Social media marketing 101: How to make your videos go viral

It’s time to bring in the likes, follows, and shares. In this course, you’ll learn all about social media marketing and how to ultimately bring more eyes to your content.

We’ll cover: how to get started with social media marketing, how to create engaging content and the best times to post it, how to optimize your content for YouTube, how to measure and analyze your content’s performance, SEO basics.

So, let’s create the next big thing.

Hello, I’m Sam Holland, and in this video, we’re going to be looking at some of the different types of social media platforms, their pros and cons, and which one is best suited to you as a creator who’s trying to grow your audience.

Now, this video will help you figure out where to position yourself for the best exposure, which will then enable you to express yourself in the most authentic way possible without feeling overworked and then hating what you do. Because there’s nothing more demotivating than pouring all of your energy into a project, only to have nobody see it or engage with it. And I honestly believe that the number one reason why people don’t achieve the results they want and then give up is because they don’t understand what, where, why, and how they are posting. That’s why it’s important to know how each of the social media platforms works and how people actually interact with them.

Since we’re trying to help and inspire as many people as we can, our goal is to reach as big of an audience as possible. And like it or not, social media platforms are becoming the best outlets to educate, entertain and engage with people. And to keep up with a sea of people all fighting for the number one spot on people’s homepages, search results, or even notifications, we’re told to post as often as possible and across as many platforms as possible.

Now, obviously, the more places you are, the more chance you have of being seen. But out of context, this advice can lead to frustration and burnout because inherently all social media platforms are different and some may not work for you or your audience. Luckily, though, I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to post everywhere to make an impact.

So which platform should you be using? Firstly, I want you to think about your strengths. What would you say your best at, video, written word, animation, speaking, live streaming? If you’re good at speaking but don’t enjoy being in front of the camera, then a podcast might be the best option. Or if you’re terrible at speaking, like me, but are great at the written word, then a blog might be the right way to go.

Whatever you prefer, there’s always a way to deliver your message to the world. Matching your strengths to your target audience’s preferred platforms will help you know where you should be focusing your efforts. With this in mind, as we go through this list, you can be thinking of where you will slot in best.

Each platform has their own unique characteristics and formats, which leads to the way the viewer interacts with them. I used to think that you could just create a piece of content and repost it in the same way everywhere. But no… The key to figuring out how to use the platforms is to actually observe the format and how people use them. Now, this might seem obvious, but stick with me because understanding this will make your job so much easier and even save you time.

First of all, YouTube. YouTube is a video platform primarily focusing on long-form videos, although they now have started adding the YouTube Short feature much like TikTok. But YouTube is also a search engine. So it’s the best for people who want to learn and gain in-depth knowledge on a subject since you can go deeper into a topic in longer videos. You can learn just about anything using YouTube. I guess the downside is sometimes you just want a quick answer to a question, but it might take a little while to find the right video. And before you know it, you’ve sat through an hour of videos trying to find the right one, and you’re down the YouTube rabbit hole.

So Instagram was primarily a photo-sharing app, much like a portfolio, but they’re now shifting towards a more video-centric platform. Again, trying to keep up with what’s happening with TikTok. What I really like about Instagram, though, is the story feature. You can engage with your followers, keep them up to date with what you’re doing, and conduct polls or questionnaires to find out what they like and what they don’t like. Now, this really helps your audience get to know you, and you also get to know your audience in return. And that can really help when it comes to making your content, and you can tailor it for what your audience likes.

What I don’t like about Instagram is that, unlike YouTube, old content won’t be seen by people unless they scroll all the way back through your feed. So you have to continuously keep posting content to appear in search results.

Right, TikTok. Love it or hate it, TikTok is great for reaching a wider audience as a creative. It takes the form of portrait-style short burst videos and has a huge audience and is continuously growing. Most content on here is created by using the phone camera and adding effects and text within the app, so anybody can create really clever videos without any experience in editing or filmmaking whatsoever, just from using the app. Now, depending on what you do, you might have to adapt your style to fit to this platform, but there are plenty of trends that you can jump onto the bandwagon, so to speak, and make your own and really do something different to fit in.

The TikTok algorithm seems to work in a similar way to YouTube, but without the search engine, and it will feed you more of what it thinks you’ll enjoy watching. So if you like a certain style of video, for example, TikTok is going to feed you similar content to that because it thinks you like it.

Now, Facebook is kind of the one that started this whole thing. It’s been around for a long time now, and it’s kind of a mixture of everything combined. But the thing that I like the most about this platform is the ability to create groups. You can plan events, share ideas and engage with an audience here in a way like you can’t on any other platform, really. And you can use this to create a deeper connection with your fanbase and even, like, get to know them on a personal basis or set up some sort of like meet and greet, for example. Unfortunately, though, Facebook doesn’t seem to like cross-promotion, so it’s not the best place to market a YouTube video, for example, because each platform wants to keep you there, basically.

So a podcast is basically like an audio discussion. So instead of watching people have a discussion about something, you can actually just stick it on in the background and listen to the conversation that’s happening.

Now, if you’re thinking of making content, a podcast is great if you don’t like filming yourselves, but you’re really good at speaking or you like to have a lot of guests on and get their perspective on things. And I really like podcasts because you can listen to them on long journeys or when you’re tidying the house or whatever and they’re really easy to edit as a creator, you don’t really have to do a lot. The downside is you’re limited to what you can show or explain because there’s no imagery. So you have to be really descriptive when you’re doing a podcast and make sure the audience or the listeners know exactly what you’re talking about.

Then you’ve got streaming sites such as Twitch. Great for gamers who want to share live streams whilst they’re playing games for the first time and interact with fans in real-time. I suppose the downside is if you’re a viewer, you can watch it later, but it’s usually unedited content, so you might have to sit through a long video, for example, in order to get the key piece of information that you came there for in the first place.

So my advice is to choose one main platform to create content for, then select a few others that work best for you to promote and or engage with your audience. You can then decide how you’re going to manage your time or divide it up into which parts you create content for.

Now, my main platform is YouTube, it’s my favorite type of content to create, and I really enjoy it. That’s where I spend most of my time. I then use Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to promote and engage with my followers. And that’s where I typically share short clips, how-to carousels, and behind-the-scenes stuff.

So each platform has their own audience demographic that prefers to consume content in their own unique way. For example, gamers will be more likely to spend time-consuming Twitch content over reading Facebook feeds, while the older generations are more likely to interact with people and their friends by using Facebook than scrolling through TikTok. You have to pay attention to this and deliver your content how the people want it. Watch what others are doing for a whole week on every platform. Consume as much as possible. Read the comments. Take note of the format and the lengths. Don’t post anything yet.

You can even ask people in your niche what platforms they use and why. Then observe your own behavior whilst you’re consuming this content. What do you like? What don’t you like? When do you click away? Why do you click away? How long do you stay on a piece of content and why? When do you use those platforms? How much time do you spend on each platform and why? Which is your favorite and why? So be mindful of these questions instead of mindlessly scrolling through or creating content without even thinking about it will really help you create content that people actually want to engage with and want to see, and that will increase your chances of people following and engaging with you as well. And that’s what you want.

If you’ve been making content for years already, but you’re not seeing much progress, you may have to just change the way you do things. A lot of people blame the algorithm or the platform, but really, it’s your fault. See what type of content is working for others and test new things. Don’t be afraid of experimenting. A good thing to do is check your analytics, see what types of content of yours is performing the best and why, and do more of that. It’s different for everybody. So what works for one person doesn’t always work for another. Just because TikTok was once filled with dance trends doesn’t mean it can’t be used to share your cooking tips in a unique way. And finally, it’s important to know that social media is constantly evolving and constantly changing with how the users interact with them.

