IF I STARTED YOUTUBE FROM SCRATCH, I'D DO THIS! | #THINKMEDIAPODCAST #192
Speaker 2 :
If I was starting a Youtube channel from scratch, this is exactly what I would do.
Speaker 1 :
It's super powerful for someone who wants to make Youtube their fulltime living a lot of.
Speaker 1 :
People say like rankings dead. I strongly disagree with.
Speaker 2 :
That Youtube themselves said if you do You Tube right and if you do video ranking Academy right. I've got videos that are over 10 years old that are so getting views in this episode. It's actually part two of us going through our 7R system that we use here at think Media to consistently. Get views, get subscribers, and grow on YouTube. So definitely check out part one, where you're gonna get the first couple R's in the system. But now let's get into Part 2 where we're gonna keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1 :
So someone hits record and maybe they've already been hitting record and now they're going to release, which is number four release. I'd love to hear kind of some of the best practices here for releasing your content specifically. You know, this year, you know, there is some stuff changing with the algorithm with tags, they're shorts. And I know that's a different release strategy, but let's talk about what are some of the best practices right now for when you actually are uploading to YouTube.
Speaker 2 :
Yeah, the checklist here is on record. If you made your outline in research, you recorded, you shot everything now. We're also assuming you may not have edited. You might have also gone live. Or you may have just recorded it straight through and you're uploading a 10 minute video, but. Or you've added did the video and you've exported it and uploaded it, now it's sitting there. So release would be also the process of preparing it for publication, preparing it for putting it out in the world. So you want to make sure you get your title on there, your description, your tags, your it could be hashtags, end cards, add it to a playlist. Prepare all of those optimized details, put an end card on there and anything that you've thought through in regards to that release could also of course include time of upload. People get stuck on these things YouTube themselves said, like if you do YouTube right and if you do video ranking Academy right in the seven R's I've got videos that are over 10 years old that are still getting views so. What time did I upload that video? Who cares? Was it six am or was it three pm was it? Monday or was it Saturday? It's 10 years old. It's still getting views. Youtube done right really doesn't matter the time you upload saying that. It's not smart. Youtube eventually will show you not when you start the channel, but eventually shows you when most of your subscribers are online. So it's intelligent to be thoughtful about when the video goes out so that it'll reach the peak audience, get some momentum early on. That could be part of getting it ranked or suggested. So just those types of things. It's that whole launch strategy. One of the visual illustrations of the Seven R's is some rocket ship imagery. You picture reverse engineers like charting the flight path. Where are we even going? Like OK we're going to go. We're going to do another moon landing. Ok so we're going to the moon. Let's do some research. What's the weather like what's the rotation of the earth like are we ready? What do we need to do? Where's our technology now? And then let's actually launch. You know, and then release. And then the skipping ahead will come back is then eventually rocket by this point yeah you know recorded maybe be getting the rocket ready release is optimizing those final details. And the reason we use that imagery inside of video ranking Academy is because in YouTube analytics for anyone who's published a video before you have this little blue line, you have this, it's a launch and it goes up. And what we don't want to see is we don't want to see it just launch and go flat. We don't want to see it launch and crash. But, and the dream is that it would launch and go straight up and never stop. Like just viral video. It'd just be launching straight up. And so release would be preparing for launch, preparing for the final, when you know you're done, when you finally make the video public and you're presenting its packaging and presentation thumbnail top or thumbnail title. So now we're ready for launch, and then we hit the next R let's blast off.
Speaker 1 :
So real quick on release, one of the cool things that I love about video ranking Academy and for someone who's brand new to this and they're like, what is ranking? It's basically when someone searches for, you know, I have some editing video, so how do edit in Final Cut Pro? I'm at the top of YouTube and there's like thousands of people, maybe tens hundreds, I don't know, thousands of people a month searching for this. And that's really powerful and that sends a lot of traffic, a lot of views to your business, to your YouTube channel. And so it's really powerful. One of the cool things that I love about YouTube is that gets people watching your video and then it can help the algorithm actually start to now put that in suggested and browse. So you're showing up on home page. And we found that just under 50 % of our viewers on think Media in 2022 came from search. So we're still using search, but also YouTube is now recommending our content to the right people which is which is awesome. So if you do it right, it's kind of like a perfect storm. My question though is today is ranking it, is it harder to rank? Is it easier to rank? I know there's a freshness factor. Can you can you just talk about like what? A lot of people say like rankings dead, like you'll hear YouTube educators, they don't talk about ranking videos. It's like they don't even talk about it and they're like, you shouldn't be doing that. You should not be growing your channels ranking. I strongly disagree with that. I'd love to know your thoughts on.
