Gadgetory

what's up guys John rettinger here for the past few months I've been doing a video series on advice for aspiring tech reviewers and advice for youtubers in general i like to continue that with some more advice for you guys and for those of you that are looking to expand your audience or maybe start making YouTube videos I've got a few bits and pieces that I've learned over the past couple years that I'd like to share with you guys certainly there's much more that I need to learn but as I kind of get a sense of what works and what doesn't you know maybe you guys can be the beneficiaries of my experience so you can check out the past videos for some of the old device that have offer but I've got sort of some new advice with a little bit of a different take than I had in the past so one of the big questions I get is I want to review things I want to review technology but I don't have a big enough audience for companies to send me products or I don't have enough money to buy products to review and that's okay you don't need to be rich or have any money or even have any subscribers to review technology there are a few ways you can go about it inexpensively while you're building on it so let me tell you guys the few things that have worked for me the first is give your take on a device so for instance when I did a few days ago with the palm pre I don't have a palm pre in hand I just gave my take on it what I thought about it what I thought it was going to do the industry and how it was going to shape future cell phones and I opened up a discussion to the audience you know your videos are more than just you talking to somebody it's also a discussion that follows down below in the comments if you can prompt a nice discussion not only can you learn from your viewers your future viewers you know it's also a nice chance for them to you get to know you and they like your content hopefully subscribe and subsequently build your audience base so that's a very simple way just talk about product you necessarily have to have them in hand you have to do an unboxing a review or harbor overview whatever you want just talk about technology it's not so bad the next option and this one does cost a little bit of money but not much to just review very inexpensive products if for example you're an apple fan and you have an iPhone review some my foot applications and keep it at 99 cents or review free applications you don't use what you have a year to school if you have a blackberry storm pick up a case for a blackberry storm for maybe 20 bucks and review the case and start building your audience that way you know naturally holistically kind of build it up from the ground up I think your audience will eventually respect you more as your subscriber base grows and your viewers grow knowing kind of where you came from to you know where you guys want to be so again you don't have to go out and spend a lot of money even just a little bit next thing is review things you already have if you have a wireless mouse for example on your computer review it if you have an older digital camera review it people are still looking for information on these things if you've got a fancy keyboard or whatever you have give it a review someone out there is going to want to know about it and that someone may tell a friend and that friend may tell somebody else and you never know things could really snowball from there so again for last time you don't have to have a lot of money or spend any money to start reviewing technology a next video advice is kind of a carryover from previous videos you guys have to have confidence in yourself or if you have to project confidence you have to do your research you have to know the product if you're giving out incorrect information or regularly giving out incorrect information people aren't going to respect you they're not going to respect your videos and you're going to see your audience you know I experienced minimal growth unfortunately so do your research be confident in the videos that you're that you're putting out there in the words that you're saying and be very mindful of what you're saying try to be careful with your ohms and ahhs I know that's difficult but really try and just be mindful of it it's make you look much less progress much less professional rather and the next bit of advice if you are going to reach out to other youtubers or if you're going a look average out to companies be very careful the language that you're using in your emails guys I can't stress this enough I get so many emails that say instead of spelling out y.o.u they just say you or the title just says read me you know people aren't going to be responsive set especially if you're asking them for something you're trying to get their attention in a way that's a little underhanded in the language you're using in the emails is very juvenile no one's going to take you seriously and it's going to be hard to to get the exposure that you need and and the next thing is if you're going to reach out to some youtubers and you're asking them to promote your videos you're gonna have a very hard time getting a response if me for example or another youtubers going to promote your video or mention you and a Twitter post or something we're going to get inundated with other people with the same request and unfortunately it's very hard to accommodate everyone so to keep things fair most people will generally decline those requests so while it never hurts to ask don't be discouraged if those requests don't come through you might get those quite a bit i know people way more popular than me get them as well and that's a nice little segways you don't be discouraged don't be discouraged guys have have confidence and know that you're not going to build your audience overnight it's not going to take a one week two weeks no matter how many videos you put up to that amount of time it's going to take months it's just like any other job it's going to take time for you to get acclimated for you to learn and for people to take notice so guys hope you enjoyed this advice for aspiring tech reviewers it's also one last thing that I do want to share I've mentioned in some of my videos like the one I did for quick TV a while back people send me some really cool lengths and some cool promotions that sometimes like to share with you guys well there is a very very very neat one going on right now the chance to win some pretty kick-ass prizes and it's being done by mo films Spike Lee and actually AT&T is involved as well and this is really cool if you're trying to be a tech review works why I'm mentioning it right now what you have to do is you can choose I think they've got 10 or 12 companies and you make an advertisement them at home make a video on one of their products or one of their services each company has your own set of guidelines and you enter it in the contest from o films you can win a chance to go to con which is pretty cool in the South of France I believe they were giving away a trip to the American Idol finale but that's past when NCAA final four tickets for next year a chance to get recognized and get some money there's a lot of really really cool prizes and I know you guys like to make videos Alex make videos so it's a nice chance to get some reward for your hard work I'll put a link to that up in the sidebar and I actually read about it on ett facebook page so you can check it out there too if you like anyway guys for exclusive content be sure to follow me on twitter twitter.com / John for lakers hope you are having a nice day having a nice weekend whatever they are going to be watching this year but weekend coming up at some point and I will see you guys in the next video bye bye