Ever wonder how to amplify your business with YouTube? Ready to learn the secrets of creating engaging content that resonates with your audience? Buckle up, because in our recent episode, we sat down with real estate agent and YouTube wizard, Alex Skeen. Alex walks us through his innovative journey of using YouTube to catapult his real estate business. He shares how focusing on his local Quad Cities audience and tailoring content to their interests, even those unglamorous aspects of real estate, have been instrumental in increasing engagement and trust.
Creating clickable titles, thumbnails, and employing negative aspects to draw attention, Alex leads us into the art of YouTube channels. We got deep into the significance of tools such as TubeBuddy for A/B testing and Canva for captivating thumbnails. The discussion opens up the world of video editing, categorizing b-roll footage, and the importance of investing time and money into your YouTube channel. We also addressed the role of the YouTube algorithm, the impact of non-target audiences on your channel's growth, and the magic of evergreen videos.
The episode winds down with a practical guide on producing high-quality video content on a budget. Alex, who started his YouTube journey with just a smartphone and a $25 microphone, stresses the importance of good lighting and good sound. We shared tips on video quality enhancement and the potential of local content for referrals. Finally, we delved into Alex's foray into content creation, the value of a good hook, and his experience with video processing. We wrapped up the episode with a heartfelt thank you to our listeners and the power of reviews. This episode is a treasure trove of practical advice, real-world experiences, and invaluable insights for anyone looking to leverage YouTube for their business.
You can learn more about Alex on Instagram at @alexskeenreal and also on his Youtube Channel at Livinginthequadcities.
The Level Up Your Content Podcast is hosted by Phil Dodds. www.instagram.com/phildodds
Ever wonder how to amplify your business with YouTube? Ready to learn the secrets of creating engaging content that resonates with your audience? Buckle up, because in our recent episode, we sat down with real estate agent and YouTube wizard, Alex Skeen. Alex walks us through his innovative journey of using YouTube to catapult his real estate business. He shares how focusing on his local Quad Cities audience and tailoring content to their interests, even those unglamorous aspects of real estate, have been instrumental in increasing engagement and trust.
Creating clickable titles, thumbnails, and employing negative aspects to draw attention, Alex leads us into the art of YouTube channels. We got deep into the significance of tools such as TubeBuddy for A/B testing and Canva for captivating thumbnails. The discussion opens up the world of video editing, categorizing b-roll footage, and the importance of investing time and money into your YouTube channel. We also addressed the role of the YouTube algorithm, the impact of non-target audiences on your channel's growth, and the magic of evergreen videos.
The episode winds down with a practical guide on producing high-quality video content on a budget. Alex, who started his YouTube journey with just a smartphone and a $25 microphone, stresses the importance of good lighting and good sound. We shared tips on video quality enhancement and the potential of local content for referrals. Finally, we delved into Alex's foray into content creation, the value of a good hook, and his experience with video processing. We wrapped up the episode with a heartfelt thank you to our listeners and the power of reviews. This episode is a treasure trove of practical advice, real-world experiences, and invaluable insights for anyone looking to leverage YouTube for their business.
You can learn more about Alex on Instagram at @alexskeenreal and also on his Youtube Channel at Livinginthequadcities.
The Level Up Your Content Podcast is hosted by Phil Dodds. www.instagram.com/phildodds
Hey everybody, welcome to the level up your content podcast, where we're here to help mortgage loan officers and real estate agents make better content every day. Super excited to be back with you guys and I have a really special guest today. This is somebody that is absolutely crushing YouTube right now and I'm just super excited to talk to him. Just find out a little bit about his journey, find out what he's been doing that's working and just, you know, kind of share him with you guys. So I want to welcome Alex Skeen he's a real estate agent here in the Quad Cities to the podcast. Alex, welcome and happy to have you.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm happy to be here. I always love talking YouTube and social media, so I'm pretty excited to get rolling on this topic here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome and like, and you know, just guys, just kind of talking through the intro, you know, alex. So this is this is like a really cool story, because I remember this day really specifically like in my mind, where you and I sat down at a Dunbro's, which is a coffee shop here in the Quad Cities for those of you that don't know what Dunbrothers is and I don't, I would say it's like 18 months ago maybe, maybe it's less than that or something like that, and we were just talking content, like we were. You know, we were both in the real estate industry and we just wanted to talk about content. And we're talking about YouTube and you had expressed to me that you're like kind of thinking about doing this YouTube thing. You're thinking about making some videos of, like, the businesses in the area and I will tell you from that time point on.
Speaker 1:So like the last two years, I've probably spoken in front of a thousand real estate agents and every single one I tell them about. The biggest opportunity for the real estate agent, especially in the Quad Cities, is YouTube, and the only person that I know of in this market that has jumped on that opportunity is Alex Skeen and duty. You're just hammering results. So, like, talk to me a little bit about you know, kind of just a really you know big synopsis of what your journeys look like and like what it's doing for your real estate business right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean, yeah, when we talked, I don't know if I even had anything posted yet I was just, you know, formulating ideas. I want to do things differently than most agents and I saw YouTube as an opportunity to do that Because, like you said, nobody does it, but just doing research online, trying to find out, you know, what's the best way to do things, but the best thing is just to get started, and that's what I did. I started talking about real estate topics because I'd making videos for, like Facebook and Instagram and stuff before that, but just really getting started was the biggest thing, and then you start discovering more, you learn more about it, and that's when it really starts picking up, because once you take action, you start learning things that you never even thought to ask. So, yeah, I started.
Speaker 2:I believe we met probably in November or December of 2021, because I started my channel in 2022, january and, yeah, I mean, we talked, you gave me a couple of resources to look at and, you know, kind of made it happen. Past that first three months didn't have anything going on, and then I finally got my first reach out for the first three months and it's been nonstop ever since.
