Reviewing YOUR YouTube Channels (for FREE!)
vidIQ
0:01 This is your weekly YouTube channel audit live stream.
0:05 All you need to do is use the correct link in the description,
0:07 fill out the form, and we'll consider your channel for review.
0:13 That's right.
0:14 Channel reviews are free,
0:15 but you can send us a super chat and watch us discuss your question live on air.
0:19 If you submit your channel for review, expect the following.
0:22 We will share with you our knowledge,
0:24 experience, and passion as fellow YouTube creators.
0:28 I want to give a massive shout out and thanks to our moderators
0:30 who do an awesome job every single live stream and that's your onboarding done.
0:34 What channels have you brought us this week?
0:42 Indeed, channels have you brought us this week?
0:46 Hello everybody once again to VidIQ,
0:51 the creator obsessed channel that's all about your YouTube education,
0:56 your YouTube motivation,
0:58 and hopefully whether it be today, tomorrow, next week,
1:03 or in the future months and years, your YouTube success.
1:07 My name is Rob and I will be your guide, your host,
1:11 your entertainer uh for the next 90 minutes or so as you submit
1:17 your channels and you gather in this campfire setting for some channel audits,
1:25 YouTube advice, YouTube strategy, and lots and lots of fun along the way.
1:30 I know I am 24 hours late here, but use the algorithm.
1:39 May the views be with you or something along those lines.
1:43 Add your own YouTube slash Star Wars puns in the chat while I
1:50 introduce to you my amazing co-host who goes by the name of Dan.
1:55 Hey Dan, welcome back to the live stream.
1:58 How are you, sir?
2:02 Good.
2:03 Great.
2:03 No, I'm doing good.
2:04 How are you?
2:05 Enthusiastic.
2:06 I'm fantastic, Dan.
2:08 As I say, Star Wars day yesterday.
2:11 Uh, how did you celebrate such I play Pokemon?
2:15 Yeah, I you beat me to actually saying
2:17 that to actually filling in that line for you.
2:20 But there you go.
2:21 There you go.
2:22 So, yeah.
2:22 Uh, we're now beyond Star Wars, so we'll audit your channels instead.
2:27 Unless Dan, you have any um I don't know, bullet points, PSAs.
2:36 Should we get into it?
2:38 Nope.
2:38 Uh don't have anything to say.
2:40 Just uh yeah, have fun.
2:44 Let Let it What?
2:45 What?
2:45 What happened there?
2:48 I just wanted to throw you off.
2:50 Um no, we can start.
2:51 Right.
2:52 Let's audit some channels, shall we?
2:53 Let's get in there and let's see what we've
2:55 got uh for you today in terms of channel audits.
2:58 And of course, if you have a question,
3:00 send us a super chat and we will endeavor to answer it a little later on.
3:04 But first of all, as we always do,
3:06 we audit the first channel that filled in the forms this week.
3:09 and they go by the name of Promator 3D,
3:14 who looks to be at the very beginning of their YouTube
3:17 journey with just 30 videos and 30 subscribers here or there.
3:23 And to introduce them, Dan,
3:25 they are a Blender satisfying animation channel as well as Blender tips.
3:31 Their biggest obstacle right now seems to be getting subs and views
3:34 and they are stuck in the 1.7 that's very precise 1.7,000 view jail.
3:40 Presumably that's something to do with your shorts.
3:43 And I would like us to focus on the videos and what
3:48 can or should I do to get more views and subs.
3:50 The general question for a new creator.
3:53 So, how can we maybe help them to be
3:56 a little more focused on specific things that they could do?
3:59 I'd say we'll we'll try and divide this up into like two or two
4:02 or three minutes on longs and then two or three minutes on shorts.
4:05 So, here's a channel, Dan.
4:07 What are your first impressions?
4:09 Not a ton of content yet.
4:11 It's okay.
4:12 I I think there's uh something to be said for, you know,
4:16 how do I get more views?
4:17 Well, post more videos, first of all.
4:19 Let's be fair, Dan.
4:21 Seven videos in in the last two months.
4:23 That's suggested me once a week.
4:24 So, the cadence isn't too bad there yet.
4:26 Yeah, I'm not sorry.
4:27 I should clarify.
4:28 I'm not saying they're posting an inadequate amount of videos.
4:31 I'm saying with only this many long form videos,
4:34 don't worry too much about where you're at right now.
4:37 I agree.
4:37 I agree with that.
4:38 Yes.
4:39 Let's let's just continue getting some reps in.
4:41 Uh so yeah, the the other thing I could say
4:44 positively here is that the channel focus is just immediate.
4:47 It's it's a Blender channel.
4:48 You're going to you're going to watch somebody either work
4:51 in Blender or maybe even learn a thing or two about Blender.
4:54 I guess that's where I'm a little bit trying
4:58 to figure out the rest of the channel, right?
4:59 Are they teaching or are they just kind of showing off?
5:02 Yeah, because they can be very different audiences, can't they?
5:05 Like I can I myself can jump
5:07 on board Blender animations which are really satisfying.
5:11 Do I want to learn how to do it myself?
5:14 Probably not.
5:15 So, they they mentioned that in their forum
5:18 and they're talking about like 3-day gamedev challenge.
5:21 That could be really niched and really specific,
5:24 but then weird Blender renders that are weirdly satisfying.
5:27 That doesn't feel like a tutorial to me.
5:28 It's more entertainment.
5:30 So, we got a vlog.
5:31 We got entertainment.
5:32 Making a car in under a minute.
5:33 That feels like a tutorial.
5:35 So, very different intent from the creator and they're
5:40 hoping that the view is going to follow.
5:42 And is that going to be the case?
5:44 Yeah, I I think the biggest challenge for them just right
5:49 off rip is it's going to be the thumbnails for me.
5:51 For example, 3-day gamedev challenge.
5:53 I've seen a lot of like game jam kind
5:55 of videos and when you do that split screen thumbnail,
5:58 you need to show like a proper evolution,
5:59 but you've covered most of it with the Blender logo and day
6:02 one doesn't look like anything and day three doesn't look like anything either.
6:05 There's not a lot of colors.
6:06 There's not a lot of like stuff happening.
6:08 I didn't even realize that was a a progression thumbnail.
6:12 I would just as he said I was just
6:14 focusing on the big Blender logo in the middle.
6:16 So yeah, that's a brilliant point.
6:18 And and also it's broken up into two parts for some
6:20 reason and it's both thumbnails are exactly the same just about.
6:24 So I would have just made one longer video and I
6:27 would have like showcased more of the the whole thing.
6:30 It seems like with only six minutes between those two videos,
6:32 there's just not I'm not going to get a lot
6:34 compared to the game jam uh videos I usually watch.
6:38 So a little more polish into storytelling.
6:40 You don't have to even spend all that time in Blender.
6:42 you could like talk through like what your process was
6:44 and why you made the choices you made and things like that.
6:47 And then the latest thumbnail I I'm not buying it.
6:50 That's my other problem.
6:51 I know when you scrolled over it, you do see that car in the video,
6:54 but it's like you went from cube to car in a minute.
6:57 Like I something about it just seems fishy and it would make me not click.
7:02 Oh, Dan not trusting the 42 seconds that it takes to uh turn a cube into a car.
7:08 I I actually did watch it and a lot of the time it's just like really
7:12 sped up footage of them doing very precise uh fixes on the cube into a car.
7:17 So yeah, there may be like a you can't suspend
7:20 a disbelief disbelief in being able to uh do that in Blender.
7:24 And yeah, just generally then all of uh video lengths here are relatively short.
7:28 Everything is under five minutes.
7:30 Most is under uh three or two minutes.
7:32 So extending the length out there a little bit
7:34 for long for let's now jump into shorts just
7:36 to see what's going on with uh what they said
7:39 the 1.7K view jail that they seem to be in.
7:43 And I'm just scrolling up and down.
7:45 I can confirm that there's one outlier here with 5,000 views.
7:49 Everything else is kind of capping out at the moment.
7:51 Uh what I would be relieved to see is that the views aren't just tanking.
7:56 like you're not getting any like dozens of views
7:58 or less than 10 views which would suggest that you've kind
8:00 of irritated YouTube shorts discovery engine like they're still testing
8:05 with audiences but they still haven't figured out what what's best.
8:08 I mean typically Dan we need to watch one of these shots.
8:10 Do you have a a preference here of what we could look at?
8:13 Let's look at the car one because it has 1.4K views and it
8:16 it's kind of in line with one of the long form videos.
8:18 It's in the middle there.
8:19 Yeah.
8:19 I broke Blender trying to make a model car.
8:22 Let's see and listen.
8:24 Select your light and your camera and delete them.
8:27 Then add a car reference image.
8:29 Just have the Select your light and your camera and delete them.
8:33 Then add a car reference image and place it nicely to fit
8:36 the scene and model the cube to be the same as the reference image.
8:46 That is the exact long form video, I think,
8:48 where it was just like, oh, and then all of a sudden,
8:50 we've got half a car that's been built uh by just
8:53 going to almost like a jump scare to this point.
8:57 Yeah, I'm not getting a whole lot out of that.
8:59 Uh I I can see why the Yeah, it So,
9:03 first you have like the very very annoying AI voice,
9:05 like one of the They picked one of the ones
9:07 that's just like to me nails on a chalkboard.
9:10 Um, and then it's just I don't know.
9:13 I guess it's a little underwhelming when you probably
9:15 I bet if you looked up other Blender shorts,
9:18 even if it's not tutorials, just other impressive things in Blender,
9:21 it would just be constructed differently.
9:23 And I would encourage this creator to watch some videos
9:26 on how other folks are kind of like handling making Blender
9:29 shorts and try to take some notes and like learn
9:32 a thing or two from them because you have these skills.
9:33 It's really cool.
9:34 I've played with Blender not too long ago actually.
9:36 I just wanted to kind of mess with it, learn how to, you know, use it.
9:39 And I started to make a fish.
9:40 And uh every every little thing I did, I was like so proud of myself.
9:44 Everything I learned, I it was so exciting.
9:45 Like, but it's a skill set.
9:47 It's like a skill set that I could see why it
9:48 would take someone a decade or two to learn how to do,
9:52 you know, a lot of really cool stuff with it.
9:54 So, if you're making something like a car, it can it can get a lot of views.
9:57 is going to be really impressive.
9:58 But one of the other things, and I hate to be super critical here,
10:01 one of the other things that I think slows them down is like,
10:04 oh, use this reference of a car and and then you end up
10:09 making like the same exact car that the you know what I mean?
10:11 I'd kind of want to see someone make like a more original take on it.
10:14 But that's that's just my own because
10:16 I've watched a handful of Blender videos now.
10:17 That's like my own critique.
10:19 I probably wouldn't watch someone use the reference car.
10:22 I'm I'm letting this play in the background because this is
10:25 um saying it's a weird uh blending renders that are satisfying.
10:31 And although this is somewhat satisfying,
10:34 I think my argument would be is that these types of Blender or 3D
10:39 animation satisfying videos have been around on YouTube for a long time now.
10:43 And this compared to the best ones on the on the platform is like a three,
10:49 four, five out of 10.
10:50 like it's just not that satisfying.
10:53 And that's just a case of you've tried to move into a niche that is already very
10:58 saturated and has a lot of skilled creators there
11:02 and this isn't different enough to be exciting enough.
11:04 So like you're producing something that's
11:07 of a lower quality that already exists.
11:09 And again, that's going to come with time.
11:10 You're going to get better at Blender.
11:11 You'll do something that's more satisfying.
11:13 And I feel as if there could be a more of a looping
11:16 opportunity here because you can see how it kind of reverses back on itself.
11:19 I would just let it constantly fall through through loops
11:23 and that would be it and it would just loop over.
11:25 Um, so that might be why you're getting into the views jail like YouTube's
11:29 testing it with an audience but they're they're just not that excited by it.
11:32 It's not changing a landscape enough.
11:35 I think this was a good idea Dan where they compared what happens
11:39 if you do something in Blender versus AI trying to do the same thing.
11:43 I think this was the example.
11:44 So this is when AI tries to do what they did in Blender,
11:49 which was that kind of I guess the prompt was let these bricks fall down
11:53 in a really satisfying way and AI
11:55 just literally falls over and does something stupid.
12:00 That would have been better interesting idea
12:03 if they had like explained it even more.
