How To Grow Your Youtube Channel with Billy Parisi: Mediavine On Air Episode 25

Thinking about extending your blog brand to YouTube?

Billy Parisi, founder of Billy Parisi Media and Visual Culture Inc, joins Jenny Guy, Senior Director of Marketing in a conversation about his firsthand experience in determining what works and what doesn’t when it comes to growing your channel.

In this episode, Billy shares his top tips for getting started plus helpful inspiration and resources. Don’t miss it!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Helpful Resources

• Billy’s Presentation
• Billy’s Website
• Billy’s Youtube Channel
• Billy’s Recipes

Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING] JENNY GUY: Hey. Hello, everybody. Hi. Happy Thursday. It’s May 20. And that means it is time for another episode of Teal Talk. Hello. I am your host, Jenny Guy. And believe it or not, it is rapidly approaching Memorial Day weekend and the official start of summer. Does anyone have big plans for next weekend? Does anyone have anything exciting going on? Lake? Cookouts? Tell us about it. Are our summer bods ready more importantly? Do we care about that anymore?

Personally I am in camp. So happy that vaccinations are readily available and normal things are slowly beginning to happen again. And that’s all that matters to me. So summer bod or not, I’m happy about it. But I did purchase some sunless tanner just to cover my bases. Try to be a little normalcy. That’s normal for me. I’m translucent.

I did eat at a restaurant the last couple of weeks. Almost cried. Went to the dentist. And it was practically a religious experience. I think the hygienist was freaked out by how happy I was to be at the dental office. But I was just very– and don’t get me wrong. I’m in no way saying that everything is peachy keen and COVID is over. I know that’s not true at all. But compared to the wasteland of last summer, it feels pretty nice to have a little more security and a little bit of hope and all of those things. I don’t know how you guys are feeling.

But if you’re just joining us, again it is Thursday, May 20. I am Jenny Guy, the host of Teal Talk. And I would love to hear if you have plans for Memorial Day. And like it or not, the truth is the year is flying buy and with it, potentially many of our goals that we set for ourselves in January. I don’t know if you’re a January goal setter. But it’s almost halfway through the year. And I find no shame here. I congratulate all of us for just surviving. But if one of your goals for 2021 was to grow your YouTube channel or even if you’re just a little YouTube curious, today’s episode is absolutely for you.

We have got Billy Parisi. And he’s here to share all his top tips plus a very special offer for anyone who is ready to up their video game. So let’s meet Billy. Billy, welcome to Teal Talk.

BILLY PARISI: Hey, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Good to see you.

JENNY GUY: Thanks for coming. It’s great to see you too. OK, I’m going to read your highly impressive bio so that we can all be highly impressed. Ready? Here we go.

Branching out into the digital and social landscape after 15 years as a chef in the culinary industry, Billy Parisi is a true culinary media entrepreneur. His work has been seen on network television, online with unique views in the millions, as well as across new and emerging media channels. His company, Billy Parisi Media and Visual Culture Inc is a boutique digital and social agency specializing in cooking, food and beverage content creation that is proven through experience and analytics. Very impressive, Billy.

BILLY PARISI: Thanks, Jen.

JENNY GUY: I’m humbled. OK. If you have questions about YouTube, we have some that we were gathering in the group and on the public Facebook page. But if you have questions for Billy or me, drop them in the comments. We will get them filtered. But to start out with, I have a question for you. Everyone out there watching coming in, do you have a favorite YouTube vlogger? And if so, do they also have a blog that you follow? I’m curious to find out how that works. Drop them in there. Give us some pointers.

Billy, let’s start at the top though. Tell us about your journey from chef to content creator videographer, and the growth of your own YouTube channel.

BILLY PARISI: Yeah. Sure. So I got in the restaurant industry when I was 13, probably not legal. But my dad’s buddy owned a restaurant. And I started dishwashing. Worked my way up. Loved all things culinary, went to culinary school, graduated, spent four years professionally in the industry, hated it at the end, when back to college at the University of Missouri, changed my degrees completely to a major in communications and an emphasis in video production. And upon graduation, I’m just praying, please don’t touch food. And then within a month, I was taking pictures and shooting video inside of a restaurant.

I’m like, OK. It’s 9:00 to 5:00 though. I’m not working 80 hours a week. So there’s maybe something to this.

JENNY GUY: Yes.

BILLY PARISI: So I would love to tell you but I won’t. I’ll let you do the search because I wish it was stricken from the record. But I had some interesting people come front and center in 2008 about a possible idea online. Will not tell you the name of it. You can search for it yourself. And we started launching YouTube back then in end of 2008. And we found some success there. Unfortunately, when the recession happened 2009, it was something we had to scrap. And I started putting videos on in 2009, 2010.

And my whole thought process was, I’m going to throw videos out there. Everyone’s going to see them. I’m going to get millions of views. It’s going to skyrocket. Even though I was consistent, I never really had that story. I struggled, struggled, struggled until probably the summer of 2019 to be completely honest with you. And I mean, my full credit to my success, or anything I’ve done on YouTube, I always say goes to Tim Schmoyer’s class video labs that I took a couple summers ago. It not only transformed my YouTube channel but transformed my brand and kind of who I am as a blogger, and really put my stake in the ground.

So once I took his class, and really put all those things into practice, I was gung ho about it too. I wanted real time data. So I upped my videos every week so I could see all of my stats and kind of perform real time, what do I want to say, applications to my next video so I can just go. So I wasn’t shooting three months out. I was shooting a couple times a week for the next week. So when I saw the data, what needs to be changed, I changed it. And then I’d be able to go the next week and see what that look like and so on, and so forth.

So anything that I feel like that I even know that I’ve been successful. And I’ve watched so many YouTube videos on how to be a successful blogger. And this was for sure the one that stuck with me. And the whole time– and I always say it. And if you’ve ever been on Video Labs, this will almost be like a mini refresher course for you. But going through it, I kept thinking, this is so dumb. No way this is going to work. And then, whoop. You just see it. And it was absolutely incredible to watch.

JENNY GUY: So everyone, don’t worry about having those links. Because when this is over, Billy’s put some great notes in a PowerPoint that we’re going to drop in. And it also has a link to everything he’s talking about. So no worries about trying to grab those links. We’ll have those. OK. So you said that you had been posting content to YouTube since about 2009 ish. But you didn’t really see success until 2019. How do your blog and your YouTube exist in harmony, in tandem? Do they help each other?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah. For sure. So there’s definitely a school of thought, and a lot of YouTubers you notice don’t have blogs. That’s where it’s pretty unique for Mediavine specific. And I would say the most successful YouTubers that are especially for me in the food world don’t have blogs at all. And I think that’s why they found so much success on YouTube because I think there’s a different personality there. I think there is the content is different.

