YouTube’s Emma Sweet Breaks Down Podcasting on Platform

[00:00:00] Jeff: This week on Podcast Perspectives

[00:00:02] Is there any kind of podcast that you think should stay audio only?

[00:00:05] Emma: I think that if you have the resources to do video, you should try it out. But I do think that there are certain types of podcasts that are easier to get into video than others.

[00:00:17] Jeff: YouTube has gone from a place where podcasters uploaded audiogram versions of their shows to one of the most important platforms for discovery in the entire podcast ecosystem.

[00:00:25] But succeeding there isn't necessarily as simple as turning on a camera and uploading your latest episode. Today, we're speaking with Emma Sweet, YouTube's Global Activation Manager, about when should a show invest in video? What actually makes a podcast work on YouTube? And where does YouTube see podcasts fitting into the broader creator economy?

[00:00:43] So how does YouTube actually define a podcast?

[00:00:46] Emma: So we do say that if a creator thinks their content is a podcast, it is a podcast to us. We, like RSS, anybody can designate MP3 files into an RSS feed and, and call it a podcast. That said, we look out for two different factors: eyes optional and spoken word.

[00:01:06] So can it be consumed as audio-only and still maintain the integrity of the content? And then is it spoken word? So is it not music content or white noise, brown noise, which does exist on other RSS-based platforms, but we just look out for those two things to ensure that it's truly podcast content to our viewers.

[00:01:28] Jeff: Interesting. And I know the AMP accords were a thing recently, and YouTube, uh, I think, contributed to that. Was this the thinking prior to that conversation with, like, the AMP folks, or is this kind of a, a newer idea of, like, what a podcast is for YouTube?

[00:01:45] Emma: That has actually been our thinking from jump.

[00:01:48] Obviously, there's been so much chatter truly in the industry around what is a podcast. I think every different industry conference we go to, there's at least five sessions that ask that question. But for us, we knew that podcast content was different on YouTube than just general video content in that for the first time, we had to think about those more audio-focused journeys.

[00:02:09] Whereas most content on YouTube, it, up until that point, was really meant to be consumed with the eyes. And so that's kind of where we led to our thinking of, again, we don't wanna say what is and isn't for what creators choose, but knowing that we had to build our product in a way that would serve the needs of podcasting, that's really where that kind of eyes optional and again, that spoken word thought for us came from, was just recognizing again that this industry operates a bit differently than, than what was typically on YouTube before then.

[00:02:41] Jeff: Are there trends that you're seeing for how people are consuming YouTube videos, like, writ large versus podcasts on the platform?

[00:02:48] Emma: I think something that's a little different than podcasts writ large is just the prevalence of living room, and we see that that is our fastest growing surface for YouTube generally, and then within podcasting too, it's a large chunk of our watch time.

[00:03:05] And I think that matters because some of our user research that we've done is almost, I don't wanna say the antithesis of the podcasting industry, but you would think about podcasting, at least for me, it's a solo medium, and it's when I'm multitasking, which is why I personally just love audio so much, is that I'm listening to podcasts while I'm commuting, cooking, et cetera.

[00:03:27] But our research showed that when viewers watch on Living Room, they often co-watch with other people, either in the room or virtually, and they're watching to be entertained rather than to be informed or distracted. And so it's much more of a TV-like experience than podcasting typically was or is maybe still.

[00:03:51] And so I think that that behavior on YouTube is a bit different and unique to our platform, and something that podcasters can benefit from is just not only being this multitasking medium, but also getting to be a format that viewers are really leaned into and engaged with. And we know that viewers are very engaged with podcasting generally.

[00:04:11] The parasocial nature of the medium is what's so special about it. So think about that except being on the big screen and, and having that almost be your, your nightly form of entertainment.

[00:04:21] Jeff: That's fascinating. I did not know that, but it makes total sense.

[00:04:25] Emma: Yeah. We had ... I can share one stat. We, last October, or, uh, actually I shouldn't say last October.

[00:04:31] The year-to-year date, I think it's August to August, was we saw over 700 million watch time hours for podcast content on Living Room per month. So it's, it's quite large.

[00:04:43] Jeff: And then you, you just kinda touched on this in terms of, like, how people are listening and, like, you know, who they're listening with on YouTube versus RSS.

[00:04:50] But are there any other, like, differentiators in the audience that you're noticing between YouTube and RSS?

