499 – Video Marketing Tips Part 2 – Preparing For YouTube Success: Branding & Making A Statement & Creating A Channel Experience

Podcast: Download (Duration: 41:38 — 38.2MB)

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Brian G. Johnson

Podcast highlights:

01:36 – What makes a successful YouTube channel?
04:16 – What is value proposition?
05:38 – Defining YouTube success
07:55 – Leveraging the power of search engines
12:46 – A quick recap
13:30 – Why branding?
17:20 – How congruency helps
21:37 – Poof! Pixie Dust! Dig it!
22:24 – Deep channel branding
31:25 – Powerful apps to use
34:47 – Music and rituals
37:46 – How to jumpstart success

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Part 1 of the series
Part 3 of the series

Transcription:

James: James Schramko here, and I am back with poodle-loving, hair-dryer wielding, Brian Johnson. How are you, mate?

Brian: Hey, it’s great to be here. Excited to talk about some more video.

James: Yeah, we’re into Video Marketing Tips Part Two. This is a three-part series. You can go and catch Video Marketing Tips Part One on SuperFastBusiness blog or in the iTunes store where we see that and catch up with where we’re at because we had a lot of fun with that particular series where we were talking old manner of video marketing. It was about basically how you can get started and then amplify and inspire using video.

Today, we are moving on though. In this series, we’re going to be talking about preparing for YouTube success. I mean that’s got a lot of ‘start with the end in mind.’ In particular, we’re going to delve into branding and making a statement, and in fact, how you can actually create a channel and provide that experience for your customers to build your audience.

So, maybe we just get started, Brian. What would be the number one thing that successful YouTube channels need to do?

To have a successful YouTube channel

Brian: You know the thing that I see is that channels that are doing well upon discovery, even oftentimes, before someone starts watching, the channel makes a statement, the channel stands out, and it causes the viewer to want to know more, to want to explore more.

And that’s something that we can all do with the great channeler, and thumbnail images, and more, and in the branding that you mention really plays a part in that. That’s the thing that I noticed about the really successful video marketers is that they make a statement right from the go.

James: Right. So can you give me some examples or a couple of channels that we might look at to see this in action? And feel free to mention your own.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. The real successful channels, let me just pull some up. Video Creators is a great example. You land on Tim Schmoyer’s channel. He’s in the same niche as I am, and those are the ones I’m most familiar with. It’s kind of my playground. And when you land there, you see his icon is like a camera kind of thing. He’s got a value proposition master the platform and spread your message. And immediately, the way he’s got his channel organized where he’s got his YouTube channel arc, it lets people know, ‘Hey, this is about video.’ And the way he’s organized his channel using playlist, using thumbnails, using brand colors and more really allows people just to know that, ‘Hey, there’s something here worth discovering and worth learning more about.’

And the same thing goes with, like you mentioned, my channel. Mine does that too. You land on my channel, and while there’s a lot happening and there’s different color palettes, it is congruent, and that congruency, and thinking through what you want to communicate with the people that find your stuff. We’re talking video. But gosh, this applies to marketing across the board. The stuff that I really dig is really well-defined as far as, like Marie Forleo. She does an amazing job with her brand.

James: She does. How do you think Colonel Sanders would go with his brand?

Brian: For me, Colonel Sanders is just, it’s this epic branding that took place in the late 60’s, early 70’s, and holy smokes! You know, for me, the first thing I look at in creating a really great brand is coming up with that value proposition that you can lean on again and again. A value proposition, again, it’s this whole process of making it easy for people to kind of understand why they should listen, like, ‘What’s in it for me?’ And at the top of that value proposition was finger lickin’ good. I kind of got a few things twisted there. I was thinking about brand messaging, which at the highest level, you have brand messaging and then underneath that, you’d have the value proposition, which was finger lickin’ good.

But there was also 11 secret herbs and spices. And there was also the way Colonel Sanders dressed. And there was also the look in the feel and how it made you feel. And all these kinds of things that they wove in, and it just almost became like kind of pop culture. And it’s something that people remember. Even today, it’s like these horrid commercials, [laughs] Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials. Now, it’s called KFC so…

James: Yeah, they’ve rebranded a bit. We’ve become more aware I think in recent times of health situations. So, how do you actually even define YouTube success? Because we talk about having a successful YouTube channel, but what does that mean? Obviously, we can’t walk in the KFC store and buy some KFC with our YouTube channel visits or views. You could say, “Oh, I’ve got a million views.” “Thank you sir, but I’m still going to need cash.”

