New Guy who is always looking to improve:)
- Thread starter DashDFX
- Start date
Jack Decker
YTtalk Mad
Here's my two cents.
1) If you're not talking, your video should end. Sorry but "awesome" gameplay doesn't generate subscribers. YOU generate subscribers. Forget the music. Invest into a good quality microphone and talk. And do more than just talk about the game. People will be subscribing to YOU, not the game. Yes, the game will bring them to you (they doing a YouTube search on that specific game), but YOU will be the sole factor on whether they subscribe and continue to watch your videos. Nickatnite (his channel is Teach Boom Beach) recently did a survey of his viewers asking them why they watch his channel. He was surprised that over 90% said it was because of his witty banter. He isn't even the best player of the game. That probably goes to Bootramp (his channel is Boom Beach General). But Nick is so good at banter that his channel is more than five times the size of Bootramp's. As Nick just recently surpassed 500,000 subscribers and now does YouTube full-time, take a page out of Nick's playbook and ramp up your banter.
2) Most gamers like to play only one, a couple, or a few genres. Not all. If you're all over the gaming map, you will turn off gamers who are not into all the genres you play in. If your subscribers get too many videos about genres they have no interest in, they will unsubscribe. Don't give them a reason to unsubscribe. And if your next question is: Can you be successful by specializing in just one genre? The answer is definitely yes. Pewdiepie specializes in just horror.
As for which game genre should you specialize in, it should ONLY be the genre that you must love playing and have been playing the longest time. Don't just do what it most popular. Gaming video viewers expect you to have a passion for the games you play. While you can fake it for a while, eventually the truth will be revealed. Not only that but nothing kills a YouTube channel faster than a YouTuber doing videos that they don't have a passion for. Additionally, that passion will enable you to keep putting out videos.
3) Contact gaming companies with a game in alpha are looking to generate buzz for their upcoming game. Look for one that is in the game genre that you have specialized in. Tell them that. Tell them that you're looking for the next big game and you think theirs might be it. Ask to be let into their beta. Once in their beta, do a TON of how-to videos about everything in their game. Don't do "Let's Play" videos until you've exhausted every single TINY how-to topic you can possibly think of doing for their game. Email them weekly. Keep it professional. Ask them if there is anything they would like you to test, check out, do, etc. and then IMMEDIATELY do and release a video on that. Email them once you've uploaded it to your channel and ask for input on it and if there is anything else they'd like to you do a video on. When they go live, start doing "Let's Play" videos since only then is the game "set".
Good gaming companies will want to cultivate you. They might even fly you in to meet the development team. That isn't unheard of. You make a really good video and they might feature it on their website or even give a link to it within the game.
As for which gaming companies to contact, I would strongly suggest you look into local gaming companies. You're there. You're a neighbor. You can easily meet with them.
4) Jump onto the next big game. Keeping in the game genre of your choice, keep an eye out for upcoming games, especially mobile games. Very very very few games ever are a surprise to the gaming community. Get into their betas and start producing episodes. When they go live, you're then established. Then when the gaming company generates public interest for their live release, you can then ride their wave. However, never limit yourself to one game. Always keep an eye out for the next big game about to come out, enter its beta, and then ... lather, rinse, repeat.
5) If you want to do vlogs, create a separate channel for them. The support vlog channel enables you to keep your gaming channel pure (only gaming videos). You then use your support vlog channel for where you can dump your milestone, viewer mail, "making of...", and other videos. You doing the vlog channel at most once a week but, as it is just a support channel, you can do it monthly or just when you have something you want your gaming channel fans to see. A support vlog channel is just that: support. Don't worry about how many subscribers or views it gets. Simply promote it at the end of all your gaming videos. All of its subscribers will come from your gaming channel and that's just fine. Don't waste any more time, energy, or money promoting it.
6) Make an intro video for your homepage that is 30 second to a minute long. First talk about what kind of things you talk about on your channel ... then who you are (people subscribe to people, not channel) ... then tell your release schedule ... and then do ONE call-to-action and that is for them to subscribe. Don't monetize your intro video. The intro video is an ad for your channel. Don't have another's ad hurt your ad.
7) Increase your release schedule to daily. You're a gaming channel. It is what you need to do to be competitive.
