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- [00:01]
A
Over 3000 marketers are gathering in Anaheim this April for Social media Marketing World 2026. They're not coming because it's trendy. They're coming because it works. Martha Cromer told us quote I've been to conferences where I've only heard things I already knew. I learned so many new concepts at Social Media Marketing World, I definitely got my money's worth. Unquote. Year after year, marketers credit Social Media Marketing World with career advancements, business breakthroughs and and strategies their competitors haven't yet discovered. Maddie Young shared quote this year was my first time at Social Media Marketing World. It exceeded every expectation I had. The value of the sessions and networking experiences cannot be overstated. Unquote. While you're deciding whether to attend, thousands of marketers have already secured their spots. Get your tickets now@social mediamarketingworld.info that social media marketing world.info.
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B
Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now here is your host, Michael Stelzner.
- [01:13]
A
Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner and this is the podcast for marketers and entrepreneurs who want more exposure to more leads and more sales. Today, Jerry Potter and I are exploring important updates from YouTube with our special guest, Liron Sigeb. Take it away Jerry.
- [01:35]
B
Thanks Mike. Great to be here. Some important YouTube changes to discuss today including more than a million channels are now using YouTube's built in AI creation tools every single day. So is it time for all of us to be implementing this into our strategies? Also the one type of content with I think the biggest opportunity for organic reach for marketers this year and some exciting new ways to do paid marketing on YouTube rolling out in 2020, 2026 as well. So very excited to have Liron here with us. Liron is a YouTube strategist who helps businesses turn YouTube channels into lead machines. And today Liron, Mike and I are going to discuss exactly what these Latest updates from YouTube mean for small business marketers and owners like you. Liron, welcome to the show.
- [02:15]
C
Thank you for having me. Super excited to be here.
- [02:18]
B
So let's start with AI, which is obviously the big headline for YouTube in the coming year. On average they say over a million channels used YouTube's AI creation tools daily in December and a couple of feature they're launching. One is called Ingredients to video in shorts and in the YouTube Create app where basically you can upload a few different photos and a text prompt and it'll make an 8 second AI video clip. And the other bigger one is sometime in 2026, you're going to be able to create a short using your own likeness on YouTube, all within YouTube without having to use any third party tools. So I guess let's start. Leron, are we at the point where it's worth it for marketers to be investing more of their time in generating video clips with AI? Because there obviously is a cost of time to doing that.
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C
Yeah. I'm going to be a little kind of out there and say that the juice isn't worth the squeeze, if that makes sense.
- [03:10]
B
Okay.
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C
We have like these 8 second clips and I'm finding a lot of businesses are kind of leaning on this as a bit of a crutch. Right. You know, with AI as just another tool, it's not going to help you say something if you've got nothing really to say. So these clips are really cool, very exciting. It's all new. Marketers are really jumping in on this because as we know, whenever YouTube launches something, YouTube wants everybody to use it. And to get onto it, you got to think from a business point of view, how much value can you really deliver in those little 8 second clips? So I'm kind of seeing a lot of businesses are trying it, they're learning, they're experimenting, absolutely, all for that. Have we seen any really effective strategies coming out currently? It's just not there at this stage. Yeah.
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A
Liron, I got a question for you. Obviously YouTube is owned by Google and Google has an incredible VO3 video model that has been trained obviously on all the YouTube information that's out there. Do you have a sense as to what this feature is? Is it taking advantage of that in any kind of way? Because it's getting so good that people are using them, commercials and all this kind of stuff. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that.
- [04:30]
C
Yeah. So I think there's a couple of things we've got to remember. Let's start with the video production as a whole. It sounds like you can go into the app and simply just all the demos show it. You put in, hey, make me flying like a bird through New York and by magic, it's just perfect. The reality is, if you've actually spent some time doing that, is that you're going to do multiple, multiple iterations before it does what you want. You're going to have to then stitch a whole bunch of clips together because some bits are right and Then you tell it to do something and it overcorrects. And what was working is no longer working. You've got to jump between really detailed prompts to really hit what you want. So we have like Gemini on the one side with VO3. Then there's a system called Google Flow, which allows you to do deeper and more integrated stuff. But nothing is like magic as we're seeing on good old Twitter. Or X. I'm never going to call it X. Like whatever we've seen out there is that it is. I simply sit at the coffee shop and type a prompt and now I've got a commercial grade ready. The reality is that it isn't there. Now, to be very clear, we are very close. We're getting better and better and this thing is training at insane speeds. If you remember just a little while ago, it was still drawing people with seven fingers and two arms coming out of the. It's changed so much so quickly. We're just not there yet to be three lines. And by magic, you've got this commercial. You can fly to the Super Bowl. We're just not there yet. Are we going to get there? Absolutely.
