Get Millions of Views By Decoding the YouTube Algorithm [YouTube Marketing with Mike Desmarets from Evolve Ink, Part 4]

Transcript

Welcome to the first episode of the NJCS show. I’m John. My co-host here is Steven. What’s up? Today we have Mike from Evolve Ink. Mike, how do you pronounce your last name?

Speaker 1 (00:19.166)

Des-mar-rey. It’s French. yeah. Okay. Nice. can count to 10 in French. Canadian French? Or is it French. Yeah, we I don’t I don’t actually know the whole backstory to it, but I just know it means people of the city. So, I love the sea. Supposedly my ancestors were like pirates or something like that or like sailors. I don’t know. can see it. Yeah. Or a Western pirate. It looks like, know, with this jacket on look like a pirate.

Speaker 2 (00:43.81)

bringing a little bit of a pirate vibe to Evolve Ink, which we want to talk all about today. A very successful YouTube show. We’re so excited to have you here. Yeah, thanks for having us. We’re here in South Jersey. Mike, you’re a local South Jersey guy, right?

I grew up in South Philly, but I currently live in Northeast Philadelphia. Right by like, I don’t know if you guys ever heard of like Maggie’s waterfront, like Lyndon and State Road right over there. Yeah, right on the Delaware River pretty much. got it. Been there for the past like five years, six years. Really nice. right. Yeah. We’ll put it in northeast.

Speaker 2 (01:17.408)

Excellent. I don’t know the area, but now I’m inspired to check it out.

Mud or mud and Maggie’s is really good. You ever go there? It’s not a dive bar. It’s like it’s called Maggie’s waterfront. So really good drinks, really good food and really good weekend atmosphere if you’re that type of person. All right.

Speaker 1 (01:39.559)

Yeah, yeah, cuz it’s nice when like they have a nice out there seating area. They have really good food Drinks are always good, too What about sweet Lucy’s?

Sweet Lucy’s is really, really good. That’s right there, right? Yeah. Sweet Lucy’s is right down the street. You know, as many times as I drove past that place, I didn’t go to it until the first time. It was like last year. And it was just it was pretty good. They’re really good. Yeah, really good. And then we had to cater to a couple of times at like some parties or whatever. It was really good. Nice.

We gotta introduce the behind the curtain. The man behind the curtain is producer Jim. He’s working the cameras for us today. He’s got his work cut out for him, so good luck. Don’t be too hard on him. Actually, on second thought, leave your review of Jim’s work in the comments. We all wanna hear how good of a job you think Jim did with the cameras today. many stars is producer Jim gonna get for today?

For NJ Contents Studio Show, we basically got three core categories of content, and that’s creators, comedians and culinary or cuisine. And you’ve really fit into two of those quite nicely between your YouTube show, Evolving, currently over at least 200,000 subscribers.

Speaker 1 (02:51.086)

Like 233,000 I think we just reached yesterday. Great work. 233,000 subscribers and I think a hundred and like 12 million video views. Nice man.

Speaker 2 (03:02.318)

And then in addition to that, you’ve got an up-and-coming food influencer channel on Instagram. Yeah, so we’re on all platforms. It’s called to chomp. So pretty much we go around different restaurants, whether they, you know, message us and say, Hey, we would love you guys to come out and, you know, try out our food or, you know, just a place that we see online or we pass by and we’re like, yeah, let’s go do a video there.

Because previously, you know, I’ve been doing content creation for like five years now. But, you know, I’ve been a big foodie. And I was like, man, if I ever didn’t do like, tattoo related videos, I would make food content. And, and yeah, I just started doing to chop on me with my buddy Sean.

And it’s been great so far. We started that at Q4 of last year. So around like August, I believe, or on all platforms, Instagram, tick tock and YouTube. Right now, it’s tick tock but quickly becoming Instagram. Yeah, we had our first

Where’s your biggest following for 2Champ?

Speaker 1 (04:05.006)

Over a million-view video 1.5 million views for what? There was there’s this place called middle child It’s in like fish town. Have you guys ever heard of it? Yeah, it’s like it we went around like a Christmas time on a Sunday. It was really packed But I heard that you know, they had like really good like breakfast and I’m like, you know we’re always doing like burgers and like fried chicken sandwiches and stuff like that. I was like, let’s go to a nice breakfast spot Nice.

Speaker 2 (04:15.662)

I think I’ve been there.

Speaker 1 (04:33.932)

So, we went over there. Phenomenal food. was good. And fun fact, it was actually rated the best breakfast in all of the United States by Good Morning America. Now, do I think it was the best breakfast in the world? It was good. It wasn’t it wasn’t the best. I mean, to good morning, America, have the term good morning in their name. like need-to-know breakfast.

But um, but yeah, we post the video, and I was like shocked at the fact that we woke up it was at like 500,000 views. Wow. I was like, whoa. So we ended up getting this dark chocolate ice coffee. And I like my coffee just regular but the guy at the barista was like, yeah, you need to try out the dark chocolate. I’m like, cool. All right. And he was like,

Speaker 2 (05:06.306)

What did you eat there?

Speaker 1 (05:20.78)

I’ll dial it up for you, make it look all good and whatever. I’m like, cool. He put like dipping dots on it. I didn’t know what it was at first. Yeah, I didn’t know what it was at first. But then people in the comments section of that video is like, I think those are dipping dots. So, we got that. We got this. It was called like I forget it was like some pancake that had like citrus butter on it. And it was like that was incredible. That was like a top-notch pancake. Probably the best I’ve ever had.

And then we the sandwich it was a what was it called? It was it was a breakfast sandwich that had the most amount of egg that you’ve probably ever seen on breakfast before and a pastrami. It was a pastrami pastrami sandwich, and it was like it was good. Yeah, but I almost felt like it was a little bit almost like. Keep going.

Speaker 2 (06:09.592)

with it too much.

Too much and like I don’t know it’s kind of like one of those things where you like you get hyped up for something and then I don’t know at least for me kind of like didn’t live up to the high score. It was good but it wasn’t the best. my god the pancakes were friggin’ It’s called middle child. Yeah.

But those pancakes are legit. What was the name of it? Middle child. When I have to go, I’m not a big breakfast guy, you know. Yeah, it’s just to me. To me, breakfast is over overrated. Couldn’t disagree more. That’s a huge breakfast guy. I hardly eat breakfast too.

Speaker 1 (06:37.23)

What’s your favorite breakfast food? man, I make a hell of an omelet. I throw it down in the kitchen and my omelets are pretty good. I gotta say though, the stainless-steel pan I found has been a revelation. you know, the- You gotta wait for the water to bubble, for the tang to jump around, to dance. That’s right.

