TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide
TubeTalk tackles the questions that real YouTubers are asking. Each week we discuss how to make money on YouTube, how to get your videos discovered, how to level up your gaming channel, or even how the latest YouTube update is going to impact you and your channel. If you've ever asked yourself, "How do I grow on YouTube?" or "Where can I learn how to turn my channel into a business?" you've come to the right podcast! TubeTalk is a vidIQ production. To learn more about how we help YouTube creators big and small, visit https://vidIQ.com
TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide
What Happens When We Meet Our Listeners?
Get the vidIQ plugin for FREE: https://vidiq.ink/boostplugin
Want a 1 on 1 coach? https://vidiq.ink/theboost1on1
Join our Discord! https://www.vidiq.com/discord
Watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/Bd4M0RuAUdA
Travis and Jen break new ground with their second-ever Discord community episode featuring video questions and live creator Q&A. The episode showcases real creator challenges and provides actionable solutions for improving retention, finding the right audience, and maintaining perspective on YouTube success.
• First-ever viewer-submitted video questions with impressive production quality
• Strategies for improving retention and keeping viewers watching until the end
• Tips for reducing the steep viewer drop-off in the first 30 seconds
• Balancing cross-platform promotion without diluting content effectiveness
• Managing negative feedback when creating politically-charged content
• Reframing "small" view counts as significant achievements (50 views = 50 real people)
• Finding the right balance between content quality and quantity
• Importance of packaging content correctly to set viewer expectations
• Why YouTube tags matter less than most creators think
Join our Discord community at vidIQ.com/discord to participate in future podcast episodes and connect with fellow creators.
Welcome back to the only podcast that wants to talk to you in person whenever we can. I'm Travis and I'm here with Jen. Hi it's so exciting because Jen and I are in the middle. If you're watching the YouTube channel, you know that we're in the middle of these studio episodes that we did, which was so much fun. Jen, it was good seeing you again.
Speaker 2:So much fun.
Speaker 1:We're going to take a break from those just to do this episode. This episode is one with you, the community. We love the community so much. We actually have a discord vidIQcom slash discord which is a free piece of software where you can hang out with other creators just like you, and we're going to go in there and we're going to have an episode. We're going to do an entire episode talking to people in the discord.
Speaker 2:Exciting stuff right, join the vidIQ. Let's go Now. What's interesting?
Speaker 1:is in that discord. Jen, we tried something, something new. We're trying something crazy okay, okay you know, we always do emails yeah what if we did would end text and now in discord voice calls? What if we did video questions? Why are you laughing? I think it's an idea I think idea.
Speaker 2:I think it's a fun idea. I think it opens the door to endless possibilities.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh. And.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:I'm here for it. Well, let's watch. We have two, let's do Okay.
Speaker 5:Let's see what we got. Okay, let's get into this. First time ever. Here we go.
Speaker 1:Oy vey.
Speaker 6:Won't anything go wrong. Hello, I'm Prant. I'm a gaming content creator. I make videos about lore and guides for the games I play. One of the biggest issues I'm facing- Hold on, hold on pause.
Speaker 2:This Did he just like. Come at us right with a straight hook.
Speaker 1:I love that he did that. This means this is a real content creator. This is a legitimate 100% YouTuber. This is a legitimate 100% YouTuber. Imagine going to a restaurant going, I'm here hungry and I would like food. You don't even get. You don't care what the waitress's name is, You're just like give me the food now, because I'm a hungry. Youtuber and the captions the captions are fire it's captioned oh my God. I want to be clear.
Speaker 2:This is visually amazing.
Speaker 1:I want to be clear. This is not a YouTube video we're taking.
Speaker 2:This is a literal video question to us. No, someone made this. This is the level of effort we expect moving forward. There's no questions.
Speaker 1:No, this is it. You got to do this or not? All right, let's get back to this question guides for the games I play.
Speaker 6:One of the biggest issues I'm facing during making videos is making a good storyline where a viewer could watch the video till the end without getting bored, especially in gaming niche. It's very hard to do so and I personally believe editing well enough hasn't gotten me to the expected results, so I hope I can get the answer to this one.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, amazing first of all, you're editing this fire. We just watched it the fire edit right.
Speaker 1:So, um, this is a good question, though this goes back to, like, retention. We just did, um a video about retention graphs and stuff right, and we did talk a little bit about how to get retention up, but what there's, what this person specifically saying, is that he can't give people to the end. He's not necessarily talking about the middle or even the beginning. He's like, look, I need people to watch this thing all the way through. Um, let's talk about the realities of that and then quickly kind of give him some tips. So what are the realities of people watching to the end, jen?
Speaker 2:it's not high, it's not probable you're not wrong, that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1:I mean, I mean, what do you think like?
Speaker 2:I mean there's to obviously be people who watch to the end, but when we're talking about the masses, I mean very rarely do we see an average view duration of 50% of a video.
Speaker 1:Right, Depending on the length. Depending on the length of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, okay, let's say we're talking good length, long video.
Speaker 5:We're not.
Speaker 2:We're not seeing numbers that are like that. So obviously a skilled editor, this feels like a fun challenge. Yeah, this feels like a fun challenge for someone who's obviously very creative to watch that content and like, when are you clicking off? I do this with my own content all the time.
Speaker 1:You should.
