Advice From a Failed YouTuber

“If I was to start my channel now and do the exact things I did before, I would probably only have only one subscriber. Me. Or maybe my dad too. He watches all my stuff.”

Starting Out

I started making videos on YouTube in 2008 with a digital camera made for photographs. The video function only allowed clips of 3 minutes or less. But despite not having a real video camera, I sat in my living room and shot videos talking about various topics about my life.

That was the first mistake.

My content was never funny, scary, or controversial enough to go viral. But considering I had no experience in video, video editing, or social media, getting views on videos talking about what you ate for dinner was pretty good. But that was a different time.

Of course, one of the reasons that it is harder to get noticed on YouTube now is because of all the competition. According to stats reported on businessofapps.com, YouTube has over 2 billion active users and has 500 hours of content uploaded per minute onto YouTube.

It’s easy to see how quickly your video can be buried in that amount of content. And since making a channel and uploading to YouTube is free, everyone and their grandmothers are creating channels to share their life, cooking, vacation, or cats.

Unless you have a huge following, lots of advertising money to push your videos to the top, or get lucky and upload a video that catches on and becomes widespread, you are most likely only going to have mediocre success on YouTube.

What is Success?

If you are making YouTube strictly for your enjoyment or to share memories with your family, then having a simple video camera or shooting with your smartphone and directly uploading to YouTube is fine.

Congratulations! Your channel is a success!

But for those who are hoping to grow a following on YouTube, want their videos to get a lot of views, and hope to make some money on the platform, then you need to step up your game.

The following is a list of things you need to do when starting a channel and making videos, as well as things you need to avoid aka what I did wrong.

What You Need

YouTube Account

The first thing you need of course is to create a YouTube Channel. It’s pretty easy to do and I recommend you create a Gmail account and name both your email address and the channel, the same name. This will help create your brand.

I didn’t do that. I used the email address [email protected] and then I called my channel Ozzy78. Don’t do that!

Try to have the email and channel name the same or at least similar. And try to make the channel name something meaningful, not just words and numbers. I was able to change my channel name to OzzyAwesome, which sounds much better, but my youtube URL will always be ozzy78 so keep that in mind when choosing a channel name.

For example, if you decide you want to make videos about your love for guitars, having an email like [email protected] and also naming your YouTube channel “The Passionist Guitarist” would be smart.

Cameras

Of course, you need a video camera but I recommend using a variety of cameras if you have access and can afford them. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars and get the latest high-tech 4K camera but having a variety of cameras for a variety of situations is best.

I used a camera that wasn’t even made for videos. It was a digital camera for photos. There was no flip display screen so I couldn’t see myself while filming and there was no external slot for a microphone so both the sound and framing sucked.

If possible try to get an actual camera for making video and/or use your smartphone.

In the example of the guitarist, using your smartphone with a tripod is fine, and sitting in front of the camera and talking is great. But to make your video even more dynamic, have one camera (smartphone) set up to record you as you play the guitar, have another camera (like a Handycam or mirrorless camera) to be zoomed in on your fingers as you strum chords.

Maybe you want to walk around your room and show your guitar collection or go outside to a guitar shop and film the various instruments. Smartphones or big cameras might be shaky and bulky.

Instead, if you have a GoPro or gimbal on your camera, you can shoot smooth, high-quality, professional-looking footage.

For my videos, after realizing how unappealing my videos were, I started using a mirrorless camera when I sit and talk at home and a camera with a gimbal for outdoor videos. I also now use my smartphone camera inside restaurants when I am seated and film food or drinks or groups of friends.

This brings me to the next thing you must have.

Editing Software

Professionals use Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro but these are expensive and difficult to learn. So if you are not really willing to put in the time to learn these, there are plenty of other cheaper or free editing software options that are much easier to use and still look good.

If you have a Mac then iMovie is definitely the best option. Free and easy to use with a lot of nice-looking fonts, titles, transitions, and effects at a click of a button. For Windows users, the go-to is Windows MovieMaker.

If you want to spend a little money but get professional-looking social media-friendly software then Filmora9 is really easy to use but has lots of professional-looking animation and text graphics.

I started with the free Windows MovieMaker option. But just used it to attach my three-minute video files together to make one big video. I didn’t really do titles or transitions.

