YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts

Education and Charity via YouTube

Being successful isn't just about subscribers and view counts; Internet celebrities can give back or donate their time in numerous ways so they can, you know, still sleep at night. While making shout-out videos for your friends and early subscribers is nice and does give back to the YouTube community, remember that there is a whole world outside YouTube, filled with people who need more than a boost in channel views.

How-Tos and Documentaries

For those YouTubers who possess a certain skill, like being fluent in Photoshop, there is an entire category on YouTube dedicated to how-to videos. From simple tutorials and demonstrations to ongoing documentaries, the How-To and Education categories offer a wealth of knowledge in short, easy-to-digest videos.

IceflowStudios (www.youtube.com/iceflowstudios; URL 13.12) is one of my favorite examples of a YouTuber who mostly uses his channel for tutorials. IceflowStudios focuses mainly on Photoshop tutorials, with each episode demonstrating, step-by-step, a certain technique or tool. IceflowStudios' tutorials are always very thorough, have excellent video and sound quality, and offer interesting projects that you'd actually find useful while following along at home. And the host is only 21 years old. He records his professional-looking tutorials in his bedroom on a Mac laptop, proving you don't have to be a big production company or established charity to run a company that helps others.

A really amazing how-to series ...