Recently, 400K subscribers were completed on my channel, and I was just thinking about my YouTube journey. I started my first channel in 2017 with no knowledge, no skills, and no resources. And it took me almost 7 years to get here.
. . I was thinking, if someone had told me everything I know about YouTube growth earlier, my YouTube journey would have been much easier.
. . So here are 5 things I wish I knew when I started YouTube.
No. 1: Not Every YouTube Advice is Right For You. YouTube is filled with videos that teach you how to grow your channel.
You will find all kinds of advice in these videos, some wrong, some right, but even the advice that is right may not be right for you. . .
Let's take a simple example: you may have heard in many videos that we should add our face to thumbnails because it makes the thumbnail more clickable. Is this advice correct? Yes, absolutely!
As humans, our eyes are naturally drawn towards faces, so this advice actually works for most people. However, just because an advice works for one channel doesn't mean it's right for all channels. If cooking channels started applying the same advice, their thumbnails wouldn't be as clickable.
Another advice you may have heard many times is to keep your titles under 50 characters. This advice is good if you are mostly targeting browse features to get views. .
. but what if your content is search-based? How will you manage to include all the necessary keywords under 50 characters?
It turns out you're forcing the title to be short. . .
So before implementing any advice, think about its purpose and whether it is suitable for your content or not. Look at successful creators in your niche and see what is working for them. .
. This is something that I really wish I had known when I started YouTube because my old channel needed kind of slow-paced editing. Even the successful creators in my niche used to make slow-paced videos.
But because at that time I watched a lot of Mreast-related growth videos. . .
as you know, in those videos, everyone says to do fast-paced editing, there should be some movement all the time, there should be a cut every 2 seconds. . .
. & Basically, listening to all this, I also made my videos very fast-paced, which felt very forced & obviously it did not work for me! So, what I learnt was that there is no one content style, editing style, thumbnail style that will work for everyone.
Every audience is different & so are their needs. 2. Nothing is More Important Than The Video Idea You can spend several days writing a killer script, engaging & retention hacking editing, and making a highly clickable thumbnail.
. . .
but if the video you're making has no demand on YouTube or if the video idea is not interesting. . .
then why will someone watch your video? The opposite of this is also true! Every day, YouTube recommends you such videos.
. . with poor video quality, poor audio quality, little to no editing, and not even a custom thumbnail.
But just because of the video topic, views come. Many subscribers' comments and messages also come where they say that they have done everything right on their channel - voiceover, editing, thumbnail, SEO - but views are not coming. .
. Only if they knew that if they just got the video idea right, maybe it wouldn't take so long for views to come. Unfortunately, I also understood this very late in my YouTube journey.
On my old channel, I used to spend days scripting, recording, and editing a bad idea, not knowing that the foundation of this video is not right & I am going to fail. 3. Quality VS Quantity Many people ask me whether they should focus on quantity by posting more videos or focus on quality by making fewer but high-quality videos?
I'm sure most of you will say that we should focus on quality. Quality over quantity always wins. But if you ask me then I will say that the answer to this question depends on how long you have been on YouTube.
Let me explain. If you're just starting out, I would say that you should focus on quantity more than quality. You should make as many videos as you can because this is the phase of your YouTube journey when you have just started learning content creation.
Scripting, recording, editing, producing - this is the time when you need to be familiar with all these things and improve yourself. Now as you post more and more content & refine your skills, you can change your strategy a bit and shift your focus more towards Quality. Basically, you can give more time and effort to a single video.
Like if you're posting 3 videos a week, instead of those 3 average videos, you can make one quality video & you'll see that your content quality will improve a lot. Now think about the same work, a beginner will do, maybe there won't be much difference in their content quality. If it takes him 2 days to make one video & now it takes him a whole week to make a video, then his production value won't improve much.
That's why a beginner should focus more on quantity than quality. & Again, this is something I wish I knew when I started YouTube. In my early days, I used to focus a lot on quality, giving a lot of time & effort to a single video.
Now before we move forward, many viewers ask me in comments which software is best for editing videos on PC. Although there is no shortage of editing software in the market, but most of these softwares have a steep learning curve, which is why they are not good for beginners. So if you need a video editor that has all the pro features and at the same time is easy to use, then the best choice for you is Wondershare Filmora.
Filmora has all the important video editing tools such as hundreds of built-in transitions, built-in sound effects, important elements like arrows, icons etc. , important tools like Keyframing, masking, green screen, motion tracking, and almost everything that you need to edit a killer video. Filmora also has a section for templates which I found personally quite interesting.
. . Here you can see there are many built-in templates.
. . so whatever you want to use, you can simply import it into the timeline.
For example, I'll take this logo animation. You can see it's a very cool animation but right now the Filmora logo is used. .
. So all I have to do is double click on this and here I will replace the Filmora logo with my logo and I'll click on save. & Now if I play this, you can see we have customized this animation.
Filmora also has many AI features such as AI Masking, AI Text to Video, AI Vocal Remover, but my favorite among them is AI Copilot Editing. Basically, it's like a coach that you can ask any video editing or Filmora-related question to and it will instantly tell you what to do, making the process much more efficient for you. Also, I won't forget to mention that this software also has a built-in screen recorder with all the important settings which will be very helpful for creators, especially gaming creators.
So if you want to check out Wondershare Filmora then download it from the link provided in the description and you can give it a try. And of course, if you like it, make sure to get the paid plan. Filmora is available on Windows & Mac and also iOS and Android if you want to try out the mobile app.
4. There's no secret to the algorithm. So I keep receiving emails every day where people ask me to please tell them the secret of the YouTube algorithm.
. . tell them the trick that I have applied on my channel.
& you can see they are ready to even pay me for this. In fact, I can relate to this email because 5-6 years ago I also used to think that big YouTubers know the secrets of the algorithm. .
. they know something about YouTube that we don't which gives them an unfair advantage. So do me and other creators really know something about the algorithm that you don't?
Absolutely Not! We know as much as you do. .
. Like CTR is important, Watch Time & Retention are important, engagement is important. .
. & To be honest, if you just understand these 5-6 metrics well then that's enough to run a successful channel. So yeah, small & big YouTubers both have the same knowledge of the algorithm.
The only difference is that big YouTubers have a deeper understanding of these metrics. Like everyone knows that CTR is important and for CTR you need a good thumbnail. But only a few creators know how to actually make a good thumbnail.
They have a lot of experience & that can be considered as their unfair advantage. But Yes, when it comes to the algorithm, understand that there is no secret that big creators know and you don't. 5.
You're attached to your work As content creators, we invest a significant amount of time, effort, personal investment, and a lot of creativity in our videos. Because of all this, it's natural for us to become emotionally attached to our own work. A simple example that I'm sure we all can relate to is that as soon as we finish editing and export the video, we watch it soo many times.
Even if other people may not watch the video for a long time, but for us, that video is not boring at all because we are emotionally attached to it. . .
Now this attachment often becomes so strong within us that we can't judge our content properly. . .
sometimes we overestimate the merits of our videos, sometimes we underestimate their flaws. If we feel something is wrong in the video, we can't change it because so much time & effort has been invested in making it. .
. . in short, our judgment becomes clouded.
So to overcome this challenge, it becomes very important for us to take feedback from other people. Feedback and constructive criticism can help identify those areas of our videos which we normally ignore. Asking for feedback and criticism from someone you trust and respect can be extremely helpful in improving the weak areas of your content.
Since you're attached to your work, in most cases, the feedback given by others may not sound good to you. But you have to remember that the feedback is about your content and not you as a person. Also, try to get feedback from various sources so that you have a perspective from a viewer, a fellow creator, an expert.
. . .
everyone. Evaluate whatever feedback you get & use it to improve your videos. .
. even if the improvement is only 1%. Alright so we have come to the end of this video but there's 1 last thing that I really wish I knew when I started YouTube and that is how to make a clickable thumbnail.
I have recently made a 17-minute guide on this topic. . .
. it's a highly detailed and informative video so if you haven't watched it yet, click on the screen and watch it. .
. & Yeah, I'll see you there. Bye!
