YouTube Workflow 101: How to get and STAY consistent on YouTube

YouTube content creation process and make it easier than you think. So I really dove into figuring out my YouTube workflow when I was at home with a 2 year old and a newborn and I had to find a way to take the limited time that I had available to stay caught up with my weekly consistent YouTube videos. And that is the workflow that I am going to share here with you today. I cannot wait to dig in and share with you the workflow process that not only saved me when I had children at home. Balancing the kids and the work as well as what we use right now with our seven figure entrepreneurs inside our YouTube production agency that allows myself and my small mighty team to publish over 50 YouTube videos a month. Okay, so I want to know real quick before we get into the meat, what workflow or what project management system might you be using right now? There is no right or wrong answer here. I just want to get a sense of what everybody's using. Workflow, project management tool. I mean like Asana Trello Monday ClickUp. I don't even know what else is out there. So go ahead and share with me in the comments right now. What project management tool do you currently use? Because I'm always looking to hear what everybody's using because I'm actually going to walk you through the process today of my workflow without using any project management. So no matter what project management tool that you use, you can take what I'm about to show you and plug it in to what other whatever project management tool that you're using. Because here's a secret that I've learned about project management tools. Because some people aren't using any. We got some Asana, we got some Trello. Here's the secret about project management tools before we dive into my workflow is that you gotta stick with one if you want it to be a project manager and you want it to save time. Otherwise you're going to constantly be jumping and squirrel syndrome syndrome to the next one and think it's better when you actually need to work with the one you're on right now to make it work for you. Because constantly changing project management systems is like thinking the grass is greener on the other side. There's no one perfect project management tool. And so while my team and I use Asana, we've used Trella as well. I'm not saying those are the best ones or the ones that you should use. You need to find one that works for you and absolutely go 100% all in. So I see Shirley doesn't use any. That's fine. Erica is using Asana and Airtable, Kendra is using Asana and Little Bear Box Farm is using Asana. Fantastic. Keep dropping in those project management tools because I'm also get a little bit curious about what's out there. So feel free to share what you are using and I'm going to be answering all of your questions as soon as I get through the meat of this content. So my workflow is actually broken down into four specific phases and if you follow me, you may have heard this before but it is my prep system. Prep P R E P Prerecord, record, edit and promote. That is the process that I go through for every single video that I create for YouTube and every single video that we create for our seven figure entrepreneurs inside of our YouTube production agency. Now I do want to share with you. I have a full detailed in depth but kind of like a mini course on my prep system. If you are interested in getting my prep system and you have Asana and you want to use my exact Asana workflow, you can buy it. It's $47 trina little.com forward/prep so I'm just going to throw that up there. If you wrap up from listening to this process and you're like I just rather copy hers and just get started from there. You you can actually buy it from me. Trina little.com forward/prep but let me go through what each of these phases is and what's included in each phase. So I'm also pulling up my notes to make sure because if you listen last week you'll know that I don't particularly love lives and lives make me a little bit more nervous than my typical YouTube videos. So I have my notes up here just to make sure I'm covering everything. So the first phase that we are going to go through and if you're watching on Facebook and Instagram, I've got these cute little pre planned cards that come up on my screen to go through each phase. And P from prep stands for pre record. So let's talk about the things that I do in this pre record phase because like I said, I want you to know all the steps that I do instead of like what project management tool that I use because there's no wrong answer for that. So in the prerecord phase we are doing research and this may be different kind of research than you've heard because if you listen to me, you know I talk about keyword research And SEO on YouTube isn't what we need to focus on anymore if we want to see success on YouTube. So when I am researching, one of the things I'm looking at is my own YouTube analytics and what type of content on my current channel is doing well. What are topics that people are currently watching on my channel? What are topics people that are currently engaging with on my channel? I'm also looking at what's performing well on YouTube. So what am I being served in my homepage? That is recent content, like something