Speaker 1:So time out. So like you were making YouTube videos for only three months and then you finally like had somebody reach out to you ask you a question, or you kind of like got a lead from YouTube. Yeah, that's nuts.
Speaker 2:Wow, exactly, it's a, and they had happened to be a renter. They were coming from Phoenix Arizona. We're going to become a renter. They ask if I do rentals. At the time I don't really do rentals. I still don't really do rentals, but I have resources for individuals now. But they came here, wanted to rent and then about two weeks after looking for rentals, they decided they wanted to purchase. So we got them hooked up and they closed. I don't know probably five months in total after I started my YouTube channel. Wow, so three months to call me and then another two months because you got 30 days or 45 days of closing time or two. So, yeah, it's about how long it took to get my first actual deal from YouTube.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about, like, the idea and the scope of your channel, and this is, again, nobody does this, but there's this idea of being the mayor you know of your area and when I look at your channel, this is exactly what you've done. You don't necessarily just post, you're not posting videos of homes, like you're not just putting like home walkthroughs on your YouTube channel. What you are is you're providing very specific information about the area that you live in, specifically the Quad Cities or Iowa, and what's powerful about what you're doing. And, guys, this is what I want you to understand is that Alex does a really good job of making videos that are based off of trending Google searches. Right, it's like your, your, your titles. The video topic is very much about what people are asking about Iowa or wanting to know if they're moving to the Quad Cities. People will go in and Google. You know these different things and Alex is literally just making the videos answering those questions. Am I? Am I right in breaking down the idea of your channel there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean pretty much the. I don't have a single listing video on my channel and you know, from a YouTube perspective, youtube is simple to understand once you understand it. But if you don't understand it then it's hard to actually gain audience. And the biggest thing with audience building on YouTube is you got to understand the audience and what they want exactly. So if I, for example, I think of my channel as a show, right, if you were to go on and what's your favorite show? Phil?
Speaker 1:Oh man, right now probably the office still All right.
Speaker 2:So so say you went on and you weren't. We're going to go watch the office. You turn it on. It says the office has a thumbnail that looks like the office, but all of a sudden it was Grey's Anatomy. You're going to probably shut it off, right? Yep, it's confusing to people. And the same thing with YouTube is if I'm making videos about the pros and cons of Davenport or what's this neighborhood like, they know what to expect. But if I put a listing video on there, all of a sudden it's completely different and it doesn't make sense to YouTube but also the audience, because they just don't really understand it.
Speaker 2:And back to your point about you know YouTube kind of as a search platform is. It's in the second biggest search engine in the world, Google being the number one. So you do want to hit key points that people are actually searching for. You know the biggest keyword that I target is Iowa, because it's just a bigger niche, but also the second biggest is Davenport, because most people are searching Davenport. I make videos about all the Quad Cities, but most of my channel is going to be about Davenport, just because that's the one searched more often. Now does everybody buy in Davenport? No, but people know Davenport as the main hub for the Quad Cities. So they're searching.
Speaker 2:you know growing cons of Davenport, but I may talk about Davenport suburbs like Beton Dore for Rock Island. So you have to make the titles around what people are searching for, because that's what they're going to want to click on. Once you have them there, you got to make videos that are consistent with what they're wanting to see all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so make content for your viewer, not for yourself, right?
Speaker 1:Exactly and I think what Alex guys, what I want you to understand is what Alex does really well is that none of his videos is trying to sell anybody anything. He's just answering questions and being a resource and being educational. And when somebody comes and watches that video, he establishes that rapport with that person and that's what causes them to reach out. Oh man, he knows, he's the guy in the Quad Cities, he's the guy in Davenport, he knows what's going on and that's why they connect with you. And you mentioned a really good point, because I literally throw that statistic out all the time.
Speaker 1:You know YouTube's the number two search engine, google being number one. And who owns YouTube? Google? So, like, when you post search based, like a trending search based content on YouTube, it pulls through in the Google search. So when somebody goes and searches that question, your YouTube videos are probably pulling up and I'm sure you could probably find the analytics on that. But it also would be super interesting to see how many of your viewers on your different videos find you through a Google search. You know, and it's probably, it's probably incredible, it's probably, it'd probably blow you away.
Speaker 1:You know also, you're talking, so we were talking about listing videos. You said you haven't posted one, like if that's something that somebody was really passionate about. I think an awesome way to do that would be you know, if you had a listing, you could be like here's what you can get for $300,000 in Davenport, iowa, and then, like you do the walkthrough video and it's not just a sales thing, it's like you're providing information, because people who are moving here they kind of want to know what they can get for for their money. So that would be like, I think, a YouTube, a YouTube way of going about a listing video. Right, do you agree?
Speaker 2:Yes and no. Yes, that that is a better way to do it, but the thing with my channel specifically, I would probably cover what the neighborhood is like and then what amenities are around, and then the listing video part would be a small section of the entire video.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 2:It's more about what they're going to experience, because nobody cares about 123 Main Street six months from now, after it's been sold, but they care about what the neighborhood is like, what amenities are close by and what they're going to get in that area for $300,000 or whatever it is. Yeah so it's important to share the whole aspect of the living experience on my channel specifically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, instead of just walking with a camera through the house I see what you're saying. I'm just saying I'm thinking real estate agents who really want to put a house, or they love talking about houses or they love talking about these finishes or whatever they can incorporate that into their channel. But what you're saying is be very, don't get like caught up on just the house. Talk about everything else that encompasses the area, because that's what people are gonna wanna come for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it goes back to the titles too. You know a lot of agents will put one, two, three Main Street as the title of the video. It's nobody searching that. Yeah, so what you said earlier is what you can buy in Iowa for $300,000 makes more sense, because they're gonna be searching living in Iowa or whatever it is, and then they see the listing you know as a part of that. Yeah, so yeah, it goes both ways. You know titles and specific to what the audience is looking for. Now, listing videos do better on other platforms like Facebook or Instagram, where people already know you.
