Are you a teenager who’s just started a YouTube channel, or one who wants to start one? If you are, you’ve come to the right place!

In this article, I’ll share several things all teenage YouTubers should think about, such as whether or not you should be a vlogger, how to be confident on YouTube, how to protect your privacy, and how to guard your self-esteem.

YouTube Partner Program and AdSense Requirements

If you want to earn money from your YouTube videos, you’ve got to apply to be a part of Google’s YouTube Partner Program. According to their website, “The YouTube Partner Program (YPP) gives creators greater access to YouTube resources and features.” You’ll get access to Creator Support teams, the Copyright Match Tool, and monetization features.

Not everyone can be a part of this program though, there are several requirements you have to meet. You must have:

• 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months.
• A minimum of 1,000 subscribers.
• You must also make sure that your channel follows their policies and guidelines.

Once you have met those requirements you can apply to be part of the YPP by following these steps:

1. Sign in to YouTube.
2. In the top right, select your profile picture > YouTube Studio. 
3. In the left menu, select Monetization.
4. If you don’t have the required watch hours and subscribers, you can choose to be notified when you do. If you already have the minimum amount, click Start on the “Review Partner Program terms” card. 

Once you have been accepted to the YPP, you can sign up for an AdSense account. To create your own account you must be 18 years old or older. If you’re a teenager who is under 18, you can link your YouTube channel to a parent or guardian’s AdSense Account.

Vlogging

Vlogging is really popular right now, and there are tons of highly successful vloggers out there who are making a living off of their channels and brands they have created. However, there are also a lot of smaller vloggers on YouTube. In fact, YouTube is so highly saturated with vlog channels that it is not a very good idea to start out vlogging. If you do begin your channel by vlogging, you will have no credibility and no initial audience. Most people aren’t going to be interested in the daily life of some random person on YouTube. That sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. Most of the big vloggers started with what is called a niche channel, then moved to vlogging. If you really want to vlog someday, that’s what I suggest you do as well.

According to the dictionary, the definition of niche is: “denoting or relating to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.” A niche channel then, is a channel that has a very specific topic and target audience. Examples of this are cooking channels, beauty channels, channels that teach art for kids, or a channel that helps people become better YouTubers.

Once you grow that channel, people will want to see behind the scenes and will be curious about your personal life. That’s when vlogging becomes profitable and more likely to help you grow. You can then start a vlog channel and already have people who want to know more about you. For more information about vlogging you can read my article called Is Vlogging A Good Idea?

Of course, if you aren’t interested in building a business, go ahead and start vlogging! It’s a lot of fun!

Self-Esteem

YouTube can both build and tear down you down. There are so many wonderful people on YouTube that will encourage you to keep creating content, and lots of people who will give you compliments. Those people are awesome, and it’s so fun to read their comments. Unfortunately, there are others who can be really mean. They will comment about your looks, the way you talk, and the quality of your videos. It’s really important to not let them get to you. Unless you’re are legitimately making videos that are rude, most of your comments will be positive. Don’t focus on that one mean comment when you have 99 other positive comments that you could be focusing on.

Confidence

Having the confidence to record yourself and talk to a camera can be hard, especially in public, and especially for you guys who are just starting out. Trust me, you can overcome that fear!

Here are some tips to help you be more confident on camera:

1. Prepare: Rehearse beforehand what you want to say in your video. This will help you deliver your message much smoother. You’ll know what you want to say and how you want to say it, which will really help you be more confident.
2. Exert Yourself: Even though you may not feel like it, push yourself to be energetic and excited. Like Mark Twain said, “Courage is not the lack of fear, it is acting in spite of it.”
3. Practice: Before you record your video, not only rehearse what you want to say, but practice your facial expressions to get “warmed up.” That way you won’t feel stiff when you start recording, but instead will be excited and ready to go.
4. Watch Your Body Language: You know how you feel when you’re having a great day? And you know how you act when you’re feeling that way? Act like that, and you will start to feel more confident. Smile a lot, and be expressive with your hands. You’ll both feel better and come across as more confident on camera.

Balancing School, Family, Friends, and YouTube

If you are wanting to become a serious YouTuber, an important thing to think about is how you’re going to balance creating content and your school work. You definitely don’t want to let it interfere with your grades. You also don’t want to end up neglecting your family and friends because of YouTube.

One time I was doing a challenge called Vlogvember, where you are supposed to upload every day in the month of November. It was pretty hard! Some days I had to stay up later than the rest of my family trying to finish editing my video so I wouldn’t fail the challenge.

