Transcription
This is the video to watch if you want the entire breakdown on how I bring my YouTube videos to life. From coming up with the ideas to scripting, filming, editing, optimizing, and promoting—all in one video. Whether you are a new YouTuber thinking of starting YouTube or you're a seasoned creator, keep on watching because you may just learn something new.
The first step is to come up with video ideas. Now, I've been using Poppy AI recently to do this, and it has been so life-changing. It's collapsed my time in half. I feel like I found the cheat code. So, let me show you how it works. So, over on Poppy, the first thing I'm going to do is create a group. And inside this group, I'm going to call it Vanessa's YouTube videos. Next, I'm going to head over to my YouTube channel, and I'm going to start selecting some key videos that I felt very proud of creating, but my audience also really enjoyed watching as well. So, for example, this video—a lot of people liked it. And I'm going to go here and click on social media content and paste my link, and then I'm gonna add it to the group. I'm going to continue doing this and add about five more examples.
Now that I've created this group of videos that I really enjoyed making and that my audience also really like, the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to add a chat box. And then I'm going to link my videos to this chat box. Then I'm going to tell Poppy to say, "Based on my videos shared in Vanessa's YouTube videos, can you come up with more video topic ideas similar to these ones?" The cool thing with Poppy AI is it'll automatically watch all of these videos, so I don't have to send over the transcription. And as you can see, Poppy AI has already come up with some really good content ideas that really fit my brand voice and what I usually like making on my channel.
Now, to take this a step further, I'm going to create another group and put it at the bottom right here. And, by the way, Poppy AI is kind of like a mind-map style, so you can go on forever down this rabbit hole, but within this group, I'm going to title it YouTube title best practices. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to go over to YouTube and search up some of the top videos that people have created about how to create great YouTube titles. And from here, I'm going to select at least six videos to put within this group. And, by the way, all you have to do is just get the link to the video and then paste it within your board. You don't even have to watch the video.
Now that I have these six expert videos grouped up, I'm going to link it in my chat and feed this information to Poppy AI. Next, I'm going to tell Poppy AI, "Can you please come up with video topic ideas for my channel, Vanessa's YouTube videos, but make sure it follows the expert advice for titles under the YouTube title best practices?" What Poppy AI is now going to do is take all of the information from these six expert YouTube videos and apply it to my channel. As you can see, Poppy AI came up with even better content ideas that are programmed to actually perform based on this expert advice. For example, it's got curiosity and fear combinations, curiosity and desire combinations, opening loops, revealing secrets, challenging assumptions, negative lists, specific audience callouts, being very oddly specific, contrast titles, future prediction content, and using power words. So, these are all things that these gurus actually taught inside their YouTube videos. But because I'm busy and I don't have time to watch all of them, Poppy AI synthesized that information for me and applied it to my use case.
Now, to take it one level even further, what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to unlink my YouTube videos. So, I don't want Poppy AI to use my videos as reference. And then I'm going to ask Poppy AI to help me build a framework that I can apply to all of my future videos so that I can package them better. Use the resources I've given you, which is the advice from the YouTube experts on how to create better titles. Now, as you can see, Poppy AI came up with a framework that I can use for all of my videos. And this framework is very helpful because it's actually teaching me what these experts are teaching inside the video. So, I'm actually learning how to make good titles. So, Poppy AI came up with the Spark framework: story, psychology, audience, research, keep it simple, and it's also got a template that I could use as well as quick title formulas that I can plug and play with.
Now, since I have this framework, what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to copy this entire thing. And then I'm going to create a note for myself. And inside this note, I'm going to paste that framework that Poppy AI gave me. Now, what I can do is I can unlink these expert videos. And instead, I want to try something where I am linking my note to Poppy AI with the framework as well as my own YouTube videos. Now, I'm going to ask Poppy AI to please use the Spark framework and the title formulas to come up with even more video ideas and topics for my channel. And as you can see, I've linked my videos as well as the framework. Poppy AI has really come up with even more title ideas using the formulas and frameworks that it came up with by me feeding those expert videos. These are really impressive titles that I think could actually get a lot of clicks for my channel.
