Nick Nimmin (2:41)

I am fantastic. Dusty as always, man. Really excited to come on, have a conversation with you that's going to add value to creators in some way. Always excited, man, to be here on the podcast. I'm doing awesome. Thank you for, for having me on.

Dusty (2:54)

So let's just dive into it. What are right now, midway through 2025, what are some of the trends that you're seeing that are exciting you for creators? Because you do these live streams very long form every weekend or every other weekend and critique and audit people's channels. And so you're really in the weeds and you see all these questions coming in. So what are some things that are exciting you right now in the creator space?

Nick Nimmin (3:19)

Some things that I think are interesting and I know this is going to be a little bit of a polarizing conversation because some people are all in for this kind of stuff, other people don't want anything to do with it. But I think something that is interesting is that a lot of people are starting to use AI to fill holes that they have. And what I mean by that is when it comes to making thumbnails, we can just make a thumbnail and we can put it up on YouTube and we can hope that it makes sense for the people that we're trying to reach. Or you can take an extra 30 seconds, you can drop that thumbnail into ChatGPT and you can ask ChatGPT to give you any feedback on that thumbnail and it can help you point out things that you might not be able to see, especially if you're a new creator. And I think that things like this are really valuable when it comes to writing titles, making thumbnails, coming up with content strategy, that sort of thing because especially if you're new, but even for experienced people it's helpful. But when you're new, you might not have the feedback mechanisms in place, right? You might not have any friends that have enough experience to where they can give you real valuable information. You might not have a design background or you can look at something and you can be like, oh, I need to adjust this in order to make this pop a little bit more. And because of that, you have these tools that people are using to make better thumbnails write more effective titles. And in some cases, I don't know if you've seen it dusty, but people are also making things to where they're sketching out thumbnails and it looks like something that a kindergartner would make in terms of the quality of the sketch. And then they're uploading that into ChatGPT and they're using ChatGPT's new image feature to get a realistic high quality looking thumbnail. Now, in some cases this takes a handful of swings in terms of you got to try it a few times in order to dial it all in with your prompts and things like that. But even the results that people are getting out of that are absolutely mind blowing and they, some of them can compete with like super high quality thumbnails on YouTube. So one of the things that I think is great is that creators are leaning into that sort of thing and it's helping fill some holes that people might have in their skill sets or it's helping them be able to see things that they just might not be able to see yet because they just haven't had the experience yet. So I, I'm seeing a lot more AI generated thumbnails, unfortunately, when it comes to titles, because I see a lot of semicolons and EM dashes and things like that to where it's a little bit obvious that it comes from ChatGPT. But I don't know if everybody recognizes that or not. But in a lot of cases, even those titles are better than the titles that a lot of people would write when they're getting started. And I keep making this reference to getting started because I mostly target newer content creators with my content. But basically when it comes to what I'm seeing is I'm seeing that the barrier to entry is getting even lower because this is one of the things we always talk about how it's getting easier and easier, but the barrier to entry is getting lower in terms of the things that you have to know how to do. So now instead of learning about design. You can learn about design so that you can be better equipped in terms of when you are writing prompts and stuff. But now you just have to learn how to write prompts that will get you the result that you want if you're going to take that type of approach. But for somebody that. That doesn't know what to put in your thumbnails, it's great for that as well, right? So let's say, for example, you're making a video about something, you have a video idea, and you're like, man, this would be a really good idea, but I have no idea what I would put in the thumbnail for this. Like, how would I grab attention based on this idea that I have? And you can basically explain your idea to chatgpt and then have chatgpt just keep giving you ideas of things that you might put in your thumbnail so that you can solve that as well. So I think when it comes to what I'm seeing is I am seeing more AI thumbnails, more AI titles, seeing more people getting results with new channels, which is always a win, and also hearing about people using ChatGPT in those particular ways, and a bunch more.

Dusty (7:09)

So for me, it's a lot of trial and error where I've experimented with a bunch of AI tools, and sometimes I've leaned a little too much on AI and I found that the results were not as good as when I used it as a companion. And I used it as, okay, maybe I'll use AI exactly what you said. You had a really good phrase at the beginning of that answer. You said to fill the gaps. I think that's where AI is best, is when you find those things that you might be not as efficient at and you use AI there, but where your genius is if you're really good. Like, for me, I feel podcasting and audio and being able to riff in front of a microphone is one of my strong suits. And so I'm not going to use AI voices, right? Because that's just. That's where I feel like I'm the strongest. But as far as some of the other things, like maybe editing or packaging or copy, when I'm sending out marketing materials for my episodes, those are the places where I found AI to really help me and help propel me and shave off hours of time. So let's just break this down for a minute. We'll talk about your workflow in a second. But let's talk about just what you would consider to be the upper echelon of AI tools like in your workflow, what have you found to be as a creator? Not necessarily in your personal life, but as a creator, as creators are listening to the show, what have you found to be the top tier tools that. Because there are so many out there, Nick, sometimes it can get confusing, it can be overwhelming. And there's a tool here, a tool there, some of them do the same thing. What would you consider to be the tools that you would just say, hey, these are the ones you need to have in your tool belt, and then you can expand beyond those after you have those navigated.

Nick Nimmin (8:44)

So I think the core1 is chatgpt, of course. Like, think that at least the way that I use ChatGPT in my professional and personal life, if I could only have one subscription, I would suffer with everything else. So that I could have a Chat GPT subscription.

Dusty (8:59)

And you pay the $20, right?

