How To Grow Your YouTube Channel? 

How many “How to grow your YouTube channel” videos have you watched when starting your YouTube channel?

Starting and growing a YouTube channel is overwhelming. All creators have done all the research and watched all the trainings to learn #allthethings about YouTube. The dos and don’ts, the analytics, what’s on-trend, and more.

If there are many things that you need to start doing if you want to grow your channel, there are also things that you need to stop doing that can halt your growth.

Here are the top 3 mistakes that you need to stop doing in your videos if you want to grow your YouTube Channel. 

1. Overstuffing Your Video

Overstuffing your content is hurting your videos. Too much information can be confusing.

Whether you’re planning your video, recording, or in the editing process, always think about your audience.

Go through every clip and every detail of your videos and see what's the most relevant pieces to your audience's primary reason for searching for that content.

Sometimes, there are clips that may be valuable to you (the creator) but not so much to the viewer who clicked your video and the primary issues they're hoping to have addressed.

To get the right balance of your content, ask yourself these two questions:

1. What is the main point of this video?

2. What's the best way to deliver this content?

Always remember that your videos are not for you but for your people.

Your content should be easy to digest. 

Stop thinking of yourself and the easiest way to create your video, think about your people. Deliver your content in a way that they can easily understand.

2. Remove the Fluff

After determining the main point of your content, it’s time to remove the fluff or the clips that are not needed to complete the video.

There are some clips that will not make it to the final cut but these clips don't have to be wasted either.

Instead, consider repurposing that content for micro-content on your social media accounts.

Through repurposing those unused clips, it's helpful to not add unnecessary work to yourself recording content you won't use in your main edit.

⚡️Pro-Tip⚡️ USE BULLET POINTS

Most creators come up with great ideas but don't 

know how to deliver that content to their audience.

Bullet points help you summarize all the important parts of the content you want to cover in your video. It will also help you think of a simple and concise way to explain your thoughts.

So, before you sit down to record your video take time to write down the specific and clear ideas you have for this video and the examples you want to use.

3.  Plan Your Content Tips

Many new creators wait until they are in front of the camera to decide what the tip should be they want to give in the video. This is backward.

On YouTube, Audience Retention is a key metric that YouTube uses to determine the relevancy and helpfulness of your content vs others.

• Let's say YouTube recommends your video to a specific viewer and they watch your video for 1 minute and 12 seconds before leaving but they watch another video for 4 minutes and engage with the content. And this pattern repeats viewer after viewer, who's video do you think YouTube is likely to determine has greater value?

This is why planning your specific and defined tip can help capture and keep your viewer's attention versus hoping they watch long enough for you to eventually get to the point.

Break down your content tips into odd numbers. Why odd? Psychologically, they've proven to perform better than even numbers.

• This is why you don't see "Top 8 best cameras" versus the "Top 5 best cameras". The only exception is top 10 and top 100 styles.

If you have a list of tips, consider starting with a top 5 or a top 3 list of things you want to cover in your video.

A simple outline for your video could look like this:

1. Main Video TItle
   1. Main Point #1
      1. Sub-Point A
      2. Sub-Point B
   2. Main Point #2
      1. Sub-Point A
         1. A specific and relevant example
   3. Main Point #3
      1. Sub-Point A
         1. A specific and relevant example
      2. Sub-Point B
         1. Relevant story related to the sub-point

What is your tip #1? What example you can reference in an example to support this tip?

If you start making these changes to more clearly communicate in your YouTube videos, you will start to see results in the performance of your videos!

⚡️Bonus Tip⚡️  Use the "Smile & Hold" Recording Method

The Smile & Hold method for recording video content is a recording strategy I created early on when recording to save myself the frustration of introducing weird cuts in the videos that look awkward when you're editing.

Here's the Main Problem for Those New to Video

When you're in the process of recording, you sometimes will find yourself making mistakes you won't see until you are trying to edit your videos.

You say your tip and before you're done speaking you put your head down to look at your notes. It's not until you're reviewing that recording that you notice your head was down awkwardly for the last 3 seconds of your video and everyone will see you were looking at notes versus continuing to look at your camera.

This is where my Smile & Hold recording method comes to the rescue!

Here's how it works:

1. Smile Before You Start Speaking (Maintain eye contact with the camera)

Before you start talking, smile at the camera, hold that smile for 2 or 3 seconds then start talking.

This is so you don't start your clip awkwardly looking off in space or going from a non-smiling face to a smiling face in no time flat which also looks odd on camera.

2. State Your Tip

 Stating your tip is easy to execute when you have planned out what you're going to say FIRST.

If you find it hard to go from tip to tip, slow down and say it in statements vs long big statements. That way if you mess up you have natural breaks where you can repeat yourself.

3. Smile & Hold (At the End of Your Tip)

  As you're nearing the end of the statement of your tip, smile and hold that smile for about 3 or so seconds and then you can break contact with the camera to look at your notes or take a break.

The reason you're "holding" is so that you allow space during editing for you to add transitions or other effects without cutting off your words or making funky faces at the camera without realizing it.

How Can You Edit Your Content Better When You're New?

If you're new to editing your video content, let alone new to recording video content, I want to share with you the top 3 tips I give all my new clients to help them not only record better but make editing so much easier.

To dive into the content, you can watch those tips here.