[00:00:00] Matt Cromwell: Hey everyone, I'm Matt. And I'm Zach. And today we are talking about how YouTube affects you as a product owner. Yeah. This is WP product tech place where every week we bring you insights, product marketing, business management and growth, customer experience, product development. And more. It's your go-to podcast for WordPress product owners by WordPress product owners, and now enjoy the show.

[00:00:45] Yeah, so happy for everybody to be here. I wanted to actually kick off before we jump into the subject on a couple little highlights. We've been changing things up a little bit. If you didn't know, we actually do have a website, um, that you all should, should check out. Um, and, um, there you'll see that we have a new announcement.

[00:01:07] Um, that's, uh, talking about, um, season three, um, of WP product talk.

[00:01:13] Zack Katz: What's the website.

[00:01:14] Matt Cromwell: I was like multitasking. I just put it up on the screen there. WP product talk. com. Um, and, uh, uh, go there, check it out. You'll see our, our blog post, um, talking about season three. The way I've been thinking about it is, um, our first season was Twitter spaces.

[00:01:33] We were on Twitter spaces, uh, and we moved over, um, eventually to YouTube. Um, and all of last year, we've been like kind of developing our style and our techniques and things like that. Um, and so all of last year was, was a big evolution of what we do and who we are. Um, and then this year, we're kind of kicking off a little bit different rhythm.

[00:01:52] I wanted to break things up into like six or eight weeks. Chunks so that we have some time to breathe a little bit of time to coordinate our next season and things like that. It also gives us this great, uh, opportunity to announce a whole season at a time with all of the speakers and things like that.

[00:02:07] Um, so that's what you'll see in that, uh, blog post announcement there. Um, so I'm excited about, uh, this new setup. Um, excited to give me and our co hosts a little bit of breathing space in between times and things like that. Um, So that's one of the big ones. Uh, the other big one, um, is that we just launched a new, I'm going to call it a Twitter profile, um, um, or an ex profile, whatever you want to call it.

[00:02:36] Um, and, um, And you should go check it out. Uh, I've been really happy that, uh, within, uh, a very short amount of time. I misspelled it. Oh my gosh. I misspelled it. No. Um, uh, we, uh, actually are up to, what is it now? 89 followers within less than 24 hours, um, over there. And I'm hoping that during the show, we might cross the 100 mark.

[00:03:01] So, um, if you're watching us head over to, hold on. There it is show. There you go. Uh, I said, twitter. com, whatever x. com, whatever WP product talk. Um, and, uh, give us a follow over there as well. So enough of all that fun stuff. Um, but, uh, uh, I'm excited to talk about YouTube and products. Zach, what's your take?

[00:03:25] Zack Katz: Yeah. So. Uh, when you're marketing your product, it's so easy to just get focusing on your website because I'm a web developer. I know html. It's so easy to do, uh, compared to youtube, which is such an important marketing channel that can feel so daunting to tackle. And, uh, It's important to have a strategy for this and, uh, to learn more about how to get into YouTube and, and what to do.

[00:03:52] Uh, we invited Jamie Marsland to help us navigate all of this. So welcome Jamie. Hi, thank you guys.

[00:03:58] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Thanks for being here, man.

[00:04:00] Zack Katz: Yeah, uh, please introduce yourself and uh, tell us what you

[00:04:04] Jamie Marsland: do. Uh, yeah, excuse me. So i'm jamie marsland I run a company called poodle press we've been going for about 13 years in the wordpress space Uh, we are a wordpress plug in business and a training business focused mainly these days in the plug in business on gutenberg type plugins, um And then recently over the past two and a half, three years, I guess I've been focusing on YouTube to try and grow my YouTube channel.

[00:04:31] And so now I'm about 20, 000 YouTube subscribers, just past that over Christmas and it's going pretty well.

[00:04:39] Matt Cromwell: Excellent. Congratulations on that

[00:04:41] Jamie Marsland: milestone.

[00:04:42] Matt Cromwell: That's a big milestone. That was awesome. And it feels like you got there in a relatively quick amount of time. It was like, I don't know, six, eight months ago you had 10, 000, I feel like.

[00:04:52] Jamie Marsland: Yeah, I've, it's speeded up towards the latter half of last year. Um, so the tractions, I think you find this with YouTube. It's, it's a, it's a slow build and then it starts to accelerate. Um, you reach certain plateaus and it starts to accelerate. Um, so there are dips in that process where you feel like you're not getting anywhere and then, I mean, we'll, we might talk about this, but consistency is so important.

[00:05:15] If you're consistent, you'll find that. That impetus will carry on. And that seems to be what's happening at the moment.

[00:05:21] Zack Katz: Yeah. So would you say that the, the way that that works is it's the algorithm changes and boosts you more if you're consistent, like what other, what other reasons, uh, are there for you growing so rapidly?

[00:05:35] Jamie Marsland: I think I think consistency and growing that audience. Um, the algorithm the algorithm is quite complex But I think what they're trying to do is push content to people that are the content's relevant for those people. So um The more and of course the more you do of this stuff the more you get better at it I mean, that's a key thing.

[00:05:55] I'm, you know, I try and do About two videos a week on average and just that process that sort of process of going through that. It's a It's a learning by fire exercise with youtube. It's fairly Um harsh environment to learn in You learn very very quickly what what works and what doesn't work. So you get better at the craft Um, and i've i've probably learned more in two years It's the sort of steepest learning curve That i've ever gone through really in terms of the amount of learning you you you have to go through for youtube to do it Semi successfully and just having that consistency kind of forces you to do that So that was kind of one of the golden rules of my youtube trying to be consistent Consistent with it.

[00:06:36] Why

[00:06:38] Zack Katz: would you say that YouTube is a harsh environment?

[00:06:43] Jamie Marsland: Because because you um, you get instant feedback so from simply um from you know You might get you you see with youtube in the in your stats You see how long people are spending on watching your video you see when exactly when people are dropping off your videos Uh, you see the number of people that are like and disliking your videos You've obviously got the comments, but the metrics, the metrics are kind of like, um, there's no hiding away from the metrics on YouTube.

