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Educational Content on YouTube

21 Sep, 2022
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To finally understand the characteristics of the educational niche, you should recall when you were in the classroom at school or college, or university - it doesn’t matter. Any place where you actually gained knowledge.

The rules for creating and developing channels on YouTube are always the same, regardless of what niche you settle in and what topic you cover in your videos. However, it is no use to deny the fact that different niches have their own features that can affect your content promotion.

Therefore, we will talk about the educational content features: how to improve your channel, what to take into account when creating content, and how to promote expert channels.

Peculiarities of the educational niche

Educational content is defined as any content that can teach people something new. For instance, classes, guides, lectures, research, life hacks, analyses, reviews, and many other forms of providing information.

What is the fundamental difference here? When you start an expert or educational channel, you need to understand and accept the fact that you are becoming a teacher, educator, and tutor.

Roughly speaking, a teacher-student relationship develops between the author of the channel and his subscribers and you will need to be qualified, engaging and interesting for your subscribers to want to attend your lectures.

To finally understand the characteristics of the educational niche, you should recall when you were in the classroom at school or college, or university - it doesn’t matter. Any place where you actually gained knowledge.

Many students expect that you are going to be a good teacher. Then your lecture/class becomes more exciting and interesting. No matter how hard your content is. A talented teacher is able to present any topic in such a way that the child not only understands the content but also wants to learn more.

This is the task that all authors who are involved in the educational or expert niche must perform.

Many bloggers may object: “I don’t have a goal to teach someone, I just want to do what I do on camera.” But this is actually expert content. But not educational. And you need to understand that if you demonstrate your expertise and level of knowledge, then people will be divided into several categories:

  • Those who want you to teach them. They will instantly fall off as soon as they realize that no one here intends to teach them;
  • Those who come in and realize their inferiority. Then it makes no sense for them to stay with you;
  • Those who are also experts. They may stay with you to comment and criticize your actions, but they will be in the minority.

In fact, almost any channel can be transformed into an educational one. Do you know why? Because people search the Internet for everything. To see this, just look at how many different and strange searches there are on Google. And this is what people look for most often!

Thus, educational content is an inexhaustible, eternal topic and can be just about anything. You can help people with absolutely anything.

To cut a long story short, there are two main characteristics of educational content.

Educational content should be:

  • Understandable. Your content must have a structure and logic, the task at the beginning of the video is to learn something and its solution, and at the end, you must set out conclusions to consolidate the material.
  • Simple. You shouldn’t talk overhead, any term needs to be explained and, preferably, in each video. Even if you already explained it. After all, those who watched have already forgotten, and those who watch you for the first time still don’t know anything about this video.

Your success in educational content depends only on how you present information. How it will be useful and understandable to your viewers. Yes, in education your success is directly related to the success of your students.

Features of the visual component of the educational channel

Actually, as for the visual part of the channel and videos, everything is quite simple. If we position ourselves as experts, no matter what niche we are in, our entire channel, every video on it should prove our status.

What can help determine your channel direction:

  • neat and stylish header;
  • good-quality and thoughtful thumbnails,
  • user-friendly channel navigation (easy-to-navigate playlists and main page);
  • a straightforward description of the channel.

Please take note that even top channels on expert topics that present educational content, look like a neatly tidied-up classroom. You instantly feel the mood and atmosphere of the subject that is being studied.

Ideally, each channel has its own distinct style. Even in an educational institution, if you remember, each classroom is stylized: where there is literature, there are portraits of great poets and writers on the walls, and in the chemistry class you would find a periodic table.

In a good teacher's office, you will not find rubbish and scattered books, because the teacher is an example to follow. Following this logic, should students listen and trust your channel if it  has sloppy thumbnails, or lack thereof, strange video titles, and a frankly bad description of the channel?

Make it clear to your viewers that this is an educational channel. The author knows exactly what he is talking about, appreciates his work and understands the importance of what he is talking about.

The same goes for the way you shoot and edit your videos.

