Designhill

YouTube Strategy: Hacks To Grow Your Audience And Profits 50% Faster

Designhill
YouTube Strategy

Last updated on January 30th, 2023

Today, video is an effective form of communication that needs to be integrated into all aspects of existing marketing efforts. And, a platform like YouTube can play a big role in this. It’s a big medium to promote businesses of all scales. However, merely putting your videos out there is not enough. You must come up with an effective YouTube strategy that can help you to grow your audience steadily. This AMA transcript reveals the must-know hacks to grow your audience and increase the profits 50% faster. Have a look!

Marketers today think of ways to catch the wavering attention of potential customers. So, they understand the significance of conveying a message that people can grab in an entertaining and engaging way. They rely on videos to take a brand message across their target audience. This is because videos are engaging visuals that carry the elements of entertainment.

However, the competition on YouTube is heavy. Every field of business already has hundreds of thousands of videos on YouTube. This means that a new business must post unique and useful videos to build an audience on this platform. But, many starting businesses make basic mistakes in their attempt to create a loyal audience using videos.

Similarly, they fail to earn sizable profits from YouTube as they continue to repeat those mistakes. To help YouTubers and brands grow audiences and earn profits on YouTube, Designhill conducted an AMA on this topic. This leading creative marketplace organized an AMA session on 27th October with YouTube strategist Liron Segev. The topic was – YouTube Strategy – How To Grow Your Audience And Profit.

During the session, Liron Segev shared his experience on improving YouTube presence with the help of compelling content and SEO. He offered to show the ways to promote a channel on this platform and build an audience. Liron also gave tips on how to measure results and monetize your YouTube channel. He discussed other aspects such as advertising, brand deals, selling courses and services, affiliate marketing as well.

About Liron Segev

Liron Segev is an internationally recognized certified YouTube digital strategist. He is the Director of Customer Success at vidIQ. Liron helps the largest YouTubers in developing its channel and making growth strategies for them. Also, He is an award-tech blogger on TheTechieGuy.com, YouTuber at YouTube.com/LironSegev.

Key Attractions Of This Session:

Here Is The Video Of The AMA Session With YouTube Strategist – Liron Segev

Here Is How You Can Build Your Audience And Earn Profits Using Your YouTube Channel

Designhill: Is it possible to survive sustainably with such tough competition on YouTube?

Liron Segev: The rule is simple. It’s never too late and saturated. Here is what I mean by that. When you are passionate about a specific topic, whether entertaining or educating, there is an audience for it. Because if you are passionate about it, that means there are other people who are passionate about it.

Don’t Be A Copy (Be Unique – Stop Following Others)

The biggest mistake creators make is that they go out and try to be a copy of somebody else. Then, they wonder why they do not succeed. I do not want to see a copy if I want to see the best vlogger, Casey Neistat. So, I will watch him and not someone making a similar type of content, using Casey style. I come to a channel because I want to see that person and personality. Also, I want to know what they are bringing to the table.

As long as you bear that in mind, you will talk about something that you are genuinely excited about. Something that you can’t wait to share with the world. It’s never too late. It’s never too saturated, there isn’t another person like you, because you give me a case example with my channel.

I went from 5000 subscribers to now 215,000 subscribers, and that too in a very competitive space of the technology world. And, I do it in the tech space with our people with millions of subscribers. So, give people a reason to come to your channel. The number one thing is the focus.

Designhill: How does audience geography, demographics, personas, the user personas play a key role in creating effective content on YouTube?

Foremost Rule: Know Your Audience

Liron Segev: I think at the end of the day, it boils down to a simple thing. You have to know your audience. If you try and make a video for everyone all the time, everywhere in the world, you will never succeed. This is because people are different. They got different tastes, personalities, times of the day, the year, and different events. You need to understand who is your demographic and key audience.

I break it down to the point where I make a video for one person in my mind. In fact, I have got his name on the wall and a picture of what he looks like. Every single time I make a video, I look up and I say, well, he watched my video because I know that my demographic on my technology channel is male.

Think Smart: Identify Your Target Customer

That one person I want to target is between 35 and 45 years of age. married with kids and has got some income, But not super-rich that can just spend money on all the latest technology. He doesn’t have lots of time in the day, so he doesn’t want to sit through a 20-minute video. He only wants five minute videos, nice and quick, in and out. He wants to learn and not just be told what to do and follow like a sheep. That’s my guy.

