YouTube is the second most visited website in the world with 2 billion monthly users. The power of YouTube, specifically for businesses is astonishing. Because YouTube is owned by Google, it acts as a search engine, flexing its reach. On Episode 9 of the Business 360 Podcast, we talk to Brandee Sweesy, a YouTube marketing expert. We will cover:
For more information, visit www.ThinkBusiness360.com
YouTube is the second most visited website in the world with 2 billion monthly users. The power of YouTube, specifically for businesses is astonishing. Because YouTube is owned by Google, it acts as a search engine, flexing its reach. On Episode 9 of the Business 360 Podcast, we talk to Brandee Sweesy, a YouTube marketing expert. We will cover:
For more information, visit www.ThinkBusiness360.com
If you look at YouTube priorities for 2021, live video is where it's at. Shorts and live video. And so just pop open your laptop and go live for 10 minutes, you have an inspiration. Go on and talk for 10 minutes. Don't worry if you don't get feedback, because remember on YouTube, the difference between a Facebook live and a YouTube live, is it's searchable forever? A Facebook live just gets buried down and there's no keywords or anything to look for.
Rushab Kamdar:Welcome to The Business 360 Podcast where we will take a 360 degree view of all things business in under 30 minutes. I'm Rushab Kamdar and I'll be your host today. So make sure you bring your appetite, not for food, but for knowledge. What's going on business heroes. Welcome to episode nine. Today, we're gonna talk everything YouTube. So make sure you have your notebook ready cause we're gonna cover a lot. Let's get to it On today's podcast, we're going to be speaking to Brandy Sweesy, who is a YouTube expert. And for over eight years, she's been helping entrepreneurs with their advertising and YouTube strategies. And for those that don't know the value of YouTube, well, it's more than just cute cat videos. Specifically for entrepreneurs leveraging YouTube can be a game changer. YouTube acts like a search engine, which obviously makes sense because they are owned by Google. here's a couple of stats. YouTube is the second most visited website in the world and almost 90% of YouTube users come from outside of the United States, and India being the largest with over 265 million active users. And there's also over 31 million YouTube channels out there. And that's insane. Now content creation is marketing now. Most entrepreneurs can do it themselves, and they don't have to pay an arm and a leg for someone else to do it for them. So to get a little better understanding of how YouTube can help you in your business, let's get to the interview and speak to Brandee. Brandee. So nice to have you here on The Business 360 Podcast.
Brandee Sweesy:Thank you so much. I got to, I want to compliment you so much on everything that you've done in this process of having me on. I really, really, really, really want to tell you this because the document that you sent, everything, your professionalism is just amazing and refreshing. So thank you for that.
Rushab Kamdar:Oh, thank you. No, that means a lot. I really appreciate you saying that. And I'm glad that, you know, it was seamless for you to, to jump onto this show. So thank you for that. So you know, what I want to start off with is let's let the audience know more about you. You are a YouTube marketing consultant. So, you know, explain a little bit of what that is and what do you specifically do?
Brandee Sweesy:Yeah. So I've been doing YouTube advertising for about eight years. When everybody was jumping on Facebook, I had, I had some back experience with Google Hangouts and YouTube in general. And so I had an idea about YouTube advertising and I told a friend that I had a theory and we did it and it went well. And so I've been doing YouTube advertising ever since then. And then, I've always had an agency that was, you know, done for you, and then I've transitioned into more of the consulting done with you because it seems like people want to bring, either they want to have their in-house media buyers do it, or they're trying to do it themselves. And they just need that extra couple of hours of expert advice. And I actually enjoy that part of it. And then also, even in the agency side of things, when people are doing YouTube advertising, I also help them with their organic. Because if you're going to spend money on advertising, you want also that you're organic, your brand awareness is there. So you may not see the money in your bank account. However, you're getting the brand awareness and the subscribers are going up.
Rushab Kamdar:So when you say you help them with advertising specifically. If you can just give an example of what that would entail.
Brandee Sweesy:Yes. On the agency side of it, what happens is someone will hire me for a retainer for the month and I'll do all of the scripting and the actual media buying. They'll shoot their videos themselves. And I'm always a proponent for videos like this do better than big high production. So people don't need to hire big. Editors, and music and, you know, jump cuts and all of that. And so I'll skip the ads, you know, usually the hook and education and call to action, and then I'll actually do the media buying for them. And then, we just continue to grow and scale from there.
