13 Actionable Tips to Maximize Your YouTube Influence
May 20, 2021Episode 211
Neal Schaffer
I don't pretend to be a YouTube expert by any means, but if you are new to the platform like I am, how successful you can be there is all about the details.
Strategically creating, editing, and uploading my first YouTube video ever made me feel like I "finally" started taking podcasting seriously back in 2019, 6 years after my launch!
Similarly, I have had a YouTube channel for some time, but it is only very recently where I have decided to be a little more strategic and intentional about the videos I post.
I am still very early in my journey, but these are the 13 actionable tips for YouTube that I wish someone had taught me, and they are tips that I don't see in the blogosphere.
[9:03] Second Tip: Finding Role Models The importance of finding role models in your niche.
[11:13] Third Actionable Tip in Approaching YouTube The ideal length of YouTube video to post.
[14:26] How Do I Make People Stay Long In My YouTube Videos?
[16:40] What Type of Video Content Should I Create? Finding a format that fits your niche and product.
[18:42] Doing A Keyword Strategy
[21:04] Tip #7: Create An Enticing Title
[22:13] Why I Like Putting Teaser at the Beginning of My Video Place a short 10-15 seconds teaser to let the viewers know what they're going to get out of the video and entice them to stay to the end.
[24:08] Introducing Elements In Your YouTube Video
[26:55] Tip #11: Have A Professionally Designed Thumbnails
[29:30] Leverage Video Descriptions
[31:17] Cards and End Screens
[32:27] Summary
Notable Quotes:
When I talk about YouTube video, I'm talking about this form of content that allows you to build a platform, it allows you to build a platform because number one, the content gets indexed by search engine. And number two, therefore it has a long shelf life.
If you want to do better at YouTube, you got to consume more YouTube.
Find accounts in your niche that are already doing this, that you can not emulate but be inspired. Because you need to do it in your own way to be successful, you can't just copy and be successful.
So whatever format fits your niche fits your product fits your branding, find a format.
Let them know what they're going to get out of it. Entice them to stay to the end. And then go through the motions of creating the video and really delivering on that promise.
What you can do is you can have a great title, which is also going to be depicted in your thumbnail, which hopefully will entice people to click through, and the title is going to be aligned and includes your keyword.
You don't have to go too far to be successful on YouTube, it helps without a doubt but I don't want that to stop you. You don't need any more excuses not to do this.
I don't pretend to be a YouTube expert by any means, but if you are new to the platform like I am, how successful you can be there is all about the details.
Strategically creating, editing, and uploading my first YouTube video ever made me feel like I "finally" started taking podcasting seriously back in 2019, 6 years after my launch!
Similarly, I have had a YouTube channel for some time, but it is only very recently where I have decided to be a little more strategic and intentional about the videos I post.
I am still very early in my journey, but these are the 13 actionable tips for YouTube that I wish someone had taught me, and they are tips that I don't see in the blogosphere.
[9:03] Second Tip: Finding Role Models The importance of finding role models in your niche.
[11:13] Third Actionable Tip in Approaching YouTube The ideal length of YouTube video to post.
[14:26] How Do I Make People Stay Long In My YouTube Videos?
[16:40] What Type of Video Content Should I Create? Finding a format that fits your niche and product.
[18:42] Doing A Keyword Strategy
[21:04] Tip #7: Create An Enticing Title
[22:13] Why I Like Putting Teaser at the Beginning of My Video Place a short 10-15 seconds teaser to let the viewers know what they're going to get out of the video and entice them to stay to the end.
[24:08] Introducing Elements In Your YouTube Video
[26:55] Tip #11: Have A Professionally Designed Thumbnails
[29:30] Leverage Video Descriptions
[31:17] Cards and End Screens
[32:27] Summary
Notable Quotes:
When I talk about YouTube video, I'm talking about this form of content that allows you to build a platform, it allows you to build a platform because number one, the content gets indexed by search engine. And number two, therefore it has a long shelf life.
If you want to do better at YouTube, you got to consume more YouTube.
