Comedy and Consistency: Mike and Joel's YouTube Journey To One MILLION Subscribers

Summary

Podcast Summary: YouTube Creators Hub Episode: Comedy and Consistency: Mike and Joel's YouTube Journey To One MILLION Subscribers
Release Date: July 11, 2025
Host: Dusty Porter
Guests: Mike and Joelle
Current Subscribers: 996,000
Channel Focus: Relatable Couple Comedy

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of the YouTube Creators Hub podcast, host Dusty Porter welcomes Mike and Joelle, the dynamic duo behind a thriving YouTube channel that specializes in relatable couple comedy. With nearly one million subscribers and over 1,200 videos, Mike and Joelle share their journey, strategies, and insights into building a successful online presence through humor and consistency.

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Origin Story of the Channel

Dusty begins by exploring the beginnings of Mike and Joelle's YouTube journey.

Joelle:
"To be honest, it didn't actually start with YouTube. We started with other social platforms and then finally moved towards YouTube." [03:32]

Mike:
Mike recounts how the COVID lockdown in New Zealand led them to create humorous fitness content for their gym's social media pages. A pivotal moment came when Mike posted a funny video on Instagram that unexpectedly went viral, garnering over 100,000 views in 48 hours. This success spurred them to experiment with TikTok, where they experienced explosive growth, eventually leading them to focus more on YouTube after attending a New Zealand YouTube conference.

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Growth Strategies

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the strategies that fueled their rapid growth on various platforms.

Mike:
"Consistency is the key... I post a video that I think is funny every day." [15:35]

Mike emphasizes the importance of consistency, especially with short-form content. By leveraging platforms like Instagram and TikTok, they were able to reach millions of views daily, which translated into substantial follower growth. Joelle adds that their content's relatability and humor make it highly shareable, fostering a sense of community among their audience.

Joelle:
"If you're not doing something, you won't know what you can achieve... we moved from a big city to a beach town, and it paid off." [34:53]

Their willingness to experiment and pivot based on what resonates with their audience has been crucial. For instance, transitioning from fitness content to comedy allowed them to tap into a broader and more engaged audience.

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Monetization

Dusty delves into the various monetization avenues that Mike and Joelle have successfully navigated to sustain their full-time YouTube careers.

Mike:
"As far as YouTube goes, we are 100% AdSense... I find doing sponsored content really tough." [22:48]

Mike explains that their primary income comes from YouTube AdSense and Facebook ads, each contributing around 40% to their revenue. Additionally, Joelle generates income through her health coaching business, accounting for 10%, while influencer deals on Instagram make up the remaining 10%.

Dusty:
"Advertisers are willing to pay more for older demographics because they have more spending power." [21:45]

The duo benefits from a predominantly male audience over 50 on YouTube, which attracts higher-paying advertisers. This demographic insight has allowed them to optimize their content and monetization strategies effectively.

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Community Engagement and Building

Building and maintaining a strong community is another key topic discussed.

Joelle:
"We respond to people in the comments and DMs... it builds a positive and engaged community." [26:36]

Mike and Joelle prioritize engaging with their audience by responding to comments and direct messages. Although managing this engagement has become challenging as their community grows, they recognize its importance in fostering loyalty and connection.

Mike:
"It's a balancing act between responding to comments and creating new content." [28:59]

They discuss the dilemma of allocating time between community engagement and content creation, ultimately prioritizing the latter to maintain their growth momentum.

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Handling Negativity in the Digital Space

In an era rife with negativity and cancel culture, Mike and Joelle highlight the strength of maintaining a positive and humorous online presence.

Joelle:
"It's so nice to see something positive and funny in my day... we receive beautiful messages from people who find solace in our content." [30:11]

Their commitment to positivity not only differentiates them from many creators but also provides a much-needed respite for viewers seeking uplifting and humorous content.

Mike:
"We choose what we watch and how we live to maintain our positive mindset." [31:24]

By avoiding negative content and focusing on creating joyful experiences, they cultivate a community that prioritizes happiness and relatability.

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Content Ideation and Creativity

The episode delves into the creative processes behind their content.

Mike:
"Sometimes I can look for a joke for two hours and come up empty, but then inspiration strikes at the most unexpected times." [32:18]

Mike discusses the challenges of consistently generating fresh jokes and ideas, often relying on passive inspiration from everyday moments or extensive research through various platforms and joke repositories.

Joelle:
"Mike was grumpy the other day because he was struggling to find jokes, but he bounced back quickly." [33:27]

Their ability to overcome creative blocks and continuously produce engaging content is a testament to their dedication and passion for comedy.

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Advice for Aspiring YouTubers

Concluding the conversation, Mike and Joelle offer valuable advice for creators looking to grow their channels.

