- This video is sponsored by Epidemic Sound.
On Twitter, over 200 of you told me
that consistency is what's holding you back
as a content creator.
So today I'm gonna give you my seven steps
for being more consistent as a content creator
on YouTube and social media.
Let's cover the first thing first: time management.
Most of you watching this
are probably working-class content creators.
You work a full-time job.
Maybe you have a family
and content creation cannot be your number one priority.
It's a little easier when you're younger
and you have less responsibility.
So let's focus on how you can tackle time management.
Start by writing down what your typical day looks like
for each day of the week, Monday through Sunday.
And I want you to be dead honest about all of this
and really consider how you're spending your time
when you're not at work, you're not sleeping,
how much time you are allocating
to family and all those things.
And it turns out
that there's probably some things that you can cut out
when it comes to making time for your content creation.
The short version of this is,
if you want to succeed as a content creator,
it's probably gonna come at the expense
of the rest of your hobbies.
So whatever it is that you do in your spare time,
when you're not working, sleeping,
or spending time with family,
maybe those things, those distractions,
those vices have to go away.
And now your time, your energy, and your spare cash
goes into your content creation.
And that will probably make it easier to be more consistent.
Also just another hint before I go into the next step here.
If you're somebody who works a typical nine to five job,
right after work is probably not the best time to film
or even edit your content
because you don't really have
as much mental and emotional energy.
It's probably better spent during this time
to do little things for only maybe 45 minutes to an hour.
Things like working on your thumbnails,
doing research, doing admin work.
You're not gonna do your best judgment on your edits
or your best performance on camera
when you're tired after work.
The other thing is a lot of you, you might have kids,
you may not have a lot of windows of opportunity
when the house is quiet to film.
So I suggest you take advantage of that
and you batch-record when you have that quiet time
and that you can edit any time
'cause you can just put on headphones.
You probably don't have as many as me,
but I'm sure you can scrounge up some headphones
and you can drown that out.
Do not use quiet time to edit.
Quiet time is for filming only.
So in terms of your time management,
oh, I need time to film and make my content,
do it when it's quiet so that you can just go ahead
and get through it, get that quality content made,
and then you can edit basically any other time.
And when it comes to being exhausted,
just remember, film on your days off,
maybe even edit on your days off,
do all your admin work on the side
whenever you have time after work.
That's probably the most practical thing you can do.
Step number two, a lot of you told me that ideas,
coming up with ideas and trying to have those prepared
before you make content
is what's holding a lot of you back.
If you're constantly thinking about ideas,
doing research and writing those down,
I usually just put it into Apple Notes on my phone.
That's how I write down my ideas.
This will make it easier for you to make consistent content
because you will always have a plan for what content.
You won't be sitting there thinking about,
oh, I gotta put out a video today.
What am I gonna make?
You need to already know what you're going to make.
And that's gonna make things
like making your thumbnails in advance easier,
doing the necessary research ahead of time.
Everything else will move faster
if you already have ideas for content that you can make.
And by writing down these different ideas,
you'll also know which ones are easier to make
versus which ones are harder to make.
When I'm on a crunch and I need to crank out videos,
the good news is I have an entire list
of very quick and simple, easy videos that I can make
and so I can get ahead.
And when I have quiet time, I'm batch-recording those.
So just focusing on ideation
and doing that on a regular basis.
Maybe you do that during your lunch break.
Maybe you do that and think really heavily
about your content ideas on the commute back home.
Just really process this and make sure
that you have a bank of ideas
for content that you can always make.
And don't always focus on your big zany idea
that you think is gonna get all the views.
Focus on something that will allow you to be consistent.
Step number three for being consistent with your content,
this is gonna be optimizing in advance.
By optimizing your content in advance,
what we're talking about is things
like topic, title, thumbnail, timing,
and we're talking about just basically everything else
that goes into a YouTube video
or even an Instagram post or even a TikTok video.
What are you gonna use in terms of keywords and tags?
That's something you could do in advance.
To do all my optimization in advance,
I actually use a tool in TubeBuddy called the SEO Studio.