[00:07:13] So you get, you get fantastic feedback. It's not subjective. It's just, well, those are the stats and it's really, really granular on YouTube. So you can see what works and what doesn't work and when it doesn't work and what people don't like. So you kind of learn by fire. That's what I mean by that really.

[00:07:27] You learn very quickly.

[00:07:30] Matt Cromwell: That's awesome. Yeah. I've been, I've always been really impressed with how detailed and, and helpful the YouTube, uh, analytics are, uh, especially in contrast sometimes to Google analytics themselves, which are supposed to be like so robust and everything, but the YouTube ones are, are really, really powerful.

[00:07:48] Um,

[00:07:48] Jamie Marsland: yeah. And part of the, part of the challenge is to. Um, be aware of those stats, but not be too obsessed by them because that's part of the mental challenge of YouTube, which a lot of people struggle with because you do see these stats. So it's quite hard to keep going at certain times, because when you publish a video, when you hit publish, it's quite a nerve wracking experience,

[00:08:08] Zack Katz: right?

[00:08:10] You have examples of where you thought like, okay, I'm going to add this new feature to my videos and it's going to really kill. It's going to go great. And then you release it and you saw people like just drop off watching.

[00:08:22] Jamie Marsland: Yeah. I think when I tried to be clever and do very creative, uh, sort of, um, When I haven't got to the point quickly enough.

[00:08:32] So when production values have become more important than the information I'm trying to purvey. So that's, you know, that's a, that's a real lesson is get, get to the point. Um, I try and be, I try and be, uh, very disciplined about, Editing, so I'm not wasting people's time, so I'm not, I think that's one of the good things about my videos is I do try and get the information across in this.

[00:08:58] I'm obsessed about getting the information across in the shortest space of time as possible. Really? And it's a lot of a lot. My thinking goes into that.

[00:09:04] Matt Cromwell: Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I want to give a shout out to we've done a couple episodes recently that are, uh, related. Um, we recently had Kevin Geary on, uh, and he said something really similar.

[00:09:17] He said that in his YouTube videos now, uh, he doesn't even say hi. He just like, it starts and he's just like, today we're talking about this thing. And he had said that the day that we launched our new introduction that you saw earlier today. And I was like, Oh man, I'm taking like way too long just to be like, this is WP product.

[00:09:35] Yeah. Because

[00:09:36] Jamie Marsland: nobody cares. Nobody cares about that. They really anti care about that. And you'll see the drop off in the YouTube stats. So you can, you know, You can spend a long time having a nice introduction, but you'll see people fall off So the hook, you know, I have a framework now with my youtube videos, which is you know hook and then it's quite a disciplined framework Hopefully you're not aware of what's going on.

[00:09:54] Um, but there is a process in terms of a hook big hook to start with and then pay that off and then You know following along so it's not because a lot of my videos are tutorial videos But they would be entirely different if I was putting if I was creating videos for let's say the learn wordpress website

[00:10:15] Matt Cromwell: Totally proper.

[00:10:16] Jamie Marsland: I'm not saying mine aren't proper video tutorials, but they are, there are different. YouTube is a completely different medium to a learning management system. It's when you're putting a video on YouTube, you're competing against somebody who's made a camping video or somebody who's done a golfing video.

[00:10:31] That's your, that's the people you're competing against. So it's not, it's not the same environment at all. So I try and think about that a lot with my videos really.

[00:10:40] Matt Cromwell: Oh, absolutely. I think our challenge is. Um, that we're thinking of this primarily as a podcast, honestly, like this show is more primarily a podcast, um, and kind of secondarily a YouTube thing.

[00:10:55] Um, but it's actually not totally true. Like, I think we get still the majority of our views come from YouTube right now. Uh, compared to the podcast, uh, channels, uh, currently, but the podcast stuff is relatively recent. So that whole like long intro thing is, was because I was thinking podcast wise. That's what like every podcast does.

[00:11:17] They always have this like short little, like, 20, 30 second, uh, intro to what the podcast is. Um, uh, whereas the video, YouTube videos never do that. So how can I have my cake and eat it too? I'm not totally sure. Yeah, well, maybe, maybe, maybe

[00:11:33] Jamie Marsland: you guys need a big hook, a bold, bad hook at the start of the, um, each video.

[00:11:38] What people are gonna, Why they should watch this next 45 minutes of stuff

[00:11:42] Matt Cromwell: what's coming. I'm so glad you're here, Jamie, because really all we're going to do is have you tell us what we need to do better. I

[00:11:49] Jamie Marsland: see that a lot with a lot with podcast videos where, you know, They're, they're very, you know, they're really great content, but they're not hooking people at the start.

[00:11:57] It's such a, such an easy thing to be doing.

[00:12:01] Zack Katz: You, you mentioned Jamie, uh, that you have a structure to your, uh, to your videos, and I was, I was wondering if you could talk more about your approach to making these videos. Do you have a script? Do you, do you have an outline? I'd love to learn more. Like for the, for the product owner that's trying to say like, okay, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to get onto YouTube.

[00:12:22] I'm going to do it this time. I, all I need is, and like, what's your, what's your suggestion for like a, how you structure getting a content, getting it from idea to a video on YouTube. Yeah, so

[00:12:35] Jamie Marsland: um kind of I kind of want to zoom out a little bit because The videos i'm producing aren't around my products, right?

[00:12:49] First thing I should probably say so they're not focused on the stuff i'm selling so the audience i've built a lot of them I mean there are tangible benefits for for how i've created why i've created a youtube channel Which are you know, there's revenue at the end of it, but most of the content i'm producing isn't around Uh my products at all.

[00:13:07] It's trying to create you helpful content Content for people so they can build websites um, but in terms of my my processes I have to be Well, I have to be excited about it to start with so it has to has to be something that I think people are going To be interested and excited about and then I always start with the thumbnail and the title And if I can't if I can't create a good title and thumbnail, I just I know I haven't got a I haven't got a video.