- [06:07]
B
So is that the holdup right now, the bottleneck where you feel like it's not worth it yet for us to be diving into that, simply because by the time you got something usable, you could have filmed it yourself? If it was something that was filmable.
- [06:18]
C
Yeah, it's close to that. I think that the idea is that I'm doing my video and now, oh, man, I wish I would have got that drone shot or I wish I would have had this one scene, or I know I want the scene, but it's too expensive to produce. I just don't have the budget. Could I use AI just to kind of fill in those gaps? Absolutely. That's a great use case for that. And we are definitely seeing a lot of that. What we're not seeing is the way that it's being presented as an A to Z. Just type in a prompt and the entire thing just magically happens. We're really close, though. And to your point about using your own likeness that you mentioned earlier, I saw a preview of this when I was at the Made on YouTube event last year and it's really fun. It's one of those, like, I look at it as a TikTok filter kind of vibe where it's got the creator and all of a sudden they're doing some break dancing moves or they're doing, you know, some karate, martial art kind of thing. Which looks really cool. Is there a business use for that? I'm kind of not sure yet, but I think that's the preview. That's the idea of us being able to not have to be in front of the camera, not have to sit down to record a video. Will we get to that point where we can just really focus on that ideation? Because that's going to be the most important thing. Yeah, that's going to be magical. A lot of creators are really worried that it's going to take over their job. Right? Yeah, this is going to replace me. I am looking forward to that time where I can really focus on delivering a really great idea, be on a plane, hash out this great script, and then send it to my AI system and it's going to just produce great content for me. I don't have to be the bottleneck anymore. That's going to be exacting.
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B
This brings up a great point, though, for a lot of us as marketers. You know, we keep hearing about how trust has eroded with a. What do you see? What do you believe? You know, we used to say pics or it didn't happen, then it was video or it didn't happen. And now we're entering this phase where, all right, you got video, But I still don't believe it happened. At what point do we lose trust if we start using, like the likeness ones, for example? Because for me, I'm still struggling with this because on one hand it's like, okay, let's say I've got a lot of value to deliver, but I can't make all of these videos. I can't make enough videos for all the things that are spiraling out of my brain, for example. So are we hitting a point, do you think, where the audience would rather have the value, even if it was an AI generated likeness video, or not have the value at all? Because the person who's. And let's not lay me as an example, but you know, some amazing thought leader, you want to hear every single thing in their head, but they can't be on live streaming or recording videos all day. So do you think we're approaching the point where the audience is going to become more accepting of AI likeness videos?
- [09:09]
C
Yeah, I think so. And by the way, I think we already have encountered AI creators. We just haven't realized it. I mean, I know loads of accounts which has got so many comments, and this is a. The one I can think of. I can't think of the account name, but the woman gives life advice. She's unofficial. It's created and it says so in the bio. And yet the comments are. This is great. I really needed to hear this today. Is. This is changing the way I'm looking. I'm looking at my entire week. People are adapting really, really quickly. At the end of the day, it's useful versus useless. Right? We have this term AI slot, which everybody likes to throw around, that from a business point of view, when people are using AI just to get stuff out there, because we've got to post 20 times a day or else we're not going to remain relevant. And we got all that attitude. It basically, it's a tick box, right? Oh, I can now use AI to create an account. Put that little tick that I've done my job. That's a crutch. You're leaning on this tool just to get stuff out there for the sake of it. And yes, that is the AI slop that we really worried about. Every platform is really worried about that. But that's not a good strategy going forward. When it comes to do. I want to hear what you have to say. My favorite example is if I have a leaking toilet and I find a video that can help me fix my leaking toilet, do I really care what the light is like? Whether the person has makeup on? What are they? No, I don't care about any of that. I just need help. We all watch content with a simple thing. We call it the wifim rule. What's in it for me? That's how we watch content. I need to get something. I have a problem. I am researching something. That's the attitude we watch content with. In which case, if it's a graphic that can give me the solution, if it's a person that can give me the solution, or if it's an AI avatar that can give me that solution, do I care? I've been helped. I'm happy with that solution.
