177. maryann bautista === Mary Ann: [00:00:00] What if a video you created today could still be bringing in customers to your business 10 or even 20 years from now? Sounds pretty good, right? Especially when we're all used to creating social media content that disappears before we've even finished our morning coffee. That's one of the things that makes YouTube so powerful. But if you're like me, you might have a YouTube channel that's, eh, been gathering a little dust. Or maybe you've been putting it off because frankly, the thought of creating even more content is exhausting. Well, today's guest might just change your mind. Marianne Bautista is a co-founder of TurboRank. She helps businesses build visibility, credibility, and authority across search engines and AI using YouTube. And today, we're talking about why so many businesses get YouTube wrong and What actually matters now in 2026, and how to create videos that not only get watched, but bring in customers to your business. So whether you're starting from scratch or if you've neglected your YouTube channel for a little while, like I have, then this episode is for you. So let's jump in. Janice Hostager: hey, Mary Ann. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing Mary Ann: Thank you for having me Janice Hostager: YouTube, oh my gosh, it's such a big deal now. It's been a big deal for years, but there's a lot of changes going on. So I wanna talk to you first about what, what's a mistake that you see a lot of small business owners making on YouTube that maybe they don't even realize that they're making? Mary Ann: That y- cued me up perfectly. That is the easiest question for me to answer, and that is that most small businesses, medium-sized businesses, enterprise-level businesses start with the wrong question. They build out their content calendars based on whatever internal initiative, promotion, announcement that they think is [00:02:00] important, and they build content around that as opposed to doing the research upfront that tells them and informs them what their clients, potential customers, targets are really actually looking for. So it's a perspective issue, nobody in the consumer world wakes up and says, "Gosh, I wonder what..." Let's just use Clorox as an example. "... what Clorox is doing today. I wonder what they have to tell me." Nobody does that. They wake up and they say, "Oh my gosh, I spilled red wine on my favorite white blouse last night. What is the best product for it?" Or, you know, how many times can you bleach a white shirt and have it not, you know, disintegrate, right? I mean, they have questions like that, and you've gotta start from the right place Janice Hostager: Oh, I am so glad that you say that because everything I do in marketing starts with the customer and ends with the customer, right? So it's about the customer. And in fact, I just, we're launching a new event basically, and so I just... We had... I'm, I'm doing this with a partner. We had figured out exactly what it was that we were gonna do for a webinar and what, you know, the titles and all that were gonna be, and then we started interviewing our clients, and the things that we were gonna focus on didn't even come up. So Mary Ann: Right Janice Hostager: I love that you said that. Start with the customer. That's where you = you look at, you know, reviews and all of that. So anyway, I'm going off on a tangent here, Mary Ann: It's okay. It's okay. And that's, that's what comes in our diagnostic. That is the first thing we do. We look at the volume of questions that are being asked related to that client's solution and their brand, non-branded and branded, to make sure that we are targeting the right direction. And then we actually, it's a, it's a lot more involved than that, but that is absolutely a key early component Janice Hostager: Yeah, yeah. And there are a lot of tools out there for that, [00:04:00] like, you know, Answer the Public or, or just seeing, doing SEO research or now we have AI, which we'll talk a little more about in a little bit. But yes, Mary Ann: You bet Janice Hostager: there's a lot of tools for that. It's foundational. Now a lot of us, me included, have started YouTube channels and, and I, I'm gonna back up here because I'm terrible with my YouTube channel. But that's a whole 'nother conversation. But let's say we were on YouTube, we dabbled in YouTube, got a few videos up, what would you do differently now? Like, is, have, have there been some big changes? Obviously, there have, but where would you start in 2026 for this? Mary Ann: Well, a key component is to be consistent. So plan your content such that it is addressing the questions that are being asked. M- match the demand, okay? And then the second thing is be consistent. Put together a schedule and a content calendar that you can stick with. All right? And then take advantage of bulk producing. There is no reason why a small business or a medium-sized bus- sized business can't produce enough content for a month in really couple of hours a month. So bulk produce it and so that you absolutely get that, you know, that runway to be ready for the next round that you wanna produce. It, it's just like anything in life. If you wanna lose weight, what