Defining YouTube success

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s why it’s important to really define what is success. For me, it’s growing a subscriber base. When you really think about it, one of the clichés that I hear time and time again in internet marketing is this whole ‘Build a list.’ And this is something I learned and remembered from Frank Kern. The money is in the list. Have you ever heard how Frank kind of addresses or talks about that, James?

James: He talks about being in the values in the relationship you have with the list.

Brian: Boom! You must study this stuff. Holy smokes! Amazing. [Laughs]

James: We did. Well, I had to feed dogs too for a while there so.

Brian: [laughs] But it’s true, right? It’s like you can have a huge list. And that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to make any money. In fact, I talked with a whole bunch of people. They have stuff that they think when they start out, ‘If I had this, I would make money.’ Like if I had a big website, or I should say a big mailing list, I’d make money. Well, maybe not, because if you’re not delivering value to those people on the list, then they are not going to pay you any attention, and who cares.

Now what’s interesting is the money is in the list when you take care of those people on the list, when you do provide value. And what’s really interesting about social media is just it’s another opportunity for us to cultivate those relationships to add value to people’s lives and they can be connected to us.

So when someone presses subscribe, every time I upload a video, they’re going to potentially see that if they’re active on YouTube. So for me, a big draw is having the ability to grow a subscriber base, a list, and at the same time, leverage the power of the search engine.

The deeper I kind of got into the case study I’m doing, I started thinking, I don’t think there’s a social platform available that allows you to have followers and that the same time has the power of a search engine that has the capability of driving serious views and or traffic. And when you combine those, it’s pretty exciting. So for me, to answer that question, it’s building a list on YouTube, subscribers, adding value to those people, and then ultimately, moving them from the subscriber base on YouTube onto a list to my own AWeber account or whatever people are using. And that’s my definition and what I’m shooting for.

James: Right. So a couple of other points on that; I suppose YouTube must be pretty good with the search because it’s owned by Google. In terms of relationship, it must help that if they can see you and they can hear you, it’s a very high-touch emotional platform in terms of the media modality compared to others. I mean, I do love the podcasting platform as well because people can hear tonality; they get the sense of someone’s character from how they sound. But if you can see them as well, it’s pretty high on the attention meter. I love how you said you connected. You’re able to connect with people because you’ve got them subscribed and you can grab their attention with a high emotion media channel that’s highly searchable. It does have the perfect storm of ingredients, right?

Brian: Yeah, it absolutely does. And what’s great about that is I don’t think, again, kind of looking at the playing field that we have as far as digital marketing and 2016, I don’t think there’s a platform that allows anybody to start out and scale the way YouTube does because of the search capacity. And that doesn’t mean just anybody can do it because I’m not going to say that, because I think that’s false too. I think you have to have some level of ability with video.

But once you’ve got that down, and here’s the deal – we talked about this in episode one: the bar is not that high. You don’t have to have that Hollywood kind of quality; you don’t have to have all the bells and whistles. You do have to have the ability to create messages that engage people. If you can master that skill, which isn’t technically hard today, that’s not – the juice is really in delivering those messages that are engaging.

But if you can do that, then you can publish content that number one, and this is cool too, it can drive traffic for years. So that’s something that only happens on YouTube. You publish a video today, it’s ranking three years later, driving traffic. And that’s why people can scale it and have 100,000, 200,000, 40 million subscribers because they can publish content that people can find again and again for a very long time.

And you start adding these things up, and it’s like, you’ve got the search engine, you’ve got the ability to grow the subscriber base. Every time you publish a new video, those people that are subscribing see it, and it makes the process easier by the way as far as ranking because more and more people are watching your videos the moment they come out. That’s adding to that watch time that we spoke about a bit. It gets really exciting, and I think I’m just starting to ramble, so I’m going to stop now. [Laughs]

James: Well I like the snowball effect you talked about. It’s such a great distinction because you think, like Snapchat, the video disappears, Twitter, like if you don’t see it on the spot, it’s gone, and with Facebook, things tend to move pretty quickly in the timeline as well. But with YouTube, you’re right. It’s very searchable. The search results are very friendly. Even in the general search, you can spot videos there. And the videos stay there. I had a video up for years, it was a presentation I did at an event talking about my sort of historical timeline in business and I put on my about page for a long time. It was an evergreen piece of content.

