What Works on YouTube in 2024

what's up everybody it's 2024 and today we're going to be talking about what works on YouTube this year in 2024 and let me just say a few things I've been a content creator since 2008 my name is Benji Travis and I believe that YouTube has gone through different phases different eras but it is still the number one platform for creators um search engine that people use outside of Google obviously but they kind of work together secondly ranking your videos optimizing your videos for ranking is still a strategy that works because people are searching for things and that is probably not going to go away anytime soon but it takes a lot of work and it can take a lot of time third thing Evergreen content the beauty of YouTube is when you put up a video it can be relevant this year next year in some cases a decade later I still have videos I uploaded over 10 years that are still getting views that are still paying me money but this year I believe based off some changes that happened the last 12 months the last few years there's three things I want to talk about that you want to keep your eye on and it's going to help you the beginner Creator be able to get into the game and to potentially you know crack into the space and gain momentum first thing is shorts is still working in 2023 50 billion daily views of shorts if you're not familiar with it this is YouTube shorts the competitor to Tik Tok obviously Tik Tok kind of took the World by storm is a huge part of people's uh daily habits but YouTube shorts it's working and I love it for Discovery I also love it because it's easier for people to create content you're talking 30 seconds 60 seconds easier for you to wrap your brain around that you can use your phone you don't need any other devices or Hardware or software you can do it all on your YouTube app but the one downside about shorts is revenue all the creators were waiting for shorts Revenue so these are the ads that usually pay on normal videos it just wasn't there you have to get so many views that it's just really tough so really shorts is going to be for discoverability for growth for getting that silver play button that gold play button getting an audience but you're going to have to figure out other ways to create Revenue but I'll tell you something this is also Tik tok's problem too they have different Revenue opportunities but one good piece of news for YouTube creators Tik Tok is losing some momentum that is a big deal because one that's showing you that YouTube is still growing because they have long form and I can prove this because Tik Tok is getting into long form content you're talking you can upload 15minute videos I believe they're going to explore even longer videos why would Tik Tok do that they're understanding that it's very difficult to run ads on short form uh content and to pay the creators and they understand the real game is in that long form which leads me to the second thing you want to pay attention to in 2024 long form content so we all know podcasts are a thing Spotify YouTube wherever you listen to your podcast people are listening to one two three hourong conversations but what I'm talking about is long form content of just anything I saw this during the pandemic hourlong videos that had a million plus views you know I've been coaching creators for years and years optimizing their videos suggesting how to edit how to plan out you know the structure so it was very normal to be like hey try to get your video to 2 minutes 3 minutes 4 minutes 5 minutes if you understand in the space in the last decade it's all been about put only what's good for the viewer in the videos well the big change I saw in 2023 videos that were longer relaxed didn't have as much editing and for all of us creators who Lally got became an expert in editing it's almost like oh man it almost seems like unfair but the opportunity especially for a beginner Creator is longer videos are in demand and they're actually easier to create now I don't want to Discount the fact that there is still value in those videos and I'll explain more so definitely subscribe to this channel follow me follow my guest Chris on here

on uh X spaces but the last thing I'll say the reason I know this is a thing a YouTube expert Patty Galloway mentioned in a podcast I listened to that TV viewership of YouTube is growing he's seeing it in his analytics that is so backwards to what I used to say and I used to hear other YouTube experts say about how the world is going to the phone right everybody's watching their videos on their mobile devices well something happened they wanted to just relax sit on the couch get some popcorn and they wanted the option of watching content on their television people have not gotten rid of it in fact some of the kids that didn't have TVs are growing up they're going on Black Friday buying the Samsung the Sony and now they're opening up the YouTube app on there and just ask yourself do you really want to be changing ing videos or picking videos every 1 to 5 minutes no so the videos that are longer are perfectly suited for that TV viewing that is probably one of the biggest little secrets the the little niche types of information that could make the difference between you winning in 2024 and losing in 2024 longer form content not necessarily Spotify like uh podcasts but just longer videos still got to add value third thing kind of on that note vlogging is back now I'm super biased about this because I'm a vlogger but for years I heard so many people saying vlogging is dead this is all the while my wife and I are still vlogging five times a weeks making a living from it our business is based off of it but the reason say vlogging is back a new style of vlogging is back and why I'm excited to uh share this with all of you is because the new style of vlogging is perfectly suited for the beginner not highly produced not add like not all those jump Cuts right though that works obviously on some YouTube videos um especially in shorts but we're seeing long form content in that vlogging style Sam suik is the greatest example I can give right now he's this big you know bodybuilder uh he has a little