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We’ve all been there. No matter how hard you stare at that blank screen or piece of paper, thinking of good ideas for YouTube videos can be a real problem. The more you try, the less fruitful it becomes. To help I’ve written a guide to help you generate endless YouTube video ideas, even if you are a beginner.
What you need is a method you can use over and over. A way that to turn on your own
Get out of a sterile office environment
Don’t stay in your office all alone. That’s a sterile environment that isn’t going to get your creative juices running. You’ll soon dry up trying to think of good ideas for YouTube videos.
Try taking your brainstorming session out to a coffee shop, a visitor attraction, museum or art gallery. Why not even go for a walk. Some of the greatest writers and scientists had their best ideas while out for a stroll.
The change of scenery helps to relax your thoughts and you will be exposed to countless stimuli. You’ll find YouTube video ideas all around you. A change of scene helps top give your creativity a boost.
I like this quote about creativity by Steve Jobs.
“When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. They were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”
That’s how I had the idea for one of my own videos. I was having a coffee and I overheard a guy telling a friend he needed to send out a company newsletter but didn’t know how to include a video in the email.
Wham!
There was a How-To video just waiting to be made. All it took was 30-minutes of online research and I was ready to write my draft script.
That was easy. All it took was getting out of my sterile office and into a fertile ideas’ environment.
Don’t limit your ideas
Now that we’ve opened the ideas faucet a quarter of a turn, we need to make sure nothing blocks the flow.
The one thing you can do to keep the ideas flowing is not to assume what is or isn’t possible for you to accomplish in your video production.
If you artificially constrict the stream of ideas before you have even started brainstorming will negatively impact on your creativity. So don’t start rejecting ideas because you assume you are not technically capable of pulling it off. Not only will you be wasting perfectly good ideas but you will also be inhibiting your own growth as a video creator.
For instance, don’t reject an idea that requires two cameras, just because you currently only have one camera. Every problem has a solution, you just need to find it.
So don’t auto-limit your ideas, don’t create boundaries for yourself. That will limit your thinking and put a brake on the range of YouTube video ideas you are able to generate.
Ideas are precious and often need nurturing. They’re like tiny babies that need looking after until they can take on a life of their own.
Ask your audience
How knows what you should be doing next?
Your audience of course.
So don’t be afraid to ask for their opinion. In fact, that’s one YouTube video idea right there. Create a video where you reach out and ask them the simple question of, “What videos do you want to see?”.
Once you have enough subscribers this form of interaction with your tribe will produce enough ideas to keep you going for weeks, if not months.
Get your viewers to leave their questions in the comments section. If you ask the question on a regular basis, you can even set up a Cards poll to see which ideas are the most popular.
Jump onto the bandwagon
Nothing is more popular than what’s hot right now.
You’ll have to be quick because what’s hot today will be forgotten tomorrow. OK, the longevity is a bit longer than that, but you get what I mean. They all have an inherent lifespan. The topic seems to appear, it goes viral, then it dies away, and people find something else to interest them.
Remember the fundraising ice-bucket challenge videos of July and August 2014? The idea went viral on social media that summer, with recurrences in subsequent years. I’m not saying you should do the challenge, it’s the idea of following a trend that’s key.
I can hear you saying. Oh yes, how do I know what’s hot?
You don’t have to be psychic or a futurologist. Let Google Trends
search feed you the information.
Google Trends analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search It allows you to track what is trending and see what people are searching for right now. You won’t get an exact number, but you will see the relative number of searches.
Sometimes you don’t even need Google Trends to know certain topics will trend. For instance: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, vacations, and a whole host of observance days are guaranteed to rise in popularity. If you don’t know when events are observed, let Google search be your friend. I just discovered that the first Saturday in February is Ice cream for Breakfast Day. Now there must be a video in that!
React to what you now know people are searching for and create content to satisfy that curiosity.
Evergreen topics
Trending topics can be a wonderful source of YouTube video ideas but there is a downside. Like a Tsunami, there’s a huge rush of interest that eventually subsides. So, you are in a repeating cycle of research, production, publish and promote.
Don’t get me wrong, that can be a successful strategy, but I bet you’ve heard the saying, “Slow and steady wins the race”. You may not get that initial rush of views, but because the topic is evergreen your total views will continue to build over time.
