Need Advice How can I improve on my ORGANIC channel marketing strategy? This is what I'm doing now...

[modernhippieproject]

I don't want anything to do with that sub4sub exchange stuff. So far, I have created and optimized social media accounts on Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. I post regularly to IG, Facebook and Reddit. I've worked on trying to create video collaborations, but sadly none of them have panned out. I've engaged on YouTube as my channel and left comments on "competitor" videos. I have a website, and I blog on it.

What else could I add to my strategy? I'm in the lifestyle category. Expat/Italy/Sustainability/DIY/Business.. All things "me" basically!

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

A couple things I notice right off the bat... and something that I see pretty often:

1. You do all the things... but there is no mention of the actual content. I could be off base (you should link your channel to your profile so we can see!). But I feel like you spend so much time focusing on the social media and forums and spreading the word manually that you are missing out on what is most important. The content.

All your social media and Reddit and Pinterest etc can not scratch the surface of the amount of reach that YouTube has. They put videos in front of a specific audience looking exactly for that video... none of the other Social Media platforms do this any where near as good as YouTube does. They have a larger reach. While social media has a definite value if you are talking about that value in terms of discoverability it is YouTube itself that you should be focusing on! (i.e. optimizing your videos, translating, improving thumbnails and studying your analytics to make the absolutel best videos possible!).

2. You are in the 'lifestyle' category... Expat/Italy/Sustainability/DIY/Business...
I love that this is 'all things you' but... and I say this with a smile and a laugh... there is nothing basic about that. It is very... varied. What is your target audience?

Actually... let me tell you who your target audience... ex-patriots in Italy who are looking for sustainable DIY business information. This is entirely too broad and far too specific for an audience. That's not to say that you can't incorporate all of these things into your channel...

In fact I would encourage this. But this is not your focus. From a writer's standpoint; you are a character in your own movie. When you are preparing a script and designing characters you typically give your characters five core elements that define who they are. The character never breaks these core elements, and at least one of these elements is reflected in every single mention of that character. Expat/Italy/Sustainability/DIY/Business... these are your character traits. They need to be included in everything you do. But your channel is more than just you and your personality. You and your personality define your channel. They are the driving force behind why someone would subscribe. But you need to select a specific focus for what you channel is about. What is the core subject that people are coming to your channel for in the first place. Nail that down, and then let your personality go to town turning these viewers into subscriber.

 

[modernhippieproject]

A couple things I notice right off the bat... and something that I see pretty often:

1. You do all the things... but there is no mention of the actual content. I could be off base (you should link your channel to your profile so we can see!). But I feel like you spend so much time focusing on the social media and forums and spreading the word manually that you are missing out on what is most important. The content.

All your social media and Reddit and Pinterest etc can not scratch the surface of the amount of reach that YouTube has. They put videos in front of a specific audience looking exactly for that video... none of the other Social Media platforms do this any where near as good as YouTube does. They have a larger reach. While social media has a definite value if you are talking about that value in terms of discoverability it is YouTube itself that you should be focusing on! (i.e. optimizing your videos, translating, improving thumbnails and studying your analytics to make the absolutel best videos possible!).

2. You are in the 'lifestyle' category... Expat/Italy/Sustainability/DIY/Business...
I love that this is 'all things you' but... and I say this with a smile and a laugh... there is nothing basic about that. It is very... varied. What is your target audience?

Actually... let me tell you who your target audience... ex-patriots in Italy who are looking for sustainable DIY business information. This is entirely too broad and far too specific for an audience. That's not to say that you can't incorporate all of these things into your channel...

In fact I would encourage this. But this is not your focus. From a writer's standpoint; you are a character in your own movie. When you are preparing a script and designing characters you typically give your characters five core elements that define who they are. The character never breaks these core elements, and at least one of these elements is reflected in every single mention of that character. Expat/Italy/Sustainability/DIY/Business... these are your character traits. They need to be included in everything you do. But your channel is more than just you and your personality. You and your personality define your channel. They are the driving force behind why someone would subscribe. But you need to select a specific focus for what you channel is about. What is the core subject that people are coming to your channel for in the first place. Nail that down, and then let your personality go to town turning these viewers into subscriber.

