Stop the Scroll: Better Podcast Titles and Thumbnails

The School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson. Podcasting since

2005. I am your award-winning Hall of Fame podcast coach, Dave

Jackson. Thanking you so much for being here. If you're new to

the show, I'm glad you're here. This is where we help you plan,

launch, and grow your podcast because you know the School of

Podcasting is number one in podcast education, our website

schoolofpodcasting.com, courtesy of PodPage. I'll be talking

about more of that later. But today we are talking, and hold

on, hold on, we're going to be talking a little YouTube with my

old friend Brian Coddington from Libsyn, he's the head of

marketing over there, and I saw his presentation at YouTube. And

we've always talked about having Brian come on the show. And I

know you might be going, "Oh, but I I don't do YouTube." Keep

in mind, you don't have to do YouTube. And also, because I'm

Dave. YouTube is not a podcast; it's a show. No RSS feed, no

podcast. Get off my lawn! And so there are some things you can

learn because we talk about artwork, and there are different

ways to get people to click because we all want people to

click. He also shares some tips on networking, and you know

what? I could just sit here and just keep telling you. And we

talked about this, and we talked about this, but we're not

getting any closer to actually hearing Brian say it. So let's

do that, shall we? Welcome to the School of Podcasting, buddy.

Hey, Dave. It is. I got to tell you this: it is an absolute

pleasure and honor to be on here. So I, I, I've known you

long enough that I could say like I was a fan before we

started working together.

For anyone who's new to the show, I realize that it's two

friends talking to each other. So you might have something that

you and he know in this case, but you don't know. I worked at

Libsyn for eight years. I was the head of podcasting over

there, and wish everyone the best. I now am the head of

podcasting at PodPage. Back to Brian.

Like I was introduced to you. I was listening to one of your

episodes. I think it might have been last week, and you

mentioned Podcasters Roundtable. That was how I was introduced to

you because I would listen to that on my way to work and on my

way back to work when I worked at a university and introduced

me to you, Dan J. Lewis and Ray Ortega, and then one episode I

was like, "Man, I got to get more of this Dave Jackson."

That's why I started to listen school podcasting, and like it's

it's all round table because like I we got to work together

at Libsyn, and now I'm on your show, and it's dream come true.

So don't treat other shows like they're your competition.

Network with them. Work with them. You'll hear how Brian did

this in just a second. But he heard me on a show that was a

collaboration.

Yeah. When did you get into video? So I have always been a

filmmaker. That has always been my thing. I got into podcasting

as a way of being able to do something creative that's

outside of filmmaking. So whenever you make a movie, it is

a very long, exhaustive, and a very expensive process. You have

to raise money. You have to get crew. You have to, you know, do

all the things that go into making a movie. And like at the

time, I was working a job that was not very creatively

fulfilling, and I needed to have something to kind of be that

outlet. And that became my podcast, The Cinema Psycho Show,

which I've been doing now for over 10 years. And you know,

while we were making. That the podcast, I actually because of

my work at Libsyn was watching a watching the live stream that we

were doing with Doc Rock over at ECamp, and he had mentioned

during the live stream that you know you really got to try to do

the video thing, and I had thought about it. I'm like,

yeah, I'm audio only. I don't really want to jump into video,

but the more I thought about it, the more I realized. I'm like,

well, is my audience there? And like that was the kind of thing

to me where I'm like, well, there is a considerable audience

on video first platforms like YouTube, and so it makes sense

that we be there because that's where the audience is at, and

that was kind of the reason why we opted to jump into video, and

we've been doing it ever since. And it's opened. I wouldn't say

it's necessarily opened doors, but it's been a thing where I

got to practice experimenting with this medium to try to make

video work the same way that I made audio work, and that has

been fun for me. Is like trying to see how can I make this

workflow faster? How can I make it more efficient? How can I

make it so that I'm not getting burned out making video and

audio version?

He said a couple things here. I love number one. It's an

experiment. I don't know. Let's see if it works. He said another

thing I love. I'm having fun. If you don't want to do video and

you're not having fun, don't kill your podcast. Quit the

thing that stopped you from having fun. So I love that.

