in this episode we talk about what foreign language to consider when
dubbing your episodes how to get four times an engagement with little extra
work and the secret to having a great YouTube experience coming up what's up
influencers I've got an exciting interview with my friend
Basho from Basho and friends thank you so much for being here thanks for having
me Benji welcome to video influencers here
helping you build your influence income and impact with online videos and Bashaw
I want you to tell me a little bit about your channel but just to give you guys a
little heads up what it is it is a multilingual educational channel
utilizing animated and fun music videos to do that I couldn't have done it any
better myself there you go can you tell us a little
bit more about what's on your channel on what the goal of the channel is and also
like the journey to actually get to your channel like what was the inspiration to
start it sure yeah Basho and Friends is a channel
for teaching languages through hip-hop music videos and we're expanding into
teaching just about anything through music at the very beginning I was
teaching bilingual kindergarten -yeah- and I sang my way through class sang my way
through teaching the kids this that and the other taught preschool that way ran
an after-school program that way and in about 2008 I started writing songs and
producing CDs and over the course of two years I produced two albums in Spanish
one in Mandarin and one in French and one in English all for this Mommy and Me
kind of language classes and then I would post a few up on YouTube with the
lyrics and people love them and I realized that there was a real market
there for people wanting to learn languages through music yeah and Basho
just recently hit me up and immediately I looked at his channels like this is so
dope especially being a father and you know wanting my kids to learn different
languages I was like this is exactly what I would not only want my kids to
watch and start watching there go they're gonna start watching by the way
but I know that a lot of parents out there probably not only appreciate it
but will soon start finding your channel and also showing their kids right thank
you for what you do for all the kids out there in a
very fun way to it's not like a boring channel where you're just you know
you're utilizing the music and the animations the subject of language right
like different languages on YouTube is interesting because YouTube you know the
headquarters there are telling alot of the creators you should start
considering other languages for your videos right whether having them dub or
even have closed captions right if you guys don't know what that means dubbing
means putting another language over your voice so that's in that language or
closed caption is a the text at the bottom but doing it in another language
Right? can you give us a little bit of insight into that world because you know
a lot of people want to expand their audience to other countries um and any
tips and tricks you might have for that so for at least for a U.S. audience I
know that the Spanish language viewership is skyrocketing people are
watching more and more videos in Spanish both in the US and outside Latin America
and Europe so I think my first recommendation would be to try on
Spanish translate your videos into Spanish make sure your captioning your
videos in Spanish and try to capture that audience the direct translation can
be challenging sometimes so find somebody to do a good translation for
you totally the automatic translation doesn't always come out properly on the
other end totally and then other languages are
up-and-coming I think it depends on what your goals are for your channel yeah but
if you want to reach a global audience yeah absolutely translating in different
languages is a good idea absolutely you know and basically especially these
countries where English isn't as popular language to learn right which obviously
is getting more common that people are learning English just think of how many
audiences out there that you can reach that you're not reaching right now
because you know they don't understand you even with closed captioning there's
there's like so much more value in the actual voice I have experience with this
I think I shared it with you we had a Spanish channel for Judy right where we
had somebody from Mexico speaking Spanish over Judy's voice and that was
called belleza con Judy right and what was so cool about that was you know we had
somebody Gabby want to give you a shout-out Gabby right shout out to Gabby
doing the voice layover and basically being able to reach an
audience that Judy wasn't speaking to already right um so it's great and Judy
I'm decided she didn't want to do that but it was a great experience
and I know a lot of creators out there are having a lot of success and in some
cases doubling their audience right so in terms of that I would love the visit
what you do in your channel because I know it takes a lot of work right and I
know in the beginning you're hustling you're doing everything but if you feel
like it Basho I would love to hear your thoughts on getting other people to help
you out with your channel especially with your channel right here there's so
much going on right here there's you there's a language right obviously you
have to script yourself out but then you have the animations and the music um
what advice would you give creators about working with other people in
different ways to be able to create the kind of content that you're doing sure I
think initially it's like invest the time upfront
totally I spend a huge amount of time trying to find the right people for the
team and it's about like putting out the right Job Description sifting through
lots of resumes asking the right questions in terms of bringing people in
because ultimately what you're trying to do is create an extension of your brand
so they have to understand what you're doing why you're doing it and especially
in translation if you're translating into languages that you don't know yeah
there's a lot of trust that goes in there right like I have an Arabic
speaker that I'm working with and it took a long time to build that trust I
