Andréa Jones: If I had to pick one social media platform right now, I bet you can't guess which one it is that I want to focus on. And I want to talk all about that in this episode of the Mindful Marketing Podcast because this question came up during our social media day summit that we had last week. And someone in the comments asked what platform I would focus on. And I actually didn't see that comment until after the live session ended. So I said, you know what? This will make a great podcast episode. And here we are. So The one platform that I recommend to be on right now, if I were to start over completely and focus all in on one platform, it would be YouTube. Yes, YouTube. Now, before you panic and exit out of this episode, please let me tell you why. Because I don't want to become a full-time content creator on YouTube. Okay. I'm not trying to do that. And I'm not saying everyone abandon Instagram, TikTok, threads, whatever, just because I'm saying this. But I want To really talk about why I would pick YouTube in this episode, because you can actually apply this strategy to other platforms and at least go in aware of kind of what are the challenges with some of the other platforms right now as well, and why you're feeling like there's less engagement and why you're feeling like things aren't working and why you feel like you have to work so hard on your content. I want to like frame that episode with that under this episode with that understanding so that you don't feel like your wheels are spinning and you don't have any direction forward. Okay. YouTube, not because YouTube is about video, but because YouTube is about a few things: discovery, depth, trust, and long-term content. Okay. So I'm gonna talk about some of that in this episode, but to like give you the Coles notes, YouTube is a discovery platform. It's a platform where there's an assumption that you're gonna learn something in depth. Because of that assumption, there's a natural built trust. Into the platform and there's a long-term content value. There are videos that I've been post that I posted years ago that are still getting attention and still getting new people finding it to this day. Okay. So let's talk about though first why this question even feels so tempting because I gotta call y'all out or call y'all in. People always want the answer. What platform should I focus on, Andrea? The question why you're asking this is because everything else feels like too much. Even Instagram, let's just take Instagram for example. Instagram has reels, it has stories, it has carousels, it has broadcast channels, it has DMs, it has search, and then whatever else they want to throw at us. Somebody asked me about Instagram instance in this social media day summit, and I was like, I'm so sorry that Instagram did this to you. Just ignore it for now. Okay. It just feels like too much just on Instagram. But then even take other platforms like TikTok. TikTok is a very powerful platform. And and and It's feeling a little unstable right now because of the controversy around them having US ownership and even around some of their algorithmic changes. Other platforms, LinkedIn feels great, but some people just don't like it. It's like so buttoned up. Feels like you kind of lose your personality a little bit. And it can feel a little bit like a swarmy sales guy. in in a in a networking call. Like it just sometimes LinkedIn isn't the vibe. Threads, on the other hand, is the vibe. But then then we wonder, okay, am I here for fun or am I here for business? Right? Not even to mention platforms like Pinterest or Substack or Podcasts or communities or newsletters or every like there's so much out there. So when someone comes to me and says, Andrea, which platform should I use? I know what they're really asking is, where will I get the best bang for my buck? Where am I least likely to waste my time? Where is a platform that my content keeps working? Like I can work hard once. And then where do I build trust without sharing every little detail about my life? Okay. So that's the question that they're really asking. And that's why my answer is YouTube. Now, I know YouTube is way bigger than like creating a cute little Instagram reel. I see that. I know it's more involved. And and and hear me out. There's something that YouTube does that other platforms struggle with because of their newness and because of their fast paced nature. Okay. YouTube supports search-based content. So if someone does not know me from auntie Ann next door, they don't know who I am at all. They can still search what's the difference between if Instagram posts, Instagram real, Instagram stories, and see my video. It's my most watched video to this day. Still gets thousands of views every single month. And that's because people are searching for that specific question and getting my video as a solution. So YouTube supports search. YouTube also supports depth. When I think about that video in specific, honestly, I hate that that video is taking off because I've tried to recreate it. Y'all don't care about the recreation polished video. You just want the facts. And that video supports depth because I'm handwriting. A example of why you need to post a real stories and your feed in the video. I'm just using a notebook. It's a lined piece of notebook paper. And there's a depth in that explanation that people really connect with because it isn't pretentious depth, right? I didn't have like some sort of whiteboard or some sort of slide deck, but it's depth in that it answers their question. It also supports long-form trust. Because people find that video, then they go to my channel and they subscribe because they want to see what else I'm gonna say. It also supports those short form discovery. So I do post reels, repost them to YouTube Shorts, and they get more views on my YouTube Shorts than on Instagram. Okay. And on TikTok combined. My YouTube Shorts get more views totally. There are certain