Creators want to pivot their channel due to many different reasons. Have you ever been there? Maybe you feel tired of your niche, bored of your content, or are just maturing in your journey as a creator and ready to move in a new direction. Pivots come with a lot of fear and anxiety. Is this a good idea? Will I break my channel if I do this? We am here to tell you that it is possible to pivot successfully!

Channel Pivot

Pivots happen and sometimes creators don’t even realize they had one. A channel pivot happens when you start trying to reach a different audience or you are changing the value you are bringing to your current audience. Thinking about pivoting may feel terrifying, especially if you’ve been successful in your current channel. Creators often think if they change anything about their content, they will lose all their current subscribers so they have to continue doing what they have been doing….until the end of time.

A lot of creators decide to just start a new channel instead of pivoting. This can be necessary, but it doesn’t have to be. A lot of it depends on how much of a pivot you are trying to make. Are you trying to change from a car channel to a cooking channel? If so, then yes, a new channel is probably the best solution. But, it isn’t always necessary! If you are going to be appealing to much of the same audience, keep the channel and just make a pivot. We worked with a scrapbooking channel that transitioned successfully into a meal-prepping channel and it went great. This is a significant pivot. But, a lot of the people who were interested in scrapbooking for their family were interested in planning meals for them as well. So it worked!

So if you are reaching much of the same audience, pivot. But, if you are reaching a completely new audience with little to nothing in common with the original audience, just start a new channel.

Community also plays a huge role in this decision. If your community loves you so much they’ll ​watch you watch paint dry​, then you don’t want to start over. They are interested in what you are interested in, because it’s you! (This, of course, is just one more plug to focus on the know, like and trust factor and use primal branding to build that die-hard audience.)

Fears

Fear is usually what holds creators back from taking that step and pivoting their channel. They don’t want to break their channel for one (which we always you can’t do.) But besides that, there is still the fear of the negative comments and the churn of people leaving your channel as new people arrive. And those things do happen.

Ideally, the churn will happen quickly. If you are very clear with your value proposition, the people who have no interest will leave all at once and you can start building back up from there. This “pulling off the bandaid technique” can be assisted by using community content. Just tell your audience what’s going on. Establishing who you are talking to now (target audience) and why they should subscribe to your channel (value proposition) is vital in doing this well.

So, tell your audience in a video! Tell them what’s going on and why you want to do this. But through it all, don’t lose sight of the viewer. Why is this good for them. Why do you have their best interest in mind with this pivot? What good does this bring them?

We once helped a channel that was all about selling shirts. He was right around 100K and he wanted to pivot to have this content be about starting businesses instead. Obviously, he would use his shirt business as an example, but he wanted to really share more to help fellow entrepreneurs. He was so nervous. So we suggested just making a poll on the community tab about this and see if his audience would like this. He did and his community was so excited. Other entrepreneurs in his community were thrilled to be able to be helped even more by this pivot. And the other viewers enjoyed being included in the decision and excited for the upcoming content.

When to Pivot

There is never a perfect time to pivot your channel. It’s just a leap of faith. But, there are warning signs that it might be time to pivot soon. Are your views declining? Are you noticing less engagement? Are you bored with your content? Are you unmotivated to make videos? If so, it might be time to pivot.

How to Pivot

Dropping hints before it happens is a good idea. Show your audience that you are interested in something before just hitting them with a total 180. Rebranding can happen after that. Your existing audience is never going to see your channel trailer because they are already subscribed. And they probably aren’t going to your channel page either. So feel free to change your banner and graphics on there as soon as you start pivoting.

Then just start making new content! Be very clear in who you are talking to and focus on helping your viewer. The rest will work itself out.

Did you Break Your Channel?

So how do you know that it’s working? Am I pivoting successfully? Analytics can be very helpful with this. Look at your new content. What’s the CTR? Create a benchmark for the next 10-12 videos and adjust from there. For your views, look at your subscribed vs unsubscribed and your viewers vs returning viewers. If 99% of your views are from your own community, you really aren’t reaching any of those new people you were going after. To help with this, make sure you are working in discoverable content. (And take a break from sales while you build up that know, like and trust factor with this new audience.)

This would be a great time to ​incorporate collaborations​! Plus, connecting audiences may help the transition go faster as well.

But the most important thing to do is to be patient. Successfully pivoting your YouTube channel involves a blend of strategic planning, clear communication, and gradual transition. But with a bit of patience and consistency, you can shift your focus without alienating your existing audience and reach a wider and more engaged audience. All while creating new content that you’re passionate about.

Power Tip

When making shorts, try not to go too far out of the box. We are all about experiments and having fun, but make sure you are still reaching your same target audience. If you don’t think this through, you may actually tap into a different audience entirely and it will not translate into any views/subs for your long form content. So have fun! But make sure you are hitting the same audience and delivering the same value.

Keep Changing Lives!

Tim Schmoyer

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