- On my family's vlogging channel Schmovies
92% of our audience is watching on either
a mobile device or a tablet.
Only 6% of them are watching from a computer.
So how do you optimize your content for that
type of audience for such small, tiny screens?
That's coming up.
Hey guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer
and welcome to Video Creators.
This channel is all about helping you guys
grow a YouTube audience so you can spread
a message that reaches people and changes their lives.
When I got started on YouTube back in 2006,
on what is now my family's vlogging channel,
people only watched on desktop computers.
That was the only option you had.
We just started making little videos together
of us going out on dates and going out to the movies,
going out to eat and going out to the park
and things like that.
But today, I have to craft content very intentionally
for a high-mobile audience on that channel
whether they're watching in horizontal mode
where I'm taking up the entire mobile screen,
or they're watching me in portrait mode
where I have even smaller screen real estate
of an already pretty small screen.
For your videos you can look at your
YouTube analytics under devices
to see exactly what your breakdown is
between lots of different viewing devices.
Now let me share with you guys some of the things
that I've learned about how to optimize your content
for mobile audiences.
Number one: that thumbnail needs to be a closeup
of the action with high contrast
between the action that you want the eye to look at
and the background so that it's not visually
distracting between where the eye needs to go.
These thumbnails in the YouTube mobile app
are very small and people are scrolling through them
very quickly so it needs to be a little pop quickly
and catch someone's attention.
No one on a mobile device is intently studying
every thumbnail that pops in front of them.
No, you have to make it clear.
In fact, when I edit my thumbnails, I actually
zoom all the way out in Photoshop and I edit it
at a very small size because I know if I
can make sense of it and edit it when it's small,
then that mobile viewer will also be more likely
to be able to recognize what that image is
and make a decision on whether or not
they want to tap and watch.
Number two: your titles need to be shorter
because there's less character space that shows up
on a mobile device for your YouTube video titles
than there is on a desktop.
So make it short.
Make it enticing and avoid the truncation that just
comes when your title just gets cut off
and it doesn't really make any sense.
Number three: you need to use tighter shots
when shooting for a mobile audience, as well
because on wide shots, a lot of detail
tends to get lost because things are just
that much smaller on a tiny screen.
The rule of thumb that I use is this:
can someone on a mobile screen still be able to see
the whites of my eyes,
or the white of whoever eyes,
whoever the character is that's on screen?
Because when the viewer can clearly see the whites
of someone's eyes that helps establish trust
and builds credibility and builds a little stronger
of an emotional connection to the person in the video
than if they're just really far back and it feels
like there's a great distance between us.
Number four, and this point is so important.
It is crucial that you capture good, solid audio.
These people watching your video are either listening
to it through really small, teeny, little phone speakers
or they're listening to it in headphones,
which is where every single, little thing
they'll be able to hear.
So use good microphones that block out a lot
of the background noise, as well as make those
tiny speakers clearly deliver just the dialogue
or just whatever the action is that's
happening in the video.
Make sure you increase the volume in your video
as high as you can without making it distorted
or making the audio clip of course.
And as a little bonus extra, add manual captions
to your videos so your audience can easily
just read and follow along in the parts where
maybe the audio isn't quite as clear.
Number five, and this applies mostly to when
you're doing brand deals, sponsorships, or any time
you're sending people to click on a link
and go to a landing page of some kind.
And that is remember that the viewing experience
for that mobile viewer is actually terrible.
If they tap that link it interrupts your video immediately,
takes them out of the YouTube app,
and opens up the browser app.
So if you're working with a brand or trying
to convert your own traffic to a landing page,
make sure that page is optimized for mobile
before you start the promotion.
Even better yet, instead of giving them a tracking link
to tap on, consider just giving them an easy URL
that they can remember and go to and a promo code
that they can use when they get there to get an extra
benefit or perk of some kind that they can enter in
and track the conversions that way instead.
Because that way they can sign up from any computer
or any device they want and it doesn't interrupt
the viewing experience on your video.
Now I know, of all the things we just talked about,
the thing that most creators struggle with the most
is crafting those enticing thumbnails
that gets people to click.
So I put together a short, custom playlist
just for you that's going to help you solve all that.
Click right here to go check those out.
Subscribe here and I'll see you over there.