So are you saying that YouTube particularly lends itself to evergreen content?

Brian: Oh, absolutely. I think it’s about as good as it can get. You just gave a great example. I created this piece of content, people enjoyed it, I leveraged it on my website, which is another bonus. And, you know, it did well in search, whether that’s YouTube, Google, and sometimes, both.

A quick recap

James: OK. So let’s just do a quick statement where we’re up to. We talked about when people get to your channel, you really got to make a statement. Think about what you want to communicate. We’ve talked about some success metrics, subscribers would be one because we’re building relationship. We can easily get to people at a highly emotional medium. It’s very searchable. It’s evergreen, so it drives traffic for longer, and it’s snowballs. Your body of work just gets bigger and more impressive.

Let’s just do a quick recap then on branding elements that you might want to use as a checklist. So have a branding elements checklist for someone for their YouTube marketing efforts.

Why branding?

Brian: Yeah. To me, and before we do that, let’s talk like why branding? I mean it’s really hard to pinpoint what is the value? Should I spend time on it? And ultimately, how long do you have when somebody finds your content? Whether they land on your website, whether they watch a video, before they start making judgements and try to decipher whether they should spend time; not a lot of time, probably seconds. And people are judging the appearance of your graphics, and they’re making this judgement on a split second. Having a strong brand makes it easier for us humans to kind of understand.

We need hacks. We’re super busy in today’s society. And while we would like to think we’re super smart, we’re analytical, we’re not. And that’s why this social proof thing is so big, right? It’s like; we use social proof to help us make decisions. When we see a book on Amazon with 200 reviews and so on, it helps us move forward. And part of that kind of social proof and the branding, how they come together, is you can take the time before somebody even finds your content to make it easy for them.

I got to tell you if you don’t make it easy for people, they leave. And people are trying to judge. Does this make sense? Now, James, you’ve been around a long time. You do big business, and that’s part of your brand, and that helps people decide whether they should pay you attention. But when people are starting out, it’s a whole another bottle of wax, and you’ve really got to communicate why someone should pay attention. And at the top of that branding is a value proposition, like why should I listen?
I’ve been working on mine for a while, and it’s: stake your claim, amplify your message; and really what I’m landing on is the third piece, which is, inspire action. So I will always talk about staking your claim, amplifying your message, but in the end, the two words that I’m going to focus on are: inspire action. That will let people know that ‘Hey, I help people with their content marketing to inspire action.’ The very thing that success is dependent on. You can drive all the traffic, but if nobody clicks ‘buy’, who cares? People don’t share, that’s a tough position to be in. So by taking the time to understand how you contribute to the world what your business does and the value it can bring, you can communicate really well.

Think different. If I say think different, all kinds of people listening are thinking about Apple or Kentucky Fried Chicken is finger lickin’ good, and M&Ms are another great example. A classic example of a value proposition is it will increase or decrease. If you’re a tax attorney, you’re probably going to save your customer’s money. The M&M’s that I mentioned, they do a great job, and that it’s a value add. It’s delicious; it melts in your mouth, not in your hands. So it’s kind of like it does this great thing, but at the same time, it doesn’t do this other thing.

So these are examples of why a value proposition is really helpful in sculpting a brand. And that whole like think different campaign, I think as entrepreneurs, we just cling to that, because it’s this kind of creed about being an entrepreneur, taking chances, thinking outside the box, and moving forward. And at the end of the day, it comes down to those two words, which still really define Apple to this day even though that advertising campaign happened some 25 years ago or so. So that’s kind of at the top of the branding is coming up with a value proposition.

The other thing that I like to think about is being congruent with who you are, what you do, how you provide value and the more congruent you are in the things you do. So I use my logo in all my thumbnails. I use my logo often in my channeler or on my Facebook cover image and what not. It’s kind of the one congruent thing that’s always there that makes it easy for people to know, ‘Oh that’s Brian’s stuff. I wonder what Brian is up to.’ You can be congruent with your brand colors.

