LIVE CHANNEL REVIEWS - REAL ADVICE FOR SMALL YOUTUBERS

And we are live. Hey, everybody. This is Roberto Blake, helping you create some thoughts today. Welcome back to the channel. Today, we're going to be doing YouTube live channel reviews, and we've already got a couple of you in the queue here. I think we have four of you. Thank you for the super chats. So for those of you not familiar, the way we do this is on Fridays usually. And we're back because my voice is better. And we've also cleared some of the stuff from the car accident stuff. But we usually on Fridays get together and we'll do live channel reviews where we will review YouTube channels and give a piece of constructive criticism and advice. We will tell a YouTuber something that they can immediately improve that will help their channel. more and also we make sure that you know that there is something that you're already doing well a primary example here is we have longtime friend of the channel ask papa who has done several reviews some of you might remember when ask papa was at three thousand youtube subscribers or less just a few months ago and that he's actually implemented a lot of what we've talked about over the months and keeps going And he's even joined us over in Awesome The Creator Academy to work with us. And he's been doing really well with the channel since coming on for a channel review a while back. So I think he has a great channel. He has a wonderful story about the tiny home that he built for his family, especially like his daughter and the grandbabies. And so like really great creator, very heartfelt, really good to see good people like this succeed. But we have other people that have come back and forth and we've seen them actually grow. I just wanted to bring up Ask Papa because I feel like. This is encouragement for those of you who are small YouTubers that it is possible and that videos can be hit or miss, but some of them will be outliers. If you look at like the biggest video that he's ever done or rather biggest videos that he's ever done. So you can accomplish something similar and you can do this while being imperfect. I don't want anyone to get the impression that you ever have to have a perfect YouTube channel. to succeed i think you guys getting to see people do the channel reviews come on back and then see that they're still growing and that what they're changing and pivoting to often works it's sometimes just the smallest thing that someone's doing that's holding them back and so a lot of you you know you engage you also get great advice from the other people who come in in the chat and also have follow-up advice on it. So I think that's just been very fruitful. So we like doing these. Whenever I'm not traveling or I don't have like, you know, a health situation or anything, I try to do these on Fridays for you guys. So we can go ahead and we can pull up one of the first ones we have here, which is Luminos Star Paranoval TV. Hi, Roberto. Thank you for your time. I'd love a channel review and advice. To avoid burnout, I'm brainstorming a few ideas for the direction I'd like to take my channel. all right well we'll see what we can do about helping you out here and we'll bring up the channel thanks to the mods by the way for keeping up with all of this and having the super chats in the form here so let's see i'm only seeing i'm seeing we have five channels in the form but i'm only seeing four super chats um mods give me a heads up on what's going on with that uh so i know what's going on But let's go ahead and check this out. So we'll go ahead and we'll queue up the first couple of channels here. And we'll go ahead and put a couple of them into our screen. That way we can knock them out back to back. And what we'll do is we'll give the chat a chance to chime in on some of these channels as well. Because a lot of you actually give great advice. as well you should understand that you can learn from your fellow creators um you know even if somebody is also a small creator you'd be surprised 90 of channels never get a thousand subscribers 97 never get 10 000 subscribers someone with 5 000 subscribers still actually has some wisdom and some advice to offer if somebody has less subscribers than them. So just kind of keep that in mind that someone doesn't necessarily need 100,000 subscribers to know what they're doing. I would argue that a lot of you who have about 10,000 subscribers are well ahead of the game because 97% of channels don't have that. So if your channel is also monetized, you're also probably a little above average, probably smarter than the average bear when it comes to YouTube. So just kind of want to shout out some of the folks in the chat who always pitch in, help out and, you know, have good things to offer. So, yep. And let's go ahead and pull the first one up here and let's hydrate. By the way, yeah, I did get one of those camera lens cups. I think these are kind of funny. I think these are kind of cool. So I've got a camera lens cup here to drink out of to keep the old voice hydrated. And let's go. All right. So we have Lumen Noise Star Paranormal TV. So one of the things I usually bring up for channel reviews is the banner at the top. and also the profile pic and the channel name. I usually bring this up because interesting thing about YouTube channels is I actually have a rule for the name of your YouTube channel. The YouTube channel's name should be easy to say, easy to spell, and easy to remember. So for this one, I actually think Star Paranormal TV. is a better YouTube channel name and a better YouTube channel handle. And the reason why I think that would be better is that it will be less words to remember. Star Paranormal TV is already a mouthful. Luma noise spelled in an odd way before that. Very difficult to say, very difficult to spell, very difficult to remember. Star Paranormal TV with two Rs is a little easier. and fits a little bit better. So I think that that could help you here just with the ability for people to be able to recognize and remember your channel by making it easy to say, easy to pronounce, easy to remember. So I want all of you to keep that in mind if you're watching the replay here, because it could help you out. Sounds nitpicky, but it's actually really important. Especially if someone is ever going to shout you out. If you ever had a big creator shout you out and they can't spell your YouTube channel name, they can't remember it and they can't pronounce it and they butcher the name, you just lost a huge opportunity to go viral if a big YouTuber shouts you out and screws up your name. So you don't want them butchering your name. Let's see here. The banner, the banner, I don't think will. be as easy to understand or easy to read. One thing I recommend for banners is putting an upload schedule in there so people know when you're making videos. I do think the ghost face clown icon could work, but for the profile pic, I think it should just be that and none of the other stuff because this is a little confusing, it's cluttered, we can't read anything and it doesn't stand out as much. I would just put the icon face only in as clear detail as possible for that. Happy screams and hilarious dreams. I am fine with you having that text in there. I do think this could be a little bit cleaner. It's a little cluttered right now. I think the popcorn and shades could be on the left hand side. I think the what's your favorite scary movie line. could you know be in the corner over here that way it shows up on desktop and tv won't show up on mobile most important thing here would be to have this face be a little bit clearer maybe bring down this text a little bit more and then under there have in readable text just how often you're going to upload videos so that's probably what i would do there Let's go to your About section. Laugh, scream, repeat, where paranormal meets pure comedy. Get ready for spine-tingling paranormal investigations, supernatural encounters, and hilarious ghost hunt fails. Okay, so you're telling them what it is. That's probably fine. Let's see. You have created playlist here, which is probably not the best lead-in for the channel. I would probably move videos. or recent videos to the top here instead of create playlist, I would probably use some of these playlists and put them here on the homepage, then get to shorts. I think maybe doing more shorts where you actually do a thumbnail for the shorts like this one with this haunted doll, I think that that'll play out better. So I think for these, maybe thumbnails, especially if you're gonna showcase them on the homepage, for the shorts, Let's look at your actual videos here. 2,000 subscribers from 91 videos is actually pretty good. These thumbnails are not bad. There's just not as much consistency as I'd like to see. I'm fine with these AI storytelling style thumbnails. If you're going to do paranormal or creepypasta type stuff, it looks like a lot of your views and subscribers probably came from your shorts though. So you're trying to break into long form. I would get a consistent thumbnail style. I would marry two or three fonts for this, and I'd pick maybe a color scheme and see what direction you want to go in. For paranormal stuff, blues and purples with either an orange or a lime, kind of the goosebumps. I would say, actually, if I'm being honest, I would take and make aesthetic choices. borrowing, not stealing, but borrowing from a little bit of goosebumps and go with purple, white, and lime green for that. If you're going to use AI style, creepypasta style thumbnails, then what I might do in that situation is I might go with a consistent prompt for styling that. I like this one and this one here a lot. And then for themes, I would start to put together more themes for these, and I would really just start to think about maybe some narrative, creepypasta, more evergreen content for this. almost like telling scary stories, and I would kind of start to make content pillars around these or buckets. So what I might do is urban legends, ghost stories, true crime horror, and then probably a content bucket on the serial killers. And those would probably be my main ones for something like this. And then, oh yeah, UFO stories for sure. So I'd probably do those and that'd probably be about five to six content buckets there. Let's see what you got going on with shorts. YouTube shorts are definitely going to be where most of your views are probably coming from. Yep. So you went with kind of more celebrity gossip shorts and got your views. So I don't know if you did a pivot from that. to the paranormal stuff. So I think you kind of have to make a choice here of whether you want to do paranormal creepypasta stuff or celebrity-related drama, because it seems a little bit confusing, because I think you're conflating too many things, and I think it's kind of confusing for the viewers. So in general, a lot of YouTubers' problem is there's what they want to do, and then there's what the audience is responding to and working. so again if you want to do the paranormal investigations like you're basically spelling out your content buckets here but your youtube shorts don't reflect that your youtube shorts are about all these celebrities and i can't help but think maybe that's where a lot of the subscribers came from based on the views it might be why these uh videos are struggling so i would start making youtube shorts in the horror and paranormal genre, which is actually really good. It's still working in YouTube. I see that stuff in the algorithm all the time. And I've worked with clients that do some of this more narrative storytelling content. And then I think that beyond that, you can grow this. I mean, there was a channel that we worked with before. I believe it's that creepy pasta guy. i'm trying to remember i think this is hip yep so primary example again right now i don't know what's going on with the videos now per se but when we worked with him in his peak or prime um what have you again a lot of it was um just making really solid overall scary story compilations and things of that nature Again, these are not perfect, but for the genre that we're talking about, it doesn't have to be. I also think that he deleted a bunch of his videos for copyright reasons, if I'm remembering, because there was some issue he ran into with a mass copyright claim from something. I think it had to do with music that was from a certain artist that had licensed the music and then the music sold to another company, something like that. That happens sometimes. um i just use epidemic sound and don't worry about it but yeah when you want to do narrative content around horror stories ufos all those kind of things i would go with a little bit of a longer form and i would take inspiration from goosebumps and are you afraid of the dark especially if you're going to do this ai angle stuff i think that You also need to do shorts that are reflective of that because here is the discrepancy in your growth and where you might be struggling is people came for this celebrity stuff. So if that's not what you want to do anymore, then I would lean more into this. I would get the branding consistent, like I said, and I would borrow from Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark for Inspiration. Again, steal like an artist, find multiple sources. then try to put things together that make sense. But that is my take on Star Paranormal TV. Again, my main thing is, I think there are a lot of branding things that need to be sorted out. I think you also have to sort out some of the content strategy here beyond the packaging. So, and I think it's just a directional thing. And then I think it's gonna take time. I think when you do like celebrity drama and gossip, you can see views go up fast, you can get monetized, that can feel really encouraging, that can feel really good, but it may not be the audience that you want. So I would say make content more with the audience you want in the future. Focus on that. Understand that it does take time. Most people don't succeed overnight. I say make 100 videos in the direction that you really want to go in here. There are a lot of channels that do this horror theme stuff, UFOs, paranormal, and that stuff's actually coming back really strong. I was actually coaching another channel around that the other day. So I do think this could be successful. But in the chat, what do you think? Do you agree with me about the idea of trying to focus the long form and marry the short form to that and be consistent in what the audience expectations are? Do you agree with me about the channel branding and setting some kind of expectation of here's when I'm going to upload, here's what you're going to do? to get and cleaning up the visuals uh so they're not cluttered let me know what you think do you agree do you disagree let me know in the chat if you're live let me know in the comments if you're watching the replay right and that is one down so yeah hopefully you guys found that helpful um it looks like uh luminos star tv paranormal tv found that uh helpful uh you know again i want to make sure you don't feel too discouraged i think that there's potential but i think clarity and direction is everything when it comes to content, and just making sure that the audience knows what to expect, what to look forward to, and that you're attracting the right tribe. Let's see. Just checking out the chat here. See what you guys have to say. Got Victor in here. Thank you for holding everything down, Doug. We've got Don V Filmora Tutorials. We've got Maria Tokar. Was Don an earlier super chat that I missed? Okay, I see. Oh, that was a super chat in yen, I think. Interesting. Currencies are interesting. Oh, no, that's Bunga Logic is in Japanese yen. Interesting. Okay, got it. All good. Let's see here. Checking the chat. Still kind of new to the YouTube thing, but doing the best I can. Yeah, all anyone can do is the best that they can. Oh, you sent it 10 hours ago? Okay, that's why I don't see it in the queue. It doesn't, like, yeah, because it doesn't go back that far. So, like, you said, oh, wow, you sent it in, like, after I set up the stream, so nice. Okay, all good. I just couldn't figure it out. I was like, where is it? Yep. Romina, I've been trying to send a super chat for 10 minutes now. Keep getting an error. Oh, that sucks. Yeah, sometimes that happens on iOS. That is a thing. Thank you, Spark the Golden Retriever. Appreciate you. Yeah, we're just taking a quick chat break to catch up with everybody before we go to the next one we have in the queue here. We're actually going to do Don V. Fillmore Tutorials next. good news for you since you do familiar tutorials is that you're looking at somebody who was doing some of the earliest youtube video editing tutorials for premiere pro so i actually know this niche very well i've actually worked with other creators in the video editing niche i also helped out my friend daniel batal when he was doing famora tutorials so very familiar with the software very familiar with the niche very familiar with how to win on the tutorial content side let's see Then we've got living in Ohama. We've got David. Welcome back. We've got Maria, and we've got places to visit. Okay, cool. Yep. Let's see. Jillian says, I'm almost at 1,000 subscribers working on my watch time, been fixing my thumbnails. Yeah, fixing your thumbnails really helps, but I'm going to give you guys kind of a formula for the watch time, if you don't mind, before I move on to the next channel review real quick. One of the formulas I came up with for the watch time. is if you wanted to do vertical live streaming every day because that gets a bunch of reach, you need to get 12 hours a day of live streaming to get monetized in 12 months. If you want to get monetized in six months, you need to average 24 hours a day of watch time from live streaming, and then it just... again whittles down from there so on so forth if you got 48 hours a day it would take you three months so on so forth vertical streaming has actually helped get a lot of my clients uh that i coach with in awesome crater academy in the pro group or with one-on-one coaching it's helped them get monetized and um That's not the only method, but it is for a lot of people, especially if they use shorts to get their subscribers. They then use vertical live streams, which show up in the shorts feed, similar to TikTok. And then they get the watch time that way. Then once they're monetized, a lot of them will start doing their long form when it's actually monetized. Now, if you just want to do traditional YouTube videos, then the game is played a little bit differently. The way that we approach it and the way we teach it for Awesome Creator Academy. is that you want to target getting about 100,000 views within a year, six months, whatever it is. You wanna get 100,000 views. So that's gonna be making enough content to do that. It is a quality balanced with quality. It's a quality and quantity game. I know that a lot of big YouTubers like to preach quality, quality, quality, but they, a lot of times, they don't have the perspective of a working class content creator. The big YouTubers that all say this, a lot of them are under 30, okay? Most of them are under 30, single, not married, not in a relationship, no kids, not taking care of an elderly parent, not taking care of kids, not still wrangling responsibilities and YouTube. They can give 40, 60, 80 hours a week to YouTube, a lot of them. The minute they made any money, hired teams. A lot of them actually also, I'm just gonna say it, they did get help with their parents starting out in their 20s while they wanted to pursue making content. I know some of the biggest creators personally, and some of them have even had like their parents covered them for two years and let them do YouTube and paid their rent for two years. If you're an adult, and most of you in my audience are over 25, you're over 30, a lot of you are over 40. A lot of you are millennials and Gen X. And what I will say is in our situation, we don't have that luxury. So the biggest YouTubers, if they're under 30, a lot of what they say won't work if you're a working class content creator who isn't having someone help you manage your life. If you're a working class content creator, you work 40 hours a week and you do YouTube, it's very difficult to do quality over quantity. You're struggling to learn YouTube. You're trying to improve your quality as it is. And there's a limit to how much quality you can actually do when you have 10 or 20 hours of spare energy after working 40, 50 hours a week and having to wrangle kids or take care of yourself. It's a it's a mess. So a working class creator cannot usually prioritize. quality until they have the opportunity to buy back their time or hire someone else and buy their time so starting out most working class creators cannot make the highest quality videos it doesn't mean that working class creators only turn out garbage or or really low uh quality content you can do acceptable quality videos And then just do enough of them. And my answer is you should optimize to making videos that only take you two to five hours at the most. If you can make a video in under two hours, you really should because it makes more sense because you can then evaluate the effort. to earning ratio of something once you get monetized a little more easily. And then also it's not this big sacrifice for a little payoff compared to another hobby that you would do. So you're gonna burn out less if you're not sitting here spending 10, 20 hours to put out one banger video, much as you might like to, much as you might feel it represents you the best. You may not want to do that because that's where creators burn out and quit if they also have to balance that with a job they already don't like 40 hours a week. Okay? It's just the harsh truth. When you're starting and you're at least trying to get monetized and get your first 10,000 subscribers, trying to get from zero to 1,000, zero to 10,000, my mantra is this. Try to optimize around making one to two videos a week. And yes, I know not every niche can do that, Roberta. I don't care. Tone down what you think the quality for your niche is and don't try to chase big creators. stay at the level that your lifestyle can accommodate. And for you, if you're working 40 hours a week, what you can accommodate is making one to two videos consistently that take two to five hours to make. And it makes perfect sense. So then you're able to be consistent. build reliability from your audience of, hey, I show up for you. I'm not the best at everything, but I'm trying. And that will win people over because people aren't always going to go for the try hard perfect content. They can watch a bigger YouTuber for you than you if quality is the only thing that matters. Everyone can just watch big YouTubers and they do. But big YouTubers also don't always accommodate an audience of people that are left behind by them. And for every big YouTuber out there with 100,000 views on a video or a million views on a video, there's 10 to 20% of the audience that feels left behind or disagrees with that YouTuber or wants something different. So that's your opportunity to get 10,000 to 100,000 views from the people that a bigger YouTuber leaves behind disagrees with, or is out of touch. It's the underserved audience. That's your gap. That's your arbitrage. And I would suggest that you make videos of decent quality of medium effort, two to five hours of effort on your part for people that just want a different experience and a different point of view that they can't get from a big YouTuber who won't cater to a smaller underserved, ignored, or disenfranchised audience. So get the disenfranchised audience in your niche. That's your answer starting out. And then you can just advocate for a different point of view or a different variety of content or a different diet of content for different people. Restaurants have menus for a reason. So that would be my thought around this. And you wanna try to figure out what... a cadence of content, I think it's two videos a week, 100 videos in a year, can get you to 100,000 views. If you average three minutes of retention and watch time on 100,000 views, then you have 300,000 watch minutes. 4,000 watch hours for monetization is 240,000 watch minutes. 