- In this video, I'm talking about
some of the biggest mistakes that YouTubers make
to hopefully give you some insight
on things that you probably shouldn't be doing
on your channel, and I'm not dong this alone.
I've teamed up with an awesome group of creators,
and I thought this was a great opportunity
to hear from some other creators
on mistakes that they've made on their channels
as they were gettin' goin', as they've been building it,
and things that they wish that they could've avoided
if they started right now.
Let's get into it.
(intense electronic sounds)
So this is an awesome event.
Sony brought us all together here in Montana,
test out some Sony cameras,
just hang out with other creators,
and it's just a great opportunity to meet with each other
and kinda just chat YouTube,
and I think it's a great chance for you guys to learn
from a lot of creators and just hear from other people
that are doing this full-time
and seeing some of the mistakes that they've made
as they've been building their channels.
So I was walking through this beautiful forest
and I just ran into Sara.
- It's so convenient to find you out here.
Do you have a question for me?
- [Jeven] What your biggest mistake is on YouTube.
- Yes, okay, I have a good one.
In the big days of vlogging, everyone said,
you have to daily vlog.
It's about quantity, you gotta get out
as much content as possible,
and it honestly stopped all momentum of my channel
because I wasn't worried about making quality stuff
or things I actually enjoyed,
I was only worrying about quantity.
Now it's great to look back and say, hey,
I can do that, I can produce five videos a week
for like eight months, it's a great thing
to be able to do, you test your work ethic
and I got a few cool videos.
It's good to look back on life and remember certain things.
However, it almost killed me.
It left me so uninspired 'cause I wasn't
making the projects I actually wanted to make.
So I think we're in a beautiful time where
the algorithm can actually work in your favor,
it's not just the enemy.
You can go away for three, four weeks,
work on a poppin' video,
and if you got a good thumbnail title,
you deliver with good content, a good video,
you're back, you don't have to upload every single day
in order to be a relevant content creator anymore.
Boom!
- So focus on quality, not quantity.
Thanks Sara. - of course.
- [Jeven] Hey, what's up?
- What's up man?
- I just found Sidney, and he's got something for you.
What's your biggest mistake?
- Oh man, so many, but for me,
I wish I would have focused more on my audience retention
because that little graph where you see
the drop off where your audience just stops watching,
it's not a bad thing because it kinda tells you
what you should do differently with your next video,
so maybe don't do such a long intro,
maybe just get straight to the point,
or just say real quickly in one sentence,
hey guys, this is what this video is gonna be about.
Watch to the end because I got a giveaway happening.
So when I change up my content based on that little graph
like my audience retention just grew,
and so my average watch time is like six minutes
compared to like a minute-and-a-half.
Pay attention to your analytics,
they tell you everything you need to know.
Don't feel bad about yourself when you see
the decline in the graphs.
Look at it and learn from it
and then you're only gonna get better.
- I'm gonna add onto that, so with your audience retention,
what you're looking for is dips.
What he's talking about is that graph you can see
from beginning to end,
how long people are watching your video.
And what you're looking for is when they drop off.
If they drop off at the beginning
that means you have a low audience retention.
He's getting about six minutes,
which that means that he's getting
a very solid audience retention,
and six minutes means YouTube's gonna keep
recommending your content more and more.
So pay attention to your audience retention.
If you are not getting a high audience retention,
you're getting like a minute
but you have 10-minute long videos,
then look and see what's happening within your video
and why people are clicking off.
- Boom.
- Everywhere you turn, there's more creators at this thing.
- What's up Jeven's audience?
- We're Becki and Chris.
I'm Chris, she's Becki. - I thought you were Becki?
We make videos about--
- Things that we're interested in.
- Yeah, mostly photography and video,
but helicopter stuff, travel, home decor, everything.
- His question to us was,
what's your biggest regret? - Biggest mistake.
- Biggest mistake, okey.