[00:04:56] Emma: YouTube tends to skew younger. There's a lot of Gen Z audiences in particular that are on YouTube generally, but also prefer to watch podcasts, I think, as you get more into the s- I don't wanna say older demographics, being a millennial myself, but that's where you see a little bit more preference for audio coming in.

[00:05:16] Not to say that Gen Z doesn't also consume podcasts and audio. I think they do. But I think that just general, they grew up with YouTube, and YouTube is such a fabric of their livelihood already that that's who we tend to see. And then it's something that we're actively working on every day, but YouTube, of course, skews more male.

[00:05:37] And we want to have YouTube be a place for women who consume podcasts, for women who create podcasts, but just the nature of the platform is such that it's a little bit skewed more towards the male demographic.

[00:05:49] Jeff: That's interesting that that's still the case. Is, is it, like, is it close? Is it, like, 60/40, 55-

[00:05:55] Emma: Yeah

[00:05:55] Jeff: 45?

[00:05:55] Emma: Okay. It's, it's close. Yeah. I, I can't share the specific figures just because it's differentiated for every type of content on the platform, but it is more ... It's closer than you would think. It's just skewed slightly more male.

[00:06:09] Jeff: So anybody listening to this probably already knows, like, why they should put their podcast on YouTube.

[00:06:15] But if you had to boil it down to, like, three bullets of, like, why somebody i- in a legacy podcaster should use YouTube for their distribution, like, what would those three bullets be?

[00:06:26] Emma: Bullet one is discovery, which I think comes as a surprise to probably no one. Our thesis when we entered podcasting, and still now, is it's just really hard to find new podcasts to listen to.

[00:06:41] For me personally, it's always relying on top charts, which of course is very top podcast heavy, and word of mouth has always been the biggest way. Or maybe I'm listening to a show I love, and they have their guest also host a podcast. But that of course, again, relies on being popular enough that that kind of transaction is beneficial to both parties.

[00:07:02] And so the benefit of YouTube is just our scale of over two billion monthly logged-in users, of so many billions of people who access YouTube. You just have such a wider audience that you can reach globally. But also just the fact that it's more recommendation-based than active discovery-based, where Home and Watch Next are the two most popular ways that people find content on YouTube.

[00:07:30] Search is number three. Whereas if you're on an RSS-based platform, maybe you discover a little bit on Home, but for the most part, at least me personally, I'm searching actively for a show that I want to listen to because I've heard about it from the sources I just mentioned. And so with that in mind, your potential for discovery is much higher.

[00:07:50] And then I think number two, but that ties into number one, is just that YouTube has every format within its platform. So you do see podcasters who RSS is their home for their full episodes. But then they're doing TikTok and Reels for short-form content. YouTube, of course, has Shorts, but there's also an element of clips that I at least talk about where there's horizontal clips, not just vertical clips, where you can take an hour-long podcast episode and condense it into seven minutes, and that's a clip that can just go on your YouTube channel.

[00:08:24] But then you could also do the one-minute cut down in a Short. And all of those can reach different audiences.

[00:08:31] Jeff: I don't know that a lot of people remember when Joe Rogan used to do his clip show. Yeah. And, uh, a lot of people do, like, attribute that to being a big factor in, like, why he's become what he has become.

[00:08:42] Emma: Totally, because there's just people out there that don't wanna watch his two-and-a-half to three-hour podcast. Some people love that and, and live for that. But there are others, especially, again, given that YouTube is mostly driven by home and watch next discovery, that stumble upon a seven-minute clip and are willing to commit to that because it's relatively short.

[00:09:03] Whereas if you get recommended a three-hour episode, it might be a bit scary to consider committing that long to something. And so we do find that there are different audiences for each of the three: for full episodes, for horizontal clips, for Shorts, and other kind of vertical formats. All of them can reach different audiences and help grow your show.

[00:09:24] So I think that having all of that in one platform, along with the fact that you can go live, which podcasters ... I mean, obviously we're now in a post-COVID era, but leveraged live digital platforms for live shows when they weren't able to tour. You can do that on YouTube. You can engage with community so much more deeply through Community tab, channel memberships.

[00:09:45] Like, we have our, you know, you could argue it's a Patreon competitor product on YouTube directly. Um, and that's another way that YouTubers can monetize and engage with fans. And so I always look at it as all the things that podcasters are doing across three or four, sometimes five different platforms today, they can do all of that on YouTube, and I think it's just a strong way to build a community and to monetize in one platform.

