Have you ever wanted to profess your love of gaming to the entire world? Well, YouTube could give you that scope to chat openly about your hobby, talk to likeminded people and who knows – even become gain a bit of fame out of your love of gaming! It may seem like an extremely easy task to film videos in the comfort of your own bedroom and uploading them straight to the website; but it can take a great deal of time and planning to make sure you stand out from the crowd and ultimately, get noticed in a competitive field.
Here are six top tips to bear in mind on creating your very own successful YouTube gaming channel:
1. Choosing a name
Before you start filming videos, you need to come up with a successful name for your channel. Try and steer your ideas more towards what your videos will be focused on and your own personal gaming interests. On the other hand, it’s also good to come up with a more generalized name that’s catchy and fun, something people will remember.
2. Come up with a plan
It’s sometimes enjoyable to just ‘wing’ it and to create videos off-the-cuff. However, to ensure your videos are slick and polished, it’s always best to create an initial plan as to the styles of videos you’re looking to create, for the target audience you hope to gain.
What you truly need to think about is whether you’re looking to do this solely as a hobby, or are you looking to expand your channel into a business opportunity. Once you’ve decided on your long-term goal, your short-term goals will become much clearer.
There are two major factors that define a good gaming channel. These are entertainment and education. While you may find your content to be fully entertaining, it can be a very subjective matter as some may find your videos enjoyable on the basis of your own opinion or amusement of the game being played; but it’s also best to add in a bit of an educational spin to keep your followers hooked.
3. Find a niche
As part of your planning process, you may wish to come up with your very own niche. Preferably, a theme that isn’t already swamped on YouTube by hundreds of gamers. If you choose to make videos on the same old subject area, you’ll just end up becoming a small fish in a very big ocean, and who wants that?
You’ll need to think up how your channel will be fresh and unique in comparison to what you have already been watching and consider the type of content you’d be most interested in producing, whether that be a specific series of games or a certain genre.
4. Set a schedule
As you’re likely to build a base of faithful subscribers once you start posting content, you need to keep them amused by setting a weekly or monthly schedule on when you aim to publish videos. It’s best to post regularly and often for your channel to stay relevant on YouTube. You should, therefore, aim to record and publish a video on a set day every week or month. YouTube’s algorithms work on the basis that your popularity is determined as to how often you post and the way in which users react to your content.
As a channel grows though, it’s best to release at least 2-3 videos per week to gain a substantial following initially. You may then choose to cut down your content and put more time into each video, the more your follower base grows. If you simply aren’t available on a certain day for your normal day of upload, don’t panic! YouTube have their very own scheduling feature, so your video publishes on the date and time of your choice, without having to be readily available yourself.
5. Equipment
For your gaming channel to look slick and professional, you need to ensure you have the correct equipment to produce your videos. To start off with, it would be worth investing in the latest game console of the Xbox or PlayStation range, as these are the most popular consoles with avid gamers.
Although it’s not essential to film yourself within videos, allowing subscribers to get to know you, gives a much more personal feel to your videos, with a higher likelihood of gaining more subscribers to your channel. If you wish to go down this route, you’ll need to invest in a high-definition camera with an equally good microphone, which can pick up your voice without interference.
Your computer should also be up-to-date to install the software necessary for a gaming video. The process of creating the video involves the actual gaming, recording, and editing. Therefore, your computer will need to have features such as a decent RAM, graphics card and storage space. You can learn more about building your gaming computer online easily.
It goes without saying that such equipment can be extremely expensive, especially if you need to purchase it all at once to get your gaming channel up and running with immediate effect. However, if you just haven’t got the funds right now, you may consider taking out a loan. Your credit score may not be that great, but Opploans gives you the second chance you need to get your hands on those all-important funds, with the added benefit of a much better rate than a standard loan.
6. Allow friends to join in
Instead of gaming alone within your videos, why not add an extra touch of fun by inviting friends to play with you? It would be a great way of changing up your content and making videos much more natural, than if you were to film your content based on a planned structure. Inviting friends to join you allows for better discussion and entertaining conversations. Work out how many people you’d be happy to join with you and research the types of games on the market that work well with multiplayer. Bear in mind though, that the editing process may take slightly longer than usual, as there’s guaranteed to be unexpected surprises!
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