product in a place it isn’t designed for.
Successful TV producers design shows for giant TVs in living rooms.
Successful social media producers design content for short-form scrolling on phones.
To be successful on a platform requires understanding the way audiences use that platform. It also requires understanding the unique strengths of each platform.
Ignoring Context
When we define ourselves exclusively by one platform, we often misuse other platforms because we are ignoring how and where audiences use them.
Let’s go back to radio. RADIO is the identity, so most radio stations focus almost exclusively on getting people to tune into the their radio station as often as possible. Every other platform that radio uses is a promotional channel to get you to leave where you are and listen to the radio.
A lot of podcasting falls in the same camp as radio. We talk a lot about how frustrating it is that our social media promotions don’t convert very well into podcast listeners. That’s almost certainly because our social media posts are trying to get people to leave social media, a short-form screen-based medium, to listen to a podcast, which is a long-form, non-screen-based medium.
Using social media as a promotional channel for an entirely different platform and context is never going to convert well.
Defining by Content
A more useful content strategy is to abandon your platform-first thinking, focus on your unique area of content expertise, and elevate your identity to a network.
ESPN is a terrific example of defining yourself by your area of content focus. What is ESPN? It’s a multi-platform content network that specializes in sports.
Is ESPN TV? Yes.
Is ESPN radio? Yes.
Is ESPN podcasts? Yes.
Is ESPN on social media? Yes.
The list goes on and on. ESPN is everywhere. And wherever you happen to interact with ESPN, you know you’re getting sports. It’s not defined by any particular platform.
ESPN is focused on creating amazing sports experiences on every platform, designed for the contexts of each platform.
Think Like A Network
I strongly believe that podcasters struggling with video need to think more like a network defined by content. We need to design experiences that play to the strengths and contexts of each individual platform we choose to participate in.
This requires thinking differently about our identity, and that is a hard ask.
We have to stop thinking of ourselves as audio companies and start thinking of ourselves as content companies, media companies, or multi-platform networks. I know a lot of people will not want to hear this and will reject this outright. We can still call ourselves podcasters, but we have to think of ourselves more like networks. Maybe the term podcasting can evolve along with us? (I can feel angry comments being generated as I write this, but hear me out…)
However, I also strongly believe that this is the best way to protect the integrity of the audio experience.
It would appear that many audio podcasters are thinking tactically instead of strategically. The new Coleman / Amplifi research shows that the primary concerns audio podcasters have about video are technical, but I believe that the actual problem is strategic.
Network thinking starts with a different overall content strategy. You have to leave ground level, where you see yourself as an audio podcaster, and fly up to the 10,000 foot level. You and your team probably need to book some serious in-person time in a room with lots of whiteboard space and clear your calendars.
The questions that need to be answered include:
What is our area of content expertise? What subject areas define our programming?
What are our business goals and desired outcomes?
Who is the audience we are trying to reach and what do we know about them?
What other platforms are used regularly by our audience?
What are the contexts in which audiences uses those platforms?
What locations?
What devices?
What times of day?
How long?
How often?
What are the unique strengths of those platforms?
Is it engagement, like audio?
Is it reach, like video?
Is it interactive, like social media?
Is it depth and owned audiences, like newsletters?
Is it algorithmic exposure to new audiences like social video feeds?
Who is our competition? How are they serving our audience’s needs?
Which platforms are used effectively or ineffectively by our competition? Where are the opportunities to provide unique value to audiences and on which platforms?
What resources do we have on our team and what budget do we have?
On which platforms can we sustainably create phenomenal, valuable, differentiated content experiences for our audience?
Which platforms will be most important and effective in helping us achieve our business goals and desired outcomes?
This is a LOT, right? And yet, are there any of these questions that are not vital to answer if you want to be effective in producing and distributing content on more than one platform?
Now Comes The Fun Part
If you look at the list of strategy questions above, you will notice that there is nothing about program development. We have to answer the big strategic questions before we design our shows.
Once we know our desired outcomes, our audiences, our competition, our resources, etc, and once we know which platforms are most important to us, then we use that information as the basis for program development.
Now we get to design audio shows that are phenomenal audio experiences.
We also get to design videos, social media, newsletters, or anything else that is important to us. Our focus is on creating amazing experiences for our audience in each context.
Our goal is no longer to get people on Instagram to leave the feed and instead open up a podcast app. Our goal is now to create a terrific Instagram experience that can only come from us and that is aligned with our network content focus.
Our goal isn’t to put our audio on YouTube (i.e. webcam recordings of remote interviews or conversations), but instead to create the best possible YouTube experience for audiences interested in the subject matter we specialize in.
I almost guarantee that once you consider the unique strengths and contexts of each platform, you will come up with amazing show ideas that are different and better than porting your existing audio show over to video. You’ll be thinking like a video producer and designing shows to delight video consumers, instead of thinking like an audio producer who is trying to shoehorn your podcast on YouTube and praying for audience growth.
