YouTube Growth Reality Check

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We answer real creator questions pulled from Twitter, from staying consistent with a full-time job to navigating audience shifts that crush views. We share practical ways to package content so the right viewers click, stay, and come back, even as Shorts economics and AI change the platform fast. 

• making time for YouTube through sensible sacrifices and batching 
• why efficiency improves after months of reps 
• breaking out of travel “geo jail” by shifting the channel promise 
• when a new channel is the cleanest reset for a non-transferable audience 
• why Shorts monetization is tough in low-RPM niches like gaming 
• building income beyond AdSense through sponsors products and systems 
• standing out with video essays via format research and a strong hook 
• reviving older channels by auditing titles thumbnails and topic focus 
• unlisting legacy videos that attract the wrong audience 
• using AI to speed research thumbnails and simple visuals without losing trust 
• mid-roll ads as a retention revenue balancing act and how to test placement 

There’s a link in the description and the show notes to try it out. 
Check us out on X. Follow us there, follow us on all of social media standpoints. 

Transcript

Quick-Fire Creator Dilemmas

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Does modest station with shorts even matter anymore? Ultimately, you do need a lot of views. They have to go viral every time. What is the best strategy to grow a channel that isn't new? Oh, we see these on the live streams all the time.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

I guarantee you, your niche has changed quite significantly just because of all of the inflicts of AI technology and channels.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

How do travel creators break out of an algorithmic geo jail? Most successful travel creators, the people come to watch them in that environment, less so about the environment and them having to be in it. If a topic gets flooded with AI slot video, does that make YouTube less likely to push a good human-made video on the same topic later? Algorithmically, that's not really how it works.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

There may be some AI videos that are not actually slot, and they're actually good pieces of content for the audience that's watching

Welcome And Questions From Twitter

SPEAKER_01 0:55

them.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that has more hosts than hair. I'm Travis, and I'm here with Rob Wilson from the main channel. How are you doing, Rob? Whoa, whoa, whoa.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

More hair than hosts. More hosts than hair. Or hosts than hair. Goodness me. I want to leave this podcast right now. I don't know. Am I supposed to feel insulted by that or I'm listening?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

I'm the same way. What are you talking about? We're literally the same thing. What's happening? I don't know. I don't know. If you're new here, you probably are confused, but we're here to help you grow a YouTube channel. And today we have a very special episode. So um we have different social medias here at so at uh VidIQ, and one of those is Twitter slash X. I don't call it X because I think that's silly. It's uh Twitter to me, always will be. I call it Twix.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Twig hasn't it hasn't caught on yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Twitch. Twix is a candy bar, which we can go into candy. It used to be a candy podcast back in the day. Um but uh we asked people on Twitter what kind of questions they had for us, and uh I guess we're just gonna go ahead and go through some of those. We have some really great questions, and uh I'm excited to see what y'all have for us today. All right. Now I'm gonna share my.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Do you want me to do the um Twitter sound effects? I haven't actually got it, but you have one? Well, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

That didn't sound very good. Oh, yeah, it's not bad actually. Did they remove that too when they made it X? Did they remove Probably, yeah. Probably, of course. They're just the they're just not fun. Now it's uh noise such as you know, like the the dooming noise. It's like uh Elon Musk evil uh laugh. Maniacal laugh.

