The Reality Of Doing YouTube For One Month.

Hi, I'm Garik Goodell with G Squared Studio Web development company, helping small businesses grow by focusing on momentum over perfection. Thanks for joining me on this nice, lovely fireside chat. Today I'm just going to be talking about how YouTube is going so far. Stick around to the end of the video and I'll let you know the main thing. I wish it would've done differently.

Okay, so first let's talk about the seven things that I said I was going to do with my YouTube channel and just how they're going so far. Number one, I've already broken this. I said I was going to do a video a week, and I actually took last week off. It's been a whirlwind, but basically Christmas and New Year just happened over the last week, and I decided to spend time with my family. We went on a little trip, so I did not put out a video last week, but I am this week and I'm back on the bandwagon of doing a video a week. Number two, provide value with all the content I create. I think I'm doing pretty good with this. I think the videos that I've put out so far that are really focused on my YouTube channel are videos that will provide value for small businesses when it comes to marketing, and I'm diving deeper and deeper into that with every video I create.

Number three, I'm just looking at my list up here. I will be honest, I do have a list off to the side. The number three thing was to learn and get better at YouTube as I go along. And I feel that I've been doing that as well. With every video I've created, I've found a new little tip or trick that I can apply to make it easier for me to do, or I'm learning a new editing technique or something like that to implement to then make the video more entertaining for people. So I think I'm doing pretty good at implementing something new or learning or getting better with every video I create. Number four is setting goals along the way, and right now I'm really just focused on one goal, which is to get to a thousand subscribers by May. So one K by May.

It's pretty catchy. Yep, just made that up on the spot. What's been working with that is that I have about 37 specifically. I have 37 subscribers right now, and I started with 16, so I've more than doubled my subscribers, which is awesome, and I'll tell you a little bit about how I've done that here in a little bit. Number five is focusing on momentum over perfection. I have been doing that truly. Some of the videos have been hard to put out. I have not been proud of them or I know they could be. Maybe I'm not proud of them, but I know they could be better. And just focusing on, you know what? It's better to get it out there than it is to make it perfect has been something I have struggled with through this process, but I am absolutely doing other than not putting out a video.

Last week, I could have done this video, but at a poorer level and got it out, but also it would've taken away from time with friends and family. So yeah. Anyways, I feel that I'm doing good at doing momentum over perfection number six, video in the videos in the three categories, website videos, content creation videos, and then these videos about how my YouTube process is going. So I've only done website one so far, and then this is my first YouTube one so far. I know I'm going to do content creation videos in the future, but I'm kind of in a series on the website stuff, so I want to stick in that series. And then number seven, have fun. To be honest, it has been mostly fun, but my third video was a struggle. I wasn't feeling great that week. I wasn't sleeping well, my energy was off.

I was struggling to communicate to the camera, so I had to do a bunch of takes. I typically am pretty good at just doing one take, working through everything and then chopping it down. But it was a struggle of a video. I think it turned out okay. I think it provides value, but that wasn't that fun. It was stressful, it took extra time. I was editing it in the evenings instead of spending time with my family, well after everyone went to sleep. So instead of getting more sleep, but it worked out, it was a learning lesson.

I am having fun generally. That week was a bit of a struggle to be honest. Okay, so let's talk about my process. What am I doing along this way? How have I gotten more subscribers? How am I getting my videos done and so forth? So the plan is to mainly have Monday set aside, not fully set aside, but that's the day I want to be able to get my videos done. Typically, I pick my son up from school on Mondays and we go hang out, and so I want to get it done in that frame when he's at school. The other thing that's part of my process is that I have a small email list that I'm actually notifying people when I put out a new video. It's about 60 people, past clients, friends and families. It's pretty select, but honestly, I wish I was a little bit more select with that list.

I think that's one of the reasons I got another 20 ish subscribers is from that list. But if I would've taken a little bit more time and honed in that list a little bit more, I think it would give me a better opportunity in the future to market to those people that aren't really paying attention. Once I create a video that I think is going to be super high impact, really, really high value, and I'm really ridiculously proud of that, might've been the time to then put it out into the world. With that being said, so I'm not putting it on my Facebook currently. I'm not actually. I take that back. I'm putting it on my business Facebook, but that has very few subscribers. I'm not putting it on my personal Facebook. I'm not putting on my personal Instagram or any other platforms. So that is the small little target that I'm marketing to right now.

That's those 60 individuals. And then the other thing, I've chosen to launch videos on Thursdays, and I think that's a pretty good day. I think I want to move it to Tuesday eventually, but there is one main thing I need to get done before I move it to Tuesdays, and I'll be talking about that in the upcoming session, which is what would I do differently? So first of all, I just mentioned this briefly, I'd be more selective on who I initially invited just so that the people that I'm emailing on a regular basis are truly engaged. And then here's number one. This is the number one thing that I wish I would've done different by far. And I meant to do this, and I tried to do it, but it didn't work out. And that is have a backlog of videos that is have three, four, potentially even five videos just sitting, waiting, edited, ready to go.

The reason I didn't do that, well, I intended to do it. I fully intended to shoot my first video, get it ready, and then shoot the second video. Well, when I shot my first video, I wasn't really happy with it. There were some major things to me that it was missing that I really wish I would've included, and I spent almost three, four weeks trying to figure out how to include those things and really honestly just dragging my feet at not putting out my video. And I realized that the only way I was going to get myself to move forward and step into actually doing this regularly is putting fire to my feet and just doing it. So that's what I did. I just put that video up there and then put myself in a forced position where I have to create a video a week.

But I do look forward in the near future. I do believe that as I get more comfortable with this process and can do it faster, I can record two videos on a day, on a Monday, get one of them edited, and then the next week record another two videos and get one edited and find a little extra time to sneak in some more editing and then get to a point where I get three, four videos in the hopper. And that's the one thing I really wish I would've done better. I didn't do it at all, and it would've saved me from last week not putting out a video, and it would make this process more fun. The only stress that's coming from this process is that, oh my gosh, I need to launch a video on Thursday morning and do my regular job, run my business, and have time with my family and for myself.

Yeah, it's a lot, but it's getting done. It feels good, it's getting easier, and that's the number one thing I would strongly recommend for you to do if you're going to start a YouTube channel. It's based like this where you want to provide value and do some education and so forth. It's good to have some videos in the hopper. That's it. I hope you got some value from this video. If you're thinking about starting a YouTube channel in 2024 now, again, happy New Year. Strongly recommend it. Keep watching me to see how it goes for me, and I hope you have a great day and great success. Welcome. Hi there. Happy New Year. I'm Gary Ell with G Squared Studio where we felt, man, wow, this is not the hard part.