In this episode of YouTube Success podcast, join me as I share insights from my recent experience at Social Media Marketing World and explore why being a little “weird” can actually be your superpower in content creation. I’ll share stories and discuss how they can help you connect better with your audience.
Whether you’re new to creating videos or have been doing it for a while, this episode has practical tips to help you stand out online. So, if you’re curious about how embracing your “weird” can make your YouTube channel more interesting, this conversation is for you!
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Transcript
Hello, welcome to YouTube Success.
Speaker:This is a, well, I think it will be a short episode today.
Speaker:And it's really because I just wanted to talk about something that went to
Speaker:Social Media Marketing World last week.
Speaker:And it's something that I got talking to a few people about, and I really
Speaker:think it's a mindset issue, but I think it applies to YouTube and to
Speaker:creating video content in general.
Speaker:And it's something that we probably, as human beings, try to hide quite
Speaker:often and that is our weirdness.
Speaker:And if you're sitting there thinking, what do you mean?
Speaker:I didn't think I was weird.
Speaker:Or maybe people at school, when you was at school, they
Speaker:said you're a bit of a weirdo.
Speaker:I know I had that time and time again, when it came to being an engineering
Speaker:geek or tech geek, or being obsessed with the Spice Girls as I was as a teenager.
Speaker:I cannot believe I've just said that on my YouTube podcast.
Speaker:I was in the Spice Girls fan club.
Speaker:That's how obsessed I was.
Speaker:Anyway, let's get back to topic, but it's about embracing your weirdness
Speaker:because what happens is, when you create content, when you create video, when you
Speaker:show up online in any way, we have this idea that we need to be professional.
Speaker:Now if you're creating a podcasting, you're in the professional services
Speaker:industry, maybe you're an independent financial advisor or a regulated industry
Speaker:I would say, something like that, then of course, there's a difficulty of how
Speaker:you show up when it's concerned with The professional side of your business.
Speaker:If you're in a regulated industry, it's much harder for you, but if you're not,
Speaker:which I think is the majority of people, then you get to embrace your weirdness.
Speaker:And not only embrace it, but people want to see you're weird.
Speaker:They want to know the things about you that are a little bit odd.
Speaker:And I give you an example of this.
Speaker:I had a call today on one of the masterminds that I run.
Speaker:And we talked about the fact that when I used to move house, if I was moving a
Speaker:house, we would do all our normal checks about the house, you know, what schools
Speaker:are in the area, all that kind of thing.
Speaker:And one of the things I would always do is check the internet.
Speaker:At the time in the UK, broadband wasn't as popular.
Speaker:Wireless was even just getting started, so you wouldn't have
Speaker:a wireless router always.
Speaker:It was just a standard router and then eventually, you would have your own
Speaker:wireless router and that kind of thing.
Speaker:So probably in the last 10, 12, 15 years.
Speaker:I would check the internet because so much of my life was based around having
Speaker:a good internet connection, that I needed to ensure that I had a good connection
Speaker:when I got there and this might sound stupid, you know I knew friends that
Speaker:would move house and move around the houses and not check those things
Speaker:because it wasn't as important to them.
Speaker:I'm getting notifications everywhere.
Speaker:I hope you can't hear my notifications.
Speaker:But even if you couldn't, you now know that they're happening to me.
Speaker:And I try, when I do these podcasts to make sure there's no
Speaker:notifications, but alas I forgot today.
Speaker:So we check these things and I realized it was just something
Speaker:that was a little bit weird.
Speaker:Like most people that I knew that had houses, they wouldn't go and
Speaker:check if the internet existed, but for me, it was super important.
Speaker:And the woman I spoke to on my mastermind, she was talking about the
Speaker:fact that she was going to a hotel and she was looking for Chromecast.
Speaker:The hotel must have Chromecast cause she wanted to watch Netflix or something.
Speaker:She didn't want to have to, you know, watch whatever the hotel TV, I don't
Speaker:know if you've been to a hotel, but most of the TV is rubbish, especially
Speaker:if you're in another country.
Speaker:And it's not got they've not got English channels or if you're in America
Speaker:and they've got like loads of news channels and not much else on there.
Speaker:She said she wanted chromecast and she didn't want to share it.
Speaker:She said it's a bit weird to share that she's doing that kind of thing and I'm
Speaker:like, no you need to embrace your weird.
Speaker:The weirdness is what people connect with.
Speaker:So when you're thinking about creating content whether it's Facebook live
Speaker:content or in this instance for YouTube Success, YouTube content, I want you
Speaker:to really think about what is it about you, what is it about your personality,
Speaker:about what you love and hate in the world that makes you a little bit weird?
Speaker:And how can you incorporate that and if you're watching this on YouTube,
Speaker:you'll see the things behind me.
Speaker:Now I'll just give you one example.
Speaker:There's a little red guy behind me here.
Speaker:For those of you that are listening on the podcast, it's a statue that
Speaker:I picked up off Download The Dog.
Speaker:Well, I don't know if the dog has a proper name, but I called him Download The Dog.
Speaker:And download, it's got like a.
Speaker:It's got a rock jacket on that says download on it.
Speaker:And if you don't know what download is, it's a festival in Dunnington Park.
Speaker:It used to be called Monsters of Rock in the UK.
Speaker:It's called Download Festival now.
Speaker:It's about a 25 minute drive from my house.
Speaker:So we get a taxi to it.
Speaker:In June, it's a rock festival and we love festivals.
