June 13, 2025 • 21 mins
In this special Q&A episode of the YouTube Creators Hub Podcast, Dusty answers real questions from creators just like you — covering everything from how to grow a small channel in 2025, picking the right niche, and staying motivated when the views aren’t coming, to monetization strategies, sponsorships, and thumbnail tactics that actually work. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to break through your next plateau, this episode is packed with honest, actionable advice to help you grow with clarity and confidence
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to this week's episodeof the YouTube Creators Hub podcast.
Dusty here.
As always, thank you again for joining me.
Don't forget to check outall that we have to offer.
I do offer one-on-one coaching forYouTube creators, just in individuals
looking to grow their brand.
I work with them on a weekly basis,so if you wanna take it to the next
level, definitely check that out.
(00:21):
We have something called the creators.
Corner or our creator's groupwhere we have a mastermind call.
You get exclusive podcast episodesand interviews, plus just the ability
to rub elbows with other creators.
Five bucks gets you in that group.
It's one of the best bangs for yourbuck in the whole YouTube space,
in my honest opinion, obviously.
And then lastly, we do havea email newsletter called The
(00:42):
Entrepreneur's Minute, where youget a behind the scenes look of
what I'm doing each and every week.
So this week we're doing a q and a. Iget q and As and questions submitted
to my email at dusty@dustyporter.comthrough our creators group.
Those kind of get filtered to the top.
Those people who message me from thatgroup get first come, first serve, but
there's a lot of questions sprinkledthroughout this of people asking me
(01:04):
questions over on X through my email,through that group, and it's a great way
for me to answer some of the relevant.
Questions that creators are going throughin the current state of where YouTube
and the content or creator economy is.
So we're gonna just dive right into it.
Don't forget to subscribe tothe show if you haven't already.
It's absolutely free of charge and Iwould appreciate you leaving a review if
(01:26):
you've gotten anything out of the show.
First question is from Carl.
S over on X. He says, how doI know if my YouTube niche or
space is too narrow or too broad?
So I've taken a bunch of notesunder all of these questions, and so
I'm gonna go off the bullet pointsof these that I've written down,
and then I'll expand upon them.
(01:48):
So for me.
A niche or a space in YouTubeis too broad when your viewers
have no idea what to expect.
And it's way too narrow when there's notlarge enough of an audience demand to
sustain consistent content or growth.
And by content or growth, Imean you being able to upload.
Weekly content, like a once a week video.
(02:10):
So a healthy niche in my opinion.
And you can call niche,whatever you wanna call it.
Listen, I'm not gonna be picky here,this is just how I've always said
it, so please don't crucify me.
So a healthy niche has enoughaudience interest, so it has
enough search volume active forums.
I would look over on Reddit,look for Facebook groups in
other places, just regular old.
(02:32):
It's timey forums.
So enough audience interest to wherethere's outside collaboration and
communication about said topic.
Next would be a clearmonetization, potential.
So can you already think ofproducts, services, affiliate offers?
Are there brands that arealready working with similar?
(02:53):
Creators, maybe not exactlyin the niche that you're in.
I have a coaching client that at thetime was creating content about being
over the age of 55 and becoming a pilot.
So there's a ton of pilot content onYouTube, but he took it down even a
step further in regards to his age.
So is there people doing it withmonetization strategies already out there?
(03:18):
It's probably a good idea.
So a good test to do when it comesto, is your YouTube niche, two narrow
or too broad, is ask yourself, can Icome up with 50 video ideas right now?
So open up a Apple Notes app or openup just the old school pen and paper.
Write down as many video ideas as you can.
If you stop at say 11.
Maybe you need to rethink thespace that you're going into.
(03:41):
It, it's one of the things to understandthat also, if your recent videos
are pulling in completely differentaudiences, it may be too broad.
Now, obviously, if you're asearch-based channel and you
don't care about any of this, I.
That's mute.
But for the 99% of channels out there,they're going to want to focus in on
their niche and their target audience.
And so that's how I would determinewhether it's too narrow or too broad.
(04:04):
Next question, coming in fromCarly did not give me a last
name, so it's just Carly today.
She says.
I'm having a real hard time with knowingthe frequency for my YouTube channel.
Should I post daily,weekly, just when I can.
Okay.
So my answer to this is number one,it's never just when you can, it's
always going to be something thatconsistency, in my opinion, is much
(04:29):
greater of an asset than frequency.
So posting weekly with intention.
Beats out daily burnout.
So you're trying to upload daily,or you're trying to do three a week?
Here's a rule that I followed before Irecommended this rule to clients as well.
Whatever pace you can sustain for thenext six months in the season of your
(04:51):
life that you're in, without resentingthe process, that's your schedule.
So if you can do a Monday, Friday, uploadfor the next six months and still love
what you're doing and not, experiencea burnout, or you're already thinking
in your mind, oh no, if I have to dotwo a week for the next six months.
I'm gonna dread this come month three.
Then you probably need to step it back.
(05:13):
I have clients that I workwith, my coaching clients that
literally post twice a month.
So it's a biweekly, it's every other week.
