The Overlooked Resources of YouTube
Starting out on YouTube
A few years ago, a friend had mentioned that I should check out this new website he’d found called YouTube. He told me how easy it was for him to waste hour after hour watching funny video’s posted on the internet by regular folks with a video camera. Well I didn’t pay much attention to this because I didn’t want to get caught up watching video’s on my computer all day. Eventually… as with all of the latest and greatest things on the world wide web, I found myself succumbing to the temptation, and taking a peek at this new marvel of digital time fast forwarding, (bad idea) and I soon found myself going through the normal fascination with animal attacks and convenience store robberies and bloopers and before long I was losing hours doing exactly what I was afraid of…wasting time watching video’s all day!
Youtube for fun… but what else?
As with everything else in life there is a learning curve and YouTube was no different, but you can’t learn from what’s not there and as it turns out, we were all learning how to utilize this new medium to our various needs. As YouTube grew, it became much more than just a place to watch funny video’s. The film makers and artists within YouTube were also expanding their horizons with better editing and adding music as well as special effects, in an effort to draw more viewers to their channel but the single biggest advancement in all of this to me is the “tutorial” style of video!
Someone with a specialized skill or talent that can video tape that particular skill set so others can learn as well, sometimes it’s just an improvement on an existing idea and sometimes it’s an altogether new idea..
A video instruction manual…how cool is that?
Have you ever tried to assemble that complex Christmas toy by using the manual? or are you like me and throw the manual away and put it together based on the picture of it on the box. I like the visual aspect of seeing instead of reading and I have used tutorials almost every day since discovering this fantastic method of learning, the only hitch to it all… is not limiting yourself. In other words, if you need to fix something that has broken on your vehicle for example, but have no idea on how, the last thing on most peoples mind is Youtube! But there are thousands of mechanics on Youtube that are fixing the exact problem you have and doing it on video for all to see…FREE, and that is just one example.
Now open your mind to the endless possibilities from computer repairs and upgrades (which I have personally done watching tutorials) to plumbing, carpentry, and yes even garage door and opener repairs. I have done it all at some point, and with a great deal of success just by watching Youtube! I am 100% positive that I have saved thousands and thousands of dollars by fixing things myself and my video editing skills have improved by leaps and bounds, all through “tutorials” I am absolutely hooked on them and you should be too!
Paying it forward.
Everyone likes “free” and between you and me, is anything ever really free? I guess it really depends on how you look at it, but for me Youtube is about as chock full of free as it gets. Everyone has something that they specialize in and I’m no different, so it didn’t take much convincing that it was time to “pay it forward”. Doing this (making tutorials) has many other benefits, especially if you run a business…you can throw in your contact number, website and Facebook info into your video’s, just in case someone local decides they can’t tackle this project (whatever it may be) and quite possibly gain yourself some future business! So I would like to invite all of you into what could be the most overlooked resource on the web, the resources of Youtube!