YouTube Should Be Your Main Social Media Channel

Lyric Kinard (00:02.029) Hello my creative friend. Do you think that social media is an absolute grind? That constantly creating content for Instagram, for Facebook, for all of the platforms just is exhausting and doesn't really do you any good? Now a lot of people have built very, very successful businesses on those platforms and that is absolutely fantastic. But I wanna talk to you today about why we think YouTube should be the one place that you concentrate on and why it does not have to be painful, why it doesn't have to be a grind. I'm Lyric Montgomery-Kinard. This is the Creatives on Camera podcast where we talk to artists and crafters who own. businesses that need video either for teaching online or for advertising. I work with the Academy for Virtual Teaching. We have a free membership where you are with your colleagues. It's like a private Facebook group without being icky like Facebook, right? Speaking of which, why not grow your list, grow your audience on Facebook and Instagram? I'm not saying not to do those things. But let's talk about the most effective way if you're a teacher or you want to share content online to efficiently create content and build an organic audience at the same time. At the Academy we have a professional business builder and one of our coaches, Bethann Williams, is a YouTube expert. In one year she was able to build her YouTube channel into a viable income earner. Earning income like YouTube is paying her for her content, but mostly to build her audience without needing to pay for ads. Lyric Kinard (02:20.066) Now I am definitely not the expert that she is. She has done so much research on this and I have not. But we've been talking lot about why YouTube? Why this instead of that? I know personally I kind of really hate the grind of feeling like I need to create constant content for Instagram and Facebook and that do my people even see it anyway? Granted, I have not worked really hard about it, but at the same time, on those platforms, you don't own your content and it can disappear at any time. The algorithm changes all the time. It feels to me, and of course there are strategies to make this better, but for me, I don't wanna spend full time. figuring that out and it feels to me like it's random whether my people actually see my content or not. The difference with YouTube is that it is evergreen. That the content you create there lasts and that videos from a long time ago can suddenly gain popularity. Now there are ways that you need to pay attention to to make it really work. YouTube does different things. First of all, it is a search engine. The biggest search engine behind Google. So when people go to YouTube, they are typing in, how do I blank blank blank? And if your videos answer those questions, then... That is where you find the most targeted, the most specific audience who is looking for exactly what it is that you, as an online teacher, as a designer, have to offer. Right? Now, those things that you have to pay attention to, search engine optimization. Do the words you're using. Lyric Kinard (04:45.644) in your video, on your thumbnail, your title, in your description, do they answer the question that your people are asking when they type it in? If those words don't answer that question, when you type in a question on YouTube, what happens? A list of possible videos show up, right? If you don't have good search engine optimization, your video is not going to show up in that list. So again, when you type in a title, it has to answer a question. Now, are people going to click on your video? Well, next is visual, right? Next is, does your thumbnail show your people that, that's what I want to know, they're actually going to show me what I need to know. So let's go through some of the reasons why YouTube, why not, after we look at this. So. Where do you find new audience members? This is where you can find them. You use it to attract new students, to build authority, to develop connections with your audience. How do we do that? Well, you could spend hundreds of hours on YouTube looking at tutorials for how to build a YouTube channel, for what equipment to look for, for how to do all these things. The problem is that most of the tutorials and information from the gurus on YouTube doesn't really apply. Lyric Kinard (06:35.95) to artists and crafters who are trying to fill their classes, to build an organic audience there. When you are working with our people, they want to know you're answering a question. They don't need weird shocked faces and flashing lights and all the things that other channels use to capture your attention. So the problem isn't YouTube. The problem is that the advice there is built for gamers and vloggers and tech reviewers and all these other kind of things, not necessarily crafters and artists. So our businesses operate under different dynamics. So people often, when they come to us on YouTube, they're looking for instructions, skill building. problem solving. Other people are there for entertainment. So we need to use very specific search techniques. We want our people to watch longer in order to get the real information that they need. And honestly, they value the information, the precision, the skill building, the community building instead of personality theatrics. Lyric Kinard (08:10.158) And so many of the teachers I work with in the academy think, I'm not fancy enough, experienced enough, pretty enough, young