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
Small details Can Equal Big Success On YouTube
Get the vidIQ plugin for FREE: https://vidiq.ink/boostpluginWant a 1 on 1 coach? https://vidiq.ink/theboost1on1Join our Discord! https://www.vidiq.com/discord
Watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/rEHLufg0jic
Diving into the often-misunderstood world of YouTube analytics, we unpack what "regular viewers" actually means and why seeing them choose not to watch certain videos might be part of your strategic plan rather than a problem. That notification telling you "more regular viewers aren't watching" could actually signal you're successfully reaching new audiences—exactly what some content is designed to do.
One listener's experience perfectly illustrates how seemingly small details can dramatically impact performance. After adding descriptions to dormant YouTube shorts, they immediately saw growth spike. This powerful reminder about metadata's importance reveals how YouTube's algorithm sometimes needs our help to understand what our content is truly about, especially when it lacks sufficient viewing data to make those determinations itself.
We tackle the eternal question many creators face: start a new channel or pivot an existing one? For one listener managing three channels between 700-4,000 subscribers, the conventional advice to "focus on one niche" might not apply. Sometimes the happiest path isn't the most strategic one, and maintaining multiple creative outlets can prevent burnout even if it doesn't maximize growth. The same principle applies to balancing shorts and long-form content—recognizing they serve different viewer intentions rather than expecting one audience to seamlessly convert to another.
The heart of successful YouTube strategy might be embracing what veteran creator Mark shared: "Only a handful of subscribers watch your channel anyway... the only failure is giving up too soon." Most channels see 80% of their growth from just 20% of their videos, with these "outlier" hits serving as stepping stones that gradually raise your baseline performance. Success isn't about making every video perform exceptionally but understanding how the ecosystem works together to create sustainable, long-term growth.
What YouTube strategy questions are you wrestling with? Send us your thoughts at theboost@vidiq.com and join our community of creators learning and growing together!
Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that will wait for you as long as you wait for us. I'm Travis and I'm here with Jen again. Hello, that's her name, jen again.
Speaker 2:Jen again.
Speaker 1:Jen again. I know some of y'all been asking where Jen has been and is she back. She's back, she's here. She didn't go anywhere really, she's just been busy.
Speaker 2:I haven't gone anywhere. We just have so many episodes. I'm still doing like the same time going on here.
Speaker 1:I mean, you've been to 107 places and recorded 107 different YouTube tips. That's all that. Okay, maybe that one took me away from the podcast slightly. If you didn't see that, go check out the main YouTube channel. Jen did an incredible. I mean I can't even wrap my head around the fact you literally went to 107 places. That's insane. How long did it take you to shoot that?
Speaker 2:That was well over a month. It looks like it happens in the same day, which I think is very purposeful. Did that? I wore the same outfit for over a month over.
Speaker 1:Actually, though actually sounds like me, but I don't want anyone to know that right intentionally for a month.
Speaker 2:I like every time I went to new york um to visit my nephews and obviously I was gonna film there as well I just wore the same thing every day and like, eventually my family said something and they were like, oh, that was, that's a nice outfit, but like the only outfit.
Speaker 1:But I mean you look at it. You're like wait a minute. How is she obviously in new york and then obviously not in new york and still wearing the same Like it was weird for a while. I'm like am I tripping? What's happening?
Speaker 2:There's two things that kill me about that, which is I filmed the opening scene first, which was almost like two months earlier, so I didn't have the idea for like the continuity throughout the entire video, so I have a different outfit on during that one, and then I had such an early morning flight to colorado that I didn't have time to do my hair and my hair was different, like two of the clips.
Speaker 1:I think people would expect it to not all be quote the same, quote the same day, but, uh, amazing that your commitment to the craft was like nah, we making it, we making it.
Speaker 2:Literally I put on makeup for the airport. I was like I couldn't, I ran out of time to do my hair, but I put on makeup for the airport, like knowing I was gonna like just send it oh my god.
Speaker 1:Well, anyway, if you're new here to the podcast, uh, we're here to help you grow your youtube channel. Jen and I answer your emails and talk about silly things. And one more thing before we get into the emails uh, well, actually we'll save it for in the middle, because some cool things happened with Jen and I. We were in the middle of a conversation right before, but let's get into a question. So if you're new here and you want to send us a question, you can send it by email or a smoke signal, if you can figure that out.
Speaker 2:Ooh, call it smoke signals.
Speaker 1:Probably send it by email is a little easier, but if you want to send us emails, it's theboostatvidiqcom, and the first one comes from Kevin hey, travis and Jen and potentially other guest hosts or candy workers Love the candy workers. Sometimes my YouTube analytics. For a video it says views are up, more of your regular viewers are choosing to watch, or the opposite, views are down More of your regular viewers choosing not to watch. My question what does YouTube define here as a regular viewer? I assume not my subs, but if not, whatnot?
Speaker 2:thanks, appreciate the vid. Uh, vid pod a ton. That's a vid pod.
Speaker 1:I like that yeah, so, uh, your thoughts on this. What's a regular view?
Speaker 2:this is a really good question actually, because I don't think we have like a defined answer as to what this is, but I would say this is people who are seeing your content pop up, have their notifications on, are very active. Subscribers are highlighted amongst the community, people that are watching. I would say I'm going to make up the time of saying, like within six hours, like the day period, that your content goes out regularly and I don't think it matters if they're subscribed or not.
Speaker 1:No, no. So the regular watch. So there's a couple of things that that analytic, that this that Kevin's talking about only seems to stay on for a couple of hours. So that's why Jen's talking about that. Regular viewers to YouTube basically means people who are coming to channel, whether they're subscribed or not, not on a regular basis. It could be one time a week, but every week. It could be two times a week because you put out more content. So viewers that come more time more than one time a month is the way I understand it.
