YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine behind Google... you need to be leveraging it's benefits generate more sales for your business! This video is mainly geared towards Amazon sellers but can be applicable to almost any business. So check out this webinar I was apart of on https://www.Amazing.com/
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Hey, what's up guys Sean the name YouTube's the game? Now I got some pretty unique for you today. I was actually invited by amazing comm to do a webinar with them in regards to YouTube and growing a business and pretty much this product based. It was a fun little webinar I decided to actually you know, put it on my channel for anyone who wanted to actually learn about it as well, so I'm gon na roll through that webinar right now again, amazing stuff. I love all the people out, amazing! No pun intended check out the webinar, and let me know what you think in the comments down below welcome back to silikal monthly Sean, hey how's, it going get to be back awesome, it's been a while, since we spoke, I believe it was last August when we Did our interview you, you know you give us info on what you're doing the YouTube and building channels have you started any other projects or branching out in some different areas? What have you been up to in the YouTube world yeah? So when I launched my course initially a lot of people, you know really liked the information I was giving, but a lot of my examples seemed a little too a high level at time.
So I decided to create a brand new YouTube channel, so I can show everyone from the ground up starting. You know zero subscribers zero views and how you grow it from there. So since then, I've started a new another channel too many to count. Now I have another channel that I'm using more as an example in bringing some really good content and yeah, I'm kind of working on that right now, along with all my other channels and whatnot neat.
So this new channel, your, I guess, you're billing it from the ground up so you're you'd, be in the same boat as well, except for your experience but the same boat as the rest of us in terms of starting from zero that knee right exactly so. That was kind of the basis of it was. I wanted to start from the ground up, show everyone. You know, step by step, how I did it in the past and how I'm doing it now and so far it's been great.
Everyone's been really liking. It. The examples have been great: it's been getting some great growth and so yeah, I'm loving it okay cool. So this new course, so I shouldn't necessarily mits called the 2019 youtube master class.
Now, you've done basically it's a large revamp to the old course in order to update it, keep it fresh and relevant. How much do this course would, you say, is brand new content, then so YouTube's got a major update in 2019, so I probably updated about 30 to 35 percent of my course either I scrapped some old content and just the out and put in a bunch of New stuff or I took existing content, and you know revamped it. A little bit talked a little bit more about how the algorithms change how some of the features on YouTube has changed and how, to you know better yourself on the platform with those changes. Okay, yeah and as I understand it from from what I've read online and from talking to you prior to this interview that there has been a lot of Roose ignition change that YouTube's introduced. I mean obviously, since that previous course released, and especially over the past few months, specifically, I think he said on starting on January 1st a lot of things really changed. It is mostly in terms of I think, the analytics that are available to content creators. So, let's just jump straight into those you know, I'm assuming would be very important changes that I guess we all need to know as YouTube creators. Yes, they are a lot.
The guts of YouTube have completely changed, so it's like a whole new platform of us. What are those major changes? Can you briefly just go through them more yeah, so in the backend you know, there's all these different platforms, which we'll show in a little bit, but you know the analytics itself YouTube added in a ton of more metrics to kind of look at and determine if What you're doing is what you should be doing as well as just making it not look. Prehistoric, the the back end of YouTube has pretty much been the same ever since I can remember since, like 2011. So, just recently, like you said in January, you know they launched this whole new backend, calling it the YouTube studio before it was called the creator studio.
I've always got like a little name change on it, but now it's a YouTube studio and it's it looks completely different and, in my opinion, is amazing. The best thing that's ever come to YouTube. Oh wow, you know that's remarkable when you say things have hardly changed since 2011, I mean. Is there any platform? There are any online platform, especially social media, that hasn't changed just drastically.
Like you know, we recent he had an old Georgia bond. Is a facebook expert he's saying you know a facebook if you're not you know up-to-date within the last six months, then you're not up-to-date, you're saying it's been like he use for YouTube. That's that's actually remarkable. So and the thing that's crazy is you know the front of YouTube.
What viewers are seeing - and you know what the average user of YouTube seeing changes all the time the algorithm changes all the time. All of that changes all the time. Yet you know the creators who are actually building this content, what they're, seeing on a daily basis, you know in the back end, never changed so and in a big reason. For that I think, is every time there's a change brought to YouTube.
