Hey, what is up? It is the Follow-Up Media podcast. I am Christian Lee. My co-host Riley Austin, how are y'all? Yep. How are you? That's the real question. True, Riley. I'm doing Yeah, they didn't ask you. I don't even know who they is. Um, no, I'm doing great, though. our audience our you know

community that we're trying to build you know it's a you know we started a new YouTube channel from scratch and so you are essentially we are drinking the tea that we have been pushing because our YouTube optimization service which is what we're going to talk about today YouTube optimization

dialing in content into YouTube's algorithm for the purpose purpes of well there are lots of purposes and we'll get into that in a minute but um but we are kind of starting over just like everybody else does when they you know have a channel that they probably have not been using. I mean, when you sign up

on Google Gmail, you essentially have a YouTube account underneath that, but whether you have content on there or videos or you might just surf YouTube for whatever type of content that you know you uh searching for. And we'll talk about YouTube shorts as well.

YouTube shorts, those are important. Very important. There's a lot of value. And that's essentially what this episode's about is YouTube optimization. Um, the aligning of content to a defined audience, Riley, what what about YouTube stands out to you? I mean, it's big, right? First off, it's the second

largest search engine out there next to Google. Google's the first, YouTube's the second. And it might be uh worth highlighting that Google owns YouTube. YouTube. So, you know, um if you treat YouTube right and YouTube treats you right, then chances are Google's going to be right behind it. And that's

essentially what we're talking about. And so, you know, why optimize a YouTube channel, you know, well, if you're not creating content, well, then I guess you don't, right? But, you know, in 2025, um, at least follow what media is is really trying to help that small and medium-sized business start to embrace

and set up their companies for long-term success by creating content that educates their audience. um establishes that company as a thought leader, a subject matter expert, and basically put their hands in the air and go, "Hello, I'm over here. Y this is what we do.

This is why you should choose us over the other thousand options that might be around." Like if you're in real estate or you're a financial adviser, well, you know, why choose you? Yeah. You know, but what ends up happening through video content, through podcasts, through creating content that you are putting on

all these platforms is is you are building an authentic connection with an audience that normally is not used to probably seeing the CEO of a company or the, you know, head advisor or, you know, um authentic. I feel absolutely you get to see him. You get to hear him.

You get to, oh man, I like what this guy's about. You get to feel them. That's what you even better. You get to feel her, feel him, feel them, feel they whatever it is. They're feeling. We don't listen. You're not hearing. No.

No. Not at all. But what the whole point is, it doesn't matter what you are, who you are. Yeah. You're being authentic in front of a camera. Mhm. You're letting your voice be heard and you're basically showcasing probably the information that you've spent a vast amount of time in that industry or field which makes you

an expert. Definitely. Yeah. And you know um and every advisor is not the same. They've all had different experiences. They've had different clients. They've grown up different.

They've grown up in different backgrounds. Maybe from different countries. There's a lot of knowledge and value that can be shared. And that's what we're doing. And so, you know, YouTube becomes this powerful thing is when you are creating content consistently and it's aligned with the

audience that you are trying to get in front of and then you know YouTube starts to reward you by showing your content to more people and you know and then Google is going to come behind it and go, "Yeah, let's

reward them now. let's, you know, really start helping them with their SEO because Google SEO or the Google SEO, the YouTube SEO, all of it becomes this just I call it a circle of love. Yeah.

Right. So, you're saying if if everything aligns, you're doing the right thing on YouTube, it's optimized, Google will start putting your company's name when someone searches up maybe best financial advisors near me or or whatever the business or case may be. Is that would that be correct? Well, yeah,

to an extent. Well, it's all about keywords. It's all about, you know, just like your SEO optimization for a website is about keywords and back links and and basically um trying to show up in searches when someone puts um podcasting studio in Alfred, Georgia, right? We want follow-up media to show up, right?

So now you know when you Google certain words or phrases sometimes in Google search results now you'll also have a portion of video search results even though you might not have been asking for video but that have keywords or similarities that relate to your search.

