Often people are starved for video ideas, but I don't think that is anywhere near as big of an issue as trying to figure out what kind of channel you should have in general. I made videos from 2007 until around 2015 on several channels, mostly making edgy skits or complaining about different types of people, which I've obviously outgrown and YouTube doesn't really favor any mean spirited humor anymore anyways. Even without focusing on what would get views, how did you find a broad topic that doesn't make you quit in a week? Of course this is only an issue when your interests aren't super obvious.
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YouTube Opinion How Did You Decide What Videos To Make?
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Personally, I am only interested in one thing when it comes to YT, Making Money. Have you ever seen the bumper sticker, "I'd Rather Be Fishing!", well that describes me to the T! I once listen to this guy who was some sort of motivational speaker/preacher. His name was McGee or something like that. I don't remember his name but I do remember a phrase he used in his speech over and over again. Here it is.
"I have many hobbies, WORK is not one of them. I work for cash!"
For me, YT is work. It is not one of my hobbies. I do it to make the cash I need to finance my hobbies. So when deciding what kind of content to create, I look at what skills or knowledge I have, that I can leverage into a video that might be useful enough to people so that they will want to watch it, so I can make money off of their viewership. It is that simple.
"I have many hobbies, WORK is not one of them. I work for cash!"
For me, YT is work. It is not one of my hobbies. I do it to make the cash I need to finance my hobbies. So when deciding what kind of content to create, I look at what skills or knowledge I have, that I can leverage into a video that might be useful enough to people so that they will want to watch it, so I can make money off of their viewership. It is that simple.
I agree with what you mean - there is a difference between doing YouTube only to have fun or entertain yourself and putting enough effort into it to make it into a product, though that doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable. The problem would be someone who hates video games trying to imitate PewDiePie or something because "that's what sells". It seems to be quite a fine line where you have to be entertaining while not acting like a fake cartoon character, which is another reason why you could get burned out of a topic you like if it isn't marketable enough.
Very true. However, I have always been a duty motivated person rather than an emotionally motivated person. I take pride in doing my duty, even if it is not a pleasant one. As a child, my family traveled a lot and we had a travel porta-potty that had to be emptied. My siblings would whine and cry when it was their turn so much that I would just do their chores to get them to shut up. Eventually, I was the only one emptying the porta-potty and I felt very proud to be the one doing this. It was an extremely unpleasant task, but I held my head very high while doing it because I was NOT like my whiny wimpy brothers and sisters who were all older than me. I did it because I loved my mom and wanted to honor her.
When I was ten years old, I got my first job watering a fruit orchard by hand. It was a lot of work and I made forty dollars a month. My brother, who was 7 years older than me, also had a job and made $200 a month. Dad had some kind of weird immune system illness during this time and could not work. The rent on our house was $40 a month. I paid that rent every month with the pay from my job the whole time we lived in the house, where my family lived, including my older sister, her husband, and their child. So, at ten years old, I was the one putting a roof over my family's head, even though I was the smallest and youngest one of them all. My brother, who got paid five times more than me, never once paid the rent and kept all his money for himself. But I was not ever bitter as a child about the situation. My mom would always cry and apologize to me when I handed her my monthly paycheck. I would just hold her and tell her it was my honor to be able to help the family out and that she did not need to cry, I wanted to pay the rent.
So, whether I want to or like doing something has never been a factor in what I choose to do. I do everything with extreme excellence. Every job I have ever had I excelled at and was promoted to the highest positions. I don't really think I have ever had a job that I liked or enjoyed. Quoting McGee here. I have many hobbies, work is not one of them, I work for cash. This has often confused my bosses in the past, because they always equated excellent performance with job enjoyment, and that was not the case for me. I excel at everything I choose do, even if I hate it.
Having said that, I have to agree the YT is a hard mistress. My success in life has always been about people getting to know me personally, seeing who I am, and appreciating the quality of character that drives me. I cannot use that on YT because I need to know a person personally, not virtually. There are certain things that simply cannot be conveyed through writing or video. Humans have a spirit that you must be in close physical proximity to feel. It's like six-sense that most humans are not even aware they have. In-person, I exude a spirit of authority that is just natural to me. I am not trying to do it, it is just who I am. Many times I have been walking down the shore of a lake and have people pull out their IDs and fishing license before I even get to them because they thought I was a game warden, just by my presence, even though I was not wearing any kind of uniform looking clothing. Here is one example of what I am talking about.
