YouTube Retention Strategy: How to Hook, Hold, and Convert Viewers

0:00I'm Mari Smith, known as the premier Facebook marketing expert, aka queen of Facebook, and this is actually my 14th time because I have been at every single social media marketing world. There is no amount of sophisticated technology that can ever take the place of live, in person, IRL, heart to heart, face to face. You could very well meet some of your best friends, clients, joint venture partners, alliances, have opportunities, podcasts, speaking engagements, it's extraordinary. So come on in for this beautiful, in-person experience. Get tickets at socialmediamarketingworld.info.

0:37Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads, and more sales, helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide. Today, we'll explore a YouTube strategy to retain viewers and turn them into customers. My special guest is a YouTube strategist who helps entrepreneurs scale their businesses organically with YouTube.

1:21He's the founder of the YouTube Revenue Lab. His forthcoming book is called Binge Worthy. His software is Scriptonite. Adam Ivey, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? I'm doing wonderful. Thanks so much for the opportunity. I'm excited to have a great conversation today. Well, it's super awesome to have you here. I'd love to hear how you got into YouTube. Share your story. Yeah, so I grew up in a very small town in central Wisconsin, where no matter which way you point 15 minutes in, you're at a dairy farm. And in 2006, YouTube came out and it was like this mind-blowing thing. People could use, you know, back then, you know, camcorders and whatnot to put their content out.

1:57And I started becoming a consumer of the content on the platform. So in 2009, as a aspiring music producer at the time, I wanted to not only build the word of mouth of what I was doing, but I wanted to have my voice heard. I grew up in an area where you weren't allowed to dream. You were just silly if you were. And so I put videos out on YouTube back in 16 years ago now. and fast forward to 2026. And, you know, I'm helping other people do the same only in a much more methodical, intentional way. Well, I also grew up in Wisconsin, which you may or may not know. And I remember getting milk in school that was really cheap.

2:36Like I'm older than you, but it was like three cents, two cents for regular milk, three cents for chocolate milk. So just out of curiosity, share a little bit more of like, why did you end up going into YouTube? Just give us a little bit more on that story and then kind of what you're doing today. So I joined YouTube to get my name out there and to see if I could connect with people around the world. Where I grew up in central Wisconsin, either you would go to college and become a nurse or a, you know, fill in the blank, or you'd go work in a factory. I worked in a factory for four years. And after I would come home, a lot of times I would stumble upon YouTube.

3:13This is years later, like I said, 2006, 2007, give or take. And I was just so inspired by these people that were brave enough to get their videos out, right? I grew up very shy, had social anxiety all the way through my mid-20s. And to be able to live vicariously through these people who would take the time to share whatever they were interested and excited about was just this entire different world that opened my eyes to maybe I could do it. So I started with an old Kodak point and shoot camera that had a video mode. It really wasn't intended to be a video camera and started shooting with just a raggedy old tripod that I think I bought from Radio Shack or something and figured it out along the way.

3:57But it was so exciting. The internet was relatively new still, not from existing, but this side of it, the social media, the MySpace world and Facebook requiring you to have a college email. We're talking about a while ago. And so getting on YouTube and then seeing even 20 people watching a video was like, oh my goodness, 20 people saw my stuff. I don't know who these people are. And then you get a few comments and it's just very addicting, especially back then compared to now where anybody and everybody can make an unbelievably high quality video just using their cell phone. Well, tell us what you're doing now with YouTube.

4:33Yeah. So I'm teaching entrepreneurs, service providers, coaches, consultants, and what I like to call business-minded creatives how to utilize the platform as a tool rather than looking at YouTube as an employer. I think that that's a sticking point that everybody looks at this monetization thing. Oh, if I'm just good enough, if I just appease the YouTube gods long enough, they'll make me monetized and I'll be able to make a few cents off of my videos or get rich or become the next Mr. Beast. And in reality, it's no different than anything. We can utilize it for our advantage to feed our vision and what we're trying to do with our brand and business.

5:05Or honestly, even if you just have it as a creative outlet and as a hobby, YouTube has two very different sides. And most people only ever see what's advertised. Oh, you get monetized, you get a bunch of views, you could get paid if you're lucky. And now I'm helping people do what I did by building, you know, two seven figure businesses by using YouTube as a tool and showing them how to do it themselves for essentially evergreen lead gen brand recognition, building trust and so forth. YouTube is just an unbelievable tool that changed my life. And I'm trying to show people the power of it to change theirs, hopefully.

