EP083: Dave Adamson & Ten Commandments of Church YouTube

All right, episode 83 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planning.

Before we get into this excellent, most, most excellent podcast that we have coming up here,

let me give you this one quick plug.

Stadia, we are doing cohorts, learning communities to help churches figure out how to do church

online better, to figure out how to do physical as well as digital at the same time effectively.

It's interesting, pre-COVID, we all knew how to do the physical ministry, and that was

the only thing we really focused on.

Some were just doing church online, majority were just focused.

Mid-COVID, we're swinging completely the other way, doing all digital, but we're not really

sure how to do both physical and digital at the same time, which really makes this awkward

position we're in right now, where do we focus more on the building or online?

What's the tension between the two?

How do we manage and survive in this without burning out our staff and destroying volunteers

and really the culture that your churches have created pre-COVID and even in this mid-COVID

season?

And that's really the heart of what we're trying to do with Stadia, because we're trying to

help you churches thrive, grow, and multiply fidgetally.

Fidgetally is a combination of physical and digital, P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L.

And so the relationship here is not where physical and digital compete, but where they work

together, where it complements to help you achieve your goals, your mission, your vision

of your church.

The physical, the digital, these are just tools.

They're not the end.

The end is that disciple maker.

It's your discipleship pathway, your engagement pathway to help people thrive, grow, and multiply.

So let us help your church figure out how to do that physically and digitally.

If you're interested in the learning communities, check out stadiachurchplanting.org slash digital,

P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L.

We'll have it in the show notes.

The link will be there.

Learning communities are starting in August.

Three months.

We'd love to have you on board.

It's going to be great, great stuff.

So let's get back to episode 83.

Wow.

I could listen to Dave Adamson talk all day long.

Maybe it has something to do with the whole Australian accent.

Okay.

Maybe a little bit there, but it's also because the dude's really smart when it comes to YouTube.

I've said it, YouTube is my weakness.

I don't understand it.

And I'm learning more and more even in context of this podcast.

I kind of step back, let Dave and Ray talk and dig in as I'm writing notes.

I'm learning in here on how to be more effective with YouTube.

Churches, if we're just looking at YouTube as a video server, we are missing the power of what YouTube is.

And with a little love and a little care and a little intentionality in how we're structuring YouTube,

we can find that it has far more effectiveness for us.

And this is really what Dave hits on here.

Because let's be honest.

Churches, we don't really do YouTube well.

We share some stories here on the podcast.

But in whole, there's an opportunity to connect, to reach with a whole set of different people

that are not engaging in your physical building that may need help finding the physical building.

And let's utilize YouTube as a digital community unto itself to connect with these people.

And this is a lot of the stuff that Dave talks about.

Just some simple steps and processes.

Some simple, some get more intermediate, advanced throughout the podcast.

But there's simple, small, basic steps that we can do right now that would allow our churches

to have far more impact on the YouTube platform overall.

I mean, ultimately, the point what Dave ends up giving us here is 10 commandments.

Yeah, we're going biblical.

Of course, it's a church podcast.

10 commandments for church YouTube.

Because there are things that we churches are doing wrong.

Dave's saying, hey, maybe do this instead.

So if you're doing YouTube, listen to this.

If somebody in your church is doing YouTube, share the podcast with them.

Let them listen to this.

10 practical, easy, simple steps.

Majority of them you can do right now with very little cost to no cost at all.

That would totally improve your church's YouTube game starting, well, dang it, starting today.

So for the conversation, we're bringing in, you know, Dave Adamson, as I said, a pastor

on staff with North Point in Atlanta.

And Ray DeArmis, who is co-host once again, digital pastor over at Christ Fellowship Miami.

Myself, Jeff, at the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning.

In a conversation that I'm calling Dave and the 10 commandments of YouTube Church.

Okay, everybody.

Here you go.

Jeff, holy crap, man.

What video, what camera are you using?

You've got, your depth of field is incredible.

Your lighting is outstanding.

Yeah, Jeff just did a whole thing on his rig.

Yeah, it's, so I'm shooting, it's a Sony A6600.

This was my, this was my COVID project.

I kind of built this up a month or two before, just in 2020.

But I've got a Sigma Art 1835 millimeter lens.

F-stop is 1.8.

So that, the bookshelf's right there.

Like I can touch it.

It's four feet behind me.

And just the 1.8 on this blurs it.

Oh my gosh, like I'm in love with this thing.

Dude, I'm going to tell you, I'm listening to Ray, but I'm looking at you because you are so sharp and you pop out of that background.

Like, oh, I want to know what you're using to get, this is a whole other conversation.

I want to know what you're, and you should post this into the YouTube, your church group.

What are you using to get it from, into your computer, from your DSLR?

It is a, I've got a Blackmagic ATEM mini switcher.

Really?

Which, by the way, is the, I'm a production guy.

Yeah.

It is the best device I've ever purchased in my life.

Really?

Not only because of the video switcher, but my, my mic is running through it.

Audio preamps, compression, equalization, audio delay.

Like, the, the full functioning Blackmagic, uh, video switcher software is running on this little $300 box.

And it, it, I bought it because I wanted to like have multiple inputs to, to bring in.

But the audio, I, I literally 200, $300 audio preamps, I don't use anymore because the video switcher is better at it.

It looks, it, it, I'm not, I'm not understating this when I say it is the best looking Zoom video I have ever seen.

Well, hey man, Dave, just to, first off, super glad you're here, of course.

But just to kick it off, maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself.

Tell us your ministry story.

Yeah.

So, um, you know, the interesting thing, man, is I did not ever want to be in full-time ministry.

I did not want to be a professional Christian.

In fact, I went to college, like I became a, I became, like I started following Jesus when I was in, a senior in high school.

And just started pursuing my, my career of choice, which was to be a sports reporter.

That's all I wanted to do with my life.

And so, you know, out of college, uh, I started working for local newspapers, started working for magazines, uh, became, uh, the, the youngest ever editor of Australia's highest selling sports magazine.

If your listeners didn't realize from my accent already, I'm not from the U.S.

Uh, I'm from Australia.

And, um, when that happened, when I became the youngest ever editor of Australia's highest selling sports magazines, uh, we have three networks in Australia, much the same as you do here in the U.S.

Um, and, uh, one of them came to me and said, hey, we'd love to do a story on you.

