If YouTube is a fertile place for random creators and influencers to build an audience and monetize their content, then why shouldn’t it be the same for book authors? Believe it or not, there are a lot of authors on YouTube, and they have nothing but good things to say. So, how do you actually turn your YouTube channel into a profit-generating machine? We get into the nitty-gritty in this episode with today’s guest, Fran Asaro. Join in as she discusses everything from the basics of YouTube monetization strategies to more nuanced discussions tailored for book authors.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Unveiling Profit Paths For Authors On YouTube

We have another training with Fran Asaro, which was the most looked-at video and the biggest training we’ve had people show up to ever since the last time she was here. I know a lot of people are invested in YouTube and figuring out what to do, how to use it, and how they can optimize it. I’m excited because Fran knows a lot about making money with it. She can show us some things. We had some ideas that we tossed around in December 2023, and we didn’t do them, but Amanda, you’re talking to Fran about doing what we talked about to keep people on the channel.

Before we get started, I want to remind you all to grab your copy of Breakthrough Author Magazine at BreakthroughAuthorMagazine.com. The number two thing on the agenda in April 2024 is we are teaching an AI class for authors. It’s not to write your book with AI because we never want to do that. It is more about how you can streamline content. How can you grab from one AI, put it into the next AI, get your copy and video clips, and keep it all in notion so that if you’re a VA or yourself, you can streamline your content calendar?

We’re going to introduce you to some new AI platforms to help you get all sorts of good stuff that’ll be easy to use once you guys see how to use it, how to chunk it, and how to speak to it because you have to remember. You’re not learning from it. You’re training it. That’s coming up. If that’s something that interests you, send me an email. We don’t have a landing page up yet. It’s Juliet@SuperbrandPublishing.com. It’s a four-week course. The cost for the course is $1,497. I haven’t decided, but all of you are my clients. You may hit me up for a discount. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to give you guys a discount. If you all come at me at once and say, “We are demanding it.” I will do it.

Our guest is Fran Asaro. She is a YouTube mentor and strategist for mature creators. She shares how to optimize and monetize your YouTube channels. She’s the Founder of The Senior Tuber Community, which helps both professionals and hobbyists leave their gifts and legacy on YouTube. Fran, welcome. You can see we have a pretty good audience here again today. You’re popular, young lady. Are you going to mean girl us?

It’s funny because I thought I killed everybody during one of those episodes. I gave a lot of information, and everybody who had the deer in the headlights looked good. There weren’t any questions at the end. I could’ve been that thorough. I scared everybody. It was great

I’m sure you did. This is one of those areas where there are many little things. It is overwhelming. Did I do that? How do I do? There are a lot of tiny little things that can be done to optimize. Take it away.

Exploring YouTube Monetization

Thank you for inviting me, Juliet. This is such a gift and an honor to be here. Thank you, everybody, for reading. I thought maybe we would do it differently this time. I want to invite you to have a place to leave a list of your questions and some of the ideas that I’m going to come up with. Some are going to hit you. They’re going to be a-ha moments like, “I didn’t think of it.” Other things you might be doing already but you’re not doing on YouTube. You can organize your thoughts so you can write quickly. I have a lot of information. I want you to have it all.

The first thing I want to say is YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. I use YouTube as the foundation for my business. Everything I do starts on YouTube. It goes to my blog, emails, and all my social platforms. This way, I have everything housed in the place with the most access to the world. If you are putting things out on your social platforms instead of your YouTube platforms, that’s what we’re going to talk about. That’s what you may already be doing.

I’ve seen what Juliet does. I see how she trains everybody. You’re getting all the best information. I want to invite you over to another place that might give you more coverage. How many people here already have a YouTube channel? Does everybody? If you don’t, you can go to The Senior Tuber Community. We have some videos there. I also have a podcast, but it’s a great place for authors. My best friend, since seventh grade, is an author. I get to watch her journey. She also has her Master’s in Marketing. Watching how she writes her children’s books is amazing. She’s creative. That’s what this is about. I’m hoping it either gives you ideas or stimulates you to be more creative and have more fun.

The first thing I’m going to do is talk about some of YouTube’s already set-up opportunities to make money. You may know them already. For instance, I belong to the YouTube Partner. Does anybody have more than 1,000 subscribers? The YouTube partner program requires you to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch time hours every rolling twelve months. For some of you, that sounds overwhelming, and I’m here to say it doesn’t have to be.

Is that 4,000 watch time or post-video time?

