TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

Shattering YouTube Myths

• vidIQ • Season 6 • Episode 37

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YouTube growth is filled with misconceptions that can derail creators, from the myth that subscribers equal views to false beliefs about how the algorithm works with your viewing habits. 

• Subscribers don't equal views - a channel with thousands of subscribers might still struggle with low viewership
• Creator burnout is real and it's okay to take breaks when content creation isn't paying your bills
• Your viewing habits have zero impact on how YouTube promotes your videos
• Content buckets strategy works best when organized by traffic source: Browse (storytelling), Search (solutions), and Shorts (promotion)
• Finding your "superpower" as a creator helps you stand out in saturated niches like gaming
• Reading competitors' comments reveals market gaps you can fill with your content
• Creating an "avatar account" that only watches your niche content helps you understand what YouTube promotes
• Testing new content regularly prevents stagnation and helps break growth plateaus
• YouTube can profoundly impact lives beyond metrics - from finding spouses to landing dream jobs




Speaker 1:

Something you need to understand from the very day, one you need to understand subscribers do not equal views.

Speaker 2:

You think, okay, well, I have to do what's working. But the thing is in reality, we always want to test new content.

Speaker 1:

Because there's so many myths about YouTube content and YouTube that it's hurtful for some creators because they'll listen to the wrong thing. Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that helps you grow your YouTube channel, and sometimes we talk about our dogs doing things. I'm Travis and I'm here with my co-host. She's back, Tina. What's going on.

Speaker 2:

You know sorry.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:

My dog, my dog isn't doing anything crazy. I don't know.

Speaker 1:

You don't want to say it in the last episode. I don't know. You don't want to set it in the last episode. I don't know nothing about nothing. I don't know nothing about nothing. But I'm Travis. I'm here to help you grow a YouTube channel. Tina's going to help us as well. She's one of the FitIQ coaches here. So if you're interested in something like that, we got some links in the description below and you'll find how amazingly smart she is in this episode. And I just want to job. Last time Really enjoyed the conversation we had. We learned some things. We had a hot Tina tip and we'll be doing that again this episode Super excited about that. How did you feel about your hot Tina tip last time? It was actually good.

Speaker 2:

I loved my hot tip personally because I know it works.

Speaker 1:

There you go, but if you missed it, you got to go back and watch that episode or listen to that episode on the audio podcast, of course, and you'll be able to hear that hot Tina tip, which actually is a legitimate tip. It's not we're just joking around, but it actually is a really good tip. If you're new here, we're here to help you grow your YouTube channel and we answer your questions. All you got to do send us an email at theboostvidIQcom or, if you're listening, there's a little link in the show notes that says text us and click it and you can open up a text message. I talked about last episode. I'm still why. I think it's wild that people will type really long texts on the phone. People know this, did listen to this, this uh podcast.

Speaker 2:

you are a long-form texter I, I don't discriminate is really what it is.

Speaker 1:

I I think it's wild, you gotta communicate. Communication is the cornerstone of all relationships, that's true, that's so true, man, you you spitting right now okay let's get into the first email before I say something that gets me fired.

Speaker 1:

All right, first email at the boost that video, qcom. Hey, there it's keck. I left a comment on a recent video stating that my channel has more than doubled in subscribers within the last month. Monkey from 800 to 2,500 subs, over a hundred thousand long form views, thanks to all the work. I've put it in your guys advice.

Speaker 1:

However, I'm finding it extremely hard to not burn out, even when I'm getting the results I want. I aim for one video a week, but even that becomes draining at times, since smaller creators like me have to do everything on our own. Also, I'm on medication over a few months where fatigue is a major side effect. What are some tips to balance consistency and not burning out and to not beat myself up about missing a week, although I know I should be uploading while I'm getting so much momentum. And that's the thing On today's episode.

Speaker 1:

This is one of the things we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about burnout, algorithm myths, content buckets and a lot more, and this very first one, talking about burnout, is so important because it's if you do YouTube long enough and you try to, if you're trying to legitimately grow it. You're probably going to burn out at some point because it's it's like. It's like an escalator that moves too fast and you can never quite get to the top because you don't know what the top is. What's the top? The top, what is the top of the YouTube ladder? Even, what is it? I don't think it's anything.

