A few weeks ago, my team gave you all the opportunity to ask me anything and everything you want over in our YouTube Community space . Some of the questions were about YouTube while some of them were about parenting and my personal life. So today, I am answering all your burning questions. Here goes nothing!
“Should I just capture my homesteading journey? Or plan out the videos and only release the more polished ones?” – Farmer Brad
So basically post or plan? – Well, you can do either. If you are really good at telling stories on the fly, do that. But for most people, planning the story usually works better. Don’t worry too much about “polish” in production value, but in making sure people feel something in your stories.
“What’s going on?” – Jaichbinhier
TOO MUCH. I’ve had back to back meetings today getting all the coaching stuff ready for VidIQ. We recently sold Video Creators to vidIQ and a main part of that was developing our coaching process and building it out into a more scalable level. So I’ve been doing lots and lots around that.
“Will the team you assembled stay together with the sell to vidIq? We still have questions and not a lot of answers.” -An Alaska Homestead
The whole team was offered to continue in their jobs at vidIQ. Only D’laina has decided to move in a different direction, but everyone else is still here and we are adding more and more people. (Keep an eye open for Blake and Laura who will appear on the podcast soon.)
“If you were helping grow an artist YouTube channel, what would you do?” – Minaye Wilson
Without much info on what type of art, I would say that I would to try to tie together the type of art I really love to create and something people are familiar with – but do it an unexpected way. This is going to set you apart from all the other tutorial types of channels. So instead of making a video on how to draw a dinosaur, my channel would be how to draw a picture that makes someone famous look like a dinosaur – or something like that. This accomplishes two growth strategies for YouTube. It connect things that don’t go together and it connects what is known to what is unknown. (-The famous person’s audience to my unknown YouTube channel.)
“When will the goatee be making a comeback?” -The Garage Band Guide
NEVER! I had it for decades and it was fine. But then I realized that hair styles go out of style and this one had just reached its time limit for me. Plus, my wife and I decided kissing was way better without it. (TMI?? You asked!)
“How do you handle 7 kids? I have three & that feels overwhelming at times!” – Katlyn Browning
I have a whole podcast episode on this because I get this question a lot. And most people follow it up with, I could never do that. And my answer is yes you could. You would figure it out. 7 kids in 8 years is a lot. But I had to learn really quickly, that to succeed we had to have better systems. – Same with a business. As you grow, you have to put better systems in place to make it work. And that’s the same thing that we had to do with our family.
“I find it hard to time manage homeschooling my kiddos and also working on my channel. Any tips on time management?” – Little Cozy Nook
I think I have a podcast about this one, too. I feel it’s less about “managing.” “Manage” sounds like everything is equal and I have to do it all. That’s just not true. Instead, it comes down to what is the best use of my time and how do I prioritize that above everything. Life is a seesaw. If one thing goes up, something else has to go down. You have to be ok with what drops off your plate and priorities change overtime too.
“How is strategy different for someone that’s at 300 vs 30,000 subs?”
When you are starting out, the goal doesn’t need to be to get a bunch of subs. The goals need to be developing skills like feeling comfortable in front of the camera, making thumbnails, telling good stories, etc. Experiment and try lots of things without worrying about having a dramatic effect on your audience. This time is a gift. Use it to really grow yourself. Look at your analytics and just try to do better than what you did last time.
“What was the process for you to define the Video Creators core values? Where do they ultimately come from and why did you chose these specific ones?” – Laura
I have a hard time leading people if I don’t know the vision, where we are going and what success looks like. So having these core values and mission statements helps me know how to plan our time, energy and finances.
I hired a couple consultants to help me decide what they would be internally and externally and over the years they have developed into what they are today: Results focused, people first, mission oriented, own it, do it right, change is good.
“What days and how often should we post per week? It seems like some of the top channels I follow are often sporadic now, whereas they used to post like clockwork on specific days.” -Kathy Hutto
Having a defined schedule was a more important strategy in years past, but now it it more about quality. People no longer look at YouTube like a TV show that has a certain scheduled time.
“What’s the meaning of Life?” – Dancing Alone w/Rentals
Jordan Peterson recently said that responsibility creates and brings meaning to life. Especially for men, if we don’t have responsibilities we end up wasting our time doing stupid things. But for me personally, I want thing to become fruitful. For me, seeing things in a state of chaos and it turning into something complete and fruitful brings me meaning.
“Will you commit to never launching your own chicken YouTube channel?” – Welcome to Chickenlandia
YES! I learned the hard way that if you turn your play into your work, it will defeat the purpose of my play and you’ll need a new play. So no, I will keep my chickens off of YouTube.
Power Tip
You can now ask and manage questions in Livestream Q&A chats! This will give creators the ability to manage on topic questions and viewers the ability to be addressed directly during Livestream and Premiers. Just click the plus sign under live chat in LCR. Questions will be added to a question queue which will allow you to choose which question to answer. Once you select a question it’s pinned to the chat and lets viewers follow along.
The goal is to build connection, deepening trust and creating a sense of community. It also enhances the live questions and conversation, keeps the conversation on topic and gives recognition to fans engaging in the chat.