I taught 64 people how NFTs work in a month — here’s what the challenge taught me
This post is part of a 30-day YouTube project designed to grow my personal brand and develop valuable skills in my desired field: content creation and marketing. I learned a lot about content production, analytics, and community creation, which you can read about below.
Scope of project
I have a lot more respect for YouTubers now.
I aimed to kickstart a successful content brand in a month. The platform I focused on is YouTube, along with some minor content for other social platforms to draw in traffic. The channel is about NFTs (non-fungible tokens), and I want to provide free education to as many people as I can.
I chose to make content about NFTs because the topic has exploded in popularity recently and I wanted to take an opportunistic approach to it by educating newcomers to the space. In other words, selling shovels during the gold rush.
Before starting the project, I planned to have at least 60% viewer retention (how much of the video they watch before leaving the page) on each 5–10 minute video (3 total) and a plan to later execute monetization throughout all the platforms in the future. I had a sub-goal of 300 organic subscribers this month.
I had a lot of unexpected constraints for this project which interfered a bit with my lofty goals. I got slapped with a fresh dose of reality, but I also had some unexpected wins as well. You can read more about that below.
The content I produced
Here’s the YouTube channel:
And here is each YouTube video I made during the month:
Making NFTs: How To Mint Your First NFT In Less Than 10 Minutes!
Blockchain 101 — Teaching A BOOMER About Blockchain Technology
NFT is NOT a Scam
In addition to YouTube, I was most active on Twitter:
I was most active on Twitter because that’s where the NFT community thrives. I learned a lot of things I talked about in the videos from scrolling through NFT Twitter.
I wasn’t as active on TikTok as I would’ve liked to be. I spent a lot of time on the main YouTube videos so I neglected other platforms, but I did make one TikTok just to show I have a good idea of what content type works on the platform. I have more ideas for TikTok in the future.
This is where the NFT I created resides. My fellow Praxian and friend, Kenton Little, did the artwork for me and I went through the process of minting the NFT for our first video.
I documented what I did each week
Week 1 Update — I made goals for the month, outlined my strategy, and created social media accounts
How to create, organize and schedule content consistently for social media
Week 2 Update — I created the first video, started using tech tools to manage the process, and minted an NFT
Week 3 Update — I tackled a more complex topic for the second video, researched a lot, and missed out on a potential collaboration
How to write a script for an educational YouTube channel
Week 4 Update — I used more efficient editing, planned out the channel’s future, and finished up my project documentation
Tech tools I used
VidIQ: VidIQ is a YouTube assistant that shows stats and recommendations for your channel’s content. You can use it for a lot of things, but one of the main things I used it for was picking out my video topics and assessing good thumbnails/titles.
VidIQ shows competition and traffic scores that can tell you what keywords you’ll be most likely to rank highly for in the search results. I also looked at the competitors section within VidIQ to try and replicate their thumbnail/title style.
Hootsuite: I initially tried out Hootsuite as a social media management tool but determined I didn’t really need it and could just post to each platform individually. It would have been a more useful tool if I wanted to post to every social media platform at once, but I found that it would be better for me to focus on Twitter.
Storyblocks: I signed up for a free trial of Storyblocks to get access to a plethora of stock footage and animations. This saved me a lot of time because it prevented me from having to make my own animations. All I had to do was download the presets, load them into Premiere, and then tweak them from there.
Trello: Trello was my project management and scheduling tool. I used it to organize when everything was due for each week and remind me of certain tasks.
Adobe Suite: Adobe Premiere Pro was the editing software I used for all my videos. I’ve been using it for a couple of years along with Adobe Spark, which is where I made my videos’ thumbnails. However, each new project can be like learning the software all over again as you try to do new things and editing techniques.
My challenges and how I combatted them
Low budget: Without being able to pay for ads, I was stuck with organic marketing. I tried to tackle this challenge by spending a lot of time on social media — I immersed myself in the culture that I want to make videos about. I was asking questions, commenting on posts, and trying to make as many connections as I could in the space, particularly on Twitter.
Time constraints: Getting these videos done in time was hard. I had to research, outline, write a script, record, and edit each video within a week.
Scriptwriting and editing turned out to be the most time-consuming of those processes. I made scriptwriting faster by using a good outline and pulling sources of information into my video workspace. From there I could easily glance at the information I needed to talk about and start ranting about it.
For a 5–10 minute video with a lot of effects, editing can be quite difficult. However, I made part of the process easier by using Storyblocks to bring preset effects and footage into my videos. This saved me from having to produce text effects and background footage manually.
Slow growth: Starting a channel from square one usually means grinding for a long time to build a sizable audience. Even 100 subs in a month could be hard. However, when I set my goal I was confident that with my analytical approach I could use certain techniques to get more viewers and retain an audience.
Next steps for the brand
I want to continue this project. I have some rudimentary plans for growing the channel and eventually monetizing the concept:
- Collaborate with as many people in the space as possible — our cross-promotions will help each other grow, and we’ll be able to share knowledge
- Continue using analytics to identify video topics and content that will generate high-quality viewers — a dedicated audience that actually cares about the content will provide engagement, thus making YouTube’s algorithm favor the content
- Create my own NFT line for fans only- this will be profitable and provide an added sense of community, and the NFTs will have utility
- Review NFT projects on the channel — think about people like MKBHD who gets sent phones to test and review, I want to do this with NFTs while earning assets
Did I reach my goals?
NO.
Did I set my goals too high or did I not work hard enough?
YES.
You read earlier that I planned to have at least 60% viewer retention on each 5–10 minute video (3 total) and a sub-goal of 300 organic subscribers.
I have about a 28% retention rate and 12 subscribers at the time of writing this. But on the other hand, I did get an average view duration of 2 minutes 28 seconds, 3.9 hours of watch time, and learned so much.
I still think this project was a good idea, but if I could start over, here’s what I’d do differently:
- I’d post at least 5 times a week to YouTube Shorts — YT is really pushing their short-form content to compete with TikTok and Instagram so this would’ve been a great opportunity to drive traffic to the channel.
- I’d have looked for more collaborations — having more reputable people in my videos would have built authority, and the guest would be likely to drive traffic to my content.
- I’d document the process more — I spent many hours gleaning content and resources like editing guides and content marketing best practices, so I should have been more diligent about repackaging that knowledge into something useful.
How this could help a company
Here are the marketable skills I learned from this project that could be applied to any company’s marketing efforts:
Content production: This was the bulk of my work. I repeated the video creation process 3 times, each time seeing what I could make more efficient and better quality. I learned how to:
- Research topics faster
- Write scripts faster
- Edit faster — The first two weeks I stayed up till 3 and 5 AM to complete the videos. I finished the last one at 11 PM.
- Organize my content workspace
Gut refinement: I did something called refining the gut. I watched so much content and read so many articles about NFTs, I can tell you what’s actually interesting and what won’t get any views.
Retainment and engagement techniques: I learned while reading about social media strategies that having high engagement is extremely favorable for most social media platforms’ algorithms. It’s like having high-quality leads — you need people who will consistently watch and interact with your content to build a community. So, I structured all my videos not to be clickbaity and begging for views, but to target a specific audience: people who are new to NFTs and want to learn more about the space. I tried to simplify complex topics that I also didn’t understand when first learning about them.
Community creation: Part of the reason I spent so much time on Twitter was to get involved in the community. That’s where all the fun stuff happens and where all the collaborations can be found. Within a few hours of posting about my first video, I had someone contact me and start chatting with me about NFTs. They’re going to be on the show soon, and hopefully, through interactions like this, I can build authority and network with a lot of cool people in this field.
Last words
If you enjoyed reading about this project, please continue to follow my journey by checking out the Ineftease YouTube channel!
You can also find me professionally at benjaminbramblett.com or check out my Talent Profile here.
