We know Youtube is the mecca for all video makers! If you have been toying with the idea of starting a YouTube channel for yourself or your brand, you’ve come to the right place.
Over the last few years, Youtube has launched multiple academies and avenues for you to learn, adapt, and earn hundreds of dollars with your content. Every successful Youtuber has tricks up their sleeve, which not only makes their content fun to watch but also unique to their own style.
Youtube is the only video platform that is popular for long-form video content, but that does not need to necessarily apply to you. Even though 5 minutes is the most popular length of the video, there are other factors that contribute to this metric. For example, Your content category, your content format, and most importantly, what your audience likes!
Let’s get started by exploring the top-performing categories on Youtube:
- Entertainment: Even though all-encompassing, entertainment videos can be wide-ranging from video sketches, celebrity interviews, or just funny animal videos.
- Food: Food as a category, even though self-explanatory, has a lot to explore. DIY recipes, cooking challenges, and food photography tutorials are all the rage these days.
- Gaming: Becoming a Youtube Gamer is a legit career choice for anyone who can put together wit, gaming skills, and some rad editing skills in the mix.
- Beauty and Fashion: DIY videos, product reviews, fashion expert interviews, and fashion listicles does not even begin to scrape the surface of how much there is to explore in this category.
- Music: Even though we see new music streaming apps getting launched on a daily basis, but Youtube continues to be the leader in this category. Over time the music industry has also discovered some amazing artists on the platform and launched them with big labels. (Anyone remembers Justin Bieber’s Baby?)
- Sports: From live streaming, sports documentaries, to technique videos, sports as a category lets you explore the lengths and breaths of the platform.
- Travel: Travel experiences, travel vlogs, and documentaries are top-performing sub-categories for this category.
While we know the top-performing categories on Youtube, there are 10 different types of Youtube videos you can take inspiration from and adapt to your category, style, and skill –
- Product review videos: Product review videos are simply single frame videos which can go up to 2 to 6 mins long.
Example: Fashion Vloggers doing a review on the new BodyShop Green Tea Extract range. - How-to videos(DIY): Do it Yourself or How-To videos are step by step guide to finishing a task.
Example: Steps for baking a cake, or Halloween make-up tutorial. - Vlogs: Vlogs are basically articles converted into videos. They can be informational or documentative in nature.
Example: A travelers experience visiting Vietnam - Gaming Videos: These can be the recording of your screen playing a game while you do a voice-over commentary or tricks and hacks for winning games
Example: PewDiPie playing Minecraft - Comedy/skit videos: Also known as sketches, this is the bread and butter of entertainment publishers like Buzzfeed. These videos are scripted, rehearsed, and recorded.
Example: 10 types of banter spouses get into - Haul videos: A standard format for beauty and fashion bloggers. This form of content can have lots of fun treatments like hyper-lapse or on the clock.
Example: A Mall Haul with a mother-daughter pairing! - Favorites/Best of: A listicle format of content, which is a favorite for Fantasy Folklore and storytelling. This is mostly editing of preexisting content.
Example: Best Avengers who ever lived - Educational videos: Informational and tutorial videos about any category. These are used for training and learning. These can be long-form content, going up to hours.
Example: How to use Google AdWords to create an ad - Q&A videos: Videos that are driven out of user-generated content. Questions are picked by the vlogger, which are asked by their subscribers and/or fans.
Example: Who is a better villain: Lord Voldermort or Thanos? - Prank videos: This is an unu
- sual category with different treatments and video formats. From sketches, dares to prank calls, these videos can be as short as a minute and as long as 15-20 minute episodes.
Example: Stealing Halloween candies from kids.
Now that you have gotten a crash-course in types and formats of Youtube Videos, let’s head to the four-step mantra to get them rolling:
1. Planning and outlining:
Did you know – The first 15 seconds of your video are key in deciding if the audience will continue watching your video or not! That basically means that you might do your best work under pressure or that things come to you easily when you click on that ‘record’ button, but knowing your punches is important.
Everyone has a different process, some write down pointers before starting out, some script their whole videos, and some just wing it! It is good to have a groove till the time you’re sure you’ll be able to deliver the best version of your video!
2. Filming your video:
If you wish to become a Youtuber, you know you need to have a filming process in place. It makes your life easier and lets to cut-copy-paste your video making process for different formats.
What can you do to embrace this process:
- Create your own style by having a unique approach to the setting, background, or clothing style.
- Have a range of your best frames
- Earmark some angles that you know are best performing for your category
Know the lighting that works best for you - Take care of your audio, especially if you are recording the audio with the video.
- Narrow in on the type of mic that you will need
While these are some fail-safe things you should know, sometimes your videos do not require you to film anything and can be created by just slicing and dicing existing content on the internet. There are multiple online video maker available out there, while our personal recommendation would be invideo.
3. Editing:
This is when things get interesting. Editing is where things come together, and your product becomes the best version of itself.
- Start by choosing the right software. You can use InVideo’s free online YouTube video creator, which lets you design and edit an aesthetic YouTube video.
- Invest time in color correction.
- Include lots of onscreen graphics, these let you drop engagement cues for the audience.
- Always have contextual audio. It could be voice-overs, commentary, or just some music.
4. Posting:
Every YouTuber must invest in scheduling. Decide a weekly frequency for posting videos and always stick to it. Let your subscribers know your posting schedule. It helps improve engagement and visibility.
Know that the first 48 hours of posting your video are very important. The more engagement and views you garner better will be the base for growth.
In conclusion
Crackdown on your category, make a list of formats that you know you will ace, come up with a distinctive style, and get started. Creating videos is an art, talent, and expression. Sure they can be time-consuming sometimes, but they can be very rewarding – monetarily and otherwise!
