Transcription
I want to talk to anybody who's over 40. I almost said over 50, over 60, but a friend of mine who I've been talking to about this said, "Well, you know, Kevin, if you say over 40, that gets everybody." Um, and it's really about convincing you, um, to get into video, to do video, uh, and specifically YouTube, in case you didn't know, which probably don't.
Because if you don't know me, by the way, my name is Kevin Colby. Um, as of recording this, uh, do I want to tell you my age? Yeah, what the heck. I'm 63 at the day I'm recording this. I'm 63. Well, actually, I'll be 63 for, for a whole year. I started my YouTube channel, uh, in 2017. I, I hate math. I think I was 57. My position was eliminated. I was a creative director at a television station and had been with the company for 24 years. Actually, have been in television, had been in television, past tense, for over 30-something years. And ironically, I started my YouTube channel in January in 2017, and then that March is when they said, "Hey, we're going to eliminate your position." The company I worked for, uh, was fantastic and and took care of me, but it, it got into this, "What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?"
And it wasn't until a couple of years later that my channel got audited that I really started getting serious about YouTube. And when I say got serious, I stopped trying to figure out the other platforms and grow, and I just started looking more into YouTube and started doing a lot of how-to stuff. As I've gotten older, uh, as, as I am, you know, I've realized that, dang, there's, there's so much to offer when people will say, "You know, that video really helped me," or they want to reach out, or they want me to help them. And, and I've done coaching and I've consulted with businesses and nonprofits and other creators. And, and it, it's fun to be able to help somebody.
The more I've just thought about it, I thought, "You know, I really want to help more people over 40, or 50, or 60, or however old you are, or 70. I don't care, uh, really do video and do more with video." Video's been a, a large part of my life for a long time. I, I hate the word expert. I know a lot about video. I don't know everything about video. I shoot my own stuff, um, I edit my own stuff. Absolutely love editing. Absolutely love editing. Um, I'm kind of self-taught, um, but I love editing. I, I do all my own stuff. I do my own thumbnails. I upload and, and everything like that. And, uh, air conditioning is kicking in.
But I thought, you know, one of the things I, I haven't done is share my experience that much with other. Is it, is it okay to say like-minded people that are 40 plus, 50 plus, 60 plus? But I'd love to hear, you know, what's your age? When do you start? And if you haven't started, kind of what's holding you back? And that's what I want to do more of on this channel. Just be very transparent. I'm a solo content creator, meaning I work for me. This is what I do for a living. Um, and there's a lot of different ways I've earned a living. And it's insane how many connections I've made off of YouTube.
So part of this video is just trying to, uh, encourage you. I started. I don't like the word inspire. Here's why: I don't think I can inspire you. I mean, if I do, that's nice, but I, I want to encourage you and I want to help you. If you're thinking about it, it's like, "Man, you know, you, you watch one of these YouTube videos and you're like, 'Dang, I can do that.'" Then I want to encourage you and help you to do that.
Why would you start a YouTube channel? Well, there's a lot of reasons. One is, it, it can be a source of income. There's so many different ways to earn money on and off YouTube. And if you would like to see a video about that, I mean, I can, I can do a more in-depth one of, of ways I've earned. Just full disclosure, I, I don't enjoy sharing numbers. I don't know why. Maybe it was the way I was raised, is, you know, you never tell anybody what you make. Um, I can tell you this: I made a very nice salary in television, and it's taken me a while to get even close to that over years. Uh, it's not consistent, but it is what it is. God, God's taking care of, of my family, so I'm, I'm certainly not complaining. But if you, if you want to see like another video that gets more into ways that you could possibly, you know, make money on or off YouTube, you know, I'll be happy to share some things I've done and some ideas, and heck, learned from you as well.
But that is a way of, of that, that is a benefit of YouTube. It allows you to, to not even just make money. It's called AdSense. If you don't, if, if you haven't heard anything about that, when, at a certain point, you can, you have the opportunity, you're invited by YouTube to join the Partner Program. And the Partner Program, you have to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. And if you haven't started, you're just starting, you may think, "Dang, Kevin, there's just no way I'm going to get there." And it can seem like a struggle. And I, there's too many guys, there's too many people out there that want to just pretend like, "Oh, you just do X, Y, and Z, and you'll just grow and blow up." And I want to say that it's not that easy, but YouTube doesn't have to be that hard either.
