Is Vlogging Making A Come Back? Featuring Benji Travis

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We explore the revolutionary shift happening in YouTube content creation with special guest Benji Travis, filmed in-person for the first time ever in Benji's studio. Today's conversation unveils how "dead" vlogs are now dominating on the platform through an unexpected return to authenticity.

• The surprising power of unedited, 30+ minute videos gaining millions of views
• Why YouTube's dominance as a TV platform is creating massive opportunities for creators
• How the algorithm is now finding perfect audiences for small creators without promotion
• The "Three T's" framework for successful modern vlogging: Theme, Topic/Takeaway, and Telling stories
• Why highly-produced content is becoming less effective as viewers seek more authentic experiences
• Creating content specifically for the "couch viewer" instead of mobile optimization
• How this shift represents a space with high demand but low competition
• The revelation that YouTube's advanced AI is making success more accessible to new creators

Check out VloggingAcademy.com/checklist for Benji's complete guide to creating successful vlogs using his three T's framework.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that sometimes
is in person for the first timeever.
I'm Travis and guess what?
I'm here in person.
Finally, with Jen, jen, we didit In real life.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
We did it Real life.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
It finally happened.
But why did it happen?
It happened because we're herewith a very special guest and
the host really hosting us forthis podcast episode, Benji
Travis, longtime friend, how youdoing, buddy, it's good I'm
doing great.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
You guys are here.
It's been a while since we hungout and it just met jen we just
so, I'm pumped and I'm a fan ofthe podcast which finally is on
youtube.
It's crazy that vid iq didn'thave it on youtube.
Seriously, so, uh, honored tobe here and excited for the
conversation, I think um.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
One thing that we were talking about right before
we went live is uh, there'ssomething about being in person
and, for the viewers of the show, finally, they get to see Jen
and I here making fun of eachother in person, which is great.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
They get to see our height difference.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
That's the real shebang.
We might have to do ascreenshot of that later on.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Wait no, I was told to sit up really tall, so you
might not notice it.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
But more than that, I think to what you were saying,
which I think is reallyimportant is is really important
is when we're havingconversations with people, while
you can have the sameconversation over video in
person, there's something elsethat happens.
There's like a chemistry thathappens.
There's just these moments thathappen, that can't happen over
video, and that's why you builtthis right.
Talk a little bit about thisstudio that we're in right now.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Oh yeah.
Well, this YouTube studio wasfor my business.
My wife and I have beencreators since 2008.
It's evolved.
I started multiple channels,one of them being video
influencers, and so I wasinterviewing people on location.
So oftentimes VidCon or otherindustry events, and then
sometimes locally, I wouldinterview people and I would go

(01:37):
to their studio or wherever theyfilm.
So I decided to create this,and then the pandemic happens,
right.
So we still use it as arecording studio to record
podcasts for other peoplewhenever I do interviews, hence
why you're here.
But that's why.
But, yeah, I totally believe inthe power of the human
connection and, of course, we'retalking about in studio, live

(01:59):
in person.
But I think it also speaks towhat makes YouTube special.
See, I was just talking to someother creators earlier about
YouTube 2007, 2008.
Why was that so significantcompared to anything else?
It's because you wereconnecting with other people
anywhere in the world.
Though it's not in person,you're connecting with somebody

(02:21):
you had a similar interest topassion, hobby, whatever, and so
that is going to be 100x ifyou're in person with that
person, right?
But I think, beyond us talkingright now, who's out there
that's going to watch this,that's interested in the same
topics.
I know we're going to betalking about vlogging,
obviously YouTube and that, tome, is just like what we're

(02:45):
doing here in person in mystudio.
But again, if we're talkingabout YouTube, you're able to
connect with other people thatare passionate, in some cases
obsessed, on the same topic asyou, and I think that's one
reason you and I became friendstoo, because we both loved
YouTube and helping othercreators.
I know we have completelydifferent niches in our own

(03:06):
personal channels, but if itwasn't for YouTube, we wouldn't
have that connection, and so Ithink that's one of the reasons
why in-person is really powerful, but just kind of speaks to the
power of YouTube.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
I love that Now you and Jen have something in common
you both vlog, and wedefinitely want to talk a little
bit about that.
It was a niche that once upon atime was super big, and then
people thought that it was dying, and now there's seemingly like
a resurgence of some sort.
How do you?
I'd love to hear you guys talkshop about this, by the way,
because I've always kind ofwanted to vlog, but I'm just not
interesting enough.

(03:39):
So I would love to hear whatyour thoughts are on this and
then see what Jen has to say,what she's seen as well.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, you know so, my wife.
She started in 2008 as a beautycreator and I was just managing
the business in the background.
I was really just like thetoken boyfriend in the
background, just like would showup once in a while.
I didn't think anything of it,and then slowly she started
vlogging, without it beingcalled vlogging in the beginning
, and I was included in that,and so she wanted to do more of

(04:07):
that type of content.
So she started her actual vlogchannel because of me.
I was like, hey, this is likethrowaway content.
I know you want to do thisbecause you know you see other
creators doing it.
Let's start a whole notherchannel you can put whatever you
want over there.
And so her first channel calledit's Judy Time.
Her second one called it'sJudy's Life.
I actually was the one thatcame up with the name, which is

(04:28):
kind of crazy.
She's a star of my life, so Idon't want to take any of the
credit away, but I was the onethat said, hey, let's start this
second channel, not knowingthat one or two years later, it
would become her vlog channel.
So we started when vlogging wasreally birthing into YouTube

(04:50):
and obviously everybody startedwatching vlogs.
Casey Neistat came into thescene and it became a thing and,
yes, in 2015, 16, 17,.
At that height, it was alsostarting to die, and we can go
into why that happened.
Long story short.
People literally thought vlogsare dead, but then in 2020, I
started noticing vlogs came back, but these were completely

(05:11):
opposite Meaning as time went on.
One of the reasons why I thinkvlogging died is because it got
so competitive and so produced.
You can actually blame Caseyfor this to a certain degree,
and I think this is one of thereasons he got burnt out.
It took so much effort, so muchproduction and crazy ideas.
We don't have to talk aboutwhich creators are doing this,
but the most craziest stuff youcan imagine.

(05:33):
That's what got all theattention for vlogs.
So people that were doing morelike laid back stuff.
So when you're doing that andyou're optimizing for attention
and excitement and entertainment, the vlogs were starting to get
shorter right, more produced.
Fast forward to 2020, when vlogswere dead.
One hour vlogs getting amillion views.
A guy literally working out thegym, sam solik shopping at the

(06:00):
grocery store for protein shakes, no editing at all, all million
views.
Why was that happening?
I was like this is likevlogging 2008 status.
Why is this working?
And so that's what led me downthis rabbit hole of not only
watching the vlogs but startingto vlog in this new method that
I saw these kids really doing.

(06:21):
That wasn't really.
There was not a lot ofattention on it because YouTube
shorts got all the attentionright the competitor to TikTok.
So, of course, me being this youknow, grandpa, in the YouTube
space I'm still like vloggingwith my wife at this time, even
though vlogging was dead, wewere still doing that, and not
because we were worried aboutbeing famous or whatever.
Like that's just what we did.

(06:42):
We did it genuinely because weloved it.
It wasn't because being famousor whatever.
Like that's just what we did.
We did it genuinely because weloved it.
It wasn't because it was trendy.
It was just something we'redoing before it became trendy.
So you combine my love andgenuine interest in vlogs plus
this new wave of YouTube andthis new style of vlogging, and
that's what led me to vloggingagain and what I've experienced
in the success of my personalchannel, and so that's kind of

(07:04):
what I'm seeing.
There's a new way of vloggingthat's getting a lot of views
and it's easier, and there's, Ithink, some significant reasons
why it's successful.
I'm curious what you see, jen,in terms of your perspective,
why you're vlogging right now,even yeah, I mean, people got
burnt out of overproducedcontent in general.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
We're in a new era of YouTube, where YouTube is now
TV.
Youtube themselves said it's TV, now we're podcasts and we're
TV, so it makes sense.
I also think that people becamevery burnt out and
overstimulated with short formcontent and it's the polar
opposite.
How do I watch something that'slike 60 seconds or less and it
leaves me feeling justabsolutely insane?

