When you think of LinkedIn, you think of this professional network, the one that's used for business. So us as YouTubers who are creating fun, cool, and exciting content on YouTube, is LinkedIn a world we should be investigating? Well, the answer might surprise you. Today we're going to show you how you can use LinkedIn to actually help your YouTube channel. Let's do this.

So can YouTubers use the power of LinkedIn to help them grow their YouTube channel? There's only one person who's amazing at doing this. She is our LinkedIn expert 

The trick to getting YouTube views via LinkedIn

How commenting on other people's posts can bring huge rewards

How to optimize your LinkedIn profile for success

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Why All YouTubers Should be Active on LinkedIn: TubeTalk 200 with Judi Fox: Full Transcript

Judi Fox: I'm excited to be here, thank you for the introduction. That was amazing.

Liron Segev: So let's start at the top. So firstly, who is Judi Fox in a tweet?

Judi Fox: In a tweet? Judi Fox is someone who likes taking complicated topics and making them simple.

Liron Segev: Wow. That is even, I think it's 140 character tweets. Not just a tweet. Well done. That's respected. So, Judi we have content creators, we have YouTubers who are uploading and growing their channel, building up their audience. And we've been hearing about LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn. So let's start, should YouTubers be looking at LinkedIn?

Judi Fox: Hell yes. I will say that even just in the last two months, so we are talking end of 2019, beginning of 2020, YouTube videos in the LinkedIn news feed when you're scrolling, they will play in the news feed and actually not even send you off of the site. So I uploaded a YouTube video about two months ago and got 11,000 views on a YouTube video. I don't think people would be mad about that, right.

Liron Segev: Not at all. And just to be clear, when you say you uploaded a YouTube video, you didn't upload the video natively into LinkedIn, it was uploaded on your channel and you used the link and you basically uploaded the link into LinkedIn.

Judi Fox: Yes, I got views on my YouTube video.

Liron Segev: Okay. But we've been hearing forever that LinkedIn hates YouTube and when you upload a link or you drop a link into your articles or into your post, LinkedIn doesn't really want to bubble that content. So what's happened?

Judi Fox: I agree. I think because all of a sudden they're playing within the newsfeed. You literally stay on LinkedIn and watch that YouTube video. I just did it as an example this morning with a client. I showed them, I said, I'm scrolling, scrolling through the newsfeed, I'm playing my YouTube video, and it didn't open up another browser. It didn't send me. It just played right there in the newsfeed.

Judi Fox: Yes, and I don't think LinkedIn announced it anywhere. I don't know if they're playing around with it. I don't know exactly what happened, but I noticed it and I went, click, something is going on here on LinkedIn that's changed. So, upload your YouTube videos to LinkedIn.

Liron Segev: Okay. Now you've been doing this for a long time. You've seen clients big and small. You've seen people making amazingly wonderful mistakes. Can you share anything, any tips that we should be looking out for, so when we upload our content, like what's the right way? What's the wrong way?

Judi Fox: I think because LinkedIn has been this professional platform, that's the word that everyone puts with it. There's some type of energy. And if you've ever read the book, the Speed of Trust, or any type of business relationship, you think integrity and trust. And all of these leadership and professional words come to mind with LinkedIn.

So there are certain, let's just say decreasing trust activities that people do. So one example is they forget that LinkedIn was first a written and reading platform. The platform is definitely built to still read your content. They will watch your videos.

But what I notice is that, that ‘See More’ button on every single post is probably one of the most trust-building activities you can do. People will be more likely to click see more if you actually provide a story or some type of level up moment, pass that see more button. So that way when they see your content, they'll invest a little bit of time in it. They'll give it a like, eight out of 10 people potentially could even just like it based on the fact that you've built up their trust.

And they're willing to look like they are leveling up their business and their life and their mindset and their leadership by just even surrounding themselves by your content. If you continue to provide content past that ‘See More’ button.

Liron Segev: Okay, so for those who don't know, when you have an article or a post on LinkedIn, it shows you a little preview, the first line or so. And then if your article goes beyond that or your post goes beyond that, it's a see more button that you've got to click on to expand so people can read the rest of your content. Correct?

Judi Fox: Yeah, it's just like when we click the see more button on our YouTube descriptions. It's just like the same button on Facebook. The same thing on Instagram. It tells the platform that people are investing more time into your content when they click that button.

Liron Segev: Okay, so what is a tip that we can take away from this to be more professional? Think written form first?

Judi Fox: Think that you're there to give more past the ‘See More’ button. So it's not necessarily professional. I like using the word leadership type of content. So instead of using the word professional just to describe LinkedIn, I now use the word leadership. And leaders, they make the people following them, not make, but they give and put boundaries and context in so that when people come to them they feel like, oh, a sense of safety or security or yes this person has me and they've got my back.

Whatever your leadership vibe is so you can show up in that way and each time they know what to expect from you. And that's what I believe is truly being consistent. Not necessarily, oh I have to post every Wednesday at 9:00 AM. You could basically post once a month but because you're so consistent you could probably knock it out of the post or out of the park. Do you know what I mean?

