I deleted 2 million followers combined on my Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and several other social media accounts. And I feel so free today. I'm making this because if you feel like you have to show up on these platforms, and you have to take the views they give you, and maybe someday it'll work out, no. I was letting myself get ripped off and wasting my time on Facebook after I got demonetized. On Instagram, I've never made any money. On TikTok, I've got millions of views, but I've never made any real money on there either. By real money, I mean like tens of thousands of dollars at least.
What I can say is that, as a full-time YouTuber, it is so nice to just focus on YouTube, because most of the money I've made online has come from there. I've been online since 2011 creating videos like this. I've uploaded over 4,000 videos to YouTube, and earned tens of thousands in total across all the different platforms. If you're not getting paid your fair share after you've put in your work, then that's a platform you should not waste your time on. I put in my work on YouTube, and I'm grateful I get thousands of dollars a month there. That deserves my full attention. That deserves my complete commitment. And that's why I feel so free now.
All views are not created equal
A lot of content creators like me are trying to maximize the overall view numbers, but all views are not created equal. Look at the views I get on my YouTube channels. I have three YouTube channels, and I also deleted several other YouTube channels. I realized that if I have a channel I'm not monetized on at this point, when I already have three monetized channels, I don't need to be working on channels that aren't monetized. The ones I have that are monetized are enough money, and enough work. I've got two crypto channels, because you all just can't get enough of my crypto videos. And then I can just do whatever I want on my original main Jerry Banfield channel. I deleted those other channels too, and it's helped so much to focus.
Yes, there's a time to experiment and to play around, but eventually you figure out what works. On my crypto videos, on average, I get five-plus minutes of watch time per view. I'm getting 10,000 to 15,000 views a day on average, at about five minutes of average view duration for each one of those videos. That's like 60,000 to 100,000 minutes a day that people are watching. So why am I screwing around on Facebook, caring if I get a few thousand views on there for an average of three seconds? Why am I taking my time to even show up in other places, when YouTube has consistently been the most tolerant of my content?
YouTube has treated me well
I've got one community guideline strike on my main channel in 12 years. My main crypto channel got taken down because a bunch of bots mass-reported it, and I got that put back up. So at this point, YouTube has proven that no matter what I've done there, it's been cool with it. The same things I've done on YouTube that got me demonetized on other places like Facebook, or that would get you banned elsewhere, YouTube has been fine with. Whatever it was, whether speaking out against certain platforms, or changing my demographics, or just speaking my mind on any subject.
I'm also freeing myself up because I deleted all my old videos on YouTube after I got a community guideline strike. To be fair, I said a lot of stuff that violated the community guidelines, because I was just making videos about anything and saying whatever I thought I should say that day. And if it violated the guidelines, too bad, that's what I needed to say. The one guideline strike I got that was upheld, I'd gotten one in the past too, but that earlier one was overturned on appeal because it was BS. It was some algorithm that caught a bunch of links in the content. On the one that was appealed and rejected, I did directly go against the guidelines, if you wanted to interpret it that way. So going forward, I intend to make sure all my videos are clean. YouTube has treated me very well, and I'm deciding to do what it takes to treat YouTube well with my content in return.
Now, there are community guidelines I completely disagree with in certain areas. I can say I disagree with them, but it also isn't right to make content directly against them. If I want to do that, I should do it on a different platform.
Closing doors can set you free
I hope what you're getting out of this is that closing doors can be really helpful in life. Letting things go. Killing things off, like old relationships. Not actually doing anything to the person, but getting rid of that relationship. Blocking that phone number. Deleting. Even the average person who isn't a content creator, I think, would greatly benefit from deleting Facebook and Instagram and TikTok.
