#198: Audience Q&A: When to give up, how often to publish, developing interest in YOU, and where to find leverage

Conor Conaboy [00:00:00]:
At what point is it time to stop creating content due to lack of audience niche fit?

Jay Clouse [00:00:09]:
This is such a good question.

Conor Conaboy [00:00:11]:
Yeah. I think this depends a lot on platform too. Because if you're on something if we're talking about YouTube specifically, that takes a long time to get going. You're talking, like, a year or 2 of commitment of posting to see. And now that doesn't mean you're posting the exact same thing. If you're making short form content, you can iterate a

Jay Clouse [00:00:32]:
lot faster. And, like, if

Conor Conaboy [00:00:32]:
you're trying too hard to fit into, like, rather than exploring your own interests and trying to make the best content there, I think you're hurting yourself in the long run because you'll never quite get to the spot. Your content will never quite get to the spot where you'd want it to be, and you might blame lack of audience fit for it not working when you're just kind of not as focused as you should be.

Jay Clouse [00:01:00]:
Yeah I have a lot of thoughts I've been trying to organize them over here because there's a lot of ways this could go wrong so to your point I think if you're trying to validate audience interest in a topic you should be trying to do that validation on some discovery platform so social media or YouTube where there's already some built in mechanism to introduce your content to consumers of content If you're trying to do it in like podcasting, email, SMS, or private communities, that's just playing this validation game on hard mode because it's difficult to get that type of content in front of people So start with a discovery platform if you have multiple interests I would take some time to rank stack them You probably already have but start with the one you're most interested in and most want to make work in my opinion Recently, I shared this graph where it shows my my profit and loss statements for the last 7 years in starting my business. And a lot of people will ask. They'll see year 3 actually had a down year compared to compared to year 2 and people ask me how did you keep going in year 3 when things looked bad and the honest answer to that is I didn't feel like I had a choice like failure was just not an option in my mind and so I feel I worry for people in this situation if you think that failure is an option it's more likely to occur or you're more likely to see signs that say this is failing. You almost have to, in my opinion, pick something that you really, really wanna make content around and say, I'm going to make this work. I'm going to find the audience for it because it will take time and what you're looking for is just small signals of progress you know you might not have a lot of viewers but when you get in front of the right type of viewer how do they react? Do they say this is awesome? They say I've never seen something like this when they find your channel for the first time. Are they saying I've been bingeing your videos? Because even if you're not getting a ton of views, if you're getting anecdotal feedback like that, that's a really positive sign that you're on to something and you just need to get in front of more people like that. If you're getting in front of people, if you're getting some views and you're not getting any type of, like, raving feedback to say this is what I'm looking for, something is still off. And it might just be, content quality.

Jay Clouse [00:03:31]:
You know? It might be you're getting in front of the right people. You have the right idea, but it's just not good enough. Yes. There there are a lot of these variables. My gut says that if you think there is an audience for this thing you're interested in, there probably is. And it's gonna take some time to get in front of that person to make content that's good enough that resonates with them. And you gotta be willing to stick with it for, honestly, years. So it's tough to say when to give up.

Conor Conaboy [00:04:00]:
And you don't have to validate it yourself. That's where, like, the research comes into. And, like, are there other people that have made content about this? How's that content doing? What does their audience say about that creator? So if you're just looking for a lack of audience fit and maybe your channel around that topic isn't succeeding, but this one over here in that same topic is, then that's probably not lack of audience fit. Then you can start to look at what are they doing better than I am, and and that kind of thing and and researching other niches and how they're doing it. And that will save you a lot of time at least on the get go because you're not in the dark on something, which I think a lot of people, a lot of people on YouTube try really hard to be 1 like, 100% novel and, like, every idea I've had is mine and no one else had that idea, which is generally not true. There is, like, sectors of YouTube for almost anything, even if you haven't seen it or your algorithm hasn't gone. Like, I was, I was setting up a blue bubble server for Imessage on Android, where you have to, like, buy an old Mac computer, disable a security system, and and upload a new OS. There was one channel that had 100 of thousands of views that was specifically to set up old Mac, old Mac Minis, like specifically a 2014 Mac Mini.

Conor Conaboy [00:05:31]:
And he had, like, 5 videos on the topic that all had 100 of thousands of views. And it's like, if I've mentioned that to you and, like, oh, yeah. I'm gonna make a video on how to disable the security system from a 10 year old Mac computer, you'd be like, what are you talking about? But there's, like, an audience for it. And and I wouldn't have known that unless I very specifically had to search for that thing. And, like, it's a very successful channel in the most niche of niches.

Jay Clouse [00:05:56]:
It would be a bummer to have some niche that you're excited about, some type of content you're excited about to give up on it too soon. Have another interest sort of work, quote, unquote, but it's not the thing you're as interested in. Yeah. You know, like, if you're really interested in something, your interest, your curiosity, that is the secret sauce that makes things work. It just it's hard to know how long it will take.

Conor Conaboy [00:06:23]:
Shelly edits a lot asks, perhaps this is a personal habit or perhaps this can be backed by data. But I noticed that as a viewer with a busy life and many interests, I can't keep up with people's weekly uploads as much as I'd want to and tend to put off viewing their videos or forgetting to watch them altogether. In comparison, YouTubers that upload twice a month or even less are more likely to watch their videos immediately. So this question is about posting frequency. Is there a best time? Can you post too much, or can you post too little? What are your thoughts?

Jay Clouse [00:06:56]:
I've actually been thinking about this a lot from a couple of different angles. Let me tell you where I kinda started. One thing that led me to start thinking about this was, live events that we were doing inside the lab. Hang with me. This has a point. Yeah. What I realized was the more frequently you do something, the lower the cost the lower the incremental cost of missing that thing let's say if I was uploading every week if a viewer misses that video that week, it doesn't feel like a big deal because there's gonna be another one next week. It feels like I'm always going to get something new coming soon And so it's easy for the habit to become I don't watch this video I don't go to this event I don't listen to this podcast because the incremental cost of missing it is low.