Joelle:
"Have a crack, go all in... you won't know what you can achieve if you don't really go all in." [34:53]

Joelle encourages creators to take risks and fully commit to their projects, emphasizing the importance of faith in oneself and the willingness to pivot when necessary.

Mike:
"I kept trying different things, and finally something just popped out... cranking it." [35:38]

Mike echoes this sentiment, highlighting that persistence and continuous experimentation are key to discovering what works. Their journey exemplifies the rewards of staying committed and adaptable in the ever-evolving landscape of online content creation.

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Closing Remarks

Dusty expresses his admiration for Mike and Joelle, acknowledging their positive impact and the reasons behind their success. He encourages listeners to support their journey towards one million subscribers and reiterates the value of their content.

Dusty:
"Your content is positive, it's engaging, it's funny... you guys are the reason why I love YouTube and talking to creators." [37:06]

He wraps up the episode by praising their achievements and urging the audience to check out their channel, fostering a supportive community among YouTube creators.

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Key Takeaways

• Consistency is Crucial: Regular content posting, especially with short-form videos, can significantly boost growth.
• Relatability and Humor: Creating content that resonates on a personal level fosters a loyal and engaged audience.
• Diversified Monetization: Relying on multiple revenue streams, including AdSense, social media ads, and personal businesses, ensures financial stability.
• Positive Community Building: Engaging authentically with the audience and maintaining a positive online presence can set creators apart in a crowded digital space.
• Persistent Creativity: Continuously experimenting and persevering through creative blocks are essential for sustained success.

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Mike and Joelle's journey underscores the importance of humor, authenticity, and strategic consistency in building a successful YouTube channel. Their story serves as an inspiring blueprint for aspiring creators aiming to make their mark in the digital world.

Transcript

[Dusty]

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the YouTube Creators Hub podcast. I hope you're having a great day whenever and however you're listening to the show. Don't forget you can subscribe for free to get notified every Friday when we go live with a new episode this week. And I've already recorded about the next four or five episodes and they are all so good, so definitely do that if you haven't already. Also, I do offer one on one YouTube creator coaching. So if you're looking to grow your channel and your brand, take a look at that. We also have the new channel audit and channel review service. You can check that link out in the description. And then we have the ever growing creator community group where I release exclusive podcast episodes every Friday. We also get to basically just hang out with other creators. Five to ten bucks a month, that's it. And you also get access to our monthly Mastermind calls, which we do every single month where I host the call on Zoom. And if you'd, you can subscribe to our email newsletter called the Entrepreneurs Minute. Just a behind the scenes look of what, what I'm doing in my day to day of making my business run, things that I'm learning, resources that I'm gathering, all of those things are there. So if that sounds interesting to you, definitely check that out. With that said, let's go ahead and jump into this week's conversation. Hello everyone and welcome to this week's conversation on the YouTube Creators Hub podcast. My name is Dusty, the host of the show and I'm joined today by Mike and Joelle. Their YouTube channel as of recording is right at 996,000 thousand subscribers. Their channel is all about relatable couple comedy. I think I did that right. Mike said that off air and I was like, if I butcher that, you just forgive me. But their channel is amazing. They, I would consider them friends. I have actually been on a coaching consultation call with them before. They're just over 1200 YouTube videos uploaded on this channel and we're going to talk about their brand, their business, this YouTube channel specifically. But Mike, Joelle, how are you both doing today?

[Joelle]

Great, thank you.

[Mike]

We're doing awesome. Yeah, thanks for having us. It's quite surreal being on this podcast because I've listened to it two or three hundred times.

[Joelle]

So do you know what Dusty like, often Mike will come to me and he'll be like, I heard this on a podcast and it's most often yours. So that's an honor to be here. Thank you. And actually Engage with you.

[Dusty]

It's an honor for me, too, because you guys have done something that very few people have. I've worked with a lot of comedy creators and it's very hard to break through in the space. And you guys have done that. And I think that as we record this episode, the audience will hear that you guys, both of you, are very relatable. You're very authentic, you're very. You don't take yourself too serious. You haven't let the numbers go to your head. Joelle may say, mike, that's not true for him, but we'll go there another day. But just. But just to keep it. Just to keep it so we don't stumble over each other. I will direct specific questions and I'll say, hey, Mike, we'll start with you. And then Joelle, you go after that, just so we don't talk over each other.

[Mike]

All right, so just, sorry, just dusty. Just to note, Joelle will find that hard. So you might have to start with her so she can talk and then.

[Dusty]

Absolutely. That's awesome. We're going to have a lot of fun today. All right, so I want to know, tell me the starting point of the channel. Like, how did. What was the origin story of. Hey, we're going to start this channel and it's going to be about comedy and we're going to have fun and we're going to do it together. Joel, we'll do ladies first for this one. We'll start with you.

[Joelle]

To be honest, it didn't actually start with YouTube. Right? We can share this answer. We started with other social platforms and then finally moved towards YouTube. I can't remember, can you. Do you know why? We Never experimented with YouTube before?