What are evergreen YouTube video ideas?
Appropriate topics would be relationships, travel, food recipes, make-up, and How-To videos. In other words, stuff people are searching for all the time or at the same time year after year.
Feed your brain
Right at the start, I suggested changing your environment to get stimulated, but you can go further.
Read books, magazines, and online posts. Watch some interesting TV shows and movies. Listen to talk radio. But don’t just stick to your own niche. By taking a wider view of what’s out there you can frequently make connections and synthesize something new.
Check out your competitors
Your competitors are likely to be a source of ideas for YouTube videos.
That’s not to say you should copy them. That serves no purpose and risks an accusation of plagiarism.
Instead of copying their YouTube video ideas use them as a jumping-off point for your next video.
Say they’ve done a video but missed a point, or perhaps there’s an obvious alternative view. Do your research, gather your supporting evidence, and create something better.
If they are a big player in your niche that’s fantastic. Use their name in your title because it’ll be a popular keyword in YouTube searches. But whatever you do, DON’T START AN ONLINE WAR.
An example of the sort of thing I mean is Canon’s EOS R mirrorless camera. Early on it had a mountain of criticism heaped on it. But buyers generally don’t want to know what something doesn’t do. They’re looking for details of how something functions in the real world. So, going back to the EOS R, there’s a whole raft of promising ideas for YouTube videos waiting to be made on the EOS R.
So, find out what your competition is doing or saying, do your own research, and produce your own take on the subject.
Do your brainstorming
Before you start doing other things each day, try thinking of five to ten potential ideas. If an idea comes to you at another time add it to your daily list.
Don’t judge any and don’t discard them, even if they seem downright odd.
There’s no such thing as a bad idea since even the least of them can be the seed for further ideas.
Set a goal of writing down five to ten ideas each day without applying any pressure upon yourself. Then keep all those ideas in a document.
Personally, I prefer a notebook and pen that I always have in my case but use whatever suits you.
Never, ever, waste an idea. Write it down and bank it.
In time you will have banked an enormous number of YouTube video ideas that you can draw on when your mind has gone blank, or you need to make several videos in rapid succession.
Keyword research to get good ideas for youtube videos
My favorite keyword tools are the Searches related to…\Autocomplete in Google and YouTube search, Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest and the one I always turn to first, TubeBuddy. TubeBuddy is a browser extension that adds a layer of tools to your YouTube channel designed to help you create content and get it higher in the search results.
If you don’t know what keywords are, they can be single words or short phrases that people type into search engines. In other words, the questions people want answers to.
By entering a seed term, you will get suggested keywords that can help you produce ideas for new YouTube videos.
Suppose you want to record a video about Canon’s EOS R mirrorless camera. Install TubeBuddy on your browser, add your YouTube channel then go to TubeBuddy’s keyword explorer. Type Canon EOS R into the search box and click Explore. TubeBuddy will display its score for that search term.
Not surprisingly it turns out to be an extremely tough keyword to rank for, having a Poor score of 3/100. So, click the related search canon EOSR mirrorless camera review to get its details.
That’s much better, coming in with a Very Good score of 68/100. Next click on the related search canon EOS R full-frame mirrorless camera review.
That’s even better with a Very Good score of 70/100.
Our keyword research has not only suggested recording a review of the EOS R but also two potentially very good keywords for the title.
With some more research, using the other search tools, I could create a list of potential YouTube video ideas related to the EOS R. Not only would I have that list, but I would potentially know how tough it would be to rank and whether it was worth it.
Obviously, you could use TubeBuddy to help you create content in your niche. Best of all, TubeBuddy is FREE. But if you’re just starting out on YouTube you could get a Pro account (with loads of extra tools and benefits) for less than the price of a couple of cups of coffee a month.
If that sounds awesome, follow the following link to get your FREE account. If you decide you need the extra tools and features, you can upgrade at any time.
Tosh Lubek runs an audio and video production business in the UK and has been using the Canon EOS R since it was released in the Autumn of 2018 and the Canon EOS R6 in 2020. He has used both cameras to shoot TV commercials broadcast on Sky TV, promotional business videos, videos of events and functions, and YouTube creator content. He has also won several international awards for his advertising and promotional work. You can meet him by visiting his “video booth” at HashTag Business Events across the country.
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