Now, I'm only scratching the surface in terms of what Poppy AI is capable of and how I use it. So, make sure you hit the notification bell and subscribe to my channel because in my next video, I'll be diving into Poppy even more in depth. But, if you are someone who's already super excited about it, I do have a link and a coupon code in my description box below if you would like to use it.
The next step in my workflow is to script my YouTube videos. Now, I house all of my content over on Notion. Shout out to my best friend Tiff. She calls her Notion a digital diary, and I absolutely love it. So, over on the left side, I've got my calendar for both Super Boba, my physical product business, and my personal brand. Then, on the left side, I have all of my short-form content ideas. I call it thoughts and stories so that it doesn't feel as much pressure as calling it content ideas. I like this system because I can easily drag my short-form ideas onto the calendar, and so it schedules it in my mind. Then, at the bottom, I keep track of all my brand sponsorships. And then I also have my YouTube section, which is where I write my scripts.
Now, to take it a step further, I actually created a template so that every time I create a new page in this YouTube section, it's always going to have my core sections. So, I have optimization. This is where I'll put the final title, description, and keywords. And later in this video, we'll talk about this section a lot more. Then I've got my inspiration section. This is where I will link maybe the brand brief if it's a sponsored video, different title ideas that I'm thinking of, different thumbnail ideas. Then I've got the seed section. This is where I will visualize the structure and the flow of the video through just making bullet points. It's more of a chicken-scratch version of what I'm thinking the video could look like. And then I've got my expanded thought section. This is more of the actual script where I will flesh out all the bullet points—pretty much write word for word what I want to say in the video. The most important part for me is the hook because I find that the hook is what captures people's attention. So, I will really script that out. But when I film, I don't actually follow the script to the tea, other than the hook maybe. I do appreciate the act of actually writing out my videos because it actually makes my filming process a lot easier. And then, finally, at the bottom, I've got my B-roll shot list. So, as I am scripting my video, I will take note of what screen-share tutorials I might need to film or any extra B-roll that I might need to make in order to help the video be more engaging or help people visualize what I'm saying better.
The third step is not actually filming, but taking the photos for the thumbnail. So, over on my inspiration section, I would have already screenshotted a few thumbnail ideas. So, right before I film my video, while my makeup is still done, while the lighting is still good, I will just take a bunch of poses. Instead of taking photos, I actually take videos because later, over on my computer, I'm able to just screenshot all the poses that I like, and then I can see it all in one go. Now, later we will talk about thumbnails in more depth, but at this stage, all I'm doing is just taking videos of various poses.
Now, once I'm done doing my thumbnail poses, the fourth step is to film my video. I first set up—I have different locations, but the one I'm sitting at right now is my go-to location. And the reason why is because I am sitting so close to my script. You cannot see it. It looks like my computer is blank, but the second half of my computer actually has my script in it. And so, this is the most comfortable position for me to film. And then, what I'll have is my lighting in front of me. I will have my tripod, my Sony ZV10, and I will just be miked up. And that's all I really need. Now, if you want a more in-depth video of my equipment, then make sure you click on this video right here. I'll also link it in the description box.
When it comes to actually filming, what I do is I film in sections. So, I will reference my script just as a refresher on what I need to say. Then, I'll hit the record button and I will say basically a few sentences. It really depends on how much I can remember. And then, I'll immediately stop filming so that I can review the footage. When it comes to actually filming, what I is I film in sections. The reason why I like filming in sections is number one, if I make a mistake, I don't have to refilm the entire video or forget what I said. All I have to do is go back and just delete that specific section that I messed up on. Deleting the ones that I don't think are going to make the cut and refilming them or just reducing. See, I made a mistake. So, I can just go back and easily uh, delete that. The second reason is all of the clips that I end up having in my memory card are usable. So, when I do send them over to my video editor, she's not combing through hours and hours of bloopers, and I'm also not taking up too much space on my memory card. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean I don't make mistakes, but there are a few mistakes that are completely unrecoverable, and I just have to delete the whole clip and start over. The third reason why I like filming in sections is I just like reviewing my clips as I film because if I have a hair that's out of place or something that I wouldn't really like having in the final video, I can easily just remove that. And I'm not surprised when I'm reviewing my footage at the end and all the lighting has changed and it's just not the same type of look that I want. For example, if my viewfinder was bigger, I would have noticed that my straps were sticking out from my shirt in this section of the video and multiple sections of this video. I did catch it near the end as I was reviewing the clips. So, that just goes to show reviewing your clips as you film is important because I would have never caught that, and it could have looked like that for the entire video.