do you have to do? You have to be consistent, right? If you wanna have a friend in life, what do you do? You have to reach out and talk to them periodically, right? I mean, it's no different. You have to commit to it and stick with it Janice Hostager: You think with, with all the creators and, and everybody that's chasing views and subscribers and everything out there, a small business owner, how do they stand out? Like, what do you say to the business owner that says, "Oh, YouTube is already too crowded for someone like me"? Mary Ann: It is extremely crowded. They are 1,000% right about that. I wouldn't tell them that that was not true. But I would say [00:06:00] that there are gaps and niches in which you can exploit. All right? And that is part of what we do, of course, initially, is we determine not over- not only where the volume is, but we also look at the competitive landscape, and we determine where the holes and gaps are that we know we can fill. We also look at how challenging it's going to be to rank with a certain set of keywords or a long tail. So we will very typically look at the whole keyword, marketplace or, you know, for that client, the whole list, and we'll say, "Oh, guess what?, maybe the best bleach," just going back to our Clorox example, "the best bleach is not gonna be very attainable very quickly, but maybe some long tail below that is gonna be attainable more quickly." So look at the challenge area of of where you wanna start, and so that helps. Janice Hostager: So the Mary Ann: So y- Janice Hostager: would be a more focused, like rather than the best bleach, it would be the best bleach for in your kid's swimming pool. I don't know. Mary Ann: Yeah, whatever. Yeah Janice Hostager: it's something really, really specific is what you're saying, right? Mary Ann: Exactly. Something really sp- yes, exactly. More than the just like, I mean, every category is different, every product line is different, so I cannot tell you what those exact words are for any given one without doing the research. But generally, there are holes and gaps that you can take advantage of. And, and I'll be honest with you, you would be surprised at how well a well-implemented YouTube strategy can, over time, achieve greatness. We have a client that we started with in 2006. Okay, I like to say when YouTube was a little baby, and we... They were in a very restricted, heavily restricted category, and they hit the wall pretty quickly on paid advertising. They just couldn't spend more money in paid advertising to drive business, drive leads and grow their business. And so we [00:08:00] said, "Let us kind of get into this YouTube thing and fiddle around a little bit." And they gave us just a little bit of leash and a little bit of money. Well, to this day, they are receiving orders through those videos that we created and those channels that we created, some as many as almost, almost 20 years ago. So it's amazing what a well-- if you wanna, you know, see a bright future and pay yourself down the road, it's great. But you do have to be consistent and stick with it. So hundreds of millions of dollars later, that client is thanking us. Janice Hostager: Oh, Mary Ann: and it, and it was, it's, it's our shining... It's like, lookit, if you really stick with it, you, you'd be amazed at what you can do with consistency Janice Hostager: That's what I love about YouTube. I mean, it, it's a search engine, right? Because, the stuff that you put out there 10 years ago is still up there, as opposed to Instagram, where it's in the feed, or Twitter, or Mary Ann: And then it's gone. Janice Hostager: It's gone, yeah. Mary Ann: they're not highly searchable. The other thing about many of those short-form platforms is that they are not machine-readable as well. So whereas YouTube content, it gets transcribed in the YouTube platform, which the AI bots love. And as a matter of fact, YouTube is the number one on average across many, many, many categories, and, you know, things are changing all the time, I'm not gonna deny that, but on average, YouTube is the number one cited source in the AI answers across the board Janice Hostager: Didn't know that. That is really interesting. Mary Ann: It's a pretty big deal. It's a pretty big deal. It's, it's, it's the center of our flywheel when we are looking at developing what we call the authority footprint for our clients. We do things outside of YouTube for sure to support YouTube and to support the [00:10:00] overall environment, but this world has moved from an attention economy into a trust economy. And when consumers and business people alike, because you can B2B or direct to consumer, when they search and they ask questions and they watch videos, if your brand, your solution shows up time and time again, that frequency gives them a lot of trust, a lot of credibility. You get a lot of credibility for your business. And so the next call might be bring, bring, tell me more about your service, or bring, bring, I am ready to sign up. I am ready to buy. They're pre-sold Janice Hostager: Right. Right. Mary Ann: so Janice Hostager: Let's say you only have, like, 200 subscribers. Mary Ann: Mm-hmm Janice Hostager: a value still, or Mary Ann: Of course Janice