YouTube Shorts Posting For Podcasters: Find The Sweet Spot To Get More Views, Grow Your Audience, And Avoid Burnout

This is Feed you'd Brand with hosts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazzard.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd Brand. I'm Tracy Hazzard and today we are going to have our YouTube expert on because we are going to talk about YouTube shorts and specifically we're gonna talk about YouTube shorts posting for podcasters to find that sweet spot where you get more views, grow your audience and avoid burnout. So we're really going to talk about like frequency and some of the other details of things. And we have our fabulous expert that we love to come back to again and again. And I can tell you, Tom and I tap our expertise at all times. Fran Acero. Fran is the president of Thrive Anyway, where she's been a life and business coach for 20 years. And as a lifelong entrepreneur, she gets what we're doing and she's dedicated to helping others become successful entrepreneurs. She's also the founder of Senior Tuber Community where she's passionate about helping you become successful YouTube content creators. Fran, welcome.

Thank you so much. And remember, I don't check ID if. Don't let the senior get to you. Any age. I'm here to help.

Oh, we're so glad. Well, Fran, let's talk about YouTube shorts. Let's define it because sometimes we have audience members who don't even know what it is because they're not really. They're podcasters, but they're not YouTubers.

Yeah. So a YouTube short is a different dimension. I forgot the dimensions here, but it's like a portrait version of a video and it's three minutes or less. And usually you use that for podcasters. It's huge to use shorts that are snippets of your podcast. So that I guess you do that for some of your clients. That helps them get more out quicker because people out there are different kind of viewers that want the long form videos and one that just want to see scroll through like Tiktokers and other short form video platforms. So short form is done much quicker. Very concise, to the point. And that's what we're going to talk about today is when to use them, when not to, and how they can help you.

Yeah. So YouTube shorts are a 9 by 16, which means they're the vertical view because we did our size guide not too long ago. So we definitely have that covered in there. And they are which is typically 1080 by 1920. So they're narrower than they are tall and they're usually up to three minutes in length, as Fran mentioned. But we're still seeing a lot more playthrough at under 60 seconds. And our size guide has the safe zone where all of the little player stuff is going to be around where the, you know, because sometimes right across your mouth will be like the caption. So we want to.

That's a fantastic feature you have because most people don't even care and they don't look at it after it's published. And yours is a great feature. I think it's great.

Yeah, keeping that safe zone is really important. So YouTube shorts. I've seen a lot more views on YouTube shorts than I see on the videos for a lot of our clients. And I know that was going to be your question. Tom, you want to tap into that?

Well, I've been seeing this with, you know, a lot of our podcasters, especially newer ones that are. Are launching. And we have one customer who's launching with a large volume of episodes, unusually large volume of episodes, literally publishing three a week since, I think in sometime in March or so. And I've been keeping an eye on the YouTube stats in particular and was shocked to find the majority of their views of their entire podcasts. Videos of anything are happening on YouTube. And it's the shorts in particular. I mean, last I looked it, it was like 9,000 plays of, you know, their videos. And it's almost all coming from the shorts. I mean, the long videos have 50 plays, maybe each, something like that. But those shorts are getting the largest traction. And it's very interesting to me to continue studying this and kind of learning why. I mean, I'm sure it has something to do with the subject matter. And you can tell some of the titles are more interesting than others are getting more views, things like that. But the interesting thing about this podcast, even their long videos are short. They're about 10 to maybe 19 minutes at most. We don't usually recommend podcasters podcast that short of content for some other reasons. But in YouTube, the short are really resonating. They are.

And just to mention the shorts have, when they first came out about a year and a half ago, became popular. There were ways that you could up your YouTube partnership by posting shorts that have 30 million views. You all of a sudden became a YouTube partner, right? So they do want you to use these shorts for power. When you're putting out your podcast and put out little snippets about there. That's what brings people in. I always call it the buy one, get one free. They come in for these short little videos, then they find the big content because Shorts actually don't. Even if it makes more money, it's really not making the most money. The long form makes the most money, but the shorts bring in the most views, sometimes more subscribers. But the long form brings the engagement, loyal fans and the money and the.

Subscribers eventually, because then they go over and subscribe. Right.

Although subscribers are down right now, I just read this week that subscribers are down. They're not as important. It's still about engagement.

