so you're ready to switch niches maybe you've run out of ideas or simply passion for your current Niche you want to Branch out talk about other topics or just feel inspired about creating content again this is such a common struggle for creators I'm honestly surprised by how little content you find about it online and it really is a tricky process right because there's always the option of completely starting fresh but chances are you've worked really hard to grow the audience that you already have and you don't want to just give them up so easily which
is why today we're going to talk about some strategies for switching niches so that you can bring your current audience along for the ride with you this is going to be a big topic but I'm excited to jump in before we get into it let me know in the comments what your current Niche is and what Niche you're thinking of switching into and hopefully you can find some people that are interested in both we'll talk more about that in a minute let's go okay so first let's establish my credentials on this topic because I have
been on a journey when it comes to changing niches on YouTube and it starts way further back than you probably would think so super super quickly let's go through my timeline of Niche changes here on YouTube and how successful each of those pivots were and what I've learned from them Niche change number one was way back in the day in 2018 if you've been around this channel for a while it's no secret to you that I have been posting videos on this YouTube channel since 2011 but probably what you don't know is when I was
a teenager I had started to grow a small audience around a very Niche topic which is being metanite this is a deep cut y'all I don't really talk about this on my channel anymore but I used to make videos about my religious and cultural background and they actually got a bit of traction like my channel grew to around 2,000 subscribers talking about this some of my videos had like 50 or 60k views which was huge for me at the time okay that felt super viral this was after like several years of me trying to grow
on YouTube talking about other random stuff so I really felt like lightning had struck for me and it wouldn't happen again that being said once I finished high school scho and University I was ready to make videos about something different specifically I want to talk about freelance videography film making and travel and so when I went to make this pivot I made the very difficult decision to private all of my past videos that was tough cuz I was proud of them I was really proud of how many views they had gotten and honestly it was
a hit to the ego because you scroll through your channel and you just see videos that only have like 10 or 15 views and it kind of hurts but it was 100% the correct decision 6 months later my channel blew up for a video that I posted called Instagram story hacks for creators 2019 and I really honestly don't believe my channel would have grown like that if all of those videos were still public here's the lesson from that particular Niche pivot sometimes if your topics are way too different you need to just let go of
what you were posting before and kind of erase it from the face of your channel because here's the way the YouTube algorithm works if someone discovers one of the videos from your channel let's say one of my videos about the best settings for the Canon 80d they watch it to the end YouTube is going to start recommending them more of my videos and if they're recommended a video about being menite they're going to be really confused and honestly I get that so what I learned back in 2018 is if you're pivoting between two completely different
random topics your choices are basically start a brand new channel or private all of the content on your current Channel and make that switch and here's a bit of perspective for you too like at the time 2,000 subscribers seemed like the world to me you know 60k views was like probably my highest view video and that felt like huge and you know what it was that was a massive accomplishment for me I don't want to put that down in any way but if I wasn't willing to let go of the 2,000 subscribers that were watching
me for that type of content I wouldn't have been able to find the 100,000 plus subscribers that follow me now for this content Niche change number two came about in 2021 this is when I tried to switch this channel over to talking about purely van life and lifestyle content so obviously like I said my channel really blew up in 2019 over that Instagram video and it had been growing since then but I was feeling really burnt out on making the Instagram tips videos also it was 2021 this was not an easy time for anybody's mental
health so I just decided I was going to completely up and change this channel to be about something completely different at the time I had just recently passed 100,000 subscribers and my Approach was basically one day making a video being like things are changing around here and then just started posting completely different content the result of this pivot was a fail look I stuck it out for a solid 3 months cuz I always say you need you need to try something for like at least a quarter to see if it's going to work you have
to give yourself a chance but my videos were just not getting more views they were getting the same 500 to 1,000 views that they got when I first made the pivot and things were not really on the incline the lesson from this pivot was you can't always expect your audience to just up and come along with you if your topics are totally different the first time I did that I don't think those 2,000 people did come along with me right they probably stopped watching but because my channel grew so much it didn't really matter but
once I had 100K subscribers and then I switched in those 3 months where I was posting that new content I hadn't built up enough of an audience to like make a noticeable difference eventually I felt reinspection any views at all if I didn't put the word Instagram in the title like people were here specifically for the Instagram growth strategy and while I am interested on Instagram I also am passionate about other platforms as well especially YouTube and so in October of 2022 I made a video called why you should start a YouTube channel not an