And so they did that story.

And literally from that, I got a job on TV, uh, working for, as a reporter and producer for a show that was basically our version of ESPN Sports Center.

And so I would do national live crosses every night.

I would cover the biggest sporting events in, in Australia.

And that was like the, I thought this was what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.

But obviously, you know, God has other plans.

And, um, you know, so I think in 2007, ESPN in Connecticut contacted me.

They offered me a position and that led me to this crossroads where, what am I going to do with my life?

This seems like the next logical step in my career.

My wife and I literally prayed about it, fasted about it, and decided to turn the offer down because we felt like I was going to call into ministry.

And I didn't know what that sounded like.

I had no idea.

It's not something I was pursuing.

And so I reached out to this pastor in New Jersey who I was listening to on podcast on my way into the studio every day.

And I reached out and said, this is who I am.

This is what I do.

And I think I'm getting called into ministry, but I don't know what that's like.

Can you help me?

And, and much to my surprise, he, he, he said, he got back to me and said, hey, can you call me tomorrow?

So I called him and, and essentially he, he basically straight up offered me a job.

He said, you're the guy I've been praying for.

And would you be interested in moving to New Jersey of all places and being a church online pastor?

And in 2000, this is 2007, right?

I had no idea what that was.

Nobody knew what that was back then.

This is, you know, 13 years ago.

Nobody understood the power of it really.

And, but, you know, I was, I was drawn to that and, and, um, you know, it really matched the two things like the skills that God had placed in my hand from the point of view of media and media production and the passion he had placed in my heart, which was to reach as many people as possible with the gospel.

And those two things came together perfectly in this position.

And so I said, yes, and I quit, I quit my career and moved my family literally to the furthest place from Melbourne, Australia that you can go to is, is Morristown, New Jersey.

And so we moved and, uh, you know, the rest is history, I guess.

Um, 2013, I moved to Atlanta to join North Point Ministries where Andy Stanley is the lead pastor and, uh, been working there ever since as a social media pastor.

That is awesome.

By the way, Liquid was in New Jersey, right?

Yeah, yeah, Liquid Church, yeah.

Were you, were you there when Ben Stapley was there?

Was there any overlap with you guys?

No, so, so I left in 2013, a guy named Kenny Jang took over from me as the online pastor.

And then Ben Stapley took over from Kenny Jang.

Okay.

Um, so I kicked it all off.

Kenny took it to a new level.

Ben took it to another level again.

And, and now he's left and he's in Florida, I think from memory.

Yeah, he's in my church.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

So, um, yeah, I never actually worked with Ben, but obviously I've seen, you know, I've met Ben several times, been at conferences where he's, he's been and all that sort of thing.

So I know him pretty well.

Yeah.

If it's one thing that Liquid seems to be generating a lot of and really pushing the envelope, even starting with you with the church online back in 2007.

Yeah, you're right.

There were not a lot of people in 07 talking about church online.

Like maybe Life.Church was doing like the, uh, the second life thing, probably around 06, 07, their experiment with that.

What's interesting is when I, when I started at Liquid and became the online pastor, I didn't know who to reach out to.

So I reached out to Brandon Donaldson, who was the online, the original online pastor of Life.Church and went out and visited him.

And I mean, just a fantastic guy.

He's now working with YouVersion.

And, um, but at the time he said, Hey, we've got this, um, we've got this Facebook page group thing, uh, with all the church online pastors in America.

Do you want to join it?

Yeah.

So he sent me an invite and I was the ninth person to join.

So, and then I think we capped it at 10.

So like the original, like I was in the original top 10 of, of, um, uh, online pastors in the U.S.

Pretty, pretty amazing.

Pretty amazing.

Wow.

Things have changed a lot.

I'm sure since then, even with COVID where, you know, maybe pre COVID, maybe 10% of churches were broadcasting now, 50, 60, 70% lifeways telling us 70% are doing something with broadcasting a service online.

It's, it's a completely new era.

It seems at this point, well, I tell you the thing that, that I wanted to, and Dave, at this point, man, you're, you're known as does like the YouTube guy and your passion and your YouTube church, YouTube group that we'll talk about later.

Like it's, you know, it's, you know, occasionally some people have, you know, different, uh, niches, niches, whatever the word is, how you say it, you know, Ben's kind of like the communication guy and how he does it.

Kenny Jang's all about like the video production.

And he's kind of, and he's kind of like the gear guy kind of, kind of with that.

I tend to be more like, let's talk groups, disciple making community that you, you just, you seem from the outside to really be passionate about this YouTube.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure.

And, and, and, you know, it's funny, uh, whenever I'm on calls with other people who are in my position, like, as I said, I'm the social media pastor.

And, and so, you know, because I'm at North Point at such an influential church, I get to, get to speak at conferences and things like that.

And so I'm always talking with other social media people at churches, like, uh, Bo Coffran, for example, at Life.Church is one guy who particularly gives me grief every time I speak to him because he's always like, oh, how long is it before Dave's going to talk about YouTube?

But the reality is, you know, I think in the modern day world, YouTube has become the marketplace for an entire generation of people.

And as followers of Jesus, as the church, the capital C church, we're called to go into the marketplace and preach the good news, right?

And that happens on YouTube.

People always say to me, well, you're so big gung-ho on YouTube, but what about Hebrews?

Hebrews 10 says that we have to not give up meeting together.

And I always, my response is always the same.

This is not a Hebrews 10 issue.

I'm all about meeting together.

This is a Mark 16 issue because Mark 16 says go into all the world and preach the gospel.

And, and, and YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, they are included in the world.

In fact, in many, in many ways, they are the world for the modern generation.

And as a, as a dad of three teenage girls, um, I know, and I, cause I see it, how often my kids are on YouTube.

They're three teenage girls who are on YouTube all the time.

You know, statistics tell us that for men aged 18 to 28, um, YouTube is the number one video platform outstripping any cable TV network and outstripping Netflix even.

And when you look at the latest stats, um, most people access the internet through their mobile device, right?

Through their cell phone.

Yet 38% of all internet traffic on a mobile device is YouTube.

38, think about that for a second.

38% of all internet traffic on mobile devices is YouTube.

If the church is going to be anywhere, we need to be in that space.

And that's why I talk about YouTube so much.

And that's why I'm so passionate about it.

