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What was the biggest takeaway from Podcast Movement? It was that video is important. You need a video strategy, you need to be on YouTube, it's not just about audio. It kind of feels like deja vu all over again, because it harkens back to when every radio station needed to get into podcasting, which they did, many doing it poorly. Today we have podcasters racing into the YouTube space and a lot of it is being done poorly from a YouTubers point of view. The person I go to for all things YouTube is Aiden Wolf. He's worked in radio, voiceover and he hit it big with his Dark Corner Studio unboxings of microphones and other studio toys. I asked him to share some of his tips and tricks for making it on YouTube. What drives engagement and how we can all get rich at it. By the way, this episode originally aired on YouTube a few weeks back, it's obviously longer because I edit this for audio. Aiden Wolf joins me from Dark Corner Studios in Ottawa. You're originally a radio person, am I right? Like you've been doing radio for a number of years and then you sort of morphed into some other things.
Yeah, I got the introduction to other things the same way that most of us do by getting fired, you know, go do something different, not with our company. And yeah, it's one of these projects of becoming a content creator. That kind of happens over time as you're fired and rehired in other places and you start building that side hustle, it gets to the point that one time you get fired, you're just like, you know what, I'm done. I'm just gonna do this thing now. And that's kind of how I came to this point.
Can you summarize the radio career where you went possibly how much fun or or maybe they weren't fun?
See, mine was shorter than it should have been. I've got I got disillusioned with radio pretty quick. I used to be a truck driver for much of my youth going into my 30s. I became a morning show host when I was 35, I believe. And I worked at Bob FM Brockville. I worked with Cub Carson, another gentleman by the name of Mark, we became fast friends. A lot of fun there. Then Bell did their usual restructuring. I ended up in Ottawa actually with an Indigenous station called Element FM where I was for four years. And again, Morning Show with Jay Harrington a lot of fun. I was always kind of the the guy that you didn't know if you had to have a sensor button. You didn't know if did he just say that? That was kind of the the personality. I wasn't not a shock jock per se because I never really got into that. But I there nothing was off the table for me. So.
And the one time you and I met was at the conference V.O. North.
Yeah.
And that was in between your time between Brockville and and Element.
That was one of my other side gigs. I was going to try to start a voiceover career. And it just never took off. The amount of hustle involved in this as a thing with all of these things, right? If you're not willing to hustle, if you're not willing to put in the grind. What are you doing? You're just wasting your time. And I think I realized that after a while. We share a common friend Mary Anne. And she's been crushing it in voice over. And it's just one of those things where you see what she's doing day to day you see the work she's putting in you're like that's why it didn't work out. Okay. I get it now.
Mary Anne Ivison jumped into voiceover and podcast at the same time. She does a podcast called Let's Take This Outside. I know you're familiar with the podcast, right?
Absolutely.
All right. So why you're here today is because you've done so well. You talked about how you didn't want to do the hustle in voiceover but you managed to do twice as much hustle when it comes to video and studio and just making YouTube and video work for yourself but also for for clients. And I kind of look at this in awe. And I look at also a podcast like Mary Anne's Let's Take This Outside, which doesn't to date have a YouTube presence. So I'll bring that up just a little bit later.
Yeah, that's an interesting conversation because I've chatted with her about that so.
Maybe she doesn't want us want us chatting about her business on this, but we'll do it anyway.
Yeah, sure. Why not?
All right. Tell me, what attracted you to getting into YouTube?
Okay, so real story. My son was living in Thunder Bay, way back 2017 and he was living with his mother there. And we finally convinced him to move here and he was going to finish off grade 11 grade 12 here and go off to college. And in my way of trying, like he'd always talked about YouTube, he loves YouTube, and my way of trying to bond with him this is we're gonna be living together this is awesome. Let's start a YouTube channel together and he's like, nah, I don't want to do that. I'm not, YouTube sucks, man. You can't make any money on YouTube and I was like, well, okay, so I'm gonna start a YouTube channel to show him and show him how easy and what you can do with it and how fun it is and so I started reviewing audio units. I was buying audio gear, and I just kind of threw some reviews out, they started getting traction. And I was like, alright, just keep going. And you can see him get irritated with me, the more videos I put out, and the more relative success I was getting with it, which was still small at the time, but still. And it got to a point where he was almost not helping out or not being a part of it just out of principle. And I just continued on and I found myself really enjoying the process of learning the product, the video product, also, people started sending me gear, like, okay, I love audio gear, and it was sure I'll take your stuff, I'll do videos about it. Now, the one sidebar to this would be as as I was building up my YouTube skill set, he had always wanted a specific guitar. And I'm not gonna go into what the guitar is, but it's featured in several of my videos, he'd always wanted that guitar, it was his gold, dream. And after about a year and a half of doing videos in YouTube, I got sent on by a company to be able to use on my YouTube channel ad to this day, he still doesn't bring it up. That won't look at the guitar won't try to play it. Nothing. Still a bitter I think.
Your unboxing videos, by the way are fantastic.
Oh, thank you. Thank you. One of the things I tried doing with a lot of videos is when you go online, you're looking for reviews of microphones and stuff is it's usually the same thing, this mic sound good, this is the specs, this is what mic looks like, these are the things you can use with the mics. I've been trying to expand on that and give it a little bit more of a personal edge to a lot of this stuff. So I do blind shootouts where I'm like, can you guess which mic is which and I believe the NTG three got his first treatment up against the MKH 416. Where I put them side by side and I ab'd them until the end and then I told you which one was which. And it's just kind of a twist on the usual review style what a lot of people have.
