How to Succeed as an Aspiring YouTuber

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

There are three basic things to keep in mind and which must be at the forefront of your plan constantly in order to reach some level of success as a small YouTuber these days. These tips are based on our findings from our combined years of experience in the field.

1) Staying authentic.

Giphy.com

As an aspiring YouTube creator, you probably have idols that you look up to. While they are certainly a good source to get inspiration from, it can become an issue if you start to copy them in ways that contradict your authentic self. The (cliche but true) key is to always be yourself.

Getting lucky by hopping on a trend can sometimes work to grow your channel temporarily, but the question is: will it last in the long run? The answer to that is, sadly, no and the reason is that viewers who come to your channel only because of the trend are going to only care about the trend – not you and your content.

In order to keep these viewers, you must, at the same time, have an authentic channel with great content outside of the trend that they can connect to. “Authentic”, in this case, means content that is about you and content that displays you, what you represent and love, something that people with similar values to yours will recognize and feel they can relate to. This will forge a bond between you and the viewer, not the viewer and the trend, and they will subscribe in order to see more of you rather than just the trend (which will die out).

Note: if you choose to delegate your editing to a freelance editor or an editing agency, it’s very important that they understand how to protect your authenticity as well as provide a service that suits your needs.

You can also create a loyal following without recurring to trends by simply being so authentic that this becomes your entertainment brand. Some examples of this are Antonio Garza, Emma Chamberlain and Bald and Bankrupt.

Of course, only being authentic doesn’t guarantee growth. But combining your authenticity with doing something unique, even if it’s not a trend, will definitely help you grow your channel.

So remember: no matter how fast you grow, if you’re not authentic and you don’t allow fans to connect to you, then they will probably not stay with you. You need both:

• the popularity of a trend or a unique trait specific to you
• and the authenticity that will connect your viewers to you specifically.

And one more thing: authenticity isn’t only needed for a long term career, but also to genuinely enjoy that career. There is a certain energy to someone that truly loves what they’re doing and this is especially true and powerful on YouTube. So if you’re struggling as a small YouTuber, and you feel a bit lost (maybe getting caught up in trends, trying to act like someone you’re not) – then come back to authenticity. What would you really like to do on your channel? What do you actually enjoy? What is your personality like off-camera?

2) Plan your content in advance and stick to a schedule.

Photo by Alvaro Reyes – @alvarordesign

This one is based on people’s inherent tendency towards routine and stability. We all like and feel safe knowing when we’ll get something we want. Even if it’s not soon, knowing that it will come provides a sense of comfort.

So whether you’re posting once, twice, three or four times a week, if your followers know exactly when you’re going to upload, they’ll be ready and on the lookout for it, clicking on it the second it’s live. A schedule gives them a sense of trust in you as a creator, because they know that you’ll show up on certain days at a certain time, no matter what.

Pro Tip: make sure that information (what days and at what times you upload) is clearly visible at a glance on your YouTube channel, be it on the banner or in the first few seconds of your videos. That way, anyone, no matter how long they’ve been following you, will know that you work on a schedule and they will get content on a weekly basis.

In addition, if you can stick to a schedule, you can know ahead of time how much content you’ll need and how often you’ll post. This will also allow you to plan out the videos as early as you want, which saves you from running out of ideas or having to improvise at the last minute.

This, if anything, is a YouTuber’s homework and any creator that’s grown a channel from nothing will tell you it’s worth doing it.

3) Don’t let views crush you.

A lot of the time, small YouTubers get obsessed with views and subscriber growth. Losing subscribers can be a big emotional blow. But does it have to be that way? Does that feeling serve you in any way?

Once again, the answer is no. While subscriber growth, views and likes are very useful as metrics for how well your content is performing with your audience, you should be careful not to get sucked into it. Constantly chasing these figures will lead you to chase trends, which, as we saw, could kill your channel in the long run.

Let’s take an example:

You’re doing very well on the slime trend. Your videos are getting 50% more views when you include slime in them, but at the same time, you realise the trend itself is dying.

If you are chasing views alone, you’ll take the short term approach and just keep creating slime videos. Then, once the trend dies (it always does), you’ll be left with an audience that only cares about slime, not your content, and, to make things even worse, the views you’ll be getting on your slime content are fewer than the rest of your content would have gotten.

The lesson to be learned here is to consider short and long-term consequences: remember that views are a useful metric, but they can’t be your only metric, otherwise you’ll neglect the broader future of your channel. So try and focus on enjoying your content and being authentic. That’s what will give you the best chance of success in the long run.

Hopefully this post has given you some new ideas to get to where you want to be. Don’t forget to stay authentic, stick to a schedule, and don’t get discouraged by your initial views. Just keep at it and sooner or later, your hard work will pay off.

Good luck!

NC team

Tags: YouTube, Creator, Content Creation, Growth, Motivation, Success