Justin: 00:01

You have to understand: this is the way the game is played. And if you don't like that game, you might not wanna play.

Jeremy: 00:08

All the things that work to grow Podcast Now will continue to work. And even think about some of the downsides of algorithms. You could be shadow banned. You could do all these things.

Justin: 00:15

In this new ecosystem, podcasters actually do have to be very creative. And here's why...

Jeremy: 00:25

So basically, since as long as podcasting has been around, people have been clamoring for one thing and one thing only, which is better discoverability. People look at YouTube and TikTok and they see the just incredible audience numbers that people are piling up and they think that, oh, there's no algorithm in podcasting. And if we had an algorithm that would just solve all of my marketing problems, I would soon have a massive audience just like my favorite YouTubers. And, now it seems like we actually might be moving into the algorithmically driven era of podcasting. And I'm wondering if you have thoughts on whether this is the kind of cure all that a lot of people seem to think it is.

Justin: 01:03

Well, I don't think it's gonna be the cure all. I've previously described getting that algorithmic discovery like doing a deal with the devil, And that might be overstated. I think there are opportunities for podcasters in this space. There's been some interesting research that's come out in the past year about how people really discover new shows that I think will be interesting to think about. So, yes, there will be some opportunities, but with some caveats.

Jeremy: 01:32

Alright. So let's maybe start off and dig into some of the updates that are happening in the podcast ecosystem. And so these are mainly driven by two of the big players, YouTube and Spotify, who have been making some big moves in the past couple of years. But YouTube, I know, has, like, really come out in the past twelve months as we're recording this now and has actually taken the lead in podcast listenership.

Justin: 01:52

That's right. So and now Edison and some of these other research institutions are starting to talk about podcast consumption as opposed to just listening or watching, especially because in some cases, these, modalities are fluid. So if you listen on YouTube music, I don't know if you've checked that out yet, You can switch between video and audio mode. Same with, Spotify. You can switch between video and audio mode.

Justin: 02:19

Many consumers don't actually like, the distinction isn't that important to them. It's really important in podcasting for economic reasons. A lot of advertising platforms want those dynamically inserted ads in the audio version. But, yes, as of October 2024, '30 '1 percent of weekly podcast consumption aged 13 and up prefer YouTube for podcast listening surpassing Spotify at 27% and Apple Podcasts at 15%. And, again, that's from Edison Research.

Justin: 02:54

This is even more pronounced for younger audiences. Edison found that 84% of Gen z monthly podcast consumers engage with podcasts that include video.

Jeremy: 03:06

It's crazy because I know when I first got into podcasting back in 2015 or so, and I know you've got in probably a little bit earlier than that as well. Like, just Apple was the basically, the only show in town almost. They might have accounted for what, 80% of listenership, and now they're down to 15. And YouTube's kinda come out of nowhere in the past few years and taken the lead

Justin: 03:24

here. Yeah. And some of this is just the fact that YouTube has been not reported previously. Joe Rogan's had his clips on YouTube forever. So it's not like this is new.

Justin: 03:36

Apple previously did have kind of more of a balanced audio and video component. You might remember old shows like Dig Nation and This Week in Tech with Leo LaPorte. As soon as YouTube became a viable distribution platform, all those other shows were on YouTube. It just wasn't being reported as podcasting. So now it's being reported.

Justin: 03:56

The YouTube audience is so big. My guess is that it's actually been the biggest podcast, quote, unquote, consumption platform for a long time. It's just now we're all paying attention because YouTube has officially adopted it. It's in the YouTube UI. If you open it up, you'll notice a bunch of tabs at the top, and podcasts is something they're actively promoting as a genre.

Jeremy: 04:21

What's interesting is, like, we've got YouTube on the one side where they when you think of algorithms, you at least I think of TikTok and YouTube as the probably most sophisticated algorithms out there for content discovery. But Yeah. Then we've got Spotify. It's a little bit interesting that YouTube is trying to, like, move into Spotify's turf bringing in audio. Spotify is trying to move into YouTube's turf really emphasizing video.