Actually can do that right now because I can just go in the corner and do it with the other microphone.
Do you have the MKH 416? Do you honestly have that?
Yeah, I've got it right here in the corner. Can you hear the difference?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you know what, it's it's funny, too, because a lot of people go back and forth with like, which one's better? There's no such thing with microphones, man. You're gonna find one that suits your voice. I like you on the Rode.
This is me better one in the Dark Corner Studio of Winnipeg. And here I am back on the Rode.
Yeah, yeah. I like the Rode. Rode is good. So use the MKH 416 for your voiceover work, right.
Yeah, exactly.
Detailed, very clear. picks up all the mouth noises.
A lot of them. In fact, too many I just threw something out because I was may have been a little bit too close to the microphone about a half hour ago.
Oh, really?
Yeah. All sorts of stuff going on. We're renovating the studio in the corner. I'll make get a camera on that a little bit later.
Nice.
So tell me a little bit about why YouTube is so mysterious. It feels different. Everybody wants to be there and there's lots of talk about the algorithm.
Okay. All right so we're gonna start out with that, okay so YouTube is, is basically like any other kind of content, if you become a content creator, by the way, I hate the term podcaster, YouTuber, all that stuff. You're a content creator. If you if you sit on content creator, you'll be a lot happier in the long run. And I'll, I'll kind of explain that as we go through. YouTube itself, though, is one of the best platforms that has its own algorithm for pushing content. And the algorithm isn't technically an algorithm, your algorithm is your audience. So if you look at your YouTube homepage, if you go to youtube.com, your YouTube homepage, you'll see along the top, all these little lists are buttons for your interests and the videos you watch. And basically, YouTube grabs all this information based on every video you've ever watched, and what your most immediate interests are all the way down to your lowest most immediate interest. And it kind of amalgamates that into what people call the algorithm. That means that you are a profile to YouTube, they know that you're going to enjoy first and foremost, ice hockey, that is your number one thing that when you go to YouTube, that's one of the top things that you're really going there for. So it's your profile as a viewer. That is what the algorithm is. So when you have a person like Matt going to YouTube, if I did ice hockey content or content that was pegged as ice hockey content, Matt has a very good chance of coming across me. And likewise, if you have microphones as one of your interests or audio gear or studio recording, you're probably going to see my face. In fact, there's a lot of people that tell me oh man, I'm big into mics and I constantly see you on YouTube. And that's how the algorithm works is basically by creating profiles of the viewer, and then serving me to those viewers, so the algorithm doesn't work for or against you, as a content creator, the algorithm only works for the viewer. So if you are creating content that viewers want to watch, they will watch it. And so if you build it, they will come kind of deal.
So there's a big come to Jesus moment here for many, many podcasters because so many people who listen to podcasts think they come from YouTube and that's the result of podcasters, putting their show on YouTube. Maybe they're recording it like you and I are doing, and then dropping it into Apple Spotify or into an RSS feed. Anyhow, we've kind of muddy the waters between podcasting being an RSS feed, and being something that lives on YouTube. And as a result, now there's this tremendous pressure on a lot of podcasters and I think Let's Take This Outside with Mary Anne Iveson is a great example because she originally comes from audio, and she said, I want to start a podcast, but I don't think the original intention was I have to do YouTube as well. So there's this internal pressure. So this podcast, for instance, other than today, when I thought, well, we may as well just go live, if we're going to talk about YouTube, you may as well be on YouTube. But normally, it's just a card and I put a wavy line up and it's an audiogram and it sits there and it gets about 15 to 20 views per episode. That's one strategy. There's the strategy of people who will record this, put it up raw to YouTube, and then edit for podcasting.
Yep.
And maybe there's some others people who will just use shorts to create promo pieces. So which one should they be doing? And if it's all of them, shouldn't they just be getting in the video full time?
So here's, let's draw a couple parallels. So first, I'll start out with, I taught podcasting at the college level, past couple years at Algonquin College. And one of the first things that I taught podcasters, these young kids coming in is that there's no such thing as podcasts, YouTube, all that when you're a content creator, you're creating content for different platforms. And you're doing it in the way that those platforms want. So every podcaster that's coming out, that wants to create a podcast needs to have video as well. So even before you start, you should be looking at the video option. It's really hard to kind of migrate over into another form for a platform after you've already got your you've got your gallop down, right? You know, you know, you know from hitting records to the time that you publish every step, it's like, you're going you're good with it. The problem is, is when you get into the habit of doing something specifically like a podcast, and you're not looking at taking that and reforming that product for another platform, you're only thinking in one way. So for example, the YouTuber who puts their podcast on YouTube and just slaps it on there maybe throws on like a picture, or they've got that moving waveform, you know that WAV format a lot of podcast audience great into video now people are gonna love it. Well you only get 10 views because it's not a video. So it's, it's learning the platforms themselves, kind of treating the platforms with the product that the platforms want. And I'll get into that in just a second, but it's also respecting those platforms and the viewers on those platforms. Your product is only as good as you can sell it. If you're a decent podcasts with a decent listenership and you've already built up a decent following, you know, you have a decent product. Now to take that decent product and to package it up something else without putting the thought into it is just pure dumb and I'm gonna give you an example of radio. Radio did this beautifully back in the day with broadcasting is podcasts were on the up and up in about 2015. I would say 2016- 2017 radios are like, we got to get in on this. Our station needs to have a podcast and what did they do? They repurposed all of their product for podcasting and it was the biggest problem that radio stations couldn't figure out is why nobody was listening to our podcast of our morning show. Most of the time they would literally cut up their morning, show all the bits, slam it together, put it out as a podcast and go why isn't anybody listening? Then they had after shows that was that's what we're going to do. We're going to extend the morning show two hours with a two hour podcast. It'll be live, it'll be snappy. Why isn't anybody listening to that? Is because they didn't realize why people are going to podcasts why people are reaching out to that medium for something to listen to, or to be entertained by. Radio stations just figured well, we do this really well people will come- they won't. And it's the same thing when you transfer a podcast onto YouTube. You can't just do what you've been doing as a podcast because nobody goes to well, I can't say that, people don't go to YouTube generally, to sit for two hours and listen to a podcast. People don't turn YouTube on and go about and do their business. People go to YouTube for viewing. Imagine in the 1990s, a television show came out without video okay, how well would that television show you it wouldn't do well, because people don't go to TV to listen, they go to TV to watch. And a lot of people watch YouTube on their TV, how many of them are sitting down to watch a 45 minute podcast or listen to a 45 minute podcast while there's a still image up? None. So when you start to talk about migrating over, you need to come up with an action plan. And that action plan instantly needs to be able to address exactly what you're going to be able to give those people in YouTube that's going to make the work you put in have an outcome and that outcome should be income, right? That's the first thing you should be looking for in creating another platform.
