Uploading video to YouTube can be an intimidating thing for someone, even more than podcasting. Did you know that "scopophobia" is the fear of being watched? More of us know it as being "camera shy". So what are some of the reasons for being "camera shy"?
- Self Esteem Problems
- Confidence Problems
- Anxiety
- Social Anxiety
- Fear of critique
We're definitely not doctors and Kate can tell you from experience that she doesn't like being on camera, but only does it because she wants to help build her confidence. Putting yourself out there is a big deal and if you've done that already, congratulations! That is a major first step to building your channel. For whatever reason you are considering putting yourself up on YouTube, you do it for you! We're here today to help go through the basics to get started.
The Account
YouTube has been owned by Google since 2006 so if you want to be on YouTube, you need a free Google account. More than likely, you already have one. If not, head over to Google and sign up. Once you've done that, head over to YouTube.com/account and you'll be able to add your channel there. If you are creating an account as an individual, you should be good to go. If you're creating a "brand", then you might want to read up on YouTube brand accounts. After creating the channel, you can add an additional "Manager" to the account if you have a partner in your venture. If you ever outsource video editing, you can use this tool to add the editor's account as a manager so they can upload your videos.
Once you're ready to go you can click the "Create" button in the upper right-hand corner and upload your first video!
The Equipment
The Camera
Things have really changed a lot since we first started building out our venture. Laptops come with 1080p quality webcams built-in. You can buy 4k webcams for under $100 (they may not work for very long, though...buyer beware). Unfortunately, my MacBook pro that I purchased in 2020 still has a 720p camera built-in. If you don't know what that means, in theory, it generally means that it's a clearer sharper picture (there's a lot more to it, but we're keeping it simple for today). That being said, if you don't have a great Internet connection, recording your video in 4k quality doesn't make a lot of sense as the file size will be huge. Also, many video editing software doesn't even fully support 4k video yet.
YouTube allows you to change the quality of the video as you watch, so if you record yourself in 1080p, a user could watch in 1080p quality or they could lower the quality on the YouTube player to 720p so it works better. Whatever you do is up to you.
Oh, and many people are recording video on cell phones or tablets. With the quality of camera included on the latest iPhones and Android phones, why not? The higher-end phones can record close to cinema quality and some filmmakers have used their phones to make movies, believe it or not. If you want to record your video on your phone, go for it!
Editing Software
In theory, you could take your video and upload it directly to YouTube. I wouldn't recommend that because it doesn't look very professional and it will likely turn viewers away from watching the entire video or worse they definitely won't subscribe to your channel. If you're on a Macbook, iPad, or iPhone you could in theory use iMovie. It's a great basic tool, but definitely very limited on features. However, there's no reason to spend thousands of dollars on Adobe Premier when you're starting out. That doesn't make sense either.
We use Wondershare Filmora. They offer a free version of the software that adds a watermark, but it at least gives you the opportunity to try it out to see if you like it before purchasing the software. We feel it has a good combination of being easy to use along with other features like picture in picture, and titles and transitions so it doesn't give your video that feel that it for sure came out of iMove stock templates.
Title Cards
Some of the many amazing YouTube Thumbnail templates available on Canva.
To catch the attention of people, you absolutely need to have a catchy title card. That image preview is what the user sees when searching and if your card is boring, nobody is going to watch your video. We recommend using Canva and searching "YouTube Thumbnail" for some great templates that you can easily customize to your needs. For more information on Canva, check out our blog post. Canva is an incredibly powerful tool that has a large collection of free tools. The paid subscription is very affordable and opens up a very large library of templates, images, video clips, and other functions that will make your video look amazing.
Conclusion
These are some very basic tips and suggestions for getting started on YouTube. There have been entire books written on this topic, so consider this to be the first part of chapter one. We encourage you to keep on experimenting with what works best for you and let us know any tips you may want to share! When you're ready to grow your sports video channel, we invite you to join the Stadium Scene Network. You can start off for free and jump into the premium service to access the full library of content that is growing by the week! We have much more in-depth and specialized tutorials available to help you grow your brand and get better at what you do!
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This post was proofread by Grammarly