Jeremy: 04:39

And Spotify has more subtly and quietly been introducing more algorithmically driven discovery in their platform. I use Spotify to listen to music. I actually, for the first time last week, listened to an audiobook on Spotify, which I never had before. For some reason, I don't want to listen to podcasts on Spotify. I use, an app called Snipd, which I love because you can tap the headphones and it saves snips and it transcribes them and syncs them to Notion.

Jeremy: 05:05

Spotify doesn't do that. But somehow, I also don't just want to let Spotify monopolize all my content consumption. So I'm resisting. But they do a sneaky good job of surfacing shows on the home screen or in the listen next. And that's opening up all kinds of interesting opportunities for podcasters as well, including, like, some of the data that they're sharing on Discovery, which we're actually gonna do a whole episode on that.

Jeremy: 05:27

But I'm curious, like, have you listened to podcasts on Spotify? What's your experience been with that kind of UI?

Justin: 05:33

Pocket Casts is my podcast listening app. As I walk home from work, I'm listening to podcasts. As soon as I get home, I often will turn on YouTube. And often, I'm watching a podcast on there. I think where Spotify doesn't quite have the same advantage as YouTube is this connected TV channel.

Justin: 05:54

It you can watch your stuff on Spotify on a connected TV, but YouTube just has that icon on my Apple TV that I go to. I have listened to some podcasts and watched some podcasts on Spotify, especially when they were doing a lot of exclusives. They've introduced clips, so you can get clips in Spotify that are basically promoting shows. I'm starting to see those more. But, yeah, for me, it might be less so because Apple Music is my music listening app.

Justin: 06:24

Pocket cast is my podcast listening app. And then I go home

Charles Duhigg: 06:28

Mhmm.

Justin: 06:28

And I watch YouTube. I'm also in a different generation, so I grew up having a dedicated podcasting app. So I don't know. It it hasn't really affected me, but I see it in other people. You know, when I'm on the chairlift and I ask people what podcast they're listening to, they say they're listening in Spotify or I found this show in Spotify.

Justin: 06:47

So it's clearly having an effect.

Jeremy: 06:51

Yeah. And I think, like, some of the interesting things with transcripts that are being processed behind the scenes and then recommending if you go to an actual episode page of a podcast, you're listening to that episode, they'll recommend other episodes or other shows at the bottom of the screen that are related to the one that you're listening to. And oftentimes, you look at the titles and you're like, how are they pulling this in? Because my title doesn't say anything about these things and yet they do seem relevant. And so that's an interesting little addition there as well where I think there are going to be more opportunities for podcasters to leverage Spotify discovery such as you can leverage it and engineer that.

Jeremy: 07:26

Obviously, there's a lot of I think we're gonna talk about this, the power that the platform has in an algorithmic, majoring world. But I think the last thing we just need to talk about in terms of context here is when when we think of YouTube, we immediately think videos. And that's obviously a big part of what podcasts are now considered. Spotify is bringing videos in, but both YouTube, like, they're now bringing audio only component. Spotify is still using algorithms on their audio only content.

Jeremy: 07:48

So this is not really a conversation about video podcasting in particular. It's just happens to be that both platforms do both audio and video and use algorithms to surface content.

Justin: 07:59

Yeah. Although, again, we gotta talk about Marshall McLuhan. The medium is the message. I think video does lend itself to algorithmically distributed content because it's so addictive. I go on to Facebook to look at something on marketplace, and pretty soon I'm looking at dozens of old TV clips from, you know, the the nineties.

Justin: 08:20

It it just draws you in, I think, differently than audio. There have been audio clip apps in the past. I don't know if you remember. There was one called I think it was called Swift or something like that where, they would you could listen to ten second clips and, like, scroll through just like TikTok. It doesn't have the same effect.

Justin: 08:43

And in fact, this is kind of what we like about podcasting is that it's not this addictive thing. I think the medium is the message. The reason that algorithmic often equals video is because video does have this kind of, like, addictive character.