microphone attached to his shirt he has a camera that's just sitting on the dashboard of his car he's driving to the gym then he gets to the gym he puts it on a tripod and he's like lifting like grunting and then so I just had this random thought you guys 40 50 60 Minute videos that get a million views not all of them but even if it gets 100,000 views just imagine all the ads are running he is making bank that's a vlog Style video that's long form content and it's really a throwback to how YouTube started the reason I believe this is becoming a thing and you guys tell me in the comments and when we get people up um to ask question I would love to hear your thoughts people want to get back to that casual connecting type of content we see this with talking head people um uh creators we obviously see this with podcasters because people not only want to listen to podcast they want to watch the podcasts I think this is something post pandemic too that's become even more important we just want to connect with people and when you have something highly produced really nice cameras really nice lighting and it looks like a production it doesn't connect the way something like this does this is why Clubhouse X spaces even though there's no video there's this connection because it's just C casual it's a conversation and you feel like you're connecting so I believe a new style of vlogging is coming back and going back to the long form a little more relaxed um not as much editing that's another thing too you don't have to be the expert editor but there's definitely things that you want to integrate I'll be sharing all of that in the next few weeks next few months I am back to coaching creators again here on YouTube uh I'll be doing a lot of X spaces but I want to bring in my first guest of 2024 Chris deri let me tell you a little bit about him he started a car auto lighting Channel called fly ride U made a living full-time we're talking he's an OG a decade in the space as a Creator he made the shift to coaching people with his new channel shreditor if you don't know what that is it's an epic term shreditor is basically a shooter editor everything optimizing videos really for YouTube but any platform so he has a new

channel and so I'm excited because now he's focusing not only on coaching content creators coaching people to start creating content but he's focused on web 3 I believe web 3 still is a huge opportunity and there's so much growth if you're listening to this and you're in the crypto scene you're in the nft scene you're just in web 3 right now is like the gold rush and you don't even know it because there's so few creators taking at the high levels it's like 2005 6 and S of YouTube and Chris knows this if you started back then you could lay the foundation for this amazing career this amazing business this amazing lifestyle around what you're passionate about what you love and so Chris without further Ado thank you so much for being on the show uh introduce yourself you know whatever I'm missing and then tell me your thoughts about YouTube and what's important for creators to know in 2024 well dude first off I'm just so excited you're back yeah I'm excited I'm back like listen it was right in the middle of the pandemic most things were still closed down um and Clubhouse was just this thing it was such a fun Outlet to connect with voices and one thing that you said right now that um it definitely makes so much sense in my head is that post pandemic we're interested in a little bit different stuff and mainly the connection and I think that giving us that connection that we had because we had audio even though you know obviously we're talking about video right now but the audio it gave us this connection that I don't think we'd ever had before where you could just take anybody it was like a radio show and then now you're in it now you get to be part of it you don't just listen to it it's not one-sided you're in the conversation and so now I think that has impacted the way that people look at wanting to make content where it's not just one-sided and it's not overly produced and it doesn't make somebody feel detached like they actually get to be a part of it and go along for the ride um dude I'm so excited about the next kind of like the next period of time the next meta for video creators that get to just show up be themselves grow a community um and kind of share their life with other people and invite them into it um because boy is that a better feeling than okay I have 8 seconds before I lose people's attention how many different visuals can I pack in and overwhelm them like how does that have anything to do with who I am as a person yeah nothing yeah and a in a practical um uh piece of advice for people I know a lot of short form creators who became Mega famous and in a lot of ways Mega successful but what they're seeing is it's not sustainable and there's something missing and me being the old fogy right the grandpa of the space they are asking me like Hey how do I get into long form content and now because I just started this experiment where I've been doing food Vlogs on my food channel again and been seen some really healthy numbers there just the long form content is a place to be and I mentioned this during the beginning AdSense do not discount AdSense no pun intended it is important to be able to make a living as a Creator and AdSense can be a major part of that even if it's a minor part of your overall revenue and YouTube is the only place that's been able to do it short form you can't do it and like you said uh Chris A lot of people are kind of tired of that like jump cuty type of content and what I'm telling you is I'm allowing you I'm giving you permission to one be yourself but be the more true authentic version that doesn't seem robotic produced or even like you know in some cases fake and that's what people want and once they like you right which the way people like you is you show up a lot and that connection over a long period of time I think this is what happened with Clubhouse they would just listen to you for hours now this ain't for everybody you've got to have something valuable to say uh you have to be entertaining you got to humorous or you got to be informative educational you know you've got to be you know even if it's just chemistry right if people see that you're having fun in the conversation that's the beginning of long form content and so Chris any other thoughts before we re bring people up for Q& A because I really want to a um answer some questions um but before that why don't you just kind of like um put the icing on the cake here of course Hey listen if any body ever needs somebody who could just talk uh for prolonged

