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Top 10 honest TRUTHS about starting a YouTube channel in 2021!
Not sure what it's like to start a YouTube channel in 2021? Here are my top 10 honest TRUTHS about starting a YouTube channel in 2021 after being monetized for 6 months, gaining over 500k views and getting almost 9k subscribers. Starting a YouTube channel can be hard, and I hope these truths will help you decide if getting started in 2021 is the right choice for you! It's also a nice sneak peak of what is happening behind the scenes of the work required to create and grow a YouTube channel.
🔗 DJI Pocket 2 Review https://youtu.be/j35Xy3ibRxc
🔗 Full YouTube Gear Kit https://kit.co/loic.bellemare.alford/my-youtube-gear-updated-may-2021
✨ WATCH NEXT ✨
- Photo Critique & Editing Breakdown https://youtu.be/Rbv_OD3_t4E
- Framerate & Shutter Speed Explained https://youtu.be/cwFkkuZ9IM4
- iPad Air Real-World Review https://youtu.be/ORyYYzuVXAM
✋ COME SAY HI!! ✋
- Instagram: @loic.bellemare.alford (http://bit.ly/lba_instagram)
- TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@loic.bellemare.alford
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/loic294
- Facebook: https://fb.com/lbaphotographie
#10truths #gettingstartedonyoutube #youtube2021
📖 CHAPTERS 📖
00:00 - Introduction
00:29 - Truth about views
01:40 - Truth about YouTube Analytics
02:33 - Truth about the money I made
03:17 - Truth about gear
04:35 - Truth about finding a niche
04:54 - Truth about competition
05:29 - Truth about consistency
06:25 - Truth about "free" gear
07:09 - Truth about the reason to start a channel
08:06 - Conclusion
🖼 SHOP FOR PRINTS 🖼
- My online store: https://store.lbaphotographie.ca
🎶 MY MUSIC 🎶
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/iu5gau/
📸 GEAR I USE ON YOUTUBE 📸
https://kit.co/loic.bellemare.alford/youtube-gear
- DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo https://geni.us/dji-pocket-2-combo
- 128 gb MicroSD card https://geni.us/sandisk-extreme-128gb
- Canon 6D Mk https://geni.us/canon-6d-mkii
- Google Pixel 4a https://geni.us/google-pixel-4a
- Canon ZOOM LENS EF24-105mm F4L IS II USM https://geni.us/canon-lens-24-105
- Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 Lens https://geni.us/canon-lens-16-35
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L-IS II USM Lens https://geni.us/canon-lens-70-200
- VANGUARD VEO 2 265CB CARBON FIBER TRIPOD https://geni.us/vanguard-veo-265cb
- DJI MAVIC AIR https://geni.us/lba-dji-mavic-air
🌍 MY PERSONAL WEBSITE 🌍
- 0:00 Introduction
- 0:29 Truth about views
- 1:40 Truth about YouTube Analytics
- 2:33 Truth about the money I made
- 3:17 Truth about gear
- 4:35 Truth about finding a niche
- 4:54 Truth about competition
- 5:29 Truth about consistency
- 6:25 Truth about "free" gear
- 7:09 Truth about the reason to start a channel
- 8:06 Conclusion
Good morning everyone! Are you thinking of starting a YouTube channel or are you simply curious of knowing what it's like to be a youtuber in 2021? Well this video is definitely for you! I will share 10 truths about becoming a youtuber in 2021. Let's roll the intro! For those of you who are new to this channel, I'm Loïc Bellemare-Alford, a young photographer and filmmaker on a journey to become better at this art! Let's get started right away with the infamous views. Okay, so let's talk about views. I'm not going to tell like most youtubers to stop looking at your views and not look at your analytics. Instead, I'm going to tell you that you need to be careful about what views are telling you. So around last November, I got a huge spike in one of my videos getting over 150 000 views on that video. That was huge because at that time most of my videos would only get around 100 to 200 views. I also had two other videos during that time on the Google Pixel 4a that got a lot of views with around 50 000 views each of them. The problem with all these videos, even though I got a lot of views, is that it's not good for my channel in the end. The problem is that my most of my subscribers, 5 000 of them, came from these three videos and they all expect to get a lot of content about the Google Pixel 4a. The reality is that my content is much broader than just about the Google Pixel 4a but every time I post a video that isn't about this topic, they don't perform as well as these original videos because that's what my subscribers are expecting from my channel. So the lesson here is that slow growth is much better than viral growth. If you're starting a channel in 2021, you're very lucky because [YouTube] Analytics is much better than used to be. There's two things that you should really look at when you're analyzing your videos and the first one is click through rate. This allows to tell how much people are clicking your video once you publish it and they see it inside of their feed or somewhere on YouTube. My very good click-through rates are around 10% to 15% for the few days for videos that perform very well but most of my videos are actually around five percent of click-through rate which isn't very great. The other thing you want to look for is the watch time for every videos. So it used to