Nick Nimmin (9:02)

Yeah, yeah. And that's just so that I can talk to it, because I brainstorm with it while I drive. I pass ideas by it. If I'm working on something for myself or for anybody else, I will run those ideas through ChatGPT. If I'm doing presentations, I don't rely on presentation or on ChatGPT for outlines and things like that because I take pride in sharing the things that I know in the way that I like to share them. However, one thing that I do, though, is I will take my presentation notes or my outline and I will drop it in there and I'll be like, hey, is there anything that you think that I might be missing here that would add value to this particular audience for this particular thing? And. And then I'll get whatever feedback. And then of course, like you mentioned before, I'll use my intuition from there because you do want to make sure you're using these things as an assistant or a tool, not necessarily to do all of the work for you, but using it for those types of things I found to be extremely valuable. So ChatGPT, for that I repurposed some of my content. So of course I'm using Opus Clip for that because it's the best one. In addition to that, really, those are really the only two in terms of my creator life. Now I'm also using Claude and I'm also using Cursor because I'm also building some software stuff. But when it comes to being a content creator, side of what I do for that, just Chat GPT and Opus Clip.

Dusty (10:18)

Yeah, I think Chat GPT is the one that I use the most. I found that Perplexity is really interesting because it's really good at search and so I can be researching or wanting to I'm working on a course right now and something I'm doing On my tutorial YouTube channel is I'm going to be linking a bunch of courses to some of my more popular videos and I found that to to be successful with the I've launched so far and it's helping me basically break down the course and the different modules. Like you said, I have the outline I've written myself but it's really helped me by giving it that outline and saying hey, where are the where am I missing something? Is there a module I'm missing? And there was a couple where it showed me. For instance I'm doing a course on how to use Apple Notes for basically just the full gambit of utilizing Apple Notes and Apple Reminders to simplify the productivity space. And it was like hey, there's these new features with Apple Notes where it is in tandem with Apple Reminders and Apple Calendar and I didn't have any of that and so it helped me get that to where it's okay. These are the things that I'm missing in these things. So I I love to hear that opus clip I've used before. If you don't know what that is. It takes long form content, breaks it down into vertical short form content and can do even more than that now it actually does the mid tier video clips and it's growing. I also really like Descript. I'm not sure if you've heard of that one. It's a text based editor where I can throw my videos into or can throw my podcast into. It can remove the filler words automatically. It'll remove the gaps. I still send my stuff to an audio editor, but I'm getting closer and closer to not really having to because tool really helps me with that. So I love that. Are there any prompts that you just you've created yourself and you're willing to share? Maybe not the full prompt. I have one for thumbnails that I think are you know that I've mentioned here numerous times but are there any prompts that you use that have really allowed you to get results beyond what the normal or average AI result would.

Nick Nimmin (12:03)

Be in terms of gets better results than normal AI? I'm not sure. I do have a folder full of prompts on my computer but in terms of things off the top of my head I'm not sure but but I do absolutely have prompt for thumbnails I have prompts for content strategy. I and a lot of times when it comes to ChatGPT specifically, I'll also just talk to it in normal language. So one of the things that, that I've found very helpful because I'm trying to learn a lot of coding right now. And then I'll also think about this when it comes to workflow or have these conversations when it comes to workflow, when it comes to the content I'm publishing and all of those things and learning about teaching, like all these just other ideas like when I go into town because I live out in the country where I'm at and I've got about a 20 to 30 minute drive to get to the nearest civil and one of the things that I'll do is I will put ChatGPT in voice mode and I'll just brainstorm with it like the whole ride there, the whole ride back. And during those conversations I'll be talking to it about, is there anything that I might be missing about this? Is there any way that I might be able to do this better? Am I looking at this the right way? If you were in my position, was there anything that you would recommend to me about this, those types of things? And then I'll just try to have natural conversations with it and just ask it all the questions. Now, of course it is AI and AI does have errors in it and sometimes it gets things wrong. You don't want to necessarily lean on it 100%, but it is just amazing for helping you be able to identify things. Like one of the things that I'm doing in my personal life that's crossing over to my creator life is I'm making apps. And as part of that, when you first start, you don't really know what you're doing at all. But then you can start having these conversations. You're like, okay, so when I'm making these, because I'm using AI for it, so I'm like, okay, when I'm making these, I am seeing these particular things come up a lot. So since I'm seeing these things come up a lot, like these functions or these structs or whatever, can you just explain to me what that is and can you explain, explain to me why it's important, can you explain to me how to use it, what's the case on when to use it, when not to use it and things like that. And you can also do this when it comes to your videos. So here's something interesting for content creators. So go into your high performing Videos, ones that had a strong first 30 seconds. Go and grab your transcript for that, drop it into CHAT GPT and just ask it what it thinks about that particular hook. And then go and take your videos that had a rough time in that first 30 seconds to where you just, you, we make mistakes, right? But go do the same thing with videos that you know that did poorly in that first 30 seconds to where you pretty much killed your retention, and drop that into there and see what it has to say. I found the accuracy on ChatGPT gauging what a good hook is to be extremely high. And because of that, you can also use ChatGPT to help you be able to write better hooks for your videos. So I'm not a huge fan. I know people use it. I even work with a tool called Tube Spanner that that has a tool that is an AI script writing tool. And I think things like that are okay. But think that as a creator, part of being a creator is creating something. So because of that, I always recommend that people do write their own scripts. But when you're writing your scripts saying, hey, I think this is a great hook, let me just get that second opinion. And then you drop it into ChatGPT just for those blind spots, because it'll tell you, it'll say things like this part right here where you said this, it's a little bit wordy and people are likely to tune out during this particular part. So because of that, you might want to tighten this up a little bit and those little things to where in your brain you're like, hey, I think this might be good. And then you just get that feedback to where you may or may not take the advice, but it just gives you things to consider where then you can go back on your intuition, your understanding of your audience, your understanding of what typically works in your channel and all that. And you can say, yeah, maybe I do want to tweak this based on what I know. Or I've done this plenty of times in terms of this same thing I'm getting ready to do. So it's probably going to be okay. But using it for those types of things is also really powerful, in my opinion, because it brings us full circle back to what we first started talking about in terms of just using it as an assistant and getting that additional feedback, especially for people that don't have other content creators in their lives that can look at what it is they're doing or they can bounce ideas off of or those types of things.

