Wondering how to make a success out of your channel? Here’s some local advice.
Recently we did a short interview with our own local YouTube celebs, Reach Gaming. We decided to follow up on that article by getting a few tips, tricks and advice from Mr Reach and Rjay to help out any newbies that are just starting out or even for someone who is just struggling to take off.
Many of us think that being a YouTuber means that things will be easy because you’re basically making something out of your hobby, right? Well if you want to make a full time career out of creating video content, then you will be gravely disappointed. It takes some serious dedication, especially in the beginning when progress is slow.
Depending on the content that you are creating and how serious you are about it, this can take up the majority of your time. From the deciding and planning of what content you will be doing next, to the actual recording and editing, keeping up with the “admin” of it all in terms of responding to messages/comments, your own general bits & pieces that need to be organised for your channel and making sure that you are on top of your game, things can get quite overwhelming.
Don’t forget that life is life and things also go wrong, so in between all of this you have to prepare for the inevitable where something is always likely to go wrong at the most stressful of times.
“YouTube was definitely not a breeze. It was complicated, there were so many things that went wrong and I can’t tell you how many times you actually want to give up. It’s frustrating because videos that you will spend two hours on making and then it just doesn’t work out, or your editing software would just break for no reason. It’s not easy, it takes your all to get it going but in the end it’s worth it.”
You also need to make sure that you keep up with regular and consisting posting, otherwise your content will just end up getting lost in the expansive internet universe. It’s always good to remember that there a thousands of others who are doing the same kind of thing, so there’s a lot of competition out there in terms of being able to make a success; this is not to say that you should be discouraged, on the contrary, this should motivate you even more to put out the best content that you are able to, keep it consistent and keep it engaging.
“YouTube also has this thing where if you take a break for too long, it will just destroy you. You really have to sit and work constantly on YouTube, you cannot take breaks because the algorithm just doesn’t like it.”
A few tips for the newbies from Reach Gaming
Seeing as though this is more focused on us as South Africans, the first point is definitely something to consider:
- Many local streamers/video creators are Afrikaans, therefore focus on speaking Afrikaans on their channels. Unfortunately, this isn’t always ideal if your goal is to reach far and wide, most of your viewer support will be coming from international support; so if they tune in on your channel and they don’t understand what you’re saying, it’s not likely that they’ll be sticking around for long as it won’t be all that entertaining or inclusive and engaging for them.
I mean sure, it’s okay for you to throw a bit of a mix in but it’s important to put the focus on English for a more inclusive all-round channel.
“A lot of South Africans speak Afrikaans in their streams. It’s very difficult to do something because the Afrikaans community is just so small compared to what the world is and if you have someone from United States joining in on your stream and you’re speaking Afrikaans, the first thing that they’re going to do is leave because don’t understand your language. South African content creators need to stop doing that because it doesn’t help them, they need to think bigger.”
- Another thing that RJay always likes to say and she always says this in our streams, is “Always be yourself”. I know that’s very cliché but it is really true. You have to be yourself, you have to express yourself; also try not to show too much anger on YouTube because a lot of the people come there to get away from real life stuff. So you’ve got to be friendly and nice, even if it means pretending sometimes. I just think that being yourself is very important.
- If I could go back and tell myself one thing, I would tell myself to do more tutorials on YouTube, people like those. You’ve also got to mix in some of your personality. I also noticed what a lot of beginners do is when they start YouTube, they will start with a series game and go with “episode 1; episode 2; etc.” This only really works when you already have an audience following. I mean when I do a series now it’s okay, people come and watch because I already have an audience. But for someone who’s got no audience, no one is going to watch an episode 1 of someone they don’t know. So doing once-off videos like tutorials, tips & tricks, guides and things like that really helps. You should definitely try that if you’re new because it helps a lot. Again that’s my opinion, but you must always do what you want to do.
With all of this being said, it is important to focus on the point that RJay always emphasises, remember to be yourself. What works for one will not necessarily work for the other, as Mr Reach said over one of our discussions.
Be yourself and find what works for you. Everyone has their unique styles and personalities and heck, for all you know, you could have what it takes to take the world by storm with the right mind-set and pure dedication.
Be sure to follow Reach Gaming on all of their socials:
- YouTube: Reach Gaming
- Facebook: Reach Gaming
- Discord: https://bit.ly/2XAwQPp
- Twitter: @mrreachgaming / @R_Jay007
- Steam Community: https://bit.ly/2WaNvsc
- Website: https://reachgaming.co.za/