If you check with anyone that's been successful on YouTube, the two words you will hear constantly hear are trends and community. If you want to know how to use trends and community to grow your YouTube channel, well, this is the right episode for you.

At vidIQ, we use the power of the community and leverage trends to bring our audience the most up-to-date and useful content we can. Our guest, Dan Currier from 

 does this superbly well. He's going to teach us the exact steps that he uses to build amazing audiences for his clients. In this podcast you will learn:

How to jump on trends that specifically benefit your YouTube channel

Why creating content on the back of one viral video may not be the best strategy

To create trending content that benefits your community

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How to Build a YouTube Community Around Trends: Full Transcript

Liron Segev:	Who is Dan in a tweet? How would you describe you?

Dan Currier:	In a tweet, I certainly have a lot of passions and a lot of different projects I'm working on on YouTube. I have a YouTube channel called Creator Fundamentals that is all about simplifying YouTube to help other creators grow on the platform.

Liron Segev:	Fantastic. How important it is to understand this thing called trends on YouTube? We keep hearing about a viral video, and hashtag challenges. What are those keywords which have been flying around for us as creators who have our channels, what should we be looking for? Should we be riding those trends? How do we detect them early? Where do we even begin?

Dan Currier:	I think one of the biggest things to understand when it comes to trends is not every successful attempt to jump on a trend has a net positive gain for your YouTube channel. What we see is a lot of our creators who try to jump on a trend, something popular that's going on, and oftentimes they'll hit on something but it's not really aligned with the niche that they're focusing on for their channel.

While it may sound and feel like a good thing in the beginning, you're getting a lot of new subscribers and views and your live statistics are off the charts and it's a really good feeling, long term it can have some really detrimental effects on your channel. It's definitely important when we think about trends that we are looking at trending topics in line with the topics that we're covering on our channels.

Liron Segev:	Okay. There's a couple of things to dive into there. Just because something is trending and something is doing well as a general rule might not necessarily mean that we should be jumping on that trend. Is that right?

Dan Currier:	Right. Ultimately, what happens is when a situation like that occurs, say for example you have a YouTube channel with 5,000 subscribers and you hit on a viral video that's not related to your typical content and you bring in 2,000 new subscribers in a week. Well, now you find yourself in a situation where you have those original 5,000 subscribers that are looking for one type of content, a new 2,000 who are looking for a different kind of content and it puts you in that odd position of are you going to be true to the original audience or are you going to continue to make videos related to the viral content in an effort to appease the new audience.

It puts you at odds, it splits your audience, and a lot of times it just causes problems with your entire strategy. The long term effect of that can really knock creators off their game in terms of the type of content they should be making.

Liron Segev:	Is this true across the board? In other words, regardless of your channel size or your niche, if you tack onto something that isn't within your core audience or your core values, could those hurt your channel even when you're a bigger channel?

Dan Currier:	Yes. Obviously, if the trend that you jump on, you know, as related to your entire audience. If you have 100,000 subscribers and something hits and you get a couple thousand from it, obviously it's not going to dilute your audience to that degree. It would probably be a little less of an impact on your overall growth. At the same time, you're still bringing in that audience that ultimately is probably not going to be served any value from your future content because they came in on a topic you don't typically cover.

Liron Segev:	Okay. That makes sense. There's a core audience. Yes, there may be a bit of dilution on the fringes, but if you get back to doing what you're doing, you'll probably will retain that momentum and that audience will forgive you a little bit because you've built up some sort of a trust, some sort of authority. If you make this a habit, I think that you're going to feel it very much in your analytics.

Dan Currier:	Yeah, and a lot of times especially on small or midsize channels, when you do, if you haven't experienced a trending or a viral type video and that takes off, you're almost compelled to want to follow it up with similar content. It could be two or three videos. If you're doing it right, you're following that up with related content to ride that trend and get the most out of it. If you're riding that trend away from the kind of content you actually want to make, it can hurt you.

Liron Segev:	Well, the one thing you seem to have done really well is understand this and apply it to your own channel. You've got this great video called, ‘How to Get 1,000 Subscribers and 4,000 Watch Hours’ with about 400 odd thousand views on that particular video. This was done about a year ago, I would say, which is a really good time. Within a year, over 400,000 views. Amazing stuff. Tell me about that video. How did you come up with this? What was your research like? Was this a trending thing that you were going after or was it a specific question? How did this happen?

Dan Currier:	All right, there's a couple of different things here. Part of it actually ties into the other topic that you talked about, which is community. I'll explain that in a minute. Basically, what happened prior, obviously, I do content for YouTube creators. It's all about educating them and keeping them up to date on news.

One of the things that was going on was a delay in a number of creators who had reached 10,000 views, which used to be the requirement for the YouTube partner program, but had not been monetized. YouTube was putting out very vague information and basically stringing these people along because it had been months since they reached it but they weren't approving anybody. This started to get me thinking that a change was in the works because of the lack of information and the time that had passed.

