The Dream

Making a living from the comfort of your own house is a dream to a lot of people in the world. One of the most popular ways of doing this is through creating videos on an INSANELY popular platform YouTube. Thousands of people around the world spend their days creating videos to entertain and inform on the platform and typically gain a handful of audience members each time they create a video. Many people make a full-time living simply through YouTube Monetisation alone, throwing their persona and creativity into each and every video.

The Reality

While it may sound simple, there is tons of work that goes in the background that you would never see on the surface of a YouTube video. For the professional YouTuber, each video on the channel needs to get created with their strategy in mind to make an impact on the platform. It is the crafting of the video that decides how well the video is going to do, and how well it is going to perform compared to the competition. For a YouTuber to create videos that engage with their audience consistency is key, because frankly, you just don’t know what subject matter is going to best connect with your audience. But as a bare minimum, the technicals need to be done right to give your video the fighting chance it deserves.

We will provide you with the tools to create awesome YouTube Videos

If you want to know everything about YouTube videos, then you are in the right place. In this article, you are going to find all the necessary information that you will need to start a YouTube video and more. Creating a YouTube video is somewhat easy. But the hard part kicks in when you have to make different videos every single day with the same level of attention to detail. Not only you have to create a whole new different video, but you also create one that differentiates from the first video with unique content in it.

That is why there are so many dead YouTube channels on the platform. The act of making videos every single week can be punishing for a beginner in this field. This article will tell you about the steps you can follow to create videos without losing the ‘It’ factor from the video. Once you check all the boxes before making the video, then you can continue to build on the same formula without losing a beat.

Creation

Creation is a critical aspect of any YouTube video. A video has to be thought-out before just being uploaded on YouTube. Every aspect of the video needs to be considered from the location you film in to the words being said. Everything in the video should hold true to your brand as a creator. If your audience knows and has grown to love your brand and content and you post a video that comes across different, they will not trust it. NEVER rush the crafting of content, this will be a step in the wrong direction for your whole channel.

The first section that you need to pay more attention to when you are about to create a video on YouTube is Planning.

To help strategize the nitty-gritty consider each of the following points:

• Why am I creating a video?
• Who is the target for the video?
• How long do I want my videos?
• What kind of video should I be making?
• Should every little thing need a thorough explanation?
• How long do I want my intro to be?
• How long do I want for my outro?
• Who is the target demographic for my videos?
• What do you target demographic wants from a video?

These are some of the questions that you need to ask yourself to learn more about the world of YouTube. The more you learn, the more you will handle the new changes gracefully without having any problem. As you go your audience will evolve, YouTube policies will change and the foundation you’re building on will only be as strong as your videos branding. Doing this will help you navigate YouTube without falling down face first on the floor. In life, having the right strategy might not get you out of every messy situation, but will get you out of most. You can apply the same rule for YouTube as well.

Requirements for Content Creation

There are only three simple, yet surprisingly demanding requirements for YouTube content creation. Following these + consistency will lead to success over time:

• Engagement.
• Information.
• Value.

While they may appear simple, they will be hard to master. Each one of these requirements fills a gap in the youtube video-making process. Following these rules would make the video more accessible to a larger group of people.

Engagement

You need to keep the viewer engaged throughout the video, or the viewer will move on to another one after a few minutes into the video. That is why many YouTubers keep only the best part in the final video and let go of the rest. Here, you need to make the decision on what stays and what gets cut from the video to keep only the best parts. Following this process will make the video more engaging to the viewer, as they would be getting the best information without any dull moments making the video worse. The subject stays the same, but the approach needs to be different.

That is why many YouTubers struggle to keep the engagement aspect of the video. But at the same time, you can find thousands of videos with millions of views. It’s all about making engaging content that connects with the demographic. Once your target demographic finds the video likable, word of mouth will do the rest.

Information

You can cover a few different tangent topics in a video, but the main priority should be to answer the question at hand. Especially if the video’s title is something such as “how to make a ____”. Your audience are only their to learn how to make ____. If you sway too far away from the main topic your audience are not going to trust your video titles and think of your videos as clickbait.