Dave, I think that's amazing.

And really you're, you're hitting all my love languages here talking about both mobile content and YouTube.

It's just such a big deal.

Why is it that churches, why is it that churches should be more passionate about YouTube than even their own spaces, like their own website or their own Instagram?

Like why should they put more of an emphasis on YouTube, uh, in order to reach people?

Right.

That's a great question.

And it's a great question for this one simple reason in my mind.

You know, you know, you know this yourself.

I heard a stat today that every single, uh, apparently across America, 300 and how many people are in America?

330 million people.

Apparently Americans touch their phone as a collective, as a whole, 8 billion times every day.

So all of us together, we combine to touch our phones 8 billion times.

Because let's be honest, we do this when we're, I mean, we're not supposed to, but we do it when we're at the traffic lights.

We do it when we're in the line at the grocery store.

We do it when we're watching TV.

And it might be our favorite TV show, but we're still scanning through our mobile device, right?

And the reality is when somebody's standing in the line at the bank or standing in the line at the grocery store, I know that they are not wondering, hey, I wonder what's happening at northpoint.org right now.

Let's just go and check.

No, they're not doing that.

But what they are doing is they're scanning through YouTube.

They're scanning through social media.

And so we need to be in that space because people are on it so often.

When 38% of all internet traffic on a mobile device goes through YouTube, that tells me that churches need to be in this space more than ever before.

Now, I know a lot of churches in recent times are putting a lot of emphasis on Instagram.

And, you know, I can understand that from a mobile perspective, but why is it?

Because they seem heavily involved in Instagram, zero absent on YouTube.

And how would you advise some of those churches in terms of, hey, you guys need to start paying attention to this?

Yeah, so I wouldn't say abandon Instagram for YouTube.

I think it's a both and situation, like we should be doing both.

But here's the biggest difference.

You know, I was talking with the church in LA just this past week, you know, advising and consulting with them.

And, you know, we're talking about the different demographics on all the different social media platforms.

And this is just reason number one, okay?

Reason number one for why you should be putting as much time into YouTube as Instagram is this.

Reason number one is when you look at Instagram, you guys know this, you're smart.

What do you think the major demographic on Instagram is?

We all know it.

What are you guys, what would you say is the major, the most dominant demographic on Instagram?

I'm going with females in their 20s.

That's what I'm saying.

That is, Ray, exactly right.

What about when it comes to TikTok?

What do we think of demographic-wise when it comes to TikTok?

All teenagers.

All teenagers.

When we think about Facebook, what do we think?

My parents.

Exactly.

Older people, right?

And statistically, when it comes to Twitter, it's mostly men who are on Twitter, right?

And so we need to target out, if we're targeting audiences and we're communicating to different demographics,

then we have to pick those channels.

YouTube is really the only channel that crosses all the demographics.

It is equally men and women, and it ranges from 14 right up to 65.

For that reason alone, we should be driving a lot of traffic, a lot of it, putting a lot of attention,

a lot of our resources into YouTube.

But the second thing, point number two would be YouTube, unlike any other social media platform,

unlike Twitter, unlike Instagram, unlike Facebook, YouTube is a search engine.

In fact, it's the second biggest search engine in the world, and it's owned by the biggest search engine in the world.

If you type anything into Google right now, typically any topic, it's going to give you, as the first option,

three video options to choose from that are all from YouTube because Google owns YouTube.

So unlike any other social media platform, YouTube is a search engine as well.

And search engines are where people go to find answers these days.

People aren't walking into, aren't just walking into a church to find out answers for questions that they have about parenting,

about being, about financial awareness, about being a good spouse.

You know, if they're looking for hope in their world, the reality of our modern day culture is they're not going to a church to search for those answers,

but they are searching on Google for them.

And oftentimes they're searching for YouTube for the answers to those questions.

So if somebody's typing into YouTube, how do I find hope today?

Somebody types in, how do I be a better husband today?

If somebody types in, how can I save my marriage?

Or how can I find hope so that I don't want to end my life right now?

If they're typing that into YouTube, then churches need to be there ready to answer those questions with content that's answering those questions.

In the secular world, in the marketing world, Google calls this the zero moment of truth.

The zero moment of truth, ZMOT is what they call it, is when I've searched long and hard,

because I want to buy for myself a new soccer, you know, T-shirt like you've got on there, right?

I'm assuming that's soccer.

So I've searched long and hard, and I want to figure it out.

I want to buy one, and I've got something in my cart.

I'm just about to buy it.

Google would call that the zero moment of truth, because I'm about to make a purchase and put money behind it, right?

For churches, the zero moment of truth is when somebody types in, how do I save my marriage?

That's our zero moment of truth.

And we have to be there in the places where people are asking those questions to be the answer to that question and provide the gospel approach to those questions.

That's why I think it's so important for us to be on YouTube.

And this is brilliant, because so many churches that I've encountered, too, not just my own, and Jeff, I know that you work with a lot of churches through Stadia.

YouTube, it's a free platform.

And so it's got a lot of capabilities for them to do from the get-go.

I mean, there's a lot of great YouTubers.

I'm sure that many out there follow that do everything ranging from high-quality video, 8K, right?

Like, YouTube's got crazy capability now.

But then we've got churches on the other end that are just getting started off.

And so, Dave, I know we kind of talked about this.

How do churches get started on YouTube?

Like, what would be the advice that you would give them?

Hey, so this is your starting point.

This is where you would go.

Yeah, so a lot of churches, straight up, they just think, I need to buy all this new equipment if I'm going to get onto YouTube, and I don't know if I can do that.

Yet, our phones, the average phone that you have in your pocket right now probably shoots HD video, potentially even shoots 4K video.

So all you really need, and this is what I say to churches all the time, all you need is your cell phone and a window.

Because a window will provide the light that you need.

That's free, completely free.

God gave it to us, right?

So just stand by a window and shoot with your iPhone.

Some of the, you look back at some of the biggest YouTube names in the world right now.

If you go to their YouTube channel and look back at their very first video, it was a low resolution, probably potentially even black and white video.

And it wasn't very good because they didn't care.

The reality is, I think that, and I know, I honestly know Jeff is probably going to cringe a little bit at this one.

But I don't think production quality is as important as content quality.

Oh, I fully agree.

Keep going.

Okay, great.

Great.