12:05 I I get there's text.
12:06 It's pretty much fine, but like you said,
12:08 you had to imagine what the prompt was.
12:10 The prompt being on screen
12:12 would be like what I would do.
12:14 Um, thank you.
12:16 Now I can edit in peace.
12:18 This is it like a new thing.
12:19 People are like changing their banners while we're doing channel reviews.
12:21 I guess that's another one, isn't it?
12:24 I didn't even realize that.
12:25 Hey, you're welcome.
12:26 But
12:26 can I little V, capital IQ?
12:31 I cannot stress that enough.
12:33 Yeah, we get in trouble for that.
12:34 Um, let let me just like say something about that real quick because
12:37 this happened last week too and I can't get it off my mind.
12:40 We're you are listening to what we're saying, right?
12:43 Like we're we're really like we're taking the time
12:45 looking at your channels and I just have to imagine
12:48 they have us on in the background and they're
12:49 quickly changing their channel banner so we can see it
12:52 instead of listening to the advice.
12:53 Yeah.
12:54 But I would like you to I hope maybe you
12:55 at least rewind and like listen to what we have to say
12:57 because I feel like we're we're kind of identifying some
12:59 things that if you want to take our advice it'll help.
13:01 But just just wanted to like throw that out
13:03 there in case that this becomes like a trend.
13:06 You know, we're we're not here just because your channel's on the screen.
13:10 Yay.
13:10 We're not just That's not why we do it.
13:13 Dan, I disagree entirely.
13:16 Banner away.
13:18 I love it.
13:20 There is one final thing, right?
13:21 So, we've just audited this channel, but you know,
13:25 we're going to be trying to audit as many channels as we can today,
13:27 and obviously we don't get to do every single one, which is unfortunate.
13:32 We finally figured out a solution for this.
13:34 Oh, yeah.
13:34 And it's And it's right here.
13:36 Okay.
13:37 So, vidiq.comyoutube- channel-it and you can get your free mini channel audit.
13:47 And I've done exactly that with the Promator 3D channel.
13:51 And it gets a pretty good score because I
13:54 I think we established that it's a new channel.
13:56 Uh we've only what 30 subscribers, 30 view um 30 videos.
13:59 They're getting good views.
14:01 Um but it's still a bit of work to do.
14:02 And and the thing that it really picked out,
14:04 and we touched on it a little bit, it was uh thumbnails could be better.
14:07 And what it picked out here was this one that says, "You're the worst,
14:12 but the thumbnail only gets 34 points out of 100." And I
14:15 think it's because the title is about a realistic car game,
14:18 but it's just not referenced at all in the thumbnail.
14:21 And I think there's a disconnect there in your packaging.
14:23 Uh so that would be one of the things that you could
14:26 potentially work on, and it kind of confirms uh that with the recommendation.
14:31 So, I would maybe after this live stream or you can do it now.
14:35 There's a link in the description.
14:37 Click on it, feed your channel into this tool.
14:41 You don't need to be signed up to Vid IQ.
14:43 This is completely free and it will just give you, I guess in one sense,
14:47 it's like this little FIFA breakdown of your channel attributes.
14:52 It's a new tool and we're going to be using
14:54 it uh frequently from now on in our channel audits.
14:59 Uh there we are.
15:01 A little nice freebie for you.
15:02 Do check it out.
15:03 Let us know what you think in the comments.
15:04 Maybe we can improve it for you.
15:06 All right, let's move on to a gaming channel now.
15:09 And that gaming channel is I think O miner TG.
15:16 That's how I'm pronouncing this channel.
15:20 Yeah.
15:19 And they have over five and a half thousand subscribers,
15:23 150 videos, so they're well established on YouTube.
15:25 And I think also Thank you.
15:27 Thank you.
15:28 You are one of our regular memes of the week submitters.
15:31 I see your name all the time uh in memes of the week.
15:34 So, it's brilliant that you were able to submit first
15:36 and get your channel audited to introduce this channel to you, Dan.
15:39 They are a Roblox pet 99 sim pet simulator 99 channel.
15:45 Uh their biggest obstacle right now is lack of time and ideas.
15:48 We all empathize with that.
15:51 And they would like us to focus on uh just improving the look of a channel.
15:55 I personally don't know what I should improve.
15:58 Please let me know.
15:59 You guys are the experts.
16:01 Allegedly.
16:02 That's a lot of pressure.
16:04 We're just two dudes on the internet and talking about YouTube channels.
16:08 Right, Dan?
16:09 I mean, what I would say here is with 5,000
16:11 subscribers and 150 videos and view counts in the several thousands,
16:17 like lowend 3,000, top end 8,000.
16:22 I feel as if this creator isn't necessarily doing anything wrong.
16:25 They're in the right place.
16:27 They're posting even though they feel as if
16:29 they're they don't have time and ideas.
16:32 Their cadence is very regular.
16:36 I'm not doing the six and seven thing here.
16:38 I'm just saying this channel seems to be exactly where it should be right now,
16:42 which is healthy and growing.
16:44 Yeah, that's I mean this is really uh this is really good to see.
16:49 I I have one critique like off the top of my head and it's
16:54 the especially the second to last thumbnail.
16:57 It the the colors you use on your font just make it harder to read.
17:01 We do blend in, don't we, a little bit this one talking?
17:04 Yeah.
17:04 So, that's like one critique, you know, an easy change.
17:09 Uh I know it's kind of like the the way they've branded their thumbnails,
17:12 so you'd have to kind of like make some
17:14 adjustments to still find a way to brand your thumbnails.
17:17 Look at look at this one because I I think they should also
17:19 reduce the number of um words and numbers and you take a look
17:23 at this one which is just much more clear like a clear
17:26 number and like a clear instruction and this one was an outlier like
17:31 that that seems to be that seems to be
17:33 much more direct and clear to the audience.
17:35 Maybe it was an easier idea to cover, but this packaging seems,
17:40 let's say, 25 to 50% less complicated or requires less decoding than this one.
17:47 And I think that's why it did really well.
17:50 Yeah, I agree.
17:51 I I wonder if they have any more major outliers like that that uh
17:55 it kind of backs up exactly what I was saying.
17:57 No, that is their their biggest outlier from a month ago.
18:00 But look at the second to last one.
18:01 I opened 100 MVP keys.
18:03 Like I really really like that thumbnail.
18:05 Something about that thumbnail just kind of like
18:07 even though there's a lot of stuff on it, it's like it's a lot of repetition.
18:10 So you kind of get the point like oh that must be all the keys surrounding them.
18:14 That's really cool.
18:15 Same with this one as well.
18:16 It's kind of organized or repeated chaos
18:20 type thing but but with an object that still dominates.
18:23 It still dominates a thumbnail and it draws your eye in.
18:26 And again like this one, it's just less text but more clear, easy to read.
18:32 Yeah, I I think if they can keep nailing that, you know,
18:38 nothing stopping you from getting tens of thousands of views on your videos
18:40 instead of like just barely getting that that that, you know,
18:43 to that 10,000 mark on some of them.
18:46 And I'm just going to do a quick search for Pet Simulator.
18:48 I mean, I'm just putting PetSim
18:50 and you're already getting tons of suggestions here.
18:53 So, I think just YouTube autocomplete search would help.
18:57 And then here videos are being recycled in the last 24 hours.
19:03 So this is still a huge and popular game and topic
19:06 that like Vid IQ's tools here again free for you
19:08 to download are saying that the competition is high and the volume
19:12 is high but you've already established yourself to a certain perspective.
19:16 So like to be in this space and have traction is brilliant.
19:20 And you know, again,
19:21 there's also ref um clues here on the types of thumbnails that they're using.
19:26 And I don't know, Dan, is it too cheeky to say,
19:30 uh, hey, this isn't niche bending,
19:32 but this is like I idea bending in that you can take some ideas
19:36 from these creators because there's so many coming out over the last 24 hours,
19:40 but then just put your own spin on it
19:41 or your own angle or you you're really passionate.
19:45 You're really knowledge about about this topic.
19:47 I'm sure you can change it and contort it into your own idea of a video.
19:51 You know what I would do is I would go to the previous
19:54 Pet Simulator game cuz I think there's a lot of these.
19:56 I would go to the last very popular one and go look at videos like the types
20:01 of videos people were making on that and see
20:04 if anyone's been updating those for PetSim 999.
20:06 Okay.
20:07 Yeah.
20:08 Interesting idea.
20:10 Interesting idea.
20:12 Shorts.
20:13 You're doing shorts not that as regularly.
20:15 It looks as if you did one last three hours,
20:17 but other than that, they're breaking through a certain views barrier.
20:21 That's cool.
20:22 I guess one thing that again we might suggest
20:24 is that if you don't have that much time,
20:28 do you want to spend what little time you have on shorts?
20:32 If like long form content is more your jammy,
20:35 you don't have to make shorts content if you don't want to.
20:39 Uh live streamwise, uh again, they're live streaming fairly regularly, Dan.
20:44 And with a thousand views on each of these, you're
20:47 probably looking at 50 to 100 concurrent viewers.
20:51 Yeah.
20:52 Yeah.
20:52 Just I just want to have a look at their description and see if they are
20:58 uh so they don't have a Discord or they
21:01 don't have any sponsorships or do they Sorry, am I miss reading that?
21:04 It's towards the top.
21:07 Why can I not see that?
21:08 of time.
21:09 It says description.
21:10 I I'll just take your mind.
21:11 Oh, sorry.
21:11 Yeah, because it's not an actual link.
21:13 It's a button.
21:13 I do apologize.
21:15 Uh but maybe there's more um ways to monetize
21:18 your audience or like um SP sponsor brand deals.
21:21 I feel as if you're in that place where you
21:22 can start to look at that a little bit more.
21:24 But yeah, Dan, this just seems like
21:26 a complete channel that kind of just come on.
21:29 What what what happens next?
21:31 I want to go faster.
21:31 I want to grow.
21:32 I want to get bigger.
21:34 Yeah, it's it's really just a matter of continuing to jump on trends.
21:38 Uh I think they are here in the in the chat, too.
21:40 I I saw when I said like go to the last Pet Simulator game.
21:44 I'm talking about whatever Pet Simulator
21:46 game was popular before Pet Simulator 99.
21:49 We've been doing this a long time and I know there are
21:51 a whole bunch of these or just other games that are adjacent to it.
21:55 You're looking for video ideas.
21:57 you're mining for ideas in in the in the community and taking
22:01 that's kind of how niche bending and these like types of concepts work.
22:05 You see what someone's doing, you go, "Oh, I'm playing a different game,
22:07 but I could do a similar idea in that game, too.
22:09 It's really well constructed for it." Grow a garden.
22:12 That's the that's that's the one massive Roblox mod,
22:15 right, that I've I've heard of.
22:17 Or is it something like that?
22:18 I'm trying to remember.
22:22 Yeah, that looks like Roblox
22:26 popularity.
22:26 So, these are some of the historical grower garden ones
22:29 with tens of millions of views, which I need to
22:33 So, looks like looks like growing garden
22:35 has like a stock trading mechanic to it.
22:38 I I don't know if PetSim99 does, uh, but there could be some ideas in there.
22:42 And this is just like when it comes
22:43 to like getting ideas for gaming videos and stuff,
22:45 you can really you don't even have to look
22:46 at what your competition who's playing the same game are doing.
22:49 You can look and yes, Grow Garden's dead.
22:52 It's not the point.
22:53 You're you're idea mining.
22:55 It's the ideas we're looking for,
22:56 right?
22:56 Yeah.
22:57 You're not you like a game might be dead,
22:59 but back in the day it was getting millions of views,
23:01 and those would be videos worth looking at.
23:02 Maybe they're not getting that today, but it's like, okay,
23:04 can that idea work in the new game that's popular?
23:07 Let's give um one of these videos a quick view,
23:09 Dan, and just look at the intro and stuff.
23:11 I spent $10,000$10,000 Roblox dollars, I think,
23:15 on Forever Park in Pet Simulator.
23:18 What's up, guys?
23:18 Welcome back to another video.
23:20 In this video, I got 11,000 Robux.
23:23 Yeah, you just got click baited.
23:25 I I don't have 10K, but yeah, I have 11K, almost 12K.
23:29 As you can see here, this is the amount of Robux I have right now.
23:33 But but that says 1 cent.
23:35 Oh, wow.
