July 28, 2025 • 42 mins
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Recent YouTube policy changes regarding "inauthentic content" have been widely misinterpreted, with no evidence that AI content is specifically being targeted for demonetization.
• YouTube has rebranded "repetitious content" policy as "inauthentic content" with minimal actual changes
• Title and thumbnail A/B testing capabilities are expanding to allow testing of up to three variations
• Understanding viewer psychology is more valuable than focusing on technical metrics
• When considering channel pivots, examine analytics to see where most views and subscribers come from
• Apply the 70/30 rule: 70% established content formats, 30% experimental content
• Success comes from predicting what humans will watch next, not understanding algorithms
• Think like a viewer by analyzing why you skip certain videos from channels you're subscribed to
Send us your podcast intro videos and we might use them in future episodes!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm about to tell you something that I usually used
to only tell coaching clients,and I'm gonna do it for free
here on the podcast right now.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I think YouTube does have a problem right now with AI
brain rot, whatever you want tocall it.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
This could be one of the things that YouTube should
have never done, because it'sjust stirred up too much stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
You as a creator are probably concerned about this,
but the viewer doesn't care.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that talks in
microphones about youtube.
I'm travis and I'm here withspecial guest rob, how you doing
hello question for you, travis.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
The intro that this time was, what was it more?
We talked to you withmicrophones, through headphones.
I can't remember what you saidthen, but do you create a new
one every single week?
By yourself, or do you have aito assist you?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I literally say it.
The second it comes out of mymouth, I have no idea what I'm
going to say until I say it oh,every day, every episode is new.
I have no idea what I'm going tosay, um, but welcome to the
podcast of everyone.
Uh, if you're new here, we justtalk about youtube usually,
sometimes candy, but youtube andhow to grow your youtube
channel.
Um, travis and rob is the faceof the main new vid iq channel.
(01:05):
Uh, and, by the way, speakingof intros, uh, we said in the
last episode that we would beover the moon if people want to
send us intros that we can usefor the beginning part of the
podcast.
So, send us a video, uh, thatjust kind of intros the podcast
and if it's good we'll use itbecause why not?
it can be, uh, it can be silly,it can be whatever speaking also
(01:26):
travis of behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Uh, you sent me a slack message recently where you
had said curly, whirly in yourhand, yes, and you now have a
review of said a chocolate barso funny thing is I was actually
going to mention that in thisepisode.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I did not set this up .
Uh, rob thought of this becausehe remembers what I sent him.
So it was last weekend, I thinkit was.
I was, I was at the mall, forit was fourth of july, uh and uh
, across the street from wherethey were doing all the things
there's a big mall, went inthere and they had a candy shop
and I was walking around andthey had um, different types of
candy, uh, but international,like different, like all over
the place.
It wasn't just like theUkrainian thing, and I saw a
(02:05):
Curly Whirly.
And this is the fame.
If you haven't again, if you'renot part of the lore of this
podcast.
Many months ago, when westarted talking about Cadbury
eggs and candy corn, rob hadmentioned that he liked Curly
Whirlies and I thought this wasjust the funniest name thing.
And I found a Curly Whirly inthe candy store.
So, funniest name thing and Ifound a curly whirly in the
(02:26):
candy store.
So I'm like I'm buying this,the only thing I bought.
It's literally the only thing Ibought.
I did not know what to expect.
By the way, I couldn't rememberwhat type of chocolate it was,
but it was very thin, yes, whichI'm surprised by.
Um, and I, you know because ofwhere I was when I was doing, I
actually had to put in my pocketfor a little while I was
walking around, which made itnot real, not real nice, so that
(02:46):
I'm opening it up and it doeskeep.
In fairness, even though it wasin my pocket for a little while,
it did um, it didn't completelymelt or anything, but it
definitely was looser than itwas.
When I bought pretty soft, Iimagine it was very soft.
Yes, yeah and uh, I will justsay that, um, because it's
caramel in the middle, right, Idon't know if it's fudge or
(03:07):
caramel.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
It didn't taste like fudge, uh toffee, I don't know
yeah, it's something likeingredients, but yeah, it's got
like a uh, how would youdescribe it?
Like a a, so it's hard on theoutside and then very, uh, not
liquidy, but yeah, very yeah,that and that, that, that aspect
(03:29):
of it not a fan.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Uh, that the whole kind of tearing it I, I don't
really like that.
Anyway, I get that.
Yeah, I think that's reallywhat kind of turned.
Plus, of course, it was softand weak.
So maybe, maybe, if it was alittle bit, you know, in the
refrigerator for a while and alittle bit more crisp or
something, maybe I would havedug it, but it wasn't for me.
I didn't even eat the wholething, which is wild.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And so this is from like an international candy
store in the US, right,apparently Because we have
American candy stores in the UKwhere you get things like
Reese's and Milk Duds.
That's one of our um thingsthat we miss from canada.
But what I've, what I've nowlearned, is that american candy
(04:12):
stores and vape shops in the ukare just fronts for laundering
money no, I think so.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I mean, I think there's a donut allegedly after
after that um statement, butthere you go.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Well, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
There's a donut allegedly after after that um
statement, but there you go well, here's the thing there's a
donut shop down the street frommy house that I never see people
in.
I'm like how are they still inbusiness?
How are they still in businessanyway?
Yeah, all that to say.
This is a silly podcast and Ilove talking about silly things.
Um, real quick, we're gonna hita couple news notes.
Um, very recently, the veryscary I think jen and I talked
(04:46):
about this a couple weeks ago uhmonetization, uh update, which
really wasn't even an update,came out, but it seemed to stir
a big thing in the in the entireuh youtube community, where
youtube said that you know, theywere going to clarify some
wording on AI or just videos ingeneral.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Right, it wasn't even that, it was repetitious
content.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Repetitious content.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
They never used AI at any point.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
But it got.
It's like the what is it thatthing called?
You know, when one person sayssomething and then someone else,
like telephone or whatever theycall that, when one person says
something.
By the time you saw the newsarticles, it's like people who
don't use their voice aren'tgoing to get paid.
Ai videos are going to bedemonetized, like all these
things were said by peoplecovering it that weren't ever
said by YouTube.
So clear up everything, rob.
(05:34):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So the update essentially is they've changed
their repetitious content policyto inauthentic content.
Maybe that's what led peopledown.
The AI is getting banned gardenpath and in the section on the
monetization policy, which hasbeen there for years, there are
(05:57):
changes to, I think, onesentence.
I think another section hasgone from bold font to regular
font font and they removed theword mindless content from one
of the bullet points and that ispretty much it.
So as far as I'm concerned, ifYouTube are removing something
that says mindless content, thenI don't think this is a danger
(06:18):
for AI content.
This sounds like a boo for me.
Let's get more mindless AI.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Slop out there in my judgment and opinion, of course
what's the difference between myuh brain rot and mindless?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
yeah, I don't brain for either.
I don't think so so as far asI'm concerned, there's nothing
to see here.
The tldr is.
I don't think the policies havechanged dramatically in any way
.
Shape form, I think when we getto the real subtleties, you
know, maybe dozens, hundreds ofchannels may be affected and
(06:50):
they're going to shout about iton social media and then
there'll be another scare.
But yeah, you know, youtube isreleasing AI tools.
They're using AI tools all ofthe time to encourage creators
to make content.
All of the time to encouragecreators to make content.
They are far from wanting toscare creators away from using
those tools.
That's going to lead todemonetization.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, I feel like this is.
This is just a case of people.
It's hard to know whether itwas the people who wanted to
report just to make it soundworse than it was so that you
could get clicks, kind of likeclick baiting, rage baiting or
if it really was just a genuinemisunderstanding of what was
going on, because youtubesometimes is in a black box and
we don't know everything exactlythat they're doing.
Um, at the end of the day, ifyou're listening to this podcast
(07:36):
, the chances of your channelbeing demonetized, I'm going to
say, is lower, just because youcare enough to listen to a
podcast about how to grow achannel rather than what a lot
of people do is.
They'll find a video that goeshere make money on youtube
without doing anything and, likethose channels might be the
ones that are in danger yeah,but I feel like agree more yeah
almost anyone who pays attentionto vid iq.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I almost don't feel like you're gonna have to worry
about it, generally speakingagain I guess what we will, I
all admit to is that I thinkYouTube does have a problem
right now with AI brain rot,whatever you want to call it
flooding our recommendations.
Is there going to be a way toresolve that more through
(08:18):
discovery rather thandemonetization, like lower the
discovery threshold or somethingalong those lines, which I
guess that makes it sound alittle bit more clandestine than
just straight out demonetizingpeople?
And you know, again, if wethink about YouTube's
communication on this Travis,did they get this right?
Because what I thought they didis they created an opportunity
(08:41):
for a vacuum of information,Like we're making this minor
update in a week's time, butwe're not going to tell you what
that is exactly, and soeverybody's like, oh well, let's
just assume the worst and talkabout it and get some clicks for
that reason.
So you know, YouTube maybecould have done a little bit
better.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I almost think that if they'd not made any teaser
announcement in the first placeand just announced it with
everything, so that people couldjust go to that document and
see exactly the changes,although even then, I think some
people would just drawnconclusions that ai content was
in trouble yeah, I feel like andthis is this might be just as
much for the editor as anyonebecause I want to do these
things at the beginning now, ofcourse, if you're watching the
(09:20):
video, you've already seen this,where there's like a little
intro with all the best bits atthe beginning of the podcast.
You're like, oh, would they saythis?
And they say this.
I'm going to say it right now.
I'm going to just tell youright now I'm setting it up.
This could be one of the thingsthat YouTube should have never
done, because it's just stirredup too much stuff.
So you can take that section atthe beginning of the video.
I like what you know anyway, um, but yeah, I agree, like that's
(09:50):
uh, it was a weird thing.
I think they were.
This is the thing when you'retrying to be transparent but at
the same time, making it worse.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So uh, it's called the streisand effect, more or
less.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Basically nothing to see here, but here I am.