Staying Consistent As Part-Time Creator

SPEAKER_00 2:38

All right, this first one's from Christopher. He says, How do part-time creators actually stay consistent when the channel isn't the thing paying the bills yet? Every growth tip assumes you've got all day to make videos, and most of us just don't. And I'm so glad that this was brought up because as someone who has done this myself, like literally had a full-time job, you have to make decisions for yourself. Like, how bad do you want this? But you also can make decisions on your day, like how to cut your day up into something that works. Now, we both, uh Rob and I were uh content creators before we got to VidIQ. Um, Rob, how did you do it when you were first starting out? But way back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yeah, this question comes up a lot, and I feel as if we all do understand that a creator dilemma. And it is a bit of a tough love, hard truth moment, but the way I try and pitch this is what uh necessary sacrifices are you willing to make to your daily life right now? And that could be instead of watching Netflix for an hour in the morning, or uh let's say you're a big video gamer and you like to play video games a few hours a week. Are you willing to let this, I guess, new passion, this new creativity start to replace those parts of your life that you know can be sacrificed? We understand that the job and the family always takes precedence, but with the time that you have left, how do you how are you able to allocate more of it to the YouTube endeavor if you are serious about it? And you know, I think for me, Travis, I I did, I think that sacrifice, whether it was playing games or maybe once a week at go going out and playing football with my friends, like I was just so engrossed in this YouTube thing that I wanted to dedicate more time to it. And I made those let's quote let's pitch this as sensible sacrifices.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Yeah, I think that I think some of mine weren't sensible, but I made the sacrifices. So for example, you know, I worked in uh I worked at uh in a corporate job for years, and during my lunch breaks, I would watch uh YouTube growth live streams, uh like Vid IQ and Roberto Blake and stuff like that. And when I got home, immediately when I got home while I'm eating dinner, I'm watching YouTube growth videos and then trying to figure out how to shoot things, and then on the weekend, I'm shooting things and editing. There's uh you can batch record things. So there's there's times during the week when you can maybe set aside an hour or so, hopefully for most people, and that's when you try to get everything done. Um that can be stressful, but a lot of people do that. The reality is you just have to make decisions, just like Rob said. Um, you are whether you're you know working 10 hours a day or whatever, there is time somewhere to do something, whether it be learning, thinking about the next thing you're going to do, quickly record something, quickly edit something. There's usually time for something. Uh, if you literally don't have any time, then you're probably not going to do YouTube. I mean, it's just you need some sort of time. There needs to be time. But for YouTube Shorts, you maybe need 35 seconds. So again, there's usually time for something. It just depends on what your priorities are. Now, if you have a family, you have a full-time job, you can't make those um sacrifices. Uh, I get it. I will say, and I'm not saying that you should do this, but I had called in sick more than one time to my job to do a YouTube video, just saying, not saying that you should do that. I'm just telling you what I did. I sacrificed it and now I'm here at VidIQ, very happy doing what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

But can you imagine if the uh internet anarchist is watching this and now they're gonna do an expose on the new Travis? Funny, funny thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

I'm actually in uh in conversation with internet anchor anarchists on Discord, weirdly enough. It's a funny thing that you call that out. Um uh so anyway, Christopher, I hope that that's somewhat helpful. I I hope it is anyway.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

I one one final thought. Yeah. Um over time, you're gonna get better at all of this, you're gonna get more efficient, more skilled. So, like one hour's work on a YouTube video today may feel quite a lot different than it does in three months' time when you can get more stuff done because it's just more efficient. So, also appreciate that with more experience becomes becomes more uh efficiency in the time that you do have. And that that will be a nice feeling when you get to

Travel Channels And Geo Audience Traps

SPEAKER_01 7:08

that point.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

All right, next question comes from Bernie and Cream. That's an interesting name. Uh, how do travel creators break out of an algorithmic geo jail? We got 5,000 watch hours in Malaysia, but now we are filming in Japan and Korea, and our views are tanking because YouTube still pushes our videos out to a 90% Malaysian audience. How do we force a global reset? So the the thing is, my assumption, again, I don't know this, I don't have this channel in front of me or anything, but a lot of times when I see this, it's because the content you made is about the region, not necessarily that you were in the region. It's I think people get confused with what's happening. So there are several creators, um, and some that I've interviewed here on this podcast that uh live overseas, they don't live in America, but their primary audience is in America. So it there's nothing about like a geo reset. It's that the content they're doing is something that's applicable to people who are in America or wherever. I'm guessing since you're a travel creator, you did content about Malaysia. Well, okay, and the way the YouTube algorithm works is it's going to show uh once someone watches like a video, let's say someone watched um, you know, a video about a Malaysian meal or something that you had. The next time you upload a video, it's naturally going to get shown to that Malaysian audience. And if they don't that like now, maybe you're in Japan or something, and it's like I don't really want to watch a video about Japan because I'm in Malaysia, it's going to tank that artificially. Travel creators have this problem that like that's a thing, and most successful travel creators, the way that they've overcome that is that they the people come to watch them uh in that environment, less so about the environment and them happen to be in it. Like, what what are your thoughts about this, Rob?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