periods of time uh without stopping I'm your guy so I'm always down to talk this is what I would say though on the subject and for the exact audience I see so many awesome people that are here on X spaces which if you don't know it's the newer and continuous version of the audio platform like we used to have on clubhouse now people do that on Twitter and I usually just call it Twitter because let's face it like saying faces is people are like what the hell is that we're talking to our friends on Twitter that's what's happening right now and I could say man there are people that I have listened to for hours here that I've never seen a single piece of content of theirs um outside of uh space I've never seen a long video of them I would be interested to learn more about their life to connect with them like and know what they're about know what it looks like when they start their mornings or throughout their day like super interesting people that have held my attention with audio only of course they can hold my attention with video as well right and so I think there's a massive opportunity for people who have found success on social audio in building an audience there that those people may have never built an audience anywhere else and I'm like now is the time 2024 for being authentic for being yourself and just letting people see more and just continuously putting out that video showing up like they have been on audio uh but now taking that next step and then diversifying so that they're not only on X CU man can I tell you I've seen people build big platforms here and then one second it gets shut down and they've lost contact with their entire audience and they exist nowhere else on the internet and that if you don't think that's vulnerable man that's it's wild fact that people aren't building anywhere else so YouTube I think is always going to be just such a great place to build 100% that one thing I just want to Echo is what you said if you're known on any platform including YouTube or Twitter um and people know you for something they do want more especially if they're a fan and this is why I say vlogging is back people want the behind the scenes they want the extended version now naturally how you uh present that and what you show off and what you share is up to you but this is what I can tell you as a vlogger who's built an audience of over 2 million subscribers through vlogging people just start becoming super fans and they want to know everything about what it is that you think in relation to the theme or the niche that you're part of but everything around it as well they become your friends it's just it's this crazy thing and then long form content is there and then that's where a lot of the opportunities now I don't do this specifically just because we can make money but what I found is because we have done this we can make a lot of money we can have opportuni to make this our lifestyle so hey who's the first person Chris that we want to bring up for a Q& A um and if someone's shy or if they're just shy we have a new over here too running the stream that can also ask a question this is wild for me that to have somebody who's actually doing production as well shout out to my boy Primo he's uh he's my guy that I've been showing the behind the scenes uh when we're doing our live streams as well and like controlling the stage and moving things around it's always nice to have that guy in your corner so uh shout out to Primo but I brought up my boy whiz and uh I'm also gonna bring up my friend Hattie and again we are on X spaces and yeah I want to throw it over to whiz and just say what's up man I saw that you were requesting for a while back I know that you've been super interested in the video content and whiz is actually somebody who's uh pretty close to where I go every Thursday night uh for a really cool Venice Beach that whole thing I was telling you about earlier a really cool live stream production there so um if you anybody here if you have access to IRL events where people are producing live streams or they're doing video stuff and all that just go check it out it could be one of the coolest experiences for you to learn and just Network and meet people that are doing cool stuff so without further Ado whiz my boy welcome to the stage I would love if you have any questions for Benji or myself uh to drop them and you're here on the video influencers live stream as well so what's up my man how you doing yeah hi um thanks for having me on I I'm actually I've been a fan of what you've been doing on the Twitter spaces for quite some time now you've been a regular part of my Twitter space diet which I tend to keep limited the two hours I spend on here to be honest I think you really make it worth my while so I'm really thankful for that and I have two questions actually if I may um

