Hey, Dare to Dreamers It's Michelle Osorio. And today I wanted to talk today about camera confidence.
Do you feel you don’t deserve to be on Camera?
Here's a little story, a story that a lot of people don't know. A story where I thought I don't deserve to be on camera for many years. Watch my YouTube video or read on to find out how I overcame stage and camera fright in my life.
Overcoming Fear of coming on Camera
There was a time in my life when I had a desire to express myself. I loved to sing and I loved standing on the stage and sharing my story. There was just one little problem. I had terrible stage fright. But I loved it so much that I still did it anyway. I auditioned for and I got into a Musical Theater Academy.
But every time I was on a stage, it was like going through a heart attack. Every time I would go on the stage, I could just feel my heart pounding in my chest. This made it really hard to sing.
If you don't know, you have to take deep breaths and control your breath as you project your voice. That's a little bit hard to do when you're trying to sing with your heart racing at the same time, as you want to take breaths all the time.
So I'm singing, and in my head as I'm going, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I need to breathe, I need to breathe, I need to breathe because my heart is pounding, but I couldn't because I had to sing properly. It was really tough.
It was really hard and I wish I could tell you a happy ending story. That I overcame it when I was a teenager and I got over my stage fright, but actually I didn't. None of that happened and it was a bit of a sad story.
Delaying My Fear
The good part is I fell in love with film after I graduated from my Musical Theater Academy and I became a filmmaker. That was really awesome. I don't regret it.
The sad part is, I didn't know at the time, a little bit of that was an excuse because I was tired of being afraid all the time. And so if I could hide behind the camera, I would no longer have to stand out on that stage and be judged. I fell in love with telling stories, but I would hire actors and I would let them tell the stories for me. I would just craft the script and direct the shots. And although I loved it, I didn't realize this at the time, some of that was fueled by fear.
I did not feel comfortable taking the spotlight. It took me many years and the pushing of people who knew me to have the goal and the audacity to stand in front of the camera.
The Spotlight
Sometimes in our lives, we have a tendency to put other people in the spotlight instead of ourselves. Even though deep down inside, maybe we can admit it, maybe we can't, but deep down inside us, we want that spotlight. And deep down somewhere inside we feel like we deserve that spotlight too. But it can be so hard, can't it? To hear that voice?
Sometimes we just pass it off to someone else. We stand to the side of the stage and watch somebody else stand in the spotlight. We give that spotlight to someone else because something in us is arguing that we shouldn't have the audacity to take that spotlight ourselves.
It's that we don't have the confidence, or we feel we don't deserve it, or we think we don't look good enough. We're not thin enough, we're not tall enough, we're not old enough, we're not young enough, we're just not enough to take that spotlight.
Does this make sense?
Does anybody else know what that feels like?
Can I see some hand emojis or hear from you if you know what I'm talking about?
How I got my Happy Ending
But there is a happy ending here. Eventually, I did realize thanks to my friends pushing me in this direction. I started getting on camera and I felt very uncomfortable. But I will say after many years I did get used to it and actually, now I feel comfortable in front of the camera.
It took a long time, but now I can actually watch myself and think you know, Michelle, I gained a few pounds, got a double chin there, your hair's kind of messed up but you know you did a good job. That's a good video and that's incredible.
I never would have thought a few years ago that I could watch myself like that and be happy. But it was a long road and it took a lot of looking at myself, looking at my life, looking at my desires and deciding I wanted it badly enough.
I wanted to share my story and share my voice myself with my voice. I decided I wanted that badly enough. That I was willing to be uncomfortable for a while standing in front of a camera until I was able to learn to get used to it and then get pretty good at it.
But that was a long journey. Has there ever been a time in your life where you felt that way and did you overcome it? Did you finally put your foot down and say, that's it, I want this badly enough? If so, what did you do I would really like to hear from you.
Do you have a story to share where you felt you don't deserve to be on camera?
This is Part Three of the TinaTimeTV series where I, Michelle Osorio explore using the community tab on YouTube. Have you used the community tab? What sort of response did you get? Watch the video or read on to find out.
