B (3:57)

What's at stake if this threat is ignored?

A (4:00)

I mean, you're just blend into the noise. You'll become forgettable. Even if you get some views, like, let's say you make a good informational video, people find it, they get some facts, they get some, they're like, that was helpful. They watch it, but then they disappear. They never actually connect with you. They never actually like, oh, I was learning information, but then I heard a little bit about this person's story. I heard a little bit and, and I don't want people to be confused. It's not that now you weave in your like entire life story into an information video, but little details about you. Like I found that in our community if I talked about how in high school I was into snowboarding and you know, I'm going to church, but I'm also like into the Wu Tang Clan. And you know, I talk about how now these days I'm into biohacking or going to the banya and which is a, you know, kind of a Slavic steam bath and you know, sauna and this whole experience, like I might get a comment on this video of someone like, what, Sean goes to the banya? Yeah, weekly, you know, and so it's like maybe these little nuggets and typically if they illustrate. So you might talk about how, you know, as a dad of a three year old and a five year old, one of the things I've been learning and someone's like, okay, I'm looking to actually follow somebody. Not that's just sharing information, but that maybe is in the same season of life, same beliefs, some values. And it doesn't mean you have to like, pump religion or politics, but, like, I do think to stand out on social media right now, what are you really convicted about? What are you willing to put out there and talk about? Like, information is a race to the bottom or just compelling tactics alone and is still kind of a race to the bottom. People connect with real people. And I think also again, AI has disrupted this in a major way. So I think it's like recognizing that people want human connection and that's what personal brand is. And then one other caveat is if you have a business brand or your channel is not about a person, but it's more about a promise, it's still true. Brands have beliefs, they have values. There's a reason why somebody will wear a Patagonia jacket versus a Supreme jacket. That's two to Supreme. Hypebeast. Skater culture, counterculture. You know, Patagonia Recycled cares about the earth. You know, outdoors, you know, you could get two fleeces. They're going to be pretty similar. Why does someone wear that logo? Beliefs? What's the company stand for? So you're listening to this. What do you stand for? What's like.

B (6:28)

And.

A (6:29)

And then what's like, your voice, your style, your values, even the packaging of the videos. Like, it could be music choice, it could be the way you style, eventually your studio, the way you. Your look of your content. We're trying to stand out. So these are the visuals and the internal belief structures that can help you craft a unique voice in a very competitive YouTube landscape.

B (6:52)

I love that you called out all of those great examples because I could immediately hear someone saying, like, okay, great. Yeah, like, brand can feel like this really big, ambiguous sort of thing. Like, how do I do brand? You know what I'm saying? Like, it's kind of like, hey, man, like, I'm just over here helping people make sourdough, you know what I mean? Or like, me and my niche actually was like, just helping people make music. I'm like, how do I infuse my thing? You know, who I am and what I stand for and convictions and beliefs. But actually, I think it's a lot easier than people think. I love that you just said, well, I mean, what you wear.

A (7:21)

Yeah.

B (7:21)

Kind of matters, like what your set even looks like, you know what I mean? And I always have Told people in coaching, you know, how do you know? How do you know if you're yourself on camera? You know, how you know if you were authentically you? And I was like, man, I think everyone has to figure out, kind of figure that out for themselves. I can speak to my experience is that when I was making a YouTube video, if at least a Lord of the Rings reference made its way, you know, in the video, at some point I'm like, hey, how's Nathan? You know, because that's me. I'm nerdy like that. I like that stuff. And so just like a really good challenge for the listener to think through. No matter your niche, you're over here helping people with sourdough or like aquarium tank cleaning. I don't know, you know what I mean? But like, what could you wear? What can you talk about? What could you say in passing to help people, you know, learn more about you in an authentic way? And authentic authenticity is actually the second shift that we're going to go through today. Talk to us about authenticity in an AI age.

