2023 YouTube Growth Strategies For Businesses (including AI) with Trena Little

Andréa Jones (00:00):
YouTube, it's one of the OGs in the content marketing world and is becoming more of a social platform every single day. And today I'm super excited to have Trena Little back on the podcast to talk about YouTube updates, YouTube shorts, AI, and YouTube, and more. Let's get into it.

Intro (00:30):
Welcome to The Savvy Social Podcast, the show that blends stories and strategies to help businesses create engaged and profitable online communities using the unique power of social media. And now, your host, Andréa Jones.

Andréa Jones (00:47):
Trena, welcome back to the show.

Trena Little (00:50):
Hi. Thanks for having me back.

Andréa Jones (00:53):
I always love talking with you because I feel like I can geek out about all things YouTube and today's no different. So in the past year-ish how has YouTube changed?

Trena Little (01:10):
I, I feel YouTube is becoming more and more on people's radar, right? It has taken a long time for me. It's been honestly like the longest pooling of teeth <laugh> to convince people the power that YouTube could have. And I think, again, as more and more platforms pop up, the more frustrated we get. We're just looking for something easy-ish something sustainable, something that doesn't require us to post multiple times a day for multiple kinds of posts, Instagram. And so I think that's one of the biggest things that's changed in the past year is people are looking more at YouTube as a viable option for a content strategy. But I don't think everybody's doing it the most efficient way, and I think they're still burning out on YouTube because they aren't looking at it the right way.

Andréa Jones (02:00):
Ooh, okay. I wanna talk more about this because I think that's me. Hello. I, yes. <Laugh>. So, for a little bit of context for new listeners, I got my start on YouTube. Well, I was blocking in 2004. I started my YouTube channel in 2007. I personally love YouTube strategies, YouTube as a platform. I met friends on YouTube. I went to the very first VidCon I am in, like, I'm fully in it, and it is still really hard for me to create content there. Even now, I'm even harder on myself because I am in the industry now. Back then I was just posting about my life. So I find it hard and I end up burning out on trying to post weekly videos because I feel like they have, they're a lot more polished than podcasts are. Right? It's not really a conversation. And, and then I, I go a couple weeks without posting one. So why do you think that that is, like, am I looking at YouTube in the wrong way? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>?

Trena Little (02:54):
Yeah. So I, there are two different things that I wanted to talk about when it comes to YouTube, but I do wanna address the Polish piece of YouTube. 'cause I do think one of the positives of the rise of TikTok is more informal raw type content. And we can really look at YouTube now as just being yourself. Obviously when we are filming on YouTube, you don't have to worry. I think my lunch is on the floor right now, but because the camera is only on a certain angle, that's all the only thing that people are seeing. And so we wanna think about that when we're doing YouTube. It doesn't have to be on a sound studio, it doesn't have to be professional, but the content has to hit, the content has to solve that problem that your audience is having. So I think we get into our head again, way often than not about how quote unquote professional the video needs to look.

(03:49):
But more people are, I think I, I'm blanking on the word, but more relaxed on how the content looks because we do see TikToks and we do see reels that are very, very unpolished. And so it is more acceptable over there. The other thing I wanted to talk about is, as entrepreneurs, and this is a hard piece for me to always wrap my mind around too, we need to look at YouTube differently than quote unquote YouTubers or content creators because we as entrepreneurs aren't going after the masses, and it's not our goal to go viral. What happens when you go viral, you could totally jack up the algorithm and not attract the right people, ie the warm leads, the people that wanna work with you, the people that wanna hire you, that people, the people that want to buy from you. And so as entrepreneurs, I think we get into our head with that perfectionism of the best video because we wanted to go by our own. We wanna get lots of views and subscribers. In reality, we need to just be targeting the right audience, which we know we've all niched into our professional, we all know what we're good at. We all know what our specialty is. We just need to find those people on YouTube that are looking for that specialty and focus on creating that type of content that's going to drive those people and not the masses.

Andréa Jones (05:11):
Yeah, you're right. I definitely am comparing myself to YouTubers. I feel like too. That's because the content that I consume happens to be YouTubers and I, I cannot film a day in the life for the life of me. My team keeps asking me to even do a tiny one for TikTok. And I'm like, if I'm not in my office, I don't have my camera with me. I'm not thinking about it. <Laugh>. Yeah, absolutely

Trena Little (05:33):
Not. That is the

Andréa Jones (05:33):
Relief. Yeah. <laugh>.

