TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

Talking YouTube with a former YouTube Employee!

• vidIQ • Season 6 • Episode 25

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Matt Koval shares his unique journey from early YouTube creator to becoming YouTube's first Creator Liaison, offering rare insights into the platform's evolution and internal decision-making processes. He reveals how his $47 creator course caught YouTube's attention and led to a decade-long career developing creator education programs including the original YouTube Playbook.

• Started as a comedy creator in 2008 alongside early YouTube stars like Hank Green and Shane Dawson
• Hired by YouTube in 2012 after creating what may have been the first-ever YouTube strategy course
• Helped develop fundamental creator resources including the original YouTube Playbook
• Eventually became YouTube's official Creator Liaison after years of unofficially humanizing platform announcements
• Left YouTube after 10 years to start Creator Dynamics, working with companies to improve their YouTube presence
• Confirms some channels truly are "dead" and beyond revival despite what YouTube's internal teams claim
• Believes growing on YouTube is significantly harder now due to increased competition and quality requirements
• Recommends creators focus on selling products/services rather than just chasing views for long-term sustainability

If you're interested in learning more about Matt Koval and Creator Dynamics, check out the links in our show notes.


Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the only podcast that has more guests than hosts. My name is Travis and I'm here today with a very special guest, Matt Koval, who I've known for a couple of years now, and I'm super excited to introduce you to everyone who listens to the podcast. Matt, how are you doing?

Speaker 2:

Hey, I'm doing well. Great to be here. I've been a fan for a long time.

Speaker 1:

What has been going on in your world? I mean, we're going to get into all the other things but, like in the last like 30 days, what's been taking up your mind space on YouTube, like what are the cool things you're watching? We'd love to let people know what are the cool things that we're watching. So what's been in your watch history?

Speaker 2:

if we look through your watch history, oh gosh, a lot of stuff about home renovation and, you know, a lot of productivity videos and things like that, and then, as usual, just YouTube education, trying to stay on the cutting edge. A lot of the clients I work with now are companies and organizations who have certain challenges, and so I'm always a student of YouTube, learning from folks like you and others and just picking it up where I can.

Speaker 1:

You never stop learning, like it's just one of those things that you can never stop learning. But for those of you who don't know, matt actually used to work at YouTube and now has his own company, creator Dynamics. We're going to talk about that a little bit later. And we have Matt on because he has a unique perspective of things that, to be honest, maybe two or three people in the entire world can actually say that they have the perspective of Matt, which I think is super cool because, having worked at YouTube but worked with creators and been a liaison between and like there's so much of what you did that we're so creator focused that it's like super exciting to have you here, because not only can we kind of dive into what youtube valued at that moment, but then like what kind of things in the creator economy are valued now, because now you've seen it from there and now into your own company. This is super cool. I'm very excited about this.

Speaker 1:

So let's just dive right in. Sounds good, all All right. So, number one let's start off with like how you started. How did you start at YouTube? Like how'd that happen? How did you get that job, what were you doing? And then we'll kind of work through that whole thing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, it actually started. I was one of the earliest creators, so I started my channel actively in 2008. So when you talk about YouTube OGs, I go way back with, like Hank Green and Lisa Nova, shane Dawson, phil DeFranco all of them and I ran a successful channel for about four years Comedy channel, told stories into the camera, wore women's wigs with a series called the Fooplers, which ended up being like quite the engine of my channel. And then YouTube had some kind of program called NextUp that you could join, if you remember that, and I applied and you know you got a grant from YouTube to you, got funding to keep running your channel. And then you also got flown out to New York for workshops with various professionals in the industry, and that's where I met Google employees for the first time.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, and in an attempt to better monetize my channel, I created what I'm pretty sure is the very first online course about how to succeed on YouTube. Really, it was in 2011. Wow, if anybody out there can correct me if I'm wrong, but I've done a lot of research, I've asked a lot of OGs and they're like, no, I can't think of anyone before that. So, anyway, I sold five tickets and that was it.

Speaker 2:

The cost was $47, but the fifth ticket was purchased by an executive at YouTube. His name was Ben Rellis, very cool. Ben reached out and he said hey, this is great, do you mind if I share it with some colleagues here at YouTube? And I said sure, do they have 47 bucks? Because I'm trying to make some money here, man, and you are Google, right? Yeah, right. And so they bought a couple extra tickets.