A (8:14)

I can't fix a bad strategy. If you're not clear on your channel topic or have a systematic growth plan in place, then AI will just help you create faster in the wrong direction. That's why we built the YouTube Creator Toolkit to give you the strategy first and the fast tracked AI tools second. You'll unlock your profitable niche, uncover video ideas that actually get views, and use AI powered tools to move way faster. With this toolkit, you'll get the confidence that every video is intentionally crafted with views and monetization in mind. And right now, for a limited time during our holiday sale, you could get the YouTube Creator Toolkit for less than a trip to to Chipotle.

A (8:59)

This is the formula AI plus strategy. That's how creators win in 2026. And the YouTube Creator Toolkit is going to help you lock it all in. Just go to think media sale.com to grab this offer. Yeah, so the next shift is authenticity is the antidote to AI fatigue. And so the truth is this actually like people like AI content. Maybe you're listening to this and you don't like it, but a lot of it's being consumed. People like AI slop. They're just watching crazy videos on YouTube shorts especially. And so there's a certain audience for that. But when there's over 8 billion people in the world, you have to understand there's a lot of people who like right now they are craving authenticity and realness and people are very tired of A lot of AI content. So when feeds are flooded with this AI polished content, people are craving real people. And so a decade ago, I think even there was an era in YouTube where it was a little bit over production for a while, like production was put on a pedestal. People wanted to kind of have fancy videos. But today, sometimes even over polished can equal skepticism. So when there's these like perfectly polished or AI generated videos, polish can lead to skepticism. Deep fakes. AI clones are everywhere. Trust is a little fragile. What can you believe? You know, I've noticed that there is like news stories circling. Like I was talking to my mom the other day and she was like, did you hear that Barack Obama's in prison? And I was like, I don't think that's true. She goes, no, for real, it's true. She goes, your dad, he told me he is, he saw a news clip about it. And so what was interesting was probably a very convincing AI generated news clip.

B (10:43)

Wow.

A (10:43)

He saw just, you know, surface, viewed it, shouted out to her, she's like, what? For real? She trusts him. But it's like you're playing a game of telephone. And so trust is fragile in today's world. People are in some cases, you know, maybe getting tricked or confused and what's fake and what's not. And so people want real, they want authentic. And so I think that this is a big opportunity because you don't need a big production budget. Raw authenticity is something that people are resonating with. This is a trust accelerator. So showing your face, sharing your story, admitting your flaws, letting your personality shine for the business owner, it's an equalizer. You don't need Hollywood budgets to win. And vulnerability and consistency build trust faster than polish alone. You know, there's actually, I'm not denying that actually AI generated information. Videos that are from faceless channels can't win. They can. Like that is also going to be a thing and already is. But I think what AI can't reproduce is real human stories because it doesn't have them. It can't reproduce that. That raw grit of life and soul. It can't produce the soul that humans have. And you know what's also interesting is right now there is a revival of even raw vlogging making a comeback. Yeah, and you know, the co author of our book YouTube Secrets, Benji Travis, has been doing these stripped vlogs of Costco trips. He has a cooking channel, he vlogs, but it's like food based. He has a theme to it, very intelligent. And so I think there's a massive opportunity for low resource creators and business owners to grab a camera, share their journey, build trust through everyday storytelling. This week in Vegas, I was at like this event for a lot of car creators and people in the automotive, automotive industry because SEMA is happening this week in Vegas and one of the creators is like, I bought the Sony E1 full frame camera. I used to have this big production rig. I used to have, like, I still do. He's got, I got all this fancy gear and he goes, what I also noticed it was like, it slowed down my workflow and it made it meant I didn't film as much. And then he whips out from his pocket a DJI OSMO action camera that has a little USB mic. And he goes, I just film everything with this now and it's always with me. I could just press record. And so he'll go to a show like sema, he does some news content, reacting to consumer advocacy in the car industry or people that, you know, salespeople are like pushing stuff or whatever. But he was like, hey, simplicity is actually really helping me produce content more consistency consistently. And so there's a time and place for having high production value. But ultimately this is a cool opportunity and people are craving it. Authenticity is the antidote to AI fatigue.

B (13:35)

So AI, you know, going beginning to shift. 3 AI is wild, needless to say. But talk to us about the skill of AI for a content creator right now.

A (13:46)

Yeah. Okay, so the next shift is AI is a make or break skill separating winners from losers. Now let me define what we're talking about here. You might have said, well, like, were you just kind of putting AI down in the previous shift? Not necessarily just giving an opportunity, that raw and authentic content is winning and is an opportunity, but the use of AI for every creator is now an essential skill if you want to win. So I don't necessarily mean that you're making AI generated videos. That's probably not the case. What I do mean is that you are using smart AI tools to have better hooks, better titles. Like when you could just, you know, hit record, film in your car, speak from the heart, and it might work. But what you probably should do is open up ChatGPT first and be like, hey, I want to talk about this and actually brainstorm. Even if it was just your hook, spend a couple minutes crafting what you're about to say. Even if you're going to freestyle it, you want to craft those first few seconds. You might plan out how the video is going to be, packaging and you know, we looked up a lot of stats recently. We do on our event in Vegas four times a year. It's called thinkmediamastermind.com, these smaller events where we go deep into all this stuff. And when we were talking about this particular.

A (15:02)

Point of AI as a make or break skill, we looked at all these stats from, like, consulting firms, Baines and McKinsey and these different places, and it was like, consultants are 150% more productive because of AI. They were like, and anybody in professional spaces is 300% more productive when it comes to communication. And it's almost like if you were going to race somebody in a traditional track meet, if one person just had, you know, old human parts like you. You and I have, you know, just our bodies. And the other person was, like, beefed up with, like, Robotech from Cyberpunk. You know, they have some little. A little, like, modification adjustment with a little engine that helps their, you know, legs run faster or something. Like, well, they're going to win. They have this unfair technology advantage. Well, AI is available to everybody. And I think that most creators think they're using AI because they asked ChatGPT for a title that's amateur hour. What we're seeing is that the pros are weaving AI into every step of the production process. They're thinking about idea generation, title generation, scripting, analytics, packaging, production speed. And so again, you still might be shooting raw content, but just AI is separating winners or losers. It's the make or break skill.

B (16:14)

Man. I. This is just crazy. Before we jump into the fourth shift here, I think a really powerful action item. I love what you said about. Because here's. Here's the reality, right? I know there's some people still on the. On the fence about AI, this whole AI thing. A lot of people have a lot of feelings about it, creators especially. But just to keep it real, I think a baby step towards this whole AI thing. If you are on the edge or if you're just thinking about, I don't know if I really want to use it for your next video, just like you said, just like talk your idea into it. And it's crazy because a lot of these AI tools now have the dictation feature. You can just talk, you know what I mean? Set the phone down, open your laptop, whatever, and just talk out your video idea as if you're talking to a coach, say, for example, right? And just be like, here's the idea that I'm thinking, here's my channel. And just brain dump, heart dump. Whatever. And then just ask it to clean things up. Like, just baby steps. Clean it up. Help me think about a way that would, you know, be better to open this before I film it. I think that that alone, what the heck, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you just did that alone is a baby step towards it. And before you went to press record, now you have a much better hook. You have a much clearer idea of the kind of title you could put on that. Or even getting crazy, just because it's fun to think about asking that AI thread really quick, like, hey, poke holes in my content. What am I missing? You know what I mean? Like, sure, man. Like, be brutal, you know, like, it's all to be like, hey, like, how can I make this better? You know, how can I make my plan better? Anyway, I just think it's, like, fun. That's a fun exercise. Fun to me, maybe. But if someone's stepping towards AI, I think that could be a good way to do it. Just for your next video, just brainstorm with it, see what happens. You don't have to do what it.