So it’s good practice to check in with them every now and then, even if you don’t like them, because things might change, and they might become better for you. Just because it might not work now, doesn’t mean it won’t work in the future. Don’t forget to check out the other videos in this series for more tips on content creation. I hope this video has helped.

Thanks so much for watching!

What’s up everybody, Alex here with some great tips for optimizing your headlines, your hashtags, your thumbnails, and your descriptions using these following steps.

So, why should you care about titles and thumbnails? Well, did you know that a good thumbnail can increase the views and engagement between 40%-70%? Because each time a viewer is spending time on YouTube, most likely they will first see the thumbnail and then the actual title. A very good trick is if you have a really long title, to go and include text into your thumbnail because when your title is really, really long, it might get cut short because of the length in the search results and YouTube standardly generates like three random thumbnails out of your videos. But to be honest, they’re not really usable since they’re just three random screenshots from out the video.

So it’s not recommended to use one of these screenshots and just to go and create your own instead. So let’s start off with the technical stuff. What are the YouTube guidelines for thumbnails? Because YouTube actually has those. You don’t need a lot of knowledge of photo editing software as there are tons of options available online for free to guide you through, I recommend using bright colors and photos because they will generate more engagement and are actually remarkable when people have the ‘dark mode’ enabled in the YouTube app, which is showing a dark grey background because dark thumbnails are actually not recommended. So YouTube does have policies as well for these thumbnails.

So make sure to stay within the guidelines from the thumbnails. Meaning that you can avoid explicit language, explicit photos, and all other stuff that might be a little bit sensitive. So if you want to use a shorter title, for example, you can emphasize certain words with bright colors using an arrow or other objects and shapes to point at a certain word to make it clear to the viewer by looking at the thumbnail, along with some exciting facial expressions to intrigue the viewer even more.

So your title will be the key of your video. A great title results in a great response. I actually recommend to go and use capital letters in your title because a title like this for example, “How to grow on YouTube,” doesn’t really look that appealing in comparison to this, “How To Grow On YouTube,” which looks a lot better and a lot more attractive in the search results as well.

So people will be more intrigued when they can almost hear that enthusiasm by just reading the words. So if you blend a great title together with a catchy thumbnail that pops, that will be half of the work for a good ranking in the search results. What we want to avoid is having titles longer than 70 characters being truncated in the search results. So another great example of finding the right title is, for example, right here on the Artlist YouTube page. You can see very clear expressions and words that are used in the thumbnail which are not clickbait. And as they of course relate to the video. But they would almost have a clickbait effect on the viewer, if you know what I’m trying to say because meaning that they look way way better and that is basically making people wanting to see it.

Use that to stimulate and create a desire to know more. This should evoke emotion, of course, by either showing your emotions and thereby triggering empathetic emotion or by rational appeal to needs and objective. So, stimulating words to provoke curiosity include, for example, surprising, unexpectedness, and amazing.

So let’s go ahead and talk about the descriptions. So, the description will be the information section of your video where all the info will be, such as what the video is about. I highly recommend to use the first three lines at the top of the description to describe what the video will be about, because that’s actually really, really important for the YouTube algorithm. And after that of course, such as like social media links and any other kind of affiliate links, credits. Any other info just like that will be, of course, down below.

So it’s really, really important that you make these first 200 characters count in the video description, and then everything else will be followed by that. So what you can also do is add in a short call-to-action, meaning that at the end of your three-line segment you can add in, for example, like, “if you like this video, make sure to subscribe for more. Or if this video was educational or helpful in any kind of way, make sure to like this video as well.”

So it’s also really, really important to use like 90% of the title’s words also in the description in the first three lines because of course, the first three lines are that important that in the search results on mobile, you will also see like a little preview next to the thumbnail what the first few words of the descriptions are. So offering value in the description, guys is one of the most crucial things to keep in mind. Doing the proper research about keywords, repeating keywords, or adding complementary can make a huge difference, and it’s never a bad idea to spend enough time on.

All right, so let’s move on to the hashtags. So, YouTube hashtags are basically clickable words and phrases that you will see right underneath the video between the description and the video preview itself. They are inserted in the video description as well, and they are just clickable. They will bring you to tons of different other videos depending on which hashtag that you’re using. So whether you make a regular video or a YouTube short, they are used to identify a specific topic and our recommended to be placed at the bottom of the description. They will appear right under the video preview like I’ve mentioned, no matter where they are located in the description box.

If you aren’t sure which hashtag to use, you have too many ideas. you can use a hashtag generator that will give you the best suggestions based on your video topic. So according to the YouTube Creator Academy, good hashtags can actually improve your views and engagement, and the overall performance. So if you are using a hashtag, there’s a chance that it will lead directly to your video depending on the volume of the hashtags used. If your video Is a tutorial about how to use stock music or footage you can include hashtags such as #tutorial #stock_footage to help guiding our video to the right viewer.

So YouTube allows up to 15 hashtags in the description, but the ideal amount is, I would say, between two and four, and that’s it.

So if you guys find these tips helpful, make sure to check out the rest of the course. There’s a lot more content for you to discover. Thanks for watching.

What’s up guys? I hope you guys are doing amazing. Welcome to this new class. In this one, we’re going to talk about the goals, the analytics, and the SEO basics because understanding this data is a must to make sure that our content is performing the most efficient way and just the maximum performance.

But guys, before we start, I want to point out that this also works for Facebook, for Instagram, for Tik Tok, basically, any other platform where you can share your videos on and where you can grow a following on as well.

All right. So whether you want to make this one just a hobby or like a full-time job, it is really, really important to work with goals. But they have to be a little bit more of a realistic one, especially when you’re just starting out. So let’s say that we’re just starting out. We’re starting from complete zero. We want to set our goal at 1,000 subscribers. And the reason that we’re picking 1,000 subscribers is it’s very logical that when you start out, you’re not setting a goal for like, let’s say, 50,000 subscribers. Because if you’re going to start out this way where you have a goal that’s really really far away just yet, you’re more likely to make mistakes as well. And if you make small steps, you can just go and do it like this because if you make big steps. You can also, of course, make big mistakes.

So for me, it actually took quite some years to be where I am right now. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be or take as long for you as well, because of course, we’re in 2022. A lot of things have changed and of course, the goals that we have set is the first step. And then of course understanding the SEO, the analytics and all of these data is just really really really important.

All right, so now that we have set our goal, we can actually go and proceed to analyzing this data. So let’s get started. So the main use of the analytics is to learn more about our audience. Where is our audience from? When are they on YouTube watching videos? Which age category are they in? Which languages do they speak? Which other related content do they watch and so forth. Here on the analytics page, you can see the main overview. From here you can check how many views your channel has generated in the last month, how many watch time hours you have generated, your amount of subscribers increase and the revenue you have made as well. So once you go to the Reach tab in the YouTube analytics, you’re able to see how many impressions you have reached. Impressions mean how many people have seen your thumbnail or video being suggested on the homepage The search results on websites where you see impressions click-through rate, You can see how many impressions or how many of them have led to a watch time. Next to that, it’s very easy to track the subscriber count and how many unique viewers you got besides the recurring views. One of the key points is to convert as many impressions into watch time, which can be achieved by using catchy titles and thumbnails to intrigue the viewer. And we have also discussed that in another class about titles and thumbnails.

