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I have wanted to launch my Youtube channel for years, but there are so many intimidating factors about moving to video—that’s why I’ve brought on my dear friend LaShonda Brown to discuss all things Youtube! Listen in as she highlights best practices that we should consider when sharing to Youtube as a creative educator.

From Agency Owner to Youtube Creator

When LaShonda was a senior in college, she started her video production company with her husband. While there was once a dream of being wedding filmmakers, LaShonda quickly realized she didn’t love weddings. They very quickly switched to corporate video without realizing that this was the launch of their career.

LaShonda found herself wanting to do something else, yet she didn’t know how to get a new job as an entrepreneur. She had built a Youtube channel on the side teaching tutorials—that’s when she decided to see if she could turn it into more.

Now her Youtube channel has allowed her to build a team of six and coach others on how to use Youtube to make money. If you’re thinking that you have to stay in the space you initially started out in as an entrepreneur, you can make a pivot.

Why Does Youtube Work?

If you’ve been under the assumption or opinion that Youtube is hard, LaShonda has a hot take for us. She thinks in comparison to Instagram, Youtube is cake. Youtube continues to stand the test of time versus Instagram who is constantly changing and making it hard to succeed even after you’ve found success at one point.

The pace of Youtube is so much more aligned with how LaShonda teaches. Consider how you want to connect with your audience and which platform allows you to do that. For LaShonda, she doesn’t want to try teaching in 60 seconds, instead she wants to educate the right way through a full tutorial.

Even if you’re thinking that you looked into Youtube years ago and it wasn’t for you, so many things have changed with the integration of Youtube Shorts, live-streaming, and more! There are a lot more low lift options that will allow you to grow beyond your long-form video content.

Youtube content doesn’t have to be a feature film—people simply want answers.

Differentiating Yourself on Youtube

When you get on Youtube, you have the option to show up however you want. Over time, LaShonda has found that the easiest way for her to show up as the educator she wants to be on Youtube is through treating her videos like an answer to someone’s question—which I think so many of us educators can take to heart.

This changes the way she shows up on Youtube, because she’s not trying to imagine her ideal viewer, she’s simply talking to the person who needs the answer and posting it to Youtube. This is similar to our snack-sized episodes every other week on the podcast.

This also allows you to connect with new people who are searching for the same answer and they find your video. That’s how your audience grows.

Best Practices for Youtube

As a complete newbie to Youtube, I can prepared with all the questions regarding best practices for Youtube, so let’s get into those.

Posting Frequency for Growing on Youtube

LaShonda advices that you post at least twice a month in order to grow on Youtube, but weekly is a more sustainable cadence that she would encourage you to work to. LaShonda goes live every week as if she’s doing open office hours for her community that gives her content on Youtube, but also is a way to serve her audience publicly and one-on-one from the comments.

Another approach includes charging a separate coaching call rate for publicly posting the (edited) content on Youtube so others can learn from the call, but it also allows the audience to see your coaching technique.

Editing & Length of Youtube Videos

Every audience will determine different expectations for what you should do on Youtube in regards to length and editing—your style of content will also impact this.

For LaShonda, she gives her live streams a one-hour block. For her prerecorded and produced content, it’s about 5-10 minutes long. In order to monetize with mid-roll ads, your video needs to be at least 8 minutes long, allowing you to get two ad spots in your content without having the viewer watch the full video.

A content hack that LaShonda highlights about creating Youtube content compared to other content is to break it down. For example, imagine writing a blog post with 4 ways to grow on Youtube. Instead of doing a video on that topic, instead create 4 separate videos showing one way in each video. Treat it like a course module and add them to a playlist.

Determining Paid Content vs. Free Youtube Content

Youtube is a passive income engine, but you should treat Youtube as a funnel to your paid offers. So what do you paywall versus what do you publish? Use the content, but publish just enough to give people a taste of what you’re going to teach in your paid offerings and make the CTA that offering. You can even offer a discount in the description.

It’s more helpful to business owners if your Youtube audience matches your paid audience. If you’re selling workshops or a membership, you should be talking to that audience on Youtube so that they get to see you as an educator and want to pay you for more.

Attracting New Leads from Youtube When Getting Started

You have to treat your Youtube content like you would a blog post and know that it needs to be optimized for search. Similarly to how you would use Yoast to measure that effort, the Youtube version of that is Tubebuddy.

You don’t have to have a ton of subscribers to get views—if you actually optimize your content, you will show up in Google searches in the video section. This means you’ll improve your Google SEO by posting to Youtube.

What Metrics to Measure for Youtube Channels

In order to determine what metrics work for you, you have to decide why you’re using Youtube. You can’t look at it the same way you would Instagram. Imagine only getting 15 views on a Reel, that’s not a great performance. Yet, LaShonda has live streamed with 15 people watching and had two convert into paying members. The value of a Youtube viewer is totally different than Instagram.

Youtube isn’t just about the views or subs, it’s about your overarching goal, which could be growing your email list or converting them to paying customers.

Niching Down to Specific Topics

When it comes to creating content for Youtube, it’s important to really hone in on who you’re talking to and what they’re on your channel for. If you stray from those topics, it could create confusion for why people originally started watching you.

For example, LaShonda recently went to Tabitha Brown’s book tour; if she had created Youtube content around that, the video could have done really well because of the reach that Tabitha has. However, LaShonda’s Youtube channel is about tech tools, so if people subscribed on that Tabitha Brown video, then saw her new content wasn’t about Tabitha or pop culture, its going to disappoint them. This kind of strategy for growth can actually do more harm than good.

You can use that content on other channels no problem, but the views you’ll get on Youtube are not going to help your overall goal.

Should Podcast Content Go On Youtube?

Youtube is a search engine that is great for discoverability to lead people back to your podcast. However, your Youtube audience isn’t going to match your podcast audience in how they consume content. LaShonda doesn’t think you should simply drop an exact video version of the podcast—instead give the best 5 minutes of the podcast or a snippet of the show with a CTA driving them to the channels where they can listen to the full episode.

Your Youtube content should include something they can’t get anywhere else, otherwise it doesn’t justify it being there. Bring something different to the table through shortened or extended versions, adding b-roll, including exclusive content, etc.

Unpopular Opinion

LaShonda doesn’t think you need to spend a lot of money starting your Youtube channel. People underestimate the power of quality content. If your audience can see you clearly and hear you well, that’s what they want. You don’t have to have the best of the best gear for content.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Tubebuddy

VidIQ

Connect with LaShonda

Website: lashondabrown.com

Youtube: Bootstrap Biz Advice

Instagram: @lashondambrown

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