Ben: If you're an online course creator and you haven't started a YouTube channel,
you might be missing out big time on one of the greatest opportunities available for teachers who
want to build a community around what they teach. Today, we're going to address the reasons you
might be hesitating to get started with YouTube and talk about why you should jump in ASAP.
Let's get into it. Hello creators. I'm
Ben Toalson from Podia, where we empower creators like you to make a living doing
what you love. Today's video is special because joining me today is YouTube coach and vlogger,
Heather Ramirez. Heather, thank you so much for joining me. Will you share a
bit more about who you are and what you do? Heather: Thanks Ben. Hey everyone. My name is
Heather and I've been on YouTube since April, 2016. I just quit my job and I decided that I
would give myself the chance to start my own business. And because I didn't know anything
about how to do that, I figured that it would be a cool story to document on YouTube because why not?
Now YouTube is the foundation for my business. I make a living doing what I love. I have a global
reach, which is something I never imagined having. And all of my clients and customers
come from YouTube. My mission is to educate and empower people, to share their stories
and build their brands on YouTube. Because I believe that everyone has
a story worth sharing. So I'm excited to be here. Ben: Thanks, Heather. In this video, Heather and
I are going to go over five reasons you haven't gotten started with your YouTube channel and five
reasons you absolutely should. You ready, Heather? Heather: Always
Ben: Awesome. There could be numerous reasons you haven't started a YouTube channel yet. Well,
we're going to cover some of the most common obstacles and how to overcome them.
Reason number one is I'm not sure what to share in my videos. This is a common
dilemma. Even people who regularly share content, spend an average of 8 to 10 hours
per month staring at a blank page. That's not a real statistic, but it feels like it could be.
The point is you're not alone. But here are a few ideas for what you could share. You
could preview some of your course content. Even though you ultimately plan to sell your course,
you could share a few valuable insights that would tease your course content. Do
a walk through of tools you offer with your course like guides or checklists.
If you're still in the process of making your course share some of the work you do
behind the scenes to create the material, you can also share some of your personal thoughts
or ideas related to your course content or some of the stories or experiences that led
you to making your course in the first place. These are just a few ideas, but hopefully it's
enough to help you get the ball rolling. Heather: Reason number two, it's too late
to start a YouTube channel. There are hundreds of hours of content being uploaded to YouTube
every single minute, which can make it feel like it's too late to start a YouTube channel.
But your potential viewers don't have to go through all of the existing content
on YouTube until they get to your channel. It's not about competition. Because YouTube
is a search engine, it's algorithm is constantly learning how it can best deliver the most relevant
content to its viewers. So even though there may be several existing channels in your industry,
No one else has your perspective, your experience and your approach.
This means that there's more opportunity for you to stand out by creating the platform for
a specific group of people with a specific need. You don't need millions of subscribers to see
success on YouTube. As long as your channel has a clear value proposition for a target audience,
YouTube will take care of the rest and getting your content in front of the right
people who genuinely want to learn from you. Ben: Reason number three is, I don't have the
right equipment. One of the lies we buy into as creators is I'm not going to be good enough
until I have that camera or those paint brushes or this microphone. The tools can make a difference
in overall quality, but the most important thing you have as a creator is yourself.
Your knowledge, your experience, and especially your voice can't be replicated. Look around at
what you have and be honest with yourself. Can you create a good quality video with what you
already have or have access to. Spoiler... if you have a smartphone, the answer is absolutely yes.
People care more about the result you can create for them than they do the quality.
Before you spend money on expensive gear, get comfortable making things consistently
with what you have. Not only will you improve faster as a presenter, but you'll also bring
more skills to the table when you do upgrade. Heather: Reason number four, I'm not tech savvy,
or I've never made a video before. I think when people are first, considering YouTube, they get
overwhelmed because they think they need to make what looks like traditional marketing videos.
Those videos took a lot of people, a lot of budget and probably really expensive equipment to make.
But those traditional marketing videos focused on one way communication. So a business owner
would talk to a target audience about their product or their service. With YouTube it's
completely different because a signature aspect of YouTube videos is two way communication.
It's less about trying to make a perfect video and more about having a dialogue with your audience.
You can actually interact with your audience by posing questions in your videos and getting
the answers in the comment section. At the end of the day that's what YouTube is all about.
Conversation communication and connection. So don't worry if you've never made a YouTube
video before. Just focus on talking with your audience and not at them. I built my
vlog channel using iMovie, which is a free editing program, an old point and
shoot that just happened to be lying around, which is actually right here on this shelf,
and also I think it was my iPhone 6 at the time. I didn't have a budget to upgrade equipment,
so that wasn't even an option, instead, I focused on really listening to my audience,
trying to understand who they were and why they were following me and coming up with ideas to see
how I can better serve them and show them that I care. All of which require no tech savviness
at all tech savvy tech savvy at all. Today, there are plenty of free or low cost tools,
apps, softwares, and programs, all of which are designed to help you use video as a medium
to connect and communicate with your audience. Ben: Reason number five is, I don't want to give
away too much of the material. It's a reasonable fear. If you give away what's in the course,
no one's going to buy it. Right? So yeah, you don't want to give everything away. But what if
you gave away your best 10%? Isn't that backwards? Shouldn't I save the best for my course?
No. And here's why. People will perceive the quality of what's in your course,
based on the quality of what they experience before they buy. If you give away your best 10%,
people will assume that what's inside the course has to be amazing. Not only that, but when they
do buy, they're more likely to have an amazing experience because perception shapes experience.
