My plan to use YouTube to build in public
I'm planning to post videos on YouTube to document my indie hacker journey and post about my progress while I build in public.
I see people tweet about their progress or post here. I think that has decent targeting since it shows content to other indie hackers or builders. I think there's also significant dilution since there is already so much other indie hacking content to consume on these platforms.
I have a few reasons why I think YouTube is a good marketing channel for me:
- I enjoy consuming video content about indie hacking
My favorite indie hacker Youtuber is Will Kwan (https://www.youtube.com/@WillKwan). I used to watch a lot of these videos and be inspired by them. Recently I have not seen much of this type of content, so I think there's a gap here that I could fill.
- I've edited/posted videos in the past
I've had a few unrelated YouTube channels in the past. None of them were successful (~50-100 subscribers), but I also didn't put much time into them. Since I already have some basic skills and know how to improve, I'm somewhat confident I can grow a YouTube channel given enough time and effort.
- I can target a more general audience
I'm planning to work on several products over the next year. My first product is fitness related, but I don't plan for all of my products to be about fitness. I want to have a general audience so that when I work on my next product, I'm not tied to a specific niche. I want an audience that can follow my journey no matter the industry.
Let me know your thoughts on this!
Good luck with growing your business in public
thank you!
You can use TubeBuddy to find the best competitive keywords. We've been doing that in our Saas and some videos were ranked. Youtube is been way less competitive than text SEO, you should definitely do that. In addition, if it's possible, send the the video by email for a small user base. You can add an animated gif as a preview. Wishing the best for your project.
thanks for the tips!
it need not be exclusive to youtube. Since you have already created a video you can also generate a short and put it on youtube shorts, tiktok, IG and twitter. Other channels will be secondary(low effort). This will give you wider reach without extra effort.
I am experimenting exclusively on twitter right now and my content is primary text with occasional images. creating video seems like a lot of effort to me but i may try it in future.
Thanks for the tip! Yes, YouTube is a ton of effort, depending on how good quality you want to make the videos. But I found that quality is very important because people don't want to waste their time watching bad videos. However, since YouTube is difficult and time consuming, I think it could be a unique marketing moat.
This would be great, i personally love consuming content on you tube and so far there is not much out there where you can follow the progress and stay connected with the founder and not just an interview post facto
Thanks for the encouragement! Those are my thoughts exactly, interview videos can be useful, but they’re not very entertaining imo. Not something I would watch casually while relaxing for example.