I was trying to find the video where we did a case study on this a couple of years ago with a couple who had a travel channel, which was, I think, specifically in Valencia, Spain, and they had a really good audience there. But then they moved to, I think, Seoul, Korea, and the view counts absolutely tanked because the videos about Valencia in Spain were for a specific audience who were potentially retiring in that area, but then when they were doing something a little more adventurous in a completely different part of the world, it completely disconnected the audience. So, what they had to do is they had to start a brand new channel to spin up a new audience for that viewership, and it was a really tough decision, but it turned out to be a good decision for them. I think they very quickly got up to um like 10,000 subscribers and some videos with 100,000 views, because by that time they had the knowledge and the skills and they knew how to speak to whatever audience they needed to speak to, but it required that really tough decision of starting a new channel. And I'm not saying that that is what you have to do, but it feels like for that particular niche, it that that was the only solution in order for them to decouple uh from that existing audience, which is almost like an anchor. Like you just the it was a non-transferable audience, unfortunately. Um so I'm just giving you this the the case study, the story. Like it's all it's always really tough, isn't it, to suggest to a new to a to a creator, yeah, you need you need a new channel, but the experience from elsewhere seems to suggest that that might be the route they need to go down.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Yeah, I think in a lot of ways, this is the unfortunate reality of the way that the recommendation system works. It works very well and it works in the way that it should work, but because of the way it works, again, showing content to create to viewers who have already watched your your content. And when you switch content types, and this happens uh to every type of channel, not even uh geo-based. Like, for example, if I'm a gaming channel, all of a sudden I start doing cooking videos, it's the same idea. It's like all my videos are going to be shown to the people who are watching the gaming videos, and now I'm cooking, they're not as interested. It's the same exact situation. It has less to do with, I know it seems like when you look at analytics, oh, they're just being shown in Malaysia. Well, yeah, because all of your previous videos were Malaysian and then about that particular topic that those people were interested in. But again, case in point, there are several creators I watch that are based in like the UK and their audience primarily in Japan is American. And uh it's because the content they do is interesting to that that that area. So it one way to kind of that I know some content creators that travel make it interesting is they they um they leverage the fact that they are a uh person in that country that is a visitor. So like an American tries Vietnamese food for the first time. So that way you're kind of you're kind of hinging on people who maybe even American, like, oh that's cool. They went to Vinyama, and so I'm watching from America to see what that experience is like. If you are if your videos in a corner, we can't see your videos, we're just assuming some things, or like the six best places to to see in Malaysia or something like that. Uh, for people who travel, that might be good, but for the most part, there are going to be people who might be already living in Malaysia watching that video. So it's a tricky thing. There's no easy answer to this. Um, I obviously, if it was the easy answer, you would have already figured it out. But um sometimes the the correct answer is not the easy answer, it's just just the answer. Um, yeah, and again, we're not saying that you need to start a new channel, however, case study is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

I do wish I could find that channel, Travis, but it's just not it's it's one of those things whereby you know everything on a vid IQ channel is not titled in a way that you can actually find it.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

No, that you should find it later. We need to figure out a way to do that, like put some type of um hashtag or something in it so we can always look back for it later in our you know description or something.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

I I think that uh ship sailed about two about 2,300 videos ago.

Shorts Monetization Reality And Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Uh next one's from uh Chevron says, uh, does monetization with shorts even matter anymore? I'm a shorts channel that posts gaming content, and no matter how hard I try, it seems I can't get 10 million views. So is it time to throw away shorts and focus on long form? You know what's interesting about this is I've now interviewed a lot of uh content creators on this channel that do shorts and make a lot of money. Um it is a little surprising. So the video that just went out, um, depending on when you see this, just a couple weeks ago, uh, which is now our most viewed video on the podcast channel, is from a content creator and kind of entrepreneurial guy who makes a lot of money on shorts. And um, you know, that's just uh there is money to be made. What's interesting is he says gaming shorts. So gaming as as a plat as a topic and niche anyway, is already low uh performing for an RPM, CPM uh perspective, like how much money gets paid. Then you put shorts on top of it, it's like, oh my gosh, like how many shorts views do you need to get anything out of that for a gaming short? Um it will ultimately you do need a lot of views. And what's interesting about all of these content creators that talk about how much money they're making with shorts is the one thing they don't really mention is that they have to go viral every time. It's not just that they're making videos. Like a content creator for long form does not have to go viral to make money. They can make pretty good money in a lot of different ways, whether it be affiliate sales or just you know, uh aggregate of just throwing a bunch of videos up that over time get a lot of views. Uh, and a lot of views can be like 20,000, 30,000. Whereas if you want to make some type of living on shorts, you got to make millions upon millions of views. And almost every video has to get minimum hundreds of thousands, if not millions of views. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

I I agree with the sentiment that it does feel incredibly daunting to get monetized with shorts. They're not monetized, right, Travis?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

So we're saying that they're well, it doesn't say whether or not they are. They say that I'm trying to, I can't get 10 million views.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