Liron Segev: Absolutely. So people expecting information from you, they've built some trust with you, so you're building your authority and your consistency. What else can we be doing to be able to get our content out there that's going to get somebody to say, okay, I like this content? I'm going to actually watch their YouTube videos because now they've embedded in and I know that it's going to add value to me.

Judi Fox: I think anytime that we can show up consistently also for a network of connections. For example, consistently supporting and commenting on your colleagues and your peers is very, very important because if you go out and show that you are supporting others in the same or parallel type of industries or business or content that's out on the platform, we all know that we're not the only voice ever.

And even some of the biggest names that we know, we forget that there are still millions of people who don't know who they are. And I think we just don't realize that we gravitate and we need a diverse set of voices. So for you to actually support content that's out in the world and go and do that on LinkedIn, it actually gets returned to you tenfold.

Liron Segev: But you still got to be authentic. I mean, just going to every content creator out there and giving them a thumbs up and saying “nice post”, that's not a great practice.

Judi Fox: That's not leadership level. That's your equivalent of passing by every cubicle in your corporate office and just being like high five, high five. You want your leader to actually be like, hey, how was your weekend? I know what you were up to this weekend, not in a stalky way, but I know how much you love the Superbowl. I mean, or I know how much you love this sport. What's your golf game like?

You have some relevant conversation with that person, which is the equivalent of showing up on somebody's post and acknowledging, doing active listening skills back to them, acknowledging what they wrote first and then giving your opinion if they asked a question.

Liron Segev: And just generally being a good citizen of the platform, contributing positively, and people will then rise to the top. People will say, oh, okay, I can consistently see this person being really helpful. What are they up to? And then maybe they could go check out your profile.

And on the profile bit, I know it's a discussion we've had many times, are people still making mistakes when they're setting up their LinkedIn profiles?

Judi Fox: Of course, everyone, it's always progress over perfection. So there's never any one who is ever perfect. And I would say, just to wrap up the comment thing, I really want to make this clear, that I've had clients that spend the first two to three weeks of my program, only focused on commenting. And it's grown their reach by 4000%, that I know, that are seeing their content. So I think people don't realize that commenting is shown more in the newsfeed than people realize.

Judi Fox: Yes. I had to put that out there because I've literally had people tell me like, oh my God, it changed my life. Commenting actually changed my entire experience on LinkedIn.

Liron Segev: And I'm glad you stopped to make that point. That is very, very critical.

Judi Fox: One of my favorite recent, I mean it's just in the last week, that one of my clients got Arianna Huffington's attention because she commented on her post and then she reached out and said, I would love for you to write for Thrive. And then she literally, within a week, she now has an article up on Thrive. And it all was from commenting.

Liron Segev: Nice. Okay. Can we get to the profile now?

Judi Fox: Yes. So I definitely think a picture is always worth a thousand words. We have these things in the world for these reasons. So literally LinkedIn is giving you the most amazing banner image at the top, just like you have a YouTube banner and you would really, really find that your YouTube banner really positions you, right?

It can tell your audience when you're uploading in your schedule. It can tell them the value proposition of the content you put out and so they know your niche. The moment they land on your banner, they get your vibe, they get what you're selling or whatever you're promoting, your book.

Same exact thing on LinkedIn. You literally have a banner image and take advantage of it because the moment somebody lands on your profile, it's seven to 10 seconds, just like a resume where we decide we're going to invest more time or we're going to click off.

Liron Segev: It's amazing how very similar that is to YouTube. It's when somebody lands, they see a video that they like. They will then naturally click on your name to see what your channel is all about and the first thing they see is that banner. And so many people are still undervaluing the power of that visual imagery to instantly connect with an audience to say, hey, this is what I'm all about. Are you here for those? Great. If you're not, move on. LinkedIn is the same.

Judi Fox: It's a free billboard, driving down the internet highway and it's being laid out right there for you. So take advantage of that. I call it optimizing the above the fold. So anything that you have to now scroll down to, just focus on everything. If you only have an hour or two to update your above the fold section.

At a minimum, what I tell people what will convert is kind of turning it into a little bit of a business card, not being over the top business card. But at a minimum, put your tagline if you have one. Put your company logo and your website and a message me for more information or something that has some type of call to action. Something that tells people to connect and message you and something with your website.

Liron Segev: So the banner itself, should we update it kind of quarterly? Should we update it every six months? Once a year? What do you think is a good practice?

Judi Fox: We should update it about once a year, especially if you're not having any major changes in your business or your branding or what you're working on and promoting. You would update it about once a year on average.

Liron Segev: And then would you advise that your banner on YouTube be the same banner on LinkedIn so people have that association between the two?

Judi Fox: I definitely think it's nice to have similar elements. If it makes sense to make them work, then I would do it. But I think there are certain things about the YouTube banner that I've seen that you may not necessarily translate over to LinkedIn. For example, if you have a schedule on YouTube and you're uploading a certain schedule, that wouldn't make sense in your LinkedIn banner.

Liron Segev: Okay, great point. Can every niche be on LinkedIn? Are there some niches that literally should not be on LinkedIn?

