Transcription
The question that every new creator should ask themselves is, "What does your variety show look like?" That's John Usai, an ex-YouTube employee and one of the smartest creators on the platform right now. I'm not exaggerating. He's done about 260 million views in the past year alone, and it was not an accident. His strategy just works. That brought about two to three million views a day as we started to take off as a channel.
In this episode, you'll learn the best YouTube advice that no one has ever told you. There are two types of creators: there's creators and creators. The first frame rule, essentially, it's the extreme of, "Oh, the first three seconds matter," that everyone has been saying for the past five years. No, no, no, no. Like, that is outdated advice. How John packages his videos? What are thumbnails that I've come across on YouTube that I've clicked on but did not know this creator at first? And where there is still a massive opportunity for creators to find success. A lot of people like to talk about the Mr. Beastification of YouTube. I think one thing that a lot of people are missing is that Dr. Micahification of YouTube. You might want to take out a notebook for this one.
The question that every new creator should ask themselves is, "What does your variety show look like?" And I'm a big believer in this. There are two types of creators: there's talk show creators and variety show creators. And if I can make this, like, analogous to pop culture, there's Colbert, there's Stephen Colbert, like creators, and they're James Corden, like creators. So many people have talk shows where they give monologues, like Stephen Colbert does. And if you go to his channel, I remember when I was at YouTube, I like had a chance to work with a lot of these folks, a lot of these top creators, celebrities, brands. And I remember the way Stephen Colbert and his team approached their YouTube channel was so fundamentally different than James Corden. And a lot of people can say, like, "What can I learn from these studio hosts? These networks? They're so much far off from, like, what a normal creator with very little money, like, has." But, but there's a lot of fundamental principles. And if you look at Corden, his channel is an entire variety show where he tries out all these different formats that are related to his focus. And I think you should ask yourself, "What are the different formats? What's the variety show look like for your niche?" Can you marry your niche, but then vary your focus and do that? And we could talk about how to do that, but do that through Shorts to start, and then get the permission to go long-form.
Let's dig into a little bit more because on the surface, you hear Corden, you hear Colbert, and you think, "White guy with a late-night talk show." What's the difference? They seem the same to me. Uh, what's, what's the difference? The difference is that, you know, and and I love them both, but like a Colbert creator doesn't vary their format, doesn't vary their set, doesn't really experiment as much as a new creator should. And I see that all the time. You know, a lot of people like, "Okay, I need to do explainer videos," or "I need to do interviews," because that's what's been happening, uh, on YouTube. Versus Corden, he is really thinking about, like, all the different formats. And if you go on his channel, he has the ones that you know about, which are like the Carpool Karaokes. But then he has like ones where he does Crosswalk Musical, which is literally like he does like a musical on the street. Or like, like lower-fi ones where he brings people on the audience and asks them a question while he has their mom on Zoom behind him. Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts, which is basically a modern take on Truth or Dare where if you answer a question, it's going to be like a, like a very, um, uh, uh, like truthful moment. And if you don't, you gotta eat something disgusting. Um, so all these different things. And the key, the thing people don't realize, Jay, is that not every format that James Corden does is a success, right? Not every format is a Carpool Karaoke. He also has formats that totally bomb. And he has like formats like Celebrity Noses where he talks about like different celebrity noses. And most people haven't heard of that. But that's just part of the process. If you don't, not trying to have different formats, and you're not embracing the ones that will bomb, you won't find the ones that will take off. And I think that's been the pendulum swing and the things that really changed my channels when I went from a Colbert creator to a Corden-style creator in varying my formats and finding things that stuck. And that brought about 2-3 million views a day as we started to take off as a channel just over a year ago.