If you go into an Apple store and you buy a product, the box is white. It’s just how it is. It’s been white forever, it’s probably never changing because Apple really gets branding and they’re congruent. If you walk into an Apple store, it doesn’t matter if you’re in New York, or California, they all kind of look the same. That’s that congruency. And this is stuff that we do as entrepreneurs again to let people know, [snapping sound], like that, in the split of a second, this is why I should pay attention and to do that homework upfront because nobody is going to do it for you. Nobody is going to take the time to understand what you have is quality or not. You’ve got a split second to get them kind of in your funnel and discovering more.

So these are some things, also words, phrases. I mention my poodles a lot. You mentioned. I didn’t mention. You’re like, “Hey Brian, how are your poodles doing?” It seems so innocent, but again, by always having those dogs in my branding, it makes it easy for people to remember, it makes it easy for people to talk about me. Bonus!

James: Well a lot of people ask me if I’ve been catching any waves lately. They talk about surfing.

Brian: Yeah, and exactly.

James: It’s become so strong that Tim Castleman and Kevin Rogers have a drinking game whenever I mention the word surf or surfing, they have to drink a shot.

Brian: [laughs] I haven’t talked to Tim in a while. We’ve hang out a lot in the past. I’ve got to call him up. We usually take a trip around this time to Sta. Fe. We skipped it this year.

James: Well, he’s a fun fellow.

Brian: Kevin put the G in Brian Johnson.

James: Really?

Brian: Uh-hm.

James: Well there’s a claim.

Brian: Exactly. I hired him for a sales project. He wrote pretty much all the copy, email swipe, sales letter. He did a number of my launches with me. He says, “Well, you can’t be Brian Johnson.” I’m like, “That’s awkward. Because I’ve always been Brian Johnson.” “Well, what’s your middle initial? There’s already a Brian Johnson.” I said, “Well, Brian G. Johnson.” He said, “OK. Well from now on, you’re Brian G. Johnson because we need to distinguish you from the other Brian Johnson.”

James: Once, John Carlton spelled my name incorrectly on the sales page for his action seminar thing. He had Schrakmo. He wrote me a sales letter. I have a John Carlton original sales letter on all the reasons why I need to change my name to Schrakmo. That it would be significantly better for all future generations of Schrakmos, that it’s easy to pronounce, it’s easy to spell, and so forth.

Brian: Goodness.

James: So you’re lucky you only had to stick a G there.

Brian: [Laughs]

James: I think we’re making a great point here. You’ve got branding elements that make you memorable.

Brian: Yeah, exactly. In fact, one day, I may write another book called Memorable Messenger because I really dig this branding. I see it as being so powerful when you do it right. It just makes it easy for people to remember.

James: Yeah. And that’s what you want. For the right reasons.

Brian: For the right reasons.

James: OK. So you’re using your logo everywhere, you’ve got particular colors. We went with this flaming orange color for our iTunes logo. Most people loved it, some people hated it, but it definitely stands out. I did a whole episode with Greg Merrilees on why we changed it and what his process was around that. If you want to dig deeper into brands and logos, that’s a nice follow up to this. Let’s move to the other one, which is words, phrases and hooks.

Words, phrases, and hooks

Brian: Yeah. Poof! Pixie dust. Poodle wrangler. That’s another one. So there’s poodle wrangler, poof, pixie dust, oh dig it! I like to say “Dig it” a lot.

James: You do. I think you have some throwback from the 70’s.

Brian: Yeah. Well, that’s just all part of it. It’s just kind of fun. I got to invent this weird cookie cartoon character.

James: Are you like this when you’re off the clock?

Brian: Well yeah. I’m the same guy.

James: I figured you would be. That’s kind of cool.

Brian: I mean there’s no way anybody could pull off what I do if they weren’t like that. I think it would be weird. I mean it’s weird when I do it. Can you imagine someone trying to fake it?

James: What about going a bit deeper with your branding and to the channel itself? If we were to pull up our own YouTube channel, what sort of things would we be looking at to check that off?

Deep channel branding

Brian: I’m glad you asked because I want to share some things that I’ve been focusing on and doing that have been really powerful. Two or three different elements. Number one is branding and use of colors and a logo. So we’ll talk about that. Number two is thumbnails for your videos. Really cool. And number three is really leveraging the power of playlist. Now this is something that’s so easy to do. We probably talked about it in the last episode, but I want to dig deeper.

