I know we all want our YouTube channels to grow
and modeling success is typically smart.
However, it is not always the best idea.
So I am going to tell you how doing things
like big YouTubers can actually keep you small.
And we're starting right now.
(hip hop music)
What is going on?
My name is Nick.
Welcome to another video.
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Okay, real quick, I want to let you know
that my podcast is out now.
It's called Comments over Coffee
and it's available on all of the major podcasting platforms.
I'll put information about that in the description below.
But anyway, you may or may not know that when I see a
good comment on one of my videos
I will often open that
up in a new tab and I'll check out the channel.
Just you know, take a glance and kinda see what's going on.
That helps me stay in line with what's happening in
the community and it also lets me know the things that
I need to talk about.
Like this!
I've noticed a pattern.
A lot of content creators are
basically selling themselves short
or they're taking away the opportunity
that they have to actually get
growth and exposure here on YouTube
by mimicking what they see a lot of big YouTubers do.
Let me explain.
When you see bigger YouTube channels, like Casey Neistat
or Peter McKinnon for example,
or any other big channels on YouTube.
It's important to keep in mind that regardless
of what it is that they put out,
because they already have a huge audience in place,
that as soon as they hit the publish button
people are going to start pouring in to their video content.
And I'm talking like tens of thousands of views in
just the first hour.
They could literally make a title with just
exclamation points in it
and people would click on it like crazy
because they know that that particular big
YouTuber that they're a fan of is putting it out.
If you or me did that there's a really good chance that
that video's not going to perform well because
we just can't send that amount of traffic to a video
as soon as we publish.
And look, I'm not saying that their titles are garbage
or that their thumbnails are garbage because
they are obviously not.
High level creators know how to get that result from people.
They know exactly what it is that they're doing.
But because as soon as they hit that publish button and
they have a lot of people pouring into that video,
they're sending tons of data into YouTube in terms of
how that video performs,
or in terms of how people respond to that video,
so that YouTube knows
Hey, people like this
are responding to this particular video,
therefore we're going to start trying to show this video
to other people that are like this.
And let's take one of those same videos and
we put it on the homepage, right?
As soon as you log in to YouTube.
Well, the same exact thing happens there.
When one of these creators like Casey Neistat for example,
when he uploads a video,
the title can say pretty much anything,
but as long as his face is in the thumbnail, guess what?
The people that like Casey Neistat are gonna go in
and they're going to watch that video,
regardless of what the title says.
And this right here is where things can really start
hurting you if you don't
already have that built in audience.
Let's say that you're a channel that has 500 subscribers
on it or let's say that you're getting 500 views per video
and you're just kinda getting that ball rolling.
You're getting 500 views per video
well there's not a lot of people
that know your face yet,
so if you were to do that
same exact thing then what's going to happen is
it's gonna hit the homepage a few times,
and depending on exactly what's happening on the thumbnail
and exactly what the title is,
there's a really good chance that
video is just not gonna get the clicks that you want it
to get because you just haven't built up that audience yet.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that a
high performing video that you put out
isn't going to perform.
What I'm saying is that when you are doing things
like titling your videos like one of these larger creators
you just don't get that initial juice or that
initial recognition that they can get which basically
tells YouTube that it's a decent video.
Let me give you another example.
I know that from some of the channels that I've just
opened up and looked at,
I know that in our livestreams
when we look at channels, one of the things that we
see a lot is we see vloggers that will make videos
that'll say something like, "Bobby's First Day at School".
If you are making videos just for the sake of keeping that
record of what's happening in your life
then what I'm about to say doesn't matter.
But if you're making your videos
and your intent with those videos is to keep track
of your life, but also to actually grow the channel,
then it's important that you pay attention to what it is
I'm about to say.
Most of the people on YouTube do not know who Bobby is
and since they don't know who Bobby is
they do not care about Bobby's first day at school.
So what you need to do when you're making titles like that
is you need to look at the title and step back a little bit
and say hey, if I'm talking about Bobby's first day of
school, how can I frame this in a way that makes it
a little bit more intriguing for people to click on
or what kind of imagery can we use in the thumbnail
instead of just Bobby with a backpack on?
What kind of imagery can we use in the thumbnail
to actually kind of illustrate a little bit
what major thing happened when Bobby went to his
first day of school that other people
would be interested in watching?
Another thing that big YouTube channels do
that a lot of small channels also do
but they shouldn't is announcement videos.
Let me explain.
People are coming to your channel for your content.
They're not coming to your channel to learn about why
you haven't been uploading
They're not coming to your channel to learn about some
milestone that you just crossed.
They're not coming to your channel
for anything except for content
when you're first getting started.
It is extremely important that every single video that
you put out is content for your viewer.
You know who you're making content for,
you start putting that content out for them
and you don't interrupt
that content with explanation videos or milestone videos
or anything like that until you start getting a fan base
of people that will actually care
about those types of announcements.
And personally, with one of those announcements,
the one where the person comes on and they explain why they
haven't uploaded in a while?
That wastes my time.
I don't want to see videos like that.
It doesn't matter.
What I want to see is the stuff that I love from you.
The content that I love watching on your channel.
That's the stuff that I wanna see because that's
the stuff that I come to your channel for.
A video about hey, you know, I'm gonna waste eight
minutes of your time talking about why I haven't been
uploading my content instead of wasting eight minutes of
my time on awesome content that I can enjoy.
Personal biases aside because
I just don't like that type of video,
the apology stuff, 'cause I just don't see any point in it.
Outside of that, it's really important just to remember
that people are coming to your channel for a specific
thing so you want to give them that specific thing
and you don't want to waste their time with things
that they don't care about.
