Some of the major points we covered were:

• Subscription video on demand (SVOD) and YouTube competitors
• YouTubers “making it” on television
• YouTuber revenue streams
• How much money his top creators are making in a year
• How creators can better work with brands, and vice versa

The Confessional is a series of anonymous interview with influencers, brands, marketers, agencies, and MCN executives to get honest, no-bullshit opinions on working in the space — the biggest gripes, the toughest lessons, the most valuable advice.

The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You’ve been on YouTube for a very long time. How did you first get started?

I got started back in 2009, and I got started because I actually went to high school with another YouTuber. He’s still got pretty large following to this day.

I saw what he was doing and how we was building a community around himself. It seemed like a huge opportunity. So I started working with him a bit, and I was introduced to other creators and collaborate with them. I was able to turn YouTube into a career in about three months.

How has the community evolved since those early days?

What was really interesting about the early days is that once you hit a certain number of subscribers you were immediately part of the community. People had a sense of respect for you and vice versa. Once you hit that level, you could really approach just about anyone and do collaborations, or just strike up conversations and friendships.

As this community of a few thousand people exploded into the millions of creators you now have today, a bunch of micro-communities developed. Now, it’s like everybody sticks to their own clique. It’s almost like high school. So if you’re a beauty guru, you collaborate with other beauty gurus and you don’t really step outside that.

There’s just not as much cross-pollination as there once was.

I think a lot of the playfulness has disappeared as well. Now, we jump onto each new platform – push our audiences to them (the platforms), and then immediately we ask, “How do we monetize this?”

Speaking of fans, you’ve got a sizable following. What’s it like having fans?

It’s actually really interesting. I rarely use the word “fans,” I’ve allowed myself to use it as of late. This is something that I and a lot of my other YouTube friends struggle with.

We want to be humble, but also want to be respected in the same way that Hollywood celebrities are respected and perceived.  

Do you want to be put on the same pedestal as “traditional” celebrities?

Being labeled as a “celebrity” pigeonholes YouTubers because you can be recognizable without being a “celebrity.” I think it goes beyond celebrity. I think it’s about being a public figure.

There’s a new generation of influence sprouting up as a result of social media. You have people that may be an entertainer-creator or maybe they’re a body-positive influencer. There’s people with influence across spheres — politics, entertainment — you can be an influencer around anything now.

Whatever name we end up giving this new type of public figure, I think they are definitely going to be held to a higher esteem and value than they are today.

How has the perception and attitude towards YouTubers changed among brands and agencies?

The marketers have done a lot to catch up these last few years and they value what we do a lot more.

They’re beginning to recognize that we influencers are not a simple plug-and-play, where they can just say “Let’s put our bag of chips in this,” or “Let’s give them a bottle of water.”

They’re starting to take a step back and invite us in as collaborators. They’re asking what excites us and what ideas we have. It’s becoming a bit more of a conversation than it used to be.

Also, it’s interesting — as demand has increased, you see influencers being represented by four or five different managers and talent agencies. You don’t quite see that in the traditional talent world.

The fact that an influencer can be so freely represented and not be limited to one representative shows me that in some ways the influencer has more negotiating power than traditional celebrities.

I hear from a lot of the creators that “brands don’t get it.” To your point, and in my own experience, it seems as though brands are “getting it” more and more. Do you feel like creators are doing more to adapt and empathize with the brand’s perspective?

Yes and no. You and I have known each other over the years, we’ve seen people come and go.

For the most part, the ones that we’ve seen go are the ones that didn’t develop much business etiquette, or, even just the willingness to put aside some of their stubbornness to be open to some of those brand conversations and feedback.

The ones that have stayed around have been able to have conversations. They don’t just say no to an idea, they offer up solutions.

You have to be able to adapt and work towards a solution where everyone is happy with what they’re getting. It’s only a success if the creator is happy, the audience is happy, AND the brand is happy.

Some creators not willing to put forth the effort, and aren’t open to ideas or build off of ideas that are not their own.

Are you still with an MCN or are you independent?

All my channels are within different MCNs.

The deals I’ve structured are different than what most creators get. They’re in my favor more so than most of the contracts that these MCNs have with the 40,000 other people who signed with them.

What advice would you give to an up and coming creator? What kind of things would you advise them to keep an eye out for?

The first thing to keep in mind is that you’ve got a lot more negotiating power and leverage than you think.

In some cases I get 100% of my revenue. Oftentimes the MCNs will try to offer a revenue split over a certain amount of views. They say, “Hey, look, we did our math and over the last 12 months you averaged out this amount of views. We’ll do a rev-share split of this amount of views over your average amount of views.”

I say no to that because the last 12 months doesn’t mean anything to me. The last three months are going to be the most important numbers to me. And when you go down that math, you’re not going to come to an agreement.

