Jordan Matter’s Path to 25M Subscribers

0:00And the reason that YouTube has taken over Netflix and Hulu and every other streaming platform is because it's real life happening and it's much easier to connect with the people that you see on camera. because they're real people, let's suppose.

0:18Hey, Jordan, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm great. How are you? It's good. It's good. Unless, of course, you don't love the terrible weather in New York City for people watching. I know that I say this like every week, you know, for people watching, that is terrible in terms of weather, but it is what it is in New York. So I hope that in your case, it's a bit better. But for New Yorker these days, it's been quite horrible. But with that said, I cannot complain. And so Jordan, you know, like to know a bit more about our guests, usually we do this thing called a map. So basically it's divided in three different sections.

0:50And the map is the mission. So what do you aim to achieve, right? The achievements, anything that you're really proud of in terms of notable milestone could be your career or could be your life. And the last one is the purpose. So why do you do what you do? So I've had three installments of careers. I was a baseball player in college. Then I was an actor. photographer and now I do YouTube and I realized with acting with photography and YouTube there's one thing consistent and that is storytelling so I really love to tell stories so when I did photography I was I was using dancers to construct everyday moments but to make him beautiful through dance so there's a lot of storytelling through photos and then I advanced to storytelling through YouTube and through video content I think that's the main thing that drives me is a good story and I've shot in different areas.

1:41First, I was on camera as an actor, then behind the camera with photography and now I've gone on camera. Fantastic. And, you know, in all these different life, right, like different lives that you live so far, you know, so actor, you know, photographer, now YouTuber, what are the biggest achievements that you got in the past, I don't know, like 10 years or so? A lot. I've been very fortunate. If we start with photography, I had two best-selling books, two photography books that were best-sellers internationally. that's not easy to do especially for photography books then coming to youtube we we have amassed 25 million subscribers we just won a nickelodeon kids choice award and we are in you know the top couple of hundred youtube channels in terms of monthly views out of 60 million youtube channels that are currently active we've made it to the top 100 so that is remarkable and we feel very very fortunate fantastic and what's your purpose let's put the like now the life as a youtuber writer.

2:38Why do you do what you do? I have a lot of different reasons, but the main one is to spread joy. Actually, this is my first book. And it says, a celebration of joy in the everyday. So even from back, this was in 2016, I think, or 2012, somewhere there. Ever since then, I've been using my art to spread joy, to make people laugh, to make people think, make people feel something, give them a perspective on life they might not have had otherwise through storytelling. And the second reason I do what I do is I get to spend every week with my family. My daughter and I work together to make videos. My son is also often in those videos, so is my wife.

3:23So when I was doing photography, I was away a lot and now I am with them all the time. And that's one of the reasons why i love the direction that my youtube channel has gone so much is because it fantastic and you know tell me a bit more about you know in front of the camera as an actor than behind the camera right uh as a photographer now back again in front of the camera when you went from like professional photographers to becoming a youtuber what you planned is it something that happened like you know were you testing things out and then kind of exploded did it take like a long time like tell me maybe more like how was that sort of like a period and shift from the photography to youtuber uh headshots as a photographer plus he's simultaneously making books and i had a book and so i had a partner uh sandy who's still still the production uh partner up for me he would make videos for me because i was doing photography of dance so he would come out and he would just sell them and we would put them on vimeo back in the day not even youtube oh yeah and at one point my He and my son both suggested that we try posting them on YouTube.

4:27I didn't know anything about it. I said, why would we do that? But I did have a book coming up on YouTube. So I thought, well, if we could get possibly 10 ,000 subscribers, I had no idea how we'll do that. But if we can get 10 ,000, then that might help us promote the book. So we started doing the occasional video on YouTube. I had no idea you could even monetize YouTube. I didn't know what trends were. I couldn't name a single YouTuber. We just started doing photography challenges and posting them on YouTube. and when I came up with something called a 10-minute photo channel, which basically meant I'm going to bring a dancer to the middle of New York City.

