We Discuss The Power of Podcasting In 2025
Unlock the power of podcasting in 2025 with proven strategies for growth, monetization, and audience building. Your complete guide to podcast success.
In this insightful video, we explore the transformative power of podcasting in 2025. Discover how technological advancements and evolving listener preferences are reshaping the podcasting landscape. We delve into key trends, successful strategies, and the unique ways podcasts are influencing communication and storytelling. Join us as we dissect the future of this dynamic medium.
With Special Guest Robert Plank of DFY Podcasting – https://www.dfypodcast.com/
#1 – Robert, can you give some more detailed info on how you got into podcasting and helping other creators in the field?
#2 – With all the changes connected to AI, I personally see podcasting as becoming more important for any individual and company. What are your own thoughts on this?
#3 – What advice would you give somebody looking to start a podcast in 2025?
#4 – How does YouTube work with podcasting?
#5— Are there any AI tools or services you have been using remotely or regularly that you would like to share with the WP-Tonic tribe?
#6—If you had your time machine (H. G. Wells) and could travel back to the beginning of your career, what advice would you give?
This Week’s Sponsors
Kinta: Kinta
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The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:00.000] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the WP Tonic Show. This is episode 976. We got a returning friend of the show, but it was quite a while ago. At the beginning of the show, I think, we’ve got Robert Plank with us. He is the founder of the FY podcast. He helps. It’s got a really fantastic podcast, but he also helps entrepreneurs, software companies, all sorts of types of individuals and companies launch successful podcasts, and he’s noted as an expert in the field. So I thought in the middle of 2025, it would be a great topic to discuss. So, Robert, would you like to give the tribe a quick 10- to 15-minute intro, and then when we move into the part of the show, we can delve into your background in a bit more detail?
[00:01:05.020] – Robert Plank
Okay, 15-minute intro.
[00:01:06.620] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s quite a long- No, 15 seconds.
[00:01:08.420] – Robert Plank
Okay, I was like, How long do you want me to talk? Of course.
[00:01:11.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
Welcome, Robert.
[00:01:13.840] – Robert Plank
Right. It’s like a talk show. Well, like you said, in 2025, we’ve known each other since 2020, and that’s just how we met. And it’s a great first impression, right? When you meet someone, you hop on a Zoom, you hop on a StreamYard, and you get on their show. And it’s beneficial for both parties because you have a conversation like this. You get the content, gives you the YouTube, gives you the reels, gives you the blog posts. I’m all about doing podcasting, having these 20, 30 30-minute conversations, and you get these thought leaders, these guest experts to hop on. It’s a lot more engaging than just monologuing, as we’ll find out from our witty banter back and forth. Like you said, my company is DFY Podcast. If someone needs a podcast run. Then you just create the content, we cut it up, we produce it, we distribute it, we post it. Then my podcast is marketeroftheday. Com, 1400 episodes. We said, had you on five years ago, when we’ve been friends ever since.
[00:02:15.680] – Jonathan Denwood
All right. Thanks for that, Robert. I’ve got my ever-patient and helpful co-host, Kurt. Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?
[00:02:25.520] – Kurt von Ahnen
Hey, folks. My name is Kurt von Annen. I own a company called Manana Nomas, and we also work with the great folks at WP Tonic. But we focus largely on membership and learning websites.
[00:02:34.980] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. Before we go into the meat and potatoes of this great show, I’ve got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. Also, I want to point out that we got some great special offers from the sponsors, plus a list of the best WordPress plugins and services aimed at the WordPress freelancer or power user. It’s a fantastic free resource. You can find it by going over to WP-Tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals. So let’s go straight into it. So, Robert, you gave a quick introduction to what you do and what your company does. But how did you get into the world of podcasting? What did you do before it became your full-time gig, Robert?
[00:03:36.680] – Robert Plank
I was a lot like you guys. I was a programmer. I was all about making websites, and then when WordPress came along, you remember those days, it was like, whoa, you mean I can just click a button and I can make a website? I don’t have to mess with databases, install scripts. I can just click and add all these themes and plugs, and it just works. And that’s where I came up, was just making websites, but what is a website if it doesn’t make money? You’re just reading off the commercials and the deals. You’ve got to pay some bills. And that’s what led me to create membership software. But then I thought, ‘Okay, I’ve made this beautiful website, but now who’s going to find it?’ I needed to figure out traffic. And that led to list building, but more importantly, webinars. But then, still, it was only a trickle of traffic. And then that led to saying, Well, these people who really have serious businesses, they speak on stage. They do these presentations, but then you can’t just say, Hey, here’s this event. Here’s this stage. Let me just talk about it. You had to attend conferences and smooth people.
[00:04:43.960] – Robert Plank
You had to network with them. Those were the days before smartphones and before Wi-Fi, and you would meet someone and you would exchange business cards. Then two weeks later, you’d be clearing out your wallet and say, Oh, let me just throw these 30 business cards in the trash. I needed a way to stand out. And what that led to was if I met someone at a networking event, I would say, Let’s hop on a Skype call. And Skype went out of business recently, I think. But now the equivalent is a phone call or a Zoom call. And what I would do is I would meet someone at an event, and I would meet, for example, a copywriter or someone, and I would say, Hey, what do you do? What are some stories? What are some of your successes? We’d get on this Skype call or this Zoom call. We’d record it, and I’d put it on a web page; then, we would be publicly linked from that point on. This was a few years before podcasting, and when podcasting became a thing, I was like, Perfect, I’m already doing this. Now it’s time to do it deliberately.
