Podcircle Podcast

If you're already in Google Podcasts and you've got a preexisting show you've been distributing it to Google Podcasts, you technically don't have to do anything as long as you're already using a housing platform that is distributing previously to all the various podcast platforms. But if you are setting up a new show, that's where it gets a little bit different, and I'd love for you to walk us through how do you then get your podcast on YouTube Music if you didn't have a previous show if you're a new podcaster? Welcome to the Podcircle podcast where we bring practical tips and insights for every podcaster.

Whether you're just getting started or you're already a seasoned podcast pro, these conversations dive into all the topics that matter most to you. And today we're gonna dive into an extremely relevant update for all podcasters. This affects all of us, and it's the end of Google Podcasts. So we're gonna discuss kind of this strategic shift that Google has made and tell you how you can take advantage of the opportunity that it presents. So make sure that you're subscribed to our channel here on YouTube.

If you watch us on YouTube, we post all of our episodes here, and, you can check out all of our past episodes as well.

And if you're listening anywhere else, like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, we would really appreciate it if you take a few minutes to leave us a 5 star rating and a quick review. So Google Podcasts has officially gone the way of Google Play Music and has integrated directly into YouTube. So as of April 2nd, which as we're recording this, it's past April 2nd, Google Podcasts is no longer supported in the US. What does that mean for your listeners? It means that they'll have a really short time to migrate their subscription to other services.

And Google is hoping that you will actually just head on over to YouTube Music. They've made it really seamless from a user standpoint. I tried it yesterday. I logged into Google Podcasts, and it prompted me to say, hey, we're no longer supporting this. Click this button, and we'll take you over to YouTube Music, and we will transfer all of your subscription.

So every show that I was following, it automatically, subscribe to those and made it a really seamless experience. So technically, here is the announcement from Google. We'll be helping Google Podcast users move over to podcasts in YouTube Music. They said this in a blog post in September. This matches what listeners and podcasts are already doing.

According to Edison, about 23% of weekly podcast users in the US say YouTube is their most frequently used service versus just 4% of Google Podcasts. So if you're a podcaster, you've probably noticed this. I know in my own experience in some of the podcasts that I cohost and produce, Google is a really small percentage, but we are seeing YouTube really increase. So if you have invested in a YouTube strategy, and we'll talk over the next couple of episodes why we think you should, you probably already are seeing your users consume your podcast in YouTube, and there's an opportunity if there's not. So we'll talk all about that.

But the rest of the world will not lose technical access to Google Podcasts until sometime in 2024. So Kyle is joining us from France right now, and he was able to log in to Google Podcasts and did not get the prompt that I did because he's actually international right now.

Yeah. I was I was a little confused because I I logged in to, like, check-in on some of this stuff. Look. Oh, my Google Podcast is still working fine. And I thought they, like, like, shut that program down.

Sunset of it. Yeah.

Yeah. And so and that's when you were like, oh, yeah. This is just for the US. They're they're gonna make this transition for the rest of the world later. So and just also zooming out.

You're if you don't know, and I'm sure you probably do, but if you hear all the talk about, like, okay, YouTube Music, but Google Podcasts, like, are those those are

Yeah.

YouTube is owned by Google, and has been for some time. And so that's why they're it sounds like they're kind of 1 in the same because Google owns YouTube. So if you wanna set up, for instance, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, if you wanna set up a YouTube channel, which we would recommend that you do at some point, You do that under your Google ID or email address or your Google account is what I should say. That's what I'm Yeah. That's the word I'm trying to find.

But yeah. So if you're using doing, like, a personal podcast, you know, you can just set that up maybe under your your personal Google account. But if you're running a business like we are for Podcircle, we have a Podcircle Google account. It's such a Google Workspace account. So Mhmm.

In order to post up on Google or on YouTube, make sure that you're you're all set up there. And then later, we'll walk you through some more steps on how to get your your podcast up on YouTube Music via YouTube. There's a little bit of a process there, but asking a bigger question here, what is YouTube music podcast? Google says that listeners can enjoy podcasts on demand offline in the background while casting and streaming seamlessly between audio video versions on YouTube Music. If this sounds familiar, it's because this is also what Spotify allows you to do for those that upload video podcasts to Spotify.

I think it's a huge feature. There's a reason that YouTube is moving this direction. And it's it's dollars and cents, people. Jumping back in, this podcast listening experience is different from our from our music listening experience where you need a premium or music premium subscription to enjoy some of these features. So that's interesting.

