#209: Paddy Galloway – How he makes any niche go viral

Paddy Galloway [00:00:00]:
I can make any niche viral. Literally any niche viral.

Jay Clouse [00:00:04]:
That's Paddy Galloway, the most prolific YouTube strategist in the world. And he is here today to address the most common problem, hurting smaller channels.

Paddy Galloway [00:00:12]:
Oh, I can't do this because my niche isn't like that or my niche is limited because I think so often, creators use that as an excuse.

Jay Clouse [00:00:19]:
Over the past decade, Paddy has worked with thousands of channels and generated over 10,000,000,000 views. In this video, he's gonna walk you through the strategy he used to do it, including pre production.

Paddy Galloway [00:00:29]:
I always like to say there's 3 main sources of ideas, internal ideas, external ideas, and then packaging. A 20% better title could mean double, triple, quadruple. It could mean a 100 times more views. And some hot takes. There is no meta.

Jay Clouse [00:00:46]:
Thank you to 1 of 10 for sponsoring this video.

Paddy Galloway [00:00:50]:
Some of

Jay Clouse [00:00:50]:
the most common comments we get from people, especially when we have videos about how to find more success on YouTube, is people will say things like, that's great, but that won't work for my niche, or, yeah, but I'm operating in this really small audience, or that would never work for me. So my first question to you is, are there niches that are just destined to fail? Like, are there niches that are just too small to make work on YouTube?

Paddy Galloway [00:01:16]:
This is honestly one of my biggest, pet peeves as a strategist, as someone that works with so many different channels is people just associate me with, you know, the biggest creators I've worked with. And I sometimes feel like saying, hey. Like, I've worked with hundreds of channels. I'm not just like a beast boy. I'm not just like a mister beast disciple just because I might have worked with them at some point in the past. I've worked with channels in so many different niches, and I have yet to find a single niche where I can't get some traction. Now that traction might look different for different niches. You know, some niches are naturally smaller.

Paddy Galloway [00:01:50]:
I always like to use this term, which you know and you've you've heard me talk about before, TAM, total addressable market. I like to think about that for YouTube channels and think, like, how big is the market for something? But every time someone has come to me and said, hey, you know, my niche is too small. It's all well and good you talking about all this stuff. I don't have all this money. My niche is small. I don't have this and that. I look at their niche, and it's like a golf niche. I'm like, 30,000,000 people play golf every weekend or something.

Paddy Galloway [00:02:17]:
Like, you know, there's a there's a lot of viewership in the golf niche. There's there's plenty of room there. Or it's something like knitting. And, you know, again, like, go go search knitting on YouTube and filter by most viewed. You'll see knitting videos with millions of views. So I have yet to sort of find a niche that I don't think has a big enough audience. Of course, there's gonna be, like, some exceptions, some examples of things, which are just so so hyper niche that there's only a few 1,000 people in the world that care about it. And in which case, maybe in in that situation, you should look at trying a different niche.

Paddy Galloway [00:02:48]:
But, I really I really hate that, that viewpoint of, oh, I can't do this because my niche isn't like that or my niche is limited because I think so often, creators use that as an excuse to not actually try harder with their content and not to put the onus on themselves to make great content instead of just blaming the market they're operating within.

Jay Clouse [00:03:08]:
It feels like a very disempowering belief. Like, why would you want to believe that there's a low ceiling on what you're trying to do? I feel like you should be doing everything in your power to blow that ceiling off what you think you can do. So when you think about the the TAM, the total addressable market, how do you actually go about identifying or calculating what you think the TAM for a channel might be?

Paddy Galloway [00:03:33]:
Yeah. I love I love thinking about it like that as, like, a limiting belief because my team will sort of testify this. I've, you know, built a small team around myself over the the last few years, and something I always say is, like, the mindset you have towards content and, like, the the sort of philosophy you have towards content has a huge impact in what you actually go on to do. So, like, one thing my team will always hear me say is we can make literally any niche viral. Like, I can make any niche viral. Just give me the topics, give me the tools, give me the right sort of direction, and I can make that niche viral. And I think even just like this idea, like you talked about of or or like we've talked about of TAM, like, how do you calculate that? Sometimes people think about things. There's, like, fancy name for it, TAM.

Paddy Galloway [00:04:21]:
They overcomplicate it. To me, it's just about saying, well, what's our niche? Let's just say our niche is golf. Let's go to YouTube, search golf in YouTube, and then in the search filters that you can apply on YouTube, this isn't using some, like, weird paid tool, just on YouTube, search that term golf, filter it for longer videos, so just filter out shorts. So you can actually filter video length in the search filters on YouTube, and just then sort by most viewed. And what you'll see is for golf, you'll see, like, probably all these huge outliers at the top where there's, like, some random, like, you know, another side man make a golf video that has 30, 40,000,000 views. That's probably not an accurate representation of how many views there could be for the golf niche. But if you go down a little bit further, you see, okay, here's this golf channel that does tutorials. There's many videos they have that have a 1,000,000 views.

Paddy Galloway [00:05:10]:
Here's this other golf channel that does entertainment videos. He has, like, 12,000,000 view videos. And before you know it, you're getting a picture of, okay, at the very high level, the best channels in the space get this viewership. That's probably a pretty accurate picture of roughly where your TAM could be. Now, of course, there's some niches that aren't capitalized yet. There's some niches that haven't been fully explored and discovered and conquered by creators, so there is, like, more viewership in some of those niches. But TAM to me is just really just seeing what are the best in the niche currently doing views wise. Like, what are they hitting and what am I hitting? So before blaming the niche, I could look at that and say, well, from a golf channel that's doing, like, a 100000 views a video, which is still great, but I'm, like, my niche is too small, I need to change, I need to pivot.

Paddy Galloway [00:05:53]:
Well, if the best channels are doing a 1000000 views a video, I'm still, like, 10% of what I could be doing. 10%, which is kinda crazy when you think about it. And a lot of people that come to me with these things are saying I'm in too small of a niche, The the reality is they're probably a golf channel doing 10,000 views a video or 5,000 views a video. So that's just generally how I think about it, just like looking at what the biggest channels are doing and using that as a bit of a benchmark for what is possible in the niche.

Jay Clouse [00:06:19]:
Do Do you have any examples of channels that they started off narrower than they needed to be, and you decided, hey. Let's actually expand the way we're thinking about this to have a larger total addressable market?

Paddy Galloway [00:06:33]:
Yeah. Someone someone I do think is a great example of it, and it's someone I'm I'm sure you're familiar with, is Noah Kagan. So when I first started doing some work with Noah Kagan, I believe that was 2020 or 2021. And I could just see he was, like, a really talented entrepreneur. He had lots of interesting stories, but he was doing, like, very, very niche things. When I thought there was more potential there, I thought, like, he had built a lot of the foundation of what a great YouTube channel needs to be. So he had he built a team. He had good editing.

Paddy Galloway [00:07:01]:
He had, like, decent thumbnails. But the topics he was picking was, like, you know, 6 tools that help me run my business or how to use Slack or how to, like, which Zoom Zoom versus, like, Google Meets, like like, these sort of, like, very niche business topics. And I went in and I was like, what if we just go for bigger swings? We go for bigger videos. We go for things like, you know, asking millionaires for advice. And, you know, that's obviously such a huge trend now, but we were doing that, like, 2 or 3 years ago, going for, like, really general business videos that we could say to ourselves, someone at the very beginning of their journey who doesn't know what Slack even is because they don't even need to think about Slack yet because they're just by themselves, they can watch this video and enjoy it. And then also someone that's a more seasoned entrepreneur can still watch and enjoy it because they'll still find interest in the things we're covering in the video. And, actually, just even going back to this idea of, like, niches being too limited or, like, my niche is boring. Like, even when I was thinking before this podcast, I was just some names just came to mind.

