Avoid these 3 Mistakes if you want to grow FAST on YouTube

Let me guess, this isn't the first time you're watching a video about how to grow your YouTube channel. You probably spent hours, maybe even months, learning how to start and where to start. But this endless cycle of learning needs to end.

Previously, I did a survey among my subscribers to understand their biggest struggles. So today, I'm going to share the most common struggles people face when starting a new YouTube channel and how to overcome them. I understand how you feel because it took me ages to get where I am today. From the outside, it looks like my channel is an overnight success because we reached 100K subscribers in 3 months and to 1 million in 2 years.

But before this channel, I had four failed channels. Actually, I've been making videos since 2015, and it's been 9 years. Only the last 3 to 4 years have been successful, so it took me 5 years to learn how to start a successful YouTube channel. I don't want you to take 5 years like I did.

One of the biggest mistakes I've done in the beginning was posting videos before I even knew my long-term goal. I never thought about it. I hear some YouTubers encouraging to just keep posting consistently, and then they promise you will be successful. I understand where they come from because most people don't even post for a year and they just quit.

But I did post for 5 years and nothing happened. Maybe it was because my content was really awful; even being consistent wasn't enough. It didn't work in 2015, you know. Right now, the competition is much higher compared to back then. Imagine even in 2015 you couldn't get away with just posting content. So how do you think you're going to stand out from a bunch of YouTubers that are in 2024? Not just by posting random content you fancy.

So what should you do? If I would have only 48 hours, the first thing I would do is determine my niche. I would probably spend about 12 hours on this. If you want to grow fast on social media, you got to start narrow. There are some exceptions, like if you have an interesting life or personality or if you already have the skills to create videos right. If you have good production quality, then you don't necessarily need to start narrow, but that doesn't apply to 99% of people I know.

Even if you have these skills, these advantages, it will still take time for you to grow. If you start broad, you can always broaden your niche once you build an audience in a smaller niche. So how can you pick a niche? There are two approaches to pick your niche, and it actually depends on your long-term financial goal. You might think, "I haven't even started posting; like why would I think about monetization?" But that's one of the mistakes I see people making.

Because depending on your financial goal, the way you pick your niche, the way you pick your content strategy is going to be different. So it's actually crucial to be clear about your approach from the start. Because we're not treating YouTube as a hobby. If you want to become a YouTuber, you need to treat it as a business, and to do so, you need to have a clear strategy.

There are two main ways to pick a niche: either pick something you are super passionate about, you know you can't like shut up about, you just love that thing, or pick something you're good at and have credibility in. The first approach is where you take the reporter approach. It's a really good way to start your channel, especially if you're not an expert yet or let's say you don't have the credibility to teach others about something but have a burning passion for a specific topic.

It can be anything from books, fitness, finance, philosophy, tech, you name it. If you don't know what you are passionate about, what you can do is ask your friends, ask your family about the topics that you like to talk about. It should be something you like spending your time learning about and exploring different subtopics in it because once you start your channel, you're going to spend a lot of time learning about it instead of presenting yourself as a guru.

You can dive into a topic you are passionate about, document your journey, and share what you learn along the way. Let's say you want to start a fitness channel but you're not in shape, or you're not necessarily in really good shape. So instead of trying to give exercise and diet advice to people, what I would do is document my own fitness journey.

I would share the workout routines that I'm doing, what I'm eating, the challenges that I'm facing, and also the progress that I'm making, like physical and mental. Because when you do so, people will relate to your authenticity and appreciate the real-time updates on your journey. If people can see you're actually getting in shape each video by video, then that's more motivating.

Also, by documenting your own transformation, not only do you gain credibility but you also become more relatable by showing the process of how you changed. Or let's say you want to start a channel about building a business, but you haven't built any businesses. Rather than giving people advice on how to start, read books, listen to podcasts, watch videos, and try and share what you learned, and also the results that you got from those things.

So document each step and share the mistakes you made. So basically, it's like becoming a human guinea pig. You're going to try new things, learn from your experiences, and document the process. Once you share these insights, right, once you gain this credibility through your documentation and also gain a following, then you can monetize your knowledge and the experiences that you had with your audience.

This can be selling your knowledge, selling products, maybe services, maybe coaching. For example, if your fitness journey leads to significant results, and you actually got really fit, you could create workout plans or do coaching and help your audience get fit. The reporter approach not only helps you build trust and engage with your audience but also allows you to grow your expertise naturally.

