TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

Why 50 Views Actually Matters: Celebrating Every YouTube Win

• vidIQ • Season 6 • Episode 14

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Ever wondered if running Google Ads will actually help your small YouTube channel grow? In this eye-opening episode of Tube Talk, Travis and Jenn deliver the hard truth: paid promotion often brings the wrong audience and can hurt more than help. "Please stop running your ads," Jenn asserts, explaining why organic growth consistently outperforms paid traffic for sustainable channel success.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Jenn reveals her pre-publishing ritual - she needs to "feel right" about releasing a video, sometimes closing her laptop multiple times until the universe aligns. This sparked a deeper discussion about the psychology behind content creation and how many creators likely have their own unique rituals. As Travis puts it, "Publishing a video is a sport," and like athletes, creators develop routines that help them perform.

One of the most powerful moments comes when Travis challenges our perception of success on YouTube. While many creators dismiss "low" view counts, he reminds us that having 50 people watch your video is equivalent to filling a room with interested listeners - something that would be considered remarkable in any other context. "We need to normalize the fact that almost any amount of views is really impressive," he explains, encouraging creators to celebrate every milestone along their journey.

The hosts also tackle niche expansion strategies for gaming channels, recommending a gradual approach called "wedging" - slowly introducing new game content while maintaining your core focus. This method helps bring your existing audience along rather than shocking them with an abrupt change.

Want to join the conversation? Check out our Discord community where Travis and Jenn will be recording future episodes with creators just like you. Download vidIQ for free at vidIQ.com and start optimizing your YouTube strategy today!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Tube Talk, the show dedicated to helping you become a better video creator so you can get more views, subscribers and build your audience. Brought to you by vidIQ. Download for free at vidIQcom.

Speaker 2:

Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that sometimes in person, other times isn't. We just keep you on your toes. I'm here, travis, with my favorite co host, jen. How you doing? Hi, I'm good. How are you? I'm super excited. So we're actually recording this, I want to say, after all of you would have seen the live episode where Jen and I were in person, which was exciting.

Speaker 3:

So much fun.

Speaker 2:

I mean it's not like we haven't met before, but we've never done a podcast episode before in person. I know it's not like we haven't met before, but we've never done a podcast episode before in person. I know it's such a treat and we're gonna do it again, which is the most exciting thing I didn't know you were gonna say that I'm throwing it out. I'm throwing it out. Everyone's gonna know he's doing spoilers spoiler alert is you better be listening to this podcast more often?

Speaker 3:

cause we're gonna do it, no, no, you better be watching the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, that's going to be better. I just realized that Jen said she was going to get me back for the last episode.

Speaker 3:

Oh, it's planned.

Speaker 2:

Oh crap.

Speaker 3:

It's planned. Uh-oh, it's planned. I done messed up, it's done.

Speaker 2:

Ladies and gentlemen, if you missed that last episode, the very end where I got Jen, I just realized that she's going to try to get me, that she's going to try to get me. So, anyway, you better be watching the podcast episodes for that If you're new to the show. We are an undercover candy podcast that pretty much just pretends that we give out YouTube advice and help you grow your YouTube channel, and we do that like we do every week with some questions from you we're going to do. Also. I want to promote something else I want to think by the time you listen to this, will it be too late? No, yes, it will be too late, but Jen and I also going to record an upcoming episode using the Discord that vidIQ has.

Speaker 2:

It's been promoting it for a while and we're going to be talking to creators, just like you, and we'll probably do it again in the future. And we'll probably do it again in the future. So if you missed out on it this time, don't worry. Um, you'll probably the next episode. You'll hear the discord episode. So I hope that you all enjoyed that, but in the meantime, let's get to some questions. Jen and people send in messages do it because they love us so much.

Speaker 2:

All right, here's the first one. This one is, uh, from our audio podcast listeners, so there's a link there to send us text text message. Hey, love y'all and have been a listener for a while now but have never chimed in until now. Welcome, welcome. I finally thought of two questions I'd love insight on. First, does using Google Ads hurt or help small channels? I have 12,000 subscribers and my second is and I'm sure you've gotten this question a lot, but I'm going to ask anyways Should I focus on short and long form and community posts? Is one more important than the other? My ultimate goal is to build a name for myself in the vegan health and fitness community and bring clients in to work with. Would love y'all feedback. Thanks for what you do. Okay, jen, first of all, fellow vegan in the house.

Speaker 3:

Right, so what do you think about?

Speaker 2:

this. Let's talk about, first of all, the google ads thing, and now I don't think I don't know if they're talking about the ads in youtube or just google ads, which is a different thing but does it help or hurt small channels, in your opinion?

Speaker 3:

please stop doing that. Please stop running your ads. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. It's tough. You're pulling in like a lot of unknown information and then youtube is going to surface your content based off of that information. That is like 90. Should we say 99 um 95? Yeah, percent wrong that's a hot take right there, but I'm gonna go with it it's hard because they're, they're, you're paying for views and you're gonna get the cheapest ones yeah and the cheapest ones doesn't mean that it's the right ones, and organic, organic traffic is always going to be the way to go.

Speaker 3:

But ads are good for selling something and that can be a strategy that you use if you're selling a course in the future or something where you actually are trying to generate sales. But in terms of just getting your video more views, more exposure, it's not your best play.

