YouTube (and Facebook) for Your Business: It’s Time to Get Your Video Groove On [Radio]

JEFF: Okay, welcome to another edition of StartupNation Radio. We’re all about helping your dreams of owning a business of yours come true and to have it be successful and to live the kind of dream life you want to live as the result of having a successful business. Now, one of the biggest challenges is how to get the word out. How do you market? It’s expensive, it’s cumbersome, it’s difficult, takes a lot of expertise, but with today’s social media platforms you can create viral video that will work for you if you do this right.
We’re going to speak to some experts today Rich, on the show, about how to do just that.
RICH: That’s right. That’s video on YouTube, video on Facebook. It’s about elevating your profile and driving awareness and hopefully more opportunity for your business.
JEFF: All of that at a low budget. How about that? Sounds like magic. Let’s find out if we can make it happen on this edition of StartupNation Radio.
JEFF: Alright, welcome to this edition of StartupNation Radio. Again as we said in the opener, this is an important show. This is going to help you learn how to use the power of viral video to get your message out there. And as we all know on StartupNation, one of the toughest things for entrepreneurs is how to get the word out, how to do the promotion, how to do the marketing, how do you do it especially with limited budgets small businesses have.
RICH: Just create your own radio show, Jeff. That’s how you do it.
JEFF: Well, either create your own radio show, or how about create a viral video that’s really clever and creative and catchy and compelling and tantalizing and it takes off and helps get the word out as a byproduct of people sharing the video because it’s fun to watch.
RICH: That’s so interesting Jeff, because at StartupNation we literally have thousands of pages of articles that take people through step-by-step learning and just great information perspective opinion pieces. Video, as a medium to communicate is so powerful because you know how they say a picture is word a thousand words, I don’t know, put another order of magnitude on that for a video, it’s worth a million words.
JEFF: As we know, video is hot today in every respect. This is something small businesses can use.
RICH: It’s a lightning rod to connect to your people.
JEFF: Exactly and level the playing field. Before we get to that, a couple of house cleaning things. Number one, this show brought to you as always by Comerica Bank, proud to have them as a sponsor. We’re thrilled to have them as a sponsor. Thank you Comerica Bank. The Sloan brothers hosting the show today, Rich and Jeff Sloan. We’re excited about this subject matter. This is a really important subject matter because I think a lot of small businesses may have great ideas, they may have great people, they may have great opportunity in hand and it falls down because how the heck do you market? Ugh, advertising budgets, are you kidding me? I’m a startup!
RICH: Right. It’s funny, Jeff. We as consumers, I don’t know what the averages are actually, we have some statistics we can pull up here during the show, but people are watching online video from their phones and from their PCs and it’s a significant growing section of the media market. The whole spectrum of media options. I think TV is still the number one but it’s just incredible. And there’s a reason why, by the way, advertisers have shifted so much advertising to the online space and to online video.
In fact—
JEFF: Online and mobile.
RICH: Online and mobile, yeah. In fact advertising budgets have shifted now so that the majority is actually in digital formats, not just in TV. But in any event, what we thought we would do on StartupNation today is kind of break the mold, break your assumptions about what online video is. It’s not just something that we as consumers enjoy for our entertainment purposes, it can actually be a tool that you use for your business to elevate your business opportunity. And so there are no better or more expert spokespeople about how you do this. True experts about how you use video to influence people and create your outcomes than our guests on StartupNation Radio today.
I wanted to bring onto the show and introduce y’all to Benji Travis. Benji, welcome to the show.
BENJI: Happy to be here, thank you.
RICH: Very good. And I wanted to also introduce Sean Cannell who is Benji’s partner at Video Influencers. Sean, welcome to StartupNation Radio.
SEAN: Jeff, Rich, it’s so great to be here.
RICH: It sounds to me like these guys, just the way they talk, have been in front of the mic and maybe in front of the camera just a little bit. And just to really reinforce that, Benji, how many millions of videos have you been part of? Online?
BENJI: Well, let’s back up to how my story started so I can explain how those views are created. I think my wife and I have accumulated over a billion video views when you combine Facebook and YouTube.
RICH: Billion with a b? I want to make sure our listeners hear that right.
BENJI: Billion with a b. And my wife, she is so humble. She doesn’t like it when I praise her for that because it really all started with her.
JEFF: I was just going to say, now Rich and I can jump on that. Now clearly you’re a great guy, you’re smart and everything, but the wife.
RICH: Yeah why don’t we have Judy on our show? Where’s Judy?
BENJI: Exactly.
RICH: No, but what your referring to is, its Judy’s Life or it’s Judy’s Time, right?
BENJI: The world of “It’s Judy’s Life,” which have different faces to it and it all started with her beauty channel, “I’s Judy Time,” about seven years ago, she started uploading videos and you could say I was literally her first hater, first doubter, first person to judge her, because I used to tell her it was a waste of time and then six months later she’s getting free makeup from doing all her makeup videos on YouTube. This could be a thing—if we don’t have to pay for makeup, I’m all for it.
RICH: That’ll make you a rich man right there!
BENJI: Exactly. So I gave her half my office and the rest is history. I like to say she gets the last laugh because in addition to the billion video views, she’s got about four channels, two million subscribers on Facebook, over three million on YouTube, when you combine all her channels. This is what I’ve been doing for a living the last seven years and I love working with my family, and I love working my wife, Judy of “It’s Judy Time.” And in the process I’m more proud of the fact that I’ve been able to start some small businesses including the one I’m visiting from which is Video Influencers with my cofounder Sean Cannell.
RICH: Right on. And Benji, just before we give Sean an opportunity to introduce himself, you have your own properties. You have a food related video series too and your own subscribers, right?
BENJI: Absolutely. That is something of a passion project for me and I love food. I’ve always loved food. In fact, when Judy first started, that was around the time I was flirting with trying to be on the Food Network. I always watched Food Network, always thought it would be cool to be on the Food Network, and then little do I know my wife with all of her influence and her skill that she taught me, I was able to create a food channel where I cooked, I talk about food, and I never even needed a Food Network and that’s what really blew my mind very early on, the fact I was able to pursue something that I thought was going to be very difficult but through video, through some of the simple techniques that I applied, that I learned not only from Judy but also Sean Cannell to be able to grow and influence.
If I wanted to, I could literally pursue that as a career, a backup career, but my true passion is supporting my wife. She’s just a superstar.
RICH: Let me stop you there because we’ve got this thing called commercials we deal with when we broadcast our radio show unlike an online podcast. But when we come back from the break we want to talk more about this. We want to absolutely give Sean an opportunity to be on the show and we want to talk about the lessons you learned that other people can learn from to implement into their opportunities so coming right back after this break.
BENJI: Absolutely.
JEFF: Today we’re focused on the power of viral video to help you get the word out, attract new customers, etcetera, etcetera, so we’ve got some new experts on helping us understand this.
RICH: Yeah, Benji Travis and Sean Cannell of Video Influencers. And these guys have been a party to literally, they’ve been part of creating billions, I should say, over a billion video views on YouTube and Facebook. I just wanted to give—
JEFF: Before we get Sean, were you going to jump to Sean really quickly? I wanted to ask a quick question of Benji.
RICH: Go ahead.
JEFF: Alright, Benji. Alright, quick question. You were talking about making a living at what you’re doing now. How does one first set the stage for us? I mean I know how to use viral video and we’re going to get to that too and I want to get more detail about that too, help get the word out, promote your business, etcetera, etcetera. How does one like “It’s Judy’s Time”, “It’s Judy’s Life,” make money off of a video?
BENJI: Yeah, well I love how you lead with viral videos but also added in there that anybody can really do this or you know like at least flirt with the idea that this is possible. You know besides the viral video, it’s all the smaller videos she’s created, we call them evergreen videos that go on to get views for years and years that creates a business model for yourself to be able to create opportunities whether it’s a career, raising your business to another level or making a lifestyle out of YouTube. There’s a lot of things you can do but basically, you’ve got to focus on what it is that you’re passionate about. Whatever it is that your profession is or what you want your business to be and add value.
I think I would hand it off to Sean here to take more of the technical side to share with you guys how the audience can do this.