Speaker 2 :
A couple of things. Well, one, our think media current definition of ranking would be this. It's videos that continue to be to get views. From either being found in search or from being suggested. So it's if you do this properly, you can tap into both traffic sources and I am or one or the other. And in either case I'm cool with that. If I just get views six months from now, 12 months from now, or 10 years from now, then I'm happy and so rank I also. It's kind of old school SEO search engine optimization. You could call it search based content. I think our modern definition of this kind of content in VRA though is intent based content. Because someone is searching because they know the words to type in or they're searching with just their behavior. They're wanting to get in shape in January, so they're on YouTube looking for health related content, but they don't know what to look for, so YouTube begins to recommend them content, what you do on Google, what you type into Google and what you click on Google. You're logged into your YouTube account when you're on Google because Google owns YouTube. So your Google activity influences your YouTube recommendations because Google is just like, okay, we want to satisfy this individual and if they've been searching for this or they're searching for that, all of that data can be used to try to surface content that they'll love. So under this guy goes all the way back to reverse engineering research that the to the degree you understand the psychology of the viewer you want to reach and what they're searching for. So that's thing one I think thing two is. While it's true that suggested is the greatest form of traffic, YouTube is still the second largest search engine in the world. It's 70 % of people go to YouTube wanting to solve a specific problem, and the reason a lot of conflict develops here is just because somebody that has a pure entertainment mindset like a Ryan Trahan Eric mister. Beast mindset goes. Well, mister. Beast isn't ranking videos about headphone amplifiers. And you're like, yeah dude, respect the game. There's so much diversity on YouTube.
Speaker 1 :
That is huge. It's massive.
Speaker 2 :
Yeah, that's one type of content where is there's this whole other opportunity. And then where people really make a mistake of being overly judgmental is they don't understand the economics. They think if you're not getting a million views or have a million subscribers. That you're broke when in fact some of the wealthiest or most successful YouTube creators are businessminded entrepreneurs and creators that have lower views or smaller audiences but multiple flows of income. And so a search video up very practically using the headphone amplifier analogy. So I'm getting kind of back. I've always been super into music ID Jed in high school I had some turntables, final records, e, d m, underground hip hop hip, hop and. These days I've been getting back into audio file type of things. So this world includes outrageously priced headphones. It includes Dax Digital to analog converters because of how good can that. So if you download title the music service, you can have high res audio files, MQA audio files. You can have Dax that turn. They take those digital compressed files, they make them sound amazing and analog. You have a headphone amplifier which may be two devices, and on the low end a lot of times you'd spend 500 to a thousand dollars on these types of items, and on the high end there's 4 to 6000$ headphones. There's one to two three four five thousand dollar dax there could be.
Speaker 1 :
That blows my mind.
Speaker 2 :
There could be 5000$ headphone amplifiers and you're like how much power and when you're in this niche, there's people also that are buying multiples of things, right? And so just like people view us this way, think media As for cameras and whatnot, I start looking into the. Lcdx verse Hifi man, you know, I know.
Speaker 1 :
What he's talking about.
Speaker 2 :
And the punchline is I'm looking at versus videos, I'm trying to decide planer magnetic versus, you know, traditional headphones. And so again all these, some of these channels are getting 45,000 thousand views a hundred and eighty thousand views on these different headphone comparison videos, review videos and I am. Knowledgeable because your mind's being blown. But I have no idea what I'm talking about. I need a null in my life. I need an Omar in my life related to these headphones if this is your thing. And what about this? And I'm like Oh my gosh, you just saved me. And again they have affiliate links. They've got brand deals happening. They've got different stuff. And so there's just so much diversity on YouTube. And so when you talk about ranked a couple things have been there's this is this sums up the whole deal. As I've been going down this path again, I am typing certain things in search. I'll learn about a product topping headphone amps and Dax compared to that's the brand name SCHITT amplifiers. Man are they.