A (17:42)

Says, you know, Exactly. You have somebody you can refine your idea with. And I'm glad you brought up the objections because I understand, like, listen, you know, I'm just going to be here, neutral on, like, the ethical implications of AI. You know, we talk about using AI and someone's like, you know, you just asked ChatGPT one question and 30 gallons of water was just evaporated from the universe or something. And I'm like, maybe that's true. You know, I. Okay. And I get it. There's power consumption, jobs are being displaced. I'm not being cavalier, and I don't have a lack of empathy for that. But this is just. This is such a mega shift. It's kind of like, you know, you could drive through, like, rural New York and Pennsylvania and be driving down the road, and on one side of the road, you'd see someone, an Amish community, using push plows to plow up the dirt, to, like, do their harvesting, to do their planting. And on the other side of the road, you're going to see a modern farmer that's using a powered tractor or some kind of device for farming. And I think 0% pretty much of people right now would be like, the audacity for that farmer to use a tractor to do that. Hard labor and respect to the Amish community that have the ethic of staying, you know, in a kind of a previous era and, you know, more power to Them, like, if you're living off the grid, I'm sure they're, they're happiness levels, their satisfaction levels, the, you know, unity of the community. That's not what this conversation is about. Like, if you have a. If you are looking for, like, you know, I just need humans and like, maybe you should go live off the grid. Then maybe you should get off YouTube. Go live off the grid. What are we solving for? You're on the Think Media podcast because we're gonna help you win on YouTube. I'm not saying we'd be cavalier with the ethics around AI. I am just saying if you don't embrace the new tools and the new technology, you're going to be left behind. AI is separating winners from losers. When we talked about stats like, it gives give you a 300% productivity boost. It means that the person that refuses to learn how to embrace AI. And there's different versions. There's some that, oh, I hate OpenAI perplexity Gemini Quad. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of different versions you can use. It's just like, you know, it's like, are you going to do dewalt Ryobi? You know, when it comes to power tools, like, you know, no contractor is like, I'm just not going to embrace power tools. I will only use a hammer. I'm not going to use a nail gun with an air compressor. Okay, well, it's going to take you a lot longer to frame the house.

B (20:17)

Yeah, that's right.

A (20:17)

That's what AI is doing to content creation. So we're just trying to tell you the truth, that you got to get ready and embrace it and figure out how to learn it at a rapid pace.

B (20:26)

You know, I love that we, well, you know, our team, but you spearheaded this of, like, spiffing up a lot of stuff inside of our, you know, programs we do ranking academy. But you've developed these AI tools.

A (20:36)

Yeah.

B (20:37)

And what's cool is we are actually making these available for people, you know, if they go to think media sale.com and get some information about this. Would you mind speaking to how these AI tools, what we've done to them specifically? Because I'm actually just thinking, okay, yeah, you could go try Gemini Cloud or whatever. But I'm also like, you could just also use our tools that are built for this reason.

A (20:54)

Yeah, we actually have not only built some new tools programmed for YouTube creators, um, during the holidays, we have a special sale@thinkmedia sale.com and for really less than the price of a chipotle. Run, you can get access to what's called our YouTube Creator Toolkit. And it includes an AI tool called the video topic Generator. We also have our title system tool. If all you got was the title system tool. I mean, you don't know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars I've invested to go to, like, high level masterminds, business administration events. I've bought, like, copywriting books, which is like the art of writing persuasive copy with words that have cost me $200. I spent $2,000 on a book. Nathan. That's a true story. I actually bought a book that's $2,000. And so I have all these different frameworks that I've learned, all These masterminds, plus 10 years of data, plus all the Think Media data, plus all this stuff that we've programmed into one tool. This isn't just like surface level chatgpt stuff that's in there. You've got thumbnail templates and a thumbnail training that's gonna help you with packaging. And so plus a ticket to our emergency YouTube briefing. What every creator and entrepreneur must know for 2026, that is a virtual event, and that's included in there as well. We're gonna help you build a game plan for 2026 and go deeper on some of this stuff and a few other things. It's called the YouTube Creator Toolkit. And again, you could skip a burrito and your topa chico and just grab this special offer. Why it's limited, by the way. Cause it's just a limited time holiday sale@thinkmediasale.com okay?