- [11:08]
A
Yeah, I think you're onto something here. And for folks that are listening to this, know that I have another show called AI Explored, and there's a lot of guests that I've recently interviewed that are teaching people how to create AI avatars or AI clones of themselves. And there's some real applications here. For example, let's say that you are a writer, okay? But you don't feel comfortable in front of the camera. If you can actually train a model that looks like you and sounds like you, you can actually now create that one piece of content into a new medium, which can kind of be a game changer, right? Because now all of a sudden you can create a video podcast or an audio podcast. There's lots of people that do not feel comfortable, as comfortable as Jerry just sitting in front of the microphone and like sounding perfect every time. Right. Like I'm one of them. Right. And there's also people that are, you know, maybe they're the owner of a business and they don't have time to create all these videos, but they know they need to create videos. This is where actually it could be really, really valuable. And I think it just opens up creative floodgates for people to look for new means and mediums. I'm curious what you think about that.
- [12:15]
C
Liron 100%. We see this often. The two things I'm seeing a lot of the times when I go and help a business with their AI automation system. I've been doing this for 10 plus years with this YouTube thing. And it's a big ask to go to a CEO of a company who is the face of the company and say, hey, I know you're busy running your multimillion dollar industry here. I kind of need you for four hours every week to film video. That is a massive ask. Right. So over the time, I had to create systems and processes that could get them into a studio. 30 minutes, we can knock out four videos. That's a month worth of content. I had to do that because they, guess what, as a business owner, you're running a business, you don't want a job as a content creator, but you know, it's got to be done right. So you have to have processes and systems in place to help you do that. Fast forward now to the world of AI. Well, now we can do that. Now we can get AI to automatically go through your sales calls, go through your marketing, go through your existing workshops, your training videos, automatically pull out what's in your brain and create that content for you. And you just have to have the approval side and you carry on running your business. Which is what you want to be doing in the first place. Absolutely.
- [13:35]
B
Oh, I love this Leron, because when I used to work at an agency, getting content from our clients was so hard. We had some restaurant chains that had these charismatic chefs that we had one that had been on the Today show like they should have been on TV all the time. And now I'm thinking, like, if you could have had them make a video describing the specials every week, that could go right out as a reel with overlays of the food and things like that, so much better than, you know, somebody at an agency going, tonight's special is drizzled with whatever sauce or, you know, whatever it might be.
- [14:04]
C
Well, Jerry, from a user point of view, you know, if they could get a message on their phone and it's a message from their favorite chef saying, hey, Jerry and Michael, we've got a table for you tonight because we know you love your linguini. I've got one set aside specifically for you. Guess what you're going to be doing tonight. You guys are dining out.
- [14:22]
B
Yes. Yeah. And you did mention AI slop a few minutes ago. YouTube also came out and said they really want to reduce the spread of low quality AI content. Because I know anybody in content marketing is thinking, okay, now there's just going to be even more of this AI slop out there. And so officially they said, we're building on our established systems that have been very successful in combating spam and clickbait to reduce the spread of, quote, low quality, repetitive content. Is that something just real quick, you think they'll be able to pull off Leron?
- [14:50]
C
Definitely. I mean, YouTube has a history and they understand data really well. Remember, AI didn't start when chat GTP just became a thing that everybody could use. YouTube has been using AI and neural networks for years and years beforehand because they've got those massive amounts of data worldwide and they've got to abide by terms of service. They've got to have good, healthy content. They've got all of that. So they understand what they're really cracking down on are those faceless channels, motivation of the day, and they produce a thousand videos in 48 hours and they're starting to close that tap. You're not going to be able to monetize those channels anymore. And you take away the monetization incentive. A lot of that slop actually will start to filter itself out. But YouTube is really, really good at understanding that. Do they have problems with content ID and falsely flagging channels? Absolutely. I'm not saying it's perfect, but are they armed and ready to be able to tackle this problem? I think that probably one of the better ones who actually are, just because they've been doing it for so long with Rydia. That's been their specialty from day one.
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B
Yeah.
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C
After they stopped becoming a dating website, of course.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. That's great to know. That's great to hear. Because that was kind of my first thought, was like, okay, well, now how are we going to stand out even more? Another thing that's coming to YouTube is more content formats. We've added so many content formats on YouTube in the last five years with shorts and podcasts and things like that. And now we're going to be able to have image posts directly in the shorts feed, quote making it easier to stay stay connected. So I guess my first thought with this is, do you think a consumer watching shorts will ever stop long enough for an image to have it have an actual marketing impact in the YouTube shorts feed?