Now, on the topic of filming, sometimes I will do screen-share-heavy tutorials. Earlier in this video when I was talking about Poppy, that's a good example of that. So, my filming process for that is I will swap out my lens. So, instead of using the Sony kit lens, which is a little bit more cropped in, I will swap it for the 11 mm lens, which is what I'm using right now. It's basically a wide-angled lens which gives me a lot more room on the sides so that I can actually put a screen-share tutorial or different graphics. Now, for the screen-share recording itself, I use a platform called Descript. Now, you can connect it to any webcam or any camera that you want, but for me, if I'm doing this look specifically, what I'll do is I will hit record on my Sony camera and then I will hit record on Descript and I'll start recording my screen flow. What I love about Descript is right after it will give me the transcription of my entire recording so I can easily edit out all the little mistakes. This has saved me a ton of money because back then I would just make my video editor comb through 30 minutes of footage, which takes up a lot of time and I pay her hourly. And so now I'm able to just easily edit out everything and then send it to her by adding her as a collaborator over in Descript or sending her the link directly. Now, the way that I'm doing it is a lot more complicated to do because you have to manually sync up what's being filmed on the Sony camera and what's being filmed on your screen recording and then editing it together. And my video editor does that. But over on Descript, you can connect it to any camera such as your DJI Mo Pocket or your webcam and then have your screen recording and a video of you all in one place. So, what you can do is you can click record within Descript. We'll do screen recording. At the bottom here, I can connect to any camera. So, in my case, I've connected to my OpSpot webcam, any microphone, and you can record your entire screen or a specific window. In my case, I'll do a specific window. And then we'll hit record. It's going to record my Notion dashboard. And we're just going to yap for a bit. So, showing my calendar, my thoughts and stories, my YouTube, my sponsorships, and then we will just stop the recording. It'll start processing. So, not only has Descript done the transcription, but I can also move around my video, and I can also expand it. I can change the shape if I'd like to. So, there's a lot of different editing features that you can do with Descript. If you screen record with Descript, I could make this the star of the show if I wanted to. Maybe turn it into landscape and then adjust it like this if I wanted my screen. Move this to the front and then make this in the back. So, there's a lot of different editing features you can access when you screen record with Descript.
Now, speaking of Descript, they are the sponsor of today's video. And the next step of my workflow is editing. So, even though I do have a professional video editor, let me explain to you why I still use Descript and how it's such a big part of my workflow. So, once I'm done filming my video, I'll head over to my computer, plug in the SD card, and then I will load up all of my clips into Descript first. What Descript will do is it'll automatically transcribe all of my clips, and then this is where the magic happens. I select the entire transcription, click on Underlord, and automatically shorten any word gap that's more than 0.1 seconds. Now, you can set this to however many seconds you want, but I personally do 0.1 seconds. So, what Descript will do is that it will automatically remove all of the pauses in my video. The final result of my videos, I always sound so much more eloquent than I actually am in real life. When I'm actually filming the video, there are long pauses in between my sentences and words because I'm trying to remember my script. So, when I do send them over to my video editor, she's not combing through hours and hours of bloopers, and I'm also not taking up too much space on my memory card. So, when I do send them over to my video editor, she's not combing through hours and hours of bloopers, and I'm also not taking up too much space on my memory card. But because Descript is automatically cutting those out from the video, everything just sounds a lot more seamless and smooth, and it also increases the retention of my video because most times people don't have the patience to sit through a long pause. They want you to get to the point.