It’s watch time hours. It equates to about 330 watch time hours per month. Where people are failing is to keep people on their site. YouTube has what we call algorithms. They want to keep you on the YouTube platform, as does any other social media platform. You are a microcosm of YouTube. You keep people on your platform. They stay on your channel. You make more money. That’s what they want you to do on their platform. They also want you to do it so that you can make more money.

With the YouTube Partner Program, you get to do AdSense on your website, where anytime somebody goes to your website, you can earn money with ads. YouTube Partner Program offers things like membership opportunities where you can have a membership for your audience. You can have thanks buttons, which are an option at the bottom of your video, and when you do live, like on TikTok. If you’ve ever been to a TikTok Live, you see how people are sending all these little funny cartoon things that represent money. This is a thanks button that you could be earning money by showing up and giving to your people.

You don’t have to wait forever to get these 1,000 subscribers or to get to the 4,000 watch hours. What I want to say is shorts are the best way to get there. Shorts do not give you watch time hours, but what they do is they give you access. It’s like a buy one get one free at the supermarket. You’re getting people in. You’re inviting them to see your content, which is a longer version of content. If you’re doing podcasts or anything else that’s fifteen minutes or longer, you want to let your shorts lead to your longer-form video.

 

If you’re doing shorts, and if you look at your video details page, your right column for shorts only will give you a recommended video option. If you click on that, you can now attach your shorts to the recommended video that would give you the long-form video that you want them to see. That’s how you’re going to get subscribers and views. When they get to the long-form video, they’re going to be having the watch time hours. Any questions about that?

On the shorts, when you upload them, the first screen you upload your video, you put the description in, and it goes to the second screen. That’s where you can attach the card to it.

There are two ways to upload a video. One, they give you page by page. You can upload your video sequentially. I keep going next, and I wait until I have the video details page. That’s where I do everything. I can keep an eye on all the columns. I do it strategically. If that’s what you mean, yes. That page is called the video details page. It is where you’ll put your title, description, thumbnail, playlist, and monetization. The right column is where you do your cards, end screens, and recommended video. You cannot access that feature from a long-form video, but from the shorts, you can go to any video. You could do any video as a recommended video.

One of the things that you want to know is when you belong to the YouTube Partner Program. I know you don’t belong there now, but I want you to know it’s quick. If you were out there doing shorts, leading them through playlists, you also have access to a shop where you can have merchandise. If there’s anything in your book that has something repetitive or a famous saying, you can put it out there. I have Senior Tuber t-shirts, tote bags, and hoodies. If there’s a quote about you or a title, you could put it in there, and you could send them out as gifts or have contests for them where people can have the opportunity to win.

You’re saying, “How is this making me money?” We’re getting there. One is to keep the engagement going. We need people to be a part of this energy that you’re trying to create a community. One of the things is to have sponsors. You think, “I’m not a YouTube partner. I can’t have sponsors.” You could have sponsors with few subscribers. It won’t be through the YouTube Partner Program. There are sponsors out there that would sponsor you for a couple of hundred to 500 subscribers because you have good engagement.

You need people to be a part of the energy that you're trying to create. Click To Tweet

If you’re doing your videos right, and you’re optimizing them correctly, and they can see that you’re getting a lot of activity, people are commenting, they’re asking questions, and you’re staying engaged with them, sponsors may approach you. There are sponsorship links where you can go and approach them. One of them is a YouTube-related sponsorship program, YouTube BrandConnect, where you can choose the sponsor you want. You don’t have to wait for somebody to approach you. There’s Art Brief and Scrunch. I don’t know much about them, but those are other sponsorship programs.

Let’s go back to playlists. We’re trying to create a flow so that your people are engaged. The more people you have, the more people who are going to buy your stuff. We’re going to talk about other ways to make money. We need people to see you to buy it. If you only had five people come to view your page, how are you going to sell what you want to sell? If 1,000 people came, it’s a better chance.

Imagine that you have your playlist. You go ahead and decide you’re going to read your book on YouTube, maybe chapter by chapter, page by page. You add one video for each section you decide you are going to do. You create a playlist with the book called the Playlist Reading. What you have there is the opportunity to get watched time hours because when you share the playlist link, every video has two links. You could go into your content and look for the link. I call it the short link. That is going to take you to the video.

The right column on YouTube is going to suggest other videos to your viewers. Anything they think your viewers will get is going to be specific to them. However, if you go to your homepage on your channel and there’s a playlist tab, and if you click on the playlist tab, choose the playlist you want, and click on the video you want to share, there’s now a long-form URL. That is your playlist URL.