Speaker 2:The thing with YouTube is your audience is people that don't know you. For the most part, you know subscribers, yes, but I think it's like 91% of my audience coming to me is unsubscribed people.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:They don't know me until they start watching me. And even people that will watch me habitually don't always subscribe just cause they don't take the time. But the way YouTube works, even if you don't subscribe, but they've watched a video or they've commented or they've liked on it, youtube will still suggest my videos to them, even if they haven't subscribed. So subscribers are great, but it's not the whole picture when it comes to that aspect of things. Yeah, point being is it's not people that know you right away, so they don't care about your listing. That's down the street. They wanna know what the area is like. Then, when they call you, they talk about listings.
Speaker 1:So I just saw recently you just surpassed 1,000 subscribers on your channel, which is a pretty big deal on YouTube Like that's kind of like the measuring stick. Once you can get to 1,000, that's like a big deal. And now you can move on and honestly, as a real estate agent, I mean, what's the average time somebody lives in a home? I thought I saw the statistics there. Is it like 4.8 years Somebody stays in that?
Speaker 2:I wanna say it's like five to nine years is like the average time Five to nine years.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, let's say seven, right? So if every seven years, your customer is buying a new home and it's a buy sell, right, how many deals do you need to do a year to be successful? And then you multiply that times seven I mean I'm talking to some agents and 30 is a big number for them, right? 30 would probably be a lot of deals, yeah, so if you times that by seven, you're talking only having to do 210, having 210 total clients in your entire lifetime.
Speaker 1:Right? If you do a good job and you've already got a thousand freaking subscribers on your YouTube channel, like, you should be able to siphon 210 clients out of that, right, and you just keep producing content form stuff like that, so, like so, from we're talking about, we're talking about video titles, we're talking about hooks, different ways to say things, google search trends what videos have you had a lot of success with? Like if you were sitting down with a real estate agent coaching them on how to do YouTube, what are some video ideas you think they should look into right off the bat?
Speaker 2:So the big ones that I find do the best, for better or worse, are the negative type videos. When I say negative, I don't necessarily make them negative, but the titles may inform you that it's negative. So I think my best video right now, sitting at like 36,000 views somewhere around there, is avoid Iowa seven reasons you should avoid Iowa, or something like that. But it's things like if you don't like wintertime, don't move to Iowa. It's just simple things that some people may see as negative. But the thing with YouTube is the saying is what what bleeds leads. So whatever is negative is usually what people are gonna click on.
Speaker 2:So start with some of the negative titles. A negative title may be pros and cons of Davenport. That's just you got the cons in there and people want to know what those are. The other thing I look at with my channel is this kind of an Amazon review of the area, and when you go into Amazon you're looking at the reviews. You're not always looking at the five star reviews, You're looking at the threes and maybe the ones See if that product is the right thing for you. So making negative videos isn't a bad choice either. It's cause people want that honesty and I'd say, probably three out of five clients that come from YouTube tell me that directly, like you told us the negative things. And that's why we trusted you, because we knew we aren't just gonna sugarcoat everything.
Speaker 1:So as an agent as I say, it goes back to what you said before. You're making content for what people want to know. They're like, okay, yeah, everything's got its good things, but I wanna know what the bad stuff is. Can I deal with whatever the negative things are?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and when you're searching on Google, you're not finding the negative stuff. Typically it's blogs that are talking about the good things amenities cause, the city and the visit Quad Cities. They're not gonna paint the Quad Cities in a negative light because they want people to visit or live here, but the truth of the matter is people want to know the negative to make sure it's the right place they want to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think a little bit of that fear cells kind of thing. There's a reason that CNN, msnbc, fox News they all lead the story every night is a fear based or a negative type story, because that's what people click on. And that's probably the most important part with YouTube is that you have to have a clickable video, you have to have that right title and then you have to have a good thumbnail. I notice you spent a lot of time coming up with a good thumbnails. What's your process for that? Do you hire that out or you do it all yourself, or you just kind of trial and error with the thumbnail?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the thing that's cool about thumbnails and titles is they work together right. A lot of the mistakes I see with thumbnails is they want to put everything that's about the video on the thumbnail and tell the whole story, but that's what the video is for, but the title and the thumbnail should work together. The thing about my process, though, is I used to do all of my thumbnails myself. It just takes a long time to come up with the idea and think about it and manipulate the product to actually make it look good. So now I've gotten a video editor and a thumbnail designer that does both of those for me, so I give them ideas like, hey, I want something like this, or I want this wording, or whatever, and then a back and forth happens and we decide what the thumbnail is gonna be.
Speaker 2:But the other thing with YouTube is the click is so important. You know you click the rate, but they give you tools. One tool in particular is called TubeBuddy, where you can actually take two thumbnails and test them against each other and see which one does better. It's called AB testing, so you can see okay, maybe this idea you thought was really really good isn't performing very well. Well, this video is actually doing better or this thumbnail is doing better, so you should switch it out to try to get those clicks up. So I do that, and then I also, like I said, I have a thumbnail designer that takes care of that now, but for the first I don't know 12 months I did all the thumbnails myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you started doing it all yourself. Did you use Canva or something like that to go in it?
Speaker 2:Yep, Canva, Yep, I used Canva. I pay for the pro version because of the background remover.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's like 12 bucks a month, or maybe it's a little bit more than that now, but Canva is a no-brainer Like. If you're in sales and marketing like, Canva is a must-have. You know. Yes, what do you? So you hire a video editor. Is it somebody stateside or do you have, like, a VA overseas that does that for you?
