July 14, 2025 • 43 mins
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We debunk the myth about YouTube demonetizing AI voices and discuss how to handle seemingly random view performance on videos. This is a deep dive into several creator conundrums from understanding what actually impacts monetization to why some channels succeed with seemingly less effort.
• YouTube is not broadly demonetizing AI voices, but rather clarifying existing rules about low-effort content
• "Total addressable market" explains the ceiling on how many potential viewers your content could reach
• Gaming + blacksmithing fusion channels create a unique value proposition that can stand out in saturated niches
• Technical quality doesn't guarantee views—content must be inherently interesting to the target audience
• YouTube's new "engaged views" metric for Shorts appears to be an attempt to compete with TikTok's approach
• Channel pivots typically take 6+ months to show significant results, requiring patience and consistent effort
• For product-based channels, becoming part of the community rather than constantly promoting can be more effective
Send us your custom Tube Talk intros by emailing theboost@vidIQ.com or try our script tool at vidIQ.com/create to write something for Jen and Travis to read on air!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Tube Talk, the show dedicated to helping
you become a better videocreator so you can get more
views, subscribers and buildyour audience.
Brought to you by vidIQ.
Download for free at vidIQcom.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that's here
every single week, but withdifferent people, just because
I'm Travis and I'm here with Danthis time.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
That intro was so loud.
I'm begging you, please letwith Dan this time.
That intro was so loud, I'mbegging you, please let me make
you a new intro.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Please make me a new intro.
By the way, sometimes peopledon't even hear the intro
anymore Because of the way thisshow was edited.
I just use it as like atimestampy thing.
Audio podcast will hear it,video never hears it.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Can I take over for a second?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This is unprompted.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I have not asked you permission to do this so you can
edit this out if you don't likeit.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
No no, feel free.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
But instead of me making an intro, I think you
should open it up and ask peopleto send you their intros for
Tube Talk, and every week youuse a different one.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
That's kind of fun.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
It could just be someone going blah Tube Talk
time, and then that could be theintro.
You'll probably get some thatare really highly produced.
You might get all kinds of coolintros, and every week you'll
just have a different one.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You know, that's not a bad idea If y'all that are
listening, because here's thenice thing, dan Our listeners
are YouTubers.
Yeah, it just so happens theyhave the skills able to do this.
If some of y'all are interestedin that sort of thing, I guess
send me an intro, I don't know.
Send an email totheboostvidIQcom with a link to
what would be an intro video, Iguess.
Do you want audio or do youwant video?
(01:33):
I'll do video, because then wecan just take the audio from it
if needed.
Let's just do the whole thing.
There you go, why not?
I think it would be a greatsurprise.
Jen won't know about thisbecause she won't hear this
episode before we would have it.
So feel free to send a boost atvidIQcom.
And yeah, anyway, so we're hereto help you grow YouTube
channels.
If you're new here, feel freeto sit back, relax.
We like to talk in a very casualway about YouTuber-y things and
(01:56):
it looks like just hot off thepresses.
So, before we get into some ofthese emails, something about
and I Well, I see you going backand forth in Slack about this,
because sometimes understandingwhat is true about what's going
on YouTube and hearing theclickbait.
I'll tell you about the firstclickbait for this week.
So, depending on when youlisten to this, you may have
already heard this.
First of all, it's like YouTubeis not monetizing AI voices,
(02:16):
which is not terribly true.
Even YouTube themselves havesaid that's not really it.
This is just a tweak of and wekind of briefly talked about
this in the last podcast.
It's a tweak on the existingmonetization rules, but people
will take a headline from it orsomething that they're like this
is what this means and thenjust throw it all over the place
.
If you use an AI voice, youwill not get monetized.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
That's not true.
No to this was if you are areaction channel, if you are
re-uploading other people'svideos, or if you are just mass
producing like ai content withlike zero effort on your part,
then maybe you don't getmonetized, but youtube is
probably still going to allowyou to have that content on the
platform.
(02:55):
And the truth is we we can allprobably name reaction channels
and channels like that that doseem to be monetized even under
these rules, which, by the way,have existed the entire time.
They've been around for a longtime.
I don't know how, when theystarted, but it's been.
We've known these rules forever.
They just change the language alittle bit and everyone is
blowing it out of proportionwhich is yeah, and it's really
more specifically if I'm righttravis, it's about monetization
(03:18):
more thananything else.
Right, like they're justtalking about hey, we only
monetize quality content.
And then I think what youshould be outraged about is how,
if you want to be outraged, howselective it seems the process
is for deciding, well, who getsmonetized making this type of
content?
And YouTube has to draw thoselines.
I think that's why it's vague,deliberately so, because YouTube
(03:38):
is kind of like we know it whenwe see it.
It's what I said in Rob's videoabout it.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
But yeah, it's funny to see everyone blowing it out
of proportion.
Yeah, and I get it.
I mean, I understand there's alot of, and we found out by a
poll a while back.
I seem to remember, um, that alot of the people who watch the
main vid iq channel are actuallyquote faceless channels.
But faceless channels can meana lot of things.
By the way, um, I think thatthere's a connotation to
faceless channels that mean likeAI and all this, but that's not
necessarily true.
There are tons of facelesschannels that are commentary
channels and drama channelsespecially.
(04:09):
They're almost always faceless,ironically.
So there's entire niches thatare faceless.
That's normal.
It's like it's fine, you'rejust seeing B-roll over top of
the voice and that's a facelesschannel.
But I think when we talk aboutfaceless channels, we're talking
about the ones that are kind ofwhat people call like ai, slop
or or they're.
They're the channels that aremade specifically just to make
money, because they're notreally you're not into the
(04:30):
creative side of things, andwhile that's technically a valid
type of um, content creation,personally I like the people
that love what they're making.
I, I don't.
I like to help those people.
I'm not really here to helppeople make these.
You know, click, click and nowyou've get a youtube channel
that gets lots of views and getyour money.
That has nothing to do with thepassion that you're, that you
love I.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
It's not for me right , I'm the same way.
I think I mean there's going tobe all kinds of channels that
are even listening to the show,and I'm not here to judge
specifically how you feel likecreating, but I do feel like the
vast majority of our audienceis putting up some amount of
themselves into their content.
Whether they're using some AIor a lot of AI, I still feel
like the people who are mostsuccessful at the end of the day
(05:11):
are the ones who are addingthemselves to whatever they're
doing.
If you're reacting to stuff,the reactions like you could
even consider people who justtalk about the news reaction
channels to a degree, right,because they are putting up a
news story and they are givingyou their feedback on it, their
reaction to it.
But there's always a line.
There's nuance with everything,and the internet is famous for
not being able to have a nuanceddiscussion, but there is a line
(05:35):
that gets crossed with thingslike reaction channels, whereby
the worst case scenario is theyare uploading the video and just
staring at it the whole time,and the best case scenario in
our opinion I think't speak foryou, but in my opinion is that
we see somebody pause the videoand say okay, so what they're
saying right here that'snonsense.
You know like that's.
(05:55):
That's how I think a healthyreaction video looks, and the
more they're putting themselvesin that content, the more
personable it's going to be andthe more, I think, in YouTube's
mind, deserving they are of anopportunity to be monetized.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, it's transformational, which is what
you're supposed to do anyway.
And then there's a new thing,something about what the
trending page might go away,which is fine, I think, and I
don't know, is this even true?
I've only kind of briefly readthe back and forth with the
trending page might go away andthere's something called charts
coming out.
What's that?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I'm I'm still getting , uh, a grip on this information
myself.
It sounds like youtube is justcalling it charts now, and it
sounds like, but the word chartto me indicates hey, we're going
to be showing you morespecifically why something is
trending.
Hey, look at this video and howit's performing against other
things, like a more comparisonkind of view but, that's my
(06:44):
imagination.
The problem the things we'retalking about right now, that
travis is referring to uh isjust in some one of our channels
here at work, and we're tryingto figure out where this
information is coming from yeahand my frustration this is more
of a general frustration withthe internet is that have you
ever gone on sites like just Idon't want to name anyone
specifically, but just sitesthat typically report on stories
(07:05):
and they report on them withconfidence, but they don't link
to the original source rightit's just like a trust me bro,
trust me bro, yeah.
And it's really like frustrating, because I think the reason
they have to do that is the wayseo works, and I think I'm right
about this.
If you keep linking off of yourwebsite, that that's not great.
They want any links on the pageto go to another thing on their
(07:28):
own website Sure.
So We've gotten to this pointnow where it's gotten harder and
harder for me as time has goneon to see the actual source of
information.
So I was looking at these liketwo different articles.
I'm like where's the okay?
They're referencing a YouTubeblog or post somewhere and I
don't know where it is.
So now I'm like doing separatesearches to even try and find
the information.
I'm getting results that arereally old.
(07:49):
It's a mess.
It's a mess right now to findinformation about anything.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Very.
It's a mess right now to findinformation about anything.
Very true, and it's one of thethings that I think in this age
of unfortunate misinformation,which is sad to say, but it
really is true that the wholetrust me bro thing is an
unfortunate normality that we'rekind of seeing.
It's been very normalized andwe just have to be careful.
So basically, I guess what I'msaying for all the creators out
(08:13):
there check your sources.
Whenever you see something,don't immediately retweet it or
go and tell all your friends ohmy God, they're not going to
check around and VidIQ, we'regoing to always try to figure
out what the news is and whatthe truth is and then try to
give you that information.
But I mean, we might even getit wrong.
So don't just trust us.
Look at other sources as welland make sure that you're making
(08:42):
decisions based off of factsand not things that are being
said by someone else, which Isay this and then I realize some
of the thumbnails that RobWilson's in and I'm like well,
listen All right?
Well, you can trust us, though,bro.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Oh, yeah, Trust us bro.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Trust us, bro.
All right.
So, with all that being said,we got a couple questions sent
in um.
You can do it a coupledifferent ways.
If you're listening to theaudio only podcast, there's an
option in the show notes thatallows you to send a text
message to us, and our firstmessage um will be let's see
this will be from oh well see,the thing is it doesn't actually
say their name here we go so higuys, I recently discovered
(09:14):
vertical live streams and theyare awesome.
I can get way more viewers onthem than I can on standard
lives.
I also found out that verticallive stream watch time counts
towards monetization, so myquestion is how do I grow my
audience on these streams?
I typically have 20 to 60 liveviewers.
I'm wondering how I can geteven more.
Thank you so much.
Vertical live streams rememberthose?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
it's like no one talks about them anymore yeah,
well, they were really popularwhen they first came out and I
think that was because youtubewas pushing them in the regular
shorts feed more often.
Yeah, and I have a feeling thatif you interacted with those by
clicking like, oh, I want towatch this, you probably get
those more often.
I barely get them because Ialmost never interact with them
yeah so I think it's tailored toeach individual and the reason
(09:56):
I personally don't enjoywatching them is because of my
mindset when I'm watching a livestream, which is, if I'm
turning on a live stream, I amready to lock in, or it's on as
in the background as I'm doingsomething else, and vertical
live streams are mobile, so I'mnot going to.
If I'm trying to like cookdinner and I want a live stream
on, I'm not going to hold myphone in my hand.
(10:17):
You know I could prop it upwhatever, but you know, you know
what I mean it's it's all aboutthe environment that I'm in at
that time.
What do I?
What am I going to watch?
So I typically put on like atwitch stream or a youtube
stream.
