In this episode of Tag Me Podcast, we’ll be learning social media tips from YouTuber, Matthew Santoro. He’ll be sharing how he uses social media and how he has remained true to himself and kept an engaged audience while switching up his content. If you are interested in learning how to monetize YouTube videos and other social media tips - stay tuned.
Matt's Social Media:
Instagram @matthewsantoro
YouTube MathewSantoro
CONNECT WITH US ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/tagmepodcast/
In this episode of Tag Me Podcast, we’ll be learning social media tips from YouTuber, Matthew Santoro. He’ll be sharing how he uses social media and how he has remained true to himself and kept an engaged audience while switching up his content. If you are interested in learning how to monetize YouTube videos and other social media tips - stay tuned.
Matt's Social Media:
Instagram @matthewsantoro
YouTube MathewSantoro
CONNECT WITH US ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/tagmepodcast/
Audrie Segura: 0:07
Welcome to Tag Me, a Social Media podcast. We’ll be connecting with successful people and brands on social media to share their tips and best practices with you. My name is Audrie and in this episode we’ll be learning social media tips from YouTuber, Matt Santoro. He’ll be sharing how he uses social media to lock in brand deals and monetize off of content and most importantly - how he has remained true to himself and kept an engaged audience while switching up his content - so stay tuned. Matt’s social media handles are linked for you in the episode notes. Thank you for tuning in, now let’s learn a thing or two about social media from Matt.Today on the podcast I have the king of facts - in fact he has 6.4M YouTube subscribers and his most popular youtube video has received more than 14M views. Overall his channel has more than 1.4B views.Let’s welcome Matt to theTag Me Podcast
Matthew Santoro: 0:59
I love the fanfare feels fantastic. Thanks for having me.
Audrie Segura: 1:03
I'm a fan. I've learned so much from your YouTube. You have so many followers and so many views about for people listening who may not know you. What do you do? And how did you get started?
Matthew Santoro: 1:12
Well, I started in 2010. Ah, May 13th 2010 was my very first video. So er was about 10 years ago and I started uploading comedy sketches and I did that with moderate success for awhile. And then I realized one day after starting to upload switch it up, uploading, you know, list videos and things that those were getting double triple the amount of views. And so I thought to myself what would happen if I just exclusively did the fact top tens and things like that, and that's when everything blew up. And now Ah, jeez, What do I do now? I still do YouTube, But, um, I consider myself more of just a general creator than a youtuber. Just just overall, I would have to say, um nothing disparaging whatsoever about you two. But more so I identify more is just the word creator. Because I also put my stuff on Facebook. I also put myself on Instagram and we live in that world now where? If you would ask me five, even five years ago, where's YouTube gonna be in 10 years? I'd say it's never going away. That's the only platform. And I never saw this coming. And now Facebook gives it a real run for its money, and you can monetize on there and stuff. So creator mental health advocate. Mmm mmm. Spiritually person. And just all around. Just good vibe, Creator. I guess
Audrie Segura: 2:34
you are a good vibe. Thank you. All right, so let's talk about YouTube. So YouTube is a social media platform that I'm actually still learning stuff about. And I actually watched one of your videos recently and learned it start off as a dating site. Um, but for somebody like me who's still learning or maybe knows nothing about it, how would you explain YouTube and how do you use it? YouTube
Matthew Santoro: 2:54
is still, in my opinion, the best platform. Ah, to distribute content to the masses. All platforms are always changing, so it's hard to say in terms of discovery ability. Nothing beats tik tok right now. Yeah. I mean, it's it's bananas. I know people that went on there and uploaded the first video. I got 100,000 views on Lee because you know how you can use someone else's audio. And then when they click the audio, you can see all the people that have done that. That's discoverability. So I know something about 100,000 views on the 1st 1 I know My other two friends got a 1,000,000 followers in a month. Wow. So right now, tik tok talks the hot thing.
Audrie Segura: 3:32
Are you on tik tok?
