How To Get 1,000 Subscribers On YouTube with Nick Nimmin

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We unpack a practical path to your first 1,000 subscribers with Nick Nimmin, focusing on mindset, search strategy, tight packaging, binge paths, shorts, and live streams built for replay. We share tactics you can apply today without chasing vanity metrics or burning out.

• learning curve mindset and skill stacking
• search-first strategy to seed recommendations
• evergreen topics that compound over time
• hooks, pacing and retention-focused editing
• binge paths with end screens, cards and playlists
• channel homepage design that guides viewers
• shorts as search and highlight distribution
• live streams structured for replay growth
• balancing intuition with analytics over time
• goals beyond views and defining your ideal viewer

Make sure you hit that subscribe button if you're listening on YouTube. And of course, if you're listening to the audio podcast, it'd be great if you left us a five-star review.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening Banter And Guest Intro
• 1:44 Nick’s Origin Story On YouTube
• 10:18 Impact, Community, And Creator Mindset
• 12:44 The First 1,000 Subscribers Mindset
• 18:36 SEO Basics And Why Search Matters
• 22:15 Gaming Strategy: Fortnite And Evergreen
• 28:24 Packaging, Hooks, And Retention Tactics
• 33:07 Binge Paths, Playlists, And Channel Design
• 38:15 Shorts Strategy And Search For Shorts
• 41:16 Goals Beyond Views And Defining Your Who
• 45:13 Live Streaming For Growth Vs Community
• 51:06 Trending Moments And Replay Structure
• 55:35 Listener Messages: Tools, Collabs, And Setup
• 1:00:38 Retention, CTR, And New Vs Returning Viewers

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

So if you're getting a thousand views on a video, you're crushing. You're doing amazing. And you should acknowledge that. The analytics can sometimes lead you wrong. Um, getting subscribers and views is great, but at the end of the day, um, the thing that's gonna drive you isn't gonna be subscribers and views. It's gonna be something else.

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

Hey, welcome to the only podcast is not only a fan of you, we're a fan of our guests too. I'm Travis here, as I always am, Travis. I think I'm gonna change my name next year, but I'm here with a very special guest. Someone I'm really, really appreciative that shows some time. And I'll explain why a little bit later on. Nick Niman, how are you doing, Nick?

SPEAKER_01: 0:28

Travis, I am doing absolutely amazing. I'm super excited to be here on the podcast today. And I've got some fun information for you also that you may or may not know. I'm gonna assume you do, but maybe not. So uh that that might be some fun stuff to share here uh just a little bit later.

SPEAKER_00: 0:42

I can't wait. And um, for those of you that are new here, uh we just help people grow their YouTube channels. We do it in a lot of different ways. Um, we do it with the creators that come on and help talk to us about YouTube. We give you advice, we answer your questions, we do all the things, and we have a lot of fun here as well. So I'm gonna start off with the question that we usually ask a lot of different uh content creators. It's very it's very critical. It's very just to understand and gauge your knowledge of things. Cadbury eggs or uh or candy corn.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08

If you hadn't oh my god, why would you do that to me? This is like the very first thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13

Um it's been going on for years, and we need to we need the resolve it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16

That is so tough. I would say Cadbury eggs. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20

That was the right answer. That was the absolute right answer. And everyone we get to continue now. We get to continue. Everyone that's team candy corn. See, I told y'all, get out of here with that. That's terrible. It's wax, it's basically Dollar Tree wax. You go to Dollar Tree, you get a candle, and that's your candy corn. Anyway, back into helping you grow your YouTube channels. Um now, Nick, let's talk a little bit about you. For those who may not know who you are, uh, give us a quick little elevator pitch of who you are and like what you've been doing. You've been doing this for a long time, and I'll tell you how I came into uh the Niminati uh right after that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

Yeah, so um I started on YouTube back in 2014. So I've been doing it for over a decade now. Um, like a lot of people, I mean pretty much everybody really, when I first started my channel, um I didn't know what I was doing. And I was just plugging away, you know, making videos about things that were going on in my life at the time. So at that time in my life, I was doing graphic design for people. So um, and a little bit of like, you know, just internet-related things. So, because of that, um, you know, my videos were about things like how to stay focused when you are working in a coffee shop. I did have one about how to overcome camera shyness. That was my very first video because that was a problem that I had to overcome. But when I first started the channel, I didn't really have any direction like a lot of people don't. And I was just, you know, trucking along. It took me five months to get my first 150 subscribers on my YouTube channel. And right around that time, um, somebody else was getting ready to cross a hundred thousand subscriber milestone. Um, it's a mutual friend of ours. And during uh that particular moment in time, he made a video and he said, Hey, if my content has ever done anything for you, uh, make a video. And I made a video, and you know, because I was watching his videos and they were helping me out, just like, you know, people watch our videos, Travis, and I sent him a video. I was like, Hey, let me put this video together real quick. And I sent it over to him and he's like, Hey, you know, I like your camera presence, your audio, all that stuff. Um, we should hop on a call soon. So hopped on a call, got the opportunity to work with him on another YouTube channel. It was going great. We started picking up momentum right away because, you know, he knows what he's doing. And uh everything was going amazing. However, I, like a lot of creators, I was burning the candle at every end because I had my design business that I was running and I had my YouTube channel that I was running, and that particular type of content took a long time to prepare because I had to do a lot of research for it. And I just couldn't sustain it. I couldn't sustain the workload. So, based on you know what I had learned from him and my bug that I had caught from YouTube, um I said, okay, I'm gonna do this YouTube thing. Um, I have to figure this out. So I can't do this channel because everything takes too long. So I'm gonna go back to my other channel where I'm sharing things for my life, but I need to figure out how to monetize. So I built a website, you know, to monetize, started offering some services around that, um, some, you know, pre-made graphics, things like that. Um, and then I started, you know, being more aggressive of making content towards content creators. But even then, I wasn't talking about YouTube growth-related things. I was just talking about, you know, coming up with video ideas, um, naming your channel, how to make thumbnails, you know, those types of things that I was dealing with at that time. And I made a video about SEO because I was really good at getting my videos to show up in search. And the comment section was like, hey, this is great. Could you make some more of these? And I'm like, okay, yeah. And then basically I just started sharing the things that were working for me at the time. And then next thing you know, I had people start started reaching out to me for consulting. And when they started reaching out for consulting, I was like, no, I'm that's not, you know, I'm not interested in that. And then I had one person that was like, hey, um, I know, you know, after I told him no, he was like, I know that this isn't what you do, but I would love for you to just try it with me because, you know, you seem, you know, like you know a little bit about this stuff. So I'm like, okay. And then we, you know, started working on his channel and uh, you know, we got him some momentum. Now he's got, you know, like 300 something thousand subscribers on his channel. Um, and yeah, everything went great. And then another person reached out and I was like, okay, you know what, I'll try it again. And the next thing you know, we just consistently, you know, started getting results for people. And then I started sharing the nuance of, hey, now we're not just talking about things that apply to my channel. Now we're talking about things that apply to, you know, a lot of different types of channels and it opens up your insights and all that stuff. And then I started gaining, you know, more knowledge from all of that and just kept going and kept sharing, you know, like I'm not one of those people that um, you know, locks everything up and tries to, you know, kind of tease people along with the information that they're giving. I try to help people through my content. And uh, because of that, people responded well to it because I just freely gave everything that I knew and was having fun doing it and tried to um stand out through connecting with content creators as a content creator, which was odd at the time because everybody was connecting with content creators from like a, you know, I'm the coach that knows the stuff and you don't know the stuff, you know, perspective. So, you know, my presentation style, my set design, um, everything about what I was doing, um, I did it from the perspective of a creator because I'm a creator at heart, right? So uh so I just kind of let all of that stuff come out. And then now, uh, you know, a bunch of years later, I'm sitting here, you know, you and I are having this talk right here. Um, on my channel, I've gained over 1.4 million subscribers on my channel, but I've lost a bunch over the years. So now I'm floating around like nine something. Um, and yeah, man, I'm having a blast. I love it. Love YouTube, love the opportunity that we have as content creators to tap into this amazing resource and express ourselves and reach and impact other people. Um, I just think that, you know, right now that there couldn't be anything better.