So it's every other Monday or everyother Friday, and maybe they do a
live stream in the off weeks there.
'cause it's a little easier tomaintain as far as the backend work.
But once you find your rhythm,you need to treat it like an old
school TV show, same time, same day.
(05:35):
Predictability plus the consistencyaspect of it will build trust.
It just signals professionalism.
It's one of the reasons I releasedthis episode or released my podcast
episodes at 6:00 AM on Friday mornings.
I've been doing it for half a decade now.
I hate the thought ofhaving to miss a Friday.
(05:58):
It just gives me.
Anxiety like you do not understandbecause I've done this for so long.
Maybe there's some issues there as well,but we're not gonna touch on that today.
Consistency beats frequency.
Try to be predictable for your audienceso they know when to expect you.
(06:19):
Next question is from Larry.
He says, how do I grow ifI'm doing everything right,
but still getting no views?
This one's a tough one.
This is a question I get a lot.
And here's the truth, it's the hard truth.
Doing everything right often meansyou're doing the visible stuff, right?
So you're editing your videos you'redoing thumbnails the way all the
(06:40):
YouTube gurus say you should do.
You're doing things you need todo to optimize your titles and
your tags, but you're possiblymissing some kind of deeper things.
So let's talk about those.
Are you doing a good jobhooking the audience?
In the first few seconds, may say,seven to 10 seconds of your video,
does the beginning emotionallyvalidate the viewers click?
(07:02):
I wrote that down, and I really likethat because if they're clicking on
a video and your CTR is good duringthe first 24 to 48 hours of a video
being uploaded, that's wonderful.
But is it validating thatwhen they get in there.
Or are you maybe leading them astray?
Next is topic selection.
Are you choosing topics thatpeople actually search for?
(07:23):
Have you done research beforehand?
Or are they clickingout of curiosity, right?
Those are two, two things that peopleneed to understand when choosing a topic.
Next would be retention drop off.
So using your YouTube analyticsand data, your audience retention.
See where you're losingthem, is it early on?
Then we need to go back to theaudience hook that I talked about.
That's where you reallyneed to focus your time.
(07:43):
So rebuild your intros accordingly tounderstand where they're dropping off.
So growth.
You really, there is no mathematicalalgorithm that I can say, Hey,
growth is 60% topic, 25% packaging.
It really doesn't matter.
And a lot of differentniches are different, right?
Once a group of people in a certain nichediscover you, they're gonna stick with
(08:04):
you forever because maybe that niche isbarren and there's not many creators.
Maybe you're in a very crowded space,like video games or whatever it is.
You've really gotta standout and know what makes you
different and put that out there.
And lastly, I'll saythis about how do I grow?
I'm doing everything right,still getting no views unless
you're willing to chop wood.
And by chopping wood, I mean beingconsistent every week for months, if
(08:28):
not years, probably multiple years.
You're probably notgonna succeed on YouTube.
There will be people thatblow up and they go viral.
But for the most part.
You've gotta stick with it and eventually,subscriber by subscriber view by view.
You will see your channel growif you're being consistent.
Next this, I've categorized these,the next few are into mi the
(08:49):
mindset and motivation of a creator.
This one is from Julie, she says.
What keeps you motivated tocreate when numbers are down?
And I'm assuming she's meaning me'cause she asked me the question.
Over on a dm actually on Instagramyou can find me on Instagram.
Very few people do.
It's more of a personal outletfor me, but some people do.
So what keeps me motivated?
(09:10):
So I've trained my mind to, to not chase.
Just performance.
I celebrate when I hitmy uploads consistently.
I celebrate a year in this podcastwhen I've done 50 out of 52 weeks.
Now.
There's two weeks in there.
I give myself a little bit ofgrace, but I really celebrate
those milestones alongside justthe progress of growing views wise.
(09:34):
I always have a consistent desireto do and make my stuff better,
whether it be a video tutorial anormal video, a podcast episode.
I just want to get better witheveryone, and I go back and I look
at the ones I've done previously.
I take a couple of mental notes,sometimes even write those
notes down and try to be better.
And then just leveling up the areas.
(09:55):
At the end of every year I do a littlekind of a column, and in the left hand
column I say, doing these ex, exceptionaland in the other column needs work, is
what I do when I do this kind of lookingand audit of my channel and my brand
and anything in the needs improvementcolumn, I figure out what are things
that I can do in the following year orfollowing quarter that will level them up.
(10:16):
So let's say you wantto level up your audio.
Quality.
What are the things that you can do?
Number one, you can't just goout and throw a bunch of money
at it, but maybe you can improvewhere you record your audio.
Maybe you can practice how you presentyour voice and how you project it.
There's a lot of things that you cando to level up these little mini areas
of your brand and your channel that.
(10:37):
When it compounds over timewith each other will really
improve your YouTube channel.
So getting those quick wins like I talkedabout earlier, and then leveling up the
areas where you know you need to level up.
That really helps me from stop gettingdiscouraged because I'm not all the time,
and lemme just say this, if you're all thetime opening up the YouTube studio app.