You know creators have this big uproar like no. This isn't the way we used to do it, but this is the one update I've seen that it's been some really solid feedback. So far, so I'm excited to see where it goes. Nice and it's all centered around analytics, then for the most part I mean analytics, got the big boost, but everything else just looks cleaner is more visually appealing and it's supposed to be more user friendly.
You know a lot of people are still learning. You know the new changes, but I think you know over time over the next four to six months. It will be incredibly easy to use in comparison to the old system. Awesome, hey so you're prepared you you're willing to do a screen share then, and take us in and show us a lot of those major changes in what we need to know. Yes, exactly, let's do that now, then! Okay, so just logged in this is the back end to that newer channel. I was talking about that one that I started from the ground up, like I said it's already, seeing some really great growth in the last few months, and I started it but pretty much. How to get to the back end? It's pretty simple! You just click on your account up here and then, if I wasn't in this page, it would just say you know YouTube studio and then you just click on it, and this is gon na, be your dashboard. So, like I said this is completely different.
I can show you know what the old version looked like. Really quick and it's complete like this is completely different. You know this is like I said, very prehistoric and you know hasn't changed in forever and then the new studio beta is pretty much what was released in tene that everyone is really stoked about, because that's all the you know newer features, one up and I'll show You it just always takes a while to load when it's transferring between the two. I don't know what it is, but one quick question Shawn.
So this is the new you're going to show us the new channel you started. When did you actually start this channel? So this channel is actually created itself a while ago like two years ago, and I used it basically just to in my course to show how to set up a channel. But I never really posted much to it until recently. So it was started a while ago, but I just recently started regularly uploading, which is a big thing.
I always talk about in my course. Regular uploads on YouTube is always King and I just started regularly uploading to it. I believe about January 1st, so yeah, it's it's been pretty great so far, and it's great for for examples what not, but so yeah this is the dashboard. Just just gives you your quick snapshot of everything, that's going on with your channel.
This is my most recent upload, so it just kind of tells you hey in comparison to my previous uploads. This is where you know my stats are falling, and then this is kind of your 28 days snapshot over here. So this is you don't have much time. You see air your channel is doing in this page and then you go by your day.
So and again, it's just so much more visually appealing compared to the last one. This is easy to look at easy to navigate and it gives off a feel. In my opinion of like a 20-19 vibe, whereas before you know it's just this is old, so yeah this is, this is the the analytics which we were talking about. Is the big bulk of what got updated.
Name is: what's awesome about it? You have tons more features, it's easier to again, navigate and see everything you you've got a few different tabs up here. Overview reach viewers, interest, build an audience, earn revenue you're, mainly going to be spending time in your overview and your reach viewers which I'll show in just a second but there's some key metrics on here that you know a lot of people can be using and in Particular you know for Amazon sellers, let's say you, you know release you have a new product and you want to tell everyone about. You know you can release it and when you do and let's say you make a youtube video on it, you can see like right now how it's doing I mean this. Is your 48 hours span like you know, you used to have to wait a little bit for your analytics and in the previous analytics they had a real-time statistics section, but it wasn't as good as this. This is incredibly accurate. It updates every second and - and you can see your real-time views, which i think is super cool, so yeah, there's that and then I like to spend the most time and reach viewers. This is really how you grow, and this is completely new. This information was never on the platform before even in the old analytics.
They didn't have this, which is phenomenal, so every other platform that I know of - and you know, because I'm mainly in online my guest marketer. If you want to call it, you know, studied marketing in school and not, and you always talk about impressions and click-through rate, especially when you're talking about online, which essentially you know your impression, is when someone saw your video or product or something, and then your click-through Rate is when they actually click on it. This was never a thing on YouTube, which I don't know why YouTube was just behind the you know the times. Cuz Facebook and the other platforms have had this forever, but we just got it and it's awesome.
I mean phenomenal, you can see if your content is actually attracting viewers. So in an Amazon sellers you know perspective, you can release a product and you can see hey. Is it my product, that's the issue or is it you know my my video? Or is it something else because if a lot of people are seeing my product and they're just not clicking on it, they might just not be interested in that product and then maybe I got to go back to the drawing board and create a new product that People would be interested in or maybe tweak the design or something like that. So I love this.
