How to Start on YouTube | YouTube For Beginners

getting started on YouTube is extremely easy to overthink and that's because there are a lot of advanced tactics that people who have large channels can leverage to grow their Channel faster but what about those folks those new creators who are all inspired they hear the calling inside the Corazon inside of their heart and they want to start to publish they want to start to create they want to start to be of service to an audience this video my friend is for you so what we're going to talk about in this video is what I consider the minimum viable YouTube strategy to get you going to get you into motion and the cool part is that's how I started my channel several years ago when I had zero videos zero subscribers zero followers I did exactly what I'm doing here now I put my cell phone that I had on a tripod I clicked record and I began sharing an idea and in those first videos I was awkward on camera I was very rigid I was uncomfortable to have this moment with you and the truth is this moment with you is actually me sitting out on my property staring at my cell phone okay so there's this level of competence that you need to get to to where you're able to communicate to where you're able to share an idea to share a story to share something with a camera of some sort and that's the first thing I want to talk about is the camera itself now most people when they want to get started with YouTube they go out and buy all kinds of gear they go get the professional lighting and the professional DSLR and the 50 millimeter lens so the backdrop looks all fancy schmancy here's the truth it's really easy to buy all of the gear it's really difficult to produce your first 100 videos and in my personal and professional recommendation you are better off just using whatever cell phone that you have and start by just putting it on a tripod and get going which means you really don't need that much Tech in order to get started so let's talk about bracing your camera first and foremost because the one thing you have to eliminate is shaky cam right no walking around holding your camera unless you're doing shorts which we will talk about here in this video but you need one of these and I'm going to take it off first this is a cell phone holder I got a couple of tripods that we're going to talk about here in a minute but this is like a nine dollar cell phone holder okay it's got a little knob on top to be able to kind of like open it wider and Tighter here um that's exactly what I have the current camera on or my current phone on by the way I'm using like a five-year-old four-year-old five-year-old cell phone like this is not a brand new flagship phone it's not an Apple phone um just like a Samsung phone is all I'm using right now and no microphone at all on the phone they're using it again I want to show you that like you can make quality videos educational videos with the technology that you already have think minimum viable I got like seven or eight of these okay so this particular one has the ability to whoa it jumps I don't know if you notice that but it has the ability to swivel so this would allow me to do vertical videos which would work for tick tock it would work for YouTube shorts or or Instagram reels and then I can set it this way and I can tighten it down with the knob on the back and it allows me to do horizontal videos like we are doing now um I prefer these ones that have two motions but again I have several of them just because I got one in my backpack I got one on this tripod we use them all the time they're super handy to have around between five and fifteen dollars okay but then this isn't enough you need to actually get it stabilized so there's really two options when it comes to stabilizing this is like what I call a flexi tripod there's another version that's called a GorillaPod that you can use and these are great for shorts if you set it on vertical mode and you hold your arm out you get a really good shot for a vertical type of video if you're doing these horizontal videos which is long form videos which is what I do for educational content um these could potentially be insufficient I have been known when I lived full-time out of airbnbs for five years as a digital Nomad I would Stack Up literally like end tables on top of coffee tables and I would stack up boxes and then I would put my little tiny tripod on top of all of that because I didn't want to travel with a full-size tripod okay now this is the other option if you're going to be shooting from one location on a very regular basis like your home for example um I highly recommend investing in a really simple tripod this is Ye Old Amazon Basics I believe this is a twenty dollar you can even see right here you know there's no movo there's no fanciness going on like I'm using very inexpensive stuff I've probably destroyed two of these but I probably have like five or six or seven of them and I'm notoriously hard on them I throw them in the back of the Jeep when we would go four-wheeling I throw them in the back of the van when we go out camping um so like they work really well they're pretty lightweight but again it's kind of bulky so you know when I was full-time Nomad I didn't want to carry this with me so I went with one of these but the big point is find a way to get your camera which is your phone