Speaker 1 :
Just are they kind of crappy though?
Speaker 2 :
No, they're the. No amplifiers first on this podcast, man. The most cursing you've ever heard from these are just brand names and book titles. But ultimately what's super funny about that is again, so I'm typing those things in. But now YouTube. What's YouTube doing recommending me? It sees that I'm into the audio file thing and that rabbit hole goes so deep. So I'm getting recommended craters. I'm describing craters. I'm finding craters. I'm building trust with them because I'm watching one or two videos that are being recommended now. I'm following them on Twitter because affinity is being built. That's what we're talking about in this whole thing. So that's all ranking. And it's different than, you know, I flew across the country to give mister. Beast a penny. Like it's just a whole.
Speaker 1 :
Different game.
Speaker 2 :
It's a totally different game.
Speaker 1 :
It's super powerful for someone who already has a business. Yeah, but what's cool is it's also super powerful for someone who wants to make YouTube.
Speaker 2 :
Their full time living and that's why we're so pumped in our VRA community and we have so many students that are reporting because when you get all of these things lined up, this goes back to picking reverse engineering the right topic in alignment. Like is the audio file by the way. I would say if there's unlimited opportunity, saturation is a myth. It is a subculture of passionate people that are all different levels of economic status. Some people want to get in there and they literally a 500$ budget similar to Tech 500 They're trying to take 500 bucks, accessorize their smartphone similar, similar to our content to start creating content. And then there's somebody that's like, I just want to entrepreneurs that work with us. They're like, I just want to ball out. I want FS The best thing, the best. Yeah, i want the Sony cameras, the best lights. I want to build the set, build the studio. There's a big range. But what you're also doing there is back to the business plan. You're tapping into a subculture, a market. If you went to a banker and you said there is these Hifi conferences, that's a good sign that you're in a good niche. If there's gatherings of people that go and listen to all these other headphones. And what's also funny is some people call it snake oil. Because at what point? What is the law of diminishing returns? If you're spending twenty five thousand dollars on, your headphones, amp and deck, is it that much better? That much?
Speaker 1 :
Better than my free Apple headphones, that one.
Speaker 2 :
Hundred % and so. But people love it. And so if it's if you were passionate about that, that's also profitable and you can rank all day long and you of course it's going to take work. You stick with that thing. Couple years later you're also doing something you love. Brands are probably sending you free headphones. You're getting sponsorships and you've built a business around your passion that you're having a ton of fun. You're definitely working really hard. A lot of money's coming in as the years stack up, and that's the dream. That's what we're helping people do.
Speaker 1 :
That's amazing. So back to the seven, our framework, we go from release to rockets. Can you explain, I know you touched a little bit about rocket. Can you explain that a little bit more?
Speaker 2 :
Yeah, so this again to that visual. Now imagine it's finally time for liftoff anybody listening to this that has made a video public feels the emotions. There's nothing like making a video in.
Speaker 1 :
Public confetti in the YouTube studio.
Speaker 2 :
It's blast off time and there's every time. There's always that feeling. A video goes public, the new video is released. How's it going to do? You're watching it. It's like everybody's standing in air traffic control biting their teeth, you know, looking is this launch going to be successful or is it going to crash and burn? And the truth about rocket is that if you've done the 1st. For ours, well, you actually should be able to take a step back and the video should take a life of its own, take on a life of its own. So not that you're passive at this point, but it doing number five well would be number five. Your video taking off should be verification that you reverse engineered well, you research well, you recorded well and made a great video. You released it properly, optimized it properly. What you can do, and people might say, well, I'm starting at scratch, I have 0 views. What this also includes is this could include promoting the video on internal YouTube features and then also on external social media platforms or places of influence. So it's anything you could do to add fuel to it and so.