- [16:38]
C
This one I don't take a deep breath for because this I. I don't know what they're thinking. I mean, I understand they want to compete with Instagram and compete with Tick Tock on all levels. Like I get it, but why would you post a still image on a platform that's video? Like it makes no sense. The kind of stuff that I could see working is that if the image is powerful enough to make you stop. So it's a pattern interrupt. So you're scrolling mindlessly on the toilet or waiting for the doctor because there's late again. And as you're scrolling through video, video, video, then there's an image that's going to kind of catch you off and you're going to go, Helen, that's weird. Let me see what this is. Businesses that could use this really well is if you do things like an infographic, a meme, data visualization is really powerful because you can get a lot of information out with a single frame. I think if the businesses lean into that as a pattern interrupt, is that a good idea? I would test it for sure. Would I pivot my strategy to create three shorts, one image? Three shorts, one image. I don't know if I would go that way.
- [17:46]
A
I'm curious whether maybe they'll layer music over the top of it so that it could at least entertain someone for a couple of seconds while they're reading like a motivational quote or something like that. Because that's the only way that I can imagine this would be potentially useful. I don't know.
- [18:01]
C
You know, if I would do this, I would do it in a way where I would still upload it as a video. I would upload my infographic and I will have a voiceover explaining the infographic. I could kind of see that working. I don't know if their system, if they're thinking that their system will be upload image, don't worry, we'll take care of everything else. That would be weird. I would upload it as a video and just talk over it, explaining it. That will give people reason to pause. If I start My little short with saying, hey, this is the biggest mistake. Everything's in the graphic. That could be an attention grabber. People might stick around for that.
- [18:39]
A
Is this thing live yet, guys? Or is this coming soon or what's.
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B
They'Ve said in 2026? We don't have specific details, so I imagine that it may be out there for some people. I'll be honest, I find that scrolling short form videos truly is doom scrolling for me. So I don't do it a whole lot, so I haven't seen it yet. But I'll say one thing I would love to see is if they incorporated carousels like we have on Instagram and LinkedIn, that would do really well. And I don't know if you guys ever saw this or remember this, but once upon a time There was an iOS app, it was just on iPhones and it would basically take your carousels and it would animate the first slide and so that it automatically wiggled over and showed part of the second slide. So as you would scroll through the feed vertically on Instagram, it would wiggle to the left and basically signal that it was a carousel. Back before people really understood carousels. And so I think that could be really effective. You could still do it your own video editing software. It was just more work. So in a vertical feed, like you said, you know, when you're talking about a pattern interrupt, because all of a sudden there's no motion or there's silence. You know, you brought up the music mic that I could see working really well. When all of a sudden there's a left and right pattern, it's like, oh, what's happening? I think that's why so many people start their short, you know, panning to the left or right. Because I think that works really well too.
- [19:48]
C
Jerry, to your point, it's all about testing. There isn't a right and a wrong. And I think that, like, I have this big anti guru kind of stance where one blanket statement does not apply to every single business, every single channel, every single content, all the time. I think a lot of businesses will need to experiment. The nice thing is about YouTube, when it starts a new feature, it really likes to push that feature out so they get real data. That's a golden opportunity to get your visibility out there. Because at the end of the day, as business owners and we're having business channels, we don't want to have subscribers and take selfies at airports. We want people to actually, I don't know, buy from us. That's all we in business so this is a great experiment that you could play with whilst YouTube is launching, do your own learnings and go, okay, this worked really well for us. We should incorporate or we gave it a shot, got a bunch of exposure. Kind of not our thing. That's fine.
- [20:47]
B
Yeah. But what I'm hearing the takeaway is if you get this feature, jump on it because you're going to get that early reach boost at least and at least have some data that you can play with.
- [20:55]
C
Absolutely.
- [20:56]
B
Yeah.
- [20:56]
C
Well.
- [20:57]
B
And I also like the cross posting opportunities. Right. Because obviously if we're already posting as a brand images on other platforms or carousels like we talked about, or different things like that. So another content type that YouTube announced that their goal is to ensure YouTube remains a place for exploration and learning. So, you know, we've heard a lot over the last year about YouTube is in the living room and it's entertainment and it's replacing Netflix. But they want to keep education as a key part of the platform, which I love as a marketer and a business owner because it's one of the greatest ways to get in front of your ideal client who wants to solve the problem that you solve, that wants to learn about how to solve that, the problem you solve. A couple studies they talked about, they said 93% of 18 to 27 year old viewers in the US agree that YouTube helps them learn new skills, which is almost everybody. And another study last year said almost 80% of U.S. teachers who use YouTube agree that it helps students learn. So for businesses that are selling products or services, how does this reinforce the idea that teaching is no longer a nice to have, but maybe should be a core marketing strategy on YouTube.
- [21:59]
C
We've always known this. The data has showed this repeatedly. YouTube is, is undeniably a place for businesses. I'm going to use my own channel as an example for a second. I got a million subscribers on the channel talking about friggin wi fi. Okay? I mean, yay for excitement, right? Like everybody wakes up in the morning going, I wonder if there's a firmware update. Nobody does that. Okay? But the idea is to showcase that you have a place if you've got expertise, if you're a business owner that has got things to say, you know your industry really well. You owe it to your potential customer to be the one educating them. This is the place where they get to know like and trust you. This is the way they get to know, are you their person? Can we speak the same language? We know a lot of people teach the same stuff. But I might not connect with person A, but I may connect with person B. YouTube is the place for education full stop, which always has been, but now it's just becoming more and more undeniable. It's not the spoke of your marketing, it's the hub of your marketing and everything else spins out from there.
- [23:09]
A
Wish you could experience social media Marketing World 2026 without having to leave your home or office? Our virtual ticket includes both live streaming and on demand recordings in one powerful package. Here's what makes this special. You can watch all the marketing sessions and keynote sessions live as they happen in Anaheim. Yet you also get recordings of everything to study and implement at your own pace, access exclusive AI training not available anywhere else, and learn Instagram and Facebook strategies from practitioners that get real results. The very people you've heard on this podcast, Julie Dougherty told us, quote my eyes are sore as I've watched way too many sessions today. All awesome stuff. It's like Netflix, just one more unquote. Unlike the in person experience, you can also pause, rewind and rewatch every session while you implement. Plus you'll save thousands on travel and hotels while getting the same expert insights. Secure your virtual ticket right now at social media marketingworld.info that's social media marketingworld.info. and it's not just the place, it's one of the only places. And this is really important because I've recently interviewed a bunch of Instagram experts specifically on my podcast and they've been saying that the old way that they used to do reels, which is teaching, are not performing anymore on the meta platforms. And that's really important because what's happening on the meta owned platforms, which is Facebook and Instagram and threads and whatever else I'm forgetting WhatsApp, they're all moving towards this, for lack of better words, highly entertaining, doom scrolling kind of stuff and because there is no really intention behind it. Like people aren't looking for this stuff when they're on the platform necessarily, but when they're on YouTube they are seeking out this kind of content. And YouTube really is long form by its very nature. If your educational content is not performing on the other platforms, you probably need to take a second look at YouTube. Would you agree? Liron?
- [25:13]
C
100%. It's the a lot of the platforms have kind of trained us to be in that lean back experience where we just scrolling with our thumbs and our thumbs are getting really nice and big and powerful and we're just scrolling up and scrolling up and scrolling up. But the intentionality is key. So if I'm on an Instagram or I'm on TikTok, I'm at that passive mode. Just feed me stuff and then I'll kind of zone out. When I'm in a place like YouTube, I'm there because I want to be there. And I'm there typically because I am started off by searching for a problem. My washing machine has this red light. What does this mean? Now we go to Claude. We got a chatgpt and we got a perplexity. But guess where they pull their information from? The number One place is YouTube. It's that structured data that these LLMs need. So as a business, this is your place to be able to not only showcase what you have today, it's the only platform that has the long tail content. Nothing does. After 48 hours like the other platforms, stuff gets surfaced to the right viewer at the right time. When they need it, it doesn't matter when you uploaded it. And that's the power that we're missing out. YouTube should be treated as a billboard on the freeway. It needs to be a classroom. If you take that mindset, you're not building a YouTube channel. You're building a content library for your business. And every video is another book into your library. And you want to have the biggest library that there is so that your audience finds you, learns from you. And when it's time to pull that trigger or push that button, you go. You're the go to person. You've been their go to person for a while. Yeah, they know who you are. They're going to contact you.
- [26:58]
B
I'm glad you brought that up, Leron too, because. And it's not just Gemini, which is of course owned by Google, it owns YouTube. I'm getting thousands of views a month on my channel from ChatGPT. And I love that you brought up that Evergreen library, because I think that's something that when marketers invest some time in YouTube and they say it's not working, they pull back is they forget that compounding effect where your old videos get views and your new videos get you views. And if I go into my analytics right now and I do this regularly, you know, I've published over 500 videos on my channel and over 85% of them have gotten views in the last 28 days. So my 2017 videos, videos that when I first started in 2017 got 16 views, are getting 500 views a month now. And so that Evergreen library of content piece is so, so powerful.
- [27:43]
A
I think this is an important distinction. Liron, correct me if I'm wrong, but we're talking about longer form content here now, right? Because the short form stuff on YouTube is just like Instagram, right? It's doom scroll. But this is, we're talking about like 5, 7, 8, 10, 20, 40, 60 minutes, right? That's where you have the opportunity to really go deep. And this is why so much of this data that Jerry's been talking about, you're like, this is the source that everybody's going to. I also think there's a consumer shift that's been happening where people are reading less and they're consuming more. Even if it's just a talking head. Thoughts on that is absolutely.
