You've had your hair done, haven't you?
Hmm. 
You've had your hair done since the last episode.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's uh, just a little trim.
Yeah. Nice!
Tidy it up a little bit.
Okay, right, um... We started recording, so might as I carry on...
 
 Welcome back to Tech Talks and Soul Walks, and it's a Tech Talks day today. So I'd like to welcome back Lee Penn of Football League Adventures, head over to that channel
Hello hello!
And subscribe. Right today, Lee, I thought we'd actually talk about thumbnails and analytics as well. And then that kind of covers everything that any new YouTube or newbie would want to know with regards to YouTube. So thumbnails, take it away!
When I was first doing my thumb thumbnails, they were awful.
Shocking!
They were shocking. Yeah. It was, I take a picture of where I am of the ground and that's my thumbnail. No, no title on it, no picture, no nothing. It was just, that's where I am. That's the title of the video.
There's the description.
Yes. And
what changed then, Lee? What made you change your thumbnails?
I started using the... what's the app called? I can't remember. It. It's gone
Canva.
Canva! So I, I started using Canva. But I got to admit at first when you, yourself were saying to me about Canva's really good and this, and I'm just like, nah don't know what you mean, or what that is, so I'm just gonna stick to what I'm doing.
And it wasn't till I dropped a message to another, match day Vlogger YouTuber that I talk to. And he said about he uses Canva and stuff like that. So then I then, tail between my legs went, "Julie, what's Canva and how do you use it?"
Yeah, it's ever so easy. Just to say we are not sponsored by Canva for this video. No.
I 
But if they want to.
Yes. Yeah, of course. Definitely. Yeah, please reach out to us. I've got the paid subscription to Canva and if you listen to the last episode Lee confessed that I actually did his YouTube opening and end screens. And that was done through the paid version of Canva. But there's a hell of a lot you can do with a free version. So it's, when you go through it, there's templates that you basically just click and change everything from the colour, the images, text, anything you want. You could start from scratch, which in all fairness is pretty much what you were doing, wasn't it Lee?
You were just doing a photo of the pitch, or the club name. But Canva can give you some fantastic ideas. And that's where we started having a look through for you, wasn't it?
To get ideas for putting things like the scores on there, the match... do they call 'em logos or they call them crests?
Badges,
Badges?
Crest, badges. Yeah they call them that 
Yeah. So anything like that. But 
the thumbnails. It's quite humorous because you could have the same thumbnail across every single video, maybe pointing to something
So want, you
could go yeah, with the scores underneath or above or, you it was one of your YouTube thumbnails looks like you are popping out of a pitch, looking like a mole, because he's in the middle of the pitch and his head's just sticking out. So head and shoulders, middle of a pitch, I was like "No Lee, put yourself down on the corner of the thumbnail." 
But yeah, you could do the same thumbnail week in, week out. Nobody really is gonna take a blind bit of notice, but it's the consistency, what you're actually putting on there which gives yourself like a brand and it makes it look more professional. So out of the thumbnails that you've been doing at the minute then, what, from a footballer's point of view, which ones have, kind got your attraction so to speak.
There's one I did for my Southampton video, and it's just picture of me in the corner with the, I think the badges were in the middle, and then I managed to put a title that just said "Fantastic Saints."
And then that, that added the video an extra 50 views,
No, it's more than that.
It's about extra a hundred views
on that. so that one's done really well. And the other ones I've done, they're pretty low numbers at the moment, but they've had extra views and they've done quite well.
Yeah. How easy is it then to go in and change the thumbnail? Because maybe some of the people watching or listening don't understand that is possible.
So easy. So easy. Anyone that has a YouTube channel on your phone without a shadow of a doubt, download the YouTube Studio App
Yeah.
because you can go in there and you can edit your thumbnail from in there.
And that's how I did it. I did it on Canva, downloaded it to my phone, and then the image was ready to use and I just replaced it. And then it said I think it said, save or publish changes to the video. Did that, and within a couple of seconds it was uploaded with a new thumbnail.
Yeah. Lee is exactly the same as me. We spend most of our time watching YouTube and watching other YouTubers on what they do, and also learning about the changes that are coming up across YouTube. And one of the main things that they do say is, you can boost your view rate and get more watch hours by changing your thumbnails. Even changing the title of the YouTube video itself as well. Your YouTube thumbnail wording doesn't have to match what the title of it is, because then that gives you extra content. So you could say for instance, you've got you match scores on there and the teams, therefore you don't really have to put it on the title of it as well. It gives you extra characters that you can actually play around with then. So do you think that the thumbnails actually help with the channel and like the clickability then?
