How to Upload Your Podcast to YouTube

YouTube is one of the largest content repositories on the planet. From music to videos, and now podcasts, it’s one of the best ways to expand your reach and expose your podcasts to new audiences. 

However, adding a podcast to YouTube isn’t quite the same as uploading it to other podcasting platforms. So even if you’ve added your podcast to Spotify or Apple Podcasts, the steps will look a bit different when you’re uploading a podcast to YouTube. 

I’m a big advocate of talk marketing—and putting podcasts on YouTube is the ultimate intersection of podcasting, video marketing, and SEO. For individual content creators and businesses alike, this strategy will help you build authority and take your brand to the next level.

Just follow the step-by-step instructions in this guide, and you’ll have your podcast on YouTube in no time. 

Why It’s Important to Upload Your Podcast to YouTube

YouTube has more than two billion monthly active users, cumulatively consuming more than one billion hours of content every day. It has more users than all other podcast platforms combined, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

By uploading your podcast to YouTube, you’re automatically increasing the chances of reaching wider audiences on a platform they know, trust, and use on a daily basis. 

But YouTube also brings an added element to your podcasts—video. According to YouTube, 80% of the top-watched podcast hosts on the platform leverage video in their uploads. These hosts get more than double the number of views compared to creators who just use static visualization paired with audio. 

Recent studies found that 64% of heavy podcast consumers prefer to have videos with episodes, along with 57% of weekly podcast listeners who have the same preference. The same study found that YouTube is a clear favorite, ahead of Spotify and Apple Podcasts, for podcast listeners who want video included. 

While it’s possible to upload video podcasts to platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts, listeners just don’t associate those channels with video.

In fact, 55% of people said they associate YouTube as a place where they can watch and listen to podcasts. Just 18% of survey respondents said the same for Spotify, and that number drops to 14% for Apple Podcasts. 

YouTube also has built-in monetization features for creators, helping you make money from your podcast episodes through ads or subscriptions. 

Adding Your Podcast to YouTube vs. YouTube as a Podcast Platform

While YouTube has recently rolled out some great podcast features for creators and listeners alike, it’s not technically a podcast hosting provider. It also doesn’t sync with hosting providers the same way as other podcast platforms, like Spotify, Apple Music, or Pandora. 

So while you’re going through this process, it’s important to understand the two main approaches for adding your podcast to YouTube.

You can either add your existing podcast episodes and new episodes to YouTube when they release, or you can start a new podcast on YouTube. 

The first option will likely be the best option for most of you reading this guide. Whether you have an existing podcast or you’re starting a new one, having your podcast available on as many platforms as possible will help expand your reach. This means you’ll be taking the same files that you use to host your podcast elsewhere and then manually adding them to YouTube.

Alternatively, you can start a brand new podcast on YouTube—which will essentially just be your YouTube channel that follows a podcast format. But those episodes won’t be available on other podcasting platforms beyond YouTube. 

How to Upload Your Podcast to YouTube in 5 Steps

Adding your podcast to YouTube is easy, and you can do it in less than 15 minutes by following the steps in this simple tutorial below.

Step 1 – Determine Your YouTube Podcasting Strategy

The first thing you need to do is decide how you’re planning to incorporate YouTube into your overall approach to podcasting. Believe it or not, there are several different strategies to choose from. 

Here are some examples:

• Add full podcast episodes to YouTube
• Add clips of podcast episodes to YouTube
• Create micro-content on YouTube related to other podcast episodes
• Create animations for podcast episodes on YouTube
• Add audio-only to YouTube Podcasts with static images
• Use YouTube as the only platform to distribute and share podcasts

You can also do any combination of these strategies. For example, maybe you’re planning to add full podcast episodes to your YouTube channel. But you also want to create promo clips for your episodes that you’ll upload to YouTube before sharing on other platforms. 

There’s no right or wrong approach to this step. It all depends on your goals and where you see the future of your podcast strategy going. 

Just make sure that your YouTube strategy doesn’t interfere with how you’re distributing podcasts on other channels. For example, let’s say you have premium podcast episodes for Apple Podcast listeners who pay a subscription fee. It would be counterproductive if you started offering those same episodes on YouTube for free. 