(10:58):
You are just lost in it, and everytime you're refreshing it and you're
swiping down on your phone andyou're trying to get those views
to come in, you're really gonna putyourself in a very bad mental space.
That's a really.
Harsh thing to do for yourself.
And then lastly, I track messagesfrom real people that actually
(11:18):
reach out to me on email.
Got one just this week about an emailnewsletter that I did, and he said
that through this podcast and somestuff that I've put out there over
the past few years, he's grown hischannel to over 250,000 subscribers.
This is a real person, didnot have a YouTube channel.
Before a few years ago has grown toalmost a quarter of a million subscribers,
and he told me that my podcast, mycontent was a real game changer for him.
(11:41):
And so for me, what keeps me motivatedare the people's lives that I'm changing.
So who is your audience?
How are you impacting them?
It's very important.
Alright, this next onekind of goes into this.
This is from Carlos.
He says, how do you deal withnegative comments or hate?
This one's real easy for me.
I never have a hard time with this.
I haven't forever.
(12:02):
Because my wife tells me nothingbothers me, so maybe I have
just a mental barricade up.
I don't know.
But let's just go into it.
My mindset is if they're not paying meor feeding me or giving me anything,
like monetarily, their opiniononly matters if it's constructive.
And by constructive, Idon't always mean positive.
This is a big thing.
People think that any negative commentis meant to troll or meant to be hate.
(12:23):
That is not true.
You need to separate feedback.
Which helps you grow bothnegative and positive.
Okay.
And then projection.
Projection is just them revealingtheir issues through their comments.
Right?
That's not your problem.
Let them do their thing.
I'm reading a book right now by MelRobbins, called Let Them, and it's
about just letting people do theirthing and then you let yourself
(12:43):
respond to things that actually matter.
And sometimes, I've mentioned thisbefore, I'll respond with kindness,
sometimes being overly kind.
And it really messes with their mind.
It's fantastic.
And then other times I justdelete them, block them.
Move on.
That's okay too.
Next, let's get into the monetizationand business side of YouTube.
This question comes in from, I believeit's I don't wanna say the name.
(13:03):
It's Xander or Xavier.
I'm not quite sure because the waythey mistyped it a couple times.
Anyways, he says, when is theright time to start monetizing
a small channel or a channel?
General.
So for me, the right times yesterday,and I don't mean monetizing it as soon
as you can, thinking about it, right?
You gotta have the right expectations andunderstand that monetization isn't just
(13:26):
Google AdSense and the partner program.
Here's the kind of tiered model that I've.
Gently jotted down here,zero to 1000 subscribers.
Focus on affiliate marketingand building your email list.
It's a very important thing to do.
It's a good base to buildyour business off of.
Then one to 10,000 subscribers.
Start offering digital products.
You should be working on these now ifyou're not to those kind of metrics yet.
(13:48):
Templates or maybe even coaching in thething that you're really good at, right?
And then 10 K subscribers and above.
You'll wanna layer in sponsors,maybe some physical merch if that
fits premium communities, like whatI've done over in the Creator's
Corner group, things like that.
You wanna build your creatorinfrastructure from day one, so when
the traffic does hit, you're ready.
(14:08):
So think about monetization fromthe get go, but never use it.
As the thing or the metricthat pushes you forward.
'cause that will never work.
You're gonna be accepted to thatpartner program and you're gonna go
call your family and you're gonnabe like, I'm gonna hit it big.
I got accepted to the partner program.
And then you're gonna go into theYouTube data two days later when
it finally clears and you're gonnasee you made 67 cents and you're
(14:31):
gonna be discouraged as all get out.
Have realistic expectations, startnow and figure out what other
creators in your niche are doing next.
Same question, same person, bythe way, asked this question,
so I gave them two here.
It said, how do I get sponsorshipsif I have a small channel?
I've listened to a lot of yourinterviews and a lot of these creators
are starting out very quickly.
(14:54):
So sponsors don't just want views,they want the right audience.
With the right messagefrom the right creator.
That's big.
When I wrote that down, I waslike, oh, that's pretty good.
So you need to start by makingsomething like a media kit.
You can use a free Canva templatescreenshots of your analytics, couple of
comments, whatever your niche is, overviewthat, and then you can pitch smaller
(15:16):
tools and services that you actually use.
Look at things that you utilize.
Never promote, especially early on.
Actually never.
Never promote things you don'tuse or you don't believe in.
Even if it's something you neverheard of, use it for a while.
Don't, it's never worth thedollar to ruin the trust.
That's important.
Okay?
And don't wait to be discovered.
(15:38):
Reach out with something like this.
Say, Hey, I'm a creatorin whatever space helping.
This audience explained them briefly, andI have a very engaged group of however
many, and I'd love to explore a creativeway that we could partner on content.
Here's a few things that I have in mind.
Focus on delivering value for the brandand company, not just charging a fee.
(15:59):
When you stop worrying about the feeyou're going to get, and you then
start thinking about the value you'regoing to provide to them, you're
gonna get the bigger fee always.
This one right here comes infrom Juliana and she says.
How important are thumbnails really?
