Matt Steffanina breaks down why creators need an online community
From the basic top 8 on Myspace to Facebook Groups that you can only join privately, we've all been a member of a group using social media. In the past the platforms for social media let creators create vibrant communities, both in private as well as through public comment.
With a growing laundry list of problems that social media has been unable to fix, it is losing its place in the role of a community-building tool and manager it once was. As a result, the business and media owners everywhere are starting to notice its shortcomings as such.
The outage on Facebook in 2021 may be to blame for this initial change in attitudes. A short six-hour period when the platform was down led small businesses and creators alike to lose access to their audience and website traffic, causing widespread revenue loss. Some reported losses of up to $5,000 dollars.
To better understand the significance of hosting a community off the social web, we had a conversation with the online community master himself--Matt Steffanina, world-renowned choreographer and owner and founder of DNCR Academy.
Since launching the YouTube channel in 2009, Matt has grown a small following of more than 30 million users across all platforms. He's known for dancing with artists such as Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo, and Meghan Trainer, not to mention his appearances on TV shows such as So you think you can dance.
Through his YouTube dancing tutorials as well as in-person lessons, Matt formed a tight-knit community of passionate dancers, but after the outbreak of the flu and classes for #IRL were stopped, YouTube simply wasn't cutting it for a method for him to engage with his fans or make a profit. Then he resorted to online courses and an online community to create a lasting impression on his followers and to create an income stream that was sustainable.
Check out the Q&A with Matt to find out the ways he's built a wildly successful business and online community--and why he believes it's the key to creators controlling their destiny.
Note: The responses were lightly edited to improve clarity.
We'd like to hear a short elevator pitch of your background and what you're up to.
I'm Matt Steffanina, and I'm an artist and choreographer living in L.A. The last 12 years of my existence are largely performing and dancing. I started in the industry in collaboration with musicians, however, at every turn, I was building my YouTube account, sharing videos of my daily life, lessons, and my tours. In essence, I was following my journey in a vlog-style. One of the hard challenges of being a professional dancer, especially 10 years ago, is that you depended on your agent as well as the artists to provide opportunities. It was impossible to generate opportunities as an artist. So in my early years, I found myself waiting on the phone to get a chance to audition. At first, YouTube was an opportunity for me to keep my job and learning new skills as well as to promote my dance career. I never imagined that it would be able to do what it has done. It was a time when I increased my number of subscribers, which at the time was very impressive. In the end, I wound being offered opportunities to work with Ja Rule and Taylor Swift, and Meghan Trainer.
But the other thing that I really loved was teaching. In the beginning, I launched an additional channel named dance Tutorials Live, where viewers could be taught how to dance, and I have built up a community of dancers from all over the world. That actually became the most rewarding part of everything that I've accomplished is hearing the stories of the students' accomplishments. They're truly incredible since, back then, I was just recording tutorials at the local studio on my tripod. I was unaware that I could make any kind of impact and it's been an interesting journey, to put it mildly.
Did you foresee the YouTube channel becoming the kind of thing it is today? Did you plan to take your channel to where it is now?
No, there's no way one could have predicted it to do what it did. The first time I uploaded a video, it was back in Virginia prior to my move to L.A., and I was looking for ways to inspire myself and make connections with fellow dancers. At that time, 14 years ago I was one of the very first dancers to join the platform. I couldn't imagine what would happen. The channel now has 13 million followers and 3 billion views. My first video was released and became viral, I was able to remember that people were commenting from all over the world, and the concept of someone viewing my video from a different country seemed unimaginable. I couldn't comprehend it, but now we're here, and I'm doing tours across the globe, due to the internet and the ability to put my dancing out there through the web.
Take us on a little piece of your timeline. Tell us, what blew up the first time? Was it YouTube? Was it your career?
It is a common belief that success in the mainstream or Hollywood industry will lead to the success of online advertising, however this isn't the case as you would think. The shows I participated in were the Tonight Show, So You Think You Can Dance, The Amazing Race along with many others. I had a number of television shows that are traditional however, they didn't translate to long-term results. They were all short-term, but amazing nonetheless.
