YouTube’s New Podcast Playbook: What to Do Next

0:04 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025, and today it's Podcast Newsday. So we're exploring YouTube's new podcast playbook. Why A leading podcast ad agency says smaller shows drive better ad results and EU KS push to officially recognize podcasting. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button on the left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast or YouTube, please share this episode with the fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here. Good morning again podcasting Morning chat. Thank you so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik and currently on stage with me. My Co hosts we have producer Ashley Feller, Sid Meadows, Dr. Fay, Alex Baelish, Nick Nalback and Phil Better. We'll see who else joins us from

1:38 the cast and crew. We were expecting Jonathan and sometimes I know Jonathan can't make it last minute. We were going to be streaming live on Chatter as well with his help and being that I wasn't prepared to take it over this morning in case Jonathan couldn't be there. We're just going to let Chatter go today. We'll get there at some point. It's a little messy right now, and if I could snap my fingers and say let's just all move to chatter and know that it wouldn't disrupt the flow of this community and this show, I would absolutely snap my fingers and do that. But my concern is, is that it will be a little disruptive. It'll shake things up enough where, yeah, it'll again, it'll be disruptive.

2:25 So we will wait and see. Maybe the one way to do this is maybe I host a room there once a week, whether it's the 7:00 AM hour or a different hour of the day, just so that we can all start using it together and get more comfortable. Because I love some of the features that Chatter has and there are some that they have shared with me privately that I'm really excited about. It was a tough go because they were lacking some things. Are they still lacking a few things? The biggest thing that they're lacking for me personally, and it's not necessarily a gripe from for everybody, but they still don't have replays. You can't. Once it's done, it doesn't get saved. And that's a really important feature for us because we use the clubhouse recordings as backup in case something goes wrong with the main recording.

3:16 So I can't risk that yet because we've absolutely had to go to that as recently as probably this past month, if not definitely last month. Ashley is agreeing with me over there. By the way, before we get into the news, I want to remind you tomorrow, Thursday, October 23rd, is our first. It's our inaugural evaluation episode. This is where podcasters ask for input on their podcasts. They want a full breakdown from us or other podcasters. In this case, the runner's soul had posted this on social media that they were looking for feedback. Dr. saw that and shared it with me and said let's do it. So here we are tomorrow, the cast and crew. And if anybody listening live right now wants to be a part of this, let me know.

4:05 Reach out to me privately. You can e-mail me markmarc@ironicmedia.com. Ironic Media spelled with ack, or you can DM me on your favorite podcast platform if you want to be a part of it. I'm happy to bring others in to join us on evaluating this podcast, a new podcast again, it's called The Runner's Soul SOLE, and we're going to evaluate everything from the title of the series to their cover art to their series description, to their most recent episode, episode 3. No, they're no, it's not their most recent. Oh, they've put up a new A. New dropped, right? OK, well we're going to do episode 3. We're going to do episode 3.

4:49 And Sid, I saw you had something you wanted to add. Go for it. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. I had a question. Sure. Does she does she know we're doing this review? She does not. I was going to do it first and then send her a link to the show. And we can let her know ahead of time, too. As a matter of fact, maybe Dr. we should do that. And if she's interested, she can join us live tomorrow. OK, I'll e-mail her. OK, cool. Sid, was there a concern? I'm just curious, are you concerned if we didn't tell her? No, not really. I think feedback is a gift, and I think it's incumbent upon the people in this community to be sure that your feedback is constructive and not judgmental as you're reviewing the show and just keeping it, you know, high level. This is not an attack on this lady or what she's doing. She's doing some really good things. Personally, I don't know if I would want to sit in a room of people.

5:45 Yeah, that's why I chose to tell her. Yeah, that's why I chose to tell her afterwards. But sure, I can send her a little something. Well, I mean, because your your natural reaction is to be defensive, but your natural, yeah, your natural reaction is to be defensive. Oh, well, This is why I do this. And so anyways, I just think it's. Even the way that. Yeah, 100. Percent, yeah. And then to have a whole room. Yeah. But you know what? I think that she will find that we are going to handle it in a very gentle way. And because she's doing a lot of things right, I think she is. Yeah. And look, I think that anybody who has listened to this show for any period of time, I think, you know, this is not the kind of crew that's an attacking crew.

6:30 Can we be, can we disagree on things? Sure. Can we be constructive? Absolutely. We're not going to be attacking. We just want to help improve this person's show if we can. That's the thing, I am sure that some of my views tomorrow other podcasters will disagree with and I will disagree with someone what someone else says. So this is just food for thought that Sharon, I think that's her first name, Sharon, Sharon can consider and then make up her own mind. But we will back up our suggestions with, you know, why we feel that way or something like that. Agreed. Agreed. And I'm glad, Sid, I'm glad you mentioned that.