Yeah. 'cause if you see a catchy thumbnail of the actual YouTuber theirself on it, and they've got as we know, a shocked look or they wanna express the word cow. And people see that they might click on it and be like, oh, what's cow? I'll click on that. Or, oh, that looks like a really entertaining game.
I'll click on that. 'cause it's, someone's put the score, there's a six goal thriller or something like that.
And it's, yeah, people will click on it even if they watch a minute, two minutes of your 12 minute video it counts as a view. It counts as, as someone's taken their time to watch your video and it just progresses from there.
And they might tell someone, and it might go from there and yeah, they might not subscribe, but it still counts.
 So you wouldn't, you yourself wouldn't do anything clickbaity then on a video? No.
No you look at most of my, I think I did I think I did a video a couple of weeks ago and it was even like my title was "Even the Managers fight" and near the end of the game, the two managers were pushing and shoving each other. It's not a proper fight, but they're still laying hands on each other.
So it wasn't any click bait in there.
Yeah, because the one thing that we learned from YouTube is everything has to be consistent and there's bots that are looking out for certain things, and the one thing they really don't like is click bait. Whatever
your title says or your thumbnail says has got to be in that video really. And then you're good, stay squeaky clean to their algorithms and what they're looking for, then obviously, you are more likely to get your video seen.
Yeah. When when you're hitting the numbers of 30, 70, 100 thousand, then, every now and then you're gonna do a little bit of a clickbait video.
Oh, yeah,
You're at that point where YouTube are like, we don't need to worry about you now. You're getting the views, you're getting the numbers.
So it's all fine.
yeah. So are you team. "Create a thumbnail straight from your live", or are you now team, "Let me create the thumbnail before I go to the match".
Yeah, I create it before I go to the match.
 There are some instance where I'll take a picture of me like pointing or a shocked look or something, and then I'll have to create it after the match. But generally, yeah, I create before now.
Yeah. Do you think that's made it easier with you doing your videos? Yeah.
I 
yeah. I mean that's one less thing do end 
Yeah, exactly. It's sitting there ready to go. I mean, There was a video I was doing the other day and I was up till about one o'clock trying to find a thumbnail that would work for it.
Ouch.
And I started looking at 11 o'clock at night and I didn't stop till one o'clock because I wanted to make sure it was right.
Yeah. I think the only time that you can't plan your thumbnail is if it's gonna be some kind of vlog of the day, or you are, you're just doing it a short video off the cuff and you weren't planning to film.
Yeah then obviously, you have, you've got no option. You've gotta create the thumbnail afterwards. But if people didn't want to use Canva then what would you suggest to them then about creating a thumbnail? Should they use just a clip from the video or should they
be creating something separate?
If people don't want to use Canva, as far as I know, there are other ones out there, but I only use Canva now.
But yeah just create it from the video that you've got,
basically, you work with what you've got.
Yes, definitely.
As you're just, as you're just starting out, work with what you got.
Yeah. I think the main thing for people to understand is that it's not necessarily the quality of the video or what you've recorded it on. Yeah, the audio a little bit but not as significant as if you were doing a podcast video. What it comes
down to is the content, and this is what we were saying for like Tiktoks and Shorts. It's the content, and if the content's there that kind of gets the views. It doesn't matter what's in the background, doesn't really matter if it's filmed on a, really old iPhone or Android device, it doesn't matter. It's. It's that compelling storyline or it's the, the information that you're giving them or the actual quality of the content is what people are sitting there and watching it for. So you can film it on anything. You can create a thumbnail from anything, or literally just take something from within that video that you've already done, if it wasn't planned to be done. Yeah. So would you say then that the thumbnails that you are putting up now then are looking more professional now that you are using software?
Yeah.
And planning, obviously ahead of doing the video.
Yeah.
And I suppose that's all that really counts, isn't it? Yeah.
It's the consistency as well. 
And what I will say as well, which helps is, which I forget to do, and I do get reminded to do a lot, is, and you know what I'm gonna say, is add your End 
End Screens. Yes.
I don't, I forget.
Yeah, the End Screen again, if you've not heard of it, it's when it's the closing 10 or up to 20 seconds I think it is, where it says, Subscribe or, Watch this Next Video or
Click on this playlist. And what I do is I usually have the last 10 or 20 seconds is just a blank colored screen that matches my brand of whatever video I'm doing. And then I put the End Screens on so you can pick and choose. But again, if you are uploading through YouTube, you can go back into YouTube Studio and add these in afterwards if you forget. I think actually that's the one thing you can't do though, isn't it on your phone if you've got the app.