In the food world, I’m most likely trying to fill a gap or be a part of a specific food series, or just based on research, hey, here’s the recipe I’m going to do today. So I’ve operated that way. But I think grounding myself in some sort of foundational principles for my YouTube channel’s helped me find success where it feeds to my blog and feeds off of my blog. And I want those to work together. However, this is the most important thing I will tell you. You have to consider and think about YouTube being its own channel. It is not a blog extension. It is nothing of the sort.

We all talk about diversification of income. And you have to keep it and think of it as that. People on YouTube need to stay on YouTube. YouTube doesn’t want people clicking off to go to your blog. They want people staying there. So treat it as its own channel. Just start there and I promise you, you’ll think differently and start having more success over there as well.

JENNY GUY: Less as a funnel towards your website, more as an extension of your brand in both directions.

BILLY PARISI: 100%.

JENNY GUY: OK. Have you seen your YouTube success help you in terms of your brand on the website?

BILLY PARISI: Oh yeah. For sure. For sure. Because there are several times where people will pop onto my site, or I might drop my website when I’m talking. Hey, maybe I didn’t make it in the recipe video. But I pull out some corn tortillas and I mentioned, hey I have a great recipe of corn tortillas. Here’s my website. You can use those little I-cards that sort of pop up right here on the corner. They can click and bounce off.

But it’s also the ability to take those videos and embed them through Mediavine’s video player into my website and specific page, or even leveraging the YouTube video player in the video card, or excuse me, the recipe card at the bottom. So and it doesn’t have to be obviously recipe specific. Whatever your blog niche is, DIY, travel, whatever it may be.

JENNY GUY: Do you do– well, I’m going to go back into my order of questions because I could just spiral off into a million things. So what YouTube channels inspire you? And how you use that inspiration on your own channel?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah. Food, as we all know, is extremely saturated on YouTube. So it’s really–

JENNY GUY: Everywhere.

BILLY PARISI: Everywhere. It’s even harder to kind of cut through the static. So one guy that I love on food, and it’s probably because I’m going to be 40 this year, and I think he’s 25. I love Joshua Weissman. The dude cracks me up. He’s who I was like 15 years ago. And I’m just not– I’m married and have a kid these days. So not that you’re not cool and fun. But you know what I’m saying. I got different responsibilities these days.

JENNY GUY: Yeah. I get it.

BILLY PARISI: So love Weissman. I’ve always loved Binging with Babish. And–

JENNY GUY: His voice.

BILLY PARISI: Yeah. Yeah. Those guys to me push me in the personality, recipe creation area. And I love from a beauty standpoint, it’s probably because he’s a professional photographer and videographer, Peter McKinnon. When I just watch his videos, I’m just like, gosh, it’s beautiful. Everything he does. And even some good friends of mine who have a very popular YouTube channel Mango Street, they pretty much, how do I say this? Whoever has a specific style, they show you how to replicate that style through Adobe Premiere, Lightroom, Photoshop. Very cool channel, but it’s beautiful.

So I always try to think, what’s my personality? Who am I? And how do I couple that with, how do I make this video look as beautiful as possible?

JENNY GUY: So let’s carry that into– Mango Street sounds like an amazing resource just to say that to replicate those styles. But OK, so what are the questions that every content creator, and most of who’s watching here have their website. So you’re coming from a website. You have a couple of established niches, maybe one. You have your content. You have a brand at some point in your journey. What are the questions they need to ask themselves as they work on their YouTube channel?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah, I think number one is why would anyone watch your content? You have to ask yourself that. What makes me unique? And why does someone want to watch it? And then two, and this is very Video Labs Tim Schmoyer to ask is, what value are you providing? What are you giving these folks that is different or that is going to help them? Honestly, it’s just as simple as that. And then think of it as, why would someone buy from you? Why are they choosing to buy from you over someone else?

JENNY GUY: Very, very helpful. And then also then getting into your audience. Do you need to get granular about who’s watching? I mean, as a marketer, as a person who works in digital marketing, I hear the term avatar constantly. And we’re not talking about the James Cameron film. We’re talking about the person who– who do you want to watch your channel? Do you use that in terms of content development?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah, I think that’s evolved for me. One as I’ve obviously gotten older. And my life has changed dramatically. I’ve moved in the last year. So things are different. And the reason people gravitate towards a YouTube channel and hit that, that Subscribe button is the Holy Grail to some people. For me, I have no shame. I’ll ask anyone to be my friend on LinkedIn because maybe I’ll get something in the end. But that YouTube subscription, you need to really sell me. And I want to be dedicated to you. Because obviously you’re offering me something that I can’t get anywhere else.

So I literally listed out, who is the exact person that I’m talking to? And for me, I’m stuck in a range of 25 to 65, but more specifically people that already know how to cook, who enjoy cooking, and I’m teaching them how to hone skills. They live in a certain area. They have a family. All these nitty gritty details. I think it’s incredibly important because you’re replicating yourself and who you’re talking to. No one’s 80 and talks to an 18-year-old in a YouTube video. You’re talking to yourself. Or there might be some, oh my gosh. That reminds me of my grandpa. Whatever.

But for the most part, your biggest audience are going to be you. They want to relate to you. They want to relate to your experiences that you have. And I know they always say, be authentic. Be vulnerable. YouTube, there is no better place to do that because that’s where people get a chance to see the real you.

JENNY GUY: So you’re thinking about that audience, you’re draining it down, and you think largely. But some of the key things that I heard you say were one, you’re not talking to people who are beginning cooks. You’re not talking to people that you’re trying to sell them on the concept of cooking. That’s an immediate divider right there instantly is that you’re now talking to people that are more experienced, which is going to cut down your audience base. Is that a thing to be scared of?

BILLY PARISI: No, I think that’s an opportunity to me for growth. Like I said, YouTube food is what would make me want to subscribe to this person? Well one, because I already know how to cook. And this guy can clearly cook. So he’s teaching me how to be better at my skills. So what if– and I also want to be able to be applicable to someone who is just starting off and needs basic skills. There is a part of that. But my niche focus is people who love to cook, people who already have a solid foundation on how to cook and how to grow that.

So once you find whatever your niche is, you could be a 30 minute meal person. You could be basic culinary, not even culinary basics, but oh my gosh, I just graduated from college. Here I am. You’ll always get new– people grow up from 14 to 18 into 22. You’re constantly going to refeed your audience just based on time evolving.

