MBA2255 Q&A Wednesday: Should I create videos for YouTube or Instagram to grow my travel blog?

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Today's question is from Mike and Mike asks, should I create videos for YouTube or Instagram to grow my travel blog? I'm a new travel blogger and would love to grow my presence online and I want to focus on either YouTube or Instagram, not both because I just don't have the bandwidth to do both. I know that I can repurpose my content, but I want to go all in on one platform. What do you recommend as a budding travel blogger, YouTube or Instagram? Thanks for the question Mike, and definitely with Instagram. Reels and Stories Video is a big part of Instagram Suite and its offerings and it's sort of seen as a competitor to YouTube in a lot of ways. But of course, YouTube is optimized for longer videos, meaning YouTube really prefers videos being at least 10 minutes. This is what the algorithm prefers. And most videos on Instagram are just not that long. They're about 1 minute, 2 minute, maybe 3, most especially when it comes to reels. So choosing the right one for you really does matter. And I also like the fact that you're choosing between YouTube and Instagram and you're focusing on one of them so you can get all in on that platform. I have found that when you do do this, you actually get better results. When you just focus on one platform, you're building content for viewers of that platform. It's just easier for you to create content with that viewer in mind, rather than trying to shoehorn the content into a different platform that's actually not meant for it. So in today's episode, I'm going to explain the advantages and the disadvantages of both platforms when it comes to video, whether it's Instagram or YouTube. And as well, give my recommendation to Mike personally about his travel blogging business and which one is best for that type of niche and that type of market. I'll also share some of my own experiences on both of these platforms, ensure what has worked and what really hasn't in my experience. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. When we're talking about two different platforms like Instagram and YouTube, we have to recognize that fundamentally these are different types of apps. YouTube is more of a search engine and. And the way people find your content is gonna be a little bit different versus Instagram, which is more of a social network. Now, they do have similarities in the fact that, you know, YouTube has subscribers and you want to increase your subscribers so those subscribers see your latest videos. Same thing with Instagram. You want people to follow you on Instagram, so that way you can make them aware of your latest videos and content on Instagram. But the main difference is the way search works on each of these platforms. YouTube is really a powerful search engine. It's the second largest search engine right after Google. And as we know, YouTube is owned by Google, so it's really optimized for search. So if you look at the way you consume content on both of these platforms, it's quite different. When you open up Instagram, you're kind of scrolling through your feed, seeing what is given or being fed to you versus YouTube. Most people search on YouTube for topics or videos they want to see. And yes, they have a section for trending and latest Uploads from the people that you've subscribed to. But. But the search function is the main function on YouTube. This allows you to have more reach, meaning that you're going to be exposed to more people that are searching for your topic. So if you have a great video that's optimized well on a topic people are searching for, your video will show up on the list. This is why people that publish regularly on YouTube see steady growth on that platform versus Instagram. You can plateau because you have to do some other marketing around Instagram to get those followers. Now for my business, Webinar Ninja, we have a YouTube channel and we also have an Instagram page. But what we publish on YouTube is actually quite different. It's long form content. Each video is about five to ten minutes long. And the content we publish there is a lot more in depth. It's more of explainer, it's more tutorial. It's not in many quick cuts and graphics and short snippets. We really dive deep into a topic in each video. Now often we'll use Instagram to promote our YouTube channel. So we'll take our YouTube clips and we will shorten them and kind of create a trailer for the video that we just published on YouTube. This is something that Mike mentioned, doing both, but just kind of showing you how we use both our platforms or both our accounts, both YouTube and Instagram. Now generally speaking, when it comes to the actual quality of the content, the video production, YouTube has a higher level of production. Yes, you see some really great looking videos on Instagram, but there's a lot more, let's say selfie type videos on Instagram, portrait videos because of the mobile app and the aspect ratio of the videos. So it's a lot more casual. The average video on YouTube has a higher production quality in general. Now obviously every niche is different, but you could see feature film type of production on YouTube for a lot of vloggers that are very popular on YouTube. That's not as common on Instagram. So if you don't really want to make a lot of effort into the tech and the quality of your production, Instagram is a good option because you can just do it with your phone. You could do a lot in post production with titling and graphics and transitions. And because Instagram is a social media network, it's not really a video kind of platform like YouTube. Expectations are not as high. Now Mike mentions he's a travel blogger and I grew up in a time when I say grew up, I kind of came up in entrepreneurship where blogging was huge. It was the way to publish content. This is before social media became so popular. And I'm a big believer that blogging is still huge. It's a great way for you to drive traffic with SEO. But in his case, he's trying to drive traffic to his blog. So he's using platforms like YouTube and Instagram and other social media networks to make that happen. But essentially what bloggers do is they build a relationship with their readers, they build a relationship with their audience. People consume their content because they like their perspective and their point of view. And it's easier to communicate your perspective and your point of view with long form video because you have more time to do that. You have more time to tell that story. And in this case, I would recommend YouTube because YouTube allows you to do that and actually it rewards you to do that. Like I mentioned before, you know, most of