be only a graph but now [YouTube] Analytics actually tells you if there's a dip, if there's a spike, if people are watching continuously and much more information like that which is very helpful ,because remember in the end Google want to sell ads and the longer you keep people watching your video the better it is for your [YouTube] Analytics. So the second truth is that views are not the statistics you should be looking at inside of [YouTube] Analytics. Okay, so now let's talk about the money I made on YouTube. I made about a thousand four hundred dollars in the last six months which is about forty seven dollars per video: that isn't much at all. What was a little bit more surprising is that i made another three hundred dollars with affiliate links which was much more than I expected but even with that it's still just about 50 dollars per video which isn't enough to sustain your channel if you consider you also have to pay for things like Epidemic Sound, Adobe, Geniuslink and things like that. I ended up spending over two thousand five hundred dollars in spending for the last year so I actually had a deficit in the end and didn't even make a profit with YouTube. So if you're thinking of starting a YouTube channel to make some money it's just not viable at the beginning and this is the third truth. Now let's talk about the most controversial subject of all which is which gear you should buy. Most people would suggest to buy the Sony a7s iii or the Canon R5 to start your YouTube channel but this is completely ridiculous because these are much too high-end cameras for most people. I personally use this 500 camera the DJI Pocket 2 it has a great front facing screen, very good video quality and also a much needed wireless microphone and this allows me to really easily go all around outside using this camera. Another thing that I recently upgraded is actually adding a dead cat that only cost a few dollars but this really helped getting better audio and I didn't have to buy a new Rode video microphone or something like that that is much more expensive. Another thing is that most people are going to suggest buying Aperture 120d light but this is completely ridiculous for somebody like me that doesn't film much inside. I instead bought this small little Aperture light that I can actually use outside when making videos at night or even in the day when I need a little bit of fill light. All of this to say that the fourth truth is that you should buy the gear that is right for you, not the gear that you want to be buying. This is also going to allow you to do things like travel instead of having to upgrade a camera. So instead of buying Canon R5, I actually saved some money and I'm going to be able to travel and create content that is much more interesting for my subscribers and better for my channel in the end. My next piece of advice is definitely going to be some controversial one and it's to stop stressing so much about finding a niche. Instead my truth number five is to make content that you enjoy because if you're enjoying the content, people are gonna see it and it's much better that people see that you're enjoying the content than trying to please the algorithm. My next truth is definitely not a popular one and is that it's much harder to start a YouTube channel in 2021. I actually have 1 million 668 204 content creators that have more subscribers than I do. That's a lot of people to compete with! Even Peter McKinnon that I thought would easily be in the top hundred has 5 200 other content creators that have more subscribers than he does. On the positive note, here's a little bonus truth: it's that people usually subscribe to you as a person not necessarily just the content you're creating. My next tip is one that I learned the hard way and it's actually really hard to publish a video every single week. About two months ago, I had to take a break of four weeks because it was just too much trying to create a video every single week and also have school full-time and doing my exams. What you don't realize is actually that it takes about two to three hours to write the script for every video, one to two day to film the video, another one to two to edit the video and finally two to three hours to publish the video because you have to create a thumbnail, you have to translate the video, you have to create a description, you have to add chapters, so there's just so much work around creating a video! Another truth that i realized is that consistency is maybe a little bit overrated or just not really well, understood what i think is very important is to never stop creating videos but you don't necessarily need to be publishing videos every single week. Most of my best performing videos were not published on a regular schedule. My next point has everything to do about free stuff and more particularly in my case about getting free gear. I regularly get messages of people telling me that I'm lucky to get some free gear but the truth is that nothing is ever completely free. You need to understand that for most companies it's much cheaper to send some products to reviewers than actually have to create ads to reach