Ready to Start A YouTube Channel... here's what I'd do

First of all, it's absolutely not too late to be getting started with YouTube right now. Or if you have a YouTube channel or have a dusty YouTube channel, it's not too late to crank it up a notch or dust it off. But if you do want to take YouTube seriously, you cannot be using outdated YouTube tactics. If you want to see the results, if you want to take your YouTube channel to that next level, if you want to use YouTube as like this evergreen lead generation or sales machine, you've got to do what what is working on YouTube right now. And I'm going to show you exactly what you should be doing if you're ready to take YouTube seriously. I know what I'm talking about. I know what's working on YouTube right now. Because in my YouTube agency, myself and my strategist publish over 60 videos a month and we're constantly analyzing what's working, what's not, what are trends that we are seeing. And so if you want real time data of what will work on YouTube in 2022, this is exactly what you need to be listening to. First of all, you have got to do some research. And I am not saying keyword research. I think I need a shirt that says no keyword research or skip the keyword research. While there is a place for keyword research, it is not the end all be all of what content you should be creating on YouTube or how you should title your video. You can use keyword research to do that, generate ideas based on keywords that people are searching for. But that should not be your entitled package of your video or that stamp of approval that this is the video I'm going to do. You need to go little bit further in your research. Now if you watched this video that I will link to, I dive into specifically market research and what you should be looking at and how you can go about doing that. So I'm going to link to that video down below and I'll mention it at the end of this video as well so you can see what kind of research that I'm talking about. But the next thing that I do want to talk about is niche. You've probably heard this on YouTube, if you don't have a niche like you need a niche before you get started. I'm really shifting the way I feel about this. First of all, I'm shifting the way I feel about this with my own experience on YouTube and then I'm going to share with you what I think you should do instead. So when I got started on YouTube, I knew niching, that's what you needed to do. So I tripled down on YouTube education, right? Just talking about YouTube, how to grow a YouTube channel, how to get views, how to grow a YouTube channel. And that ended up being the only thing that I talked about, which that's what you hear here on YouTube is like talk about one thing over and over again. But what it did was stale. My audience, my audience, you that are watching me were like, trina, I get it. You've said it again and again. This is after five years of creating content. And what I realized was it's not necessarily about the niche as in topic, but the niche as in your target audience. Who are you talking to? What kind of content are they wanting to hear about? Because I didn't clearly understand who you were that was watching me. I made assumptions, I said, okay, I have a niche, I'm good to go. And I didn't clearly understand what it was you as an audience needed from me and where your pain points were. And it wasn't just YouTube. So if you're wanting to get started on YouTube right now, sit down and think about your target audience. Who are they? And I'm not just saying, you know, demographics, male, female, age, where they live, Think about where are they at in their life stages, right? Think about what are the problems that they're having. Think about what are their dreams that they are wanting to do. And then try to find channels on YouTube that you think think they are watching. And I don't mean the same people in your niche, I mean broader. So for me, again, I talk predominantly about YouTube. I'm a YouTube strategist. But you, as my audience, are interested in different things like content creation, the loads of content creation videos I just created the past couple of weeks. You're interested in learning more about video editing, you're interested in learning more about canva. I don't know how many of you popped up in my couple of comments in the last videos about wanting a Canva video. And these are topics that aren't on niche, but my target audience, you guys want this. And so my target audience niche needs this. And so I want you to again, look at people your audience is watching and what are they talking about and how can you tie that into your expertise? Like I said in my last video, I've looked at Vanessa Lau as somebody that I would want to align with because I feel like my audience is very similar to her. So what is she talking about? Yes, she's talking about Instagram, but how can I put the spin on my content around the way she's talking about her Instagram content. Also love what Aaron on Demand talks about in her topics about branding as well. And even if you look at Sunny, who's been a YouTube educator for just as long as I have, she's branched out into different topics and just doesn't talk about YouTube. Why? Because she's talking about the topics that her audience wants. Her niche audience wants, not her niche topic. Okay, so what I would recommend, here's kind of like your action step. Get on YouTube, do some market research and see who is your audience watching on what are the topics that are the most popular on that channel. Because then that audience could potentially, potentially be recommended your content and you're going to see quicker results on the homepage and on suggested. Let's take this a step further. Let me give you a couple examples. Let's take Brittany Long for an example. She's a friend of mine. I'm doing some work on her YouTube channel. So she is talking about Evergreen Emails Explained. If we go to her about section, you can see the purpose of her YouTube channel empowers her viewers with information. Britney looks like she's targeting entrepreneurs. I know that. I know Britney. And so while she's honing in on Evergreen Emails, her audience is business owners. So they're struggling with other things like