Well, we're halfway through the year,
and I think it's time I admit that I have screwed up my YouTube channel.
How do I judge or measure this? Let me show you.
So is my channel actually dying or was this just click bait?
There's a few ways to measure whether your efforts for social media channel like
YouTube in this case are working for you or not.
So if I just look at my views from an external perspective, your perspective,
here's what I see. We have over a hundred thousand subscribers,
108 now. Yay. But when I look at our videos,
we are barely cracking a thousand views per video.
Even when I go back to like a month ago, two months ago,
very few videos have over 4,000, even 5,000 views.
And a video that was published two months ago should have ideally more than
5,000 at this point.
So externally we have a lot of subscribers and not so many views.
That's not looking good. According to YouTube,
my views are about the same as they were in the previous 365 days.
However, my watch time is down. It's down 9%.
Let's look at the last 90 days.
I can see that my views are down 40% than the prior 90 days.
My watch time is down 32% and here we have some data on my
subscribers. We're getting 27% less than the previous 90 days. So Yes,
my channel is dying. And I have a few reasons why I've totally screwed it up.
And that's what I wanna share with you in this video. Plus the lessons learned,
the things that I'm not gonna do again, and what I'm gonna do instead. First,
a few months ago,
we switched up our entire YouTube topic strategy and we focused on very
broad search terms.
We focused on things like how to be in the online business space,
how to get started with a side hustle.
These were topics that our channel hadn't traditionally focused on,
but we decided to branch out and try new topics to see if they would resonate
with our audience. Now, if you have an established YouTube channel,
you know that that's a big no-no because our channel has already been
classified by YouTube as a place for Instagram and TikTok marketing tips, right?
So if we branch out and talk about, you know,
side hustles and how to be an online business coach and content marketing
strategies, they might capture a bigger, broader audience,
but it's very clear with our very low views that my current audience,
my subscribers were not interested in those topics.
Some of those topics actually had a very low search volume too.
And I'll tell you why that is in a little bit,
but because we chose different titles and topics in general,
that I don't usually cover,
I remember when I filmed those topics that they weren't really feeling like me.
I felt a little not excited about them.
And I can see in my delivery in talking about those topics,
that I'm a little robotic. And if I'm not feeling it,
you're probably not feeling it either. Outta curiosity,
let me know if you noticed particular change in my channel just over the last
few months,
if you did let me know in a comment below and feel free to share all your
thoughts, the good, the bad, the ugly, lay it on me.
So the big lesson learned here for me is don't make s*** up.
We had a channel that had 2+ years worth of data,
and we could have dug into that data for more content ideas versus
trying something totally new out of the blue. When as an established channel,
we really didn't have to experiment. So I won't do that again. Now,
the second mistake we made with my channel was not planning out three key things
in advance before even filming.
I don't know how many YouTubers actually do this,
but I keep hearing from people who run channels much bigger than mine,
like in the millions of subscribers, that before you even film,
you need to plan out what your topic is gonna be. So,
is what you're gonna talk about even interesting?
You then need to plan out your title. So what are you gonna call that video?
And then the third thing you need to plan out is your thumbnail.
How are you gonna make your thumbnail interesting,
intriguing something that people have to click?
This isn't something I've typically done in the past,
especially when my channel was smaller.
I guess we got lucky with these three things,
but now with a channel of over a hundred thousand subscribers,
what ended up happening was I created videos on topics that were never
interesting to begin with.
So it shouldn't be a surprise that they're not performing well. I mean,
if you are a subscriber, take a look at my most recent videos now.
Are the topics interesting? Topics on side hustles,
becoming an online business coach, content marketing strategies.
Maybe they'll rank in Google,
maybe there are topics that people are searching for,
but there's not a lot of intrigue. There's not a lot of interest.
There's not a lot of like, "Hmm, I wonder what's behind that video,
I need to click to find out." They're kind of all flat.
And that was a big mistake we made. So now going forward,
before I ever start filming,
I'm gonna make sure that I have the overall topic nailed, AKA,
it's gotta be super interesting.
I wanna have the title of the video planned as well.
And I wanna have a rough idea of what the thumbnail is going to be. Now,
designing a thumbnail is an art in and of itself. And again,
maybe we just got lucky in the past with our thumbnails being interesting
enough,
but we've really focused in on our thumbnails in the most recent six to 12
months and we're falling flat. I'm gonna touch on that one in a little bit.
The third mistake I made with my channel,
it relates to the first point that I made, where we used really broad,
general search terms before that tactic, which was new just of this year.
Before that we used to use a tool called MorningFame and MorningFame would
tell us, you know, if you make this topic on Instagram Reels for business,
you have a shot at ranking or you don't.
We used and relied on MorningFame from like day one of starting to grow my
channel in 2019. And it worked,
we followed the guidance of this tool that would tell us which topics we could
rank for on both YouTube and Google. What this did, however,
was kept our channel very heavily based on search-based topics.
So if people searched for a topic and found my video, they would watch it,
get their answer, and then they would bounce.
There was really no reason for them to stick around and stay a subscriber
because it wasn't really about me or my business necessarily.
It was about them having a question, getting an answer and then leaving.
I didn't really realize this was a mistake until I talked to Jeremy from J
House's Vlogs channel,
and he's got millions of subscribers and he's really good at storytelling.
And that's what he said I was missing with my channel.
I needed to mix it up a bit. I needed to have those search-based topics,
which honestly was a great strategy for our channel to grow and reach a hundred
thousand subscribers.
But now it's really about going deeper with my subscribers.
So Jeremy encouraged me to really focus on bringing storytelling to my videos
and not just making it all about here's your answer from Google, you're welcome.
I had tried storytelling based videos in the past, like in 2021,
I did a life update video and I've also talked about our travels and how we got
robbed, but I made a mistake there too.
Since those videos didn't really grow our channel,
AKA bring in consistent views or bring in subscribers. I just stopped.
I tried like three of them and then I didn't try them again.
That was a little shortsighted looking back on it.
But the problem actually wasn't the fact that I was storytelling.
The problem was is that I didn't bring the storytelling back to our audience.
AKA, why should they care? What's in it for them?
I'm gonna share more on that part in a bit.
The major lesson learned here for me is that we're no longer just going to keep
my channel all about search-based topics.
We're no longer just gonna rely on MorningFame to tell us what topics to make.
We're gonna branch out. I'm going to explore,
bring more stories into my teachings,
and hopefully we'll be able to go a layer deeper together instead of just
keeping things surface level. Alright,
the fourth mistake we made with our channel,
we let our thumbnail design go all over the place. Seriously,
look back at my channel. Look at videos from a year ago,
you'll notice a certain style and vibe that was working for us.
Then look at the videos from six months ago,
looks a little different and then three months ago looks very different.
So we had many designers involved in our channel and we were trying something
new.
We were trying to bring in new team members to take the thumbnail design off
the plate of our current team member.
But we worked with a new group of people and they have their own style.
As much as the change in style pained me because I thought what we had
going on was pretty good by changing it I just kept saying to myself,
it doesn't matter if it looks bad to me, or if it looks ugly to me,
what matters is the click through rate. I'm gonna let the data speak for itself.
And I did. I let those thumbnails go up and I just
bit my tongue to wait and see what would happen with our click through rate and
drumroll please. Our CTR went down. Last year,
our CTR was just over 7%.
And looking back on this year, we are down to 6.4% on average.
So the change in thumbnails didn't really work for us.
Now I'd have to give a big disclaimer here because the drop in CTR,
isn't just the fault of the thumbnails. Again,
it goes back to one of the earlier mistakes I mentioned where a),
the topic just wasn't that interesting to begin with,
and then there's also the title as well. So topic, title, thumbnail,
those are the three key features. So again,
it's not just the fault of our thumbnails,
but we didn't put enough thought into how we can make them intriguing.
We just kind of did the same thing that had been done before.
Plus we had all these other new designers with their perspective,
so it just kind of looked messy. So the lesson here for me is, again,
the design of it and being on brand is not the most important thing.
I just care about click through rate.
And I want us to make sure that we're planning our thumbnail in the planning
phase before I even begin to film.
I wanna make sure we're sketching out what our thumbnails gonna look like.
So that we have an idea of how to make our video as intriguing as possible.