It's phenomenal, I'm big on the impressions click-through rate right now pretty much. The average is 2 to 8 percent. If you can be around the, I always say, 5 % mark you're doing pretty good. Obviously this channel is doing phenomenal right now.
I last time I checked it was actually at 10 %, so it keeps going up, which is all some pretty much just means that the content I'm releasing. You know a lot of people are seeing it right. You mean you would small channel, but 23,000 people are seeing it and then a good chunk of them are actually clicking on the videos and you know watching it. So I love this page. It even shows you where the traffic's coming from, which is awesome, and then you know this is like your little funnel so yeah. I have no idea, they were showing the external traffic types. That is pretty powerful, I mean, and this is all pretty new - I'm we're only talking about a couple of months. This has been out, so I think, there's still going to be a lot of a lot of testing to see what happens like over six months.
Over a year - but you know your ear saying: 5 % is decent. You know obviously you're 11, which you're very happy. Do you have any idea of what the best channels are doing what their percentages are? You know, since this is so new a lot of creators. Don't even know how you use this yet and a lot of the big creators don't really care to use it.
Yet you know they're they're doing fine as it is, so they don't look at this too much. But what I've seen so far is some of the massive channels. Who've even talked about this surprisingly - have very low click-through rates because they have so many like. Let's say someone has a million subscribers when they upload a video, a million people will see, it will hopefully see it in their in their sub box or their feed.
But if someone's been watching a channel for let's say like years and years, they might just not find that person as interesting anymore. So they get a ton of impressions, a ton, but their click-through rates usually aren't that large I've seen the the biggest click-through rates in smaller channels, which is awesome because, if you're trying to grow and your new that's, what you want to see is a great click-through Rate the highest I've ever seen, it is about 16 percent, and that was I mean it blew my mind. I haven't even seen anything close. I think another one was 12 and then this 11 is is pretty big as well.
So that's kind of where I see it yeah. You know, and I think that for Amazon sellers, particularly because you know you know we're, you know, Amazon says we're not here for a popularity contest. We're here to you will ultimately build our brand in and make sales right, so I've been really happy to see we're getting some results, because this is instant feedback on the types of video you're. Creating or you know the thumbnail or you know, something's got to change your product.
You know it allow you to at least quickly get some feedback and start to test some new things and make some changes versus. I think before it was just kind of a bit of a Hail Mary and I think a lot of people just kept doing the same thing. They thought it was the numbers game kept putting up the same content or the same thing and maybe not having a lot of success, and all they had to do is look at some stats and say: hey. You know, let's change things up, see a big difference. Well, you're on the right track, so I'm I think, there's gon na be huge for Amazon selves yeah. I agree it's awesome to be able to see you know a step back cuz before you. Pretty much never saw these numbers and it was just right here. It was views, and maybe so you'd see some unique viewers and you'd.
Think man I'm not getting the views. I don't know. Why is it? People are just not getting a chance to see my content or are they seeing it and they just don't want to click it. So I think it's I love it.
I can't I can't stop, you know getting excited about it, and I just can't keep thinking that. Why wouldn't have YouTube released some I mean, and they got way more data than this. I mean. Why would only ever this earlier, just kind of blows my mind, but regardless here we are very cool all right, so that's no we're.
Looking at the the analytics. You said: we've got the traffic sources tape. You also mentioned the funnel there on the right hand, side. What's what's that about? Yes, so this is a easier way to understand everything so and that's another reason why YouTube is trying to make this all user user friendly for people who, let's say you, know, don't know much about marking.
Maybe they don't know much about what an impression or click-through rate is, you know they can learn about it right. They can read it, but this is your visual representation and helps you grasp the topic super quick. So you can see, you know, hey top down funnel. This is how many impressions I'm getting this, how many people are seeing my video they're not necessarily clicking on it yet but they're, seeing it.
Let's say like on the side of another video or their home page or you know somewhere or they visit your channel, so they're getting an impression impression, and then it goes to the next layer of the funnel alright. Well: here's how many views I got from those impressions and it just happened to be 11 percent, so it shows you that and then another thing which is cool is it shows you your view, duration in this funnel, which is awesome. So once someone sees your content, they click on your content. Then how much of their kind of your content are they actually watching? So it's one thing: you know to have a great click-through rate in to basically get people to click on your video, but it's another thing to get them to actually want to watch your video.