Talk to me about how I can start doing this variety show planning and ideation without getting too overwhelmed. Three percent changes. That's the key. Like, don't overwhelm yourself. Like, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. In fact, I feel like if you're a new creator, if you introduce something so unfamiliar, people are going to have a hard time wrapping their head around it. So think about a three percent change. And the reason why I say three percent change is because the late, great Virgil Abloh talked about how creativity is essentially a three percent change from the familiar to the unfamiliar, right? And then you keep tweaking. And that three percent change can be the way you market something. Uh, it could be the way, um, you know, the, the topography looks, the design, etcetera. So, like, just to share, like, a personal anecdote and example to put this into practice. When I was really thinking about, like, "How can I get my channel to be this variety show for the creator economy, for creator education?" I looked at, like, late night again, like late night, any talk show formats, like from the past 30, 40 years, not just like from the past five, ten years. And I saw this format that Jay Leno, who was a talk show host before Jimmy Fallon, and technically before Conan O'Brien, where he went on the streets and it was called "Jaywalking." And you just asked these people these questions that really show you, like, what the psyche of America is. And then I saw Jimmy Kimmel had this format where he, like, asked people, "Do you know more U.S. presidents or Marvel Avengers?" You know, and like the answers are really telling about, like, what Americans like followed. And so I was like, "Wait, I keep hearing the stat about how popular creators are and this whole debate of traditional and social media." Why don't I take that and make a format? And so, so essentially what that led to is me going on the street. And this took a lot of trial and error. But ultimately, the three percent change that I made was going on the street, holding up a sign where you saw a photo of Tom Cruise and Mr. Beast. And I literally asked people, "Who are these two people?" And the results shocked me because a lot of people knew Mr. Beast. They didn't know Tom Cruise. They didn't know Tom Cruise at the height of, I think this was when Top Gun: Maverick came out. And people, and I was like, "Wait, let me, like, troll people and take this to an extent." So I went to the, the Chinese Theatre here in Hollywood. I stood in front of the Top Gun: Maverick sign with, like, like Tom Cruise right there, like I'm playing the movie there. Yeah. I was like, and and people like, "Uh, I don't know who that guy is, but that's Mr. Beast." You know? Or or people would be like, "Oh, that's Tom Cruise. I don't know who that guy is." And same thing, Logan Paul and Tom Hanks. I think that the Mr. Beast and Tom Cruise one has 40 million views now. But that really, uh, kick-started my channel. And then I was like, "Okay, this is starting to work. Let's make this format." And there's formats I did that did not work. Like I could talk about the ones that bombed well. But, uh, that was a big three percent change that led to a hundred percent change in my channel.
How do you know when you've given a format enough of a test to know whether it's going to work or not? Give it at least five videos. And that's a number I got from MatPat. Matthew Patrick. I did an interview with him where he, like, and he has 30 million followers across four channels. And he talked a lot about in our interview, like, "How do you start a channel?" And he talked about this, like, rule of five where you want to try things out and really feel that because over the course of five videos in a specific format, you could tweak a lot of things that could give that format the actual chance it needs. So, case in point, and this was for the short of the celebrity versus creators were talking about. I would go there and like my initial versions of that video were like, "Hey guys, we're here in Hollywood and we're gonna ask people like whether creators are more popular than celebrities." Like, "Here's the first one." And it was this entire preamble that I was like, "That is so boring and it's so unnecessary." So essentially, what I trimmed it down to is I went to FedEx Kinko's, I printed it out, I made a visual, I held up the two photos and asked, "Who are these two people?" That's it. And that goes into another thing about how do you perfect the first frame where immediately people scroll, they see it, and they understand as much about the story as possible. And you set up expectation and tension.