8) If you are monetized, you can use the scheduler to regularly release videos. Always always ALWAYS build up a backlog of videos sitting in your scheduler. Do this not just for vacation time but in case you get sick, your computer crashes, your internet connection goes down, you get writer's block, etc. It also gives you breathing space. If you release a video everyday, fourteen videos in your scheduler represents two weeks of episodes before you have to produce another video.
9) Work on your thumbnails and video titles. Do a YouTube search on how to do thumbnails and video titles. There's a lot of good videos out there about both topics.
10) Subscribe to Tim Schmoyer's "Video Creators" and mine its archive. You can and should spend days in its archive.
11) Make up a flyer. Use yellow paper to draw the eye. Have tear-off tabs at its bottom that has your channel's name and its YouTube URL. Post it everywhere you can within reasonable driving distance. By "reasonable" I mean as far as you are willing go to promote your channel. Laundry mats, bus stops, supermarket bulletin boards, and telephone poles at intersections are good places to post. As it looks like you might be specializing in soccer games, post at all your local soccer fields. Both where players and spectators will see the posters. Get a map of your city and mark on it where you've posted them. Once a week, revisit those locations and replace missing, all tear-off tabs gone, torn, etc. posters. Always keep a box of these flyers in your car so when you travel, you have them right there with you and you can post them wherever you go. If you go on a trip, put a stack of posters into one of your suitcases and take a half day and post everywhere there.
12) Email your local media (newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations) by sending them a press release about your channel and you. Stress that you're a local boy. Newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations are ALWAYS on the look out for "local color". If you get on a radio talk show, try to be funny on it. The more funny you are, the more likely they'll ask you to come back again.
13) At your school, start a YouTuber Club. Talk to your teachers about creating it. Get a teacher to be its sponsor. Ideally a teacher who knows how to work a camera, lighting, etc. Your best bet is your art teacher! Ask the teacher if those who make videos for the club can get extra credit from their teachers (or at least the art teacher) and ask the teacher to pitch this to the principal. Getting extra credit will pull in some kids. The key to the club is the teacher that runs it. Find a teacher who is excited about doing it. The teacher can then invite local video production companies and TV stations to come and speak to your group. Don't just invite news anchors and radio talk show hosts, but separately invite camera operators, sound technicians, producers, editors, etc. They have a HUGE wealth of knowledge that your club can mine.
Be inclusive. The club must be open to all grades in your school and all students are welcome. Don't let it become a clique. Meet weekly. Every meeting, show all the videos that all the members did over the last week. Applaud and comment. Encourage. Help each other. Collaborate with each other. Appear in each other's videos. Do skits. Have a group discussion video. Make cookies together. Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm. But most importantly of all, have fun.
Once your club gets large enough, it should be able to get its own room at your school. That is a milestone that everyone in your club should do a video for their channels about. Then put up a big poster on the best spot on the best wall that keeps track of how many subscribers each channel has. Update the poster every week during the weekly meeting. The larger the club becomes and the more subscribers your channels get, the more the school will support. Your school might even get it a computer with video editing software on it.
14) Lastly but most importantly, collaborate, collaborate, and collaborate. You're a very small channel right now but everyone has to start from somewhere. Your best bet is to contact local YouTube channels. As you grow, contact larger and larger gaming channels that match your new size. Always propose an activity for the collaboration and never just that you want to do one. After you release a collaboration video, send links to it to other local YouTubers to show them how you do collaborations and invite them again to do one with you. Go to ALL YouTube conventions that you can afford to go to. Find out who's going and suggest you meet up for at least an interview of them. Doing it while you're at a friendly restaurant gives it a good backdrop. Don't worry about the sound.
1) If you're not talking, your video should end. Sorry but "awesome" gameplay doesn't generate subscribers. YOU generate subscribers. Forget the music. Invest into a good quality microphone and talk. And do more than just talk about the game. People will be subscribing to YOU, not the game. Yes, the game will bring them to you (they doing a YouTube search on that specific game), but YOU will be the sole factor on whether they subscribe and continue to watch your videos. Nickatnite (his channel is Teach Boom Beach) recently did a survey of his viewers asking them why they watch his channel. He was surprised that over 90% said it was because of his witty banter. He isn't even the best player of the game. That probably goes to Bootramp (his channel is Boom Beach General). But Nick is so good at banter that his channel is more than five times the size of Bootramp's. As Nick just recently surpassed 500,000 subscribers and now does YouTube full-time, take a page out of Nick's playbook and ramp up your banter.
2) Most gamers like to play only one, a couple, or a few genres. Not all. If you're all over the gaming map, you will turn off gamers who are not into all the genres you play in. If your subscribers get too many videos about genres they have no interest in, they will unsubscribe. Don't give them a reason to unsubscribe. And if your next question is: Can you be successful by specializing in just one genre? The answer is definitely yes. Pewdiepie specializes in just horror.
As for which game genre should you specialize in, it should ONLY be the genre that you must love playing and have been playing the longest time. Don't just do what it most popular. Gaming video viewers expect you to have a passion for the games you play. While you can fake it for a while, eventually the truth will be revealed. Not only that but nothing kills a YouTube channel faster than a YouTuber doing videos that they don't have a passion for. Additionally, that passion will enable you to keep putting out videos.
3) Contact gaming companies with a game in alpha are looking to generate buzz for their upcoming game. Look for one that is in the game genre that you have specialized in. Tell them that. Tell them that you're looking for the next big game and you think theirs might be it. Ask to be let into their beta. Once in their beta, do a TON of how-to videos about everything in their game. Don't do "Let's Play" videos until you've exhausted every single TINY how-to topic you can possibly think of doing for their game. Email them weekly. Keep it professional. Ask them if there is anything they would like you to test, check out, do, etc. and then IMMEDIATELY do and release a video on that. Email them once you've uploaded it to your channel and ask for input on it and if there is anything else they'd like to you do a video on. When they go live, start doing "Let's Play" videos since only then is the game "set".
Good gaming companies will want to cultivate you. They might even fly you in to meet the development team. That isn't unheard of. You make a really good video and they might feature it on their website or even give a link to it within the game.
As for which gaming companies to contact, I would strongly suggest you look into local gaming companies. You're there. You're a neighbor. You can easily meet with them.
4) Jump onto the next big game. Keeping in the game genre of your choice, keep an eye out for upcoming games, especially mobile games. Very very very few games ever are a surprise to the gaming community. Get into their betas and start producing episodes. When they go live, you're then established. Then when the gaming company generates public interest for their live release, you can then ride their wave. However, never limit yourself to one game. Always keep an eye out for the next big game about to come out, enter its beta, and then ... lather, rinse, repeat.
5) If you want to do vlogs, create a separate channel for them. The support vlog channel enables you to keep your gaming channel pure (only gaming videos). You then use your support vlog channel for where you can dump your milestone, viewer mail, "making of...", and other videos. You doing the vlog channel at most once a week but, as it is just a support channel, you can do it monthly or just when you have something you want your gaming channel fans to see. A support vlog channel is just that: support. Don't worry about how many subscribers or views it gets. Simply promote it at the end of all your gaming videos. All of its subscribers will come from your gaming channel and that's just fine. Don't waste any more time, energy, or money promoting it.
6) Make an intro video for your homepage that is 30 second to a minute long. First talk about what kind of things you talk about on your channel ... then who you are (people subscribe to people, not channel) ... then tell your release schedule ... and then do ONE call-to-action and that is for them to subscribe. Don't monetize your intro video. The intro video is an ad for your channel. Don't have another's ad hurt your ad.
7) Increase your release schedule to daily. You're a gaming channel. It is what you need to do to be competitive.
8) If you are monetized, you can use the scheduler to regularly release videos. Always always ALWAYS build up a backlog of videos sitting in your scheduler. Do this not just for vacation time but in case you get sick, your computer crashes, your internet connection goes down, you get writer's block, etc. It also gives you breathing space. If you release a video everyday, fourteen videos in your scheduler represents two weeks of episodes before you have to produce another video.
9) Work on your thumbnails and video titles. Do a YouTube search on how to do thumbnails and video titles. There's a lot of good videos out there about both topics.
10) Subscribe to Tim Schmoyer's "Video Creators" and mine its archive. You can and should spend days in its archive.