(07:45):
I want to watch somethingthat's like 60 seconds or less
and it leaves me feeling justabsolutely insane.
I want to watch somethingthat's completely unedited and I
can sit back and I can relaxand I can clean my house while
something's on my TV.
It's the new background noise,but also the new relatability,
and it's just all stemmed fromwhat I think is a million
different reasons.
But I would say the highlyproduced content is so dated, so

(08:08):
so gone, and it's a hardconversation to have with people
who still like that content.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
And you know my thought on that is 100% agree
with everything you just said.
It's crazy because you took thewords out of my mouth Like
literally we can just stop thepodcast here, because basically
that's what I was gonna say butthere's still room for that
highly produced stuff becauseyou see those videos still
getting views.
It's just this other style ofcontent, the vlogging style.

(08:36):
It seems like it shouldn't workand that's why people, like are
conflicted.
They're like look at mr beast,not only is he getting 100
million views on youtube, he'son amazon prime.
He's like giving 10 milliondollars away.
I think that guy won 10 million, after taxes, 5 million, but
it's still a lot of money, rightand so like, why is this like

(08:57):
more casual stuff, working and Idon't want to assume anything
about your age, but you probablyfrom a different generation
than me, because everything yousaid is what all those new
vloggers have been telling me.
They're like I don't like thatshort form, highly choppy,
overly produced kind of stuff.
I want to do somethingdifferent and actually there's a

(09:18):
guy that I want to talk abouttoday.
His name is Matt, a cook namedMatt.
He was one of the biggest foodTikTokers and then went to
YouTube Shorts.
He's done really well, but he'slike I think, besides us being
genuine friends, he also waslike how do you vlog?
I want to vlog myself right.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think that's a big component.
Right there is that we have ageneration who started their
social media careers on TikTokand they don't know how to do
YouTube.
They literally don't know howto do it.
So you get someone who's onlyknown how to make short form
content and then when they go toproduce something, they don't
have the editing skills, theydon't have the punchy effects,
like they don't even have thoseskills.

(09:56):
That was the only thing you did10 years ago.
So now we have just thisgeneration of people who are
making content because that'sjust literally how they know how
to make content.
When it's I'm making my firstYouTube video ever.
I have a million subscribers onor followers on TikTok, but I'm
still making my first YouTubevideo ever.
It's a crazy, it's a.

(10:17):
It's a big path for a lot ofpeople.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
And it was funny is because you would think vlogging
of this new style is like theold way of doing it, but they're
doing it a little bitdifferently.
And Austin, who's here instudio with us.
He works with me and mycoaching program.
One of the observations he madewas they're almost like rebels
of the content creator world,meaning they're doing the

(10:39):
opposite, right, in addition tothe Mr B style highly produced
produced stuff if you talk abouttiktok shorts and reels this
new style vlogging is completelylike a middle finger to all of
that.
And what's crazy is, you know,I wrote this book called youtube
secrets and even in there wetalk about optimizing your

(11:00):
content, right, like thinkingabout the person searching and
then giving them what they wantreally quick.
Even my wife and I.
What happened is my wife like.
I mean, I label her like acasey nice, that level creator,
right, even though she might notlike be at his status like fame
wise, she's been doing a verylong time, gotten over a billion

(11:20):
views by herself.
She also optimized too.
In fact, her style, whole,whole style is about how do you
take like a normal day and justmake it interesting, no matter
what, and we've been doing itfor so long.
There's sometimes I I feel likeI'm getting this deja vu moment
where I'm doing the same thing.
I'm like documenting the samething I did five years ago and
guess what?
I'll go five years ago to thatexact day and have the same date

(11:43):
, just with more kids.
Right, because I have fivedaughters.
So my point is this she's makingall that very interesting and
she went down that path.
So then, when I saw all theseother creators doing something
completely opposite, it wasalmost like a protest to all
that.
And I believe and this isalways the case the people that

(12:04):
get the most famous, that go themost viral, that people care
about right like that, start anew wave, usually don't do it
because they think it works.
They're just such a rebel.
They just do it because theycan and they don't want to do
what everybody else is doing.
This is how fashion is too, youknow, like the people doing the
craziest kind of new thing,usually like something in their

(12:27):
fashion line becomes what oldnavy is creating, right, nothing
against old navy, but they'reusually not like you know
leading the way they're notleading the way.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
So we had a.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
We had a sponsorship with the old navy all the way up
until five minutes ago.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
But thanks anyway.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
But what I'm saying is what's happening on the
catwalk for fashion shows isn'tnecessarily what the masses is
loving right now, but is likethe trendsetter.
So in YouTube, the same thinghappened, you could say.
My wife was one of those peoplein 2011, when we started doing

(13:05):
the daily vlogs.
There was a very smallcommunity.
No one really cared about it,except her own audience and, I
think, in that era, the beautyaudience.
This is like I'm literallygoing down like memory lane
right now.
That was the birth of dailyvlogging, the birth of this new
style of vlogging.
Same thing People doingsomething totally opposite, not
because you were gonna make alot of money.

(13:29):
In fact, they probably thoughtyou know what?
I might not make money, but I'mgonna still do it anyways and
there was something that theyfelt that guess what Millions of
other people I think youngpeople felt the same way.
They're like something aboutscrolling through TikTok is
making me sick, something aboutthe algorithm feeding me all
this stuff.

(13:49):
Maybe it's not even what I want, but for whatever reason I
click on, I get more of thisjunk.
Doesn't feel right, like I feellike.
You probably know what I'mtalking about yeah, but this no
tiktok this year.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, okay, let's talk about that.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
But but then what happens is this you get this
other channel creating thesevideos where it's like none of
that.
I'll tell you my experience.
I'm curious what you saySpecifically.
You know Sam Solak, everybodyknows him.
There was a channel of a couple.
I think the wife was pregnant.

(14:24):
They were doing these hour-longvlogs that were getting hundreds
of thousands of views, amillion plus views, and they
live um off the grid and they'remaking their life in the forest
doing like very, like mundane,normal things.
It's like everything fromgardening to like building like
an outhouse or whatever.

(14:45):
And I remember running to mywife holding the laptop.
I was like honey, somebody putup an hour-long vlog.
This is again during you knowthat 2020 shutdown everything.
I was like they've got anhour-long vlog and it's got like
400 000 views.
She's like oh cool, and she'slike not interested.
But my mind just I was blown.

(15:06):
I was like what the hell ishappening?
How is it that they put anhour-long vlog?
It was barely edited.
It was just them doing likechores around the house getting
that many views.
That was the moment.
I was like something ishappening here, because this is
not supposed to work right,because a 10 minute highly
optimized vlog, kind ofcompeting against the Mr Beast

(15:28):
of the world and those type ofvideos.
That's what you're supposed todo.
But why is it?
I bet you, whatever feelingthat you I feel like I'm reading
in your eyes right now, is whatthe people that watch that vlog
were feeling that didn't wantthat like short form type of
content.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Even in like long form content for YouTube, when
you have that same punchy effect, just because you're holding
your phone horizontal doesn'tmean that it's still not that
same overstimulating,disconnected feeling and sure
that's fun.
And I think there is a placeand there's a niche for that
type of content.
Still, because it exists, do Ithink that it should be your

(16:06):
day-to-day life perceived asthat?
Should it be your groceryshopping trip like that?
No, I think there'sopportunities that people have
taken advantage of with takingit down a notch, the off-grid
lifestyle like you're saying,the couple who's out there?
Oh my gosh.
One of my guilty pleasurechannels is country life vlog I
knew this was coming countrylife vlogs where I will watch

(16:29):
this woman bake everything fromscratch while her husband builds
like a shed in the backyard,hours at a time do they show?
There's no sound, it's justasmr.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Nobody speaks is it one one camera or multiple
cameras?

Speaker 2 (16:43):
it's.
You know that's funny that youbring that up, because when I
watch it anytime like my husbandwalks by I'm like how do you
think they got that shot?
You think they have a film crewthere.
Like, I think they have a filmcrew.
I don't know the behind thescenes because they're an older
couple and in my world where I'mwatching them, I'm like they
don't know how to use cameras.
She's just making her bread.

(17:10):
Obviously they're very skillful, talented people.
When you watch those vlogs,what device are you watching?

Speaker 1 (17:12):
on only tv.
I don't watch youtube on myphone same.
I have a 90 of myself, by theway.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yeah, that is the thing that the new style of
vlogging is revealing that everycreator can learn from, and
it's actually the biggest missedopportunity right now, and I
would love to dive into it.
But the quick version is thisit's the place that has the most
demand with the least amount ofcompetition.