Rushab Kamdar:So tell me, you know, what is so special about YouTube versus all the other platforms that are out there?
Brandee Sweesy:Well, this is not my phrase, but I have a friend of mine that said this in a room the other day, Facebook schizophrenic. Right? I mean I love this. And so I'm going to keep on saying this. I've never said this before. You know, there's so many accounts being shut down and people that are spending, really phenomenal sums of money will get their accounts shut down without explanation. And so, what happened was back in 2008, you know, when everybody started doing Google ads, it was just like printing money. And then 2008, they call it the Google Slap. And then that, that, well dried up. Since then, Google owns YouTube. I think most people know that has really become sophisticated for advertising and stable, you know, play within the rules, but you don't run the risk of losing your entire business. They're going to communicate with you, disapprove ads, but not just one day, your ads are running in the next day, your accounts shut down and you have no understanding of why. And so it's just a much more stable platform. That would be number one. Number two is because it is a search engine, right? YouTube really is a search engine. When it first came out, it was cute kitten videos, and there's still some of those funny videos. However, people go to YouTube to solve a problem. You know how to set up a podcast, how to build a website, how to build an email list, how to change a tire, how to fix your washing machine. Right? And so people are, they're looking to solve problems. So YouTube advertising is amazing. If you have a solution to the problems that they're looking for.
Rushab Kamdar:So let's take that a little step further, right? I'm a business owner and I want to leverage my business on YouTube. What is my advantage or what are the advantages that I can get from that?
Brandee Sweesy:You know, when you can put an ad in front of somebody that's on a certain desire path and you have a better solution for them, that's the gold, right? So that's called placements. That's the type of targeting it is. So you find videos that allow ads. That are talking about the problem that you have a solution for. And then you can say,"Hey, before you watch this video on this, I have a better, easier, softer, more whatever". And that also helps with the education, the education piece, because if you can deliver better than that video, they just watched, they'll be like, Oh yeah, that ad probably has my solution, but this video doesn't. Right?
Rushab Kamdar:Yeah, absolutely. You know, you, you said a couple of keywords that I think are important. You said scripting, you talked before about not having high production on videos, just, you know, bring something of quality content and put it out there, but you don't need to have a complete Hollywood production behind it. And you know, that leads me to this question, which is no matter what your business is, There's a lot of people say they don't have time for it. Right? And scripting takes maybe sometime. And depending on the level of scripting there's equipment, there's maybe lighting, maybe backdrops, et cetera. So what advice would you give for anybody that has a business that should be on YouTube, which I'm assuming maybe all businesses should have at least some presence because of the age we live in today. But what advice do you have for these business owners who say they don't have time or don't have the know-how on creating videos and YouTube posts?
Brandee Sweesy:I think it's, you know, it's it's analysis paralysis. Right? Everybody wants things to be perfect. And so that's really the barrier of entry for a lot of people is that they do think that they need all of that. I mean, you know, like even now, I haven't shot videos personally, myself. However, if I was going to, this would be the setup and this is like a little, my little webcam is I think, I don't know, less than a hundred dollars, one softbox light. Maybe$50. I have you know, a snowball microphone, but right now I'm just using my computer cause it sounds better. It's closer to me, you know, boom done. That's all you need. And I'm a proponent for don't spend money until you're making money. Right? So don't go into buying the latest, greatest bestest camera, tripod, softboxes, sound. You know what I mean? Like they'll spend a couple of thousand dollars if you're not going to make a video, start making videos and then you'll find your voice. And this is the other thing, like if you look back to like a Marie Forleo, I use her as an example a lot, because when she started, it was on her laptop, looking at the camera here, sitting at our kitchen table. And she just kept every week creating content, creating content every week. And then you see, she starts to get her voice. She starts to get her stride. She starts to, you can watch her testing, different things over a period of time. And then now look at her, she has a high production studio with a staff, you know, they do all of these things. It's just getting started. And I think this is like one of the funny things is everyone's always afraid that, you know, they're going to make a fool of themselves, or, you know, I, I say this with love the chances of anybody seeing your video is really slim in the beginning. Right? You might get one or two viewers, so stop putting so much pressure on yourself to be perfect because you're probably not going to get viewers in the beginning. I, you know, I'm sorry, but this is just the reality and let's do advertising. So it just get in the consistency of doing it. And, like, before I used to do Google Hangouts, that's how I would do videos. Just turn it on. And now oh, I want to say this for your audience and for you as well. If you look at YouTube priorities for 2021 live video is where it's at. Shorts and live video. And so just pop open your laptop and go live for 10 minutes and don't let your, just go on and talk. And I think I told you this too. I'm like, just go on and talk for 10 minutes. You have an inspiration. Go on and talk for 10 minutes. Don't worry if you don't get feedback, because remember on YouTube, the difference between a Facebook live and a YouTube live, is it's searchable forever? A Facebook live just gets buried down and there's no keywords or anything to look for. And that's the easiest way to create content. You know, you have a genius, like,"Oh, I want to talk about this". Boom, do a live, talk about it, shut it down. And, you know, keyword and do things. But yeah.
