How to be a YouTube and Twitch Content Creator or Live Streamer and the Equipment You need

00:00:00.000 | - Hey guys, recently we've been talking a lot about content creation for marketing,

00:00:11.280 | and you can do it in many different forms and many mediums.

00:00:14.320 | One thing we have not yet talked about is the realm of live streaming content and then

00:00:19.120 | on demand from that.

00:00:20.880 | And so joining us to talk about that is Jonathan Harrelson.

00:00:23.720 | - Hey, what's going on guys?

00:00:25.640 | I'm Jonathan Harrelson.

00:00:26.640 | I'm a content creator.

00:00:27.640 | I create on Twitch.

00:00:28.640 | I create on YouTube.

00:00:29.640 | I create written content like blogs and stuff like that.

00:00:33.760 | And yeah, super stoked to be here.

00:00:36.240 | Super stoked to be speaking with you, Tim, and hopefully giving your audience some great

00:00:40.800 | insights on live streaming and content creation in general.

00:00:43.520 | - Cool.

00:00:44.520 | Jonathan, I'm so glad you're here.

00:00:45.960 | And this conversation is actually really, really interesting to me because it actually

00:00:48.960 | falls outside my comfort zone.

00:00:50.600 | You know, like when you're in a B2B world, when you're working, it's like, oh, it'd be

00:00:54.040 | so cool if I can do X, Y, and Z as a passion project and find content for people to discover.

00:00:59.560 | It's actually quite a lot of work.

00:01:01.800 | And you're kind of like Jack of all trades where you've kind of figured out a happy medium

00:01:04.960 | on like where to do things live, where to do things on demand.

00:01:08.440 | And you've kind of figured out all the tools to do that.

00:01:11.080 | And so today I would love to kind of hear a little bit about like what you're doing

00:01:14.560 | from a live streaming point of view and all that goes into like what genre you're using,

00:01:19.520 | like how are you finding your audience and then how you're promoting it.

00:01:24.360 | And then after we do that, we'll talk about some of the on demand stuff that you're working

00:01:27.200 | on like podcasts.

00:01:28.520 | And then for the second half of today's call and conversation, I would love to hear about

00:01:31.880 | like just technology or your setup for equipment.

00:01:34.680 | And there's a bunch of people like myself for maybe just getting into this.

00:01:38.200 | So like what does it look like for starters and then as you get more advanced.

00:01:40.880 | So let's just start with you, like how long you've been doing this, like what kind of

00:01:43.960 | videos are you creating and where can we find you usually?

00:01:48.240 | So usually if you see me live streaming, I'm live streaming on Twitch.

00:01:52.000 | I've been streaming on Twitch for, oh my goodness, I think about six or seven years now.

00:01:57.520 | I don't consider myself a huge content creator.

00:02:00.080 | It's really a grind and I've really started focusing on trying to create content outside

00:02:04.780 | of Twitch within the last, I want to say a year or two.

00:02:08.360 | Just because inherently live streams, they're not very searchable.

00:02:11.680 | You can't really find live streams unless you're searching and especially when it comes

00:02:16.680 | to Twitch, Twitch prioritizes their live streams by the amount of viewers.

00:02:21.720 | So the more viewers you have, the higher up on the list that you're going to be for that

00:02:25.680 | particular genre or game that you're playing.

00:02:30.080 | With that being said, I am moving away from gaming content creation.

00:02:33.560 | I have a new project launching in a few weeks geared towards men's mental health, which

00:02:38.040 | is going to take me pretty much completely away from gaming.

00:02:40.560 | I'll still do it on the side and create, you know, small clips of content, but it's not

00:02:44.040 | going to be like my primary form of content creation.

00:02:48.560 | So it's going to be a podcast, it'll be a video podcast, very similar to this one, but

00:02:52.360 | I'm going to be live streaming the podcast to the various platforms, whether it's Twitch

00:02:56.440 | and YouTube.

00:02:57.720 | There's a couple other ones that I'm looking into, but searchability with live streaming

00:03:03.200 | is really the biggest hurdle.

00:03:06.280 | And that's where you have to kind of branch out and know how to do like some video editing

00:03:09.920 | techniques and some sound engineering and stuff like that.

00:03:14.280 | So you really do have to be a jack of all trades when it comes to this type of content

00:03:17.760 | creation.

00:03:18.760 | Yeah.

00:03:19.760 | That makes a lot of sense.

00:03:20.760 | So kind of understanding how different platforms promote your content based on algorithm is

00:03:26.360 | really important, right?

00:03:27.360 | So I think you mentioned like Twitch, like I've always associated Twitch primarily with

00:03:31.080 | the gaming audience.

00:03:32.080 | I'm not sure if they go much beyond that since there's so much tied to video game platforms

00:03:35.760 | as well.

00:03:36.760 | So that makes a lot of sense, right?

00:03:37.760 | I think building your community and getting active in your community so they can discover

00:03:41.260 | you or follow you and you can schedule or make them aware when you're going live.

00:03:45.040 | Is that typically how you organically create kind of awareness and demand for your live

00:03:49.880 | streams?

00:03:50.880 | Yeah, it's, it's that.

