Last March I shared with you all a project I started on YouTube to reach teenagers with solid advice and positive input on the situations they’re dealing with every day. About 40 of you responded and committed to join me in the effort, offering your own advice through videos you send me and that I later mash up together. It’s been wonderful partnering with so many of you on this project at YouTube.com/YouthQuestions!

Since we’re approaching 6 months of these videos on YouTube, I wanted to give you all a little update about it.

Experimenting with formats

I continue to experiment with different formats for the videos and am getting a feel for what works best. I’ve been doing “man on the street” videos, interviews both in-person and via Skype, videos of just me answering the questions, and more.

I took YQ to a YouTube conference

Several weeks ago I flew out to a YouTube conference in L.A. called VidCon and made a lot of great connections and shot a lot of Youth Questions videos with teens, adults, parents, and YouTubers. The past couple weeks I’ve just been editing all the content I shot out there and publishing that. However, that material should run out in the next couple weeks and I’m looking forward to getting back to some more “youth worker driven” videos.

Join me in answering questions?

If you’d like to join us in reaching teenagers on YouTube, comment below indicating so and use your real email address. I’ll add you to my email list where I send a list of upcoming questions we’re going to answer and you can respond with your video addressing the issue. All you need is something simple, like a Flip or a similar camera. No editing skills required. In fact, I ask that you don’t edit it.

It’s growing!

The YouTube channel continues to grow and we get new teen subscribers every week! Pretty soon it’s going to be hard to keep up with all the questions teens are asking, although there’s a lot of overlap between what’s being asked and some of the videos we’ve already created, so I have to figure out a system to automatically direct those kids to those videos when they submit a question, but that’s another project for another day.

The main questions teens are asking

The main questions that are being asked revolve around sexual identity. The second most-asked questions have to do with relationships, primarily with parents and boyfriends/girlfriends. Then there’s other questions in there, too, like about depression and eating disorders (that video comes out tomorrow it’s live now!).

Now YouTube pays me for these videos!

The Youth Questions videos have gained enough traction that YouTube has enabled the account for revenue sharing, which means I get a percentage of the revenue YouTube makes from ads that are displayed on and alongside of the videos. Right now that total comes to a couple pennies for me, but as the channel grows, the potential exists for this to be a side-income, allowing me to make this project sustainable, which is awesome!

Want to write discussion sheets for youth groups?

Perhaps the coolest part, though, is that youth workers are starting to use these videos with their youth groups, either as discussion starters or openers for their talks on various subjects. In fact, with the video about pornography, I even created a discussion sheet and offered it as a free download. Since then it has received hundreds of downloads and the video has almost 1,200 views.

I’d love to create a talksheet for every video and make them freely available with the video for youth workers to download and use each week to help them talk through these issues, but I haven’t carved out the time to do that yet. Anyone interested in collaborating with me on something like that? Comment below with your real email address and I’ll be in touch.

How to get these videos FREE each week

In case you’re not subscribed to the Youth Questions videos, you can sign-up for the email list that automatically emails the new videos out each week. Or here’s the Youth Questions RSS feed. Of course, you could subscribe on YouTube, as well, if you use their subscriptions feature.

Help me spread the word?

And if you don’t mind helping me spread the word about Youth Questions with your youth groups, friends, whatever, that would be awesome! Here’s the Youth Questions Facebook page and the Youth Questions YouTube channel. The more teenagers this can reach, the better!

Some of our latest videos

• I want to run away from home!
• Helping a troubled friend without becoming drained
• My parents give me no privacy!
• How to stretch money further in college
• My best friend likes my ex-boyfriend

Thanks, everyone, for your support!

Posted on August 24, 2011