- Did you know that over one point five billion unique users
are logging in and watching YouTube videos
every single month?
It's true, and in this video you're gonna learn
some tactics and strategies from some
of today's top entrepenuers on how they're reaching
those people, and growing their brands
and businesses with YouTube.
Comin' up.
(hip hop music)
Hey what's up, Sean here with video influencers.
Helping you build your influence,
income, and impact with online video.
And, on this channel, we do interviews
with video influencers as well as tips
and strategy videos just like this one.
So, if you're new here consider subscribing.
So, YouTube and online video are some of the most powerful
tools we have today for growing our businesses,
our brands, and our influence overall.
In fact video marketing consultant Mark Robertson
said this quote, and I love it.
Online video is the Swiss Army knife of internet marketing.
It really can be used all over the customer lifecycle.
Whether it's customer service,
marketing, or even recruitment.
And so, in this video we have a couple power tips
from some of today's top entrepenuers
about how they used video to grow their businesses.
Let's check it out.
- So I started online business back in 2007.
Started an online custom clothier,
and I had to figure out how to get business
to my little website in the corner of the web.
And so I started creating content.
I had a guy, Brett McKay at the Art of Manliness,
- [Man] Yep.
- Find me in 2008, and say Antonio,
I love your stuff can you come write for me.
So tip right there is get really good at what you're doing.
Now, I didn't have a fashion degree.
I had just gotten out of Texas with an MBA,
so I kinda understood business,
but I really had to be self taught.
So I realized that there was a lack of information,
on the web, when it came
to men's style concerning custom suits.
So I went out there, bought all the books I could, read,
and they way that I learn is I write things out,
and I type things out.
So I put my notes online within my website.
We started getting, I think we got
about 100,000 people a month.
- Wow
- Uniques right to my little website.
- Yep. Yep.
- I'm like going, what's going on?
- (chuckles)
- We're not really selling suits at this point.
So I think I realized, I can actually,
I'm a pretty good writer, I got a lot better
once I wrote about 100 articles.
I can put out good, detailed information,
and I shared my journey of growth.
But that kind of positioned me as an expert,
and I started off with that written word.
Then we started doing infographics.
In 2012, created Real Men, Real Style
because I saw what Brett was doing at the Art of Manliness,
and I said, Okay I need to be able to do this,
and I thought, what could separate me
from all the other men's style blogs out there?
And video for me was relatively light.
And what I mean by that, like, there are certain things
that we do that we have a natural talent to be able to do.
I don't mind getting up in front of an audience.
There's just a switch that flips on me.
When I get up in front of people, I have no issue with this.
So, I realized, okay, I'll do video.
I can talk.
I have the gift of gab.
And, I already knew the content,
because I had written hundreds of articles
already at this point.
So I knew the content,
and I just delivered it in a different way.
And, we got into YouTube in 2012.
Kinda got serious I think in about 2014.
And, just in the last six months have just really shot up.
We went from like 700,000 subs
to one point three million very quickly.
But, and people see those numbers,
but what they don't see is that my first.
I did 200 videos in 200 days.
- Yeah.
- And they were just, I was just cranking out information.
Gettin' up at four o'clock in the morning.
The basement of my house, with a black background,
and I didn't realize that they weren't great videos.
I had no images or anything.
My why, I mean, we would cut the end,
cut the beginning, and I would do it all in one take.
And these we're 10 minute videos.
But because I knew the content,
because I was enthusiastic about it,
people could feel the energy
about something that a lot of people
don't normally feel energy about.
And that's what kind of put us on the map.
But those first 200 videos, got me a million views.
Like you said, now we're, we've maybe made 600 more videos,
and those got me 99,000,000 more views.
So you see it's like a snowball,
and it just gets bigger and bigger.
And I think the key for people just starting off
is to know that you're satisfying a demand.
That you have customers willing to pay.
And, when you know that then you can put
in the time and effort to
- Totally.
- build the core, that snowball.
- But make sure that you've got
measuring points along the way.
Cause if you, you have to be honest with yourself,
and don't, you know.
If you keep hitting your head against a solid brick wall,
you're head will eventually give in.
But if you realize that, you know, I can actually.
You know, I've got a hammer, and I can keep hitting it,
you will get through that wall.
So make sure you're hitting it with the right thing,
and you're going in the write direction.
And, so you want to have measurable, like with my clothier.
I shut that down in 2012,
and that's why I was able to give YouTube a go.
And, I knew to shut down that clothier
because I was looking at metrics of my competitors,
and how much money they we're making,
and I realized I just didn't have the money
to invest in creating higher conversions.
I didn't own my back in my clothing, my tailor shops.
So I realized, okay I need to fold up and focus
on what's, winning, what's working for me
which was content creation on YouTube.
- I think that you should, this is such a random tip,
but I think you should go to Rite-Aid,
and buy a huge poster board and set it in front of you.
And I think you should pick 3 colors that you're doing,
and 2 fonts, and just write down the vibe of the site.
Do you want someone to come on and feel sad?
Do you want them to be happy?
Do you want them to be mad?
My site, I wanted someone to come on
and have a breath of fresh air.
So, they're picking up tips and tricks.
It's a very woman heavy community, but men can also come on.
And I wanted it to be sassy, and sexy, and spicy.
So, like, I wrote all this down on this huge poster board.
On the back I had my colors.
I even went to the paint store, and you know those paint,
like sloches that you can get at Home Depot?
I like, pulled the paints I wanted.
I almost took my blog, like I was building
the foundation of a house.
