18 HUGE MISTAKES MADE ON FIRST YOUTUBE VIDEOS!

There are quite a few things that could go wrong when you go to publish your first YouTube video or really any YouTube video. If you want to make sure every single video you publish here on YouTube does its job, gets views and drive your business leads. Make sure you continue watching because I'm going to share with you 18 mistakes I see creators and business owners make all the time here on YouTube. Ready to make sure your first YouTube video doesn't fall into any of these mistakes? Hit that like button and let's dig in. Hey guys, welcome back. My name is Trena. If you are new here and this channel is the place for business owners, entrepreneurs and content creators who really want to grow their business organically with online video. So we are going to rapid fire these 18 mistakes so you can make sure you don't make any of them when you publish your first YouTube video or your next one. The first mistake that I see is people thinking about their title after they've already shot their video. Like you're uploading your video and you're trying to think, what's the best title for this? That's not what you want to do when you're planning your content. You really want to think about that title before you even shoot your video. So, so you can make sure your hook, your first five to 15 seconds really ties into the title because that's what the viewer is clicking on. They're clicking on your video based on that title. So you want to make sure they're reassured in the hook of your video that the title matches up to what you're going to say. The second mistake I see is not putting time into thumbnails. And I know thumbnails can be a bit of a tedious job and trying to figure out the best way to do it, especially if you aren't a graphic designer like me. But your thumbnail is your primary marketing material. It's what's going to stop the SC scroll on YouTube and get people to click your video. So you really want to think about what you can do in your thumbnail to get people to stop scrolling and click on your video versus everybody else's. And one of the easiest ways to make thumbnails a little bit easier is spend some time in a program like Canva or PicMonkey and create like four to five templates. That way you can just pop your photo from your thumbnail on one of those templates and cycle through them to make the process a lot easier. The third mistake is not scrolling. Scripting your content in a way that you're grabbing attention in the first five to 15 seconds. Listen, your first five to 10 seconds is really going to make or break your content. This is generally where we see the hugest drop in audience retention. So you want to think ahead of time. What's the best way you can grab their attention in that first five seconds? I really like to make my hook personal, make sure I'm connecting with you. Also want to make sure it's kind of fast paced. So can you add call out text, can you add some kind of B roll so that it's really super quick so that want to stay watching? The fourth mistake is not having a call to action at the end of your video. Specifically for business owners. Now business owners, we really want to use YouTube to grow our email list, right? But we have to balance that with also pleasing YouTube here. So I would say every other video you have a call to action to your free opt in to your webinar, to your website or your services page, wherever you want to send them. And then the other videos you need to be having a very strong call to action to watch another video, more detailed, a specific video. So you need to really pitch that next video to watch to increase your end screen click through rate, which is so important here on YouTube. The next mistake is research burnout. So many students inside of Video Strategy Academy come to me saying, trina, I've been researching for hours trying to find the perfect tag or the perfect keyword for my video. Stop. This isn't getting you anywhere. I always like to advise them to set a timer, 15 to 20 minutes max on determining what content you're going to create and just do it. Because the problem is you're going to research your eyeballs out and you're not making any progress. So stop wasting your time trying to find the perfect tag or the perfect keyword because spoiler alert, it doesn't exist and just start creating content after about 20 minutes of researching. Mistake number six is not getting to your content quick enough and one that I struggle with in the beginning. I know you want to connect with your audience and you want to be chatty, but someone brand new to your content is probably clicking on your video for the value you pitched in your title that you planned in advance. So you want to make sure you're getting to the really meat of your content within the first 20 to 30 seconds. Remember that hook we talked about? That hook's got to be about 10 to 15 seconds. Your intro where you introduce yourself, where I say what this channel is for Got to be about five seconds and you're really jumping into the meat of the content within 30 seconds max. Number seven is signaling your videos over before having your call to action. Remember we talked about a call to action earlier. But what I see so many people doing is they'll say in my final step or in conclusion or to wrap this video up, as soon as you say that your viewers are gone, they're going to that next video and suggested or they're going back to search. You need to go seamlessly from your content to your call to action. So if you watch at the end of this video, if you stay to the end, you'll see how I transition to, into my call to action for my YouTube roadmap. Mistake number eight is not sharing your videos. So a lot of people think, you know, we said it here on YouTube, set it and forget it and it's going to do all this magic. You've got to really promote yourself, especially when you're getting started on YouTube. If you have an email list, tell your email list if you have followers on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, if that exists, tell people, share your content, let them know it's out there. Use your built in audience to, to help you build your audience on YouTube. The more people you can get to watch that video that want to support you, the quicker YouTube is going to start picking you up and recommending you to more content. So make sure you're sharing your content and not just sitting it there on YouTube. Now mistake number nine is sharing your video with the wrong people. What I mean by this is if you've heard like Instagram Pods, there are YouTube pods where you share your video on a Facebook page group and people go and watch it. But the thing is those people aren't your target audience most of the time. And so what they may do is they may click over there, they may like it, and they don't watch the entire video. So what happens is YouTube sees that the video isn't keeping people's attention throughout the entire video. So that signals to them that this content isn't that good since people aren't watching it the whole way through. So you want to make sure you're not just dropping your YouTube link into Facebook groups or into YouTube pods because it's not going to help you out, it's going to end up hurting you. Mistake number 10 is being too niche. And you're probably thinking like Trina, wait, you tell me. Niche, niche, niche. But what happens is you can get too niche that people aren't even