The great news is that if you want to grow your YouTube channel, you have an incredible opportunity to do so. There are an infinite amount of topics and formats at your fingertips and a well of creative ideas you can pull from.
But as any successful creator will know, there are certain guidelines you need to follow, or your budding career will never get off the ground. The TubeBuddy blog, YouTube, and social channels are chock full of tips and advice on how to kickstart a killer content strategy and avoid the pitfalls that catch out more unsuspecting creators. Our latest live stream takes a deep dive into the mistakes you can easily avoid on your journey. Click below for the full experience, or read the transcript below.
The great news is that if you want to grow your YouTube channel, you have an incredible opportunity to do so. There are an infinite amount of topics and formats at your fingertips and a well of creative ideas you can pull from.
But as any successful creator will know, there are certain guidelines you need to follow, or your budding career will never get off the ground. The TubeBuddy blog, plus our YouTube and social channels are chockful of tips and advice on how to kickstart a killer content strategy and avoid the pitfalls that catch out more unsuspecting creators. Our latest live stream takes a deep dive into the mistakes you can easily avoid on your journey. Click below for the full experience, or read the transcript below.
We’ve pulled out some of the key fails new or smaller, creators often make, which stop them from reaching their full potential. If this might be you then now is a great time to correct them.
#1 Stop Failing to Take Your Content Seriously
Many content creators wait for some kind of validation or success before they take content strategy seriously. Unfortunately, a lot of those content creators will end up giving up. Because they’re not taking it as seriously as they should, they don’t get that response that they’re after. We encourage you to shift that mindset if you want serious results. If I take things seriously now, then that’s actually how you end up getting the real results. That’s how you end up building a brand on YouTube. That’s how you end up getting more views on your content. That’s how you end up getting subscribers on your channel. Because you’re being intentional about everything.
#2 Don’t Leave Titles and Thumbnails to the Last Minute
If you want to grow Your YouTube Channel, you should understand that custom thumbnails and your titles need to work together to complement each other. One grabs a viewer’s attention, the other one encourages them to click play. So make sure that you’re always thinking about that before you make your video content so that you can match the expectations that people have. Team thumbnails and titles together to win the click and grow your YouTube channel.
#3 Not Connecting with YOUR Audience at Every Opportunity
It’s very tempting to mimic another creator to replicate their success. However, all that ends up happening is you become a poor copy of that person instead of being the best version of yourself. At the end of the day, what you want to make sure that you’re doing is that you’re making yourself connectable to the people that you are interacting with your content. Constantly imitating another creator is just going to lead to a dull channel and possible creator burnout.
#4 Failing To Do Any Research on Content Your Viewers Want
One of the hardest things for a creator who wants to grow on YouTube is to separate themselves from other people who are doing the same type of content. Only by understanding what you can uniquely bring to the space that nobody else is can help you stand out.
When it comes to the research side of things, you have to make sure that you are looking into topics that your audience is interested in. If you are not doing that research, then you are just making videos that you just want to make. That’s a great way to keep your view, and subscriber counts low. Take full advantage of TubeBuddy, Google Trends, YouTube Analytics, and other data sources to identify which interests and topics viewers are searching for and engaging with.
#5 Neglecting to Keep Your Skills Up to Date
The next big mistake creators make is not being in a constant state of skilled development. If you really want to thrive on YouTube, it’s essential to make sure that you are up to date with a range of skills or developing new ones.
Get good at copywriting because this will help with scriptwriting, as well as titles and descriptions. Learn how to design so you can make better thumbnails and better video graphics. Learn the art of videography and editing for obvious reasons. Develop your skills and experience in public speaking, charisma, psychology, marketing, and other fields to give you a heads-up on other creators.
#6 Not Playing the YouTube Game
Yes, when it comes to your content, you can have fun and take chances but if you don’t play by the phenomenally strict YouTube rules and guidelines you are risking too much. If you need a reminder on YouTube’s Community Guidelines and Terms of Service, click on the links provided. Please don’t be that one creator that effs around and finds out.
Optimize YouTube Growth with TubeBuddy
Growing on YouTube requires serious effort and a solid game plan, which is why we provided you with the 14 tips above. Success on YouTube won’t come overnight, but with these tips in your arsenal, you’ll be well-equipped to fast-track your YouTube journey to success. It is a free browser extension and YouTube management solution that content creators use to manage and optimize their channels. Download the extension today to see what TubeBuddy can do for you.
STOP Making These Mistakes If You Want To Grow Your YouTube Channel: Transcript
If your YouTube content creator and you are having trouble getting the ball rolling, if you’re new to YouTube, if you have a small YouTube channel, no matter what it is that you seem to do, you just can’t break through today, we’re going to be talking about the main mistakes that content creators make that happen.