stabilized and then you gotta just start there are two other factors that you want to think about from a production standpoint when it comes to video one is lighting and the other is audio now right now you're listening to me there's no audio effects I'm not doing any post effects on my audio on purpose there's no microphone in my camera okay so my camera is arm's length away from my face right now and I'm just talking looking at my front facing camera so I can kind of see myself here and I'm just trying to really help you understand how I'm doing this if you are on one of the Fancy Pants Apple phones write one of these Apple iPhone things and you have a lightning Port which is the Apple only way to plug it in this microphone right here is called a sure MV 88 that's Michael Victor Ocho Ocho oh right the MV 88 so this will give you a really good stereo sound and what I love about this microphone is it literally plugs natively into the port on the bottom of the iPhone now this is approximately like a 150 microphone okay so before you go investing in a 150 microphone I think you should cut your first 10 15 videos on the actual cell phone first just to prove that you're actually going to stick with it right I don't want you to go buy a bunch of gear and waste a bunch of money when you think you're gonna be a YouTuber and then get all the gear you get all confused and you get in over your head with all the technology that you have to figure out and you don't do anything like that's the opposite of becoming a YouTuber that's becoming a poser that's not what we want you to do right I want you to create I think you are a Divine expression of Consciousness in the physical form you're a human being and you have a message that can help other human beings whether it's how to crochet how to Niche how to race your virtual Sims better how to do better on a specific League of Legends or fortnite game whatever it is you want to teach the world I think we need to get that message out of you so the minimum viable technology to getting your message out is what that's the one thing I want you to hold on to but if you want to add on microphone the Shure MV 88 plugs directly into the iPhone they do make a USBC version that works for all the Android phones as well generally you would need it needs a little clip so it would it would clip on to the microphone holder uh the cool thing about the iPhone versions it kind of like it holds on right like I can shake this I can move it around and it's going to stay there because it's literally locked in through that lightning Port um pretty much all of my wife's MP3s that we record and sell which is like the bulk of our actual business that brings in the bulk of our our big time Revenue each and every year it's recorded on this and this is not a brand new iPhone this is like a four-year-old iPhone as well and we record it with these two things for our professional level professional level um mp3 recordings that we do okay so we have our camera stabilized that's got a good shot I'm gonna line up a shot I'm gonna be in the shot I'm sitting on an REI folding chair right nothing special this thing's been around the country with me twice at this point in times my camping chair and then lighting is the last thing now I chose to be out here with no lighting there's no lighting set up behind the camera right now and I wanted to show you that if I want to show you the trick to outdoor lighting into getting a good shot so what I've done is I'm standing in or sitting in the shade at this point in time uh the sun is behind me generally speaking I would like to be in the shade with the sun behind the camera but it's hot out today we got a bit of a heat wave going on so I just working with what I've got this is on my property so I just walked out of my house I walked up right here set up and now I've got my shot going you might not have quiet area outside now out here in the country I'm up in the northern Rockies like to be honest a neighbor could come out and start doing target practice with their guns everybody up here is like armed to the teeth and we all shoot and target practice is kind of like something that folks like us do up here in the country so what I'm getting at is I'm exposing myself to more potential um outside influences over my video that I can't necessarily control and that's a risk that I was willing to take mainly because I wanted to show you how the quality could look sound and feel with the minimum viable technology which is literally a cheapo laptop or excuse me a cheapo tripod and then one of those cell phone holders I went out and found some shade I'm sitting in the shade the reason you like shade especially with a hat or with your nose like if you're in direct selling like no puts a shadow on or the chin could put a shadow on down here it's not flattering especially for women like nobody likes that look but if you get yourself inside of the shade and then get your camera lens above your nose and above your chin right you never want the shot to come up from here it can kind of give you like a little double chin type thing you don't really want that look so if you could have your camera at like eye level or maybe a tiny bit above you but in that range for me it's about dead on eye level so I can have this moment with you as if we're sitting around hanging out in my yard shooting