Jonathon: I don’t edit my videos. It’s just stream of consciousness. 

Spencer: I’ve heard multiple people say it’s okay to repost content. 

Jonathon: I do believe YouTube favors newer channels. Each day is devoted to what do I want to say today? What do I want to say next? 

Spencer: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Creators Uncut. Super excited for another episode. Today I am joined with Jonathan Asley, whose YouTube channel is his name, Jonathan Asley. So thanks for being on the show. 

Jonathon: Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m excited to talk about this. Yeah. 

Spencer: So like always, we like to get to know our guests a little bit. So why don’t you go ahead and tell us about yourself, maybe where you’re from, what you like to do, and most importantly, what your channel is and what it’s about. 

Jonathon: So my name is Jonathan Asley. I’m from Los Angeles, California. Actually, I live in Redondo Beach, where I literally haven’t moved but about a mile from the house I grew up in 50 plus years ago. 

So I’m blessed to live by the ocean and I don’t choose to move. You asked, what am I into? You know, I’ll be candid with you. I love doing psychedelic journeys and ceremonies. So not that I do about every other month, but I appreciate the communion and connecting with both spirit and my circle of friends. 

And I do it in a group setting. So that’s one of the things I’m passionate about, which is self-discovery. And then professionally, I’m a dating and relationship coach. And that began after going through a divorce almost 20 years ago and found myself out in the dating marketplace. And I realized that, you know, back then, it was the Wild West with online dating. Now it’s more than two, a completely dysfunctional way of meeting people. So I try to guide mostly women. I work with women, helping them understand men at midlife. Gotcha. 

Spencer: That is very interesting. So I guess one question from that is how did, so that’s how you got into relationship coaching, but how did you start your YouTube? Did someone like say, oh, I wish this was a video that you could share to my friend or something? Or I guess how did you start making the videos from that? 

Jonathon: Yeah, so this is interesting because about, oh God, almost 15 years ago, and I’ve been doing this professionally for 15 years, I had recorded some videos with a friend of mine who’s also a dating and relationship coach. And she gave me the download of that, and I uploaded it and created a YouTube channel. But I was scared to death to shoot videos. 

I was very nervous. And over the years, if I was a guest on someone else’s podcast, or back then would be a YouTube video, you know, the word podcast has only really been around for a short period of time. I would upload it to my channel, and I had a dear friend who this was about 12 years ago said you have to do your YouTube channel, you have to grow your YouTube channel. And when I met him, he had 25,000 subscribers and he now has over a million subscribers on his YouTube channel. He actually helps young men. 

His podcast is called How to Talk to Girls. And he kept pushing me and pushing me and pushing me. So in 2019, I began pre-recording videos. And I’ll be candid with you, Spencer. Scared to death, didn’t know how to riff or how to speak spontaneously. 

Actually, I have to go back two years before that. I began shooting Facebook lives to a private group I had. So in these Facebook lives, and I would do five minute lives, very short, but in that I got to practice what I call riffing or spontaneous communication. And then I would download those videos and then upload them to my YouTube channel in like 2019. But I hadn’t reached that place of monetization to my channel. And again, my friend with the million subscribers, you have to produce content. I’m like, so I began pre-recording individual videos outside of Facebook. 

I would upload them on YouTube. And then in 2020, I got approved for monetization. And what a perfect time because COVID happened in 2020 and people were trapped at home, had nothing to do, and YouTube exploded and so did my channel beginning March of 2020. 

Spencer: That’s awesome. That’s cool. And I feel like it’s very relatable to feel awkward or weird about talking in front of a camera. I feel like most YouTubers go through that phase, at least at some point in their journey, mostly at the beginning, because it’s just not natural to talk to a camera. So I bet it’s easier with the live streams though, because you’re at least interacting with people that are watching. 

