Youtube Lessons: My First 75 Videos

75 videos in. Did it! Stick around though, guys. I want to share what I learned in my first 75 videos here on YouTube. Let's go! Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I am Dan from millennialmotivator.ca, helping you learn how to create, engage, and inspire online to grow your business. If you're new to the channel, click that subscribe button down there and the little bell next to it, and you'll get updated next time I go live with a video. I put out videos Monday through Saturday. So if you want to get in on it, figure out how to build your business online, whether it's a YouTube channel, an ecommerce site, maybe you've got a brick-and-mortar store that you're trying to use social media for, this channel is built for you. Today though, what we're looking at is 75 videos on the channel in 2 months. What have I learned? What have I picked up? So we're gonna get right down into it here, guys. Let's go. First thing that I learned here on YouTube, 75 videos in, is consistency is key, but consistency isn't king. Okay, now what do I mean by that? When I started this channel back last week of December in 2017, I made 2 commitments. For those of you that have been around a while, you know those 2 commitments. The first one was Make a video Monday through Saturday for a year. Okay guys, that was the first commitment. The other one was to help one business get off and get started through this channel. So we knocked both of those out of the park already in the first 75 videos. There's a couple new businesses, new YouTube channels, new ideas that are out there and getting started and growing already thanks to this channel. So checkmark, that's done. It's off the list, guys. But creating a video Monday through Saturday for a full year, that's a little more challenging. That takes time and consistency. And what I found is this, while I am committed to hitting that goal, there will come times with my business or my family that this channel has to take a back burner. Now, that's not an insult to you, the community. I always appreciate that you guys are diligent, showing up almost daily, watching what's going on here. But the reality is this, life hits. I could get sick, something could happen, I need to go somewhere, I won't have internet access. There's tons of reasons why you wouldn't be able to post. Now, I made a commitment to do 6 videos a week for a year, and that's so crucial and vital to the success of this channel that I'm committed to making that happen. But I am not gonna sacrifice my business, so my digital marketing consultancy, or my family for the sake of putting one video up. I would encourage you guys out there, if you're considering starting a YouTube channel, make a commitment to yourself. I will do this many videos, 1 a week, 3 a week, 5 a week, 6 a week. What? One a month, whatever it may be, guys. Make your commitment, but realize life happens and you have to be prepared to miss a video. Don't feel bad about it. It's what has to happen. It will be fine. People will recover. But 75 videos in, I also realize that you can't take too many days off in a row. Okay, for me, I think I've maybe missed 2 videos in 2 months. Okay, so not terrible. Even today, this video here I shot this entire video once already, but I didn't have the mic on, on the new gear that I got. So I had to start all over and do it again. It would have been really easy for me to quit and say, no, I'm just not going to do it. I'll shoot a video Monday and make up for it. It'll be fine. There does take a level of commitment to the goal that you set, but don't make things suffer that are more important in life than you putting out your next YouTube video. That's the first thing that I've learned here. on my YouTube channel. Now, second thing that I've learned is this: community, community, community. It's so key, it's so vital. YouTube seems a lot, for the most part anyway, to be considered by creators to be the place where you put out your content and people just consume it. And this is where I think there's critically flawed thinking when it comes to social media as a whole, but even more so here on YouTube. YouTube is about community. Always has been, always will be. The people that grow their channels the largest are about building a community. There are people that follow them loyally, they have conversations with them. That's what you need to do if you want to succeed with your YouTube channel by hitting 75 videos just like this, okay? In 75 videos, I have found the videos that have the utmost success are those that I am encouraging conversation with. The videos that are simple fodder where people pick it up and consume it and that's it, and there's no community value whatsoever, there's no conversations in the comments, People aren't having a dialogue. I'm not engaging effectively in the video. These are things that kill the video. Okay? Creating a community where you're having conversations, you care about people, they know who you are, you're learning about who they are, what their aspirations are, their goals, what their troubles are. I know that those people are out there. Now, I am going to be doing more and more content of that nature. You'll see that I'm going to be trying to, once YouTube figures out what's going on with my channel, I'm going to be going live and helping people look at their websites, their YouTube channels, their social media, to help them figure out how they can improve. I find community is so core and something that's not discussed very often. People like to talk about things like thumbnails and titles and back data and your tags and how long a video's gotta be and the keywords and using subtitles and not using subtitles and all of that stuff, it's there, it exists, it's not wrong, but if you don't have a community, what's the point? Who are you doing your channel for? It can't just be for you, it's gotta be for people that wanna consume the content you're putting out. So make the effort, guys. In the first 75 days, videos, I've realized how crucial, crucial it is for you to be engaging the community. You guys, if you're not creating content for the people out there, you're not doing it right. Even worse, if you're