Hello! Right now you’re reading “The Creator Confidential”, a blog where famous YouTubers share their stories and tips they have for growing a YouTube channel. Over the past week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rochelle, and here is the finished result. Enjoy!
Rochelle started her YouTube channel 7 years ago, and only recently blew up through one of her thrift flip and TikTok dance videos. Today, she has over 120,000 subscribers and 2.8 million views! In this blog post, she talks about starting a podcast with Joëlle, the impact “blowing up” on YouTube had, and how she is still learning about some aspects of YouTube.
What inspired you to create your channel? When did you start?
I started my channel all the way back in 2012. I had just started watching the big beauty vloggers and nail art channels of the time (particularly cutepolish!) and thought “huh, I could do that.” From there it was 7 years of figuring out how to ‘do that’ I guess!
When your "trying tiktok dances" video took off (it currently has almost 2 million views, which is AMAZING!), were you surprised? What was your reaction?
My ’thrift flip’ video had started gaining traction, so I was pleasantly surprised the TikTok video was next, but I was not at all prepared for the scale at which it blew up. I never thought a video of mine would hit a million views, ever. It’s also something I never really chased or desired - making ‘viral’ content really isn’t my realm (though a million views is hardly viral today). The numbers that video was gaining was so overwhelming, but the subscribers it brought - people who wanted to stick around to see what else I would make - was comforting.
Top 3 tips you would give to small YouTubers trying to start a successful YouTube channel?
You’ve heard these all before but:
Make content you’d enjoy watching. That means you don’t have to stick to one category, just make whatever fits in your unique set of interests!
Prioritise having fun and learning from the experience. I was never fixated on becoming a huge channel. I’ve only had 100k subscribers for a couple weeks, but what I have to show from the last 7 years of being on YouTube are incredible connections, massive growth in my video editing skills, and a real understanding of how to tell stories through video.
Remix! Always ask yourself what unique angle and contribution you can add if you’re riding a trend. For example, my ’thrift flip’ video was really just altering clothing I already own, because I want to discourage excessive buying habits and encourage the sustainable fashion bubble to look to clothing you already own rather than thrift shops. Using the trendy language, I was able to bring in new viewers while offering something different than your typical thrift flip!
You and Joelle started a podcast together, which you post episodes of on your channel. How did this start? How did you get to know each other, and can you talk about the importance of the podcast to your channel?
Joëlle and I met in our design course at uni, and it was true love ever since. I’d been wanting to start a podcast for a while, and we thought we were having some conversations others may enjoy. Our setup was and is very DIY, phones for mics, pasta jars for mic stands. I started posting the podcast in video form on my channel because I already had the (small) platform and I liked watching other video podcasts. This was a great new challenge for me, because instead of hours of footage laboriously sliced into a few minutes of content, I could keep all my long form thoughts in 45 minutes of content with relatively minimal editing. We kept doing it because we enjoyed it, and slowly we found people who liked listening to it! We have a new channel for the podcast and all other Club Scene projects now.
How do you find opportunities with brands? Also, this doesn't necessarily have to be about brands but: What is one of the best opportunities you've been given because of your channel?
This is something I’m still trying to figure out! I never chased sponsorships or brand deals, so only now am I starting to make a media kit and understand important metrics… all that! Fortunately, I have a teensy bit of experience freelancing as a designer, so I have some concept of how to negotiate and fight for my worth. I actually owe a lot of my design opportunities to my YouTube channel. It gave me a place to constantly create, push and experiment, even long before I knew I wanted to pursue design. It’s also a big part of why I have any social media presence at all, which has played a part in almost all my design jobs.
What's your favorite video on your channel and why?
I think Vlog 16, my video diary of Nav’s birthday in Milan. I think there’s this little golden age of vlogs on my channel from the end of 2018. I look back at those videos and they’re all extremely sentimental to me. I think there’s some really good story telling in them too. I can’t really make vlogs right now seeing as I’m just at home, so I feel like I learn a lot looking back at the way I made those videos. Also I’m semi-multi-lingual at that time, which like, #cantrelate.
Finally, what is your experience with hate (in real life and in comments) and do you have any advice on how to deal with it?
Fortunately, I haven’t had to deal with much hate so far. The growth of my channel was extremely sudden, so it brought a lot of new people to my channel leaving lots of comments and flooding my DMs. Only a very small percentage were negative, but I still turned off my comment notifications so I can choose to see and reply to comments and messages on my terms. It’s my corner of the internet after all!
Thanks for reading! A huge thanks to Rochelle for taking the time to answer all the questions. Here are the links to all her socials:
Instagram: @therochellefish https://www.instagram.com/therochellefish/
Website: https://therochellefish.com/
YouTube: therochellefish https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRochelleFish
YouTube: Club Scene https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ynpDbMS9Vpv8Vlymi4fag
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