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What I learned from creating YouTube videos in the last 2 weeks:

Why YouTube: 

  1. I’ve been getting a lot of inbound from founders and CMOs who want to launch YouTube for B2B. 
  2. Everyone is listening to the same podcasts on how Mr. Beast grew his audience. 
  3. I think LinkedIn is becoming more saturated and I’m wondering whether video is a better fit. 

How YouTube works (in theory): 

YouTube exists to solve two problems:

  • I’m bored 
  • I need a specific answer to a problem. 

And this is exactly how YouTube designs its algorithm: 

  • Discovery = I’m bored 
  • Search = I need an answer to a problem

YouTube evaluates each video’s: Title, Thumbnail, and Watch Time 

To determine whether it solves for discovery and search: 

  1. YouTube tests your videos on the homepage. If people click through and watch (and don’t bounce), YouTube will push the video more. This is often what leads to virality. 
  2. People are searching for a specific phrase. YouTube indexes your Title, Description, (possibly transcript) to understand search intent. 
  3. Recommended content: If people watch your videos and subscribe, they will discover more of your videos. I also think there’s some sort of graphical clustering / lookalike audience that’s happening as well. 

Algo takeaways:

  1. The first 3 seconds really really matter 
  2. Title + Thumbnail = promise 
  3. Watch time = delivery
  4. Value = Promise + Delivery
  5. Not really worried about the niche 

My personal learnings from recording videos: 

  1. At first, I tried to wing a bunch of my videos and edit on Descript. Now I think the key is actually to write a script of what you’re going to say. It can be bullet points, but having no clear direction meant a lot of rambling. 
  2. I spent too much time obsessing over aesthetic elements like video quality, natural lighting, and camera angles. I spent a lot of time looking at the S-curves of “successful” YouTubers. It seems like production quality really doesn’t matter as much as the quality of the ideas themselves. Only when they had a “viral moment” did they start to invest in improvements to video.
  3. Audio quality, however, does matter. It makes a big difference when your audio is lossy and echo-ey, because it becomes hard to understand the content. I think this is different from video, because even with lower video production value, you can still follow along the ideas. 
  4. I love public speaking and have given impromptu speeches in settings like Toastmasters. But  speaking into a camera felt very awkward, and it was a way different experience, because you don’t have any visual feedback on what you’re talking about. It’s also hard to imagine an audience vs seeing one in front of you.
  5. “Kickstarting” YouTube from another source like LinkedIn worked well for me. And it was a useful way to also understand my conversion rate from a previous LinkedIn post. 

Next: 

  • Write first and then record (test on LinkedIn / newsletter to evaluate traction) 
  • Cut out as much fluff as possible and get straight to the point 
    • Potentially do more research in the area I’m exploring
  • Try my best to ignore production quality and focus on the ideas 
  • Consistency + improvement 
  • Setting boundaries on what I won’t be doing 

Helpful videos: 

What I learned from creating YouTube videos in the last 2 weeks: