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YouTube Creators Hub
Unlocking YouTube Success with Roberto Blake: Community, AI, and Big Creator Energy
00:54:39
In this week's episode of the YouTube Creators Hub Podcast, host Dusty Porter is joined by YouTube educator Roberto Blake to discuss strategies for growing and monetizing a successful YouTube channel. The conversation focuses on utilizing YouTube's...
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- [00:02]
Dusty Porter
Welcome to the YouTube Creators Hub podcast where we help you conquer the Internet one video at a time. We cover everything from how to start a YouTube channel to how to make a video go viral. And now, here's your host, the one and only Dusty Porter. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the YouTube Creators Hub podcast. Dusty Porter here, the host of the show. If you're looking to either start, grow or monetize a YouTube channel, this is the place for you. Please support us by supporting our primary sponsor, TubeBuddy. If you're looking for a companion tool that's always updating, always state of the art, TubeBuddy is that tool. Use our link down below to get a free 30 day trial and to see what all TubeBuddy has to offer for you as a creator. Also, we have a couple of places you can connect with us. We have the fastest growing YouTube creator kind of Mastermind community over on our Discord server. You can support us for five bucks over on Patreon. Help us keep the mics hot and the lights on here on the studio and you get access to that creator community. Plus our monthly Mastermind calls that I host on Zoom. It's one of the best bangs for your buck in the whole YouTube education space as well as if you want to take it even farther than that. I've helped over 230 YouTube creators up to this point with one on one coaching. You can hire me. All of those links will be down below. So with all of that said, I'm not going to wax poetic about anything here. Subscribe to the show if you're not already. It's absolutely free. Leave us a review if you find value in the show. But with all of that out of the way, let's jump into this week's conversation. Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the YouTube Creators Hub podcast. My name is Dusty Porter, the host of the show. As always, really looking forward to today's conversation with my friend Roberto Blake. Also peer in the YouTube kind of education space. I wanted to have Roberto on and have been meaning to message him the past week or so. He's so kind and gracious with his time. I normally can message him and then have him on the same week or two. And so Roberto, I appreciate you being willing to give us your time today. I want to talk to Roberto about just the trends and things that he saw coming out of VidCon. And if you don't know who Roberto is, I'll put all of his stuff in the show. Notes down below, but he's one of the premier YouTube educators out there. He's got some of the best stuff out there on his YouTube channel, his podcast, live stream. So if you're looking to grow on YouTube, he's one of your go to guys. So Roberto, how are you doing today?
- [02:25]
Roberto Blake
I'm doing great, Dusty. Thanks for having me. Really excited to talk about everything that came out of VidCon, VidSummit and now the made on YouTube event hosted with YouTube CEO Neil Mohan. We got a lot of insight into the direction of you YouTube going forward for 20, 25 and beyond.
- [02:42]
Dusty Porter
Yeah. So we're definitely going to try to cover as much of that as we possibly can in the next 45 minutes or so. I want to be understanding of Roberto's time, so we're just going to dive right into it. So you guys buckle up if you need to take notes as we go. But let's talk about just coming out of the conferences. What were the main themes and you can, we can talk about one, break it down and then go one by one.
- [03:04]
Roberto Blake
VidCon There was a massive focus on YouTube shorts creators and a lot of the breakout creators that they had there as speakers were people like Jordan Howlett, AKA Jordan the Stallion, for example. Massive creator, I think probably becoming very quickly and rapidly one of the big rising faces of short form content. So we saw that and there's a lot going on with short form content going forward when it comes to YouTube. There's in fact going to be a very big announcement soon about a massive change there. I can't say anything today, but big announcement coming in. Maybe depending on when this episode releases, you could just slide in right here what it is, because I can tell you offline. But the cool thing is I also saw at Vidcon a very much embracing of creator culture and the idea and legitimacy behind being a creator. That this can be a full time career and provide an income. That was the entire theme of VidSummit, frankly, for the most part is the fact that, hey, we're here, this is real. If you want this to be a full time career, here's how you can approach it very seriously. Most of the problems from back in the day when you and I were coming up as creators have largely been resolved. There's not a lack of resources for creators at this point. If anything, sometimes it feels hard for creators to navigate what to listen to or what matters for them. I would say that we're getting very closer to creators understanding that while there are best practices and some general building blocks and foundations that you should pay attention to, that you have to get specific about what type of creator you are, what type of audience you have, what your own bandwidth limitations and resources are, what your formats are, because that's going to change the direction of what applies to you. I still feel that new creators really struggle with this, but I think after a year or two, most creators figure out how to sort through the noise and figure out, okay, here's the lane I need to be in. And because I'm in this lane, here are people I can listen to, I should pay attention to some degree. But I think the new creators and the smallest creators, I think that unfortunately they get misguided in the sense that they paid way too much attention to what the largest creators on the platform are doing and saying when it doesn't apply to a working class creator who's just starting out. And I still think that the best advice is to make 100 videos, make 100 crappy videos to start, get 1% better every upload, and start with a lack of expectations of growth and just be grateful for everything that comes from that first real year of learning to be a creator and learning if this is something that you can reasonably do successfully, or if this is just something that needs to be a hobby for you.
