Before I answer it for you, I’d like to ask a question first.
What is that you really want from Youtube?
- Be Rich and live luxuorious life
- Be Famous and make fans
- 1 & 2 Both
- Or, Just Get heard on what you want to talk about
You may wanna choose the “right” answer but deep down, you’d know the “real” answer and that is really what you need to tell. A “real” answer.
Its absolutely okay to say, well, I want to get rich, that’s why Youtube.
Or, I want followers, fans and people recognizing me in big crowds, want to take selfies with me and what not.
Or saying that I am here for both.
But, let me tell you one thing. If you are here JUST for money or fame, you would be disappointed very soon.
To make even a single rupee/buck/dollar on Youtube, within 12 months of time, your channel must have:
- 500 subscribers
- 3000 Watch Hours
What does that mean?
Youtube wants to see whether 500 users out there validate your idea of creating content on their platform. Secondly, do they stay?
Let’s you make videos with an average duration of 5 minutes and users on an average stay around for 2 minutes (which is a lot of average watch time for a 5 minute video).
Then, in order to have 3000 hours, you need to have in total 180000 (i.e. 3000 X 60) minutes of watch time, your channel must have 90,000 (i.e. 180000/2) views in total.
Either your 1 video does that, which is not impossible or you keep creating content till you reach there.
THE POINT here is that if you are looking to make a lot of money from Youtube from the first day/month/year itself, you are going to see a lot of disappointment.
BUT!
If you treat Youtube as a business, and putting up your regular time, as an investment in it, then yes. There is a huge possibility that you end up making a decent amount of money from your Youtube channel.
In my opinion, that is the only way to look at Youtube.
Not, lets answer the main question here. How to be famous on Youtube?
Well, the long answer to that is:
- Create regular content across long form, shorts
- Maintain a frequency, never miss a timeline of video publishing
- Keep the audience engagement high, interact with them from time to time
- Put Community posts every now and then
- Market your videos across social media platforms. Youtube will like you more if you bring fresh audience on their platform
- and 100 other things
The short answer to that is:
- Care about your audience: figure out who they are, what are their expectations from your niche, your channel, you! If you provide value to them through your content, getting famous is just a matter of time.
Now, how do you do that?
Break it down into multiple targets.
Niche, Niche, Niche!
Within the area of your interest, create content that very few other people are doing. Experiment on the language front, see if anybody is doing it in regional language. Try to find a space that is very much less captured.
Let’s take an example.
Say you are passionate about books.
What formats may work in this space?
- Book Reviews,
- Story-telling,
- Reactions,
- Author reviews,
- Genre collections (Top 5, worst 5 kinds) and so on.
- and 25 other ways
How can the content be published?
- Long form videos
- Shorts
- Podcasts
- Covering Book events
- User interactions
- Library Vlogs
- and 100 more ways
What do you need to do?
- Find what suits you the best in terms of your nature (yes, matters a lot. By the way, Introverts can also be Youtubers), resources/budget you have and so on.
- Find the content and production formats (and the language you would like to do it in).
- Mix and match. Do not do multiple things, especially mixing vlogs with serious research-based content but don’t end up doing just one way of production or one format of content. Experiment.
- As Gary Waynerchuk says, you do have control on quantity, if not quality. So, make at least 100 videos around this. Don’t just make content for the sake of it. Remember, it is your channel. You are NOT here to complete the eligibility criteria of Youtube Monetization. You are here to CREATE VALUE.
How to become famous on Youtube Overnight?
Yes, there is a secret recipe.
There is. Really!
The only way you can be famous on Youtube overnight is by being lucky. One in a million let’s say. There are 51 Million Youtube channels globally.
So, there must be 51 LUCKY Youtubers in the whole world who have been famous overnight.
But for the rest 50,999,949 – there is some bad news.
There isn’t a receipe for you.
Its very unlikely that you will become famous on youtube overnight. You will have to toil hard, build a strategy, believe the channel as you are running a business and do 100s of things you can’t even anticipate right now.
