If you want to be a successful YouTuber, making money from your videos and creating a community around your work, there are some keys which you need to get right from the outset. If you have already launched your channel then don’t worry however, all is not lost. My friend Mack Prioleau started his YouTube channel in the early days during our time at Vanderbilt University and since then it has gone from strength to strength and it is currently his main source of income. Mack’s football channel also brings in huge amounts of sponsorships as a result of the number of views that his videos get and he shared what he believes the keys are to real YouTube success.
Content
The content that you produce is always going to be the most important aspect of running a YouTube channel and whether you have 1 million followers or just 1, this is where you should be focusing your attention. It can be frustrating when you get started and certainly this was something that Mack Prioleau discovered when he began his football show, investing time into great content and not getting traction will be annoying. However it is important to remember that unless your content is highly topical, when you do start to get viewers you will find that people begin to go back through your content to discover more, and that is when the views will come in.
Regularity
Random posting hasn’t proven to do very well for many YouTubers and that is why most pick a day and time each week when they will upload their content. There are a number of reasons why this is done; firstly it is so that it creates something of a buzz thanks to the anticipation of a new video, secondly there are certain times when positing videos will see more engagement, so this of course makes sense, and finally it is about helping you to stay organized and stay hungry, giving yourself time to prepare ahead of the next video.
Snippets
If you’re creating videos which are more than 10 minutes long then you should be supporting these uploads with snippet videos, which are essentially a highlight reel of the longer video. We live in a culture where people want things quickly, they want things that they will know that they are going to like and they want to easily digest information. This is why these snippet videos are so good, they give a basic overview of the longer video in order to draw in viewers and most importantly they are easily shareable across social media, which is of course where you are going to be able to drive viewers to your YouTube channel.
There is of course a great deal more when it comes to being a great YouTuber such as engaging with your viewers, staying active on social media and forming relationships with other YouTubers, but for Mack Prioleau these are the keys to success.