--- title: 'From Stuck to Viral: YouTube Growth Secrets Revealed' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZFrF9nv9l2Q' video_id: 'ZFrF9nv9l2Q' date: 2026-07-14 duration_sec: 0 --- # From Stuck to Viral: YouTube Growth Secrets Revealed > Source: [From Stuck to Viral: YouTube Growth Secrets Revealed](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZFrF9nv9l2Q) ## Summary This interview features Mary Allison and Tanner, creators who successfully pivoted their YouTube channel from vegan grocery hauls to baking content for a young female audience. They share their journey of feeling stuck, using YouTube Shorts to test ideas, and eventually creating long-form videos that resonated with their target audience, leading to explosive growth. ### Key Points - **Introduction and Host's Background** [00:00] — Derral Eves introduces himself, mentioning his experience with billions of views and co-producing 'The Chosen'. He announces he'll be more active on YouTube and is releasing version 2 of 'The YouTube Formula'. - **Guests' Introduction and Early YouTube Start** [02:30] — Mary Allison and Tanner introduce themselves as a married couple who started a vegan food channel in 2019. Mary Allison had a background in performance, including working at Disney World. - **First Viral Video and Audience Mismatch** [05:00] — Their first viral video was '10 Grocery Shopping Secrets Aldi Doesn't Want You to Know'. However, the audience was mostly 55+ women, not the young female audience Mary Allison wanted to reach. - **Feeling Trapped by Success** [08:00] — Despite the success, Mary Allison didn't enjoy the content. She wanted to make baking videos, but Tanner's data analysis suggested it wouldn't work due to existing momentum. - **The Pivot to Baking and Shorts Strategy** [11:00] — Mary Allison decided to pivot to baking content for middle school girls, inspired by creators like Hope Scope. They started using YouTube Shorts to test ideas and reach a new audience. - **Shorts Success and Long-Form Return** [15:00] — Shorts took off, and after nine months without long-form videos, they returned with 'Making Their Crazy Cake Ideas', which got over a million views. Old long-form videos also started gaining traction. - **Using Shorts to Test Long-Form Ideas** [20:00] — They use shorts as a testing ground. For example, a short about a banned Easy-Bake Oven led to a long-form video that performed well. - **The 'Cake on a Plane' Video** [25:00] — Derral suggested making a cake on a plane during a trip to a Taylor Swift concert. The video got over 52 million views, driven by curiosity, personality, and audience connection. - **Audience Connection and Community** [30:00] — Mary Allison emphasizes the importance of knowing the audience and engaging with comments. She shares how meeting fans in person reinforces her motivation. - **Announcement: Speaking at VidSummit 2025** [35:00] — Derral announces Mary Allison as the first speaker for VidSummit 2025, noting her exceptional presentation on shorts and audience development. ### Conclusion The key takeaway is that creators should focus on serving a specific audience they are passionate about, use shorts to test content, and not be afraid to pivot even after initial success. Authenticity and audience connection are more important than chasing algorithms. ## Transcript so when you are on YouTube you're trying to figure things out and you're trying to get more visibility and Views well this interview today is something that you can't miss because sometimes we feel like we're stuck but we're so close to getting it to really take off and blow up so my name is darl Eve super excited to be here and really dig deep into all things YouTube uh I love YouTube as you can see behind me I've been able to generate uh billions and billions of views news and really help a lot of creators and Brands and businesses throughout the world and I love it I love it so much because this is a great opportunity uh to establish a business and really impact the world in unique ways so really excited so if you wouldn't mind just putting in where you're from in the comments uh you're going to see me be a little bit more active this year than in previous years uh some of you might know I actually uh co-founded and co- produced a TV show called The Chosen and it's really taking a lot of of bandwidth for me and my team and really love that show and you know I'm going to kind of start designating Saturdays to get a little bit more active on YouTube because I love YouTube so much and also I am going to be releasing version two of the YouTube formula coming soon really excited about I've been working on it quite a bit uh there's so much that uh you can learn um all in that and then two there's so much that's happening in the industry especially when it comes to AI and shorts that we need to be able to give a little bit more context of what the YouTube formula is all about so super excited that you're joining us um also we're uh you know multicasting across YouTube and x and a few other places and if you wouldn't mind just going ahead and hit subscribe or like or follow uh we are going to be a lot more active especially around vidsummit and leading into speakers of vid Summit I'm really excited for this year it's something we've been shooting uh for for a very long time now that being said do you feel like you've ever stuck on YouTube if you do put it in the comments because I think all of us as creators at one time we feel like we're just putting it all in we're trying to make it work and it just doesn't click and for me you know it's always about going through the process this is something I I teach my students you know we want to put a plan together we want to execute on that plan and analyze what's actually happening what's not happening what's working what's not working and then that adjustment period And so super excited for today's uh interview and this is a creator that has uh really started to explode really happy for them uh just because not just because they're my students but you know the type of content out there is just amazing and so want to Welcome to the stage Mary Allison and also Tanner how you guys doing hi we're great thank you so much for having us hey yeah super excited to have you on for multiple reasons um I I I think there's so much to learn as we have conversations and I I love these conversations um but why don't you kind of introduce um you know you guys and then how you got started on YouTube yeah so I'm Mary Allison I'm Tanner and that's Tanner I'm her husband yeah so we're married and uh we started on YouTube in 2019 like right after we got married um I actually started as a like vegan food channel um because I was really passionate about that with um a lot of health issues that I had going on um and so that's how the channel really started and uh um yeah yeah basically basically she was vegan she um kind of was really passionate about that I had just started my corporate job and so I I always kind of saw something in her being like oh she loves performing and that kind of stuff and so whenever we got married we were like oh let's try out this YouTube thing and that's when she started posting vegan uh recipes and things like that and so you know we can I'm sure we'll get into the journey and everything we're gonna Dive Right In because like I think um you know first off you're insane to go on to YouTube like you just are no I'm just joking um there's just so many people like why are you going to do it and the I think the first thing that I always like to look is like what are you super passionate about and and what do you want us to share and you know that's what you're able to do there um so talk to me about that journey of creating content was this new for you were you did you kind of grow up with it did you have to learn a few things yeah so I had never really made a lot of content I always loved social media and I had like performed my entire life through like pageants I was a performer in Disney World um like he said I really just loved like entertaining and Performing perform at Disney world were you a princess I mean yeah of course I love it that's great that's great okay continue on please yeah so um always loved performing and like he said he was like um I I think you can actually do this like on YouTube and you can and we can be like entertaining and so he was like what would you want to do and I was like I love like cooking and and baking and I'm newly vegan and it's like helped me so much in my health and my life so let's let's try that so our very first video was vegan black green brownies and um it was It was kind of fun and it actually we looking back at it if I could show you the thumbnail oh my gosh it's so bad and the title we just yeah I think we unlisted yeah it's not there yeah we um we just like stuffed every single search word we possibly could so that we could get views and it like kind of worked we actually like did get some views and we're were like oh my gosh this is so exciting and so we kept posting more and more and then eventually I found that um posting like vegan grocery hauls um was doing really well for my channel yep and um so we started posting more and then I eventually posted one that was 10 grocery shopping Secrets Aldi doesn't want you to know that one's definitely enlisted you can't see that one um and it like just took off it blew up and at first we were really excited like oh my gosh like we can actually do this whole YouTube thing like this is so cool to to do it together but at that time was that was that the first time that you really I mean did the money come with it too did you see oh we got a views and this could actually you know provide was that the was that the video yes that was the video dive into this because I think it's really important Contex that they know who Tanner is and we know the husband but like Tanner kind of explain your background because I think this uh will uniquely help answer a few things here uh with this with this part of the uh interview yeah yeah um so like I I I went to college and I went to college for business analytics so I was really into like I've always been like a math nerd like data and stuff and I know darl you are too so we can relate on that but um yeah I I I honestly I more than her I grew up watching more YouTube than she did and so I was always like wanting to do something entrepreneurial like whether it was you know really anything to make money on the internet and I was like how can how can I do this I don't want a corporate job even though that's the you know route everyone was telling me to go and so um you know I tried different things along the way but then once we got married like she wanted to do this and so I was like okay well I had kind of learned and not I hadn't started a YouTube channel but I had watched stuff about YouTube and so that's what kind of brought us together to be like okay she's interested in doing this I love YouTube I love data and stuff and I knew that was involved in it it's like maybe this is something we could do together and it could work out and yeah love it yeah so when the data started to come in off this video because like that I think this video is really crucial uh because you had a lot of momentum and momentum is one of the best things you can ever have on YouTube because it just kind of Spurs more M momentum it kind of feeds off each other um and Mary Allison this is where I'll let