I think one of the important takeaways in terms of trending is to understand your niche, be aware of current events that are happening, and recognize when certain changes or news articles are going to receive an emotional response from the audience. Where we were at this point, I could feel the frustration building. A lot of people kept reaching out to me asking me why they hadn't been monetized. Then YouTube came out with the news that they changed it from 10,000 views to 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours.

Now, the way that this actually ties into the community aspect is I have a number of different things I do to get news alerts and stuff. I have certain things that I've set up on Twitter to try to tag certain people to get information as quickly as possible to be able to jump on these things.

In that particular case, it was actually a member of my community. Somebody who was subscribed to my channel who reached out to me and let me know that that news article had dropped. Along those lines, one of the things that I had committed to do prior to this whole thing, which is a good tip for anybody is set up your studio. Set up your space in such a way where you can make content without a lot of preparation.

Meaning, if you can get a dedicated space to set up to be able to pop in and do a video quick, if you have content that obviously is related to that. The value, the way that I was able to capitalize on this trend is essentially being the first person to market, so to speak, where I knew there was going to be an emotional response. I knew this was a very important news topic.

As soon as I heard the news, I literally turned on my camera and made a video. Now the one that has 400,000 views was actually the second video because I decided right away that I was going to make two videos. The first of which was meet everybody where they were and it was a frustration video. It started off in YouTube's effort to screw small YouTubers because I knew that's how people were going to feel. In that first video I kind of met them right at the front door with that emotion.

That's another important concept or key with trending content is when a topic evokes emotion, you know there's going to be a large audience involved in that. I decided to meet them where I knew they were on an emotional level. Then that first video, I walked them through that emotion and ended that video with the idea of, you're going to have to come up with a way to move forward if this is important to you.

The next day I released the ‘How to Get 1000 Subscribers and 4000 Watch Hours’ to tap into those people who were frustrated but wanted to continue. That second video came out with the pity party's over, time for us to get to work. Then I outlined the ways that they could do that. I also, just from a content perspective, that particular video also referred to several other videos on my channel where they could get different information on aspects of moving forward. All in all it worked out pretty well.

Liron Segev:	It was reading the audience, reading the sentiment before an announcement was made. By the time the announcement was made, you already prepped, you ran your research, you knew what's going to be the pain points, and then you knew how to fix those pain points and this is exactly what people would be searching for. These are some great points. You said you used social media?

Dan Currier:	Yeah, variety of other things. There are lists on Twitter where you can tag a bunch of things so you can pop in there and see kind of a news feed from those particular tags. Like you said, I get Google alerts and I try to touch base in other news resources to try to stay on top of that stuff.

Liron Segev:	If somebody has a chef channel, a cooking channel, or someone's a vlogger or someone does, I don't know, check how tos, do we all fit into that same boat? Should we also be keeping an ear or an eye out on what's happening? Will that help us?

Dan Currier:	I think it's going to vary a little bit obviously based on the niche and the type of content that you're making. I would say any niche or topic that you're focused on that has the potential to have breaking news or news that people would want to hear about right away has the potential to be trending in that particular category.

I know a channel that does auto related content and there was a new car that was coming out. They jumped on the news of that particular vehicle and put together a string of videos based on that vehicle that just exploded their channel and got them a ton of activity. It was also in line with the topic. In that case, it was a trending topic that brought in an audience completely related to their channel and they saw a big boom from it.

Liron Segev:	Wow. Love it, love it, love it. Again, going back to understanding that you're in a niche but your niche doesn't start and stop in YouTube. It's bleeds into absolutely everything else. If you can understand that, you can probably predict those trends because you're in it and you're feeling the frustration or you're feeling the joy or you're feeling the anticipation of something being released and just use that to your channel's advantage. That makes complete sense.

Dan Currier:	I mean, and at this point I think YouTube is pretty much a not so microcosm of life in general because of its size and its mass and the amount of content that is uploaded every hour. Anything that happens in the outside world is going to find its way to YouTube because a highly significant portion of the outside world tunes into YouTube.

Liron Segev:	Clearly, absolutely. I think my point, and your point is as well, is that once we look beyond just the borders of YouTube and beyond this whole, why am I not on the trending page? Well, trending pages are there because they are already trending. If you can understand something before it happens, well, that's where the gold is. That's where you win in a big way.

Dan Currier:	To a large degree, the trending page itself is like the Rolls-Royce of success. Well, it's okay if you go out and find yourself a couple of BMWs, it's still going to do well for the growth of your channel. You don't necessarily ever have to find the trending page to be highly successful in terms of getting content to trend within your own niche.

