The Key to Success on YouTube: Variety Shows and Experimentation With Youtube Niches
When you’re starting out as a YouTube creator, there’s one crucial question you should ask yourself:
What does your variety show look like?
This question, posed by Jon Youshaei, a former YouTube employee and one of the platform’s top minds, holds the key to unlocking success as a creator.
Today we will be exploring the insights John shares about building a successful YouTube channel, focusing on variety, experimentation, and strategic content creation.
The Two Types of Creators
John Ushai describes two types of creators:
- Talk Show Creators: These creators resemble Stephen Colbert. Their content follows a set format and style, rarely deviating from the established approach. They focus on a specific type of content, which is reliable but can become predictable.
- Variety Show Creators: These creators are more like James Corden. They experiment with multiple formats, bringing variety to their content while staying within their niche. Variety show creators aren’t afraid to try different things, even if some experiments fail.
John highlights the importance of identifying your type of creator early on:
“You should ask yourself: What does your variety show look like for your niche? Can you marry your niche but then vary your focus?”
The Power of Variety in Content Creation
John’s advice is to embrace the variety show model. James Corden is a prime example, known for his creative formats like Carpool Karaoke and Crosswalk the Musical. He constantly experiments with new ideas, not all of which are successful.
However, that willingness to try different formats is key to finding what works.
“Not every format James Corden does is a success… but if you’re not trying different formats and embracing the ones that bomb, you won’t find the ones that take off.”
By experimenting, you create opportunities for viral content. Some formats will fail, but others will skyrocket, much like James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke.
This approach helped John shift from a predictable creator to someone whose content began garnering millions of views daily.
How to Start Planning Your Variety Show
Building a variety show can feel overwhelming, especially when starting out. John shares a straightforward strategy to avoid burnout: three percent changes.
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time. Instead, make small, incremental adjustments to your content and style.
As John mentions:
“Creativity is essentially a three percent change from the familiar to the unfamiliar.”
These small tweaks could be anything from changing the way you market your videos to experimenting with the video’s design, tone, or format.
John’s journey to create his variety show for the creator economy is a perfect example of this process.
He found inspiration from existing late-night talk show formats like Jay Leno’s Jaywalking or Jimmy Kimmel’s Do You Know More U.S. Presidents or Marvel Avengers?
From there, he created his viral format by asking people on the street to identify celebrities and YouTube creators, resulting in surprising answers.
His video comparing the recognition of MrBeast and Tom Cruise gained over 40 million views.
How to Test New Formats
So, how do you know if a new format is worth pursuing? According to John, you should give each format at least five videos before making a decision.
This allows you to experiment and tweak things along the way.
He shares the example of how his first iterations of his street interviews weren’t perfect.
Over time, he refined the format to something much more compelling by focusing on the first frame rule.
“The first frame rule… when it comes to short-form content, you should be as obsessed with your first frame as you are with thumbnails in long-form content.”
The first frame is critical, especially with short-form videos, where viewers decide within milliseconds whether to keep watching.
To enhance viewer engagement, John made the first frame visually engaging, featuring both the creator and the celebrity in question with a microphone in hand.
The immediate visual cue and clear tension grabbed viewers’ attention, cutting through the noise of other content.
Maximizing Efficiency: Test Formats with Shorts
Before diving into long-form content, John advocates for testing new formats with shorts.
This allows you to experiment with minimal time investment and a lower risk. Once you find something that works in short form, you can expand it into long-form content. For new creators, this strategy is gold:
“Start with text and photo on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram if video feels overwhelming. Then, move to short-form video and finally long-form when you’re comfortable.”
Testing in short bursts lets you focus on what resonates with your audience without committing to large-scale production from the start.
How to Find Your Niche Before Experimenting
While experimentation is essential, it should be done within a specific niche. Too much variety can dilute your brand and confuse your audience.
John emphasizes the importance of first defining your niche before varying formats.
To identify your niche, start by polling your audience.
If you’re just beginning and don’t have an audience, reach out to friends, family, or followers on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter.
Ask them what content they would be interested in, or what they’d expect from you based on your expertise.
“Think about the Venn diagram of what you know and what your audience wants to know. The overlap is your niche.”
Once you’ve established this niche, you can safely experiment with different formats. This will keep your content cohesive while also offering the variety needed to keep it engaging.
Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts
Here’s how you can implement these insights into your content creation journey:
- Ask the key question: What does your variety show look like within your niche?
- Identify your creator type: Are you a talk show creator (static format) or a variety show creator (experimental format)?
- Start small: Make three percent changes in your content, like tweaking visuals or marketing strategies.
- Test with shorts: Experiment with new formats in short-form content before committing to long-form videos.
- Poll your audience: If you’re unsure about your niche, ask your audience what they want to see.
- Give formats a fair shot: Test new formats with at least five videos before deciding whether to keep them.
Creating a successful YouTube channel doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process of experimentation, small changes, and most importantly, listening to your audience.
The variety show model is a powerful way to keep your content fresh while staying within your niche. Follow Jon Youshaei’s advice to balance consistency with variety, and you might just unlock the secret to growing your channel.