the first one pertains to writing as a medium in format right a lot of what I do is writing the moniker I go by is whis pill and um what I'm doing effectively is discussing the intersection of Arts culture and Tech and I picked that one specifically because I'm sort of in this like mid corner where on one hand I talk to filmmakers on the other singers songwriters basically people from the creative community in general have an interest in my stuff but on the other hand so do the tech people because I've covered CH GPT before I've covered blockchain as well and I'm trying to come up with a better way to synthesize that stuff and convert it into video at some point because I have been told that what I've put down to paper essentially your video essays so I wanted to hear some takes on that if you guys have any Benji dude what's your take on video essays that's a great question yeah well if you think about any format um in terms of video it's just mini essays right taking different forms of course some people tell stories some people tell jokes some people just have interesting conversations that's what all podcasts are if it's interesting if it's informative if somebody gets some kind of value out of it and they're entertained by it can become a video and go on to YouTube you know one of the secret to succeeding on this platform is different is better so if there isn't anything and maybe the reason you've been hesitant to uh pursue this is because it's like so off-the-wall it's not something you've ever seen try it out and you know what there's what do you have to lose you know uh it sounds like you want to tap into the video space tap into YouTube you want to become a Creator Beyond just the writing by the way there writing wrting is still a huge in demand type of thing I was talking to uh a friend of mine who's helping me in the Creator space right now and he was just telling me about a whole bunch of websites that it's just somebody writing since 2001 they're just writing a blog post right but if you turn it into a video and you're reading it it's really ultimately about what is the value in the words do people uh not only get interested but are they curious about every single time you put out something what are you going to say I don't know exactly what it is that you talk about but I think it's totally worth a try the good thing about writing too you can L just read it you write it all out you know before I started this live stream I wrote out my notes you can say look you guys this is my notes on one piece of paper so I'm a writer now and all I did was I took that writing and I put it into this conversation I'm looking at the camera that's the only difference so as a writer you literally have a script now of course I talked about connection and part of connection is having that real life kind of feel to it but I remember one of the most powerful keynote speeches I ever heard in my life was the actual guy from the catchy If You Can movie the one with Leonardo DiCaprio and uh Tom Hanks the kid that was forging checks and then got caught by the FBI and then helped the FBI I actually heard him speak in person at this huge event he read his whole speech and it was it's almost as if I don't think for sure if he is but it's like he was on like on the Spectrum right like maybe didn't have that same kind of personality definitely wasn't like a Leonardo DiCaprio but even in the movie Leonardo kind of played him as kind of like antisocial privately even though he was an extrovert when he was like conning people but he were read everything line for line and I listen to every single word because the story was so fascinating this is post me watching the movie so I already knew what the end was going to be like and we find this all the time with books I love reading books and I used to love reading uh you know fiction books one ones that were you know people's Fantastical stories my favorite was Star Wars when I read the book even though I had watchs of movies the book was even more interesting there's more details there's extended Parts there's stories that weren't in the movie so what I'd say is I'm saying all that to tell you it's absolutely possible not only from my own experience um reading books myself and being fascinated by things I already saw in a movie or watching someone speak and he's literally reading line he's like holding the paper right there and he's a huge keynote speaker probably got paid 100 Grand at a huge convention was that reading line for line and if he did that every single you know week once a week I would be interested if that was

the type of content so that's a long answer to saying just try it just do it you know I 2024 is a year of due do it now not only that you could do it now with a lot of help you want your voice to sound like a I don't know some that like the guy that would read Lord of the Rings to you and you it's got to have that deep kind of British accent or something and like throw it on one of the millions of you know AI kind of like text to audio generators that you could do like I've played around with yeah just like this so you can tell stories with a deep Benji reading uh and to that point um one of the funnest things so we were geeking out earlier with our roadter Pro twos that we could change our voice and do all this fun stuff you could play with that and you could do that on places like Twitter spaces as well uh and play around with it but as far as making video essays a lot of really good examples out there James Janney is one that just does these I mean over the top huge 45 minute 50 minute hour videos um and every second of those videos as you're watching it you were like glued to the screen so I think we we've chatted before with in uh in DMS about James Janney being a good example but I also think that there's something to be said about this long form like uh you reading the thing and you connecting that is always where my heart is at with like you have a face that is going to be it's going to be received better from somebody else um than someone else's face you have a voice that is going to be received differently than someone else's voice we're all unique we all have our own thing so even if you're talking about the same subject literally just you delivering that reading from that paper is going to be different and it's going to attract a different audience than somebody else which means everybody's got a shot like that's not oversaturated it's oh someone else did that so I can't now like you could literally read the same page and it will be different content because it came from you so man I just say the lwh hanging fruit frictions the enemy like just hop on screen read from a page and uh and then go from there because I really think everybody could be making video essays if they're a blogger or um or if they're just going throughout their day on that camera it's Bas it's basically like an audio book at that point right and how many people that love to read actually love Audi books