I put a ton of effort into a video, planned it out, edited it, optimized the thumbnail and title, and it got 4 views. (I normally get ~20 views) Why is this? Any feedback would be highly appreciated.

I was studying TEDx Talk's YouTube channel and noticed something interesting: They didn't have flashy thumbnails, only intriguing titles. All their thumbnails did was set the theme of the video. My takeaway from this isn't that thumbnails are useless, but rather that the thumbnail's only purpose is to set the theme of a video. (This causes people to get what they clicked on the video for, and therefore, stick around longer, boosting watch time, which hence fore, boosts views.) Excellent idea + supporting title & thumbnail + Proper execution = tens of millions of views The thumbnail and titles only jobs are to support the idea of the video.

How do I make the shiny text and brown cloud?

After 2 months, I've amassed: - 74 Videos - 8,459 Views - 100 Subscribers What should my goal for next month be?

From what I've seen, if you have an excellent idea, successfully execute it, and convey as much in your title, thumbnail, and video, you go viral. I myself am not a big YouTuber (yet) so take this with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, I hope you find this insight I've had helpful. I haven't heard this advice anywhere before.