Speaker 1: So how is it possible that after about two or three years of being on YouTube, that I still have somehow managed to stay consistent after 200 uploads and over 20 million views, I kind of found a good system that I have now that helps me become consistent. And that is having a proper workflow, which is exactly what we're going to be talking about today. Now, honestly, one disclaimer that I want to make is back when I was a solopreneur or I was someone who was just kind of doing YouTube as a hobby. I wasn't really making money off of YouTube yet. It definitely took a much longer process to get a video up because I was the editor. I was the copywriter. I was a social media manager. I was all of these things. Now the workflow that I'm going to share with you today, it does take a village. It's not just me executing this entire workflow. I've got a video editor and I've also got a social media manager. So make sure you keep that in mind when you watch this video. However, I still think that you shouldn't click out of this video because there are a lot of best practices that I do in my business that you can definitely use, even if you're a solopreneur or even if you have a team. So make sure you keep watching so that you have amazing inspiration on how you can move forward with your YouTube workflow. So the first thing that I do whenever I start working on my YouTube videos is obviously content research. One thing that I try to stay on top of is being 90 days ahead of my content plan, meaning I'm always planning content every single quarter. This allows me to not chase my tail every single week with YouTube content. And I'm able to kind of batch everything all in one go, including researching. And so there are three main ways that I get my content. First one is competitor research. What I do is I have a list of people in the industry who post similar content that I do. I'll go on their profile and I'll kind of look at what's performing for them and what's not performing for them. Now important note is, is that I never ever watch their videos. That's more so for me to protect my energy, but it also allows me to be more creative. I never want to copy another content creator. And so what I like to do is I look at their thumbnail, I look at their video, I look at the amount of views that it's gotten, and that's about it. I don't actually watch their videos that way, even if a content creator is talking about Instagram growth or something like that, I can also talk about Instagram growth, but not feel like I need to create the same video as them, if that makes sense. So even if the topic is the same, the content will always be different because I don't look at their videos. And so that's one thing I always do when it comes to competitor research and also protecting my creativity as a content creator so that I can remain original. The next thing that I do when it comes to content research is reviewing my notepad. My notepad is literally my safe Haven of when I always drop little content ideas on the fly. And the reason why I do this is because what I found is that a lot of content ideas come to me at the most randomness of time. Sometimes I'll be showering, sometimes I'll be eating, sometimes I'll be out and about. And so I want to make sure that the moment a content idea comes to me, I have it on my notepad and I write it down right away because before I used to tell myself, okay, well I'll remember this for next time. And then once the next time comes and I sit down to brainstorm, I'm always kicking myself that I don't have any content ideas. So I always make sure that I put in my content ideas on a notepad. Now when it comes to where the content comes from in my brainstorming session, when I put things on my notepad, it comes from a variety of places. It can come from the books that I read, the podcasts that I listened to, um, the TV shows that I watch, the conversations that I'm having with my friends, my clients, my team members. These are all things that kind of contribute to the ideas that bring my videos to life. And so I always put those in my notepad as they happen. The third place where I get a lot of my content ideas from is from my audience. You guys periodically when I'm in a content rut, I'll actually go on IgE story and pull my audience and ask you guys exactly what questions you have when it comes to entrepreneurship, social media, coaching, whatever my main topics are. And so that's kind of where I get my main content ideas. I always go back to those stories and look at all the things that you guys have answered. Not only this, I lean on my team. So I have a customer support team. I also have a social media manager. I always ask them, what are our students asking about? What are the top questions that people are emailing in about? Because oftentimes I find that a lot of people ask amazing questions in the DMS. And I would rather use that as my source of inspiration, because I know that people are actually asking about this. And the best part is, is that even if someone is asking that question to me privately, if I turn that into a video that's to the mass public, then I can always reshare that video to other people who ask a similar question. And I'm also able to help more people through my videos than through just a one-on-one conversation. So if you've ever emailed in, or if you've ever DMD me with a question about social media, entrepreneurship, coaching, or marketing, even if I don't respond, or I don't give you the exact answer that you're looking for, just note that I will be considering that in my content plan. And in the future, I'll be able to address that question that you've given me in depth. For instance, I'm pretty sure