SPEAKER_00: 6:36

Yeah, it's and the thing about YouTube is really interesting because uh my connection point with you would have been 2018, 2019, somewhere around there. Uh and you know, when you're first starting out, you're looking for growth strategies and stuff. So you come across Roberto Blake, yourself, Daryl Eaves, um, you know, people like that. And uh I remember I I actually kind of remember one of the videos specifically uh where you were kind of walking around, it's like vlog style, but you were kind of helping people like just kind of grow their channels and just philosophies and stuff. I'm like, this guy's really cool, like the way he explains things. So I was watching more of your stuff, uh, and then you started doing with your brother live streams on Saturdays. Now I need to explain to you because one thing I think as content creators we forget is like the what how we're impacting people on the other side of the screen. So I want to tell you how your live streams on Saturdays impacted me. Those were the equivalent of Saturday morning cartoons to me. I would wake up so excited because now you're in Thailand, so your time starts a little earlier than me. Um a little bit. A little bit, yeah. So by the time you're closing out, I'm just about waking up. But I would get up just like Saturday morning cartoons, and it would be on. And I would be sitting in there watching, and and for years I would watch every Saturday. And it was something I looked forward to every day. There would be times where I'd wake up, get excited, turn on Niman, put it on my TV, and then I would get I'd be like, okay, I want a breakfast sandwich. I'm gonna go get a breakfast sandwich, but I'm gonna have it on on my phone while I'm going through the drive-thru, listening to the breakfast, and then when I come back, I start eating my sandwich, I'm watching the show. It it was the it was the coziest time in my content creation um thought. And when you guys stopped doing Saturdays for a while, uh it was sad to me because it was such a part of like my upbringing in in the content creation thing. But now I consider you a friend, which is kind of crazy because I think um YouTube is really interesting in that you can find people that you look up to and you really admire and you like, and then you can actually become friendly with them, which is unlike any other kind of situation you can come across. You're watching TV, you're probably not gonna become friends with their Denzel Washington. It's probably not gonna happen for you. Uh, I'm sorry to tell you that. But Nick Niman, who helped uh change my life in so many ways by giving me information on how to grow on YouTube and stuff, and then I can hopefully share that to other people. Uh, I'm pals with. Like we're doing, we're sitting here, we're talking. So I think what an incredible platform for that. But when you do things, you have impacted a tremendous amount of people. And maybe sometimes it's easy to forget about that uh going through your day-to-day. Because, like, Nick, how often do you even think about the hundreds of thousands of people or millions of people that are now doing better on YouTube because of the stuff you've done? Do you even does that even cross your mind at all? It it does.

SPEAKER_01: 9:10

And um, and I, you know, like when you are, you know how it is, like when you're when you're doing the thing, um, you know, sometimes you can lose track of that. But fortunately, um, because of the things that I do, I I do get that information coming back, right? So when I go to conferences, you know, people have those conversations with me every Saturday. People come into the live stream, they're like, hey, you know, thanks. You helped me with this, help me with that. Or I started watching you, you know, this time last year. Now I've got, you know, uh 100,000 subscribers, or I'm full time, or, you know, whatever the thing is. Um, so, you know, so I get that type of feedback, and that is uh, you know, a nice reminder for that sort of thing. But, you know, I I try really hard, just like I'm sure, you know, a lot of creators do, to not look at the numbers as they're coming in as numbers, but looking at them as people. Um, but in terms of you know, the amount of people that pass through that take the information compared to the amount of people that take the information and do something with it, there is a pretty big gap uh, you know, right there between those two types of viewers. Um, however, you know, I do understand that uh with some of the videos that I publish, that I definitely make uh, you know, an impact in some way. Well, it's time to make it. It feels great. And it feels integrate. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:19

When you hear back, I got 10,000 subscribers. Like, right, yeah, yeah, it's amazing. Well, let's see if we can do that right now, as we're gonna try to help people get the first 1,000 subscribers, which seems to be like one of the biggest topics that you can make in this growth area because there's so many people who don't hit a thousand. I feel like I remember seeing a statistic years ago that like the amount of people that even get 500 subscribers is uh like a a tenth of the percentage of people that actually make YouTube channels, something like that. It was something ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01: 10:47

Um, yeah, it's really small. Even in video counts, like almost nobody gets a thousand views on a video. Right. So if you're getting a thousand views on a video, you're crushing. You're doing amazing. And and you should acknowledge that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:59

Absolutely. But there's so many people out there that are like, I want to get to a thousand because I want to monetize. And the mindset between someone who's brand new and starting out and trying to get to a thousand versus someone who's been at it for years, we're gonna try to break down a little bit of that. We do get emails um from people who haven't even started their channel yet, which I kind of I love that because that means people are really wanting to know before they dip in, like, okay, what do I need to know? I I feel like those people are kind of part of my tribe because I'm a very research-heavy type of individual. Um, so let's talk to everyone, whether you've been on YouTube for a while and you're struggling to get that first thousand, or you're coming into it and you're like, okay, I'd like to get to a thousand. I know it's monetization, but also there's something cool about saying I have a thousand subscribers. What is the mindset you need coming into YouTube, either new or having done it for a while, to get over that hump? I know there's not like a magic sauce to it. I get that, but there is a mindset. Uh, what would you think? What would you say that is?