- [06:03]
Dusty Porter
I noticed just watching from afar and consuming all the content that you and other people were putting out coming out of the conferences, that there's a lot more emphasis being put on, just as you mentioned, just who you are as a creator, who you're trying to reach, niching down and understanding that we're getting so many tools now, and I feel like YouTube is finally doing a lot of the things that you and I and other educators have been asking them to do. They're doing the things and it may take them a while. I feel like sometimes their rollouts are a little slow and whatnot. So I'm not going to get into that today. But if, you know creators of all shapes and sizes, listen to this podcast, where should their focus be? Now that you've come out of the conference cycle and see what YouTube's got down the pipeline, what would be the most value for their time? Knowing that, okay, we're going to make these hundred videos, they're going to probably suck in the beginning, and maybe I've already made 100 videos, but I'm not seeing the results that I want to. Where should these people focus their time and effort? Because we all know that's the currency that we have the least of they.
- [07:15]
Roberto Blake
Have two main choices. There's two main fundamental choices. In the very beginning, they either need to commit to doing 100 videos that are going to allow them to express themselves and just get a lot of the junk out of their system. So they feel like they had a voice and that they put things out there and that they felt heard. Because if that's what their emotional value is, they need to work past that. And then from there they can see what did people respond to that I really was passionate about and expressing myself. Hey, out of those hundred videos, there's gotta be anywhere from 10 to 20 of them that actually had any chance of actually reaching an audience that makes me feel heard. And frankly, I'll be blunt about it. And it satisfies their ego and makes them feel like they're not screaming into the void. And so that's one path. And the thing is, if someone is absolutely die hard about, they are passion first, pragmatism second, then so be it. That's my best advice for you. Now if it turns out that you don't feel like anything resonated and you didn't get what you want out of that, you at least got to express yourself and then you can. As far as I'm concerned. That means you have a choice now to where either you accept that this is a hobby, you do whatever the hell you want, and then my advice begins and ends with okay, have fun, enjoy yourself. The end, keep going. That's it. I have nothing to say to you. Because if you, if that's the case, you don't want to be a full time creator. You just want, if it happens for you, you're like, okay, cool, it happens for me, I go viral, blah, blah blah. Because at that point you're just having fun, you're playing the game, you're at a, you're hoping for a lottery ticket. And then I don't have advice for you until you're ready to commit to being serious. Now there's another path, and this is the more practical one. If you are serious and what you want is you want results, you want to succeed, and you're not married to the idea that you absolutely have to get personal emotional fulfillment out of every single ounce of everything you do, then there is a more practical approach. My approach to that would be before you make your 100 videos. I'm not saying you can't ever express yourself. Maybe it's an 8020 scenario. Then I would say that instead of trying to pick a thing that you are passionate about, you pick a group of people that you're passionate about. You pick a group of people that is already a community that you know is a large community of like minded or even like hearted people or like minded people that you would want to be around, people that you would show up for. I liken this to when we were all kids, we didn't go to school because for the most part of really any devotion we had to the institution of learning. You really went to school because if nothing else, you wanted to talk to your friends at the bus stop. You wanted to have some conversations on the bus ride to school. There were some people you were really looking forward to seeing at the lunch table. If you're me, there was that girl whose locker you were is gonna walk by. And so you showed up for the people that you had an emotional investment in and you were willing to put up with everything, whether it was bullies at school or a crappy teacher here or there, or just being bored out of your mind just so that you could get to have those five or six meaningful conversations that day that you know you wanted to have that meant something to you. And I think that as a creator, if you focus on picking a group of people that you're passionate about talking to, serving and existing alongside, that's your actual niche. Your actual niche is the audience that you are passionate about serving, that you share a passion with. And then I would say from there, that's your audience avatar. That's your audience avatar. This is beginning to give you your market fit. And then you say, I have to have utility and use and value to the people that I share space with. And therefore that's where you're going to improve your skills as a content creator. This is, you already know what this is. This is the ikigai frame. And then you come to Roberto and you learn how to monetize that properly so that you're not broke, poor, struggling and frustrated with the fact that you're doing all this hard work and you might be getting attention and you have champagne taste in wino pockets because you're throwing your heart and soul into this and it's not paying off. Let's build a business model that makes sense based on your what the market will respond to and things that you like and that you feel comfortable with ethically. So let's look at building a solid business so it's ikigai passion aligned with audience using skills in the gap between their skill and your skill for you to create value and be of use to them. Whether it's your encyclopedic knowledge of the Star wars universe. Whether it's that you were a successful freelancer and you can teach people how to do that, or whether you have a joy and a passion for dinosaurs and you want to get people educated about whatever your thing is. Okay, so we do that and then we build a business model around it where, hey, we can reach the right sponsors, you take your skills into ugc. Hey, we could find great product opportunities for developing products or even selling affiliate products from Amazon influencer program or YouTube's product tagging or even a direct manufacturer, whatever it is. Maybe you work with a camera gear or audio gear manufacturer, you work with a software company, you work with an education company, whatever fits your business model, you build that out. So my belief is audience avatar is what should inform creator identity because it should put the you should be a value first creator who puts their audience first. And so that's my belief is you can go that route. But if that is something to where you and you're just not there emotionally and you're just emotionally leveraged where you have something screaming inside you and you want to put it out, fine, do that for a hundred videos, see how far you get. If you can get successful just saying and doing whatever the hell you want, then so be it. But if not, I would tell you to find a group of people that are like minded, like hearted people and then work your ass off for them. Put your heart out there, put everything into giving them what you think they deserve. Instead of worrying about being heard, be like, I want to be someone who gives people what they deserve and that they deserve to have a great community, they deserve to have great content. They deserve someone who shows up for them, then be that person.