this video alone was likely inspired by one of you guys who asked me what my entire content flow is. After I've compiled my research, what I then do is I go into my air table and I start playing Tetris with all of the content pieces that I have. So let me share my screen and show you exactly what my air table looks like. So I use a software called air table to manage a lot of the content that I have for my business. And so air table is basically kind of like a spreadsheet on steroids. So I'll show you exactly what I'm talking about. This is my content dashboard for YouTube. And I have the following columns. Now you don't have to use air table. You can use notion. You can use sauna. You can use any other project management system, but what I make sure that it's in the Kanban style. So Kanban style looks like this, where you've got a bunch of columns, you've got cards that you can move around. That's how I've set mine up. And essentially I have a few categories. I have Q scripting, filming SEO and completed anything in Q there's just content ideas that I'm brain dumping and brainstorming. Once I'm serious about a content idea, I'm going to then move it to scripting. Once something is within scripting, this is where I'll actually input the script. And what I like about air table is all of these are custom fields that I've created. So I have scripting description, keywords, upload date, whether or not I'm going to repurpose it to a podcast. If I've paid for my graphic designer to create the thumbnail attachments, all the promotional texts and so much more. And so that's why I really love air table, but essentially at first I script something right here. And this is where I put the script. Once the script is complete, I'll then move it to filming. And so once something is in filming, it's going to look like this. And this basically tells me that filming is in progress. After I've scripted the video, I'm committed to filming it around this time period is when I start playing with the upload dates as well. So as you can see, when I open up a record, if I go down, I'm able to actually play with the upload dates. And that way I can kind of plan out which video is going out during what day of the month. Then afterwards, once something is completely filmed, I then migrate it to a column called SEO. And in here, this is where my social media manager will take over and start creating the description, adding the keywords and all of that, um, in order for us to truly optimize the video. Then once something is optimized, it's scheduled, the video has already been posted. This is when my social media manager will then move it to completed. And so when you head over to the completed section, these are all the videos that we've uploaded so far on the channel. Not only this, when it comes to this air table base, I also have little notes for myself. So for instance, right here, I have a note called CTA, and these are just call to actions that I want to remind myself to say during the video. And it's been really helpful so far in terms of the rest of the description. I also have a column called templates. And this is where I actually put the rest of the description so that we can paste it into the description box. So this is essentially how I organize my workflow when it comes to content planning for YouTube. Now once I've actually cleaned up my air table, including adding the approximate upload dates, adding the cleaned up titles, adding the scripts and everything like that. The next thing that I do is I head over to my Google calendar and I actually pick specific dates to block off because I know that I'm going to be batch filming. This usually takes me about two weeks. So if I'm batching 12 videos for three months of content, meaning that I post every single week, one video a week, that's 12 videos in total. What I'll then do is I'll block off those days in my calendar to batch content so that I can communicate to my team that during that time period, I will be unavailable. The main problem that I find is that a lot of content creators don't prioritize batching content and they kind of leave it until the last minute. Batching content is so essential to my business because if I don't batch content, everything basically falls apart. So it's actually a huge priority to me to communicate to everyone what my schedule is and commit to that time within my calendar. Make sure that no meetings are booked during that time. Make sure I don't accept any speaking events during that time. I leave it as my number one priority to get done. Now once I've chosen the timeframes that I want to batch my content in, I then start filming. Now, the one thing that's amazing about batching content and batch filming specifically is that if you have a lot of equipment, for instance, if you have multiple things going on like studio lighting, your camera, your microphone, whatever your setup looks like, if you know that that week alone, you're going to be dedicated to batching content and filming, you don't need to set up and take down every single day. For me, for those two weeks, I just leave all of my equipment lying there so that when I sit on my chair, I can just hit record and I don't have to worry about taking down and setting things up. That is the one amazing benefit when it comes to batching content. Another thing that I do when I batch film, my content is I always switch up my outfit. So even if I'm filming videos all the entire day, all the entire week for every other video, I'll then switch out my tops, but it doesn't look like every single video was filmed on the same day. And by the way, if you have any questions about the filming equipment that I use, make sure you check out