Speaker 2:Yep so I have a VA in the Philippines. It's actually a whole company. I have a specific editor for me, but he was to go on vacation or get sick. They have backups so that I don't have to interrupt it of my flow and my work. But yeah, I talked to them overseas. I give them the videos around the time I'm going to bed and by the morning they'll have something ready to go. Typically, it's simply gonna take about three days, depending on the length of the video. But yeah, it's awesome having a video editor to do all that, because I am not a video editor. I did that for about 10 months too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you tried. Yeah, you had to start. You had to start in the beginning. I feel your pain. What do you pay per video for like a thumbnail and to get the video edited with that company?
Speaker 2:So mine's like a package deal. Okay, I get it comes out to be about two videos a week, but if I were to say the average because I can also get reels made and stuff with the extra time that I have but I believe it's about $80 a video I'm at this point Wow, wow, that's you. That's thumbnail editing everything, and these videos aren't little short reels, I mean they're 15, 20 minutes long.
Speaker 1:So you've got. You've got a role, you've got. I see you've got b-roll. You've got different clips coming in. It looks like they're doing they're putting words on the screen. They've got titles. They've got transitions. I mean it's not. I mean it's not like you just sent them one 10 minute long talking head video. Like there's multiple pieces to that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and the thing I found with editors if people are thinking about going with editor, specifically with b-roll, if you categorize the b-roll, so like in the Quad Cities, you have Davenport, rock Island, moline, bettendorf I say, hey, this is in Bettendorf. Well, they'll create a folder for you and they may not use all the b-roll for one video, but if I have to talk about Bettendorf, they'll go in that folder and just grab some b-roll constantly. So once you have a library of the b-roll, it's really easy for the editors to go in and just grab what they need, whatever you're talking about, which is kind of cool to see.
Speaker 1:That's a smart tip, yeah, so then they can all they can continue to repurpose the content that you spent. You spent time shooting, and it doesn't just apply to one video. It can constantly be used in and out. That's how many. So how many videos are you? Are you posting a month right now, or what your goal?
Speaker 2:So I was doing two videos a week, so eight month. I scaled back a little bit for some business reasons, yeah, but I'm planning to go back to two. I'm currently just doing one video week, trying to get ahead. That's the biggest thing, because I was right up to the deadline every single week and I was tired of that, yeah. So I'm about five weeks ahead now. So I'm going to go back to two videos a week and give me give that breathing room in there. So they're all scheduled, ready to go for five more weeks and I'm very proud of that, and I'm very proud of that.
Speaker 1:So I'm just going to give you a little bit of a head of schedule. So you so then I mean your process really, and we'll talk about equipment here in just a second but other than like the time, your time that you're putting in, you're probably spending three to $400 a month To produce and run a legitimate you know 1000 plus subscriber YouTube channel that's generating. So let's say it's $4,800 a year. Would you say that the business that you have received from your YouTube channel, meaning real estate sales has produced enough revenue to cover that $4,800 you invested in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, I do, you know, for the first year. So YouTube is not linear. It kind of grows exponentially. As far as clients coming to you, but for the first year, you know, I told you the first was a five months. I didn't have a client but I ended that first year selling I think is 1.7 million in volume. So you do the math, you know you're ahead and paying for editor and all that. But the thing is it's not linear. So the first five months I didn't get anything. And then obviously I sold a lot towards the end of the year and right now I'm averaging about a call to call on a half per week. Not all of them are ready to go, but that's. But what I'm getting is, you know qualified people ready to purchase that sometime in the future. So it builds up the pipeline in the back end. So it definitely is worth it.
Speaker 1:If you, if you had to, if you had to advise somebody and you said, hey, it's $400 on doing YouTube every month, or, you know, $1000 on buying Zillow leads, which way would you tell them to go?
Speaker 2:Personally, I would go YouTube. Obviously I'm a little biased, but thing I will tell you about the clients that come to you. It's a whole different ballgame. I prefer YouTube clients over referrals, over friends, because it's I'd call it a suit of celebrity effect. Right, They've been watching me for three, four, five, six months so they feel like they know me.
Speaker 2:So when they call me, I've literally had people say, hey, is there any way we can get on your schedule Because we want to work with you? That's a whole different thing versus like open houses, trying to convince people to work with you, or Zillow leads, where we all know it's very hit or miss and how you follow up and all of that is very crucial For YouTube lead. My systems don't have to be as structured they are, but they don't have to be because people already committed and sought you out, versus you having to convince them, which is awesome, or if you're fighting for them over you know 10 other real estate agents, or whatever it is, or they didn't even, or they didn't even mean to give you their information.
Speaker 1:You know, they just clicked on a link to look at a house and here you are now. You just paid.
Speaker 2:So I can give you a story with this actually. So just got a client under contract that happens to be local. He's the first local guy Most of my people are out of state, yeah, moving here. But he found me on YouTube, watched my videos. He called a listing agent about a certain property. Listing agent asked the questions appropriately hey, are you working with anybody? He goes no, I'm working with Alex Skeen. Well, at this point I didn't even know he existed because he hadn't called me yet, but he already had decided he was working with me even though he'd never even talked to me yet, which is very unusual. The listing agent actually called me, say hey, you know this individual said he's working with you. I'm like, I saw, yeah, but I had no idea what the name was.
Speaker 1:Dude, I love that story because I had the same thing happen on TikTok with a veteran. Some veterans called the listing agent or, I'm sorry, called the buyer's agent, and they're like do you have a pre-approval? You know, like you know, do you need a loan officer? Oh no, I'm working with Phil Dodds, you know. And they called me like, hey, I got your clients here. They're wanting to look at this house, Can you send me their pre-approval? And I'm like I don't know, I don't know who that is, and they're like yeah, they said they're they're working with you.