00:03:52.320 | And it's also it's also being consistent.

00:03:55.440 | So having a consistent schedule for your live streams is huge because that gives reliability

00:04:00.920 | for your audience.

00:04:01.920 | No, okay.

00:04:02.920 | I'm going to be on, he's going to be on at this time every week or every day, depending

00:04:07.080 | on your, on your streaming schedule.

00:04:09.440 | And you know, you just got to be like clockwork logging in.

00:04:13.160 | And then the other thing is the other challenge, especially like with gaming content, I played

00:04:18.160 | pretty much the same two games to be honest.

00:04:20.480 | So that content can seem to be really stale.

00:04:24.200 | So you have to find creative ways to try to make that content a little bit more interesting,

00:04:27.600 | whether it's creating challenges for yourself.

00:04:29.440 | Like for instance, like I play call of duty.

00:04:31.320 | So it's like, okay, can I get, if I'm playing multiplayer, can I get 30 kills in a game?

00:04:36.440 | You know, can I beat my personal best or, you know let me run around with nothing but

00:04:41.040 | pistols or, or something like that.

00:04:43.220 | So really just trying to create a challenge.

00:04:45.840 | Or if you, if you play multiple games, there's a content creator that I follow called Dr.

00:04:50.000 | he goes by the name of Dr. Disrespect and he, he runs what he calls triple threat, triple

00:04:54.500 | threat challenges.

00:04:55.500 | So he'll be like, okay, I'm going to get a win in solos on call of duty, fortnight and

00:05:00.320 | player unknowns battlegrounds.

00:05:02.360 | Can he do it?

00:05:03.360 | So these are, these are kind of methods that, that gaming content creators use to try to

00:05:08.600 | keep their audience engaged, try to keep their content a little bit more fresh and try to

00:05:14.320 | vary, create certain variations of their content.

00:05:18.200 | Even though at the end of the day, the content is the same.

00:05:20.760 | The goal for each piece of content is a little bit different.

00:05:23.520 | Yeah.

00:05:24.520 | That makes a lot of sense.

00:05:25.520 | Actually, you said a few things there that I really want to kind of pick apart and kind

00:05:28.480 | of double down on.

00:05:29.480 | Cause it's a fantastic information.

00:05:30.480 | And I think it's actually directly related to even the B2B world, right?

00:05:34.160 | And you said, you said something around like schedule and routine where you have a dependable

00:05:39.840 | rollout schedule.

00:05:40.840 | So people know when to log in.

00:05:42.480 | You know, if I think about even the B2B or even coaching world, right, where let's say

00:05:46.440 | I set a schedule where every Thursday is, you know, I'm going to be online from eight

00:05:50.400 | to nine central, let's say, and that's going to be an open QA for all things, let's say

00:05:55.080 | technology.

00:05:56.080 | And maybe I'll have a guest that day.

00:05:57.080 | And maybe on every Friday, it's going to be a creative discussion, right?

00:05:59.680 | And maybe on Mondays it's around marketing and demand gen, building and following and

00:06:03.880 | having a regular schedule where you're going to talk about things allows people to be prepared

00:06:07.720 | as well.

00:06:08.720 | So like in my example, there is more of like B2B, but like, again, if, if you know, you're

00:06:12.680 | going to show up on Wednesday, cause you're talking about web marketing and SEO, like

00:06:15.280 | you'll come prepared with questions or to your earlier point around that kind of drumming

00:06:18.960 | up interest from an audience.

00:06:20.880 | Like you start Wednesday is SEO day and people like the SEO tribe will know when to kind

00:06:27.200 | of pitch in and kind of expect certain people to show up.

00:06:29.160 | So I think that's a really, really good, good point.

00:06:32.120 | I'm kind of curious.

00:06:33.120 | So you're talking about Twitch and how they kind of, the algorithm kind of bubbles up

00:06:36.040 | your, your visibility for YouTube live or even like other platforms, I know Facebook

00:06:41.600 | does as well.

00:06:42.600 | I'm a little less familiar with that, but for a YouTube, how do they increase your visibility?

00:06:46.880 | Is that similar in terms of how many watches or how many concurrent users and that pushes

00:06:50.920 | you up or.

00:06:52.920 | Again it's, it's kind of the same thing.

00:06:54.640 | It's the, it's concurrent viewers, but where your value comes in, like on a YouTube livestream,

00:06:59.760 | YouTube actually creates a video on demand that's stored on your channel at that point,

00:07:03.800 | which you can then go in and update the title of the, the title of the video.

00:07:07.560 | It becomes basically a standard video at that point where you, you run your standard SEO

00:07:11.600 | practices on the title, on the tags, on the, on the, the video description and everything

00:07:17.400 | like that.

00:07:18.800 | And where you get your real value out of it is the residual visits from after this, after

00:07:24.480 | the live stream goes live versus Twitch, depending on, depending on your relationship with Twitch,

00:07:30.120 | whether you're a non-affiliate, an affiliate or a partner, non-affiliates, non-affiliates

00:07:36.120 | and non-partners, those videos, those live streams are on the platform, are stored on

00:07:40.480 | the platform for only 14 days.

