Ask any YouTuber and they will tell you that generating significant views and subscribers isn't easy. But with the right strategy and tools, any video creator can build an engaged subscriber base when they understand what those subscribers want to watch.

Appealing to an audience to watch content you are passionate about making is just the first step, you need to know how to reach them and get your videos discovered. Our guides to how to guide more views on YouTube will give you the best tips to succeed on the platform.

Getting Views

How To Get More Views on YouTube

Getting thousands or even millions of YouTube subscribers is a dream for most creators. In the articles below, we'll show you how to turn casual viewers into long-term fans. 

Subscribers

YouTube Subscribers

Do you want to make money on YouTube? Millions of creators are earning a very good living from monetizing the platform and uploading content that drives huge views and engagements. Whether that YouTube income is from advertising revenue, merchandise sales, or brand deals, or subscriptions, we keep you updated with best practices and ideas.

Monetization

How To Make Money on YouTube

Want to see how your channel is performing? Read these YouTube analytics articles to discover what's working and what isn't. You'll learn how to identify which videos have the most Watch Time, clicks, audience retention, revenue, and more.

Analytics

YouTube Analytics

Watch Time is arguably THE most important metric on YouTube right now, and creators won’t be able to monetize their content without 4000 hours of it. But what is it and how can creators increase the amount of Watch Time their videos attract? We keep you updated on the best practices around Watch Time, and how you can increase how much your video content generates.

Watch Time

YouTube Watch Time

YouTube Shorts content is set to explode! 

All the latest tips, tricks, and rock-solid advice you need for this new feature.

YouTube Shorts

Do you know how to do keyword research so you understand what videos people are actually searching for on YouTube? Do you know how to create a custom YouTube thumbnail? Do you know how to create a Playlist on YouTube?

vidIQ has a ton of tips that will help every creator maximise their video content. We publish content every week to keep you up to date with all the best practices.

Tips & Tricks

YouTube Tips & Tricks

At vidIQ we have incredible insights into what viewers are searching for on YouTube. Not only can we confirm the top keywords being searched for, we can also show you how you can leverage that interest to create content around trending topics and tentpole events. That's going to give you a clear edge over other creators!

Insights

YouTube Insights

Your In-Depth Guide to Building a Successful YouTube Channel

Today, we're celebrating 10 creators who hit 

 in just 30 days! Their channels, many of which grew from super small to breathtakingly big, cover interesting topics on YouTube, like gaming, tutorials, travel, and so much more. Plus, they managed to reel in 

As always, we define the vidIQ community as anyone using our growth tools to reach YouTube success. So if you've 

 to optimize your videos, find keywords, or even get video ideas, this roundup is for you. We're celebrating 

Ready to see who got the most subscribers? These were the fastest-growing YouTube channels last month.

Top Channels Passing 1,000 Subscribers in the Last 30 Days

 creates videos on all kinds of animals from the wild to the domesticated.

 explores travel destinations across the world with AI content.

 makes creative content based on the racing and obstacles game Teardown.

 shares financial advice, from budgeting to saving to making more money.

 provides information on headphones and auditory equipment.

 provides quick fixes and simplified technical tutorials.

 talks about lifestyle of popular models and actresses with the help of AI.

Infinity Tutorial provides several tips on android and windows devices.

Congrats to everyone who had amazing subscriber growth last month! 🥳 If you want to see your channel grow, don't forget to 

 and get robust tools, data, and video ideas.

Which small YouTube channels grew the fastest in July? Get to know 10 rising creators who make videos about money, nutrition, the latest trends, and more.

10 Small YouTube Channels that Hit 1,000 Subs FAST [July]

To be successful in YouTube in any niche, you have to have discipline, you have to have the commitment, and you have to have the vision. Today's guest has those in spades, and it's no wonder some of the world's biggest brands want to work with him. Let's dive in and get in behind the scenes and see what we can learn for our YouTube channel.

On this week’s episode of TubeTalk I’m joined by Dave Maze of 

, the go-to YouTube channel for anything to do with cameras, reviews, tips and tricks. In this podcast you will learn:

Why it's never too late to start a YouTube channel

Why being a single brand ambassador might harm you in the long run

How a running list of content ideas will keep you productive

How to find a balance between creativity and analytics

Subscribe to TubeTalk: The Video Marketing Podcast!

TubeTalk has been informing video creators and marketers since 2014, and is one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode! You can find vidIQ's TubeTalk at:

How to Grow a YouTube Channel: A Creator Story: Full Transcript

Liron Segev: Dave, thanks for hanging out with us. I've got to start by telling you, I have seen your content grow. I've seen your content mature. What took so long to get onto YouTube? Do you think by waiting, you actually have an advantage when you did switch over to YouTube?

Dave Maze:	Some of that maturity, like over those 10 years before I became a YouTuber, has all helped me now. If I just started straight out of high school from being a magician to figuring out how to be a filmmaker, like I don't know, part of me is like I should've started earlier, but then the other side is like, there's a lot of maturity that happened.

To answer your question, I think anybody can start where they are, if they have the awareness of, "I want to be a YouTuber." I just never thought YouTube was anything. I just saw Ryan Connolly on Film Riot and I was like, that's awesome that he's doing that. I don't really care to do that. I just want to be a filmmaker. You mentioned that everybody brings up Casey Neistat, but I think he really, for a lot of filmmakers, changed our perspective on YouTube, because now we have people like Levi Allen, obviously Peter McKinnon, Matti Haapoja now. These are real freelance, DPs, directors who traditionally, 20 years ago, probably would have done commercials, maybe music videos and films, and because Casey's showing us as a filmmaker, I can be a YouTuber, it's okay.

By the way, you can actually make a good living doing it. You can actually do what you want to do. Just lower the production value a little bit. We've seen a big kind of influx of filmmakers transitioning over to being YouTubers.

Liron Segev:	Again, you don't have to be perfect. People have got lots of forgiveness on YouTube, and they want to see the raw element of this and they want to see the bloopers and they want to see that not everything is perfect. If you're living in a van in the middle of the desert and people come out with full makeup, you know they haven't showered in three days, you know it's fake and people don't respond. They don't respond to that. They respond to someone being real. Being real, I think, is a big, big thing on YouTube. Do you believe that's an important kind of element of finding your space in this world?