- What's your biggest regret? - I have so many regrets
but no mistakes. - 20 minutes later
he's like I have no card space left.
Shut the fuck up (laughs).
We're gonna go right to you.
- I'm gonna go return this lens--
- You're fired. - 'Cause I have no regrets.
- The biggest mistake we made
when we were starting out was titling our videos
too specific to the content of the video
that didn't make any sense for the audience.
What I mean by that is,
if the video was about, say it was like a vlog
and we were teaching about landscape photography,
and something funny happened, we'd name the vlog
something about the thing that was funny,
like, you'd never believe what he did?
And nobody cares.
When you have 500 followers or whatever,
nobody knows who he is,
and that's not gonna show up in the search engine,
so we should've called it, how to do landscape photography,
or how to shoot whatever we were shooting,
and then titled it for the algorithm,
titled it for SEO, and we didn't do that.
It took us a long time to grow our channel,
I think, because we didn't really care, and looking back
I think we should have cared more about titles.
- Okay, I have some other creators here
and they wanna tell you their biggest mistakes.
So what's your biggest mistake?
I got another guy for you, I got Cody,
and he's gonna tell you his biggest mistake.
- Hey, what's up guys?
My name is Cody Blue.
My channel is like cinematic film making,
Sony cameras, and outdoor adventure type stuff.
But my biggest mistake on YouTube was shooting things
that I thought people wanted me to shoot
and thought they wanted to see on my channel,
when really I should have just been shooting
the stuff that I wanted to shoot because it seems like
that's what people like more of anyways.
Shoot what you want to shoot
and not what you think your audience wants you to shoot.
Just do whatever you want, you'll enjoy it more,
and your channel will be more successful.
- Hey friends, this is Brandon here from This is Tech Today.
And one of the biggest mistakes I made
when I started making YouTube videos
was making content without any intentionality.
You have to know who you're targeting
and why you're making the video.
- All right, I just ran into my friends from
The Endless Adventure, and they're gonna tell you
what their biggest mistake was.
- I feel like our biggest mistake
when we started our channel
was that we were just kinda throwing content out there
and just filming our day, and then once we tried
to really find a niche, we tried to find specific videos
that resonated with our audience,
so we would do tours of cities,
city guides, we would do food tours and stuff like that,
staying in weird, quirky places,
and ultimately the food videos hit really well.
Now we've done enough of those weird, strange places
that those videos do really well.
- Yeah, when we first started we would just go out,
not really with a point to the day,
and I feel like for us it didn't work,
our content suffered because of it,
because we thought that we were entertaining enough
and we personally weren't, maybe you are,
but I think it works just a lot better for us
to have a goal for the day
and something that we're wanting to accomplish.
And then a niche, which is food, which is great.
- I really think that once we made that change,
that's when our channel started to really pick up.
- Yep. - Yeah, for sure.
- Being intentional.
- All right, just ran into Henry
and he's gonna give you one of his biggest mistakes.
- All right, so when I first started out on YouTube
I was actually pretty young at the time
and one of the biggest tips I can give to beginners
who are actually just getting into it
is definitely be true to yourself.
Be genuine, don't go chasing after the views
because I feel like I was kind of view hungry
at the very beginning.
That was the only thing I was focused on
and that kinda led to my content
not reflecting who I really was.
But now I've actually been able to kind of
align myself with what I truly like
and create content that I truly care about,
regardless of the views and stuff like that.
I think that's one of my biggest tips for you guys.
Be genuine, and I think that's when
the best will come out of you.
- All right, I'm gonna switch out the camera.
Go get an A7III, try something a little different.
So I just ran into Aldryn and he's got
another tip for you guys.
- Hey, my name is Aldryn Estacio.
My channel is FlytPath.com and I really
started my channel around drones.
I started flying drones a long time ago
and just wanted to start sharing everything that I did
and learned when I started flying drones.
Started putting it online
and ended up building an audience around that.