Paddy Galloway [00:07:59]:
Like, someone that was actually in the last cohort of, my accelerator program, which is, you know, this group coaching program I run. His name was Andrew Millison. Have a guess what his niche is. Like, it's the most it's it like, the actual niche itself is so niche, but he gets so much viewership. Like, try to think of the most random niche you can think of.

Jay Clouse [00:08:18]:
Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm going to guess that he does, eastern dance trends.

Paddy Galloway [00:08:25]:
This is a great guess. Great guess. That is pretty niche. And, actually, that sounds like there's probably quite good viewership in that. I might I might look into that right after this this podcast. So his niche is horticulture and more specifically permaculture, which I believe, hopefully no one calls me out on this in the comments, but I believe it's just like a a strain of horticulture that focuses more on, like, permanently, like, building out sustainable horticulture, like, you know, resources, plants, farms, you know, water systems. This is what he focuses on on his channel. That's like his background.

Paddy Galloway [00:09:00]:
And if I was to tell you, okay, he's niche he's niche is horticulture. He's like a lecturer in horticulture. What do you think, like, his most huge recent video got? Well, to answer that, it's 12,000,000 views. Wow.

Jay Clouse [00:09:13]:
We

Paddy Galloway [00:09:13]:
got 12,000,000 views on a video during our last cohort. The video is how the UN is holding back the Sahara Desert, and that has 12,000,000 views in 4 months. And across this channel, you're just seeing, you know, 1,500,000, 1,600,000. He's got multiple videos that are a 1,000,000 plus. When he started his channel, he was focusing much more on kind of a bit more nicher topics around, like, water, harvesting, rehydrating the concrete jungle. You you could, like, maybe show these videos on screen as we're talking about it. A lot of these are much more kind of niche. And then he realized that, wow, even though this is, like, a small, potentially boring niche, I can make really broad topics.

Paddy Galloway [00:09:54]:
So that 12 minute of your video, how the UN is holding back the Sahara Desert, it's got a really interesting thumbnail. I love, like, the the left and right contrast in the thumbnail. The title itself, how the UN so the UN is a very well known thing. You know, the United Nations, super well known. Everyone knows about it, like, really top of mind, holding back the Sahara Desert. Like, just that framing of holding back. I love that that term, holding back the Sahara Desert. He has managed to build his niche of permaculture, and gardening basically into a topic that's relevant to 12,000,000 plus people.

Paddy Galloway [00:10:32]:
And I think that's like, you know, this is kind of what it's all about. Right? When you when you think about how easy it would be for him to say, oh, I I can never get views in this niche because no one cares about permaculture or, like, you know, there's not enough interesting topics. I can't make the average person care about it. Well, he made 12,000,000 people care about a video about, you know, the Sahara Desert and permaculture in the Sahara Desert. So it's a great example of just thinking beyond your niche and kind of playing into some of the the key principles I think about when it comes to building out big viewership in a smaller niche.

Jay Clouse [00:11:07]:
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Jay Clouse [00:11:47]:
I'm gonna search toys because why not? We'll see where to go from here. I tested illegal kids' toys. This is actually really interesting. If you hover over that thumbnail, you'll see that you can dive right into similar topics or thumbnails. Let's click topics. Oh, look at this. I tested a 100 years of kids toys. What if we could do, I tested a 100 years of productivity hacks, or maybe I tested a 100 years of morning routines.

Jay Clouse [00:12:13]:
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Jay Clouse [00:13:02]:
Am I getting that correct?

Paddy Galloway [00:13:04]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Like, when I'm thinking about what are the, what are the traits of a viral video within a niche, the first thing on that list of traits that I look at is what I call CCN, core, casual, new. I'm looking for videos that hit our core. So we think about, like, our niche. Like, within our niche, there's, like, the really core viewers who, like, really care about the thing. The second c stands for casual, so core casual. So are we hitting the more casual viewers that kinda dip in and dip out of this niche and, like, care a little bit about it, but they're maybe not as, like, hardcore viewers? And are we hitting the new viewers? So those are viewers that maybe aren't into the niche.

Paddy Galloway [00:13:44]:
They haven't watched our channel before, but there are people that just if they see something interesting, they might click the video. So just like how let's just say we talk about permaculture, horticulture, Maybe I don't care about that. Maybe I'm not into it. But if I see that video about how the UN is holding back the Sahara Desert, it's packaged in a way that can attract me as a new viewer. It probably also attracts the core viewers who really care about that topic too, and it attracts the casuals who kinda dip in and dip out. The best way to look at your niche and expand your niche is look at every idea and say, can a core, casual, and new viewer all click this video and enjoy it? And I think that's where so many people go wrong. They get too caught up in just the core. They get too caught up in just, like, appeasing, like, the hardcore horticulture, you know, students and viewers who want to see these really technical things, and they forget about the casual and the new viewer.

Paddy Galloway [00:14:34]:
And then on the flip side, some people get too caught up in the new viewer, and they just forget to, like, also appeal to that core and they go too broad and they kind of miss miss the mark with the audience that they have been building. So I really, really like to think of that. Like, that's that framework, it sounds simple, and I think I've mentioned it in tweets and things before, but I cannot mention it enough because that just changes how you approach YouTube. You look at every niche as, like you said, a kind of expanding niche and not like a limiting niche.

Jay Clouse [00:15:03]:
So if I'm reading between the lines here a little bit, it sounds like what you're saying is if I'm trying to grow my channel, that means that I'm, by definition, trying to attract new viewers. And the best way to attract new viewers is to make a video that has broader appeal so that it has a better chance of getting a click when it's in a recommended area to a stranger.

Paddy Galloway [00:15:25]:
Exactly. Exactly. Like broad broadening the appeal of your niche is is so crucial. And I think there's this thing, you know, curse of knowledge bias where when we know something, we assume everyone else knows it. And what that means is sometimes as as, you know, creators in niches, we can end up always trying to go, like, really specific and narrow to try to, like, show viewers new things. But sometimes we just forget that, like, oh, actually, the more simple things, the more simple ways of framing things, like, that might seem obvious to us, but maybe that expands the reach of the video. Maybe it makes it more interesting to, you know, a broader group of people. So, yeah, I'm always looking at it and saying, like, how can we just make sure that we're not just limiting it to the hardcore viewers? And often, if you're if you're hardcore enough of a niche of a fan of a niche to make a YouTube channel around it, you're gonna want to go really niche and specific.

Paddy Galloway [00:16:17]:
But that's in itself a trap because then you end up just appealing to other people that are just as hardcore about the niche as you are, and that's probably a very small percentage of viewers.

Jay Clouse [00:16:27]:
Is there a risk here of making something that is so broadly appealing that it goes well and suddenly our audience isn't targeted for what we're actually trying to do anymore?

Paddy Galloway [00:16:39]:
Yeah. I think I think I always find that point kind of interesting because there definitely is something to it. But from my point of view, like, I would describe myself as, like, a view maximizer. You know? And I am very, like, open about that. Like, I go into channels, and I try to maximize views. I try to take channels from a 1000000 views a month to 10,000,000 views a month to a 100,000,000 views a month. There are so many other objectives we have as creators. Sometimes that objective might be, hey, we actually have a niche product that is actually more focused on the more hardcore, you know, really focused viewers in this niche.

Paddy Galloway [00:17:10]:
So expanding out broad doesn't actually do much for our bigger business. And in that case, it's okay to just, like, focus down on that more specific viewer. But if our goal is to grow viewership, then then I don't think we should ever be afraid of trying to expand that out. So long as we're not just, like, you know, doing absolutely random stuff just in, you know, in attempts, just jumping on any trend, so long as there's still that core casual new, which is why you have to hit each one of those points. Because if you're just going after the new viewer, if you're just, like, randomly jumping onto any trend you can, then you're not bringing along your core with you. But, yeah, it's it's kind of fascinating how many creators come to me and they say, like, I wanna get more views. I'm like, okay. Here's more views.

