This post has a bad title and so does the YouTube video. Here’s why.
One of the keys to making successful YouTube videos is coming up with a single, focused topic for your video. The topic itself can be something simple like showing off a toy, or it can be as complicated as rebuilding a car’s engine or performing brain surgery. It’s not the video that has to be simple; it’s the idea. Videos with a focused subject are much simpler to market. Imagine a vide in which someone reviews a car. The title would mention the car model and the thumbnail would featuring a picture of the car, most likely with some clickbait phrase added to it.
Now instead of that car video, imagine someone shot a single video in which they talked about a toy they owned as a kid while also reviewing food they ordered from a restaurant. That’s super hard to dilute down into a single marketable concept. There are ways to do it, or get around it, but at the end of the day the problem is that it’s just a bad video. YouTube doesn’t work that way. YouTube marketing doesn’t work that way.
The topic of the video I uploaded earlier today is, “Where have I been, I’ve been on vacation, oh I tried to film a video yesterday, here are pictures from my vacation, how am I planning to change the channel in the future?”
Ter-ri-ble.
When Hollywood films are bade — we’re walking big-budget, studio-backed films here — very little is left to chance. Big name actors are hired to work with big name directors. Scripts are watered down to the point that no twist, turn, or ending is left to chance. Nobody goes out and spends tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars of a film only to go into the editing bay and say, “Whoops! I guess we made a crappy movie! Oh well!” For better or worse, YouTubers have that option. Sometimes, concepts concepts that make sense in our heads don’t quite come together in a cohesive video like we had originally planned.
I’m being a little hard on myself on this one. The point of this video was to let all my YouTube subscribers know where I’ve been, and it accomplishes that.
The other objective for this video was to shake off the ring rust. It’s been over a month since I filmed or edited anything. Stepping back into it after more than a month, making a video feels like work.
The good news is, the YouTube and vanlife juices are starting to flow again. Big Rob’s Van will be cruising down a new dirt road!