How to improve your videos on YouTube

If your dream is to be a YouTuber or if you simply need to shoot videos to promote your activities or enrich your personal blog, but at the same time you can’t afford to pay a video operator and his shooting and editing work, then you need your home videos to look professional. As professional as possible, because YouTube is full of users who upload home movies. If you want to stand out from the crowd you need to follow the right advice and take care of the details before, during and after the shoot. Here is a guide with tips to follow to become a skilled YouTuber.

Improve lighting

The quantity and quality of light is the most important factor for the success of a video recording. With the right lighting, even a movie shot with a mid-level video camera may seem professional. It is important that the subject of the shot (typically you) is well lit by multiple light sources, so that there are no shadow areas in the shot. A great way to illuminate a scene and a subject is to use a pair of LED spotlights (or panels), positioned with different angles. Online you find all types and powers, take at least two so that you have more uniform lighting. If shooting takes place in a room, make sure that the background is well lit to improve the feeling of depth of the shot.

Resume in 4K

Even on YouTube, 4K is now the standard of quality filming. If your camera allows it, always shoot with this resolution to keep the quality of the details high. Even if the 4K video stream is very heavy, in case of not very fast connections YouTube can reduce the streaming resolution to 1440p, 1080p or 720p while it can’t do the reverse: if a video has been uploaded at 720p it will never come reproduced in 4K.

Always export videos in 4K

For the same reason you should never shoot in 4K and then export the video file to a lower resolution. Uploading a 4K video takes time, especially if you don’t have a good fast fiber optic connection, but the result will be worth the wait. But that’s not all: even if you haven’t done the shooting in 4K, you should export the file to this resolution. Why? Simply because YouTube uses a different compression algorithm for videos loaded with this resolution: the compression of the file uploaded in 4K is much less aggressive than that applied to lower resolution files.

Add a second camera

Using two video cameras and varying the angle of view during editing is a great idea because it makes the video more dynamic and easier to follow. The best choice is to divide the text of your speech into various blocks and pronounce each phase with the face facing a different video camera. Thus the end of a concept will correspond to the frame change.

Record good audio

Especially if you want to propose yourself as YouTuber the audio is as important as the video: the viewer must hear well what you are saying and, very often, listen to you from a smartphone that has a loudspeaker that does not have a great power. Invest money in a good microphone, possibly with a condenser and not a dynamic one. If you just shoot “in the studio” you can choose it without any problems among the many good wired microphones (very often USB) that you find on the market, while if you need to shoot outside it is much more comfortable and professional a wireless microphone that leaves you also much more free to move.

Study your video script well

What you say in a YouTube video must be clear, concise and not repetitive. Going to your arm never helps, unless you are a video phenomenon. If you are a normal human being like all of us, then you better spend a few more minutes writing a good text and learning it well before turning on the camera.

Do not use only the Screen Capture software

If you are making a tutorial on some application, video game or other software that runs on your PC then surely you will need to use screen capture software. But you should not just use that: for the same reason that you should use two video cameras, even when you record a tutorial it is good to include some footage of you using the program in question while you are in front of the computer. Find a good angle, where you can see both you and the PC screen.

Pay attention to titles and video previews

Once you have shot and edited a great video and uploaded it to YouTube, you have to make sure that people click on it and look at it. Title and preview image of the video are fundamental to this. The title must be clear, concise and contain the keywords that the average user would use to search for it (if you do not have SEO tools available for YouTube you can choose the title by studying the keywords used for that topic by the most famous YouTubers). The preview image is automatically generated by YouTube, but you can also choose it yourself and it’s always better to do it. Use an image that captures attention and is easy to look at and understand as a whole even on small screens.

Invite users to register and like

It would be nice to have a world where everyone who appreciates your videos also subscribes to the channel and likes it. But it’s not the world of YouTube. There is little to do: you need to ask your users. And you should do it with both words and overlay graphics. And, don’t forget: also invite users to click on the bell, so they will be notified as soon as possible when you upload a new video.

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