Speaker 2:

I love it and a few other people took a look and next thing you know, they invited me to apply this was 2012 for a role as a content strategist at YouTube.

Speaker 1:

Did that position exist before that?

Speaker 2:

Not really. They were actively in the mode of trying to teach creators and they acquired a company called Next New Networks and I joined about six months later. So I joined this Next New Networks team that included Ben Rellis, vanessa Pappas who ended up running TikTok, and a lot of very early influential people of YouTube and educators of YouTube, and we kind of like all wrote the best practices, the original best practices, the original playbook. If you remember, there was like a physical playbook. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And looking back I'm like, oh my gosh, that was like some crazy golden era. I can't believe I stumbled into that.

Speaker 1:

That's so interesting. So you were hired for a position that maybe didn't exist or, if it did, probably wasn't as detailed as it is today. What was that like? Going into a corporation who had focused on something that maybe they didn't even fully understand, didn't even fully understand? I mean, I say this with a lot of respect, but I mean corporations and I'm not just talking about YouTube, but corporations which include people like Amazon and stuff like that. Dude are selling to a customer, don't always understand the customer's experience, and YouTube is very focused on the viewer experience, as they should right, because about viewers, nothing happens.

Speaker 1:

But now you know, at this time, what 2012 was you were saying they're looking at creators and like how to get that kind of thing flowing. When you go into that, how do you say, ok, these are the things that creators need. Because I'm a creator, been doing it for years, I kind of know what people need. And how was that process? Were they kind of like we're not real sure about those ideas? Or were they like let's do everything that you'd like to do?

Speaker 2:

The latter To their credit. They were Google employees, so technical program managers, product managers, et cetera, and they built this platform and they saw all these kids growing huge views and they're like, none of them use the platform, which continues to be a theme that I pressed internally, because so few people actually use the platform inside YouTube. Interesting. It's a real disconnect. That, I think, still is kind of a problem. But they put all of their.

Speaker 2:

You know, they very smartly reached out to the next new networks team, who became the next lab internally at YouTube and they said you know, hire creator people, hire creatives, bring them in. And so this guy, ben Rellis, who was my first boss, who hired me and he was my mentor for a long time internally, it was his job and he was determined to create creative strategy on YouTube and so we created the playbook. And then also, if you've ever heard of the 10 fundamentals of YouTube, which was like an early program that we created, it was just like the curriculum, the 10 things that you need to do to grow on YouTube and we pushed that out, scaled that to 70 different languages and it kind of became the early fundamentals which a lot of them still hold, but it was the early playbook.

Speaker 1:

So what was the kind of internal reaction to this? After you'd been there for a little while and were making all these changes and being additive to the experience for creators, did they even know how to measure your success, like what was success for Google slash YouTube?

Speaker 2:

Well, that's a great question and it's a very Google question because everything is measured at Google but back then there was a lot more investment into R&D research and development and they were just like throwing money out there and saying you know, you know, let's not count the beans right now just just come up with what works on YouTube, let's scale it out.

Speaker 2:

Let's see if we can get people really embracing and using this platform, based on what we know already from the handful of creators who are doing well on the platform. And then I thankfully I never had to be a part of the team that was counting the finances. I never even knew if YouTube was financially successful back then. I just know that they kept encouraging us to do more and more from a creative development standpoint and coming up with more best practices, and then encouraging creators to thrive on the platform.

Speaker 1:

What was your goal in those first couple of years coming in and being a new part of the team? What did you want to accomplish personally?

Speaker 2:

Well, I had been a freelance filmmaker for a long time, pursuing independent movies. I was writing screenplays, I was actually the cinematographer on a Chris Pine independent movie before YouTube, and so while we were on set, he actually got the news that he was going to be Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek.

Speaker 2:

And so I thought I was going down this certain path, but then the movie didn't go anywhere. The Hollywood business was so frustrating it really seemed like just who you knew. And then I got on YouTube and I just started having so much fun, and so by the time I was hired, I was just so happy to have a full-time job.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that's fair, that's fair and one that was around, something that I loved, which was YouTube, and the tasks that they gave me were like hey, can you come up with best practices? And I'm a former teacher as well. And so I was like are you kidding? Yes, of course, and I don't know if you've ever rolled into a Google office, but it's like free breakfast, free lunch, free snacks. There are all these perks, there are massage chairs and things like that. And so the transition to going internally. I was like you got to be kidding me. This is the backup.

