When I tried starting a channel for the first time, like many, I had this fantasy of becoming a success, a hit overnight. I had no idea how YouTube worked back then, and even worse I had no idea how much YouTube had changed. What were popular channels at the time were the pioneers of YouTube but the hard work and strategies they used to get to their status on YouTube did not work on the YouTube of my time. Thus I went on to seek new strategies to start a new channel and here are a few things I learned.
1) YouTube is about the viewers, not the creators - At one time YouTube was all about the creators. Their popularity was the key to YouTube's strategy to grow and become the go-to website for online entertainment, education and news. But these days it's all about the viewers. The more people come to YouTube to watch videos and the more time they spend watching videos the more YouTube promotes the creators who succeed at keeping viewers on the platform for longer periods of time. So remember, when creating content, think of the audience you're trying to reach. Think of what content they want to see. Try to understand how to make your content worth watching and worth watching so much that they will watch another of your videos. The longer you keep viewers on your videos, the better your analytics and the better the chances of YouTube promoting your videos.
2) Audio is more important than you think - This is not to say you need a $200 mic when making your videos but if you take yourself as an example of a viewer, ask yourself how often have you skipped over a video because their audio just wasn't worth watching the video? A mic that makes the audio sound like headphones from the 80s or the sounds of the city around you becoming part of your content or even some terrible hissing or high bass audio that distracts from the commenting can make any video cringy enough to be ignored by most. A decent mic, noise-blocking solutions like moving blankets and even some audio editing software like Audacity can make wonders for your audio.
3) Content before subs and views - While I understand that the average YouTuber longs for lots of subscribers and lots of views in order to reach the requirements to be a YouTube partner, you have to understand that growing a channel for most YouTubers is hard work. It takes time and patience to grow a channel. That's why it is essential that as a creator you focus on creating content first, lots of it. If you are to set goals for your channel set a goal for how many videos to create. At a minimum, you should strive to create at least 100 videos in your first year before you should start worrying about subs and views. Think of it as experience. You can't expect a company to consider hiring you if you have little or no experience, by the same token you can't expect YouTube's algorithm to share your content to potential new viewers if you don't have enough content to make it worth YouTube's while to promote you. granted, there are those who defy the inner workings of YouTube's algorithm and become overnight sensations, but bare in mind that every new YouTuber is competing against not only thousands of new YouTubers but also against more mature channels as well. Sometimes you get lucky and you manage to find that perfect recipe to become an overnight sensation, but it can often be a short-lived success if you don't have the experience and the knowledge to repeat that success. So even though you may not be getting views, even though your subscriber base is not growing as fast as you'd like, keep going, keep creating, keep uploading. Learn as you go, improve and don't give up. YouTube may not be for everyone but that doesn't mean you give up so quickly.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
1) YouTube is about the viewers, not the creators - At one time YouTube was all about the creators. Their popularity was the key to YouTube's strategy to grow and become the go-to website for online entertainment, education and news. But these days it's all about the viewers. The more people come to YouTube to watch videos and the more time they spend watching videos the more YouTube promotes the creators who succeed at keeping viewers on the platform for longer periods of time. So remember, when creating content, think of the audience you're trying to reach. Think of what content they want to see. Try to understand how to make your content worth watching and worth watching so much that they will watch another of your videos. The longer you keep viewers on your videos, the better your analytics and the better the chances of YouTube promoting your videos.
2) Audio is more important than you think - This is not to say you need a $200 mic when making your videos but if you take yourself as an example of a viewer, ask yourself how often have you skipped over a video because their audio just wasn't worth watching the video? A mic that makes the audio sound like headphones from the 80s or the sounds of the city around you becoming part of your content or even some terrible hissing or high bass audio that distracts from the commenting can make any video cringy enough to be ignored by most. A decent mic, noise-blocking solutions like moving blankets and even some audio editing software like Audacity can make wonders for your audio.
3) Content before subs and views - While I understand that the average YouTuber longs for lots of subscribers and lots of views in order to reach the requirements to be a YouTube partner, you have to understand that growing a channel for most YouTubers is hard work. It takes time and patience to grow a channel. That's why it is essential that as a creator you focus on creating content first, lots of it. If you are to set goals for your channel set a goal for how many videos to create. At a minimum, you should strive to create at least 100 videos in your first year before you should start worrying about subs and views. Think of it as experience. You can't expect a company to consider hiring you if you have little or no experience, by the same token you can't expect YouTube's algorithm to share your content to potential new viewers if you don't have enough content to make it worth YouTube's while to promote you. granted, there are those who defy the inner workings of YouTube's algorithm and become overnight sensations, but bare in mind that every new YouTuber is competing against not only thousands of new YouTubers but also against more mature channels as well. Sometimes you get lucky and you manage to find that perfect recipe to become an overnight sensation, but it can often be a short-lived success if you don't have the experience and the knowledge to repeat that success. So even though you may not be getting views, even though your subscriber base is not growing as fast as you'd like, keep going, keep creating, keep uploading. Learn as you go, improve and don't give up. YouTube may not be for everyone but that doesn't mean you give up so quickly.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
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