Interesting. Well, the YouTube shorts. So what we've seen is that there's this great little feature on the YouTube short where you can refer to the video, right. So at the very end you just pick the video that it's referring to and it sends them right to the long video. So I think it's so clear and simple to drive traffic to the video that this, you know, little clip is from that makes it so much easier to put out these clips here.

Yeah, that's a newer feature this year. Right. But you don't have to. The shorts on the only, those are the videos that have that access, that feature. But you don't have to put it to the podcast if you don't want. It can go to any video. Another short, you can go to a long form video. So if you want to put it to your welcome video so people can learn more about you, you can go there as well.

Interesting. All these kinds of tactics and things we do. Do you think that there is like too many shorts in a day? Like, could you post too many?

We've had this conversation.

Right, I know.

So really you want to put out. Value is the most important thing and you want to make sure it's comfortable for you. So if you find that you have something like a series, a shorts in a series is so valuable. You put 10 shorts together in a playlist and says 10 of the favorite things or and gives them something sequential that is very valuable. So you could put those out one a day. Some people put things out five a day. It depends on what you're capable of doing and that it's significant to your channel and you're able to squeeze it in without being exhausted. So I talk about batch recording, right? Yes. I always sent all my extra clothing for me. Just a bunch of shirts, right. And I make one, then I switch a shirt, then I make one. Or you don't even have to do that, depending on you. And I just make them and then I go and I optimize them and they're ready to go. And you just take as long as you need to Edit them. So you could do that. But I would say there are people out there putting at least one short a day, sometimes five a day, who are big time channels. What are you willing to do?

So that's an interesting model. Yeah. What are you willing to do now we do. And we just did this with yours. Tom, how many did you create shorts from Fran's teaser?

How many?

How long was it?

Her teaser was the minute and a half or something.

Okay. So we would have typically done like two. So we would have done two shorts from 90 seconds.

Right.

And then, you know, and so what we do is we record a intro episode. Right. Now there was no video this time, so we didn't do it because there was no video. But in the past, whenever we've done a teaser for our coaching call, it's usually about three minutes. We take three clips and we actually run them three in the hour preceding this actual coaching call. So we do it at the, you know, 11:00am Pacific Time, 11:30 Pacific Time, and then we do 11:55 Pacific Time, and then the coaching call starts at noon. And so we've been doing that and they get really good play. But interestingly enough, I haven't seen it drive through to the coaching to the live stream, which is what we were doing, driving everybody to the live stream. Right. The coming up. Yeah. So that's what we'd been doing and testing, and now I'm about to switch to testing something different because I'm not seeing it like drive traffic to the live stream.

Right. There's us. There are those secrets that we talk about all the time about using hooks and certain pertinence that you need. So you might need to put a couple of things in there that keep people engaged in the first 30 seconds. And then if there's more time, anything that we call a hook, which there are several different variations, that's what's going to keep people there. So are you asking for them to come? You know, I know you do great work, so I'm not really asking you. I'm speaking to the audience. Are you asking people to take action? Are you keeping them stimulated throughout the whole minute, two minute, three minutes? Are you telling them what's coming up? And wait, if you wait another minute, I'm going to tell you about this. But let me go through this first. Or here's ten things. Let me tell you, the eighth one's my favorite. Those are all little hooks that'll keep people to the end and then ask them to take action in the beginning and then Again, at the end, don't forget, go in here right now and we're going to tell you all about the rest of this. You know, something like that. So it is how you present it and I don't know how you present it beforehand. I know what I do. It's probably not exactly what you do, but yeah, it's how you set it up.

Yeah, I mean, it's a teaser for what we're going to cover because we don't know what we've covered yet because we haven't recorded it yet. So it's a teaser for the live, but it is a teaser, so we understand that, like we're leading up to it. My thought was, and the reason why we spent two months testing out, doing them in the hour preceding the livestream was that if someone was online, like trolling through YouTube, like they're more likely to be available right at that moment in time to come to the live stream. So that's why my thought was, let's do them in the hour because we have three now. I'm about to switch it up. And in the month of May, we'll do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And so we'll do one a day leading up to the live stream and see if that has any more success. Because you can get them to subscribe or follow the live stream so that they are notified when we go live. So we can get them to do that each day. So there is actually an action that they can take.

Yeah, and maybe even a benefit.

Right, exactly. So then they can follow it and then if they miss it, they've actually turned on the notifications though even so, even if they miss it, they'll have the notification of watch the replay. And so that was the idea.