7:12 I think that's important to call out. So thank you. So that's tomorrow, Thursday, October 23rd, we will be doing a full evaluation of a podcast, a new podcast, The Runner's Soul SOLE. So go check that out if you want to go listen to episode 3. I was thinking about this this morning that Sharon may be a little surprised this week to see her download numbers a little bit higher than normal and wondering why. Interesting. To see, yeah. All right, so I say it's time. Let's get into the news around the world of podcasting. And as you may know, what I like to do is start with a little podcast data.

7:56 This is as of yesterday, October 21st, the number one podcast on Apple overall, the entire podcast directory, it's the daily by the New York Times. We will get to Spotify's number one and also 543 and two in just a moment because as we always say #1 is generally always held by the same podcast. So we like to dig a little deeper. First, I want to give you a some additional stats this morning, Buzz Sprout. This is their average episode duration. If you're trying to figure out the ideal episode length, the list from Buzz Sprout gives you a good sense of where most podcasters are landing.

8:39 This is current as of this month, 18% of podcast episodes are under 10 minutes. So quick and to the point, 16% are between 10 and 20 minutes. The biggest group, 31%, run between 20 and 40 minutes, which seems to be that sweet spot that does that surprise you? It surprises me, 20 to 40, that's a big jump. I would have preferred they broke it down to 20 to 30 or 20 to 31, something like that, because I think the majority of that breakdown is going to fall between 20 and 30. I could see that as well, 20% are in the 40 to 60 minute range and about 14% go over an hour.

9:27 So if you're trying to figure out your ideal episode length or maybe just want to see where other podcasters or are landing and just see if you are in that same wheelhouse, go check that out. Or yeah, it's at pod. Let's see. I'm sorry, buzzsprout.com/stats. All right, Dr. give us your top or not yours. Spotify's top five. Spotify's top five OK #5 is a new one. It's Subway Takes with Kareem Rama #4 is the Tucker Carlson show and #3 is the Matt and Shane's Secret podcast #2 is the diary of the CEO of Stephen Bartlett and #1 is the Joe Rogan Experience.

10:16 That's right once again. And thank you for that, Dr. And we're going to do something different than her top five from another category on Spotify. She's going to share some information about Edison Research's top 50 US podcasts for Quarter 3 of 2025. South Edison, which is the gold, you know, the television has the Nielsen's and podcasts have the Edisons and they, they're kind of the gold standard when it comes to podcasts. And they have the top 50 podcast podcasts for Q3 for 2025. And of course, it's the normal, you know what, mostly what I just read off Joe Rogan experience dominates, while new entries like the Midas Touch podcast and on purpose of Jay Shetty kind of shake up the rankings a little bit. And findings.

11:10 The findings are based on interviews with 5000 weekly podcast consumers aged. I think this is interesting aged 13 and up in English and Spanish and measuring reach rather than downloads. So some of the key points on here is the five remain strong. You know, Joe Rogan from Jackie, the Daily Caller, Daddy and Smartless lead the charts. The new entries that have broken the top 50 are the Midas Touch Podcast and On Purpose with Jay Shetty And that's. At 14, Midas touches. At 14 and J. The big movers, of course. And it's kind of logical that Charlie Kirk show Will has jumped 32 spots from 49 to 17 because of obvious reasons. The show morbid climbs at 9 spots. Pop culture boosts new heights with Jason and Travis Kelsey benefited from, of course, the Taylor Swift episodes. We've dedicated a lot of time to talking about that Candace is that Candace?

12:19 What's her name? OK Candace Rose after maternity leave. Well, now I don't know who that is. I thought it was the the political OK, nevermind. OK sports surge, Pat McAfee show as at 26 and the Bill Simmons podcast is at 36. And it gained momentum with the football season. So the methodology of this is the data gathered continuously during Q3 IN20255000 weekly podcast consumers already said this age 13 end up surveyed in English and Spanish already said that respondents report which podcast they listened to and watched. I think that's important.

13:02 Listened and watched in the past week. Ranking measures reach percentage of total weekly podcast audiences, not downloads or watch time. Now that's confusing to me. Not watch time, but the other thing that I just read was respondents report. I think, I think what this is Dr. is they're saying that respondents report which podcast they listen to slash watched. I think they're just lumping it all together. To give you a better take on the top ten, it is number 10, Stuff You Should Know, and that's down by two points #9 Morbid, that's up by 9 points. Dateline is number 8 and that's down by one point. The new heights with Jason and Kelsey, Jason Travis Kelsey is up by three points.

