Secrets of YouTube Success
One of the most common questions we receive from our viewers is something along the lines of “How do I become successful on YouTube?”
I thought it was a topic deserving of a much longer answer. Here’s our advice to aspiring YouTube content creators who are clawing at recognition and success, based on our own experiences as well as numerous conversations with other YouTube partners.
Define what “successful” means to you. Expect to work for it.
First things first – success is different for different people.
So before you start, you need to define what “success” is for yourself. Do you want your YouTube channel to become partnered and earn you pizza money? Maybe you want to support your band, and you don’t really care about the money and it’s more about promotion? Maybe you want to turn it into a full-time job? Or maybe you just want to get views, and don’t really care about partnership.
Whatever you choose, know that your potential success is determined entirely by what you put into it. Right now partners are spending more time and effort than ever before on their videos. If everyone else is working full-time, you can’t expect to match their success if you’re not putting in the same effort Don’t expect to pull in a livable wage on part-time hours – if there was a time that was possible, it’s no longer the case.
On the other hand, don’t expect that, just because you put in the hours, that you’ll be successful. You need hard work as well implement a good strategy.
You might be thinking, ”But there are tons of partners who seem like they’re doing no work, and they’re doing great! They don’t deserve their success!
First, I can guarantee you any successful YouTube personality does more work than you give them credit for. Heck, I was getting paid a very good salary when I worked at a major film studio, and my day consisted of checking the lunch menu, eating said lunch, goofing off on gaming blogs, and answering emails. So on a sheer “time spent” basis, these guys have me beat in every conceivable way, and they aren’t getting healthcare and 401ks like I was.
Nobody got to where they are by lazing around.
Getting partnership is relatively easy, but it takes time.
A lot of people ask whether there’s some sort of magic number of subscribers or views you need to make partner. We’ve found the answer is “not really” – from what I’ve seen, it’s more about following some general guidelines.
Here’s the easiest way to guess what those guidelines are – look at the Partnership application form. Look at all the dropdown options. You want to be answering near the top for as many of those questions as humanly possible.
Approach it from Google’s point of view. Now, I don’t know how Google is run or what their internal policies are, but I do know they’re a publically traded company, which means like every other publically traded company, their decisions are centered on minimizing risk and maximizing profit.
Since, partnership is about sharing ad revenue with content creators, that means, logically, they’re looking for three things:
- Users that won’t get them sued.
- Content they can actually serve ads on.
- An audience they can serve those ads to.
That means no illegal, risky, content, and no copyrighted material in any of your videos. And furthermore, if you do have videos with copyrighted material in them, you can bet that it will hurt your chances – they don’t see “random vacation video for my friends with copyrighted music in the background,” they see “person willing to violate copyrights.” So if you have any videos with any copyrighted music or content in them, delete them or reupload them with that material removed.
Game footage, too, is risky. Yes, you can argue fair use on gaming commentary, but the point isn’t how well you know your 1st Amendment rights – it’s how risky is it for YouTube to serve ads on, and like it or not – if the only videos you have is gameplay, you’re going to have a hard time getting partnered.
(Note: Channels like Machinima and The Game Station are currently monetizing game footage channels – for the purposes of this article, I’m talking about just vanilla YouTube Partnership)
I know this because we found this out the hard way – one of the most viewed videos on our channel is me playing Guitar Hero, which features a copyrighted music track as well as game footage. You’ll also note that it’s one of the few videos we have that’s ad free, and I believe it’s one of biggest reasons that it took us so long to become partner. In fact, we were denied twice before we finally got through. Its existence was something that we had to fight against, and was significantly detrimental in our path to partnership.
As for an audience, understand that it doesn’t need to be massive – because for Google, the only cost they have for serving up your content is electricity, hard drive space, and bandwidth, which nowadays is exceedingly cheap.
But that audience needs to be consistent. I don’t have exact numbers, but if I had to guess, I’d say aiming for at least a few thousand views per video is a good place to start from, with at least a thousand subscribers.
As for building that audience…
A consistent audience requires consistent content.
For this, I always look at an older Internet example of a group of people self-employed and working from home in a creative endeavor – webcomics. And if you’ve ever gotten into webcomics, you know that you can divide them up into two categories:
- Webcomics that consistently update
- Webcomics that don’t consistently update.
And if you look at the cream of the crop, the most financially successful webcomics, the Penny Arcades and xkcds, you find one thing – they all fall under the first category. And comics under the second category have a high probability of pissing you off, and you won’t be so inclined to visit them regularly.
And likewise, the top YouTube channels by-and-large all keep some kind of consistent schedule. Look at it this way – you pay for the loyalty of your viewers by keeping a consistent stream of content headed their way.
Imagine a potential new viewer – they see a video of yours, like it, and maybe start poking around your channel. If there’s only one video, I guarantee you they won’t subscribe because what’s the point? But if they see there’s consistency – the chance of further entertainment in the future, the chances of them subscribing just went up.
Take a look at any mega-viral video and see how many subscribers that account has. David After Dentist’s account has, at the time of this writing, almost 100 million views, but only 40,000 subscribers. Compare that to BFvsGF, who have 100 times fewer total views, but more subscribers. David After Dentist went mega viral, but it didn’t grab a consistent audience.
Simply put, you cannot expect someone to become a consistent member of your audience, let alone remember you, if you are not giving them consistent content in return.
Set a schedule, and stick to that schedule, no matter what. If you run out of time and put out a mediocre video, make up for it next video. The beauty is by forcing yourself to maintain a schedule, you’ll force yourself to come up with something.
Before you start going, while the pressure is off, why not bank some videos? Shoot stuff that’s ready to and hang on to it. That way, if you have an off week or if you get sick, you at least have a backup video you can throw up there.
Focus on content, not on viewers.
How do I get views? How do I get good ratings? What do people want to see? The answer to all these questions is good content.
“Good” is entirely subjective, I might add. Look at Fred’s success – he didn’t get that successful from people hating those videos. At one point, the majority his audience loved them and were passing them around. But his audience was young and fickle, and if there’s one thing I know about being 11 years old, it’s that when I was 13, I hated everything I liked at 11.
The biggest mistake I see in a lot of channels is putting all their effort into grabbing viewers. They’ll spam other videos, they’ll send mass messages, and pay for shady promotion schemes in the hopes of gaining an audience that way.
But think about it – if you trick somebody into watching one of your videos, what are the odds they’ll ever come back? What are the chances they’ll actually pass that video along to a friend? If your content isn’t appealing, a viewer won’t even finish your video before they close the window.
That’s why all these schemes are destined to fail – you might get a few hundred views from people checking out a related video by copying Shay Carl’s tags, but those people will watch once and never return. Their views are meaningless.
In short, don’t take a viewer-centric approach, i.e. “How do I get people to watch my video?” This doesn’t work.
The answer is to take a content-centric approach – “How do I make a video that people want to watch?”
This means facing a potentially uncomfortable fact – while you and your parents and friends might think your video is a work of unbridled genius, the public at large might think it sucks (remember, we’re talking about YouTube success, and any amount of success requires an audience to support your content).
And worse – people are anonymous on the Internet, which means they can be mean. If they think something sucks, they won’t hesitate to tell you in no uncertain terms. This can be discomforting to a lot of people. Once, I charted the statistical frequency of keywords in the first 10,000 comments of the Guitar Hero video. Fully 60% of all comments featured a racial or sexual epithet (and, my favorite statistic, the most “g’s” somebody put in the word “fag” was something like 28).
It’s very easy to get discouraged quickly, but as a creative person, you should be ecstatic when somebody insults you and your work. Why? Because YouTube comments are the only place you will ever get an honest opinion. Your family will always love you. Your friends will be supportive. Even people who hate you will be tied by the pressure of social decency to not unleash on you. Some stranger on the Internet, hidden behind a username, has no stake in you whatsoever, so their opinions are truly their own and unclouded.
Granted, you can safely filter out a great deal of this vitriol – there are people that believe the earth is 6000 years old, so you can conclude there’s opinions out there you can safely ignore.
But if you see criticism, don’t shut it out, and don’t let it discourage you either. Take it for what it is – a random stranger spent ten seconds insulting you. That insult is worth exactly ten seconds of your time. Be open minded and see if there’s a nugget of truth in there somewhere.
After all, you’re still improving, and these people are giving you a piece of their mind. Take the criticism in stride, and continually work to improve.
But what to do? And how long to make it?
There is only one rule for content…
…and that is “What do you genuinely enjoy making?”
It’s stupid to worry about what the rest of the internet wants to see, because just about anything can find an audience. There was a YouTube account with over 6000 videos of a man smoking pipes to different music (it might have been a sexual thing, to be fair). EpicMealTime has had incredible success with, of all things, extreme cooking. You, as a human being, have tastes, and I guarantee you those tastes are shared by other human beings. Whether or not there are enough other human beings for you to be happy with the viewership of your channel is another matter entirely.
So ask yourself “What kind of video do I want to see?” and make it.
As a side note, I think too many people get hung up on ideas. From my experience, ideas are worthless. Execution is more important than anything else. Future First Person Shooter has been done hundreds of times by people with camera in one hand and airsoft pistol in another – the idea is completely unoriginal, but I believe our execution is what set that video apart. Nobody cares how many ideas you have – you won’t get subscribers from ideas alone. It’s about making those ideas into a reality.
That being said, if an idea is genuinely truly entertaining to you, it’s probably not a bad idea. If your video is received poorly, I’d bet that means you need to work on the execution – improve your technical skills offline by reading books, working on tutorials, shooting test videos, etc. (That’s another post for another day).
But most importantly, it doesn’t matter what other people want to see – it matters what you enjoy making. Because YouTube takes so much time and energy, if you make things only for an audience, you’re doomed to failure because you’ll hate doing this, and you won’t put in the amount of necessary time.
You can do everything just to get as big an audience as you can, but at the end of the day, if you really don’t like doing song parodies or cat videos or whatever, you’re not going to be having any fun, and as Matt always says – if you’re not having fun, then what’s the point? Life’s too short.
You have to strike a balance – you have to make videos you genuinely enjoy making, and that an audience can get behind. It’s only in this way that you’ll be able to stomach the amount of work needed to achieve any measurable amount of success.
There is only one rule for length…
…and it’s not “Shorter is better” or “Don’t go above two minutes.” It’s this: the material of your videos must match the runtime.
If your videos have 15 seconds of material, it should be 15 seconds long. An idea, expressed to its full extent in fifteen seconds, placed in a one-minute video is a boring video. If your video has five minutes of entertaining content, guess what? It can be five minutes long and people won’t get bored.
I’ll prove it to you – TubeMogul put out data from fifty web series as to what the audience drop off numbers are between the first episode and the second. They found that across these webseries, there was a 64% drop off. So if you had 100k views on the first episode, you could expect 36k on episode two. These first episodes ran the gamut of lengths, from 2 to 12+ minutes.
So let’s look at RedLetterMedia’s Star Wars reviews – each of the nine parts clocks in at almost ten minutes – definitely on the longer end of things. Conventional “shorter is better” thinking would dictate that, surely, people would get bored watching these, and would not click ahead to part two. If the conventional thinking were true, then logically the audience drop off would be greater than the average of webseries – i.e. greater than 64%.
