Free LIVE Channel Reviews!

Hi. If you're catching the replay today, I'm going to be sharing some helpful tips and tricks on how you can grow your YouTube channel by reviewing some of my community's YouTube channels live. So if you want to get right to the meat of the content, go ahead and skip forward just a couple minutes while I get my volunteers to review their channel and I chat with some people. Feel free to let me know where you're watching from, what your channel is about and if you would like a channel review down in the comment section to pop my screen over here so I can see. I got everybody here. Hello, Mark. Hello, Crazy simple. Hello, Courtney. I'm so happy you all are here. I hope some of you are wanting to get their channel review today. Hello, life with Brad. I'm glad to see you here. I saw quite a few of you join the Facebook community recently, so that's exciting. If you aren't in my Facebook community. So just head over to Facebook video for Biz B I Z Crew. And over there, I remind you I'm going live. I give you some tips and strategies as well. Over there, it's a place for you to share your YouTube channel, your videos when they go live, just to find some more people to help you grow your channel. It's like friends, really. Hello, Doveco. Hello, it's Sunny. Hello, Tech. Virginius. Carolina. Emily. Oh my goodness. Carolina from Finland. Katie from Michigan. Wow. Everybody. All these people from all over the country. This is always so crazy. Should you have ever listened before Kosovo? Hello, Courtney. Okay, so let's get down to it. Who would like their channel reviewed? Volunteer down in the comments section and I'm going to be diving in. I typically pick two people, so if I don't pick yours first, no worries. You could be the second person that I pick. But yeah, go ahead, volunteer now. Now is your time to get in on my free channel review. And what I generally do is I just look at your channel at face value and say maybe you need to update your channel banner. Maybe you need to update your thumbnails. Maybe your titles need to be a little bit different. Maybe you could tweak this and see a difference or just really to help you go that next level with your channel, especially if you are struggling, it's not great yet. Life with Brad, it's totally up to you. If you want me to review it, let me know. Mark loves tea. I volunteer as tribute. Fantastic. We got quite a few here would like me to review her channel. Let me pop over to Courtney's channel. Since she's been here waiting patiently to review her channel. And then I'm going to share my screen so all of you can see what I'm looking at as well. This is brand new. I have not looked at Courtney's channel before, so this is basically going live. I'm trying to pull it up to see Courtney. The one channel you have right now has one video. Is that the channel that you want me to look? It's kind of hard for me to review that. So let me know if there's another channel that you want me to review while I jump over to Crazy Simple. I would love to have you review my channel. Fantastic. So we're gonna do Crazy simple while Courtney gets me the right place to go for her channel, because I don't think that was the right one. So let's see. We're going to go ahead, flip the screen around for all of you to see. I will be answering all your questions here once I stop sharing my screen. Because when I share my screen, I can't see your questions. So Crazy Simple. Trying to live simply in a crazy world. Look for me on Instagram. Homemaking, Christian living and real life struggles. I love that you do have a channel banner. Perfect. But I feel like the wording is a bit cramped. There's a lot going on. The eye doesn't really know what to look at. Especially if I'm looking at this on mobile, it's really going to crunch all those words together. And that cursive type writing also might be difficult to read on mobile as well. So I would really make this much more simplified. I would take out the look for me on Instagram. You don't want to be pushing people to a different platform. Just focus on YouTube right now. I would definitely make homemaking, Christian living and real life struggles much larger. This. These icons are going to look really tiny and people aren't really going to know what they are on a mobile device. So just be very careful what you put here on your channel banner so it doesn't look cluttered. You want people to see what they're going to get. So you're saying trying to live safe, simply in a crazy world. This goes back to Value Proposition, which we did a really cool exercise on this. I think that was in on my Facebook page yesterday. So if you want to check that out, head over to my Facebook page. You can watch the replay. But we did a value proposition exercise that really helps you figure out what to put up here. Right now, I'm not really sure what's the value that I'm going to get if I subscribe to your channel. So trying to live simply in a crazy world. Okay, but who, why am I trying to live simply in a crazy world? What am I going to get out of it by watching your channels? So like for my channel, for example, it is helping creative entrepreneurs get on YouTube. So these are business