Now, once I've automatically removed all of my word gaps, I will do the same thing with my filler words. So, what I'll do is I'll select the entire transcript, click on Underlord, and click remove filler words. It's going to remove all the ums, the ahs, the sos, the ands, and all the other filler words that I didn't even realize I was doing. This again allows my video to be a lot more concise. Next, with Descript, you can also remove your retakes. So, this is how I usually film. If I make a mistake, I will just breathe and then I'll just keep talking. But in the actual clip, there's a lot of repetitiveness. With Descript, in one click, I can remove all those retakes. The reason why I like filming in sections is number one, it The reason why I like filming in sections is number one, if I make a mistake, I don't have to The reason why I like filming in sections is number one, if I make a mistake, I don't have to refilm the entire video or forget what I said. And if you don't believe me how many retakes it takes, listen to this: The first step is to research content. The first step is to figure out I'm not even joking. The first step is to figure out your video. The first step is I figure out my video. I literally tried like so many times. The first step is to research. Poor girl. The first step is to figure out my So when I tell you the fact that I can remove all of my retakes in one click with Descript, it has been a total life changer because uh, yeah, it's a lot of footage to go through. So, because these features are using AI, it literally takes me less than 2 minutes to clean up my video.
But beyond that, I'll also manually review my video during the editing stage. So, I will watch my video at 2x or 3x speed. And I love that Descript has those options, and then I will strike out anything that I feel is repetitive or not necessary anymore. A lot of times I tend to ramble in my videos, or maybe when I actually look at all of the clips together, I realize, "Hey, I actually don't think this point is really necessary for the video. I actually think that the viewer is not going to be that engaged," and so I will actually just remove it from the video by striking it out. And the reason why I do this is that it saves me so much money when it comes to editing fees. I pay my video editor hourly, and back then, before I was using Descript, she would spend a lot of those hours combing through my mistakes trying to cut things out, but also because she is not the subject matter expert. She doesn't know what is considered repetitive. Only I know that. And so we would always be going back and forth when it came to feedback. But now with Descript, I'm already cutting all of those things out. So, when I am sending her this file, it's basically nearly perfect, and all she has to do is overlay the edits on top rather than removing the pauses, removing the mistakes, figuring out what is repetitive. So, my original video was about 40 minutes of raw footage of just mistakes, retakes, and filler words. And then, once I clean it up with Descript, it basically cut my video in half down to 20 minutes. This has significantly reduced my editing cost, but it also allows my video editor to focus on what she does best, which is actually enhancing the video by making graphics or text effects or transitions or B-roll content. Within Descript, I can also leave comments. So, if there's a specific section where I already know this is the B-roll I want, I can already put those comments within Descript. And then I invite my video editor as a collaborator on this Descript project. So, she's able to download it; she's able to do whatever she wants with the actual file. I find that
Using Descript for vlogs has also been really helpful. So, what my video editor will do is she'll take all the clips, send me a rough cut of the entire vlog, which is usually 2 hours long. She'll put it into Descript, and then I will already start cutting all the parts in my day in the life or week in the life that I don't feel is necessary for Super Boba.
For this video that I wanted him to edit for our behind the Boba series, he has zero B-roll for making the video more engaging because I didn't drop it. That way, she's not spending all of her hours and wasting my money on editing footage that I don't even want in my vlog. And also, if you are someone that doesn't want to be on camera or maybe you're having a bad camera day, Descript recently launched their avatar feature, and it is blowing my mind. It looks so realistic. Monitor your credit journey through visual milestones and gamified progress bars that make it fun to stay on track. And I cannot wait to actually use this myself for my screen share tutorials one day.
But all this to say, Descript is my favorite video editing platform. I've done short-form videos with it, long-form videos with it. It's a part of my workflow even though I have a pro video editor. So if you want to try out Descript for free for 30 days, then use the code in my description box and in my comment section below. And if you want me to make a full tutorial on how to maximize all of the features of Descript, then let me know in the comment section below or like this video.
Now, while my video is being close to finalized, the next step of my workflow is optimization. I actually get my video editor to upload my video directly to YouTube, and she's the one that actually puts in the description, the keywords, the thumbnail, the title, the end screen, the info cards. And the reason why I have it like that is we usually upload at 6:00 am in the mornings, and the night before it's usually me on YouTube adding all those little details, or I'm waking up at 5:30 in the morning to do it. And I noticed that it was really impacting my sleep. But since my video editor is in the Philippines, it's still a decent time for her. And since she's already the one that's uploading the video, she can be the one that adds all the chapters, the titles, the descriptions all at the same time and schedule my video.
