Do you want to make money on YouTube? Millions of creators are earning a very good living from the platform by uploading content that drives huge views and engagements. Whether that income is from advertising revenue, merch sales, or brand deals, we keep you updated with best practises and ideas.

How To Make Money on YouTube

Do you know how to do keyword research so you understand what videos people are actually searching for on YouTube? Do you know how to create a custom YouTube thumbnail? Do you know how to create a Playlist on YouTube?

vidIQ has a ton of tips that will help every creator maximise their video content. We publish content every week to keep you up to date with all the best practices.

YouTube Tips & Tricks

YouTube Shorts content is set to explode! 

All the latest tips, tricks, and rock-solid advice you need for this new feature.

YouTube Shorts

Ask any YouTuber and they will tell you that generating significant views and subscribers isn't easy. But with the right strategy and tools, any video creator can build an engaged subscriber base when they understand what those subscribers want to watch.

Appealing to an audience to watch content you are passionate about making is just the first step, you need to know how to reach them and get your videos discovered. Our guides to how to guide more views on YouTube will give you the best tips to succeed on the platform.

How To Get More Views on YouTube

So far, there are two undeniable truths about making a YouTube Short. For YouTube to recognize a video as such, it needs to be less than 60 seconds long and in a vertical format.

However, YouTube hasn’t shared much information about the specifics of tall video content. This technical restriction is relatively new, so creators may be curious about the best aspect ratio for making YouTube Shorts.

As YouTube educators, we need that information too. It'll help us answer specific questions, such as, “

 Are we talking about an aspect ratio of 9:16 or a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels?

To find the answer, we did a test using the 

 channel. For more details about how we did that, plus a curious look at what may be the skinniest video ever, press play below:

By testing the bounds of vertical content, we discovered which videos YouTube considers to be Shorts, and thus, which videos make it to the 

. This featured section gets millions of views, so every creator should learn the technical requirements to appear there.

Do This One Thing To Get More Views With YouTube Shorts

Before we dive into our YouTube Shorts test, consider creating a featured section for the Shorts on your own channel. This creates a controlled environment of content where you can easily see all your Shorts. It’s almost impossible to know when a Short will be featured on the discovery shelf, so this is a crucial step in ‘tracking’ your progress.

To quickly create a Shorts featured section, read our guide, “

How to Get More Views with YouTube Shorts.

Once you've added this feature, you’ll see a section that automatically shows all of the YouTube Shorts on your channel. Or more importantly for this experiment, the videos YouTube 

But remember, enabling this section doesn't mean your video will appear on YouTube’s prized discovery shelf. It still has millions of other short videos to compete with. The only thing you’ll know for sure is which videos meet the requirements to be considered a YouTube Short.

Most creators understand the concept of making a video that's less than 60 seconds, but what does vertical format actually mean? We’ve seen several examples of square videos appearing as YouTube Shorts, so we decided to test the bounds of vertical content.

To do that, we created a video with an aspect ratio of 1:1 and 1080x1080 resolution - in other words, a perfect square. When we checked the video’s analytics, 12.6% of views came from the YouTube Shorts traffic source, as shown below:

This confirms what we already knew, especially after seeing the evidence on other YouTube Shorts. You can, in fact, make square videos classified as YouTube Shorts.

Ironically though, there’s both an advantage and disadvantage of doing that:

 YouTube Shorts weren’t designed with square videos in mind. That means the video will have an unsightly black bar at the top and bottom of the frame.

 On the flip side, square videos leave the bottom of the screen empty, and viewers can easily see your channel name, video title, and subscribe button.

YouTube Shorts: Can They Be ‘Wider’ Than Perfect Squares?

For our next YouTube Shorts test, we wanted to see if we could make one wider than a square. So we uploaded a video that was just 10 pixels wider than it was tall, and as we expected, the video didn't appear in our featured Shorts section. So by YouTube’s standard, that video was not considered a Short.

This test confirms a very important benchmark. 

Now we know the widest YouTube Short you can make is a square video. If the video is wider than it is tall, it won't be considered a YouTube Short.

Here’s another rule to follow: Don’t make a video skinnier than what you’d shoot on a smartphone. We created a video with a resolution of 360x1920 pixels, and while it can be viewed on YouTube, it didn’t appear on the Shorts shelf.

There’s no reason to upload a video thinner than what a smartphone produces, but hey - we just wanted to have a little fun. 

Ideally, vertical video is shot on a smartphone, and that's your safe zone. If you go any thinner than that, your video may not be considered a YouTube Short.

Can you make square videos and still get featured on YouTube's highly-viewed Shorts shelf? Let's find out.

YouTube Shorts: What Is a 'Vertical' Video?