Say a little bit more about what "first frame" means if folks are not familiar with that phrase. Yeah, the first frame rule essentially is, I think when it comes to short-form content, you should be as obsessed with your first frame as thumbnails from long-form content. And the first frame is literally what you see at the zero-second mark when you come across a video for the first time. And essentially, it's the extreme of, "Oh, the first three seconds matter," that everyone has been saying for the past five years. No, no, no, no. Like, that is outdated advice. Now you need to care about the first frame. And I would even argue this extends to long-form now with the autoplay. And I think visually is the key. And doing it in a physical way, not just like digital. So one example is like of a version we tried that did not work is I didn't have a physical printout of the two faces of the creator versus celebrity. I just said it and had a digital cutout of their heads. And so that one led to worse reactions in person because I had like, "Oh no, Mr. Beast, you know, the guy like who gives out free like all the stuff." I'd explain it versus like showing their face. Or Tom Cruise. And and then and then we added like the counter at the bottom. So immediately you come across that short on my channel and you see, okay, there's a guy with a microphone. And by the way, I didn't do lavalieres. I was like, I want the physical microphone that shows I'm I'm asking, I'm gesturing literally to somebody else. So you know exactly what's the dynamic between those two people. I wanted me on camera because I wanted to show like, like I'm the audience, like, like I'm I'm like laughing, I'm like having these genuine reactions. You don't know who Tom Cruise is, really. And so all of that is right there in that first frame versus building up to it, which is something that a lot of creators do. And I think it's a huge mistake. The nice thing about the first frame in Shorts is that this isn't really like a produced graphic design asset after the fact. Like, yeah, you got to think about it, but this is coming from the A-roll as opposed to designing a thumbnail after the fact. It, it alleviates some anxiety in me to know that it's, it's yes, it's still kind of like the same mental exercise and step, but it could actually be less costly, um, a little less time-intensive. So I like, I like what you're bringing to the table here, which is recommending a lot of this testing in Shorts before doing long-form, which is a new perspective that we haven't really had on the show yet.
Yeah, and I would even go to another extreme. Is if you feel overwhelmed by video, and believe me, I'm one of the biggest advocates and champions for trying video. Start with text and photo. Like, post on LinkedIn. Like, figure out what works there. And then you're like, "All right, I feel more comfortable sharing a photo of myself and some text. This is working. That that feels like some of my audience wants." Then try short-form. Oh, short-form is working. Then try long-form. Like, I think people jump into video sometimes too soon and overwhelm themselves. Text and photo is fine. Threads, Twitter, LinkedIn, you know, all these things are fair game right now. And I feel like people overlook it because they're trying to make a long-form 20-minute video. And that's just overwhelming when you're starting out. After a quick break, John and I talk about the limits of variety in your work, so stick around. We'll be right back. If you know me, you know how much I believe in memberships. My membership is the core of my business. And I believe that earning a living directly from your audience is one of the most sustainable ways for you to become a professional creator as well. So I want to tell you about today's sponsor, Uscreen. Uscreen is a beautiful, all-in-one platform that helps content creators earn a living from their videos by unlocking predictable, recurring revenue. You can host private live streams for your members, build an on-demand catalog of premium video content. And Uscreen gives you a community hub to interact with your members too. They can access your community from their mobile phone, so your membership is right there in their pocket. With a Uscreen account, you get video hosting, an out-of-the-box website, full payment and subscription management, and plenty of third-party integrations too. Uscreen makes it easy to get set up. You get access to powerful website themes that are fully brandable with no coding skills required. Uscreen is the platform for building a video membership site that is great for generating a sustainable income stream for professional creators. To try Uscreen, click the link in the description and let them know that Jay sent you.
