Should I Do a Video Pod?
Episode Show Notes
Welcome to PodOn, the podcast where we share stories from other podcasters and talk with them about the challenges we all face when beginning the podcasting journey. If you are a podcaster, we would love to hear your story and your feedback. If you love this podcast, please subscribe and share it with your friends.
To video podcast or not to video podcast? That is the question. On this PodOn episode, Julian and TJ sit down to talk about a common podcasting dilemma: “Should I do video too?”. Traditional podcasting itself takes a lot of resources, time and effort, so it is relevant to remind folks that including video in their podcast journey is not an easy task. Listen now to learn more about the pros and cons of video podcasting, and determine if your message and ideas could find their way through visuals too.
Jump straight into:
(00:28) - Evaluating the podcast and video podcast routes - “You can do both, you just have to do both, you can’t just do one and throw it on the other. You want to have an approach for each channel.”
(04:00) - The pros and cons of producing video content - “It’s going to take more time, more money, more editing and more curation.”
(07:21) - It all comes down to the content - “While you want to create something that is visually and audibly appeasing, it is not as critical as it once was.”
Resources
The Youtube Podcast Repurposing Argument & Why We Stopped Publishing Our Podcast to Youtube by Mark Asquith
Why We Stopped Repurposing The Podcast Accelerator for YouTube
PodOn is hosted by TJ Bonaventura and Julian Lewis, founders of the full-service podcast company based in San Francisco, StudioPod. If you want more details on how to fully record and produce your podcast with our services, you can reach us at http://studiopodsf.com, send us an email at info@studiopodsf.com or contact us through our social media channels as @studiopodmedia.
Episode Transcript (via Rev.com)
TJ Bonaventura:
This is the Pod on podcast. We're your hosts, TJ Bonaventura, that's me, and Julian Lewis.
Julian Lewis:
That's me. As founders of a podcast media company, we had to start a podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
So join us each episode as we and our guests drop knowledge on podcasting for you, the curious and scrappy podcaster.
TJ Bonaventura:
We are back. Studio Pod in the house, as always. I'm TJ, that's Julian. We're the co-founders bringing in some knowledge in your ear holes. Second time I've used that. I kind of love it.
Julian Lewis:
Yes. We're back every time.
TJ Bonaventura:
We are always back doing. We're always back. Every week we're back. It's an accomplishment to come out with a podcast every week. We faded, we should be proud of this, even though we do this for a living,
Julian Lewis:
That's true. You can call it fade. I'm going to call it season one. We had 11 episodes. That's not fading, is it?
TJ Bonaventura:
I don't know. I think it's a fade. It's a fade.
Julian Lewis:
But what we should do is we should look at how many podcasts we produced in that time, because last year we produced a lot of podcasts. We should look back at that and share it with the folks just so they know that we're not like just sitting around, not doing anything. We're actually trying to, trying to build something here.
TJ Bonaventura:
We actually, yes... We do have a legitimate company called studiopodsf.com. All right, let's get into it. Too much digression here early on. Julian's got his coffee. I've got my irbamata guyaki drink. We're feeling good over here.
Julian Lewis:
Yes. And it's important to note that it's two o'clock in the afternoon, but you got to on a Friday. So you got to find your energy wherever it is.
TJ Bonaventura:
Guyaki getting free advertising on the pod. Here we go. All right, today, we're going to be talking about, should we, or should you create a video pod to go along with your regular podcast?
TJ Bonaventura:
This is something that we have been getting asked a ton about, and we are seeing this trend just go up and up throughout the pandemic of 2020. And as we are here in 2021, it's continuing to be something that we see our clients that want to create.
TJ Bonaventura:
So Julian, if you're a new client or if you get a new client, we get a new client here at studio pod who says, "All right, I have an idea for a podcast, but I also want it to be a video pod." What's the first thing you're thinking about?
Julian Lewis:
I hate when people call it video pod. I mean, it's just video. The first thing I'm thinking about is one, are you as good on audio and video? And should you do both because it is a big undertaking.