you kind of finish your story because I think it was really important that we have contextually this so that we can really analyze it a little bit deeper yeah so like I said that video took off and we're like oh my gosh like this is pretty cool like we can actually do it but like you were saying as the data started coming in and we were reading the comments and um I was actually seeing who my audience was I was like I can't really relate with them and then also honestly that whole time that I was doing the vegan grocery hauls I didn't love it very much like it that's not ultimately the content that I really wanted to be making and then especially when I realized that I wasn't really able to connect with my audience um that was like a red flag for me too because I genuinely thought that the people watching my videos I didn't even think about the audience but I thought that I really didn't I know you don't need to tell me that but yeah go ahead please I thought I thought that there were other like 24 year old girls like watching my content um because they wanted to be vegan too and like healthy little girly pops like but no that was not the case the comment started coming in and we started seeing the data and um they they would say what was one of the comments just talking about like you know they're commenting their age and things things they like doing and then also we can see the age on the back end you know with the analytics and it was like 55 plus so we're like okay we have done something wrong yeah so majority was like 55 plus females and they would comment about like them having like grandkids and stuff and then somebody even commented um they were like I don't like that you're wearing crop tops and I was like okay again I thought that there were othery old girls that was not the case so I was like we we need to Pivot because like I also again like I saying I really didn't enjoy making that content I really wanted to make like fun entertaining inspiring content especially for a young female audience because that's really let's unpack that because I I think there's a lot going on so you you were posting you had passion you're like ah I want people begin you started posting and you you're you know you're going to it and then you started saying oh I see all these videos on YouTube about hauls I can do a grocery haul we're gonna do a grocery haul that's more vegan related let's go ahead and do it and the data started to come in this the first time where the views started to come up but you were now concerned yes you can make money on YouTube You've proven the fact that you can do it but it wasn't something that you enjoyed doing number one number two you realize it's curating uh a different audience than you wanted to impact and and so I I I can't tell you uh how many people I've come across that this is their life story you know it's like hey I I just knew I wanted to do something I knew I was passionate about something we got going and and you know I wasn't even thinking about the audience I was just creating content and when something took off now I feel like uh that I need to only do that content to succeed so was that like did you fall into that trap where that video came out and you're like okay we're gonna do it again because it's gonna be successful you like how many times did that happen yeah that happened several times and what's so funny to me though too is that whole time I was telling Tanner I was like ultimately I really just want to do like baking content and like making cakes and stuff and Tanner being the Analytics guy that he is he was like that literally won't work on your channel because you have so much momentum like doing this and I was like but I don't love it and so he was right that like it's not gonna do well um so so we the sense that hey if we want to do this full time we need to keep on doing these grocery haul type type content yeah and then I think and then I think I finally hit a point where I was like I if I'm going to do this and like make money like I actually want it to be something that I truly enjoy and I'm like really passionate about and I because I one of my biggest things was I actually wanted to connect with my audience because that's um I after a while I realized that that is important and um I I realized I actually wanted to connect with people well let's let's kind of unpack it so this is where I think a lot of content creators fall into a trap of Despair you know it's like I If if I'm going to succeed only do this you kept on hitting the same vein over and over again and you knew that if you did it people would watch it because you had the momentum and how YouTube works is you know anything that they're currently watching as an active viewer they're going to be recommended similar content and so as you're pulling similar content you know YouTube's going to recommend it and so it's kind of like this cycle but every time um you know content creators seem to post it they seem to lose uh interest uh they they get more disconnected and so so what did you do um to to combat that and like how bold were the the next steps because you did a pivot you did a massive pivot yeah you did it in a way that I think uh will be very inspiring for a lot of people yeah so I I realized again that I actually wanted to Pivot um hindsight I probably just should have started a new channel but we didn't um so in order to Pivot I had to ask myself a few questions like okay who who do I want to impact like who do I actually want to connect with um for my audience and then um who else on YouTube or just in general like inspires me and so I have always had a heart for like Middle School girls um because that's such a crucial time in in your life where like you don't really know who you are you're trying to figure that out and there's not a lot of confidence there and um when I was in Middle School I definitely wanted somebody to look up too um especially in B in the baking world because I used to bake all the time and my friends didn't think it was very cool but like having somebody to look up to to me like yeah baking is cool like I wanted that so that's the audience that I wanted to connect with and then I looked at the people who inspired me um first person being hope scope oh she's amazing yeah she yeah she's amazing she inspires I think when we saw her and like her come up that was like the when we it really switched in our brains like oh we need to like she it wasn't the exact same story as as us but like it was very it was like inspiring that she you know basically the type of content she was creating and she started flourishing with that that really changed her mindset and she like started to be like oh my gosh I can I need to start doing you know yeah um so other people that inspired us was like Rosanna Pansino she was like the original like Kate Queen on YouTube and then um Mariah Elizabeth she's awesome too doing like art content super fun um and then also like Nick de Giovani he does he's he's amazing with his content and does stuff with food like I've never seen before so um those people were really inspiring so I also looked at what they were doing on their Channel and how I can apply some of those tactics to to my own channel and like make them my own yeah um and and so that's kind of where I went from there so then I I started TR try to make more long form content like different like completely different than what I was making let's talk about the first video that you uploaded because I I I think um here you have an active audience that was expecting a certain type of content and the moment you posted something that wasn't targeted towards them what was the reaction of of your audience like what what did they think what did you yeah well um my video was getting like barely a hundred view like hundreds of views and we getting thousands before that tens of thousands tens of thousands and so it was like 700 views in like three weeks the first three weeks posted and then I was getting comments like what happened to the vegan content so like I get it like they were there for the vegan content and I just like switched it up on them y but I was having way more fun making those videos um that part was really encouraging to me the the discouraging part was like getting literally hundreds of views on the long form but I was actually enjoying making the videos so that was there was like a but yeah there was definitely frustrations though obviously like we were like well why isn't it we we yeah like we were saying we felt trapped in like well we're we're putting this video these videos out we thought we thought they were good they probably weren't but we were like they're just not it's we're stuck like we're we're going to have to something's going to have to change for like a video is going to have to take off somewhere for anything to happen or else we're just going to be Bing our head against the wall yeah and so that's when YouTube shorts was like kind of first introduced and so a lot of people viewed it as like what's going to happen to my channel a lot of people were skeptical because I mean at that time with with anything new like you're going to be like what's going to happen to my channel if I post shorts or whatever but we really viewed it as like a new opportunity to reach a new audience and then that's where we went and so we started to try to make shorts so did you stop doing long form and just go all in on shorts or I I know you did a a few long form videos but uh did you just kind of pause your long you know long form strategy yes so not at first not at first but um so we continue to try to make long form videos and at that time we were still making like we were making shorts at as well the long forms were not doing very well at all um and so we realized at that time then then our shorts started to take off and we realized let's focus on that since there's momentum there yeah so we did so this is an interesting dilemma because um as you're well aware because you you got to know me quite a bit over the last couple years but it's like I I look for opportunity and um that first opportunity would be hey what's going to provide to build a business right so you're walking away from you know an audience that you could service okay but it would suck the life out of you so you're like okay that's not worth it it's not worth that value that that that I'm or that time energy and effort I'm putting into it and then you started to create other content which felt like you ignoring the people that subscribed and viewed before that your active community and you're like oh I'm not not even making content for you anymore and so you start going down it um and then you get a little dis um disheartened because your long form content is not there and then you're like okay we're gonna do like a a short strategy and so for me I'm thinking shorts doesn't make any money um like like you you'd have to get a lot of views for it to be interesting why why would we even do this why would we even go there um but I loved what you said it's like we wanted to go where the audience was at you know and and so you took that bold step and why don't we talk about that because um you when you started to slow down or even pause some of the longer form videos and start putting more energy and effort into your creation of shorts kind of talk to me about that time period yeah so um it was it was a lot easier on us too because he was still working