If I was just listening to this conversation so far, the takeaway might be, "Hey, try a bunch of stuff." But that's not quite an accurate answer, I don't think. It sounds like, yes, you want to try a bunch of stuff, but within a certain lane or window. Can you talk about that? That's right. You don't want to have too much variety in your variety show, otherwise, like, people don't really know, like, what you really stand for. So if you haven't figured out your niche yet, I think the first thing to do before you get into varying formats is ask your audience. Like, really think about, like, what are the three to four things that you have expertise about? And there's so many great polling features on, like, social media platforms today. And if you don't have a YouTube channel and don't have access to the community tab, use your LinkedIn, use your Twitter, use your Instagram poll. You know, even if it's friends and family, it's okay. This is what I used to do on my LinkedIn. I would every six to seven months when I worked in Instagram and YouTube, I was trying to figure out what do I talk about. I would put up a poll that says, "Hey guys, what would you like me to make content about?" And then, by the way, it like makes people more interested in the output if you bring them along the journey. And as your audience grows, I think every ten thousand or twenty thousand followers, and if you start hitting a threshold of like a hundred thousand, you could really bump that up. You should ask them again. And I like, if you, you follow me on Instagram and YouTube, I ask people so many questions. "Do you like this thumbnail? I'm thinking about making this video. Here are the people I'm trying to interview. Here are the titles." I ask so many questions to my audience because, you know, I don't have all the answers. And, uh, I think those answers like come together. Okay, so before we can build our variety show, we need to know, who is my audience? What is the general, like, topic of conversation that I'm having with them that I have expertise or at least earned insight to kind of talk about? Like, literally, I think about it as a Venn diagram. Like, you have expertise, the audience has something that they want to know about. What's in the middle, right? And the only way to really know that is that, yes, you could post a ton of content and see what performs well. That's going to take a lot of time. Why not just pull them? Ask them. And so many people get in their heads about, like, "What works best? Should I talk about NFTs and cryptocurrency?" Like, when that was taking off. "Should I talk about the creator economy and insert buzzword here?" Like, don't overcomplicate it. Just think about things that you know about, ask your audience, and then make content around the one or two things that gets the highest votes.
Yeah, and there's probably a period of experimentation here as well because we're all dynamic, multi-dimensional people. There's probably a couple or several things that you could feasibly, theoretically talk about. So you could experiment in the beginning a little bit with the topic, with the niche, to see what feels best for you, what people like. But you probably want to do that with the goal of narrowing in on one sort of lane and, as to use your language, marrying that niche so you can start varying the formats. Exactly. And this is where I also, I, I have a hot take that a lot of people think that social media is a young person's game. I disagree. I think that age is a huge advantage. I did an interview with Jordan Matter, who is the oldest YouTuber at 56 years old with over 10 million subscribers. I asked him this question. I was like, "Dude, like, how do you feel like you're, you know, you're so experienced and seasoned, let's use that word, uh, in a world where, like, a ton of people are like teenagers coming up?" And he's like, "You know, I had a career before YouTube. I had experience. I had expertise. And all I had to do was," and that's a big "all I had to do," but I had to figure out a way to make it entertaining. So I think if you're listening or watching this and you're trying to figure out, "What should I even talk about?" You probably have a ton of experience. Now you just have to make it a fit what people want, which you can poll them about, or B, like making it entertaining, which, you know, is half the battle versus trying to pick up a skillset, which I think a lot of people may not have when they're talking.
Yes, yes. I completely agree with this. I could not be nodding my head more vigorously right now. We've bought a couple houses now, my wife and I, and every time we want to do some sort of DIY project, we go on YouTube and find someone who's done this. And we are always clicking on the videos of the most dad-like figures. There's one guy who taught me how to skim coat, and he was like wearing a kilt the whole time, and it was like the most adorable, uh, lo-fi video that had hundreds of thousands of views because people are trying to learn this, and they're learning it from people that they trust to know it. You know, I see examples like this all the time. We think about, uh, people like Andrew Huberman, who is seemingly blown up overnight, you know, quote unquote, blown up, uh, overnight. But why is that possible? Because because he had decades of very specific experience learning something at the highest level before he started creating content. That's the key to his overnight success is like, decades of unique, earned insight. And if I could go a step further, I'm actually making a video about this. A lot of people like to talk about the Mr. Beastification of YouTube. I think one thing that a lot of people are missing is that Dr. Micahification of YouTube. He's one of the first people who, like, went from the field of medicine, started making YouTube videos about his profession, and started taking off. I predict that there will be many more professionals who start YouTube channels and will figure it out. And we're already seeing that. LegalEagle is a lawyer who has a channel with millions of subscribers talking about law. Dental Digest is a dentist talking about, you know, the different, like, things that you should think about as a dentist, but also oral hygiene, and he has millions of followers. This is a big reason why I left my job at YouTube and Instagram. I'm like, "Why hasn't there been somebody who has worked on the inside who can talk about this stuff on the outside with so much creator education going on?" So I think if you're listening to this and you have a job and you're like, "You know, like, how do I fit into this whole world and game of YouTube?" Uh, the time is now in terms of just professionalism being valued more than ever. And we could talk about brand deals and how that translates as well to, like, negotiations and building a team, which just, yeah, anyways, I don't want to get ahead of myself. But yeah, the "Doctor Micahification of YouTube," coining that term, I think it's something that everyone should keep an eye out on.