the chewing the fat back and forth right here in in my yard that's kind of what the effect I wanted to have if you do need to add on lighting right or if you do not have an outside space because you live in a city and there's a lot of noises that are constantly around you don't have a space to record then you're going to want to find a corner inside of your house that you can end up building out as a set over time personally I used to just go start in front of a blank wall and one of the great things about YouTube here is you can go on my channel and you can click all videos and then on the all videos tab there's a button that says oldest and you can actually go sort by my oldest videos and you can see like literally my first video was me sitting on a red leather couch in Hollywood California in an Airbnb and I cut video number one video two I tried to go outdoors I was at a beach and then I was indoors on the hotel and I literally started my YouTube channel as challenge while we were on a road trip so I'm just constantly looking for like a little corner a decent area if I can have a window behind my camera that would be my light source okay if you need to add a light source this is a ring light I like ring lights they do well they do good things you you maybe have noticed some whoa if I don't drop my ring light that I like over here you've probably noticed some Instagram influencers and even some YouTubers you could see it when they got the ring light on because it gives you the circle in their eyes my wife prefers a little square light that we have it's from a company called you know y-u-n-g-n-o it's like um Amazon very inexpensive LED lighting um from a company made in China she prefers that because she doesn't love the ring around her eye look to me I have that ring light in my studio so when you see me sitting on my computer with a bookshelf behind me that's like my main light and then I have a window on this side and other than that I got one other light to to Splash behind me over there but I think again minimum viable lighting you do want to add some lighting if you can if you can get multiple points of lighting say one behind the camera over there one behind the camera over there what it'll do is it'll eliminate Shadows if all your lighting is coming from one side you have that effect where your note you could start to cast a shadow on your face which just isn't that flattering so trying to get two lights going in the past I have used flood lights which are like a hardware store thing they've got a little cone and then you can clip them onto anything or I've been known to go to thrift stores and buy two three or four separate lamps and I just literally buy the absolute cheapest lamps they have in stock and I would put them up behind my camera with no lampshade on when you do that you'll want to get lamp light bulbs that are daylight coloring I believe that is the 3200 Kelvin would be the number but just look for daylight on the box they're going to have that bluish tone to them and that's a natural light versus a warm light I wouldn't want to light myself using those kind of um budget lighting options right the lamp or the floodlight I wouldn't want to use a warm light I would want to use the cooler daylight lights on that um and that's like the 10 lighting setup right 10 15 bucks you got a few light bulbs take a few lamps that you got sitting in the storage somewhere or go get some from a thrift store and you are away but once you have those three factors dialed right you've got your phone is stabilized your audio is figured out and modern cell phones are good enough and then you've got your lighting dialed at that point it's time to click record and it's time to start creating videos and this is actually the work of becoming a YouTube Creator right and I don't think that okay so for most people I do not believe they would be served to start with going through some 497 course or some two thousand dollar course to learn how to YouTube I don't think you need coaching in order to start I think you need to put your phone on a tripod and click record and make some videos if you want to start now my friend Roberto Blake who's another Creator I think he's a brilliant guy he has this concept of creating your first 100 rubbish videos now I started my YouTube with a 90 Day Challenge where I did a video a day every day for 90 days now both of us came to that kind of conclusion that this is the right way to start independently how or why it's because reps matter okay so you need to create lots and lots of videos you need to go through the motions over and over and over again if you only make one video a week you're only going to try about 20 sets in the next six months or so now I want you to try 20 different sets in the next month I want you to try 20 different lighting setups in the next month I want you to try 20 different configurations and ideas of ways for you to get your ideas out of your heart and out of your head into the camera I want you to go through that process quickly so you can start to get a feedback loop going so you understand that felt pretty good or when you look back you're like wow that video looked terrible I'm not going to do that again I'm going to click publish I'm going to put that out there for the world but I'm really going to focus on improving this aspect of my next video or