Speaker 1 :
I got a good hack for this too that we just shared in our YouTube challenge and we'll leave a link in the description if you guys want to join the next one. But and I just read a Facebook comment because I logged into the into the group, the Facebook group that everyone was in. And I shared the shorts remix and this is something I utilized with my brand new channel and I was getting a couple thousand views on these YouTube shorts and basically what you can do is on your content you can clip from your long form video into a short and what schools I just was teaching in the challenge more in depth how to do this and this lady there was a ton of comments but this lady I just logged in and the first comment was like I tried the tip I tried the remix and my first. Shorts, you know, didn't do so well. Got like 87 views. But then I did it again on a different video. It got 2000 views. Next one got 3000 the other one got 2000 And I'm like that is adding fuel to the fire. That is one of those new features that I think is so underrated that if you don't, you're not going to editing, you don't really have like just a lot of time start remixing some of your long form content into shorts, especially right now with how. Really, shorts are getting rocketed in the YouTube algorithm because they're pushing that. Are there any other strategies like that you would add that like, you know, community posts or just different tactics that can help? Get the momentum going on Youtube yeah.
Speaker 2 :
And if you're starting at zero, you don't have some of the Youtube features, but if your channel is established, Community tab is 1, Youtube stories is 1, community tab. Even for older videos, you have new subscribers. So there's people who really probably don't know about your videos from six months or 12 months ago, but they just subscribed in the last month. Our friend Neil Patel. Has a good size email. List so if somebody's built an email list or they have a customer list, business owner, service providers, sending an email to your list with your latest video would be a way to rocket the video with external traffic of people that care. And then different ways you could share on social media. You know, we do go deeper into this and video Reiki Academy and there's some crazy case studies of different ways of doing this in niche communities and whatnot. I would and shorts and remixing shorts is a whole another opportunity. It gets into even the idea of kind of repurposing your content, which we've added on to you may other ways to amplify content you've already created. And one of the things that we actually have in the bundle right now with the special offer for our podcast of VRA podcast.com is our Shorts master class. And so I know you're obsessed with shorts. I'm obsessed our whole team and we are passing along some just amazing information to get the word out there. So yeah, there's a lot of different things you could do there on that rocket are, but let's keep it moving to hit the final couple yep so then the sixth step would be review and explain what this is. And maybe I'd love to know where people are kind of missing the mark on this step and how they could do it better yeah so I would, I think that this is people's kind of. Most people's least favorite step, maybe 5 % of the population, is geeky and into analytics. I've developed the habit of falling in love with them. The quote we use here is what gets measured, gets improved. Experience is not the best teacher. Evaluated experience is the best teacher. So what people will do is they'll say Sean Nolan. I've posted 100 videos and I'm just stuck. That person has indicated that they have a lot of experience. But what they are telling me is they're not really evaluating that experience because if you're if you've done 100 videos and nothing is changing then you're really not learning from the last one. So this is saying that every time you go around and this the V RA7R framework is you know, there's a start here launch and then it's a loop because you just keep going through all 7 R's on each video that you upload and so. It's not just post as many videos and then get on to the next one without taking the time to analyze what went well, what didn't go well, and then more specifically actually taking the time to really learn and master and understand YouTube analytics. I was hanging out with my friend Michael Zuber from one rental at a time who's made it almost to 50.000 thousand subs almost, a million views a. Year we did, we actually analyzed, we audited his analytics live and. He made almost 100 grand on YouTube this last year. He's a real estate guy and pretty cool channel if you're into like niche real estate investing in finance stuff. But he said, Sean, I've like never looked at my analytics and when I do, I don't even know what I'm looking at. So I think that's the intimidation point here, is it's kind of overwhelming. It's numbers, graphs, charts. What do they all mean? What does the terminology mean? And that's also why even though a podcast like this exists, where we try to give away as much free information, valuable information, why the necessity of a program like Video Reiki Academy is so important? Because mastering the skill of YouTube, understanding and mastering the platform is an uphill battle. Like there's just a lot to learn, and that's what we exist for, is to hold people's hand and help them understand that. Because to the degree. That you can start seeing the matrix you know and decoding the matrix as you're studying videos now you can make data-driven decisions so that your next upload can be a little bit better. That's another key is we say get 1 % better with every upload, but that could also be subjective. The only way it's not subjective is if there's you're actually measuring things. For example, it's starting to look and study your audience retention curves. Maybe looking for in your audience retention curves, is there any areas where attention dips, is there any areas where it really is clear that you lost the viewer? Well, by studying that you now can go and say I'm going to not use language like that or do edits like that or do whatever I did in that moment that ultimately. Lost the viewers, therefore your next video. It's not necessarily like a lighting chain, like trying to make your lighting 1 % better. That could be helpful. It's actually content.