(17:37):
Right, and I've said this fromthe very beginning the easiest
way to succeed on youtube is beone of the first michelle fawn.
They'll actually credit she isan amazing beauty person, uh,
one of the first beauty gurus.
She would hate that term.
Judy hates it too, but that'swhat they were right there with
the it's true, right?
yeah, sorry, judy, but theystarted in the beauty blog space

(17:59):
and they went into the umbeauty youtube space and she you
know high, high levelproduction, whatever, but I
would say michelle fawn becamethe legendary number one beauty
person because she was the firstone to do it the way she did it

(18:20):
and that has been the casethroughout all niches, all
genres, all formats andplatforms.
Whoever's there early rightlike sam solik.
There's a lot of people tryingto be sam solik, but he was the
first one willing to do it.
Now, credit.
He actually has like aninteresting uh personality,
interesting things to say.
He's a huge buff guy, sothere's like a value in all of

(18:43):
that.
But man, when I saw thatpushing the grocery cart in the
grocery store and no edits andhe's just talking about his
favorite protein, that's hisnumber one viewed video.
By the way, that's what's crazy.
First on scene, first one totake advantage of all this
demand.
Where is that demand comingfrom?
That's why I asked you thatquestion.

(19:04):
Television, and nobody istalking about it, even when the
CEO saying, oh, television isnumber one, that's our focus,
and even with people having atelevision viewing kind of
experience, nobody is talking.
As a creator, I'm going to makeYouTube videos for TV.
Why wouldn't you YouTube videosfor TV, right, why wouldn't you

(19:26):
?
The reason is people like Benjiand Sean wrote in YouTube
Secrets look at your video onyour phone, right, like see how
that thumbnail looks.
Vidiq everything is optimizedfor the smaller device, right
From the laptop to the iPad tothe phone.
It just got smaller and smaller.
Nobody could have seen thecurve ball that television is
and it still will be.
To the phone it just gotsmaller and smaller.
Nobody could have seen thecurve ball that television is
and it still will be.

(19:47):
And the one big takeaway, ifanybody listening to this, if
you want to win and you want tobe in a space that's not as
competitive and in fact, Ibelieve right now is easier than
anything on YouTube createcontent for the television.
And this is why vlogs win,because I would tell you this
that I don't know this countryfamily channel that you're

(20:10):
talking about.
I actually think they could bedoing it all by themselves, like
how they got that shot, becauseI know as a vlogger, guess what
?
So I use a I'll show it to youguys later the dj, osmo,
whatever and it has a littlestand on it.
I talk like such an old person,like I'm not I don't know tripod
right, but I literally willjust put it off in the, the like

(20:31):
off, like costco, I'll put iton a shelf and it gets me is
that I don't have a crew.
So then the question is like,does somebody say, I wonder if
somebody is like holding?
that or whatever.
No, it's just you just run overthere and do all that kind of
stuff.
The point I'm trying to make isvlogs are really easy to create
.
The content that's perfect fortelevisions.
The one thing I didn't see whenI was watching that person

(20:54):
living off grid and then say I'mso like in this new wave of
vlogging, I didn't realize oneof the reasons why they're
getting a lot of views becausethey're being watched on a
television when you're watchingon a tv.
You want longer videos.
You don't want the 10 minutevideo.
You because you don't want topick another thing we'll get
into this later but I wastalking about how, like, I could

(21:14):
be on netflix looking for 20minutes for the perfect movie or
show, but on youtube instantlyI'm going to get the perfect
recommendation, and if that's a30 minute video around the thing
I'm obsessed with, I'll justlet it play, yep.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah, we talked about this, we talked to us a couple
of times where the tolerance forwatching content, uh, is a lot
of times dictated by the deviceyou're on.
So for a phone it might be, andI think this is why the tech
talk is so, so popular, becausewhen you're holding a phone like
this, your tolerance isn'tgoing to sit.
You're not going to do this foran hour, right, you might do it
for a couple seconds and thenyou're talking to someone and

(21:49):
then you're doing it forwhatever.
So that makes sense.
And the television, just fromour culture, has always been a
sit down on the couch kind ofwatch.
Back when we had commercialsthat were a lot more invasive
than maybe they even are onYouTube, because I have premium.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
I'm not out here trying to watch these Me too.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
We don't know what ads look like Not at this table,
I didn't know.
Youtube even had ads.
What are you talking about?
I think it definitely kind ofrolls into what you're saying is
people want to sit down andrelax and enjoy that experience.
I know I do.
And when you say shoot fortelevision, I think for some
creators might think well, whatdoes that mean?
And that can mean a lot ofdifferent things.
I have my own thoughts, but Iwould love first to hear Jen and
then hear Benji what it meansto shoot for television.
What does that mean?

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Remember that creator that I told you about, where I
told him?
I said give me 30-minute videos.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
He had one 30-minute video I said stop putting out.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
He started putting out his nine minutes, his eight
minutes.
He was bouncing around timestamps a lot and I said I only
want your content over 30minutes.
Since he changed every singlevideo 100 to 500k, no questions
asked, consistent views, I'llknock on wood for him.
Let's go.
And it's crazy because it's tvand it's tv and he had targeted
a tv audience.
But you have to think aboutyou're still targeting an

(23:02):
audience in general and tv andmobile don't surface the same.
What you're going to see onyour phone, even if you're
looking at your TV home screen,are completely different videos
and if you're having success onTV, you need to continue to
target that TV audience byputting out those longer
timestamps.
But you still have to make goodcontent.
At the end of the day, we can'tjust you know let's not put out

(23:24):
like a 10 minute black screenat the end of the video and
trick YouTube into putting youon TV.
Still has to be good, engagingcontent.
But when you have the retentiongraphs to bump your content
longer because you're makingshorter content, do it and you
might be surprised.
You might be able to unlock anew audience that is just coming

(23:45):
from a different place.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Or the same audience that now has the option to watch
a longer version of your oldvideo style or whatever.
I'm curious are you allowed tosay what type of niche or type
of content that creator is?
You don't have to say thechannel name, but what kind of
content is it?

Speaker 2 (24:03):
If you had to describe it name, but like what
kind of content is it?
Um, if you had to describe it,it's a I would say action sports
, action sports.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Okay, channel is a, but there's a it's.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
It's actually more of a commentary, but it's around,
but it's got action sports it'sgot a specific value proposition
.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Now I'm starting to really like date myself, like
that's what we used to say youhave to have a value proposition
for your channel right like you, go on clubhouse in 2020.
Everyone's like valueproposition clubhouse remember
100x.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Right, I was in a pizza clubhouse because the
reason I bring that up is you'reabsolutely right.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
You still have to have quality content, but I
think even more so, you stillhave to have clarity in your
content.
See, on the polar opposite sideof everything we're saying
vlogging, tv viewing and longervideos.
Youtube's just getting waybetter.
The algorithm's getting waybetter.
What is all the rage in thetech world right now?

Speaker 2 (25:02):
I literally could never tell you that.
Well, you should.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
What's like what's all the rage, what is, like,
everyone talking about?
What's like driving the stockmarket, what are all the like
mag 7 investing in?
I mean, there's a lot of aistuff going on.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, the ai and the algorithm.
It's like two, like like salsadancing partners find each other
and they're perfect.

(25:25):
The algorithm, ai and they'veprobably applying AI forever,
but now it's like on steroids.
It's getting so good that nowyou can just put out a video.
You don't have to have a hugeaudience, you don't even have to
promote it.
You know, I know that there'ssome people that run ads.
They drive traffic.
You don't have to do anything.
The algorithm is so good thatif the content has clarity by

(25:47):
the way, this is everything fromshorts, you know, we now call
them mids, longs or podcasts Ifthere's clarity around what it
is, the algorithm will find theaudience, if not right away.
Eventually we hear aboutchannels just popping off.
A year later, this video likegoes and goes viral.
It just took a little while forthe algorithm to work.
The reason I'm bringing allthis up is behind every single

(26:10):
successful tv youtube creator,if we, we're literally gonna
birth a new name, by the way,like I was gonna say, I kind of
like that I also like mids.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
I've never used mids before mid.
Mid is what was long before,but now long is like 30 minutes
plus we have short shorts, longshorts, mids, mids, longs, long
longs, yeah, and then podcastsright yeah, three hours and
podcasts and live streams.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
So the reason I bring that up is if you have some
kind of clarity in your contentand you know you're going for
that television viewer, so it'slonger.
And you combine that with thefor that television, so it's
longer.
And you combine that with thefact that there's less
competition but high demand,it's like old school youtube
again.
It's the wild, wild west.