But looking at the other parts, this is not the case. In fact, RedLetterMedia’s Attack of the Clones review outperforms the average – part 2 only has a 48% drop. And by part 8, it’s performing on the average with a 62% drop. The stickiness of these videos I attribute to the fact that, frankly, they’re incredibly entertaining, and keep people interested for the entire length of the review. The whole thing is an hour long, but he had an hour of content.
The online viewing experience is the most distraction filled viewing experience known to man. When I get an IM notification or a Twitter update or a Facebook message notification, it takes quite an engrossing video for me to not simply click over to see what my friends are saying. So as a video maker, it’s up to you to create engrossing content at an appropriate length.
But in general, when in doubt, try and trim. You need to develop your “sense of boredom” – that’s why our videos rarely go above two minutes. Not because we don’t want them longer, but that the single ideas we have for them can’t support a much longer length.
Here’s a good way to tell – get a friend or parent to sit down and watch one of your videos right before they have to do something – get to an appointment, cook dinner, etc. Play it for them and watch them. The moment they start to fidget a little, or dart their eyes around the room towards the clock is the exact moment they get bored. Do this a few times, and you’ll start to understand when things are beginning to drag.
So let’s say you have a video you’re proud of, that your parents can sit through, and looks pretty good – where do you promote it?
YouTube is big. The internet is much bigger.
Too many people make the mistake of playing solely to the YouTube subscriber crowd. The fact is, the most popular channels get views far in excess of their subscriber numbers. What does that mean?
The Annoying Orange has 1.7 million subscribers, but he gets more than twice that many views on average per video. And if you drill down his stats, he only gets a few hundred thousand views from subscribers. What’s this mean? Do those few hundred thousand subscribers watch each of his videos ten times each? Not likely – those views are coming from other places.
One of the first things we think about when we put out a new video is “Who else might be interested in this video?” When we made Light Warfare, I made a list of all the photography blogs I thought would be interested in it, and emailed all those blogs with a link to the video off their submission lines. Blogs are always looking for content – if you present an interesting video, they’ll be more than happy to put it up and expose you to their audience.
Don’t forget online communities. Are you a part of any discussion groups or forums? What about your Facebook friends? What about submitting it to link aggregator sites like Reddit? I have an account on a popular Price is Right forum just because of our Price is Right video. When entering an online community, pay attention to their internal rules – figure out the right forum to post in, follow their guidelines, and be courteous, and stick around for some discussion. You shouldn’t be ashamed of promoting your video assuming your video is the kind of thing that forum would want to see, after all. The Internet is the world’s greatest time waster, and there’s always room for another diversion.
So the next step after you finish a video is to make a list of places outside YouTube that the video might be a good fit for. That means expanding your browsing palette – start reading more blogs, hit up more sites, and start getting a sense as to what kind of videos fit well and where.
Take a look once again at our initial spate of videos. Here’s our thinking for them:
OK Go Commentary – The video had just come out and I noticed there was a lot of debate about it. I checked first to see if anyone else had done this, and seeing none, made a video with some evidence pointing out different takes, and ended it in a self-deprecating way because nobody likes the armchair critic, and make it stand out from other “lol I found a mistake” videos out there. It became fuel for those debates, as people would link to the video to back up their arguments.
Real Life Portal Gun – Checked if there were any real-life Portal gun vids (there were some, but not executed that well). We emailed it to numerous popular gaming blogs, where it was featured.
Jammin’ with my Three Best Friends – This one actually was just an idea we had for a while and wanted to do. At the time, it was easily the worst performing of all these videos because there were no outside sources that picked up on it.
Final Fantasy XIII – Final Fantasy just came out. There’s a lot of people who love and hate this game series. Brandon and I happen to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, so hence this video. Posted it to discussion forums, and the comments section itself became a place for debate about the games itself. Debate in comments is great, because that means people keep coming back to defend themselves.
Twilight Eclipse Parody – Destorm called and told us the teaser just came out. Greenscreened myself in there (which again, has been done, but often not done well). The idea was for the video to be fuel for the fire of Twilight haters, and hopefully also be entertaining to people familiar with the series. Sent it to various Twilight blogs, but the director tweeting about the video is what got this the most views.
Network with your peers
Find friends, find other channels in your city, and of equivalent subscriber count and viewership, and work with them.
Realistically, you’re going to have one hell of a time working with any of the more high-end YouTube guys, simply because I know for a fact that everybody’s incredibly busy with side projects, and getting their own videos out. Your request probably is one of thousands from other like-minded people.
A good way to look around you is the tracking site VidStatsX, which is independent of YouTube, but culls data off Google’s APIs. You can find your subscriber rank as well as channels with similar numbers as you. More important than just raw sub numbers are people with comparable 30 day averages, simply because that’s an indicator that it’s somebody who’s working on their channel, rather than letting it stagnate.
If you can, go where the people aren’t
I have a philosophy about life I call the fire escape philosophy. You know how you’ve heard horrific stories about fires and how everyone tried to rush through a single door, and as a result, people get stampeded and trapped. Such stories always like to point out how, less than ten feet away, there was another door that led to safety or something.
Morbid, yes, but the idea is basically this – if there’s something that a lot of people are fighting to do, you can join the fray, but it’s often easier for you to go somewhere else.
In terms of YouTube, it means this – while you can certainly try daily vlogging or doing makeup tutorials, there are a lot of other people doing that very thing. So that means it’s much harder for you to stand out. It’s not that you can’t stand out – if you started a makeup channel that was genuinely hilarious and totally amazing, you’ll find an audience for sure – it’s that it’s much harder to. If you don’t want to fight that battle, try to do content that’s different than what’s out there.
I’m not saying “don’t vlog” or “don’t do makeup tutorials” – in fact, if that’s what you love doing, then by all means you should do it. But if you go down that road, don’t be blind to the fact that you’re fighting two battles – one to get a dedicated viewership, and another to differentiate yourself from other people with similar content.
For us, our “big idea” was pretty simple – we noticed there was a lack of well-produced nerdy/video game videos online (the kind of videos we would want to watch). And since we love watching what we make, that’s the kind of videos we tried to create.
TL;DR
Figure out what you want from your channel, and dedicate the necessary time to achieve that goal. Find content that you personally love making or love watching, and experiment to see where that overlaps with what people want to see. Be consistent with your videos. Find your peers and collaborate with them. And make videos for the Internet as a whole, not just for YouTube.
As you can tell, it’s not revolutionary information I’m imparting here. And unfortunately there’s no quick easy path to success. It’s a lot of work, and you have to honestly ask yourself how much you’re willing to put in.
But if you can find that magic overlap of videos you love to make and videos people love to watch, YouTube can be one of the most creatively rewarding experiences of your life. For Brandon and myself, having come from the world of freelance visual effects and direct-to-DVD/TV feature films, it certainly has been.
Good luck! And let me know if you have any questions in the comments below.
Nice info, definitely a must read for youtube new channels that want to be watched by millions
FFFFUUUU
FFFUUU
Being remarkable and networking with influencers who have large audiences already are why you guys blew up so fast. Obviously doing what you did is easier said than done
FIRSTLOEL, THEGAME
Cool tips, bro.
Thanks for the very long yet great advice…
That was a very well written piece on partnership. We are aiming to try and become a partner starting later this year and this has helped heaps. Well done – though I do have a rather personal question. Whose account receives the payment (because I think in the Vokle interview Brandon mentioned for a split second he had an invalid account – I may be wrong), but how would you implement the partnership as well an actual two or more membership? Considering you two do it as a full time job.
Mark :]
Brandon’s account is him blowing stuff up, so as a result it’s not really up for partnership. We split work on “freddiew”
Where could we find Brandon’s channel? We the fans would like to see more things blown up. And also great post, well written, I had fun reading it and some great advice too. Thanks.
http://www.youtube.com/storarovit
freddie, you are a philosophical genius – KEEP UP THE GOODD WORK!
thank you, thank you, a thousand times, thank you.
Damn Varghese, I find you in all the strangest places.
Great post. YouTube is transitioning to a new phase where the quality and consistency of your content actually matters. It’s awesome. Your channel is one of the pioneers in this change. Congrats on 1MM subs dudes!
Brilliant and well said, an amazing help for someone like myself trying to make it in the wild world of youtube.
I couldn’t agree more with the part about getting an honest opinion from anons. I’ve put out a video and i’ve thought it was amazing, as did my friends. Its my second most viewed video at the moment, but it’s commonly disliked. It’s only from taking in what everyone has said that i’ve been able to truly look at it and realise they’re right. However i’ve allowed this to benefit me and take into account the many ways to improve upon this for the future.
Thanks for all your help Freddie and co, look forward to what the future brings from you guys!
~Tiff – Vippie Productions
hey man, thats an awesome post, cheers!
When you said “Very long article”, I was hoping for nothing more than an animated image of you throwing the devil horns with a “Suck it, jerkwads” caption.
But this article is better than said image. Bravo
hahahaha next time!
Hey everyone..could you please take a few seconds to look at my channel, I make a lot of short funny sketches and if you have any feedback please email me
That took a long time to read, but it’s probably going to be useful. I’m going to go make some videos now.
Great well written tutorial Freddie. I learned a few things, and I really appreciate the time, effort, and thought you put into this post. I used to have a fairly good audience (at least 1,000 views per video, over 1,000 subscribers), but I got hacked and I have to start from square one again. I’m slowly gaining an audience again, but I’m finding it a lot tougher this time.
Hopefully I can try and get a consistent schedule for my videos. I’ve bean meaning too, but haven’t ever executed it. I really like the idea of banking back-up videos just in case, that should really help me.
That sucks – I’m sorry about that. But if you did it once, you can do it again!
Can you give us advice in order to account isn’t easy to hack
Thanks for the great advice Freddie! I’ve been wondering for awhile, how do you find out if music is copyrighted or not and what music can be used on YouTube without hurting your chances of becoming a partner.
Thanks in advance,
Conner Brown
I think generally you’ll know if it’s copyrighted music, wouldn’t you?
well I’m assuming all music that is produced by someone else that they make money from selling is copyrighted, right? so you’d have to either get permission from the artist or create your own music if you want to be completely copyright free? just want to make sure
Don’t forget about Royalty free music. There is a youtuber called Urgo667. He has a video talking all about youtube music and what is allowed to get used and what not. Allot of Internet musicians allow Youtubers to use their music if permission is asked, since it’s free advertising for their music/ channel.
Go look on urgo’s channel. He is a Youtube partner who uses music in all his videos, music which is legal to use.
Hope this helps.
~ VBlogDude/ ChannelBattles
You dropped a six, it’s actually urgo6667 and he does have a good video about royalty free music. I’ve got one as well.
As for how to tell if something is copyrighted or not, my personal rule of thumb is that if it is not explicitly marked royalty free or creative commons attribution 3.0 then I won’t use it.
