Everyone starting out a YouTube channel eagers to find an audience, gain popularity, and become a successful vlogger. However, most beginner vloggers don't know exactly what to do, what is right, and what is wrong.
Of course, making mistakes is an important part of every path, as well as of Youtube. Mistakes make you learn and grow, and it's great. However, there are many things that could be done completely differently, and you wish you knew it before.
Here, we'll highlight typical mistakes that newcomers make and give some tips on how to avoid them.
Let's get started.
1. Diverse content
A huge mistake is to create videos about everything. Some think that this approach will bring more viewers, but it's absolutely not true. If you have videos about photography, fashion, and pets, for example, which are your hobbies - it will be hard to grow subscribers because they just don't know what they subscribe to.
To make a recognizable channel, you need to stick to a certain subject or theme and create useful content upon that. This will help your audience to find you easier, and due to consistent watching your videos will appear in the search results more often.
2. Unrealistic niche
When you've decided on a theme for your channel, think if this is what you really can do for a long time. Figure out what it will take to run your channel, what you will need to invest, whether it will work for you in a year or five years.
For example, it seems cool to have a travel vlog. You enjoy your life traveling here and there, and share your experience with the audience. But is this realistic for you? Will it be possible to create new videos constantly? Can you afford to travel so much? Does it fit into your overall lifestyle?
This step is crucial when starting a YouTube channel because if you decide to rebrand your channel and change the subject down the road, it will probably be much harder to get followers and regain your position.
So do a little research into the niche that you want to start creating for and see if this is something that you really want to go after all.
3. Focus on numbers
It's very easy to become obsessed with YouTube statistics. Reaching a particular milestone in a number of views or subscribers can be a buzz-bug. Trying to get more views and promoting videos rather than focusing on the quality of the content is a huge mistake.
If you take bigger channels as references and see that they're getting millions of views, you might get disappointed and think "Why are my videos not getting those views, they are as good as those". But it's not how it works.
You have to put out lots of good content and be out there for a while before you get a lot of views. So instead of spending extra time and energy on trying to promote videos on every social platform, spend more time making more videos and improving your skills.
You can get lost in the analytics, and it's one of those things that can take your attention away from the important part, which is creating awesome content. Remember that every time you upload a video, that's another chance for someone to find you.
4. Underestimate the importance of thumbnails
Although it seems very simple, many YouTubers neglect to work on thumbnails as carefully as on the videos. This is a mistake because a thumbnail is the first what a potential viewer sees, and it's an engaging and attractive thumbnail that makes the viewer click on the video.
We're very visual. If you go to a store, and you have a whole aisle full of similar goods, you're naturally going to be drawn to the one that looks the best to you. Whatever has the nicest style, that's the one you're going to choose, and videos are no exception to that.
These thumbnails are eye-catching, informative, and recognizable.
You need to actually grab people by creating engaging thumbnails, and title, and your descriptions because if someone doesn't click your video, then they're not going to watch it. So put some effort into creating that element of content for your channel.
5. Perfectionism
A desire to make a perfect video and a fear of failure can make a beginner YouTuber procrastinate and put off starting. When you are afraid, you will always find an excuse for not doing what you need to do.
The only tip here is to be rational, embrace your fear, and just make that first video regardless of how it comes out.
Being crippled by the fear of judgment and rejection, you only waste your precious time and don't grow.
6. Plagiarism
In the beginning, taking successful vloggers as a model and inspiration is a good idea, but you may be at risk of being a copy.
Imitating another vlogger’s editing style, music choice, and speech patterns that do not resonate with you, won’t bring views and subscribers. Only when you’re being original and doing what you love, it resonates with other people and gets you views.
Being on YouTube, you have to be yourself. Be sure the content and the way you present it is unique and reflects your personality and style.
7. Being alone
One of the most important things for a YouTuber is finding other people who do the same type of content as you on YouTube and becoming their friends.
There are a few reasons why you need to collaborate. Number one is that it will help grow your channel, and you’ll reach new audiences. But number two and more important than growing your channel is that you're going to meet really awesome creators doing some cool stuff on this platform.
As a YouTuber, you sometimes find yourself in a lonely place. You're shooting videos by yourself, you're editing them by yourself, and oftentimes it's really lonely. So it’s valuable to reach out to other creators, join in the conversation, and start being a part of the community.
It helps you as a creator because you're able to lean on them when you're struggling, you can ask them questions about the algorithm or which thumbnail is better. It's just a great way to grow as a YouTuber, and it's just going to be a ton of fun because you join such an awesome group of people.
Summing up
Starting out a YouTube channel, you need to enjoy the process of creating content, you need to stop worrying about the analytics so much. You need to enjoy the fact that you're creating content, and this is something that you love doing.
If you get wrapped up too much in the analytics and everything that goes into getting your videos higher in the ranking system, you forget about the fact that you're here just creating awesome content. So never walk away from your creativity and always be focused on creating great content other than always thinking about analytics, and data, and all that stuff.
