Best YouTube Tips for 2020 ft. Marko Zlatic from Whiteboard Finance

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This is the digital nomad quest podcast with Sharon Tseung. teaching people how to build passive income, become financially free and design the best lives.0:15
You know, let’s get into the online business stuff. So now Yeah, we want to talk about like YouTube, right? And we want to learn kind of your secrets around YouTube and how to be successful on that. So what are your three biggest tips around being a big YouTuber? Yeah, so I’m on record saying this, you know, a bunch of times just because I genuinely believe that YouTube is the best business model in 2020. And the reason I say that is just because you reach so many people, all the eyeballs are on YouTube, and it’s free to do okay, I’m not sitting in some production studio, you know, this is my living room. You know, I have some lights, you know, you make it look good. You can record with a cell phone and an internet connection and you can start a business today if you really want to. So1:00
To answer a question the three tips that would give any aspiring YouTube entrepreneur or YouTube business owner if you will be consistent don’t do it for the money because you’re never going to succeed. And then third of all, it’s just be yourself. That’s why it’s called YouTube. It’s about you, you know, you can only yourself everyone else has already taken kind of be in your own lane. Yeah, I think that if you start a YouTube channel because you want to make money, you see all these YouTube tubers with these like corny like supercars, and they’re in their garage with like a Lamborghini in the back. Like, if that’s what you want to be, you’re never gonna make it because you’re not starting a channel out of passion. You’re starting a channel trying to make money. And there’s a to two big differences. When you start a channel out of passion. Whether you hit highs or lows, or you get a million views or 10 views, you’re still going to make the videos because you love doing them. You truly have a passion for it. If you’re doing it for the money. After six months, I’m not seeing any results. You’re gonna say screw this, I’m done with YouTube and you’re gonna be done. So I think that that’s my2:00
biggest tip is don’t do it for the money, do it because you’re passionate about something. Yeah, no, those are great tips. And do you feel like that’s really what made you successful? And do you feel like, you know, I think a lot of people try to hone in on, you know, SEO and like technical stuff about YouTube, do you think that ultimately, it’s just more about kind of being ourselves and delivering value? Or do you feel like you need a mix of both of like, you need to learn these tactics? Or, like, what do you think? Yeah, that’s, that’s a great question. And again, somewhere in the middle, you know, you have to be how do I say your content has to be good, and you have to be yourself and that creative aspect of it, but no one’s gonna find you if you don’t understand the SEO aspect of YouTube. So what people need to realize is, is that YouTube is the world’s second biggest search engine, and it’s owned by Google. So Google and YouTube are like this, okay, you know, whatever you find on a Google search, they may take you to YouTube and vice versa. So I think that if you understand the SEO and for your audience that obviously stands for search engine optimization. I’m sure they know that3:00
The way you title your videos, the way you do your thumbnails, the way you write your descriptions, the way you tag the videos, the things you actually say in the videos, those all help with search engine optimization to get you discovered. And also, I think shareability is one of the biggest metrics that YouTube looks for. If people are sharing your content. That means that it’s that good that they want someone else to see it. Mm hmm. Do you have any advice around you know, the title and the thumbnails and stuff like that? So I think that you need to be somewhere again in the middle. You can’t be you know, Mr. And Mrs. clickbait, but at the same time, you can’t be like dry. So it’s like, I’m somewhere in the middle because my again, it also depends on your content as well. So my content is more educational, informative. It’s not like watch Marco destroy or chug burger. Yeah, stuff like that. It’s more like you know how to open up a checking account. You know, that’s not what I talked about on my channel, but it’s just an example. So think more like you know what you’re doing.4:00
channel is understand what your content is and try and form your titles and your thumbnails around that type of content. If I tried doing like sensationalist titles and you know having like explosions in the background talking about how to open a checking account, that doesn’t really make sense, right now if I have kind of like a informative, you know, nice title is not super click Beatty and a nice thumbnail that’s more in line with my brand and what I’m trying to teach. So you have to have a little bit of common sense with this stuff, too. Yeah, for sure. And do you feel like you learn that stuff before even started? Or did you kind of learn along the way? Definitely along the way, because I look at my old videos, and they’re like, borderline embarrassing, you know? So like, Who is this idiot? But yeah, you definitely learned along the way. But you also have to create your own style because I feel like a lot of people they hire this stuff out. So all their thumbnails just end up looking like everyone else’s. I think that if you just take you know, 10 extra minutes of your day and create your own thumbnail, it’ll resonate and it’ll also create your own brand image. So when you see like Coco5:00
Cola, you know right away. Okay, this is Coca Cola when you see the Pepsi logo, okay, this is Pepsi you know when you see a generic thumbnail, we’re kind of like who is this guy again? I think once you start creating your own style, you’ll start to create that subconscious brand recognition in your audience’s mind. Yeah, that’s a great point. I think right now with my thumbnails. I’ve definitely started doing it a certain way like doing certain colors and stuff like that. So definitely like brand colors and maybe like your fonts and stuff. Like once you have that recognizable, you have that yellow back right

