A short YouTube talk by Trena Little aimed at creative entrepreneurs that busts common myths about growing a YouTube channel. The speaker argues that video length, tags, expensive equipment, formal expertise, and perceived niche saturation are not strict requirements; instead creators should focus on audience retention, high-quality content, clear thumbnails/titles, and niching. Practical examples and personal anecdotes are used.
Alright, let's do a little busting of myths that you hear about from people all over YouTube on how to grow a YouTube channel. Because some of these are ridiculous. Welcome back. My name is Trena. If you are new here and on this channel, I help creative entrepreneurs figure out how to use YouTube to grow their business. One of my biggest pet peeves that I have is seeing people on YouTube talking about this is how you grow a YouTube channel when it's so not true and there is no data behind it being true. So let's bust a couple of those myths. The first myth is that your video has to be this secret 10 minute length. Not true. Let's say your video is this 10 minute length and people are only watching your video for for one minute. That's telling YouTube that this content isn't good and that people are leaving in the first minute. Even though you have this special 10 minute video, it's not going to do you any good. Let's say that 10 minute video keeps people watching to the 8 minute mark. They're watching 80% of your video and so that's a good signal to YouTube. So YouTube might start recommending it more. It's not because that video was exactly 10 minutes long, it was because how long people were watching it. So you need to keep an eye on your audience retention of your videos. For example, if you start out with a five minute video and you get people first watching two minutes of your video, great. Focus on making better content. Focus on improving your video format so that you can get that person now watching four minutes of your five minute video. Then increase that video length to maybe seven minutes and see if you can get people watching six minutes of your video and just start really honing in on creating content that people want to actually watch. I don't set a certain timer when I'm shooting these videos. I know what I want to share. I have my content points written down in my script. And so however long this video is, whether it's two minutes, whether it's 12 minutes, is how long it's going to be. Because I'm focusing on sharing quality content that hopefully people watch to the end. The second myth that I want to bust is that you have to have the perfect tags to rank on YouTube. So not true. That is so not true. There's been multiple reports that tags are not what's going to help you rank a video. What's going to help you rank a video. And for YouTube to suggest your videos in the browse features and suggested videos is Creating good content. So what we talked about in the last point, where you're creating content that gets people to watch to the end of the video, because YouTube wants people to stay here on the platform. And the more they can get people watching videos, the more watch times that they can have, the more ads they can put in front of people and make more money. So just by putting the perfect tag on your video is not going to get YouTube to suggest your content more or to rank your content. You need to focus on creating high quality content that people are going to watch to the end. The other myth that I love to bust is that you need professional equipment to start a YouTube channel. So many of my students and clients come to me saying, well, Trina, I need to rent out this Airbnb or I need to buy this DSLR camera, or I need to buy this ring light before I can start. So not true. So many YouTube channels grow by just using an iPhone. IPhones and Androids have good enough cameras in them nowadays that you can shoot with this. Nobody's going to know whether your video was shot on a professional DSLR camera or fancy camera or your iPhone. So don't let the perfect equipment and the fancy equipment stop you from creating content. Just start creating. And along that line, don't let your background hang you up either. So don't let this facade of this setup right here happening in my office and my house. In 2016, when we sold our house and we didn't have a place to move at the time, we moved into this super tiny apartment and I shot video content in front of a blank yellowish wall, and I grew my channel by 300% that year. I focused on the content that I was sharing. I focused on improving my thumbnails. And it didn't matter what was behind me because people were coming to my video and watching my videos because I was sharing content that was helping them. So don't think again that you need to rent an airbnb, have some Pinterest, pretty background, and just focus on the quality of the content you're creating. All right, here's another myth that I love to bust, and it's that you need to be an expert to be on video. So not true. So here's the deal. You probably know more than somebody else, whether you're one step ahead of them, two steps ahead of them, wherever it's at. But people have questions on how to do something. So while you may not think you're a Pinterest expert, you may know how to set up a Pinterest account, make it a business account, create a pin, add a pin, schedule pins. You may know how to do all of this stuff and you may not be this expert you think you are, but for somebody who has not used Pinterest at all, you know something that's going to help them out. So even though again, we're set on needing to be an expert to be on video, you are going to be an expert to somebody. You are always going to be one or two steps ahead of somebody that you can help. So don't let that stop you from creating content here on YouTube. All right, this is another biggie that I love to bust and it's that your niche is already saturated and that you will never break through. Well, my friends, I hate to break this secret to you, but not everybody who uploads a YouTube video is doing it properly. So if you start following the way to do YouTube, the way to create thumbnails that get people to click and create these click worthy titles and create content that gets people to watch your video the whole way through and watch another video and start Netflix binging on your videos, that's how you're going to stand out. And also think about niching down. Okay, maybe you want to be a beauty vlogger or maybe you want to talk about beauty and fashion, but there are millions of those chann channels here on YouTube. What is your specific take? What's your uniqueness that you can talk about? Are you a beauty vlogger for moms who don't have the time to do makeup and they want to learn how to do some makeup so they can get on video? Or are you a beauty vlogger who talks about how to do your makeup with dry skin? Maybe you focus just on dry skin or just on oily skin or maybe even just makeup for people with red hair. These are all niches within a niche. The beauty category that you could capitalize on and still grow here on YouTube. Okay, I want to hear any myths you've heard about YouTube down in the comments so I can tell you whether they're true or myth bust them. If you want to continue to learn how to grow a YouTube channel, make sure you watch the video that is on your screen right now and you click subscribe to get more tips and tricks from me every Monday and Wednesday. See you in the next video. Bye.
Why Every "Business Guru" Suddenly Went All-In on YouTube (And What NOT to Copy)