(26:54):
Anybody literally anybody, cantake advantage of it right now,
and you don't have to be thebest, you just have to provide
the content.
Um, this goes into a wholenother rabbit trail discussion,
but did you know that youtube isthe number one streaming
platform across all streaming?

Speaker 1 (27:14):
yeah, they say like number one watch time especially
um, I believe they were.
They were saying that theaverage watch time on netflix is
like eight or nine minutes orsomething, but youtube it's like
substantially I can't rememberfor sure okay, I don't even know
the, the, the actual numbers.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
I've never seen the data.
I've just heard from peoplethat I can rely, like austin,
who's over there.
He, he told me this.
But the reason I bring it up isit comes down to one simple
thing that youtube has over allthe other platforms.
I told you about when you go,when I've gone to netflix and
like I'll like endlessly scrollthrough their options to find

(27:48):
something, it's because I'm notfinding something that I want
right.
But I can go to youtube andliterally max within like two
minutes I'm gonna find somethingright.
If I don't find something intwo minutes, I go up to the top
and what do you do?
we scroll down and then the theslot machine thing happens again
okay, but you're going to findsomething, because youtube has
an endless amount of contentyeah just to give you a good

(28:11):
example of this earlier today.
So I've been teaching taekwondoagain.
I used to be uh, I am still asecond degree black belt.
I used to compete at thenational state levels.
I loved it, but it took a 10year break because youtube, my
wife and I got married travelingthe world doing all this stuff
we're doing plus five kids, yeah, yeah, but guess what?
it's funny, my five kids guesswhat.
They want to start doing sports, one of them being taekwondo.

(28:33):
So now I'm teaching andcoaching not only my kids, but
all the kids at the YMCA I usedto work out cool reason to bring
that up is I'm watchingtaekwondo videos on youtube
because I'm like, hey, what arethe olympians doing now?
what are the new things?
Also, I didn't have thatresource when I was getting my
black belt, so it's cool to seethese masters, these

(28:56):
practitioners, right.
So that's all normal.
Everyone has like some vice orsomething they love watching or
they're obsessed with some hobby, right?
But just today, today, as I'mscrolling through, I saw a video
that had a hundred views on itand it was some people in africa
, specifically uganda, right,it's crazy, I know all this

(29:17):
information about them and theywere just sparring each other.
There was just two taekwondostudents fighting each other and
it was a minute long.
So you know, if I was coachingthem, it's like make that a
little bit longer, whatever sureyeah change the title thumbnail
.
But everyone's seen this.
A random video with barely anyviews.
And then guess what I did myyou know little research.

(29:39):
I go to their channel.
Guess how many subscribers theyhad I don't know.
Not even 250.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
They've been doing this for two years.
Right, they probably need to belike you and watching your
podcast by the way.
But I looked at their numberone viewed video also about 250
views.
How is it that a channel thatis really not getting a lot of
views is being recommended to meright out of nowhere?
Yeah out of all the othervideos.

(30:09):
Now there's two parts to thisbecause we don't have to get
into.
Youtube is trying to promotesmaller channels yeah but
there's something else.
I still clicked on that videoand I watched these two guys
fight right and I was likelearning how did they do?
I was curious like I wonder ifin uganda they got the skills
like yeah, right they didalthough that guy he would

(30:30):
definitely beat me up, right.
I mean, they got to fight lionsand stuff, so maybe they're but
going back to what I said, thatYouTube has, that no other
platform has endless amounts ofcontent on specific obsessions,
interests, hobbies, hobbies,everything and even more every
single day.
See, like Disney, that's one ofthe big competitors, and

(30:51):
somebody today literally saidthis Disney has a great archive
of amazing movies.
Right, that goes back 100 years.
Sure do, but there's still acap.
Yeah, why do you think they hadto buy what?
Is it Hulu, Marvel or whatever?

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
They want to add more to their library.
Now it makes sense.
It's like, yeah, they just wantto give more options.
Then you got, you know, rink adink, you know YouTube, over
here coming in like with all theamateur content, these
YouTubers, but it's endless.
And I'm sitting there watchingthis Taekwondo student from
Uganda fighting some otherstudent that happened to be from

(31:29):
Kenya.
Right, they put the flags ofthe different people versus
watching a Marvel movie onDisney, and you can do this
across all the niches.
And that's kind of my point.
Right now, I believe, beyondeverything we're talking about,
youtube has a moment toliterally dominate.
It already is dominating, it'sgoing to go through.

(31:49):
So what am I trying to say?
I believe that, oh yeah, Iremember the algorithm.
The algorithms will help thischannel, who's not being
optimized at all, get thatcontent to me.
Who cares about taekwondo rightnow?
Right, everybody can takeadvantage of it.
But there are ways to optimize,which, by the way, I'll tell
you everything I know about howto optimize vlogs for not just

(32:12):
TV but for YouTube in general.
But the good news is this thealgorithm is making it easy for
both seasoned creators andcompletely brand new beginners
and completely brand newbeginners.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, what's interesting?
Jen and I talk about thisbecause we get a lot of emails
from listeners that are not onlyquote small creators, they're
new creators Like they haven'teven started their channel.
We've had end of last year.
Oh my gosh so many For weeks wehad emails from people like I'm
going to start my own channel inthe next year.
I just listened to podcasts toget ready.
Like they, they're gettingready, they're getting prepared,
which I think is great to havecreators coming to the platform

(32:44):
already prepared.
They kind of already knowthings, so the bar gets raised
For those creators.
We'd love to hear some of theunlocks that you've come across
over the last couple of evenmonths.
I mean, forget about the yearsthat you've been doing this
forever.
You've been doing this foreverbut, like, even over the last
couple of months, what are thethings that you've noticed?

Speaker 3 (33:02):
All right, so we talked about TV.
The turnaround is crazy and, ofcourse, that leading to longer
videos.
By the way, my threshold is 30minutes too.
Like I do have a couple thatlike don't get to that point.
I was like oh, dang it.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
As a seasoned creator , though, like you, don't push
it.
It's hard.
I think the longer you've beenon the platform, the harder it
is to push content even longerbecause, you're like no, I want
to edit, I want to edit it justa little bit.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Sure, absolutely.
And my wife, who said she wouldstart editing some of my
content and has been editing,she's been pushing it too, so
we're now doing vlogs that are40 minutes.
So that's number one.
It's like unediting at thispoint.

(33:50):
Yeah, anyone who's been on theplatform long enough it's like,
okay, you need to unedit, wow.
Second thing is this it's likewe're going backwards, though,
on the best practices of youtube, because a lot of these videos
guess what title isn't like thebest title and the thumbnail
sometimes, like I've hadcreators I coach that they get
critiqued like their thumbnailis amateur hour, but they get
the views right goes back to thenumber one thing.

(34:11):
If you're watching on you, youryour tv, the rules are
different on there.
Number one autoplay ishappening right, and we just
said it.
We're looking for contentthat's longer, as I call it the
couch viewer so like thethumbnail and title.
Not being perfect is okay,because if it's 30 minutes about

(34:32):
taekwondo this thing I'mobsessed about I'll let it play
right.
Like I've seen people that aredoing daily vlogging on
taekwondo, their taekwondo day.
Never in a million years did Iever think I'd care about that.
But for me, right now, becauseI'm obsessed with it, I'm
watching it.
So that is different, becauseyou and I come from that old

(34:54):
guard of like, hey, that titleneeds to be optimized because of
search and this is the metadataand the thumbnail.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
You've got to have the whites of your eyes showing
and all that kind of stuff, thewhites of your eyes showing and
all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
and then guess what that's such an old one right and
you get this new wave ofcontent creators creating this
like it's funny because they'relike benji.
What do you think about mytitle and thumbnail?
I have to like stop myself likeI think it sucks.
I'm just kidding I never,because I I've seen, I've seen,
I was like it doesn't matterwhat I say.
What do you think right?

