Many of my podcast clients, and maybe many of you started podcasting years ago - long before video (in long or short form) was popular.

Quite often my clients ask me if they should be "doing video for their podcast."

This is actually a topic that came up this past week in a podcast group I am in, and my views contradicted what the original poster believed about video.

So, I wanted to have an honest discussion today about whether you should be doing video for your podcast.

I can't start this discussion without addressing the fact that this is so much tougher for women. The reality is that a guy can pick up his phone beside his bed when he fist wakes up and turn on the video and document his "first thoughts of the day" with bed head, bad breath, unshaved and even sometimes with a shirt on, and his followers will rave about his genius and his inspiring content and leave comments like "Bro, this is fire" or "So good my man!".

If a woman tried this same filming strategy, we would be accused of trying to be seductive, or we would be bombarded with comments like, "Girl, at least brush your hair." or "Honey, if you can't bother to get out of bed and get ready and take a little pride in your appearance, then you shouldn't even turn on the video."

As women, we are far harder on ourselves and on other women than we need to be. As a female content creator, we're worried about our appearance - hair, makeup, blemishes, aging, all of it - we're worried about our house looking messy. And many times, you may not even have a second away from your kids to make any sort of content.

All of the thoughts serve to stop us from even attempt video unless you're having a perfect hair day, your makeup is spot on, and your office is Instagram perfect.

4 Reasons You Should Incorporate Video for your Podcast:

1. Recording the video gives you more options when it comes to distribution of your content and repurposing your content.
2. There is a way video podcast content can be edited to appeal to YouTube audiences, so by recording video, you now have the raw material to make a great YT video with the right editing.
3. Why do you want to be on YouTube? YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine, only to Google. But you can't forget that YouTube is owned by Google. So by putting your content as video into the 2nd largest search platform on the planet, you stand to get more organic traffic.
4. We simply can't ignore the fact that most content consumers will pay more attention to audio than video. 

You ignore video at your own peril.

Most people that will tell you that you don't have to do video for your podcast are trying to not make you feel pressured or guilty about just doing audio and ignoring video. 

Do you need video to have a successful podcast? No.

My perspective is more that you will remove many barriers to your success by also including video for YouTube and social media content. I rarely have my clients create a video podcast feed simply because most people are consuming content on youtube.

If you want to give yourself the highest chance of success, record video. Once you get in the habit of doing it, you'll wonder why you waited so long.

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I'll see you next week!