This is what happened when I finally decided to niche my YouTube channel.
It grew.
I know. I was shocked too. After years and years of making whatever content popped into my brain, I was stuck in the belief that niching down makes you trapped, uncreative, and boring.
But after spending thousands of hours (and thousands of dollars) on sketch comedy videos ranging in topics from MLMs, Gilmore Girls, and dance tutorials, I was frustrated. By November of 2019, I had been making videos for four years and I had less than 2,000 subscribers and very little momentum.
Knowing something needed to change, I reached out to Liron Segev, a YouTube veteren I met at VidCon, and asked his advice. I said, “I feel like I’m floundering around.” We set up a video call to talk about my channel’s direction. On this call, Liron said one thing that completely changed my mindset:
"Would you rather be an expert about one thing or an expert about nothing?"
Hmm.. well I don’t want to be an expert at NOTHING!!
Liron then asked me which of my videos are performing the best. Without a doubt, it was my enneagram content. One thing to ask yourself when you are thinking about niching down is: Can I write down 100 video ideas on this topic? Can I write down 1,000 video ideas on this topic?
I took our conversation and I ran with it. I niched down my channel to an enneagram and personality types channel with the goal of “Helping You Discover YOU!” My videos started to gain traction, a community started showing up in the comments, and my subscriber count began to grow.
Most importantly, I think, was how I started to feel. I had always been resistant to the idea of “niching down,” afraid that I would be the “Enneagram Girl.” But guess what? I’m honestly totally happy being “The Enneagram Girl” because I genuinely love the content and it allows me to create videos for an audience!
If you want to learn more about how focusing your YouTube channel can 10x your growth, take a listen to my interview with Liron Segev on the Tube Talk podcast.
On this episode, you will learn:
- What does niching down really mean?
- Will niching down limit your opportunities?
- How a focused channel grows without the “whiplash effect”
- Process of creating new content when you are in a niche