300,000 gives you a margin of safety. You want to average three minutes. My understanding is that most content creators retention rates are not Mr. Beast 50%, 60% retention rates. Most content creators retention rates are close to 30, 35%. So now I can literally tell you how long your video should be. Your video should usually be between nine to 14 minutes because if you get 30% to 35% of nine, to 14 minutes and it can be longer if you want but if you do that then you will absolutely average pretty close to three minutes of retention if the video is not absolutely horrible you want to make sure you get them in the first 8 to 15 seconds with the hook so they don't leave you validate the video and then you keep the pace going you don't have to hyper edit Authenticity. People love authenticity. They love organic. The texture is better than polish. Texture feels real. Polish feels fake. So you can make authentic content. You can make it intentionally. And you just have to refine your abilities so that it takes two to five hours to make a basic video that is nine to 15 minutes. A lot of you struggle with the two to five hours thing for that because you're over editing. you don't understand your software, and you're not structuring and organizing your videos. You don't have to write a script. Writing a script is good. You can do what I do. You can use bullet points and an outline so that you end up not yapping too much. And so again, you don't have to make a Mr. Beast video. That's not the only way to win on YouTube. And you don't have to get hundreds of thousands of views or bust. That's always just the 0.1% of YouTube. 88% of videos on YouTube don't even get 1,000 views. in their lifetime, okay? So if you get 1,000 views on video, you're doing great. If you make 100 videos in a year and you average out to 100,000 views and you can just get three minutes of retention, three minutes of average view duration, you will have the watch time for monetization. And 100,000 views is usually enough with the 1% rule to get those views to turn into subscribers so you will get the monetization. You'll have what you need. This is the formula. And like I said, if you want to live stream, it's 12 hours a day to get it in 12 months. And it's 24 hours a day worth of, and by that, I mean 24 hours of watch time, 12 hours of watch time from live streaming a day to get it in 12 months, 24 hours a day of live stream to get it in six months. 48 hours of live streaming a day to get it in three months. So there you go. For everybody here who is struggling to just get to the monetization requirements, that is your answer. That is your system. That's how we teach it in Awesome Creator Academy. And it's worked thus far. If you go to any of my videos on getting monetized on YouTube, you will see literally hundreds, if not thousands of comments of people who have gotten this system to work for them. We're not even charging you for this system to get monetized. So it's just something to keep in mind and to consider as a framework and formula for getting your channel monetized. It just breaks it down to the math. We turn it into a side quest in a video game of here's your chain quest of how you're going to get these requirements done. So that's what we have for you there. We're gonna go to the next channel review there, but hopefully that helps all of you who are struggling with monetization out. If it does help you, let us know in the chat or let us know in the comment section of the replay, because I know that felt a little yappy on my part. You're here for the channel reviews, but I wanted more of you to get monetized, and I do think this will help. All right, so... For this review, we've got Don V. Learning Simple Editing. Learn Simple Editing. Don V. Filmora Tutorials. Okay. So Don V. Got the Don. So Don V out here. 100,000 subscribers. Congratulations. So this is a channel focused on Filmora. Now that Daniel Patel focuses on DaVinci, you might be the biggest Filmora channel out there. So congrats. And let's see. On the channel layout, you have various incarnations of Filmora as the playlist. I would actually move things like transitions and effects up and put that as the next playlist after Filmora 14 tutorials. I would also maybe instead of just leading with your latest videos, I'd make a playlist that says start here. Start here to learn video editing for beginners. Something like that. Or beginners start here to learn video editing in Filmora. That way it just gives a clear indication of, hey, this is the videos for you. And I would put them in a sequential order. Also, if you have not made a miniseries, a five to six part miniseries. You want to kind of go Green Ranger saga here. It's like, stay tuned for the epic five-part miniseries. Like, you want to do that. And I would do a five-part miniseries on Filmora 14 for beginners from start to finish. And I'd do like a five-part miniseries where someone can feel that in five videos, they can learn the basics of Filmora in a realistic way with a realistic workflow. So I would say that would help you. Obviously, the other thing that will help you is consistency. It looks like you've had massive, long, extended breaks in the content. Hopefully, nothing is going on in life that's causing that, but I've noticed that you've only got 84 videos here and that they're very, very much spread out across a long period of time. I would encourage you to really go hard in the paint and to try to put out one tutorial a week, two if you can manage it. If they're gonna be very short like this, then it should be two a week. If it's gonna be this short, it should be Tuesdays and Thursdays that you're putting out tutorials or something like that. Or Mondays and Wednesdays, Mondays and Wednesdays, or Tuesdays and Thursdays, something like that, right? Because these are relatively short and sweet. I think you can rehash the best tutorials you've ever done into being... recent versions of these for Filmora 14 or whatever the latest version is, I would redo these. I would also see what the most popular video editing tutorials for other software like Premiere, DaVinci, and Final Cut are, and then make Filmora versions of that. I would see what the latest and hottest tutorials for CapCut are, and then I would make the Filmora version of those, especially for effects. that would be the one that I would look at. And so, yeah. And I just need to do something in the chat real quick here. And so, yeah. So I would do that. I would try to create some consistency in your thumbnails. You have some here, but I would at least marry a font and color scheme for the tutorials. But in general, these are fine. I would do updates to these, especially the slow-mo one. And again, I would organize a playlist. I would have a playlist that's, hey, beginners start here. I'd have a beginner start here on your homepage for sure. So I'd have a beginner start here playlist. I would probably have an effects playlist. Then I would probably have. a how to edit in this style. And I would pick like YouTubers that everyone knows or content creators that everyone knows how to edit in this style, how to edit in this style. Then I would have effects from movies and then I would have that as a playlist and everything like that. Then I'd have a playlist for sound. Then I'd have a playlist for color. And so those are probably the buckets that I would probably be doing with regard to this. and then i might also have a how to edit um from start to finish how to edit a vlog from start to finish how to um screen record from start to finish how to edit uh edit a cinematic video from start to finish how to edit a travel video from start to finish how to edit a product review from start to finish how to edit gopro footage from start to finish how to um you know, color grade from start to finish. So I would have like a from start to finish series and I would do those. So that's how I would probably build out most of this when it comes to just organizing a YouTube channel. Yep. So that is my thought when it comes to your stuff here. I think that this is a strong channel and its biggest downside has been a lack of consistency. I'm assuming life got in the way, and that happens to the best of us, happens to me all the time. So I think that you'd benefit from that. From a branding standpoint, of course, when you get a chance, I would put the upload schedule when you get one, probably tutorials every week. In here, I would also encourage you to do some youtube shorts if you're going to do very short form things with quick hacks you don't have to be too aggressive on that if you only want to do that once in a while that's fine to build up for it i would encourage you to consider doing a live editing show once a week um where maybe you edit a uh video in a specific style or you take some request for showing people how to do something in real time, you do a show weekly, you get some super chats in, that might be interesting to do. Also, I would borrow from some of Filmora's branding here. You might personally have an attachment to the red and white, but I say if you're gonna have Filmora tutorials in your channel name, and that's what the channel is. I would borrow some of the branding and I would be decking out and using at least the color scheme. And I would have some things that kind of signal that this is for video editors in the visual branding. So those are my thoughts. But again, I would love to hear back from the audience on this. I think that Don V has a really good foundation for a tutorial channel. The content is evergreen. That's helpful. There are a lot of people with different versions of DaVinci out there. Not everyone gets into the full upgrade cycle. So I'm fine with the evergreen nature of having older versions of the tutorials out there. But I think they should update and have some of their best hits and redo those things for the current version of the software, how the interface looks, people also searching for that. And again, I think borrowing from, hey, where are the best hits with these other software and doing it for the Filmora folks. uh makes a lot of sense so i think the content buckets and content pillars that i laid out uh really make a good idea i think that they make strong thumbnails i would just like to see some continuity and consistency so people can make their videos a priority but other than that i think it was good gold star um so what do you all think in the chat do you agree with me do you disagree with me would you do anything different let me know in the chat if you're watching live let me know in the comment section if you're watching the replay and there we go don v Hopefully that helps. I feel like I gave you some really good advice from one tutorial creator to another. One of the things that I am very proud of is how well over the years my tutorials have done. I get people busting my chops about low view counts, but the thing is when I let my videos sit, it can be six months or a year and my videos will go up in views if I just don't panic. and get self-conscious about the view counts and delete anything, eventually my tutorial content wins. And I'll show you guys something. I'm one of the only YouTubers that will share my analytics and my dashboard. But I'll show you guys something. For any of you who want to make help content or tutorial content, people razz me about how many views... for my subscriber count all the time. But in my experience, if I let my videos ride long enough and their tutorials, eventually they do tend to work out and get more views. It does depend on what it is, but it has a better track record than not. And I have a couple of examples I can use for this. And this was also true before I made YouTube help content because I grew to 100,000 subscribers before I did YouTube help content off of software tutorials. But I'll show you what I've been up to. So we'll just take a peek at my analytics as a teachable moment here. So this is one of those videos that because I have 600,000 subscribers, people give me a hard time about. But recently. this video is finally getting traction you see this video did very poorly right out the gate when i uploaded it and it's been chugging along chugging along you can see that it's kind of been going consistently chugging along chugging along chugging along and here's the thing it started out with this really crappy 1.5 click-through rate but look at the click-through rate on this video right now this video is doing um you know 10 click-through rates So this video is on its way now, and if you look at the views, it's been struggle busing, but it's getting there and it's about to clear its 10,000 view mark, because in real time, it's getting all of its traffic from YouTube search, then it's getting externally from Google search and from ChatGPT. So this is a really good teachable moment for a lot of you that make tutorial content, is just let it ride. Most of it is we've now ranked number one in Google for this search now. And it's also getting recommended for the external 1% from ChatGPT. So we're even becoming an authority for the AI for ChatGPT for this particular thing. And it's how to add background music in Premiere Pro 2025. So the thing is, it is slowly getting where it needs to be as a tutorial video. and it's getting roughly almost 100 views a day, so eventually it's gonna do well. Why do we know that, though? We know that because here's another video I'm gonna show you that struggled its first 100 days. It took me almost 100 days, no more than 100 days. It took me about roughly 150 days to clear 10,000 views. 150 days to clear 10,000 views. A lot of you would have just deleted it out of embarrassment if you had a big subscriber count. But the video is now at 365,000 views because it just kept chugging along, chugging along, getting its views. Because the video, if we look at it over its lifetime of its performance. It got 1,000 views its first day, like 1,400 views, and then it struggled, and it got 20 views a day, less than 20 views a day forever. Then it went to getting 100 views a day, then 300, then 500, but it took a year for that, and now it gets 500 to 1,000 views a day and keeps getting it, and it's still growing. This video could be a half a million view video. It's a sleeper. You could just leave it alone. And so a lot of you will delete videos and get scared out of embarrassment or change the title and thumbnail when sometimes you need to just let it ride. And again, this video got all of its traffic from search. It did not do well with the YouTube algorithm. It won because of YouTube search. Now I do have videos that have done well with the algorithm that have done good on the homepage later. But some videos are sleeper videos and you just gotta be patient. You gotta hang in there. Most YouTubers' biggest problem is they quit too soon. They give up on a video too soon. This video had a terrible click-through rate. It didn't even break a 1% click-through rate for a very long time. And then look at this. It's actual click-through rate now is a 20% click-through rate. The thing all of you want, 20% click-through rate. But I had to wait and let that video ride for like, 300 days, like 500 days, some crazy thing. I had to let the video ride. I had to have a little faith here. Yeah, 20% click-through rate is insane. And the video has like a 60% retention rate. It's a good tutorial. And the thing is, everyone loves it because there's no fluff in it. So very similar to what Don V was doing with their Filmora tutorials, and that's why I want to definitely encourage them. but you say okay bro that's a like super old video what about something more recent okay well at the beginning of the year this video did badly too at the beginning of the year um this is something i uploaded earlier this year and again it did a thousand views out of the gate then it does it struggle buses struggle buses but oh consistent views forever on this video consistent views forever on this video again youtube search and external google search and um 43 average view duration on this one uh longer video three minutes for this one and um it did really well overall uh click-through rate on this gangbusters we've got double digit click-through rate here we struggled to get to a five percent click-through rate we've got somewhere between a 10 and 15 click-through rate here um this video's traffic it's coming from youtube search and external it's coming from google and chat gpt so again We're doing something right here. It's not the algorithm recommending this video. It is winning purely on search and videos like that do exist. So again, 10 and 20% click through rates are out there. This, this click through rate number here is an average over a length of time. So it's taken are like. uh two percent and three percent clicks right here and it's going average with our 14 and 10 and 12 but again our average comes out closer here again not a fluke because i did another video in this series um that's also getting traction now finally um again 100 views a day kind of traction slow burn um and eventually hopefully get to like 200 views a day but Again, another slow burn video. Didn't even crack 1,000 views its first day. Oh, how embarrassing. Oh, you suck, Roberto. And then it just trickles along that 26,000 views. They'll break 30,000 soon. No one's complaining about the video. And again, it's a video that is longer for what it is because it's a listicle video. It lists 10 royalty-free sites for music for YouTube. And those kind of videos people skip around on. So we know that this is hurting its performance just a little bit because people skip around on these videos. But they also do come back to them sometimes. So again, not the worst thing. And it's winning in search. So again. This video, not doing so bad. So we kind of did this with these two videos, and then this other video here is kind of meant to be a third video that kind of piggybacks on this idea of people adding music to their YouTube channels. And again, right now, it feels like this is struggle busing, but it will, I believe, inevitably work out just like the other two or three videos I showed you. and we'll get to 100 to 200 views a day over a period of time, and we'll just grow and grow and grow. But you have to have a little faith. You can't be impatient. And some videos, you just have to leave them alone and let them ride. And if you do, they can end up like this video with a gangbusters, like, you know, over 20% click-through rate at some point and could have hundreds of thousands of views. So again, if you just have a little patience, and you make the small tweaks and improvement to your videos. I know we're doing channel reviews, but again, the reason I interrupted to do this here and show you guys this is because I want to give you a bit more encouragement. I want to show you that no matter how big you get, you still have to fight for every inch in YouTube and the platform, especially if you're not gonna make Mr. B style content. If you're gonna make different types of content, there are different ways. There's multiple paths to be successful on YouTube. What we try to do is we try to show you different people succeeding at different paths. We try to offer a variety of options for people. That's why I told you how you can win with short form, how you can win with vertical videos, how you can win with live streams, how you can win with regular videos. And there's just a lot out there. And not everything is the homepage. We know the homepage gets 70% of the views, but 90% of all the views go to the top 3% of channels. 88% of videos never get 1,000 views. YouTube's top-heavy. Homepage is where it's at for views, but it's also the most competitive thing in the world. Maybe when you're a small creator, you can't always win the homepage, but you can set yourself up long-term with some search-friendly videos. And I'm not saying you have to go all in on search. That's my thing. And I get lower views for it if I optimized more for the homepage. But my content doesn't work for the regular person. It's for you guys. It's for a small niche audience. It's not for regular people. The ones that I do that work on the homepage are videos about making money. So, you know, it is what it is. How-to content wins on search. It doesn't win on this. And if you've been wondering. why is it so hard to find a tutorial on how to do a feature in YouTube, or I wanna add closed captions to a video in this software. If you're wondering why you're struggling to find helpful videos now that actually show you how to do something from start to finish, it's because everyone got impatient and abandoned tutorial content because it takes forever to get the views. So, again, I know I yapped a little bit for you, but I want some of you who make genuinely helpful content. Some of you are making travel videos. Some of you are making how to car repair videos. Some of you are making home improvement videos. I want you guys to keep believing in that content because a lot of you can be successful at it, but you gotta give it time. You gotta let patience have its perfect work. And sometimes you gotta let the search engine take the wheel. So this YouTube channel is Places to Visit. Strong name. Great ability for you to get the URL, the handle for that in YouTube. I do think, again, this is a beautiful landscape, but I think you would benefit from having a different profile pic than the banner picture here that just signals travel more. Maybe something with a globe and a plane for the profile pic. Fine with the banner here. We'd love to see for the banner what the upload schedule is going to be. Leading with your Patreon link. We're good with that. You do a bunch of charity events. Nice. So this is interesting. Let's see what this channel is more about. I record videos of events such as cultural celebrations, charity events, cosplay events, music videos such as covers. I'd probably scrap the music videos if I'm being honest. Exhibition events like NAB, CS. Okay, so here's the thing. I think some of this is a little too all over the place and that it could hurt consistency in views. Also, I do think you need to consider the viewer more with some of these playlists. Let's see what your most popular videos are to see what people liked more and what people liked most. Okay. So I think that this is a really good channel concept. You do so much content. I think part of the reason you're having a struggle to get to 100,000 subscribers despite making 2,300 videos, you've made more videos than me, my friend. I think it's just a lack of continuity. I think that people love the cultural events, the celebrations, the international stuff. And it's clear that that gets the most views is things with people like this Boston massacre reenactment. I think big things like centennial and century long anniversaries and stuff like that. I think big events like championships, national celebrations, interesting stuff here can do well for you. I think, though, you do have to consolidate more. and you have to figure out what this channel is. I don't think music covers is doing you any favors. I wouldn't include them. I think that what I would probably do is I would look at everything that has more than 10,000 views here, which is basically all this stuff going forward. And I would focus on making that kind of content. I would also make content where there was some marketing behind the event and in the travels, because your thing is places to visit. I would try to figure out the most interesting things for some of these destination places and spaces, if I'm being honest. And so I think that that's the key to all of this and an unlock here. Times Square, destination, I would do the Labor Day Parade. You say this is September 5th. That was probably like maybe a Labor Day thing. Like I would do the Labor Day Parade in New York, for example. I would do Dios des Muertos, Day of the Dead in Mexico. I would find culturally significant events across a calendar year. And I would actually make it my goal. I'll tell you how I would do a channel like this and maybe this will help you. to kind of just consolidate a strategy around this. Because the way that I would do this thematically, honestly, if it were me, is I would pick a year and I would pick maybe the 20 most significant events or weeks that are going to happen in a year. Or maybe I plan my whole year around this and say, what in the