This right here is my most successful video on my channel at the moment:
[link removed]
Here's a screenshot of that video's analytics: https://i.postimg.cc/PrbX5FDc/1.png
As you can see, the grey area of the analytics (which represents the average view range for videos on the channel) is barely visible! This video's performance has left the rest of the channel completely in the dust! Not only that, but this is hands-down the biggest source of watch time on the channel (that video singlehandedly provides about half the channel's total watch time) as well as the largest source of incoming subscribers.
So I figured "Ok, the best way to get views and subs is to create highly thorough, highly extensive, and highly in-depth retrospectives of entire games. That's how KingK got over 100,000 subscribers, so he must be doing something right."
This lead me to my second attempt to enter that niche: My Fallout 4 retrospective.
[link removed]
Well, here's the analytics for that video:
Well, that's not as much of a runaway success as the Skyrim retrospective. The gray area in this video's analytics page is still clearly visible. But this video's performance is still clearly above the channel average. I suppose they can't all be home runs. This was a solid three-base hit. So that seemed to confirm my theory.
Only one problem: Making such extensive videos takes a long time. I can't keep cranking out multi-hour-long retrospectives and still meet the recommended average of one video per week. What to do?
Well, in the weeks leading up to my Fallout 4 retrospective, I would make shorter videos that took less time to make, as filler. So two weeks before the Fallout 4 Retrospective was complete, I released this video:
[link removed]
One week before the Fallout 4 Retrospective, I released this video, which was literally less than 10 minutes:
[link removed]
That first filler video - "Top 4 Easiest Ways to Become OP In Skyrim" - is the subject of today's thread. As I mentioned earlier, this wasn't meant to be a channel-booster. It was meant to simply be a "video of the week," the sort of upload I make just to fulfill my weekly upload quota.
And yet, in the past couple of months, I have noticed it consistently appearing in my realtime analytics, often jockying between 1st and 2nd place with the Skyrim Retrospective. Sometimes, it even surpasses the Skyrim Retrospective in terms of number of views in the past 48 hours: https://i.postimg.cc/P52dmp2Q/3A.png
This is the video's current analytics: https://i.postimg.cc/25tmtppq/3B.png
As you can see, this video started out getting the same number of views as most of my other videos. This was consistent with the video's intended purpose of just being my "video for the week." However, at around the 115th day, it actually surpassed the channel average in terms of views, and at around the 225th day, it really started to take off, joining the ranks of the Skyrim Retrospective and Fallout 4 Retrospective in terms of views per day! Since it's a much shorter video, it will never compete with those videos in terms of watch time, but it's managing to keep up with those two juggernauts in terms of views!
The bulk of these views come from search results. In fact, as of the time of this writing, 96.7% of the views in the past 48 hours were from youtube searches ... https://i.postimg.cc/CKwH21T1/3D.png ... and 72.9% of the video's lifetime views came from youtube searches ... https://i.postimg.cc/7YTVGdnx/3C.png
The phrase "skyrim op build" is listed at the top of the "youtube searches" data, meaning that this is the term people were searching for that got this video the most views.
So even though it was only intended as a filler video, about four months after it was published, lots of people apparently decided they were in the mood for guides on how to make their Skyrim character OP. Who'd a thunk?! Even though it was only intended to fill quota, it was a perfect fit for the sudden surge of youtube searches that people were about to start doing, even though I had no way of knowing at the time that this search term was about to suddenly come back into fashion!
So what's the trick I learned by accident to get more views? The trick is to ... just throw s**t at the wall! Even if it doesn't get very many views at first, you have no way of knowing when there will suddenly be a demand in the future for search results that your video ends up being a perfect match for!
So what do you guys think? Is this a valid strategy to getting big on youtube?
[link removed]
Here's a screenshot of that video's analytics: https://i.postimg.cc/PrbX5FDc/1.png
As you can see, the grey area of the analytics (which represents the average view range for videos on the channel) is barely visible! This video's performance has left the rest of the channel completely in the dust! Not only that, but this is hands-down the biggest source of watch time on the channel (that video singlehandedly provides about half the channel's total watch time) as well as the largest source of incoming subscribers.
So I figured "Ok, the best way to get views and subs is to create highly thorough, highly extensive, and highly in-depth retrospectives of entire games. That's how KingK got over 100,000 subscribers, so he must be doing something right."
This lead me to my second attempt to enter that niche: My Fallout 4 retrospective.
[link removed]
Well, here's the analytics for that video:
Well, that's not as much of a runaway success as the Skyrim retrospective. The gray area in this video's analytics page is still clearly visible. But this video's performance is still clearly above the channel average. I suppose they can't all be home runs. This was a solid three-base hit. So that seemed to confirm my theory.
Only one problem: Making such extensive videos takes a long time. I can't keep cranking out multi-hour-long retrospectives and still meet the recommended average of one video per week. What to do?
Well, in the weeks leading up to my Fallout 4 retrospective, I would make shorter videos that took less time to make, as filler. So two weeks before the Fallout 4 Retrospective was complete, I released this video:
[link removed]
One week before the Fallout 4 Retrospective, I released this video, which was literally less than 10 minutes:
[link removed]
That first filler video - "Top 4 Easiest Ways to Become OP In Skyrim" - is the subject of today's thread. As I mentioned earlier, this wasn't meant to be a channel-booster. It was meant to simply be a "video of the week," the sort of upload I make just to fulfill my weekly upload quota.
And yet, in the past couple of months, I have noticed it consistently appearing in my realtime analytics, often jockying between 1st and 2nd place with the Skyrim Retrospective. Sometimes, it even surpasses the Skyrim Retrospective in terms of number of views in the past 48 hours: https://i.postimg.cc/P52dmp2Q/3A.png
This is the video's current analytics: https://i.postimg.cc/25tmtppq/3B.png
As you can see, this video started out getting the same number of views as most of my other videos. This was consistent with the video's intended purpose of just being my "video for the week." However, at around the 115th day, it actually surpassed the channel average in terms of views, and at around the 225th day, it really started to take off, joining the ranks of the Skyrim Retrospective and Fallout 4 Retrospective in terms of views per day! Since it's a much shorter video, it will never compete with those videos in terms of watch time, but it's managing to keep up with those two juggernauts in terms of views!
The bulk of these views come from search results. In fact, as of the time of this writing, 96.7% of the views in the past 48 hours were from youtube searches ... https://i.postimg.cc/CKwH21T1/3D.png ... and 72.9% of the video's lifetime views came from youtube searches ... https://i.postimg.cc/7YTVGdnx/3C.png
The phrase "skyrim op build" is listed at the top of the "youtube searches" data, meaning that this is the term people were searching for that got this video the most views.
So even though it was only intended as a filler video, about four months after it was published, lots of people apparently decided they were in the mood for guides on how to make their Skyrim character OP. Who'd a thunk?! Even though it was only intended to fill quota, it was a perfect fit for the sudden surge of youtube searches that people were about to start doing, even though I had no way of knowing at the time that this search term was about to suddenly come back into fashion!
So what's the trick I learned by accident to get more views? The trick is to ... just throw s**t at the wall! Even if it doesn't get very many views at first, you have no way of knowing when there will suddenly be a demand in the future for search results that your video ends up being a perfect match for!
So what do you guys think? Is this a valid strategy to getting big on youtube?
Last edited by a moderator:
