Stepping into the world of content creation can be both exciting and frustrating. You may have oodles of ideas and enthusiasm, but those early days can also feel like you’re creating content for nobody. With little feedback and even fewer views, it’s easy to question whether all the effort is really worth it. This is why many creators give up before they have had a chance to properly establish themselves.

The reality is that building an audience and successful channel takes time. The channels you follow today, no matter how big they have become, all started just like you with just a handful of viewers.

So, in this motivational guide, we’ll look at the pitfalls, trials and tribulations of those early days, and how you can use them as an opportunity to learn, experiment and improve while staying focused on your goals.

Stop procrastinating and just get content out there

One of the biggest obstacles facing a new content creator isn’t a lack of ideas or enthusiasm. It’s actually the process of getting started.

It’s easy to spend months planning your channel, researching equipment, designing logos, tweaking your branding and planning out your first videos. But at some point you have to stop prepping, bite the bullet and publish your first videos. .

And these early videos almost certainly won’t be your best. That’s completely natural. They are however an important part of the learning process and your story as a creator. You will learn far more by making and publishing ten videos than you will endlessly planning the perfect first one.

So don’t let perfectionism become procrastination. Get some content out there and start learning from it.

Don’t worry about your audience size

Probably the most demoralising aspect when starting out is putting hours into a video only to see a handful of views.

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that a small audience means you’re failing. Every successful creator started exactly where you are with little or no established audience.

It’s therefore important not to compare your beginning with somebody else’s middle. When you look at a successful channel, you’re seeing the result of years of experience, hundreds of videos and countless experiments. You aren’t seeing the videos with 10 views or all the content that didn’t work along the way.

Use these creators as inspiration for where you could get rather than direct comparisons. Your job is to remain focused on your content and simply become a little better than you were yesterday.

Treat your early content as a test drive

Here’s the thing that many people don’t realise when starting out. Having a small audience can actually be an advantage.

Think of your first few months as a test-drive period. This is your chance to experiment with different subjects, formats, video lengths, presentation styles, thumbnails, titles and approaches without thousands of people watching and analysing your every move.

You can also use this time to discover what you actually enjoy making. You may start with one idea for your channel and discover that you’re much better suited to something completely different. Adaptation is much easier to achieve at the beginning of your journey when you don’t have to consider audience reaction.

And while experimentation is important, you don’t want to constantly reset. Give an idea enough time to produce useful information before abandoning it. The key is to consider what ‘you’ enjoy producing and what you think represents your identity well.

These early days are your opportunity to fine-tune your approach while the stakes are relatively low so make the most of them.

Use this time to develop and learn new skills

Creating content involves a surprisingly wide range of skills. As a content creator, especially when you’re starting out, you are essentially a one man band. You’re responsible for editing, lighting, sound, camera work, scripting, presenting, thumbnails, graphics and general workflow management. All of these factors can all have a significant impact on the quality of your finished content. And unless you have just completed a media or filmmaking course chances are these will be new skills to learn.

The early stages are therefore an ideal time to learn and develop these skills.

Learning on the job is the best way to make substantial progress. You will be able to sharpen up your presentation skills, discover faster editing workflows, learn how to improve your lighting or realise things such as the importance of good sound. These improvements will become increasingly valuable as your audience grows.

And don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need expensive equipment before you can create good content. Learn to get the best possible results from what you already have. Smartphones have become increasingly sophisticated and are more than capable of high quality results. Upgrade when your equipment genuinely limits what you’re trying to achieve, rather than buying gear in anticipation of success.

Set yourself achievable targets

When your subscriber count isn’t growing quickly, it helps to have other ways of measuring your progress.

Setting yourself achievable targets that you can actually control is a great technique. Perhaps your goal is to publish your first ten videos, upload weekly, master your editing software, try three different formats or learn a new production skill.

These targets give you something tangible to work towards and help you recognise progress that isn’t yet reflected in your analytics. You may not be able to control how many people watch your video, but you can control how often you create, how much you learn and how much effort you put into improving.

Don’t neglect promotion

In reality creating content is only half the job. You also need to help people find it. Unless it’s a short, where you have more chance of it being discovered, The best content in the world can sit there unwatched if you’re not shouting about it.

