I get quite a few questions about how to make a YouTube channel,
so I want to give a bit of a walkthrough
of what that whole process looks like,
right from struggling to get your first subscriber,
all the way up to when you start leveraging your fame
for tax deductible vacations.
So, first of all, you obviously need to be motivated
to make your channel in the first place.
And I found that the best way to generate that motivation
is to start by watching a lot of YouTube videos.
Once I've done that for around 8 years,
there's this distinct moment in my mind
when I said to myself,
"Wait a second...
"...I think I could do what this successful person does.
"Why aren't I just as successful?"
It was because I never commit to any of my long-term goals for more than a few hours.
But nevertheless, in that moment, I said,
"No,
"I'm actually going to do it this time."
So I scrolled up to the create-a-channel button,
wherever it was at the time,
and I started the first step...
...which is giving Google all of your personal information.
Now, before you make the channel,
YouTube gives you a tip that it is very important
to first define your target demographic
in order to engage your audience properly.
So,
my target demographic
was females between 18 and 25.
But, important lesson there...
you can't always predict the market.
Now, the first real step is choosing a name,
and if you're like me,
whenever a website asks you to choose a username,
you don't just throw out the first thing you think of haphazardly,
you need to treat it like you're naming your favorite child.
A good rule of thumb is to spend as much time on your channel name,
as your would on a Tinder bio.
And this is because they're both supposed to be congruent to your personality
and act as a means of better signaling the people that you want into your direction.
Alright, of course you need to figure out
what kind of videos you're actually going to make.
And, I think the most important thing here is
to play to your strengths.
There's a quote among stand-up comedians, where they say,
"You don't get to be a comedian because you like writing jokes.
"You get to be a comedian because you're funny."
Which is why I like YouTube, because...
people... can't make me stop.
But, the point remains that you have to find the intersection between what you're good at, and what you're also gonna also enjoy doing.
Uh, it's also very important to keep in mind
that what you enjoy creating doesn't entirely overlap with what an audience will enjoy watching.
It's like you're making a sex tape;
even now, when I'm making videos,
I try to be as authentic as possible,
but, I know not everyone is gonna be interested in really niche things that I might really like.
So I try to choose more relatable themes
that I think are fun,
or at least make my more specific videos something palatable to a general audience.
So, even if I might not enjoy it as much,
I keep the chains and latex for my other channel.
So once you've made up your mind
and get all the ground work out of the way,
it's time to make some content.
Your first video is the most important,
because it's the first time that your expectations and self-esteem collide with reality.
When you upload a video, and then wake up the next morning,
and see twelve views and one dislike, you really have to look deep down and ask yourself,
"Am I gonna fight through this and try to improve my craft,
"or am I gonna be a wiener and cry about it?"
I like to think that I'm living proof that you can...
...do both.
So now we get to where most of the struggle is,
which is getting those viewers.
The most common question I get is from people sending me their first few videos and saying,
[reading on-screen]
And I usually give them a simple two-step formula to increase their audience.
Step one is make good content,
and step two is marketing.
And they're always like,
[reads on-screen]
And my response is usually,
"Enh. I don't think you need to worry 'bout that yet."
[whispers] Got 'em!
So, truth be told,
I think the best way to grow an audience is to post on social media sites,
content aggregators like Reddit,
or to get your content featured by big blogs, websites and other channels.
And first, you're gonna have to contact them,
but if it goes well, hopefully they'll be waiting for your next video.
Once your channel gets going,
it's just a matter of making good content on a consistent-ish basis.
But keep in mind, that there is sometimes a discovery period,
where channels experience a huge surge of growth for a few months,
and it's easy to get overexcited
and think it's gonna last forever,
so you might be tempted to blow all your ad money on a big trip to Vegas,
but what you really need to do is spend that extra bit of time and effort
to record the whole thing, so you can publish it, and then write it off as a business expense.
Now, shortly after this discovery period,
after people are pretty familiar with who you are and what you do,
the boom is over, the snowball effect slows down,
and you start to plateau a little bit.
At this point, it's time to panic, and do one or more of the following.
Sell out,
make vlogs,
or do a face and or boob reveal.
This will be a brief shot of adrenaline into your now questionable YouTube career,
but if you play your cards right,
you can probably ride that wave for another six months to a year.
This is about when you run out of ideas and start losing your audience.
Your subscriber count might keep going up,
but at a rate matching the amount of people abandoning their accounts,
so this is a critical point in the life of your channel,
and from studying some of the really big ones,
uh, I've learned you have two options.
Improve your skills and make some fresh new content with the same style and personality
that earned you your audience in the first place,
or get exposed for being a huge tool and lose everything you have.
Now, if things go south, you have a hard decision of whether or not you try to salvage what little audience you have left,
or abandon ship completely and get an actual job.
I'm planning on narrating audio books.
And working on my other channel.
But if you can keep it together, there's a good chance you could be the next big thing
and branch out into TV, film, business,
or just hanging out with the household celebrities who got famous on youtube, like...
...uh, yeah.
So...
...get out there and start your channel. Uh,
just make sure that when you've made it big
and I've long since faded into irrelevance
a few weeks from now,
that you'll remember everything I did for...err...
uhh, just give me a shoutout when you're on Ellen.
[outro]