Hey everybody I'm Ex-TV producer Jennifer Moore and a few months ago I
quit my job at CNN to focus on YouTube full-time and since then I've actually
been inundated with questions from four friends from strangers on how I do what
I do how do you start doing YouTube how do you make money doing this and how can
you make this a career
so I thought I would bring someone that's very well equipped to talk about
this subject Sean Cannell. Sean is a YouTube expert
he's a speaker he's a following of over 700,000 subscribers throughout his
channels and he's built a seven-figure business yes you heard that right
seven-figure business off of starting YouTube several years ago so Shawn thank
you so much for joining me Jennifer super pumped to be on the show
and absolutely inspired by the topic that you are covering on this channel
and how you're helping people there's definitely a digital revolution taking
place and so I'm pumped for this episode me me too so I wanted to share so when I
started YouTube a few years ago I didn't I didn't know anything so I assumed with
my TV background I was gonna go into it be successful right away and you know I
thought it would be a lot easier than it was now I'm not saying YouTube is
impossible or it's super difficult but there are some things that are very
different than working in a traditional media industry versus YouTube so we're
gonna dive into all that during this episode and I also wanted to share a lot
of Sean's information Sean also has a book coming out very very soon about
YouTube Secrets so if you are like many of many others out there that are like
you know I want to do YouTube but I don't know how to even get started this
book is really gonna cover a lot of those topics you can also follow Shawn
and his channels he's got video influencers was which focuses on helping
people to grow their online following he also has another channel called think
media which is how I initially found you was you do a lot of Tekken gear reviews
about YouTube equipment you also have another channel called Shawn thanks and
you've done a lot of product reviews so Shawn how long have you been doing
YouTube for so actually I've been doing YouTube since 2007 I've been doing
online video or I should say video since around 2003 and I actually got started
volunteering in my local church so I've never been to film school I don't have
any traditional education but I just was in the trenches hands-on and originally
in 2003 my youth pastor was like hey can you start making weekly video
announcements that will play every Wednesday night
youth groups so that began to teach me video and Jennifer you and the rest of
the audience those videos are terrible you know I always like to say your first
videos are your worst videos because I was just trying to figure out how to
create content but I was getting my education and then eventually the lead
pastor at that church was like hey can you do these on Sundays as well that was
2004 so now I personally was trying to come up with the ideas shooting videos
editing I did a hundred and four videos a year now cuz one was on Wednesday and
one was on Sunday and again I was cutting my teeth many like people in
your audience that they know like you got to go through the grind right you
got to learn the steps and and get hands-on that's what I was doing and the
first YouTube channel I managed was 2007 for my church just two years after
YouTube had started which again I didn't know titles thumbnails and I love what
you mentioned you know I've noticed you really can't do the new thing in the old
way I think some reason why you mentioned YouTube is hard when you first
got started is again we kind of we typically take an old mindset usually
into a new arena and while there's a lot of principles and best practices we can
pull in we always need to adapt them to the new way and so I had kind of an
early advantage as YouTube was so brand new and I was making all these mistakes
in 2007 by 2009 I started a business called clear vision media and I started
to help small businesses authors creatives with their YouTube channel
with content creation and so anyways fast-forward to today there's the 10,000
hour rule I like to Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in his book that if you do
something for 10,000 hours you kind of hit this mastery point it's like a
tipping point of the greatest tennis players or the greatest musicians
they've practiced their craft well I think I'm approaching around 30,000
hours of on camera or editing or lighting or setup and teardown or
digital strategy and social media and actually uploading and putting all this
stuff out there's a lot to learn in the space but I've been doing it for a while
made a ton of mistakes and now my passion is to help other people really
go further faster with video so they can learn the new rules of success with
online video and I have to thank you because I really honestly feel like if I
had not found you and had not taking your course video ranking Academy
I I really don't think I would have been able to take this step just because the
things that you taught me in that class were so valuable you also asked for a
lot of information for free on your channels so if someone doesn't
necessarily have the cash for the class a lot of your videos are just so helpful
so I really wanted to take a moment to to really express my gratitude because I
really don't think I would be here if not for you well I appreciate that happy
to help and thank you so much for the feedback and I have to say so when I
decided to leave my job my channel had started to make a little enough money
where it was contributing to the household we also cut some expenses but
I really wanted to have the opportunity to really grow and since I've had this
time it's been incredible I've been able to focus on a lot my projects and also
make plans for the future but I've been getting a lot of
interesting feedbacks so I I have a lot of media friends a lot of people I've
worked with and and it's a very close-knit business there are folks that
seem very happy for me but don't really understand how the community works and
then there's also a demographic that that kind of thinks I'm crazy they don't
think this is legitimate and and I think they kind of like and you being a
youtuber to like you know some sort of scam but you know I know from experience
and you know from experience being a youtuber is a legitimate career option
in 2018 it totally is and you know I think what
we're seeing here is we're seeing that the whole industry is being flipped
upside down and it's being disrupted really besides YouTube it was before
that it was the Internet and and if we can sum it up it's essentially that
middlemen are being removed now in a lot of cases they're still there but this
whole old paradigm of the only way if you wanted to have your own show or you
wanted to have some kind of distribution to an audience they on traditional
television was by having a production company you know a studio and usually
having a lot of red tape big organizations really holding the keys
between the eyeballs on the other side and between you and you and your content
that you might share with them well that has been completely disrupted now
the middleman are gone and what we're seeing is direct-to-consumer so it is
funny where as sometimes you do youtubers could look at is you know not
legitimate because sometimes they're not even professional right they're just
you're just using webcams or just using their smartphone and sometimes just
creating viral you know or funny content that doesn't seem to add a ton of value
but that's just one side of the coin there's such a there's tons of news
content on YouTube where people are live-streaming and just taking they're
realizing I actually don't need a studio I don't need a company to work with
anybody that has an internet connection and a webcam where a smartphone can has
the at least the chance a beginning to share their perspective share their
point of view you know you could start your own weather show if you had the
technology you literally could do whatever you want and there's people on
the other side that at least we have the potential to reach them no middleman
essentially what we've built is now we're in Vegas we call it a media
education company what we educate people on is online video and we have six team
members and just kind of like really if someone's like what exactly do you do
I'd say what kind of a CNET we're like CNET or were like which is a tech
channel that or we're like the verge these are bigger companies that are
actually kind of a hybrid they're sort of traditional models because they
usually have a lot of overhead they're trying to use ad spend to pay big teams
they have big office spaces but what's stunning is that when you look at our
numbers again I'm just a guy we started a media company out of the bed my the
bedroom of my house an hour north of Seattle where we just started sharing
our voice online reviewing tech and now we'll get something like 2 million views
a month on think media something like 2,500 to 5,000 views every 60 minutes in
real time traffic that's people on video like watching our content in real time
and I have no agency put us on no studio gave us permission didn't work with
anybody that said okay you know nobody's giving approval to our content
the middlemen are gone and we have this direct-to-consumer opportunity the
gatekeepers are gone and so now there's this real meritocracy that exists online
for anybody that wants to share their voice build their influence you're doing
it not just with this channel but your other channel and it's it's crazy in the
past you might have needed to go on HGTV you know some home with your sewing
channel you with some home content maybe a food you know Food Network if you're
doing a cooking show but now anybody can start a show and go direct to consumer
it's very stunning and it's a completely real thing five years ago people kind of
doubted this you know 2018-2019 it's like no there's unlimited case studies
and use cases of people that are building their own reality because of
these new channels and tools and they really don't need anybody else's
permission or authority to do that that's exactly and working in
traditional TV I can tell you you don't get to do it you definitely do not get
