Gadgetory

what's up everybody jon rettinger from technobuffalo here a little while ago i started a series about advice for aspiring youtubers and tech reviewers I've been really fortunate in my three odd years on YouTube to have achieved even a sliver of success and a lot of sort of what I've learned during that period of time had been through trial and error and failures on my part that have sort of gotten me to to where I'm at there hopefully going to get me to where I'd like to be so I thought that I could share some advice with you and sort of reboots this advice for aspiring tuckered you are serious probably 10 to 20 times a day I get asked John how do I become a tech review or where do I go to get products how do I do it what's the sort of the first of the series that I want to share with you is how I go about getting products and how I went about doing it when I was first started to help give you guys a bit of advice now the first question that I get when I mention that I'm going to do this is John aren't you going to be making a lot of competitors and I've set this in several previous videos that the more success online tech reviewers have whether it's me or someone else I'll the more credibility we all get almost as an industry so I'm vested in your success and hopefully you're arrested in line so I think that we can maybe help each other out and I want to give you guys so if you're a bit of advice in place to start so when I first began the advice series it would just hurt my advice and be talking when I started discussing reboot actually went and spoke with PR representatives for a lot of big tech companies I batched remain nameless so to get their side of things and how they go about selecting who they like their products to and who not so this is going to reflect really both sides of the fence so from the reviewer side which would be me and you and from the PR the company aside which would be the folks you want to get in touch with so first and foremost in order for a company that sends you products you have to provide value to them unfortunately there isn't just a magic phone number magic email that you sign up for you log into a website and i will sudden your tech reviewer getting products it takes a lot of time you have to be able to provide a nice amount of value to these companies up they're gonna send your product matter how big or small whether it's an iphone case or a new laptop or anything in between they need to get like i said decent matter return for what they're sending you so in order to even reach out to anybody in general you have to have a significant audience and you know you're going to say it's a bit of a catch-22 how do I get an audience if I don't have products and how do I get products better have an audience you're sure to wrap an endless loop so in the next series of videos I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how to build an audience but for right now let's assume that you sort of built that up and again there isn't a romantic number that you need you can start doing us any time from you know thousand subscribers on up it's generally a good place to begin so what i did when i was first beginning was I went through companies that I thought maybe would bring more prone to send me product so smaller perhaps more fringe companies i went to their websites i found their PR context i'd send them an email it very succinctly worded email very conscious of my grammar of the words i was using don't use slang don't use the number two right out t 0 or t 00 you know just be very mindful you want to present yourself very professionally you don't have to be you know 29 you can be younger to do this as well just need to present yourself very professionally so reach out to them tell them a little about who you are what you want to do and lay out a plan so how are you going to provide value to them say okay i know i don't have the largest audience in the world but i think i could present your product in a fair light certainly never barter products or positive reviews you'll lose all journalistic credibility but the best thing that you can offer companies is to be fair with their products you're going to give it a fair shot that's what I always do I try and take away any biases and I may have before I look at any product no matter what it is no matter what I might have read elsewhere you know let them know you're going to go in with a clean slate and certainly assure them that you're not going to be giving a positive review and exchange for products often times when you start off that's sort of the the inkling and the instinct is wow they took a chance on me I need to reward them with a good review but if you want to build your audience you want to maintain your audience you have to be honest and you have to have journalistic integrity so you're going to have to fight through those instincts so you've laid out a plan for them ok I'm going to unbox your product a few days later I'm going to do I hands on demonstration a few days after that I'm going to do it full review send them update so after you do your inbox it say hey company X I film the unboxing i want to show you how it turned out it's got X amount of views on it here's a link responsibility spots have been pretty positive here are some comments I've gotten on the video and keep doing that all the way through so they see that you're interacting with them you're not just getting products and you're done you know sort of use a real losing kind of thing make sure that you keep them updated in the loop so let's back up a bit more now to the request email so you've laid out a plan for them how you're going to do it if you're a larger youtuber if your partner you need to provide statistics so don't just say I get three million views per month I need to be able to substantiate that these companies and PR representatives have a lot riding on you and their products and they're going to verify your number so if you make up a number that's inaccurate they will know and you will not hear from them again so if your partner provide a screenshot of your adsense account showing your impression to the previous month if you're not a partner show the history of your growth and subscribers that you've been having you're getting five subscribers a date element you're getting 10 a date alamat 20 a day whatever it might be telling them that you know give back to figures sort of help verify what you're saying they really do appreciate that and that was something that I've always got from the PR agencies and I asked them the question of what do you look for so looking for a substantiate events things that we can show take to our bosses any time they'd ask you know someone for a product to send out that's report to somebody and they're not gonna send out a product again if they don't think you're getting value it to present yourself very properly think of it almost a job interview and if you're younger either been on the job going to think about how you want to go on a job interview this is a job you really want you want to review tech you want to be in front of a camera you want to blog about it whatever it might be so you need to protect yourself you know really really professionally is key so once you've gotten the products which is sometimes hard need to be prepared for rejection when I was first starting out I reached out to probably 20 companies I heard back from four and one would actually send me something so be very very very prepared for ejection it's going to happen and that's okay just because the companies that know of you now and just mean I going to say no to you in two months when your audience may be doubled in size so really best advice I can give you when it comes to advice for tech reviewers and getting products would be go to the companies websites that you want to look for find their PR contacts you can look at the bottom of press releases sometimes as it as well and shoot off a very professional email with stats with figures and with a plan for how you're going to help show their product is really sort of the key to it unfortunate like I said there's no magic website or email or phone number that makes you tech review or you get to sort of build it yourself and through these emails are building a foundation now eventually if you do this you follow through and you give them updates you'll have great relationships with these PR firms and you know they may say hey I've got a friend in another agency if you want to check out their product or you'll notice that maybe contacts will start people will start reaching out to you or pra bees will start reaching out to you because they've heard about your reputation and it starts to grow so really it's your watering the plants that are going to bloom so to speak so guys this is really the first it's going to be an ongoing series of advice for aspiring youtube the tech reviewers hope you guys found this helpful if you have comments please leave them down below or TechnoBuffalo as comments i'm really curious what you guys have to say about this any questions that you want answered other things in particular so how do i grow my audience or how do I build my brand or how do I ran my channel you know whatever it might be I will be reading them I'll be watching and I'll try and give you guys feedback and answer all the questions and I can hope you guys found this helpful and jon rettinger TechnoBuffalo and i'll see you next video bye bye