Headliner App Review: A Marketing Tool for Podcasters

When promoting your podcast, creating engaging social content is key.

In a world where video has taken over, still images and long captions no longer cut it. To speak to your audience, you need to be creating promotional material that aligns with what they’re consuming - digestible and engaging video. That’s where Headliner comes in. It’s an app dedicated to help you promote and market your show. 

But is it the best option out there? And how does it perform when compared to some of its alternatives? 

In this review, we’re diving into all of Headliner’s features, how to use it, and whether it really stands up against the competition.

How we’re reviewing Headliner 

To get a complete picture of what Headliner has to offer, we’ve come up with a few parameters: 

Pricing 

The first thing to consider is how much Headliner costs to use. This isn’t just about looking for the most affordable tool out there, but also identifying the platform with the best value for money.

Customizability 

Secondly, when it comes to creating content, customizability is key. You need to be able to make your video content your own and make sure that your branding is front and center.

Usability and Additional Features 

Finally, this kind of tool should be easily useable and intuitive. You don’t need to waste your time with a steep learning curve and illogical tools. 

And if the platform has any additional features that enhance the user experience or work to make your content better, that’s a huge bonus. 

Headliner: Quick Takeaways 

Headliner is an app that helps you promote your podcast show. You can repurpose your long-form podcast into short-shareable promotional clips, but you can also create videos from full audio episodes.

Price: Headliner’s standard plans range from ‘Forever Free’ to ‘Pro’ which is $19.99 per month. They also offer an enterprise plan, but you need to get in touch to learn about their pricing.

Headliners USPs:

• Unlimited videos that are format optimized for specific social media platforms. 
• Full episode publication to YouTube. 
• Audio & video transcription for maximum engagement and accessibility. 
• In-app podcast audio clipper.
• Text animation, gifs, additional audio, and more to help you customize your content. 

What is Headliner? 

The Headliner app is all about helping you create audiograms and waveform videos that help you to promote your podcast. You can customize and create promotional clips that grab your audience’s attention, or you can work with full episodes.

Headliner ensures that each video you create is optimized for the platform you’ll be posting it to and has a whole load of features that are designed to maximize the reach of your content.

How much does Headliner cost? 

Let’s take a closer look at how much the Headliner app costs to use. 

Forever Free Plan - $0/month 

• 5 unwatermarked videos per month 
• Unlimited watermarked videos
• 10 minutes of transcription per month 
• 1 Headliner Automation
• Share directly to social media platforms 
• 1080p quality

Basic - $7.99/month 

Everything in the Forever Flee plan plus: 

• 10 unwatermarked videos per month 
• Custom watermarks
• Priority export queue 
• Reusable templates for quicker content creation
• Custom intro and outro videos
• Use your own fonts
• Priority customer support

Pro - $19.99/month 

Everything in the Basic plan plus: 

• Unlimited unwatermarked videos
• Transcriptions for full episodes (15hrs per month)
• Backlog uploading to YouTube
• 1080p exports for full episodes

Enterprise/API Solutions - Price on Inquiry

Get access to custom solutions such as bulk licensing, admin/settings, custom templates, and more. Note that there is one free API solution, which allows your site visitors to create their own headline videos.

Advantages of Headliner 

Create engaging content 

The fundamental goal of Headliner is to help you create engaging content. And on that front, it definitely succeeds. A huge element of helping your podcast succeed is promoting it properly and Headliner streamlines this process. 

Easy to use 

The first advantage of Headliner is that it’s easy and intuitive to use. Its intuitive interface makes it easy for anyone, even beginners, to create fun and engaging audiograms to market their podcast. 

Format optimized 

Headliner has multiple different formats and sizes to choose from so you can ensure that your content is completely optimized to the platforms you’ll be posting to. 

Budget-friendly (to a point) 

Since Headliner starts for free, it’s wallet-friendly. However, if you want to use the app more or get access to more features, you’ll have to start shelling out a minimum of $7.99 a month. 

Transcription 

Headliner’s audio and video transcription feature should not be overlooked. This is an effective way of ensuring your content is accessible, engaging, and repurposable. 

