My experience with building a Political You Tube Channel

During my vacation I was able to visit my cousin, a video game YouTuber called Yellowpuppygamer and he gave me some pointers about improving my YouTube channel. He was showing me different tools he uses like an income calculator based on his ability to monetize his channel. To qualify for monetization on YouTube you have to meet the criteria of having over a thousand subscribers and four thousand public watch hours.

Something that my cousin mentioned was about the YouTube algorithm in that he found that you have to continuously upload videos at least once a week or the algorithm will hate you for your absence. However, YouTube tells you something else - it says that taking time off will not affect your YouTube channel whatsoever and that it will recommend your videos based on search criteria wither way whether you are uploading new content or not. It is difficult to tell who is correct in this area but on one hand my cousin is correct that a consistent schedule does attract an engaged audience to his channel. On the other hand, YouTube is designed to promote your content and it will be seen by the people who seek to watch it.

Some of the channels that you find on YouTube upload videos consistently, sometimes daily, sometimes once a week, and most deliver high quality content. Like my cousin who covers his play-through of his video games, he can produce more videos and upload more quickly than someone whose channel is devoted to an entirely different subject that requires more research and is less heavily focused on entertainment. My channel which mostly covers the latest trends going on in the political world takes time to research and produce. As a person who also has attended University, I developed my research skills on a different level than someone who has not attended University who might not be able to double-check the information that they have found or not use a reliable source for their information. This process of fact-checking and accuracy is very important to me and I would assume the people watching my videos.

My cousin also told me that political channels are difficult to create. I would have to agree because it is not an easy thing to do videos about in that you need to find ways to get your audience to engage with your content and is difficult to create self-help videos that could attract more people to your channel. People are also typically polarized on political subjects. When you first start on YouTube your channel is in a large pool with millions of other channels with no one really paying attention or even discovering your channel. It is difficult to learn the algorithm that will spread your content quickly and because of this a channel can grow very slowly. My response to this was to promote my channel on multiple platforms, which also required me to create a Facebook page and a website. This obviously requires even more work, learning and research. It is a long process.

One of the last pieces of advice my cousin gave me is that YouTube tends to censor channels that produce political content. According to USA Today Magazine, conservatives in the United States believe that social media has not been allowing them to voice their opinions through social media. I agree that this is an unfounded claim that has been made by people who ally with Donald Trump, the previous Republican President who used social media to encourage his supporters to protest the election that he claimed was rigged (but was clearly not rigged). This of course would lead to the riots that occurred on Capitol Hill where his supporters broke into the Capitol building which houses the US congress and made a mess out of it. This goes along with a report which is mentioned in the USA article that says social media can amplify the views of different groups.

Creating a Political channel is tough in that you have to deal with people who might not agree with your view and to find a way to keep your channel interesting so that people engage with your content. I don't think that YouTube censors the views of people that create a political channel. It is that the political channels I have to compete with are all big gigantic news corporations, so I have my work cut out for me I guess.