brand focus, direction, and youtube strategy | 12.12.21

I'm writing this down right now because I'm kind of getting a bit overwhelmed and maybe feeling like I'm losing my sense of direction.

The main thing I've been trying to figure out these past few weeks has been how I want to take Simplex Minds into Youtube.

What's the angle we are going to take and how we are going to tell those stories.

So in that I've been watching a good amount of podcasts and informational videos for creators by creators on Youtube. One video that popped up on my recommended feed was a two hour conversation with Mr. Beast. Took me a couple days to watch, but I go through it and there was a lot of valuable information.

The main thing Mr. Beast was trying to hammer in was retention. Everything he does revolves around retention rate. He wants to make the best videos he can in order to get the best retention rate from his audience.

If you want to succeed you have to keep the videos entertaining enough that people aren't going to want to click off. You are for the most part competing with every other video on the platform and also every other platform for the time of your viewer. So you have to do whatever you can in order to maintain your audiences attention and the Youtube algorithm promotes those videos because if everyone is watching it, it's a good sign that it's a good video. Makes sense.

So now, with this filter, I'm trying to figure out our strategy plan for Youtube.

The plan from the beginning was to promote processes and normalize the ups and downs that comes with creative careers, simply because there's not a centralized platform that is doing that.

How do we make that entertaining?

How do we make it so then people don't get bored of it?

How can we package it in a way that's digestible and entertaining?

How do we get people to care?

Is the reason no one does this is because there's no entertainment value in fucking up?

I think the main thing I need to understand is that Jimmy's (Mr. Beast) goal is to have the most successful channel on Youtube. That's not our goal.

Our goal is to promote as many creatives as possible and to open up to the public what it takes for different creatives to succeed. To show the journey of creatives who are just beginning their creative path.

The audience we are trying to reach is not everyone. We don't need to be the most viewed channel. We don't need to go viral. We just need to reach the audience that we are catering to.

And that audience is young creatives or anyone who is transitioning into a creative career.

What do we need to do in order to connect to that audience? First we need the audience to connect with our creatives. We have to help our creatives find their creative voice.

I think the blog posts have been a great way for us to figure out our voices. But, we need to translate that into the different platforms we plan on reaching into.

Once we figure out our voice, we need to figure out a system that allows our voices to be heard. Then that gets into the territory of what do creatives search for? What content do we need to make in order to be discoverable?

We will probably have to divide our content into two different groups. Discoverable/searchable content and then relatable content. The first section would have to be catered to the title of the content in order to get clicks. The second section would be catered to people who have connected with the creatives and wants to see more from them.

Another thing I want to accomplish with this is to build communities around the creatives who are a part of the Simplex team. So say you discovered how dope Carissa, Ricky, or Mia is through Simplex, now you can follow them on their socials and root them on from the sidelines.

So the focus, right now should be discoverability. Can't build a community around the creatives if we don't have a community ourselves.

There's just a lot to consider when trying to grow a community. Right now, I'm moving my focus to Youtube because that is a place where I want us to be. That's where I want to be making my content.

I'm trying to figure out a content plan for my specific series and also an overall content plan for all of the creatives who are a part of Simplex for Youtube.

I really don't want money to be a big motivator for the content we post on youtube. Idk, there's so much to consider.

We'll just learn on the job. That's the whole point of this right? To show people that we are learning while we're doing this. If the videos we put up initially suck, who cares. That's part of the process.

The more I research, the more questions I have and the less answers I have. The only way to figure things out is to do. What's theory without practice?

I've started this whole project to promote a healthy relationship with process and to not force myself to succeed overnight. But here I am, looking at strategies to try and succeed overnight. I just feel a lot of pressure to push Simplex to succeed this year. From no one other than myself.

I just want to do the best I can for the creatives who are a part of this journey with me. No one on the team is looking at numbers. No one is looking at views and getting anxious because of it. We all believe in what we are doing and are in this because of that belief.

We'll figure things out. We'll get to where we need to be. We have the time. I need to stop putting this pressure on myself and allow us to learn and grow as a collective.

If we keep our heads down, keep doing what we gotta do, we'll get to where we want to be.