Everything You Should Say In Your First YouTube Video!

Whether you're watching this video to figure out how to plan your very first YouTube video, or you're watching it to figure out how to make your current YouTube videos better, I'm going to be walking you through the entire process to do that. Plus at the very end, I'm going to go through like a rapid fire, major do's and major don'ts. When you're planning your video. If you're ready to get more people watching your videos and watching them longer, hit that like button because that's what I'm going to do today in this video. I have personally created over 500 YouTube videos in the past six, six years. And my team and I help our clients in our YouTube production agency create over 60 videos every single month. So when I say this plan can be used for somebody who's been doing YouTube for a while or a newbie, I'm telling you the truth. So let's just dive into how to get started. The first thing that you need to do when you're planning any YouTube video is to figure out what the goal of that video is going to be. Before you even dive into anything, every single video that you create should be designed to accomplish something. Something. It's not designed to accomplish everything, but you want to have one particular goal for that video. And then everything that you create around that video is leading people to achieve that goal. For example, we have videos that we create that are designed to make us sales on our digital products. So the entire goal of that video is to get people to click on that page that tells them about my digital product. We have other videos that are designed to help us achieve more visibility and get more views on our videos. So, so the goal of those videos are to get people to watch another YouTube video. And finally, we also have videos where the goal is to get people to subscribe to our channel. So sometimes when we release a brand new series of videos we're going to do here on my channel, we pitch that and say, you know, you're not going to want to miss this series we're doing this month. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss any of these videos. So you can see each one of those goals are separate videos in one video. I'm not having people go to my sales page, watch another video and subscribe. I'm determining before I sit down and plan out a video, what is the goal, goal of the video that I am planning? That is really important here because if you try to do everything, you're not going to accomplish anything. So some of those goals that you can set for your video as you're starting to plan one is to get more subscribers, to get more views, or to make some sales or grow your email list. The next piece of planning your video is the marketing material for your video, which is your title and thumbnail. But before we address that, I want to talk about something I get asked all the time, how long should my YouTube videos be be? This is honestly probably the most common question that I get asked as a YouTube strategist. And for that answer I will tell you it depends. So you know the goal of your video, right? Once we start crafting the title and the thumbnail, you know what you want people to achieve from watching the video and then go do. So the length of your video is going to be however long it takes you to get people to do what you want them to do. So when I'm planning my videos out, I know exactly what I need to say to deliver on the title that I'm about to share with you. How to create. And I never really know how long it's going to be. And much to sometimes my editor's dismay. I have like a 25 minute video, but I never plan specifically, this is gonna be five minutes. This is gonna be 20 minutes. I could do a 20 minute video. I could do a five minute video. I am just making sure that what is in the video is valuable and is delivering on what I promised in the title. So again, there's no like secret length that YouTube videos need to be to be more successful on YouTube. What you do need to think about is the more watch time you get on a ch, the more valuable your channel tends to look to YouTube. So if you're only creating like two to five minute videos and the max amount of time people can watch your videos is like two to five minutes. But if you create like a 20 minute video and people even watch half of that, that's 10 minutes, that's still accumulating more watch time. Those are the things that you have to think about. But I highly recommend that you never put fluff in your content or fluff in your video just to make it like a 10 or 20 minute video. Deliver on what you promise in the title. Alright, so second part of your plan is titling and thumbnails. I will know what the title of my video is and my idea of my thumbnail before I even start writing what the content is I want to deliver in that video. Reason being, it's much easier to have a title in mind and ensure that your content delivers on that title than just creating a video and then trying to figure out what the title should be. You can make a much more engaging, much more enticing title if you know what it's going to be first. And then craft your content around that. Just like on Instagram when you're trying to stop the scroll, that's what you're trying to do with your title and your thumbnail on YouTube. All right, so what are some best practices for titles? So I highly recommend keeping your characters of your title from about 50 to 60 characters. Remember, YouTube is going to truncate your title to fit on the homepage to fit on mobile device to really think about packing a punch on your title in those first 50 to 60 characters. I also highly recommend not worrying about keyword stuffing your titles. Listen, people grow on YouTube that are vloggers. How do they grow on YouTube as a vlogger? They're not keyword stuffing their titles, right? They're creating titles and thumbnails that people click on. And if people click on your video, YouTube is going to show it to more people. And if YouTube shows it to more