There’s a curious phenomenon with so-called podcast experts popping up almost weekly now on my LinkedIn feed, and they’re all shouting out the virtues of getting your podcast on YouTube.
And being the hugely curious (ok maybe that should read ‘suspicious’) podcast consultant that I am, it’s got me asking some questions.
- Why are these people so obsessed with getting people on board with a platform they have no control over?
- What’s making them so happy to take the pro-video PR propaganda from Spotify and YouTube at face value?
- Who really benefits from a sudden surge in video versions of podcasts suddenly showing up on these platforms?
So, over the weekend, I did some digging.
The investigation
Now, I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a journalist.
I haven’t got the time or inclination to treat this as any kind of official news story, so that’s why this is being published as an article on my own website with the approach of ‘this is something I learned and isn’t it interesting?’ rather than putting together a press release and making a big deal of it.
We have Podnews for those kinds of stories, and its editor James Cridland does a much better job of podcast journalism than I’d ever want or hope to achieve.
That said, I do have a whole document of Google search history and findings should any actual journalists want to make a story from it.
Ok so now that’s out of the way, let’s get into my findings, shall we?
I carried out a search of “podcast marketing” and “(insert town or city name – 50 towns and cities deep, to be precise) and checked out all the business agency results.
I stumbled upon a couple of very interesting things.
1: A chap named Tom Hunt really wants to make a name for himself as the founder of ‘the leading B2B podcast company’ and apparently also as some kind of podcasting expert, despite absolutely no obvious prior experience in the industry. I know this because his landing page came up for every single search I did, even when narrowing it down to only “real podcast experts” meaning he’s spending a LOT of cash on Google Ads to make himself seem like an industry great.
2: Every marketing agency and their dog is suddenly a ‘podcast studio’ where they were all mostly advertising ‘videography’ previously.
Coincidence? I think not.
The Rise of the ‘Video Podcasting’ Myth
So, casting aside the obvious aggressive and icky guru marketing tactics of the aforementioned Mr Hunt (who coincidentally, I realise had recently blocked me on LinkedIn because I left a laugh emoji reaction when another user called him out for his icky marketing tactics in another space) I actually want to focus for this article on the weird ‘coincidence’ of the rise of video podcasting agencies.
Frankly, it’s a much better story, and Mr Hunt surely doesn’t need any more help from me in getting attention.
Now, to do this, let’s start with the buzzword everyone seems to be salivating over at the moment; ‘video podcasting’.
Now, I’m not here to crush enterprise level dreams, but let’s get one thing straight.
‘Video podcasting’ is not a thing.
Never has been and never will be.
Sure, some podcasts have video versions.
And yes, Joe Rogan fans, I hear you. The video recordings of Joe’s episodes are actually the most popular format of your favourite show.
But putting cameras in a room and recording people talking isn’t a podcast.
It’s a glorified recorded board room meeting.
It’s just a video.
And the video doesn’t sit in a decentralised feed that the publisher owns and controls.
The video sits in what YouTube calls a playlist.
Here is an undeniable fact.
A podcast as the majority of us understand it, is an audio listening experience.
And yes, I’ve read, listened to and watched all the arguments of everyone from the great industry voice that is Tom Webster (ex Edison Research who are part of the reason we have this argument now) through Mark Asquith (the brilliant Captivate CEO) all the way down to those little podcast video bros on LinkedIn that would dearly like to make a name form themselves, bless them.
“The podcast is what the audience says it is” they all claim.
Well yeah, perhaps.
I don’t disagree with them on that.
But it’s also an argument that’s, in my view, trying far too hard to ‘be cool’ with our younger Gen Z and Alpha ‘influencers’.
Actually, I’ll go one further.
It’s a bit fu*king embarassing.
See, these younger creators who think they know it all have grown up with YouTube being as standardised for video content as ITV and BBC1 were for those of us who are Gen X and grew up with just two channels that battled for ratings every Saturday.
And therefore, they’ve got no reference point for acquisition data beyond their TikTok followings and YouTube subscriber numbers.
They don’t get deep and dark data beyond the digital vanity metrics, because they’ve never had to.
Give them a RAJAR sheet showing listening figures for a radio station and they’d have no idea what to do with it, whatsoever.
They think a view means a conversion.
Whereas those of us who have had to deal with the crushing disappointment of huge reach gains one quarter followed by a lacklustre market share in the next because of a glaring lack of retention will know that this strategy for jumping on trends is dangerous at best, and spells potential disaster at worst.
Here’s the fundamental problem these brands and individuals are going to face if they go all in with letting the younger trend hungry generations lead their content strategy.
They’re going to risk collapse in the same way that a financial trader would risk collapse jumping on the crypto train.
As podcasters who have been doing this for more than five minutes, we’ve seen many trends come and go.
This isn’t even the first time for video podcasting.
For that, we have to cast our minds back to 2005 when Apple launched the 5th generation iPod, which was enabled for video playback. The marketing and news coverage around this would be enough to make anyone believe we’d all be watching TV shows on the London tube every morning and evening during our commutes.
But the reality is the video file sizes were horrendous, and the process for obtaining the files on your device was beyond clunky, often requiring a number of third party apps and a lot of patience.
So for that and many other reasons, it didn’t take off.
Neither did ‘social audio’ from the likes of Clubhouse and Spotify’s Green Room. That was meant to be the transformation point for podcasting.