I just like to point out though, that, you know, I've been doing this for 371 episodes, about a handful of them have been, you know, recorded video like this. But I think the reason why I don't do it is because who's gonna want to watch us but I guess people do want to watch us and would probably prefer it over the audiograms that I'm putting up,
Hear me out. So when you look at YouTube as a platform, or any other platform for that matter, you have Instagram, you have TikTok, all of them that offer video options for you. Each of them has a slightly different need, they have a slightly different want from their content creators, TikTok, and Instagram might get 10 million views YouTube might get 100,000, that should tell you that a piece of content for TikTok works better than on YouTube. Not really, because there's some stuff on YouTube that'll get 50 million views and on tick tock, it'll get 200. So it's learning how to utilize that and the only way you get to learn that for your content is by doing it. And it is a trial and error. So when you're looking at expanding, the first thing you want to do is go on to the platform, find content that's relative to yours, which would be another podcast in YouTube, and do some research, do a SWAT. The first person you'd want to do a SWAT on is Joe Rogan. I know a lot of people are going to cringe at the very name, but let's be honest, he has done YouTube properly. He has done podcasting properly and he has created two separate businesses from a YouTube channel and a podcast empire that both work independently, but both support the other. And you'll look at how he has rolled a lot of that stuff out and you'll start to get some ideas of what might work for you. But then you need to niche it down a little bit. Because Joe Rogan doesn't work for everyone. Joe Rogan's style might not be relative to your style. So you might need to kind of differentiate how it is. So for example, a three person podcast wouldn't be able to enact how Joe Rogan does things in his interview podcast. So then you go you find a podcaster on YouTube that's successful that does things like you and the one I love to utilize is Steve Daniels' Podcast Network, but you're not a Leafs fan, Matt.
No, not one bit.
I'm guessing you're a Jets fan.
Habs.
That's right, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. This is one of those podcasts that got to start as a podcast then kind of piggybacked off of the success of Steve dangle. I know wait, the YouTube came first. But it really ramped up along side of the podcast, but then they opened up and started doing video on their podcast and created the Steve dangle Podcast Network, I think SDP at first, because then they created a network out of it it's a whole big deal. But the big things they did there, and you can really see how they captured the YouTube algorithm, or the viewer as you will is they created clips of their show, they created four to 10 minute video clips from their podcast, with video of all three of them talking and it was usually something along the lines of should Matthews get 10 plus million a year. And it was that segment of their conversation. So it was more than a clip. It was an actual full on video. But that segment of their conversation from their podcast was very pointed, it was very, it had an interest in it, it had a question. It had an answer. It had everything that one long form video on YouTube should have. It wasn't a sprawling YouTube video about four different subjects that people might get bored 20 minutes into. This was a tight, compact piece of video. That answered a question. It appealed. Maybe people wanted to know what their views were on it does Matthews deserve 15 plus million a year. He signed for 13, I can't even remember what he signed for. But here's a great example of repurpose I've seen your content for YouTube and that's just one of many different ways. Tou talk about shorts as a way to promote. But why are you using a video platform to promote an audio platform? Why would you do that Matt?
Well, I'm going to think of a client here.
Okay.
Maybe so the client has a podcast about yoga and talking about yoga poses. There's five minutes of explanation and five minutes of going through some demonstration, we would probably use the last five minutes as demonstration, like visual.
But why does that have to promote? Why can't that YouTube channel be its own thing?
Oh, it is.
Okay. But you said in order to promote you're doing, you're doing short videos to promote your podcast?
Yes, we're doing both.
Well, why don't you just do them as both instead of trying to promote through them? Creating content that it's like, hey, if you want to check it out, we've got our podcast over here, we release videos every Tuesday. Every video that Joe Rogan puts out, does not have a call to action on his podcast. Because you know, what's going to happen is people are going to figure it out that his podcast as well, you can even put a little thing on, on a little lower third that says podcast, you can put details and description, you can do all those things. People will organically find you become their best friend on YouTube become content for them on YouTube, not as an afterthought, from your podcast, make YouTube your like another platform that you're excelling on, rather than something to support your other platform. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I mean, we're finding a lot of podcast listeners will find it on YouTube, and then go grab it on a podcast app.