Trena Little (05:35):
Yeah. I've tried, I I can do maybe one day in the life each year when I'm like, okay, I'm committed, I'm gonna do it. And it's usually around once a year I can get one out. But no, because they, we gotta think YouTubers, their monetization stream is the more views they have, the more AdSense money they make, the more brands are gonna pay to put ads on their content. But we already have our business model. We don't need the masses. We just need the right people. Because if you, you have a hundred clients, like, okay, we're maxed out at a hundred. Right? You literally can't take on a hundred clients. So if you literally just got a hundred of the right people watching your content, you could be maxed out in your agency, right? If you're doing YouTube the right way.

Andréa Jones (06:23):
Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you, <laugh>. I needed that and I'm gonna internalize that and, and take it with me.

Trena Little (06:29):
I just wanted to say I'm the same way because I started watching YouTubers as well, and I still do to get ideas on how I wanna create content in, in refresh mind, but it is, it's like, okay, or I watch a lot of documentaries and I'm like, oh, but I should do that with my content, or I should do that. Or, but it's, people are coming to YouTube, the people you wanna attract are coming to YouTube data problem solved. They don't care if you have a super cool transition or if you are moving your camera in five different angles or you have a back shot of you filming it, they don't care. They need the solution to their problem.

Andréa Jones (07:05):
Yeah. Yes. They just want someone to help them. I fully believe that. And I'm, I'm going to embody it now. So, I'm curious though, you know, what types of videos are working well specifically for, you know, business owners, entrepreneurs, like that thought leadership style person. What's one video idea that's working really well right now?

Trena Little (07:27):
I believe you can honestly get away, which is doing Talking Head videos. And I'm gonna tell you, you could probably do one a week and have a consistent stream of traffic to your offers. But the key is to really understand your one person. What is the problem that they're having? How are they talking about it? What are the words that they are saying? And so it's hard to just say like, this is the one particular video that you need to do, but you've really got to know what are the problems that your person is searching into YouTube because you wanna make sure when they search it into YouTube or they search it into Google, you have the answer and you have it worded exactly how they were like, yes, how are they in my head? And so that's how you wanna be thinking about any one video that you create is that your person finds you on YouTube and sees a video and was like, how is she in my head right now?

Andréa Jones (08:19):
Hmm. Yeah. And I bet that takes quite a lot of research to kind of get to that point of knowing that person. But I have had people say that to me about my social media posts before, so it totally makes sense to just mm-hmm. <Affirmative> just do the same thing on YouTube. Andrea, it's not that, not that hard. I don't know, I don't know why I have a block about this right now, but I'm in a YouTube slump, so I'm glad that I'm talking to you <laugh>. And I, I do wanna address short form content on YouTube because I feel like YouTube's trying to push shorts themselves. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> like they want creators to create shorts. And it's a response to TikTok because it feels like creators have kind of shifted their attention over to TikTok. Although there are times, there's, there's a lot of TikToks about YouTube right now, people going back to YouTube. So YouTube shorts, do they work? Should we post them?

Trena Little (09:10):
So I continue to remain on the fence with YouTube shorts and my channel itself. We test it, we get results, like not really what we're looking for, and then we don't do it, and then we test it again. Here's kind of our thought process. So we are trying to attract leads as business owners on YouTube. Those people probably aren't tapping on the shorts, the YouTube shorts tab and watching content because that even TikTok content is more entertainment based, right? We go to TikTok to be entertained, we go to TikTok to waste time, even if that's how people are consuming YouTube shorts, which is hard to say if we are transitioning people to think about YouTube shorts as a place to go entertain and waste time. But that's how it's being built out. Entertainment kind of content. As business owners, we're doing educational long form content because somebody is going to be a much hotter lead.

(10:10):
If they watch a 20, 25 minute video or multiple 10, 15 minute videos from you, then just, I think shorts is 59 seconds or less. So you also wanna think about the quality of lead that you are getting. I mean, if you are posting content on TikTok or reels, I don't think it's a terrible idea to maybe repost it on shorts. It's a strategy we're looking at right now to see if it does help us grow. But my biggest hesitation is, is the algorithm going to put us in a wrong box and start attracting the wrong people because of our short content? I'm not sure yet. We are actively testing this, but that's why I've been so on the fence with shorts is because is it worth the time even to re-upload those videos? When my audience as an entrepreneur looking to have their problem solved, going to shorts even to watch a 59 second short about how to script a YouTube video, are they gonna sit down and literally watch a 20 minute video where I go into detail about creating a script for a YouTube video? For me, that's probably much more quality lead. And when they get to my sales page, they're gonna be much more ready to buy. And so the conversion rate for me is gonna be a lot higher if I focus on longer form content.