Speaker:So when I was there and I was at this festival, we obviously, because we get
Speaker:a taxi back, I was like, I can buy this and it will survive the journey home.
Speaker:If I was camping there, I probably wouldn't have bought it.
Speaker:But there was this little statue and I was like, Oh my God, that'll make
Speaker:a great thing for my YouTube videos because I want people to know if they
Speaker:know what that is, that is, but I want people to know that I go to festivals,
Speaker:music festivals, and I love festivals.
Speaker:I love music.
Speaker:This is one of my main passions is going to gigs, going to festivals, I love
Speaker:standing in a field, muddy field with a beer in my hand, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:And so when you look at people's sets, just like the sets that
Speaker:I've got here, you can see the things that are weird about them.
Speaker:I've got King of Video at the top there.
Speaker:And just behind me, this is a picture.
Speaker:Again, I'll try to describe it if you're watching the podcast.
Speaker:I've got a little picture.
Speaker:My wife, she bought this from Etsy.
Speaker:It's a little picture of some legs and some Converse.
Speaker:Maybe it's some Vans shoes on.
Speaker:I wear Vans everything.
Speaker:You can see I've got a Vans top on now.
Speaker:And there's all these little signals around.
Speaker:I say clean your lens.
Speaker:That's behind me as well.
Speaker:I say "clean your lens" every month on my Facebook and it's a bit of a running joke.
Speaker:Now people say it back to me, you know, like there's all these little
Speaker:signals and if you watch people's YouTube channels, you'll see that
Speaker:they've got their own behind them.
Speaker:I met a guy at Social Media Marketing World this week that had those pop figures
Speaker:and he had all these rock icons and it was like I think he said Motorhead or
Speaker:ACDC or someone in, and when I when he was showing me his video I saw these
Speaker:little bobble heads and I was like, oh, you know, I mean the little figurines, the
Speaker:pop figures or something they're called.
Speaker:But when I saw it, it was like immediately, I was able to have
Speaker:a conversation with him about it.
Speaker:And that was his weirdness.
Speaker:He was actually a, his name's Mitch.
Speaker:He does pitch, bet picks.
Speaker:He runs a thing called Pick Dogs.
Speaker:We're gonna have him on the podcast actually in a couple of months.
Speaker:He did, in less than three years, 44,000 videos, which is just
Speaker:insane on his youtube channel.
Speaker:I'm gonna get him on.
Speaker:He's a fascinating guy, definitely a Marmite kind of guy as well by his
Speaker:own admission, but he had these pop figures in it and I was able to look
Speaker:at the video and he was just showing me what the kind of video that he
Speaker:does, but I saw it immediately had some kind of connection with him because
Speaker:it was a rock figure behind him.
Speaker:And so that's Mitch embracing his weird.
Speaker:He's saying, look, these are the things that I enjoy.
Speaker:These are the things that are part of me.
Speaker:So I want you to think about this, not only in the way in which you show up,
Speaker:but I want you to think about it in the scene that you create in the film world,
Speaker:in the video world, they call it mise en scène, which is in the scene, I think it
Speaker:is in french, mise en scène, in the scene.
Speaker:So everything you decide to put in your scene, I think alfred hitchcock was
Speaker:the person, we studied at the time was a master of this hitchcock and Stanley
Speaker:Kubrick were the ones that often get studied, because they were meticulous
Speaker:in putting everything in the scene.
Speaker:You can't watch a..
Speaker:I can't watch a movie now without seeing some kind of inanimate objects
Speaker:and going, well, I know that's going to be important later on if you think
Speaker:about the spinning top in that video.
Speaker:Let me know in the comments if you know what film I'm on
Speaker:about when I say spinning top.
Speaker:It's completely escaped me.
Speaker:But all these things are important.
Speaker:What's in the scene represents you, it tells something.
Speaker:This last thing that's what i'm saying.
Speaker:This little thing behind me is a picture of a foo fighters song
Speaker:So it's the foo fighters emblem.
Speaker:If you can't see there's a little bit of reflection behind me, but there's
Speaker:a few fighters graphic there and it's got the words of the song Everlong
Speaker:and Everlong was my first dance at my wedding, me and my wife's first dance.
Speaker:So that's a picture of a band that I love.
Speaker:The graphic is the words of Everlong, which was from my first dance at
Speaker:my wedding, means so much to me.
Speaker:But again, people that see it will say, Oh my God, Matt likes the Foo Fighters.
Speaker:I think it's another connection that we can make, but it's
Speaker:something that's personal to me.
Speaker:All right, so today's episode, not really a tactic or a strategy for YouTube other
Speaker:than the fact that you need to embrace your weird now if you've liked this
Speaker:episode Don't forget to rate the podcast if you think it's useful for anyone that
Speaker:you've watched this and you think they should embrace their weird more, then
Speaker:please, please share it with your friends.
Speaker:Head over to my YouTube channel, give it a subscribe, find the video and share it.
Speaker:It's in its own little playlist on YouTube on the podcast tab, and you'll see this.
Speaker:And it's great to go over and watch it actually, if you're listening to it on
Speaker:the podcast, I mean, I know you might be listening to it while you're walking,
Speaker:while you're driving, like I listen to podcasts, but you get an opportunity
Speaker:to watch it as well, cause we take the time to film them at the same time.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Thanks so much.
Speaker:My name is Matt Hughes, King of Video.
Speaker:See you on the next episode.