Produced By - Mapping Success: The Journey of a Geography YouTube Channel | #72: Gil from General Knowledge

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

Gil is the creator behind the YouTube channel General Knowledge, which he started in 2017 from his home in Lisbon, Portugal. Focused on geography, his channel offers videos on topics like flags, countries, and maps, all inspired by his longstanding interest in the subject, which began through gaming. Over the years, Gil has built a loyal audience who appreciates his clear and engaging approach to complex topics. In this episode, we explore what goes into running his channel, including how he chooses topics, manages monetisation, and handles viewer comments. We also delve into his travel experiences, future plans, and what it's like to navigate the world of full-time content creation. General Knowledge: https://www.youtube.com/@General.Knowledge https://www.patreon.com/generalknowledge https://x.com/GKonYoutube https://discord.com/invite/f4neAVWZfF https://www.instagram.com/genknowledge https://www.tiktok.com/@generalknowledgeyoutube Connect with Tommen: LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠  Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠  X: ⁠https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠  Podcast: Links: ⁠https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠  Website: ⁠https://produced-by-podcast.com/⁠  Support: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/ProducedByPodcast⁠  Produced (email newsletter): ⁠⁠https://produced.beehiiv.com/⁠ More: Trailblazed (marketing agency): ⁠https://trailblazed.digital/⁠  My SkillShare Course: ⁠https://skl.sh/3Rh7ZtY⁠  Produced (LinkedIn newsletter): ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7092551882589528065⁠⁠  Produced By with Tommen is your weekly dose of inspiration where ambition meets creativity. Join us as we dive into the journeys of content creators, entrepreneurs, and other remarkable individuals who break barriers and redefine success. Each episode shares unique stories, challenges, and triumphs. From heartfelt struggles to incredible successes, these conversations will motivate you to push beyond your limits and chase your own dreams. Whether you're on a creative path or just love great stories, tune in and become part of a community that constantly strives to push the boundaries. Sit back, relax and enjoy. Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Choosing specific topics is very important and choosing niche topics is also important. I think this was what helped the channel grow at first was I made videos about flags and then I shared them to the subreddits. I'm banned from like 15 different subreddits. I don't like YouTube videos being heard, but... I was about to ask me because I feel like it always says no promotion allowed. Yeah. I think maybe at the time they were more lenient and, you know, Reddit moderators are a specific type of people that, aren't very friendly.

But yeah, I think it's important to know where your desired audience is and trying to find a way to get your content to get to them. And so making the niche topic and then finding the audience that will find that niche interesting, I think that's very important to succeed. Having a regular upload basis is also important. And I think the algorithm rewards you a little bit for it. So it doesn't have to be every day or every week. It can be every month.

Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys. Thank you. Hello, Gil. Thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having it. So, Gil, can you please introduce yourself? Sure.

My name is Gil. I'm from Lisbon in Portugal. And I have a YouTube channel called General Knowledge where I make videos about history, geography, flags, I guess anything that's connected to that. And is geography actually something that you've been always interested in? Or what is it actually that you studied before? I didn't study anything that was too connected to either history or geography, you know, other than the basic like high school classes that you have in those areas.

But then in my university, I studied communications and then I studied public policies. I had some subjects that were connected to history, but they were usually optional subjects that you got to choose just among a catalog of whatever you wanted. And I ended up going towards what I found more interesting. But it's always been something that I found, I don't know, interesting topic, both geography and history. I would say it actually started more with history. And I don't know, it's a little difficult to pinpoint what exactly the game first, but I associate my interest with history a lot with the type of computer games that I played as a kid, but I sometimes still play now. So those types of grand strategy games,

usually done by paradox. So sort of like, I don't know if you know them, but like Hearts of Iron, Victoria. I'm not much into games, but we can name some, maybe some listeners know. Maybe, yeah. If they're into geography, I think there's a little bit of an overlapping circle. They are essentially like history and geopolitics games, but the fact that you play visualizing a world map, I think connects history and geography, and so ended up developing. Do you still play these games? Yeah, I played Victoria 2 yesterday, yeah. So then you said that you studied something different at university. What was back then your idea of the job that you would want to do once you finish?

Did you know? I didn't really know. I started my YouTube channel while I was doing my bachelor's. And before that, I didn't really have a path that I wanted to follow. I had interest in a few things and communications was one of them. It wasn't actually the one that I had chosen to begin with. I tried to do international relations and political science, but I couldn't get in to the one that I wanted.

And so there's sort of like a plan B that I went to. I liked it. I learned interesting things. We had sort of like a theoretical communication thing component of it that I didn't find particularly interesting where we studied stuff like semiotics and stuff that after five years, I still can't really tell you what it is. So I think it was because I wasn't too interested in it. But then it also had a, I guess, media components.

We studied a little bit of video production. media training, interviews. So overall, I liked it. And I met a lot of cool people that are still my friends today. So I don't regret pursuing it. But yeah. And then once you finished, were you already working full time on your YouTube channel?

