adams eats
I Love YTtalk
OK, normally these kind of threads are reserved for big milestones like a year or two, or reaching a certain amount of views or subscribers, but being a massive noob at this youtube I thought i'd give some insight into what it's been like for me, so hopefully some of you may take a bit of comfort from it knowing you're in the same boat, or pick up some tips, do's or don'ts. This isn't a tutorial, merely my experience so far.
In the beginning......
I began the channel on June 28th as an intention to start a cooking channel to coincide with my food blog that had been going since 2012. Unfortunately, I just didn't have the courage. time or camera equipment to film my first video. It wasn't until August that I sold my old dslr, and bought a canon 650D, a mic, and a tripod. I was really excited, nervous and a little bit nauseous at the thought of people seeing me on film. I started to get quite down about it to be honest, thinking who the heck would want to watch me, why would they? And there is just no way I could make a good video. Luckily I managed to get myself out of that hole and make my first video.
My first video
I figured that for my first video should be something easy, seeing as I had no idea what I was doing (I still don't now really). I was overcome with nerves so much, that this 14 minute video took all day to film and another whole day to edit! I thought to myself at the time that If this is how long it's going to take, no way can I sustain this! Thankfully as the videos went on I got better at being myself, and editing. I still have a little way to go, as I still get a bit stuttery and stuck with what to say, but my confidence is growing with each video. It's strange actually because in life I am a very confident person, but I guess breaching the unknown is a daunting task. editing wise, i'm still using good old movie maker, simply because it's so easy to use. I have Sony Vegas installed and ready, but I just haven't found time to play around with it yet. eventually I will make the transition.
Subscribers
I get excited every time someone subscribes, because I think to myself 'wow, someone actually took the time to subscribe, because they like my videos?' A concept I found hard to believe in the beginning. It's a different story when someone unsubscribes, which I have had a couple do, it's not a nice feeling at all and brings out the old self doubt in you. But you know what I figured? I figured I should just concentrate on the ones that stay instead of the ones that go, because the ones that stay are the ones that really matter. I have a follower on my facebook page that has been with the blog for years, and she has transitioned over to youtube as well, she has been there from almost the beginning and always likes my videos. No she's not a relative, just a fan. People like that are worth your time, effort and thanks. Some fly by night, just looking to promote themselves isn't. Which is why I never ask people to subscribe just for the sake of it. If you like my videos, then of course i'll ask, but I won't just go on some random forum or page and spam the hell out of it, because it's annoying and pretty rude I think.
Views and monetisation
I decided to switch on monetisation early on for one reason, and that's simply to get my subscribers used to it, rather than do it say 4 years down the line and get accused of selling out, or people unsubscribe because they don't like the ads. I've made diddly squat from it so far (about £0.07) which is what I expected. Everything I do on the channel is for the subscribers, not to cash in at the moment. Views on my videos are actually better than I thought. I thought i'd be lucky to get 10 views on my videos, but actually I was surprised by how many I actually have. One of my videos, on how to make Brioche buns is on 176 views so far, and is my most popular video yet (probably down to good seo).
Dealing with negativity
At first it was all lovely, rose petals and dancing in misty meadows and skipping in corn fields....then it struck, my first negative comment! thankfully, it wasn't so much a big deal. Running my own food blog for 6 years meant I had a fair amount of negative and some abusive comments, one of them being from my own mother! (i'll probably do a video on that at some point). It came as a surprise more than anything, because the cretin in question had nothing to base his negativity on. It was a recipe on how I roast a whole chicken, which was part of my Sunday lunch play list. Now any self respecting Englishman knows all about a good Sunday lunch, but this guy started telling me it was pale, and that I should put some breading on it and deep fry it????? Sorry what??? deep fried roast chicken...yeeeahh, OK. I was polite enough, but it got my back up a bit. I suppose what it really comes down to is who you are as a person as to how you deal with it. I wouldn't suggest being abusive, it's better to ignore them rather than bite back. Also, never ever delete a comment you disagree with, if it's spam, racist, abusive or whatever, then sure delete it. But deleting a comment just because you disagree with them, is not good practice in my view. It shows you only care about those that agree with you, giving the impression you're an a**ehole.
SEO
If you are just starting out on youtube, and think SEO is hard, think yourself very very lucky because let me tell you, youtube seo is really really easy compared to running your own website. Google already has everything in place for you on youtube, all you have to do is write a good description with your main keyword, put relevant tags on it, and that's pretty much all the leg work done in terms of SEO. There are other tweaks and tricks you can use but in essence...that's it. Running my own blog was really tough in terms of SEO, I had to learn about meta data, longtail keywords, keyword density, rankings, page rank (now defunct), and getting penalised through googles fabled penguin update, all because I had my content in 2 places on the site to help readers find things better. I went from over 4,000 views a month, down to just 1,000 or less and I never recovered from that. With youtube I don't have that problem, I don't have to constantly second guess what google will do next, because youtube is a self contained SEO machine. Make good videos, tags and descriptions and you'll be just fine.