JEFF: Benji, we wanted to get to that. Benji or Sean can address this, Sean, we’re going to definitely get you in here and get you some air time in a second. I just want to make sure I understand this clearly. To make money off of video, I want to drill down a little bit more. The way you do it from what I understand is you’ve got to be able to produce a video that people want to watch. You then have to find a distribution channel so you can get it out there. In this case we’re talking about YouTube. Let’s just follow that lead for a second.
And then you get the people coming to look at the video and you create impressions or views of that video. And then that can be monetized—there may be other ways. Now I want to understand this from you guys, but as I understand it, you then monetize that traffic like in a media model, an advertising model, you sell advertising against it and that’s the way you generate revenue primarily. Now there’s probably insularly ways. First tell me if I’ve got that right, tell me other ways you can make money from video.
BENJI: Absolutely. I mean the most basic way to do it is you upload a video to YouTube, you get impressions, and you monetize by sharing in the revenue that Google creates off those ads from advertisers. Most basic way. The reason that’s not my favorite way to cheat is because to get to that point you have to have quite a bit of views. The way I’m most proud of that my wife and I have been able to create a business is through working with brands, getting sponsors to sponsor content on your channel. And also other business models like selling your own product. So that’s why I always lead with add value, because if you can add value, it doesn’t even matter how many views, it matters how many people care enough and trust you enough to be able to do something.
RICH: Let’s pick up on that. Because I know Benji, you have partnered with Sean Cannell and we haven’t given Sean an opportunity to even give his background yet on the show! But Sean you have a great deal of experience also in counseling people on how to create value and success in the development of video, right?
SEAN: Yeah, absolutely.
RICH: You’ve—just tell a little bit about your experience with that. I know that’s a big part of what you do.
SEAN: Yeah, 100 percent. My history and where our history intersects is for the last, really, 15 years I’ve been in video production and online video and on the side more behind the camera as well as in front of the camera whether that was starting out with doing wedding videos or making videos for small businesses and helping them go online, and Benji and I met right around, as good as things were happening, what was happening with YouTube and “It’s Judy Time,” we actually met right around the crash of the mortgage crisis and it was actually a time in our life where it was still a lot of disruption for both of us.
People are losing homes, you’re trying to short sale things. One thing Benji didn’t mention, he actually has a big career real estate, him and his brother had been doing a ton of real estate so obviously that’s going to affect what they were doing and similarly my wife and I were also—we had a rental home and some other things. We both got hit, and many others that are listening right now, during that time—and online video was this thing that we met kind of in the middle on.
And as him—Benji and his wife were emerging, I also was jumping online and experiencing as Benji was describing, more of like a niche specific content that over a few years eventually built a full time income for myself but not with a million views. With actually a relatively small audience and out of some of those principles, I would coach speakers, authors, small businesses, to actually say like Benji said, it actually isn’t as much about the viral video, that it’s more about really having clarity and focus about how you’re trying to reach and then creating content around that.
JEFF: Let me stop you there, Sean. Let’s talk about that for a moment. First of all, I just heard you say something that is somewhat comforting. It doesn’t have to be a million views in order for it to be effective. It could be a thousand views for it to be effective, it could be 100 depending on what your objectives are, right?
SEAN: It could be 10. Especially if leads for your business could be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, you may only need one a day. One great example is we met during this time and one of the ways that Benji didn’t even mention that really completely transformed their lives during that season was he started a YouTube channel that to this day is still effective but extremely small but because of that YouTube channel, very specific, showing people how to do home inspections and him and his brother were putting up content, he went from doing ten homes a year to over 100 homes a year and any real estate agent knows that’s legit.
RICH: That’s a phenomenal example of how you can leverage video effectively, even if you’re reaching a relatively small number of people. Is the value of video an establishing authority, is it establishing more of an approachability or a, you know, a familiarity with people, what is it about video, just as a fundamental that makes it effective?