As for movie scores, it’s a safe bet that they’re all copyrighted, either by the movie studio or by the composer.
hey freddie, this is a really good write up. I learned alot
regarding copy righted music, you used a ennio morricone song in one of your vids and it didn’t get swapped or had the sound disabled on the vid and I’m pretty sure ennio morricone’s stuff is copyrighted so I’m not sure on what to do regarding sound for youtube
is using movie scores okay? because I don’t think I’d be able to put up videos if I had to write up a soundtrack for every video.
love your channel and all the stuff you guys put up
Thanks
Hassan
That’s our first video, and also a video with no ads on it.
appreciate what you do freddie. one of the few ‘real’ internet personas. my hats off to you sir
Thanks, man – I appreciate it
Great review Freddie. I will be putting these tips to good use. According to your daily vlog consistency opinion, I think that there can be some that stand out. Phillip Defranco for instance, he not only provides information, but is funny while doing it. It’s very hard to think if something new but a few people out there are very skilled at vlogging, and are entertaining to watch. In the end, it’s all the same game out there, people just have to innovate and come up with something new.
David
Believe me – I’ve tried it. Doing a good vlog is waaay hard – I totally suck at them.
To say the truth i dont think you suck at vloging, well at least the videos where you was doing some kinda of “vloging+tutorial” thing.
This is an incredible post and guide to success on YouTube. I am hoping to start my own channel in the next few months working on short films and viral videos like you guys do. This has definitely given me my step off point! Thank You Freddie!
This is a very inspirational guide/story. Thanks Freddie, I can see you genuinely put time into this and it shows.
I’ve been doing special effects for about 7 years and I just started uploading videos, I hope to work with you one day!
Hey Freddie. I was thinking we could shake things up a bit and I could be the entertainer on youtube, and you could be the man behind the computer giving me your honest input on the quality of my videos, regardless of how harsh you can be
Channel on youtube- Brahskeeliscious
By the way, I love you.
Awesome post. Much needed for the community at large.
What would you say about 3rd party brand partnerships with youtube partners?
For instance, saw a ton of wonderful pistachio videos out there.
Itd be interesting if there was a place that could connect those brands and partners.
It used to be poison to do a branded video, but slowly people are accepting that people need money from somewhere to support themselves.
People always hate change at first. Like when Youtube or Facebook make changes and people complain non-stop for about a week, then realize it’s actually better.
It’ll take a bit but people are gunna accept the ad’s. Internet is killing television anyways. lol
Great article. I’m not particularly interested in becoming a Youtube Partner, but this was very informative and straight to the point.
Freddie, thank you for taking the time to post such a well written article!
Thanks for sharing this with us. I love film an have tried many different things to be “noticed” I guess you can say on YouTube. Random videos, how tos, tutorials. I guess i gotta find that one thing I love to make and just do that.
But your experimentation is good – that way if you do find something (something that you hopefully like) then you’re good to go!
Hey freddy, ever since your mail ive been eagerly awaiting this blog to come out! This has some really amazing tips! I completely agree on the statement about doing what you like. I can’t wait until i can start making some videos! If you can take the time to watch them/critique them once i start posting that would be fantastic!
Thanks
loved it man. and thank you for writing about the aspect of criticism. i see way too many videos dedicated to “youtube haters”. people need to learn to move on and improve their material.
You owe those people exactly ten seconds of your time – that’s all! Thanks!
Your such a Jerrrrrkkkkk FreddieW… 10 seconds successfully wasted.
agree with u freddie
Dude, the world IS 6000 years old. Do you know how much cold hard facts there are to prove that? The world being millions of years old is completely preposterous. Seriously look it up, you will be shocked.
apparently the world is also flat. those greek mathematicians have been wrong for 3000 years.
Yeah, wasn’t too excited about that example either…
Facepalm.
I’m actually curious about your evidence. I’ve been to the Creation Museum with a friend of mine.
Too bad, I can’t become a Youtube Partner because of the country where I live.
Damn racists.
This is the best article I have read about entering the YouTube market and finding success. For awhile now, I’ve been planning to become part of the YouTube community. However I want to make my entrance correctly. Actually, Mr. Wong I was wondering if there is a way to contact you personally because I honestly have quite a bit of questions and concerns.
Freddie, I’ve seen ALOT of these “Youtube Success” things over the net, the one i like about this, not because your popular or a good filmmaker or im sucking up to you, is that its straight-out simple and honest.
The other ones are like “Oh and you should definately change your tags to ‘Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, SxePhil..’ blah blah blah.. and the thing is that those things just don’t work.
And i also like how you mentioned not really aiming to make your video super-successful by spamming someone elses inbox, if its good, they will watch.
Thanks mate, from your pals in Australia.
Thank you – those tips will get you temporary views, but no closer to building an audience, which is the key
Great insight Freddie! Really thorough post that reminded me of some of the mistakes I made early on… definitely worth sharing to anyone who asks me this question in the future.
This has been a very helpful and informative blog!
I too hope to become a well known vlogger on YouTube just like iJustine, Shane Dawson, etc. one day.
If you want, you could check out my YouTube channel! (I dont mean to spam you or anything)
http://www.YouTube.com/thezachvlogs
Again, thank you for writing this blog. I do feel much better about making videos on YouTube now!
A big thank you Freddie for not only being an inspiration to the legions of fans out there and for providing valuable lessons in filmmaking for them to fuel their own fires to the craft. I was wondering, being an action junkie yourself, were you influenced by Robert Rodriguez’s “10 minute film school” series? I definitely have based my practical, guerrilla “creativity over budget” filmmaking style from his book “Rebel without a crew” and his DVD special features.
Stay awesome. -JS3
Great post, but i have to point out that in reality u guys haven’t been that consistent (in a while) and haven’t had a real stick to schedule but still u’ve gotten succesful, i mean, it ain’t like u don’t deserve ‘casuse videos are awesome but u maybe an exception to what u posted!!
Our goal’s been 1 a week since March 2010. We’ve messed that up three times so far (I can tell you the exact reasons why, too). We do our best
I would actually like to know lol
Freddiew, and Brandom,
This post is WORTH of being featured on the http://www.youtube.com/partners page (Not kiding), i have actualy learned more in this post in 15 minutes then searching on internet/youtube all over the last months…
Im pretty sure if you show this shenazz our margaret they might find a way of featuring this text somewhere on youtube.
I believe that achieving the “success” (wich for most people on youtube is becoming a partner) is not HARD (Yeah guys just think for a while, if your videos dont have advertise on it, youtube is losing money on that videos)all you have to do as explained detailed above is original content and consitency, one big and important factor wich FW had in one image of hes desktop sometime ago is: If you believe you will succeed!( http://wallpampers.com/wall.php?category=animals&id=9955&width=1920&ratio=1.78 ) And yes is not only theory, it actualy works, its like chain, You believe->You Make content->You will keep consistency.
The world is big, if someone dont like your videos will allways exist some other person that will like it, so dont give up!
Thanks so much for the awesome tips. We’re a small after school program (a film school for kids) in California with no financial support from the government, so we’re trying a whole bunch of ways to earn money to keep the program going. We’re two years in with our YouTube channel, and this year we decided to shoot for a partnership with YouTube. We wiped out all our videos that violated copyright and we started over. Our first 4 videos since starting over are now earning revenue through the partnership program, and we’re going to try and consistantly produce videos so that our channel can become a partner. Our subscriptions are low, so we’ll keep working hard to get that number up.
If you’re an after school program, it’s definitely worth reaching out to YouTube/Google with information about your program – they may be able to lend some more help.
Freddie, I was wondering: if you enjoy watching/making a variety of videos, is it bad to not be constrained to a specific type of video (whether it be Vlogs or Commentaries)? For example, if you like to draw and play video games, is it sloppy to upload both?
Thanks for the article.
Thanks for the great advice. I have been working at my channel for years, but I have not been really consistent until about last year. However its still a challenge to get noticed within the pool of cute kitties and booby videos. However, most recently I have been exploring the world of interactive narrative, and this seems to be generating some interest. Not the normal “Choose Your Own Adventure” type, but more along the lines of “Make Your Own Adventure” type. Its a crowd sourced interactive narrative game, where Youtubers play for control of the narrative. I just launched it in February, but I would love any kind of feedback you might be able to give me on the project. The home for the game is: http://www.viralsockpuppets.com
Thanks again,
Brian
Great read, Freddie. I’m amazed at how well you and Brandon churn out consistently impressive ideas, and execute them well. As you said, it’s definitely a big part of your success.
It’s frustrating not to have the time/people to get projects like these going, but every time I see a new video from you guys, it’s hard not to want to start shooting!
Great tips Freddie! So far im doing everything right, I just need to pump put some consistent content.
Getting attention truly does take dedication.
I enjoyed this. Very well written.
Hey Freddie-
I just want to thank you for taking the time to write all of this down. Like you said, being a youtuber is a full time job, and writing something this detailed is time consuming, so a million times thank you! Bookmarked
-dweej
THANK YOU for taking the time! It is truly a labor of love, not unlike playing in a band (and similar as your feelings/emotions are on display for the world to critique).
-Slogan Logo
Thanks so much for this article, you gave me some more things to think about that I haven’t read elsewhere.
Seriously thanks I appreciate it alot!
~Jon
Freddie,
I first started watching your videos when a friend posted “Aimbot” on facebook. I had dabbled with video editing (mostly Live TV broadcast from my High School’s Educational Channel), but never sharpened my skills enough to make the blockbusters I see you making. Anybody can make a video, Most can make it entertaining; But what set you apart as my favorite editor, is how you care about your viewers by trying to teach them how to do the cool techniques you do. You are like the Bob Ross of video editing. A ladder to help people get over the first big hurdle of your field. Once people can apply some easy-to-learn techniques and start to produce some art that they can be happy with, they have a foundation to build on. Your efforts have not gone un-noticed, and I will be happy to support you and see you succeed while you continue to do the same for your viewers. Thank you very much!
Hey Freddie,
Thank you for this! You guys inspired me when the channel first started to create videos. They are a bit different, in my interest, but people like them. Since then, I have taken a Photoshop and video class and am now a partner on YouTube. Could not have done it without the inspiration from you guys. Great article too.
A good idea would be to have a featured YouTuber box at the end of your YouTube videos. A person with good videos would be picked and shown in a small box at the end of the video with a preview window next to their name. It would get exposure for the unnoticed. Do you think this is a good idea? Please respond.
Very well written and inspirational,
We started uploading videos a couple of months ago and get so annoyed when it tops like 300 views..
But now I’m well up for making more.
Cheers Freddie, and for gods sake, DO NOT stop making your videos.
Best channel
Wow! What a great post. You are truly one of the best youtubers out there. Not only because of your videos, but for who you are as well. Great guys!
I love your thought process Freddie. I can’t stand when people say “don’t forget to subscribe”, I would never say that regardless of how popular my videos could be. If the viewer likes the video enough, they have the capacity to subscribe on their own accord.
The article is great, some points I’ve gone over in my head, others newly introduced. Knowing thyself, I would have a hard time keeping a schedule lol.
Being in photography and some video making (with tv broadcast background), your videos have given me that push to challenge both myself and your videos as well. I hopefully look forward to making some neat videos!
To be fair, telling people to subscribe isn’t a bad strategy – it’s a way of reminding people about that service, which is basically just a “notify me when you put new videos up” service.
Thing is, if they’re coming back every week to see your videos, they’re already essentially a “subscriber” – even if they haven’t hit that button.