23:36 That's how much money they've left in their bank
23:38 account after spending all of it on Robux.
23:41 That felt like a snappy intro to me.
23:43 Uh like a bit of comedy there.
23:45 like he kind of admitted to clickbait,
23:48 but like he was honest with your audience and hopefully
23:50 they found that entertaining and getting around the the good kind.
23:55 It's a good kind of clickbait because it's more money than you promised.
23:57 So that's fun.
23:58 Yeah.
23:58 Yeah.
23:59 So I I see no problems there.
24:01 So just like in terms of general health of a channel,
24:04 uh our own channel audit kind of confirmed that like you've got
24:08 a great score at the moment and everything seems to be high.
24:12 like he said posting recency was a bit low,
24:15 but I kind of disagreed with that a little bit.
24:16 He seems to be posting very frequently.
24:20 Yeah.
24:19 It was just a case of like your channel's in great shape.
24:22 Just keep doing what you're doing and and you know,
24:24 take the little bits of advice Dan and I have suggested
24:27 and don't fret too much about that lack of time and ideas.
24:31 You know, everybody's in the same place.
24:33 Uh it you'll find you'll continue to find ways
24:36 to make great content for the channel and the audience.
24:39 Yeah.
24:40 All right.
24:40 You know what I think we should do next time?
24:44 No.
24:43 Little little diversion.
24:45 Your favorite bit.
24:51 In this corner, we take the ride.
24:57 From 8bit Lens to the galaxy far gaming corner is the bright.
25:09 Don't you just love those segways that just soak up time in the live stream?
25:14 It's another 25 seconds lost.
25:16 Dan's not impressed.
25:17 But what I ask you right now as a community is you can't YouTube 24/7.
25:24 We don't advise it.
25:26 We advise that you disconnect, touch grass, play video games,
25:30 or enjoy the hobby that is not influenced by your YouTube channel.
25:38 What is it over the last week?
25:40 Let us know.
25:41 For many of us, it's video games.
25:43 And Dan and I will be talking about said video games,
25:45 but I know for some of you,
25:46 it might be music, reading, crochet, croquet, crickets,
25:51 and any other hobbies that begin with C and R.
25:54 Dan, what's going on in your gaming world?
25:59 Uh, yeah.
26:00 So, I I've played a little more Batman Arkham Asylum.
26:03 I think I'll be able to beat it before the new Batman game comes out.
26:06 So, I won't I won't finish the trilogy, but uh I think I can do it.
26:10 And then, yeah, like I said,
26:11 I've just been reobsessed once again with Pokemon uh
26:15 all all shapes and sizes of different Pokemon games.
26:17 So, that's uh yeah, many hours spent doing that.
26:21 What would you say has been the thing
26:22 that's surprised you most about Arkham Asylum?
26:26 Just because I've played it recently,
26:27 so I'm I'm still in tune with just how good it is.
26:31 I I think it's just it holds up really well, you know.
26:34 Uh, I'm playing on the Switch.
26:38 Yeah, I'm on the Switch.
26:39 So, like obviously it's not the graphics are
26:41 not what they are on like PC or something,
26:43 but even then like on the Switch 2 it performs great and it Yeah,
26:47 it it definitely holds up to the test of time.
26:50 Uh, which is good.
26:51 It's just kind of I agree good timeless 3D game.
26:55 Uh, and do you agree that it is uh comparable to Spider-Man in a lot of ways,
27:02 but also it's quite different?
27:04 Yeah.
27:04 Yeah, I still like the Spider-Man games better.
27:06 I think I like the vibe of them better.
27:08 I I'd say they're more straightforward.
27:10 Like the thing I'm struggling with in this game
27:11 is just knowing where I'm at in like the story,
27:15 where I'm at with like the collectibles.
27:16 It just kind of I don't know.
27:18 It still moves.
27:19 It's not like a slog or anything,
27:21 but I am kind of like Spider-Man in the more modern
27:23 games keep track of your progress in like really minuscule ways,
27:26 and this one doesn't really do that.
27:28 That's fair.
27:28 And and the series does get better.
27:30 I think it gets it gets better at guiding you.
27:32 Um, but also it just gets more expansive.
27:34 Like the next game, it's you're in a city,
27:38 so like just the map's three times as big, and it's just incredible.
27:42 Having said all of that, Dan, I uh continue to play.
27:46 Let's see if I can put on my best French accent.
27:51 CL obscure expedition 33.
27:54 I don't know.
27:54 It's probably terrible.
27:56 Pretty good.
27:56 Is the uh RPG that just came out of nowhere
28:00 and has been on everybody's best game of 2025 lists.
28:04 I think it's very good.
28:06 What I'm finding is that I get
28:10 through certain story lines and scenes, environments,
28:15 and I'm starting to lose a bit
28:16 of interest just because maybe it's getting complicated.
28:19 Like there's a lot of item management
28:22 to determine how you buff your characters, Dan.
28:24 And that is already getting confusing.
28:26 Like I've got I'm maybe like 15 hours
28:29 in and I already have what are called pictos.
28:32 I have like 30 of them already.
28:35 and each of them do different buffs and I I can't keep
28:38 up with them and I have to swap them around a lot.
28:41 But then I I go on another quest and I'm just back and invested in it
28:46 even though I'm really struggling to follow
28:48 the story despite the fact that I'm not cutting I'm not skipping the cut scenes
28:51 as surprising that that may sound for me.
28:54 When games have like multiple characters to manage like Kingdom
28:57 Hearts has that where it's like a lot of different items.
28:59 You'd think a game for kids like that would not
29:01 be so complicated but I I lose track really quickly.
29:03 And the reason like the Pokemon games are nice
29:05 fresh bre fresh of breath air is what I said.
29:09 Um is that they only can hold one item at a time like so you
29:12 can't possibly get too too mixed up if you have a party of six Pokemon.
29:16 So yeah.
29:16 I don't know.
29:17 I I would that would stress me out.
29:18 I don't like trying to remember especially if you take a break
29:20 from the game and you come back like okay what was everyone doing?
29:23 What was I doing here?
29:24 I've got to do it in one session or I'm just going to get completely lost.
29:27 But it is a I understand why everyone thinks it's
29:29 a like a a a brilliant game of the year.
29:32 I wouldn't go as far as that.
29:33 For me, it's more like a seven, seven and a half out of 10.
29:37 But for an for a turnbased RPG to keep me engaged uh despite how
29:42 old I am now and have kind of less tolerance for slower pace games,
29:48 it is very good and I I recommend uh you
29:51 certainly give it a try if you haven't done so already.
29:53 That concludes Indulgent Gaming Corner.
29:56 Thank you for allowing us to indulge in that.
29:59 Now, we're going to go back to auditing some more channels,
30:01 and I'm gonna introduce to everybody this channel called Tyler M.
30:07 Smith with 15,000 subscribers and 150 videos to their name.
30:15 Uh, their target audience is fitness challenges and entertainment.
30:19 My audience are people that like to watch entertaining fitness content.
30:22 Their biggest obstacle right now is packaging
30:24 of my long form videos isn't working.
30:26 My click-through rate is really low.
30:28 Wow.
30:29 1.6% and my average retention is around 3 minutes.
30:33 And they would like us to look at why their clickthrough rate is so low.
30:37 Is it my thumbnails or topics uh that they that are holding them back?
30:41 So, you know, usually we try not
30:42 to get too too worked up about clickthrough rates,
30:44 Dan, because can be very fluid and shifts from channel to channel.
30:50 Having said that, 1.6% clickthrough rate does sound pretty low.
30:58 good in the sense that maybe your videos are getting impressions,
31:01 it's being shared with an audience,
31:02 but they're not clicking on it for some reason.
31:04 So, let's try and find out why.
31:07 Yeah.
31:08 So, I I picked this channel and and just immediately
31:10 noticed how how focused it was on its goals, right?
31:14 It's like a fitness channel,
31:15 but they they're not just a fitness channel, they're doing challenges.
31:17 I'm like, well, that sounds intriguing.
31:18 I click and the thumbnails seem like they're high quality.
31:21 The titles are easy to read.
31:22 Everything's just kind of like working, but, you know,
31:24 we're not we're not getting over those initial like humps.
31:27 So, uh, it's it's interesting that they
31:29 themselves have already kind of identified like are
31:31 my titles and thumbnails like not really doing it because I would say that yeah,
31:34 they they could use some in leveling up.
31:36 They are focused and they there's some clarity to them,
31:39 but they're also a bit in some cases like clever or Oh, go ahead.
31:44 Are you Hey there, Dan?
31:45 I think you paused.
31:46 You paused.
31:49 Hello.
31:48 Yeah, we're Are we good?
31:51 Good.
31:51 Hello.
31:52 I'm getting some internet issues.
31:54 Are we back?
31:55 I think we're back.
31:56 Okay.
31:56 Okay.
31:56 Apologies for that.
31:57 I I lost Dan for 20 seconds there.
31:59 I just recap down there if you can.
32:01 You froze.
32:02 I don't I think we both froze.
32:05 Yeah.
32:05 Well, anyway, so the the titles, the thumbnails, they they could be stronger.
32:09 That's all.
32:10 Like, for example, the latest video, a chef tried to teach me how to cook.
32:14 I'm missing the why like or the the story that goes with it.
32:18 A chef tried to teach you how to cook what for what reason?
32:21 What's the goal?
32:22 Is was it a length of time?
32:23 A chef tried to teach me how to cook keto.
32:26 A chef tried like like we're missing just
32:28 like something there for us to like bite into.
32:32 Ah, I get it because it's challenge.
32:36 Have you watched this video?
32:39 No.
32:38 Right.
32:38 Let's watch the hook and see if we can understand a little bit more the why
32:42 and then see how we can plug it back into the packaging if the hook nails it.
32:49 Ah, what am I doing?
32:51 I don't know what's wrong with this one.
32:53 So, today I brought my friend because unlike me, he knows how to cook.
32:57 And because he actually knows how to cook, he let me do all the hard work while
33:00 hopefully guiding me so we could make the perfect lasagna.
33:03 All right, where do we start?
33:04 I'm going to pause there.
33:05 There's still no real why there, is there?
33:08 Yeah, the perfect lasagna for what?
33:11 So, what you you got a chef cooking a lasagna?
33:14 Like, what what are the stakes for you if you're a terrible cook?
33:20 Thanks, Dan.
33:21 Uh, for the for the hero of this channel, what are the what's the jeopardy here?
33:25 Like, if you can't cook this lasagna,
33:27 does that mean um I know your significant other is going to uh dump you
33:33 or it means you have to live on a diet of lentils for the next week.
33:39 Um, we're missing intrigue, I think, here.
33:43 So, what it needed, like since this is
33:45 a fitness channel and they do fitness challenges,
33:48 this just seems like a regular cooking video for regular old lasagna.
33:51 There's nothing special about it.
33:52 But what I would have done is maybe like
33:54 tried to get a recipe for a high protein lasagna.
33:56 And then you could start the video by saying,
33:58 "Lagna generally has this many carbs and this much protein,
34:01 but this lasagna has this many carbs and this much protein,
34:03 which is perfect for the workout routine.
34:05 I'm trying to lose blank many pounds and blank
34:07 many days or whatever your goals are, right?
34:09 Your more overarching goal for the channel, right?
34:11 you're trying to gain this much muscle mass or whatever.
34:14 And the problem is I don't know how to cook.
34:17 So, I brought my friend along here and they're
34:18 gonna help me make this really complex lasagna.
34:20 And then maybe you could even add those steaks that Rob was talking about.
34:23 Like if if you don't,
34:24 you have to eat some other garbage for a week or something.
34:27 But that that's that's what I was kind of expecting
34:30 is like you you said you're you're on a fitness journey.
34:32 You're doing challenges.
34:33 So bring that fitness journey into all the different videos
34:35 and use it in the hooks of your videos because
34:38 that that sounds like a much more engaging story than just
34:40 I wanted lasagna but I my friend makes it better than me.
34:44 Like no like ratchet it up like I can't cook and then you show
34:47 those clips of you fumbling through the kitchen and and you know all that stuff.
34:53 Now in contrast here I think this one is
34:56 more clear like they're trying um viral fitness meals.
35:02 I think that's cool and like the this imagery is intriguing.
35:05 I can see why that one probably did better.
35:10 Yeah.
35:09 But then there there are also videos where I think that's kind of uh funny.
