- What up? - Hey, we're here!
- Where are we? - We're at YouTube headquarters
being ourselves, being great, doing great things, saying great things.
- That's what we're doing! - Looking cute.
So, Andrew. You're very creative. That's one of the staples of your channel.
How do you come up with ideas for videos?
There are a lot of ways that I come up with ideas.
I keep this running tally of all the things I wanna try out some day
and I categorize them.
For people starting out, what top 3 things should they know?
In terms of putting out content, the more the better.
You never know what's going to take off or how someone's going to find you.
The more ways they can find you, the better.
Something I think a lot of us have to learn is that we all
have to define our own success.
It's very easy to get caught up in the numbers of subscribers or views.
It's important to know why you're doing it,
what you're hoping to get out of it, and also know it's being true to yourself.
This actually is my number 2 tip!
The 3rd thing was just creating with whatever you have.
I remember when I started I got so caught up in the quality.
I thought I'd save until I could afford a DSLR before I'd start posting videos,
because I don't want to put up webcam stuff or whatever.
Ultimately, I would have reached more people faster and sooner
if I'd just worked with what I had and put stuff out.
Sometimes you worry as an artist that you won't have
any more ideas later... But you will!
So it's just getting what's 'now' out there.
So I was just drumming along on the back of this chair
and I think I might record it and add it to the track.
Understanding why people watch something...
If I'm in my car talking about topical content, they're watching it
because they want to know what's going on and what my opinion is.
They don't necessarily care that it sounds or looks the best.
They want it to be instant.
You have a really unique community and way of interacting.
Do you want to talk a bit about that?
I think that because I've been so open about
who I am the whole time, as I'm going through things
there's not a lot of distance between me and the audience.
They feel like we're friends and I'm constantly in contact with them
on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments.
And it goes beyond 'Thanks for watching my video.'
I'm genuinely concerned for the things they're going through.
I feel like the older sister. 'How do I take what I've learned, put it
in a package that makes sense, and make it not as serious as it is?'
How do you decide what you're going to put out?
You have 2 channels, so where's it going to go?
How does your audience respond to that? Are they segmented?
When I first started, one of the things I did was Request Tuesday
because I needed to learn how to play guitar
and people would ask me to play certain songs.
And I said I'd invite them into the content.
Recently I've been doing more daily stuff.
I have a format for certain days and what those are.
I leave some days open to whatever I want.
I trust that, at this point, they like my personality enough
that they'll follow me to the music, the daily content,
the Church of Tonjes and the advice stuff...
They just want to see me making stuff.
On some videos, people say 'This doesn't apply to me, but I like you.'
I take this as the biggest compliment.
Thank you for watching.
I hope you enjoyed learning about my creative process.
- And I hope you learned about why community is so important
and why you should get videos out as quickly as possible.
- I'm Meghan Tonjes. - I'm Andrew Huang. Keep creating!
We'll see you soon.