That’s right. like, it’s interesting though, because the stainless steel will, your food will cling to it at first, but at certain point, there’s like a turning point where the food just releases from the pan with an omelet. If you time that just right, it’s how you get the perfect omelet. Okay.

Speaker 1 (06:51.306)

Okay.

Speaker 1 (07:11.278)

Keep that in So we’re going come back to food. We’re going to talk about food, but we have so much to review with you. We’re going to really approach this in two phases. First, we really want to dive into Evolve Ink and then we’ll get back to food chomp, to chomp a little bit. You’re chomping the food two times over.

I key two chumps. right. Hold that. Sorry.

How long ago did you start Evolve Ink and what was the journey to get to that point in the first place?

So, I had the YouTube channel, like everybody creates a YouTube channel, especially when they’re younger, I feel like. And I was like posting like random videos on YouTube already in general with my nephew back in the day. And then,

Speaker 1 (08:03.278)

to just to be totally transparent, like my family, like I was never like really like a rich kid growing up, like we were kind of like middle class. And then when my parents split up, we ended up having, you know, not that much money. So, I knew when I was growing up that I didn’t want to be the type of person that like was struggling, you know, and then one day I ended up seeing a YouTube ad.

Where it was like, yeah, make money when you when you snooze, views while you snooze and stuff like that as a guy like trying to pay or get somebody to pay for his course or whatever. Yeah, one of those tear my garage. But. I don’t know. Yeah, he still makes content. He does still make content, but I think he fell out no more. No more YouTube ads in the beginning of videos anymore. But anyway. So, yeah, the guy I saw that ad.

Tai Lopez or someone.

Speaker 2 (08:40.654)

He’s seen him in a while.

Speaker 1 (08:54.786)

I didn’t pay for the course, but I was like, all right, I’m gonna try to figure this out. But I’m like, you know.

What can I talk about every single day to be like, I’m not going to get bored because they say, you know, being a content creator in general is a marathon, not a sprint. You don’t want to burn yourself out. So, I always been like real big in like fashion, men’s lifestyle and stuff like that. So this is the very early stages of my YouTube journey. This was in 2017. My original channel name that so

What year are we talking?

Speaker 1 (09:28.736)

It was now it’s evolving currently. But my original channel name was Manly Man TV, Manly Man TV. I didn’t know anything about cameras, microphones, YouTube in general. All I knew was I like I have good advice. People said I had good advice when it comes to that stuff. So, I started making videos on it. They were terrible.

Videos on what, like how to be a man.

Like just like, how do you know, look better building confidence, you know, how to style your bed head, you know, stuff like that. Just like weird stuff that I guess like guys really didn’t talk about because I was a strong believer that like, if you if you look better, you have better confidence, you just perform better. Yeah, you know, on your day to day and every single time I posted one of those videos.

They flopped. like didn’t do anything. They were terrible. And part of it was that the fact that I didn’t know anything about YouTube. I didn’t know how it works or anything like that. It was a very early stage. But what I did do was I’ve sprinkled in tattoo related videos. So, I did like, you know,

Why just because you were interested in tattoos and they were synonymous with manly man

Speaker 1 (10:40.446)

comment section. So the comment section people were saying like, can you do like a review on your tattoos or whatever? Yeah, well, at the time, I only had just my first sleeve. Now I have tattoos everywhere. You can’t tell but I was like, Yeah, sure. posted that video. It ended up getting like 300,000 views. So, I’m like, Okay, cool.

You’re tatted up.

Speaker 1 (11:03.148)

I made a bunch of subscribers were coming in, views were coming in and I’m like, all right, cool. Let me go back to the men’s lifestyle. All right, stop right there. Good.

Right there. How many videos are you, how many videos in are you at the point where you strike a 300,000-view video?

I would say probably like 12, 13. it. Yeah. Usually, I would post one video. Oh no. Wow. Back at that time I was posting three videos per week. Okay. So, it was very early on. It was about a month in. Yeah. was very early on. I’m already. Yeah.

And what was the frequency of video?

Speaker 2 (11:32.056)

like a month.

Speaker 2 (11:36.61)

I’m jealous already. Two years in. I mean, tattoos, marketing, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah.

No.

But, but yes.

What was the content of that 300,000-view video? Was it your tattoos or?

Speaker 1 (11:52.074)

It wasn’t. It was a check. It was a man or no tattoo sleeves for men. That’s all it was for the video. Because at the time, and I know you guys like to talk a lot about like SEO and stuff like that. At the time, I was really big and like into SEO. And so, I was like, all right, let me get the exact keyword phrase and put it in for the title. The video ended up getting 300,000 views. yeah, so right after I did that video,

What was that keyword phrase? tattoos for- And Mike, you’re editing your own videos, you’re doing straight to cam talking head and editing in shots of other people’s tattoos? sleep tattoos for men.

Speaker 1 (12:31.308)

So that video, all it was, it was a talking head style video where very few cuts. The camera was blurry. I forget what the camera, it was a Canon T5i. So the autofocus was terrible. And yeah, you record a whole video just to find out it’s blurry. But anyway. We’ve been there.

Speaker 2 (12:49.634)

making any promises on this video. Did he sign the disclaimer?

Oops.

But, but yeah, so pretty much it was just men’s tattoo like popping up. Like throughout the video, it was me talking, talking about like, this is what I thought. And I was younger at the time. So I’m like, this is what I think like you should have as like a man if you have tattoos and stuff like that. It was just like.

Please tell me you said tribal.

eyeball the line clock rose and all that stuff all the things that i tell people they shouldn’t get now it’s just fun videos

Speaker 2 (13:26.818)

You know, I’m sorry to keep interrupting you. Already I’m hearing so many interesting things that are jumping out. is it fair to posit that perhaps part of the appeal of the video would have been you telling other men what is a manly tattoo? Like if something gets on people’s nerves, they like, well, the polarization of content will often lead to engagement.

It for the, for that video, it seemed like positively affecting people that were watching. I’m getting any type of hate comments on that video. Cause it was like a bunch of guys that like, seemed like, Oh my God. I, yeah, it was almost like, thank you. Like you gave me my, my next tattoo idea, stuff like that. So, it was actually very, uh, and plus like, you know, at the time I was still kind of.

It was

Speaker 2 (13:56.984)

We’re getting heat.

Speaker 2 (14:06.254)

I’m validating.

Speaker 1 (14:18.366)

Small so was like maybe people were just feeling like bad for me like they don’t want to like ruin me already and I just started Yeah, but yeah, so I posted that video and i’m like, right bet like I cracked the YouTube algorithm. Hell yeah at the time Posted the next video of men’s lifestyle flop the guy

But I canceled.