Matthew Santoro: 3:33
I am. I'm more of like a light stalker of content that I am a creator. I don't I don't create on there. I just It's just another distraction from my main thing, which is I should be putting far more effort into my main channel. Then I currently am. But by the time this goes up, ah, lot of things will already have been in the works, exciting things to completely revamp my channel. And as you know, I believe in the power of words and manifestation. And so I've been saying a lot that this is going to be the best year of my career. This one
Audrie Segura: 4:05
it is.
Matthew Santoro: 4:06
And what's interesting is that right now, at the time of this recording. My channel is actually performing the worst that it has ever performed, both monetarily and views wise per video. But none of that matters because I know what's coming. I believe I know it in my heart. I know once I make these changes, my audience is still there, and I've just been coasting on the same content for a long time, and it's just time to switch it up. And it's more importantly than the views or the money or anything like that's about being creative again. So that was a really long winded way of saying YouTube is a video platform.
Audrie Segura: 4:39
I love that. And because of that now, I now have so many questions for you. So one. How did you initially build your audience on YouTube or subscribers Should I'd say,
Matthew Santoro: 4:47
Yeah, um, so I started uploading videos and, like I said, some some of the comedy sketches and things will get moderate success. But when it really popped was, um, around 20 the end of 2014 I think it was, and I'm
Audrie Segura: 5:06
not even
Matthew Santoro: 5:06
sure if a lot of people know this, so this might be like an exclusive for your podcast back in the day. You usedto have something that was called the Feed, so it would be youtube dot com slash Matthew Santore oh slash feed and you could post things much. You know what it is? It's like the new community tab, except that it went out to all your subscribers. So if I posted your video in my feed, it would show up in their subscriber or front page. However, it usedto work a long time ago and it would come in as if I posted that video. And so what would happen was I met ah, friend of mine named Dylan, who's channels Household Hacker and my friend Robin. My friend Scott. And we did a little cross country trip across America to go meet Dylan. And Dylan introduced me to this Facebook group that he had where everybody promoted themselves in the feed. Well, all of the people in this Facebook group, after becoming friends of them all, had 2345 million subscribers back when that was. It's still a significant number, but it's easier to get that number now. I would say more, more people are getting it, but back then, if you know I had 15,000 subscribers and all these people had millions. And so all these people were posting my video every time, and we would all do that. We would all share each other's videos. And so after that happened for about a month, just the algorithm took over and it started showing people my videos. And then from there people were like, Oh, I
Audrie Segura: 6:36
kind of like
Matthew Santoro: 6:37
this guy And then more people start scrubbing and more people started subscribing. So it's just a matter of getting getting recognized and getting seen. That's what happened to me is I have been putting in about four years of effort, 15,000 subscribers, not, you know, not a crazy amount, but amount I was grateful for, for sure. But at that point, it's just bone. It all came and in one year I think I got three million subscribers in one year. Wow, and most of that came in three months.
Audrie Segura: 7:07
I love that you mentioned the power of all these people in this group cross promoting, because I think cross promoting is such a great way to increase your followers or just engagement and get new eyes and people from other channels under your page.
Matthew Santoro: 7:19
It's actually almost the only way now.
Audrie Segura: 7:21
So how do you promote with other people, or how do you even cross promote amongst your own social channels?
Matthew Santoro: 7:26
So the way that I cross promote on my short social channels is, you know, I'll I actually don't
Audrie Segura: 7:32
I was about to say, Well, because this is
Matthew Santoro: 7:34
what I what I used to do is I tweet out the video and posted a link on my instagram. I don't do that anymore. Um, I think because mostly I'm not super excited about making the same top tens that I've been making for the last 10 years. Hence why I'm switching my content up because I want to start making short films or even songs or, um, you know, even in depth fact videos or interview style videos. Ever got so many ideas that I'm excited to make and I'm gonna start focusing on quality over quantity, and for a long time I started focusing on more quality or more quantity over quality. And
Audrie Segura: 8:14
that's not to
Matthew Santoro: 8:14
say my videos currently aren't high quality because they actually are. They all have high quality original transitions that I actually hire an animator and his team to make, so it's actually quite expensive. That's why it's a little frustrating. Sometimes when my videos don't do except like I'm, I'm investing like it. All the efforts
Audrie Segura: 8:31
that then those interests are so good.
