How To Make Your First YouTube Video - Everything You Need To Know!

When I decided to start a YouTube channel, I had no idea how to make a YouTube video. So I just wong it and it was a total disaster. If you're anything like me, you love rules or a checklist to follow when you're doing something new like YouTube. So I want you to avoid the disasters that I had when I was making my first YouTube video. And I want to help you make your first YouTube video or your next YouTube video even better. In this video, I'm going to walk you through, step by step, how to make a YouTube video. We're talking equipment, we're talking background. If you're a lover, checklist just like me. Give this video a like and let's go. I have been creating YouTube videos for over four years and I've created about 400 videos of my own along with studying countless other YouTube channels. So I've started to figure out what kind of works well here on YouTube. Here's the good news for you. Your videos do not have to be perfection. They do not need to be shot on a high end camera, high end microphones, you do not need to get your hair and makeup professionally done. And most importantly, you do not need a Pinterest pretty background to shoot videos for YouTube. What you do need is good content your target audience actually wants to hear about. If you're not sure what that content should be, I have a video for you. I will link it right up here for you to check out after this video. But let's jump into these steps to take. When creating your very first YouTube video or the next one you're about to create. We're going to first talk about the equipment that you need because I know this tends to be a big hurdle. You think you need to buy a fancy camera, but you don't. I'm going to tell you right now the best place to get started with is your phone or an iPad if you have one. The cameras on these devices are perfectly suitable for creating YouTube videos. And what you might not even know is a lot of the videos that you are watching on YouTube are shot by iPhones or androids or iPads. If you take anything away from this video, I want you to take away that you can get started creating video content here on YouTube or with equipment that you already have. You see the mistake that I made when I got started is I thought I needed a fancy DSLR camera. Luckily my mom had one so I borrowed it from her. I shot about four videos thinking that was pretty awesome. I had this fancy camera and it was all great until I played back that footage. It was dark, the lighting was dark, the camera was blurry because I had no idea what I was doing on a DSLR camera. And the audio was pretty crappy as well. I made it too difficult. I already had a webcam that was a great place to start and I'm going to link all of my best resources for equipment down in the description box. If you want to check out any of the equipment that I think is great to start with, you can look down there. I started with my webcam, I shot my videos with my webcam until I then graduated to a Canon G7X which is what I shoot on. Now if you have a computer or a laptop, so many of these devices have cameras on them as well, you can get started there. But the key here is to use equipment that you already have. The more difficult camera you use, the more it's going to give you a reason to procrastinate with moving forward with video. Get started with your webcam, get started with your laptop camera, get started with your phone and make your first YouTube video. The next issue tends to be audio because if your audio isn't great, people aren't going to want to listen to it and have I had my journey with audio. Trust me, I am the least tech person you know. So I really try to make my camera set up my audio setup. Everything that I do to shoot my videos I as simple as possible for me to actually do. Seriously, the only reason why I ever want a new iPhone is because my old iPhone ran out of storage and I just need more space for photos. I don't care about all the other fancy tech stuff, but audio is a great place to invest in if you're going to decide to put some money into your equipment. Now this doesn't have to be super expensive. I have listed below some of the microphones that are a great start, like the ATR2100 which is under $80, the Blue Yeti which I'm using right now which is actually under $100 and a rode Smart lavalier mic which you can use on your iPhones for under $80 as well. Again, no need to get super complicated here. What usually happens when you do buy a microphone is you end up not liking the quality. And what happened for me with my blue Yeti was I didn't clearly understand the settings and the same happened with my camera as well. So when you do pick some equipment, take the time to watch YouTube videos about what settings it should be at and how to get the best quality from the equipment that you have. You might think that it's not getting the quality you want it to be, but it could be user error. And for me, it was total user error. Again, with audio, sometimes you can get, like, this echoey sound. And if you are in a room that doesn't have carpeting, that's where you're going to get that. This room particularly is a tile room. So every time I shoot videos, I need to throw down blankets and pillows to really absorb the sound so you all can hear. Great audio quality. And if I just shot my video without putting down these blankets, it would sound really echoey. And you'd probably want to click off listening to this one. The third piece of equipment to think about is lighting. And here's the best part about lighting. It is absolutely free. You can totally get away by using natural light. Natural light is the best lighting that you can get. Now, I understand we always can't use beautiful natural light. So some great options for lighting aren't that expensive. You can get these umbrella lights off of Amazon for under $50. I currently use softboxes and a ring light when I am filming. And one also thing that I realized is changing the settings in my camera to up the ISO. I think that's what it was to give the camera lens a wider opening to let more light in. And don't quote me on that. Like I said, I'm not a tech person. All I know is I watched a video on how to adjust my manual settings here on my camera, and I was able to get a brighter look without any extra lighting. All right, so you got all your gear ready to roll, and your setting can be super simple. In fact, I'll show you exactly what my setting looks like right now. You can see, you don't see all of the stuff going on around here. You don't see them in yoga pants. You don't see the. The lighting going on, the messy printer over there, all the pillows and blankets on the floor. So, again, keep things simple and just think about what is actually in the camera frame. All right, now that you have all your equipment and your gear in place, you're ready to start making that video. But there's one thing that you need to do first when you make videos for YouTube, you need to have a plan. I repeat, you need to have a plan. Do not go into this process of making YouTube videos without knowing what you're actually going to be talking about. It actually suggests creating your plan in this specific order. Come up with your video title, decide on your video thumbnail. Then write your actual video content or your video script. Then after you're done shooting the A roll, which is what I'm talking to you right now on, then you can add all that video pizzazz like screen tutorials, B roll footage, or anything like that. Now let's talk about getting