So it doesn’t have to be– you can’t be all things to all people. And that’s something you learn big time on YouTube as well because I would say this. They say once you hit 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, you get a plaque. And they say you should get that plaque and a psychologist. Because the trolling is another level on YouTube then you’ve ever seen. Beyond Facebook, beyond Instagram, people will pierce your soul on YouTube. And it’s something you’re just going to have to deal with.

Thank gosh I spent 15 years in the restaurant industry. And not too much really bothers me anymore. But you’ll get it. But that’s a good thing. Having trolls is a good thing because it lets people know that you stand for something. And when you build up that audience, your audience will– you don’t even have to do nothing. You just sit back because people are like, then don’t watch. He’s not for you. He’s for us.

JENNY GUY: How dare you? His tortillas are amazing. Back off. Yeah.

BILLY PARISI: You never know.

JENNY GUY: So everyone out there watching, to fill in, do you already have a YouTube channel? Tell us. Do you have one? What are your struggles with them? Post it in there in the comments right now. Billy, so we’ve talked about what kind of value you’re delivering. We’ve talked about thinking of your channel as a product. We’ve identified the audience and niching down to the people you want to talk to. What are the three things that spell success for a video on YouTube?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah. Audience engagement, watch time, and emotional connection. So audience engagement, people liking, sharing, commenting, watch time. What’s the retention rate? Are they watching through all the video, most of the video? Are they dropping off at the beginning, in the middle, knowing what that is? And to me, emotional connection. And that one’s probably– I would say for on a personal level, when you watch something that just tugs at your memory, or your heart, or whatever, of course you’re glued. You’re sucked in. Think of all this shows you binge watch on Netflix or any other channel.

It’s the same way. But if you can get people in an emotional connection to you, I mean you are sold. They are lifelong subscribers. And to me, that could almost be number one. You get that off the bat, oh, you’re golden.

JENNY GUY: OK, how do you get it?

BILLY PARISI: How do you get it? Oh gosh. I wish there was this perfect, do this exactly and you will grow. But a lot of that has to do with that value kind of that you provide. And one of the things Tim is really good at teaching is, and I know his class has changed so he doesn’t do this too much anymore, so this is Video Labs years ago. And he talks about that value proposition. And that took me years to figure out who I am, what do I believe, what’s my culinary point of view so to speak.

And once I started saying that in my videos, people just started repeating it in the comments. It was crazy. And it was these little things that work. It was an emotional connection. But it’s also storytelling. That is a huge, huge piece of it, telling stories. And that’s something I struggle with. I don’t have a story about every recipe that I’ve ever created. I mean, most of y’all don’t either. That’s why we used to write crazy blogs with this wild story about how at 3:00 PM I was frolicking in the field with wine and cheese. And I decided to make this elegant recipe. No. No. No. No. No. A lot of it’s made up. I’m not pulling any chains here.

So I think having that value proposition, what are you delivering? And you can tell them, especially when you’re starting off, tell them who you are and what you believe. And I don’t do it too much anymore in my videos since my sort of subscriptions have grown. But I for a long time, I told them, here’s who I am. Here’s what I believe. And here’s how I’m going to help you achieve those things. And then yeah. That emotional connection, some of my most popular videos are when I start talking about a specific recipe that I’ve made with my grandma, or my dad, or anything like that.

Because that tugs at the memory and those emotional heart strings where people are like, I had that same experience with my aunt, or my mom, or my brother, or my sister. And that’s what really sucks people in. And that’s something that takes work. It takes reps. YouTube to me has been the absolute hardest channel to grow by far out of any other social channel because it takes so much work and so much tweaking. You can put a picture up on Facebook. And it might take off. But no one knows the story behind that. They want the recipe. They click the link.

When you’re on camera and you are being vulnerable to people and sort of exposing everyone, here’s what– not exposing. But here’s who I am.

JENNY GUY: Exposing your inner feelings and thoughts. Please, this is a different word. It’s not OnlyFans. That’s a different channel.

BILLY PARISI: So yeah. So letting people know. Putting your guard down, here’s who I am and here’s what I’m about. I think that just immediately connects with people. And ask yourself the folks that you follow on YouTube, why do you follow them obviously? Those same things.

JENNY GUY: Fantastic. All helpful. OK, so we’ve got some comments from our audience. One is, I do have a YouTube channel. I’m on a break. Making videos are a lot of work. Truth. Growth on YouTube has been really slow and steady for me. Haven’t really been able to get anything to kick off. I have a Hawaiian food channel. That sounds awesome.

BILLY PARISI: That does sound awesome. Yeah, for sure.

JENNY GUY: I want Hawaiian food now. Filming, editing, posting, all of those things take up a lot of time. So you said something interesting that I want to isolate because I’m not sure that we’re all on the same page. You said, it takes a lot of reps.

BILLY PARISI: Yeah.

JENNY GUY: What the heck are you talking about?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah. It takes a lot of videos honestly, and tweaking of those videos. You can do your searches yourself. The very first video I’ve ever created I wish was completely stricken from the internet. But it’s out there. It’s out there. And it’s so bad. And I was terrible. But I learned. You have to learn. And a lot of that comes through looking at analytics afterwards and how that video performed. But you have to learn your own workflow. And once you start doing more, it does get easier. And you will start saving time because you know that, oh my gosh, my setup time is quicker. This recipe is faster. And I know what my voiceover is going to be.

Once you start doing more of those things, it will get easier and it will get quicker. But it does take time. And think about this. Think of the most beautiful movie you’ve ever seen. No one put that together in one month. No one put that together in two months. In fact, it probably took over a year, maybe even two years sometimes. I think Titanic took two years to film. So these things take a lot of time to create. And when I first started really getting more involved with food video, I always would tell myself, this is hard and it sucks. Gosh dang it. It’s hard. It’s so time consuming.

And then I would always tell myself, man. Anything that is really good does take time. And anything worth doing is worth doing right. I would just constantly repeat those things to myself. And it does it. It will pay off. But I also want to say this.

One thing that I’ve learned in working– I’ve worked in corporate America on the branded side of businesses. I’ve been on million dollar shoots. And guess what? A lot of times those million shoots rendered 2,000 views on YouTube. Guess what? I’ve seen a 65-year-old woman in her basement with a phone camera get five million views. So the production value and quality is one thing. But it’s definitely not the main thing.

So if you are constantly stressed out about, this doesn’t look perfect, I don’t have the right angle, the right view, that will come with reps and with time.

JENNY GUY: So how do you practice? How do you fix– how do you get yourself better at it?

BILLY PARISI: Well getting in front of a camera and doing it. I mean, that’s the biggest thing, pressing record. I remember when I decided to go to the video production route. At the University of Missouri, we have a huge journalism school. And my buddy who was at that J school is like, you just got to take the camera and start shooting it. I’m like, OK. So I got it. I would drive around and hang my camera out the window. I would go to the park and shoot a leaf or a bug or an animal. Whatever it was.

