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Should you start a video podcast in 2023? What’s the point of having a video podcast as a business anyway? And aren’t podcasts really just audio shows? What’s this got to do with video marketing? That’s what we’ll be exploring with my guest today – podcasting and personal branding expert Brandon Birkmeyer from Brands on Brands.
Brandon Birkmeyer is a personal branding specialist and is host of the Brands On Brands podcast, which is consistently ranked top 10 in branding on Apple Podcasts. Brandon is also a former Madison Avenue advertising executive with over 21 years of experience advising top FORTUNE 100 companies including Walmart, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, and Apple. In 2022, he launched the Podcast Branding Academy, an online school and community for podcasters.
In this episode we cover:
- A short intro to Brandon and what led his focus on branding and podcasting.
- Who should consider starting a podcast now in 2023.
- Why podcasting is a good move for businesses.
- Why podcasting and not just video content or other forms of content.
- The benefit in video podcasting.
- How can a business measure success with podcasting?
- Some of the best ways to grow.
Links mentioned in the show:
If you found this episode of value I’d love for you to reach out and let me know on Instagram @engage_ben or email [email protected]
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Transcript of the Interview: ** Note: the following transcript was generated by AI and therefore may contain some errors and omissions.
Ben Amos:
Hey, Brandon, welcome to the Engage video marketing podcast.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Hey Ben, thanks for having me man. Excited to be here.
Ben Amos:
Well, I’m excited to reconnect with you. So, so we met in person at social media marketing world a little bit earlier in the year and, and, you know, we had a brief conversation around, around video and podcasting and building a personal brand in 2023. And I thought, what a great conversation to bring for our listeners here on the show here today. So before we get into that, can you tell me, you know, why podcasting for you and why personal branding for you? What, what led you into this area of, of passion?
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah, contrary to I think what a lot of people’s journey is, I wasn’t in social media and trying to figure out how to be a YouTuber or anything like that. My background was corporate America and I worked at ad agencies for 17 years. I’m now 21 years into the game, but for those first 17 years, it was just a corporate executive lifestyle. And I was… going to them nine to five, you know, regular thing and enjoyed my work. And what was great about that was I was, you know, working with a group of people at an agency on big fortune 100 brands and put into their brand strategy and media planning campaigns. But at some point in my career, I started, you know, as you move up this, the pyramid of corporate life, I started to realize that I was having fewer and fewer opportunities to grow. and started to feel even more so that I wasn’t in control of where I was taking my career, that other people’s decisions determined if I got a seat at the table or not. And that shook me a little bit. I’m not a risk averse person, so it wasn’t natural for me to want to become an entrepreneur, to become a creator. Corporate life fit my vibe, my sense for my need for security, but I would start to see my bosses, the people that were five and 10 years ahead of me, starting to have trouble finding jobs. They were becoming fewer and farther between. So because of that, I started to say, you know, what am I going to do? So that doesn’t, that, so that that doesn’t happen to me and said, I guess I should go out on my own and figure out what this is like. And in that exploration of what I could do in my own business as an entrepreneur, as someone who needed to then build a network because I realized I left corporate and I had a resume, like a great resume, Coca-Cola, Apple, Walmart, you know, billions of dollars in ad spend that I was helping work with. And that resume didn’t translate to reputation. The people who needed
Ben Amos:
Okay.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
help as entrepreneurs didn’t know who I was to them and how I could help. And when you Googled me online, you wouldn’t find anything. So that started my journey into personal branding and I discovered content creation. I discovered the power of. sharing your ideas and your perspective all through this powerful medium of content creation and social media.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, so you, at that time of making that realisation, were you then setting the wheels in motion to leave corporate world and start your own business and become an entrepreneur as well? So was it a personal branding shift and a move into entrepreneurship or were you starting to build a personal brand while still being part of corporate America?
Brandon Birkmeyer:
I wish I had, I mean, if I could go back in time to like my 21 year old self, I’d be like, get out there and start sharing your voice, creating content and building something. But no, I thought I was in it. And then the only idea I had was maybe I’ll start my own ad agency. And I tinkered around with that, started messing with, creating a website and things like that, but still had no like presence on social media, no presence in content creation. So I did zero personal branding. I left corporate. saying, okay, I have space now, I have some runway, I have some savings, let’s try to get some consulting clients. But in that, I left and literally no one knew who I was. I had no network to speak of and no reputation, so I had to start from zero. And I didn’t go back to corporate, I didn’t run back and try to figure that out. I just said, you know what, I’m gonna make this work. So I started consuming as much content as possible to learn how to do this. I started trying it, I tried blogging, I started. creating YouTube videos, I started creating videos for social media, I started doing social media posts, I started podcasting, I tried all the things and podcasting was the one that stuck. It was the one that was most natural in terms of me sharing my ideas and getting my voice out of my head. It was the most quick and easy to do it every week and consistently deliver on that. So I stuck with that and then I added in interviews and solo content and interviews and it just started to build the show from there.