calendar year for that year was the place I can be that week and capture the most of what's going on that week because there may be more than one thing. And I would either dedicate a week or a month to capturing the most interesting things in a place or a region by week or by month in a calendar year. So what I might do is I might find the most culturally significant events. that are going to take place in an area or a region and put myself kind of in that place for that month if you have the luxury of travel like that or whatever if you don't i would just pick like maybe 10 um 10 things in um a year or something or once a month or something and i would just find the most culturally significant things i could cover in the world and do that and I would post those and then I would have these themes every year that are like really good. For example, I would decide where am I gonna be on New Year's and what am I gonna capture? And that could be more than one video for New Year's, but I would pick New Year's in a destination location. So New Year's in Paris, New Year's in London, or New Year's in New York is what I'd probably pick and I'd put myself there, okay? But if I'm gonna do that, then I might as well be there for the holidays as well. So I might as well be there for Christmas, and I might as well be there for New Year's Eve. And if I'm gonna do Christmas, I can get, so what I would probably do is honestly, I'd do something like New York or Paris or whatever, and be there in second half of December or last week in December through the first week of the New Year. And what I would probably do is be able to capture the parade. for the Christmas Day parade, and then the New Year's Eve celebration, and then anything that's happening New Year's Day. And I would just try to get five videos to 10 videos out of each of those that are really, really good. Possibly also some live streaming out of that. And I'd make a really good video out of those and capture that moment for people and make the most cinematic thing that I could out of that. So that gives you a bunch of stuff. And that's just around like a two week span for that. I would look at Thanksgiving and what else can happen around there. And I'd find somewhere to be for some kind of like Thanksgiving is more of an American thing. So I guess you'd figure out if you're going to do Thanksgiving for New York, then I'd figure out something else for a different part of the world. Like I said, for Diaz de Muertes, I would be in Mexico. You don't have to maybe do that every year. I would find other things culturally around the world that makes sense. And I would be there for those. I think people do like some of these reenactments. So I would figure out on a calendar year where I can be for some of those. And then I would like make a mini series around that so that you get maybe somewhere between five and 10 videos of that. and put that as a series for people. And so I'd plan every year's set of adventures. I would have a calendar in front of me. I'd plan every year's set of adventures. I'd think about the shots I'm gonna do and I'd figure out what the five to 10 episode miniseries around that is. And I would thematically make that. And I would make unique thumbnails for them by focusing on photography-driven thumbnails. I would find things like this American Dragon Festival and things like that. But I would also, thematically and timing-wise, find those. I would also coordinate with some of these events and see if I could get them to license some of my footage, pay for that, turn that into part of the business angle. Look, you got the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade here. Nice. But I'd be doing things like that. I would just be planning all of this extremely intentionally. I'd also try to figure out what the best thumbnails. for those things have ever been and then try to one-up those and plan that instead of just taking a still out of the video. So I would just get hyper intentional about that. I would also probably for every event that I do also fly my drone and then probably also use and have and promote a drone video for every event that I do. Those are things that I would do in the event that this was the channel I was making and how I would approach it. So hopefully you find that helpful here. And as I said, minor things to clean up potentially here. And again, I would just consolidate the channel. Clean up the playlist a little bit more and then by doing the themes that I'm talking about, you would get more playlist out of them. You'd also be able to do the adventures for the year. I also think if you show people the great places that they can visit and how they can plan their year out and enjoy these things, I think that that could be really cool and the people would really enjoy it. So those are my thoughts, but I'd love to hear from you who are looking at this in the replay or in the chat. What do you think? Do you think my idea of figuring out a calendar and planning the locations and the events and try to have an intention going into them for a miniseries, do you think that's a good idea or do you think that's a little too much? I also think that there's something to be said that if you have a drone, use it. You get the most unique shots in the world. I think as long as you have your license that you could get money out of the footage, both for the regular footage, for the festivals. Work with some of the tourism boards. You could turn this into a profitable venture, I think, very easily by licensing and selling footage. It's another angle to monetization, especially if you have the drone stuff as well. But what do you guys think? Do you agree with me? Do you disagree with me? Would you do anything different? Let me know in the comment section if you're watching the replay. Let me know in the chat if you happen to be live. Boom. We're a third of the way there. So I think that that is good. Let's see what you guys have to say in the chat. In the chat, We're hearing from Productive Dude. I think it's brilliant. It might be kind of challenging, but it looks like they'd have lots of volume in output, so you might as well implement that advice. Yeah, I think so. I also think the volume lends itself to the opportunity, like I said, to monetize through licensing the footage. Like, I think that licensing footage is underrated for channels that do events and travel. I also think a lot of people don't believe that they could reach out to the tourism board or to the event hosting companies and make some kind of arrangement where they can get some extra money out of that. Yep. So, again, just think there's a great opportunity for that. Let's see. Next up, we have Living in Omaha from our friend David Matney. I do think I have. the channel up. So let's go ahead. Actually, let's pour some more of this life-saving coconut water. Let's do that. Yeah, we're going to need a little bit more. Have a little bit of an ASMR moment here. There we go. All right. So we got living in Omaha, our friend David Matney. So David is a real estate agent. So this is brilliant for any of you who are out there and you're doing a business that has a service component in the real world. You're doing a business that has a real-world component. Learn from David here. Big, beautiful QR code there, calling out your locality, having a business line right there as your call to action. Much better for a business to have that than have your upload schedule. So well done, David. So he's got buying and selling here in Omaha, Nebraska. That's our friend Warren Buffett's country right there. So, what it's really like living in Omaha. Really strong thumbnail here. 20 things you must know before moving to Omaha. Great featured video opportunity here. Strong description, by the way, to promote the business. For those of you who are business owners, this is exactly, this is actually the perfect description template for a business owner. Instead of worrying about purely YouTube algorithm or any of that nonsense. This is exactly what a business owner should be doing with the description of a video. So well done, David, there. Want to shout you out for that. Strong thumbnails. You've got a thumbnail designer there. Good views on these. Also, good job on this from two weeks ago. Everything new and coming soon to Omaha. Best suburbs to live. So you have a great inventory here because what you have to understand is if you're a business owner, you're not playing the YouTube game, you're playing the business game while you're on YouTube. And so what David's done here is he's made a catalog of content that if you are a buyer in his area where he sells real estate, this channel is your go-to guide. It's a destination channel for anyone who wants to buy real estate in Omaha. nebraska so well done it is perfect for that now let's go into again i wouldn't improve anything about the banner here i would use a different pose just because david just for variety sake i would use a different pose i have no issue with um your profile pic by itself it's just that it's already in the banner here so for variety sake i would just use a different one a different angle um and so Just something to think about. Also love that your call to action here is just booking time with you and that you have the phone number right there in the about section again. Well done. So if we go here for the videos, you got a video out two weeks ago. Solid consistency. Once a week would be ideal. And it looks like you're roughly on that cadence. So again, well done. But you have an outlier video here. Everything new and coming soon in Omaha in 2025. I would learn. from this video and the takeaway I would have for this video is that people have a bias toward new and they have a recency bias and that this video entices them, excites them, and says right off the bat, you have not seen what this video is offering. So in a situation where you can make it clear that you have not seen what this video is offering, that's a strong video. So I would learn from that and maybe the key is you do another version of this for the winter or for the fall because technically i think we're not we haven't closed out summer just yet so maybe there's a fall version of this that happens uh in september uh you know or again you can go with the winter and do that for november maybe you could do both and so that could be very helpful again This is great. You got a video with more views than you have subscribers recently. And this is since we did our coaching call. So again, well done. Omaha home prices just dropped. Very good. 1,000 views plus on that. What real estate agents don't tell you about living in Omaha? I love this video. Again, it screams, you do not know the thing that this video is gonna offer. You have not seen what this video... is offering you so again i think you get another couple thousand view videos like this 9 000 10 000 view videos like this if you look at other things like okay what they don't tell you about this what you don't know about this what's new what's coming what you haven't seen i think there are ways thematically to take these successful outlier titles so if we look at uh titles that have done very well for you i think that we can get a lot of these that are not negative based titles and we can make title formulas that do well. So the top 10 things to do in Omaha, Nebraska, that's a four year old video. I would do an updated video. for 2025 that i would probably do so here's my five part mini series i love mini series i'm a kid who grew up in the 80s and 90s so for me the greatest mini series of all time will forever be the mighty more rangers green ranger miniseries stay tuned for the mighty morphin five part mini series with the green ranger saga like i love that so five video sagas series sequels are my jam i love this and for you i would do Top 10 things to do in Omaha in 2025. I think you should do it every year as a tradition to make an update video to that. It works, gangbusters, worked for me for years, still works to this day when I do it. So I think you should do that. I think for extending this to a five-part miniseries, that it's top 10 things to do in Omaha in 2025, top 10 things to do in Omaha, Nebraska. Top 10 things to do for families. Top 10 things to do for families in Omaha, Nebraska. Top 10 things to do for couples in Omaha, Nebraska. Top 10 things to do for millennials in Omaha, Nebraska. Top 10 things to do for young people in Omaha, Nebraska. I think that that's your five-part series. And I think you get to do the top 10 things to do in Omaha, Nebraska every year forever. And I think you should do a 2025 edition. So that would be probably the direction I lean in to take advantage of that successful video. If we have something successful, let's make a series. Let's make a sequel. We make a sequel trilogy. We only do... Six films. So some of you will get that joke. The absolute best places to eat in Omaha, Nebraska. You can do a 2025 edition of that. You also can do absolute best places to blank in Omaha, Nebraska. So it could be other things. The absolute best places to blank in Omaha. So that could be a lot of things. We have eating. So that's something people like. The absolute best place is to hike in Omaha, Nebraska. The absolute best place is to take your kids in Omaha, Nebraska. You see, we can get a trilogy out of that. I think every year you can do the pros and cons of living in Omaha, Nebraska. So definitely think you could do that. I think you can do the pros and cons of building, buying, and renting in 2025 as a trilogy. So I think that that'd be a good opportunity for you. I think moving to Omaha, 25 Essentials, you need to know in 2025. So I think, again, do that one every year. I think... downtown Omaha 15 must see spots and hidden gems 2025 every year my friend every year you did a top 10 types of homes to avoid I think you can also do a top 15 so yeah I think if we're optimizing around the videos that got the most views we can extend video ideas and a series out of that So again, since you're doing so many things well, I just want to give you some specific ideas of content for this. And I think that that would be incredibly helpful for you. If you ever want to do another call with me, David, happy to workshop more of this with you and get into some specifics. I think that you can get up to a really good cadence and a lot of this is very easy to execute for you. We've talked about some production things you can do as well. I also think there's opportunity. again, for a show for you around this. And oh, you know, so definitely let's talk about that sometime. But again, great job, David. Again, I think gold star. And I think that you are, I gotta figure out some physical way to give out gold stars. But anyway, I think that with you, you are a great template, not only for people in the real estate game, but for people doing a traditional business. while building their brand on YouTube and building a great catalog for their customers to feel like they're getting the best content for their needs and having a destination channel for your customers is key for every business owner that wants to be on YouTube and social media. So again, gold star for David. But that's my review. What did you guys think? Do you like the direction that I was giving David here with taking his best bangers and turning them all into series and sequels and trilogies and doing things like a five-part miniseries? I think that it's a really good direction to create reliability, binge watching, and that if you don't get them one way, you got four more shots in the barrel to try to hit them with. So I think it's a really good idea for that reason. I think that also lets you do your research one time and eat from it more than once. And I think for a lot of you that struggle, oh, it's so much to do this video and to do all the research, you guys are not milking the research and effort you put into one idea and extending that idea and benefiting from that research over and over and over again. The reason I was able for years to be able to put out daily videos was I was doing specific buckets. I had six buckets of videos I was doing Monday through Saturday. And then I was just doing live streams with you guys on Sunday. And I was doing that for three years, three years I did that. And so I had six content pillars and then Sunday for live streams for three years. And that's how we did it. And it made sense because it meant that I could film one set of videos in a series, four to five videos at a time, benefit from one setup and one research, and I could film like, okay, I gotta film the Monday videos. I filmed the month of Monday evergreen videos, and I filmed three to five of them in like a day, and then I had them. And the thing is because they all had a consistent theme, whatever research I had to do, I got to do it once and get four to five videos out of it because I made a series of like-themed videos. So themes and topics. People are so obsessed with one banger idea. And again, if you're not a huge YouTuber, it kind of doesn't matter, again, if you're over 30 for the most part. If you're a kid, go hard. If you're a kid, you're under 25, don't listen to Roberto, go. try your heart out, go live off of ramen, and try to be a big famous YouTuber if you're like under 25. If you have a family, if you have kids, if you have a grueling job or a career and you don't have anybody to invest in you and let you try your heart out to do YouTube, or you're not a broke college kid who could just live off of ramen, then that's not a good idea to try to go viral. uh we just chug along and we make the best videos we can and we try to do it in two to five hours get some sleep go back to work you know the next morning that's what us um old timers over 30 have to do with that you know uh that's what we got to do you know it's so hard now being an actual adult so yeah So yeah, for the young folks, if you're under 25, don't listen to me. Just go try to be viral. Go be Mr. Beast or something. I don't know. But if you're over 25, over 30, and you've got like, you know, 40 hours a week, you got a family, you got all that stuff going on, you gotta optimize your time. Batching content by theme, taking advantage of research once and... printing four or five videos off of it or at least three videos off of it. It's a really strong idea for a lot of you. If you can even like, you don't always have to put out videos every day like I was doing, but even if you're gonna try to increase the quality, let's say you're gonna spend 10 hours on every video. Okay, fine. If you're gonna spend 10 hours on every video and you're gonna put out one video a week or you're gonna put out two videos in a month and you're gonna spend 10 to 20 hours. at least milk the research twice, if not three times. At least do yourself that favor and consider the continuity of making evergreen, like-minded videos for the same group of people so that you got more than one shot you're taking. at the same audience member, at the same person who could like this thing. Because you're not always gonna think about it like this. I like making three videos at least from the same research and same idea because I get three at-bats just like baseball. It's one, two, three strikes I'm out before I have to move on to a new idea, right? Because if I do that, then I've got multiple opportunities to make this land. And if it does land, they can binge watch something. That's why I like three to five videos because it gives me enough swings. to hit something okay it's like that one's you know a strike that one is a foul you know oh you know did i bunt like let's go so i like having more at bats before i have to move on from an idea so i like taking an idea and taking a swing at the execution of that idea three to five times so my effort my research my b-roll my setup I can make the most of my resources one time with my limited time, limited resources, limited energy. And I think for a working class content creator or an older content creator that's solo, I think that's the right answer for a lot of you. So again, would love to see more of you. Take three to five swings in an idea. Use your research and use aspects of your footage. Shoot some extra B-roll. Do some extra stuff for that. That way, if you really want to try hard and you want to put five and 10 hours into a video instead of two to five, like I recommend, you at least can get more mileage out of that five, 10, or 20 hours. That's all I'm saying. So just take it under consideration. Yep. A lot of people are actually feeling that. Some of you are saying milk in the research is a really good idea. A lot of you are saying, yep, three to five. This is why I love your advice. This is exactly where I'm at. Yep. Yeah, you can streamline your research with ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok. Like, yeah, there's a lot that can help there. Yep, content pillars all the way. Yep, that's what we teach. Milk in the research is absolutely good advice. Yep. Thank you so much. We've got a huge five gifted channel memberships. From David. Thank you so much. Really appreciate that, buddy. And here's the other thing is, channel members, you guys are going to get access to my talk from VidCon this year. I just have to clean up the audio for you, but I'm going to be dropping my speaking engagement. You guys who are members already know that I dropped my speaking engagements for the members behind a paywall and for those who can't attend the events in public. And then next week, we're going to be doing VidFest here in Atlanta. I've got two talks. possibly a panel and i'm also opening and closing the event so we're going to be doing that and i'm going to try to record as much of it as possible um so yeah we're going to be doing that really appreciate you guys and also don v gifted a channel membership soundboard there so glad to have the soundboard back y'all hopefully you guys are hearing the soundboard so yeah we've got some more channel reviews so we've got productive dude we've got m a Couture Crafting. We've got our good friend, Romina. We've got TY Reacts to Bodycam. We've got Bunga Logic. And so, yep, I believe Bunga Logic is next up. My channel is about all things Japan. Thumbnails, titles, and video layout. How to improve, grow smarter and better. I love that. So that's dope. So we're going to definitely be seeing that soon here. Let's see. Just checking something here with the stream to make sure we're all good. Yeah, it looks like we're solid. That's good. Thank you to all the mods for holding it down and for making sure that we've got everybody here in the form so that we can track this. So we're just going to make sure we add the next couple of channels here. So we've got Bungologic, then we've got... Maria, and then we've got TYreacts, then we've got Romina. So what we're doing right now is I'm just setting up a window for all the remaining reviews so that we have that out of the way and it'll make things easier. Yeah, hopefully you guys are finding this helpful and you're finding the advice to be productive. The goal and the plan is also on my weekends. for me to go back and use OpusClip to cut these up for you and to make sure that you can watch on my highlights channel, which you can find and subscribe to there, Brody Blake Highlights. We're going to try to take the individual channel reviews from OpusClip, cut them up, and over the weekend, I'll start posting those. to go to the highlights channel so that's our goal just to like have them all stand alone in one place as like um you know like eight minute five to like 12 minute videos or whatever so we're gonna do that um eventually we might cut up questions but we think the easiest thing is going to be able to cut up the individual channel reviews so yeah so uh we're gonna do bunga logic next then i believe we have maria tokar then ty reacts so uh let's go ahead cheers well actually he's a japanese channel so we're gonna come pie bye all right so we have bunga logic i love this name bunga logic and all things japan so like this bunga logic uh channel is your resource for things japan watch the videos okay so i wouldn't repeat this here i would just say um like you can lose the word channel bungalogic is your resource for things japan watch the videos um and join me in i would say uh japan on tour let's go okay cool and then you have private tours japan which i believe you're probably promoting probably an affiliate uh for that and then you have your other uh stuff here so okay solid solid love this banner absolutely love this banner love this profile pic love the incorporation of your cat love the color scheme for all of this uh so we are good here no complaints from me so yeah that's awesome see the home page here uh looks like you got one of your latest videos here is the featured video a lot of people do that to try and make sure those get more views uh how many subs do you have you have 2 000 subs these views are not bad for a channel your size at all and with japan the topics are going to be very uh variety um japan travel planning lifestyle japan so good overall uh playlist here uh so home page layout and playlist uh very good I would also start to consider what are the most interesting things about Japan that you could do thematically and make playlist and content buckets around. But let's just see what has been. So the thumbnails are strong, believe it or not. And the themes that are good. A lot of these are not too cluttered. So you're not going to hear me complain about these. I love the food ones. um i think we're i think i end up actually know what themes are probably going to work for this honestly because i've always wanted to go to japan myself so um i know what probably will work here so one i think that a um first time travel first time in japan traveler's guide is a good series for you to do that's probably going to be an eight part series if i'm being honest if you want to do a um you know first time in japan uh playlist if you want to do a first time in japan list it's probably a five to eight video series honestly so i would do probably um a five to eight um part series there um so that's one uh thing you could definitely do as a series um for a content pillar content pillar I think you should make a content pillar that is for people who it's their first time visiting Japan. First time visiting Japan, that's a content pillar. You could probably think of that as your Japan survival guide as a content pillar. And the theme of that is, okay, this is for people who've never been to Japan and want to go. or have just got here. So that would be a content pillar. And I think one of the series for that content pillar is just a first time in Japan guide. So eight episodes for that probably. I then think the things to do is a content bucket. And I do love this idea of you doing 20 things to do in blank. So yeah, 20 things to do in Shibuya. 