If I'm like cooking or doingsomething like that, I can have
it on passively while I clean,and I like to do that on my tv,
and I just don't think to go tovertical.
(10:38):
Even if I can find them on mytv, I'm not gonna do that.
I'm just gonna go and see who'slive that I already follow.
So I would say that growingthese is tough.
I'm just slowly breaking thebad news to you that I don't
have great tips for you becauseI don't I've tried them, I don't
enjoy doing them and I don'tenjoy watching them.
So I'm just trying to give youmy reasons as to why I'm not the
(11:01):
best person to ask.
However, in my other opinionabout live streams, they are
great for growing a communityand shorts as you've probably
seen, if you've uploaded shorts,it's difficult to get people to
move to your long form, andthat's because shorts are not
great for building a community.
You know, you got to be at itfor a long time and you're gonna
get millions of views and thenslowly, over time yeah you,
maybe you start some livestreams or a discord server and
(11:23):
you notice how many peopleactually really are committed to
you.
But shorts are, so I want touse the word disposable, just in
terms of like I use that termall the time yeah, and it, it's
the, and the vertical livestreams fall into that same
category.
So, yes, it's cool that you'regetting viewers.
My question back to you wouldbe like do you notice the same
names coming back, or is italways new people?
(11:46):
And that's going to make a hugedifference when it comes to
growth, because YouTube, youknow, it, really helps to
snowball your growth.
If you're always getting 20 to60 people and they're always new
people, how are you supposed tobreak open to that next?
I really lost that there.
How are you supposed to breakthrough to that next hurdle and
go okay, now we have 160 people,now we have 300 people.
How do you do that if you'renot growing the community side
(12:09):
of it?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Here's an interesting thought I just realized,
because we know about theseengaged views on shorts, which I
think we even have a messagecoming in.
We're talking about that in asecond.
Do you think the lives areengaged or are they just like
the other one, the fake?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
one.
I wonder if they fall into thelive tab.
Therefore, there wouldn't be adifferentiation between views
and engaged views, because thatonly applies to shorts.
There wouldn't be adifferentiation between views
and engaged views because onlythat only applies to shorts and,
as this person pointed out, ifthese count towards watch time
for monetization, then they'redefinitely more live stream than
they are short I would think, Iwould think, so.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
But the other thing is like, if you have 20, I mean,
if you have like 50, 60 peoplewatching, you should definitely
have a pretty live chat and youshould have a pretty good idea
of what people are liking, whatpeople are not liking.
Um, I'm just unsure of likewhat that looks like in mobile.
So I will say this um, gettingviews on shorts and getting
viewers on live vertical which Iconsider live shorts, in my
(13:07):
opinion, are easier becausethey're just kind of shotgunned
out right, they're just kind ofeverywhere.
Um, so I think you're almostgoing to have to be more
spectacular in your verticallives than you would be in a
regular live, I guess in a weirdway, if you want to continue to
grow that, because in a regularlive, kind of like what dan
said, I feel like I'm going tohave more time with you.
(13:28):
You're going to hang out andchat with me and hang out with
us while we, you know, do the,do the recording versus.
I can swipe you at any secondyeah if you, just if I even
squirrel, oh swipe, that's allsquirrel um, like, I feel like
you have to be almostspectacular every minute, so it
might be something about doingthat.
That might be really um.
(13:48):
The key to unlock the thing iswe should have asked john before
he left, like to do somevertical things, to see what
that would look like I.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I have two more tips for this person.
Yeah, go for it.
I would say one a lot of peopleuse vertical as an addition to
something else.
So if they're streaming onTwitch, they'll throw a vertical
one on YouTube.
Sometimes they'll do a verticaland a horizontal on YouTube at
the same time.
Yes, what I've noticed is peoplelike I'll be watching a regular
looking live stream and thenthey'll mention by the way, if
you're watching on youtube onthe shorts feed, we're actually
(14:17):
live on twitch right now.
I'm like, oh, I'm watching ontwitch already, so I guess
they're.
They're live in two places, soyou can absolutely run multiple
live streams at the same time.
There are tools out there to dothat.
I would look those up, and thatis one thing you can do.
And then the other suggestion Ihave for you is to go and watch
some tiktok live streams andsee, take notes on what the
(14:37):
community is like there, becausereally what this is is YouTube
trying to eat into that market,and the people with the
strategies on how to grow avertical live stream are on
TikTok.
They've been on TikTok doingthat for a while.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Jen actually talked about this before multiple times
how she loves them, which isinteresting, since she doesn't
really like short form ingeneral.
But she said she loves the uh,the live stream that's on tiktok
and that there there are a lotof nothing but she likes it,
which is wild, yeah it's a wildperson.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I think the thing people need to remember about
shorts is that youtube is tryingto eat into the tiktok market
share and if you don't likeshorts, you might not be the
audience for them, and that'sokay, but their, their, youtube
is, is real, has realized a longtime ago like there's an
audience for vertical, there'san audience for vertical live
streams and if you don't, if you, if you see this as a cheat
(15:26):
code to grow but you're like, oh, but I hate it so much, then
it's not a cheat code to grow.
It's not for you like.
Focus on doing the thing youlike.
It sounds like this thiscommenter likes doing them,
which is great, uh, but ifyou're listening and going I
don't know if this one's for methat's good.
Like you understand yourselfand what you enjoy making first
and foremost, and focus on thatlove that as a reminder.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Um, we're going through some of the old messages
and stuff.
I think I said this in the lastepisode but if you missed that,
for the next couple of weekswe're we're trying to pick some
of the better emails and textmessages we get and we're going
to save them for when jen and Iget in the studio, which will be
in a couple of weeks.
So that means, if you've sentan email or a text message and
you're not seeing it show up ona show which, by the way, would
take a couple weeks anyway um,it might even take longer
(16:07):
because it might be one we thinkis so good that we want to talk
about it in person, and thenthose have to come out over the
course of a couple weeks.
So send in your best questionsand just be patient and hope for
the best, but some of these aregood that we can answer right
now.
This next one is another textmessage.
Hey, videye crew, my name isDylan.
I currently run a gaming channel, but I'm about to start
learning blacksmithing andbladesmithing, okay, and I'm
(16:30):
seriously consideringdocumenting the entire journey.
Part of it is accountability,fil, consider documenting the
entire journey.
Part of it is accountability.
Filming my progress will helpmotivate me and get me out of
there and keep learning, but Ialso feel like blacksmith.
A blacksmithing channel couldstand out more than gaming,
since the creator space isn'tquite as saturated.
If I go forward with this, Iplan to build up a backlog of
videos ahead of time so I don'tget overwhelmed.
I know forging with tools,daggers, swords and axes could
(16:52):
take a week or more each, so Ilikely wouldn't have have enough
to be able to maintain theweekly upload schedule I
currently have on my gamingchannel.
What do you think?
Would it make more sense tostart a separate channel for
this journey or try to manageboth under one brand?
Long term, I'd love to combineboth worlds by forging Final
Fantasy-style weapons or iconicgear from other games, which is
the channel I'm just going tosay that out loud that iconic
(17:14):
gear from other games, which isthe channel.
I'm just going to say that outloud.
That's your channel, at leastright now.
Right Like, go ahead and startdoing that now, because that
will separate you even more thana blacksmithing or forging
channel.
I think you could do that andit's definitely going to be less
saturated than a gaming channel.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
But you're going to be even less saturated with, you
know, making a Final Fantasyweapon or something from other
games yeah.
And the thing is that's going tobring in the people that are
into gaming anyway to see thereal thing Like make Cloud's big
sword, his big ridiculous swordfrom Final Fantasy VII.
(17:48):
That'd be crazy and people whoare into the game are going to
watch that.
Plus, people that are intoForging are going to watch that.
It's definitely the one of allthe things you're talking about
here that has probably thebiggest potential overall.
However, to your point, it'sgoing to take a while to do
these and I like the idea ofbuilding up the backlog before
they even launch the channel.
What do you think about all thethings that were said here from
(18:10):
Dylan?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I think Dylan is in the right spot in terms of
mindset.
Uh, here's what I would say.
You mentioned the word brand.
You want to run this under onebrand.
You can do that with twochannels.
Yes, and you should absolutely.
In my opinion.
My vote for you is to have adifferent channel for this.
And you point to the otherchannels constantly.
You know you're just remindingpeople towards the end of the
(18:33):
videos, like constantly.
You know you're just remindingpeople towards the end of the
videos, like, by the way, I justmade you.
Let's say, you play finalfantasy on the, on the, on the
regular game or regular thegaming channel one day and you
say, hey, by the way, thisweapon that I'm holding right
now, I made this it's overanother channel.
Go check it out.
You can absolutely be this onebrand and have two channels.
It just it feels like adifferent type of audience to me
(18:53):
.
But I will say this if yourgaming channel is more of a
video essay style vibe, anyway,and you're not really playing
the games, but you're moretalking about the culture of
gaming, that's a littledifferent.
That's probably not what you'redoing, because you just, you
know, mentioned it's a gamingchannel.
Um, those most gaming channelsdon't do that.
But I'm talking about, ifyou're the kind of person like
annie austin who is always doinglike deep dives on very
(19:14):
specific things about specificgames.
I wonder if he could get awaywith doing something like this,
where he's like I actually triedmy hand at making this thing
that I'm talking about in thisgame today.
But if you're not that kind ofcreator, then this is two
channels hands down, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, I agree, I think understanding the value
prop of this specific channelwhere there's even less than if
there are gaming channels andless than there are forging
channels, there's this gamingforging channel.
It's such a cool idea that Iwould almost be excited to watch
that.
I feel like that's the one youdo right off the bat, because as
(19:52):
a viewer, you can go to agaming channel and be like, okay
, I've seen, it's cool, maybe ifthere's another five videos I
like I'll subscribe.
Or or forging channel, like ohyeah, that's cool, but there's
still some other ones.
But how many forging gamingforging channels are?
It's like, well, there's onlylike a couple.
So I'm definitely subscribing on, like the first view of a good
video, like because I definitelywant to see more of this.
I won't see it everywhere else.
(20:12):
So there's that as well, whichis really an interesting value
prop, and I think that I wouldlove to see this channel.
So, if you end up doing this,definitely send us an email Once
you boot it up and get a couplevideos going.
We'd love to take a look at it.
I think it'd be a lot of fun.
What a cool idea.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
That's awesome.
I love when people use justhobbies and skills they're
developing as their channel.
I think it's kind of a winningstrategy You're taking something
you're passionate about andcombining it with YouTube, which
I hope, hopefully, you'repassionate about.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I would hope so.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, the two passions in one.
It's like this snowball ofmotivation.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
We should all hope for that.
All right, our first email,theboostvidiqcom, comes from
Orlando.
Hey, jen and Travis, of courseit's Dan this time.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Wow, yeah whatever I know right.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
The other day I was watching a vidIQ video in which
Rob was talking about theconcept of total addressable
market.
Oh, this is great.
Oh boy, yeah, the concepttotally makes sense.
You can't have more views thantheoretical viewers.
Simple, how is it that any JoeSchmo with less subscribers than
me can post a video that'ssimply raw footage shot with a
GoPro in the hood of a car, withno rhyme or reason, no one
(21:18):
talking to music, and still get4,200 views in 11 days?
This is very specific, by theway.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
And my videos seem to die they have an enemy.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
They have a very specific enemy in this email.
