Is there a YouTube "Tipping Point" when Your Channel Takes Off? | Ep. 12

Is there a point when your YouTube channel will finally "Take Off" and grow faster? If there is a tipping point on YouTube, what is it and how can we make it happen?! Great questions! In this video I share my thoughts on this question.

👉 AIT Method: https://www.meredithmarsh.co/aitmethod?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=ep1&utm_campaign=Apr_2024&utm_id=apr24 

👀 Watch Video Version:  https://www.youtube.com/@meredithmarsh_vidpromom

📌 The Stupid Fast Way to get LEADS with YouTube (even with a small channel): https://www.meredithmarsh.co/aitmethod?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=ep1&utm_campaign=Apr_2024&utm_id=apr24

Follow on YouTube for Video Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@meredithmarsh

👉 CRUSH IT ON CAMERA (new guide): https://vidpromom.com/crush
📹 Become Binge-worthy on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7YtsiYsKtg

Transcript

Meredith  0:00  
Is there a tipping point where your channel just starts to take off? Is it like when you reach 100 subscribers or 1000 subscribers? Or after you've published a certain number of videos or you get a certain number of views? Or is it like, you've been on the platform for a certain length of time? I got this question from one of my clients. The other day, we've been applying the spider web strategy to her channel and building out her video topics around her lead magnets and her offers and really building a spiderweb around her niche. And she asked me this question, is there a tipping point? I wrote it down because I thought, Gee, that would make a great topic for a podcast episode. But then I was like, Gee, Meredith, what is the answer to that question? Do you even have an answer to that question? So I've been kind of ruminating on this question for the last few days. Because in episode number eight, I talked about the 10 ways that you can tell what is working on your channel, it's really easy to go into your analytics and pick out things that you think aren't working. But there's a lot of places where you can actually figure out what is working well on your channel. And then in episode nine, I showed you what to fix or tweak or change, if you find that things aren't actually working the way that you want? And if your channel is not growing, but if there was a tipping point, what would it be? And how do we get your channel to the tipping point, we're going to talk about that here in Episode 12, of the video brand infusion podcast. My name is Meredith, and I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your channel. So that you can build your audience and generate consistent sales and growth in your online business. And I totally get that you're probably like, good, she's gonna give us a very clear, concrete, black and white answer to the question of, is there a tipping point on YouTube? And what is it because business and marketing and content creation is so much easier when you have a clear and concrete answer and you know exactly what you're doing? And you're confident that everything you're doing is working and going to pay off for you. But I don't think it's quite that simple. And I have a lot to say on this question of what is the tipping point. But to be honest, if it was as easy as just giving a concrete answer, then everyone would have a thriving business and a thriving YouTube channel. The reality is, it's a little bit more nuanced than that it requires a little bit more processing. So when I see a question like, What is the tipping point on YouTube, my first thought is, what do you mean by tipping point. So let's define what a tipping point is. Because, to me, a tipping point suggests that things are going slow for a period of time, and then something happens, it reaches a tipping point. And then things just start growing really quickly. And it becomes really easy and really smooth. And everything you publish just goes viral. But I don't think that's really a healthy expectation for YouTube. Because it's just not the norm. And I see this happen in my niche, where sometimes out of nowhere, there's somebody with like a couple 100 subscribers, who all of a sudden has a video that's getting 10 2050 100,000 views. And it's like, what happened? What did they do differently? What can we learn from this? How can I replicate that? And what I often almost always see is those channels have to keep talking about that same exact topic over and over in order to keep getting those high views and keep their channel growing. And to me that sounds unsustainable, and honestly a little bit boring. So what I think is a healthy way to look at a tipping point on YouTube is steady growth and competence as a creator and knowing that the time and effort that you put into making your videos is paying off because your videos are reaching your intended audience. And I can tell you from my own experience in the last nine years on YouTube, there have definitely been videos every once in a while usually at least like once or twice a year I have a video that does way better in terms of like it gets way more views than a typical video for me would get. And early on for the first few years I would think ah, this is it. This is the tipping point. I guess I didn't have those words in my head. But I'd be like, Aha, yes, this is it. This is where we start growing really fast, right? No, because it doesn't always last. It doesn't always stick. I think a sit downs that lead to steady growth and steady results is the norm. So when I think about a realistic tipping point, I think of three things. I think when your new videos that you publish are getting the same amount of views are a more than what is considered typical for your channel, you have reached a tipping point, because then you know that my new videos are reaching the audience that I currently have the people who are the most engaged on my channel are watching my videos when I publish them. And YouTube gives you those metrics, YouTube gives you a green checkmark in your latest video performance box in the backend of YouTube, which signifies that this video is doing fine compared to what you would normally expect from your channel. And if you get a green up arrow, that means it's doing better than expected. So if you have that happening consistently, when you publish new videos, then I think you've reached a certain tipping point. The second thing is when your old videos, older videos are also continuing to get views long after you've published them month later, a year later, that's another tipping point. Especially if the topics that you cover on those old videos are aligned with the topics you're covering on your new videos. And the third thing is if you're getting some outside results from the views that are happening on your channel, meaning you have leads coming in, you're generating sales of some kind of digital product course program service, coaching, whatever it is, you have some outside metrics, that you are using YouTube to drive your ideal audience and your ideal clients and customers to if those three things are happening on your channel, consistently, then you've reached a tipping point. And I guess the way I think about it is, if you continue doing what you're currently doing, then you can't go wrong, of course your channel is gonna grow, of course your business is gonna grow, right? Because YouTube knows who your intended audience is, it's getting your videos in front of them. It's driving traffic from your old videos, and you're getting the results that you need for your business in terms of leads and sales. Does it mean that all of that happens really quickly? Not necessarily. I think it means that happens consistently. So what do you do, if you haven't reached those three components of this tipping point that I'm speaking of? First of all, I'm going to say something and you're going to think you're gonna think to yourself, duh, I already know this, Meredith, but I want you to hear this. Again, the winning combination for getting results on YouTube, as far as your marketing is that you're getting your videos in front of the right audience, the right people are finding your videos, the right people are hitting play on your videos, they're choosing to watch your videos, and they're actually watching the video. Hear me out on this because it may sound like an oversimplification. Like, of course, that's how YouTube works. People are supposed to find your videos, they're supposed to hit play, they're supposed to watch the videos. That's YouTube, right. But if you can't make those three things, absolutely irresistible to your intended audience,

