If I Wanted to Grow An Audience in 2024, I'd Do This
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful video, the speaker, drawing from six years of experience, shares expert advice on growing an online audience from scratch. They discuss the importance of identifying a niche, understanding the target audience, and providing value. The speaker emphasizes the strategy of 'viral replication' to create successful content, and the concept of the '10% Edge' to guide the audience. They also delve into the systematic approach to content creation, the necessity of patience and consistency, and the evolution of a content pipeline from a solo endeavor to a team-based operation, highlighting the power of systems, processes, and repurposing content across platforms.
Takeaways
- 📈 Start with a Niche: Focus on a specific target audience and the value you can provide them, combining the 'Target' and 'Value' to define your niche.
- 🔍 Viral Replication: Learn from successful content by copying the title and thumbnail of viral pieces and creating your own version to leverage their success.
- 🎓 Leverage Your Expertise: Use your personal experience and knowledge to create content that adds value to a very specific audience, like teaching med school applicants based on your own experience.
- 📚 The 10% Edge: Be a guide for an audience that is 10% behind you, illuminating the path for those you can genuinely help.
- 📝 Document, Don't Create: Share your personal processes and systems, like study techniques, as content, rather than trying to be a general guru.
- 🔑 Productivity Focus: Identify a key area, like productivity, and build your brand around it, becoming a go-to source for that topic.
- 🎨 Packaging Matters: Invest time in creating compelling titles and thumbnails to ensure viewers click on and watch your content.
- 🔄 Systemize Content Creation: Treat content creation as a systematic process with defined structures and processes, rather than relying solely on creativity.
- 🎼 Use Royalty-Free Music: Utilize platforms like Epidemic Sound for high-quality, copyright-safe music for your videos.
- 🔗 Affiliate Marketing: Explore affiliate income as a revenue stream, leveraging products and services you genuinely use and recommend.
- 🚀 Consistency is Key: Commit to a long-term plan, like posting weekly for two years, to see significant growth in your audience.
- 🛠 Build Systems for Scalability: Develop systems and delegate tasks to avoid burnout and scale your content creation effectively.
- 🌐 Repurposing Content: Maximize the value of your content by repurposing it for various social media platforms to reach a wider audience.
Q & A
What is the main topic of the video?
-The main topic of the video is sharing advice on how to grow an online audience from scratch, based on the speaker's 6 years of experience with growing their YouTube audience to over 6 million followers.
What does the speaker mean by 'Niche' in the context of building an online audience?
-In the context of building an online audience, 'Niche' refers to a specific target audience and the value they are seeking. It's about identifying who you want to reach and what kind of content will be valuable to them.
What is the technique of 'viral replication' as mentioned in the video?
-The technique of 'viral replication' involves copying the title and thumbnail of a piece of content that has already proven successful, and then creating your own version of that content in a unique way, without plagiarizing the original.
How did the speaker initially start making niche videos?
-The speaker initially started making niche videos by teaching people how to get into medical school in the UK for specific universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, and UCL, leveraging their own experience as a medical student at Cambridge.
What is the concept of the '10% Edge' as introduced by Amy Porterfield?
-The '10% Edge' concept by Amy Porterfield refers to the idea of being a guide for an audience that is 10% behind you in a certain area. You can illuminate the path for them because you are slightly ahead, rather than trying to be a guru who knows everything.
How did the speaker transition from making niche videos to becoming known for productivity?
-The speaker transitioned by first focusing on their niche audience and providing value in that area. As they gained trust and their audience grew, they started to receive questions about productivity. This led them to expand their content to include productivity tips, eventually becoming known for it.
What is the importance of the title and thumbnail in YouTube video packaging?
-The title and thumbnail are crucial in YouTube video packaging because they are the first things potential viewers see. If they are not compelling, viewers may not click on the video, regardless of the content's quality.
What does the speaker suggest for systemizing video content creation?
-The speaker suggests treating video content creation like a systematic process, with defined steps for idea generation, writing, filming, editing, and publishing. This approach reduces reliance on 'creative energy' and increases consistency and efficiency.
How does the speaker describe the role of music in their videos, and who provides it?
-The speaker describes music as an important element in their videos, provided by Epidemic Sound. They offer a large library of royalty-free music that can be used without the risk of copyright strikes, enhancing the production quality of the videos.
What is the main strategy for consistency in content creation according to the speaker?
-The main strategy for consistency in content creation, as per the speaker, is setting input goals that are within one's control, such as committing to creating and sharing content regularly, and focusing on the process rather than the outcome.
How does the speaker approach the idea of systemization and delegation in their content creation process?
-The speaker approaches systemization and delegation by creating a content pipeline with defined processes for each step of content creation. They delegate tasks to a team, allowing them to focus on their strengths while the team handles other aspects of the process.
