3 Podcast Trends for Established Podcasters Wanting to Grow and Stay Relevant!

Significant trends reshaping the podcasting landscape! Listen for actionable advice, supported by industry statistics and examples on how established podcasters can implement these trends successfully and remain competitive.

• Microcasts: why you should start making shorter podcast episodes
• Niche content: how to leverage podcast SEO and organic search for discoverability
• YouTube: ways you can add video to your podcast without learning new tech
• Practical tips, trend analysis and advice on maintaining high completion rates
  
  

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Podcast Tools & Tech: 

1. LucidLink for fast, streamlined file sharing and collaboration (one free month)

2. Riverside for podcast recording (use this link + code 'whatsyourfree' for 20% off)

3. Descript for editing audio and video podcasts (use this link for free trial)

4. Canva for creating YouTube thumbnails

5. Sam's course: how to edit audio and video with Descript

About the show:

Sam Laliberte -  entrepreneur, digital nomad and freedom seeker, hosts the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast to expose people to the many ways you can design your dream life and unlock your own version of the freedom lifestyle.

Her podcast features celebrity guests and globally recognized brand sponsors (WeWork, Fiverr, Bumble).  She's also a freelance host and podcast producer who has helped over 1000 aspiring podcaster launch, scale and monetize their podcasts. 

Chapters

• 1:53 Trend 1: The Rise of Micro Casts
• 10:34 Trend 2: The Power of Niche Content
• 18:09 Trend 3: Embracing YouTube for Podcasts

