If I Wanted to Grow An Audience, I'd Do This - Ali Abdaal - video Dailymotion

Arshian

If I Wanted to Grow An Audience, I'd Do This  dailymotion.com/arshian   How to guarantee you regret your life:https : //dai.ly/x93180y   My honest advice to a perfectionist:https : //dai.ly/x9319i4  My honest advice to someone who’s doing too much : https://dai.ly/x9319ty  My honest advice to someone who feels behind in life : https://dai.ly/x931a78  My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom : https://dai.ly/x931ex2  If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This : https://dai.ly/x931gzm  The Best Book I've Ever Read about Making Money : https://dai.ly/x931j9y  How to Go From $0 to $10,000 a Month in 4 Steps : https://dai.ly/x931kb6  How to Make $10,000 Month Writing Online : https://dai.ly/x931l42  How to 10x Your Income The 4 Ladders of Wealth : https://dai.ly/x931ldm  Why You Feel Lost in Life by Ali Abdaal : https://dai.ly/x933252  How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Life : https://dai.ly/x933hm8  How to Change your Life in a Year - 3 Simple Ideas : https://dai.ly/x933u78

Transcript

00:00Hey friends, welcome back to the channel. So, in this video I'm going to take my six years of

00:03experience of growing an online audience to over 6 million followers on YouTube and across other

00:08platforms, and I'm going to share what I would do if I was trying to grow an audience completely

00:12from scratch today. This is something I've learned absolutely loads about over the years,

00:15and people always ask me about it, and so I wanted to share my best advice. And conveniently,

00:19a few months ago I was interviewed by my friend and fellow YouTuber and entrepreneur Noah Kagan,

00:23and he and his audience asked me a bunch of questions around how to build an online audience,

00:28and so this video is going to be the best advice from that interview.

00:32Ideas kind of stem from niche, and for me niche is sort of a combination of two things. There's

00:38the target and the value. Who is the target and what is the value? So, for example, as a marketing

00:43agency owner, I could be targeting other marketing agency owners and teaching them how to grow their

00:47business. That would create very different content to, for example, targeting D2C consumer brand

00:53managers and trying to teach them how to use TikTok ads to level up their D2C campaigns. And

00:59once I've nailed that, at that point I would start thinking, okay, cool, what are all the different

01:04content buckets of ideas? What's popular on blogs that are targeting that audience? What are the

01:08other YouTube channels in the space? Let's sort them by most popular views, and let's see what

01:12are their videos that have gone viral. We call this technique a viral replication. It's kind

01:16of funny. Basically, like the easiest way to get content that works is to copy the title and

01:20thumbnail of another piece of content that has worked and then just do it in your own way so

01:24you're not really plagiarizing them. That would be how to approach it if we were to zoom out a little.

01:29I was making very niche videos teaching people how to get into med school in the UK for specific

01:34university, Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL. Those were the only things I was targeting. Very, very,

01:37very niche audience, but I had an unfair advantage in that space because I was a medical student at

01:42Cambridge and I'd been running courses teaching people how to get into med school for like five

01:45years at that point. So I was making videos about what I knew. I wasn't trying to make videos trying

01:50to be a general productivity self-help guru because that wasn't even on the radar. It was

01:53literally just how do I add value to people that I'm comfortable I can add value to. Amy Porterfield

01:57has a concept she calls the 10% edge. Who is the audience that you're 10% ahead of that you can

02:03illuminate the path for? You can be a guide rather than a guru. So I was being a guide for medical

02:07students, helping them get into med school. And then they got into med school and people started

02:11asking me for advice on how to study, study for exams. And I was like, okay, I can do that. So I

02:16read a few papers. I'd studied psychology as part of my medical degree and I started sharing

02:21the Gary V model of document don't create. I was documenting the stuff that I was doing to study

02:25for my own exams. So again, I don't need to be a guru here. I'm just literally like, Hey, here's

02:28how I take notes. Here's how I study for this exam. Here's what I discovered about how to build

02:32a study timetable. And again, this was quite niche. I think it took me about 80 videos to get

02:384,000 subscribers, 50 videos to get the first 1,000. And then from that point on people started

02:44asking me questions about productivity. They were like, huh, you're a medical student slash

02:48doctor and you managed to make videos and you managed to do all the fun stuff on the side.

