Juicy YouTube Strategy Tips for 2019

Tom Martin is a YouTube Channel manager with experience managing and growing large channels. In this episode, we are diving into some really nerdy YouTube strategy tips and channel planning tips… this is some good, good stuff for diving into the new year with a solid YouTube Strategy!

Listen to Episode 25: Juicy YouTube Strategy Tips for 2019 w/ Tom Martin

Listen to more episodes of the Video Pursuit Podcast in your Apple Podcasts app or search "Video Pursuit Podcast" in your favorite podcast player. 

In this episode, I interviewed Tom Martin, and essentially picked his brain on a number of YouTube strategy topics and YouTube strategy tips. I love this nerdy stuff!

In this blog post, I have summarized this conversation with Tom, but I highly recommend you catch the entire episode #25 in iTunes!

One of my goals for 2019 is to help 10,000 bloggers fuel their YouTube channel growth THIS YEAR! One of the ways that I will accomplish this goal is by continuing to run my 5-Day YouTube for Bloggers Challenge... 5 Days to a Polished & Profitable YouTube Presence. I'm only running it a few times this year, to make room for some more free masterclasses. So if you want to participate in the next challenge, get yourself on the waitlist!

YouTube Strategy Tips for 2019

Tom Martin is best described as a YouTube consultant, so Tom helps TV companies, brands and independent creators to get their YouTube strategy in place. Tom has spent several years "in the trenches" of several successful YouTube Channels, having been a professional YouTube channel manager looking after the YouTube networks for the BBC, like a Dr. Who, Sherlock, Top Gear, and BBC Earth.

I first heard of Tom at VidSummit 2018, but I missed his presentation. But I heard everyone talking about how incredible Tom's presentation was, so I knew I needed to watch the replay... which I have now watched at least 5 times!

Related: Best Video Editing Software for Bloggers

The big takeaway from Tom's class was how much your YouTube channel strategy and planning is based on cold hard data. So I wanted to bring Tom onto the Video Pursuit Podcast to get down and dirty with DATA for YouTube Strategy Tips for 2019!

How to Start Planning Your YouTube Strategy for 2019

If you're just getting started with a YouTube Strategy and you're starting to think more about SEO, then planning with data in mind first is the perfect place to start.

In the most basic terms, when it comes to keyword research, we're looking for things that people are searching on YouTube, that are getting high amount of search volume and they're being underserved by other creatives.

So high search, low competition... and then we can make a video about that subject or around those keywords. We then optimize our titles, tags, and descriptions also around those keywords. Then we would hope that we would be able to much more easily rank in search, or be suggested for those keyword terms, and then find an audience that way.

Use YouTube Analytics to Find Out What's Working

You can look at your YouTube Analytics and easily see what is working well that you should "double down" on as far as creating more content, and anything that's not working as well. For topics that aren't working as well, you may want to scrap those topics or see what you can learn to tweak to make it work better for you.

If you're talking about various topics or various products (for example, if you do product unboxings one day, and also do a vlog style video another day), you can go into YouTube analytics and make groups for your videos. So you can put all of the vlogs in a group, put all of your unboxing videos in a group, and then you can compare how they perform. Compare these groups not only in terms of views but also how they are doing in terms of watch time and audience retention.

Related: 10 Things I wish Bloggers Know about YouTube

YouTube loves watch time! They love videos with good levels of audience retention. So for example, if people are watching 70 percent of your unboxings but only 30 percent of your vlogs, then that's a pretty clear indication that either they don't want to see the vlogs or that you need to make some pretty drastic changes to the vlogs to bring them up to standard, in terms of watchtime.

Metrics to Look for in YouTube Analytics

Watchtime and Viewer Retention are two very important metrics to keep an eye on in your YouTube Analytics. Another metric to look for is engagement (like thumbs up, comments, and shares). Another metric you may want to keep track of is your monetization. There may be certain topics or types of videos that make more money, so you can use that data to inform your future videos as well.

Planning a YouTube Channel from Scratch

One thing you really need to think about is the experience of your YouTube channel from a user's point of view. Ultimately, you need to make the audience happy, so first you want to start with a niche, then think of the most broad topics that have to do with that niche.

So make a list of 10-20 terms around the niche, keeping them very general. So you have a list of topics that people might potentially be searching for.

Then, using a tool like vidIQ, you can see the exact amount of searches around your keywords each month. You use vidIQ just like a google search and you stick those 10 words into the search. What it will do is spit out all of those words and it will tell you exactly how many people are searching for those every month globally. vidIQ will then also show how competitive is it would be to rank for that term.

You will also get tons of other related search terms, along with the volume and competition, so using that information, you can make a decision about what topics to build your channel around.

To learn more about Tom Martin and the YouTube consultant services he offers, check out Channel Fuel and FAQTube.tv.

The full episode with Tom on the Video Pursuit Podcast is packed with so much more information, so be sure to catch the full episode #25 of the Video Pursuit Podcast in iTunes, or your favorite podcast player.