The Truth About YouTube Collaborations | Data Proven Insights That Change Everything

What you're about to watch is a clip from my Brandlytics training where I get together with entrepreneurs, thought leaders who want to build their brand using YouTube and making data-driven decisions to blow up their brand this year. Enjoy. So the topic today, how do you reach out to other YouTubers or people in your field to collaborate with? And I'm just going to shorten this down to collaboration. So judging the value. Okay, this is a little bit controversial, uh, the value of collaborations, because when I was first getting started, everybody said collab, collab, collab, collab, you got to do a lot of collabs, you got to do a lot of collabs, collabs are the secret answer, right? It was, it was the buzzword, I guess, at the time. And I set out to try to do a lot of collaborations. The biggest one that I did earlier on in my, in my channel growth was, was this one here with Charisma on Command. This is the biggest one that I'd done, the channel that was, that was much bigger than mine. Right? So now he's got 4.5 million subscribers almost. And he made this video on me talking about how to be a networker. And I never considered myself to be much of a networker, but he called it the introvert's guide to networking. And he called me a master networker based off this event that we're both at for YouTubers. And I basically introduced a lot of people to him. My strategy for networking was really just listen to what people need and then try to introduce them to somebody who can help them with that. Much more than me going up to people and say, "Hey, I'm Evan. How are you?" I suck at that stuff, but just basically listen to what people need and then help them. And so with Charlie, this is Charlie who runs Charisma on Command, that's what I did. I just helped him at the event, say, "Hey, well, what are you trying to find?" he told me, um, and I introduced him to a couple of people who I knew. Uh, and then all of a sudden I'm a master networker and he's making a video on me. So this video worked out pretty well. It was super, um, humbling, uh, very complimentary. And at the end he even linked up my channel. So I took a screenshot of this end card because that's, if you click on this, you'll go right to my channel. And that's ideal in a collaboration is that it's not just a link in the description. but that they're actually linking you up on the end card for them to go right to check out your channel. Okay. So I thought, oh my God, my channel is going to blow up. This is amazing. This giant YouTuber is featuring me. This is fantastic. Come on, let's go. And then I looked at the data, like, when is this video coming up? He told me he was making it. It launches. Let's go. Come on. My channel is about to explode. And then here were the numbers. So this is the day that the video came out. So these are my subs, these are my subs gain. So I was gaining for this month, right, from the, from the 1st to the 17th, I was gaining 1,088 subs a day. Then when that video came out, I got 2,000, 2,100. The next day was 1,200, and then the next day was back, basically back to my average. So over the course of, you know, that video coming up, those 2 days that it came up and popped, I got— I gained an extra 1,200 subs over my average, right? An extra 1,212 over my average. And that's— that was pretty good. I mean, it's decent. It didn't blow up like I thought it would blow up. Uh, it's kind of the, you know, the heartbreak every now and then when you think something's going to do super well and then it just doesn't get you the results. It really made me start to question, is this even worth it? Is it even worth spending all this time doing this collaboration versus just making another video. I'm already getting 1,088 subs a day. Should I just prioritize making videos instead of trying to set up collaborations? And after this is what I ended up really focusing as my strategy to grow my channel. I doubled down on content creation, not collaborations. That was a big shift. I love collaborations. I still do a whole ton of them, but I think for the the ability to grow your channel, the consistent content is going to be your number one place to actually get the results. So, uh, I've done a ton of collaborations. I'm doing a lot more today. This Thursday is my public-facing day. Uh, so the things to think about: time, travel, coordination, expenses. Is it worth the extra effort? Does it, does it help? Sure. But is it worth all of that extra effort to try to go off and do the collaboration? Now the one with Charlie that I did on Charisma on Command, I was already in the, the event with him. We were already there. We're in Palm Springs. We're doing this, this YouTube event. So I didn't have to do any real extra work. I was just trying to help him out. And a lot of collaborations have happened at those events. Now we don't obviously have those events happening right now, but at, at events there's a lot of collaborations happening at conferences where they pull you aside to say, hey, can I do an interview with you? Hey, can we make this happen? And so those are always fun to do and can help your channel. But if you're going to set up a separate thing just to do it, it may not be worth it. Is it worth you to— on the back and forth, on the coordination, on the travel and the expenses, all of that, if you're only looking at subs gained? There's other reasons to do it, but if you're only looking at subs gained, it may not be worth it. Again, versus just making videos. My typical advice is just go go back to default making videos because every video you make is another shot for people to find you. And it's usually better for the long-term results for your channel. I would say if they're 10 times bigger than you, those are the collaborations to go after. If it's somebody who's just your size or smaller, if all you care about is channel growth, if there's no other value, you love them, it's fine, it's biz dev, there's another strategic reason. If all you care about is channel growth, I would be looking at only doing collaborations with people who are 10 times bigger than you. A lot of times the value just isn't there to do most collaborations. And this is so against typical advice that people give, but this has been my experience in doing tons and tons and tons of collaborations, that unless they're much bigger than you, it's not going to drive a ton of