You might be missing 1 BILLION potential podcast listeners.
If your show isn’t on YouTube and YouTube Music, that’s what’s at stake!
In this post, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about getting your show published on YouTube!
You’ll Learn:
On Apple Podcasts and Spotify, a podcast is simply an audio file that’s shared through an RSS feed.
But on YouTube, a podcast is a video playlist with a little tag that says “podcast.”
And there’s a bunch of ways to show up on YouTube.
You can use a static image like The Daily.
You can use an animating video like Wondery.
You can use a Zoom recording like The Freelance Friday Podcast.
You can go all out with a full-blown studio like BACMAP.
The details matter, but the biggest detail is that you NEED to be on YouTube!
Note: You must have the advanced features enabled before you can create a Podcast. To do this, go to YouTube > YouTube Studio > Settings > Channel > Feature eligibility and follow the instructions.
Learn more details about creating a YouTube channel in YouTube’s help center.
Click the profile picture in the top right and click “YouTube Studio”
Click “Create > New Podcast” in the top right
Select “Create a new podcast” from the list
Add your podcast details: Podcast name, description, visibility (public or private), and square cover art (1280x1280).
Click “Create”
Note: if you have an old playlist with podcast episodes, you can convert this into a Podcast by clicking “Set an existing playlist as a Podcast” when prompted.
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Click “Add videos”
Fill out the on-screen information and make sure the video is added to your Podcast’s playlist!
That’s it! 🎉 Your podcast is live on YouTube and YouTube Music (as soon as you publish your episodes and YouTube does its processing).
Now that we’ve created a show, it’s time to talk about how to add new episodes.
There are two ways to add new episodes: Manually upload videos (like you just saw above), or Automatically via an RSS feed.
Who should use this method? Follow these steps if you just want to submit your CUSTOM videos to YouTube and YouTube Music.
Who should use this method? Follow these steps if you want to submit your audio-only podcast to YouTube and YouTube Music.
YouTube takes your RSS feed, auto-generates a static-image video for each episode, and adds it to a Podcast playlist for you.
If you’re used to manually doing this process yourself (like I was), then you realize that this is GOOD news!
You can add an RSS feed to an existing podcast playlist, or start a new playlist.
Read and accept the Terms
Copy and paste your RSS feed from your hosting platform.
Verify ownership by pasting the code sent to your email
Choose which episodes you want to upload
Review visibility details
Click “Save” and wait for YouTube to pull in your old episodes
You’re all set! 🎉 New episodes will appear on YouTube and YouTube Music automatically!
You can also add an RSS feed to an existing podcast you have set up on YouTube. It’s easy.
Log in to YouTube
Click the profile picture in the top right and click “YouTube Studio”
Click “Content” in the left sidebar
Click the “Podcasts” tab in the top middle of the screen
Find the podcast you want to edit and click the pencil icon to edit your show
Important note: Podcasts submitted via RSS feed to YouTube cannot have dynamically inserted advertisements. But they can have host-read “promotions sponsorships, or endorsements”. This is not legal advice. Consult your lawyer with questions
You can always go back to a specific video (aka episode) of your podcast to edit the title, description, tags, and thumbnail of the video.
To edit an episode, follow these steps:
Important notes:
YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet behind Google. By publishing on YouTube, you've expanded your audience to around 1 billion people.
YouTube videos often appear at the top of Google search results. It’s the ultimate SEO double-dip.
You could get featured on YouTube's Podcast page. That could be millions of free impressions!
YouTube Studio analytics shows demographics, traffic sources, and where people stopped listening. You'll learn a ton from this data.
Once you meet the requirements, you can join the YouTube Partner Program to earn money from ads. Ads can play before, during, and after your episode. You need 1000 subs and 4000 valid public hours in the last 12 months OR 1000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days. Learn more at the YouTube Partner Program page.
YouTube has started investing further into podcasts in 2023 and 2024!
That’s it. We’ve covered a lot:
To learn more, you can visit YouTube’s help center here.
Want to learn more about how to share your podcast?