Be candid with viewers about growth problems, or not?

[timmus]

I have a channel in the realm of science / how-to that's plateaued over the past six months and gotten completely stuck, and I don't have any idea how to get more engagement or viewers (currently in the hundreds per video).

I've thought about informing my viewers about the issue. The idea would be to rally them to either increase their Patreon pledges (making it more worth my time) or have them recruit other viewers via their social media, which would also be good.

Do you all think it's a wise idea to level with viewers, or is it better to not involve them in details like that? Has anyone had any experiences discussing stuff like this with viewers?

 

[mirrorlessNY(youtuber)]

I haven't tried leveling like that just keeping the difficulties behind the scenes, but did see some channels do it & it was useful to watch

 

[Rhody Seth]

I dunno how useful it would be. I can't speak to the Patreon angle but if someone I watched regularly began telling me that they weren't getting enough views I'd be like, "What do you want me to do? I'm already watching your damn video!"