[00:05:47.420] – Robert Plank
That has led to the point where I no longer need to attend networking events. Post-pandemic and everything, and with Zoom and fast internet and Wi-Fi and smartphones, it’s not even really necessary. So, podcasting has turned into a networking, traffic, and content tool. Instead of trying to struggle and say, Let me write another blog post, or let me send some more traffic, you just make these meetings, you meet interesting people, you have these productive, fun conversations like we’re doing right now, and that gives you all the content, all the social posting, all the networking that you need. And it’s a great way to just deliberately to make this business move forward, especially if you’re not naturally social, you’re not naturally a networker. It’s just a great way to always meet people and make the most of those social media and LinkedIn connections, and to further develop the friendships you have. Podcasting offers numerous benefits. Everyone should do it.
[00:06:51.700] – Jonathan Denwood
Right, Theo. Over to you, Kurt.
[00:06:54.440] – Kurt von Ahnen
Robert, I love the way you just break that down, but I’m going to be a little more, I don’t know. I want to cut in a little deeper. As I’m listening to you talk about podcasting, I’m having flashbacks of myself talking about making websites. For instance, I’ve got 22 years in the game. I’ve got a tech stack that I love. I can build a really great product. And when I’m articulating that to people outside the space, it’s more like, Hey, I build these cool websites. And they think, Yeah, my sister’s nephew does website stuff. Anyone can do it. You’ve been doing this for a while, man. It’s like you have the experts curse. And so when you’re talking about podcasting and it’s just networking, or I’m just, Hey, I’m just creating these meetings and it helps me create content. You said something very clear in your answer, and that was, Hey, what if I did it on purpose? And that’s one of my giant catchphrases when I do public speaking. I’m like, Hey, how many people think they’re good at this? They all raise their hands. I said, How many people do it on purpose?
[00:07:56.110] – Kurt von Ahnen
How many did it by accident? Talk to me a little bit about the difference between podcasting on purpose versus podcasting by accident? Because you’re an expert in the field. There’s going to be certain things that make it a higher level approach.
[00:08:10.080] – Robert Plank
Yeah. I think that when you do something on purpose, then it delivers consistently. Me, and it’s less panicked, less scrambling, and you have something that’s more reliable. I think that so many people that I know, they’ve gotten to the point where they say, Hey, this year, I’ll finally take my speaking seriously, or I’ll finally put up that book, or I’ll finally make my YouTube content, and they’ll do these big long sprints, spurts, bursts of like, Well, let me just have these big content days. Let me answer 300 questions that my default audience will be asking me. Then they end up stopping or the results are a little bit mixed. I think that what I like about the podcasting is you find the diamonds in the rough instead. Instead of trying to create these perfect moments or find these really, like you even mentioned, Kurt, sometimes you have these catchy phrases, and it’s fun when it happens just by a result of putting in the time. You have these conversations and you have the back and forth, and sometimes you have that expert’s curse that you mentioned where it’s like you think it’s a really cool phrase or you think this thing you’re teaching is helpful, but then you talk to another person, you bounce the ideas off, and you might say something that’s so clear It’s like, there, that’s what people want.
[00:09:32.480] – Robert Plank
That’s the phrase, that’s the moment. We all need content. We need content for our ads, for our promo emails, for our social media. It seems to me like the easier path is just to do the podcasting, have the episode, and extract the good stuff, versus trying to always scramble and come up with all this expertise that you want to force out of yourself.
[00:10:01.960] – Kurt von Ahnen
Nice. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. The question I was supposed to jump to was about AI. If we think about all the changes connected to AI, and I know that Jonathan and I, we have an alignment on this one thought, and I think podcasting and personal interactions and face-to-face stuff is actually going to drive more value. I think there’s going to be a heightened demand for people like real world, like face to face, hand to hand, voice to voice, communication over AI as AI starts to get injected into what seems like everything. But what are your thoughts on this? And do you feel that it’s going to drive more demand in the podcast space?
[00:10:47.360] – Robert Plank
I think so, and I hope so. I’ve noticed that ever since AI has become… It feels like 2023 is when AI just blew up. It existed for decades, but ChatGPT, it became mainstream stream. I found myself ever since ChatGPT was widely used, I do more face-to-face than ever. I do 10 times more face-to-face than before. I don’t know if that’s my own stress and anxiety and trying to stay ahead of the curve, but it’s like, all I know is what I do. I know I’m doing more face-to-face. As far as AI, one of the very first things that you heard about, even in those first few weeks of ChatGPT, is garbage in, garbage out. Us programming programming geeks, computer geeks, we know G-I-G-O. But in AI, now everyone’s exposed to it, where when ChatGPT was brand new, or at least widely used in those first few iterations, and you’d see just… You could smell the the garbage content, right? You could just read some article and be like, I can tell AI wrote that. And one of the very first things that I did when I started using ChatGPT was I figured out how to upload podcast transcripts.
