In college I failed calculus and had to take the course twice. I miraculously passed statistics only because the teacher was pretty good and I had a good study group, but other than that, I’ve never care too much about numbers… that is until the world of YouTube.

My attention and intention is not to be famous walking down the street, though it’ll be nice to grow a solid brand business for a specific audience. Allow me to present to you a perfect case study that shows the incredible power of YouTube, and how it had allowed ordinary people a powerful influencer in economics today.

In New York City, there is a very popular long standing bagel shop named Russ and Daughters. They are known, not just for their authentic NYC style bagel and bialys, but for their salmon lox and pickled and smoked herring! It’s been featured on many television shows. Once the world of YouTube came along, it’s been featured on YouTube via food celebrities as well. Here, let me show you the current views from food personalities:

Martha Stewart: 5.7 million views

Food Network: 3.7 million views

The New Yorker: 9.8 million views

Chowhound: 17 million views

All via YouTube. Pretty impressive right? Let me present to you Mark Wiens. Mark who? A quick bio, Mark Wiens is a guy who loves food and loves to eat while traveling all over the world. He also does this cute natural facial expression that determined how good the bite of food was, I digress. He has almost 2 million subscribers and posts videos about twice a week. He too went to Russ and Daughters to eat their bagels and here is the current view count on that episode alone: 596,000 views.

Now remember, Mark Wiens isn’t an actor, or a trained professional; he’s just a guy who loves to eat! He is like you or me. And with hard work, persistence and putting his face out there via YouTube he has now made someone in Atlanta, GA or Singapore interested in Russ and Daughter should they ever stop by in New York City. Does it matter that you know or subscribe to Mark Weins? No. All it matters are those nearly 2 million people that subscribed to him. Each individual person can choose to like a channel for their own reasons because there is so much unique specific content out there. The economic playing field has changed indeed.

I could go on and on with more case studies like this one. And I hope to make an impact to mothers with my channel: Mom Gamers, a podcast style channel that focuses on mom topics hovering over relationships and budgeting. I’m on every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Check my channel out and don’t forget to subscribe and tell a friend.

See you next issue of Hmong Times, were I talk about analytics and trends.