So then you can, I mean, see it from A to Z. You can see hey. Am I just not doing a good job of grabbing someone's attention? Oh and I've got a great video. I just can't get people to click on it or is it the opposite? You know.
Is it I'm getting a lot of people clicking on my video, but once they get to it? Are they just like what am i I don't want to watch this? You know what am i, what am i watching so to be? You know to have the full picture and be really good is to have it all. You know great, you know click-through rate and then people also watching a lot of your videos. So - and I love the funnel for that because it just visually - you know, describes it and and helps you or newer to this mm-hmm all right. What else we got here on the analytics page, you would like to show us. Well, the traffic source types are pretty important, especially when you're starting out. I always like to say you know it's your job to get your channel off the ground. It's not YouTube's job, so don't sit there and you know upload a video and go man. No one's watching it YouTube's useless, like I'm, not I'm not gon na get anywhere, because it's your job to prove to YouTube that hey my content is good.
Here's why you should promote it and and I've got the stats to prove it. So when you're, starting out it's big to have a lot of external traffic coming to your your videos, so I tracked my external traffic a lot. You know I always post stuff on LinkedIn. You can see.
I've got some great SEO with Google searches right now and then I obviously always posted to you know Facebook pages and Twitter and and other things like that. So it's it's big to take advantage of this external source to really prove to YouTube that hey. My content is good, I'm bringing people to your platform to watch it and you know in return, if I scratch your back, you should scratch mine. So that's kind of how the algorithm is is kind of you know worked, so I love the traffic source types and then you know there's a lot of good information down here, that you can kind of sift through and see where your traffic's coming from.
But that's again, I'll just saw the ones have they added in multiple tabs and and all sorts of information. And then you can always click on something to see. You know even more and it just brings up lots of information. I mean just you, can just go through so much information and dive in, and you really see ok where's this coming from.
How can I maximize on this? How can I you know, make it a little bit better so, and this I'm assuming is all in your updated course yeah. Yes, so this is like. I said this whole back-end is all new, and so when I was looking back at my course, I realized that you know a lot of my course wasn't as useful anymore, so I just completely revamped. It did tons of content on this and yeah it's on on the new new version of the course so, looking at this I mean I can see you got your impressions and your click throughs and then how many people are actually watching the content once you get There and your but completely agree it's going to tell you where you're lacking.
If you get tons of people hit in your video and then nobody watching it well, stop me they're wrong with your video. Your product, probably, but you know getting those initial impressions, seems to be really really really important. I know, though this is something we've really discussed a while ago and it kind of comes down to your thumbnail and sort of attracting that initial attention getting someone to wan na click on that video to check out that product or work. You just see the message you're trying to portray. Do you want to get into the the the the thumbnail side of it a little bit here, yeah, so thumbnails are obviously huge. You know that I always say the biggest things in terms of you know. Getting a great click-through rate is gon na, be your thumbnail. People are gon na see.
You know they're we're visually attracted to things so we're gon na see your thumbnail, but also your title is a big one too. You could have a great great thumbnail awesome looking thumbnail, but you know if it says something. That's just kind of boring or not interesting. Then people might just say: hey that's cool picture if I want to keep scrolling, so I think those are the two biggest things in your title and your thumbnail and the thumbnail creation everyone over thinks it they think.
Oh, I don't have any graphical design skills or this, and that - and I need to you know - have this crazy, unique and complicated system, but the best thumbnails I've ever seen have been used with some simple programs and I've taken me five minutes to do so. It's just you know how to actually do that, and I don't know if you do. You want me to show. Actually you know some other examples of some products or do you want me to talk through kind of how to create one? Well, I guess I'm kind of like you to do both.
I mean it especially for you know everyone here at an amazing Solar Probe, we're all physical product sellers. So you know it's one thing I guess to be. You know a Kardashian and have that that that that appeal and their message in is different work at the end of the day we're trying to sell products. So if you have some examples of physical product brands and what they've done for their thumbnails that'd be fantastic.
But I think I'd also love to just look at your process for creating them or at least breaking down. You know in your mind, what makes a good thumbnail from your experience. If you want to, let's go through that first and then we'll take a look at. Maybe some examples and you can kind of coach us on what you think they did good or bad or otherwise.
