Can AI Tools Grow Your Podcast And Free Up Your Time?

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to finish Feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Feed you'd Brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co host and better half, Tracy Hazard, and today we've got a great topic for you. Can AI tools grow your podcast and free up your time? And I think every podcaster has to have at least been thinking about this issue, Tracy, and wondering if it will. So I think that's a fantastic question to ask, and I can't think of anybody to answer that quite honestly better than you, because you've been working with AI Tools and our team here at Potatoes for a few years, even before the sort of bandwagon that came along at the advent of ChatGPT late last year, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Look, there are so many different AI tools. We've been an advocate of AI transcripts for a really long time. It's something that we utilized in our team as early as 2018. So this isn't something new to us. But here's the thing about AI Tools. I really debated about it. It's like, because our question here is, can AI tools grow your podcast and free up your time? I don't think it can do both right now. And that's a real question as to whether or not I can give you good advice here. So, like, I kind of felt our title here might have guided me in a different direction on my advice today.

Wasn't that interesting? So you're suggesting that AI tools might be able to grow your podcast or might be able to free up some of your time, but not do both? Or are you suggesting. No, it'll only do one of those two things right now because it's not good at doing the other.

That's what I'm suggesting is right now, look, I think you can definitely use AI tools to grow your podcast. However, if you're not an expert in, let's say, SEO or YouTube or an excellent writer, and you know what a good title is, all of those things, you will have to spend more time utilizing the AI. And if you sub it out and you let an assistant use it, it could even be worse in terms of. And not actually have the effect that you want of growing your podcast. So if you're not using someone with deep knowledge in those areas right now, the selection process, the how you prompt and guide your AI and the things that you have to do at the beginning are not good enough yet. And there are diminishing returns with using the tools that everybody else uses, which free up your time. So that's really valuable. And I want to caveat this by saying, look, if you're putting these one word titles or the guest name as your title because you just don't have the time, go use all those cheapy tools, Go use them. Even if they're going to give you the same title that everybody else has, it's going to do better from a search optimization process and clickability. So we'll grow your show than that one word or one name title is doing for you right now.

It surprises me how many shows I actually find when I'm reviewing shows on a regular basis that have really just the guest name as the title. And I'm amazed people actually do publish that. But I see it they do, right?

And here's the thing, it's like, look, you think that that's great and it's good to have some association with your guest, right? It's an authority association. But the reality is is it doesn't tell me why I should listen to your episode when a more famous show than yours, a better show than yours, who's been around longer, has a better title. That tells me what that guest is going to talk about that might be valuable and interesting to me. So if you aren't doing that today, go use an AI tool. You can go use Jasper, you can go use Cap show, you can go use ChatGPT yourself. Although I highly recommend Bard. Go use Bard. It's free and it's easy, right? Capshow and Jasper are paid, but they also do podcast and titling and follow the rules, which Bard and chatgpt don't know unless you tell them what the rules are. So that could be easier for you. But not having a good title isn't going to grow your show, right? Like you're not going to grow if you don't attract people in. And so if that's holding you back from growing your show, use the AI tools, but they won't take less time and not become programmatic. And that's what we see is diminishing returns with tools like Captcho and tools like Jasper. Even we've seen diminishing returns over time because they give you once you say, oh, that's a good title. They give you the same thing all the time if you don't spend the time adjusting it, rejecting it, redoing it. So it's going to take you more time than you think. Now, flip side of that is if you aren't using video shorts, YouTube shorts, TikTok Instagram Reels, if you're not using those, you're not growing your show. So if using a tool like Opus Pro or Video With a Y that AI, using any one of those to help choose clips for your show is a huge time saver. I highly recommend it because they're going to choose down, but they're still going to give you like 10 to 15 clips that you have to go through and choose. So if you weren't doing it before, it's now going to take you some time to choose them. So it's not like you're really doing a complete trade off here, but the growth on your show from using those video clips is going to be so high that it's going to be really worth the time spent. That's the conundrum here. Tom, are you getting what I'm saying?

I am, definitely. And in fact, I've experienced enough of the AI myself and certainly seen you doing it, that the operative word in ChatGPT is what the G represents, the generative, which means generations of information. It takes a lot of passes, sometimes continuing to prompt it further to get more to something that's good. And for me, honestly, I don't think using these AI tools would save me time. But that's because I would take a long time to do this stuff anyway, because I'm not a good writer. If I was a good writer and I could come up with an interesting title, given enough time to really think about it, then maybe I wouldn't need it. But I'm not a good writer. And so to me, it wouldn't matter how much time it takes, I could use it to generate what is a good title that I'm not capable of writing myself. That's sort of how I feel about it.