Ready for the next mistake that we made to screw up my YouTube channel?
Now I have to give a big disclaimer here because I do not blame anyone for this.
This was my decision.
This was all an attempt to scale and grow my business and remove
myself from some of the moving pieces.
So what happened in the beginning of this year was we actually hired
an agency to help us grow our YouTube channel for the first time. Again,
I don't blame them because I hired them.
And ultimately every video we made was my decision,
but I was experimenting with outsourcing all in the name of
scaling, right? This is what we're taught and told to do as CEOs is,
as the business grows, try to remove yourself from it more and more.
And so I was really excited to remove myself from some things like
ideation and strategy.
And I hired an agency that was going to take all of that off of my plate.
They were also gonna take care of all the editing and the uploading.
So this actually sounded like a great time saver for myself and my team because
producing a YouTube video once a week is a lot of time and there's a
hard cost to it as well.
And so I took this leap with this agency hoping for the best,
and here's what happened.
The agency ran the strategy behind which topics we would film.
And we also planned a big batch film session. If you remember,
if you follow me in my stories,
I went to San Diego in March and we spent two days filming about 18
YouTube videos, which would give us like four months worth of content.
But what ended up happening is, as things changed in the Instagram space,
the TikTok space, the online business space, our content was already filmed.
And we didn't have that flexibility to roll with the punches when things changed
for the social platforms that I consistently teach on.
Plus when I look back on that two day batch filming session I kind of knew in my
gut that I wasn't that excited about the topic. So I had that sinking feeling,
but I went ahead with the filming anyway,
because we'd already invested so much in that process up until that point.
So even though I wasn't excited about the topics,
I'm not sure why I thought our subscribers would be pumped,
but I guess I was hoping for the best.
But what I learned from this is at this point, it just wasn't the right fit.
Maybe it is possible to outsource some of these aspects,
but with YouTube being such a core piece of content in my business and me
being the educator and me knowing my audience really well,
I just don't know if this is something that I could outsource to an agency.
So as it stands,
we are taking back our YouTube strategy and bringing it in house.
And I'm actually really excited for that too. So for you, fair viewer,
what is the takeaway and what am I gonna do differently with my channel?
Maybe for you,
you are a YouTuber or maybe you feel like you've screwed up on another platform.
So how can we learn from this? Well, for me,
the biggest mistake I made outta the last six months was solely focusing
on search based content,
meaning content that would rank in search either on YouTube or Google.
By focusing solely on search based topics I was neglecting half
of my strategy, half.
We left half of our strategy behind by ignoring story based content.
I actually reached out to Ed who runs the channel called Film Booth because I
love his videos and they have great storytelling built in.
And he said this to me,
"Screw search terms and focus on intrigue and storytelling." So that's what I'm
gonna do. Going forward with my channel,
I'm gonna experiment by just being more relaxed,
answering more questions from you, my viewers and my audience.
I also wanna redo some of my top performing videos.
I wanna experiment with filming reacts videos and finding those teaching moments
in them for you so that you can, you know,
see what worked and bring it to your business.
I wanna film more how to videos when it comes to trends,
whether on TikTok or Reels, just overall not overthink it.
We have been so hyper focused on will this video rank in search,
but we've neglected the 100,000 plus people who are here.
So now I wanna make videos and content that you are gonna find interesting.
The other thing we might try is going live. If you'd like that,
let me know in a comment below by commenting "go live".
And I've also experimented with posting more of my Shorts,
because at this point with the dying channel, what do I have to lose?
My goal is to get out of the funk that we've been in for the last six months.
I'm excited for this change that's coming. I hope you are too.
Let me know in a comment, if you're looking forward to any of these changes,
or if you noticed any of these mistakes I made, believe me,
you can't hurt my feelings. The past is the past, but we're moving forward. Now,
YouTube, isn't the only platform that I've made major mistakes on.
I've done the same thing over on my Instagram,
which stalled my growth and limited my engagement.
So if you feel like something might be off with your Instagram profile,
check out this next video right here,
where I cover the biggest mistakes I see business owners making when it comes to
their Instagram, stuff that I've done that you don't wanna repeat.
So check it out. I'll see you over there.