1 1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,500 (piano music) 2 2 00:00:05,050 --> 00:00:07,590 When you create a channel from scratch, 3 3 00:00:07,590 --> 00:00:11,510 you should have an idea of who your viewers might be. 4 4 00:00:11,510 --> 00:00:14,120 It's just like planning to start a business. 5 5 00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:16,670 You think of who your potential customers are, 6 6 00:00:16,670 --> 00:00:19,460 how big the market is, et cetera. 7 7 00:00:19,460 --> 00:00:22,300 Chris knows more about that than me, (laughs gently) 8 8 00:00:22,300 --> 00:00:26,160 but at the beginning all you can really do is guess 9 9 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:29,700 and target a particular group of people. 10 10 00:00:29,700 --> 00:00:33,710 It may be a certain age group, a particular gender 11 11 00:00:33,710 --> 00:00:37,740 with a particular interest, or it could be broader. 12 12 00:00:37,740 --> 00:00:41,170 When I started my channel I thought that foreigners 13 13 00:00:41,170 --> 00:00:44,980 in Indonesia would enjoy it as well as Indonesians 14 14 00:00:44,980 --> 00:00:48,430 who have lived overseas at some point, 15 15 00:00:48,430 --> 00:00:51,580 and I really didn't target a specific age group 16 16 00:00:51,580 --> 00:00:54,680 or gender because that would've made my market 17 17 00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:56,423 way too small. 18 18 00:00:57,267 --> 00:01:00,300 After I had been uploading for a while, 19 19 00:01:00,300 --> 00:01:03,070 I had access to the analytics in YouTube 20 20 00:01:03,070 --> 00:01:06,820 and also had sufficient comments on my channel 21 21 00:01:06,820 --> 00:01:09,840 which showed me that I indeed succeeded 22 22 00:01:09,840 --> 00:01:12,400 in entertaining my target market, 23 23 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:16,580 but also that Indonesians who never lived overseas 24 24 00:01:16,580 --> 00:01:20,770 were also watching, which was absolutely amazing 25 25 00:01:20,770 --> 00:01:23,890 and allowed me to do other video concepts 26 26 00:01:23,890 --> 00:01:27,123 that I previously thought wouldn't work. 27 27 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:31,760 Anyway, you are going to have a target market, 28 28 00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:36,350 so antique car enthusiasts, or crafty housewives, 29 29 00:01:36,350 --> 00:01:39,660 or digital nomads, or coffee-lovers. 30 30 00:01:39,660 --> 00:01:42,680 And from the moment you start uploading 31 31 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:44,930 get to know your audience through the comments 32 32 00:01:44,930 --> 00:01:49,450 and the analytics and cater to them the best you can. 33 33 00:01:49,450 --> 00:01:52,330 Don't alienate your audience. 34 34 00:01:52,330 --> 00:01:57,330 My viewers are over 50% male and mostly Indonesian, 35 35 00:01:57,500 --> 00:02:00,510 so it's probably not a good idea for me 36 36 00:02:00,510 --> 00:02:03,200 to make a video about, I don't know, 37 37 00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:06,083 third wave feminism, or something. 38 38 00:02:07,550 --> 00:02:10,230 Because you don't want to make your viewers 39 39 00:02:10,230 --> 00:02:14,470 feel too uncomfortable or bad or whatever, 40 40 00:02:14,470 --> 00:02:16,570 because people don't wanna feel that way 41 41 00:02:16,570 --> 00:02:18,330 and that would alienate the people 42 42 00:02:18,330 --> 00:02:20,360 who helped me build my channel. 43 43 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:23,240 And the country your subscribers are in 44 44 00:02:23,240 --> 00:02:25,770 tells you a little bit about their culture, 45 45 00:02:25,770 --> 00:02:30,090 so I think that's important, as does reading the comments. 46 46 00:02:30,090 --> 00:02:33,500 So I like to use YouTube Studio app, 47 47 00:02:33,500 --> 00:02:36,500 it's a great place to access your comments, 48 48 00:02:36,500 --> 00:02:38,270 and while you're there you can check 49 49 00:02:38,270 --> 00:02:42,000 your demographics, age, gender, country, 50 50 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:45,920 those are the most interesting for me, personally. 51 51 00:02:45,920 --> 00:02:48,300 Now, when you're still figuring out 52 52 00:02:48,300 --> 00:02:50,350 who your target audience will be 53 53 00:02:50,350 --> 00:02:54,060 and still deciding what kind of channel you wanna have, 54 54 00:02:54,060 --> 00:02:57,870 you may want to consider a few things first. 