Figuring Out YouTube

[Kirk84]

I wonder if I should unlist my longer chats for now...

View attachment 44713


Shorts seem to get more views alright...

View attachment 44712

Yes, the YouTuber I told you about, told me that nobody really cares about two random people chatting! If you can get Mr Beast, fine, this has its own value, because people are looking for Mr Best interviews or anything related to him. But definitely I would not waste my time recording, editing and uploading two random people chatting. No matter how valuable.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

Yes, the YouTuber I told you about, told me that nobody really cares about two random people chatting! If you can get Mr Beast, fine, this has its own value, because people are looking for Mr Best interviews or anything related to him. But definitely I would not waste my time recording, editing and uploading two random people chatting. No matter how valuable.

I think they're valuable if they're on topic. The two latest ones weren't about Google Ads so I've unlisted them. I'll add them to SoundCloud going forward.

I'll go through my channel and unlist everything that isn't Google Ads related.

 

[Andy Black]

I like this workflow:

View: https://youtu.be/qx6g8WKWMo4

 

[Kirk84]

I think they're valuable if they're on topic

Yeah, but it‘s not about what you think! It‘s about what works and what does not work! On a pure objective level, your long from interviews are not helping with growing your channel. If your goal is to grow your channel, you need a different strategy.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

Yeah, but it‘s not about what you think! It‘s about what works and what does not work! On a pure objective level, your long from interviews are not helping with growing your channel. If your goal is to grow your channel, you need a different strategy.

I hear you.

This might sound strange, but I don't want my primary goal to be grow my channel - I want it to always be to help people.

I know I'll help more people if I improve the quality of my content and the right people click the thumbnails and watch to the end. That's what YouTube wants so that's what I have to deliver if my goal is to help more people.

Long form videos chatting about Google Ads would help those interested in Google Ads, even if they're long and rambling. I don't like watching Livestreams but they might help people too.

I'm not precious about this channel. I could unlist everything and start again, or move to a new channel.

At this stage YouTube is more of an interesting hobby for me, and a way for me to store videos I can point people to.

I think full-length off topic long chats harm the channel. If anything they'll confuse the algorithm and subscribers. There's often some nuggets in them but I've never been able to extract them.

Some of the long chats chats about Google Ads might help the channel, especially as I get shorts extracted from them. Those shorts could be posted to other platforms too.

I may add live streams into the mix as I'm good live and loads of nuggets can be taken from one live stream. Or I may do a video podcast but more structured then just recording me chatting to someone.

I'm still figuring it out.

 

[Andy Black]

I posted my second YouTube short about 30 minutes ago.

Dayum, I didn't realise we could see stats updated by the minute:




Here's the video:

View: https://youtube.com/shorts/n1B_djVV0Rc


EDIT: Almost an hour after it's been uploaded.
I found a more detailed real-time graph:




EDIT: Two hours later it seems to have run it's course:




EDIT: Monday morning now.

1) Maybe I shouldn't have published that video Sunday night.

2) I notice the video has 11 Likes and 6 Dislikes. I suspect it's because of who it got in front of.

3) One person subscribed.

4) Views ramped up then stopped. I wonder how we can get them to keep ramping up?



5) Most views came via the shorts feed:



6) The video didn't show for many searches, but why the heck for these?

 

[Andy Black]

This is a cool newsletter. I may signup to the pro version ($19/mth).

Get the Creator Hooks newsletter

Sign up for the Creator Hooks newsletter here. You'll learn to write better YouTube titles in 5 minutes per week and it's free.

creatorhooks.com

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Cameraman]

Views ramped up then stopped. I wonder how we can get them to keep ramping up?

The answer is simple and it boils down to where your traffic comes from.

To build YT Browse traffic hook into popular topics that people are currently watching or trending in your niche.

To build evergreen traffic tap into search. Make videos covering topics people are searching for on either YT and/or Google.

Browse traffic builds fast and then fades fast.