Outlines
🚀 Growing an Online Audience from Scratch
The speaker shares insights from their 6-year journey of growing an online audience to over 6 million followers. They discuss the importance of identifying a niche by combining a specific target audience with a valuable offering. The speaker emphasizes the strategy of 'viral replication,' where one can capitalize on successful content by others by recreating it in their own unique way. They also touch on their personal experience of starting with very niche content related to medical school admissions and expanding into broader topics like productivity, drawing from their own expertise and experiences.
🎵 The Power of Music and Consistency in Content Creation
The speaker discusses the role of background music in video content, highlighting a partnership with Epidemic Sound, which provides a vast library of royalty-free music for creators. They explain the benefits of using Epidemic Sound's service to avoid copyright issues and the convenience of their diverse music and sound effects catalog. The speaker also delves into the challenges of maintaining consistency in content creation, advocating for setting input goals and the importance of patience and faith in seeing results. They share personal strategies for building systems and processes to ensure scalable and sustainable content production.
🛠 Systemization and Delegation in Scaling Content Production
The speaker outlines the evolution of their content creation process from a solo effort to a team of 14, focusing on systemization and delegation to avoid burnout and scale efficiently. They describe the initial challenges of managing all aspects of video production and the realization of the need for a systematic approach inspired by 'The E-Myth Revisited' by Michael Gerber. The speaker details the current content pipeline, which includes specialized roles for idea generation, research, filming, editing, publishing, and repurposing content across various platforms. They emphasize the importance of focusing on one's strengths and delegating other tasks to build a sustainable content creation empire.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Online Audience
💡Niche
💡Viral Replication
💡10% Edge
💡Productivity
💡Systemization
💡Consistency
💡E-Myth Revisited
💡Delegation
💡Repurposing
💡Epidemic Sound
Highlights
The speaker shares 6 years of experience growing an online audience to over 6 million followers across platforms.
Emphasizes the importance of identifying a niche by combining target audience and value proposition.
Suggests using the technique of 'viral replication' to create successful content by modeling successful pieces.
Shares personal experience of growing an audience by targeting very niche markets like med school admissions.
Introduces the concept of the '10% Edge', guiding an audience that is 10% behind you in knowledge.
Documents personal study methods and exam preparation as a way to add value without being a 'guru'.
Transitioned to focusing on productivity as a key theme based on audience interest and personal expertise.
Mentions the importance of the 80/20 rule in content creation to maximize impact with minimal effort.
Stresses the significance of title and thumbnail in attracting viewers on YouTube.
Advocates for systemizing content creation to reduce reliance on creativity and increase efficiency.
Endorses the use of background music from Epidemic Sound for video content.
Provides an affiliate income opportunity through the Epidemic Sound affiliate program.
Discusses the challenge of consistency in content creation and the need for patience and faith.
Recommends setting input goals that are within one's control for consistent content creation.
Advises committing to a content schedule, like posting weekly for two years, to see significant results.
Shares the evolution from creating content solo to building a team and systemizing the process.
Introduces the idea of treating a YouTube channel like a franchise for scalability and consistency.
Details the delegation of various content creation tasks to a team to focus on core strengths.
Highlights the importance of repurposing video content across different social media platforms.
Transcripts
hey friends welcome back to the channel
so in this video I'm going to take my 6
years of experience of growing an online
audience to over 6 million followers on
YouTube and across all the platforms and
I'm going to share what I would do if I
was trying to grow an audience
completely from scratch today this is
something I've learned absolutely loads
about over the years and people always
ask me about it and so I wanted to share
my best advice and conveniently a few
months ago I was interviewed by my
friend and fellow YouTuber and
entrepreneur Noah Kagan and he and his
audience asked me a bunch of questions
around how to build an online audience
and so this video is going to be the
best advice from that
interview ideas kind of stem from Niche
and for me Niche is sort of a
combination of two things there's the
Target and the value who is the Target
and what is the value so for example as
a marketing agency owner I could be
targeting other marketing agency owners
and teaching them how to grow their
business that would create very
different content to for example
targeting dtoc consumer brand managers
and trying to teach them how to use Tik
Tok ads to level up their d2c campaigns
and one once I've nailed that at that
point I would start thinking okay cool
what are all the different content
buckets of ideas what's popular on blogs
that are targeting that audience what
are the other YouTube channels in the
space let's sort them by most popular
views and let's see what are their
videos that have gone viral we call this
technique of viral replication just kind
of funny basically like the easiest way
to get content that works is to copy the
title and thumbnail of another piece of
content that has worked and then just do
it in your own way so you're not really
plagiarizing them that would be how to
approach it if we were to zoom out a
little I was making very Niche videos
teaching people how to get into med
school in the UK for specific University
Oxford Cambridge Imperial UCL those were
the only things I was targeting very