35:13 I can see why they came up with this idea, but but it didn't succeed.
35:16 I paid celebrities to call me fat.
35:18 I think that's a fun idea, but why did it not work?
35:23 I'm not sure what the answer to that is.
35:24 Maybe um it's not close enough to the actual
35:29 idea of losing weight and being on that fitness journey.
35:33 Maybe it's it's too into the the realm of comedy and entertainment
35:37 and the viewer wants to have a mix of the two.
35:40 I'm I'm kind of riffing here.
35:41 I don't not sure why that one wouldn't have done as well.
35:44 Also, I well I think the thumbnail like
35:46 I maybe people know who that celebrity is.
35:48 I don't I would have tried to find the most
35:50 popular celebrity on Cameo and like you know they could
35:54 probably expensive but you could get that person to call
35:56 you fat and you can use them in the thumbnail.
35:59 And just going for the more popular stuff.
36:02 This is what 1,00 push-ups uh does to you.
36:05 I think um that performed well and you've done another one here.
36:09 500 push-ups every day for 15 days.
36:11 Here's what's happened.
36:12 It's kind of a little series going on there.
36:15 and you tried it, I think recently,
36:16 but unfortunately it didn't quite work as well.
36:19 I was trying to find where where's it gone that be latest.
36:23 Uh, what happens when you do 2,400 push-ups in 24 hours?
36:28 Again, I feel as if that's an intriguing cool idea,
36:30 but it didn't work for some reason.
36:33 Uh, so I want to give a creative credit for having these little
36:40 saw in the chef tried to teach me how to cook one.
36:44 It had kind of like that authentic raw
36:47 editing style to it which I thought was fun.
36:50 Yeah.
36:50 So, let's just see where they're at on their journey.
36:52 So, 150 videos, 15,000 subscribers.
36:54 I can see why they're maybe sort of getting
36:56 frustrated and hitting roadblocks a little bit right now.
37:00 The the desire is there, the effort is there.
37:03 I think it's literally just the storytelling
37:06 and that storytelling can reverberate through your hooks,
37:08 titles, and thumbnails.
37:10 And that's that would just bring it all together.
37:12 I just think this channel's just so close.
37:14 They're so close.
37:15 It Yeah, it is certainly close.
37:17 I'm going to just watch the first 15 seconds of this one.
37:19 See, see if I can understand why.
37:20 Maybe it didn't catch any fire.
37:23 I am going to do push-ups for 24 hours straight.
37:26 2,400 push-ups.
37:28 That's what 100 every hour adds up to.
37:30 And of course, I came prepared.
37:32 I brought food, a timer, a whiteboard,
37:33 and one energy drink, which I couldn't resist already.
37:36 I've done a lot of crazy challenges, but there is one thing I never touched.
37:39 A 24-hour challenge.
37:41 because my
37:42 I think again that's pretty well edited and it has energy.
37:47 Um maybe the what it was lacking a little bit was a twist.
37:51 I mean the one twist that they added is in is that they
37:54 ate they drank their energy drink immediately but that wasn't enough of a twist.
37:59 So, I'm wondering like maybe you could have
38:01 added something that happened in hour 13 or like
38:04 you add some jeopardy in that hook just
38:08 to entice the viewer into finding out what that was.
38:13 Yeah.
38:13 I I mean, you're not going to leave this room until you
38:16 do the 2400 push-ups and you have 24 hours to do it.
38:20 um you know that that's that's really what makes
38:23 these types of videos take off that like separates
38:26 them from being oh that's cool to oh my gosh I have to watch this and I need
38:30 to see how it ends because what you're trying
38:31 to do like you mentioned how your retention is
38:34 like 3 minutes and you're noticing people drop off
38:36 before they get to the end of the video.
38:37 Well, it's because there's no like as far
38:40 as we can tell from watching a couple hooks,
38:42 there aren't enough like open loops that people need to close.
38:46 Either you're going to finish the challenge or you're not.
38:48 if you can open some more loops,
38:50 some more storytelling loops, and it just takes effort.
38:53 It's just and it's not effort in necessarily the editing
38:56 process or anything or even the titles and thumbnail process.
38:59 It's effort in the writing process.
39:00 You get better titles and thumbnails, get in the door,
39:02 but once they're there, you got to keep them.
39:03 And that that is where the storytelling comes in.
39:07 Cool stuff.
39:08 What did our channel audit say?
39:10 And you can get your own channel audit.
39:13 It's saying that the views to subscriber ratio
39:17 is fairly low and it kind of confirmed
39:19 that with like 15,000 subscribers and sometimes
39:21 the videos are getting 500 views or less.
39:25 So yeah, maybe as Dan suggested like maybe some
39:28 of his titles and thumbnails are a little weak,
39:30 especially this chef tried to teach me how to cook one.
39:32 Maybe that is a standout for where he could improve.
39:35 But anyway, that was my channel audit tool which is still there.
39:38 Yes, lovely stuff.
39:41 All right, everybody.
39:43 Uh, we need to just distract ourselves one more
39:45 time here because if you remember last week, um,
39:50 we had an incredible memes of a week where because Dan was in charge,
39:56 a certain character from our, uh,
39:59 esteemed live stream got an absolute hammering and this is what happened.
40:28 brutal.
40:30 Oh, there it is.
40:59 Oh, we're not done.
41:27 I have now googled simp.
41:29 I understand what it means.
41:32 I a proof.
41:33 So that was memes of a week from last week and we do it all over again.
41:38 Uh this week you have around about 40 minutes to send
41:42 us in your memes and I wanted to theme it this week.
41:45 But first of all I just need to tell you where to go and that is
41:48 uh the uh let's see the uh Discord channel and oh I thought I selected this.
41:54 Where's it gone?
41:55 I always lose it now where it needs to be.
41:56 There we go.
41:57 YouTube land and then memes of a week uh
42:01 for May the 5th uh for you to start memeing.
42:05 Um but I'm going to rewind 24 hours uh right now
42:08 and make it May the 4th or you can mean the following.
42:12 Uh so just start taking screenshots uh while I I do this.
42:15 Dan can maybe talk in the background if he wants to.
42:18 Uh but yeah, I need to get into character.
42:22 Okay, I need to take the name off the screen.
42:24 There we go.
42:25 Nice clean screenshots for you.
42:33 There you go.
42:35 He needs to expense these.
42:37 So, um, just keep that in mind when you're doing your memes.
42:39 These are very expensive helmets and he needs to, uh,
42:42 put them on stream so he can put write them off on taxes.
42:48 We're not done.
42:51 Yeah, he's writing off a lot of them.
42:53 There's obviously he's made some purchases recently and uh you know I don't know
42:59 how taxes work where Rob is but I think he's trying to write these off.
43:04 How many does he have?
43:09 Oh my gosh.
43:11 Yeah.
43:12 The guy needs help everybody.
43:13 He needs he needs you to make sure you meme all
43:17 of these helmets so all of them are eligible for the tax write off.
43:25 Oh my goodness.
43:26 Are we all right?
43:27 Everything good?
43:28 Yeah.
43:28 Yeah.
43:29 So, yeah, take your screenshots there.
43:31 Meme away.
43:32 If you don't fancy memeing uh the Star Wars version of me,
43:36 you're happy to put other stuff in there.
43:38 I think I think we're now just welcoming all memes.
43:40 When you send your memes into the Discord channel,
43:44 make sure to include your channel URL so that we can pick our favorite,
43:49 most entertaining, most funny channel to audit a little later on.
43:55 And with that, despite everything you just saw
43:58 in the meme of the week, it's back.
44:16 Yay.
44:18 You don't seem excited to see the claw.
44:21 Let's go.
44:22 Pick a channel.
44:23 It's channel 190.
44:25 We take that number.
44:27 We put it in our form and we audit channel.
44:33 We have no preconceived opinions of this is just
44:38 first impressions and where we're looking at American English Brent
44:43 with almost 100,000 subscribers like you know pre congratulations for when
44:48 you hit that big milestone probably later on this year
44:51 and you get your silver play button and Dan
44:56 they have uh over a thousand videos they're posting almost
45:04 every day it would look like and it get
45:10 it looks like it gets a little political as well
45:13 uh with uh English language I don't know how
45:17 to I don't know how to combine those two
45:22 I mean it's a good effort so yeah like has the uh channel focus morphed has it
45:30 changed is it contorted let's have have a look
45:31 at this all this content because I'm curious.
45:37 So from six years ago, yes, it's verbs, prepositions.
45:42 This is heavily heavily just English uh tutoring.
45:46 And maybe this is their unique angle that they found in this genre because
45:51 like English speaking and education has been
45:53 on YouTube since YouTube started almost tw.
45:58 So
45:59 I I don't want to push him away from it if it feels like find their audience.
46:05 You know, we talked recently about non-believers.
46:07 Like, you're certainly going to have non-believers in your content,
46:10 but if you're clear and passionate about that, then that's cool.
46:14 Can you just sort of most popular?
46:17 Yeah.
46:17 You're thinking about being like a blowout video here, which brought them on.
46:21 That's interesting.
46:22 We haven't had anything super viral.
46:26 So
46:27 although the the political ones have had the most views recently.
46:32 Um
46:33 beyond that.
46:34 Yeah.
46:35 I'd love to understand like the target audience because
46:37 it's you're you're doing the news but for English learners.
46:42 Is that is that what I'm like picking up?
46:47 Is it worth shall we um shall we I think what we'll do is
46:50 we're going to watch one of these right just to try and get an idea.
46:53 But like if it gets too I'd say you risque for our PG audience,
46:59 we'll we'll pause it.
47:00 Okay, Dan.
47:01 So, let's do this.
47:02 Stop speaking English.
47:04 Speak only American in the United States.
47:07 Let's try this one to another English lesson.
47:11 Yes, I am a teacher at an American high school.
47:16 I'm an English teacher, but maybe I should change my title to an American
47:23 teacher because some people in the United States,
47:27 you are going to meet one very soon,
47:29 wants President Trump to change the language
47:34 of the United States from English to American.
47:38 Now, before was that AI that I was curious.
47:41 I don't know.
47:43 So, I mean, just introducing it he it brings
47:46 across that like authenticity of being in a classroom.
47:50 Uh so there's there's that credibility to a certain point and you
47:54 know I'm not I'm not seeing like a confrontational style here.
47:58 It seems like it's kind of an open conversation like I
48:00 didn't feel as if I was offended in in that case.
48:04 So like maybe there's kind of balance being brought to this content as well.
48:08 Um, so like in summary, Dan,
48:10 it feels like that they've they've got a really
48:12 interesting idea here and they're kind of running with it.
48:15 Yeah, it is it is really interesting.
48:17 I I kind of I don't know.
48:19 So like the advice I'd want to give a channel that was teaching
48:22 people to learn a language almost doesn't
48:25 apply because it's way more about topic.
48:28 Like they're kind of jumping on different news stories and like
48:32 kind of giving them a language a language learning twist.
48:35 What I'm what I'm missing from that though, they're speaking clearly.
48:38 I can tell the choices they're making are intentional
48:40 when it comes to actually speaking in the videos.
48:43 So, that part is there, but that is the only thing in the videos that kind
48:46 of indicates to me this is a a language learning channel, right?
48:51 And I would just I I think my regular
48:54 advice would be have you made those really entry
48:57 level videos where it's like you know just just
49:00 the basics of learning language in in the first place
49:03 because right now it feels like it's not even just like news current events.
49:07 It's political news and current events.
49:08 you've niched down the news part and then you've niched down the the way you
49:12 talk about it and it's this kind of weird double niche where yes you do have
49:15 some outliers with this type of content but are those viewers and you might know
49:21 this from your comments are those viewers coming
49:22 in because it's like oh finally someone's speaking
49:24 in a way that I can understand or are they just coming because they they saw
49:28 your your channel popped up when the story
49:29 popped up and they were like okay yeah
49:31 this person does a take on it let me hear it I I don't know that's
49:34 what's missing like is there a mismatch between
49:36 your target audience and the audience that's actually watching.
49:40 I just want to try this one.
49:41 Learn 20 beach terms.
49:42 Like, is there anything
49:45 Oh, welcome back to another English lesson.
49:48 Hey, if this is your first time here, my name is Brent.
49:52 I live in the United States, but right now I am not in the United States.
49:58 We do have some good beaches in a little bit.