Yeah, the thing I loved. I went over and watched your episode on

you rewatched Rocky on the Cinema Psychos, and I'll have a

link to that in the show notes, and the thing that was really

fun about it, as I watched it, and everybody did their Stallone

imitation. Of course, that's just mandatory. But you

got to do the Stallone imitation. You got to, you got

the turtles, man. You got to get the turtles. Is it

was four guys on screen, and we're going to talk about that.

But four guys who obviously loved movies talking about

movies, and I'm like, I know there's no like, you know, you

don't get paid to do the show that way. At least it's not like

here, but you were getting paid in doing what you love, which is

talking about movies. Yeah, and who were the guys? It was

another show that you had brought on.

So yeah, we brought on the Silver Linings Playlist Podcast.

They're a constant collaborator. We bring on when I try to find

guests because I don't off my show is not an interview

podcast. It's not that right. When I try to find guests, I try

to bring on guests that I think would be good guest reviewers. I

don't do traditional interviews because I find them boring. Not

to say this is boring. I'm just saying, like for my own show,

right? For my show. I've dabbled in interviews and it doesn't

work, at least for for me. But bringing them on and making them

part of the game is fun

because they're another movie

exactly

podcast. So because I I always tell people like reach out to

somebody and collab on an episode. And what did that look

like for you? Did you know them? Did you? Oh,

this wasn't our first time collaborating with them. So,

like, we basically what I had done and what I've I've been

doing is I keep my ear and eyes to the the social media ground,

and you know I've seen a couple of their TikTok videos, and I

was like, "Man, they're funny." They were obviously like, I

don't want to say necessarily as you know in terms of popularity

like to us, but they were similar. And I, I more or less

just was like, you know what, these these guys would be good

to reach out to. So I had reached out to Dustin, who's

like kind of their, it's kind of like their version of me over at

the Silver Lions playlist and was like, "Hey, would you guys

want to pop on?" And and they're like, "Yeah, we would love to."

And it started kind of this collaboration where every couple

months we'll go on their show, they'll go come on our show, and

we kind of have this back and forth. And there's other

podcasts that we've done that with the Movie Dumpster podcast

is one that I I love collaborating with because

they're again like two guys who are absolutely hilarious. And

the funny thing is, we all started around the same time

period. Like we all started around 2016 for some reason. And

myself, I attribute to an article I read by Kevin Smith

where he was talking about like if you're a filmmaker, you

should like do a podcast, but that was my my kick in the butt

to get me to do it. But like we all started roughly around the

same time, and it's been fun finding these people and

bringing them on.

Well, and you said at the beginning you discovered me on a

show that was what a collaboration show between two

people that are quote my competition. So there's no

such thing as competition in podcasting. I don't. I don't

believe that. Like, I mean, I have met especially new

podcasters who are who are so against bringing on other

people. Their guests are like, "Well, I don't. They they could

bring my. They could. They could take my audience." I'm like,

"Buddy, you're starting at zero. It ain't gonna hurt you. It can

only help you. I mean, if anything beyond.". The downloads

chase right. It is networking. It is meeting like-minded

individuals who, if anything else, will like your comments,

will will like your posts, and be like, "Hey, I'd love to share

your stuff because they like you and want to network with you and

want to work with you, so there's there's no such thing as

competition in podcasting.

Let's hop over to YouTube because that's what I brought

you on here to to talk about. I'm a person that I do YouTube,

but I'm just now really kind of like I should probably learn

about this and stuff. And how does a podcaster now they they

can go listen to their old stuff? But I know with YouTube,

I always say it's the hook, it's your title and your thumbnail.

So there's which I kind of get upset about the fact that I can

have the world's best content, but if I don't have a good hook

and a good title and a good thumbnail, it may not go

anywhere. Yeah. So how do you reverse engineer like a good

hook or a good title, and where do you start? Do I start with

the title? Do I start like we're just take us from the from zero

to 60?

So first thing I'll ask you, I'll answer your question with a

question, Dave. Do you remember going to the video store?

I do.

Okay. When you went to the video store, what was the thing that

got you to pick out a video that Friday or Saturday night.

Ooh, that's there's a couple answers for that because

sometimes it was because it was a video store. It was marketing

from four months ago when the movie was in the movie. So there

was, yeah, back in the if you looked at the yeah because they

always put the they always put the boxes flat so you could see

the poster or the artwork, or whatever.

Yeah, but it was it was what it was the box art.