enough, old enough, whatever, to be on camera on YouTube. I'm telling you that doesn't matter for our audience. So there are... Frequency myths that other people will tell you you have to post daily that volume wins all of these things That's not necessarily the case for our audience Beth Ann and I have been talking and she posts once a week One long form content each week's your audience tolerates slower cadence if the quality is high now Lyric Kinard (09:11.022) in order to use YouTube effectively, you don't want to just throw content up and up and up. You need to use it to pull people into your ecosystem. You build trust, you have them understand what you offer, and then they come to you. They join your email list, they sign up for your classes. It's a trust builder. It's a skill demonstration engine. So it really is perfect for crafters. Craft is visual, craft is searchable, craft is evergreen. Lyric Kinard (10:13.176) So to build on YouTube, we want a stable channel. We want people who watch full tutorials. They watch repeat content, they're loyal. They're often a little bit older, but a lot of times younger. I am telling you, there are so many young people out there coming into the world of needle arts, coming into the world of crafting. There's always been people who want to learn to paint. People need to create and YouTube is great place to go to find it. So why aren't we already doing this? Number one, we feel like it takes too much time and the tech is too complicated and the market is saturated. And hey, if you're a teacher, why would you give away everything on YouTube when you want people to pay you for your content? So. Lyric Kinard (11:14.482) This is the difference. YouTube is an opportunity. You don't need a lot of tech in order to get across the information that your viewer wants. And the systems that you create beat talent or personality or fancy editing by far. This is kind of where most people quit because they really can't figure it out alone. which is why I want to introduce you to our new offering at the Academy, the YouTube for Audience Growth course. Beth Ann Williams, the expert, is going to teach it. And as she and I have talked about what she is offering there, it has been absolutely blowing my mind. There are so many interesting things that the algorithm on YouTube is looking for and Beth is a deep researcher. She pays attention to all of these details. She keeps up with the latest changes in the algorithm and she's going to teach it to us at the academy. Gotta admit, I am absolutely taking that class myself. So I can implement the same techniques and ideas that she has learned there in order to successfully grow a new audience on YouTube. Who among us doesn't need a new audience? You can find this at academyforvirtualteaching.com. Now it's going to be a live course. This first run of it starts on April 7th, so don't wait, go sign up. It's going to be live Zoom courses. Lyric Kinard (13:20.052) with written content, the lives will be recorded, they'll come out once each week, and I am telling you Beth is an over-deliverer. She will get your channel up and running, whether you don't have a channel at all or whether you need to revitalize yours, like I do with mine. She has done all the work that most creatives don't have time for. Now here's the thing that I want us all to understand is that when you learn this stuff, when you start making your content for YouTube in a way that actually brings students into your workshops, that actually brings a cold audience to your business, those same videos end up as shorts. And you know what? that one piece of content actually goes out to all the rest of your social media platforms. So it's not adding in something on top. It's using your time in the absolute most efficient way possible. And my friend, it's a lot cheaper than paying for ads to gain new followers. I just, I really can't say enough about how amazing YouTube is for crafters and how excited I am for this new class. So I really, really hope you join us there. So an artist, a crafter, somebody who teaches, somebody who wants to bring people into your shop, whether that's online, are you a pattern designer? Lyric Kinard (15:22.71) Are you a brick and mortar shop owner? You want to build that community and YouTube is the most efficient and effective way to do that. So are you going to join me? I can't wait to see you there. Again, academyforvirtualteaching.com. Look for the YouTube for audience growth course. If you're coming to this podcast a long time later, this course will be offered again. So go there anyway, get on a wait list. I hope that you as an artist, a creative, a crafter, whatever it is you make, I hope that you get your work out into the world because people need you. The world needs the beauty and the joy and the creativity that you provide to your people. It's more important now than ever when the world goes insane. Art, craft, creativity, making something brings people joy, brings people peace. brings good things into the world. So keep creating my friends. Take care. and we'll see you next time on the Creatives on Camera podcast. Lyric Kinard (17:08.288) Now, if you have a moment, it would mean so much to us. If you would leave a review wherever you listen or watch and, you know, go ahead and send us a note. If you have content you wanna hear about, let us know. If you have a guest that you'd like me to spotlight, I would love to contact them. So give me a shout out. Take care, friends. Bye-bye.