Speaker 2:

There is no top.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, it's like the matrix there is no top, there's no spoon, oh my God. So tell me about this. Um, when a creator comes to you and you can tell they're starting to sometimes they don't even know they're starting to burn out, they're just putting out content mindlessly and they're just kind of you can tell in their content. And a lot of times you'll see this in comments, your YouTube journey, because I've had this today.

Speaker 2:

I spoke to two different people on this. One is a smaller channel and she was already burning out from some of the repeated videos, and that's typically, whether you're small or big, that's typically the case. You feel like you're making the same videos over and over.

Speaker 2:

Yes, preach, you feel like you're making the same videos over and over, yes, preach, and I say, okay, well, if it's working it sucks, because you think, okay, well, I have to do what's working. But the thing is, in reality, we always want to test new content, right, Because that's where even big channels they get stuck in. Their growth stage is that they know what works and they only do what works. But the thing is, if you don't ever experiment, you can't get to that next level anyhow. So I always say, okay, so within your content schedule, let's bake in there the experiment content, and you could still have it. Be strategic, make it something that you'll have fun doing might as well, right, because you're really testing out what could be the new content in your channel, a new pillar in your channel.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's definitely one of the ways to keep from feeling burnt out by doing the same thing over and over again. And in the case of Keck, they're talking about also not always having a lot of time, which we hear a lot about, especially with people with full-time jobs, like trying to figure out time to shoot, edit. In the last episode you talked about when you were doing going through it on your channel. You were doing long days. I can say the same thing and still having to shoot and edit and find the time. I mean, it's a pat. It ends up being a passion project for a long time before it becomes anything else. Yeah, and that as long as you're enjoying that part of it.

Speaker 1:

This is why I think on this podcast we always talk about when you're especially first starting out make sure it's fun, no matter what you're doing, even if it doesn't grow you as fast. Make sure it's fun, because this is the grind. This is the part where you're going to see the least return on investment, investment being your time. So enjoying what you're doing is actually primarily the number one thing, or you will burn out and you will stop making the content and you'll wonder why you ever did it and you'll start to second guess yourself. So that's number one. And if Keck is doing that, great, you're halfway there. One of the other things they say is what are some tips to balance consistency and not burning out by not beating myself up about missing a week. If, if, if it's not paying the bills, it's all right to miss a week, it's okay, that's so true, it's all right, what's going to happen?

Speaker 1:

I remember back when I used to work in corporate uh, corporate America our VP cause we would get so stressed about some of the things we were doing Our VP one time said to us he said, um, did anyone die? And we're like no, he goes, then it's going to be all right. And I feel like if you start thinking about a lot of things in life that way, things seem to be a lot more chill. It's like, oh, this is not that big of a deal. If taking an extra week off gives you the energy to then boost on for another three, four months, it's so worth it. Give that, give yourself that time, give yourself an extra week or two or three off If it's going to allow you to go further, longer, because burnout is the, is the boogeyman that awaits you, and it's one of the things that are that are never talked about for YouTube creators Like let's let's let's talk about this for a second.

Speaker 2:

I don't think that I think it's talked about now a little bit more now?

Speaker 1:

Yeah for sure, but like, think of, let's, let's do this, let's do a little, let's have a little thought experiment here, tina. Let's talk about all the things that new creators are not being told or not really seeing about becoming a creator. So, for example, the burnout thing you might've seen YouTube videos about it, so maybe you're somewhat aware of it, but you're not really thinking of it because you're thinking that's not me. Why would I get burned out of making videos? I'll give you one Privacy concerns. People don't think about this, but privacy goes right out the window if you're not protecting it from the get-go. So that's one of the things like you could say I wish I knew before I, you know, became a YouTuber. Like I wish I knew that at the beginning I should have protected my privacy even more than I did. What would be something that you think is something that a newer creator should know, that they probably wouldn't hear about otherwise?

Speaker 2:

Oh, that was a really good one. Privacy.

Speaker 1:

That was a good one, right? I'm good at this. I'm really good at this.