But because she's not a YouTuber herself or she doesn't know optimization herself, I will already do the work and put it into Notion. So that leads me back to my template where I have the optimization section. So what I'll do is since I have the entire rough cut of my video already done in Descript, I will export the transcript and then load it up into ChatGPT. And from there, since ChatGPT can read the entire video, I will ask ChatGPT to come up with different title ideas that maybe I haven't thought of. I'll select the best one, and then I will put that in the title section so she knows this is the one that we are going to upload and schedule the video with.
And if you are someone that is using Poppy AI like me, what you can do is you can simply just upload a document. And here is where I'm going to upload the transcript that Descript gave me on my video. Next, I'm going to open up a chat box, and then I'm going to link the transcript that I got from Descript on the video that I have not published yet, which is this video that you're watching right now. And then the framework that I created with Poppy AI. And then I asked Poppy, please use the Spark framework and YouTube title best practices to come up with 10 different title ideas I could use for my YouTube video, YouTube workflow A to Z creation guide. As you can see, Poppy has come up with 10 different title ideas. So, I will just take the one I like best and then put that into Notion.
Next, I will tell ChatGPT to come up with a set of top-of-funnel keywords that ChatGPT thinks the person who is perfect for this video might be searching for in the search bar and to make sure that it's within the 500-character limit that YouTube has. Once I have that, I will then paste it into Notion so my video editor knows that these are the exact set of keywords to publish the video with. Then I will tell ChatGPT, using these exact keywords, can you please write up a description to promote the video? ChatGPT will then do that, and then I will put it in the description. And by the way, when I created my Notion template, it already has the template version of my description with all of my affiliate links, all of the different headers. So my editor doesn't have to worry about that. All she has to worry about is copying the entire section and pasting it into YouTube.
Next, I will write the pin comment that my video editor needs to pin when she's uploading the video. I will let her know the exact playlist that this video needs to be put in as well as the specific end screen that I want her to add at the end of the video. And then when it comes to the community post, because I do like to promote my videos through the community tab, I will simply paste the same description that ChatGPT gave me and repurpose that for the community post. And by the way, when it comes to promoting my video on the community tab, I will get my video editor to actually make a GIF of the intro of my video usually. And by the way, you can actually make GIFs on Descript. So all you have to do is highlight the section you want to turn into a GIF, create a new composition, and within that composition, now that you have it isolated, you can then add captions using Descript and then export that as a GIF at the lowest quality. And if you find that your GIF is too big to upload into the community tab, then you'll want to make sure you use a GIF compressor in order to make the file a lot smaller. And by the way, I have a video that is very detailed in terms of all of the steps that I do for optimization. So, make sure you watch this video. I'll also link it in the description box below.
Now, once I have all of the optimization side done, I will let my video editor know through Slack. And then I move on to the next step, which is the thumbnail design. So before I even started filming, I would have had a clip of me doing various poses. So what I'll do is I will screenshot the ones I really like and then I will select all, open them up, and then I'll start scrolling through them and comparing them and seeing which one really catches my eyes. The winners will then be transferred over to Canva. This is where I start designing the thumbnail.
Now, how I design my thumbnails is usually in a very specific order. So the first thing I'll do is I'll use the magic grab feature where I will take my body out of the picture, and then I will adjust the saturation, brightness, contrast of my body only. This allows me to actually stand out and not necessarily have my background take over the space because a lot of times I will add text, and I notice that if I bump the saturation or the brightness of the background, I can't really see my text anymore. In fact, to take a step further, I'll also click on the background. And since it's separate, I will decrease the brightness so that my text actually stands out a bit more. From here, you can either use Poppy AI or ChatGPT or any AI system to come up with different thumbnail text ideas, and then I'll start mocking them up over on Canva.
Now, this thumbnail process does take me a while because I'll test a bunch of poses. I'll test a bunch of text, colors, and all these different things. And if I'm really unsure, I will take a screenshot of the ones that I'm considering. And because I took a screenshot of my entire channel and I put it in one of the pages, I will then mock it up and see how it compares to my other thumbnails, what catches my eye, and that's how I narrow down what thumbnail to pick. And by the way, after you've uploaded your video, you can always A/B test your thumbnails using something like TubeBuddy Legend License. Links in my description box below if you want a discount. And I talk more about that in this video right here where I go even more in depth in terms of the different strategies I use to optimize my videos.
