The Secret to YouTube Shorts and Mistakes to Avoid W/ Jeanelleats #ViShow 73

What's up, influencers? Are you thinking about using YouTube shorts to grow your channel? Well, today I'm going to be interviewing somebody that's crushing it right now. Janelle Eats, food content creator and home cook. Janelle has been uploading to YouTube for years and initially having slow growth. However, she has absolutely blown up in 2021. In fact, through her YouTube shirts, she's gained a hundred million views in a matter of months. Today, I'm going to be interviewing her about what she does to get so many views and her top tips if you're thinking about starting YouTube shorts right now. All that and more coming up on the BI show right now. That's right. Welcome to Video Influencers. My name is Benji Travis. We're helping build your influence, income, impact with online videos. Sean and I started this channel to help you crush it on YouTube. We're also the authors of YouTube Secrets. Pick up a copy, especially on Audible. We've got the audiobook coming up. Um, so you can get that right now and please leave us a review. But without further ado, Janelle, thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to talk about YouTube Shorts. Yeah, thanks for having me, Benji. Yeah. Um, I mean, it's so crazy. I know that YouTube Shorts is all the rage right now, but you're absolutely killing it. Um, but what I think is really interesting is I mentioned how you're just blowing up this year, but really you've gained a 100 million views in just basically two months, which is mindblowing. Now, to be fair, you already had a few million getting started the last few years, but like what a stark difference. So my first

question is this is YouTube shorts overhyped or is it here to stay and why? Uh it's I think you know to be honest I think it's more of like the availability of video making for the masses. So you can see it with Tik Tok with Instagram reels with YouTube shorts. I think there's less of a emphasis on high production type of videos and more authentic style. And I noticed that before when I was making the horizontal uh style videos, people couldn't automatically think, you know, film horizontal. Everyone wanted to film vertical. And I think that moving forward, the social media platforms are trying to cater to that so that more people can come in. Yeah. Uh, obviously Tik Tok being the big one right now. Um, I completely slept on Tik Tok all of 2020. I don't regret it, but man, my life would be completely different. But this is why I'm so excited about YouTube Shorts. And so, let's talk about uh what was the journey like before YouTube Shorts? Um, to be fair, I actually knew about you back in the day because I was watching some of your videos. Uh, but you weren't necessarily doing this full-time yet. you're uploading here and there growing slowly and then out of nowhere like YouTube shorts landed. So what was the journey like? Why did you decide to use YouTube shorts and what has happened since? Sure. So I mean I started this channel so that I could show Filipino food to everybody and I was just doing like what everyone else was doing which is horizontal style videos. I was sharing recipe videos and I was really like in that mold. And actually, I don't know if you know, but I was part of um your course, the video influencers course. So, that really helped me. Yeah. me like get my channel to take off with all the recipes and which is probably the reason why you were able to watch a few of my videos. Um, but I think after a while, especially during co, I saw a lot of my numbers climb, but after a while, I was just like, I don't want to make recipe videos forever. And then I wanted all of my ideas to go onto video, but I just didn't have enough time. Yeah. So, it's also really hard like if you've I mean, you know, you've edited like videos. That's one of the things about recipes, especially if you're not a cook, right? Uh cook and you've never worked in a kitchen or a restaurant, it's like a full-time job. Like you basically are working at the Food Network trying to come up with these recipes on top of recording, on top of editing, on top of coming up with ideas. And so you're kind of uh you've got uh it's a weakness of yours right now. Now, I'm not saying people can't do it, but it's a lot of work. And what I love about short form content, it lets you explore different avenues of food content creation. So, okay, you been you were going on with horizontal videos. Uh you were struggling to come up with ideas or recipes and you really didn't feel like it. Um what was kind of like the next evolution of your content creation? Yeah. So, I think with that I started to dabble into Tik Tok. Uh, I just always felt like, no, I'm not hip enough to be on Tik Tok. So, I was like, okay, maybe let's not. Let's go on Instagram. So, I was doing Instagram reels when it first came out. I was blundering around a lot. Um, but I started to see some traction and this is also in part of I have to I