Speaker 1:So here's their information. I call and they're like, oh yeah, we watched all your videos on TikTok. We figured we'd go with you and I was like, okay, well, let's get you an application, let's actually get you pre-approved, but it's, it's, it's cool because and like that's the whole power of YouTube and social media and being on video is that you're doing whatever you want to do, right, you're? You know you're out doing your walks. You're hanging out with your wait. You're engaged fiancee, girlfriend, fiancee, fiancee. You're hanging out with your fiancee, you know, doing whatever you want to do the whole time.
Speaker 1:Those videos that you've created, they're evergreen and they're just building relationships with these people and whereas in the past you'd have to be on the phone, you have to be in person with them building that rapport. But those videos just sit there, man, and they work their butts off for you and people come to you just already you know with, like they just have this trust and this relationship built with you. Do you, do you find yourself in your, in your process? Do you? Do you direct referrals and direct customers you speak with to your YouTube channel, like as part of your, your kind of process to get them you know, to know you and aware with what you do.
Speaker 2:So that's a really great question, but I'll back up. I thought of a story when you were talking about the channel working for you while you're not working. So my fiance, she's from the Philippines and last March she was my girlfriend. We went to the Philippines for three weeks. I asked her to marry me there and she said yes. So good things on that.
Speaker 2:But as far as the channel goes, I had an agent covering for me and while I was gone, I got three new clients while I was in the Philippines, which is crazy, because normally you're having to do open houses, you're having to call, you're having to do all this to get clients, whereas my channel worked for me while I was on vacation ended up referring those out to the agent that was covering for me because I couldn't be back for 12 hours difference. So he took care of it and they closed and it was awesome. But that's just the power of YouTube. Not only YouTube, but when it comes to YouTube versus other platforms, I think YouTube is even more powerful because it's evergreen. Potentially you can make trending topics, but evergreen videos are the best, from my opinion, versus Instagram or Facebook. You post a video, it's up for maybe a week and then you got to make another content piece where my channel has the one that I told you was like 36,000 views. I made that two years ago and it's still getting to 100 views a day, so it's super, super powerful when it comes to that aspect. Now the question that you ask is do I tell people to go watch my channel and I'm glad you brought this up, because it's a huge piece of YouTube that people don't understand agent specifically is no, I don't.
Speaker 2:The reason for it, as I talked about how YouTube goes out and finds your audience for you, youtube's algorithm is very, very, very good in understanding what you, as a viewer, are trying to accomplish. They know, for example, if you like lawn mowing and arts and crafts. Well, youtube wants the viewer to stay on the channel or stay on the platform as long as possible, so they're going to try to feed you videos that it thinks you're going to like, right? So the reason I don't share is because YouTube is always trying to figure out what this ideal audience is for the channel by pushing your videos in front of test audiences. So once you get enough data for YouTube, it starts sending it to people they think it's going to like.
Speaker 2:But if you share your channel link, like, say, I put it on Facebook. Well, my mom and my cousin and my uncle are not my ideal audience and YouTube sees their profile, what they like, and says, well, we'll go test it with audiences that like, like stuff like my uncle, well, they're not going to like it, so they're not going to watch it. And then YouTube sees that as a downgrade in the video and they're not going to promote your videos anymore. So don't put it on social media. For that very reason. And it's such a huge piece of it to actually build an audience. There's a saying don't be a secret agent. Well, in YouTube world, you want to be a secret agent. You want YouTube to work for you and not against you. It's a huge piece of it.
Speaker 1:So, basically, if you start, if you start sending people to watch your videos that aren't going to finish the video, or watch more of your videos, that really hurts you with the algorithm. Is this what you're basically? You're saying, kind?
Speaker 2:of it's deeper than that, because my mom may watch the whole video, but her profile is not somebody moving to Davenport. So she's watching all the videos the whole way and liking and sharing it doesn't matter, because they're going to send the video out to people that are like her and they're not going to like it. So it's more detrimental that my mom watches the videos even more than just her not watching the whole video. Yeah, does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yes, and that's if your goal is to drive in leads and traffic and everything, let YouTube do the work and find the customer for you, exactly.
Speaker 2:And it sucks at first when you're starting a channel because YouTube just doesn't know who to put your stuff in front of. So you're getting like 10 of views, five views, six views. You know that kind of stuff. But if you let YouTube work and you give it enough information, so you have to continually hit that niche all the time and you can't stray from that niche. But once it figures it out, it starts putting it in front of the right audience and you start picking up.
Speaker 2:And that's why I say it's not linear, it's more exponential. It grows very fast because it's like okay, we tested it with this audience, it worked, let's test the next video he posts with that same audience and if they like it, they're going to expand that audience to another region. It's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. So when you see like big YouTubers, they have a big test audience that YouTube can push it in front of. That's why they get so like a million views in a half hour. It's because they have a really big test audience already. And I think that part's missed when it comes to YouTube is you have to let YouTube do its thing, otherwise it's never going to grow.
Speaker 1:Got you Okay. So you don't like, you don't have, you don't have a system set up to where you funnel maybe leads or referrals to to like a YouTube playlist, right, you don't have anything like that. You literally are just posting the videos, letting YouTube work for you. That's it Exactly Okay. Cause, cause, I've, I've, I've heard of you know where somebody will have like a playlist about, maybe you know, the real estate process or they'll have a play, a YouTube playlist of a specific city, and they get a lead, you know, from somebody and they're like hey, I'm looking to move to Davenport. Awesome, you know, here's my link tree or here's my playlist to watch all of these videos that I have made on Davenport. I didn't know, like, sometimes some people will implement that process. I didn't know if that was something you were doing.
