Figuring Out YouTube

[Andy Black]

Q2 2022 is nearly over! I promised myself I'd not do anything on YouTube for the first half of the year.

I dabbled with LinkedIn for a bit, but I still can't get over how LinkedIn and Twitter are platforms where you post and the content eventually sinks beneath the waves. On YouTube videos can be found and watched years later.

Anyway, I was chatting with @Lex DeVille last night and directed him to a video from the Dreamcloud channel. I binge watched a lot of them last year, and share this particular one that I'd not watched.

My mind is blown yet again by the tools out there that can help create videos. I think the video the Dreamcloud guy created out of this will be poor quality, but that's because the initial script isn't great. If we start with a better script then these tools are a game-changer.

View: https://youtu.be/yP2bVutvkoM?t=240


Then, while I'm contemplating allowing myself an hour each evening to create videos for a new anonymous channel TWO people independently tell me how they liked the talking head videos I used to do over 5 years ago when walking along the local canal.

I quote:

IMHO you'd be giving up many of your advantages:

• The fact that you're not camera shy. You're allowing viewers to see you, hear you and have their first impression rather quickly. And I think it's been overwhelmingly positive so far. And that it's a HUGE selling point you'd be giving up. They can see who they'll be working with.
• Speaking perfect English is another thing that many can't do and you can. Often when I watch some how-to video it's one of the things that really gets in the way and makes it harder to follow. And also makes me not keen to bookmark or subscribe. Whereas sometimes a great presentation alone made me bookmark some channel.

 

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[Andy Black]

I've been thinking about YouTube the last few days.

I do video calls with people all the time. They're easily an hour or more.

These chats aren't just about Google Ads. Often I chat with forum members and try to help them get unstuck and moving in the right direction. Other times I just shoot the breeze with a fellow business owner (many of them are also from this forum).

I recorded a lot and posted them to SoundCloud as an "accidental podcast". They seem to help lots of people who listen to them. (I should probably make a formal podcast out of this.)

I'm wondering how best to get that backlog up onto YouTube, and extract snippets so people don't have to listen to the whole recording.



The recording below is an example of one that seemed to help people who've listened.

I don't think we recorded it as a video. I'll try to find the original.

Either way, I'd like to publish it as a video somehow to YouTube. If we didn't record it as a video then I'm not sure how best to do it. Maybe we have some background image(s) and show the transcription?

GOLD! - HOT! - Who have you helped?

I had a chat with Tony who describes how: One simple question got him unstuck. He's only been on Quora for 30 days helping people. He's only posted 29 times but is now top ranked for his subject matter. His bio sends people to a survey where he asks opened ended questions (as per the Ask book...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

[Cameraman]

I've been thinking about YouTube the last few days.

I do video calls with people all the time. They're easily an hour or more.

These chat's aren't just about Google Ads. Often I chat with forum members and try to help them get unstuck and moving in the right direction. Other times I just shoot the breeze with a fellow business owner (many of them are also from this forum).

I recorded a lot and posted them to SoundCloud as an "accidental podcast". They seem to help lots of people who listen to them. (I should probably make a formal podcast out of this.)

I'm wondering how best to get that backlog up onto YouTube, and extract snippets so people don't have to listen to the whole recording.



The recording below is an example of one that seemed to help people who've listen.

I don't think we recorded it as a video originally. I'll try to find the original.

Either way, I'd like to publish it as a video somehow to YouTube. If we didn't record it as a video then I'm not sure how best to do it. Maybe we have some background image(s) and show the transcription?

GOLD! - HOT! - Who have you helped?

I had a chat with Tony who describes how: One simple question got him unstuck. He's only been on Quora for 30 days helping people. He's only posted 29 times but is now top ranked for his subject matter. His bio sends people to a survey where he asks opened ended questions (as per the Ask book...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Sounds like a good idea.
I've seen a few videos like this in the past where the video is a graphic still, perhaps your logo. You could then chop up the soundtrack to keep the content tight. Add some background music and then fade the sections of sound in and out.
I think it's well worth trying.

 

[Andy Black]

I'm determined to figure out Descript and slice up my 90 minute Google Ads workshop video.

Here's the first part with fancy captions.

I'm still not into thumbnails. This is just what YouTube picked from the video. I suppose I could take this image and blow up the words on the screen. They're kinda intriguing I guess?