[Mike]

So we make couple comedy related content and a lot of the stuff we started with was comedian bits. So like famous comedians using their audio and it was all by accident. So to go right back, we used to own a boxing gym, a corporate boxing gym for everyday people. And we were stuck in lockdown in New Zealand. COVID lockdown. And boredom was taking over. But we were creating lots of content for our gym and our personal training pages. Joe's a health coach and I was a personal trainer and we were experimenting with videos and I was trying to bring a bit of humor to fitness, but. But then one day I came across this video about how your wife ends up turning into their mother, your mother in law. And cracked me up. And I'd recently figured out how to film and play an audio at the same time. So Joe was just in normal clothes, out cleaning. We had a little Airbnb at the time out cleaning that I said, come sit by me, babe. And I just held the phone out in front of us and played it. And she cracked up, as she'd just done for 1200 videos now.

[Joelle]

But also too, that I am becoming my mother. But also Mike's humor. You've always cracked a joke. We say, taken the piss here in New Zealand. Yeah, I know I can laugh at myself. And we have a good relationship. So this is where. That's where that audio really worked. Because it is. I found it funny. It is me. I don't take myself too seriously.

[Mike]

And we've been getting like a great fitness video for the gym was getting 5,000 views. And that one I posted on my personal training page and it got 100,000 views in 48 hours. And I was like. And everyone was like, oh, that is so funny. And it was crack up. And we enjoyed it and our friends were laughing and people were sending it around and it was awesome. And that was on Instagram because we were Instagrammers. And Joelle still is mainly an Instagrammer, even though I've been trying to get her over to YouTube. Like non stop. The dark side ages.

[Joelle]

There'll be action after this.

[Mike]

And I went back to fitness content for a while and then a month later I posted another one and it got 3 million views in a week. And obviously people loved it. And then I just started loving it too. And since then I've just been cranking them out. Instagram took off. We got up to 100. My page got up to 100,000 followers in four to five months. I was training a young girl at the gym, 19 year old. And she said, you should start putting them on TikTok. And I was like, TikTok, that's for young people. Like I'm old. Like 38 or 39 at the time. So anyway, I did. I started putting up one and then one of my old ones a day. And then all of a sudden that exploded. Like, I don't think we've ever had anything quite like it, where we were getting like millions of views every day. 5,000 new followers every day for three months on end. Like it was crazy. And then one day I got sent a paid a Facebook page and it was someone pretending to be us and posting all of our videos. And I was like, facebook's for old people. No one's going to want us to watch our stuff over there. So anyway, I was like, that page has 200,000 followers, I might as well start my own one. Three months later, we had a million followers on our page on Facebook. It was, I think all the fake pages and scammers and whatever else over there had helped us grow virally. And then when we actually put our legitimate page up, people could find the real us. And, yeah, it cranked. And then to the main platform, all of our favorite platform, YouTube. I tried a little bit, but I was quite scared of copyright, which is what I was leaning to earlier in this chat about using famous people's audios and everything like that, and worried about copyright strikes. And I'd heard YouTube was so strict and it's obviously where money is made. And when we're in New Zealand here, you can't make money off views on Instagram or TikTok. Turns out you can on Facebook. Back to YouTube. So they brought out the shorts policy. So therefore, if you post copyrighted content in shorts, YouTube gets a third, we get a third, and the comedians get a third. So that was great. That meant I could post whatever I want without worry of getting copyrighted. So, yeah, I dabbled. We didn't get anywhere. So I gave up and just kept on the platforms that were cranking. And then I got invited to New Zealand YouTube conference and got inspired, started posting our daily new video and two of our old ones. And then finally two hit and then it exploded just like the other platforms. And we raced to 500,000 subscribers in under a year.

[Dusty]

So just quickly, just a question about what you just said. So you cannot monetize views from Instagram or TikTok in New Zealand.

[Mike]

No, we're not in the monetization. Yeah. Okay.

[Dusty]

So all of the monetization, and we'll talk about this in a minute, but all the way that you're making money from those platforms, that's just growing your brand. And then obviously sponsorships and other avenues. But as far as the partner program, I've looked at all of your socials before this interview. You guys would be. I don't have to tell you, you would be making really good money from those programs. That's unfortunate, but I do think that you guys are doing just fine. I will ask you now, I do want to ask you, Joel, we'll start with you. What is the format of one of your videos? So Mike mentioned it about him telling a joke and you reacting. Paint us a picture for those listening now, exactly what one of the videos looks like on your channel.