02:51And it seems like you've got a social life. How are you so productive? And I'd never really thought

02:55of the word productivity before then. This was around 20, like 19 or something, two years into

03:00the journey where I started thinking, huh, maybe I should make videos about productivity. And now

03:05if you ask people like Ali Abdaal, what's the one word that comes to mind, the word that that would

03:09be productivity. I think it's, it's interesting. It's like Ryan holiday started out making content

03:13from marketing and then he kind of did some journalism type thing. And then he stumbled on

03:18stoicism with the obstacle is the way. And now the one word that Ryan holiday is known for is

03:24stoicism. And he's just doubling down on that. So similarly, I decided I wanted to double down on

03:28productivity. We're trying to go adjacent into tech and into books and just anything associated

03:33with helping people be more productive. We really just need to figure out what is the 80, 20? Like

03:39how do we really 80, 20 the hell out of this stuff? So how do I put in a small amount of time

03:43to get the maximum bang for my buck in terms of content? Now, when it comes to YouTube in

03:47particular, that comes from basically title and thumbnail in terms of the packaging of the video.

03:51If no one clicks on the title and thumbnail, no one's actually going to see the content.

03:54So spending a decent chunk of time on the packaging is super helpful. But then when it

03:58comes to the content, I think the hook plus the structure is the main thing. So for the hook,

04:02it would be the first 30 seconds. And for the structure, it would be the sort of rough three

04:06part structure of video. Content creation can be systemized. I think people think of content

04:10creation as like a creativity thing. It's not really a creativity thing. It's more like systems

04:15and processes and SOPs thing. And actually, oh, that was a sick quote I read. Creativity is a

04:21systematic process. And I always thought creativity was like some mystical thing. It was like, I don't

04:25think I'm very creative. It's like I need creative energy, left brain, all of that stuff. But actually,

04:29it's a systematic process. It's like that quote from some famous writer that I only write when

04:34inspiration strikes. Luckily, it strikes at 9am every morning. And I found that the more I can

04:38systemize my content creation, the less I need to worry about me being a creative person, and the

04:43more I can actually just get results for my business. Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering

04:46about the absolutely sick background music that we've been using this video and that I've been

04:49using on my YouTube channel for the last six years, that has been provided by Epidemic Sound,

04:53who are very kindly sponsoring this video. Epidemic Sound are absolutely amazing. They provide a huge

04:57library of royalty free music that you can use in pretty much whatever way you want in your videos.

05:01Epidemic owns 100% of all of the music they provide, so there is zero chance that you'll

05:05ever get hit with a copyright strike. And Epidemic Sound's library has over 40,000 tracks and 90,000

05:11sound effects with new tracks added every single week. The music is also professionally produced,

05:16and it's all original music. They've got a commercial plan and a personal plan. Now,

05:19the personal plan is the one that we as a team use personally. And that's perfect for YouTubers

05:23and podcasters and bloggers or anything like that. And it works on YouTube and Instagram and

05:27Facebook and all these other platforms. Or alternatively, if you happen to be a freelancer

05:30or an agency or a brand, then the commercial plan lets you use background music in your

05:34client's videos without ever worrying about a copyright strike. Also, just as an aside,

05:37one of my many income streams as a result of having this audience has been affiliate income.

05:41And actually the Epidemic Sound affiliate program is also a great way to earn money as a creator.

05:45And also earlier this year, the Epidemic Sound team invited me over to Sweden to visit their

05:49offices. And we took a trip to like the Arctic North. And it was absolutely sick. And they're

05:52super, super friendly. And their music studios are absolutely incredible. And so I'm just like

05:56Epidemic Sound fanboy for life, basically. Anyway, if you want to try out Epidemic Sound,

06:00which is literally the thing I've been using for the last six and a half years,

06:02you can check out the link in the video description and you can sign up to a totally

06:05free trial of their personal or commercial plan. And in those days, you can browse their library

06:09to your heart's content and you can use any music that you want from that library. And then even if

06:13you don't want to become a paid subscriber, you can still use any of the music that you used during

06:17the trial and not worry about copyright strikes at all. So thank you so much Epidemic Sound for

06:20sponsoring this video. There's no easy answer to this. Everyone I think wants a magic bullet

06:27for consistency. But really, it's about patience. And it's about faith. It's about patience that it

06:31takes a long time for this stuff to see results. And it's about faith that if you do the right

06:35things and show up consistently, that eventually the results will come. And that's why personally

06:39for me, I find that the main strategy for consistency is to set input goals, goals that

06:44are within my control. Like it's not within my control whether I hit 10,000 subscribers. It's

06:48not within my control whether I get a million views on a video, but it is within my control.

06:51Can I show up every week and share something authentically that I feel would add value to my

06:55target audience? And if the answer to that is yes, and I can find a way to make that process at least

06:59vaguely enjoyable, and just know that I'm going to do it for two years. The thing I tell my students,

07:02if you want to do YouTube, commit to posting a video every single week for two years. That's the

07:06kind of time horizon you need to basically guarantee that it's going to change your life.

