YouTube Channel Growth: Priorities for Beginners

Authenticity is crucial for YouTube growth, as viewers connect more with relatable creators.

### Starting a YouTube Channel: Essential Advice for Beginners
* 🎥 Tali's question about starting a YouTube channel highlights the **importance of defining your niche**, which typically falls into **tutorials, devlogs, or general advice**.
* 📈 It's noted that many channels adapt their content based on **audience engagement and algorithmic pressure**, sometimes leading to **drastic shifts in their focus**, as seen with channels that **drastically change their content style**.
* 🤔 Establishing an **authentic persona** is crucial, as viewers are drawn to **honesty and relatability**, making it easier to create **sustainable content**.
* 💡 The journey on YouTube is often a slow process with minimal financial incentives; instead, it should be viewed as an opportunity to **develop skills such as public speaking and video editing**.
* 🔊 Prioritizing audio quality is essential from the beginning, as **poor sound can deter viewers** regardless of the visual content's quality, with recommendations for affordable microphones like the **Yeti Blue**.
* 🛠 As your channel grows, upgrading equipment can **enhance production quality**, but it's important to balance this with the **time investment required for content creation and game development**.
* ⏳ Ultimately, while building a YouTube presence can be beneficial, it may not always be the **most efficient way to promote a game** compared to **direct advertising methods**.
* 🙏 The video concludes with gratitude to supporters and an encouragement to engage with the content, emphasizing the **community aspect of the platform**.

So this question comes from Patreon supporter Tali. Hello Tali. I'm thinking of starting a YouTube channel as well. What would you advise beginners to prioritize? What has been particularly influential to your growth? So I really love this question, and obviously, I might have some experience with it. You know, I think you'll find that most game dev YouTube channels at the moment kind of fall into one of three categories. You have, you know, tutorials, maybe like devloggers, and then you kind of have general advice videos. I try to kind of combine all three, doing a bit of each, where, you know, some channels might lean towards one or another category, where, you know, Brakies was doing primarily tutorials, and, you know, say Danny the Milkman started by making tutorials but then kind of gravitated towards more entertainment devlog style videos. YouTubers don't always choose where their channel goes because they get pushed around by the views and algorithm, kind of molding their channel, their persona, kind of what kind of videos they make.

with an extreme example of this being a video I saw recently, or a channel rather. He started as like a violinist, and he's like a vegan, but within the space of a year, he turned his channel into like one of these grotesque overeating channels where he was just like stuffing his face to the point where he was like in a wheelchair and on a respirator or something. So, I mean, absolutely horrendous, but it's an example of what can happen due to kind of these YouTube forces. And I say this because I think it's important to kind of establish who you want to be on camera, how do you want to be portrayed, and you have that choice. You know, YouTube is like very theatrical, you know, different channels sometimes put on different personas and different personality types, you know, some very outrageous, some not. That's a choice, you know. I kind of try to go down the authentic path, which is more aligned with my own personality, like if you were to sit down with me for a coffee or a

drink. I'd be talking like this. This is how I am, and I think people who know me will attest to that. But importantly, it's more sustainable long term. It's easier to make content, and people will gravitate more towards, I think, truth because people can call on things pretty easily. You're like humans are a very good meter for the most part, and if you're kind of putting on a charade or trying to be sincere but you're not, then often that will come through. So I think if you want to have growth, then you need views, of course, and one way to have views is to be relatable essentially, and one way to be relatable is to be honest and to be truthful. So that's kind of a strategy that I try to adopt, and I feel like it's not a bad approach. So the other thing to realize about YouTube is that it's a slow game. You know, contrary to what some might believe, it doesn't offer that much in terms of financial incentive. Ad revenue is

fairly low for the amount of work that often, uh, goes in. So, profit should not be your driving force; rather, it should be the byproduct of your work. There are, however, a lot of indirect benefits and incentives for doing this kind of work. You know, you improve a lot of different skills. You improve your confidence. You improve your, let's say, public speaking ability. And you know, you improve your video editing, which admittedly is probably the worst aspect of being a YouTuber: is editing. Admittedly, I've become quite good at it, but I absolutely despise it. And notably, you have to learn to deal with criticism, even hate. For while the vast majority of people are sensible and positive, there are always a few deviants that will take it upon themselves to, you know, try to ruin your day by writing some, you know, wild comment. But to answer your question more directly, you asked what should you prioritize. I would say clearly define your value exchange. You know, what are you planning to give the community in exchange for views?

you know, this might be knowledge, this might be entertainment, or something interesting, but there needs to be a clear value exchange, at least at the start. You know, as a channel grows, some people might start gravitating towards the creator's personality. Um, so part of the value exchange becomes, you know, hanging out with a person in the video, which I suppose falls into entertainment in a sense, which is another reason it's useful to have an authentic personality because that can be part of your value exchange. I suppose you could say, you know, even if they are not the best traits, you know, we see a lot of uh, popular YouTubers who are kind of, and are known for being ourselves, that's their thing, you know, but they're authentic. You see quite often, so people um, respect them for that. They respect the authenticity, and sometimes you'll see these new channels starting up, you know, with zero value exchange, you know, expecting to be admired, to be revered, you know, it's a false errand because when you start out and have no subs.

