If you've started a YouTube channel at some point and posted videos consistently for weeks, months, or even years, but your channel still isn't getting the attraction you thought it would at this point, I'd be willing to bet you're doing this. This one thing is the difference between the top 1 percent of channels on YouTube and the other 99 percent that never take off.
This one thing is a really simple concept that Any YouTuber could apply immediately to grow at 100 times the speed, but unfortunately, most channels will never ever have the insight or understanding about what it is and why it's important. So in this episode of full time YouTuber, I'm going to dive deep into why 99 percent of YouTubers fail to grow their channel and how you can implement this one concept to turn your channel into a top 1 percent channel.
Hey, I'm Ben and I help video creators who are entrepreneurs at heart, grow their YouTube channels into profitable businesses. This podcast is for creators who want to help their audiences through informational content, not to chase fame or subscribers, even though that may come, but rather to build a business that generates revenue while you sleep.
So you can live your dream lifestyle. And I know that opening was super clickbaity, I apologize for that, but I really want to stress just how important this one concept is. So I'm going to get straight to it. The concept I'm talking about, and the reason that 99 percent of YouTubers fail, is that they fail to pick the low hanging fruit.
What do I mean by that? Is this podcast now a gardening podcast? Well, no. Picture a big fruit tree in front of you. It's got hundreds of pieces of fruit of all sizes and shapes. Well, what 99 percent of YouTubers do when they see this tree is instead of picking the biggest, ripest, juiciest fruit that's sitting there right in front of them, they instead decide to get a ladder and climb to the top of the tree to try and find something different.
Maybe a fruit that's underripe or overripe and they become obsessed with finding the fruit that isn't the fruit staring them directly in the face. And yes, this is obviously a metaphor for video ideas. On any given topic and niche, there are thousands of potential video ideas you can pursue. And so few creators Actually pursue the ones that are the biggest and juiciest and reap the most rewards.
These creators that fail, make videos that only a small audience wants to watch and not a big audience. This is a mistake that I made in the early days of my YouTube channel, and I can say I learned the hard way by making hundreds of videos that underperformed since they were those fruit that were out of sight.
Maybe they were topics that were outdated, topics that were too. early and ahead of their time or topics with really low demand. So now that I've got my fruit picking metaphor out of the way, which I am so proud of myself for using because I am an avid gardener, I want to articulate this concept to you better through sharing eight mistakes that showcase eight different aspects of creators, not picking the low hanging.
Again, my advice and the concept of this episode is that you need to pick that low hanging fruit. But first, let me just articulate to you what that fruit is and isn't. So, piece of fruit number one, aka mistake number one, Is ignoring the most popular topics that everyone wants to know about. As creators, we have a tendency to want to be creative all the time, including with our video ideas.
And sometimes this can go a bit far and stray you too far away from the core demand of your audience. For example, maybe you teach video editing. And you wanted to teach the topic of color grading. There are a lot of creators out there that would go too niche with this concept and make a video along the lines of how to color grade like 1930s film noir, which while this is unique, very few people are actively searching for something so specific, whereas a better approach would be finding the topic that appeals to absolutely.
Everyone interested in color grading right now, or at least as many people as possible. So a better version of that video idea might be how to color grade videos like Hollywood blockbusters. Can you feel the difference between those two titles and which one has more appeal to a wider audience? Even though I may not be be looking to colour grade a Hollywood blockbuster.
I do make my own videos for YouTube, and I want to know how to colour grade better. Therefore, a video that teaches how to colour grade like a Hollywood blockbuster is at least implying that it's going to make my videos look more cinematic. Whereas how to colour grade like 1930s film noir is just too niche, and really so few people would be searching for that specific topic.
So whichever niche you're in. I want you to think about what the top three video topics might be across the entire niche. Don't go super narrow in niche, make it the three most widely appealing ideas. In my niche, creating videos that might be how to film professional YouTube videos, how to edit your videos like a pro and how to create viral effects.
These are not niche concepts, but rather they are really big ideas that appeal to absolutely everyone that might even have a remote. Interest in making their own videos. 'cause even if they aren't looking to do those things to the extreme, there might be elements within those larger ideas that could bring them value.