[00:11:59.160] – Robert Plank
And back in those In the dark ages, you could only give it a little bit of text at a time. So I figured out a way to feed a 20-minute podcast transcripts in chunks, and I’d have to wait a few minutes for it to give it chunk one, chunk two. And now you just upload a big, giant file. But what’s great about… Because I have a lot better results with AI and LLMs in general. If I give it a bunch of stuff and I say, find just a few gold nuggets, it’s versus the opposite. If you say, write me an article about the top 10 WordPress plugins, both of you will see the output and say, Half of that’s garbage. But if you fed ChatGPT a 30-minute transcript of both of you chatting about the best LMS plugins for WordPress, and then it went and picked out the best results and put it in a logical order, you’d get a much better result. So I really like the potential with podcasting and you create all this content, and you give ChatGPT this big old hunking thing, and then you say, Hey, give me a tweet, or give me a short article, or script a second YouTube for me.
[00:13:15.320] – Robert Plank
So I’m a big fan of starting with a lot and then saying, I just want a small output from what I give you.
[00:13:22.680] – Kurt von Ahnen
Nice. Jonathan?
[00:13:25.080] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I really agree where you’re coming from there, Robert. And that’s I use a lot of AI, but I edit and put video and podcasting and try and add extra value to everything I try and produce. So if somebody was looking to get into podcasting in the middle of 2025, or we’ve gone past the middle now, I can’t believe where the year’s gone. I really can’t. So if they were looking to start in 2025 podcasting, what advice and what tips or any insights that you can give based on your extensive experience, Robert?
[00:14:15.700] – Robert Plank
My advice to get started is don’t overthink it. Grab your phone, get in your car, and point it at yourself and record a three-minute clip. That can be your first podcast episode. And I’m big on doing things awkwardly the first time. Just force it because it’s not natural, because it is new, because the habit does take a while to pick up. So sit in your car and think of three questions, and and an answer to each question that you can string together. Mention a problem in your industry that really gets you angry, that really pisses you off. Maybe the problem is WordPress themes are just so damn complicated. And That could be the first minute of what you talk about. Start with a problem. Are you frustrated with WordPress? Are you overwhelmed by all the themes? And you install some theme and it adds 10 different plugins that you didn’t even ask for. It’s such a confusing interface. And then for the second minute, you explain how you scratch your own itch. You explain how you solve your own problem. And you say, I dealt with this, too, and I like to use this this theme or that theme.
[00:15:30.900] – Robert Plank
I like to use just the 2025 theme and then this one plugin. So you explain how you solve the problem. And then for a minute three, explain how you solve the problem for someone else. And you say, I’m Kurt and I had such a blast making websites. It came so naturally to me. Then I said, Hey, this other person needed a website. And I went and got it fixed up for them, and I added a pop-up in an opt-in form in their photo, and it worked out great. And so that demonstrates your expertise and social proof. Just that formula alone, you mentioned a problem, you mentioned how you solved it for yourself and how you solved it for someone else. There’s a lot of built-in compellingness, if that’s the word. It probably isn’t, but we’ll make it a word, right?
[00:16:15.820] – Jonathan Denwood
It should be, shouldn’t it, Robert?
[00:16:17.480] – Robert Plank
It should, yeah. Maybe we’ll feed it in the chat.
[00:16:20.420] – Jonathan Denwood
I do that myself, Robert. I’m notorious for making words, Robert.
[00:16:24.680] – Robert Plank
Yes, it’s like cofephe, right? You become known for inventing that word.
[00:16:29.440] – Jonathan Denwood
Then I’m notorious for not pronouncing the surnames of our guests, butchering them completely. The second thing is making up new words, Robert.
[00:16:40.980] – Robert Plank
Okay. Then you make up a new word on the domain name is available, and there you go, that’s your brand. But you record this three-minute video, and that gives you so much potential there, right? Because you were filmed on your phone, your car had good enough acoustics. Now you have a YouTube video. Now you can jump out the You can get an account at buzzsprout. Com. I think it’s like $7 or $12 a month. And then you upload that audio file, and then you post a new podcast episode, which sounds scary, but it’s like a blog post in WordPress, right? Instead of a title and then just the text, it’s a title and then the audio file and then the text, which is called the show notes. And so you make this account at Buzz Sprout, you upload the title and the audio, and then you You can then distribute this one single audio to Apple Podcast, Spotify, Audible, and iHeartRadio. And then you can take some quick snippets or clips of the video and post it to your social media. You can give your video to websites like otter. Ai and get the transcript made and feed that to ChatGPT.
[00:17:55.840] – Robert Plank
Just from that three-minute video, you can have a week’s worth of content content in all your platforms. And then there’s always more potential. If you already have a WordPress website, you can install the Power press plugin, and it adds an audio button, and you have your podcast on your own website. But that’s how you get started. As you sit in your car, you fire up your phone, you think of three questions to ask, you record three minutes, and now you have a video and an audio, and that gives you text because of AI. That’s a great start. From that, if you make it a habit, if you just put in 10, 20 minutes a week into this, then you can record more of your own ideas and content, hot takes. Then ideally, eventually, it grows into this networking idea where then you have guests and then you use it for relationships, but that’s how to start. Just record a quick three minutes on your phone in your car.