Jay Clouse [00:07:41]:
So as a creator I think the question you have to ask yourself is are you in the business of trying to make something that your core audience watches every thing of or are you in the business of maximizing views generally? Because I still think it's true that if you create high frequency of content, you'll probably net out with more total views. It'll just be spread across more viewers rather than every viewer watching every video.

Conor Conaboy [00:08:12]:
Yeah. I think the most important thing with all of this is consistency, rather than, like, raw number of uploads because people want to have that expectation of when they can watch you. Because I think to your point, the opposite can also be true where you have the the novelty of an upload, but there's also something to be said for becoming part of someone's routine. So if you look at, like, Casey Neistat during his daily posting, during during his daily uploads, that was part of people's routine where I was like, okay. At this time, at this day, I know Casey's gonna post. I'm gonna watch that. And, like, obviously, some people miss all of that. But same thing happens with Twitch streamers where you just kind of become part of someone's routine, which is super, super valuable.

Conor Conaboy [00:09:03]:
And I think most people play in the middle because, obviously, you could look at, you know, video SAS that post once or twice a month or or, like, once a month or every 2 months or every 3 months where that's more of an event versus, you know, daily streamers or people that post those. They both hold different spots in people's lives. So I think it goes down to, like, what are you comfortable posting in terms of production with the rest of your life and everything like that. And I don't necessarily think it's something you have to optimize the best for because the best is gonna end up being subjective to what else is going on in in what you're doing.

Jay Clouse [00:09:40]:
Yeah. Totally. All viewers have different behaviors. I I put up a poll on LinkedIn, this weekend and asked do you listen to the creator science podcast? And I gave 4 options often occasionally never and first time hearing about it And the most frequent answer was occasionally. And if I think about my own viewer behavior, my own listener behavior on anything, even, like, my favorite things, there's maybe nothing or at least almost nothing that I watch every video of or listen to every podcast of. There's so much content all the time even if I have the best of intentions sometimes life happens you know so I think to your point, as an individual, you have to ask yourself, is this the schedule I want to keep? And recognize that no matter what schedule you decide is right for you, it will be optimal for some of your audience and suboptimal for other members of your audience. Some people would love it if you put out more. Some people will be fine if you put out less.

Jay Clouse [00:10:39]:
So you kind of have to decide what makes the most sense for what I'm trying to do, not just on this channel, but even in the entire portfolio of what I'm trying to do for my business.

Conor Conaboy [00:10:49]:
Ania 2707 asks, if the person who is thinking about starting a YouTube channel to promote their artwork speaks 2 languages, should they create content in English for a worldwide reach or their mother languages to build connection or both? So here's the thing, Eneah. You can actually do both. If you go into YouTube Studio in the subtitles section, you can add languages where you can upload a separate audio track. Now I know that's not necessarily exactly what you wanted because there is something to, like, you know, the, you know, lip sync and things like that. But the option is available. Outside of that, I think, what you want to ask yourself is, 1, are there other people doing what you wanna do in that specific language? Because that could be a competitive advantage if, you know, that section of the audience doesn't have someone that's doing that. Who do you want your audience to be?

Jay Clouse [00:11:48]:
Like, do you want a broader audience of English speakers, or would you rather have,

Conor Conaboy [00:11:48]:
in think it's one of those things where it's, like, up to you, and there's not

Jay Clouse [00:11:56]:
really an optimal. I'm sure think it's one of

Conor Conaboy [00:11:57]:
those things where it's, like, up to you and there's not really an optimal. I'm sure, you know, what whatever your goal of the channel is, you might have a more limited reach if you go a mother language. But the counter to that is if there's no one else there, you know, if you're Spanish like, there are tons of Spanish YouTubers or anything like that that have massive audiences that, obviously, I don't know about because they are, you know, few and far in between in that specific niche that you might find that success that you wouldn't in in an English speaking niche that is more, saturated with other options for people to watch.

Jay Clouse [00:12:34]:
Yeah. I don't have a whole lot to add there, other than a couple of points. It's really challenging to maintain 2 channels on YouTube, on any platform. Maintaining 2 channels is super, super difficult. So if the idea of maintaining 2 channels is going to have a negative impact on your feelings about the work your energy in creating the work the amount you can upload then I would probably say decision number 1 is to say let's just do one channel and then which one you go with. I really think this also ties back to, as you said, Connor, your your aspirations. If you want to have that connection you prefer that better than broad reach then go with your native tongue because it's gonna be a little bit more authentic it's gonna feel a little bit more real to those people there's honestly probably even a decision to be made about blood it might depend on the language itself because I know a lot of Americans who are like infatuated with the the English accent but I also know a lot of Americans who complain about other accents that are more difficult to pick up on and understand so even if you speak English your dialect might make it difficult for an English audience to listen and grasp what you're saying so you know, I think starting with what type of audience do I want to build and, you know, making the right choice for you versus some blanket right choice also something we you kind of talked about dubbing is coming a long way I mean how long until YouTube just does dubs natively on the platform in such a high quality way that this question becomes a little bit obsolete? It won't be completely natural. You know, if you do your videos in English and then it dubs it into your native tongue, it's going to sound worse than if you made your videos in your native tongue and vice versa.

Jay Clouse [00:14:32]:
But I think we're gonna see pretty ubiquitous dubbing on YouTube in the next 24 months for sure, but probably sooner.

Conor Conaboy [00:14:39]:
Yeah. Like, a 1000% with how good AI voice translations and stuff are doing. And I'm sure people will find out really good ways to make it feel way more natural than what it currently is.

Jay Clouse [00:14:52]:
I made a voice dub this weekend using 11 Labs because I heard good things.

Conor Conaboy [00:14:57]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:14:57]:
Voice sounds just like me. Pacing is a little bit off. It's not it's not quite where I feel comfortable even explicitly saying this was made with AI and putting it up because there are, like, awkward changes of pace that don't make a whole lot of sense. So, it's it's good, but, you know, it it'll it'll be really good very soon.

