How to be a YouTube Beauty Guru with Sona Gasparian: Beauty and the Vlog Podcast 11
Sona Gasparian is a 29 year old makeup artist who started her YouTube channel to promote her work. She is now a full time YouTuber and shares how she was able to grow her channel to a full-time business.
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Sona Gasparian Show Notes!
Below are my favorite moments from my interview with Sona. Please note that some of the content was paraphrased to make it easier to read.
Why did you start your YouTube channel?
Ive been a professional makeup artist for almost ten years now, so it’s a pretty long time. About two years ago I was approached by someone who was on YouTube to create some content for her on her channel. We did about 6-10 videos and they were all such popular videos in fact some were almost at a million views. A lot of the comments were geared towards me because I was doing her makeup. It was just so much fun for me. I had no idea how to work a camera or edit but I’m going to give this a try and I kind of did. I literally just did this for fun and a year and a half ago I started uploading regularly.
People are so appreciative that you are teaching them something that they don’t know. It was kind of cool it was definitely a rewarding experience, I have to do this more often.
It takes a while for you to grow. Once you grow and have a legit following then everything changes, then you don’t have time to do freelance makeup which is where I am right now in my life.
Beauty Bonus Round
What are your three Holy Grail items?
Bronzer: I need some color and my face is pretty round. I need to always define my features with bronzer. Right now it’s Chocolate Soleil bronzer by Too Faced. I just bought it two weeks ago. I love it.
Mascara: I’ve been loving the Urban Decay Perversion mascara. I use that so often.
YSL #13 Lipstick. It is the perfect shade. You know what’s cool about it, you can use a little bit on your cheeks to give you some color. It’s my very first high end lipstick.
What is your best tip that our listeners can implement today that will help increase their subscribers and video views?
Be consistent with your content. That is the most important thing you can do. If you don’t have specific upload dates, that’s fine, just try and upload at least once every single week. If you don’t upload for 2-3 weeks, they are going to forget about you and move onto the next person. That is the number one thing, being consistent. Second thing would be your lighting and camera. I know cameras are expensive. When I first started out my brother bought me my first camera, it was $1200. He bought me my first camera, I’ll never forget it. It actually just broke a few months ago. Buying a good camera is definitely important and lighting and all that.
Who is your Beauty Vlogger Inspiration?
LIsa Aldrige. She is my favorite. She is a professional makeup artist and works on celebrities and cool things like that.
What is your favorite social media platform?
Instagram. The reason being is because it’s all pictures. It’s kind of cool to get to know people through pictures. It’s not like you have to read a quote, like facebook. I’m so over facebook.
I only go on facebook maybe twice a month. Everything that goes to facebook is directly from instagram. I know I am always uploading things but it’s direct from instagram.
What do you wish you knew when you first started your YouTube channel?
I wish I knew about YouTube before. I wish I was one of the first girls that started like Michelle Phan and all those pros. It’s never too late I think, you can still do it. If anything it’s so much fun. I wish I knew to be more consistent with my content, I wish I knew to have better lighting and things like that. You obviously learn all of this as you go. I didn’t know that I could use a mike, so I was just using a camera. It’s important to use a mike so they can hear you better and things like that, I wish I knew all of that before.
That’s one thing I like about being part of a network. When you are part of a network there are all of these events you get to meet other YouTubers and collaborate with them. In the beginning when I didn’t have that it was kind of hard because it was just me and Teni. But, afterwards its a lot different now. I know so many different girls now. I met them through Makers events, GenBeauty and BeautyCon.
Makeup by Sona Channel Stats:
Started YouTube Channel: June of 2013
Age: 29
Subscribers: 240,000
Views: 7 million
https://www.youtube.com/user/MakeupBySona/featured
