Boo!
I've always wanted to do that..
You'll notice I'm looking a lot more dramatic today
that's because I have a brand new light,
how good does this lighting look?
Here it is my new light,
I will have to take a few steps back.
This is the Aputure 120D II
and it's giving my front room some much needed light.
I shoot my YouTube videos in the front room of my apartment
and it has no natural light at all, no windows, nothing.
I've been using this small little Aputure light
for my videos until now but this,
it's like I've brought the sun here into the room with me.
It looks like a legit window light, doesn't it?
So today I thought I could make
something a little different.
I know a lot of you guys are video content creators
and it's pretty likely you're making videos
with the intention of uploading them to YouTube.
This is where Mr. Ben comes in,
he's been around the block once or twice before.
So I am currently at
47,453 subscribers at the time of making this
and it took me a long time to get to this point.
I think this is my 161st video and it wasn't overnight,
this happened gradually over the past two years.
And there are so many things I learned on my YouTube
journey that I know you guys could benefit from.
Little things that will save you so much time
and effort and frustration and just ahhhhh
why isn't my channel growing? Ahhhh.
So I'm gonna give you the shortcuts.
Here are 10 things I wish,
I wish I knew before I started on YouTube.
The first thing is production value doesn't matter.
You don't need to be shooting on a
fancy camera like the one I'm using,
you don't need this massive light,
you don't need a cool background, you don't need any of it.
Hang on Mr Ben weren't you just bragging about
that massive light you just bought?
Look, yes, having a high production value is nice
but it comes second.
The actual content of the video
is the most important thing.
All this stuff doesn't matter if the content isn't good.
I could have the highest production value like I have now
and if my video is like,
Hello, I am going to teach
you today three ways to plant tomatoes.
And they are really long ways and there are probably better
ways but these are ways that you can...
No that's boring, it's bad content
and no matter how pretty it looks
it's not going to be a good video.
If the content is actually good
it doesn't matter if you shoot on your phone
and you're shooting in a terrible location like
"This is Mr. Ben coming at you from the jon and in this
video I'm going to teach you how to make three million
dollars, count 'em, three in five minutes. Let's go!"
The second video is going to be a way better video
because there's actually value there,
it's a good video and it's not just a pretty video.
Once you have your good content in place
this is when you add the production value as an extra thing
that will take your videos to the next level.
Two is give value, everything you put out online,
on the internet should give value somehow.
You need to either educate, entertain,
or inspire your audience, this is giving value.
Think about the videos you watch personally.
Think if you didn't get anything out of them,
if it was just a complete waste of your time,
would you keep watching them?
There's gotta be something there,
it's got to be worth your audience's time
so giving value should be your number one priority.
Even if you don't feel comfortable educating
or inspiring people you can at least entertain them
with exceptional video quality, with story,
with characters, with something.
Something that justifies them spending
their precious time watching your video.
Even if it's like hey, I'm Ben, I have a bowling ball
and I'm gonna throw it through this wall here.
What happens next will shock you.
That's entertaining, is it not?
So give value, channels that give value grow quickly.
Three, while production value isn't important, sound is.
And a video made with bad sound
can be enough to send your audience
clicking away within the first two seconds.
Bad sound is too much of a discomfort
for your audience, whereas bad visuals aren't,
unless the camera's shaky or your
video is nauseating in another way.
But having good clean sound is more important.
If you think about the experience of you
watching me now it's two things,
it's 50% video and 50% audio so it's important
you treat them like that when you make your videos.
No matter if it's vocals coming from you,
if it's music it all needs to be well balanced,
very low background noise,
it just needs to be a pleasurable experience.
Right now I use a lapel mic and this is attached
to a sound recorder in my pocket.
This has been the best setup that I've found,
I'll put a link to my sound setup down in the description,
but when I'm using this I know
I'm going to get perfect audio every time.
Unless the recorder cuts out,
always check battery and memory cards.
Oh seriously I've messed up the sound
in so many of my videos it's embarrassing.
I've been making videos for like 10 years
and I still make epic sound blunders,
so it's something you need to be really careful with
and make sure the sound is good.
Not even at the end of your shoot,
but check several times throughout
that your recorder is still rolling,
that your waveforms still look okay.
Yup, looks good to me.
Because bad sound is enough to kill your video.
Take it from me and 360Rumors.
I'm sorry bro I had to say it.
