Tag: art business

Huge YouTube Research – Growing Channel in 2019 | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 66

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I’m doing a huge YouTube research endeavor to figure out how to create better content that reaches MORE people.

I’ll keep this short, as I want to create a more detailed post on LinkedIn & Medium.com on the topic.

But here are the main things I learned.

Excellent Video by Derral Eves

So I watched this video and gained some valuable insights in regard to my own videos, and in general.

The new Creator Studio Beta – YouTube’s new Creator studio is INSANELY helpful.

They developed some relatively new features that I really like. The way they present the CTR (% of people clicking your thumbnails) is really smart.

I also loved how you can watch the retention graph alongside your video. This means that if you are rambling in the vid, you’ll probably see a drop of viewers on the graph.

The importance of thumbnails and titles – I always knew how important these are. But now I understand that in an even deeper level. As Derral mentions, some of the creators he works with spend hours coming up with their titles and thumbnails.

These provide you the chance of being discovered. And YouTube rewards videos that have a high CTR (and a high retention rate, which brings me to my next point).

AVD (Average View Duration) and watch time are everything – Ultimately YouTube wants to make money. If you can create content that gets a lot of clicks, and gets people to binge watch – that’s the best.

This is why it’s highly recommended to create playlists (like my The Paint Show and Painting masters). These are series that people enjoy consuming one by one.

Huge YouTube Spreadsheet

This is a project I’ve been working on in the last couple of weeks.

I created a huge spreadsheet with 50 or so YouTube channels, and different criteria (like video length, views %, likes to dislikes ration and a bunch of other more unique elements).

I am filling the table up, with hopes of finding different correlations between things.

For example – do channels that have NO INTRO perform better when it comes to views %?

There are a lot of things I want to test out, and hopefully this will be a good tool to do just that.

IGTV VS YouTube

IGTV is Instagram’s platform for video. Unlike YouTube, IGTV is vertical, and everything is based around that.

So far IGTV has been really good to me. I went all in and started posting tons of videos there, and it’s paying off.

Some of my vids reached as many as 600K views, and these accelerated my growth on Instagram as well.

So this is another platform I’m hopeful of. But I’m also aware that YouTube isn’t going anywhere soon. Plus the views there are more high quality, in the sense of more people who want to actually learn how to draw and paint.

Artist Corner

Today I talked about Randall Sexton. Randall’s a California-based oil painter. I love is impressionism and style.

His color choices are rather unique, I haven’t seen many artists paint like that. As always, his street scenes are my favorites. He has one I love in particular, of a van / trailer with a smooth reflective texture that he portrayed beautifully.

You can check out his work on his website: https://www.rcsexton.com/

And Here’s where you can find me

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

Or ask me questions on Instagram – @LironYanIL or Snapchat – @LironYan3

I hope you enjoyed this one. Take care, and we’ll talk again really soon,

– Liron

My 2019 Goals as an Artist | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 55

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Hi there, Liron here! Today I want to talk to you about my 2019 goals as an artist (and perhaps as a person in general!).

First off – I wanted to wish you a fantastic 2019. I hope you achieve anything you set out to. Also wishing you lots of health and happiness.

So now – let’s get started!

My 2019 goals are divided into to groups – big goals and small goals.

Big 2019 Goals

These are main, essential goals that encompass my long term vision.

1. To reach a “Godlike” level of creation.

That was the best way I found to phrase it. I want to create are that contains shards of divinity, perfection and the ideal.

In other words – I realized how important it was for me to improve my creative skills. This poses a challenge – how can I work even harder on my skills, and still be fully productive in all the other areas.

I still cannot answer that question fully. But what I do know is that this one is very important to me.

2. Complete control of my personal and business finances.

I say personal AND business, but I’m aware that the focus really is on the personal. In 2018 I created a lot of order and organization in how I manage my finances, and a part of it is getting a firm to do that for me (;

But now I want to be more in control of how much I’m actually spending, in relations to my expenses.

This is mainly so that I can save and invest for the future.

3. Share my knowledge and create a legacy.

This is a direct continuation of what I’ve been doing in the past 2 years. Only now I know exactly how to phrase it.

This is basically publishing tons of content online.

This year, however, I’ll start being more active on LinkedIn, and also get back to Pinterest, which I completely abandoned for the last two years.

There are also some other platforms I’m planning on putting more emphasis on, and I generally want to DO MORE everywhere.

Small 2019 Goals

These are smaller goals that are still important for me.

1. Become a YouTube master.

This means improving my content significantly, and becoming one of the best channels out there.

2. LinkedIn.

Already mentioned previously. But it was still important for me to write this one separately. LinkedIn has more meaning to me than just another social platform. This is a symbol of me starting to take my personal brand in a more business-related direction, and not just are.

3. Taking the interactions with my audience to a face-to-face level.

This means giving lectures and doing talks and keynotes. This will require some serious work on my part. We’ll see how it goes! (:

4. Nurturing and deepening relationships with my friends and family.

Working so hard for the past several years, I’ve always tried to ensure I balance my work with my personal relationships. This year I want to also make sure I continue developing those.

Better Way to Phrase my Vision

These goals aren’t that different from what I’ve been doing.

But I do thing they are more accurately phrased to match my long term vision. And that’s important.

The more they match it, the easier it will be for me to see the connection, and work towards them with stronger motivation.

And the workload is coming.

I started writing everything down today, and breaking down the goals into tasks. It’s remarkable how much work I’m going to have this year.

But I’m ready for it!

And now we are also ready for the artist corner.

Artist Corner

Today I talked about a Spanish artist named Manel Plana.

Manel is a watercolor painter. I was recommended to check out his work by a follower on YouTube, and boy – is he amazing!

Manel has this very loose, almost abstract impressionistic style. But it’s SO REALISTIC when you take a few steps back!

I highly recommend you check out his work on his website (he has quite an active blog, it seems!): Manel Plana

And here’s where you can find me

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

Or ask me questions on Instagram – @LironYanIL or Snapchat – @LironYan3

I hope you enjoyed this one. Take care, and we’ll talk again really soon,

– Liron

How I Make Money From My Art | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 31

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In today’s episode we’ll talk about how I make MONEY from my art.

Today’s going to be a special one, as it’s the audio taken from one of my recent videos, that’s a part of my new series – Business Monday.

(if you want to watch the video, you can do so here: How I Make Money From My Art)

In it I talk about the connecting point between art and money. It’s aimed at people who want to make money from their art, as well as entrepreneurs who want to build an art business.

QUICK NOTE – NEED YOUR HELP

If you find interest in this series (Business Monday), I’d be thankful if you leave a comment. Let me know what you thought of this, and what other topics you want me to cover.

I want this to have valuable information FOR YOU (:

Now let’s talk about how I make money from my art. Also note how I’ve included some things that work in general. These are tangentially related, and don’t necessarily make money DIRECTLY.

WHAT WORKS & MAKES ME MONEY

Here are things that work for me and actually make me money.

Books – I am able to sell my books in different channels. I was also able to sell the Spanish language rights, making my book How to Sketch available in additional countries in Spanish!

Courses – This is something I’ve been devoting many hours to producing, marketing and selling. My courses are selling on both the Udemy platform and on my own website (DrawAnythingUSee.com).

YouTube – This is obviously my favourite platform (; I’m really enjoying producing content here, and it actually WORKS. I receive valuable feedback from you, that helps me know what you want to see more of.

Instagram – Another platform I’m really enjoying right now. It’s also the best way to connect with me, if you want to hit me up with a quick message. I’ve been putting a lot of effort into YouTube and Instagram for the past 2 years.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK & DOESN’T MAKE MONEY FOR ME

Reddit – As a social media platform, it used to help me a lot in the past, but not so much.

Licensing my art – I tried websites like Society6 and RedBubble, but that didn’t really work as well.

Smashwords – A digital book distributer. I have some of my books distributed through it. As I mentioned in the video, I think 2 months on Amazon made me more money than two years on Smashwords and it’s 8+ different distribution channels. Haha.

Selling my art directly – This is something I haven’t really focused on much so far. I let it come naturally to me. Which brings me to my next point…

MAKING MONEY TAKES TIME, EFFORT AND PATIENCE

When I really audit myself and try to find correlations between my success… It is glaringly obvious that the things that really worked out for me are the things I spent A LOT OF EFFORT, WORK AND HOURS ON.

At the end of the day, success takes a lot of time.

The things I succeeded in so far are really things I thoroughly researched and worked on. It’s things I had a natural inclination to put more work into, but on the same token – it could have ended but being different things.

The message is that PERSISTENCE IS KEY. You have to keep pushing through until what you are doing works – or learn when to stop and move onto something else.

A SMALL CAVEAT

I think it’s important to audit yourself and your work. If you’ve been doing something for 10 years and you don’t get results, maybe it’s time to move on.

Or, if you enjoy it regardless, do it while recognizing it won’t make money, and not relying on it financially.

I hope you enjoyed today’s different format. Now let’s move on to the artist corner.

Artist Corner

Today I talked about Thierry Duval, a Parisian watercolor artist.

I originally came across his work through Instagram.

He paints beautiful scenes from France (mainly Paris, I believe). His work is realistic – photo-realistic. He has a very strong sense of light in it as well.

I’m fascinated by his techniques. He works in a very measured and calculated manner to achieve his realistic results. He uses masking fluid, and glazed quite a bit.

I highly recommend you check out his Instagram, where you can see some of his work processes and final artwork: Thierry Duval on Instagram

Also, be sure to check out this webpage, showing many of his beautiful works: Thierry Duval Artworks

And Here’s where you can find me (:

You can support me on Patreon

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

Or ask me questions on Instagram – @LironYanIL or Snapchat – @LironYan3

And this is it. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I’ll talk to you again real soon!

– Liron