5 Traits of a Successful Youtuber

Twenty-five-year-old Yousef Saleh Erakat, also known by his stage name FouseyTube, is
a Palestinian American entertainer who produces parodies, vlogs, comedy sketches and
pranks on YouTube to an audience of more than 6 million subscribers. What makes him
so successful on Youtube? What’s the secret sauce? Here’s what I learned when I went
Behind the Brand with fouseyTube.
Trait #1

There’s a familiar theme among the most successful Youtuber’s and it has to do with
being yourself. The audience can see right thru someone who isn’t being genuine and
we’ve seen several young creators with massive audiences fall hard lately because it was
discovered that they were not who they pretended to be.

Trait#2
There is a steady flow of content that airs on a certain day once per week. The magic
combo seems to be publishing videos weekly but it’s also about knowing what your
people want. For other social platforms like Twitter or Pinterest, more frequent posts
might be appropriate. Best practices are all about following the etiquette of that particular
network. Do your homework, observe and listen, then jump in the game.

Trait#3
They don’t risk it all at first. Fousey described how he got started. He was working at
Chili’s putting money in the bank while making videos on the side for cheap. Once one
of his videos hit it big, he quit his day job and never looked back but still spends very
little on production costs. He does all of the work which includes the writing and editing.

Trait#4
They don’t give up. Sometimes Fousey’s videos don’t go viral and that’s okay with him.
He creates what he thinks is entertaining content and keeps trying to please his audience.
You’re only as good as your last video so you have to keep on going.

Trait#5
They care. Author Gary Vaynerchuk wrote in his book, The Thank You Economy, “The
person who cares the most wins.” Fousey listens to feedback and tries his best to react to
what he thinks will be entertaining for his community. That could include pulling horrible
pranks on some of his best friends but it’s always fun to watch.
6 Qualities the Most Successful YouTube Channels Have (And How You Can
Replicate Them)

Ever since YouTube was acquired by Google back in 2006, the platform has been
constantly on the rise, to ultimately become the third most visited website on the entire
web. And along the way, it has attracted a new kind of content producers – video
enthusiasts who are often called youtubers.

And youtubers are unlike the old-day publishers who relied on traditional media-like
video creation, scripting and production methods. In fact, some of the most popular
videos on YouTube look nothing like what the mainstream media has gotten us used to.

This creates interesting new opportunities for business owners who want to reach out to
their customers and audience in an unusual way. After all, studies prove that people
prefer visual content to text content (our brains process visual content 60,000 times faster
than text).

YouTube has its own rules and its own path that every new content creator has to follow
if they ever want to make their channel popular. Here, we’re going to look into six
factors and qualities that make a successful YouTube channel.

1. Consisting posting

Some of the most successful channels, such as PewDiePie – currently, the biggest
channel on YouTube, with nearly 40 million subscribers – post new videos every day or
even two times a day.
Due to this frequency, PewDiePie’s subscribers are constantly reminded of the channel
and get more chances to interact with its creator, as well as obviously consume the
content itself.
Lesson #1: Make it a habit to post new videos regularly. If you can’t do one every day
then start with at least one per week.

2. Using an angle

If you’re, say, in the cooking niche, then creating just another general cooking channel –
sharing recipes and such – will probably go unnoticed. To make your project successful,
you need an angle – something that sets you apart.
For instance, the guys from Epic Meal Time are the perfect example here. Instead of just
cooking on the air, per se, they’ve decided to make their every “dish” (notice the quotes)
epic. Where this has led them is to cooking things like “Fast Food Lasagna” (over 25
million views; a lasagna full of fast food), “Candy Pizza” (over 9 million views; pizza
made entirely out of candy), and many more.
Epic Meal Time is just different. It’s highly recognizable and easy to explain to new
viewers.
Lesson #2: Find your angle and make it easy to explain. What your channel does that’s
different?
3. Content Quality
Almost all YouTube channels from the top 10 most popular list publish only content that
has high production value.
That is, content that’s recorded with a proper camera, on a well-lit setting, with good
surrounding, and so on.
Video quality is huge in importance. Basically, if your content doesn’t look professional,
every viewer simply won’t take you seriously, and this is especially crucial if you’re
launching the channel for business purposes.
Lesson #3: Get a quality consumer camera, preferably one capable of shooting 4K video.
If you’re not sure where to look, I’ve had a good experience capturing detail with the
Panasonic Gh4 camera, even in lower light settings. Youtubers have it easier today than
just ten years ago, with generally fairer value for your dollar on consumer cameras. This
is part of the reason why we’ve seen such a massive growth of the platform.

4. Incorporate your products into the videos

The reason you’re thinking about launching a YouTube channel is because you want to
turn it into another marketing method that’s going to help your business grow.
One of the main ways in which you can do so is incorporate your products into the videos
themselves.
Let’s take the Epic Meal Time guys as an example again. In nearly every video, they use
their custom cooking set that can be purchased from their official site (along with t-shirts
and other items). That way, they get to monetize their videos and also make their
products an integral part of the content.
Lesson #4: Make your products an integral part of your video content. Find a way to use
them in the videos themselves.

5. International content

It would seem that in order to truly make it on YouTube, you have to publish your videos
in English, but that’s not exactly the case.
One of the most popular channels on the platform today – HolaSoyGerman – is created
by a man from Chile and is actually in Spanish.
Quite frankly, YouTube has become an international craze, with virtually the whole
world browsing to the platform on a daily basis. Therefore, focusing on the language
that’s native to you, your business, and your main market is likely to work very well.
Lesson #5: Your content doesn’t have to be in English. Cater to your local audience and
customer base.

6. Delivering entertainment

Although there’s a handful of popular “professional” channels – ones focusing on various

kinds of business-to-business content and tutorials, the huge majority of success on
YouTube comes if you’re able to incorporate some type of entertainment into your
content.
In fact, all of YouTube’s top 10 most popular channels are pure entertainment.
But this doesn’t mean that your channel has to be only gags and parodies. There are
workarounds you can use.
Lesson #6: Whatever your content is meant to be about, deliver its message through
entertainment. For instance, if you want to teach people how to garden, teach through
entertainment. If you want to present the best real estate in your area, make it fun to
watch for the average human being. Basically, whatever message you want to convey,
make it entertaining to watch.

Conclusion

Finding your own groove and the way you want to present your message and your
business on YouTube will take time, effort, and most importantly, experimentation.
The no. 1 thing you can do today is start analyzing your favorite channels and try figuring
out what makes them great. Take notes. What do you like about them? And on the other
hand, what doesn’t impress you at all? Then take action on those ideas.