Module 1

Introspection
WHY PERSONAL BRANDING?

Let’s start the discussion by answering the most critical question.

“Why do you want to create a personal brand in the first place?”

for the Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle theory to help you

realize why knowing your WHY is essential.

Simon Sinek is a Leadership Coach, and in his famous talk around

Golden Circle, he states that-

All of us know WHAT we do,

Some of us know HOW we do what we do, and
Very few of us know WHY we do what we do.

Simon Sinek further gives the most powerful insight on how the best
brands, the great leaders, and the people who inspire you are the
ones who start with understanding their WHY.

Example

The Apple brand believes in thinking differently. That’s their WHY.

Moreover, figuring out your WHY is a journey when you are a
beginner. You can reiterate it as you go.

As you become sure of the WHY, it remains the same - the HOW and
the WHAT may change.
To give you better clarity, here is Brand warikoo’s understanding of
What, How, and Why!

What do we do at Brand warikoo?

We create videos.

How do we create videos?

We simplify complex topics for our audience through intense
research, knowledge and experience and deliver it through our
content.

Why do we create videos?

In today’s era, we all have immense choices to make - choice of a
career, life partner, money management, leading life in general, etc.
Having too many options is chaotic and overwhelming. Thus, through
our content, we at Brand warikoo want to help people to make
choices from the point of awareness and not ignorance.

That’s our WHY! What’s yours?

Answer this not for anybody else but yourself.

PILLARS OF CONTENT CREATION

After an intense discussion about finding why now let's analyze what
makes people successful in the content game.

Consistency is inarguably one of the most important factors for a

content creator's success.
But why does consistency matter?

In content creation, you are essentially dealing with algorithms.

The only thing YouTube cares about is cares about is watch time.
We call it WIIFY.
To serve this purpose of the algorithm, you need to be consistent
with content creation.

Consider the example of Instagram and YouTube Algorithms.

Instagram is known for quick content consumption and high

audience engagement. Most of us aimlessly spend endless hours
scrolling through IG reels everyday.

On the other hand, YouTube is very different from Instagram, Twitter

and LinkedIn. YouTube considers itself as Television which means it
demands long-term commitment from the audience, just like the
commitment shown towards movies and shows on Television.

Thus, you need to convey to the algorithm that you are helping
YouTube to serve its purpose of being a Television. The best way to
share this message is by being consistent.

Now that you understand consistency is the game, ask yourself

"What drives consistency?"

In our opinion, the most important thing that ensures consistency is

authenticity. Because if you are not doing something that is
authentically you, you will fail to be consistent.
Example

If you are not someone who loves documenting life, then you will
find it hard to be consistent at vlogging.
If you are not someone who enjoys painting, you will find it hard
to be consistent at painting.

DO NOT force yourself to be someone you are NOT!

Your niche is not so much about what serves the purpose of others.
Instead, your niche is what serves your purpose first.

Ankur single-handedly could publish one video a week on YouTube

consistently from August 2017 to March 2020 because creating,
sharing and helping others through content comes naturally to him.
This authenticity drives the consistency you now witness on Ankur's
channel.

Thus, two pillars of content creation are Consistency and

Authenticity.
Remember, authenticity leads to consistency.

To ensure consistency, ask yourself

"Am I doing something which is authentically me?"

WHY YOUTUBE?

Now that you understand your why and the two pillars of content
creation, let's dive deep into YouTube as a choice of content creation.
Before making this choice, let's analyze how YouTube differs from
other social media platforms using a metric called Half-Life.

Half Life metrics can be understood as the time taken by the content
to reach 50% of the total expected lifetime reach that the content
piece would have.

To simplify, if your post will reach 100 people over five years, then at
what time will it reach 50 people?

Example

Twitter's half-life is 15 minutes, and Instagram’s half-life is 45

minutes.

On the other hand, YouTube's half-life is around 12 hours, so if your

video reaches 100 people over five years, it will reach 50 people in
half a day.

