Is Live To Streaming Video A Smart Idea For The Podcaster? The Podcast Report With Paul Colligan Episode #89

Let's plug in the camera and see what happens. Is not a viable podcasting format. It's the Podcast Report Episode 89. Show notes, links, conversation and more@thepodcastreport.com 8 9. The Big Idea for today is simply that new tech doesn't make podcasting obsolete, but it can make it better. There's a whole slew of people who feel the future of all media seems to be broadcasting live on some of the platforms like Facebook, YouTube, etc. It's not the future, but it can play a part in podcasting, and that's what we're going to chat about today. But before we do that, who am I? What is the show? My name is Paul Colligan. I'm a podcaster. Podcasting executive consultant, author. This is the podcast Report. You are a podcaster. As a podcaster, you're looking to do one of two things. You're looking to reach more with your message, and you're looking to profit more from your content. That's what this show is about. We report what's happening in podcasting. Things like this whole trend towards live, then we try to make sense out of it. That's what we're doing here. Why this episode? All right, so I'll be honest with you. Last episode, last week's episode, for those of you who've noticed, and I appreciate the emails and I appreciate the tweets, I didn't go live with last week's episode. It did not go into the stream. Why? Because it was terrible. And I haven't produced. You know, as a podcaster, I'll be honest, some stuff's been better than others. But last week was just terrible. Why? Because I tried to do a live video thing. I hooked up my iPad or my iPhone, and I tried to record an episode of the podcast report, and gosh darn it, it just didn't go well. Why? Well, the hype over live video has got a lot of us excited. A lot of us are wondering, is live video the future of podcasting? Is live video? What takes us into video podcasting? Maybe we just record our show in front of it. It's a thing that's got a lot of us interested in chatting. There's been some really interesting comments lately about Facebook Live. Some things that are happening there tech wise, really, really exciting. And it's kind of funny because I, a long time ago, like nine years ago, and I'll put a link to this in the show notes@the podcastreport.com 89 had this whole concept called the New Media Concept Creation model. And in that model, the idea was, well, you got to record it live. Oh, you got to record it. So why don't you record it live? And if you record it live, then you got an audience, then you got adrenaline, then you got deadlines, then you got all these things. And at the time, I was commenting basically with the idea that you should do it with a teleseminar or a bridge line or that type of thing. And now that broadcast video is so ridiculously easy and so high quality. What does that mean? So that was kind of why I played with that last week. I'll be honest. There are some other issues. Dan Klass over at the Bitterest Pill. I've been watching Dan for 10 years. Dan's one of my podcasting heroes. And Dan, gosh darn it, is now going live to camera. And he's doing it well, and he's producing something that's kind of both. So I'm playing with that. The other thing is I'm trying to make sense of this. And one of the things I do when I try to make sense out of things is actually do a book about it. So I'm in the middle of writing a book about live video. So this is, whatever you want to call it, research the first ideas, content, that type of thing. That's all there. What we're doing here at the podcast report is I'm doing a four episode series. This is the first episode of the four part series. And what it is, is we're going to look at different production models and I'll tell you what the different productions models are later. But in this episode, I want to look at this whole thing where we record our episode live in front of a camera. So really the big question is, is live video a good idea for podcast production? Well, the first thing you want to look at, and this is important, this is what got me, I'll be honest with you. And distraction, you and them. One of my problems with live video and a thing that I think any proponent of live video has to take a look at, and this will be part of the book. Do you want, comma, is it ethically viable, comma, is it even strategic to ask your audience to drop everything? When I was monitoring Periscope, I'd be doing something, I'd get a push. Gary Vee is live right now. Follow Gary. John Acuff is live right now. Follow John. I don't want to do that to my audience. I believe you are better than that. You Might be recording a podcast. When I go live, you know, do I disturb you when I tell you to drop what you're doing when I go live? I don't think so. And that's one of the first things you want to take a look at. Now, what I did there was I kind of announced it ahead of time in my newsletter. And, you know, I got some people watching it and that whole thing, but I don't know, that felt weird. And then there's this whole thing where people go live, and this could be Periscope, this could be Meerkat, this could be Facebook live, YouTube live. And then they just answer questions as if that were a format. Now, that's a single format. I had a podcast called the Ask Paul Colligan Show. I've thought