1. (Linked my channel, thank you for that!) I have recently upped my production schedule to a minimum of 2 videos per week, and I'm trying to publish shorts as well to help drive traffic to the channel/get comfortable with them.

2. My channel is mostly just sharing my life. Resources. Tips. Ideas. Methods. Thoughts. I always get people coming to me for advice, or admiring me from afar because of the way I live my life and who I am. (Serial entrepreneur, traveler.. It feels like a movie sometimes.) I think it's because I'm not one of those like, mega beautiful "influencer" types - so I'm not that shallow and I'm more relatable - but I still live a life that others want. And I want to use that influence to also inspire them to live simply and sustainably. So. I don't really know how to derive a target audience out of all that! Haha.

 

[MattCommand1]

From a writer's standpoint; you are a character in your own movie. When you are preparing a script and designing characters you typically give your characters five core elements that define who they are. The character never breaks these core elements, and at least one of these elements is reflected in every single mention of that character. Expat/Italy/Sustainability/DIY/Business... these are your character traits. They need to be included in everything you do. But your channel is more than just you and your personality. You and your personality define your channel. They are the driving force behind why someone would subscribe. But you need to select a specific focus for what your channel is about. What is the core subject that people are coming to your channel for in the first place. Nail that down, and then let your personality go to town turning these viewers into subscriber.

I read this paragraph 3 times. I never thought of myself as a "character". Are you referring to an online persona?

What do you do if you think you don't have a good personality and feel like a stiff on camera? (me)

We don't have to hijack this thread but I am intrigued about what you said about being "characters" and 5 core elements of who we are and how it needs to reflected in everything we do.

 

[modernhippieproject]

I read this paragraph 3 times. I never thought of myself as a "character". Are you referring to an online persona?

What do you do if you think you don't have a good personality and feel like a stiff on camera? (me)

We don't have to hijack this thread but I am intrigued about what you said about being "characters" and 5 core elements of who we are and how it needs to reflected in everything we do.

By all means, hijack away and embellish on the characterization aspect! I could use some help with that!

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

I read this paragraph 3 times. I never thought of myself as a "character". Are you referring to an online persona?

What do you do if you think you don't have a good personality and feel like a stiff on camera? (me)

We don't have to hijack this thread but I am intrigued about what you said about being "characters" and 5 core elements of who we are and how it needs to reflected in everything we do.

When you are on camera you get to pick and choose the details that get shown. If you don't want people to see a tattoo you can cover it. You can turn to the side to prevent them from seeing it. This ability to hand-pick the things people see and hear from you makes you a character. Any time you see a person on camera you are only ever seeing the character that they are allowing to represent them.

A seasoned talent will select the traits that they most want associated with that character (or which are most central to the theme of the video/channel etc) and use them as part of the narrative.

And yes; your perceived lack of personality is absolutely one of your character traits and can even be beneficial. A perfect example of this is Chuck Testa.

Back before they were YouTube famous Rhett & Link (from Good Mythical Morning) did commercials. They held a contest to do a commercial for someone and taxidermist Chuck Testa won. The commercials they did were intentionally, absolutely and hilariously dry. What people refer to as his 'lack of personality' is actually a part of his character now... at least on camera. Obviously this is an exaggeration of how he acts in real life... but more importantly it is a part of his character and a staple in his content.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJP1DphOWPs

 

[MattCommand1]

When you are on camera you get to pick and choose the details that get shown. If you don't want people to see a tattoo you can cover it. You can turn to the side to prevent them from seeing it. This ability to hand-pick the things people see and hear from you makes you a character. Any time you see a person on camera you are only ever seeing the character that they are allowing to represent them.

A seasoned talent will select the traits that they most want associated with that character (or which are most central to the theme of the video/channel etc) and use them as part of the narrative.