And she capitalize all caps.
Really?
I love that.
(16:19):
Oh man, this one's big.
I always talk about packaging, thumbnails,title, description, things like that.
These are things like people aregonna judge a book by its cover.
They're gonna judge avideo by its thumbnail.
They're a big part of the game becauseif you can't get people to click,
they're never gonna watch your stuff.
So it's a pretty big deal.
Open up your home feed right now.
Let's do this test.
Open up your home feed refresh.
A quick test, would you click onyour thumbnail, look at it, look at
(16:43):
it in comparison to what's on yourhome feed, and would you click it?
Does it evoke curiosity,the emotion, urgency?
What does it evoke to the viewer?
You don't want to explain with yourthumbnail, you want to intrigue, right?
So oftentimes we see somethinglike a thumbnail that says How
to grow a small YouTube channel.
(17:05):
But then what people really click onis that YouTube shocked face, right?
Plus a text that says,this actually worked.
There's a reason why in my feed,because there's a lot of YouTube
education in my home feed that says,you won't believe what YouTube paid me
for six months at 5,000 subscribers.
They're getting very detailedand people click on those and
those videos get a lot of views.
(17:27):
So yes, thumbnails really are important.
Are they everything?
No.
They are something that you should devotetime and research to 'cause going forward.
It's gonna mean and matter a lot foryou and that skillset, whether you hire
someone that does it in a way that'sgonna be successful or you do it yourself,
you need to really hone your game.
(17:47):
Alright, the next one iscoming from this one here says.
I don't know if you're, I'm notgonna say your name 'cause I, I will
butcher it, but it's over on X andhe sent me a DM and he said, how long
should a YouTube video be in 2025?
In my opinion, as long as it needsto be to keep attention, the average
successful video length in mostniches today is around that, I
don't know, seven to 12 minute mark.
(18:08):
But if it needs to be quicker.
And you need to cutthe fluff, that's fine.
But here's a littlebit of a nuance, right?
There's a different brackets of contentnow shorts, might affect your channel
by a lot of people discovering you.
The longs, which is what Icall the seven to 15 minute in
depth trust building videos.
Those need to be as long as theyneed to be, but around, say, seven to
12 to 15 minutes, and then you havelike your YouTube lives and podcast.
(18:30):
Things that I do over on my podcastchannel, these can be upwards of
30 minutes all the way up to, I'velistened to podcasts on YouTube
that were upwards of four hours.
This is where you build relationships.
Think of the different lengthsof videos as doing an, doing
different things, right?
Every second has to count, cut the flufflayer, storytelling in between there.
And that's.
The real length strategy isunderstanding what works and
(18:52):
what we're trying to target.
This one is from Francisco.
He says, what do you wish that youknew when you first started on YouTube?
He's reversing this on me.
I ask this a lot in my interviews.
Here's a couple of things I jotted down.
Take them as you will.
Number one, it's a marathon.
It's normal to post 50 plusvideos before seeing any traction.
(19:13):
I wish I would've knownhow long it would've taken.
I wanted it now as opposedto putting in the work now.
So understanding it's a marathon.
Next I wish I understood early onthat you don't have to go viral.
You really only need 500,maybe a hundred to a thousand
true fans to build a business.
Understanding that now has reallychanged my perspective and has helped
(19:33):
the way that I coach my clients.
And then lastly, creating theright audience is way better than
creating, let me rephrase that.
Creating for the right audience isbetter than creating for the most people.
Now, if you look at Mr.
Beast, you're like, oh no, Iwanna be creating for a billion.
People every day, whatever,his numbers are crazy.
(19:55):
I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, butyou're probably not going to do that.
But what you could do is growa channel in the next few years
that has 88,000 subscribers.
You have enough sponsors and affiliaterevenue to make 10 KA month, and
you're supporting your family.
You could do that.
So understanding what's realisticreally helped me understand that.
(20:15):
I wanna create for the rightaudience and not worry about.
The big numbers.
Yeah, I want the big numbers, but thosewill come if I keep doing what I'm doing.
And don't judge your journey.
By someone else's highlight reel.
We do this in our personal life.
People all the time scroll throughFacebook, so scroll through
Instagram reels and stories,and we do it on YouTube too.
(20:37):
We go through there and wesee the person in our niche.
They've been on YouTube for nine years.
We just started, or we've been doingit for a few years, and we think we
need to be or should be where they are.
That's the quickest way to, burnoutis the quickest way of you quitting.
Just don't do that to yourself.
It's not healthy for your mental healthand it's just not a good thing to do.
Alright, that's my 10 questions that Ipicked for this week's, q and a episode.
(20:58):
Really enjoy doing these.
You can always, email me your questions.
I put those in a spreadsheet for when Ido these episodes, dusty@dustyporter.com.
Don't forget, if you'd like towork with me beyond just listening
to me on a podcast, you cando I offer YouTube coaching.
Would love to work with you.
And if anything.
Just five bucks.
It helps support what we do here.
The time we put in gets you accessto our Creator Corner group.
