MBA1030 Q&A Wednesday: Is Starting a YouTube Channel a Good Idea?

Hey. Oh. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show, the business podcast that brings you the answers you're looking for in a sea of business content out there with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm all. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online over at 100mba.net and today's episode is a Q and a Wednesday episode. On our Q and a Wednesday episodes, I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners of the show. If you have a question you want to ask, just email me over@omar mba.net I'd love to answer your question right here on the podcast. Today's question is from Terry and Terry asks, is starting a YouTube channel a good idea? A solid question, Terry. A lot of people have some apprehensions when starting a YouTube channel. They might feel like it's overcrowded, it's been around for 12 years. It's hard to compete. Maybe they don't know where to start when it comes to creating these videos. Well, we're going to discuss all these things as well as my recommendation when it comes to starting a YouTube channel. So much to cover in this Q and a Wednesday episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's episode of the $100 MBA show is supported by Earth Classmail. If you run a business, you need a business address, but it doesn't mean you need to open up a business office. You can work from Home and Earth ClassMail can hook you up with a business address and scan all your mail and upload it to your account in the cloud so you can check all your physical mail anytime, anywhere. I love it. I love it. I love it. And we use earthcast mail because we love it so much and, and Earth ClassMail wants to hook you up with a free month to get started. Just go to earthclassmail.com mbamont Again, it's earthclassmail.com mbamonth Use coupon code mbamonth. Many people believe that YouTube is over saturated. It's been around for 12 years. There are billions of videos out there and they feel like their biggest challenge is going to be competing with the noise. The fact of the matter is that's not going to be your biggest challenge. Actually, your biggest challenge will be creating quality content, quality videos. Videos consistently. This is why, or this is the main reason why people fail on YouTube. They just stop producing videos or the quality really drops because they want to just churn out as many videos as possible. Trust me. This is a daily podcast. We have over a thousand episodes. One of the things I have to challenge myself every single time I get on the mic is to keep the quality up, keep it improving while staying consistent, keep on recording. And with video, the production's even more. Because you're on camera, there's a lot more involved here. With visuals, the editing process is much more involved. And when it comes to video, the bar is very high these days. Now, I'm not saying this to discourage you. I'm just saying that make sure you set yourself up for success. Make sure you carve out the time to create these videos consistently. YouTube can be very, very powerful, and it's the second largest search engine after Google. In fact, it's owned by Google, so it's got a lot of power. So if you're using YouTube as a marketing platform for your business, it definitely can give you a huge boost. But you have to be strategic about it. You can't just say, hey, I'm going to be funny, I'm going to be interesting, and I'm going to start producing some videos and it all will be gravy. You got to have a plan of action. You got to know what you're doing and how to create great videos. We've had many episodes about how to create great videos. You can check them out in our archives. Hit subscribe so you can have access to our archive lessons. But another resource I highly recommend is Brian Dean's site, backlinko.com Brian Dean is an SEO expert, search engine optimization expert, but in the last year or two, he's become known as one of the YouTube experts out there. And in fact, he uses his own YouTube channel as a case study to show you what works and what doesn't. He does tons of experiments that you can learn from firsthand. I highly recommend you subscribe to his YouTube channel because he teaches you all these great tactics as well as subscribe to his newsletter. I do believe starting a YouTube channel is a good idea. I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs have success on YouTube, even when they started late, even if they just dabbled in it before, but now they're like doubling down on it now. But it takes consistency and it takes focus, so make sure you have the time for it. I would say if you're trying to produce a video a week, you're going to need to carve out at least eight hours a week for this project, especially if you're doing everything if you're shooting, editing, uploading, doing all the SEO, doing all the keywords, then you're going to need a lot of time to do this right? As you'll see through, you know, Brian Dean's tutorials and all that stuff. If you're going to hire a freelance videographer, this is going to make a huge difference because all you're going to need to focus on is the content. Writing a great script, getting in front of the camera and delivering your content, if that's all you need to do, that's gonna save you a lot of time and a lot of effort, and it's gonna allow you to be a lot more consistent because, hey, you can just focus on the content. Everything else from shooting the video to editing to putting it up on YouTube can be handled by other people. So you know where I'm going with this, right? So if you have a budget for this project, this is gonna really help you a lot. It doesn't have to be this humongous budget, but. But spending a couple thousand dollars a month on this is going to make a huge difference. You're gonna go out of the gate Starting