No, you have to do it on a laptop or tablet or something like that.
Yeah. But you can
you do it through YouTube Studio and it's easy enough to do. And as long as it's not masking anything that's significant to your video, put it on the last five seconds or put it on the last 10
seconds, whatever's there. Some of the big YouTubers do that all the time.
It doesn't really matter. Again, it's just to bump that Subscriber count and that watch hours because YouTube likes what they call Binge Watching. And if you're on YouTube Binge watching, you're not on Netflix Binge watching, you are not on something else, and you're certainly not scrolling through TikTok.
You are on there and you're watching the content.
Yeah. I saw on Twitter X as they call it now, the other day, was someone who's quite high up in YouTube and they were saying that people watch more YouTube than they do Netflix Prime or anything like that now.
Really?
Yeah.
Neal Mohan who's quite high up in YouTube, I think he's one of the bosses, on his Twitter he was saying that people watch more YouTube than they do Netflix or anything like that.
Yeah. It does makes sense. You and I watch only YouTube, so why shouldn't the rest world be watching only YouTube?
Yeah, I watch so much. Before I came on here, I was watching YouTube.
Yeah. 
It's all I watch and I'll go back if I've got a YouTuber that I like, I'll go back and watch stuff from two, three years ago,
that I've already watched. But 'cause I enjoy it, I watch it again, even though I know what's gonna happen.
Yeah. I make a point of giving the video a thumbs up, just so I know personally that I've watched it. Is that something that anybody else does or is that just me? 
No I do it. But a thumbs up let's the "algorithm" know that people are liking the video. So that means YouTube will maybe look at pushing their content more. Because whenever you hear a YouTuber, they majority, probably 90% of them will go, at the end of a video, "Don't forget to subscribe. Ding dong that bell and give me a like" 
'cause it all helps towards the algorithm.
This is where a lot of people don't understand. Although you and I do, because YouTube have explicitly told us this to us, it's not about what you think other people should be watching. It is down to the viewers. It's the viewers who dictate what they watch. You can't force anybody to watch something. So if they're watching it, YouTube will obviously recommend other things similar to it or what other people have watched that's similar to it. But there's no way of changing the changing your statistics or forcing it, to get extra view counts or things like this. Buying subscriptions, buying watch time, forget it because the Bots will know. It's banned. And it will stop you in the future from having monetisation and gaining anything from
having a YouTube channel.
They delete your channel. If you buy subscriptions or views, they delete the channel. 'Cause there's some companies that say we get you thousands of views and it's what they call a View Farm or something, out in like India or something like that. Where people have thousands of phones on this wall.
And it's just people watching videos over and over, just leaving it, leaving 'em to play all day.
 And the thing is, you want people to watch your channel for what you're actually posting. You don't just want anyone to subscribe. You want the real people that are gonna watch it, to subscribe, because then that helps with the algorithms again. 
You
So if you are doing a video, then Lee, talk us through the process. From when you've got your tickets, you know you're going to a match day. Just give us a short, quick thing of what you would actually be doing on the YouTube side of things then, the recording and editing
Yeah. I think, as I said in our last video that we did whenever I'm going, I've got my ticket and on Match Day it'd be filming either when I'm on the train or at the ground. And then I'll be getting some footage of me walking around the ground, not saying anything. Just walk around, get a few clips or photos of the ground.
And then it's inside, talking about the ground, and match footage, and things like that. And sometimes what I may do is at halftime, if I've got a Short of one of the clips I've recorded was a goal, I'll upload it at halftime.
As a YouTube Short?
As a YouTube Short. So while the match playing that's, that's playing as well.
And it's getting views. And then once the match is over, you'll get my opinion of what I thought. And then if I know where I'm going next, then I'll be saying, 'look, next week I'll be at such and such ground. You can keep an eye out. Come say hello' or if not, the video will be uploaded later on that evening.
And then I'll come back, edit, upload, and go from there, really. And then it is just you're just waiting. But what I don't do is I don't keep looking back every 10, 15 minutes to see how the views are doing. I normally upload at 12 o'clock at night and leave it to play overnight.
Because I've noticed on my Shorts, when I upload between half past 11 and 12, that's when I get my most views on my Shorts.
You 
So to view all the statistics and this data, then can you just tell everyone where we go to find out all the information?
Yeah. So we, whenever we look at our analytics or anything, it's on the YouTube Studio App.
