#196: Aprilynne Alter – Breaking down the video that blew up her channel (755,000 views with <1000 subscribers!)

In this episode, my good friend and YouTube editor, Conor Conaboy, joins me in an office hours where we answer your questions about content strategy. Full transcript and show notes *** TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Here’s When You Should Quit (06:23) How Often You Should Upload (10:49) Making a Multi-Language Channel (15:18) Here’s When You Should Make a New Channel (19:10) When Viewers Watch Because of YOU (27:41) Making Content That You Like (34:36) How to Find New Content Formats (38:54) Deciding Which Platform to Create Content (40:57) Where to Find Leverage (44:43) The Hidden Opportunity in LinkedIn Video (49:18) The Easiest Thing About Growing a Podcast (52:11) “Are you happy?” *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → #185: Listener Q&A Part 1 *** WHEN YOU'RE READY 📬 Creator Science Newsletter 🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system) 🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community) 🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer *** CONNECT 🐦 Connect on Twitter 📸 Connect on Instagram 💼 Connect on LinkedIn 📹 Subscribe on YouTube *** SPONSORS 💼 View all sponsors and offers *** SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week, I spoke at ConvertKit's annual Craft and Commerce event in Boise, Idaho. It's one of my favorite events of the year, and this year may have been my favorite event ever. ConvertKit revealed that they are rebranding to Kit and making a whole slew of other product updates, including opening an in-person recording studio available to all ConvertKit customers, which is where today's recording took place. Today, I'm talking with two members of the lab who have become great friends. The first is Chenell Basilio, the writer of Growth in Reverse. Growth in Reverse is a newsletter that reverse-engineers the email growth strategies of today's top creators. Chenell has grown that subscriber base incredibly quickly because people absolutely love the deep research she does. My second guest is Becky Davidson. Becky has a background in both product and community design and now runs her own community agency called Affinity Collective. Before striking out on her own, Becky was the head of product at Boss Babe. These two women know a lot about serving audiences in a way that makes them genuinely love your work, and that's what I wanted to explore in this episode. If you wanna serve your audience in a way that is unique and memorable and remarkable, which I really think you should, then this episode is for you. Full transcript and show notes Chenell's Website / Twitter Becky's Website / Instagram *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → #147: Chenell Basilio *** WHEN YOU'RE READY 📬 Creator Science Newsletter 🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system) 🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community) 🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer *** CONNECT 🐦 Connect on Twitter 📸 Connect on Instagram 💼 Connect on LinkedIn 📹 Subscribe on YouTube *** SPONSORS 💼 View all sponsors and offers *** SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aprilynne Alter is a YouTuber who abandoned her 20,000 subscriber channel to completely start over a year ago. Over that next 8 months, she tried everything. Nothing was working until she got 755,000 views on a video she posted with less than a 1,000 subscribers. In this episode, she'll take us through the process of how it happened from ideation to upload, so you can do it too. Full transcript and show notes Aprilynne's Website / Twitter / Instagram / YouTube *** TIMESTAMPS (00:00) The Formula for a Breakthrough Video (00:43) It All Starts With an Idea (05:23) Why Make a THAT Idea (07:41) Creating the Perfect Title and Thumbnail (14:46) The Packaging That Didn’t Make it (16:57) Gathering Good Feedback (19:40) The Most Thorough Research Process You’ve Ever Seen (33:04) Writing a Script for YouTube (36:50) What Influences High Retention? (39:28) How to Edit a Breakthrough Video (41:44) What You Didn’t Know About Uploading (44:06) Why Was This THE Video that Broke Through *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → #162: George Blackman *** WHEN YOU'RE READY 📬 Creator Science Newsletter 🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system) 🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community) 🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer *** CONNECT 🐦 Connect on Twitter 📸 Connect on Instagram 💼 Connect on LinkedIn 📹 Subscribe on YouTube *** SPONSORS 💼 View all sponsors and offers *** SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained ↗ I was out for a run recently, and I was listening to a new podcast called Podcast Marketing Trends Explained. This show is co-hosted by my two friends, Jeremy Enns and Justin Jackson. Both of these guys are deep into the world of