Speaker 2 (14:38.862)

Okay, you strike a piece of gold, then you strike out the next day with the next. How many videos did you strike out before you’re like, is bullshit, I have to go back to?

So, what happened was, the next video, fun fact, I believe it was how to deal with sweaty armpits. was my next video. So, we go from manly tattoos to then, okay, let’s talk about sweaty armpits. I was like, you know, it was just a list of video ideas. I wasn’t really reading the room at the time, but so I did that flopped.

Okay, Talos, really quick before you Talos, how do you get rid of buddy armpits? Steven needs to know. I’m not the only one, I’m sure. it’s called deodorant action.

I don’t even remember, I forget.

You should try it. You know, I’d like laser.

Speaker 2 (15:28.994)

Life does the lemons still to this day. like, yeah, that’s lemons are legit a natural deodorizer and it might burn a little bit, but like, yeah, like you smell you smell nice.

Does that help?

Speaker 1 (15:42.888)

See when you when you just said that I thought you were saying if you put lemons on your armpit, you won’t sweat anymore, I did not know that you were going for like the whole sun thing

But that’s an after effect. It’s definitely an added bonus. It’s the lemon on top. The armpit video did good or?

I would get a guy like 75 use it didn’t do anything and then I did a couple more and then the next piece of success Was I got a new tattoo? It was my same Michael tattoo, and I was healing it, So I was like, let me make a video on how to heal your tattoo So I did those 150,000 views how much time elapsed between the 300,000 and the 150.

Probably like I wasn’t too consistent in like buckets at the time. So, like it was like I know maybe like three weeks or something. It’s been so long. I don’t know the exact dates. All right. Yeah, so like three weeks you’re Yeah And then what was that was the next video it was

Speaker 2 (16:37.716)

You were two to three months in, and you had two hits then.

Speaker 1 (16:49.054)

How painful is getting a tattoo which is you know something that people are always interested in in the tattoo space so at this time I was like really like You know kind of figuring out like okay success leaves clues So every single time I was posting a tattoo related video. I’m like, all right Maybe I should just rebrand, and I was thinking to myself. I’m like man. Do I?

Have enough content. Do I have enough knowledge in regard to rebranding completely from doing men’s lifestyle to just talking about tattoos and the one struggle that I was having and I still think about this to this day is that like I’m give I was giving tattoo advice and I’m not a tattoo artist

Yeah, you surprised me in the pre-interview when we spoke on the phone. It was at the end of us, chat. Like, all right, so we’ll see you in a couple of months. I’m like, by the way, where do you tattoo? And you’re like, bro, I don’t.

Yeah, I don’t tattoo. I and the thing that I think really helped me with the transition was I when I like I’ve been in tattoo shops ever since I was younger, like my dad has a fair number of tattoos. And I remember when I was like five, six years old, he would bring me in while he was getting tattooed. And he was like getting like he has like Godzilla on him and like Flash and Spider-Man. But cool. Yeah. Bunch of cool ass tattoos.

And I’m like, man, like these are awesome. But one I hate needles. I fucking hate needles with a passion. Like I can’t even like I could look at a needle, but I can’t stand the thought of getting one. So, I had so many questions, know, fast forwarding to, you know, when I was starting to get my tattoos before I even started, I’m kind of backtracking here. When I first started getting tattoos, I was doing a bunch of different research because I had a bunch of different questions and

Speaker 1 (18:35.494)

And I was there really a lot of information out there on the questions that I had. So I was like, well, there’s a content gap there. There’s a market gap of people that like are too scared to go talk to their tattoo artists about it, especially if it’s their first tattoo and or maybe they’re just don’t feel comfortable with asking these questions to these people. So, I was like, I already went through the trenches and did all this. Let me start making videos about this. So. then I completely rebranded. start a new channel or just change the URL?

I changed at the I only had like at the change of like 500 subscribers. So, I was like, instead of just changing completely, I’ll just keep you know, keep what I’m doing. And so, I completely read Redid everything the brand, you know, I got the new logo made and all that stuff. Fun fact, you see the evolving logo that’s based off my dog, Sirius. He’s a black German shepherd. So, I was like, I want to incorporate him in there somewhere. He’s, my boy. But. Yeah, I got a tattoo of him too on my chest, but he’s a good boy. I just saw him before I left.

Speaker 2 (19:40.91)

It’s a manly man thing to do there.

Speaker 2 (19:48.814)

Very coincidental because I was talking to Melissa earlier and we had something about Patty and like he’s sick, my dog, six years old. Yeah. And, you know, maybe we have another six, seven years. I need to get his paws like imprinted because I want to get a tattoo of his paw print. And it’s funny, like we had that conversation maybe like three hours ago.

Yeah, a lot of people end up doing that. Yeah, that’s funny. Yeah, I am that is like one of my favorite types of tattoos like anybody that ends up incorporating their pets in some way on their body is always gets me my feelings. I’m a big I’m a big animal person. Sure. But but yes, I ended up doing the whole rebrand. So, switch the name, switch the channel art logo, the whole rebrands. And then I just started posting content all about tattoos.

And did you see more or less an immediate change in viewership? Yeah. Yeah. Media change in viewership. And I won’t say that it was completely like, every video was a hit. It was, you know, just like everything. Like there’s Epson flows, especially on YouTube. You know, some videos would get

Speaker 1 (20:59.842)

three, four, five K views, other videos. I have videos that ended up going blasting off to a million. So, it really depends on it. the one thing that I noticed the route hosting tattoo related content is the fact that like there is like a, like a market cap to that. If you would say like not everybody is looking for these things, which made me switch up what I’m doing now to get more broad appeal to some things but that’s farther in from a business model perspective, it’s not a bad thing that it is niche. You don’t want to be everything to everyone.

Yeah, I mean, yeah and like it was really good in regard to the fact that like I was helping so many people out and like those videos are still performing there. They might be like two three years old. But yeah, but I kind of skipped over this part. I really was inconsistent when it came to posting those videos.

And the one thing about any social media platform, especially YouTube, is that you have to be consistent, consistent on your uploads, consistent on when you upload the video, consistent on the type of content you’re producing and so on. Consistent on all fronts. But I wasn’t. I was getting burned out left and right because at the time I was had a full-time job. I was, you know, posting three videos a week still. And then

Speaker 1 (22:26.382)

And then I ended up like kind of stopping. And then I remember that I ended up getting me during the pandemic, like 2020, I got my first ever check. So, from 2017 to 2020, I was super inconsistent. I ended up during the pandemic getting my first ever $100 check because YouTube has a threshold that you need to make over $100 in order to get paid for it.