- [13:19]
Dusty Porter
So you find your audience, you start there and you figure out who you're trying to reach. And I agree. I think that community more than ever on YouTube and we'll talk about it briefly, I'm sure before this episode is over. YouTube is really focusing on community and being able to form that group with the community tab and the updates they're making there, as well as some other things that they're implementing and showing us they care about. So you find the audience. Now I want to know, Roberto, what matters? What matters as far as the video creation process. When you and I started years and years ago, there were certain things that matter that do not matter at all now. And things have changed and they have evolved as they're going to do and they're going to do that Again, so I listen to a lot of podcasts, I consume a lot of content from people like Colin and Samir, the guys that are interviewing the top five percentage of creators on the platform. And I hear what they say. Sometimes it doesn't resonate with people in the early stages or trying to grow, or sometimes they feel a little bit discouraged. But when you're on YouTube, I want to ask you just you work with creators every week, every day, what matters now once you've found your audience? As far as we talk about packaging, we talk about thumbnail and title description, we talk about tagging, we talk about all of these things. What actually matters right now on YouTube when you're uploading videos?
- [14:41]
Roberto Blake
Oh, I'm happy to tell you that. And I know what it is and I can tell you. And when creators embrace this, it works. I see it over and over with clients I work with. And it doesn't matter if you're an influencer or whether you're a thought leader. This has worked from everyone from podcasters that I've worked with who've been successful to the fact that I've worked with. In the last year, I've worked with 4050 games gamers, mostly mobile gamers, doing stuff like with Supercell, with Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Brawl Stars. So this even works for the gamers out there because I know that's a certain subsection of YouTube that feels ignored. But excuse me, when it comes to creator advice, but regardless of what you're trying to do, I can tell you, and I can sum it up in a phrase, but before we get to that, why don't you talk to me in the audience about these things that when people watch the 0.5 percenters of YouTube, that makes them feel discouraged because then I can speak specifically to it.
- [15:31]
Dusty Porter
Yeah, I think that honestly, when I have people who hire me and we're in a one on one call, they feel like sometimes when they hear these interviews and I'll point them to a specific interview, they'll come back and they'll say, I'm just, I'm not there. I don't. This thing X or Y doesn't matter to me. They talk about AB testing of thumbnails, or they talk about being able to take a title and make a headline to where people want to click, or they just feel like they're so far removed from where these people are. So I guess it was more of a kind of a top down comment that I made regarding just listening to these interviews and hearing these upper echelon creators, even you, right. Who has a very large following. They want to relate. They want to have us discuss and discern what really would make a difference for them. They want that there is no get rich quick scheme on YouTube. You and I both know that. Right. So I think for the question that I was really directing to you is I want you to just speak openly to the broad masses of just like, hey, these are the things that working with creators I know matters the most.
- [16:39]
Roberto Blake
What matters the most is the fact that I think that the confusion is when people say, oh, I'm not there yet, is they're looking at it the wrong way because it's this small creator identity mindset. And my counter to that is the concept of big creator energy. And I'll tell you what that means in a minute. Big creator energy. You're going to want to take that one in because this is my. One of my new defining philosophies and pillars. I'm actually literally writing a book about this called Big Creator Energy. But the. I have another book I'm working on right now before I get to do that one. But what I will say about this actually, is let's use thumbnails and ab testing as an example. And I'm going to take this back to my high school kind of analogy, and I'll do the same thing with titles before you. If you remember what high school is. Let's say you had a smart and compassionate female friend who realizes that you're gonna need to really change your wardrobe and style before we start senior year and everything like that, or things are not gonna go well. She would compassionately take you and you go to your wardrobe or you go to the mall and she would do ab testing with you and say, not that look. Nope. Not that shirt. Nope. Not those pants. Nope. Throw that whole look out. Scrap it. Let's start again. Okay, yeah, I like this one, but I like this one a little bit more. Let's go with, you know what? Blue goes better with your complexion. Oh, you know what? That goes better with your body type and everything like that. Let's. All right, let's accessorize. You would have a good friend looking from the outside tell you and some criticism. Or a stylist, aka, which would be almost like a coach say, look, to attract the people that you want to attract, or, hey, to not get shot down by the head cheerleader. You're going to have to. If that's what you're going for, if that's your target audience, you're Going to have to cater to your target audience. You're going to have to do a couple of things here. So let's go ahead and let's get you styled up. Let's get you looking right. Let's say we know who we want to attract. Let's position you to dress for success. Your thumbnails and your AB testing is about dressing for success. And AB testing comes down to. Let me have a backup plan. Let me see what works, Let me see how people respond. Because something might be okay, but something might be a little better. So let's try it. So let's play with our style a little bit. You would do this in high school if you wanted better results and if you knew there was like a crowd you wanted to fit in with or a person you wanted to attract, you would dress the part. You would go into a job interview and you address the part. So if you're not taking your packaging and thumbnails seriously, you can try your hard out on your editing. If that's what you feel you're passionate about. You can sit there and do all this wonderful production and lighting and all your jokes and all your gimmicks, but you won't even get a shot if you don't dress for success. You won't get to show anyone how charming or clever or smart or sweet or funny you are and show off that wonderful personality you have if they dismiss you on looks at a glance. So your thumbnails need to be good. And what you think is good is not always what will be good. So you can go with, hey, I like this because this is my signature look or my style or my brand. But you should say, you know what, as a backup, let me have an ab test or a second or third option. That kind of, I think if I'm putting that other person first or I'm taking some outside advice or a different point of view, maybe listening to somebody that's very similar to the person that I'm trying to reach. Let me have those options and just see what performs better. And then I can just trust the data and hey, listen to my audience. It's, hey, you know what? If I want this person's attention, I've got to meet them where they're at. It can't just be about me and how I want to express or how I want to present, not if it's not getting results. So that's where the thumbnails may be testing. And that's why that matters. There's a real world equivalent for everything in YouTube, when you make up things in your head and you think the Internet is somehow massively different than the real world, that's where you're getting things wrong. And if you think being a small creator excuses you from what the audiences are going to value, what the viewer is going to value, being a small YouTuber does not excuse you from delivering value for an audience. Because if you don't, someone will. You meet them where they are, and you meet the needs, demands, and preferences of your target audience, of that audience avatar. It's not about you. The creator who puts the audience first will win. The creator who puts their own ego first will usually lose.
