Foreign.

You're listening to the Master Passive Income podcast network.

Welcome to the YouTube Passive Income show where we talk about transforming your life and ditching the 9 to 5 grind to share your passion.

My name is Dennis Trufen and I'm here to help you create freedom in your time, money and work through the long term growth and power of YouTube.

So in today's episode we're going to be talking about five things you didn't know about YouTube.

We're going to be talking about things for small creators, some stats, some things for search based content creators, as well as some types of testing that are available on the platform for creators.

Welcome to the YouTube Passive Income show where we talk about transforming your Life, ditching the 9 to 5 grind and creating freedom in your time, money and work with the power of YouTube.

And now your host, Dennis Trufin.

So before we get into today's main episode content, I, I like to share new information when it comes about with YouTube because I actually pay attention to pretty much everything YouTube does.

I'm part of some of their beta tests.

I am like all in when it comes to them doing new features and testing new things out.

I actually love the fact that they really put a lot of time and effort into developing new features for, for creators, not just for the user experience.

And I think that's so wonderful and I think it's incredible and, and we're actually gonna talk a little bit more about it in the meat and potatoes of the video as far as things that they do for the small creators and one of the big features that they have been talking about and they're rolling it out to creators.

I haven't, have, haven't had access to it yet, but there's this thing for auto dubbing where YouTube is starting to gain access for content creators to have their audio dubbed in other languages automatically on, on your behalf essentially.

So instead of having to pay for somebody to dub your videos or anything else that will do it automatically and so what happens is your reach starts becoming larger, right?

So obviously English speaking channels, if you are wanting to reach somebody in another language from another country, this is going to make it easier and so more people are going to have access to your content.

Now obviously here on the show we typically talk about tutorial based channels or education based channels or evergreen type of content and I still actually think that's going to have a huge impact, an effect on us as well because now I can still be teaching something and speaking English and then somebody in, let's say Spanish can also understand what I'm saying if that's the only language that they speak while maybe still utilizing the application, or it just might be easier for them to hear it in Spanish, even if they're visually seeing what I'm doing written in English on an app.

And so I think this is gonna be a huge, huge aspect coming over into the future.

So I think this is just really, really cool and I like to share that kind of information because I think it's important for, for us to be vigilant on the new features and activities that YouTube provides for us or whatnot, because I think that gives us a leg up, right?

So if we know that, hey, in the future, more and more people are gonna have access to our content because they're gonna be able to hear it in the language that serves them best, that just is gonna be a bigger audience for all of us.

And so for, for me, I'm, I'm always excited about that.

And, you know, if you are ever in the interest of like, wanting to keep up to date but not wanting to know every single thing about YouTube, in my newsletter, which I'll have, you know, linked up in the description box below these episodes, you can go sign up and once a month I'll pretty much give you just like kind of the, you know, heads up or like the highlights of the last month or last couple of months of things that have been really impactful for the platform and moving it forward.

So make sure you're signed up for that.

If you want to get the ebook, you can do that and still be part of that list.

But you can also just join the newsletter without anything else, so that way you can keep up.

Plus, we'll give you updates on the podcast episodes that last month as well too, just so you can stay informed, see what the episodes are all about as well too, and be supportive.

So that way, in your journey to grow on YouTube, you're constantly keeping up with the evolution that comes with it.

Because where I started in 2017 and we, where we are now, there's been a lot of growth and changes.

And I think so long as you are changing as well with the platform, in the interim, I think you, you see a lot more success.

Because one thing I've ever learned in business or career is that the rate of internal change gets to be faster than the rate of external change to keep up.

And so that's what this podcast is, you know, essentially about as well.

And you, you know, the newsletter keeping you up to date with all those things too.

So with all that being said, let's go ahead and get Today's episode started.

Five things you didn't know about YouTube.

Now, obviously, this is coming from a creator standpoint and things that you would want to know and understand.

And I want to get this started off first.

And this was the number one on the list because I thought it was really important.

