With social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and all the others pervading every waking moment of our lives, becoming famous has never been easier.
Today, anyone can be the next big thing. The road to internet stardom is not limited to the mainstream media anymore.
In fact, whether you’ve made it through YouTube or via the traditional route, the line between the two is so blurred as to be almost non-existent. So start broadcasting on YouTube, and you never know where you might end up!
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Becoming A YouTube Superstar
Becoming YouTube-famous isn’t as easy as some would like you to believe.
When it comes to getting noticed, it helps if you and your videos are as popular as possible from the get-go. Sounds crazy, but that is why some people buy YouTube views. The more popular you appear, the more likely people are to click your videos. The more views you get, the easier it is to get more.
People gravitate toward videos with more views and channels with huge subscriber counts. The number of subscribers and views serve as a recommendation, and that is the power of Social Proof.
A video that goes viral is your quickest ticket to popularity. The problem is, there’s no sure-fire way to create viral videos. If your videos get buried by 300 hours of other videos being uploaded to YouTube every minute, you’re left just optimizing your videos with tags and descriptions, and hoping those will make it easier for people to find you.
Of course, you can always do more to build up your audience. Let’s take a look at a few famous YouTubers who have made it through the gauntlet, and we’ll see why they are loved by millions.
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VanossGaming
It took Evan Fong, the owner of YouTube channel VanossGaming, a year and a half before he started becoming popular. What’s interesting is that in the beginning he never really worked on becoming famous. He was just another guy entertaining himself as he played video games on the net and recorded it for YouTube.
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With over 20 million subscribers, he’s definitely come a long way. Nowadays, he’s getting an average of 7 million views a day and earning $11,000 per day from YouTube ads alone.
While he credits the current generation’s preference for authentic content to be the reason why people like him thrive on YouTube, he also believes in hard work.
In one of his interviews, he said, “You are only as good as your last video on YouTube.” Indeed, one thing you’ll notice with his videos is that they’re all of high-quality. They have better edits and smoother animations.
So unless your videos are irresistibly funny or charming, you want to avoid uploading raw videos. Funny raw videos can be great, however, if your audience can relate to your content.
As a matter of fact, a study confirms that happiness shared online can be very contagious. So, if you want your videos to go viral and spread like wild, don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself. VanossGaming has lots of videos like this, though they are high-quality.
VSauce
VSauce is one of the most popular science channels on YouTube. It is collectively composed of three channels – VSauce1, VSauce2 and VSauce3 – and has over 18 million subscribers together in total.
It started off as a video game parody channel, like so many others. When Michael Stevens, the originator of the channel, felt he could not sustain making video game content anymore, he decided to start doing educational videos.
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Stevens is naturally curious and likes to find the answers to the random scientific questions he comes up with. He believes people like his videos because his genuine interest in whatever he’s filming jumps off the screen and resonates with his viewers.
Undeniably, you don’t have to love science to love his channel. People who like to find interesting answers to their questions, or maybe just put a name to a phenomenon, will always find VSauce interesting.
As Stevens said, when people click the Like button, they aren’t just saying they like the video, they are also telling the world that they identify with the topic, as do most science educators who use his videos in teaching. His videos are also very high-quality, which definitely makes them more enjoyable to watch.
Indeed, even children can relate to his channel because he uses real-world context in his explanation. Additionally, children or not, he doesn’t talk down to his viewers. Just like other popular YouTubers, he says stuff like “dude,” “guys,” and keeps it casual when talking to his audience.
Stevens also uses highly-clickable titles like “What If Everyone JUMPED At Once?” to intrigue his viewers. That video now has over 24 million views.
Those are just some of the reasons why he is so popular. So when you’re thinking of the kind of content you should feature on your channel, pick something that you think your audience will likely find very interesting and use titles that grab their attention. Don’t forget that it is not just the content that matters, but also your delivery.
Veritasium
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Another popular science channel on YouTube that makes learning fun is physicist Derek Muller’s Veritasium. It has subscribers approaching the 4 million mark and is on everyone’s list of the top YouTube channels every science nerd should watch.
Veritasium features videos debunking common misconceptions about science, the physics behind slinky drops, experiments of all kinds, expert interviews, discussions, and much more.
In the beginning, Muller only shared his video clips with friends on social media sites. Nowadays, mainstream media companies tap him to present science documentaries and host TV programs.
Like Stevens of VSauce, Muller believes that the authenticity of his videos is what makes people like him and keep coming back for more. The key, they say, is not your high volume of production but the way you genuinely open yourself and connect to viewers.
What’s great about Veritasium is that it makes science theories and concepts easy to understand. In addition to the videos being informative, Muller also makes sure whatever information he puts out there is accurate. He said that he consults experts all the time, and when he makes mistakes he does his best to correct them.
What Muller proves is that it is possible to cross the line between the tube and YouTube. It can also be very helpful to post your videos on your social media channels and to ask friends and family to promote your videos, like he did.
Dream Big!
Becoming a YouTube superstar is possible for anyone. Don’t stop learning, and take what you can from the giants on YouTube so you can become big yourself.
Remember, you can also consider buying YouTube views to make your videos more visible. The number of views you have on your videos is one of the factors that help get them on top of searches both on YouTube and Google. Get more views, get on top of search result pages, and superstardom is within believable reach.
Replicate what successful people have been doing when it makes sense for you to do, and believe in yourself enough to do something different. Don’t let little hurdles – or haters – stop you from reaching your dreams.
You can do it!
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