I've been following every rulein the book.
My titles and thumbnails aregood because I say so, but
because vid iq says it, I coverevery aspect of town.
I include regular footage,action footage, drone footage.
I spent over 40 hours writing ascript, meticulously editing my
program, providing detaileddescriptions and nothing.
Uh, now there's one thing thatI do that no one else seems to
do, at least I haven't seen it.
I run a bug on top of the righthand corner of my entire screen
(21:49):
with my channel logo.
Could that be the culprit?
See, when I see stuff like this, I worry that you, you get into
analysis paralysis.
You start thinking that everylittle thing could be the reason
.
There are a lot of reasons thatthis could be the case.
Yeah, um, and I understand whatyou're saying, because I've
seen stuff like this before.
So it is kind of frustratingwhen you put extra time and
effort into a video and it'sabout something similar and you
(22:10):
see, in this particular case,orlando's talking about someone
that says, um, you know, theypost a video with raw footage of
a GoPro in the hood of a carand just kind of driving around
and stuff, and they get moreviews.
Now let me start with a couplethings, and I'm not saying this
is the case, right, but let mejust say the first thing how do
we know all those views areorganic?
How do we know all those viewsaren't embedded?
Speaker 3 (22:31):
on like Reddit somewhere.
You're talking about the, theenemy channel, the enemy channel
right, yeah, how do we know?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I mean, let's just start there, right?
I don't want to end there,because I think that gets you
thinking too evil about otherpeople.
But we don't even know that.
So let's start there.
Let's just say that maybe thisthing is hitting like a google
feed and those views are emptyviews.
So then who cares?
Right, right, okay.
Now let's say they are allcompletely organic.
Youtube beubing sometimes and wesee this happen a lot, where a
(22:56):
video just pops off out ofnowhere.
You're like why does this haveall this view Like what's going
on?
This is nothing special aboutit, but something connected and
it was in the right place at theright time.
Orlando's channel, if Iremember correctly, is a pretty
old channel.
It's been around for a while.
Has grown an audience specificto a specific thing.
And this other channel you knowthey're saying it's, it's
smaller probably hasn't grown aspecific audience to anything
(23:16):
yet yet, or maybe they have, andthey've micro focused on just
this one thing by not puttingany additional kind of thing.
And then YouTube's like well, Iknow who likes this type of
thing, whereas Orlando talksabout quite a bit of things and
where he's from.
So I feel like there's a lot ofthings that you can't control, a
lot of things that you can'tworry about.
You look at those channels andyou try to figure out what
(23:37):
connected with that audience, tosee if that audience is
something that you want to goafter.
And you do that by looking inthe comments section.
You look at the comments andyou see kind of what things are
connecting with people and ifthey say, oh, I like this area,
or I like the way you shot this,or I like how simple it is,
those are keys.
Success leaves clues.
Sean Cannell said that, and Ithink it's really important to
(23:58):
look at those clues to figureout what type of things maybe
you need to tweak in yours.
Maybe you're over-editing, maybeyou're doing too much, maybe
you're being overlyperfectionist about the type of
content you need, maybe youdon't need that.
So, for example, if I'm lookingat how to unclog a toilet, I
don't need Mr Beast type edits,I don't need that.
I looking at how to unclog atoilet, I don't need mr beast
type edits, I don't need that.
I don't need the extra footage,I don't need a script for it, I
just just show me the toilet.
(24:19):
If I'm going somewhere to visit, I don't necessarily need a
whole bunch of it's nice to havedrone footage, so that's nice
too, but if I just want to go toa specific place and figure out
where to eat and stuff, I don'tneed all that extra stuff.
I just need that thing.
So it just depends on the typeof content you're doing.
What stood out to you aboutthis message?
Speaker 3 (24:35):
I what stood out to me is that they I feel like
they're so in the weeds rightnow.
Yeah, you mentioned analysis,paralysis, the, the bug in the
corner of the screen.
No, keep that, that's not.
That's not doing nothing.
I mean it's good If you feellike the watermark, keep it Sure
.
I think now I have to make someassumptions and I have to make
some hypothetical suggestions,because I don't know the channel
(24:57):
, I don't have it in front of me, I don't know the channel
you're also looking at and going.
Well, they're doing this.
So let's make some assumptionsand say that the channel that's
getting a lot of views let'sassume they're organic they're
(25:18):
not using the promote tab, sothey're not getting views in
some dubious way.
You can check into into that alittle bit, by the way, by just
looking at their interactions ontheir two videos.
Are they getting real commentsand likes?
Anyway, let's assume this islegit and you sound like you're
investing a lot of money andtime into the quality of the
videos, right.
So you have a good camera, youhave good editing, you have good
thumbnails, everything isfiring all cylinders with the
quality.
So what you did is you'velearned how to get all of these
tools and use them to makehigh-quality videos.
Now, the definition ofhigh-quality in this case would
(25:38):
be literally the resolution ofthe videos, the pacing of the
videos, all of the technicalstuff Sounds like, if we just
take your word for it, it'sOrlando, right.
If we take Orlando's word forit, it's all there it's all
working, but we don't know thetopics of your videos or the
person you're talking about orany of the other people in your
(26:01):
niche, and I'm wondering if thereason your competition seems to
be doing well is because ofjust, I hate to say this, I'm
really not trying to be brutaland again, I'm doing
hypotheticals and assumptionsright now.
I hate to say this.
I'm really not trying to bebrutal and again, I'm doing
hypotheticals and assumptionsright now.
But are their videos just moreinteresting sounding from a
(26:22):
title thumbnail perspective?
And when you get into thecontent, are their titles and
thumbnails delivering on thatinteresting thing?
So an example I could give youif we're talking about dash cam
footage, what sounds moreinteresting?
A dash cam where you drive fromyour house to the grocery store
, or a dash camera?
You drive from your house tothe grocery store and you
witness a car crash on the waythere?
I'm not wishing for bad thingsto happen to anyone on the road,
by the way.
I'm just saying, unfortunately,people love a good train wreck
(26:46):
they.
They can't look away from itand that's the kind of thing
that draws people in.
So what is happening on theirdrives and what's happening on
your drives and what can you doto make your videos interesting?
Because all I can do is assumethat your competition is just
doing something that, inherently, is more interesting to the
audiences that you're cateringto.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I want to say something that you just said.
First of all, russian dash camchannels are like huge, they're
big things.
And secondarily, speaking alsoabout the dash cams, this is a
true story.
Back when I was doing techreviews and stuff, I did a
couple dash cam reviews and Iwill tell you that one thing I
am passionate about when itcomes to tech is I think
everyone should have a dash cam.
I know it seems extraneous, buttrust me when I tell you you
(27:30):
wish you had one, when you don'thave one and you need one,
right, you better to have it,not need it, to need it, not
have it.
And almost every time that Iwould do a dash cam review, I
would almost get into anaccident.
Weirdly, like twice and it wasrecorded, I actually had to put
it in the review.
I'm like I think I almost hitsomebody, like jump out in front
of me.
I'm like, bro, I'm trying toliterally review this dash cam.
(27:53):
Thank you for proving the pointas to why you should have a
dash cam.
Everyone go get a dash cam ifyou have a car.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
So, like another example, you know that YouTube
channel that shows the clips ofthat bridge that's too low and
trucks and stuff always driveunder it and just ruin the top
of the trailer will be there andthe air conditioner will catch
on the bridge and there it goes.
If you just watched the bridgeall day long, it would be very
boring, right?
You know car drives underbridge, so that's kind of where
(28:20):
I'm coming from is like, whatare the topics of your videos?
Like, like, and I really don'twant to say this and have it
misconstrued as like wow, sodan's advocating for me to
deliberately cause and findaccidents so I can get more
views?
Like, no, I don't know, thechannels are talking.
I'm using extreme examples, butI do think that, based on the
question and the way that wasworded to us, that you are
(28:41):
really focused on the quality,the technical aspects you can
control, and I think it's timeto.
Now you've mastered that, let'sassume you've mastered that.
I want you to focus on justtopics and ideas, and when I say
topics and ideas, think aboutit from the perspective of the
people seeing the title andthumbnails putting videos out
there, what's going to makesomeone stop and go?
(29:02):
Wait, that's.
I'm sorry what happened.
And make sure the thumbnailsand titles support themselves.
And like, like, make sure yourthumbnail and title strategy is
good.
You claim it is great.
Like, now let's talk about theactual meat and potatoes.
What is the video about?
And without get, I can't getany more specific than that.
Unfortunately, because we don't, I don't have the channel in
front of me right?
(29:23):
I'm not asking you to send itor anything, but hopefully that
was helpful and I think that'sso smart on point and a lot of
people miss the, the, the ideawe get.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
we get on the creator side and we just think about
that part where we forget aboutthe viewer side.
That's the whole reason we'rehere.
We have to have a good viewerexperience.
All right, next one.
This one is not really aquestion.
I actually picked this justbecause I thought it was kind of
funny and I knew you were goingto be here.
How much are we all lovingseeing the new it's about shorts
.
This is from Chris.
(29:52):
How much are we all lovingseeing the new this is about
shorts.
This is from Chris.
How much are we all lovingseeing the new view counts and
then looking at the engagedviews and feeling like we were
kicked in the pants.
Love it right.
Seriously.
How demotivating.
Why not give me false numberson my monetization and then pay
me less?
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Great work YouTube.
Yeah, I got to tell you I thinkthis is I'm making another
assumption here.
Sorry, youtube, because, andfor YouTube themselves, they are
being selfish, and I think thereason they're being selfish is
just my own little tinfoil hat.
(30:27):
Okay, put your tinfoil hats oneverybody.
You should have your Tube Talkbranded tinfoil hats in the mail
if you haven't gotten them yet.
And the conspiracy theory Ihave is that the thing I hear
about TikTok all the time is howeasy it is to get views on
TikTok compared to otherplatforms.
We mysteriously don't.
We don't know much abouttiktok's algorithm.
It's a big mystery to us.
Did youtube realize?
(30:48):
Oh, they're just not countingengaged views like we are.
Let's just change it.
They only changed it for shortsand again like I said earlier,
youtube is trying to encroach ontiktok, so this was just
youtube trying to make it looklike shorts is also an easy
place to get views.
It was a selfish thing they didand the they gave us a little
(31:08):
bit back by saying don't worry,you can still still see the real
views.
They're just not going to bepublic on your channel anymore,
and I'm also very frustrated bythis.
I don't like this update.
I think YouTube, all ofYouTube's platforms, should be
parallel to one another and I Idon't want them to give us
engaged versus non-engaged usinglong form.
That's not what I'm saying, butlong form still works the way
(31:28):
it always has.
Now shorts counts viewsdifferently.
They should all count views thesame.
I don't.
I don't like how it's notparallel anymore.
I don't like that.
Shorts is this.
It's the same app and it's allin the same place.
All the analytics are in thesame place, but it's like this
whole different world caters toa different audience, has
different analytics, and themore they change it, the more
(31:49):
I'm like maybe they should makeanother app called YouTube
shorts and and get shorts offthe main app, which I'm not
advocating for.
I actually think these shouldbe in the same place.
I like that they're in the sameplace, but if it keeps getting
changed like this and they keepdoing like now we're doing
vertical live streams andengaged views versus non-engaged
views, it's so dramaticallydifferent and it causes
(32:11):
confusion and it's weird and Idon't.
