- Today we're talking about some YouTube growth tips.
And a lot of these aren't the typical things
that you think about when you think YouTube growth.
So stick with me, I've got some interesting ideas
to think about and things that are really gonna help
with your YouTube journey.
(arousing music)
So this is video two of a five part series
that I'm doing called Triggering the Algorithm.
And the series is all about YouTube growth,
building your channel, and more importantly,
getting YouTube to suggest your content to more people.
So guys, make sure you check out
the first video in the series.
I'll put a link down below in the description
and you'll also see it on the in card
and I'm doing some pretty cool things with the series.
So make sure you check out that first video.
If you're new here, this channel my name is Jeven Dovey,
I do filmmaking tutorials,
I'll do product reviews, adventures,
and I like doing YouTube training.
So make sure you hit that subscribe button
and turn on those bell notifications,
so you don't miss one of these tutorials.
Before we get started into these tips,
there is one thing that I really wanna hone in
and that is everyone's just on YouTube is different.
So with everyone that I work with,
with all my personal coaching,
the people that I help grow their channels,
if something works for one channel,
it doesn't mean that that's gonna work for another channel.
I work with different creators
that are within the same niche
and things work on one channel
that are not working on another channel.
The idea is that you need to always look back at your data,
and you have to test things.
So each journey through YouTube is a little bit unique.
And all these things that people teach you
on how to grow your channel
might not necessarily work for your channel,
you have to find out those specific things
that trigger the algorithm to suggest your content more
and to get your videos higher in the search results.
Every niche is different, every creator's different.
So one thing I want you to really focus on
when you're trying to build your channel
is that you need to focus on you personally
and not everyone around you
and you need to see what works for your channel.
That is the most important thing
because that's gonna help you grow moving forward.
So we're talking about some YouTube growth tips or ideas
that you need to think about
that a lot of people just aren't talking about.
When you go to these YouTube growth videos
when it's like 10 ways to grow your channel,
it's things like keyword research,
it's things like how to build out your titles,
your thumbnails, your descriptions,
how to optimize your videos,
there's a ton of content out there
on how to practically change your video
so that it gets more views and subscribers.
The things that I wanna talk about are more mindset
and more ideas around the process of creating videos
so that you don't get burned out.
And also so that you continually create good content
that your subscribers actually want to watch.
Now, the first thing is that you need to have clear goals
and clear intentions with the content
that you're creating on your YouTube channel.
You need to approach YouTube as if it's a business
and you need to have a clear idea of what you're doing
when you're going after and building out your channel.
If there's not a clear idea
of what your goals are as a creator,
then you're just gonna be throwing videos up
and wishing that they go viral.
And I see this all the time in my comments.
I always see people saying that they wish
for that one video to go viral.
The issue is, if you don't have everything else set up
in place when that video is viral,
you're not gonna be able to pull subscribers out of that
and actually build your channel.
Having a viral video or getting someone to shout you out
or doing a collabo with a giant creator,
doesn't benefit you unless you actually know
what you're doing with your channel on the back end.
And so a lot of new creators get sucked into this world
of I need to get a shout out from a big creator
or I need to do this, do that
to get tons of views on this one video,
and then everything's gonna just go from there.
It doesn't work like that.
You really have to have a clear intention
and a clear goal right up front.
When I first started my YouTube channel,
I started with no intentions, I had no goals,
I just was creating content.
And you know what happened,
I didn't really get very many subscribers
and I didn't get a whole lot of views.
For me, that was all right 'cause I was doing it for fun,
I just wanted to create videos.
And if you're here just to create videos
and have some fun and get a few views here and there, cool,
go for it, just shoot content, put it up.
But as soon as I switched my way of thinking
and as soon as I realized that
there is a business on YouTube
and I can actually create the videos that I want full time,
then I started switching what I was doing.
And then I set a goal for myself,
I said that I wanted to do x, y and z right up front.
And then I had an intention.
So what I did is I went out there
and started creating videos that would put me down this path
that led me to build my channel
to over 300,000 subscribers in three years.
And it didn't happen for me just uploading videos,
it happened for me actually coming up with
what it is that I wanna create on this channel
and actually going for it and going down that path
rather than just putting anything I wanted on my channel.
And that comes to my second point, and that is patience.
You always hear this
from every YouTube training person out there.
It's a marathon, it's not a sprint.
Yes, that analogy makes sense.
But this is not just like a fun run.
We're not just here producing content.
And in five years from now,
you'll have a bunch of subscribers,
it really doesn't work like that.
So that analogy is good
and it's an easy way to just show you
that you need to have patience on the platform.
But in reality, that's not how YouTube works.
It's not like a numbers game or a time game.
Success is not just gonna happen
from just being on the platform
for a certain period of time.
