TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

Why Your Channel Feels “Dead” And How To Revive It

• vidIQ • Season 6 • Episode 44

Share episode

Send us a text

Auto-clip your long form into viral shorts- https://link.vidiq.com/podcast-to-shorts

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 YouTube version: https://www.youtube.com/@vidIQPodcasts

We dig into why subscribers don’t equal views, how to pivot without wrecking your channel, and why designing a bingeable path beats chasing a one-off hit. Tori shares a new-channel case study that hit 23k views in three uploads and the input goals that kept her sane.

• subscribers do not equal views and momentum matters
• burnout, niche boredom and the cost of a hard pivot
• wedging: mixing what works with where you’re going
• input goals over vanity metrics during pivots
• designing a viewer journey and target videos
• new fitness channel strategy and early monetization progress
• search vs browse, SEO for humans, and TV viewing growth
• building funnels for coaching and selling to the right viewers
• community, Discord stages and creator mindset
• the channel’s value proposition and long‑haul thinking

Join our Discord—links in the description and show notes. It’s free


SPEAKER_00:

We've said this before, but I'm gonna say it again. Subscribers do not equal views. You can have a million subscribers if you're not uploading. At some point your channel's gonna dry up.

SPEAKER_01:

YouTube, you're you're in it for the long haul. So thinking about it for the long haul from the beginning is so smart.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey, welcome to the only podcast that brings you all the best things every single week, sometimes twice a week. My name's Travis, and I'm here with a very special guest, someone who's never been on before, because you know I like to spice things up from time to time. New member of the team here at VidIQ, Tori, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, thank you for the warm welcome, Travis. I'm doing great. I'm so excited to be on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

We're really super excited to have you here. And for those that have been watching for a while, um, there might be a couple of you that actually might recognize Tori. Let me explain why. So Tori isn't new to VidIQ per se. I mean, kind of-ish, but she just recently came over to the team that does all the video stuff. But um, she's doing a lot of community managing. So in Discord, which we'll talk about here in a second, you may have seen or heard her. And potentially, we have a lot of people listening that have uh taken on coaching. You might recognize her as one of the vid IQ coaches. She used to be a coach here. So tell us a little bit about your background, uh, what the kind of things you like to do, and and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I have been creating on the platform for over six years now, and just find myself more and more obsessed with it the longer I get in my YouTube journey. And I had the opportunity to join the vidIQ team as a coach. And I just love the opportunity to connect with people in the space who are just as obsessed with YouTube as I am. It's just been such a rewarding experience. And now moving over to the Discord side of things, it's just been so community oriented and it's been so, so exciting to be able to connect and collaborate and just talk all things YouTube.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So for people who've listened to the podcast for a while, I've mentioned the Discord multiple times. There's a link in the description and in the show notes to join our Discord. It's free, by the way. And for those who don't know what Discord is, it's kind of like what how would you describe what Discord is for people who've never actually experienced it before?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh man, I feel like it takes me back to like like it's like a chat room. Like we can just hang out and talk to each other. Uh, we've got stages that we do once a week on Thursday where we can all actually communicate with like getting on stage and actually having really great conversations. And I feel like it's a great way to take the connection just like one step further. We're doing some office hours, we've got challenge threads, just like your home to talk all things YouTube with other people who are just really into the culture and the platform just as much as you are.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's that's a thing that I've talked about many times in this podcast. One of the it's a weird thing to be a YouTube creator because nine times out of ten, no one that you know in real life has any idea what you're talking about. When you talk about click-through rates and one of tens, and they're like, I don't get it, but uh good for you. But when you can talk to other people, yeah, I don't know who you are. That's great. I don't know what that means, but it could what's an uh what's an attention, what's retention rate? I don't know what that means. But when you get around other people that do understand, there's a special connection that happens uh between you and the other person or multiple people, and how much more inviting it feels, and how cool it is to be able to talk to people who have the same language as you to say the same things you and understand what you mean when you're like, man, I had a 10 of 10. I feel terrible. I'd done that before. I know what that feels like. What an amazing opportunity that is. And that's absolutely free to get in. Um, there'll be a link in the show notes and in the description of the video uh if you're watching on YouTube. So Tori will meet you there. She'll be there. She's there all the time doing the time. All the time, talking to all the people. And uh, I think you've been doing it for as of the recording of this podcast, what, just a month or so?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, just over a month. It's been oh, it's been so fun. I feel like I'm really starting to get to know everyone, and we've we've got some good stuff coming up for next month, event-wise, too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so make sure you come on through. Again, that's free for you. And if you are one of the paid users of VidIQ, you actually have little spaces just for you, which is super cool. So make sure you check on by there and uh come on through. Matter of fact, I did a stage um with uh with Tori uh just a week or two ago. Uh that was lots of fun and answer a bunch of questions from people live in the chat. All right. So if you're new to the podcast, uh, I'm here to let you know that we're here to help you grow your YouTube channel. And uh I have different guests on every week. We have a lot of fun doing that. And uh because Tori has a background now in coaching creators and has done it for VidIQ, I thought it would be really cool to have her come up, especially as a new member of the team on the Media House side, um, to find out more about what the podcast is about because she's never been on a podcast before, which is wild. I think pretty much everyone has been on a podcast at least once at this point.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, but this is your first one. I know. As much of a chatter as I am too, it's funny that I've really never dove into the podcast world. I just I just love a good chat.

SPEAKER_00:

You you listen to a lot of podcasts.

SPEAKER_01:

I do. I love listening to podcasts. I feel like my brain is always just busy. So it's a great way for me, like when I'm on walks or doing things around the house, to like just keep it going. I love learning things and hearing other people's perspective. It's just such a cool way to really listen to some deep dives. I feel like sometimes I'm just really looking to go deep on something, and a podcast is like the perfect place to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. So, with this, as this is a partial candy podcast, I would love to hear what your favorite candy or sweet treat is because we need to know more about you. We know everything about a person if they tell us what their sweet treat is.