videos that spike on TikTok and Instagram in a way that they don't spike in views on YouTube Shorts, but overall. I get more views on YouTube Shorts. And then it supports content repurposing. So I can take content from my other platforms, post it to YouTube Shorts, and away we go. I do tweak the title a little bit for be more YouTube friendly, but that's about it. All of that is making my content live a lot longer. I don't have to post as much content on YouTube, and that combination is just so hard to beat. And it's why y'all are gonna see me in these YouTube streets the rest of this year because I rehired my video editor. Thank you. Gab for being awesome. And we're going all in on YouTube videos because I'm looking at my data and I'm going, these are the things that people care about. Okay. But let's talk deeper about why YouTube is so strong right now because it's always had all of those things, but right now it's even stronger because let's talk about the search. People go to YouTube with questions that ChatGPT just isn't answering and they want a visual component to it. Chatty Be hallucinating. Okay. Claude, Gemini, all of them. You'll be like, what's the capital of Georgia? And it'll be like, Savannah. Savannah, Georgia's the capital. We know Savannah, Georgia's the capital. And be like, actually, it's Atlanta. And then it'll be like, ⁓ you're right. It's Atlanta. And then it's like, hello. I could just make anything up. And it'll be like, ⁓ you're right. So YouTube has the people that go with the answers to your questions. I distinctly remember when I was trying to grow tomatoes, y'all. I was killing these tomatoes. I was, I was, I don't know what I was doing wrong. I bought the pot, I bought the soil, I bought the the food, I was watering it. I could not understand what I was doing wrong with these tomatoes. And it wasn't until I subscribed to a YouTube channel. I can't even remember the name of it now, but I searched for how to plant tomatoes. in specifically southern Ontario where I live, got the answer in the YouTube video and then subscribe and watch a whole bunch of videos from this lovely, lovely gentleman who was talking about like having these microgardens in your yard. And I was able to grow some tomatoes from that. They were three. They're very small, but I'm very proud of them. And I ate them in a salad. It was a very fun for moment for me. ⁓ that was like my little hyper fixation a couple years ago. Call it a pandemic baby. Anyways, all of that stemmed from a YouTube video. Not a Google search. So it's not just people searching for any old thing. They're searching for very specific solutions to very specific problems. How do I do this? What option should I choose if I'm choosing between two things? What's the difference between then this and that? How does this work? Who can I trust? And this matters deeply for business owners because when you create helpful content that can help people figure that out, then It keeps being found long after you hit publish. Okay. So YouTube is searchable. YouTube also builds trust on depth in a way that other platforms simply cannot. There's not a lot of depth to TikTok videos, Instagram reels, et cetera, et cetera. Longer videos really help people understand how you think. And this is why I've been so adamant about podcasting and why I love podcasting, because podcasting has been my main thing for years and years and years. And while I'm still gonna produce this podcast, y'all better believe it's all video now and I'm I'm editing it to be video focused, right? Because that's how people find me. Especially if you're a service provider, you're an educator, you're a coach, or consultant, you're creative, you're an expert, anywhere where trust matters to sell your offer, YouTube builds that trust through depth. Okay, you're able to talk about a topic in a way that is just not available or not not how users use the platform, not how people, like real life people, don't go to TikTok looking for depth. They go to discover new things. And so it can be helpful as a part of your marketing ecosystem. But I find that YouTube kind of has it all because they have multiple formats. You have long form video, right? That's kind of your traditional YouTube video. You have YouTube short. Now, which is, you know, their response to the rise of things like TikTok. And in fact, a lot of TikTok creators are moving from TikTok back to YouTube or starting YouTube channels now because of honestly the YouTube creator program, they reward their creators much more than TikTok is right now. And so they're even moving to TikTok. So you've got shorts, you have live streams, which I love to do on YouTube. ⁓ every single month I do my data date. You can do data date with Drea, where I go through my data and I go, here's what works, here's what didn't. And I'm doing it in real time with y'all so that you can see how I look at my data and how I make decisions. And one of the reasons that I made a decision to focus on YouTube for the rest of this year is because looking at my data, I was like, dang, these video views are still going on. YouTube also has community posts, so you can do posts with just text and images. And then they also have new features like podcasts and clips. Now I'm saying this not saying you have to use every single piece of YouTube, but YouTube has room for different content styles. In fact, passive income guy Pat Flynn, he just did a whole course on YouTube Shorts that I have been tempted to buy because I watched him start his shorts channel. He started a YouTube channel just for shorts and he didn't really like Publicize it a lot, has nothing to do with business. I think it was Pokemon cards that he was collecting. Anyways, he got to a million subscribers just from posting shorts. You don't have to have long-form content. You don't have to use every single form of content. But I'm telling you that YouTube is like going to be continue to be a powerhouse for