Hello! Right now you’re reading “The Creator Confidential”, a blog where famous YouTubers share their stories and tips they have for growing a YouTube channel. Today’s post is something special and the first of a series called “YouTube from the Perspective of a Small Channel”. In this series, small YouTube channels share their successes and struggles, how they got their first subscribers, why they started, and more! If you want to be featured, you can send me an email (thecreatorconfidential@gmail.com) or DM me on Instagram (@thecreatorconfidential). Over the past week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Allie, and here is the finished result. Enjoy!
Introduce yourself!
Hi, I'm Allie Schweizer! I'm a photographer, content creator and small business owner. I create mainly lifestyle and fashion content on my social medias. I started creating sponsored content on Instagram in 2018 when I had only 3,000 followers and grew from there. I had my own photography business and also loved modeling, so I was always very active on Instagram. I had taken some photos at The Selfie Boutique and had been wearing clothing from Hollister. I tagged them in all my photos and they somehow happened to see them!
Hollister reached out to me asking me to do my very first collaboration. They sent me free clothing in exchange for me posting some photos in the items on my Instagram and tagging them. That was where it all started, it had never really crossed my mind until then that I could work with companies and create content. After that I started finding small businesses on Instagram and reaching out to them asking to do free product exchange collaborations. While I was rejected a lot (and I mean a lot, a lot), there were a few companies that wanted to work with me. As I continued to create content and work with brands my following grew slowly over the past few years and now I have 12K followers on Instagram.
While I was growing my Instagram I was also attending college at Fort Hays State University and I had been enrolled in a Digital Photography class. For one of our assignments we had to create some kind of video to share with the class. This was just a fun activity to practice basic video editing. I had always wanted to start a YouTube channel ever since I was in high school but I was always too scared to do it. I took this assignment as an opportunity to finally create a channel. I made a video about "things you should never say to a photographer" and I had so much fun making it that I decided to continue creating content on Youtube.
Right after this I went home for Christmas break. My dad is colorblind, so we got him Enchroma color blind glasses for Christmas. I knew the moment would be super special so I wanted to film it and make a video to share with our family and friends and to look back on. I only had a few hundred subscribers and I didn't expect the video to go viral, but it went viral on twitter and then did very well on YouTube and is at 101K views right now. Having that response really encouraged me to continue creating content. I am not as active on YouTube as I would like to be but I do try on hauls a lot, swimwear content in the summer is always so fun to make, and I plan to do some videos coming up around how to start your own business and behind the scenes of running your own boutique since I just started my own.
Who are some of your biggest inspirations?
Some people that inspired me along the way on instagram were @McCall.Mitchell who is another influencer my age, her photos were always adorable, we both love Jesus, we have similar clothing style, and we both created Lightroom presets. She is the sweetest and I am glad we have connected on Instagram. Some YouTubers that I really looked up to all these years are Niki & Gabi who have a twin channel, again I really was inspired by Niki because I could relate to her personality and style. I also love Aspen Ovard who I have been watching for so many years!
How did you, personally, become more integrated with and interact more with the YouTube community/fellow YouTubers?
I am from a very small town in Kansas and while I am sure there are many other creators here, it's not really a hub for social media marketing. I don't know of any other YouTubers from my area. I don't think that I have connected with any YouTubers. However I have made friends with many girls on Instagram and most of them also have small YouTube channels!
I have become friends with many other Instagram creators just by following each other, supporting and engaging with each others content and also DMing. Everyone I have talked to through the platform is so nice and I have made such great connections. I have even done collaborations with a few of them! I have never met any of them in person but I hope someday I will have the opportunity to get together with my Instagram friends!
How did you get your first few subscribers?
I got my first subscribers by sharing my first few videos to my Facebook and Instagram. Most of my first subscribers were close family and friends and I believe the ones that I don't know personally have mainly come from my Instagram followers.
Have any funny stories that might've occurred during filming or editing? :)
Oh dear, if you got to see the behind the scenes of me trying to film a video you would not believe what goes on! I am actually super awkward behind the camera and am constantly messing up my words, getting tongue tied, blanking out, or busting out laughing with my sister who is usually in the room. One time during a video with my sister, we were doing a SHEIN try on haul, my lights hanging in the background fell off my wall TWICE while we were filming. It was really late at night and we live alone so it scared the crap out of us both times. I ended up leaving the clip in my video because it was too funny to edit out.
What's your experience with tags and SEO? Which tags do you use to help your videos be more popular? Any advice for people who have no idea how to use tags?
Good question, I am not sure that I have totally figured out tags on YouTube but sometimes I end up having some good luck. This may be cheating, but the way I do my tags is by doing some research on what tags others are using. You have to be using Google Chrome, but if you go to some similar videos to the one you just created you can right click and "view page source" then you can Control F and search "keywords". This shows you what tags others used. I like to check out several videos and use a mix of their tags along with any other relevant ones I think of myself. I think relevant tags work best instead of trying to find "special" tags that you think with pop off.
Do you have any apps that greatly helped your filming/editing process/overall YouTube experience?
I edit on my laptop with iMovie and that's usually about all I use for my videos, nothing too fancy. I don't use any other websites or anything. If I need music I usually get it off of a no copyright music YouTube channel. Then I use photoshop to create my own thumbnails.
If you are monetized, can you go through your process of monetization?
I am monetized, I was able to monetize my channel right away because of the success of the Enchroma video of my dad seeing color for the first time. The process was very easy, once I met the requirements I applied and was accepted pretty quickly.
What are your hopes for the future of your channel? What will your channel look like 2-10 years from now?
I hope to continue to grow my channel over the next couple years. I recently started my own clothing store, so at this moment I see it growing into more fashion and business content. I also want to keep doing thrifting videos and other fun things here and there. I hope someday to involve my family in my content as well and do some lifestyle videos. I don’t know where my channel will go, but I hope to be more active and start posting more consistently.
Finally, why should people subscribe to your channel (why is it unique)?
I think my channel is unique because my content is very genuine, honest, and real. I am kind of shy so I don't have a crazy online personality but I think that my personality does come through in my videos. I hope that others find it personable and genuine. I am always open to talking or helping out my followers and I always respond to my DM's. I love creating friendships with my followers and I think that is harder to find with some of the larger creators (obviously because they are so busy and get so many more messages). When doing reviews I am always blatantly honest, if a product is not good quality I will let my followers know.
Thanks for reading! A huge thanks to Allie for taking the time to answer all the questions. Here are the links to all her socials:
Instagram: @allieschweizer https://www.instagram.com/allieschweizer/
YouTube: Allie Schweizer https://www.youtube.com/c/AllieSchweizer/featured
Clothing Store: www.shopallisonpearl.com
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