[Dane Boedigheimer] Hi, my name is Dane, and I run the channels Annoying Orange and Dane Boe on YouTube,
and today we're going to talk about setting up your channel and setting up goals.
♪ music ♪ [Make it real]
[YouTube]
Annoying Orange started back in October 9, 2009.
I actually uploaded the first video to my main channel, Dane Boe.
From there it got a ton of hits, and people kept asking me to make more, make more, make more—
so I made another one, and then I made another one,
and by the fourth episode I knew that there was something going on.
So I created its own YouTube channel and kind of dedicated myself
to making a new Annoying Orange every Friday, and that's kind of how it started.
I knew this was something that I should keep doing by episode 4,
because at that point, I uploaded that video,
and the next day it hit a million views which, at that time, was insane.
So I knew that there was something special happening,
and that's why I decided to make it it's own channel, Annoying Orange,
and really dedicate myself to doing that every single week and just dive in head first.
My goal at the time wasn't even actually to keep Annoying Orange going,
or make it a series, or anything like that—it was just going to simply be another one-off.
That's kind of what my channel was, was just random videos every week.
Still doing it—staying on a schedule every single week.
But it was just going to be another one-off, and it wasn't—like I said—until the fourth episode
that I knew, "Hey there's something going on here," and I wanted to chase that.
My goals kind of changed over time, because when I was first starting—
I actually come from a TV background.
I worked for some reality TV shows, and while they were good experiences,
it wasn't quite the thing that I wanted to do.
So when I started my YouTube channel that kind of became my goal—
was to just be creative, try and build an audience,
and at the same time, I was getting all of this client work for different businesses
and doing any kind of work that I could do.
When Annoying Orange took off that really allowed me to just say,
"Hey, I'm not going to do anything else, except this,"
and that was one of the hardest decisions to ever make,
because it's scary, but at the same time, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
I was able to be creative without anybody saying what I could or couldn't do,
and it allowed me to do something really cool,
in that—instead of moving away from TV,
now I actually had an opportunity to build this audience online,
and then take that and create a TV show that ran in conjunction with it.
Some of the things that I look for when I upload a new video
to kind of signify whether it's a good video or not
is kind of the same thing that I've done the entire I've been uploading to YouTube over the years,
and that's look at the comments—look at the likes and dislikes.
People are brutally honest and you know sometimes it's harsh to hear negative comments,
but at the same time it's a good idea to listen to your audience
and take into consideration what they want to see.
I would say, for someone that is first uploading a video—just to not be discouraged.
Like I said, there are times when people say negative things,
or if your video's not getting hits right away—
don't be discouraged—just keep on trying.
I would say that you definitely want to lean on the things that you're really good at.
So if you're really good at playing guitar, integrate that into your videos.
Like me—I was really good at cheesy special effects and after effects,
so that's the angle I went with, and it's worked well for me—so you want to play to your strengths.
So one of the ways things have changed over the years is—
in the beginning, Annoying Orange was just one video a week.
Every Friday—that was the day—and that's still never changed.
We still do that every single week—but one of the things that we are playing with now,
and actually having a lot of fun with, is just uploading all kinds of different stuff to the channel.
Really building out a schedule of different IPs,
playing with new—new characters, things like that.
It was kind of a slow build—we started with just one show at first,
just see how audiences would react to,
"Hey, this something totally different on the Annoying Orange channel."
Will they like it, will they not—and we were pretty lucky
in that they were very receptive—because it was kind of—
the content we're creating is same in tone as Annoying Orange,
so it wasn't too far of a departure.
But that's one of the things that we are really having a lot of fun with,
is really building out that schedule, making the whole channel
kind of a destination for all things that are kind of fun and silly—cartoon violence, all that stuff.
So one of the big road blocks that people have is—they come up to me and they say,
"Hey, Dane, I don't have this fancy technology that you have—
you have these awesome cameras and special effects software—I can't make videos like you."
And it's kind of funny, because when I was younger, making videos—
all we had—I had two VCR's that I used
to edit all of my stuff, and a crappy camcorder that my parents had—
but I still—I did whatever I could to make videos.
Nowadays, kids—everybody has an iPhone or some other cell phone.
The cameras on these things are way better than anything I had when I was a kid.
So I would say you are only limited by your imagination.
So don't—don't think that you don't have the technology to do it, because you do.
Hope you guys found this interesting—if you want to know more about this topic,
click the annotation or the link in the description,
or you could go click the link for the Annoying Orange—
or you could do both—you should definitely do both.
Until next time, later.
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