Speaker 1:But to Jen's point this again, this analytic doesn't stay on there for very long, for whatever reason. Uh, stays on for a couple hours. So she's exactly right, like the people that are coming, you know straight up, right off the bat. Um, even again, remember that subscribe, not subscribed idea we talked about, where you're not really subscribed to someone. You almost don't even know it because you're always up in your feed, right, so that would be like your regular viewer, so to speak, and it's great to have those. Um, those are the people that move your move, the needle for your channel growth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah that's what I was going to touch on next, where it's like these are the people that I would say are the most directly related to your most discoverable content and what's like powering your channel, because then when you get that opposite notification where youtube's like, oh, they don't want to watch this, it's usually community driven content, experimental content, not bad content, but different content that's pulling in new people and keeping the people pulled in watching. So I think that there's a lot of different like definitions of what it actually could be, but I think it's tied directly to your most discoverable content.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's important to understand that, just because that sometimes says more of your regular viewers are not watching it, that could be intentional on your part. Sometimes we make content that's discoverable to a new audience. So just because it says, oh, most of your regular viewers aren't watching it, that might be okay. That might literally be the whole point, maybe you want to break out of your viewership, yeah, and most people don't think about that.
Speaker 1:They think, oh, it's bad, it's an eight of 10, whatever. I just recently had a one of 10.
Speaker 2:Woo, woo, woo. See never a nine of 10.
Speaker 1:You know what's funny?
Speaker 2:Never a nine of 10.
Speaker 1:Funny. You say that Someone in Discord, in our Discord, heard us say that and then took a picture of a nine of 10 and said you guys never see these. Let me see.
Speaker 2:An urban legend amongst analytics.
Speaker 1:If you don't know what we're talking about, it's a previous episode, but make sure you check out our Discord. There's a link in the description. You can go to the VidEye crew section of the Discord and see that image. They tagged it and are like here's a 9 of 10.
Speaker 2:I like that because they were finally proud of it. They were like I got a 9 of 10.
Speaker 1:Let me show you. This is literally a 9 of 10. It does exist. Oh my God, this is why.
Speaker 2:I love New spin.
Speaker 1:I love our viewers and listeners. I know and man, wait until you see what's coming up here in a couple moments You're going to love them even more. All right, so next one again. The boost at vidIQcom comes from Miles. Miles says. While hiking on a local trail in one of our Texas state parks recently, I noticed how much the path had declined, overgrown brush, eroded wedges and a general lack of care. By the way, jen, do you walk around parks? I know you do some walking from here every so often.
Speaker 2:I do. I haven't hiked much this year, but I was a very big hiker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know that about you. Why do I know that? Was it something? Where did did you?
Speaker 2:did you hike somewhere like really ridiculous, like some weird country, and I'm like I wish I had some, like I hiked mount everest or something, but I didn't say you probably did I don't know um, instead of venting online or writing frustrated letters.
Speaker 1:A question came to mind what if I did something about it officially? I'm considering starting a third youtube channel I don't think it would fit the others, unfortunately More of a simple vlog to document the journey, not for attention, but to raise awareness, share progress and maybe even encourage others to care about their local spaces too. That said, there's a part of me that thinks I could squeeze it into my little talks channel, but I'm afraid it would mess up the algorithm for both and as a new channel, I wanted to focus, to get the proper steps and then, of course, real quick, the more important candy question. I do like candy corn, but only once a year. Also love Cadbury eggs, cream eggs, but have recently been blessed, cursed with a food allergy to milk chocolate?
Speaker 1:No. So seconds after eating it, my tongue and lips go numb and my throat begins to swell. I do check from time to time to see if I'm still allergic, but being a candy lover, this is a nightmare. But I've lost 30 pounds, hey, congrats.
Speaker 2:Terrible, what a blessing and a curse.
Speaker 1:I all have the same time.
Speaker 2:Gosh.
Speaker 1:So it's funny because we were just talking before we went live about new channel versus pivoting. We're going to actually do a sit down and talk about new channel versus pivoting. We, just literally before we started recording, decided to do that, but in the kind of short answer for miles what do you think? Um, because this is very hyper specific. So would you put it in your little talks channel or would you do a whole new channel for it?
Speaker 2:I think it depends on their dedication to this like is this just one thing you want to bring awareness? Is this something like you're gonna be out there trimming hedges in the park every week, like what is the actual long-term goal and usually I don't tell people to think like long-term on youtube ever but when it comes to starting this new channel, is this just something like you obviously care about, but is it something you're going to be continuously proactive about enough to maintain a new channel about it? And if not, then it can just be content like you squeeze in and you want to have a place to share your voice, and that can be an existing channel. So, strategy wise, should it be a new channel? Conceptually it sounds like yes, but is it going to be worth it to have it on a new channel that you don't have the time to dedicate to?
Speaker 1:Bingo. Have you seen that one lady who, like, fills in pots on the road? Have you seen her? No, she's like hyper, like she does it in like shorts but she'll find like potholes and roads and she like is weird because she doesn't stereotypically look like a person who knows how to fill in potholes but she has like all the tools and stuff and she'll fill in potholes and she gets like millions of views because it's the wildest thing you've ever seen. But this almost sounds like that, but not quite as interesting.
Speaker 2:Miles, better wear some shorts.
Speaker 1:Miles. You're going to need to fill in some potholes at the park, I think, um, I think, at the end of the day, jen is a thousand percent right. Are you going to dedicate time to it? Um, also understand that your total address, your total addressable market for that type of content is going to be small and, as long as you're okay with that, this sounds more like a subject for a conversation piece on one of your other channels and then you kind of move on. However, if you feel passionate about it, absolutely do it. The thing about second and third channels is, if you don't have a business behind them, they should be your fun channels. Let them be your fun. I don't care about views channel.