Speaker 2:I watch and like I've clicking off. I do this with my own content all the time. You should. I watch and like I've seen a thousand times. But you have to like separate something you have like I guess you have to be a little bit mentally unhinged to be a youtuber. You have to snap that thing in your brain where you're watching it for the first time and you're like, wow, I've never seen this before. I didn't edit it, I didn't make it. When am I clicking off? When am I looking away from the screen? When am I picking up my phone? When am I literally doing anything else? Get rid of that moment. I don't think it's about like changing the whole story all of the time. It's. It's definitely comes down to refinement and and they know that, but they might not be refining the right parts- and also what's the payoff.
Speaker 1:what am I waiting for at the end? Is it going to be more of the same, of what I've already seen? If it's more of the same, I've already seen it, I don't need to wait for the end. But if it's the climax of a video, like everything is building up to the end, that's how you get people to watch the end. As a matter of fact, in this last episode that we did where we were in the studio, I showed a screenshot of my retention graph of the video that I was talking about in the podcast, where I had like an 80% retention at the end of the last like 15 seconds of the video, and the reason I did that is I had a payoff at the end. So it's not easy to do and again, the longer the video is, the harder it is. But if you have a longer video, I always tell all my clients listen, 40% retention at the end of the last 15 seconds, we're good. This again, again, applies to five minute and over videos. But always reach for higher than what you are Now. Here's what's funny. That was the end of retention graphs.
Speaker 1:The next question is literally the opposite. Let's watch this question. This is kind of great. Another video question submitted by one of the people in the Discord. You have to be in the Discord to submit these questions by video.
Speaker 4:So let's check it out. Hi Jen and Travis, I'm Haley. My retention drop-off is about 50% within that first 30 seconds of my videos, so how do I fix that? For the most part for my videos, it feels like I get to the point, but still, how do I fix my retention within that first 30 seconds?
Speaker 1:Thank you so common first 30 seconds, thank you, so common, so common and such a genuine concern for so many people. By the way, aren't our creator, uh, viewers and listeners like the best ever? They edit their videos. It's not a big um and office. Both of them were edited.
Speaker 2:I did not expect this, literally I thought people were like shot on location, like not with an iphone, like what's up guys?
Speaker 1:bro. No, and it's. It's edited like the ums and ahs are edited out. It's just right to the point. This is a standard of video questions we want from this point forward. Don't give us these long 10 minutes. These are perfect.
Speaker 2:So you will always have a drop at the beginning of your video, no matter who you are, but she's specifically talking about 50, which is a big drop, yeah, but we're also talking 30 seconds, though, and we don't know what 30 seconds means to her content. The only thing we know 30 seconds means is to youtube, and I don't know why they're even still doing that. Right doesn't mean anything, right, just there. So I would identify what your actual retention is at your hook. What is your hook? What is your retention after your one sentence, two sentences to open up your video? Boom, that's your actual retention. Drop right there. What is your drop then? From after your hook now to the intro of your video or getting into the content. Is there a lull that's too long there. Are you not actually getting into it fast enough?
Speaker 2:This is the segment that is, I feel like the danger zone when we think about opening retention. Like you can have a killer hook and not give yourself credit for being like holy crap, I have like 85 retention after I just said two sentences. People are like let's go. And then what are you doing after that? That's where we can see the rest of this retention drop, because maybe you do need to actually just get in right after the hook. Maybe you'll have an opportunity for more of an intro. Maybe you promise something so awesome in that hook that people are like let's go right. And then you proceeded to talk a little bit more I love that.
Speaker 1:Um, another reason for potential drops very early on is your thumbnail and title doesn't match what your intro is like. Your thumbnail title promised me a mr b's video and then back to the basics mtm is walking in with the sewing and, and I expected this amazing thing and I'm like no, this isn't it chief.
Speaker 1:This ain't it? Um, we talked about about the hover thing. That in the last pot and one of the last podcast episodes where I said I hover to see what the intro is, cause I don't even trust your thumbnail on title.
Speaker 2:I was trust Nobody. He's not liking anything, he's trusted Nobody.
Speaker 1:No, I'm hovering son Jen Meanwhile like, and everything she watched hit that like, like like, Subscribe like. If you don't know what we're talking about, that's in the last episode. You got to go back and watch it, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Does it pass Travis's hover test?
Speaker 1:Listen, I'm going to patent that. I'm going to copyright that. That was great. Does it pass the Travis patent? Look, the hover test is real If you don't know what we're talking about last episode. But this episode is exciting because we're to you other creators and viewers just like you in Discord, jen. Let's go over there right now and now. We are here in Discord vidIQcom, slash Discord. If you've never been here before, you should check it out. Tons of creators, including the ones that will be coming up on stage today. Jen, this is fun. We've done this before. We're going to do it again. What do you think?
Speaker 2:I'm super excited and I'd say I'd love for the second time to go even smoother, but I doubt it.
Speaker 1:You'd have a technical difficulty at the end. But listen, I think I fixed everything on my side, so we're just going to have fun.
Speaker 2:No, it's always going to be something. It's always.
Speaker 1:This is true.
Speaker 2:That's technology.
Speaker 1:This is true.
Speaker 2:That's the podcast.
Speaker 1:It's the unfortunate reality of of what's going on on and in technology, um. But again, if, uh, you're listening to the podcast or watching on youtube, feel free, uh, to join at vidiqcom slash discord, where you can come and do all the crazy cool things. All right, let's see if we can get someone up. Looks like we have one person requesting to come up. I don't think you need to share your screen, vicky. I don't think you need to share your screen.
Speaker 10:Vicki, I don't think so. No, I mean the person who requested. I just wanted to give a quick disclaimer that the Boost and one-on-one coaching users have a priority to jump on stage and I don't know who you see. I don't see a single person raising a hand.
Speaker 1:I guess they put it down.
