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Perhaps one of the most common questions I get is, Tim,
I have been working on YouTube for a year or two years,
and my views are just kind of flat.
I'm not really building.
My subscribership isn't going anywhere.
And I'm just kind of feeling frustrated.
I'm going to give you guys a couple different strategies
that you need to implement to really get you past that hump
and onto growth.
That's coming up.
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Hey, guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer.
And it's Thursday, which means it's time for some YouTube Q&A.
Here is an email I got.
And it's a very common question that I've received.
Hi, Tim.
My YouTube audience hasn't been doing so well.
I'm feeling a little frustrated, and I'm about to give up.
What might I be missing on my channel?
We've all felt that frustration before.
I certainly have, so you are not alone.
But I have figured out a couple things that have actually
worked really, really well for me and a lot of the clients
that I work with.
And I've spelled it all out in a step-by-step process here
in this e-book called 30 Days to a Better YouTube Channel.
And in it, I talk about three different strategies
that you need to have.
And I'm going to tell you what those
are, because I think maybe that this can help you.
And there's actually a fourth strategy,
but I'll get to that at the end.
But the first strategy that you need to have is you
need to have a channel strategy, a search and discovery
strategy, an audience development strategy.
And then all of that kind of gets
wrapped up into a video strategy.
Let's start with the channel strategy first.
This is basically where you are looking at your channel,
and you're looking at how it's designed, how it's laid out,
and you're saying, what does this channel need
to do in order to really communicate well with people
who I am, what I'm all about, what value they can expect
to hear from my videos, why should they care about this,
why should they subscribe?
And just by the way you're presenting your channel,
you're answering a lot of those subconscious questions
that people are wondering when they come to your content.
And so in my e-book, 30 Days To a Better YouTube Channel,
I break the channel strategy down to two sections.
One is channel branding.
And that is, how are you presenting yourself?
So that has everything to do from your channel
trailer to your channel icons to your header
image to the sections that you're displaying
and the playlist that you're displaying.
And why are each of those being displayed strategically,
with strategic content in them?
And all that really revolves around, who are you targeting
and what value are you proposing to them and lots of things.
So there's the branding aspect of your channel first.
And then the second part of the channel strategy
is the channel experience.
What are people experiencing when they come to your channel?
And that has to do with things like, how consistently are you
publishing content and is the experience from one video
to the next video pretty similar or is there
a lot of discrepancy?
Or people feel like they're playing Russian roulette
with your videos when they go from one to the next.
It also has to do with, how are you
hooking the viewer to actually feel
enticed to want to watch your videos, and many other things.
So I know we talk a lot about different tips.
[INAUDIBLE] the e-book takes you step-by-step, holds
your hand through, first do this, then do that, think
about this, answer these questions,
now implement that into your channel.
Each day I give you a teaching.
I give you a task that you do, based on that teaching, that
outlines the how and the why behind it.
And then I say, here's what you're going to do.
And then third, it gives you additional resources
that you can dig into if you want
to take that teaching to the next level
and dig into it a little bit more.
And so I do that all throughout the channel strategy section.
And then also heading into the second section
of the 30 days, which is your search and discovery strategy.
Now, optimizing your channel and getting it all tip-top shape,
so it's really stickable and highly subscribable actually
doesn't help you at all if no one's even
finding your content in the first place.
So first section is let's move in.
Let's get this thing all ready to present to the public.
And then after your house is in order,
now let's invite the guests over.
And that's what the search and discovery is partly about.
Now, we talk a lot about the optimization for search.
And we talk about different things like titles and metadata
and tags and descriptions and caption files
and all that kind of stuff that I know a lot of you guys
are familiar with.
But I don't think a lot of us are thinking about,
how do we use these things strategically together?
I think we're just thinking about them
all as these individual little things I've got to do.
But having a strategy means that you're
taking all these little individual things,
and you're actually putting them all together
to work cohesively together as a unit with each other.
So that's the search part.
And then the discovery part is, how are you reaching out?
How are you getting your name out there?
I know a lot of us, again, rattle off some things--
collaborations or seeding your content
to other platforms and blogs and websites, all of which
we've also talked about here in many other videos in the past.
But again, you need to actually put these things all together
and have a cohesive overall strategy for this,
not just do this thing randomly and that thing randomly.
Oh yeah, I've got to do this.
That doesn't work as well.
And then the third strategy you really need to think through
is your audience development strategy.
So you've optimized everything.
Your house is ready.
And then two, you put yourself out there.
You have a strategy for inviting people in.
And then third, it's like once they're there, at your house,
and they've actually found you, how do you keep them there?
How do you get them to have a good time?
And that's what the audience development strategy is all
about.
It's about cultivating that community,
fostering the relationships with the people who
are viewing your content.
And how do you keep engaging with them
so that they keep coming back for more, in terms--
from just being a passive viewer who just found you
one day to actually being a highly engaged raving fan
who loves your stuff and is a valued asset to the community
around your channel?
And then the fourth strategy, which I mentioned,
is the video content strategy.
And a lot of you guys fortunately
probably are already more familiar with that
than you think.
Just the fact that you are uploading a video
to your channel indicates that you
have some sort of idea of strategy.
It might not be a good one, might not be an affective one,
but you are at least thinking about video strategy.
So as you work on those first three strategies,
the video strategies, the thing that encompasses all three
of those and makes it all work together
is one that seamless channel that is highly valuable, very
subscribable, very sticky to people
and is really positioned and designed
to take those passive viewers and turn them
into a fan base that loves your stuff
and is really accepting the message that you
have to share with them.
So maybe this all sounded like it
was one big commercial for the e-book.
But I really do believe that.
This thing, guys, I wrote it, so yeah, I'm biased.
But I really think it's really super valuable for you guys.
For those who are on the email list--
because if you were on there, then
you also read this e-book, my free one, The Secret
to Building Your YouTube Audience.
And that one's kind of like a prerequisite, I think.
You've got to read that one first.
It's free, so you can click there at the link below
to go get it.
And then that kind of really sets up
this e-book, 30 Days to a Better YouTube Channel.
So I would love to hear from you what strategies
do you think are important and how do you implement them
on your content and on your channel to kind of make
this a one cohesive experience rather than lots
of little things that we do on a checklist that might
be independent from each other.
I'd love to hear what advice you guys have.
And the rest of you guys, make sure you go down there
and check out the advice that other people are leaving.
It's always really good.
And if this is your first time here,
I'd love to have you subscribe.
Every Thursday we do questions, just like this, for you guys.
And then on Tuesdays, I do some-- we
look at online video news and talk about the implications
that it has for us as creators, as YouTube is constantly
updating and changing.
And Google is doing stuff all the time,
so we need to keep up with that.
And then also on Wednesdays, I do some YouTube tips
and advice.
I do all those, because I really believe a lot of you
guys have messages that can really change people's lives.
And I want to do everything that I
can to help you guys get your message out
there so that the people who need to hear what you have
to say can find you and connect with you
and want to subscribe to your channel
so they get the value that you are trying to give to them.
So thank you for letting me be a part of that.
Subscribe, and I will see you guys again next week.
Bye.