Today, I want to talk about YouTube analytics and give a shout-out to my
fans far and wide. Now, I've got my notes here. I typed this up yesterday and I'm
just going to run through this very quickly, and save your questions for the
end. If you're not a YouTube channel owner you might not understand how
things work on YouTube...
Hold that thought, I'm gonna go get some bug spray. ...and just enlighten you. YouTube,
which is owned by Google, analyzes views by the countries which videos are viewed,
and the demographics of the viewer, namely the age and sex of the viewer,
based on your information that Google has obtained from you. By the way, that's
how Google decides what ads to run in front of our videos. We have nothing to
say about what runs in front of our videos. That's all up to Google, based on
your browsing history and what products, services, and entertainments Google
thinks you might be interested in. Except that, in the case of my channel, which is
G-rated and appropriate for all audiences, including children, they most
likely would not run a racy or violent ad before Late Bloomer.
Now, our choice is only whether or not to allow ads. And I didn't, for the first two
years of Late Bloomer. I was well aware back in 2012 that you had to have
millions of views on YouTube in order to make any money. So I thought, well, if I'm
not going to make any money, why turn people off before I can turn them on, to
my show? So I didn't. Because I was convinced from the beginning that
Late Bloomer was bound for TV and that YouTube was just a springboard
and why worry about that, why worry about a few pennies here or there? Also at the
time, you know I'm an actor, and I had a couple of national commercials on the
air, and so I had the money to pay my editors and composer. But when Late
Bloomer wasn't on TV in a couple of years, and I was still going strong on
YouTube, I went to a free class for channel owners down at YouTube, which is
not too far from my house, down in Playa Vista, and they convinced me to run ads.
I'm gonna see if there are any continuity people out there that notice
something that just switched. And by the way, if you click off those skippable ads
that play before videos you're watching, the channel owner gets nothing. If you
watch the ad, the channel owner gets a couple of pennies, and if you take action
on the ad, if you click through to a website to find out more about what's in
the ad, then we get a few pennies more. But we're still talking about pennies
here, so that's why you have to have lots of subscribers and millions of views in
order to make any kind of real money on YouTube. And a lot of people do! Some good
friends of mine are making money. As you build your number of subscribers, and if
you're in good standing... See, there's that gnat, even with all this.
As...
As you build your number of subscribers, and if you're in good standing with
YouTube, you will get contacted by a number of YouTube partners, each claiming
to do a better job than Google can of bringing you revenue. And that's your
choice to make. I rejected all of those offers until
2016, when I signed with a YouTube partner, and, and I got access to a huge
free library of music. As everyone using YouTube knows, music rights are the
critical element, that's the crux. You have to have the rights to the music in
your videos, or you cannot earn revenue on your videos. Google has the technology,
believe me, to identify almost any tune that you include in a video. The composer
or the person holding the copyright to that music will get the revenue for your
video, so you will be making money for them. So you have to be very careful
about music that you use in your videos. Am I better off? Are people better off
going with a youtube partner? I don't know. I, the jury is still out on that. I
do know that it's been beneficial for my style of storytelling to have a huge
library of free music to choose from, because a lot of people have written me
and said that they enjoy my style of videos and they enjoy the music. So
that's what I'm gonna keep doing until I get through all of this content that I
shot this summer. I am still working on May, I'm still working on July, and I'm
trying to keep somewhat current on what's going on in the Late Bloomer
garden. Also in 2016 I started vlogging. Now, YouTube started recommending
channel owners to build their audience by vlogging, so first I had to figure out
what a vlog was. but I started small. And I started on the Adobe mobile app
Premiere Clip. And I said when I got into this whole business of creating a show
on YouTube that I would never edit. I would leave that to the professionals.
But when I started vlogging was about the same time that YouTube's analytics
changed and their algorithm. Now they're looking for more and more content
because, guess what, for every video that you upload, Google gets a chance to make
money on it, So of course, they want lots of videos.