Jeremy: 09:02

Yeah. I would agree with that. I think that, yeah, Podcasting, it doesn't feel like, videos feel like a an impulse buy almost. You see something and there's a visual aspect that pulls you in immediately. Yeah.

Jeremy: 09:13

Again, Spotify introducing some episode custom episode artwork, things like that. But in all of their kind of current UI, it's pretty small still. It's not the same as YouTube where you see a full thumbnail and that can pull you in or TikTok or whatever. And so I yeah. I'm a little bit skeptical that the even with algorithmic discovery, that podcast episodes are really gonna go viral in the same way a video does on YouTube.

Jeremy: 09:35

But we'll probably check back in in a year from now and maybe we'll be proven wrong. Okay. So that's kind of like the state of affairs right now in podcasting. Algorithms are certainly becoming a bigger deal. And so I think the the next question is, like, what does that actually change for creators in terms of maybe both opportunities, but also in terms of how they approach their shows?

Jeremy: 09:55

I don't know if you have, like, a specific top of mind thing that you're thinking about as this is becoming more of a reality in the medium.

Justin: 10:01

So I have this fake onion news headline in my head. I didn't realize my show would be competing with other YouTube videos for attention, podcaster says. And the whole idea is, yes, this opens up a whole new world, which is your content magically matches up with what the algorithm wants. And when people say, what does the algorithm want? You're basically making your content fit what will grab a human being and often grab their lizard brain and get them to watch a second or five seconds or twenty seconds and then more.

Justin: 10:40

And so this is a very different mode, and it's why there's a lot of criticisms about algorithmically driven content because it really does target our lizard brain. You know, it's outrage. It's sex. So there's gonna be opportunities. But the first thought I have is just, like, first of all, as a lowly podcaster, you're competing against every other piece of content that they could be listening or watching on those platforms.

Justin: 11:11

We've always said this, like, oh, yeah. Your podcast competes with Netflix. No. You are really competing against YouTubers who've been crafting their content specifically to grab people and to work with the algorithm. They are so good at it, and we're coming into this as amateurs and really kind of purveyors of this long form content.

Justin: 11:35

We're good at that, but you're gonna have a steep learning curve if you're gonna compete in this new arena.

Jeremy: 11:44

Yeah. That actually really aligns with my big thought on algorithmic discovery and podcast kind of entering that, where I think a lot of people I talk to have this belief that, well, should I put my podcast on YouTube so that I can leverage the algorithm? I think a lot of people think that this is going to solve all their marketing problems. It's going to mean that they don't need to do marketing anymore. And what it really means is you just have to do a different kind of marketing, which is more kind of upfront marketing.

Jeremy: 12:10

And so you think of, you know, most biggest YouTubers in the world, you think of Mr. Beast. And I think this was on Colin and Sameer. He's talked about it in a few different places where he tells the story of, like, for several years straight, I believe it was. Basically, ten hours a day, him and his friends, they would get up and analyze YouTube videos.

Jeremy: 12:25

And so they would basically collect thousands of thumbnails and dissect what are the commonalities of the, thumbnails that do well. Titles, like, they took an extremely analytical approach and his quote is something like that you talk about, needing ten thousand hours to master something. I probably put in fifty thousand hours in those couple years alone. If you want to truly master the algorithm, and not to say, like, everybody's aspiring to be mister beast, but it's like, that's the work that needs to be done to gain traction on an algorithm is understanding, like, what does well, studying that, really deeply understanding that, and then crafting all of your content from the episode hook. What is the episode actually about?

Jeremy: 12:59

What is the thumbnail? What is the title? All that stuff before you ever create anything and then building that thing out in a way that hooks and retains people once they're actually into the content. Some people might enjoy that. Like that's a form of creative craft perhaps, But you do hear a lot of YouTubers complain that they can't actually make the thing they wanna create because that doesn't get views.

Jeremy: 13:17

You have to, like, kind of bastardize your your art in order to get the traction that you want with an algorithm.

Justin: 13:24

There's also a deeper issue here, which is algorithms fundamentally change the type of content being consumed. It's designed for addiction. And this is a fundamental paradigm shift from audio podcasts. Audio podcasts are, like, focused on a long story arc. It's equivalent of a book.

