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Hello and welcome to episode five zero one of the YouTube Creators Hub podcast. The show where I interview wonderful creators, have them on the podcast and break down their success in hopes of giving you something to take away that you can apply to your channel and your creative endeavors. Now, I used to do Q and A episodes about once per quarter, and then I kind of reduced it down to two a year and I haven't done one in a while. And so I had this one scheduled because I haven't overload of questions from people who have emailed me. You could email me questions dustyustyporter.com A lot of them come from DM messages on Discord, which is our private group that we have. You can join that group for five bucks by looking at the links in the show notes. And then people hit me up on social media, whether it be X Instagram, places like that. So I have gathered together, I believe, six, seven or maybe eight. Yeah, eight questions today that I think are pertinent and have the most kind of overlap for most creators. And this is kind of just going from my gut, just working with creators one on one, coaching every week I'm doing, you know, five, six, seven calls. And so I'm kind of getting a good landscape of what the questions that people are asking. So with that said, don't forget to check out all of the services that we do offer creators in the show notes. We've got some of the best bang for your buck there in our offering. And with that said, let's just jump into the first question. So this first question is coming from Marcus. I thought about giving you guys the last name, but there's really no purpose in that. Marcus D. If that's the case, Marcus asks. I've got 200 subscribers. This was asked about a month and a half ago, so we may have a few more now. And he says, YouTube just won't push my videos. Is my channel too small for the algorithm to even care? I disagree with this. This is a. A lot of times we use this as an excuse. We're seeing a lot of proof that the opposite is actually true. Small channels are getting tested faster. They're getting presented in browse and on the home feed even quicker. And every upload is treated like a fresh. The analogy that I use here is like a fresh seed. Um, I mean, there's faceless channels, there's vlog channels, sports channels pop up in days. Um, and then like, you'll have a channel that has 200,000 subscribers and it just completely stalls. It's a weird phenomenon that we're seeing right now where people that have established audiences, whether their, their content is kind of aged or their audience is aged out, where they're creating stuff the same exact way they always have, and they're not evolving and adapting with their audience or YouTube's just not pushing that stuff as much as they used to. Now, if we're talking about Mr. Beast and the top 01%, that's a completely different thing. But this person, Marcus, was asking, why won't YouTube push my videos? They will. Number one, the packaging has to be good, the content has to be good, and you gotta get better every time you do it. Once a video does take off. I was on a coaching call yesterday and I was like, listen, you're one video from taking off, away from this thing, just getting out of hand. And by out of hand, it's a good thing, right? Like, it's really gonna grow quick if you are able to put your head down and keep putting it out. Right? I'll be honest with you guys. It's not the size of the channel that really will determine what gets put out there and what doesn't. It's the signals that YouTube are getting over time. And so what those signals are a lot of. That's viewer satisfaction. How long do they stay on the video? How long do they stay on YouTube after it's. There's a lot of metrics at play and we're seeing a lot of stuff being announced by Google or Alphabet, the parent company of YouTube. And a lot of the AI stuff that's coming out, people are worried about. But I'll be honest, if you know what you're doing and you know how to optimize and you're. You're kind of in the know about what changes are being made. I'll be honest with you guys. It could be a really good thing for creators if you're willing to pivot and adjust to the times. So good question by Marcus, but again, don't use it as an excuse. YouTube will push your stuff regardless of how many subscribers that you have. This one is from Priya. Priya R is the last name. Priya asks everyone says watch time is king. Is that still true in 2026? So to a certain extent it is, yes. But there is a bit of a shift or philosophical shift, right? YouTube has moved away from what keeps people watching the longest to what are leaving people most satisfied. Right? Re, watches, saves, shares, comments. The signals that YouTube are looking for are much deeper than they used to be. You know, three, four, five years ago. Watch time, watch time. All the YouTube gurus, including myself, you know, you want a people that are watching your videos for the longest amount possible. Now, that's all good and you still want that. That's going to also