Or you can get it on your laptop if you go onto YouTube on your laptop. And on the right hand side there's a column you can go to and it'll say YouTube Studio. Click on there and that will have your subscribers count, your watch views, hours, unique views, how many people watched it from this country or that country...
and you can view everything from there. And again, you can edit your videos from there if you wanna add bits in, or that sort of thing.
Yeah. If you didn't catch the last podcast, excuse me, there is an App that you can download, so if you've got the YouTube App on your phone, download the YouTube Studio App as well.So if you're on the go and you are uploading things and you want to see the statistics, or if you've changed your mind and you want to edit the title of it, or just edit the description, that's where you would actually
go to, is the YouTube Studio. So with the actual videos then, and you've got your watch time, you've got your views and everything else, how did you find out about VidIQ? Because VidIQ is another platform that you can go to for statistics and the likes.
Yeah. VidIQ I actually came across a video of theirs.
And I saw a video, way before the YouTube event that we went to, and you can link it to your channel. And what they do, which is quite good, is they give you a goal. So they've told me that I'm gonna hit a thousand subscribers by the 29th of June this year.
They reckon I'm gonna hit a thousand then, but obviously that's not gonna happen unless I'm uploading and showing content and I'm having something on my channel. But what is good as well is on there, you can add in keywords. So I'm at, say Margate v York, soonce I've uploaded my video.
I can go on VidIQ and I can put in keywords like Margate, York, Football League, Non-League... and it tells me how popular those words are.
 Is that free or have you paid for that?
Yeah. No, you can do it, you can do it free. There is a page subscription where it unlocks a few more things and you can get like coaching from people at VidIQ, but I just use the free one.
And what they can do is generate a title for you. So if you haven't got a title, they can generate one and you can use that.
Yeah. The thing I like about it is, which I haven't even hit a five day streak yet, but every day you go on it and it stamps it from the first day and the time that you actually go on it over 24 hours later, even 24 hours and one minute, and it says you've hit day two of your streak and it then continues on. what's the highest you've got to then?
I think my highest was about 12 days of going on and because, I mean with me, there will be days where I forget to go on and I have to start my streak all over again.
Snap!
But that's because I'll wake up at six in the morning to get ready for work, head out to work, and to be honest, the the last thing I think of is going on to VidIQ and doing my streak.
But set yourself a reminder to go on and do your streak, say, for half past six or whenever you get up, and just literally, all you gotta do is log in quickly and it'll give you your streak for the day. And then just read a few things and go from there.
Yeah, that's a another good point because it does actually give you, not only targets to meet and its projected timescales to achieve them, but it also gives you certificates when you've hit certain number of things, be it watch hours or subscribers. Obviously a target for your day streak.
But the certificates are really good because I know I think my last one was about 30 or 35,000
So if I go if I go on my now, so if I go on my VidIQ now, so what they'll do is they will change with your, like your subscriber count. So if you lose subscribers, they will change the data of when you're gonna hit that number.
So my progress at the moment is they reckon by the 2nd of July this year I'm gonna hit a thousand subscribers.
So it's gone from the 29th to July. 'cause it's, they work with the algorithm as well and they can see what's working and what's not. But yeah, so my last achievement was 750 subscribers and that was on the 11th of Feb.
Yeah, so it gives you the achievements that you unlock and everything and which I think is quite good 'cause then you can post it on Insta or you can put it on your Facebook and you can go "look!", put a little section of what you wanna say, but then you can add your channel link in there as well.
And anyone that sees can click on the channel and go to it.
Yeah, that's a good idea. 
You
Now, the one thing you obviously can't get people to do is you can't force them to subscribe. But you can get on the YouTube Studio, and I think it's in VidIQ, isn't it where it will tell you what percentage of people are watching it and what percentage of people are subscribed, how many people are returning back, so they've seen one or more of your videos. And it just gives a really in-depth breakdown. Now
at this stage of the journey, if you're just starting out, yeah, that's great, but it probably doesn't mean anything to you. And to
some 
to worry about. 
Doesn't mean even if you've got 4 million
Yeah.
But it's just to give you an idea. And they have been pushing recently to get you to say Share, Subscribe at the end of each video or somewhere in that. And they made it quite interactive because if you said it, and if people are watching it on certain devices, at the bottom it would like flash or highlight
the bell notification to get people to say, oh yeah, that's where it is, I need to click on it. So the bell is just to alert people.
You have the option to say if you want all notifications or just like recommended notifications. But then it could send you an email or it will pop up in the App to remind people to go and watch the videos. And obviously if they subscribe, I think it just gives them a little bit of confetti across the screen, doesn't it?
