187 | Ditch the Camera: Why Audio Podcasting Is All You Need in 2025

[00:00:00] Are you thinking about taking your podcast to YouTube in 2025? Well, not so fast. Audio dominates with less competition, no algorithm games, and a strong listener connection. Stick with audio and own your space.

[00:00:22] Sound matters. Be heard. Welcome to the podcast where you get exclusive behind the scenes tips to make your own show sound truly spectacular. This is Podtastic Audio.

[00:00:36] Hey, what's happening? How are you doing today? Thank you so much for being here. I am Chris and yeah, this is Podtastic Audio. You know, this show right here, I designed it and created it because I love audio. I love podcasting. Why don't bring them both together and make you an amazing podcast to help you make your amazing podcast? See, it's how I do it. I'm all about helping out. I'm about sharing.

[00:01:05] I'm sharing the love and I'm about making sure your podcast stands out in a massive sea of other shows and other things that are out there. So today, as I record this, we are in January 2025. It's a brand new year. And being that it is a brand new year, you're going to hear a lot of new things in the podcasting space, but are they really like new things or just like regurgitated things you've heard many times over the past?

[00:01:35] And one of those things I seem to hear about seems like every year is that you have to have video if you're doing a podcast. It's not a podcast. It was not two people talking on video in camera in shot somehow, whether it's like a Riverside zoom style shot, or it's somebody sitting on a couch and another person sitting on a couch.

[00:01:57] And you got to videotape the whole thing and put it on YouTube because that's where all the podcasting lives, right? Right? That's what you hear about. That's what it seems like everybody talks about.

[00:02:08] And before I go any further today, I want to let you know that you can podcast or videocast or vodcast or videotape broadcast, whatever you want to call it. You can do it however you want. It's your show. If you are enjoying your podcast content creation, no matter what it is, no matter which platform you choose, enjoy the ride, man. It's your show.

[00:02:35] And if you're having fun and you're enjoying the actual like content creation process, then don't let anybody, including me tell you how to do your own show. And listen, I absolutely love YouTube. I'm subscribed to probably like 500 different platforms and channels, but I don't really get to see all of them. I probably watch a couple of them maybe occasionally, but I'm constantly being fed all kinds of new stuff.

[00:03:02] That's all about the YouTube algorithm. And we're going to get into that later today. But just because you have a quote unquote podcast you're creating, it does not mean you have to do video. Nobody has to do video. I'm not doing video for this episode right here.

[00:03:21] And you're still getting the content. What? Check that out. Imagine that you can actually record audio, make it sound good, put it out in your podcast media host of choice. And it gets distributed to more than just one platform versus YouTube.

[00:03:38] And I think the reason why that a lot of new content creators, new indie podcasters, let's just say new indie YouTubers gravitate towards using platforms like YouTube and YouTube specifically, is that YouTube makes creating content and uploading content to their platform extremely easy.

[00:04:03] After all, it's a one-stop shop for content creators and content viewers all in one place. It sounds great. Actually kind of sounds like a monopoly if you ask me, but hey, tomato, tomato, whatever. But did you also know that on YouTube itself, actively right now, like active channels, not channels that have been posted a video or people who have an account who never post nothing.

[00:04:30] I'm talking actual account channels that post things regularly on YouTube sits at roughly around 65 million active channels. At 65 million. Wow. That is a lot. I mean, a lot of channels. That's a lot of things to watch on YouTube. If you're going to go in there completely like cold and say, hey, I want to watch something on YouTube.

[00:04:58] Just give me whatever you got. 65 million choices to choose from of different channels. Not to mention each channel probably has who knows how many videos on each channel. So we're talking about a lot of different things to watch on YouTube alone. Now you're thinking, hey, Chris, you know what? YouTube is great because YouTube's got this really cool algorithm.

[00:05:19] And despite having 65 million different choices of things to watch on YouTube, the algorithm is going to fine tune those things to kind of give give the viewer something a little more specific, something a little more curated to what they might be interested in, which is great on a closed system like YouTube is. If you post something on YouTube and somebody watches on YouTube, YouTube has all the data.

[00:05:47] They know who, what, where, when, how on every piece of content that gets distributed onto YouTube. Now, if we were to compare things to an audio podcast, I like to call it podcasting classic, podcasting RSS going out to like Apple Podcasts and Spotify and all of the, you know, great number of other podcast listening apps are available. The standard RSS podcasting feed.

