YOUTUBE ADVICE THAT YOU SHOULD AVOID IN 2023 | #THINKMEDIAPODCAST #188
Speaker 2 :
Are you following bad Youtube advice that is hurting your channel? Posting more videos gets you more views it’s false. You need to niche down on Youtube to succeed. True or false.
Speaker 1 :
I’m gonna go true.
Speaker 2 :
99 % of people who say they’re being shadow banned are just putting out crappy content and they’re trying to blame somebody else and it’s a victim perspective and you’re gonna lose with that mentality. You know, there’s a lot of outdated strategies out there that are being perpetuated by the gurus. And so in this episode of the Think Media Podcast, we’re going to be talking about what’s true and what’s false when it comes to YouTube tips and strategies. And I’m pumped because we got Nolan and Omar on the podcast. Nolan, how’s it going?
Speaker 3 :
So good, I’m happy to be here. I just want to jump right into the first one because we got some great i’m going to read a statement and this how it’s going to work. Omar, you’re going to say true or false, I’ll jump in there, Sean, true or false. And we’re going to discuss this that I think the beauty of this though is we might disagree on some of these. And so I’m excited for just the perspectives of everybody here. So the first one is posting more videos gets you more views. Omar, I’m curious your perspective, true or false, what do you think?
Speaker 2 :
The first thing that comes to mind is true because how do we even know what’s getting views unless you experiment and upload videos a hundred percent and one of the things that I actually thought about was the time when we came onto the think media channel and we went, this was 2020 I think March COVID happening and we started going from what was it, 2 week to five a week. Do you remember what it was Sean was it was about two a week and we go. More than double uploads, and I just remember are like our view camp. If you go back and we’ll do a little screen, yeah, we’ll do a little screen that you like arrow, like pointing here you’ll see it just like almost like double views. And so there is a truth to it. There’s also the other side that I would argue that in a certain way it could be false because some people when they do that, they don’t have a team around them. And so you have these solo creators who try to pump up. Pump out more content and they’re making worse videos. Can you speak to that too, Shawn? Because I know there’s people in our community who do that, and sometimes the right answer is actually post less, though posting more can get you more views. It’s like an oxymoron.
Speaker 2 :
Yeah, the mistake of a lot of small YouTube creators is they feel like a lot of uploads is a badge of honor. But the problem is, if you keep uploading piles of poop, all you have is just more piles of poop. And so there’s a quality factor to it. You don’t want to be overly judgmental of the fact that, like, it is of course the content value, not the production value. But sometimes people, they’re just there’s not a strategy. The titles aren’t right. The content’s not super valuable. So if you can maintain quality while increasing quantity, then if you double your uploads, you’ll probably double your views.
Speaker 1 :
That’s so good. The next one is interesting because. I hear both of this so much, but here’s the statement and I want to know true or false? Sean, search content is outdated people, Youtubers should only focus on browse and suggest that this is kind of a new trend. Especially like mister. Beast Iraq, these guys are making ultra viral videos and so people look to these guys and they’re like, dude, what? Like I should be doing what they’re doing? Search content like no one’s searching for these videos that Mister Beast is making, and so I get where they’re coming from. But do you think this is actually true or false?
Speaker 2 :
I think it’s false. I think I understand where people are coming from because what happens is people mix YouTube topics and strategies. I mean, there’s entertainment and there’s education. And we speak to so many educators that are tapping into the power of search based content and there’s massive opportunity there. It’s 100 % still a search engine. A lot of critics also compare the education channels to the entertainment channels and they go, oh, if they don’t get a million views, they’re not valuable. And we work with so many business owners and stuff that have one, five, ten million dollar a year a, month businesses with small traffic. It’s really kind of about the business model, it’s about the strategy. But I even heard. I mean, there’s some notable social media voices. Gary Vaynerchuk was talking about how YouTube shorts from a search standpoint is a huge opportunity if you were doing like a niche wine show. Our friends at VID IQ were building a video editing PC or a gaming PC and every piece they were searching for, the gaming PC was a ranked short based on search. Because if you can answer the question in less than 60 seconds, it may not be going viral. But it’s going to get that slow and steady winds type of traffic and so it’s not really either or it’s and both in this case.
Speaker 3 :
I love that you brought up YouTube shorts ranking because I was. I was trying to cook something and I noticed for the first time at the top of my search was the shorts shelf and it was exactly what I was looking for. And it makes sense to because I don’t. Really want to watch like a 3 minute long video on how to grill chicken on my on my on my charcoal grill. And so I watch the short and it makes sense from a viewer standpoint and it’s something to consider. And what I found was interesting is we in 2022 Think Media YouTube search was 47 6 % of our total views. And so we have.