Yeah, just lights up with like little stars and all that to say that you've done it.
Yeah. But obviously each subscriber and each like is helping with your own YouTube channel and
YouTube will then push it out more to everybody else.
I've had, when you look on your analytics, you can see where your videos have been pushed and, quite a few of my videos have been recommended by YouTube
That's really good.
 Which is nice to see as well.
But in our WhatsApp group with the others that we were at the YouTube event back in August last year. We have joked that Lee actually works for YouTube and there was a Short that I filmed of Lee going into YouTube, the Google Offices, tongue in cheek, when we were down in London last, just so we could post it to our mates and say, yeah, look, he does work there!
But you don't though, do
you Lee? 
No, I don't, no. I work in a goods in department, in a warehouse for a company that make contact lenses. So I do not work at Google or YouTube
No, but every time the Server goes down or the statistics aren't there, or anybody loses subscribers, we blame Lee, constantly!
And I lose subscribers as well,
so who do I blame?
You have to make it look legit as though you don't work there though.
Yeah, I know. Yeah.
With your YouTube channel. There is something called Community isn't there where you can
just a photo or a quiz?
Yeah, you can post polls, you can do a quiz. You can just keep people up to date with what you're doing. so I posted something the other day about, I'm about so close to hitting a thousand subscribers. And it's just keeping everyone informed of what's happening.
And if I am, if there's two weeks where there's no videos, then at the beginning of the first week it'd be like, oh, there's no videos for the next two weeks. 'cause I'm on holiday or works pretty busy at the moment. So I haven't had a chance to go out and do anything. And it just keeps, people that look at it, it just keeps 'em informed of what you're doing.
Yeah, you're building a Community, so keep your Community up to date. Don't leave them high and dry if you're not gonna post anything. Because people will then just drop off. You'll lose your subscriber count.
Yeah,
best to keep them on to date, and that's probably the easiest way to do it. I have seen some people that do Shorts and just say, oh, sorry I've been away, blah, blah, blah. But better to inform them in advance because that video will stay there indefinitely then. Whereas they could be popping back every week or every few weeks thinking, why haven't they posted anything?
Where are they? And all it takes is one click. It's only one click to subscribe. It's one click to unsubscribe, and it can just happen as fast as that. So yeah.
So keep your Community built because you want to foster that that Community spirit as well. And if people are then interacting either underneath in the comments of your video or on the Community then that's great.
They're gonna come back. They know that it's a place that like-minded people are there and that's where they go to get the content, obviously.
Yeah. And another thing that I say sometimes I say in my videos 'Comment below what you liked, or where you wanna see me go next?' Some people might not get any comments, but then you might get some comments that are positive and you'll get some that are negative. But don't let it put you off.
Just be like, 'Oh well'. They've commented, so they've watched the video. Whether it's a good one or bad one. So just count it as you've watched a video. Just go, 'Thank you for watching the video'. And it's a view, it's watch hours towards you hitting what you want to hit.
Yeah, and I think as well by liking their comments that coming in it, it does create that interaction with them because you can't interact unless it's alive, obviously, which
not everybody's content is and it does get them coming back and chatting. And the worst thing that you might think that can happen is somebody really rips in and rips your video apart.
But you know what, that's still a comment. And in
YouTube's eyes, there's no difference between good and bad. A comment is a comment at the end of the day, a
thumbs up or a thumbs down is exactly the same, and that is just a visual for you to say whether or not somebody liked it or didn't like it. But it's still a count, it's still a number as far as the algorithms are concerned. So don't be put off from having bad comments. I had a bad comment once. Although admittedly it was real slapping from somebody but it was on a TikTok video saying, 'Oh, you're only out to get what you can,. you want something for nothing'. And it's no, you haven't watched the video. And I think that can put you off, but don't let it. At the end of the day, I bet Mr. Beast seen probably some real nasty stuff coming through to him. It just boils down to jealousy. That's all it is.
And also, from that, that TikTok. Now look at what you are doing.
Yeah. Yeah. So the TikTok that we the talking about is I couldn't get hold of a certain company. I will say it was Dior. And I just said, look, can you just reach out to me? I'm struggling to get hold of you. Can you contact me? 40,000 views that TikTok got within a, within 12 hours. And the Manageress of that store then contacted me and I've been blown away!