[00:06:16] Now, compared to YouTube with its 65 million active channels on the podcasting side, the audio podcasting side, that number comes down to roughly around 400,000 active podcasts. And when I mean active, I mean a show that made an episode and distributed it within the last 90 days and maybe 30, 90 days, somewhere around there. Let's say that.

[00:06:43] So an audio podcast is easier to be found because there's less competition than there is with YouTube. And if you think you only have to worry about 65 million other channels of content, well, that brings up our first challenge. When you want to go YouTube exclusively for your quote podcast, vodcast video show thing on YouTube.

[00:07:11] Now, if you are going to go on YouTube exclusively, which is fine, it's easy. It's great. You can upload 4K video. It's free. Great, great. All those things are wonderful. Great. I hear you. I understand.

[00:07:23] But not only are you competing directly with other podcasters or video shows directly on YouTube, you are also in direct competition with every single other video form of content in the world. I'm talking TV shows, Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, movies, movie theater.

[00:07:50] When was the last time you watched a movie or a TV show or the news or anything like that that was on regular distributed, like regular television? So, no, you're not just competing with 65 million other forms of content on YouTube.

[00:08:09] You're probably competing with closer to maybe a trillion or so other forms of content, which might sound like a losing bet on its own without any other help from other sources like the YouTube algorithm. But, hey, if you're still set on doing a YouTube channel, if YouTube is your thing, you want to go all in on YouTube, great, fantastic.

[00:08:32] Just realize going in on YouTube is that you're going to have to invest in better lighting, better equipment, better cameras, and also doing video. It takes so much time, I think, to actually make a video version of a standard podcast, like something you'd make audio only, like this show right here.

[00:08:57] If I were to do a video version of this show right here, it would take me maybe five to ten times as long as it would take me to do this audio podcast. So, remember, video takes so much work. And if you're starting out as an indie hobby podcaster, there's a good chance you have a day job. There's a good chance that you're doing this content creation in your spare time, like I am right now.

[00:09:21] And so, if you do not have a ton of free time, like if you have a family, kids, things going on, other projects, other things to do, you really have to carve out probably at least a day or a full weekend for each video episode you create. If you're first getting started, I know that once you start doing it after a while, you might pick up the pace and find some shortcuts and different things like that.

[00:09:49] Like I have for audio, but still, maybe if you get really good, you might get it down to maybe a four to one ratio. Whatever it takes you to create an audio podcast times it by four to make the video version. Video takes so much time and so much work versus an audio podcast, which has a very low, low barrier of entry. You know, this can be done super easily.

[00:10:14] Anybody can do audio with a simple microphone and something like Audacity, and you're up and going, ready to go immediately. No matter where you are, no matter what you look like, you don't even have to get dressed. You don't have to get camera ready to do an audio podcast. Okay, maybe you're still set on YouTube. YouTube is going to be your thing. You're going to be considered a YouTuber. Great, that's fine. Great. Guess what? Now, you have to bow down to the almighty YouTube algorithm. What? What are you talking about, Chris?

[00:10:44] I'm going to come here and have some fun, man. I'm not bowing down to algorithms. Well, I hate to break it to you because everything that you distribute to YouTube gets ran through their algorithm. And basically, it means that the algorithm decides who gets to see the thing you created. Not only who, but how many of the who get to see the thing you created. They hold all of the cards.

[00:11:11] And it may sound great because the algorithm can potentially put your nobody show in front of more people than, say, a podcast could ever do. An audio podcast. Which, if you are leaning towards the YouTube direction, this might sound pretty cool because now you have this cool little marketing team called the YouTube algorithm, which can help you get discovered.

[00:11:35] It's going to help your content go out to more people than you possibly could ever do if you're trying to exclusively market this thing yourself just all by yourself. It's kind of nice to have somebody in your corner helping you, you know, get this out everywhere like an algorithm. But unfortunately, the YouTube algorithm could swing direction with the wind. It could like all of a sudden love your stuff and be pushing it out to more than just your few followers.

[00:12:03] You could see big jumps in numbers all of a sudden. Like, wow, I got all these numbers. This is great. The algorithm's loving me. I triggered something that's amazing. And then the very next week, the very next thing you post that could be almost identical to the last thing you posted. You could see crickets. Nothing. Like, what happened? What's going on? It's the algorithm.

