- If your YouTube channel is not working,
I'm gonna tell you what you need to test so that
you can get it working, and we're starting right now.
♪ That's just how it is, ain't waiting on me ♪
What is going on, my name is Nick, welcome to another video.
If this is your first time here,
and you wanna learn how to grow your channel,
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Ah, that was so much less awkward, wasn't it?
Okay, so I've worked with a lot of YouTube channels,
doing channel reviews, doing consulting and things like that
and what I've noticed is that for some channels,
some things work, and for other channels other things work,
and for some things, they're kinda blanket rules.
And with the blanket rules, they can improve any channel
that is lacking in some of these blanket rules,
doesn't matter what type of content it is.
And then some of the other stuff,
well, it's custom and because of that,
I'm gonna tell you some things that you can test
to really make sure you're doing all of the right things.
Data doesn't lie.
A lot of us will think that our content is great,
or a lot of us will think that hey, you know,
I'm doing it this particular way,
because this particular creator does it this way
and it's working for them, but at the end of the day,
the data that is around your channel
is what you're ultimately going to lean on
in terms of knowing what is working and what isn't working.
So the things I'm gonna talk to you about
in terms of testing, these are the things
that you're going to test so that you can have a comparison,
so that you can make sure that
you're making the right stuff for the right audience.
At the very top of this list of course, is your thumbnails.
You know, a lot of us think that we make awesome thumbnails,
but once you actually start relying on the data,
well, a lotta cases the thumbnails
might not be as good as we think they are.
And because of that, it is extremely important
that you test your thumbnails,
so if you don't know how to test your thumbnails,
you can actually do it inside of TubeBuddy,
I'll have a link to them down in the description,
but the idea is that instead of just putting up thumbnail,
and saying okay this is something that
I'm going to rely on for the traffic
that's gonna be coming to my videos,
you can make alternate thumbnails and you can say,
okay well I'm gonna test this thumbnail
against this thumbnail and see which one
the audience responds to best.
Like I said a second ago, you can use
TubeBuddy's A/B testing feature to do this,
or you can do it the manual way, which is basically to where
you write down your click through rate on one thumbnail
and then you change that thumbnail
and you wait a certain amount of time,
and then you write down the click through rate on
that thumbnail, and you see which one
ends up performing better.
And then of course, in order to make that test valid,
you need to switch it back to the original,
and then you need to make sure
that with that current placement in terms of
suggested and search and all that stuff, that you're
pulling traffic from the same places,
and that those people are responding to it
in the same way and so on, and it's gonna take a while.
So that's why I recommend doing it with TubeBuddy,
just because it's easier and faster.
- Haha, yes. (laughter)
Okay, laugh. (foreign language)
So I'm gonna put that as a cut-in in one of my videos.
The second thing that you can test
is your presentation style.
So, a lot of us will think hey,
if we just get in front of the camera, we make videos,
then that's my presentation, that's me doing my thing.
But in reality, how you present on camera may or may not be
for the specific audience that you are trying to target.
Here's what I mean, if you're making content
for older people, and you're speaking like
that guy from Micro Machines, you older people
know what I'm talking about,
if you're making content for older people
and you're speaking really fast, well,
in a lot of cases that can turn off a lot of older people.
So, testing your presentation style,
testing the speed at which you communicate,
you know, maybe slowing things down a bit
or maybe even speeding things up a bit
if you're trying to reach a younger audience,
testing how it is that you're presenting your content
can be really beneficial, and here's how you check
to see what's working.
All you do, is you go into your
audience retention reports and you compare the videos
that you make with your normal style,
compare those with the videos you make with a new style,
and experiment with a few different styles
and see which particular style seems
to get you the most audience retention.
That means whichever the winner is
is going to tell you, hey this particular style
is what is working best for the particular
audience that I'm reaching.
Other things you can test with your presentation
is you can test the tone,
you can test the actual language that you're using,
and what I mean by that is, when you are communicating
in your videos, are you communicating from a place
that's way up here, that you're way over everybody's head?