So I assume that's the the original so 10 million views in 90 days, and it almost seems to be like it's binary in that it's either almost literally impossible, or oh yeah, I was able to do this pretty easily, like with just a couple of viral um shorts. Whereas with long form content because you have a lot more time and it's a gradual build-up of momentum of your channel, it feels more digestible and it feels like a more realistic target. So I think it's yeah, I think there are uh extremes of opinions when it comes to monetization of shorts. And then once you do monetize your shorts, even if you are getting 10 million views a month or 3 million views, because that's what you'd need to monetize, you're you're probably still looking at maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty bucks per month. So it it's that's not necessarily sustainable. Uh and yeah, Travis, uh we've now spoken to quite a few people in the short space who are booking this perceived trend of there's no way to make money, Tim Daniloff being another one. Uh, but they they feel as if they're more like uh serial entrepreneurs, like building businesses and quote unquote systems around how to make content, not necessarily uh deeply involved in making the content themselves. I guess what I can say is that and this applies to long form creators as well. If you're just looking to build your channel, your business, your financial stability around about AdSense, then you've got this game completely wrong, wrong, unfortunately, because it is so volatile. YouTube controls all of the switches when it comes to AdSense. What other opportunities are there? And yeah, there are less opportunities in shorts because you can't add links to or not yet, I think they are reintroducing clickable links soon to shorts for branded stuff, but there is also the shopping tool element as well, which I think is becoming more and more prevalent and that side of the YouTube space and platform. But again, you need to be monetized. So I I don't know what conclusion I'm coming to here, um, to be honest, other than yeah, shorts is tough. It is really tough. And even if you do get monetized, you might not be happy with the financial results.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

And it you pointed something out that I I neglected to, and it's so important. A lot of these people that are very successful financially with shorts are not content creators in in and of themselves. Uh, they are business people running shorts channels that are being monetized and making a lot of money. That is an interesting correlation to draw, and it is, uh has been true, at least on the people that I've talked to so far on this podcast. All

Standing Out With Video Essays

SPEAKER_00 17:34

right. Next one up is from Maddie. There are already some big, well-known video essay channels out there. For a new channel, uh, what makes one stand out? Is it better looking videos, picking a tighter topic, or having a strong personal take? And how can I tell which one is working for me? It's a great question. And uh there are a lot of big video essay channels. I've actually interviewed several of them here on the podcast. And, you know, all of them have unique takes about what it is they're covering. And a lot of them are artists in the truest sense. Like they really look at things in this very specific way that makes them interesting. For example, um, one of the people that I talked to, uh, Dodford, um, he does he does uh these really interesting video essays where the person in them is actually kind of narrating their own documentary. But and he does that by taking out interviews from different interviews and making this cohesive story throughout it's incredible the way he does this. Now that's unique. That's a unique take on something like this. What would you do if you were doing this right?

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, so when I was looking at the actual tweet, I was just thinking, yep, all of them. You need to do all of that. And I would agree with you, Travis, in the aspect of video essays now are not a unique format on the platform, which means that you have to bring something new or fresh or bigger or better. Like it's almost picking it picking out one of those bullet points that you've talked about and saying, right, this is this is where my um superpower is. I know that I can be uh the better storyteller than anyone else, or I can do the more research than anybody else, or I can have this quirky approach to it, you know, like Dodford does this, but I think I can approach it in this way, which is completely different. I think that's what's gonna make you stand out. Uh and if you can find that fresh new format, then that does allow you to broach topics that have already been covered, but just in your unique way, or it's finding those topics that haven't been covered yet or on YouTube where you where you can sense there's an opportunity. So it's like weighing up is it topic or format where you can excel and choose one. And I think also you know, disagree with me if you if you want, Travis, but I feel as if something like video essay content requires a certain amount of trust in the creator andor social proof, which means that for smaller creators, it can be a bit of a tougher nut to crack.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yeah, I think the best way to start out is to look for the biggest uh topic, the biggest uh subject of the video. Um, you're looking for a total addressable market, in other words, the most amount of potential viewership for the video, uh, attack that in any way possible. Go out there and research other videos that have been made about that topic because there probably has been a couple. See what works, read the comment section, see what people are connecting with, and try to double down and make your version better than that. Also look at the title and thumbnail for those type of video essay videos, which are typically longer, anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour, just depends on what the subject is. Um, the thumbnail is usually amazing, it's usually incredible. So you really have to look at like what is bringing people in, look at the first 30 seconds, obsess about the first 30 seconds of those videos because that's what's keeping people there. The last couple of creators I've I've interviewed, they've said that they've spent anywhere between 50 to 60 percent of all editing time is on the first 30 seconds to five minutes of a video. Like almost all of their power for editing has been put into that intro. You have to make sure you crush that as well. So important for video essays.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

You could also try the agile approach. That the thing that's in my head right now, Travis, is um the news story about Sony are gonna ditch physical discs. Now there's been a lot of news around that, but what if you were able to create some kind of big historical video essay within the first 48 hours, which goes into like a ton more information, like the the history of physical um games, cartridges, discs, floppy discs, etc. etc., and how this news is gonna change the way. Ownership is in the future. So it it goes beyond the news. Now, obviously, you might not be a gaming channel, but that might be your edge as well. Like, can you do these video essays before anybody else?