Rushab Kamdar:No. I mean, that's, that's such soundbite. Oh no, it wasn't. It was actually, you know, directly there. I think that's important for anybody even when I started my podcast channel, I mean, I was very rigid. My first interview, my second interview, I was trying to be very, you know, I, I had my questions written out but you know, this is now episode nine, I think. And, you know, I feel a lot more relaxed at it and, you know, having that back and forth conversation. So I think what the advice here is start, don't worry and you'll get better. Like anything in life you keep practicing and you'll get better. And so, uh, I appreciate that advice. And I know you talked about YouTube shorts. We'll get to that in a minute, but you know, when we talk about people who create content out there, specifically businesses, we know a lot of it is online course, creators, influencers, and those types of content creators that are out there that are really camera front facing. But there are a lot of traditional businesses out there. restaurants, accountants, insurance agents, real estate brokers. How can they use YouTube to leverage their business?
Brandee Sweesy:Yeah. Like if you want a restaurant and you don't want to be the face of your restaurant, maybe it's getting your staff to talk about it, or maybe getting customers to give testimonials and videos of testimonials of their experience in the restaurant. Same with insurance or real estate, you know, with real estate, it's showing properties or talking about the neighborhood, you could voice over the neighborhood.
Rushab Kamdar:No, I appreciate that. I, and I think that's important, right? To think outside the box, because I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a small accounting company based, I think, out of Florida. it was a two person office and they just started talking about PPP loans. Right? Because everyone wanted answers. And whatever they were able to find the little information that was coming out early on about it, they just did YouTube videos and they ended up having hundreds of thousands of subscribers. So I think as long as you can showcase what you bring to the table or bring value and content, doesn't matter what your business is. People will find it and you'll get customers out of it.
Brandee Sweesy:Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, speak with passion, speak what you know. I mean people resonate with that and we all know, the know, like, and trust factor, you know, that's, YouTube videos give that. It gives you the sense of you know the person already before you're gonna to do business with them and they see you. And that's why it doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, I love, that's why I like the lives. Maybe you flub up, maybe you uhm and uh, maybe your kid comes running in the room behind you. Maybe, you know, something goes wrong, like right before our thing, my light fell over and I was like, ah, that's why I was racing around, you know, things happen, but that makes you more human. Like if you're like, hi, my name is Brandy Sweesy and I do YouTube advertising. And you know, like the people are like, and we're out right. But if something funny where, and, you know, not to, I mean, if you're funny, then be funny, but you know, stuff happens. Right? And let that happen. Like, you know
Rushab Kamdar:Let it happen..
Brandee Sweesy:Yeah. That's who you resonate with, you know, the imperfection, right? The humanity of a person that's really what you're going to resonate with. And so that's why I like the less perfect the better. Because they see you struggling. They see you're nervous. They see and they're like,"Oh, you too? All right. I you're my person" you know.
Rushab Kamdar:Or perfection is imperfection, right? That's my motto. So appreciate that advice. Let's get into what everyone probably wants to know, which is those posting strategies and hacks, right? So basically what is the best time to post on a given day? If there is one or what is the average length of a video that maybe algorithm can help with? And consistency, right? Posting on a consistent basis versus posting once a week. And the last thing I'll throw out there, and I know it's quite a bit of throwing but the last that I'm throwing out there is batch uploading. Right? If you have 10 videos you upload all at once or is it better to bring, uh, to post them over a course of time?