One of the things ultimately that will help people succeed on YouTube is the fact that an awful lot of video views flow through suggested or related videos. If you do a good job and you’re on YouTube for a period of time, you start to gain authority and your videos will show up in suggested videos when someone’s watching a video. You can have your videos show up in suggested videos when someone’s watching your own video. So in other words, someone’s watching one of my videos and then the suggested videos are pretty much all mine, which they are probably 80 percent of the time. That happens depending on how competitive the niche is.

So if you publish a video on weight loss, and that’s your title, you’re going to have a hard time getting your other videos to show up in suggested because it’s so incredibly competitive. However, as your channel gains more authority, you’re going to have an easier time doing that. One of the things you could do to make sure and to kind of amplify that effect is to theme your videos. We do that by using playlist. And literally, there is a button you can push that tells YouTube, ‘This is an official playlist.’ And when you click the official playlist, for whatever reason, it just helps to keep your videos together and show up in that suggested area. As you continue on your journey as a YouTuber and gain even more authority, then your videos can show up on other people’s videos. And this is actually kind of what’s been happening to my channel over the last month.

I did some videos that’s funny. They’re not technically great videos. The content is very good and I’m really proud of the content. And I think because of that, all of a sudden, they’re showing up for really competitive phrases like brand marketing and marketing strategies. I literally like probably increased my views by six or seven times because not only am I ranking in YouTube, but I’m showing up on other people’s videos. And if you think of the potential is huge. Like there might be a thousand searches a day for brand and market strategy. But how many people have published videos on the topic of brand and market strategy? And if your video happens to show up in the suggested video for all those other videos, all of a sudden, your views can go through the roof.

One of the strategies that you can do to really take this to an entirely different place is to look at your channel and say, “OK. What am I going to focus on?” For me, it’s YouTube video marketing basics, editing. When I got started, I was really interested in how far we’ve come with mobile devices. It’s interesting today that we’re talking about this on the day that Apple releases the iPhone 7. I started making videos, editing on iPads and iPhones, and using iMovie and different apps. And I started doing really well, and I really themed my videos together, created a playlist. And one of the things I did was to make sure that the thumbnails in that playlist are really congruent and almost have a brand of their own.

If you look at my channel, you’ll see that I’ve got a playlist for iMovie, and at every single thumbnail, I always include the iMovie logo. The background is always a tan color. My logo is almost always in the lower left-hand corner, and it always uses the same splat border. When you take all those elements together, you get a really pleasing thumbnail, and not just once, but about eight or nine times. And what’s happening is all those thumbnails are showing up in suggested videos. And what happens as a viewer comes in, and they’re just exploring, and this is how you really can make that statement we talked about at the beginning, because it’s such a powerful way to grab attention.

It’s not just one video showing up, it’s not one good looking thumbnail, it’s a series of thumbnails that all work together to convey the same message, and then people stop and they go, “Ha! I wonder what that YouTuber is all about.” And that’s what I call kind of triggers this binge watching, and people tell me that. “Holy smokes! I love your channel. I just watched six videos.” And when that happens, make no mistake, you get rewarded big time because that’s the exact thing that YouTube wants to reward. It’s how they make money by promoting channels that keep viewers coming back. So that’s a really powerful way to look at thumbnails and branding.

I also have another playlist, another editing playlist. The colors are mustard yellow and kind of this bluish black. Those are my brand colors, and they really pop. When they all show up in the suggested videos, it’s like, I kind of dominate. I guess I’m tooting my own horn, but let’s just call a spade a spade. It’s a strategy that anybody can implement. And without question, I’m driving more views because I’ve got good looking and thumbnails, which by the way, anybody can do this. I make my thumbnails on my iPhone and my iPad. So it’s not like I’m in Photoshop all day long. I’m just tinkering around with my cappuccino in the morning.

James: Firstly, just two things there. Excellent. Excellent information. I remember awhile back when I saw some direct response data, they said the most responsive color combination was black and yellow for direct response pieces. Now, what is your channel? Give it a shout out so we can go and look at it while you’re talking about this.