It will take more time to monetize, but since you don't have credibility, it's always much better to gain the credibility first and then monetize. So if you're fine with this, I would highly recommend going with the reporter route when you're trying to grow your YouTube channel.

Having the right tools can make all the difference. Our today's sponsor Tube Magic is an AI tool that helps YouTubers grow on YouTube. It was designed by another YouTuber, Matt Par, who runs the Make Money Matt channel and runs more than 12 channels, which is crazy.

Tube Magic has a niche explorer tool with a list of best niches on YouTube with example channels and estimated RPMs of those niches. Not only that, it can also help you come up with video ideas based on how your channel is doing or any other channels you choose. You can literally take the link, put it into Tube Magic, and get ideas, and all of your ideas will be saved in logs so you will never lose any of them. You can also use a new script writer feature to create scripts for your videos.

You just need Tube Magic to tell your topic, and it will generate a script to guide you. You can use the generated script as a guide whenever you're stuck and don't know what to say. Also, it can optimize your videos. You just need to drop an unlisted video link, and it will generate a title, description, and also optimize tags for you.

To try it out completely free, check the link in the description below. Thank you, Tube Magic, for sponsoring this part. If you already got some experience, if you already have some credibility in a certain area, I would go for the teacher approach to pick a niche.

Jot down the problems you solved in the past. It can be anything like physical transformation, or maybe how you overcame your mental issues, or maybe how you built a business, or maybe learned a new language like I did. If you already solved your problems before, monetizing and growing your channel is far easier compared to the reporter approach because you already did your work beforehand.

Let's say I want to start a channel about growing a YouTube channel, and I've already built one, right? What I would do is jot down the exact steps I would follow if I were just starting out, just like I did for this video. So what are the lessons you wish someone had taught you when you were just starting? You know what are the struggles that you faced.

Let's say you want to help people to get fit; then what's the most common struggle they face? I think people struggle with not knowing where to start or how to stay consistent, and they don't know how to eat healthy. For each problem my audience might be facing, I would write down how I solved it or overcame it in the past and turn that into a video, basically teaching people.

If you already got a business or service, YouTube is actually an amazing platform to promote it because the organic traffic that you can get is crazy. I would use YouTube mainly to promote the service that you have and show how you can help people and demonstrate how your products or services can solve your audience's problems. It builds trust, it drives traffic, and it's probably going to be much more converting than paid ads.

If you don't have a business yet, I would find a gap in the market and then create a service or product that addresses specific problems that my audience might be facing. So write down the problems your audience might be facing and solve them with your videos.

Offer products and services. For example, there are tons of YouTube courses teaching how to succeed on YouTube, but I took most of them, and most of them lack accountability and continuous support after the course. That's why I created my own thing where you not only learn about how to grow your YouTube channel but also meet people who share the same goals, ask me questions, keep yourself accountable, and find support.

If you're interested, check the link in the description below. By positioning yourself as a teacher, you can quickly build trust with your audience because you already know what you're talking about. You can create multiple income streams, and your expertise not only helps other people but also makes you a go-to authority in your niche, which is really important for long-term success on YouTube.

So if you already know what you're talking about, go for the teacher route. You don't need to worry about others discovering your videos in the early stages because realistically, nobody's going to watch them, okay? Even if people do find it and they're not supportive of your goals or, worst-case scenario, make fun of you, they shouldn't be a part of your life anyway.

When I was in high school, right, when I was trying to grow my YouTube channel, lots of people made fun of me, but look where we are. Are they here? No. So it doesn't matter. Other people's opinions do not have to become your reality. Just because they're telling you that you're a loser, does it mean you're a loser? No.

Your journey on YouTube is about your personal growth and achieving your dreams, not like pleasing everyone around you. So you need to have the courage to be disliked and stand firm in your convictions. Every successful person in any area faces criticism and doubt from others, but that shouldn't dictate your actions.

It took me four failed channels to reach here. If I would just give up on the first channel, I wouldn't be here. I kept going. Whenever you feel like you're about to give up, you got to ask yourself: Are you living for someone else, or are you living a life true to yourself? What do you want from your life?

This is your chance to pursue something that you're passionate about, to create content that you're proud of, and make a living out of it. It's essential to surround yourself with people who uplift you and support you rather than those trying to bring you down, make fun of you, and discourage you.

So you got to focus on your vision and keep pushing forward, even when it's hard. Because with time, the right people will appreciate your authenticity and dedication towards your journey, and they'll watch your videos. They will become your audience, and they will support you.

If you want to learn more about how to grow your YouTube channel, you might be interested in this video.