The reverse is also true. If what you gave away was just, okay, customers are
more likely to have a just okay experience. Heather: Now let's talk about the benefits of
having a YouTube channel and why you should get started on YouTube. First three words.
Free organic traffic. Because YouTube is a search engine, viewers on YouTube tend
to be more active because they're watching content that they've actually searched for.
On the other hand, viewers on social media platforms tend to be more passive because
they're watching whatever videos just happen to be on their feeds whenever
they log in. This means that there are users on YouTube who are already searching for your
content. And YouTube has a vested interest in delivering that content to the right users.
So to cut through on YouTube and get free organic traffic, all you need to know are
these three things. Who is your target audience? What are they searching for? And in what context?
And then create content around that. Then you can optimize your videos by doing things like
utilizing effective tags and that'll help YouTube serve your content to your target audience.
If you do this right, then your viewers will have on-demand accessibility to your brand,
which means that your videos have the potential to be discovered and watched by
your target audience for as long as they are on your channel. I have videos that continue
to be discovered by new viewers every single day, even though I uploaded them over three years ago.
Ben: The second reason you should get started is because you can get feedback from real people.
As your audience grows, you can ask specific questions and get real feedback about what
people really want to learn from you. This can be huge when it comes to course sales,
because it helps you get more specific. Say you wanted to teach a course about competitive
horseback riding, but the more you interact with people, the more you realize there's
a really high demand for information about how to prepare your horse for a competition.
You were already going to cover that in your course, but now you realize you can
go deeper into that specific topic and get a lot more students. You can even use your
audience to test early versions of your course and see if there are things you
can tweak to make it even more effective. Heather: Reason number three for getting
started on YouTube is that YouTube is a great way to cultivate your audience.
Nothing will compare to in-person interaction, but video is the closest that we can get. Yes, it is
an investment to create an upload YouTube videos, but once your videos are up on your channel,
you basically allow viewers to connect with you, learn from you and achieve wins because of you
for as long as your videos are on your channel. This is why YouTube could be such a powerful
platform for building trust with your audience. It takes several touch points to cultivate someone
into being in the mindset of buying from you. But each one of your YouTube videos can serve as a
separate touchpoint. And the more content that you have up on your channel, the more opportunities
that people have to spend time with you. Ben: The fourth reason you should get
started is to build your presentation skills. If you plan to deliver your course on camera,
You can use your YouTube channel as a place to hone your skills. Producing regular video
content will help you get more comfortable with every part of the process from writing
and presenting to editing and publishing so that when the time comes to make your course videos,
you'll already have it down. Also, all of that practice is going to help you feel more natural
in front of the camera. This will make you seem more confident and authentic to your
students and improve their learning experience. Heather: And lastly, youTube builds your brand
authority. Video is a great way to demonstrate your competency and to showcase your expertise
and your passion for your subject area. Also, because of the dialogue that you're
having with your audience and the feedback that you're receiving, you can source future
content ideas from comments made on previous videos. Not only does this allow you to be
relevant and active, but you also delight your viewers because they start to feel like
you're making content specifically for them. It shows that you truly understand them on a
genuine level. And that is a great reflection of your brand overall. Sure. A high subscriber count
can convey brand authority, but more often than not, it's the value and the relevance
of the content that really matters. So if I'm searching for a video about how to unclog a drain,
I don't care who that video comes from and how many subscribers they have. I just
want my problem solved. Valuable content and consistent branding can convey your channel's
authority even if you're just starting out. Ben: To be honest, making consistent video
content is not easy. We wanted to finish this video by taking a quick moment to get
real with you about obstacles that we've had to overcome to get started with our channels.
One of the things I struggle with the most is just being consistent with making videos. If
you look at my personal YouTube channel, you see that I'll have stretches where I've made
several videos in a row and then took three months off or five months off or a year.
What I learned about myself, especially when it came to producing regular video content,
is that I work well under a deadline. Before I had a deadline, I just thought it was,
Oh, I'll I'll produce when I feel like it or, I'll create when I feel like it.
And the problem with that is you're not always going to feel like it.
If you're like me and you struggle with being consistent, set a schedule for
yourself and build some accountability around yourself so that you can stay consistent,
even when you don't feel the inspiration. Heather: I think the biggest thing that I
had to overcome on my YouTube journey was this feeling of not being good enough to
have a YouTube channel or grow an audience. When I started, I didn't tell my friends
and family, because I didn't want to hear the whole, like, so you're trying to be a YouTuber
now? I had no idea that YouTube would end up becoming the foundation of my business. So
I think what helped me keep going was that I didn't have anything to lose. But still,
it was such a slow process and the doubt would creep up every single time I tried to pick up
the camera and that also perpetuated these other excuses of like, I don't have the time, I don't
have the right equipment, I, you know, I'm camera shy, I don't know what to make content about,
et cetera, et cetera. I had no idea, no concept of the potential and the opportunities that would
come along with having a YouTube brand presence. Because if I had known, gosh, I would have started
so much earlier and I would have never second guessed myself for a second. So if you needed
to hear this today, I am here to tell you that you have a story worth sharing. And
if you're truly passionate about helping your audience achieve their goals through
your content and your courses, then that is worth their investment of time and money.
Don't ever second guess yourself and just create more.
Ben: What are some obstacles that you're trying to overcome? Or what are some things that are holding
you back? Let us know in the comments below. Heather: Thanks for watching everyone. Give
this video a thumbs up if you liked it. Let us know what you think in
the comments, and we'll catch you guys later. Ben: If you found this video helpful, and you
want more content like this be sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell so you'll be sure
not to miss anything when we post new videos. If you're trying to get started with YouTube,
you should definitely check out Heather's channel. Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time.