[Joelle]

Sure. And you probably heard, like, Mike obviously shared more of the story about the journey because he is the absolute brains behind the content creation. I am the face, the talent. But also. So Mike will play a piece of audio or he will speak a piece of audio because he is funny. I think he's funny because. And then I react to that. The idea behind the reactions is they are generally positive. I may not agree with a joke, but I will laugh or roll my eyes. I'm not in my nature. I'm not someone to pick up a plate and throw it or so the. I'm always busy doing something because that is also who I am. And Mike will catch me by surprise by playing a piece of audio and I will then listen and continue to do what I'm doing whilst having a laugh, throwing in the odd comment, rolling my eyes and then getting eventually to the punchline.

[Mike]

And the punchlines aren't always to try and make Jo laugh. If she's shocked at the punchline, that's almost even better. I don't know if you ever see our thumbnails on YouTube.

[Joelle]

It's always just like, I'm very expressive and the other asset I have, or the other strength is my forehead lines are like perfectly symmetrical. So it's always. I don't know, my reactions are genuine, like completely genuine. I am naturally an overreactor, I think. So maybe that's. I think that's possibly why it really works well as well, is she's very.

[Mike]

Much an overreactor, even.

[Joelle]

We have two sons, they're nine and seven. And when one of my sons was homesick, I was reading an email and he just looking at my phone, reading it and he said to me, goes, mummy, what's happened? And obviously he could sit like, I was just looking at an email, but my face just showed a lot. So I think that's why it possibly works really well, as I'm very expressive and.

[Dusty]

Yeah, so I was going to ask that to you, Mike, that what she just said. Why do you think that works as far as on YouTube, as far as the platform and content in general, what do you think you discovered or the diamond in the rough that you guys figured out with your formatting as far as how you guys are doing this? Because it is every video where you're doing this and they're just. There's just suc. Every one of them is successful. You guys are doing so good with these videos. What is it about the way that you guys are formatting it that you believe kind of resonates with the audience so. Well.

[Mike]

That'S a lot to do with my lovely Wife Joelle. And everyone is just falls in love with her because often, like it's. It might sound bad, but often she's always dressed nice because she loves clothes and buying clothes and wearing clothes and all sorts of amazing outfits. But she's also. It comes through on the videos that she's an amazing mum, amazing husband.

[Joelle]

I'm an amazing, amazing wife. I feel bonkers in this episode. I'm just superwoman.

[Mike]

She's liar. She's got a sense of humor. So there's all of that. So everyone loves Joelle, which is amazing head start for us. And then as far as the humor and choosing the audios, I'm quite specific. My number one rule is that if I think it's funny, then I post it. Because with anything on the Internet or in life, like, not everyone's going to like avocados, even if they're the most delicious in season New Zealand avocados in the world. Not everyone likes avocados. So I just post what I think is funny and that's the measuring stick. The other thing is I with the relatable side, what happens is like if we touch on something like how in general, lots of women love having too many, in my opinion, pillows on a bed. It's actually like global in all and loads of relationships and therefore you get which the platforms love the most, especially the social like Instagram. And that is the sends so sending or sharing the the videos because husband is sending it to the wife. And then it's like creating that dynamic and that banter amongst the husband and wife. And then we get told that husband and wives watch the videos, laugh together.

[Joelle]

For them to get that moment when I watch a video that is maybe similar content to ours and I'm like, oh my gosh, that is you. And then I'll send it to Mike. I'm like, ah, that is generally for us, it's golf content.

[Dusty]

I've done that.

[Mike]

Yeah. And I think in general, lots of guys in particular love just teasing their wives for fun. It's like a hobby. And it turns out like lots and millions of husbands love doing that. So if a husband in a video is teasing a wife, not only will he potentially find it funny and send it to his wife, will see it and go, oh, that is so my husband. And send it to her husband.

[Dusty]

Yeah, yeah. The content is very shareable, like you said, where people send it back and forth. I know, I was just doing that today where we were sending some stuff with some buddies and friends about like friend groups and how there's one of this type of person and we would send it to the whole group and we would all watch it. So being very shareable is important. And I would agree with you, both of you have a good sense of humor and I mentioned it at the open of the show. Both of you really don't take yourselves too serious and so it makes it really relatable. Where give the example of the pillows on the bed. It is very universal. If you're in a cup, if you're in a relationship, my bed is three doors down and it's got more pillows on it than it ever should have. But that's just. Everything is just relevant, right? Everything is not relevant. Everything is just relative to relationships. And you guys have really formed a great audience around that. And I definitely want to talk about audience and community building, but I want to ask you, what do you think you've done on YouTube specifically? If you were talking to creators listening to this, trying to grow on YouTube, they hear you talking, they hear you talking about comedy and the formatting of your show and what you're doing. But as far as growing and growing a brand and growing on YouTube with content, what advice would the two of you give? We can start with Mike and then Joel. If you have something you can go after him.

[Mike]

Could. Hi. You'd probably hear it and it's probably being said by every guest and you millions and millions of times. It's consistency is the key. And I know it's a boring answer and everyone's heard it before, but I've got just a rule in my head that I post a new video every day and it's always.

