Upgrade’s Short Form Strategy is Worth Trying
Upgrade is one of my favorite podcasts to listen to for Apple and Tech Industry News. I think they have some of the most measured takes and don't fall victim to hyperbole. One interesting thing about Upgrade though, and many, if not all of the shows on their podcast network, Relay.fm, is that the hosts don't see each other. They keep the video off even for them. And that makes a short-form video strategy tough, but not impossible. That's what I wanna talk to you about today.
Welcome to Podcasting Workflows where you get daily tips to improve your process, grow your show, and maybe even make some money. Each week, I also do a deep dive into the process of the world's most successful podcasters and reveal their tools, processes, and systems to help you simplify the production of your own show and reclaim hours in your day. You can improve your own podcast production process by seeing how the pros do it. I'm your host, Joe Casabona. And today, I wanna talk to you about why Upgrade's short-form video strategy might be worth trying.
Now, before we get to that, I do wanna point out, you might notice that the publish dates for these episodes are getting increasingly further apart from the actual podcast advent calendar update or day or number. And that's because I don't publish this podcast on weekends, but I'm also excluding mailing list exclusive giveaways from these episodes. They're not really worth doing an episode on. So if you wanna get every article and the giveaways on the day they come out, you can sign up over at [podcastworkflows.com/advent].
Okay. So let's get into their short-form video strategy. I ended the cold open by saying that they keep their video off even for them. They don't see each other. As someone who likes keeping video on so I can read my guest's body language, this seems strange to me at first. But their reasoning is sound. Did I do that on purpose? You'll have to determine that for yourself.
As an audio-only podcast, they don't want to reference anything that they can see because they feel it will take away from the experience for the listener. And how many times have you experienced that before? The host references something that only they can see and then they either have to move on and leave it to your imagination or awkwardly try to explain what they're seeing. That's not a skill everybody has.
When I interviewed one of the hosts, Mike Hurley, on my show, it was the same deal. I said, feel free to put your video on. He said, he prefers not to have it on. He doesn't wanna hear the person or he doesn't wanna see the person if they're doing an audio-only format. And while I'll save that debate for another time, this does pose a specific problem for them if they wanna leverage short-form video. They literally have no video to use. So what do they do? Well, they set up their iPhones to record videos separately, then have a video editor, edit the videos together with the audio from the podcast.
This is an interesting approach to me because it shows they're dedicated to seeing if short-form video works. Looking at their numbers on Instagram and TikTok, it's definitely working better than it did for me. Some of their videos on TikTok got into the 5 or 6 figures.
So what can you learn here?
1. picking the right moments can make or break your podcast clips that you're sharing.
2. You don't need to use interview footage to make a good short-form video. In fact, I have an episode of this show coming up where I'm gonna tell you it's probably a bad idea to use interview footage for short-form videos.
Now, I do stand by what I said on Day 6. You should use AI clips in the beginning to take more bites of the apple. Okay. That one I did on purpose, but perhaps, you can try a combination of four AI selected clips and 11-2 clips that you either create or select yourself. Given how long the upgrade guys have been doing this, I think they started in April, and the level of effort these clips take, they definitely see value in continuing to experiment with short-form video.
And I wanna stress here that this is all experiments. I'm gonna be throwing out a bunch of different ideas throughout the rest of December for Advent or otherwise, and they may contradict each other. But this is relatively new territory, and we're relying on social media and social network algorithms that could change from time to time. So I'm gonna put a bunch of ideas out there. I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna try, and I want you to try what's going to work best for you.
If you like this episode, you can get every entry in Podcast Advent 2023 delivered directly to your inbox by going over to [podcastworkflows.com/advent]. You'll get daily emails with tips and tricks, of course, recommended tools, and giveaways from now to December 24th. You'll also be able to view the archive over there.
Thanks so much for listening. And until next time, I can't wait to see what you make.
Hey, before you go, I want to tell you about a free resource I have called my Podcast Process Templates. They are a set of Notion documents that give you a full podcast planner, a show planner, and even some AI prompts to help you get the creative juices flowing. You obviously want to improve your podcast workflows and save time and these templates will give you a basis for all of your other processes. Through my Notion and Airtable templates, I am able to automate a number of things as well as stay organized so that I am using my podcasting time more efficiently.
If you wanna get your hands on these templates completely for free, you can head over to [podcastworkflows.com/templates[. That's [podcastworkflows.com/templates] to get your free podcasting process templates, today.