The future of Youtube channels that do become famous (overnight or not, does not matter), is behaving like the TV channels we see today. There is a high chance that the Youtube channels that are famous and are being run by an individual or a small team, will see a time where they have studios within their office and parallel Youtube videos are being shot.
Each such famous influencer holds multiple Youtube channels and he/she is moving from one place to another shoot videos after videos after videos.
So, if you really want to foresee such a future for yourself, it’s better you let go off the thought of becoming famous on Youtube overnight and work towards a point where getting famous becomes an output and not an objective.
How to be famous on Youtube without Showing Face?
Well, this one is tricky.
When I started back in early 2017 (February 2017 to be specific), I did around 700 videos without showing my face.
This was a rigrous exercise of creating presentations, shooting multiple videos a day in English and in Hindi, editing them (basic stuff), creating the thumbnail, uploading and publishing.
And of course, then anticipating 1000 videos by the time I wake up the next morning.
That was a win, if that happened!
Remember, that was back in 2017 and the niche that was being targeted was Stock Market Industry (not trading/investing but industry in general).
So, the overall audience base was not really that high anyway.
But, for some reason, I kept going.
That did work when I started getting recognition, recall and the thing that got really famous was MY VOICE.
Fun, right?
But then, there are many examples out there in the industry who do book reviews, talk about universe or even science stuff. If you are a camera shy person and are not really comfortable showing your face, it can still work.
All you have to make sure is that you pick a niche that has an educational/informational value.
In such a case, content with in-depth research, stats, numbers, facts said in a simple manner would work much better than a generic content that demands to be said in a entertaining or engaging way.
And then, all you have to do is, HUSTLE.
How to get famous on Youtube Shorts?
Shorts is a different animal.
To be really honest with you, Shorts did give us some fame.
A level of fame we hadn’t seen before.
I started getting recognized while I travelled to places such as Goa (beaches, the hotel I used to stay), Mumbai or any other places I would be. This wasn’t a lot, but I remember the days where I used to notice if someone is trying to notice me.
Weird, I know. But that is what that phase was.
Anyway, to get famous on Youtube shorts is tough.
Why?
You will have to do a lot of it.
Long-form content gives you credibility, longer watch-time and of-course positions you in the industry or the business domain among the audience.
It settles your niche. It’s like a meal.
Shorts are snacks.
The focus is majorly on what is being shown and not much on what is being told (generally speaking). That is exactly the reason why I said you will have to do a lot of shorts to give you a recall.
Furthermore, the commitment the user does is relatively (but marginally) longer than what he/she gives to a Short video.
You are just a swipe away from getting ignored. And if the swipe came in during the early seconds of your short video (and if it happens regularly), your reach for that particular user gets impacted negatively.
So, what is the solution?
Do a lot of short videos, create bank of it. I remember, we used to have 60 shorts EXTRA in our bank and we used to publish 3 shorts a day for the first 5 months from when we started taking Youtube shorts seriously.
And we were late, really late in realizing that.
In fact, a lot of people used to comment – “You are making shorts NOW, when everyone else is over it?”
This is one strategy, we follow.
But then, there are other ways too. Here are some quick pointers:
- It hugely depends on the industry you pick. In some cases, location, production matters, in some – the way you act and a in few, what story are covering is the HERO and nothing else, really matters.
- Sticking to the calendar is not important. Its mandatory.
- The “best time to publish” analytics in Youtube Studio is there for a reason. Follow it.
- And yea, use Youtube studio analytics to anlayze your content, your competition (keep an eye on the comments section for a few topic ideas) and overall inclination of Youtube. That will help.
So, you see, anything and everything that I am saying around how to get famous on Youtube has a direct correlation on the amount of effort you are okay to put in.
I don’t really know any other way. May be there is, may be not.
But, if you really follow a plan, use numbers to make decisions and do a LOT of hard work, yes, you can become famous on Youtube.
Guranteed!