Uh, along with that, there wasa one other thing that happened.
What were we?
I forget exactly what was itagain?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
it was the rumor that's now turned into a
confirmation that we havethumbnail A-B testing and now
that has been upgraded to titleA-B testing and within the last
24 hours we are here at vidIQbeing fortunate to gain access
to it.
I think that means like twothings essentially First of all,
we're going to make a deep diveon it, probably on the podcast
(10:23):
and on the channel, and it meansthat all we're going to make a
deep dive on it, probably on apodcast and on the channel, and
it means that if we're gettingit and full disclosure, we don't
really have any specialprivileges or access to to
youtube for us to give them thetools.
You know we are a largerchannel so like we do have I
guess you call it a partnermanager, but many channels of
(10:43):
our size have that.
So we do sometimes get earlyaccess to stuff and I think if
it's reached us, then that meansit's 100 going to be rolled out
to everybody who's eligible,which I think is like advanced
features and like not evenmonetized.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Just as long as you've got advanced features,
you should be able to do thistitle and thumbnail testing, I
would guess in the next sixmonths, you know, by the end of
this year I like this because Ithink it titles and I've been a
title guy for a long time I feellike they're just as important
as uh thumbnails in a lot ofways and perhaps most
importantly, the title inconjunction with the thumbnail
(11:19):
are really everything like youneed to have.
All of that.
The content obviously has to begood.
We're going to make a largeassumption that your content's
good.
That probably is not a goodassumption to make, but we're
just going to assume that you'remaking good content if you're
listening to the podcast.
Um, so the title, the packaging, which is what we call it the
title and thumbnail are soimportant, and to be able to
change different things and haveyoutube test them, I think is a
(11:40):
good thing.
Of course, there's going to bepeople out there that'll say, oh
, it doesn't work, and samething they'll say with you know,
the thumbnail um AB test tool,which, you know, depending on
how it's implemented, could notbe a great thing, but at least
it does something that a lot ofadvanced users were doing anyway
and does it for themautomatically, cause I would do
this all the time and changetitle quite often on things.
Um, because you got to rememberwhen you first release a video.
(12:02):
Think about the stages of avideo release.
The very first 24, 48 hours orso.
It's being shown mostly topeople that have seen your
channel before right, likepeople who are familiar with you
.
So you can use a more familiartype title, thumbnail
combination to get those peopleto click.
After that point it's going outto people who maybe have never
seen you before.
And now you've got to becompetitive with everything else
(12:24):
that's on their homepage oreverything else that's in the up
next and that might look alittle different.
That might be more clickbaity,that might be more wide-ranging
colors on the thumbnail, thatmight be more kind of over the
top, depending on your niche,right, it could be all these
things.
So, kind of over the top,depending on your niche, right,
it could be all these things.
So I feel like this is goodbecause you'll be able to test
it in the beginning and thentest it later on, which is what
you really should be using thesetools, how you should be using
(12:45):
these tools.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, I agree with you, Travis, in the sense that
the thumbnail is typically whatstops you scrolling, but in my
user experience on YouTube, it'susually the title that
convinces me to actually click.
Now, that's what gives me thecontext, that creates the
intrigue, so on and so forth.
So, as you said, the ability tomaybe have three different
(13:08):
titles, like one might be acontrol test, what you typically
use.
Another one might be theopposite of a controls test.
So maybe that's like very SEOheavy, or it's very emotively
heavy, like very emotionallytriggering, and then you could
just have one wild card as well,just to keep to try to try
something new.
That might be an interestingtest and to give you, like the,
the basic rundown.
You can test either justdifferent thumbnails the title
(13:33):
says stays the same, or justdifferent titles and the
thumbnail stays the same, or youcan have a different thumbnail
and title on all of your tests,up to a maximum of three, and it
still measures by watch time,not click through rates I think
that's a whole other discussion.
Continue to argue that, whetherthat's right or not, but I think
(13:54):
that's what YouTube's stickingwith, I think.
To me, it feels like YouTubeuses watch time because it's a
bit more of a muddy metric thatthey can hide behind, as opposed
to click-through rate, which isvery definite as a number, in
my opinion.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, I think the one thing that messes them up is
they'll say that we're using itto figure out the quality of the
click, more or less kind oflike that's the whole purpose
because you're watching longer,but the reality is later on.
If you were to search throughall their things, you'll find
out that the recommendationengine doesn't just use watch
time, it uses like a whole bunchof other signals.
So why don't you connect it tothat?
(14:32):
Why can't it be connected tothe recommendation engine and
whatever is being recommended?
More use that thumbnail titlelike that to me, is more
important.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
The question there is how do you quantify that?
To the, to the creator.
Not my problem, or a percentage, all right.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Fair enough, I don't care, just tell me the thumbnail
, tell me which one.
Which one are you going to givemore impressions to?
That's all I need to know.
I don't need the othershenanigans.
Just tell me that that's whatwe all want.
And people are going to say wewant more views, but really
that's more about peopleclicking.
The only thing YouTube can giveyou is impressions.
They can't give you views, theycan give you impressions.
People will click, so give memore impressions, all right.
(15:16):
So us the boost at vidIQcom, andalso we're doing a little
contest where Jen and I aregoing in the studio in a couple
of weeks and we would love foryou to use our script maker here
at vidIQ.
And we have a couple ofsubmissions already, which I
can't wait to read, where youwill use the script maker to
make a skit for Jen and I.
I saw one of them.
I think it's something.
I haven't read the script yet,but I saw the.
The.
(15:36):
The subject line, I think, hassomething to do with candy.
So I mean, we're super excitedabout this.
So if you want to use ourscript maker, so you go to
VidIQcom, you sign in and you goto create and there's a script
maker and I've talked about thison a previous episode.
I love it.
I think it's amazing.
Send us a script that Jen and Iand today we're going to go
over some emails and that is attheboostatvidiqcom.
We have a couple that we'regoing to talk to today and the
(16:04):
first one comes from Mark Marksays hey, jen and Travis, or, in
this particular case, we wantto say Rob Yo.
Please help me understand this.
The screenshot below shows thesame outlier short.
Sorry, jen, that's why she'sobvious question and just didn't
turn up.
I know, right, uh.
Posted in uh early march of2025, before youtube updated
their view count strategy.
(16:24):
While I'm more than gratefulfor the initial success of this
short, the overall count seemedwildly exaggerated after the
update.
I have a few other outliers.
This happened to as well,though not as really dramatic as
the examples below.
Do you feel this is amisrepresentation of the value
of a video to the YouTube viewer?
At first, I thought YouTube hadbeen combining the old shown in
feed metric, but I have no ideanow.
(16:45):
To put this in some context,I'm a small creator.
My channel consists of sillyLego builds.
Most of my videos are 6.9seconds in length.
I do this, so YouTube rounds itup to seven seconds.
That seems to be my sweet spot,but that's another story.
I'm in the us with more thanhalf of my audience spread out
in other countries.
At any rate, I realize thisletter.
Uh feels a little braggy, butwe must celebrate each other's
victories and what he's showingis, within the first uh, you
(17:07):
know however many days?
Uh, three million views, um, onboth, but the uh the views are
18 million views versus theengaged views of 11 million
views.
Ironically, dan and I talkedabout this exact metric in the
last episode and that we believethat the only reason YouTube
did this at all was because ofTikTok, and that it's easy when
(17:30):
you can say to people that youcan get more views on YouTube
for your shorts, regardless ofhow they're counted, then you
can at TikTok.
Where do you think creators aregoing to go?
Uh?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
yeah, so give me more views.
Uh answer really isn't it Ithink in a lot of ways this
almost is closer to beingimpressions now the regular view
number is like impressions andthen the engaged views are the
actual like views this is a longquestion and I'm trying to
(18:01):
remember what the actualquestion is a misrepresentation,
misrepresentation of value,value of view?
I?
I guess to all of us who'vebeen making short form content
for the last four or five yearsand all of a sudden YouTube
flicks a switch.
Then the answer is yes.
In one sense, however, this isa completely level playing field
(18:24):
.
It's not just impacted you andno one else.
Everybody is now having to dealwith these new view counts and,
somewhat unfortunately, fromone perspective, this doesn't
impact how much you get paid,because you're still paid based
on engaged views.
So that's a bit of a learningcurve for creators.
Uh, I, I have to be just kind ofblunt and honest because I
(18:48):
can't think of a more nuanced uhanswer to this mark.
But, like you're worrying aboutthe wrong metric, I think the
focusing on, like your averageview duration and making sure
that your content is shared outis to file.
More important thing, and Iwill be thinking more about, is
the value of a viewmisrepresented.
Now I'll be thinking more abouthow, how can I replicate this
(19:10):
success?
How can I get people, how can Iget another 11 million engaged
people to watch my next shot?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
yeah, it is.
I forget every single see I?
We do shorts now on the on thepodcast channel, and I haven't
done shorts in many, in many,many months, and watching them
I'm going oh, these videos aregetting better views than when I
used to do shorts and I justnow realize oh, it's annoying,
it's annoying yes, uh, itdoesn't.
They're not doing any better.
They're probably doing aboutthe same.
(19:36):
They just look differentbecause the views are a little
different and this is just aweird, and dan brought up some
really good points about this.
Uh, I you know I give dan a lotof hard time about stuff, but
he brought up some really goodpoints about the views being
kind of uh, misleading and itand it just makes for a
confusing experience and it'sthe one thing where they it's
not actually he was wrong.
This one thing I forgot tomention this it's the one he was
(19:57):
saying like it's the one placein the metrics and stuff where
the numbers are way different.
But they also do it with livestreams, because they do it
while it's live and then theytreat it as a, as a published
video later, and so thosenumbers look weird too.
It's very confusing for a lotof creators.
They're like wait a minute.
It said I had this many viewswhen I was live and now it says
I have less views.
Well, that's because now it'sconsidered a VOD, a video on
demand, so they're counting itdifferently.
(20:19):
Youtube needs, you know theytalk about wanting to simplify
things.