So what's important is that you're posting content and that you're building community.

And that's more important than what camera you're using, what microphone you're using, what lighting you're using.

So if you've just got a phone, you can start on YouTube.

In fact, during this COVID era, you know, I remember early on, I had some conversations with some church leaders.

And one church leader told me specifically, hey, I've been posting my YouTube messages from my church to YouTube for the past two years.

And I averaged about 200 views.

And I've been doing it because I felt like I had to.

But when COVID hit, I was walking my dog around the block and I took out my phone and I went live on YouTube and just asked people, hey, do you need somebody to pray for you today?

If you do, just let me know in a comment and I'll pray for you.

And as he walked his dog around the block, he literally just prayed for anybody who left a comment.

He got 18,000 views.

And he was like, I don't know why I'm ever going to preach a message in a church again when I can get more views than I've ever had in my life just by going live on my phone.

So it can be as simple as that.

But the other thing, Ray, is that churches are content producing machines.

That's what we do.

We produce a 35-minute, a 40-minute message every single Sunday.

And we post that to YouTube and we think our job's done.

Well, I would say repurpose on purpose.

Repurpose on purpose.

Take that 35-minute message, break it down to two or three, four to seven-minute videos that you post to YouTube as well during the week.

One on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, one on Friday.

Whatever you want to do, however many you can create out of it, that always have a call to action that drive people back to that full version of the message.

So a couple of things happen there.

You're being consistently posting more original content to YouTube.

So YouTube's going to love you for that.

You're providing people content that is in bite sizes.

The average length of a YouTube video is four minutes and 20 seconds.

Four minutes and 20 seconds.

Yet we're posting 35-minute messages and expecting people to watch the whole thing.

And then we complain that our view time, our viewer retention time on YouTube is 20%.

That's why it's 20%.

Because people's attention spans aren't great.

But if you can hook them with a four-minute video that has a YouTube card, a YouTube link in the description,

or a YouTube end screen that points them to the full message or points them to the full series on a playlist,

then you're keeping people, you're hooking them, and then you're reeling them in with the other content.

That's where YouTube becomes an invaluable tool.

And if you're keyword optimizing each one of those videos, in church world, and what I mean by that is this.

In church world, we so often call our message series or our messages some sort of catchy thing that rhymes or it's an alliteration.

You know what I'm talking about.

Pastors are prone to doing this.

We call them all sorts of weird titles that nobody ever types into the Google search bar.

But they're all dealing with felt needs.

They're dealing with things like, you know, how people can get better as spouses, how people can get better as parents,

how we can just be better people.

You know, my boss, Andy Stanley, always says,

following Jesus makes my life better and makes me better at life.

And because of that, everybody wants to get better at life.

So what if you just called the message series, How to Get Better at Life?

Because guess what?

People are typing into the search bar.

How do I get better at my life?

How do I be a better husband?

How do I find hope?

If we called our messages and our series, things like that, that are keyword optimized,

what happens is YouTube's algorithm does the evangelism for us.

A year, five years, 10 years from now, I honestly believe.

At North Point, we do our baptism messages.

Our baptisms happen during the service.

So worship happens and somebody will have a video on the screen, a two-minute testimony,

and then they'll be baptized during the service, right?

I believe that in a couple of years from now, I really believe this.

Somebody's going to have a YouTube video that says,

Hey, my name is Dave.

I didn't used to believe in Jesus.

And so I was looking for hope.

And I went to Google.

I started searching.

And Andy Stanley's video popped up.

And I watched one of them.

And that led me to watch two of them and three of them.

Before I knew it, I'd watched 10 videos and I'd give my life to Christ.

And now I'm here today to get baptized.

I honestly believe that that's going to happen.

Because this is where people are searching for truth at the moment.

And it's on YouTube.

That's awesome.

But I'll be honest.

The first time that this really hit my radar strong, where I was like,

Hey, there's a problem.

It was actually a tweet that you did.

And you can't remember all your tweets.

That's fine.

But maybe a year or so ago, where it was like, you did a search where you were searching for

teach me how to pray, or I don't know how to pray.

It was how to read the Bible.

How to read the Bible.

Okay.

So it was how to read the Bible.

And that's right.

Because it was like, no churches were in the immediate results, except for Joyce Myers.

Joyce Myers was in the results, but it wasn't even a Joyce Myers approved video.

It was somebody ripping Joyce Myers and putting it and uploading it into YouTube.

And it's like the practical nature of how people are looking for things on the internet.

The church is not realizing it.

And that's probably, I assume, that's one of like maybe several issues, several other things

that the church is really kind of wrestling with or misunderstanding in context of YouTube.

And so you've got like these 10 commandments for churches with YouTube.

And I'm really interested, because even in my own, with what I do with the church digital,

I know I'm not doing all this right.

So even I'm wanting to learn in this season for how to do YouTube better.

So what have you got?

Take us through some stuff.

Yeah.

So, you know, obviously I'm a big proponent for the value that YouTube can have, especially

when it comes to reaching unchurched people.

This is a big passion of mine, big heartbeat of mine.

It's not about being seeker sensitive.

It's not about being seeker aware.

It's just trying to share the gospel, to share hope with people who are unchurched, who don't

like going to church and may never walk into the building of a church, but they're typing

in things like, how do I read the Bible?

How do I pray?

And I want to make sure that there are churches and there are pastors who are producing content

that, you know, they've leveraged the YouTube algorithm in such a way that their content

is being popped up there.

So I created this thing called the 10 commandments of church YouTube.

And I figured it was best to call it the 10 commandments because then I think Christians

might buy into it.

And if we can remember the 10 commandments, which most of us can remember at least seven

of the 10 commandments.

If people just remembered seven of these 10 things, then their YouTube, A, their YouTube

channel is going to be much more consistent, much more approachable.

And this is the great thing about, you know, when we talk about church social media and

church digital world, we're always talking about the algorithms, right?

And I'm a big believer that the algorithm is always an issue, but it's never an excuse.

Regardless of the channel, the algorithm is always an issue, but it's never an excuse.

If you're not getting much reach on Facebook or Instagram, there's a reason for that.

It's not the algorithm's fault.

You're not posting content that your people, your audience are engaging with.

So you need to change that.

But when it comes to YouTube, there are certain things that we know you can do to really activate

the algorithm for your benefit.

