If I Started a YouTube Channel in 2023, I'd Do This

if you can get these three things right then you're completely Off to the Races and your channel will explode and you'll become a millionaire so in this video I'm going to take my last six years of experience on YouTube and I'm going to try and condense it into a three-part framework that I would follow if I was starting a YouTube channel completely from scratch today so I call this framework the part-time YouTuber blueprint because my course is called the part-time YouTuber Academy and I've taught this system to more than 2 300 students over the last three years now there's three levels to this framework if you're new to making videos and in this context I'm starting a YouTube channel with xero experience completely from scratch we're going to start with level one level one is get going and this is like your first three videos now if you're starting completely from scratch and you have zero experience then a huge hurdle that holds people up from starting a YouTube channel is actually just not getting started with the thing in the first place so what I'd be doing is I'd just be making three videos maybe they're shorts maybe they're videos I don't even edit maybe I'm just making them on my phone and speaking to the camera and uploading them to a new YouTube channel I would create a channel create maybe some channel art on canva or something like that and this is kind of like the first three dates that you go on someone if you're in the date you know you're kind of getting to know them you're seeing if you Vibe and in those three videos I get some pretty good insight into how I feel about making videos I'm going to be absolutely terrible at it because like with any skill it takes ages to get good at the thing but at least at the start I've made some kind of effort in doing it like for example if you're watching this right now and you haven't yet started a YouTube channel I suspect the thing that's holding you back is probably overthinking I suspect it's probably overthinking about your Niche what the hell do I make videos about why would anyone watch my content will people at my job respond poorly to the fact I have a YouTube channel all of that overthinking just gets in the way of people that's why level one is to get going and just make those first three videos because to be honest YouTube is a lifestyle Choice what you're trying to do what you're signing up for if you're gonna take this seriously is making videos every week for the next like several years of your life and so it's worth flirting with it for these first three videos and just seeing how you feel if you don't know anything at all about literally how to hold a camera how to hold a phone how to edit a video how to make a thumbnail how to start a YouTube channel then there's loads of free content available on YouTube alternatively I've got a course that you can take at your own pace it's called part-time YouTuber foundations and it's just one dollar and if you take the course then you take action on the course and you email us we will literally refund you the one dollar that it costs for the course it will take you through how to set up a YouTube channel how to make your first video your second video titles thumbnails the basics of editing using free software anyway once you've gone on these first three dates once you've made these first three videos at that point you have a choice and this is Choice number one this is do you want to be in a casual relationship with YouTube or do you want to be in a serious relationship with YouTube now casual is like I'll make a video whenever I feel like it maybe I'll film a video on a holiday here and there serious is I am committed to this and that would be obviously the position that I would be in if I was starting YouTube completely from scratch today I would actively decide consciously commit to being in a serious relationship with YouTube that means just like if you're in a serious relationship with a person in real life you want to try and see them at least once a week I would want to be committing to making at least one video a week because that to me is taking it seriously you know a YouTube channel does not grow if you if you treat it casually you cannot accidentally lock into just having a big profitable YouTube channel and that kind of stuff you have to actively take it seriously and then once I've committed to taking YouTube seriously I'm now ready to go on to level two now level two is what I call get good but I would say in Brackets get good enough because in level two we're going to be making our next seven videos and the point of these seven videos is to get better at the craft of making videos and the thing with YouTube is that there are a lot of skills wound up in being a good YouTuber or being a successful YouTuber there's titles and thumbnails and filming and talking to a camera and like structuring your stuff and storytelling and being reasonable at public speaking if you're going to show your face and then being reasonable at research and writing an animation if you're not going to show your face and then actually editing which takes absolutely ages and understanding analytics there are so many skills around what it takes to Be an Effective YouTuber again in this model we're starting completely from scratch I don't know any of these skills I don't know how to talk to a camera don't know how to edit video so I need to spend these next seven videos actively trying to improve the craft of making videos crucially at this point I'm still not worrying about my Niche I don't give a toss for my niches at this point because all I'm trying to do is get better at the craft of making videos so my next seven videos in this get good enough stage are going to be I'm just making videos on whatever I feel like maybe I just add absolutely freaking love these Stabilo pastel colored highlighters so I might make a video about my favorite highlighter pens maybe I absolutely love this D brand Ali abdall palette collaboration phone case and I can make a video reviewing that maybe I absolutely love this book that I have on my desk at all times show your work by Austin Cleon so I can make a video reviewing the book it does not matter what the video is about what matters is that we're getting better at the craft of making videos and we're not trying to overthink our Niche at this point and again to use the relationship analogy this is where you get to know each other a little bit better you're learning more about the other person they're learning more about you and across these seven videos and three plus seven equals ten so 10 videos in level one and level two across these 10 videos you're getting to know the craft of making YouTube videos but you're also learning a little bit about yourself maybe at