owners that want to get on YouTube to grow their business. They're using YouTube to grow their business. So who is here to watch your channel and why? What value are you going to bring to them? Right now? This is just it. Just when I look at it, it looks like a lot of words and I'm not really sure who you are speaking to. I see you've got a channel trailer here. One thing I first will tell you is I would love to see your face first. People are going to connect with you and your channel a lot faster if they see you. So it should really you as the first thing, say hi, I'm. Hi, I'm. Let's see, do I see your name? Do I see your name? So for example, just say hi, I'm Trina and this is my channel. Crazy simple here on this channel you can expect to see da da da da da. All right, Nikki, your name's Nikita. So I would really want you to see your face versus kind of like welcoming somebody into your home without you actually answering the door. If it's a brand new person who's never met you before, you really need them to connect with you. So I would suggest that next thing I would do is have a singular playlist up here. The creative playlist can be kind of overwhelming. People don't want to be dumped into multiple playlists at once. So maybe make homemaking tips and tricks up top here or allergy friendly meals and snacks up here. Also, another tip for your playlist, make them name your playlist more like you would name a video title. All right. It needs to be enticing. So the fastest homemaking tips and tricks you've ever seen or learn how you can make allergy friendly meals and snacks. Right now the way you're using playlists is kind of like categories. But you've got to really pitch the value on why people want to watch your playlist. What's the value they're going to get out of it? What are they going to learn? You know, what's that teaser title that will get people to watch? And then as far as thumbnails, this yellow I can't even read on my desktop, just FYI that's probably not a great color. Yeah, this I might would. It looks kind of messy. You really want to keep your thumbnails saturated, simple and stand out. So you don't want to, you know, go too crazy with lots of stuff here on your thumbnails. It's got to be clear so people can see it. It grabs their attention. That's a great emoji. But again, the yellow is very hard to read. This is getting a little bit better. This is definitely a good example. This is a good example. The kid approved. It's kind of hard to read that skinny text, so just be aware. I like that your. Your outline. You got an outline so that it's consistent branding and you got this little yellow house as consistent branding. Great. But yeah, I would just be careful what the texture using. Make sure they really pop. I would think this pops a lot more if maybe you just made the text here. New church, question mark or I need a new church. It's time to find a new church. Seems like a lot of text on there, but I love this. This photo of you definitely grabs people's attention. You just want to supplement that imagery with some text. I'm going to pop on over here and see if you guys have any questions. I hope you guys saw that because it was saying, okay, let's see what the questions we got. She can put life with Brad. Thank you for that. Letting Courtney know. Thank you so much. Great tips. I'm trying to narrow down my niche based on what people watch more. So go to your analytics and look at what keywords are driving traffic to your channel. So what you want to do is you'll go into your analytics. You want to go down to traffic sources and it's going to break down traffic sources like external Google, external YouTube search browse feature suggested. Go to the YouTube search, click on that, and then that's going to bring up the keywords that people are finding you at. Those are the keywords driving you traffic. Then I would create content around those particular keywords that are driving you traffic. Let's see. Can you review my quick. Okay, let's see if you have time, please look at mine. Okay. I would love to know if. Nikki, did you have any other question while I went through those? Life with Brad Navy Entertainment. Trina, what value does a vlogger bring to viewers? Great question. So a vlogger is like a entertainment channel, just like a TV channel, just like a TV show, right? Friends, Game of Thrones. It's entertainment. And a vlogger has to Be really good with their storytelling. The vloggers that take off have good storytelling. That's why people connect with them. They really follow those elements. And primal branding, if you've read that book by Patrick Hamlin, the vloggers that do really well really understand those elements of primal branding and storytelling. So. So that people keep coming back and watching more. They want to see what you're doing next in your life. They connect with you as a person. They basically become like a fan. It's not necessarily you providing like education or how to tutorials. It's that they connect with you and you're providing them entertainment. Just like any television show on tv. Life with Brad. Does that make sense about vloggers? Courtney says, I think people will watch more challenges. All depends