I want to talk a little bit about packaging. How do you approach packaging? When do you think about packaging? Take me into your process. So I think there's two types of packaging processes that we go through: one for interviews and two for explainers, which are solo videos where I'm talking. The ones for the solo videos are much clearer because I like to think about, "Okay, what is the visual?" I really try to think visual first. And I have this entire, like, just I like to call this my thumbnail Hall of Fame, where like I just have all these thumbnails that I look through where I'm like, "Okay, what are thumbnails that I've come across on YouTube that I've clicked on but did not know this creator at first?" Because there's something really powerful happening there where I am so intrigued by the visual, the packaging, um, that I want to click on it, even though I don't have a relationship or know who that creator is. Right. Dude, that's so powerful. I am literally going to create a thumbnail Hall of Fame after this video. And I'm happy to share mine if anybody wants it. I could DM. Um, we're actually making it part of, like, our newsletter. If you go to created.news, it's something that will give, like, people, like, as, like, part of, like, signing up. I just add to it all the time and starting to like categorize, like, "What are the different, like, here's one that's really good for explainers, here's ones that's really good for interviews." So I start off by just going through there and like saying, "What's like a visual that really could make me want to click and also speaks to, like, like an idea that I have?" So this is where I also have like my notepad of titles and headlines. For me, I'm really trying to put out a series of "Ex-YouTube Employee Explains Something About Like Being a Creator Today That Could Help Them." So the one that really took off, I think it has 600,000 views, it's just me explaining like seven tips of of how to really take advantage of the algorithm today. The next one we're working on is like "Ex-YouTube Employee Explains How to Be Confident on Camera." And I know a ton of people have done a video like that, but one, I feel like there's a lot of tips that haven't been put out, which I'm surprised by. And two, I feel like the way that the thumbnail can be packaged and the editing, um, is my, is it can be like done differently. And so I was like, just looking at different things like in this, like thumbnail Hall of Fame of like, "Okay, like, if I want to, like, you know, talk about, you know, a way to just improve your, um, let me see, like, here I thought this was a really interesting thumbnail where it's like, okay, somebody's like taking a photo or like taking a video and like money is coming out." Now, this is not about like speaking confidently on camera, which like I like. It shows you the adaptation process. This is somebody like, like a camera is like money is going out. So it's more about monetization. But can you do something with, like, the person's face or the camera in front of them and like, you know, like volume, like waves going out or something like that that can speak to the, "Speak Confidently on Camera,", uh, type of a visual that I'm looking for. So anyway, so it's like, when I think about packaging for that one, like area of explainers and solo videos, it's really starting the process with looking at my notepad of ideas and titles and then looking at my notepad of Hall of Fame thumbnails and just seeing if there's something there that I could adapt and literally have a clear vision of what it looks like to then, um, we, we have, we have a couple designers on the thumbnail side that I can then brief them.