Liron Segev:	Okay, brilliant tips, great advice. Keeping your ear to the ground is always, always helpful. Now, the one thing we did touch upon very, very quickly is this whole community. I know from my personal experience before I let you run with this is things change dramatically when I started understanding that it's not me versus every other person in my niche, but rather than me can be included as part of coworkers, so to speak, of people in my niche. Then that mindset change alone absolutely changed my channel, changed in my attitude, changed basically everything. What do you feel about the community as a whole?

Dan Currier:	I mean, to me, it all starts in the community. In fact, for me, this particular channel Creator Fundamentals actually literally started in the community. I was actually working on my other channel called The Average Dan that was kind of a how to channel where I would make videos to help people solve problems that I ran into and I couldn't find content on.

When I "got serious," and wanted to learn how everything worked, the first thing I did was join YouTube communities on Facebook. I got involved in groups, started interacting with other people who were trying to achieve the same type of goals that I was. Through that experience, I started to learn not only the value of going in and giving value and talking to people, but that there were a lot of people in the community that needed a source of information on what actually works and what doesn't.

I mean, everybody says it, community, community, community but it is, it is an absolute game changer when you realize how powerful it can be. For me, it started in Facebook groups. From that point on it extended to making the jump and actually attending conferences in person, which just takes the community aspect to a whole different level.

Liron Segev:	Do you find that social media and the comfort of home and the computer is actually not a bad place to start?

Dan Currier:	I think it's a great place to start because I think like you said, when you do start to meet people in person, you realize that the creator space is filled with people who are introverts and have social anxiety and all those things. It's surprising to some degree because YouTube provides, YouTube and social media in general provide an outlet for these people, myself included, where you can express yourself. You can get good at your craft. You can deliver information in a comfortable setting.

Again, going into the communities, the groups and stuff like that, you can interact with other people on your own pace without the awkwardness of meeting strangers in a loud room and that kind of thing. For sure, I mean, I think it's probably more. I would probably say there's more people who are introverted than not in my experience in the people that I've come across.

Liron Segev:	I've done my thing, I'm on Facebook, I've joined some groups, I've met some people virtually. What's the next step? Should it be a meetup, local meet up? Should it be a big conference? What would you advise?

Dan Currier:	For me personally, it was a big conference only because in the area that I live in, in Upstate New York, I don't have a ton of opportunities to have creator meetups. If you live in a city or an area that seems to have a YouTuber every three people like Utah, then definitely take advantage of meetups. Dip your toe in that experience and meet people in person and start to develop relationships above and beyond just helping to learn the craft.

The relationships that you make through the YouTube community can open so many doors for you. It's not just a matter of learning how YouTube works or those kind of things. There's really a lot of opportunities present themselves through the relationships that you form.

Definitely try to hit up meetups locally if you can. If you have never gone to a conference, I definitely recommend trying to take that leap in and actually attend one because it puts you in a whole different world. As creators online, not many of us can turn off the computer and go in the other room and chat about YouTube with our spouses or our significant others, our kids, our friends because they don't understand. Then you go to an event and everybody around you is talking about the same thing and it really flips a switch of what's possible when we start to do this thing online.

Liron Segev:	I agree 100%. I mean, my first time I attended VidCon, which is the YouTubers' Disneyland as I can describe it. The first time I attended it, I looked around me and then I realized, hold on. I actually put up this tweet from VidCon, which was retweeted by VidCon which was quite funny. It was more colored hair and Gorilla tripods per square mile than anywhere in the world right now because everywhere you looked around it was just people with green, yellow, purple hair, which I have the green so I'm cool with that. They're talking to their cameras. Everyone's just relaxed because you're not weird just talking to yourself in the middle of the shopping mall vlogging. Everybody else is doing exactly the same. How cool is that? Have you been to VidCon?

Dan Currier:	I have not been to VidCon. I have been to VidSummit and also Social Media Marketing World. Those are two very different conferences from each other.

Liron Segev:	Next up on your radar has to be a VidCon just so you can complete the traffic.

Dan Currier:	I know, right? It's funny though because I truly believe in the community aspect and one of the challenges for me living in Upstate New York is that all of the conferences are actually out on the West coast or a lot of the major ones. I'm actually trying to take the concept of community to the next step here in the Northeast and trying to create a creator event here that people can come to and experience that community without having to trek across the country.

Liron Segev:	Let me ask you this. What has got you really excited right now about YouTube?

Dan Currier:	For me, YouTube has really been the springboard of what's possible and what I can do in the creative space. When I first went out to that VidSummit, it was just one of the things that people get into. Especially when people are starting YouTube channels though, you'll ask them the question, do you want it to be a business? Would you like to make this your full-time career?