Dusty (16:05)

So I'm going to Give you an example of a creator that might have emailed me as a creator coach, and I'm going to allow you to give me the answer that you would give them. So let's play this game a little bit. Creator messages me and they said, this video is starting to get some traction with the algorithm, but the CTR is awful. So the click through rate is abysmal. Right? Like the packaging may not be. Whatever it is. Should you, Should I change the thumbnail? Should I change the title? What advice would you give this creator? Because I get this a lot. I actually had an email come in this morning with this exact question. What would you tell that creator?

Nick Nimmin (16:42)

First, I would tell them that thumb. That click through rate isn't just based on your thumbnail. Thumbnail, Your click through rate is based on the topic of the video. It's based on the timing of when you publish that video. Not necessarily Monday through Friday, 8 to 10, 8am to 10pm not that timing, but timing in terms of when people are the most interested in that particular piece of content. But basically it comes down to the topic itself. It comes down to the timing. It comes down to the thumbnail's ability to grab the attention of the people that you are trying to reach so that they can quickly and easily identify that your content's about something that they might care about. And then your title as well, in terms of is, does that entire package make somebody feel like, this is a video that I might want to watch or this is a video that I can put in my watch later, or this is not a video that I want to watch, or does it make the viewer feel like, oh, I need to watch this? And when it comes to your click through rate, it's important to remember that sometimes your thumbnail's fine, sometimes your title's fine, sometimes you're just off on the topic. Sometimes you're fine on the topic and your thumbnail or title are off. Right? So because of that, it's important to consider all of those things and start looking into all of those things. So the very first thing there would be okay, if it's a click through rate problem, then you've already looked at the click through rate and you've already identified that people aren't clicking on it. So therefore sit back and look at your thumbnail and say, okay, if somebody that I was trying to somebody my target audience, if this showed up on their homepage, what exactly about this thumbnail would help them at a glance identify that this has something to do with something that they care about. And then ask yourself, when it comes to this thumbnail, if that's the thing that would help them grab attention. Is there anything else that I'm doing in this thumbnail that would actually distract them from that in terms of I've made it way too busy, I've got stuff all over the place, I'm adding subscribe buttons and all this other craziness to my thumbnail. Is there anything that you're going to distract people from that thing that's going to help them identify it? I see this a lot in gaming where people will use game imagery, but everything that is on top of the game imagery makes it to where you can't see the game imagery. And it makes it hard for people that are interested in that game to be able to easily identify that content is about that game in the first place, unless they happen to read the title. But if you notice on YouTube, thumbnails are getting bigger and bigger. So because of that, it's important to make sure that you do think of that in terms of being a primary way to grab people's attention. But yeah, when it comes to that particular answer, Dusty, I would tell them that it comes down to those things and because of that they should consider the actual topic. So if they are getting a bad click through rate, the first thing I would tell them actually is go into your traffic sources and tell me exactly what the click through rate is for homepages, for suggested videos, for YouTube search, and then tell me where it is that you're trying to get views from. And then I would go through that whole exercise that we just went through. Yeah, and then I would have them look to make sure that other videos have been published on the topic. If they haven't, I would have them hop into Google Trends to see if the interest on that topic is on the rise, steady or on the decline. I would have them just check into communities around that topic to make sure this is something that people are actively talking about, that sort of thing for the topic itself, just so they can verify the topic itself. And then when it comes to the timing, sometimes, you know, you can be the first person to publish a video and YouTube doesn't have a lot of inventory on that. And even though the video is not the best quality, even though you know your thumbnail isn't that great, your title's not super compelling because the topic is on point and the timing is right, you don't have a lot of competition on that particular thing and your videos can blow up because of that, so when it comes to your click through rate being down, there's just, there's a lot of variables that there. So because of that you have to be able to sit back and look at everything that's going on there and make sure that you do have it focused on the viewer in terms of helping them identify it. And then secondary also making sure it's, it's compelling. And then of course, all of that wrapped in or wrapped around a good topic.