Going above and beyond to provide more information about the main subject is a great way to grab the attention of people, but you have to still have a ‘simple answer’ at some point in the video. That’s what being informative on a YouTube video means, being informative.

Value

The viewer will spend their time watching your video if the information in the video is not critical or valuable to the viewer. Then the whole video would be considered a waste of time by your audience. Every detail that you cover in a video has to have some sort of value to it, so people on the other side would get more information from the video. Providing value is essential in every video that you will make on your channel. More information is always a good sign to catch the attraction of new viewers and keep the attention of old ones as well.

These are things that you need to focus on before you reach the middle stage of content creation. A well thought out plan will do you more good for your video than any creative element that you will add in the video editing process. Knowing which way you want to go before creating the video would make things much easier to do, compared to doing all that at one time. If you rush it all in at the last second, then the video will much more likely see the bottom of the barrel.

Creating a video

In this section, we will run down all the tools you will need to produce a YouTube video that stands out above the average. When creating the video you will spend an enormous amount of time. In this phase, you will execute your idea and transform what has been in your mind into a video. You don’t need the absolute best tech to create an amazing video, however there are a few things that will assist to accurately present your vision on a video without your audience becoming disinterested or clicking away because of the quality.

It is also important to say that not all video categories demand the same type of equipment. Your gear list will differ based on the genera of video that you want to make. Suppose you want to make a vlogging style videos vs real-estate style videos, your equipment will only be beneficial if used for the correct types of content. If you were to use a gimbal for realestate videos this might be way too heavy and to excessive for your typical hand held vlogging. And if you were looking at creating a cooking channel on YouTube you would use neither a gimbal or handheld, you would want a nice solid tripod for all your shots.

There are some basic gear that will help boost the professionalism of your YouTube videos. This gear is a very general recommendation as it would suit most YouTubers in most situations.

Camera

You will need a camera no matter what kind of video you plan to create. If you know what you’re doing, a better camera will generally give much more clarity to the viewer on what they are watching. However it is important to note here that if you don’t know camera settings and have no interest learning them, most people will do better with a mobile camera set to auto than a DSLR or mirrorless camera on manual. If you are serious on creating YouTube Videos however, it is a really good idea to take the time to learn all there is to know about setting up your camera properly and some simple things can make a huge difference! You don’t need to spend an outrageous amount on a camera, anything from a DSLR to your camera on your mobile phone would be enough for 99% of YouTube videos, as long as the content is good, people would spend their time watching it.

Microphone

Here is the crux of professionalism on YouTube. If you take nothing else away from this video but this next point that’s ok

“It doesn’t matter how great your video looks, how great your content is, if your audio is crap your video is crap.”

Daniel Shakibaie.

You don’t need any ‘low distortion, noise cancelling’ features, go ahead and purchase a Rode SmartLav+ for you mobile phone content creators and a Rode Wireless Go for you more professional video shooters. Have your mic as close to the subject as possible it’s not rocket science.

Lightning

Lighting is a fantastic way to focus your audience in on what you are saying. I could write an entire article on lighting (and maybe I just might) however if you don’t know what you’re doing, shoot in a place with a lot of natural light, it is most likely to provide you with the best results most often. Nobody wants to see a bright background and your face in the dark, so make sure that you (the subject) is the lit brighter than your background.

Computer

Editing your videos will take the most amount of your time and if you have a slow video editing system you will be surprised by how much time you will waste waiting for your computer to load & render out videos. Having a healthy, powerful computer will save you more time & money in the long run than a lower machine. But what does it take to have a proper workstation that can handle the pressure of video editing without any slowdowns? Glad you asked 😉

Obviously this will depend on your editing software, what camera/phone you are recording on ect. However, the following are some system requirements that I would recommend for editing 1080×1920 video (Full HD):

Recommended System Requirements for Editing 1080×1920

Processor

Intel i5 Gen 6 or higher Multi-core models or AMD Multi-core processors. Preferably 2/4 or more processor cores.

Memory/ RAM

8GB to 32GB, anything in between would be considered an ideal for video editing demands. Here you have to choose between DDR3 and DDR4 RAMs. If you don’t have any idea on how this works, it’s simple, DDR4 is better than DDR3, the modern computer comes with a DDR4 capable motherboard, But 16GB of DDR3 would be more than enough for most editing software.