50:01 seed looks a little more fresh,
50:04 a little more alive because it probably hasn't been in the sun as long.
50:10 Still don't know what it means.
50:11 All I know is that means beach, which is where we're at.
50:18 Kind of just felt like more a bit more vloggy.
50:22 Wouldn't you want to have like moments where you stop and you
50:24 point at something and then text pops up on the screen like that?
50:27 In in English, that's seaweed in the traditional sense.
50:30 Yeah.
50:31 Yeah.
50:31 You know, we call this sand.
50:33 Like I know that like when it comes to teaching language,
50:36 you don't necessarily have to speak a foreign
50:38 language and and bridge the gap, right?
50:40 Even YouTube will kind of help you do that with with all of its tools.
50:43 But I I really do think that the the fundamentals
50:48 of a language learning channel might be missing here.
50:50 I need to look at other language learning channels to say that definitively.
50:53 I don't I I don't try to learn other languages on YouTube,
50:56 so I don't know exactly what I should be saying.
50:59 What I do know is that I'm skeptical about the strategy of leaning
51:03 into vlogs and political content instead of just
51:06 focusing on like the fundamentals of language.
51:09 It it's it's a really it's a very difficult balancing that because
51:15 the language teaching niche is so saturated on YouTube and so to find this
51:21 angle like I I I kind of agree with the idea of using current events and news.
51:27 Yeah.
51:27 But it does maybe like just looking at some of the thumbnails,
51:30 it does maybe slant it towards a certain political point of view.
51:35 Uh, and you know, does that make it
51:37 more accessible and approachable to the, as Dan says,
51:42 like the the audience you're trying to attract?
51:43 And I think that's where we're having a a bit of a struggle, you know.
51:47 But having said that, like the views are really consistent.
51:50 Sometimes there's outliers.
51:52 It's intriguing idea and we just intimate.
51:56 We call it like B1 B2 level.
51:58 Uh okay.
52:00 So yeah people who've already a bit familiar with English but I guess
52:04 as English as speakers other languages
52:07 from foreign countries um you know this particular
52:11 person's opinions on immigration which feels
52:16 like almost in opposition to the basis
52:20 of your content but like I'm just looking at it from a very surface level.
52:24 It just makes it like a a curious channel to to all.
52:28 Yeah.
52:29 To me, the gap is bridged by the policy changes of the administration, right?
52:34 So the because of this administration we have now, immigration has changed.
52:38 If you're trying to immigrate here from another country,
52:40 language learning is just one piece of the puzzle,
52:42 but immigration processes have changed, too.
52:45 So that could be where you have the two content buckets.
52:48 One bucket where you're teaching people how to speak the language,
52:51 going to the beach and and going to like common places.
52:53 and then one bucket where you're talking about what's going on, but through
52:56 that lens of like if you're trying to immigrate to America,
52:58 here's all the things that have changed in the last six months, right?
53:01 That that could be a a gap to bridge.
53:03 It's just I'm I'm trying to think about like how often they make these more
53:09 like political videos and I feel like it's
53:11 just a desire to talk about it, right?
53:13 Like I just want to talk about this and I have a YouTube channel.
53:15 I'll try to figure out how to make it like a language learning experience.
53:18 Maybe.
53:18 And again, there's getting thousands of views here.
53:20 Maybe that's working.
53:21 But you can that's where my skepticism is.
53:23 I'm really hung up on it.
53:24 I really want to like find this channel a nice takeaway and package it up,
53:27 but it's just I'm really hung up on it.
53:29 And with that, Dan, I think we've safely negotiated
53:33 that channel without any uh any major uh blowups.
53:37 All right, let's audit another channel here.
53:40 And we're going to just get up to 250 and pick one.
53:47 Channel 193 this time.
53:55 And I think it's an anime channel.
54:00 And the anime channel is Baka Chan with 14 subscribers, 72 videos,
54:09 uh, and I guess a mix of shorts and long form videos.
54:15 Do they have a preference on what they would like us to look at?
54:20 The biggest obstacle is AI.
54:21 Okay, good audience.
54:22 I mean, I want people to enjoy my content.
54:24 So, I not really sure what their struggle is right now.
54:34 Anime in a nut anime in nutshell moments part three.
54:37 Funny anime moments.
54:38 So, is this like just compilations of content?
54:44 Brain rot moments for your depression.
54:47 I think what I will say here from a discovery point
54:52 of view is you're not getting many views if any at all.
54:57 Uh let me just play one of these but muted I think.
55:01 So they just have they added just adding captions to these.
55:05 Okay.
55:07 Reediting meme vibe to them.
55:08 Yeah.
55:11 Okay.
55:10 How this happened?
55:12 THE PATH IS GONE.
55:13 HOW IN THE HELL CAN ANYONE GET LOST LIKE THIS?
55:15 YOU CAN SEE THE OLD MAN AT THE END OF IT.
55:17 EVEN YOUR SENSE OF DIRECTION CAN'T BE THAT BAD.
55:20 OKAY, the these kind of always go over my head.
55:23 I mean, what I'm looking at there.
55:29 Cool.
55:32 But anyway, I I think what my concern here is that maybe YouTube has
55:36 identified your channel as a compil compilation
55:39 channel where there's not enough transformation going on.
55:41 Now maybe your argument is is that there is enough transformation going on
55:47 and you've seen other channels doing the same thing,
55:50 but given that you've been doing this for a month
55:53 now and nothing is picking up any views, that's a a concern from my perspective.
55:57 Same on your shorts as well.
55:59 Yeah, the shorts are giving me
56:02 uh you know, no views.
56:03 This Wow.
56:04 This is a channel that has never got any views at any point,
56:08 right?
56:08 I think
56:09 from their very first shot.
56:10 Wow.
56:10 Sorry.
56:11 I think the shorts are giving me that vibe of like repetitious content
56:14 and YouTube kind of just put put the videos into that bucket of like
56:19 there's not enough transformation.
56:23 Yeah.
56:22 Uh so I mean based on these observations, Dan,
56:27 it looks as if the channel just unless
56:30 they do a complete pivot and really rethink
56:33 how they're going to make their content because
56:36 I'm I'm not seeing any any anything original here.
56:38 It does all seem to be sourced from elsewhere.
56:42 They've got some really big fundamental decisions
56:45 to make about what type of content
56:46 they want to make and how how they're going to make it because
56:49 YouTube is just not reacting to this positively.
56:52 Yeah.
56:52 I a huge just channel overhaul here.
56:54 That's like the only way I can look at this.
56:56 And because all the advice I'm I'm coming up with in my head is like,
56:58 oh, they're not going to want to hear that.
57:00 But I think you should sit down and do
57:02 like an actual commentary on an anime like like
57:05 like talk about the differences like what you liked
57:08 about the the One Piece Netflix adaptation like whatever.
57:12 You obviously have opinions about this stuff.
57:14 That's why you're able to meme it and everything else,
57:15 but maybe maybe going beyond memes a little bit to it'll help you stand out.
57:20 There's a lot of channels doing what you're doing and I I really think at least
57:25 what you're doing right now needs to be
57:28 like improved incrementally if not completely redone.
57:33 All right, we're going to do a gaming channel now.
57:36 And that gaming channel is 44.
57:42 And I'm gonna let Dan pronounce the name of his channel.
57:46 I don't think it's as hard as I'm thinking, actually.
57:50 exceptional.
57:52 Uh maybe
57:54 ex exceptional.
57:55 Exceptional.
57:56 Yeah, maybe.
57:57 Let's go with that.
57:57 That's probably it.
58:00 Okay.
58:00 Uh 3,000 subscribers, 350 videos.
58:03 I always like to see gaming channels that have had some
58:05 success and broken out beyond less than 50 views per video.
58:10 Yeah, the latest video is great.
58:12 Yeah, I think Dream
58:15 a better than Zelda.
58:16 Zelda.
58:16 So when it comes to covering indie games
58:19 on YouTube and dedicating your channel to it,
58:21 the biggest challenge is that you are
58:23 playing games nobody has heard of, relatively speaking,
58:26 no nobody in the sense of the like, you know what I mean?
58:28 So when you can compare those games to popular games
58:31 people have heard of, now you have a win here.
58:33 So that video is from a week ago.
58:35 It's probably going to continue getting views and it's it's great.
58:39 Like everything you did is correct.
58:41 You you put the name of the game and then
58:42 the colon and then a better Zelda than Zelda.
58:45 I'm intrigued.
58:46 I want to see that.
58:46 That looks really interesting to me.
58:48 Um, finally, worthy Castlevania vibes.
58:51 Yeah.
58:51 So, they've done it elsewhere, Dan.
58:52 Like Castlevania vibes, uh,
58:55 the most disgusting and beautiful Metroid vania.
58:58 So, they're trying, always trying to connect to some popular gaming phrase like,
59:05 yes, you know, the language of gaming.
59:06 Again, another primal branding thing to consider.
59:09 But now what I'm wondering is why don't we just try and augment this title idea
59:16 where the next one might be indie game
59:19 a better Metroid than Metroid or a better Mario.
59:22 Like I I know it's kind of like rinse
59:24 and repeat but maybe that familiarity is just going to not
59:29 only trigger your current audience but again reach out
59:32 with more discovery as as like maybe an AB test.
59:37 I'd also like with your listicles I'd focus on a genre.
59:39 So 11 amazing games for less than a cup of coffee.
59:43 It's not a bad title, but 11 amazing what games.
59:47 I wouldn't even say indie.
59:48 Like I would make if there's a big sale,
59:50 like maybe make a few different videos
59:52 of a few different genres that you like to play,
59:53 but 11 amazing Metroid vanas for less than a cup of coffee.
59:57 11 amazing rogue lights for, you know what I mean?
1:00:01 Just a little more specific.
1:00:02 And I think those videos do even better.
1:00:04 Right.
1:00:04 Uh, Dan, I want to I want to I want to be tempted to play elementalis.
1:00:11 So,
1:00:15 first 30 seconds.
1:00:18 Freezing an enemy solid just to shatter them into 100 pieces never gets old.
1:00:22 But we've seen elemental combat a thousand times before.
1:00:25 Elementalist claims to be more than just another Zelda clone.
1:00:28 But does it actually innovate,
1:00:30 or is it just another drop in a bucket of indie mediocrity?
1:00:33 I've spent the last 20 hours mastering these elements to find
1:00:36 out if this is your next obsession or a total pass.
1:00:39 Let's get into it.
1:00:41 All right, pause it there.
1:00:42 What do you think then?
1:00:43 Perfect.
1:00:43 It's great.
1:00:44 I mean, we got the premise.
1:00:46 We got a little bit of your, you know, opinion,
1:00:49 but you haven't quite given it to us yet,
1:00:51 so we have to keep watching to find out.
1:00:52 And yeah, this is this is great.
1:00:56 And I see the B-roll coming in comparing it to different Zelda games.
1:01:00 All of this is working really well.
1:01:02 And part of it will be like did this game do
1:01:05 well on Steam enough to like where people are searching for it.
1:01:08 But this could appear in browse and still
1:01:10 intrigue me even I've never heard of it.
1:01:11 And that's that's what you're kind of like starting to master with your channel.
1:01:15 I I felt strong IGN vibes.
1:01:19 I I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing,
1:01:21 but just the way that was introduced and like it
1:01:24 was there was certain chapter points moving from the intro
1:01:29 and then to the the meat and then probably it's
1:01:31 going to have a verdict at the end of it.
1:01:32 Uh which I thought was fine.
1:01:34 Got to be honest, it didn't convince me to uh maybe get this game.
1:01:38 It doesn't look Zelda doesn't look SNES Zelda enough to me uh to play.
1:01:44 Uh but yeah, I don't think we can really
1:01:46 fault the the creator there on how they've covered
1:01:49 the topic and just like this this idea
1:01:52 this might be uh something to really latch on to
1:01:55 which allows you to then keep jumping from game to game as you are doing
1:02:00 but then link it back to something really popular uh to to have that connection.
1:02:05 When it comes to game review channels, it's good that you're doing listicles.
1:02:08 I would keep doing those.
1:02:10 Uh, I've seen channels do it to where
1:02:12 every month they'll like pick a bunch of games.
1:02:15 And the more you can keep those on genre, the better in my opinion.