20 things to do in Tokyo, 20 things to do in Akiharabe, 20 things to do in Kyoto, 20 things to do in Shinjuku. So I think you could basically pick every province and also every tourist destination and stuff like that. So again, in my mind, it's Tokyo, Shibuya, Akiharabe, Shinjuku, Kyoto. And then you should also even do something like 20 things to do in like rural Japan and then give ideas about that. I can't name off the top of my head a rural province if I'm being honest with you. So again, I think things to do in Japan. I also think things to do, 20 things to do at individual places beyond provinces, just like so individual places. So if they go to a specific store or a specific tourist attraction or a specific theme park. So I think that is another content pillar. Then I think another content pillar is obviously the food content pillars. Then I think another content pillar actually should be Japan's hidden gems. um so then i think it's just weird things that people um wouldn't know how to um even like find on their own then i think because you like to do um diving and scuba and stuff like that i have an angle for that um you know how to have adventures in japan and how to have adventures in japan can include scuba diving hiking um and other adventure type things because you like obviously the scuba stuff but i think i can make it work if you just focus on the concept of people um having the opportunity to adventures it looks like you said for the travel thing that uh far side is your business so great job on actually like having a business behind this so uh well done there um yeah you seem to have kind of a hidden gems thing with the uh shibuya thing um this thumbnail is not terrible but i would a b test a thumbnail like this and try to um you know get more out of it um there are um videos that have like i would look at um thumbnails from viral videos that are around secret things or hidden places and i would try to recreate those uh for your thing um let's see i would also uh just because i know this will work Some kind of playlist that does something about either anime locations or anime things in real life, just because that would get people interested in the rest of it as just a way to discover the channel. So that'd probably be another content pillar I would do. Again, some of your thumbnails, your older thumbnails, obviously were not strong, but I think your new ones are on the right track. I really think that those are solid. Some of them, though, the text is not as readable or it's not as attractive. This one from six months ago is probably the weakest one from you. The rest of these are pretty good, pretty okay. But I do think the series idea will do good. For shorts, I think that for shorts, something interesting... would be potentially a short series on, definitely you wanna do food things for the shorts people that can't get enough of that. But also I would show people all the weird and interesting vending machines. And then I would also do shorts food videos, but also shorts food challenges. And then also shorts spicy food and spicy ramen and spicy seafood stuff. You do A-B testing, on all your thumbnails nice excellent yeah so those are my thoughts on the shorts here again you have some really um good ones i'd also do a uh video bucket that might be um um like how like what you can do on this budget or how much something costs so i would do like uh how much something cost kind of series as a content pillar, and one of the themes in that could be cheap versus expensive, how to survive in Shinjuku on this much, how to survive in Tokyo on this much, how to survive in Akiharabe on this much money, how to survive in Kyoto on this much money, and stuff like that. How much one-star hotels in Japan. I found the best cheap hotel in Japan. I found the best cheap hostel in Japan. You know, finding Japan's best Airbnbs, I think a lot of those would work. I actually think, to be honest, here's a weird idea, if possible. If you can pull this off, I actually have a weird idea. Try and borrow some of Ryan Trahan's videos, but in Japan. Try and do some of Ryan Trahan's exact videos, but how would those videos be done if they were done in Japan? So not kidding, not kidding. I think something like that could do huge numbers if I'm being honest. So again, something to think about. But I love this channel. I think that for a small channel with almost 3,000 subscribers, these views are not bothering me for the most part. I think some of them are hit or miss because there's just not enough. overall arching themes sometimes. But I think by giving you some content pillars to structure around, I think that that could be extremely helpful. And so those are my thoughts, especially as someone who wants very badly to go to Japan. I'm telling you like what someone like me would probably also watch. but also what a broader general audience would watch. But what do you guys think? Do you agree with me? Again, I think that the channel has excellent branding. I love the banner so much. I love the quirkiness of it. I love the cat on his shoulder. I love the hat thing. I mean, it's great. I do think that the thumbnails could be a little stronger, but I'm actually more concerned with the themes of the videos and the actual content strategy. And I think that we've laid out kind of a good one with these content pillars that would really help somebody who's... interested in experiencing japan even from a window shopping standpoint but what do you guys think do you agree with me let me know in the chat or let me know in the comment section if you're watching the replay and let me know what you would do differently boom there we go yeah i think it is impressive for the sub count i would absolutely agree with you uh productivity dude productive dude um i think that it's really good oh you've met um him in japan you met ryan trahan yeah he's a great guy great guy Impressive sub count for the sub count. Yeah, absolutely. I think for being a smaller channel, absolutely crushing it. Dex, try us next week. I know we've been on hiatus for a while, but we're back. Try us next week. I am speaking next week, but I think we'll still make time to do a channel review or probably later in the evening for that one. But we filled up our spots for tonight and we've got four more to go. uh but we filled them up tonight so come back next week and uh we'll see where you're at uh we know you're probably making some progress yep absolutely wow it's only nine o'clock yeah we might finish up before 10 tonight we're definitely not going to finish under two hours i can tell you that but we'll we might be able to keep it under three for a change and make sure that i don't lose my voice also definitely getting me hydrated So let's see. Next up, I believe we have Maria Tokar. Oh, this is perfect. It's going to be a graphic design freelancing channel. I'm the perfect YouTube educator for that. I'm probably the best YouTube educator for that one. So that's going to be really good. Let's see. Yep. Maria, you're next. Let's see. Thank you so much. Great insight. Really appreciate your time and critique. Yeah, absolutely. No problem. Let's see. Let's see. Just catching up on the chat a little bit. Hey, Stacey Brooks. Yep, so Maria, you're next. I know you were like, you know, wondering if we missed you, but you are next. We're about to do theirs right now. Again, I'm the perfect person to do this one. So we have Maria Tokar. I'm hoping I'm pronouncing that right. And this is a graphic design, freelancing, fonts, Photoshop, and creative tips for designers channel, which is the exact type of channel. I did back in 2013 for those of you who remember. So this channel has 381 videos and 21,000 subscribers. Congrats. Congrats. You're in luck because I actually managed in about 14 months to grow from 20,000 subscribers to 100,000 subscribers in this exact niche. So I actually have some really good advice for this. Now, something with this channel. I know you're trying to make the banner a little artsy and super interesting, but clear beats clever, especially in graphic design. So I would actually make this banner more reflective of what the channel is and reflective of some of your design skills and communication skills. And I would include a schedule in there. So remember, graphic design is less about art and expression and it's more about communication and intent. As you well know, as any. good graphic design student knows. So apply that with YouTube. With YouTube, we get the temptation to be more creative and more expressive, but the thing is being clear and communicating is really important because for YouTube, it's about the experience of the viewer. The viewer comes first, value for the viewer is everything, and they need us to be abundantly clear, not overly clever. Now, you got some great design chops in my opinion just at a glance here. but let's see what we can do about translating that to a better overall youtube performance i actually like how much it feels like your intent and photography and composition exist in your youtube shorts so very well done there keep doing that and keep that energy also some aesthetic consideration um i would take the aesthetic and posing of like your direction with the shorts For the profile pick there. And just be super intentional with that. Let's see here. And then you have this old series design with me. Photoshop tutorials. Passive income for designers. Very strong idea there. I dig it. So let's see the actual videos. Some very strong videos. The editing looks really good. So, again, I don't think you're probably going to have to improve the production and editing too much. You've got what looks like a good, sure microphone there. From a practical standpoint, I actually think you should take inspiration from... There's two YouTubers I actually think you should take inspiration from, even though they're not design YouTubers. I think you should take inspiration on your thumbnails from Hallie's world. Watch this. From a simplicity standpoint, take inspiration from Hallie's world because of the effectiveness of her thumbnails and the simplicity of them. She's in an adjacent niche to design, believe it or not, which is tech. Believe it or not, tech is adjacent to design from a YouTube topic cluster standpoint. Look at how clean and how much it doesn't even rely on text to be effective with our thumbnails. You can definitely accomplish that with some of your approach as well. I'm not telling you to make no text thumbnails. I'm just telling you that there's a lot that you could benefit from. It's not like you haven't executed no text thumbnails well before, or again, minimal text thumbnails. Text where it's needed, especially with design for communication, can be very good. So I'm not saying don't use text at all. But I'm saying if you're going to use elements and things physically in the thumbnail, again, large inspiration that you could get from Hallie's World here. And then another one is going to be HopeScope. So HopeScope easily has some of the best thumbnails on YouTube. And she has a new channel as well. So we have... so we can go both ways here um i would take thumbnail inspiration from hope spoke hope scope just because she's one of the best in the game again your content it's radically different but from a layout positioning um and use of color layout and even text She's dialed it in and I think this is actually perfect conceptually for you to understand what the execution of a YouTube video that uses multiple elements in the thumbnail is and the proper use of background, foreground, middle ground in the context of YouTube and design communication, contrast and color. So as a graphic designer, I would definitely tell you to take inspiration from HopeScope and Haley's World. And then for HopeScope's new channel, there's also a lot there in terms of inspiration for the thumbnail when using multiple elements because you like to use multiple elements this allows you to do it with clarity and not clutter and to do and execute it effectively so i would highly highly encourage you to study um the design and aesthetic choices of hope scope across her two channels and also haley's world and um to benefit from that and apply the lessons from that as a designer for your thumbnails because views are based on value for the viewer value for the viewer is perceived through topic title thumbnail and timing now for your photoshop stuff i think you should demonstrate a variety of photoshop effects and i think you should make these tutorials yet again maybe you do tutorial tuesdays like i did and you can do grab design tutorials on tuesday and then you could do um design and freelance um like actually I got it for you. Tutorial Tuesdays, Freelance Fridays, and you could maybe do, yeah, something like that, or maybe it's Tutorial Thursdays and Freelance Fridays. So maybe it's Tutorial Thursdays, Freelance Fridays, and maybe you do a Workshop Wednesday. where what you do is you help other graphic designers with uh reviewing their portfolios by doing a live stream uh so maybe you can do that and if you can fit it in i'm not telling you to do this but if you can fit it in maybe you work in a uh you know marketing monday and you teach someone um how to uh effectively uh market themselves as a graph designer and talk about um just the career aspect of it. That might feel like a lot or too much, but the thing is, depending on how you approach it, you could batch these things and pull it off. Again, the Wednesday video is a live stream, so it could be one to two hours, and when it's done, it's done. And you could, in exchange for five or $10 super chats, offer people advice on their portfolios and review their portfolio. So, you know, you could think of it that way. from that perspective in terms of what the content can look like. But again, I think for you with the things you want to cover, I think freelance Friday makes sense for you where you give advice to freelancers on Fridays. You could batch record that structure, those kinds of videos. You could do tips to tip Tuesdays and tutorial Thursdays, or it's yeah, you could do tip Tuesdays. So grab design tip Tuesdays, tutorial Thursdays. Workshop Wednesdays, Freelancer Fridays, and maybe, again, if you want to, you could do Marketing Mondays. And of course, take your weekends off. So again, if I was doing a graphic design channel all over again, if I had it to do all over again, Marketing Mondays, Tip Tuesdays, Workshop Wednesday live streams, Tutorial Thursdays, and Freelancer Fridays. If I was doing graphic design all over again, that's how I'd do my channel. And again, it might be overwhelming. You might not have to do that all at once. Again, I think if you batch record and you plan it, you could. And then from a design perspective on aesthetic, inspiration from Haley's World and HopeScope, especially in your case, based on what you are looking at. And I think, by the way, for making this stuff work, Process videos can work, and to a degree, process videos can be batch recorded, but I actually don't think it's that talking head videos don't work for you. I think you can pull off talking head videos if they also are vlog-like. So to pull off talking head videos... with vlog-like components. And by the way, yapping is making a big splash in terms of content, so I actually think you can pull off talking head videos. I mean, you have several videos that are talking head that have significant views for what the subject matter is. Again, I think that the views is more of a packaging deal than, oh, people don't like talking head. I think your retention's probably fine, by the way. What I would tell you is another YouTuber you can look at for inspiration from a production standpoint is NYC vlogger Taylor Bell. I don't know if you've seen her stuff, but she's a great case study. I want to cover this on the channel at some point, but she's a great creator case study. And she films everything with an iPhone Pro 15. and she films everything with that. She edits on her MacBook, but she's just shooting on a phone. And again, most of her videos are sit-down videos. I want to remind you guys that for most of Casey Neistat's videos, 50 to 80% of the video is him sitting down and talking to us like a friend and just yapping, talking to us like a friend, and only 20... that 50% of the video is cinematic in a Casey video. Casey has 20 to 50% of a cinematic video and then he spends the other 80 to 50% of the video sitting down and yapping and talking to us like we're a friend. And that's it. And a lot of YouTubers pull that off. So if you're worried about the talking head video, again the intro. can be vlog-like and cinematic and have some motion and some things going on and again you can still film the process part as b-roll while the talking head stuff is batched so i would batch the talking head part for my a-roll sit down actually used to do this so i would sit down and talk to my audience like a friend over coffee for most of the video but In the edit, I would edit in the process part that I shot. This lets me batch record all of the meat of the video. There's the talking head. And then the seasoning and flavor and garnishes are this B-roll that feels like you're watching this vlog-like process video. So hopefully, Maria, that helps you out with the things that you're the most worried about. for your content overall and that strategy. And like I said, you don't have to do the five video a week strategy, but I am giving you five pillars that work for a graphic designer in the form of marketing Mondays. So how to get clients, how to market yourself, how to use your social media, how to position your portfolio, tip Tuesdays where you could do a eight portfolio tips thing like you're doing a listicle video basically you could do a listicle video for tip tuesdays workshop wednesdays where you do a live stream where you review people's portfolios live in exchange for super chats um and then you could do your tutorial thursdays which you can batch record screen record photoshop tutorials you can batch that fairly easily and then freelancer fridays where you give freelancing tips and advice for getting clients and making money as a graphic designer, making passive income, making active income, getting clients, dealing with clients from hell, all the things. So those would be the five content pillars I would do as a graphic design channel. That is what my advice looks like for you. Again, inspiration for production and cinematography from Taylor Bell to our vlog-like relatable aesthetic. for graphic design and layout for your thumbnails, inspiration from Haley's World, and HopeScope's two channels for layout positioning, depth, and color theory. So again, that is my advice, and hopefully you found it helpful. So again, I know it's a lot, I know it's a lot, a lot, but having done a successful graphic design channel from zero to 100,000, I think that I'm in a good position to give that advice. I think that the direction of YouTube currently leans heavily toward authenticity, not over-editing. I think a lot of you still think that over-editing is what YouTube is now. And the thing is, we've come full circle to where people are moving away from that hyper-caffeinated Mr. Beast editing and spectacle-based storytelling. And what people want desperately is to hear from real people that feel less performative and feel more like a friend. and so um i think that that's the game here but i'd love to know what you guys think about my advice for maria um i tried my best to make it as realistic and actionable lending on my expertise the good thing about graphic design is that it's very consistent even over the years and that while there are things that change in software and innovation a lot of the principles will stay the same and a lot of the advice is going to be very straightforward and easy to understand for a lot of people. So again, what do you think? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Would you do anything differently? Let me know in the comment section. If you're watching the replay, let me know in the chat if you're watching live. Boom. And also again, for what you have been doing, Maria, and for having 20K subscribers off their 180 videos, which I think is better than I did initially, well done. Gold star. Gold star for you. And so yeah, I think that... you're going to do fine. And I think that just with more content, you'll get there. The reason I recommended the five video a week strategy, by the way, even though it seems intense, is because when I grew from 20 to 100,000 subscribers, I just went daily and I ultimately made 800 videos. And that's how I got to 100,000 subscribers. And there was no YouTube shorts back there. So I went from 20 to 100,000 subscribers in 14 months by just blitzkrieging content, just going. And it wasn't perfect. I think your videos look better than mine did at the time. I think your thumbnails look better than mine did at the time. I just think that the only thing I had to do was consistency. You're also in luck. In the graphic design and in the tutorials niche, content is thin. Quality is not great of what's out there. Most things are outdated. And there's not that many content creators doing it. Definitely not that many female content creators doing it. So you can have a monopoly on the market. You also do have to accept, though, that it is a niche market with a view ceiling. The view ceiling for grab design content is not very high, to be honest with you. So you do have to kind of take your lumps there and realize that 1,000 views to 10,000 views on a grab design video is gangbusters. It's winning because that's just how the niche is. And that's how the profession is, especially since a lot of people have been scared off of the niche because of AI. When people worried about AI, I'm telling you, as someone who's hired graphic designers, someone who still hires graphic designers, someone who's still a graphic designer in their own business, the only people who think AI is going to put graphic designers out of business don't know any better because I'll tell you what AI is going to do in the graphic design niche real quick. Small rant here, small tangent. What AI is going to do in the graphic design niche is eliminate clients from hell. It's going to eliminate clients from hell. It's not going to be the end of graphic design. It's going to eliminate the clients that graphic designers took because they were broke, but really hated and resented. And it's going to eliminate all those 50 to $200 gigs that new graphic designers used to do grudgingly. And we're just not going to have to do them anymore. It sucks for beginners for whom 50 to $200 is meaningful to get on a project in one to three days and turn it around. Like, you know, you're getting ranty, Roberto, here. The truth is for a lot of this AI stuff, as someone who literally uses AI every day for two to three hours a day in their work and in their projects, it's going to eliminate clients from hell because to actually get the best results from AI, your clients are not sophisticated enough, not tech savvy enough, and not good enough communicators to actually get a good result. from the ai they can get a pretty picture they can't get a good intentional graphic design and to market result graph designers are the only people who can use AI tools to replace graphic designers. The only people who can replace real graphic designers with AI tools are actual graphic designers and art directors and creative directors because we're the only ones with the knowledge, the language, the jargon, and the specificity and the communication skill and the understanding of art direction to actually get a reasonable result out of the AI. And we're also best when we take what we have, put it into the AI and let the AI tune it up to, you know, to 20. That's the best use of it. So the thing is, it's a garbage in, garbage out scenario. So in the hands of a real professional, AI turns someone into a super soldier. In the hands of someone otherwise mediocrity, in my mediocrity category, it might make them slightly good or slightly above average. But the thing is, a true professional becomes a demigod when they use AI. But someone who's a struggle bus mediocre mortal, will only get a passing result out of it. It'll feel super to them though, because it's better than what they could do. So that's just, you know, again, that's a little dark, but that's like the truth of it. So you're going to be fine. And I think that you're heading in the right direction. And I think that you're very good at what you do. You have a good eye for design. Just need some refinements. You have the great technical ability. Experience will get you there. and you know curating um your taste will also um help over time so i think you're you're gonna be fine i think you're doing great there's a big anti-ai designers community they feel um offended every time i use it um most of them though are not designers with a decade of experience because i don't think designers with a decade of experience and that have clients that actually pay good rates are threatened by ai are threatened by you I think that aspiring or hobbyist designers or struggle bus broke designers are the only people mad at you. And that's okay because I don't think that they're listening because if they were, they'd realize you're here to help. I had a problem even in my day, my day, I had a problem in my day, even with some of the tools, but we didn't even, even when I was an AI, believe it or not, believe it or not, a lot of people. There was an anti-Photoshop sentiment in design 20 years ago, believe it or not. Believe it or not, 20 years ago, people resented Adobe. Some people do now for the subscription model. So you have anti-Adobe designers too, which is weird, right? You always have anti-people. And I'm telling you, professionals know what they're for and don't have the energy to really be against anything. Antis are usually amateurs. Because professionals know what's for them. Professionals know what's for them. Antis are usually amateurs. Because the thing is, nobody with $5,000 clients is losing to AI. People with $50 clients are losing to AI. I mean, everyone starts somewhere, but I'm telling you, it's really just going to eliminate the clients from hell that are going to feel like they can do it themselves and take their chances with the AI. And that's fine. But I don't think people, clients who already struggle to write a creative brief or don't know what one is, we're going to be the best people in the world for designers to work with in the first place. So I don't think that something bad happens here. I don't think. anything of real value is truly lost and i think that the people who would otherwise have 50 to 150 clients probably have other means of using their skills and talents and technology i mean i think that whatever losses they think they have on 50 clients they could just be a content creator and make that so i just think that uh they should be optimizing for the market of more lucrative clients and Just get their level up and say, okay, there's a delay to getting work there. Or again, they could do spec work. I know everyone hates the dreaded word spec work, but they could do that. So I think that your content is fine. I don't think you need to entertain the antis. I think that you just attract your tribe. And I think that professionals know what's for them. And I think that antis are amateurs because professionals know what's for them and what's not. I feel that way about a lot of things. bro's got opinions so yeah but yeah another reminder is for those of you doing talking head videos shoot process b-roll shoot b-roll doing things open the video with a lot of that b-roll up front of the process of doing things so people don't think oh they're just gonna sit there and yap like you know because The thing is, if you do enough of it and they give you a chance, they won't mind the yapping. A lot of people actually will love it and stay for it, as evidenced by those of you who sit here for three hours and watch me yap. So, you know, I think that. M.A. Couture Crafting says, on average, how long does it take to reach 100K? About five to seven years, if it ever happens, leaning much more toward the seven than the five. It could be. three to five which short form um going hard on short form these days so going hard on short form um you know three to five years but going hard on short form means making um roughly so what going hard on short form looks like to get that to the gear in three to five years is also uploading um 365 to a thousand shorts a year to get that And for long form, the five to seven years is because that's how long it takes most people to make 500 to 1,000 videos because on average, it's about 700 videos if you do long form only to get to 100,000. I did 800 videos. MrBeast had to do 460 videos just to get 10,000 subscribers, if that's any indication. So again, to get to 100,000 subscribers, I'm not joking. For most creators, if it's long form only, The reason it takes five to seven years is that's how long it takes most people to make 500 to 1,000 videos. Making less than 100 videos and getting 100K is super rare. Most people can't even get monetized in their first 100 videos. To give you a clue on this, PewDiePie's first 100 videos only gave him 2,500 subscribers. MrBeast's first 100 videos only gave him about 800 subscribers. He couldn't even get monetized. It took him two years to get his first 1,000 subscribers. Two years. Two years. It took him like 300 videos. It took him 460 videos to get to 10,000. Marques Brownlee, MKBHD, has 20 million subscribers now. It took him 100 videos to get 78 subscribers. So yeah, it's usually most people can't even get monetized off of 100 videos. They can't even get monetized off of 100 videos, let alone get to 1,000 subscribers off of them. That's most people. So again, these viral YouTubers that you guys see that just They're anomalies. They're anomalies. Like nobody does this. I'll give you an example. There are 115 million. We have this article. We have all this information over on awesomecreatoracademy.com. If you go to awesomecreatoracademy.com, it's not just where we sell the coaching and the products and the memberships and stuff like that. We also have some of the best articles for content creators over on Awesome Creator Academy. So if you just go to awesomecreatoracademy.com, you'll see our articles. So we did a breakdown on how many. channels have 100 000 subscribers in the world how many youtube channels there are in the world how many channels have a million subscribers how many have 10 million all of that and so the stats came back and basically like something like 600 000 channels worldwide have silver play buttons or something like that but there are 115 million channels in the entire world so less than one percent of channels have a play button um three percent roughly of channels are in the partner program because it's according to youtube ceo neil mohan it's like three million channels in the partner program it's less than less than four million channels in the partner program and there are um 115 million channels uh worldwide uh according to gmi statistics um which i believe is global media Global Media something. I think it's Global Media Insights. I want to say it's Global Media Insights. So it's like 115 million channels worldwide and 3 million in the partner program, about 600,000 worldwide with play buttons. That's it. So on average, five to seven years on long form to get to 100,000. 500 to a thousand videos roughly depending on your niche and your category your talent the reason it's five to seven years is it could take less depending on how you compress the videos like i said for me it was three years but that's three years and uploading 800 videos 800 videos mr beast again 460 videos to get to 10,000 subscribers. I know it's popular to say quality over quantity, quality over quantity. That's for anomalies. I hate to break it to you. It's mostly rich kids. It's mostly rich kids, or it's people who retired, sold a business, and then had money to start a YouTube channel. I know a YouTuber that blew up really fast on YouTube and went quality over quantity, made cinematic videos. What y'all don't know is that YouTuber sold their business at a seven-figure exit, basically walked away with like $5 million and got to spend one year making their first video and it made it was a viral video that blew up their channel but they they had unlimited money and unlimited free time and resources to train themselves up and put a hundred hours in every video and yeah if I was a millionaire if I was rich if I had like five million the bank I could take off for a year to make one video and make it go viral too I could go ahead and crank out videos and put 100 hours into every video, 200 hours in every video if I was a millionaire too. So that happens sometimes. I know a YouTuber, his wife was a successful real estate agent. She saw how much he hated his job. She was crushing it, making six figures. She fronted $30,000 and gave him two years to make his YouTube channel succeed. And he did it. And then she saw how much he loved that she became a content creator, still just did real estate on the side. And then they both became content creators. She first pulled him out of his job and let him do his passion. Not everyone gets fortunate enough to do that and have someone invest in them like that. Another YouTuber was in med school, dropped out. Parents were really upset. that she explained her situation to them and how sad and depressed she was and that there was only one thing that made her happy it was content she ended up um you know taking two years off they said all right we're going to give you two years if it doesn't you go back to med school if you don't get a million subscribers she got a million subscribers Like the people who get to blow up and do quality over quantity, a lot of them have a wildly different situation than most of us. They are not working class content creators. They don't have like a family with like three kids or something like that most of the time. They don't have to work 50 hours a week just to get by. Like, so for realistically, the reason it takes working class content creators. five to seven years to get to 100,000 subscribers is they're doing it on the scraps of energy after working 40, 50 hours a week and then still having to be an adult. The people who blow it fast are usually young. If they're not young, they're already successful in some other way or they have somebody to pour into them and to let them chase this and to give them six months or a year off for two years to do it. And that's the backstory. Whenever other people are telling you, oh, I got lucky, I got lucky translates to I was a kid from a middle-class family in the suburbs who failure means working for mommy and daddy or mommy and daddy's friends or, oh my God, I have to go back to the suburbs to a half million dollar home or I have to go back to college after taking a gap year. Like when super says, oh, YouTube is luck, it's not luck of the algorithm, it's luck of lifestyle most of the time that they get to try hard because their situation allows for it. Their so-called luck is that, oh, they were lucky they had the resources to do this and buy other people's time or buy coaching or do this other thing. So the euphemism they're using for luck is that they have undisclosed advantages and privileges that you don't have. And it's not really luck. It's material science. It is they have a physical situation that is drastically better than yours or different than yours in a real tangible way. It wasn't serendipity or happenstance or the algorithm blessing them. It was that they had more time, more money, more energy because they weren't competing with 40, 50 hours a week of a day job in many cases. That's the harsh truth of it. So the people who get to do it fast is because they get to go full time first without needing the content to make any money. And again, a lot of them won't tell you that. unless it's in an interview or a podcast where they've moved beyond caring about it. But the real backstory of successful YouTubers is often that. It's often that for the outliers that get to like a million fast or whatever, right? For the rest of us, it's a journey that's five to seven years with no quit. And it's rough. And most people don't get to the thing that they're looking for from it because just life gets too hard. to also endure the disappointment of not having videos perform the way that you would like. And so people are not consistent and they also don't put in the effort to improve because life is hard and then YouTube is hard. And a lot of people can't take that much. And it makes me really sad that that's true because I just wish that more people got to a place where they had the opportunity to try their heart out. But if I'm being honest, a lot of people just don't get that opportunity in terms of the time freedom and the energy to really go after this. And it breaks my heart. But it also breaks my heart that some people just won't be honest about that's the biggest advantage in YouTube is having all of your time and all of your energy, even without a bunch of money. And again, I just wish people would be honest about that. My advantage with YouTube, I was a freelancer. You know, just like Maria teaches people, I was a freelancer. So I left the nine to five job to do freelancing, not necessarily to do YouTube. I got the opportunity to do YouTube because as a freelancer, I could control my time and my energy and my priorities. That was my single greatest advantage is that as a freelancer. I could wake up as early or stay up as late as I wanted or needed to, and I could work on what I want. And sometimes, oh, hey, I sent the client workout. Oh, great. They're not going to get back to me for a day or two while they're reviewing the project. Oh, great. I can make some content right now. Boom. That was my situation. I was a freelancer. I was in control of my time, control of my energy, control of my priorities. So it made doing content and making multiple videos. and batching them and editing them and being a week ahead on content it made it easier yeah see i feel like this is exactly the contradiction i'm talking about somebody said that it's a lot of luck and then in the same breath they said they hired a team to help them so it's not a lot of luck it's that they had an advantage it's not a lot of luck it's that they had money to co-opt other people's time energy and expertise that's not luck that's having more money than someone else That's not luck. That's a physical thing. So again, I hate this contradiction of luck, and I know people think it's immodest or humble or it means you think you control the universe like a god, but no, no, no. The reason I discount luck is because I don't think that regular people are generally, in their life, able to say they're the beneficiaries of luck. What they have is they have real circumstances in front of them. that they can say are real for them. They have real struggles they can say they're in front of them or they have real advantages that they know would make a difference. So I would rather, I wish people would stop saying luck and just tell you what their resources are. I wish people would stop telling you that it's luck and tell you who helped them. Stop saying it's luck and tell us what your resources are. Stop telling us it's luck and tell us who mentored you. Stop telling us it's luck and tell us what your unfair advantage actually is. I think luck is a lazy way of not disclosing that you're a beneficiary of nepotism or a beneficiary of resources or that you are a beneficiary of favorable circumstances that you may have worked for or that other people may have worked for. Like, I think if you just laid out what your situation is and stop the luck nonsense, I think people would be better off if creators were honest instead of saying, oh, it requires a lot of luck. Tell us what your resources are. Imagine a teacher telling you something is luck instead of telling you what chapters you need to need, what books you need. Imagine a teacher telling you that life's success is luck instead of telling you what scholarships and grants you qualify for based on your circumstances. Imagine that. Imagine a guidance counselor telling you that life is luck. Instead of telling you, here is the school that most benefits someone in your situation in the tri-state area, and this is the right school for you for the thing that you want to do in life. Or, hey, this is the situation that you have and you need to get out of your neighborhood and your house. Here's the fastest track for you to be able to qualify to get into a good school. Imagine them telling you, oh, no, you got to be lucky. Instead of telling you what your ACT score needs to be, what your SAT score needs to be. Here are the most favorable scholarships and grants for you that you qualify for the most. See, that's what bothers me is I hate and I don't talk about luck and I give no credit to it because what I would prefer to do is ask you about what your situation is and then try to map a resource that matters and applies to your specific and unique circumstance instead of worrying about luck. I would rather tell you what circumstance your maps to the resource that you need, what your circumstances. Let's ask you the question. Where are you at? What's your situation? How much hours of availability do you have? How much spare money and time do you have? What's your energy like? What's your schedule like? Do you have kids? Do you not? Are you in a relationship? Are you single? Where's your geography? It's important because it makes it able to say, well, here's in your situation what the optimal amount of content and effort is for you to not burn out. Here is what is the most affordable thing for you to be able to do. Here is for your genre of content, what the standards are and what would make you competitive. Or here's a wedge issue in your community that you can take advantage of. Or here's what's getting momentum in your community right now. I got something on me from when I was cleaning earlier. I was cleaning earlier and I got all this debris on me. But yeah, just figure out how to tie people to the actual resources that their situation demands to get a successful outcome and show them examples of the standard required to compete at the right level for what they're trying to accomplish and be realistic with them and break down the process for those outcomes and what it typically looks like for someone like them specifically and uniquely. Because it does exist. It does exist. So find that. I think telling people to be lucky is lazy, and it's the most terrible advice. If a guidance counselor did that, they should be fired. So I don't like when someone claims to give advice and they introduce this idea of luck. Disclose what the resources need to be. Disclose what the standards are. Disclose what the best practices are. Disclose what the realistic expectations are. Disclose what the 10 most common mistakes and points of failure are. what they genuinely need and want to know about the situation they're about to walk into so they're not blindsided. So they're not blindsided and so they aren't delusional and so they don't have false expectations and so that they know what not wasting their time looks like. That's what I think the right thing to do is. But again, that's my high horse, that's my rant. Let's go to TY Reacts Bodycam. to body cam and let's review his channel before I end up on another tangent I think we have his channel up here so I think we can go ahead and do that so we have a reaction channel here 349 videos 238 subs TY reacts to body cam danger do not enter actually kind of dig this banner but as a reaction channel I think just setting up again how often you react would probably be good you know So that's something I want to always iterate is that if you have a schedule, especially as a reaction channel and your daily, I would just let people know, hey, new videos every day. So there is that. You have regular videos and shorts here. You know what would be interesting is if you, from a production standpoint, if you reacted to multiple videos live daily. and did it live and used OBS, you could always clip the videos and then upload them, and that would probably help you a lot, is to use that workflow. And you could multi-stream to YouTube and Twitch, and that'd probably help and give you more monetization opportunities. The reaction style thumbnails, these are not bad in terms of the reaction faces. But you do need to position the videos and like color correct the thumbnails. Now you have some that stood out here. And for you, I think the reacting to body cam footage is a really good and unique genre to reactions. So you have the opportunity to have outlier videos where you get much more views than subscribers. Again, my workflow for this for you to make this easier would be um you could react to multiple videos in a single day to hedge your bets by live streaming and reacting to multiple videos at once and then just clipping those videos and then posting them and i think that that would speed things up you can use obs to do this and obs is free okay so i think that will help you by the way great profile pick for the reaction videos here by the way um so i think it'll help you your titles are probably the weakest part, honestly, and not the thumbnails. So I think you really have to work on the titles. And I think it has to be a much more enticing title overall. And I think your most successful videos in some ways are indicative of that. And I would use things that basically, it's not about just inciting curiosity. I think it's about creating stakes in the video and making someone feel like almost a sense of FOMO of I have to see how this plays out. I have to see how this plays out. Why did that happen? I think it's more about why did that happen is what you have to accomplish in the video in terms of the positioning. So I think that would make the most sense. Because the thumbnails for this genre, you're pretty