A lot of people because they don't have the confidence or even realize what's possible, it's just a hobby, you know? Then they make that, they get that first AdSense and they go, oh well, maybe something could happen here. Then when you really start to get the ball rolling, you're like, hey, I can turn this into a career. For me, like I said, it's a springboard. It's just the tip of the iceberg for me and what I want to do. Obviously, I want to be able to present the content on YouTube to all of the people that are coming into the platform and learning exactly how everything works.

I think it's a great opportunity and a privilege to be there at the front door to give them the tools to do that. Above and beyond that, I want to be able to help those who want to take it to the next level to advance their education through coursework and all that other stuff. Like I said, probably that when you said excitement, the thing that pops into the head is the conference that I'm planning because it's so far out of my comfort zone, and it's mildly terrifying but at the same time it's super exciting because I know what it's going to take and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to put it all together.

I'll probably be stressed out until it actually comes about. That to me, that's super exciting, to try to see that through and create the opportunity for people to get together here on the East coast without trekking across the country and be able to do that at a much lower cost than what it does take myself and others to make it out to California.

Liron Segev:	Yeah. It must be amazing value for someone who's local, who is maybe on the fence a little bit. They kind of want to do this, but they can't afford to justify that cost at the moment. A local event is absolutely what's needed to get you over that hurdle and to actually see just how big the space is and how welcoming the space can be if you just network with the right people. If you help each other, it's amazing how many doors open, oh, I know this guy who knows this person. Those little cups of coffees in the hallway, those are worth their weight in gold. The fact you're doing one local for your area, that's amazing. I mean that's absolutely incredible. Have you got a date of when you're thinking of doing this?

Dan Currier:	Yeah, it's going to be called the people of video to focus on that entire community aspect, and it's going to be May 2nd and 3rd of 2020. I have a year to plan. I wanted to get it out there. Especially, because of the cost for people that don't have the opportunity, I wanted to make them aware of it as far in advance. If that's something that they're interested in, they can take the next year and plan for it. I have a group of people that every few months I go to New York City and I meet with a group of creators. We do this thing called the New York City video mastermind. It's just all of us getting together and it's a nice mix of people. It's myself and Ross Brand and Dan Norton, Jason Liebman, and John DiStefano from UDoIt.

A great way for all of us to get together and talk shop and let each other know what's working and what's not working from a business sense. I'm hopefully going to get all those guys up to Upstate New York as well as bring people in from the surrounding states to be able to meet people in person because I really do think that that was in person opportunities. Just open your mind to what is possible because when I went to that first VidSummit years ago, it was you get inside a bubble, you think you have a general idea of what you're doing and you start to get to a point where you think you're pretty good. Then you go to something like that and people are asking you what's your open rate is on your email list. Like, what? Email list, what's an email list?

Thinking about those things and how I learned about those concepts in those conferences and how I've taken those and learned them and implemented them since that time. It just opens your mind to just how much you can accomplish and really lets you see that light at the end of the tunnel that is making something that can actually support your channel and yourself in the future.

Liron Segev:	For people who don't know the names that you mentioned, that Dan mentioned now, the channels are so fundamentally different to each other where one is a DIY working on woodworking house kind of channel. Dan Norton's all about video creation. It's so different but yet there's a common ground and common ground is YouTube. It's amazing how you could just strike up a conversation with people regardless of what they're into, but because you've got this common ground, you'll grab a cup of coffee and then you'll just talk shop and the same rules will apply some more, some less to your nation, your industry but this love for YouTube and helping each other is real. That's why these guys meets up and that's why they do it.

Speaking of New York, because obviously this is your place, I've got an important question. If you could put something on a huge billboard in the middle of Times Square, what message do you want everyone to understand or see?

Dan Currier:	You know, there's a saying that I've kind of picked up not really only specific to YouTube, but I've carried it with me for years and that is life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. I think that as, especially in YouTube, because people get frustrated when they don't see the results, realize that mindset is such a significant ingredient to success in anything. Having the positive mindset, understanding that the journey is a process and being able to roll with the punches so to speak, and just continue moving forward I think can be super powerful in YouTube and in life.

Liron Segev:	Love it, love it, love it. I think mindset is what most of this journey is about. Once you have the right attitude, the right understanding that things really, really change. Dan, as we wrap up, if people want to get a hold of you, they want to follow you on social media, this is my plug myself moments. Yeah, go for it.

Dan Currier:	You can find me on YouTube at 

. If you want to come hang out in Upstate New York, you can go to 

, love to have you there. On Twitter and Instagram it's also Creator Fundamentals as well, so easy to find out there.

Liron Segev:	Fantastic. The show notes will be here with all the links, so everything we've spoken about will be on the blog post so that if you missed anything, it's a simple click away. Dan, thank you very much for making the time and sharing your knowledge with us. We look forward to seeing you and seeing your event a huge, huge success because anything that we can do to promote people getting together and talking about YouTube, well, that's a great, great thing in my mind.