Dusty (20:29)

Yeah, I've had videos like that where they didn't perform well initially. I'll never forget before COVID I did one of the first full Zoom tutorials and then Covid hit and that video just went crazy. And I look back at it and man, that video could have been so much better. But because, because of the timing. Exactly. Like you said, that video really popped off because it was just right place, right time. But now knowing what I know there would have been some certain changes that, that I would have made. We oftentimes thought think about the packaging being title, thumbnail, whatever it is. But like you said, sometimes it is just timing and sometimes it is maybe you're not answering the right question. So if you're a business or in finance, whatever. Now it's different if you're in gaming, maybe the game's not as popular as you think or maybe it's not at the peak of where it needs to be or what. So many things to consider other than just the thumbnail. Right? Because the timing does matter, the relevancy does matter. A few weeks, if you, about a month ago, if you would have done a video on tariffs, you know that you probably would have gotten a lot more views as opposed to doing it six to nine months ago. Right. Because the tariff has now become a very common word here in the states. These are all things that we have to understand and know. What if it was the opposite of that, Nick? What if it was? Okay, I'm getting a pretty good click through rate. People are wanting to see what's underneath the COVID of the book here. But whenever you, they come to the video, they're not watching a very long time, the watch time. And so we can talk about hooks, we can talk about things like that. What would you say to that person.

Nick Nimmin (21:56)

When it comes to your videos performing well on YouTube? Like everything has to work across the board. If you kind of drop the ball anywhere, then it can negatively impact the video. Sometimes it can be okay and get you through, but if you drop the ball anywhere in the process, then you know it can negatively impact the video. So when it comes to audience retention, you have a few things that you have to think about. One, you have to think, and this is usually where people start, is you got to think about, okay, when somebody enters that video, then what are they seeing, what are they hearing, what are you showing, what are you telling them? How's your story starting? Is their music playing yes or no? What's actually happening right there? And how do people respond to that? But I recommend that people go a step farther back and they start thinking about their packaging again. And they start thinking, okay, people are clicking on this at a high rate. That means that they're interested in how I've packaged this up, but the video isn't meeting their expectations. So if the video isn't meeting their expectations, then that means that I didn't do a good job at my packaging because they're expecting more out of this video than what it is that they're getting out of it. So because of that, maybe I've sensationalized this a lot more than I should have. And then when somebody clicks into the video, they are not getting what they expected out of that video. As a content creator, it's really important to make sure that you're always thinking about the expectation that your packaging, your thumb topic, title and thumbnail create about the video. And, and a workflow tweak that you can do that can help you increase the activity that you're getting on your channel, regardless of your size. If you're not doing it this way, as long as your content type allows, this is. A lot of people will make their videos, and then they will, after the video is completed, while they're uploading that video to YouTube, they will open up Photoshop or whatever it is they make thumbnails in, and then they'll start hammering away on that thumbnail and they'll be like, okay, now how am I going to represent this thumbnail? What's a good title for this video? And they'll start thinking about it. Then if you reverse that process and first you start thinking about, okay, this is my video idea. Before I commit to making this video idea, how can I package this up in a way that's going to be effective for the people that I'm trying to reach? And how can I package this up in a way that's going to create the right expectation for the video that I want to make? And then from there, you keep working on that part until you can be like, okay, for the thumbnail, I'm going to do this or here's a couple options for me to do for the thumbnail and then for the title, I'm going to do the this and with this thumbnail and with this title based on the topic that they express. There's a really good chance that the person that sees this on their homepage or search or suggested videos, wherever it is you're bringing them in from that, they're going to expect this when this video first starts and then the next step after you figure out your packaging is to then go and script out or bullet point or overall, just make the video. And the benefit that gives you is because you're considering the entire viewer experience from the moment they see your content on their homepage or suggested videos or search from the moment they see that all the way through, clicking through it and then what it is that you're going to show them or share with them as they're coming into the video, and then from there the rest of the video content itself. So that little workflow tweak can make a really big difference. And let me give you an example. So let's say that in the video idea stage, like, okay, I'm going fishing. If you have a fishing channel, you're like, okay, I'm going fishing. And since I'm going fishing, I'm going to make some content while I'm there. I've also made some videos of some other areas of fishing. And since I'm going here, maybe I can put together a compilation of sorts and talk about these other places because I have all this footage and let me target a video on the best fishing, fishing locations in, I don't know, we'll say Florida. In Florida. And in that particular case, if I, if that's going to be the title, then when somebody comes into that video, it would be okay to show drone shots and to show some more like setting the scene type of things for some of these locations that you're going to show maybe as you're talking underneath it or something like that. But basically the focus as they would come in could it would be okay having drone shots and that kind of stuff, because in that case they're expecting a video about these cool locations and you're showing like an overview of those locations. Now if you had a video and same thing, you're going fishing, you're like, okay, I'm going to make a video. If you start working on the packaging first and you're like, okay, I also want to make a video about some fishing tips. Tips in that particular Case you're like, okay, what would the thumbnail be for that? What would the title be for that? So this is going to be 10 ways to catch More Fish, just as a rough example. So since you're setting everything up that way and you know it, then when you go fishing and you're making the actual video content, okay, when the video first starts, I'm going to tell them as soon as they come into that video, hey, if you want to catch more fish, I'm going to show you 10 different ways. It's going to help you catch a lot more fish. And then that way you're just meeting them right there where they're at, right with that expectation and you're confirming that they clicked on the right thing. They're not being clickbaited, anything like that. Like that. And then you start getting into the content itself. So when you reformat the way that you're approaching it, it can make a really big difference because you're leaning into the viewer expectation when you're making the actual video content. That's all that makes sense, Dusty.

Dusty (26:48)

It does make sense. Sometimes we mislead the viewer and we get the wrong person. A lot of times we, speaking of fishing, no pun intended, we, we catch the wrong fish and we're not actually, they're not really what they came there for is not in the video because we mis with the packaging. So I love that. Thank you for being. That's why I love having conversations with you because you're so in depth and having examples that are actually tangible that we can think through really helps creators make it applicable to, to their channel. I want to ask you this. We talked off air before we hit record about your, I guess you would call it a slight shift in your thought behind vertical and short form content and even the platforms outside of YouTube. How has the shift toward shorts and vertical video and tick tock and everything of that nature, that file format, content format changed the creator economy and even your opinion and viewpoint. Let's talk about that for a minute.