00:07:43.440 | And then if you're an affiliate or you're a partner, it's stored for, I believe 30 or

00:07:48.520 | 45 days at that point.

00:07:50.040 | But that content does not live in perpetuity or as long as your account, as long as your

00:07:55.160 | account is live versus YouTube, YouTube does a really good job of keeping that content

00:08:00.920 | living in perpetuity as long as your account is live and you don't have any strikes against

00:08:05.800 | you or anything.

00:08:06.800 | And it's a great way to monetize and supplement as well, giving you the ability to post like

00:08:12.600 | affiliate links or like donation links or whatever, whatever, whatever your, your like

00:08:22.000 | requirement is like, yeah, your call to actions, it's, it's way more prominent on YouTube than

00:08:26.840 | it is on Twitch.

00:08:28.720 | So that's why, you know, I'm, I'm, I streamed to both Twitch and YouTube, like this, this

00:08:34.720 | new podcast that I'm doing, I'm going to be streaming to both Twitch and YouTube at the

00:08:37.480 | same time.

00:08:38.480 | And, you know, you said you associate, you associate Twitch with gaming and a lot of

00:08:42.400 | people do that.

00:08:43.400 | You know, if you look at 95% of the people out there, they, they associate Twitch with

00:08:47.720 | gaming.

00:08:48.720 | And that's, that's fair.

00:08:49.720 | I mean, I started out as a company called Justin TV and it was basically this kid, Justin,

00:08:53.080 | who was basically live streaming his gaming content.

00:08:56.600 | And that's kind of where it got built from.

00:08:59.320 | Since Amazon has purchased it, Amazon has really started to push it as, as a marketing

00:09:03.760 | platform as well.

00:09:05.160 | I mean, they host, they host AWS events on their various AWS events.

00:09:10.600 | I mean, they, they even have like Thursday night football for NFL because you know, they,

00:09:14.880 | they own the Thursday night pack, Amazon owns the Thursday night package now.

00:09:18.460 | So they're really trying to broaden the horizons of what Twitch can do and get people to think

00:09:23.040 | outside the norm of Twitch.

00:09:25.160 | And to be honest, the, the biggest, the biggest genre on Twitch right now is like just chatting

00:09:32.040 | or IRL.

00:09:33.580 | So it's not even gaming.

00:09:34.580 | It's like people going out eating or it's groups of friends just hanging out and talking

00:09:38.480 | and you know, just doing stupid stuff.

00:09:41.240 | And people come in and watch that like hot tub streams is, was like the big meta on,

00:09:46.280 | on Twitch.

00:09:47.280 | You know, that's just, I call it smut because it's, you know, I'm not going to go into it,

00:09:54.320 | but you know, but that's the audience that, that's the audience that some of those, some

00:09:59.040 | of those streamers attract.

00:10:00.640 | So you have to look at it that way too.

00:10:02.880 | Okay.

00:10:03.880 | Where is my audience going to be?

00:10:05.480 | My audience, if my audience associates Twitch with, with gaming, then that's probably not

00:10:10.760 | the best place for me to be as a marketer versus, you know, maybe I should stick to

00:10:15.100 | YouTube.

00:10:16.100 | You know, YouTube has, has the better, the better platform, the better algorithm, because

00:10:19.320 | guess what?

00:10:20.320 | Once you're, once your VOD goes, once you have your VOD on there, now you can show up

00:10:23.160 | in suggested and suggested results.

00:10:25.120 | You can show up in search results and you can also show up in Google search results

00:10:29.200 | if you have all your SEO stuff done.

00:10:31.520 | So from a, from a, from a B2B standpoint YouTube takes it over Twitch, but you can still live

00:10:37.880 | stream.

00:10:38.880 | I've, I watch plenty of creators live stream their podcasts a, a, a content creator group

00:10:45.000 | that I, that I follow called Think Media.

00:10:47.120 | This is exactly what they do.

00:10:48.360 | And they utilize YouTube to build their brand and to help others build their, build their

00:10:52.500 | content creation brands.

00:10:54.800 | And YouTube is, is probably the biggest powerful tool when it comes to a content creator's

00:10:58.640 | job.

00:10:59.640 | Yeah.

00:11:00.640 | And actually that's a wonderful segue to moving from like live events or webinars or streams

00:11:08.240 | to on demand.

00:11:09.240 | Cause you're right.

00:11:10.240 | Living on perpetuity and being able to monetize long form content that's evergreen is really

00:11:15.360 | where like you want to go.

00:11:18.320 | You and I kind of talked, you know, when we were kind of in prior to this call around

00:11:21.400 | just analytics.

00:11:22.400 | I think something that really interested me is like, you know, when you looked at the

00:11:26.060 | traffic post event was on demand, you're kind of looking at the volume of traffic and you're

00:11:31.640 | making some tweaks, whether it's duration of the video or whatnot to kind of monitor

00:11:35.780 | when spikes happen and noticing trends.

00:11:38.040 | Can you share some of those insights with us?

00:11:40.400 | Yeah.

00:11:41.400 | So the, one of the biggest thing when it comes to analytics with YouTube is it also connects

00:11:45.760 | in with Google analytics.

00:11:47.200 | You don't get that with with Twitch on top of that.