Now there are people out there, might as well tell everybody who's never met me before that that's what I do on accident. But here you want to make sure that the people who do record their podcasts, they could actually give the different version of their teaser. So on the second batch, when you're replaying it after you've done this live, then you can create new teasers of saying here what Fran had to say was so important. Don't forget to check she's right at the three minute point or say something that in retrospect, Mayim Bialik has one of these great podcasts and I always like to see how she enters some of her sponsors and how she handles her teasers and stuff like that. So when she does it, she starts the video off telling about her experience and giving away some of the tips of what they discussed. So when you put it up after it's recorded, you might want to try that.

Interesting. So. Well, we do that because whenever a. Because it's pot, whenever it's taken off the live stream, it gets processed as a podcast. And when it's processed as a podcast, because we also have the video. Right. We take our video clips and all our social media so then replay again or. Well, we relink to the same live stream, but we have the shorts that go out in the publishing, posting, pro post, publishing after the post live stream. After the live stream airs right after it's recorded. So that's about a week later, like if you think about it. So we wait a week and then you get some more social media and.

You add in your. A new teaser or trailer for the. Okay, that's great.

Now, we don't change the video itself. The video is the way that it is. But we have new shorts, essentially.

That's great.

Yeah. So we do do that. And there's usually three to five. It depends on the episode, depends on what it was about, how many we have. And so we'll run one a day.

And do you notice a difference in people, the engagement on the afterthought after the live, or still the same?

I think it's probably still the same for the long video, but not the same for the shorts. So because the shorts now have the tip in them, where they have the teaser before this has the tip in them. Because we don't make a short. If it's not a full. If it's not a full thought, it's not a short. Right. For our purpose. And so we do see more views on that than we do see on the teaser, and then definitely see more views on that than we see on the long video. Where we get our. All our video views is from our blog. That's still the case. That's still the case for us.

Yeah. So.

Hey, Tom, do you have some questions? Do you have any questions about making shorts and stuff?

Well, I do have some questions for. About shorts. Clearly, what we're seeing is the title of the shorts is very important. Is the description important? That's a question I have from a lot of our podcasters because you don't really see the description necessarily unless you really click into it and you want to see it. So how important is that description?

I think anytime you have free real estate, I say this all the time. If you have an opportunity to put down whatever you want, people to know, put it there. And if they're in a playlist, remember you can still share a playlist link instead of the shorts link. So you might want to go to the playlist that might be full of shorts. So this way you set that link, that URL, share it and then they can get the list of the shorts that are important. So with that you're going to have the whole playlist, which is important, the description, which is important, the comments, which is important but not to everybody. Maybe it's less people, but I check people's description all the time, especially if they say check the description for the link too and you want to make sure they know how to do it.

Okay, so description is important. Maybe less from a search perspective because. But more for engagement. Somebody who's interested in your short and they would like more from you, that's a good place to make sure they know where to go. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah. If you can create an upload default where it's the same for all shorts so you can just say what's there. You didn't even have to do much. You could have just put a little bit about a call to action in there and it won't be too much trouble. But it's covered just in case.

Yeah, so that's what we do, Tom. So we have an upload default that has like all the description about this live stream and then above it there's like a tiny little line and above it we drop in the short description from the zoom event. So like, because we have a zoom event description for what we're going to cover in the coaching call, we use it on Rasa, we use it, which is our newsletter, so we use that same description everywhere and it's like three sentences long. We drop that in above the call to action.

And for those who don't know what an upload default is, it's YouTube's term for a template and they give you templates so that you can have them pre made before you bring up a video.

Yeah, it's like automatically in there when you drop in your, your short. It saves you time.

Yeah. Auto populates when you. Big time saver.

Yeah. Because I've had some customers say why aren't you creating a unique description for every YouTube short? Like a really like long unique description. Like well that's number one. That's not really a part of what we do as, as a company and I, I guess I'm wondering is that even really valuable? And it sounds like maybe it's not.

So important, not even the long form, Tom, because it's giving away the farm. It's not inciting them to go and look at it themselves.

Why this is what we always say, Tom, is like, if you put it all there, then they're never going to watch the video, they're never going to listen to the podcast. If you give them all the short, the shorthand on how to, what to skip to and where to go. We don't do that. Right?