And when I got that deposited into my checking account, I was like, man, if I just really just focused on this, and tried to get 1 % better every single day, that this could be like something totally these hundred bucks could be, you know, whatever I make it if I put the time into it.

So, I was like, I made a goal my New Year’s resolution going into 2020 was post at least one video a week. One video a week. That’s every Thursday, supposed in one video a week. And I did that. And I haven’t missed a week since. And it, it was it’s been like, we’re going on five years. Yeah. 250, 260 straight weeks.

Speaker 1 (23:38.798)

Yeah, yeah, so I don’t know if you guys want me to jump ahead to what I’m doing now ask you a little bit about format. Are you trying to keep your videos a certain length by design and are you consistent with the straight to cam talking head approach?

So, I have a lot of data when I’m very good when it comes to like, especially with YouTube, they give so many good analytics, but before, cause my whole content strategy switched up, but, before I was making videos as long as, as they needed to be. I like what, as long as I got the information out, once I chopped it up and edit it, I would put it out and I would, I did everything from like not too much editing to like really comes to the.

Speaker 1 (24:24.996)

over editing and I realized that my demographic is not really liking the super-fast cuts and Mr. B style kind of videos. Well, how’d you realize that? Analytics, we’re going to analytics. Viewing was trending down well in analytics on YouTube, they have like a, like your age groups and usually, like based on like interviews that I watched and stuff like that, you know, the attention span for like the younger demographic, which is like, you know, I think it was like 23 and below.

They like that fast cuts and whatever. But my demographic was anywhere from like my, the most demographic was, 25 to like, I think it was like 35 or something like that. So they kind of like, you know, they’re like, you know, I noticed what the audience retention graphs because you have audience retention graphs and in YouTube that like, you know, the video would start and I would have a bunch of different like crazy edits real quick and they would drop off and I’m like, okay, well, I got to do something with that because I’m losing, you know, 40 % of my viewership right off bat.

So, I ended up slowing it down a little bit. Then I ramped it back up a little bit because the comment section was kind of confusing me. They’re like, I miss your old-style videos when it was super over edited or fast cuts and so on. But yeah, they’ll let you know. They’ll let you know, especially if you ask for it. They’ll let you know like what they want to see and what you like. If you ask questions to your audience, no matter what it is.

Speaker 2 (25:41.506)

Getting direct feedback from regular viewers.

Speaker 1 (25:53.934)

whether it’s the comment, comment on this video, if you guys are watching. Or go buy a product or go watch another video. They’ll do it. If you want them to subscribe, that call to action is so powerful from that. I I did a study. was, I forget, you put like different content groups on analytics, and I grouped a bunch of videos to where it was like, when I don’t ask them to subscribe and then when I did ask them to subscribe and it was just crazy like the numbers between both.

It’s way better subscription when you ask for it. Since you went there, let me ask you a follow-up question on this. Because this seems, and I’ve interviewed several YouTubers at this point for my other show, Niche Marketing Podcast. And it’s kind of split down the middle between the people I’ve interviewed in addition to just the stuff I’ve watched trying to find additional advice. There’s conflicting information on when you should ask for the subscribe. Some people say you have to deliver exponential value first and then ask for it and other people say no, like right out of the gate, ask for the subscription.

My thought process was and it changed throughout the years But you have your most amount of viewership in the very beginning before people start to fall off So that’s when you want to strike if you wait to the very end You might lose out on you know 30 % of people that were interested in the beginning of the video But then they got what they wanted and left so you want to strike at the very beginning Now and I and I looked into that as well though in my experience

Speaker 2 (27:22.54)

Makes sense.

Speaker 1 (27:29.776)

I don’t really ask that much for subscriptions anymore because now they just come naturally because I have so many videos working for me. However, I noticed that when you still provide the value and don’t stop providing, know.

Your information whether it’s entertainment or education, but you have a little pop-up that says like don’t forget to subscribe or something like that while you’re delivering, I feel like that’s the best because you’re not straying away from what you’re talking about It’s like natively, like a native pop-up or something.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, or I mean I seen I have content creator friends I’d like kind of work it in to like into a yeah, exactly and you know or just have like a subscribe pillow like this one, right? Right. I’ve been watching that subscribe on Stuff like that. So, and it’s like a constant reminder. Oh, yeah, I should probably subscribe to their now.

Speaker 2 (28:21.838)

I think one of the things that you said that’s so smart, and we talk about it all the time in the branding world is we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. We should be listening more. You said, well, I read the comments section, and they told me what to provide them. And if you are a content creator out there, like that is such golden advice.

The comment section, whether you’re on any type of social media platform, is a gold mine. It’s a gold mine for content ideas, what people are interested in, especially if you go into your comment section and there’s a bunch of people, there’s one comment, but then it has 1,000 likes with 400 comments. You go into that; you wouldn’t believe the type of video content that you can make out of just that comment section. It’s crazy. for.

Speaker 2 (29:09.966)

And so how about back to the video length and then you’re straight, you’re always straight to cam, right? I was. And then when you’re monetized on YouTube, videos that are over eight minutes long, you’re able to incorporate more mid-roll ads.

So, I was like, all right, I got my videos like pumping. you know, subscribers are coming in. Because my whole philosophy was like, I just want to add value. I just want to be able to have people like, enjoy my videos and the money will come. Well, it was but now I’m like, okay, how can I maximize my YouTube channel in regard to revenue? So, I ended up starting to get my videos to at least eight minutes. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (29:45.366)

later on.

Speaker 1 (29:56.61)

whether it’s eight minutes, eight minutes in one second, 14 minutes and so on. So, I did that. then fun fact, you could add as many mid-roll ads as possible. And a lot of people say like, well, a lot of people think that my God, like if you put…you know, 40 mid roll ads. I don’t actually know what the limit is, but if you put a bunch of mid roll ads that you’re going to annoy your audience with those mid roll ads, and they’re going to click off your video and go somewhere else.

Well, YouTube has an algorithm that only shows ads to people like let’s say for example, YouTube identifies that like, you know, I’m gonna show ads to these people and then they’ve realized that they end up leaving YouTube won’t show them as many ads but to other people that don’t really mind ads, I’ll just watch through the ads, you’ll continue they’ll continue to get it which ends up giving the creator more revenue because a lot of kids content right a lot of kids content will just have like ads at nauseam.

