- If you think that making a good video on YouTube
that will perform and get lots of views and exposure
all comes down to video editing
and camera skills and things,
well, you're mistaken.
And today we're gonna talk to a YouTube employee
who's gonna tell us exactly what it takes
to make a good video for this platform.
(swoosh) (electronic tones)
This is Tom, hey Tom!
- Tim, it's always a pleasure.
I'm glad that we're able to reconnect.
- When you say that we just need to make our content good,
good means different things to different people.
It could be like, "Oh, my production is really high,
and I had this TV-quality editor."
Is that what is good?
- It's such and interesting question,
because if you have beautifully shot,
beautifully edited videos about a topic
that people don't have a great interest in,
or if the onscreen persona
is just not connecting with that audience,
there's no amount of fancy gear and drone photography
that's gonna change that.
So when I say good,
it means it's a video that earns a lot of viewers' time.
Because at the end of the day,
the viewer votes with their time.
And they have pretty much infinite choices
of videos that they could watch on YouTube.
So if they're not happy,
and they're not finding it engaging and compelling,
they're gonna skip, and they're gonna go to the next thing.
They're not skipping because they feel like,
"Oh, the person was using a $100 mic
instead of a $10,000 mic."
It's probably 'cause the storytelling wasn't there,
it wasn't addressing a need that they have,
it wasn't easy to follow, it wasn't unique.
When I say good, I generally mean
it is compelling to a material number of viewers.
They'll watch a good chunk of that video,
ideally most of it.
Ultimately it's about the number of minutes
that they're gonna watch it.
And that they're going to effectively prefer this
over other videos that we could have shown them.
And if we notice that,
we're gonna keep recommending it.
- You have to think about the human element
of how do you get the viewer to actually care
about the person on screen and the brand.
A good video is a video that makes someone feel something.
I feel like this is for me.
I feel like this is gonna help me get past what I'm doing.
Educational, people were like,
"Well, I'm just teaching people Photoshop tutorials.
I'm not gonna make them feel."
You have to remember,
the viewer is also a character that wants something,
has obstacles that they're trying to overcome.
And so who is the guy that comes and equips the hero
with that proverbial sword?
Well, that's your video.
So if you set up that content,
be like, "See this photo I have?
It's a perfect shot of my kid,
but the photo's blurry,
I'm never gonna get that moment back again.
I still wanna make this usable."
Then cue tutorial.
There you set up the story,
so that when someone who has that story sees your content,
they feel like, "Oh, I'm in the right place.
This is for me, this is what I need.
You're gonna help me."
- And I think that a lot of us, as YouTube viewers,
can think of videos that have done that for us.
And those are very memorable.
That's probably a big type of path to success for videos.
If I had to generalize it,
I would say that the videos perform the best
are videos that are solving a clear viewer problem.
And one problem is a viewer's desire
to connect and to feel.
There are other cases where a viewer's problem
is they're bored, and they just wanna laugh.
Another one is they just wanna figure out
how to fix this dishwasher, and it's clogged.
And they need to know what knob to turn
and what screwdriver to use
to kind of get that thing going.
That is a clear customer need.
- [Tim] Tom, what's coming up over on Creator Insider
that we should know about?
- You're gonna see way more content
than you did last year.
We'll be doing more sneak peeks,
where we're gonna give creators earlier views
of new features that are under development,
improvements that we're making to the platform,
so that creators get a early view,
but also can give us early feedback,
so we can make these products better for everyone together.
So if you are not subscribed to Creator Insider,
please go ahead and check it out.
- We've actually had the opportunity
to talk to many YouTube employees
about what does it take to be successful
on this platform today.
And we took those best videos
and put them in that short little playlist
that you see right there.
If you are interested in learning more
from YouTube channels about how to grow on YouTube
and find success, you need to click there,
and we'll see you over in those next videos.
- Keep it real!