Justin: 13:52

If a podcast is more akin to a book, like long form content, what kind of, algorithms drive book discovery? Amazon has an algorithm, but it's basically based on what are people telling each other to read, which is Yeah. How podcast discovery has always kind of worked. When we're talking about this, you have to understand this is the way the game is played. And if you don't like that game, you might not wanna play.

Justin: 14:23

If you don't wanna be producing this kind of content and go and watch a Mr. Beast video, like, go go and see the kind of stuff that, you know, is being made. He's very good at what he does, but it's definitely rewards certain pleasure seeking parts of our brains. And podcasting has never quite been like that. It's been more calm, more long form, more like, hey.

Justin: 14:49

You should check out this show. It was really meaningful to me, or this story really resonated with me, or this host is really honest, and I just feel like they're my friend. That's a very different feel.

Jeremy: 15:01

Yeah.

Justin: 15:02

And so these are the trade offs you're gonna have to be thinking about, I think, if, you wanna start playing in these waters.

Jeremy: 15:09

Now there is something that you mentioned there about I've always thought of podcasts as more similar to books than YouTube as well. And I would say, I think of podcasts as similar to books and TV series where they're very show driven. And, you know, a book is not a show, but it is a package that you buy based on what's on the cover, essentially. You might look at the cover and you might read the inside of the jacket or the back of the book and you're like, hey, this sounds interesting. I'm signing up for this journey.

Jeremy: 15:30

A TV series for most TV, how it works now is very much, even with like a sitcom, you're probably not just dropping in for one episode. You probably are enrolled in these larger thing. Whereas with YouTube, like I think we've all had this where you you watch one video that gets served up by the algorithm. You may never see that creator again, or you might watch 500 videos of that person and you might never actually go to their channel page, like the home screen of their channel. It's just that they get served up by the algorithm.

Jeremy: 15:56

And so they'll be curious how this changes is right now, podcasting on whole is very show driven. And so, I almost think, like, the concept and framing and pitch of your show matters more than any one episode. And if you have a strong show, it kind of raises up the floor of all your episodes within it. It's very hard for one episode to go viral or be one off. People may drop in and out with interview shows of well known people if you're looking for interviews of that person.

Jeremy: 16:22

But if you're looking for like a how to show on how to do something, you probably don't just listen to one episode of a show. You probably wanna find a show that covers that whole thing in-depth. And Mhmm. YouTube has a bit of that dynamic, but it's much more like a search engine in Google where you look for how do I do this thing? You get that targeted solution.

Jeremy: 16:37

You're in, you're out, and then maybe that's it. And so I'll be very curious to see if that dynamic changes where podcasting, the incentives shift to the episode ideation and idea development matters a whole lot more than it currently does now. I think it does matter. And if you can do that well, it's gonna benefit your show. But also, if you have a great show premise and concept, the episodes matter less of how you title and frame them because people are enrolled in this bigger thing.

Justin: 17:03

This is such a shift. Imagine so Stephen King, big author. People buy Stephen King's books because they like his writing. Oh, he's got a new book out. I'm gonna go check it out.

Justin: 17:15

My guess is his audience is predominantly 35 to 70 year olds. And if you think about what people get from his books, thriller, horror, whatever, there is a similar type of content on TikTok, which is you're just following a horror trend, and there's all these ghost stories, like the, aliens over New Jersey. Well, that's all sorts of creators contributing to this one trending topic. And my guess is that a consumer that would have normally been a Stephen King reader now might just be the consumer of a trend on an algorithmic platform, YouTube, TikTok, whatever. That changes the game because the whole premise of a creator economy is that I like Stephen King's books, so I'm going to follow him, and I'm going to buy every book that he puts out.

Justin: 18:18

I like Hank Green, and so I'm going to subscribe to his YouTube. I like Seth Godin, so I'm going to follow his podcast and listen to every episode he puts out. That's how shows get built. That's how YouTube channels used to get built. That's how any sort of audience driven entity used to get built.