Speaker 2:This should be community driven. It should be getting the town together. It should be going to pick up trash, going to clean up the the trails together. I mean, it sounds like that would be the goal, but obviously you have to put in time to get that awareness yes absolutely yeah it's definitely a rewarding one, but a tough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like it's important to know where you are with the amount of time you have, because what if your first channel is good and it's got a lot of stuff and you got these other three, four, five, six other channels and you're not doing what Jen does, which is use them to comment on people's things? She's got like 16 logins.
Speaker 2:Stop it. I already wanted to start like two new channels this week alone. I need to be like someone disciplined. My God, I literally can't. I wanted to start like. I literally wanted to start like a new vlog channel. Which is like what happens if I start a vlog channel for 30 days? And then someone was like do you have 30 days to start a channel? Like what? When are you doing this?
Speaker 1:Do you? You talked about this in a meeting.
Speaker 2:Think I did bring it up in a meeting and I was like what if we sign off on all my other responsibilities?
Speaker 1:don't do that to yourself. What's wrong with you? Um, we have a really cool. I don't know if this is gonna work. Uh, this is one of the things you have to watch on youtube. We have a video submission which isn't even a question specifically. It's more of a um, it's a uh, well, I don't know. Let's just listen to it. Let me share the audio here and let's take a listen hello, travis and jen.
Speaker 3:I just noticed that I've not put much in my descriptions of my youtube shorts, which generally do well for me, and these ones kind of sat a little dormant. And so I went in and I put magic items because it's about Dungeons and Dragons magic items. I put one that I'd saved in notes and I pasted into all the others that I'd done and these two hadn't had that. So the two that would sat dormant I just pasted in the same old magic items description into into two different shorts that were dormant and immediately they started to grow, immediately and I suddenly thought I presumed that YouTube knew what I was doing from all the other details. But I found it interesting that the description immediately kicked it off.
Speaker 1:Thoughts. I love this, by the way. More video submissions please.
Speaker 2:Please.
Speaker 1:It's the coolest thing to see.
Speaker 2:It makes it feel like we have someone else on the podcast. I love it.
Speaker 1:I knew you'd like this, so here are my thoughts. I'm assuming so we know this by Todd Bupre, who actually works on the YouTube algorithm. He mentioned in a interview I did with him years ago that when they don't have a lot of data about what a video is about so in other words we don't have a lot of impressions or views or whatever and in the case that might have been the case for these shorts, he said dormant um, adding metadata can help it understand what the video is about and then target new people. So what it sounds like is that, at least in these shorts or whatever, that he maybe didn't have enough data or YouTube didn't have enough data about what it was about, and putting that in suddenly gave it a little oh okay, these are the type of viewers that might enjoy it, let's give it a shot. And then that's what happened. It is interesting because in some ways, we've always talked about filling in description. We've always said that, we said tags, kind of you know whatever.
Speaker 1:But, descriptions are kind of underrated. I don't disagree that you should put something in there, and if YouTube gives you an area to put information in, you should probably put information there. Otherwise it wouldn't be there. But we actually have tools with vidIQ that can help you. If you don't like to type a bunch of stuff, you literally can. Actually we have a tool that will start to fill in the description by itself, just by it'll read like some of the information of in the video and put it in yourself, or you can type in keywords and then it'll put it in, and that's better than nothing Like put something in something something I agree with something.
Speaker 2:I also think there's a world where this creator went back to edit content and it kind of revitalized it. It brought it back to life. It was obviously very stagnant, not performing well and going in and making changes. We know from time to time when we change our title, when we change our thumbnails, when we just update information, youtube has to reanalyze that data. So I think, potentially in combination with that, we're looking at this creator making positive changes, which just happened to be a description.
Speaker 1:Adding more information as well as just changing something could have helped that as well yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and it doesn't hurt to go back and make those small things if you want to try them. If anyone else has tried this and had success, definitely send us a message. We'd love to hear from you and put more information on again.
Speaker 1:You should put something in there and kind of describe what happens in the video as best as possible. And this again isn't necessarily going to take a video that has like 2000 views to 10,000, but if you only got a couple of views on it and it does and YouTube just can't figure out what the video is about, this does not hurt. It certainly can help. So thanks for sharing that with us. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was good Okay.
Speaker 1:This is going to be one you're going to love. Here we go.
Speaker 1:Oh boy this one's from from Haley hey Haley, hey Travis and Jen. Thank you for all your expert advice and taking my questions on the podcast. Remember, she was the one who sent the video thing and she was in Discord. Yeah, you guys are amazing. So here's a little something Well, two versions, because I didn't know which one I liked more that I drew for you. I hope you like it. Keep up amazing work building the community and helping creators. Now Haley's studio has a YouTube channel when she draws stuff like on her iPad and whatnot, and it's a really fun little channel. Love it. I'm going to show you this, jen. I love this. I'm going to probably get a shirt made of this. I'm not even joking. So if you're watching what, you have to watch this on the YouTube channel. If you're listening to the audio podcast, I highly recommend that you switch over to the YouTube channel. Are you ready?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:We, okay, we're standing on a youtube play button.
Speaker 2:You have candy corn ear headphones. I have the cadbury cream egg headphones. Why?
Speaker 1:are our headphones so cool? Yeah, uh, the vidi crew, uh t-shirt on phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh candy corn cadbury eggs.
Speaker 1:toilet plungers because we talked about plunging the toilet Chocolate cake.
Speaker 2:Chocolate cake. Where would it be without chocolate cake?
Speaker 1:This is incredible.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Are you over the moon, or what? I love this?
Speaker 2:I literally love this. Wait, I want those headphones.
Speaker 1:Those headphones, we need to get them made.