Matthew Santoro: 8:34
But at the end of the day, it comes down to the title and you I'm convinced it's two things. One. I've been doing the same thing for a long time and to YouTube doesn't does not favor old channels in the algorithm unless you're Shane Dawson, that reinvents himself something of that nature. So what it comes down to is, how are you going to evolve? And that's the point of that. Right now, in much like growing pains and evolution, it's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt a lot because you're stepping out of your comfort zone.
Audrie Segura: 9:03
So you talked about evolving, and that meant adapting thio, the social platforms and changing your content. Did you resist city of that at first because you were doing so well with what you were pumping out. But it didn't align with you.
Matthew Santoro: 9:15
Yeah, of course. I mean, there was huge resistance in my mind in terms of comfort zone. You know, we touched a little better on that. Your comfort zone can kill you. You know, we we are brains like to keep us in this little this little box. It's like, What's it? Don't don't evolve, Don't. It's okay. Everything's gonna be all right. But that comfort zone gets really small over time, and it just starts to squeeze the life out of you. And that's a great little analogy that I just came up with. I could use that again, but But, you know, absolutely. And I just made the decision to pivot from top tens. I've been doing it for 10 years, so yeah, lots of resistance. But the resistance was all mental because at the end of the day, the only thing standing in our way is us. And I know it sounds trite and it sounds, you know, ah, airy fairy stuff that, you know, people love, guru, say and stuff. But it's true.
Audrie Segura: 10:11
It's so true. I mean, absolutely, we can relate that to social because social is always evolving. It's always changing. And unless you adapt and you change to the new ways or you joined the new platforms. It kind of gets left in the dust. And if something's not working anymore, like you said, you pivot. And even if it is working, But it doesn't feel good to you, you pivot, because the more you create content that is authentic to you, I think the more success internally you will find and it will come outwardly,
Matthew Santoro: 10:35
absolutely. And if you're not happy with what you're doing, it will show that the camera picks up everything. And if you're not 100% happy and you're not excited it over time, maybe not initially. But over time it will absolutely show. And so what it comes down to is just continue to do what you love, but be open to change. Things were just always going to work out. You just you really you have to believe that it can't just be a mantra that you say or something you read in a book. You have to believe it in your soul and we create our own realities, and so that and we won't go into that because that that that make a whole podcast on that. But it's been scientifically proven that we create our own reality?
Audrie Segura: 11:22
Absolutely. I believe it. I believe in Yeah, yeah,
Matthew Santoro: 11:25
It's called the Observer effect. Look it up. There you go. There we just condensed the whole podcast. But at the end of the day, just trusting yourself.
Audrie Segura: 11:31
So how do you define success around social media for you in the past and for you? Now?
Matthew Santoro: 11:36
Uh, definitely. In the past, the way that I define success was completely number based. It was how many views per video, how much money am I making? And I also attached myself worth to those numbers, which is the most dangerous thing you can do. But I definitely don't look at that like that anymore. I consider success for me. For me, it's twofold. It's creating what I want to create. So that's why I said, I don't fully consider myself successful at the moment, but I'm really not creating what I want to create, But that's changing. The other thing is, and this is the most important thing is creating and doing well with the numbers and things like that, but not hurting the world. That's why we need to celebrate more and speak up celebrating. Talk about and speak up to the people that are doing positive things
Audrie Segura: 12:31
like you talking about? Sure, Yeah, I'll take that Advocating for mental health. I love that. So I actually asked the tag me audience what they wanted to know from you. And they asked me these questions. Are you ready? Yes. How do you monetize your content on you two Talking about numbers? Here we go.