people and more people click on it, YouTube's going to show it to more people. Okay, when you upload your videos on YouTube, YouTube already knows what your video is about. It basically like scans your video, whatever the robots do behind the scenes. But YouTube knows what your video is about when you upload it. So you don't have to reiterate keywords in your titles. What you do want to do is create titles that pique curiosity or promise some type of value, that if they watch this to the end, this is what they are going to get. All right, so what I would do is look at who is creating YouTube videos in your niche and how are they creating titles. Look at their most popular videos on YouTube, like the ones with the most views. What is different about those titles and those thumbnails than the videos that they have that aren't getting as many views. Okay. Is there a way they're structuring their titles? Also remember, you want to be thinking about your thumbnails as well, which I'm going to talk about here in a minute. Because your click through rate is how well your title in your thumbnail if people to click on your video. So your title is just half of this. So that's what I would do. I would start looking at people in your niche, see how they're titling thumbnails. Then I would look at other niches on YouTube and see if you can figure out some mad lib style titles, meaning looking at how people are titling things and how can you pull out their niche words and put in your niche words, for example, like top three strategies for X, top three strategies for Instagram, top three strategies for Facebook, top three strategies for YouTube. Right. Or the secret to X. Right. The secret to a sustainable content plan. The secret to the gooiest chocolate chip cookies. Think about these kind of formulas that you see pop up on YouTube and how can you use those titles with your content? Now remember that other half of your click through rate is thumbnails. And thumbnails are so important because most people are visual people. They're going to stop based on the visual the thumbnail, then read the title. So how should your thumbnails look? Well, some of the best practices I think you should be incorporating for your thumbnails in this planning phase is what are people in your niche doing? What are some common trends that you see happening? So you don't want your thumbnail to look totally out of place when you're lined up against your neighbor niches, but you do want it to stand out some. So like for example, many YouTube educators have the YouTube logo in their thumbnails. That's something that is pretty trend worthy, right? If you're a YouTube educator, you're talking about how to do something on YouTube, you're going to see the YouTube logo. If you look at cooking channels or you look at baking channels, or like anybody who's teaching you how to make food, what do you see? Always the food, the final product in the thumbnail. If you're looking at a fitness channel, what are they doing? Usually showing some type of healthy food maybe, or them working out or the exercise that they're going to share. So I recommend you dig a little deeper into your niche and see what are some common threads that you can pull from thumbnails so that you look like you fit in. Not totally. You want people to be comfortable clicking on your video, clicking on what they're used to, but you also need to stand out. So the way you're going to stand out is definitely having your face on that thumbnail. I would recommend highly here to put your face on your thumbnail. I know it's scary, but you are going to connect with your audience. There is data that supports showing the whites of your eyes on your thumbnail. That's why the people generally have that zoomed in image of themselves on thumbnail tend to get a higher click through Rate because people trust people when they can see the whites of their eyes. All I do with my thumbnails is every time I'm done shooting these videos, I turn my camera on self timer. I have a list of photos I want to get for my thumbnail and I just shoot those images. So whether it's me smiling like or it's me using my glasses as a prop like this, or maybe I'm talking about how I plan my week and I hold up my planner. You want to know what images you need to get for your thumbnail in this planning phase. Let me show you how I keep this all organized in Asana. So this is the actual video that I'm shooting right now. You can see that I have the title already up here. Plan the best YouTube video. I also know what my call to action is going to be. So the goal of my video is to send people to watch take YouTube serious video. So you'll hear that call to action later. I know what the thumbnail text is going to be already. So again I have this concept of what my title. My thumbnail is the story that I'm starting to tell so I can solidify the hook of my video. You'll see that this is basically the bullet points that I have listed out here. This is a lot of recon work that I did. So a lot of research that I did prior to even coming up with the content. So I looked at other videos that are performing well. I looked at my videos that I've done on this topic to really hone in on a direction for this video. And then I have some stuff written, I have some stuff bullet pointed. I really try to force myself not to write as much again so I can say what I want to say without getting wrapped up on everything. I've also collected thumbnails that I'm looking at. When you look how to plan a YouTube video, these are the thumbnails that are coming up. What am I looking at as trends? All are holding like a notebook up. So if you check out this thumbnail what I would be doing. And then this is one of my best performing thumbnails on this topic. And so I really wanted to play on this idea. And so this one said don't say this and I have specifically for this thumbnail text don't skip this plan. The best YouTube video. So this is where I keep everything in Asana so that I can ensure like my ideas all fit. And