as much if not more so that that's all i' say um did that answer your question whiz I needed to unmute real quick but yes uh it did answer my question although it was more thorough than I expected which is fine right this is kind of what I expected and signed up for and the second question I had for you guys specifically pertains to podcasting quite a significant amount of my material actually includes podcasts because what I've done essentially is that I've created companion pieces that happens to be articles that are directly related to set podcast episodes which of which I have well over a 100 hours now at this point so I have plenty of um backlog content as is already and I'm curious to know any takes you guys have in terms of repurposing that content in the context of YouTube so is it recorded or just written it it's all recorded audio oh recorded audio Yeah you know there's something about novelty people like the new you know and so I it's so tempting because I have a friend that's uh coaching me and business coach and he keeps saying Benji you have 10 years of content you can like repurpose it and do a Blog and a website whatever it's like you know what's interesting I've been testing this out on my food channel I have a video that's a little bit older that I put up because I put it up in a different format it didn't perform as well as I thought even though the initial upload did really well and that's really a vlogging kind of thing vlogging specifically so it's a little bit different than writing but you don't want people to know it's old so what I would do is just re record it I personally think re-recording it today and if they know it's today there's something this and you know what's ironic about all this is the fact that we're on X spaces as well the appeal of spaces of Clubhouse of audio platforms it's happening right now especially in the crypto space Mt space investing space people want to know the information right now I know you're talking about stories at your r or you know like that are Timeless but telling

them now there is something novel about that uh versus just hearing something old now don't get me wrong of course audio books um they do well no matter what and they're recorded once you know my book YouTube seers I recorded it the original one back in 2018 uh the new one just a couple years ago and so people are going to listen to that forever but when it comes to YouTube specifically because I've actually seen this people that did have a lot of content from decades ago even before YouTube and then they just kind of upload it doesn't tend to do as well as content that the viewer thinks at least or knows is in the now like it's from now people want the new it's just like the new car smell everybody loves I personally think you know like I love classic cars but man when you get that new car There's Something About That Smell versus the old classic car that smells like someone smoked in it or you know it's been through a few owners so that's what I would tell you and I think it's a real thing I know because I'm a vlogger that does it daily and there's something about understanding that was uploaded and that was recorded in the last 24 48 hours and people appreciate that and I do believe it applies to your writing and um you know I know that's more work but the one thing that's going to make you better as the video creator is practice practice get your reps in by reading your writing that's right man you don't get you don't benefit from push-ups from reading about them gotta do them that's the worst it's funny because in this Tech space this web 3 space there's a lot of AI people as well uh conversation will AI change everything is there any point blah blah and it's like yes we want to connect with humans I've never watched watch a piece of AI content and said oh my God I want to connect with that robot like that would that'd be the best new friend for because I'm like I know it's not real it's a freaking robot like I don't want to go connect and go out of our way except on the flip side of that you got whiz who's like oh you go to an event that's close to my studio dude let's connect let's actually show up you wouldn't be doing that if you were watching content from a robot but instead you heard a real guy who's showing up on Twitter spaces showing up to IRL events making videos like all these different touch points are why there's that uh that idea of like well maybe I can go get a coffee with this guy or drink a beer whatever it might be um that wouldn't happen that connection wouldn't be made if it was just like you know again the AI reading it for you okay that was ridiculously thorough and I loved it whiz my guy we could have just wrote you another book right there which just those answers but uh I wanted to pass it over to my guy Hattie if he's available um Hattie meet Benji Hattie has seven kids my guy you a run for first for your money I got five kids so uh respect TDY uh what's your question yeah so um I was kind of thinking through it as you were talking but like when you first said you did daily Vlogs that like to me it kind of felt overwhelming like how could you commit to that does that ever feel like a prison sentence to have to do that but then I was thinking like I did YouTube religiously for like two years um I never got any like explosive growth but I think that's I mean I know the reasons why I didn't I mean there's lots of things I could have done better but um for me I put a lot of pressure on myself maybe it's like the perfectionism like I feel like I'm a perfectionist but like whenever you finished a video you felt this huge like feeling of um like you got this momentum right like you felt proud of it and that's kind of what would push you into the next one and I would be excited to start the next project but like how do you my question is get over that perfectionism maybe that's Nots something you struggle with but like I feel like I everything I put out has to be super polished to even have a chance to compete with some of these bigger guys so I was wondering if you could touch more on that 100% uh first off I don't feel like it's a prison sentence and I think that's a difference between uh your perception and my perception it's an opportunity and I know that when I upload my wife uploads when we upload and we do those reps guess what we're getting stronger we're getting better and it shows in our success in our results in our lifestyle perception is going to be key here number one don't look at it as like what you said like a death sentence or prison sentence look at it as an opportunity to grow and to get better and that you're building your foundation you're building your house you're building your Castle secondly perfectionism I believe is a good thing if you use it in the right way you even mentioned there's things