Or what kind of work did you do? Yeah, I was when I finished my bachelor's. And then I went out to do my master's. I was still working on it. I did, yeah, I had a little bit of other professional experience. I did an internship when I was in my, master's then I went to work in a communications department doing stuff like social media management and graphic design video production that I just creating content for the organization to publish

and then I left to focus on YouTube yeah so it's actually YouTube providing you with enough income so that you can work on it full-time yeah so far yeah oh it's very because because you never know what amount of views you're going to get and how much money you're actually going to make of it. But yeah, so far it's been possible to do that. So did you know when you are finishing your education that that is something that you're going to do full time once you finish? Yeah. I think by then it was at a level that allowed me to do that already. Oh, wow.

That's pretty cool, you know, because I feel like that's a period when people stress because you need to start your career, find a job, go for interviews and stuff like that. But for it, it was probably more chilled and actually do what you enjoy. So sounds great. Yeah, it definitely helped the, I guess, transition. I also, you know, I had the luck that I was able to stay at my parents' house and go on to do the master. So I didn't have the rush to find a job immediately. So, yeah, I think that privilege helped.

Yeah. And in the first place, why did you, of course, you were interested in it, but why did you decide to start, YouTube channel. I don't know. I've always liked YouTube. I've watched YouTube since I was a kid. I used to watch the Yox cast a lot. I don't know if you know who they are. They do like gaming videos and they used to play Minecraft. And I was fascinated with them when I was a kid and other YouTube channels that I just watched all the time. And I always wanted to do it. I felt like I could do it. And yeah, decided to try it out. I had a couple other other channels. channels before this one where I don't know I tried one that it was a gaming one I tried one that

I don't even know what it was about it was just talking about random things that I found interesting yeah and those didn't work out no but I also didn't really know what I was doing I think I was too young when I did them there wasn't really any production value or quality to them now that I look back on it so and I feel like that when you are about to start something like this. Obviously you're putting your face out there. People are going to judge you. Did you feel anything like this when you are starting out? Like any kind of resistance or any obstacles to start? No, I don't think so. You always get a lot of comments that are more negative. I've learned to phase them out a little. But at the start, I definitely

paid more attention to them. Either people that are, I don't know, they're insulting the way you speak or saying I mispronounced 15 different words in the video. I got this specific detail wrong. It must be especially challenging if you are speaking about obviously foreign countries, names, places and stuff like that. So it's impossible. Especially when you touch on something that is a little sensitive for whatever reason, you know,

in a video that I mentioned Serbia or Kosovo, you get both sides angry if I say something that doesn't align exactly with what I also, you know, this is a little more rare now, but I used to get a lot of comments that were angry that I either actually made some mistake or that I made a mistake in their eyes, even though it wasn't a mistake. Yeah. And I found it surprising and a little shocking that some people were so outraged, like how can you do this? You should delete this video.

And I felt sometimes they fail to understand that I'm like, I'm just a guy that's making videos, right? I'm not a reputable media organization or an academic source. This isn't supposed to be taken as fact by everyone. So I think people sometimes are a little serious with their response, and it takes a little while to get used to that. Yeah, I agree. And it seems like people don't understand how much work there is behind such a video. So if they just delete it or redo it or something,

they don't see that you spend, I don't know, hours doing it, researching, preparing everything. So I understand. It must be crazy. exactly and do you then still look at the comments or if you look at them how do you then select what to focus on you know don't take it personally yeah i look at them what i usually do is i upload the video and then on the day that i upload after like four hours i go in the video so i can check what the performance is doing and get disappointed that it's not doing well

which ends up happening most times and then i yeah i go through the comments up to that moment and I reply to a few. I like a few where like pin them. And then, you know, if they're negative in a constructive way, I usually reply to them to try to understand. So I don't know. I remember one time a couple weeks ago, somebody commented saying the background music was really irritating. And so I asked which one, because there were a bunch of them throughout the video, and explained why I use it because I think it's more, it has a little more. I don't know, rhythm or like, it's a little more dynamic if you have something going on in the background.

But in those cases, I try to understand. And if somebody corrects me and I go and verify that it's correct, I usually pin it and say, thank you for the correction. But I also go through them initially and sort of remove the most, like if somebody's really insulting or somebody's, you know, racist or something, I just remove them. How often does that happen that people have, I know, insults or inappropriate comments? Do you see that? Often? No, I wouldn't say super often. YouTube tends to filter it automatically, so sometimes I don't even get to see them. I don't know. I did a video a little while back. It was this extra

upload that I did in collaboration with this newsletter, the European correspondent, and it was focused on China and China's influence in Europe. And a lot of people were mad, even though in the video I acknowledged that's, you know, because the video is kind of positioned as this being a bad thing. But I make a little bit of a disclaimer that it might not be as bad as we think, and we're just predisposed to thinking that. We take in US influence very eagerly. We try to influence other parts of the world ourselves, and we don't see that as wrong. Then when it's China, we think it's bad. But I got so many comments pointing this out, and I got so many comments so angry about the topic that, I don't know, making ridiculous claims. I was telling somebody else

about this the other day. One of them said that I was being paid by Nancy Pelosi, the US Congresswoman to make this video. It ends up in conspiracy theories. Yeah, a little bit. So when those happen, I tend to remove them or at least hide them. Yeah, but I'm sure that you also receive a lot of positive comments and nice feedback, right? Yeah, I would say the vast majority is positive or neutral, you know, just comment. on whatever topic is being covered. And for people maybe who are not familiar with your channel,

how long have you been on YouTube with this specific channel? I started in 2017, but I uploaded very sporadically. And then I think I started the weekly upload system in 2018. So, yeah, it's going to be almost six, seven years now. Wow. Yeah, and you've been uploading every week? Yeah. I don't think I've missed.

a single week in those years. Even when I was sick or something else happened, I just, you know, either did it in advance or something, I don't know, find out a solution. There's been, so I had always the fixed Friday upload throughout the years. There's been a little. Now I've changed a little as well. I've started to do it on Thursday sometimes. But yeah.

Yeah, it feels like something is wrong. Yeah. Because you are used to it and then it pops out, it's like, is this mistake or what is this? I decided to try it because. it was also related to getting less views and I went and did a little research and I took seven channels that work in this area of geography or history and I found that only one of them is uploading on Fridays which is Johnny Harris and he has a all the other ones were doing Thursday, Wednesday, some of them Tuesday and Monday.

And so, you know, I started thinking about this and then I had a sponsor which was last week's sponsor that had a request that I didn't upload on a Friday or Saturday because they thought that those days perform worse overall. And so I've started considering if maybe that is a factor that's contributing to getting less views. I don't know. Maybe before uploading on Friday worked and now it's not as ideal. So I'm just trying it out and see.

Have you seen any results so far? Maybe it's too early to say, but do you see if it performs better? Yeah, I haven't seen any difference so far. I think the, you know, last week the video did okay, but I think it was connected to the topic. The week before, it didn't do as good, but I think it was also connected to the topic. It might be a little too early to tell. I'm going to try to stick with it a little more and see. I think it won't do any harm, probably.

So it remains to be seen if it's actually helping. Yeah. And your videos are purely animation, which is not sure if I should say, probably not but why did you actually decide in the first place for animation and this type of animation because I think that yours is quite unique like to your own style so why this one? I needed some like a way to do it. I've done a few videos where I didn't use the typical like whiteboard explainer method and now I'm able to do it and I'm able to know enough about the video editing software to be able to do it.

But when I started, I didn't. And so this was kind of an easier way to do it. And I also, I guess, was inspired. I just straight out copied this other channel that I watched, which is called Practical Psychology. And he does similar videos or did, I don't think he does anymore, but not related at all with history or geography. And I thought it was a cool way of explaining

and sort of providing a visual element to whatever it is that I wanted to talk about and so I ended up going with that. Yeah. So it might be another spoiler alert that you don't actually draw it by your hand by itself. Yeah, it's a software. Sometimes I make the illustrations and then it allows you to import them if you save it as a vector image file. And then it is able to trace it with the hand in the software. So yeah, it's never my hand, but sometimes it's my job.

Yeah, it's sometimes funny when you read the command. Maybe not your video, but other videos that are in a similar style. And some people are wondering, oh, you draw so beautifully, how do you do that? There is another channel that it does history and it uses the exact same. I don't remember what it's called now, but it uses the exact same software too. And sorry, can you say what software it is? It's video scribe. Okay, I will have a look as well.

I've been curious too, because it's just interesting and I like it. And so then when you started, why didn't you? put your face out there, why, you know, animation? Was that just easier? Yeah, it was easier. I think you were a little less exposed to what you said, you know, the comments. I think they affected me more at the start. So if I had shown my face, it would have probably affected me more in that aspect as well.

Doing it now, I don't think it will matter as much. And also for, you know, filming requires a camera. It has to be a piece of camera. So it was an extra expense that I just couldn't afford. Totally understand, yeah. And it's less hustle with everything. Yeah. And you mentioned before already a few other geography channels.

For example, Johnny, I love his content as well. But when it comes to other channels, can you name some that are your inspiration or competition or just other channels that you follow? Yeah. I really like ghost countries, which is they started more recently and they do really cool videos. I watch a lot of geography by Jeff. He focuses more on US stuff usually. He's done a few other things about other parts of the world, but it's really cool to get more of a local insight into a specific country. I watch a lot of, yeah, a lot of Johnny Harris, of course. I watch their,

his other channel that they started now. I don't understand exactly what the connection is, but I think he owns the channel and then another guy does it. It's called. Isn't it a bright trip? Yeah, he also has that one, but he started one called Search Party. Oh, is it with orange logo? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I like it too. It's very good.

And then, I don't know, I would say those are the ones that I follow most. Yep. Like video after video. And then there's ones that I go to if a specific topic was covered, like Nalegia, Caspian Report. Quirskis Act is really good in a nutshell. Oh yeah. It's a beautiful animation. Yeah.

I think they're really like a step above every other channel because it's just a full production. It's like the full house of so many people and big production with everything. Yeah. I saw a video about them. I think it was a short the other day where they listed their team sort of like a credits sequence. Yeah. So many people. They have so many departments.

really like a feature film yeah it is it's like a full on production company and actually something I've been

wondered about many times how do you come up with topics for videos I think it helps a lot

that I'm interested in it and so it's something that sometimes comes a little naturally with other type of content that I

consume you know either I don't know TV shows movies books just stuff that I see on Reddit or Instagram

when I'm scrolling or TikTok, I ended up, either I find something that somebody is covering and I think there would be a different way to cover it or to go into more detail. And I take the idea from that or I connect some other topic with whatever they talked about and think that would be a good idea. Yeah. And then also, you know, once you get one topic that works, you are able to get a good amount of variations out of it.

I did the origin of European country names and that sort of opens the door. doing that for every country's regions, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, when you get one idea, you can also always, or at least usually, multiply it into other ones. And how much research is there behind such a video? I assume that it differs based on the topic, but can you say ranges or averages? Yeah, it definitely varies.

I would say the amount of time that it takes to make each video also varies, depending on the topic. Sometimes you can get a video done in like one day and a half, two days of work, and sometimes it's over a week. I would say the research components is usually between, I don't know, to give you a range, I would say like between half a day and two days. Yeah. And can you remember video that maybe was very hard to research for some reason or challenging to make? There was, when I did the Japanese prefecture names, it was a little challenging because

there is, you know, there's obviously the list of prefecture names and then there's a translation. But as I researched and I try to find multiple sources, I ended up finding that in most cases the translation that was on Wikipedia for instance wasn't entirely correct. And then it's so different because it's a completely different language and sometimes a literal translation doesn't translate what the original meaning was. So that one was a little tricky because I had to check in a bunch of places and cross-reference to try and figure out what it exactly meant in the original and try to translate it, not directly translating the terms.

And then you get angry audience in the comments. Exactly, because it's still not exactly right. But you reminded me with not correct information on Wikipedia. I'm not sure if you heard of it or if you are aware of it, but there was a photo of Vatican flag on Wikipedia that wasn't correct it was wrong I don't know someone uploaded that and people thought that it was correct so it was actually

being used in I don't know official buildings or textbooks and stuff like that and then after a few years someone realized it was actually a wrong one but people were already using that so it was so funny I think I remember this I know I might be wrong here but I think it was even used for the

emoji flags oh yeah it's possible yeah Yeah, which is hard to believe that something like that happened. And just discussing the specific videos that you've done, is there a video that for some reason you enjoyed? Maybe it was very interesting or engaging topic? Yeah, I think the one that I did about, it was more recently about the two Florida's.

I think it was really interesting. The reason why is that, you know, when you look at the map now, at least for me, you tend to have a sense of permanence when you look at things. you look at let's say Florida for instance the state and think of course that's Florida those are its borders its limits it makes sense that it is there and then all you need to go is go back a few decades at most a few hundred years and it looked completely different it was split in half it was bigger and I don't know I think it provided me with that perspective that the borders are so viewed as permanent but they're so manmade and could be very easily changed yeah yeah

I remember when you did a video, for example, something about each specific state in the US. I was impressed that, you know, you need to get information about 50 states and be correct about all of those. So it's like, oh my God, this needs to take so much time. So that's always something that I'm impressed by. Nice. Those are definitely, I think those are the most, I don't know if they take the longest, but they're the most exhausting to do. the ones where I list something in all 50 states or if I do it in each European country, I had a video scheduled and I postponed it because there would be so much work,

which would be to take a look at the figure that is usually associated as the founding father of each European country. And just the idea of going through like, I think it's 48 countries in Europe and go one by one, it's both in the writing and in the editing process. It's very exhausting to do. Yeah, and especially if there are videos, for example, about each European country, of course, I'm always excited to hear about my country. So then it must be tough or challenging to do it correctly for each country, because imagine there is a person like me for each country who is excited about that one.

And if you say something wrong or something negative, I'm going to be upset, obviously. Yeah, exactly. And then it's a difficult position because I think they're always going to, going to know more than I do, you know, being a native person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always a difficult position to be in to be criticized by somebody that's, of course, going to know more about you. Are you looking to elevate your online presents?

Check out Trailblazed, our digital marketing agency. Whether it's standing out on social media, crafting a stunning new website or developing impact for visuals, Trailblaest has got your back. Visit Trailbased.orgia and reach your online potentials a day. And as you are uploading on YouTube, are you actually active on any other social media channels as well? Not really. I have connected to the channel, a Twitter account, Instagram and TikTok. I have posted some clips of videos on TikTok and Instagram, but not really on a frequent basis.

I think I will start doing that more. I think it's a way of getting, sort of gathering audience from other places and then maybe being able to redirect them to YouTube. So I want to do it. It's just really, it's difficult to have time to manage everything. Yeah, yeah. And when it comes to YouTube shorts, do you do that? Do you focus on it?

I've done a few. I have this negative predisposition for shorts because I don't think they're a good addition. I think they're an okay addition. I just think that the obsession that YouTube has with pushing them, I don't know, to me, it just seems like there's some executive that's obsessed with TikTok being a threat

to their platform. And they think we need to be able to show that we're getting more users and more views. So let's do whatever we have to do to make that happen. It doesn't matter what it costs to creators on the platform and the user experience. I went to, I guess, sort of like a conference that YouTube did in, Spain in Madrid and it was focused on shorts and there was a moment in you know throughout the day where

they they took audience questions from the audience and the I think maybe 10 people spoke and nine of them spoke against shorts and they were all creators they were all people with YouTube channels and I don't know I think it's just negative for creators because it's taking up a lot of space in people's recommended when you search for a video and especially if you do it on your phone you get more shorts recommended than long form content there's also a detail that i think is as a little telling which is for most people at least on on apple phones if you're on youtube and you're watching shorts and you close the app the next time that you open youtube you're going to go directly to the shorts feed instead of going to the home page and i think they they have all of these things

that are really pushing people to use them. And, you know, shorts don't make almost any money. I remember one of the people that spoke at that conference, she had a cooking channel. And she said, I tried really, really hard to do a short showcasing one of my recipes. And they did very well. They got like three million views. And then I made two euros out of it.

And if I had this amount of views in a long form video, I'd have made a significant amount of money. And so, I don't know. I understand why. they're doing it, but I don't think it's a positive thing for creators. So all of this to say that, yeah, I have a pretty negative prejudice towards them. I've tried doing them a little bit, and I think some of them have worked. One thing that I've done is when I post them, I turn off the, there's a little checkbox that doesn't send the video to your subscribers. And so, because my fear is that

I will saturate the audience with the shorts and then they won't watch the long-form ones. And so I've tried to do this to see if the shorts reach a new audience, which they are useful for because they go to a universal feed that everybody can get. And in that case, I think they're positive. I've tried it a little. I think I will continue to try it more, but it's something that I do a little reluctantly. Yeah, and not main focus. Yeah. Yeah, understand.

And when you actually started with the channel, did you see it from the beginning? that is something that you want to do full-time later on? I don't think so because for a while I just, and even when it started generating income, I thought, okay, this will be a good extra for whatever I make from a job. So yeah, the idea to do full-time, I think, only came when I was really a little saturated with the work that I was doing with a job that I had. And I thought, okay, I would be able to survive off of this. So let's try focusing on it.

And if you're comfortable with this topic, can you say more about how it works with like the monetization? If you get paid from ads, from sponsorships, something else? Or tell us a bit more about it? So I have the channel's Patreon. It's not very big. It's only maybe like 20 people support it through there. But yeah, the majority of the income is generated through the YouTube ads, you know, that everybody gets when they watch a video. and then that has a fixed average value per thousand views that you get.

The value changes a lot depending where your audience is from. If the audience is from India, you might not even make one euro for a thousand views. If it's from the US, you might make 10 euros from 1,000 views. So it's very volatile. And so can you say where is your audience maybe primarily from or what is the like a ratio of people? It also changes, and it changes a lot depending on which topics I covered. You know, one month I did a video about Hungary and suddenly 15% of my audience was Hungarian. And now that has gone away and been replacing something else.

I think there's a constant, which is that the majority of people are from the U.S. Not majority, the highest group. It never goes over 50%. I think right now it's something like 35%. And then you have like 5% are from the United Kingdom, Germany, and India are usually up there too in the top five and then the rest is like sometimes it's like 1%

throughout the other countries in the world. Not from Portugal? Not many people from Portuguese. Not that many, no. Considering that I'm from here I would expect more but I don't do it in Portuguese so I understand that. It's usually like 1, 2% yeah, unless I also do something focused on Portugal. And where we're thinking about maybe doing the video in Portuguese language as well? I've thought about doing a separate channel with that.

I also, I constantly get emails by either AI companies or just people that actually do translations, asking if I want to do a channel in Spanish because it's also a big market. And I don't know, I've seen other creators do it. One that I mentioned that I also watch and that I've spoken to. He's very nice. He's Mr. Spherical. And he did that. I don't know.

I need to check out. It's like a country ball animation. channel and they did that so they have country balls country balls in Spanish Russian and French they have like all the languages and it seems interesting but it seems a lot of work and I think there's a challenge which is in most cases my videos have text written in English on the screen and so I've always thought that having a translation on the voiceover when it's not on screen didn't really make sense so it's moving me away from that

And what are your plans with your channel? Have you got like any specific goals or something that you want to achieve? I would like to get to the million subscribers. It would be pretty soon, isn't it? I don't know. It would be but lately my subscriber growth rate has been slowing down. You know, before we were getting like 8 to 10,000 subscribers a month and now it's like one or two. So it's definitely slowed it.

down. I'm introducing new formats. I'm changing the topics a little, I don't know, working around it a little bit to try and get more people to watch. But yeah, I would say the only real goal that I have is that, is trying to get there just for symbolic purposes. Yeah, we'll be chasing two millions, five millions. And something that I'm also curious about is how do you work with titles and thumbnails because it's obviously quite a big topic and probably a big part of success. Yeah. So have you got any secret, I don't know, recipes or just secrets that you can share? Unfortunately, I don't think so.

I don't know. You see it a lot with especially big channels where they have the obsession, where they change the thumbnail, you know, 17 times. They change the title 17 times. I also do it if the video is performing really badly just to try and, and, you know, you know, do something. And do you actually see that it makes such a difference if you change the thumbnail? To be honest, no. Maybe I don't do it enough.

You know, like I said, these other channels, they do it like 10 times. When you look, you know, obviously this is the, I don't think it's a comparison with my channel, but if you look at Mr. Beast's channel, you know, sometimes you look at those statistic websites and they change the thumbnail like 20 times. It's pretty good. And, you know, first of all, I don't have the time to make 20 variants of the thumbnail. And the most I have two or three. And so I do that.

With the title, I've found some things that work and some things that don't. But I think that it's very, I don't know, I think it depends on each person's channel. Sometimes I see channels that are so niche that they can have whatever title they want. They have such a fixed and dedicated and loyal audience that's. going to watch regardless of what it is, that the thumbnail doesn't really matter, the title doesn't really matter. And I think that's important to take into account. And I think it's what the goal should be, you know, to have a dedicated audience instead of having to stress about what is going to be captivating for everyone. So maybe going back to your previous question, if I could work

towards something, it would be that. Having a more fixed and dedicated audience that would take away that stress a little bit. One thing that I found is that having sensationalist titles maybe doesn't help as much because maybe more people will click on it, but they'll click away sooner. And right now it seems that the YouTube algorithm takes into account audience retention a lot. And so it might actually hurt the performance of your video. But yeah, I would say that's the only thing that comes to mind. It's a good practice.

As you mentioned, Mr. Beast, I remember, or know, for example, even when it comes to Johnny or real-life lore, that you read the comments and people usually comment. Previous title was this and this. Let's see how many times it changes again. It's really interesting that before I wouldn't even think about it, that people do this, but I can see that like a bigger channel. So maybe it's just channels that really trying to get views and go viral. That makes a big difference. I think so. I was checking because Johnny Harris posted a video four days ago about Mormon history. Oh yeah, yeah. Now the title and thumbnail is different than when I thought.

Yeah. And actually when it comes to your team, is it just you or are you working with someone else as well? Most of the times it's just me. There are one or two videos every now and then where I work with somebody else. So for instance, the video that I did with the European correspondent, they helped a lot with the research. and with the script writing. But that's really the only collaboration that I did recently. And then, yeah, I did a video on Sikkim. It was a kingdom that used to exist between Bhutan and Nepal. That's now part of India.

And in that, when I found a guy on Upwork, sort of like Fiverr, and it does video editing, video animation. And so very rarely, especially because now it's more expensive, I pay someone to do that and hire someone. something that you maybe plan for the future if you plan to grow more or ones who are able to afford it? I have thought about it. Maybe. I don't know.

It's a big expense and it's a little bit of a gamble. If then the video pays off the work that you invested. Like I did a video a couple years ago about the history of Viking rating across Europe. And I hired an editor, hired an illustrator. and then the video was probably one of the worst performing videos ever. It had a sponsor and so it made a little bit of the money back, but it was still a, it didn't make a profit making that video. It actually, I actually lost money doing it.

So it's a little bit of a gamble to do that. Yeah. And just as you mentioned, the sponsor, does it work that you reach out to someone or that the sponsors reach out to you or both? Sometimes I reach out to them, sometimes they reach out to me, Sometimes it's an agency that serves as a middle person and they represent them and reach out to me. So yeah, you don't want to. And this is obviously really bad scenario that we hope that doesn't happen.

But if for some reason you lost your account or something like that, you just wouldn't be able to have it anymore. If you got like a backup plan, what would you do? Maybe what type of job or, you know? No, I think my immediate reaction would be to try and do it again, do another channel, similar, maybe in a slightly different format. It's obviously very difficult to start something from zero, but at least now I know a little more than I did when I started this one. I think it was successful, you know, not to take merit away from myself, but I think there was an element of timing where there weren't a lot of channels doing. this type of videos at the time and also just luck

sometimes your video just gets caught up by the algorithm for some understandable reason and then people stick around so you never know if you're going to have that luck if you try to do it again but I think that was that would be what I would try to do in the first place and then if it

failed I would take a little bit to think what I should do so aren't you even thinking about like a profession outside of content creation or YouTube? I don't know. I worked in communications and I didn't hate it

even though it was stressful and a little saturating at times. Maybe I would go back to that. I was waiting to hear something geography related. I don't know, teacher of geography or something similar. Maybe. I thought about being, it could be a high school teacher

for history or something. Maybe, who knows? Yeah. And actually, when it comes to you and traveling? Do you travel a lot? I didn't used to now a little more. My girlfriend is from Norway, so we go quite often,

maybe at least once a year. And then we've gone to a couple other places. I hadn't traveled almost anything before I met her, and now we started going more places. We went to, I don't know, very few places still, but it went to London, Madrid, Barcelona, went to Paris. There's a lot of places in Europe that I want to go to. Must visit European cities.

Yeah. Was there one that you specifically enjoyed? Out of the ones that I went to, I've liked all of them so far. Madrid was a little chaotic, but it was okay. Barcelona was very pretty. Maybe overcrowded with tourists or not back then? Actually, I didn't get that feeling, maybe because we were tourists ourselves, so we don't really But I guess it is an issue.

I've also seen some things about it. London was very cool, and we went around Christmas. It was cool to see all of the decorations. Paris, what struck me the most was the scale of the city. Lisbon is a very small city. And I remember distinctively we were looking at a place that we wanted to go to. And we saw, okay, it's like two blocks on the Google Maps. And, you know, two blocks in Lisbon is going to be maybe five minutes walking.

and then certainly we're walking for 40 minutes because the scale is just so much bigger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what's on your travel list or any dream destinations? A few. My government really wants to go to Zimbabwe in Africa. No, it's interesting. Why did it go?

It seems, I think it's a very interesting country in Africa. It's very stable compared to, you know, others in the region. It's very safe as well, especially for women, apparently. It's very, it has a lot of women in government, which in Africa is apparently not that common. And I guess sometimes in Europe as well, not super common. And it's very beautiful. You know, the natural landscape is very beautiful. I've never been outside of Europe, so it would be a cool first experience.

But there are still a lot of places in Europe that I want to go to. Iceland looks, you know, absolutely incredible, but it's apparently very expensive to go to. Yeah, I heard too. but I haven't been in it. I've been once to Lisbon actually. Yeah. I liked it, but I read, I don't know if I read it before or afterwards, but like a nickname is City of Seven Hills or something like that, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. And then I realized why, because I'm someone who likes to walk. I like to enjoy the city by walking because you can see, I don't know, like the streets, meet the people and everything. but when you need to climb or walk up the hill and down a hill all the time, not going to lie, it's a bit tiring. It is, it's exhausting. The craziest part is you don't get used to it. I've lived here in my entire life and I still get exhausted, walking up places all the time.

Yeah. So yeah, I get it. But I saw that, not sure if Lisbon or like Portugal as a country in general, it's quite popular, not only for tourists, but also for like expats or people working. from other countries. So is that correct? Yeah, it is. You see it a lot. And I think a lot of our friends now are people that are doing that. It's, you know, it's difficult. I think it's a very positive thing because I think it's very cool for different cultures to meet and to have the experience and the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. I think that's very positive. I think there is a negative element to it, which is a lot of people have remote positions and they make salaries that are at either as standards or northern European

standards. And so they have so much more money that they can spend renting a house. And it's really transforming the rental market in a way that people can't really afford to live inside Lisbon if they're Portuguese, making a Portuguese salary. And I think that's very negative. But I also think it's very unfair to blame the people that are coming. It's not their responsibility. I think there should be government legislation. I think there should be rent control that made that not a problem. So I think it's very good. I understand there's a lot of people that are against it.

Sometimes I'm scrolling on TikTok and I see an American girl that's showing what it's like to live in Lisbon and she has like five comments of people insulting her, you know, because they can't afford to live in Lisbon. And I get the frustration, but I think it's wrong to blame the individual. Yeah. And can you say what's your opinion? If it's good the way it is or that you'll change it? Or how do you see it as someone who lives there?

Yeah, I think it's good. I think, like I said, having people from different places is always very interesting. And the opportunity, you know, you can go somewhere and there's somebody that's from Brazil, Argentina, the U.S., Sweden, Germany, and they're hanging out together. I think it's very interesting. I think, you know, not to exclude people that are from America or Africa or Asia, but it's also a very cool sign that the European project works and should work, in my opinion, that you get people from all over Europe in a specific European country.

And maybe if you go to Germany, you're going to find the same thing. Yeah. I think that's very good. And then do you think that the reason for that is like multiple factors? because obviously the weather there is beautiful, government is stable, it's probably effortable to live in, or is there like any other factor that I'm missing out, or is it like a combination? I would say the good weather is the main factor.

I think, you know, we have the beaches, we have the sun. I think that's for maybe some of this from Northern Europe, that's a very appealing factor. I think it is affordable, definitely, and especially if you come with a salary that's from somewhere else. But a lot of these people are moving here and getting Portuguese jobs and Portuguese salaries. So maybe that's less of a factor. And is that primarily Lisbon or even, I don't know what it's, Porto or other places as well? Yeah. I think maybe like over 50% will be in Lisbon or around Lisbon.

Maybe some in Porto as well, but definitely not as much. And then I think you have different segments of population that move different places. So in the Algar, for instance, you have a lot of British people that go there to retire. Apparently a lot of Scandinavians are doing that as well now. But those are older people and very often they're already with a pension so they're not coming to work. And then when it comes to yourself, do you plan to move to any other place, country or stay where you are? I think, you know, like I said, my girlfriend is from Norway and our plan in the long run is to be able to live in both places at once and sort of go back and forth. It's been part of the year there, part of the year here.

So, yeah. Exact opposite of the weather, isn't it? Cold and warm? Yeah, so maybe we can escape when it's too cold and then escape when it's too warm because it also gets very warm in the summer here. Or to live somewhere in between. I don't know what would be in between, like, I don't know, Netherlands, or I don't want to say something that is so. Yeah.

Then before we will be finishing, I would like to ask for some advice when it comes to YouTube, because you've been on YouTube for a while. So if you are starting again, can you share some advice or tips, what to focus on, what to avoid, or what would you do differently if we're starting again? I think choosing specific topics is very important, and choosing niche topics is all. also important. And I think this was what helped the channel grow at first was I made videos about flags and then I shared them to the subredits. So the Vexillology subreddit, which is about flags,

and then the countries subredits. I'm banned from like 15 different subredits. I don't like YouTube videos being heard, but I was about to ask you because I feel like it always says no promotion allowed. Yeah. I think maybe at the time they were more lenient. And, you know, Reddit moderators are a specific type of people that, yeah, aren't very friendly. But, but yeah, I think, and in saying that, I think it's important to know where your desired audience is and trying to find a way to get your content to get to them. And so making the niche topic and then finding the audience that will find that niche interesting. I think that's very important to, to succeed. I think having a regular upload basis is also important,

and I think the algorithm rewards you a little bit for it. So it doesn't have to be every day or every week. It can be every month, but I think sticking to it at least at the start is important. Of course, you have cases where the videos are so high quality that this becomes irrelevant, like the channel oversimplified. They upload like every six months, five months, and then a year later, later and it still works perfectly fine because they're so good that this becomes irrelevant. But I think for everyone else, I think it's an important factor.

And I don't know. I think if people are comfortable with showing their face, I think it helps. And not being too serious and trying to be more casual, which is something that I'm trying to move towards. I think it will help you establish a connection with your audience. And if your audience feels like they know you and sort of feel like they are or you are their friend I think they will be more likely to click on

on your video speaking from perspective of someone who's your audience I can say that I agree because I feel like that if I see your face and I get to know you better I know that we're not obviously going to be friends but I feel like that

there is more of a connection so my advice would be that it sounds like a good direction Yeah, I think so too. I think it helps. I actually, I remember, you know, I mentioned the channel that I watched the Yoxcast, and their audience had such a strong connection to them that one time they were doing a live stream across the city that they live in, and people were coming up to them, and they were coming up to them in, like, a too personal way. And then afterwards they had to make a video sort of asking people not to do that and saying, like,

We know that you feel like you know us, but we have never seen it before in their lives. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's strange. But I think it helps. There's something that I was going to say that when we started this were episode, that I also felt like that I've known you because of your voice. But obviously, we've never seen each other. So that's understandable.

But I think that's a good sign. Yeah. And have you actually ever felt that you wanted to quit? I don't know. I think not really because it has like doing this has a lot of privileges and like you don't have a boss that's annoying you. I try to force myself to have a schedule, but if there's a day that I like really don't feel like doing something, I don't need to do it in most cases. And that's very, you know, it's a very big luxury. And I guess it really helps since you are making content about something that you enjoy and that you are interested about.

Definitely. I think, you know, going back to what you asked about advice for people that are starting, I think there would be something that I would say to do something that you enjoy, because I think it's definitely going to take some time for an audience to come and to be gathered for you to have a decent following. I think it's going to take time to make money from it. And if people are just starting it to be famous or to make money, because that's not going to come and you're not going to get that immediate satisfaction,

people are going to give up. And so I think you need to do it. At least at the start, you need to enjoy the process more than the result. And choosing a topic that you like, like you said, is, I think, the best way to do that. Yeah, yeah. And one question that I always ask, doesn't need to be related to geography, but do you read books? And if so, are there any books that are you to recommend? Maybe some that were impactful to for some reason?

I don't read as much as I would like to. last year i had the goal of reading a book a month which maybe seems like not that much for most people but for me it was a challenge i got very close i did 11 instead of 12 but this year you will hit it hopefully maybe yeah i'm maybe halfway so i need to speed up we don't have that much more of the year left there's a book that i so the latest book that i read was really really cool i just recommended it to a friend and i was obsessed with it it's called merchant kings and the author is Stephen Bown. And so the book is, each chapter is about a trading company.

So he starts with a Dutch East India Company, then the West India Company, the British East India Company. He talks about the Hudson Bay Company in Canada and then the South Africa Company. And he sort of focuses on how specific individuals and specific men were behind the rise and success of these companies and he calls them the merchant kings and it's very interesting to see how pretty cool i've never heard of it yeah i really recommend that it's very very interesting and he writes in a very easy way you read it very very easily yeah then to slowly wrap it up obviously we discussed your youtube channel but do you want to promote either yourself or tell people where you can follow, subscribe or find you.

I think just YouTube. If they go to YouTube and search general knowledge, it should come up. And I would say that's the best place to follow if they are interested. Yeah. And I will add it to show notes so that people can find it. And before we finish, is there anything that you would like to share or any, I don't know, final message that I forgot to ask you and didn't ask? No, I don't think so. It's very nice.

I enjoyed it a lot. it's always interesting to talk about these topics, especially when they're about geography and history because it's so fascinating. So thank you for inviting me to be a part of it. Thank you. I appreciate it and I enjoyed it as well, not only as someone who's been watching you,

but also a geography geek as well. So I'm glad there is someone with whom you can discuss these interesting things. So thank you, Gil. I will keep subscribing, watching and following and wish you one million soon. Thank you. I hope so. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Produce by With Tomer. Check out show notes for all the links and don't forget to like, subscribe and leave your feedback.

Speak soon.