(35:26):
Even more so and this hasalways been the case, even when
you're like optimizing, you know, like channel audits or
whatever.
Is the video good?
Is the video scratching theitch for the person on the other
side?
If it's doing that at thehighest level possible, and
especially if you're targetingthe television viewer and for

(35:46):
that viewing behavior and need,then you're already right.
So the the rules have changedthere, I'd say the third biggest
thing that I'm seeing too, bythe way, all this kind of goes
back to the tv when you look atthe analytics of the devices,
and the ceo definitely said this, but even individual creators,

(36:09):
they're surprised.
I just talked to uh andrewedwards.
Andrew edwards, right, was atmy house and uh austin, who's
here, said hey, like, look atyour analytics for this video,
like what's the number one, likedevice?
And he looked, he didn't evenknow and he like knows andrew
andrew is.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
I'm friends with andrew like andrew a lot.
I give him a hard time everytime I see him, love him.
He, that does not surprise me,he doesn't well, no, what's
crazy is this?
It was television, right and sohis stuff looks good.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
His stuff could be watched on television for sure
absolutely, because, well, he'sa tech guy, so he's gonna have
the nicest camera, the bestquality and he's been doing it
for so long.
He was even surprised, so a lotof creators are being surprised
by that.
Yep, the biggest takeaway isyou guys kind of I forget who
said it it's a whole new sourceof traffic, even from your own

(36:58):
audience that used to just watchyou on the phone or the, the
laptop.
But think about this.
Just let's go back even fiveyears ago, so long ago.
Okay, before 2020, like 2019,if you're done watching on your
phone or your laptop right atnight when you're going to watch
something.
What were the, the top three orfour sources of entertainment

(37:21):
for nighttime viewing, the couchviewer what were they back?

Speaker 1 (37:24):
when I was growing up .
No, no, I'm just saying like in19, like before this whole wave
of tv being the thing foryoutube.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
What was it like?
How you were watching youtubehow you're watching stuff
outside of youtube outside ofyoutube.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Oh, we were already talking about a lot of the
platforms yeah, I mean, I waspersonally, just why I always
watch tv.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
So I've been a tv guy for a very long time tv yeah,
netflix.
Yeah, amazon disney all thenormal players yeah, what I'm
seeing right now is you have theoption, through the casting
function, to make your tv anextension of your youtube.
That was the case in, butsomething happened in the last

(38:07):
literally like two to threeyears, at a high level, where
now it's like way better.
On top of it, more people arejust watching YouTube on the
TV's YouTube app.
Both of those things arehappening with two different
generations.
So, I said, a whole notheraudience, audience.
So what's happening?
You, you know this about anyplatform once you get hooked in

(38:28):
and you get addicted, it'salmost like habitual, like you
know.
Like you open up your phone,you go to your text or whatever
email, but then you like, mightopen up the first app that
you're obsessed with, right, itdoesn't matter what it is
youtube, tiktok, instagram,whatever you just click on it.
Starting to happen with youtube.
Yeah, and youtube is the onlything on the television.

(38:49):
That's like what happens onyour phone.
So people are like, so, likeyou and I growing up in the 90s,
right, what do you do when youget home from school?
Turn on the tv, watch somewhatever cartoons, whatever
shows.
Same thing with saturdaymorning.
What I'm saying is now, that'schanging.
Now you're not just turning onthe TV, you're literally turning

(39:10):
on YouTube, regardless of howyou do it.
Such a mind-blowing thing ifyou really think about it?
because everyone has a TV.
Everyone wasn't watchingYouTube on the TV, but now they
are All generations or whatever,because there's different ways
to do it and all the otherplatforms can't keep up and the

(39:30):
one thing that YouTube has thatall of them don't have is an
algorithm that follows you fromyour phone to your thing.
Now you could say this aboutAmazon to a certain degree,
definitely not about Disney,netflix.
I mean, people watch on thephone, but again, like, only for
those shows or those movieswhen they're on an airplane so
it's like I could say I've neverin my life watched netflix,

(39:52):
hulu, amazon on my phone ever noI
know, that's good, so unless Iwas on an airplane so that is
what I'm seeing and, by the way,what's kind of crazy about what
I just said has nothing to dowith the youtube app on your
phone or YouTube proper is litall the television.
It's this like percentage.
It's like this data point inyour analytics that people

(40:12):
couldn't explain and now I canexplain it.
You probably know this, likeinherently, because, like you,
come from that new generation ofviewers and creators, but like
for the rest of the world thatwas reading YouTube secrets,
watching vidIQ, all those things, it's like what, even though
they're watching YouTube videoson the TV.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
So what I think you know in the tech sphere during
2020, during COVID and stuff, Iremember a lot of things that
were going on.
So in the YouTube space, mobilewas growing really fast around
that time and then, wheneveryone was in lockdown, a lot
of electronics were sold.
I know this because I was doingtech YouTube pretty heavy at
that time and I'm going to tellyou RPMs were great, everything

(40:53):
was great right.
You could get videos oneverything, because everyone was
looking up reviews ofeverything, because you're stuck
at home, so everyone was buyingTVs.
And the thing is, those TVsback in 2020 all had integrated
apps.
If you had an older TV thatmaybe you didn't upgrade for
like five to seven years, andmost people who weren't stuck at
home they were like you know myTV's, fine.
Well, now you're stuck at homeand now you want a better TV,
you want a better experience andthat thing's built right in.

(41:15):
So all the things you'retalking about casting and all
that stuff really became easierfor people to do in 2020, 2021.
And better too to and betterwhen you kind of had this.
I'm gonna buy a tv.
It's on sale, let me go grab it.
Oh, I can now watch youtube.
I never tried this before.
Oh my gosh, it's actually abetter experience.
So I think that that situationkind of has bled into what we're

(41:35):
seeing now.
The.
The uptick in views is taking alittle bit longer, but, man, it
is so easy.
Everything, everything.
You go to the tv and now youcan can see Jen on TV on this
very episode, can you?

Speaker 2 (41:46):
believe that Right here, Right here, you want to
know what happened.
I think Netflix pissedeverybody off and they were like
you can't share your password.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
And everyone said fine, oh, that's right, I'm
going to go to YouTube, you'renot wrong.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
That's actually interesting.
What if I?

Speaker 1 (42:00):
A lot of people I know canceled it based on that
and now Netflix has ads again,or for the first time.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
Yeah, by the way, there's a lot of variables that
are leading to what we'rediscussing today, but remember
that it was like cable cutting.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
Somebody today made fun of me for still having cable
right.
But cable cutting now aboutstreaming service cutting right.
No one's ever going to cut offYouTube, because why?

Speaker 1 (42:24):
You don't have to, it's free, it's free, right?
Yeah, yeah, it's free.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny, they've struck the
balance of ads to content,because that's their business.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
They know exactly how to do it.
Another thing that's, by theway, this is a whole other note.
I would love to talk about whatyou need to do if you're going
to take advantage of this newstyle of vlogging.
But another thing that happenedto me in 2024, when I started
vlogging right on my channel adswent crazy.
Yeah, I just recently I'm likeandrew, like I don't care so

(42:57):
much about my analytics.
I look at every little thing.
I'm like I want to just createcontent that people want to view
, right I?
I just recently went into myAdSense for my 30-minute vlogs.
I'm seeing seven ads sometimes.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Crazy.
I don't want that.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
In fact, you know, I always just set the auto thing,
assuming it'd be like beginning,middle, and maybe two if it was
longer.
Seven ads and my average viewduration.
Can you guess what my averageview duration is on my 30 minute
videos?