Dave Maze:	I think so. I worked for a guy named Dave Ramsey. That was my corporate job that I had. If you're not familiar with Dave Ramsey, millions of people listen to his radio show. He teaches people how to get out of debt and stuff like this, but there's actually some polarizing things that he believes in his messaging that a lot of people sometimes agree with, sometimes disagree with, but he doesn't care. He sticks to his opinion. When I started doing these tech reviews, I saw some people being a little wishy-washy, being maybe manipulated by, I want to please this brand, or whatever.

It was actually a guy named Caleb Pike, DSLR video shooter, who told me "I don't work for the camera companies. I will not receive anything from them. I am working for my audience. That's who matters. It's not Canon or Sony or Nikon.” Sure, I can be friendly with the employees, I don't want to be a jerk, but I'm not here to please them. I'm here to give my opinion and have a true opinion and stick to it and give that to my audience," because that's first off, people are attracted to people with an opinion whether they agree or disagree.

It doesn't matter because if you disagree, you're going to let me know in the comments, which boosts my engagement. If they agree, they become a fan, right? That's kind of the big realization I had was I need to have an opinion on something, stick to it and not be a jerk about it. But that will gather a niche following of people who agree with me, but then also people who disagree. They can comment if they want and leave a dislike. There's always dislikes, like no matter what. I post a video and then in five minutes, there's like two dislikes.

Liron Segev:	How do you balance between working with a brand, and you have to do a review on their competitor. Do you find it a bit awkward because you're like loyal to the one brand because you really love their gear, but you still want to give a fair review of their competitor?

Dave Maze:	Sure. Well, I think there's two answers to that. First off, if you're somebody like Jason Vong, who's a good friend of mine, he's kind of like the Sony guy. If he picked up a GH5 or a Canon, his audience would kind of be like, "What the heck?" He actually told me that he reviewed the GH5 and everybody was like, "Why are you doing this?" There is that aspect of it. If you're a Canon guy, like Peter McKinnon who chooses to switch to Sony, like ... Well first off, that would blow up the internet. Everybody would freak out, but it's almost like you wouldn't see that happen.

Because I'm an unbiased ... I feel like I'm a journalist rather than I'm dedicated to one brand. I hope that people understand that as a journalist it's my job to just kind of be unbiased.

Liron Segev:	At the end of the day, like on my channel, I do tech reviews, right? I've got to remember, just as you do, people are going to make a buying decision, or you're going to help someone make a buying decision, either for or against. I always say, look, in my experience, and this is my use case for it, this worked really well, and that stuff really didn't work well.

Now if somebody else has got a different user experience or use case, that may or may not work for them, but at least I'm giving it from a perspective. Now you've got enough information to say, "Okay, I can kind of lean in towards one direction." I think it would be very disingenuous of both of us to say, "Well, brand X sent me this gear, so it's amazing and there isn't a single negative." It doesn't really kind of work that way.

Dave Maze:	Exactly. I don't just put something negative in for the sake of negativity. I might go at it with an angle that might be attractive story-wise, but overall, if there's something that's really bad, I'm going to point it out. If it's really good, I'm going to point out too. I think a lot of people in my niche accuse us of being paid by these companies, and it's just not true. The truth is that once you get to a certain level, it is easy to get a hold of gear, but it doesn't mean that you're going to keep it.

I have a deal with B&H and they send me pretty much whatever I want, which is great because B&H is kind of an unbiased entity. I really like working with them because it's not Sony giving me a camera. It's B&H giving me a camera and they're unbiased. They sell everything.

Liron Segev:	Do you find that companies appreciate the fact that you've pointed something out and maybe they'll fix it in the next firmware upgrade, things of that nature?

Dave Maze:	Yeah, absolutely. It's actually really amazing to see what is happening in the industry right now. For example, we just brought this camera up, the G7 X Mark III from Canon, that's been one of the most popular vlogging cameras for the last couple of years. They haven't updated it in a long time. I think it's been three years or something, but this new iteration is clearly designed with the suggestions that YouTubers gave. The screen has been reinforced because people were breaking the screen. They added a mic input jack, which everybody in the whole wide world wanted. They're actually doing things.

I see that with Sony. They added a flip screen with the new a6400. Everybody wants a flip screen. It's interesting to see people make changes because these cameras are made by engineers, very smart, brilliant engineers. They're not necessarily using the camera daily. When we have, "Hey, when I use this camera, it overheats and this thing happens or whatever," they're like, "Oh, cool." If a bunch of people say that, then hopefully they can address it. It's pretty cool.

Liron Segev:	It makes sense for them to do it because they're getting feedback from their customers who just want a better product. When they make the better product, odds are pretty darn good that if this is the eight things you wanted fixed and they are fixed, you're going to buy that next product. It just kind of makes complete sense.

When you're planning out your content, how much of your analytics and your audience and your comments do you take into account versus like your content schedule that you already have set?

Dave Maze:	It's amazing how fluid my schedule is. I have a Trello board with a list of six videos for the month. I've discovered that I could have a list of 100 ideas and I never even look at the board. I actually minimalized my ideal list to only six.

If I come up with a new idea, I'll actually remove one. I always have a running list of six ideas. As soon as something happens, like say, the G7 X came out last week, that just bumped up to top priority. Basically, a lot of my decisions are based around what is trending, what is popular. I can see that through the analytics. I can see that through just like literally searching for stuff on YouTube. For example, this E-M1 Mark II camera that I'm shooting on, it's not going to get any views, I know it, because nobody's searching for it. Nobody cares about it, but I personally care about it. I try to balance it with like, here's one for me. You've heard this, one for me, one for

I probably do more for them and maybe once a month one for me, but I'm looking at my engagement. I now am looking through at the click-through rate. It’s great that we have that analytic now. Obviously Mr. Beast is really showing everybody how important that is. That's a new thing I'm going to start implementing, but we were looking at our analytics. I had this really nice little 15-second intro video on the beginning of every video. We lost 40% of retention as soon as that happened. So, we just took it out and it fixed it. Now we actually have retention all the way through at a much better percentage.