55 55 00:02:57,870 --> 00:03:02,030 First of all, watch time and kids. 56 56 00:03:02,030 --> 00:03:06,520 When kids have daddy's iPhone or mommy's iPhone 57 57 00:03:06,520 --> 00:03:10,890 they watch videos for kids and then continue to click 58 58 00:03:10,890 --> 00:03:15,890 suggested videos until they et carpal tunnel syndrome. 59 59 00:03:15,950 --> 00:03:20,580 And this has a great effect on watch time for kids channels, 60 60 00:03:20,580 --> 00:03:24,860 and YouTube rewards good watch time over anything else. 61 61 00:03:24,860 --> 00:03:29,860 Three-year-olds don't comment or like or subscribe 62 62 00:03:31,010 --> 00:03:35,750 but they watch a lot of content, and watch time 63 63 00:03:35,750 --> 00:03:38,130 trumps all of those other things. 64 64 00:03:38,130 --> 00:03:41,610 So it's not uncommon for videos targeting young children 65 65 00:03:41,610 --> 00:03:44,293 to have over a hundred million views. 66 66 00:03:45,470 --> 00:03:49,960 Teenagers in the 13 to 17-year-old category 67 67 00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:52,170 are also an excellent audience to have 68 68 00:03:52,170 --> 00:03:55,520 because not only do they watch a lot of YouTube 69 69 00:03:55,520 --> 00:04:00,520 but they share videos more often as well, which is helpful. 70 70 00:04:00,630 --> 00:04:04,260 It may be word-of-mouth at school or maybe they'll post 71 71 00:04:04,260 --> 00:04:06,540 or send a link to their friend, 72 72 00:04:06,540 --> 00:04:09,840 they're just in a better position to share stuff. 73 73 00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:13,730 Adults, on the other hand, generally interact a bit less 74 74 00:04:13,730 --> 00:04:17,030 and don't have as much time to spend on YouTube, 75 75 00:04:17,030 --> 00:04:19,380 and I'm just gonna generalize here 76 76 00:04:19,380 --> 00:04:22,410 and say that the older the audience, 77 77 00:04:22,410 --> 00:04:25,630 the harder it is to grow your channel. 78 78 00:04:25,630 --> 00:04:29,860 That's why Monique Parent is so amazing to me, 79 79 00:04:29,860 --> 00:04:32,580 she has a YouTube channel where she talks 80 80 00:04:32,580 --> 00:04:36,480 a lot about silver hair or gray hair 81 81 00:04:36,480 --> 00:04:41,100 and she had to succeed without the help of youth engagement 82 82 00:04:41,100 --> 00:04:45,030 and I think she really did an excellent job. 83 83 00:04:45,030 --> 00:04:47,824 So you can still succeed with an older crowd, 84 84 00:04:47,824 --> 00:04:52,824 but you are unlikely to be Top 100 Most Viewed. 85 85 00:04:53,350 --> 00:04:56,720 And you are very unlikely to get a billion views, 86 86 00:04:56,720 --> 00:04:59,253 like Ryan from Ryan's Toy Review. 87 87 00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:04,590 But the good news is you don't need one billion views 88 88 00:05:04,590 --> 00:05:07,710 to make a difference, nor do you need one billion views 89 89 00:05:07,710 --> 00:05:10,443 to build a career for yourself on YouTube. 90 90 00:05:11,730 --> 00:05:14,900 Okay, let's say you already have an idea 91 91 00:05:14,900 --> 00:05:17,350 for the theme of your channel. 92 92 00:05:17,350 --> 00:05:19,770 Now that you have that, you should consider 93 93 00:05:19,770 --> 00:05:21,820 how big the market is. 94 94 00:05:21,820 --> 00:05:24,810 Is it enough to support the level of success 95 95 00:05:24,810 --> 00:05:26,880 that you're hoping for? 96 96 00:05:26,880 --> 00:05:29,758 Here's an example: gaming videos. 97 97 00:05:29,758 --> 00:05:34,030 I used to be addicted to a game, Clash of Kings, 98 98 00:05:34,030 --> 00:05:39,030 and I did do a video about it, but it wasn't a gaming video. 99 99 00:05:39,270 --> 00:05:42,330 And although it would've been my dream 100 100 00:05:42,330 --> 00:05:46,840 to play Clash of Kings all day long and make money from it 101 101 00:05:46,840 --> 00:05:49,053 instead of spend my money on it, 102 102 00:05:50,290 --> 00:05:52,620 the game just wasn't popular enough 103 103 00:05:52,620 --> 00:05:57,558 to support a gaming channel specifically for Clash of Kings 104 104 00:05:57,558 --> 00:05:59,947 at that time, anyway. 105 105 00:05:59,947 --> 00:06:03,603 Chris would say the tam was too small. 106 106 00:06:04,530 --> 00:06:07,780 So I retired my level 23 castle 107 107 00:06:08,885 --> 00:06:10,360 and I went back to real life. 108 108 00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:14,730 Now YouTube, if it's just a hobby for you, 109 109 00:06:14,730 --> 00:06:18,490 or you have other motives and you don't care too much 110 110 00:06:18,490 --> 00:06:21,660 about growing the channel to a massive size, 111 111 00:06:21,660 --> 00:06:24,743 then ignore everything I just said, you do you.