Find accounts in your niche that are already doing this, that you can not emulate but be inspired. Because you need to do it in your own way to be successful, you can't just copy and be successful.
So whatever format fits your niche fits your product fits your branding, find a format.
Let them know what they're going to get out of it. Entice them to stay to the end. And then go through the motions of creating the video and really delivering on that promise.
What you can do is you can have a great title, which is also going to be depicted in your thumbnail, which hopefully will entice people to click through, and the title is going to be aligned and includes your keyword.
You don't have to go too far to be successful on YouTube, it helps without a doubt but I don't want that to stop you. You don't need any more excuses not to do this.
You've heard me talk about blogging. You've heard me talk about podcasting. What about YouTube? How can we maximize our social influence on YouTube? Stay tuned for this episode that is dedicated to 13 actionable, YouTube tips only on the maximize your social influence podcast. Welcome to the maximize your social influence podcast with Neal Schaffer, where I help marketers, entrepreneurs, and business owners grow their businesses using innovative marketing techniques, leveraging the concept of digital influence throughout digital and social media. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode number 211. That's right 211 of the maximize your social influence podcast, how has your q2 been going, we are in the middle of May, hopefully you're making a lot of strides in whatever you're doing. I have been busy, as usual. Lots of stuff to announce. But today, we're focused on YouTube. And YouTube, for me, for those that know me, is the final frontier for me of all the different, you know, social media platforms and content formats, and what have you. YouTube is just one place that I've never really attack strategically. Because I didn't have enough experience, I didn't have the strategy. And this is something I've been working on over the last several months. And it culminated, it's a very, very small win, no doubt. But it culminated in my uploading my first video of the year, in Well, just a little while before this episode will be streaming. And I really put a lot of thought and effort and a lot of research. And I found out a lot of things that helped me that I want to provide to you because I've never seen a collection of this advice anywhere. And I say this, because my approach to all this has always been reverse engineer, reverse engineer, reverse engineer, why? How, why, what when, where if I can analyze and figure out those elements, I can create a process, I can create a format, I can create a template, and then it becomes repeatable. And then I can use the data from analytics to improve and put it into the Kaizen or PDCA cycle or whatever you want to call it. And so I think I finally reached a turning point with YouTube. And I'm really happy because that's an essential part of digital marketing and, and as I continue to flesh out content for my upcoming fifth book, which hopefully becomes the definitive digital marketing playbook, I wanted to create the same sort of process for YouTube, that I have for podcasting. And hopefully, you heard previous episodes, I'm talking about podcasting, as well as my how to launch a podcast from scratch YouTube video, we'll put a link to that in the show notes, as well as my strategic approach to blogging and about the process and episode number 209. How to strategically create your library of content in one year. So I wanted to take the same approach with YouTube. And I wanted to compile as I publish my first video. And by the way, because I never really strategically approached YouTube. It's not like I have a million followers there. I have 454 followers, I released a new video that went up by three 457 Whoo, well, you know, gaining 1% a day is not bad. I'm not complaining. And I'm really looking, I know that if I'm not active. And if I'm not creating more videos, I'm not going to get those new subscriptions. So I'm totally cool with that. But it's this video, called this one SEO tip skyrocketed my SEO rankings that I published on May 2. Now I'm recording this video. I'm looking at my YouTube Creator Studio, as I said that I'm recording this podcast, literally the day after I published that video. And I already have close to half the number of views in 24 hours that I had for another video that I published just five months prior one day, five months. One half. I'll take it I've been watching a lot of Vikings, so hopefully it's the fate or the sign of the gods that I'm doing something right but I want to share with you what I've learned because I think that no matter where you are in your YouTube journey, there's hopefully going to be one tip that's going to help you whether you are really re energizing reinventing reimagining your YouTube like I was or you're already doing this regularly and you're wondering, what am I missing? And maybe already an expert and maybe this serves as a confirmation that you're doing all the right things but I just wanted to share with you what I found what I've learned, what I've been practicing, and what I've been learning so that you can better maximize your social influence on the most