feel like I have to disclose this, but I have a marketing background. So, I used to be a product marketing manager. Got it. And so everything that I was doing plus like taking video influencers, the course that you all had, um I put all this into practice into Instagram reels, trying to hook people in and trying to like get a good title and put up the subtitles so that people know what they're watching because I know the sound is off. And I saw that I was getting a lot of traction. views for somebody who only had like 3,000 followers at that point. I was getting like over hundreds of thousands or like millions of views on Instagram reels. Yeah. But it didn't translate to followers. So I was like, uh, this kind of sucks. And then I took a step back and I was like, why am I doing this in the first place? I started on YouTube. I did Tik Tok. I did Instagram reels. I did all these other things in between. Why am I even doing this in the first place? putting in so much time for what to come out of it, right? Views like that doesn't do much. And so that's when YouTube shorts came along and there was this potential of like making money on YouTube shorts and for me that was what I wanted to do because YouTube I feel like has more of like ever evergreen content and you can monetize on ads and for me that's super important. If I'm putting my time in something I better get some return for it eventually, right? I've been doing this for like years. Yeah, totally. And I think this is one of the reasons why Sean and I we say helping you build your influence and income because that monetization is going to fuel the dream. Uh it's going to keep you going. In fact, uh I don't know if this is something you made public, but recently you went all in on YouTube shorts. You're committed fulltime. This is your full business now, which is awesome. And I'm sure that's affected your growth on YouTube shorts because you have more time to commit to this. Um I'm sure you've freed up so much bandwidth. So like ideas are just coming to you left and right. Um but I think that's really significant. This is one of the reasons Janelle that I love YouTube. It's not just because I've been a YouTuber for 10 years, but what sets YouTube apart from these other platforms is AdSense, right? Is the fact that you can create content. you don't even have to think about the monetization and it just happens. Um but uh so congratulations on that 100 million views in just the last couple months and I know the question everybody wants to know is what was your strategy to make that happen? Um when did you exactly adopt YouTube shorts and what were you doing to gain so many views? because I know that you took a video ranking academy, you helped like rank your videos, but this is a completely different ballgame and to be, you know, transparent, you had way more success with YouTube shorts. So, what are you doing to gain so many views? Uh, okay. So, this I'd like to mention Lisa, by the way. Lisa was a guest here and she has been huge in helping me grow on YouTube shorts and the so the question was what was my strategy? Yeah, what was your strategy? To be honest, it's really like first of all thinking about your audience but at the same time thinking about you and you have to strike a balance of what do I want to share that the audience will also find valuable and not to overthink it. Yeah, it's like a delicate balance between the three of those things. So, uh it's been a lot of like brain dump. Like I have a notion file or notion, I use notion and I have I always enter ideas always like almost every single day and when the inspiration comes later to actually film or take action on it, I have a whole backlog of things and it's really like my strategy is just brain dump and then I think you talked about this too in a club clubhouse room. It was quantity

equals quality. Yeah. And that was really hard to do because I was doing a long form video only once a week and I really had to believe that. It's hard to believe it when you've been told for so long, you know, no, you have to do long form videos. You have to make sure the production's really nice and it's like that insecurity comes up too where I'm like, yeah, I got my seaands, I got my lights, but where's the growth? Right. That's one of the benefits of YouTube shorts is you can do so many of them even if they don't work for you which obviously for you they actually did work for you. you're learning the content creation process um from the ideas that forces you to come up with from the fact that you were recording um to a certain degree you are editing but usually I mean some people that's another question I have for you later what you use to edit um and then posting so to a certain level you are still optimizing for every single post but you can do three five 10 20 a week versus most people are doing one or two you know um uh in that same 7-day period. Massive for experience, massive for learning. Um, so yeah, obviously you're uh brain dumping, you're applying all these to a lot more uploads than you were before. Uh, what were some of the other things that helped you actually gain uh the traction, more traffic, and ultimately views? And, you know, I look back at some of your videos on your library. Some of your YouTube shorts are getting one, two, four, five plus million views per YouTube shorts. So, I know that's the secrets that everybody wants to know. So, what were you applying um to your ideas to get them positioned to get those views? Oo, yes. Okay. So, a big part of it was you have to put a lot of importance on your hook and your title. Yes. So you can tell why is the hook

