YouTube Observations #6 - 12 Lessons Learned in 2 Years on YouTube

My current homepage of YouTube. 824
subscribers and counting. So grateful for
everyone who's following my journey.

So it’s now been just over two years that I’ve been making videos on YouTube. Seriously, where does the time go?! Between teaching, finishing my PhD, traveling, and trying to have a social life (I said trying, not succeeding) balancing all of that plus a YouTube channel has definitely been a neat trick. I’ve done better at some times than others. During the dissertation process I eventually realized I had to cut my uploads down to only twice a week and that was a really hard decision. But I’ve always known consistency is the biggest key to success on YouTube and I decided I’d rather be consistent with twice a week uploads than inconsistent with three times a week uploads. Last year, at the time of my 1 year anniversary on YouTube I wrote a post about all the lessons learned in one year on YouTube. All the tips and advice I gave in that post still stand, so the tips in this post are more of a followup and are a little more personal and/or more of the little things that you don’t notice until you’ve been doing YouTube for awhile.

So here we go…lessons learned in my 2^nd year on YouTube…

1. Progress is slow, sometimes painfully so

From the early days! 100 seemed so impossible
but I hit it much faster than I thought.

Growth on YouTube happens in starts and stops. I can gain 20 subscribers in a week and then take another 5 months to get the next 20. Sometimes you see a lot of progress happening…subscribers, likes, view counts, watch times…all going up. And then? It stops. And for no apparent reason. This is why you have to truly love making videos, and would be willing to do them even if only a handful of people watched. Because sometimes it will feel like only a handful are watching. So if you’re only in this for the numbers and some fainthearted pursuit of fame or success, you’re never going to get there. Just like in the story of the turtle and the hare, slow and steady wins the race. YouTube is a marathon, not a sprint, so pace yourself.

2. Don’t be afraid to reassess your motives and make adjustments

When you first start you’ll be so wrapped up in the “newness” of it all, and it all seems so exciting and fun. You get excited just to have 10 views! Or reach your first 20 subscribers! But after several months, or a year or so, it’s very easy to fall into the numbers trap. I never thought I would get 100 subscribers, and I somehow managed to do that within my first couple months, so the next crazy milestone (in my mind) was 1000. By the end of my first year I was half way there, but in my second year my growth stalled. And I let that get to me more than I would like to admit. It’s pretty crazy how you can get swept up in the numbers and trying to compete. I really had hoped to get to 1k before my 2 year anniversary, but as that approached I was also completely slammed with finishing my dissertation and defending it to earn my PhD, which obviously was way more important. So I had to have a realistic look at my channel and the time I was investing in it. 

Finishing my PhD was more important than uploading
three times a week. I hated to do it, but you have
to prioritize and stick to that. As long as you're
consistent in your changes your audience will
understand and support you.

On the one hand, I knew if I wanted to grow, I needed to spend more time, not less, on my channel. On the other hand, growth was not my main priority. I have a really lovely group of subscribers (over 800 at the moment) and theres about 50 or so of that group that watch every video and comment frequently, who also follow me on Instagram and Twitter and are very engaged. They’ve become friends. And THAT’S what I’m doing this channel for. I reassessed why I’m continuing to make videos and be active on this platform and reminded myself it’s for the people and the sense of community and support that I get from them and that I hope they get from me. So I did the smart thing—in regards to my PhD—and reduced my uploads to 2 videos a week. I still wonder where my channel might be if I hadn’t done that, but my stress levels weren’t worth raising higher than they already were for another 30 subscribers or so.

3. Sometimes you have to fall back in love with it

Also during that time, there were some days I just didn’t want to film. Or edit. I wanted to work on that section of Chapter 4 of my dissertation that was driving my crazy or I wanted to go to sleep early. Creatively I was struggling. It was hard to come up with ideas that I actually wanted to film and I didn’t feel invested in content like “monthly favorites”. During this time Demonetization-Gate happened as well. That’s a whole separate blog post, but it was definitely disheartening to have my channel demonetized, through no fault of my own, and it knocked the wind out of my sails a bit. Not necessarily because I was mad at YouTube or felt devalued as a creator (I definitely was and did, but that wasn’t the main problem)—my bigger problem was that a lot of small creators I really enjoyed took it hard and it felt like the community was cracking. The community had been my favorite part of these past two years. And getting to know other creators had been such an unexpected joy of this experience. So to hear people be so upset and questioning whether they wanted to continue on YouTube made me so sad—and question my own place. Did I want to stay on a platform if all of my friends quit? 

