- In this video, I'm talking about some of the biggest
mistakes that YouTubers make to hopefully give you some insight on things that you
probably shouldn't be doing on your channel, and
I'm not dong this alone. I've teamed up with an
awesome group of creators, and I thought this was a great opportunity to hear from some other creators on mistakes that they've
made on their channels as they were gettin' goin',
as they've been building it, and things that they wish
that they could've avoided if they started right now. Let's get into it. (intense electronic sounds) So this is an awesome event. Sony brought us all
together here in Montana, test out some Sony cameras, just hang out with other creators, and it's just a great opportunity
to meet with each other and kinda just chat YouTube, and I think it's a great
chance for you guys to learn from a lot of creators and
just hear from other people that are doing this full-time and seeing some of the
mistakes that they've made as they've been building their channels. So I was walking through
this beautiful forest and I just ran into Sara. - It's so convenient to find you out here. Do you have a question for me? - [Jeven] What your biggest
mistake is on YouTube. - Yes, okay, I have a good one. In the big days of
vlogging, everyone said, you have to daily vlog. It's about quantity, you gotta get out as much content as possible, and it honestly stopped
all momentum of my channel because I wasn't worried
about making quality stuff or things I actually enjoyed, I was only worrying about quantity. Now it's great to look back and say, hey, I can do that, I can
produce five videos a week for like eight months, it's a great thing to be able to do, you test your work ethic and I got a few cool videos. It's good to look back on life
and remember certain things. However, it almost killed me. It left me so uninspired 'cause I wasn't making the projects I
actually wanted to make. So I think we're in a beautiful time where the algorithm can actually
work in your favor, it's not just the enemy. You can go away for three, four weeks, work on a poppin' video, and if you got a good thumbnail title, you deliver with good
content, a good video, you're back, you don't have
to upload every single day in order to be a relevant
content creator anymore. Boom! - So focus on quality, not quantity. Thanks Sara.
- of course. - [Jeven] Hey, what's up? - What's up man? - I just found Sidney, and
he's got something for you. What's your biggest mistake? - Oh man, so many, but for me, I wish I would have focused
more on my audience retention because that little graph where you see the drop off where your
audience just stops watching, it's not a bad thing
because it kinda tells you what you should do differently
with your next video, so maybe don't do such a long intro, maybe just get straight to the point, or just say real quickly in one sentence, hey guys, this is what this
video is gonna be about. Watch to the end because I
got a giveaway happening. So when I change up my content
based on that little graph like my audience retention just grew, and so my average watch
time is like six minutes compared to like a minute-and-a-half. Pay attention to your analytics, they tell you everything you need to know. Don't feel bad about yourself when you see the decline in the graphs. Look at it and learn from it and then you're only gonna get better. - I'm gonna add onto that, so
with your audience retention, what you're looking for is dips. What he's talking about
is that graph you can see from beginning to end, how long people are watching your video. And what you're looking
for is when they drop off. If they drop off at the beginning that means you have a
low audience retention. He's getting about six minutes, which that means that he's getting a very solid audience retention, and six minutes means YouTube's gonna keep recommending your content more and more. So pay attention to
your audience retention. If you are not getting a
high audience retention, you're getting like a minute but you have 10-minute long videos, then look and see what's
happening within your video and why people are clicking off. - Boom. - Everywhere you turn, there's
more creators at this thing. - What's up Jeven's audience? - We're Becki and Chris. I'm Chris, she's Becki.
- I thought you were Becki? We make videos about-- - Things that we're interested in. - Yeah, mostly photography and video, but helicopter stuff, travel,
home decor, everything. - His question to us was, what's your biggest regret?
- Biggest mistake. - Biggest mistake, okey. - What's your biggest regret?
- I have so many regrets but no mistakes.
- 20 minutes later he's like I have no card space left. Shut the fuck up (laughs). We're gonna go right to you. - I'm gonna go return this lens-- - You're fired.
