7 YOUTUBE TIPS YOU CAN’T IGNORE IN 2023! | #THINKMEDIAPODCAST #186
If you ignore these YouTube tips, you’re probably going to regret it later. Whether you just struggle and stay stuck not getting views, or if currently your YouTube channel has hit a plateau, it’s probably because of one of the seven mistakes we’re going to talk about in this podcast. Episode number one. Not embracing YouTube shorts. Listen, YouTube shorts. Are getting 30 billion views per day. That’s a 4X increase from the previous stat, and that was reported at the beginning of 2022 so these numbers continue to go up. Not only that, YouTube shorts is now getting monetization so you can earn money drawing craters from other platforms.
And YouTube is going all in on YouTube shorts. So can you succeed without using YouTube shorts? Sure, but why would you put yourself at a? Advantage when your competitors and other creators are embracing this new median, you know, there’s a creator named Taylor and Michael who is a Christian content creator. He grew 1 1 million subscribers in 28 days from going all in on YouTube shorts. Am I saying it has to be the only kind of content you create? No am I saying that it should be some of the content that you create? Yes short form content is a gateway to long form, and YouTube is now better organized separating your videos, your shorts, and live streams.
I just believe that if you ignore YouTube shorts and if you refuse to learn how to story, tell, and create content in less than 60 seconds in a vertical format, or to repurpose your content strategically, you are going to regret it later and you’re going to get left behind number two. Not learning from others. It is foolish to not learn from others. Who could we learn from? I think it’s worth looking at your competitors and what I’m not talking about is comparison.
Comparison is the thief of joy and it is the killer of creativity. However, there’s a great concept from Simon Sinek that is called worthy rivals by having people who are rivals that inspire you to push harder. People that you learn from and people that with a healthy respect you pull inspiration and information and strategy from. So what competitors are you studying in your niche? Are you consuming enough YouTube? Who would have thought that actually watching YouTube now has a business purpose and a strategic purpose? Because you’re watching to see what works, not just to be entertained. You’re watching not to just learn the substance of the video itself, but even the way the video is being created and how the videos be is performing.
What is YouTube recommending to you? What thumbnails do you want to click on? And of course not continuing to invest in your education. Lifelong leaders are lifelong learners. I found those that ignore learning from others, and at some point they stop. Getting wisdom and they stop taking notes, and they stop going to events and they stop reading books. Those are the ones that years later find themselves further and further behind. If you want to win, you got to continue to learn, and the only way to win is to learn faster than anybody else number three. Not listening to your audience. When you stop listening to your audience, you start getting out of touch.
Not listening to your audience, and also a number three not listening to your analytics. So we’ve all heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If you’re listening to your analytics, you can then make data-driven decisions to be informed about the next thing you should do better. Ultimately, I don’t even really believe in failures. I believe in lessons that can lead you to success.
Now sure a video may have failed, but really what it did was it educated you and informed you on what not to do next time. And even your most successful videos contain lessons as you study your analytics. Creators that say Sean, I’m, I’ve had 100 videos, I’m at 200 videos, I’m at 300 videos on YouTube, and I’m still stuck. You’re not listening to your analytics, you’re not studying your watch time curve, you’re not listening to the comments. Or maybe you’re not getting comments. Something needs to change. But if you’re not listening and you’re just blindly continuing on the same path, expecting a different result, you might be insane.
It’s the definition of insanity. Furthermore, not listening to your audience. I am stunned by creators that start to grow and have some success. That stop reading comments that stop listening to the feedback they’re getting on the Community tab. That stop if you’re posting on other social media platforms. Listening and I understand I’m empathetic. Things get busy as your business gets more complex. A lot of midlevel creators that start experiencing success, maybe high 5, multiple 6 figures of income. A lot of times get so overwhelmed because of lacking leadership skills or team building skills or operational skills or business skills or organizational skills that I get it it’s daunting and it’s overwhelming.