- [20:58]
Dusty Porter
Yeah, and it really goes a lot back to what you said at the beginning about finding who that audience is. And if you haven't identified that yet, maybe that's where you need to start. Even if you've already started and you have an audience, identifying it will rein it in a little bit in terms of your workflow and the types of videos that you're trying to create.
- [21:16]
Roberto Blake
If you have viewers, get to know them better. If you have viewers, get to know them better. Say, who are you people? Really? Just like you would get to know friends and say, hey, we been hanging out. We like the same hobbies, but do we really know anything about each other? Let me know more about you. We're using the Communities tab, which will eventually become the communities hub in YouTube is gonna be important because you'll be able to see conversations and things with your audience even without you inserting yourself yet. And then you'll be able to be a part of that, and then you'll be able to be able to initiate things. It's like getting to know the community of people that are passionate about same thing. So you're getting to know them as individuals will give you insight into their personality, their psychology, their preferences, their challenges, their desires, their icks, like what turns them off. And that will be important for you. And then you'll be able to attract more of those people. That's why I say you choose your audience and you attract your audience. I don't know that you have to find your audience. I think you more have to be intentional about, and you have to say, here's the person. And then, okay, and then I need to attract more people like this, and here are the things I can do, and here's what we have in common. And here are preferences they might have because of who they are, and I'll cater to those preferences.
- [22:24]
Dusty Porter
And knowing your audience helps you so far. Down the line, it helps you in every aspect of YouTube. Knowing your audience will help you with that thumbnail creation. It'll help you with the headline title and it will also help you in knowing your audience when you're creating this value fed content or entertainment content. Knowing them will help your watch time and all the things that matter. It just continues to go on and on. And knowing who these people are will help you with video ideation. And it just. So many things down the line of just working on where that is. Now, I don't mean to take a hard pivot here, but I do want to ask you because I feel like it would be remiss not to ask you these questions coming out of these conferences. What were some of the talks that you heard or things that you heard? Maybe you can talk on one and then we can break it down and go to another if we need to. But what was like that talk that you heard that really might have changed your mind or opinion on something or helped even hammered down a thought or opinion that you've already had?
- [23:21]
Roberto Blake
It was a segment, and I've used the phrase now two or three times now. It was a segment at the YouTube MAID event and I unfortunately, I forget the creator, wonderful female filmmaker, young woman who made a short film that was at the YouTube maid event that they showed us during the event about the communities and about this idea. And the thing is, the phrase that she said that made me tear up a little bit was the idea of how YouTube gave her the opportunity to reach like hearted people. I'm tearing up thinking about now because I've always heard the phrase like minded people. I'm an intellectual, but that like hearted people resonated me because it was like it was about values. It's about, hey, we're invested in putting our heart into the same things. Like we have that same desire, the same desires, we have the same feelings about something. And I think consolidating the feelings of an audience and a community and people that you feel very blessed to open up to and to have in your life that you might not have had any other way. The fact that with online content you can find your people, you can find people that you would have never felt that you had a connection, you would have never had a connection, never had the ability to relate to people on deeper level if not for the fact that you were over, to overcome the boundaries of time, space and circumstance and occupy each other's existence in a moment in time. Because the Internet, through all of its power and magic allowed you to overcome the barriers of with now we have multi language audio coming so that barrier doesn't exist anymore. You can live all the way across the world and then still have the same things in common with people. So you can transcend any barrier that exists. Time, space, language, culture now to find people that you actually relate to and that you feel invested in and that share that and reciprocate that. And that was the thing. And that's where for me the foundational idea of community being the heart of what you do instead of topic which a lot of people think and I've been saying for a while that I no longer you've known for two years that I've said I no longer believe niche is topic. I believe niche is people. But this helped reinforce that idea. And when I heard that phrase like hearted people and I've started using it for myself I think it's more meaningful than just saying like minded because I think there's that deeper level of emotional investment and saying who are people that I would be so emotionally invested in that if it did come down to it, uploading and showing up for them or streaming every day365 and giving that portion of my life to them is absolutely worth it like that because of the fact that people feel so demotivated when they don't get the quantity of views and attention. If you are reaching like hearted people, you don't care that it's not everyone. Just like my school analogy, you don't have to be the most popular kid in school if you've got those five friends that you'll show up for come hell or high water every day.
- [26:25]
Dusty Porter
Yeah.
- [26:25]
Roberto Blake
The thing is I think that when you have a community of like hearted people YouTube isn't a choreography, it's a blessing. And so I don't think that your views or sub count matters as much to you as the capacity to the fact that you desperately want to hear what somebody else in the comments has to say that and you've been looking forward to hearing back from that person and you're thinking to yourself you're making a video just thinking about what one of your OG viewers and saying gee I wonder what Dusty is going to think about this video and I wonder what his comments going to be when he sees this part or this Easter egg in the video. Like when someone can get emotionally invested in their audience to that degree. I believe that's the fundamental shift that eliminates things like worrying about motivation, worrying about burnout, worrying about performance anxiety, worrying about how the views are going to perform all of that. I think it's radically eliminated if the people you're showing up for are people that are like hearted people.