to do whatever you want you cover what your managers tell you you have to get
approve on all your stories I couldn't just create whatever I wanted to and you
know you have to do a lot of stuff that you don't want to do like covering
dumpster fires or stories that you know like the whole st. it bleeds it leads
you're covering things that you might not even personally be interested in but
you kind of have to and it's so it's so freeing to be able to have my own
channel I don't have to get anyone's approval to do anything I can do
whatever I want again within YouTube's guidelines but you know I think that's
why that's the one area that I do feel like my journalism background helps me
is knowing where that line is because I've had to follow like FCC guidelines
and also journalistic standards you know I think that's the one area that that
does give me an advantage is that I know about copyright law I know about fair
use and I know that creating my own original content is is really the best
but that's one thing that I couldn't do working for even CNN I just you know was
covering things that I had to and not that I particularly wanted to I couldn't
do sewing stories you know and now I have a couple channels that I can do
whatever I want and that's something that that you just don't get working for
a media outlet and I've a few people reach out on LinkedIn even
people I don't know saying you know I'm in college and I'm thinking about trying
to get into broadcast journalism and and I have to be honest well I well I'm very
grateful for the path I chose and I think I made the best choices at the
time if I was in college now I would make completely different decisions
because things are not the same things are definitely going in a much different
direction and it's not towards traditional media it's towards new media
I think that's where it's at and whenever I tell talk to people I'm like
you know what make sure to have your own personal brand and also don't be afraid
to apply for jobs at BuzzFeed look to see if Philip DeFranco is hiring because
well those companies might not have the household recognition quite yet those
companies are where all the eyeballs are and when you look at the numbers numbers
don't lie Philip DeFranco show gets more views than CNN primetime does and that's
one of the reasons why I was so interested in in investing in this space
and and being willing to take the risk I agree and I think you really pushed on
two pieces of advice there I think the one piece of advice is on the one hand
if you have self-awareness or you just want to take a shot anybody could start
what Phil DeFranco has started their own variation of that it is stunning that
one individual thing same thing started with the webcam started giving his two
cents on current events and news years ago now has his own if you will smaller
agency media studio as I'm not sure how big his team is but probably to the tune
of 10 to 20 people but it's really just one individual who realized that the
gatekeepers were gone that there was no middlemen and that he could build a
tribe and speak and add value to an audience but the other side of things I
love what you said is that potentially considering a pivot and shift
career-wise into working with some of these new media channels you mentioned
BuzzFeed or Phil DeFranco or other people if only to get education maybe
before jumping out on your own or potentially to just be where the puck
is going right the famous quote from Wayne Gretzky you don't want to skate to
where the puck is you want to skate to where it's going and there's so much
disruption happening you're totally right attention is shift
it's it's where we're about to launch a book and we've helped others launch
books we study lots of books and in the past people would think an appearance on
Good Morning America would potentially move book sales but besides our own
research I've got friends that our New York Times bestselling authors that have
had the chance to go on Good Morning America and also potentially collaborate
with a modern-day influencer either a podcaster or a youtuber and after that
experience doing both my friend chalene she would say I would choose the
youtuber in podcaster like a hundred times out of a hundred over going on a
traditional media outlet if it meant moving book sales that's where the puck
is shifting right I heard somebody said much rather go on the Joe Rogan podcast
then on Good Morning America Gary Vaynerchuk I was actually listening to
that yesterday I was like you know what that's and a lot of people watch the Joe
Rogan podcast and when you think about it no one ever saw Joe Rogan be in a
podcast or he was the guy from News Radio and the guy from Fear Factor but
that's someone that's an that's an example of someone taking their existing
fame and really leveraging it to to be something to create something completely
different absolutely and I'm also from the kind of
faith world and even know a lot about like the Christian television kind of
arena and I've sort of crossed over into some of that those worlds and again same
things its Nielsen versus comScore actually and I was talking to somebody
recently where is even Nielsen ratings are now more outdated than ever you know
they're the block of time they're measuring is is super archaic and there
are though by the way traditional is not going away traditionalist is shifting
and so they're still DirecTV is still relevant and a lot of these digital and
new media Netflix Hulu there's a lot of overlap let's talk to somebody and
they're saying comScore now can be measuring down to the second of where
viewership is where attention is and also aggregate online and kind of
offline if you will or traditional and digital with their with their data and
yet that's the thing numbers are just shifting its where attention is it's
what people are paying attention to and so I think of the exact same thing
what's stunning is in that world we're in the past there's sometimes be
like impressions you have the chance to meet 50,000 people Nielsen might tell
you but there's potencial there's a theoretical eight thousand people that
are watching this spot on traditional television the crazy thing about digital
is it doesn't lie and you can look at directly at those numbers and see we had
a channel even in that same space called think international and we could see
real numbers and we were getting even to the tune of thousands of views that was
so real we could look at real analytics as opposed to theoretical from some of
these channels that would want to sell you overinflated media buys or
overinflated you know ad ad spots based on numbers that again very theoretical I
don't know if that makes sense but that's sort of where my head space it's
so interesting to where people who are building really real influence online
our number one already building something very concrete but they're also
ahead of the curve once people start waking up to realize ok this theoretical
stuff you know it's not who cares about the a hundred thousand impressions what
did they actually do that the theoretical chance of like someone's
scanning and seeing something as opposed to getting people to take action which
kind of circles back to say launching a book again if you're launching a book
you want book sales and so people went on Good Morning America checked in and
had zero sales but they might have went on one niche podcaster and had a hundred
sales even if those numbers weren't as big that speaks to also not just viewer
theoretical eyeballs or whatever it also speaks to depth actual connection I
think there's a mistrust of big brand in corporate and there's a greater trust in
these days to Joe Rogan to a Phil DeFranco because we're talking to a
person not necessarily this you know seemingly monster corporation or
something like that exactly know a lot of my colleagues ex colleagues I know a
lot of people who are looking to exit the business or maybe they've already
have I really do feel like those skills are transferable into the online video
space where do you see opportunities for people with like a background like mine
or someone who was a news photographer or like a TV reporter great question
yeah I would say number one I would say that the
Vantage there is for most of your colleagues you probably you already have
great communication skills which the funny thing about like online video is
really just a medium online video itself is not a means to an end
it's the bridge between you and the end consumer that is visual audible and you
can just get across any message you want whether you're updating people in the
news teaching people about sewing helping people find cameras so you
already greater communication crafting stories crafting headlines
those are huge skills for things like YouTube because you want things to be
provocative the same way as you think about trying to hook viewers attention
as you do a treatment on a journalist piece is you wanted to hook viewers
attention no matter what kind of content you put on YouTube so all of those
skills are very very transferable I would say hard skills and soft skills
hard skills like learning even just camera operation or switching and things
like that and then soft skills like even just EQ and spotting trends and all
those types of things on the flip side though I would say that there's also
things that people would probably want to unlearn one person to study is Will
Smith who has recently kind of gone all-in on digital he's vlogging on
YouTube and things like that but what's interesting is other celebrities people
who've already had influence and credibility and already known have
actually tried to transfer to digital unsuccessfully and I think the reason
why is because again they bring the old ways into the new platform so I think
you want to bring a lot of skills along with you but you also want to unlearn
and and now learn the skills needed to thrive say on YouTube in particular the
same would be true for Facebook watch I think that's a big opportunity for
people Facebook really wants to compete with YouTube as does Amazon everyone's
in this land grab for attention and as does Netflix and Hulu everybody wants to
be the media outlet now the Disney subscription channel people are trying
to get the attention of the end consumer and so I think learning the new skills
the new you know if good or bad Phil DeFranco breaks a
lot of rules compared for you know traditional media and even maybe
journalistic best practices but on the same side I think everybody listening
should study Phil DeFranco because he's got the eyeballs didn't no matter what
you say about him he's got the attention and yeah something that a lot of people
haven't been able to figure out 100% and also study his show format study his
style you might critique that he's sitting in kind of maybe a seemingly
more immature type of an environment compared to a traditional newsroom but
that's creating a bridge same thing people are paying attention to Joe Rogan
and he doesn't look fancy in his in a studio the way it's built out but then
also what's the content format it what story Phil DeFranco everything about his
show is intentional the order of what stories he chooses where he does serious
and less serious content his call to action to start a conversation to get
the audience engaging in the comments so for anybody wanting to pivot into this
space and potentially build something in this space I would want people to go on
a journey of saying what are the new rules of success what's different about
this what's the same can I bring over but what do I need to unlearn so that I
can actually thrive on this channel and circling back to Will Smith other
celebrities have tried to transition to vlogs but it's working because he's
learned the new rules he's being himself he's letting go of where there's a block
for a lot of people is there's over polish in traditional media movies are
polished traditional news is very polished I think that it doesn't mean
you can't be professional but if you're overly polished that's not something
that's winning online or even really offline lately the new generation
generations more skeptical we want more authenticity we want more we want more
relatability without having to sacrifice sacrifice being professional you can
still kind of step into this new arena but it takes new nuances of skills
branding and positioning well let's let's talk about you to specific skills
you obviously are a wealth of information about YouTube and I've
learned so much from you can you share with people
maybe just learning about YouTube for the first time what are some skills they
need to translate into YouTube what do they need to know I think one of the
first things you want to think about on YouTube is always get in mind if you're
gonna start on YouTube you want to answer two questions who is your target
audience and then what is your value proposition to that audience so and you
want to have a lot of clarity on who your target audience is so what age are
they where are they watching from what are they interested in if there are
let's talk about your channel you have this the X media producer so you're
speaking to people interested in this space you're speaking to people that
have had a past in the media you probably know the age demographics you
probably don't have a lot of 13-year old people that are wanting to watch this
channel things like that that you know that that's important because you want
to know who you're speaking to and I think that a mistake in a mental block
probably of traditional media is having a shotgun approach in media a very wide
approach to try to reach the masses of this large crowd viewing television the
difference is to really win online you want a much more narrow laser-like
approach who is the specific group of people and where people are winning is
the world is so tribal now and it's much more fragmented than ever before so I
think there's a lot of opportunity again if we were to stay in news to realize
that obviously there's in our normal news channel as we know that there's
usually bias even though they would all say there's not biased whether that's a
certain political party a certain background or demographic
even Phil DeFranco well he attracts outside of an initial group he is very
adherent to he uses language that would alienate some audiences he uses his
personality would alienate some audiences but he's getting millions of
views per daily epic episode so clearly it's working of him speaking to a kind
of like you would maybe say a younger or even kind of a millennial that's sort of
tech thinking that's kind of a gamer his audience hates the mainstream media I
can tell from the comments which they don't trust they don't trust
outlets like CNN which is great because here's he knows his lane he knows who
he's speaking to there's seven billion people on the planet Earth and there's
about three to four billion of them online and so even with the million to
two million that watched per day when he uploads a video he's still only
targeting a very small group of similar minded people I would say for those
listening if you want to win on YouTube who is the very specific audience that
you want to reach if you want to win on YouTube you want to start small to get
big you don't want to think about trying to market your messaging and try and
reach everybody if you try and reach everybody you end up reaching nobody and
then on top of that what is your value proposition to them how are you going to
consistently deliver on a promise that they would care about so as a Phil
DeFranco watcher myself he knows that five days a week he's putting out these
shows that as you've seen kind of aggregate what's happening in the news
but even his segments of this today in awesome where he'll mention the latest
trailers that are out it's kind of like his own micro enews segments in a way
right in the middle of his serious news show these segments though are things
where I'm thinking maybe there's a new trailer I want to see maybe there's a
new Netflix show I trust him as as his opinions or at least I am interested in
recommendations he might give that I wouldn't hear about he has crafted a
show that then people can come back and they expect it I find myself repeating
his phrases you know it's kind of like using the word garbage person because he
I'm like such a garbage like he's created his own lingo he's craters on
lingual his own lingo lingo his own kind of framework for his show so that's what
I recommend for people he knows who he's talking to his target audience and he
has a predictable value that predictable value proposition where he would even
articulate that to you know on Fridays he goes our typical show on Monday
through Friday we cover the main news stories on Friday we catch up on ones
that were less popular or requested so he just dialed in his own framework I
think that's the starting point for those that would want to venture into
YouTube is to really think about what audience they want to reach
maybe it's completely conservative that's a good starting point layer down
a little bit deeper than that now what kind of stories which you may
be covered if we're talking about news who's the audience you want to reach and
then how can you show up consistently with a show videos that would add value
to that audience that's the starting point for sure exactly no I do want to
talk about some of the logistics for YouTube when I first started out I
didn't know what the algorithm was and I also didn't realize that no matter how
much time you spend working on the video itself the other stuff matters the way
you upload matters you taught me all about doing tags and I think the one
message I would get across to beginners is that besides just the content you
need to go really hardcore on your thumbnail your title that description
and those tags can you talk about some of the importance of these aspects
because like obviously you've figured out what works absolutely and and some
of these things are for even traditional media stations that have websites they
have they know the importance of you know headlines that click-through rate
you know trying to set at times be sensational or overly sensational
intentionally because they need page views they want clicks a lot of the
traditional media companies have you know banner advertising on their
websites but actually all those best practices are very important one of the
things we learned from Phil DeFranco - that's interesting is he actually always
is trying to find the story that is the most if you will sensational tantalizing
and kind of even crossover you know it's kind of like gossip and say the
Kardashians or say you know whatever is the that most news not even newsworthy
but you know sometimes it's bottom-of-the-barrel advertising but
even in other news stations know that it's like the thing that's gonna get the
most people in and then typically then he might talk about tax reform a little
bit later in the show but he really understands culture and that's when it
comes to the title the thumbnail you want to think about he also understands
that with anyone YouTube video this is a big distinction about YouTube you can't
really communicate more than one thing as far as to hook people in if you try
to say here's the three things we're covering in this one video it's hard to
put three things in one tie you can do it twos better ones even
better it's hard to put three different things in a thumbnail the thumbnails not
that big so understanding kind of the whole process of hooking in a viewer by
getting their attention with again knowing about since the things being a
little sensational well you could still be true to journalistic principle and
still true to what people might want to hear about but also understanding that
what do we know you know we know things like sex cells we know things like you
know especially in politics right now a lot of news around Donald Trump or
whatever is happening those things sell right those get people's attention but
then you also can build a bridge to other things and so studying that out
when it comes to thumbnails titles and then the other big fact to know is that
YouTube's a search engine and where a lot of opportunity for discoverability
is is by being fast your audience definitely knows the importance of speed
when it comes to jumping on stories but YouTube is this huge opportunity for
positioning your content to ride the waves of where Internet traffic is going
tools like Google Trends tools like looking at websites with just how much
what are the the top stories that are surfacing and if you can execute quick
on things like that and and again I'm speaking a lot to the