So are you saying that in the in the solo video side of things, are you going visual to idea to filming? Are you going idea to visual to filming? It depends, but a lot of times visual to idea to filming. Interesting. Which I know is is a little bit unorthodox because I, I like to think about it like this: a thumbnail, um, is like really, um, just like a movie poster from a director you haven't heard of. If you're a creator that's just starting out, and you have to make that movie poster really compelling. Which, by the way, also, Jay, this, like, thumbnail Hall of Fame that I have, like, it's not just thumbnails, it's like movie posters that I come across. I'm like, "Whoa, that composition of what's going on there and the coloring, that's fascinating. Let me see if I can adapt it to YouTube." And, and it's not to say this is like a set, like process every time, like visual versus, uh, like then idea, then filming. Somebody that feels so passionate about the idea that I'm like, "I'm gonna find a way to make it work." But I've always found it's, for better or worse, just harder to make the video and then think about visuals versus the other way around. When you go from finding like a composition that you like to making a video around it, you're probably not coming up with a ton of different thumbnails for that video. You're probably starting with a thumbnail and having it pretty dialed in and then building a video that pays that off.
Yes and no. I think like the concept is pretty close to it. Another example I could give is for that "Ex-YouTube Employee Explains or Exposes Seven Ways to Hack the Algorithm," I think is the most recent title of that video on my channel. The initial concept was, I remember when I was working at YouTube, we did this shoot with Casey Neistat for Rewind, and he was basically pulling the Rewind, like, button. It was like this Rewind button that just was on the red YouTube logo, and they're pulling it out of his, like, um, jacket. And I was like, "Oh, that's really interesting. If I make a video like this, I could be pulling out like a manila envelope of like secrets from my jacket." And like, I got a red hoodie and everything like that. But we made very variations on that because I was like, "Okay, what's the background?" Right? So if you look at it right now, I think it's our green branded coloring with a YouTube logo with me in front of it. But the variation that we tried out for this, and I put this on my Instagram, and we just got feedback before we got to this version, was a graph going upward. So there's still ways that you could change a central visual. And there's other things like, I'm embarrassed to say, like how many photos we took for that one shot to like land like a facial expression like that, where there's other versions that were more extreme or subtle. So even though the composition and the idea is there, we still tested different variations around it.
You've talked a couple times about a series that you're creating. You know, you have the "Ex-YouTube Employee Explains X." Tell me more about what a series is in your mind and why you prioritize series versus like totally distinct long-form videos. It gives somebody something to look forward to. And I think people like think about series as these overblown things. But I remember when I was at YouTube, I had a chance to visit the studios and sets of a lot of different creators. And the Fine Brothers really stood out to me when they said this one thing. The Fine Brothers, if people aren't familiar with them, they're one of the first people to put react content. Like they had channels that got, I think, over 20 million subscribers. It was like Elders React, Teens React, just them watching stuff, giving a reaction. And they had a lot of other formats beyond that. And they said this thing, which was, "If we can't film three episodes in one day, we won't do it." And I'm like, "What? Like, you, you guys could do anything you want. You have such a big channel." Like, you, like, uh, at that time, they were one of the top channels at, uh, on YouTube. And, and I still think they're one of the most knowledgeable. The reason why it's because, you know, you need to have a series. You need to, like, plan it out, like have an upload schedule, build a habit with your viewers, and then give them something to look forward to. And then even, I just did an interview with Smosh. You know, they're just like bought their channel back, and they're one of the first, like, big creators. And, and they talked about how a lot of their formats, like, you know, uh, are just serialized because it helps their production cycle. And now that they're hiring and building their team, it allows them to slot talent into those different things and understand what it is, but also make tweaks. So, uh, you know, for my stuff, it just, the short answer is, it makes it more repeatable. And it allows me to understand, uh, like, "Okay, what is the next thing I'm going to slot into this format or at least tweak versus, 'Oh God, I have to start from scratch.'" Right? And so a lot of people listening, they're like, "Oh my God, I have to think of it." But no, no. Again, just go back to what we were talking about, three percent changes. Like, for me, the formats that we're trying out are "Ex-YouTube Employee Explains," "Ex-Instagram Employee Explains." Like, I'm gonna be doing a series where I talk about Instagram tips from the perspective of somebody who worked there. Like, "Yeah, Instagram just launched this, but if you read paragraph three of that press release, what they really mean is this." Or like the on-the-street, you know, creative or celebrity. Or we do like other formats like "Name That Song," where I play a popular song and then I'm like, "Do people actually know who's behind this?" Because I find like my theory is that a lot of, like, TikTok songs go viral, but people don't know the creator artists behind them. So just formats are important because they're repeatable. And that removes the friction from you creating. And the other great thing about having a series is it really de-risks the video in a way. Like, if you have a series that performs well, you have a pretty good reason to believe that the next video in that series will also perform well, which is great.
