- What's up, socials?
Welcome back to my channel.
I'm sorry if the construction sounds outside
are gonna be at an all time high today,
but that's not stopping me from talking to you.
Or is it?
2017 has been a really kind of special year,
not just for me, but for the world of vlogging.
I feel like it's super serendipitous
that my book finally came out at a time where
this is something that is starting
to become almost, like, a mainstream topic.
People want to vlog.
People want to share their life.
People want to share what they're doing.
People want to share something interesting
about themselves so that they can continue
to strive for what they really want in life.
I think that's super cool,
but I also think, much like anything else,
when something becomes so talked about,
and people are jumping at the chance
to be the next whatever is cool now, and vlogging,
I think it depends on who you watch
and the type of videos that you like.
There's also a lot of misconceptions
about how hard this world can actually be
or what a successful strategy actually looks like.
And you're never gonna quite nail
down exactly a successful strategy.
People have found success in different ways than others.
For success for one person,
it might be a billion subscribers or something.
I don't know if anyone's hit that number yet.
And then success for someone else might
just be that they have a steady flow of business coming in,
the leads are growing, they're getting more and more
awareness around what they do, and that's success for them.
Regardless of all of that, I think that there are
some things that the best vloggers out there know.
Whether the best vloggers actually
have a bajillion subscribers or are just the best
because they've figured out how to hack
this vehicle to achieve what they want.
So let's talk about that.
What is it that the best vloggers know,
that they've been able to find sort of their flow,
their swag, as it comes to vlogging?
The first thing, and I think is maybe one
of the most important things, is ask and you shall receive.
It's not true all of the time,
but it will never be true if you never do it.
I think a lot of people get into the vlogging world,
and they just think if they've put it out there,
then people will watch.
They won't, especially now that the world
is so much busier than it's been in a long time.
Since the inception of YouTube,
I think we're seeing way more people pick
up a vlogging camera today than we were in 2007, obviously.
It used to not even be cool to talk to yourself in public,
and then FaceTime came out and gave
us all the best excuse of all time.
Ask and you shall receive simply means
if you're gonna work so hard to do this,
if you're gonna put this out there and try
and make changes and pivot and measure
and keep doing the thing that's
hopefully gonna make you better,
you have to ask people for the attention in the beginning,
specifically if you're gonna be able to figure out
what the next right move is,
whether you're doing the right thing
or whether you need to make a change.
So asking for those first views,
asking for those subscribers,
asking but never forgetting to ask,
even when you've gotten to a point of comfort
where they're just rolling in and you don't even have
to ask anymore because they're gonna do it anyway,
you still ask, because you're the person
that they're looking to for information, for entertainment,
for that idea, and so now, you get to say,
"What would be really helpful for me is," and then ask.
And even, I think, the biggest vloggers today
never lose sight of how vitally important that that is.
Asking for the permission of your audience
to keep being an awesome audience to them.
That's big.
Another thing they know is that consistency
is not only everything, but consistency is in everything.
It's not just how often you're
scheduling your videos to go out.
It's not just what day it is,
what time is it, when's the deadline.
Consistency is in everything.
Consistency has just as much of a reflection
on the brand as it does the editorial calendar schedule.
What do your thumbnails look like?
What does your cover art look like?
How do you talk in a video?
What type of promise have you made that's going
to come through every single time someone watches?
Even through the rough and tumble,
tough times of putting out a video where you just feel like,
ah, no one is watching this!
Nobody cares, no one.
It's just not true.
There's gonna be someone,
and you made that someone a promise,
and your job for the next one is
to do a better job every time,
to get better every single time,
but to continue to make good on that promise.
Consistency is in everything.
So congratulations if you've
nailed down what day you publish.
That is, a lot of the times,
a struggle for even YouTubers
or creators with a fairly large following.
They just get burnt out, or they struggle
to get the next one out, because they're doing
too many things, and that's usually a sign
of a vlogger who's also losing sight
of the fact that consistency is in all things.
If you're overwhelmed, simply by when
the video's gonna get done, that promise,
then you're gonna be overwhelmed
by every other promise you made, too.
The best vloggers know that it's not just about that.
If you're consistent in everything, in everything,
you can get on your Twitter and say,
"Guys, the video's late.
"Guys, there's not gonna be a video today,
"but you know I'm gonna show up for you,
"and you know there's a very good reason if there's not,
"if I have to miss one, you know there's a very good reason,
"because I'm going to be a 100% plus on the next one,"
and it's because consistency is in everything,
not just in the day.
If you are worried about consistency with your videos,
and you wanna think about, on the planning side of things,
get past the whole I can't come up with day
and time to publish, because I don't know what
to talk about, check out my video
called how I plan my videos.
That's gonna give you a little bit of a leg up there,
but you're still gonna have
to nail consistency in everything.
And I think the final thing is the one that,
if you screw everything else up,
but you do this one, it could save you.
It could save you in everything.
I do think that once you've really accomplished this,
and you've seen what success looks like in this way,
that you're gonna wanna fix all the other things,
because you're gonna have to leave a stronger impact,
and so you better get consistent on a lot of levels.
But every really good vlogger knows
that the video you make is for someone else.
Sure, you've got to be really excited about
what you're doing, because it's gonna be a long road,
and you have to keep at it, and you have to keep making,
and you have to keep creating, and keep trying new things,
but at the end of the day,
this video is still for someone else,
because that someone else is gonna decide its fate.
If you could decide your video's fate,
this would be a really messed up world of video making,
but I suppose you could say
that we would all have viral hits, but it's not true.
You can't make yourself go viral.
You have to have something that people want to share.
And so I think the best vloggers know,
at the heart of heart, no matter what they do
and the thing that they get the most excited
to create is something they know, in their heart,
they just know someone will share it.
They know that if it were me,
and I didn't make this video, I would share it.
I know that this is gonna go so crazy for some reason.
Emotionally, it's gonna drive someone,
or I'm just gonna make people think,
or I'm gonna make people laugh,
and I know that they will share it,
not because I think this is funny, or it's my inside joke,
or it's my little message to the world,
or it's my product so it must be the bomb.
Because you thought fully about the audience
and what they're thinking and you know
that they'll share it, that's usually
the special moment when it comes to video.
The best vlogs that I ever made were the ones
that sometimes were just randomly decided,
and I just sat down, similar to this,
and just started talking, but I knew that when I got done,
people were gonna go nuts for it.
Something relatable, something that people
are talking about, something that's relevant
to the day and time and what's happening in the world,
something that's gonna strike a cord.
The best vloggers are thinking about that.
How do you get ahead of the audience
on what they're thinking and feeling,
and then make something to accommodate it.
Super cool.
When you figure it out, it's super cool.
That's all for today, socials.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I appreciate it as always.
If you're interested in this vlogging stuff,
I highly suggest you check out my book, Vlog Like a Boss.
You can look it up on Amazon or go to vloglikeaboss.com.
It's on a lot of different book websites,
and I also have the audiobook out now,
so check that out if you just don't like to read,
but if you heard me rambling in your ear
about video related things for four and a half hours,
that wouldn't bug you.
Link in the description.
Subscribe for good vibes,
and remember to go after the life you want.
Cheers.