Almost like an unpaid partnership, you could say Dior have invited me in. I've had makeovers. I've been invited in. Actually you don't know this bit, Lee. I've been invited to be a model
 2 of their upcoming events. Yeah. Facial model only. I'm not gonna get the clothes. But yeah, they've asked can I go in and be the model for them to do the makeovers on? And I've said, yeah, but can I Vlog it? Can I record it? And they're like, "Yes, please!" So
It just shows that it's not always about the money and the monetisation with YouTube, it's about everything else, that it opens the doors to.
Yeah, because that's the good thing about YouTube is it opens doors to other things
Look at
that free bottle of Prime you had.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. My channel was 200 subscribers, 220, and I literally just sent an Instagram post message to Prime. I was just like, "Can I have a free bottle of Prime? I've got a YouTube channel... such and such".
And they sent me a bottle.
I didn't do a video, which was my bad. I completely forgot to do a video on it. And they just said, next time, could you just do a quick video? It's yeah, fine. Not a problem. 
 Once you start the YouTube channel, it can take you anywhere and it's never really in the direction you expect it to go.
No
We collaborated and did some videos and I'm waiting for Harrods to contact us, actually. 
Yeah. I want a word about their chocolate. It's nasty. Need to work on that.
Yeah. It's a rip off of a Toblerone, really. Yeah, exactly. But no,
Watch the video on our channels and you'll see.
Yes! It's the Christmas vlog, wasn't it? 
But yeah it's surprising you can collaborate with other YouTubers, like a few of us have done already, got plans for in the future as well. But the minute you mention a brand or you're bigging up something that you use. I know I've mentioned Descript here, mentioned VidIQ. We are not doing it because we want something from it, but if anything comes back from it, that's a bonus. 
If, for instance, Manscape 3000, if you ever watch the videos or anything and you wanna send something my way, then, not saying do, it's not sponsored but.... I'll do a video
Yeah. Yeah, precisely.
I'll be talking about it. Nothing else. Just me talking about how good it is.
So you wouldn't model it then? You wouldn't do a video of it in use.
No, that's for another, that's for another platform. 
Okay. Yes. Yeah. That one.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
But this is it's, a lot of people think that YouTube and YouTubers and YouTube Creators, they're only out to make money from it, and it's not always about the money. And to be honest, unless you're posting consistently and getting, such a humongous view count on every single video,
you're not likely to make a lot of money in the startup. Certainly not until you hit a thousand subscribers. That's when you can get onto the monetisation program. But
having said that, some people do make it a full-time job, and I know
that's what you're after, isn't it Lee?
That's what I'm after. Yeah. 'cause I'm looking to full-time job and also look at doing clothing as well. 'cause we have seen some merch that is very questionable.
Yes.
So I'd look to bring this jumpers, like little adida sign. I'll do a little Football League Adventures, like imprint or something like that, and a hoodie and some joggers or something like that.
And yeah, just take it from there. 
 I do leggings and
have it going all down the side and round the front and yeah, wherever they want the writing.
Yeah, I'm sure that'd be great. On Match day, oh, look, there's one of your Subscribers! He's wearing your leggings or she's wearing your leggings 
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
yeah,
I can go up to him and go, nice leggings, and I go, oh, who are you? I go, oh that's my clothing.
You could sign them then, make sure you carry a Sharpie around with you.
Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
White leggings, like white hoodie and, yeah.
definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Black
Sharpie maybe.
Yeah. I might even bring a mug out as well.
You
So I think the idea is that if you just start a YouTube channel, that's, that is the start point. You can just go in any direction, you really could.
Exactly it. 'Cause it got, when I first started, I know we are meant to be talking about like analytics and that, but when I, which is good for people to hear, when I first started, I hated talking in public when people were near me, 'cause I think they'd look at me and be like, 'What's he doing? Who's he talking to?
Whereas now I don't care.
phone like that walking down the road talking and, oh, I don't care.
So you don't need the straight jacket on you anymore ,then you just go out and about in the community and You
haven't got a problem with it.
Yeah. There's a YouTuber I watch Life of Tom, and he does everyday vlogging, and wherever he goes, he vlogs. And do you know, majority of time people ask him what he does as a job, what he's doing, why is he doing that? And he explains to him what he does.
and he's turned that into a business.
He's got, separate from his YouTube work, he's got a clothing brand
that his family run, that his Mum and sister do.
I think you just gotta be mindful of who's around you though. 'cause not everybody is gonna like being in the background of the
videos or being overheard talking. I think other than that, then you've pretty much got carte blanche as to what you can record. 
it's just having, basically, it's always it's having the balls to do it. You've set the channel up, you've now just gotta be like, "I don't care what people think. I'm just gonna do what I want." 
Yeah. 
To the point, I'm gonna just film.