Yeah, yeah. And then it'll be suggested against each other in the algorithm, and just a lot of benefits. But again, finding that format can take some time, which is why you got to vary format, marry niche. Do you think if I'm starting a channel right now in 2023, I should start with Shorts? Yes. And, and that's, that's for the majority of folks. The caveat is this: if you want to try to become a creator and really do it full-time from the start, you have to have long-form. Like for me, when I left my job, I was like, "You know what? I'm starting a business. You know, I'm trying to hire. I'm trying to figure out, like, what are the formats? Who are the editors I could bring on?" If you're just trying to figure out, like, "Okay, how do I do this on the side with my full-time job?" And how do I de-risk it as much as possible, which is also what I tried to do. Like, I did a few long-form videos when, you know, I was working, like, my day jobs. And I would even take vacation days to try to figure it out. But the majority of my following came from photos, text-based, uh, posts, short-form, even drawing cartoons and putting that out there. Um, I'm so excited because we're, we just soft-launched my newsletter, which is we're putting cartoons out for creators. And each of those cartoons, um, are going to be like with a lesson and Q&A. People ask me, so, so yeah, short answer, short-form if you're trying to figure it out while you have another job. And of course, doing it on your own time, your own equipment, etcetera.
Let me double-click on the statement you said, which was, "If you want to do this full-time to support you, you need to do long-form." Unpack that for me. Why is that true? Long-form, if you think about it from a brand perspective, is the way that, like, you could drive value and conversion for them. And also, just the way AdSense works, and mid-rolls and post-rolls and pre-rolls, those are all things that work much more, the much more lucrative on long-form than short-form. Though short-form is a great way to start and revenue and and everything that YouTube has launched recently and these creator funds help with that. Let's talk then about bridging Shorts to long-form. How do we leverage the success we find in Shorts by doing our own variety show and turn that into long-form? How do we get people over there? Hey, real quick, before they respond, I want to let you know that there are bonus audio-only episodes of Creator Science air every Tuesday when we don't publish a video. Episodes like number 156, where I talk with my editor Connor about our first year on YouTube, or number 37 with Ollie Abdall. If that's interesting, just search for Creator Science wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, back to the show.