you could have done that would have made your videos better pursue that now I'm definitely not a perfectionist but you know what some of the greatest YouTubers are perfectionists is it a bad thing no I think it's what makes them great they're pursuing the best of the best my wife to a certain degree is a perfectionist it's crazy she can take a 10minute edited video of mine and edit it down I'm not kidding to three minutes she's like this only needs to be three minutes long she's a perfectionist gu she's all about that choppy you know like edited highly produced um kind of almost add type of content not like in an extreme way but I appreciate that but that comes because she's edited 4,000 videos so I would embrace your perfectionism use it the right way but also give yourself permission that say it's not still upload it cuz I'll tell you I uploaded 30 food Vlogs in 30 days none of them were perfect definitely not perfect but am I glad I uploaded them yes CU they got a lot of views and they made me some money and I was able to connect with an audience the most important thing grow my audience I was going n netive before I did the 30 uh Vlogs now I'm positive I'm going to keep this up so I think that both the perception of you know what it is that you're doing and what it's going to require as well as the perception of perfection being a good thing versus the bad thing I think is where you start and you know when I hear your story about like oh I was in it for two years and have explosive growth I know it's so cliche but we see that little image of the two guys digging the gold mine and that gold being right at the edge of the two years and there's one person that turns around and gets out of the mind and then the other person that goes a little bit further that is how YouTube works that is how life works and it is something you know we talk about in this book by the way if you're listening and you want the new textbook for how to crush on YouTube Secrets this is our second edition we've sold over a 100,000 copies and we just wrote the better version of it which is bigger than the last version so it's relevant buy it but in there we mentioned this our kind of our last thoughts is that you would find something that you love so much that you would live your life no matter what the outcome was and not quit because it's something you're so passionate about that is my secret that is our secret to sustaining daily Vlogs it used to be 7 days a week and we thought hey let's get a weekend in so now it's 5 days right and we don't foresee ourselves stopping it and we don't look at as a negative because we love that it's a documentary of our life it's a daily diary for my wife and then we can live our life that's for me personally by the way I'm not suggesting everybody become a daily vlogger when I talk about vlogging as back there's ways to Vlog where you only can do it one or two weeks those videos I mentioned that are an hour long that have a million views they're not doing that every single day in fact they're doing it once a week once every other week so there's things that you're going to learn in time but this is a huge opportunity and most people are going to miss it and they're going to regret it 10 years from now ask yourself this do you want to be that person that regrets that you didn't start today because it was too hard or you're your you're fearful or you're like worried about what other people thought or do you want to be the person 10 years from now that looks back and like thank God I started in January of 2024 even if it was slow difficult even if it was like you know I could have maybe relaxed and enjoyed life a little bit more cuz I'll tell you all the hustle all the hard work all the stress Blood Sweat and Tears 100% worth it and I mean like I don't really share a lot about my life in terms of the finances or you know like the flashy things and Chris knows I'm not a flashy guy right I love Corvettes again I'm an old man right I don't have one but I love the life we live because we're free to do what we want with who we want and for me personally my passion is food I don't think about how much I spend for food and that's all a result of what we've done on YouTube on social media and the videos that we created and I hope for you and for

anybody listening that's thinking about it that you can have that life too whatever that it's going to revolve around but if you haven't started it starts a day if you have started and you haven't got traction keep going get better improve pursue Perfection and if you are one of those creators who are burnt out man light it up again but find whatever that new light is because I'll tell you my wife is the example there's Evolutions you have to go through you just don't have don't be fearful of It Don't Fear starting from zero even though video influencers I mean it's been going on for years we have certain them you know hundreds of thousands of subscribers I still feel like today is day zero right day one and that's okay it's a good feeling because when you're starting at the beginning there's this motivation like oh I got to work my ass off I got to go back to boot camp I got to learn you know all the new techniques and so hopefully you're hearing the energy and the motivation in my voice because that's what you need to get back into your life because instead of you telling me Oh I tried for two years I want you to be like yeah the last two decades were amazing dude here's something Hattie I gotta just say before you respond