[00:10:12] Let me think about number three If that wasn't long enough. Um

[00:10:19] Jeff: I, I could give you my answer if you want.

[00:10:21] Emma: Yeah, sure.

[00:10:22] Jeff: It would be a tie between monetization and, like, the enhanced analytics that you get on YouTube.

[00:10:27] Emma: Oh, true. Absolutely, yes. Um, monetization, I touched on a little bit, but there's over 10 ways to monetize on YouTube.

[00:10:34] And especially, I think, if you're not in the top 100 shows where you're not getting tons of your revenue from host-read sponsored segments, try going live and engaging with the community through Super Chat or Super Thanks, or try launching a channel membership. Obviously, it's easy to say and, and harder to do in practice, but beyond ad revenue, beyond the revenue you get from YouTube Premium, there are so many other different and unique ways to monetize on the platform.

[00:11:04] And then analytics, you're absolutely right. It's just so much more transparent than we've typically seen within RSS. And there's so much to learn from your analytics about your audience.

[00:11:13] Jeff: So, uh, I guess, you know, broadly, like, when should somebody actually create a YouTube channel for their podcast? There are some people who just aren't good on camera, and, like, they haven't gone through media training.

[00:11:25] They haven't, uh, gotten, like, a nice setup at home. And I can say that- I, I can assume that most of podcasting who may be trying to, like, get into YouTube are doing this, like, with low resources, low budget, low time. So I don't know. I, I get very long-winded way of saying, like, how should people first enter the space?

[00:11:47] Emma: Yeah. It's a great question and great point. You don't need to jump in with a full s- camera studio setup, and you can test and learn a bit before you kind of lock into what works for you. I, you know, I know that that's, again, easier said than done, but I would say don't be afraid to at least start your channel.

[00:12:09] You can start your channel whenever. You can start it. You can start to poke around. You can start to understand the basics of how YouTube works. And if you start your channel and all you have is your audio files, you can leverage a tool that we have called RSS upload, which is in YouTube Studio, and it allows you to ingest your RSS feed.

[00:12:29] And then what we do as a platform is we take your audio files, transcode them into video files, and upload to them, or ... And upload them to our platform using your show art. Or if you have episode-specific artwork on your RSS feed, we'll use that artwork for the static image content in your show. So you can do that at any point.

[00:12:50] I think most podcasters, if not all of them, have an RSS feed. That's what historically has made a podcast. And so that's a really easy and a hands-off way to get started, even if you're not doing video production yet. And I think what's important about that, and one of the mistakes that we see podcasters often make, is they think that using RSS upload is a set it and forget it kind of tool.

[00:13:14] It is in the sense that we do upload your v- your videos for you, but you can still do ... And I had mentioned titles and thumbnail optimization, um, all of the different community features, all of the different ways to monetize. You can still do most of those things even if you're leveraging RSS upload. And so what you don't wanna do is just have a bunch of videos on your page with that square static image artwork No one will be able to differentiate episodes from others.

[00:13:44] I think episodes, their titles on RSS can work on YouTube, but you see a lot of creators leverage YouTube Trends, which is a subset of Google Trends that can help you better understand YouTube-specific SEO. And that can be a really great tool for just understanding what topics are trending. It can help you with your RSS episodes as w- I mean, it's all one and the same if you learn what trends on YouTube.

[00:14:09] YouTube is just a barometer for culture. So, it can help you with topics for your podcast generally. But you still need to lean in if you want to grow your show on YouTube, even if you're using just RSS upload. And so that's a great place to start, is start with making one thing easy and leaning into the other areas.

[00:14:30] And then if that works for you, there's so many different ways that you can start doing video. We're doing one right now. We're not in person together. Yeah. We're not in a studio. Yep. And we still both are well-lit and have fun backgrounds and are engaged, and I think that can make a bigger difference than, you know, going through the pressure of, you mentioned Joe Rogan or Diary of a CEO, these creators who have been optimizing for YouTube for decades at this point.

[00:14:57] You c- it's, it's unrealistic to start there.

[00:15:01] Jeff: Tell every one of my clients that.