It’s just getting comfortable with that camera so that it’s second nature of, OK. I need to focus. I need to white balance. I need to hit record. Go. If you’re not comfortable with that camera first of all operating it, it’s going to make this a heck of a lot harder. But it also just takes doing. Do it two and three times a week. I know that seems like a lot and it takes a lot of time. But it will get easier and easier. And a lot of bloggers and a lot of YouTube, they bulk shoot. I’m not saying you should do that, and you probably shouldn’t do that at the beginning because the worst thing you do is you 20 videos that no one likes.

JENNY GUY: And they all suck

BILLY PARISI: Yeah, that’s why I always try to shoot one, two, three in a week so that I can get some real time data to see, oh gosh. That didn’t work too well. Or I spoke way too long at the beginning. Or I didn’t talk long enough about this because I obviously got a lot of questions about something. So you just learn. And I’m still evolving. I think I’ll hit around 220,000 subscribers sometime this week if I’m not there. I don’t. I don’t check it all the time. But it takes– it just has– and I’m still tweaking it until I get to that million or 10 million. It’s constant change. But it’s reps. I’m constantly doing it every single week.

JENNY GUY: You also never stop on any kind of content development or any kind of– you can’t stop and blogging. You can’t. You have to keep evolving. That’s definitely something. As the technology evolves, as you evolve as a human.

BILLY PARISI: And adapting. Equipment changes. Things change. Settings change. Food changes. I mean, all those things you have to take into consideration. But don’t stress out about them either. Again, start shooting. Just start shooting anything if you’re not comfortable with shooting. And plan on maybe those first few videos not going live. OK? Edit them–

JENNY GUY: Keep them private.

BILLY PARISI: Edit them, watch them, and be like, oh my gosh. I messed that up. I messed that up. That looks terrible. Oh that looks really good. I’ll save that for the next time. And learn and grow. I mean can you tell I’m Italian. All I do is talk with my hands. Yeah. Just practice. And that’s what I mean by getting reps and just doing it.

JENNY GUY: OK, so in terms of– one of the things I’ve heard and a lot of people are commenting on this, they have smaller followings, they’re concerned because they’re not growing. But they also don’t have time to blend it with creating their regular content. So can you talk about a workflow that incorporates shooting video with shooting photography with recipe development? How do you get it all in?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah, it’s a lot. It’s almost a full day. So whatever recipe that I’m creating, and that could be one that I’m redoing, filling a gap, part of a series, whatever it is, I decide on what that recipe is, I create a video for it, when the video’s done shooting, I take pictures of it, then I go edit my video. It is as simple as that. There’s no perfect dreamy workflow that I can tell you. The hard part is if you’re bulk shooting it. Because you can only shoot so much.

Unless you have set up all artificial light, you have blackout shades, no lighting changes, you could go all hours of the night if you want to. And it also depends on what style of video you’re doing. Are you doing your basic top down tasty style? Are you shooting more lifestyle on camera, show style video production, which takes time?

But again, YouTube– you have to think of YouTube as a separate channel. And it can work with your blog. And it does work well with my blog. But you also have to consider that it is its own entity. And you have to grow it as such. You can’t think of, oh my gosh. My YouTube needs to point to my blog. My blog needs– I mean, your blog can point to YouTube all day long. I mean, honestly if you click videos on my website, it actually goes to my YouTube playlist. It doesn’t even go to a videos link on my website. So I’d say that.

JENNY GUY: We’ve got a question from Sherelle, the Hawaiian food blogger, which I definitely want to go see her food. How many hours a day do you spend on a video– oh how many hours do you spend on a video and blog post generally?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah, well it depends on the recipe. And if I’m doing sour dough, it’s like a two day affair. But let’s just say it’s your basic one hour meal. It usually takes me in between three to four hours to shoot everything. Sometimes less. Sometimes two, 2 and 1/2. That includes talking to camera in my style, all the B roll, everything that I possibly need once I’m done with– let me back up.

So when I shoot a recipe on video, I shoot all my B roll first. I shoot the recipe in its entirety. Close, medium, wide shots, whatever it is, my hands working, I do all of that. Then when that’s over, I sit down on camera. I’m at medium shot. I’m sitting at this table that I’m at right now, which you’ll see in my latest YouTube videos. And I do an intro, I talk a little bit about the recipe, and I do an outro. Then I’ll shoot the pictures that I need for my YouTube still for the website.

And then I will go and edit everything together. And then I’ll voiceover all of that wonderful B roll that I shot and talk through it in steps of what I did. And then I’ll take– I mean, I’ll take screenshots. And then I’ll write the blog post, and then I’ll edit the pictures, then I’ll take screenshots in the video. Because I like to do step-by-step images in my blog post too just in case someone doesn’t have time to watch the video. And then I’ll put those in as well. It is tedious. It’s not easy. And especially when you’re doing it by yourself. Trust me, I get it. I am right there with you. There’s nothing that I’m holding back. It’s just it is hard. And it is a process. You just have to figure out what your process is, how to save time, and how to do it as efficiently as possible.

JENNY GUY: It sounds like a lot of things. So how did you determine which recipes– now it sounds like it’s all part and parcel. The recipe comes with the video. They come together. But if you are starting out a YouTube channel, how did you choose the recipes from your blog that you felt would perform the best on YouTube? Was that a trial and error? Did you find any hidden things that– this recipe is going to crush it on YouTube.

BILLY PARISI: Yeah, well it’s funny. All the recipes that I thought would crush it didn’t. All the recipes I thought sucked killed it. So it’s go figure. That’s just how it works. All the ones that I spent so much time on, this is going to be amazing, and it just didn’t perform up to standards.

For me personally in my blog, I had a lot of like, how do I say this, immersion recipes of taking Southern food and combining with Italian food. So I didn’t have a core staple of, well jeez, what is my take on lasagna? I didn’t have those basic– what’s my take on stir-fry? What’s my take from my professional culinary experience on a lot of your everyday recipes? And that’s how I started when I sort of reinvented myself back in 2019 and started pushing it out there. I wanted them to look a certain way. I wanted my recipes to be approachable.

And then even when we got in the COVID era, I wanted to provide as many substitutions as possible because you just couldn’t get certain things. And that was very– I would say during COVID, I mean probably like many of y’all bloggers, you saw a big time increase in clicks and views.

JENNY GUY: We’ve got a compliment now that says, on your site now Billy and your photos are so beautiful.

BILLY PARISI: You are very kind. Thank you.

