If you’re hoping to monetize your hobby via YouTube, expect to be challenged by your own patience, imagination, and willingness to look a bit silly on camera before anyone pays attention to what you’re doing.
The first thing I’d recommend is avoiding an investment of any money into getting started. I realize that seems counter-intuitive in a world where everyone else seems to be flaunting all their fancy “stuff.” However, if you’ve got a smartphone (assuming it’s less than 5 years old), you already have everything you need for your first video. The only thing you’ll need beyond that is to say something people want to listen to.
The truth is, a lot of the biggest creators started out with little to no gear. They built their audience with consistency and personality — not because of any fancy equipment.
Once you’ve settled on a theme for your new channel, think about cameras/camera kits, lighting, etc. Before you start thinking about equipment, you should ask yourself one thing and be honest: What are you going to say? You can’t make up a topic; otherwise, that’s called “CRAP.”
Generally speaking, the most successful channels are located where passion and expertise converge. As you consider launching a channel, think about how much you enjoy that topic. If you’re passionate, you will be able to create content for the same topic week after week, without getting burned out as a result. In addition, if you are knowledgeable about the topic, viewers will feel as though they didn’t waste their time watching your content because they learned more about the topic Than they would otherwise.
Should you be someone who is obsessive about many different hobbies, such as fitness, technology, cooking, budgeting, video games, cars, knitting, or refurbishing old pieces of furniture, that is great. However, being obsessed is merely half of what gets you successful. Ask yourself: how are you different, what can you bring to your audience?
Regardless of which topics you choose to create your channel around, you will more than likely have hundreds or thousands of channels already doing what you plan to build.
Therefore, if you have a unique approach to a topic, what will differentiate you from all the other channels?
Maybe you explain difficult things using easy to read content? Maybe you will provide more depth (ex. long-form) compared to other creators? Maybe you will be the only one testing niche items? Maybe you have a unique style of storytelling? Whatever it is, if you can find a way to be unique, you can find success with your YouTube channel videos.
One thing that is often overlooked is that creating a channel does not happen quickly and produce instant income.
Starting a channel is not as quick as signing up for delivery service and receiving payment the next day. It’s not printing a bunch of flyers, and having customers by the end of the weekend. Simply putting a lot of money into advertising and hoping for brand loyalty will not work. There is no one click magic button!
You will spend greater than just a few hours creating the content and only see your number of views to be around 23.
You will adjust your thumbnails at least five times.
You will continue to check your analytics more than you’re embarrassed to admit.
And there will be a time frame of several months where it will feel like you are speaking to nobody.
This is where it is important not to over-invest upfront. You don’t even know if you enjoy this part yet…the filming, editing, writing and research, designing thumbnails and writing the titles…it is going to be a HUGE amount of work. Even people with professional video backgrounds have a hard time doing these things.
If you continue to put in the work, eventually YouTube can become more than just a side business, and instead a source of income and an asset. Because you are building an archive of materials that work for you 24-7 hours a day. A video you uploaded Service-time can continue to have uses for years after you first post it. And, it is something that is not very common among various other relevant marketing platforms.
Of course, you are not going to monetize a video until you receive enough subscribers and enough watch time. And that will be accomplished by being consistent over time. It will take creating effective written titles that create audiences who can discover the product that the creator produced. It will take testing out multiple thumbnails until you have found an ‘eye-catching’ thumbnail to make an audience stop scrolling their feed. It will take lots of practice to improve one’s delivery so that an audience will stay interested in a creator’s work until they finish watching the entire video.
You do not need costly equipment or high-end tools to begin an online video channel.
You do need to work hard, be patient, and be prepared to be bad at something before you can become good at it.
So if you have considered starting a YouTube channel, keep it simple: Choose something that you have an interest in, find your unique twist on that interest, begin with the tools that you already own, and be consistent.
After you get started, give yourself time; if you get past the phase where you are not yet getting many views, you will see that Youtube can give you the opportunity to monetise your passion without ever purchasing anything to do so.