signal to YouTube a good, positive thing. But there are a lot of other things that are signaling to YouTube about satisfaction and people don't look into them. Right? The rewatches, the saves, the sharing of the videos. It's much deeper than it used to be, right? It doesn't matter. This is funny. Creators oftentimes tell me, Well, I spent 20 hours on that edit. I'll be honest with you, 20 hours on an edit does not necessarily equate to quality or a good video that's gonna perform well. You gotta satisfy the viewer, and not just the viewer, satisfy the viewer that you're trying to reach whatever your niche or target audience is. So Priya, really good question again. Watch time's always gonna be pertinent. It's always going to be something that YouTube looks at. And I always try to tell people, again, you want to optimize for that, but there are so many things beyond that now that we have to look at. All right, next question coming in. This one was emailed to me from Cody B. Cody says my click through rate is decent, but views still die after a day or 24 hours. What is going on? So CTR or click through rate, which is what Cody mentioned in the beginning of the question, it gets the click right. Like your packaging is good, that's great. And by decent, I don't know what that means, right? Like for me, people think that their click through rate is decent if it's 6%, yeah, that's not awful. But I mean, good grief, I'd love it to be in the 8, 9, 10, 11%, you know, to 12% range. Um, retention in the satisfaction that we talked about in the previous question, that is what really gets the reach. Right? Um, and if YouTube is seeing in the first 24 hours that all of the people that it's sending to your video are either quickly clicking off or they're not responding in a way such as sharing the video, commenting, liking, doing things that YouTube can get as far as signals, letting them know that, hey, this video has some, you know, has some good stuff in it, I think it needs to be presented. Why would YouTube present it to other people after the first day if the people that they did present it to in that first day had a negative or just nonchalant reaction? To it. Right. The first 30 seconds is a core metric, right. If the viewers are bailing early, the video will stall before wide distribution. That's just the reality, which is why I always tell people or creators, front load the value, cut the intro out and get into it. Stop waxing poetic. Stop. You know, a lot of times it just sounds like you're just fluffing out an answer. Right. Don't do that. Really get into what the value is. That first 32nd metric is a big thing. So. Good question. All right, question four from Hannah, last name V. Should I be doing shorts or long form? I feel like shorts are hurting my main channel. Yeah, this is, this is an argument that we just, we've, we've had forever. Shorts are not hurting your channel. Right. The, the shorts engine is fully decoupled from the long form. You know, bad shorts in the performance that you're having there will not drag down your long form. That used to be the case where we had a lot of evidence to be that that was the case. Right. Now that's not it. Right. You can experiment freely and separately. Right. Um, discovery is now format aware. If a viewer only watches long form, your shorts will vanish from their feet. Right. Like there's not there, there's not a connection. The only connection is from you, the creator, where if you have a short, you always need to be doing the best practice of linking a long form from that short. Right. Either way, whether your formats is vertical, short form video, or these long form videos, you need to be capturing the attention of the viewer. Right. But experimentation is fine. I always tell people, long form is where the bread is buttered. Now, there are certain channels where that is. They're an anomaly where they're growing from shorts now, they're monetizing differently. Or like ad revenue is not going to be the same for a long form channel as opposed to a short form channel and vice versa. So understanding what kind channel you want to be, what type of format of content you like to create, Some people just love doing vertical content. I'll be honest, the stuff that I'm doing on my family channel with the triplets and our kids and our little family fun channel is just me putting out positivity through some vertical videos. Right. Like it's not these long form, you know, 6, 8, 10, 1230 minute videos, right. I'm so used to doing long form content like podcasting. I've done almost over 1200 episodes across the board. My other YouTube tutorial channel is all long form. And so getting to experiment with vertical content, it just works differently. People respond differently. So experiment, right, Hannah? Really good question. Next question from Tyrese W. Tyrese says I keep changing my niche, which is not a good sign because nothing sticks. Bad idea. Yeah, it's a very bad idea. You know, you're chasing is what you're doing. You're chasing views. Right. That doesn't work. You know, topics that chase