And then you’re still trying to create content, but the problem is when you were starting and hustling and valuing every view and every comment, now you’re out of touch, I find myself, I’m still in my YouTube studio app. I’m still in the comments. You know, if you listen to the Think Media podcast, I read every review. And if you watch the Think Media podcast on YouTube, I at least read every comment.
When you see those hearts showing up in those comments, I’m there, I am replying to the comments. We also have team helping us. But i rotate around platforms and I can’t get to everything. But I learned from Andy Stanley do for one which you wish you could do for all. And more importantly, yes, I want to reply or I want to heart or I want to like the comment, but I also just need to make sure I’m listening why? Because that’s where the insights come from.
When a new video comes out, I listen. If someone starts saying this seems out of touch, you missed it on this one. If it’s just one person, I’ll take that with a grain of salt. But if it’s 10 %, twenty percent, 40 % of the comments are like you’re off here. I at least need to pay attention. Don’t we need to have the humility and the empathy to listen to feedback from our community? Listen, I’ve seen people that ignore this YouTube tip.
And they regret it later. They find themselves drifting further and further and further out of touch with their audience, and then they start to see their stats and their relevance decline. You got to listen to your audience and you got to listen to your analytics number four not having a plan or a strategy. Those that just go on to YouTube guns blazing with no plan end up losing. Now listen, I know you got to just punch fear in the face and press record. And that sounds like you do that before you’re ready.
You start messy. You start poop your pants. Scared you can’t steer a parked car. Of course, your first couple videos, you got to just get moving because overthinking and procrastination is what’s holding you back. So what you’re trying to do is create a little bit of momentum, because truly, you cannot steer a parked car like it’s not. I mean, nowadays you have power steering, but literally the car needs some movement. I was looking at a bus driver today and I was seeing how big his steering wheel was and I was thinking, of course he has power steering, but he was, I was like, that’s a physical job.
I was, as I was watching him take this corner down in Lynnwood, washington I was like, that’s an athletic job. Even with the power steering to steer this thing because it’s this giant vehicle, this giant double Decker bus that he was driving, what’s the point? The point is that you need a little bit of movement so you can start steering. But once you get moving, where are you going? Aren’t you going to enter a address in your GPS and your phone? You’ve defined a destination, and then your GPS is actually telling you, turn here, go right here, don’t go here, go here.
You missed a turn rerouting, and that’s what we need on YouTube. We need to know where we’re going. And then we need the play by play left on seventeenth a right on pine. Street, whoops missed it. We’re going to make mistakes along the way, rerouting and we get back on track towards our destination. Those that don’t have a plan lose on YouTube. Those that don’t have a strategy lose on YouTube. You know, in a 2023 world, it’s more important than ever to be strategic. A lot of creators are still kind of playing by some of the old rules.
They haven’t continued to learn, they haven’t continued to get educated. Or maybe they’re starting and just thinking, I’m just going to wing it and friend, that just doesn’t work in a 2023 world. A lot of creators are trying to play checkers when you need to be playing chess. A whole nother level of strategy. By the way, if you haven’t heard yet and you want specific help helping you with strategy, helping you develop a winning YouTube plan as well as get access to a community that at a deeper level at Think media, our signature program is called Video ranking Academy and a few times a year we do like a super special offer with some special bonuses and all this other stuff.
We do that during our five day challenges, and you may or may not have been a part of that. But right now, for a very limited time, we actually are doing our best offer of the year on our signature course, some cool bonuses, access to our private group, and if that’s something that you’re interested in, you can check it out at learn video twenty three dot.
Com of course, there’s a link in the show notes as well that’s directly to a place where you can invest in this. And I’m it’s not cheap, it’s a it’s a real investment, but the value that you’re getting this is like YouTube call. College and community with updates. You get a lot of cool things that are happening. And if you basically say this, if you value your time and you want to go faster, you want to just figure it out on your own.