Welcome back to another episode in our exciting new series that champions some of the most inspiring YouTubers in the community. They walk you through there own personal journey to YouTube success, animation style.

 who has built up a number of successful channels on YouTube including, of course, Prestonplayz, 

. Together, these channels have generated over 17 million subscribers and over 4.5 billion views. Let's watch the story of his YouTube creator journey from the man himself - full video transcript is below"

PrestonPlayz: His YouTube Journey to 4.5B Views

Hi, I'm Preston Arsement. Gamer, businessman and creator of PrestonPlayZ, TBNRfrags, PrestonRoblox and PrestonMinecraft. I know, so original. Honestly, I wish I knew exactly when I realized I was a successful creator. But YouTube just moves so fast. Because of all the hard work and the hundreds of all-nighters I've pulled everything is a blur. A happy, fun blur but I'll do my best to explain because this is my creator journey.

Long before I got into the YouTube business I was always an entrepreneur. I was a lifeguard, I worked for a painting company that my family knew and I would do any odd jobs to earn money. Even at 11 years old I was mowing lawns and knocking on our neighbors doors to drum up business.

My first channel TBNRFrags is focused mainly on first person shooters, and geared towards a slightly older audience. I started that channel simply because I saw one guy uploading Call of Duty videos and thought I could do the same thing. It might seem a little bit conceited but most 16 year olds are a little conceited right? I was a PC gamer and I saw a YouTube creator named xJaws who you might remember. He made Black Ops 1 content and I thought to myself heck, I can do this and I'm on PC so it's gonna be even better.

Of course in the beginning it wasn't as easy as I thought, I was scrutinized by a lot of Call of Duty community as every creator was especially because of my faith. The community was not the nicest so I had to build up some thick skin, had some motivational chats with my mom to keep me on track.

It's difficult to get berated by thousands of people daily. I remember wanting to quit at 30 000 subscribers but of course, my mom convinced me otherwise. She knew I really didn't wanna quit and I think deep down inside I knew I didn't wanna quit as well. But sometimes, it's just really hard to deal with the backlash that you get being on a platform with so many eyes always on you. If you wanna be a content creator this is definitely something you are going to have to be aware of, and you're gonna have to build up that thick skin.

It was hard to build an audience so I transitioned to doing more zombie game play. The audience was bigger and I love zombies. Plus, since I was killing zombies instead of other players I could engage with my viewers a whole lot more while I was playing.

If you guys didn't know, I really got my start on Twitch TV rather than YouTube. And I used Twitch TV to grow my YouTube audience. I had a really big breakthrough whenever I signed with Machinima in November of 2011. They made me a Machinima Respawn Director on their YouTube channel allowing me to post a video a week on the channel and then I started a series on my channel called Moab with every gun in Modern warfare 3 and that's a really helped accelerate the growth of my YouTube channel. As well as the bags under my eyes, 'cause it take me about 12 hours to get each gameplay video.

However my real breakthrough on YouTube came when I moved to Minecraft. I'm not even kidding. When I created my second channel PrestonPlayz my new found success wasn't necessarily from the change in video game, but the way I changed my approach to making videos. My TBNRFrags videos were more focused on being good at the game. Like I said, sometimes videos would take me up to 12 hours sometimes even longer. At other times I could get it done within 30 minutes to an hour due to the nature of Call of Duty and trying to get 24 kills in a row with a weapon that was not necessarily made for getting 24 kills at a row.

For example a silenced pistol, it's very difficult to do and sometimes it would take multiple days just to get one of these game play videos. It was mind numbing. Don't get me wrong, it was really cool to have people watched me for my game play and my skill, and they still liked my channel, but they weren't really watching for me. When I made that transition to become PrestonPlayz I focused on what I was saying as a commentator and how entertaining and engaging I was at least trying to be. It wasn't about who was the best at Minecraft, it was way more fun trying to be an entertainer.

In 2016, one of the hardest times that I'd overcome was when my dedicated recording group of friends, but you all know as The Pack stopped recording Minecraft content. Felt like I had lost my place in YouTube. But I continued recording videos by myself and eventually found new people in the community. Smaller YouTubers that were funny, wholesome and had a whole lot of good stow and just wanted to pursue this full-time. By giving these smaller YouTubers a chance I was able to connect with new viewers and continue to move forward.

We as humans want to progress in life. Correct me if I'm wrong. Creating content is like playing a game with YouTube's platform. What are the secrets? What's the next big trend? How can you make your own trend? How can we combine element X with element Z and element Q, to create this awesome new type of content? Moving forward is always important but having a balance in your life is also extremely important.

I would say the big struggle throughout YouTube would definitely be not taking enough creative time for myself, I tend to like to stay inside and record videos for about a 100 hours a week I'm not kidding. But at a certain point I realized that if I don't go outside, go to the gym, get some fresh air or even read my bible, my commentary will start to drop off and I'll start to lose my edge. Hard work is what helped my channels takeoff and grow and of course I credit a lot of that to my faith and all the family and friends I have around me, but there still has to be a balance even if it's not always 50-50 or even 90-10.

