Before you start reaching out to potential collab partners, it’s a good idea to spend some time thinking about what you can offer to those who may be interested in working with you – this is your “value proposition.” Everyone has unique skills and talents, so you may be surprised at how much value you can offer to others if you take some time to craft your unique value proposition.
Make sure you’ve thought about the value you can provide in different circumstances. For example, if you have significantly less subscribers than your potential collab partner, perhaps your value proposition comes from your ability to record original music, produce amazing video effects, write hilarious scripts; or perhaps from your familiarity with post production software, unique access to interesting locations for video shoots, or something else. If you cannot think of anything in particular, you can always offer to pay some amount of money toward their time or travel expenses, or you could volunteer to handle all of the video editing work.
If you have significantly more subscribers than a potential collab partner, you should still consider collaborating with them for a number of reasons: first, their audience could grow more quickly than yours in the future (perhaps one day even surpassing your own). Second, they will be much more likely to help you in the future if you ever need to ask them a favor. Third, if larger Creators aren’t willing to collaborate with smaller Creators, then far fewer collaborations will happen and the community as a whole will be worse off – so don’t let that happen!
Remember: collaborations are about building relationships, not just increasing your subscriber count. One of the best ways to form a new relationship with someone is to help them. Growing your respective audiences is only one (though definitely awesome) result of new collaborations, but connecting with other members of the Creator community to create lasting relationships should always be your end goal.
In fact, this will create more value for you and the community as a whole in the long term.
That’s it for Step 2, but be sure to check back soon for Step 3: Always Be Specific.
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