I'm constantly looking at those things. I think as a creative, as a filmmaker, as an artist or whatever you want to call it, and it sounds really pretentious, but I always have to remember that I did start out as an artist. That's the whole point. Sometimes art doesn't necessarily go in with analytics. If I have a lead-in or a scene that people are going to drop off, but it adds to the story in a way that I like, then maybe I'll just leave it in anyway, because at the end of the day I want to have my YouTube channel serve my longterm career, which is to continue to direct, to create, to produce.

It's not always about the YouTube stuff for me because in 30 years I might not want to be a YouTuber anymore and I might want to produce shows. I might want to produce other things. Everything I'm doing is serving that goal of like I want this to be art. I don't want it to necessarily be all numbers, but at the same time, I look at the numbers too.

Liron Segev:	It's a balance. This is why I'm finding, and maybe you are finding as well, that it's always a struggle between the algorithm and creativity. Sometimes I do think that YouTube is killing creativity because we are so busy playing to the algorithm and that's a problem.

Dave Maze:	Well, that's why I'm starting this other channel, my personal channel, just 

. I'm just going to do comedy stuff and I'm not even going to look at the numbers. I'm going to do what I do. I'm going to know what is trending. I'm going to know what will hit, but there are a lot of YouTubers like Jacksfilms who he'll make a 45 second video about him coughing on a loop and it's got millions of views. It's a stupid video. It's really short. It's not 10 minutes. There's no subscribe at the beginning. Yet, he's doing really well. There's a balance of that. Liron Segev:	There's a balance somewhere.

I want to experiment with that because with Kinotika, I really am following more of the format of a traditional tech reviewer, but trying to add a comedy flair to it, but making it my own.

Liron Segev:	At the end of the day, to stand out in this very crowded space, you've got to bring your own voice. All right, so as we wrap up here, this is my plug myself moment dot com here. Where can people find you?

Dave Maze:	Sure. Well, obviously the big tech channel is called 

. It was created by a Chinese man who is also Russian. The spelling of it's a little peculiar, but it's special. It's different. It's unique. Yeah, Kinotika. I also host a podcast called Golden Hour. Just search in Apple podcasts or wherever you get podcasts, 

Dave Maze:	I interview influencers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, different people. Then on 

Liron Segev:	It has to have that underscore.

Dave Maze:	The people took it. I'll get it eventually, probably. One of them is dead. The other one is like a porn account so don't go there. Thankfully I've had enough tweets now where if you search my name, that doesn't come up. Hopefully Twitter will give that to me one day, but for now, just avoid it.

Liron Segev:	Again, everything will be in the show notes, so we'll make sure we'll send you to the right account. Dave, thank you very much. Really appreciate your story and sharing with us kind of the journey, because it's not simple. There's not a straightforward ... It's not a linear line. They're going to be ups, there's going to be downs.

Liron Segev:	It's just a ride. You've got to enjoy that ride as you're doing it because if you're not enjoying it, then it's work. Dave, thank you very much again.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

It's always fascinating to hear how a creator has built a thriving YouTube channel out of a particular skill or passion. On this week's TubeTalk we talk to Dave Maze who did just that!

How to Grow a YouTube Channel: A Creators Story | TubeTalk 187 with Dave Maze

Let's talk about merchandise and the opportunities around it for YouTube creators. And not just the big YouTubers, even smaller channels can offer merch to their subscribers.

But what kind of products should you be selling? Do all products work or do some work better than others? Which merchandising platform should you use? Are they all created equally or do some offer better products and services? These are your merchandise questions. We have merchandise answers on today's episode of TubeTalk.

Our guest on this episode is someone who is going to help us navigate through these treacherous waters. Davin “Dave” Higashi is the Co-Founder and CEO of 

, a premier merchandise service company for YouTube creators. Previous to founding Crowdmade, Dave grew his career in e-commerce at eBay as a corporate finance professional working across multiple business units including eBay, Paypal, and Stubhub. In this episode you will learn:

Why building engagement and a community is the key to merch success

How to get started selling the kind of merch that sells

How to avoid expensive merch design & production mistakes

Subscribe to TubeTalk: The Video Marketing Podcast

Don't forget to leave us a review if you love the show!

How to Make Money from Selling Merchandise on YouTube: The Full Transcript

 Dave, welcome to TubeTalk. Okay, so since you've teased us a little bit, and I've also teased everybody a little bit, can you tell us who are some of your creators that you work with?

 Oh, sure, we have a lot. Some of my favorite ones are Jackfilms, it seems like many people know who he is. Simply Nailogical. In recent days we've been working with a lot of top tier animators like GingerPale and Tabbes and Emirichu. Just amazing names, and we're so lucky to work with them.

 So let's start kind of right at the top. There's a reason that a lot of these top tier creators have literally millions of subscribers in some cases, and yet, they're still turning around and saying, hey, I want to do this merch thing. Why are creators turning to merch?

 They have different reasons at different stages of their careers. In earlier stages, a lot of them are trying to establish their brand. And merchandise is just an incredible way to connect with fans in a more physical fashion. Later in their career as they get larger, so it can be a significant source of income for some of them. And this is what Crowdmade is about. Is about making sure that we work with them at all stages to identify what their goals are, and do our best to help them get there.

 So it's goal orientated, but there isn't a magic number, there isn't when I hit a certain number of subscribers, I must do this merch thing. Some people never do it. Some people do it much smaller. Is there a way for us to kind of look at our own channels? Is there any signals that we would look at to say, okay, the time has come to take that step?

 Great question. Obviously we have limited resources, so we're not able to work with every single YouTube creator there is, but we do our best. So we tend to look for three major signals. The first being size, if you're not of a certain size, it's really tough to make meaningful amounts of sales. And again, it depends on your goals. But for it to be a meaningful number, normally around 100,000 subscribers is about the place where merch is more meaningful, it doesn't mean it's not useful for the business, but it is more meaningful. The second thing we look for is engagement. Engagement is a really clear indicator of how deeply the fans care about that channel, or how well that creator has been at activating their audience to do things, which is just a wonderful way of looking at things. So they might not have the most views or the most subscribers, but they have just an incredible level of engagement as a percentage of their views. That's a really important metric.

And then the last one that I think is discounted by not just the creators, but also the industry players out there at merchandise, is how good is that creator promoting. And this is the wild card. If they are a huge, huge creator, and we've worked with some in the double digit millions who have had trouble selling significant or meaningful numbers of units. Because the promotion wasn't good. And we've had very small creators who just absolutely astounded us, because their promotion is incredible. And thus, it's the wild card, and we are always trying to decide when we're working with the creator, can we help them improve their promotion, because that will help at every stage of their career. So for us, the big three are size, engagement, and promotion.