[Joelle]

Because it's that short form. Sorry.

[Mike]

Because. Yes, sorry, short form. Content. Our content's quite easy to make. So it's not a 20 minute video that takes 100 hours to edit. So I can post every day. And that's my rule and my go to strategy is that I post a video that I think is funny every day. What I'd suggest for everyone else is whatever cadence you can stick to, you do. So if it's every Monday, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, once a month, once a year, whatever. Maybe not once a year, that's not enough. But yeah, just sticking to it. So that's the first one. That's a boring answer. The second answer is I've found a little like niche or I basically learned that if I could get non copyrighted audio joke and then turn the phone sideways so make a horizontal video, I could then post my jokes as a video Instead of a short normally get half or way less, quarter as many views as if I'd posted it as a short, but make four times more money. So 100,000 views of a video, a horizontal video that's over a minute long would make, you know, 10 times more than a short that has a million views. Yeah, so yeah, that was how we.

[Joelle]

You transitioned.

[Mike]

Yeah. And I don't, I actually don't see many subscribers, YouTubers doing that strategy.

[Joelle]

From a short form.

[Mike]

Yeah, from short form. TikTok creators or Instagram creators. I really feel like there's. They're all. Everyone's trying to monetize and I found that's been the greatest thing for our channel. And then I also. So I post three of those a week and then every couple of months I put them all together in a compilation and make it over eight minutes so we get some mid roll ads. And yeah, that strategy for YouTube is something that doing I believe we're doing quite well. And then I don't see many other people doing that if they're short form creators.

[Dusty]

I interrupt the interview to talk briefly about one of our newest services that we're offering creators. It's our channel review. So for 50 bucks you get about 12 to 15 minutes of me talking about your channel, taking a deep dive into some of your videos, taking a look at basically what your channel looks like from the outside. So if you're looking for a new set of eyes on your YouTube channel, definitely check that service out. Since I released this service a couple of weeks ago, I've done 23 of them. Every single one of them has written me back via email and said this has been one of the best things that I've done for my channel. So definitely check that out if you haven't already. And now back to the interview. Yeah, I'll just say quickly before Joelle, I'll let you answer this as well. It's something that I've been doing for a long time where on my tutorial channel for the most part I'm holding up my iPhone right now. I could do short form little two minute tutorial video showing you how to use an app or showing you how to do something. But with the YouTube shorts, like you said, the monetization is just not there yet where it is for long forms. And so I just make it into a vertical, I put it on top of a background and make it into a landscape video and it goes up as a regular long and I'm able to monetize and I believe people enjoy Watching it better that way. Especially educational content where they're not looking at their phone straight up and down and trying to figure out if they can see something. I'm able to zoom in better. So I can relate to that strategy. So I'm really glad you brought that up. Joelle, what would you say. What would you say as far as what you guys have learned along the way as far as growth on YouTube?

[Joelle]

I think. Do you think like a part of the audience as well? I think we're really trying because I think YouTube has been harder to engage with the audience. And so now with us, always. I mean, getting into the comment section a little bit more and finding. Just taking on feedback a little bit too from what the audience is liking.

[Mike]

Yeah. Cause we're so used to Instagram with stories and messages and that community side of it seems a bit easier to build. Whereas on YouTube there's a new community feature which is good. Still has some work to be done on it, I feel. But I would love to have the option of stories and all of that sort of stuff on YouTube as well to really bring in the group.

[Joelle]

Because I think our content is quite community lead. We were. We're a break from. Because it's the humor and the. We don't take ourselves too seriously. We're a break from what possibly would be like I would use YouTube more for educational content for myself. So to then pop it, have something funny pop in. It's a little bit different.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Joelle]

I think.

[Mike]

And I think just a side bit of info, it's quite interesting. The demographic of our subscribers on YouTube compared to the other platforms. On the other platforms, 50 of our followers are our age, in their 40s, early 40s. No. So slightly below our age. And then right up to 80 plus years old, but mostly around our age. Whereas on YouTube, our subscribers are 92% male and 90% of them are over 50 years old. That suits my humor for some reason. Voice humor. The older the joke, the funnier I find it. The more dirty the joke, the funnier I find it. And for some reason YouTube, when we started it, sent our videos to that type of demographic of subscriber and it's exploded. So I feel like maybe They've come onto YouTube to find out how to maybe watch one of your videos, for example, to find out how to do something. And then YouTube has fed them one of our videos because YouTube knows that people of their demographic like our videos. So really I feel like that maybe it's how lots of people have found us on YouTube.