Jonathon: Yeah, so it’s interesting because the pre-recorded videos, I did them at first, I did between six to 10 minutes and then I started to morph to about a 15 to 20 minute pre-recorded video. And I didn’t have a teleprompter or anything like that. I would bullet point like maybe five ways to get a man to talk to you, kind of like, and predominantly I speak to women about men. 

And I would put like a little cheat sheet card on my computer and with five bullet points and then I would riff from that. But then I began doing live streams and I use StreamYard as my platform for record videos and recording both live and pre-records as well. And what’s nice about StreamYard is it mirrors the YouTube platform, but it has the functionality to take a chat that comes in while you’re doing a live stream and then superimpose it on the screen and then talk about that chat that came through or questions mostly that the way it comes in for me. So what I found was it was rather easy to do an hour of communication because A, I felt like there’s an audience, like I’m actually talking to someone. And because of the chats, I would create engagement. 

If you have a question post the word, I’d always say write the word question then post the question thereafter, or I would say purchase a super stick or super chat because it’s nice to make a little money along the way. And I started to realize also that with an hour of content, your watch time increases for your channel, your ad revenue increases. So when you do an hour to hour live stream, even if your engagement is maybe 15 to 20 minutes, it’s much better than a 15 minute video that might only get six minutes of engagement, you’re getting an opportunity to generate more revenue by doing a longer live stream. 

Spencer: Right, that totally makes sense. YouTube’s all about watch time. So I’m curious, when you first started your live streams, did you have like zero viewers? I know a lot of live streamers who start today, they start with nobody watching and it takes them a bit of time to grow an audience. So when you first started doing live streams, did it take a bit or did you know people like from your coaching that would watch and that’s kind of how your live streams grew? 

Jonathon: Well, this is a great question and I have to go backward a little bit to when I began having those prerecorded videos, I would also email my mailing list and at the time I had like 3000, 4000 people in my mailing list and I’m talking about my business mailing list. 

And I would say, hey, here’s a recently uploaded video. So that started to drive a little bit of traffic to my site and I remember in March of 2020, you know, I might have had one or 2000 subscribers just to give you some context. And at that time, all you needed was 1000 subscribers to monetize. So it’s now 1000, I believe it’s changed to you can have lower subscribers but you need a certain amount of watch time. So I don’t know the current particulars. 

Spencer: I think the current is you need 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours. 

Jonathon: Okay, okay. So at that time I built up a couple thousand subscribers by the time I did live streams and I would, I think if memory serves me correct that first live stream probably had 30 subscribers on you and there’s a little ticker, you know, at the top of the screen on StreamYard that tells you how many people are live. And you know, to some degree it was like exciting but at the same time I’m like, well, that’s not that many, you know, kind of attitude going on. And so a couple of things, and I’ll share with you some of the things I did to grow the channel which relates to this, but at first I did one live stream a week and then I started to move to two live streams a week and then I started to move to four live streams a week and I consistently record four live streams a week along with one 20 minute pre-recorded video and then Monday through Friday I upload shorts which are just taking a longer video and putting it in Opus AI and creating a short. So I used to do individual shorts when that was first came out but now with the AI programs you can have them clipped and it just saves the effort of doing individual ones. I will say doing an individual short is better than doing an AI generated short because then you’re usually more succinct but it just became exhausting because I’m producing almost a video a day or more. It’s just sometimes it’s just tiresome or consuming. Yeah. 

Spencer: So you said in March about March 2020 is when your channel exploded, is that right? Yeah. So I was curious is that when you’re like, oh YouTube could really be a big benefit to my business? Is that when you really wanted to focus in on YouTube or was there a point when you realized that YouTube would be really beneficial to you? 

Jonathon: Yeah, so I’m gonna say greed kind of took over because seeing that first couple of dollars in your studio and seeing, oh, you made some money, I’m like, oh, that kind of motivated me to do more. 

At that time I did very limited but I also was very much like I wanna grow my, like I had the bug. The minute I saw that first $200, it was, I’m gonna say greed motivated. Yeah. 

