TARGETING YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
We said before that, no matter what you're into, there's always going to be somebody else who's into it, too. Well, if you really want to capitalize on that, then you need to get to know your audience.
This doesn't mean selling out and just making whatever you think other people will like. Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to sell out later when you're rich and famous. What this means is just bringing a sense of focus and purpose to your videos. Remember, the golden rule of making anything, be it a video or a sandwich, is to make what you like. That said, keep up with the communities that revolve around what you like.
Say you're doing a video blog about movie news. Obviously, you don't want to be reporting as fact something that was debunked as a rumor several weeks ago, nor do you want to be reporting "Breaking news!" a month after it was already reported by everyone else. So basically all we're saying here is; know your stuff and stay up to date.
The same goes with using viral videos for marketing. Looking at it from a business perspective, when high speed internet became more accessible to the common user, a lot of dial-up moguls went out of business because they didn't expect high speed to be as big as it wound up being, so they stuck to good old 56k and wound up losing a lot of customers that way.
The same can happen to any business owner or marketer who doesn't keep up with their industry.
Join some online forums relevant to your subject. Besides being a great way to keep up on what's new, you've also got a guaranteed audience right there. Even if you're already making some news sites a regular part of your day, it's tough to keep up on all of it all by yourself, so reading the message boards can help fill you in on what you missed.
This would tend to apply to a lesser degree if you're doing videos just for entertainment, but, again, this is where your test audience comes in. If a joke is funny, you'll laugh whether you're a coin collector a video gamer or a movie fan, so there's no real news to keep up with if you're just trying to make people laugh, but showing it to your friends to get some test audience reactions can be immensely helpful. Once more, this comes down to the golden rule of making videos: If your friends like it, someone else will, too.
STAY TRUE TO YOUR STYLE
It's not about changing the content of your videos to please the masses. It's just about getting focused and serious on what your videos are all about in the first place. Don't think that, because movie review videos are big, you need to make movie review videos, or that you need to make any major changes at all, really.
So if you want to target your target audience, the main thing is to just remember who your target audience is: Yourself.
This is true whether you're trying to entertain or market. What makes you laugh? What would get your attention and make you want to support the company? Start from there and then see how others react to the results.
If you don't like it, chances are, nobody else will, either.