And the more that you give people content
that is valuable to them,
the better everything is gonna be.
Another thing that can be really bad for you as a
small channel, mid-sized channel,
even a channel that's kinda
been going for a while,
is having variety content on it.
A lot of people will start YouTube channels and they'll
make videos about whatever they want because they either
don't know how to come up with video ideas about other
things, they don't even know about niching down your content
so that you can serve a particular audience or whatever.
But they will basically start out their YouTube channels
just putting out whatever.
Now, if you don't know what type of niche content that
you want to put out or you don't know, like, a specific
person that you're trying to reach and make content for,
in that case go ahead and put out variety content
because what you want to do in that situation is
you want to put out that variety content and you wanna
see hey, what's going to take off?
What's gonna do better?"
Maybe in that particular situation you'll uncover something
that will give you a direction on what it is that
you're going with your YouTube channel,
but for everybody else?
You want to figure out what
it is that you're offering your viewers
and you want to offer that specifically.
But the reason that this can end up hurting you
as a content creator is because
as YouTube starts learning about who responds to your
content the most,
when you start putting out content
over here about cooking cakes, for example,
and that cooking cake content's doing well
and then you start putting out content over here
about gaming, as an example,
then in that particular situation you're dividing
your audience and basically you're letting YouTube know
that hey, the people that like my cooking cake content,
they're into this particular thing, and then it's like
well, hey, there's this whole other group of people
over here that are into my gaming content,
what do we do with those people?
Sure, they could all pour into the same channel regardless
of what it is that you're putting out.
People just dig it.
But here's what's most likely going to happen
in that situation.
Let's say that you put out videos on cooking
cakes, while the people start responding to those videos
on cooking cakes and then you start putting out
some gaming videos.
Well guess what?
YouTube is gonna show your gaming videos to the people
that signed up or that subscribed to your channel
because they like your videos about cooking cakes.
And since they subscribed for the videos about you
cooking cakes when all of these gaming pieces of content
are showing up on their homepage,
guess what these cake cookers are not going to click on?
That's right.
Your gaming content.
And that is going to hurt the clickthrough when YouTube
shows that gaming content to the people that are
most likely to watch it because they just recently
watched something on your channel, your subscribers
and the people with notifications and all that.
And what you start doing in that situation is you start
sending these negative signals into YouTube,
basically saying that the people that
already dig your stuff don't dig that.
Now the reason that larger channels can get away with this
is because, let's say, that you have a larger channel,
say you've got 5 million subscribers on your channel.
Well, in that situation, there's a percentage of that
5 million people that love your content regardless of
what it is that you put out, because they're connected
to that personality, right?
So because of that what happens is,
even though you might put out two totally
different types of content,
what happens in that situation
is the people that just like the creator for the creator
and they'll watch whatever,
in that situation those people
will still come in but when you are first getting started
you don't have that bigger audience to pull from to get
those percentages up in terms of the amount of people
that will actually come in and watch that
other content from you.
But even with bigger channels sometimes that can also just
be horrible for the channel and the reason for that
is because it's not necessarily, you know, at a certain
point, it's not necessarily about the specific piece
of content in terms of it just being a piece of content.
It's more about, does all of the different types of
variety content that we're putting on this channel
serve a particular type of viewer?
If that's the case then that's where that variety type of
content comes in, but if it's just completely out of
left field in terms of the interest that somebody has
when they're coming into your channel,
then in that situation
that's where everything starts breaking.
So if you have a channel that is like men's fashion
for example, and you talk about men's fashion,
but you also talk about things like men's health
from time to time.
Well guess what? You're still serving
a similar type of audience because the people that are
into men's fashion are most likely men,
so then when you start talking about men's health
and the people that are into the fashion
are probably also maybe a little bit more fit,
a little bit more conscious about
their appearance and things like that,
then there is a little bit more alignment there
which makes that content fit a little bit better.
Make sense?
Okay. Good.
Now with all of that said, it's important
to understand that I'm not saying that you can't
write titles the way that you want titles or that you
can't do things a certain way but what I am saying is
that you want to sit back and you want to think about
okay, are people going to be able to understand what's
actually happening here?
Are people going to care
about this specific person that I mention
or are people going to care about this specific content
that I'm putting out
if I normally put out this type of content
or this is what they're signing up for?
It's also important to assume that when you are writing
titles that people don't know the names of the
people that are in the videos.
Like your subscriber base does
if they are watching all of your content,
but outside of your subscriber base,
people don't know the names of those people.
It only matters when people actually start knowing
who those people are in your videos.
Within that, it's also important to remember that
your title and your thumbnail are arguably the most
important part of the video because that's the first
part that people see.
It's the first thing, no matter where it is on the platform,
it's the very first thing
that introduces people to you and your content,
so because of that, making sure that you take a step back
and you try to think through what it is that you're doing
in terms of, you know, the imagery I'm using in my
thumbnail, does this make sense?
The title that I'm using.
Will this make sense to people?
Will it be intriguing?
Do I have something compelling in this particular
title that will make people want to click on it?
So clarity, intrigue, and comprehension are extremely
important in your titles and thumbnails.
So write that down somewhere and just always remember that
when you're making your thumbnails
or when you're writing your titles.
Another thing that's important is the topics that you choose
and how those topics relate to each other.
And most importantly is how those topics relate to each
other and they relate to the interests
of a specific type of viewer.
These are all pieces of the puzzle that help make for
a good video and that help to build a nice,
solid, strong YouTube channel.
Now to learn how to get more views on your videos,
step-by-step, I put together a video for you.
You can watch it.
It's on the screen right now.
So just go ahead and click on that.
And if you haven't yet, remember to subscribe.
Thanks for watching.
I'll see you next time.