Do it Backwards: Creating a Business for Your Content

Gregory Ng, CMO of Brooks Bell and host/producer of FreezerBurns, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss microwaving food on camera, Google+’s integration with YouTube comments, and how a single piece of content can become an entire business.
Read on for some of the highlights and tweetable moments, or listen to the full podcast.

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Tweetable Moments

“I stayed committed to a niche that was untapped.” -@GregoryNg (tweet this)

Continually Producing Content

In 2008, Greg Ng saw a hole in the online video market: no one was reviewing frozen foods. He took on that task, reviewing all those foods you see in the freezer aisle but never bother to get to know, and it was just niche enough to work.

FreezerBurns proves that one piece of content can become a business. By throwing himself wholeheartedly into that niche, Greg has positioned himself as the authority in the world of frozen foods. The Internet’s Only Frozen Food Review Show is nearing 17,000 subscribers on YouTube and 3.5 million views. “I’d be lying if I said I had completely planned all of this out,” Greg says. “It’s evolved as we’ve gone along. But, the number one thing that I’ve stuck with is committing to that niche and trying to own it in every possible way.”
That commitment ran deep. Greg started out posting 5 episodes per week. Why the rigorous pace? He wanted to take the crown of  Frozen Food King before anyone else could have the same idea. “The only way I could think about doing that was to continually produce content until I hit that mark where people are starting to associate the frozen food industry with me.”
He also needed to develop stage presence. He’d always wanted to be on TV, and computers were the new television. ” I can’t even look at some of my first episodes,” he says. “They are horrible.” But he published them anyway so his family and friends could watch them and give him feedback. “It wasn’t really until episode 75, maybe, where I started feeling like I was really gaining traction.” He didn’t monetize the channel until after the first year of content creation was behind him.

YouTube Integration with Google+

Understandably, Greg has some strong feelings about YouTube’s integration with Google+. Google promised us that we would see less YouTube comment trolls if our Google+ identities were tied to our YouTube comments. This may be the case, but Greg says he has seen a decline in both comments and video views since the integration.

But as with most things, there is an upside. Greg has discovered that he can create a Google+ circle of his most loyal and dedicated fans based on how many of his videos they have commented on or thumbs-upped. Now he’s testing sharing content specifically with that group; he can create private videos just for his biggest fans!
Eventually he hopes people will be able to pay to see secret content that way. “That’s a huge opportunity for a content creator” to make money.
“You have to have the passion to do it,” Greg advises. “But you also have to have the monetization strategy to keep it going.”

Social Media Number of the Week: 5 Tweets per Second

January 24th was Vine’s first birthday. So it’s worth noting that in its first year of life, Vine saw a time when 5 tweets every second shared a Vine video. Our hosts tend to favor Instagram’s longer 15-second video option but respect the creativity necessary to cram worthwhile content into just 6 seconds. But the same infographic tells us that branded Vines are 4x more likely to be viewed than a different branded video.

Holy Social!

Pinterest wants to help you decide what to make for dinner.

A longtime tool for hoarding recipes, Pinterest now has implemented a recipe search tool to help you get rid of extra ingredients in your pantry. Try entering “zucchini and ground beef” in the search bar, and dozens of recipes pop up, with filters like “gluten free” or “paleo.”
Pinterest continues to vie for the title of Most Useful Social Network, as they create newer and better tools like this one.

The Big Two – Gregory Ng

What’s your one tip for becoming a social pro?
Stop tinkering and just publish it already! “Publish often, and tinker your process as you’re publishing because it will never be perfect the first time. ”
If you could do a Skype call with any living person, who would it be?
Marc Summers, former host of Double Dare and current host of Unwrapped.
See you next week!