[00:00] YouTube can be a difficult platform to succeed on, especially in the gaming space as a small creator. But it doesn't have to be. That's why in today's video, I'm going to be showing you 10 huge mistakes I continue to see small YouTube gaming channels make
[00:15] that I don't want you to make if you're trying to grow. Jumping into mistake number one is gaming for easy money. For people that are a little bit new to this space, you may not be aware that gaming isn't the most profitable thing you can be doing on YouTube.
[00:33] Real estate, finances, and even talking about cars will suit you better if you're trying to make fast money on YouTube. The CPM, which stands for cost per mouth or cost per thousand as it relates to YouTube terminology,
[00:47] is the amount of money for every thousand times an advertisement is played on one of your videos. The typical CPM for a gaming video ranges between $1 to $3 on the high end, and $3 is even a little bit rare for most people.
[01:02] That's not a lot. The reasoning for why the CPMs are so low on gaming content is the fact that a lot of the viewers watching gaming videos are not a buying audience. These are typically younger people, like teenagers, that don't have a lot of buying power compared to middle-aged people.
[01:18] So why am I telling all this to you? Well, it's to get you thinking of the why for why you want to do YouTube. Whatever reason that's coming to your mind right now has to be sustainable over a long period of time.
[01:32] Because if it's not, you're going to just end up quitting. The next big mistake is not taking the time to generate innovative ideas. I ran a recent poll in my community tab asking you guys what you believe to be the most important aspect of creating a successful YouTube video.
[01:48] You guys are definitely not wrong about the video editing and thumbnail being important, but the video idea fails above everything else. Without having a great video idea, it won't even matter if you have spectacular video edits or an amazing thumbnail.
[02:02] No one's going to click on it regardless. The third mistake I see a lot of small YouTube gaming channels making is saying that it's all luck. That cannot be further from the truth. You have to put running and growing a YouTube channel in the same category as running a small business, because that's what it is.
[02:20] So to help explain this narrative of how you can approach your YouTube gaming channel more so like a business, I created this diagram with four areas that you should focus on to optimize the growth of your YouTube gaming channel.
[02:32] Area number one is to address the type of gaming content that you're interested in. So I could stretch a wide net of areas, that's okay. But in this section, you want to narrow this down even more and think about the gaming content that excites you the most.
[02:47] It could be a set of games that are similar to one another or have a lot of audience crossover. This area will essentially define the niche for your YouTube channel. Just playing whatever the heck you want is not going to cut it.
[02:59] You can't play racing car games and then Mario games on the same channel. That's not going to work. Those have no crossover correlations. you have to find a specific game or a set of games that are very closely related to one another with a similar audience in order to continue your growth.
[03:15] Some example gaming channels that have proven this to work is MMG focusing on Madden and football related content Black Panther for cars and racing games Core Coke for Rocket League IMD1 for Call of Duty content Hydrix for Mario Kart Plumbella for Sims
[03:33] TCMF for PlayStation News, and I could continue this list for a while, but all of these channels have a specific target audience in mind. Speaking of audience, the second area in this diagram is what the community needs.
[03:46] That could be an entertainment factor. It could be information. Maybe you're the highest skilled player within the game's player base. Try to look for a content gap in the game or types of games that you plan on creating content around
[03:59] for your channel. This is, of course, easier said than done as so many types of gaming videos have already been done. So finding the content that is lacking on YouTube within the game that you're playing is huge in finding innovative content to post.
[04:14] Third on this diagram is strategy. This is where you play the balancing game for the content that you want to make versus what the community wants you to make. If you're always tearing your content to the community and to the audience,
[04:27] you're going to lose sight of the joy and fun that you got out of wanting to create content in the first place for your channel. And the same goes for creating too much of what you want to make. If you just make the channel all about yourself,
[04:39] that's another fantastic way just to stifle and slow your growth because you're abandoning what the audience wants. Another part of strategy is not just thinking a couple weeks down the road for what your channel is going to look like,
[04:51] but think in terms of months and even years so that way you're prepared for what may come in the future. If we really want to bring up the terminology of luck, it's really when opportunity meets preparedness.
[05:04] If you're thinking multiple steps ahead for how you want your channel to look down the road, things will just come together by luck. It would have been all the planning, preparation, and work that you put in to accomplish it.
[05:16] Area number four in this diagram is quality. We're not just talking about video and audio quality. Of course, those things are very important. We're also talking about the video edits, the thumbnails, the titles, all of it together making up the overall quality of your YouTube channel.
[05:31] Now, I'm sure some of you guys here have posted 20, 30, 40, 50 or more videos, but one mistake I hope you guys haven't been making is ignoring your successful data. In your analytics for the past 30, 60, 90 days,
[05:45] you'll be able to see your top performing content and to see which videos are converting the most subscribers. This is content you need to double down on and do more of, especially if it fits within the niche that you're trying to build on your YouTube channel.
[06:00] For example, here's a YouTuber by the name of JTPlays, and they've created a lot of platinum guides for PlayStation, but recently they decided to do more Let's Play content, and you can see that the viewership didn't match up nearly as well
[06:14] compared to the other content. Now, this isn't to put JCPlays on black, but I just wanted to provide this as an example to not ignore your metrics. Don't ignore what's working well for your channel.