Paddy Galloway [00:17:52]:
And they're like, oh, now that I've got more views, I don't like how it means I have to make these more broad videos. And it's like it's the classic trope. It's like the classic case of, like, the the alt band saying they want to make it rich and famous. They make it rich and famous and now they're like, oh, I miss when I was, like, able to play these small shows and, like, had this real connection. Now we have people in the audience who are just wearing t shirts and don't actually know the music and, you know, it's the classic kind of, like, situation. But I think it's really it really comes down to the creator to be really clear to themselves, but then also if they if they end up working with someone like me or someone else to be like, my my main objective is product sales for this niche product. And in which case, I'll be like, okay. Let's instead of focusing on getting you to 10,000,000 views a month, let's focus on getting you to 2 or 3,000,000 really targeted views per month, and that would actually end up contributing more to the overall business.

Jay Clouse [00:18:40]:
Yeah. That that leads me to what may sound like a really obvious or weird question, but who should be a views maximizer? Like, what is the conditions where views maximization is the right thing to be chasing? What what else needs to be true for me?

Paddy Galloway [00:18:56]:
I think, like, the first thing is if if your main vehicle for generating revenue and we could also get even, like, very meta on this and say, like, is even generating revenue your goal? Because if a creator is just like, I wanna make enough to pay my bills and just really make content I'm passionate about, that sometimes can be at odds with generating more revenue through reviews. You know? So, like, we have to be kinda clear about what we want to do. But if your if your main vehicle for for revenue generation is ad revenue, and I mean that in terms of AdSense on YouTube videos and sponsorships on YouTube videos, if that's your main vehicle that you see as the main way to make revenue on your channel, you should be a view maximizer, in my opinion, within reason. You know? Because there's even, like, you know, more deeper arguments around, hey. Like, if you go too broad, your viewers might not convert as well to sponsorships and etcetera, etcetera. So, like, there's there's always these kind of exceptions and things to think about. And, you know, there's a friend of mine who runs a YouTube agency, and his name is Dave Whiskas, if you ever heard of him. And he always, like, talks about how, yeah, like, sometimes these, like, creators have reborrow view counts, and they do really well.

Paddy Galloway [00:20:05]:
But from a sponsorship perspective, the data shows they don't actually convert because they go so broad. So, like, there is, like, all these kind of exceptions, things to think about, things to take into consideration, but most channels could benefit from having a mindset of I want to get more views and I want to, like, build out a bigger audience, especially people that are, like, still maybe below that line of being able to make a full time living from it. So I I would say the only people I would discount are people that are looking at it and saying, hey. I can make more money by focusing on a very small specific group of viewers, and those people might be people who sell, like, a product, a course. Like, if you're selling, like, a course let's say you're selling a course on how to, like, you know, effectively use Slack, you know, as a as a manager. You wanna target managers that use Slack in the organization. You don't wanna make a video like, you know, I use Slack for 3000 hours. I used every product tool for like, stuff like that might not really bring in the right kind of viewership for you.

Paddy Galloway [00:21:05]:
So I think getting really clear about where your main vehicle for generating revenue is, but I would say most people, their main vehicle is still ad sales, through AdSense or through sponsorship and through maybe affiliates and other things as opposed to a product. Even for people with the product, though, there's still more of that viewership that you can attract. You just have to be a bit more tactful. You don't you don't wanna just completely go and say, hey. I'm just gonna try and make the most mister beastified viral video I can. It's more about within my niche, what can I do? So I'm just even thinking of an example. Like, let's just say you're you are this Slack example we gave you. You sell a course on how to use Slack as a manager.

Paddy Galloway [00:21:43]:
So making, like, a really weird viral video where you're, like, trying to, like, go viral with Slack in some way probably isn't a great idea. But making a video that follows a trend that has gone super viral across multiple niches, which is if I was to start over with Slack, here's what I'd do. We've seen that go viral like, if I had to start coding all over again, here's what I'd do. If I started to learn web design over again, here's what I'd do. You'll see these examples of plenty of outliers. So as that channel, you could look at that and model off that video and say, hey. Could I do that for Slack? Maybe it won't get 500,000 views. But if I'm used to getting a 1000 views a video and that gets 30,000 views, we have maximized views.

Paddy Galloway [00:22:21]:
You know, we've increased views, and we've brought in the right kind of viewership. So I think for channels that just have a specific vehicle they sell to through or the a specific revenue generating vehicle, like a product or like something more niche, you have to still think about it as core casual new. But in this case, your new viewer is not gonna be just a complete casual. Your new viewer is maybe just, like, still someone that uses Slack, but just isn't, like, your exact customer profile.

Jay Clouse [00:22:45]:
I'm curious to hear what are some of the aspects or similarities across videos in different niches that you see lead to virality? What are the what are the commonalities of videos across niches that all go viral?

Paddy Galloway [00:23:01]:
So I'd really like to make it very simple. Number 1, the video has to have CCN fit. So we've already talked about that core casual new new gear fit. We won't dive into that again, but the first thing should be, does this idea have interest across all those bases? I I've referenced this before in the past, but, like, even from my channel when I was active on my own channel with my own name, like, I would look at it and say, the world's biggest creator needs to be able to watch this, and my mother needs to be able to watch this. You know? Someone who is, like, an absolute hardcore YouTube nerd and then also someone that's just roughly interested in the whole platform. So core casual new. A second trait of viral videos that I look for for Ramesh is some form of unique novelty value. Something about it that makes this video just feel like it's its own thing, its own island, and not just like another, you know, screaming into the void idea, something unique.

Paddy Galloway [00:23:54]:
So we talked about that Andrew Millison, example of, you know, the UN holding back the Sahara Desert. Like, that feels like he has some information, something new that I don't know that I haven't heard before. So always looking for that, like, what is unique? What is novel about what I can talk about? And that kinda goes into why we should spend so much time on brainstorming and trying to find new fresh things for our niche. So that's another thing. It sounds simple, but number 3, easy to convey in title and thumbnail. So many great ideas are hard to convey in title and thumbnail, and they're just not great ideas then. They're just, you know, they're just interesting things. They're not great ideas because a great idea has to be easy to convey in a title thumbnail.

Paddy Galloway [00:24:35]:
And I get really annoyed at YouTubers saying, I've got this amazing idea. I just can't think of how to thumbnail it. And I'm like, you don't have an amazing idea then. So that would be the 3rd thing, like, making sure you convey it in the title of the mail really easily. And then the 4th thing that I always look for is, like, other people in your niche or even friends that, like, have similar interest to you, when you mention the idea to them, do they get excited? Like, do they just genuinely feel like, oh, that's interesting, that's exciting. And I I always like this idea of building a bit of a council around yourselves, like a YouTube council around yourselves so that you can ask people like, hey, I'm thinking you're doing this. Like, do you find that interesting? Do you find that, you know, does that make you excited? So when I'm when I'm looking at these niches, like, if you just start applying these little frameworks to, like, how you think about it, even the first one just being CCN fit, you're naturally gonna start looking at bigger videos. You're not gonna just look at, like, a really specific thing.

Paddy Galloway [00:25:26]:
Let's just take another niche for example. So, just to give another channel 731 Woodworks, it's a woodworking channel. Now I think woodworking is really interesting but you could argue that, like, it's not a niche that you can mister beastify. It's not a niche you can, like, make viral because it's just all about, like, tools and whatever. If you look at that channel, a lot of the videos are built around viral formats. They are things like testing hacks testing woodworking hacks or 99% of woodworkers get this thing wrong or, you know, this tool is now illegal in 7 and a half states or, you know, there's there's just, like, these these funny ideas that are built around just, like, looking at the idea and saying, okay. My core is, like, hardcore woodworkers, but how do we also make these topics interesting to people that, like, do it as more of a hobby? Or maybe they're just generally interested in making things, but they're not, like, a hardcore woodworker. So instead of being, like, reviewing the, you know, Woodtron Wood Saw 3,400, second edition, it's just, like, this tool is so good it should be illegal.

