How to Be a Beginner on YouTube (Without Looking STUPID)

Struggling with what to post or how to start on YouTube? Worried you'll look stupid as a beginners? I get it... but you're (most likely) overthinking EVERYTHING. 

⭐️ Turn your YouTube channel into a sales funnel! Get Meredith's YouTube Funnel Playbook here: https://videobrand.link/playbook

✨ STILL IGNORED IN YOUR NICHE? GET YOUR YOUTUBE VISIBILITY REPORT: https://meredithmarsh.co/visibility

📹 Be Binge-worthy on YouTube: https://videobrand.link/become-bingeable

🟣 Video Brand Academy: https://videobrand.link/vba 

🎥 CRUSH IT ON CAMERA GUIDE: https://vidpromom.com/crush

🎧 Video Brand Infusion Podcast: http://meredithmarsh.co/podcast 

📲 Download my FREE Video Brand Academy app! 👉 https://videobrand.link/app

👉 Consistent Sales of Your Course with YouTube: https://youtu.be/GBhulsp0s-4 

📹 Follow on YouTube for Video Podcast: https://youtu.be/zkscCExxg9Y?si=B2EAIPxJV0-jEP-7

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You know, there's like I don't know 110 billion things to possibly be overthinking about right now when it comes to your business, your YouTube channel, your personal brand, and literally 110 billion other things. I've been working with a group of business owners in the channel launch lab, which is a new group coaching program that I put together for helping you launch your client-attracting YouTube channel. As I work with these individuals, I notice a pattern, a couple of different patterns of overthinking about the same kinds of things. And it doesn't really matter the niche, it doesn't really matter like the level of experience that somebody has making videos or um how long they've been on YouTube or how long they've been trying YouTube. There's these patterns of overthinking that I've noticed that I want to share with you so that you can so that you can not overthink about those things. And if you're new here, my name is Meredith. I'm here to help you look good, sound good, and almost forgot. Look good, sound good, and feel good on camera so that you can build your binge-worthy video brand. And one of my lights didn't turn on, and my lights behind me didn't turn on either for whatever reason. And uh I don't want to overthink about this video, so I'm not gonna restart my computer or anything. I'm just gonna roll with it. All of the overthinking that I do, that my clients do, that probably you are also doing, seems to stem from one kind of root place internally, which is that I don't want to do it wrong. Because if I do something wrong, if I do it the wrong way, if I make the wrong decision, if if I get the title wrong, if I get the thumbnail wrong, if I get the topic wrong, if I upload it at the wrong time, if I miss one of the settings in the uploading sequence, if I do it wrong, then I'm gonna look like an idiot. Like people are gonna know she doesn't know what she's doing. And the the level at which that is the driver of our decisions to overthink instead of taking action. I can see so clearly now in myself and others, the level at which the I don't want to look stupid, so I have to make sure I do it right, that drives us is what is stopping us from getting and being the very thing that we're we set out to get and and be and do in this world. For the last couple of weeks, I have been experimenting with short form content. Uh, so you may notice some YouTube shorts coming from me, uh, Instagram reels, Facebook reels, TikToks. I've been publishing one short form video a day. I think I've done it for like three weeks now in a row. I have a lot of opinions on it and a lot of data and stats to share with you. And don't you worry, I will make a video about what I have found about what works and what doesn't work as a long form content creator slash business owner.