Knowing that like a parent might just press play and let it roll right, and I’ve seen it where next thing you know that my son’s watching an ad that’s a 15-minute-long cartoon. Yeah, watching here in Russian like yeah what I need

Speaker 3 (30:58.243)

You ba-

Speaker 4 (31:06.702)

the fuck is this? ridiculous.

Yeah, yeah, it’s crazy. but yeah, I was doing that for a while. Like making my videos at least eight minutes long. And I also was on top of the on the video portion of it. I did what was called the tattoo reaction live show. Another way of monetization for a bobbing over there. And pretty much what I ended up doing was I was getting on a live stream and talking to my audience. And then they would send me over their tattoos. and I would. It was wow. I saw some of the most incredible tattoos and also some of the like absolute. Yeah, it was. them live. boy.

Speaker 2 (31:42.35)

way.

Speaker 2 (31:49.854)

I mean what a coffee table book that is. Was anybody screwing with you? Just like sending like shit? To be honest I don’t I so because like there was so many people like what I would do is so I had a membership I still have the membership, but I had the membership and I also have no, so YouTube has their own membership, okay so, you know I was like it was like five bucks a month and one of the perks was that you get your tattoo featured whenever you want to on the tattoo reaction live show But also I was doing super chats with our donations. So, I would constantly again call to action Membership on what, like Patreon?

Speaker 1 (32:27.264)

saying like, if you want your tattoo to be reacted to and boosted up to the front of the list, you could send over a super chat and not only help support me, but it also helps support the channel. And you know, you would I would go live for like an hour, hour and a half and make like, two 300 bucks just from people wanting to get their tattoo on the live show. So, I was doing that for a little bit and you as a tattoo enthusiast being the right word, you’re just giving your reaction. You’re not saying man.

Hmm.

Speaker 1 (33:00.012)

And like, don’t get me wrong, so artist. Yeah, over time, I did gain a crap ton of knowledge when it comes tattoos, because I have over 200 hours in the chair as well as I am from building a ball, I I ended up having like. You know.

Speaker 4 (33:09.1)

Now, something’s getting.

Speaker 1 (33:19.418)

so many connections with like top quality tattoo artists as well as top quality tattoo brands. I worked with some of the biggest brands in regards of the tattoo industry. Well, the one I won’t say any names because now they’re like a competitor, I guess, but it was somebody that worked with Mark Cuban. were on Shark Town. But yeah, so they were they were they were pretty cool at the time of all nature.

Speaker 2 (33:46.094)

to Cuban invest in this. Yep. Yeah. Another one of the biggest. One of the biggest like tattoo. Product company. cool. Out there. But yeah, so I ended up gaining a bunch of knowledge from working with all of these people. And then my tattoo artist, Matt, he works at, you know, in New Jersey, actually, where Empire tattoo in Clemington, New Jersey. Yeah, Dude, he’s incredible. Is it like the to know.

Speaker 2 (34:09.548)

Matt. Why don’t you and sit in your chair, Rob? matter.

Speaker 1 (34:15.181)

You can’t see this right now, but my leg…

Speaker 1 (34:22.696)

Yeah, sorry guys, PJ. You can’t see, well I guess you can see what I’m doing. But like my whole leg is covered and like… Like down? Yeah, all the way. Wow. And it’s, I still like, if I’m like… from hip gang.

Speaker 1 (34:37.204)

getting changed or like on the shit or whatever and I’m looking at my leg. I’m like, holy shit. Like this is still pretty crazy that I have. What is it? So, I’m a big Harry Potter guy. No, I have a big, big, Harry Potter guy. So, I got a whole Harry Potter like sleeve. High contrast. Yeah, yeah. I’ll send you over when it was fully done. Like. Can we B roll that in? you send us some?

Speaker 3 (35:00.864)

I’m gonna ramble. I know. so close to just being, saying drop it. speaking of drop it, shout out to another Mark Cuban brand. I’m sorry, Dude Wipes, who has my heart. Wow,

Speaker 1 (35:14.018)

That’s the way he invested in Deidre talk about dude wipes for many hours and we should. Not sponsored. don’t think so. yet. Sorry. I want to get us back on track. Hold on, real quick. So, your tattoo artist, are all your tats from him or? Everyone except. So, in my very early stages of getting tattooed, it was a couple words going across my chest.

Speaker 4 (35:33.958)

one.

Speaker 1 (35:41.986)

It was terrible. It was too small. And I something that I actually copied from somebody else, which is something I always talk about on evolving to not do. And then I got one other tattoo that is Leonardo da Vinci right here. But it was from another tattoo artist that she didn’t do that kind of a job with.

However, Matt said that, you know, the next time I do get into a tattoo chair or redoing my whole arm, not redoing it, but like touching it up because it’s probably about like 13 years old now. So, he’s going to go over and fix it all up for me. definitely want to, well now I not only review, but I want a connection because like I’m like dead on ball serious about getting something. overview.

Speaker 1 (36:23.512)

Yeah, I mean how far away is Clemington, New Jersey from here? not too far. Well, I guess it’s like black, what is it? Blackwood? Blackwood, yeah. Not When I was first born, that’s where I lived was Clementine, New Jersey for like one year. All right, so something that was interesting when we were talking about format, you were doing the live stream, but you’re talking about it in past tense, but it was working for you.

So why’d you stop? I’m a one-man band. Like I do. I still to this day, I ended up hiring an editor and it just didn’t work out. which being a content creator and trying to find like help. Cause like, this is your baby, you know, you end up like, yeah, it’s like, good editing is your style.

Speaker 1 (37:03.244)

You know, at the point I was like, hey, you know, make enough money to supply, you know, to pay for an editor to hire them. And I ended up doing it, but it was just like the quality wasn’t there for it. And I was like, listen, I’ll just, I’ll just do it myself.

But it still led it to this day. I scrapped. Yeah. It was just too much because, you know, I have so many different things like from, from evolving. I created my own tattoo moisturizing company. And you still to this, but you scrapped the live format.

Speaker 2 (37:31.091)

Yeah, Stephen doesn’t know this yet, but we’ll get into that in one minute. Yeah, so I have that I have to worry about. have, you know, you know, evolving as a whole getting the videos out there. And it’s not just like posting videos. It’s like engaging with your community. And, you know, I’m on all the platforms. YouTube is where I started. But I started doing like, tick tock mostly for evolving.

I have an Instagram for it; I don’t really do much with it. But it was like, it was just too much posting on all these different platforms. But I will say I do want to get back into it. Especially now because YouTube’s introducing like vertical live streams. I was thinking about how I could kind of do both. what I’m doing now with Evolve Ink is definitely like freeing up a bunch of time in regard to, you know, not posting those long form videos because long form videos end up taking me days to edit sometimes. But what I’m doing now is I could post one every single day.

