Welcome to the first chapter of Grin’s guide for how to crush YouTube. What needs to happen before you start running? You need to know where you’re going. That’s what this section is about. We’ll walk you through how to properly lay the right groundwork for a successful career as a creator, so read on.
You need a strategy.
If you go into to this blindly, you’ll quickly get lost along the way. Once you get started, you’ll learn new things and have new ideas, but it’s very important to develop a strategy early on, and continue to stick to that strategy as you progress. A clearly defined strategy will instantly put you ahead of thousands of others.
YouTube is a social network. Not a video platform.
I know that might sound confusing, but it’s true. The only thing that YouTube has over every other website you can upload videos to, is that is a social network for new media. The creators and the videos on YouTube aren’t the entire story here, it’s the community behind them.
Setting Your Goals
We need to verify what your goals are for the future of your content as well as your channel. What motivates you? Pinpointing one or two goals will help you reach future success. What are some common goals for creators?
- to build an audience for your brand.
- sell a product or service.
- drive traffic to your website/blog.
- bring about awareness to a certain cause.
- educate people.
The harsh reality is that making it on YouTube is hard. Like really, really hard. One thing all of the successful creators have in common is that they are driven by some deeper purpose. It’s what motivates them to put in the work creating content for years with little to no reward.
If your only motivation on YouTube is to (a) get really popular or (b) make a lot of money, then you better change your goals or walk away now.
In the next article we’re going to cover setting targets for yourself and your channel.
Chapter 2