Justin: 18:37

That's not happening anymore in an algorithmic world. In an algorithmic world, people can get the same benefit by following an algorithmic trend or an algorithmic rabbit hole. Right? And this is why you get conspiracy theories. Like, you can just tumble down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.

Justin: 18:58

It's just gonna keep serving you the content that you like. So if you're a creator, this is a big deal. And I'm personally noticing it with young people kind of across the board. So when you and I were growing up, we would have followed pro snowboarders, maybe, or we would have had a favorite band.

Jeremy: 19:20

Mhmm. And if

Justin: 19:21

you talk to young people now, it's much more muted. It's like, who's your favorite snowboarder? I don't know. But do you watch snowboarding clips on Instagram? Yeah.

Justin: 19:32

Sure. I watch tons. I think people are following trends now more than they're following creators, or at least that's the danger in this new world.

Jeremy: 19:41

This is actually interesting. I listened to this, episode of the Ezra Klein show a while ago, and it was on how do you develop your own taste? And this is something I've been thinking about for a while. And so when I came across this, I was like, oh, this is interesting. And basically, the premise for the episode is that in a world of algorithms, algorithms tend to flatten out taste.

Jeremy: 20:00

And so they move everything to the middle. And so everybody ends up liking the same thing. And so we had a a guest on who had written a book essentially on this about how algorithms kill uniqueness and pull creators to create stuff that is like everything else because that's what get views. Seth Godin has made a a point about this in the past. I I've had two questions, call in questions featured on Seth's podcast.

Jeremy: 20:20

One of them was around music and TV decades ago, like, fifty years ago. And he had played the song on one episode previously that it was just the cheesiest lyrics. And this was, like, a big hit from, like, the fifties or sixties, maybe forties. And I was, like, man, this is so stupid. Like, the lyrics are dumb.

Jeremy: 20:36

Are we just smarter people now? Savvier content consumers? And his response was like, if you look back through history, there are tons of great smart works of art. But the reality was that if you look back in the past century or so, there was maybe three TV stations, a handful of radio stations. They had to serve basically everyone and so you had to dumb down the content to suit the mean.

Jeremy: 20:58

Like, the interesting thing with the internet algorithms is that it both creates this super average and so we look at Chatt GPT's output, which is essentially the average. It's not interesting. It's kinda boring. It's maybe accurate, maybe not. But it's like Wikipedia almost where it's this crowd sourced collection of knowledge from the Internet that has to revert to the mean, but then it also empowers these really fringe kind of spiky weird trends that you get.

Jeremy: 21:20

But if you want to speak to where the people are, you kind of have to create more average stuff and so it's gonna be less interesting which almost in some way makes it harder to stand out because you're trying to just chase this thing that people already want rather rather than bringing something like really new and interesting and different. And so part of this that I'm fascinated with is how it potentially dumbs down consumers taste but also cause creators to limit their own taste and their own intuition to appeal to something that they may not want to make, but it's what people want.

Justin: 21:49

And maybe what's interesting in all of this is going to be the counterculture response.

Jeremy: 21:57

Yes.

Justin: 21:57

Already, I'm seeing with my kids who are aged 15, 16, 19, and 22. They are quitting social media, don't have an Instagram account, aren't going through stories on Snapchat. They find YouTube shorts to be very addicting, and they're actively pushing back on it. I also think that consumers may get tired of this hot take culture or these dopamine addicting shows, it just starts to feel like too much. My my son and I have been trying to watch this new Mr.

Justin: 22:38

Beast Netflix show Beast Wars. And it's just like, and then a crying person, and then and then this extreme thing. It's like a reality TV show from the nineties on steroids, and it just feels like at the end, we've eaten way too much sugar. And it's like, ugh. I think people are going to be looking for voices that they can trust.

Justin: 23:07

And, you know, to Joe Joe Rogan's credit, this is something he's been able to maintain is that he benefits from algorithms because there's a clip that might pop off and then bring in more audience for him. But he's also just become this voice that a lot of, especially young men, trust. Scott Galloway's done this. I think Kara Swisher's done this. Seth Godin.

Justin: 23:32

We could name other voices that have been able to operate on this level according to their own principles. We might not agree with all those principles, but according to their own principles and just say, you know, we're gonna operate up here, and we're going to attract people that are looking for a voice they can

Jeremy: 23:52

trust. You know, and this is I think what's really interesting about this discussion is I think algorithms really reward quick hit content to some extent. They're great discovery platforms. That's what they're built for. But I think that what we need to understand as creators is that there is a difference between the thing that gets people to seek us out or find us in the first place and attract them in and then the thing that keeps them coming back.

Jeremy: 24:14

And so I think that that's something where one of the interesting sides of this is if algorithms didn't exist, we would basically be where we are right now with podcasting. So it's like it's not gonna get any worse. All the things that work to grow podcasts now will continue to work. And even even think about some of the downsides of algorithms. You could be shadow banned.

Jeremy: 24:32

You could do all these things. Basically, anybody who's been shadow banned, like, is now in the same boat as any podcaster. And if you've been overly reliant or solely reliant on an algorithm to get you exposure, then, you know, you're kind of stuck. You don't might not have the tools to be able to go out and build an audience on your own. But any podcaster coming in, if you figured out how to just grow a base already, like, now you kind of have a superpower where it's like, okay, you already know how to do this.

Jeremy: 24:55

This. You know how to engage with communities and go out and find people, like, do the legwork on the ground, guesting on other podcasts, going and finding visibility out there that is not algorithmically driven. If you can do that, plus you can then dip in and out of using the algorithm. Maybe it's like once a month, you really try to have, like, an algorithmic lead driven podcast episode. And the rest of them are more of that, like, slower.

Jeremy: 25:18

Maybe it's more of the content that are going to keep people coming back. There's There's probably a bunch of ways that you could play with both of these dynamics and build an audience of people who come to you because they know, like, and trust you. They rely on you, to give them, you know, your take on whatever the topic is. Or maybe because you actually have a larger compelling show that is it's more of an experience than a very highly episodic kind of YouTube style content. But every now and then, you do have a video that breaks through and gets out in front of more people.

Jeremy: 25:43

So I think there's actually a lot of opportunities here, and it's not necessarily a all one or the other.

Justin: 25:49

I think you also gotta ask yourself if you want that kind of attention because algorithmic attention is very different than somebody who's built up an audience that trusts them over a long period of time. Algorithmic attention is, like, drive by attention. It often results in a lot of nasty comments and, maybe people that you don't want in your ecosystem. So these are things you're gonna have to test out for yourself.

Jeremy: 26:16

Okay. So, I wanna kind of close this out the last section here talking about what are the directives to creators. So this is happening whether we like it or not. And algorithms are playing a larger role in podcasting. They're opening up opportunities, maybe also some downsides.

Jeremy: 26:32

So, like, what how do you think a creator should approach these things?

Justin: 26:36

You know, one thing that came up as we're talking, and I'd love to get your take on this, because I think in this new ecosystem, podcasters actually do have to be very creative. And here's why. All of these algorithmic platforms now have a cartoon version of podcasting that's on display all the time. And I think the challenge is that for podcasters to get the essence of what they're doing into a five second, ten second, thirty second clip, or a hook at the beginning of a episode, we're gonna be competing with this cartoon approximation that's just perforated the whole ecosystem. Like, you open up TikTok, and it's people talking on SM seven bs in these ten second clips.

Justin: 27:28

It's like a poor version of the authenticity and the humanness that is podcasting, but it's just been repackaged so many times now that it feels like there's just this, like, banal everything. And I'm trying to think, like, every kind of creative thing I can think of, like, okay. Well, if we shouldn't be in front of our microphones, maybe we should be out talking with our phones like this, but everyone's doing that too. And these have all then been repurposed by infomarketers who then even have a cheesier, worse version of this. And I think consumers are eventually just gonna be like, blah.

Justin: 28:11

Like, enough of this pseudo podcasting thing. But then it that's gonna where does that leave real podcasters?