13:53 Number six is this past weekend with the Obama which is down by one point #5 is smart list that gained a point #4 is Caller daddy #3 is The Daily. Number 2 is Crime Junkie and we all know what number one is and I refuse to say his name twice in the show. Thank you, Dr. Appreciate that. I like the US going in a little different direction this morning instead of just a Oh yeah, go go make some eggs. Yes, go do it. I will take over and share a few events that are coming up that you all may be interested in. 2025 Latinas in podcasting virtual summit that happens tomorrow, Thursday, October 23rd.

14:35 It's interesting. It says from midnight to October 24th, 11:59 Pacific Time. Not sure how they're going to do that, but hey, more power to them. Maybe it's this, a 24 hour virtual summit, Really interesting. OK And business and podcasting network event for female entrepreneurs happens on Tuesday, October 28th at 11:00 AM central time. This is hosted by the Female Entrepreneurs Business and Podcasting Society. It's a free event and it is virtual. By the way, we will share all of this in the show notes for you. Pod Tour by Pod Fest is coming Monday. Pay attention.

15:15 Oh, we lost Alex. I was going to say Alex Baelish. Pay attention because he's in that area. They're coming to New York and it's going to be hosted at Odyssey in New York again October 27th at 5:30 PM if you're interested in that. And Speaking of Pod Fest, it's their 12th annual event that's coming soon. That's Thursday, January 15th and goes until January 18th. That's hosted in Orlando, FL. You can check that out at podfestexpo.com. I was going to give you my link. You know what, I'll give it to Ashley. So good news. I was going to I'll share it again tomorrow for wins if if I have to.

15:57 But good news, I am speaking at Pod Fest this year. I'm going to be speaking about creating big communities. Despite having a small audience. I think I've proven the concept that it can happen. I proved it this past September and I proved it in 2024 as well. So I'm going to speak about it and start showing other people that you can build a community even if you feel like your podcast audience is quote UN quote, too small. So anyway, I've been given a link to share with everybody to get 10% off your tickets. If you want to come join me at Podfest this January, we'll put that in the show notes. Ashley, remind me.

16:40 I'll make sure to give that to you cuz I don't have it handy. Also, one other thing, podcasters directory networking. This is community meetups of podcasters, speakers, and authors. It also happens tomorrow, 1:00 PM Pacific Time. The topics they're discussing education, training, news society, science and environment. This is part of that group that Dr. Has shared with us each week and I know since she's cooking I will just share if you use the code PMC podcasting morning chat you can get in for free and this is you can find go ahead. It works. I just tried it before the show so I know the coupon is. Working.

17:23 All right, great. And that's at podcasters directory.com and again, we'll put that in the show notes. All right, I will keep things moving because I think DDR is still in the kitchen. Yes, go ahead. Who was that? That was me. Go ahead, Sid. So I have a event announcement, I think, OK, at the Empower Podcasting conference, I met Rick and Clancy Denton, who are North Texas natives and. Clients of. Mine, yes, and clients of yours and becoming friends of mine. And the three of us have started a new group that will be live on Facebook today called North Texas Podcasters. I was we will all share it later today. Clancy is building it out today and it will be an affiliation of the Empowered Podcasting Group community, and we will be building this Facebook community of North Texas podcasters to host monthly events.

18:23 Our first event will be in December and it's just a networking gathering of North Texas podcasters, so be on the lookout. You're welcome to follow us. There's not going to be a lot of content on that Facebook group because it's just about getting people together under one group in order to build out a community so that we can have a gathering. As we build it out, we'll be, like I said, going towards doing a monthly meetups for North Texas podcaster. So if you know any and you see the group, please share it with any of podcasters that you know that live in North Texas. Love this Sid. Thank you for sharing that. Go ahead, Dr. Is this virtual or like IRL? The meetups are going to be in person. We actually have found a couple of places that are centrally located.

19:04 For the first one, I don't see some. Baza is not here with us this morning, but certainly we're going to invite him to the group because he lives here in North Texas as well. But the meetings will be in person, just as a way to gather and get to know each other and build a community around podcasters who live in and around the Dallas Fort area. Very cool. And Sid, I please make sure to invite me even though I'm not from that area, but I want to make sure to support this as best I cans. Being that there is an affiliation with Empowered Podcasting, we're going to do everything we can to help grow this group with you guys. So yeah, make sure I'm a part of that and I will help contribute to adding content there if you guys want to.

19:45 I have some ideas in my head floating around so we can talk about that too at some point. But I'm, I'm really excited and it's really especially because this was born from our community event that we had this past September. It's really cool to see people coming together and wanting more connection thanks to that event. Very cool. Thank you, Sid. All right, so I'm going to dive into some news bites. We call this segment first decades old murder case finally sees movement thanks to a podcast. Now, I was, I start this by saying here, I've written down, you don't hear stories like this every day. And maybe not every day, but we have heard how podcasts and true crime podcasts have helped solve these different cases that were that were seemingly unsolvable.