Yeah. I mean if you look at some people's videos, they can either be static headshots with either one or two people in the room, or they've gone to really lengths where they've literally filmed their feet or put the camera at the other end of the room and they've recorded it as they're coming in the room or recorded them out the room and literally every single shot of them going from room to room for the entire day. It depends how far you want to get involved, but to begin with
point, click record. And that's practically it, isn't it? And you are on your way to your first video. 
That's it. That's exactly it.
You
 Now I know I've done a couple of what I would call short vlogs. And I say short because I'm still building up my confidence of recording them out and about, but they are daunting to begin with because people think you, you're talking to somebody else on a phone if you just got the camera
talking, camera pointing to you while you're talking to it. But Lee, how did you find like the first few vlogs that you did when you were walking the streets, let's say, going to the matches?
I hated doing them at first because it's me talking to my phone and I was just every time there was someone near me, it'd be a really long pause or I'd just stop and then I'd be like, oh, someone was near me, so I didn't wanna look like really weird or strange like talking.
But the more and more I did it, the more I think they see people doing it every day
I was literally, I was like, like that. So like now like that out in front of me just talking to the screen. 
Yeah.
When I first, when I did my first few vlogs, which I didn't realize I didn't look at the camera,
I was looking at the screen.
But when you watch it back, you look at the screen, you're not people probably thinking, who are you looking at?
Yeah.
Gotta be looking at the camera to record. And I wasn't doing that,
so it looked really odd.
Just be mindful of where the actual camera is on your phone. Each phone's different. And watch that. Don't look at yourself because that's
when you are not gonna get that eye contact. And I
know, loads of YouTubers do it and it's an easy mistake to make. And sometimes people just do it purely by mistake. Maybe they're too interested in what the hair looks like or to make sure that they don't fluff up the lines, or maybe they're reading a
Teleprompter on it. 
Mean it is quite nice now 'cause when I go to games, I've got an actual cameraman woman that will do it for me while I talk, and that's my daughter. She's that she's taken up that role. Yeah. She gets enough money. But she's like, "Dad, I'll hold the camera and record while you talk."
And I'm like, yeah, okay, that's fine. One less stress for me to worry about.
Yeah. And I think the other thing is people that are watching you as you're walking or talking, they're not the ones that are watching your videos at the end of the day. And it's really, you are doing it for the content, you're doing it for the people that are watching the videos, the ones that subscribing. Which kind of brings us back around to the analytics again. If you're just filming and you are not seen on the screen you are not really selling you. And a lot of people want to see the person behind the camera. Obviously there's certain video channels that are faceless, let's say. That's because of the nature of their videos and their content. It's more about putting your face into your channel and being seen, and it builds up that Community again, like we were saying. And it's surprising when I was doing my recordings where nobody would actually see me, to actually then being in front of the camera, the subscriber account jumped up and so did the view count on the videos. 
 Because people like to see who's doing the filming, who's behind the channel.
Yeah. So going back to the analytics then, Lee, what is, apart from obviously the 1,000 subscribers, what is your goal? If I could say, bearing in mind you're a football channel, what's your, what is your goal for this year, then?
for this year so obviously this year is to hit a thousand,
But then also with what I have planned this year, it's gonna be expensive, but I'm hoping with what I've got planned, it's gonna, it's gonna hit those watch hours and it's gonna get me monetised and earning money. I've got a challenge video coming up in June,
which is to
 get around 13 London clubs in 12 hours in London on a Saturday. Which is not gonna be easy because it's probably one of the busiest times to do it is a weekend. But if I didn't, it wouldn't be a challenge. But I won't be doing that on my own. I'll have a good friend with me who sometimes you'll see in the videos, he comes with me to football.
We are going to Scotland, Ireland and Wales to see a game. And also I'll be going to, if I can do it, I'll be going to Spain, Italy, Portugal and
Germany,
To get a game in there. The thing with Germany that helps is there's another two YouTubers over there that I talk to on Instagram that I've said I'm gonna try and come to a game.
And they said about meeting up over there as well. And then obviously it's going to a different team every weekend in England,
so there's a lot
coming up. A hell of a lot coming up.
My target is to hit the 500 subscribers and bearing in mind the day of recording this, I'm on 180 still, it's not moved. But I need to focus on my other channel and my business as well. Not saying this is taken a back seat, this probably on this channel, apart from the Dior vlogs that I do will probably be more Podcasts that will be going up. Which, at the end of the day, if I'm posting the Podcast on YouTube, as well as the RSS feed with rss.com, which is the audio only, I will talk about RSS feeds and podcasts on another episode, but uploading the video only onto YouTube is still gonna give me those watch hours, and maybe new subscribers as well that want to see what's going on and what I'm talking about.