[00:15:03] Emma: Exactly. It's, listen, if you have all the money and, and the time in the world, and I wish I did, but it would be hard for me to do that and, and start a podcast in that way. And also, you know, I, I think I speak for the whole podcasting community, so much of the beauty is I used to, in my old life, I worked at BlackRock and recorded our

[00:15:23] I produced our podcast. I created and produced our podcast, and we would, especially over COVID, record in closets. We would have our moderator recording his intro in his coat closet where it was the quietest because his family was at home. And so it just is such a unique and special medium that we don't wanna take away by saying you have to be in video and in this special formal camera setup.

[00:15:49] Another way that creators can get into video without committing fully, Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, they started with clips, and they started with vertical video first, um, recording dedicated segments or questions just for short-form. And then they went into, "Okay. We'll film the full episode, but we don't wanna have to edit the full episode.

[00:16:12] So instead, we'll pick sound bites and make clips that are those horizontal clips I was talking about. We'll do five to seven-minute clips." And then over time as they built the muscle, and they're of course very, very well-resourced, and even for them, it was a step-by-step process into getting into full video.

[00:16:29] And so I think between tools like Riverside, Zoom, any of those with- Low effort ways to get into video, starting small, growing over time, doing no video at all and starting with RSS upload, or you could do this other approach of more B-roll, more waveforms. We're launching a tool called Audio to Short in the next couple weeks that basically is a AI-powered tool that takes your RSS uploaded episodes, or really any video on YouTube, and leverages AI to create more dynamic visuals.

[00:17:03] You could start with something like that where it's not actually your face on camera, but it's leveraging tools that can help you with more dynamic video than that static image, but without as much work. And we're, we're starting with Shorts. So you can take any video on YouTube, it's going live in English for the US, Canada, UK, and Australia, and what that does is it takes any video on YouTube, you can build a Short that's anywhere over eight seconds and under three minutes, just our normal Shorts requirements, and you can choose between different visual styles.

[00:17:36] So I think at launch there's around four to six different visual styles you can choose from. Of course, we hope to build on that over time. We also hope to make it longer form than Shorts, but this is where we're starting out. And again, it allows a viewer to, or a creator, sorry, to take any video and create something that's a little bit more dynamic.

[00:17:57] And so I'd recommend checking that out in YouTube Studio. On the subject of clips and kind of that horizontal versus vertical clipping, we launched a tool late last year, but actually today have launched an expansion of that tool. It's called Video Clips, and it's within YouTube Studio, and what it allows a creator to do is take any video on their YouTube channel and clip it into either a horizontal clip or a Short.

[00:18:22] The Shorts functionality is what's launching today And you can do this in a few ways. So you can do it manually by we surface the transcript next to your video, and then you can select a portion of the transcript and, and have a little bit more of a hands-on approach, or we have these AI-powered suggested clips and suggested shorts that also appear that give you a few different options, it's around five, of different shorts or different clips that you could then just click.

[00:18:49] You can change the title and the thumbnails we've talked about at length, and publish those to your channel. So you could create a clip or short within two minutes and, and publish it, and it's all within the context of YouTube, so no need to save it on your desktop and take up the storage space or the time.

[00:19:05] It's all within Studio. And then the last piece of that is we also surface a AI-powered outline where, you know, if you do it for a video a year ago and you wanna just reinvigorate performance with clips and you forget what the video was about, the outline can be a helpful tool to understanding, "Oh yeah, this is what I talked about," and then you can use the suggested clip to get a better sense of where that was and, and if you agree with it or not.

[00:19:29] And then of course, you can always give feedback that if our suggestions don't align with what you think the most compelling content is, you can tell us that and it helps us improve over time.

[00:19:38] Jeff: What are the things that people should pay attention to when it comes to, like, packaging their videos? A- and one thing that I've been wondering about for a long time is, like, uh, do you think about packaging differently when it comes to shorts versus full-length videos?

[00:19:52] Emma: So when it comes to packaging, there's a few things to think about. One is compelling titles and thumbnails, as I've mentioned now a couple times.

[00:20:02] Jeff: And how does one make a compelling title and thumbnail? Like, what, what are the techniques that you would consider?

[00:20:07] Emma: One thing I would say before then is that another mistake I think creators make is that they focus too much on the channel page and not enough

[00:20:14] When, when we talk about how hard it is to get into video and that YouTube is, to be quite honest, it's work, they over-index their work on making the channel page look nice, thinking that that's how viewers are going to discover their content. But again, as mentioned, home and watch next are one and two, and search is number three.

[00:20:31] The channel page is further down-

[00:20:33] Jeff: Yeah ...