So think about what your most popular topics in your niche are, because those ones are the low hanging fruit. And if you want to grow your channel quickly, I'd recommend. Starting by covering these make these your first couple of videos these low hanging fruit ideas that are the big Ideas that appeal to absolutely everyone or as many people as possible The second mistake that moves away from the low hanging fruit is over complicating video titles I see this all the time where creators are trying to be too clever or too Cute with the wording of their title, or they become obsessed with SEO and fitting as many keywords as humanly possible into their title.
And I'm just going to debunk a myth here. That tactic does not work. YouTube is not SEO based. It's value based. If you can present. A valuable video concept, so many more people are going to click it than a video that just has every keyword under the sun. An example of this mistake might be a fitness channel with a video titled, leveraging aerobic and anaerobic thresholds for optimal cardiovascular adaptation.
Huh? That title is so technical and convoluted that no one's going to understand what it means, let alone be searching for it. Whereas an approach I like to take is even though some topics are highly technical and they have a lot of these really niche and complicated terms, instead of using those terms, what you need to do is dumb it down so a child could understand it.
Or someone with English as a second language could understand it. So a better alternative to that previous title would be something along the lines of how to burn fat fast with these simple cardio hacks. This uses very simple everyday language and as a result the value is very easy to understand. You really need to be as literal as possible with your video titles.
Again I know we're all creatives here and we want to come up with really creative titles almost like with. Film makers creating the name for our next blockbuster film, but on YouTube, it doesn't work like that. The simpler and easier to understand your video title is the better. A good video title needs to pass a three second test.
And that test is if you were to. If you go to the end of the video and see this title, could you understand the entire concept of the video, within three seconds, purely based on the video title? If not, that's a sign you need to simplify it so it's more obvious. Anything that takes longer than three seconds to fully comprehend is not going to hold the attention span of the average person, and therefore they're going to keep scrolling on to the next video.
That makes immediate sense to them. Mistake number three ties into this very closely, and that is poor thumbnails. Again, going with the theme of simple and literal, this is actually surprisingly hard to do, and so few YouTubers do this. And that is simplifying your thumbnails to be as. Easy to understand as possible.
While I give video titles a three second test, I give thumbnails a one second test. If your audience can't pick up the concept or message of your video within one second of looking at your thumbnail, then they'll simply keep scrolling onto the next video. And the thumbnail really is the part that needs to be dumbed down the most.
Since generally people look at the. Thumbnails before the titles. Therefore the thumbnail has to entice curiosity and appeal to your audience instantly without having to make them think. So an example of a poor thumbnail might be a tech reviewer who has like a hundred different devices. in the thumbnail with lots of text across the thumbnail.
And then in the texts are weird messages like, OMG, sounds good. Check this out. All of these things put together, don't paint a picture quickly. And that is really what you need to be doing in your thumbnail. Simple thumbnails really are best. Whereas a better approach is keeping the thumbnail as simple and clean as possible.
If you can use one image only, then you should. And if you absolutely have to use texts, don't use any more than a few words. And those few words have to be as on point to the topic of your video as possible, while also having value to give you an example of this from my own channel. My best performing video to date is my DaVinci Resolve beginner's tutorial.
And the thumbnail of that is me smiling against a black background and pointing to the DaVinci Resolve logo to my side. And above it, the text reads, learn in 12 minutes. So there's no way you could misinterpret what that thumbnail is about. And even a child or someone with English as their second language could understand that as well.
So again, make your thumbnails as simple and literal as humanly possible. The next mistake that stops creators from picking the low hanging fruit is not solving a clear problem. In every niche, there are thousands and thousands of problems. And thousands of video ideas that could potentially come from those problems.
Yet only one in a hundred videos presents itself in a way that it actually is a legitimate and valuable solution. And yes, again, this does come back to the title and thumbnail, but I just want you to understand what problem solving means from the psychological perspective. So for example, maybe there's a cooking channel and it uploads a video that has the title, um, yum.
Baking cake with my Aunt Mavis. Hehe, that's a silly one, but it's not inaccurate to the level of problem people are proposing to solve in their videos. So in that one, there's basically no problem, while there's kind of a solution, baking a cake with my Aunt Mavis. There was no problem to begin with, therefore it presents itself more like a vlog.
