The key factors that play a role in the success of Pewdiepie, Steven Crowder & Jordan Peterson on Youtube & how you can engineer your success on Youtube. Phone 07 5562 5718 to book a free 20 minute telephone consultation. NLP, Hypnotherapy and Medtation, Gold Coast, Robina.
Secrets of Success Part 1 Secrets of Succes Part 2
By Abby Eagle (2020)
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In this article I would like to invite you into a conversation to see if we can map out some key factors that play a part in being a success on Youtube. There are some people on the Internet who claim that all you need to do is to follow a system – their system – and you will achieve massive success and yet what most of these people seem to miss is, ‘who the person is’. Now each person is an individual and to claim that two people who follow the same guidelines will achieve exactly the same outcome is just not true. Why? Because we are all individuals – we are not robots.
So in this article we are going to take a look at a range of successful people and see if we can get an understanding of what it may take for you and me to be a greater success on Youtube, if that is what you should desire. And yes, that is what I desire. As at 12th April 2020 my channel has 3,500 subscribers and about 650 thousand views over the last 5 years. I am very grateful for those views but I want to do better and so in this article I am going to take a look at what I can model out from successful Youtubers.
We are going to look at Hair Styling, The Pretty Girl, Vinyl Car Wrapping, Tony Robbins, Pewdiepie, Steven Crowder, Jordan Peterson, Roger Hamilton and Elvis Presley.
So let’s do an intuitive analysis to see if we can map out some of the key factors at play in their success? There are a myriad of factors which could come into play in terms of the key player: physical health, age, looks, ethnicity, culture, religion, socio economic class, education, intelligence, personal history, significant world events and challenges, weather, where they live and of course budget. Team work, collaboration and networking are key factors – and production quality and editing is a key factor in some cases but not all.
In terms of the key player – the person in front of the camera – some of the key success factors are socio economic class, personal history, education, skills, talent, personality type, values, attitudes, authenticity, frames of mind, physical characteristics, looks and health. In some cases I think ego, resilience and the ability to maintain a personal power zone and boundaries are some of the most important factors. High IQ is a plus but not an essential. Don’t forget timing, risk taking and the willingness to go after a stretch goal.
Hair Styling
Let’s start with the hair styling Youtube Channel. One of the most important success factors is the subject matter and focusing on a topic that interests – wait for it – millions and millions of people. And the most important factor of all is – what is the most important factor? Yeah luck. I guess you could call it a precessional effect. For example, a mother loves braiding her young daughters hair. When out shopping, strangers stop and ask about the children’s braids. She gets tired of this so the family – that is mum and dad and the children – start a youtube channel so that they can refer people to the channel and get on with their shopping. They work as a team – all taking different roles. They have no real idea of what to do or why they are doing what they do. The father just learns how to film his wife braiding his daughter’s hair and uploads the videos to youtube and within a year or two they get a million subscribers.
So the family started with a present state – there was the problem of dealing with time consuming inquiries from people at the shopping mall. They looked for a solution. They came up with the idea of a Youtube channel and by trial and error the channel became a massive success. Fair enough.
So that was our hair styling example. What are the key factors? There is a massive market potential on the topic of hair styling. And then we have cute young girls with long hair and braids. A family setting, a willingness to work together as a team and authenticity.
And I suggest that as we work through these examples you take a moment to make some notes that are relevant for you in creating a successful Youtube channel.
The Pretty Girl
A major success factor for some youtube channels seems to be looks. So you get the beautiful young woman, obsessed with her looks posting videos of herself on Youtube and Instagram. She doesn’t even need to talk about nails, clothing, makeup and hair – her looks are the major factor. Other key factors are ego and narcissism.
Vinyl Car Wrapping
And then we get the guys who vinyl wrap cars. That is they stick sheets of coloured vinyl to the panels of a car. Sometimes for advertising other times just to change the colour. Cheaper than a respray. So you get the video of an ordinary looking man wearing cotton gloves applying vinyl advertising to a van in a sterile showroom. Boring as shit. And then you get the working class type man, vinyl wrapping a car in their motor workshop. There are tools and junk all over the place. A perfect stage setting. In some cases there is just a single camera – in other cases a camera operator who can follow the guy and focus in on the details. The production quality is a plus but not an essential and it only takes two people. The wrapper and the camera operator. And you don’t need a fancy DSLR, even a cell phone will do the job.
So what are the key success factors with the vinyl car wrappers? There seems to be a fairly large group of people interested in vinyl wrapping. You can always go on Google and Youtube to get an idea of the market size but as the market size increases so does the competition. Other key success factors are the looks, dress, voice, accent, personality and authenticity of the man or woman. The workshop setting is a key success factor. And demonstrating a skill in an efficient manner is most important. We saw those success factors with the woman braiding the child’s hair and the pretty woman demonstrating all the girly makeup stuff. People want to learn something – either knowledge or a skill. They want an attractive instructor in a setting that supports and gives credibility to the activity.