[00:18:55.400] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I agree with you to get started the easiest route is the best route. I’ve never been able… I probably could do it if I was forced to do it now, but I’ve never been able, and I admire people that can do it, is just talk to camera or talk to the mic on their own. I’ve always had a co-host for almost all my shows. I’ve been doing podcasting now for probably over 10 years now. I can’t believe that. But I’ve always had a co-host co-host, some good, some bad, some fantastic, like Kurt. I’ve always done it because I just found it easier to have a co-host, especially if you’re inviting other people because sometimes for personal reasons or whatever, they can’t turn up. So if you got a co-host, you can do what I call an internal show, an internal discussion. But I do agree with you. When I started the WP Tonic podcast, I had a co-host, and I used to call him the Sound Nazi because he was fanatical about the sound quality. I still use a UBS mic, a good quality one, but I just want to keep it reasonably… I don’t want to bother with a soundboard and all that.
[00:20:27.720] – Jonathan Denwood
I just choose to use a high quality UBS, Mike. When does it really… But I do think sound quality is important. When do you make that decision to up your equipment and what price and what type of equipment should you be looking at to go that next stage above using your phone, Robert?
[00:20:58.020] – Robert Plank
I want to mince on your situation, right? That’s a personal question. It’s different for everyone. I would say once you find yourself getting frustrated, once you’ve outgrown what you have set up, then it’s time. So as far as recording with your phone, you do that five or 10 different times. It’ll probably get a little repetitive, right? And you’ll say, Hey, I need to get something more substantial set up. And I think that what I’m always fighting is that dopamine hit that you get when you buy things, right? You always think like, Oh, if I buy something, I’ll have the buyer’s remorse. No, buying things feels good. Your phone vibrates and the box arrives in the door and you unpack, you take out the styrofoam, which is a good feeling, but the downside is that it gives you a false sense of accomplishment. The problem with buying a bunch of equipment up front at first is that if you drop $2,000 on all the fancy lighting, camera, equipment, everything, background, everything else, then you’re putting work in front of you when you could start recording your podcast. I would figure out a way to make it more like a reward.
[00:22:14.340] – Robert Plank
That just depends on what your goal is. You say, All right, well, once I record 10 episodes over 10 weeks, once I stick with it, then I’ll get the fancy microphone or I’ll get the fancy lighting. Or once I start, if I have just one co-host show, one show with a guest, then that’ll be my reward. And don’t buy a lot of stuff up front because you won’t know how it all fits together. You won’t know what you like. So for a while, I had a background behind me, a solid background, and I took it down and might put it back up. But as far as the equipment, get a 4K camera. And I would say that’s the first step. The microphone, I tell people to get Blue Yeti.
[00:23:00.960] – Jonathan Denwood
I use that for quite a while.
[00:23:04.600] – Robert Plank
Yeah, which is like 100 bucks. I currently use a Samsung C01U, which I think is 120 bucks. It doesn’t have to be many thousands of dollars just like a Blue Yeti or around- I don’t know if you agree with this, Robert.
[00:23:22.740] – Jonathan Denwood
My understanding, I think trying to get to the 80, 85, 90% of quality, but it’s when you want to get to that top, in 95, 98, 99%, you’re going to have to spend an enormous amount of money on quasar semi-professional equipment shipment. My argument, long as it’s good quality and you’re in that above 80%, I don’t think it’s worthwhile for a podcast. But other people totally disagree with me. What do you think, Robert?
[00:23:59.400] – Robert Plank
I think they’re snobs. It’s like the sound nazi. If that’s what makes you feel good or that’s what gives you the significance great, but I’m more about putting it to use. I’m sure you’ve seen this with WordPress and with websites. There’s people that want to be pixel perfect. Isn’t that the term? They want to have the most beautiful website, fastest loading website. I’m just like, Well, I’d rather have a website that has content, that has content consistently, that has traffic, that works, and someone can opt in, and someone can buy from me. The other perfection, that’s great, but perfection is like priority number 4 or five, making money and having things working as priority number one or two. I say just stair-step. You get the Blue Yeti, and if you outgrow that, then go to Amazon and get something more comparable in price. At first, maybe the microphone sits in front of you, and then after a little while, then you put it up there on the arm. Then I have the the soft box lights in my office around me, but then when they were right on me, it made me too glowy. So then I ended up getting these LED lights, which are the ones that are- It’s exactly my own set up, actually.
[00:25:18.420] – Robert Plank
And then I’ve got a ring light, and I know me and Kurt both were not quite perfect as far as the shadows, because The idea is you want to have light here and light there. That way there’s no shadow, and it’s like, you won’t even really know what looks good or what you’re looking at until you play around with the equipment, right? And you Try out a different microphone, try a different camera, and that’s just part of your journey, your evolution over time. And so you just… You do these little upgrades, and it’s like a more sustained dopamine hits, right? It’s like versus if you drink five gallons of coffee at once, you won’t feel good. But if you have a coffee at 8: 00 AM and 10: 00 AM and noon, then it’s more spaced out, you’ll feel better. And so as far as that dopamine buying the equipment, think about that for yourself. Reward yourself to get to episode 30 or 50, get a better camera, get a better light, and just do that steadily over time.