View: https://youtu.be/9fkAL2RSKqs

 

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[mikecarlooch]

I'm determined to figure out Descript and slice up my 90 minute Google Ads workshop video.

Here's the first part with fancy captions.

I'm still not into thumbnails. This is just what YouTube picked from the video. I suppose I could take this still and blow up the words on the screen. They're kinda intriguing I guess?

View: https://youtu.be/9fkAL2RSKqs

I watched the full video

What I noticed is it's super fast paced which is good it kept my attention the whole time - when the video ended I wasn't even expecting it to end!

I noticed my eyes instantly went to the subtitles when I clicked on the video. They are on point and come up at the same time as when you say them

Your enthusiasm made the video extremely watchable

One thing to grab more attention I would say is add B-Roll on top of what you're saying i think it will make the videos even better!

And also maybe photos that pop up of exactly what you're talking about I think would be a good addition

 

[Andy Black]

I watched the full video

Nice! It's only 4 mins which helped, but still... 4 mins of someone's time is still an "ask".

What I noticed is it's super fast paced which is good it kept my attention the whole time - when the video ended I wasn't even expecting it to end!

Yeah, I edited it pretty ruthlessly in Descript. I wondered if it might be too fast for those who don't have English as their mother tongue, but I guess they have the captions to help.

I noticed my eyes instantly went to the subtitles when I clicked on the video. They are on point and come up at the same time as when you say them

Descript does them automatically. I had to tidy them up a bit because the transcription AI isn't perfect. I also had to press new-line sometimes to get the captions to split nicer across lines. I'm debating loading the transcription up into the video description, and/or into the captions so Google can better read and understand the video.

Your enthusiasm made the video extremely watchable

Thanks. I think that's one of my advantages. I'm like that when I present.

One thing to grab more attention I would say is add B-Roll on top of what you're saying i think it will make the videos even better!

And also maybe photos that pop up of exactly what you're talking about I think would be a good addition

These are good ideas. I'll definitely think about it, but maybe not for this series of videos. It's come from a 90 minute presentation and I think that presentation was based on about 20 sections. I'd like to can extract, edit, and publish one video a day from that workshop and adding b-roll and imagery might be a bit too much for me at the moment. (I may change my mind and redo this tomorrow after I've slept on it!)

 

[Cameraman]

What a great video and I support what @mikecarlucci said about pace, energy and engagement.

Another important point for me is that it only dealt with one idea and it did it with an interesting story to make the point. I also agree that it would have been nice to see the odd graphic flash up in support of some points but probably only in a couple of places. It doesn't need to be like a screencast and they only need to be stills for example a graph or a screenshot of a google search with ads. Sue people will know what these are but they help to re-engage the viewer.

Are you using these to promote your course? If not, you should be.

 

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[Andy Black]

Are you using these to promote your course? If not, you should be.

I'd like the videos to be evergreen and still useful in 5-10 years time, so I won't promote my course within the videos themselves, although might do so in the video description.

If anything, I'd like to daisychain the videos together into a series somehow and keep people binge watching the series on YouTube - but not if it complicates things.

I just spotted I had 20 seconds of silence and a black screen on the end of the video I just published. I'll fix and upload a new video later. I'm not sure what to put at the end of the videos. Maybe some blank screen for 10 seconds and an end-card showing the next video?

I edited another couple of videos tonight but won't upload them until I've figure out how to link them all up.

 

[Cameraman]

I'd like the videos to be evergreen and still useful in 5-10 years time

I understand completely but I don't think it prevents you from promoting your course.

I'd like to daisychain the videos together into a series somehow

I do this with some of my videos using three techniques:

1. Include a link to all the videos of the series in the YouTube description. Then when I release a new video I update the description to add it to the list.
2. I create a YouTube Playlist for the series and add the new video to that.
3. I use a link at the end of the video recommending they watch the next video in the series and giving a reason why. This seems to create a CTR of 10% - 25%.

The third point is a little more difficult because you can't link to the next video if it's not published and if it isn't live it doesn't show. The way I get around it is to still recommend they watch the next video saying something like "this is why you need to watch this next video. If it's been published you'll see it on screen now."

I then pause for about a second before saying "if I haven't published it yet, go watch this video instead which...". This allows me to show a different video link to keep people watching.