Search traffic builds slowly but seems to kick in after around 30 days PROVIDING it had some degree of success in Browse. It then lasts years.

Don't forget you can see all of this stuff in your analytics feed.

This is a cool newsletter

It certainly is. If you go to the website you can also download the old newsletters as well. They are pure gold.

 

[Andy Black]

The answer is simple and it boils down to where your traffic comes from.

To build YT Browse traffic hook into popular topics that people are currently watching or trending in your niche.

To build evergreen traffic tap into search. Make videos covering topics people are searching for on either YT and/or Google.

Browse traffic builds fast and then fades fast.

Search traffic builds slowly but seems to kick in after around 30 days PROVIDING it had some degree of success in Browse. It then lasts years.

Don't forget you can see all of this stuff in your analytics feed.

Makes total sense. Lol... starting with search is even what my two YouTube short videos are about!

For some reason I've tried to go down the "hook them with your thumbnail and title route" for these. It's felt wrong. It's not what I do with Google Ads at all - I just try to get in front of the right people with a more relevant headline than the competition.

My head hurts...


On the one hand I have a 90 minute workshop that people got a lot of value from, and that I can extract shorter videos from.

On the other hand, the extraction takes so long I'm maybe better creating a video for each nugget from scratch, while baking in best practices (searchable, intro/hook, pacing, b-roll, outro, etc).

 

[Cameraman]

Makes total sense. Lol... starting with search is even what my two YouTube short videos are about!

For some reason I've tried to go down the "hook them with your thumbnail and title route" for these. It's felt wrong. It's not what I do with Google Ads at all - I just try to get in front of the right people with a more relevant headline than the competition.

My head hurts...


On the one hand I have a 90 minute workshop that people got a lot of value from, and that I can extract shorter videos from.

On the other hand, the extraction takes so long I'm maybe better creating a video for each nugget from scratch, while baking in best practices (searchable, intro/hook, pacing, b-roll, outro, etc).

That really comes down to what type of YouTube channel you want to create.

The really big channels that we hear about all try to hook people but they need to keep putting out fresh content or the viewing numbers fade. This approach is well suited to entertainment channels and these are the ones that we hear about and which people want to copy (probably because they can blow up fast). Personally, I also think this feels like a treadmill and it can create a massive high or low mentally, depending on how well the video does.

The alternative is to create a channel that favours search traffic. These videos may be slow to take off but then the views become consistent. This approach is more suited to the "how to" type video (although you still need to entertain the viewer).

A lot of my best videos pull only 500 to 1k views a week but they do that every week for years. Often it doesn't start until 2 - 6 months after I publish the video but then it seems like either YT or Google search works out who to show the videos to and I start getting views. Personally, this feels like a better approach that suits my lifestyle but it might not be right for you.

I think the most important thing is to decide which strategy suits you. You can then work out how best to deliver that. Either new videos, repurposed content, or a combination of both.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

That really comes down to what type of YouTube channel you want to create.

The really big channels that we hear about all try to hook people but they need to keep putting out fresh content or the viewing numbers fade. This approach is well suited to entertainment channels and these are the ones that we hear about and which people want to copy (probably because they can blow up fast). Personally, I also think this feels like a treadmill and it can create a massive high or low mentally, depending on how well the video does.

The alternative is to create a channel that favours search traffic. These videos may be slow to take off but then the views become consistent. This approach is more suited to the "how to" type video (although you still need to entertain the viewer).

A lot of my best videos pull only 500 to 1k views a week but they do that every week for years. Often it doesn't start until 2 - 6 months after I publish the video but then it seems like either YT or Google search works out who to show the videos to and I start getting views. Personally, this feels like a better approach that suits my lifestyle but it might not be right for you.

I think the most important thing is to decide which strategy suits you. You can then work out how best to deliver that. Either new videos, repurposed content, or a combination of both.

Really good distinction. Thanks @Cameraman.

I hate content treadmills. For me, the big appeal of YouTube is that content keeps getting found years after it's created.

Also, I like the line of "Don't tell different things to the same people. Tell the same thing to different people."