that aspect of my next video and again there's only a few variables right there's where and how you set your camera up so that's a tripod there's the lighting right do you put your camera in a window and you got a big old window behind you and that illuminates you great once you know how you can get your kind of like minimum viable lighting going you're eliminating variables oh the audio sounds good my lighting works here my camera set up then you can just leave all your gear right there now you have your little YouTube area you might have to keep some stuff clean behind you to keep going but but now that you have your area you can go 100 focus on how do I deliver ideas in a way that are coherent that are clear that keep people engaged that actually communicate what I want to communicate and the truthful answer is lots and lots of practice okay if you want to build muscles you go to the gym not once every freaking day yes there's rest days required but this is why I do a 90-day challenge so when I started my YouTube channel I ended up actually doing 120 videos in 120 consecutive days when my wife started her blog she ended up doing 90 videos in 9 D consecutive days and that repetition in a very short period of time condenses down the learning curves and you're going through a lot of learning curves when you start on YouTube there's the shot there's the set there's the how do I communicate and then there's that just simple idea or that simple thing of getting comfortable being on camera right it's not something that anyone is used to it's not something that anyone finds easy until they do it enough times that it actually becomes easy and it becomes their normal now I do not script out my videos that would be way too much work it would take way too much time if I have any notes at all which today I came out with zero notes I knew I knew I was going to do this minimum viable YouTube idea and I'm just kind of like letting it flow right I'm just I'm just opening my heart I'm opening my brain and I'm sharing with you as much as I can if you want to stay structured one thing I've done in the past is I will use like a little Post-It note so like just like the two by two or three by three Post-it notes or the biggest thing I allow myself to use is a three by five index card and I'll write the title on the top and I'll write the three main points and that's it I want to just have basic reminders I never want you to feel like you're in my presence where I am reading a script and now the script says look up okay back to script let me continue reading like that's not engaging that's not what anybody wants when it comes to YouTube so if you're already well versed in a topic if you know what you want to share if you know these ideas are inside of you you just gotta like start turning it on and letting it flow I think you should publish every single one of them if you need to later you can go back and delete them the truth about the YouTube algorithm is that no one's going to see your first videos right very very few people are going to see your rubbish First videos and those that do are probably going to honor and love the fact that you're being raw that you're being real and they're going to feel kind of like blessed on your journey that they were one of the ones who found you before everybody knew who you were right I got some hardcore subscribers who've been with me since I had 350 subscribers 500 subscribers they've been viewing my videos since 2016 2017 2018 and they've watched this Evolution take place and being able to go back today for you even if you're a new viewer and go look at that Evolution it's going to help you so you don't run the mistake and way too many people do this of comparing your step one with my step 758 this is video number 700 and something I think it's like 775 or something but like if you start comparing your video output when you're working on video 4 with what I'm doing you're making a gigantic mistake because I've put in 750 plus reps at this game and you've put in four reps so what you would want to do or need to do if you watch a Creator like man I love how they make videos they're talking about my subject God that's what I want to do I feel like they're so far ahead and I'm so far back here go watch their oldest videos I guarantee you you'll find that they came from humble beginnings too because it's the truth behind every Creator so you need to give yourself that freedom to put out those humbling videos that will humble you later my video number one makes me cringe it is cringe-worthy to me where I was as a Creator when that video is and now I leave it up as a badge of honor so you can go look back so you don't start thinking that like I had some magical abilities when I started this no I just started and I was committed and I knew I had a message that I had to get out I heard the calling in my heart I knew the Divine wanted me to share these ideas about how you can create a business an audience an email list an asset through publishing with a cell phone that you already have right like I'm inspired to get that message out so I like that I have good videos and bad videos and videos that did really well videos that didn't do really well I'm gonna leave them all up because that is a part of my legacy that I'm leaving the world and that's the opportunity that you have here as well you have