hi we've all heard the quote work smarter not harder i've been uploading videos to youtube
since about 2015. trying very hard the entire time to make it a full-time career and just before i
got married in 2018 i made that a reality i left my full-time job to do content creation full-time
youtube and commercial work technically working hard but showed little success in terms of youtube
growth now last year fall of 2020 i decided to change that i decided to work really smart to
produce unique content that was engaging and fresh for the viewer when it took me four years to 10
000 subscribers in these four months i was able to gain over thirty thousand however what happened
after the short-term success is what can happen if you let fear get the best of you i step back into
my old ways and instead of working smart i just went back to working hard at all the wrong things
i wasn't paying attention and listening to my gut as to what i really wanted to create and
what i thought would be unique and engaging for you guys to watch kind of felt like i was just on
autopilot i'd hear about some latest gadget or gizmo and try to get my hands on it make a
quick review and on to the next never really thinking was that actually a good piece of
content sometimes things would hit and be popular and sometimes a popular item would totally miss
and you'd get that good old 10 out of 10. so i've come to the realization that and this is
probably going to be a very unpopular opinion but i think we all need to forget about the algorithm
starting to realize it's not about hacking the algorithm it's about hacking the minds
of the viewer while it may sound similar it did struck a chord with me because on one end
i'm trying to appease this arbitrary computer system that is ever changing at a faster pace
than the human brain can comprehend but on the other side is something that pretty much
all of us understand that's being human and one thing that i know humans love stories
so while there's tons of videos out there on tips and tricks to get to 100
000 subscribers i wanna talk about the five reasons that i believe
have contributed to me still not hitting a hundred thousand subscribers
first one story structure now i always struggled with this one because i thought story meant that
you had to have characters and all these scenes and a whole narrative storyline and outline
written out it's not necessarily the case it certainly can be that and it sometimes is
but it doesn't have to be this whole big elaborate thing i mean one of my most popular
videos from last year using the iphone 12 pro max like a cinema camera started out with just
a skit and that was actually added super last minute that was never planned i was editing
the rest of the video and that idea just popped into my head and so i took like 30 minutes to film
it added it in the beginning and it was a little bit of storyline that captured people in those
first couple minutes but it also can be as simple as just showing a sequence of events that plays
out a story i mean in this video i showcased where i was at by using establishing drone shots i'm
transitioning into these scenes by showing a casey neistat style wide shot of walking in until i
settle on my close-up and i talk to the camera so many times i have completely over thought what i
should be doing for a video instead of just doing something simple logical and tells a good story
next up is the video brings no value to me this was a tough pill to swallow and
no one specifically told me this but there were definitely comments that kind of alluded to it
again looking back i was in autopilot so much that i would technically be like reviewing a product
but i didn't really answer any questions or there are no directive to the video like this video i'm
trying to make as clear as possible these are the five reasons as to why i think i haven't
grown on youtube and by bringing those to light it hopefully answers the question of how to grow an
audience and hopefully reach 100 000 subscribers on youtube if you do the opposite of what
i've done in the past there would be times that i would literally get a product in
i'd go to my desk hit record and just straight up unbox it and just start
talking about the product and my thoughts and opinions and i thought that that was genuine
and just the best way to do it but now i follow a story structure that i totally ripped off of
from another creator who i'm totally blanking on at the moment but his name and face will
pop up on the screen and i use millino now and i plan and prep every single video i'm working on
and especially going forward going to use this method to hopefully before i ever press record
i'll be able to look at my plan for the video and be like yes this makes sense there's no
hopefully giant holes in information or plot points and i'll be able to see does this ask
a question in the beginning and by the end of it does it answer that question does your video
bring value now before we move on to number three i want to interject with kind of a bonus
uh reason and it actually has to do with today's sponsor which is epidemic sound so yes one of the
things that has limited my growth i believe has to do with music music is something that drives every
piece of content whether it is in your face music or subtle in the background but it is emotionally
driving the scene music is incredibly important and i am so guilty of so many videos either not
having music where it should have been or just being completely lazy and throwing down a track
because one was too hard to find and so i just kind of found something that worked put it at
negative 30 decibels never really blended anything and just kind of there you have music but epidemic
makes it so easy to sort through hundreds of albums and genres and really be able to filter
down to find that perfect song that you're looking for and of course it's not just for youtubers
whether you are in hollywood commercial production broadcast television agencies they have all sorts
of licenses that will fit your needs and for me personally one of the biggest reasons i love
epidemic is because pretty much all their music has access to the stems which means that if you
find that perfect song but you just don't want the vocals or maybe the drums are just a little
bit too intense for the dialogue that's going on in the scene you can download the stem separately
add in the instruments that you want take away the ones you don't maybe take two stems from
different songs and mix them together i don't know get crazy if you're interested in trying them out
check out the link in the description you'll get a free 30-day trial cancel anytime you want if