Speaker 2:I need those for my headphones. You should just get big um candy corn stickers and put them on your headphones. Oh my gosh, someone on etsy has to make those so I am.
Speaker 1:I'm probably going to print this out and get it put on a shirt, and if I can get it done in time for the studio episodes, I'll probably get that done.
Speaker 2:Amazing, oh my gosh the coolest thing.
Speaker 1:We have the most amazing listeners. Period. End of story.
Speaker 2:That is so cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great stuff. Thank you so much for that. All right, mark's up next. All right, mark. Hi Jen and Travis Thought I would share some learning experiences in anticipation of my third anniversary as being a YouTube content creator. Amazing. The below statements may apply only to me. Everyone, rob's dog, dan's cat or who really knows, that's you too. Feel free to agree, disagree or add anything else I've said. So this is cool because this is not a question. This is this person's Mark's experiences on YouTube. I love this.
Speaker 2:I love this too.
Speaker 1:First one. Initially your channel will be terrible and no one likes it, but that's fine. Being on YouTube is a victory. Let being on YouTube is a victory.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that for a second. Okay, yes.
Speaker 1:That's a true statement, yeah.
Speaker 2:Very likely you're going to make terrible videos your first couple of ones out. You won't know they're that terrible, though when you're making them, no, no no, they won't feel terrible, they'll feel good.
Speaker 1:It's going to feel like fire.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The more subscribers you gain with the day out, so more than you started the day out with. So what's really cool about this is in a future episode well, depending on when this goes out compared to the next episode. I did an interview with Hafu Go and he literally talks about performance and that you know. When I said, well, how do you take, you know, the one of 10 thing and that sort of thing, he goes I only look at it by year. Am I better this year than last year? And I'm like whoa, because that takes everything into consideration and as long as that line's going up, he's all good. And that's kind of what this is saying here too as well. I love that Absolutely. That said, who cares about subscribers? Only a handful watch your channel anyway, and for those who do stick around, make your content for them. That's cool, that's true love that the only failure is giving up too soon.
Speaker 2:otherwise it's all various degrees for success, but if you do believe you have failed, do it spectacularly and post it anyway. Post it anyway.
Speaker 1:That's great we do that. I think we do that that's great. Don't rely on family or friends. They will lie to you. This this is true. Always. Appreciate constructive feedback in the comment section. You won't always get it, but it's nice if it's there, even if your video sucks. A type of remarks Ah yes, the video sucks. Yes, there's no beating the algorithm. Oh, thank you Mark.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, someone to finally hear it now from us.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, only methods that are to work with it and allow it to work for you. The algorithm needs you as much as you need it. And finally, at least for now, youtube will update and change as viewers do, sometimes for the best, mostly not. Adaptation is key.
Speaker 2:Fantastic message those are all such good takeaways.
Speaker 1:Really important that this is like the reality of YouTube. A lot of times you'll see these YouTube videos that are like how to grow this and that and the other, and just do this, that and the other and paint by numbers and boom, you're good to go. Nah bro, this is the truth. A lot of these things are true. There's aspects of it that are really trying. If you take it as fun, then it'll be fun. If you take it seriously, you're going to have ups and downs. There's no way to avoid that. But Mark beautifully said Thank you so much for your message.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a good video idea. I'm going to write that down. Oh, unconventional YouTube advice. Look at this Because I feel like what you said is true too. I mean, even we do it. We give out a lot of the same advice over and over and over, over and over and over.
Speaker 1:Yes, because nobody listens, whoops.
Speaker 2:But I feel like there is like unconventional takeaways.
Speaker 1:There are. I like that. That's really great. Good job, Mark. You got a YouTube video going to be made.
Speaker 2:Way to go, Mark.
Speaker 1:All right, tim says. Dear Travis and whoever's filling in for Jen this week a longtime listener in my car, mostly an occasional watcher I will not be recommending candy or sweets or chocolate, but I will ask you if you know what Tim Tam Explosion is. I've heard of Tim Tam before but I don't know what it is. I think it's a UK chocolate or dessert or something.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know what a Tim Tam Explosion is?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:You said it's okay to save on YouTube, it's okay to search for on YouTube. Okay, right now to the serious business of my YouTube channel. Yes, multiple. I have one with 2,900 subs, one with 3,900, a lockdown experiment and one with 700, my latest. I am clearly mad, I am 53. Well, welcome to YouTube.
Speaker 1:Right, I am 53, and I've been dabbling with this stuff for 10 years, but I just can't find a niche I want to stick with. Help me, as I can't seem to let go of any of these and I'm afraid to so-called pivot them. What should I?
Speaker 2:do Ooh. This is a really tough situation because I actively think about this all the time, like I want to start a channel, obviously like every week, and then I'm like, well, what do I do with it? Like say you start a channel and it it starts to perform well and you have momentum. You want to keep up with that momentum.
Speaker 2:now you're like tim and you have three active channels and like something has to go, and when you're thinking about the longevity of you know, his experimental channel doing well, it's like, well, now you want to dedicate more time to that and you didn didn't see that coming. So now does your original channel take a hit, like it's so hard to balance and I think it's always going to change. I mean, that's the most fun about having multiple channels. They never perform the same. No, of course not, but you usually have like one working in your favor.
Speaker 1:You have one good child and the rest are just hoodlums. Like what's going on? Um, I mean, first of all, having two channels, uh, one with almost 3 000 subscribers. One of those 4 000 is very difficult to do, I assume. They're in different niches. That's amazing. That shows you know what you're doing when you're making content. That's incredible. As we've talked about before, there are statistics out there that show that most content creators never make it to 500 subscribers. You have three channels that are over that.
