Hi, I'm Britney Saunders and welcome to Big Business, the place where business is far from boring. And today I'm recording on gaddigall Land. Now, I somehow managed to build an empire from the garage underneath my house and I'm here to share it all with you, from the winds,
the mistakes, the challenging times and the funny moments in between. So, whether you're in business yourself, perhaps you're not in the game at all, maybe you're just looking for some inspo, or you simply just want to hear the tea, this is the podcast for you. Coming up on today's episode, I'm going to be chatting about my return to YouTube and I can't believe I'm saying that.
It's something I've thought about over the years.
I obviously gave up making YouTube videos maybe four ish years ago when I really stepped into fate and made that my priority, and I have thought.
About it over the last four years.
And if you haven't been around long enough, I was a YouTuber back in the day and that was my full time job. And now I'm back and there's a few a few reasons why I'm back, and I'm absolutely loving it. But I'm also scared that I'm investing my time into the wrong thing. So I'm going to dive into all the details, all my thoughts while we're doing, what my fears are, and all the rest in this episode. So let's just get down to business. So I have
made a drastic marketing decision, which is returning to YouTube. Obviously, I started making YouTube videos when I was in high school as a hobby, and if you go back and you listen to my very first episode of this.
Pod, you can hear that story.
But just for a brief history, if I could sum it all up, I started making YouTube videos in high school, and I was doing that whilst I was at school, and then I also did it when I dropped out of school, and I was working all those jobs, and I'd make YouTube videos at night and on the weekends. And then when I was twenty one, I was working full time and I was earning just enough money off YouTube to get by. So when I was twenty one,
I threw in my full time job. I had eighty and YouTube subscribers, and then for the next three years after that, I hustled on that channel. I uploaded three to four videos a week and I built that channel from eighty thousand to a million subscribers. It took me three years to do it. And you know, I hit a million subscribers on my birthday. I don't remember how old I was. I think it was twenty seventeen, so however old I was then twenty four, I don't know, twenty five.
I hit it on my birthday and that was pretty cool.
And then I obviously launched Fate as well, like around the same time that I had that a million subscribers, and I tried to keep doing the YouTube channel, but obviously, as Fate my business started to grow, I kind of had to not prioritize the channel as much, and I just slowly started uploading less and less and less, and everyone's like, why are you not making videos anymore? It's like, bitch, I'm building an empire. And at one point there, I
quite simply just stopped making videos. I didn't even announce my departure, which is kind of rude of me because I'd been on YouTube for so long. But that kind of just fizzled out. And I feel like, as well, a lot of the og Australian YouTubers and influences, we all kind of like dropped off YouTube around the same time. It's like our era was at its end, and so the channel has just been sitting there just collecting dust. And I've floated the idea in the last four years.
So it's been about four years since I was active on there. I've definitely thought, oh my god, I wonder if I'll ever go back to YouTube kind of thing, and I'm like, nah, surely everyone's over that by now. And it was just something that was thrown around the office and April, who works with me, who I'm sure all of you know, like she's like, we need to
come back, we need to come back. And so we just kind of spoke about it last year and we said, we think this is going to be the next marketing move for us, is to put our time into some long form content. And we said, stuff it, January, let's get back into it. One video a week every Wednesday,
five pm. That's what we're committing to. And so we whipped up our first video in the first week back at work this year, and we launched ourselves into YouTube world again and we rebranded my old channel so it used to just be called like Britney Lee Saunders but now it's like Britney Saunterers. Fate the label and the channel is going to be obviously me and my life, but also showing more behind the scenes at Fate, because we already do that on socials. We obviously share, you know,
all things about our business. But I think the cool thing about YouTube is we can show more and it doesn't have to be you know, flashy quick content that's thirty seconds and then that's the end of the video. We can upload twenty minute videos, we can upload fifteen minute videos, we can upload thirty minute videos. And I guess I'm just making these videos for those that are interested.