[00:26:27.900] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic advice. I think We’re going to go for our middle break. We’ve had a fantastic first half. I think Robert shared some great advice. When we come back in the second half, we continue the discussion. We’ll be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a fantastic discussion with Robert. He’s a real expert on podcasting. Before we go into the second half, I want to point out, if you’re a freelancer or power user, and you’re looking for a great hosting provider that specializes in membership and community-focused websites, this is what we specialize in at WP Tonic. We love you to become a partner with us. We offer some fabulous affiliate packages. You can find more by going over to Wp-tonic. Com/partners. Wp-tonic. Com/partners. Let’s build something special together. I’m going to throw it over to you, Kurt.
[00:27:36.420] – Kurt von Ahnen
I put the comment in the comments, but I put, Robert’s never had coffee with Jonathan. If you sat at a coffee shop with Jonathan and watched him drink a gallon of coffee, you take what you said. A man can drink some coffee.
[00:27:49.160] – Robert Plank
But some of us mere mortals don’t have that same skill as him. Yeah.
[00:27:52.980] – Kurt von Ahnen
Listening to your last answer, it was almost like you had jumped into my own history books. I started, I used to I live in Southern California, and I was in that locked traffic every morning going to work, 45 minutes to go 20 miles. And that’s when I started my podcast. Was right in the car, on the phone. Anchor FM, I think, was the tool at the time, and it distributed everything. And then 8, 10 episodes in, I had my first guest on. But then I made the mistake. I went for all the dopamine at once, and I bought all the stuff. And I hated having all those lights around. They were blinding me while I was trying to talk to people. And so now I have a duffle bag full of photography equipment in my garage, and I just hang out here with a half decent microphone and just a couple of things. But it’s interesting because in our town, there’s a creator maker space that is like a professional podcasting studio. And people that go in there to make a show, it’s super exciting for them, and they pay to go there, and it’s a wonderful place.
[00:28:56.400] – Kurt von Ahnen
But I wonder, I don’t really look at my podcasting as a direct ROI event. So it helps create content and it helps create branding and it helps people understand that maybe I’m connected to other experts in the space. But I don’t look at my podcasting as a direct ROI event. I personally would have a hard time with renting studio space at hundreds of dollars to make an episode and then make that a sustainable model. That’s a hard thing to picture.
[00:29:27.420] – Robert Plank
Because you’re not as vain as some people There’s some people that they’re just like, get a haircut every single week, or they have to have tailored T-shirts. That’s just how some people’s personality are. They’re self-involved, which is okay. If we’re a business owner, an entrepreneur, you have to have enough confidence. But I think that as long as it doesn’t get in your way, as long as it doesn’t trip you up. I think that for me, I’m just like, Well, the content is the most important thing. That really still to do with me when I was watching a YouTube with Tony Robbins once, and he was on just a podcast side by side. Tony Robbins was in his backyard, and there was a tree blowing in the background, and he had the Airpods, but not even the new ones, the ones where the ugly cords came down, and I was like, Well, jeez, if someone has a household name as Tony Robbins, he’s in his backyard and he got the ugly Airpods, what’s more important is the production quality. I think that there probably is a point when the sound and the lighting is too bad, but hey, if it’s good enough, then that’s not the make or break factor.
[00:30:40.340] – Robert Plank
But I do understand if some people, they just can’t get over the They have to have it look that good, then, hey, try it out. But it’s for sure not a deal breaker for me either. If the lighting and the sound, if it’s just okay, what’s more important for me is the content. And especially if you have a show with guests, then the attention should be on your guests, right? They’re what’s most important.
[00:31:06.720] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, yeah. Now, in your one answer, you had talked about distribution channels. You had mentioned a few words, something about Buzz Sprout, and then it goes out to Spotify and iTunes and stuff. And missing in that answer was a reference to YouTube podcasts. But then we had a question specifically lined up for, how does YouTube podcasting work? I come from this, Spotify was the thing, iTunes was the thing. And then it just seemed natural that if you did video, you also put it on YouTube. But now YouTube podcasting seems to be more official. What do you know about that?
[00:31:46.480] – Robert Plank
Well, I have such a love hate with that because Apple podcast is the big one, and then Google podcast always tried to get caught up, and then they changed Google podcast to YouTube podcast. Then they were Hey, you have to put your RSS feed in YouTube. And I did. And I have 1400 episode and it put all these episodes and it filled up my YouTube channel with all the stuff. And it was all of the audio only videos, where the image is still and then you could hear the person. And so I was really frustrated with that, especially because I would post my videos to YouTube and then also go and post a podcast. So then I a duplicate. What I ended up doing was I deleted all of the imported YouTube podcasts, and then I went to my videos that were already in my channel, and you can mark them as podcast. That way you can have your cake and eat it, too, where you can have the audio distributed to Spotify and the rest, but then your YouTube channel, it’s still a video, but then you can mark it as a podcast. It’s not exactly all interconnected and automated in that way, but that’s how I do it.
[00:33:03.360] – Robert Plank
That’s how I recommend it. It’s just like when you have the audio, like you record it, I’m like, record video, right? Be on camera, what’s the difference? And then extract the audio and use it for things like Spotify or for YouTube, post the video, and then when you post it, edit it and change it from a regular video to be in your podcast playlist. That’s how I do it.