You have to decide what you want to do. When you get 1,000 subscribers, 4,000 hours of watch time, you can join the, uh, YouTube Partner Program. And what that does is it unlocks a lot of, of different features for you as a YouTuber. And then YouTube can put ads on your videos without being in the program. But once you're in the program, then you get a cut of that. And, you know, what I should know what the cut is, and I can't remember. Different, um, niches, as you've heard, different, uh, types of content will earn more. Um, you know, I personally wouldn't chase that to try and make money off that. AdSense can be good money, but it's also very inconsistent. It can be seasonal. It can be based on your content. But that's just one of the many ways.
If you have your own business, or let's say you create something, let's say you're a crafter and you sew, um, you could actually use YouTube to maybe sell patterns. My wife's a seamstress, so I'm going to act like I know anything about sewing. I tried to sew a button, what is it? It, I, it couldn't even, you couldn't get the little hole through it, you know, 'cause I don't know about sewing. I sewed it so tight on there. So I won't be doing any videos about how to be a seamstress. But if you wanted to be a seamstress, or you are a seamstress, there's ways you could do that. You could start a newsletter, you could start a group, you could sell patterns, um, you could do coaching and consulting. So there's different ways you can do that.
Um, the other thing about YouTube is that if you haven't heard this, I mean, it's, it's the second biggest search engine, owned by Google, which is the biggest search engine. When you go to Google and you search something, if there's a video related to that topic, YouTube will serve that up. You've probably seen that. Um, some of my videos have showed up in search, and that has helped those videos to grow. Google's not going to serve up videos from LinkedIn or Facebook or TikTok or Instagram. They're going to serve up videos, if it relates to what you may be looking for, from YouTube. And like I said, I've had videos that have been boosted, if you will, organic. I didn't put any money. In fact, I've never paid for ads for my channel for anything I've done. And it, it will help bring more traffic, if you will, more eyeballs, more viewers to your video. Um, and sometimes it's, it's over time.
There's one video I did that, I mean, for a long time, it just didn't get that many views, and all of a sudden just took off. The last time I looked, the video right now, 50% of the audience is coming from, from people searching for this on YouTube. I think it's about how to, how to share big video files or something like that. And, and then like 50% is coming from Google search, which is kind of cool. I mean, I'm not going to lie, when, when you go to Google and you see your video on there, you're like, "Dang, that's kind of cool."
When you look at the platform, YouTube is, there's, there's, there's really no other platform like this. Uh, I like Facebook. I've been on Facebook a long time. I use it more for personal. I do have a page, but I don't do anything with it. As much as I've made connections on Facebook, I, it's not searchable. Instagram, you know, I stopped posting on there like over a year or so ago. I think I did something around Easter. If I never post on there again, I'm fine. I do play on Twitter, X, whatever it's called right now, and, and, and I've done some stuff on LinkedIn. I've never, ever though, ever had any, um, level of engagement success you have to find what your success is, that I have had on YouTube. Um, and so I throw that out there.
Um, if you start a channel, and I'm going to encourage you to, especially if you're over 40, there's so much you can offer. But if you start a channel, what I'm going to encourage you to do, based on my experience, uh, take it what it's worth, is focus on YouTube. Don't start a YouTube channel and then think, "Well, okay, well, I've got to start another, uh, social media channel because that's how I, my YouTube channel." Somebody said this, and I think it was somebody worked at YouTube once, that said, "Let YouTube do YouTube," or something like that. Probably made more sense. Basically, what they were saying is, you know, YouTube, YouTube doesn't promote channels. What YouTube's job is, is when anybody goes to YouTube, they're trying to find videos they think you're really interested in, based on what you've seen before, based on what other people that they feel like may be kind of like you was watching. And then they're also tracking things that you've watched. So like, if I watch, you know, camping videos, never camped, then I'm going to get some of those sometimes.