Judi Fox: I don't know of a niche right now that shouldn't be on LinkedIn unless there's something inappropriate. We forget that a person at work also needs things that may be relevant outside of work. So I think people just forget. There's an artist that I know that when she posts a painting because she's showing a time-lapse of her painting and she's doing all kinds of really cool video tricks, I guess, editing. She is really exploding. I mean I notice every video she puts up, it's like a 100,000, 200,000 views.

We are so forgetful that we are not one-dimensional creatures ever. And not our title.

Liron Segev: So again, LinkedIn has changed and the way we looked at LinkedIn has changed where we used to say, okay let's upload maybe a shorter clip, lots of text on the image because people are going to watch it without sound and then direct them to watch the rest on YouTube. Is that still a thing?

Judi Fox: My video was 10 minutes long and lives on YouTube and drove traffic. And my results were people were watching the entire video. I just feel like it's more about telling people exactly what's in that video versus forcing them to invest time into a video.

They're building trust with you when you literally say here's basically what's in this video. But you can also watch it. And so what ended up happening is people were willing to read that and hear and see, okay, that's what's in the video. Yeah, I'll spend some time watching that. And we forget that the LinkedIn platform will do that.

Liron Segev: Okay. So we got to kind of look at LinkedIn slightly different than we used to in the past. And I think that's a big thing, where somebody might've experimented with LinkedIn a year ago, six months ago.

Liron Segev: It changes so quickly and maybe they didn't get the results they were looking for and they've written off the entire platform saying it's not for me. Can we come back to this? Because one thing I've been hearing again and again on LinkedIn is that LinkedIn doesn't like you if you post just links. If you're going to continue down this path, well it's you basically telling LinkedIn you don't have good content.

Judi Fox: You do have to, and that's why I have a strategy for, a commenting strategy, and an engagement type of strategy because many people have, let's just say, burned out their social capital by spamming the platform to be honest and not really actually being there for the content. They're not there for other people. They just show up, post, just numbers after numbers like you just said. Basically I call that the ‘talking at us’ energy. They're just shouting at us. Pay attention to me, pay attention to me. I'm posting, I'm posting!

The moment you flip over, the harder it is for people to see you because you have been spamming the platform. I do tell people to spend one to two, maybe even three weeks where you just basically spam the platform with comments. And I do say it's spam, but it's not.

If you're going to flip the conversation, just go out and become a comment master and just blow up with comments. And what ends up happening is people literally are like, whoa, where did this person come from? I am so glad they're here. I never saw them before or, I mean I was just looking not to put somebody on the spot, but I was looking at Jay Shetty's content. And I was surprised he has maybe, I can't remember how many followers, but he has a crap ton, whatever a crap ton is.

Judi Fox: Yeah, that's a technical term. But I'm kind of putting him on the spot. But I think that's a good example of somebody who is posting and has not earned it if that makes sense. So right now he's not getting a lot of likes and comments, maybe like two comments per post.

Liron Segev: So basically you've burnt your whole social capital. That's quite a good way of looking at it.

Judi Fox: Yeah. I mean obviously we know Jay Shetty and we know his voice and we know him on Facebook. But LinkedIn doesn't quite know him. And so you have to spend just even a couple of weeks to build up that social capital for people to go, oh, I recognize you. Yes, it can come back. So shout out to Jay. I feel bad. I just put him on the spot and he didn't even know it.

Liron Segev: It's okay. But, it's positive advice, which is why we here. We all want to grow, we all want to do better. And this is why we do these things.

Judi Fox: Well and sometimes we forget and we think I've seen the talk that says only if you're a big name, only if you're this, only if you're that kind of will you get attention on LinkedIn. And I say that's bollocks or whatever you want to call it. But the reason I'm putting him on the spot is he is a big name, he has a crap ton of followers, as a technical term. And he is only getting like two comments.

So we have to remember LinkedIn is another language on a different planet. And if you don't speak the language, the planet doesn't know you're there.

Liron Segev: Or it doesn't understand you, therefore doesn't know how to help you, essentially.

Liron Segev: So as we, thinking of wrapping up, and I'm now fired up, I've got my YouTube channel. I'm thinking, okay LinkedIn, I've got to definitely give that a shot. Do I start at fixing my profile first because that's what my attention is going to be when somebody discovers me? Or do I start with commenting first? What's my first step today when I'm ready to hit this platform?

Judi Fox: Yay. I say do the above the fold on your profile. So don't worry about all the features below and you have to scroll down. Just work on what I called the, obviously the banner, and then make sure your profile image, we want to be able to see your face and your eyes.

Sometimes people will give too much of their upper torso but it depends. If you are a dancer, maybe you do want to do something and show that you're like a ballerina. But for the most part, we want to connect with a face and know that you're a real person.

So even having like shades or sunglasses can actually be a deterrent to people connecting, liking and commenting. So just be aware of that. And then like I said, spend one to two hours max on your profile because as you like and comment and engage on the platform, because I truly think if you spend, don't think about your own posts, don't even try to make a post. Just comment for the first two to three weeks to gain that traction. And then when you make a post there will be an audience in your auditorium versus an empty auditorium.