Speaker 1:Um, but I think also this shows that you and jen have the same mindset when it comes to this thing. Like, I just want to make a new, like squirrel, let me. Let me make a new channel. So bad, um, and that's okay as long as you're enjoying it. I think if you are putting too much stress on it, it stops being fun. And then, at that point, what's the point? Like, if you're trying to make a YouTube channel that's like successful and you do all these great things and you already know what you need to do, you need to lock down one and just grind it, but it doesn't seem like that's going to make you happy. Will that bring you joy?
Speaker 2:This seems like a fellow YouTube addict.
Speaker 1:It does.
Speaker 2:Don't stop Tim, Make more channels.
Speaker 1:I say make as many as you make, one for every day of the week.
Speaker 2:I don't know why you have to have a niche that you stick with, like, if you haven't found it yet, keep making more channels Until you don't want to make more channels.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That's my vote, because why not? Like if you're constantly tempted. Yeah, if you're tempted by something, you clearly have an understanding of youtube. You know what you're doing, you know it's funny.
Speaker 1:One of them will be that niche. You don't know until you try. This is 100, an unconventional kind of piece of advice, because no other, no other quote youtube expert would say this. They would say, no, you got a niche down to, which is true. If you want one to grow, true, I think you have to look at everyone's situation separately. And he's literally talking. He's like I'm clearly mad, right, of course he's crazy, right, but in a good way. But he's also been talking about doing this for 10 years and not quite ever being able to stop on one thing. Well, that's a personality trait and that's something that, unless you're trying to make a living at this, who cares? Like half, are you having fun? I know you did a lockdown experiment and that that channel has almost 4,000 subscribers. You did an experiment channel and it's got almost 4,000 subscribers. That's amazing. Does it have to be a business? Not necessarily.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think every channel needs to have a play button. Like you can just have channels for fun.
Speaker 1:No, we can't do that. We can't have fun, jen, we're not allowed to have fun ridiculous.
Speaker 1:We don't have fun here. What are you talking about? All right, new one from hoot craft. Hey, vidi crew, I've been wanting to send a question for a while, but I've never gotten around to it. Look at that, see, jen, there's people out there, oh my gosh. However, in recent episodes, it's been clear that the podcast is growing and with more and more questions being sent every day. The longer I wait, the less chance I'll get an answer. This has finally motivated me to send in my questions. By the way, this is actually correct. So over the last couple of weeks we've done a bunch of different type of content, including the studio things, where we didn't get to a lot of emails, and some of the emails that have been sent in by regulars that have been sent in by regulars we've had to skip over. Not because we don't love you, we do.
Speaker 1:But because we have new people like this that wanna send in questions. Plus, we're getting so far behind. The first question of this episode I accidentally missed two weeks ago. It's been waiting for weeks. I'm so sorry, but as this podcast grows, that's the case and we will try to get to you whenever we can, if we can. At times, if you've written in multiple times, we might have to skip over you. It just depends. But thank you. I've been making Minecraft YouTube tutorial content for almost a year and a half now and I've seen some success. I have about 750 subs, but almost half of them are from two of my 80 videos From what I've seen.
Speaker 1:It's not uncommon for Minecraft channels to grow outlier by outlier, and quite a few channels seem to be in a similar situation. My question is this how do I increase the frequency of these outliers and how do I double down on them effectively? Each outlier has raised the view floor for my channel, but I haven't been able to actually recreate the success of those videos for almost six months. It feels like my channel is being dragged down by these outliers, so I feel like what people don't understand Jen and you know this to be true is that the vast majority of channels 80% of their growth comes from 20% of their videos. That's just normal. That's YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:He's describing YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, this is how YouTube works. Hold on, Nothing's wrong. This is literally the goal. This is how YouTube works. I was going to say I feel like there needs to be some simplified way of saying this that we're not getting across clear, which is how YouTube works. Your outlier videos are how YouTube works. No, you cannot make every video become an outlier. Outliers are there for a reason they bring in people to watch the rest of your videos, which do not then become outliers, and then you have, like, your lowest views, which is for your community, that nobody besides your community cares about, and the goal is to have one of these outliers from time to time to continuously growing your regular middle of the ground content. Does this feel simple?
Speaker 1:They're literally called outliers for a reason Like it's the thing. That's not normal.
Speaker 2:So, like that's what I'm saying, like outlier videos shouldn't be something that you can well not shouldn't be, but most of the time are not things that you can repeat from week to week to week, and also that might not make them become outliers anymore, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, that makes them regular videos.
Speaker 2:That makes them scheduled content Exactly.
Speaker 1:But the thing that was really important that they said was that their baseline videos continue to go up. That's what's important.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's what's important.
Speaker 2:That's the outlier's job. You have like a small percentage of the videos that you're making throughout the year that reach a wider audience and bring people to your channel. Those people then watch your week-to-week content, making those views go up and that is just on repeat. But when we say outlier content, we're talking few videos. Few videos, well like, if you put out a weekly video for the year, one every couple months, one every six months, like what do you think is a fair number? That you would say outliers in a year if you're putting out a weekly video?
Speaker 1:a weekly video. I mean it would be nice if you got one every month, but it's more likely you're going to get one every six to eight weeks, likely, like depending on what the topics are and depending on what you're doing Now. If you are concentrating on banger content in other words, you're really researching what's resonating in your niche and you're looking at your analytics and you're seeing what's resonating with your viewership you might get more often, but the realistic thing is it's not going to happen that often. You should double down on when it happens. So, in other words, if you have a piece about a news thing that's happening within your niche maybe you're a crafting channel and a new marker came out or something and everyone's super excited about it you should definitely talk about it and compare.