(21:21):
You get exclusive podcast episodes,you get hundreds of people to
chat with about YouTube stuff.
It's a great forum to be a part ofand many really good friendships
have been built there and withoutanything really else to say.
I appreciate you guys, andwe'll talk to you next week.
Hello and welcome to this week's episodeof the YouTube Creators Hub podcast.
Dusty here.
As always, thank you again for joining me.
Don't forget to check outall that we have to offer.
I do offer one-on-one coaching forYouTube creators, just in individuals
looking to grow their brand.
I work with them on a weekly basis,so if you wanna take it to the next
level, definitely check that out.
(00:21):
We have something called the creators.
Corner or our creator's groupwhere we have a mastermind call.
You get exclusive podcast episodesand interviews, plus just the ability
to rub elbows with other creators.
Five bucks gets you in that group.
It's one of the best bangs for yourbuck in the whole YouTube space,
in my honest opinion, obviously.
And then lastly, we do havea email newsletter called The
(00:42):
Entrepreneur's Minute, where youget a behind the scenes look of
what I'm doing each and every week.
So this week we're doing a q and a. Iget q and As and questions submitted
to my email at dusty@dustyporter.comthrough our creators group.
Those kind of get filtered to the top.
Those people who message me from thatgroup get first come, first serve, but
there's a lot of questions sprinkledthroughout this of people asking me
(01:04):
questions over on X through my email,through that group, and it's a great way
for me to answer some of the relevant.
Questions that creators are going throughin the current state of where YouTube
and the content or creator economy is.
So we're gonna just dive right into it.
Don't forget to subscribe tothe show if you haven't already.
It's absolutely free of charge and Iwould appreciate you leaving a review if
(01:26):
you've gotten anything out of the show.
First question is from Carl.
S over on X. He says, how doI know if my YouTube niche or
space is too narrow or too broad?
So I've taken a bunch of notesunder all of these questions, and so
I'm gonna go off the bullet pointsof these that I've written down,
and then I'll expand upon them.
(01:48):
So for me.
A niche or a space in YouTubeis too broad when your viewers
have no idea what to expect.
And it's way too narrow when there's notlarge enough of an audience demand to
sustain consistent content or growth.
And by content or growth, Imean you being able to upload.
Weekly content, like a once a week video.
(02:10):
So a healthy niche in my opinion.
And you can call niche,whatever you wanna call it.
Listen, I'm not gonna be picky here,this is just how I've always said
it, so please don't crucify me.
So a healthy niche has enoughaudience interest, so it has
enough search volume active forums.
I would look over on Reddit,look for Facebook groups in
other places, just regular old.
(02:32):
It's timey forums.
So enough audience interest to wherethere's outside collaboration and
communication about said topic.
Next would be a clearmonetization, potential.
So can you already think ofproducts, services, affiliate offers?
Are there brands that arealready working with similar?
(02:53):
Creators, maybe not exactlyin the niche that you're in.
I have a coaching client that at thetime was creating content about being
over the age of 55 and becoming a pilot.
So there's a ton of pilot content onYouTube, but he took it down even a
step further in regards to his age.
So is there people doing it withmonetization strategies already out there?
(03:18):
It's probably a good idea.
So a good test to do when it comesto, is your YouTube niche, two narrow
or too broad, is ask yourself, can Icome up with 50 video ideas right now?
So open up a Apple Notes app or openup just the old school pen and paper.
Write down as many video ideas as you can.
If you stop at say 11.
Maybe you need to rethink thespace that you're going into.
(03:41):
It, it's one of the things to understandthat also, if your recent videos
are pulling in completely differentaudiences, it may be too broad.
Now, obviously, if you're asearch-based channel and you
don't care about any of this, I.
That's mute.
But for the 99% of channels out there,they're going to want to focus in on
their niche and their target audience.
And so that's how I would determinewhether it's too narrow or too broad.
(04:04):
Next question, coming in fromCarly did not give me a last
name, so it's just Carly today.
She says.
I'm having a real hard time with knowingthe frequency for my YouTube channel.
Should I post daily,weekly, just when I can.
Okay.
So my answer to this is number one,it's never just when you can, it's
always going to be something thatconsistency, in my opinion, is much
(04:29):
greater of an asset than frequency.
So posting weekly with intention.
Beats out daily burnout.
So you're trying to upload daily,or you're trying to do three a week?
Here's a rule that I followed before Irecommended this rule to clients as well.
Whatever pace you can sustain for thenext six months in the season of your
(04:51):
life that you're in, without resentingthe process, that's your schedule.
So if you can do a Monday, Friday, uploadfor the next six months and still love
what you're doing and not, experiencea burnout, or you're already thinking
in your mind, oh no, if I have to dotwo a week for the next six months.
I'm gonna dread this come month three.
Then you probably need to step it back.
(05:13):
I have clients that I workwith, my coaching clients that
literally post twice a month.
So it's a biweekly, it's every other week.
So it's every other Monday or everyother Friday, and maybe they do a
live stream in the off weeks there.
'cause it's a little easier tomaintain as far as the backend work.
But once you find your rhythm,you need to treat it like an old
school TV show, same time, same day.
