YouTube Tips BensTechLab Case Study Thread

[MattCommand1]

At @BensTechLab great suggestion, I have started a separate thread to discuss his particular journey as to not clog up the other thread. I am reposting that response here to pick up where we left off.

MattCommand1 said:
Ben, I visited your channel and you are smoking it on your channel! Your first video has over 10,000 views? You have some insane number of views that is astounding. I don't think I've seen such good view performance on the very first videos like yours. Share your secrets if you are willing.

Thanks for compliment @MattCommand1! Feel free to start a new thread and tag me in it with some more questions if you like (so we don't take over this thread). And FYI, I just filmed a full studio tour video this last weekend, need a couple weeks to edit, but will be my highest production quality video for sure!

But for those on this thread thinking specifically about subscriber growth, here's my story for comparison:

• I started at the start of the pandemic March 2020.
• Took me 8+ months to record my first video as I saved up and bought cameras and lights and mics and worked on my branding (choosing a channel name, website domain name, social handles, etc).
• Then I've been making videos for over a year now with 1815 subs today and 152,000 views (this is nearly 2 years from the day I decided to start YouTube).
• I have a full-time job and a family with kids. So I obviously can't dedicate as much time to this as I'd enjoy - only published 15 videos in 2021. But those are real numbers.

Even if I was 100% fulltime on YouTube I'm not sure I would have been able to make 97 quality videos in my first year. There is a learning curve for everything from video editing, to sound, to lighting, to seo. I'll be quite happy if I make it >100k subs in 3-5 years.

P.S. I have 2 "break away" videos that are responsible for a lot of views. A dell monitor review at ~33k views and a raspberry pi rackmount at ~45k views. The raspberry pi rackmount video alone was >800 subscribers. Both continue to get 80-100 views per day. The irony is that both of those videos were totally unscripted and the dell monitor one was lower production quality (very few video lights, kit lenses on the camera, etc).

 

[MattCommand1]

@BensTechLab In a prior life, I was in I.T., a network engineer, and a Technical trainer. I am now in a very different field but I still have a love and leverage my I.T. background. Some of your video titles and thumbnails caught my eye but the stats I saw in your channel were astounding to me.

As I said, I scan a lot of YT channels that come through the TB Forums and I am impressed with the variety I see. But what I saw in your channel was very unusual (to me anyway).

I will have other questions and comments but first I will need to spend some time and actual preview some of your videos before I can ask better questions. But this thread will allow you to share as much as you want to the readers of your journey, insights, what your plans are, etc.

Thanks for being a willing spirit and making the suggestion to create a separate thread.

 

[BensTechLab]

Sounds great @MattCommand1! I will look forward to some pointed questions.

I also have an "IT" background. I am a career software architect and developer. So I write code for a living (and now design how that code should work when others write the code).

I am happy to share anything that is helpful or interesting!

 

[BensTechLab]

@MattCommand1 FYI, I just posted my channel trailer in the self promotion forum if you want to check it out! I won't post any videos here as that's against the forum rules. Thought you might be interested though, I'm hoping to break 2k subscribers with the next couple videos if they are well received.

 

[MattCommand1]

Hi Ben! I commented on that thread. Your channel trailer was very good! Energetic and to the point, without dragging it out! Well done!