news side of things but even I'm in tech so as new cameras come out or as hot new
announcements are released about certain technology things I realize if I jump on
those first that gives me a huge opportunity of discoverability not just
adding value by being quick with the story to people who already know me but
also reaching new people while riding the waves of the buzz of that trend and
so again if a thumbnail is speaking to what people are talking about what's hot
right now what's hot that day what's happening in your niche a title that
ties into that and then using tags to position and as people are going to
search for something really getting discovered while people are inquiring
about that topic and I thought one thing I would like to touch on too is is that
doing YouTube is not like a get-rich-quick thing
it's something like you you've said before it's much like a it's like a
marathon it's not a sprint and I think when people are starting out in YouTube
you don't realize how long it will take to build a successful channel most of
the channels that are out there that are successful lots of them didn't have
viral videos they didn't have like that one video that popped and they got a
million subscribers it's more a process of you may get a few thousand
subscribers per week and just you keep building on that would you say that's
true I totally agree and there's a phrase on my wall over here that says
slow and steady wins talking about the analogy of The Tortoise and the hare and
I do think there's an allure of of viral videos and I feel like if you just are
committed to the process and committed to best practices your chance of going
viral is is likely if you do it long enough if you just are always doing best
practices and always trying to spot trends but always trying to be faithful
to consistent valuable content you never want to sell out for a short term
clickbait wins because that can hurt your long-term reputation and brand so I
would never encourage people to make short-term decisions but you can make
smart decisions in your content and whatnot and and potentially you want to
build your reputation over time but you're totally right it's kind of true
about anything like great things take time
it took CNN a long time to build CNN I mean you think about that you know any
of these things what's stunning is that if anybody listening if we can catch
this vision and catch a long-term perspective the chance again you're
talking to a guy who comes from a small town who just has no formal media
training who has no connections in Hollywood or LA who just grew up with
nobody in the media that was acting or where there were on-camera personalities
in my family whatsoever and have built this media company where even now I'm
coming to you from a home office in Las Vegas we're changing another bedroom in
our house to be another podcasting video recording studio we're expanding the
team but like from scratch we are a media company do you feel like that
almost helped you coming from a better from a different sort of background you
maybe give you gave you a unique perspective and also you haven't been
affected by you know what's the norm I guess I don't
know maybe that's been good for you I think so absolutely and I think part of
it is it sort of ties into my personality which is maybe being a
little bit more scrappy I think I take a lot of you know healthy pride in the
fact that wow what a world we live in you know 20 years ago this wasn't even
possible 20 years ago I would have to be getting a salary somewhere if I wanted
to be in this space I love video I love being a part of video architecting video
the digital strategy planning I love doing this but to be able to do this on
our own and completely blaze your own path that is absolutely incredible and
so but yeah back to those best practices I think thumbnails titles description
mastering the YouTube basics and that's also why we that's what we help people
do there's so much to learn just like you went through many years of
school and there's a lot to learn and just like anybody as they work for their
company know there's lots to learn and you learn things as you go this is kind
of a new world you don't learn it overnight that's one
reason why it takes a while I think that it could be a much shorter climb if you
went in with a full the full clarity on a map a blueprint and etc but typically
we don't have that because we're also pioneering however you know that's all
that's what video on Academy is about that's what our course is about I like
to say some of our trainings they can't they're never produce overnight success
things always take time however what took me 10 years I believe that our
training could shave 75% off of people's learning curve but that would still be
two and a half years of maybe starting and getting to a place where things are
generating and moving that's still a pretty big window of time I would never
want people to think that you get to step out do this and then boom it
happens they're just like any small business right what do they say small
business it takes 16 to 24 months to even be profitable or longer it takes a
lot of businesses take the first twos they call them the terrible twos you
know you start your bootstrapping you get into the terrible twos then things
kind of balance out it's not until you're five and some businesses that
there's a level of stability and that the founder can sort of take some time
off because systems and team are installed so you
in our business we've grown very fast our revenues grow very fast we're about
two years into it and it's still crazy we're still pioneering I think that
spirit I really want to convey that kept people as they go into this it is kind
of the Wild West you sort of want to pull out that machete if you will and
chop your way through the jungle my friend Michael Stelzner has the
social media examiner podcast and he says helping you navigating the social
media jungle because this is a new world you know you don't go to a university to
get social media education it can't keep up with the speed of how the industry is
changing you can't like something you learn in a textbook is gonna be
completely outdated well I want to ask you Sean how long was it what from the
time you started YouTube until you were able to make it your your quote-unquote
like full-time job that's a great question and I think it can paint a
reality of how other people could follow this there's different paths I like I
said I started in 2007 hands-on and this is the opportunity of maybe dabbling a
little helping somebody else I was managing my Trish's channel but I was
learning so I was learning in that process
it wasn't until 2009-10 that I started a couple of my own channels but I still
had full-time job I was a marketing director for an organization so I was
building it on the side and I would encourage people listening you can build
your dream job yeah why you got a day job and what was nice about that is I
don't think sometimes people compartmentalize too much meaning they
gather information they watch videos they listen to your show they get ideas
they get dreams but they don't execute on anything and they just stay in their
current reality hoping that they'll someday be a jump off point and then
they can go all-in I found that that doesn't really exist that you kind of
got to build both and there's something about having time to build it so here's
what I mean I started think media in 2010 and I just dabbled on it I also
didn't have a lot of clarity about my branding my niche my positioning but I'm
so glad I was uploading videos experimenting I was kind of wandering at
first but the vision got clearer over time so 2015 think media was at about 16
thousand subscribers I'm so glad that I dabbled cuz that's so a lot yeah
it's not there's so much more since then but and had I not had that first kind of
few years now mind you if I put all my energy and focus into it sooner it
probably would have grown I could have got there faster but again I was
dabbling it was kind of a side backburner project but then October 2015
I was doing freelance work so our income 80 to 90% of our income was from three
clients that I was doing social media for a little bit of YouTube channel
management you know some Facebook ads just doing some digital marketing for
people and in one month I had all three clients fire me one week once a week for
three weeks in a row and it's just my wife and I at the time I would say we
were solopreneurs there's three seasons there's the side hustle season that's
when you've got that full-time job but you're building it on the side there's
the solopreneur season where now you're full-time but you don't have help and so
you're like you're still crazy because you're trying to juggle everything by
yourself and then there's the scale season which we're in now where not only
are you full-time on your own as an entrepreneur but you're scaling with
other people and with leverage of tools and paid ads so solopreneur season we go
all-in sixteen thousand subscribers it's
November first all the clients fired us we lost our income we're freaking out
but we go all-in and so now I put 40 to 50 to 60 hours a week end for those two
months and between November 2015 and January 1st 2016 went all in and we do
affiliate marketing and YouTube is one of the big ways originally we made
income and by that that beginning of 2016 we had replaced that income so in
two months and we've gotten from sixteen thousand to twenty thousand subscribers
so not a ton of growth but that was enough of a base from YouTube and
affiliate marketing to go full-time and I mean real numbers that we have started
generating about 5k a month on Amazon Associates Program through reviewing
cameras helping people with lighting helping people with tech for video
creation and then from there we just started to scale so again at that time
about 60 K here YouTube ads was another 5 to 10 K and you live in a day
relatively small channel - so you don't need like I know you've talked about
this board you do not need a huge following to generate a real income
especially if you kind of wrap a business model around it and you know
how your monetization your income will come and then from there was all in and
we could focus completely on building our influence online and today we're at
something like four hundred and sixty thousand so from anyway first 2016 20 K