important video platform. There is sorry In terms of longevity of your content, something I have talked about in this podcast as well, YouTube Trumps without a doubt. And for every tick tock and Instagram, influencer, there are YouTube influencers that have been doing this for several years, and that are doing very well. So we can talk about video with social media, that was actually what we talked about in Episode Number 210. with Kate scab is from a video. But when I talk about YouTube video, I'm talking about this form of content that allows you to build a platform, it allows you to build a platform because number one, the content gets indexed by search engine. And number two, therefore it has a long shelf life. Normally, these are in terms of blogs, which gets indexed in Google videos, which get indexed on YouTube, and audio, which gets indexed on Apple. Now blogging, there's a direct correlation to the more content you have, the more keywords get indexed, the more on average, you're gonna get found. podcasting is a little bit different podcasting, people get recommended podcasts in different categories, they give a few lessons. If they subscribe, they end up downloading the most recent 100 or however it's set up. But you know, after listen to one episode, they might listen to the next one that they missed. And you can see how that content has a very, very long lifespan. Well, video sort of in between, because video has a subscription method. But video also is indexed by YouTube, which is the second largest search engine that we all know. So you really sort of get the best of both worlds. And it's just something that, yes, I know, you can get 1000s of views for your video, I published a Instagram real, it got 2000 views overnight, and I never get that with my stories or with my posts. But then again, it's not like you're gonna lose a lot of new followers, I didn't get any new clicks. Whereas YouTube as I will teach you gives you the ability to generate a lot of activity that can really benefit your business in many different ways. So I'm going to divide these 13 tips. And I'm going to be totally honest with you. This is recorded, I recorded this, and I added another tip, and I got lost with a 12 tips or 13 tips or 11 tips. So So here's the thing, I am going to give you 13 tips that are divided into planning, strategy, and creation. Okay. And if you're already, like past the planning, then fast forward five minutes, what have you, but I really want you to hear me out on this because I think there's gonna be a lot of advice and tips. That is not just for YouTube, actually, it's for any digital and social media. But let's begin. Number one. Okay, if you want to do better at YouTube, you got to consume more YouTube. This is those are the fighting rules, right? I talked about this pretty passionately. When I started to do more with this podcast, if you remember, it had been dormant for a few years, I was getting a tweet like, hey, Neil, would you have a new episode coming out soon. And, and I didn't. But it was actually back in 2019. For those that remember, it was this episode, Episode Number 140, October 6 2019. You want to excel social media marketing, you need to be an active consumer of social media first. And I applied that same concept to my podcast, that I was not a consumer of podcasts. And I had recorded all these podcasts up until Episode Number 140, in complete transparency and honesty, as a content marketing initiative, without me myself being a consumer, a listener, a fan of podcasts, and I realized I've been doing it completely wrong. Now, I mentioned this is the first tip, because how many of you don't really consume much YouTube. I mean, maybe sometimes you do like we all do occasionally. But you're just uploading these various videos, and there's no strategy behind it, you're just putting it up there in hopes that it's going to get picked up and you're going to get additional search traffic. That's pretty much what I was doing. So I want you to stop doing that. And therefore, the next logical step, which is the second tip here, is to begin this process of finding role models, right? When you find influencers, I mean, it's your social media. And then you do a Google search, you sometimes find completely different people. And then you do a podcast search, you find completely different people. And then you go to YouTube, you're gonna find another set of completely different people and brands. So you need to find people, businesses, brands, entities that are already, they've already been there, done that they're doing really well on YouTube, in terms of numbers of subscribers, numbers of views of videos, but you need to find these role models in your niche. Now, if you see me speak, I often have this slide when I talk about Twitter because Twitter used to be the most confusing social network for most people. And it's like, hey, find your role model. And it's the same thing. Find accounts in your niche that are already doing this, that you can not emulate the be inspired Because you need to do it in your own way to be successful, can't just copy and be successful, it's just life doesn't work that way. Right? So find these role models in your niche. I found 10. Okay, I found 10 just doing keyword searches in YouTube, that were talking about things that I wanted to talk about. They were influencing