Dan Currier:	Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Did you know that a one-off viral video can actually harm your YouTube channel if it doesn't fit in with your usual content? Find out the right way to jump on trending topics in this week's TubeTalk.

How to Build a YouTube Community Around Trends: TubeTalk 185 with Dan Currier

Raise your hand if you want to be a full-time YouTuber. If you’re listening to this podcast or reading this post, the odds are pretty good that you're trying to monetize your content on the platform and make being a YouTuber your career.

But did you know there's more than one way of becoming a full-time YouTuber? As creators, we acquire a whole set of skills over the years, like how to research the right content to make, how to edit the footage we film, and how to optimize the videos we publish. Those skills are transferable and can help bring in the extra revenue you want.

In this week’s episode, I’m joined by Owen Hemsath or 

 as he's known all around the interwebs. Owen helps business leaders grow their influence and their authority on YouTube, and he’s an established and successful online video creator himself. He hosts two very successful 

 talk shows each week that attract thousands of views, and is very active on 

Why all the big YouTube creators treat their channels as a business

How you need to do the same so you can generate real revenue

What separates the business YouTube creator from the hobby YouTube creator

How to make your talents and skills available to the marketplace to help grow your channel

Why you can’t rely on Adsense income to make you rich

How working off-platform can generate a living income

How you can still generate revenue even though you’re not as big as Mr Beast

How to build your channel to get those brand sponsorship deals

Going Full-Time on YouTube: Podcast Snapshot

__* Liron Segev: What kind of critical mistakes are creators making by not treating their YouTube channel as a business?* __

 They are not measuring to see what needs to be improved. Do you think Mr. Beast doesn't treat his channel a business? Of course he does. Where do you think he gets the $10,000 to throw off a bridge. What separates the business creator from the casual creator is that the business creator thinks "Okay, well what can I do better next time? What am I not doing, and who can I be listening to, to grow my own channel?"

YouTube revenue generation takes some time to build and to grow. What I see happening a lot is creators with all of these talents and skills, and they are not actually making their talents and skills available to the marketplace to help grow their channel.

Here's what I mean by that. If you're a great editor, and you want to make money being on YouTube, then reach out to other YouTubers, and offer to do their editing for a fee. For a fee, you're not going to do this for free.

Liron Segev: Many people think that being a full-time YouTube means that you're earning 100% of your income from AdSense. But’s that a huge myth.

But many creators have skills that revolve around YouTube, like the ability to edit, or do the keyword research, or create custom thumbnails, etc. If you can get other creators to pay for that, then that’s the way into making it full-time as a creator.

 You also don't have to have a large number of subscribers to be an expert and offer your skills to other creators, businesses or brands.

I never thought that I would be where I am today where I'm widely respected in the industry, working on television shows. I have a regular recurring news segment that I do in our local news channel, out here in San Diego. I never would have thought that that would have been the case, but I immersed myself in the industry.

I picked myself up by my bootstraps, which some people want to say is impossible. It is not impossible. You just keep going. You just publish again. I've got to make a hashtag, #publishagain.

We have glamorized what it means to have success on YouTube. Success on YouTube only counts if you're T-Series, or Cocomelon, but that’s not true at all.

My point is this, is that knowing where your channel is, and what your channel is, and then creating your own success for what you do, that's the miracle of YouTube. Where we get upset is where we say, "Oh, here's a channel with a strong, charismatic, male personality who has a pretty face, and then here's me. I have a faceless video in a very niche industry, but I want his type of success." You are setting yourself up for failure.

Instead, you've got to look at like, "Hey, what can you do?" Maybe your channels would be great for sponsorships, right?

And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the 

 and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.

Do you love being a YouTuber so much that want to make it your full-time career? In this week's episode of TubeTalk, we show you how to make that dream a reality.

How to Make YouTube Your Full Time Career: TubeTalk 202 with Owen Video

How do you stand out as a YouTuber when almost every single genre is being dominated by other creators? How do you can break into an industry and still make it?

In this week’s episode of TubeTalk, the YouTuber’s podcast, we're going to be diving right into that topic. If these are questions you've been wrestling with, then this episode is for you!

How to make your channel and content stand out on a saturated YouTube

Why your personality is often more important than your content

How to develop your storytelling skills to build your brand

How to find your voice and develop as a creator

How not to take negative comments and feedback too personally

How to attract brand deals as a smaller YouTuber

Our guest this week is Sidney Diongzon, a creator that’s rocking the photography and videography content on YouTube, a space which is hugely competitive and ridiculously saturated. With nearly 

, he is quickly developing his reputation as a force to be reckoned with, and is attracting major brand deals along the way. How is Sidney doing that? And how is he getting those brand deals? Tune into the podcast and dive into his story!