SPEAKER_01:

Reese's pumpkins specifically, the pumpkin-shaped ones that come out for Halloween.

SPEAKER_00:

Hold on, hold on. Reese's you mean like pumpkin-flavored Reese's?

SPEAKER_01:

No, they're like shaped like pumpkins. They do them like seasonally, the different shapes. I think the pumpkin ones for some reason taste better. I don't know if like the chocolate peanut butter ratio is different, but I will die on this pill.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, listen, I like that. I like that you do that. Okay, I respect it. Um, all right. So, what we're gonna do here, we're gonna talk about a couple things um today. I do want to get into something before we go to the emails and text messages that you guys have sent us this week. Uh, because I'm kind of um so as you know in this podcast, we don't typically talk about our own personal channels. We do get a lot of people asking about our personal channels, we just don't typically go into that. But today we are gonna do a little bit of that just because I want to share some insights and some experiences I'm having. And then Tori actually has some really interesting things that she can share with newer creators as well. Because as we know, there are people that listen to this podcast that not only are very new to YouTube, some haven't even started their channels yet. So I love to give some insights from someone who's been doing it. For those who don't know, uh, I've been content creating since 2018. Um, and uh in my my journey has been interesting because I think I did a lot of research early on as well. I uh love the way a lot of people listen to this podcast do, but we didn't I didn't have a podcast like this to listen to. There was no Discord to go to. There were none of the things that that are afforded to all of you now didn't exist. There were no YouTube shorts. Uh there were none of these things. None of these things. Way back in my day. Way back in my day in 2018, before there were wheels and electricity. Uh I was, yeah. So I will say this. Going into YouTube, I thought I think I knew more about what to expect than the average creator at that time. Having said that, as being a creator, I think over time you start to learn even more things that no one could ever tell you until you experience it. Like you have to experience it. So specifically, um, the reason I'm bringing this up is because uh I think when I created my channel, I knew I wanted to do tech-related content, and I did. Uh it's because I was I love tech and I I always have have something tech related, and I just it just made sense. So I think I I made the smart move there. However, I kind of pigeonholed myself into a uh an area of tech that after a while I kind of got bored with. And I think the hardest thing for most channels, especially after you get established, is pivoting. It's a terribly hard thing. It's crushing, it's soul soul sapping. Because while you can pivot a channel, it can be a long time before it actually takes. We've talked about this on this channel before, but I want to talk a little bit about my experience as of late uh and some of the things that go through my mind because this thing with we don't people don't talk about this enough, like the feelings.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I I love this conversation because I actually pivoted my channel earlier this year too. Um, so I feel like I'm I'm so excited to hear your experience with it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I can't wait to hear this. We're definitely we're gonna talk about it. We talked pivoting a couple weeks back, and people were really interested. So I kind of want to talk touch on this again. So, what I did was I took uh I took some time off because I kind of got burned out on the subject matter, right? So I've been I've been just more into the vidIQ thing and really haven't paid attention to my channel. Every once in a while, I'll just throw something up random, but a lot of stuff that was off niche, right? Because I was just I didn't really want to talk about that thing anymore. Like I'm kind of over it. Um and that's been the case for the last couple of years. I want to say two to three years. So when you do that, no matter what size your channel is, when you don't upload as often, your channel does die. And I want to dispel a myth for people who are new content creators. We've said this before, but I'm gonna say it again. Subscribers do not equal views, does not equal anything. You can have a million subscribers if you're not uploading, after at some point your channel's gonna dry up. It it just will. I mean, you've seen this coaching team, people, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Momentum is really, really important in consistency, and I think that's why we talk about consistency so much.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's it's something that um can be surprising for people who are getting who are new into YouTube. Um so anyway, all that to say that for a couple of years I didn't do anything, and you could really call my channel kind of dead at that point. I was just uploading things I'm more passionate about, things I'm more interested in. But the other day, last week, uh more specifically, um something happened in the niche that I'm in that I was like, I could do a video about this. I mean, I I actually have some thoughts on it. It wasn't something I wanted to do real well, it was something I was like, I kind of want to talk about it, but you know, and and after having done so many things in the pivot that were failing in a lot of ways, but I understood why. Like, I get it. Different audience, I understand, I understand. I was like, let me just do this thing and I'll kind of subtly shout out the other stuff I'm doing while getting in the audience that I know will probably come for this content. I did not know how successful that piece of content would be. I actually just thought it would be okay. I thought maybe I'd get 10,000 views because again, I haven't uploaded anything specific uh in this niche for over a year and consistently for like two or three years. Like it's been a long time. The channel was dead. Uh, it did very well. And then, of course, like you're supposed to do, I followed up on it just the other day. It did very well as well. The funny thing about it is in both videos, I basically told people to not subscribe. In the second video, after people were subscribing the first video, I literally told people don't subscribe because I'm not doing this type of content anymore. I'm doing other stuff. Over two videos, I got over 700 people subscribed after telling people do not subscribe to me. What was interesting about it is people in the comments liked that. They they I saw people say, I hate when people tell me to subscribe. So I'm subscribing to you, you can't tell me what to do, which I think is hilarious, right?

SPEAKER_01:

You reverse engineered that a lot. I didn't even mean to.

