Beginners Guide on How to Create a Channel on YouTube and Making it Popular

Daily, more than 5 million videos are watched on YouTube worldwide. A viewer’s average YouTube session is 40 minutes. If you are a frequent internet user, you may know that there are multiple ways to make money online. Creating YouTube content is just one of them. PewDiePie used to earn $4 million alone in 2013. Isn’t it great if you could also earn the same amount? If not the same, even a fraction would be sufficient. But before getting into all that, in this article we will get to know about how to set up a channel on YouTube and making it popular.

Why to Create a Channel on YouTube?

Before doing anything, we all have a specific goal in mind. You can create a YouTube channel for various purposes. You can start it as a simple hobby. If you like to travel, you can create travel vlogs which you can share with your friends or family members to let them know about your latest trip. You can also create a video and upload it in your channel to create memories which you can watch later.

The thing which most YouTubers target nowadays is making money by uploading a video which will become popular among the viewers. You can do it either by monetizing your channel with ads, merchandising and various other ways. It’s important to choose a goal before creating a channel so that you can upload relevant contents.

What Kind of Content Should you Focus More Upon?

If you are planning to create a channel to earn money, the genre of the content is the foundation. To present the right content to your audience, you must first of all, know who is your audience. Uploading random videos won’t work at all. All videos should have a purpose.

People generally know their niche while opening a channel. The reason being, they focus on creating contents regarding stuff they are good at. For example, a great chef creates a channel where he shares new recipes. A motorcyclist creates a motovlogging channel and so on. If you are good at a certain programming language, you can create tutorial videos. You can list down the things you are good at along with the things on which creating videos will be more feasible. Creating a list will make the job of selecting the niche much easier.

Can you Keep Up with the Competition?

Frankly speaking, there are quite a lot of popular YouTubers nowadays in all niches. Getting acknowledged will be a little bit tough. But fear not. We are here to guide you.

Don’t focus on only one niche. Select more than a few.
Check out the number of active YouTubers and their popularity in that niche. Your target is to find a niche that has little competition and high demand.
If the number of active YouTubers is quite large in the selected niche. It’s better to avoid it because oversaturation will stand in your way of making your channel popular among the viewers.

What about Investment?

Well, your channel’s niche will decide how much do you need to spend in order to become a successful YouTuber. In the very beginning, there is no major expense. All you need to possess is a decent microphone along with a camera. If your smartphone has a high-resolution video camera, it can do the job as well. But when your channel starts gaining popularity, your viewers will expect better video and cinematography. When you have started monetizing your videos with ads, it will help a lot if you invest in devices like gimbals, tripods, high-resolution cameras, etc.

Who Can Create Content on YouTube?

It’s a great thing that Google does not have any restrictions regarding who can publish their videos on YouTube. It’s an open community meant to be used by everyone. All you need to do is,

Login to YouTube using your Google account.
Go to Settings and create a Channel.
Give your Channel a name and a public URL using which other people can directly visit your channel.

That’s it. Your job is done. Let’s head back to the next section where we’ll get to know how to build up a subscriber base for your channel.

What are the Ways to Earn Money?

Well, there are more than a few ways. Let’s see what are those.

YouTube Partnership or AdSense Program

Your YouTube channel can be monetized with AdSense. AdSense monetizes your videos with ads and whenever a viewer clicks on a generated ad, you earn money. This is the easiest way of earning money from YouTube. You can increase the count by increasing the views on your videos. But how to do that? The answer is simple. Create unique and innovative contents which will be a huge hit among your viewers. Let’s discuss the eligibility criteria for this program.

First of all, AdSense should be available in your country.
In the previous year, you should have more than 4000 hours of watch time.
Your subscriber count should be minimum 1000.
Your content should meet the policies of the YouTube partnership program.
Your AdSense account needs to be approved and linked with your channel.

Merchandising

If you are a celebrity or have an active community, merchandising is an old but great way to make money from YouTube. Already YouTube has a partnership with many merchandising companies. You can sell their products like caps, coffee mugs, stickers, hoodies, etc. from your channel. Each sell earns you a percentage of the profit.

Channel Membership

Months ago, the Sponsorship program was launched by YouTube. Currently, it has been renamed to Channel Membership. If you are an eligible YouTuber, you can earn a monthly subscription fee from your biggest subscribers. In return, fans will get to enjoy perks like badges or exclusive content from you before other subscribers.

Eligibility criteria

Channel membership is not simple to get. Let’s see what are the criteria that you need to fulfill.

Your channel should be in the YouTube partnership program.
Your subscriber count should be 30000 or more.
You should have zero active strikes like community or copyright-related strikes.
You are over 18 and comply with the terms and conditions set by YouTube.

Crowdfunding

This is the way fans show support and love to their favorite YouTuber. If you are at the early stage of content creation and don’t have a huge subscriber base required for monetization or membership program, you can approach a crowdfunding platform and present your content. If people like what your channel is offering, they will definitely fund which will help you to keep creating contents for your channel. Patreon is a very popular platform used for crowdfunding.

Amazon Affiliates

If you have a pretty good subscriber base, you can try promoting Amazon products. This can be done by reviewing certain products on your channel and creating an affiliate link from where people can buy that product. After the review, if people like that product, they will buy it, leading the creator making money.

YouTube Premium

This is YouTube’s answer to Netflix and other streaming services. Here, subscribers can enjoy original, unique and ad-free content. YouTube premium also lets you play content in background and download videos to watch later offline. If your content is unique and contains a topic which the audience will like, you will earn huge money if it is showcased at YouTube premium.

How to Increase Your Subscriber Base?

This is the very first thing you should learn. There are a lot of YouTubers nowadays. The best way to become one of the leading ones is to make any one of your videos go viral. Before creating any video, research and find a topic which will become a huge hit among the audience. Once you have decided a topic, its time to create the video.

You must use high-quality video and audio capturing device. Go for the 4k camera and if possible, use a gimbal. A crisp and clear video has a chance to be a huge hit than blurry and shaky footage with noise. You must be very good at editing. Make sure your video looks catchy from the very beginning and doesn’t get monotonous. Follow the hit videos of other YouTubers and try to find out a pattern.

Coming to the next step, let’s make it a hit. A very simple way is by appropriate sharing. Suppose you are creating a video reviewing the new Triumph Tiger 800 motorcycle. You will find many groups on Facebook and other forums that have thousands of members sharing the love for 2 wheelers. Post a video in a few of them.

If your content is catchy, the viewers themselves will do the job of sharing it among their friends and soon, your video will be a huge hit. The viewers will automatically subscribe to your channel waiting for great contents you are about to share in the future. Make sure your channel name is simple to spell or pronounce and yet unique to make it memorable among the viewers.

Conclusion

If you possess the skill of creating trendy YouTube content, you will earn huge money from doing what you like. Hopefully, this article has been helpful to understand how to set up a channel and making it popular. Unleash the inner Casey Neistat in you and start creating content for your channel. Do let us know which method has been successful for you in the comments section.