Brian: Yeah. Brian G Johnson TV. And it’s funny, you should mention and the yellow and black. I’ll give Matt Clark a shoutout. You can find it him at TweetPages. He is like a branding genius. Does amazing work. I did a good job too, and I think it’s important any time you go to a designer, to any kind of professional that you have done your homework. I’ve talked to guys like Kevin Rogers and other people. They just come to them and say, “Write me this amazing sales piece.” It’s like, if you don’t bring a hook to the person you’re hiring, you’re going to get what you paid for, and they’re going to do their best, but you’ve got to guide people. I really thought through. I had the poodle wrangler, I kind of want it to look kind of 60’s 70’s throwback. All the stuff you said, that was in my head, and that’s kind of the vibe I wanted to put out. I took the time, just like I talked about, to figure that out. And it took a while. It was worth it because now, I get to reap the rewards for that. Did I mention the channel? Brian G Johnson TV? [Laughs]

James: [Laughs] You’re a classic. Yeah, we came up with a smoldering superhero look for SuperFastBusiness. That’s what our app has, and our channel, and our consistent branding. It’s so important.

The other thing that I thought was interesting is how you’re able to give YouTube what they want. A lot of people haven’t figured that out yet. They are trying to do some tactical trick. But really, if you just give people what they want, it’s so much easier. That was the foundation about the whole SEO business was actually giving Google what they want. If you think about what would make it a good result for YouTube and you can align yourself with that, that’s going to be a great situation because if you deliver what they want, they’re probably focused on delivering a good customer experience so you’re all in alignment now.

What is your favorite tool for making screenshots on your phone?

Brian: I use a bunch of them. I’m actually just going to look right now. Pixel Matter is a really powerful app. It’s almost like a Photoshop for your iPad or your iPhone. It’s very, very good. I use a few that are kind of like they do the typography where you can take a picture and fill the words on.

James: Like Typorama?

Brian: Yeah. Actually, Typorama is the one I use quite a bit. I did a video on Typorama. The guys that created that app reached out and they’re like, “Oh, do another video for our Editing Suite.”

James: That’s nice. What a great compliment. I just thought I’d ask you that because people are going to want to know. And of course, my own team listen to these podcasts and we’re trying to improve our YouTube game as well because we see it as a very important marketing channel for us, especially now that we’re building a bigger body of work.

Brian: Yeah, you really are. James, can I just say, I want to back you up and talk this a little bit more. I think it’s important. It’s kind of this being in alignment with the platforms. I see so many people playing the game like it’s 2003, and it’s like, you’re not going to fool Google. You’re not going to fool YouTube. Instead of trying to like buy this super, duper piece of software thing that’s going to get you the rankings, which is impossible, because the rankings are based on watch time, and you can’t fool people. So the tools can kind of help you, they can improve on your overall result, but at the end of the day, what matters most is to make videos that are engaging.

It’s funny, I found a statement from YouTube, they published it in December of 2012, and it says, “We’ve begun to reward videos that keep viewers watching longer. And we’ve made a shift from rewarding videos that drive a click.” If you look at the time period, 2012, well prior to that, the videos that were winning were videos that supported thumbnails that were boobs and butts, and we still have that, but it’s a lot less impactful because if someone clicks on that and they don’t get what they want and they leave in three seconds, you get rewarded accordingly versus a video that keeps somebody watching for five minutes, four minutes, seven minutes, is going to be rewarded with that watch time.

So you know it’s like, it’s really time to wake up and focus on the number one thing, which is practicing your ability to deliver a message in an engaging way. It doesn’t matter again what platform you’re on. That’s the juice. You do such a great job with your podcast. I remember after the first one, I’m like, “James, wow, you were really fantastic. Thank you for being such a great host.”

James: Well, thanks for being such a great guest. You do tend to self-source the episode anyway. I could just sit back and let you talk. And everything that’s coming out is good stuff. We’ve talked about value propositions, and deep channel branding, and now you’ve given us some good clues as to what a good result for YouTube would be. I imagine there’s some other little things in there like music, and sound effects, and rituals that you can have that can help your channel branding as well.

Music, sound effects, and rituals

Brian: Yeah. Actually the rituals, have you read, what’s the book? Oh, Primal Branding. Have you heard of that book?

James: I’ve heard of that, yes.

Brian: Yeah, if you’re into branding and that kind of stuff, check it out. Or anybody listening, definitely check out Primal Branding. It’s very interesting too because YouTube actually, you can become certified. It’s like a marketing guru on YouTube. You get the certification badge. A big part of that process is they’ve documented a lot of the ideas in this book Primal Branding. It’s rituals, it’s pagans, it’s having like the opposition, and some of the stuff you’re talking about is really powerful. Just starting out with a logo or an icon is something that’s really easy for people to grasp. But an icon can also be an audio clue.