Speaker 1:Maybe you just maybe your first video is like oh, this thing is coming out, Everyone likes it. Then you go, you compare and contrast that with a cheaper brand and then maybe you figure out what other brands are doing this. Are the other brands going to try to make the same thing? That's a third video. That's how you double down on that. You double down on it by making it a video that someone who watched that first video would like to watch next. Youtube will then make that data connection between the two once people start clicking and then that will be suggested up next from the first um, but that's only going to last so long. After a while people stop watching how you made that chocolate cake with a toilet plunger they just don't care.
Speaker 2:And then you'll well have to find new discoverable content or kind of pivot your discoverable content, but it's not possible to turn all of your content into outlier or discoverable content.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because even Mr Beast can't do that and you might go well. All of his things are over a hundred million views, yeah, but for him some of those are 10 of 10s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, his videos are still ranked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's the thing. All right, just a couple more questions left. We got this one from Paul Hello, Travis and Jen. I'm not a YouTube creator yet. See, here we go again. We've done it again.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:We have more people listening before they get started.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. But love your show and learn a lot about candy and content creation while also having fun. Well, that's great, I'm glad that you learned about candy. I don't remember the episodes, but a while back, travis was talking about his hover scrolling habit. Now, for those who don't know, this is when I think I forget what you were talking about. I think you liked. I think you're talking about how you like, very early in the video yeah, this was like our like culture as youtuber, watchers, viewers, like.
Speaker 2:So what you're a?
Speaker 1:hugger, I take my mouse this is I still do this when I'm watching on desktop and I hover over the video to watch it, start to play to see if I'm actually going to click it right. And we were talking about it would be great if they had the ability to give us an analytic for that. So that's what they're referring to. Okay, I watch YouTube the same way by hover scrolling. He's a hover scroller.
Speaker 2:He's a hover.
Speaker 1:The homepage opening vids that catch my attention in a new tab. That in a new tab. That's the reason for today's letter. Do creators get view credit when I hover a video for 20 to 30 seconds, deciding whether or not to click? Today I noticed that videos I hovered over for 10 seconds or longer show up in my watch history even if I don't click them to watch. If YouTube knows that and tracks that I hover a video, I hope the creators who created the thumbnail and title to capture my attention gets the credit. But if they do get the credit, will this be affecting their retention? Keep up the excellent work, guys. I learned something for you. But laugh most when Jen and Travis hosts the show. Ps, when you find them, chico sticks are a must have. I've heard of these. It's peanut butter, coconut covered, taste of Nirvana.
Speaker 2:Taste of Nirvana. Oh my gosh, I love coconut.
Speaker 1:I do not like coconut.
Speaker 2:You're about to.
Speaker 1:I knew I shouldn't have said that out loud because Jen is going to make me eat coconut at some point.
Speaker 3:I love coconut.
Speaker 1:Oh, I hate it already. Okay, so let's talk about this. So the real answer to this is we don't know, but I think we can make an educated guess. So the fact that it shows up in your watch history is the first signal for me that that probably does count as a view.
Speaker 1:I would agree, and I think also they have said in the past that if you watch a certain amount of seconds for a long form, it counts as a view, even if you just bounce right back out. So I would imagine that's the thing. This is why we need that analytic, that's why we need that metric.
Speaker 2:We need the hover.
Speaker 1:We need the hover statistic.
Speaker 2:Who is hovering trick? We need the hover, we need the hover statistic. Who was hovering hover? Tm we got. I think it's more interesting though, because this is in a really positive way, like they're hovering for later well, so the way they add it. Would they say that he adds it to? He opens it in a new page in a new tab.
Speaker 1:So I kind of do this too what's going on with you guys?
Speaker 2:like what's happening over here, like what.
Speaker 1:I make a shopping list of videos.
Speaker 2:I want to watch? Why can't you click on the video? Why can't you add it to a playlist? What are you doing?
Speaker 1:Jen, because here's the reason Because I'm on the homepage right, I'm shopping, I'm shopping for videos. So I look at it, I hover, I like it, I go to the thing, I click and then I look for another one and then I add that to cart and I'll have four or five tabs open. Then I just close that tab and then I just go through them.
Speaker 2:Who opens tabs on YouTube. This is like. This is unwell behavior.
Speaker 1:No, here's why.
Speaker 1:It's a very smart reason why I'm a very smart person. Here's why Because if you go and this is the thing you can check If you click and watch one of those videos and watch like most of it, and you come back, your homepage refreshes and some of the ones you saw that you might want to click on they're gone and you don't remember what they're called. So you can't watch them. So I add them to my cart and then I go through them and then I can go back to my homepage if I want to watch again.
Speaker 2:Wow, are we going to get an analytic for that too? Opens tab. Hovers opens tab they know that.
Speaker 1:They have to know that it was in a new tab, but I don't know if they have to. Is that like?
Speaker 2:the ultimate, like it's. It's like one step above, like that's like the equivalent of like buy now on amazon. Like you didn't add it to the cart to buy later in bulk. Like you needed that now. So like you added that, you bought that now on a new tab okay, let me ask you like your? Your watch later. Playlist is like insulted. Now they're like I'm not good enough, let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1:If you were to look at your amazon uh order uh account, how big is your save for later?
Speaker 2:probably not that big I actually like banned myself from Amazon. I don't really use Amazon. It was a bad example. Ask me somewhere else. I shop.
Speaker 1:Do they have anything that even like? Is there anyone else that even does that Like save for later? Is there any other shop?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Sephora.
Speaker 1:Oh, how big is your shop for?
Speaker 2:later.
Speaker 1:Huge, so you're a hoarder. Basically is what you're saying yeah, I have commitment issues I can't commit to buying this right now I can't save it for later. Mine's huge too, I'm not gonna lie, and it's years old. It's really years old. What's the oldest thing you think is in your? Your buy later, like how old?
Speaker 3:how long ago do you?
Speaker 1:think you added it can you pull it up? Does it even filter it by?