Speaker 2 :
That’s a.
Speaker 3 :
Flex dude, half of our audiences coming through search and I know you produce a lot of search content. Can you real quickly before we get to the next one, talk about like kind of some people get discouraged because they post a search video and it’s like 10 out of 10.
Speaker 2 :
I don’t get discouraged yeah so talk to me about that.
Speaker 1 :
No, i think one of the most underrated stats that people aren’t encouraging is real time views. When you go into your YouTube studio on the right side of your screen, you’re going to see the amount of views you’re getting in every 48 hour period. That is such a powerful stat and we average around 350,000 thousand we’re meeting that many people every 48 hours like meeting or we’re meeting again. And I love that. I don’t, I don’t want, I don’t like the game. And it and it is, there’s a preference to it just based off of the way my brain works and my personality. I don’t like the game where my last upload, well, you know, like my next upload is has to be my best upload. And that’s just, that’s not, I don’t know the compound interest on that emotional toil I’m not trying to go into, but I’ll upload a video. I know it won’t perform well, but we’ll look back in a year from now and be like sick a hundred fifty k.
Speaker 2 :
That’s a good point, because even mister. Beast has said like he feels the pressure that he’s always trying to one up himself, right where is if you’re also playing kind of in the practical search game, you’re not really trying to one up yourself, you’re just consistently pulling out valuable content. That’s sort of a slow and steady wins and not playing the sensational game. And we, I mean, make your thumbnails better, make your titles better. Let’s get that clickthrough rate. But there’s so much practical opportunity on YouTube, and sometimes there’s a lot of wisdom in that simplicity.
Speaker 1 :
This next one’s controversial. A lot of people are going to be triggered by this one. In the comments, we’re going to talk about YouTube tags. Here’s the statement. True or false? Using tags gets you more views on YouTube. What do you say, Sean? It’s false.
Speaker 2 :
Using tags will not get you more views in isolation if you also referencing the pile of poop we were discussing earlier. If you tag a pile of poop, well it’s still a pile of poop and so tags should be affirmation that you made a good video and you did great research and. What’s funny is me saying that tags actually getting you views is false. I still see the value in tags because if you do your research properly, you’re looking for a long tail keyword, video topics and you also are adding the right tags. It’s metadata as well as description and title. And you use a tool like that I Q it tells you like this video’s ranking for these different tags. It’s not that the tags influence the video in any way, it’s simply that your process. Is verified and aligned by the tags you finally add to the video.
Speaker 1 :
So let me ask you this though, on tags, because people who maybe are just getting started on YouTube or doing it for a while haven’t found success. They hear that. You know a lot of people are saying just like tags are worthless and what you’re saying is adding tags isn’t going to help you get views. There’s way more important things you need to do, but should the person who’s starting out, they’re making content. Should they leave the tags blank or can it actually, because you’re talking about metadata, does it actually help them rank in search? Is it one of those kind of factors? Like maybe it doesn’t? What are your thoughts on that? Should they add in tags?
Speaker 2 :
I would say that you should do everything YouTube gives you the opportunity to do. And you should use a tool like VIQ because if you use it properly you can add tags in about 30 seconds or less and it’s really quick and easy, but in terms of influence. Your title is going to carry a lot more weight than tags and if something search based the words used in the title that still appeal to humans but also are very clickable that would be the greatest weight. Then your description would carry more weight than tags because that’s what a little blog post. There may be some influence metadata wise there what you say in your video itself. And the caption file, even if you don’t do the caption file and the content itself would be the next thing to optimize. So tags is just at the bottom of the list and I think it’s like about a 1 % influence. This is from the mouth of YouTube. They said that tags also help with spelling errors, that one of the things that you can add in your tags is alternative versions of. Maybe the topic that you’re going after to kind of flush out those details. And so yeah, I think they’re worth doing. And I think that I would recommend a new creator or small channel understand the reasoning behind using tags because when you develop that discipline you’re going to be a better content creator over overall. You’re going to be thinking about how do I structure my video, come up with a great topic title it well can you know. Build a good script for it or a good outline for it and just align all of those details. That’s what we talked about. Our video ranking Academy program is literally just understanding like blank page to published video and it’s a piece of the pie. It’s just such a small piece and where I think people go into air is they major on the minors and sometimes they minor on the majors. They spend more time thinking about video optimization in terms of metadata as opposed to really investing a ton of energy and making the best video possible.