However, I think it is also a good thing to use in a video when it gets embedded outside of YouTube. When your video is being viewed to someone who is not a YouTuber or part of the basic demographic. Someone who may not even know about the subscription service. That little plug, might be the thing that converts a non-YouTube-user to an active YouTuber. They might like the idea that this thing called YouTube offers some kind of deeper interaction and connection to the creator then just an archival repository of forgotten video work. And that little bit of dialogue, plugging the subscription button especially if you have it as an annotation within the video with a nice little graphic might be the thing that throws them into the network. However, if the video sucks, then it will still do you no good.
Really enjoyed reading this. I’ve seen lots and lots of these “how to be famous on youtube” blogs and videos. I’ve even made one myself but basically spoofing those videos. I think it just takes time and hard work. If you’re good, good things will come to you. If you’re good and things aren’t coming to you, try something else. I think people get to involved in the idea that if they don’t “make it” on youtube it’s the end for their film making career. I’m almost at my 1 year goal on youtube and I’ve gotten a little bit over 600 subscribers. Some from shoutouts and some from being on people’s boxes. I know it takes time. And the fact that as a creator I have to come up with ideas for a good entertaining video every week it’s even harder. Great job Freddie you, Brandon and the crew deserve all this success.
Thanks so much for these very helpful tips. I thinks its great how much you care about your fans.
P.s. please take the time to check out the email I just sent you (sheaslytv@yahoo.com)
Hey, thanks for taking the time to write this out for us all. Keep up the good work!
I think that what you are saying is not just about youtube but about the entire web. You can’t just make stuff to make money. Make stuff that you love to make and with enough work and time passed, enough people will have seen what you have been working on and you may be able to make a living (and maybe not).
Either way, make stuff YOU like to make. And put your heart into it.
Thanks so much for the article. It was perfect.
This was really great article. I learned a lot of things from it that I had wondered about and couldn’t find the answers to. I started my current channel in October and I had been sort of depressed when sometimes I would post a video and get absolutely no subscribers from it. Now I know that it doesn’t matter and I need to keep being consistent. As of now, I’ve posted a video every single Sunday of this year to my channel, and I hope to continue that trend for as long as I can. Thanks for the great article.
Keep rocking face,
Tyler
Thanks for the tips Freddie and thanks for the great videos. What YouTube security tips advice do you have? Changing passwords often, or having complexe passwords?
The same security tips for any website – separate password, complex password, etc. Change it as well!
Hey. This is incredibly useful. When I started thinking about becoming a film maker I thought about putting them on youtube. Thats when I found you’re channel. I’ve made a video (still in editing process) and it’s ok. There isn’t really much time for me to be consistently making videos, being in the 9th grade, so theres not much seperating me from all the other 14 year olds on the internet at the moment. But yeah, this helps a lot.
Thanks, Tom
thank you so much for these helpful tips. The only things i care about left in my life is video making and my friends, so im going all out on this whole partnership thing.
Thanks for the great post…
This was super informative and insightful. I would be very interested in a future post about the role that test shoots play in your operation. Sort of a “time spent practicing a concept vs. solving problems as you shoot” kind of thing… I think that pre-production is often overlooked and can save you a ton of energy (and money) but it also takes more time. Any thoughts?
Thanks again,
Jon
Read the whole thing Freddie! Thanks for the advice, I’ll be hard at work.
So… what you’re saying is I have to challenge Phillip DeFranco to a fist fight?
My channel (www.youtube.com/wakeupfast) gets comparisons to him all the time. Not that I’m complaining.
Thank you, your advice helped me alot! Thanks again!
From now i am going to make my own videos, not remixes!
I expected the read to be boring, I was wrong, well worth the time!
I’m gradually working my way up in subs and am nearing 1k but have a strike from 06 that I can’t get removed due to the video being gone. Do you know if a single strike will automatically deter me from being approved for partnership?
I was with you right up until: Granted, you can safely filter out a great deal of this vitriol – there are people that believe the earth is 6000 years old, so you can conclude there’s a lot of opinions out there that are borne from minds clouded with idiocy.\n
Way to judge. Regardless of what your views are on the age of the earth, there’s no need to say people who have certain beliefs for good reasons are clouded with idiocy. Could you have a little professionalism when writing a post of this nature next time? Needless to say I won’t be one of the people reading your next posts.
*filtering*
you must think the world is 6000 years old.
This comment took exactly 10 seconds of Freddie’s time.
Thanks for the info Freddie. Really helpful, as I have some perfect ideas that I need to start filming before someone else takes my \fire escape\.
I’m graduating this year, and since I’m taking a year off, I hope I can crank out videos.
The thing about your videos is that they come out consistently but they’re also really good. I don’t have the video editing capability that you have, but I don’t want to release half-assed crap either.
Is one video every 2 weeks enough consistency for starting out?
Bravo on discussing the rise to YouTube success — been a fan since I saw you jamming to Guitar Hero a couple years ago!
if/when we ever run into each other face to face – I would ask if you would ever consider using someone else on camera regularly – in a perfect world I see you as the new John Woo (but dont see you as a Chow Yun Fat) – be fun to see some kinda long form video with a skinny emo looking asian dude running around doing all the stunts/action.
-Rob
http://www.youtube.com/coinoptv
The earth isn’t 6000 years old?
Next your going to tell me that dinosaurs and
Man were not on the earth at the same time.
(screw the science channel I get my information
From Land of the lost.)
Thanks for the info Freddie, especially the stats
Link.
Finally read it all! Not saying Im a slow reader.
The ONE thing that is annoying is that if you have a bad camera making a film they get in your way. But if you have a DSLR people take you seriously and DON’T get in your way. Thats whats holding me up and the fact of refraining to post videos of me in the videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/StormWProductions?feature=mhum
Is my channel with 208 subs to count. The thing is animating takes a long time to do and edit. So it is very hard for consistency of my videos.
But that is a very good piece of information there. I have learnt a lot.
GONNNA read a book or something now . . .
Thanks man!
As you said, make content you want to watch… Well I like watching stuff like you and corridor digital make. While the effects may be better i’m trying my best to present common effects in different ways than people usually attack them. I naturally want an audience but it dwindles in importance compared to wanting content as awesome as the stuff I watch. I got less than 200 subscribers and I’ve been making videos weekly for more than a year… maybe someday I’ll find my niche. – EverythingUseless
I came across this via a google notification ffrom your mention of our video. I have to say this is a great post and anyone interested in videos should really take it to heart. Do what your passionate about. If you don’t know what that is try doing what nobody else is. Be original.
We certainly view our success as if we had win the lottery, just dumb luck. We thought about doing other stuff but didn’t want to just because we could. We are thinking of doing other videos to build on what we have. But I have to admit I struggle with what to do.
While I make no apologies for posting Davids video, the only way I would do more with him is if he wanted to. While he’s game for anything, I know he wouldn’t want to do it all the time. So that wouldn’t be fair to David.
The bottom line is you should do what yo uare passionate about, and the heck with the numbers. having said that, if you really are passionate about it, it’s going to come through to your audience and they will find you. Those are the fans you want anyway. I would rather have 1000 raving fans, than 1 million that watch occassionaly.
Anyway, thanks for the post. Great article.
Btw, David after dentist still gets 125,000 to 150,000 views a day. Not bad for a novice like me eh?
Oh it’s absolutely not bad, and I commend you for putting David’s thoughts and feelings in front of clawing at fame and fortune. I know there’s a lot of parents out there who would make that leap without a second thought.
I could’ve picked any number of videos like that – double rainbow guy for instance. I’m using these kinds of videos as an example because I’ve definitely heard people say that you absolutely must have a runaway viral hit like one of those videos to be “successful,” which I disagree with.
I agree. Shane Dawson, the third most subscribed on youtube, said he never really got a viral hit, but he did persevere, and that’s what got him 2.3 million subs.
This has helped me a lot on figuring out what to set my channel on. I’ve been trying different things and haven’t quite exactly found my “calling,” even though it’s been there and I just haven’t tried to work on it, but now I think I have things a bit more clear.
Thanks Freddie
I accidently posted a comment twice how can I delete the other one? Please answer I don’t want to be disqualified!
On the Million Subscriber Giveaway – page I mean.
sweet – really inspiring. thanks man.
Balls to you, good Sir!
A definite tip of the hat!
Bravo!
Great article Fred. However, as I was reading along, I was waiting to see if you would stating some $$$$$ numbers. Well, those that are curious lets just put it this way, a friend of mine who personally knows the Mystery Guitar Man was told that he makes near $50,000 or so a month. Also I noticed that the “successful” people really have foremost a creative passion in mind for their content and not so much on the, “Oh I need subscribers!” You can totally tell who are the ones that only wants subscribers by their crappy content. What’s more annoying is when, instead of being original and creative, they tend to make these “knock off” videos. Well there’s my 2 cents.
BTW! I totally forgot to comment regarding the copyrighted material part. To those that says, “Oh man, I don’t know how to make music of my own!”
No problem! Just get them from sound design stock sites. You can even get stock footage as well. All for a minimal cost or even free sometimes. Just Google sound/footage/image stocks. The keyword is- STOCK.
Man thank you for the great advice. I know you are hugely busy, but if you ever get a second to check out my environmentally charged spoken word recited on videos by me the writer I think you will enjoy.
youtube/jenklefritz
Thanks a lot for this. Unfortunately, I can’t make my video camera quality better (cause I can’t afford a new one), but thanks to you, I managed to make this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e32OrCnqcFk
And in the future, I plan to make more video editing videos, involving light-saber’s and floating objects that look real. And before anyone asks, I did it with Wax2.0
Hey Freddie,
Thanks for the advice.
Yours Sincerely,
phrasmotica
I’m not sure if you have answered this or not but; What editing software do you use? It’s pretty tough trying to find a good editing software program, a lot of times the programs end up being scams or viruses.
its after effects cs5 i have it any questions? ask me by email or my youtube acc its : officialretardryan
~Ryan
yo freddie i get u 100% of it but like letz say i have oonly part of a song just like 30 sec of it is that considered like them able to sue me bc that sux its the only way i make my vids good plus im making one today hope ya like Acc: officialretardryan and oh even though i make vids and stuff i get bad views bc no one knows about it can u help me out … plz reply
30 seconds still counts as copyright infringement.
Dude, I followed all your recommendations before you wrote them and I still don’t get accepted as partner: I put out good quality videos regularly, I have more than 1000 views / day and there are no copyright problems with my videos.
So, what now? Your video and this blog entry strike me more as a well-done and coordinated publicity stunt (kudos!) than useful advice.
In my opinion your success comes down to two factors: a) you were there already 5 years ago, where there were rather few channels available, and b) you scaled your production-quality with the increasing competition and therefore stayed on top.
Link me to your channel.
Never mind – I found your channel.
You’re still not quite at a big enough of an audience threshhold. How many views per day you get can be misleading – if you have 62 videos and you’re getting 1000 views a day, that’s 16 views per video.
Keep building and keep experimenting – are you a part of any weightlifting/fitness blogs/communities? That’s a good place to link to your work and get feedback
Freddie, I have a 15,000+ member fitness community and a successful YT partner behind me, which is the reason *why* I actually made it this far.
I have seen a good number of people – whose videos actually were more professional than mine – and who followed the “do what you like, do it good and they will come” mantra give up.
Which is my major objection with your article: You sound like this will guarantee success, but it doesn’t.
