If you’re reading this, you may wonder how to become a YouTuber. You’ve heard all the stories of high-school students becoming millionaires by filming funny skits in their bedroom and posting them on YouTube—you want in on that action!
While becoming a famous YouTuber like Mr. Beast overnight isn’t exactly realistic, there are some things you can do to help improve your chances of making it big on YouTube. Here are the six most important things you need to know about becoming a successful YouTuber.
Decide What Kind of YouTube Channel You Want
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You can choose from a range of different kinds of YouTube channels, from entertainment to educational videos. What you want your YouTube channel to be about is up to you. Ask yourself the following questions.
- Do you have a personal interest or hobby easily transferable into an entertaining video series, like video game guides, origami tutorials, and how-to recipes?
- Are you passionate about a particular subject, like gardening or cooking?
- Are you knowledgeable in an academic field or skilled in a trade such as plumbing or woodworking?
- Is there something special about yourself (such as your life story) that would make for compelling viewing?
If you are confident and can relate to any of the questions above, you are ready to be a vlogger on YouTube.
Define What Success Means to You
Take MKBHD, for example. He started from scratch with a low-quality setting. But he was consistent and had specific goals in mind.
There are a lot of ways to measure success in life. For some people, success may mean being wealthy enough to travel the world, while others may be looking for a job they love. For many, the definition of success means impacting people’s lives by connecting with them through YouTube videos.
Successful YouTube tries to challenge creatively, push themselves to think bigger, and not worry too much about what happens if it doesn’t work out in the long run because that kind of mentality will never let you become successful.
We all strive for success, but we must figure out what it means to achieve it. When deciding how to become a YouTuber, you need to define your goals so that when times get tough, or the motivation starts wearing off, you know exactly why you’re doing this and how close you are to achieving your goal.
Once you finalize what you want to talk about, pick the name for your channel. For example, my name is Lana Reinhardt, so I’d call my YouTube channel “Lana’s Life.”
Start A Content Calendar
Once you’ve come up with your YouTube channel idea, it’s time to decide what content you will upload. Remember, YouTube is not TV- you can’t expect anyone to be able to tune in at any given time and wait for your video.
Instead, you should use a calendar app like Google Calendar or Outlook (or whatever else your phone uses) so that people know when new videos are coming out. This way, people could subscribe and watch them whenever they’re free.
Simply put, a content calendar means an accurate plan for that month’s releases gathered and sorted at the beginning of each month.
Stay Informed About Your Niche
Now that you know how to be a YouTuber, let’s dive into niche expertise. Knowing how to maintain a niche will help keep your viewers coming back. If you plan to be an educational YouTuber, research the latest trends in education to provide viewers with fresh content.
In fashion, know what new brands are breaking into the industry and stay up to date on what is this season so you can dress appropriately for each video. Knowing the latest developments in your area of expertise will allow you to create informative videos people want to watch.
Get A Great Camera and Lighting Rig
You need a good quality vlogger camera and microphone set up to be a vlogger on YouTube. And if you have an iPhone lying around, FineCam would be a great option to consider. The software lets you use your iPhone as the main cam. You get to utilize the full power of the iPhone camera system for your YouTube videos. Here’s an article on how to use iPhone as a webcam to create YouTube content using FineCam.
Top features of FineCam
- 4K UHD Support.
- HDR Color Support.
- Wide Angle Camera.
- Portrait Mode.
- Connect over Wi-Fi/USB.
- Smart Enhancement
- Auto Focus
- Advanced Adjustment
- 60+ effects.
For a better viewing experience, the video should be filmed in 1080P FHD at least.
We recommend shooting videos with an external microphone like the Rode VideoMic Pro, which can reduce unwanted noise in your recording, such as wind or traffic outside. And once you upload your video, add tags related to what it is about, so people will find it easier when searching.
Recommended Article: 7 Awesome Voice Changer for YouTube Videos 2023
Give Importance to YouTube SEO
YouTube SEO is about optimizing your YouTube videos for search engines. If you optimize correctly, you’ll be able to get new views and subscribers by showing up in the suggested list at the top of Google.
One important thing to remember is that this only works if your content is interesting. If it’s not, no matter how much SEO work you do on it, it won’t do any good. Here are some key things to keep in mind when it comes to YouTube SEO:
- Use keyword research tools such as Ahrefs or SEMrush to figure out the common queries in your niche.
- Read through online forums such as Quora and Google Webmaster Central to understand best practices for YouTube SEO.
- Include the target keyword and its variants in your YouTube video description. But don’t make it look too repetitive.
- Deep dive into your YouTube analytics to understand the demography and metrics. Come up with predictions based on this data and behavioral analytics.
- Turn on automatic captioning. It helps SEO, especially if your videos are in English and your target audience is English speakers.
Promote Your Channel and Videos
Shameless self-promotion is acceptable for a beginner. Look for niche-related communities on Reddit, Mastodon, Discord, Facebook Groups, Twitter Spaces, and Slack. Try to build a meaningful relationship with these communities and let them know you’ve created a new channel (or video). Share the links and encourage them to share them with their friends if they like them.
Another promotional option is running Google Ads, particularly YouTube overlay ads. Run Google Ads if you can invest extra money in promotions.
Bonus Tip: Optimize Your YouTube Channel
Strategic SEO for YouTube is critical for getting your videos to surface in the search results. This is especially true for new creators and smaller channels that have yet to build a substantial and loyal subscriber base. Understanding and researching the right keywords for your content will help the platform to return one of your videos in response to a viewer’s question on that topic.
How do you actually optimize your content to target those keywords? A tool like TubeBuddy’s SEO Studio is critical for implementing video SEO as part of a creator’s workflow. This tool will help you:
- Optimize your video title, video description, and tags
- Ensure that your keywords are working as hard as possible to give you the most exposure on YouTube
Conclusion
There’s no shortcut to the question, “how to become a successful YouTuber.” The payoff for starting a YouTube channel will likely be months or maybe years away, and if you quit now, you’ll never know if it would have been a success.
It would be best to set different types of goals as well. Short-term and long-term. Short-term goals can include several subscribers or views on your videos in a month or year. Long-term goals could be something like getting 1 million subscribers by the time you’re 30 years old.
And lastly, as far as becoming successful goes, remember that everyone has their definition of success, so do what makes YOU happy! Good luck and be a successful YouTuber!
