Today I´m going to talk about how you can grow your beauty channel on YouTube.
Although there are plenty of things you can do to help with your audience retention rates and make your videos stand out here are some of the proven tactics that will ACTUALLY help you grow as a newbie.
Let´s begin!
1. Lighting Plays a BIG Role
One of the first things you might want to check out if you want to become a professional beauty YouTuber is your lighting setup.
Although it may seem something a bit intimidating at first is just a matter of trailer and error to get it right and have your videos look much better.
Lots of different beauty vloggers talk about how important is to setup your lighting right in order to capture a good footage that actually reflects your face and the things that you want to show in your videos.
So, how you can easily upgrade your lighting?
First, you DON´T need fancy equipment or expensive softboxes to do this, you can simply use natural light.
Just by spending some time filming yourself near the biggest window you can possibly find, and doing so in the best time of day you´ll get the best outcome with the lowest possible cost, ZERO.
In fact.
Natural sunlight is at around 5500K, which is an awesome level of lighting often replicated by most artificial light devices.
You just need to make sure that you are facing the source of the light for even exposure and that you try to film at different times of day, especially when the sun is getting low.
YouTube´s Advice
On the other hand, you can simply follow YouTube´s own advice, from the Creator Academy on this matter.
Here´s what you´ll need for a common lighting setting:
Although almost any light can do the work some are better than others when it comes to doing a beauty vlog.
That is why they´ve mentioned it specifically:
Yep, the famous ring light, probably you saw it coming, simply because it is one of the most effective ways to accuratelly light your entire face in a “flattery” manner.
They even provide a link where you can easily see how other creators make their own ring lights. Whici is awesome!
2. SEO The Heck Out Of It
If you don´t know how you can grow as a newbie on the beauty vlogging “industry” then SEO is here to help you!
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is basically creating content for people to find it on search engines, like YouTube or Google.
Yep! definitively a major way to breakthrough if done well, right?
So, in order to give you a hand with it here are two simple ways you can improve your YouTube SEO in no time:
- Increase Video Length: One of the most effective ways to increase your rankings as well as your video exposure on the platform as a featured video is by doing longer videos. Why? well simply because it will increase one of the KEY ranking factors YouTube analyses to decide whether your video should be featured or not, that is Total Watch Time, which is the amount of time people spent watching your video since it went live.
- Be Aware Of Social Signals: You should be encouraging discussion and engaging with your viewers as much as you can as it is a huge ranking signal for YouTube. The more comments, likes, and share a video gets the better it´ll rank.
BONUS! Finding popular keywords from your competitors channels might be a good strategy to find great ideas for upcoming videos. Go to one of your favorite beauty vloggers, click on “videos” and then on the right on “most popular”. There you go.
3. Think of Brand Building
Coming up with a catchy name that people will remember helps but it shouldn´t be the only thing that you think about when trying to build a brand.
Your vision, what do you want to communicate or help people with, how you interact with your audience, what are your values, everything matters and reflects on one
There are a few simple ways you can start building your own brand on YouTube as a beauty vlogger.
- Choose a color theme & fonts. One of the first, and easiest, things you could do is try to choose one to three colors that you´d like to use from now on, whether is in your thumbnails, your website, or even if do some on-screen graphics. Another important one is choosing one or two fonts (max), that you´ll also use coupled with your color theme in every possible way you can. The point is to create some level of consistency that people can remember and recognize.
- Use the power of a proper slogan. There´s almost no successful YouTuber that doesn´t have some sort of phrase, term or saying that reflects what their channel is all about. It is simply another way for you to differentiate yourself from the competition and provide a clear statement on what you want to help with.
- Elaborate on your about section. The last thing you should do is to craft a better about section. People tend to overestimate this as it seems that nobody will ever see this part of your channel, WRONG! dead wrong. If your audience wants to learn more about you this is one of the first places they´ll go. So, make sure they get to know you and your message just by reading a great about section.
“Different By Default” – Nikki Phillippi
Nikki is a HUGE beauty vlogger who struggled to grow her channel at first but now has million of subscribers (and views) and she talks about how you can stand out on this competitive niche.
The real key is to stay true to yourself, the truth comes down to being corky and being yourself on camera as it will be the only real thing that will differentiate your channel from other as nobody else can be you.
“Really try to be true to yourself, I think that is really easy to think that you have to be one certain way or say things a certain way when the only way to stand out in this highly competitive market is not to be calculating how you can be different when it´s easier to just be yourself, as you´ll be different by default”
4. Networking, The Right Way
Next step, networking… the right way!
One of the fastest ways to grow as a newbie is by sharing audiences through collaborations with other
Caveat! Not necessarily the exact same topics but something that can go well if you put both of your channels together.
There are lots of examples out there of people who succeeded on YouTube through pure collaborations with others, that way you gain much more exposure without even putting out more content.
So, what is the secret for a GOOD collaboration?
The main goal is to provide more value to both of your viewers (your collaborator and your own) by leveraging your knowledge and combine both types of content in order to get a better video together.
If you are the one that is going to contact the other YouTuber here are a couple of “rules” to keep in mind from the Creators Academy.
Take the time to know the other person, watch some of their videos, and think of ways you can provide value to their channel in order for them to even consider doing a video with you.