Speaker 3 :
I think part of making the best video possible is finding the right videos to make, which is the perfect segue to tell people to go watch our thinkmaster class because honestly in if you go to thinkmasterclass.com it’s a free training. And you share like much more practical advice that is important and matters right now. So if you are using tags, you’re on YouTube, you’re just you haven’t been able to figure it out, or you’re looking to scale just the content you already have. I definitely recommend go to thinkmasterclass.com check it out. It’s a really cool training that we offer for free over there, and I think there’s just a ton of value. That where you just go deeper on some of those things that really matter for YouTube and so definitely check that out. Link is in the description.
Speaker 2 :
And just another two cents on the tag thing. I do like it as another point of measuring success. Like if we make a video around something that we’re trying to ride, the influence of that, whether it’s a person or a product. Or a software that like we can see how it’s performing at a glance, you know, and based off the various keywords that we use inside of the tags. So i like it as a point of measuring, we a success uploaded a video the other day and it ranks number 1-2-3-7-5 on various different things around that camera. So it just gives us good piece to know that like the video is working, you know.
Speaker 3 :
Yeah, I love that. And what’s really cool too about the YouTube studio now is you can go in there and if you actually go into your analytics. And you go over to your reach and you’re looking at just where these views coming from. Youtube will show you not just how much % of the video is from search, but it will show you the search terms, which I think is really cool. So YouTube’s evolving. It’s search isn’t dead. Tags are useful and it’s really cool. But I have the next one for you Omar, which I’m curious to hear your thoughts though I feel like I already know your answer on this one. But The thing is a lot of people don’t believe this. Ok, so here’s the statement YouTube. Is oversaturated what? What do you say? True or false I.
Speaker 2 :
Think it’s false because and the thing I like to say is if you’re not on YouTube then it’s not oversaturated that the beauty of YouTube is the uniqueness of the creator. The experiences that a creator has and that’s why we’re seeing new creators come up on the come up and quick have grow growth or grow quickly. And so i like to say YouTube needs you know YouTube needs your uniqueness and. As long as you’re not uploading then it’s not crowded.
Speaker 3 :
Yeah, I totally agree. I just started a brand new YouTube channel, did not promote it, did not do any ads or shout it out or tell people to go follow it. Just started it. I let YouTube do its thing. I just followed basically our perfect video recipe, just the stuff that we teach and I think master class.
Speaker 1 :
And you know. It blew up. I mean in a sense that like one of the videos got a million views couple hundred thousand views it’s I got monetized within a month. This is a brand new channel though so I you know it’s just cool to see that and I have a another friend who he did the same thing. We’re in this like we call a creator mastermind but we just meet once a week and we talk about YouTube and he started a brand new gaming channel. Talk about over what people think is oversaturated started a brand new gaming channel. And his first video within a couple weeks hits 1000000 views. Dudes monetize making money. He just dropped another video. It’s doing well and it’s encouraging to people who are sitting on the sidelines still because get in the game. There is so much room and just i think you even know some of the statistics about just how many people are still on YouTube. There’s room. Yeah, and I love that about YouTube.
Speaker 3 :
Yeah, I mean, I think that saturation is a myth when it comes to YouTube. And I think with 2 6 billion monthly active users, the consumption is so high and the desire for great content, it’s really a supply and demand. And there’s just endless demand, which means there’s an opportunity for creators to start and contribute the supply. But, you know, I’m empathetic, I think. When people hear those stories, they just think, yeah, but i’m stuck or I just, I’m not growing. It feels oversaturated and admittedly there is a massive skill set to build. Like we I kind of feel like maybe here at think media after you know being pulled out of the matrix and then like pulled into the Dojo to like learn how to fight from Morpheus. And then eventually we finally like wake up and we have kind of a revelation. We’re like oh and now we can like see the matrix like and so we’re dodging bullets and it’s bullet time and there’s you know and like all the sudden and that’s. You started a brand new channel, but you’re Nolan molt. After years of testing and experimenting and some failures and training at thick media and building out your own stuff and trying a bunch of things. Omar has put out some videos, reviews, his video game tape. Just like Kobe would always do after he won a game or lost a game. He would review the game tape and think about how he could get better on the next upload. So if you have the right skills. If you can kind of identify trends, psychology gaps in the market, no, there’s unlimited opportunity on YouTube. But if you’re just doing the same thing everybody else is doing, if you’re just kind of playing by yesterday’s rules, if you’re unwilling to learn, if you’re unwilling to grow, if you’re unwilling to adapt and pivot, then it can feel very saturated. I think the one other thing to consider them is YouTube can actually never be saturated, because every single day new things happen. And a lot of creators are lazy, even a lot of successful creators. They get comfortable and they get complacent. So there’s always new things to talk about. There’s new products to review, there’s new news events happening, there’s new movies coming out, there’s new TV shows coming out. You know, the Lord of the Rings, rings of power. Was purchased the IP by Amazon. They make a new show. Lord of the Rings is a big brand, but had not had didn’t have anything major happening. The movies were done, The Hobbit movies were done, and then all the sudden boom, there’s a whole revitalization of people interested in it thinking about the lore, the books, the board games, the cards, the show, and so ten twenty thirty fifty Lord of the Rings channels can spawn off of things happening in culture, and new things will always be happening in culture. So if you’re following culture and trends and connecting that to your passion, then again, there’s something that’s going to happen in the next month that we don’t even know is going to happen right now. How many people have made videos about chat g p t? All I see now is actually videos about like a I chat JPT But it’s actually a whole new opportunity and a whole new set of videos to make about how to do it, what to do. The cool things gimmicks, how to start side hustles, how to use it for YouTube, how to use it for business, how to use it for fitness, how to use it so there’s new things happening. And because there’s always new things happening. The new can never be saturated because it just started today and tomorrow isn’t even here yet. So if you position yourself and your nimble, then saturation is a myth new.