I've now learned that the more I've intertwined my family into business the more fun I've honestly had. My siblings and my amazing wife we're always having a blast filming content with me. I think that family has really made me successful because I want to work hard for them. I came from a humble beginning, we all lived a in motor home together for many many years and had just each other and that's all we needed. My parents had a traveling music ministry and so we got very close in that tiny motor home together. So the fact now that I have a nice car, and a nice house it really doesn't mean much to me, at least not as much as getting to hang out with my family. And of course the amount of sweet messages I've received from my audience has just been so overwhelming. I have a fan art wall at the office and I don't even like to call my viewers fans I feel bad but this viewer wall of mail and art in the office if I ever need inspiration or I need to remember why I'm doing what I'm doing because maybe I've had a hard week or something has happened, I just go to that and I just look at it. I mean it's just, it's overwhelming to see the support and to see that somehow I've changed peoples lives for the better by just playing video games and uploading it to YouTube.

My long-term goal is to stay within the video game industry and to grow as many companies as I can. We have the blessed opportunity to use YouTube as a vehicle to move forward with all of our companies. And don't get me wrong, YouTube is still so much fun but I wanna gain experience and knowledge in other areas and keep growing companies within the video game industry.

We've recently started a fourth channel for the newer version of Minecraft. It's called Bed Rock Edition Windows 10 edition, Pocket Edition whatever you guys wanna call it, but do a lot of cool branding content on PrestonPlayz now, it's fun to kind of expand, play new video games but eventually I think I'd be more fun if it was mainly real life content. Vlogs, videos of my siblings, challenge videos with my wife, just having fun with my family and friends, and trying to entertain viewers. In fact, we've already started doing that in 2019.

The audience that we have is the coolest audience ever. And making videos for them is literally just pleasure at this point. You ever go to Chick-fil-A and they're like, "My pleasure." That's how I feel when I finish a video. My pleasure. Whenever we put out a brand new video people are like this is awesome, Preston is making money and working with the cool brand and we like it. I feel like nowhere else on YouTube can you find that kinda support from an audience. It's so easy to keep coming back and filming videos and stay motivated when you have the most amazing audience in the world. If you wanna be a creator follow your dreams. I don't think it gets any more simple than that.

A lot of us see things through a specific lens that we were forced to see things through, something that tells us our dreams don't matter. Or that they're too far fetched. But you have to find your own lens to look at the world. Find the way to believe in your dreams and pursue your passions.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Want to start a gaming channel on YouTube and end up as big as PrestonPlayz? Watch his creator journey for the story behind his phenomenal success.

How to Start a Gaming Channel on YouTube Like PrestonPlayz

How do you stand out as a YouTuber when almost every single genre is being dominated by other creators? How do you can break into an industry and still make it?

In this week’s episode of TubeTalk, the YouTuber’s podcast, we're going to be diving right into that topic. If these are questions you've been wrestling with, then this episode is for you!

How to make your channel and content stand out on a saturated YouTube

Why your personality is often more important than your content

How to develop your storytelling skills to build your brand

How to find your voice and develop as a creator

How not to take negative comments and feedback too personally

How to attract brand deals as a smaller YouTuber

Our guest this week is Sidney Diongzon, a creator that’s rocking the photography and videography content on YouTube, a space which is hugely competitive and ridiculously saturated. With nearly 

, he is quickly developing his reputation as a force to be reckoned with, and is attracting major brand deals along the way. How is Sidney doing that? And how is he getting those brand deals? Tune into the podcast and dive into his story!

How to Stand Out in a Crowded YouTube Space

Sidney realized early on that to stand out on YouTube you have to be you, because there's only one of him; there's only one of you; and there's only one of everybody. With so many millions of creators on the platform, viewers often gravitate towards you as a person and how your personality shines through. Your going to be sharing your tips, tricks or opinions, but you're doing it in your way.

Viewers often turn towards platforms like YouTube, Instagram, or Twitter because they want to see something different and something unique. If they see something that's not polished, or contains the odd blooper, that's relatable. Whether you're looking for a tutorial, or you just want to be entertained, I think people are just drawn to people, which is why I think YouTube is such a massive platform for that kind of stuff. YouTube is about entertaining, and informing, but mainly it's about you just being you.

Tune into this week's TubeTalk podcast to learn how to stand out as a creator on YouTube. Huge thanks to Sidney for his insights and advice - don't forget to subscribe to his YouTube channel, and follow him on 

Subscribe to TubeTalk: The Video Marketing Podcast

TubeTalk has been informing video creators amd marketers since 2014, and is one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode! You can find vidIQ's TubeTalk at:

Don't forget to leave us a review if you love the show!

Are you a YouTube creator trying to make your mark in an overcrowded space? In this week's TubeTalk podcast, we discuss how you can breakthrough and win those views, subscribers, and brand deals.

How to Stand Out as a Creator on YouTube: TubeTalk Episode 165

If you are new to vidIQ then you are in for a visual treat in the above video because this is the countdown between T-Series and the only channel left standing in their way to being the most subscribed to channel on YouTube. That channel is YouTube Music which isn't really a channel in the traditional sense since it has no videos of its own and was automatically generated by YouTube's video discovery system.

