Youtube Is Just The Beginning For Creatives
The Freedom to Create—and Be Seen
YouTube removes the gatekeepers. No longer do we need anyone’s approval to start sharing our art, message, or process of what we do. There’s no need for waiting on a network, a label, a gallery, a whoever. The only thing standing between us and our audiences is our own consistency, and a working understanding of how attention and marketing works.
That’s what makes YouTube and new media in general so powerful. You’re not just creating, you’re actively shaping the direction of the creative life you want. You get to build it on your terms. Whether you’re dropping music, breaking down your design process, vlogging your journey, or teaching what you know, you’re visible.
I’m learning that knowing how to get that visibility at will, and knowing what to do with that visibility, can and actually should be looked at as two separate things.
Communication
&
Ecosystem
Seeing content creation or creativity in general in this way helped me really shape the path I'm taking in my creative and business journey.
YouTube is a Gym — For Communication
At the core of everything we’re doing on YouTube, is one essential skill.
Learning how to communicate what you create and why it matters.
Much of what I’ve been learning over the years has come from entrepreneur and author Russell Brunson.
These 3 books
DotCom, Expert, and Traffic Secrets
Separately, they are still solid books.
Together, they helped paint a picture for me that visualized a system of communicating any idea, product, service, business, etc.
These books shifted the way I looked at many things, specifically YouTube.
Making me see that, it’s not just about editing, angles, and lighting.
Ultimately you’re learning how to articulate your ideas, and that takes practice.
Every upload is like a session in the gym. There were many aspects of my communication skill that improved, just from making ONE video.
storytelling
delivery of message
topic of interest
Talking to camera (no audience)
Just like in the gym, your ultimate desire is to improve your overall health and fitness. Creatively, I started seeing YouTube this way.
Working on your lighting could be like working on flexibility. A lift day may be like writing scripts and scenes.
Color grading and camera angles could be cardio. Which could make every upload a total gym session.
You are improving your ultimate “communication” skill with each lighting adjustment, each script/scene change, each take, and each upload. As a communication development tool, in the modern era nothing seems as powerful as YouTube .
For creatives, understanding how to express your vision in a way people feel, relate to, and understand is vital now.
You’re not just showcasing your talent. You’re learning how to build a connection with people who resonate with who you are and what you’re building.
I had to learn this in my process of building Touch.
My short story crime thriller that has 2 components.
A Book and a Soundtrack/EP
It’s a project that I did completely myself.
All the music, recording, mixing on the EP.
As well as the writing of the book, shooting the cover pictures, designing the book, and all else in between.
But, that was just the creative aspects.
I had no real idea of a marketing plan or a campaign. No real concrete strategy on how to actually get people interested in what I've been doing.
The world is buzzing with digital noise. If you don’t have a strategy on how to capture attention, and then further be able to monetize it through offering your value, you will be creating into an almost endless void.
Which brings me to my next point.
Your Ecosystem Starts with YouTube — But it Doesn’t End There
The earlier you can see this perspective of YouTube as just the entry point the better off you'll be.
I was able to see a crack in my creative workflow as I was making videos, creating music, and writing stories.
I wanted to “put my stuff out there” but I started to ask myself where is the “there“ I'm putting my things on.
We don’t own YouTube. (Social Media)
But, overtime you can start to see it for what it is, the entry point. It’s where people can discover your work.
With this realization, my mind started to ask the question?
What am I really building?
Am I building a business, a movement, a brand that can even outlive me?
Reverse Engineering the creative life I wanted has kept me in alignment with my desires more than anything thus far.
Asking myself questions like:
Is there a business model I can replicate that will serve my creative and personal desires?
what are the lines I want to draw between my personal brand and business brand?
Do I even need two separate brands?
What’s the Long Game?
If the goal is to be sell your art, teach/help others, build a studio or build from your ability to entertain, YouTube now becomes the entry point or funnel to a space you actually own.
For me, that became this website as well as my music site.
This thinking made me say “ let me start making direction driven content”.
Making content in this way, actually connects and promotes products or services you create that's in the direction of the ultimate goal.
Once I realized this it was like a revelation. "Oh word, so now my lead magnets, mailing list, offers, my store , etc. are all tied in with the content I’m making."
Best part about creating your own Ecosystem is that you have a space that you own that has nothing to do with other platforms. You make the rules.
Now, the process in putting your own ecosystem together depends on where you are in your journey of digital entrepreneurship mixed with your creative skill sets.
There are learning curves all throughout the journey of creating our ideas from not existing to existing and thriving.
No matter where you are though, we will always be looking to improve our business acumen and personal growth.
Direction driven content creation has made me have to intently study & research.
Research about marketing & sales, deepen my understanding of storytelling, and to think strategically about the content I’m making and where it leads to for myself and the person engaging with it.
Direction driven content provides a lane to create the content we want. Creatively flexible, while simultaneously being a viable business option.
YouTube at this point, is now just a bridge for creators.
But, only if you know where you’re going.
You’ll Learn To See Yourself Objectively — Twice
One of the most slept-on challenges of creating for YouTube is that it forces you to see yourself from two brutally honest angles:
First, when you’re editing videos of yourself talking, performing, teaching, or just existing on camera,
you have to face you.
Your voice. Your awkward moments. Your overused phrases. Your confidence as well as the lack of it.
It’s uncomfortable—but it’s powerful.
This kind of deliberate exposure of the self, builds thick skin and sharpens self-awareness.
You learn to push through the discomfort and get the work done anyway.
Second, you have to play every role: talent, camera op, director, editor. You hit record, jump into frame, hit your mark, pray you’re in focus, watch playback, and run it again.
It’s trial and error ( mostly error ) but it’s also high-level training in multi skill operating.
You start developing a director’s eye for yourself, learning how to capture the best version of what you’re trying to say or do.
YouTube forces you to see yourself as both artist and product.
Which is rich training grounds for the development of your mindset in your creative arena and the business of them.
There are not many avenues that we will take that give you the ability to sharpen all these skills with ultimate autonomy.
New media gives us this freely.
Seeing it with the perspective that these platforms are the entry points of the creative worlds we are to build not the end, is a key that will open many doors.
