Apple Video Podcasts Are Here. Should You Care? | Alban Brooke, Buzzsprout

Apple Video Podcasts are here, Amazon is following suit, and every podcaster is asking the same question: “Am I missing out if I’m not on video?” But the answer is a lot more nuanced than the internet makes it out to be.

Alban Brooke, Head of Marketing at Buzzsprout, breaks down the massive difference between how Apple, Spotify, and YouTube handle video distribution, the upsides (and downsides) of relying too heavily on algorithm-driven discovery, and what audio-first hosts need to understand before jumping into video podcasting just because everyone else is doing it.

If you’ve been wondering whether video podcasting is the future (or distracting you from building a show listeners would follow with or without video), hit play and let’s dive in.

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2:06 – Why Podcasters Are Suddenly Rethinking Video Podcasting

5:58 – The Massive Difference Between YouTube Discovery and Apple Video Podcast Delivery

9:47 – The Video Podcasting Problem Nobody Warns You About

11:46 – The Short-Term Opportunity Most Podcasters Are Missing on Apple

16:13 – The Hard Truth About Video Podcasting and Audience Growth

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Episode Links:

Meet Alban Brooke: Buzzsprout.com

Listen to Buzzcast 

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Other Episodes You’ll Love: 

How to Know If Video Podcasting Is Worth It for Your Show

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

It is no secret that the podcasting industry is changing quickly. In fact, you've probably seen Apple's recent announcement that they've added video to their platform. And then literally, as I was sitting here recording this episode with my friend Alvin Brooke, the head of marketing at Budscrout, TechCrunch releases an announcement that Spotify will be mirroring Apple and streaming video in HLS format. It's great to see the industry's evolution, but it's also left audio-first podcasters with the question of will I be left behind if I'm not doing video? We've got the answers to that question and much more coming up right here next. Welcome to Insider's Secrets to its 100 podcast. I'm your host, Courtney Elman. Let's make your podcast binge-worthy. Well, I am sitting here in the studio with the head of marketing at Bud Sprout, Albin Brook. Albin, you are one of my favorite guests. And I don't know if you know this, but you've actually had one of the highest performing episodes here on this show, which I guess now might be a little bit controversial, which we can get into, but I'm really excited to have you back. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Awesome. I'm glad to hear it and I'm glad to be back on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Also, I just want to make a note here for everyone listening that we are recording video for this. I'm really proud of myself, Albin, because this is one of those things it's funny because I'll get a guest on the show and they'll be like, are we doing the video? And I'm like, well, we'll we'll record the video, but it's just gonna sit in my Google Drive folder. Like I'm not gonna actually post it anywhere. But you're gonna be our first inaugural video guest. So I'm excited about that too.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

That's great. I when you think it's gonna be video, you make sure you go put a buzz prop shirt on and you try to make sure that uh you're ready and you're all dressed up. So I'm ready for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

And you know, it's funny you say that because I'm kind of doing the opposite, where I'm like, I intentionally didn't put makeup on today. Like I didn't try to make this a bigger production than it needs to be, because for me personally, that's been one of the things that's kept me from publishing any kind of video related to the podcast through the years. And it's yes time, yes, bandwidth, but also feeling like I have to have it like to look like I have it all together when the reality is I don't always have it together. I podcast because I like to be in my office in my pajamas where nobody can see me. So I'm excited to get into this with you. And I think, you know, this is a great place to start because we recorded this episode a year ago to date, where you reported that at the time, 42 of the top 50 podcasts were not uploading video to Spotify. This was when Spotify was adding video and it was a big making a big splash in the industry. And since then, Apple has added a video update to its platform. Buzz Sprout has just launched video distribution for Apple Podcasts. We're seeing a lot of hosting providers doing the same. More podcasters are doing videos. I just want you to be super straight with us like, is it time for podcasters to jump on the video podcasting bandwagon?

