Hello and welcome to another episode of
Coffeetime and welcome to my channel.
If you are new here this episode is going
to be all about my top tips for how to
grow your YouTube channel. And some of
the tips that I'm going to share in this
video are tips that I don't hear other
people share that often but are probably
more helpful than anything else that I
have ever heard before. And if you stick
around to the end of the video I'm also
going to recommend three YouTube
channels that I think are really awesome.
A little background on me: I have had
this YouTube channel for a long time but
I didn't actually take it seriously or
start to do anything with it until a
month ago. I went from 1500
subscribers to a little bit more than
2,200 subscribers in a month's time. Also
some of the videos that I have put out
during this month have accrued six
thousand or more views one of which has
I think more than eight thousand views
right now. So I want to share with you
what I did to get all of this growth to
happen and some of the tips that I've
learned along the way that I think can
help anybody who is starting a channel
or looking to grow their channel.
Tip number one: you need to realize that
Google which owns YouTube is not a mind
reader this means that just like with
anything else on the internet you need
to make sure that you are telling Google
what your videos are about. One of the
methods to help Google understand what
your videos are about is to take the
time to closed caption your videos or
subtitle your videos. Not only is this
just great because it helps out with
accessibility but because those closed
captions and subtitles provide a
transcript for YouTube to read to
understand what your video
is about and this acts as another
keyword mechanism. So anything that
you're speaking about in your video once
you upload the subtitles to it or
transcript Google will then read that
and start understanding where to place
your video in search. And that's so
helpful for newer channels who are
looking for more means to get noticed by
YouTube search algorithms. The other
thing to do that goes hand in hand with
this is understand that you also need to
make sure that your descriptions are
written very well and really describe
what is happening in your video. And
along with this that also means that
titles and tags for videos are so
important. Great SEO when it comes to
tagging, description, and titles, and
closed captioning can help your videos
get found by YouTube because YouTube
will have so much information and will
be able to show your video alongside
other videos of similar content. Moving
right along - Tip Number Two is: things do
not have to be perfect. In fact it's
better when things are not perfect on
YouTube. Think about how many channels
that you watch on YouTube and why you
enjoy watching them. A lot of the
channels that I enjoy watching are
people pouring their hearts out and
being vulnerable and being real and
being raw in front of the camera. If you
allow perfection to get in your way it
will get in the way of you making
content. And that is so detrimental when
you're trying to start a channel. If you
look back on the videos that I put out
this month you will notice that my
lighting has been all over the place. I
am a professional fine art photographer
but I photograph cityscapes and
landscapes. I have no experience with
studio lighting whatsoever. So lighting
myself
is pretty much a huge learning curve for
me and I haven't let it hold me back.
Some of the videos that I put out to be
honest I've looked back at and I cringe
because the lighting wasn't perfect or I
have a huge zit currently on my face
or I may not have felt super amazing on
the day that I recorded the video. I like
to think of my YouTube channel as me
sitting across from you and I'm having a
cup of coffee and this is literally how
I would talk to you with sirens going
off in the background. People are not
expecting complete TV production quality.
In fact when I see TV production quality
on YouTube I tend to not really be into
the content that much because it doesn't
feel real. It doesn't feel like I'm
having a real connection with that
YouTuber in that moment. Don't let a lack
of perfection hold you back. Do what you
do, make your content and people will
appreciate you for it. In the end this is
about making a connection so remember
that always when you're creating content.
Tip Number Three: stick to a schedule. I only
started growing over the last month
because I've been uploading to my
channel twice a week religiously. It
helps because when people go to your
channel and they see that the last video
that you uploaded was a month or more
ago and then they look around and they
see that prior to that video you didn't
upload for four months and prior to that
video you didn't upload for a year
there's almost no incentive for them to
subscribe to your channel. It's so
important to be uploading regularly and
that doesn't mean doing daily content
but it means having a great schedule
that you can stick with. If that means
when you start that you're uploading
once a week do that so that you're
letting the community that's growing
understand that they can come to you on that
day and at that time and get a really
cool fun thing that they're going to
watch that you've created. Tip Number
Four: YouTube is social media. That means
that it is a social activity. How can you
be social on this network? There are so
many ways. The top thing I can say is if
you're really serious about YouTube you
should be consuming YouTube as well and
you should be interacting with the
people that you really enjoy. The best
thing that you can do is comment and
leave a nice well thought out comment
on why you enjoyed the content. Why did
you enjoy that walkthrough of a game? Why
did you enjoy that person's food diary?
