Deep down somewhere, we all want to get recognized, touch the lives of people, and inspire them to become like us. For most people, it’s just a wild dream, but some set out to chase it and ask how to become a YouTube influencer, as they want to get famous by making videos and even earn the coveted YouTube Play Button.
Why did YouTube think? Some might ask. The reason most people choose YouTube to try out their luck is that it has over 2 billion users, which means more chances of getting recognized by the audience. Of course, you can aim to become an influence on a social media platform, but social media influencers can’t compete with YouTube stars when it comes to:
- Pay rate for views
- Maximum revenue through influencer marketing
- Exclusive brand deals and collaborations
- Community meets and annual fests
No matter from which angle you look at it, being an influencer on YouTube is beneficial for your social image and lucrative for your pocket. So, if your mind is itching to take the first step towards being a YouTube influencer, here are some tips you can use to chase this goal.
10 Tips to be a YouTube Influencer
Like with great power comes great responsibility; with great opportunities come extraordinary challenges and risk. To become a YouTube influencer, you’ll have to face cutthroat competition going on the platform right now.
Every YouTuber is trying their post to hoard as many followers as they can, and if you jump in without a plan, you’ll become worm food in no time. Hence make sure to thoroughly read these tips and implement them as soon as possible if you wish to turn your dream into a reality.
1. Find Your Niche and Interest
Becoming a YouTube influencer is about creating videos regarding the niche you’re most passionate about and inspiring others to follow it. It means that before you take the first step of your journey, you need to figure out which niche is perfect for you.
Now, figuring this out isn’t that difficult. Just write down a list of things you like and feel good at. Good at gaming, add it to the list; know stuff about fitness training, write it down too. Once you complete the list, sit down for a while and give it a good thought.
Choose a niche that you’re very confident about – a niche in which you feel like no one knows better than you. If you find such a niche, start making videos on it to attract the audience. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right niche, so try experimenting with a few, and you’ll eventually find it.
2. Create a Content Plan Strategy
Creating content blindly in a fierce competition can prove fatal for your YouTube career and destroy your chances of becoming an influencer. That’s why experts suggest making a content strategy before jumping into the game. Do you need to figure out what kind of content your target audience likes? How often must the videos be uploaded?
What sub-genres of your niche fascinate the audience, and how can you introduce them to your video? Covering all these aspects will make it easier for you to make content that your audience will like, which will increase the engagement rate on your channel and boost your social profile, bringing you closer to your goal of becoming an influencer.
3. Determine the Required Equipment
You can’t go to war without learning about weapons, right? Similarly, you can’t become a YouTube influencer without understanding what kind of equipment you will need to make videos and execute the content plan. Here is some equipment that every YouTube influencer simply must have:
DSLR Camera: You need to have a DSLR camera to shoot high-quality videos. These cameras come in different sizes and price ranges, so pick one that you think will suffice your needs.
Good Microphone: To capture your voice perfectly in the video, you need an excellent microphone. You can purchase them online, and they don’t even cost that much.
High-Powered System: For video editing, mixing, and rendering, you need a powerful computer that can handle all these functions. It’s better to buy the latest model desktop that is equipped with at least a 4GB graphics card for this job.
Sometimes the required equipment changes according to the niche of the channel, so carefully analyze your genre and list down all the equipment you might need in the future. After that, you can buy them one by one or at once if you have the budget. Also, expensive equipment isn’t always the best, so if you find stuff that is cheap but performs well, then go for it.
4. Plan a Proper Schedule to Upload Videos
Having a proper upload schedule is vital to growing on YouTube and becoming an influencer. All the famous YouTubers say that the key to becoming successful on the platform is to stay consistent and upload regularly. So, after making a content plan, make an upload schedule for the content as well.
Try to upload at least 3 to 4 times a week to keep your audience engaged. Of course, you can increase or decrease this frequency on your whim, but whatever you do, make sure to maintain quality.
After setting up the days for uploading, try to find the best hours of the day to upload your content. You can do that by observing your audience and figuring out when most of them are active on YouTube.
Once you find those hours, make sure to upload your content during that period, so your videos can get maximum views and engagement. Remember that a consistent creator is loved by the audience and the YouTube algorithm, so always stick to this tactic.
5. Optimize YouTube Channel
An important task you need to perform before uploading videos is to optimize your YouTube channel. Optimization involves increasing the searchability and visibility of a channel, so it can get easily discovered by the audience and appears in search results against related keywords.