full-time at his corporate job so um making shorts was a lot easier on the both of us and we were able to really focus on making really good shorts and like honing in on who the audience is and what they actually wanted to see yeah yeah we would we would pretty like pretty much like she said we paused the long form started focusing on the shorts and that's when the views really exploded like we learned we started learning how to make videos for the audience she wanted to reach and I think that was the biggest change was we didn't know we spent so much time making long form videos and they just weren't connecting the right way she didn't know we didn't know how to like serve like serve them well and so with the shorts we started to have some success and we were like okay well let's try this and we started to try more new things and that and that's when she really we started to learn how to how to make content for them yeah no I I love it and what what I love would be um it looks like you're having a lot of fun um because like you're finally uh getting some momentum and and then two you got I I think you got to experiment with creativity because I think doing no no offense but it's like doing recipes around vegan or going on a hall there's not much creativity into it it's just like hey this is what I gonna do come watch me you don't do this right and and I know in knowing you for a while now that you you need that creative outlet and so that was just kind of sucking the life out of you and then you weren't able to be creative this side was like oh no now I'm going to start picturing who I'm making content for like I'm going to make content for a middle school girl that I know how they felt because I was there and sometimes they feel alone and I want to support them in unique ways but what I love was when you started to insert your personality into the content because that that's where I think um the success was because it's very relatable um and and then two um I just noticed the comment started to pop off and I I want to I want to just talk about the comments right here because this this is gold everyone this is the thing that you need to listen to like if there's ever a thing on this interview that you need listen to is the feedback that Mary Alison and Tanner was getting from the comments so why don't you kind of talk over the comments and then how that led into other content that you were creating yeah so the the comments we were getting were very encouraging they were like oh my gosh like I love your channel this is amazing and then they would start telling me what cakes they wanted to see from me and I was like oh okay like that's that's cool like somebody wanted like um a Taylor Swift cake which is like I love Taylor Swift I'm a huge Swifty so I was like yes I'm immediately going to make you that cake and I responded to that comment like in my short so I put it up there and um that ended up doing extremely well when I actually respond to to my viewers comments and actually make the cake that they want to see yeah we can we pause there one quick second because I I think um this could be misunderstood hey I'm only gonna do what my audience wants but there was another X Factor because like let's just talk about when you saw that comment about making a Taylor Swift content or cake what were you thinking internally because like let's be honest let's not lie you're a Swifty right yeah um um I um I really love Taylor Swift so as soon as I saw that comment I got so excited that my audience like also loves Taylor Swift and I was like that's something we can connect on um and so I was like that's so that's gold like to make something that I love and that they love as well and we can connect on that and then did did you think about making it before that though cuz it's like if you're a Swifty did you feel like you had the permission to or was it even on the radar at all yeah I think I had made a Taylor Swift cake like before um some of those comments and like earlier on so it and it ended up doing like pretty well but once I saw more comments of people like asking for Taylor Swift cakes I was like very excited and then I was it was it was really cool to like actually reply to that comment and make that for them and and that's what that her being excited about it is was what made it and them also being excited about it is made the content so much better because we would add like you're saying more personality into it like maybe she does the cake with a makeup transition or we add like she's singing some lyrics in the middle of making the cake and so it's like peppering in that that kind of stuff really I think made people connect more to her and not just like oh it's a pretty cake yeah yeah so th this is where um uh I I think the journey um I know you guys reached out to us and we started to um help you rethink how to see YouTube and and I I've been looking at the comments and there's so many people are like oh the algorithm the algorithm algorithm I just want everyone stop thinking about the algorithm it's about people at the end of the day and and then two the best quote of all time in the history of understanding YouTube is what Todd bupre was saying is um YouTube does not push videos for creators they don't they pull videos for viewers once you can wrap your head around that then it becomes a lot easier um to to make content you know and um what I loved was you got inspired to create you got inspired to connect to your community um and that got that energy going in and I I think from a content creator you felt the momentum inside you a little bit you know you're like ah I'm excited I can't wait for them to see this video like I can guarantee you you didn't have that same excitement of doing a grocery haul your viewer you're like obligated right yeah yeah yeah but but it was like okay now you're starting to understand people and then and then um you know uh I know we we met and we went into a lot more detail how nerdy do I I I want my students to get when it comes to audience because I I think this right here will help uh kind of set the stage for everyone of how important it really is yeah um when we so we first joined um like you like as a student um when we were first trying to Pivot and that's when I first learned how important the audience is like that's the first thing you should think about before even making a video and I did not know that the first time around so I was like I'm gonna do it right this time so it is extremely important to get to know your audience before you even start making videos yeah and the I can't I don't think like we understood how important like you're saying with comments I mean that's literally the audience is people commenting on your video and so reading comments is one of the most beneficial things well in the right direction you know in the right areas is one of the most important things that we we learned and and you know there's other things you can do as well but just understanding the the pulse of the audience is I mean we spend that's most of all of our ideas come from that you know yeah I I love that and I think it's two it's like what what's GNA get you excited and not everyone that watches your videos is going to comment they just they don't do that um but the people that do they they're like literally taking time and and um making a you know a comment or a message or replying to a comment I mean they're taking some energy and effort but then two you'll have some outliers and these are the I think everybody talks about outliers on videos but they don't look at out liers in comments it's where you know someone makes a statement whether it's validating something you did in the video validating um you know uh something that you missed in a video um it could have been a moment and and they make a comment and then just see the engagement on that comment like to see it's actually a thread and people are having conversations within it like that is a gold and the reason why is you can see they got emotional on something or they felt like they connected on something what is that and and you as a Creator are now starting to put the pieces together of you know what is their um you know their day like who they are as a person what gets them motivated where are they going to connect that would be that connection point right and then and then two how passionate are they around something and I can guarantee you uh we can go through any of your videos with Taylor Swift and they're like oh you're a Swifty I'm a Swifty 2 and then they're just putting comments in it that is a a connection Point uh which is beautiful so for me um it's like you can do so much you were using it to get ideas and do your content strategy um but I I want to I want to transition now because like we this is where um I'm going to confess something um and and and this will be a full confession but when when shorts came out it was a very clunky and awkward thing and we uh we had a couple channels that we were working with YouTube uh be a part of the beta Mr Beast was one of them and and we were doing it it just it just wasn't hitting the right way and we noticed that there was like a disconnect um just the way that it was done um now fast forward to right when you started to use uh shorts that's when it became the most interesting for me um I I love shorts more than long form just as a as a consumer uh you know I love Tik Tok quite a bit um and so I I get that I get the the the trigger on it um but I do love regular long form videos I love you know very long form content too but I understand kind of the mechanics of it and it fairly you know started to get interesting and and people for creators started to use it more as like promotion you know oh we use for promotion promoting new videos um and then and then it started leading into oh maybe we can actually do it to test out content that's great too but yours wasn't um you you you literally established the short form content and and you decided to put pause on your long form and I want to talk about the moment that you went to long form because you did something and when I witnessed it I I saw okay YouTube's finally got it dialed in like your yours was the case study I felt like okay you literally got it dialed in and and and this can be a part of the strategy so why don't you share that part with everyone here yeah so um the first thing we did for the long form content strategy was we went and looked at our shorts we were like what has the most views what are people commenting what what do they like to see from me like what do they want from me they and we realized like they literally want me to make their cakes and so our very first long form back was literally making their crazy cake ideas um and that actually like took off for us um as our first long form video back and it's over a million views now at this point so we we had gone nine months without posting a long form video yeah we had only posted shorts and actually we we had posted some in hindsight some decent videos um when we were still trying to do long form uh that ended up getting some views while our shorts were taking off and and they were just they they started discovering them on the recommendations yeah from so it wasn't like linking to shorts we weren't doing that yeah they started to discover some of her old long form videos and so that's when we were like okay they they want to go deeper they want more and so we that's