I know we all have like no attention span these days, like we're so used to flicking every two seconds, and YouTube does kind of require your attention like a little bit more. But at the same time, I think it's nice to have something long to watch or something to even just like put on your phone and kind of s set it up and then like do your housework while you're kind of watching and listening to a YouTube video.
And I have been obsessed with the fact that I'm back on YouTube, like it's giving me so much nostalgia, Like uploading the video and putting in the thumbnail photo like it's just taking me back to my YouTube days, and I'm just so excited. And I guess the reason, well, I guess, like I said in the intro, like I do have some reservations around the fact that I don't know if I'm investing too much of my time and
energy into the wrong platform. Obviously I'm on Instagram and TikTok and everything, but I'm like thinking so much about the channel and the hard thing with YouTube as well, and for anyone out there that wants to get into YouTube, is it's hard enough to get views on Instagram and TikTok, it's so much harder to get views on YouTube, you know. And we'll upload a real to my Instagram or whatever. It might get one hundred thousand views, and you're like, oh,
that's pretty slay. But then you'll upload a YouTube video and it's getting six thousand views, and then it makes me think, fuck, is this worth it? You know, like because less people are seeing it and I'm spending more time on it, But I don't know, something's telling me that this is the right move for me to make
and that it is a platform worth investing. My time into and as much as you know, it's a creative outlet and I'm just doing it, you know, to show my life to people that want to watch a little bit.
More of me.
It's also it's completely a marketing strategy as well, Like it's just a calculated marketing strategy, and that's what it is because at the end of the day, by me sharing my life online, which I love doing, like I love sharing my thoughts, what I'm up to, showing people behind the scenes, it's essentially promoting my business at the end of the day as well. So it's just part
of our marketing strategy at FATE. I feel like it's quite iconic that I'm back, really, and I honestly think I don't know if it's going to happen, but I can see hopefully all the ogs of YouTube coming back, Like I would love to see that because I feel like YouTube is so much more wholesome than other social media platforms. But anyway, let's say, if I had to give five reasons why I'm back. Number one, it's a marketing strategy, and I feel like a scammer when I
say that, but it's a marketing strategy. It's another platform for us to promote our business to potential customers, because
that's what creating content is. Even though it's fun and we're you know, entertaining people, like, it's a marketing strategy that I'm back on YouTube, and I will be the first to admit that it's another way for me to showcase fate and in turn, I hope people will you know, build a closer relationship with me and the brand and maybe turn into customers, because at the end of the day, I'm a business person and I want to make sales
in my business. The second reason is because I think consumers are going to lean more towards longer form content in twenty twenty five. I think our brains are so exhausted from like the constant scrolling, Like even sometimes I'm laying in bed at night scrolling, like and I've watched like a thousand videos in five minutes, and I can just see longer form content, you know, becoming more popular, and audience is not feeling like they have to scroll
every two seconds. Instead they can chuck on a you know, fifteen minute video and.
Watch the whole way through. Number three.
Another reason why I've come back to YouTube, I think it's gonna potentially open other opportunities for me down the track. What that might be, I don't know, but who knows. Like Netflix might hit us up and want to do like a documentary on us, though probably not, but I feel like it's going to open other opportunities down the track. Number four, I would say, if you take out all the strategical reasons why I'm back on YouTube, the marketing and everything, I think it's a fun and creative outlet,
something fun for me to do. I love a project, as we all know, and people said, don't you have enough going on, like how are you having the time for this? But I think it's a really like selfishly fun outlet to have and a fun platform to be on. And number five, it's going to generate me money through YouTube ad sense, so yeah, I might get a few more fate sales if people are watching and loving the channel. But also I got to sign up as a YouTube
partner again, which was really funny. So when you're on YouTube and once you hit a certain amount of views and videos, anyone can apply to be a YouTube partner and then you start getting paid money from the ads that run before after in the middle kind of thing like we all know that. And I was a YouTube partner obviously for years when I was youtubing, and you get paid once a month kind of thing into your PayPal.