Paddy Galloway [00:26:32]:
Or, reviewing the the most expensive woodworking tool in the world or comparing the Wish, you know, saw to, like, this $500 saw. You know? Like, he's looking at it and saying, how can I make things broad and viral? So, yeah, I think it is really just about looking bigger and just thinking of unique, novel, broad, and some of these other traits we've mentioned.

Jay Clouse [00:26:54]:
For these viral videos across niches, what about their packaging gets people to click? How do you think about title and thumbnail so that people want to actually click?

Paddy Galloway [00:27:07]:
I would always say, like, too many too many people get caught up in the, like, the design itself, like, the aesthetics. So often I just look at it and say, it's showing something simple so you can look at it. I'm not even sure. Maybe we talked about this on the last podcast, but I always like this idea of the glance test. Sometimes I'll put my thumbnail on a Google Slide, and the slide before, I'll have just a blank white slide. The slide after, I'll have a blank white slide, and I'll just flick onto the thumbnail slide really quickly. And I'll keep the thumbnail quite small as well. And I'll just ask myself, can I process what's on screen? Like, in that split second, because people just vastly overestimate how much time the average viewer looks at a thumbnail.

Paddy Galloway [00:27:49]:
The average viewer looks at a thumbnail for well under a second. Like, it's gonna be milliseconds. It's very hard to, like, study this, but the sort of non perfect scientific studies I've done on this, like, just from observing people scrolling and just some other tests I've tried, like, people look at thumbnails from milliseconds. So you need to have something in there that's just really easy to process and get across right away. So, you know, this idea I came up with this idea. I don't wanna say came up with it because it makes it sound like I take the credit, but a few years ago in a video, I I mentioned this idea called the 3 element rule. The reason I I I brought that up and the reason why I think a lot of people use it and reference it is because you shouldn't really have more than 3 things that the viewer is focusing on in the thumbnail. If anything, 3 is even too much.

Paddy Galloway [00:28:32]:
Like, can you just have, like, 1 to 3 little things they have to focus on? So if I'm having to look at a face, another face, an item, text over here, a logo over here, text over down here, there's too much in the thumbnail. And too many beginners just feel, I have all this space. Let's fill it. But if you then go and look at the most viral videos on YouTube, so many of them, like, they have empty space. Like, you know, instead of, like, showing, like, this saw with, like, all these things pointing at it, these different arrows, there's text over here, text over there. Sometimes it's just as simple as just, like, an arrow, a saw, and a face or something, you know, instead of having too much stuff filling up the screen. So I think simplicity is is really important, and then just, like, trying to show something this is always hard to kind of convey in words, but trying to show something that looks a little bit it's, like, on the verge of believable, or unbelievable. It's, like, it's not misleading, but it's exaggeration of the thing.

Paddy Galloway [00:29:25]:
So, like, can we show something that, you know, if we're trying to show the world's, most expensive saw in a video, I don't think it's clickbait to go in and, like, add some gold onto the saw or, like, put some shine on it, like, put, like, a little, like, diamond encrusted thing on it or something. So we're going in and just enhancing some of the details to just make it feel still it's still not clickbait because we're still showing the world's most expensive saw, and the world's most expensive saw probably looks pretty good. But we're going in, and we're just trying to, like, make it look a bit more shiny and clickable. So I think if you combine simplicity and exaggeration without going too far in the realm of clickbait, you have a really nice formula for for good thumbnails. And and also a lot of it is just, like, you know, studying other thumbnails in your niche. Like, what are the what are people clicking on? Because, like, someone would bring up, like, oh, at this niche, people only click on this kind of stuff. Or, like, I've even seen in different geographies. Like, for example, in, quite a lot of, like, countries like Singapore or, like, Malaysia, countries that speak a different language, especially Asian countries, they actually quite often click on thumbnails with a lot more text in them than in the Western world.

Paddy Galloway [00:30:34]:
I've just noticed that. So, you know, that's always something to think about as well, like culture, niche, what's working in your niche. But generally speaking, I don't think you can go wrong by saying let's keep it simple, and let's exaggerate something slightly.

Jay Clouse [00:30:47]:
You talk so much about all of the preproduction work with packaging and thinking about an idea. How much of a difference does that preproduction really make?

Paddy Galloway [00:30:57]:
Love that question. Because I would say the biggest difference, I think, between top level creators and beginner creators is top level creators, we're putting way more time into the preproduction, into planning before we make the content. Whereas a lot of more beginners will just sort of say, I wanna make this. Here's roughly how I think about it. Let's make it. You know? So putting, like, real thought into developing these things before we even press record, before we even end up writing the script. Like, I wanna see, like, actual details of how this could go because at some level on YouTube, it just becomes a game of decision making. And our decisions are like, what do we pursue? Just like how in a really big business, like someone like an Amazon, they have all these potential they can make money in so many areas.

Paddy Galloway [00:31:41]:
They can do it here, here, here, and everywhere, but they have to sit in their boardroom and say, like, out of these a 100 opportunities, like, which are the ones that we should focus our energy on? Sometimes, a point of frustration for me is when I talk to people who are either beginner YouTubers or a bit more inexperienced or even, like, people completely outside the YouTube niche, like, you know, the brands that my company works with and different people, they will look at it and they will kind of be a little bit put out or a little bit some sometimes honestly frustrated with me with how much detail I put on these little little things, like, you know, how much I will push for a certain tile over another tile. An example I actually bring up quite a lot is, we work at the Red Bull. That's one of our bigger clients. We had this video, a few months ago, which was world's fastest camera drone versus f one car. That video, I believe, has 20,000,000 plus views. So that title, I think, is a great title. It's just really simple and straight to the point. You get it.

Paddy Galloway [00:32:36]:
But if we had titled it something else, and there were other titles on the drawing board that we could have used, if we had titled it something that was maybe 10 or 20% worse, the video wouldn't have 10 or 20% less views. It might have a fraction of the views. It might it might have, like, 2 or 3,000,000 views, which is still lots, obviously. But YouTubers often think of it too linearly and think, okay. 20% better tile. Yeah. The video might get 20% more views. But what if I prefer this tile? Or what if I don't like calling it this other tile? Like, it's not gonna make that much difference.

Paddy Galloway [00:33:04]:
Can I just call it this tile? But a 20% better tile could mean double, triple, quadruple. It could mean a 100 times more views because YouTube is this exponential game, and returns are nonlinear. Like, a 20% better thing might mean the video ends up doing a bit better with more people, and then that can lead to snowball in motion, which can then lead to more and more and more views. So being a bit better with a lot of people can lead to a much bigger return than you can imagine. So the reason I push, like, focusing on Tidal Fomel, focusing on the topic, focusing how you present things and this preproduction so hard is because these things make a massive difference. And, honestly, like, I can't say how many times in my career I've had I've been in rooms with people where they've been, like, we like your title, Patty, but we think we wanna go with this title. And then I say why? And they go, like, it just feels a bit more aligned to our brand. And then I would say, okay.

Paddy Galloway [00:33:57]:
Like, aligning to your brand is really important. But if I was to say your title will get 1,000,000 views and my one will get 10,000,000 views, would you feel the same way? And they'd say, how can you know that? I'm like, I don't know that. But I do know that my one is 10 or 20% better, and being 10 or 20 percent better in an infinite exponential game has huge outsized returns. You know, the video won't just get 1,200,000 views versus 1,000,000. Maybe it will get 1,000,000 versus 10,000,000. So it's one of the reasons I get so excited about these little nerdy small details. And, yeah, even that example we use from Andrew Millison of the the UN Sahara video, like, that video with, like, a different title or a slightly different thumbnail, that topic might have only got 500,000 views instead of 12,000,000.

