I have over 200k views on YouTube with 1.8 million video impressions. I have enough subscribers and hours of watch time to be a YouTube partner and have achieved this in just over a year. All of this is organic—I paid for nothing. I started by recording myself explaining work I would hand off to clients and thought I could do it on a personal level. I don’t spend a lot of time on this (maybe two hours a month) and use tools that help me edit out bad takes or dead air automatically, saving me time.

If you’re interested in doing some content creation in the new year, particularly on YouTube, here are a few insights I have:

1.) Being enthusiastic is the most important aspect. You have to be excited about what you’re showing. If you’re not excited to show a project or something you’ve learned, then don’t bother.

2.) People want to see something real. This is why I look up things like camera reviews or microphone reviews and prioritize real people over large companies or paid influencers (this is also why I will search for something online and add “Reddit” at the end). Full-time YouTube reviewers are not experts. This should give you some insight as to why someone might look up “MacBook Pro web development” and prioritize a video I made over a reviewer with 30 million subscribers who has no background in programming. This should also encourage you as you likely know more about a topic than what is currently on offer on YouTube.

3.) Thumbnail images are what get people to click the video. They are important and should clearly describe what the video is about while also being interesting (the same goes for the video title).

4.) Audio is more important than video. You can get started by recording audio from your phone or use an $18 lavalier microphone. When you want to take things to the next level, you can go two main routes: the podcaster, bass-heavy sound (Shure SM7B + audio interface) or the more natural room noise sound with a shotgun mic (Sennheiser MKE 600 + audio interface). Both sound good, but their sound profiles are very different. To hear samples of each, search them up on YouTube. They’ll run about $400 for everything, so it is an investment, but they will last decades if you treat them right.

5.) You need to give the viewer some value. Teach them something or show them how to build a project. Your value-add here is that you know some piece of information they don’t know, have a device they don’t yet have, or are showing them some software that changes their workflow.

6.) Watch back your content and make mental notes on improvements. Then, make those improvements in future videos. Focus on things like capturing better audio, making cleaner edits, and making the text easier to read.

7.) AI-generated content isn’t there yet, and stock photos are lifeless. Avoid them both.

8.) Make content that you would want to watch. That should be your guiding light.

Hope this was helpful and insightful for those who read it. Have a great 2025!