Tony Robbins
Now let’s take a look at Tony Robbins. Very different from the hairdresser, the pretty girls and the vinyl wrapping men. Tony had a head start. At 19 years of age Tony found himself 3 million dollars in debt, or thereabouts. His colleagues told him to declare bankruptcy but he said, “no”, and instead he took the situation as a challenge and within a few years he was some millions of dollars in front. Tony was a massive success before he started his Youtube channel so it naturally follows that he should be a success on Youtube. Key success factors are ego and IQ. He has the personality of a natural leader who wants to inspire people to success. Possibly an ENFP. He is authentic. He has business connections. He collaborates with individuals and businesses. He engages with his audience through various platforms. He has good looks; distinctive physical characteristics; a great voice. He is a risk taker and he has ego strength and resilience – he faces up to life challenges, preserves the learnings and then takes the learnings into the future for even greater success – and he shares that information with his audience.
So far we have looked at the hairstyling mother, the pretty girl, the vinyl wrapping working class man and Tony Robbins. Different subject matter and different target groups. Some similarities and some differences. Hope you are taking some notes and applying to self.
Pewdiepie
And now we get to Felix Kjellberg otherwise known as Pewdiepie. He may be the only solo creator to date that has reached 100 million subscribers. Pewdiepie dropped out of university and decided to take a risk and create a youtube channel focusing on gaming walkthroughs and reviews. That is how he found his initial audience. Over time he experimented and found a style and topics that works for him which includes making bad taste jokes and offensive slurs.
When I first saw him a couple of years ago I thought he looked like he was on cocaine. He was sweating and ranting caustically that Youtube had not notified his subscribers of the latest video – and that he had only got a couple of million views or so to that video in the first 24 hour period. I don’t like the guy one bit but apparently millions do. So what are Pewdiepie’s Youtube success factors? He experiments, takes risks and does what he enjoys most. I would suggest that his personality is the key factor – he has a massive ego – displays narcissistic traits and is able to handle criticism with ease – all of which his audience seems to value.
Steven Crowder
And now we take a look at Steven Crowder. As at April 2020 his Youtube channel has 4.4 million subscribers and he just celebrated one billion views to his main channel. Possibly 2 billion views over all of his channels. So what are his success factors? He loves being in front of the camera and performing – play acting and looking at socio political events through the eyes of a comedian but he is also authentic and sincere. So personality and values are a major factor. He is intelligent and has an excellent memory. He also demonstrates the qualities of an investigative journalist. He has a team of people working with him, including his mother who is the wardrobe mistress. On most episodes he has a lawyer sit in on the show which I think is a very good idea – so the lawyer can keep him on track and also take care of any litigation issues – allowing Crowder to relax and focus in on the show.
Other key success factors in Steven Crowder’s Youtube channel are good looks, voice, acting ability, ego strength and risk taking. And when required he actually does listen to what others have to say.
I think of all the channels we have looked at that Crowder’s channel is the one that has all of the key elements for a successful Youtube Channel come Television show.
Jordan Peterson
And now we take a look at Jordan Peterson – 2.6 million subscribers on Youtube. He started out by posting his psychology lectures on Youtube some years back. I had watched maybe a hundred of his psychology videos before the momentous night when Jordan commented on the gender pronoun legislation before the Canadian Parliament. He had a large enough subscriber base who shared the video for it to go viral and that was how he was thrust into the limelight.
Key success factors with Jordan Peterson’s Youtube channel. His subject matter – psychology, religion, philosophy, Cultural Marxism, post modernism – engaging an intelligent audience with a hunger to learn more – partly because they may have been sidelined by the leftist education system.
Jordan Peterson is intelligent – he has good looks, a distinctive voice – he is sincere, authentic, sticks to his values – and he takes a risk in exploring religion from a personal perspective and coming to new understandings in real time – which I think is one of his major success factors. In terms of environment being a factor he is a conservative Canadian Professor of Psychology in a country led by a Marxist leaning Justin Trudeau.
I think his personal history including his health problems are key success factors – as is his personality type – probably an INFJ. His main cognitive function is introverted intuition so he likes mapping out the relationships between things and ideas and loves exploring psychology, religion and spirituality. His secondary cognitive function is extroverted feeling so he is very much into using his intuition to bring harmony and balance into the world. But he will not compromise on what he believes to be right or wrong. He is not a Post Modern Relativist.
However, there is a downside to this in that he may find it difficult to deal with criticism – which may have affected his health – and this could be the reason why he disappeared in late 2019. So Jordan Peterson does not have the narcissistic ego of Pewdiepie. He has ego strength like Tony Robbins and Steven Crowder but because of his topics of interest and his empathetic way of thinking he lacks the ability to create a brick wall type boundary around himself – so that over time the constant jabs and criticism from his opponents may have worn him down. God bless Jordan – may he recover soon.
So if you want to create a successful Youtube channel and keep your health maybe it’s best to focus on a non political topic or on the other hand make sure that you create a powerful support team to take care of you.
Roger Hamilton
And now we get to Roger Hamilton. I see Roger Hamilton as having a privileged upbringing. I think his Dad was Scottish who married a Chinese woman in Hong Kong. So like Tony Robbins he had a head start. He went to Cambridge University and had a successful business by the time he started his Youtube channel and got one million views in the first 12 months. As at April 2020 his channel has 20 thousand subscribers. Not a lot of subscribers compared to many others but still a very successful channel that supports his multi million dollar business.