Hostager: Or, you know, is there... I'm just trying to get at, like yeah, Mary Ann: What are the magic numbers? What are the magic numbers? So the good news is Evertoon just did a study on this, and they looked at 6.1 million prompt iterations across, I think it was about 70 categories, across I think it was 11 LLMs, and they found two things that mattered in terms of getting into the citations. And this, they are all on YouTube. The number one is well-titled, titles that actually describe well what is in the video itself. So never title your video episode number 211. Nobody cares, right? Title what it is in the video. And then the second thing is really, really well-crafted and, and defining exactly what is in the description. So the description, those are the number one, number one and number two factors in getting into the citations. The view count, the age, the subscribers, the view durations, none of these other glamour metrics make any difference. So that actually goes to your earlier question, which is, can a [00:12:00] small business that doesn't have a ton of time and resources compete in YouTube? And the answer is yes, when you do it right and you implement properly. And I'm oversimplifying here because there are other things that you can do that you must do as well, like you must optimize properly. There are other things that you need, you can do, but all of these things are available to all of us. I mean, that's what we do as a business, of course, but many people are kinda DIY because of the size or whatever, and there are ways to learn that and to do it Janice Hostager: Okay, so it's title first, description, keywords. Is it still a, player? Mary Ann: Of course, use the right keywords, 100%. And let me also add a third, which we believe is really critical, and that is that your content must speak to what's in the description and what's in the title. You don't get to s- you know, title a video, you know, how to bleach my favorite white shirt, and then have a great description about that, and then go talk about dogs in parks. You know, you don't get to do that. You absolutely must align the spoken video `content, the narrative or the spoken by a human being to what the subject matter is Janice Hostager: Yeah. So how about hashtags? Are they still used? Mary Ann: Yeah, they're not as important as they used to be. That's something that's changed. You asked me that question earlier. We use them. They're not as important as they used to be Janice Hostager: Gotcha. And thumbnails? value of a thumbnail? Mary Ann: Important. the value of a, of a well-designed thumbnail that is crisp and clean and doesn't try to jam too much stuff into it, so... 'Cause these are little, right? They're little, tiny things, and they... When people are scanning, you want them to stop and be intrigued. So not too many words, to the point, and usually a great human face is, is wonderful. those tend to do really well. Not that that has to always be a human face, but w- we like [00:14:00] human faces. Humans like looking at humans, for sure Janice Hostager: Yeah, definitely. Even in, for marketing, a conversion rate goes up with, when there's a face involved. Mary Ann: Yep Janice Hostager: YouTube Shorts. Mary Ann: OK Janice Hostager: actually help small businesses find customers, or are they mostly Mary Ann: They do. Janice Hostager: Oh, okay Mary Ann: They do. They do. but you have to set it up right. So what we recommend is four, five, six, shorts every week along with your long form, okay? And at least three of those should be derived from the long form, so clipped from the long form. And then within YouTube when you're publishing, there is a way to connect the short to the long form. So what happens is, they're two completely separate algorithms, right? So the shorts were developed by YouTube as an answer to TikTok and Instagram and, you know, the Reels and all that stuff. So what, what happens is they, they get shot out at the moment in which you publish, and they're basically all the shorts that are coming out at the same time compete against each other. And if yours does well in that initial publishing, then the algorithm will pick up on it and push it. So when you then... Part of the algorithm is when you see, or when they, I should say, see c- you know, engagement and clickovers to your long form, they love that, and so they will promote it even more. And actually, shorts also can be indexed by Google. So shorts are really important, and I would, I would use them. I would not rely on them because they're short. You're only gonna get a snippet of the story, right? But... And then you want them to move to your long form, where they're gonna get more information and more detail and fall in love with your business and com- or company or brand, and then, you know, be hungry for more information, right? A short is a way to kind of broadcast out something really quickly and get those that are interested to come to your long form where they get more information. Janice Hostager: [00:16:00] Gotcha. I love that idea, though, of just breaking out the long form into shorts, because then you're not trying to a whole bunch of shorts. I mean, because even shorts and reels, I mean, they can take time, and that's Mary Ann: Yep Janice Hostager: one thing I hear over and over is that nobody's got extra time for this, and I think Mary Ann: That's right. Janice Hostager: And then, and then do a longer form. I mean, do you think that's, a good method of doing it, or would you do, like... Let's say you'll have one really good video a month. is that Mary Ann: So, Janice Hostager: or it's, like, would you do it more Mary Ann: I don't love one video a month. The algorithm likes, likes consistency. If most, we recommend to our clients most ideally one a week, and use the batch producing to make that happen. If that is just not gonna happen in your world, try to go every other week. Try, and try to be consistent. More than anything, just whatever you choose to do, be consistent with it. Don't upload four videos on a Saturday and wait three months and upload two more. Don't do that. The algorithm has no idea who you are or what you're up to, or who they should share your content to. YouTube is a matching platform. It is not throw my video up on YouTube and they're gonna do this job of going out and finding me people who want to look at it. That doesn't happen. It matches the demand in terms of the search to your title, your description, and then they serve it because it matches properly Janice Hostager: Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. . Okay. so I know you touched on this a little bit, but how has AI changed YouTube? Mary Ann: Oh my goodness. Well, what really matters now is, every client I talk to, every marketer I talk to says, "How do I get my brand to be the answer in ChatGPT, the Google Overviews, Claude," wherever it is, you know, whatever tool that they wanna use, and all of them. And the answer is YouTube is the [00:18:00] center of that flywheel because YouTube has made it very easy for the LLMs to scrape their content and sort, and serve it up. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, it is the number one citation source across the board for all the LLMs. And, and I wanna make it really clear, that is not true for every single category, and it is not true for every single LLM. Acro- this is on average, and that's why we are so committed to YouTube. But secondarily, the thing that you have to do if you wanna get into the LLMs as the answer, you have to go out and engage on a myriad of other platforms. So the number two cited source is Reddit. Janice Hostager: Mm-hmm. Mary Ann: Love, love, love the, the LLMs love Reddit, and then it's just down the line with the communities, the articles, the exchanges, the platforms, so it just continues on. And there are some that frankly you shouldn't, not waste your time on, but you shouldn't use them with the expectation that they're gonna do anything for your AI visibility. But yeah. So, so that is, is really the answer to that question. It's, it, it, the AI search currently is around 5% of all search, but it is multiplying very quickly. I believe it was Adobe did a, did a quick research and put out some numbers, and it is about 400% year over year, and the trajectory is really strong. So it is going to be a very, very large percent of our overall search activity, um, in a few years. So the people who jump in and g- grab their foundation, exactly, you're gonna be ahead of the guy that waits, 100%. Janice Hostager: Yeah, yeah. That's a lot of marketing right now. It's like you need to just embrace this while you have the chance. I mean, there's so many things that I put off years ago, like, even like meta ads and things like that, where early on they were a great deal, now they're just [00:20:00] complicated and, and, Mary Ann: Well, and since you brought up paid advertising, let me just make a comment about that. We believe in paid advertising. We are not anti-paid advertising. But what is super important to recognize is that when you are building out your foundation, your authority foundation, that is an earned, owned asset of your business, okay? When you turn the spigot on for a set of, you know, for, for running a paid ad cam- ad campaign, that is rented space. Those are rented eyeballs, and the minute you turn that spigot off, that activity, that audience stops. Janice Hostager: Yeah Mary Ann: So we just strongly recommend that you absolutely do both of these things. And trust me, as a percent of of the overall budget for our clients, our services are a small percent, 3% or 4%. They spend a lot more money on paid. You need to do both Janice Hostager: Gotcha. Let's talk about the videos themselves because Mary Ann: Okay Janice Hostager: that especially for me personally, that's always been the challenge. the first five to 10 Mary Ann: Mm-hmm Janice Hostager: we want a, a strong hook or someone clicks away, right? Can you walk us through an example of a strong one versus maybe a weak one or, or Mary Ann: Oh Janice Hostager: of understand what happens psychologically at the first few seconds of a video that determines whether or not someone keeps watching or Mary Ann: I would say that the most important to do, thing to do within the first few seconds is to show that you are going to deliver on the promise of that video. All right? So again, deliver the content and, and confirm for them