Meredith  8:48  
then you're not going to see a tipping point on your channel. It's not enough for people to find your videos, if when they see your video as an option to click on Like in the search results or on the YouTube homepage, that it doesn't look very interesting. Or it just doesn't even get their attention. And it's not enough that even if people find your video and click through your video, if they don't actually keep watching the video past 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, if they're bored right away, or if you're not getting to the point, or if you're not really giving your audience a compelling reason to keep watching the rest of the video then what good is it if they found it and clicked play? You have to have these three things to kind of like work in tandem together in order to reach a tipping point on your channel. And there's a lot of subconscious decisions. Like almost all of the things that happen on YouTube are subconscious decisions and a lot of times it's easy to take that for granted. It tried to like logic our way to what is a good topic? What is a good thumbnail? What makes sense to me logically, when the flip side of it is that your intended viewers subconscious is not using logic, it's just making snap decisions, which is why you have to deliberately come up with irresistible topics, and intriguing titles and thumbnails and deliver your content in a way that entices the viewer to keep watching the whole video. And so part of that is being really clear on your niche. Who are you creating content for? What are you helping them do? Why do they even want that? Those three questions are the first three questions in my YouTube roadmap that I give to my members. And it's the questions that I asked my one on one clients to understand what they're trying to do on YouTube so that I know how best to help them. And I'm just now redoing my roadmap for the membership. And for some other things that I have planned that I can't even really announce yet. But those are the first three questions because those are the most important questions. Who are you helping? What are you helping them do? Why do they want that? Years ago, I heard this quote from Tim Schmoyer. And I don't know where it originated from, but he's the person that said it where I first heard it, which is a training is only free when it's on its tracks. And this resonated with me so much with YouTube and business and really life in general. But sometimes, we as creators, we want to just have the freedom to create whatever we want to create, and make videos about whatever we want to make videos about. But if you want to pick up momentum, if you want to grow your audience get results from the efforts that you're putting into YouTube, there has to be some structure in place. So I love the quote, a train is only free when it's on its tracks, because there's always two rails to a train track. In my mind, one is the who one is the what. And there's always a destination where it's going. And that's the why. Why are we going there? Where exactly are we going? What exactly are people trying to achieve? Because if you want to craft irresistible topics, it's really hard to do that. If you don't know who is going to find this topic irresistible. That doesn't mean that every title or topic has to spell out in words who it's for. Having a clear understanding of who exactly you are creating your content for is like an internal thing that you need to use. When you're coming up with your topic ideas when you're coming up with your video ideas. When you're figuring out what exactly am I even going to say in this video? And what does the thumbnail need to look like. And I'll be honest with you, the who can sometimes be really hard to define. I know for me, early on in my channel, I changed my who a lot. When I first started my channel I was I wanted to help. This sounds so silly now, by the way, but I wanted in my mind, I wanted to help moms create fun to watch home videos. Okay, so with their phone, or their fancy camera or their GoPro camera, in my mind, I was helping moms because I was a mom, I am a mom. And I was the one that was like recording stuff and playing with photography. And once I started creating the content, I noticed there are no moms commenting on my videos and my audience demographic and my metrics are showing that it's very much skewed towards men. And it seems like a no brainer now and moms if you're out there, gadget girls, you and I need to stick together because there's not very many of us most of the people out there that are using their phones and their GoPros and their cameras to capture their family memories are the dads so I quickly pivoted my who in my mind and thought okay, I'm not just talking to moms and over time it changed and evolved the who changed and evolved the what changed and evolved and the rest is history. Now we're here and I 100% think that I was much better off at picking a who and just going for it and evolving over time. So one rail of your train is the who you have to now the who in order for the train to like go on the tracks. The what has always been easy for me but I do have clients and students who run into having trouble with the what they know their clients and customers they know their intended audience and they're very specific and very clear on that. And then they get tripped up on Under what what am I creating content about? A really common mistake is picking a niche and saying like, Okay, I'm going to make videos about this niche, you don't really make videos about your niche. You make videos around your niche. If your niche is postpartum weight loss, you're not making every single video about postpartum weight loss. You have to make videos around your niche. What are the other problems, products, solutions, ways that people are trying to achieve postpartum weight loss or having trouble with postpartum weight loss. Those are the topics that you would be making your channel about, which is sort of the basis of the spider web strategy that I teach inside of my membership. I had a call this past week with somebody who did a product review of something we met. And she said, my most recent video is not doing very well, I pull it up, I had one view. And it turned out that the product that she was reviewing, she didn't put it in the title, she just didn't put the name of the product in the title, the name of the product wasn't in the thumbnail. And that's such an easy fix, right? It's such an easy fix. But it's like one of those little details that not everybody sees or notices or thinks to have in there. So if you have trouble coming up with what to create your content about, or if you're creating content on topics, and not really getting very many views, just take a look at your titles and ask yourself, Wait, am I communicating what this video is actually about? Am I clear? In the communication in the title of what the video is about? Easy fix? So you have your who you have your what? And then where is the train going down the tracks? Where