SEAN: Yeah, absolutely. I think you can, you build trust. It’s a medium that allows for icon tech, that allows for them to get to know you more personally than they would in text or in audio or a different medium. They can really see you there. But if we actually take a step back, here is one of the more powerful things that listeners want you to grab onto: is that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Now most people don’t think of it that way, they think search, Google, they think search, Bing. But the second largest place where people go to ask questions and to look for answers is YouTube.
And so where video presents a huge opportunity for everybody listening is that what happens now when you show up on the other side of people search inquiries. Whether that’s for a local search in the real estate arena, whether that’s for local search as a law firm or an accountant. Of course, people know they want to do SEO and be found with their website on the homepage.
RICH: Search engine optimization. Yeah.
SEAN: Yeah, search engine optimization—how much more powerful when video is involved, and now they came looking for you and you show a providing value, providing answers, helping them, and what’s even more powerful, that’s kind of what a friend of mine calls, views while you snooze, is that once you’re ranked, once you’re showing up in search, you are now creating leads, you’re creating awareness, you’re meeting new people, they’re seeing inside your business, they’re seeing tutorials on your products, all on autopilot and it’s tapping into that force which has exponential power in your business.
JEFF: Alright, well interesting stuff. Who knew that? That’s powerful. We’re going to go out to a break here, momentarily. We’re going to come back. You guys, stick with us. We’re going to continue on this dialogue.
RICH: We promised the listeners we will not talk with these guys during the break and you will not miss out on anything here.
JEFF: Right, right—we won’t be talking offline yet, yeah, that’s for sure. Alright guys, listen, stick with us, we’re going to come back and pick up right where we left off right after this break.
JEFF: StartupNation Radio, really, really important show today. Brought to you by Comerica Bank. We’re focused on the power of video to promote your business, create new business, etcetera, etcetera, can be a direct business, even. I think it was Sean, Sean, right before we went to the break, you were talking to us about the fact that YouTube is the second largest search engine, if you will, out there, and that’s kind of you know, when you think about it, it’s a little bit obvious. Having not thought about it, it’s a little bit stunning.
Certainly demonstrates the power of this. Is there anything special you need to do to get found through the YouTube search capability that needs to be done in addition to any other SEO techniques that you might be focused on?
SEAN: Yeah, I think to simplify it is to actually, and this is true for all marketing. Is to not start with what you think or what you know. Because a lot of business owners, they have the curse of knowledge. They’re usually already multiple steps down the road with their product or even the need they think they’re meeting, it’s really getting into the psychology of your target audience and the person you want to reach. And it’s a simple saying, what question are they asking?
And, where are they asking it?
JEFF: And how would they ask it specifically, what would be the search posting or entry–?
SEAN: Exactly.
JEFF: How would they phrase the query?
SEAN: And here’s a quick actionable tip for everybody listening. They can go to Google, open it up right now, and go to YouTube, open that up, and just typing in the search bar, and what happens is, we’ve probably all seen this, it’s Google predict, it’s YouTube predict, it starts to predict and finish your sentence for you and it you usually gives you between three to six to 10 recommendations. Those recommendations are the exact search phrases that people are typing in.
JEFF: Most commonly, right? That’s the way it’s most commonly searched.
SEAN: Most commonly searched and in order. So if you start typing how to cook, and then it says, a steak, then you know okay, the most popular thing that people are cooking during this season is steak, you know? And when you create content around that exact search term, that’s actually the title. That begins the foundation for building out your content. So if you’re—if you were doing a local business, I work with like faith base organizations and things, if you started typing in like, churches in—Detroit, Michigan, and you see that’s predicted. City names start showing up, different things start showing up.
So apply that to any business, to any search. Of course this takes a little bit of research, some time beyond that, but that is absolutely the foundation, and that gives you a great tool to see wow, this is what the people searching for answers are asking.
RICH: That puts your finger on the pulse of what people are interested in.
JEFF: Right, and then what I do with that, when I form the title of whatever I’m going to describe—the title of my video and the description of my video, I would use that phrasing as much as possible.
SEAN: Exactly. You use that phrasing and variations of it so you’re talking to two people—you want to talk to the machine, the search algorithm, Google, YouTube, but you also want to talk to humans, in a very native conversational way. But in such a way as to be the perfect answer for the questions that people are asking.
