Vlogging 101: A Beginners Guide to Getting Started on YouTube

So, you want to be a vlogger?

Who doesn’t these days.

How many times have you watched your favorite YouTubers only to think, “I can do that.” or, “I can do that better!” Vlogging is exciting, adventurous, glamorous…. Or at least it seems that way.

In reality, it’s a lot of hard work. But if you’re motivated, dedicated, and passionate about your subject matter, you’re off to a good start toward vlogging success!

Where to start?

The hardest part about starting anything new is just getting started in the first place. But sometimes we don’t even know what questions to ask, or if we’re even learning what we should be learning. Hopefully we can shed some light on where to start and get you pointed in the right direction.

What kind of vlogger do you want to be?

Do you want to travel the world, see amazing places, and be able to share your experiences with your viewers? Do you want to create makeup tutorials in your bedroom? Do-It-Yourself (DIY) videos? Art tutorials? Instructional cooking videos? Unboxing and Review videos? Or just make people laugh?

That’s one of the great things about YouTube, there’s something for everyone. So chances are, no matter your interests, there’s probably an audience out there waiting for you.

Here’s a small list of the kind of Vloggers on YouTube:

· Travel

· Food Reviews

· Tutorials

· Makeup

· Singing and Dancing

· Celebrity Gossip

· DIY

· Unboxing and Reviews

· Music

· Educational

· Art

· Comedy

· Instructional

· Life Hacks

· Gaming

· Informational

· Fashion

· and just about anything else

Research your niche

Once you have an idea of your niche, now’s a good time to start doing research by studying your favorite YouTubers. Study how they interact with the camera and their viewers, how they talk, how they tell a story, how they frame their camera angles, how their videos are edited, and so on.

Study every aspect of how it’s made, then adopt the things you like into your own videos and discard the things you don’t like. Eventually, as you gain more experience you’ll start to develop your own vlogging style that’s truly unique and you.So, you want to be a Vlogger?

Equipment to get you started

When most people get started, the first impulse is to go out and spend a lot of money on the best equipment their favorite vloggers use, make a video or two, then either get bored with it or realize it’s actually a lot of hard work, and give up. After which, they’re stuck with a bunch of expensive equipment collecting dust.

Don’t do that.

Make it easy on yourself. Start off simple with what you have. Almost everyone has a cell phone these days, and most of the cameras on them take pretty amazing quality pictures and video and are more than enough to get you started.

Once you’ve made some videos and started to build an audience and decided if vlogging was for you or not, THEN you can start to invest in some better equipment and take your vlogging to the next level. At that point, come on back to VloggerSupplies.com and we’d be happy to help you find the right equipment for your vlogging style.

Setting up your YouTube channel

If you haven’t already, one of the first things you want to do is set up your YouTube channel. This is pretty much your own personal TV station where you upload and share your content with the world. The sign-up process is pretty simple and straight forward, but if you have any problems or aren’t sure what to do, search for “How to set up a YouTube channel” on, you guessed it, YouTube!

But something you want to think about when picking out the name of your YouTube channel is if the domain name is available as well. You want to keep your branding as consistent as possible, so if you can get the same name for your YouTube channel and the domain name, excellent! But even better is of you can get the same name across all your social media accounts. If you can’t get the exact name just try and get what you can that’s as close to your name as possible.

Shooting your first video

The moment of truth! You have your camera set up, the lighting just right…. Now what? Do you know what kind of video you’re making? Do you have your niche figured out? Once again, keep it simple. Cover one topic per video. Don’t worry about writing a precise script, because otherwise you’ll get all tongue-tied trying to stay on script. Instead, write a list of general bullet points of subjects you’d like to cover, then just go for it!

While we’re at it, I’ll let you in on a little secret… You’re going to make a lot of bad videos. I guarantee it. I’m sure your first few videos are going to suck, but that’s OKAY. Don’t get frustrated. You need to get all that horrible, bad videos out of the way before you can start making good videos. There’s an old saying among artists, you have to make at least 10.000 bad drawings before you start making good drawings. One the bright side, I doubt you’ll have to make 10,000 bad videos. Hopefully, No more than 10-20 bad videos before you start feeling comfortable in front of the camera and things start feeling more natural. Worst case, after you’ve made a lot of videos, you can always go back and delete the first videos if they’re really THAT bad.

Editing your video

Once you’ve shot your video, now you need to edit it. There are plenty of options to do this, from basic free video editors, https://www.oberlo.com/blog/best-free-video-editing-software up to professional level video editing software like Adobe Premiere that you can get with a subscription.

As far as how to edit your video, that’s a whole other article in itself. But once again, if you’re not sure where to start, look on YouTube. Here’s a couple of helpful videos on editing…

Uploading your video

After editing your video and exporting it, the next step is to upload it to YouTube. Back in the day, waaaay back in 2006, you had to be very careful about bandwidth and file size, so a lot of times you had to compromise on quality for the sake of download speed. Nowadays, most people have access to pretty speedy internet, so it’s not as big of an issue and you can get away with uploading higher quality video.

Promoting your video

Okay, you have your YouTube channel, you have a video uploaded, so? Don’t just sit there, promote it!

One of the first things you want to do is to create some social media accounts to promote your YouTube channel so you have other outlets to share your content but also interact with your audience. If possible, try to get the same account name for your social media accounts as your YouTube channel, (like Bob’s Flavor Busters as your Youtube channel name, but also your Instagram page name and your Twitter handle, etc.) that way you have consistent branding across all your social media. You want to make it as easy as possible for your followers to find you.

The Slow Build

This is the hardest part, where a lot of people get frustrated and quit. They make a few videos, post them on YouTube, then… nothing.

But don’t give up.

You have to remember; the internet is a big place. There’s a lot of different content out there fighting for people’s attention. This is something you’re building for the long-haul, so it’s not going to happen overnight.

Every famous YouTuber started exactly where you are now, with no videos and no subscribers, and got to where they are now by building it one video at a time, one viewer at a time, one subscriber at a time, one day at a time.

So stay positive, and remember it’s a process.

In Conclusion

Vlogging can be a very fun and rewarding experience, but don’t fool yourself, it’s also a lot of hard work. You’re probably going to be very nervous and awkward the first few videos, that’s okay. Keep making videos and keep practicing in front of the camera and you will improve.

Also remember, it’s going to take time to learn all the new skills you’ll be using, like how to act in front of the camera, video editing, marketing and self-promotion, public relations, and you’re probably not going to do very well with any of those the first few times as well, so you’ll probably be happy no one is seeing those first few videos! So be patient and keep practicing, you’ll get there!

And I know it sounds cliché’, but it’s true… the most important thing to remember is to have fun with it. If you stick with it, you WILL get better. You WILL start getting more views and subscribers. And eventually you will start making money if you work hard at it.

Happy Vlogging! : )

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