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Using the community tab?
If you are not already utilizing the YouTube Community tab, you should start asap. It's an amazing place to get to know your audience, to let people know what's going on in between videos, especially if you're late on a video or you haven't posted in a while. It's a great way to have a conversation too.
You can also share pictures. You can tease a video that's coming up and say, for instance, ” here are the snacks from a snack collab video I did coming out tomorrow so make sure you have got your notifications turned on”.
Do polls give feedback on what people want?
Don't forget that people love polls. That's one really powerful part of the community tab that I love. You have a direct line to your subscribers to ask them whatever question you want.
What's your favorite type of content on my channel? Advice, reactions? What's your favorite type of reaction video? That's your chance to really narrow down. That's been very helpful for me. I've done several surveys fully intending to do one thing and then I'm completely surprised by the response and people wanted something different and so I went and did that instead.
That's not to say you have to do everything that they want you to do. It's important that you stick to your brand, but at least you'll know so that you don't end up just posting a video you think is going to do well and then all you get is crickets.
Because you can easily fall into that trap of sort of not providing the audience with what they want as well and not being selfish and just doing what you want all the time. You have to do what they want to an extent, but you can implement what you want to do alongside as well.
How often should you post?
Your videos should be very authentic, very natural, very organic, very “just-seeing-it-for-the-first-time” type. Once a week is usually the minimum, but better too, especially for Tina's type of content, as she makes reaction videos, two or three is totally fine.
It's important to find a balance. Whatever number works for you, that will keep you consistent and happy and able to keep going.
Let me know:
I'm curious, do you have a community tab and how often do you use it? I want to know in the comments, what do you use it for? Or if this gives you some ideas, what do you plan to use it for in the future? And how often do you think you'll be posting?
So far we've been talking about how to get your large subscriber base to come back and start watching more of your videos. But there's a whole another part of this, which is on how to make your videos more discoverable to people who aren't your subscribers. You don't have to just fight your way to winning your old subscribers back. I think it's a worthy cause, but there's a whole audience out there that hasn't discovered the amazing Tina Time TV. So you can also focus on discoverability and that's what we're going to cover in the next section of this series. Stay tuned to find out.
We're back with TinaTimeTV which is a reaction channel that Tina runs and she is working on getting more views on her videos. We already talked in this series about how she can improve the click-through rate for her current subscribers to come to click on her videos and watch to improve her views. But she can also focus on getting discovered by other viewers that are not subscribed to her yet.
How to get your videos discovered?
If you are struggling to get your videos discovered by a new audience on YouTube here are a few handy tips you can implement to get your videos discovered. Starting off, you first need to ask yourself, how do you decide what kind of videos you are going to make?
Tina: To be quite honest, I thought it's doing reaction videos when I first started, so my channel and I've never, got off of the reaction video vibe. It was almost just the case of going, right, what should I react to, music that I enjoy, hip hop, R and B. Then I started to implement different genres like pop.
So when I look at Tina's channel and there are a lot of titles that specifically just say Tina reacting to “this video”. We talked about this before in terms of trying to get more subscribers to click through. It's the same concept with new people, but you also have to consider they don't have any idea who you are because they've never seen any of your videos.
Compelling titles to interest new audience
If you have a video title that just says reacting to or Tina reacts to Drake's new Song, x, y, or z, think about it from the perspective of the viewer because, once again, as I said before, you want to think about the value you're providing to the viewer since that's what draws them in to click on it.
What am I going to get out of this If I click on this video? If it just says reacting to “blank” or “Tina reacts to blank”, what you need to do is put yourself in their shoes and think about how do you stand out compared to a hundred other reaction videos that come out, especially over time as more people come out.
I would really think about the angle you're going to approach this video from that will make it different, unique, and special, then craft your title based on that. Make a unique and have a compelling thumbnail based on that. Not just you sitting there and a picture of the video. The viewer is going to see a dozen ones like that. And if they don't know who you are, to them, it's just some random lady reacting.
