UPDATE - THIS STORY HAS A HAPPY ENDING
This blog post is an update to the series of blogs I made last year in which I was contemplating the thought of abandoning my YouTube aspirations. This post is not intended to be a flex or anything of that nature. I want this post to be inspiration for anybody else who might be going through a similar situation with their YouTube channel.
Other Blog Posts in This Series
- Part 1: Optimizing My Channel For The YouTube Algorithm
- Part 2: I Think I Broke My YouTube Channel
- Part 3: I Started a New Channel
- Part 4: I Feel Like YouTube Gave Me No Choice
- Part 5: UPDATE - This Story Has a Happy Ending
I made a blog post a year ago today to express my frustrations and concerns about my YouTube channel. You can read that post here. Now looking back on that post a year later I’m grateful and excited to see that a lot of progress has been made. My average views per day which was stuck around 300 for two years has climbed up to 1000+ views per day. The channel has also attracted more than 2000 new subscribers over the past year which is absolutely amazing and most importantly all this positive growth has reinvigorated my passion for creation content.
Here is an image showing the growth in views from October 2021 to October 2022.
I’m very pleased with the channel’s growth over the past year especially when reliving the feelings I was having a year ago today. It was incredibly frustrating putting my passion and effort into something that was not growing but now here we are in 2022 and I feel like this is just the beginning of something special.
In this blog post I want to go over a few of the learning experiences I had through 2022 and hopefully those experiences will help some of you with your YouTube channels.
1 - Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I’ve always been the type to do things myself and I suppose that attitude is good in some situations but it wasn’t helping me with my YouTube channel. I reached out to the people who knew the most about YouTube, the YouTube support team. I had a lengthy conversation with them about my situation. I also had a friend who was very knowledgeable about social media growth. I invited them over to the studio to look at my channel which turned into a few hours of critique. I had to suck it up and take it as a learning experience. Sometimes rather than doing it your way it’s better to take the advice of people who know the way.
2 - Variety channels are a waste of time. That was what caused all my problems in the first place. Too much variety on the channel is a bad thing. You may think your viewers want to see all these different videos because they want to see what you’re doing and you’re right. True fans will consume whatever you create. However, the algorithm is not a true fan. It’s a program that tries to quantify your channel and distribute it to the audience it thinks will watch your videos. If we over simplify things there are three sides to the algorithm equation. VIEWERS, CREATORS and ADVERTISERS. The next thing you have to understand is that YouTube is not a video sharing service it is an advertising delivery platform. The main goal of the algorithm is to help viewers engage with as much content as possible for as long as possible so that YouTube can serve as many ads as possible thus generating as much revenue as possible. Being “advertiser friendly” is really important. The algo profiles creators to find out what topic they create videos on. Then it profiles viewers to find out what topics they like to watch and then tries to play matchmaker lining up the viewers with the creators. If the match is successful the viewer will engage with the creator by watching more of their content, subscribing to the channel and leaving comments. This in turn tells the algo that the content created by the creator is good and it greenlights more matches. On the other hand if viewers repeatedly don’t engage with the content the algo will assume that the content is not good and stop promoting that creator. And that my friends is the issue with a variety channel. If you make videos about cats, cars and candy the algo might promote your cat videos to car lovers who ignore the thumbnail. It might also promote car videos to candy enthusiasts who also won’t click on your thumbnails. Eventually the algo will have no other choice but to assume your content is not desired by viewers and stop promoting your channel. So creating too much variety as I did might engage with people already subscribed to your channel but it will hinder your channel’s overall growth.
In the past this blog post would have been a video on my channel because I would have thought this information has value. But now with my new understanding of YouTube I know that if I turn this content into a video the algo will promote this video to my viewers who are interested in photography/videography. Since my viewers are into photo/video and not growing YouTube channels they would not click on this content and it would confuse the algo into thinking that my content is not good. This was a valuable lesson learned.
3 - Neches are best. Understanding how the algo works, I think it’s pretty clear that creating a channel that provides value to a specific niche is the best way to ensure that your thumbnails are clicked more often which in turn creates momentum and helps grow your channel faster. Ultimately the best way to sum this up is: for best growth stay in your lane.
4 - Consistency is key! What does that even mean? Humans are creatures of habit. They want to know that if they go to your channel on wednesday there will be a new video that they are interested in watching waiting for them. So whatever day(s) you choose to upload videos on stick to it. I can tell you from my own experience when I was consistent I had my best growth. Unfortunately I work as a photographer and clients take priority over YouTube. I get at least one video done a week but it’s not always published on the same day.
5 - Build a community. I can’t fully endorse this advice although I do support it. I’m still in the process of building up my community but so far the results are positive. The more people you have watching your content and supporting what you do the better. So work on developing your community. I’ve written down some ideas on how I can grow my community in 2023 and I look forward to implementing them. Subscribe to the channel and you’ll see some fun and engaging changes coming soon.
6 - Don’t invite everyone to subscribe. I know this may sound counter intuitive but don’t get everyone you know to subscribe. You only want people who watch your content to subscribe. Suppose Joe from down the street is really into cooking and your channel is all about the atmosphere on mars. If Joe subscribes to your channel to help you out but never watches any of the content that the algo pushes out to him how do you think the algo will quantify that date? It’s reasonable to assume that the algo will think that your content is not interesting to your subscribers and therefore your content is not good. So only invite people to subscribe who will actually watch your videos otherwise they might be doing you a disservice.
7 - Talk about YouTube. I know this may sound a little nuts but talk about your YouTube aspirations with others. Feel it, believe it, live that YouTube lifestyle. Make it a part of your life and share it with the people you meet. Put it out there into the universe and make it a part of who you are. I promise if you do that wholeheartedly things will start to change for you. Believe in yourself.
8 - When you make videos, think about them from the perspective of the viewer. If you drone on about something for too long or keep repeating the same points over and over again you’re probably going to get a lot of people who click off your videos early which in turn doesn’t reflect well to the algo. Remember the algo is all about getting people to engage with your content for as long as possible so keep that in mind. Understand your audience and know what they like. If they are watching to hangout with you then give them more you. If they are watching tutorials to learn something, don't burn time talking about yourself, get right to the tutorial. You want people to enjoy your videos and watch as much of your video as possible.
9 - The algo listens to what you say so choose your words wisely. From what I understand the algo will listen to what you say in your video to figure out what your video is about. SO if you are talking about a specific camera don’t keep calling it a “camera” use its full name. Make sure to be clear about what you are talking about so the algo understands what your video is about. Also on the flip side of the coin try to avoid talking about things outside the scope of your channel such as hot political topics or controversial social events. I don’t know if this is true or not but I have heard YouTubers talk about getting less views after talking about certain controversial topics. I doubt that the algo would blacklist channels but why take the chance. Remember what I said in point 3. Stay in your lane. Focus on what your channel is about and don’t get mixed up in all the controversy in the world. The algo might promote your gardening channel to people who watch controversial political content and that audience won’t watch your videos and thus your growth will stall. You have to treat your channel like a business. There are other avenues for you to express yourself if you feel the need to do so.
That’s the end of this blog. Thank you for reading. Hopefully these tips help you along your YouTube journey. The algorithm is not your friend or enemy, it's simply the rules to the game. If you know what the rules are you can play the game better. I wish you all as much YouTube success as possible. Cheers to being creative and living the creator's life.