[00:20:34] Emma: on the list of how viewers discover. Maybe fourth,

[00:20:35] Jeff: but probably, like, sixth or seventh.

[00:20:37] Emma: Exactly, so it's-

[00:20:38] Jeff: Yeah ...

[00:20:39] Emma: while it's important to have your channel page look good and have your banner and your artwork and, you know, your different playlists and the ways that you talk to your viewers, I would think about it more as though every video needs to stand alone and compel somebody to watch it Each video matters significantly more than your channel page does.

[00:21:00] And so when I say creating compelling titles and thumbnails, I think often creators say, "Oh, but there's so much to do. Like, th- that's, that's so much work." And it is, I'm not gonna lie. You don't have to create as much of a compelling thumbnail for RSS, because episode artwork is optional, and people care 2% about that.

[00:21:19] And so a way to do that is, one, I mentioned this already, but leverage YouTube Trends. Again, it's a subset within Google Trends, and it helps you with what keywords are trending on YouTube that, and what topics are trending. And you can even see within a certain topic area, again, what keywords are trending to help you insert some of those keywords into your titles.

[00:21:43] So I think just leveraging those kinds of tools can help. But you want your title to be clear and state the value proposition upfront. Another mistake that people make is in their title, they put their episode number or their season number in the beginning. That's a waste of your space. If you start episode one, season one, colon, and then the name, by the time a viewer, especially on mobile where that's cut off, you've wasted your valuable first characters on information that doesn't tell me what I'm about to watch.

[00:22:17] And so you wanna start out, if you have a really compelling guest, put the guest names first. Or if you need to, say your guest is compelling but maybe not as well-known, if you're doing a plant podcast, it should say, "Succulent expert Emma Sweet on whatever." I'm not a succulent expert, but I'm staring at my succulent right now.

[00:22:38] But give me the value right away. And I don't think you necessarily need to lean into some of the very cliche all caps, really kind of explosive titles that live on the platform. You can try it, but it, it, if it's not true to your brand and your show, don't feel like you need to. But make it clear, make it quick, make it compelling.

[00:23:01] And With titles too, you can leverage AB for both, AB title testing and AB thumbnail testing. Your thumbnail then needs to be, again, clear, but eye-catching and ideally consistent. So you can experiment with different forms of thumbnails. I think that's just part of the growing process on YouTube. We do find that human faces tend to do well in thumbnails, but that might not work for everybody because as you mentioned, not everybody even wants to be on camera.

[00:23:29] So you might not wanna put your face in your thumbnail for the entirety of YouTube Home to see. But the visuals generally can just make it more compelling. And as you kind of figure out what works for your show, having a consistent style can create brand recognition for somebody, so they can see that it is a new episode of your show on Home or in Watch Next and say, "Oh, I recognize that style.

[00:23:52] I recognize that creator." Um, so I think for both, value proposition upfront, making it clear, making it relatively concise, don't overdo it, and, and use testing to, to figure out what works for you.

[00:24:06] Jeff: Yeah. And, and I find that This may sound silly, but like, just using, like, common sense logic sometimes can answer a lot of these for you.

[00:24:14] Totally. Like, like you don't want the thumbnail title to be identical to the episode title because they're gonna be right next to one another. So, like, use the real estate properly.

[00:24:24] Emma: I was gonna say, our creator liaison, Rene Ritchie, who has so much good content on the platform, I, I recommend everything he does.

[00:24:31] Um, but he describes it as this is the billboard for your content. So if you're ... I mean, you can literally picture it as a billboard you are driving by on the street. Someone is scrolling their phone. They are scanning the content on Home to see what might catch their eye. If you look at your thumbnail next to all of the other thumbnails on YouTube and your eye isn't caught, chances are a viewer who doesn't know your show won't stop.

[00:24:57] And so again, it's kind of common sense logic of am I compelled by my own content? And I think when you're in the weeds all day, it can be really hard to lift yourself out and think that way. So I absolutely empathize with creators who are doing this because again, it is a lot of work. I'm not, I'm not gonna lie about that.

[00:25:14] But again, just, just taking that step back can, can be helpful.

[00:25:17] Jeff: Yeah, and, and this sounds very silly to say as well, but um, I'm shocked at how many people come to us asking for, you know, their podcast on YouTube who have never watched a podcast on YouTube.

[00:25:28] Emma: Yes.

