How Bryan Lanning and his wife got their start on YouTube

Starting and raising a family is no easy feat, as all parent know. For the Lanning family, they're capturing a lot of their tough, fun, silly, sad, and happy family moments on camera to share with the world.

It all started for them when Missy Lanning started uploading videos when she was trying to get pregnant for the first time. There, she found a community of people who wanted to hear more and could sympathize with her experiences.

Her husband, Bryan, got involved as well, which proved to make the videos even more successful. After the birth of their first child, they started creating videos of average family life, and people loved them.

Now, 2 million subscribers later, the Daily Bumps channel has reached more people than the Lannings ever could have imagined. Additionally, Missy and Bryan have their own channels dedicated to their hobbies and interests.

Bryan has been a long time musician, and has used his YouTube channel with over 300K subscribers, to build a network of fans that love his songs. On top of that, he released an album in January that details some of the moments he and his wife have spent together, and more.

We had the chance to sit down with Bryan to learn more about his family's video-making process and much more. Check it out below!

#YouShouldKnow is a feature that showcases rising talents. To see more past interviews, including more features on Bryan Lanning click here.

A lot of people do know you from YouTube -- how did you get your start on the platform?

My wife actually wanted to start making videos. I had known of YouTube before then, but she was watching pregnancy videos on YouTube because we were trying to start a family. So, she came to me one day and said she wanted to start making videos about our experience with all of this. She showed me hundreds of videos that girls were making, talking about wanting to become pregnant and announcing that they're pregnant. I thought it was interesting that there was a community for something so unique. So she got on there and she did her thing, and it really took off for her. We started to develop a lot of demand. I would make appearances in her videos and people wanted to see more of us together and how we were on a day-to-day basis so that's what inspired our channel Daily Bumps to share those everyday moments. I think we thought of it as a challenge at that time. We would watch other people's videos and say 'oh we can do this, it would be so fun.' So we started it very naively and unsure of what was to come, and then all of this happened.

What's your process like for creating videos? How do you decide what you're going to do?

A lot of our videos aren't planned per se. A lot of them are just waking up in the morning with the kids and just seeing what happens. I think having two kids makes it interesting because you never really know. Being on YouTube and making videos made us live life a little more. We don't really take lazy days or binge watch Netflix all day -- though we would love to. It's kind of encouraged us to go out there and grab life by the horns and see where it takes us. We always want to do new and fun things with the boys, and that always makes really great video content. I also love buying new and weird toys and opening those up with the boys and playing with new things -- that's fun too. That's kind of how it all happens -- it's very unplanned. We just wake up and see for ourselves.

Daily Bumps is huge on YouTube. What has it been like to build it up to what it is now?

People always ask us what it feels like to have 2 million subscribers, and it honestly doesn't feel much different than if we didn't. I think that's something Missy and I always tried to instill in ourselves. No matter how many people were watching us or how many people subscribe to us, we don't want to change who we are. Building this audience is amazing and overwhelming sometimes, and we can be a little naive about the power and influence we have. It's been really amazing, though. Getting to see it in person is really cool too, when we're shopping or at a restaurant and people come up to us and tell us they're fans, that's really cool. It's cool to understand the reach of what we do online. Though it can be a bit overwhelming. It's interesting with the kids too because we always wonder what they're going to think and what do they think about people coming up to us. Like, everyone knows Oliver, they just walk up to him and say 'Hey Oliver!'

So how do you guys use social media to connect with your fans -- whether it be for your personal, music channel or for your family channel?

We try to keep everything really different. Things we're posting on YouTube we kind of want to keep on that platform. When we're using Twitter, I love to interact with my fans on there. It just makes it so easy. On Instagram, we love sharing pictures of our day, like videos and photos that may not be mentioned or seen in the blog. Missy loves Snapchat, I love Instagram stories, it's kind of an ongoing battle, haha. That's just kind of what we try to do on social -- we try to keep everything unique and give people a different piece of us no matter where they interact with us.

Do you have a particularly memorable fan moment, whether it be in person or via Instagram or some other platform, that really stands out in your memory?

I can't say there was one specific moment, it's happened a couple times, where we see people who are so in tune to the same experiences that we've gone through ourselves. Whether it was a stillbirth, or if they grew up in a broken home and they watch us to fulfill that need for family. I can't think of one specific instance, because it's happened so many times now. But those moments are always the most rewarding because they show that what we're doing is making a difference and touching people's lives.

What advice would you give to aspiring musicians and people looking to grow their career through music?

I think the opportunities our generation has right now are insane, I feel like people ten or twenty years ago people did not have the power have now, especially through social media. You can create a name for yourself no matter what you like doing, whether it's painting, or creating videos, or making music, and I feel like you have people fall in love with who you are as a person and then they gravitate to what you do creatively. Especially with music, if they like you then they'll understand your experiences and understand the songs more. I think Tori Kelly is a great example of this. She used social media to grow her brand and she was one of the first to really put herself out there and take a risk and look where she is now. That's a power I feel like our generation has. You just have to go out there and do it for yourself, because it's not just going to happen where you just stand in front of producers and sing for them and hope one of them likes you. They don't do that anymore.

Is there advice you wish you would have received before getting started in the music industry? What would that have been?

I wish I had gotten a lot more advice. I'm kind of figuring things out for the first time and just riding the wave and seeing what happens. I would say that being a good songwriter is something that's super important, and it's something you should always work on as an artist. Also, taking a lot of opportunities that come your way -- if you get an opportunity to sing somewhere, don't pass it by. You never know who's going to be in the audience, you never know who's going to be listening.

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