How to Stand Out in a Crowded YouTube Space

Sidney realized early on that to stand out on YouTube you have to be you, because there's only one of him; there's only one of you; and there's only one of everybody. With so many millions of creators on the platform, viewers often gravitate towards you as a person and how your personality shines through. Your going to be sharing your tips, tricks or opinions, but you're doing it in your way.

Viewers often turn towards platforms like YouTube, Instagram, or Twitter because they want to see something different and something unique. If they see something that's not polished, or contains the odd blooper, that's relatable. Whether you're looking for a tutorial, or you just want to be entertained, I think people are just drawn to people, which is why I think YouTube is such a massive platform for that kind of stuff. YouTube is about entertaining, and informing, but mainly it's about you just being you.

Tune into this week's TubeTalk podcast to learn how to stand out as a creator on YouTube. Huge thanks to Sidney for his insights and advice - don't forget to subscribe to his YouTube channel, and follow him on 

Subscribe to TubeTalk: The Video Marketing Podcast

TubeTalk has been informing video creators amd marketers since 2014, and is one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode! You can find vidIQ's TubeTalk at:

Don't forget to leave us a review if you love the show!

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Are you a YouTube creator trying to make your mark in an overcrowded space? In this week's TubeTalk podcast, we discuss how you can breakthrough and win those views, subscribers, and brand deals.

How to Stand Out as a Creator on YouTube: TubeTalk Episode 165

There’s a big myth around YouTube - That it’s saturated, and everybody's doing the same thing, so there’s no room for new creators. Wrong!

On this episode of TubeTalk, I’m speaking to someone who runs a very unique channel which is doing exceptionally well. We discuss how whenever you put yourself out there, and share your passion with the world, even YouTube will reward you for it. 

 is a professional juggler, with over 500K subscribers on YouTube and in this podcast you will learn:

How he turned his passion into a YouTube goldmine

How he learned to understand his audience to give them the content they want

The different YouTube content he creates around a single topic

How to Turn Your Passion into a Killer YouTube Career: Full Transcript

Liron Segev: Josh, thanks for making the time to be here.

Josh Horton:	Of course, thanks for having me.

Liron Segev:	Josh, you have quite an interesting story. For those who don't know, how would you do Josh in a tweet?

Josh Horton:	In a tweet, oh boy. After I graduated college my plan was to be a professional juggler. I was doing that but then I also started working for a social media agency part-time. That turned into full-time and then my juggling career kind of fell by the wayside and before I knew it, I was a manager at a social media agency. Then when I turned 25 I quit that job to focus 100% on juggling but I'd learned so much about social media I also started to grow a social media channel for fun, mainly on Instagram at that point.

Fast forward a couple years and now I am not done performing but juggling as a performance, as an income is a side thing and now social media is my full-time thing.

Liron Segev:	It's a good thing that Twitter has 280 characters.

Liron Segev:	Okay, but there's a whole bunch of interesting points here where you were going in a certain direction, you decided to stop that, focus on that career.

Liron Segev:	Then you went back to the original thing and all this juggling became a side hustle thing.

Josh Horton:	Yeah, sort of. If you want to be successful you have to follow what's making you money but you also have to follow what you're enjoying, and so I've done both of them where right now I'm loving what I'm doing and I'm making money, which is great so it's a win.

My degree was in Entrepreneurial Studies, how to be an entrepreneur, how to own your own business, how to follow those dollar signs while being your own business and I think I've done a good job of tracking what's going to be best. My plan has changed multiple times in my young adult life but I'm trying to always be adaptable and follow those signs.

Liron Segev:	And following your passion as well because that seems to be the driving force underneath all of this.

Josh Horton:	Yeah, I've loved everything ... I quit my job. My job was okay working in social media, on the brand side, but anything that involves what I'm doing I love it.

Liron Segev:	Did you find that having that brand experience and having that background, did that help you with growing your own social media and doing those brand deals?

Josh Horton:	It definitely helped me growing my own social media, especially off the bat. I started just on Instagram because I had no plans of being a YouTuber, no plans on being even an influencer. I was just like, "Hey, I like Instagram and it would be fun if I had some followers, just to have followers, to show off to my friends or whatever.

Around that time was right when video had just come out. For our brands we were almost doing exclusively super branded content, which obviously I wasn't a big fan of for an Instagram account but it taught me how to take your content a little bit next level. When videos were first coming out everyone was just filming in the app and so the fact that it had music or I was editing together montages or something was not groundbreaking but most people weren't doing it.

In the early days of Instagram video I was able to grow a following pretty quickly just with my juggling and trick shot videos.

Liron Segev:	It made you stand out because you weren't yet another me too doing something that everybody else was doing.

Liron Segev:	You found your own voice, you found your own way of doing it, and that obviously really struck with your community.