But I'm telling you, there's no platform like YouTube. So if you start a YouTube channel, and I hope you do, just focus on YouTube. Just focus on YouTube. Whether you're uploading once a week, once a month, you know, just focus on that and don't worry about all the other platforms that you think you need to be on to grow your YouTube channel. If you want to be on Instagram because you like Instagram, do it. Um, I will say this, there's no other platform that has the, the opportunities that YouTube does in terms of reaching out and connecting with people, the types of video you can make, and the ways you can earn. Um, it is the most creator-friendly, if you will, when it comes to that. They give you so many tools.
So let's talk about the types of content. Like this is just a produced video. You can do long-form video. You can do short video, not to be confused with Shorts, which is a vertical video. It has to be under 60 seconds. YouTube has added podcasting, and, you know, and it's really made for more video podcasting. But if you have a podcast, you can bring it into YouTube as well. And now YouTube Music is part of that. So it's another way that your channel can get discovered. You can do live streams, which, by the way, um, hang on, let me grab it. Sorry, I'll do a plug. I, I wrote a book called Live Streaming Made Easy. There's the book. I, I didn't do this for a plug, but again, talk about doing something. I wrote this when I was 62. My first book ever, 62. And I'm gonna lay it over there. Um, and it was fun. And I'm actually working on another book now with a friend of mine. Um, I love to write. Uh, video comes more natural for me. Actually, I love to write too, so I take that back.
And then they have Community posts. I don't know if you've seen these, but think of it as like updates and things like that. You can do polls and stuff. It's a little Instagram, is, if you will, and Facebook is, um, at a certain point, you could have a, a shop. You can connect to a shop. You can sell things. So like, you may see under some of my videos where it will have products that I have mentioned in the video.
But let's go back to the monetization thing. Another thing you can do is in the description of your videos, you can link to things that maybe you're selling, or your affiliate link. So like, for this video, I will list the gear I'm using for this video. And, and let me tell you this, it's not as fancy as you may think. I'm using a camera on a monopod, which is basically a tripod with one leg. There's a mic connected to it, and I've got one light right there, just to give me a little bit more brightness. That's it. That's all I'm using for this video. But I'll give you an idea of that.
But YouTube makes it really easy to start. I mean, literally, I mean, chances are, if you're watching this, you already are on YouTube, but you may have not gotten serious about a channel. You have to start. Have a Gmail account. It's tied to your YouTube channel. Don't ever give that Gmail account out. And then you can start posting. And you may say, "Well, what do I create videos about?" Well, it could be about anything. If you're in business for yourself, let's say you're a real estate agent, this could be a great way to share your knowledge about real estate, whether it's selling a house, buying a house, things to look out for, the market. Maybe you're into financial stuff. Maybe you're a crafter. Maybe you're a baker.
There's a buddy of mine that I, that I finally convinced to get into YouTube, and he's a DIY guy. Brilliant that way. I mean, he's done everything from build a Murphy bed to just, you know, show you how to change the trimmer on, on a weed whacker thing. But his full-time job is being an IT guy. He does this on the side, and he's actually had very good success, um, because it's even got him on Amazon as well, and he has companies send him things. So my point is, is that there, there's so many things you can do. I wouldn't try and be something you're not.
But I think that's the advantage to being older. I mean, I'll be honest, um, I like to be liked, but I don't, I don't really care. I mean, this is me. This is my hair. Um, I have long hair at my age. I don't really care. Um, since I work for myself and I work out of my home, so I, I've done another video on this room. It may be a little dated because I've changed some things up, but this room that I'm in is a former bedroom. If you want to know the specs, it's 11 by 13. It's not even that big. And I changed it out to be my office studio. So this is where I edit, this where I shoot my videos, this is where I do clients, or watch videos, or, or whatever. And, you know, so this is, this is my space. This is where I create from. Um, but you, you could, you could do almost anything.
Um, and if you don't know what to do, but it's like, "I want to do something," then make that your first video. Here's another idea, and I thought about this the other day. Have you ever watched a video and you think, "Oh, I could do a video about that"? Not necessarily better, but I could just do a video about that. Do a video about that. Some of my video ideas have come from people asking questions. "How do you change a thumbnail? How do you do this? How do you do that?" And I still want to teach, but I want to not just be a how-to. Sorry, got an itch. I just don't want to be a how-to channel. I want to be that, that channel that hopefully you look and say, "Hey, this dude's over 60 and he's making it work," or he's struggling being a solo content creator. I started my own business. I'm a business of one. And so I think sharing more of that hopefully would help you, and we can learn from, from each other.