00:11:50.560 | So you get a, you get a more granular look at the data.

00:11:54.000 | They have a really robust analytics platform in the, in the creator dashboard and you can,

00:12:00.480 | you can make tweaks.

00:12:01.480 | You can tweak the, the stream titles or you can tweak the video titles.

00:12:05.800 | You can actually do AB testing on like the thumbnails and stuff.

00:12:09.740 | These are things that you cannot do on really any other platform and that's, that's really

00:12:14.360 | what makes it powerful.

00:12:15.360 | So for me, you know, I might go a week testing one, uh, one thumbnail and then change, change

00:12:21.960 | the thumbnail.

00:12:22.960 | Uh, next week there's, there's a services that you can use to kind of run it automatically

00:12:26.500 | so you don't have to go in and manually change it.

00:12:29.640 | And uh, in, in the interest of, uh, uh, budget friendliness, I just go in and do it myself

00:12:35.320 | and then monitor, monitor the week over week results.

00:12:38.720 | Um, but yeah, being able to do those things and then, you know, figuring out, okay, what

00:12:46.040 | different types of content work.

00:12:47.920 | Okay.

00:12:48.920 | I have this wonderful podcast.

00:12:49.920 | We had a really good three minute, three minute or 60 second conversation.

00:12:54.440 | Let me create, let me create a short form content off of that, that I can share on a

00:12:58.040 | vertical device like a phone.

00:12:59.320 | So I can put it on tick tock.

00:13:00.320 | I can put it on youtube shorts.

00:13:02.640 | Youtube shorts has probably been the biggest revelation to me and my channel personally.

00:13:06.560 | Uh, on average, my youtube shorts get between a 700 and 1500 views just depending on the,

00:13:14.920 | the type of tags and stuff and the time that you post.

00:13:18.220 | But it's a great way to get mass exposure in a, in a very, very short time.

00:13:22.920 | And I'm talking about like those, those 700 to 1500 views come within the first hour of

00:13:27.320 | posting it if you post it at the right time and posting at the right time depends on your

00:13:32.040 | audience.

00:13:33.040 | Right.

00:13:34.040 | You don't want to be, the gaming audience posts, uh, is, is usually flipping through

00:13:37.680 | their phones, you know, a little bit later at night, um, versus your business audience,

00:13:41.800 | your B2B audience is probably going to be flipping through it.

00:13:44.400 | Not as late.

00:13:45.440 | And when I say late, it's like, you know, 11, 12 o'clock my time.

00:13:48.800 | That's when I get the best results.

00:13:50.300 | But a B2B audience, you might be looking at, you know, six or seven o'clock, uh, six or

00:13:54.280 | seven o'clock my time, um, you know, while people are doing, getting dinner, sitting

00:13:59.480 | at the table, uh, you know, doing their nightly routines, what have you, that's, that's really

00:14:04.440 | when the B2B crowd might actually get to, uh, view it, get all those views in.

00:14:10.000 | So it's a powerful, it's a powerful like top of funnel action to use the, the YouTube shorts

00:14:16.280 | and just be mindful that like with YouTube shorts, you have one minute with tick tock,

00:14:21.120 | you have three minutes, um, I think with Instagram reels, I think you have up to three minutes

00:14:25.480 | as well.

00:14:26.480 | So you have to be mindful of, of how long of the content that you need and then what

00:14:29.200 | platform you're going to be posting it on.

00:14:31.000 | And typically are those, um, like short form videos, just straight edits out of a current

00:14:35.600 | video or do you do additional post-production on top of that?

00:14:40.200 | So you kind of lead in with the intro or something to give a context, like, does it matter?

00:14:46.320 | It depends.

00:14:47.320 | So it depends on the situation, right?

00:14:48.720 | If, if we're talking about, if we're talking about like content creation for streamers,

00:14:54.400 | right?

00:14:55.400 | Uh, you might lead in with, you might not want to miss, you might not want to miss this

00:14:59.160 | or you know, there's a, there's a editing technique that a lot of tick talkers and YouTube

00:15:03.920 | and YouTubers, uh, who create YouTube shorts use where it looks like a seamless loop.

00:15:09.480 | So the, they, they lead in kind of like with the ending and then they, they start back

00:15:14.560 | at the beginning and then it cuts off the actual video cuts off right at the end so

00:15:19.120 | that it looks like a smooth transition.

00:15:20.680 | When the video restarts, you're catching, it looks like you're catching it all the way

00:15:24.240 | through the end and then it's restarting again.

00:15:26.360 | So there's different, there's different techniques of doing it.

00:15:29.320 | Um, I haven't quite mastered it yet, but I'm working on it.

00:15:32.400 | Uh, gaming content.

00:15:34.640 | Like I said, for me, it's, uh, it's, it's pretty much just kind of a straight edit at

00:15:38.120 | a couple overlays with, uh, with my channel information and stuff on it and just send

00:15:42.360 | it out the door.

00:15:43.360 | Um, I could get real elaborate with, you know, post-production techniques like taking it

00:15:47.840 | into, I use DaVinci Resolve for video editing.

00:15:50.120 | I could take it in there, create slow-mo sequences, zoom in, zoom out, uh, things like that.