5:42And how long have you actually been creating or helping other people create videos on YouTube, just out of curiosity? So I've been helping people on YouTube since 2013, just kind of more so behind the scenes or as part of other programs that I had offered in 2014, or it could have been early 2015. I was offered one of the educational director roles at Leadpages. Clay Collins, Clay, whatever his name was. I flew up to Minneapolis two or three times and had long-winded interviews. You know, they offered to move me up there. And for a conversation for a different day, I decided that it wasn't what I was presented as the opportunity.

6:20They gave it to a local candidate because they didn't want to pay for my relocation, even though they had agreed. But that's a little petty side note from over 10 years ago. But I'm glad it didn't work out, side note, because they experienced some significant change right after that happened. Wasn't that the same company behind Drip? It's the same company behind the email app Drip, which is what we use today. Yeah, it definitely evolved big time. So, okay. Well, let's talk about, you've been either helping businesses or creators or creatives or entrepreneurs for a very long time with YouTube. And you've seen a lot of messages that are out there.

6:53What's one of the biggest maybe things people misunderstand or a misconception when it comes to YouTube content? I think people automatically think that they need a ton of views in order to be taken seriously, because that's the surface level cool stuff, right? Subscribers, views. I got a million subscribers. I got a billion views. But it doesn't take that many views to get business. It doesn't take that many views to get trust. Right. Depends on what market you're serving. Depends on who you want to connect with. So many people think that in order to be successful as a YouTuber, they have to have incredibly polished content.

7:26They need to have the social proof of all these people just adoring them. They need to have this mass appeal because they've seen the big names in the space say that you need 45 pieces of content a day and, you know, all the other stuff that might work for some. And for others, it's just nonsense. So for YouTube, it's about the who in terms of who's watching your stuff rather than how many people are watching your stuff. Because there are so many people out there, especially in the entertainment realm, who are just mass appeal. And they don't make nearly as much money as you would think they do because they don't.

8:01They're not a specialist in anything. They're just here today, gone tomorrow type of distracted type content. When people pay attention to what we're talking about today, when they do YouTube content really well, what is waiting for them on the other side? What are some of the benefits or outcomes they might have if they pay close attention to what we're going to talk about today? So being able to build trust very quickly. We all know the like, no trust, but YouTube is an absolute beast when it comes to that in comparison to social media, short form content, TikToks and Twitter or X or whatever.

8:34And the thing about YouTube is it has the power to provide traffic, provide eyeballs and really a reputation for you for years. Even if you decide to take a break, even if you decide to switch lanes a little bit, if you decide to go on a sabbatical, YouTube will still continue to provide because it gets in the stream of the different algorithms, which are browse, suggested and then search. Right. So and we can go into that here or another time. But when they put the intention and they put the work into doing YouTube content, it feels like it's such this huge mountain to climb. However, it's actually a lot more laid back than trying to shove every bit of value into a 30 second reel that's going to die six days later.

9:18So the thing I love about YouTube is when you first start, nobody's watching. So there's no pressure when a hundred people subscribe versus a hundred thousand, there's added pressure, the more popular you become. And I think a lot of people have that backwards. That's really fascinating because there are so many people in my audience, like myself, that are creating original short form videos almost every day. And it's a lot of work. Like I was just calculating today how much time it takes me each video is at least an hour. And I know the shelf life of these videos is maybe just days, you know, and when you think about putting a little bit more energy into a slightly more intentional video, like we're going to be talking about today, how it could yield benefits down the road.

10:00It's absolutely true. I have videos on our YouTube channel that have just consistently delivered views. And I would imagine this also can lead to consistently delivering customers. Is that true? Absolutely. So I have a main channel that I launched back in 2010. I've been on YouTube since 2009. Back then, you could not change your URL. And back then my original URL was like Adam Ivey super awesome videos on YouTube. This was like a ridiculous URL. So when I launched my main channel, which is the big one right now, I changed it to, I think Adam Ivey TV in 2010. And, you know, the crazy part about it was that I abandoned or retired from that channel two years ago.

10:43So it's been almost 24 months since the last upload on that channel. And in the last year alone, I've had more than 260 ,000 views made about 1500 bucks from AdSense and I've had consistent, at least monthly, I want to say weekly, but I don't want to exaggerate people reaching out, wanting to work in high ticket programs that I used to offer that I retired two years ago. So if you build it, they will come and they'll continue to show up because it goes from YouTube showing you in browse, which is like your homepage or suggested on the side to all of a sudden your videos building up momentum in the search traffic, depending on what your niche is.

11:19But it's the gift that keeps on giving. And it's not nearly as much work as what you're saying, an hour to do a short form piece of content. Okay. So we're going to dig into this. And before we do, I want to ask, is there any thing that we need to be considering or thinking about before we begin creating YouTube content? Yeah. So like I was just saying, I love social media. I scroll way too much. You know, we have two little kids. So when they go down for a nap or they go to bed, my wife and I are sitting next to each other for 30 minutes looking at each other's funny TikToks or whatever that looks like.