These apps did pay me at times. I got paid over $100,000 being a gamer on Facebook in 2021. I made lots of sales and made lots of money from doing Facebook marketing and teaching it. Same thing with teaching TikTok marketing and how to grow my own account. I did make money off of my time on those platforms. But even for me, my time on Facebook, if you count all the energy and time I put in, was not very well compensated. Instagram was basically a donation. On Instagram, I was just putting my time into making them rich and getting nothing out of it. On TikTok, mostly the same. I did get some followers on Twitch and on YouTube, and some people discovered me from TikTok, but the amount of energy I put into TikTok was not worth it. YouTube is the only place where the energy I put into it has been consistently worth it.
I deleted all my videos on my main original channel because I knew there were a bunch of potential community guideline issues that had gone undetected in them. If you delete them, then you don't have to worry about that. I'd had 4,000 videos up from as far back as 2011, lots of them just old and irrelevant and clogging things up. I gave myself a fresh start on YouTube so that going forward, I can really commit to just being comfortable doing YouTube as my main thing.
Mirroring on X, and cutting the rest loose
Now I'm considering, and I think I will, mirroring my content on X, because anything could happen with YouTube. X has been going well in terms of people seeing my videos. I started a new account on X and deleted my old one this year as well, which has been great. The engagement has been way higher. Some of my posts have reached almost 100,000 people, many of them reaching over 10,000. But I'm not getting any money directly off of X right now either. And if I just keep giving all of myself in places where I'm not even getting anything back, that's on me. I deserve to be exploited of my time if I'm doing that.
So I am so glad, though it was a tough decision, to delete my Facebook account at 1.9 million followers. It was verified. My Instagram account had tens of thousands. My TikTok had tens of thousands. My LinkedIn had thousands of followers. My Facebook account, I created in 2005. I deleted my personal account too, because screw that personal account as well. Got rid of the personal account. Got rid of the page. Got rid of all of it.
It was a tough decision. I'd thought about deleting it a long time ago. When I first got demonetized in 2022, after which I maintain I did nothing to violate the guidelines, they just didn't like what I had to say and didn't want it to go viral, so they demonetized me. I deleted my Facebook page and my Facebook account right after that. I deleted my Instagram, and I deleted my TikTok. But looking back, I got sucked back into it because I didn't want to give up all those views and all that attention I was getting. It was resulting in no money. You only have a very certain amount of attention and time in your life, and what I'm finding is that I want to be careful and considerate and think about where I'm putting my time, and what I'm expecting to get out of it.
Getting back to my gift: teaching
On all my videos, and especially my crypto videos, the main thing I have to offer is teaching. That's why, instead of putting background music on and pretending I'm a musician, I'm going back to just putting any old kind of videos on my channel now. Tutorials, anything I think can help somebody, anything I have to teach, in any format. I actually want to make some videos about music production, because I've learned a ton from that. My joy is teaching, and in my experience I'm amazingly skilled at teaching.
I've been listening to Leslie Jones's book. She's a comedian, and she's incredibly skilled at comedy. Her skill with comedy just blows me away, because I've tried some stand-up comedy, and while I might have some potential there, it's not like teaching. I have a gift with teaching. I can take something in and just spit it out in a way that simplifies it and makes it easier for people to understand, with emotion behind it, where people really let it sink in. My teaching is, at least I think it's interesting. And a lot of other people find watching my videos on a subject more interesting and engaging than others on the same subject.
I've been thinking that I want to use my gifts and totally focus on giving my gifts. At this point, I've put in my work. I've had all kinds of different jobs. I've done all kinds of different things as a creator, entrepreneur, and freelancer online. I know what my gift is. My gift is that I can hit the record button in this studio and talk and teach, and hit record and upload. I can make videos really fast. My gift is not doing MrBeast-style videos that are entertainment for everybody. My gift is taking something that I have to teach and helping a specific person who needs to learn it.
I've been trying to upload all these music videos on my main channel, forcing the addition of music onto it. That was a good learning experience, but I've got to get back to just teaching, and just putting videos out every day to help somebody. I'm also getting away from live streaming, because most of the views I've gotten are on regular videos overall. Yes, my live streams have gotten lots of views, but it's also about the time and energy and effort. If you're going to be a content creator, you really want to be able to give people the most with the least amount of your own time.