and title so important for YouTube shorts, right? Uh so you have to look at so okay YouTube shorts or another platform first of all you have to look at what the user experience is like going through it. So for YouTube shorts I noticed that when you're on the platform and you're scrolling or you're finding these videos what's the first thing that you see? the title and then maybe a thumbnail. Yeah. But the thing is YouTube shorts like they pick the thumbnail for you. So, you know, you don't have to think about that one. Yeah. But you do have to think about the title and like why would they want to click it? So, this also applies to like Instagram reslies to Tik Tok, whatever platform, you have to go see what your audience has to go through and what they see first and you have to really capitalize on that and focus on that. And for YouTube shorts, it was the title. Yeah. Um, I was curious. You talked about how you go to these other platforms and you view content. Um, you said how you've got to cater to the viewers, but you have to also honor your own passion, right? Your own ideas. Yes. How much credit would you give to watching other people's content in terms of learning what works? Like how many hours were you spending on Tik Tok, on Instagram reels, and now YouTube shorts that helped benefit you to become this success story on YouTube? Oh man, that was like years that G. And that was just like before. Okay, I have to say like now I don't watch as much because it kind of psyches me out a little bit. You know that whole comparison thing. Um but before that it was kind of necessary. So, you had to like take this all in because I could see other creators that are completely out of touch with how things are presented on these platforms. And I get it. You have to be authentic to yourself and the way you want to present things, but you also have to be mindful of how people are usually watching the content. And if you stick out like a sore thumb, people are just going to swipe away. Um, so yeah, I watched a lot of content creators and now at this point I feel like I've got a good gra um grasp on it and now I could just like fully express myself. That's awesome. Yeah, I uh well my first success story I ever observed with was my wife and the way she got started was probably spending two or three hours watching YouTube videos before she ever, you know, like started her own channel and that was back in 2008. So, you know, what's great about this is and it's an excuse to watch content, right? To be on YouTube, to be on social media, but the the point is make sure when you're watching, you're paying attention to what thumbnails they're using. In this case, not necessarily the uh important uh what are the titles that work for them? And then in your case, what is the hook, right? What is the first like three to five seconds? Um, so that's awesome. I want to get into some really frequently asked questions of YouTube shorts. Um, but before we get into it, is there anything else um that you want to give in terms of tips for creators starting out with YouTube shorts? Yes. And this is not a tactical thing. I would say this is more of like one of those, you know, internal higher level things. It's that you got to accept that it's not going to be good in the beginning and you just got to trust that you will get better. And it's really hard to see that when you're not getting a return yet, especially if you're new. And you really got to trust that this will all be fruitful in a few years or maybe even a few months. Like you just have to trust it and just accept that in the beginning you're going to like mess up a few things, but in the end something's going to come out of it. Something there's always something that's Totally. Now, I actually have a weird question. I notice on your channel you've got 575 total uploads. Okay. Uh let's just uh like ballpark it. How many of those are YouTube shorts would you say that you've uploaded? And since when? Oh. Um, since one like did I How many YouTube shorts? 500 at le I think so like or maybe 400. Okay. So, let's just say that. Okay. Say there's 400 YouTube shorts. How many YouTube shorts did you have to upload before you really noticed traction? Because that's what I'm trying to get to because you said, you know, at first it's not going to be perfect. Um, it's going to be slowgoing for you. How long was that process from when you committed to doing YouTube shorts to the point where like, "Oh this is actually working. " Oh, 18. I would say like about 200 videos. 