Jeremy: 28:20

Yeah. So I think the thing to keep in mind here is people have different jobs that they want done. This is our, okay, episode one of the new season. We're already bringing back jobs to be done. Yeah.

Jeremy: 28:31

Perfect. Check that off the list. Yeah. And I think that podcasting does a very different job than YouTube does. And so I and I'm sure you do too.

Jeremy: 28:39

And I'm sure almost everybody listening to this listens to podcasts and they watch YouTube videos and they might also follow content on social media. And probably if you study your own habits and your own feelings and impulses, you probably recognize that you reach for a certain tool or platform at different times for different things. And so for whatever reason, I I listen to podcasts when I walk to the coffee shop or just go out for a walk in general. Makes sense. It's audio only and, you know, a lot of these shows are on YouTube as well, but I like the audio version because I can go out for a walk and have them in my ears.

Jeremy: 29:11

I never listen to audio content when I'm in my house. I will put YouTube on and I'll have it on my computer while I'm eating lunch or not really on the TV, but I might have it on the iPad or things like that. And then I don't really do social media that much. So I don't really have the the clip based. But I think that there is something, even for shows that are available on both platforms, there's something that I expect from podcasting that there is a a category of content that I have a different association with than I do with YouTube.

Jeremy: 29:38

Now both of us are of a demographic that is different than, you know, your kids are. And so they may not have that distinction, but I think that it still will exist. That is something where there's still going to be this ongoing, at the podcast industry level, kind of education of, like, what podcasts do that video doesn't. And I I think

Justin: 29:57

the feeling that a lot of people in

Jeremy: 29:59

the industry and also creators feel is, like, they just have to rush to doing video, doing maybe shorter form, whatever the algorithm is actually going to reward. But I think there's actually an empowering stance to say, like, hey, there is a subset of people who don't want that. And it's not that they don't watch YouTube. It's that they want a different type of content experience than YouTube. And I think that the thing with basically all marketing is understanding, like, positioning and counter positioning.

Jeremy: 30:25

And so you kinda hinted at before that there

Charles Duhigg: 30:27

is this going to be

Jeremy: 30:28

this counter cultural reaction that's already happening. And I am very curious to see which podcasters and which shows, how how they are able to plant their flag firmly in the side of podcasting. That might be video. It might be discoverable by algorithm, but they're creating an experience that is markedly different from what you expect from YouTube. And so maybe there it's a slower pace and it's like that's something that actually is built into their positioning.

Jeremy: 30:52

They're saying like, hey, in a world that is trying to go more short form, we're actually going to do this in-depth nuance thing that there is a significant number of people who actually want this. They don't want the fifteen minute YouTube version or the five minute YouTube version or the one minute TikTok version. They want the two and a half hour long version that gets way into the weeds and goes way more in-depth and way more nuanced. And so I think that creators should be thinking about, like, what does podcasting do that YouTube doesn't? And if that's what I wanna create, like, I need to go all the way on that side of things.

Jeremy: 31:20

I can't just be, like, waffling between, well, I kinda wanted to do with you on YouTube, but I also wanna do this thing and you get stuck in the middle. And so I think it's important to understand, like, the dynamics here of, like, what do people expect from a podcast? What do people like from the experience of a podcast? And then if you wanna go to YouTube and the algorithmically driven route, what do people expect from that type of content and what are those algorithms reward? So I think that kind of decision is one of the first places of, like, where you wanna play and how you wanna, leverage these platforms.

Justin: 31:44

As you're talking, it was just bringing up all sorts of thoughts and ideas. James Crindlin has this great quote where he says, we need to market podcasting as the content you go for when your eyes are busy or something like that. And I think this kind of positioning of podcasting, of saying, what is podcasting and audio podcasting in particular good at? What is it good for? And reminding people about that.

Justin: 32:12

But also, we've got these younger generations, Gen z and Gen alpha or whatever. They're gonna need to be educated, And we need to think of creative ways to sell them on audio podcasting. And one could be, hey, you your brain needs a break. You need some calm. You feel like you've had too much sugar.