Julian Lewis:
I want to make it crystal clear that people shouldn't just repurpose what they're doing on one and just throw it on the other like you have to do both. You have to lean into both if you're going to do it.
Julian Lewis:
Mark Asquith from Rebel Base Media, he just wrote a blog post about this. He also had a podcast about this, where he was experimenting and he tried a bunch of different things. And so, we'll definitely link that in the show notes. But from my perspective, you can do both. You just have to do both. You can't just do one and throw it on the other.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yes, Exactly. I mean, while the audio quality may be really, really good for a video that you can then convert over into a podcast, but there are some things that are just really good for podcasting.
TJ Bonaventura:
One, that you can edit it a lot easier and add in ads, for example, on audio. It's a little bit harder to do that with video. Video is more streamlined. It's a little bit more evergreen, if you will. You'll see a lot of folks like what Julian and I are doing today, where they're just chatting and they're posting it. You want to have an approach for each channel.
Julian Lewis:
Yes, definitely. And if you come to us, our thought is that your initial idea is to do a podcast. That doesn't mean you can't make micro content. Cut up your larger podcast in the micro content and show snippets of video. Or, pull out your phone to record yourself and talk about your podcast and what's going to be on that upcoming show.
Julian Lewis:
We learned that today when we were talking with Lisa from Grief Is a Sneaky Bitch. She does that to try to drive engagement about the topic so people will take that digestible content and then spend a little bit more time on it through the podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
We had another client who went through this where, initially, his thought was creating video interview series that they would also convert into a podcast that would live anywhere where you listen to podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
He quickly changed his mind and said, "It is too hard to get prepared for video. You have to think about how you look. You have to be a little bit more perfect because the editing takes a little bit more time. It's a little bit more costly because the editing, again, takes more time."
TJ Bonaventura:
There's more effort involved there compared to doing a podcast where you have a little bit more liberties into removing uhms, aahs and pieces of content you don't want to keep in. You have a lot more flexibility there.
TJ Bonaventura:
Now the one thing I will say, a benefit of doing a video pod, is that you are now creating content across multiple channels. You have more engaging content.
TJ Bonaventura:
People are still very much visually stimulated by video. And so you can create little, like you said, two, three minute snippets that you can throw on to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, what have you from that one, let's say 15, 30 minute, 60 minute video that you created.
TJ Bonaventura:
There's a lot of things that you can branch off from there, but from a cons perspective, it's going to take more time. It's going to take more money. It's going to take more editing, and it's going to take more curation because perfection is something that we see a lot in our clients.
TJ Bonaventura:
If they don't like a video, you're either going to have to do a lot more curation around "How do I make sure that I'm doing a pre-interview? What snippets can I take from it?" There's just a lot more involved.
Julian Lewis:
Plenty of people are great on video and should do that. We did talk about taking your macro podcasting content and making into micro content. But you can take a topic from that podcast and just go deeper into that topic on video and show your passion into it. The one other thing that I will say that I'm getting from a lot of guests that we're having across our different podcast is... One of the first questions that they ask is, "Is this going to be on video?" Or "Is this just going to be audio?"
Julian Lewis:
You're going to have some limitations in who's going to want to be on the podcast just based off of video because people then feel like they have to be ready.
Julian Lewis:
We just did a podcast the other day, an interview for Bride to Have Been podcast, where this woman didn't want her camera on. We're on Squadcast where you have the ability to see each other. It's not being recorded, but it was just more comfortable for her to just be off camera just as she was having a phone conversation. So, it might limit what guests you can have on your podcast so keep that in mind as well.
TJ Bonaventura:
And don't forget, you run into some other issues like bandwidth. So if someone's internet isn't good and you run into choppiness, there's only so much you can do with editing there. So you better make sure that all things are checked off before you go ahead and decide you want to do a video podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
Now I will say, those who can do video podcasts and pull it off, create really awesome content. It allows them to gain an audience across multiple different channels in a single shot, because you only have to do one recording.
