YouTube "Rules" I Ignored and Made Over $100k Anyway | Ep. 73

YouTube growth advice is everywhere, but what actually works? In this episode, I break down the so-called YouTube "rules" I ignored and how I still built a $100k+ business. If you’re tired of conflicting strategies, I’ll show you how to focus on what really matters: clear communication, simple videos, and using your analytics to grow your channel and your business. 

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Transcript

You know, it seems like there are. Hundreds of YouTube hacks, strategies, tactics, and even rules that YouTube growth experts swear by, and yet YouTube themselves. When YouTube talks about what works on YouTube to grow your channel, it's like such vague advice. It's really hard to figure out what does that even mean? In a lot of the strategies and tactics that the multitude of YouTube growth gurus out there talk about contradict each other. So how do you even know what's real and what's not when it comes to best practices on YouTube? We're gonna get into that today here in episode 73 of Video Brand Infusion. If you're new here, my name is Meredith and I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business. So that you can become a binge-worthy video brand. And I know I am one of those people who. Shares YouTube growth strategies on YouTube, but I don't really put myself in the same, uh, like class or species of what I think of as a YouTube guru, which is somebody who is kind of like only sharing YouTube growth tips on YouTube and then banking on ad revenue and brand deals I get a lot more joy out of helping people. More closely. Right. That's why I have Video Brand Academy. That's why I work with one-on-one clients and have coaching cohorts so that I can actually help solo business owners with YouTube. Growing on YouTube. Starting on YouTube, and generating consistent revenue in your business. And even though I have a sustainable, successful business in a YouTube channel, just shy of a hundred thousand subscribers, I still get sucked into the. The hype videos, the YouTube strategy, new strategy, new tactic, new rules for YouTube type of content. And then I watch, I watch what the person is saying and I go, oh, I'm breaking that rule and that rule. And I'm doing the opposite of what they say here. And yet. I still have a successful business. My channel's still growing, and I still get a lot of joy and fulfillment out of creating content on the internet and growing my business. So I wanna talk about some of the rules which I'm putting in air quotes, because I don't want you to get confused in thinking that I'm breaking YouTube's. Established, you know, guidelines, community guidelines, and that kind of thing. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the quasi rules, the things that I have heard YouTube educators and YouTube gurus say over and over and over again for years that you have to do in order to be successful on YouTube that I'm not doing or have never done or have tried and realized. That doesn't actually work the way, um, or at least at the level that they are saying that it does. At least not for me. So number one is a sticky, I feel like this is a sticky topic for me because it has to do with video editing and a particular style of video editing that we see a lot in the YouTube. Gurus space, and I think it can be a complete waste of time. what I'm talking about is retention, editing, and the reason why this is kind of like a sticky, it feels like a sticky topic for me because I teach. Editing, I have editing tutorials. I have a video editing made easy course, and I have over the years, over my 10 years, 11 years on YouTube, I have done a fair amount of my own attempt at retention editing. And I did that because I saw what all of the. Pros were doing and what they were saying about having, you know, you have to have lots of B roll, you have to have graphics, you have to have sound effects, you have to have transitions, you have to have text on the screen. so I spent a lot of time, I spent a lot of time doing that kind of editing. And then, I don't know, a couple of years ago I was like, I don't really wanna do this. I don't want to add hours, like. Hours to the edit time if I don't have to. And what I noticed was there are lots of other videos that I was watching that don't use retention editing at all. There are lots of videos that I would watch where it was just a person talking to the camera and yes, there's editing, they're editing out mistakes or you know, maybe they're showing something on screen 'cause they're talking about something and it makes sense to show it on screen to. Communicate what they're trying to communicate, but they're not just throwing things on the screen or throwing sound effects into your ears to like manufacture a sense that this is actually interesting. You know what I mean? Because that's what retention editing is. Retention editing is adding a bunch of stuff to the video edit that keeps the viewer, um. That keeps the viewers attention so that you have longer retention on your videos. And I know why people do this. It makes sense. You want people to keep watching your videos as long as possible. That sends all kinds of green flags and positive signals to the algorithm. And I'm not disputing that. That for sure is, that's a cold, hard fact about YouTube. You want people watching as long