[00:12:24] So sometimes, well, actually, a lot of times, people that are on YouTube as content creators, they are trying to figure out what does the algorithm like today? Let's feed it what it wants. Oh, it wants cat videos? Oh, I'm making cat videos. Oh, it wants this? It wants that. Oh, the election just happened? Everyone's talking about the election? That seems pretty popular. Let's jump on that bandwagon. So keep that in mind.

[00:12:49] If you're also going to be exclusively on YouTube, you're going to have to figure out which flavor of content the algorithm is liking today. And you're going to have to lean in that direction. But if you were going to go podcasting classic on a regular audio podcast, these podcast player apps, they don't have algorithms. They might have something similar like what's hot, what's popular, like with Apple Podcasts.

[00:13:18] They have the Apple Podcast charts, which is their ranking thing of whether or not a podcast episode or a podcast channel was downloaded more frequently and had a higher ranking of downloads versus another show, things like that.

[00:13:33] But another cool trick about Apple Podcasts, if you are subscribed to your show in Apple Podcasts and you look at it, you scroll down to the very bottom, right around where the comment section is, you will see a list of other podcasts and it will say you might also like. And this is as close as they got to an quote unquote algorithm for Apple Podcasts.

[00:13:56] And the way this fun little thing works is actually what you're looking at is shows that are also subscribed to your show. People that subscribe to your show also subscribe to those shows. It's kind of like a back and forth and it's based on percentages and things like that. And this list changes quite a bit, but I have noticed that some of the ones that are on there have remained somewhat constant, at least for me anyways.

[00:14:23] So keep that in mind when you were looking at a show or at least your show, you see at the very bottom other shows you might like. It just means that they kind of share subscribers. That's what it means. That's the closest thing we have to an algorithm in podcasting, which means generally speaking, audio podcasting has no algorithm, which brings up the question.

[00:14:47] How do you get discovered as an audio podcast if there's no actual real true algorithm like YouTube would? Well, that's where you come into play. You have to use things like social media, like newsletters, like telling your friends and family, like knocking on doors and say, hey, I have a podcast. Check it out. Here you go. Physically getting out there. Like you have to actually sell your own product, which would be your podcast to build your podcast audience.

[00:15:14] So audio does have its advantages over video. You might be thinking, well, how can I have any advantages over video? Video is both audio and video hitting us at the same time all at once. Great. Hallelujah. Yeah, it's fantastic. But still, audio does have its advantages over video. And one thing is, especially with an audio podcast, is there is no metal band. There is no exclusively on YouTube and YouTube only. Because we're on YouTube as a YouTuber.

[00:15:44] YouTube can say, you know what? We don't like your content today. We don't like you because you did this or you did that or something or whatever. And all of a sudden, you're banned. You're blocked. You're striked out. YouTube has a striking system that if you put content in there that you don't have the rights to or something or whatever, they can strike you out and deplatform you. Then what do you do?

[00:16:09] Are you going to go down to the YouTube down the street and say, hey, I want to put my stuff over here because the main YouTube kicked me off? Well, that doesn't happen. But if you are an audio podcaster with an RSS feed, there is no metal man. The listeners can subscribe directly to your RSS feed, which means the listener to your show can listen on any app they want. They're not tied to a single platform.

[00:16:37] And I don't know the total number of all the listener podcast apps that are available today. I'm sure there's a lot. And your show can be on every single one if you choose, not just Apple, not just Spotify, not just whatever, but all of them giving you a wide net of places that you can reach more listeners than you could ever do on a single one platform,

[00:17:04] which as an audio podcaster, it makes you completely free. You have total freedom of that algorithm, which means you are not bound by their rules and their control. You control everything end to end, which means you also can market your show how you like that, how they like, how you like. Audio podcasting has this intimacy that video doesn't really have.

[00:17:29] Video kind of struggles to match the like one-on-one connection that audio does and has always has. It's kind of weird if you think about it. I mean, how many YouTubers, even the really big popular ones that you see on YouTube, how many of them do you feel as connected to versus an audio podcast version of a show that might be even similar?

[00:17:54] With audio, there is a deeper connection to the host and the content than a video show probably could ever do. It's kind of a weird phenomenon. You think, well, it's one actual form of content. It's audio. So why would video, being that it's video and audio hitting you at the same time, why would double the duty actually mean less to the listener? Why is that?

[00:18:22] Why do you get more, like more of a connection with audio than you do with both video and audio at the same time? And it has to do with theater of the mind. When you listen to an audio podcast, like maybe this one right here, chances are you might be listening alone, in a car, in your earbuds,

[00:18:44] not in a big group setting like, say, watching the TV at home or maybe in a movie theater, a crowded movie theater, things like that. Those are big group settings, which are fine, by the way, but they don't have that intimate one-on-one thing that happens when you're listening to an audio podcast. And another cool thing about an audio podcast that people seem to forget is that with audio, you can listen anywhere, pretty much doing anything you want.