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Might be a unique aspect. That topic's huge, too. I have a friend that tweeted something about it and got 8 million views on a on a tweet and had like Trevor Noah responding to it and stuff. Like it just went super viral because he had a very hot take about it. So uh just uh FYI uh gamers can be toxic. I'm just uh gonna put that out there. If you have a hot take about something gaming, you about to get flame broiled because he got torched. Uh it's been interesting to

Reviving An Older Channel With Strategy

SPEAKER_00 22:37

watch. Uh, Princess Pharaoh, Ferron says, What is the best strategy to grow a channel that isn't new, i.e., with several years of content? Oh, we see these on the live streams all the time. What do we tell them, Rob?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

So I guess what we need to establish is where's the channel at now? Is it chugging along nicely and you feel as if you're trapped? Or is it a channel that just doesn't have any traction at all and you're in that situation where you've tried the same thing a hundred times and expected something different to happen? If it's the latter, then hey, I think you should just start a new channel. Because if you've got no momentum on that current channel, let's just give not only the channel a fresh perspective, but also it might be so freeing as a creator to say, oh, like this is just something new, and I can create as if I'm uh a as if there are no restrictions, there's no expectation from the audience. I can just do something that means something to me again. However, if your channel's already monetized and you do have a certain number of um views coming in and it's keeping your channel going nicely, then maybe you need to go into research mode a little bit. Like check out what what the competition is doing these days, because I guarantee you, in the last two or three years, your niche has probably changed quite significantly just because of all of the inflicts of AI technology and channels that are hunting for opportunities in your space, and it may be that you're you're being slowly burned off because of that competition. But it it's a tough one to answer because you know every channel is different enough.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

And we can't see the channel, but a lot of times when I see this, it's a channel and they say with lots of years of content. That could also mean they changed content styles over the course of years. Like they might have been one channel at the beginning and and something completely different now that doesn't match with like the majority of their content. It's it's hard to know. It's just been whenever I've seen people ask this question, it and you go to their channel, like they don't do any of the things that we talk about. Um the titles are maybe not necessarily the best, thumbnails are definitely not the best. Um, topics tend to be all over the place. And you just have to understand that like if you want people to continue to come, you need to give them a reason to come back. And if you're all over the place, then your views are gonna be all over the place. I don't know that that's the case here with Princess Uh Faron. Um, but I'm just saying normally when we see this, this is what we see. So definitely take a look at your content. And one thing you can do, um, I don't often tell people to do this, and I never tell people to do this blind, but you know, I'm just gonna give you the advice and you can do with it what you will. Look at your content that's uh older. Actually, look at your your analytics and see what views um on your channel, what videos on your channel are still bringing in views. If those videos topically have nothing to do with what you're doing now, you might want to unlist them. Might want to unless them. I'm not saying delete them, I'm not even saying private, just unlist them. Uh, because what you're doing is uh the channel is sending out content to a viewership that probably doesn't want to watch your new stuff. So when you put out new stuff, uh it's getting the CTR is getting crushed because those people aren't interested in that topic. If you see that, that's where you can start to help yourself. Stop getting uh uh recommendations by videos you did five years ago that you don't like that topic anymore. I see that all the time. It's not helping your channel, it's actually kind of tanking your channel. So sometimes you have to take a little analytical look. That's the same dilemma as a travel channel to some extent, isn't it? It is, it's just a different way of looking at it, but the same exact problem. So again, it's like YouTube's algorithm is great and also kind of frustrating all at the same time. Uh all right.