Jay Clouse [00:34:39]:
How do I take that insight, which I agree with and believe, and not allow it to paralyze me from publishing at all?

Paddy Galloway [00:34:48]:
Setting a limit on how long you you give yourself to to overthink. I I think some overthinking is fine, but just set a limit. If you're overthinking a tile for weeks, big problem. If you're overthinking it for an hour and then after that hour, you say I have to come up with something and and stick with it, you know, just just make that happen. So I think setting a time limit and then also, like, realizing and understanding that there will be always views left on the table. Like, there's not a single video I've worked on in my entire career that we got a 100% of views we could have got. Every single video I've ever worked on, we could have got even more views with something slightly different. But it's just a game of getting as close to perfection as possible.

Paddy Galloway [00:35:29]:
But perfection needs to have a time limit. You need some constraint. Otherwise, you'll just not post anything. So I think especially for smaller creators, like, the reason I even bring up this point of, like, nonlinear returns and how exponential YouTube is is to excite us with the potential we have. But when you're a small creator, like, it's still so important to just, like, publish publish videos. Right? Because the pursuit of perfection the pursuit of perfection doesn't account for the other factor in that equation, which is timeline. And the the longer time goes on, the less learning we have, the less videos we're publishing, the less we're, like, you know, trying to to to make things happen. I don't know if this analogy will hit, but, like, imagine, like, you were someone that just always tried to find, like, the perfect husband or wife forever, but then by the time you finally find them, you're, like, 65.

Paddy Galloway [00:36:15]:
And it's like, oh, you know, like, in my pursuit of perfection, I forgot that the other timeline was was actual time passing. So I think that's a a way of thinking about it is we can be perfectionist. We can overthink, but just for an hour, just for 2 hours, not for 2 weeks.

Jay Clouse [00:36:31]:
It's empowering because it it goes to so a little bit of extra work on the package, on the title and thumbnail, and the idea can have outsized returns. So that's where there's leverage. That's where you should put a little bit of extra time because finding a little bit of a breakthrough can have a huge return for you. But you're right. There has to be a limit. Otherwise, we'll we'll go back and forth

Paddy Galloway [00:36:52]:
forever. Absolutely.

Jay Clouse [00:36:54]:
The majority of people watching this probably are still feeling like, my channel is pretty small. I haven't really broken through yet. And so I'm wondering if there's, like, an order of operations when the channel is small and I'm getting started for which of the core casual and new I should develop first? Like, should I go broad first to try and get in front of a lot of people so that some of those people become core fans? Or should I start a little bit more narrow, develop the core fandom, and then broaden out from there? What do you think about that?

Paddy Galloway [00:37:28]:
There's actually it that question really ties in well with a a tweet I made yesterday, which was how I would grow a YouTube channel from scratch in 12 months, 12 steps. And I broke the 12 steps into these different phases. Phase 1, I called establishment. Phase 2, I called improvements. And phase 3, I called optimization. So I almost like thinking of, like, a YouTube channel's, like, growth along those lines. First of all, you just need to establish yourself. Like, what am I what am I doing? I need to start making videos.

Paddy Galloway [00:37:56]:
I need to get good at making videos. Then you need to get into this phase of, like, now I need to keep improving upon that establishment. Like, improve in all these different areas, start thinking about strategy, and start thinking about idea generation more deeply. And then over time, you end up optimizing and tweaking to get to that final destination you want to be. So for your question, I think we're looking more at that, like, establishment stage. So, like, before we really think about, like, how do we, you know, get in-depth on all this stuff, look at all this data retention curves, like, we need to figure out, like, what we are and who we are as a channel. And I will say throughout my entire career, it's always worked better for me to focus more narrow and more at that core first and then expand out over time, because you just it's you can never go the other way. You can't really start, like, going after the broad and then go more narrow because that just, like, will aid so many of those viewers.

Paddy Galloway [00:38:46]:
I think it's it's ease also easier to get traction when you're focusing on a bit more of a specific smaller niche. I'm even thinking back to, like, when I used to have, music channels. Like, I would start with, like, a really specific subgenre of a niche of music, then I would start building out. So if it starts with, like, French deep, deep hip hop or deep bass or something, drum and bass, then it would, like, expand a little bit out to, like, European drum and bass, then even further. You know? It would just kind of build from a really small core and then grow from there because you can kind of almost look at it like almost like monkey bars to, like, different places. Like, you you start in here and then because you're in here, that means that some of these niches overlap. Okay. So now I can sort of expand out to this broader thing with some overlap with my thing, and then I can expand out over here.

Paddy Galloway [00:39:35]:
And before you know it, you can kind of capture more of the total total niche or total whole niches itself. Because, like, every niche has, like, sub niches, like, we've kind of alluded to. But, yeah, I find it I find it really interesting how, like, sometimes I I look at a new creator and immediately they're trying to make these super viral, like, really broad videos. There are examples of where that works. I have a friend, James Janney, who I reference quite a bit because I think he's just such a really great creator. His first few videos got, like, millions of views. Like, he just he just hit it out of the park right away. That is the exception.

Paddy Galloway [00:40:08]:
Survivorship bias is such a real thing with with YouTube. If you look at most channels that are now doing 100 k, 200 k, 500 k, a 1000000 views of video, they started more niche down. So start niche and expand and grow from there, for sure.

Jay Clouse [00:40:22]:
How do I know when I'm moving out of the established phase and into the growth phase where I need to be looking more at data and analytics and things?

Paddy Galloway [00:40:31]:
I think some of it is, like, volume of videos posted. So people argue with with me on this. Like, I'm sure, like, other strategists might disagree with this, but, like, the more I've realized this, like, I've been doing this for 10 years now, creators just get overwhelmed. If you say to a creator, hey. You need to start making videos. You need to start making 2 videos a week. You need to learn all about retention curves, you need to learn data, you need to learn how to, like, come up with good ideas, you need to learn how to package, you need to learn all this stuff, it can just be, like, really overwhelming. So how do you go from, like, that establishment phase to that improvement sort of growth phase? I think what you do first is say, am I in a consistent, you know, cadence of posting videos? Some people will say, Patty, you've said in the past that, you know, a consistent schedule doesn't matter.

Paddy Galloway [00:41:15]:
It doesn't matter algorithmically, but it can matter a lot mentally and philosophically for yourself to get into, like, a regular cadence of posting. If you're really good, you can post whenever you want but you're not really good at the start. So you need to kind of have that repetition over time. So the first thing I would look at before moving into that stage is are we posting regularly and have we learned how to make videos? You know? Like, this sounds silly, but, like, every YouTuber that we look up to, they know how to, like, roughly make things. You know? And there's some examples, I think, especially in this, like, new age of create creation where, like, people can hire editors and thumbnail designers earlier in the process. But still, like, even if if I look at myself, like, I can edit videos. I can I could edit a video? If you sat down there and sent me the clips for this and put it together, I could edit it. Is it gonna be very good? No.

Paddy Galloway [00:41:59]:
But it'll be passable. I can make thumbnails. I made thumbnails for years. I've made thumbnails for clients. Like, I can go into Photoshop and make thumbnails. I have the fundamental skills to be a creator. So I love the idea that in that establishment phase, instead of working and thinking about strategy too deeply, we're building those fundamental skills. We're making videos.