So if you are trying to overcome the lack of views that you’re currently getting on your YouTube channel and just the lack of activity, lack of comments, the lack of engagement, and all of that, then you’re definitely going to want to make sure that you tune into this. It’s usually because of a handful of core things that we are going to be talking about here during the stream today. There’s a nice list that I have here in front of me, but I’m going to focus on 10 to 12 different things that are the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to YouTube.
Creator Mindset
So we’re going to go ahead and get started right now with the very first thing, which is the mindset of a content creator. So, as content creators, we often have this thought in our mind when we’re first getting started to where we’ll think to ourselves, hey, I’m just going to kind of do what I need to do; maybe I’m going to, you know, put in, you know, some good effort with this and If things start going well on my YouTube channel, that is when I’m going to double down, that’s when I’m going to start really taking this seriously. That’s when I’m going to start really working on my skill sets and doing all the things that I need to do. Once a video starts getting traction, I start getting some attention to my YouTube channel. This particular thing, even though It seems trivial, but it can be a huge roadblock for a lot of content creators. And the reason for that is that if you are publishing content with the hopes of something doing well, then you start to take it seriously. So the fix for this is you want to switch things around and switch your perspective. So if you are somebody that wants to take this seriously and you want to turn this into something that you can do full time or maybe a side hustle, or you want to use it to get your message out, or just to bring, you know, some attention to yourself in that particular case, you have to change how you’re thinking about the approach.
What usually happens is when content creators come in, and they’re not focused on taking it seriously 1st, and they’re waiting for things to happen before they take it seriously. Then a lot of those content creators will end up stopping, or they’ll end up not getting traction and putting in all of this effort and all of this work and making videos. But because they’re not taking it as seriously as they should, they don’t get that response that they’re after. So because of that, I encourage you to fix this first one. I encourage you to shift that mindset if I want serious results. If I take things seriously now, then that’s actually how you end up getting the serious results. That’s how you end up building a brand on YouTube. That’s how you end up getting more views on your content. That’s how you end up getting subscribers on your channel. Because you’re being intentional about everything, it is what you’re doing because you are taking it seriously. You are looking at it for the opportunity that it is on YouTube.
Grow Your YouTube Channel: Titles and Thumbnails
Next up is not considering your titles and thumbnails before you make your videos. How many people here will make your video, and then once your video is done, you’re like, OK, how am I going to do the title and thumbnail?
If you’re one of those people, you’re actually working against yourself in that in that sense. But if you really want to thrive here on YouTube, the best thing you can do when it comes to your workflow is to think about the title and the thumbnail for your video before you ever make the content. Before you even consider actually hitting the record button. And the reason for that is that you might have an amazing idea for a piece of video content, but if you can’t package it correctly through the thumbnail in the title, then people aren’t going to see it. Really think about your idea; think about how I am going to illustrate this idea from the outside when somebody hasn’t had the chance to or the opportunity to watch my video yet when it’s just being presented to them on a home page. Or, you know, recommended next to another video or under another video. What am I going to do in my thumbnail title to one, help the viewer recognize that this content is something that they might care about, and two, by leveraging the title, compel them to click on this and the reason it’s so important to do this first and I know.
Not every content type you know can leverage this, but if your content type does support this, definitely do it. And here’s why: because a lot of people can get high click-through rates on their videos or on their thumbnails. But then, as soon as somebody hits the content, people end up bailing on the content. Or they just can’t get people to click on the videos, even though the content itself is good. So the problem is if you don’t think of your thumbnail and title first before you make your videos, what’s going to happen is you’re going to have to shoehorn your thumbnail and title around the video that you’ve already created, which means maybe your intro isn’t going to be a perfect match for your thumbnail and title. Maybe the way that you’re setting up the rest of the video isn’t going to be a great match for what the viewers are expecting when they come into the content. So because of that, you want to start thinking about when you come up with the video idea, OK, before I make this. How am I going to present this to people? I want you to think about is if I’m going to be presenting this to people from the outside. What type of expectation is this going to create for the viewer?
OK. So this puts this big question right there in your face. You know the content creator. And then from there, once you have that and you sketch out some ideas, you don’t have to build the thumbnail. But if you sketch out ideas like, OK, well, I’m going to have, you know, a 2-panel thumbnail. And on this side, I’m going to have this. And then, on this side, I’m going to show this. That’s going to ensure that you get the right footage and everything you need, the right shots that you need for it. But more importantly, it’s also going to ensure that when somebody sees that thumbnail and title, and they’re like, Oh yeah, this is definitely something that, you know, that I might be interested in, that they’re going to click into it. And then, when they come into the video content itself, they’re going to end up watching for a longer period of time.