Brandee Sweesy:Um, I think this is always the question and I always tell people, like, how often do you want to post? Like, how often are you going to consider, you know, consistently post, right? Like, I don't want to be the person to say, Oh, you should post five times per day. And you're like, duh, that's drudgery. And then you don't do it, right? If you can only post one time per month. Then you do you, right? Post one time for one, you know, put a video up one time. We're saying posts, but put a video up one time. If you, if you have the capacity and you actually enjoy doing it, then set a schedule and say, I want to do Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And if you're really good at editing and you're a creator or something like that, then do five days per week. Right? It depends on what you're going to do. That's always my advice. What are you going to do? Don't listen to me, you know, what you're going to do. Right? An answer to your bulk upload. Yeah, I think that, you know, like if you have like you with your podcast, so, so I'm episode nine, so you have 10 already on the shelf, I would do like a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you know? And then that way it's less pressure for you to have to create content by next Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And then, you know, like the big people, like Marie Forleo, Lewis Howes, or any of those guys, they do like one filming day. It is all of the episodes. Well, no, I don't think Lewis does, but I know Marie does. You know, where she does a filming day and that's for the entire month, which is four episodes. She only does one day per week. But she's been doing one day per week for 10 years. Right? YouTube wants to see that you're going to be consistent. So if you say I'm going to do Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 1:00 PM, then make sure it's Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1:00 PM. If you're not capable of doing Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, say I post every, I post every Wednesday at 1:00 PM. However, if you have a video on Monday or Tuesday, post it too. Right? But that consistency that they know every week at this time. And then an answer to your question, is there a perfect time? No, I mean, I don't know what the magic number of that is, especially because YouTube is worldwide. YouTube has really robust analytics. I mean, really amazing analytics. So you can start to see as you start to post content, you can see when the greatest watch time is. So then maybe you adjust, you start it off at Wednesday at 1, and then you see the analytics and everybody watches on Friday at 6. Okay, maybe Fridays at 6 is my better day, right? But maybe not maybe a little bit before, because that's what time they're watching it, but that's not, you know what I mean? So maybe it's a little bit before, maybe it's Friday at 3 because you know, Friday at 6, they're going to watch it. Right.
Rushab Kamdar:How about the average length of a video?
Brandee Sweesy:it seems to be five to seven minutes, seems to be the sweet spot. That seems to be the overall consensus of people's five to seven seems to be the sweet spot. Same thing though. You can go along. I mean, if you're gonna do something like this, where it's longer, you know, so I think this will be roughly 30 minutes. You know, that's okay to do the 30 minutes, but make sure that you timestamp it. At this point, this gem was dropped. At this point, don't say this gem was dropped. At this point, this was discussed. At this point, this was discussed. That timestamp is amazing because that timestamp, Google will rank that timestamp. If it's very specific, like this works really well for people to do like camera reviews and stuff like that. They'll say, you know, 3 minutes and 45 seconds, I discussed the lens or something. That, Google will actually take that and load that just from that timestamp on. It's insane.
Rushab Kamdar:How about hacks on trying to creating names for titles? I know there's things like TubeBuddy out there. What do you know about it? Or what can you explain to the listeners about that?
Brandee Sweesy:I always say to title your videos and what's in it for them, or what problem you solve, the more you can lead with how to something. Right? And also remember that we, especially in marketing, we talk our own language and it's not a language familiar to everyone. Right? So stay away from"How to create a funnel?" you know, we all breathe, live funnels, webinars, CRMs, advertise, you know what I mean? So we use that lingo, but it could be, you know,"How to nurture your audience?", you know what I mean? Like try to think and always, and all of marketing should be at the, you know, second, third grade level of language. Because, also, think about that when I'm in pain, I don't think how to I'm like,"How to make the CRM?", you know? No, I want a solution and I want it now. And I'm going to talk like a second grader to find it. When I'm trying to think of ideas, I'll let YouTube auto make sure you're incognito because it's going to auto finish based on your normal searching. So make sure that you're in Google incognito, so that's giving you that. And then I go down different rabbit holes, those that coveted suggested, and I see what's there and play around with that. And then of course, like you said, there's TubeBuddy, VidIQ can give you keyword ideas. It's always better to start with the title before you shoot the video. Right? And this is a big mistake people make is that they, they go, they make the video and then they come back and they try to figure out how to title it based on what they talked about. And this is kind of talking about intention as well. Like if you have the title before you start the video, then you know what the intention and the solution you're gonna solve before you actually push record. So really keeping that in mind. And I was like, yeah, TubeBuddy and VidIQ, both are good for keywords and things.