If I had a choice between:

1. Having a channel where I have to upload a good new video every week (or multiple times a week).
2. Having a channel that only has 10 outstanding videos (and maybe even running ads to them).

I'd pick option 2.


It's been an interesting exercise using Descript to edit down a live workshop and pull out nuggets. It takes a long time though, and it's not something I'd be comfortable outsourcing. At the moment I think I'd rather create really good videos for each nugget from scratch, and daisy chain them all together.

 

[Cameraman]

Really good distinction. Thanks @Cameraman.

I hate content treadmills. For me, the big appeal of YouTube is that content keeps getting found years after it's created.

Also, I like the line of "Don't tell different things to the same people. Tell the same thing to different people."


If I had a choice between:

1. Having a channel where I have to upload a good new video every week (or multiple times a week).
2. Having a channel that only has 10 outstanding videos (and maybe even running ads to them).

I'd pick option 2.


It's been an interesting exercise using Descript to edit down a live workshop and pull out nuggets. It takes a long time though, and I it's not something I'd outsource. At the moment I think I'd rather create really good videos for each nugget from scratch, and daisy chain them all together.

I like that approach and it's the one that I'm trying to adopt.

Now figure out the audience demographic you want to appeal to as it will inform how you put your videos together.

A lot of people do fast-paced videos with cuts and sound effects to keep people interested. My experience is that making the pace too fast and including too many sound effects turned my audience off. The fast-paced stuff works great for entertainment and younger audiences. Most of my viewers are 45+ so I slow the pace which also suits the "how to" videos. Whilst my retention isn't amazing, it's always above average when I check the "Relative Retention" graph.

After that, figure out a list of the top 50 topics/questions for your niche and check the popularity of those for search on both YouTube AND Google. That should help you to decide on the priority videos. If you're only going to make a video a week, you need to target areas with good search volumes and make quality content.

 

[Andy Black]

making the pace too fast and including too many sound effects turned my audience off.

I unsubscribed from Alex Hormozi because he's got a new video editor/style. It's way too distracting.

I know looking at my YouTube demographics that my current audience is male aged 24-35.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Cameraman]

I unsubscribed from Alex Hormozi because he's got a new video editor/style. It's way too distracting.

I know looking at my YouTube demographics that my current audience is male aged 24-35.

So they should respond well to a faster pace.
Shorter videos of 3-5 minutes will probably perform well rather than 8-12 minutes.
I would still avoid having distracting sounds, flashes etc. Instead, present short chunks of information to hold viewers' attention and use questions in the script to create a hook for later.
If you are doing a talking head piece to camera, set up two cameras, with different angles. You can then cut between them to help hold attention.

For evergreen content, it's important to put a lot of effort upfront into researching topics with good search volume and how you want to present the idea. When you know that you can work on the title/thumbnail and then the script.

Sorry if I'm teaching you how to suck eggs but writing this down is helping me and it may help someone else.

 

[Andy Black]

So they should respond well to a faster pace.
Shorter videos of 3-5 minutes will probably perform well rather than 8-12 minutes.
I would still avoid having distracting sounds, flashes etc. Instead, present short chunks of information to hold viewers' attention and use questions in the script to create a hook for later.
If you are doing a talking head piece to camera, set up two cameras, with different angles. You can then cut between them to help hold attention.

For evergreen content, it's important to put a lot of effort upfront into researching topics with good search volume and how you want to present the idea. When you know that you can work on the title/thumbnail and then the script.

Sorry if I'm teaching you how to suck eggs but writing this down is helping me and it may help someone else.

Don't apologise! You're not teaching me to suck eggs at all. Thanks for your continued insights and suggestions.

I like the idea of shorter videos. They can be harder to write, but easier to produce and edit.

Some recent feedback on my two shorts are that the animated subtitle was too distracting. I redid those for LinkedIn and Facebook with a subtle animation and I think they're much better.

I'm wondering if YouTube shorts are like tweets ... can we remove and repost a few weeks later slightly differently? I suspect we can while we test things out.

