Hololive marketing success is fascinating and overwhelming to analyze. It’s hard to quantify a comparison because of it’s own unique niche it created. A mixture of idol culture, personalities, kawaiisa, streamer culture, anime, and meme culture all contribute to its virality

It’s hard to say what drives it’s success: the individual personalities, the cultural cocktail itself, cross-promotions between shared following and market funneling, the positive press from community discussions and clip sharing, or all the above

Whats useful to take away for independent and up and coming vtubers who are inspired by all of this is to not compare yourself to a whole agency or any single personality (as tempting as that may be). I feel as though one would be setting themselves up for failure in that pursuit

Now that I’m fully acquainted with this phenomena, I can at least make a loose comparison to the Golden days of YouTube when Machinima, Rooster Teeth, and other companies came out of nowhere with let’s players and their own shows

A lot of the success from independent creators during this period came from finding a niche as well as highlighting what makes their individuality unique and worth watching. That’s what it all boiled down to: what made you unique and what are you doing that others aren’t/can’t?

Even then, finding viral success still is difficult today and is increasingly difficult to grow and even get started. Being a vtuber as it is would put you ahead of this initial challenge as it’s a growing and new market and social space(s)

I think I’ll share my education a bit!

A useful term for your brand’s growth (and also fighting burn out in the long term) is to erase spooks in your head about “what it means to be a vtuber/entertainer, what success means, what is expected” and focus on measurable, achievable short term goals one goal at a time

KPI (Key-Performance Indicator) is a useful concept for measuring success. Many of you already do it with subscription count, superchats, Twitch followers, watch time, viewers. Perhaps another thing to focus on are other metrics like engagement and engagement rate

Social share of voice (SSoV)[or as political nerds call it: cultural capital. You’re basically looking at how often you are discussed and mentioned. You can find more specific measures in articles like this (Hubspot is also good) https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-kpis-key-performance-indicators/

Perhaps another thing to consider for strategy is deviating from the usual formula of let’s plays and branching out to other focuses/categories (or a mix of not just let’s plays but other categories to mix up your schedule)

Whatever helps keep it fun for you is important

I kinda let my ADHD takeover again , then again some of my best content comes from moments like this

I hope anybody thinking of becoming an #ENVtuber , debuting soon, are small and growing, struggling, etc finds this thread and finds comfort in knowing there’s room for you!