YOU vs. The Algorithm: WIN on YouTube Fast

What's up, Believe Nation? Happy weekend. I thought it was time to make version 2 of how to hit 1 million subscribers. I made my first video on this in February. At that time I had— how many did I have? I had 569,000 subscribers. I'm now sitting at 639,000 subscribers, so it's a 70,000 subscriber swing, getting a little bit closer to 1 million, and I wanted to share with you my journey and as well teach you lessons that I've learned to help you get your YouTube goals accomplished faster. Last time I talked about my channel versus Eric Thomas. He was a guy who I consider to be one of the best speakers of our generation, somebody who I look up to as a great speaker, someone who I consider, you know, way better than me at speaking, and he's having great results in the speaking world, but I'm beating him on YouTube because I'm playing better to the YouTube algorithm. And the lesson last time was you need to upload frequently. I was uploading multiple times per day and he was uploading once a week or a couple times a week, I forget exactly how much, but the frequency was way lower compared to what I was doing and that's why I was winning. There's a direct correlation between the number of videos that I was posting with the growth of my channel. Now, you have to post good stuff. You can't post crap. It's got to be something that people enjoy and we're really meticulous about eliminating series that aren't performing well and I'll probably get to that in a future video to help you guys break down how to understand if a series is working or not for you, at least how we do it. But if you're posting good stuff and you're doing it frequently, you're going to win against people who are just posting good stuff, maybe even better stuff, very infrequently. It just is how YouTube's algorithm works. You may not agree with it, you may not think it's right, but it's how it is. And so paying attention to the data can allow you to win on YouTube where other people who may have a lot of other advantages are gonna be second place. And so today I wanna talk about me versus Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary's been a friend of the business for a number of years. I had my first collaboration with him back in 2010. I made a line of famous entrepreneur trading cards. This is the first page of them. My favorite entrepreneur is AP Giannini. His is Vince McMahon. And I got a quote from him on the back. So if I flip to the back page, you can see, This one is mine, and then here's Gary down below. Lovin' Vince. I've had him interviewed on my channel, we've done some collaborations, and so I want to compare my YouTube channel to his. Now if I pull up my Social Blade account, compare my channel to his, we can't go all the way back, it's limited, but I passed his channel in September 2015. The data that we have here shows just beginning of the year 2016. He was always ahead of me. I passed him September 2015, and I was widening the gap. And what's happened recently is Gary is closing the gap on me. He's catching up, and he's catching up in a hurry. In a hurry. And why? Why is Gary catching up in a hurry? This is what's really interesting. This is what I look at. I want to look at the data. I want to understand the points. Has Gary gotten a lot better as a speaker? Not really. Gary is already playing at such a high level, and if you look at what he was saying a year ago and his delivery and his enthusiasm compared to what he's doing now, it's the same level of enthusiasm and energy and excitement, same bravado. He hasn't really improved that much as a speaker, again, because he was already playing at such a high level. He's been doing this for so many years that one year to the next is not really having a big impact. Has his team gotten better? Yeah. Have they added more production quality to it? Yes. Has he introduced different series? Yes. The biggest difference maker though is the quantity of uploads. I was crushing Gary and zoomed right past him because I was producing way more than he was, and now he's catching up with the quantity. Let me share some stats with you. February 2016, Gary had 18 videos. He posted 18 videos in a month. That's pretty good. I'm posting 3 a day, but he's posting 3 a month in February 2016. February 2017, 50. He went from 18 videos in February last year to 50 videos February this year. Let's fast forward to March. Let's fast forward to March. March 2016, he had 19 videos. Still solid, 19 videos. it's one every two days, just over, over one every two days, right? It's good quality, consistent content. 19 videos. March 2017, 60. 60 videos. He goes from 19 to 60 videos. He's uploading two a day or more, and that's why he's winning. He has quality content and he's playing better to YouTube algorithm, and now he's going to pass me. You look at the curve. He's catching up and he's on the path to beat me. And so I'm gonna be making a video in a couple months saying Gary's ahead of me and I'm now not the number one channel for entrepreneurs out there in the world. And I got up my game, it's great. Like it forces me to wanna play better, to create better content for you guys, to add more hustle energy, 'cause everybody else, like I passed Gary and you know what, there's nobody else in the field who's doing really well. Now the game is on. And I love it. And so I'd really strongly encourage you guys to look at how often you are posting your videos. You look at Gary, who was doing a good job last year, right, and posting 19, 18 videos a month. That's pretty solid. But when he moved to daily and when he moved to twice a day, that's when his channel really started to explode. To the point where nobody is catching him. So you want to do that in your industry. I would definitely look at whatever your schedule is right now and at least try to double it. I would then try to look at how do I get to a daily schedule and then how do I move beyond daily? And it challenges you to think, how can I add really amazing content? 