Come out unique
Every time you make a video from now on, think about what is unique about you that you can lend to this video. How can you explain that visually in your thumbnail and verbally in your title.
For instance, I really liked that when we did our J K Collab. Tina talked to me excitedly about how J K is from her town. That's a really unique and interesting angle that not a lot of other YouTuber's are going to have. So if you were able to quickly react to a new J K video, I would highly suggest you find a title that says something like fellow local girl reacts to JK , something like that.
Reference
Find something like, or just say I'm from the same town as JK this is what I really think. Maybe not that long, but that will really stand out. You'll need to craft the title and do your research. And that is something a lot each of us does not spend enough time on.
Over time you will get good at crafting quickly and have the perfect hook. Also, you need to do it before you shoot your video. Then you'll know how to have a compelling hook at the beginning.
Say I'm from the same town as J K and a lot of people are learning about the Brummie lifestyle. You can say: Here's my real reaction to whether his video is legitimate or not. It doesn't have to be that exactly. It's just you're trying to tell them at the beginning, just like in the title, what is unique that they're going to get out of the video. What's special compared to every other reaction out there.
You just have to think of some way that will help you stand up. Think of the really popular reaction videos of seniors react to kids games or teenagers react to video games from the '80s. It's not just Joe Schmo reacts to Monopoly or Nintendo Game Boy. What's special about it is that person we know is going to have no idea what this is about and that's what makes it funny. Only you can bring a special vibe to the video.
Leverage other influencers
If you are trying to draw in a crowd that likes reaction or advice videos, leverage other influencers popular in that space. Perhaps you could go to some other influencer who has made a reaction.
It doesn't mean have to be about the most popular thing. Maybe they decided they wanted to react to some funny eighties commercial and the video did really well. What you could do is you could also react to it. Give some kind of opposing view and reference them.
That's a way for you to potentially get in front of another reaction video person's audience. You specifically want to call them out, say their name. Probably mentioned it in the description or the title. You can even do funny reaction to reaction videos. I think those are hilarious. It doesn't have to necessarily be roasting or controversial. You give enough signals to YouTube to understand that this is somehow related to that other person's video. So that hopefully your video will become suggested.
YouTube will say, oh this viewer who subscribes to Sally's Superstar, might like this other person who made similar content.
Every niche can have various different types of strategies depending on the type of content you cover. Let me know what your content type is and how you plan to get your channel more discoverable.
What's more?
Reaction videos can't be monetized because the music belongs to the person that made it or the record company. So they monetize that video. They stop you from being able to monetize a video.
But wait. There are other ways to monetize if you want to make money from it which we'll talk about in the next video. So make sure you click on that and check out TinaTimeTV as well.
Does your YouTube Channel have a Brand Identity of its own that speaks for it even before you do? Do you believe in increasing your click-through rates through a solid brand identity for your YouTube Channel?
This is part 2 in the series with TinaTimeTV where I look into her YouTube channel and give her tips on how to get more out of it. In the last part, we discussed how a few simple channel makeover tips can bring a drastic change in the look and feel of a channel.
You can watch this session on my YouTube channel as well.
Improving Click-Through Rates Through Visual Brand Identity
In this post, I am going to look into Tina's videos and tell you guys a few things about a YouTube Channel's brand identity and how working on that can increase your click-through rate.
What is your channel's brand identity? It is the look and feel of your channel that stays in the minds of your audience and speaks for you even before you do.
Tina left her channel as she went on vacation, and her audience did not hear from her for a long time. Now that she is back, things seem to be picking up on her channel even if the pace is slow and that's great. I'm glad that Tina didn't give up, get mad or walk away. Some people are impatient, you know.
My main channel's been around a long time, but I know that doesn't mean that I should expect anything when I've taken a break or when I've changed my content a little bit. It could take months and months for the YouTube Algorithm to understand what I'm doing and understand how to serve the market.
Moreover, it takes a while to get my subscribers to trust me again. They've got to trust you to make consistent content. It's good to take responsibility for that to keep going. I'm glad that things have started to pick up for Tina again. That's something you only get when you are consistent.
Get Consistent Thumbnails
One thing I would suggest to Tina and everyone out there is to perhaps have more of a consistent look for your thumbnails. In Tina's channel, I saw different fonts, different sizes, different colors, which is fine, but your audience doesn't really get your brand this way.
In Tina's channel, I didn't get the look. I did see like there's some common vignetting but some fonts are pretty hard to read and a few need change in color to pop out and be more visible.
Have Some Brand Colors
It's good to have some brand colors that speak in your visuals. You can choose some brand colors even if you don't want to go for a full brand deal. It doesn't always have to be the same, but it's really good for viewers because when they see a thumbnail, eventually, they're gonna know this is a TinaTimeTV video before they even read what it says. They start to get used to the color, the look, and the feel of your videos.
On my music channel, my colors are blue, yellow, and white. My Dare to Dream School Is for a bit of a more adult audience, but still slightly young and feminine too, so I went for purple, blue and white. Those are my colors.
Anyways, the idea is that the thumbnails don't always have to be identical. You can change it up to change the look of your channel. I suggested to Tina that it doesn't always have to be her on the right and the box on the left. You can make many variations but still have a similar look, similar colors, and similar fonts.
Reflect your Brand and Content
Since Tina makes reaction videos having a more emotive face on the thumbnails can perform well for her. I saw that in a few of her thumbnails which reflect the content as well as her personality.
If you are doing something like Tina, that is making reaction videos, having an expression on your face in the thumbnail can make a difference. In most of her thumbnails nothing much is going on and that's a chance to have more of a visual reaction from her audience.
To stand out you want to tease what's going to happen in the video. Perhaps you didn't like the music video or maybe you did, but you're going to surprise people. You start out thinking you're not liking it and weren't going to like it but then you did. In Tina's case, she should want something that really has a visual punch to it.
It depends on the channel though. If you are going for an elegant theme on how to organize your closet and that kind of thing, maybe you don't need a big punchy, bold kind of look and color.
But for Tina, since she is doing reaction videos it's totally acceptable to do something that stands out more and has more of a color splash. I suggested her to decide on her look and decide on some brand colors.
Hire Someone
You can hire somebody on Fiverr. I hired a person on Fiverr to do my overall look, banner and my graphics. But once in a while, I'll also come to him for some thumbnail templates and I'll ask for a few pieces that I can piece together in Photoshop. These should fit that same look, the same theme, and the exact same colors.
I even save the hex code (the numerical representation) of the colors to be precise. So I always know my colors wherever I am on my blog, on my website, or I'm making new graphics. This is to have a consistent look and feel all across the Internet.
Think about Exciting and Inviting Titles
In addition to thumbnails, you also want to really think about your title. Think really long and hard about it and work on your title before you even shoot the video. That will help you know whether this is a
video that will even be something that your audience will want. Once that will perform well for whatever performance metric you're going for; might not be views in all cases, you'll see the title actually really worked.
It's up to you, think what do I want to accomplish with this video? What will I call it? And then once you have a really good idea of what the video will be about, what it will be called and what are the thumbnail will look like, then you can start working on actually making the video.
Have A Direction
It's important to work in a direction. Most people just shoot the video and think about the rest later. And if you're not result-oriented, it will affect how you shoot.
It'll affect what kind of thumbnail pictures you take and it will affect your working on the title.
You might decide, oh, you know what, this is old.
Nobody cares about this anymore.
Or Oh, this would be better if I went for this angle.
What if I made it a British person reacts to all American Hero, GI Joe movie number five?
Having a solid direction helps you think of the angle and that way you can think of the better title.
What Actually Happens
The reason why I bring up titles is that the title and the thumbnail are absolutely the most important things to consider when we're talking about trying to get your existing subscribers to watch your videos. Because here's what's happening.
You are not getting 111,000 people deciding not to watch your videos.
A lot of those people don't even know you have a new video out because nowadays people are subscribed to so many channels that YouTube isn't going to show them everybody on their subscription feed.
