YouTube: 5 Tips For Building Your Own Video Career

[Baska]

Lady Gaga announced on Twitter that she was bringing Transmission Gagavision back. What is it? Just another typically brilliant marketing tool for one of the great Techno-Tainers of them all. It’s basically her talking to a camera about her life, which very nicely ties into the latest tour or single, etc.

 

Most of us are not going have the Gaga je ne sais quoi. Tres bien, says YouTube, there are many average Americans making serious jacque on YouTube. Through its Partner Program each year, the Google-owned video platform pays out millions of dollars in shared advertising revenue to its most popular video creators. The number of producers making more than $1000 per month has increased 300 percent since the beginning of 2010.

 

These are generally not pop stars or movie moguls, but rather a crochet teacher, Rubiks cube master, and these basketball trick shot masters.

 

Going viral might seem like luck and maybe for a one-hit wonder it is. But YouTube’s Jim Woods says there are steps to bring a little science to the art.

 

He offered these 5 steps for kicking off your YouTube career:

 

1) Recognize your talent and be yourself: whether it be cooking, telling jokes, strategizing video games or playing the piano — there is truth to the old phrase, “Love what you do and you’ll never work another day in your life”. YouTube partners that have done well are genuine, and their audiences connect with that honesty.

Ex: YouTube partner Rob Homayoon is passionate about Rubik’s cubes and origami doves, so he makes money off his channel (Rob’s World) which revolves around solving puzzles and making new designs.

 

2) Structure your content and keep it consistent: The best videos are well thought out and viewers know when they can catch the next installment– does your show require a script? A recipe? Co-stars or props?

Ex: YouTube partner Mystery Guitar Man has a unique style and format to his videos, which keeps the viewer interested. He posts videos on Tuesdays and Thursdays so people know when to tune in.

 

3) Hone your camera and editing skills: Everyone can make a shaky video, but not everyone can create quality content that viewers turn to for the latest recipes, songs or make-up tutorials.

Ex: YouTube partners who know that editing is not their strongsuit rely on the community of partners for help. They’ll send out the call for a banner, channel wrapper, or help incorporating a new feature. ShayCarl regularly puts the call out to his YouTube buddies to compose him a new song or tune.

 

4) Grow your viewer base: interact with your viewers, answer their questions and address their messages via videos or through your message wall. YouTube partners are taking advantage of all networks available to engage with their viewers, driving people to YouTube from Twitter and Facebook.

Ex: YouTube partner DeStorm takes challenges from his comments section, such as in his ‘You Write the Lyrics’ series where he takes a viewer’s lyrics and creates a song. Dan 3.0 moved to San Francisco because that was the winner of an audience poll on where he should move.

 

5) Work hard at building and maintaining your brand: There’s no substitute for it, some of the biggest YouTube partners work 80 hours or more a week on their videos and people know what they can come to expect from a channel.

Ex: WhatTheBuck’s Michael Buckley ran a pilot of his “Dear Buck” series that was a little out of the ordinary to test with his audience before rolling it out full-scale.

 

If you think that presence needs to be ultra-slick, check out this video about the program:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paZxEixoFa4&feature=player_embedded

 

info : forbes