'Cause the value is not there, it's not going to help you. If you're just throwing up crap, it's not going to help you. It's got to be good quality stuff at least once a day, if not multiple times a day. And again, I'm not saying it's right, it's just how YouTube is working. And if you play to their algorithm, you have a better chance of getting subscribers, getting noticed, getting your message out, and driving that into your business as well. All right, next up I wanna answer some questions from you guys, questions that you asked on last edition's version. So if you have questions for next time, leave it down below and I'll see what I can do. First up, Relax and Sleep Station, I enjoyed the video, Evan. I feel you're very respectful when talking Eric Thomas and showing how regular content is important for the algorithm hopefully helps a lot of people get motivated to make more content. Yeah, this, this whole me versus somebody has been a fun— it's a fun thing. I love Eric. We've profiled him a couple times, have worked with his team. Gary, we've done collaborations with. The other people I'm gonna mention in the future of the series, I have a relationship with, with as well. This mad respect— I love what Eric is doing, I love what Gary is doing. It's not that I am better than than them or not. It's just showing that they could be doing better. They can be getting way better results if they follow some of these things. And even if they don't pay attention, you could be doing better if you follow some of these tips and strategies on your own YouTube channel. Chris Camiso, yes, please continue the series, thank you. Well, this is version 2. We'll see what happens in the coming months. I'm committed to doing it, I think, until I hit a million. We'll see, we'll see. If you guys respond, you're liking it, you leave comments, you're engaging with it, will continue to a million. Mommy Z, love this series, Evan. My question is how do I make my YouTube channel more attractive without the money to invest in things like a better camera or channel design initially? A better camera and channel design have a tiny impact. How do you make it better? You, you get better. That's it. The biggest factor on my own channel is still me. If I want to go out and now catch up to Gary, who's starting to crush me, right? I'm still ahead of him, but he's going to pass me soon. How do I beat him? I need to get better. Me. I need to get better. My message needs to be better. I need to have more passion. I need to provide more value to my audience. It's me. You want to win? It's not the gear. It's never the gear. I'm filming this off of a Logitech webcam that I bought at Best Buy. You don't need to have amazing gear. You need to have an amazing message and to provide amazing value to your audience. So stop thinking that it's your channel art and stop thinking that it's your camera and you get better at providing value to your audience. Next up, Andy Jug. I think I prefer to stay behind the camera and do animation and voiceover videos, but that would hinder my personal branding, wouldn't it? Do you wanna build a personal brand? I think people connect easier to a face, to a person, but if all you wanna do is be behind the camera, you wanna do a little animated summary of yourself, have a little character of yourself and use your voice, that could become your brand. It's harder to connect to a cartoon character than it is to an individual. If you came on and told your story, it'd be a lot easier, but maybe building a personal brand isn't the right way to go for your company, right? You could tell your story through this animated character. You can have a lot of success. It's not about doing it just the way that you see other people doing it, right? Like Eric has a personal brand, Gary has a personal brand, I have a personal brand. It doesn't mean that you need to go out and build a personal brand. There's lots of people who have won on YouTube without having to have a personal brand. And so you forcing yourself to go out and do it, you're not going to have a lot of success unless it's what you want. Like if you want to build a personal brand, it's a deep thing that you want to go out and do, then get better at it, get more comfortable, practice, practice, practice, practice. But if that's not where you want to go and what you want to do is draw amazing animation videos and you want to do voiceover and narration, then do that and tell your stories through that. The impact of the personal brand won't be as strong. So yeah, it'll hurt your personal brand, but your net-net value would be much bigger because you're doing the thing that you love instead of trying to do somebody else. Urban Gym, how can I be less preachy and more natural like you? I love your videos and has influenced my channel a ton. God bless. Just practice, Jim. I am not naturally gifted at this. It took me a lot of practice. I've made 4,000 videos. Like, you better get good at something if you've done it 4,000 times. And it's just about developing your style. Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. The quantity will lead to the quality. The more you practice, the more you get better, the more you consume too. I like watching different people's styles. The way somebody presents something, I maybe pick up a little bit and I apply it in my next video and see, hmm, did that fit? Ah, it doesn't feel right. If you don't like being preachy, then try not being preachy. Try to find people that have given speeches or have done something similar to what you're trying to do in a non-preachy way. If you like you like how I do it, you feel I'm natural, it starts with me feeling natural. I'm not here trying to impress you guys. I'm not here trying to say I'm better than anybody else. I'm trying to provide value. I care about this message. And if you feel comfortable and you feel natural, then you'll make videos where it's natural and comfortable. And that may mean taking a number of takes. Like maybe you shoot the whole video until you know what, that was preachy. I'm going to do it again. That sucked again. I'm going to do it again. And the more you get into it, the first time I find at least you can, at least when I was first starting out, the first time I felt nervous and it wasn't my best performance. Even now when I start doing my videos, I'll always start doing the simple ones like the top 10s where I'm not saying much. I'm just doing the intro, extra, that kind of stuff. And it gets me warmed up and revved up to be able to do the espressos and the Believe lives and the videos where I have to be more passionate, I got to be more, you know, thought leadership. Just practice, man. Don't beat yourself up. It's going to come if you put in the work. Exist in nature. It's hard to compare. People jump on and off when you're not consistent. He's creating a lot of business for himself offline. I think this is in reference to Eric Thomas last time. Absolutely. You know, this series is only about how to hit 1 million subscribers. It's not about how to build a million-dollar business. It's not about how to funnel your people offline. You know, Eric Thomas's number one goal was a million subscribers on YouTube, then his priorities would be different. Now he's trying to build his book business, he's trying to build a speaking business, he's trying to build his apparel business. He's got all these paths that YouTube helps funnel, but it's not the main thing for him. And so that's fine. And this is the whole point. It is hard to compare somebody who is not consistent. This is the message to you guys. I want you to be consistent. If hitting a subscriber goal is important for you on YouTube, if you want to have success on YouTube, then you need to be consistent. Otherwise, even if you're great like Eric Thomas, people are going to hop on and hop off, and you're not going to really build as strong a brand as you could if you were consistent. That's the entire point of that video and this one too. Kevin Barry, I like this a lot. I want to have consistent uploading, but it's so difficult balancing quality and quantity. Keep this series going. I hear you, man. I think it's just constant experimentation. I think, again, the quantity leads to the quality. It's hard to produce something that's really good if you've never done it before. So the first time you try something, it's gonna suck, but then maybe there's a seed there that you can use to expand on, make a little bit better next time, a little bit better next time, a little bit better next time. And maybe you have one series that just works really well and you keep doing that, and then you experiment by adding new ones every time. For us, this Saturday time slot is always a different video. We're experimenting with 4 to 5 different series to see which one is a hit, which one takes off that maybe we put into our regular weekly schedule instead of once a month. And so having some way to constantly test new series, new ideas, a lot of them won't work, but if you don't test, you're always going to stay where you are. You need the constant innovation, constantly working on the quantity to get this to the point where you're making quality videos consistently. The idea is to get the both quantity and quality. The Universe Guru, I do one upload and one live chat a day. Do live chats count the same way in the YouTube algorithm? That's a tough one. I don't think they do as much, to be honest. I don't have a lot of data to back this up like I do for this series. It's just an intuition. When you go live, you get an immediate hit. YouTube will email out a lot of your subscribers. They'll promote it across all your videos. You see, again, all of these people coming on to join you live. I feel like the live stuff dies down afterwards though. I don't know, I feel like it doesn't get as much promotion, doesn't get as much benefit. It may just be because in a live video there's a lot of dead time and then people aren't as engaged in watching the replay. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's why they just don't do as well. You want to eliminate as much fat as possible in the video and make every second count. And in the live video, there's a lot of fun stuff that's great when you're on live. But for somebody watching the replay who wasn't part of the live audience, it's not as much fun. So maybe they disconnect. So I don't know if it's a purposeful thing that YouTube doesn't promote the live stuff as well afterwards, or if it's just that the video, the live videos are less engaging for a non-live audience. And so it ends up being downranked. But I have definitely seen that connection where my live videos don't do as well ongoing as my regular videos do. Alikia, oh my gosh, so many videos. I'll never watch them all. Haha. That's great. I made this rant video a while ago about how I don't want you to watch every video on my channel. I don't, I don't need you to watch every video on my channel. I'd rather that you're out producing. Watch something when you need it, get inspired by it, and then take some action. The point of the multiple videos per day is really to just highlight what's happening with the YouTube algorithm. And if you want to win, you have to be consistent. I don't expect people to watch every single video. And if you watch the people who are going and making mass content like that, quite often their views per video will drop, but net, they win because add them all up, their views, their minutes watched, their subscribers, they win. And so if you start moving to this model of one a day or multiple times per day, don't expect people to watch every video. Don't be hurt when people don't watch the video, They're watching on their time and it's on you to provide