Starting a YouTube Channel 2024: here’s what I’d do (and not do)

so you're thinking about starting a YouTube channel this year Well I want to share some of the things that I would do if I were starting a channel this is based on having been here a bit and some mistakes I've made too so like one be a student of YouTube now here's what I mean from this learn from the platform I don't think you can really be part of a platform in this case YouTube unless you're really looking at it and and what does it take now there's a lot of things you can do on

there and there's a lot of noise as well but I think this is more about just being a student of it you don't have to be an expert and you don't have to be able to have a degree in YouTube but I do believe that if you really want to make YouTube your place to shine and it is a place you can shine on then you need to be a student of YouTube another thing I would do is limit the number of teachers and gurus here's what I mean there's a lot of great advice out

there there are some friends of mine that have been mentors and teachers but you can get on there and you can search things like how to grow on YouTube and you're going to see a ton of information and a lot of it is well-meaning but a lot of it can become noise again where it competes you this guy will say this one thing and this guy will say this and it'll contradict and you go what do I do so what I would recommend is find a few people there's no special number there of people that

you you kind of follow for a while and study maybe you get to a point of taking one of their programs you know their online courses or something like that and really see how they're working on it and then follow them and learn from them and even reach out from time to time and just thank them for helping you on your journey another way is experiment with content formats here's what I mean by this YouTube is is such an amazing platform that gives you so many different ways ways to create you can publish a video

of different links I haven't even talked about short set but you could do a long form video you could do a short long form video if that's the thing just go with me here you can do vertical videos called shorts you can live stream you can do video podcasting and in fact at some point you when you join like the partner program when your when your channel has grown enough and you fit the requirements you can even add shopping and things like that then there's the community Tab and there's so many different ways what I

would do if you're just starting is experiment with all of those and see which one you like you may go I I I I'm not a good live streamer have you ever live stream try it you may find out that is the best format for you so play and experiment I would also ignore a lot of the right things to do and when I say right things I am putting those in quotations if you follow YouTube like going back to being a student of it YouTube is very clear on what matters in fact you can

click on the little question mark it's kind of the gray out thing and YouTube will give you information to help you right inside your own Studio but there's a lot of right ways that are thrown out there like for example thumbnails and how much text you should have on there well some people will say you know the right thing is no words or three words or four words and so you got to be careful about the right thing that the correct strategy the reality of it is is there are so many different ways to do

YouTube and grow and succeed and in fact you've got to decide what success is for you so know some of the basics and then other than that don't get so caught up in all the right way to do things this goes back to being a student but study like successful YouTube channels and and I'm I'm probably I'm a little hesitant to say success because it's easy to look at Channels with huge subscribers and things like that go well they're successful well they may have like a lot of subscribers which is fun but it's also a

vanity metric but at the same time they may not be making any money or they may not have any connection and you may say look I'm I'm more concerned with growing a community so find those channels that are similar to you similar to maybe what you want to focus on your your topic and kind of study them and and see how they do things and see how often they upload and how they do their videos don't do it to copy just do it to learn from and and again you you may find something like wow

I didn't know that or I think I could do that differently so by studying them you'll learn a lot and since we're talking about starting YouTube at any time if you're looking for some great resources and tools to help you check out the video resource Hub it's my site you'll find tons of things there to help you with production AI Tools YouTube there's a link to that down in the description now this is something I did not do for a a while and it was give YouTube my full attention and I think there's reasons to

be on other platforms but the mistake I made was trying to do too much while I was still trying to understand and grow on YouTube which I think is an evolving process anyway I don't think you fully understand everything about it because it's constantly evolving but I was trying to do LinkedIn and Pinterest and Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and blah blah blah blah and it just got overwhelming now I still like Facebook and the other ones you know I I dip in and every once in a while and you know this could even apply

to podcasting and stuff like that as well but I can I can share this if I had focused more on YouTube when I was trying to understand and grow on YouTube I think it would have helped me to grow faster or maybe at least grow deeper how about that so be very very careful about not making YouTube like your your full giving it your your full attention when you were trying to grow and do YouTube now another mistake I made is I I came from a television background so I spent years and years and years

in perfecting video because especially what what I did I was a creative director at my last station and so our our job was to PR the station and so you know everything had to be really thought out every frame I mean even if we did a did a promo for the commercial in the Super Bowl oh my word that would be thought to death before we ever got it to air well that actually kind of worked against me because I do believe in quality but I also think quality is kind of in the eye of

the beholder I'll give you an example I like the movie Blair Witch Project a lot more than Avatar and if you look at those two side by side quality-wise they're completely different so I think my production background I can't do anything about I'm glad I have it but it actually sometimes kept kept me from creating and just trying and being real something I I've done so kind of what I would do if I were just starting is just just be you like I'm shooting this on my DJI osmo pocket 3 cuz I like it and

it's simple and I've got minimal lighting and I'm wearing the mic so you know don't worry about over producing and trying to get it perfected just let the real you shine on YouTube so if you're starting your YouTube channel and this one is going to be tough try not to compare yourself to other creators it it gets very easy to do you look at somebody I do it I look at other creators that either I you know they inspire me or I just like their work or you know they've got the bigger channels and you

go oh okay well I can't do that because and that because or just you know I'm just a Channel with this I mean I hear people say all the time well I've only got you know like 100 subscribers dude that's 100 subscribers you've probably got 100 more no you do have 100 more than the person that may even watch this and and just never ever start so I do think it's important to learn from others but when you get into the comparison it'll just like it'll suck the creativity out of you and then that gets

in your head all the time and I'm not going to lie it is a trap and it's easy to fall into it so when you find yourself maybe comparing yourself just maybe turn off YouTube for a while so you can create an upload and let yourself shine okay and if you want to start a YouTube channel and I would encourage you to here's the key you ready you ready start no literally start I I have had clients before that I've coached who say well I I don't even know what my first video would be and

I say make that your first video share it maybe you don't know yet if you want to do a vlog or a video podcast or live stream or or whatever and and and that's okay but there's a point where you can study too much you can try and prepare too much and you just need to start so let this be your year if you've ever thought about starting a YouTube channel to start a YouTube channel and then let me know how it goes in the comments because we're all cheering for you I'm cheering for you

and I hope you cheer for me so hey I'm Kevin thank you so much for watching now stop watching and start your Channel