YouTube Production Workflow
Growing a successful YouTube is pretty challenging as so much is involved in the whole workflow.
- Ideation
- Script writing
- Filming
- Thumbnail design
- Video editing
- Channel management
Who is gonna do all of that? You, when you start out but who do you hire first and how do you scale your team accordingly? Or if you don't want to be doing any of the process except being in the video then who does all the hard work?
I have to give Shane Hummus props for this visual layout I share.
Workflow by team size
Check out this Miro board with all the details for each stage.
A YouTube video goes through many stages to be created, 7 to launch and another one to follow up on the performance.
Each stage is of different importance to the success of the videos and channel. By far the ideation is the most important part of getting results.
Those ideas need to be packaged (title, thumbnail, hook) and then written into scripts. These 3 stages are already 80% of your results, so put in as much time and attention to these.
From there it's recording, editing, and uploading.
When you launch a video, analyzing the data is essential to make better decisions in the ideation stage to improve everything step by step.
This was a quick and simple breakdown of the general YouTube production workflow, and as you can see it can be challenging to do by one person. Not impossible but when you want to get consistent, a team is needed.
If you don't want or can be the main person, who is the channel manager then all of this is in the perspective of the responsible for the channel. For some a complete new hire as channel manager, and for others their marketing director or co-founder of the business. The talent can still be you of course.
Stage 1: You + freelance creatives
I look at the channel manager as the glue between all stages and so the most important role as they also decide on strategy and direction.
In this stage, you are doing most of everything besides the most time-consuming task, video editing. This position can be hired on a freelance basis, too soon to have a full-time position as you are probably still trying to figure out what content works, and consistency is not there yet.
For the script writing part, to speed up the process and because writing might not be your strength, you can use AI (we prefer Claude.ai) to help structure and write (that's what I do).
Thumbnail design is more about the idea than the execution so that can be you or also a quick freelance hire on Fiverr or Upwork for $15.
Stage 2: You + first hire (video editor)
This stage is where you get your first hire and team member. Usually, this is the video editor as this is the most time-consuming part. This allows you to be more consistent in your uploading and you'll see more momentum and growth on the channel.
After each stage where someone else is involved, a quality check is needed.
Stage 3: Small team, you, video editor, scriptwriter and TN designer
Now this is where the management begins.
The channel manager is still in charge of the most important which is ideation and making sure that whatever is being published, is on point. So after every handover from one team member to the other, there is a quality check.
A thumbnail designer can still be a freelance position as creating a thumbnail can be done within hours and so doesn't require to be in-house, unless you have that capacity.
Scriptwriter, same story, can be freelance or part-time depending on your volume.
Stage 4: Full team, you, video editor, script writer, creative director/channel manager and TN designer
The final stage is your full team, and this can be filled in as big as you want.
If you as a business owner are still involved, it's time to hand over that role to a channel manager and your only involvement will be being on camera.
The role of channel manager can also be split up between the technical and the creative aspects with a creative director. We do this at Playstack, where the channel manager is more on a strategic level and the CD, makes sure the quality is consistent and always going up video by video.
Freelance or full-time?
Even within our agency, it's hard to immediately hire a full-time creative, frankly, they are sometimes unreliable. So often I work with new creatives for a few months to see their work ethics, then I might offer them a probation for 3 months to see how they perform in a team. What happens is that when they get a full-time position with a stable salary, their output goes down, that's why I prefer working with freelancers.
The downside of working with only freelancers is that they can be unreliable as they are not committed to you. For us, the solution is having a whole database of them so we can pick and choose per project, although I prefer having fixed people on the same project.
So when to hire? Really depends on how much work there is available, how much you want to train them up for longevity and how much you can trust them to perform. Freelancers you can always test out and let go if it's not a fit.