11:51But I want your audience to think about something. Distracted attention versus focused attention. When you're on YouTube, there's a reason that in the last one year alone, TV viewership on YouTube has jumped by more than 60%. Think about that. does anybody ever sit down with their loved ones in bed or on their couch and pull up TikToks to scroll through? You'd have to be an absolute psychopath to watch it on a TV. Wait, there's somebody who does that. So we apologize because we know that's available now, but, but there's people that do that. Well, and they probably know, they probably know they're a psychopath.

12:24Keep going. No, but all jokes aside, I watch YouTube series on my TV, like it's Netflix, like it's HBO Max. And, you know, having focused attention is like having a four course meal that you make for Thanksgiving versus the cheap and easy dopamine and serotonin, you know, blast to the face that is social media, which I consider distracted attention. People are scrolling when they're at a red light. I don't recommend it, but people do that. People are scrolling when they're waiting for their leftovers to reheat. They're scrolling when, you know, they're on the toilet. And so these are not people that are going to turn into prospects.

13:03One thing that I always tell people, if they don't kind of believe me or they kind of scoff at that is if you're on TikTok for, let's say an hour, we're not talking like five minutes, an hour, and then we give it 15 minutes to wear off. I would bet my house that you, unless there are already people that you follow and are religiously loyal to, you would not be able to name one creator by name, by their handle that you watched in the last hour, because it's like we wipe the cash in our brain so fast. You probably saw a hundred of them too, right? Easy. You're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and nothing is ever good enough.

13:37Nothing ever lands. It's all this surface level. So as I mentioned, you know, focused attention is that four course meal, TikTok, Instagram, all of this social media stuff is like eating all of your meals out of a vending machine. It's cool a time or two, but eventually you'll feel so sick that you would rather not eat than actually go back for another Slim Jim or Doritos. Not a sponsor. So what's the moral of the story here specifically for YouTube that people need to understand about this? So I think that we have to understand that the relationships are built through focused attention. There's a reason why people sit down, give you 20 minutes of their time versus 30 seconds on social media.

14:15There's a reason why people are more likely to leave a comment, to share your stuff, to save it, to subscribe, to actually go to that link that you're telling them to go to, because you're able to sit down and have a face-to-face conversation with them, not just this pixie stick induced, you know, you know, high energy woo type of content that's going to be here today, gone tomorrow, just like begging, just pay attention to me for 30 seconds. Please just pay attention to me. And it's, it's just a different level of relationship that you're building with your audience. It's something that is valuable and will be long lasting compared to, I mean, it's like ads versus organic and we can go into that another conversation, but it's - Well, you know what I'd love you to focus on is help everybody understand the importance of retention on YouTube and why this is so darn important.

15:05Just because I think this is going to bring things home for everybody. Retention is the secret sauce that nobody really tends to think about on YouTube. They want to have better thumbnails. They want to have better titles, but then they don't realize that retention is like a party. I can invite you to my birthday party, but if you show up 15 minutes after it's supposedly started, there's no music. There's no food. It's just me. The house is dirty. You're going to remember that you had a root canal real fast. You go, oh man, what day is it today? I think I have a root canal to get to. People want to enjoy the experience of content on YouTube.

15:38So if we look at the overall retention aspect of it, I call it my ARC framework, which is attract, retain, convert. And retain is arguably, inarguably, the most important part of the whole system. And here's why. If somebody comes to a party and they refuse to take their shoes off, they can be there. But are they actually enjoying it? People can watch my videos and not really enjoy it or be doing something else while it's playing in the background versus if they're actually involved in the video. They feel like I'm talking with them, not at them. And so the longer that somebody sticks around in your video, maybe even watches another video that's called session time, the more that the trust signal gets sent to YouTube that you're not only a creator that people enjoy, but you're a creator that's helping YouTube make more money.

16:25Because the longer you keep people on YouTube, the more ads they can show, which now you're like almost like an affiliate or a JV partner in a lot of ways. You are a true ally of YouTube. And so that's the thing. When people show up and you can bring them into the party, you can bring them into the experience, time melts away. Then you leave them. And I'll walk through a whole framework with you here in a little bit. But like, if you can bring them into another video, into another video, into another video, I think a lot of the viewers or the listeners are familiar with the 7-11-4 study that Google did, right?

16:57What is it? Seven hours of content, 11 different touch points on four different platforms. And so if somebody is watching 28 minutes of your video, or even if it's like an eight minute video one time and then watches a 10 minute, then how many of your long form videos would they have to watch to feel like they trust you versus how many short form to even remember you? I have a client named Dave. Shout out to Dave. Lives up in Saskatchewan, Canada. And I'm up there working with them and we're shooting some content together because I offer that. And he hits me on the shoulder when we're taking a little break and he goes, you know how many videos I watched of yours on your channel before I wired you tens of thousands of dollars?