 Okay, I'm trying so hard not to make a size doesn't count joke. It's just so difficult. But I'm resisting. But at the end of the day, what you're saying is true, it's that you could have a million subscribers, but there's no community feel, people are there just for the content, but they aren't really connecting with you. That's going to perform very differently to maybe a much, much smaller channel, maybe even at 50,000 who have got such a great audience. And they hang on to every word, they comment, and they reply, and they have entire conversations with the creator. That's going to way outperform someone who's ... Well it's just another revenue stream. I'm not even going to bother to do anything about that.

Okay, so now let's put ourselves into this mindset. I've got my channel, I've got a community, I'm starting to get some traction, they're loving kind of what I'm doing, I want to give back to the community. Where do I start to kind of thinking along the merchandising game? Do I start with something small, like a coffee mug? Or is there a limit? Maybe when somebody approaches you, and they say, "Hey, I'd really like to work with you." Where do you start?

 The answer to that would really depend on where they're looking for and what they're hoping to do. So with some of the other players in the industry, like the self-serve platforms, like Teespring, it's probably a really good example. They're really good at what they do, if we're honest. And they can print shirts, they can do a handful of things. And there are some creators out there who prefer to try things on their own and test things. And it's not a bad place to do it.

But the thing I always tell creators, the first thing when I have my first call with them is that it's really, really, really easy to do bad merch. There's just so many things that can go wrong. So when they are first getting started with us, we have to make a call and decide, okay, based on what we know about your channel, and your goals and what you're trying to do, what is the scope of recent ability of what we can do because Crowdmade can make almost anything. There are no limitations on what we can make. We've made some very strange things in the past year.

So we need to decide what is the best approach. And so depending on the stage of their career, do they have experience with merchandise? Let's say they don't. And they're just starting out, we are just kind of eclipsing at 40,000 sub-range and okay, it might make a lot of sense to do some merchandise now. Tell me what you're trying to accomplish. That is actually the first goal. And if it is branding, then the way to approach it is, do I have design, or do I not have design and how do I work through that? And working with Crowdmade if you don't have design that is something we work on with you. We have a lot of design experts. And we found that, that's kind of the primary bottleneck for our creators, is the design. And having great design, because just because you have a good design doesn't mean it translates well to a print on a shirt.

 Oh well, that's very, very important. I think we got to reemphasize that point. Just because you got a cool design doesn't mean it's wearable on a shirt. Okay, so I've got this really funky logo, I think it's awesome, people tell me they love it, do some things just simply not translate well to a shirt.

 Yes. And there are actually two dimensions to that translation to a shirt. One is the wearability, which we have done this for a long time. And we have a good feel for the YouTube audience. But the other is actual printability. There are a lot of providers out there who will take any piece of art that you give them, and they will print it, but most of them do not sample it. And even though most of us use essentially the same technologies, knowing how to adjust the piece of art so that the hot pink that you put in, that neon glowing sign, actually prints because the answer is it doesn't, is what we do as well to make sure that we can maintain very high quality standards. Because the worst thing that could happen is that a creator puts something that they're really happy about and what the fan actually gets is very different, and they're disappointed by that. That is a complete mess on all parts, and we make sure that we never do something like that.

 Okay, because at the end of the day, the fans could be young, they could be saving their pocket money, they could be a Christmas gift that they've been kind of dying to get. And this thing arrives in the mail, they're so excited. And then it goes south very, very quickly, whether it's bad print, bad quality, too long, too short, just they're disappointed and nothing is worse for a creator than to disappoint their fans.

 Yes, absolutely. And so we take it really seriously.

 Okay, so I have a design, I have an idea, do I work with your designers to kind of bring it out to life? Or do I have to supply you with exactly what I'm looking for, and you'll kind of say, yes, this will work or not?

 It can be one of either of those. Again we're not a self-serve platform, we are working with the creators to find out. Some of them are more particular, and they have very capable design skills. It's not common, but we do have, especially in the animation community, have some incredible designers.

 That's what they do, and our job at that point in time is to, okay, let's see what we can translate this into. Because if I look into your audience, maybe people look to you because of the detail quality of your art, in which case, maybe it's best for us to go towards something like a notebook or a poster, right? And how do we translate that art that you've given me into a product like that? Or let's say you want to make a plushie, which is something we also have done. How do we turn that piece of what they have into that? So that's one side. And then the other side is, I just have an idea, in which case you'll work with us and then we try to do our best to translate those ideas into really incredible art that we know is going to print or be manufactured really well.

 And do you find that people are more of the former or the latter. In other words, people come and say, "Hey, this is what I want." Or do more people come to you and say, "Look, I think I kind of want this kind of thing. It's going to have blue with spikes and things, make it work."

 I would say the latter because the type of clientele who really get the most value out of working with Crowdmade care about working with a person who's going to help them. And that's what we're about, if they knew exactly what they wanted, and they understood the print industry, then they would do something more self-serve. Because the gratification is instant in that situation versus we are very hands on, and we work directly to support the creator to get them to the point in which they're going to be really happy because they just don't know how to do it.

 Alright, so I think at this juncture, let's kind of just explain, if you don't mind, the two different type of system. You said, one is self-service, and one is very much working with you and your team.

 A self-service platform like Teespring is you go in, you log into their site, you upload your art, and you're essentially on rails that take you to an ends page that allows you to sell something to your audience. It's fast, it's convenient but there are no checks, meaning they're not going to stop you from trying to make something. And if it doesn't come out well, that's your fault. That's not anybody else's fault, but your own. So there are quite a few of those platforms, I would say Teespring, Redbubble, spreadshirt, there's quite a few of those.

Then on the other side, you have us who are very full service content and the ideas. We are there to devise a merch strategy, right? Not research. That's really what they got. It's comprehensive from designing something to figuring out what is the product assortment that we're going to do, to how are we rolling and launching this to your fans, to training you to promote properly, so you can get the most sales. And then following up to talk about performance and understanding what can we do better next time? Because that's the big question that I think a lot of creators deal with, is, I'm not so sure if this is going to do well. And if it sold 100, is that good or is that bad? And how do I get better. And that's where we really drive a ton of value. Is making sure that we guide them through the entire process, give them a strategy, and then reiterate every single time to get better and better.

 Cool, okay. If it goes right, well done. If it goes wrong, well, it's down to you. Nobody's going to stop you from printing something that maybe you're not even allowed to print, like copyrighted materials, things of that nature. We've seen a lot of that in various stores. But then on your side, it's very different. It's very hands on, the process is slower and then the value is all about a strategy rather than, hey, let's go print 50 shirts at your local FedEx store. Right?

 Yeah, it's about strategy and equality, that's really what it's about.

 And then it’s kind of circling back to the whole, I don't want to disappoint my fans. But do you like the idea that you did mention earlier, which is, it's okay to test. Maybe you've got a logo, maybe you've got a little character, maybe you got a sign, test it with an undermanned print kind of service. Maybe your audience doesn't actually care. Maybe they do. Maybe they sell lots of that, in which case, it's a good indicator to say, okay, this could be a revenue spinner if I do this correctly, let me get ahold of crowd mate, and let's maybe see if we're able to work together.

 We definitely want to make sure that we help creators come from all angles and all levels and experience when it comes to merchandise as well as the growth of their channel. And we do run into situations where the Creator is nervous. And I think the way YouTube has been designed has really created a lot of anxiety to the growing aspiring YouTube creator of making a mistake, right? We also coach our creators into saying, like, look, sometimes we don't know what the right design is going to be, especially when the creator is a little bit more ambivalent.

So we suggest testing. And we're like, look, let's just go out there and do this. Let's find out what is resonating with your audience. And the next time we do this we'll revise, we'll do it better, we'll promote better, we'll have a design that is better in aesthetic, that makes sense. But we absolutely encourage testing at all times.

 This is good advice because you're right. I mean, we are all scared of YouTube. We are scared to post something new, let's be honest. We've heard horror stories of people trying new thumbnails or new titles, new ideas, and it just goes horribly wrong. In which case, testing this kind of almost frowned upon, even though we know that you really should. So this is a good litmus test? Do people like it or not? And then being able to really kind of take it to that next level. And is it possible to take it to that next level? In other words, can you make some good, good money off your merch?

 Yes. The ones who really nail this formula, do very, very significant numbers. Much larger than their sponsorship sometimes.

 Whoa, much larger than like a brand deal or sponsorship?

 Yes. We recently did one for a large creator, and he did very well.

 I love this whole NDA thing that you kind of trying to skirt around. But we appreciate it, we do appreciate you being here, and kind of sharing openly as much as you can, don't want to get you into trouble, of course. And you know, we just want to understand this kind of world, because for many people, this will be new.

Many people obviously have seen some of their kind of really big creators and they're loving what they're doing. And we've all felt that whole, well, let me support the creator by buying that shirt, buying the hoodie. And at least I've got a part of him or her that I feel more connected to, to that channel. But also I know that I'm contributing to help that creator really make more content, which I love. So we all have been on this side of the equation. But now, do you think there's any kind of red flags that would suggest, look, we just don't think this is going to do well. Do you ever walk away from deals which is just not right?

 Yes, all the time. I don't want to give away too many secrets. We absolutely believe in the development and the investment in our creators. There was a time when Crowdmade only worked with the very, very largest YouTubers, and I mean, double digit million YouTubers. And we only had a handful of clients. But over the years, we've just found so much gratification, I think it's probably the best word, on working with aspiring channels. And again, none of them are small right? If they're in the 10s of thousands of subscribers, but it's very meaningful to us to work with these growing creators and to see them grow because it is just amazing how fast some of them grow. But we pride ourselves on developing relationships with our creators, real ones.

We will walk away from deals where it is too transactional, because the only thing they care about is the money. And that is a recipe for disaster in your business. We'll walk away from those heavily transactional relationships, we will walk away from relationships, or we just won't start them with those who aren't willing to communicate. Because again, I said it's really, really easy to do that merch, and the first way to put it on a bad path is not being open to communication. So I won't say how I make those decisions but do we do turn down creators, some of them very large, just because those kinds of situations. Well, it won't be good for the creator, it won't be good for us, and it definitely won't be good for the fans. So we just won't except that kind of situation. So that's on the Crowdmade side.

For the creator who's trying to see if there's a red flag, right? We asked this question a long time ago, why are you trying to do merch? And once the big red flags was when he just said, to make money. Because at that point in time, you strip away a lot of the creativity and the fun. And when you really focus on doing something great for your fan, it'll reciprocate, right? So one of the red flags is looking at things like you're really just trying to make money out of this. And oftentimes, I really only hear that from the smaller channels, I rarely get that from the larger channels. I asked every creator that we work with, I want to know how they got started. And none of them have ever said for money. Not a single one.

And you know, it's self selecting the kind of creative team to with us, right? But they all say it was because I wanted to be better at building a skill. You know, I was an introvert and I really wanted to try get out of my shell, or I needed an outlet for creativity. And the next thing you know, here I am. But I don't think it was so accidental, because these people are so focused on just doing the best content they can. And the money just follows after. They're not money first. And I think that's why a lot of the creators we work with have such deep engagement, right? Again, it's very self selecting, and are also successful, because they care about those things first.

 Do you have these certain niches or industries that maybe do better, like a gamer would perhaps do better than animator? Or does it really just depend on each individual's community?

 Great question. Well, these are really pointed. We've worked with creators from all walks of YouTube over the years, and I would say it's less about the subject, and it is more about the relationship that the creator as a person or a character has with their audience. And let me give you a good example. There are really great how-to channels on YouTube. But a lot of them for their massive sides, there is no connection with the person making the content, because sometimes it's just like, you see some hands and there's no voice. So it's more about that connection with a person or a character. So animators, they have great characters, right? And you've got some wonderful personalities for daily vlogging, comedians like Jack where they are relating to him, or her and that person more than the content itself. And that's really kind of a big key to merchandise.