Instagram and this video was a smashing success it was like my 1 out of 10 and it really turned the tide on my channel since then I've been able to post about Instagram and YouTube and have both videos see success and it's made me feel way more inspired about my channel honestly because I love talking about YouTube and YouTube strategy and storytelling the lesson from this Niche pivot these two topics are close enough together and the same type of audience would be interested in both so it makes for quite a smooth transition and I was
able to create content that bridg the gap between my audience that's interested in Instagram and basically convince them why they should be interested in YouTube so those are some lessons from the history book of my YouTube channel but I want to dive in further to the strategies that I implemented most recently recently and what I'm implementing now about maybe a 2025 Niche change we'll see so that you can hopefully also see good results and bring that audience along with you when you start talking about different topics okay so first you need to find the gray
area between your current Niche and the niche that you're looking to switch into now I'll be honest it is possible that your current subject matter and the subject matter that you'd like to discuss are just far too different for you to be able to make a smooth transition but you'll only know that for sure if you kind of take the steps that I'm about to list out for you so what you're going to want to do is is come up with video topics that address both your current subject matter and the new stuff that you
want to talk about the video that I just talked about why you should start a YouTube channel not an Instagram is a perfect example of this I address the benefits of YouTube and the drawbacks of Instagram to bring in my Instagram audience and get them interested in the YouTube stuff but I wanted to talk about some other niches to give you some concrete examples to guide you through this process okay so let's say you're currently a photography account and you'd like to start talking about travel maybe even sharing some travel Vlogs some examples of transition
additional videos for you would be like the 10 best photo spots in Paris what's in my travel camera bag come with me to shoot street photography in Tokyo and the best photo and video setup for travelers so you can see how these seamlessly blend both photography and travel okay let's say you're currently like a Fitness and Nutrition account and you want to do more lifestyle content some examples of transition videos for you what I eat in a day my morning routine for energy and fitness my week in recipes what I cooked this week and eventually
making Vlogs that have a title like healthy Vlog Fitness Vlog productive Vlog followed by a few key wordss about what you did during your day let's just say like hypothetically you're somebody that talks about social media growth tips and tricks and you want to talk more about remote work and travel and being a digital Nomad you could make a video like how I run my online business from anywhere in the world my daily routine for productivity and self-care as a content creator if you thought this channel wasn't meta before it is now if you can
come up with 15 to 20 video ideas that equally touch on your old niche as well as the content that you want to be making in the future then that is a good sign that you'll be able to smoothly make this transition not only is there enough ideas for you to actually sustain making the transition like you'll have enough content but also if you can come up with that many ideas then that's a good sign that there's probably an audience that's interested in both I'm not going to lie it will take time but it it
is possible speaking of how long it takes I'm going to use a lovely analogy that people absolutely loved from my last video to describe exactly the process of doing this the analogy is of boiling the Frog but instead of a frog it's your audience I know it's gruesome but I promise it is a really helpful way of thinking about this as the old saying goes if you put a frog directly into boiling water it will jump right out but if you put it into cool water and then slowly heat the water up it will stay
in there you know and I think that that's the quickest way to basically say you can slowly acclimatize your audience to new content if you do it really gradually and over time that was my big mistake back in 2021 when I just jumped into sharing van life content and lifestyle my frog jumped out of my metaphorical pot but if you're in it for the long game and you slowly start incorporating more of your new Niche people will get used to it you may even convince them to become interested in the new content you want to
be making and you're less likely to have a huge drop off in views so once you have your list of say 15 videos that overlap between your current subject matter and the new content you want to make I'd recommend starting to incorporate one of those videos every month and then maybe eventually you start doing two of those videos a month maybe eventually all of your videos are the overlap videos and then someday you start posting videos that are just about your new content that's a really slow and steady way to bring your audience along for
the ride when you want to to start talking about something new now it's time for me to be really honest with you as you start to change niches your YouTube studio is going to start showing you the sad arrows okay it just like chances are it will I know this very well okay I did successfully you know include YouTube into my content and that actually represented a huge increase in views for me which was great but I'm currently on a journey of trying to incorporate more Vlog style content into this Channel and at first when