Speaker 2:

Well, they also said their ultimate goal is to build a name for themselves in the vegan health and fitness community and bring clients to work with. So, in that instance, for their business, I think it makes sense.

Speaker 3:

I think that it could. I think if they have specific videos that are sales videos and you decide to run said ads on them, then that would make the most sense. Yeah, but just to use it as like a well, very expensive cheat to get views and subscribers faster it typically you're just wasting a lot of money yeah, you're not wrong.

Speaker 2:

Uh. Then they also ask uh, should they focus on short or long form content, content in community posts? I think when you're talking about health and fitness, a mixture is good. Obviously, some of your stuff that's going to talk about health and fitness is going to be longer than 60 seconds, but every once in a while you might have a tip or trick that you don't need a five-minute video for, just something real quick. This is how you season your food better to make it taste amazing, or this is a thing you don't want to do, or these are maybe recalls that are going on. You may don't necessarily need five ten minute video. That might be like 45 second short, I don't know.

Speaker 3:

Recall, felt personal. Did you just have something that you bought? Recall? I don't want to talk about this wait.

Speaker 2:

That was so I'm just uh, I'm gonna go to the next one tra.

Speaker 3:

Travis has to go return his carrots tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

I do not fear expiration dates and recalls. I'm just going to leave it at that. That stuff doesn't scare me so much unless there's metal in it, but other than that, okay, here we go.

Speaker 3:

I think you had a good point, though. That was spot on. It's like, in my opinion, a very, very good niche to do both types of content.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a good point. I love that. And for a fellow vegan out there, I'm not a vegan, but Jen is, you know congratulations.

Speaker 3:

Travis is thinking about becoming a vegan.

Speaker 2:

I didn't think very long about it. I'm going to tell you that if that's the case. So here's the thing, he can't give up the eggs. If I go into a rant about vegans versus vegetarians, I'm going to get go into a rant about vegans versus vegetarians. I'm gonna get canceled. So I'm gonna just stop right there. All right, I love you both. I love no matter what you eat. I still love you. All right. Hire from the uk to travis and jen jenvis jenvis question mark.

Speaker 3:

Oh, do we have a couple's name? Well, we did, didn't we, oh wait, we did have one actually we did a while back dren.

Speaker 2:

It was trend.

Speaker 3:

It was trend trend t-r-e-n-n genvis, genvis trend, oh my gosh we don't have great options.

Speaker 2:

No, it's not great, we just don't have good options we're gonna have to. I would have to pull like middle name or something. I was about to say that so I'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours mine's not really embarrassing, is yours embarrassing?

Speaker 3:

uh no okay, mine's lauren okay, this, but wait, is yours, lauren, too we're just the lauren podcast.

Speaker 2:

Okay, now I I told you I'm gonna tell you my middle name, but I'm not going any further. Okay, you ready, did going to tell you my middle name, but I'm not going any further. Okay, you ready? Did I not tell you this already? No, okay, it's Travis. Yeah, that's not my first name, it's my middle name.

Speaker 3:

Well then.

Speaker 2:

Nope, okay. And whoever may be around at that time found your pod when looking for YouTube advice for new channels and love it, and I've been listening to old episodes in between the new ones, so I may have questions that have been answered, though I find myself with more food-based questions than YouTube questions. All right, number one, candy corn, sounds like the worst, I agree.

Speaker 3:

Okay, okay, question two.

Speaker 2:

Question two Do cream eggs taste the same as in the UK? Actually, I don't know that. I don't know. They might be different.

Speaker 3:

Quick. We need UK cream eggs.

Speaker 2:

Stat we do need. That's actually great. I should ask Rob Wilson and see if he can send me some. Your chocolate is not good. Hard to sorry to break it to you. So they're in the UK. They're saying that American chocolate is not good, Excuse me?

Speaker 3:

Oh, it's not. Have you been to Hershey? Hershey's is not good, all right, look, you're a Hershey bar boy. I can just feel it.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, I mean, I like Hershey's chocolate. Okay, it's possible that there's better chocolate out there, but I've had like really amazing chocolate before, like Anosh and stuff, and I have a hard time believing that it's any better. If they're talking about like normal chocolate, milk chocolate, uh, you know, with all the stuff that goes on in our food, I guess I wouldn't be surprised if there's better chocolate. Great question that's a deep cut. That's actually a deep cut.

Speaker 1:

So they have been listening.

Speaker 2:

I emailed in about that and they say they're legitimate, but I know they're not. That must be a VPN or something. But great question, what a deep. I love that. How do I determine if my niche is too large? I have two sports niches that do crossover real life and video game equivalent, and I have large. I have two sports niches that do crossover real life and video game equivalent and have a bit of a venn diagram of real life vids, gaming vids and then vids showing how the two actually cross over, like managing a team and then. So actually there's another question. I've done okay, um, so that's a good question.

Speaker 2:

I've seen this before. I've seen channels that try to use video game versions of sports and real sports on the same channel and you would think that there is a venn diagram of people and there are. There is, but that the middle part where you would get views from both viewers is much smaller than you would suspect. So, um, for example, if you have a uh, like a football game, um, video game, you play like madden and then a well, this is a UK person, so that would actually be soccer to us, but like a football game, like Madden, football, nfl and then covering NFL sports. The people that watch both. There is a group of people that do that, but there's so many more of one side or the other that's going to be drawn to your channel, based on how you do your content. So it's going to be spiky and I just think at this point, if you're going to have fun with it and you enjoy it, do it. But if you're looking for growth, I really feel like those are two separate channels, which is odd to say, but it's the truth. I've seen it many times.

Speaker 2:

This next question is for you why does jen hate shorts? Should I not do them? Love the pod.

Speaker 3:

My reputation, my terrible reputation. Oh my gosh, why do I actually hate shorts?

Speaker 2:

This is a great question. We're getting right.

Speaker 3:

This is like some soul searching.

Speaker 2:

I need you to go into your site.

Speaker 3:

I don't hate shorts. I just don't believe they belong on youtube okay I think short form content is fine and tiktok on instagram. I think youtube has always had long form content going for it and I think that having shorts on youtube has diluted the long form content and to me that is like the ultimate form of creativity, whereas shorts are different and they're short.

Speaker 1:

And a lot of the time.

Speaker 3:

short is just flat out trend jacking and there's a lot of I would say there's a lot of behaviors associated with shorts that I don't stand for as a creator.

Speaker 2:

Interesting, say more.

Speaker 3:

So a lot of the times you are solely relying on copying exactly what other people are doing, copying the music that you should be using, not even speaking. A lot of them are just like fake voiceovers, like the content that can go so far is sometimes just like a joke versus the people who are spending so much time and effort. And I'm not saying that you can't do that in short form content. I'm saying typically those aren't the shorts you see, pop off.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

Do you agree with?

Speaker 2:

that I don't completely disagree, I think. When you're talking about trend tracking, I think it's very true Because you see, like on TikTok, like a lot of dance people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

You could say some of that about some long form content, but I think it's more. I think it's more widely spread in shorter form content. That's really interesting. There was something Tricia Hershberger said in the interview from a couple episodes ago I know you weren't there. I want to explain what she said. I thought was really interesting and it really kind of applies to short form content.

Speaker 2:

Is this algorithmic audience and the way she described it is. This is why she doesn't like to do short form content. Is that seems to be shown to a much more toxic audience than regular long form content, and she's not the first person I've heard actually say this. I heard multiple people say this like half a year ago and I just kind of forgot about it and when she brought it back up it reminded me she goes. I feel sorry for people that are doing content for the. I think she called the algorithmic audience, which is really an interesting term, because that audience and I think I know why like psychologically, like I've said, all about shorts this entire time short form content it's very disposable.

Speaker 2:

You're, you're connecting. You're not even really connecting with a person. You're watching something funny or interesting for like 30 seconds and then you swipe right and you're, you're gone. Like, give me the next person. I don't even care who you are. So to leave hateful comments and things that kind of are disparaging is much easier because you don't really know that person. You know that person even less than if they had a five or six minute video. So I feel like that is something to take into consideration that you might actually get more hateful comments on shorts. And please, if you do leave us comments in the YouTube channel, let us know about your experience or you can send us an email, but that is what I've heard from people. I find that really interesting. So there you go. Um, okay, one more. Um, hi guys. First of all, travis getting mad over his mcdonald's order was hilarious. That was about, I think, my breakfast order listen, I was hot, I was heated.

Speaker 2:

I'm just saying uh. Second, I have a question is it worth it to live stream even if you barely get any viewers? I do it just for fun, but in term of youtube growth, does it help?

Speaker 3:

thanks for the thanks for everything, um wait, let me tell a story about one of my creators popping off right now with vertical lives I want to hear it tell me more absolutely.

Speaker 3:

Um, there is a now kind of strategy behind it, like there is an overall goal to what the live starts out, as Often it's like a little challenge. You know, often food related it's, you know, trying sour versus sweet candy. You know, think of the, you know basic challenge ideas, something like that Back to our McDonald's versus Burger King type of thing. But they started streaming vertical lives out of nowhere and have racked up thousands and thousands of views per video where their shorts were inconsistently getting maybe a hundred, couple hundred, couple popping off at a thousand long form, getting you know 100 views or so. Started doing these vertical lives. Don't have to edit. I've gained so many subscribers and every single one is like hitting several thousand views. Sheesh, right, what's going right?

Speaker 2:

I said don't stop listen, can't stop, won't stop, won't stop.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, you should try it and see what happens. You know your story most likely is not going to be the same as anybody else's story, but you never know what's going to happen. But always go in with an idea at least yeah, I think.

Speaker 2:

I think it's really important to well, first of all, every single part of YouTube growth and learning. All of this stuff is not going to be universal, so you might have heard stories that are exactly the opposite of what Jen said, but the nice thing about this is you know, jen and I are going to tell you the truth, what we have either experienced or talked to people. It's possible you hear someone tell you tomorrow oh no, that's not right. But let me tell you something. Jen speaks to and deals with a lot of creators and sees different sides of things of youtube same thing with me, um that you may not see elsewhere. So I love that story. Um, sometimes that stuff is really surprising. You're like wait a minute, I didn't know that was even a thing that could be done. Yeah, absolutely, you need to get in there and mix it up, I think.