They want you to put all youruploads everywhere, just make
everything.
Then they do this and it's likehave you really simplified
anything?
How simple is this?
Not very simple.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I think I will also say this.
I'm trying to work out if thisis actually true, because I
don't watch that many shorts inthe shorts feed.
But I'm right in thinking,Travis, if you're just flicking
through the shorts, you neversee the view count right.
You want to see the engagement.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
I can't find the view count on a short period or when
it was posted.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I can't find the view count on a short period like I
look or when it was, when it wasposted, like I can't figure
that out.
So if you go to like somebody'schannel and go in the shots,
you can see the views there,because we see that yeah, that,
yeah I think the majority, thevast majority of people watching
your shots don't know.
Although they don't, there's notthat immediate social proof of
how many views the video has,like sure you can see from the
likes and whatnot.
(21:12):
So it's somewhat hidden fromthe viewer's perspective.
Like, you, as a creator, areprobably concerned about this,
but the viewer doesn't carebecause they don't think they're
seeing that.
And also just an interestinglittle side story.
I made a short about thischange and some of you know my
YouTube.
Yes, man right, man Right.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
The guy I love that.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yes, so everything Right.
So I filmed a short which waslike how's get more YouTube
shorts for using 2025.
And it's basically the YouTubeshorts man, and this is going to
be good for video views, butnot the audio podcast.
But, like me holding a phonegoing yes, yes, yes, yes,
because you're doing it asquickly as that and you're
getting a view right and that'sshort.
(21:53):
Now, where I say yes, eighttimes, that is literally short.
Yes, eight times, it's got418,000 views.
No, no, sorry, that's 418,000short views.
How many engaged views has itgot?
I can't tell.
Now Where's that figure.
It should be in like the uh,engagement engagement all right,
(22:17):
okay, 418 000 views, all right,186 000 engaged views right, so
it's less than half sure.
But the hilarious thing is isbecause I titled it how to get
more youtube shorts views.
It's ranking at the top ofyoutube search for that term for
shorts that's hilarious.
Now I'm getting like 600 viewsan hour on a video which
(22:37):
literally says yes eight timesand then just loops over I want,
I want to do like a thing.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
As you're saying this .
I'm like it would be great tohave a series of videos where dr
savage tries to get the yes manto say no one time.
And it's just a challenge oflike and it just gets, oh my god
, like strong, bad if you everused to watch, uh, homestar
runner anyway, um, all that tosay don't worry about it, make
better content all right so next, I'll make the same content if
(23:03):
you get an 11 million views.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I'll take that that's true.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
That's actually not a bad thing.
Uh, next one comes from ivan.
Again, the boost at videoqcomenormous.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Oh so here's the look .
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Wait until you see later on, there's one I had to
cut down and so I had to cut itso many ways just to get it in
there.
Uh, hello, jen travis, how goesit now?
Here's something interesting uh, rob, I watch a lot of, uh,
british television.
Yeah, I know which is kind ofweird to say, but, um, I love
the show, can't pay, we'll takeit away.
Uh.
And then also there's anotherone that's about like, uh,
evicting people and stuff, whichis really interesting.
(23:38):
I love that stuff.
Um, and one of the thingsyou'll hear some of the people
say and again, I've watchedbritish comedy and stuff for
years, british shows for yearsbut I hear them say this one
phrase I had never really heardbefore I started watching the
show, and that's um, when youcome up to someone, they'll say,
uh, all right, are you or no?
What did they say?
Um, uh, how you?
Not?
It's not like how you like, wewould say how you're doing with
the like, uh, you're all right,right, or something like that,
(24:00):
all right you're right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it'slike you're actually like
telling them what they'resupposed to say.
That's part of the greeting,you're all right.
So how goes?
It is american, but like you'reall right and I'm like like no,
you're kicking me out of myhouse.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
So even my response to you is how goes what?
Speaker 1 (24:19):
how goes?
What exactly?
Oh man, all right, with therecent cancellation and small
possibility of the resurrectionof the game hightail a very
popular upcoming minecraft-likegame that I planned on creating
a new channel for, and it'sbrought a few questions to mind.
Hytale has had millions ofpeople super excited for its
release for years, meaning thatif the game were to release,
(24:40):
there would be a great flood ofcreators all joining in to cover
the game, including many verypopular, well-known creators
with millions of subscribersalready.
In a case like this, assumingthis game or niche sticks out
around or sticks around for along while, what would be the
best way for a smaller creatorto stand out amongst the rush?
I have almost three K subs onmy Minecraft channel.
A few good of them areinterested in what I would do in
(25:02):
Hytale.
However, even if I can get allthose subs over, I doubt it
would be enough to stand outamongst the overpopulation.
It is estimated that I onlyhave 1% chance of encountering
this situation.
First of all, who estimated that?
I just want to know what.
But I'm curious to know whatthe best plan of action would be
to stand up in a sub-popularitylike this.
Thanks for taking the time.
(25:22):
Have a great candy corn-filledday.
So I like this question becauseI've seen a couple of channels
that have established primarychannels and then something new
is coming out that they'reinterested in and they start a
new channel.
They want to kind of get inearly on and it is possible to
break through early in on atopic that's big, especially if
(25:43):
you know it's going to be bigand you know Ivan says here that
he knows this game is going tobe big Now.
First of all, if it's going toget canceled, that would be
terrible, but knowing that inadvance, for me I'm saying the
strategy early on is what arethe videos that people who will
be new to that game will want toknow immediately?
Make those first.
That's how you stand out,because a lot of them are going
to be news-related stuff, whichis fine and you can do that and
(26:04):
you maybe should do that.
But then you're going to want toanswer all the questions that
any new player is going to wantto know about this game and why
they should want to play it, andI think some of the bigger
channels may not necessarily dothat right off the bat until the
game is released, um, and maybenot even then, because they'll
be doing like new stuff and likewatch me play and stuff.
But if you're trying to justget in there, I'm answering
every single question.
(26:25):
A new player would want to knowwhat would you do, rob?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah, I agree.
I guess there's a certainelement of hedging your bets.
Is it worth my time to investall of this content in something
that may never get released?
And I think, ultimately, you'vegot to answer that question
first.
If the answer is yes, then youhave to treat it like this yeah,
(26:48):
those big creators are going tosteamroll the trending aspect
of this when it gets released,but you're going to be there for
the long-term gamersquote-unquote forever.
You're not going to abandon themonce the trend is gone.
You're going to be, as you said, travis, giving them all of the
(27:10):
right tips, advice, update, notonly during the the craze, when
it's most popular, but alsobeforehand and afterwards, when
there are still probably you saymillions, maybe there's still
hundreds of thousands of peopleplaying this game once the
initial craze has died down.
So I think absolutely.
If you know there's a chancethat this is going to go big,
(27:33):
then you want to establishyourself as one of the
authorities in that space andyou know who knows.
You may find that these bigcreators are kind of referencing
your stuff because, like, youknow all of these things before
anyone else, and then there'salmost maybe that collaborative
opportunity or something, youknow, that big break that comes
(27:55):
along from it.
But it goes back to ourquestion, doesn't it?
If there's only a 1% chance ofit happening, I don't know.
It's a big risk to take.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yeah, again, I think you want to wait to find out if
it's going to happen.
If you have extra time andyou're interested in it any way,
you can always do a newschannel about it and that's very
light lift.
You just sit there and dospeculation and talk about it,
upload it.
Don't put a whole bunch ofediting in it, don't put a whole
bunch of time in it.
But you know, if you're wantingto dive in, I would wait to
know more definitively that thisthing's going to happen.
(28:25):
Uh, because, like you said, itmay or may not happen and if it
doesn't, that's a bummer.
But if it does, just do thosethings, and I'm sure you'll do.
Well, ivan's been around for awhile.
Next email againtheboostatvidiqcom is where you
can send your question.
Hi, jen and Travis.
First of all, I want to juststart off and say that Jen
spells her name with two N's,and this actually makes sense
(28:48):
because it's Jennifer.
Right, it's two N's when youtype Jennifer, and I only really
realized this very recentlythat, well, yeah, if you shorten
the name Jennifer, wouldn't itbe two N's?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
rather than one.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Like how much are you trying to shorten the name?
I guess it's interesting.
Like Travis is Trav T-R-A-V.
I mean no one calls me that,but hi, Travis and Jen Love your
sound and entertaining YouTubeadvice.
I have a YouTube channelfocusing on the topic of
extending healthy human lifespan.
The channel has been growingrelatively well and now I'm at
8,100 subscribers.
(29:21):
The bulk of these subscriberscame from videos I made that
highlight the longevityprotocols, primarily types of
exercise, diet, sleepsupplements.
Some individuals follow tobecome healthier and age slower.
From what I can tell, most ofmy current audience is
interested in supplements, aquick fix, and cutting-edge
experimental medications,therapies to extend their
(29:42):
healthy lifespans.
Over the last two to threemonths, I've been interviewing
some of the individuals on thechannel, but some of those
videos are not even getting verymany views, under 1,000.
After a few weeks of reflecting, I've decided to pivot my
channel again, but this time toalign with my day career and
expertise a PhD we have a PhDlistener.
We have the smartest listenersDr Luke Doctor.
(30:02):
Human genetics and health.
I'm working on a series ofvideos that will outline how
genetic testing can improvehealth and extend lifespan.
My question is do I publishthis series of videos on my
current channel, since itloosely overlaps with the
interest of my audience, or do Igenesis a new channel?
I've got to send that over toher.
I've heard the latter advicemultiple times for people in
(30:24):
similar situations to me, mostrecently Callaway.
So we did a recent podcastabout pivoting and it seemed to
really connect with people.
We got a fair number of emails.
We're not going through allthose today, but we've gotten
some um that might show up inthe studio, uh questions later.
Um and uh.
It's been very intriguing forpeople.
They've really felt connectedto that because they have a
(30:47):
subject that they started theiryoutube channel with and either
they are not as interestedanymore or they see popularity
in something else they'reinterested in and then the
question is like new channel orpivot?