Andréa Jones (11:33):
Yeah. Yeah. I definitely see that. I know with we have two clients right now YouTube and they manage that themselves. We just repurpose their like TikToks and reels YouTube shorts, and whenever we don't, we do see their views go down. And I feel like my theory is that YouTube's rewarding people that uses the section that they want them to use. But is it the right reward system? I it feels like a, a tactic or a hack that's just currently working mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But the long-term ramifications that we don't know what that would be, we don't know if these are the right people. So that's a really good question to think about. And

Trena Little (12:11):
I think a positive of YouTube shorts potentially is increasing your visibility. It may allow you to broaden your reach and you know, let's say you, you know, you throw a hundred darts at a dartboard and maybe two of them hit. So maybe out of the, the bigger reach you're getting from shorts, maybe you're pulling the right people in. But again, it's so hard to tell right now. And I think that's a really good point that you make that yes, a hundred percent YouTube's gonna reward people using features like they rewarded people that were using, you know, their story style. And we hear in the background that they're rewarding people with shorts. But I also don't know if the YouTube shorts algorithm is as sophisticated enough to put your content yet in front of the right people. Like TikTok has it down. Like I mention, I think about something and I get a TikTok the next day on it. <Laugh>, I just don't know if the YouTube short algorithm is there yet to send the right people my content.

Andréa Jones (13:18):
Yeah, I agree. Like I've had a few shorts take off and it's just angry people in the comment, you know, how you YouTube comment section, it's like the YouTube comment section just now. What's wrong people Yeah. Just now on shorts. And I'm like, I don't just, yeah. Move on with your day. I don't get it. But yeah, I definitely see that. Okay, so we're gonna take a quick break when we come back. I do wanna talk about artificial intelligence a little bit too. So we will get back in a second.

(13:47):
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(14:38):
Okay, we are back. I wanna talk about AI, but I have one follow up question on the algorithm. 'cause You mentioned the algorithm for shorts. And so when we think about the algorithm for our long form content, I still find that it's very much search-based discovery and not like TikTok's algorithm, which is we're just gonna try to match you with content we think you'd like. Is that still the case today?

Trena Little (15:06):
So the way we look at the algorithm, 'cause I am not as versed on TikTok. I mean, I'm a consumer, I don't dive into it on TikTok, but the way the algorithm works best on YouTube is, again, you have to be clear on who you are talking to. And it has to be a specific person. Like even when I was just creating content on how to grow on YouTube, that is so broad and it's not gonna get me the right people. So when I zoned in and I'm focusing specifically on course creators using YouTube to generate more sales, I can talk about more specific topics that they are searching when they search YouTube. So what that does is when you focus in the beginning on that search based traffic, you start to build an audience that gives YouTube information on who is the most likely person to watch your content.

(15:56):
So as it's collecting that data and people are finding you through search, those people that find you through search are then going to be recommended your videos on the homepage or recommended your videos on suggested. And this is what starts kinda that hockey stick growth that you hear YouTube educators talk about. So that curve in that hockey stick starts to happen when you've created solid search-based traffic that you're building an audience and they're starting to watch more of your content because now the algorithm is serving it on home and suggested. And then that's when YouTube can really hone in on who your person is and it can start putting your videos now in front of other people on their home. And they're suggested. So that's not just YouTube search driving traffic, but it's now YouTube clearly understanding where you fit in the algorithm bubble and who is the best person to watch your content.

(16:47):
So it's really your responsibility to understand your audience and what they're going to be searching for if you want the algorithm to work in your favor and reach more of those people. And so just kinda like a short synopsis of what the algorithm does, that's kind of how you can see that hockey stick growth. It all starts with truly understanding, and this is probably one of the things I work with my clients and students most is let's dig a little deeper on that audience. Let's dig a little bit deeper. No, but what is the real problem? Because YouTube can't figure it out for you. You have to know it before you get the algorithm to categorize you.

