Everyone wants to crack the code of making money with short videos. They obsess over lighting, equipment, editing techniques, and posting schedules. They study thumbnails and analyze trending sounds. But most creators are optimizing the wrong thing entirely.
The uncomfortable truth is that you can have perfect production quality, flawless editing, and post at exactly the right times, but if you’ve chosen a niche topic that only appeals to a small group of people, you’ll struggle to build the audience size needed to generate meaningful income. The math is simple and unforgiving. Short video platforms pay based on views and engagement. More eyeballs means more money. Fewer eyeballs means you’re essentially working for free.
Think about the creators who are actually making a living from short videos. They’re not the ones making content about obscure academic subjects or hyper-specific hobbies that only enthusiasts care about. They’re talking about money, relationships, food, fitness, parenting, humor, or everyday life struggles that millions of people immediately relate to. These topics have built-in audiences that span age groups, geographic locations, and backgrounds.
This doesn’t mean you need to be fake or create content about things you don’t care about. But it does mean you need to be honest with yourself about whether your passion project intersects with what a large number of people actually want to watch. The sweet spot is finding something you can talk about authentically that also happens to matter to a broad audience. If you love cooking, that’s universal. If you’re obsessed with a particular model of vintage synthesizer from 1983, that’s going to be a much harder path to monetization.The resistance to this reality often comes from a place of artistic pride. Creators want to believe that quality and authenticity are enough, that if they just make good enough content, the audience will find them. Sometimes that happens, but it’s the exception that proves the rule. For every breakout creator in a tiny niche, there are thousands who never gain traction despite their talent and dedication.
The platform algorithms amplify this dynamic. They’re designed to promote content that keeps the maximum number of people watching for the maximum amount of time. A video that appeals to two percent of users will never get the same algorithmic boost as one that appeals to twenty percent, regardless of how well-made it is. The system is built to reward mass appeal because that’s what keeps people on the platform.This is why so many creators pivot after their initial channel fails to gain momentum. They realize, sometimes after months or years of effort, that they chose a topic with a ceiling that’s too low. The hardest part is that the work they put in isn’t transferable. All those hours learning to talk about medieval poetry or rare coin collecting don’t help when you realize you need to shift to personal finance or relationship advice.
The good news is that widespread appeal doesn’t mean dumbing down your content or being generic. It means finding the human elements within your interests that connect to larger themes everyone experiences. Instead of reviewing obscure films, talk about the emotions and life lessons those films explore. Instead of explaining technical aspects of photography, show people how to capture memories that matter to them. The frame shifts from the specific to the universal.
Starting with audience size in mind isn’t selling out. It’s being strategic about where you invest your time and energy. You can always go deep on niche topics once you’ve built an audience with broader content. Many successful creators use their popular channels to occasionally explore more specialized interests, and their established audience gives them the freedom to do so. But trying to build from the ground up with a narrow focus is choosing hard mode when you don’t have to.
The creators who figure this out early save themselves years of frustration. They look at topics not through the lens of what they find interesting, but through the lens of what millions of other people might also find interesting. Then, within that broader space, they find their unique angle and voice. That’s the sequence that actually works. Widespread appeal first, personal differentiation second. Not the other way around.