All right, so and you told us before the show or when we were just firing up the mics that at this point, you’re not even doing long form anymore. No. Just short form. And that really threw me for a loop now. Okay, so one of the things that’s been interesting is you have all these things that have been working for you, but slowly but surely, you’ve made executive decisions to get away from them for one reason or another. So, YouTube was doing well, but you’ve decided to go pure short form, at least for now, why?

Speaker 1 (39:05.589)

Yes. So one of the common misconceptions that a lot of people say is that, oh, short form content doesn’t make money. you won’t, know, the RPMs are super low and that you can’t make money. The people that are saying that are the people that aren’t getting views on those videos. When you end up having videos that end up getting a few million views or even a couple hundred thousand videos that work together, like it is really life changing money.

It is incredible. And then I’ll let you guys in on a little secret and anybody that else is watching it. I am now triple dipping one video and getting monetized on that same video on different platforms. No changes. So, well, I guess a little bit of a change. So, YouTube, TikTok, and I just signed, I don’t think I even platforms. No changes.

Speaker 2 (39:56.802)

What are the platforms to?

Speaker 1 (40:03.866)

Spoke with you about this when we talked before, but I have a new music licensing deal, which has been pretty crazy. That is insane so far. No, so with short form content, pretty much there’s these companies that reach out to you and say like, hey, you know, we’ll pay you X amount of dollars for your RPM. If you just use our music in the background of your body. Yes. music licensing. are you make music?

Speaker 2 (40:31.576)

Or audio branding, I got you. I got you. Yeah, so I ended up getting to sign with this one company and it’s been great so far. It’s been really, really phenomenal. you know, what I’ve been doing was so. Each platform is a little bit different in regard to how it might. So, like, for example, like YouTube, they ended up just putting out three minutes shorts, but the algorithm for shorts for three minutes is still not the best yet.

It’s still not categorizing them as shorts. So pretty much what ends up happening is those videos will take a little bit longer to pop off. But the videos that are still under a minute long are acting as normal. So, what I’ve been doing is monetize.

Speaker 1 (41:16.622)

making a video, getting it to just under a minute, 59 seconds. So, I get monetized from that video from YouTube. Then I’ll have the music licensing and then music licensing. on average, YouTube will pay for shorts RPM for like, on average, I get like 25 cents per 1000 views.

So, with this new music licensing thing, I seen RPMs up to like, like 60 cents so far. And it’s the beginning of the year where RPMs are still low. The way these social media platforms ends up, you’re like paying out their creators as you get paid per 1000 views. pretty much like for every 1000 views, you’ll get for long form X amount of dollars. And that could be anywhere from like five.

So, I’ve seen RPMs like $35 to, you know, YouTube shorts, which pay a little bit less because they’re shorter form content that are like anywhere from five cents to like 25, 30 cents. Now there is rumors that with the longer form shorts that they’re going to end up increasing that RPM. for right now, that’s the average. So, you might be saying like, 25 cents per 1000 views. That doesn’t sound like a lot. But when you have a video that ends up getting 10 million views, Yeah, what’s that come out to? You know, yeah, there you go. got the calculator. I’m bad with math. So

Speaker 2 (42:40.622)

$2.5 million? Definitely. But then again, that’s one video and remember these shorts that I’m these YouTube shorts that I’m producing are like, you know, taking an hour out of my time. Yeah, my ROI is like crazy in regard to like getting my time back to work on other things. And also, you know, just like the money and then I’m getting back. So, your investment into it is a lot.

Speaker 2 (43:14.08)

Are you getting 10 million views on a short? The surest I usually get I lately I’ve been getting about like three viral videos a month But I for me it’s been like anything over a million views defining viral.

Speaker 1 (43:32.462)

And like sometimes like I was just checking this morning, like I had two videos pop off that I posted two days ago and then one’s popping off that I posted like three weeks ago. So, it’s like YouTube. mean, they never give up on your video. You seem popping off by the way, I really like Mikey pop-offs over here, you I like it.

Yeah, but um, but yeah, I mean on average I mean right now is a little bit of a lull but in the past like 48 hours like I got like over 780,000 views in the past 48 hours the most I’ve ever got up to was four million views in 48 hours, so What was that video?

Speaker 1 (44:12.974)

That was channel wide. The most I’ve ever gotten per hour, I think was like 150,000 views in one hour, which was pretty crazy.

But yeah, so the RPM for YouTube, I usually average anywhere from 20 to 25 cents. But then now you’re adding in that music licensing that ends up being another, know, any I seen anywhere between 30 to 60 cents for my RPM for my video.

And I’m super excited because I’m new to it. But I’m super excited to see how it goes once the video or once the year goes, because you guys that don’t know, RPMs are usually like a lot lower in the beginning of the year, because advertisers aren’t really like, you know, it’s after the holidays, they’re not really, you know, exactly. Yeah. So, the RPMs will be a little bit lower. But then once you get in the queue, two, three and four, So.

I put in their money in Super Bowl ads.

Speaker 4 (45:08.876)

it just they just go back to normal you get to for the music licensing deal do you pick the music yeah, they tell you Yeah, so I get to pick whatever they have like a they have a library of like video of like music and then I just put it in the background of my videos. I was already putting other music on there. like trending music.

Like trending music or whatever and I’m like I might as well just put this music on there and make extra money from it. The real reason why I signed on with them was like, hey, you know, based on your total views that you get per month, you can make an extra eight grand for using our, you know, and I’m like.

Speaker 1 (45:48.802)

Say less. like, you know, it’s a snowball effect, just like your videos. Every video I look at it is every video I publish. I look at it as like a little worker that’s working for me. That’s like, you know, going out and getting viewership and getting subscribers to know the evolving brand. But I’m like, you know, and over time that will start to snowball. And then you end up having now these music licensing videos and that, you know, are producing, getting views or whatever.

So that’s Almost double dipping while it is double dipping that same video Okay, I wanna ask you a rhetorical question. You’re in tattoos. If you were in a B2B or business or marketing niche, do think this would be a lot harder? now, because of the fact that I know like, and again, I’m not an like, I won’t consider myself an expert, but I know how like, things like from being in this space for so long and learning so much about like content creation as a whole.

Like I know what works and doesn’t work on whatever type of niche like, that’s kind of like how, and I don’t want to jump ahead, but that’s kind of why to chomp is already starting to pop off. we started to chomp Q, Q four of last year and we already have a video, 1.5 million. I ended up not having a viral video on Evolve Ink because I was in that learning process for like three, four years. well,

Speaker 1 (47:15.888)

like it’s in the millions, if you know what mean. But it just really depends. mean, the most important things in regard to any type, and this is just for YouTube. I could talk about TikTok too. TikTok has been incredible so far. But the main thing is depending on what type of content you’re making, whether it’s long form, so with long form, that thumbnail needs to be good.