What gave me the long-term success in my career and the ability to still be doing this over a decade later is establishing a network.
The group really grew out of my dancing tutorials. It was not my intention, but it was the most smart choice I made. Being an outstanding teacher and leader in the space and pushing a group forward is harder than just being a great dancer. It was my efforts through tutorials, and by teaching students on the internet that helped me build a solid community which continues to thrive even to this day.
Are you able to take us through the process of starting DNCR Academy? How did you turn it into an actual company for you?
I created DNCR Academy right at the time of the outbreak. It was something I wanted to do for many years for number of reasons. It's a subscription platform, where people can learn dance tutorials. This is a different experience from my YouTube videos. When I upload content on YouTube I post [contentsomewhat inconsistently and the quality isn't necessarily top-quality. It's not possible to attract many guests or teachers. There are a lot of dancers who are enjoying the YouTube tutorials, and they're looking for to get more instruction. This is why I started DNCR Academy for the people who want to be a bit more serious. Through it, I'm able to bring in great instructors such as Bollywood dancing, shuffling, or dancing fitness instructors; styles that I'd never normally perform on my YouTube channel. But on the platform of [DNCR Academy], it's completely acceptable and truly amazing to provide a variety of styles for our students. At the beginning of COVID I was aware that I wouldn't be able to tour and I had the opportunity to devote my time to thisendeavor, so we took a couple of months and constructed the platform . That was June 2020. It's been three amazing three years. We thought that we had a large community on YouTube, but this took the most powerful of this strong community and put the people in an environment of bubbles. We have everyone supporting one another. In addition to having this support group that's studying with other people all over the world, but they also have an emotional support system with members who push on each other. It's a really positive thing in my life, and for dancers at DNCR also.
Could you provide more information about the community and the motivation for starting DNCR? Did the community exist before the DNCR Academy, or did it become part of the Academy? Did you foresee that being such a big element for the Academy's success?
I really felt it over COVID. It seems like a lot of individuals did. It was difficult to get excited. The process was challenging to establish a routine because you're stuck in the house and you do not have any access. Particularly, dance is an activity that is a part of the community. It is possible to dance on your individual level, but the part that I enjoy about dancing is working in a space with my peers and the enthusiasm that goes from that. When all that is taken off, it's hard to find motivation, even for myself as choreographer. It was hard for me to find motivation to persevere, so I thought that should I go through this, there's a good chance that another aspiring dancer is also experiencing the same issues and could be helped by a close-knit group. There was already a community through the YouTube tutorials, but it was not consistent. wasn't consistency, and to achieve anything it is my opinion that the number one thing you need [in dance is consistency with your practice. The community let us have each month challenges. This I consider to be the greatest thing we did in the course of DNCR. It's not just uploading tutorials and videos, it's about focusing on one thing that everyone will do with each other. The group is working together to perfect this technique and plan to submit our video by an end date. This is where we got our enthusiasm; it was the joy that comes from seeing your fellow members uploading their videos, and the enlightening and even constructive feedback received from them. It's all about being an active participant in the community and really aiding each other in their growth. This was what was difficult to do just on YouTube, as it felt that everybody was doing these (the videos) on their own. The community allowed us to do this together. It is a huge change in my own way as a choreographer as well as for the students being proficient in their learning.
Do you have any customer experiences from your community which stand out? Which person in your community has been memorable?
One of my top customers is a guy who goes by the name of Ray. He's located in Washington D. C. He's a lawyer. He began dancing when he was in his 40s. He would come home every working day with the lawyer's suit and move the kitchen table out of the way to allow him to practice his hip-hop dance routines, and then he'd end up dancing with his kids. They created a lot of videos, especially over COVID as they learned the dance routines. He was able to appear on the Disney Channel show, and winning the competition. Here's this guy who was 40 and was the only person who had never attended a dance class in his entire life, found his passion in the community and became an inspiration for our members. I believe this kind of success is really important to highlight because I also was a complete stranger to the world. I started dancing when 18 years old, but the majority of people do not see it and most of the time, they see me on stage with stars and on music videos. It's harder to grasp my struggles I went through early on. Whereas, if you watch those who are currently experiencing the journeyalong with you, and witness them come out to the other side of the most amazing adventure, it's incredibly powerful. It really moved everybody in our group. There are countless stories like this, however Ray was an exceptional one.