I also don't like this update.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, I don't blame you and I I've said this since
the very first time theyannounced they were doing this
that this is literally a play toget more in line with TikTok,
like that's all it is.
Yeah, announced they were doingthis, that this is literally a
play to get more in line withtiktok, like that's all it is.
Yeah, um and uh.
You know you can tell that theycare because routinely they'll
come out with um specs everylike month or two, with, like,
oh, more watch time than tv.
We're the most streamed channelin the world and most streamed
(32:37):
platform in the world, like allthese things that uh, don't
matter to the people that areusing the platform, but are
interesting to people that arelike, analytical about it, or
I'm sure they care.
So, yeah, absolutely, this wasa play for that.
There's no other reason to doit.
It's to make people feel goodabout themselves and to use
YouTube over TikTok.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
It's what it is.
It is what it is.
I recommend storing yourtinfoil hat in like a big
Tupperware or something, so itdoesn't get crushed and thank
you for using that yeah allright.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
uh, so the last email .
I need to make sure that I saythis person's name right,
because they did put apronunciation thing in the email
, so I want to make sure I getthis.
Uh, so this person's name isveronique, veronique I know that
looks like veronica orsomething like that, but it's
veronique, okay.
And she says hi, love your show.
(33:26):
Sorry, I don't eat candy.
Okay, that's fair, it's myregular Monday.
Let's get this week started towatch your show.
Love that.
Thank you so much.
I pivoted my channel.
Now I'm small, very small, butI originally had my channel to
showcase my product.
Then I decided to pivot to workon the how of making that
(33:47):
product and the science behindit.
Initially, some of my showcaseproduct videos brought in a lot
for me viewers, but they werethe completely wrong audience.
So I had to unlist those videoscompletely because I thought it
might be confusing to theaudience recommendation system,
and I agree with that.
I'm now seven months into mytrue pivot and it's still very
slow and hard in a hard climb.
Now, before I finish, finishthis.
The reason that we're gettinglike this particular question is
because the last episode wasabout pivots.
Jen and I talked in, uh indepth about channel pivots and
(34:11):
like, given her experience oranything, I think it was really
fascinating.
I think the last part of thepodcast where I was almost
interviewing um jen about, uh,about her pivot, was almost some
of the most interesting stuffthat we've done in a while,
because I was literally askingher questions like so how did
this go?
Because I'm pivoting my channeltoo, so I just kind of wanted
to see how she had done, and shehad done some really
(34:32):
interesting things that made herpivot a success, which is great
.
But anyway, I'm seven monthsinto my true pivot.
It's still very slow and hardclimb 700 scrubs and barely
1,000 hours in a year.
The audience recommendationsystem seems to be still
recommending my videos aftervideos that are nowhere near my
niche.
It is maddening.
So I'm not sure if it's becauseof the pivot or because my
(34:54):
niche is so well niche andspecialized, but it's really
slowly building my audience.
Anyway, you were asking aboutthe pivoting experience and here
is mine a small channel Carryon being supportive and real at
the same time.
So I do want to talk about thisbecause when we talked about
the pivot, one of the things Iasked jen was about how long did
it take for her pivot tosucceed, and she said about five
(35:17):
months, but it was, you know, avideo a week or so.
She unlisted some older things,so she did some very specific
things and if you haven'tlistened to that episode, go
back and listen to it.
I think it was so good.
Even if you're not thinkingabout pivoting your channel, the
question gets answered whetheryou should start a new channel
or pivot a channel.
And we do get a lot of peoplewho send in emails that are like
I want to do a new channel,should I start a new channel or
pivot the one?
And I feel like this one iskind of like well, I did it for
(35:46):
even longer and it's still notworking.
Now a couple of things.
What was said here was therecommendation videos are not
related to the type of contentthey're making.
That's actually normal forsmaller channels, because
typically it'll be random videosthat they see, and they see in
your recommendation.
Oh, I know I watch a smallerchannel.
Let me click and watch it, soit'll show that video, even
though it might have anything todo with your channel.
That's normal and, by the way,it never completely goes away.
(36:07):
You'll always have some randomvideos in your suggested videos.
That's just the way it is.
But as a smaller channel, it'salmost all of it Like that's.
You don't see anything relatedand you're like well, what the
heck's going on here?
Here's what you do.
(36:28):
Um, hey, you just keep makinggreat content.
Look at the things that areworking in your niche and that
sort of thing.
But I want you to remembersomething that I talked about
with hafu go, and hafu go saidmultiple times he wanted to quit
.
He was, you know, he kept goingthrough this process.
It didn't seem to work, um, andfor a moment, like he was done.
But he now looks at his growthover the course of a year.
He doesn't look at it month tomonth, even he doesn't look at
it week to week.
He looks at it over the courseof a year and he says if that
(36:48):
number is still going up, thenhe's winning.
And I think that's kind ofimportant here, because we
talked earlier about totaladdressable market, which is
really important.
How many people are there thatare even possible to watch your
content?
I don't know exactly what yourniche is.
Don't know exactly what yourniche is.
She said it's a niche of aniche, like a small niche.
So your total addressablemarket might be 3,000 people
(37:08):
total, which means you'reprobably not even going to get
to 3,000.
You might get to 500 orsomething like that at the top.
If your total addressablemarket is 30 million, maybe you
get to a million of that.
Maybe right, maybe not, maybe500,000.
So it's really important tounderstand that whatever the
total adjustable market is,you're only going to get a small
slice of that and as long as itis still growing in some way,
then you are succeeding.
(37:29):
We talk to small channels allthe time.
Dan, what kind of things areyou seeing when people do try to
pivot?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
I see I'll speak from experience too, because I've
been through this I just see alittle bit of like justified
impatience, like I'm committingto this really hard and you tell
yourself, going into it, like Iknow my first video is going to
be crap because I'm pivoting.
But when it's crap you stillget really bummed because you
also want to put your best footforward.
It's a new type of video, maybeit's a new type of editing, a
(38:00):
new type of style, and so youput it all out there and you're
like I know I said I wasexpecting this, but I'm still
like it hurts and it makes youdemotivated.
It makes the next video harderto do, which maybe is another
reason to batch a little bit.
So you have like five videosand that way you're not making
those the next four videos inlike a state of demotivation
because you need plenty ofvideos to start testing and
(38:21):
getting the pivot rolling.
And pivoting is aboutcommitting you are, you believe
in this new idea.
You know you got more viewsdoing the other thing, but it
doesn't matter, you'recommitting.
Just just do it and and a yearor two later, if you keep up
with it, you will realize thatyou know your pivot worked and
the views you were getting arethey pale in comparison to what
you're getting now?
(38:42):
Um, um.
So I wanted to say that and Iwant to add um, for for this
particular creator who reachedout, something that a lot of
people forget with vidIQ is thatwe are a product, like we have
a product and we have YouTubechannels and stuff and we,
you'll notice, we don't talkabout the product all the time.
(39:02):
We mentioned it here and thereand that's like a deliberate
strategy, because our strategyfor our product and business is
let's be part of the discussion,let's be part of the community.
That is just YouTube creating.
Let's create content ourselvesand have fun and show how fun it
can be.
And once in a while, we'llmention that we have a tool that
(39:23):
helps creators.
I don't know what your helpscreators, I don't know what your
product is and I don't knowwhat pivot you've done.
I don't know what you're tryingright now, but I I just wanted
to kind of put that out there asa strategy for growing a
channel around a product, justin general.
Like maybe you can be part ofthe community that would use
that product and then, once in awhile, you can point people and
say, by the way, I have one ofthese in myself.
Or if you're wondering what theheck this thing is, by the way
(39:45):
I made it.
There's just opportunities tokind of be in the community and
you'll find a whole bunch ofstrategies for making videos in
that community, versus makingvideos about a product, which
when you make a video about aproduct, you're basically making
an ad, right.
So I don't know, I don't knowthat helps.
I don't.
Again, I don't know what yourchannel is or what you're doing,
(40:06):
but if for anyone out there asa product and you're struggling
a little bit, that's ourstrategy for promoting our own
product.
We don't really promote it much.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
We talk about it once in a while and we just
participate in the experiencethat everyone else is having on
youtube we do debate how much weshould promote our product
which, by the way, I will pointout, I talked about this in a
couple episodes ago.
One of the things we are goingto be reading in the live stream
sorry, not the live stream, thestudio episodes are the script
episodes the scripts that you'resending in.
(40:33):
So I promoted and showed offour script tool in two episodes
ago.
I really love that tool and Ichallenged people to use that
tool to make a script for me andJen that we will read on air,
which we've gotten some emailsalready.
I can't wait to read them inthe studio, but you can still
send them into the boost atvidIQcom.
All you got to do go tovidIQcom, go to create and
(40:56):
create a script and writesomething for Jen and I and if
it's good, we'll read it duringthe podcast and that's a tool.
That was a promotion, notbecause I was asked to do it,
but because I actually likedthat tool a lot.
I actually really liked thattool a lot, so I thought it'd be
fun if people use it as well.
But the thing is, we argue all.
I shouldn't say argue.
We discuss all the time inmeetings.
Should we even be promotingourselves.
(41:16):
I don't know, maybe, maybe not.
It certainly name.
That's synonymous with YouTubecreation, which is great.
It's almost like, does Pepsiand Coke really need to
advertise anymore?
I mean, yes, believe it or not,you kind of do, because as soon
as you stop advertising, peopleforget about you.
But by the same token it comesback to total dressable market,
like that's never going to goaway.
(41:39):
It's how many people areinterested in what you're doing,
and if there are more peoplethat are interested in what
you're doing than what you arecurrently tapping into, that
might be the things you'remaking, the topics you're making
, them on the type of story thatyou're telling or the
information that you're giving.
You've got to look out thereand see who is really killing it
in your niche and try to notcopy but get inspiration from.
And one of the things that wedo here on the podcast is we
(41:59):
talk about these things not somuch in somewhat strategic ways.
It's like we try to give yousome strategy but we like to
commiserate with you becausewe're creators too and we don't
get all one of tens.
We get a lot of ten of tens.
We get a lot of videos thatbomb we.
We go through it too.
There is no magic thing whereevery single thing works for
every single person every singletime.
Just, it's just not the wayyoutube works.
Doesn't work that way.
(42:20):
Um, and you know, if you feellike I just don't get it, you
can send us a message and we'llsit here and we'll say you know
what?
Sometimes we don't either.
Fortunately for us.
We've been around it so muchthat, more times than not, we
can succeed or help otherssucceed.
That doesn't mean that we knowevery single little thing, and
something that might beaffecting you might be something
(42:41):
we've literally never heard ofbefore, but we want to hear
about it and we'll definitelycover it, and we'll definitely
cover it if we do so.
All that being said, dan, thankyou so much for joining me today
.
I know that you're working onsome cool projects.
On the main channel, we've hadsome pretty cool things happen.
John just left.
He'll be coming on in a futureepisode chatting with us and
(43:01):
stuff, so that leaves an openingfor live streams during the
course of the week.
I'm thinking that we might haveto do like a Savage Saturday or
something.
I don't know, maybe not aSaturday, but I think we're
going to see some interestingcreations along the way you
should.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
you should do Savage Saturday and do it on Wednesday.
That's a great idea.
That's just one of the bits.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
That is the best idea .
I didn't even come up with that.