Be Selective: Make Videos For Specific Demographic

In fact, I call my guy Alex. He’s got a name. Every single time I make a video I say, will Alex watch Sarah Watson say in the chat, Alex, she’s heard me talk about Alex before. The most important thing is to make your video for a specific demographic. Because, if I am trying to make a video for everybody, well, I always fail because I can’t please everyone, but I can please my one person. I can please my Alex.

Make sure you understand who your avatar is. You should be super clear about what you are talking about every single time. Then, always look up and say how will Alex or your avatar watch? Make the video If the answer is yes.

Know What Your Audience Wants

Even with the food channel, you can say that you will have a channel on how to make home-cooked meals. There may be a lack of restaurants that cost $10 or less, and maybe that’s your theme. Then, you can appeal to the homes, students, and people who are traveling. But the underlying message is $10 or less, or whatever be the number. You can be something completely different.

You can say that you want to serve restaurant-quality meals made at home. Now you are appealing to a different audience. So, you can talk about all of those events on your channel, because the underlying element is food at home or cooking at home. Now It is all about being safer at home. This is because of everything that is going on in the world due to the pandemic.

You are being that specific because that is what people are searching for. When people are searching for that, well, odds are much better in your favor. You will likely come up as opposed to making one food for student travelers. But tomorrow, you will make a gourmet meal. The next day, you will make a wedding cake. Well, then who’s your audience?

Designhill: What kind of content generally works the best on YouTube?

Get To The Point Right Away

Liron Segev: First, about the length of a video. How long should a video be? The answer is very simple, long enough. Here is what I mean. If I can tell you how to tie a tie in two minutes or five minutes, that I mustn’t make it a 20-minute video. This is because people are going to get irritated.

Get to the point directly and do what you want to say. Then, tell the audience about your own experience when you are online and on YouTube. If you see a video is 20 minutes, and everything is just dragging on, it becomes too irritating. You will migrate to the next video. But, if you come in and show how to tie a tie in five steps, then say let’s do it right away. Then, they tell you how to do it. That is what viewers want. They want that information.

Video Length Depends On The Content Type

Remember, YouTube is divided into two main categories – education and entertainment. Now, let’s talk about the entertainment of things like vlogging, and documentaries, pranks, things like that. Such videos are of various lengths of time because people are there for entertainment. They are happy to sit through that video.

The how-to videos have information. People are there to learn something. They are there to get an answer to a question. For instance, your toilet is clogged, and it’s leaking water all over your bathroom. Then, you do not want to sit through a 20-minute video. You just want a quick answer to the problem of how do you fix this right now.

Look For Their Pain Area: Know What Content They Want

Ask some questions to yourself. Why are you there? Who is your audience? Who’s your persona? Who are you catering for? What content do they want? These questions and answers will help you know what content your audience needs. Considering that, your video length will depend on the information in a way that the user wants to receive it.

Many industries require longer videos, others want shorter videos. You might have heard that people need to make videos that are 10 minutes or longer. The reason for it is that YouTube has just changed it from eight minutes up. Another reason is that you are able to put ads in the middle of your video as well. Not just the beginning and not just the end.

Short & Simple Is The Key: Do Not Overstretch Videos

A lot of YouTubers try to stretch their videos so that they can put more ads in the middle. I do not believe that’s a good practice. But that is why you may have heard that every video needs to be eight minutes or longer. Again, on my personal channel, most of my videos are six to seven minutes long.

Every time I try to make a longer video, my audience doesn’t like it. They do not watch and you have got that information in your analytics. Just when seeing that your audience isn’t watching longer videos, stop making them. This is because they are just hurting. It’s hurting your channel. That was the question about how long it should be. Then you had a couple of more than just that you threw in there.

Designhill: Does everyone have to be talkative on YouTube?

Liron Segev: We have seen a lot of channels where people are not on camera. They do a cooking channel with the camera situated at the top. All you can see is the hands working, and that’s perfectly fine. We have seen a lot of animation channels where there is no person even on the camera.

In fact, I work with a channel where all they do is have their dogs only and not a single person on camera. So, it doesn’t have to be you on camera all the time. It is about the quality of the video. Here is what I mean.

People always ask me, how to get more free youtube subscribers and views. The answer is simple. Make videos people want to watch. Now, if people want to watch the dogs playing in the snow, superb, then that’s the video. If people want to watch you telling them and giving information, then that’s the video. But you have got to make videos, it doesn’t matter how you do it.