So that's where I developed these 10 things.

And, you know, I'd love to go through all 10 and then have you guys, well, have you guys

ask me questions as I go through them?

Does that sound good?

Okay.

So number one, and I tried to make these as religious sounding as possible.

Number one is cover this before all posts.

And what that really refers to is we get so gung-ho about jumping into posting our content

on YouTube that we don't think about the community of YouTube and what our audience is actually

looking at.

So what I'm talking about there is cover all things.

It's the cover photo.

What does that cover banner photo say about you and about your church?

I always advise churches to do two things.

One, show a picture of your building.

So if somebody has watched your YouTube videos and wants to show up, they know they're at the

right place by looking at your YouTube cover and going, yep, this is the right place.

This is where I'm supposed to be because I can see that building there.

But I also encourage them to have a call to have some sort of information on their YouTube

cover that tells people when they're posting.

Hey, come here for live content every Sunday at 9 a.m.

Like something like that, that allows people to have access.

This is the thing that when you're scrolling through, it's going to stop you and go, I

know what this church is about because it's all laid out in the cover.

So that's commandment number one.

Cover this before I'll post.

Commandment number two is you shall complete your about page.

Now YouTube gives you an about page where you can put links to all your social media platforms.

You can talk a little bit about what your mission and vision as a church is.

You can put links to your website.

You can even put a contact email on the about page.

Yet a lot of churches I see haven't filled any of that out.

And people are going there and they might watch content.

They go, I'm going to figure out a little bit more about how I connect with this church

and there's nothing there.

So make sure you fill out all that information.

Give people the opportunity to connect with you and leave calls to action on your about page.

So that's commandment number two.

What would you say is like the bare minimum?

Because some churches might be, all right, man, we want to put our mission or vision,

a whole bunch of stuff on there.

What would you say, hey, just this would give people a great snapshot

and maybe even make you more searchable in your about page?

Yeah, great, great question.

So I would always have the mission or the vision there.

So for us, you know, we create churches where unchurched people love to engage.

That might be part of what we would put on there.

Or we help people develop a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

We might have something like that there.

So that's part of the about.

So people know what we're about.

But then I would always, always, without fail,

make sure that we're giving people a way to contact with us.

Even if that is bare minimum, just an info at email.

Something like that, that allows people that opportunity to connect with you.

Because like I said, you know, it's one thing to post content.

It's a whole other thing to build community.

And YouTube is all about building community.

This is the great, this is why YouTube has such high stats

when it comes to beating every cable news network,

every, you know, beating Netflix.

It's because when you're watching Netflix, when you're watching cable news,

it's all one-way communication.

But YouTube gives you the opportunity to have two-way communication

through connection points like comment sections or like the about page.

So at the very bare minimum,

have an email address where people can contact your church.

Okay, so commandment number three is,

you shall not group content in vain.

You shall not group your content in vain.

A lot of us just throw content up on YouTube videos,

messages, whatever it might be.

And then when people land on your page for the very first time,

the only playlist that's on the page is the uploaded video playlist.

And everything's just random in there.

So create playlists around series titles,

create playlists around baptism stories within your church,

create playlists around ministries, student ministry,

kids ministry, family ministry,

create a parents playlist,

create like, like create those playlists.

So it's about grouping your content in ways

that are easily consumable by people.

YouTube loves when you create playlists,

absolutely loves it.

So always create playlists on your YouTube channel.

Number four is remember your titles for they are key.

Again, trying to make it sound biblical,

remember your titles for they are key.

And what I mean by that is keyword optimized titles.

This is something we already touched on,

but it's making sure that what the title of the video

that you're uploading is so keyword optimized

that it has phrases and words in it

that people are actually searching for on YouTube.

So that might be,

how do I read the Bible, for example?

Does that make sense?

Yeah, and in that, tell me about,

does that play into any kind of the creative process

at North Point?

Like, do you guys like work back into the creative process?

Like, hey, so Andy wants to talk about this subject.

Do you guys think through and actually ask that question?

Well, okay, how do we make this more searchable?

Man, that is such a great question.

And here's the truthful answer.

Up until the end of last year,

we weren't thinking about that.

I was thinking about it,

but as a church, as an organization,

we weren't really thinking about it.

And then what,

so what I did at the end of the last quarter of 2019

was I literally went back through

all of our six Atlanta area churches

have their own YouTube channels.

I went back through all the messages

that Andy had preached for the previous two years

and changed the title of every message.

I got permission to do it,

changed the title of every message

to a keyword optimized title.

And we watched one of our churches.

The first church that I did that

was North Point Community Church,

our original campus.

And they had a 106% increase

in views on those videos

that were keyword optimized.

They were two years old,

but all I did was change the title.

Completely free.

It didn't cost me a cent.

It just cost me my time.

And then I did it for the second campus,

Buckhead Church,

and they had a 128% increase

in 30 days on number of videos viewed.

Because the videos were now titled

in accordance with the phrases

that people were actually typing into YouTube.

So YouTube was throwing our videos up

as the answer to somebody's question.

And because that actually answered the question,

people were watching longer as well.

So our viewer retention rate went up.

Number of views went up to the right.

Retention rate went up and to the right.

And all I did was change titles

of two-year-old videos.

So churches can do this right now.

Go back through your old archive,

just change the title.

It's as simple as that.

Wow.

And what are the tools that you're using

for optimization for determining those things?

Great question.

So there are a number of different paid platforms.

I use two paid platforms.

One of them is called VidIQ.

And that's the platform that you can just,

you can go to vidiq.com

and you can sign up for that.

I've actually got a link to,

I've got a link to a free month

and I've got a link to a 10% off.

I'm more than happy to share that with you guys

if you want to put it in the show notes

and things like that.

The other one that I use really,

really the most and the most regular.

Now, VidIQ costs about $50 a month,

just FYI.

The other one that I use on more than any other is,

it's called Morning Theme.

And it is about $15 a month.

So it's a lot less.

But that has such a robust search tool

that literally I can type in any keyword optimized phrase.

Say, for argument's sake,

is what mic should I buy for doing Zoom calls, right?

If that was the question we're asking.

It will give me the ranking of it.

It will give me the ranking of that title

in an ABCD sort of ranking.

And it will give me suggestions for other titles.

And it will give me other videos that have a similar title

and tell me which one I should use based on views,

based on engagement,

based on subscribers.