I'm not sure if it's still the same now, but because I'd been not active on my channel for so long, I had to reapply. So I reapplied again and I got approved, and I was just honestly curious to see. I wonder how much money I'm going to make from this YouTube channel. Like obviously the channel's really dead. I'm not getting hundreds of thousands of views like i I used to because I haven't touched it for four years.
But I was genuinely curious to become a YouTube partner again and see what it pays and the way that it works and the way that you get paid for the ads.
Like it's it's kind of like a bit of a stock market.
And so every day I think it's a CPM, and it's a set amount that you get paid for every one thousand views.
And I remember back in the day, like.
Some days your CPM would be twenty cents for every one thousand views, and some days it'll be ten dollars for every one thousand views, and it all depends on whose ads are running and how much that business is paying YouTube and Google like it's it's like a stock market.
It's honestly confusing.
But I was like, I'm absolutely turning on that monetization, you know, applying to be a partner and running the ads on my videos, but I'm not doing it to line my own pockets. And what I want to do with the money that I earned from YouTube is cool stuff. And I've been speaking about this on my Instagram story. I want to be really transparent with my audience about
how much I am generating from the YouTube videos. And honestly, when we launched our first video in like the second week of January this year, I thought it was going to be not very much because I haven't done it for so long. I don't know what it's like these days. I thought, maybe, like I don't know, I can work up to get like one hundred dollars a month or
something from all the ads that have been playing. And to my surprise, and I don't know if they're just like teasing me because I'm just back and they want me to think it's like going to be really good, but to my surprise. My earnings are way higher than I thought. And by this point, I don't know how many videos we've got out there, like four or five or something, and we've been on YouTube for three weeks
and we've made twelve hundred dollars in three weeks. Like I was expecting it to be, you know, twenty cents here and then twenty bucks one day, but we've made twelve hundred dollars in the first three weeks of being on the channel. And I guess the cool thing is with YouTube, the more videos you make, the more ads run, and if people are watching like overtime, like that, money's going to kind of accumulate and maybe grow, and hopefully
if the channel grows, then that revenue will increase. And I've decided what I want to do because I'm not making these YouTube videos to like make money off the ad cent for my ad cents for my own personal gain.
But what I want to do is I want to.
Come up with a bit of a strategy with what I'm going to do with the money, and I want to do different stuff with the money all the time. And we just said, let's just launch this channel, see what we make from the ads and then come up with a plan kind of thing.
So again, we haven't worked it out in.
Full, but you know, maybe once a month or once a quarter, or once we hit two thousand dollars, Like, we haven't worked it out, but we want to do cool stuff with this money, and we want to mix it up every single time. But essentially, every dollar that I earn from this channel, I don't want to take any of it. I want to do cool things with it, whether it's donations, giveaways. AJ's like, what if you get heaps, then you can do like a massive party and invite everyone.
I'm like, oh, fucking do that. If we get enough money from it, why not?
Why not? I want to use the money for good, the fake fun exactly right.
And I spoke about this on my Instagram story and someone's like, no, like you should just take it, like you know you're putting in all this effort. But I'm like, honestly, this is just like fun and marketing for me. I wasn't expecting the money to be a whole lot, So that's it was never my objective to go into like I want to make money out of this, you know, I want to do cool stuff with the money, and I've been posting on my Instagram like every week what
the earnings are at kind of thing. So I'm due to do an update because everyone's going to be shocked. And it's in US dollars as well, so I think it's it's twelve hundred Australian, so it's like eight hundred US or whatever.
But I'm really surprised by that.
Honestly, I thought it was just going to be like twenty bucks the first month and thirty bucks a second.
But it's a twelve hundred bucks in less than a month. So I'm keen to see where it goes.
And I'm keen to see if I can grow the channel enough that it has like a large amount of revenue, because then I we'll be able to do cool things, you know, for my community, for our fake community, for local charities are not local charities, for bigger charities, and I'm just excited to do that.
Hello everyone, it is Producers and hello.