Speaker 10:So that's why I wanted to offer you guys to start with pre-selected questions, and that's why I decided to share my screen.
Speaker 1:So let's start with one of the pre-selected questions. We have one here from KCL and it's art. It's one big, long word. I'm a full-time artist selling paintings and art prints. I have a decent following on Instagram and a newsletter that I use to show behind the scenes and let people know when I have new work available. I recently started a YouTube channel and I'm excited to add it to the mix in order to build a community. My question is since I have an audience on other platforms, should I start sharing the video with them as soon as I post it? My immediate thought is of course they'll like to see this too. I share it, boost in views right away, and I definitely have feelings on this. I'm sure you have feelings on this too, Jen. Let's talk a little bit about sharing your content when you have a following elsewhere, not just on YouTube.
Speaker 2:It's a I feel like it's such a frequent question, this is a popular one, I think in this instance I would say share, like you have an audience for what you're already doing. Whether they want to watch it on YouTube is another question, but I feel like this is one of the instances where you won't really see an issue with the algorithm because people that will click over are interested. Like it is your target audience from another place, and we see this success a lot of times with TikTok coming over to YouTube. But this gets like sketchy when you just have more of a personal account and you're like hey, everybody watch my YouTube video.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I agree. What do you think? Watch my YouTube video. Yeah, yeah, I agree. What do you think? So I have always said, you know, share it wherever, but you should share it in the native format of wherever you're sharing it. So that might mean re-uploading on Instagram or whatever, rather than sending a link.
Speaker 1:There's a couple reasons for this no-transcript Instagram to be on Instagram. I don't want to go to YouTube if I'm on Instagram, so it's usually kind of hard to bring people over in that way. So putting it in a native format on that particular platform is another way to grow yourself. It's not going to grow your YouTube channel directly, but that maybe is not the point here. Having said that, I had Todd Bupre from YouTube on a while back and he just encourages people to share it everywhere and to let people know, especially if you're a smaller channel, to get more information about your video out to YouTube so it understands who's going to enjoy that video more. Thus, share it to other people who maybe aren't even aware of your channel. Sharing is not a bad thing. I think you just need to consider the pros and cons of that. If you got it, share it. If you got it, flaunt it, flaunt it.
Speaker 2:Flaunt those links.
Speaker 1:Pump them links out. Do you have anyone who who want those links the? Yeah, pump them links out. Do you have anyone who wants to come up on stagy? That's the french way of saying stage hi I am hayley.
Speaker 4:Hey, hayley, how you doing? Hi, hayley, I'm good, how are you guys?
Speaker 1:very good. What's good?
Speaker 4:I'm sorry if you can hear stuff in the background, but I've got my littlest kid with me so he's doing stuff very nice, oh cute uh, so I am literally editing a video right now. Uh, I am also an artist, so this is another art channel question very cool so the video that I'm working on is an art challenge video where I create a children's book in 24 hours.
Speaker 4:So I recorded the whole thing and I have all my footage of me making it and it's just me and my iPad basically. So I'm having some like creative block on what I can add for B-roll, since I already recorded the whole thing. Like, what do you guys think of me just recreating those tense moments while I'm doing the challenge? Like does that make sense? Would that be interesting to people I don't even know?
Speaker 1:Like the behind the scenes Did you?
Speaker 2:record yourself doing it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I recorded myself for the duration of like making this book in 24 hours, but I didn't like vary my shot very much at that point because I was just working on my iPad making it. So I was like drawing the pictures and like writing the story and stuff did you screen record like the iPad uh, yeah, so I I do like a top-down recording of me working on my iPad.
Speaker 4:Wait why do we have all of that footage but it it's like super boring. So I want to add some like is it boring, Interesting stuff.
Speaker 2:Who says it's boring Well, me.
Speaker 2:Well, my retention says it's boring don't know if more b-roll is really what you need here. Maybe, when I think about it, the way you're explaining it, I'm thinking we need to refine the amount of you creating to tell the story. Um, there is so much power in small clips like it's really just for context. If this is to actually watch, you create this, which you know it doesn't feel like it is, because it is the challenge of the 24 hours and the goal is can you create it? Not necessarily like what? How teach me what you're doing? Let me watch the whole process, like this is for fun.
Speaker 2:Um, I, if you feel like it's boring and you feel like retention is not there, cut those moments down where you're actually showing the screen recording and have them be honestly, half of the time that you even have edited now, and I bet you will feel differently about that. I don't think it comes down to variation. I think it comes down to having an editor's eye when you're watching and realizing maybe this is an entire segment that I actually cut out. Maybe this entire portion of the middle isn't even important because I wasn't facing any type of problem or difficulty, and then maybe the real important thing is troubleshooting something or something was wrong with the iPad, or we want to focus on the story elements here, less on the creative elements, because the goal is this story, so more people are interested in the story, not the actual book in this instance.
Speaker 4:Right. Okay. Yeah, so like I made like a voiceover of all of like my storytelling and so now I'm like cutting down everything to fit like this flow of the story. So that's where I'm at. It's just, you know, I'm like cutting down everything to fit like this flow of a story. So that's where I'm at. It's just, you know, I'm trying you know I'm probably overthinking like making this look cool and like like I'm a professional.
Speaker 2:For sure, we all do, it's not just you. We all overthink all of our content choices.
Speaker 1:Also, I think, like there's, there's a bucket for everything. We always talk about buckets on the, on the show, as I'm sure you know, um, and this could be one of those buckets for, like your community to, to deepen your connection with your community, cause it's not just about, it's not always about views, right, it's not always about getting the most amount of views, seems that way, but I think most people would love to have a community as well. And, um, when you have big numbers of views, the vast majority of those views are people who don't necessarily know you and they're just stopping by. Maybe it was promoted on their home feed or whatever, and maybe they won't come back.
