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I wanna have a real and candid conversation with you
about longterm sustainability
and success here on YouTube.
And the reason why I'm making this video is because
when you first start out on YouTube the approach
and everything it is that you're doing
is completely different than once you've been on YouTube
for a considerable amount of time.
Or, once you do reach that goal for those of you
that are wanting to be full-time YouTube content creators,
once you reach that goal
of being a full-time YouTube content creator.
And once you get to that point of saying,
you know what, yeah, I'm gonna go all in on YouTube,
if you font prepare for that moment now,
you're gonna kick yourself if you do not take care
of some of the things that I'm talking about here
in this video.
So, we're gonna talk about what some of those things are.
And we're starting right now.
The very first thing in our list that's gonna help you
when it comes to longterm sustainability and success
on YouTube, is time management.
This might not seem like a big deal,
but oh, is it ever a big deal.
When you first start uploading content
you are just uploading videos
and then you're mixing that with your work
or your family time or your school
or whatever else it is that you're into.
From there, when things go well,
you're gonna start monetizing
and when I talk about monetizing,
I don't mean YouTube ads,
'cause that's definitely a part of the thing.
I'm talking about alternate monetization,
which is a whole other thing that we're gonna get into here
in just a minute.
But when it comes to monetization,
then you're also going to have to stack on top of the effort
and time that you're already putting into it
of research time, looking for different ways to monetize,
possibly creating things to monetize and that sort of thing.
Then of course, because of your newfound success on YouTube
or the momentum that you're picking up on YouTube,
of course you're going to want to start sending
some of those viewers over to other social media platforms
and once you start doing that,
you might find yourself in a position
where you start thinking to yourself,
"You know what, maybe I'm gonna start uploading to TikTok
"on a regular basis as well.
"And maybe go and toss up some Instagram reels
"while I'm at it."
Just with those couple of things we've already added
probably a few hours to your week
when it comes to just uploading
and managing everything around what it is that you're doing.
From there, if things continue to go well for you,
then you'll probably start doing collaborations,
maybe you'll start doing interviews and things like that,
which all take extra time.
Somewhere along this path,
you might also start doing sponsored content,
which we'll talk about here in just a minute as well.
But because of that you might end up having regular meetings
with a sponsor or a pre sponsor call
so you can make sure that you get along with them,
they get along with you
and you can kind of figure out the expectations
between each other, things like that.
Depending on how deep your integration is
and how long your contracts are
and exactly what it is that you have going on,
you might even need to go somewhere in person
from time to time.
And let's not forget about the chihuahua in the room.
Once you start doing well,
there's also the community side of all of this stuff,
which means as you start getting more view counts
and all of that,
then you're gonna start having more comments
and more interactions on the other social platforms as well
that we talked about before.
I'll send you the cheque later.
Thanks for your time
and thanks for showing up here as a special appearance.
I appreciate it.
But as your YouTube channel grows
and you start getting more views on everything
it is that you're doing
and of course you're going to start to get more comments.
So at that point in time, you gotta start getting
real creative with your workflow
when it comes to comments.
You gotta start looking for different tools
and things like that
to help you get through your comments faster.
And all of that also takes extra time.
And really on the time management side of things
I could keep going on this for quite some time
but I'm not going to
so we can move on to some other things.
But the idea is that it's important to be mindful
about your time and also make sure
that you are reserving time where needed.
And the same exact thing goes for making content.
Because you need to work the process of making content
into your lifestyle
so that you can do it longterm.
And look, if you are just getting started,
I don't want to scare you.
I don't want you to think, "Oh my gosh,
"what am I getting into here?"
Because it goes the other way too.
It also gives you that opportunity to
where if you set everything up correctly now,
as your channel is growing,
before you actually get there, so to speak,
if you go ahead and set everything up now,
then it can also put you in a great situation
where you have tons of free time as well.
I just wanna make sure that I'm not making you think,
like oh gosh, this is a bad thing.
It can be good too.
So I just wanted to make that clear.
But anyway, the next thing on our list
is to monetize as soon as you possibly can.
Here's what I mean.
Every video that you upload,
if you are in the YouTube Partner Program or not,
should have an alternative monetization method
attached to it.