TJ Bonaventura:
So that is something to think about. But overall, I think what I'd like to say here is, give it real thought. Give it real thought. We would never tell somebody they shouldn't do it, but we would always let our client or potential client be aware of the things that they're not thinking about.
TJ Bonaventura:
You'd probably want to get a video production company involved. You'd probably want to have an audio production company involved as well. You want to make it look nice.
TJ Bonaventura:
If you want a good example of a client of ours who has leveraged both video and audio, the show is One Hour Intern. If you want to learn more about their videos, you can go to their YouTube channel. That's One Hour Intern, that's the number one. And then hour intern, and then same thing across both Spotify and apple or wherever you listen the podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
If you want to go to their website, that's onehourintern.com. You get a flavor of what they're doing from a video and audio perspective.
Julian Lewis:
One of the last points that I'll wrap up with is, with that particular podcast, they have some killer guests, right? And so people are going to want to see those individuals in which they're interviewing, like Chainsmokers, Florida Georgia Line, Ice Cube. You name it, they've had them on. And so you're going to want to see those individuals.
Julian Lewis:
The last thing that I'll say, and I don't know if the last thing I said was the last thing I'll say, but I always have one more thing to say, is SEO purposes. So the second largest search engine is YouTube. Google's one, YouTube's two. It allows for discoverability. So make sure you also have your captions similar to your show notes, where you're highlighting what's in the episode so keywords can surface when people are searching it on YouTube or Google.
TJ Bonaventura:
And the last thing that I'm going to say here, Julian, since I got to have the last word here...
Julian Lewis:
We'll see.
TJ Bonaventura:
With technology today in hardware and what cameras can allow you to do, it is a lot easier to create high visual content with let's say a webcam for like a hundred bucks on Amazon versus having to get a very expensive Sony Cannon or any other camera out there. That's going to be upwards of a thousand dollars.
TJ Bonaventura:
There is flexibility there. And again, as we talked about in past episodes, while you do want to have the best quality for those who are both listening and watching, I think with what we've seen throughout 2020, as we go into 2021 here, the listeners really care about the content.
TJ Bonaventura:
While you want to create something that is visually and audibly appeasing, it is not as critical as it once was, I would say.
TJ Bonaventura:
All right everyone, if you want to reach out to us, go ahead. Do so as always at Studio Pod SF across all social channels at Studio Pod SF, and then it's studiopodsf.com to reach out to Julian or I on the website there.
TJ Bonaventura:
And as always...
Julian Lewis:
Pod on.
TJ Bonaventura:
Pod on.
TJ Bonaventura:
Every episode of the Pod On podcast is produced and edited by Studio Pod Media. For more information about our work and our clients, go to studio.
Julian Lewis:
Podsf.com. Shout out to Gary Oakland for the fire track.
TJ Bonaventura:
Gary O.
This is the Pod on podcast. We're your hosts, TJ Bonaventura, that's me, and Julian Lewis.
Julian Lewis:
That's me. As founders of a podcast media company, we had to start a podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
So join us each episode as we and our guests drop knowledge on podcasting for you, the curious and scrappy podcaster.
TJ Bonaventura:
We are back. Studio Pod in the house, as always. I'm TJ, that's Julian. We're the co-founders bringing in some knowledge in your ear holes. Second time I've used that. I kind of love it.
Julian Lewis:
Yes. We're back every time.
TJ Bonaventura:
We are always back doing. We're always back. Every week we're back. It's an accomplishment to come out with a podcast every week. We faded, we should be proud of this, even though we do this for a living,
Julian Lewis:
That's true. You can call it fade. I'm going to call it season one. We had 11 episodes. That's not fading, is it?
TJ Bonaventura:
I don't know. I think it's a fade. It's a fade.
Julian Lewis:
But what we should do is we should look at how many podcasts we produced in that time, because last year we produced a lot of podcasts. We should look back at that and share it with the folks just so they know that we're not like just sitting around, not doing anything. We're actually trying to, trying to build something here.