Speaker 2 (43:28):
30 minute video.
I would say 12, 30 really close.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
It's usually closer to 15 minutes, but this was
crazy.
That means there's some peoplewatching 30 minutes, right, of
course so there's some peoplesitting through my costco vlogs
where I'm just picking the sameingredients.
Once in a while I'll showsomething different, and I am
talking.
I'm talking about what it is.
I'm talking like you know,shopping for, and they're

(43:54):
watching potentially five or sixads.
That's something wild too,because could you remember when
ads were turned on in youtube,like done, we're not watching
this anymore, but it was goodenough.
We're like you know, maybe, andthen we're like signing up for
premium way before that was evena thing right.
So I think that that's anotherthing that youtube's always been

(44:16):
great at paying the creators.
Still, there's no adsenseequivalent anywhere else, and
and this is why vlogging is kindof crazy, because it's the
easiest way to do a 30 plusminute video and take advantage
of everything good of YouTube,both on the algorithm, the

(44:38):
search and ranking, as well asthe AdSense and passive income,
and that's why none of the otherplatforms.
This is why Amazon had to payMr B's whatever a hundred
million to do that show, becausethey don't have anything that
comes close, though that showwas a big one for Amazon.
Guess what?
It's just one show.
Youtube has infinite amounts ofprevious shows.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
And it has Mr Beast as well.
And it has Mr Beast 100,000, mrBeast, already.
I know right, we got all this.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
We don't even need the real one anymore.
There's enough people who aretrying to be Mr Beast.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
We don't even need the real one.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
It's all right.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Oh gosh, yeah.
So let's talk a little bit moreabout vlogging.
We do have some vlogginglisteners We've heard from some
of them or people that do thingsthat are like vlogs.
Yeah, jen and I have talked alot of emails we get about that
and that the value prop for thatis more about entertainment.
So when you're about to shoot avlog, or when you're even

(45:34):
editing a vlog, how do you findthe entertaining notes of that?
Because, like you said, youmight be in Costco and that
sounds kind of you know.
It's like all right, you're inCostco, so what?
How do you make thatinteresting?

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Yeah, that's a good question.
So the first off, I want toalmost redefine vlogging, right,
this vlogging style that mywife and other vloggers,
including Casey Neistat, created.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
Let's actually go way back intime to 2005 with the early days
video blog.

(46:05):
That is the original vlog.
Okay, so if anybody knows aboutblogs, blogs is on everything
and it's in different styles,and the first YouTube videos
were just videos and it's funnythat you said entertainment,
right, like for vlogs.
Actually, I think vlogs can beeverything, just like blogs were
about everything, sometimesentertainment, sometimes recipes

(46:26):
, sometimes about information.
So, redefining what a vlog is,it's a video blog and it can
include everything from like atalking head video to me
shopping at Costco to somethinga little bit more produced like
the secret camera of the country, family or whatever, okay, but
what do you want to do to make a30 minute interesting when it

(46:47):
had to be 10 minutes back in theday or even shorter?
I call it the three T's of thenew vlogging method.
First off, you have to have atheme for your channel, right?
You have to have something thatyour channel is about.
It's more broader than a niche.
Because the problem with theniches you sometimes run out of
ideas and then when you justbecome too niche, somebody can

(47:10):
out-compete you, right?
A theme just gives you ageneral direction.
So for me, it's like myobsession and passion for food
and sharing it with other foodlovers.
Now you go one level down tothe second T, right.
First T being theme, second Tbeing a topic or takeaway.
You want to have a vlog.
See, this is one of the bigdistinctions.

(47:31):
The new way of vlogging has atopic or takeaway.
For every vlog.
There's something about it.
So Sam Sulek is the greatestexample.
You think he was just walkingthrough the grocery store being
this big buff guy buying food.
No, the topic was proteins.
How do you find the bestproteins at the grocery store?
That'll make you big.

(47:52):
And so you always have a topicor takeaway.
And then the last one istelling stories, a little play
on word.
But the third t is tellingstories.
You've got to just talk.
I know that sounds kind ofcrazy, but it's funny.
We just blasted through 50minutes telling all kinds of
stories around, this kind ofthing, unscripted, right, like

(48:13):
did you come here, like I'mgonna say this and this and this
story, whatever.
There's banter between you twothat I know was completely
random or whatever, everythingabout and we're even trying to
be nice in person.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
I know right, I'm not even really okay, well, wait,
wait until almost the end.
I got something for you.
I got a little surprise.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
I haven't told you about but go ahead, okay, so who
you oh, all right, so we canall tell stories and we don't
know it.
That's another thing too.
People like have overcomplicated telling stories.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
Oh, I am so with you on this yes I am so with you on
this and the first time I evertried to tell a story.
When you think of whatstorytelling is, or when, oh my
gosh, when youtube was likeexploding with like, you have to
be a master storyteller andthere's to be stakes and you
have to oh my gosh, hilarious.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
I mean, this is back to like the casey neistat era,
exactly, and that's what crazycasey tells the greatest stories
.
But the way he tells it, ittakes a lot of work, right?
How often on the weekend you'rehanging out with your buddies,
right, right, or your family,and you literally just say you
won't believe what happened tome this week did you practice

(49:16):
that?

Speaker 1 (49:17):
did you like?
I still need to hear that story, by the way, yeah yeah, so
telling stories is somethingeverybody can do.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
The problem is they're uncomfortable on camera
yeah, by the way that's a wholenother discussion.
But if you just tell a storythat's related to that topic or
takeaway and is under your theme, you got a vlog.
You got the new vlog.
That will work.
Remember what I said about thealgorithm.
You know what?
It's funny because right now onyoutube there's this whole
costco niche.
Okay, who's the most?

Speaker 1 (49:46):
famous.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
Right now there's two talking about yeah there's two
that I think about doublechocolate chomp cookie or
whatever, guys, okay, it's a dadand a son.
Okay, heartwarming, they loveto go there, but short form or
whatever.
That's their style, whateverthat goes viral.
Then you got the other style,which is these are the top 10
things you need to buy at costcotoday, right?

(50:08):
Or these are the top 10healthiest things.
So those are the two thingsthat kind of dominate in the
world.
I'm neither one of those.
I have a 30 minute vlog.
I stand apart doing the thing.
That's way easy.
The one thing I talked aboutlast year.
That is so funny because no oneever flexes this, but it's a

(50:29):
great way.
And I didn't know about the TVyet.
Right, you want to be secondbest with vlogs?
Meaning, after you watch adouble chocolate crunch dad and
son guy, or the bobby guy, thatdoes the top 10 things you buy,
what happens?
You get a suggestion on anothervideo, yeah.
Or if you're on the tv, they'relike oh, that guy liked costco,

(50:51):
so let's show him one.
That's formatted for the couchviewer for TV.
I'm that guy.
I can promise you that doublechocolate crunch cookie, dad and
son guy.
I don't know, you're going tohave to fix me Nutri, okay,
nutri's over here laughing at me.
I can promise you they're notgetting 50% audience view

(51:13):
duration on their stuff, right?
They're not getting 50%audience view duration on their
stuff, right.
I've seen stats that say, likeshorts and TikToks can get like
five to 25 seconds if you'relucky.
Wow, how is it me?
I'm definitely not nearly asentertaining as them.
Way boring, right.
I'm supposed to be behind thescenes.
I'm the token boyfriend, turnedtoken husband, token dad.

(51:33):
And now I have this channelwhere I can shop for 30 minutes
doing like really mundane stuff.
It's me telling stories.
It's a longer video and it'sstill following the three t's
food lover, but topic ortakeaway is usually costco and
there's usually like anothertopic on top of it and I just
tell stories about thisingredient, why I buy it, right,
my own perspective, my ownopinion.

(51:55):
I can do it all day long.
It's just crazy.
My wife just shopped at costco.
I'm kind of angry because thatmeans I don't get.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
You don't get, right, like what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (52:02):
that's content, because it's easy.
It's like really so easy.
By the way, to be fair, though,what I said about first on
scene there is somebody else Icoach people on it that will do
it way better than me, but I'mearly on.
The point I'm trying to make isthat is how you create a vlog
for not only just YouTube proper, but especially the TV viewer.

(52:25):
Follow those three T's and doit over and over.
Remember what I said aboutwhat's the number one reason why
people can't tell a story?
It's because they'reuncomfortable on camera.
The easiest way to get throughthat is practice.
Do it a lot.
Guess what Vlogs are such loweffort compared to nice camera,
three hours of editing, allthese crazy ideas and all those

(52:48):
kinds of things that you canjust bang them out.
You know like, the first phaseof my coaching is like do as
many vlogs as you can.
Low stakes, don do overdo it.
Use your phone if you want,don't don't like, in fact, and
guess what all those vloggersthat you probably know of, or
like kind of, saw over the lastfew years?
That's exactly how they did it.