The fourth thing I learned about
YouTube is don't use logo animations.
Again, your audience's time is valuable
and adding a logo animation adds nothing to your video.
Showing the actual content of your video
does better for your brand awareness
than showing your logo or your name or whatever.
It's better you just get into it
and give people value that way
instead of forcing them to watch your
10 or 15 second logo animation,
because I can guarantee you not
one single person enjoys watching it.
It just makes your videos look kinda corporate-y.
Five, titles and thumbnails matter more,
more than the actual video because for someone to actually
watch your video they have to be
enticed enough to watch it to begin with,
and they're not going to be if your title is bad,
if your thumbnail is bad, if it's not the best it can be.
You're getting maybe 10% or less of the potential
audience that could view the exact same video.
I know there have been split tests about this
where it was the exact same video uploaded to two accounts,
one with a good title and thumbnail,
one with a very average or below average one,
and the good one got 57 times more views.
So every time I make a video it
might take an hour or two to film it,
probably a few hours at least to edit it,
but then I will spend hours on my title, on my thumbnail.
I'll always write at least 10 different titles
for each video and I'll slowly whittle it down
to that one perfect title that even I would click,
and I'm super picky on YouTube.
I will click on one in a hundred videos
even in my own subscription feed.
And then the thumbnail as well,
I'll usually spend an hour or two getting the image
just right because it doesn't matter how good your video is,
if you don't get your audience
excited about it they're not gonna watch it.
Six is have a clear theme to your channel.
You've gotta be known as something,
as the something guy, the something girl.
Not the person that posts a hundred different
random videos about random topics.
Firstly, you need to choose your wider niche
and then you need to find a niche
within that wider niche that is your own distinct flavor.
The more your channel finds its niche
the faster it will grow.
Now it's also important that you're not too niche,
you can't be a niche of a nice of a niche,
but you should be a niche of a niche.
For example, maybe you go out fishing
and film all your catches in 360
and upload them to YouTube, that's a good niche.
Where it would be too niche is if it were 360
and you're going out fishing and while you're fishing
you're talking about politics,
so that's three things that it's just becoming too much.
The odds of finding an audience that will like
all three things are going to be really small,
whereas if you just stick with the second one,
the niche of the niche, that's where you'll find
a good amount of die hard fans that have
those two bigger things in common.
So for my niche, I'd say the overall
bigger niche is photography and video
and my niche is 360 and now a bit of 3D.
That's a good size because there's still a lot of people
in this niche, you don't wanna narrow it too much.
Likewise on the other end of the spectrum,
if you start with photography and video
and this is just one thing of like
a hundred things you do and an even bigger niche, rahh.
If you're starting from nothing it's gonna take
you so long to grow a channel because
people don't know what to expect from you.
When people can predict you and
they like what you do they will want to follow you.
Seven, make sure people know your name.
What's my name?
(♪ humming Jeopardy theme song)
If you answered Ben Claremont you
are correct because it's right there.
Having people know your name is very important
because it makes them feel like you're their friend.
That's just the basic element of being a human
and there are so many channels out there
where people either post videos and never ever
mention their name or they operate under a company name
or something else and the audience
never knows what their actual name is.
It's like if I said to you, hey, Johnny, Fred, Steven,
Al, Phil, and that's actually your name,
you're like oh my God, Ben knows my name.
You've also gotta give your audience
a chance to know your name.
Like I've discussed before, one of the best strategies
in social media is humanizing yourself.
And the most basic thing that humans have is a name.
So even if you decide to name your channel something else
at least put a name card in every single video.
Number eight is be authentic and don't be a presenter.
I know I'm definitely guilty of this
and this is something I'm still working so hard on,
just being myself, be yourself on camera.
It sounds easy, right? Be yourself, yeah.
But then when you press the record button
you start trembling and you're like
oh, hi, this is Ben, um, and...
Or on the flip side you're too confident
and you speak like you're a presenter.
Hi, this is Ben Claremont, and in today's video
I'm going to teach you ten tips,
and well yeah you are speaking very clearly
and you're being authoritative and those are good things,
you're not being a person, you're not being yourself.
You're being like a grandiose version of yourself,
and people connect to people that
can actually be themselves which is why on my channel
I pride myself on breaking decorum in my videos.
From a lot of other YouTube people you might expect
a camera review very stock standard,
but I compare 360 cameras to sex toys,
I use silly Snapchat filters in my videos,
I do all kinds of weird stuff.