When you post and share that, what now shows up in the right-hand column are all your playlist videos. What happens is when people go into the first video that you share, they’re now more inclined to click on the other videos, or even if they walk out of the room, they’re going to automatically play. You’re going to start building watch time hours like crazy.

You want to create playlists that are enticing for people to do. You can share the playlist link or the link to the video, whichever you want to do. Playlists are important. You can choose more than one playlist when you’re uploading a video. If you think it fits under interviews and podcasts, you can put it under two different types of playlists, whichever feels better for you.

Another thing you get with the YouTube Partner Program is a membership option. You don’t have to be a YouTube partner to have a membership. You can have one anywhere. I have one on YouTube. Anybody who sees my videos automatically knows about my membership program. There are several ways that YouTube promotes it for you. You could have several levels there. My first level is $0.99 to get on the email list and to get some discount. You can get people inexpensively, but it’s going to promote people to want to be with you.

That’s what we want to do. We want them to fall in love with you. We want you to have raving fans who are going to be talking about you. In these memberships, you can create a fan club or a loyalty program for people who could have access to exclusive content, early book releases, or VIP experiences with you, like meet and greets or getting signed copies.

These are things that I discussed in the Optimizing Your Video Podcast. For some of these, I won’t go into detail. I’m going to give you a brief version of it. You can ask Juliet or go back to her original episode. If you utilize your description, you are going to have a different result than if you don’t. The first three lines of a description will show up before the more button shows up when the viewer is looking. If they don’t click the more button, they will never see what’s below it.

Your first 2 or 3 lines in your description are vital. That’s where you want to put your call to action. Whatever it is you’re sharing, book, opt-in, or PDF, that’s where you want to put it. You always wanna put the title of your video as the next line without a space. You could explain the video, but the title is part of optimizing your video.

Another thing is the thumbnails. If anybody is having trouble getting views or getting people there, and you are not getting views, there are three things that happen. That’s all it is. Your thumbnail, title, or tags are not attracting them. That’s the only reason they’re not coming to you. If you’re getting views but they’re not staying on your video, your video hasn’t been optimized. That’s a whole other episode if Juliet wants to have me back.

In your thumbnail, there are three things to know. You want to be on the thumbnail, at least you or somebody that looks animated, pointing, laughing, doing something goofy, or upside down. When you’re making a video, here’s a secret. All you want to do is keep the video running longer, strike some poses, cut it off later, turn them into still shots, and use them for some of your promotions because people want to see you. If you’re not going to use yourself and you like having a faceless channel, which is very common, all you want to do is put somebody else or something funny on there.

The other thing is you want to have contrast. If you have your own brand colors, make sure you use the most contrasting of them. Purple and yellow, black and white, black, white and red. Something that is bold and is going to stand out. If you want to create a template for your thumbnail and replace the title of the video each time, that’s okay. You try to mix it up. You can have them where everybody says, “That’s Juliet’s. I can tell right away.”

The next thing is the thing that people are losing out on. That is, the language you put on the thumbnail has to be short and sweet, bold, and as big as you can make it, and it should not be more than a couple of words. It should be the teaser to have them look at the title. If you went in and you looked up the title of your book or somebody else’s subject of your book and you’re scrolling, you’re going to see a thumbnail and a title. If they see the thumbnail and it looks interesting and enticing, they’re going to go to the title, and they’re going to click. That’s what you’re trying to do. You need to get them romanced.

If your first thing is you’re not getting views, it is to learn how to or get somebody to make you these great thumbnails and titles. I use a program that helps with AI getting you. It evaluates your thumbnails and titles. We could talk about that later. It’s $50 a year, but if you’re under 1,000 subscribers, it’s $26 a year.

The third thing with the tags is that you need to reach your audience. YouTube needs to know your audience. If you are precise enough when you put up a video, YouTube is going to know who you’re trying to reach, and they’re going to help you. They want you to make money and succeed. They need you to succeed, but they can’t if you don’t put any tags or titles, and they don’t know who you want to reach.

 

If you go into the tags and start speaking to your audience about what they are searching for and you may not know, that’s where we can maybe talk one time. If you go into TubeBuddy, learn how to look up keywords through several things, or go into AnswerThePublic.com, some of those places tell you what your people are looking for. Go to Google, go to the bottom, and see what people are searching for when you put in a topic. That will help you put tags in.

Long-form keywords usually work best because if you put in the word love, you’re going to get lost among millions of people who put the keyword love. If you put how do you love yourself after something? Those people are going to find you because they fit that bill. You want to make your keywords specific to your audience.