unknown 3:39

I have a lot of thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

But just this morning I had this idea to do a two-part, like, I'm gonna post this reel today, and then tomorrow I'll post like part two, but I don't know how it works on reels. I know, like on TikTok, you can leave a comment and then you reply to the comment, and I tried to do that on reels and it didn't work, and I was like, I don't know how this works, and I don't want to do it wrong. I don't want to look like an idiot on Instagram. I I don't want my my followers who are like family, friends, business friends, clients, potential clients, whoever. I don't want people to be like, what is she doing? That looks dumb, that looks stupid. I can't believe you don't know how to use Instagram, Meredith. And it's it's almost debilitating, literally debilitating to the point where it's like, why am I even doing this? And the result of being debilitated by that level of overthinking that is driven by, I don't want to look stupid, I don't want to look like an idiot, I don't want to look like I don't know what I'm doing, is simply wasting time because I, in this one particular instance, I spent so much time trying to figure out how to do it right that I wasn't doing anything. I was just fiddling around trying to do it right before posting, before just like getting the task done, check it off my to-do list so I can move on and and make my next video, make this video. So knowing that all of this overthinking seems to be stemming from this feeling of I don't want to look stupid, I don't want to screw it up, I don't want to look like an idiot on the internet. I want to share with you some of the ways from a YouTube perspective, if you're making long-form content on YouTube and you're either just getting started or you have a channel, but you're not really posting consistently because of all of these decisions that you have to make. I want you to know I have your back and I want to share with you the ways that you can stop overthinking. So you can just do the thing, make the video, post the video, and move the heck on to whatever else is on your to-do list. And so that you can stay consistent with creating your long form content. So the number one overthinking thing that I'm noticing is I don't know what to post. I don't know what to post on my channel. And I've talked to a couple of people who have told me I like I don't want to get it wrong because YouTube videos are around, right? They're around for they could show up in search for for years. So if I do something wrong, if I say the wrong thing, or if I um, you know, if I have a lead magnet, I want to promote this lead magnet, what if I change my mind of the lead magnet? Like then what? So what do I create that's gonna be the right thing to create? How do I do it right so that at no point in the future it's gonna be wrong? If that's what you're thinking, how what the heck do I post? You need to know that your success on YouTube does not come down to one video. It doesn't come down to doing one video right, and your like quote unquote failure on YouTube doesn't come down to one video or like doing one video wrong. Look at any any YouTube channel, look at my YouTube channel if you want. Look at any YouTube channel. Um, there are people out there who delete videos that don't perform well, or they delete videos because they made a mistake or they got a critical comment or something, and they're so obsessed with everything being so perfect and so right that they remove any evidence that they could possibly be a human. That's not me. Go look at my channel, go look at the videos that I made years ago. Um, I did a lot of things wrong. So, first you just need to know that like your success or failure on YouTube is not hinged on doing one video right or doing one video wrong. Your success is hinged on just doing the videos, just doing one video a week and building that library of binge-worthy content. It becomes binge-worthy content because it exists on your channel to be binged. You don't create binge-worthy content, you create a library of content that can be binged. So there's almost no way to do it wrong unless you're creating videos that only you care about, and you're not thinking about your target audience and what they want to know, what they want to hear, what their what their pain points are, what they're struggling with. I mean, I always like to say the best thing you can do is simply make a video on a topic that your audience already wants to watch. Like, I'm literally handing you the cheat code. It is that easy. Figure out what is your target audience, your target clients and customers already want to watch. What's the topic that is already top of mind for them? Make a video about that. There's no wrong way to do that. If you're always thinking about your client, your customer, your target audience, your target viewer, and framing your video topic, your title, your thumbnail around something that they're already gonna want to watch. You can do this with keyword research and figure out what they're searching for, but you can also do this by just simply knowing the pain points, the problems, and the fears of your target client. You make enough videos that kind of like answer to that, that answer to that uh that bar, and you you've created a binge-worthy YouTube channel without overthinking how to create a binge-worthy YouTube channel. The next piece of overthinking is a little bit backwards in that what I'm seeing a lot of is well, what am I gonna say in my video? There's a lot of overthinking about like I have to be providing value, I have to be teaching something. Um, this this is one of my biggest overthinking moments in the last 11 years, is like, but I have to be teaching something. I think you have the you have the expertise and the experience and the perspective to talk about whatever you want in the video where you should be spending more time thinking, not overthinking. I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you how to do this without overthinking, but where you should be spending more time thinking is what are the first words out of your mouth? Like the first sentence, the first 15 seconds. I'm reviewing a lot of my clients' videos where the topic of the video, like the content of the video, the point, the reason why someone would hit play on the video isn't really starting to be discussed until like a minute and a half into the