Packaging Lifestyle Vlogs People Return For

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Uh I see Laura a lot of time in our comment section. Hi, what's the best way to package lifestyle vlogs? Hmm, that's an interesting one. Um, so I guess for me, I I'm not a huge lifestyle vlog watcher. However, um you could argue like first of all, what does lifestyle mean? Like it can mean a lot of different things. I tend to think fashion and stuff, but really, if you look at the word itself, someone's lifestyle, I could argue in some ways that Casey Neistat does that. He's a vlogger. You could say he doesn't do lifestyle. I could argue that he does do lifestyle stuff because we get to see his life, we get to see what he does in his life. And it's just he just packages everything as a movie. You'll notice when he talks about his videos, he calls them movies. You ever notice that? And he I think he takes a really interesting artistic approach to every video being uh a one of one. Like this is this is its own thing, they don't necessarily connect to anything else, and he just puts everything he can into that one. Every video seems to be just a masterpiece of storytelling. No matter what type of content you make, storytelling is key. Uh, if you had to do a lifestyle vlog there, Rob, how would you uh how would you package them? Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

If I was gonna do one, fly me. You see, you see, I'm stumped. This is this is where I I I'm I'm kind of like with just this blank canvas of blandness. My life's boring. I know, I just I I don't leave the house hardly at all. I wake up, I make videos, I take the dog for a walk, and then I play on uh whatever game I'm playing on uh at the end.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Like and subscribe. There we are. That was my uh vlog.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Subscribe, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Uh I going back to the the sort of genuine the original question, there were the two words that came into my head were familiarity and consistency. And you know, thinking of the Casey Neistat uh context, you know it's a Casey Neistart video from the packaging because of like primal branding, his glasses for one thing, uh, and it he's he's typically in a in a state of movement or emotion or action in the thumbnail, and then the title is kind of somewhat cryptic, but it's starting to it opens a curiosity loop or it presents a question and so on and so forth. And uh those are all of the things that I think lead into uh uh the the master class of vlogging, but like not necessarily every creator is in that space. The the other thing I I notice around vlogging is that they tend to defy the standard YouTube conventions, especially when you look at the thumbnails, and again, uh stereotyping a little bit, but when you look at um uh female vloggers and shopping halls, you'll have quite complicated thumbnails and with font and text that's really difficult to read. And you know, typically we might criticize that, but then when you match it up against the rest of the niche, it all kind of falls into that same style because again, I think there's that familiarity and it creates a warm sense of trust uh for the average viewer of that content. Uh so I I I I don't know if I'm giving you any specific advice here, I'm just giving you thoughts and flavors of the the vlog in area, and I think the other thing as well is I don't think you necessarily need social proof with vlogging, like you can start to build up a really tight community with just a few hundred viewers, but I think it takes time to make the audience care about you because you know often we're talking about how can you give value to the viewer? Well, vlogging does require a lot of uh internalization of that. Like, how does talking about my life or my struggles or my wins, my goals, how can I translate that into packaging and content that makes the viewer feel invested? And I think that's a another key aspect of vlogging that you should try and work on and unlock um as much as you can. And that and so that just means watching your favorite vloggers, like who's inspired you and taking notes and key points from what they're doing, and you know, how can you turn the gears a little bit on that to fit your own style of content?

Beyond AdSense With Products And Sponsors

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Next question comes from Carter's Gardens. How to diversify from just working towards monetization through AdSense and to come up with new products and services. We have multiple videos about that here on the podcast channel. I'm just gonna point you to a couple, going through easy resales where he says he makes $6,000 a month, uh, just making videos about Amazon products. Uh, also, um, we have uh Justin Moore who's come on talking about sponsorships. There's tons of those videos here on the podcast channel. I highly recommend you go through some of those. There's some great ways to make more money on YouTube. So rather than kind of going through all the answers there, we have some actual experts telling you how to do it uh here on the podcast channel.

AI Slop Fears And Smart AI Workflows

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Uh, next one is past unpacked. If a topic gets flooded with AI slot videos that no one watches, does that make YouTube less likely to push a good human-made video on the same topic later? Does YouTube basically start from fresh with each new video? Algorithmically, that's not really how it works. Um, but it's a good question. Because you know what I found, Rob, is that a lot of times um we see uh something happen and then we try to figure out why it got there and we come up with a rational explanation and then it becomes fact. That happens all the time. Well, if I change, if I put the metadata in the file of my video and upload it that way, it's gonna get more views because this one time I did that and I got a ton of views, so it's gotta be what it is, and it just doesn't work that way a lot of the time. What's your best way of explaining this? And I'll I'll try to throw in some spice at the end.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