about bringing it back. That's a format. But that's not the only format, any more than interviewing somebody about entrepreneurialism is the only format or that type of thing. It's a single format. Many times it's not a good one. One of the big distractions is, you know, you get these thumbs up, you get these stars, you get these smiley faces, you get these questions. I mean, here's someone who has dropped everything, logged onto live video, caring with you as to what it is that you have to say. And then they ask a question, which is what's expected of them? The interface is there for them to do that. The whole design is there for them to do that. And then, well, if you answer the question, then it messes with your line of thought. If you don't answer the question, it borderlines rude. Do you have to look at the questions? One of the big questions. And then, of course, the big thing for me then is what comes first, the audio, the video, or the interaction? I mean, if I'm going live to video to make my audio podcast, and the majority of you who consume the podcast report, listen to it via audio podcast. I've gotten great notes from people recently, just the enjoyment of it. And I'll tell you right now, everybody, this episode will be a little bit longer. Not too much longer, but there's a lot of content here. So what comes first? Are you making audio? Are you making video? Or are you providing an interactive experience? And maybe if you're providing the interactive experience, maybe that doesn't translate well to audio or video. Anything other than live. Some other things you want to look at. You know, what are you going to track? Are you going to track the interactions? You're going to track the impressions of the video, Are you going to track anything from the video at all just because it was your version of the live studio audience? What are you going to track? What are you going to do with the final content? Are you going to post the video? Are you going to make the video an option? Are you going to. And I've done that in the past. Maybe the video is a one time, maybe you stop that. But then again, if you created content, why would somebody want to do that? And then the big thing is, should you edit it? Editing. And of course, once you go to editing video, it's a lot harder than editing audio. What should you edit? How much of it should you edit? Maybe the audio is the edited version and the live version of it is the uncut version. What do we do? So the good to all this, I've kind of pooh poohed a little bit. I've asked a lot of questions. I've shared some expressions here. The good, this is a great way to reach the world with platforms that don't know podcasting, okay? I mean, I have an audience who doesn't know what podcasting is, even though I'm the podcasting guy. And if I took that and I sent that to Facebook Live or YouTube Live, they know what Facebook is, they know what YouTube is. So I can get my content out to audiences who don't know what podcasting is. And if you've listened to podcasting for any time at all, that's a really, really good idea. Okay, now you want to be careful if you do that for those who do know what a podcast is. You know, one of the examples, I tend to watch a lot of YouTube video on a television set while I'm on the treadmill. And it's always funny because I'll watch the video and there'll be marketers and there'll be types who will always say, hey, leave a comment below and they'll point to the floor. And yes, I know that the majority of people are thinking they're watching on YouTube. Well, the fact of the matter is the majority of them aren't watching it on YouTube, but that's another story. But there's, there's that moment of disconnect. And so if you are using live video to create audio podcast content, you got to be good to the live video people, but you got to be good to the audio at the same time. Just be careful. Someone is not going to be first. And you want to figure out who it is that you want to be first. And that's part of the now what? The good. This is a great example of the new media content creation model. I mean, if I tell the world I'm going live at 2, I'm going to go live at 2, the adrenaline is going to be there. I'm going to prep, I will have done my stuff. That's the so what? So the now what? What do you do with this? What do you do with this model? This idea of producing your content live. A couple things I want you to do. First question I want you to ask is, would this model distract you more than it would benefit you? I gave you distractions, I gave you benefits. You got to decide what is going to happen right now for me. And I'm pretty good live. I'm pretty good improv. I do a lot of stuff stage. I read audiences all the time. Right now, this is distracting me more than it's benefiting me, at least for this show. But you got to make that decision yourself. The next question you got to ask yourself is, who is your primary audience? And then does your model serve them first? You know, it's funny. This is one of the things that always got me about live video. There were people out there who would have podcasts with tens of thousands of downloads. They'd go to live video that would get a couple of hundred streams, and then they'd optimize for that. That's not serving your audience. That's not doing the smart things. So will it distract you more than