SPEAKER_01: 11:48

The mindset is acknowledging that you're in a learning curve. So, you know, just like anything that you do, and I say this at the end of all my live streams or all of my uh Saturday live streams that I do just to remind people because people just lose track of this because everybody wants, you know, these big numbers and they're getting presented on YouTube's homepage, these videos with, you know, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of views, and it makes them feel like they're not enough because of that. So I always like to remind people that YouTube is a learning curve. And when you think of it that way, then when you're struggling, then instead of getting frustrated and all of that, you just have to look at it and say, okay, well, just like if I was learning to play guitar, I have to go through all of these different processes. First, I got to pick the guitar that I want to play. Um, two, I gotta figure out the type of music that I'm gonna play or the you know different types of music that I'm gonna try to play. Three, I gotta figure out what the chords are. Four, I gotta figure out what the notes are. Five, I gotta figure out how to get my fingers how to work, right? You go through this big long process when you're trying to learn how to play guitar and you can do it for a really long time and still suck. YouTube is a very similar thing as it comes to the learning curve, right? So, you know, when you're first getting started, you don't know anything. And because of that, if depending on how in tune you are, how into YouTube you've been and things like that, like you might have picked some things up through osmosis from just consuming the content. Um, however, you know, a lot of people they start making videos and it's tough. You know, they put all this work and then they build up their expectations thinking that when I publish this, this is probably gonna change my life. Because I've seen so many stories on the internet about people publishing videos, and I think that I'm one of those people, so I'm gonna do that. Or they publish the video and they're like, okay, this is I know this is gonna do well. I've put my blood, sweat, and tears in this. It's good. In my eyes, it's good, and therefore other people should like it. And then they publish the video, and the video doesn't do well. You know, they get a hundred views or less. Maybe they get 500 views, maybe a thousand views, you know, if they really nailed it on that first video. And then they sit back and they're like, oh my God, I can't believe I pin all of that work and I did all of that for like 38 views. And the mindset side of that is, yeah, that you know, that is frustrating. There's no way to just kind of dismiss that. However, if you're like, okay, so why did this video not get views? Is it because my videos suck? Maybe. Is it because it was a bad video idea? Could be. Is it because how I put the video together, the story that I told or lack of story that I told was, you know, it wasn't enough? Could be. Was it my packaging? Yeah, it might have been. Right? But when you're in that learning curve and you just identify, hey, uh, you know, I'm running into these problems right now, it doesn't mean necessarily that um I'm not gonna be able to do this. It just means that I need to figure out what that next step is. And 100% of the time, that next step is developing a skill of some kind. That can be an understanding of how YouTube works by researching that. That can be learning how to make thumbnails by researching that, that can be learning how to write better titles by researching that. That could be learning how to tell better stories, how making your videos look better, like all the different things that we have to do. But the idea is if if you're running into those walls and you just look at it like, okay, this is just one more no until I get to a yes, essentially, right? Like if you come from a sales background, that's gonna make sense. But when you're publishing videos and you're not getting that traction that you want, it just means that there's you know more things that you have to overcome, more skills to develop. And here's here's the the the elephant in the room that we also need to put a spotlight on. Even when you know what you're doing, you can swing and miss. When you know what you're doing, you can you can publish a video and you're like, you know what, I think they're gonna love this. And you're gonna publish it and then they're not gonna love it. Sometimes you're gonna be like, okay, you know what, I'm tired of making that, so let me make this, but it's still for this audience, and I just know they're gonna love it. And you publish it and it's crickets. They just don't respond to it. And that can be that can be gutting. But if every single time you do that, and I still do this, every single time you do that, you're like, okay, what can I learn from this thing that can help me get a little bit further on this, you know, on this journey that I'm trying to take. But the mindset is to just bring your expectation down and instead just look at it through the lens of I'm on this, I'm on this learning curve. So everything that I learn about this and every skill that I develop around this, it's gonna help me get a little bit further and a little bit closer to those view counts, to that authority that I'm trying to get, to that income that I'm trying to generate, to that community that I'm trying to build. Every additional thing that I can add to my skill sets and my understanding is gonna get me one step closer to that.

SPEAKER_00: 16:29

And it's important to understand that while we're we'll go so over some of the technical things you can do to help kind of get to thousand, this is probably one of the first ones that's really important because it's so easy to burn out. There's so many people who try and quit. And if you don't want to be that person, you've got to set yourself up in this mindset first. And the learning mindset and not feeling like you're gonna crush it right out of the gate is so important. There are people out there that are crushing it um that don't even know it because they're so down on themselves because they don't get 10 million views per video. Uh, I've met creators that have been on the platform for like three months, averaging like 10,000 subscribers, which is ridiculous, or 10,000 views, which is ridiculous. And they think they're they're they're failing. And I'm like, you are in the top percentage of people that have ever done this is without shorts. And and I remember those conversations, they're like, really? I'm like, yes, like you have no idea how successful we are. So changing your mindset and just understanding that every video is an opportunity to learn is so critical. Now, the the nuts and bolts of it uh for a new content creator, you'll always hear things about SEO. And the reason that you hear so much about SEO is because it's kind of the easiest door besides shorts to kind of start getting views. Um and content creation can be about being artistic, but it's also about being a little bit strategic, right? You got to kind of understand where the audience is and what they're looking for. Once you get an audience built up, then you can do this more browse-friendly kind of content, like this is the the top three things that I think are cool. Like they're more about you than the content. But when you're first starting out, you got to give value. You've got to give it to them. It's got to be less about you. You got to take your ego, throw it in the trash, and give it all to them before they'll ever be there for you. So let's talk a little bit about SEO. And you, you know, you have a lot of um strong uh background in SEO. Um, when we're talking SEO, we're not necessarily talking about boring titles or even boring subjects, really. We're just talking about a packaging strategy for type for content. So we have a lot of gamers that listen. Um, what's the kind of content strategy for like a gamer, for example? We'll try other content as well, but let's just say for a gamer, let's say I'm playing um, I know I could say it's just a Fortnite or Minecraft, which is probably the easiest thing to say. So let's just say one of those. What am I doing to try to make my video content show up in SEO uh as a newer content creator?

SPEAKER_01: 18:39

So uh the very first thing I want to say is shout out to the Fortnite crew, because I play Fortnite. My wife and I play Fortnite. We bonded. I play Minecraft a little bit, so I'm not gonna lie, you know. Nice, yeah. So shout out to Fortnite. But uh um, but yeah, so when it comes to uh search, the the easiest thing that you can do is help people solve problems through search. So, you know, if you're doing like let's play content, you don't want to you don't want to target that for search because when you're thinking of search, you got to think of intent of the viewer. That means what are people actually searching for? Um, not can I make some obscure title and if I search for it, I'm gonna show up for that obscure title. Not that. Instead, what are people actually searching for that I can make content for to compete for those particular search phrases or keywords or you know, whatever approach that you're taking. Um but basically the path there is to solve people's problems. So if you're doing Fortnite, anytime something new drops, grind. Anytime you know there's a there's a new season that comes out, anytime there's a new update, grind. Make a bunch of content around that, around different things that people might be looking for in the game. Uh, you know, any secrets that are in the game, any you know, gun reviews that you want to do in there or weapon reviews, um, any of those types of things, anything that people might be looking for, you would want to make videos about those things. Um, with that, the very first thing you want to do is you want to hop into VidIQ, of course. You can look for all of This stuff in there. Um, you can also hop into the YouTube autocomplete, which is basically the search bar, and you just start typing in around you know things around Fortnite, and then it's going to show you the things that Fortnite is uh the things that people are looking for around Fortnite. Now, when it comes to autocomplete, it's going to give you a bunch of information. Some of that information might be dated. So that's where you know VidIQ comes into play, to where they can actually give you some volume and you know things like that that are important for this sort of thing. Um, and you should be looking at trends as well. Like if I make a video about this, are people still looking for this or am I kind of curving off on this particular, you know, thing that I'm trying to capture? And then in addition to the trending things, like the new updates and all that stuff that happened, um, in addition to that, anything else that somebody could be looking for around Fortnite that they might want to look for or not want to, but they might look for over a long period of time. Because the place where search can really come into play when it comes to growing your YouTube channel is making evergreen content. And evergreen content, if you're not familiar with that, is basically content to where if you publish it today, it's still going to be good this time next year. And in gaming, I would say I would give it about a year, you know, run there, especially with Fortnite as much as they update, maybe even six months. Um, but you know, if you're making any other type of content, then in that case, uh, you know, anything that's good for, you know, up till this time next year, two years from now, three years from now, the longer that content will be relevant, the better off that you are going to be when you are targeting YouTube search. Um, and those videos can drive your channel and sustain your channel for quite some time. And when it comes to a new content creator targeting search, there's a there's another aspect of this if we zoom out. And the aspect of this is that when you're publishing for recommendations, if you're really good at making videos, you're really good at coming up at the topics, you're really good at getting people to click, um, that is the fastest path, you know, for success on YouTube because that's where all the that's where all the traffic is, that's where all the views happen. Um, however, in order for those things to happen, YouTube has to get a really good understanding of who it is that are a good fit or who it is that's a good fit for your content. So, because of that, if we zoom out and we look at the real value in search when you're getting started, that value is let's say me, as somebody that plays Fortnite, I hop into YouTube Search and I'm looking for something in one of the new updates that dropped. I am a Fortnite player and I'm looking for information about Fortnite. I type it into YouTube Search, I see your video, I click on it, your video gives me exactly what I'm looking for, and that and I give YouTube all the signals that I am satisfied with your video. What YouTube just did is YouTube said, Hey, this viewer that watches this video has also interacted with these other videos. And therefore, let's kind of save this guy as somebody that might be a good fit for this channel. And then from there, when you publish another video, if I enjoyed the video and gave YouTube all the right signals, then the next thing that's gonna happen is you publish that next video, video number two, or three by this point, you know, we'll see where you're at, but but you publish, you know, that next video. Um, and then YouTube, uh, as long as I have, you know, engaged with that other video, is likely to test that video on me and see if I'm going to be a good candidate for that video. And then if I respond well to it there, then YouTube's gonna say, huh, wow, okay. So this person is a good fit for this channel. And then for every single person that goes through YouTube search and they find your content, YouTube is essentially building a profile of people that are engaging with your content. And when they do that, then your recommendations start getting dialed in and YouTube can really start ramping things up on your channel as long as people are responding well to your content and you're making content on good topics, right? So the the zoomed out version of the the power of YouTube search for starting a new channel is you essentially get to tell YouTube who's your who your audience is. That's why a lot of channels that start with a search first strategy when they're first getting started, you know, they'll they'll be trucking along like this and they're thinking that everything sucks, and they're like, man, all this effort that I'm putting in, it just completely sucks. And then it starts curving up, and then you'll start seeing those channels just start lifting up. Again, as long as they're making good content. Then you'll see those channels just start lifting up because everything is fine-tuned. YouTube understands it, the creator understands who they're trying to reach, and they're making excellent content for the people that um, you know, that that are a great fit for the content.