Paddy Galloway [00:42:18]:
Ideally, maybe 1 or 2 videos every single week, and we're doing that for a period of time where maybe we have 30, 40, 50 videos posted. Then we look at it and say, okay. Let's say we've got 50 videos posted. We have learned the skills in Photoshop and video editing. Now we have a foundation where we can put strategy on top. It's kind of it's kind of frustrating when I see someone put really a lot of effort into strategy and ideation and coming up with, like, really good ideas, but their execution is so weak that they're just wasting those ideas. So, like, at the start, I just say, make whatever you want. Like, pick your niche.

Paddy Galloway [00:42:49]:
Like, we need to pick our niche. We need to pick our niche slash sub niche and, like, focus in on that. But then from there, just make what calls to you. Make what interests you. Like, make what you feel, like, passionate about. Some of it will maybe do okay. Some of it will do terrible. The majority probably won't do anything as a whole.

Paddy Galloway [00:43:04]:
And then over time, you can then look at it and say, I'm sitting in this position where I've been doing this for 4 or 5 months. Now I have 50 videos posted. I've got the fundamental skills. If I now put the strategy component on top, if I now think about my YouTube studio, if I start studying my retention curves, if I start putting more effort into brainstorming ideas. So instead of just saying, I'm gonna make whatever I want to, we're gonna start thinking about it and saying, I'm gonna put a huge amount of effort into brainstorming. I'm gonna schedule time each week to brainstorm ideas. I'm gonna use a process of elimination to make sure I pick the best ideas. We start putting more strategy behind it.

Paddy Galloway [00:43:37]:
We have a foundation we can build upon. So I think before moving into that stage, we just need to make sure we're making videos consistently and we're improving and we've got a foundation of skill for, you know, Photoshop, video editing, whatever it might be. And if that foundation of skill isn't one you have yourself, it's at least having someone on your team that you've built to cover those areas.

Jay Clouse [00:43:55]:
I think that's so true I talk to a lot of creators who are stuck around platform strategy They haven't even decided yet which platforms should I be posting on And they'll ask me like should I do YouTube And YouTube has the most moving parts of any platform, in my opinion. The most variables that could go wrong and sync the performance of the entire video if you don't do it pretty well, you really have to get a lot of things working in concert from the idea to the packaging, which is both title and thumbnail, not just the composition of it, but the literal visual design of it. Then you need to make sure the video starts out really well. So you have good retention. You probably need to keep people's attention throughout the whole video. Obviously, there's just so many. Each of these things are like their own art form almost. And you can get good at all of it.

Jay Clouse [00:44:48]:
And that's what the great YouTubers are doing. But it's such an investment of time that in the beginning, you need to get reps of doing a whole video. So you at least experience and start building the muscle memory of all these different moving parts and variables involved.

Paddy Galloway [00:45:03]:
I couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. Like, sometimes I I actually have been quite reflective of, like, the advice I've given over the years and, like, how I've approached things. And sometimes I have, like, this benefit of I've done it for 10, 15 years. I have this experience, these repetitions. And we talked a bit earlier about this curse of knowledge bias. Sometimes I forget, like, how many little skills go into making a channel happen. So to think about, like, a new viewer being told, hey.

Paddy Galloway [00:45:31]:
You need to learn how to edit. That's hard. You need to learn how to do thumbnails. That's also hard. You need to learn how to, like, story tell. You need to learn how to be good on camera. You need to learn how to, like, you know, do some basic lighting, color grading. Do all that stuff.

Paddy Galloway [00:45:43]:
I need to do this every week, and you need to come up with ideas. And then be, like, also as well, you need to think really deeply about strategy. You need to follow what Patty Galloway says on Twitter where he says he goes through this whole process of, like, hundreds of ideas, and you can just imagine how overwhelming that is. So I love the idea of just breaking it down into those different stages, and I think that's the best way to grow, like, a channel from scratch or from smaller to a big channel or at least a channel doing quite well momentum wise as as fast as possible. And, yeah, I I think, like, it's kind of when I really break it down, like, YouTube is unlike any other platform in that it is really, really, really difficult to get good at. But when you get good at it, it starts to feel quite easy. It starts to feel like, you know, you can be in this position where earlier in this podcast, I said, I feel I have the confidence to feel that I can make any niche viral. And I haven't had negative reinforcement to tell me I can't.

Paddy Galloway [00:46:39]:
You know, every time I've done something with someone with enough time, we have made progress and we have got viewership. And it's quite an easy input output game when you learn what the inputs are. But, yeah, it's crazy overwhelming to think about starting on YouTube today and having all this information, all these people talking, saying you need to do this, this, and this. So now you just need to take a bit of time to be quiet and make 30, 40, 50 videos and just learn how to edit and make thumbnails on Storytel. If you do that 1st few months, you're gonna have a much better foundation.

Jay Clouse [00:47:10]:
If I'm looking at other videos that have been successful, maybe it's my own videos, maybe it's other videos in my niche, maybe it's videos outside of my niche, but I can see that this video had the outcome that I want. It had the type of views that I'm looking to get. How do I start to understand what made that video successful?

Paddy Galloway [00:47:28]:
Yeah. I think there's a few things I like to do. The the first thing is just, like, actually having these prompts. So, like, writing these prompts down. Maybe you can just actually take a screenshot of the video and put it in a Google Doc or a Notion or whatever you use for your note taking and just have these prompts instead to just, like, reflect on them. So one prompt I was like is what made this unique? So we talked about earlier about how, you know, viral videos usually have some level of unique novelty value. So, like, what did make this unique? Like, was it something in the topic? Was it, like, something specific to this thumbnail that made it different to everything else? So what made this unique? I always like to ask myself, like, what about the packaging made it special? What about the packaging made it an outlier? Like, was there some way they titled it or thumbnailed it that just felt different to how most people in this space do it or just built upon a bit of a different format than most people? Something that I think is super interesting is when I do see these outlier videos like these and when I say outlier, I'm thinking, like, a video that gets 3 or 4 times more than the average at minimum on a channel. Usually, when I see an outlier, it's not gonna be, oh, they tried a different color grade, or, oh, they upgraded their camera.

Paddy Galloway [00:48:39]:
Those things matter, but they don't have this kind of, like, exponential difference usually. What it's more often about is, hey. Something about the idea itself, the title, or the thumbnail is what made that such an outlier. So I really like to dig into those things and ask myself those questions of what made it unique, what about the title thumbnail. Another really good prompt is why did this go viral and others similar to it didn't. So there is a lot of survivorship bias at stake here where sometimes people can look at, like, a video and say, oh, this went really viral. But then if you look deeper, you'll see they tried the same video, like, 8 other times that did didn't go viral. So you have to ask yourself, like, was this just a lucky break on this video, or was there something different or unique about it? So I think you can learn a lot by saying, hey.

Paddy Galloway [00:49:24]:
This person wasn't the first to cover this topic, but the other people that cover this topic got 10,000 views, and this guy got a 150,000 views. Why? Like, what was let's put them side by side. Let's look at some differences in how it's actually put together. That can make a big difference. A lot of it, you can never be a 100% sure, but a lot of it is if you just start reflecting more and digging deeper into that video and just looking at things like the timing as well, when it came out, how the views trended over time, I think that's a really useful way to do it. And, also, I'll give a quick shout out to, to my friend, Chuckie, who's just launched ViewStats, alongside mister Beast. Like, they have some interesting tools which allows you to, like, search reverse basically, like, reverse search a thumbnail. So if you have a thumbnail that you see that goes really viral, you can place it into their their thumbnail search and it will, like, look at, like, other thumbnails like it.

Paddy Galloway [00:50:12]:
So you can see, oh, were they the first person to come up with this concept? Or maybe they saw this concept go super viral in another niche and they tried it in this niche and that's why it went viral. So I think the more, like, deeper thing here is just taking time to really reflect on a video as opposed to just being, like, jalking it down to something really quickly. Oh, it's because they have more money in the year. Oh, it's because they're a bigger channel. Or oh, it's because x y zed. If you actually just sit there and just try to reflect and almost, like, journal around why a certain video did well, you can learn a lot.