So now we have come to the engagement tab. This is one of the most important data from the analytics. Here you can analyze and understand perfectly how much time your viewer spends on your videos, when they skip, when the peak moments happen, when they eventually stop watching, and so on. It’s a great idea to tweak the section where the viewer doesn’t stay as engaged. For example, you can make a jump cut to the next section of your video to keep the viewer’s attention, because the amount of time spent on your videos plays a huge role how it gets recommended on YouTube. The more impressions you have and the longer your watch time is because of YouTube’s algorithm, YouTube will push your video to more and more and more people because YouTube sees like, all right, this is a video that a lot of people are watching, maybe even from start to finish. Let’s go and recommend this one to new viewers as well. And these also count as like impressions. And of course, once you want to convert these into actual views.

So the more you increase this data, the more YouTube will push your video, for example, to the up next playlist, next to a video preview, or just on the homepage in general. You can perfectly track the percentage right here to see key moments for audience retention and analyzing this data to learn more about how you can improve these statistics in a future uploads. And below that, you can track how the end cards are performing the top playlists, the top cards, etc. If you see a specific niche or a topic that scores well, that’s a great indicator your audience is into that specific kind of content.

So the next tab basically shows all the information about your audience. Which videos are making people come back for more, geographies, and so on. So let’s go ahead and check this out as well. So right here you can clearly tell which videos are making the channel grow, which is really important to make sure what is the content your audience comes back for. On the right, you can see who your competitors are or in other words, the other YouTube channels that your audience also watches. So that is a really really informational section that you guys can check out to see which kind of content creators are like your competitors in a way that you have to compete to, or maybe you can collaborate with so their audience gets to know you and your audience gets to know that content creator.

So next to that, you can monitor the countries the views are coming from. So that’s a great idea to go and translate your titles, your descriptions. So let’s say that you have a 20-minute video I can actually understand that it might take a lot of time to go and translate these words and adding these captions, but it’s going to be really really worth that because subtitles are just great. So if you scroll down, you can also track the age of your audience and also how many of them have enabled the notifications on your channel with the bell option That’s obviously a percentage we want to increase as our channel grows. It’s also very important to know when someone subscribes to your channel. This feature is not standardly enabled and that’s why you see a lot of content creators on YouTube always mentioning like subscribe and hit that bell for notifications. Because like I mentioned, if someone is like subscribe, they will not automatically get this notification from this bell. It is not standardly on. You have to do that manually in the settings.

So on the right, we have a small column with the language spoken by your viewers. This is where you should pick the top 5 to 10 languages and translate your titles and descriptions and or add subtitles to your videos to maximize your reach. And it’s been proven that this makes your channel grow up to 180% because you’re reaching people all over the world, even people that are not English-speaking, just like I mentioned with the subtitles so that’s really really important.

So then at last we have the revenue tab, which shows you how much revenue you have generated. A term you likely have heard of is CPM. Now CPM stands for Cost Per Mille. That’s basically the amount of money advertisers are spending per thousand impressions. So that’s also the reason why YouTube earnings are just going up and down, up and down again, because, of course, not every month is the same. Some niches are, of course, a little bit more cheaper or more expensive when it comes to buying ads on these videos. So let’s say that you have a gaming channel that might be a little bit more cheaper to buy ads on because there are so many videos out there. But if you have, for example, a channel about like real estate, that’s gonna cost a lot more.

So now that we have the deep dive into our analytics it is time for the SEO basics. Now SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Now the way that you’ll be using SEO onto YouTube is by using the right tags and keywords in the tags section while you’re uploading at the bottom. They’re not visible for viewers, but they actually determine how great your video will rank in the search results. But of course, not only on YouTube but also Google and also other websites are able to embed your video or share your video on their page leading to your original YouTube video. So using the optimized keywords to make your videos stand out will make a huge difference.

So these have to be optimized because YouTube itself is a search engine and they have their own SEO algorithms. So understanding the search intent of our viewers is the first step that we have to take. We know that most common types of search intent include informational, commercial, navigational and transactional. So matching what your video is about with the intent of your target audience is going to be really important for getting your video visible in search results and rank as high as possible. So it’s told to be a myth, but it lies in the smallest details. When you’re exporting your video, you want to make sure that you name it the title of your video on YouTube instead of just the video.mp4.

So let’s say that we made a video about the best stock footage from Artlist. What you can do is instead of just using like video rendered.mp4, you can just use how to use the best stock footage or how to find the best stock footage website.mp4 export it out and then just use that on YouTube. What we also discuss in another class from this course is one of the most important ranking factors for YouTube’s SEO. Making sure you have a good optimized description. It’s important to know that once you make a change onto your YouTube video, let’s say in the title description or even the tags YouTube will re-evaluate your video. And this can be a good or a bad thing because that’s why I would recommend to get it right first try.

So if you would have seen this very video on YouTube, this is what it would look like, a very catchy title and of course, an optimized description above the fold. And that is one of the most important key factors in uploading your video and ranking as high as possible. So of course, the keywords are not visible for a viewer, but they are needed to make sure that the video goes into the right direction. And that’s basically what I mean with having the right keywords because the keywords are actually going to be as close as possible to what people are typing in the search bar. So while you’re uploading, make sure to take your time for that. They’re not visible, but it’s just really really needed. And a good thumbnail is basically all, and you’re set. So while your video is uploading, you can select the video category. If users are searching for a particular video with advanced options, they can select the search to show videos from selected categories. So when you’re uploading your video, it’s important to contextualize your videos with categories. These settings can be set to a default setting, so you don’t have to go over them by each upload.

But if you make different content once in a while, I actually recommend to re-evaluate them one by one. Because if you have a gaming channel and all the standard categories are set to like gaming videos, and then after a little while you have, let’s say, upload a music video, then you can just re-evaluate that one separately because that one has to be music in comparison to the other categories for your videos that were, let’s say, let’s play, they have to be gaming.

So there are a lot of tools available to make sure everything is optimized. But I’m going to give you guys a couple of tips to keep in mind. So the tips and tricks to implement while uploading your videos are: including keywords in the title of the video, include keywords in the video file, optimizing your description, selecting a video category, add subtitles and closed captions, use video hashtags, use eye-catching thumbnails, track analytics data for the right keyword, use capital letter/words in your title.

And that’s it guys, thanks a lot for watching. If you want to know how to optimize your videos even more, make sure to check out the rest of the course where we also talk about optimizing your titles, your thumbnails, your descriptions for let’s say, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, any other platform. Thanks for watching.

In this next class, we’re going to talk about how to find the best posting time, how to increase engagement, and so much more. So I would say let’s get started. So let’s start off with the best posting time for your video. So the best posting time actually depends on a few different factors, such as the viewer activity, the video topic based, for example, on like certain events such as Halloween or Christmas. But we’re going to start off with regular videos for now.

So of course, it’s easy to upload a video at like a 2 PM timeslot, but where are your viewers actually from? Which kind of videos do they watch? How long are they on YouTube? When do they get online? Which timeslot? It is all really really simple to track that in the YouTube analytics. And that’s exactly what we’re gonna use to find out the best posting time. So of course, when you’re starting off, it doesn’t really matter which time you post because of course you don’t really have an audience yet. You don’t really know which timezone to choose for your audience or which time zones your audience are in. So at the beginning, I wouldn’t really just you know, stick to a certain schedule or a certain steady time. I would just pick a time that is comfortable for you that you say like let’s say upload every Saturday at 5 PM. And then once you start to develop a following, you can actually just go into the YouTube Analytics, see where your audience is from, your target audience. And then you can just also play a little bit on their schedule. Like if your audience gets online Friday at 6 PM Then you can just upload your video, let’s say at 5:30 or 5 PM Just to be an hour before your audience gets online. Just that your video is out there as soon as your viewers go on to YouTube.

