YouTube Channel Reviews and Advice for Small Channels

And we are live. Hey, everybody. This is Roberto Blake. I'll be great. Something awesome today. Welcome back to another Friday night stream. We're doing channel reviews tonight. If we have enough people in the chat, we are going to do up to 10 channel reviews. If it goes too long, we'll only do five if that's what we get tonight. And other than that, tonight, I'm also going to be covering some stuff from a presentation I did. So this was one of my larger presentations. I think this was from VidSummit. And I talk about some really important stuff that I think every channel can stand to benefit from, especially small channels. There's a concept that I think is going to be really important for content creators going into 2026. It's really the idea of being a value-first content creator. So a lot of people think that... they need to be only able to capitalize on their personality. People want to be a personality-driven channel. That works for a lot of OG creators because they came from an era of YouTube where there was a lot of novelty. They could be first to play a video game. They could be first to do a certain type of content. They could be early to reacting on something and so on and so forth. There's more to it now. There's more people creating content. Things are more competitive. You have AI content. I think that you have to be able to prove that you can deliver unique value. And you have to be able to do that for people who don't know who you are. So I don't think just having a big subscriber count has been an advantage in YouTube for a very, very long time. I know it still works out for some people. I don't think that you necessarily need a viral video. I think one of the more important things is just being able to have a channel where people know what to expect from you and where they have very clear signals of what that value is so i call this my unified signal of value theory and it's just this higher level idea that i had around content creation where i think people need to have channel clarity where there's like one specific theme that we can identify that your channel really is about for this channel for example Every video going forward on this channel is really going to be to help you become a full-time content creator. That's the end goal that I would like the videos for this channel to achieve. When I get the long-form videos edited that I'm planning for this month and next month and so on. a little bit more consistent, and I get those out because I've managed to get out consistent live streams, consistent short form. So we're moving ahead on those formats. The one that's still lagging is regular good old-fashioned YouTube videos. Once I have that going, there's another channel that I'm going to revive that I'm gonna move a lot more of my how to make money online, what I do in my online business. I'm gonna move a lot of that content over to that channel. I'm gonna start uploading over there. This channel will primarily focus on content creators. That channel will focus more on the broader idea of making money on the internet, whereas this one will be, how do you become a full-time content creator? What do you do about your content strategy? What do you do about monetization? What do you do about brand deals, membership platforms, and so on and so forth? Sure, there's some overlap where we will talk about affiliate marketing in the context of being a content creator, doing membership websites in the context of being a content creator. or why a content creator needs a website or an email list, all that'll be here. But on my other channel, Roberto Blake 2, as in the word 2, T-O-O, that one will be where I put this other type of content. And part of it is this whole idea that you should have one audience and one clear value proposition for them, one clear theme, and then you can build content pillars that serve that one clear theme of the channel. So for content creators, you could want to know about YouTube monetization. You could want to know about content strategy. You could want to know about audience growth and engagement. You could want to know about specific features of YouTube or tools as a content creator or tutorials that will help you be a better content creator. So those would all be valid pillars for me to make content around, right? For the thumbnails, you want something that is visually attractive and interesting, but again, you want to kind of be on brand with these themes. You want intentional, emotional triggers and call-outs that your one audience truly understands and cares about. You want strong hooks that reinforce the value that your channel stands for. And then you want enjoyable, quality experience that can develop your brand and what people expect from you. Then you want to cultivate that through consistency and returning viewership. So I feel like that's the play that more content creators need to embrace. But like I said, tonight we'll do channel reviews. We just need people to go ahead and submit any of the super chats that are going to do. The rules for that are in the description of the video. Once we get those super chatters, we'll move on to the channel review portion. But in the meantime, what I'll do is I'll be just going over the advice portion for you. from things that I shared in this slide. So something we have from people like 9to5google.com and pex.com is that 88% of videos get less than 1,000 views. I actually think it's even more dire than you guys think. I found out recently that about roughly 50% or more of videos get less than 100 views, which is wild that it's that crazy. That just means that YouTube is only saturated with slop. And that's pretty harsh, but I think it's also true. I think that's also fair. There are estimates, some data analysts estimate YouTube has 5 billion videos. Some people estimate it has 10 billion. That's not counting shorts. There's only about 1 billion shorts, which is interesting because it also means that as much as you think YouTube is flooded with shorts, the... supply is still far, far lower than the demand for them. And even with most content genres, most people still, if they want a particular type of content, they don't feel satisfied or like they can find enough fresh content for the type of videos that they want. So people still genuinely do not feel like they have enough content that they want. So I would argue there's no such thing as uploading too much if you are making videos people actually want to watch. And so just to give you guys some of that data, here is what that data looks like in terms of the channels and then the percentage of views. Sorry, not channels. The percentage of views that video uploads tend to get. And so that is wild to think about. Absolutely crazy. So when I see that, it makes me realize that The idea that you need, like, if you want to take a break or it doesn't fit your lifestyle to upload daily content or something, that's perfectly fine. But I will never believe that there is a such thing as too much uploading to YouTube. I just won't believe it when I see these kinds of numbers and when I see these kinds of stats out there. I also won't believe it when I can show you these stats from... one of the creators that I've coached, he gives permission for this. So let's see here. So Eric gave me permission to share this. And this is for long form content, by the way. So for Eric, he does long form content and he uploads daily. And so Eric uploads daily. He was doing much more daily uploading when he was getting his most views. But if we go to, let's see, we go to views and then let's say I go to December. So this is December when Eric had 10 million views. And if I go with, let's go with Videos published. So, like, Eric uploaded 105 videos in the month of December, and he got 10 million views on those videos. Grew by 15,000 subscribers. Yeah, there's no such thing in my mind as, oh, you're uploading too much. By the way, this isn't gaming. This isn't gaming. He's a Clash Royale creator. So, like, when I look at these views... Yeah, he was uploading daily commentary. And by the way, this wasn't even like for YouTube shorts. If I go to content type, I'm talking he was uploading like long form videos here. So this is just wild. And then let's go videos published just so you get a sense of it. So he uploaded in December 84 long form videos and that was 6 million of his views. So, I mean, there you go, right? And then if I go January, you have 78 videos, still almost 4 million views there. So, and now he's breaking into streaming because he's doing a little bit of everything. But as you can see, if he uploads more, he gets more, even with long form, if he uploads more, he gets more views. And the game is not quite in decline, but it's falling off a little bit. The game is falling off. That's not his fault. But again, there's a direct correlation between him posting more long form videos. The month of February is not even over. He's like cut back just a little bit. And again, there's a reduction in views in proportion to the uploads. So that's like the key. If we go to 2005 as a total for 2005, he uploaded. 500 regular videos, got 32 million views for his shorts during his time doing shorts blitz because he was actually an early shorts blitz creator. He did 163 million views on shorts, but for 2025, he did 32 million views on long form. So very impressive there. And it did really well for him. Then let's see. Overview, views, reach, interactions, end screen, metrics. So again, this did extremely well for Eric here. So as I said, this does tremendously when you are able to post consistent content, consistent long form. That's what you get out of it. So I... Still, to this day, swear to you that long-form videos, consistent uploads, you don't have to upload daily, but I swear to you, it won't hurt your channel. YouTube even recently said that, and I can prove this with data, notifications. YouTube is pulling back on notification views. The other thing with notifications is a lot of people go, well, I don't want to upload more than a certain amount of videos because I only get three notifications a day. Yet no traffic hardly from notifications. I can show you all kinds of data where YouTube notifications are 2%, just 2% of all your lifetime views, all your lifetime traffic. That's usually the case, usually less than that. Working notifications into your YouTube strategy is meaningless. Oh, well, my subscribers will get viewer fatigue from your subscribers. Don't even see the videos. 20% of your lifetime views are from subscribers. So. I just wanted to debunk some of those myths that people think already and that it wildly affects their content strategy in a way that it shouldn't. Thanks to Trenton's tech here, 4999 super chat, appreciate you. Hey, would like to do a channel review. I'm pivoting into 3D printing. I'm only two videos into the new content, but it may help out others who may be in a similar space. Sure, we'll add you to the channel reviews. We'll wait till we get about maybe two or three. channel review request and then we'll move into the channel reviews but yeah we'll get you first Trenton appreciate you for always supporting and for the big super chat uh Miami Cloud hey how's it going man says uh hey at mods I did a channel pivot unlisted 12 videos now have nine long form and four shorts is that enough for Roberto to give a review direction of the channel if so I'll put in for review yeah that'd be uh that'd be enough Miami and I could make sure that you have some direction And so that you're at least directionally correct before you start doing more uploads. That should be enough. Yep. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So, I mean, and then by the way, not just for established channels, because by the way, when I was showing you Eric's channel, Eric has only been doing content for a little over a year now. So he was a new creator in 2025. He was not an established YouTuber. He grew in the time that we worked together. We got to work together twice through. a cohort that I helped coach for another company. And so I got to do, in both cohorts, I got to do, I think, six private sessions with Eric, and so we managed to work through those things on a channel. But yeah, it largely comes down to things like that. In terms of short form, you can still grow very fast. There's a short form creator, he actually started a channel just in the last couple of months. I have him doing The short split strategy as well. So he is primarily focused on YouTube shorts right now, and he's growing very fast. In my opinion, he may not feel like it's fast, but I would definitely say that it's fast because again, he literally just started this channel as a brand new channel at the end of the year. So Mr. Recruit, Mr. Recruit, he also just got monetized. And so Mr. Recruit. in the last 90 days has done 12 million views and yes this is short form but he also only got recently mod sized so again the ad revenue isn't anything to um you know scream about but uh he also if we look at the lifetime of his channel his channel he got the account going in 2025 but he didn't start uploading until the end of the year because that's why you see there's zero views here right So Mr. Recruit didn't start this channel going until October. So he did it like right before we started doing our calls at the end of the year. And as you can see, when he was doing heavy, heavy short splits, he was spiking more, took a break, pops again, the more consistent. So again, it really is, you can see the consistency and what the consistency actually accomplishes. If we go to the timeline and we just go off of, there's 2025 only. You can kind of see exactly what's happening there. If we go to December, come on, come on, come on, YouTube, stop being slow. All right, there we go. So yeah, as you can see, you went heavier here. Then of course there's Christmas break. So of course we would take a break there and then come back. So again, the consistency and the overall short split strategy does work. It does matter when you take a look at it. And then you can see here the majority of those views came from the shorts feed, and he makes quality shorts because he gets 80% stayed versus swipe away. Those of you familiar with the short splits know that the idea here and the strategy is to upload, in most cases, one to three shorts a day, five to eight if you can do it, especially if you're doing entertainment-based content. If you're doing education, you can get away with one to three a day. For entertainment, I say three to five a day minimum if you can pull that off. There are strategies for doing that, especially if you're a gamer. And then five to eight would be ideal. Lifestyle creators can get away with five to 12. You release them 35 to 60 minutes apart. It doesn't matter usually what time of day you release them. And so, boom, there you go. But as I said, again, I think this is really great growth. And I think that getting 5,000 subscribers since like starting in October is actually really good. Most people can't get to a thousand subscribers. So I think it just kind of validates this. And again, it's still a competitive game, still a competitive niche. So again, these are just multiple examples of what I'm talking about. And, you know, just what has worked for a lot of the people that I have coached with and just different things because gaming is really competitive. It's really saturated. It's not the best even provable market. It's just the most abundant data that I have sometimes of people who will let me share it. So, you know, that's just the thing. We got Larry from Home Rapid Repair putting in a channel review. Hey, I need a fresh channel review. I had a video go crazy a month ago. Typically, I have to wait until my evergreen videos ranking search many months later. Thoughts on evergreen versus homepage. Okay, yeah, we can talk about that. Then we got Miami Cloud. Hey, Roberto, pivoting to the career niche that you had mentioned, channel description. Should I give you the information? I want to see your take on it rather than tell you what it is. Thanks for all you do, Miami Cloud. Appreciate you, man. Thanks. All right, so hopefully if the mods have those channels in the form, I'll wait for them to get channel number three in the form, and then we'll start. the channel reviews. So I'm going to start putting these over in my tab here and getting the channels loaded up. So appreciate you. Home rapid repair. And then next we'll get Miami Cloud. Excuse me. It's not even that late out here. It's only nine. Why am I so tired? Yeah, I appreciate you coming through you guys on Friday night. I think it's the night before Valentine's Day. So I'm actually not expecting a bunch of people for that. We'll probably only end up doing five. channel reviews tonight we already have three in the queue we'll probably end up doing like five probably because um i probably didn't schedule this early enough for people and then also it's the friday night before valentine's day so i think a lot of the audience is actually just out doing their thing so that's good for them yep and mods when you can make sure we get um number three into the queue because we have miami cloud as well Yep. I think that we've got them. All right. So Trenton's tech. Interesting. You decided not to use a channel banner for now. So when we go to it, we just get the about section. Not bad. You decided to use your Twitter link as your primary link in bio. Trent's tech is focused on 3D printing, maker projects, and real world 3D printing reviews. Okay. Good lead in. and let's see. Now, since you're moving to the 3D printing content, you should make a playlist for that that leads with that because the current playlist on your channel are the Apple Vision Pro videos, your most popular videos, and then your most recent videos. I think that you should actually, if you've done enough of the 3D printing videos, you should do a playlist curated of those videos and you should lead with that at the top. So I would immediately change that in terms of overall direction for these playlists. And then I'd also consider making a start with these videos playlist. Now let's see. It looks like you only have two videos around the 3D printing stuff. The thumbnails are, you know, they're the low-fi type of thumbnails. I would say that I want to see for these, you put in the same effort as your high-performing thumbnails. I think you still need to, for the latest ones, I get that you were going for this very... low effort, let's say, version. But the thing is, the video itself is actually pretty solid from what it looks like. And there's probably a very good response on these videos from people who actually watched it. But for these, I probably still would have put a little bit more effort into the thumbnail. So if I take, this is Bamboo Lab and it's one week later it's very similar to what you do for normal tech review um and then what's the name of this one hs2 h2s h2s oh interesting that youtube shopping immediately comes up for this so look at this thumbnail this is your same printer trenton and look at how this one is And then also, even how the video opens up. So that's like really good. This was sponsored, you know. But again, I don't see why you wouldn't necessarily have gone with a high quality product shot like this for the thumbnail. You are able to and clearly have done, you know, these type of thumbnail product shots. that are very good for um products premium products i don't think that just because you're doing these really you know honest channel reviews around the 3d printing that's a reason to not put effort into the thumbnails per se again i know that everyone's saying oh you know people don't have to do high quality thumbnails anymore but again if i'm looking at this and taking this seriously if i look at this thumbnail and i look at your thumbnail i'm like oh That's what I want to click on. So competing in this niche, even though I know you're not going hardcore, I would still take the effort into the product shot and into making sure people know what this is. Older audiences also text in thumbnails does very well with older audiences. And it's going to be an older, more affluent audience that actually can afford and. the hobby of 3d printing it'll be super into it so again i would have done a thumbnail much more like this and just seeing um how they went about it the thought the lighting the positioning taking it up you already know product centric thumbnails are uh the game and in this niche with the 3d printing those seem to be the ones that get the views even for this guy did a similar one uh thumbnail to you but again i just feel like there was a lot more thought put into the product shot and the posing there so again i would definitely look at this and then for printing your projects um uncle jesse here this is a really good example of how to make thumbnails for when you start doing projects of showing what it made this is actually really good so if that's the direction you're pivoting in i think that you could update the existing videos for better thumbnail shots. I think two or three videos is enough to do a playlist on the homepage with the thumbnails around 3D printing since you're pivoting in that direction. And I would add that to your homepage right now. I would also say that consider how many projects you want to do. And I would also think about what your content pillars are for this. So you have Two types of 3D printers that you're using from the bamboo. So for the bamboo, you did a one week later. I think you obviously are going to want to do a one week, two weeks, 30 days, two months on both of these 3D printers. So I would definitely make sure you're doing those. And I would say your pillars for this 3D printing channel. So one pillar is obviously going to be product reviews. Another one is going to be, I would say you should do feature showcases very similarly to how you did feature showcases for other products. And that could mean, do you do roundups where it's like five features or five things you need to know? And then you do some individual videos on those things. I also think you should do tutorials for this, just like you used to do tutorials for Chromebooks. So I think tutorials and how to use. I also think you should do challenges. and you should do things like showing people the most useful things they can 3D print for their home, the most useful things they can 3D print for their own phone accessories, the most useful things they can 3D print for their computers and laptops. So I think you should show people not only what these 3D printers can do, but what they can make with them and just how useful it is for everyday things at home. that would be the direction that I would give you in terms of the content strategy. I gave you some thumbnail strategy here. What I like about where you're going is you're doing something you're passionate about. It's low pressure. And this takes you out of competing with the general big YouTubers where it can feel impossible to stand out. And it's just something more unique and more interesting. And you might feel like this is just more, even though it's more niche, it's more down to earth and useful than just more um consumer electronics so good for you on the pivot trending and also again um i think that the key here is just to build out your three to five content pillars around this and it doesn't have to be wildly different than what you would do with other tech um like i said i would suggest that what it could look like is You do the reviews of the 3D printers themselves and even reviews of the features. You do the long-term reviews, et cetera, et cetera, like any other piece of tech. You do feature showcases. You do some tutorials on how to use. You do some user-centric content for buyers. But then I would also do projects, things that you think are fun to make, but also I would do things that are useful for anyone to make and show them how to do that. and what materials they're gonna need. And I would also consider doing challenges. So that's what I've got for you with your 3D printing channel. Again, congrats to you on pivoting and doing something different. I think pivoting is gonna be a theme. Oh, sorry