a community around topics that I also wanted to influence communities around. You don't need a tools for this. The only tools you need are youtube.com, a keyboard and your brain. Okay. So you're going to do this find 10 that really resonate the content similar, they already have, you don't need in the millions of subscribers. But each of these people have a few 1000 subscribers. And you like their content. It's like, Okay, I know why these people get their content is good. Whether the content is whether whether or not their content is better than yours is another story. You may think I can do better content than this. But there are things to be inspired by their visuals, their thumbnails, their descriptions, whatever it is. Okay, so we're still in the planning phase. Step number three is really important. You might not all be able to do this. And you might laugh when I say this. But step number three is ask your kid. Show your kid, especially if you have a kid, that's a teenager, right? I have a 14 and a 16 year old, show them your channel, show them the channels that you found his role models, ask them what they think, say, hey, if we produce more videos like these people, what do you think that is going to be an incredibly educational moment for you. I know you might be laughing, I kid you not. And the number one advice I got from both of my children who I interviewed on different occasions, was Daddy, your videos are too long. Now, some of you might remember, there were some occasions where I live stream this podcast. So I would use a tool called stream yard, I'm gonna put the link in the show notes as well, it's a great tool. And I would be able to like multi stream across all the different platforms. So it's like, awesome. I'm gonna record a podcast episode we're getting on Facebook Live and wants to stream on YouTube. So what I realized, though, in my podcast editor was the first to let me know what it's like. Neil, what do you want to do with all these comments that are on your podcasts? I mean, it doesn't make sense to have all these comments from viewers that you're talking about when the listeners don't understand what's going on. And she was absolutely right. And that's why I stopped doing that. Well, guess what these the number of views I get on YouTube for these live streams are they're crickets, they're nothing. Because they weren't focused on YouTube, it was just a utilitarian thing of saying, I'll just throw it up on YouTube. Now, I know that there are some podcasts, that when they throw up some video, right, of just them speaking of recording a podcast, or you know, those little like waveforms, or like just a picture of the icon, just a static picture, with their audio in the back of them speaking, they might get some extra views, I get that. I don't do that. Because I don't think that's the best way to use those platforms. And I just wonder if the algorithms that YouTube has sort of penalizes you, when you have a lot of videos that don't have a lot of views. So I don't do that. But I have another podcast editor for the school of influence, who had said, Hey, Neil, you should consider doing that you might pick up some new listeners. And it's probably right. I'm really focused on YouTube for YouTube podcasts as podcast, web as web and social, social. But I wanted to get back to what I was gonna say, five to 10 minutes, is all you need. And these live streams, like 30 minutes, 45 minutes an hour. Time is really important for two reasons. Number one, limited time spans, right. But number two, you know, it's similar to the way the Google algorithm works. You write a blog post is writing a 5000 word blog post better than a 2000 word blog post, if it's not fluff. And it's great advice. It's it's the same quality, absolutely. Because you stand a greater chance that people are going to stay on your page longer. And Google loves that. And that's why generally speaking, longer content does well with search engines, assuming it's good content, right? And assuming the user experience with web core vitals and the latest changes, SEO, assuming that the user experience is all good. That's great. So you might be able to say the same thing for videos. But I think that compared to people staying on your page and on blog post, which is still don't get me wrong, really important for search engine rankings, I think with YouTube videos is even more important. How long do people stay? Did they stay to watch the end of the video or not? Did they stay and watch half the video or not? Because if they're coming in, they're tuning out. It's the same as someone going to a search result finding a blog, popping over clicking through and then five seconds later leaving that is no bueno, you're not going to get high up in the search engine rankings. With that experience, same thing goes with video. So until you're confident that you can keep people on a video for five minutes or 10 minutes, which is a little bit different than keeping people on your website for five or 10 minutes in In my honest opinion, I would start with shorter, and increase your chances that people stay on for longer percent of your video. In order to do better with the algorithm, I hope that makes sense. And YouTube Creator Studio got analytics, a, you'll be able to figure all this out once you go into the backend and watch the analytics