This clarifies that YouTube as a platform is not meant for instant

consumption. Instead, it's a long-term and long-format platform.

Example

For Ankur's channel, the videos that give the most subscribers are the
ones that got released months before and not the recent uploads.

Thus, the size and scale of the channel are determined by your best-
performing videos, not your recent ones.
CONTENT CREATION AS A PROFESSION

Irrespective of where you are in your content journey, this segment

will help you think about content creation as an incoming generating
stream and let you analyze if this can replace your regular income.

Ankur started his journey way longer before anyone noticed it. He has
been writing a blog every single day since 2005. He has been creating
content on LinkedIn since 2013, on YouTube since 2017, and
podcasts and newsletters since 2020.

The only purpose of sharing this with you is to let you know that it’s
not an overnight success. Moreover, the time and efforts put in over
the years have made content monetization a viable option for us.

In 2021, Brand warikoo made 12 crores from content creation alone.

This income includes brand deals and affiliate income as well. The
transparency concerning the numbers you see here is to show you
the potential of content creation.

As we talk about the monetization aspect of content, one most

important piece of advice Ankur gives from his experience to
everyone is - Never sell yourself too early!

Selling too early at a minimal price sets the threshold for your brand
in the market, and it gets harder to go beyond that price in the future.
So patiently wait for the best time and opportunity for monetizing
your content.
Example

Ankur has set a premium price for his brand, and he never negotiates.
This pricing strategy has helped him categorize his brand as
exclusive and premium.

In today’s era, you are gold if you have people’s time and attention.

As a beginner, take off the pressure of making money from content

creation and enjoy the process of it.

FIGURING OUT YOUR NICHE

Previously, we discussed Consistency and Authenticity being two

pillars of content creation and how authenticity drives consistency.

But what drives authenticity in the first place?

Authenticity is best driven by what is naturally yours. This is what you
need to consider for finding your niche.

Your niche isn't about what people want from you. It should be more
of what is that you can deliver the best that people also want.

There are four approaches to finding a niche. Ask yourself two

questions -

Do I know this niche?

Do people need this?
Here is a 2x2 matrix that helps you find your niche.

Approach 1

You don't know about this and people don't need this
Ignore and eliminate this niche content. It's important to know what
you don't need as well.

Example
Consider that you are a college student and want to create content
around student life.
Academics is something you are not very good at, and people are
least interested in. Then it's a wise decision to eliminate this from
your content.
Approach 2

You know something, but people don't need it yet.

Such content will work in your favour only once you become big.

Example
If you make a video on "10 Mistakes of My Life", not many people
care and resonate with it, especially at the early stage of your career.
However, if you publish the same video with millions of subscribers,
people pay attention and give you their time and energy because now
you have built some sort of credibility among the audience.

Approach 3

You don't know much about this, but people need it.
This will work for you if you can generate trust in the audience. It is
possible through intense research, collaboration with the right people
and testing what will work on the channel.

Example
Consider Tanmay Bhat's content on his channel Clueless. Tanmay
isn't an expert in the finance niche. What he does best is to
collaborate with experts. The combination of Tanmay's storytelling
and attention-grabbing, along with expertise through collaborations,
has worked well for the channel.

Consider Ankur's channel, where we posted three weekly videos from

March 2020 to December 2020 in Personal Finance, Entrepreneurship
and Career and education.
We went through this journey to learn what works best for us and
realized our audience needs personal finance content the most,
followed by career and entrepreneurship. That's how you test the
waters through experimentation.

Approach 4

You know enough about this, and the world also needs this.
That's your niche. We highly recommend you ask yourself these
questions even if you are very sure about your niche.

The goal is to work on things you don't know much about, but the
world needs and slowly transition to something that you know and
the world needs.

And that's how you find your niche.

INTRODUCTION TO YOUTUBE ANALYTICS

This segment is dedicated to simplifying some complex terms in the

analytics section. It will help you understand the modules and grasp
the content better.

The Analytics section in the YouTube studio is where you see the
overview of all the metrics we will discuss here. Navigate through
each section separately for detailed analytics.

