Channel Reviews!

In today's livestream, I'm going to be giving channel reviews to small YouTube channels to give them quick little tips that they can do today to start growing their YouTube subscribers. So getting more subscribers, more viewers, because that's what we all want right now. I do these live streams every Thursday generally at 1pm but today is at 2. I had a call earlier. So if you want your channel reviewed, make sure you show up here live at 1:00pm Eastern Standard Time on Thursdays because I select the channels from those that are in the comments. So if we haven't met before, my name is Trina and I'm a YouTube strategist who helps creative and online entrepreneurs get on YouTube to grow their business. So if you are watching here live and you want your YouTube channel selected for a free review, go ahead and say you volunteer Hunger Games style down in the comments. Okay, I'll go down there, I will check on your channel and we will get started with channel reviews. So. So I would love to see who wants their channel reviewed today. So I basically just pick somebody random from the comment section, share my screen with all of you so you can see what I'm looking at and give helpful tactical tips that they can easily do. No professionals needed to make their channel better, make their channel stand out so that they can get more views and subscribers. So today Allie and Emily are both here as well. If anybody else is watching, please say hello because I would love to have some volunteers for channel reviews. Hi Kalista, I'm excited you're here as well. So since Ali is here and she always volunteers, I'll go ahead and do her. She is a fellow student of mine, so why don't we give her a little extra heat here today. So I'm going to go ahead and click on Ali's channel and then I'm going to show you her. I'm going to show you my screen so you can see exactly what I'm looking at as well as I give her these tips. And so bear with me while I flip over here and share my screen with all of you so you can see what I'm looking at. So this is Ali's channel and I will be taking all questions as I go through here. And Ali does a lot of scrapbooking and Bible journaling and we've been working through her channel. I love the channel banner. So if you're just Getting started on YouTube, one of the things that I really suggest is having a strong, clear value proposition up here so that people know what it is that you do? Okay. Your channel banner is the first impression that people are going to get from your channel. So Ali scraps really cute design, scrapbooking, Bible journaling, mini books and planners. So one thing that I would suggest for Allie is why? What's the why behind your channel? So with me I say help you get on YouTube. Why? To grow your business. So one thing I would ask Allie to possibly focus on here is why do they need to scrapbook Bible journal, mini books? What is the why behind your brand, behind your channel? Why would they want to subscribe to you? What value are you going to bring to them? And I suggest having that value right here so you hit it right in their face. Okay, now I'm going to go ahead and unsubscribe to Ali's channel so we can see what it looks like to a brand new subscriber. So I am subscribed to Ali. So being quite upfront here, Ali's also been working on her thumbnails. So with thumbnails you really need to have a color palette that reflects your banner as well. You don't want to have any disconnect in your branding and you also don't want to have a lot of text on your thumbnails because when you look at these on a phone or a mobile device, this can get really small. So you've really got to show it. Show more than tell your audience what this video is going to be about so that entices them to click. So Ali, I would say this is super small. I think this is a collaboration that you have. So I mean, these are really small. I know what you're going with here with your logo. What I would suggest you possibly do is put your logo over here in this corner, corner with possibly this pink border so that you can have a pattern over here. So if you look at my, my channel, we can go over real quick, I can show you what I mean by a pattern. So Tim Schmoyer of Video Creators, you see his pattern, he has this red little triangle and his logo right there in all of his videos. And so if you go to mine, I try to emulate that so that my videos stand out in suggested videos. Okay, I have this little pattern right here. So say you go to one of my videos and you're scrolling over here for some more information to find my pattern should stand out. So you see pink, pink, you see sunny Lenarduzzi does this also with this gold foil you're scrolling up, there's some more pink, pink, pink. So that's why you want your thumbnails to stand out. So that if they're watching one of your videos, it makes it much easier to watch another video as they scroll, scroll through suggested videos. All right, so Allie, that's what I mean. We would do take this or maybe even this. Little glasses. I like that. And putting it down here in the corner as kind of your pattern. I would also, with your title, provide a little bit of value. Like what are they going to learn in this? What's going to pop out to them to want to click on this title? Titles are difficult. I understand. Some of the titles that do well for me over here, I'll pull up is Steps, ways. These are some different things that really grab people's attention. 10 tips, five videos. So I'm not saying every single video needs to be that way. But what value can you really pop to people to make them want to click? All right, it has got to basically tell a story with the thumbnail and the title. Let's do something a little fun here. Since Allie knows about optimization, let's do some optimizing on her channel here. So this video has been up for a while. It almost has 100 views. Fantastic, Ally. So you see this is just a little bit long. This plugin that I'm using is vid iq. This is fantastic, Ally, your average view time is over 58% of your video. You've got four subscribers just from that video. That's amazing, Ali, great job. So here are the tags that you're using and what you're ranking for. These look great. So if you guys are watching this and you're not really sure what video tags you want to be using. So one of Ali's major keywords here is Bible Journal. So she's using Bible Journal in her title. She's using Bible Journal in her description box, and she has different variations