Here are some tips to help you balance YouTube and life:

1. Make an upload schedule and decide how often you want to post videos. Then when you have a lot of free time, go ahead and record, edit, and upload a bunch of videos. That way you have a buffer in case you ever get really busy and don’t have time to make a video that day.
2. Decide what jobs on your task list are most important, and focus on those. For example, say you need to edit one video, reply to comments, schedule a video for the next day (or whenever you upload, according to your schedule), and share the video you just posted that morning. I would prioritize those tasks this way:
   1. Share the video you just posted.
   2. Schedule tomorrow’s video.
   3. Reply to comments.
   4. Edit your next video.
3. There are only so many hours in the day, and that means that sometimes you’re just going to have to sacrifice some things in order to get your YouTube work done. That might mean spending your Saturday filming videos instead of hanging out with your friends, or spending the evening replying to comments instead of playing video games. You’ve got to decide what is most important to you. Like Sean from Video Influencers said, whenever you say “no” to something, you’re saying “yes” to something else. Sacrifice now for what will come down the road.
4. Strategize your efforts on YouTube so that even when you’re not making videos, your channel will still be working for you. Do your research to figure out what kinds of videos will be successful. Those videos will keep earning you views, subscribers, and revenue long after you have posted them.
5. Use the time you have wisely. Instead of just messing around when you’re working on YouTube by checking your phone, talking with friends, and getting distracted all of the time, really buckle down and focus on the task you’re trying to accomplish. You’ll be able to get your work done faster that way and have time for fun stuff afterwards.

Privacy

Sometimes it can be hard to have privacy on YouTube. If you don’t take precautions and get to where you have a good-sized audience, people will find out where you live, what your phone number is, when your birthday is, and lots of other information like that. My family tried to keep our address secret, and yet we still had several people show up at our house because they figured out where it was by looking at our videos and putting the pieces together. Fortunately they were nice, but they could have been dangerous as well, you just never know.

To try and avoid situations where you and your family might get hurt, it’s important to put all of your sensitive information in your YouTube blacklist. That way no one can write it in the comments section for the whole world to see.

Before you start a YouTube channel, it’s a good idea to talk it over with your parents and make sure that they know about the risks. If they think it’s ok, they might have certain information that they don’t want you to put out on YouTube. It’s important to know that so you won’t have problems in the future.

Here are some tips to help you, and others, stay safe on YouTube:

1. Make sure it’s alright with your friends and their parents before you put them on your YouTube channel.
2. Keep your main email address and phone number private. Your subscribers may want to contact you to ask about meet-ups or business propositions. Brands may want to collaborate with you. It’s a good idea to have an email address that they can use to contact you for those more direct and personal conversations, but you should not give them your main email address. Instead, create an email address that is specifically for those type of situations, and put it in your About Page.
3. Be cautious about recording videos around your house. If your house number or the name of your neighborhood shows up in your video make sure to censor it out.
4. Getting mail from your fans is awesome and a lot of fun! However, you shouldn’t let the whole world know where your house is. Instead, give them a P.O. Box number, or some other address that will not reveal where you live.
5. If you do get mail from your subscribers, blur out their address when you’re opening the package to protect them too.

However, it’s important to realize that if someone really wants to find you, they probably can. Some people are really smart and can use information online to hurt you if they really want to. But we shouldn’t live in fear because of it. Realize the risk involved (and make sure your parents do too!), and use your influence on YouTube to spread positivity and a good message.

The Image You Create

When you post things on the internet, the whole world can see it. By uploading content you are creating an image of yourself for people to see. That includes future bosses. What would your boss think about the content you make on your channel? Would that cause him to think of you in a positive or negative light? Would your image on YouTube cause you to be more or less likely to be accepted to the job position you want to get in the future?

You should never post anything that would ruin your reputation, whether that be with teachers, friends, bosses, or parents. Once you put it out there, there is no guarantee that you will be able to take it down. That includes your comments as well. Even if you realized that something you posted was wrong or harmful and you deleted it, you don’t know what those who have already seen it have done. Nowadays is so easy for people to download YouTube videos and take screenshots on their devices. They can use that information to hurt you or embarrass you in the future.

I hope these tips from one teenager to another have been helpful, and that you will use them to become an awesome YouTuber! Do you have any questions or tips of your own that you want to share? Write them down in the comments below! Thanks for reading!