and all your watch videos, but I highly recommend and once again, my kids, it doesn't have to be long, it's about the transformation you're gonna get in, they're gonna teach him something and show them something, you're going to get the heck out of there, you're gonna give them what they wanted, and you get 100% viewing for most of your views, you're gonna start to shoot up, that video will start to shoot up in the rankings. And hopefully your channel will get more and more authority for all the new videos that you put out. Now, the next thing and this is the most important thing, and I guess now we're sort of shifting from planning to strategy is the format. Now blog post formats, I mean, it they're pretty simple. But like podcast formats, I would say there's two main types of podcasts. There's either a solo or an interview. These are the types of formats that we're used to right with blog post format, and we talk about like headers like h2, h3, h4 bullet points, you know, images, embedded videos, what have you. So podcast for me, it's half solo half interview, there's some people that do 100% interview. There's some people do 100% solo, right. What I found with YouTube is that it's a little bit different. There aren't a lot of interviews. And I do have clients and they want to do influencer marketing and YouTube. But if there's not a lot of interviews, you know, podcasting is where there's a lot of interviews, it's going to be the easiest place for you to get picked up or guest blogging. Right, YouTube's a little different. What I found in my research, in my particular niche, which is digital marketing, with my particular role models, is I can break it down into like three different types of videos. One is primarily in social media, not necessarily YouTube, that's the entertainment. That's the reels, the tick tock, right? The dancing, the singing, that's not me. I'm not an entertainer, sorry, once in a while, hopefully you laugh at my jokes. But if you don't, it's okay. Very few people do. But regardless, if you want to do entertainment, YouTube is going to be a great place for you depends on your niche depends on your brand, might depend on your product depends on your people, depends on your creativity depends on your sense of humor, whatever it is, but outside of entertainment, which is huge, don't get me wrong. I think we can see that. A lot of YouTube videos are there how tos. It's almost like younger generations will immediately go to YouTube to search for information on something because they know they're gonna get great how to with visuals, and it's video. And I would put tutorials in that sort of category of how tos, or like tips. And I found that the How to tutorials are often with a screen share. Now this is for digital products, if it's a physical product a little bit different. And the tips are more like you talking into the video, like a solo episode. So it's like you talking to the camera or screen share. So whatever format fits your niche fits your product fits your branding, find a format because then it's like, okay, now I know the type of content I need to create. And when you look at the others, you realize they have a really, really fancy thumbnail. But then when you see the actual video, dang, I can do that, dang, they're just using Camtasia or ScreenFlow or an iPhone, I can do that, you can do that. Now, there's some missing links here, which I'm going to tell you about in the remaining tips we have here, we've only started five. But now hopefully, you're seeing that we're thinking of this extremely strategically. Now. On that note, we're now deep into our strategy. We have our format, we now need to do a keyword strategy no different than that episode that I just mentioned, Episode Number 209. How to strategically create your library of content one year, you want to do the same thing for you to what are going to be the keywords that will be included in your titles, descriptions, what have you, what are the keywords that people search for, that are going to lead them to your product that you want to be found for now, YouTube is YouTube, Google's Google, you can try to use a tool like my recommended tool, sem rush. But it's really focused on crawling the web, not necessarily crawling YouTube. And YouTube actually doesn't give out this information. So for Google ads, you know, Keyword Planner, they'll give information about the web for video. There's not a lot of great sources out there. So there are some dedicated tools you can use. Now, I use a tool called vid IQ. And there's a few of them out there two buddies and other one, I forget this like three or four. I'm gonna put a link in the show notes. It's the one that I recommend. And what it does is it looks at the number of videos out there. It also looks at keyword search volume and competition. It uses zone algorithm and it gives you a recommendation. It gives you a number score of how easy it's going to be for you to rank for those keywords. So use that As part of your keyword strategy, and if you don't want to pay for a tool and vid IQ is like I don't know, 1020 bucks a month. But if you don't want to pay, then do what's something called YouTube suggests very similar to Google suggest, which is you type in a word, and then Google is going to recommend you what people are searching for when they first type in that word. Do