of Bible Journaling in her tags. That is fantastic because that is letting YouTube know what this video is about so it can better suggest this video to the right target audience. So Ali has done fantastic. I can see from her video optimization checklist that she's got her tags, descriptions, end cards, end screens, cards. Ali, I think you're doing great. I just think what you need to focus on now is a little more consistency and posting more content because you are doing a fantastic job. Ali says, I need to update some thumbnails for my new style. Fantastic. The million dollar question, why? Yeah, I understand. Figuring out that why is really the key to unlock the power of your YouTube channel. You've really got to explain to people why they want to subscribe, especially if they're just finding you. They really don't care who you are unless you can provide something to them. Right. We're all very self centered and we want to know what you're going to do for us. So if you can have that in your value proposition, that just helps you grow your channel even more. Oh, and she's learning so much from YouTube Boot Camp. Thank you. And that. That is the program that I run, YouTube Boot Camp. It's currently not open. What? But will be opening again soon. So no worries. If you're interested, I would love to do another channel review while we're here. So if anybody wants to volunteer, go ahead and tell me. You want your video, your channel reviewed down below. If not, I do have one other person that was here who's been trying to make it so I will be willing to do hers. I don't think she is here, but if I don't have any other SIG volunteers, I'm gonna do her channel because I really connected with it and I feel like sharing with hers. Calista is volunteering. Are you ready for the hot seat, Kalista? I'm gonna go ahead and pull up her channel right now and I'm going to go ahead and share my screen with you all so you can see what I'm looking at. So I've never even looked at Calista's channel, so you'll be looking at it the very first time. Like me, she is doing palm tree speed painting as her video. Calista first. This is the first thing that's going to play on your channel. So I would suggest having some type of channel trailer or a video that really represents what you are about. Okay, so. So palm tree speed painting, I would assume you are an artist, so your channel would revolve around art. But then on your channel banner, it's swim, art, lifestyle, and beauty. So you kind of have a lot of things going on here. And what happens with YouTube is when you try to reach everybody, you end up reaching nobody. So I would definitely suggest picking one of these and really building your channel on that particular niche. So whether it's speed painting or swim or beauty, pick one of those and really build your following that way. Because somebody wants to come to your channel, they're gonna see seven things every swimmer needs. Okay, she's teaching me about swimming, but then they're seeing spring cleaning with me. Okay, well, I was here for swimmer tips, but I don't need the Cleaning tips, and then there's speed painting. So it just seems all kind of convoluted. And when you're a very small channel, you can't necessarily go out and do everything like you see the big YouTubers doing. Like, they can post whatever they want to post because they have a million subscribers. But for someone like you, brand new, just getting started, under 200 subscribers, but congratulations for over 100, that's fantastic. But for you, I would definitely suggest picking one niche and going with it. So if you want to do speed painting, do speed painting. If you want to do swim tips, do swim tips. But when you start to dip your toe in all of these pools, it just gets confused to the viewer on why they are subscribing to your channel. So when we talked about Allie's channel, she was very niche, down to Bible journaling, and she still had to focus on why. What's the why behind her channel. So I would just really focus on, you know, which one of these you're going to do. And then when you do, you can really start mapping out your playlist. So if you decide to focus on swim tips, you could have Swim Tips for Beginners. You could have a whole playlist on that and do Swim Tips for Beginners, Backstroke Swim Tips for Beginner, Breaststroke Swim Tips for Beginners, Increasing your swimming lap speed for Beginners. So you would be using this keyword, as in swim tips for beginners in your playlist, in your video titles to really help draw that traffic to your channel and help you see that subscriber count increase the thumbnails. And the branding is great. I see the connection here with the palm trees and the pink and the teal matched with your thumbnails down here. Sorry, friends, somebody's calling me. So I think you have a great start, but I think that's going to be one of your struggles is you've really got to pick which one of these are you going to do to build your channel over here to your videos? You only have quite. Only a couple videos. So you just started about two months ago. I think you have a great opportunity here, Calista. Like I said, I just really want you to focus on a particular niche. Look at these videos you're getting. This is amazing. 291 views. 268 views. The problem is you're doing a lot of trending videos, but what's the connection to you and your why? Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and flip my screen over so I can get some questions from you to see what questions that you have. But great start, Kalista. I'm loving it. I just think you really need to hone in on what your niche is really going to be on YouTube. My content is really scrambled. I do need to work on that. I think I'm going to choose art. That's great. So, Kalista, I would focus on speed painting. Get as many videos up there as possible on speed painting. Speed painting palm trees, speeds painting sunsets, speed painting. Since I think you're going for the tropical vibe, do a lot of tropical vibe speed painting. So not only do you stand out for speed painting specifically, but you're also going to stand out for speed painting tropical landscapes. I think that is a great opportunity for you if you do that. Allie understands she always wants to do all the different topics. But what happens is if you can hone in on this one niche to grow your channel, you start to build your audience and they start connecting with you. Then you can start branching out into more