created within the last month. Right. I'm also looking at my neighbor niches, you know, what are they talking about? Because I want to be recommended alongside of them and so they're creating content that my audience is interested in. This may be a topic that I want to talk about as well. I'm also recently using Vidiq and I'm using their keyword opportunities feature inside of their tool to spark some ideas for myself. Now you notice that I'm not saying I'm looking for keywords or I'm looking for a tag. I'm looking for topics. This is my first step, is to figure out a topic that I want to talk about. Once I decided on a topic, the next step in prerecord is the title. And this is so critical. You need to have a title before you do anything else with your YouTube video because your title will make or break your video. Period. End of story. If you have a crappy title, it doesn't matter how great your content is, how great your video equipment is, how professional your video editing is, if your title sucks, the rest of your video is not going to perform. And it is much harder to reverse engineer your title after you've written your content than to come up with a good, solid, engaging title first. Now I'm going to be talking more about coming up with titles and how you really want to come up with titles in my challenge that I'm hosting in September, my free challenge called the Kickstart your YouTube Spark challenge. And if you want to learn more about how to title and some ideas for best titles for YouTube videos, go to trina little.com forward/challenge to get on the waitlist. It, like I said, is an absolutely free challenge and we are going to be diving five days into planning a YouTube video and how to come up with titles and how to come up with thumbnails, which is the next important step in my prerecord phase. So I did want to throw that out there. Trina little.com forward/challenge is where we're going to be diving into the details of a title and what makes a good title and what makes a bad title. So I wanted to give you that opportunity so you don't miss out on that free challenge in September. So let's finish up pre record phase. What are we doing in the prerecord phase? We're also coming up with our thumbnail. I need to know what image or what is the idea of my thumbnail so when I'm recording my video, I can get that photo or that, that image that I want. I'm also coming up with the call to action. What do I want people to do at the end of this video? All right, I haven't even written the video yet, right? I have the title, I have the thumbnail. Now what do I want people to do at the end of this video? And please share any questions that you have or any takeaways that you're getting in the comments because I want to know like this is making sense and this is helpful, okay? Because I need this to be helpful. I want all of you to succeed and do well on YouTube. And like I said, we're publishing 50 some videos a month and we are literally seeing what is working on YouTube right now and what is not. So we also plan what the call to action is in our pre record and then the last piece is then writing a video game plan. We don't call it a script, we call it a video game plan. And again, if you're interested in getting my exact video game plan and how I do that, that's an entire day we're covering inside of the Kickstart your YouTube Spark challenge in September. So another good reason to join that challenge. All right, so when we have the P done, the pre record and the prep system, then we move into the R which is record. This is the record phase of your YouTube creation workflow. Now this is really going to help. If you have your plan in place and you've done all the pre record stuff, it's going to make recording go a lot faster. You're going to be able to record more than one video in one sitting. Because look, I don't do this space every day. And so if I'm going to sit down and record, I'm going to try to knock out at least two or three videos. And so if you've done all the pre record stuff first, you have more time then on your record day to get two or three videos done. So what are you doing in that record phase? Well, obviously you're filming the A Roll, which is this particular screen right now, me talking to the camera. But let's say you're talking. I'm talking about Asana. I may want to add B roll, right? B roll is then showing what I'm actually talking about. So I would still be talking like this, but we put additional video over top of me talking so that I was showing you what I was talking about as I was talking about it. I also grabbed two to three shirts to change shirts out. So when I change videos, I just grab a shirt, lay it on the floor, put a new one on. I'm also getting screen recording. So again, if I'm doing a tutorial or a walkthrough or something, I'm going to use loom and and record what I'm doing. This is all things that I'm doing in my record phase of my prep system. Then I'm also going through all the shots lists that I created in my video game plan. I know I wanted certain shots for this video. I'm making sure I get those. I'm also making sure I'm recording stories when I'm finished recording my video. Not only do I then take my thumbnail photo at the end of recording my video, I do quick stories to promote that