people. Don't get me wrong, I'm really grateful of getting all this free stuff because as a small content creator it's not possible for me to go out and buy all of this gear. With that being said, I still refuse most of the gear because it's just not a right fit for my channel and it's also not good for the environment to be accumulating a ton of gear that I'm never actually going to be using in the end. My last truth is that you should really enjoy the process of creating videos before starting a YouTube channel. If you want to become rich or you want to become famous, there's much better and easier ways of doing that. I had three precise reasons why I wanted to start a YouTube channel. The first one was to become better at English and creating a video every week really helps me keep my English and become better. The second reason was to become better at my technique, so either filming, telling a story or editing the videos and for this I'm still taking Skillshare classes to become better every single week. Finally, my last reason was to document my life and for this I still have to work quite a lot to document my life more than just talking about gear, photography or filmmaking. And these reasons are super important because it's going to help you continue making videos which is very important when creating a channel instead of just abandoning the first time you have stats that are not good or things like that. If you really enjoy the process it's not gonna be hard continuing to make videos week after week. I'll end this video on a more positive note and tell you that's a lot of fun creating videos when you enjoy the process. I also want to say a huge thank you to all of you that come back every single week because it's a lot better making this video with all your support! Definitely let me know if you enjoyed this video by hitting the like button below and also consider subscribing because I'm gonna have more videos on how to create a video from planning to publishing and everything in between in the coming weeks! See you in the next one! Bye, bye!
Video Links
- 🔗 DJI Pocket 2 Review
- 🔗 Full YouTube Gear Kit
- Photo Critique & Editing Breakdown
- Framerate & Shutter Speed Explained
- iPad Air Real-World Review
- Instagram: @loic.bellemare.alford ()
- TikTok
- My online store
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound
- https://kit.co/loic.bellemare.alford/youtube-gear
- DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo
- 128 gb MicroSD card
- Canon 6D Mk
- Google Pixel 4a
- Canon ZOOM LENS EF24-105mm F4L IS II USM
- Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 Lens
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L-IS II USM Lens
- VANGUARD VEO 2 265CB CARBON FIBER TRIPOD
- DJI MAVIC AIR
- http://bit.ly/loicba
What is this video about?
When I started this channel, I had a lot of questions about what being a YouTuber would actually look like in 2021. After hitting monetization, getting over 500k views, and building almost 9k subscribers, I've learned enough to share what I think are the real, honest truths about starting a channel right now.
The biggest shock to me was realizing that views aren't the metric that matters. I got a huge spike when one video hit 150,000 views, but the problem was that most of my new subscribers came from videos about the Google Pixel 4a—and they expected every video to be about that topic. When I branched out into other content, my numbers dropped because I was no longer giving people what they subscribed for. It taught me that slow, steady growth is way better than viral spikes.
I also learned that YouTube Analytics have gotten much better. The two things I actually pay attention to now are click-through rate (mine hover around 5-15% for good performers) and watch time per video. Those tell me if people genuinely want to watch my content and if I'm keeping them engaged—which is what the algorithm actually rewards.
On the money side, I made about $1,400 in ad revenue over six months, plus another $300 from affiliate links. That sounds okay until you realize it's roughly $50 per video, while my costs—software, subscriptions, travel—run over $2,500 per year. I haven't turned a profit yet. If you're starting a channel to make quick money, you're going to be disappointed.
Gear-wise, people tell me I should use a Sony a7S III or Canon R5. That's ridiculous. I use a $500 DJI Pocket 2 because it fits my actual workflow. I buy what serves my content, not what I want to own.
The hardest truth I've learned is that publishing weekly while doing school, exams, and everything else is brutal. It takes 2-3 hours to script, 1-2 days to film, another 1-2 days to edit, plus 2-3 hours just to handle publishing—thumbnails, translations, descriptions, chapters. I actually took a four-week break because I burned out.
But here's what matters: do this because you love the process, not for fame or money. I started because I wanted to improve my English, get better at filmmaking, and document my life. Those reasons keep me going when the numbers aren't impressive. The people who succeed are the ones who genuinely enjoy making videos, not the ones chasing metrics.