I know a lot of people listening to these episodes are generally smaller creators.

And I think it's typically defined that, like, a smaller creator is anything under, like 50,000 subscribers.

And, and I hear this a lot, whether it's online or from other people talking to me about this.

But a lot of times YouTube creators, small ones especially, feel like YouTube does not care about them.

And so the first thing we wanted to share was something you didn't know about YouTube is they do care so much about small creators.

Like, and it's in the data, which is one of my favorite things.

Right.

We talk about it all the time.

I love data and YouTube analytics because it shows you things.

Whether it's, you know, feels like it isn't or is, you know, the case, the data will always tell you.

And so what I mean by this is for small content creators, there's this, like, feel that nobody cares or that YouTube doesn't care and they don't showcase your content and so you can't grow and it's tough to gain subscribers.

Well, what I love is that YouTube does everything they can to help small creators.

Now, it's not always advantageous on all the features towards a small creator.

Right.

But one of the things I tell people all the time, when they tell me those things, I was like, okay, well, let's, let's look at your data.

And they're like, well, what data points would that tell you?

Because you could see my views and I don't got a lot of them.

And I was like, okay, totally understand.

So if you, if you dig a little deeper in your analytics, there is a section that says your impressions, and there's also a thing called impressions click through rate, which is how often your thumbnails get shown and how often they get clicked.

But if you just look at the impression side, because how often people get clicked is under your control, but the impression side is how YouTube showcases your content.

And I can tell you from, from a lot of content creators on their back end, they get usually pretty surprised at how often YouTube is showing their thumbnails to a lot of people, because that means that YouTube is caring about the small creators.

They are showcasing your content.

It's just a matter of if people are clicking on your content or not.

And, you know, not to hurt feelings, but if.

If your content is being shown and not clicked on, you know, that means that we get to work on our thumbnails and we get to put in the effort and the.

And the skill sets to gain value in how to improve in that section.

And we have a podcast episode you can go listen to about thumbnails.

But we really want to make sure that we're not hounding on YouTube for not displaying our content, even if they are, because our assumption or our feelings might say otherwise.

But the truth of the matter is that they generally do.

Now, maybe it's not the case for every single person.

Maybe your impressions are really low.

But also when you consider how many views you're getting and how many impressions you're getting, the.

The thing that's in between that is always your thumbnail, obviously your title and everything else, too.

But if people are not clicking on your videos but they're seeing the thumbnails, that's just telling us the data, at least is that we get to make better thumbnails or we get to make better choices in what videos we're gonna produce for.

For the channel, because that's always gonna be the case.

So make sure you check on that, look at your data, and you know, the data has nothing against you.

It's not saying, you know, anything more than, here's the facts, and we get to work with those things.

And sometimes we get to, you know, be a little sad about some things.

And I've had it in the past where I thought thumbnails were going to look great and they performed poorly.

And we'll talk a little bit more about thumbnails in a, In a moment.

But as a whole, you know, we just want to make sure that we.

We take the information in, you feel our feelings if we're, if we're hurt about it, but then also saying, okay, what's next?

How do we improve on this?

Use the Kaizen method, right?

Improve 1% at a time.

How do we get just a little bit better on decisions on the videos we're going to make?

How do we get better at our thumbnails?

How do we get better at our titles?

How do we get better at understanding our audience?

How do we get better at understanding the YouTube algorithm?

Listening to this podcast is a good start, but, like, all these little things that we're doing will have a net positive effect, even if it doesn't feel like it is in the small increments that you're working on those things.

So keep with it, keep improving, even if it doesn't feel like it.

Cause I promise you it will.

You'll see your impressions and grow over time.

Because as YouTube sees that you're putting in a lot more content, it'll start testing out those content pieces with people and some things are going to start clicking and then those things you can get the data from and start replicating those things as well too.

So YouTube cares about small creators.

Now number two is that don't compare your stats with other creators.

And this is so important.