it will benefit you? But then who's your primary audience? And then does your model serve them first? And one of the things you can simply do is just little things like when do you answer questions? When do you interact? Cliff Ravenscraft. I don't know if this was his design, but I got it from him. Cliff Ravenscraft thing. When he goes live, he'll answer questions before, he'll record his segment, and then he'll answer questions afterwards, but he doesn't do it during. So there might be ways to decide this. You can figure this out. If the model doesn't distract you and the model can be done to serve your primary audience, then I definitely play with it. If it doesn't serve your primary audience and it's okay if it doesn't. The hot new shiny thing doesn't have to be our focus all the time. If it doesn't help your primary audience, then I'd walk away from it. If the distraction takes away from the quality, I'd walk away from it. If you can deal with distractions, if you can come up with a model and you can serve your primary audience, then I definitely go for it. That's what I do. Now we are. I am in the podcast report. The next four episodes we're gonna look at different podcast production models. This is the live to interactive video model. Episode 90, the podcastreport.com 90. We'll look at Batched. We'll look at doing a bunch of shows together and what's fun to do that. I will batch 90, 91 and 92 together to tell you how that works. Might even do 90 last so I can tell you what happened. But episode 90 is batched. Episode 91 is the remote interview Skype remotely. Some of the options that are there. Maybe what happens if you don't have Skype? What do you do? And then episode 92 will be the solo podcast model, which is basically what I do here on the podcast report. If you're listening to this the week it came out, those other episodes aren't live. If you're listening to this as the back catalog, which the majority of you do, that's one of the benefits of podcasting. You can catch that@the podcastreport.com 89 for this episode, 90 for the batched episode, 91 for the remote interviews episode, and 92 for the solo episodes. I'm going to have an option across all of these. I'm going to make a matrix for you. And this matrix will be basically the pros and cons of everything on one sheet of paper so that you can decide your production model. I think that'll be of value to you. So if you head out to the podcastreport.com89 you can pick up that matrix. If you pick it up before all four episodes have been recorded, you get a little note that says the matrix will be coming shortly. And it is coming shortly. It's definitely part of what I've got for you. So you can head out to the podcastreport.com89 to sign up for for that. I have a bunch of links at this episode. The podcastreport.com 89. The opt in for the production models matrix. Definitely grab that. That'll be fun. The new media content creation model. I've got some old video. I'll put that online. It's 4, 3. It's standard definition, but you can see I've been playing with this model for a long time. I think it's fascinating. We've got the how to Podcast training program launching soon. You can opt in for that. If you were looking into this in the future that bad boy might be live. I've got a link to the Podcast Interview Wizard. If you have not gone through that, please take a look at that. Fascinating stuff. I've got the links to the how to Podcast book and the YouTube book, which are currently live, and a link to the live book, which is not yet live. But who knows, when you're listening to it, it might be. You can certainly pre order and go from there. Of course I couldn't chat about Dan Klass and how much he's inspired me. If I don't link to Dan the Bitterest Pill. So I've got a link to that for you and I will link to the other episodes in this series again. 90 for batch, 91 for remote interviews and 92 for the solo recordings. I will also do links to the two podcast apps, the how to Podcast app, which is always viable, and of course the Podcast Report app, which has come to us from Libsyn. That's all there. Wow. Lots of stuff. Let's close up. ThePodcastReport.com Facebook, Twitter. That's where we go social. ThePodcastReport.com 89 is where you can leave a comment right there on the episode. If you haven't yet subscribed, do that. That's one of the most powerful things about podcasting you will never grasp. You'll never understand fully the power of podcasting until you subscribe to a bunch of shows. Thepodcastreport.com iTunes is where the majority of you come from. But that's all right. Google is certainly there. Stitcher, Tunein, Spreaker Pick your podcast platform. If for some reason the way you are listening to podcasts or not there, go ahead and let me know through social or whatnot and we'll get a link to that as well. But definitely subscribe and definitely let's interact in social and definitely consider this. If it makes sense for you, do it. If it doesn't make sense for you, feel happy and feel fine and feel good about yourself that you're not doing it. The next three weeks we'll look at all the different models. I have a feeling there's one for you that will help you reach more with your message and profit more from it, which is the goal of this show. Thank you so much for listening. We'll chat next week and this one's definitely going live. Bye.