Jay Clouse [00:50:40]:
If I'm looking at my own channel and one of my videos that performed better than I anticipated, is there any data in YouTube Studio that you look at that you feel like is a reliable indicator or gives you some sort of unique insight into why a video did better than you might have expected?

Paddy Galloway [00:50:57]:
Honestly, there's nothing there's nothing really that just, like, gives you a definitive answer. Like, here's some things I would look at if a video went way better than expected. I would look at the demographics. So, like, is it appealing to a bit of a different audience than usual? Sometimes I've seen this where, like, a video goes really viral. I'm, like, digging into why that could be, and then I realize, oh, it's going really viral in a certain country. It might be getting a lot of viewership in India, and then I try to figure out why is it getting a lot of viewership in India. Or, you know, maybe it's going really viral with a different age group to what I'm used to, and it's resonating really well there. So I dig a bit into the demographics and try to figure out if there's any trends there.

Paddy Galloway [00:51:34]:
I look I like to look at device type. So going to YouTube studio, clicking advanced mode, and looking at device type and seeing are we getting more views on a different device type to usual. Could that be a reason behind, you know, the the extra viewership? Are we, like, doing really well in this video on TV? Why could that be? Well, maybe because this video was longer than our our average videos and longer videos typically do better on TV or, you know, you can start to, like, build some hypothesis from that. I also like to look at the new viewer metric to see, like, what, you know, what number of views on this video were new viewers versus returning viewers just to give us an idea of, like, oh, maybe it's just because this video ended up resonating really well with new viewers, and then you can bring it back to yourself to ask yourself the question of why why was that the case. And, obviously, just like studying the view trend over time as well. Did this get, like, a lot of views really quickly, or did it slowly build? Did it rank in search? Traffic sources, like, where was that traffic coming from? So I'm I'm sort of throwing out these different things I'll look at, but it all comes back to the fact that you're not gonna have, like, a single thing that says here's exactly why this went viral. So much of it is just looking at all the data points, looking at all you know about the video and how it performed, and taking that time to adequately reflect on it. So many creators, they just, like, see something goes viral and they just, like, spend, like, 3 seconds of, you know, thinking, oh, that went viral because of this.

Paddy Galloway [00:52:49]:
Let's just do more of that, you know, instead of, like, taking a bit of time to dig into it. So, there's no data point. There's no magic data point that gives you the reason the video went viral, but you can look at these things to sort of paint the picture. I always like that metaphor of, like, data kinda, like, can start to color in some of the picture, but you still need to zoom out and look at the full picture and see, oh, here's why this video went viral.

Jay Clouse [00:53:11]:
We get a lot of people who ask me, hey. Why did your video with Jenny Hoyos do so well? And it's like a hilarious question because if I knew the answer to that, I would just do that every time. But, you know, it's it's about to cross 3,000,000 views. And the one thing that I can point to and say this was definitively different about this video is it had a higher click through rate in the first 24 hours. And so now I just spin myself out saying, how do I get the best click through rate in the first 24 hours? But it's so hard to know what combination of title and thumbnail amongst the the stable of titles and thumbnails we've thought about. Which one will be the best one? How do you how do you test packaging to try to find the best answer before you actually push it live on a video?

Paddy Galloway [00:53:56]:
So I I wanna dig into this because this is really interesting because CTR itself is a very fickle and in some ways infuriating metric. Where if you ask me, is CTR useful? I would say CTR as a metric. Obviously, like, the act of people clicking on a video is extremely important. So sometimes when people say CTR is useless or not useful, then people take the wrong takeaway of saying, oh, thumbnails don't matter. It's just not how you think about it. But CTR as an entire metric is very difficult because the more impressions a video gets, the lower the CTR drops typically. So you'll probably see it even on that, Jenny Hoyos video, Over time, that CTR has probably dropped quite a bit lower. But CTR itself as a whole is not very useful.

Paddy Galloway [00:54:40]:
But CTR in the first hour or first 24 hours can be a good predictor of success on videos. Like, I've seen that for lots of our clients. So when people say CTR is not useful at all, I'd point to the fact that there's a very strong correlation between first hour CTR and long term video performance on a lot of established channels. Not all channels, but quite often. So I would look at it and say, even with that video, like, you know, Tidal Film Mountain, now everyone in YouTube or pretty much everyone over the next few weeks is gonna have a b c testing. So that's, like, gonna be such a big unlock because you can make up a couple different options and, like, test your theories and action of, like, which one gets more clicks. I would actually with that video, let's just just think about that video for a minute. Like, I would dig a bit deeper, though, like, is it something you did with the design or is it something more to do with, like, the topic? I think that's it's kind of interesting when you see Jenny and and Jenny is, like, quite young.

Paddy Galloway [00:55:30]:
Right? She's, like, 18 17, 18, and she just seeing that, I think, by nature, that just makes it look a bit unique because it's, like, this very young girl who has figured out, like, something really, really difficult and she's doing so well. It's kind of like how there's videos where you see, you know, this is, like, bringing to the other side, but, like, sometimes I've seen these videos where it's just like an old guy giving advice. It's like old man gives advice. You probably show that thumb on screen. Old man gives advice. And people ask why that video go so well. I was like, well, because you don't usually scroll through your YouTube feed and see this old guy, you know, giving advice. And I think on the same level, like, this space, like, this space of content creation and, like, you know you know, coming up with strategy and YouTube and how to grow, I would say it's very I'd say it's generally quite male dominated, which I think is a shame because I I I love when I see, like, more female people coming in and talking about this niche as well.

Paddy Galloway [00:56:26]:
But it's quite male dominated and It's also quite a lot of, like, you know, guys a bit older, you know, guys my age and above. Don't sound like a boomer or anything, but, you know, I think some people, like, a little bit older. So you see this, like, younger girl talking about something. It just makes it unique. Right? And then also, I love how you you titled it, and I love how you, like, put that thumbnail text of, like, you know, I can make anything viral. I think those are the things I would look at. So maybe it's more about the guest and more about, you know, the perception of that guest and, like, how you see that and how that makes it unique as opposed to, like, something specific you did in that packaging. So if I was you, I would start brainstorming, like, is there, like, any other, like, really young, up and coming creators who have, like, figured it out at a young age? So, for example, I know there's, like, these kids I've seen do podcasts that are, like, 16, 17, and they're making, like, 300 k a month with, like, YouTube or Snapchat or something.

Paddy Galloway [00:57:20]:
And it's, like, when you see that, you're, like, part of you feels terrible because you're, like, well, when I was 16, you know, I was making, like, $3 a month. So, like, how did that how does that happen? But I think there's something unique about that itself. So a great example, like, digging deeper and, like, some people could look at that and just say, oh, this went viral because, oh, we placed the text a little bit to the right, or we have this thing in the bottom corner, which we don't usually have. But it's much more likely around the actual topic, the subject material, which is, I guess, the creator you're interviewing, and how you package that to the viewer than, like, little details like that.

Jay Clouse [00:57:54]:
Let's look at how you vet ideas. When I have an idea and I'm thinking, okay, I want this to hit my core casual new. I feel pretty good about that. What are the next steps from there for how I prioritize certain video ideas that I have?