And that actually lets me upload my thumbnail in advance,
write my title in advance
and then I can just upload my video
and my description is already there.
My tags, titles, everything is already in place
before the video is even filmed, edited, and made.
And I can just tie the upload to it.
If you wanna get the free version of TubeBuddy,
it's linked in the description down below,
but it's the advanced versions that have features like this.
Oh yeah, and that is my affiliate link.
Even if you're not using something
like the TubeBuddy SEO Studio,
you can do things like set up your descriptions
in a place where you can copy and paste it.
So you could do this in a doc or an Excel sheet
if you really wanted to.
My big thing and my big hack
is I make my thumbnails in advance.
I make like maybe 10, 20 thumbnails well in advance.
You don't have to be that extreme,
but I love Photoshop so much that I do not mind
just cranking out thumbnails.
Step number four, batch-record your content.
We already talked about this briefly,
but in terms of batch-recording content,
since I already have ideas for my content well in advance,
I'm able to film several sessions all at once
and I make this really easy on myself.
For one thing,
in my videos I typically just wear my creator merch,
which is linked in the description down below,
probably also in the merch shelf,
but I just wear my own creator merch.
And for me, it represents a uniform
that I can wear on camera
and I can just rotate pretty easily, change outfits,
and just plug my own merch by wearing it.
And this is actually a really effective hack
for content creators,
is if you just kind of give yourself
a set of outfits or your merchandise
or create essentially a uniform for your channel
for going to work to your other job here,
it actually does help with filming videos.
It helps with continuity.
And so it makes it very easy.
It's just one less decision to make.
The other cool thing about batch-recording
is if you have your ideas,
your bullet points, your script,
if you have these things done well in advance,
when you do have time and it is quiet
and you can just film to your heart's content,
you can film two or three videos at a time,
or at least the main cuts of it as far as the talking head,
A-roll or voiceover portion of your video content.
You don't necessarily need it to be quiet
when you wanna film things like B-roll
and things that you're gonna talk over.
A lot of people, they get so in their head
about their creative process that what they wanna do
is they wanna film everything in the order
they envision it for the edit,
and you don't really have to do that.
The main thing is to prioritize making content
in a way that fits with your lifestyle.
So if it is that you need
that little bit of window of quiet time,
use all of that for batch-recording your voiceovers
and your talking head videos and your A-roll.
You can focus on other aspects of the content
that don't require it to be quiet
at other times during the day or the week.
Step number five is gonna be creating an asset library,
which leads us to today's sponsor, Epidemic Sound.
I need all kinds of assets for my content
to be able to make it just right and get those edits in
and increase the watch time and retention on these videos.
And Epidemic Sound really helps me with that
when it comes to not only the background music
that you all love and enjoy,
but also the sound effects that I use whenever I want.
You know, plop something up on the screen.
They have a huge library of music,
and the way that I actually use this
to help with my workflow, speed things up,
and manage productivity for consistent content,
is I actually try to create a soundtrack every season.
Every three months, I go and I grab about maybe anywhere
from 12 to 20 songs that I really like in Epidemic Sound,
and those are the ones that I know I'm going to use,
which means when I need to edit a video,
I can edit faster because I don't have to hunt down
the perfect sound or the perfect song.
It's already right there
in a folder on my laptop ready to go.
And so Epidemic Sound has you covered.
They're linked in the description down below.
You can try them out for 30 days free
using my affiliate link.
Thank you to Epidemic Sound for sponsoring today's video.
Now, in terms of assets,
I need more than just background music.
I also need visual graphics sometimes.
And so I'll use something like MotionVFX.
I actually have the plugins from both iJustine
and Marques Brownlee installed,
'cause I edit in Premiere Pro.
They also work in DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro
for those of you who use that.
But regardless of what video editor you're using,
you should always have things
like motion graphic templates,
background music, sound effects,
and you should also have regular images and graphics
that you might need prepared in advance
or even screen recordings.
And also something that I have is I make custom presets
to help me with things like correcting my audio
or even my color correction and color grading.