1:02:19 I I like I I think I like to watch the ones that are
1:02:23 about one genre because I'm probably looking
1:02:25 for a specific gaming experience at that time.
1:02:27 So, if it's first-person shooters like and you only fit one first-person shooter
1:02:31 in there and then there's a cozy game and then there's a rog light,
1:02:34 you know, I'm skipping around your video,
1:02:35 but if you can show me eight first-person shooters that are,
1:02:39 you know, indie first-person shooters coming up in the month of May,
1:02:42 now I'm like, okay, let me look at each
1:02:43 one of these to see which one fits my tastes.
1:02:47 This is their best performing video as well and just released last night there.
1:02:50 So, that's really cool.
1:02:51 I'll be right back.
1:02:52 Sorry, hold on.
1:02:52 All right, so D just taking a quick break there.
1:02:55 But yeah, I'm just checking through the description and uh the comments
1:03:00 and everything just seems to be all good there for a solid channel.
1:03:04 So well done to you exceptional indie games with your progress there.
1:03:09 No problem, Dan.
1:03:10 No problem.
1:03:10 Uh let's audit another channel now.
1:03:12 We'll go back to the uh main form 275 we have now.
1:03:18 So, let's just adjust the numbers and then pick channel 25 from 11.
1:03:30 By the way, if you're someone who's a bit newer here, you might not know this.
1:03:33 We clear this form, both of the forms before every stream.
1:03:37 So, if you've submitted like a couple streams ago and you're like,
1:03:39 "When are they picking my channel?" We we clear that.
1:03:42 We clear it once a week.
1:03:43 So, just so you're aware.
1:03:45 Yeah.
1:03:45 As you can see, we get uh at least 200 to 300 submissions a week.
1:03:48 Had we never touched it,
1:03:50 we probably have about 18,000 channels on there uh to audit.
1:03:54 We ain't got time for that, I'm afraid.
1:03:56 Dan, I introduced to you 75 hours crimes,
1:04:00 unsolved, unseen, inforgettable stories.
1:04:04 I think that should be unforgettable stories.
1:04:06 Maybe maybe it's like infogettable.
1:04:09 Is that words?
1:04:11 All right.
1:04:11 Uh, so this feels like it's one
1:04:13 of these faceless channels where they're grabbing footage here,
1:04:17 there, and everywhere.
1:04:18 Uh, this is a really competitive genre.
1:04:22 Lots of people, especially in the faceless niche,
1:04:24 have been working through this over the last,
1:04:26 I'd say, half decade to a decade at this point.
1:04:29 Uh, so uh, how will this channel be different to others?
1:04:35 Because right now, uh, from just their 25 videos,
1:04:38 so I haven't done too many yet.
1:04:40 Uh some of these videos are not getting above a thou
1:04:43 a 100red views which I we'll be hoping expecting at this point.
1:04:46 So we got cold cases solves cold case three cold cases.
1:04:51 That's a strong pitch in their packaging right now.
1:04:56 There are some outliers that did well uh couple of months ago.
1:05:03 Should we just click on one?
1:05:05 I'm I'm kind of wondering about the information.
1:05:09 I know.
1:05:09 What Dan wants to know, he he wants to know
1:05:12 if it's going to start with an AI voice
1:05:18 and what type of footage it's going to be.
1:05:20 That's what that's what I think Dan wants to know.
1:05:22 So, we'll do three cold cases with breakthroughs in DNA in 2026.
1:05:30 A killer lived undetected while the answer to a brutal
1:05:34 murder sat quietly preserved beneath a victim's fingernails.
1:05:39 In 1977 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Ralph Ambrose Janoli was living an ordinary life.
1:05:48 He was 48 years old, working at the American Motors plant,
1:05:51 surrounded by a large, close-knit family.
1:05:54 All right, I'll pause it there, Dan.
1:05:56 To my untrained ear, that doesn't sound like AI to me.
1:06:01 That sounds like a genuine host.
1:06:05 Yeah.
1:06:05 And pictures look legitimate.
1:06:07 Yeah, the footage does look like sourced correctly.
1:06:13 I mean, I guess I was a little disappointed by this first image.
1:06:16 Kind of like for your hook, this kind of vague scene setting spinning
1:06:23 trees maybe wasn't enough to grab me in.
1:06:26 And I am sensing a a very intentional slow pace to this which
1:06:34 maybe didn't didn't really grab my excitement for like a a murder mystery.
1:06:40 Yeah, I I'm I'm seeing all the right signals in terms
1:06:43 of like this is a human-made video, which is good.
1:06:47 Uh and that's worth mentioning because a lot
1:06:49 of there's a lot of new channels in this genre
1:06:51 that are not and you have to worry about
1:06:53 where they're getting their facts from and all that stuff.
1:06:55 So, you're a step ahead automatically, just by default,
1:06:58 which is great, but I still wasn't excited.
1:07:01 I I didn't I I wasn't drawn in.
1:07:05 And I don't exactly know what that could have been.
1:07:07 It might have I hate to say it.
1:07:08 I try not to like give this advice,
1:07:10 but uh faster paced editing might have helped.
1:07:14 Like you you start with talking about like a person and a place,
1:07:18 and I think just seeing trees,
1:07:19 like Rob was pointing out, it's not that exciting.
1:07:21 Show me newspapers from from those times like
1:07:26 and stories about like what you're talking about.
1:07:28 I I just think more I know you're going to go
1:07:30 faceless which is fine but like we need a lot more going on if you're to make up
1:07:34 for the the lack of like face to face you know time.
1:07:40 Another thing I'm thinking about here is in terms
1:07:42 of um how many cases are covering in each video.
1:07:47 It means that you can't really sell something of specific intrigue in
1:07:53 the packaging.
1:07:55 I I find that what really grips audiences with this type of content
1:08:00 is where they can pick out some certain trait or emotion or event.
1:08:06 And here you kind of have to bundle it into a collection.
1:08:11 Two cold cases solved decades later.
1:08:14 I I've noticed you've used this uh a few times.
1:08:17 This solving the case decades later.
1:08:21 I'm wondering if you you cover one case,
1:08:25 but you're able to add some sort of story to that, how it was solved later.
1:08:28 I know it's DNA, but like um one hair
1:08:33 uh solved this cold case 20 20 years later.
1:08:36 That might have more intrigue potentially.
1:08:39 I'd also Yeah, go ahead.
1:08:40 I'd lean on huge breakthrough.
1:08:42 Like if instead of covering two cases, it sounds like, oh,
1:08:44 that could have been, you know, that could have happened at any time.
1:08:46 No, huge breakthrough in this specific case just happened.
1:08:50 You know what I mean?
1:08:51 Like that recency on a cold case is very exciting,
1:08:54 I think, to to viewers and interested in this subject.
1:08:58 Let's watch uh this uh one, which is their most popular video.
1:09:01 See if there's any reason why we can find
1:09:03 out that it has got a bit more traction.
1:09:07 Years.
1:09:07 That's how long Sarah Gear waited.
1:09:10 44 birthdays, 44 Christmases,
1:09:14 four decades of silence in a town that once believed
1:09:17 nothing like this could ever happen there in Sonoma County, California.
1:09:22 Her case became
1:09:23 It's Yeah, it's the same, isn't it?
1:09:25 They start with some non uh sourced or original footage and that I
1:09:31 think in the hook is just a bit of a push back.
1:09:35 like we probably want to be starting with this this, you know,
1:09:38 this is a little bit of background to this person who was murdered.
1:09:43 It almost feels like um let me just get to there
1:09:48 and how 44 years later that night finally answered back in 1982.
1:09:56 Cloverdale was the kind of Northern California
1:09:58 town where kids rode bikes until sunset.
1:10:01 You start with that in 1982 and like this picture of a person.
1:10:05 I still feel as if I'm waiting for the you get to the point bit in this hook.
1:10:10 I know we're kind of skipping around a bit.
1:10:12 They they used like AI in the opening shot
1:10:14 and so that that was like again instant credibility buster.
1:10:19 Uh so just if you're if you're using it once
1:10:22 in a while I you know I wouldn't use it at all honestly.
1:10:27 I think that looks like um it does.
1:10:28 Yeah.
1:10:30 AI images kind of filling in the blanks.
1:10:34 I I would definitely I it seems
1:10:36 like they're maybe struggling to get some footage.
1:10:38 I would get a subscription to like
1:10:40 an Invato Elements or something like that where
1:10:42 they just have a lot of B-roll of like firet trucks driving around like,
1:10:45 you know, try to avoid that because it's people
1:10:47 like me who are sensitive to that stuff instantly question.
1:10:50 It's not it's not just that it's an AI video.
1:10:52 I just I'm questioning where the facts are coming from.
1:10:55 you know, if you used it for the video and you're doing a a factual story,
1:11:00 that's really important.
1:11:02 And then just go back going back to the broader topic here.
1:11:05 Uh unsolved or recently solved crime stories,
1:11:10 that is something that has been really taken
1:11:14 on by the creator community over the last few years.
1:11:18 Maybe your original look at this is solving cold cases through DNA.
1:11:24 that seem to be like a through line and I'm wondering if that is
1:11:27 what you might want to sell a little bit more in your packaging if possible.
1:11:33 That is 75 hours crime.
1:11:35 I think Dan, what we should do now is just tackle our super chats.
1:11:39 Uh before I forget, uh thank you for your super chats.
1:11:43 Please do not send any more in now.
1:11:45 We probably won't have time to look at them,
1:11:47 but these are the ones that did come in.
1:11:49 Mystery Master 3.
1:11:50 Are we looking at the at the shorts from Discord here or is that later today?
1:11:56 Uh, that is later today.
1:11:58 I believe that is the Discord with Is it with Meno?
1:12:02 I'm trying to remember now.
1:12:03 Is Is Vicki here?
1:12:05 Are you sorry, not not that person is Vid
1:12:08 IQ Overlord here to help us answer that question?
1:12:13 Okay, there's the answer.
1:12:14 Thank you for combining uh the answers there.
1:12:19 Evac solo, how is impressions lower when people still click and watch?
1:12:26 Is SEO?
1:12:29 I think that's a question they're asking.
1:12:33 Okay.
1:12:32 And I think the answer to that is that potentially
1:12:35 the topic at large was just not as interesting.
1:12:40 Like you you will look at your channel and you'll see
1:12:44 great discrepancies in the impressions on your videos and that can be
1:12:48 typically down to the topic in terms of it just connects
1:12:55 a lot more with the audience whether it's something that's trending and then
1:12:59 of course YouTube is sometimes YouTube and it just it's not going
1:13:02 to help you with a video but without knowing more yeah there
1:13:05 is probably an SEO element involved in it if you're trying
1:13:08 to compare two videos over the same time period in terms of impressions.
1:13:13 I don't know Dan if you would look at that in any other way but
1:13:16 no best answer there.
1:13:20 Yeah, Debbie, you have been a member now for 33 months.
1:13:23 You will get a custom sound effect for this week, which is that.
1:13:27 And we have 20 uh CZ ZKs.
1:13:32 I'm guessing that's Czech currency.
1:13:36 Do they have a year of it?
1:13:37 I'm not sure.
1:13:37 Anyway, you said hi.
1:13:39 Thank you, Wanted Warlord.
1:13:41 Hi, back to you.
1:13:42 Uh, thank you American English Brent for the $10.
1:13:46 You didn't have to send us $10 for order your channel.
1:13:48 We do this as a free service,
1:13:49 but we uh really appreciate uh the super chat there.
1:13:54 And uh another regular super chatter here is Jeep Psychology101 who asks,
1:14:01 "Has YouTube changed the way they are testing videos with viewers?
1:14:04 I'm still gaining subscribers,
1:14:06 but all of my recent videos have barely broken 100 views.
1:14:09 Your thoughts?
1:14:12 I think the easy way to answer this is yes.
1:14:15 YouTube is always changing and testing the way they share videos with viewers.
1:14:21 Like a big discussion about six months ago was
1:14:24 how the layout of YouTube has changed which is
1:14:27 maybe giving less opportunities to long form videos
1:14:31 but it is everything is really hard to prove uh
1:14:35 statistically um because YouTube is such an enormous platform
1:14:40 and when you think about how let's say they
1:14:42 test something with 1% of their audience that's still
1:14:45 millions of people who may be reporting those changes.
1:14:48 I mean, I've not noticed anything major
1:14:50 in the last couple of days or weeks, Dan.