And so if that's your company that's video content is populating in those searches good for you. Yeah for sure right. And so YouTube shorts and you know YouTube is become this thing where not only it can be monetized if you you know obviously you have to get certain amount of you know views and

listens and and things like that but it's become this thing that's almost become a lead generation tool. The ROI on it could be more leads for your business, right? And then what you end up doing is is out of the full video version, we here at Follow-Up Media, we create promo clips. Um, which these

promo clips could be used on, you know, Instagram reels, Facebook, Tik Tok, um, but also YouTube shorts. And so what was explained to me and what makes sense is that you know if you have a full 20 minute video that you've put out and you're a company and um we put the full video on YouTube you know the full

videos on your channel typically are more geared for the subscribers who have already subscribed. They're going to get notified just like a podcast. Hey you subscribe to this there's a new episode.

Um the shorts on the other hand, those are for the audience that doesn't know you. Yeah. Which all if it's set up correctly lead back to the full video version on your channel. But it's not a um you know a what I think what people have to understand also is is that a buyer's journey could be very very

different depending on who it is. Yeah. You know, you might have somebody that clicks on your video because what you've said is so valuable, they might go right to your website um based on the links that we have established in your um short video or your full video. But a lot of times buyers don't operate like

that. Typically, if I hear something that I'm like, man, that was a nugget of love. That was a nugget of wisdom. Like, I want to hear more from this guy. I might go back to your channel and listen to the full video, but then I'm going to find out the name of your company most likely and I'm going to probably throw

that into Google and I'm going to see what other search results and what results come up because under your company name you might have don't ever use that company again. I mean, there could be, you know, so typically before I personally reach out, I'll probably test it, you know. Well, that means that

the link that was in that video to your website might not have even been clicked or maybe it was clicked but then I went to Google and then I went back to it from a different so you might not actually get that the direct immediate from you know it's the how the buyer is going to make the decision on how

they're going to contact you. Yeah. And so it might not be directly from that Facebook post that had the link even though they liked it. They might not like your channel. They might not like your video. How many videos do you actually like? How many channels or people do you actually subscribe to?

Especially if you don't know them. And just because I didn't like their stuff, that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about doing business with them. Very true. And and I mean it's getting in front of their face. I I heard this the other day. I couldn't remember exact. I don't want to butcher it, but you probably

will. I probably will. This is kind of how it went. When you're talking about uh getting in front of people and and getting your business known, obviously, if let's just talk about a billboard, you want to have it on the busiest street, right? You want to have it with the most traffic. People be able to see

it typically. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be the goal. It's going to be a little more expensive to do that. Just kind of like doing it, right? More traffic that's going to pass it is going to definitely determine how much you're going to pay each month. You have it in the middle of the woods. Of course, it's

going to be cheaper. There's no one that's going to be You have it on the way down to Orlando where they have like 10 billboards and one says Jesus on one loves loves you long time. Like I mean there's like seven billboards and just to get a sentence those billboards are probably pretty cheap. Yeah, I would

imagine. And a lot of them are just vacant and haven't been updated in who knows how long. Anyway, but some people that expect to do the cheap way expects to have the same results as someone that's putting it in the busiest street in Atlanta. So, no, you're not going to get the same result. And and that's

where also by not aligning your content and just throwing it up on YouTube and expecting a home run. Yeah, I'm not saying it can't happen, but if you're in the business world, um, and you're creating content that's more geared towards business, it's not pop culture, it's not a bunch of drama, it's not a

bunch of controversial stuff, um, chances are it's not going to gain that much traction. Yeah. You're not going to have people just, you know, knocking old ladies over to get to your content.

Right. Um, you know, TMZ is not covering your content. Yeah. Right. But your content is not aligned or geared towards that audience, per se. You're trying to educate your your clients to buy more, save more, I use you, invest more. Um, you know, if you're a real estate agent, you know, there's a lot of competition

in real estate. So, you want to educate your audience and the audience that doesn't know you as to why you're different, why you're an expert, and why they should use you. Because moving is one of the hardest, sometimes most complex, you know, things. Buying and selling a house if you got family,

packing everybody up, moving them if it's across town or across country. You want to get the most bang for your buck. You want to also be represented on the buying side to know the area you're moving into. You don't want so your real estate agent to go show you a house you go, "Oh, it's beautiful and not tell you

that it's next to a airport where the plane is going to shake your house and rattle everything off the desk or or or you're next to some, you know, brown site." If you know what a brown site is, Riley. Yes. That means it's like polluted. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. We have in Atlanta something called Atlantic

Station. Have you ever been to Atlantic Station? Yes, sir. I have. Do you know Atlantic Station is built on extremely toxic and populated land? Didn't know it. That is why the parking garage and that is why the buildings are elevated so far above the actual dirt because if you go down to the very and this is

probably I think it's one of the largest parking decks either in the world or in the United States. Have you ever like gotten lost in that parking garage? I mean it is massive. It is really big.