decent as far as that goes for what the reaction genre is. And again, how long have you been doing this? Because I think your channel is relatively new. So I think for a new channel and doing the reaction stuff, you're fine. The number of videos seems like it, you know, like, oh, it's so much to get so little. But again, not for what you're doing and the way you're doing it because... you should look a little bit you should do it differently but you should take inspiration from nate the lawyer a friend of the channel nate the lawyer huge youtuber you should take inspiration from nate the lawyer now again you don't have to do political videos but again doing if you if you look at this this is like a police sergeant uh video he does a lot of like stuff where uh the police get uh into trouble in some cases but also celebrities and politics and stuff like that but if you take the title strategies from nate the lawyer you don't have to make his same videos but if you take the title strategies of nate the lawyer and you apply them to your reaction videos around body cam footage, which is usually going to be police body cam footage, there's somewhat of a crossover there and I think it could work for you. So I would drastically look at improving your titles. I know a lot of people would lean into the thumbnails. And again, I'm not against you going to three a days to try to get videos to pop off and head into a different direction because again, you've had outliers. And I think that It sounds crazy on the three a day thing, but using OBS as a workflow, if you put out three a day, you're getting three swings at getting a video to go big like these. So that's what I think could help you here. You probably have the watch hours, honestly, for YouTube, or you're pretty close to them by now. You need more subscribers. For subscribers, I would tell you to ask for the subscribe about two minutes into the video. Hey guys, if you're watching and you're enjoying this, make sure you hit the subscribe button. It really helps me out. It's all you have to say and people will usually do it. And that will help grow the channel a little faster there. Again, I also think the live streams could help if you're not at the watch hours. I don't agree with... this thumbnail strategy for your shorts with the YouTube play button in there. I don't think people care about that. Your biggest videos don't rely on it. So I would just go with your standard thing that worked here for your most successful YouTube shorts. I think it's fine to keep doing those as well. I think with you doing the instead of. If you're doing the link in bio for the full video thing, that's probably more of a TikTok thing. I'm also fine with you doing the repurposing for the short form to try to push people to YouTube. So that's fine if that's what you're doing. But I think that this can work. I just think that this is definitely a quantity over quality play in this particular niche. So that's where... I think you need to look more, again, in this case, with the long form to the titles. And then I think the live stream strategy helps as well. And then cutting those up, because then it just makes the videos for you. Because again, for these, I don't think the issue is the editing. I don't think you need to edit. I think you just need to do reactions to these videos. Now also, this is the bio cam footage. Again, for reaction style videos, If you want a reaction channel to look at, it's a completely different genre than you, but it's Magnify Reacts. So, again, reaction channel, it's a music reaction channel, but again, 100,000 subscribers, you know, definitely helped Anwar with this in the academy. But again, it might be like, hey, these videos, these views are not all that or whatever. with reaction videos and it being quantity over quality. It's about your outliers, as per usual, because look at the outliers. And again, from reaction thumbnails, if you want what the gold standard is for reaction thumbnails, it's basically Anwar's thumbnails. So you could go this route for the reactions, even for your style of stuff. But it's the outliers, because look at how many videos. He's done so many videos, because he's doing three a day. But look at... how many outliers he has with massive views. So that's why for reaction videos, it is a quantity over quality play. And that's why you would go in that direction. So hopefully that helps and you got some value from that. Like I said, there are things you could do to improve the banner there, but I don't hate the direction. But overall... What do you think about my idea about using OBS to make a turnkey workflow for reaction videos where you record three or five different reactions and then you're able to edit and clip those in a day, upload three a day and have some for the next day and so on and so forth and just be able to farm reaction videos and know that you got three swings a day and they'll hit. And the reason I say three a day youtube notifications three you get three of them in 24 hours so it would be leveraging that so not counting shorts and then that would be my strategy there you could use obs clip it up then you have multiple shorts as well from that you can direct them to the long form so it's a turnkey system for productivity and maximizing time especially for a creator that doesn't have a lot of time and it also just lets you farm the footage and so that would be my answer for a reaction style channel is just do that you also benefit from the live streams and when you get monetized well it helps with the watch time for getting monetized for sure and then when you when people know you're tuned they're tuning in every day and you're live they're even helping you find and source the footage at that point because they become a community and you get to get super chats from that when it happens so then boom you got lives you got videos and you got shorts all from farming the live streams so it's this turnkey structure that gives you every video format you need so Those are my thoughts. Let me know what you think in the comment section. Let me know what you think in the chat. If you're watching live, would you do it any differently? What other thoughts do you have about reaction videos? So we got another one. Hopefully that helps. Yeah, I agree with this one. I was talking earlier about just stop telling people, oh, you have to be lucky. Tell them what resources you have. It's like, yeah, it's like someone taking steroids. and to look a certain way and then telling you oh it's good genetics it's like yeah i feel like luck is the worst snake oil i think people think that advice is snake oil no i think telling people they gotta be lucky a snake whale again if a guidance counselor told a kid that they've got to be lucky to be successful in life and telling instead of telling them Hey, here's where your GPA is. Here's where it needs to be. Here's the standard you need. Here's the SAT score you need. Here's the ACT score you need. Here's the college that has the program you need. That's specific actionable advice that's about their circumstances and requires someone to ask questions and get to know you. I hate the idea of telling people success is luck because whether you believe in luck or not, the truth is somebody needs to know what is the most reasonable tangible thing they can do in their circumstance. And I think that anyone giving them advice needs to tell them that and stop with the luck nonsense. Like tell someone what the resources are and how to get to the resources. Yep. Yeah. For the live react for the reactions, I think live streaming using OBS, you get the recordings from your OBS. So you don't have to download them from YouTube. So you get the highest quality possible by doing that. It sets it directly on your computer. It's in real time. um and so you're able to do that you're also going to hang out with your community you want to come back for things um and they'll watch their favorites and so yeah i would i would do that Also, yeah, I agree with this. Some people are just aren't educated enough to know it's not luck. I agree, but a lot of those people also give advice. I also think a lot of successful people say that things are luck so they can sound humble and also because sometimes they can't articulate what their process was. They did it intuitively. So from their perspective, it's luck because for them, they have talent. Some people with natural talent don't have a lot of empathy for the rest of us that aren't as talented. And so something comes natural to them. So they say it's luck. But for us, we'd have to work at what they're naturally gifted at. So the thing is, for us, that luck doesn't exist. It's not real for us because we didn't have their genetics or we didn't have that situation. So we would have to go through a process. Now, because they can't relate to that, they may not be able to articulate the process that we should go through. And that's OK. I just think that if someone doesn't know how to articulate. how they accomplished what they did and what is a resource they used, what is a method they used, what is a process they used, who is a mentor that helped, what is a circumstance they needed. Like I tell you guys, my situation is because I was a freelancer, it meant I had time freedom and it means I had energy management in my favor. That's very important. So I was able to benefit directly from that in a way that I couldn't if I had a nine to five job. So that's a very specific example of here's what my situation was and what it allowed me to do. And here's why that mattered. And here's why that's an unfair advantage. So again, a lot of people use luck as a euphemism for circumstances because they can't articulate how to make that applicable to someone else's situation, which just means they may not be a good teacher or a good mentor, which is fine. Not everyone is. What I believe someone has to do is step back. And if they want to give advice, ask the person about their situation and circumstances, realize there might be a gap in your experiences that you've lived through and their experiences that they've lived through. And then think about very carefully, what would it take to close that gap and whether doing that is reasonable? And if it is reasonable. What are the physical material resources, circumstances, and standards that they'd have to have in place in order to close that gap and to be able to be in a position to do what you've done and to have that opportunity? More importantly, if there's something you can do for them and it's not unreasonable or it's not going to be uncomfortable for you, make the offer to do that for them. So let's see. Next, we have our good friend Romina. So let's go ahead and get into it. So we have our friend Romina Espinosa. And right off the bat, good profile pic here. I see what you're going for with Delete Distraction, Reboot Focus, Upgrade Life. I do not have a big problem with this idea for the banner. The execution of it is that some of the elements might be too small to read in most screens where they would display on YouTube for them to make sense. that they need splashes of color to be effective i understand what you were going for with the minimalism and so on here i think that they need a splash of color if anything i would make the background here um and have them the white elements i would keep the elements white and i would add a bold splash of color um here um but i like what you got going on i like what you're doing here i don't think for 77 videos almost having a thousand subscribers and monetization is bad if i'm being perfectly honest um let's see i think that you can fill out the um home page a little bit more in terms of playlist let's see the videos strong thumbnails i get very much the same vibe as Ruri Ohama. So I like that. I do think your thumbnails, even retroactively, would do better with text than not. Let's see what your outliers look like and see how we can capitalize on your outliers. Aha! So, something most of your eye outliers. Something most of your outliers have in common is numbers. And I think you can repeat this. It sounds bad to do repetitive videos, but again, it almost always works, and almost every big YouTuber does this. Almost every big YouTuber does this, and it almost always works. So what I would do in this situation... And what I've done successfully in this situation, and what I've seen many YouTubers in information spaces, including Ali Abdaal, Ruri Ohama, and Matt D'Abeladu, is repeat your bangers. Repeat your bangers, but with a twist or just an update for 2025. So I think that 25 apps I'm deleting in 2025, digital minimalism, that's a video to do, makes sense. What's on my iPhone? In 2025, digital minimalism, I think will be a banger. 25 things I stopped doing, 25 more things I stopped buying as a minimalist. Tips to declutter your life. That's how I would do that title. Stop buying, S-H, asterisk, T. That's the thumbnail. Stop buying. So I would do that. I think 10 or 15 things I'm quitting in 2025 to simplify my life. I love this nine things I stopped buying to get rich. Coffee isn't one of them. I love this idea of I'm doing this or not doing this, but also not this way, not like this. I would also find advice that blew up from Matt D'Avella, Ali Abdaal, Ruri Ohama, and other people in the productivity, minimalism, and lifestyle space. I find people who have viral or near viral videos with very strong opinions that you disagree with, and I would make videos openly disagreeing with that advice. for everybody who felt that advice didn't serve them. This is a strategy that was successfully implemented by Graham Stephan when he was starting out as a YouTuber. He did a thing that he didn't agree with Guy Kawasaki on. He did a thing that he didn't agree with Gary Vaynerchuk on. He did a video on what he didn't agree with Dave Ramsey on. So he positioned himself, not as haters of those, but as fans of them. who that advice didn't fit for and explained why it didn't fit for them and what did and who it might not fit for so that people can say, thank God you gave me permission to disagree with this. I really like this expert. I really like this guru, but I felt afraid to disagree with them on this and I felt like everyone would think I'm stupid because they're so smart, they're so rich, they're successful and I'm not. Giving people permission to express that something didn't work for them and to understand why, and that wasn't bad advice, it just wasn't for them, here's what is, makes people realize that there is an alternative out there where they will feel seen. So consider that and the leverage of that and what that advice left out for you and why it didn't serve you. So I would say that that's definitely a thing. I would consider from a thematic standpoint, a thematic standpoint for content pillars. Digital minimalism is a content pillar. Minimalism itself and anti-materialism as a content pillar. I would say productivity. I would say... I would say positive productivity or some other version of productivity because then it's like not your typical productivity tips, not your average productivity guru tips. So I would find something like positive productivity or passive productivity or something to brand yourself on to where your productivity is different. Playful productivity. Knowing you personally, playful productivity might be a thing. um serious productivity for unserious people you know like maybe that's it so i think that that could be extremely attractive for a group of people and uh the goal is to attract your tribe as i would say so um i could do that i would do that and um digital minimalism also lets you tap into some of the productivity side but also some of the tech youtuber vibe um like you did this top four essential apps digital minimalism for a simple life um that could be a theme where you actually do um apps for a simpler life so i think actually i have it so there's a content pillar you should do that is um really about um some lifestyle tech that makes life better and less overwhelming I don't know how we would phrase that, but that's the idea behind that content pillar. So maybe it's, you know, simple life, simple tech. Ooh, that's it. Yep. Simple life, simple tech or simple life, simple hacks, something like that. So I like that. Simple life, simple hacks, something like that. And that would mostly be tech and apps that simplify your life and make it less overwhelming. So we have simple life, simple hacks. We have playful productivity. We have digital minimalism. We have minimalism and anti-materialism there. And then I think you need some kind of component that lets you talk about money. So there's that. And then you need a component. I think that becomes kind of your social and social media commentary that is kind of your mental health pillar. So your mental health pillar, I think, becomes kind of your, you know, almost like leave social media and embrace the social life, something to that degree. And that just is kind of your commentary pillar. So that would be kind of what I would probably do in this situation. Maybe it's money, you know, I mean, it literally, I don't want to say that it is this, but it's kind of more or less a millennial money angle. So that would give us our five or six content pillars. That would give us our five or six content pillars. The reason we do five or six, especially for someone like you or me, Romina, would be so that we have enough variety to not get bored and we have themes that are at least cohesive to work together that can attract the same type of tribe because of their overlapping interest because we're trying to find more people like us. So that would be kind of the approach there. And like I said, you're right to do, black and white and red all over for the theme for your thumbnails. So I would do that. I would, again, continue to borrow from Ali Abdaal and Ruri Ohama, specifically on the thumbnail side of layout and design. But from a physical posing standpoint, I would borrow from Matt D'Avella, honestly. So I would combine all three and steal like an artist. I would also put the black and white and red all over into this banner. I know that there's a lot of it there. The other thing is I love your profile pic, but I would just make it pop by making the background red because that works for you. And so I love the photocentricness of these thumbnails, which is very Matt D'Avella. So I'm not against that either. But again, I also think don't be afraid to revisit your best bangers and make new versions of them, expand on them, or turn every banger into a series or a mini-series. I am all for that. Also, these title formulas work for you. Recycle the title formulas of every video that has over a thousand views. Every video with a thousand views here has a worthy title formula. In fact, I would argue since you're under 1,000 subscribers, every video that is 300 views or more has a worthy title formula. But obviously the ones over 1,000 have a much worthier title formula. So I would incorporate those and standardize those and make your content around those. Here's the other thing I would do for growth for you. Two videos a week, and they can both be bangers. Two videos a week, they can both be bangers. And I would put a maximum of five to 10 hours at most into each of your videos. That's it. Five to 10 hours each. Both of them can be bangers. And that's not counting the packaging on the thumbnails, by the way. Five to 10 hours on the... editing and turnaround of the videos, and that's it. So 10 hours max, two videos a week, 100 videos a year for Romina, because that gives you, in my estimation, the ability with setting that standard. I would say it gives you enough to where you can probably grow by 3,000 to 10,000 a year with that. So I definitely think, now again, if you want to do three a week, you can. You want to do three a week, you can. But I think that planning and production, because the thing is, I'm telling you 10 hours per video in terms of filming and editing a video. I didn't make a caveat on planning, scripting, storyboarding, or packaging. So the reason I'm giving you a maximum of 20 hours for production and editing in a week is I'm giving you the rest of your allotment of time to focus on the non-editing and production aspects of video in terms of packaging and in terms of planning and pre-production. So that would be why. Then that gives you up to a 30 to 40 hour work week on your content while still leaving some wiggle room for any other endeavors. So there you go. Yeah. Other than that, gold star, a lot of potential. This is something that is capable of doing well. I do think from a title standpoint, conceptually, because again, this is a high quality video, by the way. You guys can see it from the preview that this is going to be high quality. I would change this title. Because I get where you're going with your screen time isn't the problem this is. For someone else, that title would be exactly the right title. To your own point, you're competing on the YouTube homepage to get views. That title needs to change. I will talk to you about workshopping that title because I need to not be up at 10 or 11 o'clock to come up with a better title for you for that. But basically, I would... Basically, I would have made this a listicle video about everything that's killing your productivity. So I would have done like 15 things. This video at 26 minutes is a hard buy-in for people who don't know you. So I would have probably, this video, I know you can't reshoot the video, but my video concept for this would have been 15 things killing your productivity. Your screen time isn't one of them. So yeah. Yeah, you can make a new video. That's true too. But again, something to think about. And yeah. But overall, I think you're still heading in a good direction. I think the biggest issue is consistency, posting frequency. But I also think having direction and having a work schedule, for lack of a better term, does allow for more scale here. And then there are minor things in the branding that I said could be upgraded. But again, great job. Gold star. What did you guys think of my advice for Romina? I think there's a lot of inspiration to be had from Rory Ohama, Matt D'Avella, and from our friend Ali Abdel. Great guy, by the way, if you guys haven't met him. And so I think there's a lot there. I think Romina has a strong start to the channel. I think that there's some issues on consistency and follow through. And I think I had some ways to turn that around. I think for a lot of us, the biggest struggle is just making the time, making it a priority and also knowing when good enough is good enough. And really, I think we need to be told you have five or 10 hours to make this video because for a client, we don't have unlimited time. When we go to a job, we don't have unlimited time to polish something and make it into an art project. We have to get it done and it has to be on time. So I think. imposing deadlines is healthy for YouTubers. And I think that the only reason we don't is because we still watch big YouTubers and we still pretend like they do everything themselves when they have a team of people helping them. So it feels like when they say quality over quantity, I think it's easier to say quality over quantity when you have five people working 40 hours a week to help you. I think if you're a solo content creator, you have to know when good enough is good enough. I think a lot more effort has to be put into the packaging than the editing than people realize. to get views. Views are down to how good is my title, how good was the idea, the topic. So it's topic, title, thumbnail, and timing. It always is. Especially for the solo small creator. It's the biggest thing. But that's what I think. What do you guys think? Would you do anything differently than what I'm advising here for Romina? What are your thoughts? What would help her out? Let me know in the chat what you think. And if you're watching the replay, let me know in the comment section. So, boom. Hope that helped you out, Romina. You're a buddy. So, again, I can always text you and tell you what I think and what I would do differently or whatever. So, we'll probably chat offline about that. Let's see. We've got two more channels to close out the night. So, we're going to get to Couture, Crafting, and then the Productive Dude. But we're