So this goes back to number one, if you have a goal,
if you've set an intention
for what you are doing on your channel,
then you're pushing for that goal,
then you're pushing for that thing that you want to get,
and everything's going to be directing in that direction.
So when you put that goal in place,
and you put time behind that goal,
what's gonna happen is your channel will build to that goal.
If there's no goal,
if you don't have any where you're going,
and you just put a bunch of time into the platform,
then nothing's really gonna happen.
So yes, it is a marathon, it's not a sprint,
but you have to be thinking of that finish line,
or you have to be thinking, what's my next race
after this marathon
because YouTube is continually moving forward and forward.
Once you finish one goal,
you're gonna have to reset another goal
and move even further ahead.
That's how you build your channel.
And that's how you find success.
And with all of this, you just have to trust the system,
YouTube will work for you
if you put the things in place to make it work for you.
What do I mean by that?
Well, first is making sure everything is optimized
on your channel properly.
So, yes, keyword research, optimizing your videos,
making sure that you're doing best practices
for your videos.
That is kind of the first thing you need to do
after the goal.
And as you figure this out, and as your video start ranking,
what's gonna happen is more attention
is gonna be driven to your channel.
And you need to make sure you're just checking all the boxes
so that when you get that viral video,
when YouTube starts suggesting your content,
you have the backbone ready,
where people are gonna be like,
"Oh, this is a great channel, I'm gonna start subscribing"
or, "I'm gonna start watching
"all the other videos on this channel."
Like I said, it doesn't just happen,
you have to build out the base, the backbone of your channel
so that when you have that opportunity
for a video to go viral, or a shout out from a huge creator,
or a collaboration with someone massive,
that people will come to your channel
and realize that you are an awesome creator,
and that they should come follow you
versus coming and just finding one video
that has a ton of views, but then the rest of your channel
is just not really anything they really care about.
And so that's my third point
is that you need to have everything in place
so that when your channel gets this boost,
you're able to benefit from it
and use that to grow your channel.
And that's when you'll see those huge spikes.
And your channel actually will take off from there
and keep exponentially growing.
It is wild how this whole thing works.
And when you start seeing that snowball roll downhill,
and it turns into a snow boulder,
it just keeps going faster and faster.
I just had this discussion with my buddy last night,
we were talking about my channel
and I was telling him that just hit 300,000.
And he's like, "That's crazy,
"cause when we were snowboarding a few months ago,
"you just hit 200,000."
And so within four or five months,
I got another 100,000 subscribers on my channel
and it's crazy once the ball gets rolling,
how fast it starts moving
and you'll start seeing your growth exponentially grow
and more opportunities will start coming your way.
That's when it's really beneficial
to start working with other creators,
collaborating and really just embracing the community
because you have to have that base
and from there with your base,
your goals, everything in place,
then when everything starts happening for you,
you'll be able to benefit and just take off like a rocket.
Like I said, this is kind of a mindset thinking
around creating content versus just do x, y and z.
Now my next thing is something
that I personally struggled with for a long time.
But I've recently become more and more
tuned into this aspect of creating content
and that is people always talk about this fact
that you need to hustle, you need to always be working,
always be grinding away, and that's how you find success.
But it doesn't necessarily work like that.
If you're pushing and going
and non-stop just trying to do this,
and putting all your effort into it, all the time,
you're eventually gonna get burned out.
That's a big topic that's happened on YouTube lately.
A lot of these big creators are getting burned out
because their attention is always here.
It's always with the camera like, "What do I do next?
"How do I build this?
"How do I do this?"
What happens is it mentally just
starts wearing on you after a time.
Yes, you can hustle.
Yes, you can work and do it for a period of time.
But you can't do that forever.
You need to build in breaks,
you need to give yourself a chance
to step away from the camera,
step away from the analytics,
step away from the next video idea.
You see, to do the things that you actually care about
outside of this, outside of work.
If you wanna go hiking, go hiking,
and not think about YouTube, go hiking to enjoy nature,
go hiking to be alone out by yourself
or with friends or with family,
like do the things outside of YouTube
so that you come back fresh for YouTube.
If we get sucked in this world of hustle
and just always working, we're always focused,
well, that's gonna destroy you,
it's gonna completely tear you down
and you're not gonna enjoy the platform anymore.
You're not gonna have fun creating content,
because all you're doing is creating content for a number
and you kind of lose a sense of who you are as a person.
And you just kind of like go down this rabbit hole.
And that's what turns into burnout.
And it turns into people just walking away
and turning off their channel and never looking back.
So I want you guys to be successful.
I want you guys to understand that,
yes, it takes a long time,
but you need to take care of yourself as a person.
Now one of the things that's really helped me lately
is this idea of digital minimalism.
And if you haven't heard of this concept,
what it is, is basically becoming a minimalist,
but in the digital space, you don't need all of your apps,
you don't need access to everything all the time.
