Jeff Bullas

This is the core strategic decision every streamer has to make.

Short Answer: Niche streaming is objectively better for initial channel growth and discoverability, while variety streaming is a more sustainable long-term model for creator satisfaction, but it requires an audience loyal to your personality, not a game.

Let’s analyse how each approach impacts the video content you produce and the audience you attract.

Focussing on a niche, typically a single game, ties your brand directly to that specific video content category. This is a powerful growth strategy for two main reasons: first, it makes you highly discoverable to viewers actively searching for that game, and second, it builds a specialised community that shares a common interest. The significant risk, however, is that your audience becomes attached to the game’s content, not your content. If you decide to stream different video content, you will likely see a dramatic drop in viewership. Conversely, variety streaming positions your personality as the main content. The primary challenge here is a much slower growth trajectory because you are not consistently targeting a high-traffic category. The success of this model depends entirely on your ability to build a community around your unique audio commentary and on-screen presence. While harder to establish, a personality-driven audience is far more loyal and will follow you across any video content you choose to explore, offering much greater long-term flexibility and creative freedom.

Cheers,

Jeff

This is the exact problem that Meta’s own tools are designed to solve.

The Tool You Need: The all-in-one tool you’re looking for is the Meta Business Suite, which has replaced older tools like Creator Studio for this purpose.

It’s built to let you centrally manage all your content formats, from text-based messages to image posts and video Reels, across both platforms.

The most significant time-saver for you will be the unified inbox, which combines your Facebook Page messages, Instagram DMs, and all the comments on your posts into a single, manageable stream. From the content planner, you can create a single post with its image or video and choose to publish it to both your Facebook and Instagram feeds and Stories simultaneously, or schedule them in advance. Beyond that, it offers combined analytics so you can see how all your content is performing without needing to check two different apps. You can use it on a desktop browser or download the dedicated mobile app to replace the app-switching on your phone.

Cheers,

Jeff

Good thinking, that placement is prime real estate on your profile.

Short Answer: Use your Artist Pick to align with your current goal by choosing the right content format to feature. Pin new audio releases to drive streams, concert dates to sell tickets, or a curated playlist to showcase your brand.

Let’s align the different types of content you can pin with a clear marketing objective.

Your strategy for the Artist Pick should change based on your current campaign. For a new single or album, the clear choice is to feature that audio content for its first fourteen days to maximise discovery for anyone visiting your profile. If you are not in a release cycle, you can use the feature to promote other content formats, for example, you can pin your tour dates via the concerts feature or a specific piece of merchandise via the Shopify integration to drive sales. Another effective strategy is to add a layer of text and curation to your brand by creating and pinning a playlist of your own tracks mixed with songs that inspire you, giving your audience insight into your musical identity. The key is to keep the content fresh and relevant to what you want your listeners to do right now.

Cheers,

Jeff

A critical question. MPP has fundamentally changed how we must measure email engagement.

Short Answer: Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection impacts open rates by pre-loading all email images through a proxy server, which artificially inflates your open rate metric to nearly 100% for Apple Mail users. This makes the traditional open rate an unreliable measure of actual engagement for that segment of your audience.

The key is to accept that the open rate is no longer a reliable key performance indicator and to shift your focus to metrics that measure genuine user interaction.

Traditionally, an “open” is tracked by placing a tiny, invisible 1×1 pixel image in every email. When your email client loaded the images in the email, it would download that pixel, and your email platform would count that download as an open. Apple’s MPP disrupts this by automatically pre-loading all image content through their own proxy servers the moment the email arrives in the inbox, not when the user opens it. This means the tracking pixel is fired for every single email sent to an Apple Mail user with this feature enabled, regardless of whether they ever actually open or read it.

The result is that your open rate for this segment of your audience becomes a meaningless, artificially high number. It makes A/B testing text-based subject lines impossible and gives you a false sense of security about your campaign’s reach.

The strategic pivot is to stop treating the open rate as your primary metric for success. Instead, you must now focus on metrics that measure deliberate action. The most important metric is now your click-through rate. A user clicking a link on your text or images is an undeniable signal of genuine engagement that cannot be faked by a proxy server. Beyond clicks, you should focus on your ultimate business goals, like conversion rates, reply rates, and website traffic from email. The game is no longer about earning an open; it’s about creating content so valuable that it earns a click.

Cheers,
Jeff

Making this mental shift is a critical step for any serious creator.