automation, maybe sales funnels, those types of things. So what I would do for Britney to figure out, you know, who is my audience watching? Well, for one email, right. So we could do email marketing for beginners. I'm going to see what YouTube has here, what types of content are showing up. And the key that I'm looking for are topics that are performing well when I mean, well, they're getting more views and the channel has subscribers. So I have a plugin that is Vidiq that just shows me the subscriber number right here on the page and so of going to their actual channel. But you can just go to these people's channel and see what their subscribers are. But when we find a video that has more views than the channel has subscribers, we know there's something about that topic that really interests people. So I'm going to go through here. I'm looking, I'm looking. Nothing is popping out right now in this topic because you can see 157,000 views, 361,000 subscribers. So again, I'm just going to scroll through here. This is the research that I would go through to really figure out what topic to talk about. All right, so I'm not seeing email marketing really for beginners really stand out. So what if we looked at email marketing tips? Again, this is just helping me filter through what would be good topics. Good as in not wasting my time creating it because my audience is looking for it. I want to ensure that. So again, we're going to scroll through here, do the same kind of exercise. Now here's one. This one has 173,000 views and 164,000 subscribers. So email marketing secrets. Here's what's working. Now that could be a topic. I'm going to, you know, say that in an idea bucket. I like to keep all my ideas in asana. I'm really looking. Here we go. Email marketing best practices. So this video is four years old, but it has 175,000 views and only 85,000 subscribers. There's something about that topic. The next thing I would do is does this channel resonate with my audience? Would my audience be watching this channel? So I could click over here to Marketing360 diving into this in determining would my target audience be watching this? I feel like Britney's target audience may be watching Alex. So you can see Alex has four proven email marketing templates. While it's not performing overly well, you know, 154,000 subscribers. I could still go to Alex's channel and when we go to his videos and we go sort by most popular and see if she's talking about any email topics here. Okay, so it looks like this email one is the best performing one. So I would add on my list a video that I would want to create is proven email marketing templates or email marketing templates, type video. So again, I'm going to go back up here to email marketing. And again, this is going to take time. This is what separates you from everybody else. This what's what separates channels from getting views and subscribers to not performing at all. So like email marketing, let's just do email marketing as a general topic. Then you could go to filters and you could go to channel and see if there's any specific channels focusing on email marketing and you could dive in in that way. Let's take another example. Let's go with Ashlyn, who is a copywriter. She talks a lot about sales, copywriting, conversion, copywriting website copy. And she talks to creatives like photographers, calligrapher is calligraphy and online businesses. So what I would do is we could type in again, we can get a sense of her ideas, her content here we could type in sales page, copywriting and again, we are going to see first of all videos that are shown to us. Then we're going to want to look at channels. So we know that Alex is a great channel for her audience, that her audience is watching it. So we use Alex's channel a lot to figure out what kind of content that her audience would really like. We also see that maybe Miles Becker Beckler, we could go to his channel and see when you type in sales page copywriting. This plugin that I have here is showing me top channels for the search term. So that helps me kind of figure that out, speed it up as well. So once we have some ideas, what should you do? Let's go to this video, for example. What I would do to take it. That next step is dive into the comments. This is huge market research. This is going to be gold, a gold mine for you. This is really going to help you figure out what your audience wants. So again, if we're scrolling through here, can you make a video on how to make the solution believable? Maybe that's a question that you could answer in a video. Copywriting exercises to do every day to enhance my skill. There's another video idea because these are people on YouTube watching the content you're going to be creating. So you're getting the exact request that your audience wants from you. And so taking the time to do this is going to be much more valuable than taking the time to do keyword research. One other thing that I wanted to point out, you could use a tool like Vidiq to see if videos are still getting views. So you can see this video is getting 0.4 views per hour. So if you were to show up in their suggested videos over here, there's not a lot of traffic for this particular video. But if we go to one of her more popular videos, we go to sort by most popular something about sales pages here. 5 copywriting exercises how to write better sales copy. And we can see how many views it's still getting per hour. So here's the power of YouTube, my friend. This video is from 2019 and today is January 2022. It's getting 14 views per hour. Times that by 24 hours. How many views is that getting per day that you could potentially get traffic from in the suggested videos? So you could use a tool like that to see trying to align with this content would be beneficial to you or not. So I think it goes without saying the very first thing that you should do to take YouTube seriously is that research and defining your target audience. Now let's talk about the content that you're creating because I think it's also important that while 2020 has allowed us to loosen up the style of videos that we create, they don't have to be so professional. They do have to have a level of quality to them. So again, if you're Getting started on YouTube in 2022, your videos need to have some quality. What am I talking about? Quality? 