quickly that that this is gonna be about how to get a stain out of a white shirt. Okay? This is not gonna be something else, and we're gonna walk you through it, and here are the steps. And maybe just real quickly, you [00:22:00] know repeat what the promise is so that they know that, "Hey, it's worth sticking around 'cause I'm gonna get what I came for." Right? Janice Hostager: Right. Yeah, I love that because oftentimes we hear like storytelling and, and all of this and, and there's a place for that. Mary Ann: Oh, 100%. Janice Hostager: the video at the h- at the hark. Mary Ann: For business, when you're trying to solve someone's problem, solve it. Janice Hostager: Yeah. Mary Ann: Don't take them down memory lane. Janice Hostager: Just Mary Ann: They're not interested in what your dog's doing in the park. They wanna know the answer to the question that they asked that got them there. And that doesn't mean you have to spill the beans immediately. It just means you need to tease up in front that they're gonna get that answer, so it's worth sticking around. And, and YouTube rewards you for that. When you have a long average view duration, they will serve your ad more if... Or your ad, your video more. If you see that, people are dropping off after five, 10, 15 seconds, they suppress it. Because guess what? YouTube is a business for profit. Janice Hostager: Yes. Mary Ann: And the, and the longer you people stick with your videos and see the ads that they will insert, you cannot stop that from happening y- you know, they, they are looking at that, right? They are looking at that. But there are other ways, and we haven't gotten into the monetization, but that's a whole nother... That kind of gets into a whole nother subject of how you monetize your content Janice Hostager: Yeah, maybe another episode on that one. Mary Ann: Sure, sure Janice Hostager: so what about a difference between a video that gets watched and a video that, makes really wanna buy from you? Mary Ann: Okay Janice Hostager: you put a strong call to action in there? Tell, tell us a little bit about the structure of that video. Mary Ann: Yes. Yes. Well, you know, you can put your CTAs in wherever they naturally fit, right? So, Janice Hostager: Mm-hmm. Mary Ann: Sometimes people just have them on a scroll across the bottom. You know, for more information or to get your free whatever lead magnet or whatever it is, just scroll it straight across the bottom. Others will add a verbal. We like both verbally and [00:24:00] vid- and, and being shown it graphically. And then lastly, at the end, you a hundred percent wanna have a slate at the end that offers whatever the offer it is that you want them to go do. Take advantage of this coupon or visit our site or sign up for the newsletter or whatever it is that you wanna have happen. So no I do wanna, I do wanna share that it is really important to have the proper balance of content that educates and shares and sells. All right? Janice Hostager: Mm-hmm. Mary Ann: cannot just put promotional videos out, you know, do this, buy this, sign up here. You really need to share something of value to those people that are gonna watch. Because, you know, people really largely come to YouTube for two reasons. Number one is to be entertained, and number two is to get information. So you wanna, you wanna make sure not to pitch them too hard. Just make that subtle, but do include it, a hundred percent do include it. Use QR codes. That's a great way to get people to go somewhere. Here's a little QR code, scan it to get the free newsletter. And then, you know, if we were gonna have the conversation about monetization, when you get to YouTube partner status, there's a whole bunch of things that unfold that also can help you with call to action and and driving a specific action like a click or something. Janice Hostager: Right, and even just a lead magnet can, and what I love about YouTube is that you can put a, a link in there, a clickable link in, in the description unlike Instagram, for example. Mary Ann: And you can pin it in a comment. You can put it in your descriptions. Absolutely, you should put it into your description of your channel. 100% you should. Use every tool you have , in a balanced way Janice Hostager: Let's say that my listener does not have a YouTube presence or a very light one. Are there, a few videos that really help attract potential clients? Maybe would it be like an introduction video that you have Mary Ann: An explainer. Janice Hostager: Yeah. Mary Ann: 100%. You get to t- you get to pin a video, a video trailer at the top of your [00:26:00] channel, okay? And that should be a general explainer. Who I am, why I'm here, what we do, who we serve, what problem we solve, right? And then you dive deeper into content, and you can put it into different playlists. And what we do when we do a diagnostic for a client is we create those pillars, and we say, "Okay, based on our research, we can see that you need a lot of explainer content." Maybe you have a fairly technical product or technical offering, and people are gonna have lots of questions about it. And then maybe people love founder stories. Why did the founder develop this product? What was their history? Why are