Forget views, forget subs, forget engagement. Building an audience is all about catching attention and managing it. It's about building a system that allows you to manage the attention of your viewers so you can leverage it to reach your goals.

Views, subs etc.. are proof of attention, not attention itself. They are tools to help you measure the attention your content/channel earned, kept, or lost. But first, let's start with the basics:

1. Attention Quality This is the most important thing you must remember from this thread: Not all viewers are equal. Most creators tend to think that: 1 view = 1 view This is the WORST belief you can have as a content creator. Here's why:

When you build an audience, you have 4 kinds of viewers: • Blue: they don't know your content exists • Yellow: they've seen your content at least once • Orange: watch your content regularly • Red: die-hard fans, watch everything (Or from cold to hot)

The attention (in itself) is the opposite: It starts 🔴 (hot) but ends up 🔵 (cold) over time, as weeks pass unless your strategy to keep it red is strong.

The quality of attention varies from one viewer to another. Red viewers watch more content and watch longer. In the long run, 10 🔴 viewers will produce more watch time than 100 🔵 viewers. Pareto's Law: 👉 80% of the results come from 20% of the viewers.

The goal when building an audience is to convert as many 🔵 → 🔴 viewers as possible. BUT (and this is where most creators fail), it must be done so that 🔴 viewers are not lost in the process. Optimizing too much for views will affect the audience (🔴 viewers).

2. Attention Management When a blue viewer comes across your content and ends up hitting the subscribe button, he sends you a message: 👉 I enjoyed this video and would like to see more like this one. At this point, he's yellow, not orange yet, with "red attention".

To keep the attention red, you need a strategy to manage it. The nightmare for a creator is to have a majority of yellow viewers, who turn into ghost subscribers over time (yellow viewers with blue attention). Like here:

3. Format A format is a recipe (or a formula). It is a structure of content with its codes, crafted so the viewer can know what to expect in the future. This is by far the best way to sustain attention in the long run.

For example, MrBeast's format would be: - Entertainment involving extreme challenges and a lot of money - 10-15mn long on average Dream: - Finish Minecraft as fast as possible while hunters try to kill him - 40-50mn on average

Casey Neistat: - Vlogs with storytelling - 5-10mn on average elwono (one of my channels): - Fun Dota 2 strategy with storytelling - 20-30mn on average

The majority of successful channels have a specific format or farmed attention with one format. It is a proven method that works at scale. A format will grow your base audience organically while maintaining a viewer orange/red for as long as possible (years, not weeks).

When you build an audience: 👉 You are not looking to go viral at all costs, but to keep the ratio blue > red the highest possible. Viral videos bring many blue viewers, and if your library can't convert them, they will end up being ghosts forever like here:

Sure, it feels great for the ego to go viral and must be a part of your strategy, but not the priority. You can trust me on this: I have hundreds of viral videos, and what allowed me to survive 12 years on YouTube was not these videos.

You judge the health of an audience by its ability to convert blue viewers into orange/red. I started "elwono" in mid-2019 and I applied most of my current knowledge about audience building. It was built to maintain as many orange/red viewers as possible.

Results 4 years later: - 66 videos in total - Average views: 532k - Only 7/66 videos below 200k views - None of the last 34 videos had less than 200k views (except the part.2 of a 568k video at 199k) - 33/66 videos at 500k+ - 21/66 at 600k+ - 8/66 at 900k+

The goal of a format is to consolidate and grow the bottom of your views, not the top. That's where you should focus 90% of your strategies because it means you're growing your base of red viewers.

4. Be a long-term player Youtube gurus are obsessed with views because they didn't experience the long-term game, failing to tell you that: Attention is highly volatile & PERISHABLE. You must NEVER forget that. Let me say it again: NEVER!!!

Farming red viewers take time. Yes, going viral is cool, but if you have no strategy to keep them in the long run, the attention around your content will fade and produce ghost subs. Give yourself at least a year to establish a solid foundation of red viewers.

Convert blue viewers, let them get used to your content, and be patient. Farm them one red viewer at a time don't be in a rush especially if you're a small creator. A library of the same format with a high reach & conversion rate will give you results you can't even fathom.

To sum it up: 1. Viewers are not equal, 🔴 viewers are the real deal 2. Build a strategy to farm 🔴 viewers 3. Craft a format to increase the conversion rate from 🔵 to 🔴 viewers 4. Play the long-term game with a compounding audience

These are just the basics, but hopefully they give you an idea of where to go now. I will post more content like this in the future so subscribe to @wono_strategy if you want to see more. Here is another thread you should be checking:

Yes, viral videos are great when your strategy to convert blue > red viewers is on point. They are a great boost. But in the opposite case, they are nothing but a mirage.

Understand that you will never achieve a 100% remarkable rate; it is impossible, and no one has ever done so. The best is to focus on the audience first and foremost and see "remarkability" as a bonus. You should definitely aim for it, but not at all costs.

Be authentic and genuine, not trying to be someone else.

Thanks! This:

Fresh new angle (disruptive, unique, bold claim etc)