- [27:18]
Dusty Porter
All right, I interrupt the conversation to bring a message from our sponsor this week, which is a new tool called Delights. Delights AI is a tool specifically designed for YouTube creators that's launching very soon. Delights automatically converts YouTube videos into eBooks using AI, making it easy and quick to repurpose and monetize existing content. The global ebook market is projected to reach $20 billion by 2026, and that's billionaires. A B creators could earn 5 to 20 bucks per sale, depending on the niche they're in. It's simple, it's a very easy process and it removes the barrier of entry to ebook creation, which previously would cost thousands of dollars to produce a single one. Sign up today for early access at Delights AI and be among the first to tap into this new revenue stream. All right, back to the show. I like that statement of niche is people, because for so long we've thought and talked and taught about niche. Being a topic or being a. Even a passion is a word that some people throw around, right? So for me and for you, our niche, quite similar. I'm talking about this podcast and your YouTube channel and your business. We are, we have a heart for creators and helping them enable them to make the most out of the platforms, right? Whether it be YouTube or podcasting or an email newsletter or whatever it may be of being able to find. And once they target that, those people, how do you reach them? How do we get to them? And how do we allow our people to get the largest megaphone they can? And what I mean by that is that how do we help them with this podcast? When they listen, they take about three or five nuggets from the show and they say, oh man, this changed my mindset. Or this really helped me really wrap my head around why I'm not succeeding or why I'm burning out all the time or I have no video ideas. It's because I don't know who my people are. And I think that YouTube's gonna facilitate with a lot of new features, which is where I wanna segue now as far as the things that YouTube has announced and they've done such a better job as of late, doing it in a cadence that is quicker, doing it in a way that these are not just small little tweaks, they're actual big game changing things that I believe are going to change YouTube as a platform forever. And I think it could make some other platforms obsolete if YouTube does it and goes about it in the correct way. So let's talk about them. We can break them down individually if you want, but I want you to talk about them in what you believe to be the most important and ones that are going to have the biggest impact. And needle movers per se, aside from communities.
- [30:08]
Roberto Blake
I would say multi language audio because the simple fact that as you know my thesis, reach, reputation, revenue, okay, multilanguage audio is going to increase the potential reach and increase the view floor of every single creator. Because now for those people who are your people now, you don't have to worry about reaching them as difficult overcoming the barrier of language and localization. Because YouTube's approach that is not just going to be a very surface level version of auto dubbing. Their version of auto dubbing going out to hundreds of thousands of creators this year and eventually to all, at least partnered creators, if not all creators by the end of 2025, not 2024, 2025. From what we got from CEO Neil Mohan, that is going to be incredibly powerful in helping expand a creator's reach and deepening their relationship with their audience. And their approach to it is going to use tonality, intonation, sentiment. It's doing all of these things so it can retain that. And I watched a non English creators content translated into English and then the inflection was still there and the humor was still there and I was blown away. I was like, okay, I would have never known that this is dumped if I didn't. So it was like, it was very powerful, it was very well executed. So I think that's a big deal.
- [31:23]
Dusty Porter
I want to. Can I interject here because I believe this is important and I recorded a whole 10 minute episode for my other podcast on this feature a couple of weeks ago and got pretty good response. I want you to be the coach for a minute for me and what I do and I'm just coming off the iOS 18 train, I do tutorial videos for all technology types and the channel is doing as good now as it's ever done. I'm very proud of what we have going over there on the channel. But for someone like me who really has been waiting for this for a long time and here's why I do all these tutorials and I'm really eliminating an audience who can't understand me because I'm showing them how to do certain things, but they see it visually, but really the audio of what I'm telling them and the step by step process, if it would be in their language, it really opens up my videos to a whole new obviously worlds of audiences. Right. And so if you were me and you were coaching me and this feature rolls out to my channel, I know what I would want to do. What would you tell me to do? I know just looking at the tubebuddy, I can see what languages are most watching my stuff. And it's Hindi, it's Spanish, it's German, it's Portuguese, and some languages in India, which is a very large group as well. So I already have ideas of what I want to do. And Mr. Beast has paved the way for this with all of his other channels that he's been doing it basically at a higher tier, right. Paying people to do it and dub it themselves. So tell me, like what would you do for a channel like mine immediately upon giving access to this feature Initially.
- [32:50]
Roberto Blake
You won't have to do much because it will be handled and prioritized in the background. As far as your audio complementary to that, I would move to a thumbnail style that relies more on visuals and symbols that doesn't rely on text because your text isn't going to be in a thumbnail translated anytime soon to being localized. So to avoid any confusion or people avoiding your video based on that, because the text is already through Google going to be auto translated based on their system preference. And so since the audio is then going to follow suit based on their system preferences as well, as long as that language is available to them, that will be seamless. So the main thing is all of your metadata and all of your descriptions and all of your titles are already going to be in their language. Your audio is going to already be automatically in their language. Theoretically, I would say the thing you should do is if your software allows it or you pay someone else like Rev.com or something, is have accurate English based closed captioning so that auto captioning can be easily done from the YouTube Google side with your existing transcriptions. It can already be done auto transcribe into the other localized language for captions as well, because then that also enhances accessibility. And then as far as that, try to not have burned in text in video if you can absolutely avoid it. Because then you don't have to worry about the lack of localization for that in English. Now if it's necessary, you just have it there and it's in English and so be it. And then fortunately a lot of our friends abroad do at least tend to learn English as a second language. And like us Americans, gringo Americans, let's sit here. It's not multilingual. So that's. That's the thing I would do is I would make everything more accessible in general. And I would make everything tend to lean away from having used text visualization to communicate an idea. And I would use more universal communication in terms of symbols. And with tutorials, if you have anything that lets you, even when it comes to visual symbols in terms of keys and keyboard shortcuts, if it more. If it can be done, I would visualize just the position of the keyboard because keyboard positioning and layout is universal, even if the symbols on the keyboard or not the positioning is.
