We want to talk with you guys who specifically have DIY channels, where you’re teaching someone how to do something themselves, whether it’s crafting, or woodworking, or even beauty makeup tutorials. Bob is here from I Like to Make Stuff. He recently went full-time on his DIY channel and he’s here to share with you some of his best tips and secrets for how to grow a YouTube channel in the DIY space.
Hey, I’m Bob from I Like to Make Stuff. I want to give you a few tips that I think will help grow your DIY channel. This is all stuff that’s worked really well for me over the past couple of years so hopefully it’ll be helpful to you as well. Number one, I think it’s really important for you to decide the direction for your channel. And by that, I mean that there are a lot of different types of DIY channels.
Some of them are very instructional, down to the smallest detail to help a person get exactly what they need to be able to do a project on their own. That’s one side. The polar opposite of that is the person who just wants to do a really inspirational project, something that maybe nobody else in the world could actually accomplish, but it’s something to inspire the viewers to do something on their own. Now there’s a full spectrum there. There’s a lot of different types in between or combinations of the two.
I think it’s really important to know ahead of time and to have an idea of the type of reaction that you want to get out of your viewer. Are you trying to teach them? Are you trying to inspire them? Are you trying to do both? That’s something to think about.
And of course, it can change over time. You can modify it. But I think it’s a really good idea to have that in place as you get started. And the next one. This is really important.
Don’t act like an expert unless you actually are an expert. People can see right through that. In my videos, I almost always show my mistakes. And instead of just showing it, and being upset about it, I use it as a teaching tool.
I show somebody the project, the mistake, and then how I fix the mistake so they’re actually learning two things in the video, which is really good for them. By showing your mistakes, it makes you relatable but more importantly, it’s the truth. You made a mistake and you fixed that mistake. And people relate to that. They want the truth.
They want you to be you. We’ll come back to that in a minute. The next thing that I think is especially important in DIY channels is to be engaging and to react to your audience. It’s really easy to skip over comments because you might get a lot of them at some point, but often, on DIY videos, you can’t include every single bit of little information that the viewer might want. You can’t necessarily say the brand of saw that you used, or the type of nail that you used, or the type of paint.
But those are the things that your viewers want to know and they’re probably going to ask you that stuff in the comments. So at least for a little while, if you can spend the time answering those specific things in the comments, and being engaging, and being responsive, they’re more likely to come back to you next time they want to see how to do something. They’re going to be more interested in the type of content that you’re going to produce if they know that you’re supporting that content with extra value. There’s a couple of other things that I think are important for all types of channels. The biggest of which is for you to be you.
You need to make the videos that only you can make. It’s easy to watch other channels and to think, I really like what they do. I’m going to copy it so that I can get the same size audience or the same type of audience that they have. But the fact of the matter is you need to make what you care about, what you want to do. And the audience will find you eventually. When that audience does find you, they’re going to be more passionate about the content because it’s true, because it’s honest, because it’s really you.
Now, the flip side of that is that you do need to watch other channels. You can learn a lot from how other creators work and how they interact with their audience. But the big thing there is that you need to watch other creators and other videos outside of your genre. I’ve learned a whole lot about timing and production and all sorts of stuff from watching comedy videos and tech videos because they’re in a different space that has different needs. You can find a lot of stuff from other genres that you can bring back into your videos and that stuff will just help you stand out from the other channels that are doing what you do.
Well, I hope those tips are at least a little bit helpful in you growing your channel and I wish you the best. I want to say thanks to Tim for all the awesome support and all the great knowledge that he’s passed on to me and many, many others. If you want to check out more of what I’m doing, you can do to iliketomakestuff.com. Thanks for having me, Tim.