“Should I start a YouTube channel or a podcast?"

Great question!

YouTube channels are number one. Podcasts are all the rage, but which one is right for your business?

By the end of this blog you'll know which one is right for you, your business, your customers, and your clients.

I’m going to cover:

·        the pros and cons of YouTube

·        the advantages and disadvantages of a podcast

·        what are the technical requirements of each

·        and the big secret to 10x your results and making it no brainer which one you should do.

YouTube channel versus podcast

Good question. There are some advantages and some distinct disadvantages to each one of them.

Which one is best for your business? Which one is best for your clients or your customers?

Because you are coming at this from your clients and customers perspective, right?

Be sure to always approach any marketing you do from your customers’ perspective.

What is it that you can do for them that gets them more acquainted with your products, your services, your employees, what you provide, what you do, your philosophy?

All of that stuff is a great topic, a great set of information for either YouTube or a Podcast, but there's some distinct advantages with YouTube and some distinct advantages for podcasts.

One advantage that I would have to give a nod to YouTube is search. YouTube is one, giant search engine.

Oh!  It's owned by Google!  Imagine that.

So how many times have you done this: 

I like to tinker on cars. I got a couple cars I'm working on, have fun with, and then of course there's the occasional oil change whether you want to tinker or not, or brakes or something like that.

Let's take this a little bit deeper. Let's say there's a problem.

You're getting a code off the check engine light. You find out what the code is.  Let’s say P0141 for this article.

You go to Google and ask, "How do I fix P0141?" And it gives you the symptoms and it tells you what are the possibilities and good stuff like that.  i.e.:  Oxygen Sensor Heater Circuit, Driver’s side, Downstream

So how do you fix it? You go to YouTube.

How do I fix “P0141 in a 2002 Ford Mustang?” Boom.

And chances are somebody's done a oxygen sensor replacement on a 2002 Mustang.

How to do an oil change on a Buick SUV?

How to change the brakes on a '99 F-350.

They're all out there and you can get pretty technical too.

How do you do rings or pistons or something like that?

You can dive down any rabbit hole you want on YouTube and you're going to find a how-to video.

And that's what I would suggest for your business’s YouTube channel:  Start with how-to videos.

Which questions to answer

You might ask, “Well, what questions do I answer?”

You start with the questions that your customers are already asking. They've been asking...you've been answering.

What are they already asking you? What are their concerns? Do they need to know how to use a particular product you sell?

Or are they asking questions about your investment strategy as a financial advisor or your weight loss program or your workout program because you're a personal coach?

You can teach or demonstrate all those things.

The key is marry your teaching with the questions they’re asking.

And that comes through SEO research.

Those questions are out there. You just need to answer specifically what is being asked.

Search is a huge advantage to YouTube. Remember: YouTube is owned by Google.  See how this all comes together?

Watching vs Listening

Now, what about watching versus listening? Yeah, good question.

Chances are if somebody's watching a YouTube video, they have stopped what they're doing. They're going to put all their focus and attention on the video.

Okay, fine. You have their attention.

But then there's a podcast and listening. And surveys show up to 75% of people who are listening to a podcast are listening while they're doing something else.

They're taking you with them while they work out, while they work, while they’re traveling, while they're at home cleaning, while they're doing whatever activity it is.

You can't watch a video while you're driving - or at least you shouldn't be, unlike that lady that was next to me yesterday morning.

But with a podcast, you can listen while you're driving. You do it already. You're listening to the radio probably or some sort of music, right?

Podcasts are very, very, very portable and you can really reach and meet your listener wherever they are much easier than you can with a YouTube video.

YouTube videos are very intentional. Podcasts are very portable.

Recording and editing

There's the recording, the editing, and the posting.

Recording video is a whole other animal than recording audio.

You've got lights involved. You could actually do a podcast in the dark. Do you realize that? You really could.

You can't do that in a video. Well, you could, but then it would be a podcast.

The editing process:  If you really want to go down that road, can be very complicated and very time consuming for a video. It doesn't have to be.

In fact, you know if you spend any time on my YouTube channel, my philosophy is get you up and running, worry about the fancy stuff later.

If you can't hit record, anything after that is irrelevant.

Get up and running.

The editing you can simplify or you can turn into a massive rabbit hole if you want to. And again, video can be much more complicated than audio.

A YouTube video can take hours to produce. If not days, a podcast episode could take 30 minutes.

You just don't know, but I can tell you that the podcast episode is going to be much shorter than the YouTube video. That's for sure.

What's your time commitment?

Are you looking at something that you need to grind out and get up and running and don't have a lot of time to commit to it? Are you going to hire it out? Are you going to job it out? Is there somebody that you can't do you have a nine-year-old? Cause these kids are much better at it than anybody who's stepping into it now.

Grandkids, your grandkids, whatever. They can probably crank out a video pretty quickly and they're excited to do it too. All it takes is an ice cream cone to pay them.

Are we getting into the weeds here or do you need a little bit of a deep dive? I've got a video on editing YouTube videos for beginners and I can show you the quick steps to get you up and running. Click that link and you can watch that video next.

What will you do: YouTube or Podcast?

Let’s get back to your original question:  “What do I do? A YouTube channel or a podcast for my business?”

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

There's a lot of time involved. Some are quicker, some are deep dives.  Some are easier to produce, some take longer.

What are you going to possibly do?

Search is huge. I'd kind of lean towards that…but then you'd go down the video commitment and that can be a big monster.

What do you do?

Me:  The answer is:  You do both.

You:  WHAAAAAT? Both? I only have time for one!

Me:  I know, but if you record whatever you do in video, you've got both.

You:  #lightbulbmoment

Me:  If you have time to edit the video, great. If your nine-year-old isn't going to be around that weekend, don't worry. Okay? They can save it for later.

If you want to do a podcast, the only thing you have to remember is there are certain visuals that you're going to do in a video that need to either be explained or expressed.

You record in video for your YouTube channel, then peel off your audio and you have your podcast.

If you record a podcast, and later want to recreate the video, you're going to have to sit down and record it all over again. You've done the exact same episode twice.

My suggestion is always, always, always record in video.

If you don't want to do the video now, if you don't want to do YouTube yet, fine. Get your podcast up and running. You can do that by peeling off the audio. Not a problem.

Now, taking everything a step further, how are you going to promote all this? How are you going to possibly turn all this content into traffic?

Well, there's an answer for you. And I call it “slice and dice”. Click this link and go watch that video. It's a free training where I show you how you can take what you're doing, the macro, and turn it into a whole bunch of little tiny bite-sized pieces to either be standalone episodes or to help promote what you're already doing.

Click this link now, and go watch that video. 

Now go record your next episode! 

To your success!!  -Nic