Behind the Scenes with Smiv: The Life of a Football YouTuber
Hi Smiv, thank you for taking the time to speak to us today. Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you currently do?
No problem, I’m Matt Smith, known as Smiv online. I’m a family man, living at home with my wife, 2 kids and dog! Im a Spurs fan living in Essex and I’ve been a football content creator for just over 10 years now.
What inspired you to start creating football content?
I fell into it by accident. I was a self taught video producer looking for regular work and clients. Word of mouth only got me so far so I decided to see if my website can do a job for me by getting it higher up the Google ranks. After learning about SEO and keywords I found that having your link on popular articles and videos helped give your site more credibility.
At the same time I ran a Sunday League team (Palmers FC) which I sponsored. After one season I had the idea of filming the games and putting them onto YouTube whilst leaving a link to my website in the description.
Even if it was a few views, I’m sure it could help and it did! However, I had a decision to make because the Sunday League content took off too and actually gave me a more of a consistent wage than my video production business!
So weighing up the options, I decided to go full time into content creation. I was living with my Dad at the time so my responsibilities and risks were at a minimum and ultimately if it didn’t work out, I could go back to my video production stuff.
The team eventually got too old to carry on and so I stopped content on that channel which raked in over 68 million views. I always knew it would come to an end so I set up a personal channel which saw me capture a more broader range of football content and that’s where I’m at today.
How do you come up with creative ideas for content?
I tend to think of longevity and concepts that could work for a series of videos rather than one offs. Like most creatives these ideas annoyingly float into my head around 3am.
What’s been your favourite moment as a football content creator so far?
There’s been a few which were captured with Palmers FC but I think my favourite was being recognised by Tottenham and invited down for a couple of content shoot days.
The first was crazy, not that I can play anymore but my ankles were very much strapped up to play on the pitch at Spurs was a pinch yourself moment.
The second was to be part of a Christmas shoot for Tottenham’s YouTube channel where I got to meet Sonny. Great moment!
What key advice would you give to someone starting their football YouTube channel? Which skills are important?
Prepare to learn a lot and be patient. Far too many people think it’s easy to do regular content and I don’t blame them because they’re on the other end of the finished product and normally watching it on the toilet, in bed or commuting.
What people don’t see is the extent of things that go into completing that finished product. I won’t go into it… Actually I will!
- The idea 💡
- Source location (if needed)
- Setting up camera, audio and lights
- Film the idea
- Import the idea
- Edit the idea
- Colour grade the idea
- Export the idea
- Upload the idea
But wait….
The thumbnail (can often take longer) …
- Create the thumbnail
- Think of a title too! (Very important)
But wait!
Share it on the socials …
- Create a Short
- Create a Reel
- Create a Tik Tok
- Edit captions onto them, (they’re trendy)
- Post to YouTube
- Post to Instagram
- Post to Tik Tok
But wait …
Engage with your audience by making sure you reply to comments or get really frustrated because only 10 people watched. Then repeat…
Skill wise you tend to find yourself doing all of the above unless you pay people but at the beginning that’s not always an option.
What’s your long-term goal with your channel?
I’ve been going 10 years and hit many milestones but the thing I’m most proud of is that I’ve sustained a full time wage for that long.
Unless I come up with a crazy trend that sky rockets the channel I think my long term goal is to with be to have a business that runs parallel to the channel. There’s a captive audience there so how do I start something that translates into the real world. That’s where I’m at and what I’m currently working towards right now.
How important is it for creators to diversify beyond YouTube, like using TikTok or Twitch?
I think it’s important to get yourself in front of as many people as possible if you want to build a career. About a year ago I was fully in on just YouTube as it was monetised and my only real source of income.
Putting in the effort to push content elsewhere with no revenue coming back to me felt strange, why would I?
In short, I’ve since switched to posting out to Instagram and Tik Tok and have seen views far beyond what I get on YouTube and although the quality of the views might not be what they or on YouTube nor is it earning me anything, it’s planting a seed in people’s head that aren’t familiar with my content.
As YouTube becomes more crowded, what strategies do you think will help new creators stand out in the future?
Hopefully positive ones! I see far too many creators being controversial to get clicks early on. It might be a fast track to views but there has to be a sense of authenticity otherwise you’ll burn out…or get “cancelled.”
This isn’t anything new but consistency is key which also comes back to patience, keep going! Another thing is collaboration, share audiences and get yourself out there.
You’ll see plenty of blueprints to success but I think ultimately you need to love what you do and in turn, over time, people will share that with you. Mirror your passion!
What equipment did you start with and how has it evolved?
Coming from a video background I came into it with high end cinema camera’s which is great for sit down content but I immediately had to scale down since my stuff is very vlog based.
Now it’s a handheld, run and gun camera that allows me to grab the content and worry about the shots on the edit later on.
What do you do to switch off outside of your work?
Nothing! Something I’m also working on. Becoming a parent is tough, well at least it was tough for me. The adjustment of having spare time for yourself to having hardly any and being too tired for it is real.
I’ve been ill more times since a having kids than the 30 years prior and find myself in bed by 9pm most nights just because I’m so burnt out.
Having said that, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, each year that passes you gain a little bit more time back and we’re currently working out a bit of schedule at home to allow us to do things for ourselves again.
I might actually get to switch the Xbox back on or even get to go out and play a bit of golf. We shall see!
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