So it is an invaluable tool.

Morning Fame.

It's morningfa.me.

Morningfa.me.

Now, that is an invitation-only platform.

That's the weird thing about it.

But again, I will share my link with you

so that you guys can put it in the show notes

and people can click on that.

It is a fantastic tool.

And you'll get a month free just to trial it out.

$15 a month.

It is so well worth it.

Now, if you don't want to spend any money at all,

here's what I would suggest.

Open up a Google page

and just start typing in the message.

How to read the and whatever pops up,

that's what you want to go with.

It's like Google literally has this built-in

keyword optimization built in.

We've all experienced this

when you start to type something out

and it starts to preempt

what it thinks you're going to type.

Those preempts are based on

what most people are typing in

when they've already typed in the words

that you've typed in.

This is what most people finish it with.

They're preempting what you're doing.

So Google keywords are already built into Google.

So just start doing that

if you want to do it for free.

These other tools just make it

much more streamlined,

much more efficient.

So that's the sort of things that I use.

This has been great.

We'll include the links in the show notes

for both of those.

That is great.

I was up to number four.

Remember your titles.

Number five is honor your tags.

Again, making it sound biblical.

Honor your tags.

And tags are the things

that attach to every single video.

You can do default tags on YouTube.

So I would always encourage churches

to put default tags in there.

And default tags are multiple words.

So don't put, for example,

we wouldn't put north as one tag,

point as another tag,

community as a third tag,

and church as a fourth tag.

We would put North Point Community Church.

And in fact,

the default tags that I have for North Point,

for example,

are North Point Community Church,

NPCC,

North Point,

North Point Church,

Andy Stanley,

Andy Stanley North Point,

Andy Stanley Message,

Andy Stanley Service,

Andy Stanley Sunday,

Andy Stanley Sermon,

and I spell Andy Stanley

as many different ways as I can

because people type it in wrong.

And so there are all the sorts of tags

that I do.

They're default uploads.

So when I upload a video,

they're automatically there.

And then I add tags

that are specific

to that specific video.

So always remember to add tags

to every single video you do

because it helps with people

finding your content.

Number six

is you shall monitor

six key analytics.

You shall monitor

six key analytics.

There are six analytics

that I think every church

should be monitoring

to gauge the success

of what they're doing on YouTube.

Again, a lot of times,

and I think I said this to you guys

before we started recording,

but churches will often use YouTube

in the same way

that we use Vimeo.

It's this place

where we store all our videos

to get them off our computers

or off our hard drives.

And that's what Vimeo is.

Vimeo is great for that,

but it's not a search engine.

So when you're leveraging a tool

like YouTube,

you have to remember

to track analytics

that tell you

whether or not

your messages

and your videos

are actually reaching

the people

that you want them to reach.

And I'll just give you

one of those six,

for example.

One of those six

is the viewer retention rate.

Viewer retention rate

is so huge.

That's how long people

are watching your content for.

If you've got a 60-minute video

up there

and people are only watching

10 minutes of it,

well, that video is not working.

And what YouTube does,

and a lot of people

who don't know this,

is it gives you a line graph

with the video on top of it

so you can literally

scroll through the video

and see where people dropped off.

Well, we lost 80%

of our audience right there.

Why did we lose 80%

in that moment?

What was said in that moment

that drove a lot of people

to stop watching?

And then you know

not to ever do that again.

But YouTube will also

give you a spike

in that graph.

And what that means

is people have gone back

and re-watched

that one little bit

because you said something

or something was said

or done

that people wanted

to see again.

And that's a great tool

to leverage to find out

what your next message series

might be about

or what your next content

might be about.

So that's just one of the ones

that I suggest

churches analyze all the time.

Again, I'm more than happy

to provide you with all six

and you can include those

in the show notes.

So monitor six key analytics.

Seventh one is

you shall not use

default images.

This is all about thumbnails.

Thumbnails.

YouTube allows you

to upload a custom thumbnail

and a lot of churches

will upload a video

and YouTube suggests

a custom thumbnail

where they think

a person might be smiling

but it's always

the most awkward pick.

So I always encourage people

make sure you upload

a custom thumbnail

because YouTube tracks

how many people

click on your thumbnail.

Now if our video,

if the three of us

made a video

that was how to pray

we all uploaded

the same video

how to pray

same time

we've all got

the same number

of subscribers

and YouTube guys

didn't upload a thumbnail

but I did

and my thumbnail

was of me

in a very holy pose

with my hands together

and it had it really

clearly written on it

how to pray.

Five tips on how

to pray better.

People are going

to click on that link

more often

and so my YouTube video

is going to get

way above all of yours

because you've just

used the default thumbnail.

So always make sure

you're uploading

custom images.

Real quick on that

and what would you

recommend people use

for their thumbnail?

Because I've seen

everything from like

the wacky, zany

kind of stuff

to you know

just something

that just looks

completely artistic

and really, really

well done.

Like what do you

recommend for some

basics in terms of

thumbnail?

What do you recommend

they put on there?

