How Family Vlogger The Ohana Adventure Grew 2 Million Subscribers: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 187
“As long as your focus aligns with the demographics, you’re going to come up on the upside and grow quicker.”
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Let’s redefine the definition of busy for a minute. Think six kids, running a business and 5 YouTube channels uploading 12 times… per week! Exhausted yet? Get ready because we’re breaking down how to juggle it all and thrive at the same time with family vlogger Rachel Bennett from The Ohana Adventure!
Rachel didn’t think she had a knack for YouTube and doubted that anyone would watch her videos. But three years later her channel, The Ohana Adventure, has over 2 million subscribers and its growing extremely well! We all have her husband to thank for pushing her to do it and not giving up. She started off with 1 channel uploading 7 days a week, but now the whole family is on the YouTube train, with a total of 5 channels, uploading 12 videos a week and having a combined subscriber count of 2.5 million subscribers!
“Figure out what makes you different. Stay in your zone but stand out like a bright shining star.”
She lived with her husband and children in Hawaii for 10 years before moving to the mainland in 2013. Now she’s doing YouTube full time with her family and homeschooling all 6 of them! In this episode, we talk about how she structures her days to get it all done, how they use analytics and trends to hone in on the demographics for their 5 channels, the videos that triggered the most growth for them and so much more!
“You just gotta step out of your own self. Don’t be afraid.”
5 Key Interview Takeaways
- People need to get value from your content before they watch your vlogs. This is something I tell all my bootcampers and what Rachel echoes here. People are seeking out other perspectives and are looking for the different ways other people live their lives, but to decide who to watch they need something. Something that shows them that you care about them. If you’re only asking them to care about you by watching your vlogs, you’ll have a hard time attracting them.
- Who do you want to consume your product? Finding your perfect demographic is hard but deeply rewarding. One of the biggest mistakes Rachel says she made was not finding her right demographic at the start. She started targeting parents but when a video she did on how to teach a teenager to shave their legs, her true teenager demographic blew up and she was smart enough to notice and make that switch. Start with the demographic who you’d love to serve and put out content to serve them. Then watch the analytics to see who’s actually tuning in in droves and respond to those people.
- Understand your analytics. As we mentioned earlier, Rachel uses analytics to help her plan her future videos and to know if she’s aligned with her audience. The YouTube platform provides a ton of helpful statistics like how long someone watches a video before they fall off, the location and devices your audience is using to watch and so much more. Spend the time to study the analytics and watch some tutorials on how to make sense of it all and make it a regular practice to track your performance. What gets measured gets improved.
- Go with the trends but make it your own. See what works, do what works, but don’t copy what works. Add your own spin on things, make it your own. Another huge surge to growth Rachel got was when they made a family music video for a Taylor Swift song. They piggybacked off the popularity of the trending song by adding their own spin to it. What’s more, the people who watched the video and fell in love, stayed for her other content because it wasn’t just a cheap copy but a window into the fun family life of Ohana Adventure.
- Surround yourself with other YouTubers. Iron sharpens iron. You’re the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with. It’s good to get connected to a community of like-minded people so you can get support, advice, and sometimes a shoulder to cry on. Working with people who are in the trenches with you to make something great is awesome motivation.
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 Rachel
The Ohana Adventure on YouTube
The Ohana Adventure on Instagram
The Ohana Adventure on Facebook
Facebook Group:
Podcast Music Credit: Boop by x50 @x50music
Music provided by Free Music for Vlogs youtu.be/o52xQkQWzyU
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