Speaker 1:The video like you're describing would definitely be for people who are already interested in what you're into and, even if it doesn't quote perform. Well, that doesn't mean it's not deepening a connection with your audience. I mean, we do this all the time here on the boost, or I should say, uh, the vid I get podcast channel, and what's interesting is, um, there's an episode that's going to come out I don't know if it's gonna come out before this episode goes live or after where Jen and I um, the original take of it was things we like about YouTube and it's kind of more about us. You kind of get to know us better. But then we kind of turned it into a hot takes type episode. But it all started out with just things about me and Jen and we know that may not perform as high, but we don't care because we're trying to make this deep connection with our community.
Speaker 4:Well, I I'd connect with that, so I'm going to watch that one.
Speaker 2:Nice Wait Haley. How much content are you consuming for these 24-hour challenges outside of like your niche?
Speaker 4:can you ask that question again?
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, how, how many um doing blank in 24 hours type videos have you watched outside of your niche?
Speaker 4:um every 24-hour video outside, like every 24-hour video I've watched has been ones outside of my niche. There was one that was just yeah, it's all been outside my niche.
Speaker 2:I think, like mid edit, a good exercise could be to watch those with a very intentional editing eye take a break from your editing and look at how little they've edited the process into those style videos and then return to your edit and be like, okay, they didn't have six extra angles, they didn't have three cameras set up and watch. Watch with an editing eye because you watched with your creative eye before, but I would say, watch with an editing eye and you will feel so much more confident about your content, the way that it is right now, because it's so easy to get wrapped up and watch from. Watch from all over. Also, this is like a form of torture. That we can't watch Hayley's video right now. Like this is torture. It's like making. I'm like Hayley.
Speaker 4:Show me the video well, the other element to it is I have my kids choose every element to the story, so I don't get to choose what it's the best. That's cool, oh my god, it's fun for me.
Speaker 2:So, whether it performs or not, my, my kids helped me and that was fun, that's amazing it should feel fun, then that is what I would say go into the editing with is like this should feel fun. Don't think about in. I would say go into the editing with is like this should feel fun. Don't think about it in terms of retention. Think about is this just flowing from the next fun thing to the next fun thing? Are you watching this and smiling? There could be so little about the actual creation of this involved at this point. There's so many good elements that are interesting yeah.
Speaker 1:I love this.
Speaker 2:Haley, can you send us the video after elements that are interesting? Yeah, I love this, hayley can you send us the video after.
Speaker 1:Can you, yeah, when you leave a comment or whatever, uh, on the youtube channel or whatever, send it to us. We would love to check it out now.
Speaker 4:We're very curious okay, I will thank you amazing, nice to talk to you you too. Thank you so much um and again.
Speaker 1:If you're listening to the podcast you're like who are these people? They are people, the people of discord of like. Remember the people of Walmart, the people of discord. Do you remember the people of Walmart website?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I used to have a ripoff calendar like a daily calendar. That was the. It was like Walmartians. And every day was like a the date and a hilarious photo of a Walmartian.
Speaker 1:Well, we got another people of discord. Uh, who are we talking to?
Speaker 5:hi, I'm gara hey gara hi gara um. So I make pokemon videos mainly around shiny hunting, which is different colored pokemon cool and one thing I've noticed in my niche is that it seems like to help with the content creation part. Basically all of my other competitors co-creators will stream either on Twitch or on YouTube mostly on Twitch and I guess my question is, if I decide to go down that route, how should I decide between whether I stream on YouTube or I try and stream on Twitch?
Speaker 1:I would ask why do you feel like you have to choose one or the other?
Speaker 5:I don't think my internet speed can handle it at this moment streaming to both.
Speaker 1:So have you tried something like Restream, where you're only streaming to one thing but it sends it out to everywhere else? I've not, so that's a service you can use. Or StreamYard same thing, where you're only sending your stream to one platform but it then sends that stream out to multiple platforms so you can multi-stream using the same amount of bandwidth as if you were sending it to one place. I think if you're just starting out, there's no reason to not be as many places as possible so people can find you.
Speaker 1:It's hard in a lot of ways, as a smaller creator or a smaller streamer, to be found and to put all your eggs in one basket or the other. It's not necessarily a terrible thing, because then you can really kind of go out. But, quite frankly, if I were to do it, I'm going everywhere. I'm not I'm giving everyone a chance, because what happens if you really go? Okay, I'm really in on this twitch thing, I'm going hardcore on that and it just doesn't happen. But in that same amount of time you spent on twitch, it would have worked on youtube. You don't want to not find out till it's too late. You want to give it your best shot everywhere as fast as you possibly can Makes sense. So I would look into something like Restream or StreamYard, and again, that'll allow you to stream to one platform and then it'll send it, I think, up to 10. It's crazy, it's wild. Anything else.
Speaker 5:No, I think that's it. Thank you Amazing.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Happy to be here to help.
Speaker 1:I think I saw someone say that.
Speaker 2:Happy to chime in there.
Speaker 1:I think I saw someone say that they call themselves Discordians. That makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw that too. It sounds so regal.
Speaker 1:We have the, I think very famous edgar allen pooh. What's going on?
