How To Start A Network of YouTubers in Your Niche [Creator's Tip #59]
Uploaded by reelseo on 04.10.2012
Transcript:
On this week's Creators Tip, we're going to talk about how to build a community and a
network of other YouTubers together. That's coming up.
Hey, guys! My name is Tim Schmoyer, and welcome to another Creators Tip, where
every week we just help you guys who are making online video content know how to
make that stuff just stand out and work the best. And today I'm talking with Jason Ergo.
Maybe you remember him. A couple of videos ago we talked with him about YouTube
analytics and some of the things you can learn from using third party sites. But one of
the things you might not know about Ergo is that he actually also ran a YouTube
community network, not like a maker studios or big frame network, but a little bit
different. Can you tell us about what that was?
Sure. What we did basically, we gathered around the concept of making a video a day on
YouTube. There's a lot of people that do that, but most of the people are sort of doing it
on their own, or maybe you gather together to do a video a day for a certain month.
There's a lot of those. But what we tried to do was to get everyone together to do a
video a day for an entire year, and all the videos
were all put up on the same channel, not uploaded there, but sort of favorited there
so you can go and look at them, but still have
them on your own channel.
How did you find other people who were like minded at the start, forming that
community with everyone?
You have to go to people of similar interests in the first place. A lot of it, actually,
went into people that were commenting on other
vlogger videos, like Shaytards is the number one vlogging channel, and you go there and
look into their channels. If they look like they're going to be interested in doing videos
on their own channel, a video a day, doing vlogs, those are the people you want to reach
out to. It depends on what niche you're looking at. Obviously, look for people that
are doing the same thing.
And what was the value for everyone that got involved in this together?
I think at the peak we had around 7,200 people all doing daily videos. There's a lot of
them. So, the benefits were that there's a lot of other people, that gives you a lot
of moral support. Everyone is in this together. And
also you have a list of everyone that's doing it. You go there, you see others that are
doing it, so you get more views. People intermingled, made a lot of friends through
that, and everyone grew together. This started a couple of years ago, and a lot of
people actually made partner on YouTube as a
result of it, too.
So there's a thing that you can try to grow your own channel by yourself, but it grows
way faster if you collaborate, network with other people. So what are some of the things
you guys did to collaborate together and grow? I mean, I know you guys were
supporting each other, but what was happening in that community network that actually
helped views and subscribers and visibility, that kind of growth for all of you?
Well, again, we had 7,200 people, so just even watching each other's videos. If you
are a new vlogger on YouTube, you might have five
people watching you, but when you instantly have a community like this, not,
again, everyone watch everyone because there's just not enough time in the day, but
that's an instant community there. We also had chat behind the scenes, a Skype chat room,
things like that to give tips to people as well.
And wasn't there something about everyone using the same tags or something? How did
that work?
Yeah, everyone used YTO in either the title or tag, so that also grouped the videos
together so related videos, more likely than not, you'll see another YouTube Orbiter there
instead of a random person.
I remember how people who were in that community, almost every video, they were
talking about the community as well, which made me curious, so I went and checked it
out. And actually, that's how I think I found you in the first place. So everyone's
visibility kind of grew up because everyone's talking about that, too. So, for someone
out there who's maybe doing their channel all by themselves, what advice or steps could
they take to start building a network community around their niche with other people,
too.
Again, you first want to know what your niche is. Find others that are interested in it.
I would say don't just go and send out e-mails
to people randomly. Start something, and then invite others to join up.
People you maybe already have existing relationships with? You were kind of doing the
same thing. People you know and trust. And is there some sort of level where you would
probably want to do it with people you feel comfortable recommending, because if you're
going to promote each other, right?
Yeah, that's true. You want to make sure. I mean, there's all different kinds of content
on YouTube. If you're in more of a PG type audience, you want to probably stick with
people around there. Have some set guidelines to what your network of channels here is
going to be.
Right, because you don't want a network of just all inclusive of everyone. You want
something that has some focus so that if you like my channel, you're probably going to
like these 70 other channels as well, that kind of thing. Cool. So where can they find
out more about this if they wanted to read into
it? I know it's kind of passed on for now.
It's still running. It's definitely not in its hay day as they used to be. I'm more focused
on other things at the moment. It's hard to run it. But it's still up at
YouTube.com/theYTOrbit.
Cool. Guys go check it out if you want an example. I think I'm thinking about doing
this myself, some other like-minded people who
are making similar content on YouTube, just linking arms together and saying how can we
make something a little bit more official than hey, do you want to collaborate and it's
kind of over, but have an ongoing support network so that I think all of us can rise
together, than just kind of doing this. It would be
awesome.
If any of you guys have any experience or ideas or thoughts of something like this,
we'd love to hear from you, especially me as I'm
thinking about this more right now, comment below and I'd love to hear what you guys are
thinking, how maybe this has worked for you in the past or whatever. And if this is
your first time hanging out with us, we'd love
for you guys to hang out with us every week. We do Creators Tip videos for you guys.
Make sure you click that subscribe button above this video here on YouTube. And we
will catch up with you guys some time later. Thanks for hanging out. Bye!
network of other YouTubers together. That's coming up.
Hey, guys! My name is Tim Schmoyer, and welcome to another Creators Tip, where
every week we just help you guys who are making online video content know how to
make that stuff just stand out and work the best. And today I'm talking with Jason Ergo.
Maybe you remember him. A couple of videos ago we talked with him about YouTube
analytics and some of the things you can learn from using third party sites. But one of
the things you might not know about Ergo is that he actually also ran a YouTube
community network, not like a maker studios or big frame network, but a little bit
different. Can you tell us about what that was?
Sure. What we did basically, we gathered around the concept of making a video a day on
YouTube. There's a lot of people that do that, but most of the people are sort of doing it
on their own, or maybe you gather together to do a video a day for a certain month.
There's a lot of those. But what we tried to do was to get everyone together to do a
video a day for an entire year, and all the videos
were all put up on the same channel, not uploaded there, but sort of favorited there
so you can go and look at them, but still have
them on your own channel.
How did you find other people who were like minded at the start, forming that
community with everyone?
You have to go to people of similar interests in the first place. A lot of it, actually,
went into people that were commenting on other
vlogger videos, like Shaytards is the number one vlogging channel, and you go there and
look into their channels. If they look like they're going to be interested in doing videos
on their own channel, a video a day, doing vlogs, those are the people you want to reach
out to. It depends on what niche you're looking at. Obviously, look for people that
are doing the same thing.
And what was the value for everyone that got involved in this together?
I think at the peak we had around 7,200 people all doing daily videos. There's a lot of
them. So, the benefits were that there's a lot of other people, that gives you a lot
of moral support. Everyone is in this together. And
also you have a list of everyone that's doing it. You go there, you see others that are
doing it, so you get more views. People intermingled, made a lot of friends through
that, and everyone grew together. This started a couple of years ago, and a lot of
people actually made partner on YouTube as a
result of it, too.
So there's a thing that you can try to grow your own channel by yourself, but it grows
way faster if you collaborate, network with other people. So what are some of the things
you guys did to collaborate together and grow? I mean, I know you guys were
supporting each other, but what was happening in that community network that actually
helped views and subscribers and visibility, that kind of growth for all of you?
Well, again, we had 7,200 people, so just even watching each other's videos. If you
are a new vlogger on YouTube, you might have five
people watching you, but when you instantly have a community like this, not,
again, everyone watch everyone because there's just not enough time in the day, but
that's an instant community there. We also had chat behind the scenes, a Skype chat room,
things like that to give tips to people as well.
And wasn't there something about everyone using the same tags or something? How did
that work?
Yeah, everyone used YTO in either the title or tag, so that also grouped the videos
together so related videos, more likely than not, you'll see another YouTube Orbiter there
instead of a random person.
I remember how people who were in that community, almost every video, they were
talking about the community as well, which made me curious, so I went and checked it
out. And actually, that's how I think I found you in the first place. So everyone's
visibility kind of grew up because everyone's talking about that, too. So, for someone
out there who's maybe doing their channel all by themselves, what advice or steps could
they take to start building a network community around their niche with other people,
too.
Again, you first want to know what your niche is. Find others that are interested in it.
I would say don't just go and send out e-mails
to people randomly. Start something, and then invite others to join up.
People you maybe already have existing relationships with? You were kind of doing the
same thing. People you know and trust. And is there some sort of level where you would
probably want to do it with people you feel comfortable recommending, because if you're
going to promote each other, right?
Yeah, that's true. You want to make sure. I mean, there's all different kinds of content
on YouTube. If you're in more of a PG type audience, you want to probably stick with
people around there. Have some set guidelines to what your network of channels here is
going to be.
Right, because you don't want a network of just all inclusive of everyone. You want
something that has some focus so that if you like my channel, you're probably going to
like these 70 other channels as well, that kind of thing. Cool. So where can they find
out more about this if they wanted to read into
it? I know it's kind of passed on for now.
It's still running. It's definitely not in its hay day as they used to be. I'm more focused
on other things at the moment. It's hard to run it. But it's still up at
YouTube.com/theYTOrbit.
Cool. Guys go check it out if you want an example. I think I'm thinking about doing
this myself, some other like-minded people who
are making similar content on YouTube, just linking arms together and saying how can we
make something a little bit more official than hey, do you want to collaborate and it's
kind of over, but have an ongoing support network so that I think all of us can rise
together, than just kind of doing this. It would be
awesome.
If any of you guys have any experience or ideas or thoughts of something like this,
we'd love to hear from you, especially me as I'm
thinking about this more right now, comment below and I'd love to hear what you guys are
thinking, how maybe this has worked for you in the past or whatever. And if this is
your first time hanging out with us, we'd love
for you guys to hang out with us every week. We do Creators Tip videos for you guys.
Make sure you click that subscribe button above this video here on YouTube. And we
will catch up with you guys some time later. Thanks for hanging out. Bye!