on what audience you are targeting. Challenges are usually watched by a lot of teenagers and young kids. So if that's the audience you're going for. Yes, challenges are a great way to grow your channel to show up in those suggested videos. But if your audience isn't watching challenges. So for me to create any kind of challenge video like the cinnamon eating challenge or whatever the hot challenge is, that would not drive the target audience that I want to my channel. So you need to be careful what kind of content you are creating and make sure it's the content you want your target audience to come to. Otherwise you'll get a channel with subscribers. But if you're using your channel as part of your business model, it's not going to help your business. Hi, how to officiate a wedding. How do you suggest I narrow down my niche? So Nikki, just decide on one. I'm really noticing this. The more I create content about YouTube, specifically about YouTube, the more my channel grows. When I create content on like motivation tips or A Day in the Life, I don't grow as many subscribers because people are finding me and wanting to learn about YouTube on my channel. So the more I focus on my niche, the more my channel grows. So just pick the niche you want to do. What are you passionate about? What do you love teaching people about? And let that be your niche. Okay, great. Brad, I'm glad your question was answered. How do I hook people to not leave in the first 20 seconds? So it's sunny. You really got to pitch the value. Why do they need to watch? What are you going to do to help them? First of all, it needs to be you on video and it doesn't need to be like graphic or a bumper. You really got to focus and determine what that niche, what that hook is going to be before you even hit record. And then you want to study your analytics. So what hooks worked with your audience, what hook kept people watching longer. It's really grabbing their attention. If it's a vlog, you want to show them the most exciting portion of that vlog at the beginning. Or you need to really relate that hook to what your thumbnail and your title are. So if your thumbnail and your title are about how to title YouTube, how to title your YouTube videos, and then in the hook I'm talking about, do you ever wonder how to edit faster? Today I'm going to show you how to edit your videos. Well, obviously, my audience retention is going to plummet because they clicked on the video wanting to know about YouTube titles not editing. So you really to make sure your thumbnail and your title connect with your hook. All three of those have got to work in unison. All right, so let me find somebody next for a channel review. Kristen, you were at my webinar last night, so I am going to grab you because you were there last night chatting with me. So I'm gonna go to your channel. I'm gonna share my screen with all of you. Go back to Kristen. Christina. I'm sorry, Christina. All right, great work here, Christina. We have our channel banner. I believe a lot of this cursive text can sometimes be hard for people to read. So I would just be very conscious of the text that you. The font that you are using on your channel banner. Just make sure it's really readable. Make sure it's not hard to read. Make sure it looks good when it is minimized and made smaller. Again, the value proposition, single mom lifestyle, beauty and skincare inspiration. It seems like a lot. All right. Maybe you just focus on providing single moms the resource they need to be happy or to move on or to something that can really connect with your targeted audience. What are they really struggling with that you're going to help them with? Is it figuring out how to manage single mom life by prioritizing, or is it figuring out how to keep yourself healthy as a single mom? Or is it how. How to. How to take care of your skin and beauty as a single mom? What. What specific value are you going to bring to them? Again with the thumbnails. I like that you're consistent with the gray. One thing that I will point out is I've noticed and I've been told that, quote, rainbow vomit does well on thumbnail. So with YouTube, it's this white background, right? So this kind of Blends in a bit. Except especially on search results. I can show you my channel, for example. Let me see. I can show you. This is true because I was using white thumbnails. And I'll show you how easily it blends in. And the second that I changed my white thumbnails to colorful thumbnails, I grew my channel 300%. Yeah. Just by changing my thumbnails. 300%. So here were my older thumbnails. The black stood out a little bit, but these were. This is what I was doing for a couple months. And you can see how easily the white blends in. It doesn't stand out because the background of YouTube is white as well. But look how different these are. And look how these stand out. I started thinking through my thumbnails. I started adding color. And these. These thumbnails did great. They will. I won't complain about them. But the second this pink started to come into play, it got even more. I mean, look at these videos. Okay, They've been up for over nine months. 10 months. 116 views. 124 views. 