Speaker 2:

Okay, something that okay. It's not going to be easy to hand off editing or thumbnail design just because you know your niche better than anyone too. So you're almost going to have to create an SOP process, a standard of operations process. It'll really be like a business and then you have to hand it, and then there's training process, right? So it's going to take a while to train an editor or script writer or a thumbnail designer, and then maybe it'll work out. And then you have to worry about whether they'll stay because you give them enough work to stay right. So I I think just every level there's another devil is a true statement where there's always going to be issues going forward. But that sounds so ominous.

Speaker 1:

I well I'll give you another one. There is no, no, because I remember right before I started creating, I thought that once you hit a certain subscriber number, that things changed. View wise, like things automatically changed. That's not true. That's not even close to true. I remember one time, as a viewer, I'm like I think I might do a YouTube channel and I came to a channel that had like 10,000 subscribers and when I saw a lot of their videos had under a thousand views, I was shocked. As a viewer, I'm like whoa, I didn't know that was a that was possible. So subscribers does not equal views Something you need to understand from the very day one.

Speaker 1:

You need to understand subscribers do not equal views. Okay, and it's something that's overlooked, it's not talked about enough and that you'll. You know what most people are seeing on YouTube is the top 5% or less of what's actually out there. On YouTube. You're seeing the most popular videos. That's why they're being served to you. It's unlikely you're seeing that 80% of the videos on YouTube don't have 500 views. Like it's very normal to not have 500 views. So that would be another thing. I would say what's one more we could come up with?

Speaker 2:

There's gotta be another, don't meet your heroes. Okay, well, I don't know, but I would say that don't be afraid to post another channel. I think a lot of people are really reluctant to do so, but if you are starting a different niche entirely and you have this, this desire to pivot your channel into a completely different direction, don't do it. Don't do it unless you're OK with it completely dying, because oftentimes subscribers will hold your channel back if you have a substantial amount of subscribers back if you have a substantial amount of subscribers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's a difficult thing to pivot larger channels, unless you're doing like what I would call a 45 degree pivot, something that's that's adjacent right 90 degree pivot, something that's just not what you did at all. That's just. It's heartbreaking, very heartbreaking, and it's it may be tougher to do that than it is to start as a new youtube content creator, um, you.

Speaker 1:

Just because your expectations are different, I will put one more thing out there, which is your expectations, generally speaking, always change. When I first started out, I remember thinking if I got 100 views on a video, I was happy. If I got a thousand, I would never think about the video again because it surpassed all of my desires. Then there was a time in my career where if I didn't get a thousand views in the first 30 minutes, it failed in my mind. And that's because, as you move on, these numbers which and I think it's kind of bad they only become, you see, these numbers go up like it's a video game. But these are actual people and I think you need to remember that, that sometimes your impact on people would shock you. I still remember to this day some comments that were left behind for me that impacted me more than any one of 10 I've ever gotten that have been more gratifying, like. I'll tell you one. I still have it on my my thing. I think I've even read it on an earlier episode. Many, like maybe a year or two ago.

Speaker 1:

Uh, you know, a lot of people tell you don't have an intro. Uh, for, like your youtube channel, I had a, a short musical like diddy that people really loved. It was just a really um, very catchy song and I was only like eight or nine seconds and I got a comment from a guy who said you know what? I'm going to read it because I don't want to, I don't want to mistype it. You're you might cry. Are you a crier? Are you a?

Speaker 2:

crier Depends.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all right, what? What gets you?

Speaker 2:

I don't know when. When somebody is just from the hearts, they're saying something from the heart okay, let's see uh no this.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, this might do it um. Hold on, let me see if I can find it. I gotta search my um. I gotta search my comments oh uh, which I'm trying to remember how to do it wait, oh, travis, that's a listen, I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to hear from you. And this what's going on? What's going on? Okay, uh, wait, um, oh, here we go. I found it from seven years ago. Wow, are you ready for this? Yes are you ready for your heart to be touched?

Speaker 1:

yes here we go. My daughter is autistic and your opening music sparks something in her. Thanks, I've never forgotten that. Oh, that's so sweet. I mean, how can you forget something like that? Like seriously, something that you don't even think about as you're doing. It impacts someone on a level that is like, wow, that's really cool. So when you're making content and you see those numbers, you're like, oh, 10 of 10, maybe you only got 100 views on it. What if one of those views was something like that? Wouldn't it have just made it all worthwhile? Or maybe I'm just too I'm romanticizing it too much, I don't know. I think it's kind of cool.