very very Niche audience but I had an
unfair advantage in that space cuz I was
a medical student at Cambridge and I'd
been running courses teaching people how
to get into med school for like 5 years
at that point so I was making videos
about what I knew I wasn't trying to
make videos trying to be a general
productivity self-help Guru cuz that
wasn't even on the radar it was
literally just how do I add value to
people that I'm comfortable I can add
value to Amy Porterfield has a concept
she calls the 10% Edge who is the
audience that you're 10% ahead of that
you can illuminate the path for you can
be a guide rather than a guru so I was
being a guide for medical students
helping them get into med school and
then they got into med school and people
started asking me for advice on how to
study study for exams and I was like
okay I can do that so I read a few
papers I studied psychology as part of
my medical degree and I started sharing
the Gary ve model of document don't
create I was documenting the stuff that
I was doing to study for my own exams so
again I don't need to be a guru here I'm
just literally like hey here's how I
take notes here's how I study for this
exam here's what I discovered about how
to build a study timetable and again
this was this quite Niche I I think it
took me about 80 videos to get 4,000
subscribers 50 videos to get the first
1,000 and then from that point on people
started asking me questions about
productivity they were like huh you're a
medical student SL doctor and you
managed to make videos and you managed
to do other fun stuff on the side and it
seems like you've got a social life how
are you so productive and i' never
really thought of the word productivity
before then this was around 20 like 19
or something 2 years years into the
journey where I started thinking huh
maybe I should make videos about
productivity and now if you ask people
like Ali abdal what's the one word that
comes to mind the word that that word
would be productivity I think it's it's
interesting it's like Ryan holiday
started out making content from
marketing and then he kind of did some
journalism type thing and then he
stumbled on stoicism with the obstacle
is the way and now the one word that
Ryan holiday is known for is stoicism
and he's just doubling down on that so
similarly I decided I want to double
down on productivity we're trying to go
adjacent into Tech and into books and
just anything associated with helping
people be more
productive we really just need to figure
out what is the 820 like how do we
really 8020 the hell out of this stuff
so how do I put in a small amount of
time to get the maximum bang for my buck
in terms of content now when it comes to
YouTube in particular that comes from
basically title and thumbnail in terms
of the packaging of the video if no one
clicks on the title and thumbnail no
one's actually going to see the content
so spending a decent chunk of time on
the packaging is super helpful but then
when it comes to the content I I think
the hook plus the structure is the main
thing so for the hook it would be the
first 30 seconds and for the structure
it would be the sort of rough three-part
structure of video content creation can
be systemized I think people think of
content creation as like a creativity
thing it's not really a creativity thing
it's more like systems and processes and
Sops thing and actually oh there was a
sick quote I read creativity is a
systematic process and I always thought
creativity was like some mystical thing
I was like I don't think I'm very
creative it's like I need Creative
Energy left brain all of that stuff but
actually it's a systematic process it's
like that that quote from some famous
writer that I only write when
inspiration strikes luckily it strikes
at 9:00 a.m. every morning and I found
that the more I can systemize my content
creation the less I need to worry about
me being a creative person and the more
I can actually just get results of my
business oh and by the way if you
wondering about the absolutely sick
background music that we've been using
this video and that I've been using on
my YouTube channel for the last 6 years
that has been provided by epidemic sound
who are very kindly sponsoring this
video epidemic sound are absolutely
amazing they provide a huge library of
royalty-free music that you can use in
pretty much whatever way you want in
your videos epidemic owns 100% of all of
the music they provide so there is zero
chance that you'll ever get hit with a
copyright strike and epidemic sounds
library has over 40,000 tracks and
990,000 sound effects with new tracks
added every single week the music is
also professionally produced and it's
all original music they've got a
commercial plan and a personal plan now
the personal plan is the one that we as
a team use personally and that's perfect
for YouTubers and podcasters and
bloggers or anything like that and it
works on YouTube and Instagram and
Facebook and all these other platforms
or alternatively if you happen to be a
freelancer or an agency or a brand then
the commercial plan let to use
background music in your client videos
without ever worrying about a copyright
strike also just as an aside one of my
many income streams as a result of
having this audience has been affiliate
income and actually the epidemic sound
affiliate program is also a great way to
earn money as a Creator and also earlier
this year the epidemic sound team
invited me over to Sweden to visit their
offices and we took a trip to like the
Arctic North and was absolutely sick and
they're super super friendly and their
music studios are absolutely incredible
and so I'm just like epidemic sound fan
booy for life basically anyway if you
want to try out epidemic sound which is
literally the thing I've been using for
the last 6 and a half years and you can
check out the link in the video
description and you can sign up to a
totally free trial of their personal or
commercial plan and in those days you
can browse their library to your heart's
content and you can use any music that
you want from that library and then even
if you don't want to become a paid
subscriber you can still use any of the
music that you used during the trial and
not worry about copyright strikes at all
so thank you so much epidemic sound for
sponsoring this
video there's no there's no easy answer
to this um everyone I think wants a
Magic Bullet for consistency but really
it's about patience and it's about faith
it's about patience that it takes a long
time for this stuff to see results and
it's about faith that if you do the
right things and show up consistently
that eventually the results will come
and that's why personally for me I find
that the main strategy for consistency
is to set input goals goals that are
within my control like it's not within
my control whether I hit 10,000
subscribers it's not within my control
whether I get a million views on a video
but it is within my control can I show
up every week and share something
authentically that I feel would add
value to my target audience and if the
answer to that is yes and I can find a
way to make that process at least Vue L
enjoyable and just know that I'm going
to do it for 2 years is the thing I tell
my students if you want to do YouTube
commit to posting a video every single
week for 2 years that's the kind of time
Horizon you need to basically guarantee
that it's going to change your life the
problem is when people do it like oh I'm
not seeing any results 2 months later
I'm still I'm still terrible at making
videos I've never talked to a camera
before in my life but for some reason
I'm expecting results from day one
that's just completely absurd it takes 8
years of training in the UK for a
medicine to get someone even remotely in
front of a patient If You're Expecting
six figure results seven figure results
in your business you you canot not put
in the work and yeah of course people
are busy but if it was easy everyone
would have seven figure businesses based
on organic content marketing it's not
it's going to start off feeling like a
really heavy lift where you're like oh
my God I'm recording for an hour and I'm
getting 10 minutes of content out of it
it's not worth it it takes too long to
edit but if you push through that pain
just like you did when you were starting
your business and you start building
systems and processes and using
templates hiring people to do the things
you don't want to do that's ultimately
the thing that makes it consistent cuz
time management only gets you so far
like you can't time manage yourself to
getting you know two videos a week out
on YouTube while you have a full-time
job while you have a family and kids and
a life that's just not going to happen
you've got to build the systems and
tools you've got to use the knowledge
that businesses use to leverage yourself
so that you can create content at
scale early on like first like one year
or so literally flying by the seat of my
pants thinking H okay it's a new week I
need a new video what's the video going
to be this week uh come up with ideas
okay cool let's make the video write it
film it edit it like trying to do that
all well in medical school in a week hit
upload as the video is uploading
figuring out the title and the thumbnail
and just being like all right cool slap
some text on the thumbnail using Adobe
spark at the time upload the video let's
move on to the next one that was the
very rough process and then I realized
fairly quickly a few months in hang on
this is a recipe for Burnout this is not
sustainable I need to systemize the
whole thing and then I read an amazing
book called The e- Myth Revisited by
Michael Gober uh which is I'm sure you
guys some of you guys have read that
book completely changed my life because
it introduced me to the idea of
systemization and delegation and I was
like oh I get it I need to think think
of my YouTube channel as a franchise as
the Prototype for a franchise so you
know how you can walk into any
McDonald's anywhere in the world and you
get an identical experience the same
food the same experience they can put
any random ass 16-year-old with zero
qualifications into one of those jobs
and the 16-year-old will follow the
process and will get the result for the
customer that's amazing so how do you
therefore create systems and structures
in your own business that make it a
theoretical franchise what is the system
that I would follow to franchise out my
YouTube channel okay cool there's a
process for idea generation there's a
process for writing there's a process
for filming there's a process for
editing there's a process for publishing
etc etc and initially I was doing all of
these things myself and then very slowly
over time I started delegating small
bits of that so now someone else does
the idea generation someone else does
the research for some of the videos I
still do the writing because I've tried
Outsourcing it and it's really hard to
Outsource writing for your own videos
obviously I film my own videos but then
someone else edits someone else
publishes someone else repurposes
someone else looks at the analytics then
takes takes the footage and they will
turn it into like Instagram and Twitter
thread and a LinkedIn Carousel and an
Instagram Carousel and a Tik Tok and
we've got the whole repurposing process
as well cuz what we found is that we've
put in all the effort to make the video
we might as well chop it up and turn it
into a Twitter thread a LinkedIn thread
a kind of Carousel we might as well make
it sweat and repurpose it across all the
different social platforms that is what
the six years later the evolution of the
content pipeline looks like with a team
of 14 people 10 of which are basically
focused on the content side where we
have a coures business that supports the
whole thing and we have a general
manager in Angus so that I don't need to
worry about the day-to-day management
starting off with me as a doctor trying
to hustle to make videos one at a time
to this whole like production Empire
where now I don't even know what happens
on the YouTube channel I see a video
being uploaded I'm like damn that's cool
I watch it I give feedback to our
editors while recording a loom and it's
just it's just great so I can focus my
time on the thing I actually care about
which is drawing drawing diagrams on a
page and talking to a camera which is
the thing I'm good at everyone else does
everything else which is all the things
that I'm bad at
[Music]
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