And we all know how important watch time is, so they’re going to end up watching for a longer period of time because you are going to be able to meet their expectations as they come into the video because you’re going to already know through your pre-planning of the thumbnail and the title, what that viewer is going to expect, or your intention for what it is that they’re going to expect when they come into the content, because of that. You want to make sure you’re always thinking about your thumbnail title before you actually make the content itself. And again, you don’t have to build it like you have to open up Photoshop or whatever it is you make your own. Thumbnails in and actually put everything together, but. If you have, if you have a tablet, sketch it out. If you have a, you know, notepad, you know, just grab a pencil and just sketch out some general ideas of what you think it’s going to be.
And as a part of that, also think about how your thumbnail and your titles work together to complement each other. One of the things that YouTube says is that your thumbnails and titles work together as a team to win the click. Because one grabs their attention, the other one pulls them through. So make sure that you’re always thinking about that before you make your video content so that you can match the expectations that people have.
Connect with Your Audience to Grow Your YouTube Channel
One of the things with YouTube is that it’s about you, the content creator, right? So of course, you know, viewers are coming on, they want to watch content, they want to learn stuff, they want to be entertained, they want to be motivated, they want to, you know, be challenged with the way that they think or they want to jump into their echo chambers or whatever it is. But at the end of the day, what you want to make sure that you’re doing is that you’re making yourself connectable to the people that you are interacting with your content.
So here’s how you do that. So a lot of people will act like other content creators because, you know before they start their YouTube channels, a lot of new creators before they start their channels, they’ll see other content creators acting a certain way or doing certain things. No. Like, hey, I like this content creator, so therefore, I’m just going to mimic that content creator instead of just being myself. I’m going to try to be that person, right? And what ends up happening is you end up being a bad copy of that person instead of being the best version of yourself that is on camera. So instead of people connecting with you, they’re connecting with this, this persona of you that is based on someone else. And here’s a really bad thing about that, even if it starts working, and I’ve. I’ve actually known and worked with creators who have run into this situation. Even when it starts working, you are, in terms of your channel, doing better. If you take that path, you’re going to hit a point to where you’re going to be like, man, people aren’t even like coming here for me, right? They’re not even coming here like, you know, the person they’re interacting with, it’s not even me.
Right. And that can cause a lot of weird things to go on in your head. And then, eventually, you’ll burn out on trying to be that person. And then you’re going to deliver yourself to that audience, and they’ll be like, oh, they completely change. They’re doing something different now. They’re acting like a different person now. Like, what’s going on, and you’re going to give them a different experience.
So if you can start and be as much of yourself as you possibly can and leverage that uniqueness that we all have in that particular case, you’re going to be something that people can connect to at a deeper level; you’ll be able to sustain that over a long period of time, which is important if you’re somebody wants to do this for a long period of time.
Another thing as well is, you know, when you do start letting people know the nuances of your personality, the things that you like, the things that you don’t like, you know type of, you know, the person that you are the type of people that you like, you know. Are you a positive person? It’s usually from my other shot, but like, you know, personality items like, I’ve got some Star Wars stuff laying around, I’ve got VR headsets lying around, you know things. Like that, and some of those things are like just because it’s a good place to put it. But it’s also because I’m like, OK, well, somebody watches my videos, and they’re into Star Wars as an example. And I have my Stormtrooper helmet over here, my Stormtrooper Lego set thing over here. Then in that particular case, when people see that that are in the Star Wars right there, there’s that connection, right? Like, there’s something that we agree on, even if you don’t agree with everything that I’m saying and all that, and there’s something else. That we agree on that you know that we’re alike and. In some way same exact thing with the VR headsets or anything that you’re into. Also, that’s why you see a lot of content creators where they have like bookshelves, and you know all of these things in the background of all these different personality items or just shelves in general with all these personality items because one, it’s a display and it is a set in some cases. But also it gives people things to connect with things to relate to.
So because of that, make sure that you are always just giving yourself and that you are sharing those things that you are interested in; a great medium for this is. Live streaming and the reason that live streaming is great is because while you’re live streaming, you can kind of sidebar things and talk about, you know, little aspects. Just briefly talk about other things that you care about, about ways that you think about things, and all that that you may or may not insert into your video content. Currently, because live streams are just a little bit more, you know, relaxed and you know, and all of that stuff, and they’re not perfectly polished and all of that, which helps your personality come through, which is fantastic.
Do the Research!
