Is Sam Sulek changing the future of YouTube?
A growing number of popular channels are seen as “unoptimized.” Did you catch this? Sam Sulek is one illustration of this.
Despite breaking all of YouTube’s regulations with his long videos, low production value, and poorly done thumbnails, this fitness maker is on the rise. A lot of people are wondering, “How is this working for him?!?” as a result.
VidIQ released an excellent video about this recently. But because I’m seeing a trend with a lot of different channels, I wanted to expand on my comments because there are some excellent lessons that apply to everyone.
Who is Sam Sulek?
Running a fitness channel for just under a year, Sam is twenty-one years old. He mostly posts fitness videos in his content. The majority of his thumbnails are unaltered still images taken directly from his material.
Most of the time, his titles only indicate how many workouts he completes. Furthermore, he has videos that go up to 90 minutes! In spite of defying all conventional “optimization,” he managed to acquire over a million subscribers in just two months—on LONG FORM. This is incredible.
Even though Sam is neglecting all the conventional growth components, he is excelling at the most crucial aspects. And there is the fact that he is genuine, and as a result of his openness and reliability, he is making contact with the precise audience he desires.
Shift to Slower Pace
Sam Sule’s accomplishments during the past year demonstrate the return of a slower, vlog-style pace. The heavily edited, overproduced entertainment has worn people out, and they are yearning for a calmer pace. It’s starting to seem like a breath of fresh air, the slower-paced vlog-style stuff. All they want to do is work out with San and see his narrative. And that is just what he is providing.
Consistency
His constancy is one of the things that makes him successful. He consistently turns up, works out, and posts the workout for others to follow. Posting a video every day is simple if you don’t spend much effort on packaging and editing it. Not that packaging and editing aren’t significant.
However, he identified what he could do reliably and went for it. His audience can depend on his content to be there when they need it. When we saw the Penny Series with Ryan Trahan, a lot of us experienced this. Regardless of our daily events, we were aware that there would always be an episode to look forward to.
Sam is also quite consistent in the subjects he covers in his writing. His channel is mostly devoted to his exercise regimens, but there are also a few videos of him shopping and discussing the things he plans to consume.
Because so many authors are dispersed across their work, it is quite difficult for their intended audience to discover them. However, his precise target audience has discovered him and has loved his stuff because of how consistently good it is.
Value
Sam is also adding a great deal of value. It may seem easy, but who wouldn’t desire a workout partner? And who wouldn’t want that friend to be a really successful physique builder?
It is beneficial to have a list of exercises to perform throughout a workout. Nonetheless, it is really beneficial to have someone guide you and sweat alongside you.
Authenticy
How can Sam Sulek be real during filming? And why is this so difficult for certain individuals? I think the best way to become authentic is to practice, practice, and practice. You’ll be more real the more self-recording you do.
If you’re having a lot of trouble with this, record yourself without planning to include it in a video. For the purpose of practice, just record yourself and speak into the camera! It will only be beneficial to you. Alternatively, consider having a camera partner so you can converse with someone. This can also be of great assistance.
Storytelling
Each episode is a personal tale of metamorphosis. Sam invites us to go along with him when he travels to the gym and discusses his feelings and the challenges he wants to conquer. Then he talks about his feelings while working out.
And as he gets beyond these challenges and accomplishes his daily objective, we get to witness his change at the conclusion of each film.
This gives each film a purposeful narrative and structure. We also get to support him as he strives to achieve a season-long objective. Any story needs a strong structure. A daily vlog without any framework can’t have the same level of narrative as this.
Application
Once more, I’m not claiming that thumbnails and titles are unimportant. Not that it doesn’t matter how you modify. They are important! However, Sam and countless more innovators like him teach us a great deal.
One of them is that authenticity always wins out over production value or search engine optimization. Additionally, consistency is essential to your development strategy—both in terms of the audience you are aiming to attract and the content you produce.
Asking yourself, “What level of production can I do and still produce consistent videos?” might help you if you have trouble striking a balance between consistency and production. When you’ve reached a content production level that you can maintain, don’t stray from it.
That may equate to two films every week or two videos every month. It is always the case that the greatest development comes from concentrating on consistency, authenticity, and the value you are providing to your target audience.
Power Tip
With the help of the Google Chrome plugin Bard, you can ask questions and have YouTube films played for you. What practical function does this serve?
Suppose you have a recipe that you would want to try from a cooking video, but the show notes don’t mention all the ingredients. To obtain the component list, simply ask Bard to put the movie URL into your message.
Seeking comments on your own films or having it evaluate other videos in your field are two other ways you, as a creator, may make use of this tool. Try it out and let me know if it works for you!