QUESTION · TUESDAY FOCUS

What do you do to help people find your channel and make it feel connected and relevant?

ASKED BY · Dave Johnson · MAINE, US (WEB) · 03 NOV 2026 · ▶ 00:57:55

THE PANEL'S ANSWER
Stephen Heywood

Cross-promotes on social platforms and live podcast with QR codes on merchandise; actively comments on viewer comments to build personal connection rather than chasing subscriber numbers; prioritizes meaningful engagement over vanity metrics.

Summarised by AI from what the panel said. Watch the moment for the full answer.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

From the transcript.

Machine-transcribed, so it may contain errors. Every timestamp opens the episode at that second.

57:31And if you ask yourself if you're comfortable, as Bill said, you know, when you get comfortable, you're comfortable. That's when you want to change. If you can sit there and say, you know, I'm comfortable. No, that means you need to change. Yeah. Push a boundary, push a wall out, expand, learn something new. We did have a late last question, and since it perfectly segues into our wrap-up, Cindy, do the honors.

57:56Sneaking a last one in from Dave Johnson in Maine. What do you do to help people find your channel and for it to feel connected and relevant? element? You know, I do like a lot of people. I'll put it out there and I put it on other social platforms. I do it on my live podcast that I do with my co-host and we put it out there.

58:17I wear shirts and stuff. I have a QR code on the back that I'm in public. Like I want it to be something where, you know, you get all these YouTubers that are like, Hey, subscribe to me, subscribe to me. All you have to do is click subscribe. But I don't want people to subscribe to me just to subscribe to me. I want people to subscribe to me because they want the information

58:36that I'm providing them or they're into the content that I'm doing. Numbers without that is nothing. Like I don't, I don't want that. Right. So I hope that when people comment, I comment back. That's how I try to make it personable. I don't, I don't sit there and go, well, I'm too big for this. I'm not going to comment back. I literally sit there and I'll

58:58I'll go back and comment to every person that leaves a comment. And if they leave another comment, I respond right back to it. I feel like if you took the time to comment on my video, I'm going to comment back and I'm going to, you know, build that connection with you, you know, for watching my stuff and hopefully you become a longtime subscriber.

59:16That's, that's what I do. We've had the pleasure for the last hour of talking to Stephen Haywood. And how do people get ahold of you directly? if they want to ask you a question, Stephen, or learn more about what you do. Sure. I'll put it out there. It's public. You can email me, steve at the techbuzz.net. I still have the old email address from the old website, but you can check me out,

59:39youtube.com slash the techbuzz. All my socials can be found, you know, sprawled all over that channel as well. So yeah, I appreciate you guys having me on. Excellent. You've been a fabulous guest, and I've loved talking to you. And I also love our crew. And I want to just say a public thank you to everybody in the back end. You'll see some credits roll here at the end.

1:00:02These are some of the many, many, many people who have been a part of the Office Hours family for a long time. You know, we traditionally close with a Tlaloc traversal. If you had been going around to get the information that we served up to you today, not just from Stephen, but also from the people who asked questions to help us with our discussion,

1:00:20discussion you would have traveled 24 000 miles that's 39 000 kilometers or 193 million bananas for scale uh thanks to alan robert vick josh peter and more in the background of this we'll be back next week with another thursday thursday no that's a different show tuesday focus thanks for watching and we'll see you next time on the tuesday focus take care have a good evening bye

1:00:50you you Thank you.

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ALSO IN THIS EPISODE

14 more questions
from Reinventing a Brand with Stephen Heywood.

The whole episode →
▶ 00:02:30You have a fascinating story of reinvention. You came out of tech broadcasting. How did you decide to make the pivot into the gaming world?▶ 00:24:28What changes are you seeing in the game world now that anyone can spin up a version of Doom in AI? Could we all become game creators? Pong, Mario, Call of Duty?▶ 00:26:38Steven, please talk about your views on where the live streaming landscape is heading next.▶ 00:29:23Gaming continues to be bigger than most Hollywood blockbusters. What are those audiences looking for? And how can Office Hours Global work alongside that group? We have a lot of similarities: technical interests in streaming, interactivity, community.▶ 00:31:11What words of encouragement do you have for our community members that want to start or grow a YouTube channel?▶ 00:33:37Did you visit or have friends visit the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pop-up in LA? Thoughts on if it was successful for the game? Could this be done for independent games?▶ 00:35:45What are your thoughts on these IRL "Backpacks"?▶ 00:37:21Stephen, do you consider professional producers are still relevant now that "everyone" can have a YouTube channel and stream? How can you be an outlier in the industry?▶ 00:39:50What feels distinctive about the culture of gaming communities compared with the tech community you came from?▶ 00:43:22Looking at your channel and the old videos versus the new, what initiated the "Reinvention"?▶ 00:49:06Have you seen people turn skills learned through gaming streams into opportunities in live production or other fields?▶ 00:51:01Besides YouTube, do you still follow through your career in a regular 9-5? Or has this YouTube channel and convention production become your business?▶ 00:52:10Which supposed "must-haves" can you drop from a show without much trouble, and which "creature comforts" have you found surprisingly necessary?▶ 00:53:51What would you advise us to transform ourselves and shift on improving our content and channels?