When starting a channel on YouTube, it’s true that it’s important to have all the right equipment and the skills to make sure your videos look professional, but that’s only half the battle. Your personality is just as important, if not more so. How do you create an intriguing and engaging personality that will make people want to keep coming back to your channel? YouTuber Nick Nimmin and Brian G Johnson can tell you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5ZuWLQxxtY

“In addition to, you know, ranking videos in — in addition to making everything look cool and all that stuff, a lot of times it also comes down to personality,” says Nimmin at the beginning of the video. Nimmin stresses that personality is so important to the success of your videos that people who want to start a channel don’t because they don’t think they have an interesting enough personality for people to want to watch.

But the truth is is that anyone can create a successful YouTube personality, because great personalities come from planning and knowing where you want to go with your channel.

“Really have an idea of where you want to go with your channel,” says Johnson. “What is your channel gonna be about? What is the vision that you have for success? What does that mean? Is it subscribers? Is it money? Is it [talking about] a message you’re very passionate about? When you understand these things, you can say okay how am I going to get there and that becomes like what types of videos can I make.”

From there, you can construct your videos based on what is best for you. Nimmin believes that this is very important because everyone is different. Some may feel like they are at their best out in front of the camera blogging about their day and others may feel more comfortable doing  tutorial videos with just their voice. “Every YouTube channel [doesn’t] have to be somebody in front of the camera,” says Nimmin.

Johnson also says that it’s important to know the best ways to connect with your audience, and he believes that the best way to do that is to put yourself out there and be relatable. People connect with personalities that they can connect with on a human level. They like seeing all the unique qualities of your personalities, even the negative ones. It makes you human and allows the audience to form a sort-of friendship with you without even meeting you in person.

Lastly, both Nimmin and Johnson stress that having a great video personality requires practice. “What we always recommend to people is talking out loud,” says Nimmin. It may sound simple, put talking out loud will help you craft and refine your speaking voice. “I’ll think of the videos that I’m gonna be shooting as I’m moving forward with my day …  and I’m visualizing myself on stage or I’m visualizing myself in front of the camera and I walk around the house like a crazy person really practicing the lines, thinking of how I want to communicate in the most powerful way.” By practicing, you will more prepared and more comfortable presenting both the content you want to talk about and presenting the real you.

Never think that you don’t have the right personality for YouTube, because we guarantee you that if you are interested in something, there will be others that will be just as interested in that topic as you. It’s just a matter of presenting yourself and material you're interested in in a open and organized way. If you do that, you’ll engage your audience.

Sean Berry is Videomaker's Managing Editor.