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how many times have you poured your
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heart and soul into a new YouTube video
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hit the upload button and then have the
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dreaded 10 out of 10 rating stare you
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back in the face I'm sure a lot of you
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know the feeling if you've been on
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YouTube for any amount of time you've
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seen videos that just simply do not
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perform very well it takes your Creative
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Energy and it crushes it in an instant
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wouldn't it be great if when we got a 10
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out of 10 video there was an easy way to
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turn it into a 1 out of 10 I mean if I
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sat here and told you that absolutely
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that's possible you'd probably want some
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proof right well here's the thing it is
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possible and I do have proof if you've
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been keeping a Keen Eye on our Channel
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lately you've probably noticed a lot
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more videos where we interview small
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channels and show how they beat the odds
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or how they got a video to Skyrocket to
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hundreds of thousands of views despite
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their Channel being really small we're
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not going to do that today though
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instead we are going to talk about one
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of our own struggles that we had
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somewhat recently here and yes I know
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it's shocking but even big Channels with
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million subscriber plaques and gray cats
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have struggles too this is the story how
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we took a 10 out of 10 video and then
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turned it Weeks Later into a one of 10
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it all began with this video what big
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channels do that small channels don't
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this video honestly was kind of a
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passion project for me because all I did
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was talk about my personal favorite
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gaming creators and the things that they
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were doing on YouTube that helped them
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stand out one of the creators I featured
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in that video was Josh Strife Hayes now
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this was a creator that I had personally
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been a fan of just for quite some time
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and that's why he was in the video so
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when he commented on that video shortly
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after it was uploaded I was pretty
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shocked now knowing the advice that I
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would normally give a channel who was
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trying to do a collab with someone they
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had no rapport with yet I knew exactly
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what I needed to do with the help of our
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production team we came up with a pitch
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for Josh we wanted to see if he wanted
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to come on and talk to us he couldn't
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have been more gracious and he offered
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to give us a whole bunch of his time so
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that we can ask him any questions we
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wanted ask and just a few weeks later I
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find myself sitting in a call with Josh
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and talking about YouTube our team put a
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ton of work into this interview all
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right we had a whole bunch of questions
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that Josh did a brilliant job answering
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he gave us over an hour of his time so
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we had a ton of footage and I still had
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to record a separate section of the
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video to help kind of Drive the story
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along our editors as always did a
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phenomenal job on the final edit and as
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a team we work together on the title and
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thumbnail strategy for this video and
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our thumbnail designer made what we
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thought at the time was a good thumbnail
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but here's the thing what makes a 10 out
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of 10 video well it usually has
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something to do with the packaging the
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title and the thumbnail in our case we
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were faced with a very unfortunate 10
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out of 10 video now when this happens in
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the background it is a scramble to
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figure out what the heck is going on we
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did our research on this topic and yet
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we were getting really low Impressions
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and a really low clickthrough rate the
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views Were Far Below what I like to call
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the cone of shame that's that Gray Line
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in your analytics you know when you post
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a new video it tells you how you
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typically do yeah when you're below that
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that's that's where the shame comes in
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the original title for this video was
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how I hit 100K Subs on every channel I
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start we ended up using this thumbnail
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and we had two other alternate
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thumbnails we could have tried as well
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so first let's talk about the title
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which was a bit different than what we
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normally do on our Channel since we were
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putting a picture of the Creator we had
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interviewed on the thumbnail we wanted
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to give the title a little more
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personality so it was basically in his
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voice saying how he hit 100,000
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subscribers over and over again the
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thumbnail had his picture on it and then
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the channels in question that had hit
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over 100k so with that title in mind
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this was the thumbnail we were using and
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it's just Josh surrounded by his very
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large YouTube channels the title was
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inspired by the idea that we could maybe
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tell a story with the title in the
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thumbnail basically kind of telling our
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viewers hey we have somebody here who is
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no stranger to earning silver play
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buttons the thumbnail inspiration came
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from another Channel known as Ali abdal
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Ali actually has a number of thumbnails
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kind of in this style and we really
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liked it so we wanted to kind of do our
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version of it here's the problem though
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just because you like a thumbnail that
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you saw someone else do on YouTube that
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doesn't necessarily mean it's going to
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work for any video the title of that
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video is five steps to start your first
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business he's surrounded by the steps
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for starting a business and the icons
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he's surrounded by are just very generic
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whereas Josh was surrounded by YouTube
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channels and the icons he's surrounded
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by were kind of like art that was custom