Speaker 1 :
Days bring new distinctions.
Speaker 2 :
That a preach there we.
Speaker 3 :
Go so that I feel like this is a good next one. To go into it you need to niche down as a beginner on YouTube to succeed. True or false.
Speaker 1 :
I’m going to go. I’m going to go true I think you’re you only help YouTube by YouTube knowing what your channel is about and by niche i think that’s where like the Gray area is because you can your niche could be living in. New York, and you can go to coffee shops and go to restaurants and vlog and that could be your niche. So you don’t have to like minimize what your idea of a niche is. But YouTube essentially should know what your channel’s about, and you help them by posting consistent videos around a specific or Gray niche, I guess you could say.
Speaker 3 :
Yeah, i think it’s true and false and in between. So as far as narrowing down my answer and clarity goes so, but I mean I think that. There’s examples of different creators that sometimes they do start and they experiment because they’re so small. You could post, you know, 50 videos. None of them break out and you’re trying different things and then one breaks out. But then what you do is you begin to focus over time, like your channel begins to take on a life of its own and you follow the clues of success, you follow the bread crumbs of the videos that are performing well. But I think if you. Continue to post random content over time. Then you’ll never actually build a significant brand, but if you’re just starting experimenting, I think could be OK my favorite word this year more than niche is simply the word focus. Like, what’s the focus of the channel? Because what for some people when they think niche down, they’re like, it can’t even be a beauty channel. It has to only be nails. It can’t even just be nails. It has to be nail art that has a cosplay angle and is only World of Warcraft nails. Because I really want to stand out and be a specific niche. You’re like, dude, that’s too specific. That’s like that. That’s not that. So what’s the focus though? Like what is the focus of your YouTube channel? And I think that focus is power. The last thing is sort of like, what are you building? So again, you might be experimenting at the start, trying different things, but I think about like going to a restaurant, like when you want to go to a restaurant, you actually set out with a specific intent and focus. You’re like, I want to go get sushi tonight, so if you take your partner, you go get sushi. That’s what you expect. That’s what they become known for. And if you want to go somewhere else, you go somewhere else. So on YouTube it’s like, do you want to watch comedy or do you want to learn something or do you want. But imagine if you sat down at sushi, you’ve been going there for 8 weeks and the server comes over to you and just, you know, you put in your order. But then he decides to bring out chips salsa, a burrito. Like, you might love Mexican food as well, but you’re like, what’s happening here? Like, that’s someone I’m here for. Like what? This is not the focus of your like, I just feel like doing something different. I just feel like being creative. There’s too many creators that actually do that, though. They’re just like, Oh my mood changed and you’re like, yeah, but you started a sushi restaurant. So there’s the practicality of staying focused, maybe launching another restaurant. Because here in Vegas there’s people who, like, they’ve launched a really cool fusion spot. Now they want to launch some place else. Great, but what’s the focus? And if you really want to build a big brand, I think that’s the thing. And even just a successful brand. You want to be known for something, you want to be known for one thing. And it may kind of be a mood. It may be New York. It may be modern kind of a hip hop culture perspective, which could cover a lot of variety within it may be like entrepreneurship, Tim Ferriss kind of biohacking, which again you may talk about investing, you may talk about biohacking, but like there’s a focus there, there’s a particular thing that’s there. If it’s random, if your YouTube channel is random over the long haul you’re going to get random results and you probably won’t have longterm traction and you certainly won’t build a legacy.
Speaker 2 :
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Speaker 3 :
To just carry on with that restaurant analogy, I really like that because one of the things that I am often telling people is to think about why is someone watching your content and it takes a lot of self-awareness because just the, you know, you go to. You know Taco shop, right? And maybe the person of the YouTube channel here is the restaurant owner, the cook, right so and they’re like, well, they’re coming to my restaurant because they just want a good experience with food. And so then they bring out cheeseburgers and they’re all confused. It’s like, well, that’s not actually why they’re coming here. They’re actually coming here because they love your tacos. And so it’s like, is someone coming to your channel because you make funny videos? Maybe but they actually might be. Coming to your channel because of your funny videos on sports or something. So it’s like being selfaware and like and experiment, right. And then you can see that video, you know, didn’t resonate with my audience. And so maybe sometimes it’s a new channel, maybe it’s like let’s stick in this lane and that can really help people. I think just go further faster. And the next statement here is if you don’t get traction after 30 videos you should pivot your niche. This is advice that I’ve heard, but generally I know there’s a lot of deep diving you need. Is this true or false? Like at what point should the person pivot?
Speaker 2 :
I think maybe the word isn’t pivot. I think the word would be packaging, I think because if you’re post 30 videos, good job like clap it up like that’s a lot of work. Before views on it, you might be packaging the information incorrectly or not to its most effectiveness. You might not be titling and thumbnail storytelling to its best ability, but that’s what i would say think about the package of the videos, because if you’re just beating a dead horse with your 30 uploads and you’re just throwing it up and you’re not case sensitive like on the titles, you don’t care. Like, yeah, I uploaded 30 videos, but like, how? How is it?
Speaker 1 :
That is so smart and it reminds me of. Your PBD conversation you were telling us and how the locker room can you explain that? Because part of that is if you if you’re posting 30 videos and you aren’t getting views what you’re saying is like you don’t need to pivot your channel because you might pivot to a channel and still fail. So the package and i like that you said packaging because title and thumbnail and then even your video those are like main things to focus on but that comes with going to the locker room.
Speaker 2 :
Yeah, I mean, going in the locker room, people think that experience is the best teacher. And it’s not. You have the experience of posting 30 videos. But experience isn’t the best teacher. Evaluated experience is the best teacher. That means actually going back and thinking about what are the takeaways, what all. What can I learn from this, which I would encourage people number one. If you are selfaware, that can be something you do yourself. If you can start studying YouTube Analytics, that’ll give you some insights. But you probably need an outside perspective because a lot of us, we need, we need coaching, we need help. We just need somebody that can see what we can’t see. Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest from the trees. And so I would also say that I think it’s probably false that you need to pivot your niche at 30 videos. And I would agree with Omar that there’s probably just something else you should pivot first. And one of those that I think is the biggest missed opportunity is pivoting your video formats. And so you’ve done 30 videos, they’re talking head with no editing. And then they’re like, it’s not working. Well, what if you still are talking about personal finance, but now you’re doing a voice over and it’s all B roll and there’s captions on screen that would be a faceless version of similar content, not talking head. What if you figured out how to do the whiteboard drawn videos and you presented the same information you’re doing book summaries. It’s a book tube thing. It’s huge. People want to watch a summary of a book, but you just sitting there talking. They want a different format and that could be you write a better script, there’s some B roll there, or there’s you know the whiteboard videos, there’s software that’ll do that for you, and you tweak that software. Maybe it’s a video podcast format that is a little bit different than what you were previously doing. There’s different variables and levers you should try because you’re experimenting hasn’t stopped, but maybe if there’s no results after 30 videos. Definitely should pivot something and just understanding the variety of the things. You can pivot to keep the experiments going but change some of the variables.
Speaker 1 :
I love it. I think that’s so good to hear for someone you know in that situation. So I’m glad we touched on that because I know that is like a lonely tough spot to be in where it’s not working and you’re just not sure what to do. And we actually did a free YouTube challenge and so we’ll put a link in the description if you guys want to join the next one but. Someone in the challenge, they were in our VIP group and they were wondering if they were shadow banned. And so this statement stemmed from this person. I have thousands of subscribers and it was mainly from Schwartz. We’ll get to that next. But I have thousands of Subs, barely any views. Is YouTube shadow banning my content? Is this true or false? Does YouTube do this? I know it depends on but like what do you guys think? I could start on I.
Speaker 2 :
Think it’s I think it’s false i.
Speaker 3 :
Think it’s false, but I think the extreme is true. I do think sometimes YouTube just chooses a creator and just gasses their content. I do. I’ve seen that. But why? Why you think is that?
Speaker 1 :
Happening i don’t. And that’s where, like, I call it the Unicorn effect. Like, you kind of can’t put your finger on it quite necessarily. Like I was talking about a comedian. A new comedian a young Mexican dude that’s just been showing up like crazy on my TV YouTube shorts on my you know and I’ve been watching on Instagram. I don’t know I’m like the algorithm on the Internet feel like it caught this guy. You know he’s only got a couple standups and but at the same time he’s not like trying to like break he’s just being him doing his thing and it just the time and then boom it you know. But I don’t think YouTube is like yeah.