And this is kind of what thisperson is asking.
They let's be real.
Uh, rob, for a second.
When it comes to people loselike I've, I've been on a weight
loss journey for the lastcouple of months.
(31:07):
I've lost a significant amountof weight, but I the initial.
When I first started it, theinitial question was all right,
what do I got to do for a Zenpick?
Because it's the quick and easyEveryone was doing.
It Works out.
When I found out that it didn'tdo what I thought it would do,
I just did it the natural hardway.
But most people don't want todo that.
That's why when he says thatmost of his subscribers come
(31:27):
from the what do they say?
Highlighted the luxury primarytypes of exercise, sleep, diet
supplements.
Highlighted the luxury primarytypes of exercise, sleep, diet
supplements, supplements, sleepare easy things to do, so it's
unsurprising to me that peopleare watching and subscribing for
that because they want the easything.
So now he's saying he's hewants to switch over to how
genetic testing can improvehealth and extend lifespan that
(31:48):
feels like a differentlistenership.
What?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
do you think their new idea sounds more academic
and educational and for peoplewho maybe want to learn about
this for their own uh, educationlike that maybe they don't
necessarily need that solution,but they have other motives
(32:31):
wanting to learn about thegenetic testing and the weight
loss.
So I think it's almost similarto the interviews you know,
cause I mentioned that I didsome interviews and they didn't
really get any results either.
And again, maybe it's theaudience to see, listen to these
people have a 40 minute chatand it's like, yeah, this is all
very good, but like, how do Iget put OZENPIC?
(32:55):
You that question please, yeah,uh.
So I think are we in alignmenthere that this sounds more like
a new channel rather than apivot, unless you're deciding
that you are not going to coverthat previous content on the
(33:17):
channel.
You know, maybe if you aredoing a permanent pivot, it
might be worth trying to pullsome of our audience with you,
but it sounds new channel-ish tome without knowing more about
the specifics of a topic and thecontent.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I'm going to do another one of those clips for
the editor.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Help her out, I'm going to do it right now.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
I'm about to tell you something that I usually used
to only tell coaching clients,and I'm going to do it for free,
here on the podcast right now,on how you can figure this all
out.
See, that was a pretty goodclip, right, but actually I'm
going to do that, so it's notlike just clickbait, I'm
actually going to do that.
Actually, it's super simple.
It's not like anything over themoon.
Think about this.
I want you to go to one of theYouTube channels that you like
(34:01):
to watch that you don't watchevery video, because some people
you know you'll subscribe tochannel.
You'll watch every single video, but there's some channels that
you'll watch most and askyourself, why didn't you watch
them?
And compare that to why you didwatch all the other videos.
And it's the same exactequation for any of the viewers
(34:21):
for your content.
It's the same thing.
There's probably a reason thatyou watched all the ones you did
watch and a reason you didn'twatch the other ones.
You didn't watch Cause youprobably don't have an interest
in it.
Maybe you've seen too muchstuff about it, maybe it just
doesn't align with everythingthat's on that channel.
It's the same thing.
That's exactly how you figureout your channel.
That's exactly how you do it.
It's so simple to think of itthat way.
But one of the things I'venoticed with creators is it's
(34:42):
easy for us to get in a creatormindset and completely forget
about the viewer mindset, whichis literally everything as soon
as you figure out the thing isuh, rob, what I've noticed about
like all these I've coachedchannels that have millions of
subscribers and blown theirminds with simple little things
like that, because it's reallyjust that simple and I've
(35:03):
noticed that over time, to be agood like YouTube um person, a
person that can help people growtheir YouTube channels Isn't so
much about knowing how manyclick through rates you get,
isn't so much about knowing howmany click-through rates you get
.
It's not so much that it'sabout understanding what humans
like and what they do and whatthey'll do next.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
That's where you actually get all that stuff.
I think that's really importantto say what is a viewer going
to watch next?
That's it.
If you figure that out, then itdoesn't matter what type of
content you make.
You're going to grow veryrapidly.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, last question, then it doesn't matter what type
of content you make, you'regonna grow very rapidly.
Yeah, uh, last question, andremember what I said earlier
that, uh, some of these I needto like.
I never put a limit on how longan email message is, because I
like getting emails, but when Iput them into these little
things that you can see on theon the youtube channel, I have
to crunch them.
So this one I had to edit andcrunch and I don't know, it's
kind of big.
Anyway, let me read it.
Greetings, jen and Travis, fromthis 72-year-old retired
(35:58):
engineering and IT manager whojumped into the YouTube world
almost exactly a year ago.
I just finished listening toyour Pivot vs Quitting podcast,
see, like I was saying, which Ithoroughly enjoy, just like all
of your podcasts.
Of course you do, becauseyou're an intelligent PhD, like
everyone else.
We have only PhDs that listento this podcast, but this one
was such perfect timing for me.
(36:19):
A little background For thelast 15 years I've helped
friends and many seniors withtheir tech issues and really
enjoyed doing that.
So I created my YouTube channelto share my tech knowledge with
others, helping others shed thefear of using tech and help
them enjoy the benefits thattech can offer.
The good news I monetized inabout five months with 1300
subscribers, 120 000 views and12 000 watch wow, 12 000.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
That's massive.
That's a lot like usually whensomebody has like 1300
subscribers.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
They've got like 300 hours of watch time I feel good
that this old guy was able to doit in this first year.
Now the bad news except for onevideo that went crazy, my
channel has been crawling alongbefore I finished reading this
email.
That's 99% of YouTube, which isto be clear that's not bad news
.
Just the way it works is the wayit works.
After hearing your pocketstoday, I'm now wondering if I've
(37:11):
made a mistake including mydrone videos in with my tech how
to's.
A few of the drone videos havegotten more than 500 to 600
views, so I'm thinking I messedup the channel's focus and
consequently, the YouTubealgorithm doesn't know who to
show my videos to.
So should I A stop with thedrone videos on my channel and
refocus on the tech tips.
Niche B keep the drone videosbut still refocus on the tech
(37:32):
tips.
Aspect C keep the channel onlyfor tech tips and create a new
channel for my drone videos.
I believe my tech tip videoshelp will probably be where I'll
get the most views andsubscribers, but I really enjoy
droning and sharing my droneadventures with others.
Great question, and you knowyour analytics should be able to
answer this for you, becauseyou can see, like, where most of
(37:53):
your views and subscribers arecoming from, and that's pretty
much the channel that it becomes, and then the other channel can
be the other thing.
I think that's what he said,basically that he thinks that
that's what's uh, that most ofhis uh tech videos are the ones
that have the views andsubscribers.
If that's the case, pretty easyto answer.
But what do you think of that?
It's pretty cool that an oldergentleman got out there like,
listen, I, I'm doing this andhas done it.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
That's what I want to focus on first, actually, that
this creates like a very uniqueproposition to the audience.
Like you are a baby boomer whocan actually teach fellow baby
boomers how to use tech, Becauseusually you know, see the
granddad or the grandmaapologies if I'm aging you a
(38:35):
little bit going to theirgrandson or granddaughter like
how do I use this iPhone thinghere?
Et cetera, et cetera.
So for you to be able to leaninto that aspect, if you're not
already, I think that's a greatopportunity.
I've got my head in this topica little bit because I was
making a video about it andessentially, what you're trying
to do here is discover more andmore buckets that work on your
(38:58):
channel content buckets and sowhat you've already done is
you've established a contentbucket for tech tutorials
Brilliant.
Continue to use that as afoundation of your channel.
There is nothing wrong with alsodoing a few droning or drone
videos on your channel to test anew content bucket.
(39:20):
But again, if we think about itfrom the viewer's point of view
, if I'm trying to figure outhow to turn on push
notifications for my phone likethat's the level of my technical
abilities maybe I'm pitchingthem, pitching that too high,
too low.
Common sense says it's unlikelythat they're also they're a
(39:43):
drone enthusiast.
That feels a little tootechnically advanced.
But if that's something thatyou want to test, cool, all
right.
It didn't work, but thatdoesn't mean that you shouldn't
test other ideas on your channel.
I'm thinking of like a 70-30rule here, whereby 70% of the
content is established bucketsof content that you know to work
with your audience, 30% testingother things, and if they don't
(40:05):
work then obviously you want toreduce the number of those
videos on the channel.
But if you still have a passionfor it, then yeah, that
probably is a very specializeduh, droning what?
How would you uh what would bea fun channel name for a drone
enthusiast who's droning on?
Yeah, like droning on anddroning up.
(40:26):
Like you know, I'm 72 year oldwho drone, drones in the sky and
drones out of my mouth type ofthese are the drones you're
looking for that could be likeyour passion project, if you
want.
But you know, maybe this onewhich you have now monetized,
there's now a bit more of apressure and responsibility to
(40:49):
give your current audience whatthey want, to make it a little
bit more fast, financiallysustainable.
If that's your goal, if yourgoal is just to make content
that you love making, then sure,make droning content.
But you know, maybe think abouta new channel again in my my
humble opinion I.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
I love that.
I think you're.
You're spot on.
I also love um.
I have a drone.
I have several drones actually,but only the one that I use
actively, and I'm actively.
It's got dust on it right now,so, obviously, which one have
you got recently?
Uh, I have two different ones.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
I have the, I think this, I think it's called the
spark, and then I have the uhmini two ah, I got the, so I had
a mavic for ages and then I gotthe neo, you know the really
small one, and actually that'sreally cool because I know you
just put it on your palm and itdoes very quick things
immediately and everything elsetakes a bit of setup.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
I almost wanted to buy the newest one of those and
I'm like wait a minute.
How often am I even leaving myhouse?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
So I can't justify it , but I want it.
I made the mistake of gettingthe VR headset, which is cool,
but it's a complete gimmick.
You never really use it.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
I wanted that too.
I almost wanted.
Anyway, we can go on and on.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
We are we are droning at the we're droning on,
alright, anyway so we hope thatyou enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Obviously, we have tons more.