Rushab Kamdar:How about thumbnails? What's your opinion on that?
Brandee Sweesy:Title and thumbnails are the first two things you do. You should do before you start a video because thumbnails are where it's at. Thumbnails are kind of like, and I see this a lot with people, it doesn't have to be the exact same title. Cause sometimes titles are really wordy, and you just want to catch someone's attention, and you want to make it really visually fun, you know? So just like three, four words, right? Not the entire title, but related to the title. Like no don't clickbait, don't bait and switch on people. Cause they don't like that, but something related. So three or four of your keywords would be ideal and then, you know, have it off center and then, you know, take a photo of yourself while you're shooting the video or while you're editing the video. And then have, have it be big there. And there's quite a few tools out there that help with thumbnails. Just be aware that people watch on their phone and their phones, a little itty-bitty screen. So making sure that it really stands out, it really pops, it has good color, and it's not blah.
Rushab Kamdar:Thank you for that. Let's move to YouTube shorts. You mentioned that before. not a lot of people know what that is. It's still in beta phase, you know. For me, personally, when I try to go on my YouTube app, I don't have the option. Some people in the US do, some people don't, but internationally, you know, it's, it seems to be more prevalent. What is YouTube shorts and what can you tell our audience about it?
Brandee Sweesy:Yeah. They want to compete with TikTok, IG reels. YouTube wants to do that and it's 30 seconds. Whenever there's something new that YouTube is rolling out and you jump on it, YouTube rewards you. And because remember they're for the creators all the time. So the more content that you put on shorts, your channel will probably get, get some love from them too, because you're jumping behind their thing. I mean, I act like it's a person that's doing it right. However, that's what, you know, machine, all of it is saying. Okay, well, thanks. You're creating content consistently. And YouTube shorts that 30 seconds, what the experts are saying, like there's one kid that went from zero to a hundred million views in like 30 days on shorts.
Rushab Kamdar:Wow.
Brandee Sweesy:Yeah, but he was posting three to five times per day for the first two weeks. And then it started to take off and then he said his actual channel ended up benefiting as well. And so it's something to think about. It's just like a TikTok or an IG, an Instagram story, you know, short form content, call to action. Try to make it, you know, entertaining, funny. However, I mean, I know like lawyers and things like that are on TikTok that are crushing it. I have a client that kills it on TikTok as a lawyer. And just by doing that, you know, talking about immigration, right? Not a really exciting subject, but he crushes it. And so, you know, like, I think like most people, at least myself, like TikTok. I'm like, I'm not making any dancing kid videos. However, I'm hearing a lot of professional business people do it. So same for shorts, but because shorts is new, that's the land grab. You always want to be the first one on a platform. If you can be the first one, it's hard to be the first one. However, the early adapters are the ones that win. Once it starts getting saturated, that it's going to be very difficult to traction. So if I was trying to grow my channel organically, I'd be all over shorts right now.
Rushab Kamdar:Wonderful. Now, thank you for that. I think this was extremely informative, Brandy. I really appreciate you taking the time to be here in The Business 360 Podcast, giving us your insights on YouTube. Hopefully, it's helped a lot of people cause I know it's definitely helped me reframe my mind and giving me a clear path on how I want to attack YouTube as I move forward. So thank you for that. And it was my sincere pleasure.
Brandee Sweesy:Thank you. My pleasure too. You're awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us on The Business 360 Podcast. To learn more about our guests. Go to thinkbusiness360.com. In life, I follow two things that keep me grounded. Number one, if you only listen to someone's successes and not their failures, you've only heard half the story and number two, compete with yourself and help everyone else. You stay classy, Business Heroes.