[Dusty]

It's really interesting to hear about the demographics being that skewed on YouTube. I think there's probably a couple of reasons for that, but just in general for you guys, you'll make more money from that audience because advertisers are willing to pay. I've said this a hundred times, they're willing to pay for the older people way more. Because these people have money. People that are 40, 50 year old men, they're close to retirement, they've had, they have savings, they're going to. The advertisers know. I don't want to advertise to a 19 year old broke college student. I want to advertise to a guy who's actually making some money or has made some money. So for you guys, that's actually beneficial. And so let's transition into monetization then for a minute. I'm not going to ask you guys exactly how much you make from your content, but I will ask you to break it down for me. Whichever one of you wants to take it, just talk about the ways that you are able to make money. And let's be clear, you guys are doing this primarily full time now, both of you, is that correct?

[Joelle]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dusty]

Okay. And whichever one of you wants to take this, just break down the different monetization buckets and how you're making money from this.

[Mike]

So as far as YouTube goes, we are 100% AdSense. The reason why we are 100% AdSense is because I find doing sponsored content really tough. Changing my videos to suit a sponsor or throw a sponsor in front of my audience, I don't really love. And I've learned that through Instagram because where most of the sponsored stuff comes from and, and I know I'll probably get a telling off from you about this, but the videos are quite easy to make and I can make the exact video I want. And they make quite good money without a sponsor. And I feel like I can make a funny joke video in half a day, whereas a sponsored piece of content, I have to go back and forward for potentially weeks.

[Joelle]

Mike's not a fan of having his creative process removed from him.

[Dusty]

Listen, I.

[Mike]

That's well put, actually.

[Dusty]

Yes, I am. I'm resonating with that currently in the season that I'm in right now. I went from a, almost a decade of this podcast being sponsored by the same sponsor and then that kind of went away. And I have a bunch of people, a bunch of companies approaching me, they're emailing me, they're sending me dms on places and they're giving me kind of their requirements. And I realized how good back when Phil ran tubebuddy and they were really bootstrapping and mom and pop kind of thing he gave me. I could do anything. I could say what I wanted, I could do what I wanted. I could have whoever I wanted on the show. A lot of these companies now are saying, I want you to have this guest on in Q1 and this get. I'm just not about that. And I think that if I can create enough business and revenue with stuff that I'm doing and stuff that I can curate myself, I think I'd much rather have that now. Does that mean that I'm never going to have a sponsor on the show? No, I probably will at some point, but right now I'm just very pleased with where I am. So I do get that that part of it is good. And I think that you're selling yourself short a little bit. You're saying that these videos are rather easy to make? Yes, they're easy to make. I've watched a lot of them. They're hilarious. You guys do such a great job with them. They may be easy to make time wise, but I think that the creative side of it and Joelle, you can speak watching Mike do this thing, but it takes time. It takes effort to put together the comedic timing. I've. I'm working with some comedy creators right now. They're having a really hard time breaking through. You really have to be funny. You really have to have a good personality and I think that it resonates well. So I didn't mean to break in there, but I do want to say I do feel you there. So what other buckets do you have making money?

[Mike]

Facebook monetization at the moment. I know it's going to go through a change soon, so I don't know how that's going to go. Maybe it's already happened in the States, but right now most of the money comes from ads on Reels and Insights. What's the other one called in stream ads? Yeah, on Facebook and they're doing really well. So 40% of our income comes from AdSense on YouTube. 40% of our income comes from Facebook ads, I guess you'd call them. 10% of our income comes from influencer deals on Instagram, which is mainly Joelle. And then the other 10% comes from.

[Joelle]

Made for More, which is my coach. I'm a health coach, so my coaching business.

[Dusty]

Yeah, that's awesome. You guys have really diversified. I think the Facebook Change. It'll be a change, but I don't think. Who knows, right? We can't speak on it, but you guys have really done a good job with that. I want to talk about community engagement and community building. You mentioned the shareability of the content. What would you say about fostering a community? What did you guys do early on? Were you commenting to everyone? Were you trying to really bring the engagement out of the community? Like, how did you foster a healthy community and grow it into a basically multimedia million followers across all your socials?

[Joelle]

We definitely didn't. We like in the comment section, responding to people. Dms. I think we responded to every single DM that we got. And now that is just unmanageable. And. But it's also. I don't know. You. You used. We used to acknowledge people's. Like sometimes you'd get ideas from some of. So if we've got. Mike's got this awesome sense of humor and obviously the followers that are commenting and engaging have a similar sense of humor. And so you actually have some. They're mainly men, I would assume. This is just me assuming we have men and women. Like across the other platforms there's a male, female, 50 50, but it would be mainly men that might send them, like type out a full joke with an idea like, oh, you've got to do this to Joelle. And actually then in turn I get sent lots of pranks. Pranks from women that. You've got to get Mike back with this.

[Mike]

She doesn't want to start the war though, because.

[Joelle]

And that people do ask that often. Mike's pranked you so many times. Why don't you get him back? I'm not silly. Once I get him back, then he's just gonna one up me and it's gonna escalate and I'll just happily take the joke. So I think that that's been huge. We still do engage in the comments section. We still do reply to DMs, but we just simply can't manage it as much. And so far we've kept it to ourselves. We don't want to outsource someone else. Yeah, no.

