Everyone knows that YouTubers are making a ton of money, and that makes you a tad bit envious. So now you’ve been flirting with the idea of starting a YouTube channel. You think you have a lot of interesting things to share with the world. You’ve seen the likes of Peter McKinnon project his electric personality on screen as he talks about his creative pursuits, or have been fascinated by Ted Forbes’ consistently insightful take on the craft and thought to yourself…
“Hey, I can do that, too!”
And you probably could pull something as amazing as producing content around your passion and growing a community of subscribers awaiting your next upload. Problem is, you haven’t started doing anything yet.
We’re going to fix that right up with 11 tips that can help you launch and grow your YouTube channel in 2021.
#1 Pick a Niche for your YouTube Channel
Folks who are thinking about getting into the content creation game generally know what niche they’re going to be in. Since you’re here, there’s a good chance it’s photography and/or filmmaking for you.
And if not, well, you probably know what you enjoy doing in your free time and have gotten to know a lot about that certain interest over the years. Maybe it’s in the video game industry or fitness or even in the beauty space — it’s got to be an area that’ll have close to infinite topics and subtopics that you’ll be excited to be talking about, day in and day out.
Please don’t pick a niche just because you’ve heard somewhere that videos under that umbrella generate more ad revenue. Just imagine a sculptor who suddenly started making videos about cryptocurrency in the name of ad revenue — that guy will likely crash and burn in less than a year, because he either got bored doing something he didn’t enjoy at the slightest, or he flat out ran out of ideas.
The best YouTube niche is the one that you’d be willing to create videos on for free. Not only will it guarantee to make the creative process a little easier, sticking to a niche you’re passionate about will also draw the right kind of audience for your channel.
#2 Get the Right Camera for YouTube
You don’t need to burn $10,000 on a camera for your YouTube channel. While spending that much cash on a high-end shooter does sound exciting, you must first consider what camera will best fit the type of content that you do. And frankly, you could easily get all you need for literally a tenth of that price.
Just check out our recent round up of the best cameras for YouTube, and what the top YouTubers are shooting with and see how even channels with millions of subs are perfectly happy with reasonably attainable equipment.
For example, vloggers would appreciate a lighter, nimbler set-up with good enough image quality that can keep up with their fast-paced workflow. If you want to join in the vlogging hype, give our best vlogging cameras under $1,000 for 2021 a read to help you pick a camera on a budget.
On the other hand, filmmakers might want to look into more “serious” cameras that would allow them to squeeze every bit of image quality from their footage. If that sounds like you, here’s the 7 best cameras for filmmaking that can be had for under $1,000.
#3 Don’t Forget Audio!
Here’s a big one. Newbies often fail to give audio equipment a second thought and dump all of their cash on the best cameras they can get their hands on. In practice, even if you’re shooting with an 8K camera and got the lighting right but you’ve been running nothing but the camera’s internal microphone, your audience will click away from your video.
Don’t believe me? Watch this short and sweet comparison and decide for yourself which setup (good audio w/ bad video vs bad audio w/ good audio) would you be more willing to sit through till the end.
Fortunately, you can get a decent dedicated microphone starting at $100 which would give a night and day difference on the quality of your audio. For more on microphone recommendations, we’ve rounded up the best mics for YouTube at any budget that’ll instantly level up your production value.
#4 Commit to a Content Plan
Now that you’ve settled for a niche, it’s time to create a content plan. Committing to a content plan for your YouTube channel helps you stay consistent with your uploads and organize your pre-production tasks. Plus, the ever-changing YouTube algorithm will play nice with your channel more if you’re publishing content on the regular!
At first, you might want to work on videos that you may already have material for, or projects that you’ve been wanting to do since you first thought of starting a YouTube channel. Maybe that’s a beginner’s guide to shooting 35mm film series, or a studio tour, or a sort of commentary for your most recent short film project using the BTS footage you’ve shot.
Again, stick to your niche and find content ideas that will either entertain or educate your audience. When you’ve finished brainstorming for the month’s batch of content, schedule everything within a realistic time frame, and then flesh out what you’ll need to do for each video to go live.
Entrepreneur Erin Winters shares how she plans and organizes her monthly YouTube content using the free project management app, Asana.
#5 Come Up with a Channel Name that Sticks
Beyond taking existing channel names as your own, and profanity, you can name your channel however you like. That said, your channel name can help you communicate what you’re all about in the YouTube space so it may be best to give it more thought.
Generally, your channel name can fall into four categories. It could be something to do with your chosen niche (think GameGrumps). If you’re already running a photography business for example, or any other sort of company for that matter, you can consider integrating your YouTube channel into that existing brand. Third, your channel name can be descriptive of what your audience can expect from you. American Cinema Editors-nominee Sven Pape runs an awesome cinema/video editing channel called This Guy Edits.