And quality is less important to them than the amount that you upload. So, I was
always big on quality, not quantity, but in 2016, I started vlogging as well. So,
and it was about that time last year that my editor of four and a half years
he's got a better deal, got full time work, it was time for her to move on, and
I understood that. So I took on the duties of editing as well. That's why I'm
working 60 hours a week now. So when I started Late Bloomer, I planned
it like a TV show, it's always been my thinking. Two episodes per month is what
YouTube was recommending to upload back in 2012, so I planned a 20 episode season,
two episodes per month, with a two month hiatus, just like a TV show, so you have
time to regroup and think of new shows and what might be interesting to people.
But the popularity of vlogging happened to youtube, so viewers wanted to see more
content from their favorite channels, at least once a week, and that would have
doubled my output. And because, obviously, I pay my team per video, suddenly I found
myself having to take my friend Patrick Dolan at One Yard Revolution's advice, to
edit my own videos. In addition to revenue that you can make through Google
Ads, many channels now are on Patreon, which is a crowd-funding site
for artists and content creators. So, of course, I'm on Patreon, and if you're
interested in being a patron of this channel, go to the link in the
description below and sign up, and I really need you, and I would really
really appreciate your support. I wrote on here about the sixty hours a week. I
work every day and night. If I'm not traveling, and I consider that work, I
don't take a day off, because I'm either gardening or editing or shooting, and I'm
managing a website and all my social media, and I'm doing it all by myself.
Of course, your social media is.. oh no, this is not attracting bees, tell me.. Of
course your social media is a huge part of the success of your channel, getting
the word out. With all the content out there, how do you find a loyal audience,
someone who will tune in to every video that you upload no matter the content? So
I have gnats and bees and hummingbirds flying around my head, just so you know.
With so much content out there, how do you find your loyal audience, someone who
will tune into you on, and watch to the end? It's very important that you watch
videos to the end. YouTube tracks all of that. And that's another way that they
measure the success of your channel, and the success of their channel in their
opinion is why they wind up recommending you on the right side column. When you're
watching another video, you see all these recommendations on the side. The way that
Google decides to recommend those is based on a number of factors, and, number
one being your watch time. That's even more important than views and
subscribers. So I work very very hard to put quality content into every minute of
my videos. In fact, in my Late Bloomer shows, I had bloopers at the very end, the
very end. So you watch all the way to the end and you get rewarded with a laugh. If
you're cutting my videos short, you're missing out. I don't start out strong and
then just blah, blah, blah. So yeah, how do you find that loyal audience? That's the
$64,000 question. That used to be a game show on TV. I have a few of those, but not
nearly enough to make this channel sustainable, and by sustainable I mean
breaking even financially from month-to-month. Because I do still have
my sound editor. I mean, I would not be making videos without Chriss. Not only
does she bring her expertise to my videos - and you can hear the difference,
if you listen - she's also this great sounding board.
Because when you're a one-woman show, and you're doing everything yourself, it's
really great to have another set of eyes and ears to say, wait a minute,
you really should put this here, or alright, maybe you should leave that out,
or this sounds, I can't fix this sound, which very often happens. When you're
just running and gunning it, which is what I do, very often the sound is not
good. And believe me, people who say they'll fix it in post.. this is a big
thing that they say in the movie business. When filmmakers are starting
out, oh, we'll fix the sound in post. Okay, let me tell you something, sound is just
as important as picture, in fact, maybe it's even more important. Because viewers
will forgive a sloppy shot if the camera jangles or, or if you got a bad cut here or
whatever, but if they can't understand what the person is saying, the words
coming out of your mouth, they don't forgive that. When I went to see Pirates
of the Caribbean when it first opened, there's a line that Johnny Depp's
character Captain Jack, or whatever, ha, ha, Jack Shadow, or whatever, his character says
in close-up at the very end of the movie, it's one sentence, like four or five
words, and I could not understand what he said. I said, "What did he say? It was like
the punchline to the movie! I couldn't understand it. So, maybe it was my ears,