video so that I can save those in my back pocket when that video goes live. And I may also do a reel or two as well around the topic because again, if I'm done my hair and makeup, I'm knocking out as much video content as possible during that day. So that's everything that I do in the record phase. Okay? And I do that all in one day, two or three videos, right? Then it is on to editing. And again, if you did. Got to switch my little screen here to E for editing. If you did the prerecord phase and you did the editing phase, no prerecord phase, and you did the recording phase, your editing is going to go a lot faster because you have so much less to edit. You stayed on task, you streamlined your process. You shouldn't have as much raw video footage because you prerecorded. You did the research, you got the game plan, you knew exactly what you wanted to say, so you have less to edit. So when I talk about my editing workflows, what I do first is do my first run through of my video and cut out all the pauses, all the mistakes, all the repeat lines. So I go through and do that first. I get the first draft, the first cut of it done. Then I'll go through a second time. And see if I can cut anything shorter because content on YouTube needs to be quick and snappy. And so I'll see if I can cut even more. And I mean like tight cut. So it sounds basically like I'm not even taking a breath in my videos. And when I was, when I trained video editors who aren't used to YouTube, I say these have to be tighter cuts, much tighter. It needs to seriously sound like you're not taking a breath because that is what works on YouTube. So I go through that twice, then the next thing that I do is then I will add any B roll or screen recording on top. So this is the third time through that video. Then the fourth time through I will then add text call outs on my end screen. So basically I go through that video four times in that process because it actually saves me time if I'm just focusing on doing one thing at a time. So the first round is just cuts. Second round is making it tighter cuts. Third round is adding B roll and any kind of like screen recordings. And then the fourth round is adding text. So that's the process that I do for editing. And then once the video is completely done edited, then I'll create some social assets, Instagram stories, reels, Facebook versions. So that is my editing process. Now like I said, I'm answering all your questions here in just one moment. But we still have one more phase to go through and that is the promote phase. P R E P Prerecord, record, edit and promote. Remember you can get this entire process in Asana in a detailed approach to it@trina little.com forward/prep if you are interested in. So this is how we promote my YouTube videos and how we recommend our agency clients do as well. We want that newsletter. We want you to email your list as soon as possible. So my video goes live at 8am on a Wednesday. We usually send our newsletter out to our list of 20,000 people about 9 to 10am around that time. We then do a reel or story post around 12pm on Instagram to promote it and we put a link to go watch it. We then have a blog posted for that video. Usually by the end of the day. It's not so much as like critical importance the blog because the blog is basically a long term strategy and it's not going to get instant views to it. But the newsletter and any social platform that you are on to promote it, you need to do within like the first two to three hours to get some views on that video initially. We also create pinterest graphics like static pins and also video pins to promote that video. And at the moment we aren't doing this because we don't have the capacity. We're just out of time. We actually onboarded a brand new employee today. So we're working on managing, you know, roles over here as our agency grows and our clients grow in our coaching program, 10K on replay. But we typically post then the full video version on Facebook usually the next day or on Friday because remember, we're posting on Wednesday. So then we put the Facebook version on Friday, Thursday or Friday. And the purpose of the Facebook version isn't to get people over to YouTube. We don't tell people to go watch the YouTube video. We just want people on YouTube to watch. We just want people on Facebook to watch that video there. We're just creating content for the Facebook platform because it's very hard to get people from Facebook over to YouTube. And we've tried and we've tried. We just put the content over there on Facebook for people to watch. Like I said, as I mentioned this earlier, I'm going to go into much more detail on each one of these steps in my free challenge in September called kickstart your YouTube spark. So if you are interested in joining this challenge, get on the waitlist because there's more information coming to you. The end of next week you'll go to trina little.com forward/challenge to get to to that wait list of the free challenge. If you're on Instagram, it's the link in my bio. It should be the link below the Facebook and YouTube version right now as well. But we're really going to get into all the nitty gritty YouTube details to really help you implement this strategy for your business and your YouTube channel. And I will tell you, all