I’ve been publishing videos to YouTube for over 10 years now. I’ve learned a lot in the process, including some things NOT to do.

I uploaded my very first video to YouTube on March 2, 2006. And 3,000-plus videos later, I have learned a few things about this platform, a few things that I wish I knew back then that I know today. And I’m going to share those with you, and hopefully help you guys avoid a lot of mistakes and problems that I’ve run into along the way. Those are coming up.

#1 – Not to Use Copyrighted Material

I wish I knew not to use any copyrighted material. When we first started uploading videos, it was me and my, now she’s my wife, but back then, we were dating. And we made a lot of videos. Now they’re known as vlogs. But back then, that wasn’t a word in 2006, and 7 and 8. And we were just uploading these videos, but no one thought twice about using copyrighted music and material. And so unfortunately, a lot of those videos that I had now are gone. They were taken down.

That includes our dating years, all those vlogs we did together. And it includes our honeymoon video, and when we first started living life together in a little apartment in Dallas, Texas. Like all of those things, all those videos are gone because of copyrighted music. So I wish I knew not to do that.

#2 – To Back up My Videos

Which leads into the second thing I wish I knew, and that is to always make backups of your videos. So I don’t have those videos of our early dating years, of our honeymoon, of our first year of life together. I don’t have those anymore, because I uploaded them to YouTube thinking that, what could go wrong? They’re on YouTube, and if I ever need them, I’ll just get them from YouTube. Well, now I know that you should back up your content, because you never know what YouTube’s going to do with your content or your channel. So you should always have a backup.

I have a few other videos here on this channel already that walk you through the process and the system that I go through for backing up my videos. So if you want to check those out, there’s a link in the description below that will take you to those videos and show you how I do that now.

#3 – The Impact on Other People’s Lives

I wish I understood the impact that sharing your life online can have on other people and their lives. Back and the early days, 2006, 7 and 8, I was a full-time youth and family worker. And I loved doing it because I loved seeing people’s lives change, and relationships grow, and all that.

And then after my wife and our family’s vlogging channel started growing a little bit, and we were reaching like a million people a month, whereas in real life doing youth and family work, I was reaching, I don’t know, like 100-some maybe a week. I was hearing a lot of the same stories that are coming from people who are watching our YouTube channel as I was from the people I was working with in real life professionally.

But online, I saw a tremendous opportunity to scale how we reach people, and how many people we reach, and whose lives we impact, where in real life, I couldn’t do that. I could only meet and work with so many people with so many hours in a given week.

So at that time, I shifted to a blog actually, pre-YouTube, and lived full-time off of a blog for a few years, and then shifted my audience and everything to YouTube because I realized that I could make a human connection. I could make eye contact here. I could have human emotions, and all sorts of things in ways that at least I couldn’t do as well through the written word.

And now this YouTube channel, on Video Creators revolves around treating creators like you to see similar experiences on your own channel. People are being reached, their lives being changed, and the stories you’re hearing back are ones that just motivate you to keep going on your mission to reach people and change their lives.

So those are three things that I wish I knew back in the beginning. I would love to hear from you guys in the comments below. And that’s actually the main reason why I made this video, to be honest with you, because I want to hear from you guys what are three things that you wish you knew back when you first started on YouTube? Leave those in the comments below. I’m going to be reading every single one.

And you guys also read what other people are writing down there, because guys, I always learn from you, and you guys always learn from each other. It’s awesome to see how you guys all support each other down there in the comments. So check those out down there.

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HOW TO BACKUP YOUR VIDEOS
– How To Backup your YouTube Channel to Prevent Heartbreak Later:
– The Best Backup Options for Saving Videos

MY FAMILY’S VLOGGING CHANNEL
Schmovies