- Here's a question.
Should you start a YouTube channel in 2019?
Uh, yeah.
Here's why.
Heeya!
(robot sounds) - [Whispered Voice] vidIQ.com
- Hello everybody.
Welcome to vidIQ, the YouTube tool and channel
that aims to educate you on your YouTube journey
and welcome to the first in a series of videos
that's going to chart that success in 2019.
Throughout this series, we are gonna help you
get more views.
We're gonna help you get more subscribers
to ultimately grow your YouTube channel.
For the full playlist, click over here
and if you want to, subscribe to vidIQ to be alerted
of when new videos come out.
Then we've got some buttons down here.
Go on, give 'em a click.
- Alright then.
Should you start a YouTube channel in 2019?
Let's get the obvious question out of the way first.
If you've been compelled to click on this video,
you've been thinking about starting a YouTube channel.
YouTube, yeah this thing right here, it despises
is disgusted by procrastination.
So if you've been thinking about it for the last month,
the last week, yesterday,
and you're still thinking about it today,
this is your push.
I don't care if you ruin the watch time on this video.
Start that channel right now.
You have a passion you want to share,
a skill you want to educate people on,
or a talent you want to entertain people with,
you want to make a difference.
Go on, go on, off you pop.
Start your channel.
I can entertain myself.
Aww yeah.
Alright, if you're still here and need
a little bit more convincing, let's carry on.
Do you know how many people use YouTube?
Well, the figure stands at around about 1.9 billion users.
And those are just the people
who are logged into the platform.
Imagine that; you have a potential to reach
2 billion users and it won't cost you a penny.
There isn't another distribution platform in the world
that comes close to that.
And you can still make a bucket full of money on YouTube
if that's your ultimate goal.
Despite the controversies, such as the Logan Paul incident
and the adpocalypse of last year,
new monetization requirements,
more video creators made more money on YouTube in 2018.
According to YouTube, the number of creators
making five figures is up 35%.
The number of video creators earning six figures
is up 45% year on year.
And this doesn't just come from YouTube ad revenue.
There are so many ways to make money on YouTube now,
from sponsorships, brand deals, superchats, merchandising.
The list is almost endless.
You can turn your YouTube channel
into a business very easily.
And speaking of businesses, if you've ever wanted to know
what it's like to run one, start a YouTube channel.
Finding a gap in a market, creating a product for it,
meeting customers' expectations, dealing with problems,
creating more products, meeting it with demand.
It's YouTube.
It's stressful, but it is so rewarding if you nail it.
The number of things you have to think about
and contend with on YouTube every single day
probably runs into the triple digits.
From interactive cards on your videos to community tab,
from thumbnails to SEO management,
it's all-consuming and you can spend hours
on a YouTube channel every single day
and not get everything nailed down perfectly.
But that's the fun of it.
Everybody's got a camera of some kind.
Everybody's got access to the internet.
There is no barrier to entry.
There's no cost.
The only failure is if you quit.
I know it sounds scary and I know it sounds stressful
and believe you me, it is.
When I started YouTube, I had hair.
But six years later, after starting this out
as a bit of a fun thing to do,
this is now my full-time job.
Saying this fills me with pride.
I get a real buzz out of being able to turn my passion
into a career, even though I didn't realize it was a passion
when I started it.
We'll get back to that in a second.
But what makes all of this even more awesome
is that I, just like you with your YouTube channel,
take on 100% of the responsibility.
You are 100% accountable for your failure and success.
There is no entry exam.
There is no job interview.
There is no payment up front.
Everybody starts at zero.
Everybody starts.
It's a question of whether you can carry on
when you face adversity.
If you think you're ready for that challenge,
YouTube is for you.
But the ironic thing is when I started making videos,
I didn't realize YouTube was for me.
15 years ago; wow, that really does sound like a long time;
I graduated from university
with a degree in creative writing.
I thought I would be a sports reporter or a novelist
or a journalist.
That didn't work out and I did
what all university graduates do when they can't find a job.
They go into teaching.
I think I burned myself out of creating writing
because I couldn't get enough people to read the stuff
that I wanted to write.
I didn't want to start a newspaper and write stories
such as "Cat Stuck Up Tree".
I just wanted to do what I wanted to do.
And when there's nobody taking an interest
in what you're doing,
that kind of stifles your creative juices.
So to begin with, I just used YouTube
as a brand new creative outlet,
and a way to embarrass my Mum.
Okay, and this is the crazy old mother.
- Oh don't, don't put me in.
- [Host] That video is more than 10 years old
and the 1500 view represent, oh I don't know
an office block full of people watching my content?
With 20 of those people enjoying it enough
to click on the like button?
I've never had that sort of feedback
from a creative piece of content.
And so my YouTube journey began.
It took me another four years to start making YouTube videos
on a regular basis, and that's probably another story
for another time.
What I eventually discovered as a creative person
was that YouTube was a soapbox which brought the audience
to you, rather than you trying to scramble and find it.
It's like the person busking on the street.
People just walk past and ignore you.
But when you are in a concert theater,
people come to watch you and that's
the kind of environment YouTube provides.
Whether or not you've made videos before,
YouTube is the perfect creative playground.
Where there is a creative fulfillment,
there is also personal and professional development.
With so much to do on YouTube, there is so much to learn.
With every video, you'll learn more about filming
and editing than you ever cared to know.
Then you've got animation, script writing,
presenting inference of camera; believe you me,
that I one daunting skill to learn and master.
You've gotta learn how to market your content
through search engine optimization.
You know, tags, titles, and descriptions.
You've gotta become a graphic designer
to make those really clickbaity thumbnails.
And then you've gotta learn how
to communicate with your audience.
You will learn so much in such a short space of time that
in six months, you'll look back at those videos and think
man those are terrible, but what a journey it's been.
And as momentum grows, you'll hit those milestones.
A thousand subscribers, 100,000 views,
monetizing your content; all of these things
are such a huge confidence boost that your self-esteem
will go through the roof, all thanks to being on YouTube.
Now I know some of you are still not going to be convinced.
You think it's too late.
The YouTube ship has already sailed.
There's too much competition.
Too many people making too many videos.
How do I start from zero?
Let's put it into this perspective.
Right now, somebody's going
to start their YouTube channel today
and by the end of the year, they're going to have
a million subscribers.
I can guarantee that.
There's gonna be people who start as late as June or July
and they'll have 100,000 subscribers.
Really, anybody can do this.
So seriously, honestly, truly,
what are you still doing watching this video?
(claps) Get to work.