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The YouTube Channel I'd Start in 2025 (If I knew what I know now) | Think Media | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The YouTube Channel I'd Start in 2025 (If I knew what I know now)
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Summary
Core Theme
To succeed on YouTube, creators must adopt a niche strategy, focusing on a specific topic to cut through the noise, attract a dedicated audience, and build a sustainable business, rather than posting random content.
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If I had to start a brand new YouTube
channel from scratch today, I wouldn't
be posting random videos hoping that one
takes off. I'd start with a niche. And
most new creators fail because they try
to do a little bit of everything. And
that just confuses both your audience
and the YouTube algorithm. So, in this
video, we're diving into why niching
down matters, how to pick the right
niche for your passion and skills, and
three niches we would personally start
with if we were launching a channel
today. Okay, let's start off with five
quick reasons as to why niching down is
so important this year on YouTube. The
first is that YouTube is just really
noisy. Everybody's posting content.
There's a lot of creators out there and
you've probably hit subscribe on like
hundreds of different creators and
you're not seeing everybody's content
necessarily. And so, the reason why
having a niche is so important is so
that we can narrow our focus down and
cut through the noise and have a more
concrete topic and kind of avatar that
we're speaking to on the YouTube
platform. And just think about when
you're starting a channel, nobody knows
who you are. And so if you have a
similar topic that other people are
interested in, then there's a whole
audience there for you. This is
something I wish I knew when I first
started out because a lot of my energy
was going out kind of spread out because
I was doing different kinds of videos.
Had I focused on one subject and got
really laser focused, that growth would
be exponential and I would have grown a
lot quicker. And that goes really great
into the second tip, which is that the
algorithm does reward focus and having a
clear topic. And when you create videos
that relate to each other, then YouTube
starts to understand how to recommend
your content to the next viewer. And
there's there's habits and routines that
these viewers are forming. And if you
can serve up the same types of pieces of
content over and over again, the
algorithm is going to reward that kind
of focus. And not only that, but
focusing then saves a lot of time and
energy because you know exactly what
kinds of videos you're going to make
next. There's no second guessing and
wondering what video should I upload.
You probably already have a pretty clear
plan as to which kinds of videos are
going to succeed because you have that
narrow focus. Now, reason number four is
instead of thinking that you need
hundreds of thousands or millions of
subscribers in order to make YouTube
profitable for you, for you to go
full-time. In fact, there's this concept
called 1,000 true fans. If you have
a,000 people who regularly show up,
watch your videos, those people could
eventually become clients of yours. So
whether you have a larger business that
you're kind of advertising for or even
if you just want to start building your
own business with these thousand true
fans, think about ways that you could
sell a digital product. Think about ways
you could have memberships. All that can
really add up. And that is such a big
mindset shift knowing that you only
really need to focus on a,000 quality
subscribers rather than think about you
need a massive audience in order to make
this YouTube thing profitable. And that
is a perfect segue into our final quick
tip, which is that niching down is
actually the secret to scaling up. And
you mentioned things like profits. Like
yeah, your profit can rise, but also
your subscriber growth, your view counts
can rise as you focus narrowly on a
specific niche. And if we just look at
our CEO Sean Kel for example, his kind
of career path was focusing on more
video production principles and then it
was like broader church media equipping
churches with tech skills and then he
started focusing on YouTube more and now
he does like business and leadership
entrepreneurship speaks app huge events
and so his career path was really narrow
focus at first and then was able to
broaden out over time. So it's an
encouragement to you. not locked into a
niche forever, but starting with a
specific niche can really help you stand
out in a crowded field and then you can
expand your idea in your channel a
little bit later. So, now we're going to
talk about how to find a specific niche
for you. But before that, we want to
take a second to thank the sponsor of
today's video, Riverside. Riverside is
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pro plan. So in order to find the
perfect niche for you, there is this
exercise that we like to do called the 3
P framework that is comprised of
passion, proficiency, and profit. Number
one is passion, which I think is the
most important. What is something that
you'd love to talk about even off
camera? What's something that you want
to express to your friends and your
family? Something that you could build a
community around and thus a larger
business. Because once you start scaling
up, you can quickly run out of passion
with the amount of work that is required
when starting a YouTube channel,
filming, and editing. So the more
passion you have about a particular
topic, the more likely you're going to
enjoy the process. Then the second P is
proficiency. And that's that piece of
thinking through what kinds of skills or
knowledge base do you have that sets you
apart in a specific niche? And just
think even even slightly like what do
you have like a little competitive
advantage of? What maybe have you
studied in school? What are you really
passionate about? And you've like spent
a ton of hours learning and researching.
