If you’re not on YouTube because the thought was a little scary, stop waiting! Get on YouTube! You’ve got to start somewhere and today’s a good day.. So let’s get started!
- Just get started.
Let’s jump in. Just create your channel and get going! It’s really simple and YouTube will walk you through the process. Set up your channel so your work has a home and people have a place to find you online.
- Start with multiple videos.
Yes, you can only do one at a time but you need to do multiples to get started. It’s so much easier to get dressed and get your lighting set up and get your gear together and just do several videos at once. Three is good, five is awesome, ten is best. Nervous about getting started? Just start with three. How long should they be? As long as they need to be to get your information across, and not a minute longer.
- Have a great thumbnail for each video.
A thumbnail is the graphic art that people see when they preview the video. I’ll tell you from experience with Facebook Live, where you can’t always change the thumbnail art, that it can be a huge detriment. Without fail, if I’m doing something embarrassing or goofy, that will be the thumbnail. So I like to create a graphic for my videos (like for a video on this topic, I would have a graphic that says “5 Tips to Start on YouTube”) and have the YouTube logo and a better picture of me (sometimes the stuff I do in my videos is a little bit crazy). Thumbnails are important; it’s how you capture your audience’s attention in those critical first few seconds.
- You have to have good tags.
Tags are very important. If I’m doing a video on this topic and posting on YouTube I’d have the whole title as a tag, five YouTube tips, YouTube for beginners, you see where I’m going with this? Multiple word tags work really well.
- Be consistent.
To me there’s nothing worse than starting something and people go back and look at it and you haven’t posted anything since 2014… that’s terrible. It makes you look careless or lazy. If you’re gonna do it, pick a day to do it and get it done. Some professional YouTubers will tell you to do a video three times a week but that’s a little overwhelming for beginners. Do what you can do, just be consistent on getting it done. If it’s once a week, do it once every week.
And one extra tip: Cross promote! Google and YouTube are the same, like Facebook and Instagram are the same (and they do NOT love each other). If you’re going to do an awesome video, I’d upload it to Facebook and YouTube. That way you get the biggest bang for your buck on both platforms.
Once you get started with YouTube it will get much easier. You’ll watch your videos and new topics will occur to you and you can develop a hit list. If you haven’t already started, what are you waiting for? You don’t have to do an hour-long walkthrough, just start with one tip. Is there one thing that people ask you a lot? Start with that. The important thing is, just get started!
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