RICH: Alright, so you’re hearing the expert advice and great insider tip there from Sean Cannell of Video Influencers, and we also have Benji Travis with Video Influencers on the call on today’s show. And Benji, you know, you’ve made a lot of videos. And clearly there are better ways and worse ways to make videos and there are some definite screw-ups you would want to avoid. Do you have any tips or recommendations as it relates to actually creating the videos?
BENJI: I mean, the point here is to create the video. The number one tip I give friends and family, the ones in my community that want to have the kind of success or just get the kind of reach that my wife and I have is just start filming videos. If you saw the first video my wife recorded you would not even be able to recognize her because it was done—her tripod was a bunch of shoe boxes, it was the crappiest digital camera, and she just went at it. my first real estate video, I looked like the deer in the headlights kind of guy. I wouldn’t even buy a house with me if I saw that video. Yet I got plenty of clients from it.
But the point is to just start doing it. Because to get to the point—and you mentioned, these guys sound like they’ve recorded a lot of videos, they’ve been on the microphone before, but we weren’t just born like this. We‘ve had to go through a lot of practice.
RICH: So practice makes perfect. And what do I do if I want to make some videos for StartupNation but I have to share the camera with my brother and you guys know the rest of that story, haha.
JEFF: Yes, well…
BENJI: What’s amazing is the capability of a cell phone today. And I would actually say rather than trying to get the best equipment or the right lighting just use what you have. There are amazing tripods out there that will actually carry your phone and you can use the camera on your phone and record HD videos, 1080p, and you know what, a lot of people wouldn’t even know the difference because most people don’t have the eye for knowing what the difference is. They’re just going to look at it for whatever it is. Especially if you go for the route of a utilitarian video where people are just going to need an answer quickly, they’re not going to be as worried about the quality of your content as they are of the value of the video.
JEFF: Right, I got to tell you guys a really amazing story. So Benji, to your point about just make the video and get it out there. My—I have a two-year-old son and a five-year-old son and a seven-year-old son and then an 11-year-old daughter. Things are a little busy around my household and they like to play these online games. In addition of course they like to watch YouTube. And they watch what they call, YouTubers, teach them in effect how to play these games better and become more proficient at them. And they love watching these videos.
So then they took it a step further and unbeknownst to me my 11-year-old daughter made a video of my then five-year-old son doing his thing. And they uploaded it. Yeah! And I said, well that’s relatively harmless. I’ll take it down a little while later, it’s not going to amount to anything. Who the heck is going to find this video? I come back to check the video later a little while later and there’s like 75 views. You’re right! To the point about just make the video, even these kids are able to, you know, make a video and get it out there and that’s the power of video, that’s the point.
So there’s people searching for all kinds of content all the time and that’s just an amazing thing. Where can you get that? Even in advertising, you pay for it up front, you hope someone sees it, you hope it’s effective, it isn’t always but you’re paying significantly for that upfront. Now, before we go Rich, to the next subject matter, I just want to tell our audience, you guys are hearing a lot of important content, hear a lot to grasp. Some of you may be in the car, not able to take notes for example. We want to make sure you get this stuff down. So one way to do that any time, go to StartupNation.com, go to the radio page, you’ll find more information about the guests, about the subject matter, even show notes from me and Rich calling out the high points from the show. That’s StartupNation.com/radio.
RICH: And we are absolutely going to provide links so that you can go to Video Influencers site and develop your own contact with Benji and Sean who are true experts here and who want to help you achieve your own video objectives. Hey, guys, maybe we can get some video from you to post on our radio page? What do you say?
BENJI: I would love to do that.
RICH: Just slightly high expectations, just so you know. The bar is being set high here.
SEAN: For sure.
RICH: So we talked a little bit earlier, and I want to make sure this is stressed, in terms of where the video should be posted, is this a YouTube scenario? What is the role of YouTube versus Facebook? Sean, you want to take that?