and then I want to hear back from you to his point haddie's an amazing artist Haddie has 10,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel Chanel two years like listen that's respect that's amazing it's amazing I've heard Casey nead talk about that the 10K was way harder than the 100K and the 100K was easier uh or was harder than the million and so like to that point somebody like Hattie super talented great on video um and I just it's one of those if there's anybody that we want to reignite and get fired up it is this guy PTY the Creator with seven kids let's go baby okay back over to you hadie well I just want to respond to it I mean I where you said like I'm so grateful I started I feel that way 100% because um doing the YouTube kind of got me because I do like an I did an art Channel and doing that kind of got me being more creative again I was working this soul sucking job in a cubicle to support my family you know seven kids isn't cheap to feed totally but um because I did that it got me like my creative skills sharp and then I kind of pivoted into nfts so I I know for a fact that wouldn't have happened and like I just recently had the honor to draw the collection for Meade death digital which you know is pretty well-known band and stuff and that all came because I did start YouTube so I agree with everything you said 100% I did kind of get deflated with YouTube I'll be honest and I did kind of have like a Family Channel where I did little skits and stuff with my kids and then that whole um ad cut on family channels kind of happened and that kind of deflated me there but um no 100% I'm thrilled I started it opened up so many doors for me um and honestly it's made this last two years a wild ride I love it man dude I'm just super happy that you popped up here and for everybody else that heard that kind of message you know about Hattie and as well as the answers for whiz like I hope there's some similarity or something that you could take from that and apply to your story as well uh we're going to wrap with Joe Photoshop right now um and I'm just grateful for everybody that came up with questions and we're going to keep doing this stuff so when you see me and Benji live again don't hold back to questions don't feel weird uh your questions that you ask may be giving answers to a ton of other people in the space or watching the live stream as well so we always appreciate when people come up with questions but Joe how you doing my man what do you got for me and Benji yo happy Saturday my friends I'm uh I love the space I tons of great information I used to be a video editor and you guys are actually getting me hyped to create video content again so that's uh something I haven't done in a while I turned to graphic design and that's a lot more of where I've sunk my teeth into lately and my question for you guys pertains specifically to thumbnails and how you feel about them and their importance in your content that you're putting out as I'm working with a couple of Brands right now to kind of improve their brand identity through thumbnails and if you had any tips for that I'd love to hear Chris you want to take this or I got some thoughts I one thing really quick uh and you'll appreciate because I'mma tee you up my man so oddly enough one of the best places that I've ever learned about thumbnails was from reading out of a hard book like that doesn't make any sense right it's so visual like we're so we're thinking about things like oh you should watch a tutorial whatever I would say this about thumbnails it's 100% an iny head kind of situation like it's all

about human psychology and understanding like what is it that story is getting somebody interested enough in that they're going to look up and read a little description about that picture and the way that title works with that picture that works with what they're about to see in the first few frames of that video this is all psychology so I would say um if you have the opportunity to get in and read about this stuff from someone who's taken the time and has the receipts who's gone through it and done it and then they pack information into a book like Benji and Sean have done um take that opportunity because I think we find it so easy to learn from people on YouTube that almost like we don't want to go the higher education route crack open a book and actually learn uh some facts right so uh anyway without further Ado Benji tell about thumbnails my yeah you know uh I 100% agree with Chris I think the psychology of the thumbnail is as important if not more important than the graphics part of it because I've seen a amazing thumbnails that had no graphics on it that they didn't even add a t like text or any kind of you know Emoji or did any enhancing and in fact you know you hear this from uh yeah thumbnail you're going to show our thumbnail for okay that ain't fancy in fact NE who herey show yourself NE why don't you say hi what's going on guys how you doing the live he created that with a free you know thumbnail Creator earlier today like five minutes all right yeah but we actually funny enough we did work on it for like 20 minutes right but speaking to what Chris said the psychology cuz remember it's a human looking at the image and what is going to hook their attention and it's just a representation of what's in the video and it doesn't have to be super fancy and if you look at the greatest of all times probably Mr Beast when it comes to thumbnails more and more he's saying make it less fancy right make it more simple he he's trying to really uh tone it down and simplify always has a face in it I think there's something about faces cuz I know this for a fact I learned this from that 30 days of vlogging uh Sprint all the thumbnails that were suggested were almost all including faces or where the eyes were like buggy like this and creators have been doing that so the psychology is one the second part in this uh Joe that's your name right Joe yeah got it um sorry I can't see anything on Twitter's face just right now I would say the fact that you're an editor is a great thing this is why I love what Chris launched which is shreditor his new YouTube channel because