Another huge problem that causes that is a lack of research. A lot of content creators will only study other content creators and their niche. I mean, it’s good to pay attention, and it’s good to pay attention to what videos they’re putting out, what’s working and not working on their channels, and things like that because you’re trying to tap into the same people. But if you’re only researching the people that are in your space and you’re digging into how they are operating, then it kind of keeps you in this little box in this little bubble to where it doesn’t leave a lot of room for growth. And a lot of room for ideas.
Even if you love something and then you start doing it, then somebody else in your space is doing it, then it’s like, Oh well, you know, I was doing that first, and then they kind of took this idea. And then they started doing it. But if you see another creator in a completely different type of content, you know, doing something like, wow, I love how they did that particular thing with their graphics, or I love how they, you know. Started their video with that, or I love these little pattern interrupts that they do and how they, you know, do these little things like that. I love their use of music from transitioning from, you know, scene to scene or topic to topic and things like that. When you start noticing those types of things on other types of content, it can create a lot of inspiration for you.
And it can break you out of the box of your niche because one of the hardest things on YouTube is separating yourself from the other people that are doing the same type of content you are. You know, like if you’re a gamer, for example, there’s a billion gamers on YouTube. What are you doing to separate yourself from everybody else? Right, of course. Hopefully, you’re being the, you know, best version of yourself as you can possibly be. But you should also be trying to think of what is something new that I could introduce into this based on some of this research that I’m doing of some of these other, you know, amazing content creators on the platform.
Like, what are some, you know, things that I can bring into our space that nobody else is currently bringing into our space? And by doing that, that’s going to help you stand out. Because as creatives right this is what we do. We’re like, hey, I want to make this, and then we get to work making it. But if you want to get the ball rolling faster, if you’re stuck in that period of, like, man, I just can’t get things moving, then in that particular case, you.
When it comes to the research side of things, you have to make sure that you know you are looking into topics that your audience is interested in. If you are, you know, not doing that research, then you can be making the videos that you just want to make, which is. Hey, but if you’re stuck in that box, and you’re trying to break out of that box because you keep hitting these ceilings with your view counts, the big problem and the big mistake that you could be making is not doing that research. And because of that, you create this ceiling to where there’s not a huge market for exactly what it is that you’re making topically. So because of that, when you start doing research, and you can use TubeBuddy for this, you can use their keyword explorer. You can use Google Trends for this, but the idea is just to start looking around and trying to get a pulse.
If I make this video based on this topic, what is the potential reach that I might be able to have? Because if you just make something, then in that particular case, if it’s something really unique and crazy, then in that particular case, yeah, I mean it, it might take off, but if you know going into it and you’re intentional, and you know, Hey, I’ve done the research on this, I know. That X amount of people are looking for this information based on other channels that are making similar content. Then, you know, when they publish videos that are similar to this, they end up, you know, doing good views and things like that. It just proves the potential for the video so that when you are publishing the content, you’re not thinking to yourself, this video isn’t doing well because it’s not because people aren’t interested in it. Maybe it’s because of how people are responding to the video maybe. I’m not able to get people to click because I’ve proven already before I even made the content.
So you just want to make sure that you are doing that leg work, so to speak, and making sure that you’re giving yourself that opportunity to. One trick that a lot of content creators use, or one you know, a tip that you’ll hear a lot, is to, you know, pick a very, you know, knit specific subject that’s great and that’s good advice.
But if you only make content that is just super isolated and super niche, then you’re just limiting your potential. But if you’re like, hey, as part of my content strategy. And for those of you who are not familiar with content strategy, it’s basically planning out your content over a short or long period of time and giving purpose to each individual piece of content in order to fulfill goals that you have for your channel or your business, or you know whatever it is that you’re making content for. So when you’re putting your content strategy together, you can say, hey, I’m going to cover these niche topics because. Not a lot of people are covering them, and that’s going to give me a bunch of leaves on the branches, too. But then I’m also going to try to go after the trunk, right? I’m going to try to actually go after the main core part of the tree here, where most of the viewership is on YouTube, and I’m going to try to tap into that as well. So, just kind of mixing in some broader topics within your niche so that you can give yourself that potential to kind of breakthrough that ceiling that you’re currently hitting.
Another part when it comes to, you know, research is you also want to make sure that you are a student of the platform. I kind of touched on this briefly a second ago, but you want to make sure that you are looking at your content type and other creators in your niche, and you also want to make sure that you are just hopping into YouTube search and seeing what pops up in YouTube search and just watching some cooking videos and seeing what they’re doing for the high performing cooking videos like how are they keep people engaged. How are they starting their videos? What kind of structure are they doing with what it is that they’re doing? Go look at, you know, if you’re not a gamer, go watch some gaming videos that might, you know, inspire you because they do some really cool stuff in the gaming space. If you are making videos about fashion, then in that particular case, watching videos on tech. You know, even though it’s not related to fashion, watching videos on tech, you could see something that the tech folks are doing that could inspire you with your content and vice versa as well.
So, becoming a student of YouTube, watching content that’s outside of your space, not as a viewer. But as somebody that’s studying that content can also be a way to give you new ideas and kind of freshen up your perspective and also be able to pull some of that, you know, type of stuff into your content. But most importantly though, you know outside of that part is just making sure that you are looking into the potential reach that you have with every video that you publish. If you’re trying to break out of that. You know, the box that you’re currently locked into next problem, and this is this is huge on YouTube. I’m guilty of this. Every content creator is guilty of this until they hit a threshold, and then they’re like, ah, you know what, it’s actually not as good as I thought it was. And that is thinking your videos are amazing.
So don’t be offended by this, but here’s here’s how this works. So when we are coming up with ideas for our videos, we’re thinking to ourselves, like, yeah, this is a good idea. People are going to like this, then we go, and we start making the content itself, and we put everything together, and we edit it, and we share the information that we think is good, and we share, you know, the experiences. I should say that we. That’s good. And then we edit those videos in the way that we like, and we use the music that we like, and we use the graphics that we like, and we use the pacing that we like, and we do everything based on our tastes. Well, in some cases, that’s a perfect match for how other people are interacting or how other people appreciate content. And in some cases, it’s the opposite of how other people respond to content.
I hang out in YouTuber communities on Facebook and Discord and on Reddit as well, and one of the things I constantly see is new content creators saying things like my videos are great. I don’t understand why people are not interacting with my content, but they’re interacting with this. This other channel doesn’t seem to put a lot of effort into what it is. That they’re doing. Right. The problem there is not that the content is great, and it’s not getting a response. The problem there is the creator is biased toward their own content, and it’s clouding their vision of why people are not responding to what it is that they’re doing compared to what it is that other people are doing. Right.
So if you’re trying to grow at scale and you’re trying to break out of that box, you have to make sure that you’re open to the idea. that your content is just like mine, just like everybody else that’s hanging out here, just like everybody else on YouTube. Our content might need some improvement, right? And you have to embrace that idea because if you right now, you know, especially you’re getting started, if you right now you’re like, hey, this stuff is amazing and it might, it might be, but if people aren’t responding to it like it’s amazing, then that means other people don’t find it as amazing as you do. Therefore, you have to use the analytics that YouTube gives us to better understand how people at scale are responding to what it is that you’re doing and then make adjustments as necessary.
Some of the things that you want to look for are your audience retention report and a second-by-second graph of how people are responding to our content. On average, over time. So what you can look forward, you looking for places in your videos where you get spikes where people are rewinding or rewatching parts of your videos or people are sharing it out. And that’s an entry point. You can also see places in your video where people dip out. And those are problem areas because you’re causing people to leave. Another thing is that inside of your audience retention report, you also have from the drop-down if you’re on a computer, you have relative audience retention. So relative audience retention, which has been renamed to how your videos compared to other videos on YouTube or compared to other videos, is the language they use. But when you use that drop-down, that gives you real insights to how you’re comparing against other videos of similar length on the platform. So it just gives you insights. So it gives you stuff, it gives you information so you can know what it is that you need to work on. And then from there, you’re like, hey, you know what? My videos are actually compared to other videos. They’re not that bad. I’m pretty good at keeping people consistent.
Part of that is you have to look at your ability to get people to click, and then you have to look at your ability to get people to continue watching other videos on YouTube. So when it comes to getting people to click, YouTube shows us what’s called our click-through rate and what your click-through rate is on YouTube. It shows your video to people on the platform. That’s called an impression. That’s what. That’s what it’s called in your YouTube analytics. So your click-through rate is for every impression that YouTube shows, you know, every time YouTube shows your videos to people on the platform, how many of those people convert into an actual viewer, somebody that clicked on.
So the average is on YouTube, just so you know between 2 and 10%. YouTube does not give us impression data for that. They just tell us that the average. On YouTube is between 2 and 10%. So what you need to do overtime is you need to figure out what the averages are in your channel and then start mapping your click-through rate against that. So if you notice, hey, I’m coming in pretty low here, then you know to make a change. Of some kind.
You want to make sure that you are looking at your audience retention reports and that you’re seeing what is happening at the end of your videos. This is really important because a huge mistake that a lot of new content creators make, and it’s just because they see other people going on YouTube.