Transcript

Sam Laliberte: 0:03

Welcome back to another episode of the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast. Today we are changing things up. We are unpacking strategies and shifts that are shaping the future of podcasting. So if you are an established podcaster who's been putting out solid content, but maybe you're looking for your next edge, maybe every time you post, you're like, oh, I just know this could be a little bit better, or, I don't even know really what my strategy is anymore. This is kind of feeling like a hobby. This podcast is going to talk about growth monetization and how you can level up creativity. If that sounds like it's for you, you are in the right place. So why should you listen to me? My name is Sam. I was early in the podcasting game. I launched my show in 2017, the Freedom Lifestyle. I've had celebrity guests on the show. I've had household name brand sponsors. I'm on my seventh season. I have created. Thousands of podcast episodes for my own show, for my clients. Helped thousands of content creators launch their shows. Market Monetize. I am a hand selected Fiverr Pro podcast consultant with only. Five star perfect reviews, and I have a group mastermind program called the Pod Squad, which if you're not already in it, this could be your new favorite place on the internet to hang out. It's a six month program for podcasters who are also entrepreneurs people building freedom-based businesses and looking to align their podcast content with that bigger vision. So everyone gets to come to one of our group calls for free. Go to whatyourfree.com/podsquad to learn more. Apply to participate in some. I got you. Podcasting has been my world since 2017. I do this every day so that you don't have to do all the research today there are three big trends that I wanted to focus on. Trend number one, micro casts. By now, we all know the strategy of long to short, Taking longer podcast episodes. And cutting them into multiple shorter pieces of content that we can use as Instagram reels, as YouTube shorts, as tweets for x. Posts for LinkedIn graphic quote cards. Great. If you're already doing that, amazing. We've been doing that for years now. Okay. The new thing on the horizon, if you wanna be cutting edge is actually micro casts where we are creating super short form podcasts. These are podcasts, typically two to 10 minutes long, and I think the real reason why we've actually gone back to shorter content is platforms like YouTube and TikTok exploding, right? They've completely conditioned audiences to expect high value, low time commitment content. Even if it's just audio form. we're all busy and listeners want insight on the go. Since launching my YouTube channel, the number one piece of advice I've received is, Hey, maybe you should try to make them a little bit shorter, even though they're 30 minutes in jam packed with value, it's still an ask for a lot of people, and when we think about the algorithms, completion rates, so how much of an episode someone actually listens to and Finishes are significantly higher on episodes that are under 10 minutes. This is an important factor for podcast algorithms, is whether someone actually listens to your episode. podcasts that are under 10 minutes have over 80% completion rate compared to podcasts that are around the 30 minute mark typically now only have a 50% completion rate. Okay. Another stat is that daily podcast listeners are growing, so people who are listening to podcasts every single day, that number is increasing, but our attention spans are shrinking. the average attention span now is 8.25 seconds which means these micro casts are such a great way to respond to these trends. They can show your listener, Hey, I respect your time. I'm going to create something high value that's easy for you to commit to. And when I think about what types of formats do really well for micro casts, I find these can be, I. Podcasts that really appeal to busy professionals, younger audiences who really wanna consume content on the go. I can see these being great for anyone in the mindfulness wellness space, motivational, empowering. I can see like three minute meditations. daily mindset resets, little pep talks. To get you through the day, get you through the week. If you're a thought leader, I can see content around tools of the day where maybe every day you just have a really short episode of one of your favorite tools, how to use it. Bonus points if you give them a referral or affiliate link. maybe you are into copywriting and you want to give them a writing prompt, for someone who really likes to journal and you give them something to write each day. There's so many different ideas that you can do for this. Again, study other people. Success leaves clues. There's a lot of podcasters ahead on this trend and tapping into micro casts. Some examples is planet money has the indicator. They do eight minute episodes and they are just daily doses of economic insights that don't waste your time. There's another one called Before Breakfast. That's about five minutes. It's daily productivity advice designed to be consumed before you even finish your morning coffee. Okay. My favorite Taylor Swift. Today, these are eight minute episodes that are highlighting the breaking news stories and headlines about Taylor Swift from the past week. As a super fan of Taylor Swift, I don't wanna miss anything important about her, but I also don't really have the time and the desire to constantly scroll social media and uncover all of the millions of Easter eggs she is putting out in all of the fan theories. So I listen to Taylor Swift today, every single week, and in those. Eight minutes. I feel like I got a summary about all things Taylor Swift and someone did all of that digging for me. So that's been super valuable. if you're gonna tap into the trend of micro casts, make sure you go straight to the point. You don't wanna have long intros, you don't wanna have fluffy banter. You gotta hook the listener in the first 10 seconds of your episode. You gotta also use strong titles that make it very clear that this podcast