about that. I think pivoting is gonna be a theme for tonight's channel reviews. But what do you guys think? Do you agree with me? Do you disagree with me? Let me know in the comments. Let me know in the chat what you think. about trenton's tech i think it's cool that he's moving on from consumer electronics to 3d printing i think that it's a niche you can get very comfortable with there is potential there it's something unique it's something different in the space and i just think that it doesn't mean that even if you want your videos to feel more let's say authentic i don't think that's a reason to pull back on the effort of the thumbnails because i still think thumbnails have to be made to get clicks. They just do. So that's what I'm thinking. Let me know what you guys think. Yeah, there's your review, Trenton. Hopefully that helps you out. We got some more super chats in here. So Coco Dan, thank you for the $20 Canadian. Hey, Roberto, can I get a review? The OG plan was to bring the live stream discussion format to anime community. Think the lead attorney with panels after a monologue not having success. Should I just do VODs first? so actually i think you can make this work just depending on who the personalities are and i think it's about your thumbnails we'll get to that into the reviews but you can do the panels lead attorney does the panels um i think anton daniels does the panels i've been thinking of doing creator panels maybe not on this channel but on the podcast and i think that that can be dope i think for the anime community it would work i think it just depends on what people bring to the table. In the gaming community, Spawncast, Spawnwave, Spawncast did that, and it works in the anime community. There's several other anime channels and gaming channels that have been able to do it successfully before. So I think it really just comes down to what the topics are, how relevant it is. I think you could cut VODs of the panel discussions, and I think the thumbnails just need to be really good, but you need to be able to make thumbnails that attract... those people and it not just be a screenshot of oh here's the panel um saying stuff i think there's a lot to learn from just the packaging side but we'll get to it when we do your review adhd life now hey how's it going man channel review any advice is great advice on what videos to focus on my a vd is getting better since i've started recording my own b-roll i need more watch hours thanks in advance yeah i would say learn a lot from um rury um ohama on that um she does very well with that we'll get to that in the review so yeah hey how's it going mike appreciate you um let's see so there was a question in the chat the new routine says hey i wanted to check in regarding my channel status could you let me know if i'm officially eligible to join youtube partner program i mean you need 1 000 hours and you need four sorry you need 4 000 hours and you need 1,000 subscribers. So the answer would be you wouldn't be eligible if you don't have those things. And under the Earn tab, like Home Rapid Repair is telling you, you'd be able to see what your progress is. Yep, 1,000 subscribers, 4,000 watch hours. You think Trenton's pivot's a good move? Yeah, I think it's a good move for him. I think it's right for him. Let's see. Yep, we've got five channel reviews. uh we'll do these five channel reviews and then we'll see if i have any stamina left to do any more tonight but i think five is probably gonna be it i'm actually tired that more i had planned to do 10 tonight because i feel like we started early enough to where i should be able to do it but it's like i'm really actually just that tired now i didn't think i would be though yeah i think tonight we're gonna do five i think if i want to do 10 i'm gonna have to start earlier i'm gonna have to start like 6 30 from now on if i want to do 10 of them or something i think Like, we're just getting to a place to where if I don't take a nap in the daytime, I guess I'm going to be that tired. Let's see. All right, next up, we got Home Rapid Repair. We'll do these five. We'll get through some more of my information and the updates to YouTube, and then we'll see how I'm feeling. So we got our friend Larry from Home Rapid Repair. Again, love the direction you took on the logo. Banner is solid. Congrats on the $34,000. Channel homepage is set up very well overall. Now you said recently you had a video, I think you said it was a month ago that went viral. I'm assuming you're talking about the no sagging, the easy to fix sagging doors video, Larry, is what I assume is the big one. And so your question, it looks like. focuses a bit around this. Wait till evergreen videos rank in search months later. Thoughts on evergreen versus homepage. So some things can be both evergreen and homepage, you know. It's just a matter of what the most frequent problem would be that someone would have. So if we go even to your most popular videos of all time, it's possible that... A lot of these things, I'd be curious as to for all of these, if all of them got most of their views for search, because I can't help but think that three years ago when you did the WD-40 video, I think that that one got its views from the homepage as well, instead of from search hitting later and long tail. So I think both things can be true. I think that a video that solves a very, very common problem that the average person has, no more sagging doors. Again, this is something like, I have this problem all over my house. If this was in my homepage feed, I probably would have clicked on this video very easily and YouTube would pick up on that. So I feel that it's not an either or proposition on homepage versus search. It's just a matter of It's just a matter of what would someone immediately prioritize if it was randomly in their homepage feed on YouTube? And I'd be curious, Larry, as to whether more people watch this on their phone, more people watch this on their computer or on their television. I'm going to guess that even though that this was a homepage video, I'm going to guess that most people watch this video on their phone. And I would argue that for your search videos, a lot of people are on phone and on some type of computer when they watch your search videos. But I would have guessed that the majority of this, the viewership from this, popped off on mobile phones and from the YouTube homepage. And again, I still feel like people are going to search for this. And I still feel like you're going to rank very high, if not number one. in search when people search for how to fix you know sagging doors they might not even know to call it sagging doors though so but people immediately have this problem and go that's what's going on with my door and okay how to fix it the other thing that worked for this is here's something i immediately notice this video is shorter than all of your other uh videos that popped and even out of your latest videos this one is incredibly short again most people this one's short too but most people aren't going to be dealing with a concrete problem most people aren't going to bother to try to deal with a concrete problem so that's uh something most people are just not going to do a lot of these ones that you made interestingly you would think more people would have these problems and maybe these are the problems that you're most familiar with. I even see where you tried to capitalize on this sagging door fix, but this thumbnail really sells the issue, Larry, just in terms of the fact that you fit a plank of wood into the top corner of the door, and then you say no more sagging doors. This thumbnail sells it. This other followup video is not doing you any favors. That's why it couldn't really pull views the same way. It just doesn't hit the same way to see the opposite with it in terms of the dragging door that's hitting the floor. It's just not visually that interesting to people. And that's the difference. You literally are solving the same problem. There's no difference in quality. So I want you all to understand that even what you were seeing with Larry is Views are not driven by how hard you work on a video or the quality. It's really, really down to, is this something that someone scrolling will watch? And just trying to repeat something exactly because it worked before without understanding why it worked won't help you. For example, the not why you think and this why vinyl laminate planks are out and laminate is in. Okay, I see you tried to... repeat that idea a little bit. Here's the thing. You're making this title like a contractor, not like an average person. You say, don't buy LVP flooring until you see this. Someone who's not a contractor, Larry, doesn't know what LVP flooring is. I don't know what LVP flooring is, but I do know what vinyl is and I can understand what laminate is when I see it. So some of the videos struggle if you don't make the video. tailored to the average consumer that is scrolling in YouTube. And if you overthink it with your subject matter expertise, like if I made a video about how to get more AVD in YouTube, it wouldn't do well because only someone who's hyper into YouTube would understand that. But if I said how to get more watch time and retention, that's more accessible to people. That's more people understand what that is. So luxury vinyl planks. Yeah, I would spell that out. I get that you were trying to use less characters, but luxury vinyl planks. Here's the other thing. How many people are going to even think that they're in the market for luxury vinyl planks? It's fine that you made the video. You got packages best you can, but this video might have a ceiling. The ceiling for this video might be 3,000 to 5,000 views. So that's just how it is. With this one, is this affordable laser level good enough for DIY projects? Here's the thing with this. I don't think affordability is the issue that most people care about when it comes to the idea of using a laser level. All right, so Larry, you say why this popular vinyl flooring is failing? Larry, the average person doesn't care about this thing failing. Like, they just don't. You know, I mean, I have a remodel I'm trying to do for my basement. That's not going to make me click on that video before I decide to have my contractor and go over and saying, oh, I want this. I want this type of vinyl flooring. That's it. Is the audio back? Is the audio back? Okay. I had to literally turn off the Rodecaster and turn it back on. I don't know why that would happen. This is a new Rodecaster, by the way. This is the Rodecaster Duo. which is why we haven't been having audio problems before lately. And I've only had this for maybe about a month, maybe a month and a half. So hopefully no more problems. But yeah, so like I was saying, Larry, the title wouldn't make me click unless I'm a contractor, because as someone that's a consumer that wants to renovate my basement, this video doesn't tell me that it's going to help me in any way. or that i need to buy this or tell my contractor to use this or not use this when it comes to my basement it's still getting decent views it's got almost um 3k views and that's fine and it can still do well in search even if you change the title but again i i just don't feel like this is a broader appeal title so i think you need to start positioning your titles for somebody that is not a contractor that's either going to fix this themself, buy something at Lowe's or Home Depot or what have you. And I think you need to position that way. Even with this laser leveler, if you're getting a laser level, affordability is not really the thing that probably is. If you're the kind of person that will buy a laser level, I don't think affordability is the primary driver or priority. So I just want you to start thinking about how these titles can have broad appeal for the YouTube homepage while still being searchable. It needs to accomplish both things. I think the searchable component is here's the problem that solves, but I think the way that you address the problem has to be broadly appealing and work for someone who has a very low-level knowledge of home repair. Your