SPEAKER_00: 24:21

That's such a breakdown of SEO, so awesome. And what you know now, let's just kind of go over it, is you know how to figure out what type of content you want to make. We're going in the search bar, of course, using VidI2. If you VidIQ, if you're new here, we have links in the description for the free tool. Um, then you also can look at the other thumbnails that are ranking high for different search terms and kind of figure out what your version of that is. You don't want to go so far off that it doesn't make sense, but you do want to stand out. But the one thing I think is really important, you kind of uh alluded to it here at the end, is to make good content. But what that is, is kind of an interesting thought process. So you have to think, what is it I'm trying to accomplish? So what Nick said at the beginning is important. People are searching for something, right? Now, when you search for something as a person, you got to think, what am I trying to get out of it? Well, I just want an answer to something, or sometimes I want to be entertained, but for the most part, like if you're the Fortnite person or if you're, you know, how to unclog a toilet or whatever, I want the answer pretty quickly. So you need to make your content in a way that makes sense for that viewer. Because the signals that Rick uh, I'm sorry, Nick, Nick talked about uh at the end there, which is a good signals, whatever those are, um, have to happen from people enjoying and watching the video. So you have to keep people watching for a while. So if your video is about the 10 greatest uh guns in Fortnite, you better at the very beginning start to talk about some of those guns. I don't want to hear half an hour of how this is your sixth video on your channel and that you're happy to come. No, we don't care about that. Give me the first couple, give me some bangers right off the bat. Oh, wow, this is cool. And then you're buying that time. I talked about this in a in a couple videos ago. I said every time you do something, you re-engage the viewer, you've bought a little bit more time from them. So they come in, they see the thumbnail and title, they click it, they like it, they go, okay, this is the information I want. I want to know about this great new update that just happened to Fortnite or whatever it is you're making videos about. They watch the first 10 seconds looking for a reason to leave. If you give them a reason to leave, they will probably leave because they don't know you. They're gone. Like, I don't know who you are. I'm just wanted to know this answer. But if you do something like I'm gonna show you right now, here's one of the best parts of it, but there's actually more to it than you ever thought. Oh, okay. Well, this okay, let me sit fair for a little couple. I'll give you another 30 seconds of my time. Give them some more good information, rehook them again. Okay, I'll give you another minute of my time. And the longer you keep someone in, the more engaged they get because they're kind of committed. At some point, there's this tipping point of like most people are gonna hang out for the majority of the video if you keep giving them value. But the reality is for SEO friendly content, people are coming with the intention of getting an answer and leaving. You got to give them that answer and you got to give it to them very well, probably better than anyone else. And you wanna you want them to engage with you at some point, but it's not gonna be at the beginning. I'm just gonna be honest, don't you can show your personality, but don't spend a lot of time puffing yourself up. They want answers.

SPEAKER_01: 27:02

So it's about them and the solution that it's it's about the person that's looking for the, for the, for whatever it is that they're looking for. And your job, your role in that scenario is to give them what it is that they're looking for in the most efficient way possible. That's why, absolutely, like with like Travis is saying right now, you don't want to, you know, put a bunch of fluff about what's going on in your channel. You don't want to, you know, talk about, you know, why you got into Fortnite and started playing Fortnite in the first place, all those things. You want to give people what it is that they're actually looking for and help them, uh, you know, give them a real solution um that they can that they can apply, you know, as soon as they can apply it.

SPEAKER_00: 27:36

And another thing uh for helping you get to a thousand subscribers is having people watch more of your content because people don't typically subscribe on the very first video they see. As a matter of fact, uh, I'm sure I remember the last time I subscribed to a channel, I watch a lot of channels. And a lot of them I'm not even subscribed to. I just sometimes forget about it. Like YouTube just keeps surfacing their video to me, um, which is great. But um, if you want someone to click subscribe, you've got to give them so much value and and make it so obvious to them they don't want to miss any of your content that they almost are forced to press the button. So, Nick, what's a good way to not just ask for subscriptions? Because that's another thing. People say, Should I ask for subscribes? Should I not? But binging content is the, in my opinion, the best way. Because if you can't, if you're like, I love this channel so much, I can't, I don't want to miss anything. Like, what's that magic sauce to kind of get that over the over the hump to click subscribe?