- 'Cause I have no regrets. - The biggest mistake we made when we were starting out
was titling our videos too specific to the content of the video that didn't make any
sense for the audience. What I mean by that is, if the video was about,
say it was like a vlog and we were teaching about
landscape photography, and something funny
happened, we'd name the vlog something about the thing that was funny, like, you'd never believe what he did? And nobody cares. When you have 500 followers or whatever, nobody knows who he is, and that's not gonna show
up in the search engine, so we should've called it, how
to do landscape photography, or how to shoot whatever we were shooting, and then titled it for the algorithm, titled it for SEO, and we didn't do that. It took us a long time
to grow our channel, I think, because we didn't
really care, and looking back I think we should have
cared more about titles. - Okay, I have some other creators here and they wanna tell you
their biggest mistakes. So what's your biggest mistake? I got another guy for you, I got Cody, and he's gonna tell you
his biggest mistake. - Hey, what's up guys? My name is Cody Blue. My channel is like cinematic film making, Sony cameras, and outdoor
adventure type stuff. But my biggest mistake on
YouTube was shooting things that I thought people wanted me to shoot and thought they wanted
to see on my channel, when really I should
have just been shooting the stuff that I wanted to
shoot because it seems like that's what people like more of anyways. Shoot what you want to shoot and not what you think your
audience wants you to shoot. Just do whatever you want,
you'll enjoy it more, and your channel will be more successful. - Hey friends, this is Brandon
here from This is Tech Today. And one of the biggest mistakes I made when I started making YouTube videos was making content without
any intentionality. You have to know who you're targeting and why you're making the video. - All right, I just ran
into my friends from The Endless Adventure,
and they're gonna tell you what their biggest mistake was. - I feel like our biggest mistake when we started our channel was that we were just kinda
throwing content out there and just filming our day,
and then once we tried to really find a niche, we
tried to find specific videos that resonated with our audience, so we would do tours of cities, city guides, we would do food
tours and stuff like that, staying in weird, quirky places, and ultimately the food
videos hit really well. Now we've done enough of
those weird, strange places that those videos do really well. - Yeah, when we first
started we would just go out, not really with a point to the day, and I feel like for us it didn't work, our content suffered because of it, because we thought that we
were entertaining enough and we personally weren't, maybe you are, but I think it works
just a lot better for us to have a goal for the day and something that we're
wanting to accomplish. And then a niche, which
is food, which is great. - I really think that
once we made that change, that's when our channel
started to really pick up. - Yep.
- Yeah, for sure. - Being intentional. - All right, just ran into Henry and he's gonna give you one
of his biggest mistakes. - All right, so when I
first started out on YouTube I was actually pretty young at the time and one of the biggest tips
I can give to beginners who are actually just getting into it is definitely be true to yourself. Be genuine, don't go
chasing after the views because I feel like I
was kind of view hungry at the very beginning. That was the only thing I was focused on and that kinda led to my content not reflecting who I really was. But now I've actually been able to kind of align myself with what I truly like and create content that
I truly care about, regardless of the views
and stuff like that. I think that's one of my
biggest tips for you guys. Be genuine, and I think that's when the best will come out of you. - All right, I'm gonna
switch out the camera. Go get an A7III, try
something a little different. So I just ran into Aldryn and he's got another tip for you guys. - Hey, my name is Aldryn Estacio. My channel is FlytPath.com and I really started my channel around drones. I started flying drones a long time ago and just wanted to start
sharing everything that I did and learned when I started flying drones. Started putting it online and ended up building
an audience around that. I think the biggest thing
I learned at the time was not to overthink equipment and kind of hold yourself
back from thinking, oh I need the best stuff,
I need the best stuff. Most of my channel when I started was literally done with my phone and a point and shoot camera, and I still like using my phone
and point and shoot camera because it's such an
easy thing to do and use. First thing I would say is
definitely don't overthink that you need the best gear. Start with what you have. Watch people's channels. Understand what you need
to do to up your level every single time, and I
think definitely do that as you start to progress,
but don't limit yourself in thinking that you
need the high-end gear. - Hey guys, my name is
SWOOP, my channel is SWOOP. I am a filmmaker and I also do a mix of scripted meets reality. It's kind of crazy life
content and cinema vlogs. Probably my biggest mistake
when I was getting started on YouTube was fighting the system. There's always gonna be a certain level of having to work with the
system, with the algorithm, with what the platform wants, and because I was always approaching it as a filmmaker and I always
wanna make different content all the time, that can wind up hurting you because YouTube doesn't
know where to classify you and how to fit you, and it really needs that
data in order to push you out to the right audiences. So if you can experiment and play around and actually create some
type of episodic content or some kind of consistent format, where YouTube knows when you upload, they know exactly what
audiences to push it, that's really going to help
your growth in the longterm and also build much
more audience engagement and they're gonna know
what to expect from you, and you can still incorporate
elements of creativity and like, gradually transitioning them into different styles, because of course you don't wanna do the
same thing all the time, but you gotta know that
there is some level where you need to work with the platform so it knows how to identify you. - What's goin' on guys? My name is Ryan Kao and here on YouTube I create content sharing my journey and developing as a content creator my journey and experiences as becoming a full-time freelancer, and some of the things that I encounter in giving help to you guys
and advice to you creators in pursuing that yourselves. One of the biggest mistakes I first made when starting on YouTube
was comparing myself too much to other people. I had a lot of favorite
creators that I would watch all the time, and I would be like, my videos are so cool but