Speaker 3:

So funny. I would say for the vertical lives, though I wouldn't do long lives, do short lives.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, short lives Like what would you consider a short life?

Speaker 3:

I think they're more discoverable.

Speaker 2:

Like how long is a short live in your?

Speaker 3:

life, no, like a vertical live. Oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, just like, literally like vertical live.

Speaker 2:

I thought you meant only be live for like five minutes or something.

Speaker 3:

I mean, that'd be funny too.

Speaker 2:

So here's the thing I have only talked about briefly in meetings. I'm actually considering popping live on the vidIQ channel like just for a couple of minutes and then having it go unlisted just randomly. I like the idea of a situation where you have to be there or you miss out. Fomo, fomo is incredibly strong. And I think it's super important that if you're going to do that, you know who, you know what most creators use. That for it, use the FOMO thing for is for merch drops.

Speaker 2:

Oh have you ever seen a creator? It's like, oh, you can only get this, this thing for the next.

Speaker 3:

However, long 24 hours.

Speaker 2:

There's only 10.

Speaker 2:

Right, that works. I have a friend that does that. It actually works, so I'm considering that. Anyway, we'll see if I get around to that. The last text message was telling me that the link in the audio podcast was broken for the vidIQ plugin and I have zero idea how this is absolutely possible. But they're absolutely right. I've just fixed it on the trisha herbert hershberger episode and I think it actually means that it's broken on every single other episode. I don't know that I'm going to sit here and go through we are the professionals what is going.

Speaker 2:

I literally I don't understand how that's possible. Hold on what is going on, all right, look.

Speaker 3:

I just had a broken link situation with the creator too, where the link worked in the pinned comment worked literally everywhere else was broken in the description of the video and there was absolutely nothing that could be done about it. Copy and paste it.

Speaker 2:

Exact same thing so I've had this happen on um a couple of times when I was doing sponsored content and I would have to use a link that they wanted to track or whatever. And I would look on the page and I'm like it works. And then the, the guy who was uh, sending me the, the promo stuff, he's like I can't get to work and he would show me screenshots. I'm like what am I? What am I missing? Like what, I don't understand what's, what's, what am I missing here and um I, it's really frustrating and in this particular case, like how many links did we miss out on it's? I'm like what, how sway, how is that possible? So now I'm like.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for writing in that it's broken.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and now I'm wondering like I'm looking back, Got to add link checks Bro.

Speaker 3:

What the heck Monday link checks?

Speaker 2:

How is this a thing? I'm looking at the link things right now. I'm like how is this a thing? So I'll have to look back at that at the end of this. Thank you so much for writing that in the person who messaged me on Twitter that the last audio podcast with Trisha went on an extra two minutes as I was talking to Trisha after the podcast. Long story short. I also record audio locally because there's some weird issues going on with the platform we use for video and I uploaded that as the audio podcast and I guess I forgot to hit stop.

Speaker 3:

That's the gold, though Nobody knows. Well, maybe you know, but the juice after the podcast is the real good stuff.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, it's always crazy. Well, the good thing about audio podcasts and I love YouTube to do this is I was telling Jen this before we went live you can replace the audio on an audio podcast without messing anything up. You literally just go to your platform, you tell it to swap the audio files and then, boom, everyone else who gets it gets it fine. So everyone else who's listened to it doesn't even know about that, because I switched it and it was fine. About 300 people heard it, people before that.

Speaker 3:

Lucky bunch.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, lucky bunch of people. So, yeah, okay, now we got some emails, emails coming into theboostvidIQcom and when Jen and I do a couple of the in-person episodes, we'll be using some of your emails for those episodes. We might even, like you know, jen and I are going to talk about it and figure out exactly how to format it, but I think we might even do one where we do like longer episodes about one particular subject and just kind of, we're going to have fun. Trust me when I tell you these in-person ones are going to be absolutely amazing. Hope you guys are excited for it. Here's the first email at the boost at video queuecom. Hi, jen and Travis, I was wondering if either of you had any quirky rituals you performed before uploading a video, as in a mystical way, to improve the odds of succeeding.

Speaker 2:

I've got my own personal ones, but in too embarrassed to note them here. I just don't want to feel alone.

Speaker 3:

You're not going to tell us.

Speaker 2:

I know I wish they had told us, do you?

Speaker 3:

have any rituals. I wish they told us too. I don't know if I would say it's a ritual, but I don't have a post date or time. I just upload whenever a video is done, okay, but it has to feel right, so like I may close the computer and come back to it like three times within the hour until it feels right to hit publish I'm sorry say that again am I supposed to be?

Speaker 2:

embarrassed. No, no, I just want to make sure I heard what I heard, because I feel like I did not hear what I just heard. I need you to say that very slow.

Speaker 3:

The universe has to be in line. The vibes have to be checked.

Speaker 2:

What are you talking about? Before you hit publish, before I hit publish, it has to feel right. What does that mean? What do you mean?

Speaker 3:

Internally it's a gut feeling. It has to feel right.

Speaker 2:

So internally it's a gut feeling, so you just feel right.

Speaker 3:

So wait, hold on, so you upload it. Put all your, you know, upload the video. Make my little title clickety, clickety, click. Do you put it on like? And then I go to the drop down menu and I'm like, doesn't feel right, not yet so then, what do? You do something for like 15 minutes and then, come back yeah, okay, yeah, it's just like sitting there in studio and then I'll come back like do you want to publish it now? Yeah, feels right, publish alright, what Travis?