I would also say if you’re going in with an MCN or any other company, you should do it with the idea of getting them to invest in you and your content (whether with upfronts or production support). By having them support you in creating more content, they’ll be invested in your success.

Also, limit your deal to no more than a year in length. Lastly, make sure you’re not just joining

for brand deals. Brand deals are great but you can get multiple managers and agents to represent you to get you those deals.

Where do you see the future of YouTube going? How do you juggle all these different platforms, and does YouTube have staying power?

I feel that YouTube is going to have staying power because of its massive library of content.

Facebook doesn’t have that much content, and I’m not sure if they are ever going to have it.

I think Facebook is similar to what YouTube was back in 2005-2009 — there are a lot more amateur videos and far fewer professional creator videos. YouTube on the other hand has really matured, and is closer to Netflix in the sense that the content has really developed and become more professional.

I feel that YouTube Red is a step in the right direction. And honestly, I think video platforms are going to evolve across the board between Twitter and Snapchat and everything else. We’re going to see different platforms cater to different types of content. I may go to Facebook one day to find a new viral video, but I’ll got to YouTube Red to watch something from a premier independent creator.

How do you as a content creator juggle all of these new platforms? How do you decide where to invest your time and develop an audience?  

It’s actually really natural.

I produce my content with the idea of being able to repurpose it for different platforms. So if it goes up on YouTube, it’s going to go up on Facebook. If it’s going to go up on Instagram it can go up on Vine.

Getting that content distributed across each platform isn’t really hard. I play around with each for a bit and figure out what works.

I took a great deal of interest in Facebook over a year ago and I played around with my content there and it did pretty well. Now I’m playing around with Instagram and it’s doing well there too.

I think people are thinking of their audience as being on every platform. The reality is that if it’s on YouTube, put it up on Facebook too. Put it up on Instagram. Put it up on everything you can. Do a quick edit and cut it down a little bit. Do whatever it takes. The amount of time that you’re going to put into repurposing and customizing content for each platform is going to show a return.

What’s the formula for success on YouTube? What does it take to build a successful channel?

It’s a combination of having fun and being logical. Everything I’ve ever done had to excite me and that doesn’t necessarily mean I didn’t get frustrated with it or I wanted to not do it at some point. You’re going to have speed bumps. But I was very excited to start. Very inspired. And I was very logical. I asked myself, “Okay, how much time am I putting into this? How much money am I putting into this? If this was money, how much money is this of my time? And how quick of a return can I get off of this?”

So when you go from being a personality on camera to investing into content and putting a team behind it, the decisions you make are all about ROI.

So I would say, if you want to be successful, do what you love but put some logic behind it. Put some business sense behind it.

Anything else to add?

The one thing that I will say that I’ve noticed over the years within this industry is that publicly we all say, “Yeah, everything’s all great and dandy.” But, privately you turn to your friend and you’re like, “F this. This does not make sense. This is so stupid. This is terrible. This is horrible.”

We’re all having these private conversations with each other, but we’re afraid to have them openly because we think we’re going to make people feel bad or it’s going to turn into some sort of World War III.

Developed by YouTube, the hero, hub, help strategy recommends that brands create three types of content:

HERO – You’re ‘go big’ brand/campaign moments that happen once or twice a year.

HUB – Episodic content, in a repeatable format, uploaded on a set schedule. This should be 80-90% of your brand’s videos.

HELP – Answering consumer questions or participating in trends. (because YouTube is the second largest search engine). This commonly takes the form of ‘how to’ content.

But, why does this content strategy work?  I break down the reasons.

WHY DOES HERO, HUB, HELP WORK?

For the sake of simplicity I think you can break it down into three main categories:

1. It taps into what the YouTube algorithm prioritizes (ie recency and search)
2. It  leans into viewer behavior and our inability to retain too much information
3. It makes life simpler for creators – with an established format you streamline workflow

THE ALGORITHM

YouTube prioritizes new content above old.

As a result, there’s a demand on creators to publish content at a high frequency. This is something that Matt Gielen spent a lot of time deconstructing and explaining in his post – Reverse Engineering The YouTube Algorithm: Part II. In that post Gielen sites a paper from Google which explains why this is the case:

Many hours worth of videos are uploaded each second to YouTube. Recommending this recently uploaded (“fresh”) content is extremely important for YouTube as a product. We consistently observe that users prefer fresh content, though not at the expense of relevance.

The implications of this is simple – you need to make more content to keep your channel relevant.

What’s the best way to create content frequently? Using the ‘hub’ strategy, ie content that is “episodic, and something that’s easy to replicate.”

Another major factor to keep in mind is that YouTube looks at your watch and search history – YouTube is looking at the these behaviors and searching for patterns.

