 and you're watching Bianca Renee today and today marks the day of my four year YouTube anniversary. I can't believe it's been four years of me having my channel. So I thought today would be a great day to do a very highly requested video on how to start a YouTube channel. Now in this video, I'm gonna keep it really real and just tell you guys exactly how it is and you might not like what you're about to hear but you're gonna need to know it if you're even thinking about starting a YouTube channel. Now first of all, I did recently hit over 100,000 subscribers so does that make me an expert on YouTube? No, but I'm obviously doing something right and those that have millions of followers might be too busy to make this video for you so here we are. Now I started my channel in 2013 which was four years ago and in my first year of YouTube, I posted four videos. Can you guys imagine how mad you'd be at me if I only posted four videos a year? But from then in 2014, I then posted 14 videos. Still not a lot but better than four. And it wasn't until 2015 that I actually committed to my YouTube channel. I wanted to post every week and I wanted to be able to get to a level where I could make YouTube my full-time job. So in 2015, I posted every Sunday and I posted 47 videos. So there's 52 weeks and a year so I missed a couple but that's way better than four. Which brings me to the number one thing that I think is important when it comes to you wanting to have a YouTube channel which is you have to be able to commit. Being a YouTuber is not easy. You have to be able to have the time to think of your idea you wanna film, actually film it, edit it. And then once you edit it, then you have to promote it on all types of social media. So if you don't have the time, then you don't have the time to make a YouTube channel. There is a lot of work behind it. I don't think a lot of people keep in mind. Which brings me to point number two. I think that you should be independent. If you wanna start a channel but you don't know how to do anything, it's gonna be hard. I don't think you should be like, oh, I have a friend that could film my videos. Oh, I have a cousin that could edit it for me. And oh, I have a third friend that is really good on social media. And then my team together will create a YouTube channel. No, you're doing it wrong. That is the whole point of YouTube. YouTube was created so that creators could be independent and just do things on their own. They don't need a production crew. They don't need a network. They just need themselves, their personality and their camera. And they can get it done by themselves. The reason why I think you need to be independent is because you need to be able to be on your own schedule. If you have someone that's filming and someone that's editing, now you're worried about their schedule. So you can go, oh, I have a good idea. I wanna shoot it now. You got your mojo going, but your camera guy is not available today. Or like, oh, I only wanna post this video by tomorrow, but you can't because the editing girl is busy. You can't rely on other people's schedules because you're gonna have to be persistent and commit to posting your videos as much as possible. And now you can't because of other people's schedule. Which brings me to point number three, which is you need to educate yourself. You have to learn how to use a camera. You're gonna have to learn about lighting. You're gonna have to learn about editing. So you're gonna have to learn either iMovie, which it comes stock on any type of Apple product, Mac, laptop, computer, or you also could buy Final Cut. Final Cut Pro, Final Cut 10. It is not cheap, but it's what actual filmmakers use. So if you could master Final Cut, you're using the real deal. I personally skipped over iMovie and just committed to learning Final Cut. That way I don't have to waste my time learning one to then learn another. But if you don't have Final Cut, iMovie is still a great program to use. Now besides the technical aspect, you also have to educate yourself in whatever you're gonna be talking about. I talk about curly hair. So I have learned so much about curls so that I then could tell you guys, my audience, about what I've learned. Ain't no have to be a master about the gate. I did not go to school in cosmetology or hairstylist anything, but I am a girl that has tried a lot of different products and learned the thing or two over time and I'm continuing to learn things. And as I learn new things, I tell you guys, but I do have to stay on my game and try new products and learn about the ingredients and I have to educate myself that I'm credible to my audience. So if you're talking about food, makeup, fitness, you actually have to learn about what you're talking about so people actually care to watch your videos. And caring about the videos, it brings me to point number four, which is you have to have passion. Now when I started my channel, I literally started almost on accident because I found these amazing curly hair products that worked for my hair. A lot of you guys don't believe me, but I actually struggled with my curly hair and always having frizz. So when I found something that I loved, I was so excited about it that I just wanted to tell every curly girl I've ever ran into about these products. So because I was so passionate about these products and how well they worked and how I wanted to share that with you, that's what I did. I literally shot in my mom's kitchen on a laptop using the front camera, no audio equipment, and I used the lighting from the sun that was just beaming through the kitchen. That's it. Did I have the best setup? Definitely not, but