5:01I'm going to give myself 10 minutes, see how many cool shots I can get. As soon as we came up with that formula, it really went pretty viral right away, and I was unaware that that was even a difficult thing to do. I was just, whoa, that got 100 ,000 views, and we have 10 subscribers. How did that happen? We just kept building on that success. My son gave me a good piece of advice. he said that if you and he was 10 at the time so he knew his stuff he said if you are lucky enough to be successful on youtube it's because you found a lane but if you stay in the lane too long people are going to get bored and leave but if you leave the lane first they're going to leave because that's not why they're watching you so you have to slowly expand your lane if you want to stay successful like okay i i didn't even know enough to understand that those comments but over the years i've lived by that and the expansion of the lane that was very very successful was starting to photograph my daughter so I was doing photography content and she is a gymnast so I was working her into the dance gymnastics challenges and every time we would work together we would get more engagement and I kind of realized that there was this whole avenue open for a father-daughter kind of relationship on YouTube that nobody was doing so I pivoted from doing photography to doing family content but in a more unique way that Was it like the whole family?

6:17Interesting. Absolutely. You know, I think it's very smart, right, to stay in the lane up until a certain point and start expanding, right? Instead of like neither jumping on any new trends or trying to do a thousand things at the same time, right? Because then your identity as a sort of crisis, people that know you for something, I'd be a bit confused. And so, you know, again, you said you started with that and then with your daughter, family and so on. Now you do a lot of content, right, with your family. And so, first of all, why do you think that a lot of people out there watch family content?

6:48Is it because they feel relatable to that type of content? Is it because it is very engaging and entertaining? Why do you think that is the reason? It depends on the kind of content you're talking about. It's not one family genre because what we're appealing to is tween and teen girls along with their parents. So we're doing a co-viewing audience experience kind of model almost a bit after Disney or the Nickelodeon in terms of storytelling and production. However, a lot of other family channels are catering to a much younger audience, maybe two to five, two to six. Right. So that's a completely different reason why they're watching.

7:24I'd say for for us and for other family channels that have a similar audience, it is relatable, mixed with aspiration is probably why people watch like either the comments that we get a lot. either. Like you remind me of like Salish, my daughter, reminds me of my best friend, reminds me of my sister. She could be my friend. I'd love her to be my friend because it's a relatable thing. We shop in Target. We don't flex wealth. We don't have a massive house. So we keep our relationship with the audience very familiar. Another way to go is to make it very aspirational. You live in a huge house, you have a ton of money and people watch this like, oh my God, I wish that was my life.

7:59Right. So I think that, and I think that that's probably why. I think a lot of times also parents and kids take inspirations from YouTube and go out and do the things themselves. They go to the water park. They go to the amusement park. They go do the fun challenges that the family does. And they're living vicariously through it by watching. And the reason that YouTube has taken over Netflix and Hulu and every other streaming platform to become the number one streaming platform on television is because it's real life happening. and it's much easier to connect with the people that you see on camera because they're real people as opposed to.

8:34And since you said like, you know, real life, right? So again, very relatable, you know, your family, other families are watching. In your case, right, you said that other families can also recreate, right? Maybe challenges, games together with the family. But majority of times it stays inside the family, it doesn't go live, right? In your case, instead, whenever you do something with the family, right, it goes live on YouTube. how was the process to getting from like we're just a family to work related right because at the end of the day it's still creating content it's scripting things how is that was it natural was it a bit challenging how did you in case like you know were able to solve anything that was like hey in this moment we are recording it's business it's work let's do it properly that's that's the opposite of how we approach it so there's two things uh we are not a vlog champ we don't sell our lives.

9:22Salish made it very clear. She wants to be a kid six days a week and she wants to film Monday. So the Monday through Friday, she goes to school all day. Then she goes to gymnastics all night. She hangs out with her friends on Saturday. She does gymnastics, maybe a sleepover or whatever. And we film on Sunday. So she's separated out of her life. So she isn't a YouTuber. She's a kid. And on Sunday, she does YouTube. And my goal when we film is to keep it as similar to any other day we're together as possible. We were just filming a video last week and somebody who's in the video has watched a lot of our videos.