That's understandable. Like you're upping your game, which is upping the optimization of clickability, right? They're thinking about somebody choosing your show, clicking on and clicking Play right, or choosing your video and clicking Play or Subscribe or any of those things. If by being more searchable and optimized you're making that happen, then you're doing something to promote your show in a better way. You're using AI to do that. And if it is saving you time because you would agonize over something, you're not good at it. Look, I hate editing. I would never edit my show if that was a choice. We would go here from the live stream. That screw up you made at the beginning when you were coughing, that was edited out of this video and audio when you're watching this on the video. But if you were live streaming it, you saw Tom cough, right? That part of it I wouldn't edit out. Like I just would leave it because I hate it. It's a waste of my time and energy to watch my show again or listen to my show again. Cut things. And I don't think it is worth it for my time spent. Right. It's not worth it. I could do so many more things with my time to promote my show and get more views and my listeners are probably going to be pretty forgiving for one little cough here and there.

Right.

Like, it's not going to be the end of the world.

Right. We rarely have anything we need to edit out of the middle of these episodes, but to be fair, we're co hosts. No one's a guest. So we're both pretty experienced podcasters and there's a certain authenticity in the way that we do this that I don't feel the need to polish it and make it any more perfect in the middle than it otherwise is at that beginning. We do have some tools on podcasts. We could just trim that and start where I restarted. So that's some minor editing tools we have built in. Right?

Right. We're recording right here in Zoom when that video because we're recording in an event portal for all of our clients to watch, listen and comment and for us to have a Q and A session at the end of the podcast recording. There's tools here within Zoom where I can filter out ums and ahs and all those filler words and I can also edit at the beginning and then even make a cut in the middle if I need to. So there is actually tools there. If I really needed to cut something urgent I could do, then it's done before it ever even gets to the publishing platform. Right. Before it ever goes anywhere else. So those tools are really useful and they are using AI, but they're built into the system that I'm already using. So I'm also not a fan of using a third party AI tool when you've got good enough tools for your job within the things that you're already using. For us, that's right here in Zoom. So those are the things that I look at, I think about is am I really saving time in my workflow? If I needed something fixed, could I fix it? Yes, absolutely. I don't need to go and use a third party editing tool. I'm not a fan of some of those. I think they over filter, they over edit because they are trying to justify the cost of using them. So you're now wasting time and probably hurting the listening experience by using some of those sound editing tools or when you don't have a necessity to use it because you're doing a good job recording. The authenticity matters more. All of those things are there. So this is where do we spend our time and what do we spend our time on? And I'm a proponent of using the AI for doing the things that you will not do, like writing titles, Tom, for you do the things that you will not do that have a powerful impact on the promotion and clickability of your show. That's where we can use our time best spent.

That makes sense now. So is there anywhere it would be a time saver, do you think, or not? Right now?

Right now I'm a big proponent of Opus Pro and the video tools where they're choosing video clips for you. I think they do a better job than human beings do because we get a little caught up in our own lingo and our own ideas and we don't think about the fact that most of the people watching our video are not as far along as we are in our journey of whatever it is we're teaching. They're already tapped into the things that people will respond to better so they do a better job. But again, most of them are going to throw up in a 30 minute length video. They're going to give you about 10 different clip options. So you still have to be selective and take the time to make the selections that are right for your brand, right for you. Don't just go with the first three they give you.

So the video clips, that's more about promoting your podcast, they're not the podcast itself. I bet there's a lot of people that probably aren't even going to that extent using those video clips to promote their podcast.

And what I'm saying to you is that's where you're really missing the biggest power. So if you use that tool, this is where you're going to get the most engagement back, the most views back. Put those into YouTube shorts, put them into TikTok, put them into Instagram reels, wherever you have an audience, go there and put them there and see what happens. If you've never done that on YouTube shorts, go do it right now. Go do one. You can go to Opus Pro and you can get, I think you can even do a free trial. I'm not 100% sure on that, don't quote me on it. But for under 30 bucks you can get enough to do months worth of videos and go get your clips and then try it for one month. What we see on YouTube shorts is about 300 views hit per short we put up. And if you think that doesn't have a translating power to people checking your channel, checking the long video out, you've left them with a teaser. As long as you put the actual length to link to the real video, they're going to go check it out. There's going to be a percentage there who likes the tip and wants to hear more. That's going to grow your show and.

I would think growing your show perspective. Also using Bard ChatGPT, some of these tools to help write a really engaging description for the episode and a more lengthy one because you know, a lot of people sort of phone in the description, so to speak. They really don't spend a lot of time on it. And it does figure in to the search functions of all the listening apps.

I want to clarify what you said in case the audience didn't hear that properly. Tom's talking about your one show description, not your episode description. I actually think it's a waste of time on the episode descriptions right now because the listening apps aren't really good enough yet. But the show description matters way, way, way, way more because that's somebody deciding whether or not they want your show is worth listening to and subscribing to. And if they subscribe, they hit all of your episodes.

