- So to monetize a YouTube channel,
you need a thousand subscribers,
which is pretty easy to understand, right?
But then it gets a little more complicated
because you've got two options.
You could try and get 10 million
YouTube shorts views in 90 days,
which in my opinion sounds very difficult.
That's silly.
We won't talk about that today.
So we're back to 4,000 public watch hours in 12 months,
which is no easy feat in itself.
The fact is YouTube is hard,
and three or four months into a creator's journey,
they start to realize this.
I saw a post recently from a creator who said
despite going to law school and passing the bar exam,
YouTube is the hardest thing
they have ever done in their life.
That's really quite a sobering thought, isn't it?
But having said that, it's not impossible,
because we're still all here creating videos, right?
So if we were to teach you one thing,
the most important thing about
how to get 4,000 watch time hours,
it would probably be this.
Niche, nitch, ni-che, niatch.
Target audience.
Whatever you wanna call it,
you probably wanna get familiar with this concept,
and here's the reason why.
Recent estimate suggests that over 500 hours
of content is uploaded to YouTube every single minute.
That means that not only is there a lot
of competition from other creators,
but viewers have a hell of a lot of choice.
Now, just imagine for a second
if you were able to grab those 500 hours
of watch time every minute, you'd be monetize
in eight minutes, which is pretty cool, right?
But to do that, your content would have to appeal
to every single human being on YouTube,
and to be honest, that ain't happening.
Because as the saying goes,
if you try to talk to everybody,
you end up talking to no one.
And that fundamentally is the big secret
to more views and ultimately more watch time.
Stop worrying and thinking about all of this,
and get laser focused on just this.
So if you are just starting out on your YouTube journey
and you're not really sure what you're doing
with each channel yet, here's three things
to consider when thinking about your niche.
The main goal of any YouTube channel
should be to build a loyal, engaged,
and ultimately significant audience
that enjoys the content on the channel.
The discovery of that content
to that viewer can come in many different ways,
through search, being shared on the internet,
or naturally through browsing suggested on YouTube.
Now, if the viewer is satisfied by that content
and typically when they next see
some of your thumbnails and titles,
they want to see roughly more of the same.
Viewers that tend to associate viewing habits
with certain creators.
So when someone discovers Casey Neistat,
they expect to see vlogging and storytelling.
With Linus Tech Tips,
it's technology and building a business around it.
If you're go to Coffeezilla,
you wanna see him uncovering scams and fraudsters.
And when it comes to vidIQ,
you get the idea, right?
In all cases, these creators
are giving their audience
mostly more of what they like,
and with a little bit of experimentation on top.
That's why it can be useful to have one of these,
by the way, a value proposition.
Answer this and write it down for future reference.
What should every single video
on your channel do for your target audience?
And that's what you should do
every time you start a new video.
Look at that value proposition and ask yourself,
will this video deliver this message
to whoever watches it?
Let me paint you an example.
You're a super busy person
and you came across a fantastic video
about quick and healthy recipes,
and you really enjoyed what that creator did.
But then the very next video,
the viewer sees from that creator
is a 25 ingredients recipe extravaganza
that takes three and a half hours to make.
Even that shift within the same video topic,
cooking, could alienate that viewer
because it's no longer strictly for them.
Here's something to try
next time you're on YouTube.
Go to a creator's homepage
and look at their channel banner
and videos for three seconds.
Kinda like this.
What's the channel about?
If you are able to answer that
after such a short amount of time
looking at the channel,
then that creator knows their niche,
knows their target audience.
You want your viewers to know instinctively
they are in the right place, to say to themselves
"This video was literally made for me."
When that happens, viewers are far more likely
to stick around for longer and watch more of your videos.
And from that positive data,
YouTube will go out and find
more similar viewers who may be interested in your videos.
And I've explained all of that
without using the word algorithm once,
'cause that's essentially what this is.
So, how do you pick a niche?
We can start with identifying your interests.
Again, it might be worth writing down
the answers to these questions with your answers.
What are you passionate about?
What do you wanna be known for?
And what are you good at?
Now, if you can clearly answer those three questions
without hesitation, then stop this video
and start your own video with those answers in mind.
Having said that, we've already established
that YouTube is very, very hard.
It can often take a year or more to reach 4,000 hours
of watch time and monetize channel.
So, ask yourself this question,
do you still want to be talking
about the passion you have right now in three years time?
Your niche needs to motivate you enough
to wake up in the morning, start filming,
and still be excited about the process
video after video after video.
If you don't do that,
then I'm afraid burnout is inevitable.
Now, you don't need to be an expert in your niche,
but if you're passionate about your niche,
that means you are willing to learn and absorb everything.
And as long as you are one step ahead
of your viewers, you're the expert.
When it comes to YouTube,
I will always say I am not an expert.
I'm just a passionate educator.
And through our target audience,
we tend to support creators
who are starting out on their journeys,
looking for these milestones of 1000 subscribers
and 4,000 hours of watch time to get monetized.
And if creators graduate from our content,
there are plenty of other YouTube educators
out there who will do an excellent job
serving their new needs.
So once you've answered all of these questions
and found your niche, your sweet spot,
come up with three video ideas to kick things off.
And at this point, try not to worry about
creating yourself into a tiny YouTube corner
that you don't wanna be in forever.
As your channel grows and you become more confident
as a creator and your skillset improves,
you can start to evolve your niche,
evolve your target audience,
and evolve the content that you make.
Just try not to do hard pivots.
- Pivot!
- Now, we've already alluded to this a little bit,
but let's dig into the details.
Finding your niche within a niche.
This might be a vlogger who focuses
on camera equipment, Peter McKinnon,
or a tech channel that focuses on,
let me get this right, true wireless earbuds.
That's Jeff.
He works here at vidIQ.
Or how about theoretically
a fitness instructor that focuses
on females over the age of 60
who have 50 minutes to do a workout.
You can get as niche as that
and it'll still be a successful channel.
As you consistently post more and more videos
for that niche, you will gain relatability and credibility.
And when that happens,
your audience becomes more engaged,
more loyal, comes back.
And it doesn't matter
if they subscribe to your channel or not.
Once you've got 1000 of them,
all you want viewers to do
is to return to your content time and time again.
That's where the watch time comes from.
Of course, out of the YouTube gates,
there's likely to be a lot of trial and error,
which means that you need to be agile.
So yes, here we are talking about pivots.
- Pivot!
- But very subtle ones within your niche.
Obviously content output will vary from channel to channel,
but I would say after three to six months,
you've probably got at least 10 videos
on your channel, if not more.
And naturally, since you're starting
out your YouTube journey,
you're gonna be doing a lot of experimenting.
But from those videos, you'll be able to take
some positive data points.
Videos that had a higher click-through rate.
Videos that were watched for longer.
Videos that had more views.
It is an obvious tactic, but it works.
Pick the top two or three videos
and make more videos on similar content.
Really drill down into the subject.
And if you haven't already done so,
start doing research on your competition.
There is absolutely nothing wrong
with watching another content creator's video
and saying to yourself, you know what?
I can add to that conversation.
I disagree with what they're saying and here's why.
I agree with what they're saying,
but here's what I need to add.
They missed out this point, I'm gonna cover it.
That information is six months old.
I can update it.
I'm gonna be straight with you right here, right now.
We have watched some of Think Media's videos
and thought to ourselves, you know what?
We can make our own version of that.
And they've probably done
exactly the same thing to us and that's fine.
It's good to experiment
with many different types of videos,
because in the long run,
you need to get good at coming up with ideas.
There's nothing worse than publishing a video
that's received really well by your audience,
and then not knowing what to do next.
That's a missed opportunity to build on momentum.
Oh, and on that note, if you do need help with ideas,
the vidIQ app does have an AI idea generator
that's based off of your own channel content.
So check it out if you need some inspiration
if you're feeling a little stuck.
Now then, I need to add a caveat.
Passion doesn't equal profit,
and that sounds like a Ferengi Rule of Acquisition
from "Deep Space Nine."
- The Ninth Rule of Acquisition
clearly states that opportunity
plus instinct equals profit.
- You clicked on this video to get 4,000 hours
of watch time to monetize your channel,
but your niche may not necessarily pay out a lot in CPMs.
You can see on screen now
some of the most profitable niches,
with CPMs between 14 and $21.
But remember what we said earlier,
if you're creating content
that you're not passionate about,
you're likely to burn out pretty quickly.
Unless you're looking to simply create
a business out of this and outsource
all of the stuff you hate doing, go right ahead.
4,000 hours of watch time
is an admirable goal to aim towards,
given the rewards at the end of it.
In the short term,
ad revenue can be the motivation
that pushes you onto the next phase
of your YouTube journey.
But in the long term, ad revenue will probably contribute
about this much to your YouTube channel's business,
especially when you consider brand deals,
sponsorships, affiliate links,
selling your own products and services and so on.
But that's a video for another time,
unless you've got time right now
because you can watch it right here.