- This guy has 200,000 subscribers
on his YouTube channel. His name is Steve Dotto.
We're gonna talk about how he did it.
And we're starting right now.
♪ This is how we did it. And waiting' on me. ♪
- What is going on? My name is Nick.
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Okay, today I'm here with Steve Dotto from
the YouTube channel DottoTech. Steve, how are you?
- [Steve] I'm fantastic. Thrilled to be here with you.
- Yeah, like wise. It's awesome to like sit here
and talk with you. Like watching your videos for so long
and stuff. Like Steve Dotto's a legend
just in case you don't know.
So Steve, you've had great success on your YouTube channel.
You know you get a lot of accolades for
what it is that you do. What are some things that
have lead you to the success that you're having on YouTube?
What are somethings that you focus on in order to make sure
that you're getting results with
the content that you're putting out?
- Well, I mean. What I'm looking at now versus
what I started with. I wish I'd known now,
then kinda what I know now. But when I first started
I did things really simply. Just a quick background
for your audiences. I did a television show for years
so I have. I was in traditional broadcast for many years.
So when I came to YouTube, all the people that I knew
in the industry, kinda that I followed weren't YouTubers.
They were Instagram or Facebook people.
The social marketing crowd is the one that I fell in with.
So I had to take what they were having success
with on their markets and then try
and translate that on YouTube.
I was just starting to discover guys like the video
influencers, were just starting up.
So there wasn't the kind of coaching you guys provide now.
Which is phenomenal to every level.
- Thank you!
- But having said that. So looking at what they were doing.
The number one thing that I got from the Mari Smiths
of the world, the Amy Porterfield, the Sue Zimmermans,
was engagement. You know honoring your audience.
And having conversations with your audience
in social platforms, like Facebook.
And I thought YouTube as far as I'm concerned
is my social platform. It sucks as a social platform,
but it was my social platform.
I'm talking about, sucks from a conversation perspective.
But right at the beginning and that was back when
YouTube comments were just this dead zone
cause people were just, it was just full of vile nastiness.
- They weren't trained up yet.
Yeah, they were still in the training process.
- And YouTube hadn't yet made it so that you have
to login with your ID so you could be anonymous.
That was a huge and that happened very early on
when I started concentrating on YouTube, that shift.
And that was a boon for us because that made a difference,
not so much for me, but for people in other verticals.
At any rate, right from the beginning I said,
this is my community and I treated the group
as a community. And I talked to them and I answered every
single comment and I read ever comment.
And I listened and I massaged my content to what
my community was asking for. And I think that
is kinda the number one thing that established me.
Now my growth hasn't been phenomenal as far as
the number of subscribers but it has
been really steady, it's worked for me.
But I look at my YouTube channel as kind of
the heart of my entire social platform.
And so it's the discovery engine that everybody comes
in to our system from. And so it's worked tremendously
well from that perspective. Strategically as we've kind
of gone along, as I've learned to look for more,
look to be more strategic I still feel like I'm really
behind as far as all of that goes.
But once your channels have been established every change
you make there are unintended consequences for it.
So rather that making massive changes I'm taking,
we're making one change at a time.
And that's were being at a conference like Video Marketing
World and starting to follow people like you
and your kind of posse of new YouTube, what would you call,
YouTube teachers?
- Yeah.
- Trainers?
- Yeah, I'm not sure.
- Educators? I'm getting, even though I've been in
the game as long as most of them I learn from them
because I'm concentrating on building my content,
my channel, the perspective and all of the other things.
It opens my mind. I often get the,
"Oh, why am I doing it this way? What am I...."
(frustrated yell)
So now what are we gonna do about?
- Sure, sure. Now one thing that I really like
that I've heard through conversations that we've
had here and I've heard it through conversations
that I've heard you have with others as well.
One thing that I really like and I would like
to kind of dig in to a little bit.
Is how, kind of like the flag you carry
is making sure that you honor your audience.
- Oh, yeah.
- Could you give me a little bit of insight in terms
of you know if somebody is wanting to honor their audience.
Could you define that and kind of explain kind of
some of the things that you do to make sure that
you're really bringing value to the people
that are watching your videos?
- I'm glad that you kind of picked that up.
That's nice and you said it well.
My history is television meaning that for 20 years
my customer was the jackass that was the boss
of the programming department of the network.
Who I had to work my way through
to make sure I had my time slot.
Cause there's very limited inventory.
Or the marketing agency that was standing between me
and the technology company who I was,
who was funding my show. They were my customers.
The people who watched my show were incidental.
They were spectators that weren't part of the equation.
When I came to YouTube I had an epiphany,
like all of a sudden for first time the people who watched
my show were the ones that mattered.
And that would ultimately matter whether I was
successful numerically or financially.
And it was such a liberating experience.
Now the reason we lasted 20 years on television
was I respected and honored my relationship with
the networks and with the sponsors.
They knew they could trust me.
So I've always had that DNA, of you know,
of what takes a solid business relationship.
Being able to take that attitude to now
to a community was second nature for me.
I didn't think, oh now I'm going be really smart
by doing this. It just became second nature.
But that respect for the audience, making sure
that your always paying attention
to who they are, what they are.
Has I think contributed to my reputation on online
which contributes to growth and stability and retention.
But another thing it does, is when you start
to kind of drilling down and breaking it down.
If you are a YouTube content creator who've taking
this on as a responsibility. You think of it
probably as that your decisions
and content impact you and they do.
We're going to be on air for 20 minutes now,
25 minutes, maybe less maybe more.
If you have 30,000 people watching this,
we've just taken how many hours of
productivity out of the ecosystem?