Liron Segev: So above the fold, basically your banner, your picture, maybe your title. Those still count because it's the first thing people see?

Judi Fox: Yes. I think of your title but not so much of a business title, but more keywords for being found in search. I think at some point I've hit 5,000 views of people searching and finding and then clicking on my profile per week.

You want to optimize because I've taken people from only getting 10 or 20 views on their search per week to thousands. It can work.

Liron Segev: A lot of people still see the title as your job title. So say I am the Director of Marketing, it's actually a term heavily used in search, heavily influenced by search. So you should use that as an opportunity to get some of those eyeballs.

Judi Fox: Yeah, just put some keywords. I mean if you notice, there are certain people who kind of pack it with keywords like podcast, youtube, video. And they put these keywords in there and it's for a reason.

It's like being found on the first page of Google search. That's where people will find you in that area, and also in your job title down below. So don't worry about that one right now, but above the fold, make sure you have that. And then if you look at my profile, I have highlighted a video that I was on with video influencers with Benji Travis.

And I drove traffic to that video by highlighting it as a YouTube video right there in my profile. So just look and see that I have what's called a link to a media file. That's a great place to put your videos. I know Tim Schmoyer has put a lot of his videos there. I'm sure, if I think off the top of my head of other YouTubers who are, Roberto Blake has probably done that. I think Sean Cannell.

Liron Segev: That's actually a great little tip to end off on. It’s watching what everybody else is doing in your industry. If these big-name YouTubers are doing certain things, they do it for a specific reason. Maybe they've done the research. Maybe they've already got some strategy that they're trying to do. For you to emulate that is very, very possible. It's all exposed. It's all out there for you to see.

Judi Fox: Yeah, and Roberto Blake, for example, was a great example when I looked at him saying like, I'm a video creator for YouTube. So he put that as his experience, which actually positions him for being one of the top search results when you type in YouTube, on LinkedIn.

So I mean he's definitely nailing that and he's a great example to go check out his profile. He actually said he updated it based on my advice. Shout out to Roberto. He's awesome.

Liron Segev: Love it. So as we're ending, any final bits of advice or something that you want people to know about LinkedIn, being a YouTuber, what should they be afraid of? Or shouldn't they be afraid? Any pearls of wisdom that you can say, okay, if we can do one thing I just want you to take away this? What is this?

Judi Fox: I want you to take away that it is a platform where people really do want to spend time communicating back and forth with each other. So it's a conversation. So if you do upload your YouTube video and you post it there and then people give you likes and comments, be reciprocal. So comment back, like back, go check out their posts, like and comment as you can because that reciprocal nature will be returned tenfold the next time you post.

Liron Segev: Love it. Now Judi, so much information and you have so much more to give. So if people want to connect with you, they want to find out what you're up to, what you have going on, where can we do that?

. I still have room in my connections. We max out on LinkedIn at 30,000 connections.

Liron Segev: I'm surprised you have room. I'm surprised.

Being active on LinkedIn is a strategy that all YouTubers should be using to grow their community and fanbase. We tell you why in this week's episode of our TubeTalk podcast.

Why All YouTubers Should be Active on LinkedIn: TubeTalk 200 with Judi Fox

If you're a YouTube content creator do you ever stop? Are you always thinking about the next video even before you've stopped thinking about the last one? Do you ever stop thinking about YouTube?

Phew! All this thinking (amongst all the actual YouTubing) can be exhausting.

We are always thinking and analyzing and at some point, we just can't seem to find our flow again. Every video is a struggle to create. The spark is diminishing. This is burnout.

YouTube burnout, mental burnout of any description, is a part of mental awareness that continues to make headlines as our digital worlds become ever more omnipresent.

Even YouTube's biggest star can struggle with 'switching off'?

"I'm taking a break from YouTube next year. I wanted to say it in advance because I made up my mind. I'm tired. I'm feeling very tired. I don't know if you can tell." - Felix Kjellberg (PewDiePie)

So on today's episode of TubeTalk let's unpack those questions with someone who provides a sounding board to those who feel the daily pressures of content creation. That man is 

, the first-ever life coach dedicated to creators.

What is the definition of creator burnout

Why the YouTube platform is a breeding ground for burnout

Why are creators much more susceptible to burnout

How To Beat Burnout as a Content Creator: Full Transcript

Josh Zimmerman:	Thank you. Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

Liron Segev:	Josh, let's talk about beginning Creator Coach, that sounds extremely, extremely specific. Give us the tweetable version. What is Creator Coach? What do you do?

Josh Zimmerman:	Wow. Tweetable version, is that 240 characters? I have a little bit more. Creator Coach is all about helping creators in their life as well as in, specifically burnout and helping them really move from point A to point B and see what's getting in the way.

One of the things that I realized when I had a lot of creators coming to me back in 2017, 2016 about burnout and reading all the articles was that everyone was talking about it and no one was doing anything about it. I didn't see anyone out there really addressing the issue and so I decided I was going to.