Okay, so to figure out where your audience is from, you want to go to your YouTube Dashboard. Then you want to click on analytics and you want to click on the audience tab. And then from the audience tab, we can navigate through and see where the views are actually coming from. Which gender, the age categories. And with the purple lines, which time they go online as you see right here. Based on these factors, you can not only decide the best posting time but of course also the best posting day.

So of course, weekends always work perfectly fine. Such as Saturday and Sunday, because of course, the chance is big nobody is really that long in school or at work and are spending a lot more time at home or at YouTube. So you see right here on the Artlist YouTube page, you can see that posting frequently, but let’s say between 3 to 5 times per week is a really really good way to have a consistent schedule, which is one of the most helpful ways to grow on YouTube.

So now that we have decided our best upload time and our best posting day, which is basically not only applicable on YouTube guys, it is the same for Instagram, for Tik Tok, for basically any other platform that you can share videos and that you can grow an audience on. So when we have found out these details, we can move on to increasing our engagement. So here’s the fun part. So engagement basically means that people are taking action on your video, whether that’s by liking the video, hitting the subscribe button on a certain YouTube page, or leaving a comment. So of course, you can also stimulate the viewers yourself by just using like end cards, like an outro with clickable links to other videos, playlists, or a subscribe button. Or you can just mention at the end of the video yourself saying that if you find the video helpful and if they were entertained or helped, or something like this, along those lines, you can just stimulate them or request them to subscribe and share for more.

So if you navigate to the engagement tab in your analytics, you can always monitor and analyze how many hours of watch time you have your peak moments in videos when viewership might decrease, and also, of course, other factors. I would recommend adjusting your editing onto these reports. So let’s say, for example, if people are clicking away right here on the spot when it goes down and there is a timelapse section, try to make the time-lapse just a little bit shorter next time to keep the viewer engaged. But of course, a good title, a good thumbnail, a good description, and of course, good hashtags also play a huge role in optimizing your performance and just the entire engagement overall. So I recommend spending enough time on that guys, because this is not only applicable like I mentioned on YouTube, but also on Facebook, on Twitter, Instagram, just basically any platform where you can share content.

So let’s go ahead and talk about the data ratios, which is just like an overview in the analytics that we can use to tweak the performance to optimize things. So let’s dive into that right now. Alright so the first one is the likes-to-dislikes ratio so this basically means the amount of likes against the amount of dislikes. So if the value is between 97.4% and about 99% you can rest assured that you are set on this area.

Alright so, the second metric is basically the amount of subscribers towards views. So this metric, of course, relates to the ratio of views generated from a single video to the number of subscribers on your channel. Here your value should be ideally above 33.1%.

So the third metric is the ratio between comments and the amount of views. So this basically means that this is the value between like people that have actually watched your video compared to how many people of you know, these views have actually left a comment. And the ratio should be between let’s say, between 0.04% and 0.16%.

So that’s it, guys. If you find this video helpful, make sure to check out all the rest of the content included in this course because of course there’s a lot more for you to check out. Thanks for watching.

In this video, I’m going to give you guys some tips to go viral more easily to let your hard work pay off, so let’s get started.

So the first thing I would give you guys is play on emotions. Viral videos usually tell a story and have a deeper meaning, which play on the viewer’s emotions. There are so many different types of emotions that you can portray through your video, such as happiness, sadness, excitement, fear, and so much more. When people feel as if you play with their emotions, then they will share a video with their followers or friends. Having your video shared, again and again, is the best way to get more views and gain more traffic on your video.

So the key of getting millions and millions of people getting to sit through your video is by conveying emotion through storytelling. So the next step I’m going to give you guys is making sure that you have the right length for your video. So in another class, we have discussed like how long are people watching your video, how to find that out in the analytics. And the analytics are of course the place where you can easily monitor the length your viewers watch your videos. Shorter videos tend to be shared more because they are quick and easy. They also could get the point across in an easier and efficient way in comparison to longer videos which is good for your average view duration. One thing that you should remember is that one length for a video may not be good for all of them. And that’s of course where the editing process is going to decide whether you keep a certain section in. You’re gonna cut this out. Because sometimes it’s also helpful to have a longer video because longer videos also still can get viral.

So the third tip I’m going to give you guys is using a popular topic and implement that into your own like upload schedule, for example, or your own video creation. Because if you combine these two, that’s gonna be the perfect blend of having your video go viral more easily just because you have a topic that’s really really hot nowadays, A lot of people are looking that up and you have your own twist on it, and that’s one of the most important factors that I can give you guys is to just, let’s say that something is really really popular in terms of like a game, and you are making, let’s say, sketches. You can just use an idea from the game into your sketch and have it like mixed up when it comes to your title, your description, your tags, it is really really simple how you can come up with these ideas. And also just make sure that your audience also has like the same feeling. And that you’re not making entirely different content.

So let’s say that you’re making like urban explorer videos. You always go to like abandoned locations. So let’s say around Halloween time, you can go to let’s say a spooky place or a haunted place, where you can go to, to just really stay in the theme of like Halloween. And that’s one of these really really good ideas. As you know, around Christmas time, Halloween time, Easter, people always tend to watch more of these themed videos.

So these days, the competition is really really high. If you want to figure out like how much competitors you have, there’s a really really simple tool for that. So right here you can see the Google Keyword Planner where you can type in your topic. for example, “best VFX website.” And as you notice, you will see a column with the volume of searches. So if you type in a topic, let’s say VFX. You can see that it has between a hundred thousand and a million searches. But of course, if the competition is high and the search volume is low. That’s not really a good keyword or a topic because the competition is really high. It’s going to be harder for you to stand out and the search volume is low, meaning that not a lot of people are looking that up. But of course, you can always see like between 100,000 and a million searches per month is actually really really decent. So you want to make sure that you have a lot of search volume and low competition.

So let’s talk about the old-age rivalry between quality versus quantity, and no, everybody has a different opinion. But I’ll try to stay objective about the pros and the cons of each approach. When talking about quality, it’s pretty obvious what the pros are. The story is interesting. The visuals look amazing. The production value is high. It feels like each detail inside the production was thought about over and over until it was perfect. But the cons about that approach are that it takes time to make something perfect. If you were used to uploading content every day, putting more emphasis on the quality will probably change your schedule.

But this of course has an upside too. When you’re uploading schedule is, let’s say, once a month you can create a craving for content in your audience, thus making each upload a special event. Kind of more like TV shows nowadays where you have an episode like once a week, and then people have to wait an entire week for the next episode. How is it gonna go in the next episode? It’s really really great, this anticipation for the next one.

So these days, quantity is both a blessing but also a curse. So the pros of quantity are that you keep your audience updated with new content and thus keeping your channel alive all the time. It has main two downsides from my perspective. So the first one is, of course, content overkill. We all know the feeling that there is so much content to consume. Just like the same like Netflix. There is so much to choose from. It almost gives you this feeling that you’re just drowning in content and everything looks the same. So the second downside is, of course, like the amount of time. You have less time to put in each video, thus making it a little bit harder to make everything perfect because you’re tight on a schedule. And also tight on time. These are basically the two points that I wanted to point out.

So another really good way to make your content stand out and get more exposure is by reaching out to companies that let’s say that you have a video, including a product of them. It might be a shocker but it actually works. If a company thinks more in a strategic kind of way, And they think like, this is a really really great in-depth review. Or it really showcases what the product is capable of. This can be really nice to maybe like increase sales in a way. The company can actually share that on their Facebook page, on YouTube, on Instagram. And that’s just a really really good way of getting seen.