Absolutely. And that's one of the greatest things about this. But you also have a good amount of people that are never going to migrate to your podcast.
Yeah and I'm also getting now especially working with various podcasts. I mentioned the yoga podcast, which will use video to supplement the poses. If you would like to see a demonstration of this, you can see it on YouTube and the YouTube will just live where you can see, you know, five minutes of the show doing the posts. But there was a kid's podcast, for instance, and a teacher came to me and said, is it on YouTube? Because I'd like to show it to the whole class. Din,g ding, that went off in my head.
There's also a lot of people that are visual learners, they don't. They don't learn through that, especially from an educational standpoint of something like something like yoga, where you have talk radio, ask style shows where it's three people sitting, talking, and you wonder, why do people watch that? I don't, but I do know a lot of people do. A lot of people love to watch. How many times did you sit and watch TSN three people sitting at a sports desk talking on TV?
Never. No, never.
You never watch come on.
No Bob MacAllan would always talk about the Leafs that was the end of that.
Okay, so Toronto Sports Network fair.
Yeah.
We've, we've all learned how do you appreciate a video medium, right through TV. And a lot of those broadcasting kind of hooks and rules that work for broadcasting work in YouTube as well. So if you have a broadcasting background, you should be able to figure this out. It's not hard. There's no real secrets specific to this medium TV. Mr. Beast is a great example. Mr. Beast uses three big things that broadcasting use to use to make his videos over millions of views. He broke record seven videos in a row, I think something like that for the most views and 24 hours, over 55 million views in the first 24 hours. And a lot of these are the same concepts that TV used to use. He's just utilizing them with more money, and a whole lot more energy and no commercials and they're only about 30 minutes long.
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Okay, so you and I are just two guys riffing.
Yeah.
We generally do this without the camera on and generally also don't let people hear the whole conversation because we just have a phone call or we will just have a video meeting to talk about this stuff. But the end experience for anybody who's listening to this in podcast form is going to be completely different. I'm totally going to be taking out parts of the show where we are comparing the microphones. I just want to keep it down and drill it down to YouTube and I want to keep it straight from my audience for for podcasting. Those are two wildly different experiences. So when I tell podcasters you need to have a YouTube presence, or a YouTube video strategy of any sort. I feel like I'm doubling their workload or tripling it.
You are, like 100% There's two ways to look at being a podcaster right. I've talked to Mary Anne, Mary Anne is like podcasting isn't her main source of income, she has nothing to gain by building a YouTube channel. Her main money comes from voiceover. So by putting another 20 hours a week into being a YouTuber on top of that doesn't make much sense. But and this is one of the things that you really need to come around to when you're talking about this is the bubble burst that's about or has been has been happening in podcasting, this might impact you, but know that the bubble bursting will impact everybody. Regardless, even if you're not making money in a podcast from 2020, they started pumping big money into bringing people from other mediums on to podcasting. This is how the ladies from the office got their podcast, they had a bunch of money thrown at them, hey here, do a podcast we'll talk you up, you can make as much money as you want. Or if you don't make enough money, we'll talk you up. I know a lot of YouTubers who started podcast due to the same reason to throw a bunch of money and don't worry about it. Don't worry how much you make just here's all your money do a podcast, it was kind of this follow up from Joe Rogan getting the 100 million dollar deal and instead of the way Spotify did it Spotify use Joe Rogan as a loss leader knowing they were never going to make $100 million back on Joe Rogan. However, they do know that Joe Rogan is going to bring people to their platform. And that was the loss leader. Nobody realized that was a loss leader, they just realized, oh my god, 100 million dollars, there must be a ton of money in podcasting, let's get everybody to do it. And what's happening now is a lot of those contracts are coming to an end and everybody's realized we can't make money with that model. So a lot of the money's being clawed back by the networks and I'm not allowed to name names, but I know one podcast who's going through that very thing right now. And questioning what's going to happen in the future. Because they've been they've hired crews with that money, they've, they've built their whole like standard with that money. So as a podcaster now, whether you're getting into it, or whether you're ramping up, or you're already established like Matt here, you need to understand that there's going to be a lot of money coming out of this industry over the next year and has been for the past year. That means that if you want that full time job as a podcaster, you might have to put that extra 20 hours a week into it to really, really work on this as a full time job. And I know that sucks, man. I've worked a full time job and I built up a YouTube channel, putting one video out a week. Each video when I started was 30 hours a week. That was the writing that was the shooting, that was the editing. I wasn't making any money for the first year. And I was still spending 30 hours a week while doing a morning show. I know it sucks. But if you want that if you want saturation in the market, if you want people to know your name, if you want to be successful, and you want this to be your full time job. That's what you have to do if you're not willing to do the work, tough.
Is it still worth it though? For you know, a podcast like like, like Mary Anne's just to put the audiogram up?
No. I'll stop you right there. So here's, here's a good reason, I shit on this a lot.
Even if I get 15 to 20 views isn't that 15 or 20 more than I had before. And maybe somebody discovers the podcast and then goes over to audio to check out the show.