Bonus Challenge
If efficiency is a requirement for your content strategy, here’s a really interesting creative puzzle to try and solve. Can you develop a property that is optimized for both audio and video, with a single production process designed from the ground up to deliver premium experiences on both headphones and screens? This is very different from trying to turn an audio show into a video product—this is about designing something from the ground up that works beautifully on both platforms.
Obviously, this is not easy.
Why Does Video Suddenly Matter?
Both podcasting and YouTube have been around for a LONG time.
Video podcasts have been around for a LONG time. Our team at CBC Radio 3 made R3TV well over 15 years ago, designed for a video iPod and distributed on a video RSS feed.
YouTubers have been successful and popular for a LONG time.
So why is podcasting suddenly having an existential crisis about video and YouTube?
The short answer, in my opinion, is because people are figuring out how to do both well.
And the people who are doing it well are driving increasing consumption of video podcasts on YouTube.
The ones who are doing both well are not defining themselves by a single platform. They are designing great experiences everywhere they show up. We are simply seeing more and more people thinking like networks and executing smart multi-platform strategies.
Mel Robbins talks about the same subjects on TikTok and her podcast. She’s not a podcaster. Or a TikTokker. She’s Mel Robbins, a differentiated self-help thought leader, and I can choose to connect with her in a variety of different ways.
Video Isn’t Scary. It’s An Opportunity.
If you’re an audio podcaster anxious about video and YouTube, I hope this has been helpful. (and maybe even a bit comforting?) I also hope I’m not going to be cast out of the wonderful podcasting community as a heretic and charlatan 😜
Video isn’t here to take over podcasting. It’s simply another context to design for if we want deeper relationships with our audience.
After all, why is no one freaking out about newsletters? Or LinkedIn? Or Instagram? Lots of podcasters transcribe the audio from their podcasts and use that material to craft a companion newsletter. The newsletter is not replacing the podcast. The newsletter is not a copy of the podcast that is stealing audience, attention, and revenue from the podcast.
Video can and should be treated the same way.
Video is not a threat to audio.
It is an opportunity to spend more time with the same audience members in different contexts (where audio is not a great experience) and to reach new audiences who love the subject matter of your content but might not be audio consumers.
As Coleman Insights and Amplifi Media’s research points out, there are people who only consume video and there are a lot of people who consumer both audio and video. If you want to serve more people who will probably love your work and serve them better and more often, video is an opportunity worth exploring more deepl
By thinking differently, we can make great video without compromising our ability to make great audio... but we shouldn’t make crappy video.
If these ideas resonate and you need support figuring out how to create a network strategy for your podcast(s), Steve Goldstein (Amplifi Media) and I would love to talk with you.
We are both seeing a lot of video-related angst in the industry, and we believe we can help. We’ve partnered up to offer in-person strategy workshops that result in a customized multi-platform network strategy. (We do strategy sessions because we don’t believe there is a one-size-fits-all webinar or education series that will truly help you find success with this.)
As you can tell from this edition, there is a lot of thinking and work to be done if you want to do it well. If you’re interested, just reply to this email, and we can set up a time to talk.
(You can also sign up to “The State of Video Podcasting 2025” webinar on April 17 to check out the new research from Amplifi and Coleman.)
What’s Earned My Attention Lately
“Before people will change, they have to be willing to listen. They have to trust the person they’re communicating with. And until that happens, no amount of persuasion is going to work.” Jonah Berger, The Catalyst
I only saw this recently, but in February, Robin Hood used the format of a post-game press conference to report on their earnings. I love seeing people combining formats with unusual subject matter like this!
Thank you, Jillian Richardson, for celebrating weirdness on LinkedIn - YES!!!
I love super-serving underserved niches instead of making things for everyone. This is part of the reason why.
My new favourite drink… the Canadiano!
Earn It Updates
Thanks to Bjorn Barfoed Vestergaard for having me into the Sound Haus in Copenhagen to record this episode of “Master Podcast Marketing” - it’s so rare to get to do a podcast recording in-person these days and I really enjoyed talking with Bjorn.
Thanks for reading—I’m looking forward to your feedback on the video strategy. I know there are different points-of-view about how podcasting should address video and, even if you don’t agree with mine, I hope you appreciate the good intentions in sharing it.
As always, thanks for giving me some of your very precious time and attention!
Steve
I was at Podcast Movement Evolutions last week too! I really love this take. It's refreshing. Last week I published a newsletter asking the question "Do You Need Video to Grow Your Brand?" Because really most creatives thinking about adding video to their content design are trying to attract more people to their work. I think that there's more than one way to add video to a brand without badly repurposing great audio to a bad video experience.
Excellent take, and enormously helpful. We see it this way, too, though we are primarily animators and filmmakers looking to create our own podcast or video podcast presence. This helps me focus. Thank you.