as possible. In my opinion though, and this is again, this is me, this is my opinion in my perspective. I don't want to coax you into watching more of my content through editing. Now I'm a big fan of, um. Certain kind of scripting techniques that help keep people, keep people watching. I'm a big fan of having a specific kind of flow of a video that keep people watching because that's good communication and I think there's a difference between having good, clear, Kind of thoughtfully planned out communication and manufacturing interest and attention and intrigue where there really isn't any and you're just kind of adding it in later. So I'm not anti B-roll or sound effects or graphics or anything like that. for me, when I looked at the amount of time and effort that was going into this, like retention style, editing. I could see in my analytics that it wasn't necessarily paying off, At least not consistently. And then when I started the video podcast on my channel, so I have my my video podcast, which is this, which is me just talking to the camera. And I also have my how to and tutorial style videos, which naturally have stuff on the screen because I'm showing you how to do something on the screen. But when I started doing just the Talking Head podcast type videos and I was keeping people watching longer because the videos themselves were longer and there's no retention editing, that's when it became super clear to me that retention editing is not for me. It's not something that I wanna spend my time on. I would rather put invest my time into being a better communicator than being a better editor. Because being a better editor and spending more time editing is going to earn you. Spending more time editing versus being a better communicator is going to apply to so many other areas of your business. Your YouTube videos, your live streams, even, you know, in your writing. Or interviews or in-person conversations or even like speaking on stage or on a panel or something. another quasi rule I keep hearing more and more of over time is that you have to do shorts, that you have to use YouTube shorts in order to grow your channel. This one is getting harder and harder to explain because personally, like on a, on a personal level, okay, I have done shorts. I have done lots of shorts. I think I had, at one point I had over a hundred shorts on my channel that I did over a condensed period of time, like 90 days to test. Shorts and test the algorithm and see how does this work? How do I make it work? And it didn't. And when I say it didn't, I mean the shorts that I was creating, a lot of them were repurposed from long form, which already is not enticing or interesting to watch at all. But even the ones that were more purposefully created as a short form piece of content. They just don't have longevity and meaning they don't continue to get, get views, gain subscribers to get comments and engagement over time. You have to keep feeding that algorithm and so I am absolutely not denying that shorts will grow your channel. I mean, look around shorts can definitely grow your channel and they can do it very quickly. But similar to the idea of retention, editing, being successful with shorts is only going to earn you more shorts. For your channel, meaning the only way you are going to be able to continue to grow and continue to reach people with your content is to continue pumping out shorts. And that's different than long form content. 'cause long form content lives on has the potential to live on. Meaning it can be SEO optimized. So as people are searching for. Solutions or they're searching how to solve certain problems, they're finding your video. Um, people aren't reading user manuals. They're going to YouTube to see like, how do you use this thing? How do you do this thing? Even for software and things, I go to YouTube to figure out how to make something happen way before I go to that software's knowledge base because. I don't wanna have to search for the answer in the knowledge base. I want someone to show me how to do it. Plus, again, like I already mentioned, watch time. Keeping people watching your videos longer sends all kinds of positive signals and green flags to the algorithm. YouTube wants watch time. YouTube wants people to watch videos as long as possible. So when you invest your time and energy into videos that keep people watching as long as possible, it makes sense that your channel is going to grow. It's gonna grow steadily, it's gonna grow consistently. If you're consistently building that library of binge-worthy long form videos versus. Having to pump out a daily piece of content, a daily short in order to keep feeding the feed and feeding, um, the algorithm. You know, you have to create, just think about this. How many short form videos do you have to create to generate the same amount of. Possible watch time as even like a five minute video. If you have five one minute shorts versus a five minute video, you would rather do five, one minute shorts that get posted and then die versus a five minute video that gets posted and then people are finding it for weeks, months, and years down the road. Like think about the time that you put into creating that content. and short form content is is not where I wanna spend my time and energy in terms of content creation for my business. Like it doesn't feel like the best investment of my time