 So I know you're probably thinking that yes this is one of those videos that happen every single year, you know, you see it over and over again, all people have to do is just plaster the 2022 year at the end of the caption and try to sell you something that you most likely already know and you may be right. You may be right to some extent and you may be wrong to another extent. So YouTube as a platform is constantly changing and evolving and that means you also have to constantly change and evolve and this video, the reason why you may be wrong about this video is that it's not one of those technical videos that's going to point out technical settings or new settings that you need to note and do to optimize your YouTube channel, the technical channels that do those kind of videos. But if you look at everything you're doing on YouTube on a holistic level, it's difficult to keep up with some of the things that I mean, all of the things that you need to remember to keep your channel running. And this is what I've categorized into the eight C's that you need to remember to succeed on YouTube in 2022. So I'm not going to waste any more of your time, I'm going to go straight to the first thing that you need to remember and this applies to anybody who has a channel or is planning on starting YouTube. And the first C for succeeding on YouTube is courage. Everybody thinks that yes, you know, to be creative and all those things, yes, but in your creativity, if you don't have the courage to proceed or take the first step to record that video to click the record button, like you hear on Think Media, all you got to do is to press record. If you don't have the courage to do that, sitting in front of the camera and actually looking at yourself over and over and over again and thinking, ah, this is not something I want to post, you will not go anywhere, you will not start. So the courage to begin, the courage to post and decide that you want to go ahead and do this thing is the first C you need to remember. The second C I think is going to be conditioning. Have it at the back of your mind that this journey you're about to begin is going to be one which is long. Fine, you know, there are people who start and in three months, two months, they blow up and, you know, they get big numbers and you're wondering why you're doing it for like a year and over if you've already been doing this and nothing is really happening. Condition yourself that it's a marathon. You need to be doing this for a long, long time for you to see the results and if you don't have at the back of your mind that that's what you need to do is going to be very difficult for you because sometimes you want to give up. You're doing everything and it's not working because you're not conditioning yourself for the long haul. I for one decided to start this YouTube channel to document my freelance journey when I started and I told myself that I'm going to release a video every single week for a year. That was the conditioning I gave myself for a year to see how it goes. Even if I rise from, you know, at the time when I began 44 subscribers to even 400 subscribers, I had grown. It might not be substantial or as big as I would have wanted, but I have grown and two years down the line, this has been a third year that we're in 2022. I've grown from 44 subscribers all the way up to 4,600 and something subscribers at the moment. So yes, condition yourself that it's a marathon and you need to the 30 commit, commit fully to wanting to do this. Not that you do a video today or you do a few videos consistently for two weeks or weekly and then you leave it for two more weeks or a month before you come back. No, the commitment has to be that you know you're doing this fully. YouTube is, I mean, most people underestimate the amount of work that goes into creating content, but the commitment level for creating content every single week is super high and it's also part of the conditioning that you have to have that you're going to commit to this and do it. Another seed that I'm going to mention for you, the fourth seed to help you to make sense of all of these things, all these things that you're doing, is consuming. Consume a lot of information. Consume a lot of data. There's a lot of channels. Again, I'm going to link them in the description below for you to check out that go into technical details. For example, things like knowing the tip, like the first 15 seconds of your video is the most important because that's where you capture your audience, whether they will stay or not and watch the rest of your video. Some of these technical things that you need to know, some of these tips and tricks, channels who have experience have done it over and over again and there are tons and tons of information out there. So consume a lot. In consumption of technical, you're also going to consume an inspirational content. Watch a lot of people do a lot of the things that you may like in a way that you may like. And the fifth seed, is it the fifth seed? The next seed, not to number it, the next seed is to copy. Copying is fine. I mean, yes, it is said that good artists copy, but great artists steal. When you consume all those content, it is okay to actually copy, but not necessarily copy exactly what the person is doing and trying to even copy their personality on top. That's like literally copying somebody's exam and writing their name on top of your answer sheet. It's stupid. So copy, find inspiration. For example, your travel content creator, you find inspiration from a tech creator and make some of the elements that you see in there with some of your travel, which makes it different than the average travel content creator that you see around. So cross content copying is allowed. You put yourself in there and make it yours. The elements that makes it you is what you need to know. So copying is a really good thing when you know how to do it. The next seed that I would want you to remember is collaboration. Collaboration is something that is really, really essential. I have benefited from collaborating with other channels that have bigger numbers that were, you know, those collaborations were mutual, mutually beneficial. So the thing in collaboration is, you know, sometimes people want to collaborate with you or you want to collaborate with them because they have big numbers and you think that they'll, in turn, give you a number of subscribers that you need to grow your channel. Although that's fine and everything, if those subscribers are coming to your channel and there's nothing for them to stay, they'll probably unsubscribe or leave or not become core fans of core subscribers who support your channel properly. So that the collaboration doesn't have to be just any collaboration. It has to be really well thought about and it has to be beneficial to both channels. And I was saying that my channel collaborated with a few channels. One is Anaita. She interviewed us on our relationship. That's my channel. No, my relationship with my wife. Another one collaboration that I did was with the Champong family. Ana interviewed Elaine on being a Dutch woman living in Ghana. And in turn, we had a conversation about when they were leaving Ghana and going back to the Netherlands. So both of us got content from that collaboration. And when Ana posted her video, most of, I don't know, some of her subscribers actually found out about our channel and came to subscribe and liked the kind of content they were getting there. So collaborations are very, very essential. The next thing that I would want to talk about that you need to remember is change. Yes, you're doing this genre of content. You've started at the very like, you know, strongly, you believe in it, but it's not necessarily working. You've tried everything you do. The output isn't working. So what do you need to know? You need to constantly evolve and change is the only constant in this. I mean, you cannot do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. That doesn't work that way. So change is something that you need to do if your channel's direction, based on your analytics and the things you're looking at, that, oh, people like this video much more, you've done it two or three times or four times and every time the views are better than the other videos that you may be making, then you don't slack. Change your idea about where you started as a core, you know, content that you'll be producing and get to that place where you can be providing the things that your core viewers want to be watching. So for example, my channel lifestyle, productivity and travel is constantly gradually evolving to become more of a relationship or couple's channel and the perspectives and experiences of Elaine and I, which is fine. So be open to change. Change is the only constant. And I think the last C, if I'm right, is consistency. So of all the things that I was talking about, the only thing that keeps them going is that you're consistent in every aspect of your creation. You're consistent in learning or consuming content, not over consuming and not like under producing. No, you're consistent in the consuming content, learning, you reach out, you collaborate every now and then so that you're opening yourself to a wider network and different people from the other channels as pay their subscribers. You're improving your quality in terms of how you film, you're learning about the craft of storytelling, you're improving your gear, your sound, all those things. You're learning about the technicalities in terms of your thumbnail and your titles, you know, your SEO, which means your tags and all those things. You're constantly learning and improving all those things consistently and consistency is like my friend Joshua Cleopas would say is the only cheat code you need to be consistent. You cannot be posting today and post three months later and, you know, you are good for three weeks and then you vanish for two months. It doesn't work that way. You're not going to see anything work in your favor. So be consistent in all the things you do. And if you're a beginner here watching this video, I think you should check out my YouTube beginner lessons, which is going to appear on the screen here, I think. Is it here or here? Yes, the link will be appearing. Check it out and learn more about what you need to succeed. The last time I made a video like this was in 2020. And I'm making another one now, which is also not very technical, but rather much more on the conditioning and inspirational side for you to remember that these things are important. The courage to do it, the conditioning that is a long haul, committing to it, consuming a lot of content, copying correctly, collaborations, change and consistency. Yes. So those, I think are the eight C's. If it doesn't adapt to eight, I lost count at some point. So correct me. And if you have other C's that I may have missed that you think work for this conversation, leave it in the comment section. Let's have a conversation around it. And I hope you got something from this video. I will catch you in the next one. Don't forget to subscribe and like this video. My name is Kwame. I'm a documentary filmmaker and voiceover artist based in Accra, Ghana. And peace.