And when I say greed, what I really mean is the opportunity to benefit from ad revenue from YouTube. That’s number one. But I also began seeing applications for my coaching start to trickle in at that time. And I also did some affiliate marketing through Amazon and I also have a membership program. 

So I had a couple different revenue streams and all of a sudden March, April, May, June, it started to trickle in. And again, COVID really helped because people were trapped to some degree and they were consuming a lot of content. And YouTube at that time was also paying a premium for ad space. So I was making some substantial revenue differences compared to today because it has shifted in the last five years. But that’s what motivated me from going to one live stream a week to eventually all the content that I create now. Gotcha. 

Spencer: That makes sense. Yeah. I feel like, once you get a little bit of, I don’t know what you call it, like return on your investment, then it’s a lot more motivating to do YouTube. 

But when you’re first starting out and you’re not really getting anything in return, it can be really hard to keep going. So that’s cool. So since, I guess, 2020, since your channel has kind of grown a lot, has your content evolved at all? Or is it, I’m curious, is it based on like your coaching classes or how do you, I guess, decide what to make videos about? 

Jonathon: Yeah. So I’m going to be candid. The way I began, and this was taught to me by other YouTubers and even speaking directly to YouTube’s, when you are in the partnership program and you reach a certain level, you are given an opportunity to have a dedicated rep that you can speak to on a regular basis. So I was told that the way, or at least this was how I began. 

I would look at contemporaries that did what I did, other dating coaches and in that dating sphere. And I would look up to see which title generated the most views for a particular creator. And I would simply start using that title because nobody owns a title. And usually a title that got a lot of views like a million views is usually keyword rich at the same time. 

In other words, it’s something being searched. So at first I would come up with content based on other titles. Now I would mix it in with my own titles. And for me, the title was the, like the content focal point and then the content came from the title. Some people create content and then choose a title. I did it, the way I did it was come up with the title and then create the content from it. 

Spencer: That makes sense. 

Jonathon: And that was taught to me by other successful YouTubers. And usually when I did my own titles and I compared them to the, what’s called, what was the term they used? Proven titles. So yeah, my friend who has a million subscribers, when you take a title from someone else that’s successful, he calls it a proven title. So I would compare my proven titles with like the ones I came up with and I certainly saw a difference. 

Now I will tell you something that happened. I came up with a title that was unique once and I saw other people did the same thing. So I’ve written a few proven titles for other creators that kind of took it from me. 

So I would create my content from that vantage point. Now in the last five years, I’ll be candid with you. I do feel like I’m regurgitating a lot of the same thing. And this is where it’s a little bit tricky. So I’m in the dating and relating sphere, mostly talking to women about understanding men. And my age demographic that I talk to is what I call midlife after baby making years and before retirement. So most of my audience is between the ages of 42 and 69. 

That’s who I like to speak to. You can only slice an apple so many ways when it comes to content. And while I do my best to mix it up, I do feel a little bit of, because I create so much content, if I was only creating one video a week, it’d be a lot different. But again, I’m creating almost one every day. 

So there has a little bit of monotony and there is a bit of repetition. But I also think, you know, Spencer, there’s millions of people who haven’t seen my videos. So it’s new to the people that haven’t seen it, but it’s certainly a regurgitation to the ones who are your regular followers. 

Spencer: Yeah, and to add to that, I’ve heard multiple people say it’s okay to repost content. You know, maybe it could be hard for you because it sounds like, it seems like you’re repeating the same things over and over again, but for the audience, you know, it’s beneficial to them because either they may forget or they may not have seen the previous video that you had talked about that specific topic. 

Jonathon: Yeah, so, and there’s a lot I can unpack there that I can share with your audience. So when I do an hour live stream, I spend the first 20 minutes with like a specific content that before I go into Q and A, okay? So I, about the first 20 minutes, and I try to, whatever the title is, I cover the context of the title, okay? Then I pause for about three seconds after I’ve got, I reach a point where I pause and I actually do kind of a closure before I pause. 