I see so many people compare their stats to other people who publicly showcase their stats, whether it's their click through rates, whether it's their view count, maybe even impressions, like anything that you have that you've seen other creators talk about.

The thing about YouTube is you're playing your own game, like you truly are playing your own game and you're trying to serve your own audience.

Yes, sometimes there's crossover between your audience and another creator that is in the same space, but I promise you, you have a different audience.

They relate to you differently, they see or value differently, they experience you differently in this niche than another person in the exact same niche.

And the reason this is so important is because your data is, is your own data.

And the only thing we want to improve on is where you are at, not where you are in comparison to another creator.

Because when you do those things, when you compare yourself, when you hear, oh well, my average view per video is 2000, and then you look at yours and you're like, well, my average is 500, you start having this comparison game.

Well, what happens when you say, hey, my average is 500.

And so every time I'm working on it, I'm looking at how do I get it to 600 as an average or a thousand as an average.

And then you start playing the game within yourself, which helps your process.

And YouTube rewards you for that.

YouTube does not reward you for trying to be like somebody else because they, they already exist on the platform, they're already serving their audience.

So what does it look like to be your own person, to be your own channel, to be your own niche within that space and help people the way you can best help them, which is being yourself and improving in that, in that area.

Not trying to be another channel, not trying to showcase the same way another person does.

Take a little bit of nuggets from other people, sure, but never compare your stats to other people.

And I think with YouTube, when you don't do that comparison, you're gonna win.

You're gonna have a better shot to grow your channel, to improve your stats, because that's what YouTube cares about.

They care about you as, you know, YouTube, rather than you trying to be another channel.

Cause that already exists.

Now, I did wanna add a little bonus one in here.

So technically you're getting six, but the title looked better with five.

So this is a fifth bonus things that you didn't know about YouTube.

And this is that your Community tab is very important for somebody that wants to have impact long term with their content.

And in case you didn't know either.

And because I know a lot of people care about subscribers and I say that with, you know, a little grain of salt with like, you know, be careful with caring only about subscribers.

But YouTube Community tab can actually help you gain subscribers.

So if you're somebody who's, you know, maybe under a hundred or under a thousand, the Community tab can be a net asset for you.

And I think just for any content creator, it is a net asset for your channel because you're getting exposed to people beyond just your subscribers.

So whether you're promoting your videos, maybe you're asking really cool, intriguing poll questions, maybe you have quizzes that you're going to post on your community tab.

It expands your reach beyond just the videos you already have existing.

You can schedule out your Community tab post.

You can, you know, put in one a day if you want to.

You can put in two in a day.

I've tested those things out.

I've definitely found that if you stay consistent on the Community tab, even if it's, you know, for, you know, just basic questions that you're asking in the polls, like you're going to get engagement that then exposes your channel to more users, get again people to subscribe as well as getting people to see your content beyond again, just the videos themselves.

So if you didn't know that already, take that as well and utilize it to your advantage.

Schedule some stuff out a couple weeks in advance.

I would encourage people, at least on opposite days of your video postings, post some video, post some community tabs, and then when you have an additional time, maybe do a second one that week and then do up to, you know, two or three a week if you can.

I generally do, I would say anywhere from like five to seven a week on the Community tab.

And I see so much great value from that.

And you could see that in the stats on YouTube as well.

You can see the Impressions, you can see people's interactions with the community tab as well.

So anything you can do to have a net positive effect on your YouTube channel, that will also be it.

It's a small growth, but it is nonetheless an impactful part of the process.

It's, it's a gear in the overall cog of the machine that we're trying to run on YouTube.

Okay, so let's go to number three for things you didn't know about YouTube.

And this is really focus on like search based content or tutorials or teaching or evergreen content.

And I've, I've mentioned this before, but this is, I think is really important in this, in this area where when you are ready to release videos, sometimes it's not actually advantageous to release videos to your audience and it can be for different reasons.