That's beautiful, all right.
Well, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
We'll see Keep an eye out for that Everyone.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Thank you so much for joining us.
Of course you can check us outon vidIQcom and if you're new
here, feel free to hit thatsubscribe button.
If you had some fun with us andif you're listening to the
audio podcast, leave us afive-star review only because we
love those and we will see.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Tube Talk
brought to you by vidIQ.
Head over to vidIQcom.
Slash Tube Talk for today'sshow notes and previous episodes
.
Enjoy the rest of your videomaking day.
Welcome to Tube Talk, the show dedicated to helping
you become a better videocreator so you can get more
views, subscribers and buildyour audience.
Brought to you by vidIQ.
Download for free at vidIQcom.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that's here
every single week, but withdifferent people, just because
I'm Travis and I'm here with Danthis time.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
That intro was so loud.
I'm begging you, please letwith Dan this time.
That intro was so loud, I'mbegging you, please let me make
you a new intro.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Please make me a new intro.
By the way, sometimes peopledon't even hear the intro
anymore Because of the way thisshow was edited.
I just use it as like atimestampy thing.
Audio podcast will hear it,video never hears it.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Can I take over for a second?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This is unprompted.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I have not asked you permission to do this so you can
edit this out if you don't likeit.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
No no, feel free.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
But instead of me making an intro, I think you
should open it up and ask peopleto send you their intros for
Tube Talk, and every week youuse a different one.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
That's kind of fun.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
It could just be someone going blah Tube Talk
time, and then that could be theintro.
You'll probably get some thatare really highly produced.
You might get all kinds of coolintros, and every week you'll
just have a different one.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You know, that's not a bad idea If y'all that are
listening, because here's thenice thing, dan Our listeners
are YouTubers.
Yeah, it just so happens theyhave the skills able to do this.
If some of y'all are interestedin that sort of thing, I guess
send me an intro, I don't know.
Send an email totheboostvidIQcom with a link to
what would be an intro video, Iguess.
Do you want audio or do youwant video?
(01:33):
I'll do video, because then wecan just take the audio from it
if needed.
Let's just do the whole thing.
There you go, why not?
I think it would be a greatsurprise.
Jen won't know about thisbecause she won't hear this
episode before we would have it.
So feel free to send a boost atvidIQcom.
And yeah, anyway, so we're hereto help you grow YouTube
channels.
If you're new here, feel freeto sit back, relax.
We like to talk in a very casualway about YouTuber-y things and
(01:56):
it looks like just hot off thepresses.
So, before we get into some ofthese emails, something about
and I Well, I see you going backand forth in Slack about this,
because sometimes understandingwhat is true about what's going
on YouTube and hearing theclickbait.
I'll tell you about the firstclickbait for this week.
So, depending on when youlisten to this, you may have
already heard this.
First of all, it's like YouTubeis not monetizing AI voices,
(02:16):
which is not terribly true.
Even YouTube themselves havesaid that's not really it.
This is just a tweak of and wekind of briefly talked about
this in the last podcast.
It's a tweak on the existingmonetization rules, but people
will take a headline from it orsomething that they're like this
is what this means and thenjust throw it all over the place
.
If you use an AI voice, youwill not get monetized.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
That's not true.
No to this was if you are areaction channel, if you are
re-uploading other people'svideos, or if you are just mass
producing like ai content withlike zero effort on your part,
then maybe you don't getmonetized, but youtube is
probably still going to allowyou to have that content on the
platform.
(02:55):
And the truth is we we can allprobably name reaction channels
and channels like that that doseem to be monetized even under
these rules, which, by the way,have existed the entire time.
They've been around for a longtime.
I don't know how, when theystarted, but it's been.
We've known these rules forever.
They just change the language alittle bit and everyone is
blowing it out of proportionwhich is yeah, and it's really
more specifically if I'm righttravis, it's about monetization
(03:18):
more thananything else.
Right, like they're justtalking about hey, we only
monetize quality content.
And then I think what youshould be outraged about is how,
if you want to be outraged, howselective it seems the process
is for deciding, well, who getsmonetized making this type of
content?
And YouTube has to draw thoselines.
I think that's why it's vague,deliberately so, because YouTube
(03:38):
is kind of like we know it whenwe see it.
It's what I said in Rob's videoabout it.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
But yeah, it's funny to see everyone blowing it out
of proportion.
Yeah, and I get it.
I mean, I understand there's alot of, and we found out by a
poll a while back.
I seem to remember, um, that alot of the people who watch the
main vid iq channel are actuallyquote faceless channels.
But faceless channels can meana lot of things.
By the way, um, I think thatthere's a connotation to
faceless channels that mean likeAI and all this, but that's not
necessarily true.
There are tons of facelesschannels that are commentary
channels and drama channelsespecially.
(04:09):
They're almost always faceless,ironically.
So there's entire niches thatare faceless.
That's normal.
It's like it's fine, you'rejust seeing B-roll over top of
the voice and that's a facelesschannel.
But I think when we talk aboutfaceless channels, we're talking
about the ones that are kind ofwhat people call like ai, slop
or or they're.
They're the channels that aremade specifically just to make
money, because they're notreally you're not into the
(04:30):
creative side of things, andwhile that's technically a valid
type of um, content creation,personally I like the people
that love what they're making.
I, I don't.
I like to help those people.
I'm not really here to helppeople make these.
You know, click, click and nowyou've get a youtube channel
that gets lots of views and getyour money.
That has nothing to do with thepassion that you're, that you
love I.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
It's not for me right , I'm the same way.
I think I mean there's going tobe all kinds of channels that
are even listening to the show,and I'm not here to judge
specifically how you feel likecreating, but I do feel like the
vast majority of our audienceis putting up some amount of
themselves into their content.
Whether they're using some AIor a lot of AI, I still feel
like the people who are mostsuccessful at the end of the day
(05:11):
are the ones who are addingthemselves to whatever they're
doing.
If you're reacting to stuff,the reactions like you could
even consider people who justtalk about the news reaction
channels to a degree, right,because they are putting up a
news story and they are givingyou their feedback on it, their
reaction to it.
But there's always a line.
There's nuance with everything,and the internet is famous for
not being able to have a nuanceddiscussion, but there is a line
(05:35):
that gets crossed with thingslike reaction channels, whereby
the worst case scenario is theyare uploading the video and just
staring at it the whole time,and the best case scenario in
our opinion I think't speak foryou, but in my opinion is that
we see somebody pause the videoand say okay, so what they're
saying right here that'snonsense.
You know like that's.
(05:55):
That's how I think a healthyreaction video looks, and the
more they're putting themselvesin that content, the more
personable it's going to be andthe more, I think, in YouTube's
mind, deserving they are of anopportunity to be monetized.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, it's transformational, which is what
you're supposed to do anyway.
And then there's a new thing,something about what the
trending page might go away,which is fine, I think, and I
don't know, is this even true?
I've only kind of briefly readthe back and forth with the
trending page might go away andthere's something called charts
coming out.
What's that?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I'm I'm still getting , uh, a grip on this information
myself.
It sounds like youtube is justcalling it charts now, and it
sounds like, but the word chartto me indicates hey, we're going
to be showing you morespecifically why something is
trending.
Hey, look at this video and howit's performing against other
things, like a more comparisonkind of view but, that's my
(06:44):
imagination.
The problem the things we'retalking about right now, that
travis is referring to uh isjust in some one of our channels
here at work, and we're tryingto figure out where this
information is coming from yeahand my frustration this is more
of a general frustration withthe internet is that have you
ever gone on sites like just Idon't want to name anyone
specifically, but just sitesthat typically report on stories
(07:05):
and they report on them withconfidence, but they don't link
to the original source rightit's just like a trust me bro,
trust me bro, yeah.
And it's really like frustrating, because I think the reason
they have to do that is the wayseo works, and I think I'm right
about this.
If you keep linking off of yourwebsite, that that's not great.
They want any links on the pageto go to another thing on their
(07:28):
own website Sure.
So We've gotten to this pointnow where it's gotten harder and
harder for me as time has goneon to see the actual source of
information.
So I was looking at these liketwo different articles.
I'm like where's the okay?
They're referencing a YouTubeblog or post somewhere and I
don't know where it is.
So now I'm like doing separatesearches to even try and find
the information.
I'm getting results that arereally old.
(07:49):
It's a mess.
It's a mess right now to findinformation about anything.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Very.
It's a mess right now to findinformation about anything.
Very true, and it's one of thethings that I think in this age
of unfortunate misinformation,which is sad to say, but it
really is true that the wholetrust me bro thing is an
unfortunate normality that we'rekind of seeing.
It's been very normalized andwe just have to be careful.
So basically, I guess what I'msaying for all the creators out
(08:13):
there check your sources.
Whenever you see something,don't immediately retweet it or
go and tell all your friends ohmy God, they're not going to
check around and VidIQ, we'regoing to always try to figure
out what the news is and whatthe truth is and then try to
give you that information.
But I mean, we might even getit wrong.
So don't just trust us.
Look at other sources as welland make sure that you're making
(08:42):
decisions based off of factsand not things that are being
said by someone else, which Isay this and then I realize some
of the thumbnails that RobWilson's in and I'm like well,
listen All right?
Well, you can trust us, though,bro.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Oh, yeah, Trust us bro.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Trust us, bro.
All right.
So, with all that being said,we got a couple questions sent
in um.
You can do it a coupledifferent ways.
If you're listening to theaudio only podcast, there's an
option in the show notes thatallows you to send a text
message to us, and our firstmessage um will be let's see
this will be from oh well see,the thing is it doesn't actually
say their name here we go so higuys, I recently discovered
(09:14):
vertical live streams and theyare awesome.
I can get way more viewers onthem than I can on standard
lives.
I also found out that verticallive stream watch time counts
towards monetization, so myquestion is how do I grow my
audience on these streams?
I typically have 20 to 60 liveviewers.
I'm wondering how I can geteven more.
Thank you so much.
Vertical live streams rememberthose?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
it's like no one talks about them anymore yeah,
well, they were really popularwhen they first came out and I
think that was because youtubewas pushing them in the regular
shorts feed more often.
Yeah, and I have a feeling thatif you interacted with those by
clicking like, oh, I want towatch this, you probably get
those more often.
I barely get them because Ialmost never interact with them
yeah so I think it's tailored toeach individual and the reason
(09:56):
I personally don't enjoywatching them is because of my
mindset when I'm watching a livestream, which is, if I'm
turning on a live stream, I amready to lock in, or it's on as
in the background as I'm doingsomething else, and vertical
live streams are mobile, so I'mnot going to.
If I'm trying to like cookdinner and I want a live stream
on, I'm not going to hold myphone in my hand.
(10:17):
You know I could prop it upwhatever, but you know, you know
what I mean it's it's all aboutthe environment that I'm in at
that time.
What do I?
What am I going to watch?
So I typically put on like atwitch stream or a youtube
stream.
If I'm like cooking or doingsomething like that, I can have
it on passively while I clean,and I like to do that on my tv,
and I just don't think to go tovertical.
(10:38):
Even if I can find them on mytv, I'm not gonna do that.
I'm just gonna go and see who'slive that I already follow.
So I would say that growingthese is tough.
I'm just slowly breaking thebad news to you that I don't
have great tips for you becauseI don't I've tried them, I don't
enjoy doing them and I don'tenjoy watching them.