putting your content out there and you're not engaging with the people that are taking the time to leave comments down below, or when you share this content out into your other networks— Twitter, Instagram, Facebook— if you're not doing that and engaging with the comments that happen out on those channels, you're missing a huge opportunity. So if you wanna grow, you wanna be successful on YouTube, take this lesson from my first 75 videos, engage with your community, okay guys? Now, last but not least, the thing that I wanna give you is, in 75 videos on YouTube, I've learned consistency is key, engaging with your community is crucial, and I've learned growing bigger and better over time Is vital. Okay guys, YouTube is not a sprint. You're not gonna take your channel from 0 to 1 million subs overnight. It's not gonna happen. I'm talking generally, of course, because everybody will go, what about this channel? It's true, Will Smith started up last month. He's got 1 million subs. Congrats, Will Smith! Way to go! I'm pumped. Who would have known that a massive Hollywood celebrity like you that had a following, that have people that know who he is, want to see what he's doing, and he grows Exponentially on YouTube. Never saw it coming. I probably saw it coming. Everybody saw it coming, right? It'd be like The Rock starts his YouTube channel. Oh, it's a million subscribers tomorrow. Great, I get it, that makes sense. But for Joe Schmo, for the regular guy like you and me, the ladies out there that are struggling to get their YouTube channel up off the ground, the reality is this, guys: it's not a sprint. It's not on your mark, get set, go, you shoot out 5 videos and you expect a million subscribers. Eh, that's not it, not how it works. The way that YouTube works is this: consistency, community, marathon. Have the long run in your mind. For those of you that have never run a marathon, believe me, it would be like you signing up for the Boston Marathon, running a block, running just, you know, as far as the eye can see, and then quitting and going, this didn't work, I'll never hit the finish line, I won't make it where I want to go. It's true. If you quit a block in, if you quit a month after starting your YouTube channel, 6 months after your YouTube channel, and you're going, well, I'm never gonna hit partner, it's not gonna happen for me, it's just not in the cards. Well, sure, you can use that excuse, but the reality is this, you weren't prepared to put in the time and the effort necessary to run the marathon that is YouTube, okay guys? Here I am, 75 videos in 2 months, okay? Here are the results that that has produced. Already 1,300 subscribers on the channel. So the YouTube Partner Program, if that's the aim that you've got, that's where you wanna go for your YouTube channel, no problem. 1,300 subscribers, check. I'm in position for that aspect of the YouTube Partner Program. What's next? 4,000 hours watched. In 2 months, just 2 months, I have 2,200 hours watched. Okay guys, this didn't happen overnight. This happened by consistently putting up videos that are gonna consistently grab views and watch time to build up that number. Now, when I put out a new video, does it get the most views in a day? Always, always. The newest video gets the most attention for sure. Why? Probably because I'm promoting it the most, probably because it's something that people have been waiting for. When's the next video coming? But the reality is this: all the other videos that have come before it, they're not gone. They haven't disappeared from the platform. They're still there, and they're still picking up the slack for me on the back end. What I love about it is, on a new video like this, the retention, I can guarantee you in the first 48 hours, will be 1:30 to 2 minutes max. I have yet to see a new video go over 2-minute watch time on my channel, okay guys? But if I go back and look at the watch time on any video that is a week or older, the average watch time on those videos, guys, anywhere from 5 to 8 minutes on a daily basis. I am picking up a lot of time on the back end of the videos that I've created, and at the same time, I'm getting the watch time from my new videos. Guys, it works hand in hand. Imagine at 75 videos, I'm picking up hours on the back end. But what if you had 100 videos or 200 or 300 videos? Let's say you had 1,000 videos on the back end. If you had 1,000 videos on YouTube, okay, and you are hitting Let's say maybe 30 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day. In 4 days, just 4 days, if you're hitting 30 minutes on every video a day, you would have your partner program, okay guys? It wouldn't be about having a viral hit, it wouldn't be about how many people saw this or how long did they watch. Really, the name of the game is sheer numbers. If you've got 1,000 videos out there, you are easily gonna be hitting that 4,000-hour watch time, easily. Because all you have to do is, with 4,000 videos out there, hit 60 seconds, hit 1 minute of watch time for 60 days on every one of those videos. It's that simple, guys. Create content consistently, engage in your community, you'll boost your watch time, and aim for that marathon run. Put out as many videos as you can, as often as you can, that are a decent quality, okay? It's gonna be so simple. Are there different tips and tricks out there that I could give you? Probably. But these are the 3 biggest things that I have learned in the first 75 videos here on this channel. I hope they help you guys. I hope it's something that you can use as you move towards either growing your YouTube channel or creating a new YouTube channel, okay? In 75 videos I've learned, be consistent, engage your community, and make sure you've got the long game in mind. It's not an overnight success. If that happens, kudos to you, congratulations. If not, be prepared for the long game. The long ball will get you a lot further on YouTube than a short game, okay guys? So that's it for today. Thank you so much for watching. Make sure you share this out with friends, family, anybody you know. If you are new to the channel, click that subscribe button down below, and I will see you on Monday with a brand new video. Catch you then, guys. See ya.