So I kind of, you know, put a bow on it and then I pause for about three seconds and I go, hey, it’s time for Q and A and then it’s Q and A and then I do that for 40 minutes, okay? Why do I do this? Is because I realized, oh, I just created good content. So I could go back and edit that first 20 minutes and then upload that. I usually do it like three or four months later when I want to add like on what I call my filler days. 

So once or twice a week, I do what I call filler. In other words, it’s a prerecord, it’s already a live stream video. I clip that 20 minutes. I take the original title and I tweak it like, sometimes I switch two words around kind of thing. In other words, so long as it grammatically makes sense because when I record a video and the title is the five ways, you know, a man will fall in love with you. I always say that in the beginning of the video. I lead with the title that I’m talking about. So then when I do that, you know, adjustment, it’s at least close enough to what that title is, but now I’ve basically saved myself the time to prerecord a video. And I do that about, I upload one of those a week to repurpose, but I don’t repurpose the entire hour, just that 20 minute clip. 

Spencer: Gotcha, that makes sense. That seems like a really efficient way to do that. And when you’re making so much content, it’s important to be efficient. So that brings me to a new question. Sure. So do you do all of the like shooting, editing, posting yourself or do you have like some people behind the scenes that kind of help you out? 

Jonathon: I do, other than the shorts that my son does for me and that just to give him something to do, to be part of my life. I do it all. I have a very simplistic approach. I don’t have a sophisticated camera. I just have a Logitech. 

I have a sure microphone. I do it, I mean, I do it on my laptop. I actually raise my laptop to eye level. So I’m looking at the camera right now, but I can see, you know, what’s going on on the screen without too much differential between my eyes, looking at the camera and looking at the screen. I don’t edit my videos. It’s just stream of consciousness. 

If I make a mistake, so be it. I have a standard closing that I have that I just repeated over the years and then I just press the stop button. And if I do this at the end, it’s like, I don’t care because hey, 99 out of 100 people never watch a video to its entirety anyway. Number one. Number two, the amount of time it take to edit, I would spend almost the amount of time to produce as it is to go back and go back on this and do this and clip this out and take this out. Like, I mean, I don’t believe that the audience really cares that much at absolute pure quality. 

I just don’t believe that. What I mean is those that are meticulous about it being perfect, you are gonna spend more time being meticulous than your audience will needs kind of thing. Now that’s not to say, hey, do I make mistakes sometimes? I catch it, I say it, you know, like, I mean, or have I made mistakes that I’d learn afterwards? Yeah, but you know what? Part of what makes my channel successful is the imperfection. 

Spencer: Yeah, and there’s a lot of good things I want to talk about about what you just said, but authenticity is really important to I think YouTube viewers, not so much like the fancy editing effects and stuff like that, but knowing that they’re watching a real person. 

I will also add there, it does, I do think it depends on the type of content. If you’re into watching short films or you’re into movie making, I went to school for that and there’s a lot of people who really care about the small details when it comes to making stuff, but I think most average YouTube consumers don’t care about the super specific editing details and stuff like that. That’s why I think partly why your content is so successful is because you’re authentic and you just post it as is. Your specific audience doesn’t necessarily care too much about that. 

Jonathon: Yeah, and I’m going to add something and what I believe is made my channel successful and I have the silver plaque over there. I have over 200,000 subscribers is that my content has a little bit of flair to it and a little bit of controversy to it. It’s interesting after recording so many videos, first by doing those Facebook lives just to build the muscle of being in front of the camera, I tend to be a little bit contrarian. So when I’m talking about dating a relationship advice, I’m actually telling people the opposite of what they’re used to hearing. 

I’m almost that George Costanza episode on Seinfeld where I’m suggesting to do the opposite. So I think in that controversy, if you will, that’s one of the reasons why I believe there’s a contradiction there and people like to hear contradiction for one component of it. Although I do believe my contradiction makes sense. 

