Meredith
Are you taking your live streams from Facebook or Instagram or Tiktok, or even your reels or regular Tiktok videos and repurposing them for your YouTube channel? Is it helping your channel grow? Is it helping your business grow like are you generating leads and sales from that? If you're like a lot of the folks that I talk to, the answer to one or probably both of those questions is no, so let's talk about it here on Video brand infusion, episode number 21 My name is Meredith, and I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business so that you can generate consistent sales and revenue and build a binge worthy video brand for yourself. I get why it seems so logical to take your content from other platforms you've already put your time and your energy into it, and then upload it to YouTube, because YouTube is the most powerful platform out there, right? You've heard me say that. Other people say that too, and one of the reasons why I say that so often is because the longer your videos are on YouTube, the more traction they get over time, the more views that they get, the more audience that you can attract, which is the opposite of what happens on Instagram and Tiktok and then, because YouTube is A search engine and a discovery platform, it's easy to think, Well, every little bit helps, right? So I'll take my reels, I'll take my tiktoks, I'll take my live streams, or even my group zoom call conversations inside of my program, and I'll just upload those to YouTube. I'll repurpose them for YouTube, easy peasy, right? You could even have your assistant do it. You wouldn't even have to touch YouTube like you might be doing that and thinking every little bit that I add to my channel is going to work in my favor. What could the harm possibly be now? Do you remember back in the 80s and the 90s, maybe even before then, if you lived somewhere where cable TV wasn't available, like you lived way out in the boonies or something. I lived in a small town. We didn't have cable, but we did get a few channels like MTV and Nickelodeon. But anyway, if you lived out in the boonies and you did not have cable, in order to get all of the good channels, you had to have a satellite dish, one of those really big satellite dishes, and it had to be mounted on a post in your yard, sometimes in your front yard, depending on where the satellites were positioned, they were huge. Anyway, my husband grew up with one of those, and once the satellite dish was completely obsolete. My father in law dismantled it from the yard and then repurposed it into something else. And he's a pretty handy guy. He can build things, and he's very creative and very clever. And what he did was he built a small gazebo. And I don't know how he did it, but he got the satellite dish up on top of the gazebo to use as the roof of the gazebo, so the bowl part is facing down, and the satellite dish is on top of the gazebo as the gazebos roof. And it works. It makes a great roof. It fits perfectly. And it's built really well, and it's very clever. However, if you were to stand in their backyard and look at the gazebo, you would look at it and think to yourself, Hmm, that looks like a satellite dish for a roof, meaning it's noticeable. It's clever, but it's obvious. It doesn't look bad, but it's obvious that it's a satellite dish. Now, if you follow me on Instagram or Tiktok, you might notice that I repurpose these podcast episodes into short form clips, and I post them on Tiktok and reels, and I'll be the first to tell you, not only is it obvious that they are repurposed clips from a long form video and not natively recorded with reels or Tiktok, they also don't really help me grow on those platforms. They don't bring in new followers or new leads or new sales, they don't even really get that much engagement just alike every once in a while. Now I do this knowing that it's not a good strategy for Instagram or for Tiktok. I do it because I just want to show up on those platforms without actually having to show up. One of my clients said to me the other day quote, I want to be the ultimate lazy unquote. I wrote it down in my notebook because I thought it was really funny. We were talking about AI and automations and things like that, and I wrote it down because I was thinking. That's my approach for Instagram and Tiktok. I'm not trying to build a personal brand there. I want to be the ultimate lazy there, but still show up for the people who do follow me there, so they don't think I fell off the face of the earth or something. So when it comes to YouTube, though, I'm drawing a line in the sand here and saying that a YouTube first approach to your content is the only way to truly see positive results for your YouTube channel and for your business from YouTube. And there's a big, big caveat to everything that I'm going to talk about in this episode, so stick with me to the end, if you're on YouTube, to grow your audience, grow your channel and grow your business, this will matter to you, because the content that you upload to YouTube, especially your long form content, I want to be clear, I'm not speaking much about shorts. I can't really speak to shorts much, because shorts have never worked for me or for my clients long term, as far as business growth, as far as like, leads and sales, audience growth, yes, here and there intermittently. So I'm just speaking from experience here, I'm talking about long form content, and when you put long form content on YouTube, or when you put shorts on YouTube, it's like you're putting down some roots in the algorithm. And I talked about the algorithm in Episode 17. I explained how YouTube works with the multiple algorithms that are at play, and why it does what it does, and how to capitalize on the algorithm to grow your channel. But everything you post puts down some roots and basically kind of lives forever. So if you aren't thinking with YouTube long game plan in mind, you risk establishing roots with the wrong audience, and that can be really hard to correct in the future. You know, when you make a whirlpool in a circular pool and then you try to go the other way, it's really hard to go in another direction when the water is literally working against you, right? And what I mean by that is what you see as views or subscribers from your content, from