- If you've clicked on this video,
you're probably thinking about starting a YouTube channel
in 2022, which is awesome.
But it's also your first mistake and your biggest challenge.
Why haven't you started yet?
No, I'm being serious.
In the comments below,
type in hashtag why, and then give your reason.
And I'm going to try and read through
as many of those comments as I can
and respond to them in the first 24 hours
this video is live.
So to answer that obvious question straight off the bat,
it's never too late to start a YouTube channel.
I guarantee you that somebody in the YouTube universe
is going to start their channel today
and have one of these by the end of the year.
There are likely hundreds more creators
who get themselves one of these.
And there will be countless creators
who start their YouTube channels today
and are earning money from it by the end of the year.
So it may sound obvious,
but when it comes to your YouTube channel,
your passion, your dreams start today.
And you know,
you're probably not ready to start your YouTube channel,
but news flash,
nobody was ready to start their YouTube channel
when they did.
And here's another dose of reality.
You will probably make rubbish YouTube videos to begin with.
News flash, everybody makes rubbish YouTube videos
to begin with.
You don't go onto a basketball court
and expect to hit a three-pointer with your first shot.
Nor would you expect to pick up an instrument
and play your first piece of music flawlessly.
(painful clarinet music)
And you don't complete Grand Theft Auto
with only one life.
In essence, YouTube needs you to start
so you can start finding audiences to watch your videos.
It's pretty simple.
Now, of course,
no matter what skill level or experience a creator has,
everybody got to do this, right?
Start their channel.
But with a hindsight of experience,
here's the things I would consider doing
when I start my new channel in 2022.
Now of course,
the first thing that every creator wants to do
is start and get good at making videos.
But, and this is really important to discover early on,
the first thing a YouTube viewer is likely to see
from your channel is not one of your videos.
It is one of your thumbnails.
Thumbnails is incredibly important that they look good
and clickable.
Now here at vidIQ,
we've already talked a lot
about thumbnails in previous videos.
One of which you can watch right here, right now.
The best way to start getting into the mindset
of why thumbnails are important
is to start making them first.
That's right.
Make the thumbnail before the video.
That's exactly what I've done with this video.
As you can see on screen now.
I may tweak it a little bit,
but that is a premise of what this video
is going to be about.
Before I even record it.
There's another thing about thumbnail
that you've probably only understood
at a subconscious level.
It's relatively simple, isn't it?
And instead of telling you why this is important,
let me show you.
It's a pretty simple question.
If you had to click on one of these thumbnails,
which one would it be?
They're about the same thing.
One of them has a lot of views.
The other one doesn't.
Once you understand that most people
will choose A and why,
there you have the essence of what makes a good thumbnail.
And what better way to compliment that awesome thumbnail
than with an intriguing title?
Just like your thumbnail,
you should make the title before you make the video.
In fact, you should have multiple title ideas.
Here are several ideas I've already come up with
for this video,
even though I haven't finished recording yet.
Which one will I choose?
I haven't quite decided yet,
but you'll find that out when you click on it.
Now again, the details of how to write good titles
can be found in other vidIQ videos.
One of which you can see on screen now.
But in summary, these are the general points
as you should follow.
As well as giving the viewer a reason to click,
making a title before you make the video
is going to keep you on track as a creator.
I can't tell you the number of times,
I've just started a video,
got halfway through it and then thought,
what was this video originally about?
But not in this case,
because I already know the premise,
the essence of the thumbnail and title,
which is hopefully going to get more clicks
for this video and your videos
when you start your YouTube channel in 2022.
So yes, now onto the videos themselves.
Everyone who clicks on that thumbnail and title
is going to watch the first few seconds of your video.
But not everybody is going to watch the whole of your video.
So again,
it is incredibly important that the first moments
of your video do a lot of heavy lifting
to engage the viewer.
Start delivering
on what your thumbnail and title promised immediately.
Don't waste those precious early seconds,
telling people who you are
and why they should watch your content.
Show them in the video.
Go back to the beginning of this video.
Did I waste any time telling you who I am
or what vidIQ does?
Your analytics will show you
that you lose up to half of your audience
in the first 30 seconds to a minute.
It's a classic hockey stick graph, but don't panic.
Everybody suffers from this common problem.
But now you know about it,
be damn sure to figure out how to improve it
as you start your YouTube journey.
Now how long people watch your videos on YouTube
is calculated through something called watch time.
And cycling back to thumbnails and titles,
how often they are clicked on is calculated
through something called click through rates.