thing is home rapid repair, and it's doing it yourself sometimes. not necessarily hiring a contractor unless you have to. The average consumer's vocabulary around these things is not going to be as advanced as yours in terms of knowing what these things are. Yeah, broad appeal, topics, and titles. Again, this video on why vinyl planks are out and laminate is back is a versus video, and it's comparing two buying options that I could come across down the aisle going to Home Depot or Lowe's. I could have to choose between vinyl and laminate on a shelf. That's what makes this video work, believe it or not. The surprising method to fixing siding cracks fast. Everyone goes to their house and sees cracks in their siding and go, what do I do? That has broad appeal. The sagging doors. Everyone experiences this and sees it in their house and go, yeah, I'm feeling that. The permanent fix for loose toilet paper holders and towel bars. Everybody sees this problem and would want to fix it. My mom could click on this video. The dry pour, I think that's just more interesting than it is practical. It might be very practical in the execution of the video, but in terms of how many people need to do dry pour concrete. I think it's just interesting to watch and you just have a bunch of big bags of concrete there. That's just an interesting video to click on if I'm being honest. Videos where you have large quantity of things are like things people wanna click on. The smoke detector still beeps after battery replaced. That one, I'd absolutely click on that. The easy LED fixture change, that one, everybody who moves into an apartment or a dorm room would wanna do that. And then some of these other things are just highly searched as well. So these are things that I think make a difference in your views, especially if we're going to talk about homepage views versus search views. But again, what do you guys think? Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? Would you do anything different? Would you give Larry different advice? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comment section if you're watching the replay. Let me know in the live stream if you're watching live. My mom could click on this video. I will smile all day long with this comment. Thank you. Yeah, that's what you want to go for. Exactly. So I think that's the key. All right. So next up, we've got Miami Cloud. All right. From order taker to leader, Miley Cloud, connect, learn, innovate, new videos weekly. Subscribe. All right. So 14 videos. Good start. Some of these are shorts. Let's see what we've got here. Basic layout for right now. Let's start with the videos. First thing, very good job on these thumbnails. These thumbnails are actually pretty good. So why are they not getting views right away? Well, for one, it is a new channel. So temper expectations give YouTube some time here. And then in terms of the spacing and consistency, you've deleted some videos, like you said, and you're pivoting directions. So again, give YouTube time to kind of catch up with the current direction that you're going. Because again, you've changed what you are doing for the channel. But overall, the thumbnails themselves are good. But these titles and the titles are kind of somewhat of a mismatch on what would trigger urgency of priorities. So you're going with mid-career corporate professionals. Stop executing, start leading. Okay, great. But here's the thing. Prefacing these questions is too passive of a title, especially for somebody in their late 30s, 40s, 50s in their career that's looking at either career pivot, career safety. These question-based titles are too passive for that person. i would say in most cases so i wouldn't preface titles as a question like what's being done here for example your email your emails are killing your promotion what's wrong that's not something that i think most people would click on and it doesn't create enough urgency you've already shot the video so you may not be able to reframe the video And oh, by the way, after this next review that just came in, that's number six and I'll be the last one for tonight. So reviews are closed after this for now. So for example, your emails are killing your promotion. What's wrong? That is too hyper specific of a thing. And someone could go, oh, that doesn't apply to me. Oh, that doesn't apply to me. You've already shot the video, so you can't make this video. for this this title rather for this particular video but if you had done a video and it had been um these five things are keeping you from being promoted at work and are quietly killing your career that's a stronger more aggressive not in any way passive title that is very hard for someone to ignore, or these seven mistakes are keeping you from getting promoted at work and quietly are killing your career, that immediately as a title creates tension, anxiety, and makes you wonder, am I really doing one of these things wrong? Am I committing one of these seven deadly sins at work that's killing my career and keeping me from that promotion? that would have created more anxiety, and it would have fit with this thumbnail, and the thumbnail would have been career killers. Now, you've already shot the video. You've already prefaced the video around these emails, so you can't just take the title that I gave you and put it on this video. You'd have to make a new video that goes, and it's like these 10 things, these five things, these seven things are keeping you from you know, getting a promotion at work and are quietly killing your career. Because again, that's strong, unambiguous, and it creates and it pushes urgency, danger. That video would be more of a priority. If people had to choose between your video title and the video title I just gave you, then they would pick the one that I did. And not just because I'm Roberto Blake, it's just because that one just creates more anxiety in them. More tension that has to be resolved. It creates a loop that has to be closed. You did this other video. Five layoff warning signs you're about to be laid off. Okay. I would do that title completely differently. Five signs you're about to be fired from your job. Watch this to save your career. Again, that's urgency. Five signs. You're about to be fired. Watch this to save your career. In fact, I could go further with that. Five signs you're about to be fired. Watch this if you're over 40 and want to save your career. Now I'm combining urgency with identity. So I think that that would be a stronger title. This whole, are you safe or will AI replace your job? I wouldn't have done that title. It's too passive. It's easy to ignore, easy to gloss over, roll your eyes. I would say AI is going to replace millions of workers how to future-proof your career. I would lead into the fear around that and then say, but I offer the relief. I offer the salvation. So you could use this as problem solution framing, or as I think of it sometimes, anxiety versus ambition framing. The goal here is creating tension that watching your video resolves for them. If you create tension, they're forced to watch the video to relieve that tension and to have the release valve once it happens. It sounds worse than it actually is, but it's very effective. Again, a good example of this I often find is someone like Ruri Ohama, for example, very good at this in the productivity space. You say, why hard work won't get you promoted, this will. Again, don't think the title is strong enough. It's very close. Working harder doesn't earn you more. How to get ahead on the job. Probably a little stronger. I still think the premise itself is a little flawed. I get what you're trying to get at. I think the topic premise is a little flawed for this market in terms of the problem it's positioning against. The sentiment is there. It's real and it's felt, but it's not something that there's enough urgency or enough emotional investment in. It's too much of a, yeah, we know, we know someone could roll their eyes. So what I would say is For this one, I would say hard work doesn't fix low wages, this does. Or hard work won't earn you a raise, but this will. Something closer to that. I might have just scrapped this one altogether because, again, I just think the premise is flawed because I don't think that you could lead with the hard work doesn't... do this or doesn't do that premise. I think that that lends itself to either A, someone who can say that from a position like Alex Ramosi or someone who's making a motivational video. I don't think that that fits this nearly as well, but I do get what you were trying to convey. I just don't think that there's a strong enough way to package that unless you're taking some extreme position and that probably wouldn't fit your personality. I would just chalk that one up to a loss. And then it looks like you've moved on from some of the chat GPT and AI topics that you did previously. Although I think there is a way to tie in the idea of how to learn AI so that it doesn't replace you could be a topic pillar and that could probably help. So I would say from a content strategy standpoint, here's where I would go. I would lean into AI anxiety as a content pillar, and I would lead into the idea that people are stressed out about it, people are freaking out about it. I would lean into the concept of you're potentially going to get fired, or rather, let me put it this way. I would lean into the anxiety as one pillar. I would find future-proofing your career as another pillar. Then I would probably give examples and listicles around careers, skills, and industries for people over 40 re-entering the job market or pivoting in their careers. So I would do that. Because there is ageism in many industries. So I would hyper-focus on the identity around people over 40 that are re-entering the job market or having to pivot or who got recently laid off. Then I would do another pillar that probably leans into how to use AI to help you in your career before it replaces you. So that's where I would go. And you're saying, yep, the titles are too safe. Yep, couldn't agree more. And you say, I was using the premise on how to leverage AI to help me or you into a stronger leadership role and develop skills. Yeah, like leadership is too, like I'm a big fan of John Maxwell. Leadership though is a niche where in order to have or convey the authority in that, they wanna hear that from somebody. who is putting out that they're an executive at this big Fortune 100 company. They're a multimillionaire, probably a decamillionaire. They want to hear from somebody that they see in a leadership role in a very clear, pronounced way. They want to hear it from a one percenter, in other words. So I wouldn't do leadership content if I couldn't leverage something larger than life that clearly signals. the status if i'm in the one percent so instead i would actually do a broader appeal play um that is around the economic anxiety that people currently are feeling and i would even possibly tap into a news layer and do reaction style videos to the bombastic headlines about the layoffs from big tech companies that are attributed to ai and so that would get people's attention and then also people um can't get enough of that stuff and it works for a reason so those are kind of some of the pillars that i would lay out and that what i would um address and i think that it would resonate very well especially with people in their late 30s in the middle of their career um possibly people who are worried that their career will get cut out from under them before they end up in a leadership role people in their 30s 40s 50s in leadership roles who are afraid that they might be put out the pasture yeah so that is something that i would consider in terms of the positioning here but overall i still think you're off to a strong start i wouldn't let the subscriber numbers or view numbers uh discourage you eve anyway at all this early on this is still in the experimental phase um also i would say um for lighting and contrast, you could probably punch up the contrast on yourself in the edits. And I would say probably you could increase the frontal lighting just a little