- you know mid 28th or first quarter 2018 and things have grown by about four
hundred and forty thousand subscribers that's amazing and that was an
exponential tipping point but we've also interviewed over a hundred video
influencers people who do this full-time and in different niches and different
backgrounds and a lot of them again have had those years where you're not seeing
a ton of results in a ton of growth half because of it takes while to build
momentum and also half because they're usually developmental you're still
honing your craft you're still working on your stuff so you haven't hit your
magic moment yet even in clarity of your own messaging understanding of the tools
so that's why I encourage people you just gotta start start cuz like you
learn as you go and you can then add skills but then we hit that tipping
point if you will and where things took off and it was sort of the synergy of
everything the timing our skills my skills the ability to focus full time
and then it just boom has been growing since then that's incredible and again
you've talked about this you can have a small channel and you could make a
decent income on it so you don't necessarily need a million subscribers
or like a Jake Paul like following if you're doing what you if you're doing
some of the things that you did I totally agree and and I also think yeah
there's a huge middle of the market that is not talked about so most people talk
about it Jake Paul Logan Paul even a Phil DeFranco and at the numbers they're
making as far as views as far as income it's it's it's multiple seven figures
like they're there in like the stratosphere but what people think is
it's not an all or nothing on YouTube thing and it's not about just the haves
and the have-nots the longtail in the middle there it's is there's so many
people who could make a six-figure income but
forget that there's a lot of people who could make 80k 70k or even say an extra
10 K more than anyone k year yeah by doing maybe just something around a
hobby and where you fall in love with it you build your influence you share your
voice with the world you enjoy what you're doing but you also supplement
your supplement your income with an extra 30 K a year that reality is so
much more real than people realize it really is no I want to talk about money
you lay this out in some of your videos and I'll link your channels below
obviously but what are some of the ways that people actually make money from
YouTube outside the ads so a couple of ways so the first way I did it I
mentioned affiliate marketing but to be a little more specific I started to just
do random videos one of the first ones was called gift ideas for him so if
someone goes to the search bar it's on my channel just that's just my name and
again I didn't have clarity of like a brand or a focus channel but I had an
understanding that YouTube is a search engine so if you go to the YouTube
search bar and type in gift ideas for him that video shows up in like the top
maybe fourth spot we call that ranking and it has almost a million views so
what happens is somebody that's shopping for a husband a father a brother a
boyfriend goes to YouTube types in something that video shows up on the
other side so it keeps getting views now Jennifer that video is about five six
years old and people watch it every day in fact people watch it every hour
looking for gift ideas a bit totally right and so you made the video once but
yet it keeps working for you on autopilot and I talked about headphones
and a couple book recommendations and a couple other gift ideas for men in
people's lives isn't it - I think yeah my dogs in there running around jumping
on and off the couch and in the description of the YouTube and I let
people know in the video I just say hey if you want to check out any of the
items I'm talking about there's links in the description below and if someone
clicks on one of those links goes over to Amazon and makes a purchase I get a
commission that's called affiliate marketing and what's cool
about affiliate marketing would be again on your sewing channel and I know you
know being a part of our program and whatnot
but if you talk about the top three budget sewing machines you can then give
people an option to click on you know any one of those and then you make a
percentage of that sale for YouTube ads which as you said in addition to ads a
lot of times for every a thousand views you're only gonna make between one to
two dollars so a thousand people watch your video which is a lot of people you
only make two bucks that's not gonna pay the rent anytime soon but if a thousand
people of a target audience that's literally trying to decide what sewing
machine they're gonna buy you they stop on your video and they see your tips and
you you say don't get this one cuz here's why and they're like whoa
Jennifer to save me mayo for making a horrible mistake wasting my money I'm
gonna follow her recommendation they click that link if the sewing machine is
a hundred dollars even you would make four dollars off of four percent
commission and maybe the commission could be as high as ten percent now
you're gonna make ten dollars so think about that you get one to two
dollars off a thousand views but if a thousand people watch that video and ten
people bought a sewing machine at a ten dollar Commission you make a hundred
dollars off those same amount of views so that's a hundred X higher than that
$1 you made from YouTube ads but you could have both on so now you have
YouTube ads now you also have affiliate marketing happening but then you also
could do things like brand deals and I know you've already started to do this
as well so now when you have this focused sewing channel and this is why
we go all the way back to why you want to have a target audience and a target
value proposition that's specific when you can say hey people who want to learn
sewing watch me now companies that make thread and accessories and machines and
even storage stuff they want to work with influencers the buzzword here is
influencer marketing it's growing like crazy and mainstream brands are
realizing this is how you get your message out to the world is through
these influencers because this is where trust is going people are following
influencers to learn about sewing gardening how to balance your checkbook
dating and relationships tech everything you could think about people reviewing
the Walking Dead or the latest Game of Thrones episode or people commentating
on sports influencers and to you now you can do
brand deals that's a third way of working with companies and companies
paying you or giving you free stuff and so that's another income stream and we
talked about ten we could talk about more if you want but that's a couple but
yeah and I'll link to some of Sean's videos about making money on YouTube I
know you've you've talked about this extensively and it's really helped me
and a lot of other people too but you don't just make money on and my CPM is
actually pretty high for most channels I think my CPM is like six to seven
dollars as is mine yeah someone that NAR like really my I'm only you're making
more than me and I've got like three times subscribers so it also depends on
what your content is like you and I both make pretty family-friendly content
which I think makes a difference and we do a lot of product based stuff and also
because it's specific so I have friends who they're kind of like vloggers so
people watch their daily life but it's just general so that audience is good if
it's large yeah but you don't really know where
their mindset is not necessarily everyone in that audience would be
interested in learning about cameras but if someone comes to think media they
know that the whole audience is very targeted for learning about cameras that
will drive your CPM up because advertisers know exactly what they're
getting as opposed to just blasting their ads randomly maybe or maybe not
the viewer be interested your so the sewing report couldn't be clearer it's
you're either into sewing or you're not but that is an incredibly powerful
positioning for you because advertisers can know they're getting in front of a
very specific audience and one other I'd mention of viewers and listeners to this
is also crowdfunding because talking about the middlemen being gone it's
stunning that people who are building their influence who are especially
authentic honest you know building a tribe building the reputation becoming
the go-to source for some type of information again Phil DeFranco is built
a loyal audience because he's consistently himself you know what you
know his messaging you know where he stands and people know what they're
gonna get and who they're following and because of the value he adds to a
particular group of people he started something called DeFranco elite where
people that just say look I will support you at five
dollars a month the same way as I would subscribe to a newspaper the same way as
I would pay to subscribe maybe to a financial report I will subscribe to
somebody who adds consistent value to my life that takes time to build coz you
always got to build your tribe first your audience first but for those
listening if they they might think well I don't want to review products and do
affiliate marketing I don't want to be pushing anything at all well if you're
just sharing information or you're just sharing your voice you're just sharing
motivation you can still build a tribe and what's cool is if you think about it
there's a great article you suggest people look up on Google it's called a
thousand true fans and it's written by Kevin Kelly and it's one of the most
important articles kind of in this influencer space that we're talking
about how people can take and build a business life and income on their own
terms and it just breaks down the math to say if you have a thousand true fans
maybe more than a thousand subscribers maybe more than a thousand people on
your email list maybe you have 10,000 people subscribe to your channel but if
a thousand people love you care about you want to support what
you're doing let's say you created your you know a custom t-shirt once a quarter
and you had a thousand true fans well if you've sold out a via thousand shirts
you made at twenty dollars a shirt that would be twenty thousand dollars if you
