I started my YouTube channel, Jimmy Chang, with no knowledge or expertise of what I was doing. Over the months I did a ton of research and pretty soon YouTube became a hobby that I was spending a lot of time on.
My channel has since grown and in 6-7 months I was able to get my first 1000 subscribers. After that, it took about 2-3 months to reach 2000 subscribers. It has definitely been fun.
I see a lot of other people publishing Onewheel and Electric Unicycle content on their YouTube channels and I would love to see them succeed. Below are 5 tips to help get you started. If there is enough interest in this topic, I’d be happy to share more of what I have learned about growing a YouTube channel.
Have a goal
A channel needs to have a goal and a purpose if it wants to succeed on YouTube. Just riding around with a camera pointed at your feet and Onewheel the whole time is not going to cut it.
In my experience, there are 3 main types of content on YouTube that creators can make consistent content for. I call these three types of content the three “E’s” and I want to share them with you.
Entertain: Do you plan on entertaining your audience with your riding skills and music? This is what Andrew Stroh, otherwise known as Slydogstroh has done and he dominates this sphere on YouTube. If Andrew doesn’t have the most watched work commute in the world, he definitely has the funnest work commute in the world.
A lot of people tune in to YouTube to be entertained. They want to see good riders doing amazing stuff. Viewers want high quality video of stunning scenery. Viewers also enjoy watching people mess up and fall.
Educate: If you’ve ever looked up something on YouTube for help on a DIY project, reviews on a product you were thinking about buying, or for researching a certain subject then you have turned to YouTube for education.
YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world. People turn to YouTube for help all the time. There is power in video. This is where you can share your knowledge and experience. Think about something you have searched on YouTube in the past. If you had difficulty finding an answer to your search or if the available videos were poorly made then you should make a video!
Encourage: Lots of people just need a little inspiration in their lives to get going. This is where you find all the motivational speakers on YouTube motivating people to do stuff. In this case, we motivate people to get out and ride.
So what sphere will you focus on? I suggest focusing on one particular sphere with your videos and once you get comfortable to expand and blend spheres. If you can make an educational video that is encouraging and entertaining all at the same time, you have just made a great video!
Be Different
A lot of the Onewheel and Electric Unicycle videos on YouTube seem all the same. Selfie stick footage of a person riding somewhere. What are you going to do to set yourself apart from all the others? How are you going to be unique and different?
Look at some of the top YouTubers in the niche. For Onewheel it would be The Float Life, Slydogstroh and Chris Richardson. What do they do that makes them successful? Draw ideas from each of them and put your own mark on it. Or come up with a great idea that has never been done and give it a shot.
Do something to wow and delight your audiences and you will be rewarded with likes and subscribes.
Keys to Consistent Quality Content
- Posting on a regular schedule helps you to kick procrastination to the curve as you to sit down to create and publish new videos.
- Start your video with a hook to get your viewers interested and keep them watching.
- Keep intro and opening credits short, like less than 4 seconds short. People have short attention spans and you need to engage them from the beginning or else they will leave.
- Always promote! Remind your audience at the end of the video to like and subscribe.
- Edit out unnecessary pauses and distractions.
- Eye contact. People are tuning in to interact with you. Reward them by speaking to them as if they were there. Look into that camera as if you were looking into the windows to their soul.
Get Found!
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Some wise guy
If a YouTuber makes a great video and no one ever watches it, does it make a difference?
This wise guy (Jimmy Chang)
It doesn’t matter how great your video may be, if no one watches it no one will ever know how great it is.
To get exposure on YouTube, you need to be searchable, enticing, and something the YouTube algorithm will suggest to new audiences. Here is how to do it:
Title: Don’t get too cute with the title. Use keywords that people would be searching. Image what the public will be typing to search for your video and use those keywords in your title.
Thumbnail: While you should not judge a book by its cover, you need to realize that a good cover really helps to sell books. Spend time on making the thumbnails enticing enough to get people to click in to your video. Don’t worry about clickbait allegations because if your great thumbnail is backed by an amazing video, no one will be upset. Just make sure your video delivers on what your thumbnail and title promise.
Content: Content is king. You can have amazing titles and thumbnails, but if your content sucks, no one will watch it. In fact it hurts you more when people click into your video and then immediate click out. When people bounce from your video that hurts your view time and that really hurts you in the YouTube algorithm as the AI will decide to stop serving your content to audiences.
Description and Tags: The description of your video is another opportunity to drop in some of those keywords but this segment and Tags are far less important than what we discussed above.
Rinse and Repeat: Learn from your successes and build on them. Identify your mistakes and learn from them. Do what works. Stop doing what doesn’t. It will take time to identify what works and what doesn’t for new channels but you will get a sense of it over time.
Then be consistent and publish good quality content on a regular basis. The more content you put out on YouTube, the higher the chance you will have a video that resonates with the YouTube algorithm or with a community and that could send that video into a viral state. At that point, if you have a portfolio of high quality content, people will be more likely to binge on your channel and subsequently subscribe to you.
Collaborate
Reach out to others in the community. Try to find others with similar interests and try to grow together. Use online groups on Reddit and Facebook. Go on group rides and meet people. Reach out to other YouTubers. Collaboration is a great way to learn and grow.
Don’t be discouraged if you are rejected during efforts to collaborate. Understand that people are busy with their lives and other projects. The timing may also not be right. Be courteous and do not burn any bridges. Who knows if in the future there will be opportunities to collaborate with that channel again. Keep your head up and keep having fun with your channel.
Check out these collaboration videos that I did with Chris Richardson. Chris reached out to me for help on his YouTube channel and we ended up making a few videos out of it. Lots of fun!
Let me know if you found this helpful. Leave a comment on this video if you would have more interest in learning more about growing a YouTube channel. I love this stuff and I’m happy to share what I have learned as long as there are people interested in watching and listening.