SPEAKER_01: 28:27

So, absolutely getting people to watch more content and doing that in a strategic way. So, a lot of people just hope that people watch more videos. A lot of people just hope that they'll click on something in the end screen. Um, but instead of taking that approach, start thinking about your videos instead of one video at a time, start thinking about sets of videos and start thinking about reasons. Like, okay, if I make this video, then why would somebody video A, if I make video A, then why would somebody want to watch video B that watch video A? If they watch video A and video B, why would they want to watch video C? And then you start planning that out over the course of, let's say, a 90-day period, and you say, okay, um, so when I publish this video, then I'm gonna link to this other video on my channel. Since I know that I'm gonna do that, once I get to the end of the video, I'm not gonna ask them to subscribe. I'm not gonna ask them to comment, I'm not gonna ask them to go buy my merch. I might do some of that stuff earlier, maybe in the middle of the video, maybe something real quick, a little graphic shows up, something like that, but I'm not gonna do any of that stuff at the end. Instead, I'm going to say something along the lines of, yeah, and if you thought this was great, I take it to a whole other level in this video right here. You can go ahead and click into that right now and go check it out. I'll see you over the next video. And then what you do right there is you get somebody at their, you know, high interest or peak interest, and you take them and you move them right into another piece of content. And you level that up by linking them into playlists instead of just linking them into individual videos, but individual videos are fine, it's better than nothing. But link them into a playlist, you know, if you can. But the more that you can think through those things and think about, okay, what would be the best fit for the person that's watching this video right now in terms of something else on my channel that they could watch next? Um, and then you literally lead them into that video or playlist. In addition to that, make sure that you're using cards where needed, the info cards, make sure that you're using pinned comments that all lead to that same content as well. So that you're just creating that path. The whole idea is that you want to make it as easy as possible for the people that love what it is that you do to find more of what it is that they love from you. So the best way that you can do that is to facilitate that experience from them for them because they don't know what's on your channel. They don't know the videos that you've published. All they know is they're watching this video right now and they love it. So you want to think about okay, if somebody came in and they started watching this video, why would they click on this video in the first place? That means they're interested in XYZ. So then by the time I get them to the end of this video, then are they still gonna be interested in XYZ or are they gonna be interested in something else, or is there a next step that they can take or whatever the thing is? And that's what you want that next click to be uh through your end screen. So the idea is to start thinking of your content and how you can lead people through the videos that you're making instead of just making a video because it's Tuesday. Right. And and by doing that, um, then you are gonna make it easier for YouTube to recommend your content to people more. Um, you're gonna collect more watch time, which is gonna help you get monetized faster. You're gonna get more subscribers because when people interact with your content more, they subscribe at a higher rate. Um, so you want to just focus on getting them to watch more content from you. And the easiest way to do that is make content that people enjoy and then from there um facilitate that process. Even little details. People discount channel pages. They're like, oh, the channel pages don't matter. It's like an afterthought. But the thing is, is the people that are the most engaged in what it is that you're doing are going to be the people that are hitting your channel page. So, because of that, even take the time to say, okay, if somebody watches this video and they click on my name, what happens? What do they see? And then you'll go and you'll look at your channel page and then ask yourself, okay, if they land on this page, then how can I actually design this through the content sets that I'm making and the playlist playlist that I'm leading people into? How can I design this in a way to where people can more easily find the content that they want from me the most? Um, and then you make sure that you have that. You make sure that you have links to similar things in your video description so people can also find you that way for the people that are the most engaged and engaged enough to go down to your video description. Make sure they can also, you know, find you there um as well.

SPEAKER_00: 32:20

I love that. And I used to spend a lot of time when I was coaching people on homepage design. Uh they've slightly changed it in a way, and then for UTAP helps a little bit, but I think there's still a lot of uh art in doing it well and getting people to kind of be funneled in. Um finally, let's talk a little bit about um different formats. So, shorts and live streams, the strategy is mostly the same. You've got to give value and stuff. Live streams are different because it's more of a community thing a lot of times, although there are some strategies behind that. But real quick, we've mostly been talking about long form in shorts. Other than the fact that you definitely have to give value a lot quicker in shorts. Like you have no time to mess around. Uh, is there anything different you would say that you have to add in addition to everything we've talked about to kind of get that uh that momentum going for a shorts channel?

SPEAKER_01: 33:04

Well, when it comes to shorts, you know, keep in mind that shorts also show up in search results. I mean, they shorts show up everywhere, you know, like the minutes. They show up everywhere. Like you'll be you'll be in the bathroom and you look in the mirror and you're like, oh my god, there's a short in here. Yeah. I mean, they they literally show up everywhere. I was I was having coffee the other day and and I look behind the breeze and there's a short sitting over there on the shelf. And I'm like, what the point is on the shorts? So uh so basically when it comes to shorts, uh, you know, you can also optimize those for search as well. Um so you can also use that as a gateway in. Now, of course, most of your activity is going to come from the shorts feed um in a lot of cases. However, um, on my channel and a bunch of other channels that I've looked at, some of the highest performing shorts on the channels are from search traffic. So because of that. Yep. So because of that, just because you are uh publishing shorts, don't think that search cannot be something that you can tap into. Now, of course, all this is going to be dependent on, you know, are people looking for what it is that you're making and all that stuff, you know, and and is your content appropriate for it? But if it is, then in that case, that's another opportunity for you to get the shorts channel off the ground. So when it comes to the, you know, getting a thousand subscribers on your YouTube channel, you know, we talked about, you know, the mindset before. Um, but a couple of quick things I want to go over too that we just haven't touched on yet, if that's okay, Travis. Yeah. Is uh, you know, the very first thing is getting your mind right and making sure you get your expectations covered. The thing that you have to do after that is make sure that you have your goals set up. You got to figure out what you're gonna, what you're trying to accomplish on your YouTube channel. Um, getting subscribers and views is great. Um, but at the end of the day, um, the thing that's gonna drive you isn't gonna be subscribers and views. It's gonna be something else. It's gonna be either, you know, generating an income, making an impact of some kind, positioning yourself in some way. Like there's gonna be something that's that's more important. Um, anchor everything it is that you're doing to that. And it's gonna help you stay motivated, it's gonna help you stay consistent, it's gonna help you do the thing, and it's gonna give you a direction to go in. So you're not just, you know, aimlessly just publishing content out in the nowhere. Um, and then from there, get really super clear on who it is that you're trying to reach with your content. There's tons of nuance in this. So, you know, for example, um if we go back to Fortnite, um, you might think that you're just trying to reach people that are interested in Fortnite, but that's not the case. You might be trying to reach people that love watching other people play Fortnite because they can't play Fortnite, you know, late at night while, you know, the person, their roommates are asleep or whatever the thing is. You might be trying to reach people that are just trying to excel at Fortnite and therefore they need as many tips as they can possibly get. Um, you might need people that are just looking for Fortnite communities and they hang around, you know, let's play content and things like that for them. So just really understanding the nuance of who you're trying to reach can make a gigantic difference on your YouTube channel. And then from there, learn the art of actually making videos because you know what you're trying to accomplish. You got your mind right, you know what you're trying to do, you know who you're doing it for. And then from there, you gotta, you gotta just over-deliver with everything it is that you publish and then learn the art of the art and skill of uh of making content and then you know refine things over time.

SPEAKER_00: 35:58

And how do you uh approach this as a live streamer? Because you do a lot of live streaming, haven't done it for years, and there are some people who live stream on this on the listen to this podcast and are kind of like, well, that advice is good, but it seems like some of it doesn't apply to me. I mean, some of it still does. What what are your thoughts when you're talking to that?