If you're new here, hit thatsubscribe button, why not?
You've made it this far.
I mean really you should atthis point it's kind of
compulsory if you're listeningto the audio podcast leave us a
five-star review because ithelps us in the in the
podcasting algorithms typethings which kind of exists but
not really.
Regardless, we hope that youenjoy your video making day.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
That's a callback.
I'm about to tell you something that I usually used
to only tell coaching clients,and I'm gonna do it for free
here on the podcast right now.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I think YouTube does have a problem right now with AI
brain rot, whatever you want tocall it.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
This could be one of the things that YouTube should
have never done, because it'sjust stirred up too much stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
You as a creator are probably concerned about this,
but the viewer doesn't care.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that talks in
microphones about youtube.
I'm travis and I'm here withspecial guest rob, how you doing
hello question for you, travis.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
The intro that this time was, what was it more?
We talked to you withmicrophones, through headphones.
I can't remember what you saidthen, but do you create a new
one every single week?
By yourself, or do you have aito assist you?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I literally say it.
The second it comes out of mymouth, I have no idea what I'm
going to say until I say it oh,every day, every episode is new.
I have no idea what I'm going tosay, um, but welcome to the
podcast of everyone.
Uh, if you're new here, we justtalk about youtube usually,
sometimes candy, but youtube andhow to grow your youtube
channel.
Um, travis and rob is the faceof the main new vid iq channel.
(01:05):
Uh, and, by the way, speakingof intros, uh, we said in the
last episode that we would beover the moon if people want to
send us intros that we can usefor the beginning part of the
podcast.
So, send us a video, uh, thatjust kind of intros the podcast
and if it's good we'll use itbecause why not?
it can be, uh, it can be silly,it can be whatever speaking also
(01:26):
travis of behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Uh, you sent me a slack message recently where you
had said curly, whirly in yourhand, yes, and you now have a
review of said a chocolate barso funny thing is I was actually
going to mention that in thisepisode.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I did not set this up .
Uh, rob thought of this becausehe remembers what I sent him.
So it was last weekend, I thinkit was.
I was, I was at the mall, forit was fourth of july, uh and uh
, across the street from wherethey were doing all the things
there's a big mall, went inthere and they had a candy shop
and I was walking around andthey had um, different types of
candy, uh, but international,like different, like all over
the place.
It wasn't just like theUkrainian thing, and I saw a
(02:05):
Curly Whirly.
And this is the fame.
If you haven't again, if you'renot part of the lore of this
podcast.
Many months ago, when westarted talking about Cadbury
eggs and candy corn, rob hadmentioned that he liked Curly
Whirlies and I thought this wasjust the funniest name thing.
And I found a Curly Whirly inthe candy store.
So, funniest name thing and Ifound a curly whirly in the
(02:26):
candy store.
So I'm like I'm buying this,the only thing I bought.
It's literally the only thing Ibought.
I did not know what to expect.
By the way, I couldn't rememberwhat type of chocolate it was,
but it was very thin, yes, whichI'm surprised by.
Um, and I, you know because ofwhere I was when I was doing, I
actually had to put in my pocketfor a little while I was
walking around, which made itnot real, not real nice, so that
(02:46):
I'm opening it up and it doeskeep.
In fairness, even though it wasin my pocket for a little while,
it did um, it didn't completelymelt or anything, but it
definitely was looser than itwas.
When I bought pretty soft, Iimagine it was very soft.
Yes, yeah and uh, I will justsay that, um, because it's
caramel in the middle, right, Idon't know if it's fudge or
(03:07):
caramel.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
It didn't taste like fudge, uh toffee, I don't know
yeah, it's something likeingredients, but yeah, it's got
like a uh, how would youdescribe it?
Like a a, so it's hard on theoutside and then very, uh, not
liquidy, but yeah, very yeah,that and that, that, that aspect
(03:29):
of it not a fan.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Uh, that the whole kind of tearing it I, I don't
really like that.
Anyway, I get that.
Yeah, I think that's reallywhat kind of turned.
Plus, of course, it was softand weak.
So maybe, maybe, if it was alittle bit, you know, in the
refrigerator for a while and alittle bit more crisp or
something, maybe I would havedug it, but it wasn't for me.
I didn't even eat the wholething, which is wild.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And so this is from like an international candy
store in the US, right,apparently Because we have
American candy stores in the UKwhere you get things like
Reese's and Milk Duds.
That's one of our um thingsthat we miss from canada.
But what I've, what I've nowlearned, is that american candy
(04:12):
stores and vape shops in the ukare just fronts for laundering
money no, I think so.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I mean, I think there's a donut allegedly after
after that um statement, butthere you go.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Well, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
There's a donut allegedly after after that um
statement, but there you go well, here's the thing there's a
donut shop down the street frommy house that I never see people
in.
I'm like how are they still inbusiness?
How are they still in businessanyway?
Yeah, all that to say.
This is a silly podcast and Ilove talking about silly things.
Um, real quick, we're gonna hita couple news notes.
Um, very recently, the veryscary I think jen and I talked
(04:46):
about this a couple weeks ago uhmonetization, uh update, which
really wasn't even an update,came out, but it seemed to stir
a big thing in the in the entireuh youtube community, where
youtube said that you know, theywere going to clarify some
wording on AI or just videos ingeneral.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Right, it wasn't even that, it was repetitious
content.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Repetitious content.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
They never used AI at any point.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
But it got.
It's like the what is it thatthing called?
You know, when one person sayssomething and then someone else,
like telephone or whatever theycall that, when one person says
something.
By the time you saw the newsarticles, it's like people who
don't use their voice aren'tgoing to get paid.
Ai videos are going to bedemonetized, like all these
things were said by peoplecovering it that weren't ever
said by YouTube.
So clear up everything, rob.
(05:34):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So the update essentially is they've changed
their repetitious content policyto inauthentic content.
Maybe that's what led peopledown.
The AI is getting banned gardenpath and in the section on the
monetization policy, which hasbeen there for years, there are
(05:57):
changes to, I think, onesentence.
I think another section hasgone from bold font to regular
font font and they removed theword mindless content from one
of the bullet points and that ispretty much it.
So as far as I'm concerned, ifYouTube are removing something
that says mindless content, thenI don't think this is a danger
(06:18):
for AI content.
This sounds like a boo for me.
Let's get more mindless AI.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Slop out there in my judgment and opinion, of course
what's the difference between myuh brain rot and mindless?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
yeah, I don't brain for either.
I don't think so so as far asI'm concerned, there's nothing
to see here.
The tldr is.
I don't think the policies havechanged dramatically in any way
.
Shape form, I think when we getto the real subtleties, you
know, maybe dozens, hundreds ofchannels may be affected and
(06:50):
they're going to shout about iton social media and then
there'll be another scare.
But yeah, you know, youtube isreleasing AI tools.
They're using AI tools all ofthe time to encourage creators
to make content.
All of the time to encouragecreators to make content.
They are far from wanting toscare creators away from using
those tools.
That's going to lead todemonetization.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, I feel like this is.
This is just a case of people.
It's hard to know whether itwas the people who wanted to
report just to make it soundworse than it was so that you
could get clicks, kind of likeclick baiting, rage baiting or
if it really was just a genuinemisunderstanding of what was
going on, because youtubesometimes is in a black box and
we don't know everything exactlythat they're doing.
Um, at the end of the day, ifyou're listening to this podcast
(07:36):
, the chances of your channelbeing demonetized, I'm going to
say, is lower, just because youcare enough to listen to a
podcast about how to grow achannel rather than what a lot
of people do is.
They'll find a video that goeshere make money on youtube
without doing anything and, likethose channels might be the
ones that are in danger yeah,but I feel like agree more yeah
almost anyone who pays attentionto vid iq.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I almost don't feel like you're gonna have to worry
about it, generally speakingagain I guess what we will, I
all admit to is that I thinkYouTube does have a problem
right now with AI brain rot,whatever you want to call it
flooding our recommendations.
Is there going to be a way toresolve that more through
(08:18):
discovery rather thandemonetization, like lower the
discovery threshold or somethingalong those lines, which I
guess that makes it sound alittle bit more clandestine than
just straight out demonetizingpeople?
And you know, again, if wethink about YouTube's
communication on this Travis,did they get this right?
Because what I thought they didis they created an opportunity
(08:41):
for a vacuum of information,Like we're making this minor
update in a week's time, butwe're not going to tell you what
that is exactly, and soeverybody's like, oh well, let's
just assume the worst and talkabout it and get some clicks for
that reason.
So you know, YouTube maybecould have done a little bit
better.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I almost think that if they'd not made any teaser
announcement in the first placeand just announced it with
everything, so that people couldjust go to that document and
see exactly the changes,although even then, I think some
people would just drawnconclusions that ai content was
in trouble yeah, I feel like andthis is this might be just as
much for the editor as anyonebecause I want to do these
things at the beginning now, ofcourse, if you're watching the
(09:20):
video, you've already seen this,where there's like a little
intro with all the best bits atthe beginning of the podcast.
You're like, oh, would they saythis?
And they say this.
I'm going to say it right now.
I'm going to just tell youright now I'm setting it up.
This could be one of the thingsthat YouTube should have never
done, because it's just stirredup too much stuff.
So you can take that section atthe beginning of the video.
I like what you know anyway, um, but yeah, I agree, like that's
(09:50):
uh, it was a weird thing.
I think they were.
This is the thing when you'retrying to be transparent but at
the same time, making it worse.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So uh, it's called the streisand effect, more or
less.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Basically nothing to see here, but here I am.
Uh, along with that, there wasa one other thing that happened.
What were we?
I forget exactly what was itagain?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
it was the rumor that's now turned into a
confirmation that we havethumbnail A-B testing and now
that has been upgraded to titleA-B testing and within the last
24 hours we are here at vidIQbeing fortunate to gain access
to it.