www.vanessaloud.co forward slash tools. It has all of the camera equipment, filming equipment that I use with links to the actual pages where you can buy it. So if you have any questions about my equipment, definitely check out www.vanessaloud.co forward slash tools and head over to my equipment list. Now when it comes to filming, the next thing that you also want to do is actually batch create your thumbnails. I find that this is the one thing that I'm not really great at. And so ever since realizing how important it is to be on top of thumbnails, I now start batching my thumbnails as well. And so what this looks like is me taking a bunch of different pictures of me wearing different clothes, different facial expressions. And by the way, if you have any questions about thumbnails that gets views and how I create my thumbnails, definitely check out this video that I have right here that goes over the main components that you typically should have when it comes to creating thumbnails that convert for YouTube. But essentially I batch all of these. And later on my graphic designer or my video editor is able to kind of select from a thumbnail library and create different thumbnails for each video. That way every single week, I don't have to be chasing my tail, putting on makeup just to take a photo for a thumbnail. And instead there's a whole archive of different thumbnail options that my video editor or my graphic designer can use. Now once everything is done, the next step is actually uploading all of the assets to my video editor. And the amazing platform that we use is called frame IO. I use frame IO to create a bunch of different folders for each single video. And then I upload all of the clips within each folder. This way, everything stays organized. And my video editor know exactly which clips go into which videos. And the specific reason why we use frame IO is because after I drop all of these clips, typically my video editor will then start taking a stab at editing the actual video. What they do is they upload the first draft of the video into frame IO and through frame IO. Why we love it so much is I'm able to actually leave comments and feedback on specific timestamps of the video. And we're able to have conversations within frame IO. And the reason why this is so awesome is the fact that all the feedback is super organized. We're able to elaborate on the feedback, have conversations within the feedback. So it's not a mess. And when my video editor actually clicks on that comment, it takes them to the exact timestamp to what I'm referring to. So there is no confusion or miscommunication whatsoever. So I highly recommend using frame IO. If you are someone who works with a video editor, or if you're a video editor yourself to use with your clients. Now the next thing that I do too, is I make sure that I provide my video editors with a thumbnail brief. And what that looks like is me essentially letting them know for each video, what the overall vibe is that I want for the thumbnail. Maybe I'll take someone else's thumbnail and kind of send it to them as inspiration, but for sure I will tell them exactly what copy I want in the thumbnail, because keep in mind the thumbnail is really small and you can really only choose a small amount of words to put in that thumbnail. And you want to make sure those words are impactful. And so for me, I still like to brief my video editor on exactly what copy to put in the thumbnail and just to give them a general direction of what I'm looking for for that thumbnail. So that is definitely something to incorporate within your workflow because communication is key. And what I found is that if you're not clear on what you want for the thumbnail, your video editor or your graphic artists could have a totally different vision that is not aligned with yours. And so you definitely want to make sure that you are super clear on what you're looking for and provide concrete examples. Now once everything is said and done, we've gone through all the reviews on frame IO. I've also reviewed the thumbnails and approved it. The next thing is actually uploading the video onto YouTube and optimizing it. Now when it comes to optimization, what I'm talking about and referring to is the title, the description, the keywords, the end screens, the cards, the pinned comment, the playlist, all those different things that kind of make up the whole uploading experience and scheduling experience for your YouTube videos. Now for all of these, I used to do them myself. Now I've offloaded a lot of those tasks to my social media manager. So what she does is she actually will research the keywords and with keyword research. We use an app called tube buddy. We also do the description box and make sure that it has all the appropriate links that we want, that it has all the keywords stuffed within the description box and basically all the important information is on there. We also make sure that the end screens point to the videos that would be relevant for that person to click on after they watched that specific video. And we also do the cards and make sure that if I'm referring to a video like this, for instance, if you want to learn more about YouTube stuff, that there is a card that shows up at the appropriate time. Not only this playlists are a really big deal for us because how I've organized my channel is that all of my videos are within playlists, which allow for people to binge on my content a little bit more. And it also allows people to search for my content a little bit easier when they find my profile on YouTube. And so for every single video, we make sure that it's put into the appropriate playlist. And of course we also make sure that we have a