Speaker 1:

What's going on?

Speaker 2:

I felt like I was kind of swimming out in the ocean and the ocean waves, and then this cruise ship picked me up and I got brought in too. And you know we're so used to working really hard as creators and like, okay, I've got to get a video out by tomorrow. And then my boss some of my bosses internally in the beginning would be like, matt, can you do this project? And I'm like sure, when you need it tomorrow, you're like what?

Speaker 1:

No, three weeks from now Right, right, right right.

Speaker 2:

Can you slow play this?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I guess, sure, yeah, if you want me to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. That's just the way it goes sometimes in corporations.

Speaker 1:

So what happens? Okay, so you're in it further along and then at some point and I thought this was kind of interesting you had a video presence on your like YouTube's face in a way right, In a lot of ways you were because you were the one person as the liaison. And how did that? I want to talk about the liaison thing too. How did that lay? I want to talk about the liaison thing too. How did that happen?

Speaker 2:

and when was there a moment they're like we need you to be on the youtube channel, kind of representing us, because you were that guy. Yeah, so I was there for 10 years and I wasn't the creator liaison until the last two years, interesting. But prior to that I was, very much unofficially a face of creators because, um, I helped run the creators channel, so I was the lead of that channel for a while. But also a couple of things. I mean one we were trying to scale the best practices of YouTube again and so I would offer to jump on camera and just explain them, and so my bosses were like oh yeah, of course, I mean, you were a creator, you've got you know how to talk on camera, by all means. The other thing was YouTube kept bombing their announcements.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking.

Speaker 2:

I do remember those days, yes, they would make a change and then announce it in a kind of a stuffy corporate way. Yes, and it just would enrage the creator community.

Speaker 2:

And oftentimes, the creators didn't understand why the change was really made, and so I kept watching that happen again and again. So this is, like you know, 2015, 16, 17. And I said, you know, would it ever be helpful if I just got on camera and tried to clarify why we do certain things, like why we had to make this particular change, what article 13 is?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what does that even mean? Yeah, yeah, if anybody remembers that, I do remember that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Yep, the whole adpocalypse thing as well and so I convinced some people to let me do that, and we made some videos and that got me in touch with the head of communications at YouTube, who was like Matt, this, you just kind of like solved that problem for us, which is amazing. Have you ever thought about, you know, us creating a role around, like being some sort of ambassador to creators, some sort of go-between? And I was like no, I hadn't thought of that, but I'm open to it, I'm game, yeah, yeah. So that's the beginning of the story, and I'm happy to explain how the official version came about later.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you and that's actually how I think we met was when you were doing that role towards the end of your time at YouTube, and I remember you doing a lot of stuff on Twitter too, so you were posting a lot on Twitter. So I'm always curious how much of what you had to say on the socials and YouTube had to go through like legal and stuff Like how often were you being held back by legal? Because I used to work at Amazon for about seven years and I know that everything went through legal. What was it like for you?

Speaker 2:

it wasn't so much legal as it was PR or PR yeah, pr, yeah, yeah yeah, sometimes the PR team would be like, ah, can you not say it that way? Yeah and um, but I, I started to have a track record of success, so they started to give me more agency in what I would say or what I would write. And it got to the point where they said gosh, you know, matt kind of gets it. He keeps landing these, really. So let's give him more leeway, let him not use that corporate lingo, but just be a little more straightforward.

Speaker 2:

Him not use that corporate lingo, but just be a little more straightforward. And then when the communications team and the PR team would write blog posts announcing certain things, they would send it right to me and they would say Matt, can you just carpet bomb like comment bomb this whole doc? I love it. And I took out things like don't say content, say videos, because that's what we mean.

Speaker 2:

I would just slash through all these corporate words and everybody internally was kind of cheering me on and so it was nice. I mean I enjoyed a rare status internally as one of the few creators who was an employee.

Speaker 1:

So, for those who don't know what type of things that are still being done today were things that you kind of either pioneered or were part of early on, just to kind of connect the dots. So obviously, the Creator Insider updates and stuff you definitely had a large part of that. What are the things people see today? Do they not even know that you had a hand in?