20:39 After more than 30 years, there's finally been an arrest in the 1991 killing of Billie Jean Letterman in Texarkana, AR. The case has long gone cold until the true crime podcast Burden brought it back into the spotlight. Burden, hosted by journalist Karen Stewart and attorney Stephanie Harris, is produced by Power of Pod. And it dug deep. They went through interviews, forensic details, and decades of unanswered questions, and now there's been a real world outcome. It's a perfect example of the kind of impact podcasting can have when it's done with purpose.

21:20 It's beyond storytelling. It's storytelling that you can actually that can actually change lives or in this case, reopen the door to unsolved crimes. So if you're a creator, let this be a reminder that your voice absolutely does matter far beyond the podcast. And if you're a listener, it's proof that the shows you follow are sometimes they move the needle in ways none of us could predict. So very cool. Congratulations to the Burden podcast. I'll keep things moving. Treble unveils Deep Cut, an AI editor and new brand identity as well.

22:04 I'll explain. Audio editing platform Treble has launched its latest AI feature, Deepcut, which scans and this is going to sound familiar, but there is a twist, so stay with me. It scans full recordings to identify filler words, tangents, repeats and chatter, which I think chatter meaning probably fluff, then builds an intelligent clean up plan for creators. Alongside Deepcut, Treble also introduces Safecut, a safeguard that applies only the edits the system is confident will sound natural. So think about that for a minute if you are somebody who uses Riverside Magic Clips or Opus or Minvo. I know that a lot of us have said in the past that sometimes the edits feel a little sloppy, right? It just doesn't feel like it's really smooth, professionally cut.

23:00 I think Riverside has been doing a really good job of that. But what I'm really excited about here with Treble is just the fact that it has these safeguards up and it's only going to make the cuts if it is quote UN quote, confident enough that it's going to be a smooth 1. So check that out. Again, it comes from Treble. Dr. Did you have something? I bought this on Oh Sumo of course. Recently. No, OK. A while back and I wound up returning it. That's one of the beauties of Apsumo. And then I got into a tizzy about, I guess last month when I was up against a deadline and one of my Daws stopped working and I started, Oh my God, what am I going to do? I got to, I'll go to Apsumo and get something right away. But then so I.

23:53 And any excuse to use Appsumo. So travel came up and I went, oh God. I remember I returned because I have a on my Trello board, I have a whole list of things that I've returned so I know not to buy them again unwittingly. And I said, oh God, travel, I don't want to. So I did buy it only because I felt desperate about this deadline. And I opened it up and you know, I'm so used to the sound wave that editing. Oh yeah, editing with the sound wave, Yeah. Yeah, editing with the script is I just wanted 2 tracks with a sound wave. That's really all I wanted, so I wound up returning it for a second.

24:44 I like the text editing. I just don't like it as my primary way to edit. I'd like to have it as a secondary edit. But yeah, I maybe call us traditional Dr. call us old, but I think that the wave editing is our preference. Ashley's agreeing and she's she's, I'll say, considerably younger than us. So there you go. All right. Dr. Do you want to take the next story #3? Sure. The Black Podcasting Awards 2025 goes live spotlighting Black podcasters, including community leaders, and, I'm sorry, including community leader Dominic Lawson. I'm so proud of him.

25:25 As we mentioned yesterday, the Black Podcasting Awards are as it's known, BP Awards held its first in person ceremony, presented 45 awards across 29 podcasts, 5 individual podcasts and one network. And among the winners, community leader Dominic Lawson walked away with. Sorry I didn't have my finger on the button. With three wins, including podcaster of the year. Yep. Is that amazing? Yep. So he is now a 42 time award winner. Dominic Lawson. I know we talked about this a little bit yesterday, but I wanted to give the this award ceremony its props because, yeah, it was the first time it they actually did it live in person. I got a little emotional because he's one of us, he's one of ours.

26:16 So. The BP Awards 2025 ceremony marked its first physical event held in Baltimore during the Afros and Audio Podcast Festival weekend. A total of 45 awards were given out, covering 29 podcasts, 5 individual podcasters, and one podcast network. I mentioned that before and again, our own Dominic Lawson received three awards including peer voted, peer voted podcaster of the year. So that is so great. Indeed. And if you're interested in that, you can look up Afrozen audio, you can look up Black Podcasting Awards, and we will share some links in the show notes as well if you want to hear more about some of the winners, including Anna Deshawn, who swept for honors, including the Legend Award. So if you want to learn more about the award winners and nominees, go for it.

27:12 And congratulations to all of those nominees and winners. Moving on, Apple Podcast is getting ahead of the holiday rush, warning creators to plan their release schedules accordingly. It's crazy. It's this time of year, every year we, we cover this part of this, this story from Apple, and it's just crazy how quickly time flies. The platform says submissions for new channels or paid subscriptions made between November 22nd through the 30th and December 24th through the January 1st might face slower approval times and support responses could take a little longer than usual.