Yeah,

that was the thing. And the the thing I need, I think

podcasters, any content creator needs to understand is that we

are living in an age where we have to be mindful of our

packaging. You know, I have done episodes with you know people

who were really famous and and really have done done great

things. Like I had, oh man, I had I had a really awesome film

director on who I'm blanking on the name on right now. But

ultimately, no one cares about that unless the artwork is

enough to grab people's attention.

So here again, even if you're only doing an audio podcast,

episodic artwork for your show can make you stand out from the

rest. And the eye directs the hand to click.

To kind of get back to your your original question of what should

podcasters think about first, I always tell people you need to

first figure out what is the hook, what is the primary value

proposition within your episode. Ask yourself the question: What

do I want people to take away from this episode? Do they want

to be entertained by you know me talking about Rocky, some

factoid about the film, do they need to learn something?

Whatever that hook is, it has to be in the very beginning of the

episode. Now, does that mean that you have to go do the cold

open? Not necessarily. I mean, Dave, I listen to your show all

the time, and you do the hook, right? Like you you pre-record

something, and that's fine. That works, but whatever you you have

in that beginning has to then reflect in the title and in the

thumbnail, because oftentimes what I'll see is that people

will they'll have an amazing hook, right? But they will treat

the title as separate, and then they will treat the thumbnail as

a separate thing. And then what happens on YouTube is that if my

eyeball is immediately drawn to the thumbnail, because that's

the first thing. Thumbnail is a billboard. It is 100% a

billboard. It's not designed for SEO. It's literally designed

just to get you to stop doing whatever you were doing

beforehand. But I should be looking at that, and then

immediately look at the title, and the title is going to give

me context. So you know, my thumbnail could literally be

like my face doing something shocking. That's whoa! I got to

stop, and then I should look at the title, and the title should

give me context to that image. And then if I'm in on the title,

then I either might look at this the first line in the

description because that's another point that YouTube shows

you. But when I click on that video, if I don't get something

related to the two signals that previously had got me, I'm gonna

bounce. That's how people are. It's it sucks. It really does.

But that is that's how YouTube works. And ultimately, that's

why you kind of reverse engineer the title and thumbnail to be

whatever that hook was.

Yeah, and it's you bring up the video store. And as I was

sitting here thinking about it, I remember you you'd see the

art. And the same thing. Then you'd look at the title. Yep.

And based on those two things, you would then maybe grab both

boxes. And what would you do? You would turn it over and read

the little paragraph, which is the hook. And whoever had the

best hook, you'd be like, "All right, we can only watch one of

these. I'm going with this one because this hooked me better,

so it's really nothing new. It's just different, a different

format. It's a

video store in 2026. That's what it is.

Which is why when I do videos now, I used to do the whole,

"Hey, I'm Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting," or "I

help you plan, launch, and grow your podcast." Blah blah blah. I

don't do that anymore. I get right to the thing. Yeah. What

do you say to the person that takes video, right? Like, like

my live streams. I kind of wonder sometimes if I'm hurting

my channel because I don't edit them because they're live. And

by the time I'm done, I've had somewhere between 20 and 40

people watch that video, and I don't want to lose my stats.

Yeah, but I I do the whole intro thing. Then I have an ad right

at the beginning, which is horrible to start a show. I

mean, then you finally get to the content about two minutes

in, and I'm like, that probably is the worst thing to do on

YouTube. So, so

for a live, I treat that as separate, completely separate.

Like, like I, I would say to anyone who's like trying to

think about what was video. Video doesn't have to be that

you do video episodes, by the way, like it doesn't have to be

that you could treat video very much as like an engagement

tactic, where you're going to do one episode a month where it is

live, and at that point, it doesn't really matter if you

have bumpers or anything like that. Like that's that's for the

super fans

to

show up and actually like interact with you, you know my

friends. Again, I'll I'll name drop them again. My friends over

the Movie Dumpster podcast. They I don't know if they're still

doing it, but like they were doing this where they would drop

a live episode once a month, where it was just them, like no

fancy cameras, just wide shot on them answering questions that

are coming in, and it's not designed to be a normal episode.

Like if you watch their episodes, it's very edited. It's

highly edited. They have B roll up points. Doesn't take away

from the audio, which is why they're good at what they do.