I then have another pause of a second before reminding people to subscribe and ending the video.

What this allows me to do is update the video ending in the YouTube online editor in the Studio. When the next video in the series is published I can add it to the ending. I can also cut out the second, now redundant video link because I left a slight pause at the beginning and end.

If you think you might want to try this, let me know and I will DM you a recent example.

 

[Andy Black]

I understand completely but I don't think it prevents you from promoting your course.


I do this with some of my videos using three techniques:

1. Include a link to all the videos of the series in the YouTube description. Then when I release a new video I update the description to add it to the list.
2. I create a YouTube Playlist for the series and add the new video to that.
3. I use a link at the end of the video recommending they watch the next video in the series and giving a reason why. This seems to create a CTR of 10% - 25%.

The third point is a little more difficult because you can't link to the next video if it's not published and if it isn't live it doesn't show. The way I get around it is to still recommend they watch the next video saying something like "this is why you need to watch this next video. If it's been published you'll see it on screen now."

I then pause for about a second before saying "if I haven't published it yet, go watch this video instead which...". This allows me to show a different video link to keep people watching.

I then have another pause of a second before reminding people to subscribe and ending the video.

What this allows me to do is update the video ending in the YouTube online editor in the Studio. When the next video in the series is published I can add it to the ending. I can also cut out the second, now redundant video link because I left a slight pause at the beginning and end.

If you think you might want to try this, let me know and I will DM you a recent example.

Oh wow. I hadn't thought of using the YouTube online editor. What a fantastic way to do this! THANKS!!!!

I've been thinking and I'd like to add intros, outros, links to other videos, and the images/b-roll. Oh, and the damn thumbnails. If I'm going to do all that work presenting and editing, I might as well polish it up the best I can too.

 

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[MTF]

@Andy Black you're so obviously excited about YouTube that you really need to focus on it and master it instead of just "figuring it out."

I'd love to see you succeed in this.

 

[Cameraman]

I might as well polish it up the best I can too

If you want to create evergreen content with a 5-10 year lifespan I think that would be a good idea.

 

[Andy Black]

@Andy Black you're so obviously excited about YouTube that you really need to focus on it and master it instead of just "figuring it out."

I'd love to see you succeed in this.

Ha. Is it obvious?

I like figuring stuff out, but you're right... time to focus.

If you want to create evergreen content with a 5-10 year lifespan I think that would be a good idea.

Very good point. I'll keep that top of mind.

 

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[JaaYu]

I'm determined to figure out Descript and slice up my 90 minute Google Ads workshop video.

Here's the first part with fancy captions.

I'm still not into thumbnails. This is just what YouTube picked from the video. I suppose I could take this image and blow up the words on the screen. They're kinda intriguing I guess?

View: https://youtu.be/9fkAL2RSKqs

I've just started YouTube too! I think for thumbnails, you can use Canva for free, but I personally use Adobe Photoshop. I recently learned how to use Photoshop for

from

. Sorry for the language and thumbnail from the guide, but he gave me the best tutorial I ever found on YouTube.

 

[Andy Black]

I don't think it prevents you from promoting your course.

I think I'd rather people who are interested enough to follow breadcrumbs go to AndyBlack.net instead.

There they can find their way to my LinkedIn profile, YouTube channel, Google Ads articles in this forum, the 90 minute Google Ads workshop, my courses platform, and my contact-me form. (It also means I can change what's on AndyBlack.net in the future and not have to worry about changing links anywhere.)

I'm about to update my INSIDERS progress thread. I don't know where they're all coming from, but I've had 7 signups for my $25/mth Google Ads Jumpstart in the past two weeks. I doubt it's from activity on YouTube as I've barely posted this year and I don't get many views anyway.

 

[Cameraman]

I think I'd rather people who are interested enough to follow breadcrumbs go to AndyBlack.net instead.

I understand. Much better to have a stream of interested visitors than a tsunami of tyre kickers.

I've had 7 signups for my $25/mth Google Ads Jumpstart in the past two weeks

This is great news.

I don't know if it's relevant to you but I recently found I could activate the shop on my YouTube site with new providers. Previously I thought this was all about selling mugs and hats but they've added a couple of new providers. If you're hosted on Shopify you can link your shop and sell products from that on YouTube. Unfortunately, it's not compatible with the Shopify BuyButton I use.