Speaker 2:

I don't know what the heck, but okay, I'm just trying to. I don't know what the heck, but okay, I'm just trying to figure out what just happened, because I'm learning things about you, it's just got to feel, right I love that I think Sometimes it doesn't and I'm just like sitting there it's unlisted.

Speaker 3:

I just finished checking all the things and then I'm like it doesn't feel right. I don't want to hit publish right now, but in 15 minutes I might.

Speaker 2:

Okay, all right. Well, look, that's a thing. I don't have a thing like that, I just I'm like, whatever happens, he's not one of us. I don't, I don't. I just I'm like whatever's going to happen is going to happen, Whatever we're rolling the dice today.

Speaker 3:

I love this, though I would love everybody to write in their ritual. I would be shocked if more people than like not have rituals.

Speaker 3:

I feel like you probably are right, I am probably the one that's not Like there's somebody who's like ready to hit publish, they got to go to the fridge, get a Diet Coke, drink half of it, come back then hit public. There's no way. We don't have routines out there. This is a sport. This is a sport. What does that even mean? Every sport, you have rituals before you go play the game, before you have a tournament or a match or anything that's fair.

Speaker 2:

Publishing a video is a sport. I just had never thought of it like this before. This is blowing my mind.

Speaker 3:

That's so funny. I wish I had like a weirder one.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I guess mine's kind of weird, but so okay, what's the longest you waited before you actually were like, yep, like did you let it sit overnight? She's thinking, ladies and gentlemen I need. She's thinking, ladies and gentlemen, I need the.

Speaker 3:

Oh my gosh, wait, you want to know what another one is. I won't post on like like set times, like I won't post like if it's on like the half hour or the hour.

Speaker 2:

So I won't either, and there's a reason for that. There's a good reason for that oh, I have no good reason because everyone does that, so I wanted to go off of that, so I don't want to. Of fact, youtube at one time said if you're seeing, your notifications aren't going out. Well, that's probably one of the reasons, because so many are going out on the top of the hour and bottom of the hour.

Speaker 3:

So I always do it. Yeah, see, I'm like so secretly, so smart. You are, you're smart on accident if I let it sit, I don't know, I'm gonna have to think about that definitely like all day, like it could be like morning and it could be like 10 and I could be, and I could be like, oh, I'm not feeling it right now I'm not feeling it, and then, like six at night, I'll be like I'm feeling it, but oh okay, uh, this is new, all right.

Speaker 2:

Uh, maybe I'm doing it wrong. There's a real chance I'm doing it wrong.

Speaker 3:

Let the YouTube gods tell you. Travis, holy crap, I've never.

Speaker 2:

I'm so All right. Well, listen, I might try that next time, sheesh. Okay, back to the emails, cringe content. This one's from Benjamin hey VidI crew. So I'm in the commentary PNG tuber and does things I do mostly commentary, but stream games.

Speaker 2:

My shorts don't really have a category besides entertainment. Anyway, do you think commentary plus gaming could work? These, these contents are not combined. I make two types of videos separately.

Speaker 2:

I'm a PNG tuber I don't know what that is and the biggest PNG tumor is the worst content I've ever seen. So do you think you can succeed as a PNG tumor? My the worst content I've ever seen. So do you think you can succeed as a PNGTuber? My PNGTuber is very simple. It's a red stick man holding the number one fastest growing sports drink in the world, which would probably be Prime. Have you tried Ultra Kill the game, or heard of Janky Box? I have not. Also, sorry this is a long email, but can Twitch grow? Naturally, twitch is different because they don't have an algorithm like YouTube. From people I've talked to on Twitch, some people love it because of the community, but I think the growth is different there because on YouTube you could literally be shown to anybody at any time, whereas on Twitch you almost have to have an existing audience. But back to this original question. It seems like he wants to do commentary and gaming on the same channel. Typically, what I thought they were saying was commentary of the gaming, which does work.

Speaker 3:

That's originally what I thought too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's why they said the content are not combined. I make two types of styles of videos separately. Personally, I think you should just combine them, because I feel like We'll just give you the normal advice. Advice different audiences, different channels. If it's the same audience, same channel. If you think that those people would be interested in the same thing, really and I don't mean just, oh, let me just think about it, okay, yeah, they probably do no, no, really, think about it. Are they going to be interested in the same content, then keep it on the same channel, otherwise probably going to grow better on its own channel. Yeah, I have this really cool subject in this next email that I want to read and it's been sitting in my inbox for like a better part of let's see since, yeah, over a week, and I've been waiting for you to come back to be able to do this one Regarding that bombshell Jen dropped in the last episode.

Speaker 3:

Now, I don't remember what this was, what was?

Speaker 2:

it bruh. There I was doing dishes, listening to the best podcast, not just on the planet but potentially the universe, when all of a sudden I hear jen, cold as stone, declare the fact, declare that, in fact, test and compare is a cop-out for small creators. And, oh, my gourd lord above. I was shooketh. Because Jen is right, I know, because I was doing it. I did stop, though. A while ago I decided to watch some videos on YouTube creation from Nick Nimmin. I love Nick. He's a good friend of mine and really double down on a style, a theme and a focus. Then give it time. I've seen my videos crawl from a few views to dozens, to dozens now an average of a few hundred views and I haven't touched ab testing since. All that to say y'all need more hot takes, bombshells and cold hard truths. I love it.