Nick Nimmin (27:44)

How's it changed the creator economy? That's a great question. So when it comes to the creator economy, it's just given people more opportunity. I think it's come at the expense of cannibalizing some of the long form content. Because now where somebody might have chosen to go watch some long form content, they'll open up TikTok instead or they'll open up YouTube shorts instead. So because of that, I think that probably has had an impact there. However, I think it's Great. And the reason I think it's great is, and I didn't like it at first, I'll be transparent. But the reason I think it's great now is because it makes it easier for people to make content. Because even though you can do high production vertical content, most people don't. And it makes it to where somebody can be sitting in a car telling a good story and their content can get as many, if not more views than somebody that spent spends $10,000 on the video that they're making. And I think that particular advantage is substantial when it comes to people being able to tap into the opportunity that all of these platforms provide us in terms of income, growing personal brands, things like that. So I think that it's just lowered the barrier to entry so much that, that it makes content, making content accessible for almost anybody that has the courage to do it. And because of that, I think that a lot of people have through vertical content, through YouTube shopping, affiliate program, through TikTok's affiliate program, and just from getting ad rates, if they get a lot of views on their videos, vertical content has changed people's lives. In the same way that long form content for Dusty, for us old school folks, the way that landscape content did that for us, it's doing that for a whole new group of people. And because of that, I think it's absolutely fantastic. Now I know there's a lot of bad content on there and I know there's a lot of things when it comes to the algorithms of these platforms that I think think that some of that stuff is creating some unneeded negativity in the world because psychologically people do gravitate towards doom. You open a video and they're like, oh my gosh, this thing's happening. You can't help but watch it. And when you watch it, then the systems are going to be like, hey, they like this stuff. And then they're just going to throw more at you. And because of that I think that it is causing issues related to that sort of thing. But as a creator though, I think it's a great opportunity because when it comes to long form content, and we talked about this before Dusty, but when it comes to long form content, you have, you have, you. Not only do you have to get really good at making videos, but you have to get really good at the topics like we just talked about. And you have to get good at making thumbnails that not just making a thumbnail, but making an effective thumbnail. And that's hard. In addition to that you have to get good at making nice titles that will inform people or compel them to click on your videos. And there's a lot more involved when it comes to long form content. When it comes to vertical content, you just show up in somebody's face, they're sitting there looking at their phone, scrolling through and you just show up. And when you show up, then you tap to grab their attention. You got to be talking about something that they care about or grabbing their attention in some other way. And then you just have to get them through as much of that video as these platforms deem as a satisfactory experience for the viewer. So I think it just makes it easier for more people to enter the world of content creation. And I think that it's expanded the creator economy because of it. Because people are getting brand deals there, people are growing their own personal brands, they're selling their own products there. Part of my thing, thing Dusty, that I mentioned earlier is part of my thing with ramping up my vertical content production is because I know it's necessary for the type of content that I make. It's. We're at that time now and I think we've been there for a while. I've just, I just haven't been aggressively going after it. But I think we're at that time now to where if you want to stay on top of it and you want to stay on top of people's minds, that you got to be seeing them everywhere because a lot of people are using, you know, they're watching long form content when that's appropriate for them. They're watching short form content on YouTube and that's appropriate for them. Some people are going over to TikTok when that's appropriate for them. Some people are hitting and Instagram reels and that's appropriate for them and so on. So I think being able to tap into that and be able to reach all of these people through there that you're either 1 already reaching or 2 would have never ran into you ever if you didn't make content for those platforms. I think it's just an advantage that we have. And in addition to that, I was telling Dusty before the call, I went from making like one and we'll say one and a half on average videos per week to now I'm publishing like 30 pieces of content a week. And my goal by the end of this year is to be hitting 220. And the whole thing with that makes it easy when it comes to vertical content is that you make one vertical Video and you publish that one vertical video across everything. And then when you publish that across everything, you don't have to make, okay, I gotta make a unique video for TikTok, a unique video for YouTube Shorts, a unique video for Instagram, a unique video for Facebook, unique video for Clapper. You don't have to do that. You get, you make one good video and then you publish that everywhere. And you can do that every day if are aggressively trying to do it. And you don't need productions. Dusty set looks nice. My set looks nice. We have our fancy, fancy cameras and microphones, but you don't need this stuff, right? Like when it comes to vertical content, really, any content, it just has to be good enough that the quality of the content isn't a distraction for the people that are consuming it. So for example, if you watch a video and the audio is bad or something, you're like, yeah, so I'm a little bit weird about this, right? And you'll tune out. But as long as the content's good enough to where there's nothing that's distracting to the viewer, then it's good enough to get views, right? It's good enough to add value to people to where you know they'll enjoy it and they'll keep coming back for, for more.

Dusty (33:00)

Tens of thousands of people fortunately tune into this podcast every week and a lot of them are really confused about how they should format their channel. Should it be one long form, three shorts a week? Should it be two long forms, five shorts a week? If you are making a recommendation to a creator, not necessarily someone just starting off, but just in general on YouTube, what would you you suggest they do? Because I'm with you, I'm leaning more and more as time goes on that short form is just another way people can discover you. Short form is just another way for people to again, maybe find who you out who you are and then end up listening to your long form stuff or podcasts from, in my case. So what would be your just flat recommendation for creators as a whole? Obviously it might be tailored specifically a little different if you're in a different niche or space or whatever, but just in general, like what are your Recommendations now in 2025 and going forward?

