I really know I SHOULD research videos before I make them, but that's just not how my heart rolls. Although I've also learned the lesson of expectation, and acceptance when it comes to doing a video you want to do, rather than what you SHOULD do... so if I do a video with no prior research, and just do a video because I FEEL like making it (I'm an artist so sometimes I just want to make something and share it) I have to stop expecting people to care, and just accept whatever results and reactions I get, and it might not be what I COULD get if I did some research.
That said, I'm doing more research these days, but still based around what I want to watch, and what I think I might want to watch when it comes to searching for videos. Like... how to shade and draw etc, has been done for decades before the internet, and has already been covered extensively on YouTube... but not often have I seen things like "how to do dot rendering" "how to get the best lines from an ink pen" etc... and there's some videos in the back of my head, that might not get many views, BUT they aren't covered that much that I find interesting, and they might or might not be interesting to others.
I also keep an ear out to what's going on in pop culture and discoveries. Like, king kong vs godzilla I REALLY need to start working towards. Jurassic Wold Dominion is on it's way. A new netflix series Camp Cretatious has just been released, a new fossil discovery on spinosaurus's tail, and sometimes I like to dip into the idea of predictions of what MIGHT happen in a movie.
I am thinking about getting more into challenges now seems in my "Research" and when I say "research" I simply mean observation "Hmm... lots of artists are re-drawing pictures from their childhood" "hmm... lots of artists are doing this "Draw this in your style" challenge" "hmm, lots of artists are doing the 10 minute, 1 minute 10 second challenge" then I decide if any of that is interesting to me, and then I consider HOW I'd make it.
I haven't actually recorded anything this year, so I've been turning old footage that I forgot to edit, into videos this year, but if something sounds interesting, I've learned to use google trends to see if it's actually being searched.
I also go by suggestions in my videos. If enough people ask me to draw a particular thing, I look into it to see if it's interesting enough for me to make a video on it.
I still don't research keywords that often, BUT in the progress of finding better keywords for older videos I've done, I've learned what is, and isn't getting many searches. The less searches a particular dinosaur is getting, the less interest there is in that dinosaur, so the less point there is in doing another video on it.
The new CTR ranking tools however are going to help me investigate more opportunities to follow