Speaker 2 :
And i know there might even be some people in our community that are offended by that because they’d say, of course they shadow ban. Well, here’s what I mean. Number one is I think that 99 % of people who say they’re being shadow banned are just putting out crappy content and they’re trying to blame somebody else. And it’s a victim perspective and you’re going to lose with that mentality. Is it true that? Youtube and Google is more of a liberal leaning organization, yes. And is it true that at times they have been harder it would seem on sometimes conservative voices? Yes however, there’s plenty of conservative channels that are going viral getting a lot of views. And the reason I say false is to empower the listener to say that the only mentality that will lead you to a winning. Youtube Channel is just assuming that shadow banning is not happening. And if you’re not getting views, work harder. If you’re not getting views, be more creative. If you’re not getting views, hit it from a different angle. If you’re not getting views on certain topics, we’ll find the topics you can talk about and move your audience somewhere else. So what? What do a lot of conservative channels do? They are also building up their following on rumble, or they’re building their own OTT Wait, hold on.
Speaker 1 :
What is rumble? Am I? I don’t know what this is, rumbles.
Speaker 2 :
A video sharing platform kind of favoring conservative voices because they’re not going to be as and anybody could post there, but a lot of people diversify their audience over there or it’s a play. I mean Andrew Tate went over to Rumble and I don’t think people would necessarily. Maybe you consider him conservative, probably not. But I mean just speaking against big brand, big tech or the Matrix as he calls it and all this different stuff. Punchline is, again, I think you have to be savvy, you have to be shrewd. But 99 % of people that think they’re getting shadow banned, I would say you 2 doesn’t even know you exist. Actually, you’re not getting shadow banned. You just need to improve your content and because what are you going to do about it as well? I mean that that’s my thought is like it’s a disempowering place because the only real option you have is to complain about it. What are you going to email? Google they’re not going to do anything. You know like and so there’s plenty of people from all different beliefs and backgrounds who find a way they put publish certain content on YouTube. They build up an email list again they build up their own paid subscription site. They just find a different way to communicate and maybe they put out certain types of content. You know my friend Ruslan, he will talk about he is thoughtful about certain things he talks about on YouTube and then he’s like and we have like unedited stuff in our Patreon so. Youtube is still the play. Youtube is the number one video platform. Some people may want to diversify, but I would never leave YouTube. This may be thoughtful about your approach, but I think the shadow banning thing just gets overhyped. And I think you can find you also, you can get what’s called a confirmation bias. You hear a couple stories and you’re like, see that this crater, this happened? You’re like, yeah, but there’s also these craters over here that have the exact same viewpoints that are pulling 50 million views a month. So it’s like. You can. What you want to see is kind of what you will see. I’d say put your head down, do the work, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. And who cares about shadow banning, man?
Speaker 3 :
Get to work. I love that. And I would just add to that, you might have a lot of subscribers. That doesn’t mean you’re going to get a lot of views. And so just know that this the.
Speaker 2 :
New dirty data.
Speaker 1 :
It is. It can be, definitely it can be. And so people get, you know, confused, like I’m shadow banned, but it’s like you might have done really well in the past. Maybe you have some shorts blow up. You got a couple thousand subs, now but your, videos like you, said aren’t. Doing that, well they. One other thing I’d add to that is where I think people need to be careful to actually not get shadow banned is. Understanding that YouTube is a company that they run ads so people post like crazy content. I think there’s just a lot of kind of stuff with the milk boys going on and they were getting I think kicked off of YouTube and their content and all this kind of stuff. And so because they’re posting, you know, more content that is not as advertiser friendly and so keep that in mind like.
Speaker 2 :
And is arguably crime in certain situations like I mean whether illegal and I you know, like that’s the kind of stuff. To get into because of course during lockdowns they’re doing huge meetups. They’re putting observably, potentially like the public in danger. And you could debate all that. But when you step into that territory, it’s a great conversation. Because with some people, one thing that gets people really mad is right now YouTube’s cracking down on swearing and that if you really swear at all that you’re no longer going to be considered familyfriendly and they’re so offended, you’re like yeah well then either swear because you want to and figure out how to monetize elsewhere, or don’t do it. Like people just get so butt hurt all the time. Yeah, they really did. Like, it’s like, dude, it’s a free platform that if you kind of they get to make the rules. And so it could be, you know, swearing. It could be doing dangerous things or dangerous pranks and then it could be.