your repurposed content. Like, Hey, I got my assistant to upload my reels, upload my tiktoks, repurpose my live streams, and I'm getting views and I'm getting subscribers. Like, Yay, good job, but those views and those subscriber numbers are meaningless unless those viewers and subscribers keep coming back to watch more of your content and binge watch your long form YouTube content or seek you out to work with you, or opt into your lead magnets and wrong audience. Doesn't mean that you know your repurposed content could attract bad people or something. It could mean that your repurposed shorts viewers are just Doom scrollers, right? Not action takers, not people who want to go down a rabbit hole, who have problems where you have the solutions that they're looking for. They're just scrolling for entertainment and dopamine hit after dopamine hit. And if you show up there, great. But what happens next between you and that viewer? Is there any kind of relationship established there, even in terms of them seeing you as the go to person in your niche, or a thought leader in your niche, or even just a channel that they might want to return to in the future, or are they just scrolling to the next video? And something I hear a lot is, well, I'm just gonna repurpose what I'm doing now on Instagram and Tiktok in my lives. And when I have time, I'm going to create long form contents. This happens a lot with shorts. I don't have time to make long form videos, but I do have time to make shorts or repurpose my short form content, and I'm gonna do that now to kind of get things going, and then when I have time, I'm gonna do long form videos. And this always boggles my mind. I was scrolling Tiktok the other day, and a mutual of mine on Tiktok was saying, you know, the best way to grow your audience is to just post one video a day on Tiktok. Just try it for 30 days. And I thought 30 short form videos is how much content, 30 minutes of content. I mean, divide that by four or five weeks. Those are long form videos that you could be posting that. Don't disappear in the algorithm a
Meredith
couple days after you post them. That's a whole that's a whole other topic. What I'm really talking about here is what's likely to happen if you focus on shorts specifically thinking at some point in the future, I will have time to make my long form content. So right now, I'm just going to repurpose and do shorts, what's likely to happen is you've established roots, and YouTube will try to show your new, shiny, long form videos to the audience that have been watching your shorts, and that audience not gonna watch them. They're not gonna watch that long form content because they're in the shorts feed. They're looking for their next dopamine hit. They're not looking to go deep on a topic with you. So YouTube is going to try to show that content to them on the YouTube homepage or in the recommended videos, and they're not going to watch it, or they're going to watch it and then get bored and then go back to watching shorts, and eventually you're just gonna struggle to get views on your long form videos and gain the kind of traction that YouTube is known for, because the algorithm is trying to do its thing, but it's not getting any takers, Because short form viewers are typically not long form viewers, and so you miss out on all those good green flags that your content can send or show the algorithm like you're getting clicks, you're getting views, you're getting watch time. Watch time is huge on YouTube, so if you're not getting it from the content that you're putting out there, YouTube either doesn't know who to put your content in front of, or it decides it must not be that good, so I'm not gonna put it out in front of any new people. Okay, so there's the problem of attracting Doom scrollers and attracting a doom scrolling audience, but even for longer viewers, if you repurpose like live streams or Zoom calls from your program or something, here's the thing, and please don't hate me for saying this. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but those videos are boring. They're boring for YouTube. They're probably really engaging for your audience that was with you live. And if it's like a group zoom call or something, I see people repurposing these from their paid program, or maybe part of their zoom call from a paid program, putting that on YouTube. They're probably really engaging and interesting for the people that were there on the Zoom call, but they're not engaging enough or interesting enough as a YouTube video typically, could they get views? Yes, of course, they could get views. Could some people watch the whole way through? Absolutely. But your personal brand, your video brand, your business, is far too important to just cross your fingers and say, Well, I hope people watch this one hour zoom live stream with chit chat for a solid five minutes at the beginning before it dives into a real topic. I mean, really think about how you would respond to that type of video. You'd have to be really, really interested in that topic for you to sit through that whole thing. So if you've been repurposing your content from other platforms onto YouTube, and it's not working for you, like your channel isn't really growing, it's not really gaining new subscribers, it's not bringing in leads, it's not feeding your funnel, no wonder, right? It's just not that good of a strategy, and your actions are kind of actively working against you on YouTube. But if you incorporate a YouTube first approach to your content, the content that you put your time and energy into will end up working in your favor. You'll get that Whirlpool going in your favor, and it will just be so much easier to get those views, get those leads, and get those sales from the content that you upload. You'll gain watch time on your videos, which is YouTube's like hot metric right now. I say right now, like it's a trend. It's not really a trend, but when I looked at the data from my channel and what I see other people saying, longer videos get better traction. They perform better on YouTube because YouTube wants people to stay watching YouTube videos. Of course they do, and so do you. So you'll also get more like establish yourself more as the go to brand in your niche, right? Those first time viewers who find you for the first time will trust your content, trust you. They'll come back to you for more valuable content
