- Hey there.
Caleb Wojcik DIY Video Guy here
at NAB 2016 in Las Vegas
and I'm here with...
- Sean Cannell. How's it going?
- Sean runs two major YouTube channels,
Video Influencers and THiNK Media TV,
and in this video we're going to be talking about...
- How to grow your YouTube channel fast.
- So, let's jump into the first tip.
What's number one?
- So, number one-- well, first overall,
is I think that things have changed
on YouTube.
In 2010, you could kind of be like
playing checkers on YouTube,
and that was okay,
but to really break through today
you kinda gotta be playing chess now.
- So what do you mean by that?
- I mean you have to actually have some strategy.
I feel like a lot of people jumped on
and some of the early tips were like,
"just go for it if you're passionate,
"just go for it like if you kinda,
"you know, make some videos."
And I think that's still true,
but I think it's important
to actually have a strategy.
And that's really what these tips are about.
- So what's that first strategy then?
- So the first thing that's so important
is, I think it's important that
you have a clear niche
and you have a value proposition
for your channel.
Some people just want it to be hobby-based
and be really general,
and it's really hard to stand out and grow quickly
if people don't get exactly
what your channel's about.
Your channel is about tech,
it's gear reviews, that makes sense.
Cooking channel, it makes sense
of what that's about.
If you're like, it's about everything,
if you try to reach everybody,
you end up reaching nobody.
And so a clear niche.
And one thing that's really gonna do
is a double niche.
Because if you just even
say cooking general,
that's not that great.
But if you go cooking with another distinction--
- So like cooking appliances, or cooking tools,
or--
- Or even a style.
So if you just say everything to do
with European cooking and it kinda
goes into a certain style.
Or healthy, so you went cooking and healthy,
cause if you, there's unhealthy,
and it's a whole different probably group
that would wanna have like
some butter, Betty Crocker versus
green juice and kale, right?
And so having a niche is number one.
- Yeah and I think that's really good
cause I think a lot of people
just start a YouTube channel
like they would a social media account,
and it's just, "hey,
"here's me, here's what I'm doing today,"
and there's no reason to subscribe,
and so I think a niche is a really really good one.
- Absolutely. Absolutely.
I think the second thing is collaborations.
And that's kind of the classic,
but I mean you really gotta hustle
when it comes to collaborations.
I think the mistake is
everybody wants to collaborate
with like the big people that are known.
I have this thing of,
collaborate with everybody.
Gary Vaynerchuk actually has a really cool video
called One Is Greater Than Zero,
and it was based on this idea that,
he went, he took a whole year
to go on other peoples' channels.
It didn't matter if they had six subscribers,
he would go on there.
- He did that, he came on my podcast
when I had a few hundred listeners
like three years ago or so,
and yeah, he talked to me
while he was walking through the airport
and one listener is someone that finds out
about him and who knows
what they become.
- It's absolutely huge.
So I think like really doing
whatever you can to collaborate with
people that are relevant.
I think that's the other thing too, is,
it would be even better
if you have a tech channel,
and one of the biggest beauty gurus
wants to collaborate with you,
it's not gonna even be an alignment
of audience, but find that alignment
of audience.
But then just anybody,
I mean, it's all community anyways
and really hustling when it
comes to collaboration.
- And people that have millions
of subscribers get requests
for collaborations all the time
and so you find the people that
are up and coming, few thousand subscribers,
few hundred subscribers, whatever it is,
do a collaboration,
and the biggest thing is that your audience
is on YouTube already,
they just might not know who you are.
So you gotta find the people
that they're watching and subscribing to
and work with them.
- Yeah absolutely.
I think the third thing is ranked videos,
and I don't hear a lot of people
talking about this,
but this is specifically,
it's video SEO,
but what it is is
it's your videos showing up
in top search results.
So when you have your cooking channel,
now what you're goal is,
if you're gonna say "How to Cook a Steak,"
you want that video to show up
in those first few search results.
