YouTuber Burnout

YouTube is popular for businesses and creatives. It’s an excellent platform for growing your audience while providing information. Even Verpex has a YouTube channel where we discuss our hosting options and everything about the web. However, as with any type of creative business, it’s easy to get burned out when running a YouTube channel. Fortunately, YouTuber burnout is avoidable. In this post, we’ll discuss YouTuber burnout and see how you can avoid it.

On the surface, creating and posting content to YouTube seems straightforward. You simply record something and post it to YouTube. Unfortunately, these types of videos are rarely seen by anyone. If you want to grow a following or make a significant income, there is a lot more involved.

There are a lot of things to stay on top of including titles, descriptions, thumbnail design, how to retain viewers during the video to reduce viewers dropping out, choosing sponsors, handling comments, and trolls, and a lot more.

Many want to make a living from their YouTube channels, but this often requires lots of videos, subscribers, sponsors, patrons, members, and products. Having to constantly create content to meet these requirements can be a constant struggle. Contant struggles cause burnout.

Some thrive with this level of challenge and responsibility. Others, like me, get overwhelmed. The struggle to create content is real. Many YouTubers have quit YouTube altogether. They get tired of the hassle of staying on top of content creation. They get tired of seeing others excel with seemingly little effort, while their efforts go unnoticed. This can cause fatigue, frustration, and even resentment.

YouTuber burnout is usually caused by stress or boredom. Fortunately, these can be avoided with the following tips.

Get a Side Gig

One of the best side gigs for YouTubers is to run a website. This is a good way to create new types of content, such as blog posts, and showcase your products. You could run an online store to sell your merchandise, create courses to host from your site, create a membership site, and lots more. For another interesting side gig, consider reseller hosting.

There are many ways a website can help support your YouTube channel. For more information about using your YouTube channel with your website, see the article How to Embed a YouTube Video in WordPress.

An amazing website needs amazing hosting and Verpex has you covered. To find the best hosting plan for your website, take a look at our hosting options for WordPress.

Focus on Your Purpose

Make sure you’re creating YouTube content for the right reasons. It’s difficult to stick with something you don’t enjoy. Focus on the reason you want to create content on YouTube.

If you’re a creative type and you want to focus on creating content, you might not enjoy all the other tasks involved in running and growing a YouTube channel. If you don’t enjoy creating content, then you should consider another option.

Building and monetizing a YouTube channel takes a lot of time and effort. If you want to be a YouTuber just to make money, you could face burnout before you can build your audience.

If you’re only creating content to appease an audience, it would be better to ignore that audience and find an audience for the type of content you want to create.

For example, if you’re a blogger, but some of your audience asks for videos, just focus on blogging. In this case, YouTube could be a secondary platform, but it might not be your cup of tea. It’s okay to just focus on blogging instead. If you still need videos, such as tutorials for your products, consider having someone else create them.

Adjust Your Publishing Schedule

Many will tell you that you have to post content on a certain schedule, such as weekly or on a certain day of the week. They want you to choose a certain day to post and never change from that schedule.

This advice isn’t true. Producing high-quality content is more important than producing content just to meet a schedule. Even major YouTube channels change their schedule or skip a week, and they have a large team creating the content.

Have you stopped watching a YouTube channel that you enjoy just because they didn’t post anything one week, or they posted a day later than normal?

It’s best to post your videos when it’s right for you. If you post on your schedule, then you won’t feel pressured, and you’ll have less burnout. You’ll also create higher-quality content.

Take a Break

One of the easiest ways to burn out is to work too much. It’s important to take a break from creating content and let your mind rest. Limit the number of hours you work in a day and the number of days you work in a week. Be realistic, though, and schedule the time you’ll need to get your work done.

If you find yourself procrastinating and thinking about anything but work, it’s time for a break. Having hobbies and interests outside of work is also helpful in reducing burnout. It’s also important to take time off from work, such as a vacation.

Change Your Work Environment

Working in the same location every day can get old. This can make you want to do something new. However, you might just need to work in a new location. Try keeping things fresh by changing your work environment such as working from a coffee shop or library.

Try New Tools or Gear

Buying new gear shouldn’t be your first option. When it comes to tools and gear, it’s best to stick with what works for you. However, tools that are more difficult to use or gear that doesn’t provide the features or results you want can contribute to burnout.

Try a new camera, lighting, microphone, filming location, or editing software to help improve your process and reduce the mental energy it takes to get the job done.