All of Atlantic Station is built on top of those parking decks. It's because the amount of money it would have cost for them to have cleaned up the toxicity that's in the dirt there because of the steel plant, I believe, that used to reside there and all the chemicals that were dumped into the land. There would

be no way you would be able to clean that up um within a cost that made any which way of sense. So their loophole was was to get approval to build it x amount where people were living Yeah.

above the toxicity. That's crazy. I did not know that. Yeah. Mhm. So and like and it's weird too because if you ever go down to like the lower parking deck, it almost knowing that information.

I'm not saying you can smell the chemicals, but there's definitely an odor of something that is Yeah. Not for a long period of time anyway, you know. But, you know, the the EPA and uh you know, OSHA are really uh when it comes to money, they just like the FDA are just real quick to approve

things sometimes be like, well, you know, maybe it won't kill them as fast if it's, you know, uh 50 feet up. Yeah. But anyway, but like you would want to know that the agent you're using knows that area. Yeah. Is an expert.

Mhm. And that they wouldn't put you. So in a place that was like that, you know, you wouldn't want to be buried on top of a cemetery and have some poltergeist thing where you're getting touched by in by a ghost in the middle of the night. I mean, I'm just saying those are those are just weird probably never going to

happen situations, but but there again, it's about, you know, showcasing your expertise and building an authentic connection with your audience and your future audience and being consistent about it. Oh, absolutely. You know, um throw a video out every once in a while and trying to have the same ROI that you

the competitors are doing once a week or bi-weekly or Yeah. And what's good about the businesses that so far in 2025 99% are still not doing it. 99% are not optimizing a YouTube channel or putting any content on it. So for the small and mediumsiz businesses that in all honesty have the balls. Yeah. Women or men. Mhm.

To take that leap and make that investment in content creation. Doesn't have to be a podcast. Anything that's done consistently, audio and video, could be turned into a podcast.

Definitely. So, the the term podcast these days I feel is um you can't paint it in a corner because it can be, you know, if it's bi-weekly, if it's weekly, if it's 10 minutes, if it's 20, it can be a podcast. And what that is is basically putting that content on an RSS feed that's going to populate not only

in YouTube because they have RSS integration but also through all the podcasting platforms like Apple Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Media, you know, Amazon has their own podcast. You're just putting it out there in different versions so the audiences consume their the content however they feel like

consuming it. Yeah. Do they want to watch it? Based on what action they're doing, they're mowing the yard, they're probably not going to watch your video, but they might listen to the audio during that. They're working out and they're on a treadmill, maybe they can watch that video at that point. Y

because there's a visual aspect where they don't have to worry about chopping their limbs off or the limbs of loved ones. That's right. Which would not be good. Um, so but the value of it is is that, you know, from an SEO standpoint, it helps your website. It helps your organic traffic results. You'll have a

landing page on your website if you're using a podcast. And your landing page will soon become your number one or number two landing page on your website because everything is directed from your platforms, social and YouTube, to your website. Yeah. Right. your form fills.

That is the lead genen, right? Is you know, you have a form, you have a newsletter. We're trying to fill those forms with an audience with leads that you can then follow up and hopefully close some deals. So, I mean, there is a tremendous amount of opportunity, but also a trend tremendous amount of

benefit. I mean, as far as dollar for dollar on advertising, I mean, you could spend thousands and thousands a month on digital ad campaigns with just a commercial, whether you're in it or not.

Um, but you're only going to have a very short amount of time, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, and it might not even be the owner of the company in it. You might have paid actors in it. That's not going to build an authentic connection. No.

