Podcast – Learning Journey – Week 5 – YouTube videos and AI comparison
Last week, we explored how AI can help you create your podcast. This week, we are going to look at Youtube’s advice to start your podcast.
Now, there are a plethora of videos about how to start a podcast. All of them have valuable information, but sometimes the creators pass along ideas that are not fully realized, or are from their specific experiences or point of view. To avoid being pigeon holed, and to ensure a more critical understanding of the topic, I have chosen to discuss 3 different beginner guide videos about starting a podcast from 3 different content creators. All of the creators are recommended, have different experiences, and different number of subscribers and views. Each content creator has a different level of experience with YouTube, one of the creators is from the UK, and one of the accounts is a team of content creators. With this level of variety, let’s dive in to the content.
When we look at Jerry Potter’s (no relation to Harry) video, he focusses on planning out your podcast. This includes determining your why, your audience, brainstorming different episodes and formats, and the importance of episode descriptions. I found the episode planning idea in this video was very helpful. Jerry asks us to test out the sustainability of our podcast topic by brainstorming a list of 10 episode topics for the podcast. If you cannot complete this task, it may be best to review your audience and topic area. It really forces you to think about the sustainability of your podcast and not your podcast in the short term.
Step two and three is where he talks about gear, recording, and editing. He touches on the topic of gear that you might want to use to record your podcast. This includes microphones, cameras, and software you can use. When discussing how to deliver your podcast, Jerry has a very interesting take on your delivery. He believes that you should not script your podcast, but outline it and treat it as if you’re talking live. This allows for spontaneity, and a casual flow to the information being given. While I can understand his viewpoint, I am a person who thrives with a script. So, even though it is good advice, it is advice that will not work for me.
For the editing, he gives some recommendations for software. He even provides recommendations for free (Audacity or Garage band) or paid software platforms. This is really helpful for those who are unsure about starting out on this journey, and don’t want to spend an arm and a leg on software you may not use after a month or two. The paid platforms (Descript or Riverside) he does suggest are easy to use, eliminate most internet connection issues, and allow for easy collaboration with guests or co hosts. He also mentions that creators can use AI for editing the sound in your podcast. However, he does let you know that nothing is going to be perfect, so you need to weight out the pros and cons of your editing choices.
Jerry finally goes into publishing and promoting and how important that is. He talks about how the descriptions for each episode are so important and you need to write these for the audience that you are wishing to attract. These descriptions will set you apart from other podcasts. When promoting your podcast, Jerry believes that you should be promoting episodes 3 weeks in advance of you dropping the episode. I find this to be overkill. I can understand his thought process, but there is a reason why TV only promotes the next episode. Audiences have a short memory. I also don’t like this because it doesn’t allow for human or technology errors. I appreciate his enthusiasm, but it is a little much for a beginner podcaster.
Jerry’s video is very detailed and gives you a lot of useful information, lets explore the advice of a group of content creators have on beginning a podcast.
Think Media identifies seven steps for a successful podcast. Much like Jerry, identifying your topic and audience is the number one step they identify. Think Media then moves onto to finalizing the name and distribution platform that you’ll be using. This was a departure from Jerry’s video. While he does talk about platforms to use for publishing, it was a last step. I prefer Jerry’s advice in this instance. I believe there are a lot of other items that need to be addressed before you start thinking about the distribution platform you are using. Why would you put the time into researching and choosing a platform before you have decided that your podcast has a future?
The next step they talk about set up and microphone. I found that this portion of the video really did outline the importance of video podcast versus audio podcasts, and gave some very good advice on this. I specifically appreciated the comment about simply using your phone as a camera for the first few episodes until you have finalized your decisions about the future of your podcast.