1:14:54 I'm I'm part of a test uh that was on some accounts and not others.
1:14:59 But on when you're watching a video on the side where it's recommending videos,
1:15:03 that box is a little bit cleaner and larger now.
1:15:07 So, I think that's something they're testing.
1:15:08 It kind of I noticed it because it broke one of our tools
1:15:11 and it kind of shoved it over for this larger uh suggestion box.
1:15:16 So yeah, they're yeah, they're always changing stuff,
1:15:18 but I always feel like the the changes to views like they're very
1:15:22 they're very careful not to like disrupt the flow of traffic too much.
1:15:27 Once in a while they'll mess it up and then we'll hear about it,
1:15:29 but for the most part,
1:15:30 I think they just like to change things incrementally slowly.
1:15:33 Yeah.
1:15:33 So sorry we don't have a definitive answer there for YouTube psychology 101.
1:15:38 and Leo Brenau.
1:15:42 It's not a super chats but €2.
1:15:47 Thank you.
1:15:47 Thank you very much.
1:15:48 Thank you very much.
1:15:49 Uh let's look at the memes of the week.
1:15:55 I think it's now time.
1:15:58 Don't send any more super chats in by the way.
1:15:59 We we will not be able to answer them from here on in.
1:16:02 All right.
1:16:02 So, this is what we came up with.
1:16:05 I didn't know actually how I looked.
1:16:08 Those glasses look just completely stupid, don't they?
1:16:10 I think that maybe that was intentional, right?
1:16:13 Uh me when Star Wars comes into my life.
1:16:18 Uh
1:16:24 okay.
1:16:21 I don't get that one.
1:16:23 Sure.
1:16:24 Okay.
1:16:29 That's pretty good.
1:16:30 You're not the only one there.
1:16:35 Oh, I want to become that meme now.
1:16:36 That's funny.
1:16:37 Uh, the four horsemen of I have no idea what I'm doing.
1:16:41 The optimist.
1:16:43 Maybe today is the day YouTube makes sense.
1:16:45 The confused waits at the who goes where.
1:16:48 The mysterious.
1:16:49 Nobody knows what the algorithm wants.
1:16:52 Nobody.
1:16:53 The defeated.
1:16:54 Yeah, I'm just going to make cat videos.
1:16:55 Different helmet, same energy.
1:16:57 I applaud the effort that's coming from that.
1:16:59 like that's going to be on screen for about 20
1:17:01 seconds next week uh for people to just read it.
1:17:04 Uh good effort there.
1:17:06 Good effort.
1:17:07 Me after spending 15 hours on a video and it does horrily.
1:17:11 This is fun.
1:17:14 John likes the shell game too.
1:17:18 Said that she Oh my goodness.
1:17:21 Very
1:17:25 wow.
1:17:23 Uh all right.
1:17:24 My video fans, haters, right?
1:17:29 Uh, I get 100,000 views a day.
1:17:31 I get 50,000 views a day.
1:17:33 Me, am I a joke to you?
1:17:37 3 to five views a day.
1:17:38 I quit.
1:17:40 These are quite elaborate, these ones.
1:17:43 Luke gets rocked by Darth Vader's personal time fighter, circa 2026 color.
1:17:49 I sense the disturbance in several forces.
1:17:52 Also, R2 will need to be attacked, right?
1:17:57 There's a lot going on there.
1:17:58 Wow, what was happened to my eyes?
1:17:59 Me after editing for 18 hours plus non-stop.
1:18:02 Don't ask how I know this.
1:18:05 And I've been AIDed aiming for one out
1:18:08 of 10 upload and the universe said, "Let's go lower.
1:18:13 Please, sir, can I have some more views?" Views.
1:18:18 That's John.
1:18:19 Thanks, Scott.
1:18:23 We want you to write off taxes, too, by joining the Vid IQ.
1:18:27 What What's Is is it taxes in the US or something?
1:18:30 When When you were putting on helmets,
1:18:31 I may have been talking about how you were trying to write, right?
1:18:34 Okay, I see.
1:18:34 I didn't hear any of that.
1:18:36 A Platypus plumber, a Mandalorian, Perry the Platypus, Rob the Mandalorian.
1:18:43 Okay.
1:18:45 When you see Luke making the most important shot in the history of the galaxy,
1:18:49 but then turns off his guidance system and closes his eyes.
1:18:55 When it's May the 4th, but you work for the Empire.
1:19:00 Uh, Mandalorian face reveal.
1:19:04 I just don't Oh, do I do I play it?
1:19:09 It's 22 seconds long.
1:19:16 What?
1:19:17 Why am I the subject?
1:19:18 There should be some music to this.
1:19:20 I'm not hearing any.
1:19:27 Huh?
1:19:27 All right.
1:19:29 Well, what?
1:19:29 Hang on.
1:19:30 I I appeared right at the end there.
1:19:32 Just Okay.
1:19:36 All right.
1:19:37 The prompt.
1:19:37 Uh.
1:19:40 All right.
1:19:41 And that that's your lot.
1:19:42 So, uh, do we have a favorite there, Dan?
1:19:47 Uh, I think it's got to be that one.
1:19:48 I think which one?
1:19:50 Oh, yeah.
1:19:51 I Yeah, definitely.
1:19:53 The simplest ones are usually the best.
1:19:56 And they're called Dan as well.
1:19:59 How about that?
1:20:01 Thank you for all of your submissions this week.
1:20:05 And we are auditing Jack.
1:20:08 If you see this, then you're probably on a desktop.
1:20:10 That's true.
1:20:10 If you see this and you're probably on a desktop and is also true.
1:20:18 This feels like they're a meme.
1:20:21 They're just a meme YouTube channel.
1:20:22 I don't mean like they're making memes.
1:20:23 They're just memeing the the the layout of the YouTube channel.
1:20:27 Yeah.
1:20:27 Which is fine.
1:20:27 I ain't got a problem with that.
1:20:30 Yeah.
1:20:30 Right.
1:20:30 So, it looks like they only do shorts.
1:20:33 Shorts.
1:20:33 Yeah.
1:20:35 And they're kind of hitting that ceiling of a few thousand views.
1:20:44 I think we need to watch one of these.
1:20:48 Yeah.
1:20:48 Uh I guess they're playing Risk or a Roblox version of Risk.
1:20:54 Uh let's try this one.
1:20:55 Uh let's try this one.
1:20:56 Can I conquer a world as island?
1:21:02 Right.
1:21:02 I think the sound Okay.
1:21:22 Okay, I can't get it.
1:21:23 Yeah, let's pause it there.
1:21:24 I the big problem was when I first started it that was the first few seconds
1:21:32 and in uh on a short that's
1:21:35 the the kiss of watch time well audience retention death.
1:21:40 Yeah.
1:21:39 Thought let's get straight into it.
1:21:41 It needs to be like a self-contained story
1:21:43 and it feels like with that screen popping up
1:21:45 at the front there it's like an ongoing
1:21:47 game and you broke it up into several clips and so that's like strike one.
1:21:52 Strike two is like I'm having to do a lot
1:21:53 of reading and dissecting and I'm having to focus
1:21:57 a lot and on YouTube shorts I think two
1:21:59 strikes is already too many because people just swipe away.
1:22:02 There's no point in even going to three.
1:22:03 So I I think there's just way too much for me as the viewer to dissect.
1:22:08 And shorts viewers, I've been one of them before, so I can speak to this.
1:22:14 We want to be spoonfed.
1:22:15 We want we want to not think.
1:22:17 We watch shorts to turn our brains off.
1:22:18 And now you're making me read.
1:22:21 I hate reading, you know, swipe.
1:22:23 That That's what I'm worried about.
1:22:25 Yeah, it's a very long shot as well, this one.
1:22:28 Uh 1 minute 50.
1:22:29 Uh I I could only maybe stomach that type of short
1:22:35 for 20 25 seconds before I'm ready to move on to something else.
1:22:38 It felt kind of one tone as well,
1:22:40 like just walking from one piece of map to the other,
1:22:42 then a little skit, and then doing exactly the same thing.
1:22:46 Uh let's just try one more, shall we?
1:22:48 Conquering the world with Poland.
1:22:50 And I should see if this one's any different.
1:22:51 The algorithm was loving me.
1:22:53 So, I got a lot of comments from you.
1:22:56 Most of them were country requests.
1:22:59 I'm doing those starting with Poland.
1:23:02 Okay.
1:23:06 So, we had to have like a a community introduction there
1:23:10 faster than I would have said, "You asked me to conquer Poland,
1:23:12 so here we So, let's give it a try." Like, here we go.
1:23:15 Yeah.
1:23:16 Done.
1:23:16 You asked me to conquer Poland is a really interesting hook to me.
1:23:19 And then you can just show one comment on the screen
1:23:22 and the game is already running behind that comment.
1:23:25 This one's a minute long.
1:23:40 I'm following this one a little bit more.
1:23:42 It's faster pace.
1:23:43 There's more going on.
1:23:44 Not following everything, but you know, that's not the the a huge problem.
1:23:48 Would you agree, Dan has kind of been an improvement here?
1:23:50 Yeah, I'd say there's an improvement for sure.
1:23:53 Uh, which is good.
1:23:54 We're we're moving in the right direction,
1:23:56 but because it's shorts, yeah, snappier hooks.
1:23:59 And so that my suggestion would be,
1:24:01 you asked me to conquer Poland, so let's give it a try.
1:24:05 Done.
1:24:05 In and out.
1:24:06 You don't have to do that whole thing where the algorithm is really loving me.
1:24:09 That's that's stuff that you're excited about,
1:24:11 but pe regular shorts viewers don't care.
1:24:13 And remember, I probably wasn't the one leaving those comments
1:24:16 because this could be the first time I've seen your short.
1:24:18 Ideally, your shorts get better and better
1:24:19 and bring in new viewers more and more.
1:24:21 You should have at the stage you're at, if you start doing really good,
1:24:24 you're going to have a lot more new viewers than older viewers.
1:24:26 So, recently the algorithm So, I got a lot of comments from you.
1:24:32 So, recently the algorithms there.
1:24:35 Sorry.
1:24:35 Where were you done?
1:24:37 That That's all I was saying is I forgot what I was saying.
1:24:41 I think I think I dropped a pretty good nugget there though.
1:24:44 I think I did good.
1:24:45 I just don't remember what I said.
1:24:47 Uh we're now we're now at a minute or under.
1:24:50 I think they're trying to fit them in.
1:24:51 I I was still trying to encourage them to make these shorts even shorter.
1:24:55 If you can, maybe try some 30 second one.
1:24:58 And this may require to make some really big editing decisions
1:25:02 and cut bits of a story out and just leave the most critical,
1:25:06 most important things in there.
1:25:08 But I think as as Dan said, the viewer just wants to be spoonfed that one
1:25:12 or on a short to to efficiently move through the the content quickly.
1:25:17 Um, but yeah, there's progression there.
1:25:19 Yeah, if you do the better hook,
1:25:20 you asked me to conquer Poland, so let's give it a try.
1:25:22 I would still suggest continuing to talk through everything I'm seeing
1:25:26 on the screen after that point because you're still making me like,
1:25:29 as someone who doesn't really understand the game,
1:25:30 and I know I'm probably not the target audience in that case,
1:25:32 but still, you're still making me have to like focus and follow along.
1:25:35 Just tell me what's happening.
1:25:37 just just talk through.
1:25:38 You have like a good speaking voice.
1:25:40 It was very engaging.
1:25:41 So, continue.
1:25:42 Just just keep going and tell me the story.
1:25:47 All right.
1:25:48 So, what uh we're going to do now is this going to work.
1:25:55 Oh, let's see if this is going to work in the background.
1:25:58 Sorry, I'm just trying to fix something here.
1:26:01 Me.
1:26:03 Does that work?
1:26:06 Right.
1:26:07 going to do a couple more audits.
1:26:08 Just a couple more.
1:26:10 Uh, but what I need to do, I have no idea if this is going to work.
1:26:13 Actually, you need to put this in the chat.
1:26:17 So, you can type it out and then copy it and then put it in a URL
1:26:22 in the browser and then you can get your own channel as well.
1:26:25 I don't think I can.
1:26:26 I think we blocked links.
1:26:28 Is that right?
1:26:28 Yeah, but this isn't technically a link though, right?
1:26:30 Because it's not got www in it.