Nick Nimmin (34:02)

My recommendation is goal first, right? So goal first. So figure out what you're trying to do. So if you're making content, there's probably, if you're making content and you're into it enough that you're listening to this show, there's probably something that you're wanting in return. If you are a part time creator, that's fine, but you're probably wanting something. You're wanting either to ultimately turn this into some type of side income or maybe a full time income. You're wanting to use this to, to position yourself profess, maybe you're wanting to use this to generate leads or sales in some way. Step number one is to figure out exactly what that thing is. So if you don't know it yet, spend some time thinking about it. Because the way that you do content can change based on what you're trying to accomplish. For example, if you're trying to generate leads and sales, then in that particular case I would be doing vertical content because somebody doesn't have to click on it, it takes less effort. And as long as you're resonating with people, then it's really easy to bring attention to the products and services that you have to offer. Two is I would also make search based YouTube long form content that solves the problems of the people that you are serving. And the reason that I would do that is because it's easy and it's easy to get attention through YouTube search. If you, if you're going for a recommendation play, which is where the quick wins come from because that's where most of the views are on YouTube. But if you're going for a recommendation play, like you're competing with the best YouTubers on the platform that your viewers are watching, right? So because of that, the competition is, is just fierce. When it comes to recommendation system, you have to make really good content in order to get attention in the recommendation system, at least substantial attention. When it comes to vertical content, it's. Or sorry, when it comes to search content, it's different there because now you're just competing for those particular search queries. And of course if you target search, then you can also get recommendation traffic as well. But you can, if you're targeting search intentionally, then you can show up in YouTube search. As long as your videos compete there, you can show up in YouTube search and all the other text textual search engines. And now ChatGPT is also showing videos also. So when it comes to that sort of thing, I've had plenty of times where I'm typing in something, trying to learn about something, and ChatGPT will recommend one video. So if your video ends up being positioned well in Google and in YouTube, then it can also show up as the only option in ChatGPT. So because of that, that can also be really advantageous if you're trying to Generate leads or sales. If you're trying to generate subscribers on your YouTube channel, you're like, you know what? I don't care about any of that, Nick. I'm just trying to be a big content creator. I just want a lot of fun followers in that case, vertical content all day long. And the reason you do that is because one, it's easier to get people to subscribe when it comes to vertical. I'm not gonna say easier, but just at scale, you're. It's just easier to get in front of a lot more people when it comes to vertical content. Cause you can just produce so much so easily. So because of that, if I was just going for subscribers and that was it, then I would just focus mostly on vertical content. If I'm trying to create a personal brand, I would do everything like I currently do. I would publish long form content on whatever cadence you you want. I would publish. I would do regular live streams. Same with leads and sales. Also, because live streams help you demonstrate your expertise, help you answer questions, help you better understand the people that you're serving. Yes, I would do long form live streams and vertical content all over the place.

Dusty (37:12)

So as far as live streams go, what if I'm worried that there's nobody going to show up? What if I have a smaller channel, I just got accepted and I'm just now able to do live streams? Is that something that is the way that I suggest it to my clients is that it's a good learning experience for them to get better and better at sharing their proposition, the things that they're trying to share with their audience and get to know them better. Even if there's just two or three people in the chat, these are people that are in love with what they're doing. So what are your recommendations? Because you are big on live streaming, you're. You've been a proponent of it for years now. We've talked about it on this show. Any your opinions changed on that or you just even more bullish on that?

Nick Nimmin (37:49)