00:15:56.280 | But for me, I want, I just want to get content, content out quick.

00:16:01.560 | And so I'm just literally, I have a template that I use.

00:16:05.120 | I have a, I have my overlay set and I just replace the videos, export, send it out.

00:16:09.240 | It takes me five to 10 minutes to, to cut and edit a, uh, a complete like YouTube short,

00:16:14.840 | a 30 second YouTube short.

00:16:16.200 | And that's interesting.

00:16:17.200 | So that clever editing where it basically is on endless loop without a viewer realizing

00:16:20.860 | it until they say, Hey, I've seen this already before.

00:16:23.040 | I'm assuming that like helps your Google analytics, right?

00:16:25.800 | It's like you're, you're getting no repeat views or, or it was actually kind of hurt

00:16:29.680 | you at some point.

00:16:31.480 | It doesn't, it actually helps a lot because it's, it, each, each view counts as a view.

00:16:37.280 | So it kind of helps boost your numbers.

00:16:40.160 | And the more, the more, so the way the YouTube algorithm works is the more views you get,

00:16:44.480 | the more that your, your video is suggested because that means it's relevant.

00:16:48.000 | It works just like Google search.

00:16:50.200 | The more views you get, the more the algorithm says, Hey, this video is relevant to what

00:16:54.320 | this person is looking for, what they're looking at or what, what interests them.

00:16:58.840 | So the more views, the better.

00:16:59.840 | And if they're rewatching the videos and over and over and over, that's telling the algorithm,

00:17:04.080 | Hey, this is really resonating with the view, this, this particular viewer, this particular

00:17:09.200 | viewer likes these types of videos.

00:17:10.740 | Let's go ahead and push this video to other viewers who, who fit this same profile.

00:17:15.160 | Yeah.

00:17:16.160 | That makes a lot of sense.

00:17:17.160 | And earlier I remember you mentioned like find different platforms to upload content,

00:17:22.840 | right?

00:17:23.840 | You mentioned Instagram as amongst others.

00:17:26.320 | Now when you do your podcast that you're coming up with, it's a VOD like video or not, I'm

00:17:30.960 | assuming that, you know, there is obviously you can post a video to video friendly platforms.

00:17:36.000 | Are you also going to be exporting like audio only ones to like, like Apple podcasts or

00:17:40.680 | other, like Spotify or something like that?

00:17:43.640 | A hundred percent.

00:17:44.640 | So I have another podcast that I, that I do as well.

00:17:47.540 | It's called a gaming moment and it's again, gaming content.

00:17:51.700 | So it's gaming, streaming technology, content creation just anything around gaming and content

00:17:56.920 | creation and gaming content creation.

00:17:59.960 | And we do we do live streams to YouTube and Twitch.

00:18:05.680 | We're also recording the audio where we have a high quality audio file that gets spit out

00:18:11.840 | at the end with both of our, like our tracks are different audio files.

00:18:16.240 | So we can take that into our audio editing software and delete like, okay, we, somebody

00:18:22.280 | coughed or, you know, we, we record from our houses.

00:18:25.560 | You know, my kid came in in the middle of a, of a quiet piece and you hear my kid come

00:18:29.080 | in so we can, we can cut that little piece out in, in post-production.

00:18:33.600 | And then we can do some post-production audio sweetening, like, you know, noise reduction,

00:18:38.900 | bring up the base a little bit you know, really make our voices in the audio really stand

00:18:44.180 | out and remove any kind of background noise where we can.

00:18:47.640 | So being a podcaster and a video podcaster on top of that, you have to think about, you

00:18:54.680 | know, your, your audio quality for your, your, your audio podcast, and you have to think

00:18:59.320 | about your audio and video quality for your video podcast.

00:19:01.600 | And you got to think about, okay, how do I do the content syndication for all of this?

00:19:05.720 | You know, where do, where do I send all this?

00:19:07.360 | So hosting platforms and, you know, like I said, you being a content creator, you have,

00:19:12.320 | you really have to be a jack of all trades because as a podcaster, I'm a video editor,

00:19:16.120 | I'm an audio engineer you know, we have a website that we maintain.

00:19:20.240 | So I'm a web developer, which is kind of what I do during my day job anyway.

00:19:23.720 | I'm a, you know, I'm a marketer, I'm a social, I'm a social media influencer, or social,

00:19:29.440 | you know, social media manager.

00:19:32.360 | I'm also a content writer.

00:19:35.000 | I'm a producer, you know, you have to, you have to wear all of these hats, especially

00:19:38.760 | if you're like a one or two man show, it can be a lot and it turns into like a full time

00:19:44.200 | and a half job.

00:19:45.360 | Hmm.

00:19:46.360 | So, so I know one of the things that kind of gets in people's way in terms of like getting

00:19:50.920 | a velocity is all of the work required, right?

00:19:53.640 | Like for me, like I'm one of these videos, I'm realizing, oh man, so it's quite a lot

00:19:56.640 | of work, right?

00:19:57.640 | To do this.