200. Okay. See, that's crazy, right? Cuz if you've done 400 YouTube shorts, you had to commit to 200 pieces of content. But the second 200 has gained you about a 100red million views. I just want to put that into perspective for people because 200 seems pretty daunting. But I think both with YouTube shorts or even horizontal videos, it's absolutely worth it because it's that second half. It's like the person uh digging in the mine shaft, right? And uh they're trying to find gold. They're digging for years and years and they decide to quit. And then somebody comes in and they're digging, digging, same amount of time, but they wait up like another week or another month and then they hit gold. And that's what you've done in a snapshot. Now, with YouTube shorts, not only is it easier for you to create a lot of content, I feel just the nature of the repetition, it's also easier to have success on it because I mean, could you ever imagine when you were on your 199th video that 200 videos later, you'd have over a 100red million views? Yeah. No. See, that stuff I didn't even think about. And that's the other thing like for people starting out, I just don't look at the analytics. It will really like freak you out. Yeah, just go for it. Like I was just tunnel visioned like, "Okay, just three a day. Make three videos a day because eventually they will hit. " This was based off of that Clubhouse call I was on with you and um Lisa that I was listening to. You both were saying quantity, quantity. And I was like, I just got to believe this because I really want this to work. And you know what? That metaphor that you said with the guy picking away and he hits gold. I have that at my desk. Like I It's a thing for me. Yeah. I had it printed out. Yeah. There you go. Um and you're living that vision and that's awesome. I got some like very quick like questions. You can totally go into depth, but they're more rapid fire. um because these are things that I'm getting asked all the time and you know I like to think I can help people but you're clearly the expert in this space. So the first one is YouTube shorts for everyone and why why. Yeah. I think it's therapeutic. It just lets you like dump out all of your ideas and you have you know a minute to do it and it's just fun too. you can just say whatever you want and then you're done. Yeah, that's such a good point that about the therapeutic part um that it's just a way for you to try something new. And this is what I tell everybody about YouTube shorts. Even if you're not going to commit to doing 200 in your first like month or two, it's going to let you try things that you would have been afraid to commit to in terms of hours of recording and hours of editing and then posting YouTube shorts. um is that experimental arm of your content creation process. Now, with that being said, same channel or new channel for YouTube shorts. Now, I know for you, you put it on your main channel, but what would be the thinking if you were going to start a second channel or put it on your main channel? All right. Um I would say you could just put it on your channel if you're like done and fed up. Like that's what I think moving forward you have to assess what it is you want. And for me what I wanted was I just want to get straight to the point. I want shorter videos and I want to show people as much as I can. And I knew that after this I was probably not going to go back to making horizontal unless maybe I get a team to help me. But personally for me I was just going to do it on my channel. I already had uh like 20k followers at that point, but the growth was like done. Like it was not growing after that. And so for me, I was like, I just want to grow, so I'm going to keep it on my channel. And for other people, if you want to split it, I think it's more of like if it's really bothering you and you really don't want to like, you know, quote unquote mess up your current audience, then sure. But for me, I was like, you know, these people want to like watch whatever it is I show them, and so, you know, you can leave if you want. You say if you want, I'm not gonna manage two channels, too. Yeah. I know. I There is probably the most complex question to answer when it comes to YouTube shorts. Somebody even tweeted the other day. He's like, you know, I heard Benji and some other people say you should start us uh like you should keep it on your main channel, but then I heard Daryl Ees, he said start a second channel. So, I don't know what's right. I mean, that's kind of the point of YouTube. There are no rules that are set in stone. Um, it's whatever works for you, whatever gets you views and makes your subscribers grow. Like actually, that is what's important because there's just too many variables between your content, you as a content creator, your goals, uh, the audience that you're trying to