Matthew Santoro: 12:47
Yeah, so there's a couple ways there's, um, ad revenue. So you know when you watch a video that little yellow bar pops up when it hits that an ad will play. Or there's pretty roll ads where before you can watch the video and add will play. That's how we make money. And there's something called C P M, which is cost per 1000 views. And in January it's the lowest December. It's the highest. So right now YouTubers are kind of hurting. But hopefully they save their money from December. Uhm and yeah, so you know C p. M. In December? Could be $10 in January. Could be a dollar is a big difference. Yeah, and for every 1000 views, I'll make a dollar. Uh, alternatively, if you click the add. I make a dollar. So that's why when clicking ads, it's so beneficial for us creators. So if you want to support your favorite creator,
Audrie Segura: 13:34
do it
Matthew Santoro: 13:35
well, we're not allowed to say go click the ads. But I
Audrie Segura: 13:38
mean, yeah, if you go out to you in that you mean in the comments,
Matthew Santoro: 13:41
my understanding is we're not allowed to, like, start the video like, Hey, did you click the add that you can't do
Audrie Segura: 13:45
that. So is this like you two best practices?
Matthew Santoro: 13:48
I think you two would frown upon that. Yeah, it has to be a genuine a genuine like of the ad like, Oh, that shaver looks interesting. And I want to get that. So then they click. It got, um But yeah, that is one way to support your favorite creator. The other way that we make money is through brand deals. So, you know, uh, this candle here could be from that. Can I talk about brands like Bed Bath and beyond? Uh, end If I really like the brand in the brand, you know, say I do, um ah d I Y videos And I used a lot of candles. They might find my videos and say, Hey, we would love youto use nothing but these and we'll pay you and we'll give you free product and eso At the beginning of the video, I'll say this video sponsored by Bed Bath and Beyond and they'll give X number of dollars. And then if I have a manager's, um, um, multi channel network, they'll take a cut of that.
Audrie Segura: 14:39
Got it? Are there ad best practices like in terms of when you have a brand partnership? Are there certain things you should be doing in your content, like putting their name in the title or the description?
Matthew Santoro: 14:49
No, Well, not in the title. No, that's that's not a good idea. I I've I've worked with a brand before. That insisted that I put their hash tag in and the name of the company in the title of the video, and I kept telling them I couldn't do that, But the video will bomb because it's all about thumbnail entitle. And so I ended up finding a compromise where I put the hash tag in the description, which even that doesn't make sense because, like like these brands think like okay, maybe awareness but nobody's gonna over Hash tag.
Audrie Segura: 15:26
Let me click. Link. The people are
Matthew Santoro: 15:28
very passive on YouTube. It's okay. What's the next video? I got a lot of videos of my subscription box when they make it, They're, uh so yeah, so Ah, eh, What it comes down to with brand deals is the brand really has to trust the creator. I can't emphasize this enough. If there's any brands out there listening, Please, please. The more control you give us, the more we will knock it out of the park for you. I promise you, the more you try toe get legal involved. And the more you try to do this in that and say, Well,
Audrie Segura: 16:01
what if What if you set Coca Cola five more
Matthew Santoro: 16:03
times? It's like I can do that. But now you're compromising my vision and in my audience will feel it, you know, And so and don't get me wrong. I understand. The bigger the brand, like the bigger youtuber you are at, the bigger the brand deals And the bigger the brand deals, the more risk averse the brand is, and the more legal is gonna get involved. It's just it's just part of it. I've It's still irks me, but it's part of it, and I have accepted it. Um, and so you know what it comes down to is do what you do, take the brand's message and integrate it in a fun way that doesn't take away from the content. And so that's the answer for brands. But for creators, the biggest thing you need to know when doing a brand deal is a brand deal should not take away from the content it should actually add to the
Audrie Segura: 16:49
content. Okay, cool. That was a great answer s Oh, I love that you touched on thumbnail. So the next question is, what tips do you have for titles and thumbnails?