Speaker 9:hey guys, um, I before I last year I posted a few shorts comedy related, or there are comedy and um. I stopped posting because I was I quit my job and I was burnt out from work and recently I started posting again. I did. I don't want to just focus on shorts, I want to my main to be long form and I'm posting on other platforms as well, but I want my YouTube to be my focus, but and just repurpose some of the content to be shorts as well and then some that are like made to be shorts. So, but my content, like before, it was just, like you know, more random, kind of funny stuff, but some of, and right now I want to create series and right now I want to create series, and one of the series that I created and that I have posted is um, like a comedy talk show with sketches, uh, built in, and it's um, yeah, mainly like talking about like political issues and more so focused in Canada, uh, but like referencing US as well, and I'm getting like a lot of the wrong people watching and negative feedback.
Speaker 9:It's like I some of it, I think, is people older people who won't get my sense of humor, but also who people who disagree with me, um, and you know, clicking off or uh down, voting or leaving negative comments, um, it's just like, and I tried adding more tags and and I was thinking like, oh, it would, maybe this one would like bring in some more because it's more, maybe this one would bring in some more because it's more progressive views. It would bring in more progressive views if I add these tags. But that was after it stopped pushing my videos. So, for the next round of the next full episode, what should I do? Because, also, it's not the only my channel's, not all political?
Speaker 1:So your last video was political.
Speaker 9:It was like a longer video with like a talk show and then it had like sketches built in and then I posted those sketches separately as well. That was political.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think what was the title. Oh, that's a good one.
Speaker 9:What's the which one?
Speaker 2:What was the title? Oh, that's a good one. Which one? What was the title of the political?
Speaker 9:video, the longer, full-length one. It was Canadian election and Trump threats Boom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so here's the thing.
Speaker 2:There it is.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing no matter what side of the fence you are on any of the things that are going on politically, what side of the fence you are on, any of the things that are going on politically, you can't speak about any of it without having some people come in and not be nice.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's it, and the thing about it's strange. We live in a time now where you can literally compliment someone and someone from that same side of the fence will still say something bad about you. We live in a very strange time, strange time, and you just have to understand that religion, politics and I don't know what else you could even put, but religion and politics are two big ones are so divisive that you either have to have a tough skin and just kind of barrel through it if you think it's important enough to your content, or you might just have to look at it and go. Maybe this isn't for me, and I will say that you can get big views doing what you're talking about. You can continue to do it, but you will have people like that pop up. Jen, what do you think about all this?
Speaker 2:I think in this instance it comes down to the packaging and the expectation you're setting for the video. Because if these are funny like when I hear that title that doesn't sound funny. And then you have people who are clicking in, thinking this is like we're talking politics, and then on top of that they don't understand your humor. So now you've just kind of like irritated somebody, and of course that's not your fault, they're irritated themselves. But I think this also comes down to setting the expectations. Like if this is funny, like have funny titles, have funny thumbnails, like this is where people are going to click in and be like oh my God, politics. Like I'm big into politics, I could use some humor. Let's make fun of people I don't like.
Speaker 9:The ones that are like cut down, just the sketches those are. I mean, all the characters are me, so it's just like an image from there. But like I after it stopped pushing it, I edited the thumbnail more to make it like stand out more, but it is like I don't know how. I feel like it's probably evident that it's not serious for the broken down sketches for the main one to try to communicate that I have like me talking in the center and like normal me and then like images of like the uh thumbnails of the of a few of the sketches. So I don't know if that's communicating it or not.
Speaker 2:I would continue to lead it hard if you feel like there's any type of question. Remember we want titles and thumbnails to be so, so obvious, like for kindergartners. So if you want to put more sarcastic humor into the title, if you want to, you know, have like literally the most ridiculous title that's going to align with you and these different characters on the thumbnail, then go for it. I would say lean in. It feels like we're playing it safe in the title and having a little bit fun on the thumbnail and it might be creating some confusion.
Speaker 2:Obviously this is just kind of like one off, but I am a firm believer in use your personality to your advantage and your titles and thumbnails, Because we are so past the days of templatized titles and thumbnails and people are bored of it and if you're adding something fun to something that is so serious, I would say just go like all out and then do it again. And do it again and stay patient and try to look past a hateful comment, set up filters if you feel like it's getting out of control and really just just go for it yeah, I, I the broken down ones um.
Speaker 1:Afterwards I changed the thumbnails, I did add some text silly text to some of them yeah, I think it was already I think, ultimately, you just have to know we learn this as creators like there's certain content you make that will just invite people who are just to be there to be hateful to your content, and it's part of being a content creator.
Speaker 1:In one way, it definitely shows that A you're hitting a nerve which definitely can lead to more views, whether it's good or bad that only means they're funny yeah yeah, yeah, but definitely make sure that, like, you're checking in with your own mental health and if it's something you think you can see yourself doing more of, because ultimately, um, if you continue to do content that's kind of on that, on that ledge, you might end up, uh, with more of that.
Speaker 9:so, yeah, um, what like? How do I get the like I get that it's gonna? You know, there'll be people who don't agree with me and they'll stumble upon it. How do I get it to more of the people who would enjoy it, because I feel like it's not for them?
Speaker 1:So it's one of two things Either time because YouTube will eventually figure out who those people are, or what Jen said earlier packaging it in a way that's obvious from the get-go, that it's like, oh, I relate to this, or I connect with this, or I understand this is the best way to kind of get it out. There's no way you can force that to happen. You can package your stuff to the best of your ability and then wait. That's kind of the YouTuber-y thing. And even if you do get it, it might be 70 30 where you get to 70 of the people some of the people who really connect and 30 of people just want to be there and hate. It's just. But even if you're like doing stuff that's not political, by the way, this, this goes for everything you're still gonna have people come in and tell you you're terrible. You know what I mean, so I wouldn't worry too much about it yeah you're getting close.