- [28:19]
C
There's no question. And it's, I hate this when people say we have an attention span problem. We don't. We have a span problem.
- [28:27]
A
Okay.
- [28:27]
C
In other words, people will sit and watch a three, four, five hour live stream of Dungeons Dragons. They'll watch a four or five hour live stream of the new Apple event that is essentially a big commercial if you think about it. Watch it because they're interested in the topic. What they're not interested in is sell, sell, sell. But wait, there is more. If you buy now, we'll throw this. They know it's a commercial. They're out. The thing is, from a creator point of view, from a business point of view, I often get the question, how long should a video be? And the answer is long enough. If you can teach me how to tie my shoelaces in two minutes, don't stretch it out to 20 minutes because now you've just irritated the customer. So long tail video, long form video. So you get the best of both worlds. If you think about it, every single video that you produce on a business channel is essentially a sales agent that's out there forever. Until you press that delete button on the unlisted button, it is out there teaching, showing what you're about forever. Why as a business, would you not want to have a gazillion sales agent out there just trickling out into the world talking about your business? It makes no sense to me why people will pay millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars for a 32nd Super bowl commercial to get in front of 175,000 people where they can get onto YouTube every single day for as long as they want and reach what, 2.7 billion people potentially? Businesses that don't have channels are to blow my mind.
- [30:00]
B
Yeah, well, and I think the other thing I love about this too is a lot of times when we think about our content marketing, we think about it as the top of our funnel. And you talked about that know like and trust. But in my experience, YouTube is better than anything at know like trust and nurture because someone can find you and spend 45 minutes with you on camera the first day and a lot of times they're ready to buy or hire you. And if you are a business that does sales calls, they get on the call and it's more like which package should I buy, not convince me to buy. Is that what you find with your clients as well?
- [30:31]
C
They have said yes to you 3, 4, 5 times already because they've watched 3, 4, 5 times your videos, they know that you're their person. If you show up on camera and you show up the same in your zoom call or your meeting and you're the same person, it's just a question of which product, which package and then tailoring it to them. But they already said yes. My favorite expression that I've kind of coined, it's the more you explain in public, the less convincing you have to do in private. And that's why I think you should overshare, show everything. The days of gatekeeping courses, I think are long behind us because go to ChatGPT and simply ask for the same information. They'll give you a step by step guide on how to do something. Those days are gone. As businesses, the more that we show, the more that we share, the more that we give people access to that information, the more they realize this stuff's complicated. Let me get on a call.
- [31:29]
B
Let's talk a little bit about paid media on YouTube because we've got some new options here and a lot of what we've been discussing has been on the organic side. YouTube has a tool called Promote, which is kind of like boosting on Facebook, letting people who are uploading videos target viewers. And now they've added new targeting based on interests so you can can target people based on beauty or travel or gaming was the other example that they gave. And so I'm curious with this, I have to ask the elephant in the room question and because we never seem to get a conclusive answer, is putting money behind videos on YouTube Worth it? And does it hurt your organic reach?
- [32:06]
C
Okay, so these are two separate questions, two good questions. Let's start with the second one. Does it hurt your organic reach? The answer is no. There are two separate algorithms. I have tested this myself multiple times. I've spoken to the people at YouTube, they have told me the same thing multiple times. These are two separate algorithms. We have Google AdWords and then we have YouTube itself. They have two different outcomes, two different KPIs. They measure completely different things. The idea with one is to get it in front of other people and they want your money. Follow the money. They want you to spend money so it gets in front of other people. Does it impact organic? It doesn't. It just treats them as very, very separate. And we're now starting to see proof of that in our analytics because it now it outlines YouTube advertising as a completely separate line item. Some stuff is still mushed together like retention, but I think that will be separated out as we go through. The question is, is it worth doing right? The answer is that it's not worth it if you're doing it for the wrong reason. And here's what I mean by that. I can get you a hundred thousand views tomorrow on a video from the Philippines. Who will never buy from you as a business. Does that excite you? Not really. However, if you can say, you know what, I'm actually thinking about trying a new concept and I'm trying to. I've got this idea that I'm not really sure if my core audience is going to resonate with, but I'm really want to lean into this new thing. Should I maybe promote just this new video and give it a test and see how, what the reaction is? Yeah, then I would probably try some promotion and see if that. If that resonates with a new audience as you're making your bigger content strategy decisions. Like we never want to get into that position where we have a Facebook situation. I'm old enough to remember that when you post it on Facebook, people saw your stuff. Now for people to see your stuff, you gotta pay. It's a pay to play situation and I hate that. I don't think YouTube wants to go that direction. And everything is telling us that they don't want to be in that position. They have this promote and I think promote is really important for businesses to try it as long as they're not going for the vanity metrics. I don't care about subscribers, I don't care about views. If they are the wrong views, wrong subscribers, it's just going to muddle my data.