So, what exactly goes into the optimization of the YouTube channel? Well, tons of factors affect a channel’s SEO, but here are two things you can do to boost the optimization of your channel.
Make an Outline for Your Channel
You need to set a proper structure of your channel by filling in all the required information. Make sure that you fill every field, so the algorithm can include your channel in the ranks.
Also, add highly searched keywords of your niche in the channel description, and it would be better if there’s a keyword in your channel’s name, as it will make it easier for the audience to discover it.
Optimize for YouTube Algorithm
You need to optimize your channel so it can get detected by the YouTube algorithm. Why? Because the YouTube algorithm recommends a channel to the viewers, if your channel gets on its radar, it will get more exposure and reach.
To optimize your channel for the algorithm, add keywords in the channel descriptions, so every time someone finds your channel in the search results, that activity gets noticed by the algorithm, and it starts boosting it further to increase its reach even further.
6. Upload First Video
Once you’ve got the content plan down and have well optimized your channel, it’s time to create your first video. Experts highly recommend that your first YouTube video should be an introduction to your channel and powerful enough to grab the audience’s attention.
You can check out the channels of famous YouTubers, and you’ll see most of them uploaded their channel introduction as the first video. So, unleash your creative horses and shoot an attractive introduction that hooks the viewers and makes them follow your channel.
7. Engage with the Audience
No matter which platform you are on, as long as your goal is to become an influencer, keep in mind that everything is in the hands of the audience. Your views, subscribers count, etc., every stat that can make or break your channel is controlled by the audience.
And when you’re in such a situation, it makes sense to keep such an entity closer to you, right? Hence engagement with the audience is vital, and you need to make sure that your audience feels connected with you.
There’s a lot you can do to achieve this goal. You can answer their questions, reply to their comments and talk to them in live sessions. This tactic enables you to successfully hold the attention of your audience and make them keep interacting with your content.
8. Use YouTube Analytics
To measure your success and learn the interests of your audience, you must keep an eye on YouTube analytics, where you can find all sorts of useful data related to your channel. Your average views, subscriber count, content engagement rate, well-performing videos, etc.
These are just some of the many statistics you can access through YouTube analytics. Most YouTubers use this data to find out how closely they are to their goal, which of their videos isn’t performing well, and which content ideas became a big hit. They use all this information to improve their channel to boost and stabilize their stats.
Some vital stats you need to keep an eye on YouTube analytics are:
- Viewers to subscribers’ ratio
- Average views
- Likes to views ratio
- Engagement rate
- Click-through rate
If these stats are positive, then well and good, but if not, you can use this data to figure out the weaknesses and improve them.
9. Join with Brands and Create Partnerships
As an influencer with a solid fan base, you’ll get a chance to make money by collaborating with brands. All you got to do is make a video featuring the products or services of a brand, and add their site’s link to the video’s description. That’s it!
This strategy will work for you in two ways. First, it’s quite lucrative as brand collaborations pay up quite well. Second, it will make your audience recognize you as an influencer who gets contacted by the brands, thus boosting your social image to a whole new level.
Therefore, whenever you get the opportunity to partner up with a brand, never let it go and put in hard work to make it a success, so you can get contacted by the other brands as well.
10. Build Your Subscribers
YouTube is a platform where artists are judged by the subscribers on their channel and views on their videos. Now, since the views are also directly related to the subscriber count, it means that your primary goal should be to get more YouTube subscribers.
Building your subscribers on YouTube will is beneficial for you in the following ways:
- Increases your view count and engagement rate
- Makes it easier for you to promote content (by asking followers to share it)
- You will get recognized by the experts of the niche for having a solid fan following
- Attracts more potential followers to your channel
- Allows you to earn money through YouTube monetization
Of course, there are tons of other benefits of having more subscribers on your channel, but we mentioned these as they are directly relevant to your social and financial growth. While building followers, set realistic goals and start by securing 500 followers.
Then keep increasing this goal, and once you hit a million subscribers, your channel will automatically attract potential followers, and you won’t have to worry about a thing.
Conclusion
That was everything about becoming a YouTube influencer, and we hope that you’re ready to start the journey towards your goal after reading this article. Just keep in mind that all these tips require consistency, so you need to apply them regularly to get results.
For more interesting and helpful articles on YouTube, check out our blog page, where we’ve uploaded posts regarding almost every issue related to YouTube.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How Much Does a YouTube Influencer Make?
Earning of a YouTube influencer depends on their fan following, so there’s no fixed number. However, an average YouTube influencer can earn 50 to 60 thousand dollars per year through content monetization and brand collaboration.
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