So another tip is to let’s say, pay brands to feature your video on their like review page or something like this. And if you get chosen, it’s really really important guys, that you just return the favor. Make sure to, let’s say that you have been featured onto a website about a certain product, about let’s say, a LED lamp for recording videos. If your video is at the bottom of the page, let’s just make an Instagram story thanking them, because of course, it has to come from both sides and they will always always appreciate that. Not is it only good for generating more subscribers and engagement because you are featured and the website has so many visit, but it also improves your brand image, and it also shows that you are open for like collaborations, partnerships, cross-promotions. So it’s really really important that if you make an Instagram story that you’re thanking the company for featuring you. Make sure to also tag them and follow them and just like make sure to develop a really nice relationship and who knows what can grow out of it.

And that’s it guys, these are a few tips to go viral more easily, to have your entire YouTube Channel lift up in the air to skyrocket your videos right to the right audience. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to check out the rest of the course. Thanks for watching.

This section of the course is about something that is very, very important to your success as a creator. It’s something that we’ve been hinting at all this time. And that’s to keep things shareable, relatable, authentic. video quality is important. Of course, sound is important. But if you don’t have an honest message that really connects with the viewer, then you don’t have the soul of great content. Despite everything I’ve said about image quality, the heart of everything’s your ability to connect with someone else. And so here are a few things that I tried to keep in mind to be as authentic as possible when I’m making videos.

And the first is to tell the truth, even if it’s ugly. there’s a temptation on YouTube to come across as perfect. This is especially true I think, in the productivity YouTuber niche where we might make a day in the life of a YouTuber video and show us waking up early and making a perfect cup of coffee being productive all day. And oftentimes, this isn’t true. In fact, one of my YouTube friends Joey, he made this video that was really successful about how to be miserable for the rest of your life in which he talked about what not to do. But he told me in private that the reason he even came up with that topic is because he had been lazy and unproductive for almost a month. He was in a bit of a rut. And so what compelled him to make this video was actually what he was struggling with, which is why I think it was so successful.

You’ll see perfectly edited videos, productivity hack videos in which people talk about their million-dollar businesses, and whatnot. But every viewer has an amazing register, barometer, for the truth. And when someone is saying something, honestly, authentically, even being a little bit vulnerable, it’s just so refreshing. We can tell immediately, they’re just speaking from the heart. They’re not BS-ing you. That will win the loyalty of the viewer more than any B-roll shot ever could.

The second principle is that you should leave things unresolved if need be. For instance, if you’re making a video about how you quit sugar for 30 days, and it ultimately didn’t lead to any great insights, just say that in the video. I quit sugar for 30 days and not that much happened. The temptation is to make every lifestyle challenge, every experience that you’re talking about seem like this transformative thing. You know, this changed my life. but one of my favorite videos from my friend Matt D’Avella was when he woke up at 5 AM every day for 30 days. And at the end of it, he said it didn’t actually make him more productive. It actually dropped his productivity because the sleep schedule and the rhythm of his life just never aligned with going to sleep that early and waking up at five and so he was actually just tired and miserable for the whole duration of the challenge.

When I heard him say that inside that video, it gave me such a sense of relief because all this time as I’ve been watching productivity YouTube for several years out of college, I thought waking up at 5 AM was like this one elusive thing that if I could only bring into my life everything would be different. I’d be happier and more productive, more fit. And the reason maybe I was stuck in life is because I couldn’t get myself to wake up early. This was the one habit that was always a struggle for me. And I realized, you know, maybe some people were just not meant to be such dramatically early risers. And hearing the truth of what he said inside the challenge – you know, he didn’t make it a video where he said this changed my life. In 30 days waking up at 5 AM is changing my life, even though videos like that had been getting millions of views on YouTube prior to that. It was wonderfully refreshing to see. and so you can leave things unresolved. And this goes for a variety of topics. pretty much any style of content that you’re making. If you leave things unresolved And if you see the truth, even if it’s ugly, it’s just nice. It gives the sense that there is a real person on the other side of the screen who’s watching what you’re saying. And when you speak the truth to them, It makes you so much more likable as a creator. and being likable and being honest and authentic, It’s actually just good for business.

The third idea, very similar to the prior ones, is to be imperfect. Lately, I’ve been wanting to get more into fitness content, even though you know I’m ultimately not that fit. In fact, I have way more experience being an unfit guy who would meet up with friends, meet up with the lads, have a couple of pints, and not really prioritize working out or strength training. these last six months it has become a huge interest of mine. And even though I’m not all that fit, I was feeling a little bit sheepish at first about making videos like this. But my videographer, some of my friends, they made a good point. In a way, it’s even better, more compelling to be a sort of unfit or just average fitness person on the journey to good health than it is to be this perfectly fit ab-tacular all knowing fitness influencer, who’s telling viewers what to do. I mean, there’s a bunch of content creators like this on the platform and some of them are great.

But it doesn’t take away from your strength as a creator, to not be an expert. What you can do is sell yourself as on a journey. You’re on the journey with the viewer to discovering great health and that can be a great strength of yours as a creator actually. You could be on the journey to finding success alongside your viewer to make something incredible happen.

There’s one last point that sort of ties all of this together. And that’s to be consistent. Authenticity it’s something that you can build up with a viewer over time by staying consistent. In fact, there’s many things we covered over this course like making a shot-list, writing a great script, being original and now being relatable that it actually is an iterative process. You can’t really expect to master these ideas right away. But what you can do is tell yourself, I’m going to keep generating new ideas. I’m going to keep coming up with ideas and just the process of learning how to execute on an idea. You come up with something, you make it. You try to minimize the gap between a thought that might come in your head about a video you want to make a video that you could be really excited about figuring out what shots are needed, what the script will look like, how you can tie in different storytelling elements like the sound design, the music, the edit the pacing, and now how you can make things relatable by always coming back to the truth, always coming back to an authentic source of communicating something.

Practicing all those things consistently is actually what is going to make you a great creator. James Clear had once said something to the effect of (see how I’m getting credit?), he said something to the effect of, ‘people think that to get to the next level of success you need to do new things. And sometimes that’s true. But oftentimes what you actually need to do is just keep doing the five things that you’ve been doing all along to get as successful as you are now. The main thing is to just keep doing them.’

So often the difference between failure and success or success at a good level and then getting to an exceptional level is just to press on and to keep making the thing to keep doing the thing to keep working the system. And so all of these principles, they only work and they only work better and better for you if you stay in the game if you stay on the journey and you’ll find that the more you make the more you do, the more you practice these ideas, the better you get at being authentic and developing your ideas and in turn being a great creator.

We hope you enjoyed this course. Artlist is one of my favorite platforms both for stock footage and for music. And so we hope this has been helpful on your journey to developing great ideas and executing them. That’s it for me. Greatness is coming. Cheers.

Hi, I’m Anthony from the YouTube channel Anthony LiPani, talking about thinking of content ideas and also how to stay consistent. Coming up with a good video idea is probably the most challenging part of being a content creator. Anyone could think of a few good video concepts, but in order to be a successful creator, you have to be able to do it on a consistent basis time after time. And while it’s basically impossible to tell someone else how to think of a good idea, there are some things you could do to help yourself think of good ideas.

The first thing is definitely don’t force it. If you’re sitting in front of a blank screen or a blank piece of paper for two hours telling yourself, “Come on, think!” There’s a really good chance that you’re going to get more and more frustrated and struggle. My advice for a situation like that is first, try to make yourself relax in whatever way works best for you. Could be music, maybe eat one of your favorite foods, maybe hit the gym or go for a nice walk. For me, my most creative times are silent drives by myself with no music, so I could just let my brain open up. And when I’m lying in bed at night with no distractions.