I think we have to try and respect YouTube's argument that you replace the word algorithm with audience. And if you just bring up the question again, I just want to confirm what they said right at the beginning of this. Because they're saying that so if a topic gets flooded with AI slot videos that nobody watches, well, when I see that if nobody's watching those videos, then that should mean that YouTube's not actually distributing any of that content anyway, they should have virtually no impressions, so it shouldn't be something that you need to uh concern yourself with. But going back to the point of replacing algorithm with audience, there may be some AI videos that are not actually slop, and they're actually good pieces of content for the audience that's watching them, and so you do have to appreciate that you know not every single piece of AI content is actually slop. There's there is arguments for some videos that are out there. I saw a channel recently where what they'd done is they'd blended, they've turned themselves into an AI avatar. So it looked like the creator, but then it allowed them to explore these uh AI landscapes and worlds. And they were they were talking about how um uh what's uh the Red Sox Stadium, Fenway Park. So what they'd done is they transported themselves into the building of the stadium, and it it kind of was kind of like a cool idea of blending uh the human, the creator, with this technology which allowed them to place them in that scene where you might see it on documentaries uh like from 10-15 years ago, but like it would take uh an entire animation team to put that together, they're able to now do that uh in a matter of prompts, and it's but and but it's believable and it's entertaining for the viewer. So I know I've gone on a bit of a long defense of AI content there, but like let's try and assume that if it is AI slop and it doesn't get any views, then that's not what you have to worry about. It is the talented creators who are embracing AI and turning it into content that the audience does want to watch, and that's potentially leaving you behind because you you may have this kind of wall and perception up against the new technology that doesn't allow you to see how the viewers engaging with it. And I I maybe that's a triggering thought, but I think we're all having to come to terms with that new landscape on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

We're in a new world and it didn't even take that long to happen. Like we thought we were in a new world when shorts happened. I think AI has been faster than shorts to take over kind of things you need to be aware of on the platform. It shouldn't be scary. You just need to understand whether or not it's something that can function for you. And I would argue that the vast majority of people, even if they don't like it, could get something out of using an aspect of AI for their workflow that doing something that they probably don't already like doing. It could be research, could be thumbnails, it could be uh titling, could be just one aspect of content creation that you just are not either good at or would like, could be done by AI. And that in of itself is a good use of AI.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

I've noticed you've been doing this quite a lot uh with your um your little uh sorry, that's that sounds so uh patronizing. Your grand uh 100,000 subscriber plus channel, Travis. Like you've you've you've basically handed off all of your thumbnail uh generation to Yeah, I've never been that good at thumbnail stuff, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

And uh so it's it's a good, it's a nice thing to be able to take off my plate. Um and uh other aspects of it too. A lot of research I I do now do through AI to try to figure out things and uh because it takes a lot of time. And I'm here at VidIQ doing all these podcasts. I don't really have a lot of time to do my own personal stuff, so I need to cut time down. Uh, so I'll have um you know AI do a lot of research, double check it, and then I'll triple check it, and then uh yeah, and I'll you know take it from there, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

And you were showing me yesterday that you uh uh just playing about with the AI coach saying, Hey, watch watch this video. Can you turn these into some simple animations? Yeah, yeah. And it was doing it, and I've been doing it as well with um Claude a little bit, yeah. Um with a um a video about copyright with uh you know the Paul Quinn that we you you spoke to a couple of months ago. And I just think, yeah, this is this is good information, but I feel as if it needs to be visualized. But if I hand this off to an editor, um it's gonna take days, and I just need something, I'm not gonna say quick and dirty, but just something quick and simple that allows me to continue with the production process. And I was pleasantly surprised uh with the output. It's not amazing, but it was better than just talking head. So that's even us Neanderfalls who've been on YouTube for decades are accepting that AI is a part of the creative process.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

If you're new here, you should check out the link in the description for uh an option to use the vidIQ um tool. The AI coach is interesting because you can now go in there and ask it to make B-roll for your video, which is crazy good. Um, it'll make like little six-second clips for you that look really good. And what you do is you if you have a script, which by the way, like if you've already recorded, if you don't like use script for scripts for your videos, record the video. You can get the transcript from your your content, then you can upload that to our AI coach and then ask it to make b-roll where it makes sense. And in the case of what Rob's talking about, and I had to do the same thing, like if there's charts or something, and you know, those animated charts are kind of a pain to make, like it'll make them in like a minute. Like it'll make you a bunch of charts in like a minute that look really good, and then you can just plop them right in for b-roll. That's a great use of AI right there. And I'm not talking about like the stuff that looks realistic, like humans and stuff. If you don't like that, that's fine. But a chart is a chart and uh you want it to move and stuff. And some people don't have the graphical know-how to do that. You can literally do it in AI Coach. There's a link in the description and the show notes to try it out.