Okay, and that’s my belief system and I have followers going, I agree, I agree, I agree. That’s number one. Number two, I am unafraid to use expletives when I’m communicating. And so I mean, do I have permission or is this a PG? 

Spencer: I think we try to keep it PG, but I can’t. 

Jonathon: I’ll just say I’ll drop an F bomb now and again, and I will criticize, I will draw attention to the pain people are experiencing because in the dating marketplace, people are absolutely effing fed up. And by saying it, there’s a level of like, oh, he gets me, he gets it. 

He’s not trying to preach at the top of the podium and looking down at people and saying, do as I do. I’m like, look, it is a mess out there. It’s the hunger games out there. And if you want it, like I literally say it’s the hunger games. 

But if you do this, the odds are more in your favor, kind of like forever in your favor, like in the movie Hunger Games or the book series. So because of that, and I’m animated, I’m passionate, I scream at the camera. Sometimes I then scream at the camera and I’ll say things like, Oh my God, I was just screaming, you know, like, and I’m like, there’s a level of awareness that the audience feels like they are having a real conversation with me. I didn’t have this skill before it was just having fun with the channel and treating it like I’m, you know, both talking on a pulpit and talking to you individually and also talking to myself. 

I talked to myself on my videos all the time. And they’re like, you know, so people look at that. So I’ve become, I’ve been, I’ve kind of become a little bit of a interesting figure just to watch from a, from a comedic standpoint. And I think people appreciate that. So there’s, it’s become my own TV show in a way. 

And, and I love it. I mean, I, I love producing videos. Sometimes I get exhausted, though Spencer, I’m like, Oh, I’m not up for it today. You know, yeah. And that’s the beauty of it. You know, if I don’t feel like recording, I don’t have to do a live stream, but my audience is like, looking at the clock, when are you going to be on next? 

Spencer: Yeah. And I think that’s why your, your channel has become so successful is because you’re a unique person who does that. And so, you know, that brings me to my next question. I’m sure you have loyal community members that, you know, watch every single one of your live streams. And, and I’m curious if you’re coaching, if you’ve seen like a positive impact in the people that you talk to, have you had people come back to you and be like, Oh, because of your YouTube videos or your coaching, I’ve really become a better person or a better person in relationships. Have you seen that? 

Jonathon: I will say that I, I make it a habit to review every comment that comes in. And I usually hit the heart button because I want to create engagement. So thankfully, you can be in the studio on your smartphone while you’re watching TV, while you go to the bathroom, when you’re whatever, I, I invest in engaging with my audience. And sometimes I just simply hit a heart. 

Sometimes I sim, I will respond back. Now I do this for a couple reasons. One is sometimes people will post something that I’m like, Oh, that’s great content for a new video. And I’ll cut and paste that and use that in a new video. 

That’s one. I get a fair amount of feedback. And when I read the feedback, Oh, your content made a difference. Oh, your content made a difference. 

Oh, your content made a difference in my life. It fuels me. Now I’d be lying if I didn’t say it fuels my ego a little bit. I mean, it does feel my ego a little bit. 

But it also means that I feel like, Oh, I’m doing what I should be doing. And because my role is to make a difference in people’s lives, or at least that’s my what I believe my purpose to be. So I do engage with the audience. And I’m fortunate that when I do produce a video, sometimes on average, 50 to 100 comments per video, or more, I mean, I can I mean, on ones that are really take off. You know, I could have thousands of comments on a video. So but I know part of that is that I engage with my audience too. 

Spencer: Yeah, something I’ve been curious about. And I don’t know if there’s any statistics on this. But I know when I make a comment on a video and the creator likes it, it sends me a notification that they liked it. Yes. And so it brings me back to that video. And so I wonder if there’s any statistics out there that show that videos are content creators who like comments, get a bigger boost on their videos. So that’s just something I’ve been curious about lately. 

Jonathon: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting because the algorithm is not working so well these days. So I’ll be candid. Oh, particularly in the last 12 months. And unfortunately, that’s also cut into my revenue as well. And but I study other people’s channels. 