I would post any Vlogs here like yeah they would be like a 10 out of 10 okay they would totally bomb But as time has gone on as I post Vlog Style videos now they're hitting you know like five out of 10 okay they're climbing the ranks and who knows maybe someday I'll post a vlog and it'll be like a one out of 10 you never know and I've been working away at this for like probably close to 2 years and so it's just important to know that this takes a lot of time you're going
to be discouraged but I think if you anticipate that then you'll be more likely to overcome it it's all mental game and it's really all about experimenting and trying out different things as you're starting to make videos about your new subject area that you want to talk about you can experiment with the style the format see what your audience connects with most but just know you're probably not going to be happy with the numbers right away and that's okay you're playing the long game okay now while I was saying you do want to prepare yourself
mentally for those numbers to go down and not get too discouraged it still is important to keep an eye on your analytics so you can get a sense of what your audience is most connecting with of your new content the important thing here really is though you need to compare your new content to your new content you can't be comparing your new like transition content to your old videos because it's not really a fair comparison you've had lots of time to build up an audience around that past content and most likely these new videos are
not going to perform as well at the beginning right so in order to actually get some helpful insights out of your numbers compare your new videos to your new videos and see which Styles or formats speak the most to your audience my personal favorite way to check my social media analytics across platforms is with Dash Hudson who is sponsoring today's video I love their platform because it's highly Visual and userfriendly and you can customize your own dashboards to analyze the insights that are most important to you you can check your analytics across YouTube Instagram Twitter
LinkedIn Facebook and Pinterest but what's really exciting that I wanted to tell you about is Dash Hudson just released their cross Channel Benchmark report this report is seriously invaluable for social media marketers and they even have individual reports across 11 different Industries like wellness Beauty retail so you can get the most relevant stats and insights for your particular industry or Niche if you will inside the report you can learn fascinating stats such as Tik Tok Remains the most engaging social channel in 2024 while Instagram offers the highest reach each industry performs differently on each Channel
Beauty Brands achieve the highest video views on Tik Tok and media and Publishing Brands see greater success on Instagram and interestingly Dash Hudson reports that the biggest opportunity for brands in 2024 is activating Niche communities because that's where they can find the most engagement even if not the highest reach so I think that's an interesting lesson for us as creators as well so if you want to learn how your brand Stacks up in the overall social media landscape of 2024 or if you just want to learn some helpful insights about the social media industry in
general you can download Dash Hudson's cross Channel Benchmark report totally for free at the link in the description and thanks again to my friends at Dash Hudson for sponsoring today's video look I know sometimes it can seem like everybody who's really successful on YouTube has been doing the same thing ever since they got started but I did want to point out just a few creators that I follow and I personally love their content who have made pivots because I think it's really encouraging and inspiring to see how creators who have been on the platform a
long time can pivot and evolve and continue to be successful on YouTube Allison Anderson I followed her back in the day when she talked about makeup and beauty and now she's pivoted to talking about minimalism and camera gear and travel Ali abdal obviously a huge Creator who started his channel talking about medical school and study tips and now he speaks about productivity and business Shelby church is an OG lifestyle girly from the 2010s like she has been on the platform hustling for years and honestly it's less so of a question of what she pivoted into
and more so what has she not done I mean the girls done video essays real estate videos Tech videos she has done so many different genres and had success with a lot of them now the thing is yeah if you grow in a certain Niche and then you change topics you might not expect to get the same reach or views that you did in your original topic but all of these creators go to show that it is possible to continue on speaking about different topics and you can bring your audience along for that Journey so
yes sometimes changing Niche can mean accepting lower views even if just for a short while but sometimes changing Niche can mean opening yourself up to growth that you never thought was possible before but more than anything it restores your creativity and it makes you more excited about creating content again which is so crucial for the long-term success of a content creator if you are on the long journey of being a content creator here on YouTube just know I am here cheering you on I see you I know it is hard but I can tell you
it is so worth it as you're working through transitioning from your current Niche into new topics or subject matter one of the most important things you can do is make your videos as strategic as possible so that they have the best chance of showing up on the homepage I talk about several strategies that I've personally been implementing lately for doing just that in this video where I break down how January was like my best month ever on my YouTube channel in terms of total views so you're going to want to check that out now next
and as always thank you so much for watching I hope you're having adventures and following your dreams and I'll catch you in the next video bye