So I'm just trying to give youmy reasons as to why I'm not the
(11:01):
best person to ask.
However, in my other opinionabout live streams, they are
great for growing a communityand shorts as you've probably
seen, if you've uploaded shorts,it's difficult to get people to
move to your long form, andthat's because shorts are not
great for building a community.
You know, you got to be at itfor a long time and you're gonna
get millions of views and thenslowly, over time yeah you,
maybe you start some livestreams or a discord server and
(11:23):
you notice how many peopleactually really are committed to
you.
But shorts are, so I want touse the word disposable, just in
terms of like I use that termall the time yeah, and it, it's
the, and the vertical livestreams fall into that same
category.
So, yes, it's cool that you'regetting viewers.
My question back to you wouldbe like do you notice the same
names coming back, or is italways new people?
(11:46):
And that's going to make a hugedifference when it comes to
growth, because YouTube, youknow, it, really helps to
snowball your growth.
If you're always getting 20 to60 people and they're always new
people, how are you supposed tobreak open to that next?
I really lost that there.
How are you supposed to breakthrough to that next hurdle and
go okay, now we have 160 people,now we have 300 people.
How do you do that if you'renot growing the community side
(12:09):
of it?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Here's an interesting thought I just realized,
because we know about theseengaged views on shorts, which I
think we even have a messagecoming in.
We're talking about that in asecond.
Do you think the lives areengaged or are they just like
the other one, the fake?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
one.
I wonder if they fall into thelive tab.
Therefore, there wouldn't be adifferentiation between views
and engaged views, because thatonly applies to shorts.
There wouldn't be adifferentiation between views
and engaged views because onlythat only applies to shorts and,
as this person pointed out, ifthese count towards watch time
for monetization, then they'redefinitely more live stream than
they are short I would think, Iwould think, so.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
But the other thing is like, if you have 20, I mean,
if you have like 50, 60 peoplewatching, you should definitely
have a pretty live chat and youshould have a pretty good idea
of what people are liking, whatpeople are not liking.
Um, I'm just unsure of likewhat that looks like in mobile.
So I will say this um, gettingviews on shorts and getting
viewers on live vertical which Iconsider live shorts, in my
(13:07):
opinion, are easier becausethey're just kind of shotgunned
out right, they're just kind ofeverywhere.
Um, so I think you're almostgoing to have to be more
spectacular in your verticallives than you would be in a
regular live, I guess in a weirdway, if you want to continue to
grow that, because in a regularlive, kind of like what dan
said, I feel like I'm going tohave more time with you.
(13:28):
You're going to hang out andchat with me and hang out with
us while we, you know, do the,do the recording versus.
I can swipe you at any secondyeah if you, just if I even
squirrel, oh swipe, that's allsquirrel um, like, I feel like
you have to be almostspectacular every minute, so it
might be something about doingthat.
That might be really um.
(13:48):
The key to unlock the thing iswe should have asked john before
he left, like to do somevertical things, to see what
that would look like I.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I have two more tips for this person.
Yeah, go for it.
I would say one a lot of peopleuse vertical as an addition to
something else.
So if they're streaming onTwitch, they'll throw a vertical
one on YouTube.
Sometimes they'll do a verticaland a horizontal on YouTube at
the same time.
Yes, what I've noticed is peoplelike I'll be watching a regular
looking live stream and thenthey'll mention by the way, if
you're watching on youtube onthe shorts feed, we're actually
(14:17):
live on twitch right now.
I'm like, oh, I'm watching ontwitch already, so I guess
they're.
They're live in two places, soyou can absolutely run multiple
live streams at the same time.
There are tools out there to dothat.
I would look those up, and thatis one thing you can do.
And then the other suggestion Ihave for you is to go and watch
some tiktok live streams andsee, take notes on what the
(14:37):
community is like there, becausereally what this is is YouTube
trying to eat into that market,and the people with the
strategies on how to grow avertical live stream are on
TikTok.
They've been on TikTok doingthat for a while.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Jen actually talked about this before multiple times
how she loves them, which isinteresting, since she doesn't
really like short form ingeneral.
But she said she loves the uh,the live stream that's on tiktok
and that there there are a lotof nothing but she likes it,
which is wild, yeah it's a wildperson.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I think the thing people need to remember about
shorts is that youtube is tryingto eat into the tiktok market
share and if you don't likeshorts, you might not be the
audience for them, and that'sokay, but their, their, youtube
is, is real, has realized a longtime ago like there's an
audience for vertical, there'san audience for vertical live
streams and if you don't, if you, if you see this as a cheat
(15:26):
code to grow but you're like, oh, but I hate it so much, then
it's not a cheat code to grow.
It's not for you like.
Focus on doing the thing youlike.
It sounds like this thiscommenter likes doing them,
which is great, uh, but ifyou're listening and going I
don't know if this one's for methat's good.
Like you understand yourselfand what you enjoy making first
and foremost, and focus on thatlove that as a reminder.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Um, we're going through some of the old messages
and stuff.
I think I said this in the lastepisode but if you missed that,
for the next couple of weekswe're we're trying to pick some
of the better emails and textmessages we get and we're going
to save them for when jen and Iget in the studio, which will be
in a couple of weeks.
So that means, if you've sentan email or a text message and
you're not seeing it show up ona show which, by the way, would
take a couple weeks anyway um,it might even take longer
(16:07):
because it might be one we thinkis so good that we want to talk
about it in person, and thenthose have to come out over the
course of a couple weeks.
So send in your best questionsand just be patient and hope for
the best, but some of these aregood that we can answer right
now.
This next one is another textmessage.
Hey, videye crew, my name isDylan.
I currently run a gaming channel, but I'm about to start
learning blacksmithing andbladesmithing, okay, and I'm
(16:30):
seriously consideringdocumenting the entire journey.
Part of it is accountability,fil, consider documenting the
entire journey.
Part of it is accountability.
Filming my progress will helpmotivate me and get me out of
there and keep learning, but Ialso feel like blacksmith.
A blacksmithing channel couldstand out more than gaming,
since the creator space isn'tquite as saturated.
If I go forward with this, Iplan to build up a backlog of
videos ahead of time so I don'tget overwhelmed.
I know forging with tools,daggers, swords and axes could
(16:52):
take a week or more each, so Ilikely wouldn't have have enough
to be able to maintain theweekly upload schedule I
currently have on my gamingchannel.
What do you think?
Would it make more sense tostart a separate channel for
this journey or try to manageboth under one brand?
Long term, I'd love to combineboth worlds by forging Final
Fantasy-style weapons or iconicgear from other games, which is
the channel I'm just going tosay that out loud that iconic
(17:14):
gear from other games, which isthe channel.
I'm just going to say that outloud.
That's your channel, at leastright now.
Right Like, go ahead and startdoing that now, because that
will separate you even more thana blacksmithing or forging
channel.
I think you could do that andit's definitely going to be less
saturated than a gaming channel.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
But you're going to be even less saturated with, you
know, making a Final Fantasyweapon or something from other
games yeah.
And the thing is that's going tobring in the people that are
into gaming anyway to see thereal thing Like make Cloud's big
sword, his big ridiculous swordfrom Final Fantasy VII.
(17:48):
That'd be crazy and people whoare into the game are going to
watch that.
Plus, people that are intoForging are going to watch that.
It's definitely the one of allthe things you're talking about
here that has probably thebiggest potential overall.
However, to your point, it'sgoing to take a while to do
these and I like the idea ofbuilding up the backlog before
they even launch the channel.
What do you think about all thethings that were said here from
(18:10):
Dylan?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I think Dylan is in the right spot in terms of
mindset.
Uh, here's what I would say.
You mentioned the word brand.
You want to run this under onebrand.
You can do that with twochannels.
Yes, and you should absolutely.
In my opinion.
My vote for you is to have adifferent channel for this.
And you point to the otherchannels constantly.
You know you're just remindingpeople towards the end of the
(18:33):
videos, like constantly.
You know you're just remindingpeople towards the end of the
videos, like, by the way, I justmade you.
Let's say, you play finalfantasy on the, on the, on the
regular game or regular thegaming channel one day and you
say, hey, by the way, thisweapon that I'm holding right
now, I made this it's overanother channel.
Go check it out.
You can absolutely be this onebrand and have two channels.
It just it feels like adifferent type of audience to me
(18:53):
.
But I will say this if yourgaming channel is more of a
video essay style vibe, anyway,and you're not really playing
the games, but you're moretalking about the culture of
gaming, that's a littledifferent.
That's probably not what you'redoing, because you just, you
know, mentioned it's a gamingchannel.
Um, those most gaming channelsdon't do that.
But I'm talking about, ifyou're the kind of person like
annie austin who is always doinglike deep dives on very
(19:14):
specific things about specificgames.
I wonder if he could get awaywith doing something like this,
where he's like I actually triedmy hand at making this thing
that I'm talking about in thisgame today.
But if you're not that kind ofcreator, then this is two
channels hands down, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, I agree, I think understanding the value
prop of this specific channelwhere there's even less than if
there are gaming channels andless than there are forging
channels, there's this gamingforging channel.
It's such a cool idea that Iwould almost be excited to watch
that.
I feel like that's the one youdo right off the bat, because as
(19:52):
a viewer, you can go to agaming channel and be like, okay
, I've seen, it's cool, maybe ifthere's another five videos I
like I'll subscribe.
Or or forging channel, like ohyeah, that's cool, but there's
still some other ones.
But how many forging gamingforging channels are?
It's like, well, there's onlylike a couple.
So I'm definitely subscribing on, like the first view of a good
video, like because I definitelywant to see more of this.
I won't see it everywhere else.
(20:12):
So there's that as well, whichis really an interesting value
prop, and I think that I wouldlove to see this channel.
So, if you end up doing this,definitely send us an email Once
you boot it up and get a couplevideos going.
We'd love to take a look at it.
I think it'd be a lot of fun.
What a cool idea.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
That's awesome.
I love when people use justhobbies and skills they're
developing as their channel.
I think it's kind of a winningstrategy You're taking something
you're passionate about andcombining it with YouTube, which
I hope, hopefully, you'repassionate about.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I would hope so.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, the two passions in one.
It's like this snowball ofmotivation.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
We should all hope for that.
All right, our first email,theboostvidiqcom, comes from
Orlando.
Hey, jen and Travis, of courseit's Dan this time.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Wow, yeah whatever I know right.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
The other day I was watching a vidIQ video in which
Rob was talking about theconcept of total addressable
market.
Oh, this is great.
Oh boy, yeah, the concepttotally makes sense.
You can't have more views thantheoretical viewers.
Simple, how is it that any JoeSchmo with less subscribers than
me can post a video that'ssimply raw footage shot with a
GoPro in the hood of a car, withno rhyme or reason, no one
(21:18):
talking to music, and still get4,200 views in 11 days?
This is very specific, by theway.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
And my videos seem to die they have an enemy.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
They have a very specific enemy in this email.
I've been following every rulein the book.
My titles and thumbnails aregood because I say so, but
because vid iq says it, I coverevery aspect of town.
I include regular footage,action footage, drone footage.
I spent over 40 hours writing ascript, meticulously editing my
program, providing detaileddescriptions and nothing.
Uh, now there's one thing thatI do that no one else seems to
do, at least I haven't seen it.
I run a bug on top of the righthand corner of my entire screen
(21:49):
with my channel logo.