Editing for educational content does not require some sky-high complexity. Your videos just need to be neat and without excessive elements. The main thing here is to convey information to the audience in a clear and exciting way. Therefore, always try to carefully glue phrases and frames together, and do not make mind-blowing transitions, or put on some inappropriate music. All this distracts students from the topic.

Also, pay attention to the quality of your shooting. Learning is already a stressful process, so people need to think a lot and use their wits. And if you shoot with a bad microphone, then this will only distract from the delivery of information. The same applies to the visual part. Especially if you show something in the frame that is important for mastering the topic.

Examples of educational channels:

Content and structure of educational content

If you present expert content, it is important to determine for yourself the format for presenting information and the structure of your videos.

Your viewers should easily understand what you’re going to teach them in your videos. Of course, this does not exclude experiments, but structuring at all levels will be the key to your success with the audience.

Accuracy in educational content is all we have. Why does Masha pay so much attention to the structure of the channel in the “Analyzing a subscriber’s channel” section? This is an indicator of the level of expertise for viewers. Your qualification should be reflected not only in the quality of the knowledge that you share on the channel but also in how you logically present it.

The big mistake many authors make is that they forget: there are always more beginners than experts. Therefore, you should consider this when presenting your information. It’s that simple.

For example, when using field-specific terminology, which is an integral part of educational content, do not forget to explain it. Moreover, in each new video, you will have to explain, perhaps, the same terms, since each video will work for you separately from the channel.

It’s better to sketch up the topics that you want to discuss on the channel and sort them by the level of difficulty beforehand in order to build the order of your videos and the way you want to release them. As well as how to generate content on the channel.

Remember that popular topics on the Internet may not work for your subscribers at all. This is all formed solely on the basis of the audience that is visiting your channel.

You also need to understand why you are creating a channel at all and what your goal is.

If it seems that you are not yet worthy of calling yourself an expert, then remember: it’s not scary not to know something, you can learn it together with your viewers. The only thing that you should be afraid of is that if your explanation mismatch the logic of what you show in your videos.

Being an expert means being an authority on a specific topic or skill.

You must upload videos on YouTube regularly and according to a schedule that your students are 100% aware of. What can you teach if you release random lectures that don’t have any structure? Try to keep your setting consistent. 

And the most important thing as an author of educational content is your understanding that learning is a complex process. One that requires concentration from your viewers. And you have to know how much the viewer can perceive one topic when learning something.

Studies show that a person's attention on a topic is dispersed after 6 minutes, so at least at the beginning of the channel's life, make shorter videos, or cover one topic at a time.

To better fit the information in your head, you should think about how to focus the attention of your audience on the topic. You can encourage them to take notes or include interactive questions and tasks in the video.

All these little tricks will help you not only make your video more interesting but also make it more structured.

What other tricks work? For example, if you show text, don't show entire chapters. Try to underline only the main ideas of your video with the text. Moreover, various interactive animations and pictures during the video help the information to be perceived better. They dilute complex topics. People who choose to watch educational videos are great at understanding information in graphs and charts, for example.

One of the most successful tactics for creating and promoting educational content is to create content based on what the creator themselves would have liked to know at the beginning of their journey. Once you remember how you started, you will no longer have questions about how to structure your content.

How to promote an educational (expert) blog

At the beginning of your journey, you cannot predict which video will resonate with your audience and which will not. The more you work on the channel and content, the easier it will be for you to predict what will happen with certain topics on the channel.

You can endlessly analyze the channels of competitors, but until you yourself start trying as many different topics as possible, you will not understand what works with your audience. Thoughtlessly throwing yourself into the sea is also not always a successful technique.

In expert content, special attention should be paid to keywords and search queries, because in any expert topic there are standard questions that viewers ask and are always looking for an answer to them.

If you create high-quality answers to search questions and do SEO analysis you will be able to gain an audience.

Most of all, people start questions with "how", "what to do" or "why". You need to research which questions users are utilizing to search for your topic and tailor SEO to those questions.