And my videos were boring and crap.

Having editing touches, transitions and titles really change a video, making it look much more professional and enjoyable. Now I use either Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere to make videos and though I don’t go too crazy with all the features and stick to the basics, my videos look a lot more high quality.

Title and Thumbnail

This is probably the most important thing to bring viewers to your video. You might have the best video but no one is going to watch it if the title and thumbnail aren’t appealing.

I used to just use the thumbnail provided by YouTube which is a random snapshot at some point in your video. And my title was usually really personal to me.

For example, I made a video called “My Best Friend Jason and I go to Vegas” and just used the thumbnail provided which was of my face smiling into the camera. I am not a good-looking guy and no one gives a crap who Jason is, so the video got 50 views. After 12 years online, it now has almost 100 views. Great.

You don’t have to be a lyrical wizard or a web design expert to make a good thumbnail and title.

In fact, I use a free program called Canva which anyone can sign up for and they have hundreds of YouTube thumbnail templates. Just add a photo and words to the design and it looks professional and amazing.

In terms of title, try to think about what people search in Google when wanting to see a video about the topic you are creating. In the guitar example, a possible title to your video could be “The Best Guitar For Playing Solos”.

In my case, I could have called my Vegas video “How to Enjoy Las Vegas with your friends!” It doesn’t have to be too complicated and the more general the better.

People will forgive me for my face and messy room but not for my poor audio

Lights and Microphones

Two things that make a world of difference but often people ignore are the light and sounds; which you would assume is the main aspect of videos.

Once again you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on lighting set up or microphones to make the sound and light in your videos good.

I sat in my bedroom which had terrible lighting, sat far from the camera so the sound was bad, and left my window open so the noise from the streets drowned out what I was saying.

For those who don’t have lights available, simply filming in the day, close to a window can make a big difference. And choosing a well-lit room is also a good idea.

Try to choose a location with good lighting and if none is available, maybe pick up an LED lamp or two from IKEA. Something that won’t break the bank.

And with microphones as well, most cameras have a built-in microphone but it usually doesn’t sound the best, especially outside with background noise and wind. So having an external microphone like a lapel mike or a USB microphone really improves the sound quality.

I use a lapel mike that cost me 20 dollars from Amazon and it works great.

If you don’t want to watch your OWN video, no one else will either

Look Alive

Once you have all the equipment and visual aspects of your channel ready, make sure your content is interesting.

If you are making a video about a topic, make sure you are enthusiastic about the topic and let it show in your videos. Just rambling on about guitars might keep some enthusiasts hooked, but probably most people will click to another video and never watch another video by you again.

Eye contact with the lens (not display screen), a smile, enthusiasm in your voice, and short bursts of talking help break up a video. Don’t drag on and on like this article. Get to the point quickly.

Having topic titles or little cuts to images or videos of the product or topic you are talking about gives some extra visual pleasure as well.

My rule is I watch the video I created. If it makes me laugh, keeps me interested or I watch it all the way through without wandering off then I will upload it.

Patience

What you will need more than anything to make it on YouTube is patience. Unless you are the unique lucky few who become overnight YouTube successes, you will most likely need to put in a lot of time and effort to be successful. Prepare to upload videos regularly and without any return.

Once you get monetized, build your subscriber base, get views, and make money, your next step will require promoting your videos via social media, watching and commenting on other videos, replying to comments, and trying to find other YouTube channels to do collaborations.

If you put in the time, keep building your following, bettering your quality of videos, and increase your video count, you MAY be able to make a full-time income.

I will admit, I have been making videos since 2008 and really started working hard to build an audience since 2011 but still have not made it to the level of it being full-time.

I think all the mistakes I made, in the beginning, hindered me from growing and I got left behind while everyone else zoomed past. It wasn’t because they were more talented or their videos were better content. They were just good at knowing what people want and packaged their products the right way.

But despite not becoming a full-time YouTube video creator and fulfilling my dream, I still don’t give up. Not because I believe someday I will get there (I might), but because I love making videos and regardless of income, it’s something I will continue to do.

You have to ask yourself, what is making it on YouTube mean to you?

For me, YouTube is a part of my life like eating, sleeping, working, and walking my dog. It’s part of my routine which is why despite the subscriber count and view count, I keep making videos.