they expert? Why should I trust them? And then another very typical pillar, I think almost all of our clients have this pillar, and that is reviews, testimonial, UGC. That's the social proof. All right? So and then, you know, depending on the product, there could be unboxings. There could be, you know, demonstrations. There could be all kinds of things. What we really specialize in is more complex offerings, and I'll, I'll give an example of a great client that we work with. They have a product called AquaTru, and it is a water purifier that takes out all the junk out of your water, which comes through our normal municipalities, our water municipalities. They're not as good as you think, folks. And just a little plug for it. I've read a lot of data. Not so good. Anyway it is complicated, though. Okay. What does it... You know, what's the list of ingredients that, that it... or, or chemicals that it does remove? How often do I have to clean it? How often do I have to replace those filters? You know, all the things. I mean, there's just so many questions before you're gonna lay down real money on something that's gonna take up space in your house, in your kitchen, and you're going to learn, you know, how to use it and what the right what the right process is. Like, how many times am I going to fill up that thing, right? I mean, there's just a million questions. Those are [00:28:00] the kinds of things that I think do really, really well on YouTube because they're complex, and you're gonna... You need a lot of information before you hit that buy button. Janice Hostager: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. So, I gotta tell you that one of the big reasons why I don't have a strong YouTube channel is because I hate going on camera. I hate Mary Ann: Oh yeah, Janice Hostager: And I th- and I think part of it Mary Ann: You're on camera now, Janice. You're on camera now. Get over your bad self. Janice Hostager: And, I hear that a lot from people, especially people, our age, because we didn't grow up with, the phone in front of our face and doing all the, the reels Mary Ann: Yes. Janice Hostager: and all of that. Mary Ann: Selfies, yeah Janice Hostager: bit to get past that. Mary Ann: Yeah. Janice Hostager: alternatives that, Mary Ann: Yes Janice Hostager: absolutely hate seeing themselves on video? Mary Ann: Choose somebody else in your business that is more comfortable with it. Okay? That's... You could do that. You- And those are called embedded influencers, and they work great. Janice Hostager: okay. Mary Ann: my business partner is our embedded influencer. If you go to our YouTube channel, you will see him. He is great on camera. He is hilarious. He has no shame. It's awesome, right? He, he actually shoots from a tiki bar that he owns in his own home, that he built in his own home. He always has a Hawaiian shirt on. He's hilarious. but also you can do faceless accounts. I will tell you it is never our first recommendation. You can hire someone to be the face. You can hire a talent to do content for you. you can create a ton of AI-generated content. We don't love it. We like, we, we like real people showing up for your business. We think there's a credibility factor there that's important. Janice Hostager: 100%. Mary Ann: I totally get it. I'm, I'm an extrovert, as you can probably plainly see. I, I'm not shy about getting on camera. But the world is not all like me, and I understand that it's a struggle for some people. So yes, the answer is there are altern- alternatives, 100%. Janice Hostager: Okay. I was watching a YouTube video last night, actually. It was a, a physician who was talking about something, and [00:30:00] he said, "I just want you to know I'm 100% real." You know, and the fact that we have to say that now, and, and just last week I was watching a travel video, and, like, it was so obviously AI. Like, it w- they must have done it early on because they didn't even screen it. Mary Ann: It, yeah, didn't even try that hard, huh? Janice Hostager: they didn't. You know, the, the seats on the airplane were backwards, and it was just weird Mary Ann: Oh my goodness Janice Hostager: was just really obvious things. So I think when you mention credibility, I think that is so important. You know, I, and I know this cognitively. It's just getting past it. But, you know, just being yourself on camera. People love to talk to real people, Mary Ann: That's exactly right Janice Hostager: especially now, I think that's so important Mary Ann: think, I think there are other ways to use AI effectively in your YouTube experience. You know, come up with great ideas by using AI. Janice Hostager: yes Mary Ann: amazing scripts that you then edit for your own voice and make sure your own voice is there. there are ways to create AI-generated thumbnails. We use them. That's a way to save time and money, 100%. But I'm not saying never, never post an AI-generated video. You do need to disclose it. That is a requirement of YouTube, is that it is disclosed. And I would own it. I would not pretend otherwise, because trust me, somebody's gonna out you. Janice Hostager: Yeah, Mary Ann: But, yeah, no I just would say really, really lean into a real human delivering content and