the experts that I follow and have read or taken their courses, they recommend that, you know, videos should be at least 10 minutes long around the 10 minute mark. Because what YouTube does is it actually helps channels that have longer overall watch time and the longer the video, the higher likelihood the watch time will be. So say, for example, you have a two minute video and somebody watches the whole video, right? That's two minutes worth of watch time. But if you have a 10 minute video and they only watch half the video, that's five minutes of watch time. And even though they only watch half the video, 50% of the video, that's more watch time, that's more time spent on YouTube. And therefore YouTube will reward those channels through the algorithm and expose their channel as well as, you know, help the ranking in search. So for people that are trying to build an audience, build a relationship with that audience and share their perspective, having a bit more time with long form video is better. Most of the travel bloggers I follow, their videos are beyond 10 minutes or 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, especially if they're going into depth about, you know, all the things you can do or itinerary for a city. A suggested itinerary. Now, the disadvantage to YouTube though, because I've talked about a lot of the advantages already, is that it's highly competitive. It's very crowded in YouTube. This statistic always blows my mind. More than 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. So lots of videos are being uploaded to YouTube as we speak. So yes, it's a competitive space, but of course we're talking about all kinds of videos and you Know you're competing within your own niche. So this is why it's so important to have high quality videos, high production value. You really spend time telling a story and scripting your videos properly. You're really becoming a videographer, a filmmaker, so to speak, with YouTube, even if you just think you're doing tutorials, but that's the kind of level of quality you're looking for, so you can stand out. So when people find your videos, they watch it, they hang around for longer, they subscribe to your channel. All that kind of stuff helps boost your channel. So it's gonna require more effort and more dedication. And if you are excited about that, that's awesome, then YouTube is for you. But if you don't really love the production of video and it's not something that you want to geek out on, then it's gonna be really hard for you to succeed on YouTube without doing that. You know, regardless of how you communicate on YouTube, because people that shoot videos with their phone, some people do animation, some people do screen capture and voiceovers. These are all different ways to display your videos, but the production is still great and it communicates a message in a very creative way. Instagram, on the other hand, you can be a little bit more ad hoc, a little bit rough. And this is why, you know, these are some advantages of Instagram. You can do shorter videos, meaning you can maybe shoot an hour worth of video. Let's say in this example, a travel blog, you're shooting an hour of video of footage of a city that you visited. Let's say you went to Amsterdam, and you can chop up those videos into clips. And that could be worth, you know, the month of March. You know, all of your videos for March, for Instagram could be just from one hour. Now, you still have to do some storytelling. You have to have a narrative. There's got to be a structure to your videos. But you can get away with a lot more for very little with Instagram. Now, the disadvantage, again, not the best when it comes to search or search engine. Remember when people search on Google, videos show up on YouTube. So even if somebody's just searching for a topic on Google and you have a great video on it, you might show up on search. This is great. You're getting basically free traffic from a site that you're not really a part of, right? You're basically getting free traffic off Google to your YouTube channel. Pretty cool. Not that simple with Instagram. Now let's talk about engagement on both of these platforms. Most of the engagement that happens on YouTube is through the comment section. People comment on videos, they ask questions, and that's really how you communicate with your audience. Mostly on YouTube. Instagram, on the other hand, yes, people can comment on videos, people can react to videos, give hearts and things like that. You kind of do the same on YouTube by liking the video. But people can also direct message you if you have your DMs open and they follow you. So this is a great tool for having conversations, one on one conversations with potential customers or people that want to work with you or sponsor you. Now, YouTube does have a contact page or a about page for your channel. So if anybody wants to reach out and contact you, they can on your about area in the menu on your YouTube channel. So if potential sponsors or collaborators or partners want to do that on YouTube, that's possible as well. But generally it's just the comments is where all your communication happens. Now, there's one huge advantage to YouTube that we haven't talked about yet. So let's get into it, and that's monetization. YouTube is the superior platform on any channel. Better than Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you name it. They are the king of monetization. Meaning as a creator, if your channel starts to grow and you have, you know, 10,000, 100,000, a million subscribers, you can start earning some revenue as a content creator just through their ad program. You know, their monetization program, they call it the partner program. And in order to qualify for the partner program, meaning that, you know, YouTube starts showing ads on your channel and people start watching ads on your videos and you start making money from those ads. It's actually not that hard. You just need a thousand subscribers to get started, as well as 4,000 public watch hours in the last 12 months. Of course, the YouTube Partner Program has to be available in your country or region, and they're expanding every day. But if you want to see this as a way to earn revenue, it's a great way to do it. As your channel starts growing. Not a possibility, not as easy. With Instagram, your only real option is to have sponsors sponsor your content, where you have to do native kind of content for your Instagram channel and the videos that you create there, or even the images that you post, they're called underarms. So why are they top of mind men? Wouldn't we rather forget our pits? 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You pick it up wherever you get personal care products, gas, snacks, tolls.