a lot of content creators and business owners going forward. Inside of the Mindful Marketing Lab and inside of my marketing ethos, I use the marketing playground framework. Where I talk a lot about having your signature content, your write or die content, right? This is a piece of content that you don't skip. It is how you people understand your philosophy, your ethos, your expertise, where you live. And for some people, that's a podcast. For some people, it's a newsletter, for some people for a blog. But if you like teaching, explaining, showcasing your work, reviewing, demonstrating, talking, like any of those things, YouTube can be a very strong potential for your main piece of content. Again, I'm not telling you you gotta be a YouTuber. I'm just giving you the reasons why I believe YouTube is great for this because there's an intimacy in someone watching you, like seeing your face as you're explaining something that's a little bit different. And ⁓ I do find though, I'm still transforming my YouTube podcast into audio only because that's actually where most of my people still consume my content. But I can't tell you anecdotally how many people said, I found you on YouTube, and then I subscribed to the The audio version and now I listen there. So take that for what it will. And so reason number five, while you should consider YouTube, is that your content could be re repurposed. Okay. YouTube videos is just a starting point. And like I said, I'm now looking at my podcast as video first on YouTube, but you best believe I'm taking that audio over to an audio stream. I'm also having my editor clip it into shorts. I was using Riverside's automatic ones, but ⁓ I've been getting kind of tired of those lately and I want something a little bit more dynamic. So I'm having my editor do shorts or videos that can be shorts, reels, TikToks, et cetera. I'm having the transcripts transcribe. Well, I still use Riverside for that, for the auto transcript. And then I pop it into my AI tools. I use cast magic for this primarily to help me pull out quotes because it doesn't auto edit. Way that I say things, which I chatty sometimes, anyways. I use Chat GPT primarily, and lately it's been irritating me, like changing what I say. I wanted to change what I say. I want to say what I said what I said for a reason. Anyway, so I could repurpose it into newsletters, threads, anything, text-based posts, post my community, things like that. Like having my YouTube videos be video first. Gives me the opportunity to actually be more dynamic with how I am editing these and re-editing these. Okay. So it's a content system where one strong idea, one big idea, like what platform am I focusing on or what platform I think is dominating right now can be broken down after being developed into this post. Like this video could then become a carousel post with the same content, just a little bit lighter, but the depth that I can put into the video is so much different than. carousel post so I can just be intentional with how I'm creating this content and then repurpose it. So if you're going, okay, Andrea, I hear you. I don't know if YouTube's still for me. I'm gonna give you some things to think about about who I think YouTube is best for and how you can use it. If you don't hear yourself on here, we can talk about picking a different platform. All right. So I think YouTube is especially strong for educators, coaches, consultants, service providers. If you have a product that needs demonstration demonstration on how to use it. You should be on YouTube, creators who have teaching-based content, people with complex offers, or people with visual offers, anything that's search friendly. So people are searching for something that leads to your product. And then honestly, anyone else who's tired of their content like kind of becoming irrelevant after a couple days. Like I find that that's the biggest challenge for me right now with some of these these other platforms is that I would say Pinterest and Substack aside, ⁓ some of the other short form content platforms I'm looking at you Facebook, Instagram, TikTok threads, it just feels like I put effort into creating content that kind of like poof disappears after a little bit. Now I do repurpose the heck out of everything. Y'all sometimes just straight up reposting, but still sometimes it can feel a little frustrating. Whereas my YouTube videos, even if the first one, two weeks it doesn't get as many views, it could pick up Steam later, which is great. The only thing I I'm hesitant, is like if you don't love being on camera, YouTube can be a little challenging, but not impossible. So I recently was doing some consulting with a travel agent who doesn't mind being on camera, but she's not a huge fan of it. And so the plan that we came up with her is a lot of voiceover content. So yes, she's posting her clips of her travels, but creating the story with a voiceover so she doesn't have to be the one talking on camera. So you can still do that. You can share slides and share your screen. You can do tutorials, you can show your hands. Like ⁓ one of the accounts I follow is a crochet account where I just learn how to crochet different things so I can go beyond only square things because I'm stuck in the only square thing space. This person does not show their face, okay? Just their hands. So you can do that. You can use visual examples, illustrative examples. Like there's so many ways that you can use YouTube without you having to be like a perfect lighting, perfect talking head moment. Okay. Again, here's where the nuance comes in. I would not pick YouTube if you have a very topical, like a daily topical brand, unless you're a news site. So if your product is being topical, great. YouTube is great for that because people are searching for things like this past week. So this episode is gonna come out. Well, I'm recording this on July second. July second, twenty twenty six. Did y'all see the thing yesterday