Yes. Same thing with your chapters. Don't tell them the solution or the secret to a chapter. You want to entice them.

Yeah. It would seem the shorts then really are meant to obviously be short, more digestible content that it gives people a glimpse. But really it sounds like you're wanting to build anticipation and get them to engage more in a different way. Is that fair?

That's, you know, there's several reasons to do a short and that's one of the most important. Another one I tell people, if you are a podcaster and all you do is put out podcasts and then you have the shorts to the podcast, you're missing out on a big shorts opportunity and that is to bring out asking silly, answering silly questions or simple questions that people who are interested in what you're teaching, what your niche is, put out some simple questions or answers that people could go to, they search for those. They may not be searching for the content that you're putting on your podcast. So if you're doing anything about. Some people are doing spiritual growth and it's just a general spiritual growth. What if people have questions and they just want a 30 second answer? The more of those you put out, the more you're getting to your channel to say, oh, look at this, he's got a podcast or he's got this. But I think that's another really strong reason.

So. So that's the way we use our shorts that are created. That's the way I personally use them. But. So when we create tips from this show, like Fran said, you know, most influencers are posting one to five times a day. Great. That's a tip right there. And so what I do on the other side is I make the title my question. So my title would be for that tip that plays how many times should a podcaster publish a YouTube short or something like that? It'll be shorter than that because you gotta fit in the space. But that idea that you're typing the question into the title section, Tom, because that's the searchable, you know, that's the searchable area. So if it matches what they're typing in as their own question. How many times do you go into YouTube and didn't you do this recently? Like how to hook this part back on my. On my car, Right? And you ask it and it gives.

You the answer, I did that because I won't go into the long story, but their windshield replacement on my car and the company that did it and then went away didn't reinstall something properly, and I didn't want to wait for the hassle of getting them to come back to fix it days later. So I went on YouTube and ask the question, you're right. And I got an answer that worked and was relevant. So that's a really good point. This should probably be a tip. When you're creating YouTube shorts, make sure that your titles and what you're producing in some clips. Anyway, some shorts are actually questions that your listener might be asking themselves, because if they're going to look for support, they're going to want to meet their needs, right?

And.

And those needs will come in the form of a question and you can get served up.

That is so great. Perfect. And then also for those who don't know that shorts have some different criteria for optimizing than long form, and one of them is your title should be 40 characters or less, because you don't want the title to get truncated. If you're going onto Google or if even you're going into YouTube or somebody's link to their website, it's going to cut off half of the title. And if you're not, if you're using way more than 40, you're allowed to, but it's going to cut off the most important part of your title. So at the very least, if you can't shorten it, put the heavy, weighted words first so people don't have to go through some of the numbers or details or, you know, symbols that you might have after that.

Wow. And that's another good reason why, by the way, all you podcasters out there, we always say, please keep your episode numbers out of your titles. And if you really insist on having them, don't put them at the beginning. They would go at the end, if anywhere.

I always say it's not a Dewey Decimal system. You're not supposed to be measuring every detail, every number, every chapter. Just that's for you. Put it in the description if you have to. This is not for them. They don't care.

Right. And the other thing to remind everyone is that YouTube is a visual media. They're not numbers people. That's why they're watching videos.

Right.

So give them something that they light up when they see.

Exactly. They want the energy, they want the people, they want to see the faces. So that's another thing. So let's talk about this sort of style formatting of YouTube shorts. We see a lot of people that put a lot of like I'm going to call it corporate branding all around this little tiny video that's in the middle of this versus like the way we do it. And you'll see it, it's like, it's like charms in my face are just giant and the words might run across the top of our heads and like we're okay with that. You know, that's the way we chose to do it. Is there a better format than others?

I personally think that because you can't put a thumbnail, but you could put a frame, but you don't always get that opportunity. So if it's on YouTube, you probably don't get the opportunity to choose a frame, although you can from the, from your mobile. So I would say somewhere to have a stationary banner or something that might tell. So when I'm putting it on TikTok, that stays there when they're scrolling they could see what the video is about before they even check it.

So like a watermark or just a little section, but not the whole thing because you're taking up a lot of visual space.

Right. You just want it to be showing when you're there. So even Opus clip has that opportunity to put a label or a link or something somewhere on the top of the video. Something that stays there that you don't have to worry about finding the right frame. That's the only thing I would suggest is I want, when I'm scrolling through TikTok or YouTube, whatever, I want to know more than the title what it's about because sometimes it's different.