17:36And I'm like, no idea, man. He goes, I watched eight minutes of one of your videos and I knew you were the guy. You know, I was thinking to myself, you don't ask people enough how much they watched of your stuff before they worked with you, because when they show up, they're already ready to do business. In my former business with my previous channel, I was essentially the number one music marketing guy on YouTube for about five years. And I had an 83 % close rate on all my sales calls for more than three years or maybe just under three years. The amount of time I was tracking it closely because people would already know me from my YouTube content.

18:06So it wasn't like I was a stranger. It wasn't like they didn't know my delivery style or my quirky personality. They were just connecting with me face to face for the first time. And it was another experience for them. So it was a conversation about what they were trying to do rather than how can I collect money from them? And it was, I'm not inherently a great salesman. So that was made things a lot easier for me. So let's get into how we can retain people. Because if there's one thing I heard you say is that YouTube will reward you if you can keep people watching your video. And here's what I know.

18:41I mean, I have a decent sized YouTube channel. And what I found is that if people actually will stick and watch the video, then YouTube will show that thumbnail and that title to even more people and more people and more people for free. Right. And that's the important part. Like they will actually evangelize you as a result of you creating content that benefits the company, right? Which is Google, which is owning YouTube. So when it comes to retaining people, how do we actually go about doing this? Because I know you've got a really good system for this. So let's kind of break it down a little bit.

19:15Thank you for that. Yeah. I'm coming out with a book called Binge Worthy and it all stems off of the premise of what I created over the years, which is called my binge method. It's a framework that I put together that I use on all my YouTube scripts to keep people retained. The more retention that you have on your video or average view duration, how long out of the total length did somebody watch, the more YouTube is going to show it to more people, like Mike said. So if you look at the aspects of it, bringing people in, giving them a little tease, respecting their time with talking points, getting them to interact with you, getting them to another video, binge is actually an acronym.

19:55So every letter stands for the different step in the framework. Would you like me to go through all the letters or go through them one by one? Let's start with the beginning and then we'll kind of unravel it that way. It'll be easier for people to process it. A hundred percent. So B stands for banger hook or bombshell hook, just something that's going to be an emotional trigger for them. Something that's going to already start delivering on the promise, which is the title in the thumbnail. They have an expectation, right? Every single one of us, when we see a YouTube video, we click it, hoping that it's something that we're expecting.

20:28And that opening hook, it's about having a visceral reaction. And this could be any emotion on the spectrum. It could be happiness, joy. It could be grief, sadness. It could be anger. It could be fear. It could be FOMO even, but opening the video with something that's going to pull them in, stop them in their tracks from looking at the sidebar where they have all these other suggested videos and pull them in. That's that bombshell or banger hook. That's going to stop the scroll. Essentially, one thing that a lot of people say that, you know, you only have 30 seconds to hook the viewer. 30 seconds is very optimistic and more like 2016 math, because I could sit here and I'm to respect your viewers time here, but I could sit here for eight seconds and it would feel like an eternity if I was just quiet.

21:14So the first few seconds, and then you have to hit them with the next letter, which is I, and I stands for build intrigue. So you're doing an opening hook. Build intrigue is kind of like hook part two. It's, this is why it matters. This is why you want to watch it without teaching or giving away any spoilers. Perfect. So let's go to the next one and then And we'll unravel these three because they all kind of work together a little bit, don't they? They sure do. So N stands for nudge forward. One thing I see time and time again is people doing videos. And those of you out there that are listening to me right now, you know that you do a listicle, five ways to grow on Instagram, six things to do to increase email delivery rates.

21:54And you'll say, step one, step two, step three, step four. And people know right where they are. And every single time you're reminding them how long they've spent with you. not to mention if you open up the video and you say, for example, email delivery rates, in this video, I'm going to show you how to increase your email delivery rates by doing this and doing this and doing this and doing this and doing this. Let's jump into it. Well, you already gave away all the steps and we live in a society where we're so used to these LLMs. We ask a question, it gives us what we need. We skim and we're gone to where if you give them the steps, they assume they know how to connect the dots, which is actually doing more harm than good a lot of ways.

22:32And if you can keep the conversation going naturally rather than stopping, starting, stopping, starting, stopping, starting, that's how somebody blinks and they're through a 30 minute video without even realizing that they're that far. Hi, my name is Mandy Hedrick and I'm here at Social Media Marketing World. My first time attending Social Media Marketing World and I had won my ticket. And so I attended online and the impact it had in what I could do for my business immediately. It was my goal as a business owner to be able to earmark the dollars. This is my second time in person. So I just love being in a room full of people that are like-minded.