Speaker 2:You've reached a political audience, Just not the refined one you need. That's close. You're not reaching farmers and they're like what the hell is this doing on my homepage? You're reaching very close and YouTube is working every time you publish to figure out how do we get it closer.
Speaker 9:Yeah, that's what I thought you were going to say. Let's just keep posting.
Speaker 1:Pretty much pretty much. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We greatly appreciate your time and we're going to get on to some more people. It seems like all people are here. My goodness, thank you so much.
Speaker 9:Have a good day.
Speaker 1:All right. So next up we got Creepy Chill. What's going on? Let's go Creepy Hello. Hey.
Speaker 7:So I make videos about scary things, like talking about the creepypastas or just some disturbing things, and I have just a quick question how do I make sure?
Speaker 1:my videos reach the right audience. It's funny. I think we just kind of answered this. It's packaging, jen and I. You know I would love to hear, if you are doing creepy things, what you think correct packaging would be to get to the creepy audience that you would want yeah, this is a.
Speaker 2:This is a good one. Sometimes it's in the horror scene alone it's. It's kind of hard when it comes to thumbnails because we want to use dark colors, we want to use like. Often everything is just like very dark. It's not like when we look at bright and light white thumbnails. Like those rules don't always apply. We still want to make sure things are legible, but it's totally okay to lean into like the darker, scarier elements. Like don't be afraid to have a dark thumbnail, just make sure that it's clear and that it's legible and that we have an actual focus. But I would make sure that thumbnail looks scary. Make it look creepy, because someone who does not like creepy is not going to click.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean think we've seen a lot of these channels on channels. When we do the live streams on Tuesdays, we see a lot of the kind of creepy channels, whatever, and the darker kind of imagery the better it seems to perform. Obviously because you want to know that, hey, I'm getting into this creepy thing, I want to see some creepy stuff, and I think again, especially if you're first starting out, it's going to take some time, but if you're making good content and you're following the things that we try to teach you here, either in the discord or on the podcast or whatever, it will eventually work. It's just going to take some time and, as a smaller creator, if you're just starting out, that might mean days, weeks, months, sometimes years, but if you're doing the right thing, youtube will find the audience that likes your content.
Speaker 10:All right, likes your content, all right. All right, we have george kayo hey, hello stage this, uh, geordie hey, geordie, oh sorry noise, um, little background.
Speaker 8:Um, I'm not a content creator myself, but I'm. I've been a video editor and in like the past months, I've been a channel manager, so I've been managing a channel from a VTuber and their content is very gaming related and, like in the future, do like IRL content. My main thing is I'm only just getting back into the sort of YouTube space and I've been working with, obviously, the tags and outliers and trying having a second title just in case if, like the first title like doesn't perform as well. They are performing somewhat well, but they're not performing to the point. I kind of want it to, because most of them either get above 50 views or they even reach to 100. And my most viewed one is 280 views. But I don't know if I'm just looking into it too deep or I just need to take a step back, relax and just keep going.
Speaker 1:Well, how many videos have you guys done um? Seven videos that passed like two months, okay seven, and you're you're getting hundreds of views uh, yeah, and most like uh.
Speaker 8:Four of the views are at least above 100 that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:I can't think of my first seven videos I ever did, ever getting much over 100 views. Jen, what about you? What were your first couple videos?
Speaker 2:no, not there. No, not at all I mean it's good, it's great. I mean, it sounds like things are going really well and it sounds like what are we talking like? Once a week upload ish schedule. Yeah, I mean, if you want to see more results, upload twice a week. It sounds like you're doing things right, it sounds like you're getting views. It sounds like the only thing that's going to speed up this process is more content and more data.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I mean, look at people in the chat. They're saying like, wow, that's good views, be proud of that. It's great. Yeah, jen, like it's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've Jen, and I have talked about this before on the podcast. I think it's really important to reiterate here for those who haven't. So I'm glad that there's people who are new here Like what's going on? They're in discord, they're like I don't know what is this. This is the. This is the podcast which you should be listening to. Every week we do a podcast on. We have and remember we talked about that episode that I one of my favorite ones 50 views is awesome. Yup, where we talk about how even something like 50 views is amazing and people just don't recognize it. Because they come to YouTube and they see people with hundreds of thousands or millions of views and like, oh, that's what I want, but they don't recognize that. If you get like 50 views, holy crap. Imagine being in a room with 50 people listening to what you have to say, watching what you're doing. That of being in a room with 50 people listening to what you have to say, watching what you're doing that's incredible.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, that's amazing yeah, it's weird, like if you want to break it down, it's weird it really is totally like do you even know 50 people?
Speaker 1:I don't like, exactly like exactly I know you and vicky, and that's about it. I don't. I don't really know anybody else.
Speaker 2:I don't, I don't know anybody so if this was travis putting showing up somewhere, he's got two people that are coming that's right meanwhile, we're not celebrating 50 people who decided to watch it online like that's nuts yeah, well, so it's incredible I think we need to change our mindsets about what success is.
Speaker 1:because let let me tell you from my standpoint having been through, you know, doing a content and doing a channel myself where once upon a time, when I got 100 views, I was like that's a successful video. And if it ever got to a thousand, I'm like I'll never have to think about that video again because it's beyond my wildest expectations. And then, later in my journey, if I didn't get a thousand views in under an hour, it was a failure. Now, what's the difference there? That's my mindset. That's me thinking oh, all of a sudden I'm a failure. No, no, no. A year ago that would have been incredible, that would have been unthinkable. But I've completely crapped on myself, thinking, oh, I'm terrible.
