5 Ways Michelle Phan Built A Loyal Community
Michelle Phan became notable as a YouTuber who now has over 8.9 million subscribers — she is the most successful YouTubers ever. What I find interesting is that she was once rejected from a job at a Lancome makeup counter because she had no sales experience, and she and her family lived on food stamps for a period of time. However, she made videos of makeup tutorials and it turned into a media craze.
She did not start off this way — her first video was very amateur, but she kept creating content. She kept learning the different ways to build a community. She learned from her mistakes.
Her First Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB8nfJCOIeE
Here are the 5 ways Michelle Phan built a loyal community:
1. Phan is someone who knows how to establish a rock-solid social media presence. What she did right was that she used the platform she was already on to communicate with friends and family — then she created a presence on other platforms that had the target audience she wanted to engage with.
2. She has made a point that if someone that has a blog and wants to make it big, then Twitter might be the best platform because it is text-heavy. However, if someone is a photographer, they should probably utilize a platform such as Instagram because it is visually focused. It’s not about going to the most popular social media channel to build your presence. It is about picking the one that aligns with your objectives. Phan says to make sure you have the same name across all of the platforms you use — it’s essential for defining your brand.
3. Phan always picked a variety of topics and became an expert at each one. She did her homework on every single topic she was entertaining or informing about. People always wanted to come back for more — to hear what she had to say and show.
4. Phan knows to commit to one or two platforms with her whole heart instead of making sure she is updating on every platform only halfheartedly. She makes a schedule. She carves out time every day to make sure she is monitoring and updating. This way she doesn’t upset her followers by disappearing for long periods of time.
5. Last but not least, she engages with her followers. She knew that to build her loyal community and to encourage users to interact, that she had to select the right people to follow. That in itself has given her a huge advantage. According to Phan, “part of having a social media strategy is being smart about whom you follow. Ask yourself who is important to your company or brand. Figure out who needs to know you exist.” When those people found out she existed when she followed them, she then started to engage with them — yes, she talked to them!
The video that helped her rise to stardom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7kQx4JJfEk
Phan knew that just building the content wasn’t good enough — it was about her interacting, being SOCIAL, that gave her a growing fanbase.