release one shirt a quarter that would be eighty thousand dollars a year if you
put out that's that's a thousand people better willing to invest 20 dollars in
you every three months in a shirt now put that into subscription model if a
thousand people are willing to subscribe to your content on a monthly basis it's
just five dollars that would be five thousand dollars that's real yeah and
that would be 60 grand a year in a monthly continuity support basis
individuals who only pay five but only a thousand people and I feel like that
helps us because we it's like that's not a million subscribers it's not a hundred
thousand people but a and then you can do brand deals on top of that so if you
had crowdfunding installed with support there every once in a while when
relevant you're doing affiliate marketing at times you're connecting
with brands and sponsorships you also do have YouTube ads going and your CPM is
higher because you have a focus nice I hope these kinds have caught this
conversations helping people be like well that's how the math works out yeah
it could be practical to generate twenty five fifty 100k a year and even beyond
that by doing these different income streams and stacking them together in a
strategic way exactly and and that is something that I think you know people
and asking questions like you know how do you make money this is this is how
you make money and again you don't need a huge audience you can have a small
very targeted audience and that's what you that's really what you did to to
start you know again a lot of people I think I've talked a lot of people about
how they found you and it was usually from some sort of product review you did
and then I was like I went onto your channel I was like oh he also talks
about you to being someone to check him out for this and before I knew it I was
a full blown fan so clearly your method works for me and so I want to switch
over a little bit and talk about I've written about this a little bit is the
You Tube community versus the traditional media industry um you and
I've talked about this a little bit but I from my perspective I feel like a lot
of my media industry peers do not understand them YouTube community they
may watch some YouTube videos but they're not creators themselves they
again you don't see a lot of I think that's one reason people love
philipdefranco is because he covers online news he covers what's happening
with Jake Paul and with you know PewDiePie or whoever else he covers all
this this stuff so from your perspective as a youtuber what kind of impression do
you get about the traditional media industry yeah I mean it's a great
question I think there's different angles we could go at it I think that
number one you have already said it but I think it's important to know that
YouTube is a community and it's ever growing Susan the CEO announced that
YouTube has over 1.5 billion monthly logged in users watching over an hour of
content a day even on their mobile devices
so that's 1.5 billion users a month that are logged in to some kind of a gmail
account and when they're logged in that means they can subscribe to channels
that means they can comment on videos they can like videos that
right there's a paradigm shift that is that is people who are saying we're
living in an ecosystem YouTube where this community allows you to say I find
an outlet maybe a bootstrapped you know individual created brand or even a
bigger brand you can subscribe to different people's channels takes
someone in traditional media here's a good example of someone who's kind of
doing both it's like Jimmy Kimmel late night their execution on YouTube is
really good they've got their traditional late night execution their
shows but then they also put segments on YouTube and those segments being
humorous sometimes being political being all kinds of different things are very
shareable and they you also notice too even in their execution they're shooting
YouTube native content what I mean is after that clip where Jimmy Kimmel
interview somebody at the end he'll go hey you to make sure you're subscribed
that are like yes subscribe if you know subscribe it's free even if you like
he'll be like subscribe even if you don't like this video it's free anyway
so just do it or something so that's that's the new thinking that's
like that's the is that speaking in the new world and tweaking your content so
that it's appropriate to the platform and so I think that that is knowing
there's a community that can subscribe that's leaning in that wants to share
their opinion after every segment Phil DeFranco says but I'd love to know your
opinion on that do you think this or do you think that let me know in those
comments below it's interactive it's a two-way conversation not just a one-way
conversation pushing out information and you know I think that it's shifting to
where you even put Twitter in there Twitter's a new thing in our culture
where that's where we're not only hearing from so many different that's
where people announce their statement as the president is definitely using
Twitter a lot to share opinions and points of view and and Twitter that's
caught it's showing conversation YouTube's definitely conversation and
new media digital is two-way it's not just that one-way street as it pertains
to that and so um let's keep talking about it I'm not sure what else as a
news the as a news consumer what would you like to see news outlets do more of
like how do you how do you like they can tap in to more of the
online audience that they're clearly not reaching because no one's watching TV
that reminded that remind me of a couple things I think again for maybe more
homework for people watching even looking at say snapchat on the Discovery
feed looking at meaning because news outlets BuzzFeed are having a show there
they're communicating micro stories looking at news stations execution even
some traditional ones Facebook micro stories I think what you want to think
between traditional new is again getting into the shoes of the end consumer
here's some interesting thoughts my wife and I our nightly routine after a busy
day will kind of sit down and we don't turn on the television first or Netflix
or anything else we actually go to youtube first via a Smart TV via the
remote and we pull up subscriptions there's recommended videos and we are
picking content whether it's the shows we want to watch from that are
entertaining but also potentially news suggested videos are happening there and
so I don't know if what I'm saying is making sense but that's it's that's
different that's the end user a millennial generation that is using
smart televisions more than content news is different than an 80 year olds for
sure now do you how do you get your news
mostly so I mostly get my news on mobile ie most to get my news from Twitter from
Phil DeFranco actually and and from YouTube and YouTube has live streaming
as breaking news it's a very obviously tragic and emotional event me being here
in Las Vegas but we had to Las Vegas shooting that was so terrible at the
country music concert months ago and as that was unfolding the the I was
actually watching news coverage of independent outlets meaning like one-man
shows that were streaming on YouTube live while that it was unfolding I was
on my mobile device and those individuals were typically aggregating
articles and they just had whatever their own they were kind of their own
bootstrapping outlets but that's where I was finding
those were they were quickest to cover the content they go
back to speed they were jumping on on those things pulling different if
they're if they're good at it cuz you got to be good right you got to be good
at like fast at pulling your content you want to be not biased or you want to be
you want to build your reputation integrity and I was just discovering
these people in search but I think that sort of speaks to where this new school
potentially is getting news I was following Twitter hashtags and as I was
clicking on those that was micro content native uploads on Twitter different
things that were happening so that's a big shift is is where is attention
shifting it's on mobile screens Smart TVs as well as desktops or tablets and
how is the content being packaged that's different one thing that I would say
would be a big blinder or block for traditional versus new media is
traditional made the rules of this is how long a segment is yeah shows are 30
minutes or they're 28 minutes and 30 seconds with how much ads there are 26
this there's this is what it has to fit into all those rules are broken now
now it just I would say that length is not even a predefined thing
effectiveness is yeah for foreign we were always taught your typical news
packages are a minute 30 no longer typically no longer than that unless it
was like a really big deal and you know your live shot was like maybe a minute
and that's something that I think media outlets are making a mistake with is the
YouTube content they put up is they basically take reporter packages and
throw them up on YouTube there's no context they're not created specifically
for YouTube and they're only a minute 30 long which definitely does not really
help them with the watch time you know maybe maybe the reporter could have done
a really good 5 minute piece and that's something I've been telling my
journalist friends about YouTube is like I've had a few of them they put up to
some YouTube content and it was really like a minute long story I'm like you
know what I would definitely make this not that you have to stretch it out but
at the same time you need to put a little more context into your stories
they don't have to be a minute long and that's something that's very hard to
break because we're so used to being told
that your story can only be a buck 30 exactly you is gonna be like an hour
long and that really gives us a lot more context in time to talk about things
then if this was a news story I would have caught a few 10-minute sound bites
with you and that's all we would hear from Sean kettle and and I always want
to remind people to also test an experiment because that's the thing is
that you can let go of some of the old rules test new formats they also could
work a minute 30 package could potentially
work great but what we have the chance to what is the attention the thinking