as I creating this plan, it's all organized so far. Your plan for your YouTube video has the goal of your video, the title and the thumbnail. Now we're going to dive into the meat of this piece, the content. What are you going to actually say and how are you going to say it? Now, I highly recommend not scripting your videos, as in not writing word for word exactly what you want to say in in your videos because it tends to tighten you up, right? I've done this before where I write out my entire script and then I get so nervous over saying exactly what I say in my script that I don't allow my personality to shine. And I just kind of close up a bit because I'm so stressed the freak out over saying everything that is in my script. So I follow what I call a video game plan. And in this video game plan, the only two pieces that I script are the hook of my video and the call to action. Which ties into the goal of my video. Because these are the two major pieces. If my hook can get people to keep watching, then I know I'm going to get them to possibly to the end of my video. And my call to action is going to achieve the goal that I initially set out for that video, right? To watch another video, to subscribe, or to get on my email list or go to my sales page. This is also why knowing your title and your thumbnail is so important. Because your hook needs to tie in to that title and thumbnail. So for example, I know the title of this video is to plan the best YouTube video. And I open this really hitting two different audiences because I want you to know that this plan works whether you are brand new or you have been doing YouTube for a while that people aren't watching your video. So I opened this video with a strong hook calling out those two people that I want to watch this video. And I teased that at the end, if you stay to the end, I've got a quick rapid fire do's and don'ts for your YouTube video that potentially gets you hooked in to watch the whole video. So this is one of the pieces, like I said, that I do script word for word and I really work on. Then I dive into the meat of my content, right? I just do bullet points. I know what direction I want to go with my video. I know what I want to deliver in that video to achieve the goal. Again, why we have the goal, but to also promise on that title, I am breaking this down into steps to help you plan your best YouTube video. So I literally have like three major steps here and then the rapid Fire do's and don'ts. And it's all written in bullet points in asana for me, when I'm done writing this out, I look at my bullet points and I make sure. Okay, does all of this content deliver on the title that I pitched to you? Can you, by the end of this video, know exactly how to plan a really good video, start to finish? Let me know in the comments if this has helped achieve that so far, because we still got a couple more pieces to talk about, but I feel like by now you should be understanding how planning a video is a little bit differently than just pulling your camera out and talking to your camera. So put down in the comments. Great plan. If you feel like this has been a great way to plan your YouTube videos from here on out. Okay, so like I said, you want to plan what that content is going to be, then this is a key. Adding engagement pieces. So the last thing you want to do on YouTube is say, like, comment and subscribe. Because why do they want to, like, why do they want to comment? What are they going to comment? What is the reason for them to subscribe? What are they going to get out of subscribing? So by just saying don't forget to, like, comment and subscribe. It's giving people no context and why they should do that. So instead, once you've planned out your content, look back over it and see if there are places that you can incorporate asking people to like your video or asking a question. So if you noticed earlier in this video I gave you this light call to action, then just a few minutes ago, I asked you to comment below with a prompt. So that's giving you a reason to comment. It's giving you something to comment. And then I will, once I publish this video, leave a comment below asking you another question. So if you want to see what question I'm asking you, check down below in the comments and respond to me. But by incorporating engagement pieces that make sense instead of just saying, smash that like button. Why why are we smashing that like button? Side note, why are we even saying smash that like button? Like, why does that sense? I'm not smashing anything. I'm clicking something. Why did we ever get to smashing things on YouTube? Anybody? Now you know how to get people to actually engage in your videos. That last piece is your call to action. That piece is going to tie into the goal of your video. Do you need them to watch another video? Is this a series of videos and that they should subscribe so they're notified when the Next of the series comes out. Is there a freebie that you have available for them? One thing that I always talk about when I am mentioning my YouTube strategy and how I set up my YouTube strategy, I will have a call to action to get my YouTube handbook on how to set up a YouTube channel. And that's something that I will tell people at the end of my videos to get. But that's going to be the goal of that video. When I set out on a video where the purpose is to grow my email list, that will be my call to action. Let me talk a second. To those of you that already have videos on YouTube and for those that don't have videos on YouTube, this is why it's so important just to get some videos up on YouTube because you have data to look at. So if you have videos on YouTube, you can go to your audience retention graphs and, and really figure out, okay, what videos have the best hooks. So you can look at the videos that have the best audience retention in the first 30 seconds. What did you say? How did you open those? Right? Look at the videos that have the longest audience retention. How did you deliver