SPEAKER_01 2:43

I think video has some positives and some negatives. And so there are opportunities here, but it doesn't mean that everybody needs to jump on the video bandwagon. You know, a year ago we were hearing you've got to be doing video if you want to grow. And then we go through that list of the top 50, and we're like, most of these podcasters aren't even uploading video to Spotify. So it's pretty clear it's not you have to be doing video to grow. And then now Apple has launched a unique feature set where you now are streaming video content in Apple Podcasts. You can listen, you can watch, you can read the content. And it's I think really exciting a way to engage with podcasting content, but it doesn't mean that you have to do it as a podcaster. You know, we've got 20 years of Edison research data showing that audio podcasting continues to grow every year. And we've seen faster growth once people started watching podcast content on YouTube. And that's really been layered on top. But I'm not seeing, you know, this is replacing audio or audio is going away. There's still going to be all these moments in our lives that are only available for audio content. You know, you're in the car, you're doing chores around the house, you're out working out, all those you really don't have the opportunity to like go for a run and hold up a phone and watch a video. And so audio, I think, is going to always have a place. And audio first content will also have a special place in a lot of people's lives.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

I know there's a lot of people that are relieved to hear you say that right now. I was having a conversation with a guy who runs our gym the other day. And he was like, Oh, you have a podcast? I love podcasts. I love watching podcasts. I said, Oh, watching podcasts. And he's like, Yeah, yeah, like on YouTube. I'm like, oh, that's where you, that's where you get your podcast. Yes. I said, tell me more about that. I said, because I'm an audio girl. Like if I'm doing a workout, I'm listening to a podcast. I'm not watching a podcast. He said, Oh, there's something about just being able to see the person's face and see their expressions. I guess I'm really visual and I enjoy that. And what was interesting to me was noticing my own reactions or, you know, how my brain was processing things. I was watching the video episode that y'all did on BuzzCast recently, and I would toggle back and forth in Apple between audio and between video. And it was interesting how my brain was listening differently. Like when I was listening to audio, I was taking in the information in a different way than I was watching y'all. And it was just fascinating to me to just be a silent observer of my own human behavior. And this is interesting too, because I think that you're right, video opens up a lot of opportunities for people to be able to watch and engage with content. But I still believe audio has a place as well. And, you know, maybe I'm an old die hard and it's an old dog new tricks thing, but like I've I've grown up with audio. And so there's a certain affinity that I have for audio. Something else, too, that I want to really dig into with you because I think there's a lot of confusion around the differences in video on the different platforms. So if we take the big three YouTube, Spotify, Apple, can you help us understand the key differences in video distribution across these platforms? Because it's really not created equally, is it?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yeah, they're really different. Um, you know, years ago when YouTube launched, they were a delivery platform. And delivery meaning you went and you found a video, and then maybe you subscribe to that creator. And every time they uploaded a video, you saw it on your main YouTube page, or you'd get notifications saying, Hey, there's a new video from Courtney, you should go check it out. And people would watch it. And so that subscriber number meant a lot because if you had a hundred subscribers, about a hundred people were going to watch that video. There were tons of big YouTube stars that kind of grew out of that era because the bigger you got, the more reach you had. And everybody saw almost all of your content. But over the years, YouTube migrated to what I call algorithmically based discovery platform. And what that means is they don't really care how many subscribers you have, they don't really care how many likes you got in the past or what your watch time used to be. They really care about what is this one video doing. And that's not the only thing they care about, but they care about that a lot. And so if you are brand new and you put up a video, the really awesome thing is they will find you the best video you made and they'll send it to everybody. And all of a sudden you start blowing up because you made one great video. The flip side of that is you could have 120,000 people who subscribe to your channel from years and years of work. And yet you could put out a little bit of a dud or one that just doesn't catch the moment right. And only 500 people watch it, and you're stuck there thinking, man, I did all this work to build up a subscriber base, but nobody is engaging with it. And you end up, you know, you don't get that delivery to your audience because you're always competing with everybody else that YouTube is helping get discovered. And so we have that on the YouTube side, the real discovery. And then you over on the other side, now we have this new thing from Apple, which is a delivery platform. Podcasting's always been built around delivery. You follow a show or you subscribe to a show, and it shows up in the feed, and thus it shows up on your phone. And Apple is bringing that over with video. And if you look around the web, Spotify is about halfway in the middle. They show you almost everything you follow, but not everything. They show you things that you don't necessarily say you wanted before. This could be music, this could be podcasts. And Apple's going all the way on we're just gonna send you exactly what you tell us you want. And I think it's valuable for us to have all of these different types of platforms because they're serving really different things. If you needed to get discovered, it's really hard to get discovered with a podcast. We all know word of mouth is how you get discovered because it's so difficult to get in front of new listeners. But YouTube is really good for that because they will send anything that's good to anybody on the globe. Well, now you can build an audience somewhere like social media, on YouTube, on TikTok with shorts. And then if you're doing video content, you now have a video delivery platform on Apple Podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Man, it's interesting to put it as a spectrum like that. And because they are all different and they each serve a unique purpose, but there are areas of overlap. And so when you're just a podcaster who's like, okay, I've always done audio. I don't know if I should add video. Maybe I want to dip a toe in video. Is there a best platform to start with that you'd recommend?