Customizable 

Finally, the fact that Headliner lets you customize your content with text, gifs, animations, and more is worth highlighting. Your promotional content is still an extension of your podcast, which is why it’s so important to keep the look and feel of your brand consistent even in these short-form audiograms. 

Integrations 

Headliner is integrated with several podcast creation platforms such as Castos and Podigee. 

Disadvantages of Headline

Tools are focused on podcast promotion

Though not necessarily a total disadvantage, Headliner’s main purpose is to create content for promoting your podcast. It has a few extra features, such as transcriptions and a widget you can place on your site to get your audience to create their own headline audiograms. But, if you’re looking for a place to record a podcast from scratch, you’ll still need to use a separate recording platform.

Headliner Key Features 

Let’s take a closer look at some of Headliner’s key features.

Waveforms 

Headliner has these ‘audio visualizers’ to help you show your audience that you haven’t just posted a still image, but a snippet of audio for them to enjoy. This is a small but effective feature, especially when you’re competing for your audience’s attention. 

Audio & Video Transcription 

Similarly, when you’re competing for short-term attention, captions are critical. Transcriptions ensure that people who are hard of hearing or can’t turn their volume up can still enjoy and interact with your content. 

Text Animation & Other Media 

You can customize your content with Headliner’s text animation feature which helps to add ‘visual interest’, as well as superimposing additional audio, gifs, images, or video clips onto your audio snippet.

Headliner is best for small & independent podcasters

Headliner is a great tool - it’s easy to use, intuitive and delivers the results you expect. If you’re an independent podcaster with a limited social media presence, Headliner will work great for you. But for more established podcasters, you’re likely to grow out of the platform fairly quickly. 

How to use Headliner 

Step 1: Create an account. You’ll then be asked to answer some questions to give Headliner a better idea of how you’re looking to use the app, how you heard about them, and whether you want to opt-in for their newsletter. 

Step 2: Choose ‘Podcast’ when it asks you what you’re making a video for. 

Step 3: Find your podcast by searching its name or pasting your RSS feed link in. You can also choose to skip for now if you already have your audio clips ready to go. 

Step 4: On the next screen, you’ll be asked again to connect your podcast or upload some audio. 

Step 5: Choose which bit of your audio you want to use. When you’re happy, click ‘next’. 

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Step 6: Select your aspect ratio based on the recommended format for the social media platform you’ll be posting to. 

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Step 7: Finally, customize your clip using Headliner’s range of tools. 

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Step 8: When you’re happy, click ‘create’. You can then choose to head to the advanced editor or export and upload. 

Step 9: If you choose the advanced editor, this is where you can add transitions, transcripts, and edit your clip in more depth.

You can change up the background color, add a progress animation to show your viewers how far through the clip they are, and automatically generate captions. 

Step 10: When you’re happy, click ‘Export’. You can insert your email so that your completed video will be delivered straight to your inbox when it’s ready.

You’ll also need to choose your desired frame rate, video quality, and size. When you click ‘export my video’, you’ll need to wait for it to be processed. 

Step 11: When your audiogram is ready, you’ll see a pop-up in the top right-hand corner with a link to download it. 

Step 12: Click on the download link and you’ll be redirected to the download page. 

Headliner Alternatives 

Now that we’ve familiarized ourselves with Headliner, let’s take a look at some of the alternative options out there. 

Riverside 

Riverside is a browser-based podcast recording platform known for its high-quality remote recordings that replicate studio-style podcasts. You can record with up to 10 remote participants, each on their own individual track. You can also livestream direct from Riverside, and use the integrated Editor to get your recording ready for publication.

For social content, Riverside has an easy-to-use Magic Clips feature that uses AI to turn your long-form content into short shareable snippets. 

Pricing: 

Riverside has four pricing tiers: free, standard - $15/month, pro - $24/month, and a Business plan (pricing on inquiry). 