And I'll explain here in just a moment, but sometimes when you are releasing videos, it might not be super relevant to everyone.

And when that's the case, you can release your videos quietly.

And what I mean by that is during your upload process, underneath the section where you can add tags, there's a little section that says notify subscribers of the video release.

And it's always checked on.

There's no default to turn that off, unfortunately, because I do that with 90% of my videos.

And if you uncheck that box and then you end up releasing your video whenever you release it, it won't go to your subscribers.

And I know a lot of people are like, well, isn't that the point?

You want it to go to your subscribers?

Yes and no.

Sometimes they'll still get the value of that video existing on the platform and they'll see it at some point.

But what happens is if you're being very intentional with who's trying to get to this video, releasing it quietly, what that really does is allows YouTube to start putting it into search and seeing the actual retention of the people that are truly looking for that video, that evergreen piece of content, that passive income that, that video that's gonna be relevant today as much as, you know, five years from now.

And so the reason I like that is because let's say you have, you know, a hundred thousand subscribers and you release the video and you know, 10,000 people are like, oh, this channel released another video and they clicked on that video and they were like, oh, this is not relevant to me and bounce out of that video pretty quickly.

That's going to hurt the possibility of that video getting into search, which is where exactly where we want it.

Because we want those views to come in for months and months and years down the road.

And so releasing your videos quietly can have a really positive effect on your retention time for that individual video.

And it might not be relevant for every video to do that with.

But I would encourage you to think about, okay, if this is going to be not a broad spectrum tutorial or teachings, is this better off to be quietly released?

But there is a caveat to releasing things quietly.

You're generally going to have less views on those videos up front.

And you get to be okay with that.

Like it's, it's a gut punch sometimes for a lot of people.

And you know, I, I have, you know, 450,000 views every month right now.

And I'll release videos all the time and they get five video views that first day, maybe 50 videos in the week, in the first week that they exist even with as large of a channel as I got.

And that's okay because I know over time the views on that video are going to grow.

Now it's hard to see sometimes, but like knowing the data and knowing how it works, like I'm okay with that.

And so you get to be okay with that.

If you want to see potential success for a video that is intended to be into YouTube search, which is what we teach here.

Because for me, I would rather release a video with five views the first day and then have 50,000 views, you know, over the next couple of years, versus releasing a video getting, you know, 5,000, 10,000 views.

And then that video tanks and never goes anywhere because YouTube thinks it's a dud of a, of a video because everyone that went into the video just bounced right out.

So take that into consideration.

Maybe it doesn't work for every video release, but I'm trying to teach people the way I've done it with my channels and I've run multiple YouTube channels where I just release things quietly and I let the YouTube algorithm do the thing it does best, which is find the right people to the right video.

And it generally has a net positive effect, I believe, with the channel because I used to release videos to the public and I've seen the different results that come with that.

And I, and I personally like the quiet releases way better.

Plus if I'm releasing a ton of videos at one time, because sometimes I'll batch record, I don't want to get people bombarded with like all these, you know, notifications and stuff like that too.

So plus sometimes people accidentally click the notification cuz maybe they're tapping on their phone and again bounce out of the video so quickly that it kills the video long term.

Okay, so number four on this list right here is that your click through rate isn't telling you the truth upfront.

And click through rate, in case you're not familiar, is what we call it CTR for short.

It's where there's, it's in the analytics and people generally see that upfront and they'll see, you know, a number, it's usually a percentage, and I want to say the average.

But again, kind of going back to the number two item on this list is don't compare your stats to anybody else.

So I won't really give like averages where your channel should or shouldn't be.

And I'm actually bringing up on my own screen here.

So in YouTube analytics, it brings you into that section and then it's toggled over to the tab that says content.

And on content there's a thing says impression click through rate.

And so this will be a percentage.

It can be 2%, it could be 10%, it could be 20%, it could be whatever percentage is obviously for your channel.

And you can also do this for each video individually, which I love.