If a lot of people think the more general, the better, but it’s not true. They want you to be specific, and you’re going to attract the right people. I’m a big John Travolta fan. I always say, “Don’t put John Travolta’s name in the tag expecting to get more views because anybody who’s looking for John Travolta.” YouTube will notice that it has nothing to do with your title, description, or any other video that you’ve ever made. You’re going to be considered spam. You want to make sure that your title and tags match. You might copy your title and copy it right into the tags as you do in the description.

You need to be very specific with your keywords if you're going to attract the right people. Click To Tweet

Another thing that people fail to do that is important is that you have the option of putting those two videos in. It’s the featured video and the channel trailer video. The trailer is for people who haven’t subscribed yet. I recommend that you do that for a 1 to 3-minute max video that is speaking to your audience, not promoting you. Don’t say, “Hi, I am Fran Asaro with Senior Tuber.” No, don’t waste that time. What I say is, “If you are a mature person, you’re interested in having a YouTube channel, you don’t know how to do it, you want to be part of a community, and you want to learn, subscribe.” That’s what I have on.

Have it so that you’re inviting people. They’re going to recognize themselves as soon as they get there. It’s the same thing with your About Me page and banner. Don’t let your banner say, “Fran Asaro.” The about me said, “Hi, I am Fran Asaro.” Have the channel be called Fran Asaro. It’s overkill. It’s free real estate. You want to make sure you use it for the right things. I’m promoting Uber, but I might have something else for the About Me and a different thing for the channel name.

The other video is for when people return. Once they subscribe, it’s called the feature video. They come back, and you get to decide if you want to keep this as a set-and-forget video or change it as you change. If you’re having a special, you could change that video. You’re like, “Welcome back while you’re here. Remember, we have a new podcast out.” Take a look as long as you’re loyal enough to change it when you need to.

I’m about to go into some of the different things. This is what YouTube offers. The About Me page, banner, and tags are going to have to speak to your audience. That’s what you want to remember. Don’t promote yourself. Attract your audience. That’s the difference between a feature and a benefit. You all heard that term. You don’t want to give the feature of what you’re offering. You want to give the benefits. What are you solving for somebody? Whether they want to be entertained, taught, or inspired. That’s what you want to speak to.

Don't promote yourself. Attract your audience. You don't want to give the feature of what you're offering. You want to give the benefits. Click To Tweet

Here are some of the things I want to suggest. First of all, lead generation. If you’re already doing it, you probably are. What about doing it on YouTube? Do you have your opt-in information in your description? That’s wonderful. Are you hosting live events on YouTube? That’s wonderful. You want to put that in there. Do you have a podcast? Yes.

YouTube For Authors Q&A

In the second video you talked about, Beth wants to know what it’s called and where it goes.

If you go into your YouTube studio and you go to the left column, there’s going to be a section called customization. Right on top, you’re going to see two boxes. If you don’t have anything there, it’s going to show two boxes. One is going to say, “The trailer video for non-subscribers.” The next one is going to say, “Featured video for subscribers.” I don’t know what it’s going to say. Once you put it there, you could use an existing video, but I prefer that you don’t.

Don’t put a podcast there. Imagine that you go to somebody’s site and you want to learn about them. You don’t want to watch a one-hour video. You want to make it short. You want to welcome them into your home and make them feel like how you would want if you met your ideal person. That’s what you want to do. Welcome them in friendly, warm, and love all over them.

The featured one is the one that you can change anytime you want. That’s the one you could change for your audience. That’s already a part of your audience. Those people who are going to be notified every time you put up a video are something you’ll want to speak to and change if you do want, but you don’t have to. I haven’t changed mine in months. One day, I will do it regularly.

Some of the things that we talked about that you might be doing already but haven’t done are private sessions. Are you offering private sessions related to the book? Maybe you have a book that’s a how-to, or it has secrets. You welcome them. If you have something already out there, you’re sharing about it, and you’re on LinkedIn telling about it, does YouTube know about it? Is it in your description? Better yet, is there a video about it? It’s not supposed to be a sales video. It’s a testimonial from somebody who’s already done it with you and had a private session or a group session with you. You want to have a video that is open to the world.

A video that is optimized with the right tags and thumbnails is going to be exposed to anybody who’s looking for what you have to offer. If you are offering energy healing, there should be a video that you’re offering to people, how they could contact you, what it’s like, and what they can expect. Never put anything that’s dated unless you’re going to pull it down. Keep your videos evergreen as much as possible.

