First YouTube Video? Advice to Help You Succeed
I recently uploaded my first YouTube video about rebuilding my fence. I’m pretty proud of it, for a first time video I think it came out good especially since I’ve never shot a full build video before, never voiced over, never even really spoken on camera, never edited a video, never put a thumb nail together, nor have I uploaded a full video to YouTube, just a few shorts.
With all of those firsts, I learned a thing or two for the next one which I’ll share with you all.
Uploading
YouTube allows you to upload a video and set it to private. Do this. I was so excited I sent my video straight out into the world. I had prepared some social media posts to go out as soon as the video was available. I sent everything immediately, then clicked the link to view the video. I should have done that first but I’ve seen this thing like 10 times so I didn’t feel compelled to watch it again.
First thing I noticed is the video quality was terrible. That’s when I looked it up and found out that YouTube will upload your video in low quality mode to get it available quicker, then they come back over the next few hours and upgrade the quality.
YouTube’s recommendation is to upload a video to private and wait for them to catch up with the quality before setting it to public. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just make the upload take longer so when it says it’s ready it actually is, but oh well. Lesson learned there, hold in your excitement, upload the video to private, then release it when you know the quality is there.
Music
Music enhances your video, but you have to be careful. I use a free video editing app which included a music library all for free. Well like most lol things in life it wasn't really free. That music you put on your videos then gives the musician the right to monetize your video. It is their work, so they should get a cut but it does seem unfair to monetize my video I created. Good news is, as you start out it doesn't really matter to you. You need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours to start monetization anyway, so I will leave it as is for now, but I will eventually need to replace the current music with licensed music.
Chapters
If you are familiar with YouTube you’ve probably noticed on some videos there are chapters. Chapters are dividers in the video timeline that tell you what the topic is for that particular portion of the video. I like this feature for videos teaching a new skill so I can come back and jump right to a section I need to review.
Chapters are created in the description by putting 00:00 to signify the beginning of a chapter. The chapter will automatically end when the new chapter starts, say at 01:25. You can put text after the chapter minute mark to tell YouTube what you want that chapter to be called.
It’s not an intuitive process, I thought chapters were controlled in YouTube Studio through a feature, but I found out they are not.
YouTube Studio
Speaking of Studio, it’s another tool you should brush up on. If you have a YouTube account and have created videos then you have access to Studio. Studio has an interface where you can technically create a video, although I haven’t used it because I use an app on my phone instead. Studio does house your statistics, allows you to change thumbnails, video descriptions, and titles, and other normal management things. Studio is also where you can set your videos to private or schedule their release.
There is even a library of music and sound effects you can use in videos. I haven’t but my understanding is those are licensed by YouTube for you to use, therefore not subject to copywrite claims. The problem with these songs are they are licensed only in YouTube, so you can’t use a video clip on Instagram with a portion of the song in it, so keep that in mind.
That’s what I’ve learned so far. I’m one video in, after a few more I’ll come back with an update about additional lessons learned to share.
If you are interested, here’s a link to my video on rebuilding my fence.