attract, uh, what's your user behavior. You know, if you're someone maybe older, just, you know, you're not on Tik Tok and Instagram reels, YouTube shorts might not be for you. So, you're still into the longer form content. But you're if you're a younger generation that's on TikTok all day, well, guess what? YouTube Shorts is a perfect migration for you. And so again, you have to really consider all those things. Um, another question I've got is how long or short should your YouTube short be? Uh, it should be Well, I try to just put in as long as I can in terms of just like revenue. Oh, yeah. Okay, cool. Well, by the way, that's kind of one of the next questions, right? Um, why is YouTube Shorts monetizing if you they if YouTube said YouTube shorts doesn't monetize? Are you monetizing through long form content or some of your YouTube shorts getting monetized as well? And how? It's my YouTube shorts. Oh, wow. And it's yeah, like YouTube Shorts is the one that's monetizing when I look at like my analytics and the very few times that I do. Um, it's not my long form content that's like monetizing a lot. It's the shorts. So, and they're watching it in the regular viewer then. So, it's not on the YouTube shorts. I think it's because they get it like in browse so or like recommended. So, I still get some on the shorts shelf, but also there's the creator fund. Yeah, the creator fund. And another thing I was thinking about is uh what if someone's watching your YouTube short and that person that's watching is signed up for YouTube premium. So that's like the monthly membership. You know, they share that revenue with people so that you don't have to watch an ad, but you still can make money from those people. So it's all kind of interesting. Um I think long story short, and I'm sure you could u you know like verify this, YouTube short creators are monetizing. True. Mhm. Oh, yes. And hence why you're able to commit to this full-time now, right? You don't have a job and just you have nothing else you're committed to. This is what you're um fully all in on right now. Yep. There you go. Um last two quick questions and we're going to get to Q& A. Audio voice over versus music versus raw sound. How important is this? Um, what's your advice for people just getting started when it comes to the audio part of YouTube shorts? I would say just do what you could do the fastest. And in the beginning, I was just doing it on my phone. Like I was not using this microphone. What is this? The Yeti. Yeah. Yeah. The only reason why I hooked this thing up was because it was faster if I did it here, but I was doing it on my phone and then I was like doing the voice memos and then transferring it and I was like, "Wow, this takes longer than if I just sat here and hooked it up to this mic. " But people can't even tell the difference. Like that's the other thing like don't overthink it. If you want like ASMR, cool. Do it. I have people talking all the time, so I'd rather not, you know, in case someone says like profanity or something. Like I just have the voice over and then the music. But I've seen success. Here's the thing, like you mentioned, Benji, you can find success anywhere. Yeah. Like people who did the voiceover, people who did just ASMR, people who only do music, it's up to you. You just have to pick one. Totally. Um, on the note of music, what's interesting is Tik Tok, I believe, became very significant they let their creators have the ability to use mainstream music, right? And so that's been a huge factor for it was originally musically and then it became Tik Tok. Um, do are you seeing that also in YouTube shorts? Now YouTube, just be transparent, YouTube only lets you use 15 seconds of some of this mainstream music, which I think is a huge limitation. Um, but what's your opinion on utilizing music on YouTube shorts? I don't do it. I don't use the YouTube shorts music. Um first of all, so like my whole is it mantra or process really is just like if it's going to take up more brain space for me to think like if I had to think about how I'm going to integrate this pop music or this top 40 music into my content, I'm not going to do it. So I actually using Epidemic Sound and I use that I overlay in my video because then that's one less thing for me to think about. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, basically, it's speed, right? That's the name of the game with YouTube Shorts. All right, last question and then just want to get your last thoughts on this. Um, graphics, B-roll, editing with YouTube shorts. It lets you use all kinds of things just like in uh Instagram reels, just like in um you know, like Tik Tok. What's your opinion there? Do you do anything with that for your content? I have a feeling I know the answer. No. And why is that? Because the speed. Speed. people. Well, here's the thing. Like, I'm not a special effects uh page. And I have a feeling most of the people watching this may not also be doing that stuff, you know, like Zack King. Yes. Like, you know, like I just feel like I don't need to do that stuff. Like, you're here for the food, right? You're here to hear about all these different like cuisines around the world. You don't really need to see some kind of like thing for that to happen. So, yeah. Awesome. Well, I guess with that being said, um I just have two last uh requests for you. Number one, bring us through that daily process of creating content, right? You know, you have all the ideas on your uh software. Uh you're getting ready to shoot. What do you actually do to get it uploaded to YouTube? And then I have one more follow-up question before we get into Q& A. Sure. Uh so I usually don't start this stuff until later on in the day. So I enjoy my mornings a lot. Um, or if I need to film something, then I'll film it. But it's usually scattered. Like, it's become a part of my life now where whenever I'm eating something, I'm filming it. And so, that means I always have content and then maybe in the afternoon, I start editing. I batch edit. It's really fast, right? If we're talking about speed, then I'll cut it all up first or I'll script out all the voiceovers first and then I'll do the next thing and then um put it together, export all of them and then upload like everything is just in batches and it's so much faster. Um, and did you say edit? Like I edit on Premiere Pro. Oh, cool. No, I mean that's another big question I get from people too is like do you use the actual app on the YouTube app, right? Like do you actually do it or do you put it? What I found is a majority of people having success with YouTube Shorts, they're editing on their computer, they're not editing within the YouTube app. And would you say that's correct? Yeah. Uh speed. Uh I tried it. I tried to do the app and it was like I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. And so I was like, why am I going to try to break something that I that's already working. Um, but if you're just starting and you find that maybe that's easier for you for now, sure, go for it. But for me, I know that I was way faster on a computer. I know there are people who can edit faster on a phone, great, do it. But for me, I like play the piano on my keyboard when I'm editing and then I'm done. And for me, it's really speed, right? So, yeah. There you go. Well, hey, thank you so much. Hey, if you're getting value out of this, hit that like button and subscribe for more interviews just like this. Also want to give a big shout out to Get Business Credit. Appreciate the $50 super chat. Um, everything that you guys put into this channel goes back into the content, goes back to the team to help you guys bring better tips grow on YouTube. And uh raise your hand if you're on Clubhouse. This is the time to raise your hand if you want to ask Janelle some questions about YouTube shorts. Um we've got Nulie up here. He is going to go ahead and bring people up. Um my last request of you Janelle is this. You've had a long journey. I saw that you started YouTube four years ago. Um it can be very difficult. There's a lot of hurdles. challenges. um what got you through all those hard times to finally get to the place where you said you're just fed up. I'm going to commit to YouTube shorts. Um and what's your advice for people maybe going through that same, you know, uh season of their YouTube journey? Uh sure. So, first of all, I think you have to just eliminate all the other possibilities for yourself. And that meant, you know, I was going to be in the business space. make horses. I was going to sell cookies. I was going to do all these things, you know, teach marketing. And then I was just like, I tried all of those like and I just went in and I realized after each one just did not work out or I just didn't like it that much. I realized this YouTube thing had to work otherwise I wouldn't know what to do with myself. So part of it is like putting yourself in a corner of like what is it I really really want? And the past four years, I was able to just like wipe everything else clean. And I got clear that this is the life I want and anything to get there. And that's how you know you get the whole motivation to make three videos a day. That's awesome. Um, I think that is so important to have that clarity number one, but the commitment is so important and we get so distracted and even with YouTube shorts being something that's easier to create. Uh, volume is the name of the game. So, it's even more important or just as important with YouTube shorts as it is any other, you know, uh, type of content. Just know that you heard it from Janelle. Instagram's all good. Instagram reals, Tik Tok is big, but YouTube is where it's at. And now you can crush it with YouTube shorts if you're into that vertical short form content. Um, you guys put your questions down below. If you're watching the replay of this, all of this is available for members only. So, hit that join button if you want to get that every single week. All right, with that being said, Janelle, let's get into