He then moves into episodes and gives a very startling statistic. According to this podcast or 99% of podcast fail, if you fail to post more than three episodes. He goes into the importance of short episodes versus long episodes and how your first few episodes are mainly to learn from and improve upon your podcast. This podcast does talk about how episode should be no longer than 20 minutes unless it is a very specific niche topic. I think this is really smart advice. As a beginner, I know I was starting to get hung up on the length of each episode. In my mind, your episode lengths should be consistent. However, it is smart advice to have shorter episodes in the beginning, so you can learn and adapt.
Their discussion on editing and publishing was very interesting. They talked about keeping your editing simple – only edit out the big mistakes and don’t get focused on the minor errors. They also stress the importance of building a hook for your podcast and creating short clips of the best moments to either tease your audience or promote the episode on Instagram and TikTok. This promotion tactic is good advice. I know I watch these short videos on TikTok all the time.
Finally, this podcast does talk about reviewing the statistics and comments from viewers for feedback. This can be the best place to learn what worked or didn’t work for every episode. I found this was really interesting because not many people discuss the learning process in this journey and how to improve. I found that the specific examples that were used gave a beginner a place to start learning from.
Finally, lets review Jade Beason’s video on this topic. Jade is a UK podcaster, who has experience in marketing. She has used her platform to help content creators build successful platforms.
Her messaging was much the same as the other two for the first step which was identifying or why, and the value to the audience. I found she did depart from the other two because she talks about your branding and different assets that you should be looking at. (a.k.a. vibe, aesthetic, human element). She also goes into discuss the importance of lighting if you’re going to do a video podcast. This is quite common nowadays. Most content creators that I follow all use a ring light. I find the addition of lighting adds a subtle finishing element that is esthetically pleasing. I find it interesting that she was the only one to mention it.
Jade, like Jerry, also chose mapping out episodes for step two. I feel like she kind of amalgamated Jerry’s video and Think Media’s video with the importance of your episodes, the length, the format, scripting, and the importance of posting frequently.
When discussing editing and publishing, Jade also provides recommendations for different software that you can be using to be better at editing. She, like Jerry, discuss paid vs free software platforms that podcasters can use. I appreciated Jade’s candor about her using a free platform, because it shows that these free platforms are useful. Her advice on posting episodes varies from the other two creators. Jade really focuses in on the idea of scheduling the release of each of your podcast episodes, recording three episodes in advance at a time (batching is the term that she uses) so you are able to get and apply feedback, and paying attention to titles and episode descriptions as these are vital introductions to your potential viewers.
After listening to three videos, I found that I gravitated to Jade’s advice because she was a bit more personable and informal in her video. I found the casual tone she took allowed for me to relax and believe that creating and publishing podcasts was a possibility. I feel this also exemplifies the importance of the tone you use when creating your podcast. Jade focused on this idea in her first step, and it really shows that she practices the advice that she gives. She created a video podcast that has a very specific vibe and human element that attracts people to watch her videos. If you look at the view count, her video has the most videos out of the three videos I selected. What is more interesting is that she does not have the most subscribers; Think Media does.
All in all, most of these podcasts had similar messages, but had different advice in certain areas. I feel like if you were going to use YouTube as a jumping off point for creating a podcast, you should be looking at multiple sources with different levels of views. All of the videos were very informative, but each one gave a little bit different advice on how to be successful.
Now, how does this vary from the AI model?
This is a very good question. Both platforms provide good advice and clear steps to follow to create a successful podcast. The AI platform specifically walks you through the different prompts that you need to answer to create a podcast. It also generates a planner that has tangible and clear concept and ideas for you to follow. However, the AI platform fails in giving you advice from experience that the YouTube videos provide. This advice is invaluable. Furthermore, the AI model doesn’t discuss the vibe or human element that you need to consider when creating your podcast. Technology can only discuss so much. Yes, the AI platform can discuss the tone of your podcast, but it can’t give feedback on the human element and, therefore, audience reception that content creators can provide. After this whole process, I am glad that I used both the AI platform and YouTube videos. I feel like I have a better understanding of the foundation of my future podcast and how I want to deliver my content.