Conor Conaboy [00:15:20]:
Angry Owl Outdoors asks, I have an outdoor channel, solo camping, gear testing, bushcraft, and primarily make long form averaging around 30 minutes. I take the long form and chop it into shorts, but I'm starting to wonder if I should make a dedicated shorts channel and remove them from my main channel. The same goes for focused gear reviews. I fear I am creating 2 to 3 types of viewers and trying to catch all of them. Thoughts?

Jay Clouse [00:15:46]:
Have you looked at Angry Owl Outdoors' channel here, Connor?

Conor Conaboy [00:15:49]:
I did. And the first thing I noticed is all your highest performing videos are your solo camping videos, which, kind of tells to me that that's, like, the main audience you're looking for. And also personal interest, I think that's super interesting. I watch solo camping and, like, exploring videos all of the time. So I think first thing here, I would not move shorts on a separate channel. That's like, you know, in a kind of old school strategy before they really integrated how to or before YouTube really figured out how to integrate Shorts into a main channel and have them balanced well. Caveat, if those Shorts were, like, gear reviews, I would move them to another channel because that's, I I guess, the main point is you should move, like, main gear reviews, I think, to a different channel because I would believe that that would be a completely separate audience. Might be biased, but I know because I watch videos like that, I would not watch a gear review video, but I would watch a Bushcraft solo camping video.

Jay Clouse [00:16:53]:
Let Let me let me break that down a little bit further because I think you're saying some things that, you and I know that might be a little bit implicit. Yeah. So what what you're saying is most important is that the videos you put on the channel are serving the same type of viewer. Yes. And what what you're saying is people who like solo camping videos, you may assume they would not like gear review channels. That would be 2 separate viewers. And if that is true, that would be a reason to have 2 separate channels.

Conor Conaboy [00:17:22]:
Yes. Because I think if you're if you're assuming the people that wanna watch your solo camping videos want to necessarily go solo camping or are in the market for gear, I think you are severely limiting the, like, the cap on that because there is a much more broader audience that just likes the, the, like, exploration and camping aspect of it that doesn't that will more than likely never do it themselves, and they just like seeing other people do it. So I think you're just hurting both types of content by trying to mix them together.

Jay Clouse [00:17:55]:
Right.

Conor Conaboy [00:17:56]:
Now the other side of that is I wouldn't do this in a full gear review. But if you are super nerdy about the gear stuff and you like, talking about that, then there are ways you could incorporate that into solo camming videos where you're talking about products. I wouldn't make it like full reviews because you'll probably see dips in retention or people skip that area. But at that point, they're seeing gear in use in context of you actually doing something else, which in itself is probably kind of a higher ceiling

Jay Clouse [00:18:27]:
and gear reviews having a kind of a higher ceiling and gear reviews having a high ceiling. But when you put the 2 together, now you're looking for somebody who has 2 interests which reduces the potential ceiling in total.

Conor Conaboy [00:18:42]:
For sure.

Jay Clouse [00:18:43]:
I agree with you though that there's no reason to take the shorts content off from the regular one. The interesting thing about shorts though, it seems like shorts is an easier way to grow a subscriber count. Yeah. And that does not mean that those subscribers are going to be interested in your long form videos. It's just different different viewing behaviors, but also it doesn't seem like there's a negative consequence to that. So net net seems like keeping them on the same channel is just fine.

Conor Conaboy [00:19:12]:
Sharivary asks, how do you make the shift from viewers that are watching because of your content to watch because of you, especially in the educational niche?

Jay Clouse [00:19:22]:
I love this question. I've been thinking about it a lot because I think, you know, the optimal outcome for all of us as creators is that the people who watch our videos trust us to make something they'll like and they'll just watch because we publish something you know we have to earn that You have to earn that because most of the ways that people find you is because they're looking for something specific and they come across a video where you give them that specific thing. Maybe that's in search, maybe that's in recommended, but you tickle their interest and they say, I'm gonna give this person a shot. That doesn't mean that they're out of the box going to just be a fan of you right away. It it probably will take multiple touch points and this is getting increasingly competitive over time because how many how many content creators can we or will we truly be a big fan of just as a person? You know, how many people do you think in your life, Connor, you you follow and you watch everything they do just because of who they are?

Conor Conaboy [00:20:23]:
Less than 5 for sure.

Jay Clouse [00:20:25]:
I was circling around the number 5 ish 2.

Conor Conaboy [00:20:28]:
Yeah. Because I I can only think off the top of my head, I can only think of, like, 2 channels where I would be, like, I'm not gonna miss a video. And that's, like, video essay. So GIF Gas is one one of them, and he's a train surfer. I love those types of videos. He uploads, like, once a month. I know when it's there, I'm gonna watch it, like, almost immediately. And the other one would be video essayist like Jay Aubrey or someone like that where I know even if I'm not necessarily tuned into, like, who the video essay is about or anything, I've been watching him for so long.

Conor Conaboy [00:20:56]:
I know I'm gonna enjoy it, and there's a lot that goes into it. So I'm not gonna miss those. But that developed over time. And it wasn't like as soon as I saw one of his videos, I was like, oh, I'm gonna watch every single one. It usually starts with, like, watching 1, you know, maybe binging a couple, same night or whatever, depending on length, and then just kind of incorporating that into my life of, like, oh, this is gonna be good. And so I'm gonna watch it no matter what.

Jay Clouse [00:21:22]:
Totally. I think this is this is earned over time, and it your viewing frequency of any individual can increase over time but it's also easy to lose people You know, I think about a lot with everything I publish. I wanna pass the regret test. Like, I don't wanna make any regrettable content where somebody says, I believe this will be worth my time. They watch it they listen to it they read it and then ultimately feel like that was a letdown that is you know if you think about like a health meter in a video game you you you kind of wanna like fill the health meter with people's positive experience with you but every time you release something regrettable it kind of decreases the health meter so you wanna have these consistent positive touch points with people to the point where you do build that level of trust that, hey, I'm gonna come just for you. But that's still on an individual level. Like, you could have somebody who will show up just for you. And so you start to feel like, maybe I've earned the trust of my audience and I don't have to be as overt with my packaging and why you should watch this.