Speaker 2:now it's true, though, and like you have to take those times. It's literally being mindful, like you have to look at what you're accomplishing now and remember there was one day that you dreamed of accomplishing this, even if that's literally having a youtube channel that exists. There was a time where you're like I want to start a youtube channel, I'm gonna start a youtube channel that could be celebrating the fact that you even just started the youtube channel yeah, and that's huge in itself and then remembering, like okay, I hope I get like 10 views. And then the next time, when you're feeling down and be like remember when I was hoping I would get 10 views, my videos get 50 views right now.
Speaker 1:Like that's crazy yeah, so hopefully you're that that puts this into into a little bit of perspective, uh, for when you're moving forward. But anyway you're doing well, so just know that yeah, double down, if you want more I do have a follow-up um about tags.
Speaker 8:like I'm really on the fence on tags because ideally I want it to be rooted to just the general area of YouTubers, because that's mainly where I'm going to get the most interaction from and it's either I'm worried about putting too many tags or I'm not putting the right tags or I'm putting too like uh, not enough tags let's push you off the fence, jen.
Speaker 1:He said he's on the fence about tags.
Speaker 2:Let's push him off push him off, let's push him off the fence.
Speaker 1:You want to push him first, or should I push him?
Speaker 2:oh my gosh, you can push him first. I'll give you the honors. Give a good push.
Speaker 1:Don't worry about it for a number of reasons. Like don't. Even if you're spending more than like 30 seconds on tags, you're you're you're wasting your time. They're not relevant to the by and large things that happen on YouTube. Your description and title are a little bit more important your title, for sure, but mainly, mainly because what people are going to see your thumbnails definitely super important. For sure, but mainly because what people are going to see your thumbnail is definitely super important. I would not spend any time worrying about tags Because, even if you were to be scientifically amazing at it, youtube's already told us that they don't really use it for anything other than maybe misspellings. And even if you were really good at that, the people that are going to see your content aren't going to have anything to do with it. When's the last time you clicked on a video because of its tag?
Speaker 2:That was funny. We actually did that. Remember Travis, it brought us like a side of YouTube that we did that because we're weird. We did that. We're weird, it was funny.
Speaker 1:We have a podcast about this shenanigans.
Speaker 2:We've never even seen it. We're like what is this?
Speaker 1:Anyway, jordan, we appreciate you so much. Thank you so much for joining us. Anyway, Jordan, we appreciate you so much. Thank you so much for joining us. We actually have something that came up in the text here on the side. So again, if you're watching on the YouTube channel, you're like this is kind of cool. Where do I go to this vidIQcom slash Discord? There's a link in the description and if you're listening on the audio podcast, there's a link in the show notes. Someone says Sarah says also giving us props. Yeah, listen to the podcast. It's fun and how I'm powering through a whole bunch of sample knitting. I want to know what Travis and Jen think of Canadian Smarties, because obviously we are a candy podcast.
Speaker 2:Um what.
Speaker 1:I don't know that this is a different thing. Excuse me. Is this like Mexican Coke, where it actually is with different ingredients and it tastes different? Is this a thing? Has?
Speaker 2:to be has to be.
Speaker 1:This is news to me.
Speaker 2:Has has to be this is news to me has to be. I'm not a winner. I like regular Smarties. Actually, I enjoy a good little Smartie session here and there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Smarties are good. I didn't know that there was a different version. Even Haley's. Like what? Canada has different Smarties, Excuse me. And then, of course, Josh talked about. We know this, Josh, We've heard this before UK chocolate beats American chocolate 10 times over. We've heard this. I need to eat it before I will accept that as a fact. Let's bring someone else up on stage.
Speaker 10:It's true though.
Speaker 1:How do you know You've?
Speaker 10:been over here. Yeah, guys, I just.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, uh-huh, yeah, and I will say, though, I'm going to say this it's not candy we have the best Red Bull out of the entire world.
Speaker 1:Well, we better.
Speaker 2:All the other Red Bull taste weird.
Speaker 10:Yikes, All right folks, I just want to say that we have actually the question from the chat, if that's okay with you.
Speaker 1:Okay, what is it? Let's see. Sadly, I cannot tune live, I'm not sure. Okay, I finally made it to consistently over 60% retention in the first 30 seconds, but I'm still struggling to get 15% to stick around to the end. Oh, okay, I make Talking In videos where I specifically talk about the 2000s comedy movies and a little bit about the comedy movie I'm making. What would be your biggest tips to stronger retention?
Speaker 2:Now, first of all, you're not telling us how long your videos are, which is the biggest answer to this question Because, quite frankly, if your video is an hour long, 15 at the end it's not bad. If your video, I would say what is the? I would say what is the average view duration too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if your video is uh 45 seconds, that's terrible. So we don't know, like without knowing kind of, how long your videos are, it's very making hour-long videos.
Speaker 1:So as an example, I'll even kind of look at our analytics. You got to remember that our podcast channel, our videos, at a minimum for any of our shows, are what like 30-something minutes and they're 45 for the longer stuff. And we average like 20, almost 20 minute average view durations. And if you look at the, the retention graph and you set it to like relative, that's actually fairly high for youtube. But the percentage of that is like what, 30 something percent out of like uh, or just it's under 50. You would think just by looking at that number that's terrible, but it's not because of the length of the video, so it's kind of relative.
Speaker 1:Who do we have on stage?
Speaker 11:Hi, oh, hello. Hello, I'm Peter. I'm a medical doctor from Poland, oh, hey, and well, I migrated here from another community, so I'm happy to join, but I nearly never got time to actually come here for the live podcast because, it was always interfering with my work.