23:13It's a big investment, but I'm not just investing in myself, but I'm also investing in my clients. And I will be coming back every single year. I'm already ready to buy my next ticket and book my hotel room. Get tickets at socialmediamarketingworld.info. I've always told guests on my show, don't reveal your whole thing right out of the gate because if people are going to assume they know what it is and they're going to bail. And that's exactly affirmed with what you said. So far, we talked about the hook and the hook is the first couple of seconds. And you said it should have some sort of an emotional reaction.

23:43And then we talked about intrigue, which is why it matters. And then the nudge forward. So what I would like you to do is let's start with this hook concept. How do we create an emotional reaction or a visceral reaction? Because that's going to be something many people in my audience have no clue how to do that. Oh, sure. So what I like to do is I try to put myself in the shoes of the ideal viewer that I'm speaking to. So let's say if someone wanted to grow on YouTube, because that's what my second channel is all focused on. Instead of saying, in this video, I'm going to teach you five ways to get unstuck on your YouTube and get you into momentum faster than you ever thought possible, right?

24:21That's just telling them what I'm about to tell them. Instead, I put myself in their shoes. Who is watching this? Is it somebody frustrated? They've put in a lot of time and effort on the videos. They've bought the expensive camera. They did everything that these other gurus are telling them to do and they're still stuck. Is that who I'm talking to? Well, perhaps it is. So I might open up that video and put myself in their shoes, but talking to them about it, right? Might say something along the lines of, so you maxed out a credit card on that fancy camera. You just spent six hours this week that you didn't have doing a video that nobody's watching.

24:56You did that last week and three weeks before that. And unfortunately, it's your fault. You just don't know it yet. So in this video, I'm going to be breaking down the two things that nobody's telling you to do, because once you click a couple buttons, everything's going to open up. And I'll show you which ones those are here in a second. But before we jump in, we have to talk about it. You know what I mean? So it's teasing some things. It's showing them that I understand where they are. And again, I'm freestyling here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So if I was to do one, I'd be like, hey, you're spending hours creating short form video that only is seen for a few days when you could spend less time creating something that could be seen for months.

25:31Let me show you how something along those lines. Right. I mean, using the past thing that we just talked about, and maybe it's not the visceral react. I got it. How do we dial in that visceral reaction? Because that's that's kind of the key to everything, isn't it? It is. I think that identifying what emotions that somebody is feeling, for example, I could say you're spending way too much time on short form content and it's eating into your relationships. It's taking you away from your kids, like being able to take them into the situation where they're stressed out about it, not to twist the knife, but to tell them, look, I understand how you're feeling.

26:08Knowing a problem and understanding the feeling are two very different things. So if I could go in and say, a lot of people are spending 10 hours a week on 30 second clips that aren't doing anything for their brand or their business, taking time away from their kids, taking time away from their spouse, costing them money that they do not have. You know what I mean? Yeah. Or even taking them away from the other business obligations they've got. Right. Yeah. Without question. So now how do we get that intrigue part in there? Because I like that's also a master science, isn't it? I suppose. I kind of obsess over human psychology and this stuff, but when it comes to you lead with the feeling, you work into a solution by teasing the transformation, and then you get into the actual delivery mechanism.

26:50One thing that I came up with a long time ago is what I call the you, we, I, we, you, which is a great way to get into this. Well, one of my clients called it the yo-yo method, which sounds so much better than me sounding like I'm from Finland or something saying you, we, I, we, you. So it's, you feel this way. We've been told, I figured it out. I've brought it back to we, and you have to make a decision on if you're going to, I'll just do a real quick example in the fitness space, right? You've been told that you can't eat at McDonald's. You've been told that you can't eat bread. You've been told that you can't eat ice cream.

27:24We've been told time and time again, that we have to eat this much dry chicken, this much broccoli, and this much rice six times a day for the rest of our life if we want to have a beach body. I got sick of it. And I was like, I'd rather be obese than be a servant to a particular diet. So I went out and I started looking at what actually made a difference. I started looking at macronutrients. I started looking at micronutrients. I started looking at hormonal levels, how my thyroid was, you know, reacting to certain foods, what my energy levels were. And I think that if we all do that individually and we look at what's changing our body, what we are susceptible to, what our cravings and triggers are, we can actually break that cycle without listening to all this nonsense advice.

28:09You have an option. You have the ability to go and do this. So you can either keep listening to those people that are telling you to eat dry chicken for the rest of your life, or you can make a change and you can join the program that I have with link in the description box below. I'm just kidding in that regard, but yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let me ask you this. Obviously you were riffing a little bit here, but we want to ideally compress this whole thing into like seconds, right? I mean, so that's probably where we're working with some scripting a little bit, right? To try, try to get the hook and the intrigue in 10 seconds, 10 seconds, maybe.

