How to Grow Quickly on YouTube (especially in a crowded niche) with Risa Does Makeup: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 348

“When I started, I didn’t know the influence I could have.”

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Risa started her career as a makeup artist in 1996 at a Laura Mercier makeup counter. From there, she worked for brands such as Bobbi Brown, Dior and Giorgio Armani, before opening her own makeup boutique in 2007. In 2013 she and her family moved back to Las Vegas where she worked as a freelance makeup artist doing weddings, magazine editorial work, and working as brand representative and trainer for Stila and Bare Minerals. In 2014, she began dabbling in YouTube content creation, but didn’t start posting regularly until 2015. Risa loves being able to share all of the knowledge and experience she’s gained in the past 25 years with her audience. Her goal is to help people feel more confident in their makeup skills, and not be afraid of getting older. Her mantra to her viewers is always to wear what they love, and never let age restrict you from anything! 

When Risa started her channel, it was because she wanted to take all her years of experience with makeup and working with makeup brands and put it on YouTube… and because she didn’t see many women over 40 on the platform, and she definitely didn’t see any who also had a long history of working as a professional makeup artist. Once she figured out the tech side, she started posting a few videos a month, and then she went all in. In the many years since she started her channel, she’s certainly had moments where she wanted to quit, but with a little help from her support system and her son motivating her to keep going, she pushed through the hard times and never gave up! For the first two years of having her channel, she didn’t really make any money, just invested into it. By year 3, she made about $25k from her channel! But it’s important to note, that getting your first 50k subscribers is much harder than getting the next 50k, and it takes a lot of work and perseverance to get the ball rolling.

Because there weren’t a lot of creators creating content for older women, Risa realized that it takes people to speak out in a space, even if it’s scary, to create change and create that community. Older women deserve to be seen! Risa wants to be one of the people to help bring about this change.

The Downsides of Being a Content Creator

Risa is admittedly a sensitive person, but all content creators go through the internal struggles of comparing themselves to others, and dealing with negative feedback and comments. It can be emotionally draining and frustrating to build a channel when you can’t get views, you’re dealing with negative comments, or you see other channels doing better than you. You have to be in a good mental space to tackle the ups and downs of being a content creator, and it’s especially important to have a strong support system. Even the excitement of having a video go viral can be tempered by negativity. More views mean more people who aren’t necessarily your regular audience, and new people who don’t know you and therefore don’t feel the need to be nice can lead to a lot of unprecedented negativity.

“I always say that having a viral video is a blessing and a curse!”

How Can You Continue to Put Yourself Out There Online?

Risa’s answer to this is having people in your real life who lift you up and support you. Surround yourself with people who will tell you that you’re doing a good job. Risa has to constantly tell herself to focus on the positive feedback she gets, not the negative. Sometimes she will tear up and get really emotional reading some of the positive comments that people leave. If she focuses on those people, that keeps her going.

Standing Out in the Beauty Niche

In the early days of her channel, Risa would try to do what other, much younger creators were doing, but it didn’t feel right to her, and it didn’t bring her channel much success. But once she niched down and focused on mature beauty content, that’s when her channel started taking off and she started getting sponsorship offers. Her first viral video had been up for 3 months before it went viral, and it actually helped her pivot to the idea of teaching something specific. Since then, all her videos like it tend to do well. 

For those of you on the beauty YouTube struggle bus: reach out to other creators for advice! There’s room for everyone on YouTube. Try different things! If you’re just starting or if you’re in a rut, you really have nothing to lose… just throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks. Be open to change, be open to new ideas, and be open to thinking about what you could do differently. Remember, things change. YouTube is constantly changing, trends are always in and out, and you have to be open minded and willing to adapt and get out of your own way. 

Final Thoughts

It’s not brain surgery, it’s making videos. You’re never going to be liked by everyone. Whatever negativity someone brings to you says more about them than it does about you. Not everyone is going to like you, so focus on the ones who do. Make sure you are mentally prepared for the struggles and hardships… you know, the days where your computer crashes, when negative comments roll in, etc. Don’t focus on the negative, but be prepared when it happens. YouTube takes work! If you treat it like a hobby, you’ll get paid like a hobby. If you treat it like a job, you’ll get paid like it’s a job. When you’re working for yourself, you have to be able to budget your time, focus, and treat it like a job.

For Risa, her struggles even as a successful creator is 30% coming up with fresh ideas, and 70% delegating so she can put out more content. She struggles with letting go and delegating, but she’s working on it. Overall, she wouldn’t change a single thing about her YouTube journey, because she did it in an authentic, organic way: she’s just a mom who wanted to help people do their makeup!

“If you’re truly passionate about something, you can make money from it.”

Mentioned in the Episode:

HOODED, DOWNTURNED OR AGING EYES? NEW TECHNIQUE MOST YOUTUBERS DON’T SHOW!

OVER 40? TRY THIS LIFE CHANGING CONCEALER TRICK | NO MORE CREASING!?!?

Top 5 WINTER BEAUTY ESSENTIALS | With Espresso Martinis and Cate The Great Beauty

Cool Toned Makeup Tutorial | FIRE and ICE Collab w/Stephanie Marie | Holiday Glam

Connect with Risa

Risa Does Makeup on YouTube

Risa Does Makeup on Instagram

Risa Does Makeup on TikTok

Podcast Music Credit: Boop by x50 @x50music
Music provided by Free Music for Vlogs youtu.be/o52xQkQWzyU

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**Disclaimers: all opinions are my own, sponsors are acknowledged. Links in the description are typically affiliate links that let you help support the podcast at no extra cost.SaveSave