Common issues that keep you under 1,000 subscribers

Good tips again! I'm still trying to find ways to better utilize these three tips. Forgive me if this has been said already, but I think another thing is to not just post the same content to every single social site. I think people often times think that just posting it to Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr with the hashtags is enough, but I think engagement and utilizing each social platform in the way it's intended should be sought after. Like tweeting what might be in the next video or something like that.
 
Tim Schmoyer said:
In fact, I used to be co-workers with the guys behind the CinemaSins channel. They'll be the first to tell you that YouTube's algorithm doesn't squish the little guys on YouTube. They started with 0 views just like everyone else.
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This is from Wikipedia:
"On December 11, 2012, after a few unsuccessful channel attempts, they released "Everything Wrong With The Amazing Spiderman In 2 Minutes Or Less," which garnered over 250,000 views in the first week partly due to a Buzzfeed post.[4][7][8]"

Tim brings up CinemaSins. There are a couple interesting things to take away from this excerpt....the first one is that they had a few unsuccessful channel attempts. This might fly in the face of the common 'just keep trying' aspect, but just because you think you had a great idea does not mean you have to keep working at idea until it is successful. Conversely, part of becoming a success is the ability to recognize whether your idea/channel/stock investment is a loser. You then pivot, shift focus, and try something else. That might sound like a defeatist attitude but it isn't. It's how the world works. Singer Lana Del Rey had one complete failure of an album (under a different stage name) and then another album that was shelved before production. She rebranded herself (different name, different style, etc) and put herself out once more after taking a few years off basically, and became a success. Your first attempt doesn't have to be a winner. It's okay...it doesn't mean you're a failure, it just means you didn't have the right idea or that you had poor timing.

That brings me to the second interesting part of that excerpt... "which garnered over 250,000 views in the first week partly due to a Buzzfeed post." - All it takes is one compelling idea...one great video that people can relate to or laugh their asses off at...and that can jump start your channel in a big way. I'm not saying that is necessary, but it will help. I've had videos from 5 different channels go 'viral' on Reddit....once that happens it really helps the video's success with the suggested video algorithm (holy grail for YT creators) and the video's popularity snowballs (which then, in part, carries over to your channels popularity). I'm not advocating trying to take a shortcut via social media...I'm just saying that great ideas can result in viral videos which can help your channel grow at a much faster rate. CinemaSins didn't work their way up gradually mucking up 10 subscribers a day at any point in their channel's history....they released a video the day their channel started and it had 250k views in a few days and 1 million views a month later. They went viral. Why? Because they had a great friggin idea.

Tim Schmoyer said:
They'll be the first to tell you that YouTube's algorithm doesn't squish the little guys on YouTube.
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I'm never usually one to complain about the algorithm favoring larger partners, but the only thing I've noticed about the suggested video algorithm (the holy grail for Youtube partners) is that over the past couplt years, in the 'suggested video' section of videos with only a few hundred views, are mostly videos with thousands and tens of thousands of views. Also, in the suggested video section of popular videos with millions of views there are not videos with only a few hundred views, so the fact is, videos with only a few hundred views are rarely, if ever, getting into anyone's suggested video section. So in that regard, the algorithm does seem to favor videos with lots of views (and then ranked by engagement, how the video influences viewers total session time, etc). It never used to be this way. As a matter of fact, I had a forum post in the old Youtube Partner forum (back in 2010-11) where I remarked (with screenshots) that as videos moved up in popularity, the videos in the 'related videos' section (as it used to be called) would be ones with similar numbers of views (which kind of makes more sense since the algorithm was all about views back then). Now, if I put out a brand new video tomorrow, established channels with lots of views immediately take the positions in my suggested video section. I just think it would be nice if they featured videos with a few hundred views in the suggested section of videos with a few hundred views, (and then ranked them by engagement, session time contribution, etc).

That being said, at least that portion of the algorithm clearly does make it more difficult for the smaller partners to break through (without help from social media virility). That is not easy to overcome...unless you have a great idea. That's what it all comes down to.
 
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Very good points, @WilliamRayWalters. Yes, you're definitely correct about holding on to the same idea for a long time. I have friends who have been doing the same thing for 5+ years on YouTube and have very little traction to show for it. The same is true for channels that continue to make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Just persevering through repeating the mistake that is holding you back is very self-defeating. Instead, it's important to change, experiment, continue to learn, and try new things as you go forward. I think that's the persistence most people are referring to on YouTube.

Regarding the algorithm, read the article Chris at CinemaSins wrote about it on reelseo. I can't link it here, but search for, "Does YouTube Push Certain Channels, or do they Help Those Who Can Help Themselves?"
 
Tim Schmoyer said:
Regarding the algorithm, read the article Chris at CinemaSins wrote about it on reelseo.
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I completely agree with everything in that article...as a matter of fact, it's basically what I wrote in my post. Excerpt from the article: "So, yes, they push channels. They push channels with creators who already know how to get discovered on their own." -- That's basically what I was saying...that without help from social media or other outside sources it is difficult to overcome the suggested algorithm that does not like to place videos with under 1000 views anywhere it seems. So theoretically you could have amazing content that is completely engaging, garners good watch time, and leads to long session times, but have horrible marketing skills and either not be successful or have a very slow road to success because of how the algorithm is set up. People are under the mistaken impression that the suggested video algorithm has completely switched from favoring videos with more views to purely favoring videos that are engaging and lead to longer session time. While the primary focus has switched to videos that lead to longer session time, the number of views a video has still clearly has some pull when it comes to the algorithm.. I'm not necessarily knocking it...I understand what he means when he says there is a 'what can you do for me' attitude as far as Youtube is concerned. I was just pointing out that outside help (via social media, etc) is necessary for meaningful growth in a reasonable amount of time (with rare exceptions). But then again, with great content the outside help usually follows naturally.

One thing that Youtube does do that I like is put channels with similar numbers of subscribers and similar content in the 'related channels' section of other channels with similar numbers of subscribers, even very low subscriber channels. I just wish they would do that with videos with small numbers of views (but that lead to longer session times and are engaging) and place them in the suggested video section of other videos with small numbers of views. I often come across videos that have me thinking How does this not have more views? But...it is what it is.
 
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WilliamRayWalters said:
So theoretically you could have amazing content that is completely engaging, garners good watch time, and leads to long session times, but have horrible marketing skills and either not be successful or have a very slow road to success because of how the algorithm is set up. People are under the mistaken impression that the suggested video algorithm has completely switched from favoring videos with more views to purely favoring videos that are engaging and lead to longer session time.
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I guess this is where I'm going to disagree with you. I have two secret channels where I occasionally post random evergreen videos that get tens of thousands of views without a single tweet nor any promotion. I literally upload and forget about it. No promotion. No replying to comments. No asking people to subscribe. Nothing. I have several friends who do this as their ONLY strategy on YouTube. One gets 15 million views per month across his channel. Another friend gets closer to 30 million views per month. And these channels have less than 20,000 YouTube subscribers (because they don't care about subscribers, they mostly care about views).

Valuable content with thoughtful titles and thumbnails can certainly perform well on channels with absolutely no subscribers at all. I've done it several times.

(And no, I can't tell you what the secret channels are because then I'd be promoting them! haha)
 
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