[00:33:27.040] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think you’re so spot on it at Google, but I didn’t know that little tip that you can go into the video podcast and annotate them as podcast. I will have to do that. But my experience was exactly yours and my frustration with it. But Google, they got rid of their podcast player, didn’t they? And I thought, this is bonkers stuff. You got any idea why they did that because there seems to be three main players, doesn’t it? There seems still to be iTunes, there’s Spotify, and then there’s Google through YouTube, and they used to have their own player, and then we’re getting rid of it. But they’re notorious for that anyway, aren’t they? About just getting rid of really useful platforms and giving people 30 days, and they’re just getting rid of it, aren’t they? So where is the landscape between these three main players, iTunes, Spotify, and Google, when it comes to distributing your podcast and getting listeners, Robert?
[00:34:44.160] – Robert Plank
I like the way that you laid it out. You’ve got iTunes/Apple Podcasts, you’ve got YouTube, and you’ve got Spotify. And then on the second tier, I also get the podcast feed recycled of like you. You can just go and Ask ChatGPT this. Where should I syndicate my podcast to? And they’ll give you Amazon Music, where you give your RSS feed to that, and then that gets you on Audible, and then it’ll give you iHeartRadio, and then it’ll get you on there for those listeners. But after that, the platforms are getting smaller and smaller. It’s diminishing your terms. Do I really care if my podcast is at pocket. Fm or on Deezer or on Castbox, I guess, but those main four ones. Then you start thinking about, Okay, now I’m set up on these podcast platforms. I make sure to have good titles and good description. But then it’s on you to send your outside traffic to those platforms. It’s like putting a book on Amazon. Well, you’ll get a little bit, but it’s up to you to send people to it. So that’s when you post to social media. So what I’ve been doing recently is if I have a podcast that’s particularly good, then I’ll promote the video on YouTube.
[00:36:06.400] – Robert Plank
In one click, you can just run the YouTube ads, but then I’ll post to my social media platform. I am big on YouTube, but I’m also big on LinkedIn LinkedIn, and I size anyone up who doesn’t post on LinkedIn at least once a day. I’m not really a big Instagram or TikTok or Facebook person, but I’m like, Okay, LinkedIn is where serious business is people are at. If they’re not posting at least once a day, I don’t think they’re really that serious about their business. What’s good about your podcasting and the content recycling we’ve been talking about is you can pull up the video clips, you can pull up the transcript, you can come up with text posts, you can create images. And so you can use your podcast content to then create these byproducts, to create these derivatives that you then use and post on your social channels to get people paying attention to you, to get them engaged, to get them to listen to your podcast. Because I’ve discovered all kinds of podcasts just from watching the reels, watching the LinkedIn clips or the YouTube shorts.
[00:37:15.180] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I was going to ask you this.
[00:37:16.800] – Robert Plank
Platforms plus your social media, yes.
[00:37:18.940] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I was going to ask you this because Kirk’s been more effective in this area. Most of my podcasts with different co-hosts, I do, well, I have only two co-hosts, that’s and another guy called Robert Newman. And Kirk’s been my co-host, I think, almost three years or over three years.
[00:37:39.100] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s been a while now, yeah.
[00:37:40.580] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s gone so quick. And Robert’s been my co-host for almost four to five years. But they’re long form, Robert. They’re between 50 or they can be over an hour normally. And I haven’t been cutting them up using AI tools and repurposing them on YouTube or on TikTok or on Instagram. Is that something really I need to focus in the next few months? Does it make a difference getting new listeners and viewers to your podcast?
[00:38:20.780] – Robert Plank
It does make a difference, and it’s for a bunch of reasons. One is that you have all these guests and you’re missing out on all of their social media traffic. You get one guest that has 20,000 followers on LinkedIn, and if you gave them some of these reels and said, Hey, post to your platforms, you post it on your own and then tag them, there’s all this traffic that you’re missing out on. And then also, even just looking at the YouTube numbers, all of us mirror mortals will post something to YouTube, and it can be really great and keyword-optimized, and it gets 10, 20 views. And you look enviously at some of these people that they get 2,000 views every time because they’re running ads every time. But then how can you do that if your show was daily or weekly? You post these YouTube videos that are like an hour plus, they get like 10 views, but you post the reels and you look at the numbers for that. They’ll, more often than not, get 500, 1,000 views easily just because it’s really quick content. Then what’s great about the YouTube Shorts plus the TikToks is that algorithm and AI is everywhere these days.
[00:39:31.320] – Robert Plank
By having these short clips, then you’re finding your people a lot faster because the way TikTok works is they try showing your clips to different people, and if they watch it all the way through, they’ll show more of that. You’re training the algorithm like, Hey, here are my people that I want to watch the clips of my show. I think you’re really missing out on the traffic from your guests, but also in training the algorithm, especially YouTube Shorts and TikTok, because you to give these short clips for people and they’ll get hooked on your show that way versus hoping that maybe they’ll stumble on an hour or two episode, which they might. But these short clips are just a really great way in for a lot of new listeners.
[00:40:15.580] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. I’ve got a little anecdote story to tell you. Itunes. I’ve got two feeds for my WP Tonic podcast, and I’ve been trying to get rid of the second feed for two years. I contact the nice people at iTunes, and we have a little dance, and they asked me for the password and something else. I can’t give it to them because I don’t even know where the second feed appeared from. They very politely tell me they can’t do anything, or I think they give me instructions and it’s a long list, and I just can’t be bothered, but one day I probably will. I think, and what the question I’m coming to is, I think a lot of people are intimidated by the RSS feed, and I think that’s why you need a platform You recommended one. I use Castos myself, and they deal with the feed. I think that’s the other herd of people. If they’re not, they really do need a platform to help them the RSS feed. What’s your thoughts?