Speaker 2:So no, um, in fact, it will mess your channel up faster than anything else. Um, I do have a second channel that I will just use for dumping stuff in, like if I have a no lot view or we had to go see a certain thing, that I want to share that video with somebody. That channel is inorganic, just a sharing platform, but I do not touch my organic platform because it will mess YouTube up and not promote my stuff to my ideal audience.
Speaker 1:And that's the living in the Quad Cities channel. It's like you're saying, like I have this one channel to this very specific thing. Yes, perfect, okay, I see exactly what you're saying. Um, so, like, the next question that I know people are going to want to know is like hey, how do you make these? You know, how do you make these videos? What do you use for equipment? You know, um, I've taught many real estate agents um, and have have walked in and overheard them, you know, basically coming up with excuses for why they can't make videos. Uh, you know they'll be like oh well, that's awesome If you've got $10,000 to blow on camera equipment. I mean. So, what do you have invested in this stuff? What are you using and how? How do how do you get it to work?
Speaker 2:You know, I love that question too, cause I see that a lot where agents give themselves excuses, but for the first probably 10,. No, I actually just got this. So first 13 months, 14 months, I was just using this.
Speaker 1:And for those of you not watching on video, he's holding up his iPhone.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, Um, I got a little plug in microphone, I think it's $25. Um got a tripod which I got at a garage sale for $2. That 30 bucks invested into it and I made like I said the first, I don't know 13, 14 months of content with just that setup. Now I've upgraded to a camera, Um, and ironically it's not because of the quality of the video, it was more that I was running out of memory on my phone constantly. I couldn't make more than one video, so I did upgrade for that aspect, Um, but no, it was the, it was the phone the whole time. It was a very simple um, easy to use. Now I've gotten a lot more equipment and probably too much equipment to be honest with you, but um, you can never have too much equipment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Unfortunately it's all expensive.
Speaker 1:Those words aren't allowed on the level of your content podcast. We're leveling up our content and we're leveling up the amount of gear we have, because the gears right, but don't let it stop you to begin.
Speaker 1:No, 100%. It's like the iPhone camera, the sensor and everything in there. That thing is better than cam, like professional cameras we had four to five years ago. That's what people don't understand is like the quality of that iPhone video is incredible If you shoot on the main camera. So don't shoot in the wide or shooting in the zoom. You shoot at 4k, which every iPhone has the ability to shoot in 4k. Now it's going to, it's going to sound great.
Speaker 1:And I would say probably the biggest thing with with your types of videos is, like I know you shoot outside a lot, so you get, you got good lighting, you're well lit, you're not in like a dark house or a dark office or shooting at night. So try to shoot if you can shoot outside or shoot in a well lit area. And you said you bought a microphone. A microphone is you know. I always say that the, the, the video, is only half of the viewing experience. The other half is the audio. So, like I think you picked up on an important piece. Just get a good microphone. Like it's not, it's not that hard. You can get a good wireless microphone for $100 to $200. I mean, I mean I know you were just showing up. You have like the, the DJI wireless version. What did that? What did that cost you, by the way?
Speaker 2:The DJI, I think, was like 300.
Speaker 1:And it's got it comes with one receiver and one transmitter.
Speaker 2:Two transmitters and one receiver. So I can actually interview people cause I have two, two microphones, which is awesome and it next to my camera, but it also can connect to an iPhone or an Android.
Speaker 1:It comes with connection from that, so and I would say like that's a you know for if you're a real estate agent or an, honestly, guys, if you're a loan officer, what Alex has done and you guys should go check out his channel and I'll put it in the show notes but if you're a loan officer, this is honestly something you should consider doing. I had Sean Uihara on my podcast last year and he's a mortgage lender. He generated $40 million in mortgages from YouTube In 2022 and actually the best performing videos he's based in Las Vegas were the exact same types of videos that Alex is doing, but just in Las Vegas. And he even did and he said, his best performing videos like here's why you shouldn't move to Las Vegas in 2022. And like that's the best one. And if you're a loan officer, that's awesome because you start generating people following you for the content in your area and guess what? Somebody reaches out to you and they want to go look at your channel. Hey, now you got a lead you can refer to your real estate agent and Alex.
Speaker 1:I mean real estate agents get pretty excited when a mortgage lender sends them a referral, right? I mean it's kind of like they're like hey, thank you, man, I appreciate that you guys never send us referrals. So, like as a lender, that would be something that would be would be amazing. But if you're thinking about that kind of content, I think the wireless microphone is the way to go up front. Like, instead of getting the podcast microphone, you're gonna have to get it. Like, instead of getting the podcast microphone or getting the on-camera microphone, that wireless will serve you really really well for a lot of the content that you want to make, would you agree?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I mean. But I did start with a wired lab mic so it just plugged right into the phone. Like I said, it was $25. It did decent enough to get me started, cause I didn't want the equipment to stop me, because DJI, that is pretty expensive relative when you're not sure you're going to do it, or a long term, um. But yeah, it's the best way to go. And if you do get just a wired one, it does limit you on how far you can be away from the camera.
Speaker 2:But if you're making content outside, it still works pretty well.
Speaker 1:That's what I was saying Like cause, most of them come with like a 15 foot cord so you can still stand, stand back a little ways, but that's where the wireless really benefits you. You don't have to be right up next to the to the camera when you're shooting. And if you're like in a neighborhood or outside somewhere or in a house, like you kind of want to get some of the background, you know if you're trying, if you're trying to do that, um yeah, what kind of? What kind of camera did you end up going with when you up front?
Speaker 2:So I got a Sony um ZV-E10. So it's kind of made for vlogging Um.