TJ Bonaventura:
We actually, yes... We do have a legitimate company called studiopodsf.com. All right, let's get into it. Too much digression here early on. Julian's got his coffee. I've got my irbamata guyaki drink. We're feeling good over here.
Julian Lewis:
Yes. And it's important to note that it's two o'clock in the afternoon, but you got to on a Friday. So you got to find your energy wherever it is.
TJ Bonaventura:
Guyaki getting free advertising on the pod. Here we go. All right, today, we're going to be talking about, should we, or should you create a video pod to go along with your regular podcast?
TJ Bonaventura:
This is something that we have been getting asked a ton about, and we are seeing this trend just go up and up throughout the pandemic of 2020. And as we are here in 2021, it's continuing to be something that we see our clients that want to create.
TJ Bonaventura:
So Julian, if you're a new client or if you get a new client, we get a new client here at studio pod who says, "All right, I have an idea for a podcast, but I also want it to be a video pod." What's the first thing you're thinking about?
Julian Lewis:
I hate when people call it video pod. I mean, it's just video. The first thing I'm thinking about is one, are you as good on audio and video? And should you do both because it is a big undertaking.
Julian Lewis:
I want to make it crystal clear that people shouldn't just repurpose what they're doing on one and just throw it on the other like you have to do both. You have to lean into both if you're going to do it.
Julian Lewis:
Mark Asquith from Rebel Base Media, he just wrote a blog post about this. He also had a podcast about this, where he was experimenting and he tried a bunch of different things. And so, we'll definitely link that in the show notes. But from my perspective, you can do both. You just have to do both. You can't just do one and throw it on the other.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yes, Exactly. I mean, while the audio quality may be really, really good for a video that you can then convert over into a podcast, but there are some things that are just really good for podcasting.
TJ Bonaventura:
One, that you can edit it a lot easier and add in ads, for example, on audio. It's a little bit harder to do that with video. Video is more streamlined. It's a little bit more evergreen, if you will. You'll see a lot of folks like what Julian and I are doing today, where they're just chatting and they're posting it. You want to have an approach for each channel.
Julian Lewis:
Yes, definitely. And if you come to us, our thought is that your initial idea is to do a podcast. That doesn't mean you can't make micro content. Cut up your larger podcast in the micro content and show snippets of video. Or, pull out your phone to record yourself and talk about your podcast and what's going to be on that upcoming show.
Julian Lewis:
We learned that today when we were talking with Lisa from Grief Is a Sneaky Bitch. She does that to try to drive engagement about the topic so people will take that digestible content and then spend a little bit more time on it through the podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
We had another client who went through this where, initially, his thought was creating video interview series that they would also convert into a podcast that would live anywhere where you listen to podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
He quickly changed his mind and said, "It is too hard to get prepared for video. You have to think about how you look. You have to be a little bit more perfect because the editing takes a little bit more time. It's a little bit more costly because the editing, again, takes more time."
TJ Bonaventura:
There's more effort involved there compared to doing a podcast where you have a little bit more liberties into removing uhms, aahs and pieces of content you don't want to keep in. You have a lot more flexibility there.
TJ Bonaventura:
Now the one thing I will say, a benefit of doing a video pod, is that you are now creating content across multiple channels. You have more engaging content.
TJ Bonaventura:
People are still very much visually stimulated by video. And so you can create little, like you said, two, three minute snippets that you can throw on to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, what have you from that one, let's say 15, 30 minute, 60 minute video that you created.
TJ Bonaventura:
There's a lot of things that you can branch off from there, but from a cons perspective, it's going to take more time. It's going to take more money. It's going to take more editing, and it's going to take more curation because perfection is something that we see a lot in our clients.
TJ Bonaventura:
If they don't like a video, you're either going to have to do a lot more curation around "How do I make sure that I'm doing a pre-interview? What snippets can I take from it?" There's just a lot more involved.