Josh Horton:	Right. Then, where I was also able to find some success was I knew that people didn't want to watch a juggler. Juggling is what I've done my entire life but I've been able to branch out into world records, nine juggling world records and then trick shots too. I've been throwing things accurately my whole life and then when I was trying to create more engaging, more relatable videos to other people, I knew trick shots would be an easy way to do that and turns out I'm very good at them.

Liron Segev:	Once again, tapping into something that you're good at, finding your passion, and just sharing it with the world.

Liron Segev:	There seems to be a community that really, really responds to that.

Liron Segev:	Take me through the time when you said, "Okay, there's this thing called YouTube, I know it, maybe I should transition towards that." What was that mindset like, why did you make that change?

Josh Horton:	Right. That goes back to what we were talking about before of me wanting to enjoy this life and be able to make a living doing it. This was when I was still very much a performer, so I was doing a lot of NBA college halftime shows, corporate events during my juggling show and then I had probably 150,000 followers on Instagram. I'd obviously come into a couple brand deals and I was like, "Oh wow, you can make a living on social media!.

I knew that from working in the industry but that was never a goal of mine. I'd fallen into a couple of these brand deals, made a few bucks. I was like, "Man, it'd be really cool if I could make a living just doing these internet videos." Took a look at the industry and brand deals are great but they come and go, and they can go for a very long time where you have nothing and so you can't depend on them. I knew once you have a good YouTube following you can have that Ad revenue, which is much more steady, much more reliable, quote unquote reliable as we've all learned.

I knew YouTube was what I needed to do and I knew it was going to be a big undertaking. That was about two and a half years ago and I had probably, I think it was probably 10,000 subscribers just from being a juggler and posting videos when I was younger in the juggling community. I, again, was wanting to branch out not being just a juggler so when I started taking YouTube seriously I was doing world record Wednesdays, and I'm still doing that. Every Wednesday I've broken a world record for the last two and half years and I haven't missed an upload.

Liron Segev:	Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, just stop there. Every Wednesday you break a world record?

Liron Segev:	Wow, that's a lot of records.

Josh Horton:	It's been a lot. It's a thing where I'm like I never know when I'm going to run out or if I'm going to regret this one day. Some days I do regret it but it's such a good series that the fans love. To get the response that you just gave it's a one sentence, better than my long tweet at the beginning when people say, "What do you do on your channel?" "I break a world record every Wednesday," that's a very easy elevator pitch.

Liron Segev:	That's a taggage right there.

Josh Horton:	I started just doing once a week so world record Wednesdays was the entire channel for nine months or so and then I started posting a little bit more so now I'm at three times a week. The last two years I've been doing three times a week.

Liron Segev:	How do you find what this week's record is going to be? Is there a book that you're ticking off going from A to Z?

Josh Horton:	No. There's a couple of places, the Guinness World Records Database online which has tons of stuff. They have stuff that has been set and there's an existing record but then they also have all these things that they have in their database that no one's attempted. They've laid out the rules and the minimum for it so we're able to say, "Hey, this is in the Guinness World Records Database, there has not been a record set yet. Their minimum for this record is so-and-so," yeah. I'm all about entertainment. I do have 16 official Guinness World Records titles.

Liron Segev:	Oh, for the record, just to be clear.

Josh Horton:	Just for the record. Sorry ladies, I'm married. Yeah, for the most part it's just entertainment for YouTube at this point. Having the world record Wednesday every Wednesday, it puts it in a category form where it makes brainstorming easier but also harder. I know what my realm of, it has to be a world record so that narrows it down but also, two and a half years in, a little bit more difficult. My goal for it as we do feature people a lot, other people, other talented people.

Liron Segev:	Oh, I see, you bring in other talent?

Josh Horton:	Yeah, pretty often, especially for world record Wednesdays. We'll feature someone who is the world's best. We did a girl who has whips so she can remove Jenga blocks with whips. She's super accurate with whips.

Josh Horton:	We've done basketball people, we've done a guy who has a trained dog, all sorts of stuff. My goal for the channel is to get big enough to where people people are hitting me up all the time asking to be on the channel for the new world record, demonstrate their skill. We're not quite there yet but we're hitting up people all the time to try to get them as guests and the fans love that too because they're tired of seeing me, basically.

Liron Segev:	There's 52 Wednesdays a year. It's not a big number, not in terms of massive, but you still have to find enough talent who can actually do it.

Liron Segev:	Do you film the whole process if they succeed or fail or do you just give the highlight reels of, "Hey, here's the final shot."

Josh Horton:	No, we always show the process, that's kind of been another thing for the channel. The other thing, if I was to categorize my channel it would be a trick shot or sports channel unlike Dude Perfect. Dude Perfect puts together the most epic, perfect video of trick shots and that's not our style. We show the misses, we show the process, we show all of that.

Josh Horton:	Yeah. We love to show everything that happens, everything that goes into it and bring our fans along for that journey.