54 views. But the second I changed my thumbnails, look, a thousand views. 234 views. Another thousand views. 17,000 views. And even newer videos like my video just posted yesterday. 121 views. That's more than some of those white thumbnails. Monday's video. 275. So this is the power that thumbnails bring. You've really got to figure out what you can do. Pose for your thumbnails. I always like to. I'll get on screen here so you guys can. You've got to really think through that thumbnail strategy. What I like to do is I am going to get over here so I can see any of you guys questions. I like to film my videos and then when I'm done with that video, it depends on what I'm wearing. I want to take that thumbnail. What am I doing in that thumbnail? Yesterday I was talking about how to be healthy. So I grabbed some workout equipment and a sweatband and put that on my thumbnail because it's stands out. I had multiple comments yesterday telling me, trina, your thumbnail today is so funny. And so it. Not that it's funny, it just stands out. So what can you do? What kind of emotion or what kind of story can you tell in that thumbnail? And make sure it's saturated, a saturated image and that it's a sharp image. All right. Those are what do well on YouTube. Seriously, I've learned so much from you, Trina. I appreciate your opinions. Thank you for taking the time to review. Thank you, Nikki. I want to call you Crazy simple because I know your name is Nikki M.L. hernandez. You did my channel last week and it's helped so much. Oh, that's fantastic. I hope you definitely see a change in your channel by the tips I give you. And all the tips I give today can help every single person. Thumbnails. Everybody needs to know about how to create thumbnails. Playlist titles. Those are essential because playlists are the way you're going to grow your channel the fastest. You want to get people into Netflix. Binge on your playlist so that they watch more of your videos, you accumulate more watch time and YouTube starts recommending you more because they see your content keeps people on the platform longer. How could I improve my camera? How could I improve my camera improvement when doing a basketball one on one video? So do you have a tripod or maybe just a ladder or something to put your camera on? Anything that you can do to just keep your camera stable on something? It doesn't have to be a tripod. It could be a stack of boxes or a ladder. Anything that gets it to that angle that you really need it. Jeremiah Life with Brad. This is really helpful. Thank you. It's sunny. If you are a channel based on your life, is it better to be referred as your real name, nickname or as in an alias? Fine, that's totally your choice. I like to think of it if you want to take your channel to as a brand like you want to become like this lifestyle brand, what would you want it to be named? Because that's pretty much how you're going to be known from here on out. If you want to start your channel, say you would go big tomorrow. What would you want it to be? Would you want it to be your name? Would you want it to be an alias like Lady Gaga? Her. She went with Lady Gaga and not Stephanie, whatever her last name is. But now that's what she's going to be known as, you know, Lady Gaga. So decide what you want to be known as. It really doesn't matter. There's no right or wrong answer to it. It's just what you are comfortable with and what you want to be known as and build your business on. All right, any other questions? Courtney, I don't know what your channel is. I usually just go to the comments section here and I click on the little dot dots and I say go to channel. And with your channel, all I saw was one video that says slime pink and with a Cityscape channel banner with nine subscribers. So there's not much there for me to review for you based on this particular channel. So that's why I have it. That's why I didn't do yours. I mean, I was. I clicked on it. But there isn't anything really there for me to review right now. Hi, Sorrow. Love to have my review. Oh, Sorrow, you're little too late. I generally do two. I did two. And I try to keep this about 20 to 30 minutes because I try to be very conscious of all of your time so that, you know, you can pop in here, get what you need to, and, you know, just keep this going. There's a pretty great hack with those black paperclip things. There is a pretty great hack with this black paper clip. I'm not sure what you mean. Danny, have you ever thought about replacing all your thumbnails and every video to your latest style? So the thing is, if you have time to do that, sure, absolutely. You could totally do it. But some videos may just aren't good enough. I know a lot of my older videos, the audience retention isn't there. So there's no point in me updating those thumbnails. Now, if I go back and I find a couple videos that are that should be doing better than what they are and I look at the audience retention and they have good audience retention. Absolutely could go back and change those thumbnails. But for me, and what I tell clients is, let's move forward. You now have a new strategy. You know how to keep people's attention. So let's move forward with new thumbnails. Unless