“It all starts from what you like.”
In the Tech in Asia Conference 2016 which was held in Tokyo focusing on the startup community (September 6-7, 2016), a Japanese-English Bilingirl andYoutuber Chika Yoshida was interviewed on the topic of her business strategy.
Through dressing up as Anna from the famous Frozen, playing Pokemon Go, and travelling around America, Chika teaches English phrases in the creative and fun way to entertain her audiences on YouTube.
Originally, she started making YouTube videos five years ago as her hobby because her friend wanted to learn English, while working as a Consultant. After a year and half into YouTube, the offers from brands or companies to collaborate began to come, and she decided to take a risk to shift her career to become a full-time YouTuber. During her five-years of career, she has already gained 650,000 followers on her YouTube channel.
Her fans are mostly Japanese ranged from students who are learning English to workers. Both males and females in their 20s, 30s, and 40s like to watch her channel. She also has another channel to introduce Japanese culture to foreigners which is called Japanegos.
There are two steps of her strategy which are to get more views at first and then take those views into subscribers. It is important to make a shareable content that have major keywords to end up getting searched, while it is necessary that everyone does it. For example, since Japanese people like to go to Hawaii, she will travel to Hawaii and shoot a video about how to use the right English phrases when you are on a trip. However, you need to make a content that is relevant to your business because you want those viewers to watch your other videos as well.
She also maintains her relationship with the audiences by replying comments on her YouTube videos, Facebook, Twitter, and having a request form to hear about their opinions and requests.
As her career is expanding, she has a management team supported by a creativity agency for YouTubers. The agency also helps her with analysis tool, filming, and studio facility. Her policy with the team is that she keeps the making and editing videos by herself while the team deals with the companies or brands about collaborations. When it comes to collaborating with companies, she tries to have a win-win solution. She does not want to lose the freedom of creativity because YouTube is so close to the audiences and personalities are important to survive in the industry while the companies can still advertise their products. If there are various parties come in during the process of making the videos, it will be hard to keep the uniqueness that distinguish herself from other YouTubers.
At the moment, she does not think to move away from YouTube since it is a global platform that has a higher possibility to be searched and a good monetary management compared to the other platforms.
To the new YouTubers, she said that although you might think that everyone can see your videos, it does not mean that they will watch your videos. Rather than worrying about other people’s opinions, you need to make something that you are comfortable and want to continue improving it. It all starts from what you like. Then the money will come after.
When she was asked about her goal in the future, she answered bluntly that she does not think of anything in particular. If people still want to watch her videos and there is a demand for it, she will keep continuing it.