my information was important and it was something that I was passionate about. So that video today has over half a million views and I literally shot in my kitchen just being me talking about something that I love. The next thing would be the equipment. Now, like I said, in my first video, I didn't have any equipment. I literally had my laptop camera and that's it. So I don't want you to think that you need to spend hundreds, thousands of dollars on equipment to make your video. You don't. Will those things make your videos look better in the future? Yes, definitely, but they're not mandatory. The most important thing is you, your personality and your topic and as long as you can get that out in the universe, that's what people wanna see. I started off with my laptop camera. Then I graduated and got a real camera. That would be my first investment advice to you guys. I personally got the Canon Rebel T3i, which is like everybody's starter YouTube camera. It is a Canon, but it's like their cheapest model or one of the cheapest models that is great for video. The second thing I would recommend would be audio. Audio is so important. When I look at my old videos, I can't even watch them anymore because you hear like the echo from my bathroom or you hear like the air condition going on. Having a good mic is going to make your video sound so much better. You could either use an app on your phone, on your iPhone. You can buy a mic that sits onto your camera or like right now I have a lavalier mic. So I have a mic on my body and then I have a receiver on my camera. So now my audio was automatically synced and you could hear me nice and clearly. The third thing I got was lighting. I started off with umbrella lights. You can get these on Amazon like I did. It's a three point lighting kit. So it's a light bulb with an umbrella, a light bulb with an umbrella and then a back light back here to like shine behind you. Those can be around a hundred bucks and it gives you a full lighting kit. So I do like that and recommend that. And then I eventually upgraded to a ring light. So right now I'm using a ring light which is very popular in the beauty community. But if you don't have money for lighting, if you could find just a nice big window, natural lighting looks amazing, especially for beauty videos. Another thing that I absolutely love is my little remote. So with this remote, I can change the focus and or push record and stop from a distance. So if I'm sitting behind all of my hair products or makeup, I don't have to get up and actually push record. I can just go boop, boop and be done. This is the lifesaver and I'm surprised I haven't lost it yet. My videos have greatly evolved from my videos four years ago and I've gotten my equipment over time. Don't just think you have to go out and buy everything to become a YouTuber tonight. Just buy what you can and eventually upgrade when you can. And last but not least, something that I think that you really need to have a YouTube channel is confidence. There will always be YouTube and internet trolls. There'll always be bullies. There'll always be people that are just bored and have nothing to do but leave negative comments on your hard worked video. So if you're someone that gets easily discouraged and might just live each day crying about these negative comments, I might suggest waiting until you could build up yourself with the point where you know you love yourself and it doesn't matter what anybody else has to say. You will get a hundred amazing beautiful comments of how they loved your video and you'll get that one comment that was like, this video sucked. And although you have all this nice praise, all you think about is that one stupid comment. But you can't let it bug you. You will always have haters in life. A young philosopher once said, if you ain't got no haters, you ain't poppin'. And it's true. If you're not doing anything cool, they're not even gonna waste their time to say anything. So take it as a compliment. They still came on and gave you a view and you probably got paid for that view. So thanks. And once you get a bunch of loyal subscribers like I have, my subscribers go hard for me. Like you could say something and they will attack you for me. And I'm just like, well, shouldn't have messed with my crew. You shouldn't have messed with my crew. And that is definitely the best part about having a YouTube channel is having your loyal subscribers, people that always leave you comments and then they write you and they tell you how you've helped their lives and it just motivates you to keep going. It motivates you to commit, to educate, to be independent and to do all the things that it takes to be a YouTuber. So side note, thank you all for watching this video and being subscribed to my channel because you guys are the ones that keep me going. So those are my main six things I think you should keep in mind before even starting a YouTube channel. Now I didn't even get into actual video tips and things you should keep in mind when filming a video because this video would be very long. One of my tips is don't have very long videos but I could make more YouTube topic videos. If you guys are interested just leave me a comment like you know what you guys wanna see but I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you learned the thing or two and I thank you for watching. Now before you go ask that you please follow me on all social media at Ms. Bianca Renee on Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter and push that subscribe button because I post new videos every Sunday. I hope to see you all next week. Thanks for watching Bianca Renee today.