You want a stepbystep playbook to win on YouTube, and you understand the power of community. Knowing that information alone is not enough. We need a community to keep us inspired to bounce ideas off. It’s cool because you have access to me and our think media faculty and our YouTube coaches. And so anyways, super cool. If you want more help with having a plan, having a strategy learn video twenty three dot com you can check out that there.
But number five is not being consistent. Before you go, I’ve heard this one before, there’s deeper levels to consistency. In fact, I’m convinced 99 % of traders don’t even understand what consistency is. See, they think, oh, being consistent. I got to upload once a week. I need to upload at least. Twice a week I’m uploading one video and one YouTube short. That’s not what consistency is. That’s a piece of it. That’s only like 10 % though.
See where people fail? The mistake they make is it’s not just about having a consistent upload time, it’s also about having a consistent brand. If every time I see you online you’re indistinguishable, I can’t recognize you. I have no idea what you’re talking about if you’re forgettable like I’m not seeing consistency in the look. I’m not seeing consistency in the video quality, in the brand, in the music, in the mood and the emotion, because, again, we’re forgetful people. We’re super busy. So if you constantly are looking different, by the way, this is, I was like losing my mind when I thought about growing a beard. And so now I’ve had this beard for a while.
It’s, you know, a little bit of Gray came in with it. I was like, I don’t know if I like it. My wife liked it and I was like, babe, if you like it then that’s what I’m going to do, you know? And so she was into it. So i went ahead and grew it out. But I was like, am I destroying my brand? Because me without a beard, I look 10 years younger like a child. Then with a beard I’m look 10 years older as like, you know. And so these are things to be thoughtful about.
Like you don’t need to overthink, but you’re not just showing up at a consistent time. You want to show up with a consistent look. You want to be memorable. You want to show up with a consistent message. Too many people I see one day, they’re like, subscribe for cooking tutorials and then, you know, two months later. Three months later, I’ll check in with them and it’s like, subscribe for car repair tips. And then a couple months later they’re all over the place. They have two reviews of movies. They have two gameplay Call of Duty videos, and then they have a video on how to stay motivated and be a better public speaker.
I’m like, what the heck are you doing? Like, what, what? What is this channel? You’re inconsistently posting, your brand is all over the place. There’s game playthroughs, there’s you on camera. The message is what even is your message. Message is constantly changing, and other ones your energy. Just meaning that I don’t just mean your energy on camera because you might have different moods, moods and vibes. I mean that the energy people get from you is consistent. Like when I hope, when people watch think media, they get a consistent experience.
That’s another word for it. You listen to Think Media podcast, there’s a consistent experience here. You’re hopefully consistently getting value. We’re not going to do it every time. We’re not going to knock it out of the park every time. But hopefully, and this is literally numbers I like to use. I like to think about the value I’m going to deliver on the Think Media podcast on a scale from one to ten. Of course I always want it to be 10, but I know it’s never going to always be 10.
And so my actual goal is that these episodes are consistently bringing you a 6-7-8 level of value. I don’t want to do too many sixes in a row. The question would be, and if this could be subjective, but a four or five maybe shouldn’t be posted. Definitely a three, two or one. And this goes back to listening to others. Sometimes I got to listen and be like, i thought that was better than it was or is clear than it was. It’s okay. In fact, I’d say this. You don’t want to be fearful. Like one mistake, one episode is going to like tumble your whole empire.
However, what happens is organizational drift. What happens is drift from the excellence you once had, the hustle you once had, the quality you used to have, the care you used to have. As that stuff drifts, people start going, man, this channel used to be good. But it just feels like their heart’s not in it anymore. Feels like they’re not listening. Just feels like. And by the way, if this feels like a heavy responsibility, good. You have the audacity to want to make an all time living working from home with passive reoccurring income. So not only can you be generous, but that you have freedom and choices for your family and for travel.
You’re trying to live the YouTube dream life. It should be a little bit heavy. Which means you should be challenged to continue to read and level up and study and invest so that you can bring value when people encounter you. Sean, this sounds like work. Yeah, it’s work on your own terms. It’s being your own boss. But it still takes heart and effort and excellence.