But that live is just designed to engage with their community

because that's what's important to them. It also helps that like

their their episodes already get like 20 or 30,000 views at a

time. They're very good at what they do. But that that live, it

doesn't matter if they have you know 30 people or 20 people.

Well, I know in your video from Podcast Movement, which was

really great, you deconstructed somebody's thumbnail. I

was their thumbnail. Yeah,

yeah, and and basically redid it. And one of the things that I

have already kind of was like, oh, and I'm guilty of this.

Whatever the title of the video was or the title of the podcast

was, you take the title and you put it on the artwork because

you know. And I was like, no, there's another way. So if I'm

not putting the title on there, oh my gosh, this is you know

mind boggle. What should I put on the thumbnail? And I know you

mentioned your, you know, we're all going to make our big scary

face or whatever we're doing. So what's the role of the thumbnail

besides stopping the scroll?

That's it. That's all there is to it. Like it is designed

strictly to stop your audience from doing whatever they were

planning on doing beforehand. So maybe it was they were searching

for something on YouTube and they saw your thumbnail

somewhere. Maybe they're watching a video that is

tangentially related to what you're doing, but your thumbnail

popped up and suggested. So the the point is is that the

thumbnail is just designed to stop you from doing whatever you

were doing. So, and for podcasts, what I went over at

Podcast Movement was that I found there were three styles of

podcast specific thumbnails because obviously you could say,

well, Brian, I want to I'm going to make a mr. Beast style

thumbnail. I'll be like, don't do that because you're a

podcaster. You're not mr. Beast. You're not making challenge

videos or or anything like that. But ultimately, like the the the

three that I found were used the most were either kind of the the

guest or host flanked on either side of the image, and then

usually four to six words. That's it. Four to six words of

whatever that main value proposition is distilled down to

something that's going to stop someone from scrolling. So, like

you know, if I'm doing a you know podcast about this is how

you can lose weight, which I wouldn't because I have my own

challenges with weight loss, but if I was, I might say something

the effect of, you know, I wish I knew this sooner, and that was

it. It's that brain gap is what I call. Yes, yes, it's it. And

then my title could say, I lost 20. Five pounds by this by

knowing by using this one secret technique right like that's a

title and then maybe if I have a guest on that would be the guest

name so the point is is like you have different tiers of how you

distill that information down in the thumbnail it is the most

concise but most curiosity driving words you can use if

you're going to put any words at all because you don't have to.

You know the one I showcased at Podcast Movement from the Call

Me Chris podcast. She basically has just her face reacting to

some visual story, and that's great if you're a topic-based

show like me because that immediately is going to cause an

emotional response in the audience to go, what what am I

looking at, and then immediately cause that curiosity loop to

start at the title and then ultimately cause them to click.

And again, if you click on that episode and you don't

get anything related to the title or thumbnail, you're

liable to bounce. Which is why when you started listening to

this show, I got right to the interview because if you saw the

thumbnail and you saw the picture of Brian, you knew it

was an interview, and I could have said, "Well, you know, let

me tell you what my cat did to my couch." No, get to the

interview. Get to the good stuff as quickly as possible. That

works both in audio and video. Again, going back to kind of

your little curiosity loop. In most podcast apps, I think

they're probably going to see my title a little more prevalent

than because the artwork's always tiny. It depends

on the app. So, like Apple Podcasts will showcase the

episode art specifically. Yeah, but yeah.

So you can use this even if you're like, I'm not a YouTuber.

Yeah, this still works too. 100%,

yeah, 100%. And that's that's the thing is, if you're audio

only, there's not you're you're honestly giving yourself an edge

by thinking this way because yes, you're the audio only

audience, and this is my personal belief. It's not been

studied, but I I think that they're easier to convince to

listen to a show than a video audience. I think video

audiences because you're presented with a billion

different videos left and right. Yeah, it's it's hard to to to

get them, but audio people, you're you're you're there. Like

you're already in that mindset. You're already willing to sample

an episode and and really get locked in, but yeah, if you

package your your audio episodes this way, it can give you an

edge, absolutely. And

you had mentioned in your talk that you know audio only people

when you move to video, you might face some some growing

pains. So, what's the most critical psychological shift

when you go in terms of your packaging and your content, when

you decide to go into video in your audience,

I would say like outside of packaging because I do think

that's a very big thing. I think that podcasters have difficulty

adapting their content for a video-first audience in general.