JENNY GUY: Do you think it is necessary to create a channel or a welcome video?

BILLY PARISI: I do. That lets people know exactly out of the gate who you are. And you can always point people to that video. I actually even use that video on my about me because there’s so much history. I have pictures of my–

JENNY GUY: On your about me on your blog and and your YouTube?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah, for sure. Because it’s so much about who I am. And like I said, that course was game changing for me because it made me– it grounded me and said, this is who I am. This is what I believe from a culinary standpoint. Because I never had that on my blog. I never had slow cooker man– So I didn’t have a culinary–

JENNY GUY: It’s your name.

BILLY PARISI: Yeah, right. Slow cooker man. So I didn’t have a foundation of, here’s who I am and here’s what I believe. And now you’ll see it. It’s included at my name on the top. It says cooking techniques and homemade recipes. I go in and I expand upon that in my YouTube videos so people really understand, here’s what I am and here’s what I’m creating. So yeah. I would just say– yeah. I don’t know.

JENNY GUY: That’s OK. It’s trial and error. You got to find out. So we have– I knew we’d get questions about this. We have a question from Facebook. We have a question here. And it’s going to tie into another question. We’ve got people asking, Vickie says, how do you get people to click through to your blog? Do you use the YouTube video links on your blog or Mediavine videos? We also had a question from Sarah Jane Parker. How do we grow our YouTube channel when we don’t embed YouTube videos into our blog post? I use the Mediavine player.

Embedding YouTube videos and posts helps to grow my channel, but I make more money embedding the Mediavine video player.

BILLY PARISI: That last one was about search? Is that what you said?

JENNY GUY: No, no, no, no, no. She’s asking about using the player versus embedding a– so–

BILLY PARISI: I mean, you’ve got to remember too. If all of your– let’s say this. If a majority of your visits are coming to your blog through organic search, they’re not looking for you. They’re looking for the recipe unfortunately. You hope they can be tied to you in some way. That doesn’t always happen. Usually that shows through in video and personality and things like that on your YouTube channel. Your website can absolutely help grow your YouTube channel. But again, I don’t know. I can’t stress it enough. They have to operate differently. They just do.

If you start having that mindset, you will be more successful. And I remember Tim used to always, always tell me that is just like, you have to start thinking differently. You can’t think of, my blog has to grow and my YouTube has to grow. They have to be together. Everything is synced. I mean, I’ve even tried different things on my YouTube channel that I knew it’s more what YouTube wants. But it doesn’t necessarily go well on my blog. But I figure out how to make it work.

For example, OK, one of the last videos I did I guess about a month or so ago, the five most popular salad dressings. How do I fit that on a blog?

JENNY GUY: You don’t.

BILLY PARISI: It sucked. I wrote five blog posts, one for each of the recipes. So–

JENNY GUY: But you know what? You created great SEO for yourself. And now they’re all interlinked.

BILLY PARISI: Right. And I have another one coming up. And this is going to be so controversial and I can’t wait to do it. Southern style cornbread versus sweet cake style cornbread. So but I wrote two blog posts. I wrote one for each. Now, my blog is my baby. And I’m sure it’s most of your baby. But now I’m starting to think, how can I make YouTube very entertaining, and very fun, and very recipe driven still, and also work with my blog? What do I have to tweak about my video to make it work for my blog instead of, how do I tweak my blog to make it work for my YouTube?

I’m starting YouTube first and thinking about on my blog. Because my blog’s pretty steady at this point as far as numbers go. And I want to grow my YouTube even more. Because I think there’s more opportunity there. Because no one gets YouTube, no one does this. You don’t put out a recipe and the next day you have a million page views on your recipe the next day. But it could happen on YouTube. And that’s the difference. That is 100% the difference.

So if you start thinking different about YouTube being a separate channel and being its own entity, you will have way more success there.

JENNY GUY: I will also add to that. When we– there are ways that you can grow your YouTube channel while embedding your videos on even the Mediavine video player. So you’re double dipping in effect. You’re getting the money payout from the video while putting in a card that says, if you’re interested in my videos, click here. We’ll take you to my YouTube. There’s ways to do it. But guys, I would say that the main difference, and this is what I wanted to lead into, is length.

Because guys, people are not watching five minute videos on your website. They’re just not. They might be watching them on YouTube. They probably are. But there’s a difference in length. So if you can shoot something really great on YouTube and then edit it down to be on your blog and be a great minute, 45 seconds to minute long trailer for the recipe, now you’re talking.

BILLY PARISI: One thing I learned that was very important for length is make it as long as it needs to be. And that can vary. Is it a 3 minute recipe? Is it an 18 minute recipe? As long as it needs to be to get everything across that you need to get across that shows your personality, your expertise, and what you’re trying to highlight from the viewer or whatever your hands are doing. Like I said, it could be DIY, travel, make up, food, whatever it is. Get what you need to get across in whatever time it needs to be.

Now again, adapting it to your blog, like Jenny said, you can cut that down. I choose not to. I don’t have that kind of time to go through all my B roll to figure it out. And it’s worked fine for me. I think I’d much would rather have those long videos with tons of explanations so there’s no hiccups when they’re making my recipe and they get it down pat. If you have a very simple recipe, hey, I’m making chocolate chip cookies. OK, it’s 8 to 10 ingredients. You put in a bowl, mix it, and throw– I don’t need explanation for that. It is what it is.

JENNY GUY: Some people do.

BILLY PARISI: OK, fine. Fair enough. And my niche is very focused on, again, the cook who already knows how to cook. So I’m not necessarily making chocolate chip cookies.

JENNY GUY: Right. It’s more advanced. There’s steps.

BILLY PARISI: Yeah, I’m making that classic lasagna Bolognese like it was done in Italy. You already know how to cook. Let’s make this how– I didn’t even mean to do that. Let’s make this how it’s supposed to be.

JENNY GUY: Yeah. But like we’re saying, there’s no denying that you’re going to make more money by embedding through the Mediavine player.

BILLY PARISI: For sure.

JENNY GUY: But trying to grow– they’re separate. Do the things on YouTube to grow yourself on YouTube.

BILLY PARISI: That’s it.

JENNY GUY: And I think also what I’m hearing you say is that the fans are not necessarily the same.

BILLY PARISI: Oh my gosh. No, no, no, no. I’m 75– my demographics are 75% women, 25% male on my website. YouTube’s 50-50 right down the middle. And the age bracket is even different. So it’s just a different audience. The way we blog now, we answer questions, and the personalities kind of–

JENNY GUY: For SEO. Yeah. Yeah.