of those community pieces like a vlog or a get ready with me or a morning routine. But you really gotta have a reason why people are subscribing with you. You gotta have that community first before you start kind of spreading your wings to other content. Oh, of course, Kalista. I am beyond happy to help. I would love to answer any questions. Do any of you guys have questions as I'm going through here? I would. This is kind of just an open time for me to chat with you guys because I basically sit here in my office all day by myself. So this is my opportunity to chat with you. I did have a group call with my bootcamp members on Wednesday, so I did get to chat with some actual humans this week. But it's just a good time for me to get on here, answer all your YouTube questions that you do have. Don't forget to click subscribe to this channel so that you will know when I go live next so that your channel can be reviewed. If you do make some updates and you want your channel to be re reviewed. Totally an option. Just be here live when I go live. Like I said, Generally Thursdays at 1pm because today I had a call I couldn't reschedule. Today was at 2. So I'm sorry about that mix up. But that's what happens. And if you aren't subscribed here already, you'll know. You don't know that my current schedule is Monday. I'm posting YouTube strategy videos. So the strategy, the back end of YouTube to help you grow a channel. So Tuesdays are going to be YouTube tech tutorials. So understanding the tech behind YouTube like cards and end screens and captions. I'm going to be doing quick little tutorials every Tuesday here. Wednesdays are going to be kind of a wild card for me. Going to be uploading business tips and also kind of lifestyle tips since I built this audience already. But it's all going to hone back into business as in YouTube, like business habits or habits to be productive. So you'll see that my niche is still in business and YouTube, but I'm doing kind of like a five degrees of separation to expand my content. And then Thursdays here are obviously lives and Fridays I've been sharing vlog style videos behind the scenes of doing YouTube and the equipment and the managing life and just kind of my way to get real with all of you guys. How to write a script to grab your audience guys. So that's a question that I had, audience retention and it's coming up. I already planned out this video. Kalista I'm not sure if you requested that or not, but I will be doing a whole video on audience retention. And so what you really need to do is in your hook of your video the first 10 seconds, it's really got to let that person know what they are going to be learning or seeing in your video. And it's really, really got to connect with your thumbnail and your title. What I see happen a lot is when you have a steep drop in audiences retention is because in your thumbnail and your title you're kind of promising some type of video. Then they click on it and you're kind of talking about something else or you're not getting to the point quick enough. That's when the audience retention tends to drop. So just make sure in your hook you're really solidifying to that viewer that you are going to be talking about whatever it is you promise in your thumbnail and your title. That's one of the quickest ways you can really improve your audience retention. Belinda Rose what kind of tags are good for livestream videos? So Belinda, I generally use tags revolving around what I'm talking about. So today I'll probably use tags like tips for small YouTubers, small YouTuber mistakes, mistakes to avoid for YouTubers, those types. So have a general idea in mind and what the content is going to be on your videos. So if you see a lot of people doing like Q and A videos, even if they're not live, they still have a theme that they use in that video so that they can Optimize that video for that specific keyword or topic. So before going live, think about what topic you want to really talk about in there so that you can pitch that value in your thumbnail and your title and then you can make sure you actually talk about that in your live. Hi George, thanks for watching. Hi Oregon. Fantastic. Be here next Thursday at 1:00pm Eastern Standard Time. I would love to review your channel because I do subscribe to you. Belinda. Great, that helps you. Katherine. I need a few videos up before a review and I don't have a trailer yet. That's okay. Channel trailers are important and honestly mine is super old and super outdated and it needs done. But it's kind of something I keep putting on the back burner. So if you feel like you're putting things on the back burner and you're kicking yourself for doing that, trust me, it's. It happens to the best of us. It also happens to me. So you're not the only one. I totally get what you're feeling. So it's okay if you don't have a channel trailer yet. What I do suggest is if you have a video that really shows the value your channel brings to people or really will tell people what your channel is about or like your best work, you could use that as your channel trailer as well because you saw it plays automatically and so you really want to make sure the best video that you have or the video that really reflects what your channel is about is in that channel trailer position. All right my friends, best place to share videos, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit. If you're a part of the Reddit community, Twitter, Instagram, all fantastic places to share your videos. If you have an email list, tell your email list when your video goes live so you can get more views that way. George I will be doing more reviews next Thursday. I did two reviews. I like to keep it about two, two channels a day. I don't want to get this live too long so when people are rewatching this they don't drop off and affect my audience retention. Right? Nobody wants to watch like a 40 minute video. So next time George and Hike, I'll be looking for you to be here live so that I can review your channels. Thank you guys so much for watching. Don't forget to click, subscribe and check out the videos that I had posted this week. I talked about how I make money here on YouTube. I talked about YouTube cards and how to use them. And I also had a collaboration video with the solopreneur sidekick on how to create your very own YouTube graphic intro. Pretty cool, right? So thank you guys so much. I hope you have a great weekend and I will see you next week. Week. Bye, guys.