going to catch up with the chat here a little bit. Nightbot. is deleting somebody's messages i wonder if nightbot's being too aggressive with that we'll check in here um yeah nightbot chill out man geez it's wild um also romina you're gonna get uh added as a moderator oh you get to be a moderator cryptids and crafts you get to be a moderator you're a moderator you're a moderator you're a moderator so yeah 2.0 Mommy, yeah, we can make you a moderator. Detour Shirts, you're a moderator now. What's up, Nard Villain? It's good to see you. Domo Senpai, Stacey Brooks, Fox Emoji. Welcome to new channel members, Rashid McCrory, thanks to living in Omaha David. We've got Rashad. We've got Chill Reacts. We've got C, Colette, Bold Finds, ATL Vibes Podcast. So good to see you guys in the membership. Members, you will be getting a video with my talk from VidCon probably next week. So look forward to that in the members only. Yep, thank you so much. Appreciate you guys. So yeah, a lot of great stuff in the chat. Let's go ahead and queue up our last two channels of the evening. So we have MA Couture Crafting, 954 videos, 29,000 subscribers. Great job there. Nice. Bold star. So you have essentially a channel trailer, but it's four years old. It tells people about the channel. Again, not the worst thing in the world. It's one minute. But what I would probably do is promote a more recent video that really, really converted subscribers. for you, and I would use that. You have videos and shorts here, and then other channels is a lot of this. I would, since you have enough videos, you have like almost a thousand videos, I would actually put more of your own playlist and fill out this homepage a bit more. And so let's see your videos. So you, Halloween stuff, you're a little ahead on Halloween, not the worst thing, but a little ahead. I might have held back on Halloween stuff until maybe September. if i'm being honest but again no worries um solid on this uh candy couture overall i am not mad at these views um i think the consistency cadence of once a week is right for you a lot of your audience really likes the quilting stuff so i would make sure that you never miss a week of doing quilting video sorry now week uh sorry never miss a month i would every month make sure that there is at least one quilting video in the lineup if you're going to do four videos a month if you're going to do four videos a month one of them has to be a quilting video because those clearly are getting the most views for you uh let's see what your outliers look like biggest video is a quilt show quilt con okay your audience loves the quilting stuff especially over the last year, that's a big one. Yeah, one to two of your videos out of four have to be quilting videos because that gets you your most outlier views and it's your biggest video of all time. So lean into that. By the way, solid profile pic here. And again, not mad at the graphic here. but this is hard to read if it's possible. I wouldn't worry about fitting it into this circle. I would just make it bigger, and I would nix your other social media here. You don't need them, and I would take advantage of that because, again, hard to read. As far as the latest videos, again, this Candy Couture video I think did pretty good. In the last month, though, you didn't have a quilting video in the last month, and it doesn't look like you had a quilting video in the previous month. But the last time you did a quilting video was two months ago. And the last two quilting videos had over 100,000 views between them. So I know it can feel repetitive or you can feel a little bored sometimes. We all do as a creator. But when I see this pattern of you doing quilting videos that often get more views than you have subscribers, I would lean into it more. It doesn't have to be every video. But for you, I think you have to do at least one quilting video a month. I don't think you can go a month or two without doing a quilting video, or I wouldn't anyway. And when you do, you get outsized views compared to everything else. I think you can do the other things, but I think one to two quilting videos a month is necessary for your audience to get the thing that they want from you the most because they are signaling to you. you might want to do different things but your audience is signaling to you that the thing you love is the quilts and that they're not getting their fill of that from anyone else and you do it better than anybody else for them so you can do some of these other videos but the quilting stuff is the outlier success and most consistent success pattern you have so you should lean more into it that being said um For your audience, your thumbnails are distinct. They like it. They click on it. They see you. They click. So keep doing what you're doing there. There's a lot of process in your production here, even though you're keeping it relatively simple. Smart. Don't let tech get in the way of things. So I think that this is solid. Let's look at shorts and the live streams and see what's going on. Or the outliers for the shorts. Shorts are not getting amazing views, but they're not terrible. And I think that they're fine. And I think they're a good way for people to discover you. So keep at it with these until you see something pop off. Keep dealing with the shorts. And then if something is an outlier, maybe the shorts don't pop for the quilting. Maybe that's where some of the other experimental content can pop off though. Because you're being super consistent on quilting when you do the short form. Maybe that's why you might feel burnt out on the long form. But the thing is, for the short form, I would experiment more. And for the long form, I would double down on the quilting. And then for the live streams, people seem to like you working on things and they like the collaborations and they like you live from the road on events. when you go to the expos and the conventions. So again, your live stream strategy is solid there and you can definitely do that for the community. So let's see. I don't have a lot of criticism here because I think that for this community, your biggest issue is just needing to lean into the quilting side of things for two of your four to five videos in a month. And then for the shorts, you need to experiment with something beyond the quilting because it's not popping yet. Then when you get the shorts to pop, you'll know what to double down on there. So we have it for the long form, and then we just need to experiment for the shorts. Your overall production is fine. The packaging, it's not the direction I would take, but it's not necessary for that for me because your target audience works for it. So I'm not mad at it. And then for your live streaming strategy, the one thing I would definitely do is just not use repetitive thumbnails here for the live stream and make sure they're more unique. And I would lean into these work with me live streams and your live stream from the road at the events. And I would not fail the live stream when I'm an event because your audience really digs that. So I think this is solid overall. So gold star. And yeah. The criticism I have for this is minor based on that. So I think that MA Couture and Crafting has a solid niche. With any craft or design or art-based niche, views are going to be inconsistent. I think, though, you have found a route to consistent views if every other video or so... is a video on the quilting because we identified that you get outsized outlier views with that and you have a video that has almost 10 times your subscriber count in views around that so i would heavily lean into that if something's a banger double down triple down i always believe in that so i think two of your uh four to five videos a month have to be based on that the rest can be uh experimentation having fun with things making whatever you want Cause I understand the burnout angle. The quilting thing has not played out into outlier shorts views yet. So I would experiment more with the shorts and you can take more risk and have more fun with the shorts because you need to find something there that's popping and hitting different. And then for your live streams, I would change the packaging, but probably nothing else if I'm being honest. So those are my thoughts for MA Couture. and crafting but what did you guys think do you agree with me do you disagree with me let me know in the comment section if you're watching the replay and let me know in the chat if you're watching live boom and so then uh the productive dude is going to be our last one tonight uh but let's go to the chat and see what you guys are saying so a couple of you are wondering if you can still get in on reviews where i'm actually about to wrap up for tonight But we will, even though I'm going to be speaking at VidFest, it's here in Atlanta. I will be at a hotel for that, but I'll be at VidFest. But I'm going to try to do, I'm going to bring my second screen with me and my laptop. And I can't promise what the timing will be, but I will try next Friday, even though I'm at an event, to do channel reviews. I don't know if we'll do 10 of them. We might do five next week. We can probably do five next week. For those of you who want to do individual channel reviews, that is something we offer. The mods can link to that in the description. We have channel reviews where I can do a live call with you, and there's ones where we do a recording where I record a channel review for you. So we have that. And there's only one I need to clear in the queue from last time that we thought we did them, but something, I guess, happened or we didn't. So we have that for people who want to pay for that. So if the mods can link that in the chat, that'd be great for the channel reviews. Next week, for those who want the live stream channel reviews that we do here, while I'm at VidFest Atlanta, if you're in the Atlanta area, come by and say hi and come and see all the other speakers. If you tune in next Friday, the 22nd, we'll probably do five channel reviews because I'm going to be speaking at an event. So I'll need to save my voice because the next morning, well, the next day in the afternoon, I have to close out the keynote, do a closing keynote. So we'll try to do that and have me not up too late as well. So, yeah. So that is a thing. um for ma couture crafts yep i get it now that you had to do it a little early makes sense for the for the quilting niche for how long it takes to have the quilts ready it makes sense and it also selling the fabric so yep you're right that's a nuance of your niche that you would know better than me so it makes sense so your timing is right and i just misread that um because of seasonality because The thing that didn't occur to me is just how long it takes to get the material. And then that process is a lot more intense. So yeah, you're right. But yeah, so let's see. Yep, it's not early for crafters. So that's the only thing. Yep, you guys are right on that. You crafters are right on that. That's one that I just misjudged the timing on. Usually I would know that or would be thinking that. I'm going to blame it on it being 1040. Let's see. Yeah, good to hear it, Blueprint. Nice to know that it helped you. Let's see. So yeah, we're finally, finally down to our friend, Productive Dude. We have massive $50 super chat. And by the way, like MA Couture and Crafting, do not be discouraged. You actually have a lot more success than most people. Most people on YouTube. 97% of people never get 10,000 subscribers. You have three times more than that. Most people never, 88% of videos never get 1,000 views. You have so many videos with over 1,000 views. And again, it's a niche hobby. It's a niche hobby. It's not the biggest hobby. And some of your peers, you don't know what their situation is. There's reasons why they might have a different situation or circumstance. A lot of cases it was down to somebody else just shouted them out and big them up. So you can't be too hard on yourself. Your channel is fine. You're doing great. You're doing great. And not everyone is for everyone. So just don't look at what other people are doing and get yourself worked up. I mean, hell. i do that i make that mistake constantly one of the things that i got the most wrong was thinking that my videos need to have all this editing in them and whatever because um i saw some friends really go hard in the editing and getting all these views and the thing is we just have my philosophy of youtube advice is very different than other people's philosophy of YouTube advice because I think I'm the only YouTube educator that does not care about viral videos. I think I'm the only YouTube educator and the only YouTube strategist that doesn't care about viral videos. Because I'll tell you a secret about most viral videos on YouTube. They're not organic, and they take more money than most of you would have, and they take more time and energy than most of you would have. And the thing is, most people over 30 are not going to be able to go viral. I'm not against any of us that are older doing YouTube. I just don't think that viral videos are for us for the most part. There are exceptions to that rule, but I don't think we should be out here trying to compete with 25-year-olds to go viral because they go viral off of the attention of 15-year-olds. The YouTubers getting viral views are 25-year-olds getting views from 15-year-olds. I don't think that's for most of us. I think if you have an adult audience, That adult audience has a lot of priorities, a lot of things to do, and they have a limited amount of time to be online in most cases. So if you're an adult catering to an adult audience, you have limited time and they have limited time. There's only so much we could do. I think that a 1,000 to 10,000 view floor and view ceiling for most of us content creators or adults in our middle years, you know, millennials, Gen Xers, boomers. I think it's fine. I think it's more than fine. I think that that's a whole room full of people that we'd be intimidated to speak in front of as someone who's been on stages. I think that having 1,000 and 10,000 people care about a niche topic is plenty. And I think that viral videos are shallow in most cases. Very few viral videos offer value. So I think it's okay. to get 1,000 to 10,000 views on a video and count it as a win since 88% of people never get 1,000 views on video. More than 95% of people never get the 10,000 views on video. 97% of content creators never get 10,000 subscribers. Most people are not monetized. I think there are reasonable milestones for working class content creators. I know a lot of you want a silver play button. I'm not saying you can never have it. I am saying it might be 500 to a thousand videos and that's because you have to work and pace yourself. And I don't think that that's an easy thing to do. I think a lot of you are doing a great job doing YouTube, balancing a family, working a job, finding room for other hobbies and things in life. And I think that's great. And I think that the people that you look at who have viral content are doing nothing but YouTube 40 to 60 hours a week. Most of them have teams. putting in 200 hours per video. And I think that's unrealistic for you to get sad when you have to compete with that, the scraps of energy you have left, and then think you're not good enough. I don't think that that's fair. So to beat yourself up about that, I mean. So what I do is even me, I have to take my own advice. I have to not worry about how other YouTube coaches or experts want to make their videos or what their philosophy is. My philosophy is that if you're a working class content creator, here's what's realistic and what makes sense. If you're a middle class content creator who is full-time or about to be full-time, here's what makes sense and here's where we don't prioritize, oh, I've got to ramp up quality. No, we've got to build stronger systems. We've got to make this sustainable. We have to now avoid burnout and we have to keep doing this so that we can make the money that we need to set ourselves up off of this because if we're... full-time or about to be full-time. If we do this right for like a couple of years, we might be able to set ourselves up to know we have safety and security later in life. And if you're an established content creator, our biggest issue that I have to talk to you about, if you're an established content creator, you have like well over a hundred thousand, you have 500,000, you have a million subscribers. We have to not only worry about your systems, we have to look at diversifying your revenue streams. We have to figure out how to create a moat. for your business, and we need procedurals, and we need to make sure your team is tight. We need to make sure your team is taken care of. We need to make sure that you have longevity and sustainability, and we have to make sure that you're maximizing the inventory and resources you already have before you chase something else or get distracted. We have to really, really dig into first principles if you're an established content creator. I've worked with people with half a million or a million or more subscribers. I've helped grow people to a million subscribers. That's why I have one of my clients' gold play button over there that's behind the gimbal. And I have a couple of clients' silver play buttons. And the thing is, for that established content creator, it's about your team. It's about your systems. It's about making sure things are sustainable for them. It's about making sure you have a plan. to make sure your team is taken care of it's about legacy and longevity it's about what your exit strategy is uh it's about let's let's find a way to make sure there's no way on god's green earth you don't make payroll let's make sure that you're uh protected and you have all of the proper things financially in place for your future um let's get you a cpa let's talk to getting you accountant let's make sure that you um have no um you know liability A lot of big creators, they ruin themselves. You see it now. You see a bunch of YouTube lawsuits. You see a bunch of YouTube scandals. Some people get too big for their britches, and they don't get their ducks in a row. And they have this great opportunity. They squander it because they don't treat it seriously as an adult. They keep playing at it like they're a child. And they decide that they're too good to be professional. They're too famous to fail. And they find out very quickly that's not true. Even for me, I need to come back to what I'm good at, which is putting out great information that's real information for these three types of creators that are at different stages in your journey. Because by the way, you can be this one person and start as a working class creator like I did. You can start as a working class creator, then become a middle class creator, and then start to try to become an established creator. You can experience all three of those things as one person. So it's still one avatar. It's just a life cycle of that creator. So I want to be there for creators at every stage in their journey. And I think the reasonable way for me to do that is to go back to making three to five videos a week, not worrying about, I mean, my audio quality is great. My videos and lighting and production are great. My information is real. So why worry about over editing because other people do it? That was silly of me. I like editing from time to time. I like making an edited banger from time to time. But the truth is, videos I spent two hours on always overperform compared to videos I spent 20 hours on. 20 hours is vanity for me to feel like I'm still a good creative person or for the one time someone says in the comments that I'm a lazy editor or something. So I shouldn't bother with that. I shouldn't care about that. What I really need to care about is just making sure that wherever you are in your creator journey, that I've told you the thing that I think would be the most useful for you and the most helpful for you. And again, that's also why I wanted to come back to doing channel reviews for you guys. When my voice recovered, I was like, okay, time to get back on the horse. Time to get these reviews out. There are creators out there that need a hand up and need just one piece of advice that'll help them keep going. And everyone's got to find out and figure out, in my view. what their mission is, what they're doing and why they're doing it and how to do it to the best of their ability and how to keep doing it and how to keep enjoying it. And for me, what I'm going to enjoy is shooting more and editing less. And that's what got me where I am the first time. So might as well go back, spin the block and double down. But, you know, let's move on to our last review of the evening. And hopefully that encouraged a lot more of you. By the way, I will answer this question real quick before I go into Productive Dudes review, because it's a great question. What's the best role to outsource for your YouTube? You edit everything yourself. I still edit everything myself. I am in the process of somewhat training an apprentice, but that's a long tail. I don't know when that will fully manifest. I'm working on it, but I don't know that editing is the best thing for me to outsource, because the truth is, right now, for me, and my editor, when we have that, will be in-house anyway, because everything is great here. We have the best tools. The answer to that is you should outsource whatever drains you. So anything that you don't like doing, you should outsource. Anything you don't like doing, you should outsource. And that includes non-YouTube things. So if you want to be a successful creator, start to outsource the things that take you away from creating. I outsource my lawn care. So outsource the things that take you away from creator, from creator mode, okay? You want to be in creator mode as much as possible. So outsource non-creator things. If possible, get a personal assistant and outsource your admin work use chat gpt or grok or gemini and also outsource or automate some of your admin work so you can be in creator mode as much as possible outsource lifestyle things so you can be in creator mode as much as possible that would be extremely helpful then you should outsource so all right outsource things i'm not good at okay now let's also outsource things that uh sorry let's outsource things i don't like doing and now let's outsource things that i am bad at so if you feel you are not good at something you're not uh an 80 out of 100 at something outsource it if you um you know if you are not good at editing So we get rid of things that aren't worth our time that are like, okay, that's not creator mode. It's not worth our time. So that makes sense. And then we should outsource things we don't like doing. If you don't like editing, outsource editing. You don't like thumbnails, don't like outsource thumbnails. If you like it and you're good at it, you can keep doing it. Now, if you are not good at something, outsource it. If you don't like it, outsource it. If it's a waste of your time. and not creator mode, outsource it. Those are the things. So in terms of what's the best role to outsource for YouTube, outsource the things that drain you, outsource the things that you're not best in class at, and outsource the things you don't like, that you don't like. You don't like it, you're not good at it, it's not worth your time, outsource it or automate it. So in terms of who's best to hire, for some people, the best thing to hire is a personal assistant Personal assistant that can do everything that makes no sense for them to do. It's probably a lot of people's first hire. Hey, Tom. So there's that. For other people, then the next thing that that person usually outsources is whatever their weakness is. By the way, some people will outsource their ideation. Some people hire me, for example, or another strategist to come up with their ideas because they're good at editing, they're good at performing, they're good at thumbnails, they have an editor, whatever it is, but they're bad at coming up with ideas for their videos. They're bad at content strategy. And so what do they do? They'll hire me or they'll hire somebody else to do their ideation and their strategy for them. Some people are bad at that. Some people are great at performing videos, but