BILLY PARISI: The personality is taken out of it. All that personality that used to have when you used to write in your blog in 2014, you can bring it back out on your YouTube channel. It’s your chance to be you. And if you’re not comfortable in front of the camera, maybe you take a different approach. There’s a great cooking channel. I think it’s called Silent Cooking. There’s no voice. There’s nothing. There’s not even music. It’s the sounds of– it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful channel. And I mean he’s got 300 something thousand subscribers. There’s a way to get around everything and grow your channel. Honestly. Anything.

And as saturated as it is, there’s only one of you. So there’s plenty of room to make room and you to get involved and grow your channel.

JENNY GUY: OK. We have a lot of comments coming in. First of all, our director of support just said, watch out, Billy. The Southerners will come for you with that cornbread. There’s no lie. They do not mess around.

BILLY PARISI: But I did both, though, OK? I did no sugar and sugar.

JENNY GUY: And did you make a value judgment on it? Or do we just have to wait til it gets released?

BILLY PARISI: Honestly. I say what foods they would go good with, go well with.

JENNY GUY: Fantastic. All right. Sherelle who is– I hope I’m saying that right. She is the Hawaiian food blogger. She says my blog and YouTube channel are playing my name, Keeping It Relle. And I struggle with getting people to know what my blog or channel is about. Billy Parisi, did you have that when starting at first since your channel and your blog is also your name?

BILLY PARISI: YouTube and my blog. Right. Yeah, my name is my name. And that was a personal decision like 10 years ago. I never wanted to be 30minutemeals.com. I’m a little bit different experience. Like I said, I went to culinary school, spent 15 years in the restaurant industry. I love to bake. I love to roll sushi. I love to grill steak. I love to smoke food. I like to make homemade pasta.

So I never could figure out, what is my blog name that I could do that with? But my tagline underneath, again, cooking techniques and homemade recipes, tells everyone, OK. Here’s what this guy does. Here’s who he is. Chef Billy Parisi, cooking techniques, homemade recipes. And I expand on that, homemade recipes and cooking techniques in most of all of my videos until maybe a few months ago where I sometimes do it and I sometimes don’t just for new followers.

But I get the challenge. But again, it doesn’t have to define you. Rachael Ray when she came out, she was Rachael Ray. That was it. But she turned into 30 Minute Meals. You know what I’m saying? Everyone knows Rachael Ray. And you immediately think 30 Minute Meals. I want to get to the point you hear Chef Billy Parisi, you think cooking techniques and homemade recipes.

JENNY GUY: Fantastic. And part of that you said was having that intro on your channel where you have the opportunity to literally brand yourself right there out of the gate.

BILLY PARISI: Yeah, and I may not be a video that gets bazillions of views. It’s not meant to. It’s not supposed to be a viral video. It’s supposed to be, here’s who I am. Here’s who I ground myself in. Like I said, I found pictures of my grandpa in Ellis Island in the early 1900s, his picture literally taken. I share those in there. I share how my dad met my mom in a restaurant. I share about my culinary journey. I found pictures from culinary school and how I grew up, how I was raised transformed the way that I view food today, and I try to push that through in every single video.

So you have to take the time of like, OK, here’s my creation story. Here’s what I believe. Here is who I am. And here’s what I want to go back into and hold these foundational principles. I’m going to put them into every single video. I’m going to make people know that when they see this video, here is what I believe. And people, I’m telling you, will start flocking to you. Sounds stupid. Trust me. It sounds dumb. But I kept thinking the whole time, people are going to start following me now because I believe that practicing cooking techniques will make you a better cook. That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. That’s so stupid.

And when I started saying it, every month it just went, it was amazing. And then, here. Just to give you an example that it worked. After seven months, I get this email from YouTube that says, you are going to be the YouTube featured creator of the day. They put me on YouTube on the homepage for 24 hours, my entire channel for 24 hours. It was awesome. I got 20,000 subscribers in one day.

JENNY GUY: That’s amazing.

BILLY PARISI: I’m telling you. When I followed all of these things, it just started taking off. And it just works. And it’s steady. Everyone’s looking for the quick viral hit. I want to be 500,000 subscribers by the end of year. I mean, I don’t grow substantially. I mean, maybe in comparison. But I’m between 12,000 and 16,000 subscribers every single month new. But it’s been going on like that for a year. Gosh, I wish I was 30,000, 40,000. But it’s not. But it’s growth. And it’s steady. And it is improving.

JENNY GUY: That’s very exciting. And it’s slow and steady wins the race. Just say that. We have a question from Julie Baird. OK. I have a quilting website with lots of tutorials on it. Those tutorials have lots of free downloads of cheat sheets, cutting cards, coloring pages, all things that are helpful if a reader wants to do whatever pages about, make the quilt block the quilt, or use the 2 technique. In turning the tutorials into videos, what is the best way to have a YouTube viewer access all those goodies? Links back to the tutorial, links back to a download list, or the tutorial page? What do you think?

BILLY PARISI: So you’re trying– because you have so many things that coincide with that video where they can have an opportunity. So what I try to do is keep people on YouTube. So in my description, I actually write out the entire recipe in the description. So you’re a little bit more specific because they can download. I think it’s OK to have some of those links in there. But I would also put lengthy description as descriptive as you can possibly make it. And that’s up to 5,000 characters. I think that’s there for a reason, because they want people to stay there. They want people to stay on YouTube, not bounce off.

So as much as you can fit in that description, great. If you want to add a little link like, hey, if you want to print this on PDF, here it is. People may ask for it as well. And if you find that people are asking for specific things, include it in the description.

JENNY GUY: I think that that’s the biggest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about YouTube. They want you on YouTube. They don’t want you going anywhere else. And they reward the content creators, not even that they stay are not watching you. They don’t care. As long as they’re watching someone after they watch you. It’s still good.

BILLY PARISI: You got them in. And they stayed on because of you, whether it’s in the middle, at the end, or at the beginning.

JENNY GUY: So the cornbread discussion rages on. Rachel Ballard says, I rank number five for Southern cornbread. And I have been all but boiled in oil by total lunatics over the sugar issue. Fair.

BILLY PARISI: OK, this is why I made this video. One, I know it would be controversial because there’s so many different opinions on this.

JENNY GUY: So many feelings.

BILLY PARISI: And two, it made for a really cool video. I’m comparing these hard line, I believe sugar. I believe no sugar. This is history. This isn’t– whatever. Why not make a video about that? And I made that video work for my blog. You won’t get that personality on each of those recipe pages on my website. You’ll just get the recipe and how to. And I answer questions. But I can still embed that video there because it coincides with the recipe.

Like I said, I’ve even started to take a different approach of, what’s my storytelling? How can I make YouTube more fun? How can I grow it quicker? And how can my blog be my blog and sort of just work a little bit with that?