(05:35):
Predictability plus the consistencyaspect of it will build trust.
It just signals professionalism.
It's one of the reasons I releasedthis episode or released my podcast
episodes at 6:00 AM on Friday mornings.
I've been doing it for half a decade now.
I hate the thought ofhaving to miss a Friday.
(05:58):
It just gives me.
Anxiety like you do not understandbecause I've done this for so long.
Maybe there's some issues there as well,but we're not gonna touch on that today.
Consistency beats frequency.
Try to be predictable for your audienceso they know when to expect you.
(06:19):
Next question is from Larry.
He says, how do I grow ifI'm doing everything right,
but still getting no views?
This one's a tough one.
This is a question I get a lot.
And here's the truth, it's the hard truth.
Doing everything right often meansyou're doing the visible stuff, right?
So you're editing your videos you'redoing thumbnails the way all the
(06:40):
YouTube gurus say you should do.
You're doing things you need todo to optimize your titles and
your tags, but you're possiblymissing some kind of deeper things.
So let's talk about those.
Are you doing a good jobhooking the audience?
In the first few seconds, may say,seven to 10 seconds of your video,
does the beginning emotionallyvalidate the viewers click?
(07:02):
I wrote that down, and I really likethat because if they're clicking on
a video and your CTR is good duringthe first 24 to 48 hours of a video
being uploaded, that's wonderful.
But is it validating thatwhen they get in there.
Or are you maybe leading them astray?
Next is topic selection.
Are you choosing topics thatpeople actually search for?
(07:23):
Have you done research beforehand?
Or are they clickingout of curiosity, right?
Those are two, two things that peopleneed to understand when choosing a topic.
Next would be retention drop off.
So using your YouTube analyticsand data, your audience retention.
See where you're losingthem, is it early on?
Then we need to go back to theaudience hook that I talked about.
That's where you reallyneed to focus your time.
(07:43):
So rebuild your intros accordingly tounderstand where they're dropping off.
So growth.
You really, there is no mathematicalalgorithm that I can say, Hey,
growth is 60% topic, 25% packaging.
It really doesn't matter.
And a lot of differentniches are different, right?
Once a group of people in a certain nichediscover you, they're gonna stick with
(08:04):
you forever because maybe that niche isbarren and there's not many creators.
Maybe you're in a very crowded space,like video games or whatever it is.
You've really gotta standout and know what makes you
different and put that out there.
And lastly, I'll saythis about how do I grow?
I'm doing everything right,still getting no views unless
you're willing to chop wood.
And by chopping wood, I mean beingconsistent every week for months, if
(08:28):
not years, probably multiple years.
You're probably notgonna succeed on YouTube.
There will be people thatblow up and they go viral.
But for the most part.
You've gotta stick with it and eventually,subscriber by subscriber view by view.
You will see your channel growif you're being consistent.
Next this, I've categorized these,the next few are into mi the
(08:49):
mindset and motivation of a creator.
This one is from Julie, she says.
What keeps you motivated tocreate when numbers are down?
And I'm assuming she's meaning me'cause she asked me the question.
Over on a dm actually on Instagramyou can find me on Instagram.
Very few people do.
It's more of a personal outletfor me, but some people do.
So what keeps me motivated?
(09:10):
So I've trained my mind to, to not chase.
Just performance.
I celebrate when I hitmy uploads consistently.
I celebrate a year in this podcastwhen I've done 50 out of 52 weeks.
Now.
There's two weeks in there.
I give myself a little bit ofgrace, but I really celebrate
those milestones alongside justthe progress of growing views wise.
(09:34):
I always have a consistent desireto do and make my stuff better,
whether it be a video tutorial anormal video, a podcast episode.
I just want to get better witheveryone, and I go back and I look
at the ones I've done previously.
I take a couple of mental notes,sometimes even write those
notes down and try to be better.
And then just leveling up the areas.
(09:55):
At the end of every year I do a littlekind of a column, and in the left hand
column I say, doing these ex, exceptionaland in the other column needs work, is
what I do when I do this kind of lookingand audit of my channel and my brand
and anything in the needs improvementcolumn, I figure out what are things
that I can do in the following year orfollowing quarter that will level them up.
(10:16):
So let's say you wantto level up your audio.
Quality.
What are the things that you can do?
Number one, you can't just goout and throw a bunch of money
at it, but maybe you can improvewhere you record your audio.
Maybe you can practice how you presentyour voice and how you project it.
There's a lot of things that you cando to level up these little mini areas
of your brand and your channel that.
(10:37):
When it compounds over timewith each other will really
improve your YouTube channel.
So getting those quick wins like I talkedabout earlier, and then leveling up the
areas where you know you need to level up.
That really helps me from stop gettingdiscouraged because I'm not all the time,
and lemme just say this, if you're all thetime opening up the YouTube studio app.
(10:58):
You are just lost in it, and everytime you're refreshing it and you're
swiping down on your phone andyou're trying to get those views
to come in, you're really gonna putyourself in a very bad mental space.
That's a really.
Harsh thing to do for yourself.