Some of the key success factors in Roger Hamilton’s Youtube channel are his background, socioeconomic class, upbringing, education, intelligence, looks, voice – and of course personality type. As you may know he created the Wealth Dynamics psychometric test and talks about the importance of working to your personality type, your passions, your interests and your purpose. This is what gets you into flow – the optimal state of consciousness in which you perform at your best. He is sincere, authentic, inspires others to be the best version of themselves. And as an entrepreneur he looks at the world through the eyes of opportunity – always looking to set a stretch goal and take immediate action. He has a team around him and looks to collaborate with like minded people. I heard him say once that he would team up with another business person for 3 months and then do a review. If it did not work out favourably for each of them then they would say goodbye. So he has systems in place, a willingness to give things a go, get feedback and re-evaluate his goals. You see these factors in many successful Youtubers and business people.
Some of Roger’s videos he does hand held with his mobile phone while walking in an environment which is relevant to the story that he is telling for the purpose of helping his viewers come to an understanding which may help them to raise their consciousness and achieve a higher level of success. So there is no fancy graphics and editing – just Roger telling an interesting story which the viewer can relate to.
And I think a key success factor is the ability to produce a first rate video quickly with minimal resources – that is you present your content with a succinct well articulated audio track and you get it uploaded it in the shortest time possible.
Elvis Presley
And now last but not least we get to Elvis Presley. I know that Elvis doesn’t have a Youtube channel but I thought it would be interesting to include him in my study. A bit about Elvis’s background – he had talent, skills – he could sing and play the guitar. He came from a working class background with traditional values. He was influenced by black singers in his neighborhood and country music on the radio.
Elvis had a desire to be a singer –he had a goal in mind but he was just a truck driver from a poor background. Out on the road one day he saw an advert for a singing audition. He saw an opportunity but he drove past the advert five times before he took action. It was a stretch goal for him but if he had procrastinated for too long he would have missed the opportunity all together. But anyway the timing was right – he was in the right place at the right time. And then there was a strong element of luck in that he saw the advertisement in the first place.
By chance Elvis happened to be what the Producer thought the Market wanted.
The Producer saw a need. Had a goal in mind. Took a risk. How many projects had the Producer worked on? How many people had he auditioned? How many records had he produced before he became a success? Iterations, iterations, iterations. And then the radio station also had to take a risk to play the song. How many new singles do they play until they find which one is going to be a hit?
You will notice that a key success factor in everyone we have examined that they stay true to their personality type. Elvis is a performer – an entertainer – he is just himself. This is why I keep telling people to learn everything they can about personality type. Your personality type is your genius. Stay true to yourself – you don’t need to copy anyone else – you are okay as you are. And then follow your passions and your interests – do what is important for you – immerse yourself in an environment in which you will flourish. And collaborate and team up with people who will help – avoid people who hinder.
And have it be okay to be different. Elvis gyrated his pelvis at a time when this was rather ‘out there’ or as they say now, ‘edgy’. It was not what conservative Christians would normally do at that time. So Elvis was different and he gave himself permission to be different. Not that you have to be different just stop trying to be like others.
The Pareto Distribution
And then we have to consider the Pareto distribution. In every field a few people rise to the top. Most are average and the rest just hang around at the bottom. So how do you hack the Pareto distribution? Look to role models for inspiration as we have been doing in this video – and map out the key success factors. Take whatever you can and apply to self.
Key Points
- Follow your heart and take a risk.
- Produce content and then produce more content. Persevere. You may have to produce hundreds of videos before you become a success. Just make sure that you learn something each time you craft a video.
- Explore topics of interest and various production styles to see what works for you.
- Collaborate with other Youtubers – the more successful the better. Build a team.
- Engage with the audience and invite the audience to engage with each other.
- Make the audience feel special – that their concerns, desires, interests and values are being acknowledged and addressed.
- Be the expert.
- You are going to need ego strength and resilience to deal with feedback, criticism and set backs. If you are just braiding your daughter’s hair or vinyl wrapping a car then it is unlikely you will get any hate mail but if you are more like Jordan Peterson and talking on socio political topics then you need to have a strong ego to deal with the shit that will be thrown at you.
- And then there is the marketing. It helps to have a website, a social media account like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. And then have some products for people to buy so that you can keep your audience engaged on a number of levels. And remember to do all the basic stuff like using keywords in title, description, tags and thumbnails with calls to action.
So if you have a Youtube channel or use video on social media platforms like Facebook I hope this has helped you to identify some key success factors which could help you to grow your channel. In my case I need to address ego strength and resilience – that is learning how to deal with criticism. I am going to put more time into connecting and collaborating with other Youtubers – and I will be doing some Facebook Live videos and holding Skype Video Groups. Both will give me practice in adlibbing the presentation rather than following a script.
And if you have any ideas on how you and me could collaborate please feel free to send me an email and/or connect with me on Skype by searching for “Abby Eagle Gold Coast Australia”. If you have not done so please leave a comment below and join me on the Facebook NLP & Hypnotherapy Group.
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