Brainstorming – Beginning
The first step that I decided to take is not to do anything yet, I tried figuring out what I’m passionate about first. I used the excercise that everyone has done before in school, brainstorming, and just wrote everything that came to mind when I thought “What makes me happy?”.
I feel that this question is the best point to start with, as I’ve tried creating so many channels in the past and I never fully invested my self in them, as I was saying in the previous post. If you’re flakey like me, this is the guide for you. perform this brainstorming process along with me and answer the questions sincerely for yourself.
These were the initial results for me:
- Gaming
- Business
- Finances
- Music
- Live
- Laugh
- Love
- Helping others
- Creating
- Inventing
- Board Games
- Friends
- Woodworking
- Movies
- Coaching
- Books
- Stories
Review
After we’ve thrown everything we can at the brainstorming board, we need to go over each item and start asking ourselves the following question about each item:
- Is it really making me happy?
- Is it feasible to create content on the subject?
- If I hadn’t made a channel about it, would I do this thing anyway?
- Can I start now?
- Am I a person that is persistant, dedicated, and finishes their tasks?
I would suggest just going over the list and scoring each of those with the score between 0 and 5, according to the amount of questions that you answered “Yes” to. Then, we’d only want to look at the 3+ scores. If you don’t have any of those, I suggest stopping now and finding other interest first.
Reread that last sentence, as I don’t say that lightly. If you didn’t say “Yes” at least 3 times to at least one of your ideas, either go back to step 1 and think of more ideas, or find some other interests first, as it is very easy to lose interest in something that you can’t be commited to.
By not having a passion for it, or at least being able to stick to something that you can start right now and can grow, it’s not going to work. It would be a wasted effort at this point, and I can say that about myself, as I started 8 other YouTube channels in the past.
Choosing
Now that we have a ranking for each subject, it’s time to order them by their number. in case you have 1 or more topics with score 5 – great, set aside the rest and let’s work with those. If not, let’s pick the 4s, and if not that then the 3s.
If you only have 1 topic in the highest category – Congratulations! Skip to the next step.
If you’re still here, now it’s time to rethink the answers for the previous step, but only for the competing topics with that highest number. The score doesn’t have to change, we’re just trying to focus a little more into a shorter list of topics, as the next step will be a pain if you have a lot of topics.
More options means more things to consider, and studies show that more is actually less when trying to make a decision. So don’t fool yourself and find the topics that actually suit you.
Expanding
Now comes the fun part!
For our topic(s) we now need to think how niche are they. How do we define a level of a niche? Let’s look at an example:
- Movies – Broad subject
- Fantasy Movies – Still quite broad
- Superhero Movies – A little focused
- Marvel Movies – Niche
- Spider-Man Movies – Super niche
Look which category does your topic(s) fall under.
The Red is pretty broad and will have a harder time to gather an avid following.
The Green is kind of the sweet spot as it’s quite specific, but not too specific.
The Blue is questionable, as it will get a very specific audience, but it might be harder to continuously create content for it. If you can, seems like a perfect opportunity, no more expanding needed
If you’re in the Red category, you might want to dive deeper and go for a niche-er topic. I chose not to, but you have to keep in mind that it will be harder to gather an audience.
Brainstorming – End
That’s it, you’re done brainstorming!
Congrats on picking your topic, the next step is to pick a brand name that’s fitting for your topic.
I think that having some wordplay of your topic subject is always fun, which is why I chose Board At Hell – a board games channel.
If your topic is on the more serious side, you would want to avoid word play and come up with a name that’s appropriate for the subject. Such as “The General” for a War History channel, or “Helping hand” for a Depression and Anxiety channel.
Always consider the future content theme when picking your YouTube channel name, as it will dictate the vibe of your channel.
Be sure to follow this blog as I’ll continue to talk about and document the process for creating a winning YouTube channel.