Conor Conaboy [00:22:26]:
Yes.

Jay Clouse [00:22:26]:
But there's gonna be so many people who are still new to you who do need that. So, you know, it's a it's a brick by brick game where you're building these super fans who will watch just for you but there's always gonna be someone new who has not crossed that threshold yet.

Conor Conaboy [00:22:45]:
Yeah. You absolutely should not count on people watching just because of you. I I think people that have been around a while will kinda fall into that trap. And when content gets stale, they don't really know what to do because they, you know, rely on a previously built audience, not continually to give the viewers or give new viewers the same reason to watch as they gave the viewers that now just watch for them, and always recognize that that the subset of your audience that will watch you because of you is always going to be this a smaller part of your overall audience. Like, you're never gonna have, you know, 50, 60, 70 percent of your audience being, like, oh, I'm gonna watch everything this person does. And that's not bad. That's just because, like, what we talked about is people have different lives and different viewing habits. And sometimes people will, like, be that way for you, you know, for 6 months and then maybe not watch you again for a little bit and then come back.

Conor Conaboy [00:23:44]:
That's just that kind of thing that it's not bad. Just don't count on it because then it's super easy to get lazy if you're just gonna, like, oh, people are just gonna watch because I'm being me. And that's it might have worked a while ago, but especially in a very algorithm feed based YouTube now, it's not that just doesn't really work anymore.

Jay Clouse [00:24:05]:
Somebody I think that does a good job of this or has an audience that often tunes in just for them is Ali Abdaal. Yeah. But if you look at his channels he is still really playing the packaging game at a high level he's he's used the term sufficiently clickbait with me before where he talks about like what he thinks about this packaging it needs to be like clickbaity enough that people who don't know him yet will still click it, but not so clickbaity that people have this regret factor. But you can see he has 2 other featured channels. 1 is a podcast still with his name and face on the cover. Another is something called appendix which is just a place that he uploads randomly. And even his appendix channel has almost a 100,000 subscribers. So I think one way to monitor this with your own channel is let's take let's take our channel, for example.

Jay Clouse [00:24:55]:
Yeah. Right now, when we upload videos, my face is almost never in the thumbnail. Right. Every once in a while, we'll put my face on a thumbnail. And that's a good test of are people showing up for me or because of our packaging. And if you see, like, a baseline improvement of views on videos that are packaged around you, that's probably a pretty good sign that you have built some level of loyalty and interest in your audience in you personally. Yeah. Community posts, I think, are underrated too.

Jay Clouse [00:25:22]:
Different ways for you to engage with people just to see our people responding to you, your name, your face, even outside of hyper packaged videos.

Conor Conaboy [00:25:33]:
Yeah. And I I think alongside that, what I was gonna say is making sure you have other touch points with your audience. So community tab is 1 and, you know, Twitter, Discord, Instagram, email, like, any of those things where you're kind of moving people down that, you know, the audience funnel of, like, new viewer, occasional watcher, and then, you know, what you're talking about is someone who's really watching for you. Like, if you're just posting videos, I think that's way harder to do it rather than, like, giving them other touch points to interact with you.

Jay Clouse [00:26:06]:
Just to follow-up on that, you had a genius line you said one time. You were like, I think there's a way you can measure the strength of somebody's community by looking at their second platform behind YouTube.

Conor Conaboy [00:26:17]:
Yeah. So yeah. Especially because you'll notice there's a lot of people that focus solely on YouTube, and it's and it's not being, like that's not bad. Like, there there's no knock on these creators, but you'll see tons of YouTubers will have several million subscribers, and then you'll go to their Twitter and they'll have, like, 3,000 followers. And that's totally fine if that's what they wanna do and they're not very active on Twitter. But you can see a lot of really good communities because they'll have closer gaps between their main platform and their other ones because people are moving down and wanna interact with them in other places. And then, the other thing I wanna touch on with Ali, even with his channel that we're talking about, you can still see a variance in, like, a, die hard audience versus a broader audience in his videos where he'll post 1 a week in my life vlog, 75 k views. That's a pretty good base.

Conor Conaboy [00:27:08]:
And you can tell if you're gonna watch an Ollie vlog, you're gonna love him, like, and watching for him versus, you know, 3 videos earlier. My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom, 1,200,000 views. So, like, clearly, there's gonna be some variance and ideas in who's watching that. And, obviously, that vlog, Ali's vlog, isn't for a broader audience. Like, that's super intentional. I don't think he's expecting that video to get millions of views. He's posting that as, like, a relationship deepener, and you can, like, clearly see that difference in audience there.

Jay Clouse [00:27:41]:
These are good questions. I like these.

Conor Conaboy [00:27:43]:
Completely random interest asks, it's so hard finding a niche I can stick with for a long period of time. I feel like I get sick of everything sooner or later, and there's nothing I'm very passionate about that isn't oversaturated or hard to make videos about.

Jay Clouse [00:27:57]:
This is kind of an art to content creation. Let me let me start by saying that the dream of a creator is to make this thing that, like, checks all the boxes in your life. You want creative fulfillment. You want financial fulfillment. You want to have fun while doing it. You want to only talk about things that you wanna talk about. That's a lot of pressure to put on your content to basically, like, fulfill all of your needs as a human on the channel. Mhmm.