Meredith
down the road. When you use a YouTube first approach, because it won't feel like they're getting seconds right, or like the leftover content that you decide to repurpose to YouTube, and you'll establish good roots in the algorithm as a value to the platform. Because if you think about it, I know I like to talk about the algorithm all the time. People talk about it like it's some big, you know, seven headed monster or something, and it's really just like a bunch of math equations, right? That's really all an algorithm is. It's just math. But if we think about it like a person, which is, I think, more helpful, because your audience is people, and the algorithm is there to essentially serve the audience. So if you think of the algorithm like it was one single human being looking at your content, do you think it would choose your repurposed content, or do you think it would choose the content that you made fresh for YouTube? Of course it's going to favor the fresh made for YouTube content to be on the YouTube platform, right? So let me explain why this is huge when I say a YouTube first approach, I'm talking about across the board, from planning to recording to editing and to publishing your videos in Episode 19, I told you how to find endless video content ideas that actually grow your channel. What's working right now on YouTube, that's the same strategies that I use and that I teach my clients and students to use. So that's obviously going to be a great YouTube first approach to planning and ideating, and that can be found in episode number 19. In episode 17, I told you my best YouTube growth ideas for brand new channels, like under 1000 I mean, it would work for probably any size channel, but I was trying to target people with a new or small or brand new channel, right? So episode 17 offers some great YouTube first approaches to a small or new channel. And then in episode number 16, I gave away my video podcast script, outline framework, whatever you want to call it. And even if you don't have a video podcast, you can still take the concepts in that framework, especially the intro and the hook and then the call to action at the end, and apply them to your YouTube videos, so that you have a YouTube first content strategy. And in episode number eight, I told you how to tell what's working on your channel, so that you can do more of that and grow faster. That is a YouTube first content strategy, because you'd be looking at your data that's inside of your channel to make decisions about what to post on your channel. It's the ultimate YouTube first strategy. But the thing is, like for as much as I talk about building a set it and forget it, YouTube funnel to generate consistent sales of your course or program. I think if you're already rocking Instagram or Tiktok or Facebook Lives, you could transpose that entire system for those platforms and just not do YouTube at all. And I can't even really believe that I'm saying this out loud, but I think you'd be much more likely to find success taking a set and forget it YouTube funnel and making it work for the platforms that you are on, rather than try to implement a set it and forget it YouTube funnel. But not really do the YouTube part of the YouTube funnel, because it's just not likely to work if you're not going to approach it with a YouTube first strategy and just rely on trying to repurpose what you're doing on other platforms. Now I mentioned at the beginning, there is a big caveat to all of this, everything that I just said, And the caveat is, if you're listening to this and you're like, Yeah, but I am repurposing my stuff and it's working for me, then this doesn't apply to you. If what you're doing already is working for you, that's great. I would ask some follow up questions like, How do you know that it's working for you? And what do you mean that it's working for you? Because if it's only gaining you subscribers, and that's all you know about it working for you, then you don't know that it's working for you. Is it gaining you leads? Is it still gaining you views and new viewers after the fact, a week later, months later, years later? Is it helping to assist? Establish your brand and grow your list, and, you know, generate sales and like, gain revenue for your business. So if you're repurposing your tiktoks and your Instagram reels onto YouTube and it's working for you and it's living up to your expectations, great if it's not, then some of the things that I talked about in this episode could possibly be the culprit. So that's a big caveat. I don't think you would be listening to this podcast or this episode specifically, or all the way to the end if what you were doing was working perfectly for you and you were really happy with your current YouTube strategy. But either way, like YouTube or not, a set it and forget it, funnel is still the simplest way to generate consistent sales of your online offer, and in episode one of this podcast, I broke down exactly what my YouTube funnel looks like, and if you're savvy on Instagram or Tiktok or Facebook, you could take exactly everything that I say in that video and make it work for the platform that you are on, so that your courses and programs sell themselves. Now, YouTube is still the most powerful way to generate traffic for your funnel, but if all you're ever going to do is repurpose your content, I just don't think it's going to be worth your time, to be honest, and I feel awkward even ending my podcast episode saying that, but it's the truth. I mean, just like any other social media platform out there, there are strategies that work and there are strategies that are just kind of like the quote, ultimate lazy strategy, and sometimes just showing up is good enough, but if you are trying to grow your audience and establish yourself as a go to person in your niche and generate revenue with your business. YouTube is really still the most powerful way to do that if you are using a YouTube first strategy. So episode number one dives into the whole YouTube funnel concept so that you can see what it looks like for me and how you could apply it to your own channel and see exactly how the algorithm works to send traffic down that funnel.
