Don’t wait. Today is your day to start a YouTube Channel!
Check out the following four steps below and you’ll be up and running with an awesome channel.
Note: If you already have a channel or know how to set one up SKIP to STEP 4 where I share with you some equipment suggestions for great lighting, shooting and editing.
How to Start a YouTube Channel:
The FOUR Steps:
- Name your channel and select a theme
- Sign up as an affiliate to earn money
- Market your channel / Networking
- Equipment to get started
1) NAME YOUR CHANNEL AND SELECT A THEME
CHOOSING A NAME:
Most people name a channel after what they call themselves (example: Lori's Corner, Tina's Makeup Show, Fashion with Susan, etc). If you’re going into this seriously, give your name a lot of time and effort. If you are sold on using your name "Tracy Miller" more than likely that account name is already taken. YouTube will then suggest adding numbers or letters at the end "TracyMiller234" avoid this idea if possible. It's not creative, it comes across generic and it can be hard for someone to possibly remember. It also makes searching for you quite difficult. If I can't remember the numbers "2,3,4" after your name, I might try and search "Tracy Miller" and as you can imagine thousands of people will pop up and you will be lost in the bunch. Something unique will shoot straight to the top and make it easy for people to find. Keep it simple! Brainstorm as many different ideas as possible, make it catchy and make it fun. Keep it short! Long names can be difficult to remember. If you were to type my YouYube name into the search engine (shameless plug: LoveJonesy) it would shoot straight to the top of the list! Even better if you search LoveJonesy on google.com my YouTube page is the first thing to appear. Be original! Also, make sure the name has some sort of connection to you. Jonesy is a nickname that I received years ago and it has stuck. That is mostly what people know me as on my blog and youtube account. It makes it easy for people to identify me and also know my site very easily. A great idea is to add your name to cool and original that either describes you, your site or a theme: example AndreasChoice, LoDoesMakeup, ShamelessMaya, LaurenBeauty. Notice the trend, they've all managed to include their name as well another interesting word to help you identify the channel. All of the names are short and to the point, easy to spell. Avoid using odd lettering in your name, example "SusieBaaabe." Writing out "Babe" with three "a's" instead of one can make it difficult for someone to remember. People often do this when a name they really want is already taken. Instead of adding extra letters, try and find something similar or be more creative "SusieBabeBee." It's much easier for someone to remember!
CHOOSING A THEME:
So what do you want your channel to be about? Is it a comedy channel? A channel dedicated to everything about movies? A channel dedicated to fashion? It's a great idea before starting to sit and think what your goal is and what ideally you'd like to see on your channel. When I started off my channel I knew I wanted to incorporate things that I love but primarily focusing on beauty and fashion and touching a little bit on travel. Since I wanted to add in the travel aspect I have to make sure that it's also in line with beauty and fashion so when bringing up travel I try to include things such as strategic packing for a trip, "vacation" fashion must haves, great sunblock for hot vacations, etc. You want to make sure you aren't too broad and all over the place. Imagine if you were watching your favorite television show with the same cast of characters and you tune in one week and it's a comedy and you tune in another week and it's a drama and you tune in the following week and it's a musical. It would get quite confusing, no? You wouldn't know what to expect each time and might begin losing interest? The best channels are the ones where you know each week you'll get quality information and have the expectation or idea on what it will be about. If you watch my channel you know you're going to get a video all about fashion and beauty and don't ever have to worry about me doing a complete video on auto body parts It's great to have variety but try to stay within your theme.
2) SIGN UP & BECOME A PARTNER TO EARN MONEY
GETTING STARTED:
So now that you have your name in mind and your theme. Time for you to sign up! In creating a YouTube account, you are also creating a Gmail account. This will appear as [YouTube username]@gmail.com. Begin by signing in on the homepage!
After you have signed you will need to create a YouTube account. Follow the instructions! You will have to fill out a bunch of information, email, user name, date of birth, etc and then you will be asked to "accept."
Google will make you provide verification. This is very simple! They will ask to send a code to your phone, once you received that code you can input that information in and your account will be verified. Once you are done you can do cool things like set up your profile page where you can add a main picture and add your own background. Try to express yourself. Only YouTube partners are able to create banners after they have had a certain amount of subscribers. Once everything is set up, you are all done. You can start making videos!
BECOME A PARTNER & EARN MONEY:
The YouTube Partner Program provides creators with resources and opportunities to improve skills, build fan bases, and earn more money. Signing up is easy, and membership is free. http://www.youtube.com/yt/partners/
To become a YouTube Partner, content creators must abide by YouTube’s Community Guidelines. Please read these carefully! Admission to the Program varies by country. As a YouTube Partner, you are expected to comply with their Terms of Service, Community Guidelines, and other Partner Program policies.
After you become a partner and once you have created and uploaded a video you are eligible to earn a percentage of money from advertisers that place ads on your videos. Once your video is submitted and approved for monetization, YouTube will place ads inside or near the video. After you’ve associated an AdSense account with your YouTube account, you will earn revenue that is generated from the ads. For more information on creating an AdSense account, CLICK HERE.
Once you have your adsense page all set you, you must enable ads on your videos. As your video uploads, click the "Monetization" tab on the upload page and click the "Monetize my video" check box.
Click the "Save changes" button.
Your video will go through a standard review process before ads begin to appear. You may be asked to submit information proving you own all necessary commercial use rights to any or all content in your video. Note that if you enable monetization at the time of upload and your video is set to private or unlisted, it will remain so and without ads until you make it public.
3) MARKET AND NETWORK
If you are already active on YouTube this is great! Continue to comment and subscribe to fellow youtubers that you enjoy watching. Make sure to let them know that you inspired them and just started a YouTube yourself. You will be surprised how excited some of them will be for you and hopefully will subscribe back. Engage with other "newbies" on YouTube. Seek out people with similar videos as yourself. Example, I did a "hair growth" video and found similar videos and reached out to the person to let them know I watched and really enjoyed theirs and encouraged them to check out mine as well. Be active! Comment, subscribe and watch whenever you have free time. Someone seeing your comment may feel inclined to click and check out your page and subscribe. Be patient! I remember when I had 10 subscribers wondering how some people were at 20K, then my 10 jumped to 600. It doesn't happen over night but patience is key. Don't compare yourselves to others. Learn as much as you can, study technique. If you watch older videos from successful youtubers you can see the progress they have made throughout the years. They started off with basic editing, an OK camera and no special effects and now have launched into a video making machine. This can be you some day but you have to have patienent! Attend Youtube meets up in your community and attend big events such as IMATS or the MakeUp Show if your channel is all about beauty. If you have a blog and any social media applications use those to market your videos. When I post a video I usually start off by letting everyone know on my instagram (LoveJonesy) that I just shot this amazing video and I'm in the process of editing and they should stay tuned to my channel! I'll usually post another photo in a day or so announcing that it's up! I also post the same video link on my facebook, twitter and all of my blogs. It's also a great idea to connect your name on all platforms. My tumblr is imjonesy.tumblr.com, my instagram is lovejonesy, my youtube is lovejonesy, my pinterest is xoxolovejonesy. You get my drift! Try and keep everything in the same family!
3) EQUIPMENT TO GET STARTED