bit in the videos on your face. And I think that that'd be fine. But other than that, I think you're up to a fairly strong start here. And the idea I would say is again, it's all about positioning. I think the packaging from a visual standpoint is strong. That's the hard part for a lot of people. So good on you for the thumbnails as the titles are playing it far too safe. And you have to think about the positioning and the themes that you want to do here to appeal to the crowd. And I would change this value proposition here. If someone's a mid-career professional, right now the truth is they're not worried about starting to lead. They're worried about hanging on to what they have. So what you need to do is you need to help people feel like they have a defensible strategy for the AI disruption and the AI apocalypse, the carnage in the job market. You have to make them feel like there's a way to have a safe landing, and you have to make them feel like they have some means of going on the offense as well as defending their current position. They have to feel like they can go on the offense and that they have options. So that's what I would probably say here. But those are my thoughts for Miami Cloud and making a channel around career professionals. And again, I think a big issue here is you can't play it safe. You have to lean into the ambition versus anxiety framing of I fear this outcome and I want this outcome. You have to lean into the identity of I'm at this place in my career or in my age bracket. These are the issues. These are my. priorities. These are my concerns. So that's what I would say. But other than that, I think you're off to a strong start. But what do you guys think? Do you agree with me? Do you disagree with me? Let me know in the comments if you're watching the replay. Let me know in the chat if you're watching live. You say your shorts are talking off, Mr. Bald Bully, but your long form is tough. Yeah, long form is going to feel like a slog compared to short form for sure. You're going to join the academy. Not sure if the recorded channel review is right for me. is right for me now. Thanks so much. Yeah, I would say for you, the Academy would probably be better because if you're in the Academy Pro group, we meet twice a week. You'd be able to come on. You'd be able to ask questions in real time. You'd be able to get feedback. You'd be in the private group. You could post there as many times a week as you want and get feedback from the other members on your ideas. You could team up with someone, get an accountability partner. And then we also have a bunch of resources for you as well. So I think for you, that the academy and just being part of the pro group and doing the office hours twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays is probably the right fit for you, Miami Cloud, if I'm being honest. Yeah, because I think a recorded review just doesn't suit you. I think the channel review we just did is closer for just where you are. And I think for the type of channel you're doing, it could be lucrative enough in so many ways that it makes sense to just go ahead and invest in it at this point. Because there's just a lot of ways to make a channel around career development extremely profitable. And that's something that's going to be in demand right now, to be honest. The way things are going in the job market, it's absolutely going to be a thing. And not even just only for purely older people. A lot of young people that are career professionals, their degrees, there are people in their 30s with degrees. They're struggling to find work as well and to deal with the new reality. So, yep, it's rough out there. Come on. All right, so we've got Coco Dan doing an anime channel. And then you say the way that you're doing it now is you're doing monologues and then it's a panel discussion. Honestly, I'll be real with you. I would skip the monologues, my friend. I would go and I would say that if you're gonna do group panel discussions, lead with the group panel discussions instead of the solo monologue for the live streams. And for the live streams, I would go longer. with the live streams, with the panel, and then I would chop that up into VODs. The thumbnails are not terrible, but they could be much, much better, and I think you should do a theme here. Again, for panels that get cut into VODs, I would start looking at, he's in politics and current events and culture instead of anime like you, but there's a streamer called Anton Daniels. In terms of format and structure, steal the format and structure there. Get, you know, five, three, five, or seven other people in the anime community and do these longer panel discussions and go and chat and do multiple topics and go for like two or three hours and do it. Make it hyper relevant stuff. Cover segments within the stream. and let people have their say, and people watch just to see you guys debate, chop it up, argue, get a little messy. RDC World 1 has done similar things, but you guys can just get together on StreamYard, like how I'm on StreamYard right now, live stream. And the reason I say you want to get three, five, or seven of your anime community people is it allows you to have a neat set of boxes in the stream and the replay. Then what you're going to want to do is you're going to cut those up into VOD's video on demand. They'll be shorter 10, 20, 15 minute segments. So again, like I said, you could study Anton Daniels. You can study Lead Attorney. They do this stuff all the time. Do a live stream. Lead can do a monologue. He can do a solo thing. But if you want to do a panel, study Anton Daniels. And I would say the panel thing is the thing that's unique to the anime community. But I think you also... have to cover multiple topics in every stream. That way you can tap in to different fandoms, different communities, different things that people are gonna want from you. And so that gives you videos, that gives you live streams, and then potentially, if there are sound bites or things, you could use Opus Clip from the live streams, and there might be sound bites or things that are worth cupping up into YouTube Shorts. So then the live streams give you every format you can need. And then you just have to do the right titles for every video that comes out of that from the segments. So that would actually be your strategy here, Coco Dan, for doing the type of channel you described to me in your super chat with regard to wanting to do these panel discussions. Because, yeah, if you want to do that and you want to do it with a group, you want to do it as a community, which is what you described to me here. I would not do the monologuing at the beginning, and I think you'll lose viewers in the beginning doing the monologuing. So I think if you want to have your say and you want to do monologues, you're going to have to do those as potentially standalone videos rather than live streams on your own and see if people will respond to them. Let's see. And that didn't necessarily work here. But it did in some other places. Interesting. I also think as much as I kind of like old school Shonen anime and I remember the Ramon and Kenshin days, I think you're going to have to stick to contemporary mainstream stuff or whatever the latest season is just because you're not as well known yet. So I would think that that'd probably be the direction to go. And I say that as someone who is an OG Shonen fan, but there's also just so much new good stuff that people are really getting into that I think it'd be worth it. I also think that you should continue doing short form, but you should do it more frequently and more consistently because you are getting some motion on that. You're getting far more views than you have subscribers on that. So I wouldn't be against that. And I think you could, even without the panel stuff, I think the way you could do something instead of doing the monologues, even though I know you're probably really into it, I would take that time instead and just do anime facts shorts for those. I wouldn't do the monologues unless you're just gonna do some really, you have some really hot take burning on your chest. And then other than that, I would do the live discussions and then just cut those up into VODs and I would do them for two to three hours with a panel of people. So six, four of y'all on a panel, six of y'all on a panel, eight of y'all on a panel. You can do up to 10 people at StreamYard if it really comes down to it. And so that's the direction I would go with this. And I could see people watching that. in their downtime, watching the replays, just throwing it back. I could see people even clipping it and arguing on Reddit and you getting a bunch of views from that. So I would say that that could work. And I think for videos, instead of doing monologues or essays, if you want to do videos, I would just do listicles of frankly, things like what you might feel are the most savage or most disrespectful moments in an anime. And people obviously will watch that. If you want to do retro stuff off of, like, things and Rurouni Kenshin and all these other things, or Berserk, I would literally just go, you know, most disrespectful and most savage moments in anime, and I would just take that approach. That's been proven to work, and it works for more people than just CJ the champ. So that's kind of the direction I would go. And probably the only... uh youtube educator who would know enough about anime and would also know enough about the names in the community to even give you that advice or to even bring up cj the champ i'm probably literally the only youtube educator that actually knows who cj the champ um sensei and um rdc world one actually are i'm literally probably the only youtube strategist who would know that yep you're saying that makes a lot of sense yeah appreciate it yep So that is my review for Coco Dan and his concept. Oh, by the way, Coco Dan, also, if you do the panel and you do that, you can literally also retool it as a podcast and you can upload the whole thing, video and all, and distribute it on Spotify for creators, probably get monetized over there and double dip. And then you also grow an audience off of that. And then people also know from the podcast you're doing on YouTube so it can filter over. all your shorts on anime you could post those on instagram tick tock facebook monetize there grow off of that so think of this less as a youtube play and more of a content play be platform agnostic post it everywhere multi-stream there's no reason if you do these live to not stream it on kick twitch youtube um facebook if you want rumble x and grow community that way as well. No reason not to and no reason not to take advantage of it and potentially monetize. So I would do that. And I would just kind of build brand more than I would worry just about the YouTube side. And it's no extra work, really. Yeah, most people don't know about Spotify for Creators. I actually did a video about how to monetize on Spotify for Creators. Both of my shows are almost monetized over there now. In fact, actually, I just need to upload more of my back catalog. And because I turned even my regular YouTube channel, I'm actually posting the episodes over there as if it was a podcast. And so also between the back catalog and then me coming back to long form, plus new episodes of the podcast, I'm going to be actually flipping the podcast channel that I was doing. Unless I have live interviews or live panels, I'm not going to be doing as much live anymore. I'm actually going to be doing it commentary style and video essay style on my industry takes. and things that I think people need to know and also news updates. So I'm going to try, hopefully, either starting next week or when I come back from YouTube headquarters, because I'm going to YouTube to do an interview on the Creator Insider channel for a new podcast initiative they're launching. So I don't know when that episode will come out, but I'm going and film it at the end of this month. Either before I leave or after I leave, I'll have some new podcast episodes out as well as some new long form on this channel. But