When I started this thread I was in a small YouTube coaching group where the coaching was free because it was a new course, except we paid a bit for a video editor.

I never submitted a video to be edited.

Mostly because I got tangled up trying to read a script to camera (I'm grand when live, but it seems staying on script when talking to camera isn't how my brain works).

Another reason I never submitted a video is because I didn't like the little emojis and cartoon animations the editor was putting on other people's videos.

The demo of my audience on YouTube might be predominantly male 24-35, but the demo of my clients is older. I have to bear in mind my own age too - I'm 51 and don't use emojis when messaging people.

A Warren Buffet video with all the fast cuts and explosions would look dumb, and I'm sure he'd not allow it to be published.

 

[Cameraman]

Don't apologise! You're definitely not teaching me to suck eggs at all. Thanks for your continued insights and suggestions.

I like the idea of shorter videos. They're harder to write, but easier to produce and edit.

Some recent feedback on my two shorts are that the animated subtitle was too distracting. I redid those for LinkedIn and Facebook with a subtle animation and I think they're much better.

I'm wondering if YouTube shorts are like tweets ... can we remove and repost a few weeks later slightly differently? I suspect we can while we test things out.

When I started this thread I was in a small YouTube coaching group where the coaching was free because it was a new course, except we paid a bit for a video editor.

I never submitted a video to be edited.

Mostly because I got tangled up trying to read a script to camera (I'm grand when live, but it seems staying on script when talking to camera isn't how my brain works).

Another reason I never submitted a video is because I didn't like the little emojis and cartoon animations the editor was putting on other people's videos.

The demo of my audience on YouTube might be predominantly male 24-35, but the demo of my clients is older. I have to bear in mind my own age too - I'm 51 and don't use emojis when messaging people.

A Warren Buffet video with all the fast cuts and explosions would look dumb, and I'm sure he'd not allow it to be published.

I'm now picturing Warren Buffet in an explosion of emojis!!!

If you struggle with scripting I have a couple of suggestions that might help:
1. Only script out bullet points of the key highlights. Rember, you only need a prompt in most cases to remember to say something. Your natural speaking ability to the camera will take care of the rest.
2. Having a two camera set-up makes life 10X easier. If you fluff the point you are making just repeat it. You can repeat it several times in different ways and then pick the best later. Because you filmed it with two cameras from different angles, you can just cut up the footage as you want to. You can cut out any sentences you fluff and changing the camera angle hides it.

If you only want to use one camera, you can still cut out sections and piece the video together by jumping to a close-up headshot and then back to a head and shoulders. It's amazing what you can do in post-production and you don't need expensive editing software.

I use Camtasia as most of my videos are screencasts. But when I do a regular video outdoors, I still do all my editing with Camtasia. I did try Final Cut Pro for a while but it took me several times longer to do the editing. Life is too short for that.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[srodrigo]

Maybe this has been discussed already (sorry, 10 pages... ), but does anyone have experience regarding the recommended frequency to get traction? I know that the rule of thumb is at least once a week, but I just found this article where the guy experiments with different frequencies and it doesn't seem to have much impact below one week.

He also mentions that some channels upload once a month and still do great.

How often should I upload to youtube 2024 - my experiments

In short: the best growth strategy to grow fast is to upload daily. If that is not possible (like in my case), once a week. For this article I did multiple experiments on my channels over a few months: taking a breaks, ...

www.socialvideoplaza.com

 

[Cameraman]

Maybe this has been discussed already (sorry, 10 pages... ), but does anyone have experience regarding the recommended frequency to get traction? I know that the rule of thumb is at least once a week, but I just found this article where the guy experiments with different frequencies and it doesn't seem to have much impact below one week.

He also mentions that some channels upload once a month and still do great.

How often should I upload to youtube 2024 - my experiments

In short: the best growth strategy to grow fast is to upload daily. If that is not possible (like in my case), once a week. For this article I did multiple experiments on my channels over a few months: taking a breaks, ...

www.socialvideoplaza.com

I don't think it's as easy as asking "what's the best frequency" because there are a lot of other factors in play. That means you will probably get a different answer with different channels. That's probably why we see success with both frequent and infrequent posting.

Using my own experience as an example

I usually post weekly but for a while needed to drop back to every 2 weeks. When I did that my views dropped by around 30% and then recovered when I went back to weekly. The 30% drop was mostly caused by the new video traffic boost you see when releasing a video.

A friend with a similar sized channel (in terms of views, videos and subscriber count) did the same and saw a 50% reduction. The difference seems to be because I focus on creating evergreen videos whilst his has more of an entertainment slant.

When I post a new video it gets good views for around 4-5 days and then they drop off. If I post a second video before the 5 days are up, it seems to kill the older video and the new video takes over. Based on this you would think don't post too frequently but that's not necessarily the case.

My new videos currently receive 1.5k to 2.5 views in the first week. The bulk of my views seem to come after 30 days and spread over several years. To take advantage of that, I need more videos and would probably benefit from publishing twice a week.

Compare this to my friend who has 8k to 10k views in the first week but then very few after that. He probably needs to publish one a week for maximum benefit.

I'm sure you get the idea.

The reason I keep to the one-a-week schedule and don't publish more frequently is that I can't maintain the quality and I would become burned out. That's probably the best reason to favour one schedule over another.

 

[srodrigo]

I don't think it's as easy as asking "what's the best frequency" because there are a lot of other factors in play. That means you will probably get a different answer with different channels. That's probably why we see success with both frequent and infrequent posting.

Using my own experience as an example

I usually post weekly but for a while needed to drop back to every 2 weeks. When I did that my views dropped by around 30% and then recovered when I went back to weekly. The 30% drop was mostly caused by the new video traffic boost you see when releasing a video.

A friend with a similar sized channel (in terms of views, videos and subscriber count) did the same and saw a 50% reduction. The difference seems to be because I focus on creating evergreen videos whilst his has more of an entertainment slant.

When I post a new video it gets good views for around 4-5 days and then they drop off. If I post a second video before the 5 days are up, it seems to kill the older video and the new video takes over. Based on this you would think don't post too frequently but that's not necessarily the case.

My new videos currently receive 1.5k to 2.5 views in the first week. The bulk of my views seem to come after 30 days and spread over several years. To take advantage of that, I need more videos and would probably benefit from publishing twice a week.

Compare this to my friend who has 8k to 10k views in the first week but then very few after that. He probably needs to publish one a week for maximum benefit.

I'm sure you get the idea.

The reason I keep to the one-a-week schedule and don't publish more frequently is that I can't maintain the quality and I would become burned out. That's probably the best reason to favour one schedule over another.

Thanks, makes sense. To be honest, with the kind of channel I'm considering, it'd be a pretty brutal schedule if I tried to upload a new video every week. Even every two weeks is quite challenging as I'd be doing it on the side and it takes long to prepare the content.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

Maybe this has been discussed already (sorry, 10 pages... ), but does anyone have experience regarding the recommended frequency to get traction? I know that the rule of thumb is at least once a week, but I just found this article where the guy experiments with different frequencies and it doesn't seem to have much impact below one week.

He also mentions that some channels upload once a month and still do great.

How often should I upload to youtube 2024 - my experiments

In short: the best growth strategy to grow fast is to upload daily. If that is not possible (like in my case), once a week. For this article I did multiple experiments on my channels over a few months: taking a breaks, ...

www.socialvideoplaza.com

Lol, yeah... it's a long thread where I pop in and out. I've not progressed much tbh.

I've not taken YouTube seriously to date. I've been very inconsistent and didn't even post for the first half of this year. I'm below 1k subscribers and my view counts aren't massive either.

Saying that, from everything I've read/watched, about consistency and frequency my thoughts are:

1) Volume helps at the beginning to improve. I'd say lots of little videos rather than a few long ones is better. Quality beats quantity, but we need to put in the reps to get our quality up.

