What’s Your YouTube Channel Strategy?

Most people approach YouTube wrong (Ourselves included)

After listening to a podcast with Mitch Joel interviewing Carlos Pacheco, it really had me thinking about Video Strategy and how most of us go about it all wrong (myself definitely included).

Most people when approaching their YouTube channel strategy think of themselves as the protagonist (the hero). Be it by entertaining, by doing a weekly show, by doing a regular Vlog, or episodes leading up to a grand finale, etc. It could be you’re trying to be the industry leader, guru or god forbid, an “influencer” in your industry.

Many videos on YouTube go unwatched, many others are only watched by your immediate family and several search engine bots. I know this all too well. My podcast failed miserably years ago when I overestimated how interesting I could be interviewing people. And our weekly “#InTheLab” episodes we did a couple years ago have at the most a couple hundred views each. Though, we do have people from time to time mention how they watched one of our videos – to which I immediately thank them because they are a part of a small minority. Not a dismal failure, more like a brilliant learning moment.

We never had a “video strategy”, we were just making videos each week and tagging them with #InTheLab. There’s a smarter way.

The problem with this “hero” strategy is that it’s self serving, it gets old fast and it’s not what people are currently looking for. We all can’t be Trevor Noah or Jimmy Fallon. And very few people are looking for a new guru to help them via YouTube channel surfing. To attract an audience the size that Casey Neistat has takes a long time, a lot of work and dare I say a little bit of good old fashioned luck?

In the podcast, he makes the point that the majority of these “YouTubers” have been producing videos on their channels for 10 years or longer. In that case, it isn’t luck that got them to where they are but sheer determination and resilience.

If you can create something for ten years straight and people are still interested in what you’re doing, you have done it. You have succeeded.

And with all that practice over the years you’re now most likely an expert. The problem lies in the fact that most people won’t see through the 10 year plan. Most people won’t find huge success in the first couple years and give up.

The artist doesn’t care about success, the artist keeps creating until the audience loves her. That may take 1 year, that may take 10 years, it may even take 100’s of years. No matter what, the artist keeps creating.