And so consistency is that when people come to your videos. They are constantly getting a 6-7-8-9 and hopefully 10 sometimes and very few sixes if people can jump click on your videos for the promise you make in your title and be like that was solid seven. I mean that’s the channel is really consistent. Even I would rather be consistent over 10 years than be flashy for 10 months. I don’t even really want to do tens all the time. I just want you to always be like Sean is solid. Think media, they deliver. That’s not the most exciting channel. Maybe, but man, it’s consistent watch i can depend on them. Listen, I can trust.
Think media to post consistently, to bring a consistent message, to bring some consistent energy, to bring consistent topics. And maybe some of the episodes stretch. You don’t even click on every video. That’s a that’s a key. Not every podcast interests you. Not every video interests you on think media, for sure. Not every video, because you may not have that specific camera or that specific editing software, but the promise of the channel overall on our main channel, the best tips and tools for building your influence with online video were consistent to that. Or at least that’s the goal.
Listen, if you ignore this YouTube tip, you will regret it later. Number six, putting money first in your audience second. We got to really learn this lesson. Lately we’ve seen people violating their values for fame or for money. And I don’t know if they did it intentionally, and I actually don’t know if their values were this upfront. You know, maybe their values were fame and money at any cost. But what can happen is I want to assume that most people are goodhearted and that they just get sucked up into the momentum, sucked up into the views, sucked up into the opportunities.
Like I’m a small town kid, college dropout. All the sudden you’re having an offer from a big company. You it’s you’re conflicted. Like it’s hard. You’re like, I don’t know, they could be good. Of course we saw a lot of financial Youtubers to partner with FTX That’s an ongoing developing story. Of course we saw Logan Paul, a controversial figure for sure, and this crypto zoo thing, and at the time of me recording this, not only was there a three-part series from Coffee Zilla on it, then there’s his reaction. There’s he said, she said back and forth, you know the whole deal and the punch line is.
That at the center of all of these stories, though, there’s people who are really getting hurt in the process. Investors that are getting cheated out of money, dishonesty that has downstream consequences for people being hurt again. And the big deal is that viewers lose trust with creators. So if you put money first, of course in the short term it may be better for you, but in the long term you’ll regret it. You don’t want to put your audience second because remember, your audience when it’s comes to the greater economy is all you have. I was recently talking to Think Media team and I said listen, first of all, our entire business is based on people.
It’s based on a love of people. It’s based on helping people win. We are an education company. We need to be obsessed with people too. We need to respect and love and honor to understand that none of us have jobs if. We are not putting our audience first. Every Wednesday we do what’s called love bombs, which is taking time on zoom together. We just all on there. We turn on a little chill hot music, I mute my mic and we put 10 to 20 minutes on the clock. And we spread out across our email inboxes and our Facebook groups and our d m ‘s and. I try to go as many places I go to think Media podcast or I go to my Instagram comments.
And we do this other times throughout the week, but it is a non negotiable on our calendar that we are going to have scheduled time of going to wherever we can. That anyone’s left to comment and liking it, replying, saying thank you and either hitting as many as we can or and this what I’ll tell think media team I’ll say or spend all 10 minutes replying to one person doing for one which you wish you could do for all. The point is we want to put our audience first and remember that our community is everything. And the key phrase here, our favorite phrase is thank you.
Gary Vaynerchuk wrote a book years ago called the Thank You Economy. So and I’ll admit, think Media team is amazing. There’s no better team. They’re absolutely incredible, but I’ll watch it happen. We get busy serving people and doing the work, but we can get so busy. That post can go unresponded to, comments can go unresponded to. And even at the level we’re at, we cannot get to all of them. But the punchline I call people back to, and I love Gary for this, is saying thank you. And I want to thank you literally for like the fact that if all you ever do is just listen to this one podcast, thank you for spending your watch time minutes here on YouTube or on an audio platform.