yeah, even my plan is to literally repurpose all my content on Spotify for creators as well and to get monetized over there. So also, if you guys look me up in Spotify, feel free to give me some extra listens and some extra watch time over there. I definitely appreciate it. So, yeah. You say, what can you use to make the thumbnail stronger? You could use our sponsor. You could use one of 10. And I highly recommend that you do. So one of 10 and their thumbnail generator, you get 20% off if you use code Roberto. It's actually really good. I actually did a live stream the other day showing you exactly how to use the thumbnail generator. We'll probably use it for titles and ideas another time and show that off for you guys. But it's actually... really solid for that. And you can start a free trial and you also can get 20% off if you grab that. But it's actually really good from an AI standpoint with the thumbnails. Now here's the secret and the trick to making it work though. The way I do it and the way I made it work is I took the images and assets that I wanted and I uploaded it into the thumbnail generator library before I prompted it to make the thumbnails that I wanted. So I used a bunch of my headshots because I have professional headshots that I shoot in my basement, and I use that. If you were doing it with your stuff with the anime, you could do that. You could also generate assets for this kind of thing, potentially, and then you could assemble the assets in one of ten, but you could also generate anime thumbnail assets accurately. using Google Nano Banana or Mid Journey, and it would work out really well as long as you feed it good source material for them, and then that would work. And then you could assemble it more easily by prompting it in one of 10. So I think that that would help you. Other than that, another approach from scratch could literally just, be mastering Photoshop, but that might be a little too intense if you work a nine to five job. So that would be my advice. But anyway, that's it for my review on Coco, Dan. Like I said, what do you guys think? Let me know in the chat if you agree. Let me know in the comments if you're watching the replay. Yeah, absolutely. I think we have two more reviews. I think we have ADHD Life Now, and then we've got Brockton Magnet Fisher. And those will be our last two for the evening. Yeah, I'm going to call it a night fairly early tonight. I am much more exhausted than I thought I would be. Although I did wake up crazy early today. I woke up at like 530 this morning. So maybe that's it. I definitely might have to start doing these a little earlier. Let's see. Just checking something here. Okay. Yep. That makes sense. All right. So next up, we have ADHD Life Now. So this is Kevin's channel. Solid on the banner. We just want to confirm that it works on all of the devices. I'm almost positive that this will work on desktop, mobile, tablets, and televisions, but I'd want to confirm. Hey, David. Appreciate you. All right. You're here now. Great. so yeah so we've got adhd life now as our second to last review so again great banner and i would just want to double triple check it on all of the devices you lead with hi i'm kevin i have a cytology degree i've spent 10 years researching adhd okay good lead in you lead in with your website as well as your link in bio so that's smart home page layout adhd home organization start here very strong Good curation. Amazon ADHD finds. I can see why you do that. And that would definitely help with the affiliate marketing that actually work. Very good job. You know, a fan of that particular type of title. ADHD closet hacks. ADHD room by room hacks. Very good. I see that this one got some views. Definitely could see why this did extremely well during the pandemic. ADHD. home and desk and office definitely could see that more as a pandemic play interesting i would consider leading into a little bit of adhd productivity right now and especially dealing with doom scrolling and dealing with procrastination and things of that nature and again i would study rury ohama so riohama Very successful YouTuber. I would actually study her topic and title positioning. And I would lean into the productivity side a little bit of ADHD. Because I think you definitely are qualified to do that. You actually have a degree in this, so you actually could do that. But I think that there is nothing wrong with looking at some of these titles, especially for your ADHD medication ones. um i took adhd medication for 365 days you already have a similar um video where you have i took uh ritalin for two years plus adderall for one what no one tells you i think that that's just too much in a title and it doesn't tell you that you took this for my for your adhd um ritalin um versus adderall for adhd what nobody tells you would have probably been a stronger title for this one for nine days ago i think you can still um fix it um this adhd bedroom items that reduce overwhelm under 50 i would ditch the um i would like this one might be a little too much there's a better title for this i think rury has done something similar that's actually maybe a better title So I would go with 15 purchases that improved my ADHD under $50. And so I would literally just change that title. And also, I don't think the green is doing anything for this one. Let's see. And again, I know you went with bedroom items. I would just go with purchases because people go like, I have enough stuff in my bedroom. So they could disregard the video off of RIP for that. I would change this one from what no one warns you about ADHD in your 30s is I would change this to struggles of being an ADHD adult, what nobody tells you in your 30s or 40s. So again, I think a lot of these are just title positionings that aren't strong enough and in some cases are too hyper specific and don't have enough Like some of these are so hyper-specific that they become disqualifying, if that makes sense. If we go to your most popular videos and why they work is they have strong identity positioning, but they still have broad appeal. So hopefully that makes a little bit of sense because like the videos that performed best for you, even when the thumbnails weren't as good, they had strong positioning. appeal to identity, but still had broad appeal. And they, in many cases, they actually may have felt like they were hyper-specific, but they actually were broader than you think, and they avoided the hyper-specificity trap. Trust me, I fall into this trap myself when it comes to videos, so don't beat yourself up about it. Kind of goes with the territory of a combination of high IQ and ADHD. Kind of goes with the territory. being hyper-verbal, hyper-specific. Overall, good consistency in the thumbnails. Strong thumbnails. But again, thumbnail and title combinations matter. And so I would argue that you're getting stronger and stronger on your thumbnails and that you've leveled up there significantly. So it's just a matter of sometimes you're overdoing some things. With this one, I would actually, for this thumbnail and changing the title like I did, I would scrap the text in this thumbnail and now the text will go across the top and it will literally just be Ritalin versus Adderall. And so why am I going with Ritalin versus Adderall instead of Adderall versus Ritalin? It's because Ritalin versus Adderall reads better and it sounds better rolling off the tongue. picture of you and they just see riddling versus adderall and there's no other text it explains the entire concept and you can click on it uh for this one on the no one told me you don't need the 30s 40s text here it adds nothing to the um to the this adds nothing to it so again i would watch this back and i would just take to heart what i said about the title framing for a lot of these and uh just how to make it more accessible And again, also for future ideas, I think that you can borrow ideas and title framing from Ruri Ohamna here. I think your thumbnails are mostly fine, but you could take some inspiration there. But again, you're more qualified to do this exact positioning. So don't be afraid to only slightly change some of these titles. She doesn't have to own these ideas. And you actually have a degree in psychology for this. You've studied this. You've lived with it longer. So I wouldn't be afraid to tap into this if people are clearly watching it they could use more than one perspective on the similar topic so i would uh yeah i would consider that but yeah overall i still think you're doing really well for the amount of videos you have uh for long form uh let's take a quick peek at the shorts not a lot of them but these are doing fine for what it is and they might get more traction over time so yeah i think the just the fact that the channel is at this many subscribers actually is pretty solid. So I would just keep going and being consistent and making those improvements. But yeah, those are my thoughts for Kevin and ADHD Life Now. But what do you guys think? Do you agree with me? Would you do anything differently? Would you give Kevin different advice? Let me know what you think in the chat if you're watching live. Let me know what you think in the comments if you're watching the replay. So that's another one. Now, Kevin, I think you're off. you know you're off to a good place here i think there's just some minor improvements i think a lot of people don't realize how much heavy lifting the topic itself does and the title we all pay so much attention to the visual branding where our thumbnails and don't get me wrong it's super important it absolutely is important but i think we really don't give enough credit to how much just the topic and title do in terms of the heavy lifting on our views i wish it was enough to have a good video and a good thumbnail but the title matters a lot I mean, you learn this a lot in advertising. You learn this when you write a book that your title makes all the difference in the world. Not for an adult. So Germ Rock Plays. No, not for an adult that's trying to be taken seriously by other adults in their 30s and 40s and not an adult with a degree in psychology. Again, that just works. That works for YouTubers in their 20s if they wanted to tap into this. Yeah. And if they wanted to reach a young audience, yes. So like when you're doing content, there are three kind of key factors. There's reach, which is views, which is what most people think that they care about. But there's also reputation. There's also revenue. I don't I've never really optimized around reach. It's the area. It's not it's an area I know how to be strong in, but I'm never willing to trade reach for reputation or revenue. If you tell me, hey, Roberto, you can go viral, but you're going to look like a scumbag. I'm not going to do it. Roberto, you can reach a bunch of people, but you got to spend a bunch of money to do it. I'm not going to do it. I'd rather keep the money. So I don't value reach that much. But again, I'm 40. So I don't value reach. I don't care about being viral. I don't care about being popular. I wasn't popular in high school. I'm 40. I don't care about it now. If I wasn't going to care about it, I would have cared about it like 20 years ago. So that ship has sailed for me. I don't care about reach that much. But I'm also a little bit more jaded than some people in some ways, right? I care a lot about reputation, and I care a lot about revenue. I care about reputation and money far more than I care about reach. Reach is an unfortunate price I pay for building a reputation, building in public, having a personal brand. You have to put yourself out there. I am an introvert. It is a price I am willing to pay. but it's not my favorite thing. So it's, you know, it's something I deal with, but reputation. Oh, I care a lot about that revenue. I care a lot about that reach. So like my max stats, my max stats are in reputation and in revenue. Those are where I max out my stats. It makes me a little weaker on reach, but not irrelevant. And it means I'm willing to play the game, you know, but up to a point I could make, clickbait titles and thumbnails much, much stronger. And there are younger