Contrary to popular belief, running and starting a ministry’s YouTube channel doesn’t have to break the bank. It is a myth that you must have a six-figure budget to succeed. With the advent of social media, the bar for acceptable picture and video quality has been lowered. Every one of us is used to the notion of watching hours of content per week that was shot on a cell phone.
 
However, with all the options of lenses, cameras, and sound equipment vying for your attention, it can be incredibly overwhelming when trying to figure out what is actually needed to get started. Rest assured, even with limited knowhow and a moderate budget, you can create great content.
 
While it can be easy to be distracted by the shiniest and newest camera or microphone on the block, never forget that content is king. Higher-quality equipment can be helpful, but it is not always necessary, especially when you are first getting started. Beware of contracting GAS (Gear Acquirement Syndrome). When I (Justin Khoe) started my channel, I was working with an almost non-existent budget, and I paid for everything out of pocket. Eventually, valuable content will always beat out expensive equipment.
 
The most important thing is to get started.
 
Below is the recommended equipment for three different budget levels: a low, medium, and high budget.

The prices below represent approximate costs as of 2020. Prices may change dramatically due to 2020 economic challenges.

Note: If you are working with a church, you might already have audio equipment or lighting available to borrow.
 
 
Next Steps
Determine your budget.
Choose the camera, lights, and microphone.
Start creating!
 

One major question that you should ask yourself about any piece of content uploaded to social media is, “Why would anyone care to watch or listen?” While uploading your full worship service will certainly be a blessing to your current church body, think about each online viewer as a first-time guest.
 
Before a prospective viewer can get to the actual message, many ministries force them to sit through 20−30 minutes of content that is irrelevant to them. Why should someone who has never been to your church care about the announcements, special music, or offertory?
 
Instead of uploading your program’s entire livestream to YouTube, a better approach would be to optimize your content for this specific platform once the live event is over. Realize that YouTube is a search engine; it’s a social community with its own subculture and set of social norms. Upload just the individual sermons or messages from your evangelistic series or camp meetings, and optimize the videos to be found via search. 

Break your livestreams and longer videos into smaller segments for distribution and community engagement on YouTube and other social media platforms such as Facebook and IGTV. Consider breaking your videos into two- to three-minute, easy-to-watch clips that highlight the key points of an inspiring message, or pull out the children’s stories into their own dedicated playlist.

Your goal should be to create as much evergreen content as possible to promote your message, church, or ministry to seekers. Capturing the attention of your audience several different times can help build trust and value regarding your ministry. Evergreen content can be shown to new audiences repeatedly while retaining its intrinsic value, meaning it doesn’t become less interesting or less relevant over time. Be sure to avoid including the date in the title of your video or mentioning it in graphics or dialogue during the selected message. Perception is important in outreach. The more dated your content seems, the less relevant it will appear, even if it still carries tremendous value.

Questions to consider before uploading your videos:

1. Will my audience still care about what is covered in this video?
2. How in-demand is the information being presented?
3. If I was a part of my audience, would I spend time watching it?
4. What is the overall replay value of the video(s)?
5. Is the content in easy-to-digest segments that my audience can view on the go?
6. Does this video address a common question or solve a problem?

Follow the guidelines outlined in the How to Start A YouTube Ministry: A Comprehensive Guide.  These guidelines will help position your video in the best possible way, not only to be found, but also get watched. Be sure to follow these steps because your content cannot lead people to Christ unless it is viewed.

The way to bring natural traffic to your channel is to position your video so the people looking for it can find it. This process is called SEO (search engine optimization), and the same basic steps can be used for any digital platform. YouTube is most often used as a search engine. Find content, write content, and curate content related to top YouTube searches. Frame your posts to pique curiosity and answer people’s questions, addressing their deepest longings. You can get top search data from any search engine, YouTube, and other social media trend tracking sites. Try it. Start typing in a question, and let the search engine auto-finish. The top results represent the most popular search queries. In other words, you will see what large numbers of people are searching for online. It gives you a sneak peek into their needs, worries, nagging questions, and often hidden yearnings. This is how you listen.
 
Recommended steps

• Make a list of key phrases. To determine the best way to frame your message, start by seeing what people are searching for related to your topic. Make a list of key phrases, focusing primarily on the strongest and niche topics. Recommended tools are VidIQ, TubeBuddy, and Google Ads. These tools are also great resources to help you identify good titles and tags based on search volume and competition.

 

• Investigate how people are searching on YouTube. Next, get to the search bar on YouTube. Step into the shoes of the seeker. Start asking questions about the topic you are interested in producing content around. Think empathetically about how seekers might phrase their question and the words they would use. Pay special attention to the autocomplete suggestions. These suggestions represent real things people are searching for regarding your topic. Once you search for something, you can see how many results are available for that topic on the upper right-hand corner above the first-listed video. Your goal is to be on that first page of listed results to be seen. When starting your channel, do not start by targeting the most common videos topics searched. For example, if you search “funny cat videos,” you will find over two million results. Instead of trying to show up on the first page of that search, you need to get much more specific. Get creative; think of all the ways someone would search for this topic on YouTube, and consider how you can make your content more specific to narrow down the competition. Record the results word-for-word on your key phrases list.
  
  
• Utilize Google Keyword Planner. Okay, time to get nerdy. Pull up Google Ads. Under “Tools,” select the “Keyword Planner.” This tool is built to show you how often people search for a specific word or phrase. Start copying phrases from your key phrases list into the keyword search bar. Helpful analytics about how many people search for this topic and what the competition looks like will appear. Google will also give you results for phrases that Google thinks are related to the subject. Pay attention to these suggestions, and if there are ones you don’t already have on your list, copy them down. Again, watch exactly how they are being searched. A simple punctuation mark makes a difference. If there is a comma in how it is being searched, copy that down. If not, leave it off. With this list, you will be building a database of ideas to talk about in your video, according to what real people are asking about.
  
  
• Write a script. Writing a script is a valuable piece of the process that will give your video a competitive edge. A script gives YouTube more information to help better position your video as people search for your topic. In addition, less than 10% of YouTubers take the time to write and provide a script. Simply transcribe what you will be saying in your video into written form. This will also help you communicate more clearly. Be sure to upload the script with your video so people can download it and keep it as notes if they wish. When transcribing, your goal is to include as many exact phrases from your keyword phrase list into your script as possible. Think about how you can talk about each phrase in your video. Remember, from a ministry perspective, these are questions from real people to whom you are hoping to provide answers. Be conversational in how you include these phrases into your script. Make it feel natural. Write out everything you will say in your video, and upload it along with your video.

 
Once this is done, create your video, and follow the guidelines outlined in the How to Start A YouTube Ministry: A Comprehensive Guide. This will help position your video in the best possible way, not only to be found, but also get watched. Be sure to follow these steps because your content cannot lead people to Christ unless it is viewed.