- [34:31]
A
Just so I understand what we're talking about here, it sounds like the YouTube promote is almost like the boost feature on Facebook, but this interest targeting is a new feature. Right. So it sounds as if we could say, hey, if I'm Making a video specifically about YouTube. Let's say I'm targeting creators on how to do something new in YouTube. I could say promote this only to people that are interested in learning how to do this thing. That could be advantageous. Right? Because those people might end up sharing that video or embedding it on their website or sharing it in their newsletter. That could be a worthy thing. Liron, is this like a pretty expensive proposition or is it affordable? I'm just curious what your thoughts are.
- [35:12]
C
It's definitely affordable. You said the magic word. It's got to align with your icp, right? You've got to target the right people because you're doing it for the right reasons. You're not just trying to get views for the sake of getting views. You're trying to get new eyeballs that maybe organic isn't reaching. A good example of this is targeting another geographic area. Instead of relying on YouTube to kind of hit the people in Canada, for example, you can say, hey, I really want to promote this to people who are into YouTube who live in Canada, and I want to control that so I can see if my customers are even there. Do they care about this kind of stuff? So do I want to put some money behind it? Absolutely. And that could work as long again, icp and the reason behind it is super, super important.
- [36:00]
A
And I would imagine we want to take a video that's already performing, right? Because if it's a crappy video, you don't want to put any money behind it. Is that fair to say?
- [36:06]
C
Absolutely. If you're paying for views, you're renting attention. That's what it boils down to if you've got views. The way I like to approach the subject is let's look at your 1020 videos. Let's look at the one that have naturally performed well organically, which means your current audience really liked it. It outperformed your baseline. That's a good signal to say, let's put some money behind this to attract a new audience. If my main audience liked it, maybe this new audience will like it. It's very much an approach that we use. You know, on YouTube, you get these channel trailers for those who subscribe. They see one video, and those who haven't subscribed see can see another video. The pro tip here is look at your video that have brought you the most amount of subscribers and views in the last 90 days. Make that your channel trailer because it connected with people and they liked it. Odds are pretty good that somebody new seeing that will have the Same effect. So again, icp, right? Target audience really understanding why you're doing it and you do not want to get views for view's sake and rent that attention. So I like this as a feature for businesses.
- [37:14]
B
I'm paraphrasing here, but more or less today you said, I can't believe there are businesses that are not on YouTube. Right. Everybody should be on YouTube. So do you see the promote feature as a viable option to get traction on a new channel? If somebody today goes, okay, you know, they go back to their marketing team and they go, we're going all in on YouTube, like, at what point would you consider incorporating that into actual channel growth or at all?
- [37:38]
C
So let's break this down. If you're just starting a brand new channel and you don't have any proven expertise on other channels, in other words, you still figuring it out, you don't really know what kind of content to make. I would not put any spend behind that. I would not promote it using the promote feature. I would just really lean in on just understanding that audience, understanding your process, understanding your delivery. Any new channel is going to suck at the beginning because it's a new skill and we all suck at the beginning. And just learning how to deal with that first, that would be my number one priority. And I would not have KPIs in terms of I need this many views by this month, I need this many subscribers. That's not what you're measuring for at the beginning. You're just launching your expertise. You're creating your content library. You're starting with a new building, with a new book. You have to learn how to do that first. I would definitely not promote it if you are bringing in an expertise from another channel because it's proven on TikTok, it's proven on LinkedIn, you've got the chops down and now you're just bringing it to a new audience. Absolutely. Launch with four videos and then promote it because it's going to give you that leg up just to get that channel going from zero to one. So that's a good, good time to do that. Yes.
- [38:53]
B
Okay. I like that you say that too, because there was a time where I was like, I'm going to learn YouTube ads. And then I realized, oh, that's co Google Ads. And then I tried to learn Google Ads and went, all right, I'm an organic guy. We're just gonna stick with organic now. Yeah. So it's kind of like being able to dip your toe in the water. So one thing we're seeing a lot on YouTube right now is the growth of shopping. And a lot of this I think is probably coming from the success that is happening on TikTok with this. And I love the phrase that YouTube is using called frictionless commerce. So they're focusing on becoming a premier shopping destination because viewers trust product and brand recommendations from creators so much. And so when a channel recommends a product, you'd be able to buy it without even leaving the YouTube app. Now, as far as data goes on this, they say over 500,000 channels have already set up YouTube shopping, but I've seen no data about how many consumers have already bought something or entered their payment info. Because until they put their credit card in, there's still friction there. Right. Even if you can do it within the app. So does this mean that YouTube could become your entire funnel with all of your knowledge and experience on YouTube and working with businesses? Do you see this catching on in that way?