Do you use your social media and community audience to test out new ideas or new products that you've got for your company?
One of the things that we're always working on is the way we can help many more people. How do we reach many more people? The dancers who would like to master dancing is a bit tiny, which is why we are trying to offer the type of classes on our platform that allows someone to get up to the professional standard. We also aim to make it easier for those that just wants to learn a routine here and there, those who want to attend a dance club and feel confident. Plus, we're performing a variety of things that deal with fitness through dance. I used to be an instructor for personal training and really believe that dance is one of the most effective methods to stay in shape physically and mentally. There's even a wedding class because I receive lots of requests to create wedding choreographies however, I do not have time for it to do it, which is why the course takes the bride through all you have to know. The goal is to make it more accessible to the requests that I've had throughout the years. I've always stated that if I had the time and energy to accomplish this that it would be wonderful and would help many people. We're now trying to find the time to offer these courses.
Can you give us a high-level walkthrough of what your strategy on social media is at present? What has changed since your first appearance on YouTube?
The technology has changed significantly in the last ten years, like multiple generations of YouTube and social media as a whole. In the beginning it was not a competitive platform which meant I could just uploading videos from my class. It was that simple. It was then that I realized the revolution of vlogging and the connection with creators. I decided to start vlogging behind the scenes which was incredibly successful between 2016 to 2019. We then began taking on more challenges, like learning a routine in only ten minutes. Those did really well.
In the year COVID was announced in 2020, we started to be successful with TikTok and short-form content. The world changed drastically after. I would say that tons of the dance viewership moved to short form, TikTok in particular, due to the fact that dancing was very widespread on the platform. My videos were still posted videos on YouTube, but a lot of my strategies were centered on short-form content like fifteen-second dances rather than forty-five seconds or minute-long dances.
What's interesting about social media that most people don't understand unless you've been around for a few generations of it, is that there's not going to be an answer that works for all time--because regardless of the field that you're in, when you find something that works, eventually everyone other people will follow it. And that's what happened with dance videos. The popularity of videos from dance classes exploded and it [social media] became saturated with dance teachers uploading their class videos. So, then I had decide on my next step, and it was also duplicated. It's a constant game like in any other industry of having to reinvent and invent and come up with creative ideas. One method of identifying the ideas that are successful is to shoot darts at the board. Most of them won't work and that's why you come up with the concept that people really like. It's difficult to know, so we really do follow the premise that, If I've got the idea to do something, then I just run with it. I say let's do this, and if the idea doesn't work, great. Try something different. It's probably the most effective advice I can give anyone who is trying to create content. Take your time and don't believe that since something did not succeed the first time, it will not work the second or third time around. Sometimes you have to tweak an idea, mold it and the idea suddenly comes to fruition.
That segues well into something we did not discuss the social media algorithm. How have algorithmic factors been a part of your plan? Have they affected your ability to connect with your target audience?
If you've been on Instagram is likely to find it the most obvious there. I can remember an instance in 2019 where I could publish a flyer for a tour that might get 100,000 or 200,000 likes, and thousands of feedback since it was shown to my entire 3.9 million followers. If I had posted the flyer in the next day, it'd most likely receive only just 10% engagementas the algorithm has changed. So you have to get creative.
Instead of a flyer this is a video where the dance is happening and city names pop on the screen and viewers can click to the caption to learn more. It's up to you come up with different strategies to work within the algorithm, because, at the end of the day, it's impossible to control the algorithm. So we watch many things (metrics] on time retention. YouTube has shifted from being primarily a search engine to an ad-hoc click-through platform. Is your title and thumbnail strong enough to get people's attention? It's possible to create the most impressive video ever made and if the title and thumbnail aren't appealing to viewers, your video is going to flop. If people watch the first ten seconds or so of an video but then click away from it, YouTube is going to say 'Hey, everybody loves your thumbnail but your video is not performing effectively, therefore we won't show it to your followers. This is just the way the algorithms function in the present. With that said, strategies have become more about notions. I feel pretty confident that we'll be able to make interesting video content, even if they are getting used to a routine There are millions of options for packaging the title and thumbnail, and the length of the video and the design of the video. All of this can affect the quality of content. My channel was getting 30 million views per video for about 2 years. This is insane. Unfortunately, for people who are aware about the monetization issue due to concerns with copyrights in music, I wasn't in a position to make money from these videos. But in terms of growing my channel, it was insane. So things have definitely shifted in the past few years, especially due to TikTok as well as Instagram being the main players in terms of the market portion.