9:56And she noticed that off camera, we were exactly the same as we are on camera, like the same exact banter, familiarity. And I feel like that's a very, very essential component. And it also is what makes it the most fun. But authenticity, a viewer can tell whether or not it's authentic. So we don't really stop and say, now we're working. I mean, obviously, we have to get the video done and we've got our plan to do so. But we only try to keep the banter very consistent with the media. Hello! Is your brand ready to amplify its reach? Well, the Influencer Marketing Factory is here to do just that.

10:28We are a global influencer marketing agency helping brands ignite their growth. From influencer identification to campaign strategy, handling legalities and agreements to managing shipping and logistics, we have it all covered. We work with hundreds of brands across different verticals from Fortune 500 companies to DTC brands. And we don't just stop there. With detailed ROI analysis, we help brands like yours measure success, transforming impressions into actionable conversions. You can find us at theinfluencermarketingfactory.com or just search the Influencer Marketing Factory on Google. Especially these days, right, where there is sometimes this sort of like, you know, gap between what you see online, right?

11:07And you think that a person is going to be, you know, also, you know, like funny and pathetic, like in person. and then many times, right, fans get, or there is maybe a scandal happening because the person behind the camera is not the real person and so on. So I think that when you can start with this, it's quite important. And Samirath, I wanted to ask you, so I saw that you guys are doing a lot for short form content, of course, right? So usually as of now, anytime that I talk with other YouTubers, TikTokers and so on, specifically YouTubers, they told me that usually there is two types of content out there.

11:37Either the content that you just watch as a short video, like it starts and it finishes in the short, right? It's just like entertaining and that's about it. And other times is that you create teasers for the longer video. And so basically you use the short form to send traffic to the longer video. Are you trying to do both? It is mostly just to do solo videos on short form that is going to work by itself. Have you found any luck using that as a teaser to send it to the long form? Tell me a bit more about that. I feel like that can work for some people. We don't do that. When we do shorts, we don't link it to a long form video.

12:09I'd say that we are very fortunate in the number of views we get and the conversion from short to long will be so significant. I do know that that is a good strategy to take a clip from a long form video, turn it into a short to kick people back to your long. You can definitely do that, especially if that short goes viral. For us, I prefer to keep them independent. So for shorts, I'm trying to tell a short story and then for long form, I'm trying to tell a long story. One of the best benefits for me about shorts is a brand deal. We've got the point where we would much prefer to do a brand deal on a short than a long form.

12:46So long form, it's very hard to incorporate the brand into storytelling. It's kind of like we're trying to make it feel like you're hanging out with us, right? So if in the middle of hanging out, I was to say, listen, you got to try this new video, right? It's something$9.95 a month, but it feels weird. So I think we average about 45 million views for short. And so we can pivot brand deals to the shorts and we have a much better chance of making those five. And have you found like, is there like a ratio for you? Like X amount of shorts is going to be like just organic content, no promotion. Then like, have you found something there that works so that you don't annoy too much your audience, but also you are able to monetize?

13:26We don't do shorts so regularly that we need that formula, but I would suggest if you're doing it regularly, you should do five organic for one brand. we got into a stretch lately where we just did plant deals, but we made them feel organic because it was a fun concept. So it was entertaining anyway. And so we, but I'd say it's vibes. And what do you think that is the best way again, to make a content that is promoted, but you still want to watch and potentially also you want to share to others, right? Because that's one of the metrics that matter the most when it comes to an ad and people say like, oh wow, this is a great ad.

13:58I share with friends or with my family. Have you found like a formula? Is there like a common, something there that works all the time or it depends? I think the way we do it is we look at what works for us anyway when we're doing organic content, and then we try to figure out a way to do a short brand deal with that same approach. So for example, one thing that's worked really well for us is guess my age when$100, guess my daughter's age when$100, those have gotten like a hundred million. And so then when we did a brand deal, and so salish is a bit old to be playing with dolls but there was a doll company they wanted to do a brand deal so we did is we set up a uh oh it was a doll that could you nail so we set up a thing on samark up here which are you willing to put your hand in this in this hole we don't and what it is is it's a nail makeover and then it becomes the brand at the very end so you didn't know until the end of the video that you were watching a brand deal you just thought you're wondering what's in that hole and who's willing to put their hand in it and at the end you realize, oh, this is a brand deal.

