Social Media Marketing Podcast · Michael Stelzner, Social Media Examiner

Are YouTube's Latest Tools Ready for Businesses

·43 min·3 clips

Liron's rule: 'The more you explain in public, the less convincing you have to do in private' — YouTube viewers have already said yes multiple times before they get on a sales call.

1. The Social Media Marketing Podcast covers YouTube's latest platform updates with YouTube strategist Liron Segev, co-hosted by Jerry Potter and Michael Stelzner. 2. Liron Segev is described as a YouTube strategist who helps businesses turn YouTube channels into lead machines and built a million-subscriber channel in a Wi-Fi niche; Jerry Potter co-hosts the segment. 3. The episode asks whether YouTube's AI creation tools and new paid features are ready for business marketers to invest in, and what the platform's education commitment means for content strategy. 4. YouTube reported over one million channels using its built-in AI creation tools daily in December, including 'Ingredients to Video' for eight-second AI clips and an upcoming feature to create Shorts using a creator's own likeness. 5. Liron argues the AI video tools are not yet A-to-Z viable: producing usable output requires many iterations, prompt corrections, and stitching multiple clips — not a single typed prompt. 6. He describes watching a preview of the 'use your own likeness' YouTube feature at Made on YouTube 2024, comparing it to a TikTok filter that makes creators appear to breakdance or do martial arts. 7. Liron argues trust erosion with AI content is already happening at the audience level, but that viewers ultimately care about utility — his 'WFIM rule' (What's in it for me?) means a helpful AI avatar is preferable to no answer. 8. He defines 'AI slop' as AI content posted purely as a tick-box exercise to hit arbitrary posting quotas, calling it a crutch, and warns YouTube has been building detection systems against spam and low-quality bulk content since before AI was mainstream. 9. YouTube announced it is reducing the spread of 'low quality, repetitive content' by removing monetisation from faceless bulk channels, which Liron says will filter out much of the slop organically. 10. Jerry raises image posts coming to the YouTube Shorts feed; Liron expresses scepticism about still images in a video platform but suggests infographics and data visualisation with voiceover as the most viable use case. 11. Liron endorses testing new YouTube features early because the platform pushes visibility to new features to gather data — an early-adopter organic reach opportunity for businesses. 12. YouTube shared research showing 93% of 18-27 year old US viewers agree the platform helps them learn new skills, and that nearly 80% of US teachers who use YouTube say it helps students learn. 13. Liron argues YouTube should be treated as a classroom not a billboard — a permanent content library where every video is a free sales agent, contrasting with a 30-second Super Bowl ad reaching 175,000 people versus YouTube's 2.7 billion users. 14. He notes LLMs including ChatGPT and Gemini pull structured data primarily from YouTube, meaning educational YouTube videos are surfaced in AI-generated answers, extending their reach beyond the platform itself. 15. Jerry reports that over 85% of his 50+ YouTube videos received views in the last 28 days, including 2017 videos that originally got 16 views now receiving 500 views monthly. 16. Liron coined the phrase 'the more you explain in public, the less convincing you have to do in private' — arguing YouTube viewers who have watched multiple videos arrive on sales calls having already decided to buy. 17. On YouTube's Promote tool, Liron confirms from personal testing and YouTube employee conversations that paid promotion and organic algorithms are completely separate, with no organic reach penalty. 18. He recommends only promoting videos that have already outperformed organic baselines, and using promotion for geographic or interest-based audience testing rather than vanity view accumulation. 19. Business owners, B2B marketers, and solo professionals building authority via video content will find Liron's educational YouTube positioning framework most directly applicable. 20. Listeners focused on short-form social content on Instagram or TikTok, or early-stage AI video production techniques, will find the episode less actionable for their current workflows.

As heard by us

A grounded, test-first look at how businesses might use YouTube's coming tools without treating them as automatic wins.

This episode is most useful when it stays close to the marketer's actual decision: how a static, graphic-led idea might survive inside a Shorts-style feed.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want YouTube Shorts ideas with enough real marketing texture to handle uncertainty, pattern interrupts, and a little anti-guru oxygen.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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