1. Do not repurpose Facebook lives here on YouTube. The quality is not going to cut it. If people aren't watching your videos. YouTube's not going to recommend it to people. 2. Do not record your videos through zoom zoom. Just like any kind of live is through the Internet and you're not going to get the crispest, best quality as possible when you record through Zoom. 3. Do not repurpose a podcast episode. I've got an entire video coming out on video podcasts. You want my opinion and the data and the facts behind it? Sure. You're subscribed to this channel because we're going on a deep dive of my true feelings of video podcasts. But you do not want to be creating video podcasts either. I do recommend making recording as simple as possible because if it's too difficult and you have to set up too many things, you're not going to do it. And consistency is key on YouTube. And so recently I bought a brand new camera and a new microphone because I always felt like it took so long to get set up sometimes with my bigger camera. This one particularly the Canon M50. It's amazing. I bought a special couple hundred dollar lens for it, but it took me long to get set up because I needed to be further away. I needed to have this focus the right way. Sometimes it wasn't focus rated and the quality of my video sucked and so I bought a vlogging camera. I started out on a vlogging camera and I got a brand new mic that plugs right on into this vlogging camera so that I have just to turn this camera on and I can go wherever I want to record it. I can record it here, I can record it in my living room. I can do what I want. So you really just want to make sure you have the quality but that it is simple. So what's the best, best starting place for quality simple videos? You have it probably in your pocket or laying right beside you. Right now this is the best place to get started. I will recommend a couple microphones in the description box below for phones because I still think you Need a microphone for your phone? I've done some vlogging without a microphone. It's good enough. But I do think having that crisp, good audio with quality video that you're gonna get from your phone really takes it to the next step and makes people want to actually watch your video. The next thing that you need to do is think about the styles of video that you are creating. Another learning experience for me is I just created a lot of helpful videos for all of you. How to's, how to's, how to's tutorials. And what happened was a lot of people would come and watch my videos. And when I look at my analytics, 90% of the people watching my content was not subscribed to my channel. Why weren't they subscribed? Because they came for the content and peaced out. They made no connection with me. I gave them no option to connect with me because I was just here to give you the information and peace out. But to build a business, to build a brand, to get the viewer, to get you all onto that next step, whether it's on my email list or coming to my challenge or wanting to work with me, you have to feel like you know me a little bit, right? You have to have some type of connection to take that next step with me. And that is one thing that I did wrong. And so when you are getting started on YouTube or if you're ready to go to that next level on YouTube, look at your videos. Are they all these discoverable type videos? That's where my strategy was mostly focused on. When I say discoverable, I mean those that are showing up in Google for search results. When people have questions like how to get 100 subscribers, how to create a channel banner, how to create a channel trailer, how to set up your YouTube homepage, right? Those are questions that people have. They learn what they need to learn and they're gone. So there is a portion of your strategy that needs to rely on that, but that should not be 100% your strategy. Instead you need to be incorporating some community style videos, which I've been doing recently. I'm not sure if the video is up yet, but sharing my goals, goal process, what goals I set for the month, how did it go? What am I doing in the next month? What did I learn? I'm also sharing more stories as well in these videos I'm sharing with you. Like what actually happened to me? And so you can see, oh, she's a YouTube strategist and she didn't get everything right either. Like there's this learning process, all right? And so in these community style videos, you need to understand they're not meant to go big, they're not meant to really be evergreen content, so to speak, but they're meant to take that casual viewer of yours or that casual subscriber of yours and say, wow, she gets me. I want to see what she has available. Like, I want to work with her. I know I want to work with her. I know I want her course, right? Thinking about these two major styles of videos that you need to be incorporating in your YouTube content in 2022 is this discoverable video. The videos that go out cast a net to new people, bring those new people in, and then your community videos, those are the videos that take those new people and become kind of like a fan. Right? Next, let's talk about video structure, because guess what? If you can't get people to the end of your video, YouTube is not going to recommend it to anybody. And all your hard work is going to be for not. And so one of the biggest mistakes that I see happen. Well, two biggest mistakes I see happen when it comes to video structure is getting this pretty branded intro. You've seen them, right? There's music, there's photos of them, there's videos of them speaking on stage. Their logo pops out, they look beautiful. It kills your audience retention. It's basically like a commercial for you. And people who are being introduced to your content for the first time are not going to watch it. And so they leave. They click on that next video. So avoid these branded intros. Do not put them in your video unless. Unless they are three to five seconds max. Max. We've seen this with clients. They want to have it in there. We put it in there and we're like, look, you're losing 20% of people that click on this video during this 20 second