Go into the top right-hand corner of your analytics for an individual video or at the channel level, There’s an advanced mode so you can click on that and it takes you into like a whole other area of advanced analytics and you can get all kinds of amazing information in there. But one of the things that you can do is once you’re on that page, you’re going to see a navigation tab for traffic sources. When you click on that. On an individual video level, you’re going to see what your click-through rate and average view duration look like coming from home page viewers. What does it look like coming from suggested video viewers? What does it look like coming from search viewers? And based on what you’re trying to accomplish with your channel and the goals that you’re trying to, you know, achieve in viewership or whatever it is that you’re doing channel for, then you know that information can ensure that you’re taking the right approach there.
In fact, if you’re using TubeBuddy’s AB testing tool, it gives you some of that information to make it easier to understand where you can upload two different thumbnails, and it’ll compare them back and forth against each other. And it’ll tell you, like, hey, on home pages, this one does the better search. This one does better-suggested videos. This one does better, and then that way, based on what it is that you or where it is that you’re trying to get traffic from it, it tells you how competitive you are there.
Keeping Your Skills Up to Date
The next big mistake is not being in a constant state of skilled development as a content creator. So look, I know that a lot of people have jobs and schools and families. I mean, I would say everyone has other things that they do outside of YouTube. Most people, not everybody. But you know, people have, you know, things that they do outside of YouTube. So because of that, you know, life is just busy. However, if you really want to thrive on YouTube, it’s really important to make sure that you are in a constant state of skill development, and the reason for that is that this stuff is hard. You’re competing against some very talented people, and it doesn’t matter what niche you’re in; there are people in the niche who are talented. You might be one of those. Some of it is learned talent, where people have over a period of time they’ve learned how to do things better than most people, which is why they get the the results that they do. So because of that, you want to be in a constant state of skill development.
Make sure that you’re, you’re studying content around writing titles copywriting because that’s, you know, also title-related, design so you can make better thumbnails and make better video graphics. You can take your videos from looking janky to looking nice and polished because you know you learned how to do it. Videography, because you know, there’s there’s rules and concepts to all these things, like framing. And, you know, all of that. You also need to make sure that you are, you know, consuming content and practicing around public speaking, charisma, psychology, marketing, editing, using all the different you know tools that you have available.
You have to learn how to communicate effectively, you have to learn how to grab people’s attention through imagery and through text. You have to learn how you know concepts of editing so that you can, you know, make sure that you keep people engaged and watching the content. When you’re editing, that’s more of a verb, right? Like you’re actively intentionally trying to bring people through the content based on what it is that you are sharing with them. And based on how it is that you’re that you’re structuring everything through the content. And based on the different choices that you’re making. And as you go through the content, there’s a YouTube channel that everybody here should watch, Hayden Hellier Smith. He edits for, like, Logan Paul and some other big creators. If you watch one of his videos, it’s going to blow your mind. going to like, oh, wow. Never even thought about that stuff. And it’s because he’s a professional editor. Like, that’s what he does. And he does it, you know, at a very high level. So that’s what he studies.
When it comes to skill development, if you want to do better, you know at the thing of YouTube, then you have to be better at the thing of YouTube. And the only way to fulfill that is by working on yourself and developing the skill sets needed. His name is Hayden Hellier. Smith, if you just type in, start typing in like Hayden Hellier Smith or even if Hayden Smith maybe that it that might get him to come up in YouTube search. But yeah, just incredible in terms of just you know concepts that he shares, and if you just pay attention to the nuance of how he explains things that can really give you a lot of insights into what goes into editing.
Keep Experimenting
It’s easy for us to get kind of stuck in our ways. And as you start getting more and more successful on the platform. Because you’ll be like, hey, this is working. I’m going to do it forever. Right. But people change the platform changes. You know, competition comes into the space like all kinds of different things happen that can impact you as an individual channel and an individual creator. So because of that, you should always, even if, even if you’re like, hey. I’m going to do just let’s play this on my channel, and that’s all I’m going to do. If you’re not getting the results, doing that experiment with something else, keep doing that. But experiment with doing something else. Because maybe you are good. Maybe you’re good, you know, at playing the game.
Maybe you’re entertaining to watch, but maybe you’re an amazing teacher. And when it comes to showing people how to, you know, navigate in certain parts of the game and put content together in a way that teaches people how to do something, maybe you’re maybe you’re, like, the best. In the gaming niche at that. But you haven’t given it a chance yet because you’re stuck over here doing, doing let’s play is because that’s what you think you should be doing, right? So because of that, just make sure that you’re open to experimenting. Like, you know, right now on my on my YouTube channel. So I have always run an experiment, so I just came off of a year of doing weekly news on my YouTube channel.. When I was first doing it, a lot of people were coming back. I was getting a lot of return viewers, but because the news wasn’t really that big, even though it added a decent amount of subscribers to my channel, it added about $10,000 a year. You know, to the to the ad revenue.