Julian Lewis:
Plenty of people are great on video and should do that. We did talk about taking your macro podcasting content and making into micro content. But you can take a topic from that podcast and just go deeper into that topic on video and show your passion into it. The one other thing that I will say that I'm getting from a lot of guests that we're having across our different podcast is... One of the first questions that they ask is, "Is this going to be on video?" Or "Is this just going to be audio?"
Julian Lewis:
You're going to have some limitations in who's going to want to be on the podcast just based off of video because people then feel like they have to be ready.
Julian Lewis:
We just did a podcast the other day, an interview for Bride to Have Been podcast, where this woman didn't want her camera on. We're on Squadcast where you have the ability to see each other. It's not being recorded, but it was just more comfortable for her to just be off camera just as she was having a phone conversation. So, it might limit what guests you can have on your podcast so keep that in mind as well.
TJ Bonaventura:
And don't forget, you run into some other issues like bandwidth. So if someone's internet isn't good and you run into choppiness, there's only so much you can do with editing there. So you better make sure that all things are checked off before you go ahead and decide you want to do a video podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
Now I will say, those who can do video podcasts and pull it off, create really awesome content. It allows them to gain an audience across multiple different channels in a single shot, because you only have to do one recording.
TJ Bonaventura:
So that is something to think about. But overall, I think what I'd like to say here is, give it real thought. Give it real thought. We would never tell somebody they shouldn't do it, but we would always let our client or potential client be aware of the things that they're not thinking about.
TJ Bonaventura:
You'd probably want to get a video production company involved. You'd probably want to have an audio production company involved as well. You want to make it look nice.
TJ Bonaventura:
If you want a good example of a client of ours who has leveraged both video and audio, the show is One Hour Intern. If you want to learn more about their videos, you can go to their YouTube channel. That's One Hour Intern, that's the number one. And then hour intern, and then same thing across both Spotify and apple or wherever you listen the podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
If you want to go to their website, that's onehourintern.com. You get a flavor of what they're doing from a video and audio perspective.
Julian Lewis:
One of the last points that I'll wrap up with is, with that particular podcast, they have some killer guests, right? And so people are going to want to see those individuals in which they're interviewing, like Chainsmokers, Florida Georgia Line, Ice Cube. You name it, they've had them on. And so you're going to want to see those individuals.
Julian Lewis:
The last thing that I'll say, and I don't know if the last thing I said was the last thing I'll say, but I always have one more thing to say, is SEO purposes. So the second largest search engine is YouTube. Google's one, YouTube's two. It allows for discoverability. So make sure you also have your captions similar to your show notes, where you're highlighting what's in the episode so keywords can surface when people are searching it on YouTube or Google.
TJ Bonaventura:
And the last thing that I'm going to say here, Julian, since I got to have the last word here...
Julian Lewis:
We'll see.
TJ Bonaventura:
With technology today in hardware and what cameras can allow you to do, it is a lot easier to create high visual content with let's say a webcam for like a hundred bucks on Amazon versus having to get a very expensive Sony Cannon or any other camera out there. That's going to be upwards of a thousand dollars.
TJ Bonaventura:
There is flexibility there. And again, as we talked about in past episodes, while you do want to have the best quality for those who are both listening and watching, I think with what we've seen throughout 2020, as we go into 2021 here, the listeners really care about the content.
TJ Bonaventura:
While you want to create something that is visually and audibly appeasing, it is not as critical as it once was, I would say.
TJ Bonaventura:
All right everyone, if you want to reach out to us, go ahead. Do so as always at Studio Pod SF across all social channels at Studio Pod SF, and then it's studiopodsf.com to reach out to Julian or I on the website there.
TJ Bonaventura:
And as always...
Julian Lewis:
Pod on.
TJ Bonaventura:
Pod on.
TJ Bonaventura:
Every episode of the Pod On podcast is produced and edited by Studio Pod Media. For more information about our work and our clients, go to studio.
Julian Lewis:
Podsf.com. Shout out to Gary Oakland for the fire track.
TJ Bonaventura:
Gary O.