podcasting. Justin is the cofounder of Transistor, which is one of my favorite podcast hosting platforms. And Jeremy is the founder of Podcast Marketing Academy, as well as a member of The Lab. These guys are doing really great work with this podcast about podcasting. It's nerdy. It's data driven. It's everything I love about being creator and a podcaster all rolled into one. But these guys are taking a very rigorous data driven approach, and I love everything they are putting out. In particular, I loved this episode you're about to listen to. It's all about understanding why it's so hard to get your fans from other platforms to give a podcast a listen. Full transcript and show notes Justin's Twitter Jeremy's Twitter Watch this episode on YouTube *** WHEN YOU'RE READY 📬 Creator Science Newsletter 🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system) 🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community) 🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer *** CONNECT 🐦 Connect on Twitter 📸 Connect on Instagram 💼 Connect on LinkedIn 📹 Subscribe on YouTube *** SPONSORS 💼 View all sponsors and offers *** SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week, I was invited to speak at the 3rd Annual Content Entrepreneur Expo, also known as CEX. We had more than 20 members of the lab at the event. It was fantastic. We hosted a dinner on the 1st night for everyone, and we had a great time connecting, reconnecting in person, or getting to meet each other for the first time in some cases. It was also an opportunity for me to really catch up with my good friend, Justin Moore. Justin has been on the show a bunch of times, and I'll link to some of the past episodes with Justin in the show notes. He's the founder of Creator Wizard, and he is the guy to learn sponsorship strategy from. This is a super transparent look into our businesses and really our friendship. Full transcript and show notes Justin's Website / Twitter / Instagram / YouTube / TikTok Episode #179: Justin Moore Episode #178: Redesigning MY sponsorship strategy Episode #146: Justin Moore Episode #108: Justin Moore *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → #191: Breaking down my $60,723 product launch *** WHEN YOU'RE READY 📬 Creator Science Newsletter 🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system) 🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community) 🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer *** CONNECT 🐦 Connect on Twitter 📸 Connect on Instagram 💼 Connect on LinkedIn 📹 Subscribe on YouTube *** SPONSORS 💼 View all sponsors and offers *** SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jake Thomas is a title specialist whose channels have over 100 million views because he spent thousands of hours studying viral titles and the psychology of what makes people click. He’s the man who solved YouTube titles. In this episode, you'll learn, How to model titles The differences between education and entertainment channels What most creators are getting wrong And much, much more Full transcript and show notes Jake's Website / Twitter / LinkedIn *** TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Meet the Man Who Solved YouTube Titles (00:53) Title Expert Reveals What a Title Actually Does (02:34) You Should NEVER Do This With Titles… Unless (05:11) What Happens When You Write the Perfect Title (10:29) The Only 3 Emotions You Need for Better Titles (13:15) The Dark Side of YouTube Titles (and how to avoid it) (18:47) The Silent Hacks YouTubers Use To Hook You (21:31) Do NOT Make Your Titles Longer Than This (23:45) The Biggest Mistake YouTubers Make with Titles (25:51) How Pro YouTubers Actually Write Titles (34:58) Don’t Be Original *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → #125: Jake Thomas *** WHEN YOU'RE READY 📬 Creator Science Newsletter 🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system) 🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community) 🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer *** CONNECT 🐦 Connect on Twitter 📸 Connect on Instagram 💼 Connect on LinkedIn 📹 Subscribe on YouTube *** SPONSORS 💼 View all sponsors and offers *** SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to a bonus episode of Creator Science. A couple of months ago, I got a direct message on Twitter from Ali Abdaal. He said he loved what I was doing with The Lab, my membership community, and he had heard great things about the experience. He was in the early stages of building his own membership community, coincidentally called Productivity Lab, and he wanted to ask me some questions. He suggested that we record the episode as a coaching call for his podcast Deep Dive, and I thought it was a great idea. So we spoke for a little bit over an hour, and I helped him think through how he was designing this new membership. Get $200 off Build A Beloved Membership Watch this episode on YouTube Subscribe to Deep Dive Full transcript and show notes *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → My most recent Listener Q&A *** WHEN YOU'RE READY 📬 Creator Science Newsletter 🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system) 🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community) 🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer *** CONNECT 🐦 Connect on Twitter 📸 Connect on Instagram 💼 Connect on LinkedIn 📹 Subscribe on YouTube *** SPONSORS 💼 View all sponsors and offers *** SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earlier this month, I launched a brand new product called CreatorHQ. The way I’ve come to describe CreatorHQ is a complete operating system for creators – it’s literally the system I’ve built for myself in Notion to run the entire Creator Science business. I use CreatorHQ every day. It houses all my goals, projects, tasks, content, CRM, sponsorship campaigns – everything! This episode was prepared in CreatorHQ. It’s the glue that keeps my business together and keeps the trains running. And I knew if I made it available for other creators, it’d help you too. So I launched this on April 11 and had some bonuses available for those who purchased before April 15. It was my first true LAUNCH of something, and I put a lot of time and effort into it. Between April 11 and April 15, CreatorHQ generated $60,723. In this episode you'll learn About my launch strategy The good things I'd do again The bad things I'd do differently And a few things that I'm still indifferent about Full transcript and show notes Get CreatorHQ (use promo code PODCAST) Episode #158 with Kieran Drew Episode #184 with Amy Porterfield *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → #158: Kieran Drew *** WHEN YOU'RE READY 📬 Creator Science Newsletter 🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system) 🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community) 🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer *** CONNECT 🐦 Connect on Twitter 📸 Connect on Instagram 💼 Connect on LinkedIn 📹 Subscribe on YouTube *** SPONSORS 💼 View all sponsors and offers *** SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chenell is the writer of Growth In Reverse, a weekly newsletter where she reverse engineers how a top creator grew from 0 to 50k+ subscribers. Chenell has done deep dives on Justin Welsh, Codie Sanchez, Lenny Rachitsky, Harry Dry, and many more. I read it every week and think it’s incredibly well-done. The premise is super clear, and as a result, Chenell has seen her OWN newsletter grow very quickly – nearing 10,000 subscribers in just about four months. In this episode, you’ll learn: The common patterns between these newsletter operators Some of the most effective growth tactics she’s uncovered And what’s working for HER right now Full transcript and show notes Follow Chenell on Twitter / LinkedIn Subscribe to Growth In Reverse *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → #145: Matt McGarry *** WHEN YOU'RE READY 📬 Creator Science Newsletter 🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system) 🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community) 🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer *** CONNECT 🐦 Connect on Twitter 📸 Connect on Instagram 💼 Connect on LinkedIn 📹 Subscribe on YouTube *** SPONSORS 💼 View all sponsors and offers *** SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

WATCH ▶️ Watch this episode on YouTube *** EPISODE DESCRIPTION Tony Santos is a YouTube editor with over a decade of experience working with people like Thomas Frank and Noah Kagan. With his own YouTube channel, Tony has built a reputation for helping creators and editors communicate in a more positive way, which makes him the perfect person to teach us how to find, hire, and work with great YouTube editors. In this episode, you'll learn, Where to look for an editor How to evaluate a potential hire when you're not an editor yourself And much, much more. Full transcript and show notes Tony's Website / YouTube / Twitter / Instagram *** TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Meet Tony Santos (00:56) Where to Find Editors (05:53) When to Hire (09:04) What to Pay Editors (16:22) Misaligned Expectations (18:56) Per Project vs Hourly vs Retainer (25:46) How to Reach Out to Editors (27:30) Evaluating a Portfolio (29:15) Editing Skill Expectations (33:15) Workflow Expectations (34:43) Timeline and Revisions (37:55) How to Give Feedback (41:59) Nurturing Long Term Relationships *** RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE → #175: Angus Parker *** WHEN YOU'RE READY 📬 Creator Science Newsletter 🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system) 🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community) 🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer *** CONNECT 🐦 Connect on Twitter 📸 Connect on Instagram 💼 Connect on LinkedIn 📹 Subscribe on YouTube *** SPONSORS 💼 View all sponsors and offers *** SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices