- I've made so many mistakes on my YouTube channel,
but I've never let those stop me from creating.
And if you've made mistakes on your channel,
you should never let those get you down,
because from mistakes you're gonna learn
what actually works to grow your channel.
So I've teamed up with a group of YouTubers,
and we're going through some of our biggest mistakes
that we made starting out on the platform,
so that you can learn from our mistakes,
and hopefully you can avoid making some of these yourself.
(upbeat music)
Now, before we get into this treasure chest of knowledge,
there is so much information packed into this video,
I just wanna mention all of these creators
have really cool channels,
so if you find value out of this video,
and you like what you're hearing,
take a few minutes after you're done watching this video,
and go check out all these creators channels,
they put a ton of time,
and a ton of effort into the content that they're creating,
and you never know,
you might have never have heard of some of these creators,
but you might find a new channel
that really resonates with you.
All right, I'm gonna start this video off,
with going through one of my biggest mistakes
starting out as a vlog channel.
Yes, if you guys don't know my story at all,
I actually started as a travel vlog channel.
And my biggest mistake that I made,
when I first started that channel, was just winging it.
I thought that, you know, I could press that record button,
and things would just come out naturally,
and in the process of filming, like my day,
whatever it is that I was doing,
that would become an interesting vlog.
I made so many videos in this way,
where I just flipped on the camera, hit record,
and tried to see what I could come up with,
and let me tell you, it just doesn't work.
So, I made two hundred videos that first year,
and I had like, no growth whatsoever,
because I had no focus, I had no structure,
there wasn't a whole lot to my process,
beyond just, like, hitting record,
and trying to capture the moments throughout the day.
Now, there's a lot of benefits in shooting in that style.
I learned a ton about just creating YouTube videos,
and I really got a chance just to experiment,
and play without a huge audience, you know,
giving me all this negative feedback
about me doing things wrong.
So, you're gonna hear this throughout this video,
we have a few other creators that are gonna talk about
different ideas when it comes to, you know,
having some more focus on your channel,
because that's super important, and also storytelling,
because that's a theme that you're just
gonna continually hear throughout this video,
and also just throughout your journey here on the platform.
All right, I'm gonna pass it off to Benji next,
because he has a mistake that I really think
you guys need to hear.
- Hi my name is Benji Travis,
and I'm from the channel "Video Influencers."
The biggest mistake I made when starting out on YouTube,
was having multiple channels.
You know, I got really excited, had different ideas,
so I started different places
to upload those different ideas at different channels,
and the result was not a lot of consistency,
I couldn't keep the momentum up, I wasn't able to respond
to all the comments, and engagement.
And so, if you have one channel
you can put all of your efforts,
all that momentum is gonna be in one place,
so that soul focus is so important
to give you the best chance of success.
I know a lot of you think, you know,
I'm gonna start this channel,
about this specific niche topic,
but then I wanna have a vlog channel for more organic,
casual type of videos, to connect with my audience.
When you're first starting out,
in fact most creators when they're first starting out,
they have one channel that they're completely prioritizing,
and they're super focused on,
and it helps them build that momentum,
so they get traction to have success on YouTube.
- I 100% agree with Benji on this,
because there are times where I've considered
starting a second channel, you know,
I if you've been following my videos for a little while,
you'll hear that I've been kind of, like,
in this weird position,
where I wanna shoot this kind of video over here,
but I've been shooting this, and I'm kind of like,
lost in what I wanna create,
and a lot of you have reached out and said,
"Well, why you just start a second channel?"
The issue is as soon as you start a second channel,
a second endeavor,
you're essentially pulling time away from this,
the main channel.
And so for me,
if I was to split my time between two channels,
I'm not gonna find success on either one,
because I'm gonna be splitting my time creating videos,
splitting my time editing,
splitting my time doing everything
it takes to build a channel,
because it does take a ton of time, and a ton of effort,
and a lot of work to make this whole thing go.
And look at some of the big creators
you see on the platform,
most of them have one channel,
and they might have a team surrounding them.
So take this into consideration,
if you have multiple channels,
or you're trying to start multiple channels,
take a step back and look at you know
what you actually wanna do, and instead of, you know,
splitting your time, maybe focus in on one endeavor,
and really see if you could make that take off,
and then down the road
if you really to do multiple channels,
maybe you can set up a team,
so that you're not spending so much time trying
to create content for all of these different things,
and you'll be able to make multiple channels work,
but especially people who are starting out, one channel.
All right I'm gonna pass off to Lila next,
because she has another mistake,
that I know you guys need to hear.
- Hey, my name is Lila, and the biggest mistake that I made
when I just started YouTube,
was that I was over consuming content,
hoping to become a better creator,
and spoiler alert, it doesn't work.
When I just started YouTube,
and I saw the initial growth, I was beyond excited.
But I was also nervous,
this meant that there were more eyeballs on me,
meant that there were more expectations of me,
or so I thought, so I felt like I had to be better,
my production quality had to increase,
my overall quality had to increase,
the quality of me had to increase.
So what I started to do, is I started to watch videos,
and more videos, and I started to watch more videos,
because I was hoping to be inspired, to get new ideas,
and to learn things to become a better creator.
But this consumption, or actually overconsumption,
kept me from creating my own stuff.
It kept me from going outside and having fun,
and learning these new camera angles by myself,
because I was inside, I was watching all of these videos
that were supposed to help me become a better creator.
And yes, I was still making my own videos,
but I started over analyzing,
and overthinking everything that I was doing,
because not only was I getting inspired by these people,
and learning new things from these people,
I also started comparing myself to these people,
and these people are people with bigger channels,
bigger productions, they have more experience,
and it was just unnecessary.
So I started to consume way more than I was creating,
and yes, you can learn new stuff
from watching all of these videos,
and I certainly have learned a lot
from watching other people's videos,
but what actually really, really,
helps you become a better creator, creating.
- So this really resonates with me.
Recently, I actually changed my YouTube header to be
Create More Consume Less,
because there's a trend that happens here on the platform,
we'll login to YouTube, the homepage will pop up,
and there will be a bunch of videos and you'll be like,
"Oh, I wanna watch that, and I wanna watch that,
"and I wanna watch that,"
and then you'll start going down this rabbit hole,
where you're watching video, after video, after video.
Happens to me all the time,
where I'll get sucked into this this wormhole of videos.
Now that's exactly what YouTube is trying to do,
and that's what you want people to do
when they come and consume your content, but as creators,
you don't wanna get wrapped into this world
of just consuming, and not creating.
So one massive tip when it comes to just consuming,
because we do need to consume, so that we can do research,
and just so we can keep ourselves entertained,
because this is a community,
you wanna be part of the community,
but one thing that I found that's worked really well,
is setup times for viewings.
So for me, I might set up a Monday,
where I do four to five hours,
of just all the videos that I want to consume
within that week.
So, if I see something pop up,
I'll put it in my watch later playlist,
then when that day, and that time comes up,
where I've set aside to watch videos,
that's when I'll go through and consume,
rather than just watching a video here,
watching a video there,
because all of those individual videos that you watch
in between everything that you're doing, it adds up,
and then that ends up taking a ton of time away
from the whole process of creating,
and like I said at the beginning of this video,
if you're splitting your time,
and say you're consuming all this different content,
in between like, a little bit of writing,
a little bit of shooting, a little bit of editing,
you're never gonna get anything done,
and you might see an entire week go by,
and you got like, one video done,
where you could have actually made multiple videos,
if you just scheduled your time properly,
and didn't over consume.
So create more, consume less.
All right so next up is Lee,
and he has got another mistake that you need to hear.
- Yo, what's up, my name's Lee Zavitz, I'm a photographer,
DP, YouTuber, here in Toronto, Canada,
and one mistake I kind of regret now,
looking back when I first started uploading
videos to my channel,
was I didn't take this whole YouTube thing all that serious,
and I have a feeling this probably resonates
with a lot of us starting out,
because most of us went into this
with no intention of things ever taking off,
and when I say serious,
I just mean that I didn't consistently upload,
I just did it when I felt like, and I, you know,
I wasn't staying consistent,
and the growth of my channel was really slow, and I get it,
if you were to watch a video and enjoy that content,
you're usually gonna check out what else the creator's done,
and if it's been months since the last upload,
there's a good chance you probably won't subscribe,
but if you saw that they had, like one or two uploads
a week, you're like, "Okay awesome, I'm guaranteed fresh
"new content all the time," boom, subscribed.
So back to my own channel,
after about one and a half years in,
I made a deal with myself,
that I would put out one video a week,
no matter how busy I was,
and because of that consistency I started to see a lot
of growth on my channel within the first couple months,
and I noticed that I got better on camera,
I noticed that my editing was better,
and basically just everything overall got better,
because I was doing it so often.
All that said,
my mistake was not being more consistent from the beginning,
and looking back now,
I know for sure that if I had done that,
I would have seen faster growth early on.
Now, I'm sure a lot of you might look at one video a week,
as a huge mountain to climb,
and I'll be honest it's not that easy,
but believe me when I say this,
that the benefits will outweigh the hard work,
and you know it's awesome to have resources like this video,
from tips on people who have overcome those obstacles,
to share with you guys,
so you don't have to go through the same things.
- Lee is spot-on with this tip, consistency is key.
One thing you might not know about my journey,
is that I've had multiple channels over the years,
and I started like nine, 10 years ago.
I've had like these smaller channels
that I've kind of played around with.
I dabbled in the YouTube space, like I'd create some videos,
and then go months without creating anything,
and I would just hope that something would happen,
and that my channel would take off.
Like, it's always been in the back of my head,
I came to LA to get into the Hollywood scene,
and you know I found out pretty fast,
that the Hollywood scene is not where I wanna be.
Just to give you a quick little background,
I went to film school,
I went and did one of the like big Hollywood internships,
where I worked underneath a massive director,
I ran and got him coffee every day,
I had to have that coffee on his desk, in a specific way,
with the stick just right over the cup,
and it had to be a certain temperature, and if it wasn't,
I would be sent back and have to do it again,
and I did that for nine months, I worked day,
after day for this guy,
and I did everything they asked me to do,
and at the end of that internship,
I got kicked out the door with nothing to show for it,
and that was my first experience
with the Hollywood system after college.
Now the best part about that whole internship,
is I wasn't paid a dime.
I had to pay for all my gas, I had to use all my time,
and I wasn't making any money in those nine months.
So that really turned me off from Hollywood,
but it wasn't until, like years later,
that I actually started this channel,
and really got into the world of YouTube.
I should have started my channel right then,
and just started really getting consistent,
and putting video, after video, after video, every week,
but I just dabbled in it for the next few years,
and kept trying to, you know,
get into this Hollywood system,
and look, if you wanna do YouTube,
if you wanna be a creator on this platform,
there is endless amounts of opportunities now,
and the cool thing is we can all thrive together,
because this is a community,
this isn't like this person's big,
and you have to work your way up to get, no,
we're in this together.
So, if you really wanna make this happen,
really take Lee's advice and get consistent.
Shoot a video a week, even if it's tough,
just put out a video.
And if you don't have the time to go shoot,
like crazy b-roll, and this big story, and all that,
well that's fine, create a video like this,
put your camera down, and just talk to the camera.
Consistency, and action,
are the keys to success on the platform.
Just turn on your camera and create,
and have some intention and structure
to what it is that you're creating.
So I'm gonna pass it off to Mark here,
because he's got a mistake that you really need to hear
that's going to build on what we were just talking about.
- Hey, Jeven, it's Mark here from Editors Keys, in the UK,
and for your viewers who may not know who I am,
I'm the founder of Editors Keys,
and we make these color-coded shortcut keyboards,
and I also run the "Editors Keys" YouTube channel.
Now when we started to take our YouTube channel seriously,
a few years back,
and I was really unsure about what we should film, you know,
we can't just do videos about keyboards all day,
that would be pretty dull.
So we ended up doing videos about absolutely everything,
and this was our huge mistake.
You know, we had videos about iPhones, about tablets,
about recording gear, about our travel,
about our office life, all of that kind of stuff,
and there was just no consistency there at all,
and it was when I met you at the NAB Show,
you gave me super, great advice.
- My big video that took me off,
was around the DJI Mavic pro.
So I started just doing some reviews,
talking about the features,
and then I realized it was a popular topic.
That's when it clicked for me, that search is so important.
And then I started doing more tutorial around drone content,
so like, how to, you know, 10 tips to fly a drone,
or 10 things to do with your drone,
and you know, get better looking footage,
like, different ways to control the camera.
That whole series that I did around the DJI Mavic Pro
made my channel explode.
- So the advice you gave me,
was to really narrow down our niche,
and have a really focused channel.
So that's exactly what we did.