Jay Clouse [00:28:28]:
So, you know, the first thing that I like to tell people is, you know, you can serve some of your human needs in ways that are not your content. And also, sometimes your content can check some of your human needs off without needing to check all of them off. I say all of that to say I know a lot of people who run content businesses who aren't necessarily as in love or obsessed with their topic as they once were because they've grown and evolved and they've kind of said a lot of the same same things over and over again. But if the content thing is a business for you, that's kind of a necessary part a lot of times is saying I'm gonna continue to make this content because I know it serves people and I'm bringing new people into the audience all the time and I'm helping people even if you get a little bit bored with it. So I think you have to ask yourself, what do I want this channel or this content to do for me? Does it need to be completely new and novel and interesting to me all the time? And would I be willing to to trade off some amount of financial security if so? Mhmm. Because there might be a trade off here. That being said I think this is like a needle you can thread if you're really thoughtful about it you really have to say if I'm gonna create content and I'm gonna create about this like everything that you publish you have to think if this went really well if this piece of content went viral, would I be okay with continuing to create content like this for the foreseeable future? And if you know the answer is no before you publish, then I probably wouldn't publish that thing. I would be publishing things that you feel like I would be happy making more of this.

Jay Clouse [00:30:12]:
Because if the answer is no, it's potentially gonna create some roadblocks for you even if it goes well.

Conor Conaboy [00:30:19]:
I also think you don't need to look at oversaturation as a bad thing if that's what you're passionate about. If your issue is with sticking, is with sticking with something and losing interest because, you know, you think you can't make content that you're passionate about because other people are doing it, that's the wrong way to look at it. Like, if you are super passionate about that and you think that's gonna help your content, then you're then you're just looking for what unique spin can I put on this, rather than, like, oh, I can't post this? It's how can I be how can I take my passion and make that my competitive advantage in that topic, which which I think is the best way to go about it, especially for longevity? It might, you know, take you a little bit to gain traction more than other words. If you're trying to if you're one of those people that's trying to, like, find a niche and kind of just fit into it for performance reasons, which is totally fine if that's, like, how you wanna make money. But if you're looking at a like, your YouTube career as a long game, you're way better off focusing on what you're passionate about and trying to find your way in that niche than abandoning it because other people are making, content around the similar topic.

Jay Clouse [00:31:32]:
Yeah. And in areas that are oversaturated the key is differentiation and there are lots of different ways you can differentiate you can differentiate on what you're talking about who you're making it for how you approach it your own personality editing style format There are a lot of ways to differentiate especially in a visual medium So if you're worried about saturation just ask yourself what what if I'm passionate about this you probably know a lot about the space about this thing you've probably formed some unique opinions or ways of explaining things. And you gotta lean into that. You gotta lean into the things that are unique to you to be differentiated.

Conor Conaboy [00:32:14]:
And if if you're in that world, there are a lot of things that, you know, are unique that you might not even recognize until you go and talk about it. Because we we go through that all the time of things that we know or things that we like that we don't even recognize that other people would be interested in it, that other people would be interested in or don't know just because we're always in it. And I'm sure if you're passionate about that, you have tons of those on that topic.

Jay Clouse [00:32:39]:
The nice thing about a true niche is that it should be fairly specific. So if you are finding it hard to find a niche that you can stick with for a long time because you get sick of it or you want to try other things. Think of it as like a land and expand type of approach. If you are doing this one specific thing, you get a little bit bored. What is like a tangential area that you can explore where it's almost like this chain of like a Venn diagram of interests. People are interested in this, and then there there's this other topic you're interested in, and there's gonna be an in between point of people who are interested in both. You know, you can start to kinda tiptoe into these new areas by first starting with people who are interested in both these topics, then starting to explore that second topic more. And, you know, this question kinda goes to channel architecture.

Jay Clouse [00:33:29]:
You might want to start a new channel for that interest in particular, But it's usually possible. In fact, I would say it's always possible if you're creative enough to find something that is tangential to what you're already talking about and kinda expand out from there. But I find that a lot of people do that too early.

Conor Conaboy [00:33:50]:
The other thing I wanna say is that that last part of your question, that isn't over saturated or hard to make videos about. I don't necessarily think there's, like, any part of YouTube that isn't really easy. So I also don't think that should be a deterrent. Obviously, you know, within your life, if it's, like, super resource or labor intensive to do it and you just don't have that time for sure. But in general, I don't think you're gonna find anything easy if you're gonna try and build a long career on YouTube that's not easy at all. And, like, there are no shortcuts there.

Jay Clouse [00:34:21]:
And hard is good because if you solve hard, you're gonna have an advantage because other people are also going to see it as hard. So if you solve a hard thing, if you make videos about hard things, it's gonna be harder for other people to step in and make similar videos or, you know, outcompete you.

Conor Conaboy [00:34:39]:
Brandon l asks, I've been mainly just trying to create a wide variety of content in different styles so I can later analyze what's working and then do more of that. I've been trying to focus on Instagram because that's where a good portion of my target demographic are at. Is there a master list of Instagram reels or post format types so I can make sure I'm creating from the whole spectrum of posts I can, so I'm posting a variety of content on a consistent basis, then making plan changes based on data gathered and repeat. I've been kind of winging it, but wanna get more intentional and make sure I'm getting the best data to refine my efforts.

Jay Clouse [00:35:14]:
I don't know of a specific list like this. I bet it exists. It also seems like a great thing for somebody to create if not, if you're really trying to help people grow on Instagram. I would say, there are some, like, Instagram specific accounts that were worth that are worth following. Brock Johnson, in particular, comes to mind. And if you kinda go down the Brock Johnson rabbit hole, he might be able to point some things out. But what I like to do on this front, this actually is inspired by something Jake Thomas shared in a recent video with us, is define different niches than your own and see what's going well there and it's hard like social media the Internet doesn't want you to burst out of your own bubble that they've put you in. So sometimes the best thing to do is, like, grab a friend's phone, grab your partner's phone, see what their feed is like, and try to find some accounts that are outside the norm for you, to look at what's what's going on here.

Jay Clouse [00:36:11]:
Right now, I've been getting a ton of reels in particular for this trend where they'll just say, like, this initial owes you a and it's like pizza wings new car and so I'm seeing all these videos from people in different walks of life who are just like writing an initial on something and it's opening me up to new new places. So you you kinda have to, like, work to initially get outside your bubble, but then the algorithm starts showing you other things outside that bubble and I think that's the the art form here is intentionally getting outside of your own current feed to find other examples to to look at?