If all else fails, you can’t go wrong with your first and last name as your channel name! This works especially well if you plan on becoming an influencer in your niche and you want to build a strong personal brand. Casey Neistat, Lily Singh, Marques Brownlee, Marie Forleo and countless YouTube celebrities are doing it, and so can you!
#6 Own your Channel Art
Setting up unique channel art is another great way to reinforce your brand and serve as an avenue to communicate a few important branding elements, such as social media pages, channel tag line and so on. Your channel banner, profile picture, and video watermark can help you achieve these things.
The channel banner appears on top of your page and is a great place to visually convey your branding. Your profile picture (or channel icon) is what’ll appear right beside your comment interactions, search results, on your community tab etc. Now your video watermark, you set that to come up at specific points in your video, which viewers can use to quickly subscribe to your channel.
What you use for your channel art can be anything from a simple headshot with your channel’s primary messaging (specifically for your banner), to just a simple logo.
#7 Create a Channel Trailer
Working on a short channel trailer can help you convert more viewers into subscribers. Your channel trailer will only appear on your channel page for unsubscribed viewers. A good trailer will welcome your audience into your channel and keep them hooked.
You could do this by showing what value your videos can bring for your viewers who haven’t committed to subscribing yet, sharing a quick backstory for your channel and what they can expect from your future videos, or perhaps brute force your way into their subscription list via an epic montage of whatever it is you’re doing. Remember, keep it short, about 30 seconds to a minute short, and make sure to get your value proposition across within the timeframe.
Here’s YouTube certified consultant Tim Schmoyer with Video Creators with an awesome guide to creating an effective channel trailer.
#8 Get to Know the YouTube Algorithm
If I were to ask you what’s the second largest search engine next to Google, you might say something silly like Bing or Yahoo!. Nope, it’s YouTube — the premier video sharing site/2nd largest search engine in the world.
So if you want to win, you better know how to optimize your YouTube channel to increase your chances of showing up at the top results and suggestions feed. That’ll entail knowing the right keywords to put on your titles, descriptions, tags and thumbnails, to analyzing reach and engagement metrics such as click-through-rates and average watch time.
One thing to note about the YouTube algorithm is that it’s constantly changing to hopefully deliver a better experience for viewers. This also means that you need to stay on top of the updates because what’s working now might not work next quarter. Thankfully, YouTube’s algorithm is fairly transparent which lets HubSpot do a comprehensive, constantly updated guide to the YouTube Algorithm.
To get you on your way to your YouTube SEO journey, why not start with the platform’s very own Creator Academy?
#9 Expand your Distribution
Hoping that a random video of yours will go viral and instantly drive millions of subscribers to your channel overnight won’t do you any good. Because often, even with rock-solid YouTube SEO and quality content, your channel just won’t have enough pairs of eyes watching to gain enough traction.
Actually reach more of the world and actively promote your YouTube channel. There are two ways you can go about this, one is paying for ads, and the other is expanding your distribution. You can start learning about using Google Ads to promote your channel on the platform on the Creator Academy here. If you have the budget and technical know-how to become proficient with launching ad campaigns for your channel, then this route might bring in enough traffic to grow your following.
The latter is for people who want a more “organic” way of promoting their channel (not that the two can’t co-exist). Serial entrepreneur and marketing mogul Gary Vee recommends that you follow a content pyramid that lets you go beyond merely sharing your videos on every social media you’re on.
The idea is that you can start creating a long-form piece of content, like a YouTube video, creating short-form content off of your video (like video excerpts, quotes, and mini rants) and then distributing them on all the social media platforms that are relevant to you. Check out Gary Vaynerchuk’s content strategy and start expanding your content distribution.
#10 Hone your Presentation Skills
Unless you’re a naturally gifted public speaker and have been captivating live audiences all your life, you’re going to need to polish up your video presentation skills. Don’t worry too much if you find yourself a little restless and stumbling with your words when you’re presenting — that’s, like, the norm for 77% of the population.
That said, know that on-camera presentation skills, like every other skill, can be improved in time and consistent practice. You won’t come off as smooth or as natural on camera on your first few uploads. It’s also perfectly okay to struggle with your nerves, but if you find yourself choking up and using too many filler words than you might have liked, you’ll need a few pointers.
Here’s Justin Brown with a handful of tips that’ll help you practice your presentation skills better and ultimately become more confident in front of the camera.
11 Start Right Now!
Question: When’s the best time to plant a tree?
Answer: 20 years ago.
Question: When’s the next best time to plant a tree?
Answer: The second best time to plant a tree is now.
Not that YouTube existed two decades ago, but you get the point. Sure, you could have started years ago… but the echo chamber that tells you “the current YouTube landscape is oversaturated as it is and won’t be needing another wide-eyed vlogger” got in the way.
But somehow you found yourself in this corner of the internet, so it’s fair to assume that you want to give YouTube a serious go this time. Try your best to ignore the negativity; there’s enough of that on the internet already. We need more content creators with enough tenacity to commit to sharing their passion with the world.
So… ready or not, hit record and get in front of the camera.