Ben Amos:
Awesome, so let’s fast forward a little bit, Brandon. So what do you do today with Brands on Brands and how do you help people today?
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah, so Brands on Brands is all about personal branding and content marketing. And it started as a show that was supposed to be just marketing for entrepreneurs. And I did about 90 episodes, completely random, where I would, whatever was on top of my mind that day, I would talk about for, you know, a weekly show. And I realized over time that I wanted the show to be about something more specific and I looked backwards at my content and realized, oh, like a third of my content was for entrepreneurs. But the other third was. deep dives into social media and the other third is really about personal branding and content for personal brands. And that’s what I really liked the most. It’s where my curiosity was going. So I pushed the show towards that and then said, I’m going to start designing season designing seasons on purpose. So everything I create now is designed ahead of time. I say, okay, what’s the theme for the next 26 episodes going to be? And I say, how many of those are going to be interviews? How many are going to be solo shows? And then of the 13 or so solo shows, how am I gonna map those out so that they work together to drive more listenership? And what I mean by that is people who listen to one episode wanna binge the next one and the next one and the next one. So that’s where the show came from. And then I’ve been doing that for four years now, I’m 250 plus episodes in. And along that path of becoming a content creator and becoming a podcaster, I started to teach people how to also create podcasts. how to build businesses around their content, how to start courses and that kind of thing and run coaching businesses essentially.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, awesome, cool. So let’s think about where we are right now in 2023 here. And you know, podcasting has been a thing for a while, for many years, I don’t know, 10, 15 years. You might be able to clear that up for me. But a long time, right? They’ve been around for a long time. I think that the interest in podcasting is… is more now than it ever has been, as far as both from a interest in creating a podcast and interest in listening to podcasts. So what would you say to the person who is in business or looking to build a personal brand about podcasting in 2023?
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah, I think what I would say to them is if you’re not podcasting, you’re leaving a lot on the table, whether you’re in a career and you’re an executive or you’re an entrepreneur building your business or you’re a content creator who’s leveraging one of the other platforms like blogging or YouTube. And I think if you’re not podcasting, you’re missing opportunity. So for me, I’d like to be everywhere if I can. Right. And the thing about podcasting that’s different is it’s the one place where when people are consuming the media, they don’t leave. When someone starts a show, they listen to almost all of the show. If not all of it, almost all of it. And not every, and I’m talking like 40 minute episodes for the most part. So when they, when you’ve got them, when they’ve chosen your show and they’ve picked an episode that connects with them, they’re with you. So being with someone and nurturing them into a relationship, which is your ecosystem, and being able to connect with someone that intimately. for that long of a time, it’s the most powerful nurturing tool we have out there in media. And I think why it became popular is that it’s accessible. You know, not everyone’s comfortable turning the camera on. I love video podcasts, but I didn’t start with the camera on. I started with it off so that I could get comfortable using my voice and just not having to look at a camera too, just thinking about what I’m saying. And it’s also easier than blogging for me because you can just have a conversation in a natural way, whether with someone else or just sharing your ideas in your head. You know, what do I think about this? Let me give you three reasons and then be done. It’s a very quick and accessible way. And all you need is a microphone, zoom, and a computer, right? To record these kinds of things. And you’ve got a podcast. So I think the accessibility and then the opportunity to really nurture relationships one to one, uh, has become what is the interest driver for the medium.
Ben Amos:
So for those in our audience who are… They don’t particularly, or they believe they don’t particularly have an interest in being the face of something, being a creator, to use that in inverted commas, a YouTuber or podcaster as a noun, right? But they are running a business, or they are responsible for the growth of a business or reaching audiences, whatever it is for their business. What would you say to that person about the benefit of podcasting from a business sense? achieving actual business goals, not just fame and fortune and popularity as a creator.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of ways to grow your business with content in general. For me, podcast is the, like the creation place. It’s where I create the easiest, but I put that content everywhere. And so I think if you can see the value of content for your business, then this makes sense for you. And for me, what the value is, let’s say you have a website, right? How do people find most businesses? They go to Google search and You build a website, right? You might, maybe you don’t want to be the face of your business, but you have a website typically to help people find it. How do you get content onto that website? A podcast or any kind of content in general is going to be needed for that website. And I use my podcast to generate blogs and I do that every week. And it’s a very fast way, like 30 minutes or 20 to 30 minutes of me talking about the things I have the knowledge about in my industry. creates 5,000 words of content written. So that 5,000 words of content, I edit it down because that’s a lot for a blog. I usually get two, three blogs out of it. And you have to change the verbiage, obviously, to make sense for a blog because it doesn’t exactly translate. But when you know that that’s the end result, you can use a podcast as the engine that fills content for your website. So now it’s funny. So I’ll do one episode, right? And I’ll put it to a blog. I’ll create it on social media. I’ll put it on YouTube. And I never know which episode, which episode is going to hit on which platform. Right. So I had an episode that was the 10, uh, 10 podcast ideas for beginners. Right. And it was just a riff on here’s the types of podcasts you could start. If you’re just trying to brainstorm as a podcast episode, it did pretty average with, you know, one of my shows as a YouTube video, pretty average as a blog. It went gangbusters.
