Follow The Audience or Follow Your Enjoyment?

[TheEzeJC]

Recently I’ve been looking into making my channel into a possible source of side income. This means I will start treating my channel more like a business. I’m not planning on growing overnight, I just want to start something that will gradually produce results. However I don’t want to lose the enjoyment I get out of making videos.
On that note, should I make videos I enjoy or videos the audience is looking for? There’s probably a way to have both, but I have no thought of how to do it.

 

[fixedsnuffle]

I would make videos I enjoy. If I start catering to audience there is a good chance I would lose interest in my channel.
In saying that I do like to get input and feedback, critiques and ideas from those who view my channel.

 

[mirrorlessNY(youtuber)]

should I make videos I enjoy or videos the audience is looking for? There’s probably a way to have both

the second I saw title of your thread, said WOW,....= a while ago I decided to stick with "videos I enjoy" which are simply well put together recordings of memorable events, such as a hike, birthday etc.....even changed channel name.....but recently started thinking how can these videos be beneficial not just to relatives/friends/myself but to a world wide audience, & it hit me = create a video that has a memorable component AND an educational piece - where there's an explanation about camera tool or technique used to record the video itself,,, will see where it goes but maybe this can give you an idea

 

[fixedsnuffle]

the second I saw title of your thread, said WOW,....= a while ago I decided to stick with "videos I enjoy" which are simply well put together recordings of memorable events, such as a hike, birthday etc.....even changed channel name.....but recently started thinking how can these videos be beneficial not just to relatives/friends/myself but to a world wide audience, & it hit me = create a video that has a memorable component AND an educational piece - where there's an explanation about camera tool or technique used to record the video itself,,, will see where it goes but maybe this can give you an idea

Awesome video man. Really good.

 

[mirrorlessNY(youtuber)]

Awesome video man. Really good.

thank you, it's probably a good example of what was written

 

[AntsDeKing]

There has to be a balance on one hand, creating content you enjoy will always want you to keep making more content, but in the other hand making content for the viewers will be better received because that’s what they want to see!

You pretty much can go either way or insert a balance between them!

 

[ThriftyAV]

The ideal situation would be to create content that YOU want to do AND your viewers want to see. That being said, I sometimes buckle to the pressure of popular videos. Several times I've posted followups to popular vids when my interest lay elsewhere. It's okay, I only postponed the vids I really wanted to do. I didn't cancel them!

 

[TheEzeJC]

The ideal situation would be to create content that YOU want to do AND your viewers want to see. That being said, I sometimes buckle to the pressure of popular videos. Several times I've posted followups to popular vids when my interest lay elsewhere. It's okay, I only postponed the vids I really wanted to do. I didn't cancel them!

For those videos you postponed, did they gain traction from the other popular videos?

 

[ThriftyAV]

For those videos you postponed, did they gain traction from the other popular videos?

My "suggested" numbers always seem to rise a bit for the video immediately after a popular one, but the vast majority of my channel traffic is search driven, so it's not a huge stat. More relevant for followup videos is that they create a boost in the original video on the same topic.

 

[Bounce]

If you want to shift YouTube from a hobby to a business, then in my opinion, you need to lean towards what your audience wants. They’re the ones who are determining how successful you are.