[00:13:32] I love that. So and that that's kind of Um, I have done that occasionally where I haven't You I've done that where I've just, I've come up with a technical solution, which I thought has been interesting, but because I haven't done the kind of the piece before, it's never really worked as well. Whereas if you get, if you focus the idea and creating a thumbnail and a title focuses your idea, I think it's, it's a good creative workflow to go through.

[00:13:57] So I, I use Canva for all my thumbnails now, and I have like, I have a, it's where I do a lot of my idea generation as well, and I have loads that I'll never use, but I, I use it as kind of a visual place where I create all these, I've got like 200 on the go at the moment, um, where I try and create the thumbnail and the title, and I know then if I, if I can create the thumbnail and the title, there they go.

[00:14:18] That's my latest AB. Uh, I find it a really useful place to try and find out whether I think that video is going to be interesting to people. And I use Twitter to, to test a lot of this stuff out as well, by the way. This is what, this is why I'm putting these thumbnails on Twitter.

[00:14:34] Matt Cromwell: Yeah,

[00:14:34] Jamie Marsland: it does a couple of things, right?

[00:14:35] It tells people. I've got a new video coming out, I guess, and it tells people I'm on YouTube. So it's quite, it's quite a cool platform. And it also tests Twitter's a great way. You can test ideas for before you make a video. I do a lot of that where I'll have an idea for the video and I'll put it on Twitter and it forgets a lot of traction.

[00:14:52] Then I probably think I know I've got a video that's going to get some traction if I created it. So

[00:14:57] Zack Katz: you've got a thumbnail. You've got a title.

[00:15:00] Jamie Marsland: Yeah.

[00:15:01] Zack Katz: Uh,

[00:15:01] Jamie Marsland: where does it go from there? And then I, that'll give me the hook probably the thumbnail. I know the title is going to be the big hook and, and getting a good hook is an art in itself and you get better at that.

[00:15:12] As you go along, because there's a, there's a balance between a hook and not being too clickbaity. Um, so I'm often quite clickbaity, but I hope when, when I create the video, there's going to be a payoff that I'm actually going to do what I say. You have to do what you're going to say, um, in the video. Um, and so the intro of the video will be telling people why they're going to watch this video, what they're going to get out of it.

[00:15:35] Uh, pretty short and sharp. And then I get into kind of paying off, paying off the hook. Fairly quickly.

[00:15:42] Matt Cromwell: Yeah,

[00:15:42] Jamie Marsland: and then you might put some other hooks along the video as well So you're not they're not there's another hook and another hook and another payoff and another payoff So it's just it's quite a process and i'm getting better at this stuff.

[00:15:56] Um So it's not just here's how to do a thing. There is some there is quite a lot of stuff that's going on. Um Under the bonnet to create some useful interesting content. There's a lot of dimensions to it, really. Yeah

[00:16:11] Matt Cromwell: Yeah Yeah, I could tell too because your videos I feel are really polished and and well done It's clear to me just from the little video editing skills that I have that you put a lot of work into it

[00:16:26] Jamie Marsland: Yeah, but I try and focus more on the like they're not.

[00:16:29] Um, I try and put more focus on the the writing the outlines I don't I don't I have written a few scripts, but generally i'm fairly decent at speaking to the camera So I don't generally don't have to word I'm generally better at just thinking of words rather than having to script everything So I definitely don't do that because i'm okay with talking to camera.

[00:16:51] Um, So I try and focus more on the content ideas than the sort of production values is what i'm trying to say I guess

[00:16:58] Matt Cromwell: for sure

[00:16:58] Zack Katz: for for those humans who may not be perfect at speaking to the camera. Hello Um, when I whenever I record a video my mind just goes blank And I, I find that I mumble and then I speak too quickly.

[00:17:13] And then, uh, when I have to edit the video down, it takes forever to make something that sounds, uh, like a good sentence, but then if you listen to the sentence, it gets, and you use like the script. Uh, when I use Descrip to like chop up, uh, get rid of the so words and make it a sentence that actually makes sense.

[00:17:32] I sound like a computer because there's so many different break points that it's like so many edit points, um, for somebody who's not good at, um, just speaking contemporaneously. Yeah. Uh, sounds like a script might be a good idea. Yeah,

[00:17:47] Jamie Marsland: a script is a good idea. And there's some, there's some cool auto, um, auto prompters that you can get now to, um, mm mm-Hmm.

[00:17:54] pretty decent. I've just bought one actually, which is in Alto. Promptress cool. I saw that. Yeah, which is like that's a cool device.

[00:18:02] Zack Katz: Yeah, they had been really expensive and kind of hard to configure with your phone. But now it seems like they've gotten a little cheaper. And yeah, so I

[00:18:10] Jamie Marsland: think for that, but I also think that the more you do this stuff easier, it gets to speak naturally.

[00:18:18] It's a camera without lots of ums and ahs. So you can lower the, you know, it's quite interesting when you look at my timeline, when I try not to um and ah at ums are often in terms of the sound wave, they're often the loudest bit of the sentence, which is probably common to a lot of, a lot of people. Um, so you just get better at it, right?

[00:18:41] If you do two videos a week and they're taking half a day to make each video, at least you just get better at the. Speaking to a camera as if it's a smiling person. I always imagine it's Matt I'm talking to anyway. So that helps.

[00:18:56] Matt Cromwell: Well, I hope not too much. Cause I do tend to rib you quite a bit, but, um, um, here we have, we don't really have a script, we do have a script, but we don't really follow a script.

[00:19:08] We follow a thought. Format is what I think of. And we have been off format this whole time, which is fun and fine. Um, but I want to get on format super quick. Um, so for our audience, our, our WordPress product owners out there, uh, who are thinking about YouTube, thinking about doing a podcast, thinking about doing a show, thinking about doing tutorials, um, thinking about doing their product, then all of a sudden finding themselves on YouTube, like Jamie has.

[00:19:35] Um, why does this whole subject matter at all? Um, who cares? Um, what's so important about it? Uh, Zach, what's your take?