Speaker 1 :
Well, did you see all the new updates with gamers? And so even within the first like 10 seconds, there’s certain advertisers are just. You’re not going to be able to be monetized if basically if you show violence within the 1st 10 seconds, or if you or if there’s like blood in the video game like there’s new rules coming out for certain niches and people need to play by the rules of YouTube if they’re giving you your paycheck.
Speaker 2 :
That’s just like and gamers are like, I can’t believe it. I can’t even play any games based on this. It’s not even like MA 17. It’s like MA 13 on the violence and you’re like okay man, okay, I understand, but like if you. Are a true entertainer and you build up a true audience. Like you can do channel memberships, you could do Patreon, you can diversify your audience on different platforms, you can figure it out. I’m empathetic because, I mean, depending on what you’re doing, people just. I mean, it’s like you want to have your cake and eat it too, and in some cases it seems like that doesn’t necessarily work. But there are going to be those who make excuses and complain and play the victim card, and they’re going to be those who find a way and get results. And I think that the winning strategy is the strategy of finding a way and figuring it out. To be yourself, to be authentic, but to not complain about YouTube cracking down on you. It is what it is, man. You got to just play with, take ownership and play the hand you’re dealt yeah so I got two quick fire round question or statements and then I want to finish on a on a good one. That I think the listeners are going to love to hear your guys’s thoughts on this. So fire around Omar. The video packaging matters more than the video itself. Let me reword it. The thumbnail and title matter more than the video itself. Is that true or false?
Speaker 2 :
It’s false. It’s false because as soon as they click on it, then it’s, then I click off of it and then YouTube’s like they’re clicking on it and then they’re clicking off of it. We’re not going to show this to more people.
Speaker 1 :
Yes, that’s so something I was thinking about with this question too is there was this study will show it if you’re watching the YouTube version of this. But he did this study where he used to work at Google and now he’s like building some cool software for like YouTube extension plugins and stuff. Basically he found through like 60.000 thousand different videos that he ran through his software that the number one predictor of views was average view duration times, clickthrough rate. So ultimately what that means is it is both, but what you’re saying makes so much sense because if your clickthrough rate is super high, but then your average view duration gets crushed, it doesn’t matter. So yeah, I love that answer, but what would you say true or false on that one?
Speaker 3 :
That would say false as well. Yeah, like the video has to be good, however.
Speaker 2 :
And goodbye information delivering on like there’s that real estate, if you like, this real estate agent in Las Vegas is just booming right now. And his thumbnails are like they’re simple, kind of random, but they’re simple, like burning house behind him. He’s doing loom video, just looking at articles and uploading his loom video. But the information, it’s the potency of the content. You know, it delivers. And so.
Speaker 1 :
Yeah, we actually we actually posted a video on think media. I don’t know if Sean knows this, so we might get in trouble here a little bit, but we posted a video on Think Media accidentally without a thumbnail and it performed 1.
Speaker 2 :
Out of 10.
Speaker 3 :
And Kyle, do you remember how long it was?
Speaker 2 :
Without a thumbnail I caught it like 3 hours after.
Speaker 3 :
Three hours so and it was one out of 10. One, there’s some branding that people know think media and so they clicked on it and then like they were just hooked in and so it just, it’s kind of funny.
Speaker 2 :
There is the. There’s the point exactly OK, one last fire round you to be a YouTuber, you need to be an extrovert totally totally false yeah,
Speaker 1 :
What’s interesting actually, you know, we’ve all now connected. We go to VID Summit and different events and grow a video live and we’ve connected with so many creators. And one of the themes you’ll see is, first of all, successful YouTube creators are all different ages, all different personalities, all different backgrounds. But a large majority of successful YouTube creators are introverts. Because the wiring of a introvert is to what you’re doing is you’re sitting in a bedroom Home Office, alone, talking to a camera, not even a person, and staring at a glass lens to make eye contact. It’s pretty introverted situation. Extroverts are thriving off of sitting across from someone at coffee, and what we’re trying to do is imagine that happening because you’re literally there by yourself. So that’s kind of the introvert advantage. But I would say that almost nobody has really an advantage. It’s just about learning the skills, punching fear in the face, because literally every personality type has figured out how to succeed on YouTube yeah and you mentioned earlier about like focus. And I might I might get Flack for this. But like, you know, people who are like on the spectrum and not in a bad way on the spectrum as in they have an insane level of focus are usually the Youtubers that are just like so you see meet them in person that just they’re kind of just socially awkward but like they’re incredible creators because of just how they’re wired. And I’ve just, I don’t even like entrepreneurs who have grasped the whole creating, you know, journey they’re like awkward i don’t know. I like. I mean, I’m like we’re involved in church and stuff. I like. I want to make sure I don’t stay awkward or get awkward. But this can get you awkward.