that for a few keywords. And then you're going to get tons of ideas. And then you press in space a space B, space C, and very easily, you're gonna get tons of content ideas, and you can look at the competition, understand how relevant it is for your own brand, and then use that as your strategy. Now, the next part, this is very similar to when creating your library content, you need to do this thing called search intent confirmation. And we need to do the same thing with YouTube. So maybe similar to my library content, you have 52 keyword ideas, you now need to go into YouTube. And when you go into YouTube and do a search for these keywords, you want to see what else is popping up is it aligned with what you want to create. And while you're there, why not take the extra step. This is part of we're now on Tip Number seven, the second or third tip and strategy. While you're there, think about what title you can create, that's gonna entice people to click on your link, rather than whatever you see in the top 10. search results. That's the key thing, people aren't so much reading descriptions. If there's a lot of knee jerk, they see the title and the thumbnail, they might see number of views, number of subscribers, but then boom, right? Now, number of views, number of subscribers, you can't work on that I don't have any tips for you there, that's going to be separate episodes in the future. But what you can do is you can have a great title, which is also going to be depicted in your thumbnail, which hopefully will entice people to click through, and the title is going to be aligned and includes your keyword. So now we've done the planning, we have the strategy, we have the keywords, and we actually have 52 different titles of videos that we're going to create, man, you're in a really good place now. Now you just need to do it, you need to just do it we need to implement. This is where we get into content creation mode, content creation mode as you're creating a video. And we're aiming for five to 10 minutes. But Tip Number eight, which is my first tip on creation is you want to have a teaser at the beginning. Similar to how on my podcast for the last two or three months, I've sort of included a teaser for the first 1015 seconds so that people know what this episode is going to be about whether or not they want to stick around. Obviously, I want you all to stick around, you may not want to. But I want to be short and sweet as to what you're going to get out of the episode. This is even more important on YouTube. It's I mean, people do switch between podcast subscriptions. But on YouTube, they're just going to click from one to the next to the next and the next. So you want to grab them at the beginning. And the best way to grab them at the beginning is to say, this is what this video is about. This is what I promised to teach you or you know SAR six situation action result, whatever you want to do those first 510 seconds, speak to the viewer. Let them know what they're going to get out of it. entice them to stay to the end. And then go through the motions of creating the video and really delivering on that promise. So make sure you have a teaser, make sure your first 510 15 seconds is solid, and really introduces what you're going to cover what value they're going to get for sticking around to the end. So now we are on tip number nine. Now Tip Number nine is based on an analysis of the videos I've seen. A lot of videos are not too complex to shoot, it's like a screen share or using your PC camera using an iPhone. Yeah, there's some professional ones. But you don't have to go that far to be successful on YouTube from from the people I've seen, it helps without a doubt. But I don't want that to stop you. You don't need any more excuses not to do this. You need fewer excuses, you need excuses why you should be doing so take that camera out of the equation. But every 15 seconds or so you want to introduce some element in your video. So whether it's a text overlay that comes up, whether it is like a funny picture, whether it's just like a zoom in and out or a sound, I think that if you can stick to a process of every 15 seconds having something pop up in that video, you're going to keep the reader or the viewer eyes and say engaged. And I think this is what a lot of good podcasts have. It's just someone in front of a camera talking. But every now and then you see these things pop up or the sounds whatever makes it interactive, engaging. And if you want to do this, this leads to my third step, which is outsource outsource out and by the way, this is the third step only in the creation process. Right. And this is the 10th tip overall. But I am a big fan of hiring pros and service finding myself with pros, so that I don't have one person trying to do everything or worse yet, I have me trying to do everything. I want to be at a strategic level, the only way to scale is through hiring people. If you don't have a video editor on staff, stop trying to figure out all this stuff yourself and hire a professional, it does not cost a lot of money. If you go back and watch that video I made on SEO, or this one secret trick skyrocketed my search engine rankings video, you'll see what I'm talking about here, like every 15 seconds is Oh, there's a little element that's thrown in there. That helps brand my video and hopefully