SPEAKER_00:

So that might be a new thing to try. Tell people don't subscribe and see what happens. You might be surprised. Um, but it really has me thinking now, okay, so now this channel is kind of revitalizing itself, but what does it really mean? And I know, having talked to and coached other content creators over the years, that this would be an opportunity for me to get back into that niche and and you know, revitalize the channel. And I could then do something that I probably should have always done, which is pivoted my channel while still doing the content that works. That's what I should have done. I call it wedging. Start wedging in content of the next thing. I didn't, I never did that. I know to do it. I've taught people to do it for years. I just I was so burned out that I just cut it off. So I think that's what I'm gonna do. And I'll tell you my mind, my thought process in this, because I want you to do the same amount of detail on your pivot. I want to hear your exact story. I want you to go in detail about all this. So when it first started happening, my my thought was I was I was flattered. Um, all the love in the comments blew me away. I'm very I'm very humbled by that. But it also gives you a false sense of, oh yeah, I I'm great again. And I I know enough to know that this is going to end. Like this is a the reason why I did so well is because I timed it perfectly. I know the type of content that works in this niche. I I'm I'm good at this, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to where I was. But I also know that despite the fact that things went well and things can be revitalized and people want me to come back, that the reasons that I left before haven't really changed. The niche is what it is, views will go up and down depending on time of year. You might put a whole bunch of time into videos and they won't go anywhere. Whereas these two videos, I barely spent any time on them and they went everywhere, right? So I feel like I have to reel myself in, reminding myself that it's not like, oh, I'm back and everything's good again. No, this is temporary, and I really have to think back to the reasons that I stopped and give myself new reasons to continue forward if I don't want to go back to just doing that thing. Because I don't, I do want to still pivot, but this is a good opportunity for that. So tell me your your story about how you pivoted what was going through your mind during the pivot and everything since. I would love to understand what's going on.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. So I've pivoted my channel twice, actually, once semi-unsuccessfully and one successfully. Okay. Um, and I think a lot of it, like you said, is how you go about the pivot. It's those audience expectations, right? Because it's gonna be totally jarring if you're going from talking about like cooking to talking about tech. Like that is a complete 180. Whereas if those two niches that you're kind of pivoting between are a little bit more aligned, you're gonna be able to do this a little bit more gracefully. And I think it's really important to go into a pivot with expectations that like you're not gonna want to hang out in your analytics for a little bit. Like just do your thing, just work through the pivot. The analytics are gonna tell you, you know, kind of what you're expecting it to tell you. You're switching audience, you're having to pull in a new audience. And yeah, there may be a little bit of overlap, especially if you built a really tight-knit and close community. But there more often than not is gonna be a little bit of a dis uh misalignment where you're going to have to kind of let those audience members drop off and call in new ones. So I always try to have something to focus on that's not analytics oriented. So I like to set like kind of input goals through a pivot. So I was focusing on was I really thinking through my target audience when I was crafting my videos, my new target audience that I was hoping to connect with. Was I hitting my upload schedule? Was I posting once per week? Kind of focusing more on the things I could directly control through that time period, I think is such a great way to stay focused and not kind of get lost in those like temporary wins within the analytics because they do feel so good when something works. Um, so that helped me a lot kind of navigate that period. And it was a much more bigger pivot, my first pivot. So it was it was a bit of a dry spell. And then my second pivot was a little bit more of kind of a niche down type of pivot. And I started to see some really good success with it. But I also started to kind of feel like I had pigeonholed myself a little bit after like kind of two months of doubling down on this. Now I'm very much kind of stuck in this new corner that it's so funny how your audience kind of can control a pivot sometimes. Like my audience told me what they wanted, and I was like, cool, we're gonna do that. And now I'm like, oh, this is what we're doing now.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's it's been an adjustment because I've been kind of starting to deal with that a little bit of that burnout, like, okay, how many more of these videos can I make? Is this something still exciting to me? Um, so now I'm kind of working through that phase of it, like trying to figure out how to keep it exciting for myself. But from like a growth perspective, really kind of staying consistent with format and topic does really help. And I feel like that's kind of the constant creator battle is like chasing those passions, but also kind of sticking with the strategy. And it's just about finding little things that you can do to like reignite that excitement while kind of staying in a certain lane.

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's super important also to um reiterate something that I always say, which is it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If your goal is to have fun on YouTube, then a lot of the things we're talking about may not be relevant to you. It might just be you want to just make silly videos, and that's totally okay. However, your expectations should be in line with that. And I think that's what's really important. You shouldn't think, oh, I can just do any random thing and I'm gonna get tons of views because that's probably not going to happen. Uh, if you are random with your content, your views will probably be random. That's kind of the way YouTube works. Um, if you want to grow your channel, then I think it's important as early as possible, especially if you're just starting or if you're still kind of a newer content creator, you're still trying to figure it out, to figure out the type of content you feel like you can do for years consistently over and over again and not get bored of. There's probably things that you like to do right now that you've been doing for years, you're like, yeah, I can talk about this or make videos on this the rest of my life and it'd be cool. The thing that you want to kind of avoid is looking for things that work, but you're not totally interested in. Because then it becomes a job. And a job ain't nothing but work. And I don't know how much of y'all want to do that, but I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to have fun. Um, so I feel like if you're if you're trying to grow a channel that you're gonna be impassioned about and love, then what Tori said is super important. You figure out what you're gonna be okay with and something that also works at the same time, but that you can create constantly over and over and over again and feel okay about rather than getting yourself into a box, which I felt I did the same thing, and I'm stuck now. I'm trying to break my way out of the box, and it's so difficult at some point. It's so difficult, and at some point.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it really is because then you kind of want to just fall back into what's working. You're like, Well, but it's working, right?

SPEAKER_00:

It's like a drug.

SPEAKER_01:

It is terrible. Those positive analytics, man, they keep you coming back.