Oh wait, Sander, I've got a question for you, or I think it was something that you said to me ages ago. Didn't you want to be a YouTuber back in the day?
Oh my god, I did? I feel like I had I have a channel. I've hidden all the videos though.
Were you were like a teenager?
No, I was in my twenties.
I feel like everyone wanted to be a YouTuber back in the day.
Yeah, No, I made a considerable amount of.
Videos and what kind of videos.
Well, back in the day, I didn't quite understand like I kind of wanted to be like other YouTubers. So looking back, I wasn't quite like leaning into what made me like unique.
But I think that's what we all did back then.
Because another thing I thought I would add, I had like eight hundred videos on my YouTube channel. Yeah, and just recently, like since we decided we are coming back, because it's now like Fate and me, we I've gone in private every single video except for the ones where I talked about Fate. So the only videos on there now are like the Fate ones from seven years ago when I was starting Fate. But I've been going through and like unprivating some old ones or I've been using
snippets in my videos. And like, one thing that I noticed back in the youtubing days is we all acted a certain way.
Yeah, we did.
It wasn't like I think I was always being myself.
I was obviously also really young, but it was such like a YouTube persona and watching my old videos like, hey, guys, welcome back to my channel. In today's video, we're going to talk about like it was really robotic.
You feel like every time the camera was on, you'd have to turn it on.
Yeah, you'd have to act.
And I think that's part of the reason why I stopped, was because I was like, I just don't feel natural doing it.
Yes, it wasn't natural.
It was very like YouTuber, like we spoke a certain way. And I've been watching some of my old videos that are hidden and I cringe, But that's what that.
That was cool back then.
It was and people love watching that back then, and everyone was younger back then.
I started like doing some because I was touring as a dancer still, so I was overseas all the time, so I started to like vlog sometimes. And then I remember moving to Spain to do a gig for a few months and I did a whole video on my plane right there, and that was like, I think that was a video that got like the best views.
So now I got close to like ten kvws.
Or something like that. But I was stoked. I was like, oh my god, I've made it. And then not long after that, I was like, cave be bobb it.
I remember when I first started so like the channel that I had and the one that I'm on now that got to a million subscribers.
That wasn't my first YouTube channel.
I had one before that in high school, and I remember uploading my first few videos and getting like one hundred and fifty four views and two hundred and twenty nine views, like, and I thought that was amazing. And then I would get to one thousand views and I was like, holy shit. And people would maybe look at that and think it's not that great, but like a thousand people watching something that you've done is pretty impressive.
Like a Facebook page of myself everything, Yeah, I know.
That's what we did back in the day.
You would have your YouTube account and then you and make sure you come and like my Facebook page, and like Facebook was so in as a social media platform, and.
You'd set up your end cards on your YouTube yeah videos, and you could click the face.
Explience yeah, and you could be like watch my next video, and then you'd put your video in there, because that's still on all my old videos.
But there's no like nothing on there.
Yeah, since returning to YouTube, have fans that used to follow you in YouTube who maybe haven't followed your journey kind of been like, oh my god, like what are you doing back? I can't believe actual change, Like what's been the reception.
The reception has been surprisingly positive. I think one of the fears starting YouTube again was that no one was going to care. Yeah, that was my fear, like no one's going to care, like they just want to see me on Instagram and TikTok now, like no one can be bothered to go and watch YouTube. And that was with the first video that we came back with. It got like five or six hundred comments and everyone was
just so excited to see me back. And that was really nice because I think that was one of my fears, is no one's going to give a shit yet I'm on YouTube again.
So it was really nice to see. And there there has been quite.
A lot of comments, people saying like, oh my goodness, like I used to watch you, you know, back in the day, because you just kind of say subscribe to everyone, like you don't really unsubscribe on YouTube.
Well I am now because now videos are popping up from Creators years ago.
I'm like, oh, I don't want to watch them anymore.
Yeah, like I'm my channels.
