Sunday, April 1, 2012

Youtube Partnership

Youtube is the modern generation's go to place for any kind of video you could think of. Whether it be music videos, instructional videos (on virtually any subject) or just practical jokes videos; all of these can be found on youtube and accessed instantaneously with a click of the mouse. With that one of the biggest questions that the general public always wants to know is "how can i make fat wads of cash on youtube like Freddie Wong?" The answer to this is not an easy one which is why i'm dedicating an entire blog post to it. Sit down, buckle up and get ready for a crash course on youtube partnership.

Before you even get started there are a few things you need to indentify.
  1. what is that you enjoy most?
  2. inside that category of what you enjoy, what specific items (programs, types of math, etc) do you have basic proficiency knowledge in? (basic proficiency knowledge as defined by me is the bare basic set of skills that you need to work that specific item on your own without google instruction to create the most basic items. IE: programming, basic proficiency knowledge is inputs, outputs, variables, if statements, while loops, do while loops, for loops, methods, classes, and error handling. With all 10 of those items you can create any basic program you can imagine up) Most people watching your videos will never get past the basic proficiencies. So emphasis on identifying all the items you have this knowledge in will benefit you later on.
  3. what are the basic proficiencies that are required for every item you listed? much like my programming example. all 10 of those proficiencies are basic proficiencies meaning they're required to program independently.
Once you have all three of those worked out, you should have a list of items and a list of proficiencies for those items. Now it's time to think of what you want to call your youtube channel. After you've created your youtube channel, it's time to do some research on your items.
  1. Search the title of the items in the youtube search and tack on "tutorials" at the end. IE if i wanted to look up tutorials for 3DS Max, i would search for "3DS Max Tutorials" in the youtube search.
  2. Take note of what there is to offer already for your item. If you're feeling super research-y watch a few videos, get a feel for you future competition. The less covered your item is on youtube, the easier it will be to get the kickstart you need. 
  3. This is optional, but if you watch the videos on your item, be sure you read the comments for that video. Often times you can get an idea of what people like and don't like depending on how they respond. 
Once you've done your research and have a general idea of what is applauded and what is looked down upon, it's time to get to work on your content. Go and download a freeware desktop recording software like CamStudio or Jing, get a feel for how it works, always record your screen in 1280x720 (720p). if you record in higher resolutions the video will come out looking like shite. Lay out your schedule for a series of videos that all cover one item's basic proficiencies. Try not to make it more than two proficiencies per video or people will overload and they won't watch your videos. spending the focus of every video on one or two proficiencies also allows you to spend the maximum time focusing on the finer points.

Spend a great deal of time going into laymens terms. You'll find that lengthy laymens terms explainations are always welcome and the more ways you explain something the more people will understand it. Once you've got your recording ruberic, it's time to write scripts. Unless you're the kind of person who can just speak, professionally off the cuff of your sleeve, i strongly recommend writing a script or at least practicing the first two or three minutes of every video before going into full record mode. People hate when you stutter. Um's, uh's, like's, and's, and "so basically"s are your worst nightmare, it shows that you're not fully confident in the material you're teaching or talking about.

Once you've become fully confident in the material, it's time to record. The reason you practice the first couple minutes of the video is because after a certain point, one will just accept the mistakes he or she makes and carries on with what they're doing. This is also an ideal time to tell you that you always want to record in 1 take. Don't ever, ever record videos in more than one take. it will double or even quadruple your production time which can be bad news bears for you. Don't release the videos until you've got a rock solid base to work with. You want to give yourself some break time between recording series and their release. The reason behind this is, simply put, burnout. You don't want to burn yourself out and loose interest in the process. I did for a year and i suffered on youtube channel for it.

After you have your first series finished, start planning for your second series, and start releasing the first videos on a defined interval that never changes. For me? I release a new programming video every friday, and a new photoshop video every thursday. It's perfectly okay to stockpile, it just means that you're making things easier on yourself in the future.

Lastly, i want to outline a few important notes and some don't's of the youtube partner program. Here are the don'ts:
  1. Unless you're an attractive person with an "everyman's" sense of humor and something meaningful to add to video responses, DO NOT make your living off of video Vlog responses. This has become a very controversial topic in the last few months surrounding females who have IQ's lower than their age and knockers the size of school bus's making their profits purely off of their "feminine appeal".
  2. Do not ever sign with another contracting company other than Youtube. Always stay independent. Do things for yourself, the profits will be better in the long run. Machinima is notorious for finding really popular people and trying to add their uniqueness to their collective of shit videos. This will not only make you look like a sellout but it will decrease your view counts on your videos.
  3. Do not advertise your youtube page on other, more popular partner's pages. If they like you, they'll add you to their suggested profiles. If not, then oh well. The only thing you accomplish by posting comments like "chek ut mai utub channal plox" on another person's youtube channel or video is guaranteeing that your channel will NOT be hit by anyone who is watching that video or visiting that channel.
  4. Pretty identical to number 3, don't suggest videos to your subscriptions to try to ramp up your view counts and get a following... i've received too many of these to count on my youtube channel, and after a while they make you pull your hair out.
Finally, to wrap this blog up on a positive note, don't become discouraged. A lot of people assume that you publish 1 video and get rich overnight off of youtube. This isn't true. the whole reason for setting up the release schedule and the list of videos to work off of is so that you have a constant feed of entertainment to your subs. When it comes to making money off of youtube it's not so much about your content as it is about your frequency. People want to be entertained. Have a constant stream of entertainment at that. So if you're teaching something, sound excited, work hard, produce good content as well as a steady stream of it, and soon enough you'll have a strong subscriber base and a decent rate of cash.


Hope you guys liked this long guide. Please tell me what you think. And don't forget to check out my youtube channel at youtube.com/kaikarden

18 comments:

  1. Good guide dawg, a lot more goes into it than most people think its not just about getting popular steady stream of entertaining/useful videos needed

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  2. Great advice for aspiring web personalities

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  3. well i enjoy playing video games but im too fucking lazy to make commentaries >_<

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  4. i enjoy playing video games but im too lazy to make commentaries

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  5. I like playing video games but im too lazy to make videos

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  6. A friend of mine started doing an LP recently, I'll definitely link him this post for some pointers.

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  7. Great guide!

    https://twitter.com/#!/MemeDoctor
    http://memedoctor.blogspot.com/

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  8. I always hear this kind of advice a lot! From the people I'm subscribed to. "Don't do it for the money, it goes to your head, etc".

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  9. This is a good guide, but I already have a partnership :)

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  10. Wanted to have a partnership for a long time, nothing better than getting paid to play video games or do something else as fun...

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  11. you have any videos you posted that we can see?

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    1. I certainly do, i've got a total of 53 videos, all are public and available for anyone to watch. My channel is: http://www.youtube.com/kaikarden

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  12. too shy for a youtube video :p

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  13. I really do enjoy reading your rants, your sense of humor is just my taste.

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    1. Glad to see i'm not alone! Thanks for the praise my friend.

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  14. Glad I found you, I love a good rant!

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