I’ve got a very short brand intro, and I’m not changing it anytime soon. I’ll probably be bored of it in a few weeks or something because I see it all the time. But it’s that consistent feel, it’s that brand that’s behind my channel, and that makes it easy for people to remember me, which is really awesome. I want to throw this in another little tidbit. If you’re going to use the brand intros, please don’t lead your video with those because you’re really doing a disservice to you and the people finding your content because they’re not really interested in your brand intro. What they want is what you promised in your thumbnail and your title. If your title is about losing 10 pounds that when the video gets started, “Hey, it’s Brian. And today, I want to share with you how I’ve lost 10 pounds. It’s pretty amazing; you want to check this out. We’re getting started in six seconds.” And then roll the intro. Because then you’re leading with what people want. You got to cater to the audience. It’s a pet peeve of mine and I see these brand intros that they roll for like 16 seconds, and they’re obnoxious.

James: [Laughs] Well, it’s just a matter of fine tuning I suppose and thinking. I like the long-term thinking, thinking evergreen, and how can this content be useful in a few years from now and not be subject to a manipulative fad, especially in our world. Don’t they go a little bit crazy with tactics and then they have to redo it all later?

Brian: Yeah, it’s kind of sad. It’s like, you know, I’ve got my suit down in the lab. Ooohhh, I’m down in the lab. I’ve got all my buttons. It’s like no. That was like for a minute, in 2003, and some of us tried to milk it all the way till 2009 and then it died, officially.

James: So we better round out this episode. We’ve sort of headlined this episode as being what you need to do to prepare for success. Get your branding right, making a statement, creating a channel experience. We’ve created a vision. We’ve put some thought into what we want to say. We’re making a statement. Our logos are good. Our thumbnails are lined up. The playlists are created. How do we jumpstart success now?

Jumpstarting success

Brian: Yeah, so really interesting. It’s so simple. The polar opposite of what we just talked about. It’s not very sexy, but if you do this, you will reap the rewards. And you publish a lot of videos.

James: OK. So you believe there’s rewards for frequency?

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. Rewards for frequency. And really, there is a strategy of how to move forward and do it, and we can talk about that. But at the end of the day, it’s not rocket science. And often times, I think as humans, we’re so intrigued, and we want to dig in, and we want to make a chess when maybe it’s just checkers. And maybe I make good videos, and I publish regularly, and I focus on what’s most important – good video content, a pretty thumbnail, I pay attention to keywords, maybe that’s enough. And maybe, instead of spending all day trying to dissect the freaking algorithm, you freaking nut. Uh-oh, uh-oh! Someone’s about to pop. [Laughs]

James: [Laughs] You did last time. You popped on the ‘What camera should I use?’ last time. That was fun.

Brian: Oh yeah! But seriously though, I mean, I know a lot of people that spend more time trying to figure it out than doing it. That doesn’t make any sense to me.

James: No, I think you made a good point. It’s checkers, not chess. You want to just get started. I’ve got videos up there from years ago that I would probably be able to do way better now. However, in that time, I’ve been able to benefit from views and visits to my site and increase credibility and conversions because people can find out more about me inevitably when they go searching. They’re going to find these videos, and we get to control our own reputation and our exposure by publishing. We have a publishing tool in our pocket these days. It’s just phenomenal. I actually got one of those windscreen mounts for the car that people use for iPhones.

Brian: Oh, awesome.

James: And I stuck it on my whiteboard at home, and put the little, metal plate in the back of my iPhone cover. Now, I just clip my phone onto the whiteboard, where I can write a couple of notes, and I just film with a Lav mic. Very simple, low tech; basically phone and a Lav mic, and I’ve started making a few videos again, which has been working tremendously well for me. So thank you for inspiring that, Brian. Thanks for this episode.

If you go back this episode, you’re going to find out about making a statement and building relationships and the branding elements. What we’ve done is compile these into an easy to use information sheet. You can go and grab it at SuperFastBusiness.com. You’ll be looking for the episode called Video Marketing Tips Part Two – Preparing for YouTube Success, Branding & Making A Statement & Creating A Channel Experience.

I’ve been speaking with Brian G. Johnson. You can find the poodle-wrangler himself on YouTube at…

Brian: Brian G Johnson TV.

James: There you go. Thanks Brian!

Brian: Dig it!

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