[Mike]

Is that interesting? Like, yes. We want our engagement to go up and we want our followers to be replied to. But if it's not by us, it feels a bit weird. So trying to make a call on that at the moment.

[Joelle]

We're actually going to trial someone joining us to help do that, do some.

[Mike]

Comments mainly just to get rid of the bad comments and the not so nice comments to start with, but then engage with the good comments as well. And if that goes good on one of our platforms, then we might spread it across. So far at the moment I just prioritize my YouTube comment section and at very minimum heart most of the comments that come through and try and reply to the really nice ones.

[Joelle]

Because I even think as a consumer myself, when if there's someone I follow that I, I just think is awesome, even if they like my comment or respond to it, I'm like, well that's so cool. It's a feel good thing. And we're, we're feel good kind of people. As simple as liking someone's comment can really go far.

[Dusty]

So I have to ask you. Go ahead. You go ahead, go ahead.

[Mike]

I just have one point on it and it's something that I've spoken to other creators about and it's do I spend an hour in the day hour of each day in the comments replying to my audience to help with my engagement or do I use that hour to create another piece of content and put that out? So it's like what do you prioritize? So at the moment I do a little bit of commenting responding, but yeah, I prioritize my time and creation because I believe an extra video a day or a week instead of that will. Yeah, I don't know. It's a real tipping point each way.

[Joelle]

But possibly where we're at in our platform too, that is probably more important.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dusty]

I do have to ask you, you both mentioned. Joelle said that you're very positive people in general in a world, in a society and an Internet that is full of just negativity. If you turn on the news, if you watch any YouTube, people are ready to cancel everyone they can. Do you believe that the pot. I believe this. And I want to ask you your feelings on this. Do you believe that the positive nature of your content is one of the strong suits that help propel you guys.

[Joelle]

Ahead of others 100%. Yes, because. And we get that feedback quite often. Like it's just so nice to see something positive, something fun, something funny in my day. And we get beautiful. Like I can be in tears sometimes. Hey. From the beautiful messages we receive of someone unwell and they're able to consume something where it's just a bit of normal life which they're not able to have in their life right now because they're unwell in hospital. You're right. There is so much negativity to see something fun and light hearted and normalizing it more. I Think that's what we've always. We encourage our boys just to have fun. We love like Mike loves to be silly. I love to be silly. Are you going to tell the story this morning? No. Okay. We were all very silly this morning. Was that what you. Not a story.

[Dusty]

That's awesome.

[Mike]

But, yeah, we always choose life and living. So we've always had a positive mind frame and we moved from a city to a beach town to try and give ourselves the best opportunity and our kids the best opportunity to live wholesome, healthy lives. And yeah, we don't read the news.

[Joelle]

Because we don't watch the news.

[Mike]

If you open a News app, there's 10 headlines that will just horrible. Like, it's just so bad for your mind. And then. Are they all 100% true? No, they're sensationalized as well to get the clicks. So it's about for us choosing what we watch, what we open, when we watch it, how we live.

[Dusty]

I think a lot of it too is the negativity gets the views quicker oftentimes because if you're being critical or you're being rude or you're trying to cancel someone, that kind of shock factor really brings in the views and the clicks. And unfortunately, that's just the way of the way it is right now. I want to ask you, Mike, specifically, how do you. How do you ideate? How do you come up with ideas? And do you ever worry that you're going to get to a day and not have an idea? Or do you just have a running list of these jokes and is that a fear of yours? Talk about that for a minute.

[Mike]

I do wonder if there's any jokes left in the world sometimes when I'm like trying to find them.

[Joelle]

Can I just interrupt, though? He was really grumpy the other day because he just like when he is always looking for jokes, he's on a lot of the time. And he was so grumpy the other day because he just hadn't had any inspiration or hadn't. Like, I can tell his mood shifts. I mean, it was absolutely fine to be around, but he just wasn't his usual joke himself. And he's. I just haven't struck that point. And he's back again.

[Mike]

Sometimes I can look for a joke for two hours and it's my role right then is to find like some jokes. And for two hours I just come up empty and it can be quite frustrating. And then I'll sit down on the loo or something and then just be scrolling. I'm like, bang, three jokes or three ideas that are just amazing in three minutes. Well, that's awesome. The other ways I do come across jokes is because I watch them all the time. The algorithms of every platform send me jokes, and I follow all the couples that do what we do and try and take inspiration from them. There's amazing joke pages on Facebook. We all share jokes.

[Joelle]

Basically, we got books out from the library.

[Mike]

Books out from the library. Google jokes. I even got a. A very well known and expert podcaster to voice a joke for me last week. Yeah.