And then lastly, I track messagesfrom real people that actually
(11:18):
reach out to me on email.
Got one just this week about an emailnewsletter that I did, and he said
that through this podcast and somestuff that I've put out there over
the past few years, he's grown hischannel to over 250,000 subscribers.
This is a real person, didnot have a YouTube channel.
Before a few years ago has grown toalmost a quarter of a million subscribers,
and he told me that my podcast, mycontent was a real game changer for him.
(11:41):
And so for me, what keeps me motivatedare the people's lives that I'm changing.
So who is your audience?
How are you impacting them?
It's very important.
Alright, this next onekind of goes into this.
This is from Carlos.
He says, how do you deal withnegative comments or hate?
This one's real easy for me.
I never have a hard time with this.
I haven't forever.
(12:02):
Because my wife tells me nothingbothers me, so maybe I have
just a mental barricade up.
I don't know.
But let's just go into it.
My mindset is if they're not paying meor feeding me or giving me anything,
like monetarily, their opiniononly matters if it's constructive.
And by constructive, Idon't always mean positive.
This is a big thing.
People think that any negative commentis meant to troll or meant to be hate.
(12:23):
That is not true.
You need to separate feedback.
Which helps you grow bothnegative and positive.
Okay.
And then projection.
Projection is just them revealingtheir issues through their comments.
Right?
That's not your problem.
Let them do their thing.
I'm reading a book right now by MelRobbins, called Let Them, and it's
about just letting people do theirthing and then you let yourself
(12:43):
respond to things that actually matter.
And sometimes, I've mentioned thisbefore, I'll respond with kindness,
sometimes being overly kind.
And it really messes with their mind.
It's fantastic.
And then other times I justdelete them, block them.
Move on.
That's okay too.
Next, let's get into the monetizationand business side of YouTube.
This question comes in from, I believeit's I don't wanna say the name.
(13:03):
It's Xander or Xavier.
I'm not quite sure because the waythey mistyped it a couple times.
Anyways, he says, when is theright time to start monetizing
a small channel or a channel?
General.
So for me, the right times yesterday,and I don't mean monetizing it as soon
as you can, thinking about it, right?
You gotta have the right expectations andunderstand that monetization isn't just
(13:26):
Google AdSense and the partner program.
Here's the kind of tiered model that I've.
Gently jotted down here,zero to 1000 subscribers.
Focus on affiliate marketingand building your email list.
It's a very important thing to do.
It's a good base to buildyour business off of.
Then one to 10,000 subscribers.
Start offering digital products.
You should be working on these now ifyou're not to those kind of metrics yet.
(13:48):
Templates or maybe even coaching in thething that you're really good at, right?
And then 10 K subscribers and above.
You'll wanna layer in sponsors,maybe some physical merch if that
fits premium communities, like whatI've done over in the Creator's
Corner group, things like that.
You wanna build your creatorinfrastructure from day one, so when
the traffic does hit, you're ready.
(14:08):
So think about monetization fromthe get go, but never use it.
As the thing or the metricthat pushes you forward.
'cause that will never work.
You're gonna be accepted to thatpartner program and you're gonna go
call your family and you're gonnabe like, I'm gonna hit it big.
I got accepted to the partner program.
And then you're gonna go into theYouTube data two days later when
it finally clears and you're gonnasee you made 67 cents and you're
(14:31):
gonna be discouraged as all get out.
Have realistic expectations, startnow and figure out what other
creators in your niche are doing next.
Same question, same person, bythe way, asked this question,
so I gave them two here.
It said, how do I get sponsorshipsif I have a small channel?
I've listened to a lot of yourinterviews and a lot of these creators
are starting out very quickly.
(14:54):
So sponsors don't just want views,they want the right audience.
With the right messagefrom the right creator.
That's big.
When I wrote that down, I waslike, oh, that's pretty good.
So you need to start by makingsomething like a media kit.
You can use a free Canva templatescreenshots of your analytics, couple of
comments, whatever your niche is, overviewthat, and then you can pitch smaller
(15:16):
tools and services that you actually use.
Look at things that you utilize.
Never promote, especially early on.
Actually never.
Never promote things you don'tuse or you don't believe in.
Even if it's something you neverheard of, use it for a while.
Don't, it's never worth thedollar to ruin the trust.
That's important.
Okay?
And don't wait to be discovered.
(15:38):
Reach out with something like this.
Say, Hey, I'm a creatorin whatever space helping.
This audience explained them briefly, andI have a very engaged group of however
many, and I'd love to explore a creativeway that we could partner on content.
Here's a few things that I have in mind.
Focus on delivering value for the brandand company, not just charging a fee.
(15:59):
When you stop worrying about the feeyou're going to get, and you then
start thinking about the value you'regoing to provide to them, you're
gonna get the bigger fee always.
This one right here comes infrom Juliana and she says.
How important are thumbnails really?
And she capitalize all caps.
Really?
I love that.
(16:19):
Oh man, this one's big.
I always talk about packaging, thumbnails,title, description, things like that.
These are things like people aregonna judge a book by its cover.