(53:08):
And then they get comfortable,and then they become natural on
camera, and then one dayeverything lines up 100,000
views, a million views.
So I'm not one of those creator, coaches or YouTube extras say
yeah, you can just follow everylittle thing I do and in the
next 30 days you're going to goviral, right?
That's complete BS.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Right, right, because you and I both know.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
We all know it takes a lot of work and effort and
experience to get to that point.
See, one thing that peopledon't know is my wife, for
example.
She's never really told thisstory.
She made videos with her sisterand cousins growing up, so
being on camera wasn't that bigof a deal.
Even though she wasn't, she wasa little uncomfortable, right,

(53:53):
and she had a whole year ofvideos that she didn't like.
Where she like removed a lot ofthose videos.
That was her era of practicingsame thing with me, right, like
I had.
I mean you could say it took me15 years to get to this point.
I mean I've done legit vloggingand other channels, whatever.
I'm just saying it doesn'thappen overnight.
But this framework, the threet's right Having a theme for

(54:15):
your channel, having a topic, atakeaway for your vlog that
you're focused on and you'retelling stories.
You do that enough times.
Guess what?
You could become a legitcreator in three to six months
and then you're off to racesversus the old way of doing it
Optimize, research, every littlething which I'm like.
I'm a fan of both, but gets sooverwhelming they just quit

(54:37):
their first video is cringy andit took them like 10 days to
create and they're like I can'tdo this like this is not
sustainable.
The way I vlog it is doneliterally in a matter of hours
from the time I come up with theidea or research, uh, the topic
or takeaway to me, filming tothe time it gets edited and
uploaded can literally be, insome cases, a three to four hour

(54:59):
process, very like minimalinvestment.
Anybody can do that, and sothat that's what I would suggest
if you're trying to get intovlogging and you need, like some
kind of roadmap to get startedand and this works cool, funny
enough for seasoned creators whoare part of that over optimized

(55:20):
stuff, and I have my friendMatt who's doing that.
Can I tell one more?

Speaker 1 (55:25):
quick story, yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
So I have a creator friend, really successful
TikToker and went to YouTubeshorts, did really well as a
cook right Worked in arestaurant for 10 years, legit
knife skills I think that wasone of the things I want viral
um, and he has kind of like,like, um, edgy cooking content.
You can just look at hischannel.

(55:47):
But he really wanted to vlogbecause he felt the same thing
that a lot of people werefeeling like I want to do
something different and I seethese other creators doing it
too, like Sam Sulek, and he wastrying to do vlogs and actually
they were doing well on hischannel, but not good enough and
he went through some things andhe just kind of stopped and
then ultimately he made adecision based off of other
people in his life not me sayinghey, you should maybe stop

(56:10):
vlogging and do this more highlyproduced stuff, right.
So he's trying to do it.
What he didn't tell them or meyou know, I mentor him on his
vlogging and stuff and I justtalk about, like, how to do
vlogs Uploaded his vlogs on asecret channel.
He didn't tell anybody about it.
I love that.
So he has like 3 millionfollowers on his main channel or

(56:34):
something like that, or maybeless than 1.5.
It doesn't matter, because hissecond channel was a channel he
started a long time ago Doeshave 17,000 subscribers, right,
but again, subscribers don'treally matter.
These days Right Because hismillion subscriber channel
wasn't getting him a millionviews.
Okay, we all know this.
Everyone's shorts now, likemetrics are just vanity, but the

(56:54):
point is this he was getting,in some cases, four to eight
times as many views on his vlogsin this new method of vlogging
on his secret channel than hismain channel, and this is a big
takeaway.
This kind of goes full circleback to what I talked about the
algorithm, ai and how YouTube'seasier than ever.

(57:14):
He never once promoted hisvlogs.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
Not on his TikTok, not on his Instagram stories.
He didn't even share it on hiscommunity tab, which anybody
from vidIQ knows.
Like.
That community tab isunderrated.
You should share everything onthere, right?
He didn't even do that becausethe algorithm is so good that
not only did it find thataudience that's subscribed to
his main channel that wants it,but the other people that wanted

(57:40):
that specific content thatdidn't know anything about him.
He's having people approach himin Seattle because a lot of his
vlogs around Seattle that don'tknow he's this epic short form
creator.
They're like dude, love whatyou're doing for Seattle.
Keep up the work Like talkingon.
Love what you're doing forSeattle.
Keep up the work.
Like talking on, like likeyou're doing a good job.
Buddy, not knowing like this iswhat he does for a living and

(58:03):
that's fascinating because it'sproving one.
It's not about the subscribersyou don't have to promote, you
don't have to do anything crazyand, by the way, I'm not saying
that they're necessarily bad,but they're not optimized his
title and thumbnail, not the wayhe would normally do it on his

(58:24):
other channel, or best practicesat experts, and still getting
more views.
His first vlog got 40 000 views, just like that right.
I love that, and it was a longvideo, longer than what he
normally, because he's doingshort form.
I tell that story because thisis a case across the board, no
matter where you're at in thecreator journey, and it's
something to pay attention to.

(58:45):
And I do believe this new waveof youtube and people wanting
this like more dressed downcontent to tv viewers, and then
three high demand with lowsupply it's an opportunity.
It's the biggest opportunity.
I used to say shorts were thebiggest opportunity.
No, because actually shortsscrewed up a lot of youtube, I

(59:09):
think not necessarily fully in abad way, but both good and bad,
yeah.
What's happening with TV,though, is it's like a goldmine.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Yep, I agree.
So on this podcast, we do talkabout our YouTube, but also we
talk about other things, andthat's why I think when people
email us, they'll send us littlestories about things and little
inside jokes.
We have, and one of the thingsthat we talk about here and I'm
just going to ask for yourunbiased opinion on this because
there is a mini war in ourpodcast audience they're on one

(59:40):
side of the fence or they're onthe other side of the fence, so
we need to figure out what sideof the fence you're on.
Okay, so I'm going to ask youand this is a very serious
question because we arebasically podcast as well
Undercover candy podcast.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Yeah, I'll talk about candy.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
So let me, this is the thing.
There are two candies and twoteams, basically that this
entire audience listens to, andI'm not going to bias you in any
way, but there is only oneanswer.
That's good.
Okay, there are seasonalcandies, one that Jen loves and
one that I love, and we don'tlike the other person's candy at
all, which is why we've kind ofseparated in this way.

(01:00:15):
I hope I get this right.
I hope you do too.
I'm going to tell you what theyboth are.
So the first one and again, I'mnot trying not to bias you by
saying anything, I'm going tosay them both equally, the way
that I should say them, so thatyou just make up your own mind.
First one is candy corn, whichusually comes out during the
Halloween season, and the otherone is Cadbury Cream Eggs, which
happens around this time,easter time.

(01:00:35):
Very controversial, some peoplelike one, some people like the
other, very few people like both.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
I'm here to ask you, maybe he's.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
It's funny.
Sorry, austin, I want to hear afunny story about candy.
My wife and I we're talkingabout this random conversation I
can already see the anger I'mready to leave.
I'm ready to leave, okay, wow,let me explain dinner travis but
let me explain, though this wasso funny, all right, I was

(01:01:06):
telling her and, like, we'vebeen married now for a very long
time.
We've been friends since likeliterally the late 90s, okay, so
we know everything about eachother.
So when there's something newthat we find out, it's always
like a big deal.
Yeah, and recently I said Ireally don't like hershey's
chocolate interesting and itblew her mind because she made

(01:01:28):
like homemade chocolate.
She melted down a whole bunch ofchocolate but there was
hershey's in there.
I was like I like it when youuse the like other, just regular
milk chocolate.
I grew up in japan so japanesechocolates are my jam and
hershey's is like total opposite, anyways, doesn't matter.
So went down this rabbit trail.
Like the other candies I don'tlike.
You guys probably not gonna uhlike this, the other one that I

(01:01:50):
don't like too.
I'm curious what mutuallythinks.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
I don't like tootsie pops yeah, I mean, I mean yeah
okay, so going to candy corn.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
She said okay, then where would you put all these
kind of different things rightlike?

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
they have a whiteboard out, they literally
have brackets basically, andthen so she, she, um.

Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
She talked about candy corn and immediately like,
oh, candy corn is better thanall those ones, right, but it's
not really high up for me.
But if I had to pick betweenthe two, definitely candy corn,
but I made a point to say like Istill will enjoy candy corn.
To me, what's crazy about candycorn?