1:26:32 I guess if it's not hyperl maybe we'll find out if there's no entries
1:26:37 in the next 30 seconds then uh this didn't work
1:26:40 but at least you've typed out this thing and then you can copy it and paste it.
1:26:43 This isn't working is the chat's dead.
1:26:46 There's one entrance one person who's got in there.
1:26:49 Yeah, we we did.
1:26:51 That's us.
1:26:52 All right, let's uh let's go back.
1:26:54 What should we do?
1:27:00 Me.
1:26:59 No, I'm not doing that.
1:27:02 All right, hang on.
1:27:06 Let's Oh, I just can't fit it on.
1:27:08 That's so diff Oh, you're doing that.
1:27:12 vidiq.com you YouTube-chan.
1:27:18 And then obviously you need to add e at the end of it.
1:27:22 If they Well, if they add eel, it won't count as an entry.
1:27:25 Yeah, I know.
1:27:25 I mean, like when they want to get their channel audited,
1:27:28 well, they need actual dots and they got to hyperlink it.
1:27:31 There's a lot of work to do to fix that into a link.
1:27:33 I haven't really done the marketing on this, have I?
1:27:36 I should have checked that um Streamyards would allow me that many characters.
1:27:43 So, obviously what you can do is once somebody's put it in a chat,
1:27:45 you can just copy that and paste it
1:27:47 once because it doesn't matter if you post again,
1:27:49 it doesn't count more than once.
1:27:51 Correct.
1:27:52 Correct.
1:27:53 Friction is good.
1:27:53 We want friction.
1:27:54 This process is going to it's going to fill up fast
1:27:57 and we want to make it as difficult as possible to get in.
1:28:00 All right, we're we're at 20 now.
1:28:02 Let's draw one of these channels.
1:28:03 See if I can time my drum roll.
1:28:10 Oh, I wasn't quite there.
1:28:12 Oh, Josh Sanderson.
1:28:15 Uh I we've either audited this person before
1:28:18 or uh they've me'd many times or sent Huh.
1:28:25 That's not what I copied in.
1:28:28 H how did it?
1:28:31 Oh, right.
1:28:31 It auto completed.
1:28:32 Right.
1:28:32 Okay.
1:28:36 That really threw me for a second.
1:28:38 All right.
1:28:38 I think we've audited this channel before and we
1:28:41 just said that they were on a tear and they were gonna they were going
1:28:44 to figure out YouTube very quickly and they did.
1:28:46 And it seems to be that they're on on the case here.
1:28:50 I just want to point something out from a uh primal branding point of view.
1:28:54 uh they're using reds in their thumbnails and they have this uh
1:28:59 they're not actually wearing it all the time in their thumbnails,
1:29:03 but that just immediate association with the red overalls I
1:29:07 think is like a a genius touch in my thumbnails.
1:29:13 These are kind of I don't want to call synthetic Dan,
1:29:17 but they're like highly photoshopped like yeah,
1:29:21 you mouse over them and clearly like it's it's
1:29:25 a different like GoPros and whatnot capturing footage in a moment,
1:29:29 but for their prepared thumbnail, it's really kind of treated uh intentionally.
1:29:36 So, yeah.
1:29:39 Which I don't know if that's a criticism.
1:29:42 I don't know if that's a bad thing.
1:29:44 I don't think it is.
1:29:45 Tens of thousands of views.
1:29:47 Look at their thumbnail.
1:29:48 How their thumbnail game has improved to a point where now
1:29:52 I kind of wonder what it would be like if and maybe they did this before.
1:29:56 Uh cuz yeah, they mentioned they got Savage reviewed in the past.
1:30:00 These these don't quite resemble what the thumbnails I remember.
1:30:03 I wonder if they've tried to do more quote authentic looking thumbnails.
1:30:08 Yeah.
1:30:08 And then they pivoted to this and it worked better.
1:30:15 But I don't know been talking about the thumbnails like so yeah
1:30:19 this is like uh what car flipping they they
1:30:21 turn trash cars into valuable vehicles it looks like.
1:30:28 Mhm.
1:30:26 Which is uh a niche within a niche.
1:30:30 Uh I think it's it's cool and just in terms
1:30:34 of where your subscriber base is and views to subscriber ratio.
1:30:37 Brilliant.
1:30:38 And this again represents the idea of you don't
1:30:41 have to fit a pre prescribed cadence of content.
1:30:48 Doesn't have to be every day.
1:30:48 It doesn't have to be every week.
1:30:50 These clearly take about a month each if not longer.
1:30:55 And you're hitting that target and the audience comes back when they see
1:31:00 a when a viewer sees this thumb this I would call it iconic thumbnail.
1:31:06 Now, like you're not having to change the facial expression
1:31:10 much like as long as you have that red overall.
1:31:13 I mean, it was a little different on that one,
1:31:15 but I see I'm kind of um I'm now contradicting myself, Dan.
1:31:21 So, I'm talking about these red overalls,
1:31:23 but the one where they didn't have it in, that was like a monster outlier.
1:31:26 300,000 views.
1:31:27 I was going to say, I don't know
1:31:29 if that's because of the overalls and the person.
1:31:31 I think it's because they included numbers on the thumbnail
1:31:34 and the next thumbnail could have benefited from that too.
1:31:36 I bought a cheap BMW to make a profit.
1:31:38 Like showing how much you paid for it on the thumbnail,
1:31:42 but but it was I guess a little
1:31:43 harder to read or like replacing man with numbers.
1:31:47 Maybe that's something to AB test.
1:31:51 Yeah, because that's what I'm most interested in.
1:31:52 You said a cheap BMW.
1:31:53 What What is a cheap BMW?
1:31:55 You know, and would that number kind of blow my mind
1:31:58 a little bit to the point where I have to click on it?
1:31:59 It's like, wait, you got it for that?
1:32:00 How much are you going to flip it for?
1:32:01 You know, it's going to raise even more questions.
1:32:04 The video did great.
1:32:04 I don't want to over scrutinize it, but this is a channel that's at that higher
1:32:08 level where they're at tens of thousands of views
1:32:10 and they're probably looking to aim more
1:32:12 to the hundreds of thousands of views when they post.
1:32:14 They they post infrequently because the videos take a long time to make.
1:32:17 So, you want that payoff to be huge every single time.
1:32:20 And that's that's why I'm kind of like still picking
1:32:24 on the thumbnails a little bit because I see an opportunity.
1:32:27 Uh, let's I'm not going to watch the collab one.
1:32:30 I'll watch the the one before that.
1:32:33 I've just bought this 2013 BMW for £1,450.
1:32:37 But it's got some big problems.
1:32:38 It's got a mystery coolant leak and the gearbox sounds like this.
1:32:43 But fixed, it should be worth over £35,000.
1:32:47 That hook is just chef's kiss.
1:32:50 Yeah, it's really good.
1:32:51 Perfect.
1:32:51 like you dropped in the Jeopardy,
1:32:57 you put in what you hope to the target you reach,
1:33:00 but obviously there's those problems.
1:33:01 So now I'm thinking, well, how are you going to solve them?
1:33:04 And there's fast-paced editing.
1:33:07 And look, they are doing some AB testing as well here um with the thumbnails.
1:33:13 This channel just it's going to continue to grow, build an audience.
1:33:19 Yeah, it's it's doing great.
1:33:20 I I always I always feel bad when like a channel that's like
1:33:25 this active in our community comes in and then we see their channel like, "Oh,
1:33:28 but you're already really good at YouTube." Uh I
1:33:30 I want to try to leave you with something,
1:33:31 but I don't want to like over audit your channel either.
1:33:35 It doesn't need that.
1:33:36 Like if you're if you're wondering like, "Oh, you know,
1:33:40 is there anything that's standing out that's like really like killer?" No.
1:33:43 Like nothing nothing killing your channel.
1:33:46 I think this is like all really really positive stuff.
1:33:48 If only you could upload more.
1:33:50 But of course, like you got to make sure you're watching the quality.
1:33:52 This is an expensive hobby you're in.
1:33:54 So if if that's like what to call it, expensive business.
1:33:58 So yeah, I think for what you're doing,
1:34:00 you are uploading probably the exact right amount.
1:34:03 Well done, Josh Sander Sanderson.
1:34:05 That's a a brilliant channel you have there.
1:34:07 But we can do one more draw I think and then
1:34:14 we will wrap up this channel uh this uh live stream.
1:34:20 What were they saying there?
1:34:21 Biggest issues.
1:34:22 Biggest issues finding figuring out why so some videos do
1:34:26 so much better than others like the two motorbike videos
1:34:30 and what they did um they did super well like 300,000 views.
1:34:35 You know, it could be the f it could be I don't know if this is the case.
1:34:39 There is lots of uh car flipping content.
1:34:42 So like you're one of the best compared to 5,000 channels that do it,
1:34:48 but in terms of flipping bikes,
1:34:50 maybe you're one of the best from 200 300 channels.
1:34:53 So there's just there's a big audience out there uh for for the content,
1:34:59 but not enough well less competition, which is brilliant for you.
1:35:02 I was only half paying attention there.
1:35:04 Right.
1:35:04 Trick Tricko Kid here is a channel
1:35:08 that we're auditing next and they have 7,000 subscribers.
1:35:14 Uh looks as if they just do shorts at the moment.
1:35:17 So let's focus on them and some spiky views.
1:35:23 Tens of thousands, sometimes thousands, hundreds of thousands of views.
1:35:29 Uh so is this a reaction channel?
1:35:32 I think so.
1:35:33 Only KTM 390 riders can understand this.
1:35:37 Sorry if we're going to have a language uh problem here.
1:35:52 I I must confess I didn't really follow what was going on there,
1:35:57 but you have this consistency of reacting to what looks to be POV bike content.
1:36:05 You got you just got to always
1:36:06 got to remember that there's enough transformation there.
1:36:09 I think that was Was there enough transformation there?
1:36:13 Maybe just about.
1:36:16 Maybe it's I'm not I'm not the the final judge of that.
1:36:19 They kind of watched the whole video it looked like
1:36:21 and then said something and then the video was over
1:36:25 and then there was a bit of editing in there as well.
1:36:28 So you don't fall into the category of like
1:36:32 reactors who are not doing enough to transform videos.
1:36:35 I I would be pausing.
1:36:36 I would be like I' I'd open with something.
1:36:39 You got to see this, you know, like set up what we're going to see,
1:36:42 then show me what we're going to see.
1:36:44 Pause it if necessary.
1:36:45 Like, see that right there?
1:36:46 Okay, watch this guy.
1:36:47 Like, add add more to it just to continue protecting yourself from, you know,
1:36:53 being called out for just like re-uploading content.
1:36:57 But it looks to me, you know, I could be wrong here,
1:36:59 but you are like one of the premier shorts creators on reacting to content
1:37:04 of people with these, do you call them dash cams when they're on a bike?
1:37:08 I don't know what you call them,
1:37:09 but these fixed cameras on the front of bikes, KTM bikes specifically.
1:37:15 Uh, you just seem to have that genre wrapped up in terms of reactions.
1:37:19 I don't know where else we would advise on that other
1:37:22 than continue to make it as transformational as possible.
1:37:25 Yeah, with any short I would just
1:37:27 remind everybody that person swiping to it didn't
1:37:31 ask to see it and it might be the first time they've ever seen your channel.
1:37:34 So keep those things in mind.
1:37:35 More context is always good.
1:37:38 Thank you Dan uh for your auditing efforts
1:37:42 today and we appreciate you submitting your channels.
1:37:46 I apologize if we were not able to get to your channel.
1:37:48 However, we had some really interesting discussions
1:37:51 that should assist all types of channels.
1:37:54 So think about that when you are watching this live stream.
1:38:00 We as human beings cannot get to all of your channels
1:38:03 but now you have a tool that allows you to do this.
1:38:06 So what I recommend you all the 270 people who are watching right now
1:38:12 as soon as this live stream ends there is a link in the description.
1:38:15 Click it add your channel.
1:38:18 It will give you one or two recommendations.
1:38:22 That's your homework for next week.
1:38:23 Otherwise, Dan, it's been a pleasure.
1:38:26 Yeah.
1:38:26 Thanks everybody.
1:38:27 Thanks for sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh
1:38:28 sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh
1:38:29 sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sharing your channels.
1:38:29 Let's wave and we'll see you roughly this time next