The other provider is TeeSpring. You can set up with them for free and they support selling books, courses and other digital products on YouTube. The main downside is the 20% commission they charge but I have made sales in the first week. YouTube visitors seem to be browsing my shop without me promoting or even mentioning it.

 

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[Andy Black]

I've been a bit surprised at the positive feedback I've had from the longer chats I've recently uploaded to YouTube.

They're very lightly edited, if at all, and typically over an hour long. I have chats like this weekly and most are never recorded. When they are recorded I've just shoved them on SoundCloud. That's 40+ recordings uplpaded to SoundCloud in the last 5 years.

I didn't expect people to watch such long and rambling recordings on YouTube, and to like them so much. (Not everyone of course, but there's certainly a few people who PM me regularly about my longer recordings in my paid membership and now for these longer recordings on YouTube).

I do these calls all the time, and indeed can't NOT do them. They're also a massive source of potential short videos.

Again, I think I could create a small intro and outro to make them a bit more professional. And do some damn thumbnails and write actual descriptions.

I think they could also benefit from being more like a podcast where I ask guests to introduce themselves. We normally chat a bit at the start to get to know each other but I've been chopping that part out as it's been quite informal.

I create threads in the forum whenever I upload these "chats with forum members". It's always interesting when people give their feedback and takeaways.

Here's the latest of these two longer unstructured chats:

• Helping a systems analyst grow what he knows and build his high ground
• AndyTalks With Black_Dragon43 About Tools, Teaching, Agency, Focus & Productivity

 

[Andy Black]

Curious what you think of the format of this podcast turned into a video using Descript:

View: https://youtu.be/8YBY0r2Hb1g


Some feedback so far:

 

[Andy Black]

These community posts are like emails to subscribers.

@MTF ... you might be interested in the community post below, and the video I uploaded in the previous post.

Screenshot:

 

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[DMass]

Hey @Andy Black,

I’m really excited to follow your progress here, YouTube is definitely something I want to master too. It’s a massive search engine and is perfect for my audience as I do a lot of screen sharing to walk people through how-to’s.

I was wondering what your thoughts are on Descript? I use Camtasia at the moment but that Descript looks pretty damn awesome, especially the ability to remove filler words.

If you have used Camtasia how would you compare the two? Screen Capture is pretty vital for me so that’s where the war is going to be won or lost

 

[MTF]

@MTF ... you might be interested in the community post below, and the video I uploaded in the previous post.

I saw these community posts. I often find them more interesting than the actual videos (but I don't like videos much and text is always more interesting to me).

As for your video in the previous post, I don't get it. If I want to read, I'd rather read a regular transcript formatted as an article. If I want to listen, why would I read the subtitles? I can only see it being useful for non-native English speakers who want to practice while listening to content that interests them. But again, I don't like audio content so maybe that's just not for me.

 

[James007Hill]

Curious what you think of the format of this podcast turned into a video using Descript:

View: https://youtu.be/8YBY0r2Hb1g


Some feedback so far:

View attachment 44690

View attachment 44691

Looks a great tool, however personally I wouldn’t want to watch a video that is only audio and transcript. I’d rather just listen to the pure podcast version, or read the transcript as a blog-like article. As I understand it, you can only listen to the video (without having the video loaded on your phone constantly) if you are subscribed to YouTube premium?

I’d prefer the above format for YouTube if you could at least see the two of you chatting.

 

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[Kirk84]

@Andy Black
2 years ago I met a successful YouTuber and got great free coaching through him. I decided not to continue with YouTube as I still have a day job and don't want to risk anything and I completely lost interest in the niche that I was targeting. But I definitely saw some success. I produced less than 20 videos in a span of a year (10-20 hours per video including scripting, recording and editing) with two of my videos reaching the 20k views range. My two best performers brought 80 % of my email list signups and netted roughly 10-20 signups daily for my newsletter. Let me know if you're interested in hearing about the process I learn from the pro youtuber guy.