But since T-Series overtook PewDiePie back in April, YouTube Music has been the excuse many have been using to say T-Series isn't the largest YouTube channel. But with a subscriber count of 14,000 subscribers per day versus 104,000 subscribers per day, it was only a matter of time before T-Series put this argument to bed as well. Now for some interesting nuggets of data:

1. The T-Series channel was created on March 13th, 2006, therefore taking T-Series 13 years, four months, 22 days or 4,892 days or 117,408 hours to become the most subscribed to channel on YouTube.

2. If we do a little rounding of the numbers that equates to 22,000 subscribers per day over the course of the channel's life.

3. But of course the numbers are never quite as smooth as that. T-Series started on 78 million subscribers in 2019 and have gained over 29 million subscribers this year already. Basically a third of their entire channel size.

4. And since we've just started week 32 of 2019 that basically works out at almost a million subscribers per week.

5. Now this number will be out of date almost the second I record it, but at the time of takeover T-Series had 13,684 videos on their channel. That works out at roughly 7,845 subscribers per video.

But with all that being said it is game time. Here we are Sunday, August 4th, in all the important time zones, which ties a neat little bow around this event. So let's slow things down to real-time so we can record and document the exact moment T-Series became the most subscribed to channel on YouTube. Now that's pretty cool, we managed to capture the exact moment the two channels were neck and neck. And let's restart it again. And there we have it folks. The date and time T-Series took the crown of both the most watched and most subscribed to channel on YouTube. Because, just in case you didn't know, T-Series also have over 78 billion video views.

And as we have always said throughout these explorations into the data behind the biggest channels on YouTube we take no sides. This is a celebration of the video platform that has revolutionized the way the globe communicates. And the power it has given to almost any person in the world to reach almost every person in the world. Whether that be the largest music label in Asia, or indeed a solo Swedish gamer. (exploding Yep, don't worry, don't worry, we haven't forgotten about him. We're just wondering if he's gonna make it to 100 million subscribers in time before YouTube switch off these real-time subscriber counts.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

It is now finally official and undisputed. T Series is the most subscribed to channel on YouTube and this is exactly when they finally did it.

T Series is Now the Most Subscribed To YouTube Channel Ever

Now what's all this talk about earning lots of money in a very short space of time from a very small number of people on YouTube? Well it all comes down to this. We recently published a video all about 

One of the tools we talked about during that video was 

, which are small financial contributions from viewers to live streams which will highlight their message in the live stream chat. Now Super Chats are not new, it's been a feature that's been on YouTube for a number of years, but what is new is just how profitable they are for video creators. YouTube has confirmed that there are now over 90,000 channels who have received Super Chats - with some streams earning more than $400 per minute!

Now we ourselves occasionally get Super Chats on our live streams and we're very appreciative of it, thank you very much. But to say that it's a number one revenue source for channels and that you can earn over $400 per minute seems fanciful, until I saw this livestream from Travis McPherson (tune into the video above to watch).

Travis is part of the vidIQ family. You may have seen him on our channel, or at live streams and he does lots of work with customer service in the background. But Travis is also a video creator in his own right with the channel 

And he does all sorts of things on technology including live streams. At the time of recording, Travis's tech channel is just shy of 40,000 subscribers and I have no idea what he's doing right here. But this is one such live stream he did recently on the Samsung Galaxy Note which ran for about 48 minutes and got around 1,000 views. Just some of the Super Chats Travis received during that live stream including a single donation of $100 Canadian dollars. So first of all Travis, that's some savage work my friend. But second of all, and most importantly, how on earth did you do this? We decided to ask him.

 Actually the ability for me to get all of these Super Chats really had nothing to do with me chasing different ways to get the money, it was actually more about me chasing ways to make my live streams better. Let me explain.



I would go to other live streams and I would try to figure out why people were so excited to be there and why they were so much fun. I would go to other creators live streams and I would enjoy them myself. And one thing I noticed was in one of my favorite creators live streams he would do sound effects periodically and people loved it! And then I noticed that the more sound effects were being used, the more people would send Super Chats which I thought was interesting.



So what I wanted to do first was put sound effects in my videos. There's multiple ways of doing this including free ways where you can do a soundboard on your computer. But I bought the 

 and it's already paid for itself.



Basically it has a bunch of different buttons that I can completely modify and put different sound effects and different, cool little visual effects in my live streams. It makes it more fun.



Secondly, I made sure that I'm full of energy every single live stream. People want that, people love that. They come to my live stream because they enjoy themselves. And of course the most important thing, the thing you're wondering about how do I get them to spend money, well I don't. I just enjoy myself. I play sound effects when cool things are happening and when someone sends a Super Chat it's a big celebration.



I have a specific song I play, I do a little dance, and you know what, it works. People love it when you can take a minute to just appreciate that someone has sent you money just for being live, they really appreciate it as well. And because I go to other streamers live streams I go to other creators live streams, they actually come to mine as well and a lot of those Super Chats were from other creators. I really believe that going to people's live streams, being apart of the community and then making your live stream as fun as absolutely possible, is all you need to do. Focus on the people in your live stream make it awesome for them, and the rest just kinda works its way out.