Speaker 2:

I think it's so cool. Wait, can I say something else? Yeah, okay. So one thing that you don't realize is that what we were talking about I don't even remember, but when you get viewership, a lot of viewership, whatever it may be, you might have people. That was your enemy in the past. Yes. Yes, see one of your videos.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And they either comment on it as if they're your friend or they were your friend, or they message you and say hey, so I mean that that's a good moment though, so look forward to that wait, this is a story here.

Speaker 1:

What's going on?

Speaker 2:

no, I know, I I will say I don't have enemies, right, but I have people who think that I am an enemy. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:

That's really interesting.

Speaker 2:

And the point, the point being that I just find it so funny when people flip their script just because of numbers and that could be niche specific maybe in your industry, if you have a business and you have a business channel and all of a sudden they're buddy buddying up because they want a channel just like yours and they want secret information.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And you say, oh no, it's actually hard work. And then you know Hard work.

Speaker 1:

I don't want that. Ain't nobody trying to do that? Unbelievable. I love that. What a great, okay. Anyway, let's move to the next one. This next one is a text message and, again, if you're listening to the audio podcast, there's a link in the show notes for that. Here we go. This one's from Jake. Hey, if it, I crew Jake here as a return question.

Speaker 1:

Asker, I'm not sure if you have answered this before, but I'm curious if what you watch on YouTube affects where your videos get pushed. Does YouTube think you're uploading content based on the content you watch the most or completely separate? This is one of those myths we need to bust right quick, and we get a lot of these myths. It reminds me of when I first started out. I would go to like new tubers on Reddit or something like that, and when you're so new, you're just, you're like impressionable. You're like what are all these things? Oh, my gosh, I have to watch certain content in order for my videos to be pushed out. No, they're completely separate. To be clear, one has nothing to do with the other, and I feel like whenever I hear stuff like this, it's really important to be as solid an answer as possible to squash it out, because there's so many myths about YouTube content and YouTube that it's hurtful for some creators because they'll listen to the wrong thing.

Speaker 1:

Very clearly, I'll say this now no, absolutely not, has nothing to do with it. Watch whatever you want. Having said that, not has nothing to do with it. Watch whatever you want. Having said that, you can use your viewer account to figure out new content, and this is an old fashioned kind of thing you can do. I mean, we have, obviously, the video Q tool, does this through AI and does some really great things. You should download that if you haven't already. Links in the description. But what you could do is have what's called an avatar account and that is an account where you only watch content in your niche on it and nothing else, so that you can see what YouTube is promoting on the homepage and elsewhere. Right, that is a very specific thing for only super nerds like myself, so I'm not saying that if you're new and stuff, you need to do this, but I'm going to quickly walk you through how to do it. This is for people that are super nerds like me. If you're a super nerd, you get to pen and paper.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like us oh that's right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, tina's a super nerd too. I knew that. I knew that. Very simple If you already have an account that has a lot of watch history. So so if you don't want to use that, sign up for a new account, and you can do that either with a new email. You actually can attach an account to your existing email through Google and such.

Speaker 1:

Once you do that, what's interesting is the first thing that comes up on YouTube when you're not signed into anything is the search bar, once they understand what kind of things you'd be interested in in the first place. Once upon a time it just had a homepage of things and it just shotgun stuff out there hoping for the best. But now I want you to search for things. So search for a channel or a subject that's in your niche, watch that video, then watch another video, and watch another video and watch it a couple of times. And if you're one of the type of people that likes to watch videos in their niche anyway, only use this account for that. Don't use this account for anything else. Don't watch anything else. And on your other account that you might use for everything else, don't watch the niche content, just watch other stuff. So what happens is, over time, youtube gets an avatar of that, figures out who that person is, which you're creating an avatar for what is hopefully your perfect viewer, and then you'll actually see people surface on the homepage.

