About This Episode
As entrepreneurs, we know the importance video marketing has for our business, especially on social media. Social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and LinkedIn have become an integral part of our daily lives. It helps us connect with our family and friends and widen our network connections. And for businesses, it is a massive opportunity to get our message out there.
By uploading video content to websites like YouTube, we can reach more people and interact with them for no cost. Plus, when done right, it can not only increase our influence online, but it can be an additional stream of revenue for our business.
That’s why a lot of entrepreneurs are interested in investing in growing their YouTube channels. And that’s exactly the expertise of our guest for this episode of Brilliant Thoughts, a SUCCESS magazine podcast.
Derral Eves is one of the world’s top YouTube and online video marketing experts, and he mentors brands, businesses, and creators of all sizes (such as Mr. Beast!) who want to grow their YouTube channels. As a self-professed video marketing nut, he loves helping creators put out amazing and valuable content for their audiences.
He wanted to scale his mentorship program from one-on-one to one-to-many and published his book, The YouTube Formula. I highly recommend this book because Derral really went all out and divulged his secrets on how to garner billions of views on video content on YouTube and provided a deeper understanding of what works on the platform both from a granular and organizational level as well as the algorithm and AI side.
What’s this YouTube formula, and how can we entrepreneurs use YouTube and crack the code to grow our business and our influence online?
The “Goal”
Any platform, including YouTube, wants users to visit their app or website and continue adding content they find interesting in order to stay on the platform for a longer period of time. That’s why algorithms exist.
Entrepreneurs always want to “hack the algorithm” to get their contents in front of their target audience, and we often do all this technical stuff in order to optimize our contents better. But according to Derral, the ultimate hack to getting your content in front of the right audience is to focus on our content, particularly the value proposition we have.
YouTube’s algorithm has shifted from view-based metrics to audience-based metrics. This means our focus should be on putting out content that will make our audience happy.
“They need to find value in the videos, whether it’s to inspire, educate, or entertain, but there needs to be a value proposition,” Derral says.
The longer people stay on the platform, the more money YouTube earns, so it is in their best interest to serve up videos that the audience will like. It isn’t just about hacking the algorithm; video marketing is all about producing content that gives value to our audience.
Stop “hacking” things. Let YouTube do its thing.
When brands, businesses, and creators focus on providing high quality content and delivering value to their audience, YouTube’s AI and algorithm do the work for them.
One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs on YouTube make is pushing their content on their audience—people who’ve bought their courses, have been in their email lists for forever, etc.
“That's the worst thing you could do because what happens is you have this traffic coming into YouTube and it's not the right type of traffic, but that YouTube is going to look at the indicators,” Derral shares.
We sometimes get impatient and think throwing money and resources at our YouTube channels will help them gain traction faster, but Derral tells us that we are missing the point.
“If you want to grow on YouTube, you have to own it. You have to be willing to really anticipate what viewers want and give them that and do it consistently,” he says. “And consistently, is the key [here]. Then YouTube is going to find the audience that engages with it.”
Fine tune things with the analytics
Analytics scares a lot of people, especially the “less-techy” crowd. But these statistics help us understand our audience's preferences very well. It takes some practice to understand what your analytics are trying to tell you, but it aids platform creators in determining which contents are successful (and require more effort) and which ones are not.
“My system that I teach is to plan, execute, analyze, and adjust. And the analyzing and adjusting, believe it or not, is the most important factor in it because it gives you this small little course corrections that you need to make in your content,” Derral says. “[You’ll start to see], ‘Oh, they responded really well here. Let's do more of that. Oh, they really dropped off here. Let's do less of that.’ And then as you create a new plan, then you're able to do it [better].”
The key is to create video content that gives value to your audience, is presented in a manner that hooks them into the content, and is tailor-made especially for them and for the platform.
“It has to be very, very specifically for YouTube and the viewers because they expect to view things in a certain way. And there is a specific cadence,” Derral says.
Short attention span a myth?
We keep hearing that people have shorter attention spans now, and while there might be some truth to it, Derral believes it isn’t the reason why some YouTube channels get stuck in their growth.
“I do believe that you’ve got to grab [people’s] attention,” he says. “But humans, once they are curious, they're sucked into great storytelling.”
That is why people can sit through a three-hour podcast or an hour-long livestream of creators that they love. “Well, I can tell you that when people find value, they will designate the most valuable thing in their life, which is their time,” Derral shares.
Time is the most valuable thing our audience can give us, and if we focus on bringing value to them consistently, they keep coming back for more. And they are more forgiving on days when the content quality isn’t as good as the others.
“So, don't discount. ‘Hey, you know what? We have short attention spans.’ Yeah, we have short attention spans when we have sucky content,” Derral says. “You need to be able to pull them into the content and really weave it in a way.”
Why YouTube?
For entrepreneurs, the goal isn’t to be the biggest channel of all time on YouTube. Often, it is more along the lines of “I want to use YouTube to sell things.”
The best way to do that, according to Derral’s experience with the people he’s mentored, is to get your knowledge about your industry and effectively translate it in such a way that the viewer will be interested in it.
It works for businesses like used furniture stores and lawn care. It can work for any other type of industry as well.
TikTok is a good video marketing platform as well, and it specializes in short video content, which is harder to grab people’s attention on short-form. It is great for virality and reaching more people in a short time.
But YouTube’s advantage lies in…
- their care for their creative community. They are ahead of TikTok in their content ID and monetization programs, and
- in promoting connection and building communities with your audience.
“…If you build an audience on YouTube, that audience will care, know, love and trust you. If you build an audience on TikTok, they don't know, love, and trust you. They don't. It's just that quick, really endorphin kick that they're getting, but they don't really care… for you as a creator,” Derral says.
If you have a good value proposition, your audience will be invested in you. And once your audience loves you, they want to go deeper with you. They want to support you and connect with you. They will watch your streams, buy your merch, interact with you on the chat, and even donate money to you if you give them the value they are looking for. That is the power of video marketing done right.
Follow Derral Eves
If you want to join Derral’s 12-week mentorship program, you can visit channeljumpstart.com/success. You can also get to know more about who he is and what he does on his website, derraleves.com—he also does consultations there. Or you can follow him on social media:
And if you want to know more about how to crack the YouTube code to grow your channel, listen to the rest of this podcast and grab a copy of Derral’s book, The YouTube Formula, on Amazon today!
DISCLAIMER: The people interviewed are well-trained experts and highly skilled in their areas of practice. They take many safety precautions prior to attempting the activities described. The activities or research discussed in these podcasts should not be attempted without qualified supervision and training with professionals.