Speaker 2:

Sure, Well, I should clarify Creator Insider came from the product organization of YouTube. So YouTube is kind of split in halves. One is like the business side and kind of like the marketing side, partner managers et cetera, and the other side are all the very smart folks who do the plumbing of the platform and the systems. So Creator Insider actually came from the product side. I ran the official YouTube creators channel.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, Sometimes I get those confused yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which was on the other side. But yeah, as far as things that still come out, you know, if you take a blog post, for example, and you know it'll always start with something like for the last 20 years, we have pioneered, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, like for the last 20 years, we have pioneered, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Usually those things are written by like 15 different people and there's a Google doc and everybody starts chiming in and then people make different versions. And that's the kind of thing that I would often weigh in on and try to just keep it real and say guys, you know, can we not say that? And they would say, well, sometimes they say, well, matt, that's not going to translate into 50 languages, we can't use your anecdote right there or something like that, that's fair yeah, because I'm always using metaphors and whatnot.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, I mean, the teams now are just such a well-oiled machine and they do a great job. I still give them a little heat sometimes about some of the announcements that come out and sometimes I wish I'm like, oh, I wish I was still in there because I would have pushed back. I would have pushed back on how that was said, you know.

Speaker 1:

Like I would have said that slightly differently if we had to do yeah, yeah, I guess now. So, towards the end, let's talk about the last two years you were there. What kind of things were you working on specifically and what were?

Speaker 2:

the things that you're really proud of that you were able to do in that last two years. Yeah, so, going back to this unofficial role I had as this on-camera person on behalf of YouTube, what happened was there was this guy who was hired on the Google side. His name was Danny Sullivan and he became the Google search liaison for Google, and so he was a human.

Speaker 1:

He was a human out there. You never know anymore.

Speaker 2:

I mean, if you look at these AI videos nowadays, I don't know what to believe. I know he was somebody who was a journalist, who wrote about and blogged about search engines and they invited him to come in internally and essentially be a liaison for Google Search. So he would operate on Twitter and whenever there was any sort of controversy about Google Search he would jump in and say hey everybody.

Speaker 2:

Don't worry, everything's fine. I just talked to the product team. We're fixing this now. And Google Pichai, ceo of Google, loved it. Sorry, sundar Pichai, ceo of Google, just loved Danny because he was able to put out fires instantly and just explain things in a very human way. Like this happened. We apologize, we're working on it and then follow up.

Speaker 2:

So what happened was one day Sundar went to Susan Wojcicki, ceo of YouTube, and said hey, I love Danny Sullivan. Do you think we need somebody like this for YouTube? And Susan went to Chris, who was the guy head of communications who I had been speaking with about doing something more formal around this role. And Chris said to Susan Susan, we already have him, we have this guy. And so they finally came to me and said Matt, it's time to make it official. This comes down from the top. We'd like to formalize this role as the YouTube liaison, the YouTube creator liaison.

Speaker 2:

So my manager and I went to work developing more formally what this role would do and not do. Some people were a little, I think, threatened by the role internally, such as the partner managers who were assigned to certain creators. They were like, wait a second, matt's not going to jump in the middle of my relationship with this and that, and then there, there were some early rough patches with Twitter, because you probably know the, the handle what is it? Oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blank the YouTube handle where they, they follow up and they help everybody.

Speaker 1:

Oh, YouTube help Team. Youtube Team.

Speaker 2:

YouTube. Thank you. So people were often complaining and I would jump in, and then Team YouTube would also jump in, and so there started to be a bit of butting heads and there was that. So we had to sort out certain swim lanes as to who was going to respond, and then it very quickly became clear to me that I cannot respond to everybody. I'm just one person, and so we had to sort out like who was going to respond in certain situations on Twitter.

Speaker 1:

So, with that being said, towards the end you're like okay, things are cooking, people know who you are. You're able to humanize the platform in which people love, create on, have businesses on this thing. That's actually changing lives. I think we sometimes some people downplay how important YouTube is to certain people's lives. I just talked to a YouTuber which will be I don't know if it'll be before this episode or after Hafu Go, who employs a team. So it's not even the people that are working for him to have YouTube channels is that they're helping him, but it's changed their lives too. They're now doing some cool stuff. So this platform is huge. It's a big deal Changed people's lives. You're working there, you're helping humanize it, everything's great. When was the moment you're like I think it's time for me to move on, and what was, what was your thought process and what was going on in that moment?