 It's about making that connection. But you bring up a very interesting point, that maybe a utility channel or how-to channel, if you have a how-to channel, how do I unblock my toilet, this is my favorite example. The odds of someone buying your hand in the toilet, t-shirts not so much. But then we have a problem. Like I have a tech channel as you know, we talk about the latest phones and gadgets. But there's no worst kind of subscribers are going, the views are great, and we could have signed to build this community. At the end of the day people are there for an answer. I am stuck. I don't know if I should buy this phone or not. I don't know how to do this thing on the computer. Can you help me? It's very difficult to build a community who will buy something outside of that. It's just different mind set. You're not there to be entertained, you're there to learn. Maybe a phone case, maybe would make more sense, in my case, than something like Jack who maybe his phone case doesn't make sense in his case. Would you find that to be correct?

 Yeah. There's a lot of, I would say cooking channels, they are entertainment, but they're in that how-to category, but they have some personalities there. And those personalities are very powerful.

Thinking in tech, we could talk about channels like Linus Tech Tips, or Marques Brownlee, these guys are personalities. Marques is incredible because of his style, right? People will buy to be like that creator, and to be associated with that creator, because they have very strong personalities. But it's primarily review to get views, unless that person particularly stands out, you're right, it is a little bit more difficult for a how-to channel.

 And maybe on the smaller ... I mean, Marques and Linus Tech Tips, these guys are huge. And they've brought a huge community, which kind of respects them, they've obviously earned it, nothing came easy, contrary to popular belief. Then the community appreciates them and wants to support them, in which case it's fine. So I guess my point is that then maybe even with in the how-to genre, then maybe a differentiation, based on your size, based on your community, your engagement, that maybe even starting out, you might be kind of struggling at the moment, but don't rule merch out all together, just because you're a how-to channel, it could come at a point that makes sense.

 We work with a lot of creators who started in one thing and through the trial and error and tribulations of YouTube, they found something else over the years, and then it really took off for them. So I wouldn't say rule it out, I would say make sure you understand what your expectations are. That's kind of the big thing.

 Good and maybe put on a roadmap that maybe start with a shirt in point A. But as you get bigger and more engagement, maybe then you start transitioning into something more. Where do we kind of look at the overall categories within the merch, is anything that sticks out that sells more than others. What do you sell more than, I don't know, pencil case. Do even people even have pencil cases? Not sure.

 We make them. The answer are black t-shirts, black unisex t-shirts. So everything and absolutely huge margin.

 Kids at the insider information rocked it. Make black shirts, put your face on them. And now, kind of you talked about earlier about the creator actually coming along for the ride and really understanding that it is up to them to promote their own material. I mean, I know it sounds obvious when we say it out loud. But it's amazing how many people just do not understand that as a concept. Can you give us some examples of people who are doing it really well, maybe not people, just kind of maybe the idea of what they're doing to promote their own material, obviously don't want to put you in an awkward position. But something that say, hey, this works really well, when created as A, B and C at an event, this works really well, things like that.

 Okay, The real answer is short and concise. Direct to the point where we tell our creators because they are very creative people, and they're trying to oftentimes spin things or do something really interesting for you. And we'll talk about some other issues that they often have. With contents if you do a 10 second mention at the beginning of your video, you just say, "Hey, I've got this new product that came out, it's only going to be available for a little while, if it's going to be a limited item, go check it out before it's gone."

Literally, that's it, and then you go on to your regular content, that outperforms everything by just a massive, massive margin versus the creative stuff we've seen over the years. The other thing is, we have the data to show that a promotion at the end of essentially, a seven or 10 minute video almost has the impact of not having it at all. When our creators don't have a clear path to what they want to do, we always guide them into short and simple. It's really effective. It's worked time and time again and there are a handful of cases of creators who've done other things really successfully. But they also have very unique audiences. But that would be the key advice. Short, simple, with a clear call to action.

 As creators, just the definition of that word is, you don't want to keep it simple. You want to create, you want to create a story around and then you overthink it. And guess what people, just want to know what you have and how cool it is. And where they can buy that call to action is so powerful. And say, "Hey, you want a shirt just like the one I'm wearing? This is what you are going to do." And that just works. Because guess what, people just want a shirt just like that.

 It's so short and simple. It's perfect. Creators are oftentimes very surprised, they're very surprised to hear that. And we have many situations where there are a handful of opportunities where a creator will do multiple video promotions in the same campaign. And we will convince them to do something short and sweet versus their big rollout that took them half a day to film or edit. And then they will see the results. And it is so surprising to them almost every time. So that to me, by far the best advice you can have.

 Great. So keep it short. Keep it simple, clear call to action, black shirts, okay? That's what we need to know. I kind of jokingly refer to copyrighted materials early on. Are there anything that we shouldn't be putting on kind of merchandising something that absolutely does not work under any circumstances, stay away from that you will get into trouble.

 Disney stuff. There are a handful of brands out there who are very, very litigious. And we don't run into this issue because we have, we either do the art in-house, or we work with the creator to make sure that we're looking at the art. That there's no obvious infringement. And there's a fine line between infringement and parody, right? And so that's always a difficult thing. But I would say if you're using somebody else's character or, in any way, you need to stop and ask somebody if it's okay.

Because the likes of companies like Disney will absolutely send cease and desist orders and there's just so many counterfeits out there. We deal with it all the time too, where are our creators get counterfeited. And it's such a painful thing to go through for a creator. And we spend time making sure we can take down some of these things. But I do feel for the brands. So yes, if it has to be really direct to Disney stuff stay away. And anything related to that kind of stuff. But in general you know when you've taken something from somebody else, and you have to ask somebody if it's okay.

 And get it in writing. Chats at a bar after 13 tequilas is probably not the best time. Get it in writing, so you got something to fall back on. And then guys, if you think about it, if somebody ... You might think well, Disney's got all the money in the world, why should I care if I make a couple of bucks? Well, it's not about that. It's about imagining that you get that big, and somebody takes one of your characters that you worked so hard to develop, and they slap it on a shirt, and they make a couple of bucks of your work. It's just not right. They don't own it, they shouldn't do it. You don't own it, you shouldn't do it, which is why we never encourage pirated software - how can I get this video editing suite for free? Forget it, pay some money, some developer has worked really hard to get it out there. This is just not yours to take. And it's literally is stealing. So simple, simple as that. What's got you really excited kind of about the whole merch industry, this game?

