How are you doing with quarantine life? No judgement on whatever you’re feeling. We want to know.
One of my favorite things, especially during this time, is to get together live every Monday at 2pm ET with my fellow YouTube strategists and you to discuss all things YouTube and video creation.
This week, D’Laina, Lennon, and I got together to chat about our favorite YouTube channels and what makes them so watchable! Here are some lessons we can learn from these channels and how we can apply them to our own channels.
- Their primal branding is strong. In 2011, author Patrick Hanlon wrote a book about the 7 different elements that brands with a cult-like following have (think Apple, Disney, Starbucks, etc). These are things like creeds, belief systems, rituals, and creation story. Here’s a full Ted Talk from the man himself and what you need to know about Primal Branding. These channels all are clear on who they’re for, what they believe, how they came to be, what their rituals are, and it makes it easy for people who share their beliefs to fall in love with them.
- They do a good job creating tension about what’s going to happen next. Dude Perfect is one of my favorite channels ever. It doesn’t matter what they post anymore, I just click. They do such a great job at creating tension in the viewer’s mind of who is going to win or what’s going to happen in their video. They deliver on what is in their title, thumbnail, and hook and the viewer walks away feeling like they got what they came for.
- They know their target audience. If you’ve watched a few Video Creators videos or just been around for a while, you know we’ll drive this point home until it clicks for people. You HAVE to know exactly who you’re talking to if you want to grow on YouTube. I would actually give this person a name, find a stock photo of them, figure out their pain points, their desires, and what problem you’re solving for them. Once you do, you’ll be able to form an emotional connection with your viewer, which in turn, will turn them into a raving fan. You can’t do this if you’re just putting videos out onto the internet and hoping something sticks.
- They’re good storytellers. No matter what you’re making videos about – you can find a way to make it not just about what’s happening in the video, but pointing it back to the viewer and making someone feel something. Our favorite channels have become great storytellers over time and have made viewers going from not caring about them (or knowing anything about them) to become raving fans because they create content that resonates with the viewer and makes them feel a certain way.
You can hear more about who are favorite channels are and why in the video above.
Who are some of your favorite channels and what do you love about them?
Thanks for reading!
Keep changing lives,
Tim