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I've been on the platform since 2007.
I think it's a great time for girl gamers right now.
It's a cool place to be and I'm pretty excited to be a part of that.
Hey Guys! I'm Meghan Camarena from Strawburry 17 and this is my house. Mi Casa.
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[BEEPS]
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I've always loved gaming.
Since I was a kid, I think the very first game I ever beat was Super Mario Brothers.
This is my trophy. I won this. Mario Kart champion right here.
So if you want to play against me, you kind of have to have one of these because I'm the real deal.
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I started doing Minecraft on my laptop.
I didn't have some crazy rig, I just had my laptop with the webcam
and I think I was using the track pad. What a mess.
And then it evolved into like, oh now I have a mouse. Now I have a webcam.
Now I'm going to put up a little light.
I think you stop yourself when you're like oh I have to have this if I want to be this.
It's like no, you just have to do it.
Consistency is key on YouTube.
If you want to see growth, the only way you're going to do that is by,
you know, having a set schedule, uploading at a set time.
Putting your schedule up on your YouTube banner is a great way to let people know
hey, this is when I'm posting.
This is what you can expect and also you're investing in their attention
and in return you're going to get their loyalty.
When I first started the gaming channel, the views were super low.
I mean, you know, I have a million on Strawburry 17 and I'm starting my gaming channel
and it's only getting 500 views but when you stay consistent and you keep posting,
we saw the 500 turn into you know, 20,000 and that's from being consistent.
You can't really determine success on any kind of series unless you've given it three months' time.
That's my whole like insight on whether or not something is going to be successful.
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There's the creative process going into making a video
and then there's also the, you know, engagement, like what am I doing to marry these two together?
And it gives me a bit of direction as I'm filming.
Digging into analytics, we know that in a Minecraft video,
we only have a certain amount of time before the audience attention dips
so as we film, it's something to keep in mind.
Like something exciting should happen in around this minute marker.
[SHOUTING]
Wait! What're we doing?!
I've found a lot of success in collaborating with other YouTube gamers.
I collaborate with Joey Graceffa, Stacy Says, LD Shadow Lady
but if you're just getting started and you don't have a lot of subscribers,
go to someone that maybe is in your same subscriber range because you are so different.
Your personality is different.
You are going to bring in a whole different audience from that person that you collaborate with.
I didn't introduce the team aspect until right before I left for The Amazing Race.
We had to disappear from the internet completely.
Like no one could know that we were gone.
My tweets still had to go up, my videos still had to go up.
I still had to be posting Instagram's.
How am I going to do that? How am I going to shoot a months' worth of content?
And so we started an internship program that brought people on.
Strawburry 17 is not just me. It's a team of people that really make my channels heart beat.
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Hard at work team Strawburry 17!
This is Lina. She's my assistant.
Travels with me and also she helps me produce all of our content.
This is Ness. He's our graphic designer and also our creative director.
Ness is in charge of any of our graphics, our branding stuff that's supposed to look cool.
This guy has it down.
This is JD, my brother. He is the gaming producer. He does a lot of like the analytics, the data.
Researches games for us to play. He also does a lot of the live streaming when I can't do it.
Before you start bringing other people on, I think you really need to figure out your brand.
That way the vision is clear and you guys have a very clear goal
and direction that you're heading in.
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I'm not interested in being where YouTube is right now.
I want to be where it is two years from now because if you're not thinking that way,
you're constantly being left behind. Irrelevancy is always knocking on the creator's door.
At one point in my career, I went from you know,
getting half a million views on a video to in a week only getting 5,000
and I had to take a moment in my YouTube career where I took a step back
and took a break from YouTube for like three months.
I went to Yosemite and I hiked like sixty miles that summer.
In that moment I was like, you know what,
I don't want to try and create content that I feel like might be successful.
I want to create content that I love and I'm passionate about.
I'm going to let my nerd show and I'm just going to be unapologetic about who I am
and if my audience likes it, great.
If they don't, I can know that I tried my very best
and put the best that I had out there and that's what we're seeing.
We're seeing the authenticity in these girl YouTubers or gamers, who are changing the game.
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What would I say to past Meghan who was just uploading her first video?
Never question who you are.
Just let it be, let it happen and like know that you're doing a great job.
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