Conor Conaboy [00:36:50]:
I have multiple YouTube accounts for that exact reason where each is kinda tailored, and I like to see the differences. I also do this thing where I will go through a night, and my one rule when I'm watching YouTube videos is I cannot have watched a video from that YouTuber before. That's a really good way to find new content and formats, that you can go through Instagram and just find Discover. Go on your Discover page and scroll and kinda see things. The other thing would just be being super aware of your own viewing habits. And I don't know, make a list on Notion or even on just, like, your notes app if you're watching And just being, like, what format was this thing that I just watched? And just do that. And then you can see, you know, provide performance or whatever. But just being more active on it in your own experience, I think, is going to be way more beneficial to you than looking for someone else's list because then you're doing it yourself.

Conor Conaboy [00:37:46]:
You're always gonna be ahead of people, and you're taking into account, like, your own viewing habits, which isn't always good because not every viewer is going to look like you. But I think there is some weight to how you feel and how you interact with content, especially in how it influences what you make and how you make things.

Jay Clouse [00:38:04]:
I think it'd be interesting to start keeping a list of niches or communities that are really passionate because if you start creating feeds with those people's content, you know, CrossFit or vegans or, I've actually heard that, like, Facebook groups full of truckers are really interesting culturally for the memes that they share. So it's it's it's it's finding this group of people who have a really strong sense of identity and then seeing how are these people talking about it. What type of memes, or formats are making it into this subculture that I can pull into my own because ultimately, you're trying to grow a really strong community built around an identity too. So if you can learn from those tangential communities that can be really powerful

Conor Conaboy [00:38:56]:
Ginny Lang asks what are your thoughts slash strategy around different niches performing on different platforms? I'm playing in the outdoor travel space and wonder if I should trade x for Instagram. Focused primarily on writing but love photography as well. I'm noticing that a lot of other adventures and brands in my niche are not on x. Do you think that's a good thing or a sign to go where the conversations I want to be, I want to be in are already happening?

Jay Clouse [00:39:23]:
I didn't used to believe this, but I do actually think that there are patterns in niches in what platforms they're on. There are also exceptions. So, you know, ultimately, if you're like, I love x. This is where I want to create content. I'm not gonna tell you to stop doing that because especially if you're publishing on YouTube as well, you can tell your people, hey, if you wanna, you know, have more of a relationship and conversation with me, come find me on x. But I do find that there seems to be much stronger overlap in general between YouTube and Instagram than YouTube and x And so if you have an audience on YouTube, it's probably more likely that those people are on Instagram than on x. Part of that is just because the audience size of Instagram is I think it's something like 6 x that of x. They're like 6 times as many users on Instagram than I I really wanna say Twitter.

Conor Conaboy [00:40:15]:
I I say Twitter. Yeah. Do call it Twitter.

Jay Clouse [00:40:21]:
So I I I think it's probably true that there are more people on Instagram. But if you can't make content that works on Instagram it's also kind of a waste of time and written content is hard to make work there That being said, if you're good at writing script a short form video you know add a good caption to some of your photography Most of the, non reels content on Instagram doesn't have much reach right now. If you wanna play the Instagram game and reach new people, you're probably gonna have to make reels. So, you know, you have to ask yourself that's something you're willing to do. And if you're already on it on YouTube, then you probably are fine with that.

Conor Conaboy [00:40:59]:
John Cannonzotto asks, as a new creator, you hear a lot about finding leverage. Yet for beginners, finding that elusive leverage is difficult. I suspect when one is early in the career, hustling and jumping at every opportunity is the move until you earn the right to be more focused. That said, how does one balance putting the reps in and building leverage to do less but with more effectiveness?

Jay Clouse [00:41:24]:
There's this quote I really like which is the expert knows what to ignore. And so in the beginning, you really have to try a lot of things to find what is worthwhile and worth your time Leverage is a lot of small decisions and small changes to say I know exactly where to press to get the most out of my effort and that changes all the time based on you know the whole world and culture and climate so you only find where to press by pressing a bunch of places and figuring out, okay, this this gave me more juice from the squeeze. So I agree with you, John, that in beginning, it is a lot of hustling. It's a lot of testing. It's a lot of trying things. And as you're trying things, you're just naturally going to identify, oh, that was a much better use of my time than this thing over here and that's the beginning of leverage I think I think leveraged leverage is earned. Leverage is learned through experience. And, honestly, a lot of leverage is also scale.

Jay Clouse [00:42:32]:
A lot of leverage for a creator comes from the size of your audience, the amount of trust they have in you, and that is built over time. There's just no way around it.

Conor Conaboy [00:42:42]:
And if, you are in the more educational side of making content, leverage coming from experience doesn't have to be from, like, content experience. Obviously, if you're a seasoned lawyer in, you know, a specific type of law, that's your leverage. Because especially on YouTube, a lot of the leverage in getting the lift and getting your video seen is gonna be idea and packaging. So if you already have that idea because you're good at what you do and now you're just sharing it with other people, then your leverage is to learn packaging. Like, our last episode we did with Jake Thomas, he talks about titles, especially in educational content being the lowest lift way to get your video seen. Because, you know, you spend max an hour, 2 hours brainstorming, you know, 30, 50, 100 different titles and then test them out. And that's a super low leverage way because you're not trying to be an insane editor or anything like that. Because at the end of the day, your leverage is gonna come from an idea or previous knowledge.

Conor Conaboy [00:43:46]:
So then you focus on packaging to get that or to get people to click.

Jay Clouse [00:43:50]:
Yeah. The points of leverage, sometimes they change sometimes they stay the same so learning from smart people preferably who are doing it now in real time is also a way for you to learn fat like there's there's even leverage in learning you can follow smart people who are doing it right now so you can compound the number of experiments you're personally learning from even if you're not the one conducting those experiments so your information diet where you're directing your attention, there's points of leverage there. And, you know, you gotta be ruthless with how you spend your time if you're thinking about leverage You're not gonna get leverage scrolling through garbage or staying in bed you know like you you there there are points of leverage all around you but a lot of it is through experience, your own, or other people who are doing it right now.