Last but not least, there also is the issue of YouTube view fraud. You mentioned that artificially inflating views would backfire – it apparently never did for some now very successful people:
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/YouTube_View_Fraud
Calculate the views per comment ratio for some videos even now and you will get some very questionable numbers.
Don’t get me wrong, I like what you do, because you do it with wit and professionally, but your article does lack some realism about what can be achieved.
I’m not going to sugar coat it, of course – just having “professional videos” and “if you build it they will come” doesn’t guarantee anything.
If you do that, success is by no means guaranteed. But if you _don’t_ do that, failure is assured.
The crucial third component all those folks seem to be missing is that they haven’t reached that audience (or there isn’t a big enough audience for their content).
While I don’t doubt you have a 15,000+ member fitness community behind you, you have to understand that YouTube doesn’t see that because if you don’t have those numbers reflect in your view and subscriber numbers consistently, they’re not going to take your word for it.
YouTube View Fraud was more of a problem years ago, and it’s a mistake to think that somebody who’s successful now owes their success to view fraud entirely (although I could be wrong – I’d love to see any links to such channels).
When i posted this comment there has been 108 responses, 108 responses, 108 videos, Coincidence?
Thanks for the article, im currently in research-mode before i put any videos up, seeing what works, what equipment works best, etc. and where i want to take my channel.
Seems i might do a tech review site as one thing i’ve noticed is with unboxing videos many times they will take the item out of the package, and either leave it laying there with a blank screen, or turn it on to the desktop and thats it.
I remember watching an unboxing of the 4th gen iTouch last year and the guy took the plastic off, turned it on for a sec, and that was it! no testing of the video, audio, no showing how fast web pages opened, or the camera, nothing.
Review channels can be done better.
And more succinctly – I’d be fine with unboxing videos if they weren’t 5 minutes long!
AAAWWWEEESSSOMMMEE work!
btw where’s the thumbs up button???
How would a musician get publicity?
I mean, I do send mass messages and comment.
But that’s the only way I get views, and I get decent comments, I know that I’m good (Not trying to be egoistic), but when I don’t send messages and comments, I barely get any, only a few hundred. What am I doing wrong?
Not going to lie – musicians are hard. Here are some things to keep in mind:
Covers / Parodies are a way of jumping on something that’s existing (kind of like how we did with real life portal gun or FFXIII), but unless you actually like making covers and parodies, you have to transition off of them.
Covers are risky legally – I know of people who have done covers, and then removed those vids when they go for partner. Parodies are protected free speech. However, you can see there are a LOT of people doing parodies, so it’s more difficult to break free of it.
My advice is this – if you’re not going the cover/parody route – YouTube is a visual medium – it’s videos, not audio. That means visually you must stand out and you must be something that’s interesting and shareable. Write very catchy, short music and pair it with a visually interesting music video. That way, the song and your visuals are reasons for people to pass your work along
Nice job! Love your videos. God luck in your future videos. And thanks for useful tips.
A very insightful article. Thanks for posting this Freddie. I think far exceeding the audiences expectations plays its part. Great points about making videos for the internet as a whole, not just YouTube. Thanks again for the tips.
Very good article Freddie, thanks. Success to me is about feeling proud of the work I’ve put in and generally seeing good results (a high quality video, etc.) However, I do have a dilemma, you see, I’d like to post a video every week, but my video style requires A LOT of editing which is time-consuming. Any tips on juggling this around? Or should I start doing videos every two weeks and slowly start getting more frequent uploads out once I am more used to ‘the system’?
Unfortunately this is a dilemma – you can always do a “higher effort” vid one week, and the next week more of an in-betweener
Thank you for this article. I plan to apply for partnership sometime in the near future. I do a movie every Wed and I try to make them all rad. First thing I learned… It’s hard to make a movie a week! Your article is great because I hadn’t thought of outside YT for promoting and I had never even heard of Reddit.
Cheers, and Trolls was EPIC!
To anyone looking for free music to help them, heres a great site:
http://freeplaymusic.com/search/
Thanks for the tips Freddie
It’s pretty epic that you started this page and are actually responding to people. You are a youtuber that cares.
I walked away from my last post and thought of a question I would like to ask a youtuber that had over a million subs.
what are the rough numbers you think a person should hit before they apply? After watching other youtuber’s videos about this I have come to these numbers roughly: 2,000 subs, 20 movies, 100,000 page views and try to make a movie a week.
Also, is there any chance you would box me for a week? Do you still do that?
That’s about right.
Box 4 Box is one of those things that we’ve been measuring for almost a year, and our conclusion is that it doesn’t actually work. It inflates your sub numbers artificially, and rarely equates to actual increased views. I’ll be writing about that soon.
Rad! Thank you for taking the time to write back. I can’t imagine the schedule you guys have. Just know that action junkies everywhere are loving you dudes.
You can apply whenever you like; if they turn you down you just have to wait two months before you do it again.
Just don’t count on being anything reasonable about why you were turned down. The first time they told me my content is not “family-friendly”
Thank you, Evil Cyber. I’ll give it a try here on my birthday:) 2 days from now. Sounds like a lucky day….
I’m so glad that everything worked out for you, Freddie. Keep up the great work and rock on!
I hath bookmark’d this post for future reference because it is probably the best guide I have come across. No bullshit.
Oh, I forgot to ask:
This may be a bit personal, but if you’re partnered do you get $2-5 dollars per thousand view? That’s what I’ve heard…
As YouTube Partners, we can’t talk about details of how much we make – it’s expressly forbidden in the terms of the contract.
you wanna fuk?
Great tips. Kinda cool to know there’s some thought behind the badassness.
That was amazingly helpful! I’ll certainly take that advice next time I make a video! Thanks so much!
Haha, before I had even heard about freddiew I knew for a fact that my horrible schedule was most certainly pissing my audience off and that I wouldn’t get anywhere if I didn’t keep a schedule. Here, lemme post a ridiculously drawn out story for you guys:
I do video game commentary, and for my first game I had a semi-consistent schedule and as a result my subscribers started going up. I took like a month break near the end, but then I started again and finally finished it. I then started on the expansion of the game, but eventually I got bored of that so I started uploading videos of other games before getting bored of them too. If I got bored of one game, I stopped updating that one and started a new series. The sole purpose of uploading those videos was to keep my audience entertained while still giving me something to do that I’m not bored with. I believe this is called “jumping the shark” in the biz. Predictably, it failed and I’m almost certain it actually made me lose subscribers.
Eventually, while in the middle of yet another new series of game commentary, I got angry at myself for being lazy and told myself that I would stop f***ing around and start updating the old series that I had abandoned for almost two years. So I made two videos, uploaded them, my fanbase was ecstatic, until I realized that the version of the game I was using was horrible so I delayed the series again in order to get my original game setup. I can practically feel my subscriber count dropping at this point, haha.
So now that I have everything, I’m going to start consistently updating from this point on. I really do enjoy doing this though, and seeing as how other so called “Let’s Players” received partnership for the exact same thing that I’m doing, I’m certain if I follow these steps I can become just as successful as them and start getting paid. It won’t be easy, but at least it’ll be fun!
Hey Freddie,
Thanks for sharing your knowledge on the subject. I would really apreciate if you could take a minute to check my vlog on filmmaking and tell me what you think.
Thanks again for your time and effort.
Peace
-IS-
Hey Freddie, i see that you have been answering a lot of questions here. and i guess this is the only way I could tell this. Long back i posted a reply to your video “how to fall under an rv” but it never showed up. I mailed you and stuff…but got no reply. Its on youtube by the same name. would you mind giving me a feedback on that as mentioned in your original video.
And btw, awsome post, i hope to start making some vids soon
For those looking for more youtube advice as well as viral marketing, check you “willvideoforfood”
A blog created by legend youtube Nalts I found it very insightful and a decent resource through all the archives.
*Check out, not check you.
First of, fantastic post because this must have taken quite some time to write up in great detail.
I was wondering does a video description/tag/title play a big role in being a YouTube success? I say this because I see some good videos on Youtube (that keep the audience watching) but the videos get little views (a few hundred).
Thanks and keep up the hard work!
ANY ideas on how to get Adsense back? Someone attacked and I have no idea who. Been professional and Polite trying to Appeal. Was Partner for 3 YEARS!
Partnership SAYS they support me, but are not doing anything about it. Not even sure they are trying. I need help getting to Partnership!
#Support4SmallerPartners
Nalts says FREE KIDDSOCK
And Freddie,
GREAT stuff it is good to see a Top Partner/YouTuber give back to the YouTube Community.
You and your Team are one of the few that have really relied on your own Creativity and Talent to move up and climb to success.
Keep on YouTubin!
I don’t think I’ve ever heard wiser advise about videos (both generally and on YouTube) and success. There are lots of things in this article which I’ve realized for myself in the past year, but there was quite a bit here I had yet to learn. I sincerely thank you. (This is something I’ll save and read again when I feel like I’m losing sight of what matters to me on YouTube.)
I love you.
Ok, maybe not, but like many others have said before me, you really are one of the selfless Youtubers, unlike the Partners that “Game the system” to hike up there Views, Rating and Favs and comments by telling people that they have to do all that to win something, usually self branded merchandise.
You just keep doing what your doing dude, and i’ll keep watching.
Does Incompetech count as copyrighted content? Please reply, anyone! I would really like to know!
http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/faq.html
I can’t even get to 100 subscribers and I’ve put out a good 5-6 videos.
What do I do?
Freddie!!! With all this traffic and Raving Fans, You should definitely start collecting names and email addresses so you can build an email subscriber list. Let me help you with this and share with you the benefits that it can bring for you and your subscribers
Jeremy
Do you think Im ready for partnership? I want to apply before I head off to college, but i want your advice, should i apply or wait for a while, because i only have 1 more month before i leave
my channel is called wecansketch
Exactly what i needed thanks Freddie. We’re just doing out best to get subscribers and what not and it doesn’t seem to be working but this really helps. It’s awesome that you’re down to earth and seem like a normal person that can help people like me get on their feet as far as youtube is concerned. Sometimes though i look at vfx videos and just think \this is terribly done and isnt even funny…how do they have this many views/subscribers? what about me?\ but i guess i’ll just keep working on it. We really hope to work with you sometime…i kno, a long shot. But if you ever go on tour again, Orlando, FL is the place to be. Thanks for everything freddie
P.J. Selzer
265 Productions
What if I have music on my Speed Arts for instance and I want it on there. How do I make it not copyrighted? Buy the music? I have.
So can I ask the question that I always have for high-volume YouTubers?
How do you pay for this?
I have a friend who’s a partner and has a few hundred thousand subs and many are fanatical about his work, repost it, comment, like, etc…. He earns about $4/day on ads. Divide that by 2 people involved (or more), and it’s pretty hard to invest in equipment, pay rent, etc….
Obviously, the benefits of becoming a big YouTube presence are huge, and often can convert into freelance work, etc…, but then the time and effort available to put out high-quality, consistent content on YouTube will lessen.
So…. do you guys have day jobs? Can you talk about this?
We are under NDA regarding how much we make, but I can link you to what Google/YouTube themselves are saying about this:
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2011/03/supercharging-next-phase-in-youtube.html
Making “over $1000 a month” should be enough to cover most people’s rent, so for some partners, YouTube Partnership is a paying full-time gig.
Thnx for the tips Freddie!
I’m so glad to hear you got denied twice then made it.
So far I got denied once already. Hope this time I’ll make it but the stupid apply button is redirecting me to homepage! Arghhhhhh
Hey freddie!
I’ve for denied once before and reason was because unsufficient original content. Can you take a quick look plz
Http://YouTube.com/TheChengMan
hey mate, loved the article, ive been doing some research on the youtube partnership program and ive found different results to my questions. i know there personal questions but could you tell me:
how much is a youtube partner paid per view?
how are you paid? ie weekly? monthly?
is it hard to get to a point where you can live off youtube?
ive been watching your channel religiously since chrono trigger and only found it through the celeb video you did with mystery guitar man, “looping again”
cheers.
Hey, freddie, that was a really sweet article and it helps a lot, i only have like 45 subscribers, and i wasn’t really sure on the exact guidelines. I’m just asking a quick favor, i look back at my videos and feel like all are missing something, I’m thinking it some color correction or something, but they all seem like they need a little something extra. My user name is etrain8885, thanks a lot
Thank you SO much Freddie, you have no idea how much this has helped me. I’ve been trying to build an audience for my YouTube channel (I do a current events show), but I couldn’t figure out why no one was really coming. I was treating it like it was just a normal hobby. Sure, it’s the most fun thing in the world for me, but if I want to grow, I need to treat it like a job in the sense that I’ll be working on it as a priority over other things.
However, I do disagree what you said about haters. Sure, haters will come, but I think leaving worthless “fag” comments up there (especially if you’re smaller and trying to grow) will attract more haters. I know for a fact that even though I try not to, while watching a video I am largely impacted by comments and I’m sure others are, too. I know from experience that if you let a couple of people start flaming you, it will bring other people along as well. If they’re purely looking to insult you, I usually take it down / block. Why would you want those people going to your channel? They’re not helping anything! Although, I do think that when you’re larger you don’t need to worry about it anymore. There’s going to be way more people liking it then hating, and people who try to “hate” will get attacked in return.
You’re referring to the “Broken Window” philosophy from “The Tipping Point.” For those that don’t know, basically when people in a neighborhood see broken windows on houses, garbage thrown around, they are “given permission” to engage in bad behavior there, feeling as if no one cares about the area, so why should they? No one really thinks about it; it just happens; it’s a very powerful thing.
I agree with Elliot; when you’re small and you leave up those awful non-constructive comments, it can affect people’s reaction to the video while they watch it; in effect, they are looking for “permission” to call you a “fag” or whatever.
When you get bigger, the audience handles them for the most part, which is where the loyalty comes into place.
Hey freddie,
I also LOVE making action scenes with also some jokes in them and references to video games, and I think we really have similar interests. Before I had discovered your channel, I thought that uploading VFX videos on youtube was not successful, and I knew that I wouldn’t succeed either, but you changed my mind. I strongly believe that you make better action scenes, that most of the Action Movies out there, and I tell that to all my friends.
Ok so back to my point:
I have a youtube channel, I started it a while ago, and I try to make a video every month, because I have school, Exams, etc.
I personally think that while my videos might not be as good as yours, they are pretty good, and my friends also tell me that, and tell me if I did something wrong. The problem is that i don’t get many views and definetely no subscibers, and IDK what to do. Can you please check out my channel and tell me what you think of my videos? Freddie Wong’s Opinion would make a huge difference to my videos
http://www.youtube.com/superazproductions/
Very long article, very useful article. You’ve left me speechless again Freddie but this time with words (OMG). I have my youtube starting up and it’s not cats or random stuff it’s sketches I direct since that’s what I want to be. I’m always surprised how people get shocked when they’re account gets suspended or a red flag after they break copyrights and pretend they didn’t know or how they name a bad video a masterpiece when they know if it was by somebody else they wouldn’t even spend ten seconds on it. And I’m trying to find my strong spot and an audience, I like how honest and open the online community is… so thanks for this I’ll be using your advice soon.
And quick question: Which type of camera do you prefer: an Digital SLR Camera or a Professional Camcorder? Because I have a VIXIA HF R11 and I’m considering of maybe getting a SLR or a more pro camcorder next.
Very long article, very useful article. You’ve left me speechless again Freddie but this time with words (OMG). I have my youtube starting up and it’s not cats or random stuff it’s sketches I direct since that’s what I want to be. I’m always surprised how people get shocked when they’re account gets suspended or a red flag after they break copyrights and pretend they didn’t know or how they name a bad video a masterpiece when they know if it was by somebody else they wouldn’t even spend ten seconds on it. And I’m trying to find my strong spot and an audience, I like how honest and open the online community is… so thanks for this I’ll be using your advice soon.
And quick question: Which type of camera do you prefer: an Digital SLR Camera or a Professional Camcorder? Because I have a VIXIA HF R11 and I’m considering of maybe getting a SLR or a more pro camcorder next.
Everyone’s doing DSLRs. I say go for it. They look great.
Wooaaoh ! new website. Cool. and dude you could at least sent us an email saying that like hey you are in or something like that. Anyways too late for that. Keep up the good work and hoping to see you guys soon.
Amazing article, Freddie. It does take time, like anything else, to become successful. Congrats on 1MM subscribers – great to see what happens when you our your mind to it. Thank you for sharing your tips and insights, it’s evident how appreciated they are. As a relative newb to creating YouTube videos, I will certainly keep them in mind.
Replying to comments i see.
Check vid. Bam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70oR0SQs0bw
friend made. like? no?
Thatz good news, sometimes i forget whats possible or not. BIG THANX!!
This is CLEARLY the best guide out there for how to be successful on YouTube. This should be a link that YouTube gives whenever someone makes a channel; I’m serious.
I’ve been mentoring some of the younger YouTubers telling them these same/similar tips, but you have put it in one article and location, and for that, I really appreciate it; I can now link them directly to YOU for their answers.
I will be implementing many of these tips to fine tune as well.
Thanks man!
This is the best YT guide i’ve ever seen. Thank you so much
Very well said. How important do you think interacting with google and Youtube is? I never have the time to attend there gatherings and I always feel Im missing chance to meet the right people. Im I crazy?
If you have the chance to meet other people in person, do it. That way, if you ever want to work with them, they have a face they can associate with.
Do you think Im ready for partnership? should i apply or wait for a while, because i only have 1 more month before i leave
my channel is called wecansketch
please reply freddiew
Great points, Freddie. I’d add one thing – that it’s extremely helpful to have a charismatic main character representing your channel. The “Freddie” character from your videos is very likable and entertaining. In my opinion, he’s another crucial component to your success.
Hi Freddie! I am confused… In real life mario kart you used music from mario. I suppose copyrighted. If I make vfx videos with copyrighted background music, is this a problem to become a partner. I suppose youtube look from the creative POV in videos like yours. The rules are strict when people are just singing songs or making vlogs with bkg music
Am I right?
Nope – that music is something I wrote to sound like the usual Mario music
Thanks for the reply Freddie, you are now my third best friend!!! Ok, if I use film music and in the descripion I write that it is property of Universal? Still a problem I think.
And really thanks for the response you are a person to respect!
freddie ur a legend but im stuck making up ideas help!!!!
freddie ur a legend but help me because i need help thinking of ideas
Hey freddie! Do you think my content meets the guidelines?
http://youtube.com/thechengman
Cheng, if your content ISNT within guidelines.. nothing should be
your stuff is hilarious
the no boner no bueno vid had me wetting my pants (not literally)
seriously, id love to see more
subbed
I only saw one video man, but it made me laugh more than once. I didn’t get bored and I was entertained. you meet the guidelines, follow freddie’s advice and stick with it, great stuff.
Hello freddie, I have some questions if you have some answers lol. For music, is it still copyright if you add the name of the song in the video. For videos, does it make a huge difference when using an expensive camera because of the added features over a $200 camera. For ideas, what would be some methods to get them for your head and into a video while keeping originality and stuff. Thanks for making these secrets
Thanks for the AWESOME Help Blog Freddie
i want more than anything to be a Popular Youtuber, and this has really helped. but, there are many complications that make it alot harder for me than most.
1) i want to do more than one thing… Music, Photography, Video Making, and Tutorials for all of the above. sure it will branch to a wider audience but… cmon, it will be harder.
2) because of wanting to do more than one thing, should i focus on one thing more, or equally spread it out over the 4?
3) Comparing to others… if im going to do so many things, then, how am i going to be able to compare to the people who spend more time doing so?
e.g. filming, i will never get as good as you if i dont put time in… same with Music and MysteryGuitarMan.
Any help or Tips you have would be appreciated.
Thanks Freddie
I’m not Freddie, but, I think you should make tutorials in the style of music videos. Use your photography skills for cinematography. It would be funny, catchy, useful, and nice looking.
Oh yehh! xD
Thanks dudee :3
i was thinking of doing music stuff like DaveDays or MysteryGuitarMan, and make Music with objects, or make little short 1 min vids of music, then i might do someone tut’s on how i made it, what gave me the idea, etc.
would you think that as a good idea?
Really awesome blog post, Mr. Wong. I do have a question though, and my question is this. Question: How did your brother, Jimmy, acquire the YouTube channel “Jimmy”? Did he buy it from YouTube? Do you know a guy who knows a guy? Do you do drugs?
I love your tips man. This is very helpful. But when you say worry about making good videos, sometimes that doesn’t always work. And that can be very discouraging when you spent all that time on a great video, but still don’t get an audience. Like this video for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o36YCtXbDV4
Also, whenever I make a video that I really like and enjoy making, I don’t hardly get any views, but when I report on celebrities and all that famous sh*t I tons!!! It seems like the system is messed up! What do you think about that?
Thanks so much!
-Dr. Soose
hey there fred, how do u determine the angle for your video shooting? I mean is it on the pre-pro. or during the pro. ? thx
very nice, but too long
Great post! Info is all on-point and some good ideas here that i can make use of. Thanks
Lol the way you said \I’m so glad…\ was jokes. Yeah your videos are awesome, I heard about them a few weeks ago. Being denied by a Youtube partner could be annoying though as you can’t apply again for another 3 months.
Great tips Freddie! Love your vids, dude.
This was def a spirit up lifter! Thanks for taking the time out to write this article! It really helps out a ton! I’m a youtuber partnera and I think that I speak for all small YouTube Partners when I say.. This is a must read!
Awesome good realistic advice. Thanks!!!
And for anyone who wants to contribute to my pathetic bid for additional youtube success. (i fit into the just views category, not so much partner) check out this video, and by all means feel free to sub as new content comes along. It is just based on building new sculptures and projects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6chd9WMCGk
Nuts & Bolts, railroad lanterns, an old bicycle, along with hundreds of other items, all welded together to form and amalgam of amazingly realistic movement as this piece of figurative art comes to life. Artist, Andrew Smith has created a truly unique piece of kinetic mechanical art in this sculpture titled “Long Road Home”, commissioned by “Ripley’s Believe it or not“Museums, installed in Gatlinberg, TN.
I’m finding “Vidstatsx” slightly confusing. To use it to see stats, do you have to pay them? Or is paying just for the advertisement option?
Thank you freddiew this article have help me a lot!