camera ready. And for fellow females that might be sprucing this up a bit. But don't worry, you don't have to do a whole heck of a lot to become camera ready. You don't need to go get professional hair and makeup done. You need to be you. You need to feel comfortable in shooting your video. So for me, I feel comfortable showing up on video. When I put some makeup on, I put some mascara on, and I just do this when I'm shooting my YouTube videos. On a normal day, I don't really wear that much makeup. You also want to pick something that you're going to be comfortable in. In fact, I'm shooting in a sweatshirt today because that's what I had on. When I started putting my makeup on. I thought, you know what? I'm feeling comfortable in this sweatshirt. I'm just gonna shoot my video in this sweatshirt. But some things to think about when you are picking what to wear for your videos, think about the coloring and what your skin tone really goes well with. For me, I know wearing dark colors like blacks and navy blues really wash me out. So I tend to wear kind of royal blues blush grays so that my shirt doesn't wash my complexion out. Here's some extra tips. When you're all finished and ready to shoot your videos. When it comes time to film, make sure your camera is slightly above eye level. That way you're not looking down and kind of getting a not so flattering shot of this right here. And you're not too far up that it just looks awkward. You just want the camera lens slightly above eye level. Also, make sure you're not too close to the screen because then we might be seeing super close shots of your nose holes and if you're anything like me, sometimes shots of lipstick on your teeth. So just make sure you have a good spatial distance between you and the camera. You also just want to check your background. Make sure there's nothing going on in this little square. Remember, I got a total mess going on below me, but I'm just making sure this little square right here looks presentable and good for you to see. One more tip before you actually hit record is don't overthink this. Just let it feel like you're talking to your friend on camera or you're really trying to help somebody on the other end of the camera. Don't get into your head. Don't overthink it again. Just be you, and your personality is going to connect with your target audience. Trust me on this one. All right, now it's time to hit that record button and start actually filming your videos. Here are some of my best pieces of advice for you. During this filming time, you want to make sure you're looking directly into the lens of the camera, like that little circle lens. If you're on your phone, make sure you're looking right into this right here. Because what can tend to happen is we want to look at the viewfinder. If I look at the viewfinder, I'm not looking directly at you, I'm looking over you. So just make sure you're looking directly into the lens of your camera. Next, you want to make sure you have some energy, and you may feel like you're going a little bit overboard with the energy, but the camera tends to suck out your energy. I always like to listen to some music right before I film to bump up my energy and make sure I just turn the knob of my energy just a little bit. I may look crazy to normal people seeing me right now, but on camera, the energy can be sucked out. So just add some extra energy. I actually don't recommend reading from teleprompters. Generally, you can tell when you're reading from teleprompters. What I actually do is I have my script on my computer where I am looking at it every couple lines and then looking back at the camera and sharing. So I will deliver a couple lines, take a break, then I will look over at my computer to see what my next line is, pause and and deliver my content again. That way, I'm just cutting out the pauses. I don't have to remember all my lines, and I'm not reading from a teleprompter. The next piece of advice is to keep it simple. Talk about things that you already know about. Talk about things that you're passionate about, and it'll be a lot easier for you to film, to remember what you're saying, and to have energy around the topic that you're actually talking about. Also, when you're done filming, don't forget to take a thumbnail. That thumbnail photo can tend to be the hardest piece of of content that you get for your video, but it's one of the most Critical pieces. So whenever I'm done shooting my videos, I turn my camera on self timer and take a couple pictures of myself to use as thumbnails. Now let's move on to the editing process. So here's the deal. Your editing does not have to be super fancy. Imovie is a great video editor for anybody on Mac products like an iPhone, iPad, a MacBook Pro. Use iMovie to get started. Some other great editing options for PC users are Filmora, Camtasia. Those are great beginner pieces of software for you to use to start editing your videos. Remember, you don't want to make the editing process super complicated. Otherwise that's just a barrier for you to create video content. Keep the editing super simple. Focus on the quality of the content that you are sharing. So the first thing you're going to do is just go through that entire video and cut out all your mistakes and all your pauses. Just go straight through and do that. Remember, if you have a plan in place, you're going to have a lot less pausing and your video is going to be very succinct. So you know what to cut out and where to cut those mistakes out. There's no need to add lots of transitions or pop ups or text. Remember, simple is better when it comes to editing. You can also add music if you want to. Remember to make sure that music is copyright free. I suggest the best place to get music options is right here in the YouTube studio. Those are all free and available for you to use. Now the last steps are going to be for you to export that video from your editing software and upload it to YouTube. And here's the honest truth when it comes to making videos on YouTube. Once you upload that video to YouTube, nothing might even happen. Which is probably a good thing because those first videos I'm going to guess are going to be pretty cringe worthy. I know my first videos are. I've shared that with you. And so the more you do this process and the more you get comfortable on video, the better your videos are going to get and the more likely people are going to find, find them and watch them. So don't get totally unmotivated if you post a video and maybe you only get five views, but if you are ready to go all in with your YouTube videos and really make sure you're creating a YouTube strategy that grows your YouTube channel and then in return grows your business. I'm going to be hosting a free training that's going to share with you the six steps to creating a YouTube strategy that actually grows your email list. I'm going to be teaching you the exact things to say in your video to drive you more people to your videos to to drive those people onto your email list and convert to course sales clients into money for your business. I'm going to link that training right up here on a card and also down in the description box. All you need to do is pop over there, put in your email address, and I will send you the link to that live training. And while you wait for that training to happen, make sure you watch this video that's on your screen right now, because it's going to get you started with what you should and shouldn't say on your very first video. So make sure you click that video right now, and I'll see you over there. So.