Could that be the culprit?
See, when I see stuff like this, I worry that you, you get into
analysis paralysis.
You start thinking that everylittle thing could be the reason
.
There are a lot of reasons thatthis could be the case.
Yeah, um, and I understand whatyou're saying, because I've
seen stuff like this before.
So it is kind of frustratingwhen you put extra time and
effort into a video and it'sabout something similar and you
(22:10):
see, in this particular case,orlando's talking about someone
that says, um, you know, theypost a video with raw footage of
a GoPro in the hood of a carand just kind of driving around
and stuff, and they get moreviews.
Now let me start with a couplethings, and I'm not saying this
is the case, right, but let mejust say the first thing how do
we know all those views areorganic?
How do we know all those viewsaren't embedded?
Speaker 3 (22:31):
on like Reddit somewhere.
You're talking about the, theenemy channel, the enemy channel
right, yeah, how do we know?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I mean, let's just start there, right?
I don't want to end there,because I think that gets you
thinking too evil about otherpeople.
But we don't even know that.
So let's start there.
Let's just say that maybe thisthing is hitting like a google
feed and those views are emptyviews.
So then who cares?
Right, right, okay.
Now let's say they are allcompletely organic.
Youtube beubing sometimes and wesee this happen a lot, where a
(22:56):
video just pops off out ofnowhere.
You're like why does this haveall this view Like what's going
on?
This is nothing special aboutit, but something connected and
it was in the right place at theright time.
Orlando's channel, if Iremember correctly, is a pretty
old channel.
It's been around for a while.
Has grown an audience specificto a specific thing.
And this other channel you knowthey're saying it's, it's
smaller probably hasn't grown aspecific audience to anything
(23:16):
yet yet, or maybe they have, andthey've micro focused on just
this one thing by not puttingany additional kind of thing.
And then YouTube's like well, Iknow who likes this type of
thing, whereas Orlando talksabout quite a bit of things and
where he's from.
So I feel like there's a lot ofthings that you can't control, a
lot of things that you can'tworry about.
You look at those channels andyou try to figure out what
(23:37):
connected with that audience, tosee if that audience is
something that you want to goafter.
And you do that by looking inthe comments section.
You look at the comments andyou see kind of what things are
connecting with people and ifthey say, oh, I like this area,
or I like the way you shot this,or I like how simple it is,
those are keys.
Success leaves clues.
Sean Cannell said that, and Ithink it's really important to
(23:58):
look at those clues to figureout what type of things maybe
you need to tweak in yours.
Maybe you're over-editing, maybeyou're doing too much, maybe
you're being overlyperfectionist about the type of
content you need, maybe youdon't need that.
So, for example, if I'm lookingat how to unclog a toilet, I
don't need Mr Beast type edits,I don't need that.
I looking at how to unclog atoilet, I don't need mr beast
type edits, I don't need that.
I don't need the extra footage,I don't need a script for it, I
just just show me the toilet.
(24:19):
If I'm going somewhere to visit, I don't necessarily need a
whole bunch of it's nice to havedrone footage, so that's nice
too, but if I just want to go toa specific place and figure out
where to eat and stuff, I don'tneed all that extra stuff.
I just need that thing.
So it just depends on the typeof content you're doing.
What stood out to you aboutthis message?
Speaker 3 (24:35):
I what stood out to me is that they I feel like
they're so in the weeds rightnow.
Yeah, you mentioned analysis,paralysis, the, the bug in the
corner of the screen.
No, keep that, that's not.
That's not doing nothing.
I mean it's good If you feellike the watermark, keep it Sure
.
I think now I have to make someassumptions and I have to make
some hypothetical suggestions,because I don't know the channel
(24:57):
, I don't have it in front of me, I don't know the channel
you're also looking at and going.
Well, they're doing this.
So let's make some assumptionsand say that the channel that's
getting a lot of views let'sassume they're organic they're
(25:18):
not using the promote tab, sothey're not getting views in
some dubious way.
You can check into into that alittle bit, by the way, by just
looking at their interactions ontheir two videos.
Are they getting real commentsand likes?
Anyway, let's assume this islegit and you sound like you're
investing a lot of money andtime into the quality of the
videos, right.
So you have a good camera, youhave good editing, you have good
thumbnails, everything isfiring all cylinders with the
quality.
So what you did is you'velearned how to get all of these
tools and use them to makehigh-quality videos.
Now, the definition ofhigh-quality in this case would
(25:38):
be literally the resolution ofthe videos, the pacing of the
videos, all of the technicalstuff Sounds like, if we just
take your word for it, it'sOrlando, right.
If we take Orlando's word forit, it's all there it's all
working, but we don't know thetopics of your videos or the
person you're talking about orany of the other people in your
(26:01):
niche, and I'm wondering if thereason your competition seems to
be doing well is because ofjust, I hate to say this, I'm
really not trying to be brutaland again, I'm doing
hypotheticals and assumptionsright now.
I hate to say this.
I'm really not trying to bebrutal and again, I'm doing
hypotheticals and assumptionsright now.
But are their videos just moreinteresting sounding from a
(26:22):
title thumbnail perspective?
And when you get into thecontent, are their titles and
thumbnails delivering on thatinteresting thing?
So an example I could give youif we're talking about dash cam
footage, what sounds moreinteresting?
A dash cam where you drive fromyour house to the grocery store
, or a dash camera?
You drive from your house tothe grocery store and you
witness a car crash on the waythere?
I'm not wishing for bad thingsto happen to anyone on the road,
by the way.
I'm just saying, unfortunately,people love a good train wreck
(26:46):
they.
They can't look away from itand that's the kind of thing
that draws people in.
So what is happening on theirdrives and what's happening on
your drives and what can you doto make your videos interesting?
Because all I can do is assumethat your competition is just
doing something that, inherently, is more interesting to the
audiences that you're cateringto.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I want to say something that you just said.
First of all, russian dash camchannels are like huge, they're
big things.
And secondarily, speaking alsoabout the dash cams, this is a
true story.
Back when I was doing techreviews and stuff, I did a
couple dash cam reviews and Iwill tell you that one thing I
am passionate about when itcomes to tech is I think
everyone should have a dash cam.
I know it seems extraneous, buttrust me when I tell you you
(27:30):
wish you had one, when you don'thave one and you need one,
right, you better to have it,not need it, to need it, not
have it.
And almost every time that Iwould do a dash cam review, I
would almost get into anaccident.
Weirdly, like twice and it wasrecorded, I actually had to put
it in the review.
I'm like I think I almost hitsomebody, like jump out in front
of me.
I'm like, bro, I'm trying toliterally review this dash cam.
(27:53):
Thank you for proving the pointas to why you should have a
dash cam.
Everyone go get a dash cam ifyou have a car.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
So, like another example, you know that YouTube
channel that shows the clips ofthat bridge that's too low and
trucks and stuff always driveunder it and just ruin the top
of the trailer will be there andthe air conditioner will catch
on the bridge and there it goes.
If you just watched the bridgeall day long, it would be very
boring, right?
You know car drives underbridge, so that's kind of where
(28:20):
I'm coming from is like, whatare the topics of your videos?
Like, like, and I really don'twant to say this and have it
misconstrued as like wow, sodan's advocating for me to
deliberately cause and findaccidents so I can get more
views?
Like, no, I don't know, thechannels are talking.
I'm using extreme examples, butI do think that, based on the
question and the way that wasworded to us, that you are
(28:41):
really focused on the quality,the technical aspects you can
control, and I think it's timeto.
Now you've mastered that, let'sassume you've mastered that.
I want you to focus on justtopics and ideas, and when I say
topics and ideas, think aboutit from the perspective of the
people seeing the title andthumbnails putting videos out
there, what's going to makesomeone stop and go?
(29:02):
Wait, that's.
I'm sorry what happened.
And make sure the thumbnailsand titles support themselves.
And like, like, make sure yourthumbnail and title strategy is
good.
You claim it is great.
Like, now let's talk about theactual meat and potatoes.
What is the video about?
And without get, I can't getany more specific than that.
Unfortunately, because we don't, I don't have the channel in
front of me right?
(29:23):
I'm not asking you to send itor anything, but hopefully that
was helpful and I think that'sso smart on point and a lot of
people miss the, the, the ideawe get.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
we get on the creator side and we just think about
that part where we forget aboutthe viewer side.
That's the whole reason we'rehere.
We have to have a good viewerexperience.
All right, next one.
This one is not really aquestion.
I actually picked this justbecause I thought it was kind of
funny and I knew you were goingto be here.
How much are we all lovingseeing the new it's about shorts
.
This is from Chris.
(29:52):
How much are we all lovingseeing the new this is about
shorts.
This is from Chris.
How much are we all lovingseeing the new view counts and
then looking at the engagedviews and feeling like we were
kicked in the pants.
Love it right.
Seriously.
How demotivating.
Why not give me false numberson my monetization and then pay
me less?
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Great work YouTube.
Yeah, I got to tell you I thinkthis is I'm making another
assumption here.
Sorry, youtube, because, andfor YouTube themselves, they are
being selfish, and I think thereason they're being selfish is
just my own little tinfoil hat.
(30:27):
Okay, put your tinfoil hats oneverybody.
You should have your Tube Talkbranded tinfoil hats in the mail
if you haven't gotten them yet.
And the conspiracy theory Ihave is that the thing I hear
about TikTok all the time is howeasy it is to get views on
TikTok compared to otherplatforms.
We mysteriously don't.
We don't know much abouttiktok's algorithm.
It's a big mystery to us.
Did youtube realize?
(30:48):
Oh, they're just not countingengaged views like we are.
Let's just change it.
They only changed it for shortsand again like I said earlier,
youtube is trying to encroach ontiktok, so this was just
youtube trying to make it looklike shorts is also an easy
place to get views.
It was a selfish thing they didand the they gave us a little
(31:08):
bit back by saying don't worry,you can still still see the real
views.
They're just not going to bepublic on your channel anymore,
and I'm also very frustrated bythis.
I don't like this update.
I think YouTube, all ofYouTube's platforms, should be
parallel to one another and I Idon't want them to give us
engaged versus non-engaged usinglong form.
That's not what I'm saying, butlong form still works the way
(31:28):
it always has.
Now shorts counts viewsdifferently.
They should all count views thesame.
I don't.
I don't like how it's notparallel anymore.
I don't like that.
Shorts is this.
It's the same app and it's allin the same place.
All the analytics are in thesame place, but it's like this
whole different world caters toa different audience, has
different analytics, and themore they change it, the more
(31:49):
I'm like maybe they should makeanother app called YouTube
shorts and and get shorts offthe main app, which I'm not
advocating for.
I actually think these shouldbe in the same place.
I like that they're in the sameplace, but if it keeps getting
changed like this and they keepdoing like now we're doing
vertical live streams andengaged views versus non-engaged
views, it's so dramaticallydifferent and it causes
(32:11):
confusion and it's weird and Idon't.
I also don't like this update.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, I don't blame you and I I've said this since
the very first time theyannounced they were doing this
that this is literally a play toget more in line with TikTok,
like that's all it is.
Yeah, announced they were doingthis, that this is literally a
play to get more in line withtiktok, like that's all it is.
Yeah, um and uh.
You know you can tell that theycare because routinely they'll
come out with um specs everylike month or two, with, like,
oh, more watch time than tv.