Speaker 2:I don't know if it would have a date. I could look through my amazon. I don't actively use like my amazon one, but I guarantee you there's something in my amazon one from like 2020 at least check mine right quick.
Speaker 1:We're taking a little break here from from educating you guys to do something that's completely irrelevant uh, yeah, let Everybody pull out your phones, check your stuff, leave a comment If you shop on Amazon. Leave us a comment. Let us know what the oldest thing is in your save later thing. So you have to hit your cart, I think, and then scroll down and look at your save later.
Speaker 2:I need to order for work which I couldn't commit to.
Speaker 1:You couldn't commit to lights, but you need lights. What's wrong with you?
Speaker 2:I couldn't commit, I don't know enough.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it doesn't give dates, but I'm going to tell you what it is as soon as.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it's still going Travis, I don't think you're going to be able to scroll to the bottom of yours.
Speaker 1:I don't think so. There's things in here I haven man all the things I've gone through, the things that I wanted at Once Upon a Time that I don't need anymore. I can see the different areas of things.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you can get to the bottom of this list.
Speaker 1:Your list. Is that long the?
Speaker 2:limit does not exist.
Speaker 1:Brother, what is going on? I am down right now.
Speaker 2:I'm down to okay, there's a bidet, I have a pool table.
Speaker 1:Why is there a pool table?
Speaker 2:What? Only $599. How do you have a pool? Why?
Speaker 1:Stop it. Okay, I got playing cards here. I got a bunch of playing cards. I got masks. Okay, so we're in 2020 right now.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, you can't make me laugh that hard, oh you're on desktop. You're cheating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have to. I can't get my phone. I'd be scrolling forever, I'd break my phone why do I have?
Speaker 2:that's what I'm saying. I have a security thing for a door. I have a door on my. Okay, keep going. Wait, this is actually toxic because I saved some kind of cool stuff did you.
Speaker 1:Are you gonna buy it now, or is it too old? Because? I can't commit that's why it's there in the first place, right lives there forever literally I've been scrolling this entire time and I'm not at the bottom, so I don't think I'm ever going to get to the bottom, but I can tell you right now I'm starting to see the beginning of my youtube content creation journey because I see a photo backdrop how old do you think?
Speaker 2:your watch later?
Speaker 1:playlist is on youtube, so in fairness, I don't use my watch later very much now because I usually try to watch it right away. But I will say that if I were to look, uh, I can probably do that right now real quick, just to look and see what my watch later would be. It's really old because I used to use it a long time ago, cause you're saying you don't use it.
Speaker 1:So once upon a time, oh yeah, oh yeah, this that's wait. Oh my God, that long time ago, because you're saying you don't use it. So once upon a time, oh yeah, oh yeah, this that's wait. Oh my god, that's old. Uh, okay, so it looks like my oldest one is 10 years old. Yeah, oh my gosh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what about you?
Speaker 2:um, I have one outlier of five years, and then the rest are two.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you stopped about two years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a good window of two years going on here. But I find smart downloads to be where I'll go instead of watch later.
Speaker 1:See, that's not even a thing that I even you told me about that a couple episodes back. Yeah, when you're going to go on, where I'll go instead of watch later. See, that's not even a thing that I even you told me about that a while a couple episodes back. Yeah, when you're going to go on a plane, like it already knows your stuff and downloads it on YouTube, that's a cool thing.
Speaker 2:Smart downloads is, I think, better than watch later. It's like it knows it's better it knows it.
Speaker 1:We'll commit for you. Yeah, all right, I think this is the last email, or actually this is a text message. Yeah, so it's probably the last one. If you're listening on Audio Podcast, there's a link in the show notes that allow you to send us a text. Hi, jen and Travis. I've grown my gaming channel to 750 subscribers mainly through shorts focused on one game, while my long form content includes a variety of different games. My shorts get a good like to view ratio, but I'm struggling to convert those viewers into long form watchers. Should I focus?
Speaker 1:more on shorts for growth or long form for monetization? And if I only post one type of game in shorts but I want to expand my long form content into multiple games, how should I approach it without hurting my audience or engagement? This is the thing that from the beginning of shorts Time yeah, the beginning of time, back in the 80s, I think I've always said that these are two different people Shorts viewers and long viewers. It's not to say that they won't watch both. So I need to be careful when I say this stuff, because some people take it as gospel.
Speaker 1:It's like what I'm saying is someone who watches your short content may not be the same person who watches your long content, and it may be impossible, if not very difficult, to get them to watch your long form content because they didn't come to you watching your long form content. They came to you watching your short form content. I liken it to when people will post their YouTube videos on like Facebook or Instagram or something, and the person who's watching shows Facebook or Instagram and didn't choose YouTube, and you're trying to get them to leave the platform. They chose to watch your video content and that's hard because they didn't choose that. They didn't choose to go to Facebook, to go to YouTube, so it feels similar to that. But, jen, I know that you are the number one fan of shorts.
Speaker 2:Number one. So I would love to hear what you think about this I find it very difficult to tell someone to proceed with shorts unless they are already a short form creator on several platforms. Oh okay okay it doesn't sound like that's the case, since they're actively making both. That's how I interpret it. It sounds like they're making both for YouTube. Does sound that way, yeah, and in that case I don't know why you're making shorts period.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, Jen, stop getting yourself canceled. What's wrong with you? She's not laughing at you. No, no, it's just.
