YouTube’s unspoken proposition, ‘make money by doing what you love’, is driving more and more people to quit their jobs and focus full time on making videos instead. A large number of success stories are proof that money can be made on YouTube. But what is also evident is that becoming a YouTube celebrity is no easy task. So budding YouTubers need to put in a lot of hard-work and avoid certain mistakes that amateurs tend to make.
Following are a few common mistakes that you could make if you are just starting out on YouTube:
Improper lighting
In the world of cameras, ‘lighting’ is like the sun. Without proper lighting, photographs and videos would be appalling to look at. Many amateur YouTubers fail to light their subjects properly. This directly contributes to their videos’ poor performance.
So before you start shooting your video, make sure you get the lighting right. Reflectors can be used to keep the light consistent. Also, it is always advisable to seek the help of people who have some experience in photography.
Not Having A Website
Wondering why this is important? While people have their own YouTube channels, what they tend to forget is that technically they don’t “own” those channels. So if tomorrow YouTube decides to shut shop, they will lose all their viewers and subscribers. That is exactly why you should own a website. The whole purpose of your YouTube channel should be to direct traffic to your web page. Do not forget to add your website link in both channel and video descriptions.
Clickbaiting
First and foremost, clickbaiting is annoying. People click on a thumbnail expecting one thing but end up with something else entirely. This dents your channels reputation. If your reason behind clickbaiting was to get more views, it would have made sense until 2012. But from 2012, YouTube’s recommendation algorithm began prioritizing Watch Time over views. So it doesn’t matter how many people view your video. If they don’t watch it for a sufficiently long time, the video will not be ranked highly.
Not Optimizing Your Video
Imagine a world where you are uploading your first video onto YouTube and the video immediately gets thousands of likes and subscriptions. Now that you are done imagining, lets come back to reality. If getting noticed on YouTube were that easy, everyone would be a celebrity. What you need to realize is that YouTube is essentially a search engine. So, if your content is not optimized, it will get lost in the sea of videos that are being uploaded every day.
Mimicking Established YouTubers
There’s a big difference between copying someone and paying tribute to someone. Many people try to follow the same blueprint as other successful YouTubers. This is a strategy that almost always fails. If there are YouTube celebrities who inspire you, you can pay tribute to them by adding certain elements of their popular videos into yours. But when you try to copy them, originality is lost. Viewers get to see nothing new and will stop following you. So be creative and make videos that people haven’t seen before.
Not Replying to Comments
Your fan is your boss. If people don’t watch your videos and do not subscribe to your channel, then all your effort would be for nothing. So when people (trolls not included) leave comments, you have a duty to respond to them. Obviously, you can’t reply to every single comment. But do as many as possible. Trust is a major factor to be successful on YouTube. If there are no interactions between you and your viewers, you will not be able to gain their trust.
So these are some common mistakes budding YouTubers make. Hope you avoid such mistakes and become a successful YouTube celebrity. Before signing off, I would like to add a couple of things – 1. Always plan really well before you make a video, don’t go impromptu. 2. Don’t use cheap music and equipment. These are very big turn-offs and make the video look shoddy.
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