So, what do I mean by that? Well, if you for four years as

an audio-only podcaster, you know you had your hook or you

had your intro, and then you had your you know 30 seconds of

music bumper, and then you spent 10 minutes bantering with your

co-host about what you had for breakfast that day, or you know

things that like in your head you're like, my audience loves

this stuff, right? And maybe you go on Apple Podcasts and you're

like, you're looking at the consumption graph and you're

seeing not seeing dips, right? So that like encourages you that

hey, this is the structure, this is what works for my show. That

ultimately, when you go to video first, you're gonna find that

that structure is not going to work. You're going to find very

quickly that the ability for video first audience to latch on

to your show is very much like once you get past the packaging,

it is your content. So if your content is not that great, or if

your content does meander, or does have a you know delivery

that is designed for audio only audiences, you're gonna find

that it's gonna be tough to translate. I will use myself as

an example. Like I discover this myself. So, I used to have a

like 30 to 22nd bumper in mine. I thought it was great. I I you

know my background is in motion graphics and visual effects, so

I like I made this a really cool motion graphics bumper when I

started going to video, and I'm like this is great. I'm gonna

throw this stuff in, and I was quickly finding out on the

consumption graph inside of YouTube Studio because you can

see this that the minute that thing hit, I saw a cliff drop,

and at that point I was like, okay, that means that we need to

trim it down. So like now, if you look at my episodes, which

you probably saw the most recent one, you know. That bumper is

like five seconds now. It's not even. It's it's it's just the

logo. That's it. Boom. Cut to me. And I've even experimented

beyond that. Of like, can I remove the bumper entirely and

just go straight into me? I don't like that structure, so

I'm taking a like. Well, listen, we can only adjust it so far.

Right. But like that reconfiguration of your content

structure for your episodes, I think is really tough for new

podcasters going into video, or just you know long-term

podcasters like veterans who are going into video. Like because

you've done it this way for so long, it becomes really hard to

put yourself back in the beginner like seat.

Yeah,

you know what I mean.

Yeah, it's uh. But we've always done it that way. Yes, exactly.

It's

well, I did it that way. You know, 2016, 2015, 2004. I can

keep doing it. It's like, buddy. Yeah, you got to understand if

you if you want to play YouTube's game, you got to play

YouTube's game. Can't do this square peg and round hole thing.

And I think that's what some podcasters, especially ones who

are not the big stars who have big names behind them, they

struggle at that. They're trying to play an audio only podcast

game in a YouTube sandbox, and they're finding it's not

working.

Yeah, I've also heard that go the opposite way, where somebody

will have this really cool visual thing that keeps people

at the beginning of their show, and then you listen to it, like

they they convert the video to audio. You hit play, and you're

like, "All right, here's all this music, and here's," and

you're like, where's the voiceover guy? Nope. Here's some

more, and you're like, am I supposed to be dancing now? And

I think I was listening to some podcast on AI and automation,

and it was a tutorial. And I'm going, I'm like, I can't listen

to this because it's all visual. So yeah, there is absolutely it

goes the other way that if you're a video first and you

think like, oh yeah, I'll just do what I did for video and the

audio people, it's not. It's you have to understand your

audience. It's something you preach all the time, Dave, on

your show. Like you have to know your audience. You have to know

not just why they want to consume it, but how they consume

it. What's their psychology behind it, and then just build

for it.

You mentioned the the different types of thumbnails, and you

just said the magic word, of course, which is AI. Yeah. So is

that because on one hand you can go to what? There's even is it

10 to one or one to 10? There are a bunch of one of 10. One of

10 is one, which is also 90 bucks a month if you wanted to

make thumbnails. And I was like, dang, no. Is is that something?

Because on one hand they look great, but again, you mentioned

that certain types of thumbnails have an expectation that oh,

this is going to be you know a mr. Beast type video. This is

going to be an interview. Like so, yes, they're pretty, but is

something? And I'm just picking on one of 10, just because

that's the one I remember, but there are other TubeBuddy. I

think will make thumbnails for you. They're pretty, but is that

a good idea?