Speaker 1:

I actually met a friend this way. There was a content creator that got boosted to my homepage that I had never heard of before. I'm like, wow, this guy's really talented. I watched his content. I came up with an entire series of videos that I became pretty well known for, based on this technique by doing this having it surface, finding this guy watching his stuff and then thinking how can I reinvent this in my niche? Boom, and then I reached out to him and we became pretty friendly. So it's a really interesting little thing you can do to kind of figure out what's going on in your niche.

Speaker 2:

So it's also a Tinder for friends, is what you're saying?

Speaker 1:

I swiped right. You know I swiped right. I swiped right real hard, was a good guy. He's a good guy, um, yeah, so I that's a little tip to kind of get you, uh, looking into some things. I think there's a lot of ways to do it. Again, that's not a myth, that's an actual thing you can do. There are so many ways to grow your channel, and listening to this podcast means you're in the right mindset anyway, so just hang with us. You don't gotta do anything else.

Speaker 1:

Tina and I got you, we got you.

Speaker 2:

We got you.

Speaker 1:

All right, we have another email. This one is from Rob. Now, this actually, I think I might have mentioned this on a main channel video too, but it's so good. On a recent episode, travis and Rob were breaking down the nuance between videos created for discovery via search versus those intended for browse, and then Travis put out a listener challenge. Write to us and let us know how you're going to apply this. Well, travis, challenge accepted. I love when people do that. Here we go.

Speaker 1:

Specifically, I'm going to combine recent search and browse discussions with discussions about the three buckets. Okay, we'll talk about content buckets here in a second and what he's saying here, but I want to read through this first. When I realized the three buckets was more about variations of a theme, for example, 30 minute meals, non-ness cooking and air fryer recipes. This is true. I'm going to apply it more Basically. Browse is a storytelling bucket. I like that. It's a longer video, gives viewer insights, but also establishes credibility and lets them into the community. The next bucket is search. Okay, I like this.

Speaker 1:

People generally come to your video via search, not for you, but for your video, but for themselves. This is so true. This guy is preaching and their problems? They have a problem, typically, how do I problem, and they want an answer, but they don't want fluff. This is so true. Additionally, we're going to break this down because this is so true. This is where we repurpose our video into shorter three to five minute, more direct answers to questions how do I?

Speaker 1:

The third bucket will be shorts. I know you love this. This is what we convert landscape videos into vertical video. We repurpose each episode into three to five shorts, around 30 to 90 seconds. So in one live episode, we get three buckets. We get a story for suitable browse, a how to for search, and three to five shorts designed to brand build and cross platform promotion. Amazing, by the way, I'm team Cadbury eggs all the way, of course. Of course you are, because you're smart. All right, let's talk about these buckets and the different traffic sources and what they did. They've written this. What makes me so proud of this is that it's accurate. It's so much of it is so accurate that it's almost scary. Like they could do. They could do a show, they could do a podcast themselves. Let's talk about these buckets. So what are buckets? Content strategy buckets what's?

Speaker 2:

a bucket. What do you think a bucket is? A bucket is depending on what you make of it. Well, because he broke it down in a different way, which I really liked, and it could really be anything, but it's. It's basically categorizing your content, because the problem people sometimes get into, especially when you're a smaller creator, is you see a bigger creator and they often have more buckets, but they they usually started with one or two and then they built it from there. So, in my head, three is the general good place to max it out, but I like the way he did it, because the way he's doing it is, yes, the search, because the search could be shorts, because a lot of shorts are a search it could be.

Speaker 2:

And discoverable could also be shorts, but that being said, all right, listen to her.

Speaker 1:

By the way, tina loves shorts. Shorts, in case you can't tell, we'll let her go off in a minute, but go ahead, but go ahead.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, but I do the way he's saying it is that he's promoting. He's using shorts as a way to promote his long form video, which I think is a great strategy as well. It's really just a matter of when, when he does content creation and maybe his content calendar, if has one, or at the very least he's thinking about okay, I need to do this style, this style and this style, and that's what I'm going to focus on and then look at the metrics, hopefully, and then see what's doing, see if I want to increase this 80%, decrease this based off of what's going on or skill set gap, etc. I think this, this is a solid plan initially.