In 2018, I was visiting my daughter, when suddenly the house was rocked by a massive event outside. I rushed outside and saw a column of smoke rising into the air about one block away. I ran to the location to find that a brand new house had been blown to bits. The neighbors were all coming out of their house and approaching the destroyed house. A whistling noise caught my ear and I immediately recognized it as the sound on an open natural gas pipe with massive amounts of natural gas whistling through it. Seeing several exposed electrical wires that were sparking, I realized that gas was building up within the structure and at any moment one of those sparks could ignite a secondary explosion that could kill or seriously injury the 40 to 50 people that had gathered around that house. I immediately took charge of the situation and order everyone back. Everyone immediately obeyed my command. I said, ΓÇ£Does anyone here have tools!ΓÇ¥ Two guys raised their hands and I pointed to one of them and ordered, ΓÇ£You get me a pipe wrench! and meet me around the back of the house in the alleyΓÇ¥ To the other I said, ΓÇ£You get everyone back at least 100 feet. There is an open gas line filling the area with gas and there are live wires that are sparking.ΓÇ¥ Both men and everyone present obeyed without question. The man brought me the wrench and I got the gas turned off to the house at the meter in the alley, after which, I left the scene to go back to my daughter's house and tell the family what happened.
My family wanted to see the house so we got in the car and drove up to it. By then the fire department had arrived. I wanted to get a picture of the house so I went over to get a picture. While I was taking pictures, I could hear the fire chief questioning the people about what happen. The fire chief issued an order to one of the firemen to go turn the gas off to the house. ΓÇ£It's already off, Sir.ΓÇ¥ The fireman responded. The chief asked the bystanders who turned it off. The bystanders responded and said, ΓÇ£One of your guys did. He was here way before the trucks arrived and secured the scene, got everyone back, and got the gas turned off to the house". The chief radioed his men and asked who was on the scene before the trucks arrived. They all said that it was not them. The chief was confused. He asked the people there, ΓÇ£Where is this guy that did this? He probably saved a lot of lives.ΓÇ¥ The people said, ΓÇ£We donΓÇÖt know! He was here when we got out of our house after the explosion and then he disappeared.ΓÇ¥
The thing that really struck me about this whole situation is that those people had no clue what I looked like, in spite of the fact that less than half an hour earlier, they were all taking orders from me. I was standing right there and they did not even recognize me. I slowly walked away back to my car and left, never letting on that it was me that was the one who had secured the area before the fire department ever arrived.
Here is a picture of the house that I took after I came back.
My point is, my best quailty is not somehting I can convey in a video or in writting. It is the quality that you have to be around me to feel, like those people that day by that blown up house. So, I make videos about things I know that think will be interesting and helpful to others. Subjects that are easy to do and do not require great expense or a tremndous amout of work or talent to make. I run three different channels all about completely different subjects and all of them are succesful. In each one a play a totally different character and go by a different name.
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I accidentally started a channel. I retired early, and moved to the Philippines. I started posting vids for friends and family to show them where I was... then enough other people watched and YT offered to monetize the channel. I did not realize I was a YouTuber for about 2 years ha ha.
I use YT as just a hobby, but it is by far the cheapest hobby I have ever had. It even pays me sometimes. If I were planning a channel, I have no idea what it would be about. Philippines expat/travel is not a good niche for money making. The "big" channels have 40k subs. The professional channels barely hit 100k subs.
But within my expat/travel niche there is always something to film. I never run out of ideas for vids. I do day in the life, talk about cultural or financial issues with retiring in Asia, or just film walking around the city (I find the walkabouts boring but my subscribers love them). It is a good niche for ideas, and it is fun, it is not a good niche for money... The only other thing I care enough about to make a channel might be magic. Teaching magic tricks would probably pay better, but I have not bothered because I am simply not money driven (I quit work at 48!). Other than travel or magic, I have no idea what else I could make a channel about. (Some expats monetize by offering travel services or one on one consultation, but that sounds too much like a job for me to be interested.)
If I were to change to a more lucrative niche, it would likely become a job - and I would lose interest.
I use YT as just a hobby, but it is by far the cheapest hobby I have ever had. It even pays me sometimes. If I were planning a channel, I have no idea what it would be about. Philippines expat/travel is not a good niche for money making. The "big" channels have 40k subs. The professional channels barely hit 100k subs.
But within my expat/travel niche there is always something to film. I never run out of ideas for vids. I do day in the life, talk about cultural or financial issues with retiring in Asia, or just film walking around the city (I find the walkabouts boring but my subscribers love them). It is a good niche for ideas, and it is fun, it is not a good niche for money... The only other thing I care enough about to make a channel might be magic. Teaching magic tricks would probably pay better, but I have not bothered because I am simply not money driven (I quit work at 48!). Other than travel or magic, I have no idea what else I could make a channel about. (Some expats monetize by offering travel services or one on one consultation, but that sounds too much like a job for me to be interested.)
If I were to change to a more lucrative niche, it would likely become a job - and I would lose interest.
I accidentally started a channel. I retired early, and moved to the Philippines. I started posting vids for friends and family to show them where I was... then enough other people watched and YT offered to monetize the channel. I did not realize I was a YouTuber for about 2 years ha ha.
I use YT as just a hobby, but it is by far the cheapest hobby I have ever had. It even pays me sometimes. If I were planning a channel, I have no idea what it would be about. Philippines expat/travel is not a good niche for money making. The "big" channels have 40k subs. The professional channels barely hit 100k subs.