You should be patient with it and put in the work as this could be your breakthrough!
Pinterest & Instagram Power
Both these platfrom play a major role when it comes to beauty vloggers, and that is because they put a lot of enphasis on imagery and videos.
One great way to get leverage as a new beauty YouTuber is to get into those platforms and start sharing micro content.
What´s that?
Well, micro content are short clips, images, or pieces of information you take from your pillar content, which is your YouTube video.
If you´ve filmed yourself for an hour or so to compiled a 10 to 15 minute video then you have several pieces of micro content you can use on social media without doing any “extra” work.
5. Advice From The Pros
Now, if you want to get a bit more inspired by some of the creators you like so much here are some useful tips I´ve found from the biggest YouTubers out there.
Be An Amplified Self
Over and over again many vloggers talk about this, how you can appear so doll and boring on camera if you don´t make the effort to perform and give your 110% every time you hit record.
For whatever reason it seems like the camera doesn´t make a great job at capturing your energy unless you put more than you need to in order to get your messsage across.
Use your hands and gesticulate but keep it real, meaning that you don´t need to transform into an actor/actress whenever on camera.
It Will Be Awkward
Yep, you saw this one coming, right?
Most creators agree on this, it is weirdly awkward at first to speak to the lens of a camera, but you have to stick with it and push through.
Eventually it´ll be a natural thing to do, if you do it for enough time.
One great piece of advice most pros tend to give is to think of the lens as if you were speaking to a friend/family and that you are trying to explain them or tell them something.
6. Beware Of Your Background
Another thing not every vlogger think that much about is their background setup, they think that with a blurry background that doesn´t look too messy you´ll get the job done, but the reality is quite different.
People will focus a lot MORE on what you have to say if you make it easy for them to look at you and not your bedroom/office.
So, there are two things you can do to prevent this.
On one
On the other hand, you can simply tied up your room/office, or choose an exact spot that you can rearrange in order to get a better outlook. One common example of this is using the bookshelf background.
7. Share Your Struggles
One of the most effective ways to get people to your channel and subscribe is to be genuine and show yourself as you are, with your successes and your struggles.
In fact.
It´s been proven over and over again to be one of the best ways to make people relate to you and your content.
If you always seem perfect and polished all the time and you don´t share more about you and your journey people will be discouraged by your videos as they won´t seem as “real” and authentic as they could.
One way to help with that is to share more about yourself, it could be as simple as telling people how you first got started on YouTube, where do you live, things about your family, it could be anything.
8. Niche It Down First Thing!
Especially when you first start out, you MUST niche down and specify.
Although it might sound like common sense, most people tend to ignore this one and try to cover all sort of different topics at once.
Think of it this way, whenever someone likes one of your makeup videos and then goes to your channel and sees that you´ve posted videos on all sort of topics that are totally unrelated to makeup,
You NEED to niche down and make a whole bunch of specific videos that go deep on one single topic until you go to the next.
That way the few viewers that actually get to your channel will rapidly get an idea of what they´ll get if they decide to subscribe.
9. Connect & Bond
If you haven´t noticed building a community is a BIG part of almost any successful YouTuber nowadays, why? well, people want to know that you actually care.
Spending some time responding to every comment you possibly can, sharing your stuff on social media, replying to emails, being present and approachable, genuine play a major role in this process.
Remember that there are only people on the other side of the screen, you should try to be aware of the disconnect of thinking about your viewers as an audience rather than a single individual who likes your videos. Keep that in mind.
You want to build relationships and aim for the long-term goal of building a trused brand, not a single interaction if you want to grow as a beauty vlogger.
10. The Right Equipment
Arm yourself with the right type of equipment that is specifically needed for a beauty vlog.
Here´s how:
There are two main elements that can easily upgrade your beauty videos, and that is your lighting and your camera, even more than your audio quality.
Why?
Simply because your viewership will appreciate a better visual than a better audio when it comes to beauty videos.
That being said, you should NEVER underestimate your audio quality, so try to do whatever it is at your disposal to get a better sound, whether is that you get close to the mic or buying a cheap but effective lapel mic, for example.
11. Stay The Course Of Action
Last but not least, growing on YouTube is not as easy as you might think. You MUST put in the hours and learn how to properly talk to the camera, push through the uncomfortable moments, and get familiarized with
If you want to succeed on this market you need to be patience and relentlessly do the work each and every day.
Try to focus on quality over quantity, if you don´t have the best camera on the market don´t worry, quality comes first from your content, the information you provide, and how you provide it, not whether if your filming is on 720p or 1080p. 😉
Then you have to keep putting out content and if you don´t see any results but you´ve put out good quality stuff maybe you´ll have to start promoting your videos heavily as it will help to gain some views and therefore get some noticeable on the platform as you grow.
Related Questions
What do you need to start a beauty youtube channel? The only thing that you actually need to start your beauty channel is to START! That being said one of your first steps should be doing some keyword research to find some long-tail opportuninities you can hop in as a new vlogger, that way you´ll rank easily and gain some traction without any subscribers.
How to start a youtube hair channel? You can start by putting out content that is mainly focused to your specific hair type as it will help you create some contrast with fellow beauty YouTuber who try to cover all styles at the same time. Basically, niche down and specify. That is your first step. The rest is up to you.