Speaker 2:They obviously have goals for monetization. Sounds like they would like to earn money from their content. They have the time to put into long-form content.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the benefit of pushing shorts over having the skills to do all of everything else would be, unless they were actively creating on tiktok and instagram and they were prioritizing so much of their time for multiple platforms fair, fair and I I feel like um, you have to make a, you have to make a choice based on what you're having the most fun with, and then with and the thing you're most passionate about, and then the money will come. Potentially, um, doing it for strategic purposes only sets you up for potential failure, because if you do something for strategic purposes and it doesn't work, you probably aren't having fun. You did it for strategic purposes so, again, a lot of other content creators might tell you to do it one way. We're just saying that the easiest thing to do is to make sure you don't burn out. That's the best way to success is to take the path that's not going to burn you out and if that's, you enjoy making shorts and they get quick views and stuff.
Speaker 2:Fine, but don't expect those people to come to long form don't yeah just don't have that expectation that's why I'm saying if they're making shorts for other platforms and they're throwing them on youtube for whatever, yeah cool right like I would say the efforts are focused more than just youtube. But if you're solely focusing on shorts for youtube, I personally don't understand the payout of that.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 2:And also, if you're doing that like, you should probably put them on TikTok and Instagram also.
Speaker 1:Just do that. Just what are we doing? So, anyway, that was the Q&A. We're going to wrap up here in a second, but we were in the middle of talking about something before we started the podcast. For those of you who have come just to learn YouTube, thank you for joining us, of course. Hit the subscribe button if you're interested and you can leave us a five-star review on all your podcasts.
Speaker 1:Only five stars, only five stars. But if you're here for us and you'd like to hear us jibber-jabber about things, we're going to jibber-jabber about something real quick. So, despite the fact that she's not a hardcore gamer, jen, and that's wait outside for a release of a console which I have never done yet jen yesterday, despite not even talking about wanting to get a switch to until like a week ago, goes to her local best buy and sits out there. For how long, I'm sorry, for how long?
Speaker 2:miss thing for six hours that's ridiculous For six hours. That's ridiculous For six hours. Yeah, Outside of Best Buy and like vibes were high, Highly recommend anybody who's in that space, that world Next time go wait.
Speaker 3:I've always wanted to do it. Do it the original way.
Speaker 2:Do it the original way. It was so fun. I have never had six hours go by so fast and I have waited just as long, if not longer, for to get into a concert, like for concert tickets like this was the shortest, like six hours of my life. I got there my. So what happened?
Speaker 2:Travis is right, I didn't really have that much interest in the switch. I was gonna buy a gamecube. And then dan was like why would you buy a gamecube? They're gonna have all the gamecube games on the new switch. And I was like oh, now are they? Oh, you've piqued my interest, tan. So I was like, oh, okay, maybe I'll get a switch.
Speaker 2:And then I had mentioned to my husband and I was like I think maybe I'll get a Switch. And he was like you know what? I think that's a fantastic idea. If you get a Switch, I can go sit and play games uninterrupted. So I went and I only planned on going to wait in line for two hours. But I texted my sister and I was like are you getting a new switch? Because I had originally bought like the first switch and then I gave it to her because I wasn't really using it and she loves it, and she was like no, and I was like oh, I am. And she's like well, now I am too oh my god so she goes, what time are you gonna go?
Speaker 2:and I was like I don't know. I tried to call best buy.
Speaker 1:They wouldn't answer yeah, they don't answer anymore, by the way yeah, no.
Speaker 2:So she was like, okay, she texted me at three o'clock and was like I'm in line, I'm in line. So she went from not even wanting it to a couple hours now wanting it because I'm gonna have one, to waiting in line more than six hours, like before, and I was like, oh crap, I'm on my way home from the gym she's like yeah, I'm like 14th in line, you better get there, like get there. So I like raced right to the line and I was seventh and we partied all night. They dressed up, they passed out candy, they were playing music, like it was so fun, did you take a chair.
Speaker 2:Oh, even better. I didn't have a chair. I couldn't find my camping chair, so I just went there and I was like I'm fine, I sit on the floor all the time. I'm fine, I'll lean against the wall. And I told my husband I was like, yeah, I'm in line, or whatever he. I was like, yeah, I'm in line, or whatever. He drives by like a baller, has a brand new chair, hangs it out the window.
Speaker 2:It's like hot pink and he's like I got you. So I'm like, oh my God, what a guy. I open it up Travis is a Barbie chair.
Speaker 2:It's a child's chair that I cannot fit into. The woman next to me was like in tears she could not even like was gasping for air. I set this thing up to try to sit in and she was like that's a kid's chair. Did he know that? No, he had no idea, so he drove off. He's at the gym, he comes back and I'm like he's like you're not sitting in your chair.
Speaker 1:I didn't bring any dolls to put in it.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, oh my God sorry, oh my god, yeah what is what that is hilarious.
Speaker 1:It was so funny, it was so. It was so funny. Well, you got your switch too, which is amazing.
Speaker 2:I got my switch too and I will say live it on the west coast. It's a perk I was home, it wasn't even dark out that's true.
Speaker 1:So a lot of these things are done at midnight, but, thank, thank goodness, whoever thought of this. East Coast, midnight 9 pm. West Coast. We good, we good, we live in it. West Coast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my sister got home at like 2 am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's ridiculous. We're not doing that hell here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like oh, that's what I'm like, I'm so tired, it was like 10.
Speaker 1:I was like what are you talking about? It's almost morning over here.
Speaker 2:So now I need to figure out what games I even want to play on my Switch, aside from Mario Kart.
Speaker 1:Well, everyone send us an email, Leave us a comment here in the YouTube video and let us know what games Jen should like to play. So you've got Mario Kart right now and looking for other games to play.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to fire up my Gentendo.
Speaker 1:Gentendo and start that channel. Let's go to switch Gen Tendo channel. I think everyone wants to see that. Anyway, no more channels, no more. It's their 17th channel this week. Everyone, thank you so much for joining us this week. We'll definitely check you out in the next one. Also, we got a bunch of content. Maybe you've missed a couple of episodes. Go back and watch those. We got so many amazing episodes, interviews to come.