those are so much better. It doesn't look as good,
and so I get caught up in this sort of perfectionist mindset. The other thing that I
really struggled with was watching the numbers too much. Paying attention too much to my analytics, watching my subscribers come
in one, maybe two a day, when I was first getting started, watching the views too much. That's not stuff you
should be concerned about when you're first getting into it. You should really be
concerned about finding what inspires you, getting out
and creating and enjoying it. Caring about it for the
numbers or for the money or comparing yourself to other creators can be a very toxic mindset. - All right, it's not the biggest mistake but it's one I regret. When you get the opportunity
to meet other content creators, and you're excited. It's either at like a brand deal or one of these sponsored events, and you meet these other YouTubers, and then you immediately try
to do a collab with them, I would say pump the breaks a little bit. Get to know these people first. They may know your work. It's kind of cool to build
a real friendship first and then worry about
the collab stuff later. If you guys have chemistry, you'll know and it'll just click. And I think trying to
force something like that is a mistake. That's it. - I just ran into a couple of guys here. I got Max and Taylor and they're gonna tell you
their biggest mistakes. - What's goin' on, y'all,
my name's Taylor Moore. My channel is Taylor Moore 4K and I focus on tech reviews, tutorials. I would say from day one,
the thing I didn't know but I learned from guys like Josh Yo and other good friends is your camera, I mean most cell phones and
other cameras out there, they're really capable, and what we don't think
about is audio and lighting. If you really nail your audio, it'll cover a lot of mistakes
even on the video front and people will still stay engaged a little bit more effectively. And then lighting. Even your iPhone is really,
really a capable camera, and if you learn to nail lighting from really early on, your video quality is gonna go up so much faster. - I think for me, it was trying to do too many different things. Targeting different audiences. Trying to do well at
this thing, that thing, and something else, too, instead of really
choosing one or two things and really focusing on
doing the best job I can on creating videos for people
that wanna watch those things. - All right, so Gerald's over here and he's got a mistake for you guys. - Hey everybody, I'm Gerald Undone. I make a YouTube channel where I focus primarily on really
nerdy details on cameras and lenses and that kind of thing. My advice, I guess, to
be based on something that I wish that I did
when I first started out, I'm gonna butcher an expression,
but there's this expression I remember where it's like, the best time to plant a giant tree is 100 years ago, and the second best time is today. And that's kind of how
I feel about YouTube is I think there was a long period of me kinda hummin' and hawin' about it, and I kinda wish that in the beginning that I would have just went
for it sooner and harder, because when I see where I am now, I can't help but think, hmm, what if I would've done this sooner? So my best advice is, you
can't go back in time, so start hard now, right now, if you can. - All right, I just found Dunna, and he has a mistake for you guys. - What's up guys, I'm
Dunna from Dunna Did It, and my mistake is that
for the first about year of my channel I focused
really heavily on vlogging, and I didn't even really
necessarily know it was a mistake at the time, but I really
wanted to grow a channel, and if you want to grow a channel, trying to find content
that is more searchable than something like vlogs, like if nobody knows you,
they're not gonna search for what's going on in your life, so that was kinda the mistake
that I made to start with. Later on I found out that I
liked talking about camera gear so I started to use that to my advantage, and now my channel can kind of be a little bit about the camera gear and I can slip in some
vlogs here and there, because now that I've grown the channel, there are more people that care about what's going on in my life. - I'm gonna add onto that as well. I started my channel as
a vlog channel as well. I started out as a travel vlogger. Over 200 travel vlogs in the first year. And I started realizing that, yes, search-based traffic is
how you grow a channel. So my first kind of dabble with that was finding topics around travel that people were searching for. So things to do in Thailand, or places to go, or a specific location or a beach or something like that. But honestly when it comes down to it, you have to do what
you're passionate about, and that was one of my biggest mistakes is not going after what
I was passionate about right from the get go. I started with travel thinking that that's what I wanted to do, but in reality, I really
care about filmmaking, I really care about telling stories, and I really care about
doing documentary stuff, so doing a channel that's
based around filmmaking, photography, and also
just helping you guys as creators tell your stories is where I found my passion, and now I'm able to start doing
more of the documentary work that I've always wanted to do. And I've got some pretty
interesting things on the horizon for this
channel, some cool stuff. One of the biggest things
to remember just overall is that we all make mistakes and you need to just
learn from your mistakes. Don't worry about making mistakes. Don't worry about mistakes
that you made on your channel or if you're currently
doing anything right now, that might seem like a big mistake. The key is just learn from
the things that you're doing because that's the way
that you're gonna be able to keep improving, and all of us have made mistakes on our channel. All of us have learned
from the things that we do, so my biggest tip when it
comes to growing your channel, building your YouTube brand, whatever it is that you
wanna do on the platform, is that you just have
to keep moving forward, consistency and action are going to eventually pay off for you, and if you're making mistakes, just pay attention and
learn from those mistakes and learn from your community. And one of the coolest things
about the YouTube community is that all of us work together, all of us are here at camera camp and we've just been talking YouTube, we've just been talking cameras. So find those people
that are creating content similar to yours and reach out, have conversations with them, and don't worry if
they're bigger than you, smaller than you. We're all human and we're
all just trying to make our impact in this space, and we can all do it together, and that is one of the
coolest things about YouTube. If you wanna see more videos
about YouTuber mistakes or anything else like that,
I've got some other videos and you can check them out right here. And I will see you on the next one. Also, this Sony is actually
pretty nice to work with. Maybe I'll switch someday.