27:53 The good news, publishing new episodes or launching new shows won't be affected. So this is very specific to if you are launching a channel on Apple Podcasts or a paid subscription that it's, it's specific to that it should not disrupt normal episode publishing according to Apple. Has anybody started thinking? And if you're in the audience, give me a one in the chat. If you've started to plan your podcast for the holidays, whether that means you're doing special episodes or you're planning a break, or maybe you're planning ahead and just trying to get your regular content out. So we've got several people who are planning ahead. And if any of those people that I am seeing in the chat are open to coming up and sharing, would love to hear it. Share a little bit about your plans. Let's bring up Amanda Yoa, who we mentioned yesterday on the show.

28:52 Amanda Yoa making her local TI don't know this for sure. I'm going to just say her local TV debut. Good. Morning, you saw that I watched. That whole clip, it was awesome. Thank you get that was that was the Late Show on Fox 29. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, it looked like you were having fun. And I, I'm so impressed with you, Amanda, because I know that, you know, I don't think Pam was something you had planned a long time ago. And you have just embraced that. I mean, you were, it felt like I was watching, you know, Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon, and you were one of his character guests on their show. You did a great job.

29:34 Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, she's a lot of fun. So we're taking her and and having good times doing all all sorts of things. That being said, and I'm glad you brought that up because that was my reasoning for coming up and sharing like my plans for the holidays. I kind of abruptly ended my podcast for the for the holiday this. So this Friday coming up will be the last show, and that was a decision that I had to make through a cry to myself in the shower. But are you saying your last ever or just for the year? No. No, no, no. Yeah, just just for the holiday season. We're going to pick back up in January, but it was earlier. I usually always take a holiday break because, you know, my mom and Christmas and and all the thing, the holidays are here. It was earlier than I normally do. I usually have a Thanksgiving episode or Christmas episode, all of those things and I just everything that I have going on, I feel like it's very overwhelming. So I had to reprioritize.

30:36 I also have plans to relocate and, you know, change up a few things. So all of that being said, I said, you know what, let me just wrap it up a little earlier than usual. I went on Instagram Live, explained it to my community, and then I explained it in the podcast at the end. So sometimes things are unexpected, but you got to do what you got to do. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And I appreciate that, Cher, because I think it sometimes is hard for a lot of podcasters to say, yeah, I'm just going to take an extended break. Even if it's a holiday season. We get it drilled in our heads about consistency, and you got to keep posting. But I personally am in the camp that if you need a break, I want you to take a break.

31:21 Because otherwise, if you're feeling that way and you just keep pushing anyway, I think that is a recipe for pod fade. And we do it too here at the podcasting morning chat. We usually at the very least take a couple weeks off between Christmas and New Year's. And I think it's good for all of us to get that break. Mishawn, welcome to the stage. Curious about you. You said you have some holiday planning around your podcast. What? What have you got going? Oh yeah, we're crunching all our interviews and recordings to have podcasts ready to go through the 1st, not the second Tuesday in December, because we always do 2nd and 4th Tuesdays unless we do something different. And we've got Jackielle High, whose book has been adapted into a new film, Nuremberg, which is coming out October 27th, where we've got Doctor Sandra Shannon, Who's the authority on August Wilson.

32:19 So we're going to talk about August Wilson. That conversation was very interesting. Both of these conversations are interesting. And we're going to just round it, you know, end the year with Jane Austen's birthday. You know, this is her, the 250th anniversary of her birth. We have a curator who can say which costumes are right, which ones get it wrong in the films, you know, the adaptations of Jane Austen's books. And then another woman, Vanessa Riley, who was an advisor to the Hallmark Hall of Fame since the Sensibility adaptation. And she has a book that's being optioned for film treatment too. So that's, and then we're trying to get someone to do our January recording before the holidays so that we are not scrambling during the end of December to launch a January podcast.

33:09 And we just take 1-2 weeks off, about two to three weeks off before. And so just so I'm clear, So what you're doing now is basically batch recording so that you can take that time off or? Exactly. I didn't know the term for it, but yeah. OK, cool. It looks like Sid has a question. Go ahead, Sid. Well. Not a question, I was just going to follow up with what what I'm doing and. Oh, well then let me just say to Mashawn, thank you for sharing, Mashawn. I appreciate that. Mashawn, what's the name of your podcast? Historical drama with the Boston sisters. Thank you. There you go. We'll we'll try to get that in the show notes. If you want to link to it in the chat, Ashley will grab it and we'll put it in the show notes.

