10 Things To Know Before Starting a YouTube Channel
These are some of the most important things I could think of to help new Creators after a decade of doing this full-time, including policy changes/issues.
YouTube will run ads on your videos before you get monetized. And you will NOT get back pay the ad revenue on those videos. This policy change is from 3 years ago and I don’t want you to get blindsided by it.
You have to activate Live Streams as a feature and wait 24 hours for it to unlock before using it for the very first time.
It’s very rare for videos to break 1000 views, 88% of videos don’t get 1000 views according to 9to5 Google. Less than 2% get 100,000 views. You are over exposed to unicorns by the algorithm and it makes you think everyone is successful. But 90% of views go to the top 3% of channels.
Don’t get discouraged early on, most people don’t “blow up” in a year, or even in their first 100 videos. Outliers are over represented in the community.
- If you’re NOT a tutorial channel don’t focus on SEO… if you are a tutorial or product reviewer absolutely focus on it.
If you’re an entertainment channel focus on Psychology and Emotion in your titles and thumbnails. And optimize your first 30-90 seconds of a video to improve retention and lower drop of rate.
It’s not the average view duration by itself or retention % gets you more impressions. But more like early video abandonment rate, and completion rate signals viewer enjoyment according to Todd Beaupre (YouTube Product Manager).
- There is no such thing as a best video length or best time to upload.
Historically videos of all lengths have done well on YouTube and videos uploaded at any time of day and day of week have performed well.
However, the best way to approach this is to understand your audience and when they are available to watch and what they prefer specifically.
Someone will watch a 40 minute video deconstructing their favorite character…
They will also watch a 7 hour video about the shipping of 2 characters across 15 seasons.
They will also watch a 6 minute book summary.
And they can watch it at 2am or 2pm depending on their habits.
- Gear shouldn’t hold you back from starting but it can hold you up in finishing.
Creators like to say “gear doesn’t matter” but most of us have $3000-$10,000 setups.
And as stupid as it sounds, it’s because of the one time we lost footage we could never get back, or screwed up a once in a lifetime shot.
Thankfully some gear has gotten so good you’ll only ever need to buy it once.
For example if you buy the DJI Mic V2 setup you’ll never have to worry about losing audio again because can dual record with the internal storage on the mic, and directly into camera with the receiver.
We buy cameras that take 2 SD cards because of that one time we formatted the wrong card and didn’t have the footage backed up.
Gear exist to make sure you can create with confidence. Use whatever allows you create with confidence and whatever gives you the least anxiety.
Early on this will be what you can afford and be comfortable with.
Later on it will be what makes you sure you’re not going to screw up and beat yourself up over.
- Don’t worry about what other creators think. Don’t make content to fit in with the YouTube community or ever to clap back at haters. Only make content for the audience that you want support from and to share a community with
Your vibe will attract your tribe. Put the audience first in your mind and it will win their hearts (eventually).
- Monetization Approval shouldn’t be a problem if you’re not using other people’s content. Reused Content Policy is the main issue with monetization these days.
Also the algorithm gets this wrong often enough. Don’t panic, appeal and resubmit. If you’re getting stuck with this ask for help on X from TeamYouTube.
Also should you get hacked you’ll want to reach out there as well.
Once you’re monetized you get chat support. This is on the top right hand corner a few icons to the left as a chat bubble on Desktop.
- The most important aspect of content isn’t quality but VALUE. Most big YouTubers are combining these 2 words when they tell you to make quality content:
Many small YouTubers make quality content, sometimes more so than bigger creators in their niche.
The problem is PERCEIVED VALUE…
This is mostly PACKAGING, we don’t know you’ve made a quality video anymore than we know you wrote a good book…
So we have to guess by a title and cover.., but only if we like the topic and timing can also matter.
You are first disqualified on Whether someone is in the Mood for that Topic (Timing is off, not always your fault).
And then whether they even are remotely interested in that Topic (unaligned taste, might not be your fault)
Then it’s about whether the Title gets their interests and if the Thumbnail is Attractive at a Glance.
You’re prejudged on this without them even giving you and your video a chance.
Think of it like this, “if you can’t attract them at a glance, then they will never even give you a chance”.
So the quality and substance of your content and the experience you deliver doesn’t matter…
If you can’t get them to give the video a chance by clicking on it first.
- A Niche is NOT a prison. Don’t focus on a topic you’re passionate about.
FOCUS ON A COMMUNITY YOU’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT BEING A PART OF.
Your actual niche is the community of people you are excited to show up for and share with. The niche is those humans that you overlap with in your passions and who you create value for by showing up for.
That’s how you should be thinking and why you don’t want to just build an audience but you want to attract one.
And ideally not just over shared interest but same values.
You want to not only be passionate about the same things but passionate about them in the same way.
This will inform your content strategy because you know what those people will desire and value more and most and you will enjoy seeing them enjoy something.
It’s a reciprocal relationship with the audience instead of posting something and hoping they validate you through vanity metrics.
You can replace the words “my niche” with the words “my people”.
Hopefully you found this helpful.