the mindset what people are doing on their mobile device when they're on
Twitter and then how do we package our content what we're sharing to be
appropriate for that platform to dress it up right there what could we do over
on Facebook how could live streaming support what we're doing versus Creed on
videos how can we get these videos done captions for instance I mean this is
obviously very known where to put something out traditional we required
caption to be in compliance in the US but there's also a stat that over 80
percent of the videos watched on Facebook any video content there is
actually watched with the sound off it's also a power tip is that we if your
captioning your content you're offering more relevance to not just people who
maybe want to read and watch which half of users and consumers are doing because
it just helps them consume it more they hear and read at the same time or for
everybody who's watching in a board meeting watching on a subway they don't
have their headphones and they can't turn the audio on so we're kind of just
hitting the same theme right of continuing to set set yourself out on a
journey of pioneering putting yourself into the position of a student saying
that you know lifelong leaders are lifelong learners and saying there's a
big revolution happening how can I continue to learn to figure out what
works and what doesn't work on digital and that that definitely letting go of
Dogma letting go of just old mindsets and being willing to challenge
everything and question everything and not with a predetermined by his - that
might rule it out I think that a lot of what we'll see
is so many of the best practices from traditional are not actually invalidated
there there are some of the best things that are gonna work on digital but some
art it's just Dogma about nothing we don't want to be romantic about anything
at all we want to say well there's so much disruption let's be experimenting
finding what works and really learning to leverage new platforms in the best
way possible but understanding it's it's a wild-west type of a thing we need to
be pioneers media pioneers if you will and from your perspective you know if
you had to if you were talking to a journalist who didn't who didn't really
understand the YouTube community like what type of things would you tell them
recommend the first things that they should do to start to understand this
world yes I think that the first thing I would do is put yourself in the shoes of
a viewer so if you don't have a YouTube channel create one crew after you've
created one start to just go to the search bar and see what's out there
just follow your curiosity follow your muse go poke around we mentioned some
homework right watch Phil DeFranco click the subscribe button think about you can
always unsubscribe later but go through the actual steps it's actually funny in
this whole conversation one of the things that can move the needle for most
people is just saturation emergent immersion you need to get immersed in it
in fact reading about it reading the top 10 blogs even watching this listening
these things you can only learn so much it's not until you get in there and you
go oh we have to be practitioners again and we have to be willing to again
that's to challenge those old mindsets but to actually download the app
download the YouTube app subscribe like leave a comment start thinking in that
start watching other content and then continuing to watch some of our channels
you know think media video influencers to think through best practices I did a
coaching call with somebody earlier and they did mention that they took about
six months before they started a great channel that's really starting to take
off they still put themself into a six month learning phase I don't know if it
needs to be that long maybe give yourself a month but for six months and
they were journaling brainstorming getting data getting best practices but
immersion is key that's the word you want to immerse yourself in this world I
think about VidCon I mean for some people they might want to buy a ticket
there's a famous author of the huge podcaster named Tim Ferriss author of
the 4-hour workweek great book that I would highly recommend and we ran into
him though at VidCon which is the youtuber conference it's knowing that
this thing even exists thirty thousand people show up in Anaheim every year to
go to a YouTube conference and to be around their favorite youtubers but Tim
Ferriss was there even though it also is kind of a younger skewed conference why
immersion he goes and we met him he's like I want to be I just kind of want to
know what's up I want to sit in these sessions I want to you know this is just
one piece of content keep going deeper with your stuff you're not subscribed to
the X media producer channel you know subscribe here it takes a ton of
immersion to kind of relearn and rewire our thinking and to see what's happening
maybe register for a VidCon or a playlist live or a vid summit these are
all YouTube conferences total immersion and watching and then be thinking about
how that could apply to what you do I think it's in the process of filling
your mind paying attention to culture paying attention to trends actually
consuming the content but then you could start thinking okay what is my role in
this what could I start what could I launch how could I engage
in this how could i potentially pull what I'm learning into what I'm already
doing how could I maybe try to be a 360-degree leader in my current
organization and influent do some of this or like you discovered there's a
lot of red tape in most organizations how could I exit
how could I jump out and do something else and and make smart moves based on
what you learn from immersing yourself and I and I have to say even YouTube is
such a becoming such a major player if you work as a journalist you need to
know who the major players are even if you're not a YouTube you yourself you
need to know who the top 50 you know 50 to 100 youtubers are because what they
do is becoming more and more relevant every single day even like there's a
what was it what is a six ryan toysreview he makes like 12 million
dollars a year if you don't you need to know about people like that because
again the the celebrities of your generation are not the celebrities of
the new generation the celebrities about the kids are the people on YouTube so
those are the Scarlett Johansson's those are like the you know Liam Neeson's and
like the Tom Hanks like it's not your traditional Hollywood celebrities
anymore and if you're if you're gonna be able to cover this industry you really
need to know who who's in it I totally agree and that speaks to immersion and
then I'd encourage people as they dive in you also probably like wow this is
weird I don't understand that it'll be like that for a while I still don't
understand it it's so crazy like just what's happening but the fact is it is
happening the viewership is now the new stat is over a billion hours of content
is being watched a day on YouTube over a billion hours is being watched that is
that's big impact you know where's the tension going that's something to pay
attention to and there is of course a huge gaming community on YouTube is a
large part of that there is the younger Ryan's toy reviews you mentioned or Jake
Paul or PewDiePie or things that people might say well that's sure that's kind
of that viral video that's what all the kids all the teenagers are doing that
true but also it's aging up and people are looking to YouTube for business
advice entrepreneurial advice news done in a professional way you know education
about everything under the Sun and and even following influencers of all ages
that that people in their 50s 60s and 70s have YouTube channels and have
influence and so some people a great example I just talked to somebody that
was a real estate agent and they said well they knew what I did and they said
you know that's good for you that ship is kind of sailed though it's not
relevant for me or the people I'm reaching and I was like but then I was
like I would challenge that I go if they're not there again if they're not
there like if you test you put out some content you do and you do everything
right but you're you're not reaching the 75 year old target audience that you
have I know I don't want people to be delusional
like you have to test they might not be there yet or in
certain ways but I challenged her I said well really consider that though because
when you look in your numbers even in my audience on think media most of my
audience is between 25 and 45 makes sense they're kind of skewing around my
age but it's crazy when I look and I see 5% or over 60 that are watching think
media of of 2 million views a month that's still a lot of humans watching
content at different ages so that's you kind of go back to some of these themes
you want to challenge everything you want to kind of question everything and
and doubt your assumptions you know you should tell that real estate agent the
most popular video I've ever done was me talking about my house and the house
buying process literally number one video I'm and again this is like the
videos that you think are gonna pop usually aren't the ones that actually do
pop it's usually in my case it's always some video where I'm just randomly
talking about some subject and those are the ones that get the most use my number
one video is almost 170,000 views it's me literally talking about us buying a
forty seven thousand dollar house and I titled it you know we bought and lived
in a forty-seven thousand dollar house and I've been getting tons of real
estate questions so your real estate person there there definitely and those
even those Jake Paul fans now in 20 years they're gonna be buying houses so
exactly even if YouTube is not the platform in 20 years it's gonna be some
other form of this it's not going they're not gonna be watching there
they're not gonna be going back to watching their traditional TV I'm so
glad you said that I'm really glad you said that because
that's the other thing maybe some people hesitate cuz they say well maybe I'm
late to this party and if if something changes if youtube goes away and I start
building now then I'll have missed the boat in twice you know YouTube a change
but I would challenge that you want to dive in and immerse in this space