And it's going to take a lot of redundancy to hammer that message in. Yeah. Because a lot of times soon as the the skip button, there's a skip icon showed up, are you watching the rest of that video? I mean, not unless it's just you're not even thinking about it and you hit the skip. You go get to your

content. Well, long form content, podcast, video series, things like that, like I said, doesn't have to be an hour long. It could be 10 minutes. It could be 15 minutes. It could be 6 minutes. I mean, you know, um, depending on what the content is would be my recommendation on, you know, how long

you go. I mean, I don't know if someone's going to want to sit there and listen to you rattle off information for two hours about financial advice. I mean, maybe someone who needs that financial advice. And obviously, if you're talking about retirement, those that are on the verge of retiring, it's

more of a concern. But if you're talking to you Riley, I don't think you'd give a less. Yeah. And you need a lot of money to invest. Yeah. So maybe, you know, at some point soon you'll have lots of money to invest. And then, you know, I knew I knew where to go to because I I looked up those videos. I've

seen the people, not only the people they worked with, but I'm more likely to go with the financial advisor that I'm seeing on the internet. I'm seeing on YouTube. I'm see why why does this guy keep or guy or girl keep popping up on my YouTube shorts? I'm probably going to pick them over the person that maybe I'm

recommended to or the person that I haven't seen and just ran across their website. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. And if you think about like, you know, we have a couple clients and not just a couple, we have a bunch of clients really that when they came to us, there was no content creation.

Their digital presence was kind of sucked, you know. I mean, did they have a Facebook and an Instagram? Yeah. Did they have a LinkedIn? Yeah. But were they consistently posting even I what I would grade as like A+ static images or was it just every now and then post? It wasn't consistent, you know. But after

we've got a hold of them, between promo clips, if we're managing their social anyway, between promo clips and um static image creation for certain uh businesses, you know, depending on what that business is, I mean, you Google their company's name now, and I mean, it's all it is a night and day presence.

Like you can see you could watch hours of the CEO laying down information about about their company and about what they do and about how they do it. Yeah. About how they're different. And I mean it doesn't matter if you go on their Facebook, their Instagram, their LinkedIn, their YouTube. You're like,

"Whoa, I could consume hours of content." Yeah, I know these guys now. Yeah. You you feel like you do. you. Well, you do kind of because you've got you've got the owner or the CEO or the spokesperson for that company that has been laying down knowledge week after week. That's weird. That's true. You

know, and I mean like and like wow the the nugget the truth bombs he's been dropping or whatever it is. Yeah. That's valuable. and and like now it's like you're not just seeing crickets or just you know, oh wow, their posting consistency is once every two months. I mean there is actual content like I

could sit there and binge want to know about this company. I want to see if they align with my beliefs, my moral code, my ethical values, you know, whatever. Well, within, you know, 20, 30 minutes, few hours, however long I wanted to, you know, spend doing the research before I actually filled out

the form and then made a decision that I, you know, want to do business with these people. Yeah. Boom. Closed. And your content continues to do so and work for you while your ass is sleeping doing other business activities, maybe making more content. So, YouTube is so powerful these days. I mean, at the bottom line,

you know, if you've got YouTube and you're posting videos on there and you're not getting much traction, there's probably a really good reason why your channel was not optimized or set up properly and the content that you're putting out, it might not align or it might, but it might not be titled

correctly. And that's why you have a department that specializes in YouTube optimization because it is tricky. It is hard. Well, you we have a department, Riley. You got to say we. It's not just me. Sorry. Yeah. We We have apartment.

Yes. Yes. That's right. That's that eats, sleeps, and breathes and and understands how you They go to bed with their YouTube pillow. They soup on their YouTube like it's a very soft down pillow and and it's YouTube. They all have little YouTube tattoos over their knees. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Breaking the code. Um Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They got the YouTube algorithm, whatever that looks like. um you know tattooed across their uh lower back. It's a giant tram stamp. It's a giant YouTube tram stamp. Does anyone have one of those? Please, please submit. Maybe I want to see. We'll have

you on the podcast. Do you have a YouTube tram stamp? We'll have you on the podcast. I want to know. I mean like did YouTube Mr. Beast probably because I mean he makes more money than anybody on YouTube. I mean, if that guy hasn't given a part of his real estate on his body to YouTube yet, that would be kind

of a kind of an ashamed. Maybe. I don't know. Or maybe I don't have to. Screw them. He's got many plaques and lots of money. But yeah, it's it's you know, our team eats, sleeps, and breathes analytics. And I mean, they love diving in to, you know, YouTube's algorithm, keeping up with the new and improved

YouTube updates, best practices, whether it be custom thumbnails, best titles, using the best titles and descriptions for SEO, the best call to action or CTA. Super important. You've got to ask and give people the ability to drive them to the action you want, which is hitting the link to your, you know, social

media, your website, filling out the form, getting more info, scheduling a meeting. That doesn't mean they're going to in the route that you provide each time, but you're at least making it so easy for them to do so they don't have to go fishing for stuff because nobody takes the time. Yeah. I mean, you

imagine back in the old day, you'd have to walk 100 miles with a tablet and the and a hammer and just to get your message across. Or maybe carry your pigeon. That might have been the faster way. But pigeon? What? Pigeon? Well, carrier. Yeah. No, not that type of pigeon. No, no, no. Even though I want a

pigeon. I do want one day. Pigeon. Pigeon. I would want a pigeon. And I want him to carry a little backpack. I want him to carry messages back and forth. Would his name be or her?

