How to use Headliner to Create Video Snippets

What You’ll Learn

What Exactly is Headliner?
How Much Does Headliner Cost?
Why Would You Want to Use Headliner?
How To Create an AudioGram Using Headliner?
How to Create A Video Transcription Using Headliner
Headliner for Automation
Pros & Cons of Headliner

What Exactly is ‘Headliner’

Headliner is a web app by SpareMin that was primarily created as a tool for podcasters to promote their show.

Essentially, Headliner is a way of visualising audio, so that you can promote it on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. And it allows you to create videos in different aspect ratios including square, landscape and portrait.

Traditionally, it’s difficult to share content that is primarily audio based, so Headliner is a great option if you want to visually publicise your audio in order to promote your show.

However, it does more than just that and it allows you to create little video snippets, and transcribes your videos.

It’s also one of my favourite tools to embed captions into the video, to help viewers that are audio impaired, or that want to watch without the sound on.

It’s a really great tool that I love to use and that will help you repurpose your content, which is essential in order to fully utilise the content you create and promote it to its greatest potential.

How Much Does Headliner Cost?

So how much does Headliner actually cost?

I’m personally on the pro plan of Headliner, so I get a lot of the paid benefits.

However, they do have a free forever plan. It’s pretty limited but you do get up to five unwatermarked videos and ten minutes of transcription per month, plus you can share directly with other networks.

Any videos over and above the five are watermarked with the Headliner logo, so if you are wanting to use it for your live show or podcast then I would recommend that you pay for a version. But it’s a really great plan if you want to play around and test the app out.

The basic plan is very generous, you get ten videos per month, which will likely cover everyone’s needs. You get unlimited transcriptions, and you can actually put your own watermark on there for your own brand. And you get all this for just £7.99 per month if you pay on a yearly basis (or $10 if you pay monthly).

Finally, the pro plan, which I use, gives you access to unlimited video, along with unlimited transcripts and again, your own fonts and branding to really make your videos your own.

View the Headliner pricing plan here.

Why Would You Want to Use Headliner?

So, now we know what Headliner is and what it costs, you might be wondering why exactly you might use it.

I have my five P’s that I use for my live video process, and I feel that this is so important.

1. Planning
2. Pre-promotion
3. Production
4. Post-Promotion
5. (Re)purposing

Headliner helps with three of these Ps: pre-production, post-production and repurposing.

You can use it to promote your show ahead of time by creating little video snippets and tease the episode that is coming.

The post-promotion and repurposing of your content is so important and it’s going to allow you to get the most out of your live shows.

Why is this so important?

So many people just hit publish, and then think that their job is done. But it’s after you’ve produced it that a lot of the work needs to be done to ensure that you get it in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

In addition, people aren’t always going to watch or listen to an entire episode, as they might not be in the position to do that, or they might not want to commit the time.

However, if you create video snippets that are two or three minutes long from your podcast or live show, then this is going to be more attractive to people, especially if they have captions embedded.

So Headliner is one of those tools that can help with all of those things. It’s really, really useful for creating video snippets and audio snippets.

I love Descript as well, but Headliner is also great for creating visual elements from audio.

How To Create an AudioGram Using Headliner?

An audiogram in this context is a short audio file that has been converted into a video, created by pairing a section of audio together with an image.

This is one of the tasks that Headliner can help you easily create and re-create over and over again.

You can connect your podcast directly to Headliner and it will automatically sync your more recent episodes. Or, you can upload them directly to Headliner if you would prefer.

From this audio, you can create your audiogram and it will automatically drag in the podcast graphics. However you are able to edit a number of elements in the advanced editor including:

• Change image
• Add captions
• Choose transcription language
• Alter Wave format
• Change aspect ratio
• Add personal watermark
• Change the font

I will often use Canva to create a graphic, and then I’m able to upload and use the advanced editor to alter the above.

Once you are happy with it you can export the audiogram and it’s ready to upload to different social media platforms.

You can also save your audiogram as a template to try and speed it up for future jobs.

How to Create A Video Transcription Using Headliner

With Headliner you are also able to create a video transcription, with embedded captions to share over different social media platforms.

You can upload an entire video and trim within the software, however if you don’t need it I recommend that you trim before uploading to speed things up.

As with the audiogram you can choose the aspect ratio, embed captions, add images and generally make it your own.

Once it looks as you want, you can export it at different frames per second. I tend to do the highest at 30 frames per second so that it looks a little bit smoother, and I also want it to be a full 1080 x 1080.

Creating a video transcription is ideal if you want to share your podcast onto somewhere like YouTube.

How to Create Automation Using Headliner

And finally, another cool thing that you can do with Headliner is to automate some of the features.

Essentially, you can connect a podcast with the automations, and this will automatically create a video for you from your most recent episodes.

When I take a look at my automations, Headliner has created seven snippets for a previous podcast that I did and made them into 15-second snippets for stories like Instagram.

In my experience, these aren’t great, as finding 15 seconds can be quite difficult. And it also brings in a square image onto a portrait.

However, I think this is something that if you play about with could be really useful for saving you and your team time. I do love the idea of automation, but it’s not something that I have really used yet, and I tend to do this manually via Descript so that I can choose the snippets I want to use.

But it’s definitely worth playing with it to see if it will work for you.

Pros & Cons of Headliner

Finally, I just want to look at the pros and cons of Headliner, especially if you are paying, you want to make sure that it’s worth it for you.

First, let’s look at the benefits of Headliner.

If you want a tool that will help you create all the visual elements that you need to complement your audio, including audio snippets, audiograms, and video snippets, then Headliner is a great tool. It really makes the captions pop, and I definitely use it on a regular basis for this.

However, there are definitely some problems with Headliner that I think it’s worth knowing about before you use it. Depending on your business, these might not be an issue for you.

The main one is that they downgrade the video quality when you export, which quite a lot of programs do – but that is one thing that hinders the experience for me as video quality is really important.

This may or may not be important to you, and will depend on the quality of video that you upload.

The other problem is that there are only three aspect ratios available, so you can only export in portrait, landscape or square. For most people that will be absolutely fine, but if you need a different format then that won’t be suitable for you.

Ultimately you’ve got to work out what is right for you and your team.

Apart from that, I am really impressed with Headliner, and If I’d love to know what you think about it.

Resources

• Headliner
• Descript
• Canva