- I recently got a question from CBV TV
who asked this,
"I just became a Patreon,
been a YouTube subscriber for a long time.
Would love to see a video on how
and what resources you're using to learn storytelling.
Thanks, Tim."
Hey guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer
and welcome to Video Creators.
This channel is all about helping you
grow your YouTube audience
so you can spread a message that reaches people
and changes their life.
And I have found that one of the best way
to reach people with your videos
is to tell engaging, captivating stories,
which is much easier said than done,
let me tell you.
For the past year and a half or so
I have been studying storytelling,
I hired a storytelling coach,
been to storytelling workshops,
I've read a lot of books,
gone through online video courses on storytelling
and much more.
And so far, just by looking at my own YouTube analytics,
and the analytics of other clients
that we work with on YouTube,
storytelling hands down is one of the best ways
to increase audience retention,
and watch time, and engagement,
and subscribers and everything.
I've been doing a lot of sit down videos like this
for a long time,
screen capture tutorials,
five ways to do this,
and 10 best principles for that,
and those have been fine
'cause they communicate valuable information
very concisely.
But very rarely do those types of videos
leave an impact on someone,
or engage them on some sort of deeper level.
Story, however, gets emotions involved.
It has the potential to shape what your viewer
actually believes about something.
In my case, if I can teach a principle about
being a YouTube creator through a story
instead of just a quick info download type video
like I'm doing here,
not only will that video be more meaningful
because of the story,
but you're actually more likely to believe something
and thus, take action
and actually get the results
and have it impact your life the way you want it to.
However, telling stories is far more time consuming,
much more difficult, and much harder
than I ever expected it to be.
Maybe you guys remember a few weeks ago
I published a video which was
my first attempt at trying to tell a story
about being a creator, rather than just teaching it.
And it was about when your YouTube career
just starts to feel very isolating,
which is something that I personally experience.
That story narrative-based content actually took
ten times longer to plan, to shoot,
and to edit, and to create for you than
another normal video like this would here on the channel.
Which means that if I think about it,
that one video took just as long to make
as if I had made a whole month and a halfs
worth of content for this channel.
So like, one video versus ten.
However, I am very excited to do more
narrative based content like that.
So there is more coming,
it's just gonna take a while to produce.
I'm gonna give you guys three storytelling resources
that have been particularly helpful to me
in the context of YouTube here,
and recommend them for you.
But I just want to say first
that I believe that storytelling is pretty much
the way of the future on YouTube.
And as I'm learning, becoming a good storyteller
is actually a lot harder than it looks
which is why it's gonna be like
the next barrier of entry,
and so here's the three resources
I think you guys should dig into right now
if you want your channel to still be viable
in the next few years.
The first resource is a book called
"Long Story Short" by Margot Leitman
and it's a good overview of a structure of a story
that people will really love.
Her context for that book is for people
who stand on a stage and just need to tell a story.
And it translates great to YouTube,
we're not standing on a literal stage,
we're standing on a virtual one,
and it works just as great.
The second book I highly recommend is
by Donald Miller, it's called
"A Million Miles and a Thousand Years."
A while back he actually wrote his life story,
which got turned into a major motion picture,
a Hollywood movie,
and this book is all the lessons that he learned
by taking his life story and translating it into video,
and how to tell that story for a screen.
But I've found that the principle he talks in that book
goes far deeper than just translating to a screen,
that book had a profound impact on me personally,
professionally, with my business,
with the people I work with, everything.
I highly recommend that book.
Number three, there's a free online video course
called "The Art of Storytelling" by Pixar
and it's their directors and their animators
telling you, and teaching you,
how to tell and craft a good story.
Some of the principles in that course
translate to YouTube, some of them don't,
but it's free, it's entertaining, it's quick,
it's easy to go through,
and it actually has practical examples
and exercises it wants you to do at
the end of each lesson.
I found that doing those exercises really
just helps me learn how to think more in terms of story,
and thus, hopefully, it comes out better
for you guys when I actually try to tell mine.
I actually put together a short playlist
of other videos from this channel
that go into more depth about storytelling
and how to integrate that into your YouTube channel,
so click right here to go check those out
and subscribe here
because we're all about helping you guys
grow your YouTube channels
so you can reach people and impact their lives,
and use story to do that.
So check out those videos
and I'll see you guys over there.