Why did you enjoy their cool beauty
review of a makeup product? Leaving a
well-thought-out comment not only are
you helping the people that you enjoy
see that their content is being enjoyed
by others but it also exposes you to the
rest of the community on YouTube. I can't
tell you how many times I've made a very
sincere comment on somebody else's video
and other people have seen that comment
and sent me a message saying they loved
it or replied under it and then gone to
my channel and started watching my
videos and then maybe subscribed to my
channel. Sorry that's my cat in the
background. Take the time out every day
and show the people whose videos that
you enjoy watching some love and share
with them some thoughts on why you liked
their video and also make sure that
you're engaging back with the people who
are engaging with your content and
that's such a great way to grow on any
platform out there currently. Tip 5: I
don't think you're ready for how
important this tip is
and it might just change your mind about
a lot of the way that you're doing
things on YouTube. Cards and playlists
are some of the most valuable things on
YouTube currently. These things are so
important when you're growing a channel
and I'm going to tell you why right now.
When somebody finds your video they
start watching it - they're so fascinated
by the content that they keep watching
other videos and those other videos
don't necessarily have to be yours.
YouTube positively counts your video as
the gateway that led people to binge-watch
a whole bunch of other videos on
YouTube and therefore will push you up
in its algorithm. How do cards and
playlists work to help this? Cards are
a really great way to get people to know
that there's other content that you may
have created or other content that
you're super interested in that's
similar to the content that you are
showing them currently. YouTube does not
penalize you if somebody watches your
video and then goes to another creator's
video from your video. In fact, they
reward you for it. This is great news for
somebody that is growing a channel
because it means that you can
strategically also get people to view
your other content. You spend a lot of
time making content so you definitely
want a way to show people that content
thats related and that's where playlists
come in. YouTube is extremely into
playlists. Playlists are a great way to
get people to keep watching related
content.
And so that means that whenever you are
uploading a piece of content you should
try to have a playlist that that video
will go in or create one and create a
series out of that. For example I have
been telling the story of an Arctic
expedition I went on with an Astronaut.
So far I have four videos in this series.
In every single video I alert people
that I've already done several other
videos about the expedition and that
they can feel free to watch from the
beginning because I have that story in
order in a playlist. It changed
everything for me. I have been creating
playlists since I started uploading and
the majority of my views come from cards
from the end screen annotations which
are those things that you put at the end
of the video to encourage people to keep
watching. And people have been clicking
on that and then watching the videos
that are in the playlist. And that makes
me happy because I worked so hard on
some of these series and so it's great
that we actually have a method to alert
people to the other videos that are in a
series. Binge-watchability may not be
a word but I'm making it up now is such
a big deal on YouTube that it's maybe
one of the most important things that
you can do. And now for three really cool
YouTube channels that I've been enjoying
a lot lately that I think that you will
enjoy because they're awesome. I wanted
to go in order from a YouTuber with a
smaller following to a medium following
to a large following. The YouTuber with a
smaller following that I'm recommending
is Kraig Adams. He has some really
beautiful vlog content. The way that he
vlogs is so different from anybody else
that I've seen on YouTube that I truly
feel that it's the future of vlogging.
The second YouTuber with a medium following
is Melanie Murphy. Melanie Murphy is an
Irish YouTuber who talks about all kinds
of different
topics on her channel and I think
that part of it is that she's so sincere
and so real in her content that you
truly feel that you're good friends with
her. And I feel like I have this like
cool Irish friend that talks to me now a
few times a week. And my final
recommendation for a YouTube channel is
Boyinaband or Dave Brown. His channel
is huge. I mean he has so many
subscribers but I didn't find out about
his work until a few months ago when my
friend Erik Conover visited L.A. and hung
out with him and that made me look up
his channel and I - I just could not leave
how fun his content is. He puts so much
work into his videos and I particularly
recommend a video he did recently on
artificial intelligence. So I'm going to
link all of their channels below in the
description box for you. I hope that you
enjoyed this video and that you found
these tips helpful in some way. If you
did please make sure to give the video a
thumbs up. And if you're new here and you
haven't yet done so please feel free to
subscribe to my channel and I'll see you
in the next episode of Coffeetime later
this week. Bye!
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