I think that means like twothings essentially First of all,
we're going to make a deep diveon it, probably on the podcast
(10:23):
and on the channel, and it meansthat all we're going to make a
deep dive on it, probably on apodcast and on the channel, and
it means that if we're gettingit and full disclosure, we don't
really have any specialprivileges or access to to
youtube for us to give them thetools.
You know we are a largerchannel so like we do have I
guess you call it a partnermanager, but many channels of
(10:43):
our size have that.
So we do sometimes get earlyaccess to stuff and I think if
it's reached us, then that meansit's 100 going to be rolled out
to everybody who's eligible,which I think is like advanced
features and like not evenmonetized.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Just as long as you've got advanced features,
you should be able to do thistitle and thumbnail testing, I
would guess in the next sixmonths, you know, by the end of
this year I like this because Ithink it titles and I've been a
title guy for a long time I feellike they're just as important
as uh thumbnails in a lot ofways and perhaps most
importantly, the title inconjunction with the thumbnail
(11:19):
are really everything like youneed to have.
All of that.
The content obviously has to begood.
We're going to make a largeassumption that your content's
good.
That probably is not a goodassumption to make, but we're
just going to assume that you'remaking good content if you're
listening to the podcast.
Um, so the title, the packaging, which is what we call it the
title and thumbnail are soimportant, and to be able to
change different things and haveyoutube test them, I think is a
(11:40):
good thing.
Of course, there's going to bepeople out there that'll say, oh
, it doesn't work, and samething they'll say with you know,
the thumbnail um AB test tool,which, you know, depending on
how it's implemented, could notbe a great thing, but at least
it does something that a lot ofadvanced users were doing anyway
and does it for themautomatically, cause I would do
this all the time and changetitle quite often on things.
Um, because you got to rememberwhen you first release a video.
(12:02):
Think about the stages of avideo release.
The very first 24, 48 hours orso.
It's being shown mostly topeople that have seen your
channel before right, likepeople who are familiar with you
.
So you can use a more familiartype title, thumbnail
combination to get those peopleto click.
After that point it's going outto people who maybe have never
seen you before.
And now you've got to becompetitive with everything else
(12:24):
that's on their homepage oreverything else that's in the up
next and that might look alittle different.
That might be more clickbaity,that might be more wide-ranging
colors on the thumbnail, thatmight be more kind of over the
top, depending on your niche,right, it could be all these
things.
So, kind of over the top,depending on your niche, right,
it could be all these things.
So I feel like this is goodbecause you'll be able to test
it in the beginning and thentest it later on, which is what
you really should be using thesetools, how you should be using
(12:45):
these tools.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, I agree with you, Travis, in the sense that
the thumbnail is typically whatstops you scrolling, but in my
user experience on YouTube, it'susually the title that
convinces me to actually click.
Now, that's what gives me thecontext, that creates the
intrigue, so on and so forth.
So, as you said, the ability tomaybe have three different
(13:08):
titles, like one might be acontrol test, what you typically
use.
Another one might be theopposite of a controls test.
So maybe that's like very SEOheavy, or it's very emotively
heavy, like very emotionallytriggering, and then you could
just have one wild card as well,just to keep to try to try
something new.
That might be an interestingtest and to give you, like the,
the basic rundown.
You can test either justdifferent thumbnails the title
(13:33):
says stays the same, or justdifferent titles and the
thumbnail stays the same, or youcan have a different thumbnail
and title on all of your tests,up to a maximum of three, and it
still measures by watch time,not click through rates I think
that's a whole other discussion.
Continue to argue that, whetherthat's right or not, but I think
(13:54):
that's what YouTube's stickingwith, I think.
To me, it feels like YouTubeuses watch time because it's a
bit more of a muddy metric thatthey can hide behind, as opposed
to click-through rate, which isvery definite as a number, in
my opinion.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, I think the one thing that messes them up is
they'll say that we're using itto figure out the quality of the
click, more or less kind oflike that's the whole purpose
because you're watching longer,but the reality is later on.
If you were to search throughall their things, you'll find
out that the recommendationengine doesn't just use watch
time, it uses like a whole bunchof other signals.
So why don't you connect it tothat?
(14:32):
Why can't it be connected tothe recommendation engine and
whatever is being recommended?
More use that thumbnail titlelike that to me, is more
important.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
The question there is how do you quantify that?
To the, to the creator.
Not my problem, or a percentage, all right.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Fair enough, I don't care, just tell me the thumbnail
, tell me which one.
Which one are you going to givemore impressions to?
That's all I need to know.
I don't need the othershenanigans.
Just tell me that that's whatwe all want.
And people are going to say wewant more views, but really
that's more about peopleclicking.
The only thing YouTube can giveyou is impressions.
They can't give you views, theycan give you impressions.
People will click, so give memore impressions, all right.
(15:16):
So us the boost at vidIQcom, andalso we're doing a little
contest where Jen and I aregoing in the studio in a couple
of weeks and we would love foryou to use our script maker here
at vidIQ.
And we have a couple ofsubmissions already, which I
can't wait to read, where youwill use the script maker to
make a skit for Jen and I.
I saw one of them.
I think it's something.
I haven't read the script yet,but I saw the.
The.
(15:36):
The subject line, I think, hassomething to do with candy.
So I mean, we're super excitedabout this.
So if you want to use ourscript maker, so you go to
VidIQcom, you sign in and you goto create and there's a script
maker and I've talked about thison a previous episode.
I love it.
I think it's amazing.
Send us a script that Jen and Iand today we're going to go
over some emails and that is attheboostatvidiqcom.
We have a couple that we'regoing to talk to today and the
(16:04):
first one comes from Mark Marksays hey, jen and Travis, or, in
this particular case, we wantto say Rob Yo.
Please help me understand this.
The screenshot below shows thesame outlier short.
Sorry, jen, that's why she'sobvious question and just didn't
turn up.
I know, right, uh.
Posted in uh early march of2025, before youtube updated
their view count strategy.
(16:24):
While I'm more than gratefulfor the initial success of this
short, the overall count seemedwildly exaggerated after the
update.
I have a few other outliers.
This happened to as well,though not as really dramatic as
the examples below.
Do you feel this is amisrepresentation of the value
of a video to the YouTube viewer?
At first, I thought YouTube hadbeen combining the old shown in
feed metric, but I have no ideanow.
(16:45):
To put this in some context,I'm a small creator.
My channel consists of sillyLego builds.
Most of my videos are 6.9seconds in length.
I do this, so YouTube rounds itup to seven seconds.
That seems to be my sweet spot,but that's another story.
I'm in the us with more thanhalf of my audience spread out
in other countries.
At any rate, I realize thisletter.
Uh feels a little braggy, butwe must celebrate each other's
victories and what he's showingis, within the first uh, you
(17:07):
know however many days?
Uh, three million views, um, onboth, but the uh the views are
18 million views versus theengaged views of 11 million
views.
Ironically, dan and I talkedabout this exact metric in the
last episode and that we believethat the only reason YouTube
did this at all was because ofTikTok, and that it's easy when
(17:30):
you can say to people that youcan get more views on YouTube
for your shorts, regardless ofhow they're counted, then you
can at TikTok.
Where do you think creators aregoing to go?
Uh?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
yeah, so give me more views.
Uh answer really isn't it Ithink in a lot of ways this
almost is closer to beingimpressions now the regular view
number is like impressions andthen the engaged views are the
actual like views this is a longquestion and I'm trying to
(18:01):
remember what the actualquestion is a misrepresentation,
misrepresentation of value,value of view?
I?
I guess to all of us who'vebeen making short form content
for the last four or five yearsand all of a sudden YouTube
flicks a switch.
Then the answer is yes.
In one sense, however, this isa completely level playing field
(18:24):
.
It's not just impacted you andno one else.
Everybody is now having to dealwith these new view counts and,
somewhat unfortunately, fromone perspective, this doesn't
impact how much you get paid,because you're still paid based
on engaged views.
So that's a bit of a learningcurve for creators.
Uh, I, I have to be just kind ofblunt and honest because I
(18:48):
can't think of a more nuanced uhanswer to this mark.
But, like you're worrying aboutthe wrong metric, I think the
focusing on, like your averageview duration and making sure
that your content is shared outis to file.
More important thing, and Iwill be thinking more about, is
the value of a viewmisrepresented.
Now I'll be thinking more abouthow, how can I replicate this
(19:10):
success?
How can I get people, how can Iget another 11 million engaged
people to watch my next shot?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
yeah, it is.
I forget every single see I?
We do shorts now on the on thepodcast channel, and I haven't
done shorts in many, in many,many months, and watching them
I'm going oh, these videos aregetting better views than when I
used to do shorts and I justnow realize oh, it's annoying,
it's annoying yes, uh, itdoesn't.
They're not doing any better.
They're probably doing aboutthe same.
(19:36):
They just look differentbecause the views are a little
different and this is just aweird, and dan brought up some
really good points about this.
Uh, I you know I give dan a lotof hard time about stuff, but
he brought up some really goodpoints about the views being
kind of uh, misleading and itand it just makes for a
confusing experience and it'sthe one thing where they it's
not actually he was wrong.
This one thing I forgot tomention this it's the one he was
(19:57):
saying like it's the one placein the metrics and stuff where
the numbers are way different.
But they also do it with livestreams, because they do it
while it's live and then theytreat it as a, as a published
video later, and so thosenumbers look weird too.
It's very confusing for a lotof creators.
They're like wait a minute.
It said I had this many viewswhen I was live and now it says
I have less views.
Well, that's because now it'sconsidered a VOD, a video on
demand, so they're counting itdifferently.
(20:19):
Youtube needs, you know theytalk about wanting to simplify
things.
They want you to put all youruploads everywhere, just make
everything.
Then they do this and it's likehave you really simplified
anything?
How simple is this?
Not very simple.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I think I will also say this.
I'm trying to work out if thisis actually true, because I
don't watch that many shorts inthe shorts feed.
But I'm right in thinking,Travis, if you're just flicking
through the shorts, you neversee the view count right.