SPEAKER_00:

Bro, I just did two one of tens in a row, and I'm like, oh, I remember this feeling, I feel good again, and I I you have to really rip rein yourself in. You have to feel as you have to feel almost the same exact way about a one of ten as a ten of ten emotionally. Like, you know, analytically, you can go, okay, well, what did I do wrong? Let's fix it. But I would never I I try to tell content creators don't get so excited about one of tens because what's gonna happen when a ten of ten comes up is you're gonna feel just as bad. And you shouldn't. You should be like, okay, A, either it didn't work, or B, maybe it still will work. My most viewed video of all time was a 10 of 10 for like nine for like three months straight.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I've seen that happen so many times, right?

SPEAKER_00:

So many times, yeah, you can't give up on it. So, you know, I I just wouldn't put too much um of your own self-worth into some of these numbers. You use it as an ail as a tool to move forward.

SPEAKER_01:

Speaking of like the one of ten, ten of ten thing, I have a question for you. Something I've been kind of toying around with recently is I've been focusing on trying to have my videos hit the top one of five because then I know I'm consistently building momentum and moving in a good direction, even if everyone is not a one of ten, I'm still improving my averages over time, which is moving my channel in a positive direction. And it's been a much healthier mindset for me to hang out in.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. That's a really good um way to think of it. Uh, top five is easier to hit too, rather than because you might have one like so. There's this this um these last two, there's no way I'll hit, I'll beat these. So now I've got to do eight more videos. I gotta do now ten more to get them out because they're the two newest. I have to do 10 more videos to get rid of those two to ever have a chance at a one of ten again. It is gonna be impossible for me to get a one of ten for the next 10 videos. It's just not possible. The the velocity of those two videos, it won't happen. So I'm gonna have a bunch of three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten of tens for the next 10 videos. Think about that. Ten videos. I'm not gonna hit one or two.

SPEAKER_01:

That's like over two months, even if you're like if you're uploading weekly. So like that's some time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to that. I'm just saying. Like, it was great at first, it was great for this weekend, and it's gonna suck for the next two months, though. I'm gonna tell you right now.

SPEAKER_01:

In the trenches, yeah, really.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, that's for established channels. But uh, Tori has something she's been doing uh since she left coaching, which I really want to hear about, which is you started a new channel. This is gonna be super relevant for a lot of people listening, either people that have started their channels recently, have not started their channels yet, or people that are kind of just still new. Tell us about why you did this and what has happened. Give us as much detail as possible.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. So, in the in the way back machine, uh I was a chemistry major in college. So I'm like very interested in an experiment, right? I love it. I love running an experiment, and I think that's something that really excites me about the platform is that you can kind of learn and look at the data and run those experiments. So after I joined coaching, my main channel I've been running for six years, we've been through some pivots. I wanted to see how much faster I could get a channel monetized, knowing kind of what I was doing, getting into it from the start. So it took me a little over two years to monetize my first channel. So that was kind of the challenge I set out. If I get really intentional about who this channel is for, what the type of content is, can I kind of fast track the process of connecting with my audience with this new channel? So I posted a video and it was kind of a I guess intro to the channel video, kind of laying the premise of my story in the niche and kind of setting up my background to give me a little bit of credibility and relatability in the space. Um, and it was a story I had never really like played around with storytelling like this. And it was another skill I was really excited to kind of start leaning into because I think it really makes a huge difference in um how people respond to your content and connect with your content. So I put the video out, and as expected with a new channel, we got a solid 11 views over like two or three weeks. And you know, we're just chugging away. I think it's a good kind of reset of expectations too to get you out of like the analytics weed, like just creating to create for the love of creating and trying out something new. And then I think I was two or three uploading my third video, and I popped back into my studio and things went crazy. The video blew up and is now sitting at over 23,000 views, and I'm halfway to having the channel monetized after only three uploads.

SPEAKER_00:

That's insane. So, what let me ask some questions because that is crazy. That's very difficult to do with like one or two. That's very difficult. I don't even know if I could do that at this point. Well, I could if I went for like viral content, but I think if anything that's like normal, I don't I don't know that I could do it. So just tell us the general niche that it's in and what you did to kind of research what that first video should be and what the video following up video should be.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. So I started a channel in the fitness space. So the first video, um, I have seen a lot of success with transformational style content with uh a lot of people I was coaching. So I wanted to really lean into that. So I went like hardcore on like my transformation story with my fitness journey. I lost over 80 pounds a couple of years ago. So I really wanted to like share that story and very nice. Um, so the research that I did, I really wanted to kind of think back to the space that I was in when I was starting my fitness journey because that's kind of, I guess, my target audience. And I think it's funny how a lot of times your target audience can kind of be a prior version of yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So I really got intentional about putting myself back in that headspace and kind of writing down the things that I was struggling with when I was getting through, like identifying the pain points and what I would be looking for out of the platform. And I thought this would be a good video to start with because it kind of allows someone to see that like I haven't been fit my whole life. Like I'm starting where they're starting, and I think it was a really good differentiator for me in the space. And it's so hard sometimes to follow up those big hitter videos because now I'm like, oh, I don't want to break it. Like the champ, the channel is channeling.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's go.