this point you're even having to confront your own emotions around like fear of what other people will think and judgment and self-doubt and all of these other emotional hurdles that can get in the way of us building a life that we love and so I'd be making these seven videos on top of my other three and I would just be uploading them to my YouTube channel at this point you might also want to learn how to get better editing if you happen to use Final Cut I haven't other course about this it's completely free on skillshare or it's included for free as part of my part-time YouTuber Academy if you want that'll be linked down below as well by the way if you're enjoying this video so far I would love it if you could give us a thumbs up apparently it really helps for the YouTube algorithm anyway once you've gotten Beyond level two at that point you have to make the ultimate choice and the ultimate choice is do you want to treat YouTube like a hobby having made 10 videos or do you want to treat YouTube like a business and on the hobby to business Spectrum let's say hobby zero and business is 10 where do you land on that Spectrum you're not allowed to pick five and if you do decide at this point that you actually want to treat YouTube as a hobby that's totally fine but if you decide that you want to lean towards the business end of the spectrum if you decide like I would if I were in a position that I want to treat YouTube very seriously and I want to treat it like a business and I want to be a professional rather than an amateur when it comes to YouTube that takes us on to level three and level three is get smart now at this point we need to actually understand the game of YouTube so far these first 10 videos we've just been trying to make videos that we enjoy but to really grow a YouTube channel that can potentially change your life we need to understand what is the game that we are trying to play and there's basically three things there's only three things that YouTube cares about when it comes to growing a YouTube channel and if you can get these three things right then you're completely Off to the Races and your channel will explode and you'll become a millionaire and those three things are number one click number two watch time and number three satisfaction so firstly the click this is the importance of titles and thumbnails and idea generation and concept no one is ever going to watch your video unless they click on your video and so the first step to success on YouTube is earning The Click your titles and thumbnails and Concepts need to be sufficiently intriguing that someone actually clicks on the video secondly we have watch time now the YouTube algorithm cares a lot about how much of your video someone has watched because the YouTube algorithm is ultimately trying to serve the Right video to the right viewer at the right time and so if a viewer is watching a lot of your video it means they're getting continuous value from that video and so watch time is a great signal for the algorithm to then promote your video to more people that are similar to that viewer that watched it for a long time so we've gotten people to click with our title and thumbnail we've got people to watch the video with everything about the video actually being good and then we want to leave people satisfied now increasingly the algorithm is talking a lot more more about satisfaction is looking at signals according to my YouTube Partner manager who I speak to fairly regularly signals like you know likes and comments and things but also YouTube has started putting these surveys for a percentage of their users that you might have seen when you're browsing YouTube and they've got tons of other signals for viewer satisfaction so it's not necessarily that you need to get people to watch 100 of your hour-long video but YouTube has good ways of knowing were people satisfied as a result of the video that they watched so having understood the game we now need to talk about strategy and this is where we're allowed to start thinking about our Niche but at this point we have to think okay there are zillions of videos uploaded to YouTube every single day and so your video needs to add enough value for the person on the other end to think that it's Justified as an investment of time and attention on their part you're not just competing with the other stuff that's on the side of YouTube in the suggested videos and watch this next you're competing with their phone you're competing with things happening in their real life you're competing with every other distraction in this person's life so this is where strategy comes in and this is where it's really important to figure out what is our Niche now the way that I've been teaching this for the last three years on my YouTuber Academy I think makes a lot of sense and that's you know the question of Niche gets people focused on the wrong things I think a niche is actually two things it's a Target and it's a value so in the start of my YouTube journey in 2017 the target for my YouTube videos was people applying to medical school in the UK and the value I was giving them was helping them get into medical school in the UK and that is a very clear Target and a very clear value proposition which is how my channel grew in those initial days now in our YouTuber Academy we have a whole like two hour long session where we talk about how to figure out your Target and your value proposition but kind of long story short basically what you want to do is you want to figure out what are your own interests and what are your own strengths and what are your own unfair or competitive advantages and who are the people that you could potentially help or serve with your content and then you kind of combine all those things and you make a few hypotheses about okay I could potentially be helping small business owners manage their accounts or I could be potentially helping dentists run better ads on Facebook or I could potentially be helping students in Indonesia get better at studying for their exams like whatever that Target and value is those are different niches that you could potentially enter with your YouTube channel and so that answers the question of why should someone watch my videos it's like I'm the videos are targeted to that person and I'm giving value to that person and therefore people are watching my videos for the value that they get whether it's entertainment or education or inspiration there's always value that people want to get from your videos otherwise they wouldn't watch them and then the next question we have to answer in the strategy piece is why would someone watch my videos rather than the other videos on this topic now most niches that you might want to go into on YouTube are kind of crowded these days productivity personal development all