In the age where we live with super saturated content, whether that be all the popular social media accounts or even the best television shows found on Netflix, there is one element that they all have in common. The creators have each made a dedicated, yet easy route for complete success. As long as you are passionate about your creative abilities and are willing to put in the effort to following steps involved, you too can have a successful YouTube channel. 

Posting Timeline

Create time in your calendar to make the initial posts. There are too many times where a passion or creative project is placed on the last spot on the list and eventually forgotten. This often happens because it doesn’t have the image of success in your mind. Until it does, we won’t naturally think that it should be the frontrunner on our daily to-dos. The goal is to change this mindset and make it one of the most important every single time. Pretty soon, you’ll have no other choice but to post as a first priority.  

For instance, start by making it a habit to post on Saturday mornings. Most of the time, weekends will be the one of the only areas in your schedule where you’ll be able to block out time. Once per week is a great way to start, and it’s a great test to see how well you do with consistency. As you are able to handle more on your schedule, then more time can be set aside to post twice per week, and even three times depending on the success and versatility of your schedule.  

Content Mission 

Creators need to have a solid idea of what they want to create in order to be able to create consistency. This isn’t to say creatives can’t move in a different direction later. However, they need to make sure they have a set mission, so that the content ideas don’t become confusing to the viewer. The best way to create a clear mission is to have one mission, and then eventually branch out once that one becomes a solid success. This will even help create new spinoff ideas in the future.

As an example, if your channel has a fashion base to it, maybe start with weekly fashion recaps. Then alternate or expand with shopping tips or style tricks. The point is to find what tune you want your voice to be, and then once comfortable, you will have the ability to expand off it. This will also have the voice of your channel come across more naturally to the audience. 

Don’t Compromise Personality

As people always seem to say, there really is one you. Don’t compromise yourself because of the misconception that people might find another version better. Whatever it may be in life, let the true personality shine through. These videos will be the ultimate representation of you and your work, so it’s best to go with your own genuine voice from the beginning. At the end of it all, viewers will click on your videos because they’ll be excited to see you, not only for the content promised in the title. 

More often than not if you see someone creating content for a specific subject and it seems to be popular, more creators will start to follow the trend as it’s seen as an easy road to success. This actually creates an opposite effect. Their work is not only not original, but it also rides on the fact that this type of video delivery doesn’t convey their true voice or ideas, so the channel will eventually start to lack passion and eventually momentum.    

Basic Video Editing Skills

When starting out in the YouTube or video editing world, no one expects you to have perfected all of your skills. With that said, there does need to be some video editing knowledge in order to put the vision together at all. This may entail adding music, placing a title and end credits and trimming down some of the length for quality. There are easy and free platforms that cater to these basic editing needs such as iMovie, Blender or even other software editing apps. Later, creatives will have the opportunity to expand their skills, and it will come easier and with time. 

Engage with your Viewers

An audience loves when they feel seen and heard as well. By engaging with the viewer, more shape to a personality is able to be formed behind a camera. Viewers as a reaction, will look forward to engaging with your content because the creator is giving the audience an actual reason. 

Engaging with your viewers may also have been a great way to develop new content ideas. They’ve become your own focus group and target audience, which allows you to be able to ask them what they want to see or what topics they have interest in. This can be achieved through polls on social media or a call-to-action in the video itself.  

Partner with other Creatives 

This is a great way to grow and expand your network. Not only is it great content to partner with someone, but you also are able to share a bigger audience that you’ve both collectively created. You also will have the chance to meet other people who might be like-minded or have the same interest, which creates a sense of community that can be hard to make digitally.   

You may also be able to learn from other creatives. They may know a cool new editing trick you have never thought of before, or a type of camera angle/feature that may add more depth to your content. In turn, you may also have the ability to teach them too. 

Have a Learning Mindset

Your first video, second and even “last” will never be as good as the next one. This is a mindset that every creator needs to understand and learn to love. This is because a creator’s process will never be fully complete. There is always room for improvement. 

Think of the process like a learning timeline. As someone looks back at the work, they will be able to see the steady progression, which is something that should be looked at like a major win. A social channel can be seen as a portfolio, and the biggest thing people look for are the ability to learn and take each creation like a lesson. Starting a YouTube channel alone is a key win for a creative person because it’s a beginning, no matter where one may end up later in life. 

It’s Okay to Reevaluate 

Not every part of a YouTube channel is going to be perfect from the very beginning. There will be strong aspects as well as the weak ones. Out of everything to know about creating a YouTube channel, or even as a creative alone, is that you can take the needed break to reevaluate how you want to proceed. There are times where you might have second thoughts or won’t always be completely sure of the work you have a vision of creating. To secure your honest feelings, it’s always best to go into self-reflection so that you may come back into your work completely confident.