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Ask HN: Advice on starting a YouTube channel?

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Re: Ask HN: Advice on starting a YouTube channel?

#61

Post by gms7777 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #32
carom wrote: post #12

Find a niche. People love free content. It wasn't that hard. I was making computer security videos for people, real basics for programming, networking, web interactions, number bases, bit math - stuff that you need to learn as a base to get into hacking. Grew my channel pretty quickly to 1k subscribers just by sharing them to reddit. I deleted it because I got annoyed that I was making content for YT for free (the vi…

> - Practice speaking. Slow down. This is good advice for most people in general. Speaking slower gives more time to think about what you're going to say, which means you say better things. It's shocking how slowly you can get away with speaking. Incidentally, slowing down is also good advice for improving your handwriting.

And with YouTube, anyone that wants to hear it faster can just speed up the video anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Advice on starting a YouTube channel?

#62

Post by wooque »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #32
carom wrote: post #12

Find a niche. People love free content. It wasn't that hard. I was making computer security videos for people, real basics for programming, networking, web interactions, number bases, bit math - stuff that you need to learn as a base to get into hacking. Grew my channel pretty quickly to 1k subscribers just by sharing them to reddit. I deleted it because I got annoyed that I was making content for YT for free (the vi…

> - Practice speaking. Slow down. This is good advice for most people in general. Speaking slower gives more time to think about what you're going to say, which means you say better things. It's shocking how slowly you can get away with speaking. Incidentally, slowing down is also good advice for improving your handwriting.

God no, I'm tired of having to set videos to 1.5x

Re: Ask HN: Advice on starting a YouTube channel?

#63

Post by HellsMaddy »

I'm not a YouTuber, but I found Theo Browne's "How The YouTube Algorithm ACTUALLY Works"[0] to be pretty intriguing.

I watched it a few months ago and just re-skimmed the transript, so I'm not sure if I'm remembering it perfectly, but here's what I took away from it:

- YouTube's algorithm recommends videos based on audience viewing patterns.

- The algorithm doesn't care what the video is about, it only cares about who is clicking on it and watching it.

- Click-through rate and watch time are the most important metrics, they're how the algorithm determines who to recommend your video to, and whether to recommend your video to a wider audience.

- It first shows your video to a small group and if it's well-received, expands to a wider audience with similar viewing habits.

- It repeats this process until it finds the falling-off point, where the click-through rate and watch time drop off.

- Figure out who your niche audience is and make videos that they're likely to click on and watch.

- You're going to need to create enough videos in order for the algorithm to figure out where your audience is, and then you're going to want to make more videos for that audience.

- The average clickthrough rate you see in your analytics is not the whole story. You might have a 20% clickthrough in your target niche, but if the algorithm starts recommending your videos to a wider audience, your click-through rate is going to start to drop. That doesn't mean your video is not doing well, it could actually be doing well enough with your niche that the algorithm is trying to show it to more people outside of your niche.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58jv8WL6H9I

Re: Ask HN: Advice on starting a YouTube channel?

#64

Post by 317070 »

Understand how recommender engines work.

Make life easy on the recommender engine. Pick one topic and stick to it (that way the recommender engine is more confident about what is in the video and who to pitch it to). Use all fields available to explain the recommender engine the niche you want to carve out.

The recommender engine will pitch your video when it is in its best interest to do so. So you have to work with it to get it what it wants.

Re: Ask HN: Advice on starting a YouTube channel?

#66

Post by mayaakim »

Relatable "story" that matters. I believe that most people watch youtube because they want a perfect mix of entertainment and education. The audience wants to feel like their life will be transformed and improved (even tiny bit) if they watch your video. And they need to feel like they can relate to you somehow, like you're showing them the "right" way.

I try to follow this pattern in order to make the viewer relate to my videos (and sometimes I fail miserable because it's not easy):

1. I have "X" problem

2. I have this desire to become/learn/do "Y"

3. But I have an obstacle "Z"

4. If I don’t overcome the obstacle, it’s going to be really bad (stakes are high)

Anyways, here's a video where you see how I tried to implement this pattern:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIFxhd-mQFo&t=86s

(also, I didn't invent this pattern, instead I was lucky enough to run into one of Leon Hendrix's videos where he talks about it)

Re: Ask HN: Advice on starting a YouTube channel?

#67

Post by mr_o47 »

cornstalks wrote: post #58
mr_o47 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I just posted my first video Let me know how you guys feel about it https://youtu.be/PU75M0QkwTQ

I only watched a minute, but the audio volume is too quiet. You could boost the gain but there’s static that detracts from the voice. A good mic will help with that, but you’ll also need to adjust the sound levels before uploading the video. Also, do I hear a very slight bit of music in the background? Either embrace the background music or remove it. Right now it’s just barely audible which is a little distracting.…

Thanks for the feedback and I thinks really good feedback.

I’ll definitely invest in mic and make the sound quality much better

Re: Ask HN: Advice on starting a YouTube channel?

#69

Post by mr_o47 »

cornstalks wrote: post #58
mr_o47 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I just posted my first video Let me know how you guys feel about it https://youtu.be/PU75M0QkwTQ

I only watched a minute, but the audio volume is too quiet. You could boost the gain but there’s static that detracts from the voice. A good mic will help with that, but you’ll also need to adjust the sound levels before uploading the video. Also, do I hear a very slight bit of music in the background? Either embrace the background music or remove it. Right now it’s just barely audible which is a little distracting.…

Any mic recommendations and can I also use a headset

Re: Ask HN: Advice on starting a YouTube channel?

#70

Post by klondike_klive »

rg111 wrote: post #44
throw0101b wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Get a good mic, mic stand, shock mount. Audio is 80% of video. People will watch potato-quality video; no one will listen to garbage audio.

I second this as a consumer of a lot of MOOCs. Bad video as long as you can read everything on the screen is okay. But poor audio is an absolute bummer. Cannot tolerate this at all. This doesn't make rational sense to me. I think it is probably because people have access to decent audio for much longer time than they have had good video.

You can close your eyes but not your ears, is how I've always heard it explained.
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