In light of the possibility of monetization, did it at any time affect your decision to create DNCR Academy, or was the sole purpose of moving offline on the web?
When attention shifted to YouTube and then to TikTok and Instagram, numbers all over YouTube decreased, which was the main way that I paid for the videos, and that's all through the monetization process...
At the time of COVID people were looking for to see more content however there was not as many monetization opportunities within the channel. It was really possible to scale, and so that was one thing that I loved about DNCR. Today, we have subscribers that pay an annual fee for membership so that we can take these cash and put it back in new and improved courses and production. In essence, it's all the things that I wanted to do that YouTube monetization wasn't providing enough revenue to accomplish. So it was a powerful way financially to be able to expand the content of my tutorials as well as the platform as well as to offer students the content they asked for.
What can you do to deal with burnout associated with all of the social media creation of content?
It's not like I'm old enough, however on social platforms, I've existed since the stone age. It's amazing how many generations have gone and gone, and the reason I think people get tired is due to some of the factors. It seems like they had their expectations and schedule a little too high and heavy early on. In particular, I remember a time from 2016 until 2017 , when my acquaintances decided to record every day vlogs. And for anyone who has attempted vlogging every day is a slog. The workload of editing, filming and coming up with ideas daily is impossible. The channel I've had always kept at one or two uploads a week. A level that I was able to manage. I made sure that I was on the road. I ensured that I had time off. If there wasn't a good music out that week, or I wasn't feeling inspired to create choreography, I decided to cancel my class. I ensured that the content creation was something I was able to do consistently, and that's allowed me to maintain longevity.
One thing I've implemented to avoid burnout is to set realistic expectations for myself. In the beginning, when you're only getting started, it's best to stick to only one at a time or on two different platforms. Make it easy. On YouTube, upload twice a week. Then, take that content and edit it to a shorter form to post it on Instagram and TikTok. Keep it manageable. It's best to develop slowly and yet still possess that spark of energy and the determination to keep making content 5-10 years from now, then go really hard for a few months, burn yourself out, and then fall off. This is about being consistent. This is a long-term game, even though it feels that things are going so fast.
Have any other tips for creators looking to utilize social media to increase traffic to their website or products, or maybe creating their own?
The most important thing is to figure out if you were in your viewers, or your client's position, what could inspire you to leave the platform and enter into the subscription model or course. There are times we feel like "I'll do this and that' and we're thinking of it from our perspective. Therefore, I conduct a number of surveys--I ask my followers frequently what direction do you hope to take the next time around or what you would find the most exciting about. At times, I think they'd like to do this incredible choreography that is difficult and complicated that they're thinking 'Look, bro, I just want some moves that I could show off at a gathering. Then I'm like 'Okay, cool this week, let's master moves that we can perform out at a party. It's great to just get in their shoes.
It's also about giving worth. It is my opinion that if you're able to offer value without expecting anything in return, without asking for anything in return, and build that confidence, trust, and feel part of a community, even if you decide to give something in exchange for a fee, such as an deal or course, there's already this confidence. It's already been a great value and have made someone's life so much better by the services you've offered which they're happy to join in and become a part of it. I think sometimes we make the mistake of making the decision before we have established relationships with customers. And that's one of the great things about social media, it allows you to engage with your fans throughout the day, whether it's videos on dance or simply sharing your life with them, while also building relationships with them, creating a sense of community and then being like 'Oh I forgot to mention that you've enjoyed your work and you're happy with it, let's see if you go one step further. This is an effortless transition that people can make instead of meeting you out of the gate and trying to throw your name into a crowd right immediately.
