This YouTuber taught me everything about audience growth
(This relates to newsletters—stick with me here)
ARIatHOME is a talented musician.
He’s also a YouTuber with 328k subscribers — and that channel only has five long-form videos published.
Here’s an abbreviated story of Ari’s rise, how I found him (or how he found me), and the big lesson newsletter operators can learn from him.
Ari’s Content Strategy That’s Skyrocketed Growth
Ari started his YT channel in 2014 when he was ~15yrs old.
He was posting music videos of his songs and streams. Despite being a natural talent, none of the videos really took off.
Then, the YT algorithm served me an ARIatHOME Short last week.
And guess what → Ari was NOT at home anymore. He was out on the streets — of NYC.
And he was walking around like one-man digital marching band with a keyboard, mic, mixer, and speakers.
I watched transfixed as Ari approached complete strangers.
→ He sampled a stranger’s voice on the spot.
→ Built a beat from it.
→ And got complete strangers to freestyle rap over his beat.
I couldn’t stop watching. Literally mesmerized. And I’m not alone.
That Short has over 582k likes and 9,500 comments.
In fact: all of Ari’s YT Shorts have 100k+ views. Some over 1M.
The Common Thread of Ari’s Most Popular Videos?
→ Collaboration.
Ari’s solo livestreams didn’t blow up.
His videos of him making beats and freestyle rapping by himself didn’t blow up.
His videos blew up when he started collaborating with others.
Getting complete strangers to hop on the mic — that’s where the magic happened. Ari is proof that the right collabs can skyrocket growth.
And now that Ari’s blowing up, others are seeking him out.
In a recent stream on his unofficial channel, a stranger from the past reappeared to freestyle over Ari’s beats for a second time. It makes sense, right? Get yourself in front of other people’s audiences to grow your own.
Collabs > Social
Algorithms are unpredictable. Things are going great one minute, then you suddenly find yourself with half the impressions, engagement, and followers.
Collaborations, cross-promotions, guest-posting— all of these things avoid platform risk.
But let me be clear.
I’m not advocating complete abandonment of social media. But diversifying the baskets in which you place your eggs is age-old wisdom for good reason.
Ari (and many others before him) have demonstrated how powerful collaborations can be.
Making Collabs Great Again
Given their power, we want to make collabs great again.
We want to do them BETTER. So we decided to run a 45-day challenge in the Growth In Reverse Pro Community.
We’re calling it the “Grow Without Social” challenge, but the main focus is how to collaborate with others. Course, meetups, and Q&A included.
But you have to join the Growth In Reverse Pro Community to participate.
Even if you don’t, I hope you see the power in collaborating with others to grow your audience.
More stuff from me.
→ Check out my brand new podcast about all things newsletters with Chenell from Growth In Reverse👇
→ FREE 5-day email course to help you get your first 1,000 newsletter subscribers