Andréa Jones (17:24):
Yeah, that's a really good point too about helping YouTube help you like <laugh>. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> like yeah, let's give it the information it needs so that they, they can help you and put you in the right spot. I like that. Yeah, I like that. Okay, so what about AI? Like should we be scared about using AI for YouTube or is it okay?

Trena Little (17:43):
I think AI is definitely helpful just talking about understanding your audience. You can go into something like ChatGPT and start building out a true understanding of who your audience is and maybe like weeded it down to that specific person. I think like AI-based videos, like where you are just typing it in and it's a robot talking or however you wanna jazz it up, I don't think that's gonna take the place of humans. We always are going to wanna have human interaction. And so if you are showing up each week helping your audience, there's nothing that's gonna take that away because we're still humans and we want that connection. We want that feeling like we have people we can trust on YouTube. Other things that are working with AI is, like I said, using ChatGPT to even come up with content ideas.

(18:35):
vidIQ now has a lot of AI ability inside of it. We use it to help us come up with title ideas 'cause titles are so important on a video. We don't obviously copy and paste what they give us, but it gives us a starting point and we may like mix and match a couple ideas. The last time I was in vidIQ as well, there's even an entire tab I saw, I just saw it for the first time I was in there the other day. It will help you come up with a title. It'll help you come up with a thumbnail concept and help you write the video. And so more and more of you who are saying you don't have the time for YouTube AI is helping us speed it up, <laugh> speed up the process. You know, you've probably, you talked to your clients and, and your audience about this too. Like, we're obviously not gonna copy and paste what AI gives us, but it gives us a really good jumpstart on some good content and not just starting at ground zero every time.

Andréa Jones (19:29):
Yeah. I'm a huge fan of vidIQ. I did not know that they had that in there, so I'm gonna go play because that's really where, I don't know if you struggle with this too, when you've been talking about something for so long, like I'm coming up on tenures. <Laugh>, yeah. When you talk about something for tenure, sometimes you're like, I feel like I've said everything. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and having the AI give you that fresh perspective, that new idea can be really helpful to kind of move you forward with more, more content. So I'm gonna explore,

Trena Little (19:56):
And they even do like they give you 10 video ideas or something like that a day. If you go in every day, you can look at their 10 ideas and you can thumbs up it or thumbs down it and it will save and like a future reference for you to go back to. It's almost like an idea bank. And the more you do that, obviously it starts to understand what you like, so it can start to really craft the right kind of content. But yeah, I, I really, I really like it. I just found that feature too the other day with the title and the thumbnail. I couldn't tell you where it was at because I literally only saw it once the other day. But I was like, oh wow, okay. Now I I definitely nobody can have excuses.

Andréa Jones (20:34):
Yes, there are no excuses now. Seen, heard, understood. Let’s go make some YouTube videos.

Trena Little (20:41):
Him

Andréa Jones (20:42):
I know <laugh>. So you, you mentioned using this for your clients as well with these AI tools, you mentioned the titles, the thumbnails and the content of the videos. What about things like keywords or, you know, how, how else are you using artificial intelligence?

Trena Little (21:01):
Yeah, so again, back to vidIQ, it has a feature in there where you can pop in a keyword and it will tell you how often it's searched per month and how competitive it is. And so we actually do this full on keyword harvesting process with our clients where we basically find, you know, what are the 20 top words or phrases that you would want people to find you around. And then we go into vidIQ and we harvest out those keywords and we find other related keywords. We find other topics, we look at their search per month. We look at, you know what the competition is. And when we're done with this process, there are literally thousands sometimes, you know, 4,000, 5,000 keywords and phrases that we're working with. And then we go through a process of cleansing it. And what this allows us to do is hone in on that specific audience and we make sure that all of our content is talking to that specific audience and it allows us to create series.

(22:00):
It allows us to understand what types of content we're gonna talk about. Like maybe for me it's obviously YouTube, maybe video editing, maybe sales funnels. But it allows me to create different categories of content that still talks to my person that is typically a course creator wanting to use YouTube to generate organic traffic to their course. And so that's not necessarily AI so to speak, but it is a tool that we use to truly understand how people are searching for our content and to ensure each one of our videos is going to show up when our audience needs us the most.

Andréa Jones (22:40):
Yes, I love this and I love that you've really outlined a direction forward with this because I think it can feel overwhelming looking at a blank slate and the amount of things that you can use with AI. Like, I'm so excited to go play with vidIQ because I've been paying for it and I use it sometimes I need to use it more. You also mentioned in the green room about TubeBuddy mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. do you have a preference vidIQ TubeBuddy?