And just so you know, um, I got three kids. Two are older and moved away and married. Um, our youngest has special needs, and my wife stays at home as well. And so, you know, I have to balance that. Um, I've had to rearrange schedules, um, and, and, and be, and look, I'm not, he is our first priority. And because he has special needs, and if you know anything about special needs, sometimes, you know, his schedule will dictate my schedule. I've had live streams I've had to cancel. Thankfully, I've had some clients in the past that I've had to move some things around, and they've been very understanding. Life happens.
You don't have to go crazy on YouTube. You don't have to, like, "Man, I've got to post every day. I've got to post three videos a week and stuff like that." What I would suggest to you is, if that's the advice you're getting, to ignore that. The fastest way to burn out, the fastest way to not enjoy something, is, is if it becomes a job. You know, you can post as much as you want. You can post as little as you want. I will say the more you post, especially as you're starting out, the more you may discover, "Man, I like live streaming better," or "I, I just like, I like doing Shorts better." If you do, that's fine. You know, you're going to find out those things, and you're going to, you're going to grow. And if you're brand new to creating, you'll, you'll start learning what you like and don't like, and what the audience resonates to as well.
What if you don't know anything about gear, Kevin? I, I, you know, all I've got is my phone. Use your phone. The only reason I'm using my, and if you're interested, this is a Canon M50 Mark II. Canon discontinued this camera, and I would still buy it in a heartbeat. Love this camera. But I have an iPhone. I have, um, a DJI Osmo Pocket. I'm looking because it's over here on the shelf. Pocket 3. If you've got a phone, use your phone. And I'll probably do future videos on my phone just to say, I, I don't want to be one of these guys say, "Just use your phone." I never use my phone. You don't need a lot of fancy gear at all, at all. Just use what you have. Use your phone.
Uh, if you don't even have a tripod, you probably ought to get some kind of little tripod, just, you know, put it up on a stack of books or something like that. Um, I would get a mic if you could. If you know, spend a lot of money. The light I'm using here is, it's not a cheap light. It's about a $100 light, I think. But it's one of my favorite lights. Um, but you could stand near a window or something. I have a window right there that I have a, like a sunblock shade on. So use what you have. Seriously. And if you've never heard anybody say that, then, then let me be the first. If you've heard somebody say that, it's true. It is true.
You have a big advantage. We have a big advantage in the fact that we have life experience. Whatever it is, and whatever you decide to do, and I really hope you do, you may say, "Well, Kevin, there's other people doing that same thing on YouTube." That's right, but there's something different between them and you, and it's you. Did that make sense? You have experience that they don't have. You have knowledge that they don't have. You have a take on something that they don't have. Let's say that you love music from the '80s, or, you know, old classic movies, and you want to talk about that. Do a YouTube channel about that. Because you never know if your hobby, or something you're just into doing, or you're doing on the side that you really like, can turn into something that becomes big.
I mean, there's a guy on the internet, I think he goes by Sean Chandler. Talks about, and he was a former youth pastor. Loves movies. He and his wife went to see some movie, decided to upload a video talking about it, and now, guys, that's his full-time job. He reviews, I, I don't think he does TV shows now. I think it's mainly movies, and he talks about that. And that's what he gets to do. He's doing something he loves. He gets paid for it. He gets to touch lives. People have him speaking, and he's, and he's doing that.
There's no absolute guaranteed success, but I can guarantee you this: if you don't start, you don't share your gifts, you don't take a chance and hit record and upload that video, no one will ever know what you could possibly do and possibly share. You may be surprised at the connections you can make. I mean, it's amazing. I have, I have made friends with people around the world that I would have never known otherwise. I would have absolutely positively never known had it not been for YouTube.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and, and some other ideas. I mean, if you have some ideas for other videos to make and get into this, that's great, because I think the more that that we present, I think it's going to be just great. So I, I appreciate you and I appreciate you watching, and, uh, have a great day.