Ben Amos:
Right.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
because Google said, you know, as a blog, this is content that we haven’t found that people are looking for in search engines. And we want to serve up your page on the first page of Google. And that happens like every 10 episodes, one of mine will hit as a blog. And I never know which one it’s going to be. You can do all the planning you want, but just knowing that like every now and then one of these is going to hit. And then I can go back to that page, change it, drop in a, you know, a lead gen, like a lead magnet generator. and then bring those people into my world as customers, as clients is huge. So number one, it’s a content engine. And then on top of that, it also is a networking tool. I go to a networking event, just like all the other entrepreneurs out there and I meet people. And when I talk to them, I don’t say, hey, can I pick your brain? Or, hey, can we go get a coffee? I say, hey, I have a podcast. Your story is amazing. I’d love to hear more about that on my show. Would you be interested in sharing that story with my audience? And now it’s a win-win. And that relationship grows because I’m giving something to them, they’re giving a little something to me. And over the course of an hour conversation, we’ve now shared our perspectives and at the end of it, I now have a relationship with that person. We’ve done something together, we’ve created something. So, it’s purely as a networking tool and as a content engine for your website, let alone some of the other advantages. That alone is a great reason to start a podcast for your business.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Like for those two major reasons, I think, is the reason why I started the podcast myself like five years ago. And time and time again, this podcast has proven to do exactly that for me, both in content creation and increasing the footprint of the brand on various platforms, but also in connecting and networking with people like yourself here, Brandon. I think the other side to that, which is interesting, And as you’re talking there, I was thinking about this idea of both of those things are of benefit to me as a business. Of course, there’s a reason why I start something like this as a business owner. But I’m interested where you see the benefit is for the listeners as well, because ultimately we’re creating content for an audience. So where does the audience play into the podcasting? The reason for podcasting, I guess, is my question.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah, I think what’s funny is it depends on your goals, right? You based on those examples I just gave, I could have zero listeners in the podcasting
Ben Amos:
Yeah.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
space and still have tremendous value created from the podcast. And I think for a lot of padcasters, that’s actually the case. The average podcast gets like 180 listens, right? The comparison of that to a blog, which might get that much traffic every month. or to a YouTube channel which might go viral and get thousands of views or hits, it’s not really comparable. I would say this though, a podcast that again gets someone who’s listening to it, like me speaking to 180 people, if that was the number, it’s not now, like maybe when I started, right? But if it was 180 people, that would still be great because 180 people that are listening to me talk for 45 minutes every week, that’s an amazing captive audience that is now becoming a fan of my world. is telling their friends about what I do and is becoming referrals and is growing the audience behind my brand and my business. So that alone is a difference driver. I think to your point about the audience itself, yeah, I’d like to, I wanna have a podcast audience too, but I’m not, I’m agnostic, right? It’s where I create. So I want a podcast audience, I want a YouTube audience, I want a blog audience, I want social media audiences. And figuring out how I do that is part of it, is part of the whole game of it all. But my biggest like focus is my email list. So if I’m creating podcast content, I’m thinking how is this gonna help me build my email list or how am I going to use my email, use my podcast to actually have conversations in my email list. So I’ll say, hey, email list, this is the great content that I created this week on my podcast. So I have something to talk about. It’s not just. Happy Fourth of July, have a great week. You know, there’s another
Ben Amos:
Yep.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
piece of value that I’m giving to you this week as well, just like I did last week, all through my email list. So it’s an ecosystem, and all of it is about how do I bring people in, how do I share value in places where they’re actually consuming content, and then how do I lead them on a journey from being consumers of content to potentially serving them in other ways in my business.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, that’s really good. And I think what it comes down to is really understanding what are the goals that you’re trying to achieve through your content creation, not just your podcasting, but through your content creation, and what metrics are you going to measure to determine whether you’re successful at that. And if you’re going into podcasting as a form of content creation focused on download numbers or listenership, you’re potentially measuring the wrong thing in many cases. Whereas you’re better off looking at email engagement or social media following or the number of sales you’re making from people who have been listening to podcasts for six months and they’ve built such a strong relationship with you that as soon as you put an offer out they’re ready to buy, even if you’ve only got 100 listeners. That’s
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