Yeah. So we just put the feed your brand podcast logo as a watermark on there and then we let the rest of YouTube do the heavy lifting. Or TikTok, in that case do the heavy lifting on terms of like where it, where it refers you to. Because it refers you to the long form video.

If you want, you could put it in there under a draft and then have somebody go to their mobile and then upload it from there and you can choose the frame.

Yeah. Now what she's talking about is choosing the frame that is like the still. If you want to think of it like that the still or the and you can do a little bit more templating on that piece where when we hit the play, we're running the watermark through the entire 60 seconds.

Yeah. You know, there are many videos from me that I'm caught in some weird face. But it was what it was chosen. Kind of got used to that. Now I use those. But just for those who don't want to be caught with their tongue out or their weird faces, you can choose a frame which would make it a little better.

Okay, so you're going to laugh over this because we were creating our social media size guide and brand guide that we put out every year and my team was trying to pull would take screenshots from whatever the platform is and we're on every social media. So they've got platform screenshots of, you know, rumble and WhatsApp. Like we've got screenshots of everything. We went through like 20 different like clips of trying to get a YouTube still where my eyes aren't crazy or Tom's forehead isn't front and center. It was next to impossible. So everyone accept that I always have crazy eyes and Tom's head is always glowing.

I need to start wearing baseball cap or something.

Yeah, it's just gonna happen.

I could have one that potatoes on it. I don't know, I have to figure out.

That's good.

But you could be a billboard.

Yeah. Tracy has a new embroidery machine. We gotta use that.

I gotta figure out how to use it. I'm working on it. So. So when you see Tom come in.

It'S gonna be now, Tracy, you know, we have some customers in our done for you production program that, you know, prefer a more heavily templated, not only actually full length YouTube videos sometimes, but more often the shorts. And we don't really recommend it. But at the end of the day, it's their show and it's, you know, their content and they can have it the way they want. But we've definitely moved to less branding. Fill the whole phone screen up, which is really what this shorts format is, is filling the phone screen right with the actual video. Maybe a watermark, maybe a, you know, a logo. I have one customer that really wanted a banner area at the top with they have two different logos associated with their show and we found a way to do it. It's interesting. You've got to check context of everywhere you use it. And we're talking about YouTube shorts today. But some people really want to make sure things look perfect on LinkedIn. If they're not perfect everywhere else. They'll live with it. And there's different contexts also of when you're scrolling through a feed or you're clicking and watching the video. All these different things. You got to really make sure you've tested and you're aware of it. But I think less templated is going to be more compatible with a lot of different platforms.

So two things to what you said there, Tom. One of the number one reasons to download our size guide, because it has that usable area. Because when somebody puts that banner across this top, maybe it looks great in TikTok, but in YouTube shorts, that's where the caption, if somebody has their caption turned on, that's where the captions are running and you can't do anything about it because it's a user setting. So even if you're running your own captions, they could still have that turned on for every video they ever watch that they want captions on. So you don't get a choice in some of those things. So that usable area will really show you if you want to make sure that your watermark or your brand is visible in every device and optimize, as you put it, for LinkedIn or for YouTube shorts, the optimization size guide, we've given you that. And so make sure you download that, go to that episode, watch that video and then there's a link to the guide. I'm just about to this afternoon load up the latest version because we made a few modifications. We found some errors, we found some things that were like flipped around numbers. And so we are going to have the most updated version this afternoon up. So it'll be there.

Is that going to be in LinkedIn, the blog post to the new latest version? Is that how that works?

Yes, absolutely. That's where it will be. And so that's going to be out there. The second thing is, Tom, I we based our information on anecdotal and you know how much I hate anecdotal information, right? So like we think that the templating is not working as well and that's been our personal experience in our shows. But I like to check it across all shows. So now that the size guide is done, I'm moving my social team into doing an audit. So we've actually identified 10 different customers on each side, ones that use templates and ones that don't who already had existing YouTube shorts. So they're not brand new because brand new is an anomaly. And so we are then going to check and we're going to Check their views, how they're doing. Like to see if there is actually a difference between the set that does templates and the set that does it.

And for anybody who has TubeBuddy, they can actually do a B testing if they want to see which way is better too.

Oh, that's a great tip, Fran. Yeah, right. You can put out a templated version and a non templated version and a B test them.