And so think through what kind of skills
could I share with somebody? And you
don't need to be an expert. That's an
important thing to remember. You just
need to be about one or two steps ahead
of a beginner and the person you're
trying to speak to and that's enough.
>> That was definitely the position I was
in when I first started my channel. I
had the passion for film making,
cameras, lenses, I love talking about
that. I didn't really have a lot of
proficiency just yet. But because I was
so passionate and I was willing to
learn, then the more proficient I did
become as I started making videos, I was
still able to help those beginners that
were just interested in film making. and
then we both grow together. So, yeah,
you don't have to be an expert right
from the get- go, but just being a few
steps ahead, something that you could
teach to someone who's just starting out
is a great way to start your channel for
sure. And then that leads to that last
piece of profit. And so, this is
thinking through more of the business
model piece of your channel idea. How
are you going to be able to monetize
your channel in the long term? Maybe you
don't necessarily care about making
money right away, but it is nice to
think about, okay, if I wanted to really
pursue this passion and I get really
proficient over the next year or two in
this niche, how could I make money off
of this? Think through things like
affiliate marketing. How could you
market different products or services
which you might be able to generate
specific links for to then get paid for
distributing other people's products or
services? But then also like yourself,
like how could you make your own
products, digital products or even
physical products that you could
potentially sell or different coaching
services, courses, these are all
different methods for making money
online and on YouTube. And something you
do want to think through at least a
little bit at the beginning as to what's
the long-term outlook of the
profitability piece for your channel.
And specifically when it comes to
brands, there's been a shift where a lot
of these brands actually like to work
with smaller channels that have a clear
audience. If your channel can be really
clear, then you have a lot of potential
to start promoting products, getting
brand deals, and brand deals is a great
way just to get some money in. So that
way you can either pay for editors, get
some extra equipment to help you make
better quality videos. So I highly
recommend the more clear you are about
your audience and just thinking a little
bit creatively of ways you can profit in
the future. You don't have to worry
about tackling this all at once, but
having a simple plan can really help you
later on.
>> Now, finally, what are three niches that
we would recommend ourselves start if we
were starting completely from scratch or
even maybe a niche that's a little bit
untapped that we think has a lot of
promise? Well, we'll share three of them
and Nate has the first one. Nate, what
is a niche that you would personally
choose if you started a brand new
channel this year? I think the niche I
would focus on is something that
everyone can do because everyone is
their own self and that is a personal
brand. So personally, if I was going to
start a new channel, I would focus on
building a personal brand that could
kind of evolve over time. But even more
so than that, I would be focused on the
skill sets I have, which could be
YouTube, that could be camera film
making, and I'll probably dive into a
little bit more of that film making
niche. So the reason I would choose the
film making personal brand niche is I
think it's the perfect intersection for
all three. I'm clearly passionate about
it. I've spent several years trying to
learn the craft of film making. So I'm
very proficient. And then when it comes
to the profit side of things, I could do
affiliate marketing with gear. I could
have certain brand deals and potentially
I could even use that to promote or
crowdfund my future films. So I do think
that would be a great niche that I could
start following into if I wanted to
build a new channel. But Craig, I'm
curious about you. If you were started a
brand new channel, what is the niche you
would focus on?
>> Uh, for me personally, I would probably
right now pursue something in the tech
AI niche. I think everyone right now is
adding AI to their products or services.
Like even all the brand deals that we
do, everybody's trying to add a little
AI feature or AI tool into their
service. So, I think there's huge
opportunity to have a very profitable
niche where you talk about AI tools. But
also something about myself is I always
like to like be learning new things or
trying new things. I honestly get pretty
bored quickly if I say the same thing 20
times over, make the same kind of video.
