From College Student to Full Time YouTuber with Jeanine Amapola: Beauty and the Vlog Podcast Episode 18
Welcome to the Beauty and the Vlog podcast! For this episode, we interview college student and very successful YouTuber Jeanine Amaola who now has over 1 million YouTube subscribers. In this podcast she reveals some amazing tips on being a successful YouTuber and what she did to achieve the massive YouTube audience she currently has.
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To view the YouTube version of this interview click HERE!
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Jeanine Amapola Show Notes!
Below are some of my favorite moments from the interview. Please note that the quotes have been paraphrased a bit in the transcription.
On why she got started in YouTube:
I didn’t really know how to feel good about myself. I was on YouTube and looking at makeup tutorials. I didn’t know how to do makeup, I wasn’t confident. I wanted to amp up my look. I was in the time period in my life that I wanted to feel a little bit prettier and more girly. I started looking up tutorials. I found myself absolutely hooked. I kept watching and watching and watching. After I gained enough experience and knowledge I was thinking that it was something I could do myself. I felt like I had the personality for it and I loved making videos ever since I was young. I first randomly uploaded videos and from there it took off and I kept doing it and found myself totally addicted to doing videos
Just watching other people and their personality and the way I could connect with them I thought was so cool. I was so intrigued. I felt I could connect with people and give them any advice that I had and to connect and give people my tips and chat with people. Originally when I started youtube I had no idea you could make money off of it. You really couldn’t in the beginning when I first started it definitely was not for the money, I had no idea I could do that.
What editing software do you use?
Final Cut Pro x. Started off with Windows Movie maker and Sony Vegas Pro.
What do you see for yourself in the future?
Seeing myself possibly moving to California in the future for my degree and YouTube as well. Trying to hit the next milestone, 150k and 200k and still trying to be original and creative and myself in the process.
Beauty Bonus Round
What are your three Holy Grail Items?
Batiste Dry Shampoo
Benefit Hoola Bronzer: “My go-to bronzer every single day. Even when I don’t wear foundation I definitely contour.”
Burt’s Bees Chap Stick: “My lips need that product.”
Best Tip to help increase subscriber base?
Quality over quantity. Take that to heart. Try producing quality videos that has quality everything, camera, sound, lighting, over just trying to produce 4 videos in one week. Even if it’s one good video per week, it’s better. You will get more views that way versus producing four kind of eh quality videos and you’re not getting as many quality views.
As far as lighting, always try and use natural lighting. Find the best time of day to film. Always sit in front of a window, that is always the best lighting you could always find. If you don’t have good natural lighting in your house or your room soft boxes are a good option you can get from Amazon.
As far as a camera, I use a Canon Rebel T4I. It know its a little expensive but it’s so important to invest in. Once I upgraded my channel it was amazing, it helped so much. I just used the sound in my camera.
Who is your beauty vlogger inspiration?
Mylifeaseva.
Everything she does is an inspiration. She’s like my own little role model.
AliciaMarie
Tell me about your friendship with Eva:
With Eva when she reached out to me I had probably 13k more subscribers than she did and it was beginning of 2012. She reached out to me and I checked out her channel and I was like wow, she makes really good videos. We became friends and we’ve been friends ever since.
What do you wish you knew when you first started your channel?
I wish I knew how to edit a little bit better., I wish I knew the whole quality over quantity. I wish I knew how to have good lighting. I wish I knew HD camera, I wish I knew what music to use. I wish I knew how to edit it better so it wasn’t as cheesy. I wish I knew how to do makeup a little bit better. I did my makeup and I was like, oh wow, this is such a good tutorial. And I look back now and I was like, what were you thinking! That was not a good tutorial. You did not put primer on, you didnt even blend it. I think it was all those things combined. Things I know now, the whole quality over quantity. I wish I knew that back then. I tried to get videos up four times a week and they weren’t good videos, they were just random videos that didn’t get as many good views.
What piece of advice would you give to someone just starting out on YouTube?
Reach out to other YouTubers and find other YouTubers that are your same subscriber count. You guys can collab with each other, that helps you get a lot of other subscribers. You guys can bounce ideas off of each other and you can also give each other different tips. If one YouTuber sees something in your channel that you don’t see it’s so helpful. Working with other YouTubers is so helpful and something I recommend to other people.