From what I noticed being in there is that it functions very similar to any other podcast platform. You can save, subscribe, add it to your library, the podcast you're listening to, the ones that you follow, very similar to, like, Spotify or Apple. And I think it's just this is disintegration. I think we're gonna see Apple very soon bring in video because people who have Apple Music, maybe they're gonna offer that for this. And I think what what we're seeing is that they're trying to create premium experiences integrating podcast and video and music all in one the same way that Spotify is led in this way.

So

Yeah. Well, Spotify is really led out in a in a big way, and that's why I think they're commanding so much of the of the market share.

So what does this mean for podcasters, Kyle? I think if you're already in Google Podcasts and you've got a preexisting show you've been distributing it to Google Podcasts, you technically don't have to do anything as long as you're already using a housing platform that is distributing previously to all the various podcast platforms. Anecdotally, this is from my own experience seeing the other show that I produce. We have been distributing to YouTube. We do not do video at this point, And so I was able to just seamlessly see that now it's in YouTube Music.

I didn't have to do anything around that. But if you are setting up a new show, that's where it gets a little bit different. And I'd love for you to walk us through how do you then get your podcasts on YouTube Music if you didn't have a previous show if you're a new podcaster?

Kinda going back to what I was talking about about setting up a YouTube channel. First, make sure that you have a set up a Google account. That's so if you're a business, if you want to have a YouTube or a Google account that is specific to that, go ahead and set that up and then create a YouTube channel. And the easiest way to do that is just to Google how to set up a a YouTube channel. But once you do that, you will have access to something called YouTube Studio.

And this is where this is kind of like your creator hub. So this is where you're uploading new new episodes if if you have a video podcast. But the first thing that you need to do in order to pull in your existing podcast feed. So say you're hosted on Libsyn, Buzzsprout, our favorite host transistor dot f m, any of those, then you already have what's called an an RSS feed established. And there's a way that you can pull that into to YouTube to YouTube Studio that is then going to disseminate your podcast to YouTube Music.

So backing up again, Google Podcast is dead. It's now YouTube Music. How do we get our shows up on YouTube Music through YouTube's site and through creating a, a YouTube studio channel? So here's how to do that. Once you log in to YouTube channel, go to YouTube studio.

At the very top right hand, you click create, and then select new podcast. You're gonna see 3 options there. You're gonna wanna select the option that says submit RSS feed. And then once you do that, go over to your original host, again, whether that's Libsyn, Buzzsprout, wherever your podcast is already hosted, go and find your RSS feed, copy, and then paste it into the form that pops up on YouTube. And then I think you've got 3 or 4 more prompts that you need to follow there.

Go through those. Should be pretty simple. If you don't have your podcast set up yet, we would recommend using transistor.fm. It's our favorite hosting platform. And once you get your podcast set up on there and kind of follow their steps to get you set up on Apple, Spotify, all the places, as of right now, they do not have essentially an integration to get your podcast up on YouTube Music.

I think that'll change very soon. But as for right now, you're gonna wanna take your RSS feed. So go to, like, your distribution page. That's where you can usually find your RSS feed. Copy that.

Paste it into the prompt on you your YouTube channel, and then go through a few more prompts there, and you should be all good to go. I would say probably within an hour, no more than 24 hours. I haven't done this yet. This is a pretty new thing. Yeah.

I'm not sure if there's like an authorization or verification process after that, but it should be pretty, pretty straightforward.

So I think it should be fairly easy to kind of transition that over. And like we're saying, it's on the front end. This is a new transition. So I think as we said, only 4% of people have been using Google Podcasts, but a large percentage of people prefer to listen to their podcasts where they can also view the video. I think the long story short is that YouTube is the way of the future.

43% of listeners as of last year prefer to listen to podcasts with video. So they wanna have that option. 28% actively watch video while while they're listening and 29% play video in the background or even minimize it on their device so they can kind of go back and forth.

That's exactly what I do. I've been watching a lot of podcasts lately. A lot of my favorite podcasts have video podcasts now.

Mhmm.

And so I watch them on YouTube. I have a YouTube premium account, which enables me to be able just to watch it on there. And then if I need to go get in the car or whatever, I can just shut off the screen, put it in my pocket, but I can still listen to the podcast. So I love being being able to dip in and out of the video as I can. It's a really nice way to consume podcasts.