The reason to this is because
if you have a video do well,
you can make a lot of money in YouTube ads,
but if you're making money in YouTube ads
plus you have another thing that you're monetizing
that video for,
then you can really turn one video into a substantial amount
of income.
And that's if that video does well, right.
But if you also have a bunch of videos,
let's say you have a 100 videos,
then that can also turn into a substantial amount of money,
just based on your ultimate monetization methods.
The way that I like to present this idea
is that if you listen to what I'm saying
and you go ahead and start finding ways
to monetize your content now,
as your YouTube channel grows,
your income will also grow with it.
And that extra income,
regardless if it's your primary income
or if it's like a side hustle income
from your YouTube channel,
that extra income is one of the things
that's going to make you sustainable
because you need money for phones and cameras
and everything else that you're doing.
I have videos on my channel for making money on YouTube
if you do not know where to start
when it comes to this.
I'll put a link down in the description for ya.
The next thing you wanna think about
when it comes to longterm sustainable success on YouTube
is that you're not just a YouTube content creator.
You're not just a content creator.
But what you're actually doing is you are building
or starting or creating an internet brand.
Your brand like mine might be rooted into YouTube
and that's perfectly okay.
But you're still growing an internet brand.
As well as a company if you're doing things right.
So because of that get your domain name.
What a domain name is when somebody goes to the internet
and they put in www dot whatever it is, dot com,
your domain name is the information that goes right there
in the middle.
So for example, my domain name is NickNimmin.com.
But go ahead and reserve your domain name
right after this video if you want to
so that you can go ahead and have your YouTube channel name
as a dot com, if it's available.
With that name you don't even have to put a website on it
if you don't want to.
You can actually redirect it.
So if somebody types in that name,
it will just go right to your YouTube channel.
The idea is that you're gonna secure the name
and as well as secure the name,
you could also get emails with it
and things like that.
So that you can always represent yourself
through the brand,
instead of like a Gmail account for example.
The next thing you wanna do after you get your domain name
is you wanna make sure that your brand name is secured
across as many social media platforms as you possibly can.
There's a website that will help you do this.
It's called Namechk.com.
That website will basically scour
all the social media platforms,
it will let you know which ones are available.
And just as a heads up,
when it does give the displays for all the different ones
that you want,
make sure that you right click and you open them up
and just confirm that they're available,
because every now and then it does mess up.
The next thing that you wanna make sure
that you start thinking about
is that you start getting your branding together.
And what I mean by that is you start thinking
of the colors that you're gonna be using
on a regular basis.
You start thinking of how you're going
to represent your brand in terms
of like the tonality and things like that.
And you can take this all the way down to your channel art,
your video graphics and all of that.
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But when you're at Place It,
make sure that you dig around a little bit.
Look around.
'Cause they've got some stuff that is paid, of course,
and then they've also got a bunch of free stuff
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They've got a ton of stuff for YouTube content creators.
You're gonna love it.
The next thing you wanna do for longterm sustainability
and success on YouTube is you wanna educate yourself
in everything around YouTube.
Here's why.
As somebody who makes this type of content
I'm sure you can imagine that I get a lot
of people reaching out to me, asking for help, right.
And when those people reach out,
of course I'll go and I'll look at, you know,
people's channels and things like that.
However, I also had,
you would think that that would typically happen
for people who are just getting started, right.
But I also have a lot of really successful channels.
Like millions of subscribers that don't know
how to find things in their analytics.
Channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers
that don't know where their traffic sources are,
so they can't really figure out,
like hey, why am I not getting traffic from search.
But, educating yourself around YouTube
is really easy.
There's some free stuff,
there's some paid stuff, of course.
But when it comes to the free items
you have the YouTube Creator Academy,
which is free.
It's put together by YouTube for YouTube content creators.
A link to that, of course, is in the description
for you as well.
You can learn a ton with YouTube courses
that people put together.
I personally don't have one at the time of this recording,
however I do recommend Primal Video,
Brian G Johnson, Roberto Blake, Derral Eves,
Tim Smoyer, Think Media has a course,
Film Booth has a course, Channel Makers has a course,
Cathrin Manning has a course,
Matt D'Avella has a course,
Graham Stephan has a course.
There's so many awesome YouTube courses out there.