11) Make up a flyer. Use yellow paper to draw the eye. Have tear-off tabs at its bottom that has your channel's name and its YouTube URL. Post it everywhere you can within reasonable driving distance. By "reasonable" I mean as far as you are willing go to promote your channel. Laundry mats, bus stops, supermarket bulletin boards, and telephone poles at intersections are good places to post. As it looks like you might be specializing in soccer games, post at all your local soccer fields. Both where players and spectators will see the posters. Get a map of your city and mark on it where you've posted them. Once a week, revisit those locations and replace missing, all tear-off tabs gone, torn, etc. posters. Always keep a box of these flyers in your car so when you travel, you have them right there with you and you can post them wherever you go. If you go on a trip, put a stack of posters into one of your suitcases and take a half day and post everywhere there.
12) Email your local media (newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations) by sending them a press release about your channel and you. Stress that you're a local boy. Newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations are ALWAYS on the look out for "local color". If you get on a radio talk show, try to be funny on it. The more funny you are, the more likely they'll ask you to come back again.
13) At your school, start a YouTuber Club. Talk to your teachers about creating it. Get a teacher to be its sponsor. Ideally a teacher who knows how to work a camera, lighting, etc. Your best bet is your art teacher! Ask the teacher if those who make videos for the club can get extra credit from their teachers (or at least the art teacher) and ask the teacher to pitch this to the principal. Getting extra credit will pull in some kids. The key to the club is the teacher that runs it. Find a teacher who is excited about doing it. The teacher can then invite local video production companies and TV stations to come and speak to your group. Don't just invite news anchors and radio talk show hosts, but separately invite camera operators, sound technicians, producers, editors, etc. They have a HUGE wealth of knowledge that your club can mine.
Be inclusive. The club must be open to all grades in your school and all students are welcome. Don't let it become a clique. Meet weekly. Every meeting, show all the videos that all the members did over the last week. Applaud and comment. Encourage. Help each other. Collaborate with each other. Appear in each other's videos. Do skits. Have a group discussion video. Make cookies together. Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm. But most importantly of all, have fun.
Once your club gets large enough, it should be able to get its own room at your school. That is a milestone that everyone in your club should do a video for their channels about. Then put up a big poster on the best spot on the best wall that keeps track of how many subscribers each channel has. Update the poster every week during the weekly meeting. The larger the club becomes and the more subscribers your channels get, the more the school will support. Your school might even get it a computer with video editing software on it.
14) Lastly but most importantly, collaborate, collaborate, and collaborate. You're a very small channel right now but everyone has to start from somewhere. Your best bet is to contact local YouTube channels. As you grow, contact larger and larger gaming channels that match your new size. Always propose an activity for the collaboration and never just that you want to do one. After you release a collaboration video, send links to it to other local YouTubers to show them how you do collaborations and invite them again to do one with you. Go to ALL YouTube conventions that you can afford to go to. Find out who's going and suggest you meet up for at least an interview of them. Doing it while you're at a friendly restaurant gives it a good backdrop. Don't worry about the sound.
DashDFX
Member
That's a lot to take in, but thank you for all that
the just game play videos were not something i was intending to carry on, it was in the time of waiting for my new microphone to be delivered. I plan on doing more live sort of game play, so that im not over thinking what im saying, and people can see me for what i am. Thanks for the advice!
the just game play videos were not something i was intending to carry on, it was in the time of waiting for my new microphone to be delivered. I plan on doing more live sort of game play, so that im not over thinking what im saying, and people can see me for what i am. Thanks for the advice!
McCoob
Young Scientist
There are tons of advice already on this forum.Hi guys, i have recently set up my channel. And i was wondering if any of you had any general advice for YouTube. Things that might have worked for you or you have heard, thank you
iVlogCom
Liking YTtalk
Hello Dash.
1. Create great content
2. High production value (good lighting + short, sweet & to the point + good editing)
3. Have some other way to feed traffic to your YouTube channel. This could be social media, blog, website, etc.
Good luck!
1. Create great content
2. High production value (good lighting + short, sweet & to the point + good editing)
3. Have some other way to feed traffic to your YouTube channel. This could be social media, blog, website, etc.
Good luck!
Hi guys, i have recently set up my channel. And i was wondering if any of you had any general advice for YouTube. Things that might have worked for you or you have heard, thank you