the message as, as they naturally would with all their flaws, with the lighting not being perfect, with the audio being decent but maybe not spectacular. W- you know what I mean? People, under- ... And, you know, here's the other thing: You're gonna get better at it. Janice Hostager: Yes, Mary Ann: don't make yourself such a big deal. Everybody messes up. Everybody has, makes mistakes. Publish and get going. Get moving and start doing it, because guess what? If you don't, your competitor will, [00:32:00] 100%. Janice Hostager: Absolutely. Yeah. Great, great advice. Okay, so l- let's do a few fast action Q&As Mary Ann: Okay. Janice Hostager: all Mary Ann: Ooh Janice Hostager: no stress here. Uh, so what, what's something that business owners obsess over on YouTube that really doesn't matter nearly as much as they think it does? Mary Ann: Ooh, geez. Janice Hostager: didn't mean to throw you Mary Ann: It's a good one, and this is supposed to be fast, right? Well, okay, what I will say is kind of important is decent lighting and decent audio. Okay? So definitely do that. I would say the background doesn't have to be perfect. Janice Hostager: All Mary Ann: Look at my background, not perfect. You know, I would say , I do think that they should obsess a little bit over getting their content out in a clear manner. And I think audio is extremely important. People will not listen to a scratchy, you know, audio. Janice Hostager: Mm-hmm. Mary Ann: I kind of reversed that question a little bit, sorry Janice Hostager: No, that's perfect. So is there a myth about YouTube that you wish would disappear? Mary Ann: I would say the number one myth is that if I produce a video and stick it up, that YouTube's gonna do the rest. If I publish a video, YouTube's gonna do the rest, and they're not gonna do the rest. They're not gonna help you that much until, until you help them figure out who you are and who you serve and what you're talking about Janice Hostager: Okay. listening who has been putting off starting a channel, what's the first thing or the one big thing maybe that you'd encourage them to do this week? Mary Ann: Do the research. Do the research to know what, who your customers, what your customers are looking for. Janice Hostager: Gotcha. Mary Ann: know what the topics should be, absolutely. And I have another one, can I add on to that? If you wanna get into, if you wanna get into AI, take three questions that you believe your target customer would ask before they know your brand. What is the pro- what are the questions that they would ask? And type those in to a variety of A- LLMs and see what the response is. Are you, are you there? Are you part of the conversation or are you not? Who's there? [00:34:00] What's showing up? And you know, do you wanna be there Janice Hostager: Love it. great advice. So where can people find out more about you and Mary Ann: Hmm. Well, I'm all over LinkedIn, Mary Ann Bautista. B-A-U-T-I-S-T-A is the last name. You can also find me on LinkedIn through TurboRank, T-U-R-B-O-R-A-N-K. And then I would really encourage you to go to our YouTube channel, and it's, again, TurboRank, and, you will get a good laugh. My co-founder is very funny man, and, you will really enjoy watching some of those. We stopped our YouTube channel and reset it because we felt a little bit like we were going in the wrong direction, so it's still building. It's not like we have hundreds of thousands of views yet, but it's moving fast. We are, as they like to say in the industry, eating our own dog food. We're doing all the right practices. We're publishing weekly. We're doing the off-page marketing. So that is all happening. But don't judge me for maybe not having a huge, huge, huge following. And then of course, if they wanna email me, email me at hello@turborank.co, T-U-R-B-O-R-A-N-K.co. I'm more than happy to have a conversation and offer some advice and be connected. So yeah, mention that you saw me or heard me on this podcast. Janice Hostager: awesome. Thank you so much. , I would love to pick your brain for hours. But, um, I, so I Mary Ann: Let's do it again. Janice Hostager: I appreciate everything that you shared, and then of course, I will be sharing your links in the show notes as well. So Mary Ann: Thank you, Janice Janice Hostager: Maryanne. It was a pleasure having you on and yeah, we'll do it again sometime. Thanks Mary Ann: The pleasure's all mine One thing I really loved about this conversation is Marianne's reminder that successful YouTube marketing doesn't start with a camera. It starts with understanding what your customers are actually looking for, and that's true of just about everything in [00:36:00] marketing. You don't need thousands of subscribers or expensive equipment or a, even a perfectly polished video, but you do need to create content that answers real questions, builds trust, and helps the right people find you. So for more information about anything we talked about today, visit myweeklymarketing.com/177. And if you found this episode helpful, I would love it if you'd share it with another business owner who's been wondering whether YouTube is worth the effort. Thanks so much for joining me today. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.