Last night some of the greatest YouTube creators, musicians and brand marketers in Utah met in Devin Dyer’s home in Highland to gain visions of collaboration, insights, best practices and some spine-tingling inspiration from Devin Graham of DevinSuperTramp. I Tweeted insights and quotes from the night live at @travis_chambers. The catchy hashtag #UTubers was born and a volunteer has begun compiling the community into a FB page. I will be hyper-linking everything in this post later on, connecting to all the people mentioned in my notes and the afore mentioned community.
Perhaps the most powerful statements of the night centered around the massive growth of YouTube creators in Utah, with CuteGirlsHairstyles claiming that YouTube considers Utah as one of the most influential YouTube communities outside of L.A and London. It appears Utah just became a little more appealing to all of us as we learned and all set our sights a little higher for what we can collectively achieve in this great state. Here are the somewhat un-organized but powerful notes I took on my iPhone and photos from the event.
Credit Scott Jarvie, Jarvie Digital Photography
Devin- What Companies are Here?
XO Skins, Weapon Blender, Smug mug
Introducing:
Marco G, production for LindseySterling, insights on iTunes sales
– covers spiked and died
-original songs spiked and stayed up
-mix of both is important
On to Musicians
The Power of Collaborations:
Ronny- Stuntman
Went from 30 to 30k subscribers in two months from Devin’s Assassins Creed vid
Collaborate with feature films like Saints and Soldiers
Freddie with collaborated with Cowboys and Aliens
Introducing Cute girls hair styles
550,000 subscribers
Top 25 Beauty Guru Channel
YouTube advertisers loves middle aged women because they are the ones that buy
YouTube asked to advertise on their videos
Started as a side job, Sean husband retired and works full time doing it
Contracts with Proctor and Gamble and Disney
Never underestimate 13 year old girls- out voted to get on YouTube 5 promoted
About to get six figure contract with a national brand for brand integration
Since Disney brands reach out every day
Top hair video 18 million
Just returned from Hunger Games set
Found a picture online 3 months before Hunger Games release of Katniss’ hairstyle from an obscure website, when the movie came out and the hair style was popular their video was created and ready for the traffic
Get followings on multiple social media platforms
Key to engage people first two days
If you tell them it’s going viral it will
Marketing insights:
Channels to be on:
Instagram is the best to rely on and get the word out for Devin
If you’re not active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, you’re hosed
Partial Utah YouTube community exists- The alliance, new one will be made
#utubers
Scott and Brendo
Doing music full time
Do music for free for Devin
Release dates are important they get nothing done when there isn’t pressure
Licensing deals for network tv shows
Have a rep in LA already
Constant content is crucial
BTS crucial – huge increase when tell story helps with news
‘Whatever you do on your channel you will get stuck doing that your whole life’
If you try to get out of that niche people will get mad
Test the video with people that were in it. Make it so they will share it.
Ricky Ray Butler
Ricky Ray Butler {Social Plaid} stated that thirdly to the LA-area and London, he believes that Utah has the next highest YouTube talent/potential. {Ricky has worked with hundreds of the top YouTubers with over 3,000 integrations.}
-3,000+ brand integrations
Most are with small channels because sometimes they have more engaged viewers
Content has to be consistent don’t let brand prostitute you.
Works with Ubisoft
Missed bid in just dance 1
Got bid on just dance 2
-3 million fans in 2 years
Trisha Helfner cult geek legend- Battlestar Galactica
Corridordigital Assassins video won all sorts of awards even in traditional media space
Top 10 YouTube videos are starting to make as much as Hollywood celebrities, millions
Ask other channels to like and favorite your videos so it shows up in their feeds
Consulting Virality
Cameron@consultingvirality.com
Charlie and testaments
Jeremy Hoop
Hooked up Devin with Red Bull
8 employees
Devin started out with orabrush before his channel took off, that’s where he learned, incubated
Insights from OraBrush
Ira Glass Quote
We get into creative work because we have good taste. First two years we suck. Most people quit here. Make deadlines for yourself. Have to through volumes of work to make it.“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass
Unlisted videos- put up multiple versions
Shoot it 5 different ways
Share temporary link on twitter and ask people what they think
Google hangout
Audience retention graph
-YouTube kills videos that have quick drop offs, so don’t mislead
-Analyze retention and figure out why people are leaving at certain times
Prepare audience for brand integration
Having multiple channels helps a ton
Wheezy Waiter mentioned three times tonight
Teddie Films
Thegoodline
Andrew Hales- LAHF
Held in the beautiful home of Devin Dyer
Devin Showing Some Insider Channel Analytics
At the end of the workshop, Devin showed a video that he posted on his Facebook last week which had the room pin-drop silent with a lot of awe-struck faces. Quick iPhone video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg3nChdhdTQ
The original video: What if money was no object? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siu6JYqOZ0g&feature=youtu.be
Great Blog! And hey look! There’s me! (;
Thanks for the info. Do you know if Devin is planning to do something like this again?
when is the nest one?
Dang! Super jealous!
The last workshop Devin held was roughly a year and a half ago, I imagine with his schedule these kinds of meetups won’t be very often, I would guess one, maybe two a year. His main objective there was to get Youtubers excited about collaborating with each other, building on the success of everyone as a connected group. Thank you for reading and the comments, there is no workshop currently scheduled. Looking great of course Kat! Congrats on the new job.