Youtube for podcasts 2 - with Anastazja (Nastia) Debowska

This podcast is brought to you by AudioTrain. Audio UK's training platform for the UK podcasting and audio industry. Built around creative business and technical skills, every session is led by top professionals and packed with practical insights. Funded by the BBC, AudioTrain is helping close skill gaps and grow the next generation of creators. Access the platform at audiotrain.co.uk Titles and thumbnails. To attract a new audience to your podcast, there are elements that are crucial. A well thought out for topic, a catchy title and an attractive cover. Your cover is the viewer's first point of contact with your episode, making it vital for attracting attention. Common mistake podcasters make is neglecting the packaging, what I call it, their episode, their titles and thumbnails. So these are a few examples, this is a good example on the screen. And this is a not so good example on the screen. The first example is more eye-catching, attractive, and definitely more clear to a new person. A strong cover should be clear and intrigue the viewer. Ask yourself, what is the most surprising element of your show? What creates a vow a fact that your audience will appreciate? Visualize this element and place it on your cover. You don't need to be a graphic designer or spend too much money, the right tools like Canva or a lot of your tools, that create thumbnails pretty easy these days. The key is clarity and intrigue, not necessarily aesthetics. Pro tip, YouTube allows you to test two or even three versions of the thumbnail to understand which catches the audience more. I feel I owe you a few words about the YouTube algorithm, which scares people a lot often. My message to you, the algorithm is your friend, is your distribution partner, is your marketer, so that you don't have to wear your marketer hat after you've done your main job as a creator. Think of the algorithm as a machine that has a goal of connecting a ton of content on YouTube. Over 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube, everything single-minute, to a lot of people. So YouTube is used by over 2.5 billion people every single month. So the algorithm is just the machine to connect the correct content to the correct audiences. And if you want to optimize for the algorithm, I suggest you think of the algorithm as a funnel. Just imagine an upside-down funnel. So the top of the funnel is how many people can potentially be interested in your show. It largely depends on the potential niche size. Let's think of a show about soccer in Europe. This can potentially have more audience interested in it. Then let's say a show about curling in Europe. So the wider is your initial topic, the better. YouTube recommends your episodes to the people who can be potentially interested. But then a person needs to make a decision to click on you. And this is where packaging comes into place. So title and a thumbnail. They appear usually on YouTube homepage, but on a few other surfaces as well. And they need to be attractive enough, clear enough, and glanceable. This is the word I love using enough for a person to quickly get interested in it and click. Once the person clicks, it's very likely this person is not your core viewer. They can be your casual viewer. They can be any viewer. So people who don't know you, they don't know your show, they don't know who you are. And they give you a bit of credit of their trust to watch just the start of your episode. And this is where they make a decision to stay with you for longer, to stay with you until the very end. Or maybe just keep if they are a bit too bored. So if you optimize the show, the potential audience size, the packaging and how you start the show, you are going to be as successful as possible on YouTube. As I mentioned, the element that may not be as familiar for you as an audio creator, but that becomes crucial for video is your video packaging. A packaging consists of a title and a thumbnail. Terminal is more graphic, more visual, so it's almost more important than a title, I would say. A person will likely discover your episode on YouTube recommendations, on a browse feed. So it's like home feed. And their first encounter with your episode is your thumbnail and a title. Think of them as the element that needs to provoke curiosity in the person. And here are two examples. So this is example number one. And this is example number two. You see there are crucially different, even though both of them are podcasts. But the example number one is likely to be more successful because it provides a clear value to the audience. It's very clear what the show is about, but it also has its clear intrigue. This is what we call curiosity gap on a thumbnail shown very, very clearly. So a pro tip is to have a look at your show and think about the aspects of it that truly create this wow effect in the audience and then try to visualize them on a thumbnail. And now we're going to go. And each thumbnail want to have two elements, a recognizable element and an unrecognizable element. The recognizable one creates a connection between the viewer and yourself and the viewer knows that there is something they know they want to click on. A curiosity gap is something the viewer doesn't know. For example, if a podcast is like how to make your first 10,000 pounds a month, it will interest your viewers because on the one hand, they want to make money. They know what, that 10,000 pounds is a lot. But they don't know how to make it. So this is the perfect combination of a familiar aspect and a familiar aspect. Account and mistake podcasts is make is including too many unknown elements into packaging at once. First tip, choose a topic of a video. You can choose a topic or for a seasonal occasion or something there is trendy. For example, people today are concerned about whether AI is going to take their jobs. And this is the example of Derri with CEO who created the whole debate about these jobs that one exists and just two years. Formulate the title clearly. A good title should be understandable to a new viewer who does not have a context of your show, of your past episode and still attract attention on a homepage. And these are a few characteristics of a good title for your episode. Do not use episode numbers. They just don't help. Include known people, companies, in the beginning, if applicable, if you have those. This will help people recognize what the episode is about. Offer solutions or ask intriguing questions. If your podcast is problem solving, for example, how to solve a problem, how to make money, how to find a job, clearly introduce it in your show title. Sell the guest. Your guest may not be widely known, but they may have certain credentials that are outstanding. Don't forget to list those as Derri of a CEO does. Another reason I am such a fan of video is the fact that it can be repurposed. What is the repurposing? Repurposing is the act of using same footage, same material you've created once to produce many pieces of content. And this is what is easier done with video than audio. Think about the episode. You've created the episode and you've published it. This is one encounter between you and your audience. This is one upload. But what if the episode has is an interview that has many fantastic questions? This can easily be separate pieces of content. So you can cut this into clips and shorts or that I'll speak about just in a second and keep uploading them. Many, many times after we've uploaded the primary episode or before it. This will help you create many pieces of content out of just like one recording day or one recording episode. And this will also increase the number of test points between you and the audience. And who knows, one of the pieces can go viral, can get more views and attract people to remain episode. My favorite tools are two tools, shorts and clips. Access the platform at audiotrain.co.uk.