pinned comment on YouTube. And what you'll notice is that for every single pin comment that you see on my channel, it's generally directing you to my free training at www.followers to clients.com because we know that the best place to send people in order for them to learn more strategy for me that would benefit them is that training. And so that's why we make sure to include it in every single pinned comment, because to whoever comes onto my videos, that's likely the first thing that they see at least on desktop. So we always make sure that we have that in place. Now once the video is completely optimized, that's when we actually schedule the video. So usually we schedule a video a week in advance, a few weeks in advance, and what it looks like is simply just hitting the schedule button and picking the upload date that we want. And that's basically how we do it when it comes to scheduling content. The next thing that we also do in our workflow is we make sure we have a record of our optimization. This is where our air table base really comes in handy because what you'll notice is when you open up a record within our air table for each video, there is a place to put keywords and description. And for me, I'm always paranoid that maybe one of my videos will be taken down or maybe my YouTube videos will disappear overnight. And so it's really important for me that we save all of our descriptions and keywords into each card, because if we ever need to re upload the video, we have a record of it and we don't have to redo all of the optimization. So that is one thing that I always do, or I always make sure my social media manager does to make sure that we kind of have insurance on our videos. And moving on to the next thing that we do when it comes to our workflow. Now we're going to talk about post-production workflow and what post-production workflow mainly concentrates on is promoting the actual video. So for us, we upload videos weekly, which means that every single week we need to promote our videos. And so what this workflow could look like is we make sure that we communicate and schedule in our community tab. This is where we usually post a GIF of the video. And then we kind of give people a summary of what the video is about, get people excited about it and then link it. The best part about the community tab is you can schedule these posts. So that's kind of what we like to do when it comes to our promotional workflow. Another thing that we like to do is we actually create teasers or we do one minute snippets of our videos. And so that comes in the form of IGTVs. If you have any questions about creating these types of IGTVs, make sure you check out this video that I have right here. I won't go into depth on the step-by-step on how to do it, but just know that that is a part of our workflow. And so once we have those IGTVs, those little videos of the snippets of our video content for YouTube, what we'll do is then we'll go on Facebook or Instagram creator studio and schedule those IGTVs out every single Sunday so that people on Instagram know what they can expect for these YouTube videos. Another thing that we also like to do is we also make sure that the link in our bio is also updated with our latest video. So what we use is we use an app called campsite.bio, and we love using this feature because you're actually able to schedule the links that you put in your Lincoln bio. And so what we do is we head over to campsite bio, we upload the thumbnail, put the link to our YouTube video, all that good stuff. And then we schedule it out for when we want the link to be available. And we usually time this with the same time that our video is actually going to be published. Lastly, Instagram story promotion is really important to us. And what we've done to kind of automate the process is over on Canva. We actually have a template on how to promote our YouTube videos every single week. And so what my social media manager does is we kind of upload the thumbnail to that template. And then we also change the copy. And then afterwards, every single Sunday, I just reposted all my stories and it's really, really simple. And so that's basically what our post promotion for our YouTube videos look like. Anyways, guys, that was a huge long video from the A to Z of our entire workflow. When it comes to YouTube, if you enjoyed this video and you learned a lot from it, make sure you hit that like button because it definitely helps us get seen in the algorithm and for more people to benefit from this video. Now obviously doing all these things is one thing, but being able to monetize your content is another. So if you want to take things a step further, make sure you visit www.followers to clients.com. This is a 90 minute training where I actually teach you how to create content that converts how to actually turn your followers or subscribers into paid clients for your business. And Hey, if you don't have clients right now, or you don't even have a business, you still would benefit from this training because I walk through the various different business models that exist on the internet and which one I believe is the best for beginners who have little experience and not a lot of followers. So make sure you visit www.followers to clients.com to learn even more business strategy from me. As always, I post a lot of content when it comes to social media, marketing, entrepreneurship, and coaching. So make sure you visit these two videos that I have right here as well. I promise they will not disappoint. If you like this video, you're going to love these videos as well as always, guys, I appreciate you. I hope you guys learn tons from this video and I will see you in the next one.