33:49 Yeah, go ahead, Sid. Please share. And so I have one episode left to record, which is the season 7 recap. And I'm doing something kind of fun with it using notebook LM and there's a recap for the season and then that will air The So what is it actually air is going to be the 10th of November and then we're done for the year. So we'll take the rest of November off because the next publishing date would be the week of Thanksgiving. Then we take December and January off. During that time I'm recording, I'm connecting with guests, I'm doing pre interviews, and I'm recording for Season 7, get everything set up for Season 7. Then our first episode will publish February 2nd, Monday, February 2nd of Season 7. So I take those two months to get ahead and with the new structure and everything that we're doing, it'll be a little bit of a challenge just to see that we like the new structure of the show and all that.

34:44 We'll play around with it for a little bit. So we're going to take two months off and I'll make that announcement. I will be dropping a special trailer episode probably in early January. That's just a preview of Season 7 and some of the changes and announcing our sponsors and those kinds of things. As a as I haven't done a new trailer since the show started. So have a new trailer come out sometime in January. Very cool, Sid. I just had this flash that all these, all this change that you've made to the podcast. It feels almost like new car smell, if that makes sense. I I just feel that for you, I just feel that fresh. I can actually understand that, yeah.

35:26 That's a great analogy, by the way. Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited for you, Sid. I feel the renewed energy and I can't wait to hear what you've done. OK, let's see here. Janae is on stage. We'll go to Janae and then we'll keep things moving. We haven't even gotten to some of the major headlines yet. And I know we are about 40 minutes from time. So we will do our best to get to everything. Janae, good morning. Did you want to share about your holiday plans for your podcast? Good morning. Yes, I do have a little bit of plan. So I've already the episodes pre scheduled for the holidays, but I'm going to be adding a few new episodes on a different day just to keep the people interested in what's what we're planning. Something that I've also paused on is recording episodes on the podcast.

36:15 As you as we know, I have a huge batch of episodes and in the process of what it looks like for post production and promotion and communicating with guests and training people as well as bring I brought on an intern to help them teach this process as well. So that's something that I'm excited to be doing during the holidays or the next couple of months. Very cool, Janae. Thank you for sharing that and hopefully this has been helpful to you listening right now. If you're thinking about your holiday plans, maybe we've sparked some thoughts, ideas for you. And like I said, ultimately do what what feels right to you and try not to put too much pressure on yourself. If a break is in order, it's OK.

37:05 Really. I know that some of the I'm just hearing some of the gurus out there disagreeing with me wholeheartedly and I don't really care. This is a long game and I think we got to play it as such and not play the long game as it's as if it's a short game. I just, it's seems ridiculous to me. OK, we'll keep going. Spotify launches its first FAST in all caps FAST channel on Samsung TV Plus. This is a follow up to last week's Netflix deal. In a big move following that announcement last week, Spotify is rolling out its first free ad supported streaming television.

37:47 That is what FAST stands for channel on Samsung TV Plus. The channel titled The Ringer from Spotify features 24/7 streaming video podcast content from the popular The Ringer network. Think about shows like the Reachables, higher learning, etcetera. And this will be exclusive on the Samsung platform. So I find it really interesting that Spotify is making these moves with these big TV streaming services, especially just being that they've been promoting their own video platform for so long. I guess this is just to help them really extend that reach. Content is content and so probably the next one in line would be the Roku TV's.

38:37 Roku has a full lineup of free quote UN quote free channels and they don't have a podcast channel yet, but I kind of feel like that's probably the next update. Who knows, maybe it's Roku and Apple that make some kind of deal. I wouldn't be surprised to see some big players following suit with Spotify. Let's keep things moving here and see if we can get to some of these major headlines that we teased at the very top of the show. YouTube recently laid out a podcast playbook for growth and engagement. Earlier this month, they opened It's Their Playbook for Podcasters, offering up a range of tips to turn a traditional audio podcast into a visually engaging, discoverable and community driven show. From leveraging video elements to tweaking your thumbnails and engagement strategy, the platform wants podcasters to act like YouTube creators, too.

39:34 What a shocker. They note that podcasts are now part of its ecosystem. I think most of us knew that. Over a billion monthly active podcast listeners and viewers. And YouTube is, according to YouTube, the most frequently used service for podcast listening in the US. While your podcast might be audio first, YouTube remains a visual platform. Even a simple webcam shot of the host can improve connection. Again, this is coming from their playbook, not necessarily from me directly. Best practice record a full video version of pod of your podcast, which means things like again, they're suggesting multi angles, B roll on screen graphics, etcetera to elevate the visual experience. And it's noted here that of course, that does increase time for the podcaster, for the creator and costs. They also focus on thumbnail strategy. I just had a discovery call yesterday where somebody was asking me do thumbnails really matter on YouTube? I hear it does.

40:37 Does it matter? Well YouTube is telling you it does use expressive faces, high contrast colors, and I would recommend not too many colors. Minimal bold text, like 3 to 5 words. So similarly to what we suggest when you're naming a podcast or even for that matter your episode titles, I think keeping them to around 3:00 to 5:00 words is helpful. And constant branding so your episodes stand out in a busy feed. More from YouTube's playbook. Meta data and structure matter. Split episodes into chapters for easier navigation. I don't know if anybody remembers this, but I've been preaching this. I know I have.

41:21 Especially to clients and discovery calls. I've been preaching this method for a long time now. If you have, let's just say a 30 minute episode, break it into 5 to 10 minute segments. Like literally make them their own individual segment and then create a playlist and put them in order in that playlist. So this way people can find either that individual segment or they can find it and then listen to all of the segments together in a playlist. So I'm just glad to see that I'm on the same page as YouTube. Engagement is central, again, coming from their playbook. Ask viewers questions during your podcast.

42:03 Reply to comments. Use the Community tab that YouTube offers, which has things like polls, GIFs, images, etcetera to tease upcoming guests or get feedback. Enable clips so viewers share highlight moments. Yvonne, you joined us as I'm sharing here about YouTube and I know you're on a YouTube journey of your own. What did you want to add to all this? Yeah, I have a question about the chapters. I can totally see where chapters are. Would be useful for how to videos. I go to YouTube to learn stuff all the time and I really appreciate chapters but I have a hard time.

42:47 I haven't done it for mine, partly because of bandwidth, but also because it's a conversation and it's not a how to, and so I wonder how to do it or if it's valuable in that case. OK, so first let me just make it clear there's a difference chapters and I guess what we'll call these as segments. So chapters are where you can create those chapter markers within YouTube and other platforms do this too, where you can basically click on the chapter within the YouTube description and it'll jump to that point in the video. What I'm suggesting are actual creating separate videos for segments of the podcast. So you're literally uploading segment 1, giving it its own title, its own description, segment 2, same thing, etcetera, and then you're putting them all in a YouTube playlist. So not like.

43:45 Shorts. But. Bigger than shorts, smaller than the episode. Now. Ask me your question again, because there was another part to that. I was thinking specifically about those chapter markers and thinking, yeah, super useful for how to videos when I'm going there to learn something and I, I just want to jump to, oh, OK, I just want to know this part. So those are really helpful. But for a conversation that's kind of like a high level Evergreen conversation, I don't, I don't, I wouldn't even know how to do that or if it's or if I'd want to do that because I feel like I want people to experience the conversation because there's context at the beginning that might lead to something later in the conversation.

44:32 Yeah, and I think that at the end of the day, you can't force that. I think I respect that approach, and I think you can plan for that approach. But I think giving audiences options in how they consume the content can be helpful too. If you're having trouble actually identifying the chapters, you can easily do that. Well, a with AI, you could just feed it the transcript and ask it to do that. Spotify does that for you. But but the yeah, you could do that. And I had one other thought. Let me think it through. Oh, you could do it by questions, right. So if you're interviewing somebody, each new question could be a chapter.

45:17 Well, very helpful. Thank you. So I have a question about that because Yvonne and I are shows are very similar where their conversations. So the videos that you're talking about and I heard somebody say this at Podcast movement, the video that you put into the playlist, not a short, but the extra video is question and then the guest answering it. So it could be a 2 minute, 32nd or five minute segment and that's what you're saying put into the playlist. So question answer based. In that case, yes, absolutely. That is what I'm saying. So you can do that with chapters as I described the difference a moment ago, or you can do that with segmented videos. Yeah. So one of my clients, what I do is for every episode we put out three shorts and I called them three Q&A's. So that Q&A is not vertical, it's horizontal. And it is my client asking the question and the person answering it.

46:18 Now could be a 2 minute video, it could be an 8 minute video, However long it takes for them to answer the question is how long that video is. And I think we gain the advantage of that is that the question is very, you know, we take into account SEO, what are what are her, you know, listeners wanting to know. So we use that as the title of the video, and they're actually doing pretty well, I got to say. And that just sparked an idea too for me or not an idea, just a reminder it popped in my head. You could also do this. It doesn't have to be each segment or chapter, doesn't have to be question, answer, question, answer.

47:03 You could maybe it's a series of questions and answers, right? Because maybe you're talking about a very specific topic. Like if it were to hear doing, if we're doing this at the podcasting morning chat, I'm interviewing somebody about social media, right? We might be discussing Instagram specifically and I may have three different questions about Instagram for this social media expert. That could be a segment or a chapter. I think the key when we're segmenting, when we're actually pulling out parts of the podcast and uploading them as their own, I think the key is keeping them to around 8 to 10 minutes. The research I've done has said that 8 to 10 minute videos on YouTube tend to be the sweet spot, tend to do really well.