What? Pidgey. Little pige pige. No, I mean one day. One day soon we will, you know, I just want to, you know, go back to the medieval times where the best way to communicate besides sending a dude on a horse to deliver a message would be uh a very

beefy pigeon with a backpack or you know. Is that back when when blogs were useful? Oh, it was way way before that maybe. Yeah. Well, blogs still are useful. Yeah. I mean, I hate seeing when we go to a website and that's their only form of content creation. Well, the reason they're doing it is from for an

SEO benefit, you know. Um they're they're tying in certain keywords or phrases into that blog that hopefully will be searchable and will show up and populate in Google searches for certain terms. A lot of time it's based from a company that they're paying to do their blogs and it's not based on really

educating. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. And I can't really make the general statement that it never really is applies or has any value, but it doesn't have value if nobody's seeing it and nobody's reading it. And if it can't stand on its own and that's the only

thing you have going for content is that prefab blog from a nobody in your office or in your company that actually wrote it and it has any meaning, you know. I I see it as a very it's old thinking.

Yeah. You know, and and they're not embracing and creating a digital presence which eventually I don't care if you've got a ton of referral business. Great. Good for you. I hope it continues. Word of mouth is an awesome form of marketing, but if you don't have anything in the pipeline and that well

starts to dry up, well, then you're in a situation where you're like, "Holy shit." Yeah. I mean, now, and it depends on how also how long is the sales cycle for deals in your industry. I know in our industry, they could be long if they're not quite ready. You know, if you're selling a widget and it's like 10

bucks, I mean, it could be very fast. people just blow. But if it's, you know, if it's a relationship building sales cycle, that's 6 months to a year. Even in real estate, it could be you might get a lead where you close in 30 days, but most of the time it's a 6090 deal.

Yeah. You know, you you have a buyer, you have to go find them a home and you have to win the bid and then that has to go through inspection and normally it's, you know, 30 45 days out before you close. So that means that agent's not getting paid for, you know, two, three months. So if your foot's off the gas

and there's no leads in the pipeline, well, you might have to now you're scrambling to try to get a pipeline built. Yeah. You know, what we're saying is is start building and setting your company up for long-term success in the digital era. I mean, and you know, I'm not saying old traditional marketing

lanes or, you know, initiatives are not valuable. They still are. Yeah, but if you're not equally spending time branching off and establishing your footprint. Hey, we're over here. Mhm.

This is me. This is what I do for a living. Hey everybody, this we're not brick and mortar. We're talking about on your social platforms. And I get it. I'm not a huge fan of being on social media telling you what I'm eating, what I'm wearing, what I'm going shopping for.

That's not what I'm talking about. But still, if you're going to have the account, you need to do more than just have the account. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so, by being active or having somebody in your team or on in your company active on behalf of your company, that does, you know, a lot,

especially if you're creating content that aligns with the people you are wanting to get in front of, right? You know, traditionally we call the people we are trying to get in front of and we say, "Hey, we're followup media. You need us, right?" And this is why and you know, and Riley's Riley does it. I do

it. Um, but digitally, you know, you need to have content basically saying the same thing. Walking like you talking. Yep. Yep. Action is everything really. And follow-up media, that's what we're about. We're about action, execution, and pigeons.

Yeah. Thank content creation. Did I take the words out of your mouth? Yeah. Okay. So, that being said, um if you have any questions, you want to join the show, um you want more information about Follow-Up Media and any one of our long list of services that we are executing for our clients, Riley, where can they

find us? Followupdia.com. Man, it's beautiful to hear it. Um yeah, or hit us up on our socials, subscribe on our YouTube channel, share it, um like us. We like you. And uh you know if you have any questions we can address them either off mic or on mic next week when we talk. But thank you for

listening and check out our YouTube optimization services. And uh we have some packages, you know, some on the lower scale, some on the mid and some on the high, but you know, anything's better than nothing for sure. Sweet.