Okay, let's actually do them almost both at the same time, but first like to run through. You know the the biggest thing when it comes a to thumbnail creation, simplicity. I that's like, if you take one thing away from creating a thumbnail, keep it simple it always gon na be showing up small. So if you are taking, if you are going all right, I'm gon na put this in this corner and this in that corner.
I'm gon na do this over here, and this looks awesome on a 4k TV. No one's gon na see that you know so keep it. Super simple have one central focus, because they're gon na see it very small, so I'll show you with some examples. So you know great Amazon seller here. These are some phenomenal thumbnails. In my opinion, when you are creating a thumbnail for a product, I mean this is a really good-looking thumbnail of the product right so like here. I'm looking at this look at how simple this is it's the product and it's you know what the video is about, how to reset Liberty, air and that's another great thing I love about you, know sellers and products in general is it shows so much more we're Talking about this in the last you know webinar we did, but you know if you're able to establish a bond with - let's say your customers by doing things like this, like showing them how to use your product or how to fix. Maybe you know or how to get the most out of your product.
I love videos like that, but in terms of the thumbnails, these are all relatively simple, so I'll show you some good examples and then some bad examples. So these are great examples. I love stuff like this. I would say you know some bad examples on this.
This is very hard, you know, and you can also see I mean you know viewership wise. This video has been out much longer than this one, and you know the views are kind of low. It's it's hot, you know it's cluttered, you don't know really what to look at you don't know what that says. You'd have to kind of read the title for that, and it's just it's it's not as visually appealing as something like this.
This is like wow. Okay, that's awesome! I don't know what that product is, but I want to check out. It looks really cool stuff like this is super cool too, but hard to do. Yes, ya know it's funny.
You mention that because you know, if anchor is a very well-known Amazon, it's one of ours, friends and I was on if you're in electronics category. You absolutely know who these guys are: it's funny it utils. It is at the very top where it says how to reset the live. The air, like the one on the very top.
At the white background I mean that's except for the the text on it. That's that's basically like almost like a compliant Amazon mean image I mean. Obviously it was your main image. You'd have the product a little bit bigger, but that's how simple it is and you're right those other things.
I don't know if there's a music video, I have no idea what the heck that is. So I think that's a that's. A good takeaway here for Amazon sellers is to have a really good, clear shot of your product, yes, and - and that goes back to what we were just talking about with the you know, impressions and equipped array, if you've just got your bit something clean as this, You see your products, maybe a little bit of text on it or something and you're. Seeing a lot of people are seeing this right, you're getting lots of impressions, but your click-through rate is low. Then that's when you can go back to the drawing board and go okay. Is it my product, should I maybe tweak my product to make it more appealing, so people see it and go? What is that? Let me go check that out. I want to see what that's all about. That's why I love this.
You know simple thumbnails and also with the you know, reach viewers tab. You can get a lot out of it. A ton out of it. So this is this channel is a great example of using a product.
Anything tech related with Amazon, um in terms of selling is awesome just to show a really cool picture of the product, or you know something like this, because the beauty of the tech industry is, you know everyone if you're in the tech industry, you just want to See what's new, you want to see, you know what a product's all about like. I don't really know what this is like. I don't know what Liberty air is, so I kind of want to check it out and see what it's all about yeah. So this is this a great example, I think yeah, and I think I mean whether you're selling sweaters or camping, lanterns or picnic things there.
You know tools, I really do feel like having a good image is very, very important and I do understand how people would want to maybe have warm a lifestyle. Pick the you know. Let's say: you're selling fishing rods and you've got a picture of a guy walking through a stream with a rod or so beautiful mountains. It's very nice and that might get some clicks.
But if I'm really trying to sell that product, I don't know, I really want to see it and then pull me in exactly so when you're, when you've got that great image like you're talking about of that fisherman. In that great background, that's more for a video! That's gon na be something longer that you're. You know I mean if that's not a selling, that's not a selling video, that is a lifestyle, video and which is fine. If you want to mix some of those in there but don't put a 30-second, you know video spot or minute video spot where you've got a thumbnail like that, because people aren't gon na look at that and think it's a video spot or something about the product.