I'm all in on live streams. Especially with all this AI content and everything. I'm like heavy on live streams in terms of, of the importance of people learning how to do live streams. Content dependent, of course, if I was doing like entertainment channel, probably. But if I'm teaching people something or if I have a business I'm trying to drive like leads and sales, I would be live streaming like all the time. So when it comes to live streams, the reason that I'm such a big fan of. Let me back up. We don't need to talk about the reasons, let's talk about the solution there. So you asked me, what if somebody doesn't have people hanging out in their livestream? So what I recommend is if you are starting to live stream, is do a live stream that doesn't require audience participation. So I did this experiment on my channel, this is about two years ago now. And on that experiment, basically every Saturday, my brother D and I, we have a live stream that we go live for three hours straight and we answer viewer questions. So we don't know what we're going to talk about before the stream starts. Stream starts and then questions start coming in and then we start answering questions. So that's great in our position because when we start the stream we have people that are like waiting with their questions. But even sometimes, then if I clear the form too late or something like that before the stream stream, even with the viewership that we have, it might still take some time for the questions to queue up. But if you're just starting, you might not be able to do a Q and A session like that because you might not have all the participants. So because of that you have to do something else. So one of the things that I did on my channel and this was really effective is I had a weekly show that I did for a year where all I did was every Friday because I stay up with YouTube news and stuff like that anyway, because it's part of my work. So. So what I would do is every Friday I would have a YouTube creator news and I would go live and I wouldn't interact with the chat, I wouldn't, I wouldn't try to get engagement, I wouldn't do any of those things. I would just be focused on this is what's happening this week and this is what you need to know about. And then I would shut it down. So instead of it being a three hour stream or a one hour stream or even a 30 minute stream that a lot of people think that they have to do when it comes to live streaming. Some of the streams were like 8 minutes long. Some of the streams are 15 minutes long. I think the longest one is 30 minutes because at the end of that one I did do a Q and A because it was a big deal with YouTube releasing music and stuff like that. There are a lot of weird things about it. But that particular experiment, those particular live streams were some of the highest viewed live streams that I have on my channel. They generated the most revenue on the channel when it comes to live Streams. And the whole thing there is that it was on topic, on trend, trend content in terms of the things that were happening on YouTube. And I was delivering an actual service through that content of keeping content creators up to date with things that matter to them. So because of that, what I recommend is that if you don't have anybody hanging out, offer a service, maybe it's news of your industry, maybe it's something else, maybe it's like a tip or something like that where every week you make a piece of content live and then as soon as that live stream's complete, you, you shut it down. So you don't have to do it for 30 minutes, you don't have to do it for 45 minutes. Minutes. You just say, okay, for this live stream, I'm going to talk about this while I'm growing my audience here, I'm going to talk about this and then as soon as it's done, I'm just going to end it, right? And then when you're talking about it, you start it with a hook, just like you would do in a piece of video content. And then you end it with a next step in terms of, hey, if you want to learn more about whatever this thing is that I'm talking about, you can click on this video on the screen here. And then by doing that, you're creating more content for the channel. You are going to slowly start building a live audience as people find it and they find value out of it. And then from there, once you get that audience build up, then you can go and you can start doing the things that do require a little bit of participation from the viewers. Other things that are great for that is demos. Like for example, if Dusty wanted to go live and show people how to use a piece of software, he could do that in a blink of an eye, right? And with there, somebody doesn't have to be in there, right? He could just do that all by himself and it would be just like he was making a video or he could have a thousand people in there and it would all be pretty much the same in terms of how he's interacting. Now. Another thing, when it comes to live streaming to no one, that I think is a really important thing to keep consider is you have the different formats of content that you put out to give yourself the best chance of getting a return on the investment of time that you're doing with your live stream. But another thing that can be really advantageous is cover up everything that is audience based. So, you know, all of these streaming Platforms and everything. They have their comment section take post its and cover that up or stretch it out to where it's off screen. If you have multiple monitors, if they have a live counter on it and it shows how many people take a post it and put it over that. And then live stream, imagine that there's a thousand people watching and live stream like that. And then what that's going to do for you is that's going to make you start looking at your live stream through a different lens. So instead of looking at it like a lot of people will do, this is the type of feedback I get in this situation is, is people will be like, I don't have a lot of people hanging out. So because of that, it doesn't really have to be like that good or it doesn't have to be, I don't have to stay that focused or whatever. I'll just hang out until people come in. And that's the wrong approach. If you want people to enjoy it, then it has to be good. And then as people find it on the resource replay, then they got to be like, oh, okay, this is something I want to go participate in. Next time let me make sure I subscribe, turn on notifications and all that. So stream there's a thousand people watching or there's going to be a thousand people watching. Because you might get that on the replay or the next live stream that you do. If you start putting out good live streams, you might start growing that type of viewership because of that stream. Like everybody's watching even when nobody's watching. And like Dusty mentioned before, use this as an opportunity to learn how to stream stream while you don't have that many people watching. Because when it comes to live streams, you're going to have tech problems. You're going to start your streams and you're going to forget to turn on your microphone or you're going to forget to unmute it sometimes you're going to forget what you're saying. You're going to have all these variables at play. And failing with those things when you don't have a lot of people watching is going to feel a lot better than when you have similar things happen when you have a lot of people watching.

Dusty (43:37)

I love that I am bullish on live streaming as well. It's something that I'm going to start implementing more and more in the content that I create on all different verticals, even on the tutorial side as well as my YouTube education side that's hanging off my podcast. So I do believe that that streaming is a big deal and I would consider it one of the best ways to, number one, not only get video ideas because think of all the free video ideas you're getting from the comments, right? When you do have people that are engaging as well as we didn't even talk about what it does for watch time. So if you're trying to partnered or whatever, even on your channel, Nick, your live streams after you pub them are getting 3 to 5 to 10,000 views, which again that's hundreds of hours of watch time. And then there's the monetization ways that you can be accepted to get super chats. And so people are giving you donations and so there are just a number of ways in which it is one of the pillars in what I would consider to be one of the best brand building methods on YouTube. So I'm so glad that you were able to really flesh that out for us because sometimes I have a hard time because I don't do it as much as you do. And you're living that each and every week.

Nick Nimmin (44:44)

Dusty comes to go ahead. When it comes to live streaming, one of the things that happens to me in terms of the importance of live streams when I'm out in the world, right, and I have somebody run into me and they're like, hey, are you nick from YouTube? When that happens, usually the thing that follows after I say that I am, they'll say they watch me on YouTube and then they'll go man, I love that show you and your brother do on the weekend. And then if I'm at conferences, people will be like, oh man, love that show you and your brother do on the weekend. It's rare that somebody talks about the video videos, but people talk about the live streams a lot. And the thing is when it comes to that I believe and I could be wrong on this, but the reason I think that happens is because when it comes to live streams you can't edit it. It can't be perfect. It's a more human experience. When you're making video content you might edit out those parts where you're like oh yeah, I said something stupid there. Or you might edit out that part where like eh, it probably didn't sound right or whatever the thing is and you try to make everything this like nice polished experience so that it makes you look good because we're all afraid of looking bad in front of other people. But when it comes it comes to live streams, you don't have that. You don't have the option to Be like, hey, I'm just going to edit. Technically you can edit it out, but most people don't. So like when you are live, all of these nuances of yourself come out. And I think that that helps people connect to you as a person instead of just connecting to you as a video creator just because of all of those nuances. And you also, sometimes you'll go off track where you'll be talking about something and then you're like, oh yeah, by the way, that somebody will mention a movie or something like that and you'll talk about that for a few minutes and. And it just lets people into all of these different sides that they might not have ever known if you were just publishing video content. And I think that's extremely powerful, especially when it comes to being a business owner, especially when it comes to generating leads and sales for anything is that human connection that people get and that they can connect with you, which then will ultimately connect to the products that you have.