my own experience time and time again, is it’s not about the numbers, it’s about the metrics that matter to me.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah. And what, if you think about it, what’s funny about this, this is a good point you bring up. Uh, when I’m out there and I’m talking to people, I’m meeting people in person. My metrics are how many calls do I have this week with clients? Like how many calls do I have with new networks, individuals that are going to potentially have a conversation with me that turns into business. And the podcast drives a lot of that podcast. You know, I’m getting emails in my inbox, people reaching out to me. That could be potential business. And when I go to events, which I go to all the time. And I meet people and I shake hands. That podcast is a catalyst for those conversations. And that’s my metric. I’m like, how many people am I getting on phone calls with? But those phone calls turn into email relationships and the podcast becomes proof. So what if a it’s phone calls, but B what if it’s just the proof that you know what you’re talking about? That someone after they meet, after they meet you in person, Google’s you. finds all your stuff and says, wow, I love all these amazing perspectives and ideas generated by this person. They know what they’re talking about because your content is either gonna drive people away from you or bring people to you. And half the time, I’m still boots on the ground shaking hands, but the podcast is doing the work after the handshake to let people know that I’m legit, that I know what I’m talking about and I’m someone that they might wanna work with. And then they go on top of that, cherry on top, what if I have a guest that they are like, They didn’t know who I was, but they really respect the guest. Even if that show had zero downloads until that person found the show, seeing me with someone that they respect adds authority and as clout to the relationship.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, and all of this is what underpins a good, strong personal brand anyway, and the benefits of a personal brand. So podcasting, content creation and personal branding are so intertwined. I want to talk about video podcasting specifically because this is the Engage video marketing show and you’ve hinted about the benefit of using video content in your podcast and so on and we’ll dive deeper into that. But I’m thinking back, video podcasting, it used to be a thing. Back in, you used to be able to do iTunes video podcasts on Apple and so on and then it wasn’t a thing for quite a long time. And now it’s a thing again. So I don’t know if you’ve kind of seen that evolution of video in podcasting, but can you talk us through from your perspective why you think that that was the case, that it was a thing and then it wasn’t a thing and now it’s a thing.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah, I think podcasting, it goes through ups and downs of like, what’s cool or not, just like music, like what’s trending and what’s not. The thing that I think is true, no matter what, is that video we know is an engaging medium. But from a podcasting perspective, depending on the format, like two guys doing a Zoom call isn’t always the most interesting thing to watch on YouTube. Right. So you know, an hour of that. isn’t interesting, but what started to happen? Well, people who stepped up their game and said, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to build a studio like either, you know, your independent studio, or I’m going to start doing in-person interviews that still it’s the same content, but it looks better. It’s engaging because you get to see them interacting with each other. You get to see their body language. And maybe the conversation changes because they’re, they’re in person with each other. Things started to evolve in that way. And now we’re starting to see that that’s the modern day talk show. Uh, YouTube podcast is the modern day talk show. So it’s pretty common to, for guests to realize they’re going to fly into someone’s home studio or a studio in their city to have an interesting conversation, to go talk to a thought leader who’s built the audience. And now that’s become the standard practice. So what happens? I think that these channels all chase each other. You know, they, they’re playing chicken, trying to figure out what’s the next big thing. Like YouTube went with shorts. It’s the long form video player. You don’t have to compete, but they went with shorts and what did TikTok too? Well, they’re starting to go longer. You know, they’re introducing 10 minute videos on TikTok. So was Twitter. Twitter is introducing 10 minute video.
Ben Amos:
Yeah.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
All of it is trying to compete and gain share because at the end of the day, they’d want to go with what the audience is willing to watch. So what am I doing? I’m trying to figure out how do I create shorts that capture the people who are trying to watch shorts? How do I create videos? that then also translate to reels and tick tock. And then how do I create in a way that’s not a drag, right? I don’t have to create a separate video for tick tock and for YouTube and for Instagram and for shorts versus long form. That’s a pain in the butt. So I take my interview just like we recorded here. I try to make it as engaging as possible. But then I look at the editing process and I say, what makes sense for YouTube, for a YouTube podcast? And for me, for my show, it’s not gonna be the full 45 minute interview. For me, it’s going to be 10 minutes of that interview cut down that follows one train of thought. Right. Because I cover lots of things in my conversation, but there’s usually a great 10 minutes about one thing that is search friendly for a place like YouTube. So when someone’s on YouTube, using it the way that they do as a search engine, looking for a how to piece of content that aligns really well with how I create content. So they’ve on the latest hack on how to create a short. I might’ve covered that in one of my interviews. and I created 10 minutes just about that. And then I’m in competition with the people who are doing it solo, you know what I mean? So I create solo content and interviews, it’s not just an interview show, but just as an example, that’s how I think about these platforms, is they’re kind of playing chicken with each other, and it’s my job to see what can I create that the audience is going to be interested in. So even with my editing, how can I create those first three minutes to be amazing and engaging so that they’re sucked into the content? And by minute three, they don’t care what it looks like. They just want it to be as good as the first three minutes was in terms of the conversation. So those are some of my thoughts.