And ain't nobody got time to watch your vlog, I'm sorry to say. Whereas a better approach to this video concept that more addresses the problem solving aspect would go along the lines of this, how to bake the perfect chocolate cake, then in brackets beginner friendly. This second title addresses a clear and searchable problem.
The problem being people do not know how to bake because they are a beginner and they've never done this before. And it promises that they're going to make the perfect chocolate cake. Not an average one, but the perfect one. Your audience doesn't care about your Aunt Mavis. They just want to make the perfect chocolate cake that they're going to enjoy.
Therefore, how to titles are the best way to solve a clear problem in your video idea. And just to be clear, you could take the exact same video of you cooking a chocolate cake with your Aunt Mavis. And give it either of these two titles. One of them would get absolute crickets, and the other one would probably go super viral and get millions of views over the years.
So think about which problems you can solve for your audience, and if there's any obvious how to videos you could make that could clearly solve those problems. The next mistake is trying to fit too many different topics and advice into one video. Now, we all have a lot of knowledge on a lot of topics, right?
Yeah, well, that's great, but your audience isn't necessarily looking to hear all of that knowledge at once. Usually, when they come to you, they have a very specific problem that they want to hear about, but it's just that one thing and nothing else. It's kind of like when you go to a family dinner and you ask grandpa how he is, and he tells you his whole life story since 1942.
You simply just wanted a yes or no answer. Are you good or not? And he ended up waffling on for six hours about his whole life story. It's way too much information and not what you came for. So don't do that to your audience. An example of this in YouTube world might be, say a finance channel that makes a video titled how to save money, Budget, start a side hustle, enjoy your life and retire early in 10 steps.
This video idea is cramming multiple complex topics into one title. And while one small aspect of it might be appealing to you, the other 10 things aren't. Because at any one given time, you've usually only got one pressing problem, not 10. And therefore you would rather the creator spend all of that video time on that one topic instead of diluting it down to cover every topic under the sun.
So, the improved version of something like this that is much more focused would go along the lines of this, how to save 10, 000 this year, even on a tight budget, which delivers a single compelling promise that is easy to follow and doesn't give you a whole life story and every last thing you know about the future.
Finance. So again, if you know a lot about heaps of different topics, it's actually the perfect opportunity to break it up into a hundred different pieces, pretend it's a puzzle and you're assembling it bit by bit, trying to create each puzzle block, like it has its own unique. Color and message and doesn't stray outside of that because I can guarantee you, there's going to be someone out there that needs your advice so badly on that one thing.
And they're simply not going to click your video if you're promising them 50 different puzzle blocks at once. Mistake number six that has to do with the low hanging fruit is ignoring evergreen topics. Evergreen topics are topics that are relevant now. They'll be relevant tomorrow and again, relevant 10 years from now.
And the more of these you can make on your channel, the more you're going to achieve consistent growth over time without needing to make more and more videos. So the opposite of this would be something like this. A travel vlogger making a video titled, My day in Paris, croissants, the Eiffel Tower, and making a new friend.
While that video might be interesting for you and your very small audience of followers today, I guess, ain't nobody gonna be watching this video a year from now. So if you are looking to make videos that have a long life, you'll want to avoid making any videos that are relevant only today or within a few weeks or months of the time you're making the video.
That is, unless you have a news or information related channel where your industry changes a lot and the concept of your channel is keeping people up to date with all the latest changes. That's the one exception to that rule. But otherwise you want to focus on making content that people will still be watching 10 years from now.
So a better concept for this video that this person's making in Paris might go along the lines of top 10 must visit spots in Paris. Because it's likely that those 10 things aren't going to change in 10 years. So if the video actually is good, then it's going to have every chance in the world of being super successful over time.
Again, because it's appealing to that wide audience who wants to know generally what the top things to do in Paris are. Mistake number seven is relying on your own personal interests over audience demand. You know how sometimes you're in your everyday life and you do something and you think, This would actually make for a really good YouTube video.
And then you make the video, and it gets three views. Yes, I've had this experience myself many, many times before. And that's because I chose to make something that was purely out of my own self interest, but not something that people were actively searching for, or something that they were even interested in if I were to present it in a really good light.