14:57By the time you realize that you're already watching it again, and that did very well for them. And also, so I would say incorporate the brand in a creative way and don't start your short by saying it's a brand deal. You might have to put a little graphic on the top to comply with regulations, but other than that, tell the story and then work the brand into that story. On top of this, so if we don't look at for a second at only promoted posts, but let's say any other content, so long form content that you usually post, how long does it take, you know, from thinking about the concept, scripted, all the editing, the publishing?

15:33Is there like, have you found a range of hours, more or less, ballpark? Is it more like, tell me a bit more about that because I find it all the time fascinated that people that don't do this for a living, they think there's, oh, it's a nice video, 10 minutes, whatever. And then there is hours, sometimes days, if not weeks of preparation. So how does it work? everybody's different right a good friend of mine has a family channel they do vlog age so they spend a few hours a couple times a week and that's it we're different i always wanted to make it seem like a television show but more like reality television meets uh disney so that requires production fortunately sandy my production partner is a cinematographer from new york so we have a production we have four cameras for every shoot we have 10 audio tracks we have five pas running around we try to keep it simple because you don't want to make it about that but it looks really good sounds really good as a drudge however because we only film one day a week we have to do a very good turnaround because we're also consistent every saturday we post we have for a year we've never missed 7 a.m saturday which i think by the way if anybody's listening is one of the biggest keys to success on social media is consistent and i've found that once a week saturday morning is our is our time block like if you were watching friends and suddenly thursday night at 8 30 and you turned on and they weren't there that wouldn't make any set they wouldn't skip right so that's how i see it so we film on sunday and post the following saturday so our schedule is crazy because saturday a sunday after we film he sends all the content to a new york editor who works all night and all next day to sync everything.

17:10And by Tuesday, Sandy is starting to edit. Has to be done by Saturday. It's like three or four 12-hour days in a row. Meanwhile, we are also in pre-production for the shoot that we're doing on Sunday. So that's the only way we can get these videos turned around. Wow. Seems quite crazy, right? Like to think that everything has to be kind of crowded, like, you know, and rushed everything in one week. So, you know, top of it also like we said right all the editing the post-production is very important but something crucial and you know better than anyone else there with all these subscribers that you have the importance of also thumbnails right on youtube right one of the main factors for click-through rate let's go a bit more into that so finally you know youtube right it is experimented a bit more with the a b testing when it comes to thumbnails so first of all how do you approach thumbnails so was it something for you easy to crack the code on have you found like a sort of formula for you as well, like on that.

18:05And number two, are you using the A-B testing feature from YouTube? And if so, are you actually finding like any, is it useful for you? So I would like to understand a bit more the process there, right? Do you just create a couple of them, that's it? Or do you do like other creators that create hundreds of them and then they do all these A-B testing for the first day up until they understand what works or what doesn't? Do you have an audience of creators? I mean, do a lot of people listen to me and want to be a creator? majority is like marketers, brand marketers, but also content creators. So it's a bit of a mix.

18:35And that's why I think it's also would be interesting for both of them to understand a bit more about that. So the dive into the weeds of thumbnails briefly. Yes, I do the A-B testing. It's actually A-B-C testing really because you get three options. I do that and we will go with whatever one YouTube tells us to do. However, usually it's incremental difference. If you have a thumbnail and then you have a similar thumbnail with a different shirt or something, it doesn't really change the views. But what does is if you have different strategies about the video altogether, like if you can package the video in more than one way and it's still accurate to the video, and then you change.

19:10So for example, let's say my daughter, she has a best friend. Let's say she's gone for the year and he comes back for the summer and they do a hide and seek in the water park. This is the video we actually did. The title could be hide and seek in the water or it could be my daughter's best friend moves back home completely different approach to that we did my daughter's best friend moves back home assuming that once the core audience was done watching it we would move it to hide and seek in a water park which is more of a universal title might appeal to viewers who didn't know what they are but my best friend moves back home stayed successful and has continued to stay successful so we just left that more emotional personal title and then the thumbnail is just the two of them hugging whereas if it was hide and seek in a water park it would be more of an ai generated thing with her working and me walking so so if you're looking to make a difference in your views based on thumbnail title have a secondary definition of the video altogether just make sure that that's accurate don't change the title to something that doesn't happen in the video people will feel clickbaited and they'll stop working watching it.