00:19:58.640 | And for me to think about the editing that's required, that whether it's a short, which

00:20:04.240 | is one edit, and there's obviously cleaning up audio for the main ones, and then uploading

00:20:10.400 | to various platforms and making sure the metadata there and it's SEO friendly, like, what would

00:20:16.200 | you say is the average time you spend on, let's say one piece of video, let's just assume

00:20:21.160 | the video is, let's say 20 minutes and you want to leverage that for short audio formats

00:20:25.360 | as well.

00:20:26.360 | Like how much time do you spend uploading to all of your properties?

00:20:28.880 | Okay.

00:20:29.880 | So I'll give you an example of like the gaming moment podcast.

00:20:33.360 | So we probably spend about two hours a week gathering topics to talk about that scouring

00:20:39.980 | social media, scouring Google for latest news topics and trends.

00:20:45.560 | Then we take those topics, we look at, okay, what is their traffic value, right?

00:20:51.660 | What are going to be our two main pieces of content that we talk about?

00:20:54.400 | Because the way we structure our podcast is we have a segment that does two main things

00:21:01.560 | that we include in our, that's like our episode title, right?

00:21:05.900 | And then we have a general banter section, which is, you know, smaller topics that are

00:21:09.520 | less SEO optimized where people aren't really searching for as much.

00:21:14.640 | So it's, it's taking these topics, going to like Google trends, getting the data running

00:21:19.360 | the analysis on that.

00:21:20.400 | So all of that right there, just getting the content curated for one episode is probably

00:21:25.840 | four to five hours a week.

00:21:28.280 | And then, and then you know, when we record the podcast, our podcasts are about an hour

00:21:34.520 | long.

00:21:35.520 | So it's like a, we were, we're on for an hour before kind of going over, going over the

00:21:40.520 | podcast script and making sure everything is good.

00:21:43.480 | And when I say script, it's more like an outline.

00:21:46.440 | But making sure that we understand the topics that we're going to be talking about, because

00:21:49.040 | we want to sound knowledgeable.

00:21:50.520 | So we're on for an hour before we even start recording.

00:21:52.900 | And then when we record, we're usually recording for like an hour and a half because you know,

00:21:56.920 | we'll have certain areas where we're like, I didn't like the way that sounded.

00:21:59.600 | Let me, let me restart that.

00:22:02.000 | So then you're looking at like an hour and a half there.

00:22:03.800 | So that's, that's two and a half.

00:22:05.200 | So you're up to six and a half, almost seven hours of, of just, of just that.

00:22:11.640 | Okay.

00:22:12.640 | So now we have the podcast recorded.

00:22:15.400 | Now we got to edit it.

00:22:16.680 | It takes about a couple, it takes about two hours to edit a, a, a one hour long podcast

00:22:21.840 | to cut out all the dead space, all the mess ups.

00:22:24.600 | And as you do, as you edit, you become more and more proficient at it and you figure out

00:22:28.800 | little tricks so that when you're looking at, when you're looking at the podcast, audio

00:22:33.000 | waveforms, like, you know, we might do a snap in the, in the microphone to create a high,

00:22:38.240 | a high waveform and we know, okay, this is a bad section visually.

00:22:41.520 | We can cut from here to here.

00:22:43.240 | Um, and uh, so we reduce our editing times, uh, that way.

00:22:49.880 | And then, okay, we have it edited the hosting platform that we use.

00:22:53.040 | We use a hosting platform called buzzsprout.

00:22:55.880 | And when we upload, uh, when we upload the, the MP3 audio to buzzsprout and we publish

00:23:01.320 | it, um, it handles all of our content syndication for us.

00:23:04.640 | So it automatically pushes out to Google podcasts, Apple, uh, Apple podcasts, Spotify, pod bean,

00:23:11.280 | every, every podcasting platform, stitch stitcher, uh, that, that, that you can imagine.

00:23:16.320 | So that handles, that handles the vast majority of our content syndication as it, as it pertains

00:23:22.000 | to getting our plat, our podcast onto the multiple platforms.

00:23:25.320 | So choosing a podcast host in this case is, is, uh, is huge, making sure that they, that

00:23:30.680 | they do the syndication and stuff for you.

00:23:32.960 | And they give you an RSS feed if you want to use it to, uh, uh, somewhere else.

00:23:36.960 | Um, and then from there I take, I take the podcast, I run it through an AI, uh, program

00:23:43.040 | that gets, that gets the transcriptions done.

00:23:45.640 | Then you have to read through the transcription, make sure that words are spelled correctly.

00:23:49.760 | Um, every, everything looks good.

00:23:51.760 | So again, you're having to listen and do the transcription.

00:23:54.400 | So that's another hour.

00:23:55.440 | So you're up to, you're up to nine hours.

00:23:58.320 | Um, and now you have to do, now you have to do your social media promotions.

00:24:01.720 | So I, I do three social media, I schedule three social media posts per week for each

00:24:07.200 | new episode.

00:24:08.200 | So I use a platform like Hootsuite or a buffer to be able to schedule those out.

00:24:13.800 | Um, I make sure I include images with each one and I try to change, change the images

00:24:18.040 | with each one.

00:24:19.040 | So I use Canva to create the images really easily, export them out cause they have beautiful

00:24:23.240 | templates and all I have to do is just kind of change a few things here and there.

