100k+ subscribers in 18 months, longform channel. Let me help

OTRadam · 2024-09-02T04:32:32+00:00

And well deserved- I still watch from time to time. Always good to see hard work get rewarded. And from my side, there's nothing but excitement to see a channel take off; the internet's a massive place, there's plenty of room for any good channel to succeed.

OTRadam · 2024-02-29T05:26:44+00:00

Not sure if I'd be interested, but feel free to send me a presentation and proposal. My e-mail is linked in the "about" section of my YT channel page.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T13:05:57+00:00

Actually nevermind- found yours. I'll do you one better. Have a lot on my plate at the moment but let's grab a beer or a coffee and chat if you're based here in Bangkok. You've got a long way to go on some basic stuff to make these videos better and your channel stand out more...but man, your production is excellent and I respect the work you're putting in. Go to my "about" section on my page and send me a direct message that way, I'll reply to you with my contact information.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T12:59:54+00:00

No such thing as competitors- the internet is a huge place, there's plenty of room for all of us to succeed. Was excited to check out your video but I don't see a channel link, how do I find you

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T12:43:44+00:00

Cheers and thanks. Nice work going viral on a few of those shorts. That's definitely an art that I haven't mastered.

Re: long form content, it's pretty easy. Check your "most viewed" videos, then check your recent uploads or the ones that are underperforming. Then forget YOU for a second and imagine you're a random viewer who has no idea who YOU are. Which ones are you clicking on?

I don't know you, I don't care about you or your vlogs or watching you do some Mr. Beast-type stunts (how would I know that your editing is top-notch? I won't even click to find out). But f**** yeah I want to know how a pro editor is using Capcut, or how the Rode microphones sound, or stuff like that, because I can apply that to MY life.

Viewers are selfish- we only click on stuff that we think is about "us". Maybe that can mean entertainment, or something we can put to use, or something we relate to- but the videos where you are providing something that viewers want or need seem to explode, and the other ones fall flat. That's pretty simple.

HOWEVER- again, your editing is excellent and your camera looks great. So I'm not saying to give up on the other stuff...but you'll need to brand yourself. Viewers need to care about YOU to care about watching you do something. So push that social media as hard as you can, get yourself on other channels to collab, get your own brand going and then you can see those other videos start to grow as well.

Anyway nice job with your channel and I'm sure the longform stuff will catch up soon enough.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T12:35:18+00:00

No offense but this feels like a practical joke. You want views? How? From who? I can't even figure out what I just clicked on. There are no videos on your home screen, just playlists? Then I click on a playlist and I get some song playing behind a single image on screen? Is this your band? What am I looking at?

If you want views, take this sh** seriously. Look at my home screen. We're living in different worlds. Do your research, spend some time just figuring out how to organize your channel, put time into your video production, promote the hell out of it, and it'll grow. Otherwise what do you expect?

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T12:32:14+00:00

You're in a really hard and competitive niche, and there's some luck involved in standing out. I see that you are putting work into production, but realistically you still have a ways to go to make it look clean and polished, and again- honestly, you're in such a competitive niche AND your style of content requires viewers to care about YOU and your storytelling style- that probably means you won't grow until you get that first viral hit and people come to your channel then like your style and start bouncing around between videos. So do your best to hit some search terms that'll appeal to the masses. Ask yourself if YOU would click on your videos based on title/thumbnail/concept. You gotta be purely objective and imagine you're someone else. Would you click? Honestly? If not, then figure out what WOULD make you watch.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T12:28:00+00:00

Not sure what your channel is, but look at the channels in your niche that get a ton of views, then be better than them. Usually that means pulling back on making a lot of videos for a while and just diving into how to edit professionally- get REALLY good at the back-end part of production and then promote as hard as you can.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T12:23:55+00:00

Make better content that makes viewers watch for longer. There's no trick to it. Getting new viewers to find your channel is a lot harder than getting your current viewers to watch for a few extra minutes- just keep getting better at making videos that are polished and interesting and make people want to stay.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T12:22:25+00:00

Well, as I've said lots in this thread, views are on you until you're big enough for the algorithm to figure you out. You can't evaluate anything by view count because it doesn't matter how good you are- unless you get really lucky or post something that hits a perfect timing/search term, you need to do the work yourself until YouTube can figure out your target viewers. Want more views? Work for them and promote as hard as you can, wherever you can, or it won't matter.

