If you’re serious about growing your YouTube channel, you can’t do it alone. We hear it all the time, “two heads are better than one,” and this is 100% true when it comes to YouTube strategy.
Since teaming up with vidIQ, I have had the pleasure of getting to know so many interesting people. One of these people has been Vyyyper, the head of social media for vidIQ. He has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to collaborations. So whether this is something you’re interested in or something you’ve been avoiding like the plague, this conversation is worth a listen. And in this email, I will share all the do’s and don’t for collaborations.
The Art of The Ask
When attempting a collaboration, persistence and patience is key. If you have a dream creator that you want to work with, reach out! Don’t sell yourself short. It may take awhile for them to get back to you, but be persistent. Reach out and follow up. But, also be patient. Spamming a creator with requests will never work in your benefit, but respectfully and patiently asking may.
Also, have an idea of how you can contribute value to their community. Being in the same niche as another creator is not a compelling enough reason for someone to want to collaborate with you. Another way you can frame it, is by saying that you love what they are doing in the area of X and you think this would be incredibly helpful for your audience as well. Ask if you can introduce them to your audience. Even if it’s a smaller audience, this is a hard offer to pass up because you are pitching the value it has for them.
Have a plan ahead of time. Have a topic or idea that they will be excited about and ask them to contribute their expertise to this topic. Your job is to make it as easy and enjoyable for them to participate as possible. Don’t overwhelm them with too much work on their end. Just ask for them to show up and talk to you about ____. The lighter the lift, the more likely they are to say yes.
Being an active person in the community is also very helpful. Show that you already know about their channel and love their content. If you have been an avid listener of theirs, your request is going to be way better received than spam messaging out to multiple creators who you are unfamiliar with.
Small creators are sometimes afraid to reach out to bigger creators because they are afraid they won’t get a response or will get a “no.” If you don’t take that chance, you will never know what that could have been. The worst thing that could happen is they say “no,” so shoot your shot.
Ideas for Collaborations
The most common collaborations that we do on our podcast is is the interview format. But there are a lot of other ways to collaborate with others. Livestreaming is a great way to collaborate. You can trade off and one time do a livestream on your channel and the next time livestream on the other channel.
Travel to meet the person you want to collab with and make a video together. Film their studio. Get to know them as a person. Tell their story. Share whatever you think will bring value to your audience.
Channel take over is a great idea as well. You film an intro to explain what is going to happen and then someone else’s video is posted. Then they do the same for their channel.
Try to collaborate with people who aren’t in the same niche but have the same audience. For example if you’re a skateboarding channel, maybe you want to collaborate with people who promote energy drinks. If you are a fitness channel, maybe you want to collaborate with someone that is in the health and nutrition niche. Think a little outside of the box and see if you can broaden your horizon.
Channel Impact
The intended impact of collaborations is visibility and exposure. If you show up on other people’s channels, their audience will know about you. The more visible you are, the more people may find your channel.
This is great, but I have found that for me the main benefit is a new relationship with someone else in the industry. We end up connecting, asking for feedback, connecting at conferences, etc. This ongoing relationship and friendship can be such a bigger impact to my business as a whole than the short-term goal of exposure. So keep this in mind when choosing who to collab with.
So give it a try! If you want to grow your channel and broaden your reach on YouTube, take the shot. Don’t worry about not being big enough. Instead, reach out to broaden your audience and build relationships with other creators on YouTube. YouTube can be a lonely place, but collaborations can help make it a little less lonely.
Power Tip
I want to introduce you to something called “product drops.” Currently, if creators want to off products during live streams, the need to upload offers before going live. This ruins the idea of a big real during the live stream itself.
However with product drops, creators will be able to to release products for the first time during a live stream, at any point, without ruining the surprise of the product.
Keep Changing Lives!
Tim Schmoyer
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