[00:19:44] Zack Katz: Well, uh, Google's the number one visited website in the world and YouTube is the number two. Uh, and in the U. S. 62 percent of users access YouTube every day. And they spend an average of 19 minutes a day on YouTube.

[00:20:00] Uh, so this is a lot of attention that if you are not making YouTube videos, you are losing out on as a product owner. Um, but they're also integrated into Google search results. So they're important for SEO. Uh, and I imagine AI is scraping videos these days. So like, I just, you gotta be on YouTube. And I not Vimeo, not these other channels.

[00:20:27] It's YouTube only. Like that's the, got the social network aspect to it. Um, and the algorithm. So got to be on there. That's why.

[00:20:35] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, pretty much. Like, I don't know any other way to say it, honestly. Um, in many ways, if you're not on YouTube, um, uh, what are you doing? Um, back in the day, it used to be that you really needed to be blogging all the time, uh, or writing articles for your blog all the time, which is, you know, Still relatively true.

[00:20:55] Um, or if you're not updating your blog, you still got to be updating content in one form or another on your site. Um, but the best kind of content on your site is rich media content. So being able to create a video and turn it into content on your website, like that's just magic gold for products. So,

[00:21:13] Jamie Marsland: um, what percentage do you think guys have WordPress products?

[00:21:17] Companies are on youtube.

[00:21:21] Zack Katz: Well on being on youtube and use utilizing youtube are two different things and You know, that's a percentage of products matter on youtube. Yeah I don't know gravity forums has been getting more into youtube. We are Gravity kit is on youtube and we produce videos like maybe once uh, once or twice a month Um, but we don't have a regular cadence.

[00:21:45] Uh, what do you what do you think jamie? You Yeah, I think it

[00:21:50] Jamie Marsland: would be tiny, right? Yeah. It would be mine.

[00:21:52] Matt Cromwell: You think it's a small number?

[00:21:53] Jamie Marsland: I think it's a minute

[00:21:55] Matt Cromwell: number. Interesting. I wonder

[00:21:58] Zack Katz: Do you think it's important for product owners to get their product, to be on YouTube? Well, just check out those stats that

[00:22:05] Jamie Marsland: you just reeled off, Zach.

[00:22:06] Those were good stats, by the way. Zach came prepared. That's incredible. Yeah, I mean I think more and more, um, given what's going on in the industry and the search engine market and how brands are going to. I mean, distribution is the number one issue for most WordPress plug in companies. It seems like a, it seems like a massive opportunity, um, but there's not being, there's not being used or tapped into would be my sense of it.

[00:22:36] Yeah.

[00:22:37] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. I do think this generation, Sorry,

[00:22:39] Jamie Marsland: even, even, even some of the top brands aren't, aren't doing this properly.

[00:22:44] Matt Cromwell: Well, be specific. What do you mean?

[00:22:48] Jamie Marsland: Uh, well, I mean, if you just go, if you go through some of the, you know, um, some of the, the big brands in the WordPress space, they're not necessarily really, um, investing heavily in YouTube.

[00:23:02] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, I used to not be able to be on YouTube without seeing it. I've seen an Elementor ad or an Elementor video in one way or another, and I think that's actually really, um, gone down a little bit. I don't think they're there as often as they used to be. Um, same with Divi, Elementor and Divi. Those were the big ones I saw all the time.

[00:23:19] They have,

[00:23:20] Jamie Marsland: they have really, they have really good channels. I mean, they have strong channels and they put out great content. So there, I would say those guys are almost the exceptions. I mean, obviously they're huge. Yeah. Um, but below them, there's not a lot of, you know, content. Stuff. I see.

[00:23:34] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. I freemius does a really, really good job.

[00:23:36] I like the videos as well. Um, they're doing really well. Matt Medeiros is now at gravity forms and he's putting out some good content over there as well. Uh, give has been on, we'll, we'll get to the story time later. We've been on YouTube for a long time, but like, I, I don't know that we've ever really cracked the nut of doing it really well.

[00:23:54] But, um, I think, uh, I like, I think when it comes to like Why these types of things matter so much. It's really, it's, it's really so much because nowaday folks really want you to show, not tell, like. People want to see what's going on. And especially when it comes to products that they have to install or have to configure, uh, they want to figure out whether or not they, they, they want to see the end result first before they even install it.

[00:24:21] It used to be back in the day with WordPress folks that you were just like, Oh, just install it on any site that you like and play around with it and see if you like it. And nowadays it's like, you don't install a random plugin on your site. You're going to break it. Um, and so people are a lot more hesitant to just be installing plugins willy nilly like they used to.

[00:24:39] So they much rather you show them what the end result is in a video before they even click that install button. So that's one of the big reasons why I say, especially when you have a freemium product, um, and you're on. org in particular, right up at the top of your readme, there's gotta be a video that's showing folks, um, exactly the benefit of your product.

[00:25:01] Zack Katz: So we're talking about some different. Content. I feel like so, Jamie, you had mentioned that you don't want to use the same content for your LMS for like getting started. Here's how to use the here. Here are the settings we have versus the YouTube content versus the introductory nature of the videos. You might embed on wordpress.

[00:25:23] org. Jamie, what kind of content are we supposed to be creating here? What are we talking about? Uh, when it comes to like being active on, like, what would a good example of a WordPress product being active on YouTube look like in terms of the types of content they produce?

[00:25:40] Jamie Marsland: Do you mean as an example of something that's doing well or just?

[00:25:43] Zack Katz: Yeah, like what type of videos do you think, um, would be an example of doing well on YouTube? Yeah.

[00:25:51] Jamie Marsland: I think, um,

[00:25:55] well, if you take, if you take, it depends what your business goals are, right, as well for, um, for the channel, um, like for my, I can only really speak for why I'm doing it, um, so I'm creating a lot of videos around, Gutenberg, um, because that's the focus of my, not so much my business. I'll tell you why I started it.

[00:26:20] I started it because I was a little bit fed up of people putting, criticizing Gutenberg and saying what it couldn't do. And so I created some videos where I showed, um, what was possible with it. So they kind of like, and a lot of people have come up to me and said, they've been inspired to try it because they've watched what's possible with it.