Another thing you might be doing is having digital products or classes out there. You may be doing it in the description. At the very least, it should be in the description with links. What about talking about it on a video and taking those videos, not only on YouTube? You can multipurpose and leverage your YouTube channel by starting to put those videos and anything new that you have going on. Create it for the world and blog, insert it into your newsletter, put it into your social media channels, and turn it into shorts. One video you could do a month, or one long podcast could bring you in 20 or 30 shorts. You could be posting every day with this one long-form video.

It’s not as hard as it seems. If you have a website, you’re going to throw something up there and hope that people will find it. It’s not as likely as if you have it as SEO optimized. YouTube is the same way. People might find it, but it will be a lot harder. Why would you want to make it harder on your audience? If you need an audience, why not make it easy for them? Pave the path for them to get to you.

 

Here’s the question I would like you to write down. Can this be optimized on YouTube? Would this work for me on YouTube? Whatever you’re doing, could I do this on YouTube? Could I do a live stream on YouTube about this? Could I have a membership? Could I put this piece that I’m putting out there? Could I put that on YouTube? That’s what maybe would help you.

Whatever you’re doing for lead generation, you want to do on YouTube. Off the beaten path, some things that are not YouTube related, but you might be doing somewhere else, or ideas that you could do on YouTube. For one, offer to guest host a book club. There are many book clubs on YouTube. Contact those people and say, “I have a book out. Would you like to do that? I’ll show up at your book club. You decide whatever your terms are. I could show up for the first and the last one. I could be there every week.” You could provide the books so they can buy them. Are you out there on YouTube with their clubs? Those people have a much bigger audience, and you capitalize on that because they’re going to promote you. All the people who come to the book club are going to promote you.

Another thing is to record and share events like book signings and anything that engages your audience. Make a recording of it. You may not use it all. If you keep your video on when you’re doing a book signing, record even a little bit. It could be a 32-second video like, “Here I am. Come join me next week or whatever you want.” Have an event calendar where people can find you. You probably do this already, but maybe not on YouTube. Ask for the video testimonials, post them there, and create a playlist of testimonials so people can find them all in one place.

If you’re offering book bundles, special editions, additional chapters, or limited editions signed copies, those are some of the things you can also make videos about if you have those offered. Anybody who signs up for this will get that or offer it any other time. You can interview anybody you want on your channel. This doesn’t have to be live. You can always do, edit, and put it back up. Imagine interviewing some of your audience and readers and letting them talk about it with you or interviewing other authors that you know and want to support. It’d be a great network if all the authors could take on interviewing each other, posting, and utilizing everybody’s audience.

Another thing is that anybody who published your book might be somebody you want to interview. You’d be promoting your publisher and endorsing your book anytime you wanted. If you can think of it, I want to hear it. Who else could you interview? We were talking about contests, but if you had a contest where you promote engagement for anybody who signs up gets an entry into a contest or enters the contest and is eligible to win a private call with you, a signed copy, access to asking questions or choose to be involved in the next book. You could have contests for people.

You can host paid workshops where you might bring people in. If you’re teaching something in your book, teach it in a workshop. If you already have a digital, live program, or virtual program, video records some of it. Ask people for permission. Go ahead and charge for it. That’s money because it doesn’t always have to be about your book. I’m sure you already know that. Your book is going to lead you. It’s going to be a business card anywhere you go, and it’s going to be great.

There are many other things besides your book that you could be making money on. I have private sessions with people. I have a membership and a podcast. I’m in the middle of rebuilding some digital products. I’m an affiliate marketer. Juliette is not a big affiliate marketer, but if you have something that is directly related to what you’re using, you might want to consider being an affiliate marketer. I collect several hundred dollars a month from being an affiliate marketer. You can do some of these things to make money. You have to find the one that feels right for you.

Another thing is if you have anything like theme subscription boxes where people could be a part of your membership, and they have that like interactive journals. Having a journal for your book and creating it is your merchandise. There’s somebody out there who’s going through the Bible. She has a Bible study on YouTube. She was doing great like that. She started creating journals. She recreated them for each person. There would be one for kids, men, and women. She’s doing crazy business in the journals for her YouTube channel.

There’s always something you can do that would leverage your book and what you know because what you know is encompassed in that book, and you want to let it out. You want to give some of it away. I’m going to stop there because it’s a lot. I want to ask questions and know what you are doing that you might want to share with other people so that we can share together. I’m going to tell everybody about it if you tell me.

Christine Silverstein has appeared on two television shows to help people with kids and gun violence. Jeff is her VA. Her husband wants to know how he can get out there and promote those videos to more people.

