Pat Flynn - Watch this BEFORE you start a YouTube channel! 10 things they don't tell you...
The speaker shares lessons learned from their YouTube journey, highlighting the importance of commitment and consistency in growing a channel. They stress that early growth requires regular content publication, even if initial videos aren't perfect. Titles and thumbnails are crucial for attracting viewers, often more so than the video content itself. Starting with a compelling title can guide video creation and improve engagement. The speaker also emphasizes the value of quantity over quality in the early stages, as frequent uploads provide more learning opportunities and data for improvement. Storytelling is prioritized over high-quality equipment, with engaging narratives being key to viewer retention. The retention graph is highlighted as a vital tool for understanding audience engagement and improving content. Voiceovers are recommended for enhancing video engagement, and shorts are suggested as a way to build audience loyalty through consistent, wide-reaching content. Episodic content and live streams are noted for their ability to build community and engagement. Finally, having fun and showing genuine enthusiasm in content creation can significantly enhance viewer connection and channel growth.
Key Points:
- Commitment and consistency are crucial for YouTube growth; publish regularly to learn and improve.
- Titles and thumbnails are more important than video content for attracting viewers; start with a strong title.
- Focus on quantity over quality initially to gain experience and data; storytelling is more important than equipment.
- Use retention graphs to analyze audience engagement and improve content; voiceovers can enhance video engagement.
- Shorts and episodic content can build loyalty and engagement; live streams deepen audience connection.
Details:
1. 🎥 The Journey Begins: My YouTube Growth Story
1.1. Introduction and Channel Growth
1.2. Shorts Channel Growth
2. ⏳ Consistency is Key: Commitment and Publishing
- Achieving growth on YouTube requires a strong commitment and consistent effort. Initially, the speaker experienced slow growth due to a lack of these factors.
- The speaker, MKBHD, emphasized that his first 100 videos were for an audience of less than 100 subscribers, demonstrating the necessity of persistence and patience.
- Consistent content creation is crucial as it enables creators to learn from their mistakes and refine their strategies over time.
- The speaker's channel began to see significant success in 2017, nearly eight years after starting, underscoring YouTube's nature as a long-term endeavor.
- Regular publishing is vital for learning and improvement, as waiting for perfect content can delay growth and hinder the understanding of audience preferences.
- The speaker highlighted that maintaining a routine and setting achievable goals were key strategies in achieving consistent content output.
- Incorporating feedback from early content helped in refining the approach and aligning better with audience expectations.
3. 🎯 The Power of Titles and Thumbnails
- Titles and thumbnails are crucial for attracting views, sometimes even more so than the video content itself. Without them, high-quality videos might go unnoticed.
- Developing a title first can help shape the video’s content, ensuring it aligns with viewer interests and enhances click-through rates.
- An example of effective titling: changing 'How to Ship and Package Your Pokémon Cards' to 'Which Shipping Service Damages My Cards the Most?' This approach increased engagement significantly.
- This strategy opened avenues for additional content ideas, like testing with air tags, stemming from the initial title-driven focus.
- For video growth, suggested and browse traffic, which depend on compelling titles and thumbnails, are more influential than search traffic.
4. 🏋️♂️ Quantity over Quality: Learning Through Repetition
- Prioritize publishing videos consistently at the start of your YouTube journey to gain experience and improve skills.
- Focus on releasing more content to increase opportunities for audience discovery and engagement.
- Adopt a strategy of 'count uploads not likes and views' to emphasize content creation over immediate popularity metrics.
- Consistent publishing leads to faster improvement in video production and editing efficiency.
- More frequent releases provide a larger dataset to analyze and understand audience preferences and successful content strategies.
- Ensure that each video retains value to maintain viewer retention, which contributes to increased visibility on YouTube through the platform's algorithm.
5. 📚 Storytelling Over Equipment: Engaging Content Creation
- Storytelling is more important than having expensive camera equipment. While good cameras can enhance the visual quality, compelling audio is more crucial than video quality.
- A good story can captivate audiences even if the video quality is low. For example, Brady Brandwood's video 'Leon the Lobster' filmed on an iPhone, garnered millions of views due to its intriguing story.
- Engaging stories capture attention, sustain interest, and provide a satisfying conclusion, which is more effective than high-resolution visuals.
- Videos with subpar technical quality but strong storytelling can achieve tens of millions of views, demonstrating the power of narrative over equipment quality.
6. 📈 Analyzing Your Retention Graph: Understanding Audience Engagement
- Analyzing retention graphs, especially with a subscriber base nearing 100,000, is crucial for understanding audience engagement and identifying video segments that need improvement.
- The retention graph is YouTube's most important analytics tool, revealing where and why viewers drop off, allowing for strategic content adjustments.
- A significant drop in the retention graph indicates potential content issues, while consistent retention or a plateau suggests effective content.
- An example from a Pokémon channel shows that videos featuring binders from mystery boxes maintained viewer retention longer, suggesting a strategic focus on similar content types can enhance engagement.
- Regular analysis and adaptation based on retention data can significantly improve content performance and viewer engagement.
7. 🎙️ The Magic of Voiceovers: Enhancing Video Content
- Implementing voiceovers in video content boosts audience engagement and retention, contributing to increased viewership on platforms like YouTube, which prioritize engaging content.
- The technical process involves filming primary content, such as cooking demonstrations, and adding narrative voiceovers during editing to make videos more dynamic and cohesive.
- Voiceovers enhance storytelling by adding narrative elements and tension, as seen in the Deep Pocket Monster channel's Pokémon set completion challenge, which uses stakes and time constraints to captivate viewers.
- A strategic mix of real-time interactions and voiceovers offers a versatile content creation method, improving both the enjoyment and efficiency for creators.
- Voiceovers can transform straightforward documentation into engaging storytelling, highlighting the critical role of editing in content creation.
8. 🎬 Winning with Shorts and Episodic Content
8.1. Consistency in Shorts Creation
8.2. Strategy for Success with Shorts
8.3. Power of Episodic Content
9. 📺 The Power of Live Streams: Building Community and Depth
9.1. Live Streaming Strategies
9.2. Benefits of Live Streaming
10. 🎉 Having Fun with Creation: Engaging Your Audience
- Creators who genuinely enjoy the content creation process tend to attract and retain more viewers, as the positive energy is contagious and enhances viewer experience.
- Incorporating emotion and storytelling, even in educational content, can lead to greater audience connection and success by making the content more relatable and engaging.
- Personal anecdotes suggest that when content creation feels like a chore, viewer engagement drops significantly. Conversely, embracing personal uniqueness and interests can boost audience interaction and retention.
- Viewers are more likely to watch longer, share, and comment when they sense the creator's genuine enjoyment in the process, leading to natural audience growth.
- For creators struggling to maintain audience interest, focusing on finding the fun in content creation can be a strategic approach to grow and maintain a loyal audience.
- Practical strategies include integrating personal interests into content, using storytelling elements, and maintaining authenticity to foster a genuine connection with the audience.