[00:25:28] Jeff: So, so they just don't know, like, what the experience is like, and they're trying to make- Exactly

[00:25:32] decisions, like, blind. So, so given that, uh, like how important are descriptions, chapters, and other metadata for discovery?

[00:25:40] Emma: Yeah, so that's another, um, if we're going down the list of, of five or six things that you can do to help your show get discovered, and, and this is a part of packaging. I'm gonna start with a playlist before I, I get into that.

[00:25:51] So make sure that your episodes are in a playlist, and make sure that the playlist is designated as a podcast. And we see creators all the time forget to designate, and YouTube has launched all kinds of different features that are optimized for podcast content. So we don't want a podcaster to miss out on those for the fact that that's how their content will be more optimized for discovery.

[00:26:16] If you don't designate your playlist as a podcast, you won't get to access all of the features that we've launched for podcast content on the platform. And so what you want with that playlist in YouTube Studio, if you have a playlist, you can just hit that three dot menu and hit set as podcast. Or if you're doing this for the first time, you can do create as podcast in Studio as well.

[00:26:35] Either works. But with that, you only want full episodes in your playlist, and you want them in the r- correct order that they should be consumed. Because when we talk about watch next, which again is one of the most common ways that viewers discover content, one of the signals that we look for in watch next is videos that are commonly consumed together.

[00:26:55] And so I would, I would go with that. And then in addition, you had mentioned chapters and other metadata. The description is a great place to speak to your viewers, to give them a sense of what they're going to be watching, to say in this episode, and do your timestamps from those chapters. And then you can also have calls to action in the descriptions.

[00:27:13] You can say check out, and creators often link to their other platforms, their Instagram, their TikTok, their store. They have merch shelves on YouTube. Shopping is a, a Form of monetization I forgot to mention upfront, you can have that. Like, all of that kind of matters to engaging your audience. And then with the description, too, I will say hashtags don't really make a difference.

[00:27:34] That was a, a common misconception about YouTube, too. It ... We don't really look for that in our, in our search and discovery. And then chapters are extremely important, especially for podcasting, because it's long-form. So give viewers a sense of what they're gonna be watching at different points, and allow them to jump around if it, if it suits their needs.

[00:27:50] Jeff: Yeah. Somebody might be listening to this, and they only care about the thumbnail conversation, so-

[00:27:55] Emma: Exactly ...

[00:27:55] Jeff: uh, let them have it. So, uh, how should somebody be thinking about, like, how videos are recommended on the platform?

[00:28:02] Emma: Yeah, so there's a few different factors that factor into search and discovery. The first is a viewer's watch history.

[00:28:09] So we pay attention to what Jeff has watched at different times of day, what topics you're most engaged with, how often have you watched content from a certain creator or content around a certain topic. Number two is your video's performance, and that's where we look at the different metrics that make your video successful.

[00:28:28] And the way that we categorize this is across appeal, engagement, and satisfaction. So in the appeal bucket, it's does your video appeal to people when they see it on the homepage? So that's click-through rate. Another metric is if viewers hit the Not Interested button when they see your video, because they're shaping their own algorithm that way.

[00:28:50] Then we have engagement. Those are metrics that are more familiar to podcasters, so things like views, average view duration, the percentage viewed. That's a really common and, and valuable metric in podcasting, but one that applies here as well. You can also, on YouTube, see the moments where your audience was most leaned in, which I think is a really cool metric of when did they actually watch versus when were they kind of opening other tabs or less engaged.

[00:29:14] And so I think that's another metric that's YouTube specific that's really helpful. And then satisfaction is did they like or dislike your video? We, uh, sporadically do user satisfaction surveys. Would they say that they were satisfied with your video? And so all of that ties into performance. So we have a viewer's watch history, we have performance, and then external factors matter as well, so seasonality.

[00:29:37] Obviously, we're not going to recommend Halloween content in July necessarily, although actually, I don't know, July could be a time where you start crafting. But generally, topic interest, SEO, competition, seasonality of content. So if you're producing content about the Olympics at a time when so many creators are producing content about the Olympics, that can be a good thing because you're leaning into trends, but just also keep in mind you're likely competing for real estate with a lot of other creators.

[00:30:05] Um, and so there is definitely a, a, a kind of push and pull between you want to engage with what's trending, but you also don't wanna produce the same show that everybody else is producing. You wanna find your niche and what works for you, just generally because that's what keeps you going. Tom Webster had a really interesting article about that, I wanna say it was maybe a year ago, about have we lost podcasting's original intent, which is just to create a show that you feel really passionately about and love.