You want to see the engagement.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
I can't find the view count on a short period or when
it was posted.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I can't find the view count on a short period like I
look or when it was, when it wasposted, like I can't figure
that out.
So if you go to like somebody'schannel and go in the shots,
you can see the views there,because we see that yeah, that,
yeah I think the majority, thevast majority of people watching
your shots don't know.
Although they don't, there's notthat immediate social proof of
how many views the video has,like sure you can see from the
likes and whatnot.
(21:12):
So it's somewhat hidden fromthe viewer's perspective.
Like, you, as a creator, areprobably concerned about this,
but the viewer doesn't carebecause they don't think they're
seeing that.
And also just an interestinglittle side story.
I made a short about thischange and some of you know my
YouTube.
Yes, man right, man Right.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
The guy I love that.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yes, so everything Right.
So I filmed a short which waslike how's get more YouTube
shorts for using 2025.
And it's basically the YouTubeshorts man, and this is going to
be good for video views, butnot the audio podcast.
But, like me holding a phonegoing yes, yes, yes, yes,
because you're doing it asquickly as that and you're
getting a view right and that'sshort.
(21:53):
Now, where I say yes, eighttimes, that is literally short.
Yes, eight times, it's got418,000 views.
No, no, sorry, that's 418,000short views.
How many engaged views has itgot?
I can't tell.
Now Where's that figure.
It should be in like the uh,engagement engagement all right,
(22:17):
okay, 418 000 views, all right,186 000 engaged views right, so
it's less than half sure.
But the hilarious thing is isbecause I titled it how to get
more youtube shorts views.
It's ranking at the top ofyoutube search for that term for
shorts that's hilarious.
Now I'm getting like 600 viewsan hour on a video which
(22:37):
literally says yes eight timesand then just loops over I want,
I want to do like a thing.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
As you're saying this .
I'm like it would be great tohave a series of videos where dr
savage tries to get the yes manto say no one time.
And it's just a challenge oflike and it just gets, oh my god
, like strong, bad if you everused to watch, uh, homestar
runner anyway, um, all that tosay don't worry about it, make
better content all right so next, I'll make the same content if
(23:03):
you get an 11 million views.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I'll take that that's true.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
That's actually not a bad thing.
Uh, next one comes from ivan.
Again, the boost at videoqcomenormous.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Oh so here's the look .
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Wait until you see later on, there's one I had to
cut down and so I had to cut itso many ways just to get it in
there.
Uh, hello, jen travis, how goesit now?
Here's something interesting uh, rob, I watch a lot of, uh,
british television.
Yeah, I know which is kind ofweird to say, but, um, I love
the show, can't pay, we'll takeit away.
Uh.
And then also there's anotherone that's about like, uh,
evicting people and stuff, whichis really interesting.
(23:38):
I love that stuff.
Um, and one of the thingsyou'll hear some of the people
say and again, I've watchedbritish comedy and stuff for
years, british shows for yearsbut I hear them say this one
phrase I had never really heardbefore I started watching the
show, and that's um, when youcome up to someone, they'll say,
uh, all right, are you or no?
What did they say?
Um, uh, how you?
Not?
It's not like how you like, wewould say how you're doing with
the like, uh, you're all right,right, or something like that,
(24:00):
all right you're right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it'slike you're actually like
telling them what they'resupposed to say.
That's part of the greeting,you're all right.
So how goes?
It is american, but like you'reall right and I'm like like no,
you're kicking me out of myhouse.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
So even my response to you is how goes what?
Speaker 1 (24:19):
how goes?
What exactly?
Oh man, all right, with therecent cancellation and small
possibility of the resurrectionof the game hightail a very
popular upcoming minecraft-likegame that I planned on creating
a new channel for, and it'sbrought a few questions to mind.
Hytale has had millions ofpeople super excited for its
release for years, meaning thatif the game were to release,
(24:40):
there would be a great flood ofcreators all joining in to cover
the game, including many verypopular, well-known creators
with millions of subscribersalready.
In a case like this, assumingthis game or niche sticks out
around or sticks around for along while, what would be the
best way for a smaller creatorto stand out amongst the rush?
I have almost three K subs onmy Minecraft channel.
A few good of them areinterested in what I would do in
(25:02):
Hytale.
However, even if I can get allthose subs over, I doubt it
would be enough to stand outamongst the overpopulation.
It is estimated that I onlyhave 1% chance of encountering
this situation.
First of all, who estimated that?
I just want to know what.
But I'm curious to know whatthe best plan of action would be
to stand up in a sub-popularitylike this.
Thanks for taking the time.
(25:22):
Have a great candy corn-filledday.
So I like this question becauseI've seen a couple of channels
that have established primarychannels and then something new
is coming out that they'reinterested in and they start a
new channel.
They want to kind of get inearly on and it is possible to
break through early in on atopic that's big, especially if
(25:43):
you know it's going to be bigand you know Ivan says here that
he knows this game is going tobe big Now.
First of all, if it's going toget canceled, that would be
terrible, but knowing that inadvance, for me I'm saying the
strategy early on is what arethe videos that people who will
be new to that game will want toknow immediately?
Make those first.
That's how you stand out,because a lot of them are going
to be news-related stuff, whichis fine and you can do that and
(26:04):
you maybe should do that.
But then you're going to want toanswer all the questions that
any new player is going to wantto know about this game and why
they should want to play it, andI think some of the bigger
channels may not necessarily dothat right off the bat until the
game is released, um, and maybenot even then, because they'll
be doing like new stuff and likewatch me play and stuff.
But if you're trying to justget in there, I'm answering
every single question.
(26:25):
A new player would want to knowwhat would you do, rob?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah, I agree.
I guess there's a certainelement of hedging your bets.
Is it worth my time to investall of this content in something
that may never get released?
And I think, ultimately, you'vegot to answer that question
first.
If the answer is yes, then youhave to treat it like this yeah,
(26:48):
those big creators are going tosteamroll the trending aspect
of this when it gets released,but you're going to be there for
the long-term gamersquote-unquote forever.
You're not going to abandon themonce the trend is gone.
You're going to be, as you said, travis, giving them all of the
(27:10):
right tips, advice, update, notonly during the the craze, when
it's most popular, but alsobeforehand and afterwards, when
there are still probably you saymillions, maybe there's still
hundreds of thousands of peopleplaying this game once the
initial craze has died down.
So I think absolutely.
If you know there's a chancethat this is going to go big,
(27:33):
then you want to establishyourself as one of the
authorities in that space andyou know who knows.
You may find that these bigcreators are kind of referencing
your stuff because, like, youknow all of these things before
anyone else, and then there'salmost maybe that collaborative
opportunity or something, youknow, that big break that comes
(27:55):
along from it.
But it goes back to ourquestion, doesn't it?
If there's only a 1% chance ofit happening, I don't know.
It's a big risk to take.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yeah, again, I think you want to wait to find out if
it's going to happen.
If you have extra time andyou're interested in it any way,
you can always do a newschannel about it and that's very
light lift.
You just sit there and dospeculation and talk about it,
upload it.
Don't put a whole bunch ofediting in it, don't put a whole
bunch of time in it.
But you know, if you're wantingto dive in, I would wait to
know more definitively that thisthing's going to happen.
(28:25):
Uh, because, like you said, itmay or may not happen and if it
doesn't, that's a bummer.
But if it does, just do thosethings, and I'm sure you'll do.
Well, ivan's been around for awhile.
Next email againtheboostatvidiqcom is where you
can send your question.
Hi, jen and Travis.
First of all, I want to juststart off and say that Jen
spells her name with two N's,and this actually makes sense
(28:48):
because it's Jennifer.
Right, it's two N's when youtype Jennifer, and I only really
realized this very recentlythat, well, yeah, if you shorten
the name Jennifer, wouldn't itbe two N's?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
rather than one.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Like how much are you trying to shorten the name?
I guess it's interesting.
Like Travis is Trav T-R-A-V.
I mean no one calls me that,but hi, Travis and Jen Love your
sound and entertaining YouTubeadvice.
I have a YouTube channelfocusing on the topic of
extending healthy human lifespan.
The channel has been growingrelatively well and now I'm at
8,100 subscribers.
(29:21):
The bulk of these subscriberscame from videos I made that
highlight the longevityprotocols, primarily types of
exercise, diet, sleepsupplements.
Some individuals follow tobecome healthier and age slower.
From what I can tell, most ofmy current audience is
interested in supplements, aquick fix, and cutting-edge
experimental medications,therapies to extend their
(29:42):
healthy lifespans.
Over the last two to threemonths, I've been interviewing
some of the individuals on thechannel, but some of those
videos are not even getting verymany views, under 1,000.
After a few weeks of reflecting, I've decided to pivot my
channel again, but this time toalign with my day career and
expertise a PhD we have a PhDlistener.
We have the smartest listenersDr Luke Doctor.
(30:02):
Human genetics and health.
I'm working on a series ofvideos that will outline how
genetic testing can improvehealth and extend lifespan.
My question is do I publishthis series of videos on my
current channel, since itloosely overlaps with the
interest of my audience, or do Igenesis a new channel?
I've got to send that over toher.
I've heard the latter advicemultiple times for people in
(30:24):
similar situations to me, mostrecently Callaway.
So we did a recent podcastabout pivoting and it seemed to
really connect with people.
We got a fair number of emails.
We're not going through allthose today, but we've gotten
some um that might show up inthe studio, uh questions later.
Um and uh.
It's been very intriguing forpeople.
They've really felt connectedto that because they have a
(30:47):
subject that they started theiryoutube channel with and either
they are not as interestedanymore or they see popularity
in something else they'reinterested in and then the
question is like new channel orpivot?
And this is kind of what thisperson is asking.
They let's be real.
Uh, rob, for a second.
When it comes to people loselike I've, I've been on a weight
loss journey for the lastcouple of months.
(31:07):
I've lost a significant amountof weight, but I the initial.
When I first started it, theinitial question was all right,
what do I got to do for a Zenpick?