[Dusty]

Oh, is it in a video?

[Mike]

It is in a video I was meant to send.

[Dusty]

Oh, you'll have to. You'll have to send that to me. I'm so excited. I wanted my. I wanted to let my wife watch it. When I read it, I was cracking.

[Joelle]

You have the coolest voice ever, Dusty.

[Mike]

I listen to your voice every week and then I'm like, this AI voice I use. Oh, Dusty's voice. Could be better than that. Okay.

[Dusty]

Yeah, for sure, for sure. That's awesome. If you don't know if you're listening. They actually had me voice a joke, and it might be something we can do in the future kind of going forward too, maybe a few more times. But that was really fun. It was pretty cool to be involved in what you guys are doing. I don't consider myself a comedian. I love to speak, I love to be encouraging, I love to motivate, I love to educate, like what I'm doing. But I think that if you guys speaking to Mike and Joelle, if you were to hang out with myself and my wife, you would find that I have a very similar sense of humor. I love to laugh. I love to make people laugh. I think that's the beauty of the Internet. But I want to ask you guys just a closing question for those listening to this. The mantra of this show, and you guys know, listening to it for so long, is to help people who are either trying to start grow or monetize on YouTube. I'm going to allow both of you to have the floor. What would you say to these people? And we'll start with Joelle and then Mike will close out with you.

[Joelle]

My. My biggest thing with anything in life is just to really have a crack, go all in. Even if it is like a bit of a side hustle, still have that faith in yourself that you can do it. I'm a bit more woo than what Mikey is. Hence me being like, just have a crack. Have a go at it. What is there? You're not going to know what you can achieve if you don't really go all in. Yeah, you can do the like actual practical advice, but that is practical. You've got, you've got to really have a go to know if you're going to get anywhere. Like us moving here to the beach. We moved from a big city, small town. At that stage we weren't full time content creators. We owned a gym and Mike traveled and we had a crack. And for us it's paid off.

[Mike]

Which is exactly what I was going to say in a slightly different way where Joe was actually just talking about it last night. Where I always started, even as a gym owner, I started little projects all of the time and often they would work pretty good the first time and then I'd be bored and move on. Which is perfect for video creation the way I do it because I can make a video and then move on to the next one. Move on to the next one. It just suits my. Yeah, but the point is, to answer your question is I tried so many things for 20 years. And basically because I kept looking back now and seeing how, where we are now, it's because I kept trying things and finally something just popped out of the hundred things, random things that I tried, business or online or whatever. Because I kept trying different things. I stumbled across this way to play funny jokes to Jo and her laughing, which sounds crazy.

[Joelle]

I've been around for that. 20 years of him trying many things.

[Mike]

But without me jumping into the gym scene, getting every trainer on Instagram, getting the gym going on Instagram, trying to create content for the gym, figuring out new ways to use Instagram and then. Which all led me to this space where I came across a funny joke. I knew how to film it, played it to Joe, it popped and it worked. And then just following that lead of a format that I randomly stumbled into and just, yeah, cranking it.

[Dusty]

I'm so excited for you guys. I know a million subscribers doesn't really mean anything in this grand scheme of things. It does, it really does. And you guys are very close. And I one time I googled, my wife asked me, she said it was years ago, we had gotten married and the channel, my channel, had just crossed over a hundred thousand subscribers. And she said, I Wonder how many YouTube channels get to a hundred thousand subscribers. And I can't remember, I googled it. It was a very low percentage. And so I could only imagine to get to a million, I'm closer to half a million. You guys are way ahead of where I am. But A million subscribers is something to be a PR to be very proud of. And I want you guys to know that your content is positive, it's engaging, it's funny, and it's just the kind of creator I love having on this show. And so when you reached out to me to do consulting, the first thought to mine of mine when I got off the call was I've got to have them on the podcast. Because I just knew that your content is directly the, the, the reason why I record this podcast for the past decade plus. And so I wanted you both to know that and I want to encourage you to keep going and keep doing what you're doing and keep getting better and keep iterating because you guys really are the reason why I love YouTube and I love talking to creators. If you want to check out what they have going on, it's Mike and Joelle J O E L L e over on YouTube and go ahead and help them on their journey to 1 million subscribers over there. I think that they would appreciate that, as would I. And guys, thank you for joining me this week. And that's a wrap on this week's episode YouTube Creators Hub Show. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. I know I did. Don't forget to check out all of our services. We have one on one coaching, we have the channel review service, we have our creators community group. So whether you're looking to invest 5 or 200 into your channel, we have everything in that spectrum. Also, we have a email newsletter called the Entrepreneurs Minute. Go check that out if you're looking to keep up with what I'm doing. I share resources, I share books, I talk about my week and it's just a behind the scenes list look of what it takes to keep Porter Media running. And so if you're interested in that, check that out as well. And with that said, we'll talk to you next week.