Change Your Scripting Process

It could also help to change the way you write your scripts. For example, if you write full manuscripts, then try changing to an outline and see what effect it has on your process. This would take less time to write, and you wouldn’t need to follow a script too closely.

Change Your Recording Style

Another option is to change your style of recording. For example, if you appear in your videos as a talking head, try changing the recording method to a voice-over. If you only do voiceovers, try appearing on camera and speaking directly to the audience.

Add Variety to Your Content

Add a new type of content. Focusing on just one type of content can make you feel bored, and your channel could feel stale. Adding different types of content can keep you excited and looking forward to creating content.

For example, rather than just focusing on tutorials, try adding top 10 lists, interviews, or product reviews.

Consider the Diminishing Returns

When adding anything new, consider what you’ll get back from it. Think of your return on investment (ROI). Don’t do a lot of work for little reward. If you don’t get enough in return, it might not be worth the effort.

Don’t do things that don’t have enough return. This includes a mental investment as well as a monetary return. Minimize the things that are the hardest for you to do, even if they have good monetary returns.

Outsource the Work You Find Stressful

Instead of enjoying 20 percent of the work and not enjoying 80 percent of the work, change the workload so that you enjoy at least 80 percent. This might require you to outsource part of the work. Use the 80/20 rule to outsource the work you don’t enjoy.

For example, if you just want to hit the record button, you could hire someone to edit the video, create thumbnails, write the descriptions, handle the monetization strategy, etc.

Streamline Your Process

A workflow that’s hard to follow can also cause burnout. It’s hard to make yourself do steps you don’t enjoy. You should make sure those steps are needed. You should also look for better ways to do those steps.

Monetize Wisely

Monetization is one of those high-stress points for any platform, and this is just as true for YouTube. The more stress there is around your monetization strategy the easier it is to get burned out. Reduce that stress by monetizing wisely.

Focus on the best monetization options, such as sponsors and Patreon. These options are not perfect, but they’re often better than Google ads.

Patreon allows your audience to support you on a monthly subscription -style basis. There is no limit to the number of Patreon supporters you can have for your YouTube channel. However, supporters tend to stop supporting you after a while.

Sponsors usually want 10,000 views per video, which can be difficult to obtain. If you’re focused on getting views, then you’re putting yourself in the position to get burned out if it takes months or years to reach those views.

Don’t use Google ads as your primary or only source of income. You can work for many hours creating content only to be paid less than $10 from Google ads. You would need several hundred thousand views per week to make good money with Google ads.

Don’t think of YouTube as a way to get rich quickly. It can take years to make good money and many content creators burn out before that happens. It’s best to have another reliable source of income. You’re less likely to burn out if you don’t have to rely on the income from your channel while you’re trying to grow your channel.

Take Your Time

Don’t try to build your channel too fast. It’s easy to get burned out if you’re only focused on fast growth. It takes time to build an audience and it’s best to be realistic about the time it will take and plan to take that time. Slow and steady is better than fast and burned out.

Don’t Follow Trends for Views

It’s easy to get caught up in creating the same trendy videos that others create just to get views. Trends can lack substance and make everyone look the same. It’s best to create the types of videos you want to watch and be yourself instead of trying to be like everyone else.

Clickbait titles and thumbnails are good examples. Once viewers realize your titles are just clickbait, they’ll stop clicking and you’ll lose subscribers. Constantly having to trick your audience into viewing your content creates anxiety, stress, and burnout.

Don’t Get Caught Up in Comparisons

It’s always tempting to compare ourselves with others. It can seem as though we’ve spent a lot of time and effort growing our channels, but we can’t get the traffic and recognition that others are getting.

Comparing yourself to others is neither helpful nor healthy. We all have different goals and it’s not helpful to compare the results when we don’t include the goals.

For example, you might work four days per week and have extra time for you or your family. Others might work six days per week and never get to see their families.

We also might not be aware of the struggles and work they’ve put into their channels. They may have worked for years developing the skill set needed to produce high-quality content.

That’s our look at YouTuber burnout and how to avoid it. Burnout is real. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by everything that goes into creating and running a YouTube channel. There are many ways to create content and grow an audience, and some are more stressful than others.

To avoid YouTuber burnout, remove the stress and streamline the process. The tips we’ve provided in this post can get you started in the right direction.

We want to hear from you. Have you encountered YouTuber burnout? Let us know how you handled it in the comments.