Speaker 2:

First of all, I didn't think I would last six months inside a corporation as a creator. So back when I was hired in 2012, I was like it's just not going to work because.

Speaker 2:

I'm too much of a angsty artist and you know, I'm like I'm going to say the wrong thing or email somebody the wrong thing. But you know, credit again to the guy who hired me, ben Rellis, who kind of came from the creator world as well. He ran a channel called Barely Political which was a big comedy channel back in the day. But yeah, over time, you know, at a certain point I just realized, wow, I've been here for almost a decade inside YouTube. I'm still a creator, I'm still an entrepreneur. I kind of want to run my own business.

Speaker 2:

I kept getting asked to present to various groups about YouTube. I got asked to advise, like Ford in Detroit, like Matt, can Matt go to Detroit to talk to Ford about their YouTube channels? And my manager would be like no, sorry, we need him to stay focused on this. You know, I got invited to you know, high schools to speak and my manager, like colleges, my manager was just like no, we can't have you do that because you have to keep staying focused on what's driving the needle forward the most. So I started to get very itchy about that and then, kind of like the golden era of YouTube was kind of over. So they were cutting a lot of creative developmental teams. They shut down the whole YouTube spaces.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I'm still crushed about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that was such a wonderful wonderful for anybody who doesn't know. We had these spaces around the world I think there were seven or eight and they were basically free production facilities for creators to come in and just meet each other but also shoot videos, and it was awesome. So I spent a lot of time in those and they shut those down, in addition to YouTube Origals and all that. So, unfortunately, just like any business, over time they started to shed away all this R&D and kind of like creative development type stuff. They brought in a lot of executives who were from like McKinsey type places and they really tightened the ship, as any corporation would do over time, and so it was time.

Speaker 2:

It was time to go and I was very proud that I created this role. But I knew of people who could do it better than I could, including my friend, renee Ritchie, who I recommended for the role, and also someone like Renee was just more comfortable being in the spotlight and being on camera a lot and receiving a ton of attention, which I you know, I'm again a former filmmaker Like I prefer to be behind the camera actually and editing, and like that's the kind of work that I love most. So I wasn't that comfortable just constantly being out there and kind of like also a punching bag for YouTube sometimes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I've known Rene for many years. He was in my niche anyway, so before he got that job I had known and I was super excited when he got it. He's such a great guy and Canadian, which means he can't be mean, so legally he's the perfect person for that.

Speaker 2:

I've never met a Canadian who is not nice.

Speaker 1:

Literally never. So let's talk about what happened next. Was there a bit of time between you leaving YouTube and Creator Dynamics being created, or did you immediately jump right into it, like what happened?

Speaker 2:

Yeah well, I was terrified. I definitely wanted to start my own company and consultancy. But imagine you're getting a great salary, you're getting Google stock, and then you decide that you're going to shut all of that off and make no money.

Speaker 1:

No thanks.

Speaker 2:

And no support, and so I was terrified of that. So I kind of took a step down from a huge corporation and I went to a platform called Mighty Networks, if you've ever heard of that, but it's like a paid community platform.

Speaker 2:

So I went from a 150,000-person corporation at Google to a 100-person kind of startup at Mighty Networks and it was a great gig. It was really interesting to learn about a new platform. You know, I think they were interested in having me join with the hopes that YouTube creators were going to come over and use their product. And I was there for a year and overall pretty positive experience. But I still had that itch to go ahead and start my own thing and get back to my original love of YouTube and so that ended after about a year and then, after seeing a 100 person company operate, I was more confident in starting my own thing and so yes launch Creator Dynamics.

Speaker 2:

Initially thought I was going to join everybody out there who was coaching creators and I was like, oh man, how am I going to compete against Sean Cannell and Leron and Daryl Eves Leron.

Speaker 2:

Blake. But what happened was, because of my network of Google employees, a lot of companies started reaching out on YouTube. A lot of former colleagues of mine who work at other companies now started to reach out say, hey, I didn't know, you're out on your own, can you help us with this company launching our YouTube efforts? And I said sure. So what happened was a little swim lane opened up that not many in our community like to swim, in which is helping companies and organizations with their YouTube channels, and so, you know, I felt bad about kind of leaving creators.