And I’m noticing that it isn’t singular to me. When people were trapped at home for you, you know, during COVID, there was a you had a you had a gigantic population of people that were consuming YouTube. Now people are back to work, people are not as engaged as they once were. 

So a couple things that happen is the views have dropped dramatically as well as ad revenue because people, you know, the companies who are buying ad space aren’t spending as much on YouTube as they once were. So it is a little demoralizing, you know, because you’re like, you won’t you feel like you’re going to grow, grow, grow, and this growth is never going to stop. It’s like the stock market on a rise. 

And I believe many creators right now have seen a dip in their numbers compared to a couple years ago. And I vacillate Spencer, I’m like, do I make a shift? You know, do I buy views? 

You know, like I’m looking at a couple different options of how can I increase that? But I feel as though just keep doing what I’m doing and trust that, you know, all it takes is one video to go viral. Sometimes all it takes is one video to catch up, take off. So I keep producing. And I do try to mix up the content a bit. 

And sometimes I do something completely different every once in a while just to test drive some things. You from the beginning from scratch to keeping consistent clients. And yes, I do have regulars that come back. 

And maybe they’re not hiring me for coaching per se, but you know, I’ll see the regulars on the screen. And you know, I acknowledge them and, you know, and I feel like, like when I’ve seen someone’s name enough times, it registers for me and I feel good that they’re, you know, they find value in what I share. 

Spencer: Yeah. So I’m curious, do you have a theory about why maybe your views have dropped in the last 12 months? And is it just the relationship, I don’t know, we call it the relationship YouTubers? Or have you changed any of the way you make your content in the last 12 months? Do you have a theory about why the numbers have dropped? 

Jonathon: So and I, well, the thing is, I have my own speculations, but there’s no way to quantify it as the problem. And unfortunately, even with my dedicated rep at YouTube, they’re not divulging any information. I mean, it’s like very tight lipped within Google. 

So I don’t get any real honest feedback. One thing that did happen in my life is I was in a relationship. I’m a relationship coach that at the moment isn’t in a relationship. But back in 2022, I was in a relationship with a woman and she would join me once a week on my channel. 

And so, and we did very well on those videos. Now, was it because of COVID or was it because of her? You know, but I certainly seen a decline of that relationship ended a year and a half ago. So, so I don’t know if part of it is that. 

Interesting. I also think I’m, you know, the hard part, and I do believe in energetics. I’m kind of burnt out on the dating conversation. I mean, dating is such a, it’s like the Hunger Games and it’s even worse than that. 

It’s more like Friday the 13th. And I don’t know if I’ve, my enthusiasm is like drifted a bit. And you know, I mean, I try to be upbeat and happy and I can put on a happy face kind of thing. But I don’t know if energetically my audience can sense like, look, your chances of success are so damn slim. I mean, you’re almost better off being single. 

And I’m saying this tongue in cheek. It’s hard to be a dating coach who’s burnt out on dating, you know, even in my own personal life. So I don’t know if that plays a part in it. But as I said, I’ve noticed that drop in almost everybody’s even one of the biggest people in my sphere who has over three million subscribers. If you look at his view count in relationship to his subscriber count, you can see that, you know, nowadays, we’re only averaging two to 5% of our subscribers. 

Oh, that’s the other thing. You know, once someone subscribes, probably 75% of people are subscribed to my channel, haven’t looked at a video in a year, you know, so it’s I believe it’s imperative to keep getting new subscribers because once you click that button, and you watch for a while and you stop watching that button still says you’re a subscriber. 

Spencer: So that’s interesting that it’s also people in the relationship, relationship sphere and not just your channel, you know, just some speculation on my end, you know, maybe just the way the world is that like you mentioned, the dating world is like a like the Hunger Games. And so maybe everyone is in the relationship sphere is burnt out. 

Jonathon: So so as you were sharing that it made me think of a couple other things a in the last couple years, so many new creators have come out. So there’s now a lot more competition for that same, you know, title or that keyword search number one. 