Cool so here's, I'll give you a scenario. You have 20 views on this short form audiogram that you just put up, okay. Out of those 20 views one person was like, oh, I like this, that gave you point 5%. Like, that's, that's horrendous. YouTube uses algorithms to basically recommend channels. So the more people liking your stuff, the more YouTube kind of opens up to you, the more chances YouTube's going to take on handing your content over to other people, okay, that's what YouTube's willing to give to you. If you can maintain a relative number of satisfied customers, the worst thing you can do is make somebody close YouTube altogether. That's literally like the red flag YouTube will put on your channel. Now when you start putting out content that does not offer a satisfaction to the viewer. You're initially telling YouTube that people don't like your content. Don't bother serving me up. So those 15 to 20 views you got here and they're probably going to be mildly organic at first but then you're going to see a foot come down and you're going to put a piece of content out that's gonna get zero. And then the next piece of content that gets zero, maybe it'll flick up five views as YouTube tries to take a chance on you again. But eventually, what you're training YouTube to do is just ignore you. And when most people go to a platform for video, they're not going to be satisfied with an audio only experience. So here's the idea, let's talk about a way that you can create content for YouTube, that isn't going to crush your weekly schedule. Are you ready for this? Can we blow your minds?
I have got my pen and my paper.
So let's say instead of repurposing some of your old content, you're going to create a new piece of content for a short. Ah, this is a great idea. So you now you're not going through and editing crap out, you're just going to create a new piece of content, and it's going to be a short, you're gonna use your cell phone, cell phones are the easiest thing to create shorts with. Okay, you can even see yourself in your cell phone, when you're shooting, it's great. You can walk around with it. I like to put my phone on an arm when I'm shooting with my my phone so it doesn't make people sick. And then you're going to have a script, you're going to read from the script, or you're going to add limit. Try to get it perfect. So you're not doing all the ums and the aws, it's why I like scripts, and then you're going to upload it. Maybe possibly you can throw in a couple other images or you can put some text over it. All and all your inputs going to be maybe an hour of work. But you're going to create the content that will be relative to your content that you're doing on a podcast. So let's say if you're doing an education podcast, your podcast is about science. There's a ton of shorts you can do on science. There's a ton of shorts, you can, you can have like fun facts, you can do anything you want and then the link down below always goes back to your podcasts. And you can literally do fun fact videos for a full year have a massive 52 video pile of shorts that might actually start making you money because people find them entertaining. Oh my god, what a concept. Your goal shouldn't just to be able to get one or two viewers, your goal should be to create an empire for your content. Every time you press play, what is it say in Valery Geller's book, every time you press play, Matt?
Anything you can record you can make better.
Never be boring.
It's tell the truth make it matter. Never be boring.
Okay, so I'm pretty sure out of all of that, she's probably referencing don't just slap something on another platform just to get one or two views, you could probably read between the lines on that one. So utilize these platforms by looking at ways to expand your content. You don't have to just slap a one hour product on YouTube and think well, that's it for me two guys talking for an hour, that's all it's gonna be. And screw you if you don't like it.
I didn't even get to that point, I barely do this.
I'm just talking from a usual podcasters perspective. Actually, you think about what other people are doing and how you can capitalize on that. If you can create compelling content, in any platform, any platform, you create something that compels people to watch, they will find you. You don't even have to put a link. You don't even have to put any kind of call to action. If you can compel them to watch and they are entertained by you, they will hunt your ass down and watch everything you can do. You are in charge of that. Your only goal is to get people to watch people to listen and you do that by doing the best quality content you can. That's why I preface this with if you have a decent following and you've already created a community with your product. There's no reason you can't do it on YouTube. You just got to think a little bit differently.
Okay, so for this podcast, I would probably just do the two people talking. You know, I just I there, I know there are people out there who are like, I just want to see the show or I just want to see live people and watch it on say YouTube. I think that's totally fine.
Okay, let's take the Joe Rogan effect here. Okay, so let's let's talk about Joe Rogan, I've gone on a couple rants. Some of those rants have been three, four minutes long, right? Okay, so let's say you created a video a four minute long video of you but don't call me a YouTube expert. But YouTube experts says quote, and you put that up how to get your podcast on YouTube and make money video up. There's so many ways you can repackage content without making it to guys talking. Because this view what you're seeing right here is my YouTube background. It's a new one, still in work I've got a guitar to hang up on this side. It's still in progress, but you could actually literally put this into a short. You can put this into just my screen onto a full video for those three to four minutes of me making a point and learn how to create thumbnails and titles that get people to click. And you literally already have a video in this video, you can clip it out. And Good God, it takes you 30 seconds to clip out a video and render it 30 seconds and you would have a video to put on YouTube. You don't want to intros, stop thinking in the podcast, one minute long, intros kind of concept. You don't need that crap YouTube a zero intros, you put content up and make sure it either educates your entertains and if it does both, you're gonna be successful.
Yeah, just start the show man to start the show.
So with that in mind, do you still just want to throw up a video of two guys talking for an hour and a half?
Maybe.
It's that laziness talking, though. And I'm gonna call you out on this. Because I don't necessarily think it's laziness. I think it's a stubbornness to leave what you know, for something you don't.
Is my show too niche to matter on YouTube?
How many downloads a week you get there, Matt?
3000 a month.
3000 a month.
So let's say you got 1000 a month on YouTube, you were able to build up enough where you could get 3000 views in a month on on a podcast. You got to remember a lot of your content is geared towards broadcast professionals. So that is a niche, but I bet you any money all those broadcast professionals watch YouTube. You do bring up an interesting point about being really niche. I actually tell this story quite often. You had somebody I think he was on your podcast and he has a tailgating podcast and-
Tailgate Radio.
Tailgate Radio and relatively successful out I might add, right?
Yeah.
Okay, so that's a brutal niche. But that's one of the niches you can get, as I tell you, I understand in the US they do a lot of it.
But it is until you realize that there's barbecues and there's charcoal and there's sandwich meat and there's bread.
It's still niche for people that want to go to a game and tailgate.
It's not for advertisers who want to advertise if you want to find the people who are buying those products this is the show.
Absolutely 100%. But what about podcasters? How many podcasters are there? Do you think there's more podcasters than there are tailgaters.
No.
So there's less podcasters than there are tailgaters.
Well, I've just seen college football and parking lots, and there's 30.
I think a lot of those are doubles.
No, there's I mean, there's 32 teams with with 16 you know, games.
If you're super niche, and this is the one thing I was kind of going for is is find ways to maybe break out of your niche a little bit for YouTube. Once again, I go back to the science podcast where you could do like, you could break your niche a bit and just do cool scientific facts and did you know kind of style videos. And like, no matter what you're doing, there's always ways you can break out of that for your niche you as well, Matt, I mean, you can, you could do podcast facts, you could do broadcast facts, you can make it a content creators, YouTube, that all points back to what you're doing on Sound Off Podcast, or Sound Off Media Company. So a lot of it is you doing the work and figuring out how you can appeal to people and then go on appeal to those people, a consultant can help like, I could come in and pour over your books, pour over your content, and start to come up with an action plan for how you're going to be able to get people eyes on with your content, I can guarantee you 100% If you start putting out shorts, you're going to get 100 fold views than you would on an audiogram. I will I will put money on that. And I will bet you $100 that if you put out a shorter week for the next month, you will get 100 fold views than your audio grams. Are you willing to take that bet?
Yes, I am. I'm just not willing to do the work. And I hope you don't come and look at the books of this place and be like this place is nearly broke.
How did your wife marry, you know, I get that one a lot. But what's wrong with the work if you did 4, 1 a week for a month for shorts on a YouTube channel and that's an hour a week you're unwilling to put an hour a week in to expanding possibly your base by a lot.
So I'll sign up for that.
Okay. All right. I'll even help you get the shorts done, because that means I'm going to make 100 bucks.
I'm going to go back to Mary Anne just for a sec with Let's take us outside all right. I almost think that her YouTube channel should be called Mary Goes Outside and it should be anything involving her outside because she does go she's active right she's in the wildnernes she's, you know, biking.
Yes, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, okay, so what are you asking how you would utilize something like that for Mary Anne's?
No, I'm just thinking outside the box here for like a lot of people get involved and think I need to have a YouTube strategy for my podcast.
Okay.
And with everything that you've been saying, at least create something that would have some value that's not necessarily-
I already know what I would do for Marianne's show.
Alright, well, you should probably tell her and I'll just eliminate what I what I just said.
No, no, what do you what are you going to do?
I said she should be doing videos of her outside and then she should call the channel, Mary Goes Outside.
So it's just her walking, or riding a bike?
Sure, being active.
What about what if she did a series of voiceover series, you can get video of a lot of these trails in the world and what if it's a video while you have some B roll of the trail, you can see some of the beautiful sights on the trails. Well, my wife and child just did the Scottish Highlands trail. They did like 60 kilometers of the West Highlands trail. You can find video of it online, and you go in you grab some that video and you do a story about the trail. All these trails have histories. The West Scottish Highland trail has a historical story behind it every trail, you go to Machu Picchu, and the trails the way they how you got up the mountain is a video, guess what you're talking about going outside and hiking. Let's give some people some some hiking porn route in that perspective. But you know what I mean, the stuff that hikers will be looking for, and you tell the story behind it, make it a 60 second video of you and this is the content she went to where did she go to base camp for to the Mount Everest, she went to base camp for Everest. There's a story in that, get some video, you can find video online for all this stuff. You can have pictures sliding through like a slideshow and you're telling the story about base camp, Mount Everest, how many people have died on Everest, you can tell stories about other places, Canada has a ton of trails. And those can all be shorts, and people will watch that crap. I'm not saying it's crap. I'm just saying like, people will watch that. Because that's what people do a well told story will always get viewership. And those people once again, what I said, if you can hold a person on any platform, they will seek you out.
I want to go back to the audiograms for a second.
You're really trying to push these.
Well, I'm not ready to let it go, but but one of the things that YouTube did and as I as I share the screen for our audio audience is I'm just looking at the Sound Off Media Company page here. And here are three podcasts that I have, which I have declared podcasts here and by doing this with just the audiograms, I am now a part of YouTube music as an app. Yeah and so if you want to be a part, if you want your podcast to be in YouTube, you can declare to podcast they ask that you title it. First of all, make a playlist declared a podcast, put the artwork up, but make sure that the title is the exact same as the name of your podcast.
The the title and the title and thumbnail have to be different- is that what you're saying? Make the title the same as your thumbnail?
The title of the show has to be-
Yes.
Yeah, the show should should be the same and now we're going to be appearing in YouTube music, at least in the app, but at the same time, they're going to be asking for RSS feeds in that sometime in the next six months.
Yeah, no, that's great. I'm really curious to see what YouTube can do with this because I have some content on a second channel that I think is going to do really well. So let's see some of those little audiograms. Bring up the sheet of all the audio grams that you've done the shorts I guess, or are they shorts?
No. These are full audio grams.
Okay, but let me see one. Let me let me see. Let me see your viewers. How many views you've gotten on some of these?
This one here as a as nine views.
Oh, six days? That's good. Okay.
For six for six days.
Give me give me some more. Let's go down the list here.
17 views for eight days.