28:41Is that really what we're looking at? Not even seconds. Okay. Got it. And then the nudge forward is like, stick with me as I reveal to you something along those lines, right? Or here's five ways. Yeah, think about it this way, Mike. So if you think about Facebook posts from 2014, like six amazing national parks that you have to go to, number five will blow your mind. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Okay. It's teasing it, right? So the nudge forward is closing a loop and opening a loop in the gray area where people don't have enough time to be distracted. So all that a high retention YouTube video is going to do similar to a VSL, for example, is open loop, closed loop, dopamine, serotonin, cortisol.

29:22So feel good, get a little uncomfortable, feel good, get a little uncomfortable. We have, you know, in our human nature, the cognitive dissonance of like, I need to know what the answer is. And then as soon as you get the answer, you go into another thing. So taking somebody from the opening hook, build intrigue, so emotional connection, emotional trigger problem into teasing the solution into right into the first talking point. That is the flow that will make it so smooth that people don't realize that you're even into the first talking point. so so many people will stop and be like you know before we start make sure to subscribe just do that later after you already have their attention so this is the part that is short and it's really short but it's the most important part once they hit play right so if you can nail this and my guess is it's taken you years to master this thing am i right or did you just kind of kind of come straight out and get it right i mean doesn't it take you a little while to figure this out I have been on YouTube for 16 years and focused on this stuff for probably eight to nine of it at this point.

30:30Yes. So there was a few aspects of the binge method that I kind of discovered as I was trying to fit it into a framework. I was watching a ton of my old videos, looking at the ones that performed the best, looking at the ones that performed the worst, looking at videos that caught my attention all the way through. And it's very similar to how you write a script for a movie or screenplay. It's different story parts. One dot connects to another, connects to another. One storyline kind of gets tied up with a pretty bow while another one opens up. There's chaos and drama and then peace and resolve.

31:03And so the nudge is so important throughout the entire scripting process as well. Keep in mind, guys, if you're listening to this or watching, not all of your videos have to be fully scripted, but this framework works even if you're just doing an outline, if you understand how it works. So the nudge forward is at the end of every talking point. It's at the end of the build intrigue section because you're closing a loop and opening. And I'll give you an example here. If I'm talking about today, I'm going to go through several different ways to grow your Instagram following. The first thing I might talk about is optimizing your bio.

31:36And at the end of it, instead of saying, all right, let's go into the second one. I would say now optimizing your bio is definitely going to make a huge change in how much momentum you could pick up quickly. But if you're not fully understanding the next part, nobody's going to stick around. So it's like, this just helped you, but there's something that you need to know. And obviously that's just like a little freestyle, but I call that useful, but incomplete. That's a phrase that I think is like, Hey, you're saying this is really helpful, but there's more that you need to understand if you want to get wherever the outcome is.

32:06Okay. So we've talked about the hook, the intrigue and the nudge forward. What's next? So the next letter is G for generate engagement. and this isn't stopping things in the middle of a video to say, like, comment, subscribe. You can do that if you're good at it, but it's really making the viewer think, making the viewer want to engage, asking them about themselves. People love talking about themselves and not in like a manipulative or persuasive way. But a lot of times as a creator, I like to get feedback. I like to hear what somebody's going through. So I might do a video where I'm like, go to your analytics and look at this, you know, XYZ thing and tell me what it says on yours.

32:42I'd love to hear and let me know what your channel is about because somebody is like, oh, yeah, let me go check. I'm going to report back to Adam. That for a lot of people is like completely counterintuitive to the way they do social media. But the one advantage you have here is you're doing long form media when you're making these videos. These are like eight, 10, 20 minute videos. Am I right? And you also have to understand that if you are educating, they're going to potentially pause the video and go do whatever it is you're telling them to do. Is that right? It is. And another thing that has worked very well for me over the years is a public proclamation.

33:13What I'll say to my viewers is I'll say something like, now you need to make these four changes and things are going to change for you in a positive way, but most people are going to watch this video and they're not going to do anything with it. So I want you to proclaim in the comments, if you're brave enough, that today is the day my channel finally breaks free. And I'll put that on the screen, say this with quotes and people naturally want to have a little bit of accountability, but they also want to be heard. They want to be seen. So when you do that, they're like, oh my goodness, I see other people doing it.