Matthew Santoro: 16:59
If your thumbnail is not what's in the video, you can actually have your thumbnail removed from the video. And if that happens, that video's gonna tank without a good thumbnail. You can have the best diamond of a video, but it's like putting it in a cardboard box. Ah, plain cardboard box and putting it on the shelf at Wal Mart. No one's gonna want to buy that thing, no matter. Even if said, you know, it's like putting Diamond Cray Ola on it like you want to put it in a fancy box. And you wanted it to be gold. And that's the whole idea. Behind a thumbnail tells what's inside the box.
Audrie Segura: 17:30
Got it. Thumbnails just made me nervous. I'm, like, should have ever used YouTube. I'm gonna hit you up to figure out what I need to put in my thumbnail.
Matthew Santoro: 17:36
I'm pretty good. Thumbnail Tanaka. Why are you get a photo
Audrie Segura: 17:39
shop? Kind of Yeah.
Matthew Santoro: 17:40
Okay. You should definitely dive in a photo shop and get used to it.
Audrie Segura: 17:43
What about titles,
Matthew Santoro: 17:45
titles and thumbnail there? Everything s O titles are one thing that I've never been super great out. Um, partially because I'm unlimited toe what I can say.
Audrie Segura: 17:53
How important is the description box? That's a good
Matthew Santoro: 17:57
question. Um, to me, it doesn't matter at all. Um, and I don't think it's ever really mattered very much. Maybe back in the day, but I I can't really say too much about analytics regarding that. I know that the most important stuff has to be above the fold, because again, people are very passive. And on Lee, people that are truly invested in you and your content are going to drop down the fold and see everything you have to say, like follow me on all these social networks and blah blah. That's why when you do a brand deal, it always has to be above the fold because most people don't do that. Um, so as far as the
Audrie Segura: 18:34
description goes, wait. So in terms of tag, is that something still relevant for you to have? It is a question
Matthew Santoro: 18:41
I can't answer. I've never been good at metadata. I've never cared about metadata. I've never cared about optimizing. I've never cared about any of that stuff. I I find it just like watching paint dry in, and I know it's important thing, But one thing I will say is no amount of metadata tagging special titles. Nothing will ever make up for good content. You can have the best optimization, best tags, everything. But if your videos not good, it doesn't matter. Conversely, if you have a bomb video that you know is gonna go viral, you could put no tags on it, and it's still gonna go fire.
Audrie Segura: 19:17
Another question that was asked how important this posting frequency.
Matthew Santoro: 19:21
Mmm. It's quell
Audrie Segura: 19:23
I'm sure that's changed for you now. But before when you first started, Was that something you really focused on? Not when I
Matthew Santoro: 19:29
first started. No, it was back
Audrie Segura: 19:31
in the
Matthew Santoro: 19:31
day. None of this mattered. Back in the day, it was just you just created for the sake of creating. And then Google bought YouTube, and then it became at a machine. It became a machine and became business. And it became about ads and how monetizing and then algorithms got involved in. And now it's about creating quality and quantity.
Audrie Segura: 19:52
What's the best way to promote YouTube videos on Facebook and Instagram?