Another tip to try to inspire yourself is to watch one of your favorite creators that motivates you. But be careful, there’s a fine line between watching somebody that’s so good that they inspire you and watching somebody that’s so good that they actually make you feel bad about yourself. Quick example, Casey Neistat will always be somebody that inspires me when I watch his content. He’s my personal favorite creator of all time. Whenever I watch his work, he makes me want to work. But on the other hand, when I watch Gary Vee videos, even though he’s absolutely amazing, I feel the exact opposite for some reason. I can’t exactly figure out why, but I do. And although he’s basically a professional motivational speaker and inspires people every single day, it just doesn’t work for me personally.

So pay attention to your feelings when you watch your favorite creators. Also, even though it can be helpful to pull inspiration from others, try to be mindful of the amount of other people’s content you consume. It can actually be counterproductive to watch too much content, especially if it’s within the same niche as yours. In taking too much content that’s in the same field as your channel can cause you to become a copycat, whether knowingly or subconsciously. It’s okay to pull inspiration from others, but trying to duplicate what another creator is doing will not only stifle your future creativity, it’s also not sustainable for the long run.

Another great piece of advice that I learned from Matt D’Avella who is a fantastic creator on YouTube, is to come up with the title first. And that sounds so simple, but towards the beginning of my creative career, I would always wing my videos and then try to come up with some last-minute rush title at the end. Thinking about your titles first can help give you more direction and set the stage for when it’s time to start working on your project.

You will forget. The second and I mean as fast as possible once you think of a video idea, write it down somewhere. You’ll probably think that you’ll remember it, but take it from me, you will forget if you don’t store that idea on your phone or a piece of paper. All it takes is for somebody to call your phone and strike up a conversation, or you fall asleep or you’re watching something interesting, or possibly even another idea pops in your head and completely wipes the old one from your memory. Whatever it is, whatever you’re doing, take a second and jot it down as fast as you can.

Next stop, if you already have a few videos posted, take a second to look at your best performing video and try to pay attention to what you did write and how they differ from your other videos. And if you don’t already have any projects previously uploaded, then take a look at some of your favorite creators, best performing videos, and try to figure out what it is they did to make it stand out more than the rest of their projects. What’s special about their thumbnail? How did they word their video title? Believe it or not, thumbnails and titles are two of the biggest reasons people will click on your video. Before I understood the basics of YouTube, I used to think that the video itself being good was enough to get views. But in order to get those initial clicks, you first have to draw them in with a good thumbnail and an intriguing title.

Let’s say your project is about a product review, then you want to make sure that the product is shown nice and clear in a thumbnail. Think about how small a thumbnail looks when you’re scrolling on YouTube. You want to make sure that whatever you’re trying to show in your thumbnail fills the frame so it’s easier for your audience to see it. Also, try avoiding busy backgrounds that don’t add any value to your thumbnail. Busy background can make it hard to see whatever part of your thumbnail you want people to notice. You want the thumbnail to jump out at viewers as much as possible.

Let’s go through some of my own thumbnails so I can show you exactly what I mean. These three videos have thumbnails that pop. While this video is one of the worst thumbnails I’ve ever made in my life. Notice the difference. In the good thumbnails, they have a super clean background with a clear visual of what I’m trying to show the camera. But this thumbnail is just absolutely awful. It’s way too busy and hard to see what the video is even about just by looking at it.

And the same thing for naming your video. Just like the thumbnail you want to make sure that it pops, it’s intriguing and it catches your audience’s attention. Something simple like rewording one or two words can make all the difference in your videos performance. For example, one of my videos is called Supercharge Your Sony ZV-1, where I talk about some incredible accessories that make the Sony ZV-1 camera even better. The alternative titles I was considering was the Sony ZV-1 just got supercharged. And also Supercharge your Sony ZV-1 with these accessories. The reason I chose the title Supercharge Your Sony ZV-1 is because, one, it’s a little more intriguing than the others, leaving potential viewers more curious on how to make the Sony ZV-1 better.

Did a newer version get released that I didn’t hear about? Did the ZV-1 get a firmware update with new features? Is he talking about using some amazing accessories that will make the camera better? Let’s click and find out, shall we? Also, it’s the shortest title of the three. If the title’s too long, you could risk having some characters not be seen when people are scrolling because YouTube limits the amount of characters that can initially be seen until you start seeing that dot, dot, dot. And the title, Supercharge your Sony ZV-1 with these accessories doesn’t really leave much to the imagination, especially if the potential viewer initially isn’t interested in watching a video about camera accessories. It’s not clickbait, but it skates that fine line to where someone has to click the video in order to see what the video is about.

And if you happen to be wondering my take on clickbait? Don’t. Don’t ever clickbait. Make sure your video delivers on whatever the title and thumbnail is about. Clickbait is a good way to lose the trust of your audience fast, and it’ll be hard to grow a subscriber base and reoccurring audience if they get the impression that you’re dishonest and doing whatever it takes to get it click. In a perfect world, good content will always get the recognition it deserves, regardless of the title or thumbnail. But unfortunately, in the real world, most people won’t get to the point of even watching the good content if the thumbnail and the title doesn’t catch their eye. Something that you should definitely keep on your mind is that this is a job and it should be treated as such if this is important to you. That means working hard when the camera isn’t rolling. You should definitely try to build a habit of constantly thinking of content ideas and always writing them down, even if they aren’t great ideas. You never know what those initial ideas could possibly morph into down the road.

Early in your career, it’s usually really exciting to film a project, but as you go, there will definitely be moments that you might not feel like creating. This is definitely normal. And it’s okay to take a break and recharge the batteries, but sometimes you just have to power through it, toughen up and make sure that you stay consistent for your audience, even if it’s not a large audience yet. People work 9 to 5 jobs every day that sometimes don’t feel like being at work, but they have bills to pay and responsibilities and goals in life, so they get through it and handle their business. Content creating should be treated the exact same way.

Now it’s time to go and start applying everything you’ve learned. Believe in yourself and the great content you’re about to create. Have patience. Be consistent. Trust the process. And most of all, have fun because this can be an absolute dream job if you work hard enough. Thank you for watching, I’m Anthony LiPani, and I’ll see you guys next time.

So when we made our first video, we spent like a weekend working on it. We spent a little extra time to like add in like the sense of humor that we thought was funny. And we did like a little extra motion graphics to help stand apart from the other YouTube videos. And we wanted like I think we wanted like 100 or 500 views the first week. A couple of blogs picked up the video right away. So within like 48 hours, it had almost 10,000 views. So, right then I think we knew that like we were onto something with our format. And I think they gave us the motivation to keep making more videos.

Hey everybody, this is the Liran from Artlist. So we sat down with our good friends from Mango Street and ask them some questions about how they built their channel and how they got to the point where they are full-time YouTubers. Let’s see what our friends had to say.

So what did you do before YouTube?
Go ahead. I shot weddings and I was a motion graphics artist and video editor.

Why did you start a YouTube channel?
A lot of photography tutorials were maybe kind of long and drawn out and took a while to get to like the actual meat of the video. So we wanted to make faster videos that just kind of delivered the information in a more concise way.

Where did you get your ideas from?
I never want to, like, be tempted to rip somebody else off. So a lot of times, honestly, it sounds silly, but like I get inspired when I like go jogging or it’s like I come out like I come back home from a jog and have like ten new things to like pour onto his lap. Yeah. And it’s also getting inspired from outside of like your circle. So instead of being inspired by the photographers, maybe you look at filmmakers, maybe look at directors, music and all sorts of other different arts can inspire photography. You know, even if it’s not just another genre of photography or another photographer.