SPEAKER_01: 36:13

Yeah, so when it comes to live streams, there's different reasons that people live stream. So, for example, my live streams are 100% community focused. Um, I did growth-focused streams for about a year where I was doing YouTube news every Friday. And um, in that particular situation, you know, those those views, those videos got lots of views because I was streaming for the purpose of the content, not necessarily streaming for the sake of streaming. So, what I mean by that is a lot of people think that live streams have to be, you know, an hour long, two hours long, three hours long, 30 minutes long, whatever the thing is. But in reality, you can record content live. So you can make a 10-minute live stream video that delivers all of the content that you would stretch out into a into an hour. And you can make that video and you can publish that video. And by doing that, that you're you're not alienating people that can't spend an hour or can't spend or they don't want to risk spending an hour with somebody that they haven't met yet, right? So when you do smaller or shorter live streams based around, you know, topics that your target viewers care about, then that gives you the opportunity to get in front of them. Two, if you are live streaming and you're going long live streams, um, I recommend that you clip your content as well. So, you know, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention Opus clip here, but they're an amazing. Okay, okay. Yeah, they're yeah, they're they're like an amazing solution for uh for that. Um, to where it takes your long form videos and gives you like a bunch of shorts. Now, the reason that I'm that I'm mentioning this is because if you're a live streamer, you might think like, hey, shorts isn't appropriate for me. But if you have these moments in your in your live streams that you can clip out, the short shelf, think of it like advertising to where, hey, if I put some of my best highlights for my live stream over in shorts, then that gives people the opportunity to um engage with me that might not have ever clicked on a live stream because, hey, whoop, I just show up with a swipe. And then if I can capture their attention, then that gives me the opportunity to where if I keep capturing their attention, maybe they'll come check out my channel, see that I live stream and want to participate in that, right? So using shorts as a part of that is important. Um, three, I think I'm on three. Uh, you want to make sure that you are also structuring your live streams correctly. So if you're doing a community stream, all that stuff doesn't really matter that much because you're just hanging out, you know, with your people. Um, that's what we do. Our our live streams, I have a channel review stream that I do occasionally. I'm not on it like you know, VidIQ is, but like I occasionally do channel review streams and then we do the QA stream um every Saturday. And uh with both of those, they're just community streams. So like we're just doing it for the people that are already engaged, people that need help and you know, and all that. So because of that, um, you know, we don't do what I'm getting ready to tell you. So the third thing here is if you're trying to use your live stream for the sake of growing your YouTube channel, um, you need to make sure that from a structural standpoint that you're doing it the right way. So, how you do that is when you first start the live stream, you want to have a clear hook, just like you do in a regular video. This is what we're doing, this is why it's important, or this is how it's gonna impact, whatever the thing is, right? Like you just have a clear hook and then move them into the content. Um, you can still be a little bit loose, but when it comes to your live stream, you want to make sure that for the replay, which is where most of the growth is gonna come from, in most cases, not all, but that's where most of the growth is gonna come from. So, because of that, you want to make sure that you're live streaming structurally in terms of how your live stream is structured for the replay. So, what that means is a lot of people start their live streams, they're doing like hangouts. Hey, John, welcome to the stream. Hey, Travis, nice to see you here. Thanks for swinging by. Uh, hey, Sally, you know, it's great seeing you here in the stream today. But while you're live, that's amazing. But when you're watching on the replay, you miss the boat. And it it's an exclusionary thing that you're doing there. So I know that you want to hang out with the chat. I know that you want to, you know, do all of that in. Intro stuff. So because of that, what you want to do is when you first start your live stream, you want to get all of that stuff out of the way. Um, and then you want to create a clear cut point. The way that you do this is you get to a point in your video and or where you're getting ready to start the content. You say, if you're just joining us, and then you pause for just a second, and then you say your hook again, right? So if you're just joining us, today we're talking about how to get a thousand subscribers on YouTube, right? So what you do is you go into the YouTube editor after the live stream is complete and you look for that space between where you said, Hey, if you're just joining us, and then whatever your hook is, and then you cut it right before that. And then what happens there is the replay viewer, they come in and they experience that live stream as a more put together piece of content while you and your community still got to do all the fun hangout stuff before you did that. Now I know in some cases, you know, you're gonna be doing some of the community hangout stuff throughout the stream, and that's perfectly fine, you know. Um, but the the thing that I'm trying to express is that when somebody first comes in, you want to be able to capture their attention. You don't want to waste their time and you want to get them into the content as fast as you can. Once you're in the content and they're getting value out of what it is that you're doing, you have a little bit of flexibility there, but you got to get them hooked first, just like you do in videos. So because of that, just try to be mindful about that experience that people are having and go back and watch your streams. Go watch your stream and say, okay, if I if I didn't know me and I clicked on this, would all of this stuff that I'm doing in this first like, you know, minute be a complete waste of my time? If the answer is yes, then that would be the stuff that you would want to cut out. Um, or you could just completely restructure your live stream to make sure that you're just not doing, you know, those types of things. So everybody's streams are different. So, you know, this conversation kind of go, you know, a bunch of different ways. But um, if you are trying to use your streams to grow, then you want to do that. And this is going to be content dependent also, but live streams are amazing for trending things. So if something's trending and you hop on a live stream and you're doing that, because live streams like YouTube system understands that live streams are you know important in that moment um in terms of while the person's live. So because of that, live streams carry a lot of weight when it comes to like home pages, sometimes search results as well. Um, so because of that, if you do make content around things that are trending, um, live streams are great. Even the Fortnite reference that we were talking about before, um, you know, when Fortnite is doing an update, all of the major channels, they all go live and they wait for that update to drop. They sit there, they interact with their communities and they're hanging out because they know that they're gonna be all over home pages for people that are into Fortnite. And if people are like Fortnite update, Fortnite season seven, they know that they're probably gonna be in there somewhere. So they'll sit there for you know hours waiting for, you know, waiting for those updates to happen.

SPEAKER_00: 42:43

That's fantastic. And I love that whole like say something and then pause, and then you go back and add it. Oh, that's clutch. People don't even understand like how how sneaky ninja that is. That's amazing. Um, all right. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna answer a couple of your questions you sent in. There's two ways you can send in questions. If you're listening to the audio only podcast, there's a link in the show notes that says send a text message. You click that, send text message, it's cool. Uh, and then of course you can send us an email at thoost at vidiq.com. But first, we're gonna go to a text message just because that's the way I have it uh queued up. And it's not really a question this time, it's more of a comment. Um, this is a text message says uh season six, episode 54, the five reasons your channel isn't growing and how to fix it today. What's great, you guys. Great points on about Winderly videos. I think that is misspelling uh and how to release and not overthink it. But to think of it uh enough and all the good stuff you guys do. Also, the audio levels were louder, which is great to listening to in the car on the way to work in the middle of the night to go scrub toilets, anyways. Ah, nice. And see you later. Well, thank you for your service because those toilets need to be scrubbed, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 43:44

Uh we appreciate it. Really quick, I just want to say to that person. So a lot of people don't know this about me. I'm not even sure if I've ever said this before. But for that person, so I used to have a commercial cleaning company where we did office buildings and stuff. And during that time, the startup of that, my partner and I at the time, um, we actually had to do the cleaning ourselves before we got into the position where we could actually hire people. So I actually had a a period of time in my life, I would say probably four months, um, to where I was, you know, where I was in there like cleaning toilets and stuff. Like, yeah. So I just want to, you know, share that with that person because, you know, for them, they are, you know, on their way to go do that. And for them, they're like, you know, hey, I'm gonna go do this. But I just want to let you know that, you know, that uh been there. Yeah, been there. And uh, you know, uh what you're doing, you know, is definitely important. And uh, you know, right around the corner, you know, things might change for you if you take it too seriously.

SPEAKER_00: 44:36

Yeah. What are the chances of that? That's wild. I love that. It is, yeah. I love that. Okay, next text message. Hey, Vidai crew, my name is Bryant, and my channel's called I Have Comic Issues. My question is about collaboration. If you do a live stream interview with someone, do you have to wait until the video is finished processing before you can collaborate with them? Or can you set up a stream beforehand in the landscape mode and have the collaboration set up from the get-go? Thanks, Brian. Hope all your issues are comics. I hope all your issues are comic. What a great little uh tagline that is. Uh, we talk a lot about collaborations on this channel and this video is collaborated and how good it is. Uh, I've not done a live stream collaboration before. Have you done that? I haven't either. That's yeah, I'm not sure. Do you have can you set it up beforehand? I'm not even sure. I think I think so, but I understand what he's saying because typically you have to send the link to the person who's gonna be collaborating with you after the fact, right? When you upload the video. So, Brian, I'm not I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I will say that in any format you can live stream or you can collaborate, you kind of should. It's one of the few things, and I've said this so many times people listen to this channel know that like I'm gonna say it again. It's one of the few things that the YouTube has released recently that's actually good, it like actually works well and and and really is what they promised. It's not like some weird feature that uh they end up shutting down eight months later. I'm not gonna talk about anything specifically. I remember YouTube stories. I used to love those things, but those things don't don't exist anymore. Uh, because whatever. Um, but yeah, so uh I would say um we're we're unsure, but I have to get I have to assume that if you go into live stream, that would allow you to do it beforehand. So uh hopefully so. All right. Uh if you want to send us an email, the boost at videoq.com, you can send us one. And Benjamin did. Hey there. Given Travis said he loves about talking about retention graphs. I do. This is actually a sad thing that I have to admit. I love talking about retention graphs. I have something adjacent. I have an edutainment channel where I talk about movies. Travis said in the last episode we should be shooting for 50% retention on a 10-minute video, I think. Uh I've been uploading every week for 18 months. I still haven't broken through. I'm averaging roughly three to one, 300 to 1,000 views per video. Uh, I took an average of my last five most recent uh uploads, all views, all videos that were between 8 and 13 minutes. Average view duration is about 32%. Terrible, I know. Well, by the way, not necessarily, but let's keep going. But I found something interesting. AVD for regular viewers is at 59%, casual viewers is 51%, and for new viewers, 30%. And CTR overall is 2.4%, but 9% for regular viewers, 6 for casual and 2 for 3. I write all this out to ask: is there something to be said that with time you will inevitably put yourself in a better position to grow? I'm actively trying to make each video better. And I know that if my videos were S tier, then I'd have 50% retention from new viewers and 5% CTR. But at the same time, it feels like the more regular and casual viewers I inevitably get, the higher my A V D and CTR will become, and the closer I'll be to getting to YouTube full time. Is this part of a YouTube waiting game? So he kind of figured it out at the end here. Like, that's exactly right. Um, when you are a new channel, you don't have a lot of, or even a smaller channel, you don't have a lot of the like the hardcourse watching you. So of course your metrics are going to be skewed. And at the end, you do start to get more and more of those people. What are your thoughts uh about this question, Nick?

SPEAKER_01: 47:49

So the very first thing is if you're getting under a thousand views on your video and you're running at like a 2.9 CTR. I don't know if that's averaged out or if he was pulling that from a traffic source that he's going after. Um, but but I would definitely look into that. And keep in mind when it comes to CTR, it's not always the thumbnail. Um a lot of times it's the topic itself that's you know that that ends up hurting it. So because of that, the the the disservice that you could be doing is the actual topics of the videos themselves. I mean, you're getting people to watch, but in terms of, you know, like when you're publishing your videos, think for the people that like my type of content, um, is this video that I'm thinking of making, is this going to reach a large amount of those people? Or is it going to be of interest to a large amount of those people? If the answer is yes, then you know, move forward. If the answer is no, um, then unless you have a strategic reason that you're doing it to bring attention to something or, you know, whatever the thing is, um, then in that case, you know, uh, you know, keep working on it until you can make it more broad within your niche. Um, and then when it comes to your A V D, like what you know, Travis says about, you know, getting the 50%, you know, in higher, having a, you know, as high as possible, complete rate, all that stuff absolutely matters. Um, however, the fact that your casular casual viewers and returning viewers are enjoying it is a plus. And it tells you that you are doing the right thing for them. So now what you have to start thinking about is if you do want new viewers to respond better, is maybe you're doing things, and this might be strategic. You know, you might be applying like some branding things a little bit more heavy than you should. Like, for example, you know, if you're using like insider language for your community or calling people out by your tribe name, whatever the thing is, like that right now with where you're currently at, you might need to just kind of dial some of those things back just a little bit to make your content a little bit more accessible for new people. And that even comes down to little nuanced details. Like, for example, when your video first opens, saying, like, oh, hey, welcome back, or hey, everybody, what's going on? Right. Like those types of things, you start creating these disconnects for new viewers. Whereas if you're like, you know, um, you know, hey, I'm gonna show you, or I'm gonna tell you, or hey, I'd love for you to join me on this journey or whatever the thing is, to where you start using singular language for the viewer and you start making just everything more accessible and easy for new viewers to engage with what it is that you're doing. Um, that'll definitely help with your retention on that if you're doing, you know, those particular things.

SPEAKER_00: 50:09

Yeah, so I think it's a it's kind of a dual answer. It's like what Nick just said. And then also as you you grow, uh a lot of these things are gonna get better, not just because the numbers will change because you have more um hardcore viewers, but also you'll be better. You're just gonna learn at it. Right, right. You're just gonna be a better content creator. So don't feel like this is a thing that's never gonna change for you. It will likely change for you. You will get better. Um, you'll understand how to engage new content or new viewers uh better. Um, and then of course your numbers will grow. So, first of all, you're doing well, doing very well. I just want to acknowledge that again, if you're averaging, you know, close to 300 to a thousand views, there's so many people on YouTube that are not doing that right now. They can't do it, they've tried for years, and you are already doing your crushing it. And the fact you're asking the questions the way you're asking means you're really thinking about it, which I love. You're not asking, oh, how do I get more subscribers and views? No, you're like, okay, well, I got these numbers, but I've also noticed something that the people that love me are really hanging out. It's like, yes, you were you're you're looking into the matrix. I love that. I love seeing that from people. All right. We got one more email. And of course, again, if you want to send us an email, you can send it to the boost at vidik.com. And uh, we'll be doing more of these in the coming year. Uh, this one's from now, I'm gonna, it's either Joseph or Joseph. Uh, it's J-O-Z-S-E-F. I I don't know how you pronounce it, but uh it's I'm gonna say Joseph. Hey Vidacrew, in the podcast uh titled Five Reasons Your Channel Isn't Growing and How to Fix It Today, Travis and Dan discussed the retention blind spot. During that discussion, Dan talked about a channel which he does not name that he felt has been clickbaiting him. His description of the channel immediately think he was talking about my channel. But even if he wasn't, Dan's detailing of why he didn't like the video smacked me across the face like a cold wet towel. I've been suspecting the same thing about my about why he didn't like oh, wait, uh about my approach. But the YouTube analytics kept singing a different tune to my ears. It's a melody suggesting I must have been wrong. Look at the views, look at the engagement. But I have been deceived. Initially, my viewership was primarily search-driven, and my analytics reflected that. However, as my thumbnail skills improved and some of my content hit the more currently relevant topics, my viewership shifted to the browse feature, revealing cracks in my approach. Dan's cold hard in your face opinion about that channel yanked me out of YouTube's reinforcing embrace, and I now follow my own instincts. I have since started revamping my thumbnails and titles to better match the content while still adding a bit of flash to entice curiosity. But that left me thinking, which should we, the new content creator, trust more? Our gut feelings or the feel-good numbers from analytics? Man, what a question. That's fire, Joseph. That's fire.

SPEAKER_01: 52:42

That is. That's a really good question. Yeah, so so you have to trust your instincts, but you also need to rely on the data that is a reflection of how people respond. And the reason for that is because if you trust your own instincts and that's all you run on, then you are going to be making everything around all the stuff that you think matters and it might not matter. And you might be making, you know, your content around the things that you know matter the most to you. But when it comes to the person that's engaging with the content or your target avatar, like they just don't, they just don't, you know, care about those things that you think that they should care about. Um, so because of that, use your own intuition and apply it and then look and see what the data says. And then once you see how people respond to your decisions, um, if you want other people to enjoy what it is you're doing, then in that case, that's where you start, you know, modifying things if you need to. And keep in mind, I'm not saying to not have a creative spark. I'm not saying not to experiment. I'm not saying not to express yourself. I'm not saying any of that. What I'm saying is that you just have to learn how to balance those things with what it is that other people, you know, enjoy and get value from.