Liron Segev:	Okay, well, you hit the nail right on the head right at the get-go, which is burnout. We hear that word constantly. We hear it in the news, on social media feeds, when we speak to fellow creators at events. Let's just define what is burnout.

Josh Zimmerman:	Burnout is starting to become very common in every single circle but we're hearing it more and more with creators of all types. Really what that means, and it means a lot of different things to different people but really the baseline is that you just do not have any more energy or will to move forward with creating content.

Liron Segev:	Do you find these different levels of burnout could be: I'm a little bit burnt out? Can I be a lot burnt out?

Josh Zimmerman: Absolutely. I came up with a burnout timeline, right? There's four stages that we can really identify, which is preventative. That's really like, again, the baseline where you're managing stress and avoiding the symptoms of burnout. The next bucket is onset, right, where the stress and other factors begin to increase pressure and the symptoms of burnout.

Then we really quickly move to what I call the death spiral, which is where you really circum to the pressures that begis to alter the path, and you question directions and encounter more stress. That doesn't stop, because there are no boundaries in a lot of places.

A lot of creators don't have a lot of boundaries because that's what you do, you create. There are no boundaries to your creativity. When things start to spiral out of control, it's really hard to find something to grasp onto.

Once you're down that spiral, the next one is the most unfortunate which is the flat line. If you think of the EKG, you have flat lined and that is you've lost all ability to create due to the numerous and previous factors that I talked about. Burnout is a key factor in the lives of almost every creator.

Everybody is on this timeline somewhere right now. My job is to help them move through those timelines or those different timelines and hopefully bring them to somewhere where they start to notice those symptoms and be able to address those before things start to go downhill quicker.

Liron Segev:	Before we get to the flatline

Liron Segev:	As creators, we're always on, we don't take a break. We're always thinking of the next content. We're thinking of this thing called the algorithm. We're constantly always on this hamster wheel of constantly, constantly being on.

I mean, it's not like you go to work, you do your shift, you go home and then you're done. This creator life almost follows you wherever you go. Are there any specific causes that you know that causes us to start saying, okay, I'm starting to hit the first stage of burnout?

Josh Zimmerman:	Well, what you just said is exactly correct. I would take it a little bit of a step further. What a lot of people don't understand is that being a creator, just like you said, it's not a job where you get to, you know, at five o'clock, six o'clock, seven o'clock you get to turn the lights off and go home.

The thing that people really don't understand outside of the industry and even inside the industry is that you don't turn off, because what you're putting out there, even if it is just a sliver of your life, that's you. That is you are always on.

There is nothing that is sustainable when you are constantly on. You just can't turn it off, especially when it is a part of you that you are putting out into the world at such an intimate level. One of the first things is to be aware of that.

If you're tired and if you start to stress, which this job is extremely stressful, and you start to lose motivation, that's when it's good to take a step back and to say, okay, what's going on? What am I feeling? What is happening that is causing me to not want to do what I normally do or lose enjoyment in that?

Liron Segev:	Right. Well, I think that's an important point. One of the first question I always say is, are you passionate enough about the subject or are you doing it for the views? There's a big distinction between the two.

Because those who love what they do and they can wake up every morning cannot wait to get in front of that camera or cannot wait to write that blog post or post those pictures, those are the people who've got the right mindset coming in and, probably, longevity versus the people who are living to the algorithm. What are people into today? I'll make those videos today. I'm going to try build up my channel based on a trend because then you're on a very fast pace to that burnout.

Josh Zimmerman:	It's an ego thing, right? It makes you feel good. The bigger you get, the more numb you become to them but those numbers do equal your income. I highly encourage everyone to also branch out and diversify your income just in case something turns with the system. I'm using big air quotes, "algorithm."

Liron Segev: Not in case, because it will change.

Josh Zimmerman: It will change. Right. I know someone who went from making $50,000 a month to five overnight. That's going to shake you to your core. Anyone that is chasing views, you know, I haven't really worked with anybody who is... I wouldn't advise anybody to ever start a channel just to chase views.

The people that I work with, and the creators that have huge success are people who are creative at their core and ended up starting on YouTube just because it was an outlet. It wasn't to get famous. If you are out there and you are trying to do that, there's other ways to do that.

Liron Segev:	People do fall victim to those vanity metrics at a point.

Josh Zimmerman:	All the time. 100% and they are corrosive because of the fact that it is these numbers that... Here's the big thing, people forget that those numbers are actual people.

Liron Segev:	Yes, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely.

Josh Zimmerman: Right? When you take a step back or you lean in and you look at, you know, somebody says, I only got 40,000 views on this video. I go, okay, well, do you know how many people Madison Square Garden holds? They'd be 50, 60, 70,000. I said, try 24. I believe 24, 25,000 people.

I go, how long did it take you to get those 30,000 views? Well, it took me a day or two. You're up there at the top of selling out Madison Square Garden. You've surpassed most celebrities that have events at Madison Square Garden.

Liron Segev: Completely, on that point, on the subscriber numbers as well. I often see in our chats where people say, I only have 300 subscribers. I only have a thousand subscribers. I say to them, great, if a thousand people were coming for dinner tonight, is that a lot or a little?

When you start making it real and we tell them that when we speak on stages in front of a thousand people is considered a big stage, it becomes real because those are eyeballs. Those belong to people. It's not a number, it's a person.

Josh Zimmerman:	Right. That's the thing that makes this journey really difficult because a lot of the time when you start to really grow, there is a wall that goes up of everybody wants access to me.

Being a creator can sometimes be pretty lonely because you're just staring into a camera. What people don't understand is on the other side, what we call is breaking the fourth wall, you're looking right into the camera. That person, that viewer, that fan that is watching you is having a one-on-one dialogue with you. You have somebody who is creating content on their own and there's a lot of eyeballs. It's an isolated life.

Then when you go out into the real world, you're bombarded with all these people. That's a shock to the system as well. Going back to your point, what I encourage everybody to do, anyone who says about subscribers, it only takes one. It only takes one.

I can't illustrate that better than, you know, in 2014 I was at YouTube Nation, which was the official daily show of YouTube. When that came to an end and people were, you know, our fans were really upset. I read a comment and I didn't read comments a lot on the videos, but one of them was from this little girl who said, this was a daily show. She said, I don't know what I'm going to do every day when I go to get chemo. That knocked me over.

Josh Zimmerman: I've never forgotten that to this day. That's the power of somebody making a comment or watching you, you as a creator or as a other viewer have no idea how much you are helping people that are watching your content.

Liron Segev:	It's funny how those comments stick with you. There's a person that I interviewed a little while ago, Joe Scott. He's got this amazing science and question channel. His story is very much the same where he made videos and he stopped for a while, and then when he made his new video, he said, I'll never forget it. It was mister electric popsicle, something like that, some username that he knows.

He said, "Where have you been, man? I've been waiting for you." He said from that day onwards he made every single video for that user. That's how he had it in mind because he made that connection because at the end of the day, it's a person watching your content.

Then, once we have that amount of stress on top of us having to deal with brands, and having to deal with monetization and algorithm changes, and thumbnails and titles and, and, and, and, and... that stress becomes ridiculously compounded and compounded and we do not take a break. Is that one of the causes of burnout?

Josh Zimmerman:	Yes, but there's another big piece of it and it's actually chemical related. When you're stressed, adrenaline is released. You only have so much adrenaline in your system. When that happens and you run out of adrenaline, it sort of taps out. It's like we don't have any more and the chemical that replaces it is cortisol.

Cortisol is the chemical that induces fight or flight or freeze. When that happens, blood rushes from your extremities and goes to those core organs that you need to survive. What it also does is it usually goes to the right side of the brain. I mean, it goes all over, but the right side of the brain is the creative side.

The first thing that it does is it kills creativity because that's not something you need to survive. You need to know how to climb a tree if a bear is chasing you. This is what's happening. You get stressed, your adrenals are empty, your cortisol is in there and is literally blocking you.

The chemicals are literally blocking those neurotransmitters from being able to have you create. Now you stress even more because you can't come up with any ideas. More cortisol is released. You can't think of any more ideas. You get more and more frustrated and you start spending so much energy trying to take one step and you're putting even more stuff in front of you that's blocking you from taking that first step.

That's when burnout happens because you have no more energy left because there are actual chemicals in your brain that are stopping you from being creative.

Liron Segev:	Almost becomes that deer in the headlights situation where you just don't know what to do next.

Josh Zimmerman: Because you can't move forward. My job is to help bring those cortisol levels down, help with relaxation which also distresses and flushes that cortisol out, which then allows those neurotransmitters to start sparking again. That's one of the biggest things that people are not aware of is that, and what feeds into all of that is not having boundaries and not having some kind of structure because the creative life, the creator life is really structureless.

Josh Zimmerman: I say that with a big asterisk because you do have, there's different things that you need to do. Listen, when there's a TV show, when there's a movie, anything else in entertainment, there's something called the hiatus. It's when you go on break.

The industry has built that in on the entertainment side, on the traditional side, because you can't be running all the time. If you can, you just need a huge crew to be able to do that. The other piece is that everybody on set knows that they have a specific job and they know what they're supposed to do, and when they're done, and when they get paid.

There is still creativity and there's still burnout in there, but if you are the star of a show, you know you show up to set at 6:00 AM, here are your lines. Hair and makeup is coming in. You can go get some food now. From this time to this is a call sheet. This time you're going to be doing this scene, this scene. It may be a extremely long day that you may burn out and run out of energy, but there's a structure to it. Our industry doesn't have that.

Liron Segev:	At all, and especially since a lot of us are... You know, we're rowing our own boat in the sea of YouTube and it's a lonely world. In front of the camera, usually from a little home studio, a little home office, sometimes even in the bedroom. There really isn't a separation of church and state. There isn't a separation of here's my work. I'm now physically leaving to go to my personal life.