Equipment
When I was a blogger, I had a canon eos 1000D, it was my first DSLR and I loved that camera, it did everything I needed it to do and produced some fantastic images. I had a 50mm lens and a 18-55mm lens, both of which were great. However, the camera didn't allow video and so I knew I had to upgrade. I sold my 1000d and got an amazing deal on a 650d, it was such a good deal, I only had to chip in a little bit of extra cash to get it! I couldn't believe my luck. I bought a second hand STM 18-55mm lens, because it has a silent motor, meaning you don't hear grinding and whirring, because that's the last thing you wan to hear on a video. I got a cheap lavalier mic for about £20 which is the audio technica atr3350. It's a wired clip-on mic that goes directly into the camera. I used to have a shotgun mic that sat on top of the camera, but it was a cheap one and the sound was trashy and not very good at all. Yes the wire gets in the way a bit when cooking, but I can live with that. I also made the mistake of buying an 8GB SD card, thinking it would be ample for video, and it is to an extent. Most of my videos fit on it fine. But I have found that filming longer videos like my recent 'eastern European taste test' and 'How students can save money on your food bill' I had to stop halfway through because the card was full, transfer over to my computer, delete from card then start again! So buy a card that's at least 32GB I would say, and one that has a transfer speed of at least 60mbp/s meaning transferring to your pc will be a lot quicker. My 8GB one has a speed of 80mbp/s. A good tripod is essential if you plan on doing the type of filming I do. talking head videos not too much of a worry as you can prop your camera on a box or something. My tripod is a cheap amazon basics one, and is actually pretty good for the money. I paid about £12 all in and it does the job just fine. I will upgrade to a better one eventually but it's not my concern right now. Really though, don't be put off by all this fancy equipment, if all you have is your smartphone, then use that. Don't let equipment be your reason not to start a channel.
Final thoughts
I think the biggest learning curve for me so far is learning to be myself on camera, i'm not there yet, but more and more of my personality is coming out with each video, which is a good thing. I know people say it all the time, but that is so so important, if you come across as contrived, viewers will catch on to it. Ever been tempted to buy subscribers? DON'T! Just don't even think about it, it just isn't worth it. If you can't attract people to your channel naturally, then don't be on youtube, it's as simple as that. Go and have a look at 'youtube jarred' he paid for most of his subscribers (over 3000) and look at the dislikes, and abuse he gets in the comments. also look at his low view count, so many of his videos have less views than mine!
it isn't easy at all, like anything in life. I'm currently sitting at 28 subscribers and just over 800 views so far. It's more than I expected to be honest, but I realise how hard it is to push through all the big channels and get noticed. I am starting to find my uniqueness now, which is cooking (obviously) but also my humour is starting to show through. I don't want to be this polished robotic cooking machine, so I think this is where I will eventually sit 'a weirdo cooking things'. I wish I had started this channel years ago, who knows where I would be now, I don't know. All I know is written food blogs are not as a popular as they once were, the big stalwarts of that medium are doing very well, but I feel video is a better ancillary for creativity, and it many respects easier (I don't get writers block on youtube). A written blog to coincide with your channel is great, but I just find making videos much more interesting.
One final thing.....
One of the reasons I started youtube was to help me personally. A few weeks prior to putting my first video up, I suffered a huge mental breakdown through work related pressure. Things spiraled out of control, and It all got too much for me. I got better mind, and I figured I needed to have this channel as a means of escape, and a new focus in my life. Let's face it, most of you reading this want to be successful with your channel to make money, so it can be your job one day, am I right? There's no point shying away from it, that's what we all want. I see content every day that inspires me, or makes me annoyed, that a 20 second clip of someone jumping in a frozen lake gets 20 million views. But it's what we all want, to do something you love as your job. Who wants to work a crappy job making minimum wage, making money for someone else? Who wants to work 9-5 every day in a hot sweaty office with a measly pay packet at the end of it? I think most people would love to break free from that. If one day I could make this my job, and make enough money to buy my family a home, and live comfortably whilst doing something I love, then I would be the happiest man alive, I can tell you.
Don't ever let anyone tell you you can't do it, you will meet people that will frown and tut at you just because you're a youtuber, you'll get family say stupid things like 'well, are you making any money off it?' or 'why don't you get a proper job?' I've been lucky in that my friends and family have been nothing but supportive, but back in my blogging days I've had people who I thought were my friends, laugh at what I was doing. But equally, I had a lot of fun laughing at them when they didn't get an invite to PR events full of free food and as much booze as you could drink!