your content? Also look at any dips in your audience retention. Can you figure out why that dipped? Can you figure out why people left? I did this specifically for this video as I was planning it because I've done a couple videos before about what to say in your YouTube video and I looked at all four of those that I did to really mush together all the best pieces of those videos to put into this particular one. So if you have videos on YouTube, definitely look at your audience retention. And as you're getting started here on YouTube, just get some videos up on YouTube so you have that data to look at. Now let's go into that rapid fire session that I said we were going to do on how to plan your best YouTube video ever. First, do find ways to make your videos more engaging. So you notice throughout this video, not only are we zooming in a little bit, not only am I changing my camera anyway a little bit, but we're also adding gifs, we're also adding text, we're also adding screen shares to show you what I'm talking about instead of just telling you. So while you're planning your video, also think about these little pieces of your video that could really take your video from good to great. Don't let people know your video is over before you have your call to action. So what I see a lot of people do is at the end of their YouTube video, they summarize everything that they just talked about and what happens is people are gone. If they know your content is over and you've got nothing left to share, they're gone. And guess, guess what? The goal of your video, the whole call to action that you planned out is pointless because they never see it. So when you get to that last point that you're sharing or you get to the end of the video, don't say words like in summary, in conclusion, or to finalize, because as soon as you say that audience is gone, do add text and title screens here in your videos to keep it more engaging. Now, one place that you can do this inside of is Canva. And I've been mulling over this video about Canva and how to add animated Canva graphics. Graphics in your videos. If that's a video you want to see, put Canva animations down below. Because I've really been trying to figure out what type of Canva tutorials you all want to see. But you can make these once as a template and then just change out the titles or change out the text each video that you create. But it definitely takes your videos to that next level and keeps people more engaged longer. Don't repeat the title of your video in the text of your thumbnail. You're basically taking up valuable real estate and people can read the title. So you don't need to repeat it in the thumbnail. Instead, use about three to five words on your thumbnail. That's going to stop the scroll and then continue with that idea in the title. Okay, so like your thumbnail, your title, and your hook should be telling this three part story that will get people to the end of your video. Do hook your audience like we talked about and get to that content like the meat of your content within the first 20 to 30 seconds of your video. Especially if it's the first video they've ever watched from you. They're gonna be like, okay, huh? Get to the point. So don't stretch out that beginning. Don't chit chat, don't like share about your day or tell them it's raining out outside. Unless it's a video meant to connect with your current audience. If this is a video meant to help you get subscribers and to help you get views, you've got to get to that content pretty quickly so that people keep watching and they don't leave your video. Don't add a branded intro. Now, I've seen a lot of talk about branded intros. You know the graphics and the music and like the logo thing, I get it. It you want it to look professional, you want it to look branded. But this is seen as basically like a commercial and a barrier to your content. I just told you one of the things you do want to do is get to the content as quick as possible. When you add that branded intro, even if it's just three seconds, which is all I recommend it is if you must have one in it, all it's going to do is cause people to want to click away or find another video because they're bored instantly from this. Those look, there are a lot of moving pieces when it comes to YouTube and sometimes doing YouTube alone is stressful and overwhelming. So I wanted to officially invite you to join my program, Video Strategy Academy. The doors are currently open for our third iteration of Video Strategy Academy. What we are doing differently with this program is I am going to be releasing a module each week starting February 28th. And so there's going to be lessons for you to learn that week and at the end of the week week we will have a group call where we talk about what we learned, where we're stuck, where we need help. And so it's basically a course program alongside coaching from me, you're going to get feedback from me, you're going to get feedback from my strategist at my agency as well. So you can really figure out how to take YouTube seriously and how to grow on YouTube and really use YouTube as a 247 lead generator to your business without having to spend money on ads. Because YouTube can be an organic traffic source that really can blow your business up in a good way. So if you're interested in joining us this round, go to treanalittle.comvsa to learn all about it. We are going through this entire program live with a brand new content dropping on February 28th. Like I said, YouTube is tough to go at alone and it just really helps to have a community and somebody who's doing YouTube really help you zone in on what is and isn't working and where you should focus to hit those goals that you do have. Lastly, if you're ready to take YouTube seriously or hit that next milestone on your YouTube channel, make make sure you watch the video that is on your screen right now because I'm diving into exactly what you need to do if you are ready to take YouTube seriously. So click that video and watch it now.