when we started new long form yeah I I remember the conversation because it was like oh this is happening what should we do and so we we started to talk about the strategy behind I'm like we got to test it like if they're bring it in let's let's see what happens and um what I love was uh when whenever I uh tell a student to do a test it's not with one video I'm like we gota we got to do multiple videos like you got to commit to that we got to see what happens what happened immediately after that first video really least um because like here you had a whole bunch of traffic you had a whole bunch of viewers with with shorts and you decided to do I'm going to make um every cake um that that my my viewers want what what really happened momentum wise comparatively now I don't want you to compare it with shorts I want you to compare it with the other videos that you did as a long form yeah it it honestly just blew up it took off and then again some of those other videos from the past that were they also started to take off like it was crazy it was like 500 days after we posted one of the long forms it took off just like blew up randomly took off like so YouTube says oh we got a new audience here's some content they' like they liked it I mean because I was going back through um just even your oldest videos you know and and going and and when you did the cakes those were actually popping off immediately like it was like I think you had one two years ago um and yeah it was two years ago so it been one of those older ones and it you know had a couple hundred thousand views you know where did those couple hundred thousand views come from um and it was like oh here's something relevant YouTube's not GNA say oh this is too old we're not going to show it it says oh no they might like this let's test it to see if they like it and if it does let's serve it out to them more um and started to see with that momentum uh which which is beautiful so uh tell me about your excitement level when that video popped off cuz I knew that you had it before now you feel like o this might be we might have cracked the code um how how did that feel it felt amazing I was like shocked and so happy I was like okay I think we can actually do this because like we kind of knew that we could when that other like AI video took off but I was I was finally so excited that this was working in a vein that I was very excited about I'm passionate about like I love my job like I love making these videos and it's working um yeah and it was also um it was also encouraging to me to see that like my old videos that we thought were flops we thought were flops ended up taking off so don't get discouraged in that so even if you have an old video like it could still rise up yeah and and I think too it's just making sure that the audience that would engage with your cont would like that other content right and so what I love is yes because you had other videos that they weren't clicking on they weren't clicking on your hul videos I mean they weren't doing that it was that those cake videos that were uh that were responding to and um okay so um I I would assume when that when that video took off you're now thinking dollar signs because like what you just did in a long form video you're like how many VI how many shorts of millions and millions of views do we need to get just to do something here with a couple hundred thousand views right was that the combo yeah pretty much yeah yeah it was I mean so Ju Just so you know I when whenever shorts were really doing well for us and and you know we're making pretty good money but you you there's just a cap to shorts like you have to get so many views to make substantial money and but I did quit my job um ju from just shorts just to like because we knew we were going to start making long form videos and that when that first one took off it was like okay we made the right decision cut and pay though let's just let's did you take a cut and pay to oh temporarily yes for still kind of a risk you're like hey it's going here but if we put more energy into it um it's gonna pay off yeah we knew we knew because those old videos had taken off um while I was still had a job the long form ones and we were like I I know if we can just make new long form videos that we're going to be okay and so it worked out yeah I I love that I love that and so um that's where um I think the interesting thing was you had a little bit more time uh you're working as a team even though you're doing that before you had a little bit more time to do it um uh Mary your your creativity went through the roof um you got really excited and then let's talk about the series of videos of how you decided how to do a specific you know title thumbnail and the hook uh because I I've seen an evolution of and your content keeps on getting better why don't you go through your process because I think a lot of people can learn from you from this yeah so um what we usually do is honestly kind of use shorts as a test in a way um so I'll go and look at all of all of my shorts and I see like what's doing well so for example the second second I think it was a second video second long form video um was I bought the banded Easy Bake Oven because we had looked at my shorts and I had a few banded Easy Bake Oven videos that did extremely well so I was like okay so I know my audience loves the band Easy Bake Oven because that's interesting and they want they like to see me make cakes in it so I was like let's turn that into a long form video and so I still pretty much use that strategy by looking at shorts to see what my audience actually wants from me and then how can I make it longer into that long form video Yeah in the like for example on the band Easy Bay coven like essentially the the uh first 30 seconds of that video like the hook is essentially in a way the short or it's it's like kind of um you know why is IT band that's the first part of it with that and then we go into okay okay what's she gonna do with it and um yeah so we just like you said I think our first long forms they've obviously gotten better over time just like figuring out how to add those multiple story lines in there to make it everything more interesting but yeah that's pretty much how we how we go about it yeah I I love it um and what what I do love is seeing the data on the data side so like the data on the data side would be hey they they have an audience here and you were able to see a kick in when you're releasing that new video that you already did a test on because they want to have it go deeper that's kind of their heart right and so you're see seeing that pop off um and and you're starting to get um some decent momentum and what I love would be is you were speaking to the audience because like this audience in this age group okay you're talking some gen a older gen a um but gen Z specifically right so you're speaking to them and and they love shorts they they consume shorts they share shorts right but they also love long form they want to get to know you more than just 30 seconds right and so there's a way to go deeper with it and um so you test it out and then implement it on the long form and it started to pop off now what I do love and I I just want to show everybody here um so here's here's um some really interesting things that you did two years ago but I love it how um just the evolution of what your channel is and what it's become and then how uh you know focused it is now I want to I want to get to this video right here because I think it's is a very interesting one um this is the crazy cake idea so was this the first video that when you came back was that was that the video or was it something yeah we had those are the one next to it is a compilation but that that doesn't I don't consider that okay no yeah okay so besides the dream sister dream cake which is awesome right this was the first video you did and I I wanna I just want to dig into today I just want to dig into the comments real quick because like I think this is where a lot of people could really learn from it but um whenever I see a Time code uh you should stain your jeans all neon colors like they're giving you ideas what to do in your videos right um and then you get thumbs up and you can see that they're engaging you know oh they're they're very positive gymnastic cakes you know they're giving you ideas of what to do but this is like literal gold from me it's just like there's so much you can get out of it um however that being said um you went over and the the next one was the B takes and so you had a million views and then this is where it gets interesting because they were interested you kept kind of the same thumbnail strategy which I love okay you just kind of uh used that third style you know was a band thing that was a recommendation and then this one popped off I mean we had 1.3 million on this one um what's interesting though is the amount of comments right so like I'm always looking at comments engag you know so you can see he had more comments on this one and yet that next one you didn't have as many comments and so I'm always breaking it down I think people uh look at um oh maybe I wasn't uh or I'm saying maybe they didn't like it as much or whatever and what I'm saying is no it's how you interact with people because uh in comparing both videos you interacted completely different on the first one than you did the second one because it's like I'm doing your ideas and you're kind of going through that where it was one idea and then you were like can I make a cake through this so you know I think it's I think it's fascinating I think it's interesting um but this is the moment that um I I seen kind of like a sparkle in your eye um because because you felt like you now have a strategy um because you could still do the fun creative uh uh shortterm videos the short short videos not short-term videos but the short videos you could do it for fun you could do it as a test you could do it in engagement but then you actually had uh you know these longer videos that could bring in more money uh to create more content and so um how how did your strategy because like the the one I mean you had some some really cool ideas and I know that some of these ideas you know are just you know other ideas that other people have but they don't necessarily do it with cakes you're like oh wonder how we can make it our own um I love it but your number one video um of all time um is is one that you put out and I want to talk about that because um if if we go to your number one video and this is on long form we short form is completely different uh but if we go long form uh you can see it's the band cakes again and you did it three months ago so talk about buckets so I mentioned buckets in my book you know how obsessed I am with audience and buckets in Channel jumpstart because you're one of my students talk about that and I want to talk about the the effect maybe maybe Tanner can talk into this as well so yeah do you yeah um I mean so we're we've been only been posting one long form a month um just because it's you know with shorts we don't want to abandon that but so but we're still trying to to make sure we we hit those buckets like you talk about and so um so like the evolution of the band cakes essentially is like it started in the shorts with the band easy bake oven and then it uh evolved into the I made cakes in the band Easy Bake Oven we were like okay that did well and