episode is going to be valuable. There's gonna be a clear takeaway. You are going to leave smarter, more entertained, more inspired. There's something concrete and specific about this episode. Examples, rather than just saying something like a quick thought on branding. Eight minute episode on the one branding mistake that's costing you clients get it. I'm already going into it knowing I'm gonna learn one thing. I only gotta spend eight minutes with this woman, and she is going to teach me the mistake that is costing me clients. Why wouldn't you want to do micro casts? Right? What is the pushback here? I feel like sometimes I think that is anyone gonna really take me seriously? If my show is that short? How much value can I really provide in an eight minute episode? That is such a common hesitation, but the truth is people do not need more content. They need more clarity. A five minute insight that sticks. Give someone an aha is way more powerful than a 45 minute rant and ramble that they don't even finish, that they don't even get to the end, which is typically when your call to action for the episode is going to be. So you want them to get there for the algorithm's sake and for your sake in terms of the whole point of the episode at the end, you wanna invite them to do something with you. This week's episode is brought to you by Lucid Link. You know that feeling when you're on a roll. Creative juices are flowing, ideas are firing, and then boom. All of a sudden you're looking at a loading bar on your computer. Again, I have always longed for technology that can move as fast as I can for a tech solution that works at the speed of my own creativity. That's as fast as my brain can operate when I'm really on, especially now. That I've become a vlogger and I've been bringing my podcast on YouTube. I'm now working with massive video files, and it's brutal. My computer is constantly full. I waste so much time having to upload and download all the different versions I'm working with as I have freelancers and assistants and audio editors, and I'm losing hours to that spinny wheel of death that all MacBook users know For the first time maybe ever, my Aura Ring actually gave me a notification saying I was having too much inactive time. Okay. Editing these videos that was the final straw and wake up call for me, that something needed to change. If I wanted to keep this video series going, enter Lucid Link. LucidLink is the solution for anybody working with big files. Video, audio, creative assets, whatever. Also, if you're collaborating with clients who are remote team members who are not in the same location as you, instead of having to always be uploading and downloading and waiting, you can just stream the latest version of any file instantly. It acts just like a file on your local drive. Imagine opening a file on your computer. How quick it is, how easy it is. It's that exact same feeling except everything is in the cloud magically appearing like it's on your computer. So when you value your time, your personal freedom, as much as I do, I know you do Freedom seeker, every second counts. So instead of waiting for all of your files to load. You could be frolicking in nature, you could be going on adventures, you could be giggling with your favorite people. What would you do with an extra five hours a week? I have included my referral link to Lucid Link in the show notes, and that's gonna give you your first month free. Okay. Major podcast trend number two is niche content. This is probably one of the most powerful trends shaping podcast growth right now. If you take nothing else from this episode, let it be this. Do not go broader, go deeper. Talk to fewer people, more meaningfully. We have entered an era where the most successful podcasts are not necessarily the ones casting the widest net. They're the ones that have the sharpest focus. Think about a therapist who makes episodes just for millennial women with ADHD Okay. Incredibly targeted, incredibly valuable for the right person, or maybe a business coach who only speaks to Etsy shop owners or one of my clients from the pod squad will. He runs a podcast that is just for private practice owners who want to leverage virtual assistants and AI to free up their time That kind of precision turns a podcast from something that's like a nice to listen to, to, oh my gosh, I need this in my life right now. So the number one perk. To going niche is marketing and discoverability, right? You're gonna win in search. Whether somebody is searching for a podcast episode on Spotify, YouTube, Google, it doesn't matter where they're searching. niche shows stand out because they match specific keywords with specific intent which is a whole new era of using the internet, is what is the intent behind somebody's search and what are they actually looking to get out of this? So let's workshop a few more examples. You might be thinking of creating an episode that's called Confidence Hacks that work. Okay, I'm going to give that a B, but what if you made an episode called Overcoming Imposter Syndrome as a first time tech founder? Okay. That's like an a plus in terms of precision, so you're using keywords. In the title, you're making sure that the keywords are niche. They're in the title, they're in the description, they're in your show notes, and ideally, you're front loading them at the beginning of titles, show notes, and descriptions. You're getting more specific about who this episode is actually for, so you benefit from search. It also makes it a lot easier for you to monetize your podcast on both ends. When we think about monetizing our podcast, the first thing you wanna ask yourself is, do I wanna make money from people listening to my podcast? Or do I wanna make money from people who want to talk to the people who listen to my podcast? Right. Typically, sponsors typically brand deals. If you want to make money from people who listen to your podcast, well guess what? Listeners are two to three times more likely to become paying supporters or paying customers of a show when they feel the content is tailored to them. First is