Lessons I've learnt from my first 6 months as a YouTuber

Storyteller series

My YouTube has grown dramatically in the last 6 months. From what was meant to be a small, experimental part of my business, is now where I spend most of my time and earn much of my income.

Making videos has become one of my greatest joys and I have learnt so much along the way. From a long-term consumer of YouTube vlogs, I now realise how much work actually goes into these seemingly simple videos. It’s not a matter of pointing your camera, capturing a few minutes of content and uploading willy nilly. Well, not if you want anyone to actually watch your videos!

Like anything new in my business, or life generally, I did my research before diving in. I watched numerous tutorials on how to create engaging videos and optimise them so that they will actually get views and keep people coming back again and again.

Although I am still very much a newbie in the YouTube world, I thought it would be useful to share my learning from my first 6 months.

Lesson 1 - Don’t let the fear of perfection hold you back

Despite my reams of research, I was still nervous about committing and actually start shooting videos. The imposter syndrome was real. Although I am used to sharing my life online, through my blog and social media, this felt like a whole new level.

In reality, there will never be a perfect time to start. Your first videos will always be a bit clunky. But this is how you learn. By committing on publishing videos every week, I was able to practise my new filming and editing skills and trial different types of content.

Six months in, I’m still learning. Although I ensure there is some consistency in my videos and they align with my brand, I experiment with content, format and style, to test what works best for me and my audience. With every new video, I get to try different filming angles or editing skills. It’s an ever-evolving process. The key is to just start and take it from there.

Lesson 2 - Your audience is more important than your niche

One of the first decisions you have to make on your YouTube journey is what you are going to make videos about. If you do a bit of research, you will likely come across the suggestion again and again that you should find a niche and just create content around this.

Now, there is some value in this suggestion. Sticking to a niche means your audience knows what to expect from your channel. Consistency and a clear brand is key for audience growth and retention.

However, the downside of niches mean you can get stuck in a rut that can become difficult to get out of. I’ve seen this first hand with some channels that focus on giving social media tips. This is a popular type of content, but if they deviate this and perhaps try and incorporate more lifestyle content, they lose their audience.

Thats why I’ve decided to focus on audience as opposed to niche. I create videos with a particular type of audience in mind and try and cover content I think they will enjoy e.g., slow/simple/sustainable lifestyle and nature content. Rather than just creating content on hiking, vegan cooking or capsule wardrobes, this strategy means I can incorporate all my interests.

So, if you are struggling to pick a niche, maybe try crafting an ideal audience avatar instead, so your content is more flexible and can evolve with you.

Lesson 3 - Engagement is so much higher

Having moved over from Instagram, I expected a similar level of engagement from the YouTube community. However, I quickly realized that the engagement was so much higher on YouTube.

Compared to the quick-fire content of Instagram, where you need to capture someone’s attention within 2 seconds, the long form content of YouTube allows for a slower pace of consumption, and I’ve really enjoyed reading and responding to the comments left on my videos. I felt like we were building a really lovely community.

From an income point of view, despite having a much larger audience on my Instagram (approx. 20k compared to 3k on my YouTube), I made far more sales on my YouTube, for both my merchandise and digital products. This was a really pleasant surprise and one of the main reasons I was brave enough to step away from my Instagram.

Lesson 4 - Don’t underestimate your thumbnail

If you don’t know what a thumbnail is (I didn’t when I started!) its essentially the cover image you use for your video. I didn’t really pay much mind to these when I started and tended to add this as a last-minute thought. However, I now know the difference an effective thumbnail can make.

For instance, when I tweaked my Tiny Home Tour video thumbnail, by adding text within the photo, the views on this skyrocketed and this video has now had more than 200k views. This is unlikely to be entirely down to the thumbnail, but it was certainly an important part of it. After all, it doesn’t matter how good your video is, if your thumbnail is poor, no one will click on it. It would be a shame to waste all that effort!

Lesson 5 - The most important analytics

I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit of a data nerd! I was suitably impressed at the range of analytics that are available in YouTube studio. At first, it can feel a bit overwhelming, but over time I figured out the most important analytics to focus on, as these will determine the growth of your channel.

The two figures I always refer too are the click through rate and the watch time for each video. If you are unfamiliar with these terms, basically the click through rate is the percentage of people that clicked on your video after it made an impression and the watch time is the length of time people watched your video for.

If you have a good click through rate and high watch time, YouTube is far more likely to push your video, by adding it to people’s home page and/or as a suggested video. Having YouTube push your video is the most effective way to grow your channel.

There’s no magic number for these figures, but you can do your research and compare how your figures may align to others in your niche. There are tactics that can be used to improve both of these, but this is something I will leave to another post, as I don’t want to make this too long!

These are just an overview of the lessons I’ve learnt, but I hope you find some value in this insight. It is my intention to share more about my content creation business, in amongst more lifestyle content, and this is the first in my ‘storyteller series’. This will be a quiet and mindful approach to content creation that I have found success in myself. Do let me know if there is anything you would like me to cover below.

As always, thank you very much for reading and I hope you have a lovely week.

Molly xxx

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