- [35:14]
Dusty Porter
Yeah. I've found that with my tutorials, I've tried to make them as little text in video as possible. I feel like creating tutorials now for almost 13 years. I found that people just want less fluff and they want you to get to the point and answer their question as quickly as possible, but do it in an efficient way to where they're learning as much as they can. So I try to keep away from that. And when I'm doing like mobile tutorials, I'll have kind of the tap area where I'm touching if that needs to be signified. So I really feel like I'm set up for it. And I have a tool that I've been using for about nine months now called descript, which basically I pay for their premium package which allows me to export subtitles. And I found it to be almost 99% accurate. I'm not sure if you've used descript before, but it's a wonderful tool and I'm able to export my subtitles in English to a very high degree by just paying for their premium service. So I love tools. I'm really excited if you can't tell about this feature because I think it's a game changer for me and other creators who are doing the same thing I'm doing. All right, so we have that. We have auto dubbing. What's next on the list?
- [36:14]
Roberto Blake
I would say for the small creators that run into creative blocks, they don't have the experience yet. Or maybe they still are getting to know their audience or figure that out, or they haven't yet. The Inspiration tab. As much as people think it's gimmicky. And I know people have their feelings about AI, but according to YouTube's internal case study, 92% of creators are already using AI in some capacity. So whether they or their audience realize it, because some people don't realize how much AI their tools have been using already for almost 10 years. The thing is YouTube's approach to AI, it has two components similar to Adobe Generative AI, yes, but assistive AI. And the inspiration tab is going to be more assistive AI because when it gives you suggestions about topics or outlines or questions or things for your topics, it's actually using your existing data, which is something that other things like ChatGPT and Claude are not necessarily doing. It's using your existing data through the YouTube API about your own content, but also relying on what it understands about your viewers already, the viewers you already have. Therefore it's actually going to be more accurate to what works whether you realize it or not. And it's going to improve over time as it gets more information about your viewers. So since it knows your viewers data in a way that you don't, because it knows your viewers behavior in a way that you don't and then it knows your own data from analytics when it gives you a recommendation, it's actually going to be a lot closer to being spot on than any external tool could be.
- [37:45]
Dusty Porter
Yeah, I'm a little, I'm a little excited about the generative stuff, but I'm more excited about the stuff you just talked about with the. The assistive stuff. Right. Generative to me, me, it's funny, I've been in the voiceover world now for almost 11 years and have worked with some of the same clients for a decade and about a year ago a bunch of them left. What I found is about two or three months ago, a lot of them have come back because it's there, it's getting there and it will be there. But Generative I feel is still a step away. But the assistive stuff, to me I'll go in Photoshop and I'll do some of this generative fill and I'll try to replace stuff. It's fun to look at, it's fun to have a picture of your family and be able to put a picture of a life size penguin in there that looks like abnormal and fake. But what is real to me is having all this data on the YouTube backend, which is a lot of stuff that I don't know if you have talked to Phil, the guy behind Tubebuddy, then he sold it and all that stuff. They're working on some stuff, right. We created fuel that kind of were ahead of the game here. But with the YouTube backend data they're going to have so much information on the people that come to Your videos anyway and all this watch time stuff and all the things of like CTR and the different things. I feel like there's going to be so much value for small, medium sized creators of knowing some of this stuff at a larger scale of knowing and understanding stuff. So I completely agree. The assistive AI stuff that YouTube is going to be able to do. Oh, it's fun that they're doing the short backgrounds they have the backgrounds that they're going to do for YouTube shorts. Great. That's wonderful for those people who want to use that. But I'm more interested in the inspiration tab of how can I use this data? You and I are both data people, right? We're geeks, we love this stuff. I'm going to utilize that in my coaching calls of how can I help these people taking a deeper dive into this stuff. So I love that. Anything else?
