Is your Audience even ON YouTube? Here’s how to find out | Ep. 40

Ever wondered if anyone would actually watch your YouTube videos? I get it - I had the same doubts when I started! In this video, I'm sharing what I've learned about finding your people on YouTube (spoiler: they're definitely here!). As someone who's spent years helping creators find their audience, I'll walk you through exactly how to spot where your future viewers are hanging out.

BOOTCAMP DETAILS: https://videobrand.link/bootcamp 

✨ Cringe or Binge: How does your channel rank? Download the VBA app to analyze your channel in 1 simple step. It’s free! https://videobrand.link/app

📹 Be Binge-worthy on YouTube: https://videobrand.link/become-bingeable

🟣 Video Brand Academy: https://videobrand.link/vba

🎥 CRUSH IT ON CAMERA GUIDE: https://vidpromom.com/crush

🎧 Video Brand Infusion Podcast: http://meredithmarsh.co/podcast

📲 Download my FREE Video Brand Academy app! 👉 https://videobrand.link/app

👉 Consistent Sales of Your Course with YouTube: https://youtu.be/GBhulsp0s-4

📹 Follow on YouTube for Video Podcast: https://youtu.be/zkscCExxg9Y?si=B2EAIPxJV0-jEP-7

Transcript

40 Is your Audience even ON YouTube? Here’s how to find out | Ep. 40

[00:00:00] If you've been thinking about starting a YouTube channel or you just started a channel and you're not really seeing a lot of views or a lot of new subscribers come in, it can lead to this natural question of, maybe my audience isn't even on YouTube. Like, how would I know?

How do you know if your audience is on there? We're going to talk about it here on episode 40 of video brand infusion. My name is Meredith. I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business so that you can generate consistent revenue with your business.

And coming up this week inside of Video Brand Academy, I am hosting the first ever 90 days to 1k YouTube subscribers bootcamp. I'm so excited for it. I will put a link to it in the show notes in the description for this episode so you can check it out for yourself. Everything is going to be recorded so it'll be there for you after the fact.

But before you even start thinking about how to grow your audience from zero to a thousand subscribers, you should probably answer this question for yourself, which is, how do I know [00:01:00] that my ideal viewers or my ideal customers are even on YouTube?

And I'll be totally 100 percent transparent with you right up front. They are, they are on YouTube. If your ideal viewer or your ideal client or customer is a human that uses the internet, they're on YouTube.

So it's not so much a matter of, is my ideal audience or like my target market on YouTube. It's a matter of how do you find them? How do you identify, uh, like I kind of think of it as like pockets within the algorithm where your ideal audience, your ideal clients and customers are going to find you on YouTube.

let me give you a couple of facts. Did you know that YouTube is the most used platform among American adults? Now [00:02:00] those are metrics that I got from Pew Research.

They are accurate up to just a couple of years ago and Facebook like just edged out YouTube worldwide. But, within America, within adults. YouTube was the most used platform. We're talking about 2.5 billion monthly active users, billion with a B.

And of course, you know that YouTube is owned by Google, which was slash possibly, maybe still is. The world's, you know, most widely used search engine only, uh, with YouTube coming in at number two. So people go to YouTube to search for answers. Solutions, people go to YouTube to immerse themselves in a topic, in a niche, in a rabbit hole.

Now I do think it's smart to think about, you know, some [00:03:00] niches and some industries and businesses are like better suited for other platforms like LinkedIn, for example, or even TikTok, for example, depending on the niche, depending on the industry, depending on your business model.

But if you think about this, like if you primarily. Sort of stick to say Instagram or Facebook and that's where you started building an audience and that's like your platform of choice and you're thinking about moving to YouTube or you're thinking about adding YouTube to the mix.

 It's not a matter of trying to get your existing audience from Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or wherever to YouTube. It's a matter of using YouTube to attract the YouTube users that are your ideal fit for your audience and your clients or customers. And the pool on YouTube is so much bigger.

That it just [00:04:00] makes sense. Of course your audience is on YouTube. So it's not a matter of are they on there, yes or no. It's a matter of how do you find them, how do you find those pockets within the algorithm so that you, your videos are placed right in front of them when they open up YouTube 

it's a matter of your content, your face, your thoughts, your thought leadership showing up as the answer to a question, the solution to a problem that they're searching for or that they're actively trying to solve. And there you are with a library of binge worthy videos for the viewer to go down that rabbit hole.

So how do you find those pockets in the algorithm?

And number one, this feels a little bit like a no brainer, but you would be surprised how many of my clients and students have never done this. Go to YouTube, go to the search bar, just put in your niche, let's like search for whatever the obvious keywords are for your [00:05:00] niche

 And find the channels that are making content. In and around your niche topics.

If you can find channels that are indeed making content around your niche topics, then that's a good sign. That is a green flag that yes, in fact, your ideal audience is on YouTube because they're, they're watching this person's videos. Now of course, you could go down this rabbit hole of thinking well if this channel already exists then why should I create my channel? Like they're not gonna watch my content, this person's already delivering the same information and you could look at it that way 

but honestly, I think there's always, there's always room for a new perspective and there's always like an avenue for you to create a new perspective. Years ago, like as I was just starting my business, I heard John Lee Dumas say, you don't pick a niche, you create [00:06:00] a niche. I didn't know what that meant at first and over time I've, I figured it out because I've seen it happen.

I've done it myself. I've helped my clients and students do the same thing. Like find the avenues that make your perspective unique and create your niche.

If you find YouTube channels that cover your topic, do they have subscribers? Is it like hundreds? Is it thousands? Is it millions? Honestly, the more, the better, like that's a good sign. That means there's an audience, a captive audience there around the topics that you want to talk about.

 Just don't go thinking that because those channels already exist, now my channel can't exist. That's not what we're looking at here. We're just looking at whether there are topics, videos, creators that already exist in your niche, around your niche, that are getting views. Because [00:07:00] then you know there is an audience there which brings me to number two if you take a look at the number of Views on some of those channels on some of the videos that are in and around and related to the topics that your channel is about Look specifically at the more recent videos This is one of my, like, all time favorite little, uh, hacks, I guess. Little insights into evaluating a niche, a topic, a channel. If you have a creator, let's say they have 30, 000 subscribers,

 Do they have any recent videos in the last like six months to a year that have way more than the number of subscribers that they have?

 Are they getting like 200 views per recent video or more like 5, 000 or 10, 000 views? There's no, in my mind, there's really no exact math there because there's like so many other [00:08:00] variables and factors going on.

But if a channel has videos on topics in your niche, and those videos are getting way more views than the number of subscribers they have, then that's a clear sign they found a little pocket in the algorithm. They may not even know that they found a pocket in the algorithm. But now you do, and you're going to use that as a green flag for yourself.

 And if their videos are getting like a good, healthy, consistent number of views, their new videos, when they upload, again, green flag, you know that there is an audience there, a captive audience waiting for videos on this topic.

and they're very engaged. So if you're asking, is my ideal audience on YouTube, you can see from the views in looking at channels that are in and around your own niche, if there are views, and especially if there are comments, then you know, for sure.

Like, yes. Those are human beings. Those are real people, real viewers, real, [00:09:00] uh, people who are potential members of your audience who just haven't found you yet because you're not there yet.

 And that should make you feel so excited, like to me that's so exciting to, to know that there's like a, a, a place for you, a place for your brand new channel, for your topics, for your perspective. There are people, there are humans on the platform waiting for you to show up. Isn't that exciting?

now I know I'm, I'm, I'm sort of sending you down like a little, uh, wild goose chase to go look at some things. And most of everything I'm saying is sort of, uh, like a relative, like there is no specific number of, you know, like, well, if the top video in search has at least a hundred thousand views, then like, you're good to go.

There is no definite number there because all niches. And like I said, there's so many variables, but what you're doing with this wild goose chase is [00:10:00] being what I like to think of as like just being a student of your niche.

You're not looking at other channels and other videos through the eyes of like, oh, this is a competitor for me. Um, I have to like somehow like beat them or get more subscribers than them. It's not, that's not what you're doing here. You're just becoming a student of your niche so that you understand what sort of demand there is for the topics that already exist and maybe what the gaps are for.

topics you know that you want to cover, you know that there are questions about, but you're not really seeing them on YouTube yet. Which brings me to the third stop on the wild goose chase, which is to go to YouTube and search for something within your niche that's extremely specific.

Like a common question that's very specific, very niche, very niche within a niche, as I like to say, or like how to do X, [00:11:00] Y, and Z, and that X, Y, and Z is something like very targeted, very specific.

And what you're looking for is, are the search results like showing what you would expect To be like answers to that question.

So let me give you an example here. I have a list of videos literally in front of me to create for my channel that are just like my regular I will link how to videos and tutorials. And one of those topics is how to create a voiceover in Descript. Okay. So it's very specific. It's very niche, like how to do something in Descript is already very niche.

And then how to do something very specific in Descript is like a niche within a niche. Right. So I saw this question come up in a Facebook group and I thought, Oh, that's interesting. I could add that to my list. So when I went to YouTube to search, to see. what other videos were out there on this, [00:12:00] all of the results have to do with how to create an AI voiceover.

It's not like how to record your own voice and make a voiceover, which to me is like a very normal thing that people might want to do with Descript. There's no how to videos on it, or at least not the ones that I could find, you know, easily at the top of the search. So in my mind, I see that as maybe there is nobody interested in this topic at all. But because I see this question come up, I know, because I'm a student of my niche, I know that It is something people are wondering about and searching for and perhaps they're not getting any answers because all of the videos in the top results are how to create an AI voiceover.

so when you're a student of your niche and you know there's people asking questions and there's curiosity, but you're not seeing those results, then you're possibly identifying a gap there where you have the opportunity to come in and [00:13:00] fill that gap.

And even if there are videos on that very specific topic and they're very aligned like yes they do answer the question or they do solve the problem, take a look like I mentioned one of my favorite little insights into YouTube is to look at how many views those videos have versus how many subscribers those channels have because if There's way more views than the number of subscribers, then you know for sure the algorithm and the search results and the humans in the search results are there.

They are active. They are watching

that is very clear evidence that there is a really healthy appetite on YouTube for those topics.

Another thing you want to look at there is how soon were those videos published? are the results, like, are they recent? Are they within the last month? Two months? Three months? [00:14:00] Six years? Ten years even? again, being a student of your niche, if you know, this is a topic people are asking about, people are wondering about, they're asking in, you know, on your other platforms or in your Facebook group, you know, this is a gap for people and maybe the results on YouTube are all kind of old.

Opportunity. Gap. Right there, like, staring you in the face.

And lastly, if you take a peek at some of the videos, um, you know, some of the videos on those niche topics or in maybe the broader niche or industry topics that you have, take a peek at the actual comments in the videos. If you see things like, thank you, this was super helpful, great video, like those are great, you know, they're positive comments and everything.

But if you see detailed comments with questions and, you know, I see you covered X, Y, and Z, but what about A, B, and C? And people have like follow up questions and people [00:15:00] have, you know, more insight even to add to videos. I love getting a YouTube comment from somebody who's like, you know, Love what you said here and they're giving some more information from their experience And I did this and this and then that happened and it's not just like cool thumbs up I mean, I like a cool thumbs up comment as well but I love it when my audience comes into the comments and actually adds value to the conversation and adds value to the the video content itself and because that means you're engaged in this topic.

And so the flip side of that, when you're in the research stage, when you're in this wild goose chase stage

is you see those kinds of comments as evidence of a very engaged audience. And if this topic that you're looking at is in your niche, if it's a topic that you would cover or something related, putting your perspective on it, [00:16:00] putting your spin on it, you can see right there in the comments just how engaged that audience is.

Those are all great signs.

So I'd love to have you join me for the 90 days to 1k boot camp. If you want to go down this wild goose chase first and just kind of have some clarity about whether your audience is on YouTube or where you're going to be able to find those pockets of your ideal audience on YouTube before you come to the boot camp, that's great.

Or you can just come with an open mind and ready to do some work and get started on growing your channel on YouTube. That's fine too. So I'll put all of the details about the 90 days to 1k boot camp down in the description below this video. And I hope to see you there because it's going to be a lot of fun.

I put a workbook together and I even put together some AI tools for you to use as well. And I can't wait to dive into it with you.