SPEAKER_01 9:16

If you're going to do video, then I would be doing it because I want to get into YouTube. You know, I want that discoverability. But as soon as you're doing video for one platform, you want to do it for all of them because all three have unique uh benefits. I mean, and you can include social media in this as well as like a fourth bucket. That's all discovery. YouTube is almost all discovery. Spotify's somewhere in the middle. Apple is much more focused on delivery. And you want to have all of those working for you. And so if you're going to create video, you want to make sure you're getting that video into all the platforms so that you have the opportunity for growth everywhere, but you really have that I don't know, a bit of an off-ramp or a bit of an insurance policy with Apple. So I talked to a YouTube creator the other day. And he talked to his YouTube rep and they said, you know, we see that you do these courses and we think those are really cool. Why don't you put those on YouTube? He's like, Oh, I don't have access to the course thing yet. Like, okay, here's access. Go ahead and upload everything. So he went on there and he uploaded like 70 videos. And all of a sudden his channel as a whole starts to tank. And he goes, What the, you know, what the heck's going on? This is my livelihood, full-time job. Well, once he looks at it, the algorithm sees 70 and to them low quality videos because they're all just educational, they're not super hooky and they're not story driven, they're just teaching you how to edit and how to do things. And so they the algorithm sees this channel got worse for some reason because nobody watched all 70 videos. Well, it's just a mismatch between the algorithm now doesn't like him as much, even though he followed their rules, you just end up in a tough spot. It'd been really nice for that creator to have already built an audience on Apple so that everybody who said, I love everything you do, they were still getting his content before he had to rebuild the algorithm around his channel.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

That's so interesting. And I think this is one of the things where a lot of podcasters I talk to have these fears around algorithmic discovery because it feels harder to compete. Many of us come from the world of social media where we have been posting reels or content or things for years and may or may not have seen many results from that. I know for me, I got off of a lot of social media within the last 18 months or so because when I'd step back and I really look at what was driving leads into my business, what was driving traffic, what was building my community, social media was like the lowest rung on the ladder. Like it wasn't driving anything at all. And that's not true for everybody, but that was true for me. And so it's easy then to blame the algorithm and to say, oh, well, you know, but then it's like, okay, it gets us into the whole conversation of what was your content really good? And point being, there's a lot of competition in algorithm discovery. On the flip side, where you have Apple, I was reading an article the other day that Justin Jackson of Transistor FM wrote with about Stephen Rowles. And he was talking about Steven recently adding video on Apple's platform. He was one of the first to start utilizing it. And Steven reported that it doubled his place, like he saw 136% increase from what he was seeing from just audio alone. Now, Steven has a YouTube channel, very successful, but he just started utilizing video on Apple. So when we look at Apple, are results like these too good to be true? Are podcasters kind of risk at risk of falling victim to shiny object syndrome, where it's like, okay, this guy's getting great results. Let me hurry up and add video. Or is there a real opportunity right now for podcasters on Apple? Because Apple is doing a better job of promoting people because of course they want people watching video on their platform.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

It's a bit of both because in our beta and our first few hundred podcasters who got video on Apple Podcasts, about half of the beta got featured at some point. And if you got featured, your stats went up significantly. And so I would not not surprise at all to see that Steven saw his jump by 130%. That sounds totally reasonable to me. Now that is a short-term opportunity to get into Apple now. If you're already doing video content, maybe get discovered by more people if you are fortunate enough to get featured. That opportunity is definitely decreasing by the day as we are adding lots of new video podcasters every day. So just the amount in there is going up quite a bit. I think honestly, the big benefit is right now, if you got into Apple Podcasts and you were featured, you could tell everyone we were featured by Apple Podcasts. Because it's really cool right now to go flip through and check out a few video shows in Apple Podcasts just to show somebody or just to look and be like, what's this experience gonna be like? But that's not the same as somebody who hears about the show, thinks this is a great show for me, and then is subscribing so that they can follow you for years and years to come. So if you're doing video content, definitely there's an opportunity, but I don't want to overhype it and say, I expect most people are gonna get 130% bump. I'd expect a lot of people won't get much of a bump. Instead, you're going to be providing a new way for your video uh followers to consume your content rather than it all being on social media or YouTube. Now they can do that on Apple Podcasts. And it's just a really clean experience. I mean, you're flipping between the transcript, which I like to read transcripts a lot. You can flip over to the audio and then you can flip over to the video if you're sitting there and watching.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Yeah, it's fascinating because I'm one of those people who never updates my phone. And so I held out on the last update for a really long time. And I finally, with the Apple video thing, I'm like, all right, I gotta update my phone because I want to see how this experience works. And toggling back and forth was very smooth. It was very easy. But something I love about you, Alban, and that I always appreciate is you just tell it to us straight. It's like you're super grounded in that. Yeah, you might see an increase. The increase Steven had is not unreasonable, but at the same time, make sure your head's squarely on your shoulders. This is not gonna be the next big thing that's gonna like grow your podcast. But when you go into it with a strategy and an intention behind that, well, then yes, it's a worthwhile experiment to test. And on that note, I'm curious how is BuzzCast? How are y'all approaching video?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