Speaker 1 :
Doesn't matter as much.
Speaker 2 :
Yeah, because it's not.
Speaker 1 :
It's the retention graph.
Speaker 2 :
The retention graphs like the game and of course clickthrough rate, but then as you dive deeper you're seeing over time what which videos did and the one thing I'd also encourage some people is that the goal is not to get stuck on any of these R's The goal is actually to keep moving through. Them as quick as possible, patiently, but the more times you go through the seven hour process the better. And to your point, you mentioned a lot of people will get stuck in reverse engineering research and they won't even get to record. My goal is reverse engineer research record, you know, release rocket, review, repeat and do it again and do it again and again and again and again and spend each time on each hour going a little bit deeper each time. But don't get stuck on one when you're just starting. And you only have like 3 uploads or one upload, there's not much to review. You actually need a level. Sure you could get some feedback, but where things get really interesting is once you've uploaded 10 videos or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 and once you've been on YouTube for one two three or four months, because now you can start looking at comparing February to March comparing March to April. Now you could start comparing 90 day performance on YouTube versus the previous 90 days. So the level of review now we're at think media comparing years to other years, you know what I mean? We're comparing seasons to other seasons. And so the review gets exciting and it gets more exciting once you Start learning it. I hate I've hated math and I it's not my favorite. Mel on the Think Media team loves math. She's thinking about starting a brand called Mel knows math. I don't know if she really wants to, but it just is kind of flows and she like study neuroscience and so that has nothing to do with this conversation. But ultimately I've started to fall in love with numbers I think falling in love with numbers, falling love, falling in love with the data, falling in love with those details that can actually really help you over time and it really is endless.
Speaker 1 :
Yeah, I think one mistake that I see a lot of people make in this phase is when you, when you have enough videos, I think you'll need to like 4 at this point on your channel, you get ranked and so when someone releases it, they usually just see if it's one out of 10, meaning that's the best. If it's ten out of 10, that means it's performing the worst out of your last 10 uploads. And I think a lot of people. Put way too much weight on that, that's all they're reviewing. And what's awesome with learning the entire video ranking Academy system and really deep diving into this framework is we have videos that we post 10 out of 10 and we're okay with it because we did the reverse engineer. We know this is meant to rank over time. And we go back and some of the videos that we released, 10 out of 10 are our best performing videos right now because they pull so much search, they pull so many views and suggested. And so I just want to encourage people that there's many reasons it could not perform well in that first day. But it's like give it some time. If you actually implement these things that we're teaching in video ranking Academy, it's like it will do well over time and you'll get views eventually and so don't spend too much time, you know, stressing about that.
Speaker 2 :
That's a good point, you know, and it was two years ago at VID Summit. So you the big team was there, you know, Mark Kyle this past year, the year previous, Todd Bupree from YouTube, the product manager. One of the things he said in his talk was people under value. They're two into the first day or week of YouTube uploads and there may be two into the last 10, and they are undervaluing. Evergreen, or even just the longer lifespan and we'll consistently see it, that videos will pop at day 20, day 30, day 45 day 65 And that is a hard that. The reason that's hard is it's patience. Because we're sitting there in air traffic control, looking at the launch and like sometimes getting a little too preoccupied by it. You check in all day long, you're in your YouTube studio app on your phone, and you need to get.
Speaker 1 :
Out of the atmosphere. And then you got to give us some time now to start drifting. You know what?
Speaker 2 :
I mean and really get away. Away from just that day one, like we study, we're freak. It's okay, it's compulsive. I am guilty of this. You know, you're checking in multiple times a day. How's the video doing? And sometimes the ranking changes. It's one out of 10, it drops to four, or it's 10. Out of 10 and drops, it goes to five. Oh what's happening? Can I rocket it more? And so people kind of sometimes overemphasize the amount of anxiety they attach to day one through day two three and are. Undervaluating day thirty day, sixty and year two of a potential YouTube upload which is when you really start the more you understand review and the longer time horizon you have to study it just teaches you things where you know we talked to Omar on previous podcast where like Bro how do you feel if a video gets 10 out of 10. He was like unshakeable. He was like i because I like I that metric when. You know the intent of the video when it was reverse engineered properly researched properly, you're not shaken by the vanity metric hoping to get some serotonin and some dopamine off the initial views to kind of stroke your ego. You're like, I'm playing such a long game here. I know what I'm doing. And I think that's the confidence that video raking the Academy gives you because of our experience, yeah, our experience and our practical approach to YouTube.
