Workshop Update - 15th November 2018 – Spending Time Planning.
Getting back on-track in the workshop and planning for growth.
Like many makers and content creators I have a full-time job in the ‘real world’ away from the workshop and YouTube. In the real-world the 15th of each month is important as it’s the day I get paid and I can look once more at my workshop budget and look for opportunities to invest in the fabric of the workshop and tools, and allocate money to restocking my consumables and materials for projects. Since the early summer many of these considerations have focused on getting my workshop established in a new one-car garage and work needed around our brand new house in Northamptonshire. Overall myself and my partner have achieved a considerable amount within a very short period of time with our family and friends left somewhat impressed at our levels of productivity. All the usual moving-in things have been done, curtains, blinds, self-assembly furniture, picture hooks, and so on. Larger projects delivered including re-erecting the summerhouse which was my previous workshop. Every month I allocate a little bit more and a bit more gets done.
What has been a little neglected has been my YouTube channel. Having returned from Makers Central I was really keen to get going but without much idea of how. The 350 subscribers I had seemed satisfied with a mixed bag of videos but since then my subscriber count has climbed to over 1200 due to the best of my content having been promoted by the YouTube recommendations feature. Today as I write I find myself thinking much more seriously about how to take my channel forward which has got in the way of actually creating new content.
And that’s OK. Of course I want to get back on track but taking stock of where I am and planning for the future makes more sense. Something I should have perhaps done sooner. But here’s the thing if you’re thinking of starting your own channel and start by carefully planning your approach, I’m pretty certain you won’t start at all. Better to go film something, edit it, post it and repeat. Creating content is as much of a habit as it is a thing you can plan for. It’s worked well for me but now I’ve taken to thinking.
So what have I been thinking about? Here are 5 key outcomes:
The videos that have had the highest engagement and led to rapid growth have been the reviews I’ve done on tools. And not just the cheap Aldi/Lidl tools, Makita too. The feedback has been generally positive and comments have really shaped how I make a good review video. As I said in my FAQ video I see no long-term value in reviewing tools for the sake of a review video. I am investing my hard-earned money in the workshop and we’re in period when new tools arrive monthly. I will review those (good or bad) and expect this to almost come to an end in around 6-9 months.
I am learning new stuff all the time. One of the things most apparent in my tool review videos is that I’m explaining things I’ve only just learned myself. I read the manual carefully and will often practice with the tool before filming. I’ve enough experience to quickly get to grips with something new and confidently talk about this to my viewers. What I’ve realised is that a further source of content exists within the tools and materials I have access to and showing new makers and woodworkers the techniques I’ve mastered so that they can quickly build their confidence make sense. For example I showed a friend recently how I started cuts with a handsaw when I was learning by using a marking knife and a chisel to cut a notch in the edge the wood. My friend was blown away and practically accused me and all the other woodworkers in the world of keeping secrets to themselves. I’ve realised the value in these ‘pro’ tips and will commit to focusing on them more.
Making videos of making things is a very strange existence. If you were brought up in the UK and remember going through the ‘round window’ on TV as a child you will have seen a whole host of things made before your eyes. Everything from Christmas Crackers to the filling of milk bottles at the dairy. What I’ve only just realised through doing is that those short films where a milk bottle goes from being cleaned to stacked in creates probably took days to film even though you see the whole process in just a few minutes. Making good videos is where time is invested both in filming and editing, and consequently I have spent time planning this out properly and realised a video idea I have today (Wednesday) is very likely to happen if I plan to release a video in two Thursdays time, than if I try to get it up on YouTube this weekend. I used to think videos took a few days to knock out. They don’t at all and all the evidence from my notes over the last year indicates they take two weeks. Who Knew?
Last week I spent some time writing a release procedure for my videos. It took into account how I market them on social media platforms and develop my audience. Today I ripped that up and wrote a simpler plan. Rather than simply take the video URL and share it across platforms I now plan to spend 20-30 minutes on each platform on a Friday evening to create original content that connects better with my audience on each platform. Instagram is does not support links to videos in posts, but does support short videos and image collections. People can find me easily on YouTube by searching for STRAWBYTE, what I need to focus on is giving them what they came to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr for and use all the best features each platform has to offer.
I plan to monetise early knowing this to be controversial and not without risk. I won’t describe the full rationale here but once you’ve passed the threshold for entering the YouTube Partner Programme you get to choose. It’s a choice where you really don’t have all the facts in front of you but it’s yours and yours alone to make. It’s your channel after-all. So I choose monetise. I choose to allow adverts to be placed in my content. I accept that if my content does not deserve people’s attention they will not sit through a skippable ad. I accept the risk my audience will drop. But hey, it’s an audience that is 97% unsubscribed and I’d like to think that those that did subscriber did so without considering if the channel was monetised. And like other YouTube channels I’ll explore other methods of funding like merchandise, Etsy, Patreon and affiliate links too.
So there we go, a short update. If you have an opinion on any of this please leave a comment. But until next time, cheerio.