[00:30:35] So niche content can find the right audience on YouTube, but you also wanna, to play in with what's trending just for optimizing your discovery across new audiences too.

[00:30:45] Jeff: We've been doing a lot more collaborations with different YouTubers for our podcasts. Like, how effective can those really be? And, and, and for anybody who doesn't know, like, what collabs on YouTube mean, like, can you walk through that?

[00:30:58] Emma: Yeah, absolutely. So collabs is a newer feature. It's in the last year. We announced it at Made On last year. Made On is our event every September where we share what's coming in the next year. Collabs are You know, if I'm speaking candidly, I think we've seen it on Instagram for a long time, where I can post something and it can be posted from both your, uh, channel and, and my channel.

[00:31:24] So it's that. But Collabs is a feature on YouTube where if I have a video that features a guest, I can add that guest as a collaborator on the video. Um, so for example, if we reverse roles and I'm the moderator, and Jeff, you're my guest, I could upload the video, add you as a collaborator, and then you do have to accept the collaboration invitation.

[00:31:44] I can't just out, be out here doing that with anybody. But then what that means is that the video is posted to both of our channels, and we get to both see the metrics associated with the video. The monetization, just to clarify, is only applicable to the host channel for that video, so monetization would need to be sorted separately.

[00:32:04] But just a more anecdotal reference, uh, I'm working on the podcast for Lyor Cohen, our head of music at YouTube. He just launched a podcast called On Wax, and one of the first things that we recommended to his team is to leverage Collabs as a way to help grow his audience and his channel. Um, and so as an example, he did an episode with Meek Mill that Meek Mill then posted on his channel via this collab, and that video has seen tens of thousands of views.

[00:32:32] And while Lyor is a figure in his own right, a lot of that just has to do with the fact that Meek Mill has been on YouTube for years, um, and has a really well-established audience. And so even internally, we're recommending a tool like Collabs as a way to help grow your show.

[00:32:48] Jeff: So I believe YouTube has been testing dynamic ad insertion for video.

[00:32:52] How does that work, and, and is it coming to, like, the greater masses soon?

[00:32:58] Emma: Yeah, so I will clarify, we're not calling it dynamic ad insertion, just because I know the industry, that's obviously the recognizable term. So we built this tool recognizing that not just podcasters but creators on YouTube generally are doing what we call host-read sponsored segments, what the podcast industry just calls a host-read ad.

[00:33:19] And- They're really prevalent on YouTube and, and for an understandable reason. They help creators monetize really well and have that trust built in with their audience when they're doing a branded ad read. And so what this tool is meant to do is just like YouTube ads are inserted into the content dynamically, a- again, separate from industry Z- uh, DAI.

[00:33:45] But just like AdSense video or AdSense ads are inserted into the content, imagine if you could have your host read sponsored segment. Instead of burning it in, you could record that slot as a separate video and insert that video into your actual videos, insert that ad into your video, um, and have your sponsored segments be able to be switched out, inserted into your back catalog.

[00:34:09] Your-- You no longer have these stale host-read sponsored segments from years ago that because they're burned in, they're stuck there. Um, you'd be able to target them geographically. You'd be able to get specific metrics on the performance of those host-read sponsored segments and report those to advertisers.

[00:34:26] Um, and advertisers can see those, uh, metrics directly. And so it's meant to take the technology of a YouTube ad, but apply it to a creator-driven segment. And so we've been testing this feature all year, and we're hoping to launch it more broadly to the public by early next year, although timelines can always shift.

[00:34:48] Um, but it's something that we're actively working on and, and in beta and expanding to new creators all the time. And for us as a podcasting team, we just see the relevance so strongly, um, for podcasters because of how often these hosts leverage these types of ad reads and how successful they are in the industry.

[00:35:07] So we really hope to be able to test it with podcasters, um, sooner rather than later.

[00:35:13] Jeff: So the last thing that I want to ask you about is kind of the video wars that we keep hearing about. As Apple, Spotify, Tubi, Netflix are all trying to, in some ways, eat your lunch when it comes to, like, video on the platform or long-form video or podcasts.

[00:35:30] I, I guess broadly, like, how do you all feel about that? And is there anything that we should pay attention to for, like, how you all may react to everybody else moving into the space?