SPEAKER_00: 53:47

Yeah. And I'm I'm so glad that um this email came in because uh I think the easy answer is to say, well, just look at what they just look at what the analytics tell you because that's the truth. And in in certain instances, that's that's true. However, the analytics can sometimes lead you wrong. So let's say, for example, you do a non-uh-niche video that pops off for your channel, and all of a sudden that's great. Oh, yeah, you got all these views and subscribers, but it's on a topic you never do anything about. You don't even like it, you just did it because you hoped you got views. Now you've now you've put yourself in a pickle. And we talk to create creators all the time that have done this. Oh, I did this one video about this one subject. I don't even like the subject. Now it's the only thing I can do. Well, yeah, I mean how it goes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Sorry about your luck. Please drive through. Um, yeah, that's why I always say when people, uh, whenever someone says I want to make a video about this, I I tell them, okay, are you gonna be all right with making a video about the same subject for the next three years consistently? If so, cool, go for it. Let's go. If not, don't do it. Just just don't do it to yourself. So that's when metrics can kind of sometimes lead you astray. It's like, oh yeah, everyone loved this, but I'm never doing that again. So yeah, your gut sometimes has to be a mixture of that.

SPEAKER_01: 54:57

There's other things about the metrics too. Like, for example, um, like on the on the last uh email that you uh mentioned, is you know, they were talking about their casual viewers responding to it better um and their regular viewers responding to it better than new viewers. And other things is how you interpret the data that you're looking at. That's also super important. And a lot of people kind of discount that and they just look at it as well, this is how it did in its first three days, so that means that's just how it always is. Um, but in reality, you know, your analytics are going to shift over time. So, you know, when you first publish your videos, everything's usually higher because that's, you know, for the people that are the most likely to enjoy, you know, at the highest level what it is that you did. And then as you progress through time, then that's where things can start to get challenging. Because, you know, there's a lot of people that, you know, that are probably listening to this right now to where, you know, you might publish a video and then for the first like few days it crushes and you're like, all right, this is it, this is the one, and then it just dies and it completely flat lines. Yes. What happens then is you, you know, you did great for you know the engaged viewers, but once you started getting into, you know, groups of people that are probably a good fit, but maybe not the perfect fit for it. Once you started getting into those groups, then you know, you weren't able to maintain that response once you got into those groups. So the difference on you know videos that perform well versus ones that don't is they're able to maintain, you know, good metrics throughout the, you know, throughout the whole experience. And of course, you know, the more and more people that interact, the harder and harder it is to maintain everything. But the uh the the thing you the trap that you don't want to fall into, and this goes in the other direction too, is hey, this is a one out of 10. Therefore, I'm riding this one to the bank. You don't want to fall into that trap. Because as, you know, if you've published more than 10 videos, or let's say you've published 20 videos, I'm sure you've seen, you know, you might get a one out of 10, and then for whatever reason, because you know, you just didn't hit the mark, that video ends up dropping, you know, over a period of time. And it goes in the other direction too. You publish a video, those most engaged people didn't really dig it. But once YouTube started testing it against some other people, then it found that group that does like it. And then, you know, things start rising. The next thing you know, that video is driving your channel, even though it was a complete dud when you publish. So, because of that, when you are looking at your data, don't just look at it from, okay, I'm just gonna look at the lifetime. Look at it within the ranges that you're trying to understand how people are responding to it. So, for example, you know, those first days are important. Look at the first week, look at the first 28 days, check back in, you know, look at it, you know, 90 days later and be like, okay, how are people responding to it now? Do I need to update the thumbnail now? Should I run an A-B uh test on my thumbnails and titles now in order to see if I can get a better response from this group that isn't that perfect fit uh anymore?

SPEAKER_00: 57:37

Fantastic stuff, Nick. Thank you so much for joining me today. Uh, I think we've we've there's so much ridiculous amount of value that's in this podcast that you might have to rewind, you might be taking notes, you know. If you when I have people come on, you should already have your pen and paper out. You should already have it. There's the the amount of stuff we've had Daryl Eaves on, we've had Rapel Lynn on, we've had we've had uh Justin Moore. We've had so many people that have so much knowledge that I I get out of these podcasts, and I'm like, okay, let me cram that back in my brain before it falls out. There's a lot to learn, but we're here for you. So make sure you hit that subscribe button if you're listening on uh YouTube. And of course, if you're listening to the audio podcast, it'd be great if you left us a five-star review. As far as Nick goes, it would be great. We would love that.

SPEAKER_01: 58:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:17

Uh as far as Nick goes, um, go to his YouTube channel. There's a there'll be a link in the show notes and in the YouTube uh description because on Saturday mornings when he's live streaming, I'll probably be in chat. So come through, say hello, uh hang out with the group, learn a lot of things because uh and and Nick actually uh answers questions from the crowd too. So it's not just a talk down to the live stream. Like how does your format for people who don't know?

SPEAKER_01: 58:40

Yeah, so basically you come into the live stream, it's completely free to participate. Um, and I have a form that I put down in the video description, and I don't do like uh with VidIQ, they they preload the forms when they're looking at channels and stuff. Um, for me, you gotta be there. Yeah, I love that that's the difference. Yeah, you gotta be there. So um, so because of that, uh you show up and then in the description of the live stream, and then I'll I'll mention other places that you can get it while I'm streaming. But basically, the description of the live stream, um, you can go there, you'll see the form, you click on that form, you go, you fill out the information. I ask you about like the goals you're trying to accomplish so I can make sure I'm giving you the right answers. Um, I give you reference channels. So if you need feedback, I have like a channel that's thriving in your niche that I can reference to show you, you know, how you compare. Um, and I just ask you all these details about what you're trying to do. And then uh you submit that question. And then uh once I get it, because we answer them in the order that they receive, um, then we just answer them on the stream. And you don't have to super chat, you don't have to do anything, but just hang out and wait for your you know question to uh get answered.

SPEAKER_00: 59:38

And that's the community over there is amazing. I love the community over there.

SPEAKER_01: 59:42

And uh yeah, come on through and you might even hear uh Travis's voice uh during that. And hey, Travis, first off, man, really quick, I just want to say thank you for having me on. But one more thing I want to mention that I that I said at the beginning that I kind of teased at the beginning. I don't know if you know this or not. I'm gonna guess you do, but I don't know for sure that I hosted two. Talk for a while.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:01

I didn't know that actually. That was years ago. No, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:04

Yeah. Yeah. So basically, way back, uh, right when I first uh like right when D first started streaming. I think I was right around a hundred thousand subscribers at that time. Yeah. Um, yeah, I I hosted I hosted Tube Talk back when Jeremy Vest had it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. And um, and I did, I I think I did it for maybe six months, maybe uh I don't know if it was quite a year, but I I did it for a little bit of time uh as well. Uh there's been so many hosts. So yeah, that was my little surprise there. That's amazing. I actually didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:33

Yeah, for those who listen to the audio podcast, um, you might see that there's a tremendous amount of episodes, right? And most of you know I've been only here for about a year and a half or so. But um I knew that uh, of course, Leron's been here, uh Viper. I didn't know that you were. I have to go rewind and look back. That's amazing. I had no idea. That's so awesome. Yeah, yeah. So if you're an audio podcast listener, go rewind. Go back. Yeah, go back and listen to the old Nick Niman. That's amazing. Love it. Um, but again, everything will be uh linked in the description and show notes if you're listening to audio podcast. And we will see y'all in the next one.