Becoming a Leader in Your Blog Niche: Lessons from a YouTube Power User

This is an ongoing series of case studies which examines the processes that allow you to become an leader in your blog niche. It is important to understand that being a notable blogger in your niche will allow you to make even more money online. How so?

I’ve already mentioned the benefits of being an authority in your blog niche, which includes advantages such as a higher level of visitor trust and personal influence, which allows you to maximize your ad and affiliate selling potential.

Being regarded as an authority on a topic enables you to be easily referenced by others while allowing you to develop several other ways to make money. This includes consultation services, conference speaking duties as well as paid guest author gigs on other blogs.

If you’re really looking to make money on the web, building niche popularity for your website or personal brand is very important. In many cases, the monetary benefits will far justify the effort needed.

Kicking off the Blog Niche Series

The first case study in this series is actually not a blogger, but a YouTube user that I’ve admired for a long time. While I can’t confirm the user’s gender, I’m going to refer to the user as a he just for convenience’s sake.

I regularly watch this user’s videos and I think his profile and work is a classic example which demonstrates how to become an notable figure in any blogging niche.

Introducing Hoopsencyclopedia: Internet Hoops Video Extraordinaire

Anyone who has ever looked for Michael Jordan videos on the internet or YouTube knows that Hoopsencyclopedia is the undisputed source for all things Jordan. This is an due to the sheer amount of material produced and uploaded by Hoops over the period of a little over a year.

While some popular YouTube vloggers have more than 10,000 channel subscribers, most of their work is based on their personalities and doesn’t specifically focus on a niche topic or market.

In comparison, Hoops is a user that only has 1,618 subscribers but his videos are very well received within a niche audience. Judging by the comments left on his profile and the videos he uploaded, there is a tremendous amount of respect by YouTube users for his work.

Produce Unique Material: Originality is Attractive

Most of the videos put up by Hoops are unique in Youtube itself, as most of the Jordan clips were manual edits of entire basketball games.

Hoops has painstakingly included all the noteworthy moments from Michael Jordan, to come up with material not found elsewhere. The attractiveness of his work to most internet basketball fans is primarily centered on its originality and archival focus.

I’ve personally seen several forums or websites reference these videos because they were not available elsewhere on either YouTube or other video websites.

Niche Tip: If you produce unique material not found elsewhere, it will very likely to be referenced by other bloggers, some of whom thrive on linking to high quality original content.

Pick a Niche by Narrowing Your Focus: Be a Sub-Topic Expert

Basketball videos and fansites are all over the internet and NBA video clips are especially prevalent on Youtube. Most YouTube fans upload a wide variety of videos which includes game clips, music videos and individual tributes to current NBA stars like LeBron James, Dwayne Wade or Kobe Bryant.

Hoops stands out because he only focuses on Michael Jordan clips alone. He doesn’t upload any other videos and this dedication has eventually led to the largest and most renowned collection of Jordan videos on Youtube. This has, of course led to his notoriety and fame as an basketball video maker.

If you do a search on YouTube for ‘Michael Jordan’, you’ll be hard pressed not to find his videos showing up on the first page. Similarly, this intense focus on one topic will lead to strong traffic from search engines, primarily because all your blog posts will contain highly relevant and related content on the topic.

The volume of material published will also ensure that you’re likely to rank well for a massive variety of long tail keywords.

Niche Tip: Pick a popular field and narrow it down to a sub-niche that is manageable or not overly competitive. Dominate it by focusing exclusively on topics within the niche.

The general popularity of the field leads to a trickle-down effect: Readers will naturally gravitate towards sub-topic experts.

Provide Personal Commentary at all Times: Always Editorialize

While most Youtubers don’t describe their clips or only include a cursory one-liner, Hoops always offers his personal critique and analysis of the clips he uploads.

This often results in a three paragraph report which includes quotes, news reports and game statistics. See this video and look at description on the right side of the video for an example.

This does two things: It gives viewers a context from which to understand and better appreciate the value of the clip shown. It also adds to the overall viewing experience.

More importantly, this demonstrates Hoopsencylopedia’s knowledge on the subject (Michael Jordan) and instantly makes him a perceived authority who is very familiar and comfortable with the topic at hand.

Niche Tip: Providing a personal opinion on a topic can contextualize any content and make it more accessible for reader consumption. Commentary is important because it allows you showcase your knowledge on topics in your blog niche.

Interact with Your Audience & Peers: Develop Long-term Relationships

I particularly like the fact the Hoops interacts with his audiences by replying to specific queries about each clip and interacting with other NBA video makers. A look at his profile shows that he subscribes to other YouTuber user channels and has favorited over 35 specific videos by other users.

He isn’t just putting up videos and ignoring the viewers. He interacts with them and shares his knowledge freely without reservation. This allows him to get immediate updates on his specialized topic and generally allows him to garner a fair amount of respect among his peers.

Niche Tip: Networking and interacting with your audience or fellow niche bloggers allows you to share common knowledge on the field.

This builds long term relationships and positions you even more strongly as an expert in the field. This is particularly important when you are using your blog to pitch or sell specific affiliate programs.

Some thoughts on the blog series..

I am planning to make these case studies a regular feature in the hope that I’ll build up a large list of excellent examples, which will allow everyone to learn from these specific personalities/bloggers or social website users.

Any comments on what you would like to see in future case studies would be very much appreciated. Thanks!