Short Answer: Yes, absolutely. The moment your channel generates consistent income and you treat it with strategic intent, it has become a business, and you should begin to formalise your operations.

Adopting this business mindset fundamentally changes how you should approach your portfolio of content formats.

First and foremost, you should consult with a local accountant or financial advisor, as business registration and tax obligations differ significantly between countries. Once you’ve handled that, the biggest strategic change is in how you view your content. Firstly, your primary long-form video format is no longer just a creative project; it becomes a strategic asset designed to attract an audience and serve as the top of your marketing funnel. Secondly, a business-minded creator must expand beyond a single format by developing other assets, such as a newsletter, which is a text format for building a direct relationship with your audience away from the algorithm. Thirdly, you should consider creating new content formats to sell directly, such as digital products like an e-book or a premium video course, to diversify your revenue streams. Your YouTube channel becomes the marketing engine for a wider ecosystem of content formats that constitute your actual business.

Cheers,

Jeff

This is a crucial skill for maximising your content’s reach.

Short Answer: The key is to stop thinking about “trimming” and start thinking about “repackaging.” You must identify a single, high-impact moment and rebuild a new, self-contained short-form video around it using a strong hook and clear context.

Effectively translating your content between these two distinct video formats requires a dedicated editing approach focused on the new viewer’s experience.

A short-form video is not just a clip of a long-form one; it’s a completely new piece of content that must stand on its own. Firstly, when reviewing your long-form video, you must actively hunt for a single, punchy idea—a surprising statement, a concise tip, or a key emotional moment that doesn’t require extensive backstory. Secondly, once you have that core moment, you must craft a new hook for it, which often takes the text format of a bold, on-screen caption in the first three seconds to grab a viewer’s attention and provide immediate context. Thirdly, you need to transform the visual format of the clip to suit the fast pace of a feed by adding dynamic, animated captions for sound-off viewing and using techniques like zooms or quick cuts to maintain high energy. This process ensures you’re not just posting an out-of-context audio clip, but a complete, re-packaged video optimised for a short-form audience.

Cheers,

Jeff

This is an unfortunate but important process to understand.

Short Answer: The correct and most effective action is to submit a formal copyright takedown request through YouTube’s official webform. This is a legal declaration of ownership that obligates YouTube to act on your claim.

While the takedown process is reactive, you can also proactively embed certain elements into your content formats to discourage theft in the future.

Filing a copyright takedown notice is a legal action, so ensure you are the rightful owner of the content and fill out the form accurately and completely. Once submitted, the process is handled by YouTube. To make your work a less appealing target for theft going forward, you can modify your core content formats. Firstly, consider your visual format by incorporating a tasteful watermark or logo into your video, as this acts as a persistent brand identifier that is difficult for thieves to easily remove. Secondly, you can adjust your audio format by including a brief mention of your channel name in the voiceover, further embedding your ownership into the content itself. Finally, focus on your overall presentation format; by developing a unique editing style with consistent on-screen graphics and a strong personal brand, your content becomes intrinsically linked to you, making it much harder for someone to re-upload it without the theft being immediately obvious.

Cheers,

Jeff

It’s smart to differentiate your Stories strategy from your main channel.

Short Answer: The best strategy is to use Stories for informal, time-sensitive, and interactive content that complements your main channel, rather than duplicating it.

Let’s look at how specific content formats are uniquely suited for the ephemeral nature of Stories.

You should treat your main channel as your curated art gallery and your Stories as the live, behind-the-scenes tour. Firstly, **short-form video** is the premier format for Stories. Use it to post authentic, unpolished content like quick Q&As, a tour of your workspace, or a “day in the life” video that you wouldn’t put on your main feed. This raw video format builds a much stronger personal connection with your audience. Secondly, your **image-based content** should be geared towards immediate action. This is the perfect place for posting a visually engaging graphic announcing a 24-hour flash sale or a limited-time offer. You can also use stickers on a background image to run a quick, informal poll. Thirdly, **text-based Stories** should be used very sparingly. The format is fundamentally visual, so only use plain text for the quickest of announcements or to ask a simple question. Finally, a clever strategy is to use one content format to promote another. Post an intriguing teaser **image** in your Story with a link that directs your followers to a more detailed, long-form **text** post or video in your main channel, effectively using the Story as an advertisement for your permanent content.

Cheers,

Jeff