[00:19:14] Audio is the only form of media that you can physically consume while doing something else at the exact same time. You can't do that on YouTube. You can't do that watching a movie. You can't do that watching Netflix. That takes like all of your senses sucked in. So you have to stop what you're doing, sit there and physically watch something, especially if it's on YouTube.

[00:19:40] Now, with audio, you can be riding a bike, driving a car, doing anything you want, taking a shower. You can do whatever you want and listen to an audio podcast at the same time. Now, I've said this before and I'll say it again. Audio podcasting, the listeners of audio podcasts are busy people. They are people that are always on the go, moving, working, getting stuff done.

[00:20:06] And I feel, that's my personal feeling about this, those that would rather watch YouTube videos, even if it's just like a talking head doing the same thing they probably do on their audio podcast, but to say it's just the YouTube version of them talking, not really showing much, just talking. Well, if you're going to sit there and watch them, like physically watch them, you're wasting so much valuable time.

[00:20:33] So when somebody comes to me and says, hey, check out my show, and they send me a YouTube link to a YouTube video, and I click on it and it's just them just talking on like a Zoom chat or something along those lines, I'm like, you're not showing me anything. Where's the audio version of this? Oh, we're only on YouTube. Come check us out. I'm like, well, I'm throwing this thing right in the big delete trash can because I'm not sitting around and watching.

[00:21:00] I'm not wasting my time to sample your thing when I can listen to it on the go. If you truly value your listeners or in this case, in this scenario, your YouTube viewers, if you truly value their time, don't waste it. Because if you truly want to piss somebody off, go ahead and waste their time. See what really happens.

[00:21:23] And that's exactly what you're doing by going all in on a YouTube only podcast, video cast, VOD thing, whatever. Going all in on YouTube, that's exactly what you're doing. You're saying, F you people, F you audience, I don't care. You're going to sit here and watch me talking to a camera. Okay, I know I bashed YouTube quite a bit in this episode so far, but it's not all bad.

[00:21:47] So I have curated a comparison chart for the YouTube video version of something and the audio podcast version of something. Okay, so here we go kicking it off with audience reach. Now with YouTube, you have a high massive potential for a high, high level of eyeballs seeing your stuff on YouTube. There's so many different things.

[00:22:13] But it's a very, very high competition to get people to actually see your stuff because there are so many things on YouTube with an audio podcast. Well, it may be smaller, but it's more niche and more targeted. So the listeners that you have to your audio podcast, yet those numbers may be small. They're probably sticking around longer than they would if it was a video YouTube thing. Okay, moving on to discoverability.

[00:22:41] Well, YouTube wins this one because they have that really cool algorithm that helps you get discovered in front of people that have no idea you even exist. And the audio podcast version is that there is no algorithm, which means that you have to rely on organic growth. SEO becomes a very, very important thing with an audio podcast versus YouTube.

[00:23:06] SEO works great there too, but it works more importantly with an audio podcast. Okay, moving on to production complexity because yeah, it gets very complicated when you have a video podcast. I mean, extremely complicated camera and lighting and video and editing and all that great crazy stuff. Oh my goodness. You have set design and you're thinking more about the angles and the different types of cameras and the aperture and all that stuff.

[00:23:35] With an audio podcast, all you got to worry about is recording audio and leveling it and make sure it sounds great or at least sounding listenable, which is fairly easy to do these days. So it gets complicated with YouTube, less complicated with an audio podcast. Okay, next up we have flexibility for listeners. Well, if you're on YouTube, it requires your listeners or viewers, quote unquote, to physically

[00:24:02] be watching your stuff sitting in front of a screen and watching your stuff doing absolutely nothing else. But if you're an audio podcaster and it's an audio podcast version, your listeners can listen anytime, anywhere, which is amazing because we're all busy and time is money and don't waste my time watching your silly nonsense when I can just listen to it and be on the go. Okay, moving on. We got competition.

[00:24:30] Ooh, so if you are on YouTube, guess what? But there is a lot of competition, not only in YouTube, but all over the world with every single form of video content you can possibly think of. You are competing directly with that, which has got to be you in a trillion other things being played at the same time. Good luck. But if you're an audio podcast, you're only competing with other forms of audio podcasts.