Making Live Streams Work for Your YouTube Subscribers

YouTube subscribers are a fickle bunch. You only need to look at your analytics to see how many views you get from actual subscribers and it's usually less than 50% on most channels.

Beyond your standard subscribers are actual fans of your channel, the ones who post comments in all of your videos, who turn into every single live stream, they volunteer to moderate, and in the most generous way they start to offer you Super Chats and become members of your channel.

Those are your super fans, and if you continue to give those super fans enough value and make them part of the fabric of your channel you will never need to ask for anything from them they will give it to you because they are so invested in your success.

Oh and one final thing, I said that Travis earned these $200 from about 150 viewers although the live stream said it got a 1,000 views this is because you have concurrent viewers watching the live stream there and then, they drop in and out, and in reality Travis probably earned that money from maybe 10 at max 15 Super Chat contributors. So in theory you can make far more money than you would ever make on AdSense with just a handful of diehard fans.

How do you earn more than $100 in less than an hour from just 150 people watching your content on YouTube? We tell you how!

How to Make More Than $100 on YouTube in Less Than an Hour!

There’s a big myth around YouTube - That it’s saturated, and everybody's doing the same thing, so there’s no room for new creators. Wrong!

On this episode of TubeTalk, I’m speaking to someone who runs a very unique channel which is doing exceptionally well. We discuss how whenever you put yourself out there, and share your passion with the world, even YouTube will reward you for it. 

 is a professional juggler, with over 500K subscribers on YouTube and in this podcast you will learn:

How he turned his passion into a YouTube goldmine

How he learned to understand his audience to give them the content they want

The different YouTube content he creates around a single topic

Subscribe to TubeTalk: The Video Marketing Podcast!

TubeTalk has been informing video creators and marketers since 2014, and is one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode! You can find vidIQ's TubeTalk at:

How to Turn Your Passion into a Killer YouTube Career: Full Transcript

Liron Segev: Josh, thanks for making the time to be here.

Josh Horton:	Of course, thanks for having me.

Liron Segev:	Josh, you have quite an interesting story. For those who don't know, how would you do Josh in a tweet?

Josh Horton:	In a tweet, oh boy. After I graduated college my plan was to be a professional juggler. I was doing that but then I also started working for a social media agency part-time. That turned into full-time and then my juggling career kind of fell by the wayside and before I knew it, I was a manager at a social media agency. Then when I turned 25 I quit that job to focus 100% on juggling but I'd learned so much about social media I also started to grow a social media channel for fun, mainly on Instagram at that point.

Fast forward a couple years and now I am not done performing but juggling as a performance, as an income is a side thing and now social media is my full-time thing.

Liron Segev:	It's a good thing that Twitter has 280 characters.

Liron Segev:	Okay, but there's a whole bunch of interesting points here where you were going in a certain direction, you decided to stop that, focus on that career.

Liron Segev:	Then you went back to the original thing and all this juggling became a side hustle thing.

Josh Horton:	Yeah, sort of. If you want to be successful you have to follow what's making you money but you also have to follow what you're enjoying, and so I've done both of them where right now I'm loving what I'm doing and I'm making money, which is great so it's a win.

My degree was in Entrepreneurial Studies, how to be an entrepreneur, how to own your own business, how to follow those dollar signs while being your own business and I think I've done a good job of tracking what's going to be best. My plan has changed multiple times in my young adult life but I'm trying to always be adaptable and follow those signs.

Liron Segev:	And following your passion as well because that seems to be the driving force underneath all of this.

Josh Horton:	Yeah, I've loved everything ... I quit my job. My job was okay working in social media, on the brand side, but anything that involves what I'm doing I love it.

Liron Segev:	Did you find that having that brand experience and having that background, did that help you with growing your own social media and doing those brand deals?

Josh Horton:	It definitely helped me growing my own social media, especially off the bat. I started just on Instagram because I had no plans of being a YouTuber, no plans on being even an influencer. I was just like, "Hey, I like Instagram and it would be fun if I had some followers, just to have followers, to show off to my friends or whatever.

Around that time was right when video had just come out. For our brands we were almost doing exclusively super branded content, which obviously I wasn't a big fan of for an Instagram account but it taught me how to take your content a little bit next level. When videos were first coming out everyone was just filming in the app and so the fact that it had music or I was editing together montages or something was not groundbreaking but most people weren't doing it.

In the early days of Instagram video I was able to grow a following pretty quickly just with my juggling and trick shot videos.

Liron Segev:	It made you stand out because you weren't yet another me too doing something that everybody else was doing.

Liron Segev:	You found your own voice, you found your own way of doing it, and that obviously really struck with your community.

Josh Horton:	Right. Then, where I was also able to find some success was I knew that people didn't want to watch a juggler. Juggling is what I've done my entire life but I've been able to branch out into world records, nine juggling world records and then trick shots too. I've been throwing things accurately my whole life and then when I was trying to create more engaging, more relatable videos to other people, I knew trick shots would be an easy way to do that and turns out I'm very good at them.

Liron Segev:	Once again, tapping into something that you're good at, finding your passion, and just sharing it with the world.

Liron Segev:	There seems to be a community that really, really responds to that.

Liron Segev:	Take me through the time when you said, "Okay, there's this thing called YouTube, I know it, maybe I should transition towards that." What was that mindset like, why did you make that change?

Josh Horton:	Right. That goes back to what we were talking about before of me wanting to enjoy this life and be able to make a living doing it. This was when I was still very much a performer, so I was doing a lot of NBA college halftime shows, corporate events during my juggling show and then I had probably 150,000 followers on Instagram. I'd obviously come into a couple brand deals and I was like, "Oh wow, you can make a living on social media!.

I knew that from working in the industry but that was never a goal of mine. I'd fallen into a couple of these brand deals, made a few bucks. I was like, "Man, it'd be really cool if I could make a living just doing these internet videos." Took a look at the industry and brand deals are great but they come and go, and they can go for a very long time where you have nothing and so you can't depend on them. I knew once you have a good YouTube following you can have that Ad revenue, which is much more steady, much more reliable, quote unquote reliable as we've all learned.

I knew YouTube was what I needed to do and I knew it was going to be a big undertaking. That was about two and a half years ago and I had probably, I think it was probably 10,000 subscribers just from being a juggler and posting videos when I was younger in the juggling community. I, again, was wanting to branch out not being just a juggler so when I started taking YouTube seriously I was doing world record Wednesdays, and I'm still doing that. Every Wednesday I've broken a world record for the last two and half years and I haven't missed an upload.

Liron Segev:	Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, just stop there. Every Wednesday you break a world record?

Liron Segev:	Wow, that's a lot of records.

Josh Horton:	It's been a lot. It's a thing where I'm like I never know when I'm going to run out or if I'm going to regret this one day. Some days I do regret it but it's such a good series that the fans love. To get the response that you just gave it's a one sentence, better than my long tweet at the beginning when people say, "What do you do on your channel?" "I break a world record every Wednesday," that's a very easy elevator pitch.

Liron Segev:	That's a taggage right there.

Josh Horton:	I started just doing once a week so world record Wednesdays was the entire channel for nine months or so and then I started posting a little bit more so now I'm at three times a week. The last two years I've been doing three times a week.

Liron Segev:	How do you find what this week's record is going to be? Is there a book that you're ticking off going from A to Z?

Josh Horton:	No. There's a couple of places, the Guinness World Records Database online which has tons of stuff. They have stuff that has been set and there's an existing record but then they also have all these things that they have in their database that no one's attempted. They've laid out the rules and the minimum for it so we're able to say, "Hey, this is in the Guinness World Records Database, there has not been a record set yet. Their minimum for this record is so-and-so," yeah. I'm all about entertainment. I do have 16 official Guinness World Records titles.

Liron Segev:	Oh, for the record, just to be clear.

Josh Horton:	Just for the record. Sorry ladies, I'm married. Yeah, for the most part it's just entertainment for YouTube at this point. Having the world record Wednesday every Wednesday, it puts it in a category form where it makes brainstorming easier but also harder. I know what my realm of, it has to be a world record so that narrows it down but also, two and a half years in, a little bit more difficult. My goal for it as we do feature people a lot, other people, other talented people.

Liron Segev:	Oh, I see, you bring in other talent?

Josh Horton:	Yeah, pretty often, especially for world record Wednesdays. We'll feature someone who is the world's best. We did a girl who has whips so she can remove Jenga blocks with whips. She's super accurate with whips.

Josh Horton:	We've done basketball people, we've done a guy who has a trained dog, all sorts of stuff. My goal for the channel is to get big enough to where people people are hitting me up all the time asking to be on the channel for the new world record, demonstrate their skill. We're not quite there yet but we're hitting up people all the time to try to get them as guests and the fans love that too because they're tired of seeing me, basically.

Liron Segev:	There's 52 Wednesdays a year. It's not a big number, not in terms of massive, but you still have to find enough talent who can actually do it.

Liron Segev:	Do you film the whole process if they succeed or fail or do you just give the highlight reels of, "Hey, here's the final shot."

Josh Horton:	No, we always show the process, that's kind of been another thing for the channel. The other thing, if I was to categorize my channel it would be a trick shot or sports channel unlike Dude Perfect. Dude Perfect puts together the most epic, perfect video of trick shots and that's not our style. We show the misses, we show the process, we show all of that.

Josh Horton:	Yeah. We love to show everything that happens, everything that goes into it and bring our fans along for that journey.

Liron Segev:	You've done Instagram, you've now moved across to YouTube, you're building a community. What kind of tips would you have for us if somebody is thinking, "Hey, I've got the skill," maybe something that's not your typical YouTube thing. How would I start getting myself into that mindset that, actually, the skill that I have people would want to see it?

Josh Horton:	There's a couple parts to that. I think part of it is showing the process, it's showing the personality. People only care about the skill to a certain degree once you get past that immediate community. If you like yo-yos, if you can be a great yo-yo player you can gain all of the yo-yo followers in the world but that number is going to stop at one point and then you're not going to be able to make a living doing it.

I know there's a lot of skateboarding channels that have tons of fans that are not skateboarders, they just love the process. They love seeing it, they love the personalities. I've done that with juggling but I also, I acknowledge that people weren't going to watch a juggling channel. I knew that juggling wasn't going to be something that applied to the masses and I've always loved sports. I love trick shots and so I don't feel like I'm betraying myself by not making a juggling channel because I still love what we're doing.

I think I did take, from the beginning, taking YouTube seriously with World Record Wednesdays I was like, "People are not going to watch a juggling channel. I need to branch out, I need to do something beyond what I'm just doing." I think the other thing would be to find something that is on brand with what you do on brand with your skill and then, yeah, just try to branch out a little bit, that would be more for the masses.

Liron Segev:	I love Mike Boyd's channel, it's all about who he is, learn quick, and so his are all just learning skills. He's not skilled in one specific thing but his channel is about learning skills, which I love. Do you ever do teaching videos, how to's?

Josh Horton:	I have a three ball tutorial online, it has 750,000 views, which is good for my channel but it's one of the things people are searching for it so they find it but people ask for tutorials all the time and it's just doesn't make sense for the channel anymore.

I've even thought about doing a separate channel for just tutorials or having a library of tutorials with a paywall, yeah. I'm still processing that, yeah.

Liron Segev: What about merch and things of that nature?

Josh Horton:	We're working on Merch, yeah, we've been doing Teespring but we want to take it a little bit next level, I think, soon so we'll see. I do have a juggling store which does pretty well so I do sell juggling props and all sorts of other stuff as well; boomerangs, yo-yo's, unicycles, all sorts of stuff at jugglingwarehouse.com.

Liron Segev:	I think that's what people want, is they want to be part of the community and being part of the community is actually owning a piece of that community. If it's a matter of supporting the creator by being able to do that, then why not?

Josh Horton:	I love that ... It's not a juggling channel but I'm inspiring tons of people that juggle. I get messages almost daily saying they learned to juggle because of me and they bought their first set of balls. My most sold item is my beginner set of juggling balls and we sell multiple a day. It's a cool thing to be able to, to be giving back to the community where I started, all of this started because of juggling so I do like that.

I have had internal struggles like, "Am I giving up on juggling, am I betraying my talent and my passion that I started with?" I don't think I am because I'm just being smart about all of it and I'm still loving what I'm doing.

Liron Segev:	As we wrap up, what's got you really, really excited at the moment?

Josh Horton:	Well, YouTube has finally been taking off. I say that with an asterisk, we'll have a crazy week. Overall, YouTube has finally been doing well. I think in the last six months we've gone from 200,000 to 400,000 which has been great.

Josh Horton:	Thank you. First 100k took a long time and even the second 100k took a while but the last 200 have come pretty quickly, which has been exciting.

Liron Segev:	Have you found that you're finally in your groove, you found your niche, you know what works.

Josh Horton:	You know what works, for the most part. It's still frustrating sometimes. We had my most viewed day of the channel ever and then six days later I had the lowest viewed day of the channel in nine months, which just doesn't make sense to me. Overall, the lows are much higher than they used to be so that's good, we're moving in the right direction and still gaining subs everyday so that's good.

Liron Segev:	That's the whole thing of YouTube, just when you think you've got it figured out, you just don't. Or they go ahead and they change yet another thing.

Liron Segev:	If people want to find you, they want to get ahold of you, what's the best way so we can have these in the show notes so nobody has to miss anything

Liron Segev:	Fantastic. Josh, thanks very much for your time.

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

There’s a big myth around YouTube - that it’s saturated, and there’s no room for new creators. Find out why that's wrong and how you can build a career out of your passion right now on this week's TubeTalk.

How to Turn Your Passion into a Killer YouTube Career: TubeTalk 183 with Josh Horton

Custom thumbnails on YouTube - they're one of the biggest topics we talk about here at vidIQ and during our weekly channel audit live streams, that's one of the things we scrutinize the most. This post is part of a new series all about improving thumbnails on your YouTube channel, because just as readers judge books by their covers, viewers judge videos by their thumbnails. You have a very small graphic and a very small amount of time to convince somebody to click on your video, so you have to use it as wisely as possible.

How to Create Custom Thumbnails on YouTube

I’ve spent the last year improving the custom thumbnails I use on our vidIQ videos on YouTube, and that’s proving to be a hit with viewers as our click through rate on our channel has increased 100% over that time. My thumbnail creations always start with two things: a plain cream wall to use as a temporary background and a ring light.

For me, personally, purchasing a ring light was the game changer. You find these in cosmetic shops and a lot of beauty channels use these to blast a lot of concentrated light over a confined amount of space. I use the newer RL 18 ring light and it has two dials which allow you to control the exact amount of light you want to use and whether it has that warm, soft orange look, or a more cool, clinical white appearance. The ring light kicks out a lot of light, so you only need to have it on a low setting for it to have dramatic effects. One thing you do need to keep an eye on, however, are android eyes. The closer the ring light is to your face, the more chance the viewer has of seeing white circles in your eyes, which might be distracting or intentional. To get rid of this android circle eye effect, what you can do is place the ring light further away from you and turn up the brightness. And you should get the same effect with less white eyes.