I personally, and this is because I, you know, my even

though I I do I'm a filmmaker. My original love was was fine

arts and drawing and graphic design. Yeah. So like that's

that's that's something that that always comes back to like

how can I manually do this you know with human creativity

rather than the robot. I look at it as you can do that if you

want to, but I think there is something to using those tools

as a either helper or a guide. I'll give you an example. So, if

for some reason you're making a thumbnail and you're like, "Man,

I can't get a good quality JPEG out of for this this thumbnail,"

right? Like, I'll use the example. If I'm doing a movie

and maybe I can't find a good one, I think it's totally okay

to say, "Take that thumbnail, that image that you're going to

throw into your thumbnail and throw it into Firefly and say,

"Hey, can you upres this? Can you enhance this? Can you make

it look cleaner and sharper?" I think that's fine. Would I

personally use myself? Yeah, I would. Like if I actually did

this recently with a thumbnail that's that's actually up on

Libsyn's YouTube channel. By all means go and check it out. But I

at the time was doing a video about you know did video kill

the audio star the audio podcast? It's a really good

video, but I was racking my bread my brain on like the

thumbnail. So I was like, well, I I hadn't shaved that day, and

I needed to get the thumbnail done. So I'm like, you know

what? Let's try AI. Let's try it out.

Yeah.

And so I took a still from the video, and I gave it to Firefly.

And I'm like, can you make me look sad? And with a three

quarter turn, to kind of like react to the image. And it

surprisingly did a creepy job, and but it was it was good

enough. It worked. Now would I do that all the time? Probably

not. But I would say, like, if it can speed up your ability to

get a thumbnail out the door, fine. Would I always have human

creativity in it? Absolutely. And I would always keep it to

what I know is going to work. The one nice thing too, Dave,

that YouTube does does give you is you can A/B test these

things. Yeah. So like it's maybe what you do is you do one AI,

not A generated, but maybe assisted thumbnail, one

thumbnail that you personally made, and you run a test on

them, and you see which one is going to generate more watch

time than the other, and then from there you can iterate on

whichever one works, and kind of keep doing this over and over

again until you get one that is kind of a banger. But do I think

that you should go into one of 10 or VidIQ and say, type I want

a thumbnail that looks like this, and then just use that.

No, I don't think it works. I don't think it's it's effective

either. I think it's it's more more trouble than it's worth

because you're always going to have to do some sort of

adjustment or manual editing anyway. But you can use that as

a blueprint that maybe you then go and do yourself.

Yeah, I see some of these tools where they're like just point it

at somebody's video, and we'll make one just like that. And I'm

like, again, one that

doesn't work, that doesn't work anymore. Like the algorithm's

smart enough to figure it out. Yeah. And there's also more

beyond just the thumbnail. Like I talked about, if that hook

doesn't work and that title doesn't give context, then

whatever thumbnail you ripped off isn't going to work, but

that doesn't mean like the the bones of it can't be adapted for

your show. You can always look at structure and composition of

that thumbnail and say like, okay, how can I modify this for

my own content and for my own audience? The other question I

should ask you:

I don't want to do video. Is it worth my time to take my RSS

feed of audio stuff and put it on YouTube?

So no one has to be forced to do video if they don't want to,

right? Okay,

I'm going to first tell you that if you have an audio only show

and you don't want to do video, don't do video. Okay, it's okay,

it's all right. No, no one's the the the podcast police is not

going to come knocking on your door and ask you, "Did you do

video today?" No one's going to do that. But one thing I would

say is that there's nothing against doing the the still

image audio thing. I did it for years. Like seriously, I did it

for for about you know four or five years, and in fact, if you

go to my channel right now, surprisingly enough, the still

image audio version that I did with an actor from a movie

skyscraper staring at Nicole Smith from 1996, that that

episode is like number one, and it's just a still image. I don't

know why it's number one. I don't know why it has like

100,000 views, but it does. But the point is, is that there is a

thing about expectation that you do have to keep in mind. That

when people are on YouTube, for the most part, when they click

on a thumbnail, they are expecting to get a live action

video. They are not expecting to get a still, so while yes, there

are big podcasts out there that do that. If you're an indie

podcaster, you kind of have to work harder, and that's where I

say, like, if you know there's an audience that your show can

tap into, and they're video first consumers, and they're on

YouTube, then yeah, it's worth it to maybe if anything do some

live action video that's simplified because that audience

is there because it's it's it's verifiable. But if your audience

isn't there, then yeah, maybe you just do some still image

stuff. But just understand that the engagement on that is going

to be probably really low. That you know, because again, people

are on YouTube to watch videos. Like even though there's YouTube

Music, the audience there is primarily there to watch videos.