contemporaries in my field that care more about reach and revenue, and they care much less about their reputation. I don't play the game that they play. Or again, I could get like 2 million, 3 million views a month on long form if I cared less about reputation and just get me reach, get me revenue. I could play the games they play. And I don't mean that literally in terms of gameplay. I mean, I could do the things that they are willing to do. I'm not willing to do those things. Are channel reviews still available? No, we just have one more that we're doing that's already been booked. We're calling it an early night because I'm just feeling extraordinarily tired. I woke up around like 5.30, 6 o'clock this morning. And so I'm much more tired than I anticipated. But what we'll do is probably next weekend. We'll try to do 10 channel reviews. Tonight, we cut it a little short. Yeah, we'll get you next week, Trav. Yeah, actually, let's go ahead and get our next review in. So we have Brockton. Wait, hang on. Yeah, we've got Brockton Magnet Fisher here. 6,000 subscribers, 300 videos. I enjoy magnet fishing because you never know what's coming out of the water. Very cool. Now, with this banner, I might have gone in a different direction. I don't mind your profile pic in terms of a logo, but your face is on camera. I think because your face is on camera, the profile pic should probably be you, Brockton. So I would go with that. And again, I might do something different with the banner. I don't think you need to promote your socials in the banner. Let's see. Homepage layout. You just have videos, popular videos, and shorts. I would probably make playlists. You have 300-something videos. I'd probably make playlists and put them on the home page. Let's see the individual videos. You did... If the whole thing is... And you have Magnet Fisher in here, I think you can't have non-phishing videos. So the off... And also, the last video you did was four months ago. I think that you got to have the consistency come back. What was your most popular video? Karen stopped me while I was magnet fishing. Yeah, I could see how that would go big for you. That was viral for you. Good job. Look at that. I love seeing that a channel this small can get these kind of views. And again, it's about all the cool finds while you're magnet fishing. So, like, I think if you want to post, like... a vlog video about a road trip or or something with your friends i think that that becomes a members only video or you post it on your other platforms you have facebook you have instagram you have tick tock i'd post it elsewhere if you want to do it because people came here for the magnet fishing and for seeing what you are going to get on your line and when you do that you get thousands of views so i would focus and concentrate on the value proposition in a channel if you're not doing magnet fishing um you know you are not literally finding a sunken treasure chest or something here um then i wouldn't uh post it i'm not telling you have to take these videos down especially since again you haven't been consistent um but i also would question like is it that you got bored with just doing the one thing uh you did position the channel around it you did hundreds of videos about it um and where is the gap in the consistency coming from because i feel like this could be really interesting and that people like the found footage kind of style thing people like the fact that karens and cops bother you while you're doing it i obviously think the thumbnails could be stronger here but um i think that people like fishing metal detector. They like that stuff because, and they like seeing the awesome finds that you're getting. They might be interested in like, could I do this? And so I feel like there's some combination here of storage wars and the dynasty happening. I think that people like this IRL reality TV style content. And I think this could be really strong for you. I think you just have to package it. little better I think you have to package it a little bit more like Storage Wars or Duck Dynasty and I think that people really dig it again you have 6,000 subscribers you have videos that have your most popular videos have tens of thousands of views so I would go back to doing what you do best my friend I would do magnet fishing and metal detect there and treasure hunting and i would make those your content you know this she tried to pass me while turning into a pizza place this is someone to cut you off i mean i could see how a karen video could get views but again your main value proposition here is the magnet fishing and again it's dope it's really like you're doing um something that a lot of people would just be randomly curious about now here's the thing i think that weirdly some of the the some of the random footage in the preview of you over these bridges is like actually in some cases a more interesting less cluttered thumbnail than the thumbnails also your thumbnails are all over the place there's no consistent font no consistent color no consistent themes so i would tighten that up and again i would make it about the weird things you find and i would package it um a little bit stronger and i would look at what people like about i would go more photo centric with these um this is pretty close i would go more photo centric and i think that the photo needs to either be the pov shot of you with something weird in your hand or you over the bridge or something like that. Or it could be a face shot of you, but I think if it's a face shot than you, it should still be a face shot that includes maybe the location or the angle of the bridge or the water. I think people need to believe that you're doing the thing. Oh yeah, these videos would go very well on Reels. Absolutely. And I can see this winning with short form. In fact, actually, maybe you don't have as big of a gap. Maybe it's that you've been posting some short form. And that looks like it could be the case. And again, oh yeah, the short form for this, gangbusters. I could see this doing extremely well. Especially if you are multi-posting to TikTok. Yep, I could see it. So again, for the long form, I think you have to package the long form almost in a way of... Would people watch this packaged as like a Netflix style show that they sit down and crack a beer with after a day at the office? You know, I'm out here in Georgia. I could see the average person in my community coming home from work in their Ford Raptor or their F-150 propping up. This is on their TV. I could see them just cracking a beer. And, you know, watching this as they wind down from a hard day at the office. So I could definitely see that. Yeah, 39K views. And again, I definitely think your police encounters are probably the most interesting content for sure. Most likely. Oh yeah, I could see this doing well on TikTok. You mentioned that. So ultimately, I would repackage the long form that way. I would definitely keep prioritizing short form for the views. But for potential more revenue and subscribers, I would also reframe the long form. But again, I would do, I would fix some of the packaging up. And again, I would focus on the most interesting aspect of the location, the object, or the framing. Again, a lot of times this framing here from the POV shots could even make better thumbnails in terms of, you know, the over the bridge stuff. or pulling something from the water with the bridge in the thumbnail, or even this. This is a much stronger thumbnail as a preview than the actual thumbnail, and it's not even close. And again, everybody, for the love of God, pick a font and stick with it. Pick one font and stick with it, my friends. No more random fonts. Pick a font and stick with it. Doug, in the chat, can you post the... for the useful um you know info that we usually do can you post the six fonts that we recommend to everybody there's six like free fonts that we recommend to everybody so let's see um that would be my main advice here because again i think your niche is really different it's cool you've got something here that people actually like You got something that has some popular long form and short form to it that can get massive views compared to your subscribers. The weather. Oh yeah, the weather would definitely get in the way for you. I would agree. Here's the thing. In addition to the magnet fishing, people would care if you go and you do stuff with a metal detector on the beach. So yes. But yeah. Those are my thoughts for Brockton Magnet Fishing. I think his biggest adversary is the weather right now. I think it's seasonal. But what do you all think? Do you agree with some of the advice that I gave? Would you do anything differently? Do you have advice for Brockton and what he could do with his channel? Let me know in the comments if you're watching the replay. Let me know in the chat if you're watching live. Let's see. misunderstood as always very cool name by the way great profile pic there we are done with channel reviews for the evening I've had a super long day I woke up at like 530 this morning so we're calling it early tonight we would normally try to see if we could do ten of them we did six tonight and we're calling it but I will be back next week and we'll try and do it a little earlier and we'll try and do ten of them so Sorry you missed out on this one. A couple other people asked as well. So it looks like we could have fit 10 in tonight if I had the stamina for it. But it looks like I'm out of steam for that tonight. But I definitely appreciate everyone being really interested in having channel reviews tonight and for the people who submitted for them. So that was really cool. Thank you guys so much. Yeah, just weirdly very tired tonight. I think it was just that it was such a long day. It wasn't even that physical of a day. I did some calls today. I had some stuff to do, but I think it's just waking up so early. And maybe that's it. Maybe I didn't eat enough today. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I just didn't eat enough calories today. Maybe that's what it is. I don't know. But no, it was great doing channel reviews with you guys tonight. Thank you to all the mods for holding everything down. Let's see. Tomorrow, I'll be with Andrew Kan on the Opus Clip channel, and we'll be talking about all things YouTube Shorts tomorrow. That's 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, so make sure you're checking us out over there. We do that pretty much right after Nimmin Live, so we'll be doing that after Nick Nimmin stream. We'll be doing that 1 p.m. Eastern on the Opus Clip channel, so I definitely hope you guys tune in for that. Angela, Denise, you regularly tune in. So we definitely appreciate you. Oh yeah, that's crazy. You can definitely be careful out there with the magnet fishing, Brockton. That sounds wild. But that's also the exciting type of content that people will tune into. I promise you. And again, I've always said, you guys who've been watching the live streams have known that I've said for the last year or two that, and yeah, big shout out to Home Rapid Repair. Yep. Appreciate you, David. But yeah. I've said for a while now that in real life content, in real life content, filming on location, real human experiences, POV videos, body cam videos, all kinds of stuff like that on location, field reporting even. I've said for the last two years that that would become the strongest meta content on YouTube and would be the answer to people breaking out as small content creators and that even if you had 5 000 10 000 subscribers that you have a way to get 50 to 100 000 even a million views if you actually go out into the real world and make content in the real world i've been saying for two years now that in a post pandemic world real world content going out into the wild was going to be the answer and i'm being proven right over and over again with that so that's actually for me it's really exciting because you know roberto loves very few things as much as roberto loves being right so uh so that's been kind of cool to see that happening again i think if more and more of you go and make uh content in the