SPEAKER_01:

So I really tried to think what would be most valuable for someone to watch next from me. So like they've seen that it's possible for them. So what would be the natural next step? So my thought process, like, here's maybe the five or six things that are holding you back from starting to see that progress. So that's what I went with for my follow-up video. And it's sitting around 2,000 views. We haven't had another big hitter yet, but for a new channel, I feel like difficult. Yeah, I feel like it worked really well. So I leaned into a transformation style title with that one as well, and went a little bit more like these are the six things holding you back for the thumbnail. Um, and I think that's a really good way to think about it is like what would someone who watched this video need to know next to continue their journey? And that's what I would do as a follow-up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I talk about this a lot actually, the um what I call a target video. So when you're creating a video, uh especially if you're, let's say, for example, you have a backlog of videos um that exist already. I I I always preach like when you're creating a new video, what's your target video? Where are you sending people to? What is the thing that they will make sense to watch after the video you're making? Like what makes sense? And that's how you get binge sessions, and that's how people come and you get uh recommendations and so exactly what you're saying is exactly it. You're doing it from the the other side of the fence, which is I don't have any of the backlog, I need to make it now. But the concept is exactly the same. Like, what is the next video that person wants to watch? It is the one of the most successful ways to grow a YouTube channel that most people don't talk about. That's why we talk about it here on the podcast because you listen deep. You want to listen like you're what are we like 20-something minutes into this thing? You're just now hearing this, and it's like, yeah, I think I've heard that before. Well, if you've heard it before, you haven't done it. What's going on? What are we doing? Why are we spending our time making this podcast for you if you're not doing the things that'll help you grow? Tori literally just told you she got 20,000 views on a video on nothing else on that channel. No shout-outs from other channels, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Nope.

SPEAKER_00:

No one else.

SPEAKER_01:

I wanted this to be like a fully organic experiment. I didn't tell anybody that I was starting the channel except for Jen. I love that.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. I think that's that's amazing. I think that's one of the coolest things because a lot of times um we'll see viewers and stuff say, well, but you're already there, you don't know what it's like. Um, and I've started multiple other single channels here and there. Um, and it's not easy. I get it. And then even pivoting, I would in some ways say that I don't know which is actually worse to pivot or or starting a new channel. They're both very difficult. Very, very difficult. I mean, technically, I started this vidIQ podcast channel. We didn't really have any shout outs at the beginning, and then other personal channels go along the way. Um, that's amazing. That's really cool to hear, and uh, it's very encouraging. And I think if anyone's wondering, like, well, can I still do a YouTube channel and get views and get it? Yeah. I mean, you said you're almost monetized, and it's like three videos? What? That's crazy. Shorts with that, or is that long form?

SPEAKER_01:

Nope. I'm not a short scal myself. I I love that.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that.

SPEAKER_01:

All long form. So I would say if you are really trying to start a new channel, to before you start like even touching YouTube as a platform, sit down and think about your first eight to ten videos as a viewer journey. When I want someone to fall onto my channel, I don't want them to just watch one video and pop onto another. I want to create an experience that someone can really get deep into with me. So think through how your first few videos are telling a bigger story for the channel, how they're working together, what problems you're solving, what playlists you want to start building from the beginning, because that's already going to set you up strategically to be hitting that repetitious format, which is also going to help you from a growth perspective. So I would sit down and until you have those first eight to 10 videos planned out and working together to tell a larger story, I wouldn't even touch my computer unless, say, you know, you do your brainstorming on the computer. But um, I wouldn't touch YouTube. I would really just think who you're trying to connect with and the story that you're trying to tell to them on a larger scale, not on a video by video basis. And I think that's what set this channel up for that initial growth because that first video didn't pop off until the third video went up. But now they're all able to support each other and work really well together. And I was able to see some trickle down recommend recommendations from that first video to those couple um to follow it. And I'm breaking that thousand view mark pretty consistently.

SPEAKER_00:

That's incredible. So, where are you on the monetization uh scale of things? What do you need left?

SPEAKER_01:

I am sitting at about 520 subscribers and 3,000 watch hours. So I'm getting the watch hours. Um now we gotta get the subscribers.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta get the go do those uh calls to action. That's great. But 500 subscribers on three videos with that many watch hours. I mean, there's people with a lot more videos than that, with a lot less of all of that. Um, okay, so now we're gonna go into the part where y'all have written into us. We love this, my favorite part of the show. Uh, this first one will be coming from the text messages. Of course, if you're listening to the audio podcast, you probably already know this. There's a link in the show notes that allow you to send us a text message. And this first one is from Andrew, who has written us many times before. He says this is less of a question and more of an observation that I thought would resonate with some of your audience. YouTube is so fickle sometimes that every now and then you get that video that surpasses all. If you're in the partner program and he makes you a lot of money. So we just talked about this ironically. Like, yeah, absolutely. Exactly that. And it's great. We all love the one of ten videos, but as we all know, those are few and far in between. Oh Lord, you never said nothing that ain't more true than that. Uh, the non one of tens, those are. The bread and butter videos of my channel. I can't look at those as failures. I have to look at those as the videos that truly keep me going. The big videos, the outliers, the those are the cherries on top. The cream of the Cadbury egg, if you will. That's my favorite uh candy.

SPEAKER_01:

I love it.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, it's hard to stay motivated. So every time you put out a video, you are winning and doing more than you were when you weren't putting out videos. As long as you're focusing on proving that one little thing, each and every time you've already won, the outliers will come, but they aren't your bread and butter. Andrew are speaking the truth. He's spitting, as they say.

SPEAKER_01:

I love all the food analogies in there, too.

SPEAKER_00:

This is what we do here. We we eat. Now, I will say that I have indeed also lost a bunch of weight over the last couple months. That's the other thing that uh came through the comments on the videos. Because I hadn't really uploaded in a year, people hadn't seen my weight loss and they were like, oh my God, what's going on? I'm like, I'm just trying to do things, you know, that's the way it is. Um, but I love that. Thanks, Andrew, for sending that along. And I think it is really important because the vast majority when another thing a lot of people don't know is that uh typically 80% of the views come from 20% of the videos on a channel. It's a very small group of videos that spurn these big channels to get a lot of views. It's mostly from just a small group of videos that are overperforming that kind of push the whole channel upwards. So that's normal, completely normal. Don't fear weird about it. Okay. Now, this next one's gonna be a question. So, Tori, you better be ready because you're probably gonna have to answer it because I'm not that smart.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. All right, giving me a lot of credit there.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, we're gonna find out if you're good. Hi, Tube Talkers. Peeps is the right answer, okay, for like candy. Like peeps, I hate peeps.