Awesome.
50 views for Jesse Brown from Canadaland. So a little bit of a name here. 5100 views.
Good for you. That's actually fantastic. That is that is exactly what you want. Now I'm going to-
But he's famous.
Am I able to share my screen?
I can I can probably make that happen yeah, I think you can.
Alright, so I just hit the present button is that what I do?
Yeah, hit present at the bottom.
Share screen. We're gonna go with this one. We're going to share that. Okay. I have a channel called Dark Corner Media, I've only I've only uploaded I think there's 13 videos on this 20 videos so you can see it up here. 509 subscribers off 20 videos most of these by the way or have been shorts. You can see I've got these videos here. Good fun, just weird stuff like some of the world's weirdest borders will ai ai take over media. I've had some unique success with this 8200 views on the surprisingly dark history of Christmas, why you should hate Nickelback and lots of fun. So let's look at my shorts. Specifically, these are video shorts. My first one out of the four I have one was only put up a week and a half ago. That's the most censored song of all time, 600 views. 1200 views from the one I put a week before that, the week before that, for 911, 1600 views and the week before that is 2400 views. It is just me talking with some pitchers floating by each one of those. I put in about 30 minutes work.
And well titled to write I think your title?
Yep. Well, that's part of the learning process. That's part of the only way you learn is by doing right like It's like learning how to go beyond radio is a morning show host. You don't learn enough in college to be a morning show host you have to get out. That's why you start in a small market and make all the mistakes and then you build up. It's the same thing with every every single platform like with your podcast, sound off podcast, your first couple episodes, do listen to them and be proud of that?
The first four episodes didn't sound very good and then I said I can't do this, as well as a producer's-
Live From A Hardrive there it is.
Oh, that was good. I forgot about how good that was. We are live from a hard drive. That's what we were. Why did I stop saying that?
I don't know. It's the learning process, though. You learn what works, you learn what doesn't what, because every audience is going to be specific, we go back to that little line across the top of your YouTube channel. Not every piece of ice hockey is going to be of interest to you, but ice hockey is. So it's learning what your audience particularly wants by trial and error. I know what a lot of my audience wants. That's how I'm getting almost 3000 views for a short that took me 30 minutes to do if that was tied to a podcast. And I've thought about doing that I kind of did that that would draw that would bring people from one to the other. So it's a matter of like, if you're willing to put in the time, you can have success on this. On this platform. It's whether or not you want to put in the time.
I just had to remember why I stopped using that slugline live from that we were live from a hard drive.
Yeah.
it was just a waste of time and we needed to get into the show and the other thing is like when people asked me okay, well, what's your show? I said, we're the show about podcasts and broadcast.
Yeah.
I mean, you need to have that elevator pitch and you need to define who you are right away-
In two words. Three words. Yeah,
Yeah, I had a consultant and radio say to me, well, what's a rock ride? I said, I mean, what's a rock ride. Everybody knows what I know. No, people don't know what a rock right is. Well, don't you understand that it's 30 minutes of non stop rock and those will be sure to say that.
Yeah, well, my favorite is the longest coffee break in Ottawa. Oh, God. It's some of that crap. And it's interesting how that translates over to over to media and how poorly it does in other media forms. You can't be that cheesy and other things like live from hard drive isn't as cheesy as some of the radio stuff. But you do know there's a there's an element of cheese to it. Right? It's a play on words.
Yeah, we needed to get the cheese out of here right away. I think as we left radio further and further behind, we left that piece of cheese behind.
Yeah, you've you've basically burnt that bridge and killed all the soldiers on the other side.
Yeah, I sometimes think I'm still Jehovah's radio guy too like, I'll still speak to how awesome it is. But I can't work with what I'm working with here. Right?
I just got offered a job yesterday with radio, turned it down.
Of course, it was probably like a fraction of the revenue you're pulling in with from YouTube.
It's about the same.
Okay.
The problem is I can't do YouTube at the same time. Also, I'm a I'm a podcast editor, I edit podcasts and higher end ones and I make a lot of money at it. And I would literally be shooting myself in the foot if I decided to get rid of those. I've built it up over a year, but with the YouTube thing and with the video thing, Matt, are you sold yet on why it's important?
Absolutely. I know why it's important. I just trying to find a way for it not to sink my business in terms of time.
Okay.
That's all.
So let's do a little bit of time management here, buddy.
By the way, when you think of this, remember, there are 70 podcasts in the network.
And you do all of them. I'm sure.
I mean, that's 70 different videos, strategies.
Yeah, absolutely. But you're not in charge of all of them. Because if those podcasts can't do their own video strategies, that's their problem. Right? It's I'm not coming at this from a network owner. But how many hours a week do you put into your own content?
One episode of the Sound Off Podcast takes a minimum eight hours.
Okay, so eight hours. What else do you do in the week?
Everyone else's podcast too.
So everything else beyond that eight hours is other people's stuff?
So I look at the sound off plan. caste is being the marketing vehicle for the company.
Okay.
So, think of that when I'm working on my own company. That's eight hours of marketing.
Okay, so how many hours a week do you put on everything else?
The rest.
How many do you work on average? What's your what's your weekly look like?
Oh, I mean, I work every day from 6am to 7pm.
Wow, you do 11 hours a day? No, that's 13 hours a day you do 13 hours a day of straight hard work.
Well, I go for a swim and I have lunch.
That but the rest of the time is no videos on YouTube. You're not listening to any you are literally, nose to the grindstone for those. Let's put that at 11 hours.