And yes; your perceived lack of personality is absolutely one of your character traits and can even be beneficial. A perfect example of this is Chuck Testa.

Back before they were YouTube famous Rhett & Link (from Good Mythical Morning) did commercials. They held a contest to do a commercial for someone and taxidermist Chuck Testa won. The commercials they did were intentionally, absolutely and hilariously dry. What people refer to as his 'lack of personality' is actually a part of his character now... at least on camera. Obviously this is an exaggeration of how he acts in real life... but more importantly it is a part of his character and a staple in his content.

I enjoyed the Chuck Testa example.

My head is still swimming in the whole "I am a character" thing. In my current video recording setup, I feel a bit confined and I feel stiff. I am an introvert and actively work to be outwardly more social. One of the worst things about my editing my own YT videos is that I get sick of myself. I cannot watch myself anymore after I upload it. It is sort of like you said. I see one small section of my personality show up in my video and it just seems "incomplete". But it is what it is. You capture what you capture. You can only strive to do better on the next one.

I need to do something thinking and introspection about the character can of worms you opened up. The thing that has been able to keep me moving is that I know that not everyone will like me. The world sorts itself out even if you are not conscious of it. People who dislike you tend to move away and those that like and respect you start moving towards you. I am still get amazed when people actually like my videos or come back. I get surprised by small traffic surges and small subscriber surges too.

The one good thing I believe is that I have faith things will work out if I do my part, even if I see the many flaws within my own videos.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Matt I wholeheartedly agree with that. Be yourself. You don't have to manipulate your 'character.' Accept the flaws, be 110% you and that is all anyone can ask for.

 

[MediaMan]

With content subject all over the place from valentines flowers to dog tennants to real estate I can see where organic discovery might be hard due to the YT algorithm probably has a hard time deciding who your demographic target is. But you have over 700 subs, so something is clicking. Maybe narrow your content focus for a while to your 3 main subjects and perhaps that will help seed your channel better which might help the YT algorithm promote your channel better.

 

[DevilByTheTale]

I'll chime in with something to add about the "character" bit. How do you talk to your friends? If the channel is about you, then bring out more of you and your personality. When I started doing this with my first channel, it became easier to write and perform. I would even sprinkle some of the mistakes in the videos and feature them as outtakes. My retention and reach started growing as a result.

As for the social media, I was never that good at it. But when I did put a lot of time and effort into it the results were... crap. I thought that putting a lot of of effort into social media was how to get more traffic, as more popular channels had tons of followers. Reality is they have lots of followers because they came FROM their channel. From there it spreads to their friends, etc. Even with about 5K subs, I was getting little to no engagement from Twitter, Instagram. It was really a large waste of time. Grant that this was for gaming, and a large portion of gamers are busy playing the game and involved in communities. That was a key turning point for me was being involved in the communities. Since those communities are talking about something more specific, the content we do is suddenly way more relevant. To a small degree there was some success on Facebook, but by far the largest impact was on Discord. After a while, I was kind of a celebrity there. It helped that I mentioned that Discord server in some of my videos. It was new (maybe 50 people) when I started, but now over 37K. When I was there or in the game, I got countless messages saying how they came there because they saw my videos. It also helped that I listened to the community and gave them what they wanted (tutorials that didn't really exist).

In short, do what the others said by focusing on your content first and foremost. Get involved in an active community, listen to them, and make content about what they want. Social media should be a small tool that you can use when you can't create, but it shouldn't be taking away time from doing what you love.

 

[lonelytalks]

This thread is full of whole new world of information to me. Thanks for everyone who contributed their part. i feel like I have learned something good today which can be useful for my Youtube journey.

 

[sanradavid]

Your health should be your top priority. After a personal injury, you should always get medical attention right away, even if your injuries don't seem serious. Medical records can be very helpful in documenting the extent of your injuries and how they have affected your overall health. Moreover, seeking medical attention expedites your recuperation and ensures critical care.

personal injury law firm virginia