Speaker 11:Oh uh, I work in clinic very long hours. I already scaled my polish version of youtube channel to over 4 000 subscribers and then I decided to pivot for english language and narrow down towards, uh, psychology and ai, basically okay, and I'm trying to aim at founders, ai founders and mental healthcare. For that reason, I'm also present a lot on Twitter, but it's very hard to manage that with clinical hours and I am actually running mostly into issue to find time to produce content because, well, I want to produce very high quality content. It takes a lot of time to prepare, like valid medical topics with good background, research, analysis and knowing that everything I say is high quality, that there are no errors, because this is not like something very narrow topic that I can talk about.
Speaker 1:I think I hear what you're getting at. You're overcomplicating a lot of this. I'm just going to stop you there. It's because you're a very analytical person. I can tell by your answers of everything you've said You're very analytical, which thank goodness you are because you're a doctor. If you were not analytical and you were just flying by the seat of your pants and you're a doctor, we might got to take your doctorate away. All right, we might have to do that, so I'm happy for that. But here's what you need to do you take a breath yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll do that. I'm the one who does that. Dr Savage takes care of that. I think you need to breathe and before you get ahead of yourself, because I can feel that like your mindset is that of a like a million subscriber channel, it's got all these things ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're so many steps ahead, which is not necessarily a bad thing, because it's good to have a goal, but in your voice and in the things you're describing, I can hear you tripping yourself up every time you explain the next thing. That kind of is the things that are in your life. So here's my advice. I'm going to try to oversimplify what everything you said is, and I don't mean to disrespect everything you've explained, but I feel it through what you're saying Start just creating for the time being and just for a little while I'm not saying forever, just for a little while fun videos that you enjoy making and watching just for a little while. Get in love with the content creation portion of it and then, once you've done that for a while, go back in the analytics and then go back to the comments and think and kind of consider did this work? And if it did work, there's your answer. If it didn't work, then you should.
Speaker 11:One thing, one difference, because I don't aim for numbers, I want high tier consultations from high end right, I didn't say numbers.
Speaker 1:I didn't say no target, yeah, but I didn't say numbers. You'll notice.
Speaker 11:I didn't say no, I have like professional studio and setup which is like nearly 200 kilometers from where I work, because like salaries differ a lot around, uh. So I have a dedicated studio and literally location for recording that I am there like once a week or twice a week. So I can't like do it spontaneously. No, no, I'm not saying spontaneous.
Speaker 1:So you have to listen to the words I'm using, because I'm being very specific. I'm not saying be spontaneous. I'm not saying try to get big views. I didn't say any of that, and the fact that you heard that, I think, really shows where your mind is which is not in a bad place, by the way not a bad place. You're very YouTuber minded, but I'm asking you to step back from that. I want you to enjoy the process first and then, once you figure out, like if what you did worked, do more of that thing. It sounds like you're like. You have editors, you have a studio, you have so many amazing things that most of the people here in chat would like kill for, but I don't think you need that right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, operating at a level that's not necessary.
Speaker 11:But for me like to put out a video. I need to be content with it.
Speaker 1:I love what you're saying. I think what you, what you're trying to accomplish, is very admirable, and I think that it's important to always reach your own standard. But sometimes analysis, paralysis, is just one of those things that keeps you from moving forward, and I really hope that you can find the thing that you want and find the success that you feel you need. And again, we've talked about what does success even mean? It doesn't mean lots of views, it just means whatever it means to you, which is what I think he was saying. All right, last person up, who do we got hey?
Speaker 3:my question would be that recently I've been focusing on quantity over quality and that has really been burning me out and not getting really so I'm just thinking should I choose to make more high quality and more ideal videos?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did the quality versus quantity episode just recently, and this is the thing that's always going to come up because it's an evergreen problem. It's should I make? Should I spend a whole bunch of time on one video or just a bunch of small videos? Where do you land on this?
Speaker 2:I think the answer is both.
Speaker 1:It can be both. So here's here's the thing. Youtube is also a numbers game. So the more shots you take on goal, the more opportunity you have to score. If you only do one big video and it doesn't go anywhere, then however long you let's say you do one video a month and it's the big swing and it doesn't go anywhere, then however long you let's say you do one video a month and it's the big swing and it doesn't go anywhere, then you've lost an entire month of potential for other decent videos. Where, and Jen, how many times has this happened to you? The one you don't think is going to go anywhere goes everywhere.
Speaker 2:Every time, it's always.
Speaker 1:Pretty much, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:It's not every time, but it's say it's the opposite. It's the one you think is going to go somewhere and it's like wah wah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So the quantity quality thing is a never-ending question that I think we're going to see, probably for the rest of time and there's no definitive answer, but there's always the fact that there's got to be a mix.
Speaker 2:Mix it. Why not both? It has to be a mix. Mix it, please. Why not both? You know there's. It has to be both, though, because if you're never pushing yourself to make better content, what are you doing? Yeah, yeah and if you're always just like putting out okay content at a rapid like pace yeah people are gonna stop watching. There has to be. You have to incorporate both in some way. And whatever that ratio is to you is different, but you got to push at some point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so for everyone listening to the podcast, we hope that you've enjoyed it. Everyone here in discord. We're going to come back. We love talking to y'all. It's been lots of fun. Of course, you can hit that subscribe button If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening to the audio podcast. What is it, jen? What do we tell them they have to do every time?
Speaker 2:five stars, only, it's only five stars only five stars.
Speaker 1:Uh, we greatly appreciate you for joining us and we'll see you in the next one.