an opportunity to leave a legacy and in order to get yourself to those videos where they're great you got to do those videos that aren't great right before you can really work on form in a gym to make sure you're isolating the muscle correctly and you got all the support you're gonna have bad form but if you don't show up if you don't actually even try to do a bench press once ever you're never going to get to good form and that's what a lot of people are doing is they're thinking they're trying to get coaching they're going through expensive courses on YouTube and I'm like yo yo yo put your phone on a tripod and make a video and then when that's done publish it think up your next video and as fast as you can make that next video and then do it again and again and then the final note here is if you don't know what topic you want to be a Creator on okay so for those who are blessed and that here calling in their life I love you I hope you I hope you listen to that divine inspiration that's inside of you I hope you listen to that whisper and I hope you start creating and I hope you let that message out because our world needs it that's why you're hearing the calling is because our world is in Dire Straits right now and our world needs your message to get out to the world but then there's this other group of people who are like man I don't actually know what my message is but I know that like the Creator path is the path for me this is where I think vertical videos are a great idea this is where my wife and I we have very good arguments about this is like Tick Tock might be a good option to be perfectly honest with you or YouTube shorts or Instagram reels now they're all vertical videos and they have a little bit of nuance behind them to me I don't think it actually matters which one you choose but what they are is they're shorter so uh YouTube short video is a one minute video it's a one minute vertical video it's really difficult to communicate an idea in one minute I've done 50 of them or so here but what it allows you to do is to make three videos a day instead of one video a day and then you're like okay I'm gonna make a video of my backyard chickens I'm gonna make a video of my garden I'm gonna make a video explaining how I make this recipe at home and what you end up doing is you're doing so many different things you're throwing the proverbial proverbiable spaghetti against the wall so you can see what sticks and then when you find something that was kind of fun for you to produce you kind of like the output you're you're like mildly proud of version 1.0 of that video um still knowing that it's going to be humble beginnings but then you have that feeling like ah that was kind of fun you know it looks okay well maybe I should do that again and then when you see the algorithm start to respond to certain videos you're like oh okay videos about this topic seem to do better than videos about this topic and that's what I did with my 90-day Challenge and you can do that with these horizontal videos as well you could try lots of different sub topics under your main idea to see what feels good what's easy for you to explain and then also what gets more views what gets more clicks what gets more likes what gets more comments because when you start to create content that the algorithm favors your channel is going to grow faster like that's just basic stuff now I do have a very very deep dive YouTube course it's available 100 free here on YouTube this was my answer to my audience who were falling into the Trap of the greedy gurus and they're like wow should I buy this two thousand dollar course from mr77 gold play button guy I think you don't I think the answer is no I think you need to equip yourself with a minimum viable amount of con the minimum viable amount of Technology Hardware so you can actually publish the video then you need to publish your first hundred videos I'll be honest I think you should publish 200 videos as fast as you absolutely can I did about 250 videos in my first year to show you as someone who now has over 200 000 subscribers like when I commit to a game I take the game really seriously right I'm not dabbling here this is my vocation this is how I am supporting my family for the rest of my life and I live large I have a wonderful very prosperous life with multiple homes in multiple areas and like I want to keep expanding right and so through that lens of my willingness to sit here and share ideas with you through the phone can be a very lucrative process but if I don't ever get those ideas out if I don't hit publish enough then I'm never going to trigger anything I'm not going to grow an audience the algorithm is not going to trust me nothing actually works unless I hit publish publish publish so taking that minimum viable approach now once you've got your first hundred videos once you've got your first 200 videos and you're like okay I've got competence now boy I feel like I could get a little more reach out of the algorithm I feel like I'm missing something at that point if you want to go invest a bunch of money in some Guru course I assume that since you have a bit of momentum behind you they will be able to help guide you better but you can also just go through my Advanced course here on YouTube link will be in the description and I guarantee you that will get you most of the way