Josh Zimmerman: Correct. You're operating in a vacuum. My job is to snap both of those ends of that... If you think of a vacuum, like a little glass tube and you're in there, my job was to snap both ends and to bring some oxygen in there for you to be able to look around and realize that there are things going on that you didn't even know were happening.

We can all talk about it with each other but until we get to the bottom of it and actually move into it and figure out what's going on, nothing's going to happen to move forward.

Liron Segev: Okay. Are there any warning signs that I should be looking out for to say, whoa, it's time to get off for a little bit. Take a little bit of a break?

Josh Zimmerman: It really is, and there is a worry of, well, I have to put this out. I have to get this out. As soon as, and that's normal but as soon as you start to lose that spark. You start to feel that candle light starting to dim a little bit, that's when red flags should be going off.

Everyone knows when that's happening. It's just whether you choose to be aware of it or not. Those signs are not wanting to upload, stressed, always being sick, not feeling motivated, not enjoying what you're doing. It's not that hard to figure it out, but it's really hard to do yourself.

*Liron Segev: Well, if I do want to take a break, how will my audience react? How will the algorithm react? Can I rebound from that? You get horror stories of people taking a break and never been able to rebound. On the other side, you hear people saying, I've took a three week break and it was the best thing I could ever have done for myself. Is burnout almost inevitable for everyone at some stage? *

Josh Zimmerman: Yes. Yes. All of those factors that you just talked about that you are experiencing are all little warning signs to examine it because none of those have boundaries on them.

Liron Segev:	The highs and the lows are quick. You're going to have an amazing video, it's going to get great reviews, lots of comments, lots of subscribers, lots of engagement. You're so pumped.

*You're going to make your next one. If the next one doesn't perform, you say, okay, maybe it's a glitch. Maybe it's the algorithm. Make another one. If that one, God forbid, tanks, this is it, I'm giving up. *

I don't know what I'm doing. Is the highs and lows that steep, which is maybe pushing a lot of us? Do you watch those metrics so carefully?*__

Josh Zimmerman: Yeah, because they're reflection on you.

Liron Segev: Okay. I like it. I think too many people, too many creators don't see themselves as a brand. They see themselves personally as a person all the time.

Josh Zimmerman: Which they should, and it's totally understandable, but there needs to be some perspective. You need to be talking to somebody that says, wait a second. What's really going on here? Some people don't want to admit it, and some people... That may not be the case.

Again, the reason I love what I do is that there is no right answer to every single question because everyone is individual. Just like every channel is individual because it's coming from a somebody. They are an individual. The solutions are really tailored to that person.

The most important thing though is that everybody, every single creator that I've ever talked to, I really don't like using the word creator even though that's... It feels like we're looking at a zoo. Every single person that is in the YouTube or digital world feels like they are the only ones that have this problem.

Even though they talk to all, they have a lot of friends or this or that. When it's one-on-one with me, it usually comes up as I'm the only one that has this problem, Josh. I'm like, wow, actually no, you're not. Those are those kind of aha moments where you don't feel so alone anymore because this is a very, very lonely job.

There's a lot of ups and downs, but it is for the most part, a lot of people have no idea. Your fans have no idea how long it's going to take you to produce this podcast.

PewDiePie recently announced he is taking a break from YouTube because he is, "feeling very tired". Are you? On this week's episode of TubeTalk, we explore mental health around content creation, the dangerous of burnout and how to avoid it.

How To Beat Burnout as a Content Creator: TubeTalk 192 with Josh Zimmerman

Finding success on YouTube can be very, very difficult and exceptionally frustrating. But when you consult with hundreds, if not thousands, of YouTube channels, you tend to pick up some patterns of channels that are set up for success and what they did right to get there.

On today's episode of TubeTalk, we dive into three levels of YouTube success with 

. Sean doesn't just simply have one YouTube channel; he has 

 with 830,000 subscribers, and you know what? Just for fun, throw in his 

 with about 100,000 subscribers. He also coauthored one of my favorite YouTube books, which is 

. He has years of experience, lots of consulting, and lots of brand experience. In this podcast you will learn:

Why the best time to start a YouTube channel is right now

Why the first law of YouTube success is research before you press record!

Why ranking your video content is crucial to success

Liron Segev: Sean, thank you for being here on TubeTalk

Sean Cannell:	Man, after that introduction, I don't even know who you're talking about. I'm tired after that introduction. That sounds exhausting.

Liron Segev:	I do not know how you do it, and on top of which, you have an event that you run. Sean, what's got you ridiculously excited about this YouTube world that you're in?

Sean Cannell:	You know, I don't think my excitement for YouTube has changed ever since I first discovered its power and its potential. I am empathetic to the fact that there's demonetization and whole channels dealing with, whether it's copyright issues or the community guidelines shifting, but all that to say, I think it's important we never forget that YouTube is a free platform that I know I didn't create the internet, I didn't create YouTube, and yet, it's changed so many of our lives. It's changed my life and people listening right now. I just have immense gratitude.

I know Susan (Wojcicki) didn't start the company, but if I ever see her, I want to hug her and give her flowers as well as the whole team because YouTube is just this amazing place. It's not problem-free, but it has so much potential, and that potential still exists at such a major level right now.