And what is your work process?
It depends on what kind of video. Like if it’s a bigger project then we’ll script everything out and like even plan shot list. More pre-production involved. Yeah. But for something simple, like a tutorial, then we usually just come up with tips, shoot it, and then just write a voiceover later. We, yeah, we narrow it down to like, what’s the information we need to like, deliver? And then we make sure we get footage of anything relevant to that so we can show it while we explain it. And that way it just streamlines everything.

So how did you build your brand?
I think one of the things is just being consistent and like our style and our sense of humor and like just making sure everything feels like one of our videos by just it’s like a lot of the attention to detail and a lot of times when I think like the edit is like an hour away from being done, it ends up taking like six more hours because, you know, we want it to maintain the quality that we’ve established already. And then I think another thing is just Incorporating, like our own style of photography in all these videos and in our videography. It’s just like everything kind of lends itself, including the motion graphics and the music choice, like everything ties in. We had videos that were pretty much edited, but they weren’t, we didn’t feel good about them yet. So instead of like putting them out anyways, we decided just like it’s better not to post at all than to post something that we’re not happy with.

How can you stay true to your brand?
Sometimes you have to do a video that you think that most of your audience is going to like. And even if it’s not something that you are really passionate about, there’s a balance there, for sure. One of our best performing videos is like, how to shoot and edit like a certain photographer, which is like she shoots in a certain, like, super trendy way and we don’t necessarily like that style, don’t shoot in that style, but everybody asked for it. So it’s yeah, it’s just like, well, OK, we can show them how to do that. And I think at the very least, it’ll help expand their skill set. They’ll learn something, you know? You know, they don’t need to shoot in that trend. But if you know how to do it, I think that helps you as a professional and as an artist. It just helps expand what you’re capable of doing.

How do you deal with burnout?
It definitely is a grind and you will get burned out, and that’s OK, that’s part of it. But then finding fulfillment in other ways, I think helps balance it out. Yeah, I guess like the mindsets too like, we like, Daniel got to quit his job and we got to work together. And so like, just being thankful helps you. Yeah, it’s really easy just to feel like it’s just like another job. And even now, sometimes it feels like a grind and you’re like, I don’t know. And everything becomes relative. You know, like 10,000 views back then was awesome. And now you’re like, oh, I’m doing terribly. I only had 10,000 views. So everything becomes relative. It just depends on, you know, you have to get perspective by like stepping out and being like, OK, this is actually an awesome job, you know, like, we kind of are our own boss, can kind of do whatever we want. So you just have to like really just get perspective, I think.

And how do you get those brand deals? The brands, like basically if you build up this audience that’s in your niche market that needs to buy expensive gear, those brands are going to come to you. We’re not very good actors. We’re not very good at putting on like a face for the camera. As you can tell, it’s just like who we are. We can’t really like fake a persona or anything, so it’d be hard to like pitch something that we’re not like, that we don’t enjoy. Yeah.

What’s the secret of making a viral video? We don’t always know. Like, sometimes we’re like this video going to do so well, and then it bombs. And some of them it’s like really good information. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Like, there’s nothing we could have done differently. Yeah, it’s so hard to know. And I think it’s kind of a fickle thing where you’re like, I don’t really know if people are going to like this or not. Or you’re like I, I like this video a lot but then people don’t end up watching it. Or even like the opposite, like a video, like it’s not going to do that well. And then it gets like 100,000 views or whatever. There’s a few times you do know, like if you kind of focus like on gear and and people like comparison videos where it’s like a cheap thing and expensive thing. That’s like a proven thing. And you’re like, OK, I know that’s probably going to do well. Because the blogs will pick it up, I guess you know that. Yeah, yeah. But in general, it’s like sometimes, we’re always like dumbfounded when like a video does one or the other the opposite of what we think. And it’s like, I guess, I don’t know. I guess I don’t know what’s going to happen, you know?

So being a YouTuber, is it as awesome as it seems?
For some people the YouTube life is awesome. Depends on your personality, I think, and what you value. But yeah, it is also a perspective thing because when you’re in it, it just feels like kind of like another job. It’s just like a little bit more flexibility, but you still feel like you have these responsibilities. Instead of just doing like motion graphics, you’re doing that, but then also doing pre-production, you’re answering emails, you’re running a business like you’re trying to figure out how to get a business license in your state or like, there’s this all these different other things that you have to do. For us, Especially, it’s not glamorous, you know, like we’re just working from home and it’s like, we just like, we wear the same thing every day. We’re not scooting around on boost boards, you know, like just goofing off with celebrities or anything. On the couch just like typing. Yeah, I don’t know. In a lot of ways, it just feels like another job. Yeah. But then, you know, if you step outside of it and get some like outsider perspective like, OK, that’s really cool. I get to hang out with my wife and my dog, and we get to travel to cool places like Israel and people pay us to, like, mention their brand or product instead of like having to go hustle and get clients. You’re like yeah, that’s way better. But at the end of the day, you still work for sure.

Last question: What is your best advice for starting a YouTube channel?
What do you think? I got stuff, I was just going to let you answer first. The first thing I think is the most important thing is like consistency, like putting out high-quality content consistently based off like what you have going on in your life. Figure out how often you can create like a quality video. Twice a week, whatever it is, establish that and let your audience know when you’re going to post, how often, so they know what to expect. And I think it’s being also consistent in like the actual content. So if it’s just like a vlog, then a tutorial, then a vlog, they might not know if it’s like a mixed bag at first. So I think it’s best to just pick a lane and then grow that before you branch out into other avenues.

So we hope this video was helpful. We want to give a big thank you to our friends over at Mango Street Labs. Stay creative.

Hi, guys, Jordan, with Motion Array, and today we’re taking a look at explainer videos. What are they? Why are they everywhere? And if you’re planning to make your own, we’ve got some tips to help you make it as amazing as possible. So let’s jump right into it.

So let’s start at the beginning. What actually is an explainer video? Well, you’ve probably seen them around the world of business where they do exactly what their name implies. They help to explain what a business actually does. They’re typically short and engaging videos that draw in your audience long enough for you to tell them about your business, idea, product, service, etc. Explainer videos condense your highly complex business ideas into a short, highly engaging explanation that even a stranger could understand, even if they have no knowledge of or prior experience with your business. In short, after about a minute or two, somebody should be able to go from not knowing your business even existed to being able to explain the basic concepts to somebody else.

Now, on the surface, this might seem like just another advertisement, right? I mean, put out a video to get more people to buy your product or service, right? Well, kind of. The major difference between explainer videos and traditional advertising is that explainer videos are much more focused on delivering information and understanding. It’s less about selling the idea of the coolness factor or sex appeal and more about solving a problem that your viewers might be experiencing on a day-to-day basis. Now, you can probably still see how there would still be a bunch of overlap between traditional advertising and explainer videos, but we’ll dive into some of the hallmarks of what actually makes a really great explainer video, and, hopefully, you’ll see some more of the differences crop up.

So what actually makes a great explainer video? A great explainer video is short. Your audience has a short attention span, and if they don’t already care about your business, it’s your job to make them care. Fast. Good explainer videos should definitely be under three minutes. Best to be under two, and if you can be under 90 seconds, you’ll find yourself in a great place. For example, our business explainer video here at Motion Array is only 68 seconds.