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there. Yeah. The yellow back the white board. Yeah, it’s not pretty but people like yeah, oh, you know, I recognize your videos because of this. So yeah, it’s kind of just pounding it in their head, you know? No, that’s that’s a great point. I think everyone’s trying to like make it super click Beatty or like pretty or whatever. But then it’s more about the cohesiveness. Like if you can make that brand style, people will always like think of you you know what I mean? So that’s a great point. And then when it comes to your growth right with your YouTube channel, when you first started was there like a certain

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point where it just started blowing up or like was there like that hockey stick growth type of visual thing or like So real quick so what allowed me to quit my job? Yes definitely hockey stick growth is crazy and I legitimately couldn’t believe it but that’s not you can’t bank on going viral you have to consistently put out good content for the algorithm algorithm to recognize and appreciate you. I started my channel in November of 17 I hit a couple of nice you know, doubles or triples if you want to use a baseball analogy I had a video talking about like top three marijuana stocks for 2018 or cannabis stock and that kind of blew up because that’s when there’s becoming you know, sexy like the whole cannabis you know sector for stocks that blew up got six figures fast forward like maybe 678 months later, I was at like 15,000 subscribers I had a couple deaths in the family got married you know a lot of a lot of stuff all at once was like a perfect storm of just like hey, forget YouTube. I’m done with this wasn’t on YouTube for six months started back up in October of 18.

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have been distant ever since. And I will say that my videos after that October of 2018 start, it took about six months for the algorithms to start, like respecting me again. Because my videos were not getting pushed out to people. It was one of those things where it’s like, Man, I’m taking all this time and effort. I’m getting like, a few hundred views or a few thousand views or whatever, you know, and it’s just like, Man, this sucks. Why am I doing all this hard work for, but after six months, something happened to where you start to see a little bit more comments a little bit more engagement, a little bit more views. And then finally in April of 19, earlier in 19, I actually printed out my goals so I keep my goals in a Google Drive spreadsheet if you saw my video on that you already know the story. But basically, I print all my personal and business goals out. I didn’t have ink in my printer until April because I kept forgetting you know, it’s like you go to Costco, you go to the store. It’s like Oh man, I forgot the ink again. So I bought ink when I went to Costco. Finally.

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printed out my goals in April of 19, put it on my wall and one of those goals was have a video that gets like 150,000 views. It was just kind of like my own version of going viral. I swear on everything. I don’t know if it’s like the matrix or God or Mother Nature. I don’t know, I don’t know if this is a simulation, who knows what the hell life is. But whatever it is, I put those goals up on the wall and my channel blew up. That’s when that car dealership video went viral literally the next day. And I start to see one comment, two comments, 10 comments. I’m like, What the hell’s going on? his video came out in March. I’m like, what’s going on? This is like, a month later. And next thing, you know, I go from, like, 10,000 views on that video to like, 100,000 to like 300,000 800,000 and that’s when the channel you know, blew up and I was able to, you know, live off that ad revenue. Wow, that’s crazy. So yeah, same. Yeah. I mean, wait, you said six months or you said one month because you said six months it takes to pick up or did you meet

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Sorry. So I took a break for six months. Okay, back in October of 18 started posting consistently again for six months. But think of that six months as like a like you’re in a sandbox, like you just start a new blog and Google doesn’t trust you yet. They’re like, do we really like Sharon? You know, do we really trust her? Yeah, okay, after six months, Sharon’s been putting out good content, good content, good content. Now, I’ll put her on the first page of Google, you know, gotta go after that six months of posting consistently and being off of it for six months. I think that’s when the algorithm started to think again, like okay, Mark was for real. He didn’t quit on us, for example. Okay, so it wasn’t that like during that down period, you randomly saw stuff come up. It was no way. Oh, yeah. Okay, I wish then I was just on the beach.