They're gonna judge avideo by its thumbnail.
They're a big part of the game becauseif you can't get people to click,
they're never gonna watch your stuff.
So it's a pretty big deal.
Open up your home feed right now.
Let's do this test.
Open up your home feed refresh.
A quick test, would you click onyour thumbnail, look at it, look at
(16:43):
it in comparison to what's on yourhome feed, and would you click it?
Does it evoke curiosity,the emotion, urgency?
What does it evoke to the viewer?
You don't want to explain with yourthumbnail, you want to intrigue, right?
So oftentimes we see somethinglike a thumbnail that says How
to grow a small YouTube channel.
(17:05):
But then what people really click onis that YouTube shocked face, right?
Plus a text that says,this actually worked.
There's a reason why in my feed,because there's a lot of YouTube
education in my home feed that says,you won't believe what YouTube paid me
for six months at 5,000 subscribers.
They're getting very detailedand people click on those and
those videos get a lot of views.
(17:27):
So yes, thumbnails really are important.
Are they everything?
No.
They are something that you should devotetime and research to 'cause going forward.
It's gonna mean and matter a lot foryou and that skillset, whether you hire
someone that does it in a way that'sgonna be successful or you do it yourself,
you need to really hone your game.
(17:47):
Alright, the next one iscoming from this one here says.
I don't know if you're, I'm notgonna say your name 'cause I, I will
butcher it, but it's over on X andhe sent me a DM and he said, how long
should a YouTube video be in 2025?
In my opinion, as long as it needsto be to keep attention, the average
successful video length in mostniches today is around that, I
don't know, seven to 12 minute mark.
(18:08):
But if it needs to be quicker.
And you need to cutthe fluff, that's fine.
But here's a littlebit of a nuance, right?
There's a different brackets of contentnow shorts, might affect your channel
by a lot of people discovering you.
The longs, which is what Icall the seven to 15 minute in
depth trust building videos.
Those need to be as long as theyneed to be, but around, say, seven to
12 to 15 minutes, and then you havelike your YouTube lives and podcast.
(18:30):
Things that I do over on my podcastchannel, these can be upwards of
30 minutes all the way up to, I'velistened to podcasts on YouTube
that were upwards of four hours.
This is where you build relationships.
Think of the different lengthsof videos as doing an, doing
different things, right?
Every second has to count, cut the flufflayer, storytelling in between there.
And that's.
The real length strategy isunderstanding what works and
(18:52):
what we're trying to target.
This one is from Francisco.
He says, what do you wish that youknew when you first started on YouTube?
He's reversing this on me.
I ask this a lot in my interviews.
Here's a couple of things I jotted down.
Take them as you will.
Number one, it's a marathon.
It's normal to post 50 plusvideos before seeing any traction.
(19:13):
I wish I would've knownhow long it would've taken.
I wanted it now as opposedto putting in the work now.
So understanding it's a marathon.
Next I wish I understood early onthat you don't have to go viral.
You really only need 500,maybe a hundred to a thousand
true fans to build a business.
Understanding that now has reallychanged my perspective and has helped
(19:33):
the way that I coach my clients.
And then lastly, creating theright audience is way better than
creating, let me rephrase that.
Creating for the right audience isbetter than creating for the most people.
Now, if you look at Mr.
Beast, you're like, oh no, Iwanna be creating for a billion.
People every day, whatever,his numbers are crazy.
(19:55):
I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, butyou're probably not going to do that.
But what you could do is growa channel in the next few years
that has 88,000 subscribers.
You have enough sponsors and affiliaterevenue to make 10 KA month, and
you're supporting your family.
You could do that.
So understanding what's realisticreally helped me understand that.
(20:15):
I wanna create for the rightaudience and not worry about.
The big numbers.
Yeah, I want the big numbers, but thosewill come if I keep doing what I'm doing.
And don't judge your journey.
By someone else's highlight reel.
We do this in our personal life.
People all the time scroll throughFacebook, so scroll through
Instagram reels and stories,and we do it on YouTube too.
(20:37):
We go through there and wesee the person in our niche.
They've been on YouTube for nine years.
We just started, or we've been doingit for a few years, and we think we
need to be or should be where they are.
That's the quickest way to, burnoutis the quickest way of you quitting.
Just don't do that to yourself.
It's not healthy for your mental healthand it's just not a good thing to do.
Alright, that's my 10 questions that Ipicked for this week's, q and a episode.
(20:58):
Really enjoy doing these.
You can always, email me your questions.
I put those in a spreadsheet for when Ido these episodes, dusty@dustyporter.com.
Don't forget, if you'd like towork with me beyond just listening
to me on a podcast, you cando I offer YouTube coaching.
Would love to work with you.
And if anything.
Just five bucks.
It helps support what we do here.
The time we put in gets you accessto our Creator Corner group.
(21:21):
You get exclusive podcast episodes,you get hundreds of people to
chat with about YouTube stuff.
It's a great forum to be a part ofand many really good friendships
have been built there and withoutanything really else to say.
I appreciate you guys, andwe'll talk to you next week.
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