Conor Conaboy [00:44:46]:
Nadine asks, LinkedIn was always my main platform. It helped me work with 50 plus clients in the last 2 years. But I had this idea of diversifying, but at the same time, I don't wanna get distracted and consumed because LinkedIn is not saturated for me, and I'm growing and improving there. I was thinking about Instagram because I am vocal. I love video content, although I am not using them on LinkedIn. Should I go to Instagram as a second platform but smoothly, or should I wait?

Jay Clouse [00:45:15]:
Diversifying platforms is one of the biggest, most expensive mistakes people make too early. Let me start there because it's a huge resource draw on your time on your attention potentially even your budget depending on how you're going to make this stuff. So I'm glad you're thinking about this intentionally, Nadine, because this is a big question. It's a big decision. The thing that really pulled my eyes in this question is LinkedIn is not saturated for me, and I am growing and improving there. And it's always been your main platform. To me that says pedal to the metal continue there because any any platform has its own sort of adoption curve in terms of how competitive or saturated it is LinkedIn for the past several years has been, called underpriced attention. Gary Vee is called LinkedIn underpriced attention.

Jay Clouse [00:46:17]:
Daniel Murray earlier on in the channel called LinkedIn underpriced attention. That meant for the same level of relative effort, you can get a higher return, And that window will close. So if you're having success on LinkedIn right now and that's a place where there is outsized rewards, the amount of time and effort you can put into it, I would say continue to focus on LinkedIn Here's the caveat If you love video you should know that LinkedIn is literally right now beta testing a vertical video style feed within the app I have access to it some testers have it it's a very similar implementation to TikTok, to Reels.

Conor Conaboy [00:46:55]:
Sure.

Jay Clouse [00:46:56]:
So I would say play around with video on LinkedIn now and do it You can try horizontal because that's that still works in the feed but if you do it vertical the people who have access to that version of the app, it's gonna be rolled out to new users all the time. There's going to be an arbitrage opportunity where they're gonna be fewer people creating short form vertical video on LinkedIn than elsewhere. And if you're already growing on LinkedIn, this is a good opportunity for you. And if you are creating short form vertical video on LinkedIn, you could start cross posting that on reels to start your Instagram effort. But that's the way I would think about it. I would continue to say LinkedIn first. Let me try to do video on LinkedIn there's an audio episode of this podcast the creator science podcast talking to Richard Vanderblom and he gave some guidelines for how he goes about video on LinkedIn He does less than 60 seconds I think that's where I would start right now is to continue on LinkedIn, but start playing with video on LinkedIn.

Conor Conaboy [00:47:54]:
And if I remember correctly, I know when LinkedIn releases a new feature, they push it hard. Yes. Because last time when they were first introducing video in, like, 2016, 2017, there were several creators that made their entire careers from being the first ones on video doing that kind of stuff because of, reach opportunities and because LinkedIn really wants people to use it. So they're gonna reward people who are using it.

Jay Clouse [00:48:22]:
It's a huge platform. It has huge reach. They have huge resources because they're backed by Microsoft. I agree with you. When they go and they try to push a new feature, they push it really hard. There's an interesting meta trend underneath this which is all platforms are trying to create user generated content in all different forms because it trains their own proprietary AI algorithms So LinkedIn is recognizing they need more video training data. Instagram is realizing they need need more text based training data. So that's why they have threads.

Jay Clouse [00:48:56]:
That's why they push threads that's why LinkedIn will post push video we'll probably see TikTok at some point do something that's more text based so anytime there is a major platform that has a secondary, mode, you know, that's it's not their primary form of content, but they're trying to push for some secondary form content. There's usually a window opportunity there to be early to adopt that because they do tend to push it pretty quickly.

Conor Conaboy [00:49:21]:
Nathan Schaeffernoth asks, what's been the easiest thing about growing a podcast audience, or the thing you've most enjoyed? And what's been the hardest thing, the thing that required the most change slash adaptation slash personal growth from you?

Jay Clouse [00:49:36]:
This question came from email. So I assume Nathan is talking about the audio podcast. And if that is true, I have to say I can't think of a single easy thing about growing the audio podcast. I can't. There there's there's been nothing It's

Conor Conaboy [00:49:52]:
so hard.

Jay Clouse [00:49:52]:
There's been nothing easy about it.

Conor Conaboy [00:49:54]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:49:56]:
In fact, like, I'm still not growing it that well. The the growth has come from the YouTube channel. Email grows, social media grows, YouTube channel grows, the podcast audience. You know, I see growth on Apple Podcasts. I see growth on Spotify. So I know there is organic growth there, but it is slow, my friend. It is so slow, so difficult. That being said, I think it's actually where there might be the highest upside if you are a winner in podcasting because the the, revenue opportunities there are crazy.

Jay Clouse [00:50:34]:
If you have people listening to you in audio for 60 hours a week we'll call it that is a high trust relationship Yeah. That is more valuable than anything else. So the effort is worth it if you want to be a podcaster. If you don't have interest in being a great podcaster, don't do podcasting. Don't get started because it's really, really difficult. But if you wanna be a great podcaster, it's worth the long term effort. The hardest thing is growth. The hardest thing is getting people to click play the first time.

Jay Clouse [00:51:07]:
And some recent data I saw said you actually need somebody to listen to 3 episodes before they become a regular listener.

Conor Conaboy [00:51:15]:
Interesting.

Jay Clouse [00:51:16]:
Podcast retention is really difficult. I did some research with my friend Chris Hutchins, with my friend Jeremy Ends. We looked at retention data according to Chartable and Podcasting. And it's just really underestimated how bad retention generally is episode to episode. And it makes sense when you think about your own listening behavior. There's so many podcast episodes. You probably scroll your feeds. You was interesting.

Jay Clouse [00:51:40]:
You listen to that episode. And you probably miss even your favorite podcasts several times a month certainly several times a year So it's it's just difficult to retain listeners in podcasting when you're competing for the same listening time with people like Conan O'Brien and Dax Shepard and the Smartless Skies. You know, why would I spend an hour on your podcast when I could spend an hour with a super highly produced show with literal performance professionals?