Ben Amos:
I’m interested to get a little bit tactical with you here, Brandon, because… relatively recently YouTube has made a real push into video podcasting on the YouTube platform and even rolling out the podcasting tab on channels. You can check out youtube.com slash podcasts to kind of see the podcasts that YouTube’s recommending to you. These are long form conversations. They are long form episodes with a video component to them. What you’re mentioning there around repurposing your longer form video version of your podcast into say 10 minute YouTube videos, I think if I’m interpreting you correctly, that’s different to like publishing your full YouTube episode as a podcast on YouTube. Do you see the distinction there or is it a bit
Brandon Birkmeyer:
It’s
Ben Amos:
too
Brandon Birkmeyer:
not,
Ben Amos:
early in the way you’re experimenting?
Brandon Birkmeyer:
it’s not, it’s not a distinction. So YouTube doesn’t care how long your video is. Like in podcasts, I think what people are doing is they’re being lazy. They just want to take what they have in podcast and put it onto YouTube. And that works if you are already popular. If you already have a huge fan base that wants to listen to you Joe Rogan style for three hours or even, you know, a more popular regular celebrity or whatever that has a show that for an hour. They love you, they don’t care. They will listen to anything you put out. Great. The rest of us are competing. We’re competing against everything else out there. YouTube is only showing, especially in their actual podcast page, they’re only showing the biggest creators. You’re not gonna show up there unless you are in the search. So if you’re in a relevant search, you can show up as a podcast there. And what they’re doing is saying, classify this content as a podcast because we realize people are searching for podcasters on YouTube now and we want to be able to serve them up through all the muck and mud that is what you’re competing with on YouTube. So they wanted to give us a tool. So we get to self-designate, hey, my content’s a podcast. It could be five minutes. They don’t care because there are five minute podcasts. So it’s just a self-designation. You literally create a playlist. and say, these are my podcast videos and you click. This is a podcast. It asks for a couple of little things like some keywords, a description and a square piece of cover art. And from then on out, if someone searches for the name of your podcast, you’ll be pulled out of the muck and mire to be served at the top so people can find your show by name, because that’s how people search for podcasts organically. So if you’ve built a following and they want to find you, that’s that’s the way to do it. So I think it’s really semantics. and then maybe they’ll start to change things and figure it out, but right now it’s just a, let me volunteer myself to show you that this is a podcast. I still think me doing the extra work of creating 10 minutes of something that is really impactful and that the headline of that show is very specific and not super vague like my talk with Ben, right? If I’m like, Ben and I chop out, like what is happening right now with Google podcasts, that’s a very specific thread. that someone might watch just that video to figure it out. So that’s my approach and perspective.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, so I guess the decision comes down to what’s your podcast? strategy on YouTube versus your podcast strategy on other channels or other platforms, right? Because typically in a, you know, iTunes, Spotify, you know, your podcast feed, you would have sequential episode numbers and one episode would be one interview, one topic, one guest, whatever. But the way you’re considering that podcast feed on YouTube is you could potentially have three videos marked as a podcast or in your podcast playlist for a from the one longer form episode on another platform. Am I interpreting that correctly? Is that the way you’re
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah,
Ben Amos:
looking at it?
Brandon Birkmeyer:
yeah, well think about this, because there’s still episode numbers and my playlist is still in order. So it will say, let’s do this conversation. It would be like YouTube podcasts with Brandon Burkmire, episode 150, right? And then it would say, shorts and short form and how to repurpose from podcast to short form with Brandon Burkmire, still. slash, you know, episode 150. It would just say the same episode number a few times, but it would have specific subjects. I think that I’m giving myself a double opportunity. And if people wanna watch the whole thing altogether, I could put that out there too. Right now, I don’t think that that’s as relevant and they can go listen to the podcast, you know, if they wanna listen to that piece. But that is something I’m debating right now. I could see, do I just put the whole episode up as well, like all three or all four? I could. It’s not something I choose to do right now because in my mind, that’s not something someone wants to watch. I don’t think they wanna sit here on YouTube for a full hour. I think 10 minutes is pretty much what they’ve already proven is what their audience behavior is. So that’s my approach right now. But yeah, I’m testing, I’m trying things out. And I think I try to be intuitive about what seems like will confuse people versus won’t.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, and I think… your thinking around that is the right way to think about it. Because at the end of the day, on YouTube in particular, it’s about creating content that audiences want to engage with and want to engage with a high level of retention. So it’s not about just sticking content up and marking it as a podcast and saying, well, YouTube wants podcasts. Well, here they are. Here’s my podcast. It’s about what does the audience actually want from you? And I think I like the way you’re thinking about it.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Well, actually,
Ben Amos:
I’m still figuring it out.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
yeah, well,
Ben Amos:
Go
Brandon Birkmeyer:
let me
Ben Amos:
ahead.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
mention this because sorry, you spread an amazing thought, which is just the worst thing we could do is try to take lessons from podcasting and apply them to YouTube. Podcasting is the worst discovery tool. The way they organize
Ben Amos:
Yeah.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
episodes is tragic. It’s hard to find content like you get, you know, like me, 250 episodes. My listeners. are hard up to figure out like, where is the show that’s for me? Where’s the episode that was really just about email marketing or just about Instagram? Like the searching through that to figure it out and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling is terrible. So why would I use podcast, which is the worst search engine, period, to determine how I should act on the best search engine, which is YouTube, right? I’m gonna take the best practices of YouTube. and adapt my podcast to it, not the other way around.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, I think that’s a really good distinction there. So, thanks for sharing that. And personally, just to be upfront about my own journey, I’ve only just started releasing full video versions of this episode, or this podcast on YouTube and marking them in the podcast playlist. And I’m still figuring out whether that’s the right strategy. So, and you’ve caused me to think a bit differently about that as well. So, I think it’ll be interesting to see how YouTube leans more into podcasting still haven’t released a lot of information about what they want people to do with that. So I think they’re still figuring it out as well,
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Well, we
Ben Amos:
to
Brandon Birkmeyer:
can
Ben Amos:
be
Brandon Birkmeyer:
run
Ben Amos:
honest.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
a test. Send me the video. I’ll chop it up into a 10 minute version. Why don’t we, you’ll put your full version and the 10 minute version. We’ll share them on both of our channels and we’ll see which one does better.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, let’s do it.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
I’m in.