They're gon na want to see a lifestyle yeah they're gon na go okay. What's this guy doing, holding the fishing rod? Is this a vlog? You know what's going on, so that's a a good point and then um. You know another example I want to show. Is this one right here so Hamilton Beach brands? They do some great stuff.
They sometimes go a little bit overboard on on some of the thumbnail creations, but for the most part, they've got some great stuff. I again simplicity is always king like this is amazing. This is great. You know product image, very clean, simple thumbnail, I mean look, it's got tons of views.
You know, simplicity is always king, where you know when people want to really make stuff hard and complicated, it usually doesn't do as well. So always just big on you know, simplicity and showing what you're actually doing in the video. Because again, if you get a big, you know a great click-through rate and no one's watching your video, was it really worth it sure you're top of the funnel looks great, but the bottom is really where it matters in your not getting any results with that. So you know, I think, let's say I decide to sell I'm selling kitchen appliances, I mean everybody knows Hamilton Beach, they're, a big famous parameter and every store. I guess I could just come to their YouTube channel and look at which one of their videos are getting. The most views and just look at their style and try and emulate them exactly so YouTube's a big - and I talked about this in my course you choose a big thing. It's a community for a reason, and you know you want to see what's working and then apply that to your style, so people are sometimes scared to think you know, I don't want to copy another brand or you know I want to do my own thing, which Is totally fine, but you can take some great ideas from a from a brand or someone who's doing really well and then apply that to your brand or what you're doing and and there's no harm. I mean YouTube is a community where everyone's always feeding off each other and the people who are in the community watching the videos they want to see that if they see and they're interested in this you know video or product and something's pretty similar there.
Ok, I'm gon na watch this one that I'm gon na watch this one. You know so that's a great point as well as these are great examples to just always look at and see. Ok, what are they doing? You know. How can I apply this to what I'm doing and I and I'm a big believer of just everyone in the community, always working together and finding what's working and what's not working so examples are big and I've got one more example and I'm actually I've got a Great relationship with this company because they actually used to sponsor one of my channels way back in the day.
That's how I found them and then I was like really turned on by their awesome branding, because it's so simple, I love the simplicity. You can see. They've got some great products and they've got as you can tell. They've got a theme with a lot of the thumbnails and they kind of you know make the text of whatever it is a little bit transparent.
So it's there, but your main focus is going to be on the product or you know what the picture is all about. So this is another really great example as well, then each one that looks like it has like the model number on there to with them. I know that they have so many products that are they look very similar, but all have very different. You know attributes I've actually got.
I have a keyboard from them right now and they've got three keyboards that look exactly the same, but they're all very different. So that's I feel like that's why they they have that strategy that makes sense and for anyone again on Amazon oki is a huge brand and if you're electronics, you absolutely know who they are it's funny. These are the three here keyboards. I was just talking about very similar, but you know a little bit different, so I like the way they brand their stuff and they do a really great job with it. And another reason why I like this brand is because you know - and we talked about a little bit in the last last time. We spoke chain but they're great company at going out and finding influencers on YouTube and getting them to promote their product. And that's another huge part that is discussed a little bit in the course, but that's that's big as well. It's not just what you're doing on your channel, but also you know what else you're doing in the community, so yeah fair enough.
Well, I think we see the how important thumbnails is. I mean some people are quite saying. You know what the heck is a thumbnail. Well, a thumbnail is that that image you see there.
You know, I think, a lot of people make the assumption that the thumbnail is just part of the video it's the first frame of the video or something or somewhere in the middle. But it's not something completely different. The create so maybe just kind of take us through what a thumbnail is and maybe for us, because we're also we're going to be content creators even for anything someone to make the video for us sort of to create and then test those thumbnails yeah. So let's actually go into my videos, really quick and I can pull one up for you and just show you kind of how simplest simplistic it is and pretty much everything back.
So once you go ahead and upload a video on YouTube again, this is all walk through in the course you can see. These are frames of the video right here and that's what people think. Okay, this is my thumbnail I'll just click that button, though it's not, that is 2009. I mean that is like way back in the day what you do now you know you need to be uploading, a custom thumbnail to get that viewers attention, as you can see with this thumbnail again, it's very simple: it's just a blurred out background and some text.
