HOW YOUTUBE HELPED HER CREATE AND LIVE HER DREAM LIFE

GUEST-STARRING TJ LEE

YouTube has always been one of the best platforms for curating an engaged audience who really connect with you as a creator, and today we’re speaking to someone with years of experience creating long form videos.

TJ from Cup of TJ shares her expert knowledge on growing your channel through searchable content and YouTube Shorts. 

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In the past 5 years, TJ from Cup of TJ has been a nomadic travel vlogger exploring Asia, an at-home cook bringing fun into the kitchen, a coach helping hundreds of creators grow their channels, AND a television actress, all thanks to the power of YouTube, and today she’s sharing with us her top tips for success on the platform. 

TJ quit her 9 to 5 to become a nomadic traveller exploring Asia, fully intending to return to corporate life after a year if things didn’t work out. As she says herself, “nothing much happened that year,” but she had amassed 3,000 subscribers from posting her travel vlogs on YouTube, as well as the realization that she had just planted the seeds for something huge. Today she’s sharing her top tips for success with long-form videos. 

1. Make sure YouTube is the right platform for you. 

TJ had always wanted to start a YouTube channel. She did a lot of theater growing up, and wanted to get into performing again. It took practice to become comfortable on camera, but with time it became a lot more natural for her. 

2. Have a content creator mindset. 

In her first year creating videos, TJ would only post once or twice a month, and consequently her growth on the platform was quite slow, but if you want something to be your job, you have to treat it like it’s your job. She increased her posting schedule to three to four posts a week: film during the day, edit at night, publish the next morning, repeat. The intensive routine paid off and her growth became a lot faster. 

3. Create videos with viral elements in mind. 

TJ knew her Taiwanese knife massage video would do well because she made sure it contained many of the elements of a viral video: a unique topic, an educational video, a well-thought out storyline, and an optimized title and thumbnail. It took a long time to edit because of the subtitles in both English and Chinese, but her hard work paid off. The video currently has 4.6 million views on YouTube.  

4. Dedicate time to researching trends.

Look at popular channels in your niche and see which videos have a higher number of views. If the same topics keep popping up, it’s likely that this is a trending topic. If you create content discussing these popular topics, you’ll have a higher chance of getting views and growing your channel faster. 

5. Create search friendly content. 

Ask yourself “What value can I provide for others?” Most channels grow by creating valuable, search friendly content. Once you can figure out what people are searching for, you can create content accordingly and grow your channel. 

6. Make your content unique to you. 

Everything has been done before, but it hasn’t been done yet by YOU. Find an element or perspective that is unique to you and hone in on it to add your creative twist. 

7. Use your channel to accelerate your other goals. 

Once you’ve established yourself, you can leverage your online experience to make things happen in real life. TJ has been able to use her YouTube channel to jumpstart an acting career, and even though she didn’t have a ton o f professional experience, her many years on camera helped her book some big gigs!

8. Be an early adapter.

YouTube Shorts is YouTube’s platform for short-form video content. Videos with a 9x16 ratio that have “#shorts” in the description will be automatically categorized as Shorts, and it’s a great way to repurpose your existing vertical video content. Youtube shorts videos take longer to get picked up than Tiktoks or Reels, but they are another way to grow on the platform, and early adapters almost always see faster success. 

If you’re looking to take your YouTube career to the next level, TJ’s Vlogger Academy may be the perfect fit for you. If you’d like weekly group coaching calls, live channel feedback, and the opportunity to join a community of like minded creators, you can find more information here. 

FIND TJ’S SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS HERE

INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | TIKTOK | CUPOFTJ.COM

THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE

and coming along on this journey with me.

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