How to Build a Strong Personal Brand on YouTube with Sierra Schultzzie: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 161
“I make sure that as much as I put into the content, I also spend enough time focusing on getting eyes on it because it deserves a chance to have people see it.”
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Do you want a fulfilling career where you get to be 100% creative and make a great living doing only what you’re great at for the people you love being around? Who doesn’t! Here’s a great case study on how to get there. In this episode, Fashion and Body Positivity YouTuber Sierra Schultzzie shares her passion and energy with us, along with the details on how she carved out her own niche and gained 380k subscribers along the way!
Sierra is now a successful, full-time YouTuber. But it didn’t happen overnight. She started in 2015 while in her freshman year at college doing musical theatre. Her then boyfriend, now husband inspired her to try YouTube as a creative outlet and to try to become the next Jenna Marbles. She hesitated, but after she made her first video, she caught the bug, and she’s been posting a new video every Friday since.
“Don’t pigeonhole yourself – give yourself room to try out new formats, and new series and new ideas and see what your audience likes.”
She took a while to find out what she was uniquely good at and qualified to lend her perspective to. According to her, she wasn’t great at makeup, so that was a bust. There was something about fashion drew her in, but the content there only represented two extremes of the spectrum: the thin ladies or the plus-sized. So she decided to be the voice and face of the middle, the curvy population. Now she’s posting twice a week and has almost 400k subscribers! She’s a queen on a mission to inspire all ladies to be confident in themselves and embrace their curves.
“It’s nice that what took off on my channel is something that I truly am passionate about and something I’m fulfilled by.”
6 Key Interview Takeaways
- Outsource the things outside your zone of genius. What are the things that you are uniquely capable of doing? The things where if you didn’t do it, your channel wouldn’t be where it is today? For most YouTubers that would be the creative, but whatever it is for you, focus on that, and hire people to figure out the rest. Sierra took on a videographer when she first switched to YouTube full time. It was a gamble, but it paid off big. Her videos are beautiful and amazing and they have definitely contributed to her growth since 70% of her videos are professionally shot. How much would you be able to get done if you were able to focus on your best talents and hire others to take your stress away?
- Identify your avatar. Sierra lucked out in this department, but its super important to be deliberate in this area. Be very specific on identifying who your perfect viewers are, what do they want to see, how old are they, get as clear as you can. Then ensure that that viewer is in line with your true self and the content you’ll want to create. You don’t want to end up in a situation where your viewers want something from you that utterly drains you, and is not fun or exciting to do. Before you end up in that position, go back to basics and identify your perfect audience and make content that appeals to them alone.
- Get as close as you can to your audience and take feedback. This is a potentially dangerous two-edged sword but Sierra swears by it. She reads every single comment. She goes out to her audience on Twitter and Instagram and runs polls and does everything she can to learn more about her viewers and what they want to see from her. While yes, you’re opening yourself up to criticism and trolls, you also get closer to the people who truly make your channel a success. and knowing more about their hopes, dreams, fear and especially, what content they’re looking for or how they feel about your latest videos, can never be a bad thing.
- Level up your videos with lighting. Get to know more about 3 point lighting and how it can enhance your good side while separating you from your background and making your videos look more professional overall. It doesn’t have to be too expensive or over the top to get lighting, you can find DIY guides everywhere. But those small additions to your lighting will make a world of a difference for your future content.
- Video planning for maintaining sanity. Sierra does something with her video strategy that I found to be very interesting. She knows in advance how difficult each video will be to produce. She also knows what videos she wants to do that are YouTube algorithm friendly, and what videos she wants to do for herself. And with that knowledge, she is able to plan her month of videos out without pulling her hair out. And her execution is also excellent because she is able to pair difficult content with simple content that keeps herself happy, her audience happy, and her channel growing continuously.
- Get more creative with your thumbnails. If you’re not optimizing your thumbnails in every video you post, you’re ignoring a valuable piece of real estate that can seriously skyrocket your growth. Sierra suggests you make your titles and thumbnails work hand in hand, supporting each other rather than copying each other. Meaning, don’t use the same words in both your title and thumbnail, try to be creative and come from different angles in both. If they work together to tell a story for your video, more people will be drawn to it, and the YouTube algorithm will also treat it favorably. Also, ensure its eye-catching zoomed in and out.
Sierra’s Holy Grail Products Mentioned in The Podcast!
Madewell Whisper Cotton V-Neck Pocket Tee | Express Little Black Dress
Resources
My favorite free SEO tool for YouTube: TubeBuddy
(Discount code ErikasBuddy for 20% off the paid version)
PR Guide: How to Get onto PR Lists and Get Lots of Free Product
Getting Started on YouTube: The #1 Downloaded Free Niche Discovery Workbook
Connect with Sierra
Sierra Schultzzie on Google Plus
Sierra Schultzzie on Instagram
Facebook Group:
Podcast Music Credit: Boop by x50 @x50music
Music provided by Free Music for Vlogs youtu.be/o52xQkQWzyU
