Give me reasons not to give up (channel dead in the water..)

Frank1985

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This is incredibly depressing for me as this channel’s been a major part of my livelihood for a long while now. I run a meditation/sleep/relaxation audio channel which has over 250k subs yet my videos are now barely scraping past 1k views. I make around £1.6k/$1.8k pm but that’s a significant underachievement and at this rate I don’t know if even that can be sustained long term.

I was actually one of the first to start a channel like this and it used to be very popular until a rapid decline several years back. This despite an increase in video and audio production quality.

The frustrating thing is, the musical tracks are my own original creations, yet there are stock music based channels outperforming mine 10 fold. I don’t understand how with so many subs, only 300 or so are viewing one of my vids within the first day.

Can I bounce back from such a dramatic fall, or am I wasting my time? Is anyone else going through this - not struggling to get off the ground, but stumbling after an initial period of massive growth?

I feel that starting a new channel would be even more difficult considering the nature of the new YT algo.

Is it worth me continuing with this or is my channel pretty much dead?
 
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Jack Decker

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Speaking as someone who always sleeps to white noise, I think you just got to get with the times. I looked over your more recent videos and they're all short for white noise videos. These days they've got to be at least 10 hours long and go to black screen within a minute. This enables people like me to sleep better and not be woken by outside noises. In fact, I used to only consider those at least 8 hours long but now will only consider those 10+ hours long.

And you've got to get out there promoting your channel. Get on YouTube talk shows. Promise them that if they have on you as a guest, you'll make a 30-second or minute promo for your appearance on their show which you'll put on your channel and promote on your social media (which in your case looks like only Facebook). Soon I will be launching a YouTube game show and you're welcome to apply to be a contestant on it. During it, you'll have a chance to verbally plug your channel.

Good luck!
 

Graphic Designer

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How the YT algo works can't interpreted on a human level. It is alien, and doesn't make sense to a human. I don't think the YT engineers can even fully understand how it works.

But...what is your upload frequency compared to your competition? Also, if what they are doing works, have you tried replicating them? So if they upload more frequently, then upload more frequently (if possible). And if they use stock music, use stock music. It may be that the TY algo 'trusts' the stock music more because it can't properly determine if your music is original or has copyright issues? In any case, using stock music will speed up your workflow.

Are you promoting your channel on social media? It could be that your competition is promoting like crazy? And also, it's also possible that your competition is buying views.

Your sub count and revenue means your channel is far from dead.
 
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Frank1985

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Yes Jack I will look into creating longer sleep tracks. The reason I’ve kept them short is that people often play them via playlists, particularly those that are part of a series. But I see the logic in rendering 8 hours...

GD, upload frequency is about the same as most competitors...once or twice a week. Stock music would increase workflow but it brings no joy to me to create something that isn’t mine. I understand the advantages in terms of efficiency, but I also I don’t want to be struck by yt’s reused content policy, which can result in demonetisation.

I think there was a time when the videos promoted themselves, but now I do indeed need to ‘get with the times’ and be more proactive in getting my name out there.

Is it even legal to buy views? I have noticed another channel doing that, as well as purchasing likes and comments. My view is that the algo will eventually pick up on this and punish that channel. Is it worth the risk?

How the YT algo works can't interpreted on a human level. It is alien, and doesn't make sense to a human. I don't think the YT engineers can even fully understand how it works.

But...what is your upload frequency compared to your competition? Also, if what they are doing works, have you tried replicating them? So if they upload more frequently, then upload more frequently (if possible). And if they use stock music, use stock music. It may be that the TY algo 'trusts' the stock music more because it can't properly determine if your music is original or has copyright issues? In any case, using stock music will speed up your workflow.

Are you promoting your channel on social media? It could be that your competition is promoting like crazy? And also, it's also possible that your competition is buying views.

Your sub count and revenue means your channel is far from dead.
 

Graphic Designer

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Is it even legal to buy views? I have noticed another channel doing that, as well as purchasing likes and comments. My view is that the algo will eventually pick up on this and punish that channel. Is it worth the risk?
Absolutely not. If you value your channel, then don't do anything that can get it terminated.
 

tubefluence

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Can I bounce back from such a dramatic fall, or am I wasting my time? Is anyone else going through this - not struggling to get off the ground, but stumbling after an initial period of massive growth?
You certainly can bounce back and you are not wasting your time. I worked on 20 channels last year and many of them were what people might consider "dead" etc. On almost all 20, the issues were video topic selection, video search engine optimization (SEO), and thumbnails. Along with this, as @Jack Decker touched on above, audience interests change all the time, and what worked for you during your initial success might not work now.
I feel that starting a new channel would be even more difficult considering the nature of the new YT algo.
I wouldn't recommend this given your current situation. You're already in a demotivated state due to the performance of your channel- imagine how you'd feel if you had to start from 0!
Is it even legal to buy views? I have noticed another channel doing that, as well as purchasing likes and comments. My view is that the algo will eventually pick up on this and punish that channel. Is it worth the risk?
You can run an AdWords campaign through Google and get views this way, but I wouldn't recommend it for your situation. You just need to follow best practices and focus on creating new content.
 
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voteforthegirls

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You can run an AdWords campaign through Google and get views this way, but I wouldn't recommend it for your situation. You just need to follow best practices and focus on creating new content.
At this point, that could be a good idea. I’ve tried it and got mixed results in 2013-14.
 

Frank1985

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Would it be wise to hide my subscriber count until my views pick up again?

Because surely it doesn’t look good that out of 280k people, only 1000 are watching within the first week, after which the numbers begin to tail off at around 1.6k. People new to the channel will wonder why the lack of interest?Meanwhile the competition uploads a basic white noise track that takes 2 minutes to create and gets a quarter million views in the first week. It’s a kick in the balls but I’m not ready to give up yet.
 

Usman Ghani

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Because Everything in Life Requires Hardwork and So Youtube Also Require Hardwork. If You Want Success Make New Changes in Videos.