everyone should become a shreditor by the way me getting back into the game recording content uploading to YouTube is because I know inherently I need to become that shreditor to a certain degree you have to learn the whole process the best thumbnail will not fix a crappy video but a amazing video will make up for a crappy thumbnail but if it was a good thumbnail and a great video You're Off to the Races now of course title is included so it's all the things it's not just one of the things and Joe this is your uh leverage this is your strength that you were an editor by the way the biggest compliment you paid to me is the fact that you're getting pumped up that you want to edit have fun you know when you're pumped up inspired motivated you're going to have more fun and when you're having more fun anything that you're doing is way more sustainable so that's the last message I want to leave with anybody what Joe said I hope that's happening for you and if it isn't keep listening to these spaces Chris and I we can really talk for hours we're going to try to keep it controlled within 30 and 60 minutes we'll be very practical with the time but that would be the greatest gift we can give to anybody that little spark right help you to keep going and so the reason I say this in relation to what you asked Joe about thumbnails you're going to find the answers it's just going to take a lot of work not just asking people like uh Chris and I but reading the books like he said uh looking at YouTube one of the ways I look at how to make thumbnails better is whatever I want to rank for whatever I'm uh searching that's related to my video idea I look at the other creators thumbnails and I'm asking myself why are these videos one being ranked up high and why are people clicking and what you'll find is

oftentimes the answers you think are uh you know the right ones aren't what is uh you know uh making these videos clickable but it's a combination of all of them the last thing I'll say definitely in regards to thumbnail but more emphasizing the video the reason videos get views The Reason YouTube promotes them or suest them is because they keep them on the platform going back to the first thing I said if you can create a long video that's interesting that's better than 10 shorter videos YouTube just knows it's going to keep you in there now I want to uh correct that a little bit YouTube does love running ads so that's 10 different ads or whatever right they're doing a little Balancing Act but what I'm seeing in 2024 right now is more casual content that's a little easier to produce that is op is still optimized it's integrating all the best practices good title good uh thumbnail a takeaway something that's interesting a topic that people want and the video is high quality but it doesn't have to be highly produced it's just good because it's giving the audience what they want if you do that is the beginning of greatness when it comes to being a Creator and having a successful YouTube channel so um hopefully that answers it and gives you a little bit extra but uh yeah I I do apologize I want to do more of these but uh you know like the previous uh person that asked question I got five kids so I got to get back to those kids I'm going to cook some food I'm actually probably going to do a little food Vlog but uh pump to be here Chris any last things or anything you want to ask me or you know we're going to land the plane here and you guys leave your questions in the comments too um on uh video influencers um so that we can answer him on future broadcasts yeah I mean first off just thanks Benji for uh and neutrally as well like thank you for figuring out I don't know if anybody in xes has realized but we are on a video live stream Benji is using his mic I'm using my mic we don't sound terrible we're not sharing a p like all these things are the best experience that you can have while you're able to come in and learn like a live show so the fact that this is here I'm grateful I get to be part of it I hope everybody else is happy that they're going to get to come in and learn as well with me with Benji and learn from each other and mutually and Ne yeah and you know for all the sound nerds out there you know what we're talking about what we are doing I know this is super nerdy that's actually another thing I want to talk about uh I have a if you follow me on Instagram Benjamin TV I have a broadcast channel called Creator Secrets if you guys want all my secrets I'm going to try to post a lot more but I put in my you know just random thoughts that are relevant for creators one of the things I said was nerd out if you've got something that you're nerdy in people want to hear that going back to the question about writing if it's something that's like super just like the Nerds would just listen for hours and hour that's the type of content YouTube wants and that's the kind of content that viewers want and this is why back in the day on clubhouse people would be nering out for hours and hours and it just takes somebody willing to do that and this is why I believe long- firm content is more relevant why vlogging is back in a certain format around something very nerdy right nerds are winning on YouTube that's one of the things too YouTube made nerds cool okay and I'm Proud To Be A Nerd about YouTube about the Creator economy about being a creator so um you guys thank you so much Chris why don't you just land the plane here your last thought and then uh we'll see you guys next week yeah that's it I'm excited I really do look forward to this I look forward to seeing the kind of content that people start putting onto the platform uh and the last little bit man my kids they watch YouTube on the TV and long content on the TV that's not changing every 10 minutes that is way easier and it's way better for me to watch if I'm cooking dinner or something like that to have the TV on huge opportunities out there for us I hope you guys take part in it I hope you join us on future shows and with that we're going to close down the X space the Twitter space uh and again hey thank you to neut and to Benji for having me as well today yeah peace out everybody see you guys