2) Don't build a rod for your back with consistency. Better to slow it down and be less consistent than burn out.


Personally, I'd like to focus on short videos and publish daily and then multiple times a day. The platforms want short videos, and we learn quicker when we're publishing more often.

 

[Andy Black]

A good line I heard from the guy below:

"YouTube is looking for content for its audiences. It's not looking for an audience for your content."


This guy's stuff is fast paced, and good content:

View: https://youtu.be/e37N6p3Eaxo




His courses are good too. I love how his videos are super short. Mine used to be in my own courses. I also love how many courses he has, both free and paid.

• Robert Benjamin Consulting

 

[srodrigo]

A good line I heard from the guy below:

"YouTube is looking for content for its audiences. It's not looking for an audience for your content."


This guy's stuff is fast paced, and good content:

View: https://youtu.be/e37N6p3Eaxo




His courses are good too. I love how his videos are super short. Mine used to be in my own courses. I also love how many courses he has, both free and paid.

• Robert Benjamin Consulting

Yeah, I was thinking about short videos as well. You can probably make them in batch, then publish them one at a time at the desired frequency. I will try that, with different approaches like "oh, I messed up here" and more serious videos. I feel like people like a mix of both, it makes you look like a human being rather than a machine of shipping perfect content. People relate to that.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

I must go find the search insights this guy mentions:

TikTok - Make Your Day

vm.tiktok.com

 

[srodrigo]

This is a good comparison Shorts vs. Regular videos, with actual data.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmSFxXFLTgQ

 

[Andy Black]

This is a good comparison Shorts vs. Regular videos, with actual data.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmSFxXFLTgQ

Interesting video. Thanks for sharing.

I find it a slightly strange test. What does it mean to "hurt your YouTube channel"?

For someone with a small channel I think shorts are a great opportunity to produce more videos that get in front of more people and get me more data to learn from. Granted, those videos may show for slightly the wrong people, but if we're smart we do SEO on them and they direct people to our other videos or email list.

Also, bear in mind that video is a year old. That's a long time for social media platforms and YouTube.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Cameraman]

Also, bear in mind that video is a year old. That's a long time for social media platforms and YouTube.

Especially in the world of Shorts where YouTube is constantly making changes.

 

[Andy Black]

This short video resonated. I've come to the same conclusion. I'd rather create short videos from scratch than edit down longer videos.

TikTok - Make Your Day

 

[MaxT]

This short video resonated. I've come to the same conclusion. I'd rather create short videos from scratch than edit down longer videos.

TikTok - Make Your Day

Hi Andy,
I've created a YouTube channel about my hobbies : guitar and music creation, also skateboarding and arts.
At this time I've record ans programmed only guitars shorts videos.
Do you think it's a good idea to show all this type of video on the same channel ?
If you have any advices on how to grow a youtube channel too
Thanks a lot for your help and have a great day !

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

Hi Andy,
I've created a YouTube channel about my hobbies : guitar and music creation, also skateboarding and arts.
At this time I've record ans programmed only guitars shorts videos.
Do you think it's a good idea to show all this type of video on the same channel ?
If you have any advices on how to grow a youtube channel too
Thanks a lot for your help and have a great day !

Ha. I'm not sure I'm the right guy to ask but I'll try to answer.

What's your goal?

What stage are you at? Are you just getting started and figuring out how to create videos, increase watch time, etc?

 

[MTF]

Hi Andy,
I've created a YouTube channel about my hobbies : guitar and music creation, also skateboarding and arts.
At this time I've record ans programmed only guitars shorts videos.
Do you think it's a good idea to show all this type of video on the same channel ?
If you have any advices on how to grow a youtube channel too
Thanks a lot for your help and have a great day !

Not a YouTube expert but to me that would only work if you were to publish vlogs. Otherwise it's way too unrelated to work as your fans would have to enjoy all of these things at the same time (or they would have to ignore 75%+ of your content).