then um we were kind of like well Daryl you you talked to us and gave us a lot a lot of this idea but um essentially we were like okay what is Halloween's coming up uh what's associated with like band toys or kind of creepy they're kind of weird and so what if we you know use that as as in our bucket of like band turning using band toys to make cakes essentially and that's what we did with that that Halloween one and and we in that video we we went pretty all out like we decorated our kitchen Halloween transformed everything um so it it was really fun but yeah that one that one is surprisingly our best video and we're like we need to do something like that again we are doing something like that again but it what we also noticed too was that band toys and band products were a are still a huge Trend all over YouTube all over the internet all over Tik Tok all over everywhere so I basically looked at that and I was like okay how can I how can I do that like that looks fun like let's buy some band kid toys and like I'll just make them into a cake and um for Halloween it was super fun because I got to make him spooky and I'm like the least spooky person I hate scary things so I um made that a whole bit of the of the video and so was really fun yeah so um so so the the key to this and I want everyone to understand um once once you have a a video that a viewer watches the goal that I always tell uh my students is like this it's like we we want to convert those new views into a returning viewer and the best way to convert them to a returning viewer is to give them something similar to what they have and they want more of it they want to go deeper down the rabbit hole so if they if they're doing down the band uh Toy products or band cakes or whatever you know it's like oh I like this one it's fun I want to see another one so YouTube will always recommend something that will take them down a rabbit hole but it also takes something down where uh YouTube will make guesses of what they want to watch based on your content so the other things might I might like to watch um recreated unreal you know cakes off of Tik Tok and so that that would actually show up underneath it and so it's getting that suggest suggested traffic to kick in um but what what you explained earlier which I love is when one takes off it lifts up all your content so it's like when you have something that is relationally the same YouTube's going to start recommending each other and that that is when I I remember uh the day that that uh you executed on this idea and I'm like okay it game over now you you now understand your audience well enough uh to create content you have fun doing it um you are you're you're getting a good Rhythm Your your long form content is better um now we just need to hone our skills of just really owning the audience we got to be better storytellers kind of go more in depth on it um and I I do want to clarify something um because someone brought it up I when I said that you don't make a ton of money on on shorts um you you can make a ton of money on shorts there's there there is um and I think money's relative um when I'm thinking uh money I'm thinking I want hundreds of thousands of dollars a month um coming in um and and and so it's all relative uh if it can fire on a more long form your more guaranteed ad spots and then two as you become a more of authority in the space or and or connecting with specific audience and Advertiser wants they going to bid on your your your content and that brings your Revenue up and so for me it's just more uh when I make that comment I I think a lot of people would be actually excited with what you're do what you were able to do what you did off of shorts because it did retire you and like focus in on this and you you bringing enough money in there so I don't want to Discount that I mean I guess that's bad of me but I I you know me I I go big go big or go home also shorts and long form the the shelf life of a long form video is amazing like it you know it gets views for a really long time shorts can but it's harder for it to do that we really biger short for it to do that I mean yeah it just definitely does yeah we only have like two shorts that have like just well we have one short that's over 107 million views yeah yeah that has been but it's been going for like a year and that's like one out of like I don't know how many and it's taken a year to get that much right yeah now I I definitely want to dig deep into to shorts because I think um now when you know that hey we're doing one video a month uh long form it's going to put a lot of energy into it you're already testing with shorts how do you push your creativity uh needle though like what what are you doing to be more creative in your long form because as you're well aware I mean doing a 30 second versus a 14 minute is more difficult to retain people yeah um we really try to put in a lot of different storylines and also like pepper in my personality more now um I also like to literally like meet my subscribers and know them um because that that truly is my biggest motivator is like my viewers like I love I want to meet them all um they're so sweet um and so I really I want to know like what they want to see and what gets them excited as well as myself yeah I love that we were just we were just in the Dominican Republic and we were having uh lunch uh my wife and I with you you two and it was the cutest thing ever to have these two girls come up which is exactly the age that you said Middle School girls right and and they wanted a little selfie and it was just like here we are in the middle of nowhere Dominican Republic and yet here's super fans that are coming in um and navigating you're so gracious to take time and and do a selfie with them um and I I I will never forget um the the comment that after they left you're like they were so excited they were scared that they couldn't even talk to me like I would ask them questions like yeah she's up and I'm like I just want to talk to you like it takes a little bit to warm up but yeah yeah I I I think it was kind of awkward because like everybody was like looking at him and you and you know this little selfie thing but yeah it was cute um so one of the one of the tips that I always uh um have uh my students do is like when someone comes up to you do a selfie you spend time with them for sure but ask them questions ask them like what's their favorite video and why you know how did they discover you and why and you know do they do have their friends that are like I just try to get um as much information out of them as possible without feeling creepy right just be serous about them um and and then to take time to to um hear them out sometimes they might have uh like what what would be a really cool video to do maybe they give you like the one of the most amazing videos of all time so I really really love that so any anything else to to mention on that I I would just go back to uh some of the things you mentioning mentioning about you our long form videos um and how we're how we're trying like basically you know it's a lot different trying to create a a longform video than a short and and basically what we did was I mean we study other creators that are and how are they What mechanisms in the video are they using for retention and we're like okay well how we can how can we apply that to to what we're doing um we also get some inspiration from like even like because she's doing baking like the Food Network sometimes and like seeing what they're doing on on there to make it interesting like we like watching the holiday baking championship for example it's like why do we like watching that you know and and really on being a student of YouTube like you said right and and I guess TV too yeah no I I that inspiration I think you can get it anywhere I I get it everywhere um which which is great which is great um well let's let's talk about um now that you kind of um not kind of now that you have your your strategy you you know um um what to consider and when to consider it and you're you're you're putting out content strategically and it's and it's working um um how how do you kind of like run me through uh you know a day with you guys like what what what's the highest priority uh what's the lowest priority what where do you spend your time uh because I think a lot of people uh tend to put time in the wrong places they focus in on theong things so maybe uh each of you just take a minute and just kind of walk through you know how what's the day in life of and and where you put your focus oh gosh my day changes like every single day um um my let's see I will say the moment that I was able to hire an assistant really changed my life for the better professionally because I was then able to focus a lot more on the creativity and the videos that I wanted to make rather than like literally um going to the store to buy all the supplies that I need or um organizing all my cake supplies um I I used to have to spend a lot of time doing that and now I can focus more of my time and energy on the content and what my subscribers want to see I I'm trying to think of like what all what all I do in a day we we have shorts we have weeks where we're making shorts and we got weeks where we're making long form what do those look like yeah so um we just finished um long form like posting a long form so that week like when we're filming a long form it's always really crazy because I'm like having to make a bunch of cakes so it takes forever for us to film like it could take three to like seven days to film long form yeah a long form um and I'm trying to think of like what yeah it just all blurs together it honestly does it's like blurring together right now I'm like what do I do with my I know that you're a little sick too under the weather but it's it's all good I appreciate have um like you know I think like mostly Mondays are like we have days where we have to just focus on the strategy of everything and instead of executing because you have to take that time to like think about what am I doing um because especially long form videos we've had points where we're like oh we need to make a long form video but we don't really have the idea fully fleshed out and we're like if we go and make this we're gonna spend so much time doing it and if we don't have the if we don't spend the time to do the pre-production then it's it's we're g to be sad at the when we post it so uh sometimes yeah like we'll we'll take a step back and be like okay it's waiting for and getting organized around this idea um yeah we we do split our weeks into like shorts and long forms great that's great so um so yeah I I think I think everyone can relate you know it kind of blurs together at times but I I know that you spend time doing um some Recon and research trying to figure out what what are the next ideas and then you're testing the ideas and then then you're selecting oh this is the one we're going to do long form um which which is great and then uh I do love I mean it's music to my ear stand when you say hey we got to do more pre-production I think I think a lot of people they just shoot a video and they're like oh this is the most amazing video of all time or we'll fix it in the edit instead of thinking no how do we how do we give the elements that that's needed to take we wasted a lot of time shooting stuff that we just like end up editing out and we're like oh my gosh like we gota if