Candace Gasper

Social Media & Digital Marketing Consultant

Candace Gasper is a Social Media & Digital Marketing Consultant and the Owner of Digital Candy, a social media agency. With over seven years of professional experience, Candace is an expert in social media and content creation, specializing in working with local businesses to share their narratives and help them expand their reach. Candace received her Bachelor of Science in Merchandising, Apparels, and Textiles from the University of Kentucky.

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How to Create Engaging Content for Beginners?
Engaging content is going to do one of four things: entertain, educate, inform, or do a combination of the first three.

Content should spark an emotion or a feeling, whether that's happiness or empathy, or excitement. It's just knowing what your audience is responding to. And at first, you may need to try several things to figure out what your audience is responding most to.

And I just want to say that you want to create content that's most authentic to you. So if you are going through a really hard time right now, maybe you lost a parent or a grandparent, and you're just like going through grief, it probably wouldn't make sense to talk about really exciting, fun stuff. You want to speak from the heart, and you want people to be able to connect with you on a true human level.

I would also recommend using a tool like Trello or Notion to help organize your thoughts.

TikTok has creator insights, but my favorite way to figure out what people are responding to is just doing some research on my own and seeing what others are doing and what I'm actually responding to emotionally, good or bad, and if any of that resonates with me and what I have going on in my life. And from there, I'll see what I think I can translate to my audience, and that's the kind of content that I'm going to make.
How do people actually make money on Youtube?
My biggest advice to anyone starting a YouTube channel is to pick a niche. That could be lifestyle, travel, food, parenting, etc. A lot of niches have overlap with other niches, so don't ever feel like because you picked food, now you're stuck making content in the kitchen. You could go to restaurants or travel and do travel content while you're exploring your main base, which is food content.

Then make sure you:
  • Upload videos on a regular basis to help build an audience. That's just because posting consistently allows your audience to build trust, so they know exactly when and where to find you. It also helps with algorithms. So, if you're consistently posting, for example, on Mondays at 8:00 p.m. or Sundays around dinner time, people are always going to know when and where to find you.
  • Optimize for SEO. So before, SEO was only words, right? You had to have keywords in your bio and in your video titles and descriptions, and you should still include keywords there. But when you're thinking about short-form video, sound is now a part of search. So you want to make sure that you're utilizing trending sounds. That way, you can be found when people are utilizing those sounds.
  • Community management and engagement are always going to be really popular – that's engaging with your followers and people within your niche and community who are making and engaging with content that you're making as well.
  • Share your videos on other platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X to attract more viewers. Cross-promoting is always great, but it can also be a little tricky because content may not translate as well on different platforms, and your audience may be looking for a different content style on different platforms.
  • Watch what's trending and create content around those trending topics to get more visibility. Those are always great because it's what everyone is doing. You don't have to hop on every trend because it might not make sense for your style or your content, but it doesn't hurt to stay in the know about what's happening. And then being patient, you've got to be in it for the love of the game and not for the numbers.

To make money on YouTube, there are a couple of different avenues:
  • Use affiliate marketing. This would be linking things like your equipment or materials that you’re using in your videos through Amazon, Like To Know It, or a similar program, that people can shop through, and you’ll get a small kickback. This is great because people are always looking for reputable reviews on what to buy, and because you're building trust and engagement with your audience, they’ll be more inclined to utilize your affiliate marketing links.
  • Offer memberships and exclusive content. Instagram has exclusive content that you can hide behind a paywall, as well as sites like Patreon or Substack. This is great for your tried and true fans. When they love what you're posting, and they want more of you. Typically, people are charging anywhere between $5-$20 or more a month. And this is a great way to really dive deeper into your niche and really build strong relationships with your core fan base or core followers.
  • Sell merch or special services on YouTube Shopping or third-party sites. That can be tricky because it's a lot of overhead, and you never really know what people are going to respond to. T-shirts are always popular, koozies, stuff like that. But to be honest, not everyone is going to like want to wear you across their chest or on their hat. So, just be picky about what kind of merchandise you want to sell.

    • And then just be patient and adapt. Making money on YouTube takes time, so stay consistent and adjust your strategy based on how your analytics are looking.

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