Tips to grow your audience ft. LaurDIY (8M+ on YouTube)!

This is Grace Weekly, where you can find the best take-outs we have collected for you, taken directly from our “Smart Venture Podcast” and our interviews with the best of the best.

Did you miss our last newsletter and the best tips on how to improve your content creation to build an audience for new business opportunities? You can find our interview with Grant Sanderson, the creator of the 3Blue1Brown Channel on Youtube (4.93 million subscribers) here.

This week will be about Lauren Riihimaki, the creator of the LaurDIY YT Channel with more than 21M+ followers over social media.

Lauren Riihimaki is a YouTuber who has over 8M+ followers on YouTube channel LaurDIY and 21M+ followers over social media. She is also the host and executive producer of an HBO Max competition series called Craftopia. Prior to that Lauren won the YouTube Streamy Award in the “Lifestyle” category, and a Shorty Award in the “House & Home” Category. Lauren started her YouTube career in her first year of University in Toronto, Canada.

Building a business? Audience is the key.

What do DIY stuff and your business have in common? Sooner or later you’ll need to show them to the world. No matter the sector, your business opportunities will only be as good as the people who would interact with your content. Starting out can be tough, but to scale you first have to share.

Growing an audience? Leave that to us.

Let’s learn how to craft the best audience for your business in this week's interview with Lauren!

Parts of this newsletter are freely taken from our interview with Lauren and adjusted for reading. 

GG: How do you balance everything in your content creation, keeping it personal? You're constantly creating content, but I'm curious about how that impacts your day-to-day life. How do you create different content for different platforms?

LDIY: Finding balance as a creator is so important because with so many platforms to create for you need to balance all the options for short-form and long-form content that you have. Taking breaks and having a schedule are key. Don't be stressed about the pressure of making content. If you feel like making content, great, if not, that’s ok. Just make sure that you have to be able to live in the present moment and not feel like you have to capture everything as it's happening. 

GG: Knowing how to repurpose content is super important for a creator. How do you create content that can be effectively repurposed on multiple platforms?

LDIY: It's something smart that every creator has to think about because you have to capitalize on the time and resources you're investing into making one piece of content, especially when it's a long-format piece. For example, after recording a podcast episode, we have our editor create a vertical version and our assistant editor chop up highlights for short-form content on platforms like TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts.

Producing content is like a yoga class: difficult at first, but rewarding in the end.

GG: You are mastering every platform. How do you budget your time and focus on each one? Followers don't usually translate that well onto different platforms, how did you do it?

LDIY: I've been making content for so long, I've had Twitter for so long and I had TikTok from the beginning. There's been a role this plays in having so much carryover from one platform to the other. Once you've amassed so many followers over so many years of making content, it's bound to have some kind of growth. Also, a big part of this is understanding the audience that you have on each platform. There's probably the most overlap between YouTube and Instagram’s audience, but TikTok is an entirely different one. So on there, I post quick, easy, and funny relatable things.

GG: Creating a personal brand involves considering various income streams such as YouTube, social media platforms, podcasts, and merchandise. How do you manage to create all these different business income sources?

LDIY: I believe it's a mistake for creators to put all their time and energy into one revenue stream, as the creator economy is unpredictable. I focus on diversifying my projects and revenue streams. I also try to have an entrepreneurial spirit in everything I do, such as collaborating with HBO Max for Craftopia, and making sure that I don't put all my eggs in one basket. When it comes to investing in startups or tech companies, I look for something that I'm personally excited about and for companies that align with my interests and values.

GG: If you were trying to build your brand from scratch today, how would you do that?

LDIY: I would also try to build my brand on TikTok, Instagram and possibly use YouTube Shorts for vertical content because of the AdSense revenue. However, with the robust influencer marketing space and many brands seeking to partner with influencers, I don't think YouTube is necessary as a key source of revenue for creators. When starting a brand, it's also important to consider the possibility of managing a larger team in the future. It's been a learning process since the beginning, but my biggest asset has been that it's been very gradual. Managing people and being the boss of your brand is not something that anyone can prepare you for.

Every journey starts with encouragement.

GG: How do you manage your team? What does your daily workflow look like?

LDIY: I am a very structured person, however, it has taken me some time to figure out how to schedule my day. People can be efficient with Zoom meetings instead of having to spend so much time in traffic for face-to-face meetings. My day-to-day looks different each day, but my schedule is not within a 9 to 5. I would love a structured day, but it doesn't work that way in this job. I can schedule my meetings and emails within a certain time frame, but the content creation is around the clock. I got lucky to find a great team that includes lawyers, business managers, an assistant, a creative assistant, graphic designers, and editors. As soon as I could afford to bring someone else onto my team, I did. For example, I don't “love” editing videos, so as soon as I could afford an editor, I brought it on. This freed up more time for me to do video planning, take other meetings, and do creative stuff. I used to wish I had a second version of myself to think about the creative process, but if you can find someone who does what you do but better, it's even more valuable than having a second brain. I found my creative assistant through my audience. Being able to recruit people onto my team who are better at certain tasks than I am, has been a major asset in growing my brand overall.

Team efforts make the best brands.

GG: Other creators often talk about the entertainment or creative side only, but you're very business oriented, on top of all the challenges that being a creator has. How do you manage all of that?

LDIY: A lot of creators who have the opportunity to make their passion their full-time job don't capitalize on learning how to effectively run a business and strengthen their team. I've always been really interested in learning about this and talking to female business owners who run different businesses. There's so much to learn from them, even though they run entirely different ones. I try to stay connected and not just focus on the creator economy. Each creator brings something unique to the table. I think the one thing that I have strived for over the years is being dedicated to evolving. I think that's why you see a lot of creators fall off. A lot of creators have also been making content for so long, they just don't want to do it anymore. It can be grueling and it emotionally takes a toll on you.

“Grace Weekly - the tips you need to grow your business”

So what do we take out from this? Being a content creator, as Lauren said, can be challenging. But to grow your business you have to share with the world what you are capable of. Learning to gradually scale it can help build connections that can do wonders for your growth!

Top takeaways from our newsletter this week:

Creating content creates new business opportunities.

Every channel is unique, you just have to find your voice.

Plan the business, not just the content.

Try to find team players that could align with your brand easily.

If you want to grow your audience, start yesterday.

Want to have those tips with you all the time? Save it directly from here!

Want to see more content like this?

We’ll be back in 1 week! And if you can’t wait we have plenty of amazing interviews at our Youtube Channel that can help you fast-track to succeed in your entrepreneurial journey.

And if you want to listen to the full interview with Lauren, head to “Smart Venture Podcast” and listen to it!

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