we more organized we can film faster we definitely learned the hard way to do that so I think we all have which is good you're just getting smarter right right because you got to analyze and adjust and you're like okay we did it the hard way we don't want to endure all that that SC well let's uh let's dive into uh one other thing and I I want to be able to uh make an announcement um you know um after this next one uh so stick on for the announcement it's really really really cool especially with with Mary Allison and uh also some stuff that I'm involved with which is exciting um but let's talk about uh the the cake that I said was a banger um and and we we were on a Mastery call with my students and we're focusing in on on you um and your channel and this is where I'm able to kind of Deep dive and let's kind of talk about that because like the nature of what you're able to do and that I think there's a lot of people can learn from this um when we come up with a solid idea so yeah so we were on a call with Daryl and a bunch of other students and um we yeah he was diving into our Channel like what are some like good video ideas to do like how how do we make our strategy better and um we were we were like okay well we were about to hop off because we're like literally flying to London to go to the Taylor Swift concert of course of course my my ears perk up Taylor Swift airplane yeah and and so he was like you should make a cake on a plane and I was like you know we're about to leave like right when we hang up we're like we're out the door like we're going and he was like well if you can do it like just do it and so I was like all right and me as a cake decorator I have about 15 Frozen cakes in my freezer at any given time along with extra Frozen frosting and I was like you know what I can make this work like let's just do it I like grabbed the cake grabbed the frosting ran upstairs grabbed random cake supplies and sprinkles and piping bags and like a cake box and I was like all right we're doing this thing and I was like really nervous because I was like it was like kind of out of my comfort zone because I was like is this going to get through security like are people gonna judge me like didn't take let's St there so when when when we talked about the idea it was the magic was oh it's a long flight okay and I've been on Long flights before and like there's people that raw dog it that just don't do anything they just stand there just like raw doging the whole thing and like okay you have that then you have the extreme where everybody's like putting feet everywhere and like like I've seen the most interesting things on the plane so from a teenager's Point some of them not may not have FL flown before right and so there is that unknown and then two who would make a freaking cake on a plane well of course Very Alison would right and then and then the story was okay what would be the unknowns and you know getting it through security I like those are really those are uh story beats right um and so like I think that that is really cool because you are curious already if you're curious the viewer is gonna be curious and and then where is that g to happen but uh I I want to State one other thing uh when when I came up with the idea it wasn't I call it a banger because I know it's a banger I I still believe it's 100 million viewed video it's still it's yeah yeah yeah it it's just like it it's one of those 100 million viewed ideas is because the why um and the what and the why was um you're going to make a cake and give it to a Taylor Swift fan because you're going to a Taylor Swift concert and that's what you do to swifties right and so you had kind of like this great idea for a story and now can you actually pull it off and so I want to I want to pick up there because I wanted to them to have context because just the idea of doing a cake on the plane is not very interesting but it was oh wait can I actually get through security you know so take it from there yeah so I was like okay can I actually get through security and then if I do get through security like how am I going to physically make a cake on a plane like I I didn't fly first class like I'm not I wish but you know I didn't have that much space I was in like the tiny little like Cube and so we were thankful that there was like a seat in between us yeah that just worked out it just worked out I was like I I don't know what we would have done if there was somebody like sitting in in our row um so thankfully that worked out and I had this like tiny little space and um R random frosting I had to like open the piping bags which were by the way Extremely Loud and of course I was doing it at midnight because it was like an overnight flight and so everybody was asleep and I was like oh my gosh like are they are they going to tell me to like be quiet am I going to get thrown off this plane by the flight attendant like what is happening and then also I was like how am I going to decorate this cake with the like few supplies that I have like I don't have all of my normal things like a cake spinner and like a smoother and all the things I was like how am I going to make it like look cute and be Taylor Swift themed thankfully as a Swifty I have a bunch of like Taylor Swift decorations in my cake supplies of like little cake toppers so I was like okay well that's good I can just like throw that on um and then I was like okay now I need to find a Swifty to give this to like on my plane I was like that would be so cool because the plane was full of swifties going to everybody was going to the concert and so what's also funny is that I found a Swifty who was on my plane that I actually like knew and we didn't know that we were like gonna be on the same plan yeah yeah so I gave it to her and um that was that was really cool and she loved it like it was so sweet well I I want to watch the video because I think the video is really well done um I think I think it's somebody uh they can get a lot out of it and and then two uh when you actually understand how to put the elements to a video together it can happen very quickly like the the point was she was just ending the call getting on a plane within 30 minutes and and she was able to pull all the supplies together was bold enough to take the idea uh but it was an idea that could be done because there's a story behind it there was she was doing this she's a Swifty fan they know that she's a Swifty fan they're's going to engage with it so um let me go ahead and pull that video up here real quick and um let's see if we can I'm making the world's first cake on a plane but I barely got this cake p security so I really hope the flight attendants don't I need to be quiet because I'm currently in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean going to see tlor Swift in London and everyone on the plane is asleep piping BS are so loud what are you doing back there what else would I do I tried playing Angry Birds but kept losing if I can finish this t Swift cake before we land I'm giving it to the biggest Swifty on my plan it's looking kind of rough but who should I give this cake to excuse me do you want this cake I'm making the world all right all right all right that's that's so good that's so good so um yeah oh uh how many views did we get on that I know it's still popping it's it has over 52 million 51 million something like that now but it still gets a lot of views consistently yeah yeah yeah it like I still think it's a 100 million Banger uh and you know it it it's so great it's so great um now let's talk about that because that was a very different type of video you weren't in your Your Atmosphere you weren't in your ecosystem um and why from your point of view did that work why I mean you made a whole bunch of other videos that you had a lot more thought process in it why did it work and and what what did you learn from it I think it worked because I was there was a there was a big why behind it and I was able to connect with people um in multiple different ways whether like a lot of people have been on a plane and so they think it's interesting that you see somebody like making a cake on a plane they're like what the heck or they haven't been on a plane they want to go on a plane yeah and then there's also like the connection with being a Swifty um and then there was the curiosity like you had mentioned before of like what's going to happen then also I was able to like stay true to myself and um still insert my personality and still make it a part of my world um which I think was really big too and by starting I think we we we made sure we started it where we normally start a video like in our kitchen and it's just like that quick transition it's like oh you're all of a sudden you're on a plane really quick like what's going on here it made people stop and watch it I think yeah I think the familiar environment was pretty big for that one too because my audience um knows that I always like pop up behind my countertop and so that will usually make my audience stop yeah I think it was just weird I'll just be honest with you like I I love weird ideas um yeah like why why would she do that you know and then to what happens if you would do it so then that Curiosity Factor uh you know it leans in and then you you you did the Beats it's like can I get through security you showed it right you know you know can I keep it quiet cuz it's so loud yeah what are people going to think I mean all the stuff that they're probably thinking in their head you're literally giving it to them right why Angry Birds like I I need to understand that like why why did you pause and do Angry Birds um we wanted to like break up the pattern a little bit we wanted a little pattern Interruption and throw in a little bit of like my goofy personality of being like not good at video games at all um and just like throw something like Goofy and fun in there yeah and it's just it's giving people something to comment yeah really yeah and G yeah thinking yeah giving them something to comment like wow she was that is very relatable too because it's like that's what you do you got to play little Angry Birds on9 hour flight I mean that's what you got to do right yeah but um no I I I love it and and then two um this is a a this is kind of a hack when it comes to shorts everyone that's that's watching so if you're watching this you do shorts um if you can get them to comment they're going to be commenting and it's going to Loop the video um they're G to watch it once uh more than once and so that's a very big thing and then two if you noticed um she doesn't tell them to comment anything it was just more engaging and connected at different points and if you go through those comments it's some of the the best comments there um and and people felt a part of it too and I think too it it um I think this is a great example of hey this was a test of making cakes in weird places maybe that's a bucket for a longer form video maybe you're doing it in an Uber and I like I'm just throwing out ideas it's just like you know maybe maybe it's like you're going to someone's party and you forgot a cake and you're G to do it on the Uber drive like I me there's several ways to do it but the the thing is is it's it's super engaging and super fun and then two um it it elevated uh your content and what what happened at this specific moment because like like you did it and then um I mean this was how long ago was this um