I don't know who much channel is subscribed to, but there has been a lot of comments of people being like I'm so glad to see you back, and like they haven't been following me elsewhere kind of thing. Yeah, so that must be really weird to be like, wow, this YouTube is back, but.
You have changed a lot, like significantly, Like you've done a video recently, I think where you were reacting to your old videos and just your demeanor, like how you look as well, because we all get older, yeah, but just.
Like you're entire you just look so much more sure of yourself.
Yeah, And I think it's been really cool because, yeah, I did a video reacting to an old Q and A that I did when I was nineteen, and I think it's really cool to be able to look back on that because even when I was nineteen, like I was living in Brisbane at the time, I was working full time.
I felt like I had my life together.
But then when you actually watch back a video of yourself from when you're nineteen, you're like, oh my god, I was a baby and I had no idea what I was doing.
But you think that you're grown in that time.
And I remember back in the YouTube days, like cause I was making videos of my life for years, like people wuld always say like you're changing or you've changed, and it was like a negative thing, like people would say, not just to me, but to other YouTubers, like you've changed. I missed the old Brittany, like you know, and we were so young, and of course we're changing, but it was kind of seen as a bad thing if you
would change your ways or grow. But now, like being thirty one, like I love being able to look back on how much I've grown and changed, like you're going from literally being a kid into a woman, like a full blown adult. And I think it's so cool as cringe as it is for me to watch my old videos, like I think we'd all cringe at ourselves ten years ago, I think it's really cool to be able to look back on and go, wow, like, look how far like
I've come. And the fact that I've got like video evidence of that is something that I'm gonna cherish forever.
Yeah, in terms of business and fate, have you seen like an increase in sales.
Have you seen an increase in traffic?
I wouldn't be able to look at it that closely. I probably need to set up some custom links in my descriptions of your videos, because I haven't have just linked the channel, but you can set up like custom links so.
That you see the click throughs how many people have clicked.
But I wouldn't say that I've seen like a crazy increase in anything like.
It's just business as usual for us. And I don't know if you'd ever be able to see like.
An extreme increase, like unless my YouTube channel went absolutely viral.
But I don't think. I don't know if like.
Virality is a thing on YouTube these days, because I feel like you're TikTok and everything's where you go.
There's too many other platforms now where, oh my god, where viralrality.
I can't say.
That virality virality, virality is that even how you say it.
I don't know, but I think I might just be making up.
A word there.
But I'm definitely not on YouTube to like try and go viral or whatever. It's more just like the wholesome vibes for anyone that wants to kind of like see a bit more of my world and fate and my life kind of thing. It's like a little corner of the Internet.
Yeah, And are you going to be any are you going to be doing any sort of like tutorials for people who are in business on that channel to kind of like I know, we do we pass on knowledge in this podcast obviously, but sometimes pairing that visual with some of that knowledge is really helpful for people. Is that something you'd be interested in doing on the channel.
Yeah, I'm interested in doing anything on the channel.
Like we're putting out one video a week at the moment, and then I've done two bonus videos as.
Well in that time.
And I even did a bonus Like the first bonus video that I did, I was away in Brisbane for the weekend and I just did like a twenty minute video of me doing my makeup. Yeah, and I didn't edit it, like, I just posted the whole thing and everyone loved that as well. So I'm definitely open to experimenting with the channel and just kind of mixing it up every week, doing all sorts of stuff and just seeing what people respond to and seem.
To like the best.
So I'm definitely keen to do some business videos on.
YouTube as well. I don't know with YouTube.
If you can go like more broad than you would on TikTok and Instagram, because I find that TikTok and Instagram really favor similar styles of content if you go to like a vlog and then this and then that, like if the algorithm doesn't love it.
But maybe on a YouTube channel you can.
Be more broad and jump from one theme to another, from vlog to business and everything in between. But I'm definitely open to just like seeing how it goes. Like that was the whole thing with this YouTube channel is we said at the start of the year, yep, we're gonna do a video every Wednesday, five o'clock, we told everyone, And I'm like, we're just gonna do it for a while and see how it goes.
So that's souzy.
Give it a go, yeah, give it a go, Like we have no I had no expectations with it. I did say like, hopefully we'll get ten thousand views on each video because that kind of makes it worth it because it is longer to edit a long video as opposed to a real or a TikTok. And we've been like super happy with the views, but we don't. We don't have any other expectations and we just want people to enjoy it.
If do you have any advice for people who have businesses and want to utilize YouTube to help their business, what would you be your advice or your tips for people?
I would say, don't start on YouTube. I think TikTok would be the number one platform I would start on if I wasn't active on socialis as a business owner, because I feel like it's a lot easier to have a video blow up. I would almost say focus on building your TikTok and Instagram, start fostering audiences on those, and then if you build a community around you and people love tuning into what you're doing on TikTok and stuff, then go over to YouTube.
Would you utilize shorts on YouTube with that same content?
I've tried so.
I've posted a couple of my podcast videos to my YouTube shorts. And for those of you that don't know, it's like YouTube has their own TikTok, like they're trying to be like TikTok, like where.
You might have zero interesting I've never.
Watched YouTube shorts, but it's literally just like vertical short videos up to three minutes, I think, and so I don't know a thing about it either. So I chucked a couple of my podcast videos on there, and they've gotten like five hundred views.
Eight hundred views. I don't quite get.
It compared to sometimes we get like five hundred thousand on Yes.
So I'm just I'm going to again, I'm just gonna try. I'm going to chuck more of the shorts onto YouTube as well. But I'd say that YouTube is definitely the hardest, especially now, it's the hardest platform to grow on.
It's the hardest platform to get.
Views on because it's not really like an Explore page or like a TikTok for you page. But I'd say build your audiences on the TikTok and Instagram platforms, and then if you do get a community that you know loves you and wants to see more of you, that's when I then go and start a YouTube channel. But be prepared for it to be drastically different to Instagram and TikTok. It's so much harder to get views on YouTube. It's really for your community. So that's my little uh
back to YouTube pod. I thought it's also a good, good opportunity for me here to flog it on the pod. Come and check out my YouTube channel if you haven't seen my return, it's always linked in my bio and we're doing a lot of cool stuff this year as well. So I'm gonna love being able to document things just
in longer form on YouTube. I find it really hard sometimes with TikTok and Instagram being able to like fit everything that I want into a short video that is vertical, Like I just feel like YouTube you can show so much more in depth and in detail. So I'm super
excited to be back. Who knows how long we're going to keep it up for, maybe it'll become permanent and forever, or maybe in six months we'll go, shit, this isn't worth our effort anymore, Like we're just giving it a go, as you said, Xander, And I'm just really excited to be back. And if you have watched any of my YouTube videos since I've been.
Back, thank you so much.
Love being here and I'm genuinely so excited to be vlogging again and just sharing more of my life in longer form.
So shout out to YouTube.
Love you, And what do I say at the end of the pot's like, I've got to do a tip of the week, give it a go. I feel like my Tips of the weeks have been so bad lately because we give so many tips in every episode and by the time we get to the tip of the week, maybe we can mix it up and do something different.
I do enjoy the tip like give it a go as a great tip.
Give it a go.
I don't know who's going to be out in that world thinking about doing something and they've heard your tip saying give it a go, and they just go, yeah, fuck it.
And this is a full circle thing for me as well, because I gave it a go back in high school when I discovered YouTube.
This is how my entire career started.
The reason why I'm sitting in this podcast studio today, the reason why I have faith, the reason why we're doing everything that we're doing, is because I gave it a go when I discovered YouTube in high school. That is literally the reason why I'm doing everything that I'm doing today, and that says a lot in itself, I think, so give it a go. As always, Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I will be back later in the week with my bonus episode, you can
catch me everywhere. All the links are in the show notes, or you can tap the link in my bio if you want to check out my YouTube channel, and remember to chase after your dreams as if they owe you money.