Well, you mentioned Firefly. Any other favorite tools that you

use?

So I've been, I've been I've been really again the automation

stuff. I've been trying to play around with. I've been using

Claude and ChatGPT respectively to try to try to build some cool

automation things that again just make it so that I can sleep

while promoting my podcast. But I mean, I I've used them all. I

mean, I my I record my show usually with Ecamm Live, I love

their vertical feature because it makes it really easy to kind

of get different clips for social. I do use Kit, but I'm

terrible at newsletters. That's literally like, don't ask me

about newsletters, Dave, because I'm not very good at it. But I

mean, you know, outside of that, like I. I use Premiere Pro to

edit my show on. I've used Canva sometimes, but honestly, like

I'm a Photoshop person, so that's what I end up using. I

love the generative fill option within Photoshop. If you've ever

played around with that, it's amazing. It is amazing. I've

used it for my day job, like actually extending backgrounds.

So if you watch a YouTube video with me on it for for on Libsyn,

you'll notice I usually have a colored background behind me,

but that background only goes so far. So oftentimes I usually use

Photoshop's generator field to span the background out so it

looks like it's actually in the studio. So those are kind of the

the different tools that I play around with. But I have used

VidIQ, and VidIQ is really good. You're gonna find like one tool

to help you with YouTube. I would say invest in that one,

and it's not that crazy. It's not 90 bucks, but it's it's a

nice one to have. If anything, just to kind of give you some

checkpoints, and they have a free version which works pretty

well. But you know, that's one I'd say like if you wanna if you

wanna pay for something? That one's probably worth doing,

especially if you're going to do the YouTube game.

Do you have an opinion? Because I just hear about this software

all the time. CapCut.

I don't like it.

Okay. All right. There you go. Because

I I don't I don't like. Okay. Here's the reason why. Okay. We

did a a live stream a couple years back, in which I was was

trying to showcase how to do multicam editing of your podcast

using CapCut because at the time, CapCut had that ability.

Now I don't know what happened, but while I was doing the live

stream and while I was doing the demo, the version of CapCut I

had no longer had the multicam ability anymore. So I was in the

middle of this live after I had tested the thing out, and the

multicam doesn't work. And I remember telling, I think our

friend Corey was there, and I'm like, "Yeah, it was working. Now

it's not," and it just kind of threw off the entire live

stream. So I don't know, and I think I even like I even emailed

like CapCut support, and I was like, "Hey guys, like this was

there, and now it's not." And they said like that feature

isn't out yet. I'm like, "Well, then how did I have it like

earlier in the week to test?" So that's that's kind of my

thoughts with it. I haven't used CapCut since because I was like,

I'm not using this for for folks who like it. Great, you know, I

know a lot of people who love using CapCut. That's what helps

them actually make their shorts. I don't. I I honestly like when

I'm doing my show. Talked about this before. I use my little

Stream Deck, which is right here, and I press buttons and

live edit my show. That's how I'm able to produce my video and

audio episodes. You know, literally in the same amount of

time it takes me to record it.

Well, Brian Connington from the Cinema Psychos podcast. I'll

have links to that in the show notes, as long as the other

thing that you mentioned, and of course, the manager of video

marketing at in your YouTube channel

is okay. So for the podcast, it's at Cinema Psychos Pod.

Thank you.

And then Libsyn is just at Libsyn. There's always good good

videos. A lot of me on the Libsyn channel. Yeah, yeah,

definitely good stuff there.

What's the latest stuff that's up there, and anything good

coming in the future at the Libsyn YouTube channel,

so one the video that's out right now, which is really good,

which is on again like the video kill the audio podcast, and my

argument is that no, it didn't, and that you know ultimately

video's been here for a long time, and it's going to be here,

and there's nothing to stop you from doing both or one or the

other. So the other video that's coming out is going to be all

about how many ads are too many ads in your podcast. So it's

actually pulled from our our live office hours that we do

monthly. Myself and Emilio Tello basically talk about a podcast

topic, but I try to usually repurpose those and turn them

into videos. So yeah, look out for that one. It's going to be

all about you know how many ads is too many ads in your podcast,

and how can you actually construct your episodes so you

can accommodate ads and not make your audience angry. Excellent.