they're terrible writers. They're terrible at, they're great at performing their thoughts. They're bad at communicating them. They're bad at researching them. Some people will hire a researcher and a writer for their videos. And then they're great at storytelling, animating, editing, those types of things. So some people outsource that. So it's down to the best. a person to hire or outsource as a YouTuber comes down to what your weaknesses are, what you like doing. If you like doing something, don't outsource it. If you enjoy that part of the process, if it makes you happy in the creative process, don't outsource it just because you feel like it'll go faster. If you like it, you might need to do that because it makes you come back to creativity. So don't get rid of something you like just because it would be more productive. You're actually being counterintuitive there. So don't do that. A lot of people make that mistake. If you like the thumbnails, you like editing, you like writing, keep that for yourself. Get rid of the things you don't like that are draining or the things you are bad at. If you like something but you're not good at it, my answer to it is maybe 50-50 it. So do the part that doesn't require skill. For example, if you like editing, do the parts of the edit that you like that don't hold the video back, okay? Do the parts that don't hold the video back. Have someone else do the things that would add value to the video and make it better. So you can split the task. If you like a task, do the parts of it that don't hinder the product, and then give the rest to someone else for the polish or something. As for the conference I'm speaking at, someone's asking about that. Someone's asking about that. I'm going to be speaking at VidFest Atlanta. And so that's next week. So I'm going to be speaking at VidFest Atlanta. And I believe that's going to be Friday and Saturday. And yes, there's an old saying. Do what you do best. Definitely. Absolutely. Great advice. I felt like I need to outsource things I'm good at, which is actually counterintuitive. It's 100% counterintuitive. If you like it, then that part of the process is invigorating you. It's giving you creative fuel. It's bringing you back to the project. Don't let go of that. It's bringing you back to the project. You have so many other things and areas you can be productive in that you can cut. Cut things like, you know, maybe you don't like cooking or cleaning. Hire out for that instead of hiring an editor if you like editing. If you like editing, great. But you might not look, you might not love cooking and cleaning for yourself. So hire that out. Hire out the lawn care. Hire out any of those other things. Get some meal prep going. That makes more sense because it's something that takes up time. And again, you can be in creator mode instead. So again, my answer is what lets me be in creator mode the most? What makes me enjoy creator mode the most? So creator mode is everything. I'm writing a book about it after I finish this trilogy. I'm writing the creator economy insider trilogy right now. I'm writing the second book now. Hopefully it's October, November that it goes to print. But I'm writing the second book. My first book, you guys can get in Amazon. It's Create Something Awesome, How Creators Are Profiting from Their Passion in the Creator Economy. So you can get that. It's in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, it's everywhere. But you also check out my friend Justin Moore, his book, Sponsor Magnet. Best bundle you can buy. Best bundle you can buy right here. So yeah, so the thing that I would say is creator mode is everything. Creator mode is everything. And so what lets me be in creator mode? What lets me enjoy creator mode the most? And then think about what takes me out of creator mode and what makes it harder to get into creator mode and what makes me not enjoy creator mode. And so I would keep what I love and get rid of everything else. So I would keep what I love for myself. and get rid of everything else so that i can enjoy the process and not burn out and do this forever that's how i would think about it so yeah yeah thanks so much all right but let's get to your review uh productive dude so we got productive dude software tutorials gear reviews and productive tactics this channel is right up my alley this is exactly the kind of stuff i like and the like to watch it's the stuff i used to like to make uh so yeah totally dig that so we got notion tutorial here full course for beginners smart to do this video this reminds me of like when i did my uh workshop video for uh merchandise for beginners this is perfect um let's see and then you have the all access pass to uh school so great promo here very smart and then you've got these playlists well executed no issues here with the customization For the banner and the profile pic, I think this is solid. I think this is minimal. I think it says what it is, and I'm good with this, and it works in every single device. So well executed, well done. Let's look at the videos themselves, and let's also think about the overall content strategy. So this video on how to install N8N locally, the easy way, step-by-step, is a slow burn video. It's probably gonna be like my tutorial videos were as well for you, where the struggle bus here is gonna be that you're gonna get 20 views a day on it, then 100 views, then it'll kick up to 200 to 300 views. It also will depend on how popular this particular LLM is. So that is kind of the issue with this one. And as you already know, tutorials are hit or miss. That one, do not take hard. Your audio and video quality is clearly good based on your setup here and your production values on par with even Iman Ghazi, so no issues there. Your tutorials channel, so don't take view to subscriber ratio seriously as a tutorial channel. It's hit or miss your views. will initially be home page the goal is for them to be search engine uh you already kind of know this because as you know your most popular videos are ones that have had the time to accumulate views it's also in proportion to how big the audience and or user base is for the software that uh you're covering so i would say that from a content strategy and buckets standpoint If you don't love GPT, and that might be why you're not covering it, it's worth doing and doing a versus or a comparison and doing those because people are all about that. And again, GPT is too well known, in my opinion, to ignore. So GPT-5, right now, I would be covering it and have it, even just from an authority standpoint. And again... It might feel like that would be saturated, but it's too new, so it's definitely thin. So I would look at that. I think one of the smart things that you tend to do is you lean into whatever the branding is of the software that you're covering. So from a packaging standpoint, I think that that's very strong, and I think that's overall very good. You also are very smart and thoughtful in the packaging. Also, anything that's worked before will work again for a different software. You did a full A to Z guide on Notion. This will work for everything else. One thing I learned about software is that if it works for one, it'll work for the rest fairly well 90% of the time. I would also make sure you're doing beginner's guides for everything, and then I would make playlists for beginner's guides of things, and also individual playlists where if there's a tool out there, you should have no less than five to eight videos for the most well-known 10 to 20 things in your niche. If there are 10 to 20 things in your niche, you need to have five to eight videos covering them. One of my biggest regrets is not having 10 videos to 20 videos covering YouTube shorts, which I will correct. But I would say that you're very deep on Notion, but you might not have, to my knowledge, and I can scroll through more here, you might be deep on Notion, but you're not deep enough on Claude. Like, I don't think you have 20 videos on Claude. I think you need... 10 to 20 videos on Claude to be deep on that. I know you started doing more videos on Claude. Claude is extremely well known. You need 10 to 20 videos on Claude. You need 10 to 20 videos on GPT-5. You need 10 to 20 videos on VO3. VO3 is huge right now. You need 10 to 20 videos on GPT-5, VO3. You need at least five to 10 videos on Grok. You need videos on, I believe, Gemini 3.0 is coming. But you still need to cover Gemini 2.5 watts here, maybe five videos at least on that, or a beginner's guide for sure, plus some individual tutorials on that because people have that. For installing locally, there are, to my knowledge, really like five or eight solid. large language models that you can install locally. You've got N8N, you've got Notebook LLM, you've got a couple of other ones. I think there's like five or eight of them that are very well known in terms of installing locally. You needed how to install locally guide for the major LLMs. So that should be like a five or eight video series where you have each of the LLMs that you can install locally and you have a guide for doing it. So you have N8N, you have a lot of material there, and that's great that you've leaned so strong into it, but you need something just as deep and just as strong on the rest of these things. So you need GPT-5, so you have some GPT stuff here, great. You need 10 to 20 videos on GPT-5. I need to be able to feel like if I have something I need to know about GPT-5, Productive dudes got me. So we definitely need that. I don't see anything here on cursor. Cursor is huge. So again, it's about depth as a subject matter expert. A lot of it is about depth and width if you're a tutorial channel. It's depth and width, which is very hard to accomplish sometimes, but it is essential in the tutorial niche, especially since that. gives you evergreen content and you can build and build and build off of that. So I think that that is viable. Like I said, there's a lot you have here that is strong. I would do more poses, by the way. I would do more photo shoots and get a variety of poses for your headshots for this type of thumbnail. You want a variety of headshots. You want a variety of body language shots. You want all ranges of the emotional spectrum. You want things that let you interact. with the thumbnail in some cases. So I would do those things. I'd also A-B test almost every video idea of, I would A-B test two thumbnails for every video idea, one with your face and one without and see in every instance how they perform. It's not that I would commit permanently to, okay, I don't use my face, I use my face, video per video. face versus not face, but I would use the same fonts and same colors. I'd use the same fonts and same colors, but face versus no face for every thumbnail just to see what people respond to more and most. So that's what I would absolutely be doing. In fact, I'm probably gonna be doing that myself if I'm being honest. So that's something that I think is really important. But in general, you have a great channel. Another... uh piece of advice here is to figure out uh from a business standpoint um how many of your videos are called to action for your business and then how many of your videos are a call to action for your email list and then how many videos are a call to action for an affiliate or a sponsor do not be afraid to monetize every video in a knowledge uh niche um but there's roundabout ways of monetizing hey, use this thing because I'm using it and it allowed me to do this thing that you want to also do. So you have to spend money on something. Don't waste money on something else. Just use this. So again, declare the resource that saves time or creates the most value. So that's always an affiliate plug or a sponsor plug. Then there's always, here's my thing. If you want it, it exists. That's always fine. Or again, your alternative call to action is, hey, join our community newsletter and keep up to date on the latest stuff and hear directly from me. So those are the primary calls to action that you would take advantage of, and they have varying degrees of monetization. So those would be my thoughts for you here. Again, overall, very well done, productive dude, very productive, very mindful. So those are my thoughts. on yet another tutorial channel. Perfect niche for me to cover and stuff like that. Productive Dude, you're exactly a channel right up my alley. Would love to work with you sometime. So if that's something you are into, you know how to find me over at awesomecreatoracademy.com where I offer my coaching if that's something you're into. But I think you did a great job with this channel overall. I just think that there are some things that can be tuned up here in terms of going deeper in some things that are going to be evergreen for a very long time and are going to help you the most. GPT-5 is going to be with us for a good minute. Leverage that. And people are all about it. So very important to get there. If you're leaning into the app stuff, it's Claude, yes, but also Cursor. Cursor is huge right now. You're going to teach people how to install. you know, N8N, then great. Make the videos on how to install each of the localized LLMs that can be installed and walk them through that, you know, start to finish and let people choose that and know, okay, if I ever need to install an LLM, I'll just go to Productive Dude. And, you know, so that helps make you a destination channel for people who are trying to action on AI tools. So that's what I would be doing. That's what I think makes sense. But what do the rest of you think? Do you guys agree with me on the refinements, the content strategy for this channel? 126,000 subscribers on 300 videos. He's doing fantastic. I think this niche still has a very high ceiling. I think that an AI channel still like this, this early on can go to 500,000 or a million subscribers. I think the market. for it is that big i think the demand is there but i think that becoming a destination channel in this niche does require a combination of width and depth and i think that there's a lot of opportunity here and untapped potential monetization does not hurt either what do you think do you agree do you disagree let me know in the comment section if you're watching the replay let me know in the chat if you're here watching live So Productive Do says, the biggest takeaway is to go deeper with my content and add more breadth to the topics I cover. Yeah, it sounds like that'd be counterintuitive in a knowledge niche channel. However, in this type of thing, there's a variety of combinations of overlapping skills that people tend to have. This is true for people who do Adobe tutorials as well, or even people who do stuff around content creation. We ran into this. Now, there's also a lot of opportunities where some videos have or topics have lower view ceilings, but they also convert subscribers at a high rate or convert customers at a high rate. So we obviously do them. So the thing is, a situation like yours can feel like it has conflicting desires, but that's where breadth and depth and width all play a role in this with some overlap but variety um because of the fact that there are multiple agendas and goals that you're trying to um accomplish nothing consolidates all of them but it's okay because it doesn't need to because when you're doing a knowledge base for people when you're doing a knowledge base for people you have permission to do that and view consistency does not matter for tutorial content. I know that that sounds crazy, but the thing is, if you're gonna do knowledge and information-based education content, you cannot play by the rules of an entertainer in the same way that the high school chess player, the mathlete, does not play by the rules of the jock. It's just that simple. The jock and the cheerleader, they have a rule set. The mathlete, and science olympiad and debate bro has a completely different rule set and there may be once in a blue moon they might be passing ships in the night where they align but largely they don't education youtube and entertainment youtube are separate animals i've coached creators successfully in both people would be surprised i've actually succeeded in both and the uh but i have a preference for the knowledge-based content Especially as I get older, you can age into it more gracefully. Being an entertainer is not always a forever career. Rarely is a forever career. You can be smart forever. It's hard to be funny, hot, charming forever. It's hard to do that forever. Some people can. Morgan Freeman exists. Morgan Freeman exists. But not everybody can pull it off forever. Like, you know, Sofia Vergara exists, you know. But. Not all of us are so blessed, but you can be smart and useful and productive forever, but you have to just not be seduced by the appeal and allure of being a personality and an entertainer. It's true that people who are educators can be entertaining, but it's largely an 80-20 rule. People get seduced in YouTube into being personalities. and they try to subvert that productive do says i can really resonate with the uh different rule set thing yeah yep absolutely yep thank you stacy thank you urban noise music appreciate you yeah but i think uh we did a great job tonight i think that was a lot of fun um gold stars for the channels all around And I think that that's going to call it a night here at just under four hours. TYreactsbodycam says, is the Academy Pro Group for me? Not yet. You're still a ways away from monetizing. I would say implement the advice from here tonight. I would also say if you go to the Academy, join our free Creator Foundations course. Join our free Creator Foundations course. Go through a lot of the material in there. Join the free Creator Foundation's Discord mods. If you can link the Discord and the free course in the chat, that'd be great. That'd help out a lot. And so we have the Creator Foundation's Discord group for people. It's an open study hall for creators. It's totally free. It's for people who aren't ready for the Academy Pro group. We have the Creator Foundation's course. It's our flagship free course. I just added some new material to it. We've got eight hours of material. When I'm done, it'll probably be 12. I add some new material to it. We're always shoring that up. That is the thing that we want people to go through to help them get basics out of the way and best practices. hopefully get monetized get a thousand to five thousand uh to ten thousand subscribers if they don't have that already we want you to at least get monetized before you join the academy pro group because we want to make sure you have an opportunity in a way at least if you're monetized to make your money back from being in the pro group uh by being able to scale at least if you're monetized you can do that so we like to try to tell everybody hey if you're uh not monetized yet let's at least get you there with the channel reviews and the free content so ty reacts to body cam let's work on getting you monetized maybe come back in a couple of weeks after implementing what we talked about let's see where you're at let's try and get you to monetization consider the uh free creator foundations course and going through that and finishing the material there and stay tuned for any updates there as well and so then you'll be monetized you'll have a way that if you pay for something, you can start earning that revenue back with the advice that you're implementing. So that's what we like to do. And so, yeah. Mandy Tong says, hi, Roberto. Is there a recommended number of video uploads I should have before applying for a channel review or joining the Academy Pro group? You know, at least have a couple of videos under your belt. At least have like, you know, 10 plus videos, 10, 20 videos under your belt. um if you can manage that because then we have something to talk about and you'll see um how to evaluate yourself off of your top results you know you want to give this an honest try get a feel for your rhythm and what your voice is and what you're trying to do um and so that tends to be uh helpful so uh that would be my thought we don't have a strict requirement for that again it's helpful if people are monetized unless you already have a business if you already have a business then you don't need to be monetized to join the pro group if you already have a business or if your channel is to promote a business because that makes sense because you can make your money back um if you know that you have a very successful career and you know that you're not worried about the money then that's also on the table Again, we try to not super gatekeep, but I just never want people to spend money they don't have to. And I don't want people to jump the gun on something they're not prepared for. We have plenty of people in the pro group. We have plenty of great relationships. We have plenty of great clients. We have sponsors. We have affiliates. So again, I'm not here to try to extract money from you that I don't need to before you're ready. The money that you're putting in is an investment in getting better and holding yourself accountable and making sure you're using your time more productively because you have stakes and you have skin in the game. But what we like to have you do is you have a lot of free content here if you can't afford it. if you are going to spend money on something something really affordable is my book and it does give you at least some guidance and some structured material to go through and again we have a free um course we have the free creator foundations course um and the thing is there if you can take the time to go through that we know that you can improve just off of the fact that you will have answers to questions you might not even ask yourself and we know that you will have some realistic guidance on avoiding a lot of the worst mistakes that content creators make that hold them back. So, you know, that's something we wanted people to be able to have in one place so that we could help them. So, again, great question. Really appreciate people being interested in the Academy Pro group. In fact, you're going to learn a little bit about that more as we close out tonight. But it's been great talking with all of you guys. Last thing is mods. If you could also post a link to oneoften.com, forgot to shout them out tonight. They're a great tool for a lot of you. If you're looking for a modern YouTube tool to actually solve real problems, it can help you with research and ideation because it can filter by channel size, something that you can't really do with YouTube itself. And by also recent outliers, it can help with generating thumbnails. It can help with generating titles if you're stuck there. Again, I tell you, use AI as an assistant. Don't make it do all the work. So if you use discount code Roberto at checkout, one of 10 gives you 20% off for life of your account. So it can be helpful for a lot of you. But remember, AI is an assistant and a tool. It's not a replacement for real creators. Anyway, stay awesome. Let's get you into creator mode. We're going to close out with you learning more about Awesome Creator Academy. And I will see you guys next week. 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 you'll 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 or 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)

We will do up to 10 Channel Reviews for Super Chats of $20+ 
Review will address titles, thumbnails, one criticism and one compliment, and one piece of ACTIONABLE ADVICE.

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Timestamps:

0:00 - LIVE CHANNEL REVIEWS - REAL ADVICE FOR SMALL YOUTUBERS
06:24 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Luminousz Starr Paranormal TV
34:31 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Don V Filmora Tutorials
55:07 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Places to Visit
01:06:36 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Living in Omaha: David Matney
01:30:38 - CHANNEL REVIEW: bungalogic
01:45:33 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Maria Tokar
02:26:34 - CHANNEL REVIEW: TY Reacts To BodyCam
02:42:25 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Romina Espinosa
03:03:51 - CHANNEL REVIEW: M A Couture Crafting
03:36:30 - CHANNEL REVIEW: Productive Dude



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