So do not neglect marketing while you’re busy making videos. Share your content appropriately on social media, engage with relevant communities, and why not try collaborating with other creators. It’s also important to give careful consideration to your titles, thumbnails and descriptions, as these all play an important role in helping your content get discovered.

The important thing is to strike a good balance. Spending all your time promoting content leaves you with nothing new to promote, while constantly creating without doing any promotion can leave good content hidden.

The key is to establish a workflow where you allocate the appropriate time for both content creation and promotion.

Focus on building relationships, not just numbers

It’s easy to become obsessed with numbers when you’re starting out. A handful of views can feel disappointing when you’re hoping for thousands. But consider this. Those people, however few, chose your content over millions of other options, to spend their valuable time watching. The same applies to your first few subscribers and regular viewers.

Those first few supporters may be small in number, but they should be hugely valued. Engage with them. Respond to comments, ask for feedback and pay attention to what they enjoy. Your earliest supporters can become some of your most valuable audience members.

Growth isn’t linear

Another reason to persist and not give up too quickly is that growth rarely follows a neat upward curve. This is particularly true if you’re posting lots of Shorts, which can either disappear almost unnoticed or suddenly gain momentum and generate a huge number of views. Sometimes, it takes just one video to put a channel on the map.

You might publish ten videos that attract fairly modest viewing figures before one suddenly takes off. That video can then introduce your channel to a much larger audience, some of whom may then go back and explore your older content. This is why building a back catalogue is so important. Your older, evergreen content can continue attracting viewers and help reinforce your newer videos.

So, don’t assume that a video has failed simply because it doesn’t perform well when you first publish it. It may continue attracting viewers weeks, months or even years later. Every piece of content you create is another potential portal through which someone can discover your channel.

Don’t overcommit

One of the leading downfalls for new creators is overcommitment. It’s important to be realistic about how much content you can physically produce.

You might see successful creators constantly uploading, so you figure you need to also produce daily videos for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and every other platform you can think of. Remember, these large established channels have teams of people helping churn out content. They are also often doing it as their primary job.

So, while such an ambitious schedule is admirable, it can quickly become exhausting.

You should therefore manage a schedule you can realistically maintain alongside the rest of your life. This will vary from creator to creator. It’s still important to be consistent but that consistency is only possible when your workload is manageable. There is little point in producing content at an unsustainable rate. This will lead to burn out and a resentment towards content creation.

Give yourself enough time to make informed decisions

Perhaps the best thing you can do when starting out is to give yourself a minimum commitment.

Decide that you’re going to create a certain amount of content, let’s say 20 or 30 long form videos with associated shorts before seriously asking whether your idea is working. During that period, learn, experiment, tweak, promote, and analyse your results. Use your findings to make improvements along the way.

You may eventually discover that your original idea needs changing. You might find a completely different direction that works better for you. Or you may decide that content creation simply isn’t for you.

Any of those conclusions is perfectly valid. What’s important is that you reach that decision based on experience rather than frustration after a handful of disappointing videos.

Conclusion

The hardest part of being a new content creator is that period when you’re putting in plenty of effort but not seeing much reward. But don’t confuse this lack of early success with evidence that you can’t succeed. Growing a channel is a long and winding journey, and there is rarely a straightforward path to success.

At this stage, you are still learning your craft, testing ideas, developing your style and building a back catalogue. These are all vital things to master as you start to build a bigger audience. Right now, you simply don’t have enough information to know where your channel could eventually go. This is why the first person you need to keep happy is yourself. If you’re not enjoying the process and getting fulfilment from creating content, then it may be time to reassess. Your content should primarily appeal to you and be the sort of thing you would genuinely be interested in watching.

So give yourself plenty of time to experiment and develop your channel’s identity. That doesn’t mean you should blindly continue forever. Not every channel becomes successful, and sometimes changing direction is the right decision. But give yourself enough time to learn, experiment and improve before making that decision.

Your first few months shouldn’t be seen as a verdict on your channel. Instead, view them as your training ground.

So keep creating. Keep learning. Keep testing new ideas. And most importantly, give yourself the opportunity to find out what you could be capable of.

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