Ashley wants to know why is it that black YouTubers can’t do numbers like the white channels being that they have millions of subscribers and the black community is very small so what do you think you are doing wrong as a community?
• First, there are only so many black viewers, 15% of the population in the US is African American and 85% is of other ethnicities. The pool of African American viewers is very small in numbers.
• Viewers will predominantly watch who they relate most to in looks and content so if you have natural hair, your will most likely watch natural hair videos. White women and other ethnicities make up most of the population and they will most likely not watch your natural hair videos because it does not relate to them or the content that most appeals to them.
• Operating within a niche inside of a niche will dramatically decrease the audience you appeal to. Let’s play out the potential reach hypothetically, 15% of the US people are black and only half watch YouTube. Of those 8% of black people who watch YouTube, about half are women, that’s about 4%, Out of 4%, 2% watch hair tutorials and from 2%, 1/2% have natural hair so now do you see that it’s not a black thing but a numbers thing. How do you expect to be in a niche with a half a percent viewership to compete with someone who can appeal to 85% of the population? Even of you are not a niche, 15% still doesn’t compete with 85%!
• Om life we see other ethnicities succeeding more because there is 1 black person for every 7 people so in perspective, for every 7 millionaires, there is one black millionaire. No one is keeping anyone down; your outlook on life in the whole scheme of things is what affects your potential. Becoming successful requires you to create your own opportunities and to not make any excuses.
• Try your best to appeal to everyone to yield the most rewards for your efforts or do your best to appeal to a niche of individuals while also realizing the fact that you are promoting yourself to a smaller pool of people who will actually relate to your content.
Thanks For Watching!
| VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone this is Breanna Rutter author one of my most popular books the natural hair Bible and founder of howtoblackhair.com for these videos I love to answer the questions that you all send me via email so any of you have any questions that you would like for me to answer check out the description box below for more information this video is because of an email I received from Ashley, Ashley emails me to say why do I think that the black YouTube community can’t get ahead she says that she sees white channels and are doing great numbers and they are getting millions of subscribers yet in the black community there is a lack of subscribers in in views so she wants to know why I believe this to be an issue or what's the root cause of this issue so what I'm going to do Ashley is give you five points on why I believe that the black YouTube community cannot get ahead point number one so Ashley my very first point I feel is one of the most obvious points on why it's difficult for black YouTube is to get ahead in this YouTube space is because literally it comes out the numbers here in the US the population of black people is only about 15% in comparison to a 85% the other ethnicities I feel thats the core root of why its so hard for me or for other individuals who are trying their best to get ahead in his YouTube space is that literally there's only so many numbers of individuals that look like a I have the same hair as us or the same types of qualities and the type of content or look that they want to see here on YouTube so the reason why there's so many white channels and millions of subscribers is because there are just more white people here in the United States now course is different in other places for considering the fact that YouTube is predominantly a US-based site or a place where it originated we are going to have a lot of the core audience being people who are of America so as a given that if black people all the minority as it goes with population were not going to go and exceed as high especially not right away as it is white content creators point number two so my second point is that the content that you do will largely influence the amount of traffic that you will attract to your content so what I mean by this is that it depends on what you like to produce on YouTube for people to watch so say for instance you like to do makeup tutorials now if you just do makeup tutorials of course you want to attract people who predominantly look like you and the people look like you you're going to attract about 15% of the viewership because about 85% as of other in the ethnicities that's just at a default now if you're doing makeup that can be applied in a way to people who maybe don't have your skin color then you are widening your reach to people who don't look like you both want to learn the techniques and tips and things that you do but the more you limit down exactly through the lens or the focus of who your content is directed towards it is going to greatly limit the amount of attraction that you get so once again the reason why a lot of white channels who participate in whichever content they chose seem to take off in larger numbers than here in the black community is because by default their reach in higher pool of people that we are at a 15% reach point number three so Ashley my third point is that if you are going to be operating within a niche side of the niche is going to dramatically decrease your reach here on YouTube so what I mean by niche is that a niche is something that you are focusing on individually it's not a broad range of things that you are focusing on which only focusing on one subject of one particular thing and in this sense to reach audience so a niche could specifically be nail designs and these can specifically be makeup tutorials it could be natural hair tutorials so what I am going to do is just play out hypothetically this situation to put into perspective why I believe that the black hair community has a difficult time growing in large numbers so far as by default you have 15% of the American population that's black so right off the bat that's the pool of in the of reach with the pool of individuals that you will appeal most to now say for instance that only half of those individuals actually watch YouTube in and enjoy watching it for content reasons or whatever the case may be so now let's say you got 8% so you have 8% of