Sick Article, Just hate the Fact you Were Such a hater to XJawz About his method of the giveaway. Really sucks how you being successful would talk smack about him (indirectly).
I don’t think you realize that it isn’t just xJawz, and I have no issue with the guy – I have issues with people abusing the system.
Simple question…
Where do you get your sound effects ? (gun shots, bullet hits, etc)
Thanks!
Great article, i used to run a channel which was purely for tutorials on after effects, Sony Vegas, etc. I relized i would rather be involved with making and producing films like action/bizare special effects movies. Even though i built up a good audienc with tutorials i hope i can substain that audience with different videos. As you said, i got to focus on something i like doing.
Thanks again.
Wonderful advice Freddie! I’m no Partner’s Project (just me myself and I on my staff) but I’ve been working the interview idea on YouTube for quite a bit now. There are so few people doing it and doing it well that your advice just really hits home with what I’m doing. Hopefully as the content improves and viewership grows success will come with it! It’s rough as a smaller channel out there!
yo freddie….just read all of this and taking it all onboard….i have a youtube account called BlainBoysShow and i used to make movies and stuff inspired by your videos and the decimalbrothers….but i kept getting a lot of grief so i deleted them all and worked on my own raps instead…. but i enjoyed making movies and i think after reading this i will go back to doing it…1 question if you answer this is…i know you said not to be bothered about views….btu how do you get it found????
As for not uploading your content regularly, how about Eddsworld? He’s one of the top earners. The problem is that I don’t upload regularly because stop motion and animations take so long to make. Help!
http://www.youtube.com/oddblob99
Hey Freddie, Please Take a look at my videos! Are they Good?
http://www.youtube.com/oddblob99
Excellent excellent blog post. I’ve been a lurker/subscriber on your youtube channel for awhile, and I really wanted to say ‘Thanks!’ for writing up this article. It’s great that you’ve gained such a following so quickly, but it’s also great that you don’t hesitate in providing help and guidance to people who look up to you.
I’m going to take a lot of these pearls of wisdom to heart (especially the “YouTube is Big, the Internet is Bigger” and “Network with your Peers” sections), and who knows? Maybe I’ll be writing one of these ‘Secrets of Success’ articles one of these days!
-Jenton
Thanks. Adjusting focus is something I’m playing around with now… for a DSLR is gonna take me to master that. Thanks for answering. You’re awesome.
this is really nice info! I read all of it for my channell that is just starting out. After I read this I found out some stuff that i was doing wrong. Thanks!
http://youtube.com/thekidswithhacamera
I found these tips to be really helpful. My girlfriend and I just started our own skit-comedy channel. We made a new video yesterday and during the editing I was complaining to her how it was a lot longer than I wanted. I hear the “keep it short” in every YouTube success story, but what you said definitely makes more sense. I realized now that my video length shouldn’t bother me. You also helped me realize (in another video you made about the software you use) that you gotta work with what you got, just focus on the content.
). You’ve been my biggest inspiration so far. I hope you see this because you’re honestly my favorite YouTuber.
I’ve been subscribed to you since the Real-life portal gun video (at the time I had just gotten portal
If anyone else reads this, a good tip is to make friends. YouTube is a community too and having people with you helps. I cant afford any amazing video software but I subscribed to a guy and helped him out and he made me a great intro for free. The YouTube community really gives back what you put in!
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheLyingMustache
HEY I love the video’s but i want more tutorials you have alot but even more would be better,also were do you get your guns?
Hey guys,
I’m a young YouTuber, and everyone who watches my videos (that I know of) loves them and I get emails from people who love them, but the views just aren’t moving. In the first few days I get maybe 25 views, but then they seem to just stop, or go real slow. Advice?
I will soon try using AfterEffects instead of iMovie, to achieve any real special effects, and posting on appropriate forums, so here seems like a good place to start.
here’s my channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ninjacowfish?feature=mhum
hey Freddie i just made an account for YouTube can you help me figure out what kind of video’s i should make? i really enjoy your video’s too.
Good?
http://www.youtube.com/oddblob99
I have a question I really need answered, Freddie. I read the youtube partnership guidelines and it said that copyrighted material such as music, and even covers of copyrighted music are not allowed with, and I quote “no exceptions” while you have a few copyrighted songs in your vids (like you mentioned above).
But you got partnership none the same. What is the deal with this? How can they have that in their rules list and then break their own rules? is there some sort of loophole or are the rules (as Geoffrey Rush would say) “More like guidelines than actual rules”?
The only video with a copyrighted song is the YYZ video, and that cover is in a weird legal gray area. Make no mistake – the fact that was there caused us to delay getting Partnered (and we got rejected multiple times).
If you’re doing it now (and if I was doing it now) I would remove any videos with copywritten content.
Thank you freddie.
I also want to thank you for your invaluable contributions to the community. You have my everlasting respect.
please can everyone check out my youtube channel and leave comments on how to improve and please can you all subscribe it would be much appreciated
But how long did it took to get the partnership? How many subs did you had at that time?
Stan
Freddie, I just got a YouTube account. You guys were the first thing I subscribed to. I really want to post successful videos ( I’ve got some great ideas and am already in the process of making one), but I am afraid that no one will see them. I just wanted to ask how I can get word of my videos out there. I mean I kind of have a blog, but only people I know go on there. So I want to post videos, but I really don’t want to post videos if they will just be overlooked. I saw how you got started as a YouTuber, you posted hilarious videos (just like now) of guns and guitars. But I really can’t apply that to what I’m gonna be posting. So if you could give me some advice that’d be greatly appreciated. I realize that there’s a couple hundred comments here and that there is almost no chance of you replying to me, but I would be really happy if you did! Thanks!
Ya know Freddie, you seem like one the more normal YouTube stars. I mean sure, others SEEM not to get caught up in the glamour and fame, but let’s face it, they’re just fighting for views and good ratings. Like you said in the 1 mil. subs video, it’s cheating to make people like and favorite your videos for something stupid like a t-shirt, but sadly that is what YouTube is so strongly based on, not sharing ideas and having fun, but making money. Im just saying, it seems like you try to stay away from thar stuff and I think that’s awesome!
Would saying a name of a product be considered copyrighted material? Cause we can almost never think of a video without some kind of copyrighted material. Also say there is a picture of a gun, and I crop the gun out, is that copyrighted material (sort of like you did with “Really Big Guns”)? Love your vids BTW!
Thanks!
-MakeASketch
http://www.youtube.com/user/makeasketch?feature=mhum
thanks for the great resource!
ironically, all of my takeaways are from freddies comments
thank you so much for these tips
I’ve seen some videos on YouTube about \how to be YouTube Success\ and a majority of them say have an epic profile picture so people could click onto them, thus transferring to your page and if they like the content shown on that channel, they will subscribe and watch your future videos.
This doesn’t really work does it?
your the biggest reason i started editing oh and jimmy but i have no money to spend on editing software,new camera,mic,ect…but i have a flip 4.0mp camera with 10x zoom and my bro s camera what editing software do you sugest and what sort of videos do i make(music,vlog,comedy,talk,ect.),im open to anything
cool
Thanks for the advise! But what about people who do animations? I do stop-motion animation and I have started posting (on average) 2 videos a week. But I am starting to RUN OUT of ideas.
How can I think of new ones?
- I know you are constantly having people tell you to watch your videos. But I spend a lot of my time creating these films and I would really like it if you could have a quick look at my stuff.
(Most of them are 1 minute or less) – IF YOU CAN!! PLEASE WATCH BATMAN UNLEASHED!!
Sorry to bother you again, but you were saying that mass messaging and spamming comments is bound to fail, do you think just focusing my time on how I should create my videos and the quality of them rather then spending anytime to promote is the better way to go? Won’t I get less views? Less subscribers? Less comments? Thanks alot.
I wish i could make a shuffle video without the music being swapped because i love making shuffle vids its just when utube swaps it
In my experience/belief, it doesn’t matter how GREAT your videos are, if no one knows they or you exist, you’ll have no views. It’s a balancing act of marketing & focusing on the best content you can produce. HOW to market gets iffy. I like Freddie’s idea of submitting your videos that would interest specific blogs so they could market for you.
Good luck Nanu.
A Great thanks from your student, I am looking you as my Tutor, a Guide and so on. Learn so much tricks and tips from you. Hats off Lord.
Maybe this is the incorrect time to mention this, or if not time, place. But it just kina seems like making YouTube videos to show people your cool stuff is like a message in a bottle in a sea of messages in bottles. I prefer Vimeo because a user is rewarded for quality, not views. Take the short film “Frank & Lucille” by George Horne, its about 7 minutes long and fucking genius in my opinion, low budget and pretty unique. (http://vimeo.com/14227747). So we have George Horne who had taken a few weeks out of his life to make a video seen by about 900 people. Now I don’t know George, but I know me. And though I don’t make videos to be seen, as I’m sure he doesn’t, I love people seeing my work and I love getting feedback. Its the ultimate gratification for all the hours and hours of work that goes into what I make. There are thousands of short films as quirky and cool as Frank & Lucille out there on Vimeo, and their combined exposure is less than the view count for the leave Brittany alone guy. Its facts like that that make me disappoint in how much the way YouTube gratifies and defines a “good video”. I feel that channels like yours or Corridor Digital, College Humor, and Julian Smith (SO MUCH DOF! ALL THE TIME) kind of defy what I just said, in that they have quality content and also a large viewership. But everyone else, bottles in an ocean of bottles. Its the blind leading the blind and one of the blind folks is retarded.
Freddie,
Thank you for the insightful write-up. Kudos for posting content that is honest and useful. You’re an excellent voice for the ‘underdogs’ of the Internet.
I’m strongly considering uploading music covers, however, I understand that covers are generally frowned-upon if the intention is to become a partner. Is there no way to upload covers and original content and still be considered for partnership? How about separating them by channel? Or is this not a recommended practice?
Thank you in advance
Hey Everyone, Check Out TheJoeShow4′s YouTube Channel & Post Some Comments & Show Idea’s.
did u actually make money if you made a good youtube video?
This is a really good post man, and I try to do the things on here, but it would seem as though it’s to no avail. I’ve been on YouTube for for over a year now, almost a year and a half, and I have 47 videos up. But i literally JUST got to 200 subscribers today. I send bulletins on YouTube, share on Facebook and Twitter, post on forums, and ask others to spread the word on my channel, but I cant get seem to get more than about 320 views a week. At this point I’m wondering, is my stuff just no good? But I really doubt that that’s the case, because when people do watch my stuff, they really like it. It’s just near impossible to get them to watch it. I try not to get discouraged, but there’s only so much failure you can take when there are videos like Rebecca Black’s soaring to fame with absolutely no merit whatsoever. The only reason I keep going is because I actually like making videos, but if no one is gonna watch them, then I may as well not post them at all. I guess I’m asking how to get visibility, because I’m really losing patience here, and it’s starting to seem futile. Thanks.
Felicia Day bookmarked this on her delicious acount
Felicia Day bookmarked this on her delicious account
This article is golddust. Thank you.
Regarding music copyright, how does MysteryGuitarMan get away with making cover versions of modern songs and still have ads on those videos??
You are my inspiration. You are really cool because I feel like I know you. I feel like we are friends. I don’t feel that way with say Raywilliamjonson or Nigahiga. I am so glad we (+me) are worth your time. Thanks for posting this, it has changed how I perceive youtube and my channel.
