I thought about just typing the word “yes” and that being the synopsis of this blog post, but I felt like that might be kind of rude, so let me explain why you should absolutely publish your podcast as a video.
#1 — Discoverability
This is the big criticism against podcasts but it’s absolutely legitimate and continues to be a problem. You need other ways to reach new audiences and engage with them other than just producing a podcast.
Once you get listeners, a podcast is the most intimate way to engage with your audience. They form a deep relationship that really can’t be built any other way, so podcasts are super important, but video is integral to growing your podcast over time.
#2 — Internal strength
We publish a video version of these blog posts on YouTube and, while hardly anybody watches them, having a video presence on YouTube helps us establish a process, cadence, and bit of a foundation on a platform that we know is going to serve us long term as we invest more in video experiences.
#3 — Video is king
The trend of podcasts over time is going to continue to trend towards video, whether that means full consumption or your podcast is just discovered on video, there will always be a video component to podcasts in the way that people engage with them.
We as human beings are innately visual so we need some type of visual stimulation to fully engage with something. Offering a video portion of your podcast allows that.
That might mean you publish your full episode. You might do a short video segment or just publish a highlight reel. You might make an individual 30-60 second promo video for each episode that directs your audience to the podcast.
I don’t know what the answer is for you specifically, but—in addition to your core audio podcast—your show absolutely needs a video representation on all of the major platforms.