Yeah. And I think we talk a lot on this podcast about the importance of humanizing your brand and how a podcast can really offer you that opportunity. So I think seeing someone's face while they're talking to you is a great way to humanize your brand. And people like that. People like to feel connected.

And I think in a world that is continually to be more virtual, we're consuming more media than we've ever consumed. There's something about that even artificial face to face. And so we really encourage you to start investing here. And if you have been listening to the podcast long, you know that we love the idea of video. And even if you're not starting a full blown video podcast, which we will walk you through the steps to do that in the next couple episodes, we still think you need to be recording video because there are opportunities on YouTube, especially that you can use to really increase your discoverability.

And that's why we love YouTube. The discoverability. Unlike other platforms, if you're listening to something, there's things you can do on the back end to really direct and continue offering the person who's listening to your podcast more of your content afterward. After they file, you can suggest things. But, also, if you really utilize and get strategic about your keywords and your titling, then someone who doesn't have any idea of your podcast can find you through YouTube much more easily than they might if they're trying to just find a podcast about podcasting in Spotify.

There's something different about that, and we've really been seeing our podcast win on YouTube more than any other platform. So we really believe you should be investing in that. Google will continue to invest heavily in getting both your eyeballs and your ears. And so if you're a podcaster, I think it's time to start utilizing YouTube. I was, doing, some search, and I remember someone saying once that YouTube was like the 2nd biggest search engine.

But now that Google owns that Google owns the vast majority of searching at this point. It's a growing search engine, as we're saying, for people to discover content. My husband, who is 34 but acts like he's, like, 44, literally typed into YouTube the other day, YouTube videos for family cooking. Like, he was, like, so old, but he went to YouTube in that way. As of April 2024, the most searched things on Google are YouTube and Amazon.

So people are using their Google search bar to end up in YouTube to Google more.

Well, there it's almost one in the same now because Google owns YouTube. So it's like the 2 largest search engines in the world are the best search engines in the world. They're basically 1.

And, basically, when you use Chrome, then your, you know, your URL or you type in your URL is basically a search engine. So I think it's just yeah. If you want your podcast to be discovered, you need to be thinking about YouTube. Definitely.

For sure. Alright. So we're gonna leave this here. We've got a few other podcasts Yep. Episodes.

Our next 2, we're gonna be talking about and helping out with this, Mackenzie. Our next one, I think, is optimizing, like, getting your channel set up.

Yes. Just set

up your channel. That. Yep. Because there's a couple things there to know as you do that. For instance, getting some key verifications from YouTube if you wanna be able to post clickable links in your episode description, which is a super important thing to do to drive traffic to whether it's a lead gen or a resource, things like that.

And then the episode after that, we're gonna be talking about uploading those episodes, how to do that well. We're gonna be talking about thumbnails, how important those are, the do's and don'ts with those, how do you utilize YouTube shorts, which are basically like reels and, short form content that you can link directly to your long form content. So there's just some there's a really powerful system ecosystem within YouTube. The people that know how to use it, are the ones that know how to grow their channels and grow Yeah. A loyal following.

So I'm as big a fan of having a podcast, maybe a bigger fan of having a podcast on YouTube as I am anywhere else, any of the other listening apps. I just think Fascinating. From a discoverability standpoint, YouTube is just a clear winner. And I've found podcasts that I've never even heard of that just pop up in my YouTube feed. I'm like, oh, that looks interesting or or that is a compelling topic.

I haven't heard anyone talk about that yet, and that's kind of in the air right now. Check it out. If it's great content, I'm a fan. I'm a subscriber, and that's just kind of the name of the game. So Yeah.

Join us for the next few weeks, especially subscribe if you're on YouTube. If you're joining us on Apple or, Spotify, subscribe there as well. Give us a 5 star rating and review. It really helps out the channel. And if you're ready to launch your podcast, that's exactly what we do.

That's why we're on here every week talking about launching podcast and maintaining and running really great podcasts. So you can always schedule a free consultation with me by emailing me directly. It's kyle@podcircle.com, or you can just hit the link in the show notes in the description. And if you're joining us on YouTube, meet us in the comments and share the number one reason that you listen to podcasts on YouTube. I shared mine.

Mhmm.

Why I love dipping into video and dipping out and that sort of thing. But what's the value that YouTube has brought to you in terms of how you consume podcasts? We'd love to know.

So join us over the next 2 weeks. We're excited to continue to dive in to YouTube. See you soon.