of those that join the wait list are going to get a little prize, a little bonus. So there's a reason why you want to go on the waitlist now and not wait till we actually open the doors. And remember, next Monday, I will be going live again next Monday to kick off this series. It will be video number four in this series and I'm going to be sharing if I think it's the end of professional level videos here on YouTube and what equipment I really think you should be using in your YouTube videos. And you might actually be surprised what equipment minimal, minimal equipment you need for YouTube. And then later this month I'm going to be sharing with you why just ranking on YouTube won't help your channel grow. And in 2022 and beyond. So make sure you're following me on Instagram, subscribe to me here on YouTube, follow me on Facebook because you're not going to want to miss next week because this is totally different than what most people think about YouTube right now because it's not about tags, SEO and ranking in search. We've done case studies on this and we can tell you exactly why. Next Monday at 1pm Eastern. So did you add that on your calendar? Say yes in the comments. Did you add next Monday at 1pm on your calendar? Because you're not going to want to miss this. And I'm going to go ahead and get any questions that you have. So leave questions. Let's see here on YouTube, I'm double checking question, do you repost on Facebook? If so, when do you upload to Facebook? So Marlene, yes, I absolutely do post on Facebook. Like I said, I put the full video on Facebook. I don't worry about getting traction over to YouTube because it's just dang near impossible to get people over to YouTube from Facebook. And if you're putting a YouTube link on Facebook, Facebook is absolutely going to limit the reach that post as well. So this is Hope, she says what is a good end screen click? The rate. Is there a key to getting a higher click through rate on the end screen? So Hope is not only a Video Strategy Academy client of mine, but a coaching client in my 10k on replay and we talk about click through rates and how important that is for your YouTube videos. And hope my challenge to you would be to just do better than your last one. So we generally see click through rates in the 8 to 12% click through rate when channels start to take when that video starts to take off. So I would just keep track. What is your average click through rate and how can you do better and which ones are doing better? Is there a key to a click through rate, getting a higher click through rate? Absolutely. Again, making your video plan and knowing the call to action makes sense for the purpose of that video. Think about somebody watching that video. What would make sense for them to watch next? What would make sense for them to click on next to watch? What is the best way to create problem aware content? Ashley, that is such a great question. Problem aware content. One thing that we teach inside of Video Strategy Academy, my YouTube program, my YouTube strategy program is the piggyback strategy. And what we do here is we look at the channels that our audience is watching on YouTube and we're looking at what content they're Creating is doing well and what about that content is doing well. So we're doing this market research and we're trying to really understand how our target audience is responding on YouTube and watching on YouTube. Then we create content based on that research. I do want to say welcome Lili. She just signed up for the challenge. I'm so excited. I love these challenges. We do these twice a year and I'm super excited to get started. So welcome Lili. Okay, one last question here from CC Tax and Advisory Instagram. If you guys have any questions, I haven't seen any come through here. Feel free to pop them in the comments real quick. But CC Tax and Advisory says when do you believe you'll be able to take on more clients for your agency? That is a great question. We actually just brought on a brand new account manager today. So we're training a brand new account manager today. And if you are interested in joining our agency, make sure you fill out that application form on my website. Trina little.com it's the agency form. We are reaching out as we get capacity and have we have space. We've kept it a really tight knit niche agency right now and so that is the best way to get in contact with us and get on our wait list. And Hope says Trina's challenges are really fun. I'm so excited. I can't wait to get started started. So remember next week we are going to be talking about why ranking on YouTube isn't the best way to be successful on YouTube this year, 2020 and beyond. I'm going to share what's actually working, how we took a channel from zero subscribers to over 11,000 subscribers and over, I think it was over 300,000 views in less than 90 days and it had nothing to do with with YouTube search, keyword research and a ranking. So I cannot wait to share this next week. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. I will be responding. Send me a DM and don't forget to sign up for our free challenge over@trinalittle.com forward slash challenge. And if you want my complete workflow you'll just go to trina little.com forward/prep. All right, I'll see you all next week.