In fact, now YouTube is so obsessed with improving overall watch time that they will show people videos of channels that they are not even subscribed to. So now you're competing with people that your audience doesn't even know.
For that reason, it is so important that your title and your thumbnails stand out and are representative of the content that you think they will like. What probably is happening is that YouTube will show your brand new video to just a small percentage of your YouTube subscribers. And if it's not a really compelling thumbnail, if it's not a title that stands out, or like in Tina's case, if it just says Tina reacts to ‘name of a movie that the subscriber hasn't heard of', then maybe the subscriber doesn't care. They don't know what that movie is and so they just don't click it.
It's important you think about that title. Maybe it's a movie that they're going to want to know about because your title is really funny or it's terrible but in a good way. If that's the case, then it needs to be something like: Tina reacts to the worst movie of 2019.
That way it doesn't matter if they know what the movie is. All that matters is, oh, they want to know what the worst movie of 2019 is. They might now be more likely to click on it and then YouTube starts
paying attention to you as well.
YouTube is thinking when I showed this thumbnail and this title to this subscriber, did they click it?
Nope, they didn't. They kept scrolling.
Then maybe this video is not that good.
Over time it will show it to fewer and fewer subscribers because it needs that click-through rate as
well as other indicators that we discussed to determine if this is a good video fit for that person.
You should be focusing on how to get your subscribers to click on the video more when the video first comes out because then it will compound and YouTube will show it to more and more people from your subscribers until there's a general drop off. This is the same concept as Instagram's. The algorithms has to be figure it out.
YouTube Channel Brand Identity in Conclusion
So, in conclusion, you need to be doing a few things to make people recognize you as a brand:
You need to work on your colors, font type, font sizes, and general styling to gain a brand identity.
Make compelling thumbnails that speak of you, your brand and the content inside the video. Thumbnails should be made with the focus on inviting people to your content.
Same goes for the titles. Titles should be as catching as the thumbnails so that it helps to increase your click-through rates.
Stay tuned for part 3 of this series and more amazing tips on expanding and improving your YouTube channel.
Today I’m with Tina from Tina Time TV, a reaction video channel with over 110,000 subs. Recently her viewership went down after she went on a break for a couple of months. So she's in a unique situation and we're going to help her figure out how to get that momentum back up on her channel.
I’ve made some videos with Tina before. I've helped her work on the content of the video itself. Make sure you check that out on the playlist that I have.
Right now though, we're going to do a channel review. I'm going to look at the overall performance of her channel, how it looks to potential subscribers, to existing subscribers, and figure out what can she do to get more of her subscribers to watch. But also I'm introducing her to the concept that she doesn't need to just focus on getting more of her subscribers to watch, but also to just make her videos more discoverable to potential new subscribers.
This is part 1 of a 4 part series. You can also watch the entire session on my Youtube channel.
How to Makeover Your Youtube Channel
Tip #1 – Value Proposition
All right, so I really like the front of her channel. She has a really nice professional looking logo.
The front of your channel is your chance to give a very short five to eight-word summary of not what the channel's about, but what the user is going to get out of it.
So whether your viewers are they going to laugh at your awesome reaction videos, or they are going to get great advice from a big sister to help them in life, this is the place that tells then what to exactly expect of your channel.
It's called a value proposition.
It's really important to think about what value are you giving to somebody else. Instead of thinking of it as how do I get more subscribers, think about how and what can I do to give value to people that would make them want to subscribe to me.
Think about what is the value of what you offer.
If you're not sure, ask your subscribers.
Do you have a lot of them? Ask them in your videos to let you know, what did they get out of it.
Or somebody just leaves a comment – Haha! You're so funny to see.
Give them a response – That's great. Can I ask you a few questions?
And then just start serving them. It really works. A great thing about Youtube is that you have direct access to your audience. You can get more information out of them.
If they say, oh, it's because when I'm having a bad day, you cheer me up.
Or if it's not, it's I like that you give sass and you don't care who you know are.
Or You give me the confidence to say things like they are because you, you do that.