Now it's time to put on your best YouTuber face, if you intend to be in the thumbnail. Think of it like this: whatever expression you intend to use, crank it all the way up to 11. It will never look quite as stupid as you imagine when you're holding the pose, and it will look perfect for the thumbnail. Trust me, every YouTuber practices this around three hours!

When you're ready, set your camera to burst mode so you have a collection of pictures to choose from. I take three pictures at one-second intervals and I leave the camera on automatic mode. The camera I use is a Panasonic G7 with the kit lens. Now we need to get rid of the background because it's, well, to be honest, quite boring and it's too similar to my skin tone. So let's jump onto a computer and turn this into something that starts to resemble a thumbnail.

YouTube Custom Thumbnails: Creating the Image

When you create a contrast between a foreground and a background, each element of your picture really starts to pop. So what we want to do is get my YouTube pose stuck onto this blue background, just to demonstrate how powerful this can be. To do this, we need to cut me out of this image as if cutting a picture out of a newspaper. The best way to do this through Photoshop, which is what I used here at vidIQ, using the Magnetic Lasso Tool. All you need to do is click on a starting point and then draw your mouse around the shape, and you will see anchor points automatically create themselves with lines attached to each one. Photoshop does a pretty good job of working out these cut points automatically, but, occasionally, you will need to click a point manually, especially if there are two edges or lines with distinct colors that are close to each other.

Once you've joined the dots, so to speak, click on your starting point to complete the trace, and then use the Cut command. Next, go to the background image and paste that bad boy in. Boom. Now you can maneuver your image into place and clean up any bits, and the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop will help with that. You can, of course, use the Magic Wand to clear the whole background, but it's not as accurate or reliable as the Magnetic Lasso Tool.

Now let's add a bit of magic sauce to my image. Go to Filter at the top, then select Sharpen, followed by Unsharpen Mask. This will draw out all the detail. The lines, the contour of the face. And, to be honest, at full size, it may look a little too sharp. But remember, 99.9% of your audience will see this image at postage stamp size. And this Unsharpen Mask really brings out the detail.

Alright then, the thumbnail is taking shape, but we need to make it a vidIQ thumbnail. And that's done through branding and elements that we use in every single thumbnail. What we need for that is a template. While this background is okay, it doesn't quite match the company blue. So we're going to move my image over to our template thumbnail. What we have here is a background that we use on every single custom thumbnail. The vidIQ logo in the bottom left-hand corner, that we also use in every single thumbnail. And this font type and color that we always use whenever we include text in a thumbnail. This establishes branding and consistency throughout our artwork, so you know instantly when you see one of our thumbnails, you know it's a vidIQ video.

I haven't quite decided whether to use text in this one yet, so I'm going to leave it in there for now, drag my image into a template, resize it, and rotate it a little bit, to make sure my surprised pose is looking at whatever objects I'm going to insert on the left-hand side of the thumbnail. Next is a little personal touch I like to add which can divide opinion. If you bring up Layer Styles, you can add an outline to images, such as a shadow, outer glow, or stroke effect. I like to do this because it hides some of the rough imperfections in the process of cutting the original image out, and, personally, I just think it makes me stand out even more. In this example, I'm going to add a white stroke effect, adjusting the line thickness to get it the way I like it. Alright, now we have the hero or the persona in the image with a strong, evocative pose. But we need them to be drawn to something.

Custom Thumbnails on YouTube: How to Get the Text Right

I'm conscious that the video title is going to be something along the lines of ‘How to Make a Thumbnail’, so I don't want to repeat that text in the thumbnail. So I've decided to go for a construction theme, and this is how I'm going to build it.

I've got a construction sign image here that I'm going to pull in, remove the white background, and then make nice and big to fill the right side of the thumbnail. Now to add some YouTube flavor to the mix. I'm going to bring in the logo and I have two choices, here. Either I can cover up the tools, or hang the logo above the text. I think covering the tools looks best. Now I'm adding a small black stroke effect to give the YouTube logo an outline and, because I already have some text in the sign, I'm going to delete the default font and its banner. Yes, this is a rare occasion when I'm not using our default font.

Now I have more space to play with, I'm going to make the sign stand out some more with a drop shadow, increase the size, and rotate the whole thing around a little bit. And this is the finished product. Three dominant colors, blue, yellow, and red, that I think contrast well with each other, and a very simple design. And that is the key because, remember, nobody sees your thumbnail at full size - they see it at a much smaller size.

Stay tuned throughout April 2019 for the best tips, tricks and best practices around creating custom thumbnails on YouTube.

Creating awesome custom thumbnails for YouTube can send your clickthrough rate through the roof! We show you how to create the perfect YouTube thumbnail for your content.

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