you don't enjoy it but going into 2022 music and sound design is going to be a huge focus for me
to hopefully improve and get better and really be able to express whatever emotion i want in
the video thanks to epidemic for sponsoring today's video let's head to number three
number three is topic changes now it's totally normal that when you start a new channel
you want to explore what is fun to create so you're gonna try all sorts of videos and
different topics to talk about and stuff and that's great but i really think that over the
years i've gone way too far in many different directions from photography and filmmaking and
narrative stuff to color grading to gear and tech reviews vlogs you can just split
your audience too much and then every time you upload a video only a small percentage
of your audience is actually interested in that topic so find what niche is fun
and enjoyable to create content with and just go for gold with that if you want to change
make a slower transition and kind of test out your audience to see how they're liking them
all right number four is going to be no cross platform promotion and what that means is that
i'm terrible at this one when i upload a video to youtube i click publish and i'm like there you go
youtube send the people my way when in reality i should be leveraging whatever audience size
i have on twitter instagram and tick tock to try and funnel people to go watch the video a smaller
creator who is doing amazing at this in my opinion is my buddy jayhawk if you haven't checked him out
i'll leave him in the description below but man i am seeing this dude post instagram reels instagram
posts he's on tick tock he is everywhere and every time he uploads a new video
he has promotional content to post on all of those different social platforms for at least like the
next couple days promoting that recent video and when he uploads another one he does it all again
so much that his instagram's kind of blown up he makes incredible content and it seems
like he knows what he's doing in terms of cross-platform promotion and going
into 2022 that's gonna be a huge focus for me because like i said i suck at it
oh i guess i should do that here um more active on tick tock and instagram now so
if you want to head to those it's at initial focus pretty much on all platforms trust promotion yay
all right and number five hands down in my opinion the most important of them all
inconsistent uploading the first time that i actually took a step back and was like whoa
maybe it is me and not this youtube algorithm that is just hating on me and it was at the end of 2019
i was really pissed off with my lack of growth and no videos had really taken off at that point
and i was just blaming everything else except myself until i did one simple thing i literally
went into the youtube studio app and i counted how many videos i uploaded in that entire year
of 2019. can you guess 11. not even one video a month no [ __ ] i didn't grow now if those
11 videos a month had been on the level of mark rober who does one a month but literally spends
some time six months producing one video then sure you have the potential to grow but i was doing
boring plain old tech reviews nothing new and cutting edge offering no real different opinion
than anyone else covering the same topics and so how could anyone expect to grow when you're
just doing the same thing as everyone else and doing it less so since then i have tried all the
various ways of staying consistent giving myself deadlines and saying okay we upload once a week
twice a week to be honest nothing has really permanently stuck i'm still kind of figuring
it out now i'm more focused on the quality while also making sure that i don't go really
more than a week i mean if i'm doing content creation full time there's really no reason why
i shouldn't be able to upload at least once a week unless you know something insane is going
on but most weeks there's no excuse so whatever it means to you be consistent upload the level
of quality that you want and upload the quantity that you should be uploading if you can't get a
10 to 15 minute super crazy in-depth youtube video out this week make a 20-second tick tock
my wife who is my biggest supporter and my biggest critic and my biggest pusher to be the
best version of myself gave me a goal this month of make 30 pieces of content my jaw like dropped
when she first said the house and i just instantly started coming up with a bunch of excuses
as i always have and she's like no i didn't say 30 youtube videos 30 pieces of content and when you
start thinking like that it became a little easier i found this little tic toc series that i started
making that literally takes me like 30 minutes to make three of them trying to hit at least one
quality youtube video a week trying to get more active on instagram posting there and reels and
stories and of course i'm always active on twitter but making a lot more content doesn't have to be
as insanely time consuming as we all think so get consistent get creative and make it happen
so going back to the human thing for a minute we understand what keeps our attention whether you
are looking to create short form content or something that's a little bit longer
we're all viewers and consumers at some point and so we understand what keeps an audience engaged
because we understand what keeps us engaged when we're watching something more creators
including myself need to start really thinking about the person on the other side of the screen
and less about this algorithm that we're just never going to keep up with we're all going to
have videos that hit for some unknown reason and videos that we work incredibly hard for a long
time on just to see that god-awful 10 out of 10 show up that stuff is going to continue to happen
whether you have 500 subscribers or 5 million after a lot of self-reflection and advice and just
conversations over the past couple of years i've come to genuinely believe that things i mentioned
in this video have greatly contributed to my lack of growth on this platform not because some ai
computer is out to get me i'm sure we'll continue to debate what is and isn't true about analytics
and what's the best time to post and should use to actually not use tags but for me in 2022 i'm
going to solely focus on you the viewer and just hope that everything else will just fall into
place if you enjoyed this video and you want to contribute towards stepping towards that 100k goal
then by all means i would love if you came along for the ride and hit that red button below i hope
everyone is safe and healthy and is able to spend some quality time with family this holiday season
i appreciate you taking some of the time to watch this video see you all in the next one