20:17How do you get better? Because like a thumbnail, because, and also titles, right? I feel there is almost an art, right? To master it. Is it like watching other videos? It is understanding the behavior and the psychology of users. Like how much science is happening when it comes to title and thumbnail? And how do you, how can you get better in that? The way that we often do it, the most successful way to do it is when we come up with the concept that we think we're going to film, I reach out to my sketch artist. My son introduced me to her because he also has a YouTube channel. His name is Hudson Meta, by the way.

20:52And he has them sketch out the thumbnails, so we do the same. So we say an idea. We say, you know, daughter survives world's worst bullet. And then she would give us a bunch of sketches for thumbnails. Once we have those sketches, we work on those until we like them. Then we take that photo and then we send it to the, on the day of the shoot, we take the photo, we send it to the thumbnail designer the next day. So it's good to kind of have an idea of what you're going to do. It's interesting because I would say it's an 80-20 split. I'd say 80 % of the success of a video is concept, meaning thumbnail and title, and 20 % is execution, meaning did you make a good video?

21:30But yet we spend 95 % of our time on the 20 % of success. So we spend most of our time thinking about the execution and not enough time spending on the thumbnail type. And that's pretty consistent over most YouTubers. They just don't spend as much time as they should on the thing that matters most. Fascinating. Yes. Then you can also share something about the sketch process that would be great to see behind this scene. I have a last question for you, Jonathan, today. And it is that, what is like, is there anything very exciting for you in the future of all this creative economy? Something that you are looking at that maybe other people are not really closely pay attention to?

22:08I would say in terms of content, the trend is towards much longer videos, which allows you for more podcasting and more casual. We've hit this, I think, by the peak of the Mr. Beast era, which is the gamification and challenge base of everything. Not that he's going anywhere anytime soon, but I'm saying that I think now there's a swing back towards more intimate vlog style, longer, slower videos that people can just turn and watch or relax. And then also, I would say storytelling and scripted content will also be very big moving forward. So Dar Mann is a great example of somebody who's created, he's a good friend, a huge production studio.

22:50It's like his own production company now. And I would say more and more people will probably start doing more scripting. So those are the two things that I see happening, longer videos. Fantastic. And do you think, last question on that, it's just a little follow up. What do you think that instead should not be happening anymore in the creative economy? Is there something that you hope to see differently in the future? In terms of content, it's gotten a little comical in terms of how much everybody's repurposing everybody else's content. It's kind of like, you know, same titles, same thumbnails, same script sometimes.

23:27I mean, I've seen, and we've done videos where people literally use the same props, gone and bought the same thing and used. And it's, so it's gotten to the point where it's, it's not inspiration anymore. It's like flat out copying. So I would like to see people and it's good because, because the way algorithms, the way YouTube's algorithm works is it encourages you to do that in a way because it knows the recommended engine knows if I title something world's biggest water park and somebody else does YouTube shares those two. So it helps you if you do that. I would love people to find their own unique voice and creativity.

23:59And the biggest thing is, why are you doing this? What is the purpose behind why you're doing it? Are you trying to inspire? Are you trying to make people envious? Are you trying to just make money? Whatever it is, I think there's a huge opportunity in YouTube for creators to build something outside of YouTube, right? Either repurposing their content or selling products, whatever, but not as much as people think. I don't think there's that many Mr. Beasts out there who have legions of millions that are ready to buy anything. But if you do it right, and if you focus on what people already understand about you, you create a product that's consistent with who you are.

24:32That's also a great opportunity because you start with so many eyeballs that if you give them the right product, and if you're giving back though, if you're just selling to your audience to make money, I don't agree. But if you're giving them something that would be of value to them, I think it's a great opportunity. Absolutely. I totally agree. And great piece of advice there. Jordan, thank you so much for joining me today. I got a relation on all the achievements that you got so far, all the numbers, all the videos, and all these lies, right, that you said, like the actors, photography, YouTubers.

25:00Let's see what is next, right? I'm very curious to see what is next. But again, thank you so much for joining me today. This was the Influence Factor by the Influencer Marketing Factory, and I'll see you next week.