10,000 subs (...in 7 months!)

[Dave2017]

WOW BIG congrats

 

[FRANKIEandEMILY]

Late last night I hit the first real goal I set for myself: 10,000 subscribers! It’s been 7 months and a few days since I uploaded my first video. I’m having a blast doing this, and my audience seems to agree.

Thanks again to everyone on this forum for the great information and conversation!

On to the next goal: 20k!

that's insanely good man! i actually am big into fitness/nutrition so you gained a new sub. Any tips/tricks you can share with us besides having a really great niche? Keep it up!

 

[Ruthie<3]

Congratulations! That’s awesome

 

[xingcat]

Amazing work! Congrats!

 

[Highfalutin' Low Carb]

I've been watching your channel since day one lol. I remember when you first introduced yourself. Are you finding anything in particular that's working for you? Or is it just organically growing?

Adam, I’m a huge fan of yours and love your work, so I appreciate the fact you watch my content. I realize low carb cooking isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (how's THAT for a British reference? LOL) but it’s a growing niche these days. Or so it appears.

My growth is pretty organic, I think. I spent about $175 total in Adwords ads promoting my 30-second channel trailer until I hit 1,000 subscribers. I haven’t done any further paid advertising since then, but I do think that was money well spent.

I’ve concentrated mostly on the things I learned here. My day job is corporate internet marketing. So, that has definitely helped in regards to text optimization and SEO in general, but I’ve not done anything that others here haven’t already mentioned countless times.

One thing I’ve sort of ignored is the advice that videos should be SHORT. I’m a “cord cutter” that ditched traditional cable television. I substituted YouTube for most of my TV time. Because of that, I watch YouTube on my big 70” widescreen in the living room, and nothing is more frustrating than having to find a new video to watch every 4-6 minutes. I actively AVOID short videos. Therefore, I tend to watch “long form” content. And the ONE thing I missed most was long-form cooking shows. So, as I was contemplating starting a low carb diet again, and missing my cooking shows, I decided to make my OWN cooking show. I figured that if *I* missed my half hour cooking shows, then other folks probably did, too. And apparently, I was right. (And if you closely follow YouTube and YouTube Red, you’ll see that YT is PAYING creators to make long-form “television” shows for YouTube Red. The trend of longer YouTube content helps position YouTube in the “Battle of the Living Room” and I think that’s the direction they are moving. Short, easily digestible how-to content will always survive on YouTube, but they are CLEARLY rewarding my channel for keeping people engaged for 20-30 minutes at a time, despite the advice from popular YouTube “gurus.”)

So, I try to upload *about* once a week. It takes about 3-4 hours to film one episode and probably 20-30 hours to edit, render, write descriptions and tags, and promote. I’m a member of several low carb Facebook groups that I post on WHEN APPLICABLE! (I DO NOT SPAM!) I post my videos to the appropriate low carb and keto subreddits, to a few Facebook groups that allow member posts, as well as on my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

I have an average view percentage of about 50%, so that means for a 30 minute video I get an average of 15 minutes of watch time. Competitor channels have videos 4-8 minutes in length, but they tend to have the same watch time percentage of around 50%, which gives them 2-4 minutes of total watch time for each video. I can only assume that YouTube sees my high watch time minutes and has rewarded me by suggesting my videos across other channels. In return, I have fairly high CPM/RPM rates that hover around $8-$9. I’m not making buckets of money in ad revenue, but everything I read before starting my channel said to expect a few dollars per month, but at 7 months in I’m making several hundred dollars in AdSense revenue every month and similar income via the Amazon affiliate program.

I’m thankful for the fast success. My concern is that I will “hit a wall” with my growth due to the size of the niche in general. But I honestly have experienced so many benefits from a low carb diet that it doesn’t matter how much money I make. It’s about feeling better, looking better, improving test markers with my doctor, and having a good time sharing with my community.

 

[adams eats]

Adam, I’m a huge fan of yours and love your work, so I appreciate the fact you watch my content. I realize low carb cooking isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (how's THAT for a British reference? LOL) but it’s a growing niche these days. Or so it appears.

My growth is pretty organic, I think. I spent about $175 total in Adwords ads promoting my 30-second channel trailer until I hit 1,000 subscribers. I haven’t done any further paid advertising since then, but I do think that was money well spent.

I’ve concentrated mostly on the things I learned here. My day job is corporate internet marketing. So, that has definitely helped in regards to text optimization and SEO in general, but I’ve not done anything that others here haven’t already mentioned countless times.

One thing I’ve sort of ignored is the advice that videos should be SHORT. I’m a “cord cutter” that ditched traditional cable television. I substituted YouTube for most of my TV time. Because of that, I watch YouTube on my big 70” widescreen in the living room, and nothing is more frustrating than having to find a new video to watch every 4-6 minutes. I actively AVOID short videos. Therefore, I tend to watch “long form” content. And the ONE thing I missed most was long-form cooking shows. So, as I was contemplating starting a low carb diet again, and missing my cooking shows, I decided to make my OWN cooking show. I figured that if *I* missed my half hour cooking shows, then other folks probably did, too. And apparently, I was right. (And if you closely follow YouTube and YouTube Red, you’ll see that YT is PAYING creators to make long-form “television” shows for YouTube Red. The trend of longer YouTube content helps position YouTube in the “Battle of the Living Room” and I think that’s the direction they are moving. Short, easily digestible how-to content will always survive on YouTube, but they are CLEARLY rewarding my channel for keeping people engaged for 20-30 minutes at a time, despite the advice from popular YouTube “gurus.”)

So, I try to upload *about* once a week. It takes about 3-4 hours to film one episode and probably 20-30 hours to edit, render, write descriptions and tags, and promote. I’m a member of several low carb Facebook groups that I post on WHEN APPLICABLE! (I DO NOT SPAM!) I post my videos to the appropriate low carb and keto subreddits, to a few Facebook groups that allow member posts, as well as on my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

I have an average view percentage of about 50%, so that means for a 30 minute video I get an average of 15 minutes of watch time. Competitor channels have videos 4-8 minutes in length, but they tend to have the same watch time percentage of around 50%, which gives them 2-4 minutes of total watch time for each video. I can only assume that YouTube sees my high watch time minutes and has rewarded me by suggesting my videos across other channels. In return, I have fairly high CPM/RPM rates that hover around $8-$9. I’m not making buckets of money in ad revenue, but everything I read before starting my channel said to expect a few dollars per month, but at 7 months in I’m making several hundred dollars in AdSense revenue every month and similar income via the Amazon affiliate program.

I’m thankful for the fast success. My concern is that I will “hit a wall” with my growth due to the size of the niche in general. But I honestly have experienced so many benefits from a low carb diet that it doesn’t matter how much money I make. It’s about feeling better, looking better, improving test markers with my doctor, and having a good time sharing with my community.

Thank you buddy! Really nice in depth explanation. It appears youtube is pushing you because of your huge amounts of watch time being generated! They love that stuff lol. I've noticed a spike in views and subs and I think that could be that my watch time is up by 50% this month

 

[reecemoss]

Wow, well done!
How did you get from 788 subs in June to 2.23k in July?
Doing amazing, keep it up!
- Reece

 

[Lisa McKown]

Congrats .. my channel is about weight loss so of course you just got me as a sub