SPEAKER_01:

I hate peeps as well. All right.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, I'm nine months into YouTube, still finding my niche through experimentation. I've posted topics of psychology, education, even outdoor adventures, which has shifted my audience from 50-50% female-female to 90-10% male-female. Now I'm thinking of pivoting to communication skills tied to my background as an English teacher and an instructional coach. With what only 140 subs. Should I take the transition slowly or rip the band-aid and just start a fresh channel? Long-term goal, building a coaching business and using YouTube as a content marketing thoughts. Now, before we get into kind of the nitty-gritty, uh, YouTube's a great funnel. It's called a funnel where you bring in a bunch of people and then yeah. Great funnel. Uh, it's an SEO monster and uh can definitely get you uh a lot of a lot of business. But let's talk about this 140 subscriber channel that's been pivoting left, right, and center. You want to pivot again. Uh, what are your thoughts on this as you uh hear this email?

SPEAKER_01:

I was gonna say this is a creator after my own heart. Um, I'm definitely an ADHD creator myself. I love getting excited about new random things and I love good side quest. So I would say just because this channel has pivoted so much already, there's probably so much funky data going on behind the scenes on who your viewer should be. Just because, I mean, if you think about it from like a TV show perspective, the consistency in like the type of content works because like on Mondays, I watch The Bachelor. And every Monday I sit down and I expect a certain type of format from my episode of The Bachelor. And if they were to put something else on TV on Monday in that time slot, the way that that would throw my week off, I like I can't even explain it to you. Oh my gosh. So I always try and think of content like from the viewer perspective. Like if you can create that repetition, people are gonna show up every week and they get excited about expecting that format. And if you throw them something totally different, they might not be interested in it all. And then slowly over time, they're gonna stop checking in. So I would probably in this situation just rip off the band aid and start a new channel and try and start it with a little bit more focus this time. Um, and then if you want to go on a side quest, do it on the other channel um just for funsies. That way you are building really um consistent viewer data and the algorithm is going to really start working with you because it understands the type of content that you're making and exactly who they should put it in front of.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and and don't feel afraid if you're like at 140 subscribers of using that same channel. I mean, we but the thing is we also don't know how many videos you've put up. So that's the other thing. If you know that you're pivoting to this other thing, I would unlist all the other videos. If they have nothing to do with what you're gonna be doing moving forward, unlist them and move forward. 100 subscribers, not a big deal. I actually, that my channel that I use now was 100 subscriber channels, just and I used to just put crap up and then I just use it for my main channel. So you can totally do it. Um, but Tori is right, like you have to kind of understand where you're going. So it's a good thing that you're listening to a podcast like this. That means you're taking things seriously. You really want to understand the nuts and bolts of how to make this thing move. And with that, it will definitely move you forward in the right direction. You kind of have a cheat code by being so interested in advance. A lot of people just upload and just not understand what happened. Like, I think that worked, I don't know why that worked. Like, they have no idea. But when you take the time, you're investing time to listen to like a podcast like this, and then uh using like fit IQ tools and stuff, it really shows that you're committed to this. So, what Tori's telling you is essentially the rest of your journey, super simple. And then just experiment within that niche because the thing that you think you might be good at might not be the exact thing you're good at on video. Like you might actually be really good at something else. You might you might have a superpower that you're not even aware of that people will love. So definitely get out there once you get that niche kind of set situated, and then let us know how it went. We'd love to hear more about it.

SPEAKER_01:

This would be a good situation too, since they are kind of hoping to eventually have it become a marketing funnel to think about those first eight to 10 videos from that lens. How are these videos working together to get that person closer and closer to want to buy from me? Because typically, if you're speaking like in marketing, it takes like seven touch points before someone is going to convert a sale. So you want to think how are those seven videos getting me closer to building that trust with someone that they want to, you know, put the credit card in or bounce to my website? So I would get really intentional about the journey that you're going on there. Start with maybe like a higher level video for first, like kind of your top of funnel content, your discoverable content, and then get into those things that are slowly going to work towards building that trust and having that connection with someone that they are going to say, okay, this person is where I want to be and they're gonna help me get there.

SPEAKER_00:

I've told the story before, but I I want to bring it up again because I think it's relevant to this creator. Um, years ago, when I was uh doing uh coaching, there was this guy who had a channel in the UK about real estate taxes or something. It was like super niche, kind of weird. Like, who's going to YouTube to watch this sort of thing? Nice guy. And I remember like when he first came to me, I think he was averaging like 128 views per video, which when I thought about like that makes sense. I mean, I mean, I'm not looking for tax information about my uh real estate, like that's super niche, but okay. And uh we started working together. We only worked together for a couple of months, and uh it was the it was the best last call I had with this guy because he goes, you know what? I don't I don't need any more. And I and I remember I remember looking at his views and like they were up to like 300 and something. He goes, We've done so much more business that I can't even I can't even do anymore. Like I can't even if we got more views, I'd be in trouble because he'd have to hire people, and that's the thing he didn't want to do. That's so awesome. Just by doing that little bit because we focused on the right viewers. We didn't focus on more views, we focused on the right viewers, and he got so many of the right viewers that he was overwhelmed with business, which was great. It was the best kind of goodbye I've ever had from a creator. He was so happy, so excited. He's like, I got it now, thank you so much. And it's so funny to be like, this guy graduated from coaching with 300 views per video, but he was fine with it. He was more than fine with it because he was making a lot more money than people to make 10 times that uh on YouTube videos.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and that's why it's so important to design your strategy with your goal in mind. If your goal is to build sales for your business, it might not be like advantageous to go viral. That might be a logistical nightmare for your company.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. No one thinks about that. No uh okay, another text message. Um, this one says, hi, love the podcast. I listen to it on my commute and marathon training runs. I have a channel that I've been grinding for about five years, running for my best life, which has about 2k subs. I know I need to be more consistent and possibly niche down to see more growth. However, a friend told me recently that the reason why bigger channels have videos that get thousands of views immediately is because they pay for SEO services, which puts them at the top of rankings. After all the things I've learned from experts, including you guys, this is not true. But I wanted to check and see if there's any truth to this. If so, I'd be very disappointed. I love the thought of knowing that this big creators grinded out to become successful. Thank you for all the valuable advice you provide. Cheers from afar. Okay, Anthony. Um so both things can be true, and that's where we are on this. Depending on what you mean by big creators and which videos and channels you're talking about, for the most part, it's yeah, it's real. Like it just took a while to get there, and that's the thing. It's what happened to me. It's it happens to creators all the time. Having said that, there are people out there, and I actually know a couple that uh pay for services to make their views go up. And sometimes it's it's legitimate, like they're advertising, using advertising, like the you know, which we talked about before, ad words and stuff, which you really shouldn't use to grow your channel because it's not actually helping you in any way. It just makes the view number go up, but it doesn't do anything to help grow your actual channel. And then there's other less scrupulous uh we'll say uh pay services you can use that just try to clout chase, I guess. Um and you should definitely not do those either because you can get your channel canceled for all that. So if you're listening to the podcast, just grind it out like you've been doing and and be of course more intentional with your your stuff. You say you even know you need to niche down, do those things. So, no, whatever your friend told you is not completely untrue, but it's not blanket statement true. What are your thoughts on this?