A lot of creators in the space think that really the only method to earn income is through brands and affiliate deals on social media that you've proved not to be the case. What advice would you give young creators about expanding their revenue streams?
Yeah, brands and affiliate marketing are a part of the piece. It is a different component that makes up the. But ideally, you need to make sure you have an element from social media platforms that also provide an incomesince, at the end of the day it is impossible to know what algorithm or rules will change. That's something I've learned throughout my career, as there were times that I earned the majority of my money via YouTube and was earning the majority of my money through live events and tours, and times when I made the bulk of my earnings through TikTok as well as Instagram but now it's . In different phases of my career, that thing changed several times. And even if I put all my eggs in one basket, and I was simply waiting for brand deals or YouTube to alter their algorithms to allow me to make more money then I'd have ended up trapped. had to stay.
Start building a community. Then, you can begin to move your fans from social networks to a subscription service, like , where you control the content as well as the community. You don't need to depend on an algorithm that serves your community the content you have. The content is available you're in DNCR and the users are able to access the content at any time they'd like. This gives power back to the creators. The world is shifting quickly and it's becoming more difficult than ever to rely on branding deals or monetization in the absence of knowing what the social media platforms will take you next.
Can you tell us the role has helped you have control over and control over your own destiny as an artist?
The platform gave us a place to put content where the rules will not change. This is my opinion as the top aspect. Like I was saying in the past, there was a time when I was getting 30 million views per video on YouTube. And now, other than maybe MrBeast as well as a few others, it's nearly impossible, even with a channel that has 13 million users. A small portion of these subscribers receive my contents. It's crucial to, as you're building your community, transfer your subscribers to an area where they can access them and they can connect to you regularly. On a basic level such as the email lists and text-based list are excellent, but really being part of a group off of social media platforms is the most powerful means to remain in touch and to also earn an income stream that is passive as a creator, especially if you're using subscriptions. This is a fantastic option to know that your friends are in one place that you can talk to themand for them to contact them, but also to earn the steady stream of income.
What's one suggestion you'd give to an entrepreneur who's just beginning in the space?
I would say to thoroughly research your area. Before you ever publish a post on TikTok take a look at one month of videos on Tiktok. You could plod along and begin creating content, but I see a lot of time wasted because people aren't doing some research before they start. If you love fitness and would like to start your own fitness-related business online, go find the top ten individuals who are in the fitness industry via social media. You can watch 10 hours of their videos, and get an understanding of the reasons why they work and then develop your own content strategy from there.
The thing is right now there's more information than you've ever had, especially via YouTube and TikTok The answers are right there. It's not necessary to create a new wheel and create an exercise routine that nobody has done before, surely? You just need to discover a way of doing something that is unique, with your style and your own voice. You can accomplish that by researching people whom you like, pulling the most valuable things they have to say about themselves and incorporating certain of your own ideas, and developing your own content strategy. However, I believe the need to accept the fact what you're not aware of. This is what I'm doing now. Every year, at least I have a couple of days where I act like I'm not a professional while I look. What do the children on TikTok that are fourteen who are doing something different that we OGs in the business aren't able to comprehend? I can think that some dances are silly, or whatnot it is, however there's a purpose for why people identify with it, and I have to know why that is so that I can continue to evolve myself, not only artistically, but also in my own business. The time you invest to research is crucial in the process of developing your strategy for content, and then once you have that plan, it's time to work hard.
Own your destiny with digital goods
The creator economy is poised to witness a surge within online communities as of 2023. Social networks are also aware and have responded with creating the community feature of their own.
As Matt mentioned, in order for creators to be able to reach their audiences in a significant method and generate an income that is passive, they must to take their audiences away from social media.
"Brands as well as affiliate marketing comprise only one part of the piece. It is also a part of the monetization. However, it is best to make use of platforms on social networks that are in turn generating income as, at the conclusion of the day, you never have any idea when the algorithms or rules may alter. That's something I've learned through the years since there was a time that I made the bulk of my income via YouTube or TikTok however, now it's ."
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