5 Mistakes YouTubers Must Avoid

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YouTube continues to prove itself as an excellent platform to promote brands and businesses. With over 1 billion viewsevery day, this video sharing giant has empowered thousands of YouTubers with the ability to generate decent income by leveraging on their massive traffic volume. With some of these Youtubers generating 6 figures and even 7 figures by posting videos on their YouTube channel, it is no surprise that some of them are more than willing to quit their regular jobs and make YouTube their main source of income!

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While the outlook is optimistic, getting video views and becoming popular on YouTube is not exactly a walk in the park. Whether you are a brand trying to promote your products on YouTube, or a content creator looking to monetize your channel, we understand your desire to achieve success as quickly as possible. However, most new YouTubers hardly have any idea if whatever they are doing is right or wrong. They usually just create their video, publish it, and then pray for the best. 

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Making mistakes along your YouTube journey is expected and inevitable. In fact, it is crucial that you make mistakes, so that you can learn the lessons, adapt and grow your channel more effectively. In this article, we will go over some of the most common mistakes that YouTubers make and offer some advice on how to avoid them. Hopefully, they can save you some wasted time and effort and help you achieve success earlier. Without further ado, let’s get this party started!

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Mistake1: Copying Or Plagiarizing Content

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YouTube was created as a platform for users to upload, share and view video content with other users around the world. YouTubers are rewarded with views and followers, as well as other monetary opportunities such as ads revenue, business collaborations deal etc., if they are able to consistently create popular content well-received and well-watched by others. As such, they must continuously create content to remain relevant on the platform. However, content creators also often experience what is known as a “creative block” and are unable to come up with new ideas. And sometimes, some of them get too desperate and resort to copying ideas from other creators.

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If you think you can thrive and grow your channel through such unscrupulous means, then let me tell you this; you can’t be more wrong! In fact, this is by far the worst mistake any YouTuber, regardless of how popular you are, can make.

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Granted it's much easier to take what's already there than to create content from scratch but this path doesn’t make things easier for you. In fact, it brings you more harm than good. For starters, your channel reputation will be soiled for sure the moment someone discovers that your content is stolen from others. Your comments section will be a broiling pot of shaming and name-callings. Once your channel reputation is ruined, it will become extremely hard to salvage it. You will lose many fans for sure, as well as lose out on other collaboration opportunities you would otherwise have with other Youtubers and/or other businesses. Worst still, YouTube may decide to simply disable your account for not complying to their policies, and that would really render all your previous efforts useless! To learn more about YouTube Policy regarding Copyright Usage, see here.

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What we advocate is that we should get ourselves inspired by someone else’s trending content instead, rather than copying it wholesale. We can create content revolving around the same topic but with your personal insights and point of view. You can also create videos of similar formats and styles since that is the style that is currently trending and should be able to help you grow your viewership and following. But if you are constantly threading in this gray area, you may still get yourself in the middle of disputes one day. Whenever unsure, please make sure to give proper credits to the original content that has inspired you with the idea to create the video.

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Mistake 2: Long Breaks And Inconsistency

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Your success on YouTube also depends on your consistency in posting content. Regardless of whether you are getting followers at your desired rate or not, you need to have a consistent posting schedule. Failure to post consistently will give your followers the impression that you are not taking your own channel seriously, or maybe you are no longer interested in your own content. Your account growth will stagnate, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see your subscribers count dropping.

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To avoid stagnation and becoming obsolete, make it a point to define your posting frequency. The number of times you upload and publish videos to your channel is dependent on your channel, niche, and style. Generally, it is recommended that YouTubers should strive to post video content at least once per week. Of course, if you feel capable of posting twice or even more times a week, please do so! 

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Whatever the case, know that with each video posted, you give your channel an additional chance to be exposed to both existing and potential subscribers. You create an opportunity for your video to engage someone, and maybe get them interested to look out for your next post! It keeps them excited, and they feel that they are receiving value, making them interested in more! That being said, more is not always better. Just be reminded not to compromise on quality in your attempt to mass produce videos. Always opt for quality over quantity.

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Mistake 3: Off-Topic Content

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Most new YouTubers make the mistake of not clearly defining their niche. Of course, it is understandable that not everyone knows what niche or what type of content they want to produce right at the start. But along the way, as more videos are created, it is important to be able to understand your audiences, get their feedback, and gain clarity on what niche to focus on and what direction your channel should be heading towards. 

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Failure to define your niche reduces your channel’s visibility because you will end up not falling under any specific category, and you will not have a passionate group of followers rallying around you. People will see that your channel lacks direction and they will not have the confidence that the next content you produce would be something that they will be able to enjoy. When this happens, your channel will experience stagnant growth because you will end up trying to target everyone, which also means that you are competing with all sorts of content creators as well! Hence, if you can dial down on a specific niche and focus on creating quality and engaging content revolving around this niche, you should be able to attract a passionate group of followers who enjoy watching your content. 