general audience content, and this is advice that I really need to take and I'm going to come back to this in a moment. The same goes for sponsors though, when you know exactly who you are talking to, it is way easier to pitch relevant products, relevant services, or relevant sponsors. So when I have a client that wants to get their first brand sponsor, the first thing I say to them is, well, where do your listeners currently spend their money? Where should they be spending their money and really getting specific on that type of consumer behavior. At the end of the day, we live in a capitalist society and it's all about buying shit. Maybe we need, maybe we don't need, but that is what we're doing when we're monetizing through brand sponsors. Okay. It is so much easier to monetize a small, tailored niche audience than a general audience. That could be anybody. I was able to monetize my podcast in the first five episodes when I had a very modest audience size, because at the very beginning of my podcast journey, I was the most specific. When I was launching the Freedom Lifestyle, it was all about how. Do you build a freelance business on the internet that you can do from anywhere that's a service-based freelance business as well. Okay, so now we're talking to not just entrepreneurs, but it was service-based entrepreneurs and not just service-based entrepreneurs, service-based entrepreneurs who wanted to work on the internet, and not just remote workers, but digital nomad workers who wanted to be traveling and working on the internet. So it was lifestyle aspirational. And they also wanted to be freelance, so they didn't wanna just have one client. They wanted to be tapping into the gig economy. Okay. That is so hyper specific in terms of who my show was for that when I reached out to Fiverr, the world's largest freelancing marketplace that. Literally has an entire mission around helping people have the dream life and the dream job. Traveling around the world, running a business and leveraging freelance talent globally. It was an, oh my God, yes, for both of us. That was so much easier than it can sometimes be for me now, now that I've really broadened. I'm no longer just talking about freedom in the sense of freelance. and when I'm now monetizing my podcast, it actually requires more effort. I can feel it. When it comes to the monetization piece, so I need to take my own advice, a couple more examples of how this could work, right? Instead of having a show about wellness. Can we make it gut health for busy moms over 40? Okay. Instead of career advice, can it be a show for laid off tech workers who are pivoting to freelance? These titles are all clear, they're all searchable, and they all speak to somebody's actual life experience with an intent they have of a change they wanna make for themselves, right? Improving their gut health, getting a new job. There's an action there that somebody wants to take, and now I get it. Niching down can feel scary. You might be thinking, but what if I exclude people or isn't that gonna limit my growth if I'm just too focused? That is the biggest pushback I get during my one-on-one consults with my clients when I'm bringing my group together for Pod Squad. People are so hesitant to do this, and I just said that I fall victim to this too because over time my interests have broadened as a content creator, I'm curious and passionate about various different things, however. When it comes to being hyper-focused with your podcast, you're using it actually as a marketing funnel for your business. Your podcast is not just a hobby. It serves a real purpose in your business, and you can track the results of that. This isn't just a passion project. Your personal interests shouldn't take priority over actually serving your customers. and that requires shifting your thinking instead of being scared of smaller audiences. Thinking about creating more devoted ones. Okay. Audiences that engaged, that share, that buy all, because the content that you share, it feels like it was made just for them. Okay. When we try to speak to everybody, you actually end up resonating with nobody. So don't try to go viral, try to go valuable. The third and final trend that I really wanna share with you today is YouTube. I hesitated for so long getting into video. I loved that podcasting was a multitasking medium, right? I loved that podcasts were really for those busy people, people who could learn and be entertained while doing something else. I loved going for long walks while listening to my favorite creators and. Even still, I have to admit, I have started really enjoying watching some of my favorite shows. Call Her Daddy is my number one favorite video podcast, and I'm still watching her show while multitasking. I love to prepare a big meal in the kitchen and have some. Spotify on the TV and watch her episodes, or maybe I'm at the gym and it's cardio day and I'm on the bike or the StairMaster and I got my phone out and I'm watching her videos. I've really gotten on board with the YouTube thing, and trends are showing this shift as well. Industry reports are showing that YouTube is now surpassing. Traditional audio platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcast as the most popular way people are discovering new podcasts, Especially with younger demographics, over 50% of YouTube podcast consumers are under the age of 35. So if your show targets a younger or more digitally native audience, YouTube should be one of your core. Distribution channels, maybe even more so than Spotify or Apple, if I dare say it. YouTube also does such a great job at recommending clips and full episodes based on your user behavior. So I think what YouTube really excels at is helping people discover your show. It really is that gateway, right, where someone might stumble on your podcast based on a clip that you share from the episode as a short or even a full episode gets recommended to them. People on YouTube aren't necessarily identifying as podcast. Viewers and consumers, when they're on the platform, they have more of a scrolling behavior, and so before you know