Yeah. There's also I mean, listen, there's also four employees here.
Okay, no, no, I'm just asking. I'm just asking. So do what are your four employees do?
Edit, market, audiograms.
They're doing 11 hours a day too?
No they're not working that nearly that much. Transcription-
What if you got one of them to start doing shorts for your content?
Oh, very likely, yes.
Okay. All I'm saying is, is if you want something bad enough, you'll find a way to get it. Yeah, this is true for everything. You have built a podcast to the point where it's your full time income, where you will employ for people to have income from it. You've built this thing. And this is the doorstop that you're willing to go screw that too much extra hour a week I'm out. That's the point. That's the level where you're going to be like, screw it, I'm out.
Yeah, well, this person gets a short and an audiogram. And then this person gets what and then this it's such a different strategy for every single person. So it's, you can see why it's paralysis by analysis.
Before I go, I'm just going to share a little bit of information with you. It's 202 I have to be out the door by 2:20 and I stink. I've got to put some deodorant on. So I need a couple extra minutes. For a channel with 100,000 subscribers, and an average view time and view schedule that goes along with 100,000 subscribers. How much do you think you can charge for a baked in ad? I'm gonna let you guess on this one because I know for a podcast, it ain't anywhere near, so what do you think that you could charge for a baked in ad on a YouTube video if you have 100,000 subs?
I would ask me what the CPM is of that.
Doesn't matter. You have 100,000 people you're selling that you're you're you're not selling CPM, you are selling the amount of people that follow your channel. And there is a base number that a lot of people will tell you, you can get for a baked in ad.
Can I get $5,000 for that?
No, you're getting more?
Really?
Yeah, you're getting more money, you're getting quite a bit more. For one baked in video, one ad space that you are going to read yourself. You're gonna read it yourself, you're going to be this video was brought to you by Bitdefender. Something like that. 100,000 people, you can charge up to 10 grand if you have the viewership also relative. If you have nominal viewership for 100,000 person audience, that means I do know a YouTuber who's got 230,000 subs, and he does less views than me. He can't charge that. But a normal channel that has proper growth, you're doubling year over year has the same amount of views that channel with 100,000 subscribers should have should be able to get $10,000 for a 30 seconds ad read.
Okay, that's $100 CPM than right.
$100 for a baked in ad.
Yep.
I don't know the math on that.
Don't worry. Yeah. I mean, I believe that's what it is. But also it's um, I mean, because it's host read. Definitely that raises the value up there and it's in the yeah, totally. So I think that's, that's totally a fair rate. And I think a lot of niche podcasters can command that as well. Unfortunately, they just don't have 100,000 necessarily, they got much less.
Here's the thing. YouTube grows because it has a built in algorithm. So there's somebody pushing your crap out. You can build to 100,000 very easily. I'm at 22,000 I'm doubling year over year, do the math, like it's not hard to do. So if you can learn how to push content out and you can get a channel to 100,000 That's that's your full time gig man. That's $10,000 for a single read a 32nd reads so you do that four times in the month man. You put out a video a week with four ad read this $40,000 a month just on baked in information on your video and you don't have an hour to do it a week.
And before you go I need you to remind people why they should not let AI do their shorts.
AI is horrible at it right now.
Yep.
And AI is getting there. There's actually a lot of people creating content with AI and doing it very well, but it's AI based. There are ways to utilize AI to make content and very few people know how, but it has no soul. And people can see through that pretty quick. I actually did a video on my channel, which was will AI take over media, and I had aI write the script for the video. And AI actually pointed out the pluses and the minuses to having AI do your job for you. And AI actually kind of encompassed it really well, it doesn't do a great job. And the video is quite dry. Because AI doesn't have personality, it doesn't have what you bring to it. It doesn't tell your jokes.
Well. It's a collection of the mean, and the average. And so if you want to create an average piece of anything, just get AI to do it.
But then it also relies on people watch personality, right? I watched my favorite YouTubers, not because they do something specific that I really like it's because who they are as people. I enjoy that, that that personality, I try to bring it into everything I do you see a lot of personality in this. That's the personality that sells me. That's what people who follow my community or were on my Discord come here for. And when you do AI, you take all of you out of it and I read an AI script. There's no joke, there's no me. I make puns. I run around with a cape on saying supercardioid man,. AI doesn't do that crap. So is it worth it? I mean, if you really know how to utilize it, I do know some podcasters. And I'm going to not say who they are. But they do fill in gaps in their script with AI and they use certain phrases or commands for the AI to make it sound really good and it works really well. So can you utilize AI in certain respects like that? Yes. 100%. Can you use AI to create a super mountain of content? No, you're you're gonna fall flat on your face. It's still pretty garbage.
All right. Hey, man, thanks a lot for doing this and thanks for taking the time. I feel like I feel like I got like a lesson. Am I any further along? Yes, I think I am thank you.
I'm gonna get you to send my content. So the stuff that you recorded of me doing this, I'm going to turn it into some shorts and I'm going to send it back to you. Because I have a few weeks off from podcasts and I'm going to send it back to you and I'm going to win $100 from you. Because you took the bet which was a dumb idea, by the way, but very dumb. You're gonna put it up and you're gonna be wowed.
All right, I'll get my 100 bucks ready for you to take Interac.
Oh, absolutely.
I will you take in Satoshis
I pay in peanuts. Yeah, thanks for having me, brother.
The Sound Off Podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Sieminski, edited by Chloe Emond-Lane, social media by Aiden Glassey. another great creation from the Sound Off Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com