Conor Conaboy [00:52:11]:
Alright. We're gonna end with a little existential question. Dear Marcy asks, are you happy? Everything is fine. You can live a good life, but why do you keep moving forward? What's your purpose in life? You are today's Napoleon Hill. After interviewing so many successful creators, what's your version of Think and Grow Rich?

Jay Clouse [00:52:32]:
How is this question supposed to make me feel?

Conor Conaboy [00:52:34]:
It's a great question for Monday morning.

Jay Clouse [00:52:36]:
To be honest, like, the immediate response was, like, oh, how much time you got? Most days, yes. I I definitely feel happy. But also a lot of days, I feel very stressed.

Conor Conaboy [00:52:51]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:52:52]:
I think the life of a content creator, depending on your frequency and how much you're creating, I think it's very common to feel at least a refrigerator level of anxiety just all the time. Yep. Because because basically, your job is to hit deadlines And those are frequent, sometimes pretty intense deadlines. And anyone who's ever been under a deadline knows the stress that can be caused by a deadline. And content creators are basically saying, like, I'm signing up for I mean, I I literally probably have, like, a dozen deadlines per week. So that's pretty intense. And Mhmm. If you don't know how to cope with that, that can be pretty difficult.

Jay Clouse [00:53:43]:
So I think the journey for me has been a lot of how do I identify sources of stress and make choices to alleviate those stressors. Because when I don't feel the stress of deadlines, I feel like I have the best life in the world. Yeah. But when I do feel stress, that can completely overshadow all of that goodness. You know, it's like the cloud in front of the sky. The sky is there, and it's like, this is the best. But it's easy for cloud coverage to come in if I'm feeling stressed.

Conor Conaboy [00:54:16]:
Yeah. What would you say is your purpose? Second part of the question.

Jay Clouse [00:54:20]:
I think this has changed a lot as well. You know, I'm Yep. I'm a month away when this publishes from having my first child. And so, like, I find that my purpose is rapidly changing. You know, like, my purpose is less about self actualization and ego and status, which to be honest I was probably operating from that place for a lot of the last you know 30 plus years

Conor Conaboy [00:54:49]:
for sure

Jay Clouse [00:54:51]:
and now it's becoming a place of like impact, providing for a child, making my wife feel safe and secure. So, you know, I would say broadly, my purpose is to help other people live stress free lives starting with my family and then extending out to the people that I serve which are creators I I have actually been jamming on this a lot lately I feel like if there is one thing I could promise to a creator to provide with my content, with my products, it would be a lower stress existence as a creator.

Conor Conaboy [00:55:27]:
Nice. How

Jay Clouse [00:55:28]:
about you, Connor? Are you happy?

Conor Conaboy [00:55:30]:
I would say I'm happier now than previously. I don't really know, if there's a destination, but I think over the last couple years and especially since we started working together, my purpose and happiness has kind of evolved where I used to look at things super black and white on, like, if there's, you know, a bad situation or whatever, then everything's bad and that everything sucks. And I don't know. Over the past, you know, 2 years, from, like, a lot of personal development therapy and things like that, I've started to come around to the idea of, like, not everything is always gonna be good, and you have to take those little things. And my purpose has sort of evolved into, like I think a lot of the purpose of life is side quests and not necessarily, like, oh, I'm gonna do this one thing, and that's gonna be me. But it's gonna be supporting, you know, friends and kind of building a bubble for you and loved ones that kind of insulates them from how, like, awful and harsh the world can be because it because it is depending on money situations or health situations. So that's, you know, whatever it is and, like, doing little things, like taking trips to see friends, making sure you're in people's lives, I think, is very important that we get super caught up in work, especially in in content creation because you can never turn it off. There's 0 off button when you have, deadlines to hit.

Conor Conaboy [00:56:59]:
You can always be doing more because there's not structured hours. No one's telling you you have to complete this by this time. It's all based on on self integrity, and it's obviously easy with imposter syndrome to constantly feel like you have to be improving. You have to be doing all of these things. And then I started to think about, or I used to think about rest as a bad thing or, like like, having fun and going out as having, or or just as being bad and taking away from everything else. And I've completely flipped that and and realized that, like, that is part of the process. And all of these, like, little things about life and your little hobbies and enjoyments, like, if you go hiking or hanging out with friends, going out drinking, whatever it is, like, adds to what you do for your work, if that's, like, your passion. If, you know, you're just if you're one of those people that has a 9 to 5 and you're just, like, I'm gonna clock in my hours and then dip out and hang out with my family, that's, like, totally cool.

Conor Conaboy [00:57:58]:
I think this is not doesn't necessarily apply as much to you, but making sure that those rest times inform how creative you are and how fulfilled, how fulfilled that you feel. And that influences your content. And I think generally makes you a happier, better person rather than focusing so much on results and, like, do I have enough subscribers? Why didn't a 1000000 people watch this video when I thought it, like, did that? So I yeah. I I think a lot of separation of, like, self from content and trying to mesh everything together and not that one thing is bad, so everything is bad, kinda take both things.

Jay Clouse [00:58:40]:
I think about emotional regulation and emotional resilience a lot because I can think back to the near past when certain stressors felt so intense and so difficult to deal with. And you can take 2 paths. You can either say, I'm going to avoid situations where I have that stressor. Yep. Or you can say, I'm going to find ways to make this no longer a stressor And when you work through something to the point where now you can repeatedly do that thing without being stressed it really shows you what you're capable of and it makes you feel like actually a good fulfilling life is not avoiding stressors It's raising your capacity for dealing with certain stressful situations because now I can do things that a lot of people would find very stressful and I don't find stressful at all because I've built that muscle. So a lot of my purpose these days also besides providing for people is saying, let's let's push this a little bit further. Let's take the things that are stressful and work through them. Learn to deal with them in ways that make them no longer stressful and raise the bar on what I can handle.