The Shocking Truth About the YouTube Beauty Community with XSparkage: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 173
“The beauty community is supposed to lift people up and show them that they can be artistic.”
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The internet can sometimes be a scary place, and if you’re joining a niche with your content, you may face that scariness from all sides: your comments section and your YouTube peers. How do you weather that storm, build your channel and gain the success you’re driving for? Our guest this week – beauty, fashion and lifestyle YouTuber Leesha aka xSparkage – shares her journey through the complicated and controversial world of beauty and how she’s made it through so you can too!
Leesha is a veteran YouTuber. She was putting out videos before YouTube partnership was a thing and if you look at her channel she’s been putting out great content for over 10 years! She came up with a lot of the top beauty YouTubers today in a time when the community was more collaborative and supportive. In 2014 she took a break when her daughter Violet was born, and since returning shes expanded her focus to cover fashion and giving lifestyle advice to her audience.
“If a brand sends you something, it doesn’t mean you owe them anything.”
The beauty niche has definitely changed over the years. In a lot of ways, the beauty community has gotten more negatively competitive, and it’s harder to pick the people who are genuinely here to help the community from those who are only growing a following for selfish reasons. Unfortunately, the controversy in the community brings views and attention but is that the kind of attention we need? We dive into a lot of that today as well as how you can grow your channel despite the negatives while doing right by your audience on the process.
“People make the mistake of thinking ‘I’m just talking to my friends’ but no, it’s for everybody to see… and people keep the receipts.”
4 Key Interview Takeaways
- The curtain is transparent. Ladies, be aware of what you’re putting out on the internet and know that not only your closest friends may see it. This little fact has sparked so much drama and controversy in the last few years. Huge celebrities are getting taken down for old tweets, private messages, and emails and being shared without permission or context so its something you really have to be mindful of.
- Money and the market talks. A huge reason why drama and controversy are so popular is that the audience loves it. If the community didn’t want to see the latest fights, the numbers would be low and the algorithm would hide them. This also applies to brands and influencers. Brands and influencers are incentivized to keep making tutorials, hauls, unboxing and those types of videos because the audience responds with purchasing en masse. That makes it tempting to join in the fray, but your integrity will always win in the end. Stay true to yourself, work with brands that resonate with you and don’t make short term money decisions but long term decisions for the betterment of your audience.
- Have a consistent release schedule. The biggest regret from Leesha was that she wasn’t more consistent for more of her YouTube career. I’m also being consistent by reminding you every episode to “be consistent”! One of the biggest drivers of growth on the platform is that. Get your audience to expect and anticipate your videos at a set time or times each week and you’ll build some huge momentum for your channel.
- Do things out of the norm and your comfort zone. Switch things up every once in a while. Doing something that makes you a little (or a lot) uncomfortable and having it all come together is extremely fun, and also rewarding. It’s rewarding because you’ll learn more about yourself from the experience and your audience will feel the energy and enthusiasm from you doing the thing you pushed yourself to do. Find inspiration and jump right in and try something new.
Leesha’s Favorite Items Mentioned in The Podcast!
Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask | Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara | Too Faced Born This Way Naturally Radiant Concealer
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 Leesha
Facebook Group:
Podcast Music Credit: Boop by x50 @x50music
Music provided by Free Music for Vlogs youtu.be/o52xQkQWzyU