there are a few that you really spend a lot of time on and you really believe they should be doing better, then you can add a new thumbnail. But for me to go back and update over 100 and some thumbnails, it's just not worth it for me. Life with Brad. I gained more subs as soon as I took some of your advice. That's awesome. Thank you so much. It's fine. I have different topics. Is there an overarching theme? Is it fine to have different topics if there is an overarching theme? Let's see. I'm not really sure what. So you kind of have. Are you like a vlogger or are you an educational channel or what kind of channel are you? It's sunny. I will take these tips and maybe try to get your next review next week. Yes, just be here 1 1pm Eastern Standard Time. Be here as soon as I go live. That's when I select people. Well, I selected one halfway through today, but you got a much better opportunity if you're at 1 o'. Clock. So just make sure you are subscribed and you hit the bell because then you get that notification that I am live so you can get here quickly. It's Sunny. I'm waiting for you to answer that question. What kind of channel do you have? Is it an educational channel? Is it a blogging channel? I want to get your question here answered before I wrap up for today. Life with Brad. Awesome. Be back here next week, so. All right, you guys, I love doing these. We've had such a great engagement and interaction. I'm loving all of your feedback. How you're taking some of these recommendations and seeing changes on your channel. That's amazing. And don't have to worry about doing everything at once. Take little steps at a time. For me, when I first got my channel reviewed and I first started Talking to a YouTube professional, I updated my channel banner. All right? I just focused on that. And then I updated my video format, how I was delivering my content. So just take little tiny steps. I always like to remind myself, the tortoise always beats the hare. Right? Fast and quick isn't always a good way to do it. Being slow and consistent, you know, will get you there. So Sunny says, not sure. I want to give tips to teenage girls, like with exams, braces, organizations. So your niche would be teenage girls trying to get organized or studying tips. Okay, maybe you do like a whole bunch of videos on different types of studying tips and organizing your study materials. Definitely. Look, go to YouTube and search study tips or test tips and see what are some of the big channels doing? So what are the popular channels doing? Basically do some of those. What could potentially happen is you showing up in the suggested videos. If you have that thumbnail on point, getting people to click and that can start growing your channel. That's basically what I was told to do as I was growing my channel. Some of the big YouTube experts out there like Tim Schmoyer and Derral Eves, when I asked them, you know, what kind of content strategy would you suggest for me? And they said, do the same video as I do, but put your spin on it. And so that's what I did. And that's how I've grown my channel. I think I'm at over 450 new subscribers this month and it's all been about honing in on my strategy. And doing similar videos that they've done, like the title of the video, but putting my own spin on it. I don't copy what they say. I have my own opinions, I have my own views. But since I'm doing similar topics, I show up in their suggested videos and my thumbnails are really getting better, so they stand out. And that's how I'm continuing to grow my channel. So pick your niche, stay in your lane, share your content, and that's how you're gonna grow teenage girl lifestyle hacks. Thanks. You need super chat. Oh, Brad, good idea. I should totally go in and do that. That's so nice that you would think of that. I'll turn that on for next time. Thank you. That, that's amazing. You guys are so great. I have the best community. All right, so I'm gonna wrap this up. I got a couple things to do yet. I am teaching at 3pm I don't know if I have the link. Let me see if it's on my Instagram account. I'm teaching. The title that I'm teaching is three ways to use YouTube as your secret growth strategy. So if you're a business owner and you're wanting to use YouTube to grow your business, I'm gonna be talking about how to do that today at Social School. I'm just checking to see if I have it on my YouTube link, on my Instagram link. Okay, it's not gonna let me in. Let me go to this. Okay, it's not gonna let me in. I'll put the link down below where you can sign up. So if you want to join, it's at 3pm so it's in about an hour and a half. I'm walking through those strategies. So I'm gonna put the link as soon as we wrap up here. Come back to my channel in about like, five, 10 minutes. And I should have the link where you can go sign up to join me with another live teaching at 3pm today. It's a series that my friend Dana is hosting, Cloud Social school. And today's social school is YouTube. So thank you all for being here. I'm going to be back here again next week at 1:00pm Eastern Standard Time, same time, same place, same drill. And I hope to see you all there. Have a great rest of the week and an amazing weekend. Bye.