[00:26:36] Matt Cromwell: Back to

[00:26:37] Jamie Marsland: Matt's point. Um, yeah, I showed on tell,

[00:26:43] Matt Cromwell: you know,

[00:26:44] Jamie Marsland: so rather than sitting there shouting at people telling them they're wrong not to use this tool, you know, just create a site and demonstrate what's possible with it. Um, so I, I think you can put like in my channel, I have different streams of the type of content I'm creating always has to be interesting, but some are like educational ones.

[00:27:02] They definitely are. They teach you how to do a certain thing. Um, but I think with YouTube, you have to understand that a lot of people that are watching these videos aren't necessarily ever going to do the things you're watching. Right. Like, I think a good analogy is, um, a lot of people watch food programs, but they'll never actually make the recipe, but there'll be inspired and they'll love the people that are.

[00:27:27] You know, the cook that are showing them how to make this thing and at some point they might buy their book or they might they engender trust because they are demonstrating the ability to help them and, um, create something cool for them. Something useful and entertaining. Um, I'm not answering your question at all, but I think I think it depends on it depends on what the business objectives of starting the channel are.

[00:27:50] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, I feel like your videos are almost like, what's the best way to say it? They're kind of like interest funnel videos. Um, you're the people who are watching your videos are like, Oh, that's so interesting. I can't believe he can rebuild this one famous homepage all with Gutenberg. That's amazing. And then they're like, what does this guy do?

[00:28:10] And they, they find out about your courses. Um, and then they get into, it's like, It's not, you're not doing videos about what you do exactly, but about a mutual interest of what you do. I don't know. That's how I've always seen it. Is that, does that ring true?

[00:28:26] Jamie Marsland: Yeah, a hundred percent.

[00:28:27] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. In some ways, that's why on the Give side, one thing that we have done regularly is what we call Give Live, which is like our monthly kind of like live YouTube show.

[00:28:38] And in that show, we're not talking about The plugin, we're talking about fundraising, um, and we're trying to cast the net really wide. People might be fundraising in a million different ways. Um, they might, may or may not be using give at all, but if they're interested in fundraising, hopefully they're interested in the show.

[00:28:58] If they're interested in the show, hopefully they find out that we can help them with fundraising. So, Uh, a little bit of that.

[00:29:05] Jamie Marsland: Yeah. And I think the difference between, it struck me when I went to Athens, uh, WordCamp EU, um, the, the, the difference in engagement you get with video, um, beyond anything I've ever known, like writing blog posts or whatever.

[00:29:23] The, the difference is, uh, it's extraordinary. You know, I was, I've, I've been to these WordCamps for, for quite a few years and the pre YouTube and, you know, anonymous in the corner, you know, Nobody knew who I was within five minutes of stepping into the lobby. People were taking selfies and they were genuinely, it was kind of weird and embarrassing, but it was, it was kind of strange experience, but it did bring home to me the power of.

[00:29:48] The level of engagement you get with video on YouTube is just a magnitude above anything else. So the fact that Matt's doing, you know, stuff with give on video people, that's going to engender huge amounts of trust. In the brand and the people behind the brand and I think for me trust is going to be probably the most important commodity Businesses are gonna try and engender and over the next year two years with everything that's happening around AI and you know Having humans behind the story and being able to tell their stories through interesting content.

[00:30:22] I think it's a I think that's what video gives you.

[00:30:27] Matt Cromwell: Zach, what's been your experiences so far with video? Has video changed the way you think about your business or your products? Um, in any way?

[00:30:36] Zack Katz: Yeah. My relationship with video, uh, is I'm a perfectionist to a fault where I am a procrastinator, perfect perfectionist, where because I'm worried that it might not be perfect, I don't.

[00:30:50] Even start. And so I have done so many recordings that are on my computer that are gigabytes in size. They're like, you know, an hour long recording that I'm going to create the perfect. How to, I'm going to chop it into pieces. I'm going to put up little like placeholder images and segments and titles, and I'm just going to be amazing and it never gets done.

[00:31:12] So that's my personal experience with video is that it's, um, it's a great way to, for me to get obsessive, you know, unhealthy way, uh, that I, I have trained myself out of at different points in my career. But, uh, at the moment I have a, Content, uh, coordinator name Casey, who does great videos. He, uh, and he doesn't seem to have the same hangups as I do.

[00:31:36] So that's really nice. So for product owners, hire somebody, a contract out. People are on Fiverr people are all over the place who are able to do this with you and for you, if you are not feeling like you're able to, um, but Jamie, I had a similar experience where I launched gravity view in 2014 later that year.

[00:31:58] Uh, I paid Jonathan man. Uh, uh, songwriter, uh, create a, to create a music video for gravity view. And that went as viral as it could in the WordPress community in 2014. Like everybody who went to, uh, who went to this conference that I attended knew about the music video. We're singing it to me.

[00:32:20] Matt Cromwell: They wanted to do the WordPress wiggle.

[00:32:22] Come on.

[00:32:27] Zack Katz: Have you done the WordPress wiggle? I haven't done it. Oh yeah. Just wiggle. Yeah. Wapu will join you.

[00:32:36] Matt Cromwell: So it's still remember it, it, it had a lasting impact on me and my children.

[00:32:44] Zack Katz: So, you know, I've had moments of video being a great channel for awareness, uh, but I haven't had the slow build that you've experienced. And the, uh, I feel like that's been because of my own apprehension about yeah, I think what

[00:32:58] Jamie Marsland: you're, what you're talking about is. It's not, it's not unique to you. It's probably the most common thing that's holding people back and from, from creating video, you know, and I think that's why having some kind of vigor around consistency is hard, but also if you're going to, if you're going to do it, then you have to be, you have to be consistent otherwise it's, and you have to give it, you know, 18 months before you kind of see any kind of decent results at it.

[00:33:27] That's my experience anyway.

[00:33:29] Zack Katz: And it sounds like you've had a pretty wild 18 months. Can you, can you share some of your, your learnings and, uh, your experiences that you've had over that time?