Trena Little (23:09):
I don't. They each do a little bit different things, but similar that the keyword harvesting process that we do is a lot easier on vidIQ, so that's why we tend to spend more time over there. Their AI capabilities have gone a little bit further than TubeBuddy has, but I do know they have a lot of great AI things coming up in the pipeline. One thing that TubeBuddy also has recently is a thumbnail heat map to help you create better thumbnails so you can see where people are landing on your thumbnail and it will give you recommendations on how to make your thumbnail better. TubeBuddy has also always had the AB testing option with thumbnails too. It wasn't always a true AB test because it just basically after every 24 hours it swapped it back and forth. So it wasn't like a true AB test where, you know, random people saw it. It was more of like for this 24 hours and then automatically switched it. And so for that piece, I felt TubeBuddy really had a strength when it came to thumbnail type things. But I do know there's more things happening in the background, but I've spent more time on vidIQ due to like the keyword harvesting process and really figuring out the right kind of content to create for my audience.

Andréa Jones (24:24):
Interesting. Okay. I love that. So what are you trying next, like next 12 months, what are some of the new things that you're gonna test out on YouTube?

Trena Little (24:35):
I am honestly just trying to make YouTube simple for me. I love creating content. I'm really getting specific, like I said on my audience because I'm as scared as the next person to quote unquote niche down, right? We're afraid we're gonna miss out on something, we're afraid we're gonna miss a person. But what I'm realizing is I talk more specific to what would seem like, oh my gosh, I'll never get anybody watching this. I'm starting to get first of all more valuable comments on the video. Like I know you talked about YouTube comments being trolley. I'm now getting the more specific in the content that I get. I'm getting more heartfelt comments, more engaged comments, people asking questions. I'm actually seeing as well the traffic that comes from YouTube on my offers. I'm seeing the conversion rates higher than Instagram's. One of the ones that we're always looking at.

(25:27):
'cause I play on both. And so I think for me it's just really continue creating good content over on YouTube. I'm hoping to be able to spend more time creating that content on YouTube. I sometimes get into a rut as well and I will just sit down and bang out a couple videos back to back. But I wanna figure out ways where I can tell more stories and I get more responses when I can tie in experiences that I had or I, I think I just, when I'm more transparent on YouTube as well, more people connect with that. And then I see obviously an increase in traffic to my business when I'm able to do that. So that's really where I'm hoping to go is just have the more time to create even more meaningful content on YouTube because I do love creating that content and there is a great community over there, but you have to train the algorithm to find them <laugh>.

Andréa Jones (26:19):
Yeah. Yeah, I know that. Oh my gosh. Like the con I a few podcast episodes ago, y'all listened to that episode, I talked about negative comments. YouTube to me has some of the worst comments, but mm-hmm <affirmative>, when you train the algorithm, like you said, to help you find your people, you can actually meet amazing people. Hint, hint. I met my husband on YouTube, so I do know <laugh>, I do know its power. Yes. And it's awesomeness <laugh>. Yes. So for those people listening who are like, okay, I'm in, I'm ready for the YouTube experience with Trena Little, you have a YouTube handbook, can you tell us us about it?

Trena Little (26:56):
Yeah, so I, it's at least five to six pages long, maybe a little bit longer, but it just walks you through getting your YouTube channel set up and the different things you should be adding so you have that professional look on YouTube, I know many of us are business owners and we wanna have everything look professional and this is a great first step to kind of like check something off the, the list to get that momentum going and it walks through all the things you need to do to get your channel up and running to look professional. So that's at trenalittle.com/handbook.

Andréa Jones (27:26):
Yes. And I'll put that link in the show notes y'all onlinedrea.com/ 2 6 5 and you can check out Trena's YouTube channel, all of her socials, connect with her, let her know that you found her on this podcast. That would be amazing. Trena, thank you so much for being on the show.

Trena Little (27:43):
Of course. Thanks for having me. Love talking with you.

Andréa Jones (27:45):
And thank you dear listener for another episode of the Savvy Social Podcast. Head on up to Apple Podcasts. Give us a five star review, help keep us in the top 100 marketing podcasts. We kind of slipped a little a few months this year. I wanna say that we're in the top 100 every month and I need your support to do that. So thank you for listening to the show. I'll be back here next week with another episode. We'll see you then. Bye for now.