It's not a very good central focus and simplicity is always key. So when you're actually creating these thumbnails there's tons of ways, you can go about it. You know I use Photoshop and that's probably your top level. You know creamy cream of the crop kind of program, but there's tons of free programs which we're gon na kind of talk about, are going to be giving it in in the bonus for this.
But you know there's programs like canva and in PicMonkey, which I talked about in my course that you could do this very simply very quickly. You draw, I mean it's all plug and play drop an image in the background. Add some text maybe throw in a little you know outline on the text, make it pop it's. It does not require a lot of time and a lot of effort, some of the best thumbnails I've ever made have been. You know taking me a couple minutes, so it's definitely not something that you need to be a pro at to do really well, so very cool. I want to ask you, though, just before we move on with these changes with it, with, with with YouTube giving these new analytical sort of insights in the backend? What's going on, have you already seen an impact or have been a to take advantage of these to make any changes yourself or or understand an area, weakness or strength in your in your channels? Yes, so immediately, you know, like I said, I've been a big fan of this so immediately I saw across all of my channels not just this one. I would see I would compare where the Clifton rates are at and then I would take a step back and think. Okay.
Well, why are the Y's, the click-through rate, this way when I first when we first got this feature? Like I said in about January, at the end of January, my click-through rate was around 6 % and I was pretty happy with that. At the time I was like yeah, that's a pretty good average, but then I took a step back and thought. Okay. How do I make that better? Well, a big thing is going to be.
You know your thumbnail in your title. Creation like I was mentioning so I sat down and I started looking at each individual, video and said. Okay, what are the click-through rates on this versus this versus this, and I noticed that all of the really good click-through rates were on the videos with the simplest thumbnails I mean my highest click-through rate was one that almost looked like a frame of the video. You know it was, it was just simple: there was no, not even any text on it and then I looked at some of the ones with the bad click-through rates and realized.
Okay, I threw a lot of stuff in this thumbnail. I spent a couple hours on the thumbnail and it was it's doing. You know the opposite of what I wanted to do so, since these updates I've been able to look individually at each video and go okay. You know here's where I can improve this.
Here's where I cannot improve this and I've even gone to some of my other channels and have updated some of the thumbnails and titles on pre-existing videos and have kind of tested. You know what that's done and it's small traffic. You know when you've got a video. That's let's say like six months old, it's smaller traffic, but you can still see a difference in the click-through rates once you change something up, so that's kind of how I've been using it.
It's been awesome. I mean I'm a big analytic person, especially when it comes to YouTube, so I'm loving this this click-through rate awesome Sean thanks for going through that analytical tool. What it's doing and sharing your insight. I think I still have to think about it a little bit more in order to really maximize it for what I'm doing, and I really feel that I mean, but when people think of YouTube, I think they're thinking more of influencers. You know they're going there to see celebs or famous people or funny videos. Whatever I mean a lot of times, you know, you'll be researching a product and you'll want to know how it works and you'll find YouTube. Video and oh perfect it. Here's a video tutorial like we do it that way, but in my mind it seems like we do it as a secondary thing, more often than our primary thing.
I think that leaves a lot of unbroken ground a lot of blue ocean for people and I think that a lot of Amazon starts. I was still are not taking advantage of YouTube and I know that you know as I'm as an Amazon, so it's not necessary. I don't have to be on YouTube, but I think it's really a neglected area, so I think, has just absolutely massive potential. I think that most people think that you know we mention this last time.
Most people think they don't have time. They don't have the expertise. You don't understand how it works, but you know once you understand the power of YouTube, you get the time in to get it up and running and running. Well, I think it can be an absolute game-changing, showing I wanted to ask you: what's your feeling, then you being like I'll, tell you a YouTube insider on the amount of brands that you see, or maybe you don't see on YouTube the sheer size and scope of The opportunity here Plus that opportunity, potentially I'm going to say, dominate your competition because they're simply usually not there.
Yes, so I'm gon na give you a quick example. Last night you know I'm a big lake wakeboard kind of guy and I want to get a new board. So what I do I go to Amazon, I'm looking at boards, I'm I'm comparing boards and I pick out two really good ones that I think I really like and I'm like man. These are both awesome, but you know wake boards aren't cheap.