Speaker 1:I got it Exactly what I have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a, it's good. It's a little bit on the higher end of a vlogging camera, cause there's another is Sony ZV, I don't remember, but it doesn't have a.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have the interchangeable lenses, so I you're talking about the one with the interchangeable lenses. You're talking about the ZV one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, zv one.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, but the ZV-E10s only. I think I saw on Amazon, cause this is like the camera I recommend everybody. It's like 590 bucks right now with no lens. If you get the kit lens it's only $700 and the kit lenses. Is that what you have? Did you get the 16 to 50?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got the kit lens. I don't recommend it. It's it's okay, but it needs something a little better.
Speaker 1:So I love the Sony cameras and anybody who is just getting started. The ZV-E10 is incredible because the picture looks amazing. One, two it. It does work as a vlogging camera. You have to do like the stable shot, which kind of crops it in a little bit, which is is a thing, but I don't have the, the kit lens. I have a 16 millimeter Sigma, I have a 24 to 70. I have the the 56.
Speaker 1:So, like that stable shot doesn't really and again, that's camera shake, by the way, for anybody that's listening. So like, if you're walking around doing vlogging, if you don't have that stable shot on, it'll look really, you know, really bouncy. But Alex has got a gimbal now so he could just vlog with the gimbal and then he'd get done. You don't even have to use the, the stable shot feature, um, but the other thing I love about that and you're using are you using yours right now for this, uh, for this zoom video? So, like the Sony cameras, you can plug them in via USB to your computer and now, all of a sudden, you can hop on a zoom video with your clients and now you look freaking awesome in front of your clients, right? Instead of having like the little tiny webcam or whatever in your computer and you look like garbage. You look really nice and clear and it just sets your brand apart. So that's why I really love that the Sony cameras, cause they just look legit, so yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's actually part of the reason I bought it too is cause of that feature the webcam, my internal webcam to my computer. They manufactured it wrong, so like the film is crossed over, so you cannot see me at all. Um, but yeah, and that's part of my process with YouTube clients, by the way, is they'll call me. I set up a zoom call and then we hop on a zoom call and go through all the process of what's going to be looking like, and I want to be looking the best I could. So that's why you know, that's another reason I got the Sony. It's that total, it matters.
Speaker 1:You know people do not. They just don't think about it enough. You know when, when, when I have people get on, my customers get on the call with me, they always say oh my gosh, like your office looks amazing and I've got the podcast microphone and they're like they, they make comments about it. They're like are we doing a mortgage with Joe Rogan? And I'm like no, not, not quite. He's a little bit, a little bit better shape, but it just I need to work on my uh, my background.
Speaker 2:I recently moved into my basement. I don't have a good studio setup yet, so I'm working on that. There you go.
Speaker 1:You just need. You just need a couple of lights and it'll be okay. Yeah, but uh it, it. It really levels up your, your brand, with your customer or with your prospect. It does make. It makes a huge difference and especially if they're finding you from YouTube, it's almost like they're kind of expecting you, you know, to look good and look cool. So that's cool. I didn't even know you had a. You'd gotten that ZV-E 10. I love that. I love that camera. I highly, I highly recommend the Sigma Sigma lenses that they make for them. They're really affordable so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's. I think that's my next purchase, or maybe a drone, I'm not sure yet. So the drones, the drones always tempted me.
Speaker 1:I haven't bought one yet, but it's super, super tempting. I don't have a use for it, but I don't know how to figure. You would definitely have a use for it. I think you would probably play.
Speaker 2:It's a huge. It's a huge use case. You know it's. When I see videos from other markets, they always have drone shots. I'm like I need to just spend the money and get one, but haven't got it yet.
Speaker 1:You just go out and shoot a bunch of B-roll one day and then you have it in the folder for your editor to use whenever they need it, so like Well, that's the.
Speaker 2:the issue with me is I'll get a bunch of video with the drone and then how much use do I need for the drone? So I'm almost like maybe I should hire somebody to go get a whole bunch of shots For me and then they can do it. But I probably should just go get a drone and, you know, use it for that.
Speaker 1:And just have have fun with it. So, so, okay. So like, even though you went from iPhone you mean started with an iPhone, yet under 30 bucks invested and then now you're into a camera it's like a $700 camera you got still have under $1,000 in equipment. You know, I'm sure you've probably made that back and some you know, with the leads that you've gotten from YouTube right With the video editing. How did you handle that in the beginning? Did you just did you? What software system did you use? Did you try to learn a little bit about video editing or did you go right to the editor right off the beginning?
Speaker 2:So I'd recommend going to editor as soon as possible Because it does take a lot off your plate. But when I did do editing, I was using a software called Hit Clips, I think it's free, you can download it, you can put it on your computer. The problem I had with it is my computer wasn't powerful enough to really do it, so it crashed it all the time and just kind of stand it. When I bought the computer I never thought I was going to be making YouTube videos, so I didn't buy it for that purpose. So what I did is I found a company called WeVideo and they do all the processing via the cloud. So it is a subscription.
Speaker 2:I can't remember what it is right now, but it's very simplified, like you could cut, so you can do some stuff with the audio. Very simplistic Put some graphics up, whatever, and then it processes it on the cloud so your computer doesn't strain from it and then you download it and put it on the YouTube. The other thing that's kind of cool about that is they have royalty free music in there that you can utilize and also royalty free stock video, so you can pop those in wherever it makes sense for you to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so basically the way they overcome it, because the computer can't handle the file size of your video. You're shooting 4K, so you basically upload it to their cloud and then you can mess with it in the cloud and then you just download it once you have it finished. Is that the idea? Yeah, exactly that's brilliant, I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's, that's incredible Is then you know how to upgrade your computer If you're happy with the computer. It just it can't handle video processing because it's very, you know, ram heavy. It's hard on computers, very so it's a good solution in my case. But then I'll obviously end up with an editor that has the nice computers and, yeah, the skill sets that are better.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I upgraded to a MacBook with the M one chip. Now I want the. They got like M two or them three chip and it was. It was crazy Like I run. I run DaVinci Resolve and it would take.