 For us, Crowdmade has always been ... We've always looked at ourselves as a company that supports our creators to create and connect. And nowhere in there, do you hear the word merchandise. We are best known for our merchandise but this year, we are working on adding some really strong value add services to our creators because they've asked them, asking these things from us. And so they're going to come out sometime this year. I can't talk about them yet. I think it's going to be great. We want to change the way the support industry for YouTube creators works. And I think we've got these incredible relationships with our creators who are so open and honest with us. And how do we bring these services to life? What do they look like? How are they really helping creators? So I'm really excited about that.

And the other thing, I think, on a high level that I'm really excited about is the future of creators. And I've been doing this for a half of years now. And the shift in the way people look at YouTube in whether it is the people consuming the content and every day there are more people cutting the cord with traditional cable and watching this kind of short form digital content, but also the creators themselves. And what makes me super excited about that are the number of children who now look ... Not just children, but young adults who look at YouTube as a real viable career path. So the number and the types of creators that will be coming over the next few years I think it's really exciting. I think we're going to see things that we've never seen before. As this generation grows up and who are immersed in this culture, as well as being able to support them along the way. Whether it be education or coaching or merchandise or any one of these things. That's what has me super excited over the next few years.

 Well, that definitely sounds like something we want to be watching. Dave thank you for spending some time with us.

 then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Did you know? Selling merch can be even more lucrative for a YouTuber than a brand deal? Find out more on this week's episode of TubeTalk.

How to Make Money from Selling Merchandise on YouTube: TubeTalk 172 with Dave Higashi

In this age of multiple social media platforms, how does a creator really stand out? How do we get those eyeballs on us, so people can see our amazing content, and subscribe to us so we can really grow our own community? These questions will be tackled on today's episode of TubeTalk.

On today's show, I want to help you really stand out above the crowd. Joining me is Todd Bergin, known as 

 all across the social media platforms. Todd has been there, done that, bought the shirt, made the shirt, sold the shirt. He has got a lot of knowledge to share with us, as his mission is to teach as many people as humanly possible all about digital broadcasting because that's where everything is going. In this podcast, aspiring video creator superstars will learn:

Why there's still plenty of opportunity to make your mark as a creator right now

Why live-streaming is the aspiring creator's best friend

Why being consistent is such a huge asset for any creator

How to Stand Out From the YouTube Crowd: Full Transcript

 Thank you so much for having me on. It's a great pleasure to collaborate with you again.

 Let's give people the quick, who is Todd in a tweet, as I like to call it. What's the quick high level? Who is Todd?

 Oh, man, I don't even know that I could do that. It's more like who is Todd in a day, because it's going to take me a day to explain. I've been an entrepreneur all my life. I am a recovering attorney. I tried to fit into the career-type mold. It didn't work the way I wanted it to, but I left on my own terms. I've done a lot of different things, starting with eBay in 1998. Sold a million dollars' worth of stuff over the years over there.

I've been an internet entrepreneur ever since 1998, live video and podcasting, which is pretty much what I do now. I got started with live video first and got into podcasting. I've got two daily podcast shows. One focuses on Instagram marketing, called Grammer School. One is called Entrepreneur Live Video that focuses on, of course, live video, mastering my craft at internet broadcasting and helping other people master their craft as well.

 That's kind of the key message with you is you've always been a helper, a teacher. Is teaching your thing? Do you see yourself as a teacher first?

 Yeah. You know what? A lot of it's lead by example. If people see me doing things, then they want to know how I did the specific thing. A lot of the coaching clients that I get, they're like, "Hey. I saw this, and this is what I want. Or you sound great, this is what I want." I've actually built podcast studios and live video studios through Zoom, connecting with people in other parts of the country. I haven't actually connected with people in other parts of the world yet, but within the United States, I have and building awesome studios through Zoom. It's really kind of cool.

I love talking to people about who I like to learn from, so that they can go and discover these creators as well. I spend a lot of time learning from Owen Video. I mean if there's anybody out there that I look to in live streaming as somebody who is pushing the envelope in ways that I want to make sure that I see and can learn from, it's Owen. I share a lot of my thoughts on Owen, Stephanie Liu, Nick Nimmin, etc. I mean I've got a whole list of people.

 Another thing it's about, it's community. I think a lot of people have into their mindset that because we're both doing the same content, we must be rivals. We must be enemies. We must be competitors. That is absolutely just such a shocking mindset to have.

 When you have a local community, you only have so many people that are going to drive your location and visit you and spend money. On the internet, we have the whole world as potential customers. We reach the entire world. There are no limitations when it comes to getting work. The amount of people coming in to digital is endless. There's more than any one of us can handle, and there's probably more that all of us together can handle. As time rolls on, there will be new people to pop up to help carry the weight.

When you have the whole world as a potential customer base, you can engage with your potential competitors in an entirely different way. Instead of competing and being a rival, it's different. When you're local and you're small and you're dealing with competitors within your own local market there, I think it can be different.

 I mean I loved your story that you and I were chatting at one of the events where you were telling me about how someone was so scared of going live and you said "Forget it."

 Yeah, yeah. I was at Social Media Marketing World hosted, of course, by Michael Stelzner and Phil Mershon and wonderful show. I was at one of the tables. Now, for your audience who doesn't know or hasn't been to Social Media Marketing World, they have a big conference room with lots of tables. The tables all have numbers on them. Then, you get a chart or a legend for the room, so to speak, and you look up the number. You can say, "Okay. Table number 75, 76 and 77, those are all for the live streamers." You can go sit at that table and you'll be around people interested in live streaming. Usually, there's a few live stream guru types.

You just go and you chit-chat. You have some fun. Yes, I was having lunch one day and a girl from Michigan, I think it was, or Wisconsin, somewhere cold, was in town. We were talking. She said she had never live streamed before, and she's really wanting to do it. She had all these objections. I said, "Well what are your objections?"

She said, "Well I don't have anything to talk about right off the top." I just attacked it in a way. I said, "Okay. You're from Wisconsin or Minnesota. Have you ever been to San Diego before?" She said no and then we brainstormed content around that, and encouraged here to jump on Instagram Live right there and then, and she did it. She was a little apprehensive and it was all family mostly that came in. Everybody was cheering her on and having a good time. She was talking about it. I got on the camera for just a minute and told them I put her up to it. Her husband was very supportive. She gets off the phone and she turns and looks at me and she's crying. She's like, "That's one of the coolest things I've ever done." I didn't get her name, which kind of makes the story better. I might have gotten it, it's lost in my notes. It was a big moment for me that I changed somebody's life during my lunch.