I think the biggest thing I learned at the time
was not to overthink equipment
and kind of hold yourself back from thinking,
oh I need the best stuff, I need the best stuff.
Most of my channel when I started
was literally done with my phone
and a point and shoot camera,
and I still like using my phone and point and shoot camera
because it's such an easy thing to do and use.
First thing I would say is definitely don't overthink
that you need the best gear.
Start with what you have.
Watch people's channels.
Understand what you need to do to up your level
every single time, and I think definitely do that
as you start to progress, but don't limit yourself
in thinking that you need the high-end gear.
- Hey guys, my name is SWOOP, my channel is SWOOP.
I am a filmmaker and I also do a mix
of scripted meets reality.
It's kind of crazy life content and cinema vlogs.
Probably my biggest mistake when I was getting started
on YouTube was fighting the system.
There's always gonna be a certain level of
having to work with the system, with the algorithm,
with what the platform wants,
and because I was always approaching it
as a filmmaker and I always wanna make different content
all the time, that can wind up hurting you
because YouTube doesn't know where to classify you
and how to fit you,
and it really needs that data in order to push you out
to the right audiences.
So if you can experiment and play around
and actually create some type of episodic content
or some kind of consistent format,
where YouTube knows when you upload,
they know exactly what audiences to push it,
that's really going to help your growth in the longterm
and also build much more audience engagement
and they're gonna know what to expect from you,
and you can still incorporate elements of creativity
and like, gradually transitioning them
into different styles, because of course
you don't wanna do the same thing all the time,
but you gotta know that there is some level
where you need to work with the platform
so it knows how to identify you.
- What's goin' on guys?
My name is Ryan Kao and here on YouTube
I create content sharing my journey
and developing as a content creator
my journey and experiences
as becoming a full-time freelancer,
and some of the things that I encounter
in giving help to you guys and advice to you creators
in pursuing that yourselves.
One of the biggest mistakes I first made
when starting on YouTube was comparing myself
too much to other people.
I had a lot of favorite creators that I would watch
all the time, and I would be like,
my videos are so cool but those are so much better.
It doesn't look as good, and so I get caught up
in this sort of perfectionist mindset.
The other thing that I really struggled with
was watching the numbers too much.
Paying attention too much to my analytics,
watching my subscribers come in one, maybe two a day,
when I was first getting started,
watching the views too much.
That's not stuff you should be concerned about
when you're first getting into it.
You should really be concerned about finding
what inspires you, getting out and creating and enjoying it.
Caring about it for the numbers or for the money
or comparing yourself to other creators
can be a very toxic mindset.
- All right, it's not the biggest mistake
but it's one I regret.
When you get the opportunity to meet other content creators,
and you're excited.
It's either at like a brand deal
or one of these sponsored events,
and you meet these other YouTubers,
and then you immediately try to do a collab with them,
I would say pump the breaks a little bit.
Get to know these people first.
They may know your work.
It's kind of cool to build a real friendship first
and then worry about the collab stuff later.
If you guys have chemistry, you'll know
and it'll just click.
And I think trying to force something like that
is a mistake.
That's it.
- I just ran into a couple of guys here.
I got Max and Taylor
and they're gonna tell you their biggest mistakes.
- What's goin' on, y'all, my name's Taylor Moore.
My channel is Taylor Moore 4K
and I focus on tech reviews, tutorials.
I would say from day one, the thing I didn't know
but I learned from guys like Josh Yo
and other good friends is your camera,
I mean most cell phones and other cameras out there,
they're really capable,
and what we don't think about is audio and lighting.
If you really nail your audio,
it'll cover a lot of mistakes even on the video front
and people will still stay engaged
a little bit more effectively.
And then lighting.
Even your iPhone is really, really a capable camera,
and if you learn to nail lighting
from really early on, your video quality
is gonna go up so much faster.
- I think for me, it was trying to do
too many different things.
Targeting different audiences.