intro. We've got to cut it out. So do not do that. And make sure you're opening your video with a clear reason why people should keep watching. The beginning of your video is where you're going to lose the most audience retention. So pack it in the beginning. Don't just open it. Hey, guys, welcome back. Like, I'm hanging out. There's snow on the ground, it's really cold. Get to the point. What did you promise to them in that title, in that thumbnail? And how can you reassure them in five to 10 seconds that that's what you're going to get? That's what you're delivering on? Okay, those are really key when it comes to video structure, you also want to avoid asking people to like, comment and subscribe, especially in the beginning. Nobody is going to like, comment and subscribe in the beginning of your video especially, which I think I said twice now. If it's the first time they're watching your video and if you're telling them comment, what are they commenting? Did you give them a prompt to even help them figure out what to comment? Instead of like commenting, subscribe. As you're creating your content or scripting your content, add in key engagement points to your video. Is there a place in your video that you can add a question and say, do you relate? Have you done this before? Do you have a lead magnet? Right. I'm actually going to be doing a deep dive into how to plan out your video structure and a challenge that I'm hosting on Monday, February 7th. It's called the Video Game Plan Challenge. I'm going to leave the link in the description box below, but if you're interested in joining that, definitely check out treanalittle.com forward/challenge because I'm going to tell you exactly how to create a structured video for YouTube during that challenge. And if you are in the challenge, let me know down below in the comments. If you're in, say I'm in. And I can't wait to personally welcome you. Next, I want to talk about video editing. And look, I know many of you are a team of one. I was there the first four years in my business and not only was I editing my videos, I was editing three clients videos as well. So that was four videos a week that I was editing, as well as recording my content, publishing it, promoting, and all of that. But here's what you need to understand about editing. You can't just put up like a raw video on YouTube like this. You need to edit it, at the very least adding jump cuts. One reason is because it makes your video seem like it's going faster than what it actually is. And people say engage. You've got to take out those pauses. I know it's a pain in the butt to do, but when you take out those pauses, it keeps the people watching longer. And again, I've said this a thousand times. Audience retention is critical to seeing results and to seeing a YouTube channel grow. The best way to minimize your editing is to have a game plan in place when you sit down to record. So for example, today I'm recording these videos and I have my video game plan right here. Now I do have a video editor right now and this allows her to have less raw footage from me. I can stick to the plan, get the content out. And so the raw footage of this video may be 25 to 30 minutes. Instead of me just thinking, okay, I talk about point one, what do I want to talk about next? And then have like this long pause that she will then have to edit out and she'll have like a 45 minute raw footage video to edit. So by having this game plan in place, that's going to cut your raw footage down, that's going to cut your editing time down. I also don't think you need a massive amount of editing. Like I said, just get started with these cuts, these quick cuts. Any pauses that you're making, any mistakes that you're making. Yes, I make mistakes, but just get started there. And once you put your video up on YouTube, you're going to get some messages, metrics, and you may realize that your audience is watching your videos. Just great. Without any fancy editing. Just start with cutting it up and then see what the data is before you add more work. If you realize you need a little bit more work. Canva has some great title screens. Canva has a lot of great video animations that you can add. And what's great about it is you can create it like a template and reuse it over and over again. I really enjoy what Modern Millie is doing with her title screens. I feel they are from canva. I don't 100% know, but these look great and you can make them on Canva and they just make your videos pop a little bit more. The next thing is to promote your video. And look, I know you're like, Patrina, I'm creating YouTube videos. I want to grow my audience on YouTube. Nobody else needs to know about it. YouTube needs data about your audience. And if you have an audience on YouTube or you have an audience with an email list, tell those people about your video, ask them to go watch it. Tell them why they should go watch it. What value are they going to get out of it? Because if your people that you already have baked into your community go watch that video, that's going to give YouTube some data points. They're going to see who's watching it and get a sense of who that target audience is. Remember at the beginning of this video we talked about that if they can understand who that target audience is from the get go, like the first couple of hours, they're going to be able to find more people like that on YouTube and recommend your video to them. So if you can get your current audience that you have in LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, you can get them watching your video within the first 24 hours you publish it. That's going to allow YouTube to kind of take a shortcut to promote your videos to more people like that. And that's how you're going to be able to grow your channel quicker, if you can give YouTube the data quicker. Now, if you want a total deep dive on everything that you should be doing on YouTube in 2022, like the complete guide to using YouTube in your business, make sure you watch the video that is on your screen right now, because I walk you through everything that you got to do, from the market to the optimizing the videos. All of that is on that video. So click on it and I will see you over in that video.