YouTube, podcast or Instagram? How to choose one channel for your spiritual work

I get it. Everywhere you read that you need to be visible, ideally everywhere at once. Over my years of self-employment I've tried almost everything. And my most important insight is very simple: start with one main channel, not with all of them.

That could be YouTube, or articles on your own website. The reason is simple: at the beginning you can't serve anything else as well as that first channel. And once it runs, there are possibilities today that didn't exist a few years ago. More on that below.

The problem with a little bit everywhere

Feeding every channel at the same time is an enormous amount of work. I notice it myself. You think Instagram will happen on the side, a podcast too, and YouTube anyway. In the end you're a little bit everywhere and nowhere for real.

And there's something almost everyone underestimates: watching takes far less effort than making. Think of a movie. You watch for two hours, and then the credits roll with thousands of names. When you create content on your own, you're all of those people in one.

What each channel asks of you

Instagram. Short videos look quick to make. They rarely are. Even more important is how you show up there. If you present yourself the way you think you're supposed to be, you attract people who fit that role, not people who fit you. So I recommend keeping your business account separate from your private life. In the business account, the vast majority of posts should relate to what you offer. It also helps when your three most important values are visible everywhere. People who follow you only for pretty pictures rarely become the people who book with you.

YouTube. A really good video can have a big impact. But it takes time. For one of my first more elaborate videos, I spent half a day on recording and the thumbnail, and two days editing. Routine makes it faster, but it stays work, and you need new videos regularly. To be honest, YouTube has brought me less in recent years than the effort would suggest.

Podcast. Many people think: buy a mic, record, upload, done. It's not that simple. Every platform wants artwork, a title, a subtitle, a description and links. A podcast hosting service that distributes each episode to all platforms from one upload is the better way. Setting everything up took me about five days. After that it was great. Keep a steady rhythm, for example the same weekday at the same time. And watch your audio: wireless earbuds quickly sound tinny in recordings. A decent desk microphone starts at around $100.

Articles on your own website. A while ago I advised someone: articles on your website plus YouTube, nothing else. Today I'd put even more weight on the articles. What you write on your own site belongs to you, and search engines and AI assistants will still find it years from now. And an article can later become a podcast episode or a video.

How to choose your channel

Ask yourself three questions and answer them honestly:

• What comes naturally to you? Do you like to write, to talk, or to be on camera?
• How much time do you really have? Not the time you'd like to have, but what's left in an ordinary week.
• Where are your people? If you have a clear picture of the person you're there for, you usually know quickly whether they read, listen or watch.

Then choose your main channel. Your website is the home everything points to. And stay with a steady rhythm for three months before you judge anything.

Once it runs: repurpose with AI

A few years ago I'd have said at this point: stick with that one channel. Today I see it partly differently. Once your first channel runs, you can repurpose your content without recording everything again. From a long YouTube video, for example, you cut a one-minute clip and publish it as a YouTube Short, an Instagram Reel and on TikTok.

It also works the other way around, and this is where AI really shines. You can speak a thought into your phone, turn it into a draft with AI, rework it in your own words and publish it as an article. The same text can later become an audio episode and, if you like, a video. By the way, podcasts can now be published directly on YouTube as well. So one idea becomes several pieces of content without you having to make everything three times.

Here's the transcript of my latest video: [paste]. Suggest three passages of about one minute that work on their own as short clips. For each, write a title and a two-sentence caption in my wording. Mark anything you added.

To avoid uploading everything by hand, there are scheduling tools that send one post to several platforms. It isn't fully automatic. You still fill in the content yourself. But it takes a lot of work off your plate.

Using a tool like that well isn't only a technical question. Which clip stands on its own? How do you phrase titles and captions so they fit each platform? Which channel gets what? Once someone has shown you how they do it, it saves a great deal of time.

Staying with it is the real channel

Back when we regularly put out podcast episodes and videos, people came who had found us there. When we published very little for a while, it went quiet. That's no surprise, but it's easy to forget. It isn't the perfect channel that makes the difference. It's the one you stay with over the long run.

If you'd like to see how this kind of repurposing looks in practice, with AI doing the heavy lifting and you keeping the final word, that's what we work through together in the Spirit X AI community.