And then I interior designed by picking the colors,
and what pictures we're gonna go on there, and I mean,
it's a huge undertaking to brand.
It's not something that just comes out of nowhere.
So, get a poster board.
Write down your ideas.
Write down your vibe.
It doesn't have to come to you in one day.
Do it over time, and you'll be golden.
- That wasn't a random tip at all, that was.
- Okay. (giggles)
- And don't underestimate the power of branding,
because as you can see, I mean, it's so important.
People think they can just come up with a name,
and shoot it out there.
You really gotta keep it consistent.
You gotta keep it, you know, flowing.
- You should come into this with a passion.
You have to love it.
And then, on the monetization side I would say
that I don't look towards AdSense or ads at all.
Because one, I think they ruin the aesthetic,
and the experience for the reader.
And recently I've just kind of nixed ads all together.
The money was okay, but it wasn't something
that's a game changer.
I am looking towards my brand as a long term thing,
not a short term thing.
So, for me AdSense is very fleeting.
It's not something that's like a real legitimate thing
that I can invest in.
I think picking the right partnerships
for your brand is really important.
So, that's a way to monetize.
Partnerships and sponsorships.
A brand will come to you.
They'll offer to pay you an amount of money
to showcase their brand in your own voice,
with your own pictures, and your own content.
That's a really great way.
You can also, you know, be on social media.
Like Instagram, and Snapchat.
Facebook.
You can monetize there.
You can also monetize through affiliate networking.
Like reward style or shop style.
Again, choosing the platform that's right
for you is really really important.
And then there's also other things like the book.
Speaking.
Going in front of people and talking,
kind of like Gary Vee does.
Video content.
I mean product.
The sky's the limit with the internet.
You can really take this anywhere.
You can create a home decor line.
You know what I mean?
There's so many different things you can do.
But, my advice is again start small.
Just work at it.
Chip away, and the stuff will come,
and you'll be able to monetize.
And make sure you pick the right stuff
for you and for your brand.
- Yeah, to hone in on that, picking the right stuff.
Be very careful on your short term gains.
That you're not getting off of the brand message.
A lot of people are going to want to take a short term
monetary gain because of the money,
and they are gonna get away from their brand.
Which, going back to branding,
is going to ruin what they have built.
So, don't go for two year building this beautiful brand,
grab a short term gain, and fuck it up.
- I also think that, off of what you do
you can create other things.
For instance, the Skinny Confidential,
a lot of people have liked the branding,
so what I did is I created a company with a girlfriend
named Erica, she's a graphic designer called Blog-Doo.
And what we do is we create a mood board, and a brand,
and a blog for these girls that want to become bloggers.
So, it's obviously Blog-Doo's different
than the Skinny Confidential,
but it's kind of all trickled down.
So you can do different things like that.
- God, we made such bad mistakes.
I think the first thing is our company was called
Kick Ass Academy, at first.
And I did that because, I thought it was cool.
I was a 22 year old.
I was like, it's gonna be how to live a kick ass life.
Except, I didn't check with anyone
to see what that made them think of.
I though everyone would take the time
to read our about page, and all of our articles,
and they would learn.
People thought it was like a martial arts gym. (laughs)
Or, even when they did discover it,
it just sounded like it was
for 17 and 18 year old guys, which it really was.
So the first stage was actually listening,
and speaking to the ideal person
who I wanted to learn from me.
And this was a lot of my good friends at the time.
- Which also led to a name change, and kind of a rebranding.
- Which led to a name change and a rebrand.
And what we did throughout just 10 interviews
with my friends was like, why do you like me,
but you don't associate with my business?
They're like, because of the name.
And so, in listening to them.
A lot of them had this idea of, they wanted
to learn how to be confident
and turn it on at a moments notice.
So that's where the name Charisma on Command came from.
So that was stage one.
With, overnight we changed the name,
and we got more business.
It was incredible.
After that, it was switching, I think one of the things
if you're out there creating content is,
format is so critical.
I was writing articles similar to what we do
on the YouTube channel for about two years.
And the business was tiny.
We had a small email list.
I was scraping by, tryin' to pay rent,
and I couldn't afford it.
And, when we started to switch from articles
to YouTube, immediate, immediate upshot in
how people were looking at it.
Obviously, it's a confidence and charisma channel.
Should've seen that sooner. (laughs)
That people want to see it on camera.
So switching to YouTube, and then we discussed this.
The big breakthroughs for us were actually riding
the coattails of some of the, you call the fame jacking.
- Yeah.
- Of some famous people.
So we did a video on Conor McGregor.
That was huge.
That nearly doubled our channel size.
We did a video on Donald Trump
early in his presidential run.
Huge for us.
Then we did people like Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres,
and that took us from starting around a base
of 10,000 subscribers to 300,000 in a couple of months.
- So I hope that those clips inspired you,
and gave you some practical take aways about
to use YouTube to grow your business.
And, if you want to dive deeper on this subject
then definitely check out our entrepreneur interview series.
We've had guest on there like Gary Vaynerchuk,
Casey Neistat, Chalene Johnson, and many others.
So we'll link that up on the YouTube card
as well as the description below.
Question of the day.
How do you use YouTube, and social media
to grow your business, brand, and influence online?
Let me know in the comments section,
and remember that some of the best tips
and feedback come from you, the influencers community.
So definitely connect with everybody in the comment section.
So thanks for checking out this video.
Subscribe for more videos just like this,
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Until next time, Video Influencers is helping you build
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Keep crushing it, and we will talk soon.