The channel, even though those things happened after a while, it’s like, well, the news isn’t that impactful. It’s just kind of like little nuanced updates here and there, maybe some industry news things like that. And at scale, people who are watching my videos just don’t care as much about that. So because of that, once the novelty wore off, the things that I was talking about weren’t as big of a deal. Then you know the news started becoming less and less important. So now. That experiment is over. It was working for a while, so now what I’m doing is I’m not doing the weekly news anymore, and instead, I’m waiting for news that is impactful.
So it’s like, you know, hey is what, what’s you know, is there something major that’s happening right now? And then I’ll talk about, you know, I’ll talk about that, you know, for example, like, you know, the shorts adding the, you know, links right there. On the page where we can direct people to any video that’s gigantic, right? Same thing with them taking the links out of YouTube shorts. Gigantic, you know, news. So because of that, you know, I made sure to make a video about it. But on the experimental side, now I’m like, hey, AI’s coming around. So let’s go ahead and mix trends with, you know, something that’s trending with, you know, with an experimental bucket. And then, with that, what a bucket is. It’s basically like a set of videos, right? It’s like a series or a type of content that you make compared to the other. Videos that you may. Right, so now I’m experimenting with, you know, AI content. So, I’ve got a couple of AI shorts. I’ve got an AI video, and then I’m getting ready to publish another one tomorrow on my channel. That’s an AI video. And out of those, you know, I’ll, I’ll do them until people, you know, start falling off of those as well. But the whole idea is. If what you’re doing isn’t working, experiment because you know, again, you could be amazing. You know, creator at this thing right here, but you could be OK at this thing over here, right?
So just always experimenting to give yourself that, you know, stimulus, so to speak. And just to see if you, you know, if you’re better suited for another aspect of what it is that you’re. The next one, and I get some blowback when I talk about this one, so I’m ready for it. If you want to, you know, kind of roast me up here in the comments. It’s perfectly OK. So what I’m talking about is basically breaking out-of-the-box if somebody’s having trouble, you know, getting more views on your content, and you’re somebody that is, you know, trying to figure out how to navigate all this stuff and talk about the mistakes that content creators typically make that.
That keeps them from growing, but the next one is monetization. So part of growing as a content creator is having money to be able to do all of the things you know as a content creator to get equipment to pay for services like, you know, TubeBuddy to go to conferences like VidSummit to, you know, get the right camera gear to be able to fly places if you want to, to do collaborations, if that’s something that you’re interested in. All of those things, you know, they make money. So because of that, the general rule of thumb people are like, oh, yeah, don’t monetize until you get at least 10,000 subscribers on your YouTube channel and things like that, I totally agree. we’ve got Jill’s comfort zone in the house. And we have Gusman in the house right now. And out of those people that I just mentioned and everybody else here, your next video could be the video that puts you on the map. And if you have a video that you publish and that video starts going nuts in terms of, like, you’re getting a really high response on it. So YouTube showing it to everybody.
Get Real About Monetization When You Aim Grow Your YouTube Channel:
Start thinking about monetization as fast as you possibly can because of how YouTube works If you have a video pop off and you have a video that just starts thriving, then what’s going to happen is the people that are interacting with that video, YouTube is going to detect that they’re enjoying that content. So YouTube is going to say, hey, people are liking this content. So what else on this channel is a good fit for this person? And then YouTube’s going to start recommending some of your old content to them. And if you don’t have some of these monetization things in place, then what’s going to happen is that originating video that, you know, kind of blew your channel up, you’re going to miss the opportunity there and you’re going to miss it on all of the videos down the line where you can just simply have descriptions in your links. You don’t even have to be on reviews or anything. You can just have links in your description. That leads people into, you know, additional things, and in your videos you just simply mentioned, hey, got links in the description or, you know whatever.
So you know, missing out on those opportunities is definitely something that you do not want to do. And Monique says I got two more affiliates. So I need to update my description templates. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Get them in.
Stick to the YouTube Rules
So next up on the list. Is not knowing the game that you’re playing. So like I mentioned before, I’m in all the YouTube community, so I’m in the communities, on Reddit and on Facebook and Discord like this is how I like. Stay sharp, you know, in terms of like knowing. What it is? That you guys want. OK, so because of that, one of the things that I see a lot is people going into Reddit or Facebook. Group and like, oh man, YouTube. Deleted my channel for no. Man, I got a copyright strike. I don’t know what’s going on. I just use 5 seconds of that song and people are making all these complaints. But the reason that you know, channels get taken down is because people violate their rules. It’s not that YouTube is like, oh, hey, this channel right here, let’s just take them down. Like it doesn’t work that way.