Speaker 2:

But creators are in great hands with, like, all of you all and there's so much advice out there that I was comfortable, you know, kind of pivoting in that way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I actually like working with corporations. I've done multiple Um and I. I find that everything you say is important to them, which is really interesting. Uh, at least the ones that I worked with they they really do pay attention to like everything you say, um, whereas some creators will listen to what you say and then say, well, that wasn't my experience, I'm just going to ignore that whole section. And then you come back a week later and say, did you do these things? No, I didn't do that one thing. No, you go to a corporation or something they've done, every single thing you've told them, and they'll give you reports on everything and if something works.

Speaker 1:

I kind of love that, actually, and I think that people who have not coached YouTubers and stuff have no idea the whole other side of this. And there's even, like this, controversy and you'll see this in comment sections on certain learning videos and stuff. You don't need coaches and stuff, and I agree that, like, not everyone needs coaches. I built my channel without a coach, but I did eventually take coaching. I went to Daryl's Jump Start program. I wanted to understand some deeper understandings of it. So then when I became a coach, I was able to do a better job. I feel like that gurus or whatever it is it's starting to become a bad word on YouTube. I would love your thoughts and feelings on kind of the rejection of people who are trying to help people you too, cause you see, I'm sure you've seen the videos on YouTube Like don't look, don't listen to these guys, don't listen. What are your thoughts when you see those?

Speaker 2:

I don't know that. I've seen those videos. I certainly know that the term guru does not have a great connotation. I never liked being called a guru, no. And then some people would be like what do you mean, Matt? You are the guru, Like you are the YouTube guru. Like no, I mean, I'm an educator. I think I just did a podcast with Rob Wilson over there and he doesn't feel comfortable with that guru term. No, he does not.

Speaker 1:

He doesn't feel comfortable with that guru term either?

Speaker 2:

No, he does not. You know, and look, internet marketing has always been a slimy business. Some people have made it very slimy. It was that way before YouTube, by the way, like internet marketing and all that, and there are people out there who sell courses that are just terrible.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And they're kind of taking your money. There are people who sell terrible programs and they're not effective, they don't really know what they're talking about, and so that just kind of poisons the well for the rest of us, unfortunately, who really do a great job and really take it to heart to try to deliver and make sure people get results, and so unfortunately you have that kind of reputation that still comes up and it's a shame because it hurts the rest of us.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Now you mostly work with corporation YouTube channels. Would you say that? Or do you work with a mixture now?

Speaker 2:

I would say like medium-sized companies. A couple corporations have come around. Youtube came around which is funny.

Speaker 1:

Can you tell that story? Because that's just hilarious. That actually kind of happened to me too, but I want to hear your story.

Speaker 2:

Well, I remember when I was a strategist that there were a lot of internal teams asking for my support, and again my manager, who often acted like my agent.

Speaker 2:

I feel like would be like no, you can't have Matt, and so I understand that certain priorities, there are certain priorities inside a corporation and but but teams are all like. Google has like 40 YouTube channels, 40 or 50 across different products. I think Gmail has a channel, I think you know 40 or 50 across different products. I think Gmail has a channel, I think you know Gemini has a channel, and on and on, and at a certain point you know there aren't enough internal YouTube experts to help all the properties that Google owns from a YouTube perspective. So, basically, one of the main YouTube channels reached out, namely YouTubecom slash YouTube.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow, wow, wow and asked if we could do a full channel analysis and evaluation based on best practices. So it was funny coming back in I knew half the people still and it was like hey, everybody, great to be back. That's hilarious.

Speaker 1:

How long after you left did that happen? And it was like hey, everybody, great to be back. That's hilarious.

Speaker 2:

How long after you left. Did that happen? That was, I think, about a year and a half later.

Speaker 1:

So not even that long. So what was just out of curiosity, just the bullet points, what were some of the things you had them kind of fix Like? What were the things that they had to focus on that maybe they weren't even aware of? Is there anything that's easy to explain?

