Super Pawsitive
I Love YTtalk
So, you wanna start a YouTube channel eh? Well, you've come to the right place. YTTalk is a wonderful forum with a bounty of information from many different types of Channels. Whether you're into gaming, vlogging, cars, or collecting things. Typically, there is someone here to help YOU with your channel.
Now I'm here to get you through the baby steps of developing your brand new YouTube channel. Starting a new YouTube channel can and will be hard. Nothing ever goes as smoothly as you would like it too. In fact, most things go horribly wrong within the first few video uploads. So, it's important to try and keep those to a minimum by learning what you can now. Before your channel starts to become developed.
So, I hope you fine gents here at the YTTalk forum don't mind that I'm going to make a series of posts like this. Typically this is to help smaller channels start up and give a general idea on "How to YouTube" before they you know. Start YouTube.
So, I suppose it's time to start with what I feel is the most important part. Selecting your niche.
"BEFORE YOU GO ANY FARTHER....What is a niche?"
Well I'm glad you asked figment of my imagination. A niche is where your channel takes place in YouTube. Typically this is where you decide what content YOU want to make and tell yourself WHY you want to make it. For me, this is where the channel really begins. Even before you've made a name for yourself, you've probably thought about doing X content on YouTube will be fun/give you internet fame. (Let's just be honest here. We all secretly want internet fame on this website. Amiright?)
"Ah! Of course! Well, I want to be a gaming channel. That was easy. Onto the next article!"
Woah there! Slow down buddy. Take your time. Because selecting your niche is a bit harder than that. Reason being? You want to be specific. Gaming in itself is quite a big niche, one of the biggest in my honest opinion. You can't just say "I am a YouTube gamer!" and expect to get immediate attention. It's just not going to happen.
How can you be specific? Well, this mainly comes from the type of person you are. Think about it. Do you often talk to people while playing video games, and are you able to cohesively speak while doing so? You might be a good Lets Player. Or perhaps you play a different type of game as opposed to the common LP channel? Such as a moba, or RTS? You might be a good ____ commentator. Do you see what I mean when I tell you that you have to be specific? The term "Gaming" is so large, you have to ask yourself these questions before you start. (Also, please keep in mind, that even though I'm using the gaming community as an example. This is meant for all channels of all types. I just have the most personal experience with gaming.)
I'll just use myself as an example for the moment. When I first started YouTube, I decided I wanted to be a Let's Player. This was about 4 years ago, and goodness did I ever make a mistake. I was horrid behind a microphone when expected to play a video game. There is an unfathomable amount of concentration that goes behind making a LP. Some people are able to speak naturally while playing a game, while others (much like myself) struggle to even think during those times. It was just a bad deal.
So, I roamed. I developed different content on my channel to try and get a feel for what I was good at, and the type of content I wanted to produce. As a result, I discovered I had many different strengths to myself. I'm VERY critical when it comes to a piece of content. I love talking about game design. I hate bad games, and I enjoy sharing my experiences with games to other people. So, it only made sense to go out and do video game reviews. The only thing that prevented me from doing anything on YouTube at that point, was how I wanted to approach developing content for my channel, though we'll get into that in another article.
"Alright, I can see that. So, what if I told you that I wanted to be a Let's Player much like Chuggaaconroy, MasaeAnela, ProtonJon, Lucahjin, etc?"
Well, I would say you're off to a pretty good start. Now what I want you to do, is to go out there and fail. I know I might be sounding mean when I'm saying this. Though failure is the best way to learn how to do something. In fact, I would say to make a test channel, something you can creatively dump yourself into to find what works best for YOU. I had to create 7 different YouTube channels before I got to my current. And I'm excruciatingly glad that I did. Those channels helped me hone my skills as a content creator. Every single channel I had previously owned, has taught me something. As a result, it helped me learn how to create better content for when it came to doing my current channel.
Only thing I want to add to this is, while you're testing out channels, pick names you'd be happy to sticking with. Because you never know when the content you produce brings you a metric ton of success.
"Alright! I went out there, I found my very particular niche (which involves petting cats while playing video games drunk.) I failed plenty, and I think I finally found my niche!"
Sweet! It sounds like you have this portion aced. Well, the only thing I want to tell you all is this.
Once you pick your niche, keep your audience in mind. I know it's tempting to just throw any old video up onto your channel and hope it does well. Though once you pick this niche your content shouldn't stray too far from it. As an example, I'm a video game review channel. If I wanted to do something as silly as LPs, I would have to make an entirely new channel. As the audience on YouTube that watches retro reviews, might not be the same as the audience who watches LPs.
This is one of the BIGGEST traps I see in new channels. The moment you start jumping the gun on your content and releasing stuff that doesn't orient with what your channel started off with. That is the moment your channel begins to lose value to your viewers. Who would subscribe for a make-up and beauty channel, if they started jumping content every other day? I wouldn't want to see them playing video games if I want to learn how to look fabulous!
Keep your niche in mind when producing ALL content. Not some.
"O I C! Well then, I'll keep that in mind! Can't wait for your next article!"
I can't either figment of my imagination. I can't either.