Matthew Santoro: 19:57
Oh, uh, well, the first mistake, I would say that people do will cover mistakes. First is not uploading natively to Facebook. So gone are the days when you Facebook was treated exclusively as just a distribution platform. So I've uploaded my YouTube video. And so now here's the link on Facebook and go back to YouTube. Those days are long gone, um, because Facebook kills external links. So if you're going to upload anything uploaded natively formatted for Facebook and put, you know, the bars at the top and bottom and the 10. 80 p video in the middle and give a description quick description of like, Oh, my God, creepiest places on earth. And then that'll be what you see. And then people stop and watch to promote that. I
Audrie Segura: 20:55
don't really
Matthew Santoro: 20:55
know. To be honest with you, I mean, it would
Audrie Segura: 20:57
have to be you can you can
Matthew Santoro: 20:59
multi platform promote, of course. So if you have a YouTube video, you know, instagram story, check out the new video, swipe up for the link. Although I'm
Audrie Segura: 21:07
not convinced that that
Matthew Santoro: 21:08
really works, I I just have a feeling maybe for larger people with large followings on Instagram. But, um, for me, it's always been like 1000 in analytics will say, like 1000 views came from Twitter or something like that. It is a large reason why just stop doing that and just started giving nothing but value on social media because I just realized like it's it's actually not worth it. Like in the grand scheme of especially if you get like if you got like, a 1,000,000 views on video on without, like back in the day, you skate like 1000 views on like a 1,000,000 views. Now it's a lot of youse don't get me wrong, but I would rather instead of because that's an ask from your audience, almost right, that please check out this video. What I like to do is give, give, give, give, give, give, give on social media, and then when something I'm really proud of comes around, I'll say, Hey, guys, I'd be really grateful if you could check this out, and so that's more of the way that I do it now. But Facebook, if you have if you If you have a video that you really want to promote, you can pay. Or you can contact larger pages and pay and get them to
Audrie Segura: 22:11
deal with the YouTube video link into the comment section. That doesn't work. It doesn't
Matthew Santoro: 22:16
know way too smart for that. People still do it in
Audrie Segura: 22:20
like unlike, Is that where it's like, Really? Do you think that they
Matthew Santoro: 22:23
didn't think about that like you? Yeah, don't even bother doing that.
Audrie Segura: 22:26
I love that you mentioned Give, give, give, and then when something does come out, you wanted to talk to your audience. You li ke Can you support me? Because the next question is how do you get paid to work with brands on YouTube?
Matthew Santoro: 22:36
Um, well, there's a couple ways you can get. You could be discovered by the brand. Ah, and they'll reach out to you. Or you can have a manager who will source theatrical brand deals for you.
Audrie Segura: 22:50
All right, we're gonna jump into some rapid fire questions. You ready? Who is someone on social media you would love to collaborate with?
Matthew Santoro: 22:57
Who? Russell Brand.
Audrie Segura: 22:59
Who is someone you enjoy following on social media?
Matthew Santoro: 23:02
Um, I follow all of my friends. So all of my friends are good people. I enjoy, you know, they're positive stuff that they put out. But I especially like following people like Eckhart, Tali or, you know, um, any anybody like that that tries to put more mindfulness into the world, even actually, a really good one that just recent start falling was calm. So that's the meditation app that I use every single day. I've been using it for two years, and I started following their social media, and it's really good. It's it's high quality images on instagram, and it's mindful thoughts. And even on Twitter, they'll say things like stop scrolling and breathe for 10 seconds. I mean, that's that's useful. That's really good.
Audrie Segura: 23:44
Yeah, I like that. Yeah, Yeah. Little check in. If someone wants to work with you, how did they get a hold of you?
Matthew Santoro: 23:50
Well, my number's not Just don't 3 to 3. Um, yeah. If anyone wants to get a hold of me, my email is on my YouTube channel. Um, you can tweet me. You can deal me on instagram. There's there's, you know, I check all of that stuff, albeit not as much anymore, but yeah. I mean, the traditional ways e mails on my YouTube channel. It's on it. There's like it says business emailing Click it. Are we
Audrie Segura: 24:16
wrapping so fast? Did you have fun? Yeah, kind of sad. It's over. It's like
Matthew Santoro: 24:20
a really good movie that you're like, Is it
Audrie Segura: 24:22
over? Thank you so much for being a guest on the tag me podcast.
Matthew Santoro: 24:27
So excited to be here. Thank you.
Audrie Segura: 24:28
Thank you so much for being a guest on the Tag Me PodcastIf you want to follow Matt on social media his channels are linked for you in the episode notes!Thank you for listening to this episode of Tag Me. If you enjoyed it give us a shoutout on on IG @TagMePodcast. Let us know what you learned from the episode. Make sure to subscribe, so you are always up to date on Tag Me episodes. If you have feedback on the podcast, guest suggestions including topics, or you want to be a guest, visit us on IG @TagMePodcast and click the email button or slide in our DM. This podcast is for you, so please let us know how we can improve. We look forward to hearing from you and connecting with you on social. Don’t forget to to Tag Me!