So there’s a lot more competition. Number two, AI generated channels now are popping up left and right. So there are people out there that are just putting together a lot of they’re actually stealing other people’s content or even creating like I’ve watched videos where I’ll use Jordan Peterson as an example. It’s not even him talking on the screen. It’s just a screen with with subtitle, you know, subtitles. It’s not even his voice. 

It’s most likely an AI generated voice with some copy that was produced. So now there’s a flood of I believe I don’t want to use the word fake content. Yeah, but there’s a flood of fake content out there that’s, you know, that’s stealing a lot of us genuine creators. And I don’t even know how YouTube would police that. 

Right. But YouTube doesn’t care because they’re like, hey, is we just care about watch time. I don’t care if such and such channel gets, you know, 10 hours of watch time and some other channel gets 100 and somehow gets 1000. We just care that it’s just we’re just we don’t care if there’s a billion people on YouTube. But it does hurt us creators. 

And if you’re big like Mr. Beast or something like that, it’s not going to make that much difference because his is such a unique channel. But I think a lot of that fake content is hurting us legitimate, you know, hardworking creators. 

Spencer: Yeah, that’s definitely something to think about. And I could go into a lot of speculation about that. But I think we’ll move on to I’ve got a couple more questions for you. This has been a great conversation. 

I think our listeners will benefit a lot from this. But the next one is, I guess, more of a personal question for you in your YouTube channel. Is there any mistakes that you feel like you’ve made as you’ve kind of produced content that you think, you know, would be beneficial for someone starting a YouTube channel? A mistake that you wish you wouldn’t have done that you learned from? 

Jonathon: It’s interesting because as you’re asking me that question, I think I think the mistakes are the things I didn’t do. Like not spending a lot of time editing a video, I didn’t do that. So I think I avoided mistakes by the things I didn’t do. Like so I don’t I don’t believe I needed to do polished videos to generate the success. 

So I think it’s the things I didn’t do that has created my success. I hope I made sense in the way I know that makes sense. You know, like it’s okay that I made a mistake. 

It’s like it’s being okay. Versus the people that I witnessed, they spend so much time editing and spending so much time that they only produce one video a week. And I’m like, produce five videos a week. And who cares a bit perfect because you’re just going to get more watch time. Right. 

Spencer: No, that that is great advice. 

Jonathon: You know, I think I played with times of the day to when I’m going to do my live streams. I mean, I’ve tried different, you know, things along those lines. But, you know, that’s trial and error that I don’t look at it as a mistake. It’s just I was going through my own learning curve. So I don’t count those as mistakes. But I do remember. Okay, so back in the early days, I used to like I would play a song, I would go on, I’d go on my YouTube with my my cell phone, and play a song and then we’ll be guess the song of the day kind of thing. Oh, yeah. 

Well, I didn’t realize that that was copyright infringement. And I would say for the first month I was doing it was like a fun game. Like, Hey, can you guess this song that’s playing right now that I’d play a 10 second clip of a song? That was a no, no. So the I would say copyright infringement music was the mistake I made early on. And it didn’t get to and I didn’t get to monetize that. 

Spencer: So yeah, yeah, well, everyone makes mistakes. And I think that’s that’s good advice for our listeners. So thanks for sharing that. And this this next and I guess final question kind of goes hand in hand with that. But do you think there are any myths about YouTube that you think need to be busted? Any misconceptions or anything along those lines? 

Jonathon: I well, shadow banning is the one that I have a you know, I don’t feel like YouTube does anything intentionally, but do they I don’t know like that one I struggle with like you know, because I’ve even said to my rep, I’m like, I feel like I’m being shadow banned, you know, and I mean, she’s like, well, no, you’re not. I’m like, but it feels that way. You know, so that that’s the one thing I don’t know. I mean, I do recognize that if you put gigantic inflammatory content out there, you probably will get strikes. So that part I think is legitimate. But do I think, you know, is a reflection of the the drop again, if everybody’s dropped in channels because of too much competition, fake content out there, that sort of thing. 