[00:41:33.840] – Robert Plank
My thoughts is that the good news about all these podcast platforms, there’s a lot to say about them, but at least they all have a migration feature. So even if you decide that you’re sick of Buzz Sprout, sick of Castos, and you go to some other bright shiny object, you go to Libsyn or Anchor, which is now Spotify for podcast, they can suck down your RSS feed of the last 10 years, hundreds of and put it on their platform. You’re not locked in. You can always pick up and move somewhere else. I think, and I had similar hesitations 13 years ago. I was like, Well, if we make a podcast, where will it live? Powerpress really amazed me. It’s WP tonic. We’re all about WordPress. And what’s great about the Powerpress plugin for WordPress, which is free, is that your podcast can live over on Castos. There’s There’s a web page there and there’s an RSS feed there and all that great stuff. And then over on your main blog, like WP Tonic. Com or somewhere, you can install the Powerpress plugin and you can go and There’s a field where you can put in the direct MP3 link to your podcast hosted over on Castos.
[00:42:52.760] – Robert Plank
You can have the beautifully branded, and it matches your site exactly, and it has your show notes in the blog post, but it has an audio player that’s over hosted on Castos, and it’ll make your download stats all still make sense. And so number one, you can always migrate the feed, and number two, the Power press plugin for WordPress. All these years later, I still can’t believe it’s free because you can just make that blog post on your main site and then drop in the mp3 link file right in there. And you can have your cake and eat it, too. So it’s okay if your podcast lives in multiple locations.
[00:43:34.460] – Jonathan Denwood
Fantastic. Over to you, Kurt.
[00:43:37.340] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I think we started to talk about it, and so I want to just exploit it or expand it. We were talking about shorts earlier, and we were talking about Shorts earlier, and we were talking You’re repurposing content, and then that’s automatically going to lead new podcasters or experienced ones down this AI road. Are there specific AI tools, Robert, that you like, that you use, or things that you’re willing to share with the audience?
[00:44:02.580] – Robert Plank
Yeah, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed or to keep on trying the bright, shiny objects. I would say ChatGPT is the number one. Then if you use that with Descript or Otter, it’s huge. And what’s good is that with all this AI stuff, a lot of it’s built in. I like to use Riverside to record my podcast, and then it gives me the clips right in there. And even if you don’t use Riverside, if you have that recording, if you try out Descript, you can upload your video, and it’ll make the clips right in there. But there’s always things to try, but I think if you can get the podcast transcribed with Descript or with Otter, then you can play around with that quite a bit because you can say, Well, here’s what this whole podcast transcript, what are the best snippets? What are the best sound bites? What are the best things I said? Even just looking at the text. Even if you said, Well, let me just start with a couple of tools, I would say Otter plus ChatGPT for the text. Then Canva is also an amazing tool. Canva is, when I first heard of it, I was like, Oh, is this a Photoshop alternative?
[00:45:18.600] – Robert Plank
And me and my team, we use Canva all day, every day to make graphics, all those beautiful graphics you see on Instagram and LinkedIn where there’s the guest and their picture and a big quote. That’s usually made in Canva. But what a lot of people don’t know is Canva will make video clips. So even if you just put the transcript in ChatGPT, or even if you scrolled around the video and you were like, John said something good at four minutes and two seconds.
[00:45:47.700] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, that would never happen, Robert.
[00:45:50.440] – Robert Plank
Well, if lightning strike and on the off chance, you said something really powerful, then with Canva, you can create those video clips, too. And So ChatGPT and Canva are these all-in-one tools, and there’s the more specialized stuff like Descript or Riverside or Opus. But ChatGPT, Otter, Canva, they’re super low-ticket, super cheap, and they do everything that you want. And a lot of people don’t know about Canva, or if they do, they don’t know that Canva creates videos.
[00:46:24.580] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, all good points. I’m an early adopter of a lot of things, Robert. Jonathan will tell you, I’ll try all kinds of things, especially if it’s a lifetime deal. I’m all in on like-Oh, he loves it.
[00:46:37.880] – Jonathan Denwood
I thought I was bad, but Kirk’s on a different level.
[00:46:43.180] – Kurt von Ahnen
I have a lot of stuff I don’t use anymore. But Opus AI, I was addicted to that when that came out because it was so easy and so good out of the box what it did. Then you could edit in there and then you could direct share from that screen and all of that. But then when the renewal came up because it wasn’t a lifetime deal, I was like, Well, hold on, I got to script and to script does that, too. And it’s like, so I don’t want to double dip on all the same tools. And the reason I like to script is because I can edit directly with the text, with the transcript, and it has that cool studio sound ad that you can put on. So I might sound all kinds of tinny now, but after to script, I’m like, you’re listening to smooth jazz. And so I like that. I like that feature and I use it quite a bit. But I think that When I think about AI tools, Robert, I think they’re so individualized because everybody thinks differently. It’s, pick the one that’s going to work for you. But I think the clips are huge.
[00:47:42.590] – Kurt von Ahnen
I don’t think enough people take advantage of repurposing their long form content and putting out those clips.
