- So right now you are here
on your YouTube journey, aren't you?
Waking up to maybe a couple of subscribers
and a hundred views if you're lucky.
- But you wanna be here, flexing gold play buttons,
watched by millions.
Insert your favorite YouTuber here.
So how do you do it?
What's the magic formula to becoming a successful creator?
- Long term success is a result
of consistency and dedication.
But what does it take to become a good content creator?
- If you wanna become the next MrBeast, CaseyNeistat,
or Stephan Graham, you need to be implementing
the same strategies that successful creators are doing
that you currently may not be doing.
- And make sure you stick around to the end,
because our final tip will give you a whole new perspective
on being a content creator on YouTube.
- And let us know in the comments below,
where are you right now?
Each day, how many views is your channel getting?
- So let's start with what is probably the most
important thing you haven't yet thought about,
and that's identifying your target audience.
- Rob, we talk about this all the time, and I think
what we could do this time is play a little game.
We're gonna use the vidIQ channel as kind of
our reference here and talk about
how we have determined our target viewer, which is you.
- I like games, Dan.
Fire away, come on, bring it on.
- Okay, Rob, so for the vidIQ channel,
what would you say the age bracket is
that you are making YouTube videos for?
- 13 to 30.
- And how about demographic wise?
Their gender, their location.
- It's currently 80% male.
We would like to get that to a more 50, 50% split of course.
Location wise, English speaking audience, United States,
England, Australia, Canada, bring 'em all on.
- What would you say for our audience,
the primary pain points are
that they're trying to address?
- Small creators, struggling to understand how YouTube works
and believing that they think
that some all-powerful algorithm is against them.
- When you speak to your audience,
what kind of language are you going to use?
Like what are some of the nuances
that you might use to help get your points across.
- So people come into YouTube wanting to know
how to get more views, how to get more subscribers,
how to monetize my channel,
why am I getting copyrights?
Obviously we'll go into a lot more detail,
but that's the entry points,
the level of education our viewers are currently at.
- This is an exercise that any creator
can do for their own channel,
and it can go way deeper than that, too.
The goal though, is to understand exactly
who you're making videos for.
- So once you've established a target audience,
you wanna consider how you're going to communicate with them
and you have one superpower.
You are the only you on YouTube.
- Being you on YouTube is going to help lend
more authenticity to your content,
more credibility to your content.
Ultimately it's going to make you
a more trustworthy creator.
- And viewers are gonna see that
when they watch your content.
They're gonna feel your authenticity,
your uniqueness, your own voice,
and you're gonna be able to engage better as a community.
- One important thing that I personally
took for granted when I started on YouTube
is making enough time to create YouTube content
in the first place.
I'm sure you've heard a lot of people talk about this.
We all have the same 24 hours in a given day.
There are some people who actually make time
for the things they want to do,
and some people who instead of making time make excuses.
I was certainly one of the people who made excuses.
- You are creating content not just for yourself,
but for an audience,
and they have certain expectations
that you need to deliver on.
Sometimes there are aspects of content creation
that you may not enjoy doing.
Making thumbnails, writing titles, editing.
You have to become skilled at all of these tasks
in able to create a piece of content
that somebody wants to watch.
And all of that takes time, commitment, and dedication.
- So what can really help you is to make YouTube
a top priority in your life,
like you would anything else, like you would a job.
Because ultimately that is the goal of a lot of creators,
is for YouTube to one day become a job.
One of the ways that you can make YouTube
a larger priority is to not just upload more videos,
but put more time into planning out your videos.
- The first thing a viewer sees is your title
and your thumbnail, and those will benefit greatly
from planning before you record.
- Planning out titles and thumbnails will obviously
get you a lot of people in the door.
And then the other thing you could be doing
to retain those people is to make sure that the writing
or the plans behind each video you make are solid.
Now, I'm not saying every single creator out there should be
writing scripts front to back
for every single video they make.
There are certainly cases where content creators
can get a lot more out of a video if they just kind of
let things happen around them.
But even in those instances, you can certainly
control the narrative by making plans for yourself.
Take livestreaming, for example.
Just having a list of goals, things you wanna make sure
you address in that livestream,
or things you want to have happen in that livestream,
and aiming for those can lead
to a much more structured livestream,
and in turn make it a lot more entertaining to watch.
- And it just so happens that vidIQ
can help you with some of these planning aspects.
Go to Daily Ideas,
if you're making videos, Daily Ideas will suggest
up to 50 potential videos you could make every single day.
Or you can just take a keyword,
be it cryptocurrency, Minecraft, more views,
put it into our title generator,
and that will start to generate really curious angles
of attack for your target audience.
- I think another step in the process
that a lot of people don't really take into account
is the idea that you actually do need to do
a lot of research on YouTube.
If you're scripting your videos
obviously you need to be researching sources and making sure
that you're presenting good, valuable information,
but you also need to research in terms
of just picking what topics you would like to cover.
And Daily Ideas can certainly help with that.
But of course, you know your audience better
than anybody else.
You need to be spending time in their shoes
in order to best do that research.
- It may often be the case that you have to do the research
the day you press record, so allow time
in your schedule to do that.