All you have to do is find the one
that you think could be a good fit for you.
And as a quick disclaimer,
I am 1000% sure that there's probably somebody
that I didn't put on that list
that also has a great YouTube course
but those are just the ones off the top of my head right now
in this moment.
But when it comes to education,
you also have websites,
like Social Media Examiner
that has a whole YouTube section
to where you can just go there
and read up on things that people are doing around YouTube.
Tube Filter is another website you can check out
that has a lot of great YouTube related information.
And let's not forget about podcasts,
which are also free to download and listen to.
So for example,
I have a podcast called Comments Over Coffee.
You can find that
on your favorite podcasting platform of choice.
The Think Media podcast is also a fantastic one
that you should be listening to.
Video Creators podcast is another great one
that you should be listening to.
But if you just go to a podcast app
and you type in YouTube,
a bunch of different podcasts are gonna come up.
And just listening to them on a regular basis,
you're gonna learn a ton.
Because all of these content creators are there
sharing their information,
their stories about things that work
and didn't work, and the struggles they have
and the things that they have easy and so on.
Which will help you learn more about YouTube
and ultimately get better on YouTube,
which will help you have longterm sustainable success.
And of course, before we move on,
you'll also have my videos, like you're watching right now
and a bunch of other YouTube channels
that make similar content.
A lot of them actually, were mentioned
in that part that I was talking about in the courses.
The next thing that is really important
when it comes to longterm sustainability and success
on YouTube is you are going to make money
as a YouTube content creator.
It might be a little bit when you're getting started,
it might be a lot when you're getting started
or once you start getting some momentum on your channel.
But either way, you are going to be making money
from your YouTube channel.
And because of that, save some of that money.
You're gonna have to manage your taxes
as a YouTube content creator
and some of that money is gonna help you do that.
You are also going to need to pay for stuff.
Some of the things I've mentioned earlier
in terms of you know, courses and that kind of stuff.
Some of that stuff cost money.
But most importantly,
because we're talking about sustainability,
with YouTube, sometimes you nail it.
Sometimes you're not nailing it.
Which means sometimes your views are up,
sometimes your views are down.
Sometimes things are going great,
sometimes they're still going great
but not as good as they were, things like that.
And because of that,
you need to make sure that you are saving some money
so that if your channel does go down for a little bit
while you're learning and trying to figure out why,
you can still have enough money there
in order to make sure that you're not freaking out
and running out of money.
And look, of course,
do whatever you want with your money, right.
But what I'm saying is just don't be one
of those content creators that you know,
hey at a 100,000 subscribers
and the money that you're making from, you know,
getting to that particular point
and you're gonna go,
"Hey, I'm gonna go out and buy a cool car."
Or something like that.
Make sure that you build yourself up a nice cushion first
just because you might need it.
And by you might need it,
I do not mean that like, hey, you're gonna need it
because your channel goes down.
I mean, you might need it because your camera might go down
or you might have a fire somewhere.
Or you know, something might happen
that you might need to replace gear
or computers,
or you might need to go to a conference somewhere.
Which means you're gonna have to get the ticket,
you're gonna have to get the hotel,
you're gonna have to get airfare and the whole nine.
You can also leverage some of that money
to make products and things like that
to help you monetize even better into the future,
like I was talking about earlier.
And the next thing that I wanna talk about
is also extremely important when it comes
to longterm sustainability on YouTube
and that is to make sure
that throughout this entire process,
you're managing your mental health.
This stuff is a ton of fun
and because of that it's really easy
to kind of lose yourself in it
and just kind of get consumed by it.
And just start getting all that feedback
and the comments.
Where you're really like, "Ah!"
So make sure that you are managing your time properly
so that you can give yourself time
just to make sure that you are just giving yourself time.
Because longterm success and sustainability on YouTube
isn't possible if you are not taking care of you.
And again, as a quick reminder,
learn how to read your analytics.
It's gonna help you a ton as your channel moves forward.
And look, if you are one of those people
that I've mentioned at the beginning of the video
that are wanting to do YouTube full-time,
you're like, "Hey, I'm all in.
"Like, this is a thing that I wanna do."
Click in the display list right here.
I actually talk about and take you through the process
of becoming a full-time YouTube content creator.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.