Top 5 Things You Should Do to Protect Your Credibility as a Youtuber

As a Youtuber, credibility should be important to you if you’re doing anything more than vlogging your daily experiences. Integrity is the only thing that can establish trust and credibility. So, here are my top 5 ways to establish, or protect, your credibility as a Youtuber.

1. Quit doing “Top 5” lists.
2. Quit doing “Top 10” lists.
3. Just quit with the listicles.
4. If you have little or no credibility, because you’re new to Youtube, a “Top 5” list of your unqualified opinions on things won’t help establish any.
5. If you have nothing to say, maybe don’t produce a video. Nobody likes click bait and that’s all a “Top 5” list ever is. It may get a lot of views because it’s a format fit for a simpleton, but you’ll lose subscribers for it. Record a video once you’ve got some substance.

Bonus tip: Write a script or at least an outline. It’s fine to do a “stream of consciousness” once in a while, like when you’re on location, but if you’re recording from your home, not having a script or outline is pure laziness. Even worse, you’re the one editing it, so at least edit out your worthless tangents, irrelevant anecdotes and repetition. You don’t need more than 3 examples to make a simple, obvious point. Since you’re doing lazy jump cuts anyways, just jump cut the fat, crap and filler from your spiel.

You know how annoying “that guy” is, the one who always tries to get your attention by asking, “hey, guess what?” and is universally annoying to everyone at work because of it?

Well, that’s how much people hate clickbait, even IRL.

Nobody cares about “Dumbass DaPhotog’s Top 5 Things to Improve Your Landscape Photography,” especially when one of them is always, “take advantage of the ‘free education’ Youtube videos provide.” All it does is drop your zero credibility to -10 and everything you do after that just buries it further; and once your credibility is shot, everything else you do becomes suspect.

Be authentic, value integrity and don’t gamble with your credibility: no one ever talks to others in lists, everyone hates clickbait and get to the fucking point.