You should begin with narrow topics. It is always easier to find people with specific questions and on a specific topic; plus this type of content is easier to promote on YouTube now. Once you have earned some reputation and gained an audience, you can expand and add some wider topics.

In the beginning, the more accurately you can answer the tough questions, the more likely you are to be noticed by an audience. You must analyze both the queries and keywords related to the topic and also your content format. And by giving information, try to understand the audience's frustration with your topic.

For example, you know for sure that in the photography training niche there is absolutely no expert opinion on how to work with models in a photo shoot. Focus your content and entire channel around solving this problem, and when you gain an audience, it will be easy for you to expand the topics on the channel if you keep within the discussion of the photo and everything related to it.

Besides the exact topics, you need to understand who your audience is.

For this, make a profile of the person you were when you started. And the better you formulate a profile of yourself, the easier it will be to understand who your future subscribers are. And it will be easier for them to understand whether they want to watch you, whether you understand them. It will also affect the format and appearance of your content and presentation.

For example, continuing on the theme of the channel about taking photos, imagine that you made a profile based on yourself: you were a poor student who wanted to take photos but did not know where to start. And after all, this immediately determines that it makes no sense to speak about difficult to comprehend topics on the channel. If you put yourself in the place of the viewer, then you understand that you need simple and understandable solutions that do not require much brainwork. The style and format of your videos will immediately change as soon as you understand this.

In addition to answering viewers' specific questions and pain points, you need to understand why they will watch and follow you on an ongoing basis, what can you give on the channel to keep them interested. Indeed, many expert channels have a big problem: people watch videos without being subscribed to them.

It is not enough just to give information. They will watch a video, thank you in their minds, and that's it. You need to think about how to engage the audience so that everyone is active under your videos. Create a community.

Based on expert content, it is best to create a community, because it will be tied not only to your personality, but also around the topic that you cover on the channel. Expert content requires a lot of interaction with the audience because people often look for support and not only answers to their questions.

Any educational topic requires discussion, so it is important not only to speak but also to give the audience the opportunity to discuss the topic with each other. This will help them find like-minded people and solve the same type of issues.

Learn to create an atmosphere of community, class, and an audience to be trusted and listened to. You should not just be a teacher who psychologically stands above your students; you must become a good friend who wants to help guide your subscribers.

Guides and courses for beginners are especially successful. This is the same evergreen content that will bring an audience to you. Creating simple courses for beginners is the easiest and most effective way to grow your channel.

Within any expert topic, there are problems that everyone is trying to solve. The simpler and more interesting you help people solve it, the more likely your content will ring a bell.

If at the same time, you offer better solutions for viewers than your competitors, know that you will gain your audience’s confidence.

Develop yourself as a person. Make sure to use your charisma and express your view with enthusiasm. Anyone who loves to teach should also love to learn.

One of the indicators of a high-level channel is that you explore each topic a little more than you should. Dig deeper, and give a little more than others. Your goal is to become a great resource and help for your viewers.

Consistently themed content always works, and it’s easy to create it on an expert channel. It allows you to refer to the fact that you discussed a topic in another video.

Ultimately, you need to learn how to sell the value of your content to viewers.

People are much more motivated to stay with you if you convey to them the idea that your channel will quickly and simply help solve their problems.

As a result, it should be a very interesting interactive guide for beginners, diluted with more complex topics for those who want to dive deeper into the subject matter.

Please keep in mind that the usual methods of promoting content will also work with educational content. Just make sure that you enjoy what you do. Overall, don’t forget to be yourself, no matter what.

Life hack: in order to answer the same questions in the comments every day, which is the biggest headache for any author of an educational channel, you will need to have incredible patience. To attain a zen like approach you may want to try mediation. 

Now what are you waiting for - get started!

Author
Author

Sasha Lerman

Copywriter, writer, editor. Development and promotion on YouTube, as well as many other exciting topics.

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