real world you'd be surprised at the results the key to a lot of this when it comes to getting views is really the packaging around the topic the title the thumbnail and the timing and getting that right if you can manage that it'll do a lot of the work A lot of you, you're making good content. You're doing solid editing. You're doing good production, good audio, good storytelling, great personality. A lot of you, your biggest problem is packaging. And sometimes also realizing that what you want to make may not be as interesting to regular people scrolling in their phone as you might think. And sometimes also there's an interpretation. We had Larry from Home Rapid Repair. One of his big things was, again, he gets massive views, even viral views, when he makes something. that my mom could click on. But if you make something that only another contractor, an electrician, a plumber, and so on and so forth would click on because it might be, oh, I forget that a normal person doesn't relate to it in this way. When you get too hyper-specific or you get too much into your expertise, you can alienate regular people that are just scrolling on their phone. So you want to think about that sometimes when you're making your content. So it's really... more of a packaging issue, less editing and production. It works on YouTube, but it doesn't work when the packaging isn't right. And yes, I know some people are going, well, some people are just doing thumbnails that don't look like they're trying hard. Yeah, but there's more intentionality behind it than you may think. Intentionality can be a different form of effort. And I think a lot of people undervalue that. So what you think is, what you think is a low effort thumbnail could also be where the effort wasn't into technique. The effort was into intentionality or psychology. And so it's a different type of effort that you just may not be interpreting. So I think that that's where a lot of people get things twisted in. the way that YouTube is evolving around the authenticity conversation, is it's not that people are winning on low effort. They're winning on authenticity and intentionality. And you're just not perceiving the effort or thought behind why they did something a certain way. And I think that's the key. By the way, it was great seeing all of you tonight. Thank you so much. We will catch you next time. And like I said, tomorrow I'll be on the Opus Clip channel. In the meantime, uh you're gonna learn a little bit about awesome creator academy oh we have a quick question before i go roberta would you suggest less ai and more realism in thumbnails i don't think they have to compete as much as a lot of you would think they do for example a lot of us especially a lot of us guys don't bother with doing photo retouching or beauty retouching in our thumbnails And sometimes us guys could use it, even if you don't think so, for things like sharpening the eyes, lips, and hair. Sometimes just up-rezzing using AI so our stuff doesn't look as low quality of a photo would actually make a difference. So the thing is, you could do a realism in terms of the base of the thumbnail, but you should consider the value of AI just even from a retouching standpoint. That without changing your facial features would make the photograph more attractive, less blurry, less pixelated, and so on and so forth. And even just that could actually help you a little bit. And so a lot of us as guys, we don't pay nearly enough attention to that. And it would be extremely helpful. There are things that we could do with AI instead of trying. See, I think the problem is people trying to use AI to make the thumbnails from scratch. instead of using AI to do all the things that we should be doing. Like, oh, zoom in on this. Zoom in and enhance. Sharpen it more. Like, just like in sci-fi, you should really just kind of do that. So there are benefits to doing that. Some of you, you're just really bad at typography or you're really bad at layouts. And some of you could just give that piece to the AI, to be honest with you. Because you're just not good at typesetting and choosing fonts or laying them out or any of that. So I think that it's more about What is it doing? And I think that a lot of it would not have an AI look or style if it was just being used properly. So I think AI could be used to supplement the skills of you're not good at photo retouching, you're not good at text, you're not good at layouts, you know, things like that. Or, ooh, I cropped this wrong because I'm not a photographer. Or I need to zoom this out. Because I'm not a photographer. Oh, I'm not good at Photoshop. I wish I zoomed this in. Or, oh, I wish the angle would be slightly different. You can fix those things with AI and just get a better composition that's more attractive. And it could work. Asmongold says he leaves out part of his face because it works better for him. It works better for him, but he's also a famous YouTuber. I wouldn't take that off of RIP as, oh, I should do that too. I would like the last people I think anybody should use as a basis for their YouTube strategy are Asmongold and Charlie Moist Critical Penguin Zero. I think that those two are unicorn anomalies, and I don't think anyone should base their YouTube strategy off of them beyond the work ethic and consistency that they both put in. The fact that they're both grindaholics, that's the only thing that anyone should consider. mimicking from them or emulating from them is that they are grindaholics and they make videos on topics and trends and things that are happening in real time very quickly and they respond to and commentate on things in real time very quickly and that they grind every single day that they possibly can. Those are the only two things in strategy. to replicate from them on the front end. There are some backend business things that someone could replicate from them. But other than that, their style with the theoretical low effort thumbnails, Charlie and his low effort, everything, no edits, deadpan, blah, blah, blah. Like that's not gonna work for most of you. It works because they're famous already. Famous people can get away with a lot of things you and I can't. I think we should have all learned that by now. We should have all learned that by now. So don't think you can go, doing what a famous person does and get the same results or a 10th of the results or even 1% of the results. Like that's not gonna play there. There are things that do make sense that scale, that there are other things that they can just do because they're a known commodity. Yeah, it's stuff that only works hyper-specific to them. Like the stuff that can be replicated are the like trending, timely topics. People could want more than one perspective. Showing up every day increases surface areas, opportunities, so on and so forth. Improvement every day, Kaizen, you know, get a little bit better every day. That sort of thing. That makes sense and that works. And there are some back-end things on their business that make sense that people could learn from and replicate that I won't get into right now. But their packaging and presentation style, that's not going to work for most people. It's just not because you're not them. And you got to remember. It didn't even necessarily work for Charlie the first six years. This first six years, he wasn't getting views. There was a point where Asmon was not as well known as he is now. So you have to remember that just because something's working for these people today, it didn't even necessarily work for them when they were small YouTubers either. Or it wouldn't have. Or it took a long time for it to work. And it may not be the only factor either. I hear people bring them up every day, by the way. So that's why I went in on this one. But anyway, that's it for tonight, you guys. You're going to learn a little bit about Awesome Creator Academy if you want to join us in the Academy Pro group. Other than that, you guys have a good night. Have a good weekend. Stay safe. And I will catch you on the next one. Take care. Becoming a content creator can be a very lonely process and adventure, but it doesn't have to be. When I first got started going from zero to 100,000 subscribers, I had to do it all by myself. I didn't have a community of like-minded and like-hearted creators to talk to or to ask for advice, and I certainly didn't have a mentor to guide me along the way. I built the Awesome Creator Academy Pro Group because when I was getting started, what would have meant the world to me is not to have to struggle alone when it comes to being a full-time content creator. If I had had a community of creators that I could talk to and share information with, I would have avoided a lot of mistakes in my early career. And there would have been opportunities with brand deals where I would have gotten a better understanding of how to negotiate. And I wouldn't have undersold myself. I wouldn't have been taken advantage of in those early situations. so in the awesome creator academy pro group myself and our co-instructor andy rivera we meet twice a week for office hours with our creators and we share information we talk about how we're building our creator businesses and we offer constructive criticism and critique on the things that we're working on for our projects to be part of a community of usually around a hundred like-minded creators who are taking this seriously just like you are you also have all access as a pro group member to all of our past present and future courses training templates digital downloads and swipe files you have full access to our creator blueprints where you'll see our systems and the frameworks that we use to execute you know you always fall or rise to the standard of your systems a lot of people really underestimate how important that is we have digital download templates that can help you so you don't have to start with a blank canvas these done for you files are actually incredibly helpful especially for things like your thumbnails your media kits and anything you need for your branding as a content creator to look professional we have email swipe files that help you with reaching out to brands we have great information in helping you price yourself and build your packages appropriately and remember as part of the pro group you have the opportunity to ask questions from myself and all the other creators participating and so this means that if you need to Ask questions about negotiation or a brand deal. There's something you're not sure about. You're trying to find a better monetization opportunity with merch or affiliates. You have people who have done it before who are already making money that you can reach out to for advice. As I said, when I was starting out and I was flying solo, this is the thing that I wish I'd had the opportunity to be a part of and it would have made all the difference in the world in helping me be an even more successful content creator. If you have questions, you can always reach out via support. We're happy to help you figure out if the pro group is right for you. Also, we do have the opportunity to become a VIP member if you also would like quarterly one-on-one coaching with me directly. Now go out there and create something awesome today and hopefully we'll see you in the pro group. Take care.

YouTube Channel Reviews via Super Chat (rules in description)

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Review will address titles, thumbnails, one criticism and one compliment, and one piece of ACTIONABLE ADVICE.

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Timestamps: by  @DougHewsonYT


TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - YouTube Channel Reviews and Advice for Small Channels
22:08 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Trentons Tech
36:46 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Home Rapid Repair
53:17 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Miami Cloud
01:12:33 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Cocoa-Dan
01:26:50 - CHANNEL REVIEW: ADHD Life Now
01:41:26 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Brockton Magnet Fisher