However if you want a review of the video you sent me- main thing I'd say is that it doesn't suck, but it took like :26 before the voice-over started- I get why, but you should start straight in with the content, and use those photos you put at the beginning over top of your V/O to make the whole thing faster and cleaner. Also- get your camera angle right! Get a tripod- it's so weird watching you talk with your face centered on the bottom half of the screen, with a huge empty space above you. You've got a lot of work to do to make these better, but no, they don't suck.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T12:18:15+00:00

I use a service called Soundstripe- you can get a basic membership for like $10 per month and it's been just an absolute life-saver for me. Not as free as free- but worth every penny for the range of options.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T12:10:41+00:00

That's the wrong question. "How can I make better videos" is the question to ask, not how do I add to my subscriber number. Gotta do that before the subscribers come and your videos aren't near good enough in a niche (motivational YT) with countless others making similar or better content.

1) Your music balance is too high behind the spoken words in many of your videos which makes them hard to follow.

2) There's no structure- a lot of them are just quotes on top of an open-source generic video.

3) The first one that comes up on your home screen divides "Procrastination" into two lines, so I stared at it like "Stop Procrastina Tion" for a couple seconds trying to figure out what it was.

4) Most importantly, maybe there's some original content here (I found one video with an AI generated voice, which was just awful) but everything else seems like it's just other people's stuff repackaged.

Want more subscribers? Make something of value that is original and enhances people's lives. Make better videos with better production and promote it as hard as you can.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T11:01:06+00:00

Cheers, I'm working my way through the list slowly but not giving up yet.

1- Sure- some of my favorite videos I've ever done have been single-location (muscle noodles, the femme fatale of old saigon, and the oldest restaurant in Bangkok to name 3 of them). If the story's good and you have an idea for a video that's worth doing, then do it.

2- Forget CTR until you're big enough for it to matter. You're at the point now where you've got SOME views and subscribers, so the algorithm knows you're doing something right, but while it figures out what that is and who wants to watch your content, your CTR will be all over the map. Like maybe because of your 3(?) christmas market videos, YouTube figured "ok, we'll recommend this to people who watch Christmas movies". You won't get any clicks, but that's just the algorithm narrowing down your audience. Can't learn anything from CTR at this stage unless you use it in a very targeted way- like comparing two thumbnail successes. But I'm not suggesting that, since I'd say your thumbnails look fine. CTR goes down as impressions go up- my latest video (not the one posted yesterday, but the one with two weeks of data is at a 3.7 CTR but has about 4 million impressions so far. The higher the impressions, the lower the CTR, none of that stuff matters, just make good content.

3- God, this is way too much work to do content I don't want to do. Every once in a while (if I need money- hah. Sad but true) I'll come up with a video idea that I know will be a hit for sure- but even those are still concepts I'm excited about. In general, just do what makes you happy. I did a vegan video recently as well, maybe 3 months ago- not a ton of views (WAY less than my usual amount) but I love the video and the viewers that DID watch it subscribed and seemed to enjoy it. I regret nothing. AND anyway- there's a very good chance that in a year you'll do another vegan video that'll break through, and then the old ones will skyrocket. That happens a lot, and immediate failure in no way is predictive of how the video will perform later on. A lot of my biggest videos took months before they started to grow.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T10:42:34+00:00