Good explainer videos are also focused and efficient. You’ve got a lot of information and not a lot of time to explain it, so let’s strip everything down to the core essentials. This process will help you to more clearly articulate your message because it forces you to really question and figure out what is the essential information that I need to give, and what can viewers more or less do without. It’s important to remember that in an explainer video, you’re not telling your audience every minute detail about your business, just what they need to know upon their first time hearing. This also has the added side benefit of honing in your core audience. By cutting down your information to the core essentials, you’re going to be more clearly and quickly conveying to your audience whether or not they can actually benefit from your business, product, or services. And once they feel like you’re speaking directly to their needs, the more likely you’ll have them hooked for the rest of the video.

Great explainer videos also tend to be animated. Now, this one actually isn’t a requirement. You can actually have a really great explainer video that’s animated, live-action, or even a mixture of both. You can probably think of some really effective explainer videos that were done via live action. But I don’t know about you, but the ones that come to my mind first are usually the ones that capitalized on not needing a huge production value. That’s actually one of the reasons why a lot of people will choose animation or motion graphics as the route that they go down for their explainer video. It cuts down on cost, which is great. It also allows you to isolate key elements so that your audience isn’t distracted by things like background elements or things you weren’t planning to be in the frame.

When you animate everything, literally nothing is in the frame that you didn’t specifically choose to be there. Further zoning in on your audience’s attention. Animation and motion graphics also tend to be more eye-catching and engaging. Characters and objects can be more brightly colored and can whip in and out of frame and morph into the next section in a way that traditional filmmaking would have a really hard time trying to replicate. And finally, it’s also usually a lot less complicated and expensive to make changes and edits on the fly. Changing up a character or environment’s color to keep branding consistency is way easier to do here than in a live-action scenario. Neither choice is going to be automatically better or worse for your video in specific, but it’s important to have all the information at hand about why so many people actually choose to go down the animated route. But regardless of which choice you make, your video is definitely going to need to be narrated.

Things in your video will be moving quickly, and if you’re using animation or motion graphics, you’re probably not going to be taking the time to line up mouth movements with dialog. Instead, it’s highly efficient and effective to have somebody walk your viewers through the different stages of your video. There’s a lot of information that you’re going to have to get through. So having a warm, friendly yet authoritative voice is key to making sure that your audience has an enjoyable experience taking in your information. This also tends to be an area where more people are willing to slack off or not pay full price. But we urge you, please do not skimp or go second-rate on the voice of your video. It’s incredibly important.

And finally, explainer videos tend to be upbeat. Your explainer video may be the very first exposure that your audience has to your brand or business, and if so, your explainer video is going to color their impression of your business. So that’s why so many people choose their explainer videos to have an upbeat and energetic sort of vibe. OK, so that’s the setup. But now you’re actually ready to sit down and write a script that you’re going to follow.

So where do you start? Well, your situation is probably unique, and there’s no one size fits all for everybody’s explainer video. But what I want to do is share with you guys an outline that you can follow if you want just somewhere to start. And we’re going to be using our very own explainer video here at Motion Array as a template.

“So, you make videos. Chances are, you use countless services to create, get feedback and publish your projects online. The cost of these services can quickly add up. And with budgets getting smaller and deadlines shorter, time and money matter more than ever. So start working smarter, not harder. Introducing Motion Array, the ultimate video maker’s platform. Motion Array helps you throughout the entire lifecycle of your projects. Use our marketplace to download templates, stock video, and music, to create amazing videos faster and easier than ever. When it’s time to get your video approved, say goodbye to messy email chains and upload it to our awesome review system to get instant feedback from your clients. And when it is approved, instantly send it over to your beautiful portfolio website, built entirely on our platform, and share it with the world. It couldn’t be easier. Make amazing videos. Get client feedback and approval. And share your work with the world, all with Motion Array.”

So now that you’ve seen the example, let’s go through the stages of a good explainer video. Start with a premise. “So, you make videos.” Your video will be targeting a certain group of people based off of whether or not they’re likely to want or need what your business has to offer. So the premise really establishes right off the bat whether or not they should even continue watching the video in the first place. And here at Motion Array, we help people who want to make videos, and we’re going to make sure that you know that within the very first two seconds.

Next up, display a problem. “The cost of these services can quickly add up. And with budgets getting smaller and deadlines shorter, time and money matter more than ever.” Your business provides a solution, but you need to actually contrast what your business provides with the hole that it’s actually filling to begin with. By presenting the problem first, you’re actually making your business the savior of that situation. And if you’re talking with people who are a part of the premise that you initially laid out, you’re going to be exponentially more likely to have them hooked on how you’re going to solve that situation.

Now here’s where you enter your business or idea. “Introducing Motion Array, the ultimate video makers platform.” OK, so who are you? This is a chance for you to give multiple exposures of your brand to your audience. Show your logo. Have your narrator say the name out loud. Get your brand clearly ingrained in the mind of your audience. This way, when you start to go over the information about the solution your business is providing, your viewers actually associate the positive solution with your brand.

So now how will you actually help out with this situation? “Motion Array helps you throughout the entire lifecycle of your projects.” This is just a really quick pre-summary of what your business actually does. You’re going to be getting into a lot of nitty-gritty details. So by giving your audience a little bit of a preparation for the kind of information they’re about to receive, you’re going to be helping a lot with their comprehension. This doesn’t even have to be a very long section. Ours was actually only one sentence long.

Now we get into the main section: How does it work? “Use our marketplace to download templates, stock video, and music to create amazing videos faster and easier than ever. When it’s time to get your video approved, say goodbye to messy email chains and upload it to our awesome review system to get instant feedback from your clients. And when it is approved, instantly send it over to your beautiful portfolio website, built entirely on our platform, and share it with the world. It couldn’t be easier.” This is usually the longest section and where your meat and potatoes really sit, you’ve just gone over your pre-explanation to prepare your audience. And now, you can actually dive into what you actually do. As you’re writing this out, make sure that you strip everything down to its core elements, and feel free to bring in that idea of the hole that your business is actually filling. Usually saving things like time, energy or money, or some combination of all three is pretty typical.

And then once you’re done all that, review what you’ve shared. “Make amazing videos. Get client feedback and approval and share your work with the world.” This is where you give one last quick summary to everything that you’ve provided. Over the course of this video, you’ve taken your complex business idea and condensed it into about two minutes of dialogue. Now, by reviewing it for the last ten seconds or so of your video, you’re going to be helping to make sure that when they leave, they’re going to be taking home just the key points. And when they hear everything a second time really quickly, they’re going to also have context for everything that they heard, to begin with, helping with the overall comprehension. Going back a little bit, you probably noticed that there was an information sandwich happening in our video. You gave your core information about what your business actually was, but before and after it, you had a condensed version of that same information.

At the beginning, you had a little bit of a preparatory statement before you launched into your business. And then at the end, you had a bit of a ten-second summary. If you make sure to do this, while also stripping down your basic information to the core essentials, you’ll make sure that your audience has absolutely no trouble following along with your video.

And finally, the last piece that no explainer video should be without. Show and say your business name one last time. “All with Motion Array.” What’s the point of your audience knowing about all the great things your business actually does if they can’t remember which business it was actually for? This is why it’s essential to make sure at the end of your video, to show and say your business name one last time, show your logo. Have your narrator say it out loud. Make sure that you get that absolutely locked into the head of your audience.

And hey, if you’re wondering where you’d actually start to create the visuals of the actual explainer video itself, we’ve got you covered. We’ve got loads of animated explainer video kits that you can use to customize to your liking. And we’ve even got a free one. But guys, after all that, I hope you feel more confident in what an explainer video actually is, and like you might actually be able to create one of your own. But that’s it for me. Thank you so much for watching, and I can’t wait to see you in the next video.