Eric Siu discusses how he's increased YouTube views on his channel, covering his long-form video workflow with outlines and teleprompters, recent videos hitting around 97K views, and repurposing content across Reels, shorts, and LinkedIn. He weighs the time investment against higher-ROI activities like live speaking and events.
I was only averaging like 1,000 long-form views per video, which is not much, right? Now the average is going up to like 5,000. And then some of these I'll hit, like, you know, I have one here that I hit 97K views about a month ago.
I wasn't ever publishing long-form for like over a year.
Yep. Same for me too. I would say the thing that's helping for both of us right now is you and I are both spending more time on the outline. So I copied what you did. So Maya from my team will come up with 6 ideas that she's done research on, and I'll highlight the ones that I like and she's, she'll show the thumbnails. She'll show like wide TAM or low TAM. I'll pick 2 that I like. And then what I'll do from there is each one, I'll make like a 10 to 15 minute Loom saying what I wanna talk about. Then she'll make that into an outline.
Yeah.
And then we record at the same spot in Century City, uh, Visible Audible Studios, Visible Audible Studios or something. Great spot. Um, record there. It takes me an hour to get the long form, 2 long forms done. I'm assuming you're probably the same.
How long is your long form?
Usually I'll take 20 to 30 minutes to record each one, but then it gets cut to like 8 to 10 minutes.
So if mine gets cut to 8 to 10 minutes, it takes me for 8 minutes, probably 12 minutes max.
Yeah.
If not like 10.
That's what they said about you. Usually you're pretty good. Like we both take multiple takes, but usually you're pretty good at getting it done.
No, I just do one take. There's some parts where I'll reread, but if it's an 8-minute video, I'm usually recording 10 minutes worth of content, 12 max.
What I'll say about my videos, I don't know about yours, but when I do record in studio now, I'm just looking at it because a couple months ago, I was only averaging like 1,000 long-form views per video, which is not much, right? Now the average is going up to like, you know, 5,000. And then some of these I'll hit like, you know, I have one here that I hit 97K views about a month ago. So it's going up because point The point is we're putting more effort into it.
Do you use a teleprompter?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. But I, so I, I never used a teleprompter before.
Yeah, no, I'm trying to figure out how to get yours lower. Like if it's an 8-minute video, how to get it where it only takes you 12 minutes to film it.
I think it's 'cause that I start to, as I start to record, I start to think about other ideas. I'm like, oh, let's go back, let's go back. And so I start to add more and more to it. Um, but yeah, that's basically it. Anything else you want to add? Because you've been doing this experiment for, call it 4 months now, 3, 4 months.
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We've been doing it for 3, 4 months. The long-form videos are starting to do decent on some of the other platforms as well. We like it because it just makes us— the quality is high. I don't like the topics my team's coming up with, so I had to record audio notes and screen share video notes for 8 more videos today. So I'll do that either today or tomorrow whenever I get time. But when I look at that, Yeah, quality is important, but, um, this stuff just doesn't drive the revenue as like me going and speaking at a conference with 200 people in the audience that are my ideal customer. Or like, dude, I was just texting Amazon today.
Dude, what is this? You have all this millionaire and billionaire stuff now.
That's what I'm saying. But that's going to change. That was only one script.
Yeah.
Uh, or one batch. And I told him, dude, never again.
Yeah.
And I remember in that you know, they would have me record Shorts as well. And I was so pissed off that I refused to record the Shorts on millionaire topics.
You just went home.
I went home. And then the next round, I think only 2 videos were about money-related stuff, but 6 were not. This next round, none of them are. They're all marketing-related. But going back to what I was getting at, dude, I just generated a higher ROI speaking in a room with like 200 potential customers Or I was emailing or texting. Uh, it was actually maybe a little bit of both. Someone who works at Amazon in partnerships and someone who works at Google. Um, and I don't know which one it was. It was either Amazon or Google. And we were talking about doing an event together. I'm like, dude, it's just so much easier to do an event at one of their offices or venues and invite a ton of people. They'll invite a ton of people. I'll speak. We'll bring in a few other speakers and just try to close revenue.
You know what? I, I think the benefit, well, my, my hypothesis, I, I, Because we have gotten a couple customers from LinkedIn that just view like a short or like a mid-form video 'cause we'll all repost it. I think that might work with thought leader ads and things like that. The other thing I'll say before we get outta here, you're publishing the long forms also to Instagram Reels too, aren't you?
Yeah, I don't care.
How, how's that going?
They tell me I shouldn't be doing it, but I don't care 'cause I have audience there and some of 'em are do well.
Yeah. Anyway, that's it for today, guys. We'll see you tomorrow.