Speaker 1:

I like also the way he broke down the traffic sources, because it's accurate. So browse is what most people call the algorithm. It's the thing that shows up on your homepage. It's what YouTube figures out a person likes that. They might even not know that they like. I always say, when you're on your homepage, you'll see different types of videos videos from content creators that you've seen and watched before, videos from content creators You've never seen before, but on topics you've watched before, and then you'll see the weird one about a topic you've never watched before and a content creator you've never heard of before, and I always encourage people to watch that one first, because nine times out of ten, it's a banger for you and it's something you would have never known to watch and you will become obsessed with. It Happens all the time. It's the YouTube rabbit hole that we all hear about and that's Browse. So he already has the thing set up where he goes a story. So a story is good for that, because you're getting people engaged in a way that YouTube has already kind of figured out what they like. So a story is good.

Speaker 1:

Search he also talked about so accurately that when someone's searching for something, nine times out of ten. You just want an answer. They're not there for you. They're not there for your shenanigans. They want to know how to tie a tie. They're late. They're late to the date they got to hurry up. Show me how to tie this tie. I don't want to know about your family, I don't care. It's your third video on the thing. I just tie my tie and then, of course, shorts cross platform, cross platform too. By the way, he's not just saying just for YouTube, but also cross platform, which is good as well. Great strategy. I love this strategy. So the blueprint has been made by a gentleman named Rob. Oh, rob, I think Tina. It just goes to show our listeners are as genius as we are.

Speaker 2:

They're so smart. Okay, maybe, maybe I don't know what?

Speaker 1:

We're surrounded by smart people. What are you talking about?

Speaker 2:

I can't, I don't know about calling myself a genius, oh, you're a genius, stop, or you or no I'm not calling myself a genius or you or that's okay, you better call me a genius.

Speaker 1:

That's definitely what I am. I'm an incredible genius. I'm the smartest of the smart. All right, let's get into this next one. It's another email from the boost at vidIQcom. This one comes from Connor. It's Connor here.

Speaker 1:

I haven't even started a YouTube channel yet. You know this is not the first time we had this. I actually have a lot of people that listen to the show that haven't started their YouTube channel. I don't know if you know this, and what excites me about that is people are taking it seriously enough that they're actually trying to get educated on it before they even start. That's cool. That means we got serious creators here. I graduated a couple months ago and now that I'm recently engaged to my high school sweetheart congratulations. So nice, seen how hard being an adult actually is.

Speaker 1:

Hear, hear, one day I'm sitting in my apartment and I stumble upon one of your shorts, the one describing stuff about the algorithm. Then I went to your podcast and listened to every episode since then, sometimes more than once. I heard some of the questions and one night it came to me to start a YouTube channel. Which is interesting to listen to a podcast about YouTube channels. I never even thought about starting a YouTube channel. I started trying to find a niche. Then I realized how much of a gamer I was. Well, this is good.

Speaker 1:

I decided I wanted to create a channel with different challenges in fortnite and test out the creator mode maps, but I'm not really sure how to start. You tell me how to start. Uh, start an audience, and what are some good tactics to start a channel are okay. Sure, gaming is, uh, heavily saturated, but when someone says that, it also implies that there's no way to grow, which is also inaccurate. Sure, it's saturated, of course, tons of creators, yeah, but there's also a ton of viewers. There's a lot more viewers than our creators.

Speaker 1:

Um, I always ask I turn the question around to the viewer or to the creator what would you want to watch like? What sounds interesting? What's the last cool video you watched and how can you make your version of that. What's the channel you like and what's the last cool video you watched and how can you make your version of that? What's the channel you like and what's the content that they make that you watch every single video of? Like? That's the type of stuff you want to do. Look at how they interact with their audience. Read the comment section of other videos. You'd be surprised at what people will give away. They'll say, oh, I found this video via this. I love this about it. Okay, well, just do that. And they really said I like when you did this. I'm going to do that. That's the first thing I'm doing, because for every one person leaves a comment, there's like 20 or 30 that didn't leave a comment and think the same exact way. So that would be another thing.