Nuh huh.
Was it boll*cks.
Here’s the deal.
You can want to embrace video into mainstream podcasting as much as you like, but the truth is, on the creation side at least, podcasting will always be that thing that you listen to.
It’s like trying to convince anyone over 45 that a vacuum cleaner is called anything other than a hoover.
And yes I intentionally mis-cased it as a noun rather than a brand name.
The point is, you can try and invent something new and say it’s a hoover, but it’s always going to be a Roomba vacuum cleaner.
There are simply too many of us now who have become super attached to what podcasting is, and sorry to say it, but we’re the ones with the credibility in the education space.
What podcasting really is
Podcasting in it’s true form is audio.
It’s intimate.
It’s in your ears, not shouting at you from a YouTube thumbnail.
It’s a specific format that is carried over an RSS feed.
Weirdly, RSS can carry video formats, and some players even support it.
James and Sam on Podnews had a conversation around exactly this point over the weekend.
But the point is, even when it’s available for use by creators who can maintain 100% of control of it, it’s still not user friendly or accessible enough for anyone to bother using it.
And they’ve had almost twenty years of time to practice.
Now, is RSS iterative?
Could the format be improved in time?
Of course!
Just a few years ago, the idea of a transcript being embedded in a podcast was the stuff of dreams.
There’s absolutely no reason why innovative people in the podcasting 2.0 space can’t write some sort of clever code to make the video easier to upload, download and watch at a decent enough quality to make it worthwhile all the podcast hosting companies and players getting involved and encouraging it.
But we’re a long way away from that yet, and frankly the big podcasting alternative offered by YouTube and Spotify isn’t enough to cut it.
I predict the push for video podcasts on both platforms will be quietly dropped before we get to the end of 2025.
But for some reason, many of the LinkedIn agency owners have latched onto this ‘video podcasting’ concept like it’s the ‘second coming’ of SEO.
And suddenly, everyone with a DSLR and a soundproofed office corner thinks they’re the next Gimlet Media.
The “Podcast Studio” Pivot
But enough about the history, challenges and opportunities with RSS.
Here’s where things around ‘video podcasting’ get really interesting.
And by “interesting,” I mean fu*king baffling.
During my weekend research, I found at least one marketing agency in every town and city I searched claiming to be a podcast marketing agency.
These are agencies that were, until about five months ago, content with shooting corporate explainer videos or dabbling in PPC ads.
Now, they’ve rebranded as podcast studios, offering podcast marketing services with the enthusiasm of a kid who just learned how to use Canva.
The really frustrating part for me?
None of these agencies seem to have anyone with actual podcast production experience on their team.
No podcast producers, no audio engineers, no one who’s spent a sleepless night editing out awkward “ums” and “ers” at 2am.
Just a bunch of videographers who were probably ordered by their boss to Google “how to start a podcast” and decided to wing it.
Why This is a Problem
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for more people entering the podcasting space.
The more, the merrier, right?
But here’s the thing: podcasting is an art and a science.
It’s not just about slapping some microphones in front of your team and hoping for the best.
It’s about storytelling, pacing, audience engagement, and knowing how to make content that people actually want to consume.
Not just click on once and abandon.
When marketing agencies with zero podcasting experience start selling themselves as podcast experts, it does a disservice to clients and our industry as a whole.
Businesses end up with lacklustre podcasts that do nothing for their brand, and podcasting itself gets reduced to a trendy buzzword rather than a powerful medium for connection and storytelling.
How to Spot the Real Deal
So, how can you tell if a ‘podcast studio’ is legit?
Here are some red flags to watch out for:
No mention of successful podcasts they’re proud of:
If an agency claims to be a podcast expert but can’t name a single successful show they’ve worked on, run.
No Audio Professionals on Staff:
Look for teams that include experienced producers, editors, and sound engineers that have paper trails leading back to the audio space – not just glorified videographers who have had a ‘rebrand’.
Overuse of Buzzwords:
If their website is packed with terms like “synergy,” “next-gen content,” or “video podcasting” without any actual substance, or explanation of how their podcast marketing process works, that’s a big nope.
No Understanding of Podcasting’s Unique Challenges:
Ask them how they’d grow your podcast’s audience.
If they start talking about viral TikTok strategies, you’ve got your answer.
‘Hit-and-hope’ strategies using social media. Which is pretty much how all the know-nothing gurus approach this medium.
A Final Thought
Podcasting is an incredible tool for businesses, but it’s not a shortcut or a one-size-fits-all solution that you can suddenly shape a parallel servicing offering around.
It takes skill, strategy, and a deep understanding of what makes a podcast successful.
And that is why we offer video versions of our clients’ episodes as a value add, not the product.
We can’t guarantee any kinds of results with the video versions, so we don’t offer to.
And this is with us having experienced professional video editors on our team, too!
So you can just imagine how much effort truly goes into getting results from a YouTube video.
Don’t be fooled by marketing agencies trying to cash in on the trend without doing the work.
If you’re serious about starting a podcast that actually delivers results, find people who know what they’re doing.
Hint: they’re probably not the same people who were filming your CEO’s awkward LinkedIn videos last year.
And if you’d like to have a chat with us about how we can get your podcast out there but with some actual guaranteed return on your investment, book a chat with me!
Stay savvy, my darling Podknows Blogcast reader.
The podcasting gold rush is here, but not all that glitters is gold.