Hey,

Often we get advice on what to do, yet we fail to implement it right and then blame it for not working.

So to start from the bottom up, let's explore what not to do. Look at it like getting rid of your bad eating habits before lifting weights or training for that marathon (something I learned the hard way).

Let's dive into 15 common mistakes I see most channels make.

Worth Watching

Part of what I do daily is consume a lot of content and here are some of my favorites.
We created a full YouTube Idea Bank with all the previous outliers.

• Simon Squibb - 30 Years of Business Knowledge in 2hrs 26mins​
  This format is very successful now: "X Time" of "Topic/Niche" Knowledge in "X Time"
• Davie Fogarty - I Try Saving A Struggling Donut Shop From Going Bankrupt​
  ​Put your money where your mouth is. A success story fully captured on video including struggles, saving a business.
• Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal - How to Make $10k/Month as a Writer - Nicolas Cole​
  For his target audience, the $10k/month makes it very doable. "How to make $1 million dollars" would be harder and less interesting.

Mistakes to avoid on YouTube

1. Post your first idea

Audience comes first, not your first video idea.

The video idea is the #1 factor for the success of your video (yes I'm repeating myself).

Especially when you create content to drive sales to your business, videos about how good you are are not always well-received by your audience. The key here is to provide value.

Do you research of proven video ideas, that can be in other niches.

2. Faceless content for businesses

For people to buy from you, they need to trust you, to trust you they want to see a familiar face.

Please please, avoid Ai content. First, people will notice it immediately, second Ai is improving so quickly that your current "good" Ai content will be irrelevant in the near future, taking away the evergreen factor.

For larger businesses that would have an employee on camera and are scared to lose them and have to start over again with a new face, focus on formats that people can get familiar with multiple faces.

3. Cluttered thumbnails

Bravo, you put in the effort to actually create a thumbnail instead of a screenshot. But now you tried to cramp as much info in there as possible, please don't.

Thumbnails are there for 3 reasons:

1. Scroll stopper
2. Create curiosity
3. Set expectations

Not:

1. Be generic
2. A pamphlet explaining everything
3. Overwhelm people

It's ok for a thumbnail that has empty space and the standard is to have 3 elements:

1. Subject (face or object)
2. Text (3-5 words max)
3. Context (what the video will be about, usually niche-related)

4. No structure

You might think that just providing value in a video will make it a good video, well...

For people to get to the value, you need to lead them there and provide them with the right expectations.

Here is a simple structure that will get you there:

1. Hook (deliver on the promise of the title and thumbnail) in 2-5 sec.
2. Explain the concept of the video within 5-10 seconds. Identify why the viewer should care.
3. Open loop - curiosity gap for retention
4. Who are you and why are you qualified to talk about this topic)
5. The main part of the video. The idea is to resolve the tension set up in the intro.
6. An optimized outro/CTA should last no longer than 15 seconds.

5. Perfect everything

Good and posted is better than perfect and never posted.

A creative process is endless so setting deadlines will help you actually post your videos.

A good rule is, that if a video is 85% there, it's ready to be posted.

6. Using YouTube as a video library

Far too often I see businesses use YouTube to dump all their testimonials, internal videos, ads, seminars, interviews, ... because they think the overall channel won't be affected.

What you need to know about YouTube is that it looks at momentum, meaning how people interact with a channel.

When you post one great video after another, YouTube will recommend that channel to others, but when you post irrelevant content and people snub that, YouTube will identify that as irrelevant.

7. Not repurposing

One type of content that most people use for their business (because it's so easy to come up with) is interviews/podcasts.

This type of content is relationship-building content, not so much discoverability content. For people to find your channel and videos, you can turn those interviews into reels and shorter videos that go in more depth that you then can post on different platforms.

Don't forget about the written part, turn that content into newsletters, blogs, LinkedIn posts, ...

8. Get lost in analytics

Analytics are very helpful to make data-driven decisions on what content works the best and what does not. How to improve your thumbnails, hooks and outros.

But don't get paralyzed by trying to optimize so much that you put all your resources and efforts into the small % gains.

Instead, focus on the next best idea, and make bigger moves.

Later you optimize the smaller details.

9. Ignoring analytics

On the other spectrum, ignoring your analytics totally is not a good idea either.

The basics to look at are:

1. Average View Duration (avd)
2. Retention graph
3. CTR% (but don't get carried away)
4. Demographics
5. Subscriber % (subs/views)
6. Returning vs Unique audience

Use it to pivot if needed, don't get lost in it.

I made a whole video on how Analytics can help you come up with better video ideas​

10. Copying without authenticity

Yes, we teach to research other successful channels for video ideas but there is a difference between taking inspiration and copying exactly.

Not many videos these days are original so the way to stand out is by adding your authenticity to it.

What makes an unoriginal topic authentic?

1. Add your experience on the topic
2. Share examples that shape your vision on the topic
3. Your anecdotes
4. Your opinion

Basically whatever makes you different from other people.

11. No strategy long term

When starting out it's all about experimentation and it can get messy, no problem with that.

But when YouTube is part of your marketing efforts and the goal is to build an audience and convert them into buying customers, it's important to understand what type of content does what.

Here is a post from Pierre Herubel, that explains what content you should post to build an audience and turn them into customers.

1. 70% Industry content (value)
2. 15% Personal content (behind-the-scenes)
3. 15% Offer content (how you can help them)

No matter what platform.

For YouTube this can be implemented in a video, use the split for your video structure.

12. Ignore trends

Trends in the B2B space are video formats that are proven to work, ignoring these will set you behind channels that are using the trends.

It's free audience growth.

Here is our YouTube Idea Bank, a library of proven videos

And here are 3 proven video ideas I posted about on LinkedIn

13. Blame the algorithm

A lot about YouTube is mindset, it's the one platform that takes a lot more effort to get results on and it's hard when those results are not showing after putting in so much effort.

So when a video is not working, don't blame the algorithm for failing.

Here is the rule: YouTube algorithm = your audience

Knowing this, refer to point #1: Your Audience comes first

14. Be vanilla

My favorite saying: Raise the bar

Your first thought is probably: "I don't have time or resources to go crazy"

Well let me tell you that you can raise the bar in many different ways and not necessarily production quality, it's about setting you apart from others and usually that is in creative ways.

1. Personality
2. Unfair advantage
3. Creative video formats
4. Quality without overproduction
5. Interaction with audience
6. Provide massive value
7. Hyper-focus content
8. ...

15. Long outros

Finally, the end.. of your videos.

An unoptimized outro looks like the screenshot below, where the outro lasts too long and viewers click off before the video ends, therefore dragging audience retention (AR) down. The lower your AR, the less YouTube’s algorithm will promote your video.

Generally, an optimized outro/CTA should last no longer than 15 seconds.

An optimized outro/CTA looks something like this:

​

Conclusion

Whatever you take away from the above, just know to avoid all of these to not fall into the endless traps that will get you stuck at no views or sales.

We built a very in-depth Youtube Cheat Sheet that goes into what to do to get the results.