We're the most streamed channelin the world and most streamed
(32:37):
platform in the world, like allthese things that uh, don't
matter to the people that areusing the platform, but are
interesting to people that arelike, analytical about it, or
I'm sure they care.
So, yeah, absolutely, this wasa play for that.
There's no other reason to doit.
It's to make people feel goodabout themselves and to use
YouTube over TikTok.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
It's what it is.
It is what it is.
I recommend storing yourtinfoil hat in like a big
Tupperware or something, so itdoesn't get crushed and thank
you for using that yeah allright.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
uh, so the last email .
I need to make sure that I saythis person's name right,
because they did put apronunciation thing in the email
, so I want to make sure I getthis.
Uh, so this person's name isveronique, veronique I know that
looks like veronica orsomething like that, but it's
veronique, okay.
And she says hi, love your show.
(33:26):
Sorry, I don't eat candy.
Okay, that's fair, it's myregular Monday.
Let's get this week started towatch your show.
Love that.
Thank you so much.
I pivoted my channel.
Now I'm small, very small, butI originally had my channel to
showcase my product.
Then I decided to pivot to workon the how of making that
(33:47):
product and the science behindit.
Initially, some of my showcaseproduct videos brought in a lot
for me viewers, but they werethe completely wrong audience.
So I had to unlist those videoscompletely because I thought it
might be confusing to theaudience recommendation system,
and I agree with that.
I'm now seven months into mytrue pivot and it's still very
slow and hard in a hard climb.
Now, before I finish, finishthis.
The reason that we're gettinglike this particular question is
because the last episode wasabout pivots.
Jen and I talked in, uh indepth about channel pivots and
(34:11):
like, given her experience oranything, I think it was really
fascinating.
I think the last part of thepodcast where I was almost
interviewing um jen about, uh,about her pivot, was almost some
of the most interesting stuffthat we've done in a while,
because I was literally askingher questions like so how did
this go?
Because I'm pivoting my channeltoo, so I just kind of wanted
to see how she had done, and shehad done some really
(34:32):
interesting things that made herpivot a success, which is great
.
But anyway, I'm seven monthsinto my true pivot.
It's still very slow and hardclimb 700 scrubs and barely
1,000 hours in a year.
The audience recommendationsystem seems to be still
recommending my videos aftervideos that are nowhere near my
niche.
It is maddening.
So I'm not sure if it's becauseof the pivot or because my
(34:54):
niche is so well niche andspecialized, but it's really
slowly building my audience.
Anyway, you were asking aboutthe pivoting experience and here
is mine a small channel Carryon being supportive and real at
the same time.
So I do want to talk about thisbecause when we talked about
the pivot, one of the things Iasked jen was about how long did
it take for her pivot tosucceed, and she said about five
(35:17):
months, but it was, you know, avideo a week or so.
She unlisted some older things,so she did some very specific
things and if you haven'tlistened to that episode, go
back and listen to it.
I think it was so good.
Even if you're not thinkingabout pivoting your channel, the
question gets answered whetheryou should start a new channel
or pivot a channel.
And we do get a lot of peoplewho send in emails that are like
I want to do a new channel,should I start a new channel or
pivot the one?
And I feel like this one iskind of like well, I did it for
(35:46):
even longer and it's still notworking.
Now a couple of things.
What was said here was therecommendation videos are not
related to the type of contentthey're making.
That's actually normal forsmaller channels, because
typically it'll be random videosthat they see, and they see in
your recommendation.
Oh, I know I watch a smallerchannel.
Let me click and watch it, soit'll show that video, even
though it might have anything todo with your channel.
That's normal and, by the way,it never completely goes away.
(36:07):
You'll always have some randomvideos in your suggested videos.
That's just the way it is.
But as a smaller channel, it'salmost all of it Like that's.
You don't see anything relatedand you're like well, what the
heck's going on here?
Here's what you do.
(36:28):
Um, hey, you just keep makinggreat content.
Look at the things that areworking in your niche and that
sort of thing.
But I want you to remembersomething that I talked about
with hafu go, and hafu go saidmultiple times he wanted to quit
.
He was, you know, he kept goingthrough this process.
It didn't seem to work, um, andfor a moment, like he was done.
But he now looks at his growthover the course of a year.
He doesn't look at it month tomonth, even he doesn't look at
it week to week.
He looks at it over the courseof a year and he says if that
(36:48):
number is still going up, thenhe's winning.
And I think that's kind ofimportant here, because we
talked earlier about totaladdressable market, which is
really important.
How many people are there thatare even possible to watch your
content?
I don't know exactly what yourniche is.
Don't know exactly what yourniche is.
She said it's a niche of aniche, like a small niche.
So your total addressablemarket might be 3,000 people
(37:08):
total, which means you'reprobably not even going to get
to 3,000.
You might get to 500 orsomething like that at the top.
If your total addressablemarket is 30 million, maybe you
get to a million of that.
Maybe right, maybe not, maybe500,000.
So it's really important tounderstand that whatever the
total adjustable market is,you're only going to get a small
slice of that and as long as itis still growing in some way,
then you are succeeding.
(37:29):
We talk to small channels allthe time.
Dan, what kind of things areyou seeing when people do try to
pivot?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
I see I'll speak from experience too, because I've
been through this I just see alittle bit of like justified
impatience, like I'm committingto this really hard and you tell
yourself, going into it, like Iknow my first video is going to
be crap because I'm pivoting.
But when it's crap you stillget really bummed because you
also want to put your best footforward.
It's a new type of video, maybeit's a new type of editing, a
(38:00):
new type of style, and so youput it all out there and you're
like I know I said I wasexpecting this, but I'm still
like it hurts and it makes youdemotivated.
It makes the next video harderto do, which maybe is another
reason to batch a little bit.
So you have like five videosand that way you're not making
those the next four videos inlike a state of demotivation
because you need plenty ofvideos to start testing and
(38:21):
getting the pivot rolling.
And pivoting is aboutcommitting you are, you believe
in this new idea.
You know you got more viewsdoing the other thing, but it
doesn't matter, you'recommitting.
Just just do it and and a yearor two later, if you keep up
with it, you will realize thatyou know your pivot worked and
the views you were getting arethey pale in comparison to what
you're getting now?
(38:42):
Um, um.
So I wanted to say that and Iwant to add um, for for this
particular creator who reachedout, something that a lot of
people forget with vidIQ is thatwe are a product, like we have
a product and we have YouTubechannels and stuff and we,
you'll notice, we don't talkabout the product all the time.
(39:02):
We mentioned it here and thereand that's like a deliberate
strategy, because our strategyfor our product and business is
let's be part of the discussion,let's be part of the community.
That is just YouTube creating.
Let's create content ourselvesand have fun and show how fun it
can be.
And once in a while, we'llmention that we have a tool that
(39:23):
helps creators.
I don't know what your helpscreators, I don't know what your
product is and I don't knowwhat pivot you've done.
I don't know what you're tryingright now, but I I just wanted
to kind of put that out there asa strategy for growing a
channel around a product, justin general.
Like maybe you can be part ofthe community that would use
that product and then, once in awhile, you can point people and
say, by the way, I have one ofthese in myself.
Or if you're wondering what theheck this thing is, by the way
(39:45):
I made it.
There's just opportunities tokind of be in the community and
you'll find a whole bunch ofstrategies for making videos in
that community, versus makingvideos about a product, which
when you make a video about aproduct, you're basically making
an ad, right.
So I don't know, I don't knowthat helps.
I don't.
Again, I don't know what yourchannel is or what you're doing,
(40:06):
but if for anyone out there asa product and you're struggling
a little bit, that's ourstrategy for promoting our own
product.
We don't really promote it much.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
We talk about it once in a while and we just
participate in the experiencethat everyone else is having on
youtube we do debate how much weshould promote our product
which, by the way, I will pointout, I talked about this in a
couple episodes ago.
One of the things we are goingto be reading in the live stream
sorry, not the live stream, thestudio episodes are the script
episodes the scripts that you'resending in.
(40:33):
So I promoted and showed offour script tool in two episodes
ago.
I really love that tool and Ichallenged people to use that
tool to make a script for me andJen that we will read on air,
which we've gotten some emailsalready.
I can't wait to read them inthe studio, but you can still
send them into the boost atvidIQcom.
All you got to do go tovidIQcom, go to create and
(40:56):
create a script and writesomething for Jen and I and if
it's good, we'll read it duringthe podcast and that's a tool.
That was a promotion, notbecause I was asked to do it,
but because I actually likedthat tool a lot.
I actually really liked thattool a lot, so I thought it'd be
fun if people use it as well.
But the thing is, we argue all.
I shouldn't say argue.
We discuss all the time inmeetings.
Should we even be promotingourselves.
(41:16):
I don't know, maybe, maybe not.
It certainly name.
That's synonymous with YouTubecreation, which is great.
It's almost like, does Pepsiand Coke really need to
advertise anymore?
I mean, yes, believe it or not,you kind of do, because as soon
as you stop advertising, peopleforget about you.
But by the same token it comesback to total dressable market,
like that's never going to goaway.
(41:39):
It's how many people areinterested in what you're doing,
and if there are more peoplethat are interested in what
you're doing than what you arecurrently tapping into, that
might be the things you'remaking, the topics you're making
, them on the type of story thatyou're telling or the
information that you're giving.
You've got to look out thereand see who is really killing it
in your niche and try to notcopy but get inspiration from.
And one of the things that wedo here on the podcast is we
(41:59):
talk about these things not somuch in somewhat strategic ways.
It's like we try to give yousome strategy but we like to
commiserate with you becausewe're creators too and we don't
get all one of tens.
We get a lot of ten of tens.
We get a lot of videos thatbomb we.
We go through it too.
There is no magic thing whereevery single thing works for
every single person every singletime.
Just, it's just not the wayyoutube works.
Doesn't work that way.
(42:20):
Um, and you know, if you feellike I just don't get it, you
can send us a message and we'llsit here and we'll say you know
what?
Sometimes we don't either.
Fortunately for us.
We've been around it so muchthat, more times than not, we
can succeed or help otherssucceed.
That doesn't mean that we knowevery single little thing, and
something that might beaffecting you might be something
(42:41):
we've literally never heard ofbefore, but we want to hear
about it and we'll definitelycover it, and we'll definitely
cover it if we do so.
All that being said, dan, thankyou so much for joining me today
.
I know that you're working onsome cool projects.
On the main channel, we've hadsome pretty cool things happen.
John just left.
He'll be coming on in a futureepisode chatting with us and
(43:01):
stuff, so that leaves an openingfor live streams during the
course of the week.
I'm thinking that we might haveto do like a Savage Saturday or
something.
I don't know, maybe not aSaturday, but I think we're
going to see some interestingcreations along the way you
should.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
you should do Savage Saturday and do it on Wednesday.
That's a great idea.
That's just one of the bits.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
That is the best idea .
I didn't even come up with that.
That's beautiful, all right.
Well, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
We'll see Keep an eye out for that Everyone.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Thank you so much for joining us.
Of course you can check us outon vidIQcom and if you're new
here, feel free to hit thatsubscribe button.
If you had some fun with us andif you're listening to the
audio podcast, leave us afive-star review only because we
love those and we will see.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Tube Talk
brought to you by vidIQ.
Head over to vidIQcom.
Slash Tube Talk for today'sshow notes and previous episodes
.
Enjoy the rest of your videomaking day.
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