[00:33:38] Jamie Marsland: Yeah, sure. Um, so I think one of the things about starting a YouTube channel is it doesn't end up where you think you're going to be.

[00:33:45] So it's, it's become a bit, uh, it's taken me to strange places in terms of, you know, Um as matt says i'm now, you know, he jokes about it, but i'm a youtuber and most people think i'm a youtuber Don't realize i've actually i'm a product business owner or a training business owner Um, which i'm kind of okay with now, but you know, it's got me it's got me It's got me to some so last year, for example, I interviewed on the channel matt mullenweg Mateus in December Ventura, the lead architect, um, ran Fishkin.

[00:34:20] Who's who's been a, who's been a hero of mine for years. Who's the ex CEO of Moz. Um, so you, and, and, uh, WordCamp EU, I got to interview, um, just Matt put me on that, but that, those, that, those things would never have happened unless I had a YouTube channel, um, being on Matt Mullenweg's blog twice recently.

[00:34:43] Um, I've been in. WP Tavern loads, I've been in Gutenberg Time loads. Um, my Twitter following's like doubled over the last couple of years. sort of Facebook group. So, and, but this is all, this is all, this is all accelerated because purely, um, because of YouTube, nothing else. It's all because of YouTube and creating content.

[00:35:06] So it's been a bit of a wild ride really. And now, and now, and now in, I think it was November, YouTube generated more revenue for me than my product business. Wow. Congratulations on that crossover. That's a, that's well, it wasn't planned at all. Then that kind of, then you start thinking, well, that's a bit, that's interesting.

[00:35:27] Um, and now I'm talking to some folks about helping them with their YouTube channels,

[00:35:32] Matt Cromwell: which is a

[00:35:33] Jamie Marsland: whole different, that's a whole different opportunity. It's kind of an interesting, uh, point where I've got to with the whole thing.

[00:35:42] Matt Cromwell: I want to push back a little bit because, um, like you said earlier, how many products actually are doing YouTube in general and then how many of them actually do YouTube in a way that matters at all.

[00:35:55] Um, you know, it's not just YouTube. Like, YouTube is an amazing distribution channel for sure, but it, it rewards great content. Um, and so, uh, I think you're successful because you have really great content. And you happen to distribute that content on YouTube. Um, I, so, I just want to make sure, like, you're doing a great, you're doing great work.

[00:36:22] You're doing really great work. Um, and, and great work is rewarded by these followers and, um, these views. And the right kind of attention. Um, I, I, that's, uh, that's a really important key, honestly. Like, I want, I, one side I want to give you the, uh, praise that's due, Jamie, for sure. Um, and the other side, I want folks to know, like, it's not if you build it, they will come.

[00:36:47] Like, and I don't think you're trying to say that either. You're not saying make a YouTube channel and then everybody flocks to your door. Um, but you do really have to be able to dial in the right kind of content for the right kind of audience or else you're just like speaking to the wind, right?

[00:37:03] Jamie Marsland: Yeah.

[00:37:04] And, and there are some people doing that and they, you can, you could, you could advise them pretty quickly on how to change tacks so they get more, um, engagement with their channels. Some fairly big brands as well, so

[00:37:20] Matt Cromwell: yeah, you keep, you keep naming their names. I'm not gonna, because I'm not gonna do that.

[00:37:25] I keep trying to pull it out like, like, oh, what do you mean? Can you be more specific? ? Yeah, no, I'm not

[00:37:29] Jamie Marsland: gonna do that. But they, you know, they're, they're investing in it, but it's not, um,

[00:37:33] Matt Cromwell: yeah, it's

[00:37:33] Jamie Marsland: frustrating actually. 'cause I'd love to, I'd love to. Um, part of me would just love to do that. Full time for folks.

[00:37:41] Um, but anyway, that's a, that's a different, you know, that's a different conversation. That's a great

[00:37:47] Matt Cromwell: praise over here real quick from, and I'm very fond of your authenticity, Jamie, for sure. Um, thanks for being here. And we got a couple of folks, Stephanie Hudson's here also. She's, uh, going to be a guest in a few weeks.

[00:38:00] Thanks for being here, Stephanie. Um, So keep the comments coming, folks. Um, we're happy to answer them. Sorry, Zach.

[00:38:09] Zack Katz: Oh, that's all right. Um, I am lost my thread there. Uh, but Jamie, uh, in terms of best advice for new product owners. So we, we talked about, um, you know, building, being, being consistent, building, uh, uh, uh, having a good message and that feels exciting, authentic to you.

[00:38:31] Um, where, what's your best advice for somebody who's just getting started with this topic?

[00:38:38] Jamie Marsland: What? That they're planning to have a YouTube channel?

[00:38:42] Zack Katz: Or if they have one and it's just sitting vacant, they're trying to activate it.

[00:38:48] Jamie Marsland: Um, I'd come up with a plat, well, just a plan, really a publishing plan come up with, um, you know, I, when I started this off, I was worried about content ideas, uh, like what was, uh, what was I going to actually produce?

[00:39:00] Um, so don't worry too much about that. The Craig. So when I started, I have like two videos in my, I have a fairly rudimentary process. I have a spreadsheet with all the ideas. If I have an idea, I put it in the spreadsheet and then the ones that I really like bubble up to the top of that. When I started, I had like two or three ideas.

[00:39:16] I think now I've got like. I can't remember 280 ideas on the go of videos I would love to make they're not just crappy ideas They're they're videos that I think would be really exciting. So that's a really interesting that happens that the more you do the more creative uh, it's like a creative muscle that you get you suddenly start to think of more and more ideas that you can um, Great ideas that your audience would like.

[00:39:40] So I think that's why having A really vigorous, you know, we're gonna do a cadence of two videos a week regardless they can and we're not gonna sack We're not gonna worry about Whether they're perfect. They definitely won't be perfect. There's never a video i've done where I haven't, you know After an hour of hitting publish gone.