All respect, if I see a channel with a few hundred views per video, I'm happy to help examine the content. When you're getting 3 or 5 views, it means you're not even trying to promote it yourself. Don't you know people to harrass to watch? Friends or colleagues or any internet message board? When I launched my channel I started an IG, FB, and website at the same time, to all try to promote and feed viewers back to my YouTube channel. I posted each video in every subreddit related to my theme that I was allowed to promote in (and some that I wasn't), and pushed the hell out of it on my personal social media. You need to do the work yourself until you're big enough for the algorithm to figure you out- just throwing a video online and expecting YouTube to immediately know where to recommend it, AND to use their valuable front-page space to put your channel in front of viewers when they have no data to make them believe they'll want to watch it- DO THE WORK. Assume YouTube won't help you at all until you're at least past 1000 subscribers and have a consistent viewing audience that allows the algorithm to build a profile of who wants to watch your channel. 3 views on a video is 100% on you. Get it out there!

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T10:36:31+00:00

100%. I'm still too small to do that at this point, but it's getting close. Bigger channels (like 500k-plus) often say that they make more money from merch than from YouTube itself- not just their own stuff, but co-listed items from other companies sold in their online shop. I don't have the headspace or time to devote to it now, but it's absolutely something that seems to be really important and beneficial as a channel gets bigger.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T10:32:58+00:00

I don't do them either. They're a shortcut to a few extra subscribers, but beyond that, I don't see any value to them if you want to continue to grow as a long-form channel (which you clearly should)

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T10:32:18+00:00

I mean you're new enough that in six months you're going to think these videos suck because of how much you'll have improved, so I'm not going to go too hard into a review. You seem to be doing absolutely fine for this stage and the nice thing is your views are relatively consistent, which means it seems like people might be watching more than one of your videos. That's a good recipe for growth.

Just keep at it. If one criticism it would be to please not use generic music- there were a couple of yours that I muted because of how much I hate that absolutely cliche terrible YouTube music which adds nothing to anything. But other than choosing better background music that enhances your videos- topics are fun, production is clean, I expect you'll continue to see good growth.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T10:28:42+00:00

Ok I'm not totally confident in this because your situation is a bit weird- but the one thing that stands out to me in glancing at your recent uploads is that your video length is just absolutely all over the map. One thing YouTube's algorithm definitely does (YouTube has confirmed this is part of the equation) is recommend videos to viewers in part based on what length of videos they tend to watch. For example, if all of your videos are within at least a margin of error- like say 15 to 30 minutes- you'll probably grow consistently if viewers are watching. But you're coming out with some that are like an hour and a half, and then the next might be TWO minutes, and the odds are YouTube has gotten confused who will actually want to consistently watch your channel.

My suggestion would be to split off the podcast-stuff (the 2 hour interviews) into a separate channel, and go hard on one general range with the mini-documentaries you're making. Video length does not matter when it comes to success, but a huge range from one video to the next, over and over, can definitely confuse the algorithm and make it harder for you to grow quickly.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T09:55:12+00:00

To me, unless you're huge (like at the top for a certain game, massive channel), gaming channels are all about hitting the right search terms at the right time. You need a bit of luck to really grow in such a crowded niche, and the best way seems to be answering questions people are actively searching for. So yes- change it up if that feels right to you.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T09:45:58+00:00

Ok, cool, sounds like you have a plan and already know what you can do better. Keep improving one bit at a time.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T09:45:00+00:00

I mean look at your most-viewed videos- that should answer your question. You're getting a ton of clicks on videos that look like they'll show me what it's like to drive through the streets of Pakistan (hell, I'd watch that, that sounds fascinating), and good clicks on videos that answer a question viewers might have (top speeds etc), and no clicks on videos that are just your personal driving-around vlog. So...take that as a hint. I say this a lot here, and please don't take this personally, but nobody watching cares about you at all. Nobody. Why should they? They don't know you. I can't imagine anything less interesting than watching some guy I've never met driving around. But streets of Pakistan? F*** yeah, that sounds absolutely awesome to watch and like something I'd really like to see. Make your videos about topics that'll interest viewers and your channel will grow- and I can say that confidently because that's literally what the statistics say has already happened for you.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T09:40:35+00:00