 

[DMass]

@Andy Black
2 years ago I met a successful YouTuber and got great free coaching through him. I decided not to continue with YouTube as I still have a day job and don't want to risk anything and I completely lost interest in the niche that I was targeting. But I definitely saw some success. I produced less than 20 videos in a span of a year (10-20 hours per video including scripting, recording and editing) with two of my videos reaching the 20k views range. My two best performers brought 80 % of my email list signups and netted roughly 10-20 signups daily for my newsletter. Let me know if you're interested in hearing about the process I learn from the pro youtuber guy.

I'd be keen to here the process @Kirk84 if you don't mind sharing

 

[Cameraman]

Curious what you think of the format of this podcast turned into a video using Descript

I like this format and found the content interesting but there are a few things I would personally add to the video.

1. Record a separate introduction. The question that kept coming to my mind was how did you meet Tony? What's the relationship? Who is Tony? The discussion touched on it but it would be an ideal intro. Just say who Tony is, how you met him and what you talked to him about.

2. Whilst I liked how Descript has turned this into a video I found it hard to concentrate by the end. I would consider breaking it into sections based on the topics discussed (which you list in the video description). You can do a quick 5-10 second clip to camera for each where you say what you asked/talked about in the next section. It creates that interrupt that stops the viewer from clicking off to something else.

3. Include an ending to wrap up and encourage people to watch the next video or subscribe to your newsletter or whatever.

When your viewer retention stats become available in YouTube Analytics, check how this video does. It should tell you how you retain viewers through the video compared to other videos of a similar length by switching the graph to "Relative Audience Retention" in the "See more" link. This could give you clues as to whether it's worth doing more of these. My initial gut reaction is probably.

 

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[Kirk84]

I'd be keen to here the process @Kirk84 if you don't mind sharing

Let's wait until @Andy Black replies. If you're both interested we can all jump on a quick call and I can lead you through the process I was taught.

 

[Andy Black]

I was wondering what your thoughts are on Descript? I use Camtasia at the moment but that Descript looks pretty damn awesome, especially the ability to remove filler words.

If you have used Camtasia how would you compare the two? Screen Capture is pretty vital for me so that’s where the war is going to be won or lost

Descript has a place in my toolbox. It transcribes audio/video and allows us to edit the audio/video by editing the transcription. I found it slow for adding images on top though, and even adding a simple 10 second end-screen video ground this i5 16GB laptop to a halt.

What I love about Descript is how it's put the video editing back of a long recording into the hands of the creator. A good writer/editor can create a good video from the raw content. That person would beat a good video editor who can't write.

I think my workflow will be to export finished videos from Descript and import into Camtasia to add b-roll, annotations, animations, etc.

 

[MTF]

@Andy Black maybe you'll find Wavve * Wavve.co useful as well (just learned about it from my pro Exploding Topics account).

 

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[Andy Black]

I saw these community posts. I often find them more interesting than the actual videos (but I don't like videos much and text is always more interesting to me).

As for your video in the previous post, I don't get it. If I want to read, I'd rather read a regular transcript formatted as an article. If I want to listen, why would I read the subtitles? I can only see it being useful for non-native English speakers who want to practice while listening to content that interests them. But again, I don't like audio content so maybe that's just not for me.

Yeah, I understand.

Some people liked the format though, as you can see from those replies in the Facebook group, and from other PMs from people I've asked. The original call was just an audio recording so I don't have the video of us chatting. This was just me playing with Descript's editing capabilities, and it's "fancy captions" and "waveforms".

It's a better audio than the original 25 minute podcast as I've cut a lot out and got it down to 17 minutes. The ideal for it on YouTube would be to have the captions but b-roll and/or talking head throughout the video, but I didn't think this was the right video for me to have a go doing that (I'd choose a much shorter video!).

I've added the video to my "Who have you helped?" thread and will keep directing people to it in future.

 

[Andy Black]

Looks a great tool, however personally I wouldn’t want to watch a video that is only audio and transcript. I’d rather just listen to the pure podcast version, or read the transcript as a blog-like article. As I understand it, you can only listen to the video (without having the video loaded on your phone constantly) if you are subscribed to YouTube premium?

I’d prefer the above format for YouTube if you could at least see the two of you chatting.

Listening to the podcast would be my personal preference too, except it seems a few people like the format. I think 17 minutes is a bit long for this style, and some b-roll/talking-head would help break it up.

A 17 minute video of us both chatting would be hard to watch given how much I edited this video down. There'd be way too many jumpcuts.