Paddy Galloway [00:58:09]:
Making sure like, I always think about this idea of the idea funnel. So you have this big funnel that you put ideas into, and the end result is your funnel spits out different ideas that you can then, like, prioritize based on what you're feeling most excited about. So, like, how do we put things into the funnel? I always like to say there's 3 main sources of ideas, internal ideas, so things that have worked for us in the past. So looking internally, like, what has worked on our channel? Can we come up with more ideas like that? External ideas, things that have worked for our competitors or even just other channels across YouTube. How can we come up with ideas based on things that have worked for them? And then innovation, so just sort of more blue ocean, like looking, you know, across YouTube, across different industries, and saying, like, what's something innovative and new that I can come up with? So if you're contributing lots of ideas into the funnel from those different sources, you then pass through to the kind of the filter part part, which is your main question here. It's like, how do we actually eliminate them down? And I think, you know, asking yourself, does it have that core casualty beer fit? It's a great question. Asking, is it feasible to make happen? So, like, if you went and did brainstorming and this is kind of funny when I work with, like, new strategists because, you know, I have to I hire strategists for my business, and I also, like, interview and talk to a lot of, like, up and coming people. And first of all, I'll say, like, people are really good.

Paddy Galloway [00:59:24]:
Like, some of these young kids are such good strategists, and I think about YouTube really deeply. But the one thing they sometimes don't understand is, like, limitations and feasibility. So they'll be like, let's, let's, you know, let's say we're brainstorming ideas for, like, a wildlife channel and we could say, let's go up with an idea which is like, I I swam covered in blood, with, like, 10 great white sharks. It's like, yeah, that would go viral, but it also might kill the crater. So, like, you know, we gotta be careful. So, like, thinking about the feasibility of ideas is is is super important. So is this feasible? Can we make it happen? Another one I get is, like, people come up with these ideas, but it's like, you know, if you brainstorm for your podcast and said, like, how do we get to a 1000000 views? Well, if you had mister b stomp for an episode, it probably gets to a 1000000 views, but that's also quite difficult because you need to, you know, get in contact with Jimmy. You need to, like, convince him that it's a good idea.

Paddy Galloway [01:00:13]:
You probably need to grow this podcast more before he'd want to do it. So, like, there's all these, like, things that get in the way so, like, having that feasibility and using that as a as a score as well is important. So, like, does the FCCM fit? Is it feasible? The title thumbnail as well, like, can we actually come up with title thumbnail? Like, not only can we say, yeah, we can come up with it, can we actually come up with one before we even go further with this? Like, can we come up with the the tile we call it and, like, a rough sketch of the thumbnail? That can, like, eliminate. So if you have a 100 ideas in the funnel, maybe with the CCN fit, you eliminate, like, 40 of them because so many videos don't have that. Feasibility, you eliminate, like, 20 of them. So you've got, like, 40 left. Right? Then you say, can I come up with title film also for them? Before you know it, out of those 40 you have left, now you're looking at and saying, well, only half of these I can actually think of what I would title film album. So you got 20 left.

Paddy Galloway [01:00:59]:
And then some other questions you could ask like, am I actually genuinely, as a creator, excited and want to make this video? Because some people are surprised when I say that because I am, like I mentioned earlier, like, a views maximizer, someone that just wants to get more views. But if if I think about if our goal is to get more views, it's not gonna really work very well if I keep making the creator make these ideas they don't like doing. Because at some point, they're just gonna wanna not do that anymore. They're gonna get burnt out. So long term, that's gonna hurt us. So it's still important that the creator, like, feels passionate and excited about them. So even for you yourself as a creator, just looking at it and saying, am I excited to interview this person? Am I excited to do this thing? Like, does this, like, maybe want to make the content? Maybe then you've got 20 ideas left and that limits it down to 10. Then when it comes to the 10, I always like to do this thing which I call the 1 page idea development.

Paddy Galloway [01:01:44]:
So on a one pager, I like to have just a rough thumbnail sketch. I like to have a rough tile. So you have a thumbnail sketch, rough tile. I like to have a y, square. The y square, I just like like to list 1 or 2 or 3 points of, like, why this video is gonna work. And then I like to just roughly list out, like, the log line of the videos, like, roughly what the video is gonna be about. So if I have 10 ideas left, I'm developing each one of those 10 ideas and those those one pagers. Again, I can already hear people saying that's so much work.

Paddy Galloway [01:02:13]:
I've done I can do 10 one page ideas in, like, an hour or 2, you know, especially when you think about the ideas being such a source for views and momentum across a whole channel. Like, we can spare an hour or 2 to develop out these ideas, you know, they deserve that at least. So I've developed them out in this one page where I have 10 ideas, then I just like to look at it myself. I like to ask, you know, if I've got employees or if I have, like, other people that are in my niche or just friends. I just like to then present those ideas. So instead of getting on a call and saying, hey. I'm thinking about doing this idea where we swim with a great white shark. It's like, here's the idea.

Paddy Galloway [01:02:45]:
Here's the logline. What do you think? Here's the idea. Here's the logline. What do you think? And just going through and asking different people's opinion. Like, even, you know, myself, I think I have, like, a good measure of what a great video is for the different clients we work with. But without that, like, ability to just ask others' opinion, you're just gonna be isolated and you're gonna, you know, focus too much on your ego and, like, what you think is right. So even I really like to ask just random people. Like, even just like sometimes they get surprised but, like, maybe there's, like, a random new editor on a team and I'll be like, what's the thing with this idea? And they're like, oh, I don't know.

Paddy Galloway [01:03:18]:
I'm just I just started here. I'm like, no. But what do you think? Like, do you can you can you imagine this one being interesting? So asking lots of opinions and then maybe you're left with 3 or 4 videos that you want to prioritize and you develop them from there.

Jay Clouse [01:03:30]:
What do you think people are dead wrong about with the current state of YouTube? Either they have the wrong belief or they completely miss something that is happening that they should be paying attention to.

Paddy Galloway [01:03:42]:
I would say the biggest sort of hot take I have on YouTube, which shouldn't be a hot take, but it is based on how most people think about it, is there is no meta. There's no, like, one way, one meta to do YouTube. And I feel that oftentimes a lot of people try to, like, declare the new direction content is going in. Like, all content is moving towards storytelling or all content is moving towards longer videos or, you know, we've got this guy, Sam Soo Look, if you've seen him, like, people are, like, look at Sam Soo Look. It shows that thumbnails is dead. I even saw this tweet recently where someone was, like, the thumbnail bubble is about to burst because, like, you can see, like, some of these thumbnails on, like, Sam Seluk and, like, other channels are, like, focusing on doing less editing, less thumbnail design. But all these things kind of failed to realize how big YouTube is. 5, 10 years ago, there was people that focused on storytelling and made really long videos that were doing well.

Paddy Galloway [01:04:36]:
In 5 to 10 years from now, there'll be people that make 2 or 3 minute videos and don't focus on storytelling that'd be doing well. There's just so much YouTube is so expansive that there's no one way to make content. There's no one meta. And yet people always just try to say, oh, it's mister Beastified. But even during the peak of what what you could call mister Beastification on YouTube, where everyone was complaining about you mister Beast has ruined YouTube. If you actually studied the trending videos and the most viral videos on YouTube, about 5 to 10 percent you could classify as mister Beastified videos. You know? So even in this, like, bubble of everything being this big spectacle, still only accounted for, like, 5 or 10% of the trending videos and that's only that's what the trending videos if you look across YouTube, it's probably still only 1 or 2% of all YouTube viewership is focused on that kind of content. So that's not downplaying the impact of trends.

Paddy Galloway [01:05:24]:
That's not downplaying the fact that, yes, we are moving into a a world right now where YouTube videos are getting a bit longer and people are putting in more storytelling and leaving out, you know, leaving the sort of really fast retention editing, out a bit more. But that's still just a trend. It's not the meta. You know? So, like, there's no one way to do YouTube. There's no one meta. Things are are super, super varied.

Jay Clouse [01:05:47]:
To continue learning from Patty, check out our first conversation where we talk even more about his process for coming up with good ideas and thumbnails. It's quite literally the interview that changed this channel, so make sure you grab your notebook.