Nicole Bianchi

Writing, Copywriting, & Marketing Strategies

How I Grew my YouTube Channel from Zero to Over 20,000 Subscribers (And How You Can Grow an Online Audience Too)

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In February, my YouTube channel passed 20,000 subscribers! 

Thank you so much to everyone who has watched the videos, left a like or a comment, and subscribed. It encourages me to keep making more videos, and I’m loving connecting with so many amazing writers.

YouTube is one of the best platforms for writers to share their ideas and reach an audience online. It feels a bit counterintuitive — it’s a video platform, not a writing platform.

But the truth is that you can take blog posts you’ve written, narrate the audio as a voice over, and add pictures and video for a visual presentation. Or if you enjoy being on camera, you can read your blog post from a teleprompter or ad lib from an outline.

(Another cool feature of YouTube: you can monetize your videos through their partner program if you have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours throughout the year.)

In today’s post, I’m sharing the five steps that helped me grow my channel from 0 to over 20,000 subscribers and craft one video that has been viewed over 500,000 times.

I think many of these lessons can apply no matter whether you’re making videos or writing blog posts.

Let’s dive in.

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Jack London’s Strategies for Writing Success (Video)

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Jack London was one of the most popular American writers and the highest paid of the 1900s. In a 1903 article for “The Editor” magazine, he shared the secrets of how he learned to write, persevere, and become a famous author. Discover these secrets in this new video on the Youtube channel.

I previously shared London’s advice in a blog post, but now I have updated and expanded that post and turned it into this video.

You can click on the CC button for subtitles. I’d love for this video to inspire as many writers as possible. You can help by giving it a like on YouTube to encourage the algorithm to share it with more people. 

And I always love hearing your thoughts in the comments. Thank you!

**FURTHER RESOURCES**:

Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Writing Exercise (Video)

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Let’s start this year with some wonderful writing advice from Ernest Hemingway.

I’ve just uploaded a new YouTube video sharing Hemingway’s 3-step exercise that will help you improve your writing. I hope this video gives you a bit of inspiration as you work towards your 2023 writing goals.

An aspiring writer once asked Ernest Hemingway, “How can a writer train himself?” Hemingway shared an exercise for sharpening a writer’s observational skills so they can vividly describe their experiences on paper. This exercise can be broken down into three-steps and gives us a fantastic way to practice “show, don’t tell” in our writing.

You can click on the CC button for subtitles. My goal is for this video to help as many writers as possible. 🙂 It would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up on YouTube and share it with a fellow writer. And I always love hearing your thoughts in the comments. Thank you!

Here’s the full text of Hemingway’s article “Monologue to the Maestro”.

**FURTHER RESOURCES**:

Monroe’s Motivated Sequence: How to Write a Powerfully Persuasive Essay, Article, or Speech (Video)

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I hope all of your writing projects are going well this June. It’s been a few months since I last published a post here, and I’m happy to finally be back.

While I was away, I was making a new video, and I just uploaded it to YouTube:

You can click on the CC button for subtitles. In this video, I look at a persuasive speech outline called the Motivated Sequence created by psychologist Alan H. Monroe.

I first learned this structure when I was competing in a speech and debate league back in high school. It was extremely effective at grabbing the attention of the audience and inspiring them to action. 

Since then, I’ve continued to use it for articles and essays and have taught it to many writing students who were working on persuasive essays and speeches. And I’ve been wanting to share it here on the blog for quite a while! I hope you find it helpful.

If you enjoy the video, be sure to give it a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the channel. This lets me know that you found the video helpful and also encourages YouTube to share it with more people on the platform. Thank you!

**RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO**:

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How to Create Story Conflict: The Conflict Triangle with the Stakes Character (Video)

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Are you having trouble ratcheting up the tension in a story so your readers don’t lose interest after the first several pages?

Or maybe you’re struggling to give your protagonist a convincing character arc where her personality transforms over the course of your story so readers care about what happens to her?

Or perhaps you’re trying to weave a message into your story, but you don’t want it to sound preachy or unconvincing?

In today’s article, I’m going to show you how to solve all those problems with a storytelling technique called “the conflict triangle”.

This technique isn’t just for fiction writers. If you’re a nonfiction writer who wants to tell better stories in your ads or articles, this technique can help you too.

Prefer watching to reading? Watch the video version of this article (with bonus examples):

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