Stop the Scroll: Better Podcast Titles and Thumbnails

David Jackson  1:00  
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 Cottington 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.

Brian Cottington  2:53  
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.

David Jackson  3:09  
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.

Brian Cottington  3:28  
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.

David Jackson  4:01  
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.

Brian Cottington  4:13  
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?

David Jackson  6:14  
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

Brian Cottington  6:48  
got to do the Stallone imitation. You got to, you got the turtles, man. You got to get the turtles. Is it

David Jackson  6:54  
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.

Brian Cottington  7:18  
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

David Jackson  7:51  
because they're another movie

Brian Cottington  7:53  
exactly

David Jackson  7:53  
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,

Brian Cottington  8:05  
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.

David Jackson  9:29  
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

Brian Cottington  9:39  
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.

David Jackson  10:23  
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?

Brian Cottington  11:06  
So first thing I'll ask you, I'll answer your question with a question, Dave. Do you remember going to the video store?

David Jackson  11:12  
I do.

Brian Cottington  11:13  
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.

David Jackson  11:21  
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.

Brian Cottington  11:41  
Yeah, but it was it was what it was the box art.

David Jackson  11:44  
Yeah,

Brian Cottington  11:44  
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.

David Jackson  12:22  
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.

Brian Cottington  12:34  
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.

David Jackson  14:53  
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

Brian Cottington  15:25  
video store in 2026. That's what it is.

David Jackson  15:27  
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

Brian Cottington  16:10  
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

David Jackson  16:38  
to

Brian Cottington  16:38  
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.

David Jackson  17:35  
Well, I know in your video from Podcast Movement, which was really great, you deconstructed somebody's thumbnail. I

Brian Cottington  17:42  
was their thumbnail. Yeah,

David Jackson  17:43  
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?

Brian Cottington  18:16  
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

David Jackson  21:00  
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

Brian Cottington  21:37  
on the app. So, like Apple Podcasts will showcase the episode art specifically. Yeah, but yeah.

David Jackson  21:41  
So you can use this even if you're like, I'm not a YouTuber. Yeah, this still works too. 100%,

Brian Cottington  21:47  
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

David Jackson  22:30  
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,

Brian Cottington  22:49  
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.

David Jackson  25:47  
Yeah,

Brian Cottington  25:48  
you know what I mean.

David Jackson  25:49  
Yeah, it's uh. But we've always done it that way. Yes, exactly. It's

Brian Cottington  25:53  
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.

David Jackson  26:24  
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

Brian Cottington  26:45  
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.

David Jackson  27:22  
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?

Brian Cottington  28:08  
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.

David Jackson  29:44  
Yeah.

Brian Cottington  29:45  
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.

David Jackson  31:17  
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

Brian Cottington  31:25  
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:

David Jackson  32:00  
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?

Brian Cottington  32:08  
So no one has to be forced to do video if they don't want to,

David Jackson  32:13  
right? Okay,

Brian Cottington  32:13  
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.

David Jackson  34:14  
Well, you mentioned Firefly. Any other favorite tools that you use?

Brian Cottington  34:19  
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.

David Jackson  36:05  
Do you have an opinion? Because I just hear about this software all the time. CapCut.

Brian Cottington  36:10  
I don't like it.

David Jackson  36:11  
Okay. All right. There you go. Because

Brian Cottington  36:14  
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.

David Jackson  37:52  
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

Brian Cottington  38:05  
is okay. So for the podcast, it's at Cinema Psychos Pod.

David Jackson  38:08  
Thank you.

Brian Cottington  38:08  
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.

David Jackson  38:16  
What's the latest stuff that's up there, and anything good coming in the future at the Libsyn YouTube channel,

Brian Cottington  38:21  
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,

David Jackson  39:42  
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.

David Jackson  44:07  
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?

Speaker 1  45:12  
Yeah.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai