A (Wolters) World of Tips & Advice for YouTube Success!

**John** (0:03)
Okay, here's the challenge. Let's say you are an academic, and you want to share your special to your knowledge with the world through YouTube. Okay, fine. But wait, there's more. You also teach this topic, and you have a lot to say about the subject of teaching and how to be a good teacher. You want to share that too on YouTube. Okay, we're still not done. You are also an avid traveler, and you want to share your travels on YouTube, and your tips and advice for various locations. That's part of your YouTube plans as well. Okay. Complicated so far, but doable, but we're still not done. You are a bit of a foodie as well, maybe more than a bit. You definitely have a lot to say on the subject of food. You kind of integrate this with your travel, so that's got to be woven into YouTube strategy. And on top of that, you have what I might call a very niche, a strong, but niche interest in the world of toys. Yeah, that's what I said, toys. We'll get to that in a minute. And that has to be part of your YouTube plan as well. So any ideas for how you can make this work? No? See? It is a challenge, isn't it? But thanks to my guest today, meeting that challenge is maybe not easy. No, not easy at all, but easier maybe than it otherwise would be because he has done it himself. He has ticked all those boxes very successfully. How successfully? I don't know. 300 million views successfully? How's that? Good enough? I think so. His name is Professor Mark Wolters, but he told me to just call him Mark. So Mark, let's turn it over to you before I go any further. Thanks so much for joining me on Love Your Channel.

**Mark Wolters** (1:38)
Thank you, John. I appreciate it, man. I'll honestly hear you say it that way, and then we go, my god, what am I thinking?
I appreciate you have me on. It is something when you want to teach, or you want to travel, you want to have these things that you can share with the world, it really makes it easier to kind of, YouTube is a great platform to help you share your ideas and share your hobbies, and make friends and meet new people like yourself. So it's a really great place.

**John** (2:04)
Okay. Everybody on Love Your Channel gets the same first question. Let's say you meet somebody who learns that you've got your own YouTube channel or channels. They ask you, what do you do on YouTube? How do you answer?

**Mark Wolters** (2:15)
I tell them, I'm a travel educator. I help people travel the world better, to be a better traveler and tourist. So when you go places, you're more prepared with the do's and don'ts and cultural insights that are going to make your trip better. So that would be the travel one. For the Professor Wolters one, it's more, if you want marketing education, learn how to be a better professor and teach better, you can go on there. Or if you're a small business wanting to learn about marketing, you can't afford a consultant or anything, you can watch our videos, learn how to do your own marketing. And if you're on the toy channel, hey, you know what, if you want to relive the 80s with GI. Joe and some of the new stuff that are out there, we have some fun times discussing GI. Joe and old school toys as well. So lots of different platforms to be on, lots of different things, lots of different value propositions for all kinds of different people.

**John** (3:00)
There's the marketing talk. We're starting already, huh? The marketing talk is already out.

**Mark Wolters** (3:03)
There you go. I got to work on that. I should have been smoother.

**John** (3:06)
I'm sorry.
Before we dive into your channel, channels, I'll have to correct myself because usually it's channel, but with you it's channels. Again, we'll get to that soon. And your career as a YouTuber, tell us a little something more about yourself, what you're all about. What keeps you busy when you're not making YouTube videos?

**Mark Wolters** (3:23)
So I'm a teaching associate professor of marketing at the University of Illinois. So my day job is I'm a professor. I'm also an academic director, so I help students pick the right careers for themselves and things like that.
And then I am a travel educator at night. Some people are Batman. I'm just helping people see the world better in the evening time. Through Wolters World, which is our main YouTube channel. So if you ever put like the Jones of some destination around the world, you'll probably see my bald bearded face popping up with my ponytail in the back going, wait, I thought he was bald. I am, but I have a ponytail too. I have my Professor Wolters channel to help people out from that. But basically whenever I go around the world, I like to share information. I always felt that for like the marketing and teaching kind of stuff, no one wants to sit in a classroom, so I like filming my education videos, like teaching stuff about marketing in different locations, because it's a lot cooler having like Lille, France in the background than just the whiteboard.