Gary Vee says the Key to YouTube Success is Distribution. What do you think?

J

JV Trammell

A Filmmaker/Vlogger attempting to make you laugh.
Gary Vaynerchuk (entrepreneur, investor, public speaker, and internet personality) says the key to success on Youtube is Distribution. Heres the video:

He says distribution is the key. Finding outlets and techniques to share your videos. Forums, trendy topics, social media, etc. Getting your video in front of people.

What do you think about this? I am absolutely with him. As new youtubers I feel like a lot of us think we can upload an okay video and wait for it to rise. He said he'll spend up to 5 hours a day on distribution. At first that seemed crazy to me because I felt like he was almost promoting the idea that you shouldn't focus on your content, but instead just sharing it. But now I completely am with him, and have been working all week to push out videos. And I think it's working. I was able to take a video that had been sitting at 100 views for a while and rise it to about 500 in just a few hours. Which I think is decent for a young youtuber.

So what do you think? Obviously good content is most important, but I think he has a point. Check out the video, and let me know what you think!
 
I spend 8-12 hours sometimes more on my video. But I spend double that promoting, or working on ways to distribute my content better. I like to compare best writing authors vs best selling authors. You can guess that best selling authors earn way more than the best writing ones.

If a tree falls down a forest, does it make a sound? Well my answer is who the heck cares? If no one is there to hear and see your content, it doesn't matter how good the quality is.
 
Gary makes a great point. Even if you do have great content, but if no one sees it or not the right people see it, you will never grow.
 
In principle he's right. Although I personally don't like the word "hustle". We're not selling tie racks or vacuum cleaners door to door. Hustling content has an "internet marketing" feel about it, going back a few years to the old Google sniper sites...
I personally prefer to focus on the best videos we can make, optimize the seo, and let the YT algorithm do the work of promoting the channel and sending views and subscribers over.
The thing with what he says is, your audience must be suited to that style of promotion. Our audience is 2-6 year old kids, so "hustling" anything is out of the question.
Whatever floats his boat I guess....
 
KiddieToysReview said:
In principle he's right. Although I personally don't like the word "hustle". We're not selling tie racks or vacuum cleaners door to door. Hustling content has an "internet marketing" feel about it, going back a few years to the old Google sniper sites...
I personally prefer to focus on the best videos we can make, optimize the seo, and let the YT algorithm do the work of promoting the channel and sending views and subscribers over.
The thing with what he says is, your audience must be suited to that style of promotion. Our audience is 2-6 year old kids, so "hustling" anything is out of the question.
Whatever floats his boat I guess....
Click to expand...
I actually disagree with you a bit on this. I understand your meaning when you say the word hustle has a bit of a negative connotation around it, but I'd say these days it really just means work hard. And I think that's all he really mean't; to put in the work all day, every day, so you can see results.

As far as your method on 'letting YouTube do it's thing' I feel like that doesn't always work for channels. Niche channels like yours that have a direct audience they are trying to target can really hone in and bring people to their channel with just titles and seo. My channel is just comedy based around my personality. I'm asking people to subscribe to me. I don't have thousands of people that search for 'dark-comedy-styled black filmmaker vlogger' every month haha. This is one of the reasons I debated starting a movie review channel, because I know if I make a video titled "Suicide Squad Review", there will be thousands of people searching for that, and I can predict it. And to be honest YT's algorithm doesn't help creators like me anymore. It takes forever to make my videos so I don't put them out that frequently and they aren't over 10 minutes because of pacing, so watch time is crap.

All I can do now is make possibly trendy videos with a catchy title and thumbnail. But I also am starting to 'work/hustle' to find my audience. And I have seen so much more growth since doing so. But of course good content comes first.
 
I agree with this message (and part of me thinks that there's nothing really controversial about the message).

I also recoiled a bit at the talk of hustling, but I think that's also something of value -- especially at the beginning. It would be GREAT to get to a point where other people are sharing your content so you don't have to feel like an intruder going to various forums, but the fact is that until you already have that established fan base, that's unlikely to happen.

And I totally agree that SEO optimization has limited effectiveness depending on the genre. For comedy, vlogs, etc., it's likely not going to be possible to develop an audience just through organic discovery through search. In contrast, videos about specific topics that are well-searched for by people...that has a different chance.
 
Creative people are notoriously bad at self-promotion. A lot of us are taught that promoting ourselves is somehow shameful or not part of the creative process, but as someone who's been in the arts in one way or another for about 30 years now, I can tell you that if you have no "hustle," you'll get no audience. I hear what @KiddieToysReview is saying about thinking that word is more about selling, but that's just the point...you have to sell what you are offering, especially on a platform with millions and millions of uploads. I think promotion, SEO, community, getting the word out, thumbnails, etc., etc., etc., are all part of the "hustle" of YouTube. You can have the most gorgeous, perfect videos ever made, but if you don't promote them somehow (or are lucky enough to have people who promote them for you, like super-fans).
 
Gary Vee understands the basis of success. I'm not trying to put anyone down, but there's a reason why many people in this forum and elsewhere stay under 500 or so subscribers year after year. This woeful belief that just by consistently making content will bring in all the success they're searching for is a doomed mindset. Consistent and content is king, no doubt, but none of it means anything if you're not out there trying to show people the content in the first place. We all know how notoriously disadvantaged smaller YouTubers are in the realm of discover-ability, but that doesn't mean that there are no outlets to increase the chances of you being discovered. I "hustled" heavily in the beginning stages of my YouTube journey, going on different websites and sharing my content. I received huge amounts of backlash, but at the end, the backlash means nothing if it meant that the small percentage of receptivity brought in high degrees of success.

If you truly believe in your content, then do everything you can to get people to see it.
 
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