YouTube is moving into podcasts and this is what you need to know

If you're a podcast creator, you might be missing out on huge opportunities

The popularity and selection of podcasts is growing. This means that, as a creator, you have great competition for listener attention. It is therefore all the more surprising that the vast majority of podcast creators are missing opportunities on YouTube. This platform is ‘secretly’ very big in podcasts and is only going to increase with their new podcast plans. How can you best leverage these YouTube podcast opportunities?

YouTube as the podcast platform

According to Luminate’s Podcast 360 Report, YouTube is the most popular platform to listen to podcasts in America. Same counts for the Netherlands, where YouTube is also becoming a more and more popular place to listen to and watch podcasts. For instance, the search volume on YouTube for podcasts in the Netherlands has increased by more than 100% in just one year. YouTube wants to build on that popularity in the new year.

YouTube now focuses almost exclusively on video podcasts, but that is about to change. According to leaked internal plans, it will soon be possible to automatically upload podcasts just like on other audio platforms. YouTube also wants to recommend podcasts to users better and more often, and they are willing to give podcast creators money to produce (exclusive) content. On top of that, YouTube is also making it possible for large podcast publishers to sell their own ad inventory on YouTube. 2023 will be the year of YouTube’s final breakthrough as a podcast platform.

What makes your podcast on YouTube succeed?

Despite its popularity, YouTube is an underrated publishing platform for many podcast creators. What do you need to do to change that? How do you achieve success? Many YouTube tips you find online are about adding tags, changing the file name for SEO purposes, placing channel banners, or urging viewers to like and subscribe. All well and good, but these factors affect the success of your channel by exactly 0.001%.

So what does matter? If you study the world’s most successful YouTube creators in detail, as I like to do, there are five key success factors. Success on YouTube is largely determined by

1: the chosen topics

2: viewer loyalty

3: packaging (titles & thumbnails),

4: distribution and

5: continuous improvement (marginal gains theory)

Combine this with the popular advice by Nike to ‘Just Do It’, you’ll come a long way.

Three practical tips to immediately book results with your podcast on YouTube

#1 Spend more attention on your titles and thumbnails

It will soon be possible to automatically upload podcasts to YouTube via RSS feeds. Easy, but then realise that your content is far from optimal. It is almost always advisable to pay (more) attention to your titles and thumbnails. These two elements largely determine whether interested parties click and thus start listening to your show at all. Not surprisingly, the world’s most successful creators are obsessed with thumbnail optimisation. Provide a recognisable and distinct look and feel, but also one that differs from episode to episode.

Succeed with your youtube podcast with the right thumbnails

#2 Analyse when your podcast listeners/viewers drop out, and why

Next to CTR (Click Through Rate), viewer loyalty is the most important metric for success. YouTube gives videos and podcasts insight into content performance at the level of seconds. Take advantage of that. You can see exactly where your audience is dropping out and how you are performing relatively compared to other content of the same length. Use these insights to find out why they are dropping out, so you can improve the next episode. The most successful creators do not distinguish themselves from the rest by the number of uploads. More is not always better. However, they do improve with every upload. No matter how small the improvement, in the end, all these marginal gains add up and make a big impact.

#3 Go Short

YouTube Shorts (‘the TikTok equivalent of YouTube’) are tremendously popular and can boost a channel’s visibility and growth. See if you can edit the best quotes and highlights from an episode as a short vertical video, and post it as a Short. A good example is 7DTV, a Dutch YouTube and podcast channel where Ronnie Overgoor talks to entrepreneurs. He publishes highlights and short clips from the episodes as Shorts. The result? Hundreds of thousands of views, a sharp increase in subscribers and better viewing of the entire episode.

This breakthrough of podcasts on YouTube offers great opportunities for podcast makers. Start the year off right by capitalising on this now.

YouTube shorts for podcasting on YouTube

Curious about more promising YouTube trends?

Are you interested in these type of YouTube trends? We recently launched the biggest YouTube trends for 2023. Read more about the YouTube trends for 2023 here. If you never want to miss out on a relevant YouTube update again, you should subscribe to our newsletter down below!

Want to discover what a YouTube marketing agency can do for you?

Born and raised on YouTube, we’ve developed a unique, data-driven approach to create effective videos. As the second-largest global search engine, tapping into YouTube’s full potential requires more than just uploading videos. A specialized YouTube agency can efficiently navigate this complex platform, ensuring your marketing investment translates into measurable results. Click here to learn more about a YouTube marketing agency.

Written by

  • Julia Graafland

    SEO Copywriter

    Team5pm

    julia@team5pm.com

Share article