your YouTube channel as a pro, and it's gonna free up your time and your energy. And again, it's gonna allow you to overcome your biggest challenge, which is staying consistent and keeping the quality up. I do wanna say that all this is useful, but it's a waste of time if you don't enjoy being in front of the camera. If you're just forcing this because you think YouTube is so powerful, it's going to be hard for you to be consistent if you don't enjoy the process. Now, you might get lucky where the content you're recording is screencasted. Let's say, for example, you're doing tutorials on how to use software or something like that, then you being on camera may not have to be the case. But if you're giving interactive talking head videos, which is kind of the standard now, people don't want to be lectured to. They want something that's entertaining, that's something that's engaging, and they want to learn from somebody, then you're going to need to get in front of the camera consistently. And if it's a painful process for you, I don't recommend you doing this. Choose a medium that you feel comfortable with. Choose a medium that you look forward to doing. For me, that is podcasting, this is something that I know I can do consistently because I enjoy it. For other people, it may be blogging for Some of you out there, it may be video content and starting a YouTube channel. Now, there's a few things I want to warn you about when it comes to being on YouTube. These are things that you cannot avoid, things that you need to deal with, with, and come to terms with. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor. 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You no longer have to be a big company to get great technology, great benefits, great service for your team. Focus on your business, not payroll and paperwork. And to help support the show, Gusto is offering our listeners an exclusive limited time deal. Sign up today and you'll get three months free once you're on your first payroll. Just go to Gusto.com MBA again, that's Gusto.com MBA and get three months free once you run your first payroll. Alright, when you start a YouTube channel, you have to come to terms with the fact that you're going to be on YouTube's platform. What does that mean? Well, you're uploading your videos to YouTube and the way people view your videos are through YouTube. You don't own YouTube. YouTube can do whatever they want with their platform. They can change their algorithm, they can change their setup. If one day they wanted to close YouTube, they can close YouTube. Now that's far fetched and probably would not happen. But the point is, when you start to join a platform like YouTube, and the same goes with social media like Facebook or Twitter, you're on their platform. And those who've been on YouTube for like a decade, 10 years, they've seen a lot of changes, some good, some bad. Some of them really affect their business. So there is a sense of not being in total control when you're using Somebody's platform. Now, the advantage is, is that you're using their platform. It's free. You can upload videos for free. It gives you a avenue, a channel for people to find you. But there's a way to kind of secure yourself. Don't use YouTube, only start a YouTube channel and produce your videos and try to grow your channel, grow your subscribers, get engagement, all that stuff on the YouTube platform. But there's no reason why you can't publish the videos as a part of your own blog on your website. If for any reason, YouTube is gone tomorrow, it's no problem. You still have your videos on your blog. Now on your blog, you can choose to embed your YouTube videos right on your blog, or you can use a different video host like Wistia or Vimeo. But the point is that you have a different channel, a different way for people to find you and your videos. I know this sounds kind of like, oh, what are the chances of YouTube just shutting down? Well, it's not only about shutting down. It's also about not being reliant on one platform, on one source for people to find your videos. People can find you through your website by being a subscriber to your newsletter through a Google search. You get the point. Just like this podcast is on more than just itunes. We're on Stitcher, we're on Overcast, we're on Spotify, we're on Intune Radio. We embed the episodes on our website. It allows us to get more reach as well as that we're not reliant on one source. We love itunes, they're great, but we don't put all our eggs in one basket. Terry, I hope that answers your question here on today's Q and A, Wednesday's episod. Guys, if you have a question you want to ask, just email me over@omar00mba.net, I'd love to answer your question right here on the show. If you've already submitted a question, know that we have it in queue that we're going to get to it. We haven't ignored you. We love you and we love your questions. That's it for me today. Guys, before I go, I want to leave you with this. Platforms like YouTube are incredibly powerful. They're really an incredible gift. It's all for free, too, but you got to do your part. You got to put in the time and the effort and the creativity to create great, useful videos. But understand that YouTube is public and to grow a YouTube channel, you're going to have to be open to criticism and some trolls and some haters and some comments. So you're going to have to grow a thick skin when you go on YouTube. This is not to scare you off. The majority of the comments you'll get will be positive, but you'll get a couple people that are just a waste of time. So just a heads up that when you go into a public platform like that, you're gonna get a mixed bag of people and a mixed bag of reactions, but you stay focused on serving the people that appreciate your content. Alright, thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Sam.