where these two people climbed the frickin' tower in New York City and there was a proposal at the top? Like people are searching for that. So if you are like if you have a culture commentary thing, sure, do that. Otherwise, that content is going to be irrelevant in like three or four weeks. So kind of like the long term element of YouTube may take away from that. If you do not have the capacity for long form content, I would not recommend YouTube right now. So there are some people who long form content just doesn't work for you. You don't have the capacity, you don't have the quiet time to record a video, you don't have the space, whatever it is, you don't have the physical capability, any of those things, just skip it. Right. There are ways to use other platforms. I'm not saying that this is it. This is it, right? If you have an offer that heavily, heavily relies on relationship building, I would skip YouTube. I was actually doing a consultation with a financial advisor investor who basically buys property, builds on the property, and then resells it. ⁓ usually residential going into commercial. So we get on this console call because he wants to do marketing. And I'm sitting there going, as much as marketing can help, right? Like I gave him some advice for his LinkedIn. There are some things that he could do there to like build relationships with with investors, but investors aren't like Googling properties to invest in or people to invest in, right? Usually they there's a such a high level of trust. And it's such a long sales cycle that YouTube I wouldn't necessarily recommend for that business as a main platform. It'd be helpful to showcase your investments. It'll be helpful to showcase your final product, to bring behind the scenes. It could be an added layer, but they're in the launch phase. And I would not put like time and energy into creating YouTube channel. Your time and energy is into relationships at this phase for that business, right? So that's why I wouldn't recommend YouTube video. If you absolutely hate video, like it gives you the heebie jeebies, like you feel your your goosebumps on your skin and like you're starting to feel nauseous at the th at the thought of doing videos, please skip. Like, don't don't force yourself. There are other ways that we can do this. And then if your audience is a little more active on another platform. Okay. So I'll give an example of TikTok shop. There are certain things that work really well on TikTok shop right now. Any sort of like, Gadget or gizmo that people weren't thinking about, they're not searching for, and it just pops up in their feed. TikTok is working really well for those things. It's just such a niche category that for most people that doesn't matter. But if they're your audience is more like bi happy and like just happy to find things on a different platform, go there. And then if your plan is already working, you've got a plan, it's working, it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. Do not be tempted to start over with YouTube just because Andrea said it was a good platform. Okay. Because I think it's an amazing platform. I gave you my reasons why, but it's not the only choice and it's not the best. Okay. The best platform is the one that fits you, your people, your offer, your strengths, and your capacity. YouTube could be good. YouTube is my answer to this question without knowing anything about you specifically, is the answer that I'm giving myself, but it's not a universal assignment. It doesn't work for everybody. Okay. I'm also being careful here because I am not saying Instagram is dead. Y'all keep saying this. Instagram is not dead. It's just different. Okay. Instagram's not dead. It's just different. How I'm using Instagram right now is I like creating content there. And for me it's a relationship building tool. I spend so much time in my DMs on Instagram, voice notes, checking in with people in my community. I actually spend more time in my DMs on all platforms, but mostly on Instagram. So for me, it's relationship building. I do post to my stories there. I do post in my feed as well. So people still see it, right? I find that it's very challenging to get discovered on Instagram. And right now, July 2nd, 2026. I'm gonna say it. I just find it very challenging for new businesses to be discovered without an Active pursuit of that discovery. That being said, local business is a huge exception to that. If you're a local business, nine times out of ten, I'm gonna be like Facebook, Instagram, just forget everything else, right? And there are other exceptions to this, but I think for education-based businesses, it's just a little challenging right now on Instagram. I also will speak to LinkedIn, which is my other love. I think it's so great for authority building, for referrals, for anyone in B2B space. If you have a founder-led business, it's amazing. If you want to have business conversations, it's still amazing. It's my supporting channel. We don't want to give it all of the props, but it works very well in a marketing ecosystem. I'm not saying ⁓ ditch everything for YouTube. It just has a little more priority than some of the other platforms. And I'm definitely not saying that TikTok is useless. Okay. TikTok is still so powerful for discovery, for personality. for culture, for feedback, for real time, for off the cuff, for unpolished editing, for those day-to-day moments. Like TikTok is amazing for that. For me though, it's not for conversion. It's for discovery. And then threads. Threads is interesting because I really love threads for the conversation. That like group chat, text first energy, love it. It's great for thought leadership, community, quick opinions, kind of like a really like low lift way to be visible. Especially if you like writing, I find that anything with a link on threads, for some reason, y'all don't like that. And so I've been finding initially I found that it was very great for