You are the master of your own destiny, go out there and create something great!
thanks for reading
Adam x
In the beginning......
I began the channel on June 28th as an intention to start a cooking channel to coincide with my food blog that had been going since 2012. Unfortunately, I just didn't have the courage. time or camera equipment to film my first video. It wasn't until August that I sold my old dslr, and bought a canon 650D, a mic, and a tripod. I was really excited, nervous and a little bit nauseous at the thought of people seeing me on film. I started to get quite down about it to be honest, thinking who the heck would want to watch me, why would they? And there is just no way I could make a good video. Luckily I managed to get myself out of that hole and make my first video.
My first video
I figured that for my first video should be something easy, seeing as I had no idea what I was doing (I still don't now really). I was overcome with nerves so much, that this 14 minute video took all day to film and another whole day to edit! I thought to myself at the time that If this is how long it's going to take, no way can I sustain this! Thankfully as the videos went on I got better at being myself, and editing. I still have a little way to go, as I still get a bit stuttery and stuck with what to say, but my confidence is growing with each video. It's strange actually because in life I am a very confident person, but I guess breaching the unknown is a daunting task. editing wise, i'm still using good old movie maker, simply because it's so easy to use. I have Sony Vegas installed and ready, but I just haven't found time to play around with it yet. eventually I will make the transition.
Subscribers
I get excited every time someone subscribes, because I think to myself 'wow, someone actually took the time to subscribe, because they like my videos?' A concept I found hard to believe in the beginning. It's a different story when someone unsubscribes, which I have had a couple do, it's not a nice feeling at all and brings out the old self doubt in you. But you know what I figured? I figured I should just concentrate on the ones that stay instead of the ones that go, because the ones that stay are the ones that really matter. I have a follower on my facebook page that has been with the blog for years, and she has transitioned over to youtube as well, she has been there from almost the beginning and always likes my videos. No she's not a relative, just a fan. People like that are worth your time, effort and thanks. Some fly by night, just looking to promote themselves isn't. Which is why I never ask people to subscribe just for the sake of it. If you like my videos, then of course i'll ask, but I won't just go on some random forum or page and spam the hell out of it, because it's annoying and pretty rude I think.
Views and monetisation
I decided to switch on monetisation early on for one reason, and that's simply to get my subscribers used to it, rather than do it say 4 years down the line and get accused of selling out, or people unsubscribe because they don't like the ads. I've made diddly squat from it so far (about £0.07) which is what I expected. Everything I do on the channel is for the subscribers, not to cash in at the moment. Views on my videos are actually better than I thought. I thought i'd be lucky to get 10 views on my videos, but actually I was surprised by how many I actually have. One of my videos, on how to make Brioche buns is on 176 views so far, and is my most popular video yet (probably down to good seo).
Dealing with negativity
At first it was all lovely, rose petals and dancing in misty meadows and skipping in corn fields....then it struck, my first negative comment! thankfully, it wasn't so much a big deal. Running my own food blog for 6 years meant I had a fair amount of negative and some abusive comments, one of them being from my own mother! (i'll probably do a video on that at some point). It came as a surprise more than anything, because the cretin in question had nothing to base his negativity on. It was a recipe on how I roast a whole chicken, which was part of my Sunday lunch play list. Now any self respecting Englishman knows all about a good Sunday lunch, but this guy started telling me it was pale, and that I should put some breading on it and deep fry it????? Sorry what??? deep fried roast chicken...yeeeahh, OK. I was polite enough, but it got my back up a bit. I suppose what it really comes down to is who you are as a person as to how you deal with it. I wouldn't suggest being abusive, it's better to ignore them rather than bite back. Also, never ever delete a comment you disagree with, if it's spam, racist, abusive or whatever, then sure delete it. But deleting a comment just because you disagree with them, is not good practice in my view. It shows you only care about those that agree with you, giving the impression you're an a**ehole.
SEO
If you are just starting out on youtube, and think SEO is hard, think yourself very very lucky because let me tell you, youtube seo is really really easy compared to running your own website. Google already has everything in place for you on youtube, all you have to do is write a good description with your main keyword, put relevant tags on it, and that's pretty much all the leg work done in terms of SEO. There are other tweaks and tricks you can use but in essence...that's it. Running my own blog was really tough in terms of SEO, I had to learn about meta data, longtail keywords, keyword density, rankings, page rank (now defunct), and getting penalised through googles fabled penguin update, all because I had my content in 2 places on the site to help readers find things better. I went from over 4,000 views a month, down to just 1,000 or less and I never recovered from that. With youtube I don't have that problem, I don't have to constantly second guess what google will do next, because youtube is a self contained SEO machine. Make good videos, tags and descriptions and you'll be just fine.