Those are the things that are authentic to me
and help communicate my personality,
and it means I can relax and just be myself
and not have to focus on being a presenter.
This is probably the biggest lesson
I've learned from YouTube and observing some
of the most successful YouTubers is authenticity wins.
So people that can be themselves on camera the best,
and hopefully they have a personality
that isn't too controversial or too polarizing,
if you can be yourself that's when
people connect to you quickly and that's
how you grow your audience quickly.
Nine.
So, something I think is really important
to have in your videos is some
sort of call to action where once you've given value,
you push people to one other thing that might interest them
or something that is of benefit to you.
No question that's something you've got to do
if you wanna create a sustainable YouTube channel.
But a mistake you want to avoid is having these
things too early in your first or second ever YouTube video.
You don't wanna be hard selling your audience on something
or telling them to do this, that, and the other.
When you begin on YouTube it's important
that your prove yourself as a creator, as an expert,
someone that knows what they're doing,
what they're talking about, whatever your channel
specifically is about you need to prove yourself
in I would say at least five videos.
Five. Five.
Before people start trusting you enough
to follow your call to actions.
A lot of you guys know I have my own video course
about 360 video and another one about personal branding.
If I were to start again and start a brand new channel,
and I start talking about these two things in my
first, second, and third videos,
people are gonna know me as the salesman,
the dude that is here to make sales and nothing else.
Yes, the end goal might be to sell things
but this is the wrong way of going about it,
you need to give value unconditionally first.
This is something that Gary Vee says,
it's jab jab jab right hook, which means give give give,
then you can ask, but you need to do the giving first.
Once you've given insane amounts of value
that's when people with genuinely be open
to buying from you 'cause they're already bought in,
you've already given them enough
that they feel like they owe you.
And of course push 'em to good things
that will give them even more value.
You never want to mislead your audience
because then they'll completely lose trust in you.
Tip number 10 is don't say umm.
Oh my God I made this mistake for way too long.
I didn't even realize I was saying it.
I didn't even realize.
It took me having to watch back a tape of me
giving one of my first ever workshops in LA in 2017.
It was two hours of me onstage teaching 360 video
and I recall it as the perfect speech,
oh I was so eloquent, I was so good.
And when I watched it back I was like,
hey guys, um, today we're going to um,
learn about 360 video, and um,
and the amazing things, um that you can, um.
And I was like are you serious?
No, I didn't say it that much, I didn't, this tape is lying.
It's lying. Burn it, burn it.
And then once I calmed down I realized
this is something I gotta work on.
We use um and ah to fill in silences
almost as if having them there
is better than having a silence, but actually it's not,
it makes you sound like a bumbling idiot.
And I can definitely speak from experience here.
Can you imagine the Martin Luther King speech
if it went I have
um,
a dream
that one day
uh..
I think it's safe to say it would
not be know as the I have a dream speech.
For me to get rid of this I just had to see myself
on camera and feel the embarrassment
of sounding like a bumbling idiot.
And look, I didn't sound like a complete bumbling idiot,
but I really exaggerated so I felt
so bad about saying um that it
forced me to find a way to never say um again.
So every time I make a video, including this one here,
in the back of my mind I constantly am saying to myself,
don't say um, don't say um, don't you dare say um.
I will find you and I will get you if you say um.
And weirdly enough somehow it works and now I'm becoming a
more confident speaker and, most importantly,
I'm becoming comfortable with silences.
You've got to become comfortable with silences
because silences are better than saying um.
So that's it for the video,
I know it was something a bit different
but I know so many of you guys are video creators
yourselves and you're just starting on YouTube.
So hopefully you found value in these things
because they're things I just wish I knew
before I made my very first YouTube video.
It would have actually helped my channel
grow faster overall if I wasn't making these
same mistakes video after video after video.
Even some of them I was still making
150 videos into my YouTube channel.
So yeah. Lemme know if you liked it.
If you did, maybe you'll make more of these.
As I mentioned before I have a video course
about personal branding that teaches all of my
best tips and tricks for growing an effective
personal brand across YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.
You can get it at a special discounted
price alongside my 360 video course,
they'll put a link to that down there.
And now it's time for me to disappear.
(clap)
No, actually I'm just gonna sit
here in silence until the end of the video.
(♪ humming Jeopardy theme song)