Episode Summary
SquadCast, a remote podcast recording platform used by podcasters in 130+ countries, added video recording capabilities to the platform in February 2021 — fulfilling a frequent customer request.
But it wasn’t until the SquadCast team fully understood how video recording could help podcasters that they decided to add it as a product feature, SquadCast Co-founder Zachariah Moreno explains on this episode of Recorded Content.
One way that video recording helps podcasters? More engagement.
When thinking of their favorite shows, podcast audiences don’t focus on how the content is delivered — they think of it like a show with “a capital S,” Zach explains.
“An audio podcast is a big part of that show, but the video of that conversation is another way that an audience member may choose to engage with that show,” he adds.
Another thing that compelled the SquadCast team to add video recording: YouTube podcasts.
Podcasters are super familiar with distributing content so it will show up in the various apps. The SquadCast team sees YouTube as an extension of adding your podcast feed to Apple, Spotify, Google etc.
In this episode, Zach discusses how SquadCast’s platform has evolved since the company started in 2017, how SquadCast aims to add quality to the remote content production space, as well as when it makes sense to include video when producing a podcast.
Guest Profile
- Name: Zachariah Moreno
- What he does: Zach is CEO, Co-founder and CTO of SaaS remote recording platform SquadCast. He also co-hosts Between 2 Mics.
- Company: SquadCast
- Noteworthy: Zach credits his 2012 Google Chrome internship with providing a lot of insight into the possibilities that existed for video and audio within modern web browsers (and planting an early seed for SquadCast).
Key Insights
- The solution might lie in the past (you just have to adapt it). When SquadCast first attempted to create a better way to record remote interviews and maintain excellent sound quality, the team drew inspiration from “double-ender recording,” an approach used in radio where guests also record the conversation. But that’s a lot to ask from a podcast guest — especially since many aren’t professional podcasters. So Zachariah and the team took the concept (as a way to preserve audio quality), but brought the process into something that works better for 2021.
- When is the right time to add video? When you’ve validated the idea. When considering when to add video to your podcast, Zach recommends a phased approach while considering the extra costs and resources video demands — like a different editing process and lighting. Asking your audience is another way to validate the idea and see if they’re enthusiastic about the idea. You can also test video using promo videos to see it helps with engagement and warrants publishing full conversations with some customization for video.
- Remote recording isn’t a passing trend. Social distancing and work-from-home life have been good for SquadCast’s business. But even when people head back to offices, remote recording is here to stay. As more marketing teams embrace podcasting and with the rise of internal podcasts, there’s a growing market of professionals who need a collaborative, high-quality remote content production solution.
“It blew my mind how much video recording was our most requested feature.”
Zach Moreno
Co-founder
SquadCast
Episode Highlights
Why it made sense to add video to an audio recording platform
“[W]e believe that quality matters because of your audience experience. So when we learned that audiences also wanted video to enhance that — that was a big piece of that story. Another was the promo opportunities to help podcasters create content that help gain traction with new audiences … podcasters are very familiar with submitting their show to Spotify and Apple and all of these different places that make it easy for listeners to find their show. And we started to think of a YouTube podcast as an extension of that or video as an extension of that.”
For podcasters, video might not be as big a shift as imagined
“It can be daunting to just kind of start at the gate and say, I want to create engaging content for YouTube. … that can be pretty daunting to say, Oh, I have to record in 8K and I have to have all these fancy animations and motion graphics and lighting. I think a podcaster already is doing a lot of those things. But it’s just not a visual expression. It’s not a visual form of creativity. So I actually think video is much more approachable from the perspective of already being a podcaster than just to start with video. That is a tall mountain to climb.”
Pricing to power a great team (and make a better product)
“I don’t focus too much on the MRR or the ARR, but I do in a sense as the CEO of SquadCast, make sure that we have the resources needed to execute on our roadmap — and our plan — that our customers are asking us for things. … I’m grateful in a crazy economic time that we’ve been able to add some jobs to the job market and give people pay that is worth their time.
And we really value the team members that we get to work with every day. So that’s really what our pricing is in service of from, from my perspective.”
The pandemic has been favorable for podcasting — and SquadCast
“Remote podcasting was growing and is a thing and was a thing at that point, but it really exploded when you couldn’t go into a physical studio anymore. … I’m not a fortune teller. There’s no way we could have predicted that. And it’s quite honestly surreal because we have a lot of friends in the startup space who were in exactly the opposite scenario and their business folded … So I have so much empathy and understanding for our situation being very unique.
I can’t explain it, it’s just surreal — is the only word that I think makes some sort of sense — that’s not lost on us, and we’re super grateful for that.”
Defining the remote content production category
“When you talk about companies that are global or even distributed across the United States — how does the employee of the month get recognized when nobody’s in the office? These are new opportunities where podcasting is finding ways to be of service to these unique creative opportunities that are springing up. I think that’s really interesting to me, as well as the emergence of this category — that we’re working to define — of remote content production.
Audio and video aren’t the only form of content that exists. So you can think of it like Canva or Figma are design tools that empower remote teams to create quality content, as does Google docs, and a number of other platforms. We’re really excited about the potential of that. Audio and video are really high fidelity forms of content and are increasingly gaining popularity…”
Want to learn more about starting a video podcast for your own company? Check out our blog post.
