- In just one year, my friend Chris got 100,000
subscribers on his YouTube channel using his phone.
And he's gonna tell you exactly what he focused on to make
it happen.
And we're starting right now, take it away, Chris.
- Thanks a lot, Nick, I'm super excited
to be in one of your videos.
I feel like I've made it, I started my YouTube channel
less than a year ago, and when I started,
I had the goal that, okay if after a year
I could get to that magical 1,000 subscriber number.
I'll keep going, I'll be feeling really good about myself.
And then just 10 months later just last week I cracked
a 100,000 subscribers.
It absolutely blew my mind, and when Nick asked if I wanted
to share some tips with you guys, I thought I'm all for it.
I drew a lot of inspiration from other people
when I was starting out, so if I can provide
some inspiration to any of you I'm happy to do it.
So I'm gonna take you down to the streets of the big city
of Bangkok and give you three tips.
Then we'll come back up here and I'll give you two words
of wisdom.
For tip number one, I thought I'd do it here at my favorite
lunch market right here in Bangkok.
And tip number one is to make sure that your YouTube channel
has a North star, it's a guiding light that always shows
you the path and the direction on each and every video
that you make.
That could be a sentence but I like to boil it down
to two or three words.
If you can, for me, in the early days of my YouTube channel
I was struggling trying to figure out
what I was trying to deliver to my viewers on each and every
video, and then I came up with two words,
fun and informative, and that helped me so much.
I found that every time I was out making a video
and I was struggling to try and tell the story that I wanted
to tell, I brought those two words into my mind,
fun and informative whatever your channel is, think about it
and try and boil it down to a few words.
One, two maximum three words that describe
what you're trying to give your viewers.
And whenever you're out making a video if you're ever
struggling with creative block or trying to figure out
what the video's all about just go back to whatever
your North star is and let it guide you, let it help shape
the video that you're trying to make.
Tip number two is to focus on your strengths
and your weaknesses.
Everybody in the world has strengths or weaknesses,
and if you're new to the YouTube game
I would highly suggest that you really focus
on your strengths and work hard to make them a pillar
of your channel.
For me, I think my biggest strength would be that I had
previous experience in editing.
I used to work in the film industry,
I did some onset editing by no means in my professional
but I came into YouTube with a good skill set of editing.
So I really focused on that in all of my videos,
and I spent a lot of time in the edit, making sure
that strength allowed me to separate my channel
and my videos from other YouTubers.
At the same time, I have a million weaknesses.
I knew nothing about YouTube or how to start a channel
or keyword research or two buddy or any of that.
So I devoured YouTube content on that.
I found Nick Neiman's channel bunch of other channels
and I really learned a lot, I'm not very good with audio
and that's a weakness that I'm still working on.
YouTube is an amazing resource and you could top up
knowledge and really work on things that you might not
be the strongest at.
So constantly work on your weaknesses
and use your strengths.
Before I get to tip number three do yourself a favor
and jot down your own personal strengths and the weaknesses
that you'd like to work on.
For tip number three, I'm here on a university campus
universities where they teach you rules
and tip number three is to not be afraid to break
some rules.
When I was starting my YouTube channel, like I said
I devoured all kinds of how to do YouTube videos
and a lot of common themes are there a lot of great advice
a lot of rules that you should follow,
but don't be afraid to experiment.
One of my most successful video series on my channel
is called 60 seconds in Thailand.
And that started out as something that was supposed
to just be 60 seconds snippets, little slices of life.
And it's morphed completely into a mini news comedy program
that gets tons of views.
And that would have never happened if I just stuck with one
format that I had in my mind that was gonna form
the backbone of my channel.
I think too many new YouTubers get a picture of what
their videos are gonna be in their head
and are afraid to deviate from that.
I'd highly recommend experimenting especially if you're
a new channel.
Now let's head back to that rooftop for a couple of quick
words of wisdom.
I hope you enjoy those three tips, as promised I'm back here
on the rooftop to give you two quick words of wisdom.
The first one is regarding gear.
A lot of people say gear doesn't matter,
some people say gear matters,
I don't have the answers to that.
All I can do is show you what's in my camera bag.
A lot of people have asked me in my comment sections.
Hey Chris, what kind of camera do you use?
What kind of microphone do you use?
So I'll start by showing you my camera,
I use this to film all my videos, an iPhone 11.
That's my camera, that's it, but I mean, I do go all out.
I have a tripod is Manfrotto tripod, I carry it around
and vlog with it, but sound sound is very very important
as you've probably heard.
So let me just reach in and grab my microphone
oh, there it is, there's my microphone.
These things have amazing cameras, they have amazing mics.
So that's it, I got my phone, a mini tripod,
so I don't know if that answers your question,
but for me obviously, gear, hasn't been the reason
why I've achieved a 100,000 subscribers.
And that leads me to the second words of wisdom.
Just hit record, I think one of Nick's buddies by the name
of Sean Cannell taught me that he's got a great channel
with lots of YouTube advice as well.
And when I was thinking of starting my YouTube channel
I suffered from what they call paralysis analysis
or is it an analysis paralysis?
Anyway, I sat around on my couch for a few months
afraid to record my first video,
and then thanks to those words of wisdom.
I just started recording and things started happening.
So I suggest that you do the same.
One last thing I'll say is to remember that hard work
always wins the day I put the word working rate
in my YouTube channel, title name, retired, working for you
to always remind myself to work hard at this.
I think too many new YouTubers, don't put the work in
and still expect the results to come.
So work hard at it, enjoy it, I gotta get back to work
right now look at this, it's a tough life,
I got a video to make, enjoy your YouTube journeys.
Good luck to all of you, throwing them back to you, Nick.
- Awesome information, thank you so much, Chris,
for sharing, now look, if you are watching this right now
and you love watching Vloggers and especially Vloggers
that are out of the country and you're just interested
in seeing what that lifestyle looks like,
make sure that you click into Chris's channel right here
and subscribe while you're over there and to learn even more
about growing your YouTube channel,
subscribe here on your way over.
Thank you so much for watching, I'll see you next time.