A lot of people will wait for that thumbnail at the very end. The video is all done. You put all this time, energy and effort into the into the edit. And then they’re like, crap, we have to throw a thumbnail together. And then they put it up and then all that time, energy and effort you put into that video. If your thumbnail sucks, nobody’s going to even know that video. Exactly. Nobody’s going to know that that video even exists. The thumbnail is arguably the most important thing. movie poster.

Speaker 2 (48:03.086)

That thumbnail is huge.

Speaker 1 (48:08.13)

And when it comes to a video and then the next thing you got to get people to watch click on their video and then watch Obviously, it sounds so simple, but this is literally how how like what you need to do you get the video get somebody to click and Then you get them to watch because if you like have a really nice thumbnail and then they click on the video and then it’s like, okay Totally.

Speaker 1 (48:30.37)

They’re this the video sucks. I’m going somewhere and they leave that video is not going to get pushed in the algorithms There’s multiple algorithms and like so you got it get them to click then get them to watch and then instead of getting well getting them to subscribe is important, but arguably the Second most important thing besides getting them the click is getting them to watch another one of your videos afterwards I’m really close with a lot of people at YouTube His name is Todd Dupre.

He’s search He’s head of search and discovery at YouTube and I kind of like got really close with them over the years because I ended up having like a midlife YouTube create youtuber crisis and I was like what is going on with my channel and he ended up helping me and over the time the problem if you were to distill it down to just a couple sentences.

So, I ended up having a couple of video outlier videos end up tanking for the very first time or not tanking. They were going up and then it seemed like because of those outlier videos, they ended up kind of reducing the whole like whole channel. And I was on vacation at the time and all my friends are drinking beer and have thrown a football. There are planes. I was in one the Wildwood Beach. I’m over here just sitting like a sourpuss. I’m like, what the fuck is going on my channel? Because this is your livelihood. You know, this is

Speaker 1 (49:53.07)

like this is your business yeah and my friends are all making fun of me like his YouTube views are down like damn right like yeah that’s fucking sad We’re an entrepreneur.

Speaker 2 (50:02.958)

you’re hating, you’re hating because you’re the guy getting chats. Let me just make sure I understood that correctly and also for the audience. was essentially you had a few videos that didn’t stick like a lot of your other content and so algorithmically your stuff started getting like unfavored as a whole or drug down the whole pro Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (50:20.198)

Yeah, so what ends up happening is when you have a video videos that are like actually in the algorithm like it was like really big on Search or I’m sorry browse traffic and for you guys that don’t know Browse traffic is like your home page So when you click on YouTube that first home page that is all browse traffic. So, the two biggest traffic sources on YouTube are browse and suggested and now shorts like the shorts feed but My videos were doing really good in the browse feature.

And then I ended up like, go in like they just dropped off and like it literally made all my viewership for my channel like dip down and it was my dropped off. because of a lack of engagement on a couple of Over time videos just die off because YouTube will just keep like promoting it and promoting it and finding new people to watch your video but then after a while like That video just starts to burn out because of the fact that there’s no more people to find it for Find that video Yeah, well, I mean a lot of my videos I tried to like make like kind of evergreen interesting videos and this was at the time where I kind of like that video isn’t relevant anymore or right.

Speaker 2 (51:26.638)

Timeless,

Speaker 1 (51:32.584)

went away from like search engine optimization and stuff like that and was just getting more like interested in like getting people to click. You know what mean? So, but yeah, it ended up I was scary at the time. And yeah.

You said earlier when you kind of going through the quick checklist of like how you have success on YouTube and you’re like, you know, thumbnail’s huge, maybe number one, then you gotta get people to watch. So how do you get people to watch? And perhaps maybe the best way to answer this is as they say via negativa, to use a fancy word, which is it all the things you don’t do or is it more the things you do intentionally do or some combination of both?

So, every niche every person is different and the way that I would say like the way I discovered it, and this is like for anybody that’s either doing content creation or looking the start is before you even hit record on a video

do what I call is recon and research. Go and watch people in your niche that are doing the same type of videos as you and look at their videos that are getting millions of views and watch it and be like, why did people click on this video? Why did people end up watching it? Because obviously since it has this number of views, people ended up watching it because if it didn’t have that many views or if people didn’t watch it, YouTube wouldn’t recommend it. So, you’re not copying the video, but you’re just trying to get

like some learning points like, you know, figure out why they, you know, was there certain words that they said, go into their comments section, kind of like researching the whole video as a whole. And then what I would do is I would like, you know, add those like little things with a twist in my videos. And then after a while, you go into your audience retention graphs and then you just see like, OK, was this video higher than before? And YouTube gives all this data like whether it’s, you know,

Speaker 1 (53:32.522)

this person, this video is performing 30 % better than the rest because of this reason. I’ll tell you that like, people clicked on it more and they watched the very end or this video is holding your audience 30%. And it’s kind of just like, you know, what is the correct terminology? I’m trying to say, like, you kind of want to add the certain things that that will get people to keep them engaged. when you, yeah, like it’s kind of like analyzing and adjusting.

But what keeps them engaged. It really depends on Get tactical, give me silly little, tiny things.

Speaker 1 (54:09.122)

So different sound effects, like pattern interrupts, anything comedic, even if you’re not in like a certain, like people love to laugh. if like, if you’re like, you know, I’m talking about tattoos, like videos where like I’m talking about people, like the most excruciating places to get tattooed, I’m still gonna add some comedy on there because people like the laugh and especially for that type of video, it makes them feel more comfortable, you know what mean? In regard to like, you know, the serious thing.

And then just like cutting out the fluff. Cutting out the fluff is like any like ums and uhs or like anything that is like not the meat of what the person clicked on, take it out. Anything unnecessary you want to take out.

heard that yet. Sorry to interject. Especially when you’re on a roll, talk to several people as I mentioned and it sounds like you put a very concerted effort towards tight editing and boiling it down to only what’s most important.

Yeah, because people clicked on the video for a reason. And if you give them a reason to not be there anymore, they’ll go on to the next one. That’s just how it is, especially YouTube, they’re advertising videos on the sidebar underneath and stuff like that. So, all right, so a couple more things and then we’ll switch gears.

Speaker 1 (55:27.352)

So sorry if I talk to you talk a lot.