Be open to change, especially on YouTube. You
never know, you might be surprised by how
things work out.

Short answer was yes, because deep down I did love YouTube. It’s far from perfect, but I’ve always known I would keep making videos even if only a couple people watched, and by this point I had a lot of viewers who weren’t creators and didn’t really care about the drama going on within the creator community. They were still wanting and expecting content from the channels they watched, mine included. So I made a conscious decision to ignore the drama and focus on my own little channel community for awhile. I threw myself into my weekly vlogs, because they’re my favorite, and I dropped my upload schedule to 2 videos a week (as I mentioned above) and focused on filming 1 video each week that I was truly interested in. It didn’t work every week, and there were some videos I really wanted to film but didn’t have the time to do it so they had to get put on the back burner. Slowly I got back into a rhythm and I’m now back in a good place where I can increase my uploads back to 3 times a week and I have a list a mile long of videos I’m excited to film. I had a rough patch for a few months, but I’ve definitely fallen back in love with YouTube.

4. It’s ok to shift focus

With all the drama that was going on, and with people going to great lengths to get views, it felt hard to see where I fit. When I started my channel I had a general “beauty/lifestyle” focus. But I’m really not a traditional beauty YouTuber. I don’t travel enough to be a travel YouTuber. And I while I did (and still do) love doing grad school related topics and advice videos, things still felt very disconnected. But throughout my second year I did notice a move in my videos towards a general theme of “life as a PhD student” and my most engaged audience was definitely with the vlogs. I had a core audience that was tuning in every week to watch my PhD journey. 

The life of a PhD student. So glamorous lol.
But for some reason people are interested
in following along on my journey. 

They followed me through my portfolio exam, my comp exam, drafting my prospectus, my colloquy, and then the entire dissertation process and most recently my PhD defense and graduation (two of my highest viewed videos of the last couple months). There was a genuine interest in me and my life as a PhD student. I think this interest was in part a general interest in what doing a PhD is like, but I also think the attraction to the vlogs was because my audience knows I seriously and truly love vlogging. I never expected to fall in love with it the way I have. It’s so personal and sharing my life online comes with the occasional downsides, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. And while I’ll never be a daily vlogger, the vlogs will always be the central focus and main priority of the channel, with the sit-down videos there as a supplement to talk in more depth about things that come up in the vlogs. 

I’m still not as “niche” as I probably could be. And now that I’ve graduated, my focus is going to change slightly, from “life as a PhD student” to “life post-PhD” and all the crazy uncertainty that I’m dealing with now. But having that focus makes things so much easier for me and is helping me build a stronger core audience that are following me for the content I truly enjoy making.

5. Don’t compare, no really, just stop 

This was on my first list of lessons learned but it bears repeating. Comparison is the thief of joy and will just make you absolutely miserable. So don’t do it. Try to ignore other channels and their stats. Don’t base your success on how many more subscribers or likes or views you have compared to someone else. Focus on you and your audience. You will be much happier for it.

6. Only invest in upgrading technology when you are able to, and even then, only buy what you need

Never far from my Olympus Pen. It goes everywhere
with me. Phoenix, to Sedona, to London, I don't
leave home without it.