Speaker 2:

What are some other things you can think about? I would also say the opposite of that You'll often find in comments, because I always think, okay, what's your X factor? And maybe they're super charismatic and you know that you're just not that level of charismatic and that's okay. And then you see in the comments that it says you know what? I really love your video but and it'll say I really want to know more information, as you're doing X, right, and so now you could be that person that's filling that marketplace of doing the same exact everything else. But then you're the person who has the knowledge and you'll spill out the knowledge. So you, where you lack in one area quote unquote that the marketplace already loves you can make up for it. Where somebody is literally asking for something, especially when you see a lot of likes on specific comments like that.

Speaker 1:

It's important to know that your superpower is you being you. No one else can do that right. You're the only. You have the market cornered when it comes to being you. So whatever it is that's interesting about you, that that it brings people to you as even as friends, like in regular everyday life. You could ask friends like what do you like about me? And figure out what are the things that are your superpower. Like, what is your superpower? I think my superpower is making people laugh.

Speaker 2:

Personally, I could be wrong.

Speaker 1:

The fact that you think it's sweet is really weird, because I'm trying to make you laugh. I think you'd be like, yeah, that's funny, travis, but you're like, no, that's sweet. Yeah, that's weird why is it sweet that I make people laugh. Is that good? Is that a good thing? That means, that your friends oh you make your friends laugh oh, I was paranoid for a second like wait a minute what's happening.

Speaker 1:

All right, you know, over here make me feel, uh, having me second guess myself. Yeah, exactly, all right. So but all that to say that you have a superpower. You may not even be aware of it once you identify it, make that and amplify it through your content. If you're really good at explaining things, explainer videos are going to be great, how you know. You said you want to play video games Fortnite you can explain how to beat a level or how to aim better. Or, you know, if you're just a really good teacher in that way, then lean into that. Really good teacher in that way, then lean into that. If your personality is big and boisterous, lean into that. If you are a very empathetic person, lean into that. There's a lot of different ways to do this, a lot of different ways to slice this onion and, um, I think, the superpower, what is your superpower? Do you know what is it?

Speaker 2:

I'm curious I, it depends oh my superpower, I've been told, is that I'm very direct. I believe that, but that could be a good thing or a bad thing.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure at Thanksgiving, no one appreciates that superpower. Okay, we got, I think, one more, and this really isn't a question. One of the things I really enjoy about doing a podcast like this and having all the emails and comments and stuff we've had over the year and change we've been doing this is the impact we have on people, and I've heard multiple emails and had multiple things that have come through that have really touched me, and we talked about this with the comment earlier, and I actually love these. So if you have something like this, you want to write us, feel free. This email theboostvidaiqcom comes to us from Sean, and this is what Sean has to say. Hey there, travis and Jen, I've been listening to y'all for a while. I was searching for a good YouTube podcast and came across your show, and it's actually the reason I decided to purchase vidaiq as well. So don't you two get a bonus for that? No, we don't you should.

Speaker 1:

Pre-2012, I smoked two packs a day and drank until I was drunk every night, alone and depressed, and did no form of fitness. I have a lot of teeth-related pain from not taking care of them as a kid. In 2012, I needed to change because I was concerned about my health in my 20s so I bought a bicycle. I fell in love with cycling and eventually it led me to hiking. So I created a YouTube channel called Hiking with Sean. I started posting on my local hikes and bike rides, thinking that a few family members and friends would subscribe. Boy was I wrong. People started subscribing left and right. That made me take my channel seriously and treat it like a business.

Speaker 1:

I consistently uploaded frequently and grew my channel to over 6,000 subscribers in just nine years, and over the last couple of years I've really started focusing on making it bigger. I upload a video every day, three longs and the rest are shorts. I have a total of 1.5 million views on YouTube. However, I receive 1.5 to 2 million views a month on Facebook with nearly 30,000 followers. I even run a related group with nearly 50,000 members. I've been on the local news radio and various magazines. I've even been mentioned in a book. Youtube has changed my life life. The best part is I met a fan and we started hiking together, and about six years later she became my wife that's the sweetest thing, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

are you loving this?

Speaker 1:

oh yes I thought I was always going to be alone and now I have a wife who was a fan first. I think people in the darkest times, as I was back then, can turn to things that can spark their creativity and help climb their way out of it into some kind of happiness.