One is again, marrying your niche and really making sure that what you're talking about in short is equivalent to long-form. If I'm talking about, you know, I'm trying to make creator education shorts, I'm going to keep that consistent with long-form and make it creator education. I won't be talking about, like, real estate and mansion tours, like, on Shorts and all of a sudden, like, doing a creator interview. Like, there's not a relationship there that I think will cause people to go over. Two is just to know that, like, right now, like, it's gonna be, it's gonna continue getting better. There's a tweet that I always reference when, like, people ask me this question about, like, "Yeah, what's the relationship between Shorts and long-form? It seems like they're two separate algorithms. Uh, should I start different channels?" Like, all this stuff. And I'm like, "Guys, it is in the best business interest." And, and having worked inside these, like, company companies and, and seeing the way they launch new features, at the end of the day, you want to make it as easy as possible for the creator to have all the different formats on their channel and for that to be connected between a community post, a live, a short-form, a long-form. And you see that with what YouTube is doing. So, so two is, like, I have faith that the platform is going to be making this connection even stronger as you put out content. And then three is, how can you have segments within your long-form that can be short-form? And I'm not talking about just like something where it's like, uh, "Okay, we we did an interview and let's find that best short-form clip." Because that's something you should be doing. And there's a lot of great tools to do that. I actually just signed on to become the creator ambassador of this company called Opus Clip. They're fantastic. You put in a link, it basically identifies like all these different things that all these different moments from the interview, gives you the title, the description. And I think it's one of the best use cases for AI for creators. So you should be doing that anyways because if you don't, like, people could be like clipping your content, or you're basically not getting as much value as you could. But the thing I'm talking about is segments in your long-form. Is how can you deliberately plant a short-form in your long-form? Here's an example. When I was doing these interviews, I was like, "There's such a moment," and maybe Jay, you've seen this as well, where people talk about their income, how they make money as a creator. And I was like, "You know what? That's a segment." And I created this segment called "Draw Your Income." Where again, thinking very visually, I'd have a dry-erase board wheeled out, we'd have a circle, and I just give him a pen and markers, like, very kindergarten style, and be like, "Just draw your income. Take me through the different slices of the pie of how you make money." And the intention of that was like, create a segment in the show that people can look forward to, but also turn that into a very, very digestible short that can then lead to the long-form. And so we've seen those that perform really well because it's a deliberate segment that we planned in long-form, but also intended for short-form.
Yeah, we're thinking about this on the channel right now. Something that we are, our way of doing this, because we do remote interviews, there's a certain set of constraints here that we can't do super, super well. But if we're able to get better with graphics and animation and illustrate what somebody is saying, that is something that can be repurposed really effectively. And not even just for short-form on YouTube, uh, and not even just for short-form on TikTok or Reels, but you can even clip that out and have that be something that's interesting for LinkedIn, Twitter. It's such a magical time to take video clips and put them anywhere because even LinkedIn and Twitter right now is prioritizing video content.
100%. Something I think that people have a little bit wrong when it comes to YouTube connecting Shorts to long-form. People seem to think it's a, a YouTube problem that these things aren't connected better. But what seems to be my experience is it's just different viewer behavior. Like, people who like short-form content don't always want to watch long-form content. And it's not that YouTube isn't making the connection to Shorts viewers saying, "Hey, this person has a long-form." Also, it's just viewer behavior that if I like short-form videos, that might just be where I'm spending my video watching time. What do you think about that? I think, yeah, it's, uh, the, the people have different consumption behavior. But I think if you find a creator you really like, Shorts is the beginning of the conversation, and long-form is where you go deeper with them. So I think people's behaviors can change depending on who the creator is.
All right, man. Last question. I love asking people this question. What is something you have a hunch about or you believe to be true when it comes to, we'll say, creating on YouTube, but you don't yet have data to support that? YouTube can benefit from more people who have had jobs coming into the creator world. And what I mean by that is, there's so many ways to monetize today. You know, I find that the way we pitch brands, like we were able to secure our first few brand deals before we had anywhere close to 100,000 subscribers. And now we try to like pre-sell and, and just try to like warm all these relationships with brands. And I think a lot of that comes from my experience of working on the inside, knowing how to put a deck together, knowing what a marketing manager is looking for, knowing how to like balance a relationship and really like put that, um, above everything. So again, I just go back to it. And I think if people are watching and thinking, "Man, it's, it's hard for me to leave a job that I've had for the past 10 years." Um, that job that you've had for the past 10 years, maybe is your unique advantage. And everybody's in their own situation. But if you find a way to de-risk it and it makes sense, like I went for it, uh, about a year, two years ago. And my wife is my business partner now. And we've been able to build this business as a creator before our first, you know, firstborn came, like, just the other month. And that was like the motivation that we needed. And I know people are different times of their lives. But I really think that if you're older and you've had experience, it's not a bad thing. And in fact, that actually could be a really good thing that could propel your career.
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