I waited awhile before I bought a new camera for vlogging (so I wouldn’t have to use my iPhone). My Olympus Pen has served me well and I still vlog on it. I’ve gone back and forth filming sit-down videos with my Canon DSLR (a Rebel T3i) tethered to my laptop or just filming on the Pen. I still have never bought studio lights or a ring light, nor have I bought an external microphone. The only thing I’ve consistently purchased are SD cards, I can never seem to have enough lol. YouTube is not something that you absolutely have to spend a lot of money on. So I really recommend waiting to invest in technology upgrades, and even when you do decide to spend money on your videos, only buy what you actually need. Living in Arizona where the sun shines nearly every dang day. 99% of the videos I’ve filmed, I haven’t had to worry one bit about the lighting, and that 1% of the time I should have just filmed earlier in the day. Totally my fault. So I’m going to save the money that could be spent on lights and spend it on something else.

7. Your audience is the most important thing

Aside from needing to love what you’re making and enjoying the filming and editing process, the audience is the most important aspect of this whole journey. Otherwise why upload? I could just edit the videos and leave them on my computer for my own personal enjoyment (where I could use really good music and not worry about copyright issues). But YouTube is about sharing. And that requires having someone to share it with, your audience. So you need to be engaging with them. Reply to their comments, thank them for watching, sincerely engage with them when they engage with your content. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking they owe you anything, because they don’t. They don’t owe you a damn thing. You are not entitled to their views or their likes. 

Don’t EVER take them for granted. 

From my portfolio exam through graduation,
my subscribers have been through it all
with me, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

On my darkest days my loyal subscribers have saved me from my anxiety and depression and my constant companion Imposter Syndrome. They’ve supported me, cheered me, comforted me, and rallied around me as I went through the hardest 14 months of my PhD. I honestly don’t know that I would have made it all the way to graduation without them, I might have. But I probably would have been hospitalized with a breakdown immediately afterwards. They helped me see more clearly and have a sense of humor. My subscribers have been the biggest gift of this whole experience, and any stress I get about doing YouTube usually comes from a desire to never let them down or disappoint them. Which they then usually remind me that there’s nothing I could do that would do that, so it’s all good. My audience is the most important thing to me on YouTube. When I look at that core group that watches regularly and comments frequently, I know that even if my subscriber number plummeted, as long as that group sticks with me I’d keep making videos, because they’re my driving motivation on this platform.

8. Don’t give in to the decline narrative (in other words…YouTube is NOT dying)

I’m going to write a separate blog post on this topic soon, but in the meantime, YouTube is not dying, YouTube circa 2012 was not the “best time ever”, you have not missed the boat, the market is not oversaturated (or at least that’s a gross oversimplification), and it is not time to just abandon YouTube. If you want to be a part of this platform and this community, just do it. Ignore the naysayers and the Chicken Little’s running around screaming “the sky is falling”. It’s not. So come on in, sit down, join the party. There are plenty of us here doing our own thing and having a grand old time.

Which leads to the next lesson…

9. Make content YOU believe in

I'll never give up on the vlogs. Find the
videos that make you happiest and focus
on making those. Ignore what doesn't
feel right or authentic to you.

Don’t follow trends. Unless you think they’re fun. If you love the idea of dragging your boyfriend into a video for a “My boyfriend does my ASOS haul”, great. But if you’re single, don’t feel bad you don’t have a boyfriend to make a video with lol. Buying the cheapest item off a luxury site, buying the lowest rated item on a cheap clothing site, heck buying anything that you don’t absolutely want to own is just ridiculous. Doing challenge videos, trending videos, clickbait story times, all of these have been done a million times. So why do it yourself if you’re not fully invested in the idea and feel you have something to offer. I’ve only done one story time video, about the time I was burglarized. I was curious to try out the genre of video but also felt like I learned some serious life lessons from that experience that were worth sharing. But otherwise, I’ve stayed away from a lot of the trend videos because they’re not authentic to my channel and my online identity. And as a viewer, I can pretty much always tell when someone isn’t invested in their video idea and/or when they’re doing a video because they think it will get views. Clickbait and inauthentic videos will turn your audience off so fast you’ll hear an audible crash as your views and watch time plummet. Focus on you and what makes you unique and make content based around that, your audience will love you for it.

10. Invest time in building the community in your channel 

Watching other creators is a great way of expanding
your community. This girl, Tamzin (Tamzin Lena)
started out as just another channel I watched only
to eventually become one of my best friends,
online and off. 