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
is how delicious it is.
It's just like it's a candle.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
It's an unburned candle yeah, no, it's like
solidified frosting.
That's been like.
You know, like wood getspetrified it does.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Yes, yeah, that's exactly what it that's what
candy corn is to me.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
But you know you have to hand it like candy corn.
Isn't that an old candy?
It is.
You would never know if it bythe way, don't even get me
started by cadbury cream, eggsor anything like that, okay,
hold on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Hold on for a second.
First of all, I actually didanother podcast episode earlier
this day.
For people listening to this,you probably have already seen
that episode.
Jen doesn't know that.
I actually asked Tricia thissame question.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
Oh, no, tricia.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
And she also picked candy corn for some ungodly
known reason.
So I'm feeling some kind of wayright now, but guess what?
You can never get over ontravis?
Travis gets over on you.
For those of you who don't knowor maybe you're watching this
later on this is being recordedin march, which is not when
candy corn is kind of popularand available.
However, you know what isavailable.
Guess what I got today did youbring candies?
today, jen is finally going tohave a Cadbury cream egg for
caulking all this mess, so we'regoing to watch this live.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Oh, disgusting.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
I can't wait, have you had one of these before, or
is it just?

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
an idea of it.
It's literally disgusting, it'sthe texture and stuff right.
Disgusting All right, I'm goingto need a picture of this.
So first of all, let me get myphone.
I'm going to take a picture ofyou, so I'm going to show this
on the community tab so peoplecan go.
It's happening because that'swhat's going to happen.
Our community is going to lovethis.
It's happening.
I need everyone to go ahead andjust if you're listening on the

(01:04:11):
audio podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
You now need to go over to the YouTube channel
because this is happening rightnow.
You have have to watch this.
Oh, it's literally all things Ihate and don't eat milk
chocolate.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Gross, whatever is gonna be inside gross I need you
to get to the surprise in here.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
No, just that I'm doing this, yeah and you have to
make sure you get the goo.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
The goo is inside.
You need to get to the goo.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
The fact that you just called it goo doesn't that
tell you everything you need toknow.
Go ahead, bite it in, make sureyou get the goo.
This is worse than when I hadthe vomit jelly beans.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
Oh yeah, the vomit jelly beans If anyone has vomit
jelly beans they'd like?
To swap this out for I'll takeit, I'll absolutely take it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
I want you to just really enjoy the moment, because
I am Crunch it.
There's the goo, Get it.
You eat that young lady.
You clean your plate.
How are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
That's literally the most disgusting thing I've ever
tasted.
What are you talking?

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
about.
Is that an orange cream?
Why is it orange?

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
Because it's one of the flavors of the.
It's supposed to be like theyolk of an egg.

Speaker 3 (01:05:08):
Except for it's not, it tastes good.
This is how much I love you.
Eat dairy, I'm going to eat oneright now.
Milk chocolate eggs with softfondant center Fondant's good.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
That's disgusting what are you talking about?
That's literally disgusting.
Oh my god, this is the bestthing ever.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
That's literally how much I love you.
I don't eat dairy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
I know she's a vegan.
Ladies and gentlemen, this islike she's going.
She's never going to.
Let me live this down.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
I'm angry.
The plant queens in thecomments are going to be irate.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Bro, they are going to come for me because people
don't like that.
Okay, look Anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
No, no, no, no, no.
You eat what you want, wheneveryou want.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
This is true.
Benji's trying that too.
Let's go, let's get it.
I love them.
I'm gonna get mine in too.
Hold on.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Do we?
Does anyone have any?
You know what, though?
Wait, did it surprise?

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
you.
Cadbury milk chocolate Is verygood.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
I've heard that people Love the little eggs.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
I might Like the little yeah, they're okay.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
I might change my mind.
I might change my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
See.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
I'm saying A convert no.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
Benji's like.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
You got another one.
Let's go.
I'm not going to finish thisright now, but I might.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
Yeah, he's thinking about it for later, I'm telling
you good stuff Anyway.
Gross.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Benji, thank you so much for joining us.
Tell us a little bit aboutwhere people can find you if
they're interested.
I know you've written a bookand like where are all things
Tell?

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
us where are things?
So what's my URL?
Austin, I forgot.
Vloggingacademycom.
Forward slash checklist foranybody that wants to go through
the full three t's andeverything you need to know to
literally upload your first vlog.
Go there.

(01:06:45):
That is the best place.
The second place I would say is, like benjamin tv on instagram,
have a creator secretsbroadcast channel where I'll
talk about this stuff, and thechecklist is really the best
place.
But the last thing I would sayis I've been doing this a long
time.
It's 17 years.
I wrote a book on it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
I'm throwing a YouTube event next week by the
way, you're welcome to come ifyou.
I know it's kind of a drive foryou.
There's one in Portland tooright, though there is one next
week.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
Anyways, I love YouTube.
When I started saying I loveYouTube, it was strange.
That was like 2011, 2012.
Now, it's not strange.
It's a part of the media, it'spart of the world and if you're
not on there, to a certaindegree, you don't exist.
I mean that sounds harsh, butit's the of the world and if
you're not on there, you like,to a certain degree you don't
exist as long.

(01:07:35):
I mean that sounds harsh, butit's the new tv.
It is no pun intended.
Based off what we just said,right now we have a moment for
new creators, new channels, totake advantage of this thing in
a way that you didn't, becauseeverybody wanted to become a
youtuber at one point right, andI believe that, by the way,

(01:08:00):
shorts still great.
Like we were kind of likeshitting on all those like oh no
, I shit on shorts every dayhighly produced content.
Right, we were just talkingabout how, like it's really hard
, there's still a place for it.
In fact, guess what?
Of course, vlogging is just oneof the things of the greater

(01:08:21):
YouTube space.
It's just it's taken advantageof all the current benefits that
no one's really kind of payingattention to or talking about,
and it's also a really easy wayto get started.
And what happened was vloggingwasn't easy because you had to
do drone shots and all that kindof crazy stuff now, you don't

(01:08:42):
have to do nothing you canliterally like put your camera
on a log while you're likemaking pie or whatever you said
right outside people are likemaking food outside and becoming
these creators.
So don't sleep on YouTube.
Consider vlogging and,regardless if you get my
checklist or not, you'reprobably noticing this is

(01:09:04):
happening.
So don't be the person thatfive years from now, says I wish
I did it.
Be the person that says'm gladI started.
Yeah, and that can be as simpleas like a 10 minute video of
you talking about somethingyou're obsessed with, because
you never know when someone'sgonna something's gonna go viral

(01:09:24):
and I don't say that lightly,because content is going viral
that I thought shouldn't begoing viral.
And, yeah, thanks for having meon your guys's podcast and huge
fan of both you guys and vidIQso awesome.
I'll definitely be tuning intofuture episodes.
So subscribe, even though youdon't need to, because YouTube

(01:09:46):
already knows what you want towatch.
And yeah, that's what I sayAwesome.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
Well, thank you.
And links will be in the shownotes If you're listening to all
your podcasts podcasts and inthe description if you're
watching here on YouTube.
And Jen and I will try to dothis in person again sometime
soon, hopefully, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
I also just want to say that I took a bigger bite
than you did.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
Well, because I'm going to eat the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
No, I literally took a bigger bite than you did.
I've been thinking about, Idon't care.
I could only take one bite, bythe way.
That's enough for me.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
I'm going to eat it, but if I had candy corn right
now, I would eat more.
Oh, I can't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
I had to take candy corn off my desk because I would
unknowingly reach for it and beeating it, and then I'm just
chewing the whole time.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
This is why I say it's solidified frosting,
because guess what, I'm the guythat, even when all the cake is
on, if there's more frosting onthe thing, I'm like mm-hmm, okay
, wait.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
so as a food channel and stuff, oh, do we need to end
?

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
No, you finish this and then we'll end Wait.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
I'm like what is your ?
Well, there's two.
Okay, what is the food you'remost embarrassed?

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
to say that you absolutely love food.

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
You're most embarrassed to say that, like
you, absolutely love, oh, oh,that's a good one.
Oh, um well, actually, well, Imean, I share so much, so I'm
not really that embarrassed,honestly but like if someone you
told someone they'd be like huhwhat?
What did you say?
Oh well, it's funny.
No, it was candy corn.
I'm not kidding you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
I just told you that's embarrassing I told my
wife candy corn so like.

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):
How could you?
You don't like hershey's andtitty pops but candy corn.
How could you?
You don't like Hershey's andTitty Pops but candy corn.
I forget if you said Cadburyeggs or candy corn first, I
think you led with candy corn.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
I was like this is crazy Anyway we'll see you, guys
and gals, in the next one.