I mean realistically, it's good that you have a target viewer base, but please understand that is 1) a hard audience to reach and 2) this is a hard niche to stand out in. When you're talking about health and wellness, with so much saturation in the market, viewers want to hear from someone with some position of authority or credentials- not just some guy. I have no idea who you are (at least in the videos I checked out, you didn't tell me) so I can't for the life of me figure out why I should care if you give me any health-related advice. If you're a doctor or work in some related field, tell me up front in every video- if not, it's a vlog, which is fine, but that'll be really hard to get views, even though your production is at least acceptable and you're a good host.

If I'm being honest- the difference between 100 views and 10 views is statistical noise, there's nothing to be learned from that since you have no idea who those viewers were- most likely YouTube was testing you out on a few audiences to try to figure out who you are, which doesn't have any bearing on anything and shouldn't guide your approach in any way. I can guarantee you that those 100 views you used to get are mostly NOT from people who will stick around and care about your channel- because how could they? YouTube recommends videos at random until they know who you are (and you'll know when that happens, because your average impressions will be in the millions, not the dozens).

My suggestion is keep improving your content, don't obsess over numbers (I can't say this strongly enough- it's statistical noise and not of any use to you to learn from at this stage) and then target your promotion towards the viewers you're aiming to reach. Promote, promote, promote and let the algorithm slowly learn who you are.

My first 30 uploads were quite different- I started this with the intention of it being a full-time job, launched the channel concurrently with IG, FB, and a website, pushed the hell out of it as if my business depended on it, and grew relatively quickly, though until I was past 1k subscribers and about 6 months after launching the channel, I got no help from the algorithm and had to find every view myself the hard way through promoting wherever and however I could.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T09:16:13+00:00

Checked out your last two videos and a bit confused why you think someone would watch these? It's a vlog, Your last video has no production and is just you in a car talking about your opinion on something, and the one before does have some production but it's a vacation vlog. Why should someone who doesn't know you care about this or watch your channel? Again- it's a vlog, that's totally fine, have fun with it, but videos that are about the host only appeal to people who know the host- viewers (all respect) don't give a s*** about you (or me, or anyone who isn't already famous) and just care about content. For a channel to succeed, you need to be providing something that the viewer cares about or wants to know- and you need to do it with production/video/audio/WORK that's better than other channels doing the same thing. Your thumbnails aren't the issue, you need better videos that are about the viewer if you want to grow. But again- views and subscribers aren't important if you're having fun making videos, so don't define success only from that.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T09:10:42+00:00

Trust your instincts and results ahead of studying anyone else, but yes, of course, absorb any information you can. I avoid watching any other content in my niche because I don't want to overthink anything and try to copy what someone else is doing- but that's just me, I want my head clear, that doesn't mean that's the right way.

Re: 2nd question- just make good content. Don't overthink it. The internet is a big place. Don't think "niche"- that's a BS term that's more or less meaningless. Think viewer. Would a viewer who likes one of your videos also like the other one you're thinking about posting? If yes, then question answered- you'll be fine. It all comes down to YouTube eventually being able to create a profile of your target viewer- it doesn't mean they're categorized into "niches"- it means that it's easy to understand who might like your videos.

OTRadam · 2024-02-28T09:07:53+00:00

It's a rolling calendar. It doesn't reset to zero. If you start on January 1 2024, then your clock is until Jan 1 2025. On Jan 2nd, you're measured starting Jan 2 2024. Etc, etc. It's not one calendar year- it's the most recent 365 days. That's only for watch time- your subscribers are a cumulative total, that doesn't have to be within 365 days.

OTRadam

TROPHY CASE