- If you are a brand new creator,
you're getting started on YouTube,
and you want to grow this thing out,
this guy Sean Cannell is,
he's done a lot of amazing things
to train creators how to do that,
and today he's gonna share with you
his top pro tips for you guys
for getting started on growing a YouTube channel.
Hey guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer,
and welcome to Video Creators.
This channel's all about helping you guys grow
a YouTube audience so you can spread
a message that reaches people
and changes their lives and Sean is really
into changing people's lives.
His life's been changed by YouTube.
Tell them where they can learn more
about you and what you do on YouTube.
- Yeah, best place to find me is Think Media.
A lot of tech tips over there
as far as cameras, lighting, microphones,
the tech side, even just Smart Phone accessories
so you can create content.
And then we've got an interview show
with video influencers at Video Influencers
on YouTube as well.
So two channels and they're sharing their best tips,
kinda like this over there.
We've got some great videos with you over there, too,
that if you haven't seen those those,
definitely check those out
on the Video Influencer's channel.
- We've got links to all that down below,
you can go and check it out.
And so what other people who are trying
to grow their audiences and also trying
to reach and impact other people with their content,
what are your like top tips for like how they need
to grow their channels?
- Well, Tim, I think, you know, the landscape
in this space is always changing,
and as, if you will, competition rises,
I still think there's massive opportunity for anybody
to break through and make it on YouTube,
but I think that the first tip that you should
be thinking about is based on a quote
from Sally Hogshead and it's this,
"Different is better than better."
And if I was thinking,
whether you're just starting,
or even maybe you're further along in your career,
but wanting to like get to that next stage,
and kicking growth again,
think about how you can really be different
in the world that we're living in.
You know, it could be tempting to want to try to be better
than Tim Schmoyer at teaching YouTube advice.
- Don't try to do that.
- Or better than Casey Neistat at vlogging
and being cool and being on a Boosted board
in the middle of traffic in the city,
but honestly you know those people are all tapping
into their unique strengths, their unique abilities.
There's a book called The Blue Ocean Strategy,
and it's all about that sometimes in industries
like this, everyone starts doing the same thing,
targeting the same people, and there's blood in the water,
it's a red ocean, because it's just all kind of
the same thing and they say well, where success is
almost guaranteed, is that rather when you're
in that red ocean of constant competition
and targeting the same people,
go to the blue ocean where nobody is.
- [Tim] Yeah.
- And so, that's not necessarily easy to discover,
but as you find your different and your unique angle,
I think that's essential for breaking through
and standing out on social media these days.
- And it's a little scary because
that part hasn't been proven yet,
like you don't know what's gonna happen over there.
You don't even know if there's fish over there
for you to eat, or whatever.
When I got started, I was imitating Philip DeFranco.
- [Sean] Sure.
- And I used his style to kinda
like launch off and then make it my own.
- But to say that, what you didn't do is you didn't start
a new show, so if you would've started a new show--
- I did, but it was about online video.
- But it was about something different, it was different.
- Yes.
- Now, I think you also modeled the masters,
Phil DeFranco is one of his,
his show structure
is one of the greatest show structures.
So I don't think it's bad to, I wouldn't say, you know,
don't pull elements, if you can learn film making styles
from Casey Neistat and pull that into your niche,
if you can learn show structure from Phil DeFranco
and pull that into your niche and topic,
you should absolutely do that.
Pablo Picasso was famous for saying,
and Steve Jobs quoted him saying that "Good artists copy,
"great artists steal."
Steve Jobs said, "You know, at Apple, we've never,
"we've been shameless about looking for the best ideas,
"best strategies, best tips, best things people are doing
"and pulling those into what we're doing."
But they still created something different.
The second thing I would recommend is our formula
that we save for content and it's this.
Consistent, strategic, quality content.
You know, I think to win on YouTube,
say back in 2005 or 2010, I like to say,
if you were playing checkers, you could win.
And checkers isn't a strategic game,
you know there's a little bit of strategy there,
but checkers is much different than chess.
I think you can still win this year on YouTube,
but if you're still playing checkers,
just kinda doing the basics, just being consistent
and trying to be good, it's not enough.
I just think you have to level up the strategy
at which you're approaching YouTube with.
So it's not just consistent content,
that's barrier to entry, it's not just quality content,
you want to, and by that, that doesn't mean fancy,
or fancy lighting or whatever, just quality,
adding value, right?
But being strategic, and I think that goes into,
you know, maybe searching for long tail keywords,
how you're titling your videos, you know,
being more nuanced in your approach.
Whatever it is, I think that even studying strategy,
thinking about strategy is so important,
do you agree with that?
- Yeah.
The new level that I see is a story
and how do we engage people and like content optimization,
how do we study those audience retention graphs in YouTube?
And learn exactly when people abandon
and what keeps them watching and what are
they skipping ahead to watch, what are they going back
and rewatching?
And getting the audience retention, so you're getting, like,
50% of the people who click Play are now watching,
or still watching when the end screens come up,
and they're enticed to click another one and watch.
Like that's what, you know, if people want
to up too much for the algorithm,
like that's what the algorithm loves is those types
of viewer signals, so that's much easier said than done.
- Much easier said than done,
but what you just said was strategy.
That's a whole, that's nuance detail.
That's not just consistent quality content,
you were thinking about, you're going into
your analytics, you're taking it to another level
and this, you don't want to get overwhelmed by this,
I think it's just always thinking
about how do we level up a little bit?
The last thing I would say is that you do have to commit
to keep putting in the work.
You gotta put in a lot of work and the reason why
is because there's a lot of people who are willing
to put in a lot of work and it's hard sometimes.
I know, you know, you want to rest,
you want to take time off,
and you should, you want to be healthy.
I'm not talking about like harming yourself,
but just a commitment, because it's really easy
to get discouraged and kind of like let your pace slow down.
But people, they want this, it's a cool job,
it's a cool thing to be doing and so maybe you're feeling
a little discouraged right now, maybe you're feeling like
the wind is out of your sails, take some rest,
maybe get some energy again, but always just keep committing
to doing the work and being patient in the process,
because the work you put in, it doesn't,
it's not gonna pay off in one or two weeks,
maybe not even in one or two years.
We did an interview with Barnacules Nerdgasm,
he's got a kind of a cool tech channel,
and he even mentioned that it was such a grind
for him, it took him about I think six years to get
to about 60,000 subscribers, which is great,
but in year seven, he grew
to 600,000 or 700,000 subscribers.
- Yeah, he kinda figured it out and unlocked it.
- It was this tipping point but he was working
that entire time, and so hopefully, you know,
if you're feeling down right now, just be reminded
to maybe recapture the long term vision of where you want
to go and tap into some new energy and the short term,
to just be consistent, pace yourself
and just one-by-one, little by little, keep doing the work.
- When I think about this guy, is the mission
that you have worth the work it's going
to take to get there?
You know, is the thing that you're trying
to accomplish worth it?
And for the people who quit, the answer is no,
it's not worth the work.
- Yeah.
- But for people who, like Sean and I, like my passion,
as you guys heard, and you know from Sean,
is that we just love helping people,
like we love impacting people and helping them change lives
and that to me, like, if it's one person,
or a million people, it doesn't really matter that much
to me cause that's like the passion,
that's the drive that keeps us going.
So you don't need to have that same mission,
but whatever it is, is it worth the work it's going
to take to get you there?
And hopefully you're answer is yes.
- I started to discover, right,
that well people are making money online,
people are doing this YouTube thing,
it's very early but they're building
a life on their own terms.
I do think that those who really last
and make it, have deeper reasons.
- Yeah.