traffic. Okay. So then why do it? Why, why do collaborations? Why, if we don't care about, if it's, if it's not going to help us with channel growth as much as just making content, why do it? Well, the first is networking, right? Yesterday we were talking in the pre-show too. Pablo was talking about my, my one-on-one with Jamie Kern Lima. You know, she just created her book, Believe It. We did an IG Live together. We're both, we both have our eyes closed here because, uh, we're doing a prayer. I asked her to do a prayer live for us and she had never done a prayer live on Instagram. So we did one together. Um, and we're going to turn this into a YouTube video. So You know, Jamie, I've known for a year. We met, I met her at Brendan's, uh, house in, in Puerto Rico. And she's part of our beach gang. And it's just good. It's good karma. It's good networking to support the people in your community who are doing things. She went from being a waitress and having $1,000 in a bank account to selling her business for $1.2 billion cash. So even if it doesn't blow up the channel, it's still good for my business. It's still good for my relationship. And it's still just good karma to do. And it's fun. I like doing it, right? Much more than this video is going to help blow up my channel. Okay. Brand building. I mean, when I do an interview with Tony Robbins, that, that could help the channel obviously. But it's a, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work lining up big people. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work reaching out. It's a lot of work maintaining the relationship. It's a lot of work. Figuring out the times, figuring out the technology. It's a lot of work to make this 21-minute interview happen, but it's great for the brand. So there might be people who you bring on who could really help you with your, your brand. They get you connected to them, even if it doesn't help your channel grow that much. It just puts you into a different world. Um, so we had Matthew McConaughey on the channel recently. We're working on Deepak Chopra coming up, uh, you know, a bunch of other people that will help the channel grow, but probably not as much as if I just spent time making videos, but having them on the channel elevates the brand of the business that much more. So brand building, biz dev, uh, this was a client of mine, Stephen Kelly. He used to run Sage. Sage is an accounting software company. Uh, one of the, the, FTSE top 100 companies by market cap in, in the UK. And he was the CEO, multi-billion dollar company. And we would do a bi-monthly— so every, every 2 weeks, is that bi-monthly? Is that— anyway, every 2 weeks we did a show together on YouTube where we would answer questions from the audience. We'd have a topic and then we'd answer questions from the audience. So that series didn't help my channel grow, but but it was a business opportunity, right? I mean, if you look at the views on those videos, they probably did worse than a typical video, but it was a business opportunity. And I grew to really love Steve and his view and his perspective. So it was super fun to do. But again, the value isn't just in the growing the channel, the value is in the business relationship. And then it's fun. I mean, I think people discount just Having fun is a good thing. I'm going to do a whole bunch of interviews today and most of them will be on smaller channels. You know, like this one, I don't, I don't remember who this guy was or what his channel is, but it's fun. Like, I just like, I like being the first person on people's channels. A lot of times I'm the first person they've ever interviewed. And then they use that interview to go get other people to say, hey, we had Evan on the channel. Do you want to join as well? So I just find it super fun to do, even if there's no immediate ROI. One example, there's a guy named Nick who I was one of the first guys to reach out to him. He started an Instagram account called Book Thinkers 4 years ago when I launched my book, Year One Word. I said, Nick, love the work you're doing. I'd love to send you a copy of my book. And it was a tiny Instagram account at the time. And he later said I was the first guy, first author to reach out to him. I was the first author to say, to recognize him and say, "Good work, and can I send you a signed book?" Fast forward to now, you know, 3, 4 years later, I launch Built to Serve, and all of a sudden Nick has the largest network of Instagram accounts for nonfiction authors. right? So he's profiling nonfiction book, nonfiction book reviews, and he's got the largest network of Instagram accounts for it. And when I said, hey, I got Built to Serve, do you want to review it? Now, I haven't really been in touch with Nick for the past 3 years in between that. But when I sent it to him, he said, yeah, I'm down. Thank you so much. You helped kickstart my Instagram career. You were the first author to support me. And he's been a massive help in getting the word out for Built to Serve. I helped him launch a podcast. I was the first guest on his podcast. And then he had all these other people, Grant Cardone and Jim Kwik and all those guys on as well. Now I didn't know that Nick was going to be this guy. And most people flame out. Most people, if you're their first guest on their show, most people don't take it seriously and stop and quit. And they only go 5 episodes deep or some people never even released the episode. They just sit on it. It's like, whatever happened to that interview that we did together? Like, oh, I don't know. I gave up. But every now and then you get somebody who pops. And I think it's just fun. I see it as fun. I see it as community service. I see it as giving back to entrepreneurs and YouTubers. Because when I was getting started, I really struggled. And so I don't care if it generates traffic or interest for the channel or not. It's not a strategy. It's more just, it fills the soul. So probably half the interviews I'm going to do today after this are not strategic, just somebody I like or somebody's story who I like and I want to, I want to help them. And eventually a lot of those come back to pay off. If you stick in the game long enough, a lot of those do come back to help. If you want to see this full video as well as train live with me twice a month to blow up your brand, join the Brandlytics training program. There's a link to join right there next to me. Continue to believe. I'll see you there.