- And there are some great apps out there there
that you can be using to help collect your information,
cite your sources.
You could be using something as simple as Google Docs,
or you can use boards like Trello.
You can even use something a little more robust like Notion.
- And most of them have free options.
- As a creator, I don't know about you, Rob,
but one thing that's really helped me is to try
and just remain curious about everything it is
when it comes to my topic,
I'm always trying to learn something new.
A few ways that you can satisfy this curiosity
would be to do things such as listen
to podcasts related to your niche,
or industry related websites, blogs,
subreddits, discord servers.
- Now as you develop these research skills,
when something is trending in your topic,
you will have the experience and the skills
to jump on that topic as quickly as possible,
and know where to get this information
as quickly as you need to.
- And we all know that being the first person
to a trend can mean huge things for your channel,
but you can't be that person
if you're not keeping up with the stuff.
- Now, let's talk about what you should do
after you've published your videos.
And that's to review your metrics.
I'm not suggesting that you should spend hours
in the YouTube Studio, but what you can do
is start to identify key metrics
that you can benchmark and aim to improve on.
- Example could be your video's retention graph.
Maybe an average video is getting 30 to 40% retention,
which isn't great.
Ideally you want that number to be as high as possible.
So with every upload,
you can aim to do just a little bit better,
and try to go from maybe 40% to 45%, or 45% to maybe 50%.
- Now when you start to improve these metrics,
what you're doing is exceeding expectations from the viewer.
They see a lot of stuff on YouTube,
but what stands out makes 'em stick around
and watch more of your content.
- You'll know you have this opportunity
when you can look at a video,
and you're almost done editing it,
and you can say, "Yeah, this is okay."
And then you can think to yourself ways in which
it can be better.
And whenever you have those moments,
those could be the difference
between having a video that performs just okay,
or a whole lot better.
- Now, believe it or not, folks,
actual human beings watch your content.
I know they all just look like numbers,
but they are real people,
and some of them are fellow creators just like you.
They could be spying on you as a competition.
How you should be treating them is fellow collaborators
in your video topic.
- Networking with other creators can be very intimidating,
and it's honestly very easy to get it wrong,
especially if it's the first time
you're trying to build these relationships.
I have a tip for you,
and this way worked for me beautifully.
Find your favorite creators
on their favorite social media platforms.
Twitter being an example.
If you follow Minecraft content creators,
and you happen to be one as well,
and you see one of your favorite creators
build something really cool,
and they share it to social media.
Interact with that tweet, hit the like button,
tell them how awesome you think it looks,
and do nothing else.
- Do nothing else?
I don't get what you mean, Dan.
- What I mean is don't use these networking opportunities
as a way to ask for something.
Just form an organic relationship with another person
by commenting on something they did,
showing a genuine interest in what it is they're doing.
- In fact, I would argue, Dan,
try and offer something of value
to this potential collaborator for free.
Whether you're gonna create a funky image for them,
design some music for them,
something that just lets them know
that you are a fellow creator,
and you may want to collaborate with them in the future.
- For me personally, one part of this
that took me way too long to understand was
I should really treat my channel as a business,
and I should treat myself as a business owner,
as a CEO of this channel.
And doing that completely changed my perspective,
not just in the way I look at my channel
and the decisions I make for it,
but even in those networking conversations
we were just talking about.
Am I presenting myself in a professional way
in this very public environment?
- Yeah, the skills you develop as a creator
will make you become a leader to a certain extent.
And I'm not meaning by telling people what to do,
but you're leading by example
with the message you are sharing
with your audience and the impact it has on them.
So even before you hit 1000 subscribers
and 4,000 hours of watch time, you want to be considering
how you are going to turn your channel into a business
that makes revenue from multiple streams.
And makes it sustainable for you to turn it
from a creative passion
into a sustainable career.
Make sure you infuse that passion
and emotion as soon as you press record.
Keep it all for the video,
but once you step out of the video, then you are the CEO,
the channel manager, the business owner, the entrepreneur.
But don't go anywhere!
Now that we've transformed your YouTuber mindset,
let's offer a bonus tip, Dan.
- That tip is to never stop learning.
And don't take this for granted.
- Successful content creators have mastered the basics,
but they continue to learn every single day.
Most people you see who are successful in what they do,
be it a musician, a sports professional, a YouTuber,
they have tens of thousands of hours
of experience and learning behind them.
- There are so many ways that you can apply this
to your channel too.
For example, do you feel really good
about how your editing is going?
Or do you feel like you could get a little bit faster?
Why not watch a Premiere tutorial,
or whatever editing software you use,
to try and improve your workflow
so that you can make videos even faster than you do now?
- Or just watch more vidIQ videos, Dan.
Long term, (speaks gibberish).
Long term, (laughs) I can't even get past two words!
- "Success" is the word.
- I know!
Mm. (Dan laughs)
(Rob speaks gibberish)
(Rob hits desk)
And speaking of more vidIQ videos, YouTube mistakes.
You as a small creator are probably making
many of these right now.
That's fine.
Everybody does it.
But the key is to identify them in order to fix them.
And you can do that by watching this video over here,
as well as subscribing if you want to.