I love the fact that you can see your channel as a whole, but then you can see individual, individual videos by themselves.

Now your percentage, just like we talked about in number two here, is that you only want to compare for where you are and improve from your section, not comparing to anybody else.

And what's interesting about this impression click through rate is that it's like false information to some capacity.

And it's not that it's lying to you or anything else like that, but it's not giving you the full clear picture because you're not having all the information around you.

So if you look at your impression click through rate and let's just say it's, you know, 8%.

And you're like, okay, that's good.

But it's like, okay, 8%.

But where are those clicks coming from?

And same thing with individual videos.

And this is where it gets really juicy.

But because even though the next tip is gonna be about thumbnails, thumbnails can, can be difficult for a lot of people where they feel almost like an obligation to try to change up their thumbnails or do some crazy things to get attention on their thumbnails, where sometimes the data's there and we can make better decisions knowing what we know from the backend of YouTube Analytics.

And what I mean by this is that let's say you are at 8% click through rate on your overall channel for YouTube and then if you go into the advanced analytics section, which is like, usually it's like the see more.

So if you go in there, there's actually a section for you that you can actually break down your click through rate by traffic source.

And by traffic source I'm talking about YouTube search browse, which is like when people see you on the homepage, suggested videos, if you're on playlists from your YouTube channel, like essentially it's saying here's your 8% click through rate.

But if you go into your YouTube analytics, let's show you the percentage per area and how you're performing each one individually.

So let's say yeah, 8% is your, your click through rate.

But then you go look in the traffic sources and you look at YouTube traffic for YouTube search and that let's say is 10 or 12% and that your browse is like 4%.

And so obviously mixing them together you're getting 8%.

And so what that actually means is that if you're intending to get into YouTube search, which is what we teach about here on this podcast, and you're getting 12% which is higher than 8%, obviously your goal to be reaching your audience is even better than what you were expecting.

And what's crazy is when you do this on an individual video scale, this is, is such a money maker for me because what I'll do is I'll look at a video after it's been released, usually you know, over the course of the next three to six months.

And if you look at the click through rate, sometimes it could be really low, like 1, 2, 3%.

And you're like, like kicking yourself and you're like man, this video's not performing well, it's not doing well.

But then if you go into the impressions, deeper analytics side of things and you go down to the traffic sources and you like whoa.

And I've seen this before where even though like my click through rate might be 2, 3, 4%, the click through rate when it's in search is like 16, 17, 18%.

What that's telling me is that YouTube was testing out releasing my video thumbnail in different areas of the platform and every time it's being shown in YouTube search, which is all I ever want to be in that I am, I'm hitting my goals.

So my, my goal for my channel is, is pretty high percentage wise.

Cuz I've obviously built a certain, you know, experience and skill set to to get higher percentages.

And so, so I know where I'm trying to aim for.

But if I took that initial data from the front end, I would think, oh man, maybe my title or maybe my thumbnail is not performing well.

So I might intermittently like switch out the thumbnails or change the titles.

And that could actually have a negative effect on the video because it was actually doing well.

But the data was telling me otherwise because I didn't do enough of a deep dive.

So making sure that we're aware that, you know, reading more data is always great, but the, the deeper dive, like the advanced analytics side of YouTube is, is just like a gold mine personally for, for me and I think for anybody that wants to really grow, especially in the space that we talk about here, because it just gives you all this data.

Like you can go so granular, like I, and I'm talking so granular that you can pick an individual video, look at its external sources and see where people are coming from, how long they stay on the video, and just so much information, it's, it's wild to me.

So the, the, the click through rate might be lying to you a little bit if you're not looking at the deeper analytics.

So go through that if you're, if you're one to change titles and thumbnails often use that as a, as a means to make better decisions to say, hey, my, my search is actually higher than my overall click through rate and that's where I want to be.

Maybe I leave this alone.

Or you say, hey, actually my search is where I want to be, but it's lower than the average.

Let's go ahead and change that up because I want to, I want to get into that YouTube search.