JENNY GUY: Love this. OK, so more Southern. I live in the South. And my mom’s from the Midwest. Team sweet cornbread. But honestly, I rank for Carolina style hot dogs. And I get so much business about how I cut my cabbage. So many feelings. Rachel says, Kentucky girl here. We use sweet corn bread to scotch our tractor tires. That was a mouthful. OK, Uma says, is it OK to start a channel with the local language from my region and my blog is in English? Can I connect those two? Is it worth it to try?

BILLY PARISI: Rev.com is a great resource to help transcribe to any language. And they definitely recommend that. There’s actually a new subtitle thing that they’ve been adding in there that YouTube wants to do. So you can translate it into as many English or as many languages as possible. I mean, even for me, the Spanish market is huge on YouTube, especially in the recipe world. I mean, and Italian. What is it? [NON-ENGLISH] Italian cuisine? [NON-ENGLISH] It’s all in Italian. It’s amazing. I don’t speak Italian. But I want to watch it.

So I think you’re OK to start off local. Now I would imagine that America has the most YouTube watchers and viewers. So I would certainly consider how to get those, transcribe it into English, or caption in English if you could.

JENNY GUY: YouTube is the second biggest search engine after Google.

BILLY PARISI: Yup.

JENNY GUY: Every time I say that, I’m surprised by it. But it is still the truth. It’s been the truth for a couple years now. So we’d be remiss not to talk about SEO. Where do you look for keywords? And how can you optimize the video for search for both Google and YouTube?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah. So this is probably the hardest piece to making your blog work with your YouTube. Because things that search necessarily high in Google don’t necessarily search super high in YouTube. Coleslaw doesn’t search that high in YouTube, but it gets an incredible amount of search on Google. Yeah, that’s one thing that I don’t know that I’ve solved perfectly. But what I will say is when you title them, on YouTube, don’t just make them searchable. Make them clickable.

Think of all those ridiculous descriptive words you want to say for SEO on Google that you can’t say because it’s never going to work. It could very well work on YouTube. And be as descriptive as possible in your YouTube. When you’re scrolling YouTube, you’re not just looking at the picture. The picture does some justice. But then you like, well what is this? Well, this is hands down the last baked beans recipe you ever going to need because my grandma said so. I’ve seen titles like that. It’s like, well yeah. I’m going to click on that.

It’s funny. In Tim’s class, he shows it. It’s a video of a cat that just sits there on a desk and then it knocks the clock off the desk.

JENNY GUY: I’ve seen that. Yeah.

BILLY PARISI: And it’s called like, Jimmy the A-hole cat. It’s not called, watch the cat knock off the clock. No, more intriguing. Jimmy the A-hole cat. Why is this cat a jerk? Let’s find out. So think about titling different– and again, things that you’re like, oh my gosh. There’s not a lot of competition for this search on Google for my blog. But this– or it’s not a competition. But a lot of search. And on YouTube, not a lot of search volume. What do I want to do? How do I want to make this work? And that’s where sometimes I’ve done more than one recipe in a YouTube video. So I can kind of double dip.

Again, cornbread. There’s Southern style. And then there’s regular. There’s that– I don’t want to call it Northern but–

JENNY GUY: But you’ve got to separate recipes on your blog so that if they’re searching for Southern style cornbread, you can target those keywords in Google. They can click over. Yeah.

BILLY PARISI: For sure. For sure. So yeah. I mean, there is no perfect science to marry the two together. You have to sort of just put your stake in the ground and say, I’m going to make this because I need to fill a gap. Or I’m going to need this because I want to give some love to my blog. Or I’m going to do this because it’s really popular on YouTube. I have a great shot for growing my subscriptions. But it’s just going to be OK on my blog. You have to make that determination.

JENNY GUY: Do you do keyword research both places?

BILLY PARISI: I don’t as much as I should. I use VidIQ which is a resource that helps you with tagging, which really honestly YouTube’s so smart. It knows what you’re making even without any subscription. So it’s pretty creepy. So I don’t know that that’s super helpful but it will give you some keyword research around there, the competition on there, VidIQ’s good for that. I would say that’s probably my go to. But I actually look first to my blog personally. Because my blog is still my baby.

But if I can do an entertaining something in a video that doesn’t have a lot of search, maybe it has an opportunity to get a lot of search.

JENNY GUY: All right. We have a question that Michaela has asked that is actually perfectly fit in with what we need to talk about next. She says, we are also food bloggers with loads of recipes on our blog. Going to start creating videos for our YouTube channel soon. What equipment should we use? I.e. cameras, phone, mic, lighting, tripods, how many cameras do I run at a time?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah. So I have a great course that I’ll drop in there. So all that stuff is there. You can click on it. I have a 75% off. And it’s about a two hour course, hour 45 minutes. And I talk through extensively on camera equipment, audio, lighting, how to light, how to set up audio, how I shoot everything myself. I’m a one camera person. I want complete control of my camera. It makes editing better. Nothing worse than setting up three cameras and then taking the time to dump all that footage, line up all the audio, and then edit all that.

I’d rather have my shooting be heavy and my editing light. And I was always taught if you shoot well, editing will indeed be light.

JENNY GUY: All right. So guys, this is– we’re going to drop this link into the comments here in a moment because we’re running low on time now. But with the code TealTalk75, it’s 75% off Billy’s teachable course. It’s basically how to do solo video production. And it’s all of the things. It is cameras, it is audio equipment, it is how to set up, it is how to edit, it is all of the things to really make yourself your own videographer.

And again, it’s not eleventy million dollars. If your expectation is that Billy is going to say, it’s only $20,000 to get started, he’s not.

BILLY PARISI: No. No. And you have to start somewhere. You have to determine, here’s the budget I have. Here’s the money I want to spend. And just make it work for you. And make it work for whatever setting you have. Do you have natural light? Do you need artificial? All those things. I cover off on just about every thing in there.

JENNY GUY: Guys, can we go ahead and drop the slide presentation in there that has the code, and has the links, and has all the stuff? Because it also has, and I wanted to show this slide as well, just in case anybody wanted to take a look at it, it does exist. I promise. These are the resources. He’s been talking about Tim Schmoyer’s Video Labs course. We have it. Mango Street is on there. VidIQ is on there. Rev.com is converting the– all the links are there. We’re dropping that presentation into the comments. It’s easy.