It should be the content that people want to consume. If somebody is interested in your content, they are able to put up with a lot of stuff. But they want to make sure that they are getting that story and information. That is crucial.

So, do you have to be on camera? No. Is it better to be on camera? Usually, yes. Because people make a connection with another person. We do not make a connection with a logo or a brand and a brand name. Rather, we want to make a connection with somebody who is delivering us the content.

Because when I see someone’s video, I am more likely to click on it, then I see my toothpaste company making a video. Well, I do not care what my toothpaste company is up to. It is about the people. could you be on camera, that’s always ideal.

Designhill: Could you highlight a few basics that people should follow when doing SEO on their content on YouTube?

Liron Segev: Yes, so the most important thing is SEO rules still apply on YouTube. YouTube has its own AI system, the artificial general intelligence systems. There are lots of systems that drive the YouTube algorithm as they are looking for different things. In the old days of YouTube, you used to take all the keywords and stuffed them into the title. Then YouTube got smarter.

The other thing was clickbait titles. An example of clickbait titles is — 10 things you will not believe I did yesterday, number three will shock you. But those days are gone as well.

Now, YouTube Knows It All

What YouTube knows is that it can read your thumbnail, your picture, the colors, the expressions, the text that you have, it knows how to read an image. It knows how to listen to all your audio and it automatically captures your video. It looks at the title and your description and your tags. Overall, it gets all that information because it has all this information, it knows what your video is about.

Use Your Thumbnail And Title Together

The most important thing is when you make a title for YouTube, you get to use your thumbnail and your title, but together. The number one thing on YouTube is the thumbnail. Why? Because when somebody searches, your video is going to come up. How the impression of your thumbnail looks amongst lots of other videos is just one thing to make someone look at your title. You can also take the help of a YouTube thumbnail template to create an eye-catching thumbnail for your video.

Title Creates First Impression: Your Title Sells The Click

Your thumbnail says I have got to look at this. Then you look across as your title. Your title sells the click. So, when you write your title, write it for people. Do not write it for the machine-like food, student, and lots of commas. Nobody is going to click on it.

But, when you write something like three reasons why I love this phone. That’s much more interesting than saying Google sent me a phone. Nobody cares. But you got to write for people. that’s the most important thing.

YouTube and Google Work Together

So, as far as SEO is concerned, the biggest thing you should remember is that YouTube and Google work together. When you go into Google and you do a search for some keywords, you see YouTube clips at the top. This is because YouTube is sending that information, or Google is pulling that information to help the person doing the search.

This is the best ninja tip for those who are just starting out. When you are on YouTube go to the YouTube search and start typing your keyword. Let us just say we are talking about cooking. Go into YouTube search and type the word pizza, and then press the spacebar. Then, you will see YouTube autocompletes a whole bunch of information.

Those pieces of information are basically what people are typing and looking for around the world, about your subject, and about pizza. Now you have ideas of what people are searching for. If you make videos that answer those questions, odds are a lot better than YouTube is going to marry up the search with your video.

Be Relevant: Answer Specific Questions

Remember, YouTube is the search engine. What do we do with a search engine? We ask questions. So, do not just type pizza, go to the beginning of the word pizza and clap the word how with space pizza? Where, when? Who? What, all of those question words. This is because those are the questions that people are asking.

You will very quickly find how to make pizza in an oven, make in the microwave, how to make a chocolate cake in a mug, how to make a chocolate cake in a mug in the microwave. If you make a video, how to make a chocolate cake in a mug in a microwave, you and they get views. Hopefully, that makes sense.

Designhill: Could you please tell us the kinds of income one can make via YouTube channel because that is something you need to understand?

Liron Segev: There are a lot of ways to make money off YouTube. The most obvious one is the YouTube ads. YouTube, once you reach 4000 hours, and 1000 subscribers, you can within 12 months apply to YouTube’s partner program. If your channel is accepted, every time there’s an ad that appears on your channel, you will get the revenue out of that. That is the most obvious one and everybody talks about it.

Affiliate Program Links

But, there are lots of other ways to do it even before you get to 1000 subscribers and your 4000 hours. The first way is something called affiliate links. You can sign up with various programs or just google affiliate programs. Amazon has an affiliate program. In the US, we have Walmart BestBuy and other brands that have an affiliate program.

In affiliate marketing, you are talking about a product. You say to the users that if you want to buy this product, there’s a link in the description click on that. If they click on that link, and they buy that product, you will get a commission out of that.

Just Push People To Buy Products

Now, you are already making the video anyway. So, why not push people to buy the product. It does not cost them anything extra, and you get some money out of that. The affiliate doesn’t sound like a lot because there’s a small percentage. But remember, YouTube videos live forever. I am still getting money from affiliate links, which I’ve had for years ago. This is because every once in a while somebody clicks and they make a purchase.

Affiliates Are Important But Underrated

Every creator should be using affiliate links. Remember the other thing is a lot of systems like Amazon, for example. If you get somebody to get to Amazon because of your link, you get a commission from the product that they buy from your link. But if they buy other things, you get a revenue cut out of that as well. So, affiliates work well.

Sell Products From Your Videos

Another way to earn from YouTube videos is to sell products. You can sell products and services. Take your cooking example. You might say to someone, hey, if you want me to send you this recipe, here is a link in the description and click on that link, which asks them for their email address. You can send them a PDF of that particular recipe.

Now, you are building up a mailing list. Use that mailing list to send them an email to say, hey, I’ve also got a cooking book, would you like to purchase. Another way of doing it is by building a mailing list and selling products. You could also sell services, people that are consultants can say, hey, I am helping you here with YouTube. But, if you want me to consult you on your channel, click the link in the description and come in and we’ll set up a consulting session.

Then, of course, you can go work with brands, you can go to a company and say, hey, look, I do not know, let’s find this product again. You can say, hey, Google, I am going to make a video about your product. How about we work together, you pay me X number of dollars, these are my views, this is my demographics. Then I will be talking about your product and I can get some money from the bread.

But, YouTube becomes your main platform to start earning those revenues, that you are not just relying on ads. The big mistake that creators make is they start making some nice money off the YouTube ads, and they think, Oh, great, I do not have to do anymore work. But then YouTube goes and makes a change. Because it’s their system, they are entitled to do it.

Build Your Authority

Remember, as much as we complain about YouTube, we’re getting the system for free, and they are paying us to be on it. if they make a change, and they say no more ads for all creators under 1000 subscribers. Now, what do you do? You’ve just lost your income, or when you are making kids’ content, and now that’s no longer allowed to have ads on it. You have just lost all your ads overnight. So, you’ve got to make sure you are not relying on one thing, but you are using YouTube as a base to build your authority so that you can branch out to other revenue streams.

Designhill: Are there industries that are not successful on YouTube?

Liron Segev: A lot of businesses have been impacted by what is going on in the world today. I have seen everything on YouTube from local restaurants that rely on real-world customers, to a channel where all they do is look after people’s lawns. They are literally cutting people’s grass. They’ve got an entire channel just for that.

Give Them Information

People want information. That is an important thing for you. Because, right now you are in the shared office space, people are not going out there. You could build authority by saying that you can’t work with us in our offices. But, let’s help you set up your home office so you can make a video. What’re the best homes and home offices to set? What equipment do you need? You can have a video that says something along the lines of five routers that you should be getting, in order to get the best Wi-Fi.

You could be getting students to use Zoom or Team or Microsoft Teams, and build up authority. Also, you can help people achieve productivity because of a shared office that’s what it boils down to.

What are the productivity apps that you can review? What are some tips for people who have kids and they’ve got dogs running around and kids in the other room and someone’s in college and someone is a student. Can you still remain productive? What hardware do you need? What software? Do you need all of those to help? The idea that you are helping people maintain productivity. When we go back to whatever the new normal is going to be, people will know you as the channel. By the time the office is open, you just carry on the same theme.

Designhill: Can you suggest how to pass 4000 hours?

Look At Your Analytics

Liron Segev: It is not about uploading more videos, but, instead, looking at your analytics. You should understand what is working and what isn’t working. Then you start making more videos that are working, as opposed to just throwing lots of stuff out there.

There are lots of ways to do that. You can go look at your analytics, look at your most-watched videos, most retention, and how long are people staying on your videos for? Are they interested in that topic? When you make two or three videos about one topic? Does it do better than when you make five random videos? Then start narrowing it down to the topic that your audience actually wants.

Make Content That People Need

The only way to get more views and more watch time is to make more content that people want to watch. We have software called vid IQ. We have a button called channel orders. You press that button, and it tells you what to focus on, what’s working, and what isn’t working.