So I want to go and I want to see other people riding what are other people saying about them? One board had tons of content on YouTube. I mean I must have watched 10 videos, the other board, nothing, maybe a couple second kind of intro clip. That was pretty much just already on the Amazon page, and so I looked at it too and I was like you know I watched so much content on this other board they're very similar, but I know that people love this board, not a hundred percent on this One so I bought this one right and it was just it was. It was a simple decision for me.
I didn't even have to like you know. Once I watched all the videos, I didn't even have to really go okay. Well, you know what are the pros and cut know like I just I instantly knew I wanted this one. So YouTube is so powerful for that, because you know your product can be amazing, but if you've got a mediocre product that everyone keeps talking about, everyone loves this one will probably sell better than one. That's amazing that no one you know really is talking about and YouTube is the avenue for that. Whether you're uploading the videos you know on, like your brand's YouTube channel or if you're working with influencers and you know, they're giving product reviews on YouTube and making videos on YouTube for it is so powerful, so powerful. I work with a lot of brands and companies on you know getting their YouTube channel going and developing strategies and the power, like you were just saying. The power of YouTube is insane, and I mean it's.
The second largest search engine behind Google and people connect with video like right now connect with video so much more than just image or text so you're not on YouTube. Again, it's not mandatory right to sell on Amazon, but it's that extra thing that puts you above your competitors that hey, if someone's debating you or your competitor, if you've got a lot of social proof on you know other platforms like YouTube. I personally think that's gon na, be the difference in the in the buyers, mind so and a perfect example exactly you know, that's what I call that secondary search, there's, probably another name for it, but and some people might go to youtube if they're looking for a New, you know a new computer mouse. They may start their search there, but you're right.
So often people start with a Google search or an Amazon search and then they're like. What's one, do I go with and we got that extra info, it's just crystal clear and that's what cements the deal. I think that's the real power there. Absolutely and another thing I want to add real quick is you're.
Mentioning about Thai Mike you've. Always add another time for that. I always preach that. You know you can spend one day a month one day a month and you can get weekly content when you know one video a week for the whole month and that's what I do now for this channel.
I was just showing I spend one day one day every 30 days and I get four videos five videos done for the month, so time should never be to never be an excuse it. It really doesn't take that much time if you're just dedicated to it. So yeah absolutely and, as you mentioned too, if you're just absolutely dead center, you can't do it. You could get an influencer to pump out one someone a month or one a week or you know whatever you need or different influencers just so that content is there showcasing your product and showing how to user.
You know whatever your situation is, I think, there's there's sort of no excuse hundred percent. You know, we've talked about the challenges that I you know. We all face the sellers order up against what might seem like a very daunting task for creating a YouTube channel and then trying to create the content, the content and then maintaining it properly. But you know when you know the sheer power of the platform and given I'm gon na call the major holes in it in terms of how well it's being utilized by physical product brands, and it's really not by most brands. I think that you'd be nuts not to make plans to incorporate it into your marketing plan. You don't have to you know, has there's enough to do the number one thing, but I do think that's a big component and I really think here that I mean Shawn has removed the guesswork it. You know it's like you're flying blind and now I've got analytics tools, you know and you're, not just hoping for the best. You know.
You've got a real plan here stated from from A to Z, so with Shawn, you've got one of the best people in the business who's laid this out as well as continually updating the course. So that's, of course, he's done. Is he's updated about 3035 percent of the content in order to always be very timely and very very relevant. So I think if you want your business succeed, you often have to do what others are unwilling or unable to do right.
So trust me watch this course get inspired. Take some action, let the power of you to drive you forward so Shawn. I just want to say thanks again so much my friend for from me, the team here at cellar Pro all of our members who are watching this or really appreciate ER time it. Okay, guys that's gon na, do it for the video on this channel.
Again, I just want to throw up this webinar. Give you guys a little bit of background on it. It was very product driven, as you saw figured it, could help some people and wanted to kind of throw it up on my channel. So again, if you're new around here consider smacking that subscribe button, I'd really appreciate it.
I'm always dropping great content like this on here. So again, hopefully you enjoyed it and I'll, see you soon.
fantastic video, didn't even know this except those showing how to start a business videos. thanks Shawn.
I wish they would’ve teach us this in school
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