We've done a single episode in video. So we recorded, we used Adobe Podcast to record the video, we edited it, and then we put it up so that we had one in Apple Podcasts. Long term, I'm not sure if we're going to do video all the time. It is significantly more work. Uh, the editing is quite a bit harder, the filming is quite a bit harder. Everybody who's on the podcast, you are doing a bit of work, setting up lights and try to make the background look nice. And then I'm thinking, okay, if I want to work out, I need to make sure I worked out a few hours early. So I'm not starting to sweat while I'm recording. Like you're just thinking through, you know, the whole day. Everything's just a little bit more work. And it's definitely worth it if you want to do video content, and it's worth it if you're putting it up on YouTube and Spotify and everywhere else. But it's not a must-do for everybody. For a while, we've had a pretty strong reaction to people kind of promising like this is the way to grow. The real way to grow is to have a great podcast, to create great content for a specific audience. And if there aren't people who love your podcast when it's audio, it's not like turning on the camera is going to make the big difference. If they're not willing to listen to it when they already know about it, they're not going to watch it just because uh we recorded, you know, the equivalent of a Zoom call. So I don't want to overpromise, but then for you know, the real opportunity might even be really coming at it from this side of YouTubers, you know, people who are already creating video content, who love creating video content, now seeing, you know, there really are multiple options for ways to distribute my video that don't just lock me into the YouTube platform. Now they have the options of going directly to their audience through Apple and going through Spotify as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

I'm curious, Albin, do you think that we will ever get to a place in the podcasting industry where we no longer need to distinguish between video podcasting and podcasting because they're one and the same?

SPEAKER_01 17:45

I think we are kind of hit that now. You know, the more you talk to people, the more they say, I love podcasts, and you're like the person at your gym, I love podcasts. And then they follow it up with, I watch them all on YouTube. And I think we we understand the benefits of RSS and open distribution and the direct relationship with our audience. It's hard to, you know, have that argument every time someone at the gym tells you they watch video podcasts. And it's not really helpful to growing the ecosystem to have that debate every time. So I think that what's healthy would be for us to talk about these are podcasts and then at, you know, argue for and advocate for open podcasting and making video available to everybody so that people aren't just watching on YouTube, but are able to consume that content everywhere. And what's I think is really exciting is we're also working on Spotify, we're working on YouTube. And a few days ago, we heard the announcement that Amazon is planning to do some work so that they will also have video podcasts in Amazon. And it's really exciting to see the industry kind of coalesce around this new standard of HLS video because it's a way for uh creators to go direct to their audience without having the middleman like YouTube or Spotify or somebody else uh deciding what gets distributed and what doesn't. With HLS, everything gets delivered to your audience.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

I love that. I love hearing that y'all's a question I was gonna ask you. It stole the question right out of my mouth about YouTube, Spotify. Are you working on that? Is that coming? I saw the article about Amazon too. It's interesting how the industry is evolving and what feels like so quickly. So thank you for being here again to shed light on all of this. And I'm really excited to dig into the bonus with you.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Well, thank you so much. I appreciate being here.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

It is no secret. I have avoided doing video for so many years. And if you are watching this and you're seeing me fumble my way through with this imperfect setup, my camera angle is probably not even straight. I don't know that I have the best lighting today. My face is flushed because it's hot in here. It's a hot mess. But at the same time, I know that the first step to trying anything new is to just commit. And if you've thought about adding video to your podcast, but you're like me and you're not totally sure if it's gonna be worth it, don't miss the next episode because Alban is going to be back to share the do's and don'ts of getting started with video and as well as a reassuring prediction about the future of audio only content. That's all coming up next to help you make your podcast binge worthy.