conversion. I like when f threads first launched, y'all, and I think I was using it more than two. I was signing deals with people on threads. It was amazing. It's kind of petered off a little bit, but I've been having such wonderful collaborative conversations on threads. And I still get so many opportunities to speak. To be on podcasts, to be in summits, to ⁓ speak in other people's memberships. Like though that's really where I see a lot of threads, as well as to kind of like pass along information. So I was recently hiring and I found threads to be phenomenal for people like tagging people in the threads comments to like let them know that I was hiring and that sort of thing. So all of these platforms are still great. But I think the one platform that gives me the strongest combo move of like search, trust, discoverability, content ecosystem is YouTube. I still think it's missing the community component, which is why I have community elsewhere. As we wrap up with this podcast episode, and you're sitting here thinking, Should I start a YouTube channel tomorrow? That's not the question. That's not the question, y'all. We want to ask the question Am I choosing the platform based on the job that it needs it to do? Do I need more people to know about me? Do I need to build trust with those people? Am I looking to start conversations with those people? Am I looking for more referral business? Am I looking for more community? You know, am I looking to create quick content? Am I looking for a night place for my ideas to live? Like once you understand the job that you want these platforms to do, then you can choose. So for me, in this season of my life, I need more people to know who I am. I have a program that gets amazing results. My clients love working with me. And now I just need more people to know that. Okay. So for me, and I'm a talker, if y'all can't tell, I'm a talker. I got my start on YouTube. Like it just makes sense for me. So if I were to pick one platform today, I would pick YouTube because that's the answer to all those questions. That's where my audience and my people look for help. It's a format that I communicate in the best. It supports my offer because once you join my membership, there's a lot of videos in there. ⁓ and I do a lot of live content. It keeps the content I'm posting keeps going long after I post it. And then I can repeat it. And I don't feel resentful about it because I hire editor. My biggest gap for me personally was like if I have to edit my own videos, they ain't going out there. I'm sorry. I just get lost in the sauce and I get so judgy about myself. So YouTube with support is my answer. And here's how I'm doing this, just so y'all can get a sense of how I'm doing this, so that you can, I don't get the behind the scenes moment of this. This is my plan. So my podcasts are every week. Those are still going to be YouTube videos. And then in addition to that, at my own pace, because y'all, I'm in a season of my life right now where I can't really stick to too much specificity around launching, though I'm guessing if I had to put a date on it, I would say podcasts are Tuesdays, YouTube videos are Thursdays. So the podcast will be more long-form thought leadership type content like this. And then my Thursday video will be more tutorial. focused or even review focused. So ⁓ some of the other videos that do really well is when I pull up a new tool and I review it or I compare one tool to another. So that's how I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna keep it simple. Riverside is still my recording studio. Love that. Even though I have an editor now and I'm not using Riverside's editing. Love that I can record right here in Riverside. It records the separate feeds. I also use Riverside for my hosting. So my podcast is hosted there. Very easy to keep that going. I'm gonna pull clips from both the podcast episodes and the tutorials, depending on how they go. I'm gonna then take the transcripts and use that to create even more content, mostly threads, text-based content, though some like carousel content and some newsletter content. And then away we go. So YouTube becomes part of the whole system. Of how I'm creating content. It's not just another place to create content, but it's a starting point. And so my lead-ins are my do less market better kit, which you can find at online dre.com slash kit. This is my main lead magnet. ⁓ it's the one where people go, wow, this made a big difference and I definitely want to join your program. And so that's my main one. But I have other ones like with this episode, ⁓ my platform guide is a really natural fit. You can find it at online dre.com slash platform, and it'll help you decide which social media platform is for you. And then my two main offers are my strategy sessions, which are more one on one. It's a really intense 90 minute focus session on you and your business. You walk away with a business plan and a marketing plan that helps you make a decision. Kind of like I'm helping you do in this episode. Or you can join the lab. It's a little more self-paced or a lot more self-paced, but has all of my trainings and videos since 2018. I've had the lab. And so there's so much in there on like not just how to do things, but how to make a decision on what you're doing in your business and how it works for you. So my YouTube videos, I'm gonna talk about those things and then I'll talk about my lead-ins to those things, and then it'll be easy for me to speak to it. So if you need help choosing the right platform for you, I'm gonna guide you to my platform guide online.com slash platform. And then of course you can join me in the lab or sign up for a one on one session if you wanna kind of reduce the chaos that comes with making these marketing decisions. And I'm all about simpler, smarter marketing for busy people. Anyways, thanks for listening to this episode of the Mindful Marketing Podcast. I'll see you next week. Bye.