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And then yeah, you started consistently posting for six months, he said and then one of your videos a month later actually started picking up that Sonia thing? Yeah, it absolutely

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blew up and that it’s kind of like a high tide raises all ships kind of a thing towards like, all my other videos started getting thousands of views as well just because that one had so many. So that’s another tip to your audience, if they do decide to start a YouTube channel, I could have had, I could have been a one hit wonder you get a viral video, but guess what, you’re not going to get any subscribers if you don’t have other content, you know? Like, why would I subscribe to another channel, if it’s just like, they have one video and that’s it. It’s like, Okay, I’m not going to commit to that. Once they get to your channel off of a viral video and see that all your other videos are really good information to then you’re going to get the subscribers then you’re going to start building an audience. So that’s my advice, you know, whether you think their stuff, you know, sucks or is awesome, and it’s not getting the views you think it should. You need to just keep putting out content either way, because once you do hit it big on that one video, people will start to look at your old stuff and they’ll say, Oh, you know, Sharon’s, for real Mark was for real and it’ll screw up the subscribe. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you feel like the content you put out

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After, like, during that six months was even better than the stuff he did before? Like, was there any difference in how you posted? Good question, and I was getting frustrated because I didn’t think it was any worse or any better. But the views just weren’t there. You know, you go from getting like, you know, a bunch off like the marijuana or the cannabis stock video and your other videos. And then next thing you know, you’re getting like a fraction of that. Like, I genuinely thought I was like, Shadow banned or something, you know what I mean? Because like, I wasn’t getting that many views. But to answer your question, I didn’t think the content was better or worse, it was just still solid, good financial content, but for whatever reason, the algorithm wasn’t pushing it out as much as it did. Okay, so it’s almost like, you know, you should just keep putting stuff out there. That’s like, good. And then one day it’ll possibly like find a random video that like ends up you know, doing really well, huh? Yeah, and also, that’s correct. And if you put out evergreen content stuff that’s always going to be relevant, like how to tie your shoes or how to tie a tie, for example, you know, people are gonna be searching for that. 10 years from

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Now, you know, you have to realize that that’s the beauty of YouTube, you make it once, and it’s always going to get searched for if it’s a relevant evergreen topic. Hmm. Okay. That’s, I mean, that’s great to hear kind of your journey and like, people will be like, Okay, I think I’m doing the right thing, then, you know, because I think a lot of people question like, maybe I’m doing something wrong, I need to, like, fix this this or like, Can you guys evaluate my channel? Like, I don’t know what’s going on here. But ultimately, I think it is patience and like you keep, you know, pushing stuff out there that you think is good, right? For sure. And that goes back to my earlier point of if you’re starting from money, like if you’re starting a channel for money, you’re never going to push through that tough period. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So how do you monetize your YouTube channel now? Is it mainly ad revenue? Or do you do some affiliate marketing like what do you? Yeah, good question. So I’d say that a majority of my income or a good portion of it is from ad revenue. However, affiliate marketing doing pretty well with that just based on things that I genuinely like know and trust, so stay focused.

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Sample like fundrise, I talked about it earlier. They don’t sponsor me, they don’t pay me to say anything. But that is one of my affiliates, or one of the things I’m affiliated with just because I believe in the product. So I talked about it on my channel, hey, if you want to support the channel at no additional cost, you click on the link below and they click on the link and and if they sign up, I get compensated for that. So that’s affiliate marketing for your audience if they don’t understand how that works. Affiliate Marketing is a good portion of my income. I do want to create two courses this year one on actually how to start a YouTube channel and I believe in the business model that much. And then the second one, maybe something more related to investing so you can do digital products. You can do affiliate marketing, ad revenue, subscriptions, Patreon. You know, there’s a million ways to monetize a YouTube channel. Yeah, no, I agree. I think like when you build up your own personal brand, even through a blog or something like that, you can do it with multiple ways and that’s what I love about it. So that’s awesome. Do you find it hard thinking of topics to talk about? Like, do you see yourself running out of stuff to

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saying the future and you feel like it’s like a never ending type of thing. So with finance in the way I’ve positioned my channel I like it because if you think of like a pyramid, I do like evergreen stuff on the bottom. So stuff that’s always going to be relevant so like how to tie your shoes, how to tie a tie, and then in the middle, it can be like trending. So something that’s going on in the news, like the Coronavirus at the time of this recording, for example, how is the Coronavirus gonna affect the markets? And then at the top of that pyramid, like the fats, oils and sweets, you know, they eat sparingly and the very tip you know, don’t make too many videos about this. Yeah, it’s kind of like the inflammatory how Dave Ramsey’s wrong about credit cards and how dealers rip you off. So I don’t want to be that guy, but I’ll do it. I’ll throw it in maybe once every couple months, for example. So that’s really my content strategy. To answer your question, I mean, no, just because finance is always evolving. There’s always something new to talk about. Okay. Yeah. And you said it’s a pyramid. So you’re saying like the Evergreen is your main chunk and then be like, do less than