Ben Amos:
Let’s run a split test on this. Although
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah.
Ben Amos:
I’m not sure what the size of your channel is and how that’s going to compare, but it’ll be fun anyway. Let’s just figure something out. I want to talk about, we talked about obviously the benefit of video podcasting as far as tapping into YouTube. But We’ve also hinted at the benefit of using video format when podcasting in order to repurpose content for a whole bunch of other platforms. So how do you think about that process as well in order to create reams of content from one video podcast?
Brandon Birkmeyer:
I have so many thoughts, so many thoughts on this. The first thought is the effort that I put into the work that I do as a content creator, I want 20% of that to be on creating and 80% of that effort to be on the distribution side of this. And the one thing I learned working on Coca-Cola, I mean I learned a lot of things, but the big thing I learned is the reason they’re such a huge brand isn’t always because of their advertising, it’s because of their distribution. They are everywhere. You go to look for a Coca-Cola, you’re going to find it not just in the grocery stores, you’re going to find it at the front aisles. You’re going to find it in the gas stations on the way to the grocery store. You’re going to find it in the movie theaters at the theme parks. You’re going to find it everywhere you’re going. And in other countries, if there wasn’t infrastructure, even they went out and built it so that they could be in those other countries. I think about my content like Coca-Cola thinks about their distribution. I want it everywhere and I’m going to build. Everything I need to get it into those places. So from a repurposing standpoint, I’m like, what are the I call it rules tools and pools What are the rules or the steps or the approaches or the strategic operating procedures I need to execute? converting one created piece of raw footage Into all the platforms that I know matter long form on the major pillar platforms youtube blogs and podcasts and short form across all the social media channels in their best ways and clips. So I start there, I think about it like that, and I’m like, how do I create as much distribution as possible? That’s the rules. The tools part is like, what is gonna make my process efficient? How do I use the best, whatever it is, AI, or the best program and make my stuff look as good as it needs to look in the way people wanna consume it, which means maybe I have to add some captions, maybe I have to add some visual effects. so that people wanna consume it. And then how do I then tap into pools of talent? That was the last piece. So that
Ben Amos:
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
if I can’t get more than three, four, five things out in a week, how do I leverage other people, whether I need a graphic designer, an audio editor, or some type of social media manager, how do I leverage the power of people to upscale my game? And based on where I’m at in my journey, what I can afford now versus what I could have afforded a year ago versus two years ago, that changes. But I always am looking at those three things. to take the one thing I spent an hour creating to really push it to all these platforms and make the best use of it.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, I love that rules, tools and pools. That’s a good three step kind of thought process to walk through when, whether you’re getting started or whether you’re further along in the journey, there’s gonna be different answers at each of those different stages. So that’s really cool. Thanks for sharing that. So I’m interested where you are right now. Are you tapping into it? Do you have all team behind you to repurpose this stuff or what’s your process right now without going into the weeds?