Well I always

recommend that

and YouTube analytics

have proven that

a picture of a person

always carries

a lot more weight

so you want to get

you want to use

a picture of a person

if you're from a church

you know

we will pick a picture

of whoever's speaking

speaking

and we try to pick

a photo of them

smiling so it looks

inviting

we want to pick

a photo that's clean

and sometimes

we can pull that

from a you know

just the still

of the video

if the video

quality that you're

uploading

is as good

as the video

quality that Jeff

has right now

then you can pick

a thumbnail

and it will look

fantastic

but you might want

to have a photographer

there just take

a really quick photo

of the pastor

smiling before

or during

rehearsal

or before the service

or during the service

just to have that

and then always

have the words

really really clear

now it's really

important to remember

that as I said

before most people

are accessing

YouTube on their

mobile device

and so those

thumbnails are

really really small

they're about

the size of

a postage stamp

so make sure

the words are

big enough for

them to read

as they scroll

through

Photoshop is a

great tool to use

but there are

a whole bunch

of things

there's online

tools like Canva

that you can use

for free

that will create

thumbnails

so that is

number seven

number eight

is you shall

describe your

content well

and that is really

all about just

the YouTube

description

making sure

that your

description

describes what's

in the video

is keyword

optimized

and includes

calls to action

this is where

we always will

post things

at Northpoint

about hey

we'd love to

connect with you

follow us

on these

social media

platforms

here's our

website

here's a

email

that you can

if you want

have questions

email us

at this email

address

so always

leveraging

that YouTube

description

to make

sure that

you're giving

people a

clear

call to

action

to help

them take

the next

step

in their

faith

journey

number nine

I think

I'm up to

number nine

you shall

not skip

introductions

you shall

not

and what

that is

about

is really

you know

YouTube

gives the

opportunity

to create

any length

video

as an

introduction

to your

channel

I always

suggest

it should

be 30

to 60

seconds

because

people

watch

shorter

things

and that

should

be your

pastor

or

somebody

with a

lot of

personality

saying hey

welcome to

our

channel

we're so

glad you're

here on

this channel

you're going

to find

these things

about these

topics

and we want

to help

you get

connected

we can do

that in

any way

and help

you take

the next

step in

your faith

journey

you can

email us

that blah

blah blah

blah

now when

if I'm

subscribed

to your

channel

I can

you can

set it up

so that I

get as

an unsubscribed

person a

specific

introductory

video

but if I'm

a member

of your

church and

I'm subscribed

to the

channel

I can get

a different

video

all together

so you get

this opportunity

to have two

separate videos

speaking to

two completely

different audiences

so why

wouldn't we

leverage that

that makes

perfect sense

to me

that's something

even I wasn't

aware of

I knew that

we had the

opening trailer

that you had

for everybody

but I didn't

realize that

once you're

subscribed

you could have

a specialized

video

for people

who are

already subscribed

to give them

some next

steps

or some

different

stuff

and I love

the ones

that you guys

have made

over time

over at

North Point

because I

died laughing

at the one

you guys

made with

Clay

like I thought

it was perfect

yeah

the one

with Clay

you know

we tried to

make that

as funny

as possible

reaching a

younger sort

of audience

who might have

been on

YouTube

and literally

he's there

saying I'm

not going to

tell you

what to do

you know

what to do

you're on

YouTube

you're on

YouTube

more than

I am

I'm not

going to

tell you

to subscribe

you already

know how

to subscribe

but in

doing that

he's creating

personality

but he's

also literally

telling them

to subscribe

by saying

I'm not

going to

tell you

to subscribe

but we

want you

to subscribe

so and

we have

you know

bloopers

and all sorts

of things

so make

that entertaining

make it fun

make it a

30 second

snapshot

and let

people see

the people

who are

in your

church

because you

always want

people when

they come

to your

YouTube

channel

and see

a video

I would

say this

of any

whether it's

your website

social media

anything

you want

people to

who are

first time

guests to

your church

to see

themselves

at your

church

so if

they're a

family

let's show

families

if they're

an older

couple

and empty

nesters

let's see

empty nesters

in those

videos

like let

people see

who the

people are

in your

church

so that they

feel connected

to that

community

I always

say this

social media

YouTube

introductory

videos

allows people

to connect

with your

church

before they

connect

within

your

church

so make

sure you're

showcasing

all of

those people

all those

members of

the community

who make

up your

local community

as well as

the church

community

as well

and number

10

the final

of the

10 commandments

you shall

have a

promotion

strategy

or a

marketing

strategy

however you

want to

put it

again

one of the

things I

see a lot

of churches

doing is

hey I put

my Sunday

message up

so I'm

done now

no no

you're not

done

that's great

that it's up

there and

people can

access it

but people

don't know

about it

so you need

to leverage

other social

media platforms

to drive

people to

your YouTube

channel

this is

a spot

that I think

a lot of

churches miss

so you know

I try to

encourage people

whether they're

pastors

ministry leaders

or churches

to have some

sort of content

distribution strategy

that allows them

to post something

to YouTube

and what are you

going to do

with that YouTube

URL now that

you've posted

the video

and I always

suggest on the

day that you

post tweet

about it at

least twice a

day for the

first week

and then once a

week for the

next six months

that's my

strategy that's a

strategy that I

like to use from

a Twitter point of

view and then

leverage things like

Instagram to

post let people

know that your

videos are up as

well if you've

got the swipe up

function in

YouTube in

Instagram stories

make sure you're

leveraging that to

literally just let

people swipe up to

land on your

YouTube page

Facebook post it

there as well

even if you're

posting the message

to Facebook

do a post midweek

that says hey if

you missed our

video it's right

here on demand on

our YouTube channel

like do things like

that and let people

know that you are

on YouTube and

promotion also

includes in the

room you know

when COVID's over

and we're back in

the room again

make sure you're

letting your people

know who are

coming to your

church that you've

got a YouTube

channel that seems

like a simple

thing but a lot of

churches miss it

so if you have

slides playing

pre-service that

have your social

media handles

include your

YouTube handle

in that as

well during a

hosting spot or

during the

farewell hey we're

so glad you're

part of our

church today we'd

love to stay

connected with you

on video and if

you want to watch

this whole service

again or this

message you can

find it on our

YouTube channel it's

really as simple

as that at North

Point we do that

on our podcasts as

well hey we're so

glad you joined us

for this podcast

I don't know if

you know but we've

got a YouTube

channel as well so

if you'd like to

watch this message

check out our

YouTube channel like

we leverage as many

channels as we can

to promote our

YouTube channel because

we know that the

YouTube channel is a

search engine and

people are going to

be driving we want

to drive traffic to

it as an on-demand

platform as well so

that it's constantly

churning up the

algorithm in our

favor so that's all

10 of them that's

the 10 commandments

I don't know how

long that took is

anybody still

listening that was

awesome I hope

they're still

listening because all

of this is worth

more than the price

of admission which

of course was free

with our podcast but

that's besides the

point but the big

thing is Dave and

one of the things

that I try to tell a

lot of churches

because a lot of

churches think

internal stuff like

man we think we

need an app or we

