Hey all, wanted to take this time since my mind is racing with ideas after tuning into a Tuesday night talk show hosted by @EveryVowel. This was my first time tuning in but apparently it happens every Tuesday night at 6PM (PT). I appreciate the Clubhouse app so much. It’s basically a panel where you can tune in and listen live. If you don’t have an invite yet, make sure you have a friend who can spare you an invite to get into it because there’s so much useful content, and people on there that you can learn from.
I didn’t have an opportunity to talk, though being invited as a speaker but there was a panel that was the “After Party” of a previous MrBeast panel. It was really interesting because it was the first time I was able to listen to a wide range of other creatives talk about their own experiences, not just in the gaming niche.
Jack Gordon mentioned that he wanted to grow. He has a steady amount of 25,000 subscribers at the age of 16 and was stumped about what to do next for his channel because he just wanted to grow. He said he had asked his subscribers what kind of content they’d like to see, but said he didn’t want to cater to his current audience because he wants to build beyond it.
Great ambitions and he’s not wrong. He wants to diversify and cater to an audience that he doesn’t already have.
However, multiple creators chimed in, and I (who wanted to) said that he was wrong in this because if he doesn’t cater to his current audience, how will he grow beyond it? Your current audience is the most loyal. What I wanted to say, but didn’t get a chance to say was that if you can’t satisfy your current audience and give them what they want to see, how can you get a more loyal audience?
Your audience shouldn’t just number to you. Someone else asked, “How do I know what is a good number of subscribers to have in my first year of Youtube?” There is no right answer for this. Your audience isn’t just a number! They should be a community and a network. I think this stems from my experience with streaming on Twitch and seeing that the most successful streamers do have some sort of community sense as Twitch subscribers are recurring paid subscribers - unlike Youtube where it’s a free subscription.
It shouldn’t matter the number, as advertisers and sponsors are now looking at your RPM and CTR. They look for engagement. You must’ve seen those examples of the influencer who had 2.6 million Instagram followers, only managed to sell 36 t-shirts. Only 36 of her 2.6 million followers are devoted fans.
If I could tell Jack and ask him, how many of his followers are devoted fans out of the 25,000, would he be able to answer it? I think he would struggle with this question. It would be less than 10% of his following based on statistics I’ve seen. I think selling merchandise is a low-hanging fruit of ways that creators can find out how engaged their audience really is to their content to “support” them (if they aren’t Twitch streamers with paid subscriptions).
Jack had mentioned he wanted to create more videos outside of the current niche that he has (which is TIkTok / Tech). Someone had suggested him making a second channel for that type of content. I agreed with this, but again, how many of those 25,000 would follow him over to his second channel to support it? How many loyal fans does he have if he doesn’t cater to the fans he already has, rather than focusing on the fans he doesn’t have?
From my experience with working with multiple creators who have multiple Youtube channels since their main channels catered to a different audience, I’d say creating a second channel is a great idea, especially if you’re going from Tech videos, to maybe Lifestyle & Vlogs. Some examples would be the female gaming creators that I work with who all have a second channel. Their main gaming channels cater to the gaming audience with a higher male ratio to female. A “Get Ready with Me” video wouldn’t perform well on the gaming channel, so they made a second channel catered to Lifestyle and vlogs. The audience from the first gaming channel would follow over (if they were loyal fans) whereas the audience from the main channel who don’t care about the Lifestyle video but only digest their gaming content, would remain on the gaming channel.
The Lifestyle channel than would be able to attract new audiences, like a female demographic. Therein, all the benefits that come with diversifying your content and demographic - new content ideas, new brand deals, and everything else.
I am really excited to be tuning into these more often and providing my insights where I can, especially since I am looking to build Candle, a platform for online creatives and creators to find each other and hire each other.
That’s all! Thanks for reading.