SPEAKER_01:

I think again, it's it's just a balance. Like SEO is important, but from a viewer perspective, if I'm looking online for a specific keyword, titles with that keyword in it are going to jump out at me more than videos that don't have it. So I think it's more about designing your videos with SEO to really connect with the person that you're hoping to reach. So if I'm really trying to reach someone who's like super into sourdough bread, if I make a video just about different kinds of bread, they're not gonna watch it because they're looking for sourdough bread in specific. So your keywords are just gonna help connect your content with who is looking for it a little bit more, but always running it through that human filter because at the end of the day, that's who's watching and supporting the channel, and that's who's gonna help grow the channel is the people on the other side.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and remember that SEO is let's break that down a little bit, search engine optimization, which means um when people search for something. Now, immediately the first thing I always tell people is remember what that means because it's not the same. So 70% of all views on YouTube actually come from the recommendation engine, not search. Search is an intention, and it's so important to understand what that means. If you're making search-related content, get to the point much faster because that's what people want. If I'm looking at how to tie a tie, I got 10 minutes to get it, get my tie tied on before I got to get out of this house. I'm not looking for an hour-long video about how to tie a tie. I'm gonna need you to keep it under two minutes, right? Looking for a solution, yeah. And I'm probably not gonna subscribe because I need to get out of this house. I'm not even gonna remember who you are. That's SEO, that's search-based, that's intention-based. Nothing wrong with that. And as a matter of fact, you can build a business off that because maybe in that tie video, I go, I actually like that tie once. I want to buy that. Oh, there's a link in the description. Boom, affiliate sale. Like, there's good stuff to be had from search, but you know, explosive growth doesn't tend to happen from search unless it's a news related thing. Search is meant what they call evergreen, it's actually tied with evergreen, right? So you get views over a long period of time. Um, but still, the amount of views per subscriber is different than something like that's more browse-based, which is more kind of in your face, more cloak clickbaity, more interesting to uh a storytelling arc. I don't again wanna I don't need a storytelling on how to unclog my toilet. I just need to know how to unclog my toilet. Things are going bad right now, right? I need I don't I don't need 30 minutes of like why your aunt showed you this one time ago. I don't care. I things are floating in my bathroom. I need to hurry up and go fix it, please. Um, so yeah, just something else to keep in mind. We'll go more into that another time. Uh, final one is an email. If you want to send us an email, you can do that at theboost at vidik.com, the boost at vidik.com. And this one comes from a B Lo. B-Lo, interesting name. B Lo Brown, which funny because it's like D Lo Brown, which is a WWE wrestler back in the day. Uh, I never comment or like videos, partly because I have little faith it will be seen. But after binging all the YouTube music talk, oh, all the YouTube music tube talk podcast up to this point. Here's my attempt. I think what he what he's saying here is he watched our podcast through YouTube Music, which makes sense because podcasts on YouTube do go through YouTube Music. I completely forgot about this, but it's a it's a thing that it actually is uh a good benefit for it. My channel is coming. I've prepped for months, unknowingly, for years, for a time such as this. See, we have preppers. We have I love it.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm a big planner.

SPEAKER_00:

Are you? Well, you'd love our audience.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I'll be in a I'll be in Notion for like days before anything actually like starts to become anything.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's funny. Um, I have copious amounts of research, branding, and content ideation scheduled out long before I begin. Uh it sounds like uh this is like your this might be your favorite creator ever of all time, Aaron.

SPEAKER_01:

This is like this is like Yeah, no, we're gonna get along great, me and BLO.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I have even confirmed with three separate AI, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Grock, that I've not only discovered a gap in the YouTube market, but will also be able to coming in at the right time on YouTube. It will do well not because I'm a great YouTuber, but because I've wanted to create a TV show since childhood. It's just now that uh YouTube will be the platform for it, perfect for this new wave of uh YouTube TV watchers. Now, before I continue this email, I do want to say it's been stated over the last couple of months that uh television growth has exploded on YouTube. This is true. And I actually saw this on my own channel just this past week, where TV was the second most used device, which kind of shocked me. Like I knew it was already growing, I've known this for years, but to actually see it in analytic was like, whoa, that's huge. So I love that uh he knows this. So he's done a lot of research, it's great.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, like 48% of my audience watches on TV.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh, which means you gotta produce for that. We'll talk about that in another podcast. I think that's a really interesting subject. Like, how do you shoot for TV? Because there are some things you need to consider. I have something to say. Dare I say legendary. The niche you ask, survival comedy. That's all I can say for now. Whatever that means. Survival comedy. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm curious. It's why I am too.