September was when we posted it yeah what happened in your fourth quarter like like what what like from a from a business perspective from a Creator spefic specific um what happened in fourth quarter for you guys yeah um Q4 was amazing for us it uh our growth was like exponential in in all terms in views monetarily um in learning it was it was the best months that we've had especially since him quitting his job so that was really encouraging as well yeah I love it um what I what I uh felt is that you really know your audience really well um you were willing to to do it but not to do it for views because you knew your audience would love the content that you're creating and so I I just noticed that you developed a strong audience and it was no surprise um you know um being in Dominican Republic and have your fans come because you're getting hundreds of millions of video views you are and and you're really engaging uh with that now here's the surprise I said everyone I'm gonna do a surprise uh we um every year are are really just kind of um thinking who's moving the needle who's pushing the needle um who would love to learn more from Mary Allison put it in the comments right now if if you want to learn more from Mary Allison put it in there um she did a training in the Dominican Republic um that was one of the best trainings I've ever seen on shorts it's like it was amazing um and and it was coming from the perspective of audience development I think people try to get so nerdy in here's here's how you get get them hooked and you're trying to give you the formula of it where it was more of a connection so if you want to learn more uh put it in the comments right now because uh because of that um I watched that presentation and I'm like oh girl that was so good and and I remember going up afterwards and I says hey why don't you give that presentation of vidsummit like why why don't you go in depth because it's so good for my students I'm like we need to go a lot more uh there and so Mary Allison's actually the first Speaker uh that we're announcing at vidsummit 2025 so that's going to be in October 7th through the 9th um and you are that first Speaker I I'm like so excited to learn from you like more than than you can ever imagine um and you think oh or I'm mentoring you I don't learn from you no I learn from my students all the time but your presentation was very well done um and I and I want that you know um of course you're gonna have more data so it's going to be different than the presentation but um I just I just I'm so excited that everyone gets to learn from you and so um how does that feel I mean uh we went through goal setting I had no idea this was your goal so why don't you tell some you don't need to go through all your goals but why don't you kind of share uh that goal that you had yeah so we were sitting at lunch and Daryl was like what are your goals for this year and I was like I want to speak at vidsummit and he had already asked me like before that and I was like yes like of course like that's so funny that's that was literally like the the top goal for me like of this year and so that was so exciting and really cool and I'm so excited to share with you all and get to know you all too so yeah I love it and uh for me I want to share everyone a goal that I had uh so three years ago at vid Summit I'm looking out over the audience of vidsummit and there's just not that many female creators out there and when you really look at the ratio of male creators versus female creators uh they're underrepresented they really are um and these young girls out there in the world and young boys out there in the world uh they need more female creators and I I vowed that I would try to Mentor more female creators in a way to have them want to Mentor more um and what I love is um kind of where you got your inspiration from from Hope scope right um and it's her desire too she wants to see more female creators um why don't you talk about that that relationship that you have with hope because I think that's an interesting thing and I and I know that you're doing it with other creators too where you're starting to see these people coming up and you know you're you're encouraging them but um you know that that's a goal for me and it is like with vid summon I just want to inspire more female creators to come up and do what you're doing so why take a second on that yeah so it was really cool my very first time at vid Summit was two 2022 years ago or was it 2023 no two years ago no I think it was I think it was I think it was 2023 anyway um I was watching in Hope like give a presentation on stage I think she was in a panel that year um with a bunch of female creators and that was very inspiring to me to see like a whole panel of women creators and especially Hope was like leading that panel and um also just watching her content in general and seeing how she inspires like a young female audience and then also wanting to inspire more female creators so when I got to actually like meet her and and speak with her I was it was really cool and now that like I would have never thought that I would actually be able to like speak at vidsummit as well um and so like I think it's really cool to see that it is possible like she inspired me and now like I also want to inspire a bunch of young females and female creators for sure I actually have a subscriber that goes to my church and she she she like makes YouTube videos it's so cute and she was like I like I want to be a YouTuber like you and I was like yes like please do and then she asked me to like be on her Channel I was like absolutely like yes just let me know um and so I think it it's really sweet to see that and very encouraging to see yeah and I think the big thing for me is um it's it's always good to see people that look like us or sound like us make make content because that inspires us like if they can do it we can do it right um and I love it and so um I I'm just excited that you're willing to accept to be a speaker of vid Summit and can't wait for you to share what you shared in the Dr because that was amazing presentation uh for for the people at vidsummit uh so guys if you want to go over to vidsummit dcom get your ticket um it's October 7th through the 9th uh Believe It or Not uh we sold out last year um we we did and we did the year before got pretty crazy um you'll want we're going to be pushing really hard I'm not going to lie we're going to push harder than we've ever done before this last vid Summit was the best vid Summit ever of all time from my my point of view it was just beautiful to watch it was like the right Dynamics and we had the right type of sponsors coming in and it just it felt good and so we're we're putting all energy into this um so be on the lookout every week we're going to be announcing new speakers um we're going to be uh going out there if you want to speak Advent Summit reach out to us uh tweet me you know say hey I'm I'm interested I'll I'll I'm I'm open uh my my only goal would be is that um you're bringing value to everybody and not self-promoting you know that's what we're trying to do so really excited about that any um any last thoughts uh you know Mary Alison is there anything that you you want to say before we go before we uh turn to questions because I know there's a lot of people that have questions um is there anything yeah I just want to say that like if you're feeling stuck in your content like there is a way forward like you can do it um trust me I if if you would have asked me three years ago if I would be in this position now I would have been like no there's no way um but just like never give up like keep going keep pushing like you can do this like I promise yeah I love that I love that so you open for a couple questions both you guys yeah yeah okay have a question put it down in the the comments there um I I think I love what you said never giving up and I think to uh surround yourself by people that get it um I think far too many times you feel like we're on an island but having conversations with people that are actually doing it um helps you kind of stay grounded and then also um it's it's almost therapeutic because like when you say something they get it like oh I've been there or whatever and it's you're able to um you know really really Elevate um kind of your your mental health too just being surrounded by helped us a lot with that having that Community because we didn't have that before yeah the channel Jump Start Community is like truly amazing to have like yeah a little biased I'm a little biased on that right yeah like you are amazing your team is amazing the community is great yeah love so if you're interested in Channel jumpstart that's in the description too uh we're just getting ready to do a new cohort it's coming up in a couple weeks so yeah all right um so Kelsey saying how many shorts were you doing a week before you you hit it hard one short per week and that's honestly still what we do so yeah we we might we might can make more but with the long form and stuff it's like it that's just kind of what what worked for us and that we we noticed in that cycle you obviously could do more we noticed in that cycle that keeps it um if we miss a week our short doesn't take off as fast it takes longer so being in that cycle of weekly is probably bare minimum was shorts if you're really if you're taking it serious yeah love that um the project question in uh question um is it is it to identify values to reach versus audience age is the question is it to identif is it more about trying to figure out the values of the audience or is it stage yeah um for me it was really figuring out yeah the value of the audience and what they wanted to see and what I could connect with so for me for example I was like okay who who am I because that was also a question I had to ask I was like what do I like and I was like I love baking I love Taylor Swift I love pop culture like makeup celebrity movies all of the things how can I combine those and then also who who else would want to watch that and so for me that was it was really evident that it was like eight to 16 year old girls and that's what my audience mostly is and I think um um we we don't try necessarily we to make content for an 8 to 16 year old we we we try to make it where obviously based on the values where it's like okay if there's a if there's a someone in the family that's 8 years old and 16 years old and 35 years old maybe Mom or something they all probably kind of like the same similar things maybe they could all actually watch our video together yeah so because we really want it to be like broad but then you will have that that core audience which like I said for me as the eight to 16y old girl but we want it to be more about uh very easily broadly viewed so like if they when they're watching it on the TV the mom and the older sister and even the dad would enjoy the content yeah so I think the big thing uh the way I look at it is is age is a way that we communicate um the value is the value and and what you're trying to do is like hey let's bring value so that a mom and a daughter can watch content together and they both enjoy it uh that's great I'm all for it there are certain things that will resonate with a younger audience um and and you'll understand that but when I look at age it's just a it's it's just contextually helping me know how to communicate um because they're gonna want it a certain