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done for those channels pictures that
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people weren't really used to seeing but
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in the case of Ali abd's thumbnail I
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mean it's a picture of money and there's
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a light bulb it just kind of
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communicates the whole message of the
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title a lot better anyway long story
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short we failed so what did we do next
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at first not a whole lot we just kind of
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talked about it and went back to the
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drawing board for title and thumbnail
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research but the thing is we were also
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working on new videos upcoming videos
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that were taking up our time and keeping
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us from trying to fix this one the
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second lesson here is that whenever you
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have this situation where you've
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uploaded a video and it's 10 out of 10
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you need to decide for yourself if it's
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worth it to spend the time updating it
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so that it can get the views you think
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it deserves we have the benefit of
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having a big team here but if it was
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going to take too much of our time from
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the next project we might have
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determined that it wasn't worth trying
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to save this video luckily though we got
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to a point where enough was enough we
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were sick of seeing that video sitting
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there with a really low rating and we
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decided to take action our research had
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now pointed us to an entirely new bit of
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packaging friend of the vid IQ Channel
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how to grow your gaming channel had
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recently published this video at the
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time it was simply called if you're
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under 1,000 Subs do this now and the
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thumbnail for this video could not have
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been more simple it basically just
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showed a new Channel with like over
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1,000 subscribers at the time of
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recording this video that video has 3/4
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of a million views so as much as we
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wanted to honor Josh as our guest in the
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video we decided it was time to maybe
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try something a little bit different our
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new title how genius you YouTubers grow
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their channels fast and our new
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thumbnail was this saying my third
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Channel just kind of plays into the
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genius aspect because below that is a
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number circled basically showcasing they
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have another 300,000 subscribers taking
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the words my third Channel and then
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highlighting the fact that they have
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over 300,000 subscribers on their third
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Channel kind of plays into this idea of
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a genius YouTuber who really knows what
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they're doing nothing about this
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packaging felt disingenuous or like it
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was a bad fit for the content itself we
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updated the video with that packaging
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and then we waited now whenever you do
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this on YouTube I need you to understand
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that there's one crucial thing you have
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to look for in that video that you're
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trying to resuscitate you need to look
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and you have to see if that video is
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still getting Impressions is YouTube
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still sharing it with people if you're
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seeing that it is indeed getting
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Impressions but people just simply
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aren't clicking on it it probably won't
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stay that way for long it's going to get
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less and less Impressions over time but
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if you really believe in your video but
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it's older and it's flatlined there's
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still hope if you're in that situation
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once you update the packaging what you
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want to do is change one of your end
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screens on a newer video that is getting
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a lot of views add this video to the end
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screen the one you're trying to
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resuscitate and hopefully people will
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start to click on it which will help it
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get back into YouTube's algorithm and
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get some New Impressions or you could do
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my favorite thing which is make a new
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video with the plan ahead of time to
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pitch people to go watch this older
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video that you were really proud of and
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you just updated when you do this it's
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really important to give people a reason
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to go watch that video and a little bit
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later on I'll show you how it works
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anyway luckily for us we didn't have to
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do any of that because the video was
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indeed getting Impressions and it didn't
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take long for things to start to turn
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around not only did this new title and
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thumbnail push our numbers beyond the
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cone of shame but to this day we are
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still getting a lot of views on this
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video it's currently sitting at the time
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of recording at 146,000 views it's also
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earned 8 and 1 half th000 hours of watch
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time which is 5,000 hours more than we
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would normally get throughout this whole
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process the best thing about it is that
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we learned a lot I do a lot of videos
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talking about gaming channels and things
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like that but I don't do a lot of videos
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or at least at the time I was where I
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actually talk to another Creator and get
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their story and their insights and
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whenever you do something new on YouTube
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if you've been around a while you know
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this it can be a bit scary because
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things like 10 out of 10 can absolutely
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happen but if you believe in your idea
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and you know your audience will get
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value from it you owe it to them to try
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and fix up the title and thumbnail fix
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up that pitch to make it something
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that's a little more clear and enticing
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for them to click on and in the end that
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video was definitely worth saving
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because it is full of a ton of
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incredibly valuable insights and if
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you're trying to get a channel your
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first channel to 100 ,000 subscribers
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I'd recommend watching it and maybe
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taking some notes