Why would you do that ?
Asking yourself this question is a good first step. As a podcast lover, let me help you with that.
In fact, there are many valid reasons for turning videos from your Youtube channel into podcast episodes.
Among :
- You will be able to maximize your audience on an additional medium. Never put all your eggs in the same basket !
- This will give your fans new options for consuming your content. What if, they want to listen to you during commuting ?
- You will save a lot of time. Your content is already there and ready to travel another media.
- And then let’s be honest, some of your audience will rather listen to you than admire you on video.
If none of these reasons suit you, tell yourself that the podcast is trendy ?️ and it’s not too late to get in.
Before you start
Before you embark on major works ?️ and some unpredictable costs ?️, I would like to remind you that I created Podmytube to help you turn your wonderful Youtube channel into a great podcast. You should give it a try.
The tools you will need
Hosting
Unlike platforms like Youtube, Twitch or Facebook, podcasts are not hosted by a centralized platform.
No, Apple Podcast does not host any podcast.
It is only a catalog and as one, they are only indexing podcasts. Like google do with all the websites.
Therefore, it is up to you to host the content of your podcast or to choose an existing podcast hosting solution.
Audio tools:
These are suggested tools that you are going to need to extract the audio track from your video and save it.
- Garageband (Free, Mac) – Owner of a Mac? Garageband is the easiest tool to extract soundtrack from your video and edit it.
- Audacity (Free, PC / Mac / Linux) – For the rest of us, Audacity remains the best choice. By the way also available on Mac and just as free.
Text editors:
For the main part, one podcast is a piece of code that contains all the information needed by podcast applications.
If you choose to use a self hosted solution, you will have to edit your “feed” by yourself to integrate the converted episodes as you go. ✍️
If you prefer to user a podcast host solution, all this part will be made on your partner platform. Basically your only work is to fill a title, a description, some keywords, eventually some more information before uploading your episode. There you go.✨️
Extract audio track from your videos.
For obvious reasons, I’m only going to detail the process for one video. You just have to repeat it for all your videos. Being on PC here is a mini guide for the realization of this step.
- Download and install Audacity
- Fly to the “File” menu then “Open” your video file. (File > Open)
- Once opened, jump back to the “File” menu, “Export” and finally “Export as mp3” this time. (File > Export > Export as Mp3)
- Choose an easy path where to save the newly created Mp3 file. You should give it an explicit name like episode01.mp3, or S1EP01-a-podcast-is-born.mp3.
- You did it ! ?️ You can close Audacity for now.
Start creating your feed.
Remember the part where I told you you will have to write some piece of code. Here we are. ?️
Don’t panic you’ll make it ! ?️
Ready ? let’s start !
Your “feed” is made up of two parts :
- Some general information about your podcast. There you will write the title of your show, the description, some information about you (the author) and other generic information.
- The list of all the episodes in your podcast. For each of them you will have to write the title of the episode, the link where to download it and some specific information about this episode.
Editing your feed information
Let me introduce you, your feed information.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/">
<channel>
<title>A great name for a great podcast</title>
<link>https://podcast.indiana-jones.com/</link>
<language>en-us</language>
<copyright>© 2020 Jones corporation</copyright>
<itunes:author>Indiana Jones</itunes:author>
<description>
A wonderful description of your podcast. What is the main thematic of it.
The sujects you love to talk about. The name of the great guests you add.
Quelques mots-clés saupoudrés par ci par là.
</description>
<itunes:type>serial</itunes:type>
<itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>Indiana Jones</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>[email protected]</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<itunes:image
href="https://podcast.indiana-jones.com/images/cover.png"
/>
<itunes:category text="Fiction">
<itunes:category text="Science Fiction"/>
</itunes:category>
<itunes:explicit>false</itunes:explicit>
...
</channel>
</rss>
… next to come !
Coming soon …
Before you leave.
One last time, let me remind you that you have no need to make it by yourself. I will be glad to help you automating this process.