and energy for the business. So if you're using shorts and publishing. Shorts content on your channel and your channel's growing, and you're finding success in that, and you're generating revenue in your business from that. Wonderful. That's great. I love to hear that. But it's not a rule. It's not a given strategy tactic that you have to do shorts in order to grow on YouTube or in order to grow your business and generate revenue on YouTube. now, a couple of weeks ago, I was listening to somebody talk about how. He grew his channel, um, pretty quickly, like half a million subscribers with long form content, little bit of shorts, but mostly long form content is driving that growth, by the way. But one of the things that he said was never miss a week of uploading, never miss an upload. The algorithm will punish you. If you miss a week. Now, this got my feathers a little bit ruffled because the algorithm doesn't punish you. The algorithm is not a person with feelings, who has behaviors and actions that punish you. The algorithm is your audience, and if you have. A niche where there are other people on YouTube publishing videos around some of the same topics, which is everybody. Like there is no, nobody is an island. There are no niche islands on YouTube, right? every topic, every niche, every industry has people talking about it all at all times, right? now, if you take a week off or two weeks off, you come back, you publish a video and it doesn't get very high views. There could be a handful of reasons why it could be a topic. No one's interested in watching. It might've gotten in front of people and they didn't click play. They didn't wanna watch it. That's not the algorithm punishing you, that's your audience saying, Hmm, this one's really not popping for me. I'm gonna keep scrolling and watch something else There have been times where I have missed a week or two of uploading. I come back and my video performs just the same as ever, as if I hadn't missed a week, and I've had times where I've been extremely consistent. And then I publish a video and it just bombs. Nobody watches it. It just goes nowhere. I think if you approach YouTube, like you're building a library of binge-worthy videos, not feeding a feed and not just staying consistent for consistencies sake. Then it doesn't matter if you miss and upload or you upload a different day than normal or you take a little break, like you are, you don't owe the algorithm anything. the algorithm's gonna do what the algorithm does, which is get your content in front of the people that it thinks are going to be the most likely to hit play. Watch the video, enjoy the video, and watch the whole thing. and if you miss a week or two of uploading, it's more likely that the algorithm is just either trying to find the right people to get in front of that video or it is getting it in front of the right people and they're just not interested. That actually makes more sense than saying the algorithm is punishing you. Now a fun fact I often hear about YouTube is that you have to publish in 4K and it's so weird to me that that sometimes that is the thing that people focus on as like that's the thing that's gonna, that's the thing that's gonna make you win on YouTube is like high quality 4K videos and. I don't think that's true. I mean, it's not true for me. I'll say it like that. I've been publishing my videos at 10 80 for a long time. I haven't had anybody complain. I haven't had anybody leave a comment that said, you know, I was, I, I've been wanting to watch your videos, but I, I pulled them up on my TV and they're not in 4K and I just can't do it. Now, it probably depends a little bit on the type of content that you create, but there is definitely a myth. That is being kind of spread around as a YouTube rule. That is, you have to have this high production value, 4K videos, multiple camera angles in order to be successful on YouTube, and you just don't have to have all of that. You can use. Your phone in 10 80, you can use your webcam in 10 80. I mean, you can publish in 4K if you want, if it doesn't hinder you or slow down your editing or your processing time, or, you know, things like that. I, I don't want to add extra time to my editing, my exporting and my uploading to have 4K videos. and my YouTube goal that I have set up in my basement studio. I'm putting these all in air quotes because this is just a spare bedroom in my house. There's no bed in here. It's just me and my desk and my lights and my camera, but. This isn't a studio, this is not a professional studio. I'm not using professional cameras. I use a Canon R 50 V, which is like a prosumer level camera. I've never used like a full frame professional camera ever. In my life, I do have a very expensive microphone because I went down an expensive microphone rabbit hole a couple years ago, I could do this with. A hundred dollars microphone from Amazon. In fact, I did that on YouTube for years, for years and years. Um, audio Technica, A TR 2100 x. It's less than a hundred dollars and it plugs in. You don't have to have a soundboard or mixer or anything. It just plugs into your computer. Her and a couple years ago, I had a client who wanted my help kind of getting started on YouTube and he had bought lights, cameras, microphones, a mixer. He spent like $5,000 on all of his equipment and then realized he didn't know how to set it up. He had