I recently went on a yoga retreat.
Hmm, yes, I went on a yoga retreat,
my wife, she really enjoys yoga.
So she wanted me to go on this retreat with her.
And something that I personally did on this retreat
was that I deleted all social media apps off my phone,
so that basically my phone was only used
for phone calls, texts, and at the time emails.
So when I was on this yoga retreat,
most of the time, I just left my phone in the room,
I didn't even have it on me.
And it's not like I completely cut out
social media from my life,
I just made it a point to check it maybe once a day,
look at my messages, comment back, do things like that,
but then not have my attention on it the rest of the day.
So there's this idea that we can multitask,
we can do all these different things all the time.
And I actually think that's the opposite.
The people that can stay focused,
the people that can really zone in on concepts and ideas
and focus on something and really go after it
are the ones that are more successful.
Because when you're multitasking,
when you have all these different notifications popping up
and things going on,
you're actually splitting your attention between.
So if I was sitting here creating a video,
and I had my notifications turn on my phone
so that every time an email pops up, it will go bing,
then I would be diverting my attention to that,
responding to that email, coming back here
and I probably lose my train of thought,
I have to really get back into it.
What then happens is, it's taking me more time
to get out this video, to shoot this video.
And my attention is being diverted, so I lose focus.
And I'm not actually concentrating
on the content that I'm creating,
I'm actually splitting my attention
between all these different things.
So the idea of digital minimalism
is basically stripping down everything that you do
in the digital space to only the things that are utility.
So for me, what I found has worked best
is basically I stripped every app off my phone,
even my mail.
At this point, I have no mail on my phone,
and I only use my phone to really text, phone calls,
surf the web, if I need to do something quick.
And I have a few social apps on there
that I need to check using my phone.
But I only check it once in a while.
And I typically keep my phone downstairs
in one spot in my house,
so I don't have access to it all the time.
Right now I have all my show notes on this.
So that's what I'm using to create this video.
Now as soon as I stripped my mail off my phone,
night and day difference,
like I just felt like my head was clear,
because I wasn't actually
checking my phone all the time for emails.
Now another thing that you can do
is turn off all notifications.
And that's something that I've done.
So at no point is there something popping up
saying new message or new email or new, any of this,
the only things that pop up
are the things that are important,
which is texts and calls from the people that I care about
and the people that I need to be attentive to.
Otherwise my phone is completely stripped.
Now I can go on and on about this idea
of minimalism and digital minimalism.
But I just wanna leave you with this,
think about the things
that are diverting your attention away
from you building your content
or you focusing on your channel.
Now when you're here, when you're gonna create your content
when you're out there doing your vblog
or shooting your adventure film,
or creating your tutorial or whatever it is that you create,
try not to get distracted by the other things in your life
and only attend to the things
that are most important or like emergencies.
If you don't need to check your email,
then don't be checking your email.
If you don't need to be sitting there texting people
then don't sit there and text people,
especially when you get into this world of collaborations.
No reason to be like on your phone,
you wanna hang out with the people
that you're actually working with.
And the same thing with like Instagram,
like I stopped checking Instagram, stopped checking stories,
all of that stuff, because all you're doing
is looking at the best parts of other people's lives.
And it's really having a negative impact on you as a creator
to actually create content
and be confident in creating content.
And my last tip to grow your YouTube channel
is not be a perfectionist.
YouTube is not a perfect place
like people are creating content,
there's errors, there's slip ups,
there's things that happen all the time.
Don't be a perfectionist with your content,
if the color's not perfect, doesn't matter,
publish the video, move on.
And especially for smaller creators,
you need to create your content, get it up there,
see what works, see what doesn't work.
Like I was saying, everyone's journey is different.
You have to test, you have to put things online,
you have to see how they perform.
And then you have to say,
do I need to create more of this content?
Do I need to double down on this?
Or, should I try in a different direction?
Should I take a risk?
Should I do this?
When you have a huge body of work on YouTube,
then you can start focusing more on your craft
and slowing down a little bit.
Because you have all this data that tells you,
oh, I should go in this direction.
But as newer creators,
if you're so focused on your craft
and not actually focused on seeing what works,
then it's gonna be a much slower growth.
So the idea is that don't be a perfectionist.
Don't wait forever to publish your video,
start publishing right now,
you really need to see that data coming in,
to see what you should do moving forward.
Now one of the videos coming up in the series
is all about doubling down,
I'm gonna really hone in on this idea
because this idea of creating content,
really will make your channel explode
or at least it's really helped my channel explode.
So guys that's coming in one of the next videos
and if you haven't checked out
the first video in the series,
make sure you head over to this video right here.
This is where you can check out
how the YouTube algorithm works
and what's important in the YouTube metrics.
All right, guys, I'll see you on the next one.