For the third time ever, I decided to do a video a day on one of my YouTube channels. This is the 2nd time I’ve done it on my channel related to “stuff”; the other one was via my business channel. I actually wrote about doing this video challenge on my business channel back in 2014, which you can check out if you’re interested in how that one went.
This time around I have 7 different lessons I learned while doing it, because the circumstances changed from the previous two times. The previous two times I was alone; for the business channel I was in a hotel room out of town and for my other channel I was home while my wife was working out of town. Still, I got it done and I’m happy about that, and now I’m ready to talk about it via these 7 lessons… and not all of the lessons are good ones.
1. Smartphones can be a wonderful thing for shooting videos
The majority of videos were done from my home office space, but I thought that would get boring after a while. Using my smartphone allowed me to move around the house, go outside and even do a couple of them in my new car. I can’t say those were perfect in any way but it changed the dynamic of the videos. A couple of them weren’t great because of lighting but the messages were still clear.
2. A video a day gives you mixed viewer results
The most views any of my videos got during the entire process was 25, though I have to preface that the last one hasn’t been seen at the time this article goes live (the last video will go live 2 hours after this article). However, since I’m not expecting that one to produce lots of views either, I’ll stick with the 25. Those aren’t great numbers by any means and even showed a small drop per video. Yet, the month had more views than any month since the last challenge.
3. I gained some new and consistent subscribers
This one was unexpected, but there were a few people who have watched every single video; that’s kind of cool. One guy’s said something on every one of them, while a few others have commented on the majority. If you remember the rule of 100 true fans, this is a good thing for me. I hope I can keep them while getting more consistently viewing fans once I create videos at my normal pace after my last one for this month.
4. Almost all the videos from my office were done really late at night
By now my regular readers know my mother lives with me, and that my wife’s basically working locally these days. I can’t shoot video during the day because once I start using my video voice, which is louder than my normal voice (unless you ask my friends Scott and Kelvin lol), Mom hears me and starts calling my name, worried that something’s wrong with me or that I’m talking to her.
tired…
This means I have to shoot almost all those videos late at night when both of them have gone to bed and hopefully to sleep. My wife crashes early but sometimes the sleeping pill takes a while to put Mom down, which means all those videos were shot between 11:30 and midnight. It’s hard to project freshness at that time of night, but I think I pulled it off. Luckily, those with me on the move and a few I got to do during the day when Mom wasn’t here came out pretty well.
5. You can’t do it all but you can do a lot
Let’s see… I did 29 videos (I forgot to post one of the videos on the day it was supposed to go live so I ended up missing a day; c’est la vie!) for one channel, 3 for another channel, an article three weeks for this blog and for my business blog, an article for my finance blog, an article for my medical billing blog, an article for my accountant’s blog and one for my consulting group. I also kept up with all my marketing and prospecting efforts. In other words, I didn’t reduce any of my normal production all that much. The week I didn’t write a new post here and on my business blog was addressed in this post.
6. It’s always better to do a lot of videos ahead of time than the day of or the day before
The last couple of times I did this I recorded a bunch of videos way ahead of time so I could publicize them properly and make sure I completed the task easily. This time around I only got ahead of the game twice, which includes the video that’s going live today. I found that I didn’t have the energy to do two videos in one night all that often, so I was often left to set up my marketing at the last minute rather than working towards being proactive. If I do this again that’s something I’m going to have to conquer.
7. Because of #6, I didn’t plan them out like I normally do
I decided I was going to challenge myself to doing a video a day two days before the beginning of the month. Instead of sitting down and planning out what I was going to try to do beforehand as I’ve done in the past, this time I came up with the idea just before I shot the video.
Because of this, the topics I covered were all over the place. Even though that’s not a bad thing for that channel, but most of the time I try to cover the same types of topics I cover here. Instead, the topics I covered the most were:
Motivation – 10
Personal – 4
Health – 3
Social Media – 3
In all I touched upon 11 different topics, including a brief movie review of Avengers: Infinity War (no spoilers, but I loved it lol). I guess you could say there was something for everyone, but it wasn’t quite targeted content.
