How this creator gained 121M views on YouTube in 12 months

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4 years ago

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How this creator gained 121M views on YouTube in 12 months. (thread) 👇

This thread is an answer to @lalmch

Any success on YouTube can be broken down into 7 words: Beat the attention market by being remarkable. You become remarkable when you find an edge (a competitive advantage).

Not only did he find an edge, but he built it (like we've seen with @GrahamStephan) twitter.com/wono_strategy/status/1584908811978289152

Let's first break down the edge: - Japan is one of the most famous countries/cultures in the world - 90% of the population will never set foot in Japan in their lives - The travel niche is well-established on YouTube The demand is proven; there is an attention market.

But this is not enough to beat the market yet. Instead of sharing the destination, he's sharing the journey. He's not the first one doing it, but again, demand is proven.

Sharpening his edge even more with: - Unconventional means of transport for most countries (capsule bus, capsule hotels, compartment trains) - Most people can't afford to travel so much (no time, no money, or both) The edge sharpens with fewer and fewer possible competitors.

The content now: - Structuring the trip: what cost to expect, what happens before, throughout & after (instead of just the trip) Adding his identity through: - Storytelling the journey, which gives the viewer a reason to watch from A to Z instead of jumping here and here.

- a touch of humor (he's pretty fun ngl lol)

His audience loves it.

- Allocating a particular time for food, apparently many appreciate these parts.

There are always retention spikes around it, it seems like he found an excellent retention hack)

The smart thing he did was to give a luxe lexical field to cheap means of transport (bus/train). Wealthy people usually use the fastest and most comfortable way to travel (first-class flights/private jets).

Adding a "luxurious" dimension to a bus makes the videos remarkable as it's an oxymoron. $200, $100, $80.. when the price is usually around $10-$20 opens a solid curiosity gap, mainly because at this price you'd instead take a train or a flight.

He does the same with the exact opposite extreme (very cheap). The average person takes the average-priced transport, not the extremes. Another way to be remarkable.

Last but not least, the private dimension is very uncommon in western countries as Asian cultures lean more toward the introverted side. And guess what? His videos are in English (not Japanese). The right content for the right audience.

The mix of everything above gives this content a solid edge to be remarkable and beat the attention market.

To summarize how he beat the attention market: - Picking content that naturally reduces competition drastically - Pick the right audience (English, not Japanese) - Story tells his content - Added his identity - Added humor - Smart choice of topics

He made his content feel like reading a book with live images.

That's it for this case! Hopefully this will help you find an edge or give you more ideas to sharpen it! Unfollow if you found this unhelpful or the other way around @wono_strategy 😊