As our digital landscape is evolving day by day, the need for long and short-form video content is rising exponentially. Also, with people staying in their homes due to the lockdown followed by the Covid-19 pandemic, they have more time on their hands to spend on things other than work. And where are people spending this time?
They are spending this time on reading blogs, watching YouTube videos, learning various courses online, browsing social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, Reddit etc.
With the continued rise in the consumption of video blogging content, it’s completely understandable that you would have at least once thought of starting your own YouTube channel. After all, it is an intriguing idea. It’s fun, engaging, and even more than that it is a potential gold mine with YouTube’s 2 Billion monthly active user base to tap into.
If you have put off your dreams of starting your own YouTube Channel for quite a long time now because you’re overwhelmed with the choices you need to make or are panicking because you feel you lack the right skills to succeed, then I am here to ask you not to do that anymore and Start YouTube Channel Now.
Here are top things/tips you will need to start your YouTube channel from scratch:
1. Start right now!
Trust me there is no better time than to start right now. Rather than procrastinating as to what you need to do, how you need to go about it, and all the other things, you just need to sit down, take a pen and paper and start curating the content you need to or want to put forward. My advice to you is, ready or not, start now. And I’m not telling you this as a New Year’s resolution. Every moment you hesitate or procrastinate, there are thousands of video creators starting their YouTube channel today, and gobbling up all your potential audience. You don’t want that.
2. Start understanding how YouTube really works, and even acquire some basic skills
No matter what other people say, if you are serious about continuing with the path in the long run, then my advice to you would be to take this a little seriously and sit down to understand how the platform that you’re about to work on really works. Ironically enough a good place to start learning would be YouTube itself. There are some really good content creators out there who put up good content for you to learn from.
If you’re worried too much about the video quality of your first video, then let me put this to rest chances are your first video is absolutely going to suck. But you need to go through the process of rigorous practice of making and curating content so that you get into a flow.
Some various platforms to learn the very basic skills about YouTube and video content are Udemy, Coursera, VidIQ, etc.
Recommended Courses For Youtube Mastering on Udemy
YouTube Masterclass – Your Complete Guide to YouTube
How To Start a Youtube Channel: Teach Your Passion
The Complete YouTube Course by YouTubers with 100mn+ Views
3. Basic Equipments
Before you start to think that I am going to advise you to get all those fancy and really expensive equipment you’ve so often heard about, don’t worry I am not going to do that. In Fact I am going to advise you on very basic equipment that is going to catapult your YouTube content to a very far extent.
So,
Equipment 1: A very basic tripod stand. Trust me if you invest just a little amount of a thousand bucks, it’s going to pay you back in the long run. Tripods now come even as cheap as 300-400 rupees. But it would be better if you buy a good quality tripod right in the beginning, otherwise, you will end up buying a tripod maybe every 6 months or a year, depending on your usage.
Equipment 2: The second equipment is of course a device to record your videos. But again I am not going to advise you of something which is beyond justifiable. For the beginning, your simple smartphone with a decent quality camera would suffice. Trust me if you’re thinking that you absolutely need to buy a DSLR to record your content then that is not at all true. Let me bust this myth right here and once and for all.
Equipment 3: The third and last piece of equipment, for now, would be a Mic. But again this is contingent on the fact that you need to record Podcasts or videos which are absolutely the best audio experience for your audience, maybe like a live streaming video or something on similar lines. Other than that you don’t really need a Microphone, because if you’re just a little bit good in your audio mixing and video editing skills then the editing software is going to take care of it.
And that brings us to your fourth tip…
4. Basic Editing Software and related skills:
For you to get started in creating content on a daily basis and to make sure that you deliver quality to your audience you will have to get yourself equipped with some basic editing software and also acquire the basic skills to learn to use them. The very first editing software that I am going to recommend specifically for people who are going to make and record content using their smartphones would be some apps like Kinemaster, Picsart, Inshot etc. Are you surprised to read this? Don’t be, there are many Youtubers out there who started out just like this and have now reached a very good position in the industry. There is no shame in being a little scrappy at first. In Fact it will prove that you can deliver quality content with even lesser quality resources.
For people who can spend a little buck in the beginning for you I am suggesting to buy software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Coral, Filmora, Camtesia etc. These are absolutely great software to master and use to create and edit your videos. You can even create and edit short-form video content like for Instagram Reels, YouTube shorts etc. through these softwares. These softwares are for people who have achieved a preliminary skill status and want to kick their videos up a notch. But the key point to remember is ‘Practice makes man Perfect’.
5. Develop a Strategy that you can follow and Stick to it.
Before you go on worrying about the numbers after creating and putting up your content on your channel, let me clear the air beforehand. If you really have a vision for your channel in the long-run, then let me tell you that you will need to be patient but you will also need to be smart about it. That smartness entails creating a very well thought out strategy for yourself and your channel.
Answer these questions for devising that strategy:
- What do you want your Channel to achieve on YouTube, and when you answer this think from the perspective of a potential viewer. What do you feel as a viewer you should get out of, from watching your content.
- Who is your Target Audience? Again try to be as specific as possible. The minute you have narrowed down to who you are catering or want to cater, you will realise what type of content works best for them and in what way you can provide value to your audience. The idea behind finding your target audience is that you will create a community for yourself that is just exclusive to you and with that you will keep on building trust the more you go deep into it.
- And even more essentially, why should your audience or even potential audience watch your content? There are already a million fitness enthusiasts out there or a hundred thousand game live streamers, how are you going to offer something new and unique to your viewers? What is your Unique Selling Point(USP)? What are you going to stand out from all the clutter and make a long lasting mark? Think on these lines and you will have figured it out.
That’s it for this article my fellow readers. Hope you got inspired to start your own YouTube channel as soon as possible through this and also cleared your mind in the process. Remember taking the first step will always be difficult but once you do, you’d be so happy that you took the plunge.