[00:35:41] Emma: It's a really good question. I will be honest with you, we're not altogether concerned. It's a bit of a the more the merrier in the space.

[00:35:52] We still believe, I mean, when we talk to podcasters and, and tout YouTube scale and our reach, our monetization tools, our analytics, all things that we've talked about in our conversation-

[00:36:04] Jeff: Mm-hmm ...

[00:36:05] Emma: we still believe that the ability to access all of that on YouTube for free is a value proposition that we hope creators see the value of and, and want to be on YouTube for that reason.

[00:36:20] And if a creator takes a deal with Netflix and decides to put their content on Netflix, then it's cool that they got their start on YouTube, and that they were able to grow well enough on YouTube to get those kinds of opportunities out in the market. And we're proud of creators that, that are able to do that, too.

[00:36:39] Obviously, we would love for them to stay on the platform, but in the podcasting space, we are not necessarily concerned, nor are we thinking about competitive counteroffers in, in that space. When Spotify first entered the space and was doing a bunch of these large-scale deals with creators like Joe Rogan and Call Her Daddy and Brené Brown There was a lot of panic in the industry at that time too, of do you have to be good enough to get acquired by Spotify, and oh my gosh, is podcasting going to be this closed ecosystem when historically it's been open?

[00:37:13] And what we saw over time is that ... And Spotify, of course, is still an incredible platform in this space, but those kinds of deals are now less common than they were. And creators at the time lamented the closed ecosystem of only being on one platform, and ultimately did come back to- Yeah ... YouTube and to the broader RSS ecosystem as well.

[00:37:33] And so when we look at Netflix and Tubi and some of these deals in the space, I think there is a difference in how we think about exclusivity versus windowing or ad sales rights. And I think generally, at least my ethos and our ethos, is that we want creators to embrace our platform for all the benefits that it has.

[00:37:54] And maybe these deals will stick, but maybe it'll be a repeat of what we saw a few years ago, where the deals last and the exclusivity lasts for a couple years, but then ultimately it comes back to this more open ecosystem. Maybe it trends more towards ad sales rights or, again, that kind of windowing or bonus content or early access to those who access it on that streaming service.

[00:38:19] Um, but I think the Tubis of the world and Paramount and Hulu and some of these platforms that aren't keeping the content exclusive is a trend that we will continue to see more of.

[00:38:32] Jeff: Okay. I love

[00:38:34] Emma: that. I, I would- That, that is, that is more how we think about it, is like we prefer that to the exclusive and we, we are skeptical that the exclusive is going to last because it hasn't.

[00:38:42] But maybe I'm wrong and, and maybe exclusivity is the future.

[00:38:46] Jeff: No, I think you, you bring up some very valid points in that regard. And my whole thought on the process, and, and, you know, it basically hasn't touched any of our shows, so, like, we don't have to worry about it, but if you can get a paycheck you're happy with, go for it.

[00:39:01] And otherwise- Totally ... like, there will be some of these, like, roundabout situations.

[00:39:06] Emma: Exactly. I mean, MrBeast is an example of, he has Beast Games with Amazon, and he has Feastables, and he's grown his business. Obviously, he is a very tough example to compare to because he's just so huge. But it's empowering to us when creators who got their start on YouTube or who grew on YouTube get these kinds of business growth opportunities off platform, because it just means that our platform did its job and helped them get there.

[00:39:32] Jeff: That's a very good outlook. I ... A very, uh, optimistic, half-glass-full. I love it.

[00:39:37] Emma: I try.

[00:39:38] Jeff: Well, Emma, thank you so much. This has been awesome. I really appreciate you taking the time with us and, uh, and yeah. Thanks again.

[00:39:47] Emma: Thanks, Jeff. Always happy to.

[00:39:55] Jeff: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Podcast Perspectives. You can find Emma on LinkedIn at Emma Sweet. For more podcast-related news, info, and takes, you can follow me on LinkedIn at Jeff Umbro. Podcast Perspectives is a production of the Podglomerate. If you're looking for help producing, marketing, or monetizing your podcast, you can find us at podglomerate.com.

[00:40:14] Shoot us an email at listen@thepodglomerate.com, or follow us on all socials at Podglomeratepods. This episode was produced by myself, Jeff Umbro, and our production team, Chris Boniello, Jose Roman, and Nicholas Abouhamad. Thank you to our marketing team, and a special thank you to Dan Christo.