There’s a couple of things you can do. One is that you can create shorts in one minute or less, which is called a clip. You go into anybody’s video, and you have to click the More button that says, “Clipping.” You can go ahead and clip the video or the part that you want. It gets its own link that will link to the video. You don’t have to do any description or any optimization. It’s a clip. You could also take the link.

This is what I do. I take the link to any of my outside podcasts. I created a playlist on my YouTube channel for all my other podcasts outside of my own. This way, people will see them there. You can also ask permission to use shorts from there and create shorts for any special moments. You want permission from everybody.

Jeff, I taught you how to use Opus. When I am on somebody else’s podcast or television show, I ask them if I can have the recording and if they’d be okay with me running Opus clips. That could be an additional area where you could take somebody else’s content. Nobody has said no to me yet because who doesn’t want their content spread all over the place? Get their permission because if you were on my podcast, the IP belongs to me. Be sure you get their permission.

There is a place where you upload a video where you could say other people can use your content. I always say, “Let them use it. I want them to.” If they haven’t, you can contact them if you want to do that. Here’s something you want to do. You want to go into ChatGPT. Since you’re an author, you’re going to write better than I can. Go into ChatGPT and say, “Create a permission letter for people so that I can use some of their content.” Have people sign it and put all the details that you think they’ll need to have it numbered and outlined with headings. ChatGPT will do all of that. You could have it put into a spreadsheet, a numbered form, or whatever way you want them to do it. I hope that helps.

Jeff wants to know how to clip, although I would rather see him use Opus than the clip because he gets transcription. He can drop the transcription into other programs.

The reason why it’s a clip is because it will take it back to the original video, and it’s much quicker. You can go in there and say, “I want this.” You send it off. It’s done in a minute. It is for this quick share. If you’re going to be saving it, that might be.

Does the clip function transcribe?

I don’t know. I’ll have to check it. I’ll get back to you.

That’s the key when you’re doing it because I can repurpose it.

Where is the clip function on YouTube? It’s under each video. If the people have allowed it, it’s going to show.

It’s a great business to have.

I’d like to say that I’m amazed at all the possibilities on YouTube. I didn’t realize how fertile it is. Linda, I don’t know everything. This is what I know. There’s a lot out there. For anything you could put on social media, put it on YouTube first. This way, you could share it. This particular one I’m looking for, Juliet, might have been the video I opened up to find the clips.

It’s not always going to be like this, but right here, it says, “Clip.” Linda, sometimes it’s going to be of these three dots. You hit clip, go over here, and pick your clip up to a minute. That’s a test title. We can share the clip. It comes into where you share it. It has a copy here. You don’t have any editing privileges that I know of, Juliet. You copy it and send it to whoever you want. This is what it would show up like. It says it’s a clip, and there it is. Watch the full video to show up, and share the clip if you want to.

Can I ask how you would leverage that using the clip function? Let’s say I’ve already created reels with it before, and I’ve pulled it out. What is the best thing to do with those clips?

I popped into one of my client’s podcast. As soon as I popped in, he acknowledged me and said, “It’s my home girl.” I was excited. I went and took that clip. I said, “Look at me. I’m a home girl.” I sent it out on my Facebook page. It was for fun, and everybody enjoyed it. If you’re sending it to somebody you’re trying to teach something to, it’s like, “Look at this. This is how you do this.” You could use it for a teachable, social media, or proud moment. Anybody else can think of a reason they would clip?

It’s helpful. Thank you.

You are welcome. Thanks, Beth. Has anybody come up with something you want to share with us?

Amanda’s talking to you about this. This might be something Amber wants to do. You and I had discussed keeping people on the channel over the holidays. I was going to read one of my old fiction novels because if I read it by chapter, people would go from video to video. I do that a lot. I sit here and listen to it. There’s one person who has a three-hour show. If I have a break, I’ll listen. What do you think of that thing if you’re not in a position where you can do an audiobook and somebody is willing to go from video to video? If you are trying to monetize, would you do that to get that monetization?

It’s not even for monetization; it’s for engagement to attach to your audience. If you say, “This month is going to be chapter one.” You could give anything. This month is National Women’s Month. We’re going to do something about women every day. It doesn’t even have to be your book. It could be theme-related. You could put something out every day. If you’re going to pre-plan and go all the way into June, you could say, “This is what June is about.” You could have a video every day or once a week. Keep people coming back for more, which is a secret that we’re not going into the whole thing.