Essentially, every action you take is teaching YouTube who likes what content. If you’re a channel owner you want to use this knowledge to clearly define the viewer you want and create extremely consistent content so that YouTube knows exactly who wants to see your videos.

For example, if you you create videos around surfing and you get a bunch of 30 year old males who live in one California coastal town to tune in every video. It’s safe to assume that guys of the same age, same demographics, who live in the next town over will also like it.If one day, that channel posts a ‘My Little Pony’ video then it will result in that original demographic stop watching and new demographic coming into the channel – this is confusing for YouTube to reconcile.

Which demographic should the channel be promoted to? By creating content which appeals to varied audiences, YouTub e is not going to prioritize content from that channel.

YouTube is selling ads – they want to keep people on the site longer.

As a content creator, you want to tell them, by being as specific as possible with your content, who likes your channel. Once again – the best way to accomplish this is through the ‘hub’ style, episodic content.

THE VIEWER

Why does the hero, hub, help content strategy work from the viewer standpoint?

The answer is simple – there’s so much content you need to be clear what your channel stands for. There’s 500 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute. And YouTube is just one site – you’re actually competing for competition against the entire internet – an infinite sea of content.

You’ve gotta be memorable to stand out, and the best way to accomplish that is to be simple and clear.

Ask yourself – What does my channel stand for? Am I uploading at the same days and times of week? Will a viewer know what my entire channel stands for if they watch one video?

If you can remove as many variables as possible, you’re going to make it much easier for people to keep coming back. Think about it this way – what if they don’t the see the subscribe notifications? If you are every single Wednesday at 2:00, they’re more likely remember that than if sometimes you upload Wednesday and other times you upload Saturdays or if you skip a week.

Like the saying goes K.I.S.S. – Keep It Simple Stupid.

THE CREATOR

So why does the hero, hub, help model work so well for content creators?

Perhaps the biggest reason is that by apply hero, hub, help, where ‘hub’ is the majority of your content – you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Coming up with ideas is fucking hard. On top of that, coming up with new sets, new talents, new production crew, base on the creative, all these things, it over-complicates the process.

You really want to stick to a format that you can realistically do day in day out, whatever your schedule is.

The other reason hero, hub, help works so well for content creators is that YouTube tells you what works. By going into the creator dashboard you can see audience retention on individual videos and you can see for yourself exactly where people watch and lose interests – peaks align with people watching more of a video and troughs align with where they drop off.

As a result, you, the content creator can make incremental changes over time to improve your content.

I once saw a panel with Harley Morenstein of Epic Meal Time and he spoke to how he applied these learnings to his own channel. In his analytics he was seeing peaks every time they whipped out more bacon, so they just added more and more to the channel – now bacon is one of the things Epic Meal Time is best known for.  

Oftentimes, brands and content creators want that ‘viral’ hit and the idea of making incremental changes seems unappealing. Although, it may not seem really sexy at first, over time it really adds up. The most powerful force is compound interest and that’s what these changes. Over the course of a year or two years, they make a big, big difference.

To recap why hero, hub, help works so well – you want to train YouTube and teach the platform who exactly likes your channel. The way to accomplish this is by creating ‘hub’/episodic content around a very specific topic in a consistent format. You want to make it easy for viewers to remember your channel by maintaining that consistency we discussed and posting on a set schedule. Lastly, you want to make these little changes over time and leverage the insights that YouTube provides and apply those insights to your hub series.

I was fortunate enough to do a panel on influencer marketing with Zach King, as well as give a seminar on one of my favorite topics – the Hero, Hub, Help content strategy. Below is a video of the Hero, Hub, Help talk (thanks so much to Franklin Graves for filming!).

In it I discuss the basics of the hero, hub, help content strategy (which you can read about in previous posts of mine – here, here, and here) as well as why it works and how it can be applied to social platforms beyond just YouTube.

Below is the full description of the talk and link to it on the Vidcon website. I’ve been writing a bit more lately and should have more posts coming soon!

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Hero, Hub, Help: Content Strategy for Brands

“Let’s make a viral video!” is not a strategy. Cultivating a community for ongoing conversation is the real key to the success of brands online. YouTube has developed and evangelized the Hero, Hub, Help content strategy for their own platform, but the framework can (and should) be adopted across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and beyond. In this talk Brendan Gahan will show how brands like Nike and GoPro use Hero, Hub, Help to grow their own social media footprint and explain the strategy’s underlying principles, so that others can apply it effectively across platforms.

In this post I’ll outline YouTube’s Hero, Hub, Help content strategy. It helps brands grow on YouTube. It’s a helpful framework that any brand should implement if they want to grow their community of viewers and subscribers.