BILLY PARISI: Yeah. And literally, I cannot– I hope Tim gets a chance to see this because honestly I cannot say it enough. I taken YouTube courses. And I think he kind of was mentored by Derral Eves on YouTube. So Tim is just so good. He’s so patient. He has a huge team now. And it has a proven success. And I am honestly, I can attest to it. Because the growth that I never thought I would get I started to achieve. And like I said, from the summer of 2019 when I started taking the course in June, I started with 4,000 subscribers. And like I said, I’ll hit 220,000 now here.

It’s been steady but it’s been great. And it’s only helped diversify income streams.

JENNY GUY: And I wanted to ask you to follow up on Michaela’s question.

BILLY PARISI: Yeah.

JENNY GUY: What is a bare minimum getting started in terms of equipment to be your own solo video production? What is the bare minimum?

BILLY PARISI: As far as expense, or what do you need?

JENNY GUY: $2,000? Do I need $5,000? $10,000?

BILLY PARISI: Well if you don’t have a camera, it’s going to be tough. Most of us I imagine shoot on SLRs that have video capabilities. So at the very least, you can absolutely start there. So let’s just say you have a camera. You’re obviously going to need a tripod. You can get tripods anywhere from $100 to I’ve actually seen $20,000 tripods. So we’re not going to go there.

But you can pick up a solid tripod in between $100 and $300. You can get great audio equipment for under $300. And you can get solid lights for under $400. So I mean that really puts you under $1,000 for lighting, for audio, and for a tripod. And that’s like I’ve said it before the other courses, the big thing that separates consumer from professional video is audio and lighting. So if you can knock down those two things and people can clearly see you and hear you, you’ve won a good battle right out of the gate.

JENNY GUY: And he outlines all of that in the course, talking about exactly– and then we could go into, so I have a little bit more, and I want to supe up a little bit. OK, what’s the next level? That’s very helpful. OK. So I have two more questions that I want to get through before we’re done. And so we might go a little bit over. But I want to hurry through these. OK, let’s talk odds and ends. Thumbnails, titles, descriptions, tags, what makes a great clickable thumbnail?

BILLY PARISI: Yeah.

JENNY GUY: Best tips.

BILLY PARISI: Go. Yeah. Oh my gosh. This has changed and evolved so much. If you look at my videos and my video playlists on YouTube channel, they’re like, OK, it was like that, now it’s like this, then it’s changed, then it’s changed. I even changed again a couple weeks ago.

JENNY GUY: Hey.

BILLY PARISI: You have to think of, if you don’t watch YouTube, you have to start watching YouTube because you start saying, well, why did I click on that? And you’ll start to recognize. And all those little things, you’ll start to pick out in videos that you watch. So having really descriptive titles and getting people to click on them because they want to click on them, not just searchable, clickable. Not just cheesecake, the most amazing 4 inch high cheesecake you’ve ever seen, creamy delicious, wonderful topping, whatever. And then the picture of the most beautiful cheesecake you’ve ever seen, or your hands holding it, or your face pointing at it.

I mean, there is no surefire way that this way works. Even if you look at the most successful YouTubers, all of their thumbnails look completely different from the other ones. Completely. Some have text in the actual thumbnail. Some don’t. I’ve had success with me being in the image along with my recipe. I’ve had success with just the image. I’ve had success with my hands holding the food. I don’t know that there’s a surefire way. You just have to start watching YouTube yourself and finding out what you click on. And then you have to think, why did I just click on it? Hit the Back button. Check out the picture. Check out the description.

How can you start incorporating some of those things into your videos?

JENNY GUY: Very helpful. All right. We love wrapping up with action items always on Teal Talk. What are two to three things that we can start doing today that will help us grow our YouTube channel? And I’m to give you a second to think about that while I go down and make a couple of announcements. So we’re closing out on action items. Guys, season finale of Teal Talk is coming up. It is a week from today, Thursday May 27. I have Eric Hochberger, Mediavine’s CEO is coming on.

Which speaking of which, it is his birthday today. Happy birthday, Eric Hochberger. We are talking Mediavine updates. We’re going to do teasers. It’ll be our summer blockbuster on all the teasers and all the products, everything that’s coming in the next few months for Mediavine. So don’t miss that episode. Or if you do have to miss it, you can always catch the replay of course. And then the week after that, guys, we’re starting the summer of live. We dropped our June schedule. We’ve got an episode a week every week during the summer except for the 4th of July. So many great topics.

We’re talking affiliate marketing, we’re talking Pinterest. We’re talking Facebook. All of the things that you want to talk about, we’re talking about all of them. And June is focused on growth. We want to help you grow. So please come by the summer of live. We would love to have you.

Now don’t also forget that we dropped Billy’s slide deck in the comments there. All you have to do is click on it. It has all the links from today’s episode, plus the special offer, TealTalk75 gives you 75% off of Billy’s is it 12 part Teachable course on solo video production?

BILLY PARISI: Without the intro, I think it’s like 11. Yeah. So yeah.

JENNY GUY: I count that intro. It’s like you’re welcome video on YouTube channel, Billy. Come on. Don’t sell yourself short. All right. Action items from the amazing Billy Parisi. Here we go.

BILLY PARISI: Oh Lord. OK, first of all, one. Make that channel trailer. Tell people who you are, what your channel is about, and what you believe. Two, start putting what you believe into each video. Start telling people, here’s what I believe. Here’s how I’m going to help you achieve what I believe. Because I know you will believe it as well. And then the third thing being, oh, man. I lost my train of thought. Hold on. I’m thinking too much. Oh, yeah. The third thing is– OK, I’m going to give you four. I’m going to give you four.

JENNY GUY: Four is perfect.

BILLY PARISI: OK. The third thing is, maybe three, the third thing is go to some old YouTube videos, change the title, change the thumbnail, add some more to your description. Think about making that description in the title more clickable, not just searchable. Change your thumbnail out. Just try it. Come in closer, back out farther, whatever. It takes about seven days for YouTube to say, OK, something changed about this video. Test.

And then the fourth thing, I’m going to give you five. Four, just get in front of a camera and do it. Just start. You have to start moving. Start going. And then five, test and tune. Constantly be changing. Constantly be adapting. Figure out what works. Change it. Try again. Just like seasoning, you season once, you taste twice. You taste it, season it, taste it again. Do I need more salt? You keep going. You keep changing.

JENNY GUY: So much helpful. Not just searchable, clickable was a huge– we could put that on a poster with your face. That will be my clickable thumbnail for this. Billy, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for joining us.

BILLY PARISI: Thanks for having me. And if anyone has any questions, I’m Chef Billy Parisi on every single platform. Feel free to shoot them my way.

JENNY GUY: And we’ve got links to Billy in the deck. So just click on it. He’s all linked up. Guys, thank you so much. We will see you next week for our finale. And thanks again to Billy.

BILLY PARISI: See you. Thanks.