Speaker 2:

Well, so this is a typical situation with a corporate-owned channel. They had abused the channel over the years. They would just kind of use it for marketing videos and they would upload those rewind videos Remember those rewinds.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so they would have like a big marketing campaign where they would flood the channel with like 50 videos and then leave it alone for two years or something like that oh my gosh or a year, and then a different campaign. They would start and flood the channel again with a whole different series and so, unfortunately, you had this massive channel with a ton of subscribers I think something like 43 million subscribers but the formats were all over the place. Who knows what the audience really wanted at that point, because it was so many different people had subscribed and what happened. So it was a case of trying to give them an overview and a clear perspective of the health of that channel and which direction they should go with a new series they were launching.

Speaker 1:

I love that. So a lot of the people that listen to the uh, the podcast are newer creators or smaller creators trying to grow, and one of the things that we hear sometimes is um, and we try to, we try to bust the myths here, but a lot of people will say, well, YouTube, uh, there'll be one of two things on the negative side of things, which is like YouTube doesn't care about small creators, which we try to explain why that's not true. So I definitely want to get your thoughts on that. And then the other thing which I think is really interesting is YouTube's after me. They're shadow banning me there. They don't like my uploads, so they they hide me from people You've been there. I would love to hear your thoughts on these. Let's start with the YouTube doesn't help small creators thing and tell me your thoughts on that.

Speaker 2:

I haven't been a small creator in a while, but I will tell you and maybe this will come as a surprise to you, travis but after being on the outside now and very much in the trenches with a lot of channels, I feel it more than I did internally.

Speaker 1:

You do feel it, you do feel it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, because people will come to me with channels that are dead as a doornail.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And I coach them through all of the things and I do all the things. I like to think that I know quite a bit about what makes a good video and CTR and retention and all these things, and damn, if we can't lift up some of these channels Been there. Yeah, it's rough, and so there's a big debate in our community. I don't know that you and I have talked about it, but is there such a thing as a dead channel? And to me, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I've seen them.

Speaker 2:

I've argued with folks internally at YouTube on the search and discovery team. They said, no, anybody can revive a channel. I'm like there's no way, because some of these are just so ruined by ads, like paid ads. And I call it old channel syndrome as well. If a channel has been around for a long time, they've uploaded multiple different formats, they've tried different things, they took a year off on and on Like at that point, if you upload a new video and you can't get past 100 views, just start over. Just start the thing over slate, with the algorithm, with your branding and knowing that you're going to go in a very straightforward, focused direction, instead of trying to restart this channel that has all this baggage from multiple years and multiple videos and who knows what kind of fans over the years.

Speaker 1:

So there was a creator in one of our earlier. So we did an episode on our Discord where we talked to actual creators and they had asked us questions and there was a creator on there. And when I say this number, you're not going to believe me, but it's 100% true. This content creator had 50,000 videos and I know, I know and I think they were under like 1,000 subscribers and we're like there just comes a time when maybe time, maybe your folk, as long as you're passionate about it, you're enjoying it, cool. My thought is, if you're doing it to grow, this might be a sign and there are every once in a while you'll see channels just like that that, um, that's the case. Do you think now, despite the fact that competition is higher now than it ever has been, that it's easier or harder to grow a channel from zero than it used to be, maybe eight, ten years ago?

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's definitely harder. I mean, it's just supply and demand. You know we got to keep it real. Yeah, I love that and you know, I think a lot of people internally will still think well, you know, it's never been a wonderful time, Like it's never too late to start, and I believe that it's never too late to start Right.

Speaker 2:

But if you look at the videos, that would succeed. You know when I started, 2008 compared to now, like the quality and the length is just incredible. The quality and the length is just incredible. And so you really really have to dig deep if you want to succeed. As a new, try to find some unique perspective or niche down on the audience, Make your videos double the length of most of the competitors or something like that. But absolutely it's tough out there.

Speaker 1:

So what is your general advice to a new content creator or smaller, struggling content creator? Is it give up? Or is it something like I'm sorry, this is not for you. You need to go get that job, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm glad you asked because I don't want to just be negative, nancy, here. Um, so I love the channels now that only get a couple hundred views per video but have something to sell in in in way like a product or service, and I love that. You know, I've met channels out there and creators who are making incredible money and they really only get like two or 300 views per video. So I always say use YouTube to your benefit. Don't let YouTube use you Like. Don't just chase views for no reason because you're just becoming, you know you're like a little engine of their platform. Still love them, but you're like a little engine of their platform and you're not getting a return on all that time and energy and if you really look, count the hours that you're putting in. If that's your goal, like if you just want views and exposure and you have a job on the side that you're fine with great.