Speaker 2:

I want that non-fencing opinion, what I'm looking to grow and oh yeah most importantly and we just had it, by the way how dare thee insult the holy crucible of all flavor profiles, that is, pineapples on pizza? I have never been more offended in all my life. Almost had to switch to two buddy, but then I remembered I love you guys and went back to the boost doing dishes.

Speaker 3:

I love it. I have the whole scene set in my head. Drops the dish, the soap and the sponge in hand shock disbelief for those who missed it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, jen, went real kind of nuclear on ab testing for smaller channels, as you just heard and you know what I said. I think, if I remember correctly, is that most people aren't using it correctly because they don't make um different enough thumbnails for it to actually give you any good information. But jen, was just straight up like small youtubers I went hard have you changed your mind since then? Are you even more on that side of the fence than you ever were before?

Speaker 3:

no, no, I stay loyal to that side of the fence and, like, I empathize with the small creators and I get it. It's a tough game and when we feel like we have something that can, you know, make less work or get us ahead faster, like we want to take it. We know we have a long journey ahead, but it doesn't mean we should.

Speaker 2:

I like it. Okay, two more emails for this episode. This one I don't recognize his name before. This looks like this is from Nick. It's a pretty big email. Hey, Cadbury Egg and Candy Corn, that's probably accurate.

Speaker 3:

Oh, that's cute. Candy Corn's a cute little nickname.

Speaker 2:

It is, you're the Candy Corn, you're my little Candy Corn, oh my gosh, we should dress up for Halloween.

Speaker 3:

Oh, stop I. We should dress up for halloween. Stop, I would be a candy corn for halloween actually usually I do candy corn nails for halloween.

Speaker 2:

You would, I, I do, you would. You're just that type of person just be a giant candy corn.

Speaker 3:

I would love that I've been listening to literally every single podcast you published and just got to the episode where the controversy started travis you were literally yelling in defense of cadbury wait, I don't even want to go back and listen to our unhinged podcast that I feel like I'd be alarmed well, I mean the thing is, by the time this comes out, he would have seen the episode where I had you eat one. You guys just wait. I'm gonna ship a baby pool of candy corn to Travis's house next Halloween.

Speaker 2:

Just wait.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I think both candy corn and Cadbury eggs are equally bad. Anyway, love your podcast, fair. Okay, I just started uploading consistently after formally using YouTube to host VSLs and client interviews as an asset for my main business on Instagram. My original 30 videos were not optimized in terms of packaging and retention, but I was never making an attempt to grow youtube specifically. This is interesting. I have an instagram with 23 000 followers and mainly use my assets on youtube as part of a dm sequence for sales. Uh, there, okay, I've begun posting with a specific goal of growing a youtube audience and I have some leads that have come into my main business on Instagram as a result, which is great, that's fantastic.

Speaker 2:

My goals with YouTube are to reach a wider audience and connect deeper with the person on the other side of the screen and eventually introduce new arms to my business as YouTube grows merch and all that other things. I think I'm seeing encouragement as opposed to asking a specific question. I'm a baseball coach who specifically works with catchers. If you're unfamiliar with baseball, a catcher who catches the ball sure, my videos do relatively well for our channel with less than 500 subs. My subscriber count is growing.

Speaker 2:

People leave nice comments, but because of the lack of competition and poor views on my competitors' long-form videos, I can't help but think there isn't a demand or is this a waste of time? Or maybe there's a massive hole that I can fill? My plan is to just post 100 videos and see what happens. My question is this should I put in as many reps as possible and hope there's a man in market? It's tough to understand how. What works really well since there is an exact avatar I serve. This is actually really good um question because I actually someone asked me this, uh, like a week or so ago. They go. You know I'm thinking about doing this type of content. There's really no one on youtube that does it. You know, could I be the first? And we always say being first is great on youtube. But the thing is, are you first because no one's ever thought of it before and it's a great idea, or because no one wants to watch that?

Speaker 2:

and that is sometimes hard to figure out that's tough I mean, if you think about it like the first ever ASMR video, the person's probably like I don't know if anyone's going to watch this, this is crazy. Or even, like you know, a mukbang, like I'm just going to eat in front of the camera, like I know no one's going to watch it, and both of these are huge niches, so they were, you know, geniuses in that way. But then there's other channels that maybe there's one or two channels in the niche and they're just serving a very small public. Now here's the thing You're doing this for business, and I've told this story before multiple times, and I think I even told it on the one with Benji and the thing is, if you're trying to grow your business, you don't need a large audience. You just need the right audience. So if that's the more important part to grow your business then always focus on that customer that you want to bring in.

Speaker 2:

Don't worry about getting large numbers, because it might not happen for that, but if it's a business thing, or even if it's just a passion project, even if it's just something like I just passionately love this thing and I don't care if only 50 people watch it. I think the one thing that YouTube does badly is it makes these numbers seem unimportant. Let me explain. So, jen, let's just say you have something that's very much on your mind. You want a lot of people to know. You can go out in the middle of the street and, like a crazy person, yell at it into the air and people can look at you straight and call the police, which is probably what would happen Probably least. Which is probably what would happen, probably. But what if I said to you that if we, if we rented like a little studio hall and like 60 or 70 people showed up to listen to you, would that seem like a success to you?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I would love that that would be pretty cool, right? Like holy crap, 60 people really care about what I'm saying on youtube. 60 is like oh, that's a flop like no one watched. That's terrible I know, I know hello what I think we need to normalize the fact that almost any amount of views is really impressive, like people who've never met or seen you before and, by the way, would maybe never ever see or hear of you otherwise, came and watched something you made, we, we, we think that hundreds of thousands or millions of views is the goal, when it doesn't have to be.

Speaker 2:

It's not necessarily the goal. Uh. The goal is to get your passions out there maybe educate, entertain, have fun, do this thing. That is, amazingly, uh, available to us for free, which is not something that it used to be. Back in the day when I was, I had my own like um website and stuff like you had to. You had to day when I had my own website and stuff, you had to pay the monthly cost for your website and the storage and if people watch, that costs you more YouTube's flipping the bill for all that and you could possibly get paid on this stuff. It's crazy.

Speaker 3:

I love what you're saying. We've got to clip that alone, make that as short and just motivate people with what Travis said. That alone, make that as short and just motivate people with what travis said. It's so true, though, because why or when did we stop celebrating actual success of all kinds? Let me tell you this the first channel I ever started, I took a screenshot of every single little thing that happened. I got five subscribers that day screenshot. I love it. I got a hundred subscribers screenshot. My next 20 screenshot. Like I was so hyped on every single opportunity. That was growth. That was just people there choosing to be there, choosing to watch the videos. Like that, 60 views is a big deal it really is.

Speaker 2:

We should get a shirt that says something like that like I'm your 100th view, or something like that. I don't know. We didn't come up with a saying. Someone come up with a saying. Y'all are really good at it. One more email, and this one just came in minutes before we went live, so perfect, you squeezed it in. Hey, vinay crew, I'm an 18 year old YouTuber and streamer who is currently working as a paramedic in Austria not Australia, cause we don't have kangaroos. That's good. I'm glad you said that, and I love listening to your candy podcast when driving to work. So I have three questions. Like Gentendo, my content consists of me playing Nintendo games, but I try to stick to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where I challenge myself in some challenges. Isn't that the one you're good at, supposedly, allegedly?

Speaker 3:

What that's on Switch.

Speaker 2:

Oh, is that a different one? I don't know.

Speaker 3:

I believe, so I think that's Switch.

Speaker 2:

Oh, is that a different one? I don't know. I believe so. I think that's Switch.

Speaker 3:

But I think you could probably learn it and be good at it.

Speaker 2:

right, travis, I beat it in a day. We literally should have a challenge where one day we just have people roll up online and just challenge you to Mario Kart. I think that'd be pretty dope. We should do that one day, or maybe we'll do it at a VidCon or VidSummit when we're huge. That'll be great.

Speaker 3:

Just a Mario Kart booth. I'm there for like 16 hours, just like We'll stream it live.

Speaker 2:

Can't lose. But I started my channel back in 2019 when I did many let's Plays and stuff about all types of Nintendo games which got no more than 20 views each. Back then I had no clue what I was doing, but now I'm sitting at 2,500 subs and more than 1,200 videos on my channel, including streams. What do you guys think? Should I delete old videos because they pull down the average view per video so it looks more attractive to sponsors, or should I delete the streams because they don't get any views anymore? Okay, that's the first question. Deleting stuff, I think, is only necessary when it's not the same audience. It sounds like you're still going for the same audience. The cool thing is sometimes, later on, people like to go back and look at older content and say, oh my gosh, look at this yeah.

Speaker 2:

Look at how much better he is, and that's kind of a vibe. The other thing you can do, which some people do, is they unlist them, but they put a playlist on their channel of the older things. So if you don't want them showing on your main channel, you can have a playlist of unlisted older videos and saying like my old archive and do it that way. That way they're not private or they're not deleted. They're still there for people to watch who want to watch them.

Speaker 3:

So you could do it that way To clarify unlisted videos do show up in a playlist.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely. Another thing I want to ask you guys is how serious is, how serious niching down is, because I'm currently making a video in which I try to challenge myself from another streamer. The game is quite similar to Mario Maker 2, a Nintendo game, which is a 2D platformer. My only concern is that the other streamer is mostly playing PC games and rarely only only rarely plays Nintendo games. So it's a big problem. Is it a big problem if I upload on my channel that mainly consists of Nintendo content? Do I attract the wrong audience this way? So that's a good question. I think the answer goes back to you, which is is it the same audience? And I think you kind of know this by the way that they're asking the question.

Speaker 2:

I feel like Max knows the answer to this, but they just want clarification from us as to whether or not they're thinking right. But here's what I'm going to tell you. The fact that you know so much about our podcast knows that you probably have heard us say these things before. I'm not even gonna say it because I guarantee you already know the answer to this. I'm not. Even jen can answer if she wants to. I'm not gonna say because I think you already know max, max knows max knows he's on point.

Speaker 2:

Max knows.

Speaker 3:

Max knows.

