15 Steps To Becoming A YouTube Star

Do you have what it takes to become a YouTube star? Well, lets see. Do you have a personality? A talent? Do you just enjoy gabbing? Any of these skills can make you big on YouTube.

From applying makeup to singing songs, everyone has a shot on YouTube. While not everyone makes it big online, it is a great way to find out if you have what it takes to become a YouTube sensation.

For many people, they get into making YouTube videos with a level head and a simple goal in mind. They follow their passion and go on from there. According to Cosmopolitan, creating the videos for yourself and for your own enjoyment is the way to go if you truly want to enjoy what you do. That way, viewers will pick up on your passion and begin to show their support for you.

Getting started is fairly easy, but it will take up some of your free time. When you start planning on creating a YouTube channel to showcase your work, your best bet is to approach it like a small business: seriously. From there, start to build up your channel. Eventually, you may be one of the lucky ones who builds an audience and an income showing off exactly what you've got to offer.

15 Check Out Other YouTube Stars

Before starting on your very own YouTube adventure, check out some of the popular YouTubers and see what they are doing and how they are doing it. Business Insider put out a list of the most popular independent YouTubers and the top five were: PewDiePie with 39.3 million subscribers, HolaSoyGerman with 24 million subscribers, Smosh with 21.1 million subscribers, JennaMarbles with 15.5 million subscribers, and NigaHiga with 15.2 million subscribers.

14 Decide On Your Focus

After getting a taste of what other people are doing, it is time to figure out what you will be doing for your videos. Often called a niche, it is extremely important to choose one main focus that all of your videos will fall under. Beauty trends, how-to makeup, knitting sweaters, making beaded jewelry, young women's fitness, and dieting trends are each a separate niche. If you play the violin, your video niche will be violin player. If you do stunts, the videos you make will show off the stunts that you do and how you do them. After you have decided on what topic your videos will cover, the next part is easy.

13 Plan Out A Series Of Videos

Before you begin making videos, plan out a series of videos for your niche. If you plan on making videos on hairstyles for long hair, sit down and brainstorm up to 52 videos you could do on the subject. By planning out 52 video subjects, you will have enough content to put out one video per week for one full year. That will be a pretty awesome head start to give yourself.

12 Start Out Small And Grow

By this point, you are probably pretty excited about getting started, but then you realize you don't have all the expensive equipment that professional YouTubers have. Slow down. Don't go out and buy expensive equipment right away. Most of the professionals you see on YouTube started with what they already had on hand. Use your computer, phone, or digital camera to make your early videos. It is not perfect television quality, but most YouTube videos aren't. Start small, with what you have, and only after you start making money on YouTube should you start investing in better equipment.

11 Use Good Lighting

You need good lighting to get the best video shots and the best lighting you can get is actually free. Sunlight is perfect for making your videos. Make sure you are positioned so that the sun is in front of you and not behind you. When indoors, you can use LED lightbulbs with a white umbrella in front of the light to help soften the glow. Again, keep the light in front of you. When the light is shining behind you, it puts your face and body into shadow making it difficult to see you.

10 Learn The Basics Of Video Editing

You don't need to be a pro at video editing, but you do need to learn some basic skills. For example, if you are going to be using iMovie to edit your videos, watch a few video editing tutorials on YouTube. They will give you all the basics you will need to learn for editing your videos. Forget about any major special effects right now, unless your video absolutely depends on them. In which case, plan on spending a day or two learning a few in-depth tricks of the trade.

9 Set Up Social Media Accounts

Your videos can't just sit around on YouTube, waiting to be discovered. You have to get your videos out there to an audience. This means sharing them on your Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. Create a free blog on Blogger.com to write about your videos and link to them. Ask friends and family to get involved in liking your videos. Any help in the beginning is always greatly appreciated (or should be).

8 Create A Steady Stream Of Videos

Before you post your very first video, consider creating a back stock of videos first. For example, if you are planning on releasing one video a week, get your first month of videos filmed, edited, and ready to go live. Stay ahead of the game and as you release one of the videos each week, continue to work on more videos for the next month. This way, if there is ever a week when you are feeling sick or are too busy to make a video, your butt is covered and your audience will never know that you were taking it easy.

7 Interact With Your Audience

When those first few positive remarks start to trickle in, take the time to personally thank your audience and answer any questions they may post. Engage your audience in conversations. The more accessible you are at the start of your YouTube career, the more followers you will gain early on.

6 Don't Listen To Negative Comments

YouTube attracts all sorts of people and you will come to know certain folks are just never happy. They will criticize you and leave ugly comments. The best way to handle this is to just ignore the trolls. Do not engage them in any sort of interaction and never take what they say personally. When it comes to creating your online identity, you want to appear better than the trolls. The only way to do that is to gracefully ignore them. Getting dragged into one of their fights only drags your image down with them.

5 You Never Know What Will Take Off

The strangest thing about YouTube is that the videos you think will never take off, do. The videos that you create to go viral just seem to sit there and never take off. Don't second guess whether you should put up a seemingly lame video of yourself. It just might become your biggest hit.

4 Be Prepared To Work

Running a YouTube channel is not easy work. In the beginning, when it is most likely just you doing it all, it will take up a lot of your time. From thinking up the video to its creation and editing, you can expect to spend over two hours on each video or even longer if you are still learning how to do video edits. Every moment you put into a video can mean good earnings somewhere down the road. If nothing else, it gives you solid experience that you can add to your resume.

3 Set Up Multiple Channels

After you have one YouTube channel set up and at least one month of videos already created, consider starting a new channel. Like all people, you probably enjoy a variety of interests. With YouTube, you can explore nearly all your interests by creating multiple channels. Some channels will take off and some will totally flop. That's okay. Give each channel at least a year and let go of the ones that don't pick up after that time. Work on the channels that appear to be successful. You simply never know what will take off in the community.

2 YouTube Ads

After you are set up on YouTube and start getting subscribers, YouTube will offer you the opportunity to make money on your videos with YouTube ads. This is what you have been waiting for: A chance to earn some money for your hard work. Accept YouTube's offer and monetize all of your videos. You deserve it.

1 Don't Give Up

Above all, don't give up on your dreams of making it big on YouTube. If you follow all of these instructions and continue to create videos, treating your audience with respect and gratitude, and offering up interesting content, there is no telling how well you will do. Not only is there no sky limit, but you are directly in charge of how much you succeed. Stay positive throughout, even during the rough weeks or months. Something will eventually click.