Now, once I'm satisfied with the thumbnail, again, I will tell my video editor which page to pick in terms of the thumbnail we're going to upload with. And by the way, she does have access to my Canva as well. And then from there, my video editor just uploads everything. She's the one that does all the chapters as well, because sometimes I won't be able to see the exact final video until it's uploaded into YouTube. And if you're using something like TubeBuddy, it makes it so easy to put the chapters. All you have to do is literally watch your video at 2x speed and then just start hammering out the chapters, and then it'll automatically copy it into your description.
Now, at this point, my video editor would have scheduled everything. And then once the video is actually published, it's now the last step, which is promoting my video. So, how I promote my videos are in a few ways. The first one is making an Instagram story teaser. In this video, I want to share some key things that I would do differently if I were to rebuild and future-proof my personal brand today. Now, my video editor makes these, but you can easily do this on Descript as well.
So, to make an easy Instagram story teaser over on Descript, I'm going to highlight the intro of my video that I want to turn into an Instagram story. Then, I'm going to create a new composition. Scroll down to my new composition. First thing I'm going to do is I'm going to highlight all of this and then turn the orientation into portrait mode and then adjust so that it's optimized for Instagram. Then what I'm going to do is select all, click on Underlord, and I'm going to insert captions. Now, there are so many other things you can do. You can change the font style, you can change the colors, everything. Next, I'm going to click on Underlord again and then insert text. Going to put this at the top. Here's where I want my YouTube title to be.
Now, at the end of this teaser, I do want to add my YouTube thumbnail and a call to action. I'm going to hit the enter bar and then I'm going to add a file. Here, I basically just took a black image from Google that has a little bit of like stardust on it. And then I'm going to right-click, add a layer. I'm going to click on files, add files. And I basically have my YouTube thumbnail that I made in Canva. I'm going to drag it and put it at the top. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to click the area where I want to add the sound. I'm going to right-click and then add layer. Go to sound effects and I'm going to type in camera shutter. That's what it sounds like. I'm going to take that and then drag it to where I want the sound effect to be in. Now, I'm going to play this in 2x speed just so you guys can get the vibe of the video. This is the video to watch if you want the entire breakdown on how I bring my YouTube videos to life from coming up with the ideas to scripting, filming, editing, optimizing, and promoting all in one video. Whether you're a new YouTuber or thinking of starting YouTube or you're a seasoned creator, keep on watching because you may just learn something new. Perfect. You can then export your video and upload it to your Instagram stories where you can add the link to your YouTube video.
This basically gives people a taste of what your video is about and then directly links them to where they can watch the full video. I will also make sure my link in bio is updated with my latest YouTube video, and those are basically the two bare minimums that I do. If I do find myself having a little bit more time, I will ask my video editor to upload the final video into Descript. And that way, I can easily just select certain sections into its own composition. Change the formatting to 9 by 6 so it's meant for short form. And that's basically how I repurpose a lot of my long-form videos into short-form videos. By turning key moments from my long-form video and repurposing them into short form, it just basically improves my distribution because now I'm able to post it into YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels where not only can I reach my current following who may not have watched the full video if they hadn't seen the shorter version of it, but it also allows me to reach non-followers as well. In the caption, I'll write that this clip is taken from my full video titled X. If you want me to send you the link to the full video, then comment this keyword. And if someone comments that keyword, my ManyChat bot will automatically send them the full video. And that allows me to increase the views on my longer-form content. If you want the full tutorial on how I use ManyChat, how I set it up, then you can watch this video right here, which I will link in my description box and in my comment section below.
So far in this video, I've shared the bird's-eye view A to Z of my entire YouTube workflow. But I do have this free YouTube course, which is a playlist that has all of these sections and me going way more in depth. So, if you want to learn more, I highly recommend you watch this next. As always, guys, I appreciate you. Let me know in the comment section below which tip you liked most, and I will see you in this free YouTube course.