Sure, I agree that the show description is more important. I was actually talking about also doing the episode descriptions cause they do figure into search but they're not as obvious when people do a search. They're way below the fold in the search results. All the shows come up first so the show description is more important. No question.

Right. And so it's really worth it there is what I'm saying. So I would rather see you if you've got to prioritize your time, do AI video clips, shorts under 60 seconds, 59 seconds. Keep it at 59 so you don't mess it up. Do those first, title your episode second and do your show description third. And your show description is a one time thing. So it shouldn't take that long. I mean, you might need to sit down and do it for an hour and get it right and get 4,000 characters in and finesse it back and forth and get it looking right. But one hour of time is going to make a huge difference long term for your show. That's the biggest impact we see in sort of subscriber growth from one single show change.

Absolutely. It is the single most important factor that if you don't optimize it, if you don't maximize the value of it, you're just blocking yourself from being found by more of your ideal listeners when they are searching for content to listen to in their listening app. So it's super critical, I can't tell you. I mean, every single day, literally not a day goes by that I'm not doing an appraisal of a podcast, reviewing somebody's existing podcast for them and see that they have a one sentence or two sentence description. It's every day. It happens. It's shocking to me.

And Tom's not talking about the episode, he's talking about the show description.

No, that I'm talking about the show description there.

So that's where we see over and over again. If you spend your time and knowledge, because you have a better sense of that than anyone on your team, any assistant, you could job it out to anyone on Fiverr. Right? Like anything like that. These things, if you fix your show description, if you fix your episode titles, and if you choose your video clips wisely, you're going to promote and grow your show. And those are the best AI tools to use right there. Now, there are lots of other AI tools that can do the descriptions and can do all of those other things. Edit the show, do those things. I just don't see enough effect to make it an ongoing. Worth your time. It's a trade off. Right. I'm trying to give you the things that you wouldn't be spending time on and getting effective results for.

Makes perfect sense. Tracy, anything else you want to share with our listeners about AI in this regard as it relates to podcasting?

Look, I don't think from what I'm hearing from people that have been taking my classes that I taught on AI for the last few months, from the model of it, there are things that you might find in your work process that you need to save time in, but that's not necessarily the best use of AI if it's already plugged into a tool you're currently using. Add the AI and use it. My favorite Thing to use right now is I have saved hours and hours and hours of time now using Google Search because it has a generative AI search at the top. Now, does it work for everything? No. But if it works the first time I type something in and it gives me the right results, then I don't have to spend time scrolling through pages of Google Search to find what I'm looking for. I just got the summary of what is in the pages of Google Search is really what ends up happening. Saves me hours of time.

I think so few people understand that that's there and capable to be used in Chrome browser.

Yeah, you have to click on it. It's like a little gray bar that says, do you want to use this? Say yes, see what happens. Test this stuff out, play with it. But it's also a black hole. Like anything, you can spend a lot of time doing it. Right. So I been hearing from our team, for instance, they keep using the AI, they'll drop it into Bard to improve an email. That's more time than they would do if they just sat and looked at it and reviewed it and really thought.

About it and wrote the email.

Yeah, they don't realize they're really spending more time. Are they being a little bit better and more effective communicators? Absolutely. Because I found a lot of times I'll drop something in and I'll go, yeah, that made it a lot clearer to somebody who's not in the know.

Like me or who doesn't think the way you do. Right, right.

And it points it out to me. And so it's really good and it's giving me more effective results, but it's not saving me time.

That's a really good example. And that's why you asked the question, can it grow your show and free up time? Probably for sure. Can do one or the other or maybe more. Grow your show but not really save your time is really what I'm taking away today.

Well, but think about it this way. Long term sustainability is creating growth. And because you're doing some of these things, it's making it easier for you to stay a podcaster, then you should do it because that's long term growth for you and your business. So if something that if using one of these tools just makes it easier for you, less stressful for you, even if it's giving sort of like homogenized results like everybody else, but it's keeping you podcasting, your voice is still original and it's getting out there. It's way better than quitting your show. So I would want you to do that. So think about the tools, think about the things. And so three things. I've always said this. There are three areas that I always like to look at. Any new tool, any new thing, any new ability for us to do something and utilize something, create it. If it's my procrastination point, if I like, Tom will never write a title. It like would not happen. It would just never get there. It would be the working title would end up going live because he'd never get around to writing it. Right? The procrastination point, the thing that you really don't like doing, the thing that is the black hole for you where you'd spend hours and hours doing it. Use a tool or a support staff to do that because you don't need to spend hours and hours finessing something that doesn't need it. And then the third thing is, if it will keep you going, then do it. That's my advice for you out there on the AI tools. I'm always happy to keep you updated. Message me on social media, find me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to talk about AI tools with you and go back and forth with what your experiences are on that.

All right, Tracy, thanks so much. Thanks so very much, everybody. Listeners, you can find the blog post for this episode and the links to everything we Talked about@poditize.com so check that out.

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