Equipment
When I was a blogger, I had a canon eos 1000D, it was my first DSLR and I loved that camera, it did everything I needed it to do and produced some fantastic images. I had a 50mm lens and a 18-55mm lens, both of which were great. However, the camera didn't allow video and so I knew I had to upgrade. I sold my 1000d and got an amazing deal on a 650d, it was such a good deal, I only had to chip in a little bit of extra cash to get it! I couldn't believe my luck. I bought a second hand STM 18-55mm lens, because it has a silent motor, meaning you don't hear grinding and whirring, because that's the last thing you wan to hear on a video. I got a cheap lavalier mic for about £20 which is the audio technica atr3350. It's a wired clip-on mic that goes directly into the camera. I used to have a shotgun mic that sat on top of the camera, but it was a cheap one and the sound was trashy and not very good at all. Yes the wire gets in the way a bit when cooking, but I can live with that. I also made the mistake of buying an 8GB SD card, thinking it would be ample for video, and it is to an extent. Most of my videos fit on it fine. But I have found that filming longer videos like my recent 'eastern European taste test' and 'How students can save money on your food bill' I had to stop halfway through because the card was full, transfer over to my computer, delete from card then start again! So buy a card that's at least 32GB I would say, and one that has a transfer speed of at least 60mbp/s meaning transferring to your pc will be a lot quicker. My 8GB one has a speed of 80mbp/s. A good tripod is essential if you plan on doing the type of filming I do. talking head videos not too much of a worry as you can prop your camera on a box or something. My tripod is a cheap amazon basics one, and is actually pretty good for the money. I paid about £12 all in and it does the job just fine. I will upgrade to a better one eventually but it's not my concern right now. Really though, don't be put off by all this fancy equipment, if all you have is your smartphone, then use that. Don't let equipment be your reason not to start a channel.
Final thoughts
I think the biggest learning curve for me so far is learning to be myself on camera, i'm not there yet, but more and more of my personality is coming out with each video, which is a good thing. I know people say it all the time, but that is so so important, if you come across as contrived, viewers will catch on to it. Ever been tempted to buy subscribers? DON'T! Just don't even think about it, it just isn't worth it. If you can't attract people to your channel naturally, then don't be on youtube, it's as simple as that. Go and have a look at 'youtube jarred' he paid for most of his subscribers (over 3000) and look at the dislikes, and abuse he gets in the comments. also look at his low view count, so many of his videos have less views than mine!
it isn't easy at all, like anything in life. I'm currently sitting at 28 subscribers and just over 800 views so far. It's more than I expected to be honest, but I realise how hard it is to push through all the big channels and get noticed. I am starting to find my uniqueness now, which is cooking (obviously) but also my humour is starting to show through. I don't want to be this polished robotic cooking machine, so I think this is where I will eventually sit 'a weirdo cooking things'. I wish I had started this channel years ago, who knows where I would be now, I don't know. All I know is written food blogs are not as a popular as they once were, the big stalwarts of that medium are doing very well, but I feel video is a better ancillary for creativity, and it many respects easier (I don't get writers block on youtube). A written blog to coincide with your channel is great, but I just find making videos much more interesting.
One final thing.....
One of the reasons I started youtube was to help me personally. A few weeks prior to putting my first video up, I suffered a huge mental breakdown through work related pressure. Things spiraled out of control, and It all got too much for me. I got better mind, and I figured I needed to have this channel as a means of escape, and a new focus in my life. Let's face it, most of you reading this want to be successful with your channel to make money, so it can be your job one day, am I right? There's no point shying away from it, that's what we all want. I see content every day that inspires me, or makes me annoyed, that a 20 second clip of someone jumping in a frozen lake gets 20 million views. But it's what we all want, to do something you love as your job. Who wants to work a crappy job making minimum wage, making money for someone else? Who wants to work 9-5 every day in a hot sweaty office with a measly pay packet at the end of it? I think most people would love to break free from that. If one day I could make this my job, and make enough money to buy my family a home, and live comfortably whilst doing something I love, then I would be the happiest man alive, I can tell you.
Don't ever let anyone tell you you can't do it, you will meet people that will frown and tut at you just because you're a youtuber, you'll get family say stupid things like 'well, are you making any money off it?' or 'why don't you get a proper job?' I've been lucky in that my friends and family have been nothing but supportive, but back in my blogging days I've had people who I thought were my friends, laugh at what I was doing. But equally, I had a lot of fun laughing at them when they didn't get an invite to PR events full of free food and as much booze as you could drink!
You are the master of your own destiny, go out there and create something great!
thanks for reading
Adam x
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