The story of YouTuber Melanie Murphy: Beauty and the Vlog Podcast 1
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Melanie Murphy Show Notes!
Below are some of my favorite quotes by Melanie during the interview as well as her anwers to the Beauty Bonus Round, enjoy!
The Beginning:
“I dont like using that word fans, I hate that. I think of them as my friends, as pen pals”
I dont know how long YouTube is going to be around. I might as well ride the wave while it’s there and see what happens. I dont have any set plans at the moment I’m just going to go with it to see what I can do with it. The skys the limit. Once you make a platform for yourself online, which anyone can do, you have so much opportunity”
“Even four or five years ago, if someone would have said this to me I would have laughed in their face. I was extremely depressed, I was overweight, I couldn’t leave the house I have no friends, I wasn’t in a committed relationship.”
“My whole life started changing when I started believing in myself and that everything is within reach if I just start thinking positively. That has literally snowballed for me in every single regard.”
“I am trying to inspire and motivate people to change their life I think its possible for anyone I feel like I have been to the darkest depths and I have reached the highest highs. I just want to spread that and I love that I can and I can do it so easily now through videos. Its really amazing.”
“It’s only when I look back at old pictures and family members tell me certain stories that I remember how bad it was. I had anxiety issues and depression disorders.”
“I think it is important that if you do build up this online presence to show that you are a human being and that you are completely normal and that those things are normal.”
“I have a lot of girls now asking me advice about starting channels. If I can do it you can do it, I didn’t believe I would be any good at it.”
“Being yourself is so important. I feel like I’m such a strange person and I’m very different than a lot of the girls on YouTube, but people appreciate that. People say that is why they subscribe.”
“My first ten videos were never made live because they were so bad. I still have them and I will probably upload them some day, but they were so bad. It was just so hard to get used to talking to nothing. Can you imagine trying to get yourself pepped up in an empty room? I always found myself putting on a different accent.”
“It took me ages to figure out that I needed to do social media to get my channel going.”
“99% of the feedback I get is amazing.I have the most amazing subscribers, they are so nice and so similar to me in a way. They are very supportive and encouraging which is amazing.”
Finding a niche and the video that made her a YouTube star:
“What is there and what can I possibly do that people haven’t done much of. For years I had cystic acne and I still had pretty bad breakouts. One day I made a video on how I covered my acne. I couldn’t find many videos on it. I filmed that and it literally went mental, that video now has nearly 5 million views which is more people that are in my country. Its a bit terrifying. That was one video I was hoping would not get many views.”
“Finding that niche was really important. That for me was a niche that was not really tapped into was the whole skincare, confidence.”
“That was probably one of my first 10-20 videos I would say. It took off quick-ish. It took off quicker than my other videos. I was approached by national TV stations and buzzfeed. I got to do a collaboration with BuzzFeed. That for me was hugee because Buzz Feed was Buzz Feed. I got a lot of subscribers from that.”
“I would reach out to the brand and send them my videos to see if they would repost it on their social media. Having the right kind of people watching my videos. I wanted the people watching me to identify with me as well.”
“Once you get the hang of the networking side of YouTube, things will take off. Once your content is decent and you have good quality and you have something to offer or will help people or entertainment them, Then you need to focus on the networking side which is 90% of the work.”
“You have to watch so many videos. I set aside 2 hours every single day to watch videos and comment on videos. I love YouTube, like I live in YouTube. I am in a little YouTube land. I love watching people and I learn so much from them. Videos are advancing so fast. Some of the videos and the girls are like wow. They have camera crews and all that crazy stuff. I like watching other videos to get inspiration and to learn from. Say if I saw them do some cool camera swerve or overlay thing I would just google it. They even have tutorials on how to do that on YouTube. It all leads back to YouTube.”
Increasing Subscriber Base:
“Title, thumbnail and the description box. It’s so important. Dont have a random obscure title, have it more general. If you are looking for something online you want to find out something or watch some kind of video, what way would you type it in. Try and rephrase that into a title. Some of the most popular videos are How To videos and people go online and type in ‘how to do this’. Look at what the popular videos are, titles and their thumbnails. They need to be very eye catching; colorful, clear, what you would click on pretty much. In the description box, literally put in everything you can think of that has to do with your video, to do with the topic because it has a higher chance of popping up on the sidebar. People might see it and randomly click into it. They might like it then and stick around and that’s what you’re hoping for You are hoping for someone to stumble across you and think, this person is cool and this person is funny and keep watching it and subscribe. Give the viewers reasons to watch more. Prompt them to watch other videos, link other videos within videos and use end cards, things like that. Definitely the whole social media thing is so important. Being really active on Twitter and relating to people and using hashtags, all that kind of thing is way more important than people realize, way more important. I just got instagram two weeks ago, I am so behind on the times.”
“Getting your subscribers involved is really important. You can actually see who your most engaged subscribers are. Doing a video thanking your most engaged viewer and giving them a big shout out. Getting really one to one with them.”
“Be very active on YouTube. Google plus. Google plus owns the world now. Every video I watch I comment on, and I share it on Google plus.”
“Making friends with other YouTubers is so important.”.
“You see real crap videos with amazing thumbnails.”
“People use words like easy, quick. Even with gaming, you see with gaming they need to have everything summarized.”
“Even when you are starting, just act like you already have a million subscribers. Talk to your subscribers like you are established already. Doing that will make you feel like you are and believe that you are and make you work harder to put out really good content. I put every bit of effort into all of my videos even though it is only going to get 10k views.”
How YouTube Changed Melanie’s Life:
“I spend 4 hours a day responding to comments, tweets, facevbook messages. The time management was the biggest struggle for me, massively, so hard.”
“I dont want to air all my dirty laundry but I like being very open and honest.”
“I literally wake up every day and I jump out of the bed singing, ‘I’m walking on sunshine!’ Everyday I am so happy now because it was all so worth it.”
“On YouTube, normal girls are now being seen as role models.”
“Its a dream I never knew I had. There was no YouTube, there was no internet. When I was a teenager, there was no YouTube.”
Monetizing your YouTube Channel:
“The average is $1-$8 per 1k views. I am on average between $2-$4 between 1k views. It’s always different, every month my paycheck is always different. It’s a bit scary, but it’s better for me than working in a shop. It’s massively achievable to get enough money to get money and apartment and a car.”
Beauty Bonus Round:
Three Holy Grail Items:
Coconut Oil for removing makeup.
Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation
Tangle Teezer
#1 Best tip for Increasing Subscriber Base:
Be extremely consistent and make friends with other YouTubers.
YouTube Inspiration:
Essie Button is my favorite person in the whole world. and so different from everyone else. She does whatever she wants on her channel. I love what she does and how she interacts with her subscribers. How she makes me feel is how I would love others to feel with my videos.
What do you wish you knew when you first started?
How to edit your videos. If you are wanting to start, practice editing. Just do it as a hobby. Learn how to chop out all the fluff.
Favorite Piece of Technology
Sony Vegas Movie Maker.
Best Piece of YouTube Advice:
Just know that everyone isn’t going to like it and know that you are doing it for yourself. Dont do it for anyone else and dont do it because it’s cool. If you like what you are putting up and don’t mind what other people say. If people give you crap for it, just own it. Just own your decision to do it. Also, You need keep your channel PG, that’s really important.
Melanie Murphy can be found at:
https://www.youtube.com/user/MelaNiieVideos