Getting something useful out there with the least resistance
My whole goal is to just get something out there that's useful with the least effort and the least resistance. For me, it's so easy to just hit record on a video and upload it. Super easy. It takes a lot more effort to do a live stream. And with the live streams, either there aren't enough people watching or there are too many people watching. There's rarely a sweet spot where I've got just the right amount of people watching. If the chat's not constantly moving, you're not going to get enough people. If the chat's constantly moving, that's too many people watching. Because it's annoying to me when you're all writing these comments that you want me to see, and then I'm talking so much I can't even see your comments.
If you've got something to say to me, come where I can actually read it
So what I see as the ideal recipe is this: if you've got something you want to type to me, come where I can actually listen to you. The best way to do that today is to join the Jerry Banfield Family, my community, where I can chat with you and actually read what you have to say. I keep the community structured so I don't have to listen to people just spam and spout off all kinds of stuff, often hate and random messages. Another option, if you're willing to do it, is to get on the open chat on the Internet Computer. If you go to the trouble to talk to me there, then I want to listen to you and I want to read it, and I don't want to be distracted. Right now I'll read every message someone sends in my community and every message someone sends on open chat.
I always think, yes, as a content creator, anything could happen with YouTube. I need to be able to connect with my people when I'm not online. What I'm seeing is that building communities where I can chat with you directly is the way to do it. I don't want a community on Telegram. I do have Telegram notifications, so if you use Telegram and you want to make sure you never miss one of my videos, I've got a Telegram notifications channel. But I do not have a community there. What I want is a place where I can chat with you and actually read what you have to say. And I don't want you to waste your time doing it.
The economics of getting my attention
I just talked to a guy yesterday who paid $200 to have a call with me. And he said, "I sent you some super chats, I had no idea." He'd sent me super chats. From what he said, he probably laid out at least $60, maybe even a hundred dollars, just to get some attention from me on a live stream. I kind of remember one of them. It's so much more economically efficient for you to just come join the community instead, where I'm already reading everything and you're not paying to be seen for a few seconds on a stream.
Advice for content creators: build off the exploitive platforms
So if you're a content creator, I hope you see this, because the platforms that are exploitive, like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, are not worth your time in my experience. The best case is that you build a community somewhere else off of those, like Discord or Telegram, and then get onto a platform like YouTube that shares revenue fairly and transparently, that isn't so nasty with the algorithm most of the time, and where there's search traffic. The gold for a content creator like me is search traffic, where you can get found based off the videos you're making.
I am so grateful for the changes I've been through as a content creator this year. I've deleted Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn permanently. I cannot get those back now. I deleted them before, but they give you 30 days to change your mind. It's been at least 30 days, maybe longer, two or even three months at this point. So I'm so glad I'm not going back there.
What if somebody pretends to be me
The last thing that stopped me from deleting was, well, what if somebody creates a fake Jerry Banfield profile on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, which they already do, and starts pretending to be me and ripping people off in my name? Well, look, all kinds of bad stuff, crazy stuff, is happening on this planet. And if it's not happening in my house, it's not my responsibility. So if somebody creates a Jerry Banfield profile on Facebook, gets a bunch of followers, and rips a bunch of people off, that's got nothing to do with me. My website has all my official links. If that's what's going down on Facebook, it has nothing to do with me, and I can at least get it removed from search results. But if other people are doing that, that's not my problem. I don't own Facebook. I don't own Instagram. I have no responsibility for that happening.
So that's it. I really appreciate you being here. If you want the best experience, watch some more of the videos on my channel. This one will go into my YouTube Coaching playlist for content creators. And if you just want to start chatting with me right away, pop into my community and get to know me better and help me get to know you. I'll see you next time.