B (22:25)

So it makes a lot more sense why that thing is so lethal. Now. I didn't know there was a $2,000 book baked inside of that.

A (22:30)

Yeah, that's crazy.

B (22:31)

Just because we use it a lot as coaches, right? With people we're working with. So that's pretty gnarly. Okay, so shift number four. I'm excited to talk about this one. Amateurs post videos. Pros build media companies.

A (22:46)

Break this down. Yeah. Amateurs post videos. Pros build media companies. Now, hang on for a second, Sean. What are you even talking about, bro? Like, I'm just starting. I don't have any money, you know? Like, I don't have to. I can't hire a team. Let's just lay the foundation first. A hundred percent of people listening to this need this mindset shift. It's a mindset shift. Amateurs post videos. They just think. Like, anyone could post a video. But pros think bigger. They just think in terms of. Here's a, here's a thought, like there's AI agents, which is essentially like having a team member. What you can do with AI is instead of hiring a research assistant, you could do deep research with AI. But when you think media company for creators that are more established and definitely for business owners who. Their biggest challenge right now is actually not cash flow or money, their biggest challenge is time, and they're just like doing too much. So you want to run your channel like a media company, whether solo or with a team, because this mindset changes everything. Consistency, quality, systems ultimately results. You know, when you're doing things solo, everything exists in your own head. You don't really need systems because you kind of are the system, but you're trying to remember everything. Yes, but think about how a company runs. It has to have sop, standard operating procedures, it has to have content calendars, it has to have more planning. And so the truth is, YouTube has matured in 2026. The rules are different now, and so it's no longer enough to treat it like a side project. Creators and entrepreneurs that are breaking through aren't dabbling. They have a media company mentality. So a checklist, like scheduling, production, testing formats, analyzing data, repurposing content, thinking multi platform, the solo creator can do that. But there's some creators that should be scaling up in their minds right now, and that's just getting more systematic. A lot of couples listen to the Think Media podcast. They do YouTube together, and so they are functioning this way. But it's like, hey, honey, like, what if we actually, like, upped our game a little bit? Professionalized a little bit. And so the threat of ignoring this is if you're just posting randomly, you might be getting hobby level results that looks like sporadic uploads, inconsistent views, and maybe little business impact. Meanwhile, your competitors are scaling their output. Even if they're solopreneurs, they're getting better systems, better tools, or there's individuals that are hiring. And I think that 2026 is the year for a portion of the Think Media podcast community to think about who's your first hire. And maybe it's just a virtual assistant. It's not like, oh, you know, I don't know, I'm the creator, I kind of do all the creative stuff. Am I going to outsource that? No, maybe you're going to outsource the stuff that is stealing your time that you hate doing. And a virtual assistant could be very affordable and it handles the other. You know, you start thinking Like a media company, somebody else is doing your taxes. That's a cpa. Maybe you get an accountant. That's a company mindset. And that's very common at some point, of course, once money is coming in. So I think that's the media company mentality, and a lot of individuals will go further, faster. The whole point of this episode, right, is how are you standing out? It's a professionalization of your YouTube production. Even if you're a family vlog, you get better systems in it. The media company mentality. You could take things to another level.

B (26:05)

Oh, man. This, I mean, sets up our final shift here. Cold funnels are failing. YouTube is the new trust builder. There's a good bit to break down here. What do you mean by this?

