MAY 23, 2023

Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

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9 Tips to Maximize YouTube Efforts

YouTube can work well for creators in multiple ways – as your primary content distribution vehicle, a channel for repurposed content, or a marketing tactic to grow your audience.

The team at AIR has worked with YouTube for our creator and brand clients for two-thirds of the platform’s 18-year life. We’ve noticed patterns and unspoken rules that we’re sharing to help you no matter where you are in your journey. (Editor’s note: A lot of these ideas work outside of YouTube, too.)

1. Subscriber count doesn’t matter much. Focus on the number of views, trust earned, and audience engagement. A creator with 3M subscribers can earn only $1K monthly, and another with 50K subscribers can earn several times more. (The difference often occurs based on the creator’s content tilt and business model.)

2. Watch time remains a critical metric. Analyze audience retention and consider how to motivate the audience to stay on the channel longer. Improving the content, livestreaming, or creating playlists on the same topic are just a few options.

3. Recycle content. Make Shorts of the best-performing fragments from your long videos. It increases monetization opportunities and may bring you new audiences through YouTube’s discovery algorithm. Another option is to compile related evergreen content and launch it as livestreams on your channel.

4. Analysis is as important as creativity. Dig into your channel metrics, study your competitors to understand their strengths, analyze trends, experiment, and constantly improve your content and reach your target audience.

5. Try new features. The platform constantly introduces updates and encourages users to make use of them. So stay tuned, experiment, and create new content using the relevant new features. (YouTube’s blog offers a wealth of resources.)

6. Know your videos’ lifespan. Don’t get stuck on trending videos, believing they will remain so. You can and should make evergreen (timeless) videos. Content that remains relevant for a long time is an investment, attracting new audiences and creating consistent monetization opportunities.

7. AdSense still brings the lion’s share of YouTube-distributed revenue. So ensure you set up ad displays in your videos correctly and effectively. Put ads at the beginning when the audience retention is highest, as well as in the middle and the end.

8. Embrace additional monetization opportunities. YouTube offers a multitude of monetization tools. Pay close attention to super features, memberships, and Shorts monetization. In most cases, you won’t even have to create new content, and the additional income can be substantial. Some of our partner creators have increased their channel revenue by 50% after activating the membership feature and managing it properly.

9. Know you can’t please everyone. Of course, it’s important to gain the audience’s trust and listen to your community. But opinions among viewers who watch your videos can be diametrically opposite. Take constructive feedback into account and let haters hate.

– Vira Slyvinska

Get nine more tips in the full story. Just scroll to No. 10 to start.

Interested in more YouTube tips? We have two whole sessions devoted to YouTube advice and takeaways. Get your digital pass to watch them now (and over 40+ hours of additional content). Use code TILT100 to save.

content entrepreneur spotlight

Entrepreneur: Heather Brooker

Biz: Brooker Family POPcast, Motherhood in Hollywood

Tilt: Family and entertainment

Primary Channels: Brooker Family POPcast, TikTok (502.2K), Instagram (358K), YouTube (3.56K), Motherhood in Hollywood podcast

Other Channels: Facebook (12K), Twitter (37.8K)

Time to First Dollar: Six months after Motherhood in Hollywood podcast launched ($12 an episode for pre- and mid-roll ads). “It was a big mistake,” she says.

Rev Streams: Sponsorships on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube; ad revenue from Motherhood in Hollywood

Our Favorite Actionable Advice:

Don’t be afraid: Say yes to trying something new and don’t stress about failures. “There’s nothing you can’t course correct,” Heather says.
Do gut checks: People want to see the authentic you when you are the brand. That requires regular self-check-ins to ensure you’re still true to yourself.
Take a break: Heather took a hiatus after burning out creating the Motherhood in Hollywood podcast. While you may not take a full pause, you can plan ahead to take a break.

– Sarah Lindenfeld Hall

Want to know more? Read the story of Heather Booker.

things to know

Money

Room for improvement: A new report says impact investors can provide guard rails and incentives for diversity, equity, inclusion, and access for creators who are in marginalized groups. (Philanthropy News Digest)
Tilt Take: Unfortunately, democratizing the online world doesn’t mean everybody has equitable access and support to build their content business. Upstart Co-Lab’s The Creator Economy: A Guide for Impact Investors is worth the read.
To subscribe or not: The Athletic has done about 1K live rooms since 2021. It’s like old sports-talk radio within its app with a hitch. Callers (i.e., people who reach out to converse with hosts) must be subscribers to the platform. Everybody else can just listen in. (Nieman Lab; h/t Simon Owens)
Tilt Take: What content could you provide for free with a bonus twist or incentive for the paid audience?

Audiences

More ears: In five years, podcast reach more than doubled, from 11% of MIDAS to 22.8% of listeners in MIDAS’ quarterly report. Not surprisingly, people ages 15 to 34 are the largest percentage of listeners (and 55-plus are the least likely.) (Measurement of Internet Delivered Audio Services; h/t Sounds Profitable)
Tilt Take: We expect podcasts as a share of audio services will grow significantly even more in the next few years.

Tech and Tools

Another Twitter take: Instagram is getting in on the Twitter alternative game with plans to release a separate text-based app in June. (Lia Haberman)
Tilt Take: It makes sense that a platform with a huge audience might be able to make a dent in a Twitter alternative. But are users of the image-dominant platform ready to add a new text-based app?
Down and out: Instagram – the app and website – was down for almost two hours on Sunday. (The Verge)
Tilt Take: What happens to your content business if Instagram is out for days or even a week? Make (and start) your Plan B now.

And Finally

Nomination time: The Streamy Awards, recognition for the creator community, honors excellence in over 45 categories. The deadline for submissions is May 30. (Streamy)
Tilt Take: Winning awards is not only nice, but it’s also a great credibility tool for marketing. (And the Streamys aren’t charging this year for entries.)
Lesson for all: Stop selling your time. Start selling your knowledge. (Jason Lee)
Tilt Take: Great advice for all content creators and entrepreneurs.

the business of content

Jay Acunzo, founder of Creator Kitchen, interviews Nathan Barry, CEO of ConvertKit. These two professional content creators take a deep dive into what it takes to be a successful content entrepreneur. (Content Inc.)
Podcasting ads are going gangbusters, while Google is about to change the face of search (maybe), according to Joe and Robert in this week’s episode. (This Old Marketing)
Celebrate Small Business Month with these six tips. (Brit+Co)
Need some help to get to a four-day work week? (Small Business Trends)
Reddit co-founder (and Serena Williams’ husband) shares advice for new entrepreneurs. (Essentially Sports)

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Watch and Grow – May 23, 2023