this this kind of stuff ridiculously crowded and so you need a way of standing out in a crowded market so again the method that we teach for this there's like two things to understand here there's number one the market and number two your Edge so firstly we've got understanding the market and here we want to apply the principles that a business would use which is why we're treating YouTube as a business let's say you wanted to start a new business let's say you decided I want to open an Italian restaurant on my local High Street you wouldn't just decide to open an Italian restaurant on your local High Street you would do some market analysis you would see what other Italian restaurants are there in my local area what other restaurants are there in my local area what are the coffee shops what's the clientele like what are the what's the sort of income of people walking through the area you'd be doing a lot of analysis before you pull the trigger and just randomly decide to open up an Italian restaurant and so we'd analyze the market and then we'd figure out our competitive or authentic Edge and this isn't necessarily about being better in fact I think being better is like the worst way of doing this firstly because better is in the eye of the beholder and also it just takes way more work but there are loads of other domains in which you could stand out for example in terms of the depth of research you go into your videos in terms of Storytelling in terms of editing in terms of relatability and authenticity maybe you're a male in a female dominated industry or female in a male-dominated industry maybe you're the only person of color who's making that kind of content and so you're appealing to other people of color just like you and so there's loads of these different ways that you could stand out in the market and you just need to figure out what is that like what is the market and what is my Edge now once I figured out the strategy the next problem I'm going to run into is that it takes a large amount of time to do all of this stuff well especially if I've got a full-time job especially if I've got a family and friends and I want to maintain my health and social life it's actually really hard to make make the time to do YouTube well unless of course you quit your job from day one and that kind of like again I'm assuming if I start YouTube completely from scratch I don't have the ability quit my day job and this is quite a lot to do there's a lot of stuff you have to do to be good at YouTube and it's really really really hard to do it in you know five to ten hours a week but what I've learned over the last six years and I'd incorporate this kind of knowledge into my starting YouTube from scratch is that if I build systems of systems and leverage then I actually can do YouTube in somewhere between five and ten hours a week and again this is thinking like a business it's like if you go into any McDonald's anywhere in the world you'll get basically an identical experience because the systems and processes that McDonald's have built are absolutely incredible you can put any 16 year old into any of the positions at McDonald's basically and they'd give you the same result because the systems are so good so what I'd be thinking is how do I build systems for my YouTube channel so that I can create valuable content that my audience finds interesting and useful within my Niche that's strategically aligned to what I want to do but do it in a way that doesn't take up large amounts of time now if you've gotten to the end of this video and you're interested in potentially Building Systems for your own YouTube channel and saving a lot of time that's exactly what we teach on my part-time YouTuber Academy and we're going to be doing our final live cohort of the course in April and May of 2023 so this is the last time we're doing a live cohort I've done seven live cohorts for over 2 300 students in the last like two and a half years but now it's kind of getting a bit boring firstly because I've been saying the same stuff repeatedly for the last three years but also now that this channel has grown and I'm about to publish my book and all this other stuff's happening my life is going in a direction where running live online courses is no longer compatible with other cool stuff that's happening but basically the whole course is about how do you build systems and processes and tools and templates to operationalize and scale a YouTube channel just as if you were treating it like a business and I've been building these systems and tools for my channel for the last six years I've taught it to 2000 plus other students and so we'll teach that to you on this live course as well and we've got some really cool looking graphs and testimonials as well from people who have taken the course in the last like two and a half years and whose channels have exploded and it's just super interesting to see and of course has a 60 day 100 satisfaction money back guarantee also I get that the course is pretty expensive because it's live and it takes a lot of effort from like me and like 10 other people in my team to make this happen but for the last three years we have been offering scholarships to people who are in financial difficulty who can't afford the price of the course and this time again because it's the final live cohort that we're going to do we have doubled the amount of scholarship places that are available so if you want to take YouTube seriously but if you're in a financial situation that means you can't afford the price of the course then you should absolutely apply for a scholarship we spend a lot of time looking at these applications the team spends ages reviewing them and so if your application is good you'll get a scholarship to the course and then you can join this community of 2000 plus part-time YouTubers it's absolutely sick anyway that'll be linked down in the video description so you can check it out and if you enjoyed this video you might like to check out this video over here which is my top 10 tips for beginner YouTubers so that might be interesting for you thank you so much for watching have a great day and I'll see you in the next video bye

Channel: Ali Abdaal

Views: 1,763,438

Keywords: Ali Abdaal, Ali abdal, ali abdaal productivity, ali abdaal, ali abdal, how to grow a youtube channel, how to grow on youtube in 2023, how to grow on youtube, how to grow a youtube channel today, make money on youtube, beginners guide to youtube, beginner youtube, advice for youtubers, what i would do today on youtube, ali abdaal youtube, how to grow a successful youtube channel, how to grow a successful youtube channeloutube in 2023, youtube advice, advice beginner youtubers

Id: T2M9hSswlIs

Length: 13min 31sec (811 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 14 2023