00:24:26.640 | So creating the images, you might be looking at another hour, creating the, uh, the, the,

00:24:31.360 | creating the, uh, the tweets or the, the social media posts put together.

00:24:36.080 | That's another hour.

00:24:37.080 | Thank God for chat GPT now, cause that, that helps save, that helps save a lot of time.

00:24:41.960 | So I mean, all in all, when, when you look at it and that's not even, this isn't even

00:24:46.240 | including like, okay, we have all these topics, I'm going to create a blog around each topic

00:24:49.440 | to post to the website.

00:24:51.520 | So not, not even including that you're up to pretty close to like 12 hours a week, just

00:24:55.720 | uh, uh, scripting, editing, publishing, promoting.

00:25:05.000 | That's awesome.

00:25:06.000 | And that's, that's overwhelming for people here for the first time, but actually it makes

00:25:09.880 | a lot of sense.

00:25:10.880 | And I can definitely see how the more you do it, you kind of kind of pick up some shortcuts

00:25:14.920 | to kind of give yourself some notes and audible cues.

00:25:17.040 | So that's really smart.

00:25:18.360 | I hope to kind of give myself some shortcuts as well as I kind of go through this process.

00:25:23.360 | Um, cool.

00:25:24.360 | So let's kind of transition to the second part of this conversation, which is around

00:25:28.080 | like the, the tools or equipment you would need.

00:25:31.160 | And I know that you had shared with me like a webpage that you had actually set up with

00:25:35.240 | all of those.

00:25:36.240 | And, um, actually I do, I don't mind, do you mind sharing that with us, um, on screen and

00:25:41.000 | then we kind of walk us through, I'm kind of curious, like how you would pick and choose

00:25:44.680 | maybe something for a beginner, um, versus not.

00:25:47.800 | Um, cause again, we're always looking at cost of entry to, you know, this livelihood of

00:25:52.720 | content creation.

00:25:53.720 | Yeah, you can definitely get by with, um, you know, some fairly budget equipment or,

00:26:00.360 | or some bare minimums.

00:26:02.560 | So I have a, I created a blog on a gaming moment.com it's a five budget buys to enhance

00:26:07.560 | your content quality, um, where you really want to spend your money, especially if you're

00:26:12.800 | creating audio based content like a podcast or a video based content, even a video based

00:26:18.200 | content like pod, this podcast, if you will.

00:26:21.120 | You want to, you want to spend your money where it matters the most.

00:26:24.400 | So obviously having a good quality mic is, uh, is a huge priority.

00:26:29.920 | Um, there's, there's so many like smaller podcasts that I've listened to where it sounds

00:26:35.000 | like they're, they're talking in another room because their mic is not great or they're

00:26:38.120 | using, they're using a headset microphone, like the headset that I have on right now.

00:26:42.600 | And the audio quality for those is just not there.

00:26:45.440 | So like my personal mic that I use, I use an audio technica AT 2020 and those are like

00:26:52.120 | $99 now.

00:26:53.480 | So it's like a hundred dollars.

00:26:54.480 | Uh, I believe you're using a blue, a blue Yeti, which is like 80, $89 or something now.

00:27:00.000 | And these are, these are solid entry level condenser microphones that produce really

00:27:05.140 | great sound.

00:27:06.680 | Um, the other thing is like if you're doing video content, lighting, lighting is a huge

00:27:11.800 | thing.

00:27:12.800 | So if I turned off my two lights right here, it would, it would look really bad because

00:27:16.300 | it's the glow of the computer screen in front of me and, and you know, I have a green screen

00:27:21.220 | in the back for a lot of my other content creation.

00:27:23.300 | So that green screen would show up because it's not, it's not lit well enough.

00:27:26.920 | Um, lighting can adjust the mood of a video.

00:27:29.460 | Like if I turned off my left light, I would have this light right here and I'd have more

00:27:32.980 | of a shadow right here.

00:27:33.980 | I'm going to give it a little bit different kind of effect.

00:27:36.520 | So lighting, lighting can really change the mood and the atmosphere of the videos that

00:27:41.760 | you're, that you're shooting.

00:27:43.620 | Um, a good quality camera.

00:27:46.100 | I'm not saying you got to go out and buy like this high end cinema camera, a good DSLR,

00:27:51.580 | like a Canon EOS M50 or a rebel even, you know, you can get, you can get a decent quality

00:27:59.260 | DSLR camera for like 250, 300 bucks.

00:28:03.500 | And um, like Canon has, has, has come a long way in the last couple of years, creating

00:28:08.660 | free software for you to be able to use the camera as a webcam, uh, which is, which is

00:28:14.220 | what I do.

00:28:15.220 | The camera that I'm using on this stream today is a Canon EOS M50.

00:28:18.340 | Uh, but I do have other webcams that I have available, which, you know, if, if you're,

00:28:24.180 | if like 500 bucks is out of your budget, cause that's about five or 600 bucks is about what

00:28:28.460 | the Canon EOS M50 is.

00:28:30.900 | You can definitely get, um, you know, a standard webcam.

00:28:33.900 | The one that I, that I highly recommend is the Logitech 9, uh, C920 series there.