This trip is draining my wallet. Yeah, but we'll be with family.

You're in a good mood.

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Cannot be combined with any other offer single item at regular price. So in today's episode we covered a lot. The advantages, the disadvantages of Both Instagram and YouTube and the big differentiators when it comes to how people find your content, whether it's through search or through growth through Instagram, People following you and seeing content. And then the trump card that YouTube has is the monetization program, the partner program they have where you can earn some revenue. And maybe it's not a lot in the beginning, but as you grow, you'll start making some real residual cash on your videos. There are YouTubers out there that haven't published a video in years, but because of all the videos they've published over the years. They're still so popular, they're still kind of evergreen content. They're still earning lots of money on this partner program because they're still running ads on those videos. And it's true residual income. But again, you have to think the reason why they're willing to do this is because you are creating quality content on their platform. People are watching their videos, and of course, they're watching through the videos, through the ads, all that kind of stuff. So it's kind of a win win for you and YouTube. But of course, the upfront effort and investment you're going to need to make in terms of how you produce your content is going to be made on YouTube. So to wrap up, what I recommend for a travel blogger like Mike is to start with YouTube. YouTube is a great way for you to tell your story, to share your knowledge. And a lot of people search on YouTube for information to learn things, especially when they're about to plan a trip or maybe deciding where they should go next. Yes, it's crowded, yes, it's competitive, but it means that people are there, right? You have an audience there. Your job is to niche, niche down and make sure that you have a specific perspective or angle to your content. Whether it's traveling on a budget or luxury travel the opposite. Or adventure travel. You know, going to places for the sake of adventure and doing adventure activities like rock climbing and snowboarding and all that kind of stuff. Or maybe traveling to learn about the history about that country or that place. These are all different angles to the same niche travel that can allow you to differentiate and find your own audience and really stand out. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 NBA show and thanks for your question, Mike. If you have a question you want to ask on Q and A Wednesday, go ahead and me over at omar@100mba.net Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Whatever you choose, YouTube, Instagram, or even podcasting or blogging, all this stuff is just ways to get your message out there, ways for you to build your audience, ways to build a perspective. Whatever you choose, you still have to put in the work, put in the time, and create the content. So even if you choose something that maybe you feel like is not in your wheelhouse, you're still producing great content that you can use later on another platform. Let's say, for example, you say, I'm gonna choose Instagram and start publishing reels on Instagram. That content still can be used in other places, right? Other platforms, even on your own site if you like. So it's not a waste of time because at the end of the day, good content is good content. But I do like the idea of going all in on one place and dedicating some time. So saying the next 12 months I'm going all in on YouTube and I'm going to make sure that I'm gonna do everything I can to kind of see some traction and growth on that channel. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Gas, snacks, tolls this trip is draining my wallet.

Yeah, but we'll be with family.

You're in a good mood.

What's your deal? What's my deal? I saved at Metro with no activation fees and I got one line of 5G for just $25 per month. Kept the phone I love and a 5 year price guarantee on my top tuxed data detour to Metro. Get that more for your money feeling.

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$30 first month and $25 after with autopay not available. If with Metro or T Mobile in the past 180 days.