07:10The problem is when people do it like, oh, I'm not seeing any results two months later. I'm still

07:14I'm still terrible at making videos. I've never talked to a camera before in my life. But for some

07:18reason, I'm expecting results from day one. This is completely absurd. It takes eight years of

07:22training in the UK for a medicine to get someone even remotely in front of a patient. If you're

07:26expecting six figure results, seven figure results in your business, you cannot not put in the work.

07:30And yeah, of course, people are busy. But if it was easy, everyone would have seven figure

07:34businesses based on organic content marketing. It's not. It's going to start off feeling like

07:38a really heavy lift where you're like, oh my god, I'm recording for an hour and I'm getting 10 minutes

07:42of content out of it. It's not worth it. It takes too long to edit. But if you push through that

07:46pain, just like you did when you were starting a business, and you start building systems and

07:49processes and using templates, hiring people to do the things you don't want to do,

07:52that's ultimately the thing that makes it consistent. Because time management only gets

07:56you so far. Like, you can't time manage yourself to getting, you know, two videos a week out on

08:00YouTube while you have a full time job while you have a family and kids and a life. That's just not

08:04going to happen. You've got to build the systems and tools, you could use the knowledge that

08:06businesses use to leverage yourself so that you can create content and scale. Early on, like first

08:13like one year or so literally flying by the seat of my pants thinking, oh, okay, it's a new week,

08:17I need a new video. What's the video going to be this week? Come up with ideas. Okay, cool. Let's

08:21make the video, write it, film it, edit it, like trying to do that all while in medical school in

08:25a week. Hit upload. As the video is uploading, figuring out the title and the thumbnail,

08:29and just being like, all right, cool. Slap some text on the thumbnail using Adobe Spark at the

08:33time. Upload the video. Let's move on to the next one. That was the very rough process. And then I

08:38realized fairly quickly, a few months in, hang on, this is a recipe for burnout. This is not

08:42sustainable. I need to systemize the whole thing. And then I read an amazing book called The E-Myth

08:47Revisited by Michael Gerber, which is, I'm sure you guys, some of you guys have read. That book

08:52completely changed my life because it introduced me to the idea of systemization and delegation.

08:56I was like, oh, I get it. I need to think of my YouTube channel as a franchise,

09:01as the prototype for a franchise. So you know how you can walk into any McDonald's anywhere

09:06in the world and you get an identical experience, the same food, the same experience. They can put

09:10any random ass 16 year old with zero qualifications into one of those jobs. And the 16 year old will

09:15follow the process and we'll get the result for the customer. That's amazing. So how do you

09:20therefore create systems and structures in your own business that make it a theoretical franchise?

09:25What is the system that I would follow to franchise out my YouTube channel? Okay, cool. There's a

09:29process for idea generation. There's a process for writing. There's a process for filming. There's a

09:33process for editing. There's a process for publishing, et cetera, et cetera. And initially

09:36I was doing all of these things myself. And then very slowly over time, I started delegating

09:41small bits of that. So now someone else does the idea generation. Someone else does the research

09:46for some of the videos. I still do the writing because I've tried outsourcing it and it's really

09:50hard to outsource writing for your own videos. Obviously I film my own videos, but then someone

09:54else edits, someone else publishes, someone else repurposes, someone else looks at the analytics,

09:58then takes the footage and they will turn it into like Instagram and Twitter thread and a LinkedIn

10:04carousel and an Instagram carousel and a TikTok. And we've got the whole repurposing process as

10:08well because what we found is that we've put in all the effort to make the video. We might as well

10:12chop it up and turn it into a Twitter thread, a LinkedIn thread, a carousel. We might as well

10:16make it sweat and repurpose it across all the different social platforms. That is what the six

10:21years later, the evolution of the content pipeline looks like with a team of 14 people, 10 of which

10:26are basically focused on the content side, where we have a courses business that supports the whole

10:30thing. And we have a general manager in Angus so that I don't need to worry about the day-to-day

10:33management. Starting off with me as a doctor trying to hustle to make videos one at a time

10:38to this whole production empire where now I don't even know what happens on the YouTube channel.

10:42I see a video being uploaded and I'm like, damn, that's cool. I watch it. I give feedback to our

10:46editors while recording a loom and it's just great. So I can focus my time on the thing I

10:51actually care about, which is drawing diagrams on a page and talking to a camera,

10:55which is the thing I'm good at. Everyone else does everything else, which is all the things that I'm

10:58bad at.

If I Wanted to Grow An Audience, I'd Do This - Ali Abdaal

Category

Transcript

Recommended