Yeah. And the good thing about it is, can post it on yours, can post it on mine, and we can link each other's channels in the descriptions as well.
And everyone that watches mine can then go over to you, or anyone watches you can then go over to mine and it's, more views as well.
Collaborations is. It's not key, it's not critical, but it helps because then your subscriber account will boost theirs because your subscribers will probably want to go and watch their content as well. It's not guaranteed. Obviously Lee's channels football, mine is just whatever I fancy posting at the moment that's business related. But it does help. We collaborated with somebody else. The three of us were literally sitting side by side at the YouTube event Connor
Does Gaming. Funnily enough, his name's actually Connor as well! So Connor, Lee and I met up in end of November in London.
And just to record just some content, really, just have a chat and a 
catchup
Just a day in London. And a catch up.
Yeah. Just bouncing ideas off each other and. Drinks and yeah, just wandering around shops at Christmas time really. So yeah, it was good. We got additional viewers out of it. And I think the collaborations do help because it's just giving you extra ideas for what you could be posting. I set us a couple of challenges. The main one being £5 Secret Santa to be purchased in Harrods. And that was quite a good one, wasn't it? It was very funny to do.
Yeah. It was with what you bought. Yeah.
Yeah. We all bought exactly the same thing to begin with, but then I purchased something else, just 'cause I changed my
mind. 
I got completely lost in Harrods, completely lost and came out. I came out the other end of Harrods and had to walk around.
That was your extra step count that day then!
Yeah. I needed it. 
 Yeah, collaborate with your friends, collaborate with obviously newbies as well, or if you can, collaborate with somebody that's
already got a, fantastic, following on YouTube. Yeah.
The world is your oyster, as they say.
Yeah, no, it is that's exactly it. You just gotta put yourself out there and push. That's all you can do.
Yeah. Okay. So any other tips or tricks for newbies thinking about starting YouTube?
Just don't be scared. That's all I can say, really. Know what you want to do and just go for it.
Yeah, I agree.
To begin with, your content isn't gonna be amazing. Don't worry. The more you do, the more you learn, the better it gets.
 Have you heard these statistics? It's not until your hundredth video that you upload or have recorded and
uploaded, that you actually find out what your niche is and you actually get into a routine?
Yeah, exactly. I've done, I think I've done 160 videos, 164 videos.
Now I'm just finding that yeah, I can do a better, better thumbnail or a better this, or I can do that ,or I can do this. And don't be scared if you've got some of your favorite YouTubers that have got 1,000 to 3,000 subs, just drop 'em a message like I did to two guys that follow me.
And I said, look, blah, blah, blah. I really like your videos. I think they're really good. How'd you do this? And they, some of them are really good. And the two I spoke to have been amazing and they've given me some really good pointers and actually looked at my channel to see what could be improved.
Some will just be like, nah, not find it your own way, mate.
And this is why Lee and I stayed in touch. We'd originally wanted to get a weekly catch up with all the other YouTubers that we met. And we were the only two consistent ones
Yeah, it doesn't, I think I've tried five or six times and it is just like, I don't bother anymore.
Yeah. But it's just great to have that weekly catch up, just the two of us, just going over statistics, what we've learned over the week, checking out each other's videos, giving honest, critical, genuine feedback. Otherwise what's the point? We meet up in London because technically when you think about it, you are six hours away from me.
So we meet in the middle, which is London, which is easier to do.
 And it works. And it's just something extra, extra content at the end of the day that you may not have actually thought about. But when you start your channel, know that you're gonna make errors, you're going to make mistakes. Your first video is always cringey. Absolutely
cringey as hell. Yeah.
But just post it, because then the next one will be better, and the next one after that will be better and better and better. But you've gotta
start soon. 
Yep. Yeah, exactly.
 Okay, I think that wraps it up for this week's Tech Talks and Soul Walks podcast on the Tech Talk side anyway, and
I look forward to seeing you in the next one.
But thank you very much
again, Lee. 
Not a problem. Pleasure.
We'll catch up with you soon. And a real shameless plug from yourself, then; what's your channel again?
So if you wanna watch a bit of football and a few Shorts, then come on over to YouTube and go to Football League Adventures. That is my channel, and there's a lot more to come up this year. So keep watching, keep subscribing and keep hitting that notification bell.
Okay. Thanks everyone for listening and watching and see you in the next episode.