trends and creators that begin to just go all over the place. There's nothing of substance there. If we continue to bounce from one thing to the next, number one, YouTube doesn't know who or what we're trying to do. And the audience that the people who would be potential viewers don't know either. And so I would encourage you to pick a lane and serve that lane. Right? Understand that loyalty, audience loyalty and channel health for you, they're so linked together. You have to build something that people know what you're there for. Even my channel that does technology tutorials about a wide gamut of technology tools and software. People know when they come to my channel that they're going to get high quality tech tutorials and guides showing them, start to finish, how to use certain software tools and answering their specific questions. So if we're changing our niche every time we every week, there's going to be no long term health for that channel. So again, pick a lane and serve it. But one of the things we're seeing in the past year to two years, maybe 12 to 18 months is niching down. Knowing who we're speaking to has never been more important. And so a lot of times if I get on a coaching call and I go to a channel and they're just like, they're just throwing a bunch of noodles at the wall to see what sticks. I sit them down and I say, listen, this is going to be painful, but we've got to get a document and we got to go ahead and write out who we are and who we're trying to speak to. So important. It's a really good question though, Tyrese. A lot of people have that question, so good stuff. Danielle O asks, how important are titles and thumbnails really versus just making good content? I mean, there it's there. Everything you mentioned there is important to a certain extent. Right? But the titles and thumbnails are at the top of that funnel. If we're thinking of a funnel, right? If we're trying to use an analogy, if you don't get a click, you're not gonna have any reach. Right? So there is some relevance there, right? So running a B test that YouTube allows you to do on titles and thumbnails and figuring it out, I think that if we ever get to the mentality, like Danielle's asking there of are they important? Do they matter? Yeah, they matter. Now. Do they matter as much as maybe we've made out over the years? Maybe not. But again, a cover to a book matters. I've read, I've read articles where people have said from authors that they really botched up their book. Not because of what the book was about or the content of the book, because of the actual cover. No one wanted to buy the book. We are a visual people. People are visual and getting them to click is the first step. So yeah, it matters to a certain extent. But if you're putting all of your time and effort into that and nothing into what is in the video, then you're doing it wrong as well. So, yeah, there is a bit of importance to all of it. Sam R. Asks, can I use AI to make videos and still get monetized? I mean, right now, YouTube isn't banning all of AI. What it's doing is it's banning low effort, mass produced content. So they're purging out people who are uploading like hundreds, 50 hundreds videos a day. Very low effort. Just trying to get quantity out there to get enough kind of of a canvas for ads to where they can just, you know, say, hey, I've got 80,000 videos on my channel and I'm gonna make a lot of money because even if I don't get a lot of views across the board, I will. Right. So I worry about a crackdown though. You know, there was an early purge this year where it wiped out like 16 to 20 big channels that were inauthentic and templated mass produced content and they, they called it under their spam rules. You know, I would use AI to enhance your storytelling, add genuine commentary and editorial judgment yourself and I think you'll be fine. Using AI as your companion and not necessarily as a replacement is kind of the mantra that I've gone and told people. I think that if you're not using AI though, you're going to be left behind. I think that you need to be using it to some extent. But I'll be honest, I worry about what it's doing to us as a, as a, as people, as creators. I'll be honest with you, I do miss some of the days of the old school YouTube where you would go on your feed and you would just see real creators speaking into the Camera, you know, just real humans. I do miss that. But I. With that said, I do use AI myself on a lot of the back end stuff that I do. But I would never encourage you to use AI to make videos if your sole purpose is to get monetized. I think that they will crack down on that eventually. All right, and our last question from Renata. See, I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. This is a really good question. Renata says, I'm exhausted and barely growing. How do I know if I should keep going or quit? I'll be honest with you guys. 70% of creators chasing that upload are chasing an unsustainable upload volume, right? So, like, if that's you, if you're in that area where you're like, I'm gonna do two videos a