Now there are a lot of analytics in the YouTube studio,
but if I was starting a channel in 2022,
I will be familiarizing myself
with click through rates and watch time.
And the simple reason for this is that YouTube
tells you how important click-through rates
and watch time are in the YouTube studio.
In essence, click-through rate represents your skill
as a sales person.
If a thumbnail and a title are intriguing enough,
people will click on them.
In essence, watch time represents your skill
as a video creator.
Somebody watches your content for longer,
they're more likely to be satisfied,
which means that they want to watch more of your content.
When these two signals
are sending positive information to YouTube,
YouTube will then recommend your content
to more and new viewers.
And when that happens,
more people will discover you on YouTube.
It's as simple as that.
Having said that,
here's an important thing I want you to consider
as you start your channel in 2022.
Don't get hung up on the numbers.
Don't attach your emotional state of mind to analytics.
At this point in your YouTube journey,
they're just going to get in the way of your creativity
and lead to analysis paralysis.
And once you start looking at the numbers in detail,
it is inevitable that you will start comparing your numbers
to over YouTube channels.
You'll compare yourself to massive channels
and start to convince yourself
that the leap you need to make from where you are now
to where they are is too great.
And then even worse,
You'll start to compare your numbers to similar channels.
You'll think to yourself,
my content is far better than them.
Why are they getting more views than me?
It is so frustrating.
And it is because you're putting yourself
in another creator's shoes,
which you can't control at all.
Very simply put,
this is a start of your YouTube journey.
Another thing that numbers will start to do
is convince you that you are at the mercy
of the YouTube algorithm.
You either need to figure out how to hack those algorithms
or get lucky.
Well, there are two things you need to know about that.
The YouTube algorithm has a name
and it's called the recommendation system.
And its sole purpose in digital life
is to find the right content for the viewer.
It is not there to find the right viewers
for your content.
As a result,
it is your job to make the best content
for the right viewer.
And so with that in mind,
you need to answer these two questions.
What content do you like to watch
and what convinces you to watch the videos
that are currently in your watch history?
And then with that information at hand,
what content does the audience
you're trying to appeal to on YouTube want to watch
and how are you going to convince them
to watch your videos?
This isn't and it never has been about
what YouTube can do for you.
It's all about what you can do for an audience on YouTube.
And then once you've answered those questions
and made these decisions about your channel,
the next challenge is committing to that consistently.
Throughout your YouTube journey,
you're going to hear this phrase come up all of the time,
consistency.
But it comes in many different forms.
Now, of course,
I'm talking about posting content
on a consistent basis.
But it's also about being consistent with everything
we've already talked about.
Be it titles, thumbnails,
video format, style, presentation.
Here's what's going to happen
when you make content that your audience enjoys
and is satisfied by.
They're going to visit your channel
and binge-watch related content.
And what they'll also start to do
is anticipate what you make next.
And so this is key,
the next thing that you make on your channel
isn't necessarily exclusively what you want to make.
It's what your audience wants to watch next.
This is all about creating your ideal viewer,
your channel avatar, so to speak.
And we've already done a very exhaustive video
on a topic over here.
Now let's talk a little bit about the YouTube journey
you're about to embark on.
If you start your channel in 2022,
you're going to face obstacles,
challenges, moments that test you.
And if you are watching people like myself,
YouTube educators,
who are offering their wisdom and experience,
there is going to come a moment
when you say this to yourself,
I have tried everything
and I'm still not getting any views or subscribers.
Well put simply and shortly,
I can guarantee you haven't tried everything.
The vidIQ channel has been in operation
for five years now.
We've almost a thousand videos.
We have a million subscribers and over 80 million views.
And I'm going to be honest with you.
We've barely scratched the surface
of what we could potentially do as a YouTube channel.
And if you are someone like MrBeast,
one of the most popular and successful YouTubers
on the platform.
He will say exactly the same thing.
Everything we all do in life
that we want to become successful at
take practice, patience,
and a lot of persistence.
More often than not,
you will not see the big YouTube creators
such as MrBeast, Markiplier, and Casey Neistat
at the beginning of their creative at journeys.
You see them after tens of thousands of hours,
if not more.
You on the other hand,
today could be on our number one.
Start now,
get better tomorrow,
see how far you've come in a month.
I mean, it is the start of a year,
new resolutions and all of that.
Stop looking for excuses,
stop procrastinating,
start creating.
And you know what,
when you start creating,
you'll start getting views and earning subscribers,
building the community.
And this is how you get your first one the right way.