Dusty (46:34)

Yeah, I would always get the occasional, oh, are you dusty? You do the guides on YouTube? I would get that occasionally. But when it really started was when I did the podcast and the podcast got more popular. People would always say to me, they would say, oh, you're dusty, you do the YouTube show. And then now that I do video, they actually see my face and not just hear my voice. And that combination has really helped me and my brand. When I'm onboarding people into my coaching program or bringing them into the creators community group on my Discord server and the Mastermind call, it's really resonated well with creators and I think live streaming does the same thing. The final question I want to ask you because we are getting close to the hour mark, kind of 45 minutes of the hour mark, and I do like to keep it around that time. If you could give creators one piece of advice to prepare or to get ready for the new world that we're in. And it is changing. It is evolving faster than ever. We talked about artificial intelligence, we talked about live streaming, we talked about the different format types of short form and long form. What would be your advice to these people?

Nick Nimmin (47:36)

Use the tools that are available. Because all this stuff is changing rapidly. Google just dropped their VO3 and it's just mind blowing. The advancements that have been made just in video over the last two years. Years. And what's going to happen is as that technology gets cheaper and even better than it already is, people are going to be using that to compete with you. So if people are using that to make content that competes with you and people are using that to take attention from your videos. Then I think this is. If you can't beat them, join them scenario. I believe that you should start, of course, make sure you're learning all this stuff and staying on top of it. But two, you need to be using these tools in your workflow because. Because if you're not, then you're putting yourself at a disadvantage from those people that are. From the people like me. Like, I save myself hours every single week by using these tools. And because of that, it's allowed me to be able to start uploading daily vertical content across a bunch of different platforms and that whole thing. Cause I'm. Because that's all a work in progress. As we're having this conversation that is going to end up applying to my YouTube channel, it's going to end up applying to other aspects of my, my work. And people that aren't using this stuff, they're going to have a harder time and it's going to be harder for them to compete with the scale that is publishing a lot of content. So because of that, I just encourage you to hang in there. You got this. I don't want this to sound doom and gloom, because it's not. But I just think it's important that everybody just sees where we're at right now. And you're like, hey, I remember when the Internet first came out. I'm that old. And because of that, I know that there's a lot of people that's not with the Internet, that's stupid, that's not going to catch on now. We can't live without it. And I think that AI is in a similar situation to where there's people that are like anti AI or they just don't understand how capable it is. I had a conversation with a friend of mine. He still thinks it can't make hands, but I think people are just, they just need to be using these tools to give themselves the best possible advantage that they can.

Dusty (49:39)

Yeah, I agree. I think that you don't want to be the person that is just get off my lawn. We're not going to be that person. You want to be the person that is engaged. And yes, you want to be wary. You want to understand the rules of it. You don't want to be that person, person that just relies on AI for everything, but you definitely don't want to be the person that it gets left behind because there will be creators that lean into this. And we saw this with the Internet, we saw this with cryptocurrency there will be the top percentage of people and you might could be that if you're willing to learn, if you're willing to engage, if you're willing to pivot and make it applicable to wherever and however you're creating content. So Nick, this has been an awesome conversation. I love having you on this show. I'm sure we'll have UND back on in December this year as we always do do looking into 2026 and appreciate your time. And if you're looking to get in touch with Nick, I'm going to have all of his links in the show notes. It's Nick nimmin over on YouTube and in that bio there he'll have a link. He's creating apps, he's got Creator Mix, which is music for creators. He's got all kinds of stuff. And so I'm going to put that one common link and you'll be able to check out everything that he has to offer for you as a creator. So Nick, thanks again for joining in this week and we'll talk to you next time. That's a wrap on this week's episode of the YouTube Creators Hub podcast. Thanks again to Nick for joining me this he is an amazing friend and a wonderful content creator. If you're looking to grow your YouTube channel, you need to be subscribed to Nick. Follow him on all the socials and I'll have all of that in the show notes. Don't forget that I do offer one on one YouTube coaching where I sit down with you for 30 minutes to an hour depending on what your time allows and we just do a deep dive into your channel. Also we have the Creators Community Group where you get an exclusive extra podcast episode every week. You get access to our monthly Mastermind click calls and the Discord Server where you can chat with wonderful creators all throughout the week as well as past guests of the show. And if you would like, you can follow me over on our email newsletter, the Entrepreneur's Minute. If you're looking to grow your online business, it's a behind the scenes look of what it takes and things that I'm learning throughout the week and failures that I'm going through and things of that nature. So if that sounds interesting to you, you can click the link and subscribe to that for absolutely free of charge. And don't forget, wherever and however you're consuming this podcast, subscribe. That's free as well. So if you're listening, subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube. Do it there as well. Thanks again. Talk to you next week.