week, but really your life doesn't present the ability for you to do that, you're gonna quit. You know, the biggest superpower a creator can have, this really applies and is applicable to a lot of things in life, is consistency. You think of this podcast, you know, this is episode 501 for the past 16 going on 17 years. I've gotten in front of this microphone and I've interviewed people and I've tried to never miss a week. I really take pride in that. And I think that the consistency is important. But you cannot try to be so consistent that it is a detriment to your health or you have negative impacts on your family or your other phases of life. Because YouTube isn't the only thing that matters. But I'll be honest, the thing that sets successful creators most of the time apart from people who are not is being able to get through the rut that you're going through right now. Renata, when asking this question, It's burnout. You know, the people who win on this platform build systems, not isolated uploads that they dread every week. I think the reason why I've been successful and the other creators that I coach and work with oftentimes are successful is because I understand what matters most to me. This podcast is my baby. I love it. It's one of the most fulfilling things I get to do. But I know what matters to me and to me, my family, my faith, the different things, my kids, being a father, being a husband, they will always come first. And if it was a decision between recording and releasing an episode and being a good dad or being there for my family, it's always going to be the latter. Always going to be being there for my family. But with that said, we oftentimes think that we don't have the time or that I'm barely growing and I'm exhausted. Listen, this YouTube thing is not a sprint. It is a marathon. In six months, 12 months, two years. That's just the you're in the infancy stages. This podcast didn't start taking off until eight years in. I sat in front of this microphone with creators 10x my size, hoping and praying that someone would listen. And eventually the downloads trickled in and I got an audience. Burnout is a real thing. You need to take care of your health, both physical and mental. And by doing all of these things, by implementing systems and taking care of the other aspects of your life, it will help you be a better creator and not burn out. But a lot of it, Renata, might be you just don't like what you're creating videos about. So maybe you need to take a step back for a month or so, get a piece of paper or a Google Doc and just start writing down what you love and what you're passionate about, what you want to create videos on. It's an important thing. That was our last question, but I just want to say this quickly. There's a common theme among a lot of the questions that I receive, and a lot of it is about just, hey, why am I not growing? I'm doing this thing and I just can't find any traction. I want to encourage you this week to analyze and take an audit of what you're doing. You know, the old cliche saying of if we do the same thing over and over again and expect different results, we're just dumb really does apply here. Are you just doing the same thing over and over again? Expecting YouTube to throw you views when you've known for the past six months that that type of content or that format or that branding model or that packaging is not finding results? Guys, come on. You've got to do different things. You've got to experiment. You got to change what you're doing. There's never been a better time to be on YouTube. It's more inexpensive now than it's ever been. It's easier to get discovered now than it's ever been. You're all dusty now. There's more videos now than ever. That's fine. But it's like I tell my kids, it's really easy to stand out in today's world. You know why? Because so few people are doing the things required to stand out. So few people are willing to work hard. So few people are willing to treat others right, so few people are willing to be kind. Same thing goes for YouTube. So few people are willing to do the hard things it takes to get be successful and see their videos get views. That has never been easier and the tools have never been better. So go out there and do it. Just stop doing those same things over and over again again. You can email me Dustyustyporter.com with your questions for future Q and A episodes. We'll be back a week from today with our regularly Schedul where I interview creators. If you're new to this show, subscribe. It's free. A couple of things we offer creators. I do one on one coaching if you're interested in that. 510 bucks get you in our Mastermind group where you can join our creator forums, discuss content with other creators, be a part of our Mastermind calls that I host on Zoom every month. There's just something for everyone. I also do YouTube channel reviews and audits. Check. Check all that out. Our email newsletter is free where you can keep up with me when I got going on behind the scenes. With that said, have a great day and we'll talk to you next time.