Hey, I'm Simon Whistler, welcome back to my Master Class.
This is episode number 3
and today, no-one would ever argue that adding references to your description
or scheduling out a video is creative work so do not make it creative work
and in this video, I'm showing you how to minimize that sort of management
so you can focus on the good creative stuff like making more videos.
Creator Academy
Master Class Optimizing Your Channel Management
I'm just going to go through and hit a bunch of these
so you have actionable items that you can take away
and we'll start off with number 1, and that is setting your upload defaults.
Inside Creator Studio, you can set defaults for every upload
so you never start from scratch.
For example, if you're using the same tags each time
or a few lines of your description are the same
definitely set those things so that they're the same each time.
For the description, that's actually a particularly good one
all of mine change every time because a different video
will have a different introduction and different references
and different links to images that we might have used
to give people credit and all of that stuff.
But what I will do is I'll put little square brackets
and then I'll be like "references go here"
kind of notes to future Simon so he can just go in and do it much easier.
Thumbnail Templates The second one I want to talk about is
thumbnails and the importance of batching these.
Batching video production is actually something I talked about
in a previous video, so go back and watch that.
Basically the idea here
is that you don't want to be opening your editing software
every time you go to make a thumbnail. It's a waste of time.
Depending on how quick your computer is, it can even take a while to load.
Also, what you should absolutely do is make a template.
Not only does this make making the thumbnails easier every time
but it also gives you a kind of house style that people can come to recognize.
Basically, when your fans are browsing around YouTube
or they're on their home page or they're on their mobile app
you want them to be able to recognize your thumbnail
so they can think "ah, that's a video by you."
They want to click on it, they can watch it
and that is a good thing.
So I've got a few different backgrounds that I use in my videos
as well as a specific style
which is basically my cut-out face with a white stroke around it
and then some image to do with the video, usually off to my left.
Watching Analytics
Number 3 that I want to talk about is analytics.
And it's more of a "don't" rather than a "do" here
and this is basically don't spend your life watching your analytics.
I know it's super tempting when your channel is on an upswing
and you're like "hey, look at this"
and you're watching the real-time analytics and it's ticking up and ticking down.
It's all very exciting and I've certainly been in that position
when I'm checking it every 5 minutes
but don't do that, it is a big waste of time
and also the worst thing is it's great when they're going up
but when that inevitable down comes, it's kind of depressing
so don't do that, don't waste your time in there.
The positive recommendation here, what you should really be doing
is checking your analytics with reason and with purpose
so when you go to look in your analytics to see what's happening with your channel
ask questions like "What did people like this month?"
"What did people not like?", "Are longer or shorter videos doing better?"
"What subjects did people really resonate with?"
and "How can I make more videos like that in the future?"
I know it's hard but breaking that constant watching of the analytics
is a good habit to break
and it gives you more free time to be making great videos.
Advertising Settings
Now let's talk about adverts and basically really simple here
just set the defaults.
If you want adverts at the beginning and at the end
make sure that you, as a default, put those ads on.
Right now, if you're doing videos over 10 minutes
and you want to add a mid-roll ad
you still need to do that manually, which makes sense because
place that mid-roll ad at a sensible place in the video.
Try not to do it in the middle of a sentence
that's not a good idea.
Also, side pro tip here: at the beginning of your channel
you're not going to be making much money from advertising anyway
so personally, I'd sacrifice that cup-of-coffee money
and turn the adverts to a minimum
because that will keep your viewer retention good
something I talked about in episode 1 of this master class
so go back and check that out.
It's all about that viewer retention.
So keep the adverts to a minimum at the beginning.
It's just personal advice from me.
End Cards
So the next one up is end card defaults
so basically at the end of every video you have something called an end card.
This is where YouTube lets you put in
"hey, subscribe to my channel or watch this video thing."
Make sure you know what you're doing every time.
So when you're recording the video
make sure you know what that end slate is going to look like
and then set a template so that you get to the end and you're like
"alright, my subscribe button goes here and my recommended video goes here
"and another video goes there."
What we do every time in Today I Found Out is we have that subscribe button obviously
then we also have the YouTube automatic video recommendation
which does save a ton of time
and then also a video recommendation
that is a specific one based on the video someone watched.
So usually a really related topic that I think other people will dig.
Tags
Another one to mention is tags, these aren't so super important
so don't spend a ton of time on them.
Set your default tags, so for every one we have a
"Today I Found Out," "Simon Whistler," "fun facts," that sort of stuff.
And then also use third-party suggestion software
for doing those tags, it's just a more efficient way to do it.
Replying to Comments Now let's talk about replying to comments.
This is something that, as your channel becomes bigger
can just basically become this endless pile of things
that you need to look at.
If your channel is new though, you're not going to get so many
and I would really suggest that you try and read and reply to
as many as you can.
It doesn't just mean you have great engagement with your fans
which is always a good thing
but you can learn from them, you can get feedback on your early videos
what people like, what they don't like: it's a whole lot more interactive
than just the thumbs up and the thumbs down button.
So, great way to get feedback from your audience.
But when things do get crazy, my advice is
and I fall into the hole of answering comments just endlessly
these days, the advice I generally have is pour a cup of coffee in the morning
sit down and answer a few, just don't stress
that you're not going to get to all of them.
No-one really minds.
Alright so, listen, so far in this master class
I've talked a lot about shaving time off production
and your management process so that you can spend more time
doing creative things.
In the next and final video in this master class
I'm going to talk a little bit about taking things a bit further than that
and about how you can get help with your operation.
It's really not as out of reach as you might think.
So stay tuned for that next one and thanks for watching.