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah, yeah, I know I can go a little bit. So for me, the most important thing, since I start with audio, and that was like the hub of my show, I have an audio editor. So that’s always, the quality there always has to be what it is. I don’t even edit the audio for my video stuff because I feel like when you’re watching YouTube, you don’t notice the things as much as you notice when you’re just earbuds in and nothing else. So audio is the first thing. So I have an editor for that. The second thing, is I leverage graphic designers every six months, it used to be every three, and now it’s six, to make sure that I have templates and things that I need to keep the look and feel of my show. So that’s an off and on thing. But beyond that, the most important thing that I’ve found is I leverage a tool called Descript, which a lot of your audience might be familiar with. The video editors out there are gonna hate me because it’s not this high power editing tool. But for what I need and for what I think a lot of people need, we’re not creating movie quality Netflix type shows, right? This is good enough. So I focus on yes, the first two, three minutes, I do a lot of extra work, but the most of the show, I edit to get that from 40 minutes down to 10, right? I use the script so I can look, you know, it transcribes it. And then I look at the words and I just delete the words that I don’t want. And it edits the video for me leveraging AI technology. So that’s my, and I can also, paste in intros and outro just copy paste and it does that for me. I can paste in little overlay videos, all the B roll, all that stuff, leveraging Descript. So I start there. Uh, and then once that process is mapped out, like I’ve, I have my own process that I built, which is how do I convert this into a 10 minute video? How do I convert it into a blog into short form? Like how would I find one minute clips? I’ve done all of that in Descript. And then what I did is I went out and I hired a, uh, virtual assistant to then follow my exact same steps and I I had to belabor with it But I’ll let you guys steal my secrets right here on the show Which is I started with overseas and everything else. I found it wasn’t a social media manager. I needed it wasn’t a video editor I needed I needed someone who was good at editing words because that’s my process So I looked for someone whose primary language first native language is English which happened to be US UK or you know Australia something like that I actually happened to find someone in the US and said, okay, like, here’s what I need. The skill I put into Upwork, right, I’m looking at Upwork for this kind of stuff, I was like, I need someone who is an editor. I need someone who edits words. And I got all kinds of applications and found someone that was willing to do work for a reasonable price, we’ll call reasonable under $20 an hour, to do five hours of work for me a week that is doing every, like literally everything in my process. except posting. So all of that editing, because it’s mostly words based, starts with a virtual assistant because of the processes I’ve built to help them do that. Leveraging tools that are really easy to use and that if that person leaves, someone else can step right in and do it.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, I love that. And it can be just so systemised and processed. And as soon as you can, I think, as a creator, you’ve got to focus on creating and not on all of that downstream work that can be outsourced, whether it be outsourced overseas or whether it be outsourced to someone in your own country or someone in your own team, potentially, depending on how you’ve got things made up in your business. So,
Brandon Birkmeyer:
And when you’re
Ben Amos:
definitely…
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Mr. Beast level, you can hire a video editor. You know what I mean?
Ben Amos:
Right.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Like, like save that for when the juice is worth the squeeze.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, yeah, right. Awesome. One more direction I wanna take this in before we wrap up here, because I just wanna get the most out of our time together here, Brandon. What would you say is some of the best ways to actually grow? So you’ve started and you’re repurposing and you’re doing all the things, right? You’re getting the content out there and you’ve… You started creating content on a regular and consistent basis using podcasting as your primary form of content creation, sorry, video podcasting as your primary form of content creation because we’ve established the importance of that. What are the best ways to actually grow an audience through this method?
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah, so for me, I’m a marketer at heart. Like I started in marketing, my backgrounds in marketing, we talked about some of that. So I look at this as a marketing problem, right? How do you develop it? Well, what would a marketer do? And marketing for me is two components for it. It is messaging plus attention. So those are the two biggest variables anyone can affect in their everyday lives. It’s hard to get super tactical because there’s a lot of things, but first is your message. Like what can you do? every day to figure out what am I going to do to capture these people based on the thing that is targeted to exactly what they’re looking to hear right now. Like if I want to blow up right now as someone who wants to be known in the marketing space, AI is the topic of conversation, right? Like that is what you need to talk about if you want to be found because there’s not as much content created about it as are people looking for it. So my message, if it fits, is that. year ago it was crypto and NFTs right? Not that doesn’t exactly align with what I like to talk about on my show so I couldn’t tap into that it wasn’t aligned with my message so you’ve got to figure out like where is your message how do you tap into what’s popular culturally and yes cater to some of that while staying true to how you deliver your message so the creative element is the hardest part I mean I know people whose entire you know 100 million plus YouTube followings I’ve had them on the show they I ask them their secrets all the time And every time it’s one video, like one video that they, you know, tried popped off in some style in some way. And that one video that they just now kind of do again in a different way. Built most of their following and now they just kind of milk it. And there are other videos like they get the benefit of those subscribers. So finding and playing with the creative to tap into what’s cultural and trending and to kind of keep messing with it until you find something that. people say, oh, this is exactly what I’m looking for. That’s the first component. The second is the attention, which is, for me again, it’s all about distribution. It’s how do you show up everywhere you wanna be? And the only way to ratchet that up is two things. One is when I create things, I try to create attention assets and focus my attention there. So assets for me are things I build once that continue to have longevity. Like Brandon, why do you take the time to convert a podcast into a blog? It’s like the one thing that almost no one likes to spend their time on. And it’s because it brings me attention. Like I understand that there’s value there that when I put that blog out there once, it’s increasing the relevance of my website. If that blog hits, it’s driving me traffic, not just once, but every month. And I’m doing that not just there, I’m doing it on YouTube too. I’m like, what can I start to put here? And yeah, my resources get spread thin so I can’t focus everywhere all at once, but I focused on blog before I focused on YouTube. So. Those kinds of things, how do I build an attention asset that starts to pay, I built it once and it starts to have a cumulative effect and now 250 episodes in, that’s 250 pieces of accumulating momentum. And then on top of that, there’s a paid element to this. If you wanna get attention, you can’t just rely on algorithms. You have to pay to play. You have to pay to get people to see your stuff. You know,
Ben Amos:
Yep.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
$50 in ads. will get you tens of thousands of views on your stuff. You know, isn’t that worth your money considering how much time you’re spending on all this stuff? And that’s just an example. Whether that’s a Facebook ad or a Facebook promotion or a YouTube video promotion, paying to play is important. But then for me, I also try to capture those people. Like how do I then convert those into emails? So again, I have an asset that I tell them every week. I have another show out. So there’s an ecosystem here, but it always starts with message. and attention.