way and when I mean communicate it's even the edit itself too it's like you're communicating through your edit and so I like to break it down like that um which is beautiful all right so Tony's asking from LinkedIn we are live streaming on LinkedIn look at that look at us look at us okay I have a crafting paper crafting Channel what is the best strategy to research what people want to see in my videos yeah I mean so if you're getting some views already obviously the comments are a great place to start with that if you're getting views already you probably have some data on like where how long they're watching your videos um so is there like peaks in in the video that that they reround and and like that moment for whatever reason that can give you some information um and then if you don't aren't getting a lot of views I think it's experimenting but and then also kind of reading comments of other channels to see to see what they're doing like that that's how we started it's like who how do we make a video that a viewer of this type of channel would would watch yeah so we would go look at uh comments from other people's channels for instance like hope or even Nick or Mariah um some of those people that I listed and and see what the the comments were and so you the same thing yeah so Tony that they gave you some really great advice I would say look on Pinterest um like Pinterest is your your ground of coming up with ideas and um and then two look at it is is um uh most most people will look at oh we're doing a craft and that's the project that's the most important Tony don't think that way like literally get that out of your head what you want to do is think about okay how do I bring value to them um because they're going to want to know and it could be like the five best uh you know pay paper crafting things in 2026 you know or 2025 or whatever or 2024 and then you're getting some inspiration off of Pinterest and you could do even off Pinterest you could even do it off Tik Tok you know some of those trying to recreate something that you see on Tik Tok is a big deal uh but it's more that I think if you get uh if if you think that someone's going to do step by step with you you're not understanding YouTube what they want to see is you do it and and they want to see why you're doing it and you're telling the story behind it and that's that's where the bulk of your views are going to come from um and and so that's what I would do definitely Pinterest uh get get the ideas in there and then do look at other lateral things like they said on YouTube I think that'd be great so yeah Tik Tik Tok we we we do research on Tik Tok too because it just drives so much of the culture on the internet okay uh they're asking what is the best short length for you guys for us we usually keep it at 30 or below like right between like 26 and 30 yeah depending on the video if it's the plane like longer though it a little B plane was like longer it I uh we used to have a lot more variation in how long they would be and now we we do try we found that like 30 to 35 is like the sweet spot for us I don't know if it's because of the type of content it is like it makes it more sharable or something I don't know but um yeah I know shorts are longer now like you can make three minute shorts we haven't really tried that but it just maybe we'll you know I would do that with your audience if you can do three minutes you do it on a long form video might as well make a long form video I was thinking um okay so this next one I'll answer I'm starting a new Channel with crime stories great everybody loves the crime stories um my question is because of the nature and strong language of the channel can it still be monetized what's your thoughts and advice on the niche yeah yeah some of the biggest channels on the planet biggest podcast are true crime crime it works they have strong language they have just the nature of it keep in mind though is the frequency if if the strong language don't do it at the beginning of the video um put it more in there if if there is strong language through it um YouTube's a little bit more tolerant with that they're a little bit more sensitive at the beginning of the video it's like if it's like in in a short amount of time um but uh all in all it's great and uh you can monetize for sure so okay here we got one uh what is the difference between YouTube Formula 1 and YouTube Formula 2 YouTube formula 1's right here it's written YouTube Formula 2 is not written no I've been um I've been working on it for a while um uh believe it or not I I wanted to redo section two um so those are case studies and so I'm going to re really bring in case studies that are people that read the book and and have seen success instead of the pre-read the book um and so that that section two is going to be there and then we need to address shorts because believe it or not uh the Youtube formula still works with shorts Mary Alison can do ATT test to that um but we need to uh help people see it through the lens of the shorts and going through short form content believe it or not that is my strength I I I I've view shorts as a commercial like from my point of view and that's I'm obsessed with commercials um so it's like um you know that that's something thing that I need to go a lot more in depth on and then also the tools so mad um like Manan it's the tools uh definitely want to see the tools with AI there's so much that are out there I need to nerd out to how creators can use tools to create and amplify and so that that's going to be in version two uh okay so let's go ahead um on this question right here um oh it's just a thing thank you any advice on how to convert short views into long views in the medical education content so I'll I'll see you guys have any strategy there yeah well um I am not very medical educational at all um as you can probably tell um I B cakes but um to convert short views to Long views the the way that worked for me is what I am just going to tell you because that's what worked for me is literally like looking at what I did in shorts and what the audience liked from the short and then making that into a long form video so look at your shorts what did well read the comments see what people want from you and then turn that into a longer video yep yeah anything on yeah uh I and I guess to go a step further on it is on even on shorts like you might have I've seen a lot of people have like one video that pops off and they don't really understand why and they can't replicate it so I think it's important on shorts to not just have like one video that takes off um and then just oh I'm going to make a long form video about that but like understand like could I make more a series of shorts and people are like really invested in this like series and then they're gonna you're going to build the audience loyalty more that way and then they're going to be more likely to want to check out your long form I think that's probably what yeah and and I I would say knowing you uh it's more you like to go in depth on specific topics that might take you know 20 30 minutes and that's not shorts at all and so shorts is something quick um I would make a point of of connection in the sense of hey maybe it's a misconceived idea that is actually true or a misconceived idea that's actually false and then you have a relevant uh Deep dive video um but not every channel needs a short strategy I'm just here here to tell you like I I don't believe in that um what I believe is you have an audience that cares and to consume if the value proposition is that that you're going way in depth on something then that's what it is like if if I only had U well let me um let me use this as an example so I I listen religiously to Long podcasts two to three hours sometimes okay and and um it's it's I I do it to kind of shut my mind down a little bit at times but there's great value in it and when I'm flying I'm listening to a podcast or whatever um but there's not a world that I that I find uh value in a short um I'm not watching short I'm I want that two to three hours I'm not consuming that way however there's other channels I Eclipse channels um that use short strategies that I'll watch okay and it'll be maybe one specific moment I take a mental note oh I need to go listen to that interview with Mark Mark Zuckerberg right just because I'm like I haven't listened to it yet or they said something I don't remember that I want to go deeper I'm not going deeper on so you might be able to do it that way where it's like taking that Golden Nugget and if they want to go deeper they're going to do it but you're going to need to program it that they know it's your video because if they don't know it's your video then they have no idea that it's there so there's a lot of lot of complexity but I generally like to figure out who my viewer is would they be conducive of watching shorts if so what type of value are they going to bring for me it's never it's just that quick dopamine effect I'm moving on quick laugh whatever uh mine's more memes than anything else I share more memes with my kids through it I just I I love that type of content and rarely is it U something that oh I learned something there like it never is it's just like oh maybe I want to learn something I'll Deep dive I'll go to a longer form video so cool um let me uh do this last question here and then we will um we I I know it's been a long time and thank you for doing an hour and a half with this um are you using any a AI related in your content creation process like using tools yes we are he yeah most of it we I mean we use chat GPT sometimes to help us with writing things better um into our and then change it into our own words but uh probably mostly what we use is we use mid Journey a good amount for thumbnails like a lot of the cakes in our thumbnails we like might upload a video of the actual cake and then it creates variations of it just to make it look pop more you know um and so that's that's something we do a lot is we we use mid Journey for almost every thumbnail and obviously the AI and Photoshop yeah yeah I I love the AI and Photoshop it's actually it's really good yeah use that a lot well guys uh any any last words thank you so much for joining us any last words on this um we're just so thankful to be here um I'm so excited to speak at vidsummit so everybody get your tickets uh vid Summit is amazing and also join Channel jumpstart because it helped it helped us significantly I would not be here today without Channel jumpstart or Daryl like honestly so oh that's so nice that's so nice yeah um I I it's an honor to Mentor you um what I love is I I just kind of point in the right direction you have to do all the hard work um and what I love is you're willing to roll up your sleeves and do it um even when it's awkward and and uh you're you're living the life because of what you guys are doing and so I'm so grateful just to be a small little you know blip in your journey um and and I can't wait I literally can't wait for the people that you're going to Aspire at at vidsummit so get your tickets vidsummit viid summit.com I if you want to hear uh one of the most amazing present ations on converting short audience audience viewers into long form she gets very granular with it uh the data to to back up with it it's going to be super great and so thank you so much thank you everyone we'll see you on the next one thanks everyone bye thank you bye