So in the tech AI space, everything
changes so quickly. So I'd constantly be
able to be learning and doing research,
reading books, listening to podcasts to
find more information. So that's
probably where I would go if I like
totally jump ship and was like, I'm
going to start my own channel. It might
be something related to tech and AI. I
think that's so smart because you're
hopping onto this trend that is already
growing and there's a lot of revenue and
a lot of people who are curious about
this space, but there is another niche
that you wanted to talk about that might
be something that is untapped. Talk
about that one.
>> Yeah, so it's this niche that's actually
very big in other countries, but it
really hasn't picked up very much steam
in the US just yet, which is live
shopping or like creator commerce. And
what we're seeing here is like we're in
the very early stages of an absolute
massive wave where even sites like
YouTube, Amazon are investing in this
live shopping experience where we see it
now on YouTube videos where you see
little an annotations on the screen of
like, hey, do you want to actually buy
the product that's being mentioned in
this video and creators don't even have
to like link the product directly?
YouTube is smart enough to like know,
oh, Craig is talking about this camera.
I'm just going to put it in the video
and give the viewer the opportunity to
buy right now. Somebody who I really
admire who talks about this a lot is
Gary Vaynerchuk and he just continues to
to press in creators. Like guys, this is
an untapped market. If you want to make
millions of dollars as a creator, look
into live shopping and how it's already
being used overseas, places like Japan,
China, creators are making six, seven,
eight figures leveraging this live
shopping format. So, it's something I
think the US market is going to adopt
here in the near future. Craig, have you
ever like turned on the TV late at night
and you see like these people live
demonstrating these products and then
like suddenly you're interested in a new
toaster that's a microwave. I don't
know. Like that's what it seems like to me.
me.
>> It is that. And for some reason when I
was a kid, when I was like 9 10 years
old, I would like go downstairs and my
sister, who's my older sister, at like
10:00 p.m. at night would just be
watching the QVC channel. Like these
random like, "Oh, do you want like one
of those slap chop that's going to like
chop up your onions and veggies?" like
should just be watching these videos.
But I was always so enamored. I was
like, "Oh man, like do I need a slap
chop now? Like this thing looks kind of fire."
fire."
>> That's awesome. And what are some
practical ways someone could start this
kind of get into this niche?
>> Well, this is what I would do if I So,
I'm a tech creator. I cover cameras and
YouTube. How I would apply this myself
is I would probably just go live on a
site like YouTube and then start
browsing marketplace, eBay, different
locations where people can, you know, I
can be a curator of information for
people and sell products that way. Sell
other people's products almost like
affiliate marketing style. Hey, I just
found this camera. It's a great deal.
Copy the link, paste it into chat. First
person who clicks the link can then buy
that at a discount or a deal and I get a
commission potentially. That's the way I
see this going in the future. And then
creators even having their own
storefront where they don't have to have
their own inventory. It's almost like
drop shipping how you would drop ship
product like physical products but you
don't necessarily have to have the
inventory. You could just be curating
information for you know consumers on
the back end. So
>> there's like a YouTube channel I used to
watch. His name was Chris Winters. I
believe this is several years ago. He
would just screen record showcase like
the latest deals of the week when it
comes to cameras, photography, film
making gear. And I remember just
watching those shows just to kind of
what's on sale, what's a good deal cuz I
didn't have that much money back then.
So I think that is like being
re-imagined into like a more live format
which is really cool.
>> It is cool and it the cool thing about
it is it has the profit piece built in
from day one. So
>> you don't even really have to worry
about the profit piece. It's just going
to come from the constant affiliates and
and the moving of gear or tech that
you're selling or whatever it is, beauty
products. Um, but then you but then you
do want to make sure though you don't
just get lost in the the profit piece
and that you actually are passionate
about what you're talking about because
this live shopping niche could get a
little um overwhelming if you're just
trying to sling products all the time
and push other people's stuff. If
especially if you don't have your own
stuff that you're selling, you're
selling other people's stuff could get
kind of exhausting. What I love about
this too is you're not just relying on
the AdSense, which doesn't really make
that much money at all, but you also
have this extra revenue stream, which is
affiliate marketing. And there are
multiple ways to make money on YouTube.
If you want to learn out more ways about
how to make money if you are starting a
brand new channel, check out this video
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