as much value as possible so they want to tune in. Next up, Hairdresser on Fire. Hi Evan, I'm about to start my own YouTube channel. I could use some of your knowledge and how you make your videos, equipment used, where you begin in coming up with your material, what programs you use to edit your videos, what inspires you when making your videos, and what your thoughts are on how your videos look now compared to the first videos you created. Thank you. Back to a previous comment, if you're just starting a YouTube channel, do not get hung up on the gear. So many people get hung up on the gear and they won't start until they have all the gear. You need the microphone, you need the camera, you need the lighting, you need all this stuff. Doesn't matter. When I first started, it was me. I would face a window so you have natural light on you and not behind you, and then just go, just start talking, share expertise. Your name is Hairdresser on Fire, so I'm assuming you're a hairdresser and you want to share your expertise around hairdressing. That's what really needs to come out. And you could film really great videos off of your phone. With a friend holding it, or you buy a tripod and put it up there, and if you're close enough to the phone, they have a good microphone, that's enough to get started. Much more important than the gear is you. You could build an amazing start by you providing amazing value showcasing what's so important about hairdressing. I think in terms of picking topics, you got to find something that you actually care about. Like if you're a hairdresser right now, you have a shop, what's the biggest problem that you're seeing right now? What do people come in asking about? What's the biggest misconceptions out there that you want to help people with? Right, any business, the entrepreneur is trying to provide value and help people. I genuinely want to help you guys. Why am I making this video? I want to help you guys. Anybody who's in business, it's not just to make money if you want to have success, it's to help your customers solve important problems in their life. So you want to help people with their hair. How are you going to do that? What's your message? What problems can you solve for them? What questions can you answer for them? And one of the greatest ways to get started as a thought leader is just think about all the questions that you're currently getting from your audience and then turn those into videos. That's how I started my channel. A lot of the early videos were me answering questions of people who would email in questions, and instead of answering back on email, I would make a YouTube video about it. It was faster and it could also potentially reach a wider audience than just the one person who I was responding to. So I would just start, start, start, start, start, start, start, start, get better, practice, get better again, keep practicing, be an amazing on-camera talent, and then you can worry about the gear, and then you can worry about the editing software, and then you can worry about the bells and whistles. Too many people focus on the icing and they have no cake underneath them. Truth Speaks Group. Question: Is it better to post on YouTube or Facebook or post on both? I noticed you don't post on Facebook. Facebook is really a pay-to-play economy, and that's not part of my model. There's two things that I don't like about Facebook. One is that if you're doing a brand page, you have to pay to get your content out. You'll have a core group of an audience who will watch everything, but to win on Facebook's algorithm, you need to pay. They have a market, people willing to pay, and so that's how you win in Facebook. That's how you understand their algorithm. YouTube is different, and so I'm hacking the YouTube algorithm to build up my channel. The other thing about Facebook that I don't really like is the content doesn't really live forever. I want the stuff that I make to live forever. I want the stuff that I make to still be visible 6 years down the road, 20 years down the road. I want to show my son as he grows up. I want to show my grandkids this video that I'm making for you guys and the heart and energy and passion that Evan Carmichael had in 2017. I want them to see that. I want the stuff I make— people are still watching videos that I made 5 years ago or more. I like that. I want to feel like every piece of content I make is going to live forever, has the ability to do so. And Facebook, sure, you can go back. The posts don't get deleted like they would on Snapchat, but you don't really go back on a Facebook post from 5 years ago. You don't go back on a Facebook post from 2 days ago. And so I don't like that, I don't like that rush. So I think with Facebook, if you had equal size audiences on both, you'll get more instant views on Facebook, especially if you do any kind of boost around it to your audience, but you'll get way longer-term impact if you're on YouTube. And so that's the game. I don't care about hitting everybody tomorrow, but I want people to be changed. I want— I'm in this for the long run. And so YouTube is a better place for me. YL Mompreneurs, has this been 100% organic growth or have you used sponsored post ads in the mix as well? It's 99.5%. 