How to Improve Your YouTube Channel

I’m going to blast through some of the best advice I can give to you in a few (thirty) minutes. In 2019 I did 0-46,000 in 8 months, 3M+ views and $16,000.00 from scratch. I’ve commented on hundreds of threads, but wanted to go off the deep end and type for a bit. Aiming for 150,000 subscribers by the end of 2020, and a full-time years pay. I want everyone to have that same opportunity! Wont be plugging a link to my channel, because that’s NOT the goal of this thread.

BE YOURSELF : In my niche (carpentry & building industry), so many people hop into it thinking it’s a cake walk. Record a few things, post a video or two, make bank, easy… right? The difference between successful creators in our niche, including myself, is that we’re open on camera. No different in person than on YouTube, people feel they can truly connect with us. It creates a bond that isn’t easy to break! I love my viewers, and can name 50+ of my loyal commenters off the top of my head. Open up, be yourself. If you’re doing commentaries, don’t try to fake conversation. Have a list of subjects you can talk about!
CREATE, CREATE, CHANGE IT UP, CREATE : Every idea I’ve had, I’ve brought to life, whether it took me a week or three months. You will NEVER predict your viral videos, therefore, don’t try to create viral content. Just focus on creating content, let YouTube do it’s thing. Funny story.. One of my biggest videos was in collaboration w/ a company I’d worked with in the past. They gave me $500.00 for use of the video on their social media pages, prior to the video being made. I lagged on getting it done, hate myself for that, but let me tell you.. That video went crazy, QUICK. It’s responsible for bringing in over 10,000 of my subscribers. This video was outside of my typical range of videos, so I pushed it aside. Nowadays, I make these odd videos priority! Change it up, if your current content isn’t bringing growth, change it up a bit.
THUMBNAILS, TITLES, TAGS : This is important, VERY important. Tags.. Often times content creators lack in this department. Are you using the right tags? Want to find the best to use? Download SocialBlades chrome attachment and go to a big YouTuber in your niche, find a good video and it’ll show you all the tags they used. Take ones that apply to your own content, and use them! That’s simple. Thumbnails.. You want catchy, not clickbait. When you create these, you want to look at it from an outsiders perspective. Look at your thumbnail, does it leave questions? “What’s this possibly about?” “How did they do this?” “Did it work?” These are the kinds of questions that’ll make your viewers click that video! Titles.. The title and the thumbnail should collaborate in a sense, complimenting one another. My best advice with titles, it’s just like a book.. “Capitalize Words Like This” but don’t use all [CAPS] too often! While this works for famous folks like David Dobrik, it doesn’t work for 95% of content creators that try it during growing stages. I will note that on my channel, I do one special video every 3 months or so.. This video is always in all [CAPS], e.g. “BUILDING A HOUSE IN 9 MINUTES! (A Construction Timelapse)” – this video did 150,000+ views in a month. The title can be a bit click bait style, but it worked well! Experiment, see what catches traction.
DON’T TRY TO PROMOTE LIKE MOST : A thread here on r/NewTubers today was uplifting and helpful, talking about success on a channel.. On every comment, they plugged their YT link and asked for a subscribe. This is thirsty, very thirsty. If you want to promote, consider cross-promoting on Instagram, FaceBook, Twitch or Mixer. Don’t go spam-linking forums and pages, this will NEVER work. It will actually have a negative effect, as most views you get will be 0:20-1:30, and your audience retention will go through the floor. You don’t want that! Note: I had 20,000+ Instagram Followers when I started on YouTube, and I don’t think but a few hundred subscribe to my YouTube channel. Cross-promoting doesn’t always work well! Organic growth is far superior unless you’re VERY well established on another platform.
1080P IS PLENTY : I often see people asking if they export 1080P in 4K, if it’ll show [4K] on their video. While your export times in 4K are going to take forever, 1080P is plenty fine for almost all content creators. Don’t stress over this! If you’re shooting 480P or 720P? I’d suggest working up to 1080P, but don’t worry about trying to pull [4K]. It isn’t going to make or break your channel! I’ve uploaded in 1080P since day one, no plans on [4K] just due to export times and processing times.. Not to mention the camera gear for 4K is through the roof on prices! I shot on a GoPro Hero 7 Black and GoPro Hero 8, along w/ Canon T6I’s + audio. Less than $1,000.00 in cameras..
NICHE COMMENTS (USE CAUTIOUSLY) : The title of this one speaks for itself. Everyone knows the big YouTubers in your niche. Go to their recent upload, drop a comment related to the video. 9/10 if you’re known much in your niche, you’ll get a few likes, maybe a [heart] from the OP. It’ll put your comment up top and everyone who scrolls the comments will see your name. It’s just free impressions! What better, right? Don’t over-do this, or it might get a bit obvious. Once a week? A nice comment goes a long way.
AUDIO – IT’S IMPORTANT : Audio is something everyone wants to be clear, while video can be shaky here and there. If audio is bad, people will leave with a quickness. Often times, when critiquing channels here, I see bad audio. Here’s a link to a $49.99 lavalier microphone. Plug it into your iPhone or Android, download a recording app. Record your audio and sync it with your videos audio from your camera. Pro-Tip: Clap loudly in the beginning of the video, match the highs. Most of these apps allow you to add that file to Dropbox, allowing easy transfer to your PC! It really doesn’t take much to have good audio. This microphone is perfect for sit-down, scripted videos! Don’t want a Lav Mic? Use a shotgun.
BABY STEPS, SMALL GOALS : Big goals are great, 100,000 Subscribers! What happens when you have a slow month? You wont be motivated. Set small goals! 1,000 Subscribers, 5,000 Subscribers, 10,000 Subscribers, 15,000 Subscribers.. I set goals for myself, with deadlines. Hoping I’d crush them. Sometimes I hit them, other times I failed. I wanted 50,000 by New Years, I fell 4,000 short! Smashing through 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 15,000, etc.. Gave me so much motivation to push on, even during the times where I wanted to quit. Baby steps, you’ll get there.
TREAT IT LIKE A FULL-TIME JOB : I put out a thread a while back to coach a few people, and got quite a few different responses. I noticed a few said they wanted growth, but were having a hard time staying on track w/ content as they had other things to focus on. If you want it, get it. Treat it like a full-time job and it’ll become one! If you just allow yourself to push things off until the next day, you’ll never get things done. Do your best to treat it like a full-time job, but don’t overwork yourself. I’ve missed an event or two due to editing to do, don’t sleep often either, but it’s all worth it in the end!
KEEP IT FUN : December 2019, I uploaded 23 times, almost all of those uploads were shot the day before and edited that night, uploaded next day. 23 days straight. I was ready to quit by the end of the month. I’m back on my schedule now, 3 days a week, and it’s fun again! We have such an awesome opportunity to make a living creating content on YouTube, don’t let it be a negative thing in your life! Only do what you’re capable of doing, anything more and you’ll burn out in no time. Push yourself, but keep it fun!

If anyone has questions, aside from the typical “I’m not growing, what do I do?”, feel free to ask below and I’ll get to everyone! Sorry for the long read, hopefully you can take something away from it.

Best of luck w/ your success in 2020, let’s make it a good year.. If you have anything to add, feel free to chime in below:

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewTubers/comments/en3w9o/my_best_advice_allinone_post/

My lessons learned so far, from a viral video, in my first 6 months.

I understand that my channel might be an exception vs. a rule so take my lessons learned with a grain of salt. In fact, take any advice you ever receive with a grain of salt and weigh it against your own knowledge, and the knowledge of others.

1- QUALITY OVER QUANTITY.

I find personally that if I put more effort into a video, EVENTUALLY it will be rewarded with higher views and more engagement. The lazier it is, the worse. Don’t put out content just for the sake of putting out content. It needs to have a punch. Medicore won’t do, you have to stand out in some way. Cut aggressively. Put out only your best. I’m personally sitting on about 10 videos/songs/ideas that just aren’t quite there yet.

2- ENGAGE VIEWERS.

Talk to them. Like/heart their comments. treat them the way you wish your favorite Youtuber would treat you. Build that audience. Let them know they’re valued. Not by spamming “THANKS SO MUCH” in your video, but by taking the time to actually communicate. They want to talk to you, so talk back.

3- CURATE COMMENTS.

YouTube comments section can be straight up cancerous. It sucks to get some scathing criticism or get trolled. As you grow, it’ll happen more and more. First- Unless you’re Onison, or publishing controversial viewpoints, know that it probably isn’t you. The internet is full of trolls. Thing is, this is YOUR comment section. Trolls can troll where the fuck ever, but your comment section is yours. If there’s a post in there that’s obviously inflammatory, hurtful, or downright shitty, delete that ish. Constructive criticism? Fine. Asshattery? Nope.

4- LET YOUR SUBSCRIBERS/FANS HELP.

They subscribed. They like you. Encourage them to share your work with their friends. They likely run in a social circle that likes the same things they like. So encourage them to pass it on. Sharing is caring. Whether that be on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or (shudder) 9gag.

5- DON’T GIVE UP.

Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Do new things that are related to your niche. Try new things. Combine your niche with something new or interesting. Mash stuff together. Mix it up, baby, you’ve got a stew going. Make it funny, fresh, new, interesting. Keep creating.

6- LUCK

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Just like any other aspect of show business, luck plays a very large part.

Most importantly- if you do manage to somehow capture lightning in a bottle? Don’t hold yourself to that. Don’t compare every video against the one. Let them stand on their own. You can compare what works and what doesn’t, but don’t go “HOW COME MY OTHER VIDEOS DON’T HAVE AS MANY VIEWS AS THIS ONE?” Let that go. It’s the nature of the beast.

Enjoy yourself.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewTubers/comments/emu4fx/my_lessons_learned_so_far_from_a_viral_video_in/

Reading is for rich people, you’re failing because you read too much, not because you don’t read enough..

I guess I’ve done pretty well for myself over the last 15 years, and one thing that stands out to me more than anything in the divide between those of us that build successful businesses, employ people to help us scale, etc and those that always spin their wheels is this absolutely bullshit idea that reading is the key to wealth.

Everything you could ever need to know about business, wealth, life, love etc is probably in a total of 20 books, and if we just focus on business and wealth creation, let’s call it 10 and that’s being generous.

What 10? that’s up to you really since most books that are decent say the exact same fucking thing in a different way or with different characters.

What billionaires read, or how they start their morning has absolutely NOTHING to do with you. NOTHING.

Do you know why?

Because their ability to read a book a day, meditate twice, do yoga, write in their vision journal, ALL THAT BULLSHIT came AFTER they were wealthy.

While they built their companies, they worked 7 days a week 18+ hours a day, eating shitty fast food or whatever was available, barely showering let alone meditating for two hours.

I succeeded the same way everyone else did, working like an insane person towards my goals each day. Testing, failing, learning, testing.

Sure, read Think and grow rich, read how to win friends and influence people, read the millionaire next door, read the bible or any other religious text with most of life’s lessons told as stories, even read the secret if you want some metaphysical bullshit, because whether it’s real or placebo, if you believe it, it’s real.

But then, GET. TO. FUCKING. WORK.

Stop watching bullshit artist Gary V, or Warren Buffet Talks, or running to Amazon to buy Bill Gates top 10 touching books of the year.

Bill Gates was a fucking savage for decades. There was no Gates reading list 30 years ago, I doubt he read anything that wasn’t market reports.

After 15 years I thankfully have some breathing room to read some books, post bullshit on reddit, laugh hysterically at a Gary V videos and even consider stuff like hot yoga and flotation tanks and what super-food smoothie might make my dick 10% harder and perhaps give me back a few years that I burnt off of my life building a 20 person company.

Early on I got my hands on some Jim Rohn videos at the library, your best year ever seminar or something, probably on youtube now. It was like 5 hours and it was enough to change my life. It all just made perfect sense to me.

If you can read something like think and grow rich and feel the need to consume 500 other books on the subject, you probably won’t be getting anywhere in this lifetime.

STOP READING SHIT. STOP WATCHING SHIT. Downtime is for rich people.

I get that you think a 4 hour Joe Rogan podcast talking about sending your blood and spit and shit to 50 different labs to get a full breakdown of your perfect diet, vitamin and mineral supplementation and optimal workouts and sleep time is what’s going to make you a millionaire, but I assure you it won’t.

It will just make you a really healthy person with insurmountable credit card debt.

Stem cell injections won’t make you Joe Rogan and reading Bill Gates book list won’t make you a billionaire.

Self education is mostly used as an excuse for procrastination. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you are getting better by constantly trying to absorb information, not to mention the completely conflicting points of view you encounter when you choose to absorb content from an endless amount of sources.

If you want to learn sales, sell something. Reading 30 books on selling is going to give you 30 conflicting points of view, mostly by people that failed as salesman so they wrote a book talking about all the shit they never did that probably should work if someone actually had the discipline that they don’t.

….but at least they wrote a book which is worth something to them, what’s it worth to you besides a dozen hours you could have been building your business?

Source:  https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/emhr0n/reading_is_for_rich_people_youre_failing_because/