Storage

You will need at least 512gb of store depending on the amount that you record/the camera you record on. We recommend that you purchase an SSD, this will give you significantly faster load and rendering times then your standard HHD. Feel free to use HHDs for archiving.

Operating System

A mostly newer version of Windows 10 or 7/ MAC OS X, Linux. Most video editing software supports multiple operating systems, so you will not have a problem dealing with this issue.

Graphics card

Most video editing software are more processor heavy than graphics card heavy, and whilst you can get away with editing Full HD video on the intel integrated graphics I would still recommend that you had a dedicated graphics card with minimum 1gb. Your graphics card will assist with shortening those rendering times.

Monitor

Anything size monitor is acceptable, however it is important that you purchase a 1080×1920 monitor so that you are able to see your footage at its native resolution.

Video Editing Software Recommendations

Editing videos requires video editing software to splice, cut and add transitions to your videos. The market is full of so many video editing softwares, most of which are really good. We couldn’t possibly go through every piece of software in this article, however below are a few of our highest recommended for creating YouTube videos:

Adobe Premiere Pro – Our Top Pick

This is the piece of software that we are ShakStudios use to create all of our videos. It is a hugely well designed and supported piece of software that will allow you to cut, edit, and trim the video with ease. With the Adobe name attached you know that you are purchasing a premium product that will work extremely well. Premiere pro also has fantastic integration to all the other Adobe software, (ie. Photoshop, AfterEffects). There is also a HUGE community behind the software and finding tutorial videos on YouTube for beginners are really easy.

The cons: High subscription cost involved, currently $343.07AUD per year.

Black Magic Resolve lite – Best free software

Resolve is an absolutely amazing piece of software. Resolve has been an industry leader in colour-grading, specifically in Hollywood for the better part of the last 30 years. In the past decade they have incorporated video editing to make it a more complete piece of software and (GET THIS) released a ‘lite’ version which is completely free for all projects up to Full HD. As a professional video editor I would comfortably say that Resolve lite is as powerful of an editing software as Premiere Pro with an increadable free price tag.

The cons: Resolve is not the easiest piece of software to learn. If you aren’t interested in hours of learning, then maybe it might be just too overwhelming to dive into.

Adobe Rush – Best easy to use Software

Adobe knew there was a huge market for people who love to produce content, but are not professional video editors. That’s why they created Adobe Rush, a cloud based editing software that syncs between your phone, laptop and computer. It has most of the basic, yet fantastic, premiere features such as audio fads & transitions with a much smaller subscription cost. At $14.30 AUD per month it is significantly cheaper and easier to use than Adobe Premiere, making it our top recommendation for those business owners who don’t have time to learn a an entire new piece of editing software.

The cons: As a professional I can see Adobe Rush being restrictive for specific customisation and effects, however for the beginner I don’t see any cons here.

How to Upload to YouTube?

Once you created your YouTube video, the next thing is to upload it to YouTube. Here are the simple steps to upload a video on YouTube

• Open your account. Sign up if you don’t have any YouTube account.
• On the top bar, you will see a video camera logo. Click on that.
• Once you make it past that page, you will be at the upload section of the YouTube.
• Here you can simply drag your videos to the upload section of the page. Or select the upload file, and then choose the video that you want to upload to YouTube.
• Uploading will take up some of your time based on internet speed.
• Once uploading of the video has finished.
• In this step, you can add a description of the video, and think of a catchy name for the video. Most importantly, select the right category for the video.
• Now you will find the option to enable kids-friendly or not.
• Once you are ready, then you can hit the upload button. And later the Publish button.
• The work is not over yet!
• Now you need to share the video on your social media pages to get more eyes on the video.
• Creating a Facebook page, Instagram, twitter for your YouTube channel is considered necessary for the development of the YouTube channel.
• Share the content as much as possible, so people would get to see what you have to offer.

Last thoughts…..

Creating a video on YouTube takes time and patience from the creator and as does everything online, you need consistency and persistence to see results. Many people give up after a few months of YouTubing, not realizing that successful YouTubers put hundreds of hours into the video making. Maintain consistency over quality and be realistic in your goal setting.