SEAN: Absolutely. I think it’s a great question. It’s defining that YouTube is your content library. Because if it’s a search engine, that means that just like you could go to a local library, you could look up content that could live on for days, weeks, and even years to come as Benji mentioned and that’s actually how I built a full time income, by creating a library of content that gets me views while I snooze, right? Because people are discovering—the second platform that listeners absolutely need to be focusing on is Facebook. And Facebook video right now is extremely powerful. People are probably noticing a lot of videos streaming through their newsfeed.
It’s something Facebook is giving disproportionate favor to. You can see in the algorithm that video is getting more favor. They’re making it, they’re allowing it, and pushing it to show up more on people’s newsfeeds.
RICH: If that’s not an indicator, I don’t know what is. Facebook understands this market as well as anyone and if they’re putting more emphasis on it, we all got to pay attention to that.
SEAN: Exactly. But the life span there is a little bit shorter. Once it goes away, it’s hard to find. Facebook at this point isn’t really a search platform. You’re not typing things in search there and finding answers. It’s understanding that the platforms are a little bit different but bringing up Facebook, Benji has an incredible story of someone he’s coaching and consulting with, with like a local martial arts business.
JEFF: Sean, let me stop you there. We want to hear about that. Let me stop you right at that point. We’re going to come back and we’re going to start with that story from you guys. So right now we’re going to go out to a break, we’re going to come back and we’re going to hit that incredible story reference at the end of this segment. Okay guys? Stick with us, we’ll be right back with StartupNation Radio.
JEFF: Today focused on the power of video both as way to earn direct money off the video as well—online, of course, as well to help get the word out. So—
RICH: We’ve got Benji Travis and Sean Cannell from Video Influencers. These are guys who have you know, millions and millions of views and we were—Jeff, coming off the break, they were getting ready to tell us a story of a client of theirs, and Benji—
JEFF: A story of success.
RICH: Of how it was done, it worked for a martial arts client of yours, Benji?
BENJI: Yeah and actually it’s a friend of mine that lived in the local city where I’m from. It’s actually a kung-fu school for kids and adults and for years I’ve been trying to get this person to put up videos not just on Facebook but on YouTube. And he finally did. He put together a really short, commercial type of video and posted it natively, which means he uploaded it directly to Facebook, and I’m looking at his page right now and it’s got over 7,000 views right now. And it’s got 123 shares.
Now, on a global scale, maybe not as impressive, especially when you’re talking about people getting a billion views. But the point is this: he wants to reach a local audience because his kung-fu school needs to get kids in the door to take the classes. So you have to put it back down to perspective and that’s what I really want the audience to realize—like Sean said, you could even have 10 views. The shares are so powerful on Facebook and utilizing that video to tell people what you’re doing at your local business. Even if you’re just a small internet business. I think the point here is especially Facebook, you can reach an audience of a very targeted group of people and you can make a lot of things happen with very little effort. And this is a guy that does not have a lot of experience in video. He created this without having a lot of courses—I actually offered to edit the video but he didn’t want to wait for me to come back from my travels so he just did it and he uploaded it and boom.
RICH: That’s a great example, Benji. So that our audience understands, when you do something using Facebook with video, are you thinking of the less evergreen type of scenario where it’s a little bit more of a timely type of video? Or is that evergreen—go ahead.
BENJI: When you compare it to YouTube, it won’t have the same kind of lifespan but in his case he posted the video so that it was pinned to the top of his page. So anytime anybody went to his Facebook page they would see the video. So in essence it is an evergreen video. It’s how you utilize your content, that’s going to be more important than the content itself or the platform.
RICH: Got it. And Sean, you have examples as well I’m sure, having worked with so many companies, how people have leveraged video.
SEAN: Yeah absolutely. Different people in our community are doing some pretty powerful things and so for example, a guy named Steve is in Arizona doing real estate and he’s really doing two things. He’s celebrating families that have closed on a home on his Facebook page using photos and video. And then he’s just teaching local tips in the Phoenix area about what’s happening in the real estate market and Facebook is just crushing it for him. And one reason too is because he’s sharing it amongst friends. Because for a lot of businesses and a lot of people listening it’s your friends of friends that a lot of times will be your customers. By being out there and being in the market, you can reach people.
