Stream Con NYC

We just attended Stream Con NYC this past weekend, which was a convention for digital content creators and those involved in that industry, as well as for fans of such content. My head is swimming now with information and possibilities.

One thing we learned at VidCon (a similar, but much more established, convention) in July is that our audience, by YouTube standards, is old. Old in this case means over 30. If you've ever watched an ad before one of our videos you know what I mean. If it's not for incontinence products, it's for osteoporosis meds. That's what YouTube thinks of folks over 30. Next stop: the nursing home!

In the meantime, I look at our audience and see a bunch of vital folks, ready to have a good time. Many have disposable income and time on their hands. They travel, party a lot, buy good liquor, eat out at nice restaurants, entertain and spend money on things like turning junior's room into a man cave or mom cave after he goes off to college. It just doesn't align with the decrepitude the digital world sees in the numbers and stats.

However, we are faced with a unique issue in promoting our show to folks who don't "live online" like the younger set. It can be a real challenge getting folks to subscribe to our show, even though they love it and watch every week, because they're just not in the subscribing habit. It doesn't cross their minds. Kids get all of their entertainment on their phones. The over 30 crowd still pays for cable in many cases. Kids watch live streaming on Periscope and YouNow, both of which are turning kids who just talk to their phones into millionaires. Over 30: What's Periscope?

It can be really frustrating, since I love our show and know others do as well. We've been recognized on the street. We get good reviews. We were on TVGuide.com, which is as traditional as it gets, but at least it shows we're legit. Public TV stations (again, traditional media) download our show and send us messages if we miss a week. All of that means a lot to us and keeps us going, along with our love for what we do. But I'm not going to lie: I want to make money at this and that will happen when we reach a MUCH wider audience. We need to reach the folks who love cocktails and food and fun. I think that's a lot of people. But how to reach them when Facebook won't put YouTube videos in peoples' news feeds and YouTube won't promote you if you don't already have big numbers?

Time to put on the deerstalker and begin to crack this mystery.

Here are a couple of shots from the weekend. I'm looking forward to attending more of these conventions in the future, since we clearly need the advice!

Stream Con NYC

Halloween party at Dailymotion