Speaker 2:

I've got one last question. Lately I've thought about expanding my niche a bit, mostly because the Mario Kart niche is quite small when it comes to the German audience.

Speaker 2:

Okay, he's German, so I have thought about expanding to other games that would interest both audiences, for example, minecraft or Brawl Stars or Nintendo games. The age of the audience is quite similar, but I'm not sure how I should make the cross over. What do you guys think is the best way to make a transition? So I talk about. They want to stay in Minecraft and Nintendo content, which I think would probably work. Sorry for the long email.

Speaker 2:

I've been listening to your podcast since October and when I finally discovered it by accident, I also really enjoy listening to you guys. Thanks, jen, oh by to you guys. Thanks, uh, jen drops. Oh, by accident. I love that.

Speaker 2:

I love the idea of boost lane on discord, which, by the way, exists now. It's motivating me to put out more content, get instant feedback. So, yes, if you are on our discord, there is an area, um, and we're going to have an area for the podcast again. Um, but, like I said, next week, today, later today, after this recording, which is too late, you guys, this already happened. I'm doing an ama there and then jen and I are going to record a podcast episode there answering people. So you need to go to the discord. We're going to be hanging out there more often it'll be cool, um, but to answer this last question about expanding um, jen, I do something called oh man, this sounds bad, and when I say this, I'm gonna be like this sounds tld. This sounds like, uh, not safe for work. I do something called wedging, but, but what I mean by that is it sounds nasty when I say it that way, but that's not what I mean.

Speaker 3:

Tell us more, Travis. Please explain to us your wedging.

Speaker 2:

Let me keep it age appropriate. So basically, if I know that I'm going to go into a new topic the existing topic that works I start to slowly put in and add in things about the new topic that I'm going to go to. So, for example, he does Nintendo stuff. I might make a couple of references to Minecraft and maybe even some B rule and stuff from Minecraft, talking about how they're kind of similar, and then I'll put out a mind one Minecraft video, for example, and then go back to my normal stuff and then I'll put out maybe two Minecraft videos and then go back to more normal stuff. So basically, basically, you're slowly transitioning into the new stuff.

Speaker 2:

Some people will go cold turkey, and that's fine too, but I like to bring along as much of the audience as possible and by doing it this way you're kind of slowly bringing something. You're not gonna bring everyone along, but you're slowly bringing some of the people along who like you for your content and you're not just shocking them one day and they're going oh, this is now a minecraft channel, I don't like it. Maybe they would like it if you just kind of slowly brought them into it rather than just cold turkey them.

Speaker 3:

I think that's the perfect advice. I also feel like other terms we could use are sprinkling oh, are, frosting, are Uh-oh.

Speaker 2:

I just completely lost the audio. Okay sorry. Yeah, you said frosting and I kind of lost it. The plug came out of my headset and I was like what's going on?

Speaker 3:

I'm trying to think of other wonderful food-related terms.

Speaker 2:

I frosted my audience. What?

Speaker 3:

I frosted my content. That sounds wonderful.

Speaker 2:

It does sound nice. I love frosting. Can we eat frosting? One episode I know we were talking about as a joke, but I think in the live podcast we should do this. We should bring a bunch of different candies and just eat them throughout the episode. Just kind of different. We'll just random candies. We'll go buy some before.

Speaker 3:

I think the funniest thing is that I have a chocolate cake smashed up in my house right now, because it was a bit that I did A little homage to you for a skit in my video, because it was a bit that I did a little homage to you for a skit in my video, and now I just have like a smashed up chocolate cake and I'm like wish I could give it to you.

Speaker 2:

I would eat it. I know I would eat it. I love frosting. Now I'm thinking did you put it in your purse so the ants can eat it?

Speaker 3:

No, it's on the counter for the ants. Although I was in Pilates yesterday and in the middle of class this woman like shouted out she's like guys. Just a reminder it's sugar ant season and everyone was like what what does that even mean? That's hilarious everyone literally burst out laughing. We were just like okay that's a random thing, so tis the season to not leave candy in my purse, apparently. Please, let's not do that, alright, so that's a random thing.

Speaker 2:

So tis the season to not leave candy in my purse, apparently. Please, let's not do that. All right? So for everyone listening, we thank you so much for joining us. Lots of cool stuff we got coming for you. Of course, make sure you check out the Discord, but, more importantly, I think there'll be a link in the show notes, in the description, if I remember to do it. I figured out the broken link problem. But I just want to say thank you so much. When we get comments and emails and stuff from y'all, it's very. We already love this podcast, but man, what a cool thing it is to share it with a community that really enjoys it. Like it's so cool. You guys are the best. Not even joking.

Speaker 2:

Couldn't even agree more and we're excited to do new cool stuff for y'all in the coming weeks and months. Like super, super excited'm when we do more in person stuff. I think it's going to get more shenanigans. I think all the audio podcast listeners are just literally going to have to go to the youtube channel and watch it, because I'm sure we're going to do shenanigans. It's got to be. We're going to brainstorm it tomorrow, all right, everyone, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 1:

We'll see y'all in the next one we hope you enjoyed this episode of tube Talk brought to you by vidIQ. Head over to vidIQcom slash Tube Talk for today's show notes and previous episodes. Enjoy the rest of your video making day.