Ben Amos:
Yeah. I love that. And obviously we could go a lot deeper into that as well, but I think the important things there is that it’s not just about creating the content, but it’s about the 80% of your time that you spend on actually marketing and spreading that content out there. And I think the other thing you touched on there is the importance of getting the long tail of marketing right with this sort of content. Because if you’re releasing an episode or a week or whatever your frequency is, and you’re just focused on the next bit of content, then and you’re ignoring those longer tail benefits of blogging and even YouTube now as well. Like, you know, as YouTube leans more into podcasting, the ability for that content to be resurfaced years after it was first published is a much more viable thing now than it ever was. And like you mentioned before, like Apple podcasts, Spotify, those sorts of platforms are terrible at resurfacing old content. So, you know, I think that if you don’t ignore platforms that allow that long tail, then you’ll be in a good place to move forward.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah, and it’s different depending on where you are, right? Like if you’re starting out, it’s rough. Like the first 10 episodes, you have no momentum, right? But now that I’m, you know, if 250 episodes in, the person that I meet, like even I go to a conference, there’s always a bump after I go to a conference. I’ll meet five, 10, 15, 20, 100 people, or if I’m speaking, even better. Then they go and they look for me, right? Let’s say a couple people look for me. They, to get to know me, are binging my content. So, you know, they hit subscribe and that obviously shoots them a bunch of episodes and they have, they could go through five, 10, 20, you know, in a week. So there’s, there’s definitely a momentum piece to this. You know, someone discovers you because you have all this history. Uh, you have, there’s just an accumulated advantage over time. It’s not going to happen with the 10 episodes. These strategies aren’t going to work as strongly in the beginning for you. Um, but that’s why people keep preaching consistency because. they’ve seen that once they’ve gotten down that road, the rewards, every little incremental reward is multiplied.
Ben Amos:
Yeah, absolutely. Hey, just in closing, closing here, Brandon, I just want to ask you a question and give you one sentence to answer. Should our listener start a podcast, a video podcast in 2023? Got one sentence.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
They would be irresponsible to not start a podcast in 2023 if they don’t have one. They would be leaving money on the table, leaving influence on the table, leaving business on the table. So yes, that’s not one sentence, but
Ben Amos:
I
Brandon Birkmeyer:
they
Ben Amos:
think
Brandon Birkmeyer:
should
Ben Amos:
I was
Brandon Birkmeyer:
start
Ben Amos:
two
Brandon Birkmeyer:
a
Ben Amos:
or
Brandon Birkmeyer:
podcast.
Ben Amos:
three, but
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Ha ha
Ben Amos:
that’s okay,
Brandon Birkmeyer:
ha.
Ben Amos:
we’ll take that. Hey, thanks for that, Brandon. I know you’ve got a load more content both on your Brands on Brands podcast and in your website and your courses and your different ways of working with people. Where is the best place for people to go and find out more about you and connect further and maybe get some help as they start their podcasting journey?
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Yeah, I appreciate that. I have an online school for podcasting called Podcast Branding Academy, which would help anyone who’s looking to start a show for the first time, but everything you can find on brands on brands.com. That’s where the hub of everything is, including those courses and my content and the blogs and everything else. So brands on brands.com. Keep it easy for you. Check it out.
Ben Amos:
Excellent. Brands on Brands.com is an easy URL to remember. Another easy one to remember is EngageVideoMarketing.com slash 273. This is episode 273 of the podcast and you’ll find all the links in the show notes for this episode. Brandon, I appreciate you for coming on and sharing some wisdom, some insight and hopefully some inspiration for people to get out there and create their podcast if they haven’t yet.
Brandon Birkmeyer:
Awesome. Thanks, man.
Ben Amos:
Awesome cool.