Trying to do well at this thing, that thing,
and something else, too,
instead of really choosing one or two things
and really focusing on doing the best job I can
on creating videos for people that wanna watch those things.
- All right, so Gerald's over here
and he's got a mistake for you guys.
- Hey everybody, I'm Gerald Undone.
I make a YouTube channel where I focus
primarily on really nerdy details on cameras
and lenses and that kind of thing.
My advice, I guess, to be based on something
that I wish that I did when I first started out,
I'm gonna butcher an expression, but there's this expression
I remember where it's like, the best time
to plant a giant tree is 100 years ago,
and the second best time is today.
And that's kind of how I feel about YouTube
is I think there was a long period of me
kinda hummin' and hawin' about it,
and I kinda wish that in the beginning
that I would have just went for it sooner and harder,
because when I see where I am now,
I can't help but think, hmm,
what if I would've done this sooner?
So my best advice is, you can't go back in time,
so start hard now, right now, if you can.
- All right, I just found Dunna,
and he has a mistake for you guys.
- What's up guys, I'm Dunna from Dunna Did It,
and my mistake is that for the first about year
of my channel I focused really heavily on vlogging,
and I didn't even really necessarily know it was a mistake
at the time, but I really wanted to grow a channel,
and if you want to grow a channel,
trying to find content that is more searchable
than something like vlogs,
like if nobody knows you, they're not gonna search
for what's going on in your life,
so that was kinda the mistake that I made to start with.
Later on I found out that I liked talking about camera gear
so I started to use that to my advantage,
and now my channel can kind of be
a little bit about the camera gear
and I can slip in some vlogs here and there,
because now that I've grown the channel,
there are more people that care about
what's going on in my life.
- I'm gonna add onto that as well.
I started my channel as a vlog channel as well.
I started out as a travel vlogger.
Over 200 travel vlogs in the first year.
And I started realizing that, yes,
search-based traffic is how you grow a channel.
So my first kind of dabble with that
was finding topics around travel
that people were searching for.
So things to do in Thailand,
or places to go, or a specific location
or a beach or something like that.
But honestly when it comes down to it,
you have to do what you're passionate about,
and that was one of my biggest mistakes
is not going after what I was passionate about
right from the get go.
I started with travel thinking
that that's what I wanted to do,
but in reality, I really care about filmmaking,
I really care about telling stories,
and I really care about doing documentary stuff,
so doing a channel that's based around filmmaking,
photography, and also just helping you guys
as creators tell your stories
is where I found my passion,
and now I'm able to start doing more of the documentary work
that I've always wanted to do.
And I've got some pretty interesting things
on the horizon for this channel, some cool stuff.
One of the biggest things to remember just overall
is that we all make mistakes
and you need to just learn from your mistakes.
Don't worry about making mistakes.
Don't worry about mistakes that you made on your channel
or if you're currently doing anything right now,
that might seem like a big mistake.
The key is just learn from the things that you're doing
because that's the way that you're gonna be able
to keep improving, and all of us
have made mistakes on our channel.
All of us have learned from the things that we do,
so my biggest tip when it comes to growing your channel,
building your YouTube brand,
whatever it is that you wanna do on the platform,
is that you just have to keep moving forward,
consistency and action are going to
eventually pay off for you,
and if you're making mistakes,
just pay attention and learn from those mistakes
and learn from your community.
And one of the coolest things about the YouTube community
is that all of us work together,
all of us are here at camera camp
and we've just been talking YouTube,
we've just been talking cameras.
So find those people that are creating content
similar to yours and reach out,
have conversations with them,
and don't worry if they're bigger than you,
smaller than you.
We're all human and we're all just trying to make
our impact in this space,
and we can all do it together,
and that is one of the coolest things about YouTube.
If you wanna see more videos about YouTuber mistakes
or anything else like that, I've got some other videos
and you can check them out right here.
And I will see you on the next one.
Also, this Sony is actually pretty nice to work with.
Maybe I'll switch someday.