When you’re making a video, never say goodbye in your video. Always invite them to watch the next video. If you have a series, it’s going to be great. Here’s number one. Stay tuned for number two. That’s something that would keep them looking. If you don’t invite them to stay, they’re going somewhere else to either get more of what you’re sharing or to another topic. Why not have your end screens, cards, and even you promote what’s next? Whenever a show ends on Netflix, there are always, “Stay tuned for episode three.” There’s always that teaser and trailer. You are in that business.

It sounds like a lot, but it is fun when you learn it. You are staying in the conversation. That’s why I have this membership group. We meet every week. It’s a few of us. We haven’t told anybody about it. We get together and ask our questions. We stay motivated and crazy together. We bring in details like this that help.

The answer to what Jeff has is yes. Can you create a playlist from individual videos that have already been posted? I have. I know you can.

When you first put out a video, it’s important that it’s completely optimized before you let it go public. Your YouTube wants to see what landing you have. In your first hour, you have this amount of views. You have this number of people who have watched it this long. They get to see how powerful you launched. Let’s face it. After that first few hours, it’s going to be going on there for years. One of my videos has over 200,000 views, and it didn’t start in the first two years at all. It started later on.

If you want to optimize any videos or put them into playlists and start sharing them, there’s nothing wrong with repurposing, especially if it’s a topic you love, or they already have some leverage. Your option, if there’s something that has already worked for you, is to keep promoting it. Put your call to action on all of your best-performing videos. It’s important.

If it’s a good performer or a discussion that you like, repurpose it. Make a new video about it. If you had something that was a long-form video, you might want to make it short. If you put something out there short, you want to make it a long form or a whole other version of the same thing because people wanted it.

I had one video before I knew how to have a niche because I was a failure at YouTube for several years. One of my videos was How to Put a Bullet Inside of a Sentence. That video has thousands of views and has brought me a lot of money. I should make another one. I started making little ones before I learned to do my YouTube channel with a more accurate and precise niche. Whatever is working, go ahead and duplicate it.

 

We have to wrap it up. One more question, Linda. Could you tell us about TubeBuddy when Linda is done?

Yes.

I have a question. If I were to read my book chapter by chapter on YouTube, would that not interfere with it being on Audible or put on an audio program to be sold?

If you are going to do Audible, don’t read it over on YouTube.

That’s all I want to do.

I gave you a quote. The only reason you would want to do it is if it’s part of an event or if you can’t afford to do the audiobook and you want to keep people on there. We had Meryl Chandler a couple of years ago. He did his own. I don’t know if he put it over on YouTube, but he used to jump on Facebook Live to his group, which was big every day.

He would sit in a hammock with a cocktail and read a chapter. That guy has more followers on Facebook. I don’t see any reason when he was doing that why he couldn’t go over and put those up on YouTube. He did that every single day. It was a financial book. It was a book that would’ve been harder to get through had you not had something fun and engaging to do with it.

If you’re not recommending that Linda reads it, what about commentary, Linda? What if you take a sense of the book and share it with people? She says, “This is some of the questions I’m getting. This is how I want to elaborate. Let me tell you a funny story about this.” People love to know you. This is a terribly sexist thing to say, but if you’re a sports enthusiast and you want your partner to watch with you and they don’t, if it’s a female, typically if you tell them about the team, the woman is more involved when she knows about the team. Remember that guy I told you this? They go, “Yeah.” They sit down and watch. That’s me. I’d like to know. I like to be engaged, and I watch the whole football game.

It’s the same thing with you, Linda. The more they know about you, the more they’re going to listen to you. They’re going to share about you. They’re like, “She wrote this book. She told this story about how it all got started.” People love your story. I’m sure you have a lot. You all have a huge story of what led up to you writing the book.

You know I’m a big proponent of watching the news you like and the news you don’t like. Look for that little nugget. You may be able to take something on which network. Let’s say CNN says something, and you think that’s a bunch of garbage. Open up your video and say, “I saw the CNN interview. I have to tell you I disagree. This is why I disagree. You can get more of these ideas in my new book.”

There are always areas where you can open up your video and talk about something relevant, something you agree with, disagree with, and expand on ideas. There’s all sorts of stuff that you can do there. Christine learned that from the gun violence. There are channels that promote that. There are channels that are more into gun ownership. Look at all of it and decide, “Can I open up and talk for 2, 3, or 10 minutes about that particular content because I’m an expert? I disagree with this expert.”

I want to give something to Amber because Amber has a fiction novel called Bliss Creek. It’s a little harder with fiction. If you’re doing fiction like somebody like Amber, and she’s going to go over and do this, have your characters made over on Fiverr. There are people over there who are mid-journey. You can have those things made. You can have them animated sometimes. Talk about your character. How did you build it? Why did you build it? How is this character important to the story?