Now, it's not to say that you shouldn't make videos that you're interested in, because I think this is also essential over a long period of time that you enjoy the content you're making. However, if you're always making videos on really specific topics to the things that you like, and you don't gauge your audience demand at all.
There's no way you're going to grow your channel big and turn it into your full time job. So the example here might be, How to use the magnifying tool in Wondershare Filmora for precision edits. While it does follow some of the rules that I talked about earlier on, this video appeals to next to no one.
This is because, firstly, it's about a software that barely anyone uses, Wondershare Filmora, who's even heard of that? Then on top of that, it's one really specific tool that most people don't even know that they need, and they definitely won't be actively searching for. But somehow you stumbled across it, you used it, and you saw value in it.
However, since this is not what your audience is looking for, there's no way this video would ever, ever take off. Aside from maybe a few hundred views over a few years. In short, people don't care. A better approach, firstly, would be finding the top tools that people actually want. Not just the specific tools within the tool, in this case it's video editing and then the tools within a video editor, but the video editor itself.
The low hanging fruit there are going to be programs like DaVinci Resolve. Premiere Pro and CapCut. And then what you'd want to do is find what people's top problems are. Instead of thinking that they're looking for a magnifying glass tool, actually look online and see what types of videos are popping, what people are talking about in Facebook groups and Reddit threads, and make a video where there is actual audience demand.
Because I can guarantee if you do a good job at that video, you're going to be solving that audience's problem and they will love you for it. They'll subscribe, share it around. And the video also stands a much greater chance of being evergreen since it was one with high audience demand to begin with.
The final mistake you might be making in this whole fruit picking analogy that I've started 99 percent of creators who fail make videos that are not Must watch videos, they might make a video that is a nice to watch. Maybe if your audience has time later, but it doesn't make them want to stop what they're doing and watch this video immediately.
And if you really want to grow your channel to the next level, you need to become obsessed with making those types of videos that are the must watch videos. You want to be interrupting your audiences. So they can discover your video and get value they didn't know they needed. So an example of a video that is not a must watch is gonna be something like this.
My favorite yoga poses for relaxation. While that's nice and it is informative, it's also quite generic and doesn't create a sense of Urgency or excitement, making it easy for viewers to skip. So what you need to do is think about how you can tweak the video concept to become a must watch. How would that exact same video present if it was one of those videos that people had to drop everything to watch?
Here are some alternatives. This five minute yoga hack. Cured my insomnia, try it tonight, or why this one yoga pose could change your life, or I tried the hardest yoga pose every day for a month. Here's what happened. Those three video titles are so much more appealing and feel like ones you're actually curious to watch.
And you'd probably stop what you're doing to watch because they promise high value and invoke curiosity. So when brainstorming video ideas, if you think you're onto something, but not quite there, Try and brainstorm ways that you can just shift a few words here and there to make this video a must watch video.
I did this very exercise with the title of this podcast. I can say for sure if I titled it, why you need to pick the low hanging fruit, that it would. But instead I asked myself, how can I make this a must listen to episode? So I wrote down a whole bunch of alternative titles, and eventually whittled the list down to the best one.
And that was, why 99 percent of YouTubers fail to grow their channel. It's curiosity invoking, it's high value, and most importantly, the high stakes nature of it makes it a must listen. So try to give your video ideas high stakes. Mistakes. Like mistakes people need to avoid or why you need to try this amazing tool that will save you so much time.
Those are the must watch ideas that will grow your channel quickly. Alright, that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed this gardening themed episode of the Creator's Journey. Lots to think about here. I really hope you got value from it and that you avoid this mistake that 99% of YouTubers are making.
Now that you understand the concept of picking the low hanging fruit. Now it's over to you to go and do it. If you want some shortcuts about how to create these great video ideas, I'm excited to announce that I've just written a free guide called 100 viral video ideas. And inside it, you'll find exactly that 100 template ideas that you can copy and paste and only tweak a word or two to create these high value video ideas.
That will help grow your channel into a top 1 percent channel. This guide is completely free and you can download it from my website, benclaremont. com slash ideas, or follow the link in the show notes of this episode. I'm confident that at least one of these 100 viral video ideas is going to help you create a super popular video, if not all 100.
All right, that's it for today. I wish you all the success in the world. And don't forget, you're just one video away.