actually searching what you are talking about. So for example, you may think about a niche. Busy moms who need to plan better. Well, yes, that niche works, but if you're just talking about planning over and over, they may not be searching that. So you want to build that out a little bit maybe. Yes, it is busy moms and that's your niche. What are busy moms struggling with? Are they struggling with meal prep? Are they struggling with exercise routines? Are they struggling with balancing their schedule? So don't go so specific that it's going to be really hard for people to find you. Or people aren't even searching that niche into YouTube. The next mistake is not giving people a question to actually answer in the comments. So if you're struggling with getting people to engage on your videos, are you asking them to, are you giving them a question to make it super simple for them? I even suggest putting your question in the comments as well. Pin it to the top so people can start answering that question and know what to post in your video. They're not going to just magically start posting comments if you aren't asking them to engage. Number 12 goes along with number 11 and that is not responding back. And I'm guilty of this too. I would just run out of time. Like there was not enough time in the day. But now I have a daily to do list that reoccurs every single day. And I spend five to 10 minutes every single day responding to comments on my YouTube channel. Even if there's just one comment on your YouTube channel, respond to it. Engage with that one person who took the time out of their day to leave you a comment. The next mistake is not adding description box content. Now this one is a little tricky because you might be thinking, what should I even post? So I have a video on that that breaks down everything that you need to be putting in that description box content. But you really want to ensure you're putting a summary in there so YouTube knows what that video is about. You also want to make sure you have links to your other YouTube videos because you want to get people to watch more content so that YouTube knows your videos and your channel is an asset to them and they recommend more of your content. You also want to drop in your link to your lead magnet or your webinar or however you're getting people on your email list. You can put that in your description box. Don't leave that empty. The next mistake is bad audio and lighting. And I'm not telling you to Go out and buy all the fancy equipment. Just use what you have. For one, you can use a cell phone. This is the greatest camera you can get that you already have. And the best way to get great lighting is to set it in a window. So all I would need to do to use this if I didn't have my own lighting is just stick it in this windowsill, prop it up right here and record, record from there. That natural light is going to be the best lighting that you're going to get. Not even all the fancy lighting equipment will be better than natural light. When it comes to audio, usually the biggest problem is echo. And so one thing that I do in this particular room is lay blankets down because it's a tile room, so there's a lot of echoing. So I lay blankets and comforters and pillows down to make my audio better. Mistake number 15 is not being you. And look, I know it is kind of scary and vulnerable to be talking to this camera lens thinking anybody can watch this content. And I've struggled with it for a long time because my background is in business and I have a master's degree in business. And so a lot of my background is kind of like this suit and tie, button up, professional person. But that does not connect with my audience. They want to connect with a real life human being, somebody that's being them. And yes, I'm going to attract some people and yes, I'm going to detract. Is that a word? Some people. And that's fine. I'm specifically for a certain type of person. And if I'm not for you, that is fine. I'm not going to be for everybody. But when you try to put yourself in this box and try to be perfect and be something for everybody, nobody's going to end up connecting with you because nobody connects with a robot. So really try your best to be you. Let your stumbles in your video. Let your crazy hair in your video. If you talk with your hands like I do, let that in your videos because that's what's going to connect with people. The next mistake is not getting a workflow or process in place. Now, if you're going to be on YouTube, it's important to stay consistent. And if you're a business owner or content creator, you're probably creating consistent content anyways. So if you're going to be constantly creating video content, you need to put a system in place. I specifically use asana. I have every single step that I do inside of asana so that I make sure I Don't miss anything because there's nothing worse than going to upload your video and realize, oh, you didn't take a thumbnail photo or oh, you didn't do that ending for Facebook. So if you want to grab my workflow, I do have it for sale. I'll link to it down below. I believe the link is streamalittle.com/youtubeworkflow. But again, if you want that, I will put that in the description box for you. Moving right along to the next mistake. And that is not creating templates. And by templates I mean workflow templates, end screen templates, thumbnail templates, text templates. So a lot of the times I tell you to use text callout and sometimes that can be time consuming. But once you create one, then you can just copy and paste it using your brand fonts and your brand colors on all your other videos. Another client that I have, she creates her own title screens in Canva. You can create your own text callouts in Canva as well. And once you create that one time, you just have to duplicate it for every single video changing out the text or changing out whatever it is you wanted to say in that callout. Another mistake is not looking at your data. And it's scary. In YouTube analytics there's a lot of numbers and for me, I wasn't a numbers person and I pretty much avoided that for a long time. But YouTube gives you all the information in your analytics to tell you how to succeed on YouTube. So if you really want to dig into your analytics and figure out what it's actually saying, make sure you watch the video that I'm putting on the screen right now because that shows you exactly how. I analyze all the all of my clients channels and my channel as well to figure out what kind of content I should be creating to grow my channel. Now if you're ready to get serious with YouTube and you want to make sure your channel is set up for success so that your videos are driving more views and more leads to your business, make sure you grab my roadmap. It's 15 pages of pure value and links to tutorials to show you how to do things like create your about section, create your channel banner. So click the link on your screen right now or go down into the Description description box and click that link. Once you download that and you're ready to get started on YouTube, make sure you watch the video that's on your screen right now because it's going to give you some tips and some advice on how to feel confident on video. So if that's something you've been struggling with, I'm going to break down all the things that I've done to get comfortable on camera. So click that video on your screen right now and I'll see you over there.