Make Data-Driven Decisions

If you do not want to use that, simply go into YouTube analytics and start going through your videos to understand that just throwing more stuff out there and hoping it will work is not a great strategy. But if you go and make data-driven decisions by understanding your data, that’s when you win all the time.

Designhill: Could you please tell us when is the right time to avail professional services to optimize a YouTube channel, what should be kept in mind?

Pick A Plan As You Grow

Liron Segev: With vid IQ, we have lots of different types of plans. We have a free plan that everybody can simply get access to it. For vid IQ, the most important thing is seeing people succeed on their YouTube journey. My entire company is built for that. We have a free version of our tool. Now as you get bigger, and as you start to understand more data, then of course it goes to a paid version.

Then, we like any enhanced version that has got all the bells and whistles. But up until that point, you can simply use the free stuff. When it’s time to add source all your analytics, all your channel optimization. Usually, it’s when the creators are making some nice money, they have the ability to go hire a professional to manage and optimize their channel. Those are normally at, we see much higher tiers 500,000 above kind of level. But that’s why we’ve taken all that information and simply made it into a software version.

The reason I am at vid IQ is that as a creator myself, I am frustrated with YouTube. I am irritated that we do not get certain information. A lot of us at VidIQ are creators. we’re frustrated, we know what you’re going through. All the tools that we build are away are going to help us on our personal channels grow and therefore help everybody else. 33:48

Designhill: How should brands organize their video content? Is there a to-do list they should be going by?

Liron Segev: Brands, videos versus regular creators are not that different. At the end of the day, you are appealing to an audience. You are giving a reason for somebody to watch your video. Also, you are still telling a story, whether you are trying to tell people about your shared office space, or telling people about how to cook their next meal is still a story. You’re still giving people information. Does their to-do list essentially work on what is the aim of this video? Why are you making it? Just to get more views and subscribers is not going to work.

Know Your Brand’s KPI

But as a brand, that is not enough. You need to know about your KPI. What is going to help you understand whether this is a working video or not working video? You can’t measure it on one video alone? Is it going to be a part of a three-part series, a ten-part series? Are you going to make it yourself and put it on your channel? Or, are you going to reach out to other influencers and do and work with them? Those are the kind of questions you’d need to understand so that you are going in with realistic expectations.

The mistake that a lot of brands make is they think that everybody knows who they are. So, they stick a brand video on their channel and people are just going to watch. Well, as I said before, I do not know about you, or anybody in the chat here that woke up this morning and say wow, I wonder what my toothpaste company is up to. Not one. But if your company or toothpaste company was awesome, they made funny videos, they worked with a lot of your favorite creators. That makes a lot of sense.

Work In Partnerships

We have seen a lot of creators who are doing partnerships. They do affiliations that are doing shoutouts, or doing integrations where they take their brands and I say to the brand’s look, your company, we know YouTube, let’s find a way to work together well.

We can organically and genuinely promote your products and services to an audience that wants your product and services. That is a beautiful match. Again, I am just to give you a personal example. I am in the technology space, I talk about things like faster Wi-Fi and routers and things of that nature, and how to do things with your phone and gadgets.

But, I work with a lot of brands. They say that they have this product. Their audience is a tick audience, technology audience, and they want to see the information. Here it is, help us get this product out into the market. If I am genuinely excited about the product I know my audience is going to be and that’s a nice fit. I will make sure my Alex is going to watch, that’s the important thing. That is how brands could get some nasty exposure and become leaders in their space.

Just because you’ve made a video and you stick it out there on YouTube doesn’t mean you are going to get views and subscribers. It simply doesn’t work that way. There is a lot of content to choose from. They need to have a reason to watch your content.

Work With Influencers

The final thing on the brand’s you could always work with an influencer with the creator and maybe start the video on their channel. But then maybe have the follow up to the to number two, three, or four videos on the series on your own channel. It gets lots of eyeballs from the big creator. Then you say okay, to find out how the story ends, head over to this channel. Then, you will see the next in the series coming up tomorrow. Now you are starting to push people towards your company.

Designhill: Generally people want to get rid of ads while watching YouTube and if they generally get skipped, then how YouTubers actually end up making money?

Liron Segev: If somebody skips your ads, you do not get paid. But there are now options for an advertiser to have non-skippable ads. You can have more than one ad. It boils down to a simple thing. That is what an advertiser wants to advertise on your channel. Good advertisers will understand their industry well.