00:28:38.940 | They range from like 50 to 70 bucks, you know, depending on the, the, the time of year that

00:28:44.620 | you're getting them.

00:28:45.620 | And they have really good color quality.

00:28:47.500 | Their autofocus is really good.

00:28:50.100 | Um, it's, it's not better than a, than a, uh, than like a, a DSLR camera.

00:28:56.020 | Cause the DSLR camera, you can change the lenses out.

00:28:58.440 | So you get a different, you get a different depth of view, depth of field.

00:29:02.140 | Um, many of us in the business world, we use the, the fake blurry backgrounds on the zoom

00:29:08.060 | videos and stuff.

00:29:09.060 | Well, this does it automatically.

00:29:10.060 | And you don't get that harsh edge around your body.

00:29:13.460 | It just looks natural.

00:29:14.740 | It just looks natural.

00:29:15.740 | It looks, it looks really nice.

00:29:17.140 | So again, upping the quality of your content just by making a few small adjustments.

00:29:22.340 | And then, um, finally like workflow, workflow tools, there's a ton of different things that

00:29:28.260 | you can do from a workflow standpoint.

00:29:30.020 | Like if you're doing live streaming and you have different scenes, like, okay, I have

00:29:33.420 | a desktop scene where I'm showing my desktop with my headshot.

00:29:36.300 | Cause I'm doing a presentation.

00:29:38.060 | Okay.

00:29:39.060 | Instead of, uh, instead of going to my, going to my, you know, streaming software and clicking

00:29:43.840 | on it, I have, I have a tablet underneath my, my monitor here, um, that runs an app

00:29:49.460 | called touch portal.

00:29:51.220 | And uh, what touch portal is, it, it's basically like a giant macro.

00:29:54.460 | It's like a thing that creates macros and you can, uh, set it up to run different programs.

00:29:59.540 | I use it for, I use it to streamline my video editing process.

00:30:02.780 | I use it to streamline my, uh, my video, uh, my audio editing process and my, and my graphics

00:30:08.900 | editing process, because I can just, I can do everything on my tablet.

00:30:12.740 | Just boom, boom, boom, boom.

00:30:14.380 | And then, um, you know, having a good quality mouse, uh, that has multiple buttons on it.

00:30:19.140 | I have my buttons mapped for my video editing software where, you know, I have a forward

00:30:23.620 | and back button on my thumb, my, the forward button trims everything from the play head

00:30:27.660 | to the front, and then my back button trims everything from the play head to the back.

00:30:31.540 | So I'm not having to sit here and fiddle around with hot keys on my, uh, on my keyboard.

00:30:36.180 | So learning, you know, getting your environment set up and getting your workflow set up is

00:30:41.860 | crucial and saving, you know, 30 seconds saved for every, every keystroke is, is huge or

00:30:49.380 | five seconds saved for every keystroke instead of trying to happen to fumble around with

00:30:52.580 | like control shift Z or control shift P trying to fumble around with that.

00:30:58.280 | Just having a one button to click it will dramatically reduce how much time you spend

00:31:03.100 | like doing editing or anything like that.

00:31:05.140 | So just having these, these workflow tools, uh, really helps and, and touch portal is

00:31:10.540 | free for, for everybody.

00:31:12.260 | Um, they have a free version and they have a paid version.

00:31:14.340 | There's limitations on the free version, but most people should be able to get by with

00:31:17.500 | the free version and, uh, all you need is like an iPad, iPhone, Android tablet, Android

00:31:22.740 | phone.

00:31:23.740 | It works on, it works on both devices and, uh, try it.

00:31:26.580 | It'll save your life, man.

00:31:27.580 | Yeah.

00:31:28.580 | Cool.

00:31:29.580 | Hey man, I want to thank you for just this awesome conversation today.

00:31:31.940 | Um, the blog you had mentioned with your list of equipment, I'll put that in the video description

00:31:36.020 | below.

00:31:37.020 | Jonathan, how can people find you?

00:31:39.300 | Uh, you can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik TOK at day again, Oh seven

00:31:45.280 | D a Y G O N zero seven.

00:31:47.260 | Um, that is my gaming handle.

00:31:49.100 | Uh, you can also visit, visit my website, Jonathan dash Harrelson.com, uh, and be able

00:31:55.140 | to get your information over to me that way.

00:31:57.700 | Um, or just Google Jonathan Harrelson.

00:31:59.980 | I'm like all on the front page.

00:32:01.300 | So, uh, you know, SEO and everything.

00:32:03.980 | So yeah, appreciate you bringing me on Tim.

00:32:07.500 | Um, if you guys have any questions, feel free to reach out to Tim, he'll relay the information

00:32:11.620 | to me and you might see me on the podcast again, trying to answer those questions for

00:32:14.980 | you.

00:32:15.980 | Cool.

00:32:16.980 | Thanks a lot, Jonathan.

00:32:17.980 | All right.

00:32:18.980 | Thanks guys.

00:32:19.980 | Take care.

00:32:19.980 | Bye.

00:32:24.980 | you

How to be a YouTube and Twitch Content Creator or Live Streamer and the Equipment You need

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