Disney, but, still. Now, let's talk about my fans. I would not continue this work
without my fans, and and they're all over. Most of my viewers, obviously, are from
the United States, and then there are the other english-speaking countries like UK,
Canada, Philippines, Australia, and India. Then it gets interesting. Even though the
numbers are very small, I have viewers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brazil, Japan,
Thailand, New Zealand, Macedonia - yeah, I'm gonna have to look up where is
Macedonia - South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago, Netherlands, United
Arab Emirates, Germany, Jamaica, Israel, Poland, Singapore, and Turkey. I mean, I
just find that absolutely amazing, a word I know I use way too much, but
it's humbling to think that my attempt to inspire people to grow their own food,
take back the responsibility of their food, and be kind to Mother Earth is
reaching such a wide audience. One of my oldest and best friends is from Trinidad,
so I want to give a shout out to anyone watching in Trinidad and Tobago. I
appreciate you. And I visited my fans in Netherlands this June so I really am
grateful that they and the ones in Germany are watching, and I still have
all those videos to edit, and I will, and I used to have a young man named Conrad
in South Africa who was watching, and I know a few gardeners in Turkey
that write to me on Facebook, and I feel sure that Puerto
Rico would be on this list had they not been devastated by Hurricane Maria. Right
now, Puerto Rico is struggling. They have no electricity, they they have no water,
they, it's a desperate, dire situation in Puerto Rico, and I want to give a shout
out to all, well I hope they see this. One of them Viviana del Manzano, the last I
heard from Viviana she had water but her family didn't and she was sharing her
water with her family. I am very eager to hear from you Viviana,
and I hope that you are all well and safe. I also want to give a shout-out to
my Northern California connections and all the people that have been impacted
by their the horrible. horrible California wildfires. You know, two months
ago, British Columbia was just raging in fire, and and right now Portugal, raging
with fires, and Ireland, there's a hurricane that just hit Ireland,
Hurricane Ophelia, so, with so many natural disasters in the world,
it's evermore important to live sustainably, with a light footprint, to
conserve energy, and be kind to Mother Earth. Now, my hat is off to all my
friends who live off-the-grid. I I wish I could. I live smack dab in the middle of
one of the biggest cities in the world, Los Angeles, and I try to live as
sustainably as I can, and if you would like me to cover that in a separate
video, how, the measures that I take in my lifestyle here in Los Angeles, I'd love
to, let me know. If you learned something and enjoyed this video please give me a
like. You have no idea how important that is - which is a thumbs up - take a little
moment to just click that thumbs up if you've enjoyed or appreciated the work
that the content creator has done, give a little like. That's a sign that we're
doing, we're on the right track, and it's an encouragement. If you don't like the
video, or you didn't find it of interest, just simply
go to another one. Don't put this on there for ever to be, because you'll forget. If
you give a thumbs down, you'll go and you'll, you'll go do something else and
you'll forget all about that thumbs down, but that content creator wears that
forever, until you go back and you take that, and make it that, or at least
nothing. So try to encourage your content creators, the the ones that you enjoy
their content, by giving them a thumbs up. Everybody asks for it, but it's really
important, because if you have nine likes on a video and you have one dislike, that
means to YouTube, you have a 90 percent
like rate or, or acceptance rate, or, and that ten percent stays there until
you get more and more of these. So then if you just have one down it really
throws your numbers down. You've got to have a lot more of these to build that
back up to ninety one percent, ninety two percent, ninety nine percent. You can
never get to 100 percent, never, not with one thumbs down. So think about that the
next time you think about giving a thumbs down, and please don't thumbs down
this video, I'm just trying to inform you. So today is October 22nd, and that's the
birthday of my oldest son Walker, and I want to give a happy birthday to Walker.
He's starting a whole new job up in Minnesota, so he's going to be moving up
into, near Minneapolis, so you may be seeing me in Minneapolis
in the, in the coming year. So my plan is to stay put, and to edit straight through
until Christmas. So I'm gonna be working very hard to bring you the best possible
content that I can do on my shoestring budget. So, thank you so much for watching.
I hope this was beneficial. If you want to know more, we'll go into YouTube a
little deeper, but just consider this YouTube 101.