I started getting at this in lesson #7, but it’s worth expanding and clarifying a bit here. Your audience is the most important thing. So invest time in them. For every video you upload, you should plan on spending time replying to comments and checking out channels of other creators who visit your channel and watch your videos. Now, let me be clear, I am not advocating employing “sub 4 sub” practices. I've come to despise “sub 4 sub” and always ignore those comments as spam, because that’s what they are. But if someone leaves a thoughtful comment on your video and mentions having a similar video on their channel, the friendly thing to do is to at least visit their video, leave a friendly comment of your own, and if you like their content, subscribe…with no expectation of them subscribing back. Invest time in the people who visit your channel and watch your video, over time that investment will lead to your audience investing their time in you and helping you create a lovely little community within your channel.

11. Invest time in engaging in the broader community outside of your channel

Similar to lesson #10, you also have to invest time engaging in the broader community outside of your channel. What other YouTubers, big and small, leave thoughtful comments on their videos. You can mention your own channel, but don’t do it in a spammy “sub 4 sub” obnoxious way. I usually try to find something in the video I’m watching that relates to a video I’ve done recently, either a similar product that I recently reviewed or a TV show I recently featured in a vlog, something natural and subtle. It indicates that you make videos too but puts no pressure on anyone to check out your channel. Some of my best subscribers who are creators themselves found me in the comment sections of other creators. Some subscribed back to me right away, others didn’t, but my continual investment and engagement with their channel, and my demonstrating that I was a genuine viewer/community member, not someone spamming their channel, led to a lovely mutual friendship. Not everyone is going to like your content back, so if you subscribe to someone it should be because you truly love their content, not because you’re expecting anything in return. But by actively participating and engaging in the broader community outside of your channel you are showing people that you are a good member of the community and someone worth following and getting to know. That will pay off for you in the long run, in so many ways.

12. Being yourself in an online world is hard, but it’s the only way forward

I also mentioned this in last year’s post, but it’s still the most important lesson. Be you. It’s the one thing you will always be able to do better than anyone else. You are unique and special just as you are. Don’t compete. Don’t compare. Just be authentically and unapologetically yourself. It’s not easy. Actually, it’s probably the hardest thing of all. To be yourself in an online world is to make yourself open and vulnerable to thousands upon thousands of potential critics and trolls. I’ve been very lucky that I can count on one hand the number of truly horrible comments I’ve received in the past two years. But each of those comments still stung as if I’d been physically slapped across the face. And it’s so tempting to want to never upload again and just hide away. Not everyone will love you. That’s just life. The online world just makes it more noticeable. But there are so many positives to being yourself and connecting authentically with your audience. I’ve talked about things I never thought I would be able to discuss with strangers on the internet. My mental health, my fibromyalgia, my grad school insecurities, it’s never easy. But every time I do I get at least one comment from someone who previously had never commented telling me that my words helped them, inspired them, made them feel less alone. That makes every asshole comment worth it. Because for every horrible comment I’ve received in that last two years I’ve received countless positive and inspiring comments from amazing viewers and subscribers all over the world. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Throughout the last two years I can honestly say I’ve allowed myself to be more vulnerable and more open and more unapologetically myself. And I feel really good about that. 

So that’s it. That a new list of 12 tips/lessons learned in my second year on YouTube. It’s been a wild ride and a crazy experience. But I’ve never regretted starting my channel on April 1^st, 2016. My April Fools joke, the channel that started on a whim and a lark that turned into something very real and very meaningful.

Are you a YouTuber? Do any of these lessons resonate with you? Whether you’re a YouTuber or not, these lessons would still apply to a number of creative fields and some are just good life lessons in general (YouTuber or not, never compare your success to other people, it’s always a recipe for disaster and heartache). If you enjoyed this blog post, I would love it if you would share it with others on your social media. And if you’ve never visited my YouTube channel, I’d love it if you’d swing by and watch a recent video and say hello over there. Newcomers are always welcome.

Until next time,

Andrea