think we need like a

better you know

website and the

thing that I remind

them with YouTube is

with YouTube you get

a free TV app you

get a free mobile app

like everywhere you

want to be you can be

for free

yeah totally I

totally agree and

people are already

going to it right

people are downloading

the church app well

they're not

necessarily even if

they have I've got

all six I hope

nobody from North

Point hears this but

I've got all six

church apps and I

don't go to them

nearly as often as I

go to our YouTube

channels because

YouTube is on my

homepage because I

watch it so often

and I would I

would as a dad of

teenage girls I can

tell you that that is

the number one app in

our house is YouTube

and we if we as

church leaders as if

we as pastors want to

reach the next

generation then why

aren't we leveraging

that tool that's

not to say don't

ever get a church

app don't ever

build no do all

of those things but

lean heavily heavily

into YouTube as

well because it is

such a fantastic

tool one of the

things that that we

hear often and you

touched on it

briefly the average

YouTube video is

like four minutes

30 seconds a sub

five minutes average

sermon at 30 35

40 you know

something longer

than that and in

the idea of of

preaching a shorter

sermon editing you

know taking reusing

content you talked

a little bit here

so COVID coming out

of this season I've

already had the

conversations with

churches we just we

want to we want to

focus on the building

we're not sure how

much resources we

want we want to pour

into here like talk

to me a little bit

behind the mindset

and what to really if

we do want to reuse

the content if we want

to break it up like

what's the strategy

behind breaking it

up yeah so so you

know one of the

things that I feel

such a good question

Jeff one of the

things that I feel is

that when people when

churches open up again

when the buildings open

up again because let's

be honest the church

is never closed the

buildings has have

been closed but when

buildings open up

again my biggest fear

is that many many

church leaders many

pastors as soon as

they walk back into

their buildings they're

going to walk back

into time and they're

going to go back to

an old model that

for the past four or

five months we've said

wasn't as important

because we always talk

about how church is not

a building church is

the people but pre

COVID no church was

about the building

because that's how we

stopped it that's how

we resourced it right

and so I would be

saying if you can at

all in your in your

church in the quote

unquote new normal

when life after

lockdown begins and

and church buildings

open up try to

leverage both both

both digital and

physical in equal

amounts and it's

what I would call an

omni-channel approach

to doing church not

multi-channel where

one channel physical

has its own strategy

and resources and

online has its own

strategy and resources

combine those two

things because this is

what the marketplace

has done for so long

combine those two

things into a seamless

integration so that

people who listen to

the podcast can still

show up second week

of the month and

know what's going on

because they've

listened on the

podcast and that was

okay so that's part

of what I would be

suggesting when it

comes to repurposing

on purpose you know

it's really about

breaking down the

content that you're

already creating it's

about reusing the

content that you're

already creating and

turning it into bite

size pieces that are

not watering it down

but are just putting

it into situations

that allow people to

share it more easily

that allow it to

people to access it

more easily on

multiple platforms and

always have a call to

action to it the

example that I can

often use is you

know my my next

door neighbor if

he's having problems

with his marriage I'm

not going to go over

to him and say hey

man do you want to

come to church with

me on Sunday you

know I might do that

depending on the

relationship but that's

a big ask for

somebody to take a

whole day or half a

day and I might need

to bribe him with

lunch as well in

order to get him to

come to church on

Sunday but likewise

if we're having a

chat out the front and

he says hey man my

marriage isn't going

really well at the

moment I'm not going

to go hey you know

what my pastor

actually did a 35

minute message on

YouTube let's watch

let's watch this right

now on our cell phone

well that's the

digital equivalent of

taking half a day to

go to church and

bribing him for lunch

but if I can say to

him you know my

pastor preached on

that last weekend

hey can I send you

like a three minute

video with one point

that will help make

your marriage better

most people are

going to go yeah

yeah I'll do I'll

watch that and when

he watches that and

says hey is there

any more to that

well yeah actually

there is and here's

the link to the

full-length message

hey I'll watch that

full-length message is

there any more you

know what there

actually is there's

part of a six-week

series that's on our

playlist and here's a

link to the playlist

like that's when that's

when we're breaking

down barriers and

reaching people where

there are when meeting

their physical needs

as well as meeting

their spiritual needs

as well and I think

this is what Jesus

constantly did right

whenever I read the

gospels I see Jesus

meeting people's

physical needs whether

it's you know providing

water for them like the

woman at the well but

then he provides

spiritual truth at

the same time like I

think we need to be

doing those sorts of

things and I'm a big

proponent guys of you

know the apostle Paul

used the technology of

his day to reach people

who are far from God

and connect them with

each other and with

God the technology of

his day letter

writing technology of

our day is Instagram

YouTube Twitter

Facebook and if it's

YouTube we need to be

leveraging it for all

it's worth to help

people connect with

each other and help

people connect with

God and grow their

faith in the process

amen yeah the whole

thing of utilizing

YouTube not to reach

your people but

instead to reach the

YouTube community to

reach others and

being used utilizing

that platform as

evangelism reaching out

and connecting with

others I love the idea

of what you're sharing

five years ten years

from now somebody's

going to get saved

as a result of a

YouTube video and

finding it I can tell

you I can I can tell

you similar stories as

an online pastor I

can tell you names of

people that whose

marriages were saved

as a result of

Christ Fellowship

Miami we don't even

live in the state of

Miami and it's all

centered around YouTube

and and marriages and

sermons on marriages

because we were

intentional about

structuring and

marketing that and

placing it in such a

way that that it

was searchable for

it it's it's it's

almost like it's just

it it happens as a

result of this content

we're content machines

I think you alluded to

it Dave and and the

more that we can

leverage this content

with the search

engines with with the

platforms to reach

people in in a new

way it's it's a

different person than

who's going to come

to the buildings that's

going to engage with

this YouTube I believe

I totally agree I

think you know pre

COVID most churches

whether we admitted

it or not we were

events organizations

the event was Sunday

everything was geared

towards Sunday or at

least most things were

geared towards having

that event on Sunday

that people are

actually going to come

to but I think what

COVID has given us the

opportunity to do is

to rebrand ourselves

to rethink about what

we actually are and

we're actually content

distribution organizations

that's what we are

we've got all this

content and a lot of

churches big or small

spend money on Facebook

ads spend money on all

sorts of campaigns to

get that content

distributed out to

people yet we miss

this free distribution

tool that is the

second biggest search

engine in the world

and we'll do the

evangelism for you and

the marketing for you

if you do all the

things right it's not

about playing by their

rules this is what a

lot of what about the

algorithm and it's not

enough no no I say

you know Craig

Rochelle says do

anything short of sin

to get the gospel to

as many people as

possible right I'm

saying when it comes

to YouTube here's 10

things you can do that

will get your video out

to more people than you