And if you are going to do any of the testing with TubeBuddy, they have the option where you could do all the testing at one time, but then you wouldn't know which one was the reason for the lack of stats. So you might want to do title once, thumbnail, another time, description another time and text. I want to speak to somebody who asked about getting stills that they like. A tip for that is while you.

Yeah, those are the ones that I don't like.

Yeah, right. So I. When I want to keep something that looks like my video, as I'm making my video, I leave myself one minute to pose and I'll do whatever poses I want and I'll hold them for a few seconds each. Easy to find it. And when you. You can just clip it right off at the end of the video and then go back later and turn them into stills.

So that's a great tip.

If you're.

Listen. Most of our clients though, you know, we're taking clips from within the energy of the video, so that's a lot harder to do. But if you're recording like our teaser, we tell our clients to hold the recording for five seconds after they're done. So hold your body still and smile and animate.

It's even better. Don't pose like you would do for a portrait. Put your hands up, put your mouth open, whatever way makes you look excited or more interesting.

Okay, well then that's the way all my stills look. They look like.

Okay, so listen to me. This is one of the challenging things about YouTube shorts. I think it presents a dilemma and maybe, you know, you're giving some ideas here, Fran, which I think is very helpful. But when I go look at somebody's YouTube channel and I see the shorts, and especially on a show that doesn't involve a guest. Okay, I have one show producing a lot of content, three episodes a week, and there are no guests. It is a solo cast. It is just the host of the show. So three episodes a week, five video clips per episode. So 15 shorts per week being created and used. And this is the show I was mentioning in the earlier Part of the. This broadcast that is doing very well on shorts. Okay? These are the videos that are getting the most plays and lot, lots of good plays. But when I look at their channel, not from the perspective of being in shorts on my phone and looking what it's serving me, or searching, but if you go to someone's channel and you see their videos and you click shorts, boom, all the shorts look so similar because they're just the host speaking, you know, and it's frozen in whatever frame. Is that okay? Is that not something to worry about? Or should we really be encouraging our podcasters to be significantly different in the beginning of every one, or to try to make it different? What do we do about that? Is it a problem? Is it not?

I have a few things, Tom. The first thing is when you're setting up sections, and I think we've discussed that before, I take out the shorts, the automated shorts option for that section, because that's only all the shorts in the order that they come in. And then you create a short section of the way you want in the shorts and playlists, and you can make one this. These are all the shorts for this podcast, or these are all the shorts for this month, or however you want to sort it out, and then take off the automated one.

So you're saying, organize your shorts in your channel. Like, there's that shorts tab. It'll put them in chronologically. If you don't do anything and you.

Can shut off that.

That section, you can turn that off and you can curate maybe different shorts playlists.

Is that what it is exactly? Well, yeah, it would be a playlist. That's exactly what it would be.

Wow. All right. But would that impact how it's served to people if they're just on their phone viewing shorts or. Not necessarily.

No, that's random. You know, those are random. But you can at least have your channel navigated the way you want it, right. So that when they get there, that's what would be really important.

So you can tell a story, you can have a progression of content playlists that are maybe titled, maybe they are different episodes or just different categories of content that's not necessarily episode related. That's an interesting thing. And I think that's something every podcaster would need to do themselves, you know, because I don't think you want somebody else curating your content or telling the story for you necessarily. So I think it's a really good suggestion.

Another thing is when you said something like being interesting, first of all, that's where the animation comes in. So it's not always a pretty picture of the channel owner, but them doing some crazy things or holding some crazy things so that it does differentiate for each different segment. Maybe a whole playlist would be the same photo and then another one could be a little different. And also, I have my own reasons for this, but when you have a lot of guests, you have to be careful that you're not promoting your guests more than who you are as a channel owner. Okay. A lot of people make sure they have their guest name in the title and they have a picture of their guests and then nobody really knows you. You want to make sure you promote that. You are somebody who promotes this kind of podcast. That's very important. So if anything, you have to put two photos in there, but leave yourself out in the forefront as much as you can.

That's interesting. I always tell podcasters when we're talking about the structure of their show and if they're always an interview based show, they can run the risk of, you know, the guest speaks a lot more than the host a lot of the time in these episodes. So how do you deal with that and make sure you're not just a facilitator to help promote everybody else? Your audience does want to hear from you.

Who are you for your audience? Right?

