Turn YouTube Conference Talks Into Podcasts

Most conference talks get uploaded to YouTube, collect a few hundred views in the first week, and then fade. Converting those recordings into a podcast series extends their reach by months or years.

Podcast episodes stay discoverable through search and recommendations long after the conference ends, and listeners who never attend conferences find them through their podcast app.

If you're a conference organizer, speaker, or attendee who wants to get more value from recorded talks, here's a complete workflow for turning YouTube conference recordings into a polished podcast series.

Choosing which talks to convert

Not every conference talk works in audio format. Use these criteria to filter:

• Talks over 15 minutes. Short lightning talks often lack enough depth for a standalone podcast episode.
• Speaker-focused presentations. Keynotes, panels, and narrative talks translate well. Live coding sessions and product demos do not.
• Evergreen topics. A talk about design principles from 2024 still holds value. A talk about a specific API version that has since changed does not.
• Clear audio quality. Conference recordings with echo, crowd noise, or distant microphones need heavy cleanup. If the audio is too rough, skip it.

For a conference with 40 recorded talks, expect 15–25 to work well as podcast episodes.

Getting permission

Before converting talks, confirm you have the right to redistribute them:

• If you're the conference organizer, your speaker agreements may already cover podcast distribution. Check the language.
• If you're a speaker, you typically own your presentation but the recording rights may belong to the conference. Ask the organizer.
• If you're a third party, reach out to both the speaker and the conference. Most are happy to have their content reach a wider audience, but ask first.

The conversion process

1. Extract the transcript from each YouTube talk using Jellypod.
2. Review the transcript for accuracy. Conference audio often includes audience questions that the microphone doesn't pick up clearly.
3. Edit out dead air: long pauses for audience laughter, technical difficulties, and “can you hear me in the back?” moments.
4. Add a standard intro: "Welcome to [Podcast Name]. This episode features [Speaker Name] presenting [Talk Title] at [Conference Name] [Year]."
5. Add an outro with links to the speaker's website and the conference.
6. Generate the final audio file and upload to your podcast host.

Structuring the podcast series

A conference podcast series works best with consistent structure:

• Series name. Use the conference name plus "Podcast" or "Audio" (e.g., "React Summit Audio").
• Episode order. Group talks by track or theme rather than the order they were delivered. Listeners care about topics, not schedules.
• Show notes. Include the speaker's name, talk title, conference name, year, and 2–3 bullet points summarizing the key takeaways.
• Release schedule. If you have 20 episodes, release 3 on launch day and then 2 per week. This keeps the series in podcast app recommendations for over 2 months.

Promoting the podcast

Conference podcasts have a built-in audience: the attendees and speakers.

• Email speakers when their episode goes live. Most will share it with their followers.
• Post in the conference's Slack channel, Discord server, or community forum.
• Add the podcast link to the conference website's "Past Talks" page.
• Tag speakers on social media when you announce each episode.

Speakers are your best distribution channel. A single speaker sharing their episode typically drives 50–200 listens in the first 48 hours.

How Jellypod helps

Jellypod makes batch conversion practical. Paste multiple YouTube URLs from a conference playlist, and the tool extracts transcripts and generates podcast-ready audio for each talk. The conference and events features include standard intro/outro templates and batch metadata editing.

Organizers who convert a full conference (20–30 talks) report that Jellypod reduces the total production time from 2–3 days to under 4 hours.

Final thoughts

Conference organizers who create podcast series from their talks gain a year-round marketing channel for the next event. Every time someone discovers an episode through podcast search, they encounter the conference brand.

By the time registration opens for next year's event, thousands of potential attendees have already experienced the content. The podcast becomes the conference's most effective long-term marketing asset, reaching people that social media posts and email blasts never will.