Because it's the quick and easyEveryone was doing.
It Works out.
When I found out that it didn'tdo what I thought it would do,
I just did it the natural hardway.
But most people don't want todo that.
That's why when he says thatmost of his subscribers come
(31:27):
from the what do they say?
Highlighted the luxury primarytypes of exercise, sleep, diet
supplements.
Highlighted the luxury primarytypes of exercise, sleep, diet
supplements, supplements, sleepare easy things to do, so it's
unsurprising to me that peopleare watching and subscribing for
that because they want the easything.
So now he's saying he's hewants to switch over to how
genetic testing can improvehealth and extend lifespan that
(31:48):
feels like a differentlistenership.
What?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
do you think their new idea sounds more academic
and educational and for peoplewho maybe want to learn about
this for their own uh, educationlike that maybe they don't
necessarily need that solution,but they have other motives
(32:31):
wanting to learn about thegenetic testing and the weight
loss.
So I think it's almost similarto the interviews you know,
cause I mentioned that I didsome interviews and they didn't
really get any results either.
And again, maybe it's theaudience to see, listen to these
people have a 40 minute chatand it's like, yeah, this is all
very good, but like, how do Iget put OZENPIC?
(32:55):
You that question please, yeah,uh.
So I think are we in alignmenthere that this sounds more like
a new channel rather than apivot, unless you're deciding
that you are not going to coverthat previous content on the
(33:17):
channel.
You know, maybe if you aredoing a permanent pivot, it
might be worth trying to pullsome of our audience with you,
but it sounds new channel-ish tome without knowing more about
the specifics of a topic and thecontent.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I'm going to do another one of those clips for
the editor.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Help her out, I'm going to do it right now.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
I'm about to tell you something that I usually used
to only tell coaching clients,and I'm going to do it for free,
here on the podcast right now,on how you can figure this all
out.
See, that was a pretty goodclip, right, but actually I'm
going to do that, so it's notlike just clickbait, I'm
actually going to do that.
Actually, it's super simple.
It's not like anything over themoon.
Think about this.
I want you to go to one of theYouTube channels that you like
(34:01):
to watch that you don't watchevery video, because some people
you know you'll subscribe tochannel.
You'll watch every single video, but there's some channels that
you'll watch most and askyourself, why didn't you watch
them?
And compare that to why you didwatch all the other videos.
And it's the same exactequation for any of the viewers
(34:21):
for your content.
It's the same thing.
There's probably a reason thatyou watched all the ones you did
watch and a reason you didn'twatch the other ones.
You didn't watch Cause youprobably don't have an interest
in it.
Maybe you've seen too muchstuff about it, maybe it just
doesn't align with everythingthat's on that channel.
It's the same thing.
That's exactly how you figureout your channel.
That's exactly how you do it.
It's so simple to think of itthat way.
But one of the things I'venoticed with creators is it's
(34:42):
easy for us to get in a creatormindset and completely forget
about the viewer mindset, whichis literally everything as soon
as you figure out the thing isuh, rob, what I've noticed about
like all these I've coachedchannels that have millions of
subscribers and blown theirminds with simple little things
like that, because it's reallyjust that simple and I've
(35:03):
noticed that over time, to be agood like YouTube um person, a
person that can help people growtheir YouTube channels Isn't so
much about knowing how manyclick through rates you get,
isn't so much about knowing howmany click-through rates you get
.
It's not so much that it'sabout understanding what humans
like and what they do and whatthey'll do next.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
That's where you actually get all that stuff.
I think that's really importantto say what is a viewer going
to watch next?
That's it.
If you figure that out, then itdoesn't matter what type of
content you make.
You're going to grow veryrapidly.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, last question, then it doesn't matter what type
of content you make, you'regonna grow very rapidly.
Yeah, uh, last question, andremember what I said earlier
that, uh, some of these I needto like.
I never put a limit on how longan email message is, because I
like getting emails, but when Iput them into these little
things that you can see on theon the youtube channel, I have
to crunch them.
So this one I had to edit andcrunch and I don't know, it's
kind of big.
Anyway, let me read it.
Greetings, jen and Travis, fromthis 72-year-old retired
(35:58):
engineering and IT manager whojumped into the YouTube world
almost exactly a year ago.
I just finished listening toyour Pivot vs Quitting podcast,
see, like I was saying, which Ithoroughly enjoy, just like all
of your podcasts.
Of course you do, becauseyou're an intelligent PhD, like
everyone else.
We have only PhDs that listento this podcast, but this one
was such perfect timing for me.
(36:19):
A little background For thelast 15 years I've helped
friends and many seniors withtheir tech issues and really
enjoyed doing that.
So I created my YouTube channelto share my tech knowledge with
others, helping others shed thefear of using tech and help
them enjoy the benefits thattech can offer.
The good news I monetized inabout five months with 1300
subscribers, 120 000 views and12 000 watch wow, 12 000.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
That's massive.
That's a lot like usually whensomebody has like 1300
subscribers.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
They've got like 300 hours of watch time I feel good
that this old guy was able to doit in this first year.
Now the bad news except for onevideo that went crazy, my
channel has been crawling alongbefore I finished reading this
email.
That's 99% of YouTube, which isto be clear that's not bad news
.
Just the way it works is the wayit works.
After hearing your pocketstoday, I'm now wondering if I've
(37:11):
made a mistake including mydrone videos in with my tech how
to's.
A few of the drone videos havegotten more than 500 to 600
views, so I'm thinking I messedup the channel's focus and
consequently, the YouTubealgorithm doesn't know who to
show my videos to.
So should I A stop with thedrone videos on my channel and
refocus on the tech tips.
Niche B keep the drone videosbut still refocus on the tech
(37:32):
tips.
Aspect C keep the channel onlyfor tech tips and create a new
channel for my drone videos.
I believe my tech tip videoshelp will probably be where I'll
get the most views andsubscribers, but I really enjoy
droning and sharing my droneadventures with others.
Great question, and you knowyour analytics should be able to
answer this for you, becauseyou can see, like, where most of
(37:53):
your views and subscribers arecoming from, and that's pretty
much the channel that it becomes, and then the other channel can
be the other thing.
I think that's what he said,basically that he thinks that
that's what's uh, that most ofhis uh tech videos are the ones
that have the views andsubscribers.
If that's the case, pretty easyto answer.
But what do you think of that?
It's pretty cool that an oldergentleman got out there like,
listen, I, I'm doing this andhas done it.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
That's what I want to focus on first, actually, that
this creates like a very uniqueproposition to the audience.
Like you are a baby boomer whocan actually teach fellow baby
boomers how to use tech, Becauseusually you know, see the
granddad or the grandmaapologies if I'm aging you a
(38:35):
little bit going to theirgrandson or granddaughter like
how do I use this iPhone thinghere?
Et cetera, et cetera.
So for you to be able to leaninto that aspect, if you're not
already, I think that's a greatopportunity.
I've got my head in this topica little bit because I was
making a video about it andessentially, what you're trying
to do here is discover more andmore buckets that work on your
(38:58):
channel content buckets and sowhat you've already done is
you've established a contentbucket for tech tutorials
Brilliant.
Continue to use that as afoundation of your channel.
There is nothing wrong with alsodoing a few droning or drone
videos on your channel to test anew content bucket.
(39:20):
But again, if we think about itfrom the viewer's point of view
, if I'm trying to figure outhow to turn on push
notifications for my phone likethat's the level of my technical
abilities maybe I'm pitchingthem, pitching that too high,
too low.
Common sense says it's unlikelythat they're also they're a
(39:43):
drone enthusiast.
That feels a little tootechnically advanced.
But if that's something thatyou want to test, cool, all
right.
It didn't work, but thatdoesn't mean that you shouldn't
test other ideas on your channel.
I'm thinking of like a 70-30rule here, whereby 70% of the
content is established bucketsof content that you know to work
with your audience, 30% testingother things, and if they don't
(40:05):
work then obviously you want toreduce the number of those
videos on the channel.
But if you still have a passionfor it, then yeah, that
probably is a very specializeduh, droning what?
How would you uh what would bea fun channel name for a drone
enthusiast who's droning on?
Yeah, like droning on anddroning up.
(40:26):
Like you know, I'm 72 year oldwho drone, drones in the sky and
drones out of my mouth type ofthese are the drones you're
looking for that could be likeyour passion project, if you
want.
But you know, maybe this onewhich you have now monetized,
there's now a bit more of apressure and responsibility to
(40:49):
give your current audience whatthey want, to make it a little
bit more fast, financiallysustainable.
If that's your goal, if yourgoal is just to make content
that you love making, then sure,make droning content.
But you know, maybe think abouta new channel again in my my
humble opinion I.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
I love that.
I think you're.
You're spot on.
I also love um.
I have a drone.
I have several drones actually,but only the one that I use
actively, and I'm actively.
It's got dust on it right now,so, obviously, which one have
you got recently?
Uh, I have two different ones.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
I have the, I think this, I think it's called the
spark, and then I have the uhmini two ah, I got the, so I had
a mavic for ages and then I gotthe neo, you know the really
small one, and actually that'sreally cool because I know you
just put it on your palm and itdoes very quick things
immediately and everything elsetakes a bit of setup.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
I almost wanted to buy the newest one of those and
I'm like wait a minute.
How often am I even leaving myhouse?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
So I can't justify it , but I want it.
I made the mistake of gettingthe VR headset, which is cool,
but it's a complete gimmick.
You never really use it.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
I wanted that too.
I almost wanted.
Anyway, we can go on and on.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
We are we are droning at the we're droning on,
alright, anyway so we hope thatyou enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Obviously, we have tons more.
If you're new here, hit thatsubscribe button, why not?
You've made it this far.
I mean really you should atthis point it's kind of
compulsory if you're listeningto the audio podcast leave us a
five-star review because ithelps us in the in the
podcasting algorithms typethings which kind of exists but
not really.
Regardless, we hope that youenjoy your video making day.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
That's a callback.
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