Speaker 1 :
And so you know, you have guys like Omar, you, me were like we can tell you like. Chill out. You know, ten to ten, like give it some time. And even people just getting started on YouTube, the reason they actually stop posting and they just give up on the channel is because they don't see results right away. And I'm like that's not even how YouTube works. And so because we know how it works, that's the power, I think, of just partnering up with people who have seen it. They've done it. And you know, we, we've just seen so many people come through video Incan Academy. And work with us that it's like it's it still works. It works for them. And man, we have countless testimonies after testimonies and so I just want to encourage people to don't give up, like just keep going. It might be a slow start, but if you just keep going, you don't give up. You're going to see the fruit of that. And that's what I love is this actually sets you up to not be in the rat race of trying and trying and trying and never seeing it any success. It's like, let's get you doing the right things and then. Try and it it'll start working for you. And so I love that we've been able to help so many people.
Speaker 1 :
Well, I think we should probably hit the seventh R and not even just take too much time on it, because honestly, the seventh r has number one been updated and number two. There's just more than we have time for here. But the seventh R is repeat and the first part of repeat, because it's actually we technically have an eighth R now. So repeat is also now that I've done all of this and I've reviewed, how can I begin again more intelligently? Could I double down and should I make a Part 2? If I've identified that this videos was successful, should I follow up? Is there any comments on this video now that I get in at some time that indicate I should answer a sequential question or make a sequel to the video? Can I Start learning skills of batch producing? Is it a new year? I've done the 2022 version, can I do the 2023 version? Can I do the 2024 version? All of those types of questions but the a Thar Nolan is repurpose. Because repeat is also asking do I have to reinvent everything or can I repurpose this? We are making a video podcast at this very moment. Can we chop this into smaller clips? Can we chop this into shorts? We I would argue that remix is a repurpose activity. You've made a video, how can you? Multiply the effect of that video by repurposing it and remix is one of those features, and I want to give some caution here, but also, once I believe YouTube is your home base, that's what all the data tells us. It's the most profitable platform. It's the best, healthiest platform. But it's not that you shouldn't also expand on the other social media platforms as you keep going through the seven R's Money starts coming in, you're building systems. Repeat would ask what systems can I build around my YouTube channel to increase sanity and make this more sustainable? And how can I repurpose some of my YouTube content on the other social media platforms, especially with vertical video? Because if we're making longer form content like this, we could chop it up and not just upload YouTube shorts, but that vertical video could go a lot of places, so literally the seventh R can expand into an entire. Empire of Internet domination, of building your brand multiple places. And of course having all of that strategy and thinking is predicated on your vision, predicated on your goals, predicated on your resources. What are you after? For certain business owners, that is a big opportunity. I think about Anton Stetner, who is a real estate investor and agent in the Snohomish County, Pacific Northwest region. His game is 100 % YouTube shorts right now. But the vertical videos he's creating for YouTube shorts, he's using a lot of other places. And for what he's trying to do, that is the perfect model for him. So he can use the video Raikin Academy system and not only crush it with what he's doing, but also be expanded. And what's actually interesting is on every single social media platform you should reverse engineer, you should research your video ideas, you should record a great video, even if it's 60 seconds and it's vertical. You should optimize it properly for that platform and release it properly. It should rock it. But can you share it? Can you collab with somebody on Instagram? You should review the insights and analytics on the other platforms. You should study and repeat. So actually we've learned that this framework and system is so powerful. Of course I'm biased, but the best investment anybody listening to this can make in their business, their brand, their future, their skill set. Is to learn the 7R system. It's been so refined and worked on and it benefits people far beyond YouTube. Starting on YouTube is the most intelligent strategy, I believe, because when you expand from there, you're just killing multiple birds with one stone. You're getting a return on your energy and you're multiplying your income streams. How can I even start again and create more lucrative opportunities in the future. So inside the program, we go really deep on that and we could continue to go deeper on this whole repurpose R because that's a whole thing in and of itself.