Well, Brian, thank you so much, buddy. All right, thanks, man.

It's again absolute pleasure. Great talking to you. Bam, bam,

bam! Brian, the video guy, Cottington. I will put the link

to everything he mentioned out there: the Adobe Firefly, the

Cinema Psychos, the Libsyn YouTube channel, and the thing

that really stood out to me is when he said this: "You got to

understand if you if you want to play YouTube's game, you got to

play YouTube's game,

and I love that. I know YouTube's game. I just don't

have enough time to play it, and so I do what I can and accept

the results for what they are. Again, my biggest fear, because

I've seen this happen, people are kind of a little burdened.

Buy an audio podcast. They think video is going to be the next

big thing that's going to catapult them. And look, I'm

not, you know, disputing that YouTube is a great discovery

engine, but it's also a lot of time and a lot of effort. And if

you're getting a real camera, a lot of money. And so what

happens is they add video. It absolutely crushes them because

they didn't really have enough resources and time. And then

instead of quitting the video part and going back to the audio

part, they cancel the whole podcast. That's my biggest fear.

So I loved Elsie Escobar. Also, another former Lipson person

said, "Try video. Go on YouTube, and if it works for you, great.

Keep doing it, and if it just is too much, go back to just doing

audio. But thanks to Brian, super great guy. It made me

melancholy. I miss Corey and Emilio and Chris and Todd and

everybody over at Libsyn, and wish them all the best. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Hey, I wanted to bring up, there is a thing

called Napod Pomo. I'm not sure how they get Napod Pomo out of

National Podcast Post Month, but at any rate, what the ideal is

is that you do 30 episodes in 30 days, and this is great for the

person that has never podcasted in a way that you just start

doing the reps. We often say, "Don't measure downloads;

measure how many uploads you have. How many actual times have

you swung the bat?" And so, for that, absolutely great. Just

start recording. Get your reps in. The thing that I have seen

from my own chair is that on about I don't know day 12 you

run out of content maybe, and you start to really feel the

pressure of I got to get this done, and then you feel like a

failure because that's not easy to do. A daily show, I know so

many podcasters that have said I'm doing a daily show, and in

my head I go not. And because though it's daily, and then it's

three times a week, and then it's two times a week, and then

it's maybe weekly or maybe every other week, but daily is a very

very hard thing to do. And so I say that if in the middle of

Napod Pomo you go, this is really hard. It's only really

hard if you decide to do a daily show, and if you don't have some

sort of team, a daily show is a huge grind. Not because to make

a good show, let's do that. To make an amazing show that people

want to share with their friends, that's a tall tale.

Because there's only 24 hours in a day, so I say that I'm not

pooping on Napod Pomo. There's definitely some bonuses to it,

but I want to let you know if you get halfway through and you

feel overwhelmed, and I I can't do podcasting unless your

podcast is a daily show, that's not what you're normally going

to be doing. You are basically it's like if you go to a batting

cage, you're practicing swinging. You know, if you're a

golfer, you've gone to the place where you you know you swing the

golf club off the hill or that whole nine yards. You're

practicing is what it is, and so that part I love. But I just

want to let you know it's really easy to feel overwhelmed in the

middle of that. If you want to check it out, Napod is spelled

the same way you would think N A P O D pomo.org. Say hi to

Jennifer for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you want to start a

podcast in January 2027, have it ready. You need to start working

on it now. You want to have it ready by I don't know December

10th ish, because remember Apple takes a couple weeks off at the

end of the year, so you got to have it done before January. And

if you need help with that again, check out

schoolofpodcasting.com.

We've got courses, we've got coaching, and if you want, we've

got weekly coaching. That's a new thing we're doing now. And

of course, you've got an amazing community. It's all out there at

School of podcasting.com. I'm Dave Jackson. I help podcasters.

It's what I do. Been doing it for over 20 years, and I can't

wait to see what we're gonna do together. And until next week,

take care. God bless. Class is dismissed. And for those

Americans, vote. If you like the show, please share it. With

Brian, Brian, who's Brian? Brian Cuntington. All of a sudden,

he's I don't know Irish Brian Cuntington. Here he is, Brian.

Brian, come to the state, Brian. And I know video. I know videos

game. Yeah, I know YouTube's. All right, let's do that again,

shall we?

Yeah.