- [39:28]
Roberto Blake
There is stuff with the generative side that is groundbreaking in terms of their video model which is using Google DeepMind called Veo and I saw that and what they were going to do with that with shorts from a storytelling standpoint is fantastic in terms of being able to do generative video B roll. It's amazing. If you guys look at Haley Pham, for example, she's a good mix of doing okay talking head in shorts and then with this series she's doing of book reviews from classical books and children's books and then bringing those books to life in short form for you in a 60 second book review. Phenomenal. She did one with the Secret Garden and I read that as a kid, saw the cartoon as a kid and it's oh my gosh, you really brought that book straight up to Life in this 60 second review. And you can generate up to six seconds of video with that time. So I was blown away by what they can do with generative video. This was so impressive as to the point of competing with OpenAI Sora already, so what? This is getting to a point to where five, ten years from now. And I know people don't like this. I know some artists and some people are against this. But. But this is going to make the world more open and this is going to make the world more accessible. There are going to be people who will be able to bring things to life that are some of the most impressive and thoughtful ideas and stories we've ever seen. And their biggest barrier was they had no budget. They live in a country where they have no resources and they're going to be able to bring breathtaking ground, changing stories to us with no resources. So I understand where I feel like there's a very western centric anti generative AI sentiment. We're outnumbered by the rest of the world in terms of the people who have no resources and they've just gotten access to smartphones and technologies and affordable laptops and free platforms and when they can compete in the market and then when there's also no localization barrier to entry because of multi language audio. When you combine those things and the ability for them to utilize data, the landscape of competition is going to be bigger and better and will be better for it because we'll be pushed by people who never got to compete in the arena and we'll see what warriors look like. And I think that's great because as we're lowering the barrier to entry with things like shorts, they're trying to reduce it to where you can go back to the, oh, can I make stuff with just my phone? Again, lack of resources. Sure. But now we're going to be expanding that even further because now people will be able to do things with a very minimal amount of software. I've always said that the future is a future for YouTube where YouTube might be all you need to make something by itself with no additional tools. I think that's a vision that they have, and I think to a degree, an early prototype of that vision is TikTok. People were able to make TikTok videos that blew up and were viral and phenomenal with nothing more than TikTok with no outside software. And I think that YouTube understands the value of something like that because also TikTok infinitely bigger internationally than it would ever be outside the United States. So I think that YouTube sees a vision for that where they're going to lead further than that in innovation and become even more the gold standard. And this is why I say that big creator energy matters, by the way, because I want to bring it back to this notion that I introduced. Big creator energy. Do not use your small creator identity as some excuse to not try hard, to not work hard. Big creator energy for me is even if you have 100 subscribers, do not let me come to your channel and see and let it be obvious that you only have 100 subscribers. When I come to your profile on YouTube and I come to your YouTube channel and I see your channel header doesn't exist, or you may, or you made it a throwaway and you put no effort into it, and to where your profile picture is a throwaway and to where your thumbnails are an afterthought, if I see that then I'm like, yeah, of course you have 100 subscribers. That's about where you should be. You deserve 100 subscribers. What you should do is have big creator energy and bring big creator energy to the table. I should come to this and be like, how the hell are you out working someone with a hundred thousand subscribers? How the hell are you doing something that on a at a glance I see that you work harder than someone with a million subscribers. Why the hell didn't you have a million subscribers? You know why? You're going to radicalize me into being your fan and you're going to make me fight and say that you deserve to everyone in scream from the rooftops that you deserve more subscribers. You deserve to be a big YouTuber. You deserve to be a full time creator. You're going to make me by just even at a glance see such effort and such care and such quality with before I even click a video that makes me want to root for you and makes me support every brand deal, sponsorship you ever do makes me want to support you buy your merch. Just so I know I put six bucks in your pocket. Makes me want to drop that $10 super chat when I decide that you know what? No cheat days. I'm not going to Wendy's. You're getting that 10 bucks. That's you need to bring big creator energy and make me emotionally invested and say you're criminally underrated and you're criminally undervalued as a creator. And damn it, you're going to have that first 1000 subs. Damn it, you're going to get monetized if I have anything to say about it. I'm a binge watch your videos this weekend. You have to make me feel that and the way you make me feel that is when you go out of your way and you do your research and you will not settle for a thumbnail that you would not be proud of to slap on a big creator channel. If you would not be proud to slap that thumbnail on your favorite creator's YouTube channel and claim that work, go back to the drawing board, go back to Photoshop, go back to Canva until it is bring big creator energy. Do not put a banner up there that you wouldn't be happy to be the mock up for a billboard in Times Square. Do not do that. Do not put a profile pic up there if it's your real face that you wouldn't put in your dating profile trying to get the most attractive person that you can do not do it. Big creator energy, no half measures, no excuses of oh, I'm a small creator, no bring big creator energy. And the thing is, I think that every working class creator can still bring big creator energy. I just think it's a matter of setting aside some time and saying I'm just going to devote myself this weekend even if I'm not putting out a video. You're a small creator. I love consistency. But if you can't spare time to learn to improve your craft and upload, I would rather to some degree that your action bias go toward I'm going to improve my packaging so that when I do an upload it making every bit of that energy I put in count for something. Because if you're going to spend 10 hours editing a video, you might as well make the best thumbnail possible so people actually see the bloody video.
- [46:09]
Dusty Porter
Yeah, I think one of my favorite compliments or comments on my tutorials that I get is something along the lines of this random zoom tutorial has no business being this good as far as one guy told me this tutorial should not have any business being this high quality. And that's the mantra of what I want to do. I love that YouTube has gone to a more like you said, it's open to everyone and you and I talked about this. I listened to our last episode where you came on the show in preparation for this conversation, and you and I both talked about the transition from very heavily edited content to like the Sam. The Sam Sinix, the stuff that he's doing on his channel under edited, not low quality. People misunderstand. It's not low quality, it's just. It's a different type of content. And he's branded himself that way.