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The other one less than that, but like that’s how you mix it up kind of thing or at least I try to Yeah, yeah. Do you find that like this mix actually resonates well with your audience because they don’t get bored of like a certain type or I mean something I think about is like I feel like before I was putting up kind of random videos like because my whole thing is online business and like passive income stuff and that can be multiple like things right? That can be building a brand it can be Etsy, Amazon FBA and stuff so my worry is like you know, sometimes I jump topics too much where they’re like, okay, like I can’t follow this because like this doesn’t relate to me. So like for you Do you find that you’ve developed a strategy where like when people follow along everything can be in a series you know, they don’t get lost, they don’t get bored type of thing. Yeah, that’s the smart way to do it. But I will say that I noticed that my audience definitely is there. I don’t want to see segmented but I have about you know, almost 290,000 subscribers, but I know for a fact some Subscribe for

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car, video or car related content. The other ones Subscribe for stock market content, the other ones Subscribe for news, you know, like what’s going on in the financial news. So you’re 100% right is definitely segmented. And I will see other types of videos perform better than others just because of the subject matter. But at the end of the day, I think that it all encompasses like finance. So how you said it’s all about, you know, online businesses and passive income, I still feel that everything I talked about is still within the financial realm. If you signed up, you know, or subscribed because of a car video, you’re still going to get value out of, Hey, you know, how do I open up a 401k kind of a thing? So I do feel like it is segmented for sure. And like I said, other videos do better than others. But I think that you know, as long as it’s within your realm, your financial realm or making money online for your example, I think that the audience was still appreciate it for the most part, but I could be wrong, you know, everyone’s different. Yeah, I think I’m kind of like you in a sense of, you know, I love talking about this stuff, and it can be really

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Like a bunch of different interests I have a thing like around the same topic though. So I still want to talk about them all I like don’t know if I can just niche down to like, oh, Amazon FBA or like, only you know what I mean. And I do think it’s all kind of in the realm of maybe like financial freedom like in the future, you know, I just want to make sure everyone understands how to like design their lives have a thing and like, creates that, you know, financial future for themselves that might even encompass finance in the future. Who knows, but like, yeah, yeah, we’ll see where it goes kind of thing. Yeah, typically advocate newer YouTubers. I always say like, the riches are in the niches, you know, like, it’s better to like focus down. But I think that once you get to a point, as long as you have some some level of understanding or expertise, or you can teach it for example, I think it’s okay to talk about different things. But I wouldn’t start like a car channel and you’re just all over the place about cars. It’s a very broad niche, like, maybe you can take a different take on it, like, oh, I’ll drive around with people while they showed me their custom car. Like that’s kind of a niche or

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You can talk about only new cars that are coming out and review that. So you don’t want to be the entire car gamut. But you can be little pieces within it. Yeah, no, that makes sense. niching down is definitely something I struggle with. And I am working on that. I hear you. I hear Yeah, yeah. So now you know you’re doing YouTube full time. Do you have a specific monetization strategy? You’re focusing on more like? So you said, you know, multiple streams? Do you find that maybe affiliate marketing is the one that you’re gonna focus on more or like, Yeah, what’s your plan? Yeah, I definitely want to level out the income between ad revenue and affiliate marketing. I think that we’re blogs were 10 years ago in terms of being able to rank for certain topics. I think that’s where YouTube is now today. It’s a lot easier. Okay. So if I came out with a review of 2020 m one finance review, so for your audience that may not know and when finance is just a broker, you can buy and sell stocks there. I can never rank in a million years with my blog, whiteboard finance calm on the first page for an M one finance 2020 Review

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Right, there’s 20 other sites that employ hundreds of people that write these articles all day long. I’m just one guy in Cleveland, Ohio right now on YouTube, there’s a chance for me to get onto the first page, potentially even the first result of YouTube when you when someone types in m one, finance 2020 review, right? So I definitely want to start getting more into review videos and giving an objective, unbiased opinion. That’s what I want to do with my website. But I also want to parlay that with my YouTube strategy as well. So to answer your question, yeah, affiliate marketing, I hope that to even overtake my share of revenue other than ad revenue as well. Awesome. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Please make sure to rate review and subscribe. It really helps our podcast grow. And thanks again. I’ll see you guys in the next one.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai