Читать книгу YouTube Channels For Dummies - Rob Ciampa - Страница 12

Have you ever noticed the repetitive way people describe the most important aspect of a piece of real estate? Yes, we know it’s all about location, so much so that real estate agents, among others, feel compelled to say it three times, as though saying it once doesn’t get the point across.

Maybe that need for the special emphasis that comes with repetition is justified because, when it comes to success on your YouTube channel, we’re of the opinion that saying the word audience just once doesn’t do justice to its importance. In paying homage to our real estate buddies, we can agree that success for your YouTube channel depends on [drum roll, please] audience, audience, audience!

What’s a YouTube audience actually like? You’ll find people from all walks of life, and you’ll soon discover that they can spend a great deal of time meandering through YouTube’s seemingly endless virtual walls, sometimes just entertaining themselves, sometimes educating themselves, sometimes engaging quite passionately with what they see, sometimes letting it all just wash over them. Given the amount of time folks spend on the site, there’s a good chance that someone ends up seeing your video. Not a great chance, of course, given that the site has so much content and only so many viewers to watch that content — but still a good chance.

So, how do you move from “good chance” to “great chance”? First and foremost, your success depends on the strength of your content. Right behind strong content, though, you’ll find that you need to be a virtual wrangler, capable of bringing to your channel people who may not know anything about you. To do that, you need to know what excites your viewers, what they’re looking for in video content, and how they consume what they like. With that information in hand, you can fine-tune your content to better serve your (current or potential) audience.

Gathering information on the viewing habits of your audience is a crucial first step in determining what they want to see and how long they’re willing to watch your videos. YouTube makes it easy to gather lots of information about your viewers — YouTube Analytics, covered in Chapter 11, is a big help here — but consulting friends and family about their viewing preferences is sometimes a good place to start.