A (26:16)

Yeah, so what's interesting today is we're living in a trust recession in 2026. What people are seeing is, you know, not everybody here is building a funnel, but a lot of people are. What's a funnel? A place where you're building an email list, you've got a landing page, you give away something free, you've had a newsletter, and then you have some kind of product or offer. Well, what's happening today is there's like, less people showing up to, like, webinars, there's less people showing up to sales calls. Cold conversions are failing. And so the punchline is YouTube is the new trust builder. So going all in on YouTube, and you could call this, like, top of funnel trust. Like, people that are getting to know you, like you and trust you on YouTube first. It really helps you cultivate a relationship with your audience before there's ever, like, a sale presented. And so there's actually research from Google and BCG that shows that audiences are 1.5 times more attentive and 1.7 times more engaged and 2 times more likely to trust content on YouTube compared to other platforms. So YouTube is a trust builder. YouTube's no longer a content platform. It's a foundational touch point on the decision journey for individuals. And it builds trust before calls or presentations or, like, your offers land. And so cold messaging isn't as effective. Some people that do paid ads are struggling with ad budgets and lead costs. And so YouTube definitely has its challenges this year. But if you're listening to this, it's like, I'd be investing 10x down in organic content because you're building trust first and you're ultimately connecting with people so that your business can continue to grow in a competitive economy.

B (28:04)

That's huge. I think about the Power of just so many students kind of come to mind honestly of people who are doing this exact thing of okay, YouTube videos that can be longer form content. There people are really walking somebody through something. It's like the perfect way to give someone a taste of what you could do for them, you know. And so like a lot of, a lot of students are taking this to heart. I think lately of, yeah, I'm gonna post a video and I'm actually gonna try to put out something that people could pay for. It's like a different mentality switch of like I'm actually just going to show what it would be like for us to coach together, you know, and maybe sharing footage of something that they have already done, like a coaching thing and breaking it down or I've seen people actually put out, I think Caleb, we were just talking about this, who was on the podcast, who put out like a six hour video.

A (28:49)

Yeah, he put out basically. So a lot of people create online courses and sell them. I think that's still great. We have some great podcasts on that. Especially if you're moving into some of the new rules like creating an experience product instead of just an info product. But Caleb took a different approach. He basically created a six hour online course and then just uploaded all six hours straight onto YouTube. Now he was terrified. He was like, okay, I need to like make my business work at first, you know, he's like, will this. He also thought about I could have sold this and he could have because it also was not some lazy effort. It was like a high produced. He really structured it. He actually personally invested a lot of money into it at great risk. But what ended up happening was it just sent his trust through the roof. And it's also an asset that's sitting there on his channel that just continues to meet more people because to your point, it's moving the free line. It's just like actually leading with so much value and proving that you know what you're talking about improving. You can really help people. Before you ever ask for any kind of sale from the individual, make YouTube your trust engine where people start getting familiar with you, they see your relevance and they start building loyalty with you. And so I think some people try to hold back on YouTube and yeah, they're holding things back and hiding it behind a paywall and some of that old school marketer mentality. So it's not working anymore. And so it's something about leaning into YouTube with like the best ever high quality organic content again, you might leave kind of Some short term money on the table but your long term brand and your long term income will be skyrocketed 100x because a lot of content's getting buried. If you're not, you know, giving out in a way your best stuff, you know, that's huge.

B (30:39)

And I think about the, you know, to the point the long game of what's on the other side of especially if, you know, we kind of follow the way that we do YouTube here at Think Media of trying to rank videos. You can just put your heart and soul into something and it's not a guarantee that it's going to do well. But if you put your very best effort into something so much so that you would sell this and you put that on the platform and you've done your due diligence optimization, think about everything, you know, reverse engineering, researching that video could just live that's right for years and help people for years. And you think about getting ninja and strategic about call to actions that could be throughout there to get people into your world. I mean I think it's exciting. I mean like definitely the bar has risen to your point said YouTube is matured, you know, here in 2026 and I think that requires it's just going to require you to show up I think in a more rigorous way. Man. Well, hey, this was another five shifts that we have covered in a three part series. We're uncovering the 15 shifts to help you navigate YouTube with how everything has been changing. And while you still can, head to think media sale.com to get your hands on those AI tools that we were talking about earlier. We put together a whole bundle just to help you out during this time of year. And so please go check it out while you can while it's still available. And hey, regardless, please stay close. We'll be coming at you soon with our upcoming episode on the final five shifts to help you navigate YouTube. This is the Think Media podcast. I'm Nathan Eswine and I can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.