 It seems to be you can go live on Facebook, you can go live on YouTube, of course, you can go live on Instagram. Now, LinkedIn is opening up a live platform. Is everyone supposed to be a broadcaster? Do you think everyone has a message to tell? Or do you think we're going to be seeing a lot of spam?

 I mean I think you can look to YouTube as an example for an answer to your question. YouTube is filled to the brim with junk, but with people like Sean Cannell, Nick Nimmin, Roberto Blake, I mean if you're providing immense value, then people are going to find you and they're going to subscribe. That's what matters. I remember when Sean Cannell's Think Media, I think, was under 500,000. It seemed like the next day, we were pushing 800 all of a sudden. The consumers are out there. They're savvy. They're going to find what they want. They're going to subscribe to what they want. It's the same thing with live video.

The difference with live video is people don't really... I don't think they really search for live video the way they search on YouTube for the recorded content. They're scrolling a feed and they find it. It's like, "Oh I'll go in." We have our way of sorting out our content and figuring out. I think that actually helps the good live streamers, the live streamers that are pushing the envelope and doing amazing things. I like to think I'm one of them. My problem has always been consistency.

I can do amazing things in live video, but I haven't even yet, in three or four years, established myself as a consistent live streamer with a consistent show. I can point to Stephanie Liu and Owen Video, I think the two of them, these people are consistent. They partner with brands or they don't, but they create variety shows that stick and keep people interested. They go from a 15 minute news segment to a 10 minute trivia segment to a half hour interview segment to maybe a housekeeping segment. They move the show along beautifully and keep the viewers until the end. People are going to come back to that. As people discover it more, their audiences are going to continue to grow.

 At the end of the day, curated content from prerecorded stuff versus live is just different. Once you kind of prerecord, it's beautiful, it's edited, it's scripted, it comes out as a perfect show. There will always be a space for that. Live is just it is what it is. It's just got to happen. It's not got to be perfect. It will be shaky at points. Maybe you'll lose audio at some points. You just roll with the punches. I think people actually appreciate seeing the real creator. Do you not find we might be facing an issue where because only one timeline, there's so much competition trying to vie for those eyeballs, that we're just going to get quantity over quality, what do you think?

 I think that, yes, you're completely right. We're all fighting for the one feed. It's tricky on all of these platforms. I've actually taken a big pivot. I attended Kajabi Summit, it was called Impact Summit, here in Irvine which was wonderful having it right down the street from my home. Kajabi really was a moment for me where I really started thinking about my website in a different way. They offered this thing called Community, which is basically like a Facebook Group within your website that you can put a paywall in front of and require passwords and that sort of thing. It's not open to the public, but it's for truly interested people to come and go from.

I'm looking at my website a different way and trying to make that the focus of everything I do now. I was watching somebody, it might have been Brendon Burchard, at the Kajabi Impact Summit. It was somebody. They said, "If your website isn't up to snuff and you're not leading people there with something to sell them, stop everything you're doing, all content creation on all platforms. Go and focus on your website until it's ready for sales, and then go back out and start funneling people into the website. You need to have every I dotted and T crossed before you go out and do that." So many people don't do that, including myself. I went out and just started creating content on Instagram and Facebook and all these other places, not really having somewhere very well designed to send people. That's changing for me, big time.

 Where we're evolving as a business, where we're evolving as an internet digital community, do you find that we're so fragmented?

 It's interesting. I don't even know how to explain it, because I don't know that I've given it a whole lot of thought. I'll tell you, when a major YouTuber, like Nick Nimmin, who is crushing it without podcasting, contacts me and says, "Who do you have to edit podcasts?" That tells me he's looking at podcasting as an option, which is really interesting. Podcasting is an old technology, but you've got these major YouTube presences that are looking. I mean Nick's not the only one. He's the only one that's contacted me and asked me that question. I know there's other major LinkedIn personalities that are getting into podcasting.

The interesting thing about podcasting is that, like you said, people are listening, they can do other things, but the bulk of people are listening to a podcast with their earbuds in. You really don't know who is out there. It's not always easy to move those people to other places, but I know they're out there. I know I'm having an impact on their life. I have a heat map in Simplecast that tells me where in the world people are downloading from, and how many episodes these various places people are downloading from. I've got people on every continent except for Antarctica. I'm always checking for a blip on Antarctica somehow. Maybe somebody in a weather station down there will download at some point.

I'm having this amazing impact. I'm filling a room. At 500 to 700 downloads a day, I mean I'm going to come to the conclusion that I have 400 to 500 people downloading on a daily basis. That's an amazing impact. People are listening to me from five to 15 minutes a day with their headset or in their car. I'm filling a large conference hall 365 days a year. It's an amazing thing. The connection's personal, because most of the time... In fact, I haven't had a guest on either of my podcasts in over a year. They're listening to me for the entire duration of the show. They're getting to know me and they're coming back for more.

Social media, especially social video, is a crowded place, but there are still huge opportunities to stand out from the crowd. Find out how on this week's TubeTalk podcast.

Your In-Depth Guide to Building a Successful YouTube Channel

How to Grow a YouTube Channel: A Creators Story | TubeTalk 187 with Dave Maze

Published

How to Make Money from Selling Merchandise on YouTube: TubeTalk 172 with Dave...

Published

How to Really Stand Out as a Video Creator: TubeTalk 171 with Todd Bergin

Published

How Family Vloggers Can Get Millions of Views on YouTube: TubeTalk 170 with J...

Published

Why Super Fans are the Best Way to Get More Views on YouTube! TubeTalk 169 wi...

Published

3 Skills Every Creator Needs to Get More Views on YouTube : Brian G Johnson T...

Published

The Five Principles of New YouTube Success: TubeTalk Episode 156

Published

A Complete Guide to Cracking the YouTube Algorithm with Matt Gielen: TubeTalk...

Published

Why Story Telling is the Most Valuable Skill For Any YouTuber: TubeTalk 201 w...

Published

How to Get Your First 100 Subscribers as a YouTube Gaming Channel

Published

Will You Get More YouTube Views if You Upload Gaming Videos Every Day?

Published

YouTube Gamers: How to Get Your First 1000 Subscribers

Published