- [46:56]
Roberto Blake
The thing is, high quality content can still be low effort or low lift. And by that what you bring to the Think about it like this, it can be that in an execution because of your prep, right? Low lift executions are a result of fantastic prep work. If you have great cinematography, you might not need as much editing. If you have gold going in, how much more polish does it actually need? Because if you polish it too much, it loses its texture at that point. And texture feels real, polish feels fake. If you have a great reality TV scenario for IRL content, you have a great wonderful life and you've got a great aesthetic for your vlog. How much editing do you really need? Because editing at that point is not about adding anything, it's about removing things that distract, if anything. So the thing is, I believe in this approach to even editing, if people want understand quality. Because remember what I've said. My pillars for destination content and what I teach people are high value content is about the packaging and presentation so that I can perceive value. That's things like dressing to impress, which is the thumbnail. And that's things like having a really intriguing thing about you that you can say that makes you interesting or mysterious or exciting, which is what your title in your headline is. So that's the bait, which is why we call it clickbait. That's the bait. In real life, you would want an opener for a conversation. You'd want icebreaker that can get people to go, hey, you just sat down at the lunch table. And you guys like, hey, everybody, I've got a story for you. You see that person over there? You won't believe what happened last weekend. And then it's, tell me more. If you're. Remember, this is my high school analogy. YouTube's High School Forever, okay? That's purgatory. It's high school forever. Think about that. Hey, see that guy over there? You won't believe what happened last weekend at this party. That's an intriguing. Okay, tell me more. It's, like, got my attention. If you sit down at the lunch table, we all know that's the conversation star. That's the icebreaker, right? Everyone's gonna lean in. Yeah. That's what your videos need to be. They need to be this lean in. The title needs to be this lean in thing. If you can have me back on the show, I'll break down the clicks method for titles, and I'll break down the vibes method for thumbnails. But the point is, and that's something, you know, I teach our creators. But my point is, value is about the perception of value to the viewer, and that's how you attract people. Then quality is the experience they have once they click on that video. Quality can be a lot of things. Quality is made up in my mind, of your production. It's made up of your personality, and it's also made up of your performance. You can increase your performance on camera for $0. And that could also be authenticity. So that's Sam Sulik. That's people who don't necessarily edit. That's a lot of vloggers. It's their personality. Right? So we talk a lot about personality channels. Okay, so that's you. That's your. Okay. But then also the ability to convey that with charisma, confidence, and clear communication. That's your performance. All right? And then in terms of the production, it's not just the audio, video and lighting. Quality is also in. The experience of quality comes down to the four S's, which is your scripting. So it's the script of the video because that becomes the substance of the thing. Okay? It's the structure of the video. It's that breakdown. It's like having your hook at the beginning. It's like, hey, you got eight seconds to make a first impression. So, okay, so structure matters. All right? Style is the visuals and the aesthetic and all those things. But then it's the storytelling as well, because that's the emotional investment component. So you need to be able to be a master of storytelling or an effective storyteller as well. Regardless of whether you're an influencer or an educator. That component would matter because again, you're looking for emotional buy in. Even in education. The substance of storytelling when it comes to entertainment is easy. It's the three act structure of the call to adventure, the conflict and the conclusion. But here's the thing. If you're an educator, do you want to know what the storytelling process is for an educator?
- [50:45]
Dusty Porter
Yes, leader.
- [50:47]
Roberto Blake
I'll tell you the secret. It's problem, process, payoff. Here's the problem you're trying to solve. And the stakes are your emotional stakes. And if you don't solve this problem, you're going to stay broke. If you don't solve this problem, you're going to get fired. If you don't solve this problem, you're not going to be able to execute the thing and you're not going to get the things that you want from that. Okay? So that's the problem. Here's the process. And now my process is, hey, my process is going to be simple or, hey, my process is going to be fast. Hey, my process is going to be the way to do this for free. My process is gonna be the way to do this for cheap. My process is gonna be the way to do this frustration free, guaranteed. Okay? And so that was the payoff. The payoff is, hey, look at this wonderful result that we have. So it's problem, process, payoff. Bob Ross was the master of this. The thing is, you don't feel like you could ever be a great artist. Okay, I'm gonna tell you a simple way. Just take simple brushstrokes and just make this thing. And we're going to get this lovely tree. We have this wonderful, beautiful mountain. Look at this lake that we made. And that's the payoff. The payoff. Is dial. You can actually do it. Don't you feel great? You did it and that's the payoff. And that's why Bob Ross was able to capture the hearts of generations of people to the point where people still watch his videos on YouTube today. Because the thing is, if you feel intimidated by the process of the prospect of not being a genuine artist and creative person, he will put you through a process that's so simple, so frustration free, so enjoyable and get you emotionally invested. And then you feel such relief and such satisfaction and gratitude for the fact that you now can see the fruits of your labor and see that it wasn't impossible for you to do. And he gives you that feeling. And so that's the emotional buy in. And that's what being a thought leader, being an educator, a storyteller is that creating that transformation story because you're not the hero they are.
- [52:30]
Dusty Porter
Yeah, I love all that. I just, I'm so with you on just the whole kind of theming of just the audience first, people first and being able to dissect that and what it means for you and your channel. And I know we're approaching the hour mark here, so I'm going to wrap this up and conclude the conversation today. We'll certainly have Roberto on. I love having him on a few times a year if he's available and open to do that. And he always is. And I appreciate that. It means a lot to me. But I will say this just in conclusion of today's episode. I hope that you're listening to this on your walk or as you're doing things around the house or however you consume your podcast and you're thinking to yourself, how can I implement this on my channel and how can I take this? And Roberto has talked about all different types of content. We talked about gamers, we talked about education channels. All of this stuff works if you're willing to put in the time and the effort required to do the prep work and to really dissect what's going to work for me and my channel. And Roberto, thanks again. You can find him@roberto Blake.com everything. All he does is over there. His YouTube channel is just Roberto Blake. I'm going to link all of those things as well as his newest course and his book and all those things will be linked down below. But Roberto, thanks for joining us today.
- [53:42]
Roberto Blake
Yeah, thanks so much for having me Dusty. And also everybody, a lot of our free resources and materials and info. You can find that@awesomecreatoracademy.com One of the best online education spaces for creators.
- [53:54]
Dusty Porter
Awesome. Thank you. I'll also link that as well. Thanks, Roberta. We'll talk to you next time. Hello everyone and thank you for listening to this week's episode of the YouTube Creators Hub podcast. I really do appreciate it. Don't forget you can subscribe to the show for absolutely free and your podcast player of choice. Also, there are ways you can connect with us. You can support us by supporting our sponsor, TubeBuddy, as well as supporting us over on Patreon to get access to our creator Discord community. And I also offer YouTube coaching and consultation, YouTube channel reviews and just overall business coaching if that's something that you are wanting to look into. So make sure you check us out there and we'll see you next week.