The reason channels get taken down is because the creators are violating the rules. So if you want to do this as a content creator for an extended period of time and you don’t want to run the risk of, you know, losing everything once you do get out of that you know box and you can get more views in your content then make sure that you are keeping up the rules. So YouTube has terms of service. Take an afternoon to read through it. You don’t have to memorize it. Just read through it and consider the type of content that you’re publishing and consider you know the things that you’re going on. Platform. They have community guidelines, the same exact thing. Make sure you take an afternoon, and you read through them. And again, you don’t have to remember everything.
You just have to think, OK, with the content that I’m putting out, how does this apply to me and are there any lines that I’m, you know, kind of any roles that I’m in the Gray area of or is there anything that I’m doing that could come back to bite me? In the future, I had a situation. So one of the first videos I put out on my channel was a video about how to download a thumbnail from YouTube. So I put out this video before we had the option to just download from inside of the Creator studio and one of the things for that video, I mean, this is my fault because I didn’t know the rules, but one of the things in that video. Is as I start the video right I pop up like this. I’m like and I’m wearing a ski mask and I have the, you know, scene and everything where it looks like it’s dark. So I have like cricket sound effects going on in the background. Like I’m going to show you how to steal any thumbnail off of YouTube, but then once we get into the video itself cuz that was just part of the hook. But once we got into the video itself, I’m like, hey, you know, images are copyright protected, blah blah. So you don’t want to take other people. ‘S thumbnails but. If you need to use your thumbnail for some reason, this is how you get it, and I showed people how to go into the code on a web page. And find the thumbnail and then copy it out and then save it to their computer in case they want to use it in a video or something. Well, because I didn’t know the rules years later, like two years later, YouTube gave me a copyright or a community guideline strike because I was showing people, even though at that time they had the option where you could download thumbnails directly. I was showing people how to circumvent YouTube, you know systems in order to get that thumbnail. So fortunately I was able to get everything you know, you know, fixed up with that to where it wasn’t a big deal video got reinstated. I still deleted it because I was like. Yeah, I don’t. I’m not. You know, I don’t want to have that.
But the thing I’m trying to express though is like you got to know, you got to know the rules of the game that you’re playing, because if not, you can create something amazing and you can start to get the results that you want. And then one either some, you know, hate or some jerk is going to use it against you and report you or something like that, or you’re just going to end up getting caught up in the system where, you know, everything is automated and all that, and you’re going to go through some long process of trying to dispute it. Or like some of the people I see on Reddit and Facebook, you might end up in one of those situations where you lose it all just because you didn’t know the rules of the game, right? So make sure that you make sure you figure that out. Or make sure you pay attention to that. And another thing that’s really important and this one isn’t necessarily going to break you out-of-the-box, but this one is something that you need to make sure that you’re thinking about. For those of you that are wanted to do this for a long period of time, make sure that when it comes to uploading your content, you’re thinking of consistency not from the aspect of I need to. Make sure I’m publishing videos every. So often to YouTube, but I need to work on the process of ideation and creation and publishing of my content into my lifestyle.
File so that every week I’m taking very specific actions to ensure that I get content up so that I can continue publishing videos in my live stream just last week. So I do a live stream on my main channel where I answer questions for 3 hours straight, and I have a form. You know the people fill in the information there, and somebody you know left the question like hey, I don’t know what’s going on. I’m publishing videos to my channel, but my channel is not growing. I’m going to look at the channel, and the person will publish for like one week, and then they won’t publish again for two months, and then they’ll go, and they’ll publish for, you know, maybe one or two other videos and they won’t publish it. For a few months, they’re just not giving themselves a chance on YouTube because they’re not staying recent in viewer histories, which is something that’s important. But they’re also just not working.
The process of creating content in their lifestyle and it’s causing them to be inconsistent on the platform and inconsistent with the process and their lifestyle, which makes the whole thing unsustainable. So if you are somebody that that is like, hey, I want to turn this into something I want to, you know, take it seriously. Then in that particular case, make sure you work on that side of consistency, right? And it’s going to result in you publishing content on a regular basis at a consistent pace, but you just want to make sure that you’re working that process. Of ideation, creating, and publishing the content into your regular life cycle and your regular lifestyle. And of course, be patient because you know expectations. A lot of people will come in, they’ll see these videos on TikTok and on YouTube, where they’re like. I started a YouTube channel, and within the last 10 days, I got 10,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel. Yeah, that’s great. But if you watch those videos, you can tell if you know, if you’re experienced, you can tell when you’re watching those videos.
by TubeBuddy as part of 