- [40:04]
C
Yeah, I mean, the data always makes me laugh when you do that because I've added products to my videos and I haven't seen anything happening. So I'm part of that data. Yeah, but it doesn't mean it's successful. Right. I have not bought a single thing ever because I saw it on a YouTube channel and there was a button conveniently located and I went, oh, I've got to have this right now. Click the button and now it arrives at my house, however long later. Have I bought products and services because of a YouTube video? Absolutely, for sure I have. I've seen the product being reviewed, there's a link in the description. I go to my Amazon Best Buy, wherever it may happen to be, and I complete my transaction there. YouTube is trying to become the frictionless. I love these buzzwords. Basically the one stop shop, right? So you're there, you're watching and you're clicking. I think that will work really well in these circumstances. If you're a creator and you have your own products and you want to promote those, I think that's a smart move. If you have a low ticket item, this is a 20 buck impulse buy. I think it will work really well. If you have a high ticket item, a consulting service, a whatever it may be, the odds of somebody seeing your video and going, oh, I feel the urge to spend five grand now because it's a conveniently located button, I'm not seeing that right now. What I am saying is that traditional stuff still works. Awareness happens on YouTube. Then it's a consideration stage as well, because you're not just promoting your product. We no longer have the traditional funnel where it kind of goes down. People see your stuff all over the place and eventually make that connection. What I see working really well is YouTube videos, other social media, driving it to an email system. And that's where nurturing happens. That's where they get more information and eventually kind of leading to a purchase. I don't see a world where a $5,000 consulting gig button converts somebody instantly that they absolutely, positively need to have it.
- [42:06]
B
And if it did, there should be a confirmation. Like, are you sure you just watched this short and you want to like.
- [42:11]
C
What'S going on here?
- [42:12]
B
What time is it where you are locally? Is it 2:00am right now? Well, and another part of this too is they removed links from shorts. I think it was in 2024. They said, okay, no more clickable links in shorts. But one of the stories I've talked about for this year is actually being able to have clickable links in your shorts if it's paid media. So we go back again to potentially the promote button there. And so if I'm. What I'm hearing say is if a marketer has some lower cost or novel things where nobody, somebody's never seen it before, and they go, oh my gosh, I need that right now. Those are the marketers that should look into something like this.
- [42:45]
C
Yeah, especially when it's like limited drops, limited runs and something that stuck has got a lifespan. We're seeing a lot of the live shopping, like exploding with platforms like whatnot as an example. It's now, I got to have it now. But there's one key element here. When you're on those live shopping channels, you're surrounded by a community that's actively live shopping at the same time. So you're seeing the comments going, oh, I managed to get one or I missed it. Like, guys, please put this back up again. You're seeing that interaction when you're on YouTube and it's not a live stream. It's still you by yourself with your computer. You don't feel that urge or that environment. I do see things like limited runs doing really well or until we sell out, here is what we've got. That kind of thing still has to.
- [43:36]
B
Be low ticket offers and live shopping is a whole other conversation for another day. So, Liron, this has been really fascinating. Thank you for joining us today. If people want to explore working with you, where do you want to send them? And if they want to connect with you on the socials, where is the best place to find you.
- [43:50]
C
Firstly, thank you. It was being super fun. Always love chatting with you of YouTube and stuff that we all like to attack on this on these platforms. Marketers, business people really need to get onto this. This is the year 2026 with AI and automation really has just made life so much easier. You just gotta just do that. Get a hold of me my website lironsegib.com if you want to see me shouting at all these marketing gurus LinkedIn is probably the best place. Just look for my name anotherwise on the youtubes I have a new AI channel and check me out there.
- [44:23]
A
Leron and Jerry, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Hey if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over@social mediaexaminer.com 706 if you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. If you've been a listener for a little while, we would love a review. Also check out my other show, the AI Explored podcast. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host Michael Stelzner and I was joined today by my co host host Jerry Potter. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving.
- [44:56]
B
The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner.
- [45:04]
A
What if you could get year round AI training? That's exactly what's waiting for you with our AI Business Society. To learn more, visit socialmediaexaminer.com AI.