So, if you have any questions for me, please feel free to ask. I have quite a few more articles I need to type up before this series is complete. Though I'm always going to be replying to comments on these threads. (I say that now, but give it a few years. I'll eventually disappear and re-emerge with a different form. Maybe a dolphin.)
Now I'm here to get you through the baby steps of developing your brand new YouTube channel. Starting a new YouTube channel can and will be hard. Nothing ever goes as smoothly as you would like it too. In fact, most things go horribly wrong within the first few video uploads. So, it's important to try and keep those to a minimum by learning what you can now. Before your channel starts to become developed.
So, I hope you fine gents here at the YTTalk forum don't mind that I'm going to make a series of posts like this. Typically this is to help smaller channels start up and give a general idea on "How to YouTube" before they you know. Start YouTube.
So, I suppose it's time to start with what I feel is the most important part. Selecting your niche.
"BEFORE YOU GO ANY FARTHER....What is a niche?"
Well I'm glad you asked figment of my imagination. A niche is where your channel takes place in YouTube. Typically this is where you decide what content YOU want to make and tell yourself WHY you want to make it. For me, this is where the channel really begins. Even before you've made a name for yourself, you've probably thought about doing X content on YouTube will be fun/give you internet fame. (Let's just be honest here. We all secretly want internet fame on this website. Amiright?)
"Ah! Of course! Well, I want to be a gaming channel. That was easy. Onto the next article!"
Woah there! Slow down buddy. Take your time. Because selecting your niche is a bit harder than that. Reason being? You want to be specific. Gaming in itself is quite a big niche, one of the biggest in my honest opinion. You can't just say "I am a YouTube gamer!" and expect to get immediate attention. It's just not going to happen.
How can you be specific? Well, this mainly comes from the type of person you are. Think about it. Do you often talk to people while playing video games, and are you able to cohesively speak while doing so? You might be a good Lets Player. Or perhaps you play a different type of game as opposed to the common LP channel? Such as a moba, or RTS? You might be a good ____ commentator. Do you see what I mean when I tell you that you have to be specific? The term "Gaming" is so large, you have to ask yourself these questions before you start. (Also, please keep in mind, that even though I'm using the gaming community as an example. This is meant for all channels of all types. I just have the most personal experience with gaming.)
I'll just use myself as an example for the moment. When I first started YouTube, I decided I wanted to be a Let's Player. This was about 4 years ago, and goodness did I ever make a mistake. I was horrid behind a microphone when expected to play a video game. There is an unfathomable amount of concentration that goes behind making a LP. Some people are able to speak naturally while playing a game, while others (much like myself) struggle to even think during those times. It was just a bad deal.
So, I roamed. I developed different content on my channel to try and get a feel for what I was good at, and the type of content I wanted to produce. As a result, I discovered I had many different strengths to myself. I'm VERY critical when it comes to a piece of content. I love talking about game design. I hate bad games, and I enjoy sharing my experiences with games to other people. So, it only made sense to go out and do video game reviews. The only thing that prevented me from doing anything on YouTube at that point, was how I wanted to approach developing content for my channel, though we'll get into that in another article.
"Alright, I can see that. So, what if I told you that I wanted to be a Let's Player much like Chuggaaconroy, MasaeAnela, ProtonJon, Lucahjin, etc?"
Well, I would say you're off to a pretty good start. Now what I want you to do, is to go out there and fail. I know I might be sounding mean when I'm saying this. Though failure is the best way to learn how to do something. In fact, I would say to make a test channel, something you can creatively dump yourself into to find what works best for YOU. I had to create 7 different YouTube channels before I got to my current. And I'm excruciatingly glad that I did. Those channels helped me hone my skills as a content creator. Every single channel I had previously owned, has taught me something. As a result, it helped me learn how to create better content for when it came to doing my current channel.
Only thing I want to add to this is, while you're testing out channels, pick names you'd be happy to sticking with. Because you never know when the content you produce brings you a metric ton of success.
"Alright! I went out there, I found my very particular niche (which involves petting cats while playing video games drunk.) I failed plenty, and I think I finally found my niche!"
Sweet! It sounds like you have this portion aced. Well, the only thing I want to tell you all is this.
Once you pick your niche, keep your audience in mind. I know it's tempting to just throw any old video up onto your channel and hope it does well. Though once you pick this niche your content shouldn't stray too far from it. As an example, I'm a video game review channel. If I wanted to do something as silly as LPs, I would have to make an entirely new channel. As the audience on YouTube that watches retro reviews, might not be the same as the audience who watches LPs.
This is one of the BIGGEST traps I see in new channels. The moment you start jumping the gun on your content and releasing stuff that doesn't orient with what your channel started off with. That is the moment your channel begins to lose value to your viewers. Who would subscribe for a make-up and beauty channel, if they started jumping content every other day? I wouldn't want to see them playing video games if I want to learn how to look fabulous!
Keep your niche in mind when producing ALL content. Not some.
"O I C! Well then, I'll keep that in mind! Can't wait for your next article!"
I can't either figment of my imagination. I can't either.
So, if you have any questions for me, please feel free to ask. I have quite a few more articles I need to type up before this series is complete. Though I'm always going to be replying to comments on these threads. (I say that now, but give it a few years. I'll eventually disappear and re-emerge with a different form. Maybe a dolphin.)