[00:39:58] Matt Cromwell: Ah,

[00:39:59] Jamie Marsland: I wish i'd done that um Uh, yeah, so I would have a I would have vigor around that and then and then it's just doing it I think there's a lot to be said just for not overthinking it and doing it because actually the, the plan and the model will get there as you start to create more and more content, but you have to, you have to say, I'm going to do this for, I think, two years, really, an investment of, it's a big investment of time, um, and money, obviously, and, but I think you have to have that commitment to do it.

[00:40:28] And actually a lot of that stuff will just, once you make that commitment, a lot of the learning will happen naturally because you've just committed to that process. You'll find you'll find what processes work for you. So for me, I get all my ideas in the afternoon late evening I I just have quite a strict process.

[00:40:46] I know I can only shoot videos from like five o'clock in the morning to 11 o'clock in the morning because that's when my brain is firing best It'll be different for everyone, but it's all about the it's all about having the vigor of you know This is this is what you're going to do And I think the rest kind of I mean it sounds a bit clear but the rest kind of just fills in as you As you learn more, as you put a framework in place, which might be hooked and then pay off in that, you find what your audience likes, but really it's about, it's about just committing to it and having a process that would be my biggest bit of advice.

[00:41:18] Zack Katz: You say audience, are you talking for, for product, for, for my product, for example, would we, would we be talking to our existing customers? Would we be talking to, we, we build add ons that enhance gravity forms. So would we be talking to gravity forms? That's what we do. Talking to the wordpress community at large.

[00:41:35] Who are we? Uh, I was consulting with

[00:41:38] Jamie Marsland: you. Yes, i'm available for hire I would I would think of it a bit like a fire that you start fairly niche within the people that you already know And then you start to try and grow out naturally from the from that niche that you started with and then you build upon that sort of So the algorithm starts to know, well, the, this is sacks people, but actually it's gone a bit broader here.

[00:42:00] He might have a case study of somebody that's, you know, a photographer out in the field that's making a video about a fantastic workflow where he's got his Fuji camera and he's taking it, he's uploading it through gravity forms and it's appearing in a beautiful query loop block on a WordPress website, which is actually a video I'm working on.

[00:42:15] Um, but, and then you kind of broaden out the scope of what the, what the channel is starting to do. So that would be my advice. Start with your existing audience that you know really well, and then start to. And grow the circle of that interesting

[00:42:30] Matt Cromwell: and I get we do have one question here, uh from an also, um, Uh, she says do you find you could easily connect with people in the community?

[00:42:39] I think what she's saying is, uh, Does does doing this help you connect more with the wordpress community? You actually talked about that a little bit earlier how? um now Folks, um, see you and, and, and they think Jamie from, uh, YouTube basically. Yeah. Uh, it definitely is a big connector for sure. It's

[00:42:57] Jamie Marsland: incredible.

[00:42:58] Yeah. So, yeah, like I, I, um, tweeted Mattos pre-Christmas and had an interview lined up within a, I mean, it's, you know, had an interview lined up within a week. So, um,

[00:43:10] Matt Cromwell: oh yeah. Mm-Hmm. ,

[00:43:11] Jamie Marsland: which again, you know, is, is, um, do you know the most amazing thing he, he told me, which was, so some of the videos I've done is me and my daughter, where I set her a challenge.

[00:43:21] Give her a challenge to do in, um, Gutenberg. And actually one of them was, um, I gave a cadence and I gave her a block theme and I gave her 10 tasks to do. Um, like add a logo to cadence, add a logo to a block theme and fairly simple things, and she really struggled with the block theme cadence. She was pretty cool with.

[00:43:42] Um, and then I got feedback from Mateus that said they, the team, the development team watched that video. And they kind of found it really interesting and useful and which is that's an incredible thing, right? That my daughter doesn't really know wordpress might be responsible for affecting a piece of software That's used by 42 percent of the internet.

[00:44:02] I mean, it's just absolutely it's just like profound Absolutely incredible. Um, yeah, but i'm not sure I answered the questions. Yeah, so outreach is like, uh, You know, you can, you can approach pretty much anyone now, um, and set up conversations. Which is great for all sorts of reasons. It's great for getting information in.

[00:44:22] So you create more interesting content and people know they can contact me if they're building cool stuff. So it adds value to the channel. It's also pretty easy to network if I'm trying to actually make some money out of the channel. stuff.

[00:44:35] Matt Cromwell: A funny anecdote. When I was first really getting in deep in WordPress, I, uh, I ran a, a Facebook group called, uh, advanced WordPress.

[00:44:45] Um, and that was like a big, um, part of how I invested in the community at the time. Um, but give was my identity, you know? Yeah. Um, I went to a, a word camp, um, I think it was Orange County or LA I'm not sure. And, um. Some people came up to me really excited, like, Oh my gosh, Matt Cromwell. Uh, I was like, yeah, hi.

[00:45:07] And they're, and they're like from the advanced WordPress group. Right. And I was like, I wish you knew me from give. Cause that's what matters. Um, but that's the impact that social media has about, and that I'm like dating myself. That's like way back in the day. And now all the hip kids like Jamie do YouTube stuff, but maybe hopefully one day they'll be like from WP product talk.

[00:45:30] Right. No, but, uh, that's definitely is a big impact.

[00:45:36] Zack Katz: So old man Cromwell, uh, what is your best advice for new product owners?

[00:45:41] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, absolutely. My best advice is to do what we are doing. Um, I I'm like the opposite of Zach. I want to just do something and ship it, uh, and not care about it. Um, I, I think doing things live is, is the easiest, quickest way to get, uh, content out there.

[00:45:59] But the biggest consideration is you have to. Make sure that you get folks live who know how to have a good conversation. Um, and that's what I've been so thankful and fortunate about with our WP product talk is like, I, I just reach out to folks who I talk with all the time from work camps and things.

[00:46:15] And they're all like, yeah, I'll join the show. And they're great conversationalists. Um, that's why I reached out to Zach. That's why I reached out to Katie and Amber, like, um, We, we get smart folks who have really diverse and interesting experiences all in the same room having a conversation and everybody wants to listen in on that conversation.