SPEAKER_00:

He knows that he knows that the hook. He's got the hook in an email. I'm now at the point where prepping any further is just a delay on execution. It's time to begin. I do want to thank everyone at Vit IQ for unknowingly equipping me further into the journey. We don't know each other, but I feel we might someday soon. First of all, I love that. Listen, stake your claim and fly your flag. I love it. As for my question, what is something you wish someone would ask you about YouTube, but no one ever does? I love questions like this. What is your question that you wish people would ask you, knowing what you know now, Tori, that they don't ask? I love this question.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh man, there's like there's so many things. Ah, I feel like I wish someone would ask about the story of a channel as a whole, because I feel like I feel like a lot of times we're not looking at the channel as a story in and of itself. We're looking at things on a video by video basis. And I really love to nerd out on like kind of the higher level bird's eye view of a channel because that's I think where the big story is. That's where the bigger journey is. And I think a lot of times we get too like lost in the sauce and forget to kind of look at the bigger picture.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, so good. That actually is so true. The overarching kind of uh what we call the um the uh what's the word, what's the phrase I'm looking for? Um my gosh, my brain just said no.

SPEAKER_01:

Like the hero's journey, sort of, maybe like the point of the channel. Like, what is your um Oh, like your mission, your mission statement.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Something like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Value proposition.

SPEAKER_00:

Your value prop. There it is. Why? I say it 18 million times a month and uh I forgot it today. Your value prop. Yeah, exactly that. Like, what is the point? I love that. And no people don't ask that. They don't, they literally don't, because they don't think about it, which is fine. Understandable. I think the thing I would say is I wish that. Well, first of all, a lot of the people who email in us ask us really smart questions and deeper thinking questions, which I love, which is one of the reasons I love doing the podcast. But I I would love more people to ask more about the things that people don't talk about, like what's it like on a day-to-day basis? What are the bad things about being a YouTuber? What are the things that no one ever told us about that we have to live with, like taxes and like all these things that are really important um that are critical to being a YouTuber? And no one mentions it because we're just trying to figure out what the next keyword is we're supposed to use or whatever. And you know, it's like that that's cool, I guess, and I'll answer it. But I would love those more thought-provoking questions, just like this, as a matter of fact. I think it's a great question.

SPEAKER_01:

I was gonna say this question was such a good one. I love that too, because I feel like there's so much nuance that like when I committed to starting my first channel, oh my goodness, I had no idea what I was getting into.

SPEAKER_00:

And you've been doing it for years now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Six years in, I still learn new things.

SPEAKER_00:

So a time machine will be made tomorrow. You get to go in it and tell old Tori, who's just about to click publish for the first time. What are you gonna tell her?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, this is gonna sound contrary to everything I've said. So I want to hear it.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's hear it.

SPEAKER_01:

Stop planning so much. I feel like I held myself back a lot, especially in early days, overthinking things a little bit too much, how I was showing up, how I was speaking. And I think it almost kind of deterred people from connecting with me because I wasn't being authentic. I was like really overthinking how I was showing up. And it kind of kept me from making more content, connecting with people and finding my voice faster because I was so worried. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Being overly strategic.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'm an overthinker for sure. So I would go back and tell her to just make some videos and she she can do the overthinking later.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. No, it's such a good piece of advice because I think that's something that a lot of creators, even right now, could use as a piece of advice for them. Right now, stop overthinking things, get out there and do it, and then let us know about it. Of course, you can email us at the boost of video.com, you can uh send us a text message through the audio podcast, or you can come through the Discord because that's where we'll be. I've been there a couple times. Tori's in there all the darn time. If you have listened to this podcast and you want to say, I like that Tori. I want to go talk to her. She's in Discord right now. Links in the description and links in the show notes. Get over there, it's free. And uh you can say hi to the Tori and all the other people over there in Discord. Tori, anything else you want to let us know uh before we let you go?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I have to know what you're gonna tell 2018 Travis when you go in the time machine.

SPEAKER_00:

First of all, put down them Twinkies. Uh I love the fudge rounds, but you got you can't have them for lunch, breakfast, and dinner. You gotta just every once in a while.

SPEAKER_01:

That would be a good ad for a prior Tory, too.

SPEAKER_00:

I know, right? I think ultimately, um, I think I was pretty well prepared, but I I will say that A, a lot of the myths online were wrong, and I I learned that over time anyway. I maybe learning it was actually the better, the better move. But uh to be smarter about the niche selection because I change interests anyway, pretty pretty regularly. And I feel like I should have gone maybe broader somewhat so that I could kind of play around a little bit more, but I didn't know. Things started working, so I started doing them. I was doing the right thing, I was doubling down, but I didn't think like years ahead. I was like, oh, I could do this for a year or two, easy, no problem. Okay, but what happens when that year or two is gone? Then what? Like, oh, okay, you got your silver plate button now.

unknown:

What?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I'm bored. I don't know. What am I supposed to do? I don't know. The goal's gone. What do I need? I don't know. So I think that would be it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I feel like that's such a good way to look at the platform too, because it's not usually like a short platform. Like, you know, YouTube, you're you're in it for the long haul. So thinking about it for the long haul from the beginning is so smart.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that's great. So if you like this, make sure you leave us a comment below. And of course, five stars on any of the podcasting platforms that allow you to rate us would be amazing as well. And like always, we will be back again to do this all over again as we do every single week. We'll see y'all in the next one.