Speaker 2:

I mean, if you're enjoying it and if you're getting something out of it, by all means keep going. But I'd encourage people, sooner than later, to really make it worth it by having something to sell. That said, I remember when I was younger I didn't have anything to sell. I just wanted views. I just wanted attention and comments. And if that's what you want, just own it, embrace it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think it's important to understand the difference between and I always talk about setting expectations. Sometimes we'll talk to channels that just do random things. I like to do all these different things. Okay, fine, then set your expectations in line with what you're doing. If you're doing random things, you should expect random things to happen. If you're doing a focused thing, you can expect, hopefully, some good success yeah, I, I would never recommend random no, I never do, but if someone is really good, there are people that are like but I did, this is just what I want to do, okay, well, that's fair.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, we'll take the company classic company view here. Um, a lot of companies come to youtube and they think they're going to program their channel like a tv channel. Yes, you're like, I'm going to upload six different shows for six different audiences. It's going to be great. We're going to upload six different shows for six different audiences. It's going to be great. We're going to upload three episodes a day. And you know, youtube was just never made to handle that type of programming. You really want to be as narrow as possible. I'm not even a fan of doing shorts and live streams and all of the things. Like I'm old school, like I love long form and community posts.

Speaker 1:

Posts and that's it.

Speaker 2:

And come up with a nice cadence where there's breathing room in between. But yeah you gotta be. If you want to be the wild horse artist which I was too, and I would just upload whatever I felt like when I was inspired you can do that, but it's just not gonna grow and get traction inspired.

Speaker 1:

You can do that, but it's just not gonna grow and get traction. That's fair, um, I guess. Finally, to to wrap up, um, what are the kind of things that you're up to now that people might be interested in if they want to check you out and kind of understand, like, what you're doing and creator dynamics? Is it something that maybe someone who's listening might be interested? Like, what kind of things are you up to?

Speaker 2:

thank, Thank you. Yeah, so we serve companies and organizations who either want to rejuvenate, try to rejuvenate or relaunch their YouTube channels. And so if anybody out there is an employee of a company who you know it's a public-facing company they're trying to improve the humanness of their company, the humanity of their company, and getting certain messages out there or to sell a product or service. We're partnering with those companies. We work with PBS Frontline as well, so larger organizations like that, and the first thing we do is a deep dive channel evaluation to just get on the same page about the health of the channel. And then we have other services of support and ongoing partnership and keeping the channel growing. That's awesome.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to wrap this up with one final question. What is your favorite channel that you want other people to watch? It doesn't have to be a big channel, but it could be something that you like. I love this channel. I want other people to watch this channel. It could be small, big, doesn't matter.

Speaker 2:

You know, can I click over to my home screen Go?

Speaker 1:

ahead. I'm just going to tell you what the algorithm tells you, right? Yeah, yeah, we usually, we usually do that same thing. We'll, sometimes we'll go through our watch histories and figure out what was the one we'd like a lot. Yep, yep, um, I'm getting a lot of Saturday night live and I'm getting a lot of um metallica documentaries.

Speaker 2:

I just went to a metallica show outside of philadelphia and uh, youtube. The algorithm right now is just like um just delivering on all that. Oh my gosh I also see the riverside guy, so kudos to this platform.

Speaker 1:

He's great he is great and I know he follows me on twitter and it's funny because, uh, he's followed me for a couple years and I think I had chatted with him many years ago and all of a sudden, I come on the platform and his face is right here. I'm like wait a minute, that's the guy that follows me on Twitter. That's crazy. I love that.

Speaker 1:

It's the creator economy and it's something that's and I think Matt made a really good point here is you should. If you're doing this for fun, there's nothing wrong with that, don. However, what we've also said is YouTube is definitely making money off of your content. 100%. They're going to make money off your content. No reason you shouldn't as well, and there are many different ways of doing that. Matt, thank you so much for joining us, and if you have more questions about Matt, what he's doing, or maybe even you want to reach out to him, we'll leave a link to his website here in the show notes and in the video description. So, matt, once again, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone else, if you're new here, hit that subscribe button if you like. If you're listening to an audio podcast, leave us a five-star review. You know we love those here and we'll see y'all in the next one.