They Don’t Skip Good Ads

Let us say it is a cooking channel, and it is an instant pot, that big pot that you can put all the things into, right? I am not going to advertise the instant pot on a home buying channel. It’s not interesting. I am not going to advertise my instant pots on a fashion channel. It’s not interesting. But am I going to advertise my instant pop on a cooking channel? Yes!

People do not skip good ads, because they just want to see good ads or good stories. They just want to get into the movie and these irritating things at the beginning that nobody cares about. That is when you just want to skip. That is the mistake when an advertiser is partly because they are wasting their time and their money. The quality of the channel, the ads, how many ads, all of those have an impact.

Ad Positioning Matters

This happens especially when you put an ad in the middle of your video. If it is in a good position, just before the reveal or the climax of the story, or reveal the big tip, then people do watch the ad. They want to see what comes next. there’s a whole bunch of different ways. But you are right, if people simply skip all the ads at the beginning, the creator is not going to make money, which is why you need to rely on other ways of income, not just those five-second ads.

Designhill: What do you think about collaborative videos? Do you think it is the most effective way to increase views or optimize a YouTube channel? Or, does it depend on a genre?

Your Idea Is The Key: It All Depends On The Idea

No, it doesn’t depend on the genre to genre. It depends on the idea. Just doing a collaboration with another creator, doesn’t automatically mean that you are going to get all these views and all these subscribers. That is all you need if this big creator would only say my name on the live stream. Then my channel will blow up. It just doesn’t work that way.

What you need to have is a good idea. You need to work with channels, which are very similar to you, or you can add value to their audience. Again, let’s go back to the cooking example. If you said to me, hey, I’ve got a cooking channel. I know you have a technology channel. But I was thinking of an idea where I am going to show you five gadgets that every kitchen must-have. Whoo, okay, that’s the gadget. That’s technology. It’s cooking, which is good for your channel. Okay, then the idea works well.

But if you come to me, and you say, hey, I am going to teach you how to make chicken. Oh, my audience doesn’t care about that, therefore, the technology. collaboration works well. Not good. It works well. If the idea is good for both parties. If the idea is only good for one person, then it’s very difficult to make collaboration work.

Shareable Idea Benefits Both Parties

Now, again, a mistake that creators make is they think, well, I’ve only got 1000 subscribers, why would someone with 10,000 subscribers want to work with me? Of course, they want to work with you, if you have a good idea. if you reach out to them and say, hey, please work with me. They do not care.

To give you an example, I work with a channel that has 3.5 million subscribers. Somebody with 50,000 subscribers reached out to them to say, hey, I’ve got this good idea. Now you would think why would they work with a 50,000 subscriber channel? But, they did. Why? Because the idea was great. They love the idea. The idea worked for their audience, and their audience loved the idea. Then the audience went to see who this person was, and they went across to that person’s channel.

When an idea is good, it’s good for both people, not just the one doing the pitching. Then the audience goes from the one channel and they go to the other and they stay because they lack that content. The important thing is a good idea.

Sharing Is Useful For Brands

That is good especially from a brand’s point of view. A brand will say, look, I’ve got $10,000, let’s just say that’s the number, I have a choice, I can get one YouTuber, and I can give them $10,000 because they’ve got a big audience. That’s one option. Or, well, I can get 10 small YouTubers and give each one of the $1,000. Is it just what do I want? For the same budget? But am I looking for exposure? Now I want every creator to be talking about this.

I must get lots of creators and give them each $100. Now I am going to get thousands of creators, or am I just looking to be associated with this one person, in which case, put all my money into one person, and then get that association. There are lots of ways to do it, just depending on what you want. That’s why being clear about what the outcome is going to be from a company’s point of view is always crucial.

Designhill: How to grow an audience if you are at the starting point, and you still do not have analytics?

Start By Making Five Test Videos

Liron Segev: If you are just starting out, make videos that you are passionate about. Do your research, understand your audience, make five similar kinds of videos, and see what works. When you make five videos, out of those videos, three of them may not do well. But two of them may have more interest. Then you make two more videos on those two items and see if they are still growing. If they are still growing, you make more videos on that topic.

Do Your Research

You should be very specific about what you are doing. Also, remember, do not pick up the camera until you have done your research. I can make a video today about something that nobody cares about. Nobody is going to watch. But if I make a video up today about something everybody cares about, I have a much better opportunity of being a wreck.