- Yeah, absolutely. It's time of productivity,
it's you know time from relationship building,
it's time from you know relaxing,
distressing, you know all of that stuff.
- We are telling you that we're gonna give,
we're gonna make sure, if we truly respect you,
we value your time as much as,
you should be valuing your time.
So we better be giving you value in it.
So all the sudden that weight of responsibility comes.
That's where the respect comes from.
And it means that you respect the content that
you are delivering is valuable,
you respect your community and you respect yourself
as somebody that they can trust.
- Yeah.
- In order to deliver that content.
So that's kind of where that comes from.
- You said delivering with integrity.
- Yes
- It's kind of, you know, kind of wrap that all.
Delivering with integrity, consider your audience
because if you're providing value to your audience
you're audience is going to provide value back.
In terms of the actual numbers, in terms of you know
your financial benefit and all that stuff.
So it's just like a positive experience all the way around
when you're focused on the audience first.
- And you are so on point with that.
And that word dealing with integrity that's
what almost stopped me from being a online personality.
When I started watching I was seeing all
of the less than ethical practices that were going on.
And I didn't want my brand to get mixed up in that.
And that's one of the reasons I think that held back
my growth cause I won't take a easy way out.
I have to take a way out that I understand.
That I believe is a ethical and kind
of moral way to build your channel.
- Which also falls back on integrity. Right?
- Yes, absolutely.
- Yeah, like all the way around it's
just coming at it with integrity.
- And I'm saying this to try for self in grandiose
but what I'm saying is that if you do that work,
if you stay true to your principles by respecting
your audience and knowing that their first.
You're gonna grow your success, numerical success
may or may not be what you're hoping for.
I think it is a real dark place to start
comparing yourself always to others.
So try not to do that. But you know
determining what success looks like for you.
And if you can get into that soft area
of success looks like me making a difference
in other people's lives and then through comments
and through engagements recognizing that you do.
That's a really good place to be.
And I don't want to blow smoke up your kilt
but I see that with your community.
I saw that with how your people reacted
to you here at the show.
It was heart warming to see how they came up
and they were, you could tell that they were
looking to you for leadership.
And I know that you take that on as
a serious responsibility yourself.
- Yeah, absolutely. And thank you. Thank you for that.
In terms of your content decisions.
When you're uploading content to YouTube.
Because you have the side of you know making sure that you
are valuing your audience and giving them what they want.
And approaching them with respect so to speak.
When you're making you're content decision on hey
what is it that I'm going to upload to my channel
to make sure that, one, I'm serving my audience.
And, two, to make sure that it's gonna serve you in terms
of view counts and you know generating
subscribers and things like that.
What is your thought process behind that?
- My first thought and I'm not sure
this is the best way to do it.
My first thought process and when
a seed gets planted for a new video.
And we produce three or four new videos a week
typically on kind of different topics.
But when a seed gets planted for me
and we keep an Asana list by the way.
I keep every idea, is in ideas . But an idea chart
which is any links, or any videos that I see that
I might want to replicate or steal from somebody else.
I put it in this list. Or any comments from my community.
So it typically comes from my community asking
me questions about something we've done.
Because one of the things Jeremy and other people teach,
is this whole concept of nested videos,
where one video related to the next video
related to the next video really adds traction.
- To generate the binge watch. Right?
Is what you're leading to.
- Now I don't, I can't be strategic enough personally
to plan out a series of eight videos, all at once.
But what will happen is I'll post a video
like we did let's say on Google calendar.
I'll get great response to, my stuffs all how to by the way.
So I'll get great responses to that Google calendar.
I'll get lots more engagement and lots of questions
that I'll realize I probably should of answered
in that first one. That will lead to
a second video pretty quickly thereafter.
They'll still be a six week gap, it would be better
if it was a one or a two week gap, I recognize that.
But we work within our own environment, right?
So that's the process. Then I kind of boil back
in to some of the strategies you guys teach
around, doing a little bit keyword research on it.
But I've decided what the content is because I've
decided what I want to teach that my community
has told me is valuable that I have decided is valuable.
I don't build my videos based on what the algorithm
or what research tells me are popular topics.
I don't go a populous way. I'm more reactive to
my communities needs. And that allows me to stay
reactive to new launches and seasonal opportunities.
A new release of Gmail, a rebrand or re skin of Gmail
that's an opportunity for me to post a video quickly that
I know I'm gonna get great traction on
and is gonna lead me into a whole bunch of Gmail
stuff over the next quarter type of thing.
- Nice, really good. So Steve first,
I want to say again thank you so much for your time.
Thank you for sharing your information.
Of course there is going to be links to Steve
down in the description at the top of your video.
In addition to that, if people want to find
out more about you or get in contact with you.
How do they do that?
- Well, the best way is obviously to subscribe
to the DottoTech channel, I do read each and every comment.
So if you comment there I do read all the comments,
so I appreciate that. Or DottoTech.com we
do a weekly webinar. I'll do one pitch.
Every week one of the technologies I'm passionate about
is webinars and I think they're awesome tools.
And because of my background in live TV and radio
I've got a unique take on it.
And I explore the different webinar tools
and how they work technically as well as practically.
To kind of walk the walk every week on Wednesday
we do Webinar Wednesday which is a straight up tutorial
where I teach some aspect of social marketing
or technology or productivity.
They're free, they do get you on my mail list.
But sign-up for Webinar Wednesday.
I'll give you a link to that.
Every week it's a different topic
and I that think that is the best entry into our community.
And I hope to see some of your people there.
- Fantastic Steve. Well again thank you so much
for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.
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make videos, and all types of other YouTube related stuff.
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