10e20 Blog

The Wall Street Journal had a good article today about how to be a star in a YouTube world. What conclusions did they come to?

It turns out that success in the new-media world depends on a lot of the same things as in the old-media universe. Just as in Hollywood, becoming a hit takes talent, effort, timing and some luck. Sex appeal is just as valuable online as off. And getting noticed by the “mainstream” press also helps build buzz.

Here are their 6 steps to success:

1) Be consistent. Whether you are doing videos, podcasts or writing blog posts - consistently feed your audience their content.

2) Get in early. It takes more to get noticed now. Just starting something today? Find a way to be one of the first to do something.

3) Find a niche. Just like getting in early, finding a good niche that isn’t overly crowded is a huge plus.

4) Work your network. It’s called social media for a reason. Build up friends and use word of mouth to promote yourself.

5) Act like a pro. The most popular content (i.e. lonelygirl15, AskaNinja) looks more polished then the rest of the pack. Put a little extra time into making it look like you really care.

6) Beauty sells. Look around at the majority of movie and TV stars and you’ll see that people who are unusually attractive stand a much better chance of getting attention. This same thing holds true in a YouTube world.

I would also add:

7) Use other social networks to promote yourself.  Create good video content and use sites like Digg, Reddit and niche social media sites to promote your videos and ultimately yourself.