We stopped doing videos about anything and everything,
and then we started to do videos
that are much more about the creation process,
the editing process, or the filmmaking process.
And that's really, really, helped our growth.
We went from pretty much flatlining,
to seeing our subscriber base grow by about 400%.
So when we saw you we had about 2,000 subscribers,
and now we have well over 13,000 subscribers,
in less than 10 months,
and that's all thanks to your advice, so thanks very much.
- You are gonna hear this mistake time, and time again.
Variety channels do not work.
And there is a lot of creators out there that come up to me,
and they say, "Well so-and-so did a variety channel,
"and so-and-so did."
Well yes there's always gonna be exceptions to the rule.
Like, there might be a creator
who's just very good on camera,
and people wanna watch anything that he creates.
Someone like Casey Neistat,
he can put out a video about anything,
and people are most likely going to watch it.
But most of us aren't gonna be able to do that,
so you're gonna wanna niche down,
and you're gonna wanna have one topic,
and one audience that you're focused around.
So let me give you a massive tip
when it comes to your channel.
Let's say that you're in the filmmaking space.
Well, that's a great topic and niche to go after,
but you really need to narrow down even more,
and what I mean by that is, say you're in filmmaking,
there are so many different topics that you could cover
in the filmmaking space.
You could be talking about editing in Final Cut,
in Premiere, in After Effects.
You could be talking about Sony cameras, Panasonic cameras.
You could be doing tutorials on lighting.
You can be doing tutorials on camera.
You could be doing tutorials on lenses, on audio,
on, there are so many topics that you can cover,
so you really need to know your focus even more.
Now, yes you can cover a variety of topics in your niche,
and on my channel I've covered a ton of different stuff,
and I've realized that it's actually
hurt me in the long run.
so one thing that you can do, to really start structuring
the way that you build out your channel within a niche,
is come up with series.
So when you build out a series, think of it like a playlist.
If somebody is gonna jump in this playlist,
it's gonna be the same type of content
throughout all the videos,
and somebody would be interested in all of those videos,
because say someone's interested in audio,
well you could create a whole batch of videos
that's all about audio, so someone goes from video one,
to video two, to video three.
Now, you don't have to set it up where it's a sequence,
one, two, three, four, but think of it in terms of like,
all of these fit together.
Now when you start thinking in this way,
and you have say, four, five series on your channel,
you're gonna be more focused,
and people are gonna have more of an idea
of what you are doing as a creator.
So if I was to just throw up a premiere tutorial
on this channel, it just doesn't make sense,
because I've never done a premiere tutorial,
I've done a lot of Final Cut,
but even that is a little bit of a deviation
from what I typically do, so this has been evolving for me,
and this is something that I have been working on,
it's a mistake that I made,
was too much variety within my niche.
So I'm narrowing down even more into certain verticals.
And so, try to come up with a list of series
that makes sense for your audience, and test it.
Everything on YouTube is a test.
You got to try something,
if it resonates with your audience, keep doing it.
If it doesn't work, well go on to something else.
So I've come up with like four or five series
that I'm gonna work on, and I'm gonna do a video a month,
for each of these series,
and that's gonna take me through month after month.
And what happens is,
after a few months I'll be able to say,
this series is working, this series is not.
I'm gonna look at how my audience is responding
to the videos, and I'm also gonna look at the data
that I'm gettin the YouTubes back end,
because YouTube provides a ton of data on watch time views,
audience retention, subscribers, everything.
So use that data, and take those series that are working,
and keep making videos within those verticals,
and if something's not working pivot a little bit,
see if you could do something different
within that vertical.
Or, maybe pick a new topic, get experimental,
try something new, but don't just throw everything
on your channel under this umbrella of filmmaking,
and expect that your channel is gonna take off.
You really have to have focus,
and you really have to make data-driven decisions.
So the biggest takeaway that I want you
to get from this video,
is that all of our channels are unique.
What works for one channel,
might not work for another channel,
so we're inevitably all gonna be making mistakes
at some point, but don't let those get you down.
If you make a mistake and something doesn't work,
take your data, and take your audience,
and see what you can change,
to actually turn that mistake into something
that will help you grow your channel.
All right guys, if you wanna see another video
about mistakes that YouTubers make,
I did another one of these collabs,
you can watch it right here,
and I'll see you on the next video.