47:48 If you can keep somebody engaged with your content, that one video for around 8 to 10 minutes, they watch it all the way through. That's going to help with the algorithm. But I'm not trying to discourage you either. If that segment ends up being 2 minutes and you're happy with that, then by all means go for it. Going for the title, we're that's what we're actually shooting for is, you know, what's which question is the one that's going to get people to click on it, you know? Let's check in with Renee before we wrap up this part of the conversation since she joined us during the conversation. Renee, good morning. What did you want to add to this? I wanted to bring the analogy to books.

48:28 Books all have chapters, but they flow. Most of them flow in a way that you need to read it, you know, step by step, chapter by chapter. It's just like a video. It doesn't really matter how you get them into your web. I'm, I'm saying video, I'm sorry. I will adjust to the podcast world. It is a busy video, I guess we're talking about. So it's the video. And when we do chapters, even for our clients, which we aren't podcasters yet, but we are doing videos for our clients, we're always breaking them down by chapters because that's how your listener, your viewer wants to follow. They may be looking for something and you're talking about something at the 79 minute mark.

49:12 So why don't you let the algorithm and YouTube help direct them exactly to that moment. Then they go, oh, this is really good. I think I'm going to listen to this whole podcast. So look at it more as a marketing technique. Look at it more as an analogy to actual books, how we read books. Why do we have chapters? So we can go back to that. Some of us might look at as a breather or a four stopping point, but it really is to know what this is, what this segment is about. So I only think they're a great thing and they don't have to be Q And as I mean, I think Diary of a CEO shows it perfectly how he does it. He does his teasers at the beginning. He takes a little sound bite, doesn't answer the question, get you your mouth salivating at the very beginning of the different things he's talking about. Then he does chapters the whole way through. He just does one word like he'll go, you know, he'll just say Ozempic and then you know, oh, this is about where Ozempic starts.

50:09 And so you can, if you just are coming for Ozempic, you can listen to it. And I do realize it's not necessarily a fluid conversation, but it is it is he. He takes you on a journey from the beginning to the end. But you still might just want to listen to the Ozempic part and that's all you need. So I think the algorithm is important for chapters. I think viewers like chapters and books have chapters. So let's not buck the system. I think it's a wonderful thing. And I am one of my giftings and I say it tongue in cheek, is that I'm a professional skim reader. That is my job in the company. Like my I will say I don't get those paragraphs about. If I read the whole thing I would know, but the marketing wasn't good enough for me to understand with that header tag what this is about.

50:55 Then we have to rewrite it. I mean, we joke about it all the time, but I it's not force fed to me. So it's it's bad. And so we use that as my superpower for the company. But that's how I like chapters because I may not want to what I mean. Here's the other thing. We are not as much as we think. People listen to our entire podcast. You guys have the insights, you have the stats, you can see where people drop off or just a section has a hump in it. Why does that have a hump? Because somebody directed people to that hump. Well, that hump helps your stats, that helps you get paid. So I think chapters are a gift. YouTube doesn't do things and puts things out there unless you should be doing. Now they're telling us do this, this will help you. So I just look at as a gift and we find we can even with the clients, we do their YouTube channels. We noticed that doing that helps bring people in. Amen to that, Renee.

51:48 I think. Well said. And I don't know if you quite said it like this too. You. I think you may have brushed by it, but I, I'd written it down just to make sure to point it out. Yeah. Also, they may come back to the content at some point. If they've listened to the whole episode, maybe there's a point in the episode they want to hear again, or like you were saying, Renee, they want to share it with some friends, like, oh, you got to hear this and they can share it just from that point. Or if it's a segmented video, just share that segment, what have you. I think, you know, there are lots of different ways to utilize chapters and or segments. So thank you for saying that, Yvonne. All right, y'all, y'all convinced me I'm I'm I'm going to I'm going to explore.

52:30 Thank you. You're welcome. I think that's a good idea. And again, you can easily do that with AI if you don't want to, if your brains hurting too much trying to figure out what chapters to put where and what to title them, etcetera. It makes it nice and easy. OK, listen gang, we are about 4 minutes away from the top of the hour. So I want to remind you that tomorrow we're doing the podcast evaluation for the podcast called The Runner's Soul, a new independent podcast who is asked to get feedback. So we are answering that call and we are going to be sharing about it tomorrow. We'll play some clips from the episode. We'll talk about the things about the podcast overall that we think she's doing really well, some things that we think she could improve upon, all the things we're doing it tomorrow.

53:16 So come join us 7:00 AM Eastern, live on Clubhouse, live on Chatter, live on YouTube. We would love to have you there. And For more information, go to podpage.com/PMC. Until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody, take care.