Thank you for hitting like on the video. Thank you for sharing it with somebody. If you’ve been a part of the think media community for years, seriously, thank you. Or you’re subscribed to the podcast. And if you’ve ever clicked on an affiliate link or bought a book or bought a course, thank you. Like, I just sincerely just recognized that if you aren’t here right now or we’re not connecting, then I can’t do what I get to do.
And my hope is that I can spark a little bit of that love and gratitude that you would pass it along to your community. Here would be the other angle of this never getting entitled to thinking you deserve it, never getting entitled to thinking that you are better than or above. Staying engaged and thanking your community and never getting entitled like you’re entitled to money at the sacrifice of your audience. Like you’re entitled to fame at the sacrifice of putting your audience first.
Because you never want to forget the very people that helped you get there. And I’m sure you’ve probably observed it, but what’s scary is this is a lot more common than most people even believe, right? A lot of people get success and they forget the people who brought them there. A lot of people get success, and they no longer honor the very people that helped them get them there. They no longer, they never, they never said thank you. They never truly shared the appreciation for the individuals that helped him. And I’ll tell you this, I did not get here alone and no YouTube.
Like a YouTube creator, I’m self-made No you aren’t. You had to be made by your audience. I’m self-made You were made by your parents. I’m self-made You are created by God like he said this whole thing in motion. No man is an island to himself. We need each other, we need to depend on others, and even the most famous of influencer only has influence because someone is following and commenting and liking their stuff. This whole ecosystem of the creator economy is about community and other people that are interconnected. No one is doing it all by themselves and alone. Even if you’re a solo creator, you you’re depending on the software, you’re depending on YouTube itself.
How about thank you YouTube? Thank you YouTube for giving me a platform to upload on and free to upload on free thank you Adobe for giving me software. A lot of thank yous can be put out there. I know I’m on a rabbit trail, but I just want to encourage you to spread more love. It’s not about putting money 1st and your audience second. That’s a mistake. It’s about keeping your audience 1st and appreciating and knowing that they are the ones. Who are allowing you to do what you do, and I want to encourage you.
That is, as you continue to value them and dare I say, take your value of your community to another level. Really good book. And an episode in the archives from my friend Pat Flynn wrote a book called Superfans and Just The Things he would do to love on and connect with and serve his community. That’s the kind of energy and position that you want to have. Finally, number seven. Trying to be somebody else. If you try to be somebody else, it might work in the short term, but you’re going to regret it later. Don’t try to be somebody else.
You got to be you times too, because you were also born an original, so it would be awful to die a copy. But the other problem with trying to be somebody else is maybe you saw somebody doing it a certain way and you saw that it worked, and maybe you’re even sort of good at imitating them. The problem is you’re out of alignment. I remember a health teacher I had in high school right before I got expelled, nonetheless from Christian School. That’s a story for another day. And he was telling me about integrity, which I did not have clearly. That’s why I got it expelled.
And he said, you know, integrity comes from the word integer, which means whole, which means one. Integrity means living in alignment with your values. Integrity means there’s no double twofacedness to you. There’s no hypocrisy. There’s no you’re one way on camera. You’re different in real life. You’re different people. You’re an actor wearing a mask over here and you’re somebody different here. Now of course if you’re literally an actor and you do skits you should probably you know have it’s okay to try to be somebody else because you’re that’s literally the job of an actor.
But I’m talking for us that are personal brands that are putting our own brand out there, friend. It just it’s going to build up way too much stress. And anxiety, because you’re trying to keep up the show. If you want to have peace like a river, if you want to be secure, if you want to be able to be unafraid in any environment, you don’t want to have any lies. You don’t want to have to ask who am I supposed to be here who? Who am I supposed to be? You just want to be yourself, just authentically you.
