How To Start a YouTube Channel in 2022: Beginner’s Guide From Zero Subscribers
I’ll cover 4 points — how to get started with a brand new channel, what to make videos on, the money of YouTube, and how to get views with zero subscribers.
Being a full-time YouTuber might still sound strange to some people but the truth is, more and more people are finding ways to make a living making videos about topics they like.
I’ve made a couple of videos related to this already such as “You need to start a YouTube channel in 2021” and “I Quit My $80,000 Designer Job To Become A Full-Time YouTuber”.
In this story, I want to take a deep dive and let you know how YOU, yes you, can start and grow a YouTube channel in 2022.
Now I know a lot of people like to have a channel and upload random videos every now and then just for fun. That’s cool but I’m going to focus on turning your YouTube channel into a business.
Let’s get into it.
MONEY
2020 was an eye-opener in many ways, one of which is the importance of having multiple income streams. I’ve always said that relying only on a job is more dangerous than starting a business. Some may agree, some may not.
However, there’s no denying that a job can be taken away from you at any moment with one decision. With your own business, you’re still in control.
But starting a business can sound intimidating if you’ve never done anything like it before. That’s why I focus on YouTube as a first business here. It has a relatively low barrier to entry with potentially high rewards.
I used to think you needed more than 1 million subscribers to be able to make a full-time living off of YouTube but the fact is you need way less than that.
I’m currently at around 270k subscribers on my first channel in the Automotive niche which I would say is right in the middle when it comes to CPM.
Now the CPM determines how much you get paid per 1000 views and this varies a lot depending on what niche you are in.
For example — gaming, art, toys, and personal vlog channels usually have a lower CPM while finance, makeup, and educational videos have higher CPM.
On my first channel, called TheSketchMonkey, I tend to average about 1 million video views per month and for that YouTube pays me around $5–9000 per month.
Some of my videos have 4–5x the average channel CPM and those are usually videos about US-specific cars and trucks.
If I make videos on European cars for example, the CPM drops significantly.
So why is that? Well, it all has to do with the type of ads shown in the video and how likely the viewer is to click on that specific ad.
You can have a channel with 10k subscribers in the finance niche making the same or even more money than a 100k subscriber gaming channel.
Ultimately what matters more than subscribers is your content. How often people click on your videos and more importantly, how long are they staying to watch the video.
In other words — what’s the watch time.
These two metrics, watch time and click-through rate are what determines whether your video will get recommended outside of your channel by YouTube.
GETTING STARTED
Now you might think to yourself it’s too late, there are too many people doing YouTube already, how do I fit in. How in the world will I be able to get people to watch MY videos.
To me, that’s actually an advantage because, with so many successful channels out there, you’re likely to find one that’s doing great in the niche you want to make a channel and create content in.
This means you can take inspiration from those channels, see what’s working, analyze why they are successful and what it is that makes you watch those videos. Think about what made you click on the video.
Once you know that, it’s time to start experimenting with your own videos while applying what you learn from researching other channels.
Now you will likely not see any success in the beginning and that makes total sense. People who have been on YouTube for years know this. They’ve been trying to figure it out for years before they became successful. It’s a long learning curve that can be draining if you expect too much too quickly.
But if you keep being consistent, share your videos everywhere you can, keep trying different video formats, and analyze what works and what doesn’t, eventually you’ll get there.
When you think about this from a YouTube standpoint, it all makes sense. YouTube has to host all the videos that are uploaded to the platform and this costs them money. They want to see you succeed but first, they need to make sure you’re serious about your channel before they start pushing traffic to it.
How do they know if you’re serious or not? It’s all about consistency. Will you keep uploading videos even though you barely get any view in the beginning?
Will you still have the motivation to continue to make improvements and better videos when nobody seems to appreciate your hard work?
If yes, then you have a good shot at making it on YouTube.
This brings me to my third point.
MAKE VIDEOS ABOUT SOMETHING YOU LOVE
This is important because as we just talked about, growing a YouTube channel to a level where it can replace your day job isn’t going to happen overnight. It will require a lot of work and even more patience.
So making videos about things you enjoy and love is extremely helpful. Not only will your passion shine through in the videos making them more enjoyable and engaging to watch, but it also makes it easier to produce videos since you’re making them about a subject you most likely would have talked about anyways.
All you have to do is to first of all figure out what it is you love — knitting, dolphins, baseball, backpacking, Quentin Tarantino movies, and then write down 5–10 video ideas on that topic.
It can be as simple as a Top 5 list — “The Top 5 Fastest Dolphins In The World” for example. This is a simple format to get you going to create your first video.
There’s literally no limit as to how many Top 5 videos you can make on a specific topic. “Top 5 Kicks In Kill Bill” is just another idea you can talk about for ages if you’re a Tarantino fan.
Personally, I always write down ideas as soon as they hit me whether it be in my notes app on my phone or on a piece of paper. It doesn’t matter if it sounds like a horrible idea or not at the moment, just write it down and explore what you can do with the idea later.
This way you always have a supply of ideas.
GETTING VIEWS WITH ZERO SUBSCRIBERS
Now you might ask “How am I supposed to get any views when my channel is brand new with 0 subscribers?”
That’s a really good question. Let’s take the Top 5 dolphin and Tarantino video ideas as an example here.
First of all, what you want to do is share it on all of your social media. Share it with your friends and family. If you’re scared at what they might think, I’ve made a video on that which you can check out on my channel.
Remember, if you want to make this work, you might have to feel uncomfortable in the beginning. Trust me, this goes away with practice.
Once you’ve shared it on your social media accounts, it’s time to get niche-specific. Join Reddit for example and share your dolphin video in a dolphin subreddit.
Join a Tarantino subreddit and share your thoughts on the “Top 5 Kicks In Kill Bill” and write out why you think they are the best kicks. At the bottom of the post, link to your video.
This way you’ll start a discussion and people will start to argue for and against your choice of the top 5. This is great. Any engagement is always great.
These are the first basic steps I would take today to build a channel from scratch. It’s all about patience and never stop testing new video formats. The more videos you make, the more data you have to help you make decisions on future videos.
I hope this was helpful to you. There’s more to growing a YouTube channel that I’m happy to cover in the future such as keywords, titles, thumbnails, descriptions, and more.
With over 500 videos created I’ve gathered plenty of data on what works and what doesn’t.
Now stop consuming and start producing!
Set a realistic goal for yourself for your first year on YouTube and then go after it. You won’t regret starting today a year from now.
For more details on this topic, watch my full video below.