makes it a little bit more engaging does also background music, which the editor added. They also took away pauses between sentences that you might still hear in a podcast, but you don't hear as much on YouTube. So this is someone that I in all honesty I found on Fiverr. And she's great, and it's not a lot of money. And I am able to just completely outsource it peace of mind. And now I know if I do these weekly, it doesn't have to cost a lot of money to have good audio editing. I mean, good video editing, sorry, good audio editing as well, by the way, especially about my podcast editor. But yes, it's good video editing for YouTube. So stop trying to do everything yourself, outsource or if you have the talent in house, obviously insource. But there's no excuse for not having someone edit your video and add those. Add those enticing elements. If you're not sure what you should add, go back to your role models, see what they do, I think you're going to get and just focus on those the sounds and text and visuals that get added to the video throughout the video. And I think you understand what I mean. So we now have our video done. Hopefully we've outsourced it or we are we've insourced it but we have a video done it has the intro the outro that's a teaser, every 15 seconds adds a little bit of animation. It is now one big mp4 file or MPEG four. What do we do? Well before we upload it, critical Tip Number 11 you need to have a thumbnail image. Now I hire someone to do my thumbnail images. Some people just on Canva they created a template and they do it on their own. This is an area once in a while I want to work with an expert, another guy on Fiverr from Bangladesh $5 for YouTube thumbnail, all those YouTube thumbnails you see on my channel, please make sure you subscribe if you haven't already. But all those thumbnails You see, and like the blue, green, black, they're all done by this gentleman for $5 a pop. So it's not too complex. But if you think it's too complex, it's not that expensive. And that I think is the key note here. So make sure you have a professionally designed thumbnail. And the guy I work with I mean, I sent him my brand colors, fonts, photos, and he's just really well put it all together, I don't think he's alone. There's a lot of professional experience talents out there that you should be leveraging just one less thing that you have to worry about. And I get it within 24 hours, which in all honesty is pretty amazing. So create the thumbnail. And once you create the thumbnail, you're one step closer, we're only have two tips left. So obviously, we're getting one step closer to publishing. But the thumbnail really will determine whether someone clicks or not. And I wish I had done thumbnails earlier for my own videos I'm going back in and adding them to all the older videos because I think it's important to do. And I think it's important that you also make sure you have that. So another important thing to note about thumbnails is that similar to video formats for YouTube, there are also thumbnail formats, from a visual perspective, when I've found is it's usually half person with an animated look on their face, sometimes pointing or doing something with their hands. And the other half has the title. And it has some sort of background design, maybe an image thrown in there and done in a very, very nice way. So you want to make sure that you know and if you wanted to create your own template on Canva go for it ma'am. That's not my superpower the visual. So I prefer to just pay the five bucks, get it out of the way, done within 24 hours. I don't have to worry about it. But certainly there's a lot of people who will use a tool like Canva to create the template and then replicate off that. So whichever way you feel comfortable with, but the thumbnail is critical. So you've now in YouTube Creator Studio, you've uploaded the video. And hopefully you've uploaded the the thumbnail and you have the title. The next thing is the description. Now, the description and this is tip number 12. This is something that I took for granted. It's like a blog post you have a meta title meta description. I'm just going to do the same on YouTube. I'm just going to add one or two sentences to talk about what the video is about. Oh, my gosh, I was missing out on so much. When you look at the role models I was looking at the amount of information they were putting in the description, the links and what have you the promotions, it was incredible. It was really eye opening. I'm not gonna lie and you have 5000 characters, so use it to your advantage, go in there and add, you know, blog posts or videos related to the video, add your lead magnet ad if you do affiliate marketing, add links to the companies that you work with ADD sort of keywords that are related to your video so that you might show up for those search queries. And you'll want to probably add those in the tags as well. You want to make sure there's some relationship between those keywords and, and your video, obviously, but the description can allow you to do a lot. And I was always perplexed by these people saying, Oh, I get most of my website traffic from YouTube. And I'm like, Well, how does that work? There's no direct link, the links are in the description. Obviously, there could be special deals in the video itself. And there's one more thing you can do to try to get people to go back to your website, which I'm going to talk about in Tip Number 15. But it's the description. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just go to my channel, look at the description. So my last few videos, and I think you're gonna see what I'm talking about, like, Wow, that's a lot of information. That's almost too much information. Maybe it is, but YouTube gives you 5000 characters. And if people are going to start digging in to find out more about you, you want to be able to deliver and promote everything you have. And this is what I see most influencers at least in my niche doing. So we're down to tip number 15. And if you just take a video and upload it to YouTube and publish, you miss out on a number of powerful things, but probably the most powerful is the notion of cards and end screens. Cards are little things that you can bring up with links to drive people to in the middle of a video, I mean, it could be at the end of the video as well. And then you have the end screen which you can put like a subscribe to Neal Schaffer, or subscribe to your video channel. It can also be a link leading back to your website, hey, check out my new book on my website. And it can also show a related video from your channel so that hopefully people stick around rather than leaving after your videos done. That is a best practice. And that is something that I highly recommend you take the time to learn how to add cards and an end screen. In your Creator Studio, you want to outsource to go for it right. But these are just simple functionality that doesn't take a long time to add. But if you really want to maximize your social influence on YouTube, those are the steps that you should take. For each and every video I'm going back to my old videos and creating thumbnails and creating cards and end screens what have you. So there you have it 13 actionable tips to help you maximize your social influence on YouTube and go through these one more number one, consume YouTube number two find role models in your niche. Number three, ask your kid number four, five to 10 minutes number five, find your format number six keyword strategy number seven, determine a title for each keyword and confirm the search intent within YouTube. Number eight have a teaser as you get into crucian creation make sure that your first minute, if not 30 seconds is spent teasing and letting people know what they're going to learn. And then obviously delivering on that in the video. Tip number nine we are going to add a some type of interactive engaging element approximately every 15 seconds in the video. Tip number 10. outsource the Edit of that video unless you have someone in house or you really enjoy or want to learn video editing. Tip number 11 the thumbnail. Once again, I would outsource this as well. But hey, if you're the Canva type, or you have in house resources, create that thumbnail template and go with it. Number 12. The description man there's a lot you can do in the description. Take advantage of that 5000 characters you have. And tip number 13 is all about the cards and end screen these additional elements that you need to go into creator studio in YouTube to add but that can be very beneficial at generating website traffic generating new subscriptions and generating new views for your video. So there you have it. 13 actionable YouTube tips, I am still very very early in my journey, but just trying to document what I am finding to be helpful. And hopefully it will help all of you as well. Well, we're near the end of another episode. For those of you listening, I just wanted to send you another gentle reminder that if you enjoyed this podcast I'd really appreciate if you took five or 10 seconds to just wherever you're listening to this whether it be Apple podcasts or Spotify or whatever platform you're on and just go in and just write a sentence or two review of this podcast if you find it to be recommendable I'd really be honored with your your review your recommendation and make sure obviously you hit the subscribe button while you're there so that you don't miss out on any of the great episodes that I have planned for you also, I launched my digital First group coaching membership community and on April 1, we continue to grow. So just another reminder that if you're looking for networking for a sounding board for a little bit of learning, some accountability, and really to be together with a lot of other experts in various types of digital and social media marketing that also our listeners to this podcast, the digital first community awaits you. So it's Neal schaffer.com, slash membership for more information. And it's not a course, right. It is a paid membership community where we support you and I personally support you through weekly zoom group coaching calls, I want to personally support whatever you're trying to do with digital marketing as part of your growth engine. I want to help you get there. So I hope you'll join and like I said, look for the link in the show notes or you can go to my website, there is a big group coaching menu item. And Neal schaffer.com slash membership is the URL. All right, well, that is it for another episode of The maximize your social influence podcast, wherever you are in the world, make it a great virtual social day. Bye Bye everybody. And sale nada