Liron Segev:	You've done Instagram, you've now moved across to YouTube, you're building a community. What kind of tips would you have for us if somebody is thinking, "Hey, I've got the skill," maybe something that's not your typical YouTube thing. How would I start getting myself into that mindset that, actually, the skill that I have people would want to see it?

Josh Horton:	There's a couple parts to that. I think part of it is showing the process, it's showing the personality. People only care about the skill to a certain degree once you get past that immediate community. If you like yo-yos, if you can be a great yo-yo player you can gain all of the yo-yo followers in the world but that number is going to stop at one point and then you're not going to be able to make a living doing it.

I know there's a lot of skateboarding channels that have tons of fans that are not skateboarders, they just love the process. They love seeing it, they love the personalities. I've done that with juggling but I also, I acknowledge that people weren't going to watch a juggling channel. I knew that juggling wasn't going to be something that applied to the masses and I've always loved sports. I love trick shots and so I don't feel like I'm betraying myself by not making a juggling channel because I still love what we're doing.

I think I did take, from the beginning, taking YouTube seriously with World Record Wednesdays I was like, "People are not going to watch a juggling channel. I need to branch out, I need to do something beyond what I'm just doing." I think the other thing would be to find something that is on brand with what you do on brand with your skill and then, yeah, just try to branch out a little bit, that would be more for the masses.

Liron Segev:	I love Mike Boyd's channel, it's all about who he is, learn quick, and so his are all just learning skills. He's not skilled in one specific thing but his channel is about learning skills, which I love. Do you ever do teaching videos, how to's?

Josh Horton:	I have a three ball tutorial online, it has 750,000 views, which is good for my channel but it's one of the things people are searching for it so they find it but people ask for tutorials all the time and it's just doesn't make sense for the channel anymore.

I've even thought about doing a separate channel for just tutorials or having a library of tutorials with a paywall, yeah. I'm still processing that, yeah.

Liron Segev: What about merch and things of that nature?

Josh Horton:	We're working on Merch, yeah, we've been doing Teespring but we want to take it a little bit next level, I think, soon so we'll see. I do have a juggling store which does pretty well so I do sell juggling props and all sorts of other stuff as well; boomerangs, yo-yo's, unicycles, all sorts of stuff at jugglingwarehouse.com.

Liron Segev:	I think that's what people want, is they want to be part of the community and being part of the community is actually owning a piece of that community. If it's a matter of supporting the creator by being able to do that, then why not?

Josh Horton:	I love that ... It's not a juggling channel but I'm inspiring tons of people that juggle. I get messages almost daily saying they learned to juggle because of me and they bought their first set of balls. My most sold item is my beginner set of juggling balls and we sell multiple a day. It's a cool thing to be able to, to be giving back to the community where I started, all of this started because of juggling so I do like that.

I have had internal struggles like, "Am I giving up on juggling, am I betraying my talent and my passion that I started with?" I don't think I am because I'm just being smart about all of it and I'm still loving what I'm doing.

Liron Segev:	As we wrap up, what's got you really, really excited at the moment?

Josh Horton:	Well, YouTube has finally been taking off. I say that with an asterisk, we'll have a crazy week. Overall, YouTube has finally been doing well. I think in the last six months we've gone from 200,000 to 400,000 which has been great.

Josh Horton:	Thank you. First 100k took a long time and even the second 100k took a while but the last 200 have come pretty quickly, which has been exciting.

Liron Segev:	Have you found that you're finally in your groove, you found your niche, you know what works.

Josh Horton:	You know what works, for the most part. It's still frustrating sometimes. We had my most viewed day of the channel ever and then six days later I had the lowest viewed day of the channel in nine months, which just doesn't make sense to me. Overall, the lows are much higher than they used to be so that's good, we're moving in the right direction and still gaining subs everyday so that's good.

Liron Segev:	That's the whole thing of YouTube, just when you think you've got it figured out, you just don't. Or they go ahead and they change yet another thing.

Liron Segev:	If people want to find you, they want to get ahold of you, what's the best way so we can have these in the show notes so nobody has to miss anything

Liron Segev:	Fantastic. Josh, thanks very much for your time.

There’s a big myth around YouTube - that it’s saturated, and there’s no room for new creators. Find out why that's wrong and how you can build a career out of your passion right now on this week's TubeTalk.

How to Turn Your Passion into a Killer YouTube Career: TubeTalk 183 with Josh Horton

Listeners of TubeTalk know we love to dive into creator stories, to find out how they started their journey, and the steps they took to success on YouTube.

In this week’s episode, we're joined by Chris Turner, who is a British comedian and a freestyle rapper. He has over 17M views on 

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How to use YouTube as a showcase for your work

YouTube is an amazing platform for any entertainer to show off their skills. Learn how to use it effectively as a marketing and outreach tool in this week's episode of TubeTalk.

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