I've shared this on here before but given there are a few more members on here now I thought I'd share again, as I think this podcast has value for beginner youtubers and I wish I could have seen it when I was starting. It's me and my friend @Ahmed Hallajian and we just talk about our journey on youtube. This is the latest episode.
@Jeff Harrison Completely agree Jeff, I think about that analogy a lot, thanks for taking the time to comment! It's definitely about producing as much as you can and trying to get better
That's what I felt like doing a year ago, last March. I started my channel January 3, 2021 (STEP 1) and posted several videos. I was excited and put a ton of effort into it. But then I hit the "Dip". People weren't watching and I got out of bed with a "vulnerability hangover" every day. As my feet hit the ground next to my bed I thought, "I will just stop and delete it all of it. Who do I think I am?" 🤢 Then in April, a video that I had previously posted, somehow latched into ranking in search and started to pick up steady views. I'd like to say that I was strong enough to keep going by myself, but this little push was desperately needed. Mother Algorithm threw me a bone. She's not all bad. 🦴 After that, I took months to put out a few different videos, but not because I was procrastinating anymore, but because I was learning what I needed to learn to put out videos that more matched the vision I had for them. I still wasn't completely happy, but I was getting better on all fronts of the Youtube creation cycle. By September I was cranking out fresh videos consistently along with breaking up older longer videos and releasing them as more digestible clips. (STEP 2) A few of these then even got picked up by Browse and Search as well. Plus, I felt like my content was getting better. My first video was no cuts with a title card and a sprinkle of music. Now my edit timelines look like a murder scene. 🔪 I even started to make money on Anchor by releasing my videos as podcast episodes (STEP 3). By the end of December and into January I had spikes on multiple videos. But then it fell back down. Was I a failure?! No, the numbers just fell back to about November's average, but I had already adapted. The reality is that I had a spike, and I'm still picking up subs. But it won't be exponential every day. And part of me wants to blame the recommendation system, but I know it's actually on me. I need to make a better product, especially in the thumbnail and title department! Quantity plus quality WILL get seen. I've already seen it happen. Just do it again. And again. And better. And then again.
@Corey Bennett Boardman Yeah I think it's best to show it, it's just makes it feel like you're hiding something I think? and people are so used to using it as a guage for your content that I think it's overall positive. I don't know though, maybe you have loads of subscribers and we don't know!!
The value of this video for the Synthesiser Skool community is to show that it's good to be vulnerable and vulnerability can help make your content more relatable. I'm experimenting with this one to see if people engage more, despite the fact that it is completely unedited. Sometimes it might not lead to virality, but it will help lead to a more engaged audience and returning viewers, which I think is really important to maintain a stable view count.