Key features: 

• Remote local recording. Riverside records each participant locally. This means that everyone is recorded on their own individual device rather than over the internet - so you don’t need to worry about bad wifi impacting the quality of your recording. 
• Multitrack recording. Every participant is recorded onto an individual track, giving you invaluable control during post-production. 
• Video and audio podcasting. You can record high-quality video and audio-based podcasts with Riverside - up to 4K video and 48kHz WAV audio. 
• AI Magic Clips. Create short shareable clips seamlessly. You can mark points to clip while recording, and with a few quick clicks create short-form social media content to promote your podcast. 
• Browser-based & mobile app. Riverside is completely browser-based which means you don’t need to download an application to get started. There’s also a mobile app for easy on-the-go recording. 
• Business plan. Riverside caters to bigger podcasting teams with their Business plan. Riverside for Business enables collaborative working with customizable permissions for your team members. 
• Producer mode.  Use producer mode to include your production team but keeping them behind the scenes. Your production team can toggle your guest settings and control the entire recording, but will never be picked up on your audio recording. 
• Livestream. You can livestream directly to your favorite platforms straight from Riverside. Include your audience in your recording sessions, invite them to speak and interact, and then repurpose the recording later. 
• Transcriptions. Riverside also has a transcription feature that quickly and automatically transcribes your video or audio podcast. 
• Progressive upload. As you’re recording, each participant’s audio uploads progressively during your session. This means you’re at a low risk of losing your recording and you don’t need to wait so long for file uploads. 

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Riverside Clips 

Riverside’s Magic Clips feature is all about helping you repurpose your podcast easily and quickly. You only need to record once to create a whole bank of short-form social media content. 

The best part? Riverside Clips is included with all Riverside plans, so you get access to the whole suite of recording tools plus Clips.

And, since Clips are an integrated part of creating your podcast with Riverside, there’s no need to embark on a separate workflow. As you’re recording, you just need to mark key moments which you think would make good social content. Then, when you’ve finished recording, you can take the moments you’ve marked and transform them into clips. 

Watch the video below to learn more about how easy clips are with Riverside:

Vokal 

Vokal is all about quick and simple video editing. Its target audience is radio shows, podcasts, audio creators, musicians, and more. Like Headliner, you can create audiograms in any format to suit the social platform you’re posting on. You can customize your short-form content with images, videos, stickers, text, and more. 

Pricing: 

There are three Vokal pricing plans: 

• Free - $0/month
• Starter - $12/month
• Pro - $24/month

Key features: 

• Unlimited videos on every plan. You can create unlimited projects even on the free plan. Although note that there’s a limit on how long your video is (30 seconds maximum for Free subscribers). 
• Audio waveforms/music visualizer. Make sure your audience knows that you’ve posted more than just a still image with Vokal’s audio waveform. 
• Transcriptions. Vokal lets you generate captions for your content in any language. 
• Free media bank. Browse Vokal’s stock videos and photos to make your video your own. 
• Premium templates. Choose from Vokal’s bank of premium templates to make your content look professional. 

Audiogram 

Audiogram helps you to convert your audio into engaging social content. Just like Headliner, you simply upload your audio, choose the section you want to work with, add a design and then upload it. 

Pricing

Audiogram has three pricing plans:

• Free
• Pro - $19/month
• Elite - $29/month 

Key Features 

• Transcriptions. Audiogram automatically generates captions for your content. 
• Professional templates. If you’re not much of a designer, you can use some of Audiogram’s professionally designed templates. 
• Optimized formatting. You can create videos in the best format for your social media platform of choice. 

Final thoughts on Headliner 

Video has the whole world captivated - just look at YouTube, TikTok or Instagram. That’s why podcasters looking to properly promote their show and reach new listeners need to invest in creating professional and effective promotional video material. Apps like Headliner are effective, easy to use and deliver great results. That being said, Headliner is a one-trick pony in the sense that you can only create short-form audiograms on the app. If you'd like to record a podcast from scratch, you may still have to end up using another platform like Riverside.

FAQs about Headliner  

What happened to Headliner Voice? 

Headliner Voice was a beta tool that allowed you to create videos in which AI-generated voices would read out text that you had written. Unfortunately, Headliner decided to take down the app to focus on their core product. 

Who owns Headliner? 

Oliver Wellington and Neil Mody founded Headliner. 

Do Headliner videos have a watermark? 

If you’re on the free or basic plans you may see a watermark on your Headliner audiograms. For Free users, this will happen after you export more than 5 videos, and for Basic subscribers after 10 videos.