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[07:40] Okay, now let's say you haven't ignored your successful data and you have tried to double-jump on your previous successful content to continue snowballing your subscriber growth, but it just hasn't been working. Well, another mistake you may be making here is thinking that your videos are better than they actually are.
[07:57] There's a reason why the top creators typically get all of the views within a sliver of the gaming niche category that you might be in. It's because they make the highest quality and valuable content. Since making gaming videos is something that pretty much anybody can do with quite ease
[08:14] nowadays, everybody's competing on this low bar or standard that is just mediocre. I've seen some channels in the past that have a similar quality content that they did
[08:26] 10 years ago the same as today. You should have at least been able to improve your skill set somewhat by being able to edit better, create more engaging thumbnails and titles, adding sound design to your audio,
[08:39] color correction to the video, there's so many things you can learn and after a long period of time guys you have to make those improvements. If you stay the same you will be the same. But one mistake I'm continuously seeing gaming channels make to grow their sub count
[08:53] is by doing follow for follow, sub for sub. Like seriously guys I can't believe I have to put this one in this video, but it's still happening. Doing the whole sub for sub thing, and I'm even throwing
[09:05] in giveaways as part of this as well, it is absolutely terrible for your growth. You're going to get people subscribing to your channel that don't even give a crap about your content. Well, they just subscribed because they thought they could win something from you is just not the
[09:19] way to go. My recommendation is to have more genuine, real interactions with people within in your gaming niche. Join a Discord community, for example, so you can chat with people about what you're making on YouTube
[09:32] and the things that interest you within the game. This is a much more real, natural, organic way to foster growth within the community that you're trying to build. It can even create collaboration opportunities
[09:45] for your YouTube channel. For the seventh mistake, I see small YouTube gaming channels making, and this will depend on the type of gaming content that you do, not showing your face in your content can hold you back in some respects. People
[09:58] typically like to attach a face to the content that they're watching and this is especially true if you doing reaction or entertainment type of content The successful faceless gaming channels that I have seen are typically sharing some sort of information or they doing tutorials funny moments montages highly skilled gameplay
[10:18] I've even seen some channels that showcase cinematic gaming content, where the focus is on what the gameplay looks like versus what somebody's reaction is. Again, it all depends on the type of content you make, and it's something that you're going to have to think about as you move forward with your strategy.
[10:33] Now, it's going to take more than just showing your face and having commentary over your videos to make your viewers experience great. Another big mistake I see made is not being more entertaining. That means being able to speak on camera well, having energy in your voice, not being flat and boring.
[10:52] Show some excitement. Have a sense of humor. Talk through the things that you're doing within the game that you're playing. Make sure you're close enough to your microphone so that you can be heard clearly. Prepare or write out what you're trying to say on camera before you actually do it.
[11:05] That way you just don't turn on the camera and you're just winging it. That just doesn't work. Another mistake small gaming channels make is thinking that YouTube Shorts will kill their long-form videos. This is partially true, but let me explain.
[11:20] As a lot of you know, YouTube Shorts are a fantastic way to get a lot of subscribers to your YouTube channel. But one of the problems that can be encountered is that the people from the YouTube Shorts that subscribe won't watch your long-form videos because of their short attention span.
[11:36] They subscribe for the content that's just a few seconds long versus your video that might be 10 or 15 minutes long. That's why it's important when you do your YouTube Shorts to have long YouTube Shorts, especially if you're doing long-form content.
[11:51] Having the longer shorts that are 50 seconds to a minute long will get viewers in that like watching longer form videos. The YouTube channel Munchin Reacts is a perfect example of this done correctly.
[12:03] If you look at his shorts, all of them are longer in length. And this has benefited him as it's fostered an audience that is shown to watch his long form regular videos in addition to his shorts. For our final mistake that I see small YouTube gaming creators making, that is comparing your channel to others.
[12:20] This is something that can really affect your psyche. If you overthink what you're planning to post to your YouTube channel, definitely posting something is better than nothing at all. At least you're going to learn from the mistake or failure that you might encounter,
[12:34] so that way you can improve and be better in the future. But looking at a channel that's super successful with millions or hundreds of thousands of subscribers, this is not a good bar to look at because every channel has their own path.
[12:49] What made that channel successful isn't what's going to make you successful in the future. You have to find your own way and celebrate the small wins. Most videos on YouTube don't even craft 1,000 views.
[13:02] Think about that for a second. If you got 1,000 views on one of your videos, you're doing better than a lot of other people on this platform. I truly commend those of you who are uploading YouTube videos and you're just getting close to zero views.
[13:16] It might hurt a little bit, but trust me, it does get better over time with consistency and improving your quality. Let me know in the comment section if you're guilty of any of these mistakes.
[13:28] Thank you NordVPN for sponsoring this video. Appreciate everybody for watching and staying to the end. Hit it with a big thumbs up, and I'll see y'all in the next one. Peace.