Speaker 2:That's a good one.
Speaker 1:It would take like five minute video, would take like two hours to export when I had my old MacBook, and then that went down to like four minutes on the M one. Like if I edit a real now, like I'll do like a 90 second 4K real and it'll export in like three or four seconds. It's nuts man, like how, how, how amazing these things are, but now it's good stuff but you don't need.
Speaker 1:I mean, that was like this is like a twenty five hundred dollar computer. You know your video editor, you know you probably that's like almost eight months worth of the video. The cost of the video editor, yeah, so Plus your time. Plus your time, yeah, Learning video editing, like the basics, what would you say? Like did you just watch some YouTube videos and maybe like three, four hours of learning time to basically just upload cuts, trim, you know transitions, learn how to throw a title on there. Like would you say, that's probably about what you spent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably. I mean, I'm pretty tech savvy, so it probably depends on how tech savvy are too. But yeah, it's just upload it, cut it where you need to cut it and squish things together. You know, obviously there's a lot of cool techniques that you can get into, but the basics. Yeah, you're probably talking about that same timeline. Yeah, you're saying yeah.
Speaker 1:And it doesn't need to be super fancy. People actually just they just want the information and they want it quickly. Yeah, Like they don't want you to spend three minutes rambling on about something with all these cool intros and everything. They just want whatever you said that you're going to talk about in the video. Just give it to them. Just give it to them Nice and easy, quick. Have some quick transitions. Like it's not a, it's not rocket science. I don't think.
Speaker 2:Now, and in fact you know, as I've matured in the channel, I've gotten rid of like the I call the splash screen, where it has like B-roll and music and the Quad Cities in the background. But yeah, I always saw a drop off when that came up and it's like it's not providing any value. It's more of a metric for me to feel happy that it looks cool. But I just got rid of it and my videos started performing a little bit better on the retention part of things.
Speaker 1:So you know, I found that with this. I found that with this podcast. Yeah, I had a. I had like a long intro with music and like a 30 second monologue about me talking about what the podcast was, and then I cut that and just had like a little bit of like five. Now there's like five seconds worth of music. That just starts and fades and we start with the podcast and the retention just just took off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the. And it goes to the point that you provide value right away, people are going to stick around. Exactly that's the biggest thing, yep.
Speaker 1:And that's the key to all content. Yes, whether it's a Facebook post, a real YouTube videos like just have a good hook. Get right to get right to the point, you know, and give the people what they. Give the people what they want.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:All right man, yeah, yeah it's been great having you on, like I know you spent we've spent almost an hour here. Dude, I love talking to you just here. In your process. I think you've had it a ton of value to anybody that's going to listen to this podcast, because I think what you're doing is is an incredible lesson in having an idea, implementing it and then staying consistent, like. I just love your consistency when I like again, when I saw that Facebook post that you're over a thousand subscribers, dude, I was so happy for you because, like, you just stuck with it. Man, you know, and and what would you say? Would you say that you are the, the best communicator, the most charismatic guy on on on camera you know that there is for real estate agent. I mean, what would you say?
Speaker 2:No, absolutely not. I laugh at that because most people tell me they're not good on camera. It's like you just talk to the camera like it's somebody that you're talking to, and I guess it comes down to camera presence too. You know, I don't use scripts, I use bullet points just to remember I want to talk about this, this and this. But it's like if I can't tell somebody in person, why am I telling it to the camera? You know I'm not going to do statistics. I can't pull those statistics off the top of my head. And it's kind of the same way Tell stories, just be yourself, talk to the camera like you're talking to a person and you come back a lot more natural on that frame.
Speaker 1:Yeah, boom, that's, that's a and that's a great tip to end the podcast on. I do I know you started doing some coaching with the real estate agents just on YouTube and and you don't even charge for it right now Like you'll hop on that phone call and help them with this. Where can they? Can they find you or get a hold of you? Like you do you want to give out your socials or where you you're hopping on the most?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can. You can follow me on Instagram at AlexSkeenReal that's probably the best place to direct message me or you can reach out to my real estate number, 563-554-5. 2829,. But I love talking YouTube. I love talking to agents that haven't interested in it but maybe don't know what direction to go with. I love you know teaching it. I'm working on a course right now, trying to get it certified as CE. I do have it put together, but they got to go through the process of making a CE course, yep. So if you want that, you know I can teach that to you. I love to talk to agents that have an interest in this, because there's not a lot of us out there. Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 1:And then, what was the name of your channel? Is it living in the Quad Cities? Yeah, that right, okay, yeah. So guys hop on, like seriously get off this podcast, go look up Alex living in the Quad Cities on YouTube, watch some of his videos. Like I think you guys will be inspired and I really think, whatever market you're in, this is something you should really consider loan officers as well. But yeah, and then if you have questions, I mean dude, you got a guy that's, that's already a thousand subscribers ahead of you. He's got it figured out. He's willing to sit here and chat with you and help you. I think you should definitely hit him up on that. But, alexman, hey man, I appreciate you being on the podcast again. Thank you so much, dude. I always love, I love whenever we get to chat about content. I think you're, I think you're killing it. I appreciate it and thanks for the invite. Yeah, no problem.
Speaker 2:All right guys.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much again for hanging out with us on the podcast. Make sure you hit subscribe. Hey, you know what? If you would be willing, leave me a review, man, these reviews are really helpful and, especially with Apple podcasts, putting this podcast in front of more people. I would love it if you guys would do that. I would just be super appreciated. Stay tuned for the next one and we'll see you on the next episode.