Finding consistency with YouTube
And not trying to tow the line as another person who does car reviews
If there’s one thing I struggle with, it’s being consistent. I’ve never been good at regularly sending newsletters (ahem), or posting regularly on my blog but I made a pledge to myself this year that I’d try and do something more consistently with YouTube.
I’m telling you this to keep myself accountable.
A few years ago, I had a semi-successful YouTube channel called Turn Eight, which was all about motorsport and cars. It did pretty well but the effort of filming car reviews (not to mention my dealings with trolls) meant that I gave it up.
In 2020, I decided to revive that channel and pivot it to electric car travel and use it as a platform to allow people to follow my journey from petrolhead to EV owner.
Honestly, progress has been slow and it’s still my old videos that are getting all the attention. It’s a hard thing to see new content get a trickle of views while that one video about taking a Kia Sorento off-road is creeping up on 100k.
But I’m convinced that with consistency, this new style will find its people.
Hacking content creation
I was recently diagnosed with ADHD, which shines a light on that lack of consistency. Even before I knew what was going on in my brain, though, I was always looking for ways to make life more simple; to combat against my natural tendency to get distracted and find a fun new project.
I successfully found a way to create written content, even when I wasn’t feeling it. I’d just go for a walk and record myself waffling for 20 minutes. Once transcribed, that waffle could be turned into three or four decent blog posts.
But, for a while, I’ve been wondering how I can do that with video content. Video can be quite time consuming to create and I’m still not convinced people want to just see me talking to a camera about cars. However, this low-effort method has to factor into my new plan. I realised, it’s all about variety. Just like a blog has categories, a YouTube channel can too.
I don’t have to create complicated car reviews or explainers. Those can be the showstoppers, sure, but to only create those ramps up the pressure. If my consistency is ‘allowed’ to feature simple to-camera content cut with some shots of my EV, then suddenly the pressure is lifted.
Following my flow
During the first lockdown, I embraced the idea of following my flow and it worked really well for day-to-day work that had no real deadlines (except those self-imposed ones I was free to miss). While I can’t do that as freely now that I’m back in the swing of running a content agency, I learned a lot from that time.
For a while, I’ve wanted to create road trip travel videos. I came up with the idea to create short destination pieces that didn’t need a lot of planning while I was out and about on location. I could just enjoy my road trip without the pressure of setting up and formally filming something.
Looking back over footage from previous trips, I realised I have at least three videos waiting to be created, they just need editing and a voiceover. An overnight bout of hyperfocus meant I could follow this flow and create the kind of video I’ve been thinking about for a long time.
Of all the content I’ve created, I think I’m most proud of this. It’s far from perfect but in the process, I taught myself motion design and took a more structured approach to the film as a whole.
What does 2021 have in store?
More of the same, I suppose. 2020 was a good year for me, all things considered, and as we go into a new lockdown, I’m trying to carry some momentum.
I’m going to make a consistent go of YouTube once again (without the backup of a crew! 😵).
Jet Social will continue to thrive and grow.
Otherwise, I think I need to stop trying to do too much and, instead, keep following my flow. (Maybe get that sci-fi novel finished…)