So just kind of having this folder
of organized assets set aside,
presets that you already have dialed in
as far as your settings,
it does help make everything work a lot faster
and it eliminates your decision creep.
When it comes to my B-roll footage that you all see,
I use Storyblocks, also linked in description down below.
And what I do is I have folders set up
for everything I could possibly need,
whether it's a folder called time
when I need to show the passage of time
or something that I have called creators
when I need to show creators doing creator things,
or money whenever I show those wonderful B-roll clips
of money raining from the sky.
So having those things just set aside
so you know where they are.
You don't have to think this through,
you don't have to hunt them down.
This is how I get my editing process locked in.
This is why it only takes me about two hours
to make one of these videos.
Step number six is to focus on faster editing.
By becoming a faster editor,
you're going to have to manage a lot less time
to make your content.
It's also gonna mean that when you batch-record,
you'll also be in a better position to batch-edit.
This will put you ahead.
This will make everything go faster.
It will even help you make better-quality content
to become a faster editor.
Because once you're getting a lot
of these things out of the way,
you're able to spend more time tweaking
and refining aspects of the content
that you want to have be the best that they can be.
This is especially true for the first 30 seconds
of your YouTube videos for retention
because that drop off at the first 30 seconds
is ultimately what kills your videos.
So more than anything, being able to say,
you know what, I've edited the rough cut.
I'm gonna go back to the beginning of the video
and focus on that first 30 seconds
or that first 60 seconds of the video
to keep people engaged for as long as possible,
get them to a place where it's too much trouble
to go to another video.
That's probably for the best.
So for a lot of you,
you're gonna end up doing your rough cut,
getting that out of the way.
And if you get really fast and efficient,
tune all of that up,
you can edit the beginning of the video the heaviest
and edit that to your heart's content.
And this is just all going to make things work
a lot better for you, help you stay consistent,
and crank out that content.
And then finally, number seven.
Step number seven is something
that I think is really important.
Research before you need to.
The thing that makes it the easiest
for me to make my content
is I mostly get to go off of the knowledge
and experience that I already have.
And when I don't get to do that
and something new comes up,
like YouTube monetization changes, YouTube shopping,
new YouTube features,
or a new monetization platform for creators
like Instagram starts monetizing creators,
helping you make money.
Anything like that happens,
what I try to do is research in advance
and then go as deep as I can, as quickly as I can,
before I ever need to.
And I constantly use my spare time to research things
I know that I might wanna make content about.
So having ideas in advance
and then tying that to the idea
of researching ahead of time in my spare time
means that I know my stuff cold.
I have it locked in,
which is why for me I don't have to spend
nearly as much time writing scripts.
All I do is write bullet points
and then I'm able to freestyle on camera.
It also helps because since I'm basically blind,
teleprompter's not gonna be my friend anyway.
So for a lot of you,
I know that a lot of you do scripted content.
I only really do that for YouTube shorts
or when I need to do something
like an ad read to promote something
or the plugs for the sponsors,
for the sponsored content, that sort of thing.
So if you do know that you have to write scripts,
give yourself a script template,
make your own script template
where you have the hook at the beginning of the video,
you have your ad reads if you have a sponsored ad read,
and you have the main points and cuts that you want
and that you have your intro and outro locked in.
This is just gonna make your life easier
and it also will help you with storyboarding
and planning the content, picking your B-roll,
your sound effects, kind of just having all of that in place
before you ever need to.
So spend a little bit more time researching
and I promise it will make the content better
and it will make things go smoother, faster,
just better in every single way.
And there you go, those are your seven steps
for making consistent content on YouTube.
And you can apply this to other social media platforms.
You can apply this to podcasts, Instagram content,
probably even TikTok.
Just whatever you would need to do.
If you enjoyed this video
and you want to be a full-time content creator,
make sure you're checking out my videos on YouTube tips.
Also, I think you should check out this video
on the most profitable niches in YouTube
for your own research.
As always, thank you so much for watching.
And don't forget,
go out there and create something awesome today.
Take care.