But within my expat/travel niche there is always something to film. I never run out of ideas for vids. I do day in the life, talk about cultural or financial issues with retiring in Asia, or just film walking around the city (I find the walkabouts boring but my subscribers love them). It is a good niche for ideas, and it is fun, it is not a good niche for money... The only other thing I care enough about to make a channel might be magic. Teaching magic tricks would probably pay better, but I have not bothered because I am simply not money driven (I quit work at 48!). Other than travel or magic, I have no idea what else I could make a channel about. (Some expats monetize by offering travel services or one on one consultation, but that sounds too much like a job for me to be interested.)
If I were to change to a more lucrative niche, it would likely become a job - and I would lose interest.
I kind of started like you. I made videos for fun just to share with family and friends. Unbeknown to me, my channel was growing behind the scene. Like you, YT came knocking on my door asking me to monetize. I turned YT down for two years because literally had no clue what the word "Monetize" meant. LOL! I actually thought they were asking me to create a brand logo for my channel and get monogrammed clothing with that logo. I kid you not. I did spend about thirty years of my life in jungles, okay. Give me a break. LOL! Anyway, when YT finally irritated me enough with their incessant begging and I figured out they want to actually profit share with me, I accepted and made $28 my first month. My eyebrow shot up I thought, "If I can make that much when not even trying, how much can I make if I try." So I went to work. After my first year, I sat down and ran the numbers. My estimates showed me that if I could maintain the growth I got my first year, in five years I would be making around 60k a year. Each year since that day, I have seen 300% channel growth each year. That is until July of 2021. In July of 2021, my soaring plant was hit by a surface-to-air missile out of nowhere and my channel has crashed and burned for no explicable reason. Based on my conservative projections, I should have been making 5 to 6k a month this year, but I am now making only 10% of that. This time last year I was making over 2k a month. And I put a video every single week for the rest of 2021.
So, I have stopped production on the Jungle Explorer channel. I am testing out new waters and seeing some progress. Until I can find out what is wrong with YT of my JE channel, I have no reason to create new content. It is like putting gas in a crashed plane.
Part of the reason why many people have difficulties in having ideas is largely because people spend so much time "consuming" content and being influenced by others. Sometimes, coming up with ideas, you want to be by yourself and let your mind wander and see what is missing, what might be cool, what might be informative, or what your perspective is on any given topic.
We are all unique people with our own life experiences and perspectives. I encourage people to lean in on their uniqueness and individuality. Now, I understand that might make some people nervous to take such a tact. However, it is a process.
I think it helps to have passion for a topic. Something that lights you up or something that you are very committed to.
Ideas don't have to be totally original. However, what is unique is your interpretation and your execution.
Idea creation can be a challenge in the beginning. But like a muscle, it can be developed with practice. It is perfectly okay to start with other people's ideas (don't copy directly) but then put your twist on things.
We are all unique people with our own life experiences and perspectives. I encourage people to lean in on their uniqueness and individuality. Now, I understand that might make some people nervous to take such a tact. However, it is a process.
I think it helps to have passion for a topic. Something that lights you up or something that you are very committed to.
Ideas don't have to be totally original. However, what is unique is your interpretation and your execution.
Idea creation can be a challenge in the beginning. But like a muscle, it can be developed with practice. It is perfectly okay to start with other people's ideas (don't copy directly) but then put your twist on things.
Life experience is your number one tool for video ideas. The more life experience you have or willing to gain the more choices you'll have in terms of building a YouTube channel. If you've ever wanted to learn anything, do anything, experiment, have new experiences, that will help guide your journey.
For instance if you've ever wanted to climb a mount, well, there a channel right there. Just take the journey, the learning process is a story in and of itself. If you wanted to build a 4x4, same thing. If you wanted to learn a new language, that's good fodder for a new channel. Lets say you're horrible at maths but want to be a scientist or pilot. That journey of being poor at maths and learning on your own sharing the journey with others can build a massive audience.
As you grow as a person, the problem flips. You'll ask yourself what ideas to I eliminate because you have so much life experience to share and help people.
@MattCommand1, is dead on the money. We are a generation of producers. We invented all this technology. I gather that the younger generation have simply consumed via the technology we've invented. It requires a complete mindset change from consumption to production.
For instance if you've ever wanted to climb a mount, well, there a channel right there. Just take the journey, the learning process is a story in and of itself. If you wanted to build a 4x4, same thing. If you wanted to learn a new language, that's good fodder for a new channel. Lets say you're horrible at maths but want to be a scientist or pilot. That journey of being poor at maths and learning on your own sharing the journey with others can build a massive audience.
As you grow as a person, the problem flips. You'll ask yourself what ideas to I eliminate because you have so much life experience to share and help people.
@MattCommand1, is dead on the money. We are a generation of producers. We invented all this technology. I gather that the younger generation have simply consumed via the technology we've invented. It requires a complete mindset change from consumption to production.
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Very inspiring life story.
I have a similar outlook on life. If it must be done, it must be done. I've learned to moderate that a bit and have more fun nowadays -- and I've gotten a LOT better at leveraging duty into fun instead of just being duty. But that's still the core of how I think.
Best,
Robert