7% organic growth. We've done some targeted ads based around certain videos to help give them a little bit more exposure, but from my experience in every campaign that I've run, you can get views from advertising, but you can't get subscribers. Subscribers don't convert a lot from the views on videos, at least from my experience in every ad that I've run. And so we don't make that a priority. If there's one of you that we're just trying to get some awareness that helps with the branding, something like that, then, then we may run a couple campaigns, but in terms of driving subscriber growth, it's almost zero, um, which sucks. But if you do the work on the organic side, you make really good stuff that people want to share, where they watch the video and they're like, that was amazing, I'm going to subscribe to the channel, I'm going to tell my friends about it, then you can get the growth. And so almost 100% of my growth has been just from organic and doing things like this of understanding the YouTube algorithm to get as much exposure as possible. Pump Iron is asking, Evan, I love your videos. My question is, how do I make money on YouTube? That may be a future video. I don't know. We'll see if I cover that on a standalone. I've done this already on my channel besides. I think the way to get started initially, if you're just starting up as a YouTuber, you make a little bit of money off of the AdSense that comes in. The key though, as you're making more money, will come when you have an audience and people start paying attention to you. So I started getting my first brand deals My first brand deal, I think I had around 40,000 subscribers, somewhere around there, where I started to get on companies' radar where they wanted to hire me to do stuff, get involved with me, send me products, hire me for things. And so when you start to build an audience, then you'll start getting more opportunities. I got my book deal mostly because I have a YouTube audience. I get offers to join companies' boards of directors because of my YouTube audience, things that I never thought of. I never started my YouTube channel trying to get brand deals or book deals. Or joining companies' boards or investing in the businesses was never part of the plan, but it happened because I built an audience. And so there's a painful point at the start where you're doing it because, and this is any business, by the way, like when you're starting, it's painful to start. You're doing it for the love and the joy. There's no company where you just start and you're instantly successful. There's a lot of heartache and pain and blood and sweat and working on the quantity to get to the quality, right? That then leads to you having opportunities. If you sell an offline product, so, you know, in Toronto Dance Salsa, YouTube is not our main focus, but when we make YouTube videos, it helps promote an offline business. Like looking at Eric Thomas, who became YouTube famous, and he turned that into offline businesses, offline revenue streams, seminars and conferences and speaking gigs, and I don't know if he does coaching, apparel, you know, books, turned it into an offline business, and doesn't focus as much on YouTube. And so other people have passed him on the YouTube front, but it's okay for him because he's making money elsewhere. And so there's a lot of different paths, but at the start, if you haven't started, you just, you're just on your way, I wouldn't even worry about monetizing. If just making money is your goal, do something else, 'cause it's gonna take a long time to get there. You gotta do the videos because you love them. Kyle Dunn, how important is production quality of a video, like editing, music, transitions? Kinda talked about it. It's important, but Sorry, Christina editing this video. It's important, but it's you. You could have the best editing in the world, but if your message sucks and you suck on camera, it's not going to save you. You would get way better results as you doing it. And so don't let those things hold you back. Get started, improve your message, get better, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, make a good video. Anthony Lazaro. I think the million-dollar question is how do you choose the topics with Google Trends video. I don't use Google Trends. I don't use Google Trends at all. Most of the topics come from what you guys are asking for. So when I'm doing a top 10, when I'm doing Believe Life, when I'm doing Mentor Me, you know, they come from what you guys have been asking for, what's already popular on the channel. Our top 10s, for example, we have 3,000-ish requests for top 10s to do. We look at what the most popular ones are. So what are the names that have been put up? Who's been mentioned the most? And then we start looking, can we get enough content on them. Some, you know, there's not enough content, so we can't do it. But that's how we pick it. And the topics for other videos are usually based on what you guys are asking for or something that I just— I want to make this series. I wanted to make a video on it. Nobody's saying, hey, make a video series on how to make— get a million subscribers. I just wanted to do it. And so it's that combination, what the audience is asking for plus what I'm doing. We don't look at Google Trends and saying, hey, what's happening right now? And let's try to let's try to just ride this wave out. It's definitely a model, and maybe that's a blind spot for us. That's just not how we've achieved our growth. All right, I think I'm going to end it there, guys. Tons of questions came in. There's still a lot more to get to, but I'm seeing some repeat ones come in. So if you have a question you want me to answer in the next edition of this series, leave it down in the comments below. If you see questions that you like, give them a thumbs up so I'll see them first when I'm making the video next time. And if you want this series to continue, leave it down below as well. Thank you guys for the love. Thank you for joining me on my journey to hit 1 million subscribers. And hopefully as I teach you in the process, you get strategies to apply to your own channel to help you achieve your goals as well, whether it's hitting 1 million, 100,000, 10,000, 1,000, 10 million, whatever your subscriber goal is, hopefully this series is helping you. I also want to give a quick shout out to Playster. Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and sharing it on Twitter. Really, really means a lot to me. I hope you're enjoying the read and getting value from it. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.