it, you've just tapped into this whole new top of funnel opportunity where your content could be somebody's first ever podcast exposure and definitely their first time hearing about you. So if you're gonna get into the YouTube game, which I'm highly recommending you should, you need to create actual videos, both long form videos and short form. So before we could kind of get away with just uploading the audio of our podcast episodes and putting a static image over top. Now that's not gonna cut it. We wanna see you on camera. You. You and the guest, maybe some imagery overlaying it throughout the episode when it makes sense. But don't just do the static image. This does not mean you need a full studio to start showing up on camera. Okay, A ring light. Sitting in front of some great lighting in front of a window, which I'm doing right now, even using your phone, the cameras on our phones are shooting in 4K these days. That can go a long way, so don't overthink the equipment. If you're already podcasting, you have a mic, it's still most important that people can hear what you're saying. Clearly, it's still the most important thing that you don't have distracting background noises like noisy kitchen fans or dogs and cats barking or traffic from outside the window. You really want people being able to clearly hear what you're saying, but when it comes to the visual. Honestly, just focus on some really great lighting. Maybe a clear background or something that's super on brand, but you definitely don't need to rush out and rent out a studio. In terms of the tools you also don't need to learn a ton of new things. If you're already podcasting, I'm guessing you're already using a tool like Riverside. This is where I've recorded today's episode. I recorded the audio and the video at the exact same time, and then I brought the entire file into Descrip. Descrip is the tool that I use. To edit both my audio and my video. I have discount codes at all of the tools that I'm gonna mention to you today. They're all gonna be in the show notes, so don't panic. You don't need to be taking a ton of notes but I love that Descrip specifically Allows me to edit the audio and the video of my content at the exact same time. If I had to sit there and do the entire audio episode for Spotify and Apple and then restart the process for YouTube and for video platforms. We just wouldn't do it, right? that's a lot of time Script allows you to edit them at the exact same time. So just imagine everything you've just now said in your episode, whether it's a solo or an interview, it transcribes it immediately in front of you. It's almost like you're working with a blog post or a Google doc and to the right, you see. Your video and then below you see the soundbars for the audio. Every time you are deleting something, moving something around, it's happening in both the audio and the video, so that makes it so, so, so easy. If you really want to add an edge to your YouTube videos, you can create something more dynamic where instead of adjust being you talking to the camera or you and the guest, you can start to add layers in the episode with other images that you wanna reference or video clips. A really great example is what I've done with my latest vlog series. I just got back from a three month sabbatical and trip in New Zealand where I had a ton of content, and so you'll see how I've done it. It's still a traditional interview-based podcast episode where it's me and my guest. We're talking. But then every once in a while I'm referencing a hike. a location on the map. the van that we rented, and I'll layer. An image or a video that goes over the screen, over us talking. You do not need to be a professional video editor to do this. This is truly something you can be doing yourself with a tool like script, which makes it so easy to just with a little bit more effort, you can really now get into video, but also just be a few steps ahead of where video is going. So step one. Let's get you on there talking to the camera. If you wanna have an edge. See if you can layer dynamic aspects into your videos. Heck, throw a gif here and there as a layer. Anything to just keep people's attention as it's now a watching experience. YouTube also has their version of Instagram reels, which by now you know by now I'm sure you know the strategy of taking. Parts of your podcast episode and creating audiograms for social media for Instagram reels. Well, now you can also do this on YouTube. They have a section called YouTube shorts, where then you wanna take 30 to 62nd shorter clips from your YouTube episodes and putting them as shorts on the platform as well. A really great example of a podcast that does this well is the Goop Podcast with Gwyneth Paltrow. I love her content. One of her latest episodes is with the comedian Nikki Glazer, I'm familiar with who she is and her work, and I think she's hilarious. So when Goop put out a podcast episode. With just Nikki's name in the title. That got my attention. That hooked me into watching the 45 minute episode. But then they also created a five minute episode and it was called Non-Monogamy. It had something like that in the title. Right? Really hooking you in where I'm not. I'm personally not an non-monogamous, but maybe I'm curious about this topic, or maybe I identify as somebody who's interested in this topic and I don't know who Nikki is. That for sure is going to get my attention as I'm searching that topic in YouTube, it's likely to suggest that short video to me, and all of a sudden I'm watching part of the Goop podcast. Maybe it's my first time even knowing that Gwyneth has a podcast, definitely my first time being exposed to Nikki, and before you know it, I'm now going and looking at the rest of their content and ideally becoming a subscriber. So never forget that YouTube is actually the second largest search engine after Google. This is a place where people are going to find new content, So leverage this platform. Find other creators who have already brought their podcasts on YouTube and study what they're doing. You can get inspired for your own show, see what