Another guy in our community named Tim is our private investigator. That’s his practice but he moved his tips and his content online and also created a separate income stream from his YouTube channel and from some things like affiliate marketing which is really like where you recommend a product—if he reviews some home security cameras, which is his expertise, to help you in that kind of arena, and people buy those home security cameras, he gets commission, and he does that right on YouTube.
RICH: I’ll stop you there really briefly Sean. So Jeff, remember back in the day when this concept of word of mouth marketing kind of came into the four and we were really celebrating the power of word of mouth—it’s less expensive, it’s more immediate, it leverages your network, etcetera. There is no era greater than today to exploit the idea of word of mouth and what Sean is sharing with us is that your friends and your friends of friends of friends are part of that word of mouth net that you can cast really uniquely with social engagement, social media and in particular video. So do you have other examples, Sean?
SEAN: Yeah, just a couple rapid fire ones. We have people that are of course doing fitness, whether they’re like a beach body coach or people like that. But the other interesting thing is, one of the people in our communities is named Javen and he actually does video production full time but what he did was he actually started a YouTube channel around his passion and it’s all about barbecue. Barbecue ribs, barbecue chicken, I don’t want to make you guys hungry.
JEFF: Send me the link.
RICH: Yeah, what’s the web address of that?
JEFF: Exactly, we’re going to post that on the radio show too, whatever that is.
SEAN: You have to. It’s called Postal Barbecue. And here’s the interesting thing, real numbers: he has about 300 YouTube subscribers and his videos are getting to the tune of 50 to 100 to a couple hundred views. But he’s already started to make almost enough money monthly off of affiliate marketing to pay for his groceries so his wife is happy there. It’s a little side thing that they’re doing off of his passion. He’s talking right now to his meat sponsor, so all of the meat he’s going to cook on his channel is going to be free and sponsored, right?
RICH: Awesome.
SEAN: And they’ve given him a ton of other brands, a ton of products around his passion. That’s the interesting thing to think about. Another example is a home school mom who is doing the same things. Finding ways to take her passion, put it online, and then monetize it to create a part time, you know a side income, a part time, but then eventually potentially a full time income around your passion?
RICH: In all of these cases, is the method to get people to either come to the YouTube channel or to see the video that you might do on Facebook basically using the social connections of that social media venue or is there some other promotion that you recommend entrepreneurs do to drive people to where their video is?
SEAN: I think a little bit about what we talked about earlier—I think you absolutely want to, like you just said, promote it on your current network. You could just share it. You could send it to somebody personally. That word of mouth amongst friends. But that other side that we really stress is this idea of ranking your videos in search. So for the home school mom whose videos are now showing up when people type a day in the life of a home school mom.
People type in barbecue accessories, they now see him talking about his favorite tools and he’s now able to monetize that. I think it’s really having your video shows up in search. And so it is definitely a learnable thing, something that people can go through but we actually put together a free checklist that just tells people 19 things to do every time you upload a YouTube video so that way you just go through one by one to make sure that your videos are optimized so that you can start taking advantage of that search traffic.
JEFF: Okay, great. Listen, guys, amazing stuff today. Rich and I took notes feverishly. Benji, Sean, videoinfluencers.net.
RICH: It’s great having you be radio influencers today.
JEFF: And you’ve brought great value to the audience that’s what it’s all about. We really thank you guys and to be continued, I’d like to make this a regular gig and for those of you out there in the listening audience who want to learn more, you can go to StartupNation.com/radio, you can also go to videoinfleuncers.net and make a direct connection with Benji and Sean. Thank you so much guys for sharing your wisdom today we really appreciate it.
Alright, thank you. Now, Rich, great show. We’re going to post some notes.
RICH: Absolutely. All the key takeaways.
JEFF: Amazing takeaways. We’ll do a couple on the show to recap, there will be more on the website in the next day or so. Get viewers, views while you snooze. I love that, that’s a good one. YouTube is where you post your library of video. That’s interesting and then you share it out from there but you use it as a place to maintain your library of video that you’ve produced.
RICH: There are a bunch Jeff, and I’m going to make sure we consolidate them all at StartupNation.com, click on that radio tab, they’re going to be right there. And between this week and next week folks, get out there and start it up!