The Hero, Hub, Help framework breaks out content into three key categories – Hero, Hub, and Help content. All content on a brand’s channel should fit within these categories. If it doesn’t, then don’t do it.

At its core, Hero, Hub, Help can be defined as:

HERO – The brand’s ‘go big’ moments (once or twice a year)
HUB – Recurring episodic content (majority of your channel)
HELP – Pull consumers in through search & trends

HERO CONTENT
Hero content should be Super Bowl Big!

These videos are major brand moments – product launches and major announcements. These should be limited to no more than a couple of times a year.

A great example of “Hero Content” is Budweiser’s iconic “Lost Puppy” commercial.

The ad premiered at the Super Bowl in 2015. This sixty-second spot cost cost six million dollars to air. The brand even created the custom cover of “500 Miles” which is available on iTunes. It was Budweiser’s ‘go big’ moment and they pulled out all the stops.

The ad was promoted heavily across YouTube and had a massive PR push. It paid off. On YouTube the ad generated over 30 million views

Another great example of hero content is Pepsi’s viral video “Test Drive”. Pepsi tapped Jeff Gordon, one of their biggest athletes, to go undercover. He went to a used car dealership and asked to take a car on a test drive. With the used car salesman in the passenger seat, Jeff Gordon drove like a bat out of hell. The used car sales man freaked out and hilarity ensued.

“Test Drive” did phenomenally well, it original generated over 70 million views (please note, the original video has since been removed by Pepsi – the video embedded above is a re-upload).

Pepsi put a lot of effort behind this. They got one of their biggest athletes  involved. They put a ton of PR and media behind it, and it paid off.

Hero content is all about pushing content out to support the most important brand initiatives.

Ask yourself, what are the two or three most important activations? These should be considered your Hero moments.

Additional Hero Content Examples

HUB CONTENT
Oftentimes, brands expect every piece of content needs to go ‘viral’. That’s not a realistic goal. Brands need to be careful about how they allocate resources, not everything needs to be a hit. This is where hub content comes into play.

The purpose of Hub content is to build a community. You wan to keep subscribers engaged. It’s answering the question – How do you keep people coming back?

Hub content should be episodic, and easy to replicate. Oftentimes brands think they need to reinvent the wheel. This is incorrect. You want to niche down and focus on a specific format. The reason for this is if you’re going to ask people to follow you, they’ve got to know what to expect.

Look at the popular YouTubers. All of them have a clear format that they follow. They rinse, repeat and evolve that format slowly over time versus creating content around a million different formats.

For example, Dude Perfect does trick shots. The Fine Brothers do React Videos. The Try Guys literally just try new things each video. You want to create a format around a relevant niche and then stick to that.

A great example of branded Hub content is the “Nintendo Minute” series.

“Nintendo Minute” goes live every Thursday like clockwork. It’s got the same hosts, Kit and Kayla, who are two Nintendo employees.

The show format is consistent. Kit and Kayla are on a couch, the two play games, and discuss what’s new and interesting within the Nintendo gaming community.

The production is very simple. The hosts are on a couch without a fancy set and there is a single camera set up to record them. This makes it easy for Nintendo to replicate each week without expending a ton of resources.

Nintendo Minute proves how successful Hub Content is for brands. Nintendo has produced over 350 Nintendo Minute videos, which have garnered over a 1 billion views.

By maintaining a consistent hub format your subscribers know what they’ve signed up for. Oftentimes brands vary their content too much. When this is done they pull in subscribers because of one style of video then lose them because they post something different.

Additional Hub Content Examples

HELP CONTENT
Help content is an SEO strategy. Help videos should be answering the question – “How are we (as a brand) going to help our consumer find what they’re searching for?”

Brands should not indiscriminately produce videos simply because their target audience is interested in something. Help content should be created based on where the the brand has expertise and popular search terms.

Home Depot does a great job with Help Content.

Of Home Depot’s most viewed videos, the top thirty are Help videos. The most successful video on their channel is “How to Tile a Bathroom Floor.” Other top performing content on their channel includes – ” How To Replace or Install a Toilet,” and “How To Replace or Install a Ceiling Fan.”

These aren’t sexy topics.

However, the videos are beneficial to the brand and consumer. The consumer gets their questions answered. The brand (in this case Home Depot) can highlight their products and services.

Additional Help Content Examples

THE TAKEAWAYS
Brands should be looking to the successful YouTubers and learn from them. What they’ve done so well is understand the importance of focus. Every successful creator has a hub series at the core of their channel. That hub series is what defines them and what they build a community around.

Currently, brands are far too focused on every piece of content being a ‘hero’ video. That just isn’t feasible.

Passionate communities take time to build. Be consistent. Focus on a clearly defined ‘hub’ format and with time your channel will grow.