Note that you can customize the date range as per your
requirements.
 YouTube Studio - Analytics tab of Ankur's channel

Impressions
The number of times YouTube has shown your thumbnail to the
audience is called impressions. Note that these are not unique
impressions, meaning there are possibilities of one person seeing it
more than once.

Impressions Click Through Rate

Impressions click-through rate measures the percentage of people
who clicked your video after seeing its thumbnail. Let's consider the
channel has had 100 impressions in the last seven days, and the CTR
is 5%. This means that for every 100 impressions the channel sees on
YouTube, 5 people click on it.

Views
Views are indicated by the number of times your video has been
watched. Note that views aren’t necessarily from unique people. To
know the unique views on your channel, check out the unique viewers
metric.
TRAFFIC SOURCE TYPES

Browse Features

A view accounted to your video from the YouTube homepage is

considered to be traffic from browse features.

Suggested videos

A view accounted to your video if clicked from the "up next" section or
Suggested Videos tray towards the right side is considered traffic
from the suggested videos.

YouTube Search

Searching for the video you want to watch and watching it from the
list of search results YouTube provides accounts for the traffic from
YouTube search.

Shorts Feed

Every time you scroll through or watch YouTube shorts, it counts as

traffic from the shorts feed.

YouTube Advertising

Every view that the video gets due to the ads accounts for the traffic
from YouTube advertising.
ENGAGEMENT SECTION

Watch Time

The aggregate amount of “Real World” time viewers spend watching

your videos.

Watch Time = Total Views on the Video x AVD per View

(AVD - Average View Duration)

YouTube optimizes its business to keep people on the platform for

long, and thus whatever you do should revolve around maximizing the
watch time the person spends on the platform and your channel.

Think of Watch-time as a “Currency” in exchange for which YT

promotes our channels.
And remember that Watch-time isn’t a consequence, it’s an input.

Average View Duration (AVD)

The average amount of time viewers spend watching your videos in a

specific period is AVD.
AUDIENCE TAB

Returning Viewers

Viewers who already watched your channel previously and returned to

watch in the selected time period account for returning viewers on
the channel.

New Viewers

Viewers who discovered your channel for the first time in the selected
period count as new viewers on the channel.

Note that viewers who watch from a private browser, deleted their
watch history or haven't watched your channel in over a year are
considered new viewers.

Unique Viewers

Unique viewers are the estimated number of viewers that watched

your content within the selected date range. This metric helps you
understand the actual size of your audience.

Subscribers

People who subscribe to your channel to stay updated with the

content you publish are your subscribers.
REVENUE TAB

Estimated Revenue:

The total amount of money you made from YouTube in the selected
period is the estimated revenue.

Revenue Per Mille (RPM)

Revenue Per Mille (RPM) is a metric that represents how much

money you’ve earned per 1,000 video views.

RPM is based on several revenue sources including: Ads, Channel

Memberships, YouTube Premium Revenue, Super Chat and Super
Stickers.

Cost Per Mille (CPM)

Cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) is a metric that represents how

much money advertisers are spending to show ads on YouTube.

CPM Includes only revenue from ads and YouTube Premium.

Note that there is a significant difference in RPM and CPM.

RPM is a creator-focused metric and it is what you as a creator get

from YouTube, whereas CPM is an advertiser-focused metric.

Always note that your RPM is lower than your CPM because RPM is
calculated after deducting YouTube’s fee.
Example

Hypothetically, consider that CPM on Channel A over the last 90 days

is ₹1.

Meaning for every 1000 impressions, advertisers are paying ₹1 to

YouTube. From this, the creator of Channel A gets ₹0.55 for every
1000 ad impressions on the channel, and the remaining ₹0.45 is for
YouTube to keep its business going. This is how the revenue is
distributed on YouTube.

We understand this could be overwhelming to consume all at once.

Sit back and relax!
We will be covering all the metrics discussed in this segment in detail
in the analytics section.

Keep YouTubing :)