If it's, "How to Do a Salad
"for a Barbecue During Summer,"
whatever, that shows up.
Those videos basically
become like hooks that
are bringing new people to your channel.
A friend of mine calls it views while you snooze.
Right? You get views
from people because a lot of times
what happens is,
people publish a YouTube video,
if you've got a thousand subscribers
you maybe get a thousand views,
and if you don't send a tweet about it,
if you don't send an email about it,
then it just plateaus and it stops right there.
But if the video ranks,
if it shows up in search results,
now you can start
getting views 24/7, three-sixty-five,
so I tell people, create a library
of ranked videos,
and now your YouTube channel
is actually growing on autopilot
and you're getting a lot more,
videos are hard work,
you're getting a lot more kinda leverage
runway out of your videos,
they could be working for you for months,
even years to come.
- Yeah and one of my first videos,
I wasn't planning to have it ranked,
but it just started ranking,
and that helped growth
and I can see that a huge percentage
of my subscribers came from
that one random video I made.
And sometimes you don't know
which one is actually going to rank,
but if you think about how they each will,
that's really helpful.
- Yeah, one-hundred percent.
And so I think the fourth thing
is consistency.
And a lot of people say that
and I would even be this specific,
be as consistent as possible
so if that means once a month,
do once a month,
But I would challenge people.
You need to be publishing at least
one video a week.
At least one video a week.
And like-- you're not taking it seriously
if you're not doing that.
It's kind of this idea that
even, that helps you're videos rank,
it tells YouTube that,
just like a TV show, you're
showing up every single week.
And so being consistent,
and then if you can do more than that,
do more.
But having consistency is huge.
It helps your videos rank,
it also lets your audience know,
"man, I can expect to hear from you,
I can expect that you're showing up,"
and then the last one I would say
is hustle.
And I mean that's kind of general,
but the reality is,
if you really wanna grow a YouTube channel,
you wanna grow it fast,
and you really wanna take this seriously,
you gotta put in the work.
And it's not easy,
it's not.
The difference probably between 2010
or 2005 you know when YouTube
started, and the way things are today,
I would encourage people,
you can still break through today,
you can still do it.
Don't play checkers
and just kind of be random, be strategic.
But then put in the work.
Like, put in the hustle.
And I know that you can relate to that,
because you know what it's like,
even on your YouTube channel.
- Yeah and I think that
the times when I haven't
made videos for a while,
that's when I was just stagnant, no growth.
And then if I recommit to it,
and put multiple out every week
for like a month or two,
it just,
the growth is just there
and so it's just a pure byproduct
of showing up, hustle,
focusing on making the right videos
people want with the niche,
all the things you mentioned,
so that's awesome.
Dude, it was great to meet you
at this conference.
I know you reached out to me
on Twitter and you were like,
"hey, let's hang out!"
And I never met you before,
but it works out good,
and I checked out your stuff
and I want people to check it out too,
so where can they go to find out more?
- Yeah so, Video Influencers,
YouTube.com forward slash Video Influencers,
that's all about how to build your income,
influence, and impact with online video
and a lot of the tips,
we have interviews with people
who are very niche and focused
and maybe have like a small audience
but it's really targeted,
which I think is awesome.
There's people who are just starting,
there's people that are growing,
but it's just the best tips from the pros,
really, that's all available there.
And then THiNK Media TV is how people
go further faster in media,
and it's really the focus there
is really the budget creator,
the hustling creator.
And so we don't really cover like
big even broadcast kind of stuff,
but the stuff that is very practical,
the tools for like YouTubers
and everyday video creators.
- Yeah and I know some
of your most popular ones on there
are like what cameras people shoud
get for YouTube,
and so definitely go check out his channels
and his stuff and thanks
for joining me today Sean.
- Oh, thank you so much.
I appreciate what you're doing
and if you haven't subscribed yet
or liked this video
or commented on this video,
they gotta do it
because I love your channel too
and everything you're doing.
- Awesome, thanks man.
Alright, we're out.