Even if you’re not an expert in something, but you’re a fiction author, there are ways to get people excited about your characters. That’s the hardest thing. With fiction, when we’re an expert, we know our stuff. When you’re writing a fiction novel, you have to get not only people invested in the story but in the characters. There is lots of room there for fiction authors to do that.

Imagine saying, “Here’s the love scene or the restaurant scene,” and having a little snippet of the characters in there. People would see a little scene from the book. You were talking about reaction videos. That’s the term for the videos you were sharing. If you go to the news or somebody else’s video and you’re going to commentate on that, you need to know it is one of the most popular types of videos out. You are commenting on it. You are doing a reaction and a comparison, this versus that. People look this stuff up. Unboxing is a great idea to do.

Even critiquing your industry. That’s how I got where I’m at. I started as an industry rebel because I was in the publishing industry. I saw the self-publishing, and I was like, “What a crappy business model.” I spent the first several years tearing down some of that. Why are you paying? Why are you giving loyalties to your publisher when you paid your publisher to publish your book? There were silly things like that people didn’t realize. You can do that.

If you are a disruptor, you have to make sure you’re prepared. You are going to get disruptor lovers.

If you’re a disruptor, you have to make sure you're prepared. Click To Tweet

The trolls are brutal.

I don’t want to be a disruptor. I have enough things to deal with, but that’s great.

When Fran brought her screen up, she was talking about right and left. When you put your video up, and you see that screen on the right, those are TubeBuddy optimization and telling you how many views you’re getting. TubeBuddy can help you with the checklists inside of it. You put your video in, go and check the checklist.

This is what you get with TubeBuddy. It’ll tell you how many SEO points you have there and how many tags you put in there that are ranking. I only have two. I should have more. This one is not completely optimized. This one is missing a like on Facebook. It tells me what I’m missing. It tells me which of my tags were done correctly. It tells me I haven’t, or I have put in my pinned comment with a heart on it.

It’s going to give me a checklist inside the video. If I want to go into the edit portion, TubeBuddy will tell that on the outside where it’s already published. Anywhere you’ll see this little TV and a red box is where TubeBuddy jumps in and helps me. It’ll tell me what I have and have not done to optimize. That’s important. Once you learn that, you check it all the time. I don’t have too much that I didn’t do, but you never know what you haven’t done. It keeps me honest.

Beth has a great question. I have the $3.50. What version do you have that you showed us?

I have the pro version. You can get that one for $26. If you’re going to get it, it’ll tell you there, but some people miss it. Put in risingstarbuddy. It’ll also tell you there if you forget, but put that in as the code so you get that 50% off if you’re under 1,000 subscribers.

I have the $3.50. Fran, what did we go over in November and December 2023? Since then, I have doubled my YouTube audience. Not that it was that big, to begin with, but I’m at least over 100 now. That was in several months. I do not have the free version, but I have the $3.50 cents a month version. Even a little bit here can help a lot. Fran, thank you so much for being on the show. You guys, TubeBuddy, grab that from TubeBuddy.com/FranAsaro and use risingstarbuddy as the discount code.

I put in SeniorTuber.com. That’s not my website, but that’s where you can learn more about what I have to offer. If you’re interested in getting on my podcast, there are some free things, some private sessions, and some things about my membership. In case you want to call me, set up a call. Let’s meet. It doesn’t have to be about products that I have. I’d love to meet you and answer your questions if you have them.

Beth wants to talk to you. I’ll introduce the two of you. Thank you so much. Don’t forget, if you’re interested in that AI course, reach out to me because it’ll help you guys streamline the areas of your business that need streamlining because you’re the rainmaker for your business. The less you can do, the better results. Thanks, guys.

Thank you again. Bye-bye, everybody.

 

Important Links

• Fran Asaro – LinkedIn
• BreakthroughAuthorMagazine.com
• Juliet@SuperbrandPublishing.com
• The Senior Tuber Community – YouTube
• Optimizing Your Video Podcast – Past Episode
• AnswerThePublic.com
• Bliss Creek
• TubeBuddy.com/FranAsaro
• SeniorTuber.com

 

About Fran Asaro

Fran Asaro is a YouTube mentor and strategist for mature creators. Sharing how to optimize and monetize their YouTube Channels.

As the founder of The Senior Tuber Community, Fran helps both the professional and hobbyist leave their gifts and legacy on YouTube.

 

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