33:42I want to be, you know, one of my favorite quotes is nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. And so they want to jump in and say like, well, I'm going to do it too. And so it doesn't matter if you're trying to get somebody to break a bad habit. If you want somebody to be a better, in a better relationship, better fitness, you know, they want to learn sign language. Today's the day that you start taking this seriously and become fluid at ALS or ASL. Real quick question here. Does YouTube reward high engagement? I'm just curious. Or is there a business advantage to having engagement? Because it seems to me that a lot of people watch YouTube with like kind of a sit back and kind of just absorb it kind of mentality.

34:19And I'm just curious whether there is any kind of strategic reason why anyone who works in business might want to seek this kind of engagement. When your channel has higher engagement, usually is shown to more people because now you're an active channel, meaning the people that watch your stuff are active with your content. They're not passively viewing. And guess what happens when YouTube sees that people are commenting? They know that they're at their computer or on their phone. They know that they're actually looking at what's presented to them. So now if I'm a guy that comments on videos, YouTube knows that, oh, Adam Ivey watches ads too because he has to in order to do what he's doing.

34:58He's not folding laundry across the room where he's not paying attention or, you know, doing something out in the garage and forgot to close his iPad where his video are running out, you know, one after another. So another thing to keep in mind, too, and I look at this very differently because I've been to a time. I mean, not as much as you, but I've been to a lot of different networking events and marketing conferences. And let's say I talk to you in person. Well, magically, that changes the game versus me just seeing you talk to other people. just that little bit of interaction, especially if you respond to all your comments, which highly recommend you do, you know, until your channel gets to a certain point where it's nearly impossible because that is going to build the trust and engineer the attention much more effectively and efficiently to where people are going to be moved to take a buying action much faster than if they're just passively watching your videos for three years without commenting or taking any action whatsoever.

35:50Do you feel like asking if people take action, but maybe they don't subscribe to your channel, there's a likelihood they may see your videos again in the future. Is there something at play there as well? 100%. So I tell people all the time, if you want to have a little YouTube sleuthy tactic, put your thank you videos, you know, you have a thank you page from a lead magnet or whatever that looks like, even a paid product that somebody might be purchasing or a coaching program or whatnot, have the thank you video be an unlisted YouTube video instead of hosting it on the platform itself or something great.

36:22I use Vimeo for a lot of things, but as far as the thank you video, if somebody downloads a free lead magnet resource, right, and they see your YouTube video unlisted and they watch any bit of it, now they're going to start seeing your other videos on their homepage because now a connection has been made. So it's an easier way to get in front of the people. It's essentially retargeting without it being an ad. It's like organic retargeting. And I think that that's important. Talk to me about how we can actually verbally spur engagement without kind of taking the video too far off track, right? Because you already talked earlier about how important it is to nudge people forward.

37:00So how do we work in these engagement techniques? Do we do it verbally? Do we do it with text over the top of the screen? Like got any tips on that? No, that's a great question. I love the, by the way, anyway, call to action. I've been doing this for years. It's a, I know that I'm going to be pitching a lead magnet or tell somebody to go click a link in the description box below. However, I weave it into my scripts at a place where it would be a thought off the top of my head. So for example, I have what's called the ultimate YouTube growth guide. It's like a nine page PDF and I'll be talking about something.

37:36it'll be a talking point where I'll be getting out of it. And I'll say, Hey, speaking of which, I put everything that you need into my ultimate YouTube growth guide. It's a perfect companion for all these free videos here on YouTube. I'll have a link in the description box below, but if you take time to download it, like do something with it, please. Otherwise don't waste your time. Anyway, if you download it, enjoy it. Get back to the video. Kind of like it's a random thought that came into your head, even though it's not random, right? It should never be salesy and you never are trying to get people off the platform.

38:02It's something that you want them to open up and explore after they're done watching the video. because if it gets salesy, I've seen people that are like super casual and charismatic, and then they come to their call to action with like, and that brings me to something I've been working on for six months. This is the ultimate guided online course that you need. And for the next 48 hours, it's just like, dude, you just jumped right into a VSL and you're going to lose everybody that actually thought of you as like a friendly ally to them. Right. So the, by the way, anyway would be if you and I are at a barbecue, Mike, and you have a specific Range Rover that needs a very specific part.

38:38And I'm like, oh, I have one in my garage. Just this come over and like, you can use it as long as you need it. I don't need it anyway. And like, we get back to talking about football or something. It's this friendly, I have this thing, you should try it out. No pressure anyway, where it's so casual that they don't feel like it's a bait and switch and it's very disarming doing it casually like that. Love it. What's next in your process? So I don't think we've talked about the E yet in binge, which is end in momentum. So this is probably the most important thing about all of this or, you know, it's up there.

39:12And what I mean by that is so many people that are on YouTube will tell you six minutes before a video is done that they're about to wrap up the video. And it could be a seven minute video, right? So, you know, getting them to the next video matters more than the nicety of a salutation. So what I'm saying is I go through all my talking points and I'll just break this down real quick. I don't want to gloss over everything. The binge method looks like this, guys. Bang or hook, build intrigue, get into the first talking point through the nudge. And then each of your talking points, let's say you have five talking points, we'll have a micro hook, talking point, nudge into the next thing.

39:47A micro hook, think of it this way. If you were to make five TikTok videos that merge together, everyone would have its own hook, talking point, and then you're nudging it to the next talking point instead of number one. Okay, we're done. Number two, okay, we're done. It's actually designed so that every talking point can be extracted as its own standalone short form video with no extra work on your part, if you do it intentionally. But ending in momentum is just that. Let's say I have my final talking point. I'm talking about email marketing or something. I'm telling them like, look, you should be able to have UTM links in every one of your emails so that you could track which email got the most clicks to your thing.

40:27Speaking of which, if you want to learn more about communication, watch this video next. If you haven't yet, click that little link to subscribe to the channel. Let me know what the biggest takeaway was. And until next time, I appreciate you watching. I just wrapped up that video in seven seconds. Did you tease? I mean, I wasn't even tracking completely. Did you tease the next video also? And when you were saying that? I always use the generic tease. I'll say, hey, speaking of which, watch this video next. If you like this video, you'll love this video. I don't ever want to lock myself into knowing exactly what that other video is because in six months from now, I might have a new version.

40:59In this next video, I teach you about 25 subject lines that always get open to the next. Explain to people that don't even understand how that works. I mean, explain what you're referring to. So YouTube has a feature called end screens and you have exactly 20 seconds or less to show another video in those 20 seconds on the screen. You have a few different elements. You could put up a playlist. You could put up an individual video. You could select the video. You can have YouTube show the video that they think is a best fit for that viewer. You can have a little circle that people can click on to subscribe to the channel.

41:29And only for those 20 seconds, because YouTube knows, dude, you don't need more than 20 seconds. If you're rambling for more than 20 seconds, you're taking way too long, right? They're in the business of keeping people on the platform. So ending in momentum, picture it this way. I come and I speak at a wonderful event and Michael says, Adam, I'm going to give you affiliate commission or something, but only for the people that follow you to the second stage. You're actually speaking twice today. I would present very differently in that first presentation than I would if it was only the one and only presentation, right?

42:02So you want to get somebody from that video to another video, to another video, to another video, to the point where I just had a group call with my group here a few days ago. And somebody is like, I'm kind of fangirling because I literally have watched every one of your videos on your channel. That's what we want a lot of people to do. So the more that they watch, the more that they feel they know you, you have that symbiotic relationship. And then when you talk to them, they already know your mannerisms. They know that maybe you have a potty mouth. Maybe you have some inside jokes. Maybe you really like the Baltimore Orioles, you know, and they have all these connection points where now it opens up the door to you being able to get to know them without having to share all these things about yourself that they already feel familiar with.

42:41Adam, this has been really insightful. So the logical next question is you've just scratched the surface of this methodology. And if people want to learn more about you and your methodology, what platform do you want to send them to? I'm assuming it's YouTube. And where else do you want to send them if they want to go a little bit deeper? So let's give them some more opportunity to momentum into the next step. For sure. You could check me out at youtube.com slash the Adam Ivy. You got to put the at sign before that. Adam Ivy.com is a safe bet. I also have the YouTube Revenue Lab, which is for creators that want to make money through YouTube rather than looking at YouTube like an employer.

43:19And as Mike mentioned, I have a high retention scripting tool called Scriptonite. That is S-C-R-I-P-T-Y-N-I-T-E.com. And that is designed based on my 16 years on YouTube and the exact methodology in a lot more detail than we were able to kind of brush on or touch on today, but I'd love for you guys to come say hi. You know, let me know that you heard me on the podcast and tell me what you're up to. And, you know, I give away so much free value on my YouTube channel that I think I can change a lot of lives without anybody ever actually becoming a customer, which I actually feel good about. And then from there you can make that decision.

43:58So at the Adam Ivey on YouTube is a great starting point. And yeah, let's get to know each other. Adam, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. Thanks for having me. This was a great time. Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over at socialmediaexaminer.com slash 739. If you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. If you've been a listener for a little while, we would love a review. Also, do let your friends know about this show. You can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, X, and TikTok. And also check out my other show, the AI Explored podcast. This brings us to the end of the social media marketing podcast.

44:31I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner.

44:49Hey, before you go, we just announced our first speakers for Social Media Marketing World 2027. Two dozen practitioners, every single one personally recruited every session pitch free. Go see the lineup and grab your discounted tickets right now at socialmediamarketingworld.info.