Speaker 1:

Love the show and I can eat a whole carton of Cadbury eggs, so I feel like YouTube at the end of the day is literally one of the most incredible platforms that has ever lived and there's so many stories like this that we never get to hear. I love these stories specifically because it's easy to forget that this sort of thing happens. So Sean's life was changed by YouTube and probably some of the viewers and followers of his now that watches content. Their lives might be changed now and we're a part of that, and I think, if you, it's easy to remember, it's easy to forget that and lose track of the site that this platform is worldwide. Anyone can can pretty much watch it just about on the world, and you might be reaching them at a time in their life where they just need something that you can provide.

Speaker 2:

And how magical is that, how amazing is that and it's usually the viewers that never comments or likes or engages in any way. Those are the ones that you're changing their life and then suddenly, five years later, you realize, because they reached out to you or something like that, and it touches your little heart, it touches my little heart.

Speaker 1:

I can remember kind of in a way similar to this. I can remember kind of in a way similar to this, when I decided to start a YouTube channel. I remember the comment I left before I started the channel. I say this is the thing I do. It's so funny that, wait, how am I going to find it? Oh, wait, no, I know, I know exactly how to find it because I remember what video it was.

Speaker 1:

So a long time ago I used to run a podcast. Uh, many years ago, I did many podcasts and, um, I took some time off because I got burned out from it. And then youtube came along and I'm like youtube seems kind of interesting. But by the time I was watching youtube around 2017, I was like it seems like it's overly saturated. I don't think you can really grow on this platform anymore. And I was watching.

Speaker 1:

I happened to be watching YouTube videos and one of this one creator that I was watching he said how to get 10,000 subscribers in under a year. I'm like what? So I watched it and it was just like one year anniversary video and I was like you can get 10,000 subscribers in a year? Like holy crap. Um, and I was like you can get 10,000 subscribers in a year, like holy crap. Um, and I remember being so motivated by that that I wrote a comment and the comments here I found it.

Speaker 1:

Here it is I this is me writing to this creator, who later became a friend. Oh, I have a channel that I haven't taken seriously in years. I've always wanted to, but just figured there was no way to get it into a state that people would want to watch. Your last couple of videos have encouraged me and I'm going to go all in on this time. We'll see what happens. If it becomes a success, I'll definitely credit you and later in life, after I got to 100,000 subscribers, I credited him in that video.

Speaker 1:

And again, this was a guy who, uh, his, his content wasn't about like lowering creator growing, uh, subscriber size, he just was celebrating himself. But that video made me want to become a creator, like it was the thing that pushed me over the top, and had he not made that video, I might not have gotten on YouTube. It's wild. It's wild, absolutely insane. So I think it's really important to know that this platform, while infuriating at times and debilitating at times, is also pretty freaking, special, pretty special. Do you have any cool stories that YouTube is like. Have you met any friends or had any cool things happen?

Speaker 2:

Yes, tons. It's hard to pull a story. I will say this Okay, so I had a friend who he was in coding of some sort and I don't know much about this, but he had only maybe five videos on YouTube. It was SEO optimized, he maybe got 15 views on each video, got a job and before this he was making just average like 50K a year. He got this job. That was 250K a year without a degree, because of these YouTube videos.

Speaker 1:

Whoa.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and, and it wasn't even there wasn't even that many views on it, and it just goes to show that, oh, it doesn't really matter that how many views you get. Just even the act of posting it out there it already puts you up at an advantage that most people just don't have just by doing that alone. But I've definitely met some really, really cool people in my life and, yeah, All thanks to YouTube. All thanks to YouTube. Yes, for sure.

Speaker 1:

That sounds like an amazing story. You need to go ahead and start a new podcast. I want to hear that. I see the smile on your face. Something's going on and I'm definitely curious, but we don't have time for that here today. I want to thank Tina again for joining us and Tina will be back at some point. I'm sure we love her here. Make sure you leave a comment saying you love Tina. That's important.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's important.

Speaker 1:

If you're new here, you can hit that subscribe button. Every week we come out here and try to answer your questions. Help you grow your back again, if again. If you're new here also, we got a ton of videos. You should probably watch one of the new ones or one of the old ones. We got ones that are year old, just as good as the ones we just did today and for everyone else, see you in the next one.