 One of my old videos when I just started my YouTube channel, I was hiking in Glacier National Park and I was talking to the camera the entirety of the time, expressing how I felt, how excited I was, just sharing and showing some sections of the trail. And I came back home, I edited that video and it turned out to be 45 minutes long. I uploaded to my YouTube channel, no problems. My time it was great, the hike was great, editing was so much fun for me. But thinking back about it right now, who would sit there, especially back when I had less than 100 subscribers, who would sit there and watch my video for 45 minutes where I was just talking about myself, the whole time, zero value to the viewer. I wish I knew that when I just started my YouTube channel. My point is when you are small on YouTube, you want to focus on content that's really bringing value to the viewer. Because let's be honest, no one really cares about you, the person. It takes time to build that relationship where viewers can come back to your channel because they are interested in you, the person, not just your content. Maybe the lifestyle that you are living is something that they aspire to adopt in the future. Or maybe they are living a similar lifestyle and they just want to connect and get to know people who are similar to them. But expecting people to sit down and watch your videos before knowing you is not realistic. So that's why when you're just starting on YouTube, you have to focus on content that brings some value, answers some questions, what's in it for the viewer. Some of the best performing videos on my YouTube channel, the best performing video on my YouTube channel is one where I was just sitting talking about one hiking app that I really enjoy, a hiking app that helped me and made hiking more accessible and easy for me. When I sat there, I was going through the app screenshots and just showing how to use the app. It turned out to be a successful video and people really liked it. The second best performing video on my YouTube channel is one where I was sitting in my office just sharing tips, very simple tips about traveling to the state of Alaska. It turned out there was not a lot of content out there and people were eager to learn about Alaska, especially during their first visit. Really think about the viewer and focus on content that is searchable. What are some of the places that you can travel to during the pandemic? Hiking and backpacking tips for beginners, gear that you need, if you are backpacking for the first time, what's in my day pack for first time hikers, destinations that you can travel to during the pandemic, how to travel for free, how to travel for cheap. All of these topics are targeting questions that people do have and topics that they are really eager to learn and know more about. And when I say bringing value, it doesn't have to be the best edited video out there. Maybe you don't have the best editing skills, which I will talk about in a little bit here. Maybe you don't have the best storytelling skills, but really focusing on facts and how to help people travel better or travel in a more sustainable way or become responsible traveler are all important topics to focus on in the beginning. You want to put some effort into putting yourself out there by focusing on searchable content. Because if you do that, you are giving yourself a chance. People will find you and it's important to be found. They will watch your video. Maybe they will like you. Maybe they want, but at the very least you put some time and effort into putting yourself out there. Next tip to grow your adventure travel YouTube channel. I think I should define what I mean by adventure travel YouTube channel. I will use my YouTube channel as an example trekking pals is a YouTube channel that I started back in August of 2019. And next month it will be two years that I started this YouTube channel, which we will celebrate and I'm very excited for this milestone. But my YouTube channel is an adventure travel YouTube channel. Although I think any type of travel is really an adventure of its own. But what I mean by adventure travel is when you are traveling to destinations seeking adventures outside like hiking backpacking fishing kayaking through hiking hunting. This is what I mean when I say adventure travel. You are really out there to new destinations seeking a thrill some adrenaline rush and trying things that are outside of your comfort zone. And I feel like not a lot of people are talking about how to grow an adventure travel YouTube channel. And this is why I decided to make this video. But the second tip that I want to talk about are acquiring the YouTube skills. When I just started my YouTube channel, I always thought that YouTube is about filming and editing. Obviously, they are very important components of YouTube. But YouTube skills are not just about filming and editing. There is so much more than that. There is putting some time into marketing and learning marketing skills. What I mean by that is when you create content and YouTube videos, you don't just put a video out there and you expect people to find you with the miracle. You want to make sure that you are marketing your content in a way that you are taking it and putting it in front of the right audience. There are so many ways that you can do that. Very simple ways is using social media. You can use Facebook groups. If you have a Facebook page, you can leverage it. You have Instagram or any other platforms. You can use them to promote your content and tell people that, hey, this is a piece of content that I worked on. I would like for you to check it out. You take the time to answer questions that people have on forums like Reddit or Quora and make sure that you are really not just spamming everyone with your content so that they can watch your videos, but you're really bringing value to the community. So, so many things or so many strategies, so many marketing strategies that can help you grow your YouTube channel. But this is just another skill set that is important. When I started my YouTube channel, I knew that I wanted to be consistent. We will talk about consistency in a little bit here, but at the same time, I didn't focus on acquiring and having solid skills in my belt. It's something that I'm focusing on right now, but learning to become a better storyteller is very important. There are so many adventure travel