Meredith  16:45  
are we headed? Why are we going there? What is the why of it all? And again, this isn't something that has to be stated in every single video. But it's something that you need to know internally when you're planning your content. So is there a tipping point on YouTube? Yes, but the expectation that suddenly things are just going to take off for you, I think is not the most healthy way to approach YouTube. It's about consistency. So to summarize, when you have new videos that are getting good views, or better than what is normal on your channel, you've reached a tipping point, in that, you know, the videos that you're publishing are getting in front of the right people they're getting in front of the right audience, the algorithm knows who of the two and a half billion people on YouTube might be interested in watching your video. And number two, your old videos are continuing to get views and bring in subscribers. And then number three, you have some outside results. Leads, you're building your list, you're making sales, you're generating some type of revenue, from the content you create. When you have those three things working together, then you know that what I'm doing is working, my strategy is working, I can just keep doing what I'm doing. And it's going to work because as your audience grows, your revenue flows, right? Once you have all those things in place, that is the tipping point when the machine that you created is working for you. And you're actually getting some return on your investment of time and energy in terms of leads and revenue. Now one of my favorite ways to build a machine that does generate traffic and leads and sales with YouTube is a set it and forget it YouTube funnel. And this doesn't even have to be a high ticket program. Or it doesn't even really have to be a program or a course it could just be a YouTube funnel to your lead magnet. But when you infuse your lead magnet, your messaging your offers into your YouTube channel. Then if you happen to have a video that does suddenly get way more views than all the rest, congratulations. It's been infused with your messaging and your offers and you have a way of funneling people to your email list if you don't have a set and forget funnel in place, and it doesn't matter if you've reached a tipping point because doesn't matter how many people find you if it's not actually helping you grow your business. So if you want to hear more about how to set up a set it and forget it funnel I cover all of the details to that in episode number one of this video Brandon fusion podcast and if you haven't done so yet, I would greatly appreciate it if you gave me a rating, maybe five stars if you feel like I deserve it in Apple podcasts if that's where you listen or if you're here on YouTube, leave me a comment let me know what you're hoping that I cover next on this podcast because I'm always up for suggestions. And I've reached episode number 12, which I feel like is sort of like a tipping point for the podcast. I told myself, I would do 12 episodes and then decide whether I was going to continue doing it. And I think I will, but I would love to hear your suggestions so I hope to see them down below.