But you see is i enjoy making effects videos, but nobody will watch effects videos unless the effects are realy good. mine arnt…
Everyone! This is important! There is a new bill called CA SB 798 which makes it illegal to own any airsoft gun or prop gun in California that is not painted bright and ridiculous colors! This will end independent filmmaking and airsofting in California!!! We need to STOP THIS BILL!!! Please take a little time out of your day this week and send your representative a letter about this! Check out the official facebook page /pages/No-On-California-SB-798/220859654597216
SPREAD THIS AROUND!!!
Thanks Freddie, im trying to really start with a youtube channel. I Wiped my youtube channel because it was filled with some copyright, and somethings that would just seem unprofessional along with the stuff that i planned to do. Im going to listen to everything you said and i really want to be seen in the world of youtube. This is really going to help me and thankyou for sharing your knowledge to everyone.
I do have a question, If my friend and i get serious and make a video every week like we scheduled to, how do we think of new ideas while still being original? I guess both of us are pretty funny and creative, (im the nerdy editing one) but how do you keep getting ideas?
Thank you so much for your article and it already helped me
maybe in the future, once i get a few videos, you could check out my channel?
cause it would really give my friend and me some help and a little bit of hope with your feedback!
Thanks again and i love your channel
Youtube: Deastruacsion
So Freddie, you mentioned Blogs in your article…What blogs are the best to target? Ones that get plenty of views and are fairly easy to put videos on… And whats the best method of aproaching these blogs?
Thanks for all your great advice and K00L videos
~HLS
Why so few articles on this site?
Thanks For This Article. I Think Out Of All The Famous YouTubers, Freddiew Is Probably The Most Connective With Its Viewers And The Most Help To Growing Artists. I was too focused on getting the viewer too look at my channel that i stopped making consistent content. this helps a lot, thanks Freddie.
This has a lot in common with the things that other popular youtubers have said.
That said, I’ve always wanted to be a Youtuber as a day job but seeing that partnership is not possible in the Philippines, I’ll have to change course.
The matter with me, I guess, is that I still don’t know what type of videos I actually enjoy doing. I suppose the best clues are to either keep in mind what I DON’T enjoy making, or browse through all my videos and see which types I make most frequently. In any case, I’m hoping to have fun on youtube too! Thanks for the article!
wow. best information since…forever! i honestly think that this is VERY helpful and if people knew about this information we would see more higher end quality videos posted and possibly a little bit more competition lol!
But if everybody knew about this information, the competition would be way tougher than it already is. Haha
This Was Very Helpful. And I doubt you’ll see this since its so late down the road. But i have a little issue. I love making youtube videos and a lot of my viewers say i have the potential to be big on youtube. My problem is finding site outside of youtube to host share my videos because i dont know any that fit my funny skit/ rants vids and my viewer based epic stories. I would love one day to be doing what your doing and have the opportunities as many other big tubbers have.. I just dont know where to look to market myself.. I guess practice makes perfect. Thanks for the advice
Hey Freddie, this info is very super-de-duper helpful. I just recently started watching you YouTube videos, and I just saw your YouTube Road Trip video. I thought “Oh, it’d be cool to be in a Freddiew video”, but then I saw it was called “YouTube Road trip 2010″ and thought “danget.” Check out my channel and let me know what you think. http://www.youtube.com/reddclay80 I am going to take your advice and remove all of my videos with copyrighted music in it. Thanks.
Hey Freddie, this info is very super-de-duper helpful. I just recently started watching you YouTube videos, and I just saw your YouTube Road Trip video. I thought “Oh, it’d be cool to be in a Freddiew video”, but then I saw it was called “YouTube Road trip 2010″ and thought “danget.” Check out my channel and let me know what you think. http://www.youtube.com/reddclay80 I am going to take your advice and remove all of my videos with copyrighted music in it. Thanks.
And I’d also like to know(slightly off-topic) what video editing software do you use? I am going to buy Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5, but I wanted to see what you used first.
Is it really possible to get consistent audiences with old-school equipments ? (I know It depens how I’ll use them but visual technology is always being devoloping and as a student I am not sure How will I afford, 480p then 720p and then 1080p and finally 3D. Audiences are in demand of it atleast I think they will be)
that’s it.
I have a camera which calls Canon DC 201 from 2007 and all of my videos are like choped, cant get full view.
Great post. You really seems to know your stuff! Lot of good information here on utilizing Youtube. This is just what I need! Thanks.
Awesome advice, and I’ll really take this to thought!! I have to admit, I think the very first video I saw of yours was Chrono Trigger, then I started watching the rest cause what you had was so original and unique. It wasn’t until I came across the million subs video that I actually started thinking of crossing the line from fan to getting my hands dirty and doing some projects on my own! I have a few questions though, and if you have the time to answer, I’d appreciate it!
Questions –
1. As far as the copyrighted material, is it ok to favorite/like copyrighted videos, or will that hurt your standings as far as getting partnership? (lame question, I know, but it was bugging me =P )
2. Mac or PC? O.o? And I know it’s always the “one you more comfortable with” (not being sarcastic) But in your honest opinion, what would you suggest? I know Mac is industry standard, but I see a lot of tut’s being done on PC’s.
3. Having a brain fart here and totally forgot the rest of the questions I was going to ask (note to self: write them down next time >.> )
Anyhoo, thanks for the answers when you have time!
Keep on rockin!!
Forgot to add this…. If you all get tired of making videos (yeah, not likely) you can always do seminars!! =P
Awesome post Freddie! I’ve read this a few times. I’m definitely gonna do these things before I go serious on YouTube. I love special effects and they’re amazingly fun to do. I hope you intern for you one day!
Good luck and success to you!
great vids,these are things i wanna make and i know the program doesnt make the video great but it does help for effects,however what im looking for is a computer brand/type that helps my video quality,for example mine would run at 320p when i want 1080i,if u have any advice id love it and keep up with the vids freddie you do great at them
oh also if your interested i made a teaser for work im planning on getting around once my money income and being able to use my time around my job better,heres the teaser name and link,on youtube
The Bounty Hunter:Trials-teaser-heartbeats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Izyf2XmnP8&feature=channel_video_title
Hey Freddie,
just saw your videos today, first time.
Thanks for all the good tips.
Just one thing: how on earth do you make incredible videos like this?
I mean, the effects are awesome, how do you do that?
Mark
BTW, this is the video that revealed my true identity … They found me!
Itachi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJqrr0gG6xs
Sometimes what needs to be done is so obvious but you it has to be shoved into your face to realise. My most recent video that focuses on road safety needs to be spread by the means of specific websites of that material. My channel is close to 3 years old with only 1,300 subscribers. I need to keep going, this can act as a reference.
Thank you freddie.
You are on of the only person who gives such good advises!
I appreciate that very very much!
Thank you so much!
Thanks Freddie! I learned alot while reading this! Thank You for taking your time trying to help us! Not many Youtubers have such a nice personality as you!
Hey,
Im a video director in VA and I usually work with music video productions. Im a big fan of what you do on youtube and I learn a lot from every one of your videos. I would love to one day work with you. And even reading this page I learned a lot even though going viral is not a goal of mine. Thank you
oh and if your shooting anytime in VA HIT ME UP im sure I could learn a lot from just watching one of your projects!
-Nik
great article thank you for sharing
Hey Freddie,
I’m 14 years old and being in school most of the time and having to do homework has had a big impact on my movies. You made good videos back then and I was wondering if you made them after school and/or in the breaks (summer,winter,spring). Here in Australia we have four terms of school lasting each around 11 weeks with 2 week breaks between each, excluding Christmas break which is around 6 weeks. Tomorrow the fourth term will start but I still want to make movies whilst maintaining a good study/homework habit. I’m not sure what to do about this so if you could please let me know at what time and how much time you spent on your videos. Also I live about 20 minutes (45 mins by school bus) from school whereas most of my friends only live about 5 to 10 mins away. I hope this hasn’t been too long winded for you to read and reply to.
Freddie, man, I watched your “partnersproject” interview video, and I saw you mention “blogs” and I felt like a complete idiot for not having thought of that before. EVERYBODY has a dang blog so, I started marketing my RELEVANT videos to appropriate blogs, and it seems to be paying off. So, thanks so much for that! If you wanna check out what I do, it’s here: http://www.youtube.com/pagelynch
<3
yea!
Hi! Great post, it will be much helpful not only for us but for everybody. TWO thumbs up. maybe someday we can be partners in business and will look forward if you are interested. Thanks
Thanks so much for the helpful info. This is one of the best articles I’ve read! I have been posting videos for 6 months and it is a lot of work, but also so much fun and rewarding. Thanks for pushing me to move forward!
Wait, I’m I the only person that watches half of freddiew’s videos every weekday?
Hello! I’m in here? Very honored to be invited to this. I also very happy; Here let me realize that life’s laughter, anger, sorrow and happiness. All in all, life is good.
Thanks a lot for sharing this with all of us you really realize what you are speaking approximately! Welcome to the professional fashion handbags store, make you a cat enough!
Anyone want to work together? email us Production2x@gmail.com
If i were to make a dubstep that was just a bit dif from the copy wright proctected verson.. like a couple added notes, or if i took away a few notes, would I be allowed to use my version for a video?
Hey, I am a new-ish gaming channel (Link if you wanna have a look: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheModernMovement) and I have been trying my best with the videos. I know there are faults with some but I always try my hardest with them. But a month ago if you asked me if I thought I was getting something back from it I would have said no but now, I suppose so. People are commenting and liking my videos!
Which I LOVE! And I can actually see my channel growing and taking off, I reached 25,000 views today! And this is probably help me even more. It’s very well detailed, laid out and honest! So I’m sure this will help me out so thanks again but I’ve got a bit of a question. I’ve been on the partnership program before after a month I got kicked off for an unknown reason. I think it said I ‘stole’ the money!! Which is untrue and not correct, but to make the situation worse they said they’ll take the money off me and give it back to the advertisers! So really they’ve stolen from me –.– I wasn’t happy about that at all, even though it was only £20 it was something which I earned after all that hardship but never mind now… But nearly a week ago I applied to be part of the partnership program again and they’re still processing my application. So do you think I would get on? I only have 1 video with copyright issues, 25,000 views, 385 subs and 9,800 channel views. I would LOVE to get back on because it makes me feel as if I’m getting something back for all that work.
Hey thanks so much. I recently discovered that tutorials on how I make my effects is tedious and a waste of time I don’t know how u do it
Freddie and Brandon this is awesome stuff, thanks for sharing your experience about YouTube. We’re in LA too, if you get a chance (which I’m pretty sure you’re hella busy) check out our channel would love any feedback from a couple of pro’s: http://www.youtube.com/WhoaComedy
Loved the vid with Favreau!
Great advice!
Thanks for the article, I found it very helpful and sound.
also do you have any recommendations for adobe production premiere and final cut tutorials? I can only find this lynda.com site.
yes, there’s a whole pile-full of tutorials out there, the best usually being on YouTube.
here are a two good ones that I know of (these are youtube names)
CorridorDigital
FinalCutKing
also, for AfterEffects, go to VideoCoPilot, lots of good stuff there.
~HLS