[00:24:58] If you look directly at the audio podcast space, you're looking about you and maybe 400,000 other active podcasts and maybe regular radio and maybe audio books. It might sound like a lot, but trust me, it's a lot less than the video side of things. Okay, moving on to monetization options. Now with YouTube, you can start making video money on YouTube through their YouTube paid programs immediately.

[00:25:28] I believe the requirements are 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours within the first year, which can be achievable. But even if you do do that and you do hit the minimum requirements for that kind of stuff, it's not like real money. When I say like real money, I mean money to where it can like make a car payment kind of money, maybe a mortgage payment kind of money.

[00:25:55] But if you do hit the minimum on YouTube with those requirements, you might make the buy me a soda or literally physically buy me a coffee kind of money. It's still money. Is it really worth all your time to make coffee money? That's all I'm saying. But the problem with an audio podcast is that you'll have a much smaller ecosystem, which means you might have much smaller audience, but you still can make money with that. You can make money with both.

[00:26:21] Okay, moving on to the next one I have here is the control over distribution. Well, if you're on YouTube, yeah, I hate to break it to you, but you're going to be living on YouTube and that's only one place, one place that your content is going to sit on is YouTube and YouTube only.

[00:26:46] Versus if you have an audio podcast, you can put your podcast in every single app in existence. Apple, Spotify, GoodPods, all of them. You can put it in every single one you want. It doesn't matter. Sky's the limit. Enjoy it. Or you can put it on your website directly. You have full control over your RSS feed where you have zero control if you're on YouTube. So, you know, it all depends. Some people love being controlled. They love everything in one spot. I get it.

[00:27:15] But some people want the freedom and the flexibility to do whatever they want with their own content. So if you want that, then try an audio podcast over the YouTube exclusive. And the last thing you have here is engagement tools. So, you know, with engagement tools on YouTube, obviously you have the comments. You can do a live chat if you're doing a live stream. You have a live chat right there. And you can do community posts.

[00:27:43] After all, YouTube is a social media platform. I know some people don't think about it as a social media platform. But at its core, YouTube is a social media platform like Instagram, Facebook, all of them. YouTube, yes, it is a social media platform. So it works very well for social media. It works very well for social media versus an audio podcast, which can get a little tricky to get true engagement. I know some people say that I've been podcasting for a while.

[00:28:10] I get no listeners writing me back or no emails or no nothing. So it does take more work. It's not as easy because YouTube, it's like, you know, they build these social media platforms so that the viewers of your channel can easily make comments and post and interact with you directly right on that platform. With a audio podcast, it's not as easy. It requires Apple podcast reviews. Hey, if you want to give me an Apple podcast review, I'd really appreciate that.

[00:28:39] Be super, super awesome. Or maybe even a shout out on social media. I'll take that too. That's great. Anywhere you want to share the love, I will take it all. That's how you do it with an audio podcast. So yeah, I get it. There are pros and cons to either side, a YouTube exclusive side and a audio podcast side of things. Yeah, I get it. But maybe you should think twice about distributing your show exclusively on YouTube and going only on YouTube.

[00:29:08] You got to think about all of the other things that are going to be in your way between you and your content and the actual audience that you want to receive that content. Think about this. Why would you make it more difficult for an audience member or potentially a new audience member to actually consume your content? Like why would you put all these roadblocks in their way? Why would you force them into a single platform? Why would you make them do that?

[00:29:38] You know who really wants you to do that? Social media platforms. Which is what YouTube really is. A social media platform. They want you to guide everybody to the one place. Their home. Their house. And that's not how audio podcasting does it. Audio podcasting is free and free for all. You can listen wherever you want. I don't care if you listen on Apple. I don't care if you listen on Spotify. I don't care which app you listen to this show on as long as you listen.

[00:30:07] Because it is free for all. It is distributed for all. That's why on my website which is podcasticaudio.com I've got a episode player. Yes, you can listen to it right there if you want. Or right below there I've got a list of all these different podcast apps. Where you can listen and subscribe. And if you're not subscribed right now that would mean the world to me. Hit that subscribe button wherever you are listening to this podcast.

[00:30:35] And I cannot thank you enough for being here. I make these shows for you and for podcasting in general. Because I love this podcasting format so much. YouTube's fun and all. I like podcasting just a little bit better. And I hope that you're doing amazing things with your podcast. And I will catch you on the next one. And until then, happy podcasting.