Absolutely. Because you're the common thread that keeps coming back every episode.

Exactly. And maybe we could have a conversation about that one day where we could talk about the depth of how to promote your people. They could be promoted so that they're searchable in your description, in your tagging, but you have a niche that is all encompassing of all your guests. That's the thing you want come to my channel to hear what I'm talking about on a regular basis. Unless your person is really popular and they would switch, you know, they would get a lot more views than you would. They can't have more of a presence than you do. They can't. And they should be.

Unless they're creating authority for you. Right. Like there's the two different models. And so we'll definitely cover this topic coming up because we're going to have Fran back. We've got you back like four more or five more times this year. So I'm really looking forward and we'll definitely be covering this subject. So that's on one that's coming up. Well, Fran, any last thoughts about shorts that you really want to share with the community?

I want to reiterate a couple things and maybe put some other things. Promotion not just your, your podcast, but what do you want to promote? Are you promoting one of your affiliates? Are you promoting somebody or something else? So I would say use your shorts for promotional purposes and if you have your own products, if you want to put those out, you could do that and do the batch recording which I already mentioned, go into your comfort zone. What are you willing to do? And the more the better. You know, if you wanted to do 10 a day, you could. There is a tipping point. You'll know it when you see the how many people are viewing. So you want to look at that and you want pertinent make sure what you're talking about is not just to get a short out there, but that it's pertinent to either who you are, what you're promoting and not just anything. Because I know a lot of people go way off their niche and unless you are really popular, like if you're an Oprah who could do 10 different things and everybody supports all of it, people want to know what they're signing up for. And if you want somebody to subscribe or be engaged, they have got to know do they belong there and that you're going to be consistent with whatever it is and just timing. Decide if it's whatever you're putting out is good timing. If you have news that's not evergreen, but it's really important, you might want to create a section of this week's like if I were to do it, it would be what's new in YouTube, right. And if I say check back with.

Me today, not yesterday, right? Yes.

Right. So I can have a section saying YouTube news and people would come back for that. So whether it's a short or a long video, have a reason for people to come back and that's something to use your shorts for. So it won't take you a long time to do the latest in or my next tip of. And that would be posted every week and you just have to make sure you take it down. And the hooks we can learn about. We're going to do one on hooks I guess coming up as well. So that's just a few. There's so many shorts are fantastic. And just remember there may or may not be the same audience for a short and a long form video. Some people are looking at one and only one and there are some people who will go and click on your recommended video and go to the long form video. So you have to be prepared for both.

That's such a great insight that, that really valuable to thinking that maybe shorts viewers are not necessarily long form viewers. That makes a big difference right there. Well, Fran, I cannot thank you enough for being our absolute expert here. Whenever we need anything, YouTube, Fran and I get on the phone. Melissa and Fran get on the phone. Tom and Fran get on the phone. We get tap her advice all the time. And so many of you, we are so glad that you are excited about what's going on at YouTube and testing things out and giving us feedback as well. So make sure you message us, let us know what questions you have and we will make sure to cover it when Fran Acero comes back again.

Yes. Thank you, everybody. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Anytime. I'm so happy to have you as our guest. Tom, any last thoughts about YouTube and what you're doing before we close out our feed your brand episode here?

You know, I don't really. I think we covered what we intended to today. There's always more to talk about and think about with YouTube. I'm already already thinking some more about some things probably more appropriate for some of the next topics we have teed up to do with Fran later in the year. But it's certainly reminding me and hopefully all of our listeners that when you're recording and putting your stuff out as video, there are a lot of other things to consider and a lot of different ways to measure success or to test success. And you know what, we're here doing it with you. We're in the trenches. We're going to let you know what we think, give you whatever tips we can. But it's also always evolving. It is changing. YouTube shorts used to be one minute maximum, not even a year ago, I believe, and they opened it up to three minutes. So that's changed things again. So my point is we've all got to stay on top of this. And if you'd been, we're committed to helping you do that and sharing that information with you. So make sure you keep listening and subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already. And we'll be back next week with another important episode.

Yes, absolutely. And next week our episode is on batch recording. So now that we know Fran has the suggestion for batch recording shorts, we'll include it in what we cover next week. So you're not going to want to miss out. So subscribe to the live stream, subscribe to the channel, which is odcasters United. But we're united. We pod. Thanks everyone for listening to Tom and Tracy. We'll be back next week.

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