would hire her and that I would hire someone else to read her translations
and after 10 20 videos I felt confident that yeah this was the real thing yeah
but it's a lot about building that relationship and initially finding the
right people that you can work with because most of the people that I work
with people in Singapore in Paris in Egypt in Portugal
in Panama and then in New York and California so I don't even see these
people you know so overtime building relationship on the Internet is really
useful totally and you know the thing I want to highlight is the fact that there
are people out there they're willing to do this right that have this service
that's your job right and you know exploring that you know I was using
upwork yes right for a long time but there's tons of websites maybe I can get
some websites from you right I'm check the links down below but again if you
have an idea right if there's a language you want to integrate into your content
we're there through closed captioning or dubbing there are resources out there
and they're not as expensive as you would think right right um so definitely
check it out especially with kids contests right do you have kids yourself
I do have three children and I have three children too right
so we know that kids love watching YouTube right and right now what's
really popular is mashups right mashing a whole bunch of shorter videos together
some people may know why people are doing this but especially in the kids
content there's some specific reasons can you share with us why people might
want to consider doing that especially if they have kids content or maybe they
don't have kids content but could learn from that technique totally I mean I
think this works with any sort of short form content is you want to publish
often so maybe you're publishing two three times a week
but if your content is two or three minutes it's a short short piece of
content that short content will drive the algorithm and we'll have people
coming back to your channel but you also want to get them in there for the watch
time yes and with the kids content parents really want to give their kids
something that they can sit down with and enjoy for an extended period of time
I think for parents finding safe content online is is a concern you know so if
you find the basho and Friends channel a super simple songs a mother Goose club
where you're like oh this is good wholesome stuff I can trust this with my
kids and they've got a playlist or or a compilation that's an hour and thirty
minutes of great content you hand your kid the device you know that for that
period of time they're on safe content they're learning something so
compilations have been great for us absolutely and I'll tell you this it is
one of the biggest hacks people using right - you know work that
algorithm right and when I say work that algorithm it's not like you're cheating
now right but YouTube wants people that stay on YouTube for a very long time
right and if your channel is putting out content that's keeping the attention of
anybody it doesn't have to be a kid right for 10 20 30 minutes very powerful
for the you know a favorability that your your channel may or may not get
So I love that technique and that you're the first person I've ever met
that I've actually been able to ask that question about right I knew why people
were doing it but I just wanted the viewers of video influencers to hear
from someone that was actually practicing it totally so um this is the
fun part which is talking that lightning round can you show me what lightning
would be with your hands oh like from a Basho and Friends channel yeah it would be like
favorite TV show favorite TV show the Dinosaur Train is the first one that
comes to mind because my kids are watching that all the time yeah I taught
it's so funny like I have so many kids movies and shows that I watch because of
my kids I know I kind of wish that that wasn't the first thing that came to mind
but you see what my head is at you want to know what my favorite is trolls you'll like it
right and I don't mind that watch it 20 times in a row cat or dog dog favorite
social network um YouTube YouTube yeah coffee or tea coffee what book should
every influencer watching read The Autobiography of Malcolm X that's a
unique one what is your favorite documentary or movie favorite
documentary or movie eyes on the prize the series PBS series sweet I love PBS
what is your hidden talent hidden talent making a song out of anything I could
make a song out of anything with Benji here in front of you I'm gonna sing here
we go one two three better sing with me better sing with me sa Benji bring it
down a save Benji we're going to town and Palm Springs here we go we're gonna
have fun and I'm gonna bust up a flow yeah what nice
Mic drop if you could give a TED talk what was the topic be about the power of
music and learning a good one I would totally listen to that what advice would
you give your 14 year old self don't start doing those things that you start
doing in a few years okay last one is do you have a quote you live your life by
or or think about often so my grandfather was like my closest friends
we spent a lot of time together and as I was a young man and growing up his
advice to me was always if you're not having fun it's not worth doing mm-hmm
and it's something that I always come back to in terms of you know I work hard
I work lots of different jobs I do lots of things but I always try to make sure
it like if you're not having fun pick something else yeah yeah totally I love
that and that's a great piece advice for youtubers right yeah to make sure when
you're starting a channel or if you've already started a channel that you're
always having fun right because hopefully it doesn't feel like a job
because you know sometimes it'll show in your face so great wisdom for youtubers
and anybody in general so thank you so much I really appreciate it we're gonna
put Basho's uh links down below where can they find you on social media Basho
and Friends Instagram Facebook Twitter B A S H O A N D F R I E N S Basho and Friends
check it out and as always here on video influencers helping you build your
influence income and impact with online video videos