Liron Segev:	Let's rewind the clock a little. Tell me about the time you decided that look, YouTube is for you. What happened? What were you doing at the time when you saw this amazing potential?

Sean Cannell:	Well, I'll go just a few clicks before that. That was when I got into video. I started video in 2003 just because I was volunteering at my local youth group in my small town, Marysville, Washington, an hour north of Seattle. I picked up a video camera and Adobe Premiere and I started making these weekly video announcements. They were terrible. We always say your first videos are your worst videos. I know every creator can relate to that, but think about what a blessing it was that I was actually putting out these videos that were playing Wednesday night at youth group, and they weren't even posted online yet. I was cutting my teeth. I was getting through that season of suck. I sometimes say, as I walk through the season of suck, I will fear no evil because you kind of go through the season of suck.

I got started in video, and then fast-forward a couple of years, the first YouTube channel I actually worked on was my church's. Now, this is actually shocking because churches are usually years behind, sometimes a decade behind, but yet, for whatever reason, in our small town, our pastor was pretty progressive. Twitter came out, YouTube came out in 2005, but he wanted to start a channel. So in 2007, I'm uploading videos. There's 15-minutes time limits, so we're turning everything into two and three-parts and trying to figure out thumbnails and titles and all that stuff. I didn't know anything, but think about how early that was.

So by 2009, I started a business called Clear Vision Media, and started helping businesses build websites. I did video production for them. Started working with authors and speakers. In fact, that's when I met Benji Travis, the co-author of YouTube Secrets, at the YMCA in our small town. We started to connect. He said, "Hey, my wife's this famous ..." Famous? He's like, "My wife's got like 150,000 YouTube subscribers." I was like, "You're a liar." I didn't say that, but I'm thinking it. Not in our small town. What are you saying, bro? But then I went home. I was like, "What the heck?"

Early on, we actually worked together. I was a videographer for them and doing video production way back in 2009, 2010. That's how I kind of got into YouTube. All the way in 2007, once I started watching some of the early YouTubers, Julian Smith ... Come on, remember the Malk video? Some of that stuff. Early guys. I was so excited about the platform. I didn't know what I was going to do or what the future held specifically; I just knew, man, I see something happening here. I am passionate about it. This seems so powerful.

And now years later, that has come true. That's not just financial or business. I mean, friendships, relationships. Our relationship, us being at events together.

Liron Segev:	And it's international. Go to sleep at night here in the States, and wake up in the morning, and there's 100 comments on your videos from people who've just woken up on the other side of the globe, loving your content, want to engage with you, felt the need to leave a comment on your video. Are you finding that today people starting out have it much easier or is it maybe just very different today to when you got started?

Sean Cannell:	My answer here is kind of unique. I think it's equal and here's why: I think that, for me of course, I had the early adopter advantage because I got into YouTube years ago, but I also had a lot of disadvantages. There wasn't channels like Video Influencers or Think Media, so we were completely just trying to figure it out - testing, experimenting, wandering through the desert, making mistakes, trying to figure it all out.

And on top of that, even the technology was significantly harder. Now we're talking dual pixel auto focus, tap your face, all these things that are so much ... I mean, people trip these days. They're like, "I can't believe the camera doesn't have IBIS. I can't believe it doesn't even have auto-focus." I'm like, "Bro, that's new. Those things are just a few years old." We had to manually focus our cameras and guess what? Just take the extra time to do it.

I think that it's equal because while being an early adopter is easy with less competition or easier, there's still so much to learn. Now you flip it, you can learn faster, you can skip whole skillsets. Editing is speeding up. Even the production, renders, exports, all of that's speeding up. You've got better information, you've got proven roadmaps from people that have gone there and can help you get there further faster, but you do have increased competition. Of course, every day competition is more increasing.

I think it comes down to this: it doesn't matter. Is it too late? Can I still break through? Is the weather perfect right now? It just never will be perfect.

The best time to start a YouTube channel was in 2005. The second best time is right now.

Liron Segev:	People just need to do it because so many people who are stuck in this cycle of research, analysis paralysis. I'm going to watch another video. I'm going to take another course. I'm going to download another PDF. The best way to do it is to do it. You want to share a message? Just share the message. Simple as that. Do you find some common denominators amongst all the people that you speak to, the people that you consult with, which almost are like the laws of success of YouTube?

Sean Cannell:	Yeah. I actually have a training called the Three Irrefutable Laws of YouTube Success. A caveat here is that my point of view and who I help the most are teachers, coaches, consultants, people with a message, people that want to leverage YouTube to probably drive some kind of business result, and also impact people. While that can blur into kind of your new school creator, the way I summarize it is I help business-minded content creators.

These laws are also based on the fact that YouTube is a search engine. Now, I'm aware—I think that actually everybody can leverage that fact at different points in their YouTube career, different videos that they upload, but it's not maybe as relevant for peer entertainment channels or things like that.

Did you know there are three main laws of YouTube success? Find our what they are in this week's TubeTalk podcast with special guest Sean Cannell.

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