Justin: 32:36

Like, here's an idea. Put your your AirPods in, go for a walk, and listen to this show. And this show is going to be like a companion for you. It's gonna be talking about the issues and feelings and situations in your life that you're contemplating right now. It's going to add to your life in a totally different way.

Justin: 32:59

In the same way that you might sell someone on meditation, I think there's a version of this of podcasting is the calm alternative. When you need to get out of the house and you just want to go for a walk or you wanna go for a drive or you're gonna do the dishes, like, your eyes are busy. And here's something you can put in your ears that can educate you, that can inform you, that can entertain you, but in a way that's not gonna make you feel sick. Yep. So much of, like, good content, like good comedy, good whatever, is articulating the thing that people are feeling, but they haven't articulated for themselves.

Justin: 33:41

That's the way you can play in these arenas or at least one approach.

Jeremy: 33:48

Alright. So one last spicy take here, before we close this one out here. I have this thought that there's this decision of, like, do I want to, you know, go all in on YouTube? Do I want to really play the algorithmic game? My stance here is that, to some extent, algorithms reward the same things that people do.

Jeremy: 34:08

And they are partially designed this way. They're trying to surface stuff that people will click on. And as you pointed out earlier, a lot of stuff that algorithm surface kind of speaks to the lizard brain, the kind of like basest emotions of ourselves. But when we think about, if you look at what YouTubers talk about when they talk about succeeding with the algorithm, They talk about the titles and the thumbnails of their videos. And they basically say, if I can't create a thumbnail and title that I know people will click on, I don't create the video.

Jeremy: 34:35

And so my take here is that podcasters could actually apply exactly that to their shows now. And even in the absence of algorithms, if they're scrolling through Pocket Cast, somebody comes across their show and they see a a really compelling title that is really clickable and maybe some custom episode art that is also really clickable, they're gonna get more listeners that way as well. And so it almost doesn't matter if algorithms exist or not. You should still be doing the things that algorithms reward.

Justin: 35:00

Here's my counter on that. I had this experience the other day where I listened to an a podcast from an expert, and I just, like, was so impressed with them. And I said, oh, I gotta find out what you know, their other stuff. And I searched their name, found their YouTube channel. And their YouTube channel was full of mister beast style thumbnails, like cheesy, attention grabbing, whatever.

Justin: 35:31

And it just diminished my respect for this person immediately. Yes. It felt like all of the authority and poise and, you know, respect I had garnered for this person was gone in an instant because they were trying to play this game. And in my head, I'm like, you don't need to do this. You don't need to play this game.

Justin: 35:56

You don't have to have that attention grabbing thumbnail. People are going to search you out. They're gonna see your YouTube channel. Make that YouTube channel classy. And it's made me think about my own stuff.

Justin: 36:10

Like, I've tried to play this thumbnail game as well, and I go back to my YouTube channel. And I look at it, and I'm like, it's embarrassing. It's like, ugh. Why? Why?

Justin: 36:23

The truth in what you're saying is that obviously, titles matter. Headlines have mattered since the newspaper age. You know, a book title matters. The first sentence of a chapter in a book matters. So these things do matter.

Justin: 36:36

Maybe my tweak on it will be, let's be careful that we don't discount or degrade the quality of what we're doing by slapping some cheesy infomercial graphic on it. Let's give it the class that it probably deserves. And in the long run, if you're trying to attract an audience that kind of knows and respects you, you need to be doing things that garner respect. So, yes, think about the headline. But, I mean, I've had tons of pushback on kind of clickbait headlines that I've used.

Justin: 37:18

And maybe sometimes it's fine. But one thing that we don't see in churn stats for podcast listenership or YouTube watching or whatever is just how much those activities end up harming us long term. You often don't see how many people are there, like, I'm just sick of this altogether. You know? And if we can be a refreshing counterculture voice in these places, and it might just mean, you know what?

Justin: 37:46

I'm not gonna use that Mr. Beast thumbnail technique. I'm gonna go counterculture and I'm just gonna have something that truly represents the taste that I'm bringing to this show.