And the more you could double down on your authenticity, the better. Listen, it also might mean you might think I won’t grow as fast if I’m truly me, or i won’t be as famous or I won’t make as much money good i would much rather be me and live a healthy, solid, maybe somewhat modest YouTube creator economy career. Than to get super famous and get a bunch of accolades for being fake. If my option is to make sixty k a year and I would.
I know globally could be I’m just picking a number but that’d be like a you can live on that certain places in the United States pretty well. You get to do what you love, work from home. I know that a lot of us want to make six figures and crush it, but just for reference point, if it was about making sixty k a year versus. Four hundred thousand dollars a year, but I have to sell out, but I have to compromise my values. But I have to try to be somebody else. But I don’t get to be me and I constantly am trying to keep up a show or I just don’t get to fully be me.
What’s more valuable? Money or just truly being secure in your own skin and being yourself? So a huge mistake I see people make that if you ignore this tip, you’re going to regret it later. It’s just trying to be somebody else. And if you can double down on who you are and honestly be you times too, because what’s amazing is truly the most impactful creators that also leave a lasting legacy are people that we observe from the outside and are able to say wow like there’s something about them.
They’ve tapped into the magic why? Because they’re in alignment congruency, and alignment is unstoppable. When someone’s just truly themself, they’re just. They’re the overflow of who they are. They didn’t have to make anything up, because it’s who they are. It’s who they’ve been becoming, it’s what they develop. And you know, they are just right in the center of the superpower of their strengths and quirks and geekiness and nongeekiness. And leadership. Or more or being more goofy, or being more quirky, or being more funny, or being super intellectual, or being really charismatic and energetic, or being more monotonous and kind of funny, or being really dry and cynical.
Or being more, you know, over the top and directly humorous. Like who are you? Like what are the skill sets and traits and parts of your personality? Because when you are that watch, when people actually then see that and they see who you are going back to number five, then you’re consistently you. And this is what people can know, like you or not. They know what they’re going to get and because you know who you are, you just keep showing up as you.
And it’s been said before and I’ll say it again, your vibe will attract your tribe. You’re in harmony the music you’re playing in your videos. I mean metaphorically, but if you’re a musician, of course the actual music, you know, like the harmony that you emit into the world is just you just being you, doing your thing, being you. And one of the interesting things that some marketing firms revealed as I was studying trends was that vulnerability is a big YouTube trend that people are connecting more when people are more vulnerable. So they’re willing to let people see their scars. They’re willing to let people see and hear about their mistakes.
They’re going the opposite of wearing a mask. And they’re going to decide of actually, it’s not about airing your dirty laundry, although some people do that, or just being crazy vulnerable, but it’s just about being more vulnerable and more transparent. Double down on vulnerability and transparency this year, not as a tactic. As an opportunity to create deeper connections with your community and to just be more expressly you. And secondly, they saw that authenticity was a major trend. That what we’re looking for in a world where it feels click, Beatty and hype and like people are wearing masks and they’re playing characters, that when somebody is truly them, we are craving trust and congruency.
We are hungry for people just being authentic. And we just kind of want to know who they are, what they stand for. And so don’t try to be someone else. Hey, if you want to connect with us more. And specifically, if you want to take advantage of this limited offer we have on our signature course, video ranking Academy with a bunch of bonuses at a special price that we only do a couple times a year during our challenges that is closing soon.
So learn video twenty three dot com. Link in the show notes if you want to check that out. I want to thank you for being a part of the Think Media podcast community. Wherever you listen to this, if you can rate, review, like and comment, that means the world to me. And what did you like best? Did any of these stand out to you and which one do you want to work on the most? And I also want to encourage you to subscribe because we have some powerful episodes and powerful guests coming to the Think Media podcast this year, whether you subscribe on audio or video.
I love you, I respect you, and I’m super grateful that you’re a part of this community. We’re on a mission to help 10.000 thousand purpose driven people create a full time living doing what they love while making a difference in the world with YouTube and video. Thanks for being a part of the mission. We are here to serve you and help you on your YouTube journey, so until the next episode we will talk soon.