there so I just think that most people are overthinking everything they think they need to go buy a digital SLR camera they need to go set up some fancy set they need to go get all this stuff done and then they need to record and they got to do all these edits I ain't editing nothing on this video I probably will go edit the beginning and the end so you don't watch me reach up for the Stop button and that is literally the only edits I'm doing and that can be done within an app on my phone and I will upload this thing from my phone to YouTube directly and the fact that I found a minimum viable approach for me to get my messages that I'm hearing my calling out to the world means I did it and then I did it over and over and over and over again and every time I did a hundred videos 10 to 20 of those videos did pretty well I would look back at the data pay attention to what worked I go try to do more variations and more videos on the topics that seem like they work and here's the real magic to how I grew this YouTube channel from nothing to over 200 000 subscribers I've earned over a million dollars in Revenue in my business from this YouTube channel here that I started with my cell phone you ready for what it is I have stuck with it now for seven plus years I'm about to cross the eight year mark and I've published about 750 almost 770 videos give that in that range somewhere in about seven years at this point in time and it is the Persistence of me showing up over and over I was sick I showed up anyways didn't want to do it you know what professionals do in sports they play Hurt okay life is gonna slap you around Life Is Gonna Knock You down things in your external world are going to happen I moved into my Jeep at one point I was literally living in my Jeep driving around because I knew I didn't want to live in that area I was at anymore so I was like screw it I put a pop top on my Jeep I lived in my Jeep you can watch all those videos drove around I did not miss a publishing date when I was on that trip why because I'm a pro and you can take that Pro mindset from day one and what do professionals do they show up and they work if you watch old Mike Tyson boxing videos that dude came out with holes in his shoes right he did not he was not pretty he didn't he wasn't shiny he didn't have the sparkly shorts he dominated in the ring why because he just showed up relentlessly was that it was that absolute relentlessness it was that hunger for success and then he did something about it he was at the gym all day every day max verstappen is one of the best race car drivers in the world right now he goes and wins a Formula One race and then when he's at home that same night he's on eye racing dominating people on racing simulators like the same day Emmett Smith was one of the greatest football running backs of all times what happened after he won the championship he's in the gym getting ready for next season immediately this is what professionals do and if you want to be a pro YouTuber you're gonna have to take that professional work ethic to the game so why not start now put your phone on a tripod get a little thing you go to a dollar store and get one of these little cell phone holders right you can go to Best Buy Dollar Store Target Walmart they all got him you got some store in your area that's got enough for you to get by to get going for 15 bucks if you need that but the key to all of it it's not the gear it's not the set it's not the this it's not the that it's not the algorithm it's the big question is are you showing up multiple times a week three four or five times per week publishing content for your audience are you showing up for them because if you aren't showing up for them enough they sure as heck ain't gonna show up for you but when you commit and you show up every day or when you show up five days a week or three days a week and you're really pouring your heart into making the most helpful the most useful the most entertaining videos you can and you stick with it for a period of years not months that's when you're going to see the success that you desire as a YouTuber I hope this has been helpful I thank you very much there's gonna be some useful links in the description of this video I will hand curate all of that for you to make sure you do have access to the next steps to the next steps I'll link to my favorite tripod my favorite tripod holder all those bits and pieces those will be affiliate links in the description here if you want to support the channel either way I just hope you go I hope you hear that calling I hope you open yourself to that calling I hope you show up and be willing to be a fool for God and just start publishing those videos knowing that you're going to get better and someday you're gonna be able to look back at those old videos that kind of make you cringe like mine do now and you're like wow look how far I've come and now I get to leave that out for you as a way to show you the truth of the path instead of trying to be one of those greedy gurus who's going to sell you a lie about how easy it is and oh the faceless hack to YouTube videos that's all garbage if you want to be a YouTuber if you want to help people on this medium you gotta do one thing that's publish a ton of videos now get to it I'll catch you on the next video

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