Step 2 – Create a YouTube Studio Account

To upload a podcast to YouTube, you must have a YouTube Studio account. This is the same account that you’d use to manage your other videos and YouTube content. 

So if you’re already a YouTube Creator, there’s a chance that some of you have already completed this step. 

However, you might decide to start a completely separate channel for your podcast content. Here’s why.

For example, let’s say you already have a YouTube channel for your business. But your podcast episodes feature yourself under your personal brand name. While your business might come up in conversation, the episodes may not be directly tied to the products or services you offer. 

Even if you’re the CEO, owner, or founder of a business, your future with that organization is never certain. If you upload all of your podcast episodes to your business channel but then you leave the business in a few years, you’ll no longer have access to your own content. 

Depending on the nature of your podcast episodes, you may also want to disassociate the content from your company. For example, if you host an episode with a controversial guest, it could create problems for the image of your business. 

So take a moment to decide how you want to proceed—either with your existing YouTube Studio account or with a brand new account that’s strictly for podcasting. 

Step 3 – Prepare Your Podcast Files

Next, you need to locate the files you want to upload. This is going to look a bit different than how you’re adding podcast episodes to other platforms.

Traditionally, podcasts are shared through an RSS feed that connects the podcast hosting provider to the streaming platform. But that’s not how YouTube works.

Instead, you may need to convert your podcast audio into a video file. If you’re already recording a video version of your podcast, then you can likely use that instead of doing the conversion. Just make sure that the video file has high-quality audio and that everything is synced with the visuals. 

Here’s a list of supported YouTube file formats:

• .mov
• .mpeg-1
• .mpeg-2
• .mpeg4
• .mp4
• .mpg
• .avi
• .wmv
• .mpegps
• .flv
• .3gpp
• .webm
• .dnxhr
• .prores
• .cineform
• .hevc (h265)

Any other file types must be converted to one of the options above. You can’t add audio-only files, including WAV, MP3, or PCM, to create a YouTube video. 

If you only have the audio recording, you’ll need to prepare an animation or static image to get your podcast on YouTube. You could also create a slideshow of different images to align with your episode. 

For example, let’s say you only have audio for a previously-recorded episode that you want to upload. You could create a video that switches between a photo of yourself and a photo of your guest, which changes based on who’s speaking. 

Step 4 – Create a New Podcast on YouTube

Next, you need to create a new podcast within your YouTube Studio account. Navigate to the “Content” menu on the left side of your dashboard, then select click “New Podcast” from the “Podcasts” tab.

Then you’ll be asked to either create a new podcast or set an existing playlist as a podcast. 

For most of you, you’ll proceed by creating a new podcast. But if you’ve already uploaded podcasts as regular videos to YouTube, you can convert those playlists so they’re available in YouTube Podcasts and YouTube Music. 

On YouTube, a podcast is a specific type of playlist for your channel. You’ll need to add the following elements before you can upload any content:

• Title
• Description
• Visibility (public, private, or unlisted)
• A square picture that represents your podcast

Once you’ve filled in the requirements, click the “Create” button to proceed. 

Step 5 – Add Your Podcast to Your YouTube Channel

The final step is the easiest. All you need to do is find the files you’ve prepared back in the third step and upload them to your newly created podcast on YouTube.

Simply click the “Add Videos” button, and select files from your device by either searching for them or dragging and dropping them into YouTube. 

That’s it!

You can keep repeating this step for all existing videos you have. Then continue adding videos to YouTube whenever you release a new podcast episode. 

Final Thoughts

If you have a podcast, I recommend adding it to YouTube. While it takes a couple of extra steps, the benefits are worth the minimal effort required. 

Uploading your podcast to YouTube is one of the best ways to reach new audiences, promote your show, and monetize your content. It’s arguably the best way to reach podcast listeners who prefer to watch videos while listening to podcasts. 

Once you’ve added your Podcast to YouTube, it will appear in traditional YouTube searches, on YouTube Podcasts, and on YouTube Music. Episodes even have a chance of ranking on search engines like Google—improving your SEO, visibility, and authority.