[00:47:49.180] – Robert Plank
And especially going back, right? You don’t even have to do it only for the new stuff. You can go and say, Hey, I’ll start back at the beginning. We’re all going to look at clips from a year ago, or if I want to reconnect with someone that I haven’t had on my show since two years from now, I’ll go back to that old episode and I’ll make some new clips just to impress them, just to get their attention, just to get them to promote. And so, yeah, the clips, there’s the new stuff, but you can always repeat and go back.
[00:48:16.400] – Kurt von Ahnen
So that was one of my personal questions I wanted to bring to you if we had time, and I fear that we might. Once you have hundreds of episodes, you mentioned that you have a ton of episodes. Jonathan’s got a ton of episodes. And I myself, I’ve got four or five hundred different videos in my YouTube accounts. Is it like suicide to go back and post stuff that’s five, six years old or repost or repurpose? Or do you think that that shows longevity and consistency and maybe brings more people to you, especially if you said something half prophetic five years ago?
[00:48:56.580] – Robert Plank
I think it shows consistency. I mean, there’s for sure a line. If you talk about these defunct Google services, if you mention Google Plus, I probably wouldn’t make a clip about that. But there’s a lot of fundamental evergreen stuff that… You might even surprise yourself. You might even go back and watch or listen to some episode from five years ago and be like, Man, who is that guy? I said some really powerful stuff I completely forgot about. So it is worth revisiting. And there’s your workflow to deal with your present-day stuff. However, for your past work, there are iterations. So I’ll go through. And I actually have a folder that has 1400 transcripts and then 1400 bios from my guests. And I’ll go through and I’ll just… It’s a time management thing. It’s a matter of what you have time for in the day. But I’ll go through and I’ll iterate back through those. And so, what I mean is that I’ll go through and generate a long-form LinkedIn post for some of that old content. I’ll go and I’ll build spreadsheets and I’ll say, Okay, here’s my old shows, and here’s some better keyword tags.
[00:50:10.940] – Robert Plank
Here are some better SEO titles. Here’s a one or two-sentence synopsis of this. I have been doing it just to get an overall picture of my show, right? Because you generate all these keywords, all the stuff, and you can be like, Well, there’s some better targeting opportunities, or I can say, what’s my show all about? If I have an About page for my podcast or the description for my YouTube channel, or I want to make a lead magnet, there are all these opportunities to go back. You create the old clips, and you write blog posts about the old shows that you may not have covered before. But then you get all this SEO keyword knowledge and you put it all together and you know what’s working with your show and what’s some new content, what are some new guests. It’s just like there’s so much gold in your old content. Most people just don’t even know, right? You look at their early podcast episodes, and there’s barely a description. There’s barely any show notes. And imagine the keyword searches or the backlinks that you’re missing out on. And of course, you should go back and beef up your old content.
[00:51:22.640] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think that you just mentioned something very important, and I want to make sure the listeners and viewers get this. You already mentioned the transcript trick and using AI for that. But if you don’t have good expanded show notes to go with your video content, you’re missing out on a huge source of traffic, I would think.
[00:51:43.480] – Robert Plank
Oh, yeah, of course. Because if we talk about the best LMS for WordPress, that’s fine. But then, if you have all these other things people search for, people might not call it an LMS. They might say, Well, it’s a good software learning platform. They might be researching specific solutions, and you talked about all it on your show, but people just don’t know it, so you ran it through AI, and now there are these helpful links, there are these helpful keywords. You catch all this extra traffic that you wouldn’t otherwise.
[00:52:16.560] – Kurt von Ahnen
That’s perfect. Jonathan?
[00:52:18.240] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I’m going to drop the last question because we like to keep the podcast below an hour, and Kirk’s got to go off to another gig. But do you have an extra 10 or 15 minutes, Robert, so we can do some bonus content, or do you have to be off on the hour?
[00:52:33.800] – Robert Plank
I’ve got another podcast at the top of the hour, just to be honest.
[00:52:37.120] – Jonathan Denwood
So you’ve got to be gone. It’s no problem at all. It’s been a great conversation. So, Kirk, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you, Kurt?
[00:52:47.660] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I take Robert’s advice. I’m on LinkedIn almost every day. You can look me up on LinkedIn, connect with me, and we’ll stay in touch there. Or if it’s for business, Manana Nomas. Anything Manana Nomas leads. That’s fantastic.
[00:53:01.390] – Jonathan Denwood
Robert, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you and what your company does?
[00:53:08.520] – Robert Plank
Podcastmarketeroftheday. Com, done for you, podcast service, dfypodcast. Com.
[00:53:15.860] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. You’ll find the link to Robert in the show notes that normally go up at the beginning of the week, folks. If you want to support the show and have fabulous guests like Robert, and you’re listening on your mobile device, Android or iOS, and you’re on iTunes or Spotify, you can leave a review really easily. Both mobile apps make it really easy to leave a review, which will then be visible to new listeners and viewers, allowing them to join the tribe. If you could leave a review, both Kirk and I would greatly appreciate it. And also think about subscribing to the WP Tonic YouTube channel. I put a ton of extra content on there around WordPress and membership. It’s a really useful resource there. And think about subscribing to that. We will be back next week with another fabulous guest interview. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye.
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