they're doing. That's really capturing your attention. then the other unique thing about YouTube is that you do require thumbnail images, so kind of like a cover photo to your video. As podcasters, we've kind of gotten away for a long time with just having that one image. Our square artwork that we designed really well once and most likely, every episode that you put out, it has that same artwork. That's been what I've recommended forever and I still would. Now that we're on YouTube though, we actually need unique images for every single episode, and you kind of want them to be quite, I'm going to use the word dramatic. You really wanna hook somebody in with bold titles, compelling imagery, that if you were just scrolling through YouTube much more scrolling through images, it's going to grab your attention. And you might actually experiment with changing the titles of your episodes specifically for YouTube. So for example, one of the episodes I came out with recently was an honest review of my time in New Zealand. That's what I put out as the title for the podcast players. But then for YouTube, I'm like. People don't really know me yet on YouTube. I'm going after a cold, brand new audience. Do they really care about my honest review of New Zealand when they don't even know who I am? So with YouTube, I went with what you won't like about New Zealand, right? Keeping it more. Attractive to a stranger who might find that intriguing, kind of giving you the sense, oh, I'm about to hear something kind of raw and unfiltered, maybe something controversial, things that you won't like about New Zealand. so experiment with the titles, but definitely make sure that you have imagery to go with it. That's going to be pretty captivating. I like to copy the layout that call her Daddy uses. Again, if you look up her podcast, you can see the still cover image thumbnails that she uses. It's usually her and the guest, and they have very tense facial expressions that really pull you in. People looking shocked or laughing or crying. You feel the emotion. That is being conveyed in the episode just by looking at the image. Another great example is my friend who runs the YouTube channel, portable professional. Her thumbnails are always super dramatic and you just can't help but click on them. Feel free to look at my YouTube channel and see how I'm doing this. The tool that I use to actually create these images is Canva. I'm sure you're familiar with Canva now, but when you log into Canva, you can actually search YouTube thumbnail and it'll pull up all these different layouts where you can just pick one that looks good for you, add your brand colors, add your images, change the fonts to make it aligned with your brand. but again, a lot of these tools will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. My final tip when it comes to being on YouTube and starting to take advantage of this major opportunity to have someone discover you and your content for the first time is to leverage YouTube ads. So maybe you have tried boosting a piece of content on Instagram or Facebook in the past. You can actually do this with YouTube videos. I have been experimenting with it. I've only done two vlogs on YouTube now. I started with basically an audience of zero, and so I really wanted to get my content in front of people. I was putting a lot of effort into it, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to convert my Apple and Spotify listeners over to YouTube. So I started boosting my content and very quickly I got my first 150 subscribers. And when I look at my stats in terms of how much I've. Spent. It's been about$1 Canadian in advertising spend for every new subscriber that I've been able to acquire. These numbers are so promising and amazing. If you think about the advertising opportunities we had as podcasters in the past. Really, the only thing I've ever been able to recommend to my clients is Overcast. You can see what they're doing if you go to Overcast fm slash ads, and essentially they offer you to buy push notifications within a podcast category. So let's say I'm listening to a podcast that's in the business category, someone can pay for while I'm listening, a text-based ad to pop up on my screen with a short call to action about their show. That's about business. What I really liked about that tool was one, it worked. You can actually track in the stats how many new subscribers you got from the ad, but that it was more specific. If someone is listening to a business podcast, they're likely gonna be more interested in my business. Podcast. Right? The catch. They have very high minimums. at the time of me looking on their website right now, to buy an ad in the business category, it's 1600 US dollars versus YouTube. You can boost one of your episodes for.$5, for example. So very low barrier to entry that it's kind of like a no-brainer not to try putting a small amount of ad spend to boost your videos, especially if you're just starting out with YouTube as a podcaster or I don't know. Are we vloggers now? We might be rebranding. I still don't know. so those are my three tips on the biggest podcast trends that are happening right now. If you're an established podcaster, I really hope you realize that these trends maybe are not just upcoming. They've already started to reshape the game. and you, my friend, you're already ahead of the curve just by tuning in today. So if you want support in applying any of these trends to your show, I really wanna invite you to come check out Pod Squad. This is my new group program for established podcasters. Everyone gets to crash. One of the group calls for free. Let's you feel it out, see if it's your vibe. I've included links in the show notes. What's your free.com/pod squad? You can apply to have your show invited to the next group call, and we can chat about some ways that I can help you one-on-one. So until next time, keep showing up. Keep sharing your voice, keep shaping the future of podcasting. And if you love this episode, please share it with even just one other podcaster in your circle. That is how we all grow together. Bye.