So using that as a means to, to improve that, your, your ctr, your click through rate isn't telling you the truth upfront.

So dig deeper.

Go into your advanced analytics now keeping kind of with the thumbnails and the click through rate.

Number five for things you might not know about YouTube is that they do have ABC testing for thumbnails.

And if you're not familiar, this is essentially where you can upload Multiple thumbnails and YouTube will actually intermittently swap back and forth between different thumbnails in its performance over a two week period.

So that way you can see which one performs better.

Sometimes this can be really advantageous, other times it might actually slow down a little bit on your, on your growth for a particular video.

But I would say, especially if you're in the early stages of building out a template for your thumbnails, which you should definitely do.

Maybe not definitely, but you should look into having a template so you're not having to start from scratch every time, especially with like tutorials or education.

Having similar thumbnails from one to another is not the, the worst thing in the world, honestly, if you, if you ever look at the True Financials channel, I have like four templates and I kind of swap between the four just based off of the content.

But it's relatively the same, just switched out with like the brands and the logos and the colors that I'm utilizing in each thumbnail.

So don't be afraid to build out a solid template for yourself.

And while you're doing that, you can ab test and see what works better for people.

Are certain color texts maybe standing out better for your niche and your topics and the videos that you're making.

And you can get this information by making sure you're putting in the time and effort into your thumbnails because, and I talk about this sometimes, where you can make the best video in the world, you can have the best video in the entire YouTube ecosystem, but nobody will watch the video if you're, if you don't put the effort into your thumbnail.

Your thumbnail is the billboard to your videos, right?

Titles help a lot too, but the thumbnails is the visual attention grabber for a lot of people.

So if you have the opportunity to post two thumbnails or up to three thumbnails for a video before it's released and have it kind of mesh back and forth between the two or three that you have, and you can start seeing the data in where, like what's working and start replicating those, those successes as you continue to go on.

Because we talk about that Kaizen method and now having the opportunity to release three, because instead of, you know, having to test out a thumbnail style with one video and then a different thumbnail with another upcoming video, you can test out three different styles with one video in the EBC testing.

And then that allows you to, to really start honing in on what's working and what's not working.

And so take advantage of the tools and resources YouTube does give you because again, they care a lot about small creators.

You just get to put in that effort and time to figure out what's working, what's not working, by digging in, going into your analytics, look at your impressions as a whole for the channel.

That's gonna really show you that YouTube is showcasing you even as a small channel, then also to making sure that you really hone in on improving your own data, right?

Don't compare yourself to anybody else.

Use the Community tab.

It's there for you as a small creator as well.

If you're doing search based content, look at the possibilities of releasing your videos quietly.

So that way it can get into search much faster if it means that people are staying on your videos longer.

And then obviously like we talked about the click through rate, make sure you dig in a little bit deeper, look at the traffic sources, where you're getting the percentage, and if it's exactly where you want to be, stick with that, improve on it, keep growing and then you'll see better results as time goes on.

And these are small increments that will have big impact for you, but keep going.

Even when it doesn't seem like anything's changing, things are changing.

It just takes time, right?

If you need additional resources, there's going to be the resources.

In our Show Notes down below you can download the e book that shows you some of my data, some of my perspectives when it comes to building out that YouTube channel.

Some of it might work for you and I want you to, you know, take action when you can and then join our newsletter if you want to keep up with like all that news that that YouTube has going around and also any updates with any of the podcast episodes so that way you can keep track and continue to do all the hard work so you can create passive income to create freedom in your time, money and your work.

Thank you so much for listening and until next time, thank you again for listening to the YouTube Passive Income show which is part of the Master Passive Income Network.

Now in this episode we talked a lot about some resources which we'll have linked up in the Show Notes down below for you, including our seven days to uploading your first YouTube video, which is going to be a checklist that's entirely free for you to utilize again in the Show Notes down below.

Have a fantastic day and I'll talk to you next week.