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Kevin Kellyfirst introduced the concept of the “1000 True Fans” where, according to this theory, all an artist (or in this case, a YouTuber) needs is 1000 “True Fans” to have a successful career, thereby empowering the artist to rid the need of having a full time or side job to support him or herself financially. So, in this case, if each of the 1000 true fans bought $100 worth of merchandise or services per year, the artist will earn $100,000 in revenue which after deducting operating expenses, should still be considered a decent income level for most people in most places. Hence, with this concept in mind, it is important that you define your channel’s niche as clearly and as early as you can, so that you can find this 1000 True fans as quickly as possible. 

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Mistake 4: Bad Video Production

Good picture quality, lighting and audio are practically the basic elements of good video production. These three elements have a direct impact on how your followers will perceive your YouTube channel and your brand. 

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Let’s imagine this for a second: you were just browsing on YouTube, and you came across a YouTube video thumbnail and title that catches your attention. You failed to resist your temptation and proceeded to click on the thumbnail, wanting to find out more. As your web page refreshes and completes loading the video, you hit the “Play” button and the video starts playing. Much to your irritation, you see the person talking but the sound quality is so bad you can barely hear what he or she is saying. You try to fast forward a little, thinking that it is just a small error, only to feel more irritation, because the sound quality is just as bad for the rest of the video! Now in your heart, you think that it’s perhaps just a once-off poor video rendering error and proceed to try another video by the same channel, only to discover that all the videos have the same issue! Now, I would think at this point, you will be feeling more than just irritation, perhaps even some anger or even rage that urges you to want to leave a harsh comment in the video’s comments section. Now imagine this is your channel, and that’s exactly how your followers will feel if your videos are all poor quality! The same scenario also applies if your videos are all very bad lighting! 

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So now do you see? Presentation of your video is as valuable as the content that you share! Hence, you must keep in mind that watching a video is both a visual and an auditory experience. You cannot just focus on the content of the video; you must consider the overall cinematography of the video as well! If you really have zero knowledge regarding this topic, just remember that daylight is probably your best friend when it comes to shooting and recording videos because most videos filmed in dark spaces tend to have bad picture quality. Also remember to invest in basic equipment like a microphone for audio recordings, camera or phone with camera function for video recording, and a computer laptop with a decent video editing software to make sure that all your grounds are covered! But most importantly, don’t settle for mediocrity. Make sure you constantly gain more experience and knowledge so that you continually hone your craft and improve your standards! The pain is worth it!

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Mistake 5: Confusing And “Clickbait-y” Thumbnails And Titles

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Being one of the first things that an audience will see, confusing and “clickbait-y” thumbnails and titles can have a huge impact in negatively affecting your channel’s viewership. If your thumbnail and titles are confusing, it will not be able to attract the attention of your potential audience, and nobody will click and view your video. 

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“Clickbait-y” videos thumbnails and titles are those which are very effective in arousing people’s curiosity and attention but are hardly relevant to the content of the video. So, if the thumbnails and titles are “clickbait-y”, and even if they manage to be appealing enough to get people to click on your thumbnails to find out more, the audience will realize that the video is not exactly what they were hoping for and would be left confused, irritated and even angry! They will feel deceived and lose confidence in your channel. You can also expect that it wouldn’t be long before harsh comments start appearing in the comments section that can affect your brand's reputation and future. Additionally, you will also end up attracting the wrong people to your channel.

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So, when the YouTube algorithm realizes that people are not clicking on your videos, or if they are not watching your videos after clicking on them, it will give your video a low “Expected Watch Time” value, which will in turn, reduce the chances of showcasing your videos as “Suggested videos” on other creators’ videos web page.

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You may be tempted to copy the thumbnail and titles of a highly watched video by another creator from your niche. Well, please bear in mind what we have discussed previously about copying and plagiarism. You must remember to resist the temptation of copying to garner views and followers because it will definitely backfire and affect your channel reputation one day. So do your best to create original but great titles. Get inspired by the good examples but never ever copy wholesale! 

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There is no shortcut to success on YouTube. That being said, we should continue to strive to work smart and learn from the best practices done by those who are successful in growing their YouTube channel. 

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Experimenting is always good because it allows you to eventually find what works for your channel. But as your experiment, bear in mind some of these most common mistakes that any aspiring (and experienced) YouTubers should avoid, so that your channel growth isn’t affected. As quoted by Otto von Bismarck, “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”. Avoid the mistakes listed above, hopefully that will save you some wasted time, and even fast track your journey to success! Fighting!

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