video. It seems very logical that if I'm going to teach you this thing, if I'm gonna present you this topic, I'm gonna set it up. I'm gonna set the topic up for you. So I'm gonna have an introduction and I'm gonna introduce myself and I'm going to uh I'm gonna let you know what we're gonna be talking about and why this is important. It's so logical that it's easy to miss why this is detrimental to your channel. And I love these little nuancey things about creating YouTube content, but you have to get into the mind of the viewer and realize that if your video is teaching somebody something, if it genuinely is teaching it like a tutorial or um you know giving some educational kind of tidbit of information, the package of the video, if it's like how to do X, Y, and Z or how to get X, Y, and Z, the package of the video already set it up. It already set up what you're gonna be talking about in the video. So if you spend a minute and a half introducing the topic that the title and the thumbnail already set up for you, your viewers feel like their time is being wasted. And they click off, they go watch something else, or they fast forward. So the words that come out of your mouth at the beginning of your video are so incredibly important. And I like I said, I don't want you to overthink them. So I'm gonna tell you what to do uh and how to kind of formulate those words so that they sound like you and they don't feel fabricated, they don't feel like a fill-in-the-blank hook. I love fill-in-the-blank hooks, by the way. I cannot resist a good fill-in-the-blank framework. I I just love it. I, you know, I grew up on mad libs, right? So anything fill in the blank feels so good and satisfying to me. But if you're filling in the blank of somebody else's words, somebody else's hook, then it's not like it's not yours. It's not coming out of you. And you're, I think your brain and your body and your mouth is like this is weird and awkward because these are not words that we would normally use or that we would normally put together. I got a fly flying around right in front of me, has not bugged me at all until I hit record and started talking. If you see me waving my hands wildly while I try to make this video, it's because there's a fly. Okay, so here's how you create an opening hook for your video that sounds like you, that takes almost no thought at all. And the content that you're about to create, like the video you're about to create, practically writes this hook for you. It's two statements and a question. Two statements and a question. Now, I have no idea how I opened this particular video. So I don't know if I used this exact hook framework in this video. But when I'm struggling to come up with how do I get into this topic, how do I start this topic, how do I just like, how do I just like, how do I get into it, right? When I'm sitting here overthinking, I go, oh yeah, I'm gonna use two statements and a question. So for example, everybody knows that there's 110 billion steps to starting and growing your YouTube channel. And every YouTube guru out there has their own kind of structure and sequence and strategy for starting and growing on YouTube. That's two statements, right? So the question is how do you even know where to start if you're trying to follow everybody's advice? Well, stick around because blah blah blah in this video, X, Y, and Z, and then you start just getting into the topic. And that question can be the open loop, if you will, the open loop to get the curiosity and the intrigue going for the viewer that if they want the answer to the question, they're gonna have to stick around and watch the full video. Right? So that hook is just an example, it's obviously not what I used for this video. Now, the really like little, the tiniest little tweak that you can make to that three-sentence hook to make it even hookier, as I like to call it, to make it juicier, is to introduce a little bit of tension. Our brains as humans, we love tension. I think it's why people are drawn to drama. I think it's why people are drawn to entertainment. It's why there's always some type of attention in good storytelling. Because when things are at odds, we want to know what happens. We want to know how it turns out, right? So if your two opening statements can both be true, but also both contradict each other, you've immediately created tension with the first two sentences of your video. I gave an example in a recent um short form hook. If you want to go follow me on Instagram, you can go look at my reels and you can go find the video where I talked about this. But in that example, uh, my opening hook was about opening hooks, of course, because it just was. And so my opening sentence, my opening statement is everyone says you have to have a strong hook on social media or people aren't gonna watch your videos. But every time you go to make a strong hook, it sounds like somebody else. It like doesn't even sound like you, and it feels awkward. Those are two statements. They're both true statements that I believe my audience would resonate with, but they contradict each other, so there's some tension there. Yeah, you are supposed to have a strong hook. And yeah, every time I try to make a strong hook, I sound like some guru or something, and it just doesn't feel good and it doesn't feel like me. They're both true, but they contradict each other. And so the natural question is so how do you make a strong hook while also sounding like yourself, without sounding like a guru, without feeling weird and awkward, and without using some fill-in-the-blank BS? That's the question. That's the open loop, yeah. How do you do that? You don't really have to go watch the reels. It's the same content I just delivered to you here in this video. But that's the example of the two opposing statements, tension statements, and then a question that opens the loop for the viewer. For the right viewer, your target viewer will almost like have to keep watching because you just introduce this tension and then open this question where you then answer the question in the rest of the content. It's the easiest hook in the world, it and it's not fill in the blank. And the content you're about to create your video about basically writes the hook because all you have to do is think what are a couple of things that we know to be true about this topic that contradict each other? What are some things that your audience knows or believes or thinks