content creators out there, so you want to be different or you want to tell a story in a different way that makes people really want to sit on in your YouTube channel and watch your videos. You want to become a better filmmaker, especially if you don't come from a background of filmmaking. You want to become a better photographer. You want to become better at marketing. So many skills and this is not going to happen overnight, especially if you have full-time job and responsibilities. It takes time. So, the more you do it, the more consistent you are, the more skills that you will acquire throughout the time. And that takes us to the next tip and that is to be consistent. There is actually a code that I just read earlier and I really liked it. It just felt so true. It says discipline, consistency and perseverance will take you places motivation never could. You're not going to wait for the perfect moment, the perfect time when you have the motivation to sit down and film a video or edit video. You want to be consistent. The one thing that I learned throughout the last two years on YouTube is that consistency is key. You want to show up every single week or every single month. You know how much time you can commit to, but you want to show not only the algorithm on YouTube that you are serious about what you are doing, but people who are watching you when do they expect your content? It's just like a TV show. When you have a favorite TV show, you know exactly what time it's going to be airing on TV. So, you come back and watch it and look forward to it and maybe have popcorn, maybe have your favorite drink and you know what to expect. So, you want to have a similar thing on your YouTube channel if your goal is to grow on YouTube. Consistency is key. Maybe you don't have the best editing skill. Maybe you don't have the best camera. That is not the most important thing. The most important thing is just to start and stay consistent and keep doing what you are doing every single day. But there is a downside to that and I have experienced this myself when I was focusing on just consistency. The last two years, every single week I have a video. I probably just missed a week or two over the last two years, but at the same time, I couldn't add anything to my plate. Like I do want to become a better storyteller. I want to become a better filmmaker. I want to become a better photographer, but it made it very difficult for me to carve out the time to sit down and really hone on those skills and become better at the core skills that I'm really interested in. So, you just have to strike a balance between understanding that consistency is important, but it's not just about consistency. Make the time to learn new skills and become better at what you are doing if that makes sense. There are so many tips that I would like to share with you, especially if you are a new adventure travel YouTube creator, but I want to keep this video brief and I'm going to wrap up with the last tip that I want to share with you and that is to not be afraid of explore. When I started my YouTube channel, I would watch other creators talking about strategies to grow on YouTube and everyone is talking about niche down, niche down, niche down. It's the most difficult thing to be honest, especially if you don't know from the get go. I want my adventure travel channel to be just about product reviews or daily vlogs or weekly vlogs, especially when you don't know and you're just interested in so many topics. It's very difficult to niche down. So, I just gave up on the idea of niche down. I know with my YouTube channel, Tracking Pals as an example, it is about adventure travel. I don't want to niche down. I think that exploring and trying new things from time to time is important. This is how you will know what you enjoy as a person because it's not just about caring about the viewers all of the time, but you want to make sure that you are enjoying what you are doing. So, exploring and trying with new things and new topics and just putting your personal touch into what you're doing is also important. So, don't be afraid to explore, try new things, try new styles as long as you are still within or under the same umbrella of your content. I said earlier that I'm going to be sharing some content, ideas for adventure travel, YouTube channels. Some of the examples that I can think about right now are how to videos. If there is a skill, let's just pick randomly kayaking. You could be making videos, for example, about how to pick a kayak for the first time. This is something that I'm interested in. I am starting to get interested in kayaking and I do not know how to pick the right kayak, how to pick your first kayak, how to kayak for beginners or you can talk about gear reviews, what are some of the tools that you need when you go kayaking or you can focus on topics like lists for kayaking, for example, 10 things that you should pack with you when you are kayaking for the first time. If you are going on a kayaking overnight trip, what are some things that you should pack with you? How to pack a kayak. If you are going on an overnight kayaking trip, you can talk about books, the best educational books about kayaking. You can talk about movies, top 10 movies that are related to kayaking that you could watch and I did make some videos on my YouTube channel about hiking movies and hiking books and those videos performed very well as well. You can talk about safety when you are kayaking, 10 things that you should know if you are kayaking for the first time, how to overcome your fear of kayaking. There are so many ideas and topics that people are genuinely interested in. I just put myself in the place of the viewer. I like kayaking. These are the type of content or these are the type of topics that I'm going to search for and I'm sure if I'm getting into kayaking as a sort of adventure of traveling and I see content that I like, I am going to be interested in that person because it's a lifestyle that I am genuinely interested in. Well, thank you so much for watching. This is it for today. I have so many other tips that I would love to share with you in the future. So if you have any questions, do let me know in the comments and if you found this video to be useful, please give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. My name is Habiba. This is trekking pals and I will see you soon on a new adventure.