Therefore, do your research before you touch your camera. That is the biggest tip I can tell you, especially for a new creator. Don’t just go make videos and hope for the best. Do your research and then make the video so that it makes sense to your audience.

Designhill: What analytics do you recommend that we focus on the most?

Liron Segev: There’s two analytics to look at. Number one is CTR click through rates. What does that mean? When you put a video out and it’s got a thumbnail. Click-through rate means how often what is the percentage of people clicked on it to come to your video. The higher the click-through rate, the more opportunity you have for your video to do well. In this way, more people will be watching your video.

Look At Your Thumbnail

If you have got a video that is performing at only 1% CTR, go change the thumbnail. Because it means people are not loving what you have on that thumbnail. As soon as the thumbnail gets higher and higher, the click-through rate gets higher and higher. More people are clicking.

Then, the second analytics to look at is something called retention. How long are people on your video? You could make a beautiful 20-minute video. But if people are only watching 1% of that video, it’s telling YouTube that look there’s no good quality here. Then YouTube doesn’t promote your video. But if so, I like to watch that retention.

I like to make a five-minute video. Look at that retention. Am I keeping people watching 250 percent of my video? If the answer is yes, make more five minute videos. If the answer is that people are dropping off right at the beginning, then my introduction is terrible. I am not hooking people long enough. I am not telling you what you will get.

We have all seen those videos right when somebody starts and it’s all about how to fix your toilet. For example, somebody says hi, for breakfast today I was going to have burritos but the car was broken. Nobody cares. I want to know how to fix my toilet. I’ve left.

But if that video says, hey, today, I am going to show you three quick tips to fix your toilet. Oh, okay, now I am interested. Now I want to stay on to understand that. That’s why I always look at my retention and understand where people are leaving, so I can fix it.

When people look at that retention graph, the beautiful animation and your logo spinning, and your company introduction, they do not care about skipping. They do not care that they are leaving your video.

Designhill: What are those common mistakes that YouTubers make?

Liron Segev: The rules do not apply when you have a million subscribers and above, or 500,000 subscribers and above. Those rules are not the same for you as they are for somebody that has thought that is starting out. Because YouTube just has much more data on that creator than they do on you. You are just in the beginning phases, you are just starting out.

Be Different – Be Unique

If you are just starting out, the rules will be different. The big mistake that YouTubers do is that they are done, make a copy of a big YouTuber like Casey Neistat, or Peter McKinnon, or PewDiePie. They could launch a video with no thumbnail, and just nothing in the title and still get a million views. But we can’t do the site, because YouTube just doesn’t work on-site in the same way.

The important thing is that you do not just copy the big creators. Focus on your own channel. Don’t worry about everybody else, stop looking at everybody else in what they are doing. Because all it will do is get you frustrated. How come they are doing better than I am? I have got better content, why are they winning? It’s just irritating. it’s not helping you.

You do not know what they are doing on their channel. Maybe they are doing something dodgy, maybe they are buying views, maybe they are buying subscribers, and you should never ever do that because it will just destroy your channel. Do not worry about everybody else. Just focus on your channel. Make little changes, and with every little change that you make you become better.

YouTube Is A Skill!

At the end of the day, none of us were born knowing how to read and write. We learned that. it was difficult at the beginning. But over time, it became easier and easier and easier. People then weren’t born knowing how to swim or how to drive a car. But you learn and when you get you started to get it a little bit weird. The more you do it, the easier it gets.

Avoid Click Baits

That’s how you get better, not by looking at what everybody else is doing. Certainly not by doing clickbait, not by saying, Hey, I hang out with Casey, or and then your videos got nothing to do with that. That will just penalize your video. Don’t make the clickbait be exciting. Bring yourself to your channel. Don’t be here, copy and take your time. This is a marathon, not a sprint. It will take time to get this right.

So, these are the key thoughts from the expert you should consider while planning your YouTube channel. Make sure that you rethink your strategy consistently until you finally find out what works best for your channel. Then, make videos on those topics.

You will also need visuals such as a YouTube banner to make your channel appealing to your target audience. To create such visuals, you can outsource the design work to Designhill, a leading creative marketplace. You will get dozens of banner design ideas or other visuals.

Wrapping Up

To build an audience on your YouTube channel and earn nicely, you must come up with your own strategy that stands out. Liron Segev advises YouTubers to avoid copying successful channels. Instead, first, know your specific audience and find out and serve them with the content that they want. Make sure that you post short but engaging video content and avoid click baits.

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