If everybody’s experienced that, then I’m not alone. And I do believe that like what I said earlier, all it takes is one or two videos to go viral and your channel will just boost right back up. Oh, I will say this, I do believe YouTube favors newer channels though. 

I do believe that they like if you’re a new channel, they’ll favor that the algorithm will favor it a little bit more because I felt like I got favored in the beginning. And now I’m in the, you know, in the like the middle of the trenches with everybody else. Yeah. 

Spencer: Adding or I guess something to think about with that. And I don’t know, it’s got to be hard to run YouTube because there’s, because it’s so big, there can be so many little problems. But because there’s so many creators now and so many YouTube channels being created, I think they do favor newer channels just to help with the saturated market. You know, it can be extra discouraging if like you create a channel and you don’t get any views whatsoever. And so I think they maybe did that to try and help the smaller creators in such a saturated market. But you know, then it’s like unfair to the channels who have been around for a really long time, but as YouTube, it’s got to be hard to kind of balance that. 

Jonathon: Yeah, I don’t know how they do things in the back screen. I’ve been blessed. I got invited to Google to meet with some other creators. It was fascinating to me, Spencer. So in all transparency, I am over, I’m in my sixties, okay. And YouTube is a predominantly Gen X millennial marketplace of creators. And when I got invited to hang out with a bunch of creators, first off, I felt like an old man in the room. I mean, there were 20 year olds there that were making, I mean, in excess of a quarter million dollars a year on ad revenue from their channel. And these were young people. So when I walked into Google, and this is in Los Angeles, I mean, it like it’s a young playground of people. 

I didn’t see anyone in their forties and fifties even working there. So it was kind of interesting. And it’s a whole different culture working for Google slash YouTube compared to probably some other companies. But and I’m saying this as a boomer, you know, I’m a boomer. But whether you’re a boomer, like my son looks at me, he’s a millennial, and he looks at how’s my boomer dad killing it on a millennial platform kind of thing. 

Yeah. And here, my point in bringing this up is, hey, a boomer could be successful. You know, I have a dear friend who just started, she just got monetized this week, she’d been working really, she’s been doing live streams, she’s been doing so much. And she got to 1000 subscribers, she got to 4000 hours, she just got approved. And she made her first $20 this week. That’s awesome. 

And she’s like, I am more motivated. So there’s something if you want to be a creator that wants to also earn money, because once you start making money, it’s an enthusiastic way of approaching whatever your content is, no matter what your category, YouTube is a great platform. And I mean, I’m beyond grateful for it. And I know there’s other platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, but you make pennies on those, you know, but long form content. Oh, and by the way, all of my audios from my videos are then uploaded to Apple and Spotify and other platforms. 

So it’s also in podcast format, beyond YouTube. So I repurpose it in that way. So I’m hitting as many vehicles as I can to get to an audience because and I will say this, for those of you who are creators, you know, if you’re doing something you love, this isn’t work, it’s play, you know, I get to play every day. And I would say 50% of my brain power each day is devoted to what do I want to say today? What do I want to say next? 

Spencer: Well, I think that is awesome advice. And Jonathan, I really appreciate you being on the show and sharing that with us. 

Jonathon: Yeah, no, this has been fun. I hope any creator if you want to reach out to me, reach out via YouTube and if I can help you in any way, I love paying it forward because I had someone who now mind you was a dear friend, that person has a million subscribers, he kept motivating me and just said, keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it. And I believe if I can pay that forward, you know, like I want, I want to like all ships rise when you help of one boat rise kind of thing. So I’d be more than happy to help anyone along the way. 

Spencer: Awesome. Well, thanks again for being on the show and thanks to our listeners and watchers for checking out this episode. If you want to learn more or if you need help with content creation, make sure to check us out at creatorluxe.com and we’ll see you in the next episode.