Speaker 2 :
Yeah, over time. I mean, yeah, you’re thinking about a lot. You’re cooking up a lot of things. And focus is a superpower, because if you have to get away from your desk and, like, unwind, that’s totally fine. But the person who could be head down, disciplined, methodically going through the things, connecting divergent ideas and strategies. Yeah, like you’d be talking to people at a video conference and they’re still calculating that algorithms, you know, think about their next project or something. Yeah, it’s a whole different kind of breed.
Speaker 1 :
Yeah, I love it. That’s great answers. Now this statement is that you need to post consistently to grow on YouTube, even if that means just once a month. So the priority here is like, do you really need to be consistent with the Tuesday with the 1st? First weekend of the month? Yeah, today. You know, maybe this has changed over time, but today? Is that true?
Speaker 3 :
It is true and I think consistency is misunderstood. So it’s true because I think the idea of Tuesday morning at eight a m and that kind of thing is fine and that can build like momentum. I think what consistency does though is consistency. If you’re going to do anything in life that’s going to be truly successful, you need to be consistent at it wasn’t like I just invested in my marriage one year and then it was successful for the rest of life. You have to keep investing in it that.
Speaker 1 :
Would be the dream though.
Speaker 3 :
If there was only a way, we wrote a book the one year marriage investment for lifelong Love Lincoln Bio. So, I mean so when you think about it, it’s like. It’s consistently showing up for your audience. It’s consistently delivering value. If you were, if you’re building a bigger brand, because creators are doing things, nobody has to do this. But you could do things like meetups, or you could do things like events, or you do launch podcast, you launch other stuff, like people want more, they want to connect with you. So the day of the week is part of it. And there’s certainly, I mean mister. Beast is that like every three weeks or something are his uploads. So there’s that those and those are also becoming i heard one person extrapolated out, they’re actually becoming like mid tier film level because of the amount of editing and time two three million goes into each one or two to four million goes in each one compared to the amount of time if you extrapolated that out, it like equates to 10 to 20 million which is like the price of. Certain mid tier movies that are crushing, so he’s really playing a whole different deal. So it depends on the model but.
Speaker 1 :
When I do what Mr. Bees is doing.
Speaker 2 :
His consistency though, he’s also got a gaming channel, so even his connection level, like he’s got a reaction thing going on. But he’s also, he also is doing things, he’s doing meetups. So it’s like consistency is just you consistently showing up. For people you care about you consistently showing up, whether that’s maybe on other social media, different people writing newsletters. So consistency. I know you’re narrowing it to the YouTube and because the way the algorithm works and if you also rank videos you’re consistent even when you’re not consistent because you actually are still showing up for people, but they want more from you. It’s you think about an artist, it lets down your fans. If there’s demand for a new album, you don’t bring them new music. So consistency would be to keep showing up and keep creating and keep innovating. I think that’s not just about like a profitable life. I think that’s about a fulfilled and effective life. That’s also about loving and serving people and giving more and continuing to serve over time, which also would indicate you should, you should also take a break, you should take a sabbatical, you should take some time off. But it’s much more about the long game of continuing to show up with a consistent message, consistent brand, consistent value. Consistent creativity, new opportunities. We’re thinking about doing a celebration on the Think Media podcast and have people come out to Vegas and come to a theater and meet us in person and maybe, you know do a live show we’re just announcing this live.
Speaker 2 :
I mean, I’m just brainstorming, getting around the podcast right now, but I mean part of it.
Speaker 1 :
Let us know in the comments if you want to if that should be a thing, I think it’d be cool yeah, actually that would that would be RSVP and we’ll see if but part of that is also we know it actually would be harder. Then what we’re doing right now, it’d be logistics and what not like the big media team might have like a side like that’s going to be but why? Because of this community, because of trying to think about touch points and doing things and memorable moments and all those types of things that go deeper. And if you don’t show up consistently then you’re not going to create those moments and you’re ultimately not going to create a movement.
Speaker 1 :
Because consistency yields dependency. And people want to depend on you. And if you’re not showing up, they can’t. And I even think about phases. I consume people in phases. Like I have a season, I consume this creator, and then I I’m over it. They’re still going, though, and they’re still meeting new people. But then I find a new thing. And that’s probably, you know, if you’re listening to this or watching this, you’re, you’re going to find us for a season. And when you’re done, thank you so much for being with us for a season, we’re going to keep going and we’re going to keep posting valuable content because there’s more people to meet. And or when you want to come back, we’ll be here, you know, there’s just something about being dependable as a creator dependable shh.
Speaker 2 :
Yo. That’s it for the podcast episode. Click on the screen. Watch another one. I think you’re going to love this episode. I don’t even know what it is, but click. Click on it. Watch it.