Mid-Roll Ads Placement And Best Practices

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Uh, lastly, but not leastly, uh, Dana Bright says, uh, curious about your thoughts on placing mid-roll ads during eight-minute plus videos. Should should just let YouTube do it, or should you place them strategically throughout the video and maximize monetization? And what is a healthy practice? What do most seasoned professionals do? I've talked to a couple people about this. I personally just let YouTube do it because it understands where people are watching and when, you know, their what their tolerance is. However, I have also talked to a lot of content creators, especially ones that do like ultra-long form, like videos that are 20, 30, 40 an hour long, and they will put it in every like minute, 45 seconds. Now, that doesn't mean that a viewer gets all of those ads. It just means that the potential for those ads can happen at that point. YouTube will not put an ad every 45 seconds in your video, but it will put them in there knowing you know what the viewer will tolerate before they click off. What's the practice that we use here at VidIQ, uh, Rob? And what do you think uh knowing what you know?

SPEAKER_01 39:44

We've always always left it to YouTube to decide for us. Um I think basically because the ad sense on the vidIQ channel doesn't directly go to any of us, so it's like, hey, whatever. We'll let the ads do what the ads do. But even even on my own channel, I I don't think I have a mental headspace to try and place the ads, specific parts in the videos. I'm trying to remember, there was a bit of a hoo-har about this, either last year or the year before, where YouTube removed some of the controls around ad placement, but I'm trying to remember what it was now. You can still manually place ads, but something changed, and I don't know what it was.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

I can't remember either. Doesn't uh vaguely sound familiar, but I mean I know you can place them wherever you want at this point. I think it was something that they were automatically doing. Uh, if I remember correctly, they were automatically putting some type of ad somewhere. So I know it's bad that we can't remember this, but YouTube makes so many changes that it's like, what did they do this past week? Um but by and large, they let you put ads wherever you want to in a video. Uh, you can put in mid-roll ads, which means videos somewhere in the middle of the video when your video is eight minutes or longer. So that's kind of the question here. Um, I don't think you're gonna lose out on any money if you let YouTube do it yourself, let the YouTube do it themselves. Um, they are gonna strategically place ads where retention makes the most sense and where they'll, you know, they're gonna get the most money. Because they they make money too, by the way. So they're gonna do a good job. But some people just place them very often. I would put them where it makes sense in a video. When you look at the video, if there's a natural break or something, or or a cliffhanger is the best place to put it, right before right after the cliffhanger is about to start. Boom, put it in there. I see that all the time. Uh, I know that uh wrestling bios does that. He has these little black spots, I guess that's where it's feds black.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Uh because he he basically makes them TV shows.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Like commercials, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which you know, because I have um YouTube premium, I I always wonder, like, why are these black spots? What are these? Why is he doing that? It's terrible for retention. And I forgot that I don't see ads anymore. So I'm literally wanting to write him an email going, bro, you're gonna kill your retention if you keep doing this. Now I realize, oh, he's putting ads there. Natural ad breaks, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Um I'm just looking at um what YouTube's done on one of our videos, and it's a 15-minute video, and it's put a mid-roll ad six minutes 40 into the video, which seems like quite a long time before. Before it gets crazy or something, and then it puts an ad right at the very end of a video, like at 15 minutes 30 seconds, and the video is 15 minutes 31 seconds, which seems like uh it does that count as an ad after the video? I don't know if it does, which seems a bit odd to me. Uh the the word you used uh Travis a little uh earlier on was uh natural breakpoints. If you think about YouTube, is it do you think they now have a no, that's probably too many. I'm wondering if they have a trillion videos on the platform by now.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

You know, it would not surprise when you think about shorts.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Because they say that I think 20 million videos are uploaded every single day. So maybe they're not at a trillion. Anyway, they have billions of videos on a platform. Or let's say at least billions of money-tize videos on the platform, they have the most extraordinary data behind this and viewer habits when it comes to ads. I think I'm probably just gonna put my trust and faith in in YouTube. Having said that, if the creator wants to A B test this, so like find two videos that perform uh relatively similar that are evergreen, put uh your own ads in one of those videos and see if it does increase the revenue, but also see if it decreases the average view direction and impacts impressions.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

It's always a balancing act. If

Where To Follow And Final Links

SPEAKER_00 43:47

you're new here, there will be links in the show notes if you listen to audio podcasts and of course in the description. Check us out on X. We uh we just answered questions from people who left us comments on X. We do all types of really cool stuff over on X. So make sure you go check that out. Follow us there, follow us on all of social media uh standpoints. And by the way, I got another great video for you right here. Make sure you watch that, and we'll see y'all in the next one.