The language pivot
Juan made 100-plus Severo Journey videos in English, on the logic that English reaches a global audience and one with more purchasing power. But after a hundred videos, the analytics told a different story: 70 to 80% of viewers are from Colombia, the rest from the rest of Latin America, a few from the US and Europe. In other words, the people watching his English content are Spanish speakers. He has two theories for why English was failing. One, the platforms know he's physically in Colombia and recommend regionally, pushing his videos into a Spanish-speaking zone. Two, he isn't a native English speaker, so he can't quite land the tone and accent and stumbles on words he has to translate mid-thought, which cuts the flow, and viewers feel it, so engagement dies. After trying everything he could in English, images, more prep, views peaked around 500 and then stalled at 100. So he's pivoting: make the content in Spanish and Portuguese, the languages he actually thinks in, and meet the audience the algorithm already hands him.
// trace: where this idea came from
- ↳ video diary @ 37:35 (100+ videos en inglés por alcance global y audiencia con más poder adquisitivo)
- ↳ video diary @ 38:11 (la analítica dice que 70-80% de los viewers son de Colombia, hispanohablantes)
- ↳ video diary @ 40:01 (dos teorías, geo-recomendación regional y que no soy nativo, me trabo, la gente lo siente)
- ↳ Entry 260-1: Eighty thousand views on Reddit (el mismo desajuste inglés-a-audiencia-hispana notado en el pivot a Reddit)
Juan made a hundred-plus Severo Journey videos in English, on two premises: English reaches a global audience, and it reaches the audience with more purchasing power ▸ 37:35. But after a hundred videos the analytics told a different story: 70 to 80% of viewers are from Colombia, the rest from the rest of Latin America, only a few from the US and Europe ▸ 38:11. The people watching his English content, in other words, are Spanish speakers, the very mismatch that had already surfaced on TikTok.
hablé en inglés al mundo; el algoritmo me lo mostró a hispanohablantes →
He has two theories for why English was failing. One, the platforms know he’s physically in Colombia and recommend regionally, pushing the videos into a Spanish-speaking zone regardless of language. Two, he isn’t a native English speaker, so however fluent, he can’t quite land the tone and accent, and he stumbles on words he has to translate mid-thought, which cuts the flow and the vibe, and viewers sense it, so engagement dies ▸ 40:01. After trying everything he could in English, images, more preparation, views peaked around 500 and then stalled back at 100. So he’s pivoting: make the content in Spanish and Portuguese, the languages he actually thinks in, and meet the audience the algorithm was handing him all along, instead of the one he’d imagined…