🔥 Hot Takes From VidSummit 2023!

In this special edition of The Creator Feed 🎙️ podcast, we dive into VidSummit 2023. The best part of the event? Connecting with other creators and industry experts. So, we decided to shake things up in this episode. We asked some amazing creators and industry folks who were at VidSummit to share their learnings, unexpected insights, and the lively discussions they had with others at the event.

Let’s see what they had to say!  

🔥 99% of Creators Don’t Need Talent Managers

Justin Moore, the founder of Creator Wizard, shared his unique viewpoint on the necessity of talent managers for creators. According to him, a whopping 99% of creators don’t actually need talent managers. He has noticed that creators who step up as the CEOs of their own businesses tend to remain in the industry longer. While he is for scaling a team, he believes the business and sales aspects should be the last things delegated to others.

💬 My Take: If you can afford it, it might help to hire others for tasks you're not good at or don’t like doing. However, it's important to know your business well, even if you plan to have others take over some parts of it later. It's about doing the work yourself at first so you know what’s going on, instead of just handing it off to someone else without understanding it.

🔥 Current Capital Investment Models Don’t Work for Creators

Ant McCormack, co-founder of Changer Studios, discusses the usual ways capital investment is offered to creators. He's not sure if creators really need or want this kind of investment. Unlike tech startups, creators have a different history with investment. Often out of necessity, creators have built their own empires, big or small, in their own style. When they have successfully grown their channel, investors will commonly license or purchase the creator’s back catalog of content, providing a lump sum of money to the creator. But then, what to do with that money? Often, they’re told to use it to create more content or grow a team. But is this what's needed? And how should they expand their teams? Ant suggests that the investment methods should change to better fit the creator community.

💬 My Take: Taking investment money isn't right for every creator. For those wanting to grow a business, selling or licensing their back catalog could provide funds for new products. This is different from how tech startups get funded, and allows creators to keep control over their future work. When considering investment, it's important to think about the terms and how you plan to use the funds. Money is only half the equation, the industry also needs more educational resources to help creators scale business operations. 

🔥 Creators Can Pivot Niches And Keep Their Audience 

Gabi Soares, known as Glam Girl Gabi, found Kimbyrleigha’s talk at VidSummit unconventional yet impactful. Kimbyrleigha offered a fresh perspective on how creators can handle shifts in their content focus. Initially, she struggled to find her niche, but a viral pop socket video led her to focus entirely on that topic. However, this didn't sustain her interest or channel's long-term potential. Instead of starting a new channel as commonly advised, she boldly pivoted her existing one to cover true crime, a genre she was passionate about.

This move challenged the common fear among creators that changing content focus would alienate their existing audience and hurt their channel's performance on YouTube's algorithm. Kimbyrleigha's experience suggests that a portion of the audience stays for the creator, not just the content, and that over time, with consistent effort, YouTube's algorithm can adjust to the new content focus, helping reach the intended audience. This story resonated with many creators, like Gabi Soares, who have faced similar challenges and felt trapped by the expectations set by their earlier content. Kimbyrleigha's journey presents a hopeful pathway for creators wishing to explore new content areas while retaining and building their audience.

💬 My Take: Their experiences highlight the power of building a deep relationship with your audience. If your audience connects with you as a creator, they might stick around for your new content, even if it's a different topic. They are there for you as a creator vs just interested in your content topic. It's about the journey you share and the bond you build with your audience that can allow for such transitions, minimizing the dreaded impact on average view duration and YouTube’s algorithm.

🔥 More Creators Should Launch Products Like Sarah Clark

Ant McCormack shared an inspiring story about Sarah Renae Clark, a creator with roughly 285,000 YouTube subscribers, who amassed an impressive $2.4 million in revenue last year. Sarah creates content about creative challenges and sells both physical and digital products, including coloring books for adults. Her session at VidSummit wasn’t a boast about her earnings; it was a generous sharing of her product strategy and a guide for other creators to replicate her success.

💬 My Take: Sarah is truly something special. Her content is top-notch, and her business approach is spot on! While her channel has grown a lot over the last few years, she proves that you don’t need a huge following to earn a steady income as a creator. She's expanded her products in a clever way and worked closely with her audience to ensure these products are what they really want. She looks at her content with the eyes of a business owner. I hope more creators take a page out of her book!

🔥 Creators Don’t Need To Be Everywhere

Gabi Soares debunked the common belief that creators need to be on multiple platforms to succeed. Often, creators stretch themselves too thin trying to be everywhere, which can lead to burnout. She noticed that many successful creators at VidSummit predominantly focus on long-form content or devote most of their efforts to one primary platform. She stressed the importance of mastering one platform before expanding to others, advocating for a balanced and sustainable growth strategy.

💬 My Take: It’s a reminder that focusing on a platform where your content and community thrive is crucial. Expanding should be realistic and well-planned to avoid losing focus on your main content and audience. Once you have a solid base and the right team, moving onto other platforms can be a more sustainable step.

🔥 Merge Organic Content Strategies with Paid Advertising

Justin Moore highlighted Cliff Weitzman's talk at VidSummit, where he shared his innovative approach to YouTube ads, providing a fresh viewpoint for creators and businesses. Cliff blends best practices and strategies from organic content with paid advertising. On YouTube, you essentially have just one shot to make your organic content hit the mark, but when it comes to advertising, there's room to test and tweak. Justin is in the messy middle of creating ads for his business, so Cliff’s advice came at the perfect time!

💬 My Take: This approach not only elevates the quality of advertising but also optimizes the budget spent on ads. By applying organic content strategies to paid advertising, creators and businesses can significantly enhance their reach and conversion rates, making every dollar count.

VidSummit 2023 was full of inspiration and useful advice. Each guest shared insights that add to the bigger picture of succeeding as a creator. Whether it's about understanding talent managers, thinking over capital investment, or changing content focus, there’s a lot to take in. The Creator Economy is changing, and The Creator Feed is here to share useful insights and discussions. So, hit the subscribe button to keep up with the latest in the creator space!