African-American viewers I want you to know about half of those by default are women, women and men so you have them that are women and that brings you down to 4% of the population reach here on YouTube which are content not from 4% to only half of those women actually watch hair tutorials that's 2% now break down 2% from going to natural hair tutorials or specifically relaxed hair tutorials that means is anywhere from 1% down to 1/2% of the total 15% of black African-American women who actually watch YouTube tutorials and specifically natural hair so I hope you get the concept that I'm explaining is that the more further you go down within a subject matter the less of a reach that you have so if you only specifically do natural hair tutorials you are going to literally have a cap on how many people numbers wise you ae going to reach now this is a figure ballpark range based on population and based on how many people watch hair tutorials and things of that nature the figures may be a little higher or a little lower but is pretty much right there in the middle as far as putting things in perspective how many people that you can actually reach now given that one percent or even a half percent of people watch natural hair tutorials versus a white channel that just does makeup tutorials that definitely going to be able to get more subscribers and more views for the content that they do instead of African-American blogger the specifically hyper focuses on natural hair and this is going to lead me into my next point, point number four so my fourth point that I want to talk about is the fact that if you want to reach a large audience of people here are YouTube you have to broaden your scope of content so for example I'm going to use makeup so by default if you are African-American content creator you are appealing naturally to 15% of the population here YouTube now if you're going to be doing makeup you are going to appeal to a small crowd and then if you only specifically going to be doing fantasy makeup you want to build even a small audience so in order to broaden that you have to step up from doing fantasy make up to doing makeup that everyone can appeal to such as natural makeup looks such as make up for prom make up for dates make up for the workplace make up working out etc. etc. not you want to go beyond that and appeal to even more people you have to step outside of makeup so you can appeal to a wider range of audience so along with makeup you have to do lifestyle to talk about things that you like to do to stay healthy ways that you like to work out and then you can also talk about fashion so you can do outfit of the days you can show how to pair of old with new you can show have to thrift shop and look really classy and sexy you can do a lot of different things and actually step more into different content to become more of a lifestyle channel if you want to guarantee more success more numbers more subscribers and more of a reach you have to appeal to as many people as possible and then even instead of staying within a round of just the pilling to women appeal to men show how you can transform a man's wardrobe because that's something that's obviously missing from a lot of the content is that there is no one focusing on being a fashion blogger for men and showing them how they can mix and match different things to pull off different looks so as long as you broaden your content you will definitely increase your broader audience that you have but the minute you start to go within a niche side of the niche and get all the way down to specifically don't start type of content will dramatically decrease your rewards that you get from the content that you actually put out within this community point number five so my final point is something that I feel that we all have to constantly keep at the forefront or remind ourselves of the matter at hand is that in order for you to be successful you have to constantly create all opportunities and never make excuses now me giving a breakdown of why I believe the population has a lot to do with the reach is not an excuse it’s this a given fact that that's that's how many people are here that's the percentage of breakdown that it is between ethnicities but that's not an excuse because just because you don't look like everyone at once doesn't mean that you can appeal to everyone at once is remember I said you have to broaden the content that you're doing so I'm going to put into perspective with another example given the fact this that there is about 15% of the population of black people to 85% of other ethnicities the same as going to trickle down in different forms of life so for every black millionaire there seven white millionaires or you can say a mix of Asian and Hispanic is on and so forth so even in that sense a lot of people feel as though that there's something holding black people back or there's something that's interfering with the success that someone black her in America can have when I believe that this totally false I believe that you have to open your eyes you have to look at the situation at the hand and use what you have to your advantage to get what you want in life so yes by default they are going to be less black millionaires than there is of other ethnicities and that's because it's the population thing 15, 85 when it comes to you to think of it in that way as well how do you expect to compete with someone who can appeal to most of the YouTube population if you are going to be operating within a niche side of the niche so I hope that you can keep all those tips in mind and just really look at it through that light because it's actually going to make you become more creative because now you have that mental block telling you that all it's because they have white channels know first is a numbers thing and then it depends on the type of content that you do so Ashley I want to thank you for the email I'm not sure of your content creater or just the viewer but anyhow I do want to thank you for watching these videos and sending me an email for me to answer so I also hope that on all of you have found this helpful as always you all can comment on anything that I've mentioned and to share your thoughts or even your experiences about what you believe could be another issue or whether not all of this makes sense for you so thanks again and before any of you go make sure to sign up for my email is so that way you can be automatically answered for giveaways that I do 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