[00:46:34] Um, it's interesting. It's engaging. Um, you don't get to get this kind of, uh, content in any other way, really. Um, so if you can, cause the things like re we use restream, there's also, uh, Steam yard, I think it's what it's called. Um, these things make this kind of, or stream yard. Thank you. Um, they make these kinds of videos really, um, nice looking and slick and smooth and, uh, and easy to set up and just, uh, run it.

[00:47:05] Do it and be done and it goes live. So, uh, that would be my best advice to start there. And once you start getting like, uh, kind of a vibe and, uh, uh, uh, an ethos or like, uh, uh, like, um, a stream of topics and things like that, maybe you might start doing some, um, more recorded things. Um, Tangentially, we also kicked off a new kind of sub series in WP Product Talk.

[00:47:32] We've only done one of them, but I have a second one up in mind already. We're just calling it WP Product Talk Yay or Nay. Um, and it's like asking a yes or no question on different subjects. Me and Katie, last week or so, did um, Uh, uh, onboarding wizards on plug in activation. Um, yes or no. Um, and it was a, it was a fun conversation.

[00:47:54] So, and that only came about because we're asking questions about products in general, and folks are trying to talk about it and

[00:48:01] Jamie Marsland: sounds like a very short conversation, man. It was just a yes.

[00:48:05] Matt Cromwell: It's, I mean, it, they're only 10 minutes instead of like 45, but

[00:48:09] Jamie Marsland: I like that. I like that format. Yeah. Why did you guys start?

[00:48:12] Why did you, Matt, why did you start this? What was the reason?

[00:48:16] Matt Cromwell: It was really literally because I have had so many really high quality conversations. Uh, at WordCamps, um, with Jamie, with Zach, uh, with Katie, and I felt like that they are valuable and that they should be happening more in the public. And I was like, I can make a space where we can all have these conversations together and everybody can learn from them.

[00:48:40] Um, I do get, uh, folks regularly asking me how I do the things I do with Give and at StellarWP in general and things like that. And I'm like, I can spend hours of my time talking with individuals about those types of things, or I can just like democratize all this information for everyone. Um, and, um, and I see the value of doing a YouTube, uh, uh, content, no matter what.

[00:49:08] Um, I started actually with Kim Coleman from paid memberships pro and she's amazing and great. And we started on Twitter spaces because it was also so easy. You just jump on your phone and you, you hit go and it records, and then you can download it and do whatever you like with it. Um, and it, they were, those were really fun, engaging conversations, and it's a very different environment when you can't see each other, um, and you're just talking, um, It's like a really, like, engaging phone call in many ways.

[00:49:37] Um, but, um, and I kind of missed the Twitter spaces days a little bit. Um, but, uh, uh, the, the YouTube stuff has definitely been a lot more fruitful for us overall, I believe. Um, and, and has given us a lot stronger way to do the podcast channels, uh, as well. So, yeah.

[00:49:56] Zack Katz: And to, uh, wrap up our, uh, best advice section, uh, my advice is to hire somebody, I, uh, I love good videos and it stresses me out to no end.

[00:50:09] So, uh, if you are able to work with somebody else who enjoys that and that's their bread and butter and, uh, and have them do it. And sign off on it. I'm a lot more forgiving on other people's video content. So when, you know, even if it's, even if there are tweaks I would make, I'm like, well, I didn't have to do this, put it on the YouTube, make it live.

[00:50:29] This is great. I'm so happy that it exists. So, uh, if you're finding it hard to get started, see if you can work with somebody else.

[00:50:39] Matt Cromwell: Absolutely.

[00:50:41] Zack Katz: And hire Jamie. That's my other best advice. Jamie is apparently now a YouTube consultant. Oh, nice. He's coming.

[00:50:52] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Well, Jamie, tell us, uh, tell the world, uh, where can they find you and where can they hire you and all that kind of good stuff.

[00:50:59] Jamie Marsland: Yeah, uh, you can find me on twitter at pootle press and then on youtube Um google wordpress jamie. That's probably enough

[00:51:08] Matt Cromwell: wordpress. Jamie. Yeah, or jamie marsland.

[00:51:11] Jamie Marsland: No, just uh, Or jamie wp actually is my official moniker now. Um, and then At poodlepress. com. Did I say that? Yeah, those are the kind of the best places Or just google wordpress block themes and you'll find me somewhere on the internet as well.

[00:51:26] Matt Cromwell: Also true Where are you offering your video services?

[00:51:31] Jamie Marsland: That's at poodlepress. com and then in the footer, there's a little, uh, sponsorship. Label click on that and you'll see the current rates for so at the moment. I'm doing pre rolls. Um, We're kind of booked up for a few months But so at the start of every video now, there's a little pre roll at the moment It's go daddy sponsoring got a few other folks lined up.

[00:51:52] Uh, but there's some other opportunities for sponsored videos I don't do many of these sponsored videos. In fact, Matt, we did a website recreation one a while back, which was lots of fun.

[00:52:01] Matt Cromwell: It was. This is where

[00:52:02] Jamie Marsland: brands challenged me to recreate a famous website with their products, which is a great, it's one of the streams I have on my site.

[00:52:09] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:52:10] Jamie Marsland: Um, and then on there, there's also some rates for consultancy as well.

[00:52:14] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, yeah, I should look that one up. Jamie recreated the charity water donation page with give and cadence WP. It was pretty slick. Cool. Um, well next week, um, we are going to have, um, Ben Gabler on the show from rocket. net. Uh, I'm excited about that.

[00:52:35] Um, he's a founder of rocket and he's really. Passionate about customer experience, just like I am. Um, so it's going to be a good show. I'm looking forward to that. Um, Zach, you're going to send us off.

[00:52:49] Zack Katz: Yes. Uh, special thanks to post status for being our green room, uh, where we coordinate these shows. If you're enjoying a WP product talk, please do us a favor.

[00:52:59] Hit like, subscribe, share it with your friends, reference this show in your newsletters, uh, subscribe to your podcast player, um, using your podcast player and most of all, we hope to see you next week. Thank you. And bye.

[00:53:13] Matt Cromwell: Thanks everyone.