You’re delivering gold. Yeah, seriously. You weren’t an expert, but I think that’s bullshit. I like there’s so much. I don’t know about how.

I want to know about what your plan is to actually create, but not that this isn’t a real brand. I you’re making real revenue. You’re making real money but are you ever thinking about life outside of social media? yeah.

Yeah, I mean, what I’ve been doing in the past, two years is like investing a lot of the revenue in regard to social media. So, for one is now again, a lot of the traffic that goes on to my website is from social media. from owning or having a tattoo related brand, I ended up creating a tattoo moisturizer called evolve ink or I’m sorry, evolve tattoo bomb. It’s an all-natural vegan cruelty free tattoo specifically formulated for tattoos. And this was always a dream of mine and it’s funny how it kind of came about. It was actually one of my content creator buddies that is…

Speaker 1 (56:41.1)

doing like kind of like hair stuff and he has a brewmaster friend and he’s like and I we’re on a conversation he was asking me some questions about content creation in general and then we got into creating products and I was like yeah you think he would be able to brew up something for like a tattoo moisturizer he’s like yeah it should be easy I mean it’s probably not as hard as creating a hair product for example and been really good ever since I mean I don’t and we talked about this already.

I don’t really like promote it as much as I should, because when I’m making my videos and delivering on the content, remember, we were just talking about that, like cutting out fluff or whatever.

Yes. Things that people aren’t really like, you know, I feel like I don’t want to shove my product down their throat every five seconds, which I probably should do more than I do now. But like, you know, and where are you selling the product? Are you selling it through an e-commerce or just through a tic-tac shop? No, I have it. I was going to do it on TikTok shop. That’s still an idea I was flirting around with, I just website have a bite and Shopify.

Speaker 1 (57:45.944)

pretty much YouTube has a little feature to where like every single one of my videos that I have on my channel, they have a little shelf that shows that’s like, hey, this guy has a product. If you wanna help support, it’ll be right there. So, yeah, yeah. until you’re getting sales that way. You’re also doing Amazon.

That is actually one of my goals for this year is put it on out It’s been doing like pretty well on in regard to like just promoting it from my own website or from my own social media, but yeah, that’s But I think great Amazon.

Speaker 4 (58:17.46)

That’s an idea.

And you had just said a few moments ago, you don’t want to shove the product down people’s throats every five seconds, but I kind of gleaned from you that you almost don’t talk about it. Big difference there.

I don’t Yeah, the only the only thing that I usually do is like You know, I’ll post there’s like a community feed on like YouTube or yeah on YouTube I’ll do it on there and I’ll post like maybe a story on Instagram But again, I’m just so focused on like because that audience retention is so important for the success of the video so if you end up like Doing that you’ll see it drop like I saw that multiple different times so just to be very specific on it, you through analytics have currently come to the conclusion that I almost don’t want to talk about my product at all. Audience will drop off and that’s the last thing I want. tested that? Like have you talked about the product and seen the drop?

Yeah, now it’s

Speaker 1 (59:09.462)

Yeah, ever since like, for example, this was this is a brand called clocks and colors that I did a sponsorship with. I know them and they’re really awesome. Don’t. Yeah. Yeah. This is relevant. This is what this is. You know, I’m giving you an example. I did a video and, know, they paid me to do a spot talking about the product. And then next thing you know, I look in the analytics and, you know, unfortunately, went down a little bit. So, I’m like, OK.

You know, and it shows you in the graphs, like you could pinpoint it right where you end up either having spikes, it’s leveled off or whatever. Worst time to do it. Yeah. Cause if people click on the video and it’s like, you know. What about doing it in the front? Worst time to do it?

Speaker 1 (59:51.04)

Like now I’m doing my videos are more broad because I’m looking at the most viewership as possible to get enough views Or as many views as I can like if I do a video where it’s like, you know tattoos that could get you in serious trouble like talking about prison tattoos because everybody seems to love that and it’s like but first here check out my tattoo moisturizer like people are gonna be like, all right I’m leaving Yeah, so Yeah, so I’m like, you know It’s something I have to look at and we talked about that john where it’s like, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21.467)

you know that’s not much that’s not my strong suit that part Man, so we’ve got to talk about your other endeavor as a food influencer, but I mean, you’ve been a mega wealth of information. It’s been awesome. We’re going to have to do like a part two or something.

If you guys want a part two comment below leave a comment let them know. Yeah, I love that, you know, I’m going to give the cliche like if you had to give one tip of advice to aspiring YouTubers, what would be the number one thing that you would recommend? I’m going to take it up a notch and I’m going to say, well, I did say cliche, so I asked for it. cliche for this show, John. If you can wave a magic wand. There’s no way this is any better. Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06.734)

There’s no way this is any better! You can wave a magic wand and forecast where Evolvink is in three years from now. Based on the trajectory from this new content strategy, we should be around 750 to a million subscribers in three years. Wow. Because there’s this thing called Social Blade and you could kind of go off it because right now, I’ve been getting anywhere from like, I mean, 10 to 30,000 new subscribers per month for 28 days.

Wow. So, know, and again, that’s if it all keeps going well, because again, YouTube absent flows. But to answer your question, John, there was a quote that really stuck out to me because listen, when you’re a content creator, I mean, I’m in my element right now, but when you’re a content creator, you feel like you’re on a little island because it’s just you and a camera.

And one quote that I always look back at is do something today that your future self will thank you for, whether it’s learning something about creating better thumbnails, keeping audience retention.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16.462)

You know just showing up just doing the video like there’s days where I don’t want to do a video But I know that especially now because I have you know an audience or whatever there There’s people that are looking forward to how you become a part of these people’s lives, but it’s like, you know, just you just got to do it. And if you’re thinking about starting a content like a social media brand in any way, I strongly recommend it. It’s life changing. You never know what doors are going to open. And if you’re passionate about something, there’s information out there and you just got to start. Really just got to start put in the work, do the hard thing, show up every day.

And don’t quit. telling you, there’s been times where I’m just like…

I don’t want to do this anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58.21)

But you know, there’s, there’s, there’s always that emotional attachment to your audience. There’s that emotional attachment to like, you built this thing from the ground up. You know what I mean? Like this is like something that is yours. So, you just don’t give up. went, take it from somebody that was depressed on a beach while your friends are drinking beers and making fun of you and making fun of me. Don’t give up. I was at the lows. I was at the highs, you know, just keep going. I love it. You

Speaker 2 (01:03:27.406)

That was awesome, Mike. Well, for more with Mike, make sure you click the link to the next video. We’re going to jump into his other project as a food influencer with 2Chomp. But Mike, thanks so much for your YouTube insights.

No problem.