to hire somebody locally to come help him, set it up. And then he realized in order to create a video. He had to know how to use the equipment. He had to know what to turn on, where the knobs are, where the buttons are, which software is he using to like control the lights and all of that. created so many hurdles for himself to CR just create the videos that he never could like get it going and stay consistent with it, even though he spent thousands of dollars on. All, all of the gear, all of the high production value and like, let's be honest, high production value isn't about gear. It's about the execution of it. It's about how you use it. And for me, in my business, I've been consistently. Generating six figures in my business with just a basic YouTube in my basement. This is, this is like gear that I've spent money on little bits over time, and it's stationary. It's just my camera stays there, my lights stay there, my microphone stays here. It plugs into my computer. I turn it on and I hit record. It's, this isn't, I would not consider this to be high production, but look, I even forgot to turn my light strip on behind me so I don't even have my background lights on. It doesn't matter. You probably didn't even notice, right? It really doesn't matter. I say all this because it's really easy to look at what other people are saying, works on YouTube, things that you have to do, things that you absolutely must do or have in order to be successful on YouTube and see all of those things as hurdles and then doubt whether you even have what it takes to succeed. On YouTube to grow your business with YouTube, to grow your audience with YouTube. And once you start doubting yourself, it becomes really easy to have excuses of why you can't do it. 'cause you don't have your gear yet. You don't have a nice camera yet, you don't have a fancy microphone yet, or you know, I was gonna publish a video today, but I don't have those extra five hours to add in the fancy B roll and graphics and sound effects and all of that stuff. So I'll just skip my upload this week and then, oh, I can't skip my upload this week because somebody said the algorithm is gonna punish you if you miss an upload. So. I guess I'll just make shorts instead because at least I have something published and then you spend this time and energy on shorts and that doesn't even pay off for you because they get 200 views and then like that's it. I think if we're being totally honest, instead of trying to follow all of the rules, the tips, the tactics, and the hacks to try and do it all right, do it the way that the gurus are saying, even though the gurus contradict each other and contradict what YouTube themselves is saying. Why not create rules for yourself that actually eliminate the obstacles? Eliminate the doubts, I'm gonna give you. Five rules that will actually empower you to be consistent, grow your channel, and grow your business with YouTube. Simple videos on specific topics around a single niche. That's three. publish one long form video a week. Rule number four, and then every 90 days look at your analytics to figure out what's working well, what's not working well, so that you know how to figure out what to change, tweak or fix moving forward. The answer to how. You grow your channel on YouTube is inside of your YouTube analytics and you can only have metrics and data to look at in your analytics if you are actually posting videos. So in eliminate all the extra time that it takes you to be perfect and. Fancy and all this stuff that takes time unless you love doing it, because what your analytics tells you is what's blocking views, what's blocking people from finding you? What's blocking people from hitting play? What's blocking people from watching more of your video? Once they do hit play, you know, there's really only a handful of metrics in your analytics that you need to look at to figure out what is blocking more views, more subscribers. What is blocking people from finding your videos? What is blocking people from hitting play? What is blocking people from watching more of your video? Once they do hit play, what is blocking people from hitting subscribe? What is blocking people from uh, downloading your freebie, joining your list, or, you know, buying your course or program? Success on YouTube is about removing the blocks, not following some rules that the YouTube gurus say that you have to do. It's always going to come down to what's happening inside of your channel, and that's one of the reasons why we do an analytics. Accelerator, deep dive call inside a video brand academy. That's where we pull up your analytics, take a look and figure out where those blocks are so you know what to tweak. Is it thumbnails, is it titles? Is it, you know, is it something else? The numbers don't lie. I mean, we could interpret numbers in different ways, but the numbers don't lie. And if you wanna learn more about what is actually working on YouTube, especially if you're a solo online business owner who wants to use YouTube for organic audience growth. So you don't have to spend on ads, you don't have to do live webinars, you. Can show up as yourself, create great content, cultivate a community, and have fun doing it. I have a link below for Video Brand Academy. I may have a $1 trial going on but I'd love to see you in our next live Meetup. So hit the link below and I'll see you there.