There is no social proof; you have to build that with that value exchange. And in terms of technical advice, I would say, um, get your audio right from the start. You know, invest in a microphone like a Yeti Blue; they're very affordable. Um, you know, your voice is you, and even if your, you know, um, camera is not the best. You know, when I started, I was using my phone to record, but I used a, um, at least a half-decent microphone because, you know, there's nothing worse than coming to a YouTube channel, and you can't understand what they're saying, or the microphone is crackling or popping. Like, nobody's going to subscribe to a channel like that, even if the information is half-decent. Often, people can't get past that audio. I think early on, I had very bad, uh, room acoustics, and I made this really cool video that I put a lot of time into. It took maybe like a week or two of just filming and editing, but you know, the comments are just full of

people commenting on my audio saying, Oh, there's too much echo, too much reverb. Get some sound padding, as I uh okay, I'll see what's happened here. Video quality is of course important too, but not nearly as important as the audio quality. I think you can get away with having like a Logitech HD webcam, which is one that I used for a um quite a while actually, so I kind of upgraded my equipment as my channel grew, and I tried to put the you know ad revenue aside, which I could then use to upgrade all the equipment, and I now have you know this kind of fancy mic and various kind of high-definition cameras that I can use. This topic is something that I want to kind of get into deeper in a kind of more dedicated video because I think there's a lot to be said about becoming a YouTuber. I feel like more people are thinking if you're a game dev, you need a YouTube channel. Um, I have some opinions on that because I think that the essentially that the time investment

that you get yourself into um with a YouTube channel is not necessarily productive for game development. Uh, it can be kind of quite detrimental to the actual core process of making a game. So, you kind of kind of know what you're getting into and what you want out of it because it's kind of counterintuitive in a sense where um, you know, you can spend a year building a YouTube channel, doing all this stuff, and just spending hundreds of hours and with the intention of, you know, promoting your game, where somebody could have just spent instead, you know, 300 on Google Ads and got the same return. Time invested is not always um equate to returns, especially in terms of um uh selling a game. So, thank you for your question, Tarly. I really enjoyed answering that one. Thanks for watching. I hope you've enjoyed this video. If you have, please do drop the video a like and thanks to all the Patreon supporters who helped make this video possible. If you'd like to help support this channel and my work.

You can check out the Patreon link below. Alternatively, you can wishlist my game on Steam. I'd really appreciate that. I'll drop a link for that below. Stay safe, guys, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye. [Music]

My Tips for Starting a Youtube Channel For GameDev (What I did).

Lost Relic Games

Starting a YouTube Channel: Tips for Beginners

Beginners should prioritize finding their niche, as most game dev channels fall into tutorials, devloggers, or general advice.

The direction of a channel can be influenced by views and the algorithm, making it important to establish a clear persona.

Choosing an authentic approach to on-camera presence can help create a genuine connection with the audience.

The Key to Sustainable Content Creation on YouTube

Being authentic and relatable is crucial for long-term growth on YouTube, as viewers can easily sense insincerity.

The platform offers low financial incentives, so profit should be a byproduct of the work rather than the main goal.

Indirect benefits of being a YouTuber include skill improvement, increased confidence, and learning to handle criticism.

The Importance of Value Exchange in Growing a YouTube Channel

A clear value exchange is crucial for starting a YouTube channel, whether through knowledge, entertainment, or authenticity.

As a channel grows, the creator's personality can become part of the value exchange, with viewers gravitating towards them.

Technical advice for new creators includes investing in a good microphone to ensure clear audio, as poor audio quality can deter viewers from subscribing.

The Importance of Audio Quality and YouTube Growth

Audio quality is crucial, and the speaker has received feedback about echo and reverb.

They upgraded their equipment, using ad revenue to invest in a fancy mic and high-definition cameras.

The speaker shares their opinion on the time investment of running a YouTube channel for game development, suggesting it may not be the most productive use of time.

You can support my game through my Patreon link or by wishing it on Steam.

Stay safe, and I'll see you in the next video.