Or, have you kind of toned everything down quite a bit
to where the language that you're communicating with
is easy for the masses to understand.
All of these things matter.
Another thing that you can test is
how you're actually editing your
video content in the first place.
What music are you using, is it a good fit
for the people that are watching your videos?
Experiment with different types of music.
Experiment with the way that you're cutting your videos,
are you bouncing all over the place,
kind of like I do, are you just doing push zooms
just to make it a little more tolerateable.
I don't think that's a word.
Are you using graphics, no graphics, B-roll,
actual photos for your B-roll,
or actual videos for your B-roll.
Like, all of these things create the whole pie
for the video experience that
your viewer's going to be watching.
And testing your editing works the same exact way
as testing your presentation.
Once you start editing in a different way,
you start keeping the ones that you normally do
and then you start mixing in some different edits
to see how people respond, you go to
your audience retention reports
and you see how people are responding
to that new way that you're doing your edits.
Video structure is another thing that you can test,
and this one can really make a humongous difference.
And just in case you don't know what video structure is,
it's your basic format of your video,
so let's say that, you know in my case
I open my videos with a teaser saying
this is what you're gonna get, and then I drop my intro,
and then I have my call to action in the front
where I welcome people to subscribe,
and then I have the actual body content,
and then I close out the video,
maybe I'll mix in a comment call to action,
or a light call to action in there somewhere,
but then I close out the video
and then ask people to subscribe again.
From working with a bunch of different channels,
I can tell you that from the different types of content
and the way people respond to different types of content,
that particular structure isn't always a home run.
Sometimes it takes getting right into the video.
Video opens up, bam coming in,
this is the content that we're sharing,
this is what it is that we're delivering.
Some niches are okay, and it doesn't effect
the viewership at all, when the video opens up
and there's an intro at the beginning,
and then the content starts.
Some niches are okay with that.
However, most are not, so it's important that in your case,
that you're testing this stuff,
and that you're doing different variations
just to see what your audience responds to the most.
Same thing applies to asking for the subscribe
at the beginning of the video,
this is like a hot topic, I get
asked about this all the time.
Same thing applies to that, because
it all depends on how you're structuring
that call to action in the front.
For some content, it's not as welcome
as it is in other content.
In some content people just don't respond to it,
and in other types of content, it converts like crazy.
So testing that stuff and using your
audience retention reports to define
what it is that works specifically
for what it is that you're making
and the people that are watching your videos is crucial.
Another thing that you can test is your personality.
Some people hold back a lot,
some people give it all they got,
they just take the mask off and they just are them.
Test it, see what works best for you.
Like, in my case, I've noticed that doing it this way
to where I just go off of bullet points
and use the information in my head,
that seems to work out better for my audience
than sitting there writing a script out,
and going word for word off of the script.
And I think that that is just because
it allows me to just do me, instead of trying to be this,
hey, I'm Nick Nimmin, welcome to my channel.
You can also test other things like your background,
change your background, change the colors
in your background, change the entire background.
If you shoot inside, try shooting a couple videos outside.
See how people respond to those.
And again, what works for one channel
might not necessarily work with another channel.
And if you have two channels you can even test this
between the two channels, and you'll see this for yourself.
Some stuff that you're gonna do on one,
you're gonna apply that to this one,
and you're gonna be like, huh, that's weird,
it's not even working over there.
And in other cases, depending on
the type of content and the audience for the two channels,
you're gonna say okay, well I applied this here
and it worked like a charm, I applied it there
it worked like a charm, glad I applied it over there.
Fantastic, both channels are rocking now.
But at the end of the day, if your YouTube channel
is not working, if you're not getting views,
you're not getting subscribers,
it's important that you test
all of this stuff as much as possible.
Yes, it's extra work, but you gotta do it.
All of these things matter.
And if you wanna learn more about growing your channel,
making videos and all type of other YouTube related stuff,
start now by hitting the round subscribe icon
so you don't miss anything.
Thank you so much for watching,
I'll see you next time.