because even what you learn by just being a practitioner and doing it will
position you to catch the next wave but if you don't learn the skills develop
the thinking you know adopt the mindset and actually test it out as of the
things you could only learn you could never learn from a
Podcast you can never learn from a YouTube video or even from reading a
book the things you can only learn by actually being immersed and doing it and
testing it and trying it are the insights that you can get to them
potentially catch the next big thing or the next pivot so now you're ready when
culture shifts to actually capitalize it maximize that and leverage that
opportunity for yourself when the timings right because there is so much
happening and it's hard to predict where things are going it's completely I don't
know I'm not Nostradamus I can't say what it's all gonna play out but I can
say you want to be in this space you want to be you want to dive in and be
positioning yourself now so that you don't get crushed and destroyed when
things change and you're not ready for it exactly and again it's scary to me
how many of my peers are I don't know if they're in denial but they just they
just have not have not done this a lot of them have not started a YouTube
channel it's funny some of the things that that are that are like best
practices in TV for instance one of the things are jump cuts you never use jump
cuts in TV and then you go to Philip defranco's channel he's all about jump
cuts all these channels are using jump cuts and it's a very successful
technique for them so some things that we've always been taught not to do are
the things that make these channels successful like even little things like
that but you can only know by by doing so even you know even if your channel
doesn't get a million subscribers I think it's still worth trying out still
worth doing I agree well Sean thank you so much for doing
this and I also want to ask about your book you have a book coming out soon if
not by the time you watch this it might already be out but whenever it does come
out I will link it below can you tell us what to expect from this book yes the
book is called YouTube secrets and it's really written based Benji Naik who's
the co-founder of our project video influencers we've interviewed over a
hundred entrepreneurs and youtubers that are doing big things with online video
and YouTube and learn their secrets and learn their so in the book we have case
studies we have stories and we have the best practices of this kind of new wave
of PEEP that are building their influence with
online video and so we go through part one we go through this strategy
it's our seven part framework of the kind of timeless strategy because it's
hard to write a book on like we said by the time it hits a textbook it's
outdated so but the first part of the book is timeless because the framework
the strategy the thinking that you need for this space will outlast the nuances
of a new app update or some kind of a feature change so part one's about the
strategy and then part two of the book is about tactics so that will be some
stuff that's a little less timeless but the book is coming out in about two
months and it'll be the the actionable hacks tricks best practices that people
are using to really grow not just their influence get subscribers and viewers
but also grow their income and so that'll be available yeah if people
follow video influencers on YouTube if you just go to the search bar and type
in video influencers plural you can find that channel there'll be announcements
there and then we'll also of course be announcing it on think media and we're
very excited about launching that book and I think they'll help a lot of people
because again you want to develop a mindset it'll be kind of the framework
of thinking so then you can dive into this industry and execute with best
practices on the actual tactics of what it takes to build your influence with
video and you have a goal right that you want to help people make make online
video their full-time job can you tell us a little bit about that yeah our
team's goal right now is to help 10,000 people go full-time doing what they love
with online video and so that can look different some people already have being
it that they use online video to grow their real estate business
Steve panetta it was a part of the VRA community is crushing it doesn't need a
million views because if he just sells a couple houses a month he's making big
income where there's others like you who've stepped out and gone full-time
and and worked that out with your family you're doing so many report you're doing
this channel and then there's others who are doing it in the faith space or
they're doing they're helping it with network marketing or their traditional
brick-and-mortar business we think that video is relevant for every industry
nonprofit for-profit individual personal and that one you use the strategically
and in the right way that you can leverage that into either again directly
giving you a full-time income or being a marketing channel and a distribution
channel that potentially promotes and distributes and reaches people for some
other kind of business model that you may have that's what we do and between
think media and video influencers that's the mission of those channels is to give
people the information the content the strategies and the tactics to be able to
reach that destination do you know how far along you are in that goal of 10,000
we have about 25 people and so we're gonna set up a yessuf so we're just
getting started but that's actually significant and what we're setting up is
we're working on a website that just has like a forum where people could share
their story because as we mentioned we really want it to be we don't want that
to be just general pie in the sky we're curious about the actual story so we
were working on a website where people could say like kind of fill out kind of
a forum and share their story this is what I did this is how I did it again
your story and how you're in this position where you're in right now is
different what full-time even means is different
for different people so we're kind of honing down that definition but what we
love is when we hear people like yourself who I quit and now I do this
for some full time they already were full-time but they were able to increase
the revenue by 40% once they started a YouTube channel my friend Nick has a
software company software as a service and they were already he's already
building the company but once they installed YouTube into their overall
marketing they were able to drive revenue up 25% which is to the tune of
multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bottom line impact so
that's the another way of looking at it and we're just passionate about it and
maybe you can feel my passion on that that video 100% can move the needle in
different ways for everybody listening especially when they learn how to
leverage it the right way yeah no I feel nothing and and that's one difference i
I've noticed since leaving the media industry is how optimistic this space is
compared to that one you know you've got people that are worried about their jobs
that aren't making a lot of money and you know you always
hear about these you know station buyouts people getting laid off with
lots of experience and then I come over here and there's a lot of money being
dumped in this space it's very hopeful audiences are growing and in fact
YouTube just had that announcement that they're really trying to push local
businesses to advertise by offering them free like they'll produce a commercial
for your business for free if you buy three hundred and fifty dollars worth of
ads so they're really trying to get local businesses to advertise more on
YouTube and offering them that free commercial I think is a great idea so
they're like things are only going towards online video and they're going
away from where it just came from absolutely well Sean thank you so much
for for joining me and Sean also what your social media your social media
handles at Sean candle at every at everywhere right yes Sen candle hard to
spell not not advantageous for finding on social but at see a and and two ends
e ll two L's at the end Sean candle and yeah if people have any
questions I'm active on especially Twitter the other social platforms and
then yeah on YouTube it's definitely a rabbit hole you know video influencers
and think media it's kind of like a free college course there is that free
education that we have induced you know there's probably a good 50 videos people
could watch and if you took a Saturday or a weekend or here and there with a
journal just watching a lot of that free content would be a great first step of
getting immersed in this space and learning the best practices for success
with YouTube in online video yeah I've sent your videos to countless
people who are asking me about YouTube and it's extremely helpful and I for the
record I'm very skeptical about buying stuff online I almost never
especially not things like courses um but my you know when I'd first you know
started watching your stuff I sent you some messages and you actually responded
back so that made me feel a lot more comfortable with you know I'm like hey
he seems like a really good guy a lot of integrity so I went ahead and bought
your class and I've been a very satisfied customer so if you're thinking
about buying Sean's class video ranking Academy definitely definitely go ahead
and do it it's it's totally worth the investment
and I've been I've had a lot of great results since following the things that
Sean teaches so if you're looking for someone to follow online who can teach
you about online video Sean's the guy I love that I'm glad it's been helpful and
I've been impressed I mean you're the cool thing is I could tell that not only
are you a learner and all this information but you're executing right
and you probably realize that because you're doing the work you're putting it
out there while you're also learning the tips that's where the results are and
I'm super impressed by everything that you're doing Jennifer and thank you for
the kind words well thank you so much and this has been another edition of
Ex-TV producer come back for more there'll be more videos like this
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