to be true or says to themselves or says to you all the time as their as their coach or as their service provider? What are the what are two things that are actually true that are already in the mind of your viewer that actually contradict each other? And then what is the natural question of so how do you get the one thing without the other thing? Or how do you get the one thing and the other thing together, even though they contradict each other? That that's the open loop. That's like, well, how do you do that then? How how do you resolve the tension? Three sentences, that's all it is, so less overthinking about what you're gonna talk about in your videos because you already have that inside of you, and a little bit more thinking about the first words of your videos, but not overthinking, because now you have that three-sentence hook structure that you can reuse without having to like pre-write it and and and definitely without having to get ChatGPT to help you out. The other area of overthinking often happens when you're looking at your analytics, when you're looking at your YouTube analytics, and you're like, how do I make sense of any of this? And what does it mean? And how do I use it to make decisions about what to do next? That that last part is the part I want you to pay attention to. It's how do you use it to make decisions about what to do next? Now you can sit there and overthink about um what the analytics mean and what it's telling you, and um compare. Well, this other person in my edge is getting um a thousand views per upload, and I'm only getting a hundred views per upload. And you can't see any of the other analytics on their channel. You can't see where that traffic is coming from. You can't see, is it search traffic? Is it um did they send an email to their list? Is it coming from social media in some other way? Like you don't necessarily know that the algorithm has somehow favored them and not you without seeing their analytics. The only thing you can do, and the only question, two questions, I guess, the only two questions you should be asking yourself in your analytics, is what do I need to improve to break down whatever barriers may be preventing me from getting more views? Really, I think every client I've ever talked to, anybody in Video Brand Academy, anyone who I ever look at their analytics ever, 100% want to know what do I do to get more views? What do I do to get more subscribers? The question is not what do I have to do? The question is what do I have to change, tweak, or improve to remove whatever barriers are in the way of getting more views. You're already making the content, you're already uploading the content, you probably have a thumbnail, you probably have a title. You are already doing the things to grow your channel. It's about tweaking what you're doing to improve what you're doing, to get more people to click play on your video when they see it, or to get your video in front of more people on the YouTube homepage, like in the algorithm or in the search result. You're already doing it. It's just a matter of tweaking the little actions that you do when you're doing it to break down the barriers that prevent more views, more subscribers, more growth. YouTube has a really interesting new feature in your YouTube Studio, in the back end of your channel called Ask Studio. And you can ask it, see what it says. Let me know. In the comments. But the other thing you should be thinking about, and this I I think, I think, if you if you listen, if you listen to what I'm saying and not overthink this, this is the simplest thing and the most effective thing that you can do on YouTube. And this goes for long form content. I can't tell you whether or not this applies to short form. I haven't tested that. I don't know. But go to your YouTube studio, go into your analytics, click analytics on the left-hand side, and that page, if you scroll down a little bit, that page will tell you your top 10 videos by views, the top 10 most viewed videos in the last 28 days. So this isn't videos that you've posted in the last 28 days. This is all of the content on your site and the number of views they have all of the videos have received in the last 28 days. It'll tell you your top 10. Algorithmically speaking, the smartest thing that you could possibly do when you make a decision about what to create next on your channel is make follow-up videos for the audience of what's already getting views on your channel right now, today. If you want to be even more precise, look at your analytics, uh, your top viewed from the last seven days. Change the timing from 28 days to seven days. It defaults to 28. So just move it to seven. And you're looking at the content on your channel that, like right now, currently today, this is where your traffic is, this is where those eyeballs are, this is where the people are, this is where your viewers are. When you make follow-up content for the viewer, not necessarily topic-wise, but for the viewer, when you think about what is this viewer going to want to watch next, what would they have to see on their homepage for them to go? Oh my god, yeah, I have to watch that video. What would that topic be for the viewer? Make that algorithmically, strategically. Yes, we can talk about like the spider web strategy, we could talk about keyword research, we could talk about all the different ways. And I have, you know, I teach a bunch of different proven growth strategies inside of Video Brand Academy, lots of different techniques and tactics and and ways of putting content together to build this spider web and get this spider web effect happening on YouTube. But without even looking at any of that strategy stuff, the no-brainer thing that anybody can do right now is just to make follow-up content on based on what's already working on their channel. Algorithmically, that's hands down the smartest thing that you can do, and there's no overthinking involved because your channel is telling you what to create next. You just have to do it. Overthinking about all of this stuff puts your entire goals, your entire dream, your entire thought of like this is what I'm gonna do and this is what I'm gonna build. Overthinking puts all of that in jeopardy because there the ball has to be rolling in order for the ball to be rolling. Right? What have you been overthinking? Let me know in the comments. Maybe I'll make a video about it, and I'll talk to you next time.