Still, I got through it, and now my buddy Evelyn Parham is thinking about taking a shot at it later this year. She also took on the challenge of writing a blog post every day in April, something I challenged y’all to do in January as I did that on my local blog. Glad to see someone gave it a shot; I don’t feel so lonely anymore. 🙂
There you go; 7 lessons, not all of them great lessons but lessons nonetheless. I wonder who’ll try it next…
That is one heck of a lot of videos. I think you should do it again next April using the alphabetized theme format and join us doing Blogging from A to Z!
Good job. I’m impressed.
That’s an interesting prospect Arlee… can’t see me doing it, though it’s intriguing. 🙂
That was a lot of commitment, regardless of when you recorded the videos. Kudos to you my friend!
Thanks Marcie; I love a challenge here and there.
I will definitely give the video every day a try..hope I can do as well as you did. Don’t you just love the smartphone?
Thank you for the mention!
Way to go, Mitch!
The smartphone is a lifesaver in this regard. Nice to have that extra option, being able to move around to different places and shoot videos. It was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait till you try it.
Hi Mitch,
Good to be here again and thanks for sharing your 30 day video experience.
I have done some videos on Youtube but I want to really go in with more energy.
One of the videos I did has gotten over 2k views and I was like wow. This can really be cool. So I’m about buying a camera and mic from Amazon to go “colonize” youtube. I will be doing some with phone but since I want to do professional Cryptocurrency videos, I want to get good materials for it.
BTW I see you still using CommentLuv. Did you read the issue I raised last month? Good news coming for CL users.
~ Enstine
I didn’t know about that article until you just mentioned it, so I went to look. I don’t use that particular feature of the plugin so I’m good with it. Andy’s not doing well, but I’ve been hoping he’d pass it on to someone else to update it; I’ve been using it for more than a decade and still love it.
As for the videos, it’s a good idea to do at least a few here and there and find a way to embed it into a blog post or two. It helps to get people comfortable with who you are, and comfortable people turn into comfortable buyers… at least that’s what I’ve heard! lol
Yes mitch it’s really needs a big effort to do one video a day. only the one who is determined about his goals can do it. btw one video a day is good for more engagements on your channel.
Actually, that’s not quite true. I got little engagement from the daily videos; I did get consistent engagement from a few people.
I do understand the importance of doing video in 2018. I mean most of the consumed media is in the form of video. I will definitely take the lessons from here home.
Thank you!
I hope it works out for you. Video can certainly help one’s goal.
Hi Mitch,
When doing a video a day, it is a major commitment to the self. Doing them around your mom’s schedule is difficult also. Gee…11 or 12 at night would have me looking like a deer in the headlights if I had to do a video then lol. You sure have some super powers going on my friend.
I did a 30 day video challenge and made sure I planned ahead, kept on point and by day 15 I found my energy levels were starting to fade. But after the fact of pushing through, I have gained lots of friends and followers.
It is so worth it and doing videos is the very best way to engage with others. They get to see the person behind the words. It is a magnet for the KLT factor and I’m sure you have done such a great job.
-Donna
When I did my first 30 day challenge I was in Memphis on a consulting assignment. That one was well planned, especially since I also hit a business anniversary that same month. I think planning at least half of the content will help most people, because being willing to do a vlog, which might not need as much planning, will help some people feel more comfortable in front of a camera.
As for KLT factor… well, I have a small following and even that following doesn’t see most of my videos so I’m happy whenever I get any visitors at all. 🙂
Hi Mitch,
Thanks for sharing these helpful and knowledge tips and tricks. I really enjoyed your article and it was super helpful. I think I might try this out and see what my outcome is. It must have been a huge commitment creating videos every day and you felt very dedicated to fulfilling your goal of doing a video every day for a month.
Thanks David. There were a few days when it was a major challenge but overall it was a lot of fun. I could have planned better like I did years ago but this was a spur of the moment thing.