How to give value to your readers?
It's up to you what value you want to give to people based on that information. Make sure it's authentic to you. I asked Tina to come up with the value proposition and I would put it on the front of her channel right on her banner.
Now when a person reads your value proposition, they will either say, yeah, I'm going to buy into that and I'm going to subscribe, or, Nah, that's not really my thing and they leave.
That's good. You don't want somebody who doesn't like your content to subscribe because then they're not going to look at your videos. And that's bad because YouTube is going to see, her own subscribers don't watch her video so this must not be a good video.
It's important that you know your audience and you serve only them and don't worry about everybody else.
Tip # 2 – The Aesthetics in Your Profile Picture
I'd also suggested Tina a heavy and higher contrast. Her previous black and white photo was replaced by a color photo for her. It instantly became something that stands out.
Do you go and comment on other people's YouTube? Are you active in the community?
When you do that, you want to be recognizable. When your profile picture's small, and you're leaving a comment, it's very hard to tell that's even a person.
Just imagine how little it will be on somebodies phone.
You want something that stands out, especially because, it feels good when somebody recognizes you on somebody else's YouTube channel and they say, oh my gosh, it's the Tina Time TV. I love you.
You want people to be able to recognize you so they have a chance to get to know you and get used to seeing your face. I would suggest something that is more recognizable, preferably in color, just because it will stand out more.
Tip # 3 – A Strategy to Plan How the Channel Looks
Looking at Tina’s channel as somebody who is subscribed, I had to make out what is where. So I asked her, Have you had any strategy to how it looks in the front? Her answer was no.
I noticed because it just shows uploads. I would definitely set it up so that she has playlists and I would break it up.
I would do some like the long horizontal playlist, and then also the ones where a whole playlist is represented by just one graphic thumbnail so that you have some horizontal and then some individual thumbnails and some horizontal.
You want to just break it up so that it's easy visually for people to travel through and decide what they want to look at. You definitely want to take advantage of this real estate because this is your chance to shine, show your best content and organize it.
If you only put it up like the way it was on Tina’s channel, I could only see a few of her latest videos. What if none of those are interesting to the viewer?
Channel Trailer
All right, so next looked at Tina’s channel like someone who is not subscribed. As a non-subscriber, the first thing I saw on her channel was a reaction video “Yas more money”.
That was a choice by Tina herself as she wanted people to know she did reaction videos for the UK as well as The US music videos.
Although that was a strategy it wasn’t going that well on her channel. I suggested she tried a different video on the main area of her channel.
This video didn't have like a ton of views. Also, I wouldn't necessarily say you have to put your most popular video but more of what is a really good representational video that you think people would really like. Also, it would give people a good idea of what they'd be getting themselves into if they came and were considering subscribing.
Usually, that can be indicated by how popular video is, but not always. The front video of my music channel isn't the most popular one. But it is something that represents my channel. It's colorful, it's bright, it's well done. It has pretty good views so that there is some authority there. People will see, okay, this is pretty okay because so this person must know what they're doing.
I don't worry about, oh I must show my most viral video in the front. Think about it as a commercial for your channel.
A channel trailer is a very good option. Not everybody decides to put that, some people just post their most recent videos. So it's up to you. But I do think channel trailers are good because it allows you to show highlights from many of your videos.
Do you need a Channel Trailer?
Many people are successful on YouTube without doing a channel trailer, but if we're talking about best practices and you're trying to do anything you can to improve on YouTube, then yes, a channel trailer is a great way to just show highlights of the best things on your channel.
What should a channel trailer have?
You can introduce yourself. Don't make the intro too long verbally. Give people that visual punch right away to draw them in because you can always do a different video that's more of a story time about yourself for your biggest fans. Don't expect that to go viral. That's more of a bonus video for the people who do really like you and want to help encourage your most deep-rooted and fans.
But I do think a mistake people make in their channel trailers is spending too much time talking about themselves instead of showing people what they're going to get out of the video. So your YouTube Channel makeover needs a sound video as your intro video.
