How I grew 5K subs & 500K views in 3 months with my 1st channel

GameVestment

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Every channel is different so I'm just going to share my experience and what I did and hopefully it will help you... just remember there are no "secrets" or "shortcuts" you need passion, a good idea and luck

I don't have an amazing growth, but I think is pretty decent for a "new" Gaming Channel!

Consistency:
There's no point of explaining this since you already now about this one. I try to upload every 2 days since I started my channel. I will say that the limit is to upload once per week but you'll probably have a slow growth.

Name, Banner & Thumbnails:
Your channel is your house so you wanna keep it clean and you want people to be impressed. I decided to go for a more Minimalistic approach as a Gaming Channel (and because I don't know how to do a banner so I just copied my intro there and added stuff)
For the name, I chose something it didn't exist on YT or Google, now if you search my name I should be the first result or the only one.
For the thumbnails I also went for something easy to do, something minimalistic that fits in YouTube standards. Thumbnails are extremely important to grow your channel. Some people don't play this game but they watch the video only because of the thumbnail and title
"I'm not an expert in design, I don't even know how to draw a proper stick figure" I learned everything I know just by watching other YouTube Videos.

Quality Content and Entertainment:
I have a boring voice, I'm a terrible actor but still some people subscribed only because I was "funny" I honestly think I'm cringey but whatever. If you are not charming like me, you don't speak English perfectly like me (I don't know how people understand me sometimes) and you are not funny. Add easy animations to your videos or add Images/Memes or anything funny. Some people subscribed and kept watching my videos only because of that.
Quality content I mean the "Standard" on youtube 1080p 60fps or just 1080p. NEVER record in portrait mode and look for good lightning, you can find cheap ones on amazon. Secret term is "Softbox" you need 2 of those if you appear on camera which I don't. Yeah! I'm a gaming channel that doesn't show his face and that voiceovers the gameplays instead of doing them live most of the time!

Content People Want to Watch:
This is how I've been keep growing. People DON'T care about gameplays and they probably don't care about your life unless you are really attractive, editing is done perfectly or you are charming, natural and interesting. People care about HOW TO do SOMETHING in a game or in real life, those two words had given me a lot of subscribers and views. Teach them something they didn't know and they will probably subscribe.

Niche is the Key
Yes,, a gaming channel is oversaturated but not every game. I found a perfect new popular game and I made sure there wasn't a lot of competition before I started my channel. By competition I mean there were and there still are like 3-4 big YouTubers that people usually recognise and they weren't that big before I started the channel, only 1 of them had 100k+ subs. Imagine if I started a Clash Royale channel with all those old and huge channels.. it's possible to grow but it will be extremely difficult and it will take a lot of time. Find something new, like ASMR or anything like that, try to find what's trending on YouTube.

Engage With Your Audience
I've seen channels smaller than mine and bigger than mine with the same amount of comments and they NEVER reply to them. I don't understand why... if you have a smartphone + internet + youtube creator app it's easy to reply to every comment. I try to reply all of them and that's how I started gaining a small fanbase and the "Early Squad" + loyal subscribers.

One of my Videos Hit 300K views
I showed people a bug in a game so they could report it to developers and get it fixed (this bug was in the game during probably one month and after my video got some views they decided to fix it finally)
Now, you need to be very CAREFUL if you are going to play with TABOO stuff on YT, you need to be clear of what you want to do and why you are doing it,,, you don't want an angry Internet mob on your channel.

1. Did people get mad for showing you exploiting a bug?
Yeah some of them got mad but I got 8K likes proving that majority understood my POV, against 1K dislikes

2. Did the video affect your reputation?
Not at all, I receive a lot of love in all my videos, you can read the comments and you can't judge a channel with 45 typical videos and like 2 or 3 bugs. Plus I have other videos with 92K views, 89K views, 39K views and 19K views which aren't bugs related.

3. Will you do it again?
I'm not sure, let me explain...
It helped me get to 1K subs which is cool but also a lot of people subscribed only for that video. You can't control that once your video hits a lot of views. Problem with this is that you don't want to become a channel with a lot of subscribers but with LOW AMOUNT of views so I will think it twice before doing it again. I like a constant steady growth like the one I'm having right now.

What does 5000 subs mean?
Absolutely NOTHING, it's great to have them but if you compare it to successful channels is really low for today standards. I'll do my best to keep growing but even if I follow my tips I don't know if I'm going to keep growing at a steady pace. Last week I was earning 150-200 subs per day now I'm only earning 20-50 per day which is not bad but it can be better.

Why I'm gaining less subs?

Well, that's the thing about YouTube... you need to be constant in creating content that people want to watch, last week I uploaded some great videos with 50K+ views so that's why right now my channel is going back to grow normally. I'll try my best to hit the views jackpot again if it's possible which is really difficult to do, because bigger channels watch your content, they copy it and they eat your views but hey.... don't be sad and think about something they can't duplicate!!

Hope it helps!!
Again, this is only my experience, I know every channel is different and even if you had the same content as me... rules will not apply. There are no rules on YT, except being consistent and build an audience/fanbase to help you keep growing. Also, credits to Lil Animator, he gave me the idea to create this thread!
 

GameVestment

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Thank you for that post. My two cents: As a minor piece of advice from a complete YouTube beginner... You can easily uncover new trends by using the Popular on Search function in Google.
Thank you so much!
You are totally right and that's actually an amazing tip I've been reading about but I always forget to search or use. I'll try to take it into account with my newer videos and see if it makes any difference. not sure if it can work with my channel but can surely help other people so thanks so much for sharing
 
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Ezrider92356

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"Content People Want to Watch:
This is how I've been keep growing. People DON'T care about gameplays and they probably don't care about your life unless you are really attractive, editing is done perfectly or you are charming, natural and interesting. People care about HOW TO do SOMETHING in a game or in real life, those two words had given me a lot of subscribers and views. Teach them something they didn't know and they will probably subscribe."


I think this is a big thing a lot of people miss, your content no matter what the niche needs to have some kind of value.
 

ASMR Zelda

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ASMR is already saturated too. But I also found a niche within the niche. I make ASMR True Crime videos and I’m at nearly 600 subscribers in less than 2 months. 400 of those subscribers in the past 12 days. I do think a niche is important to grow.
Some great tips there. Thanks for posting!
 
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Ezrider92356

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Thanks for the info, I know consistency is killing me, but there are only 24 hrs in the day!
I watched your over view video. very cool project. I think there are some improvements that would make a big difference in retention though. your intro to the video was good. then if you would have cut in a action shot of the car drifting right after you say "today were going to do a quick overview of my 1987 mazda rx7." then when you were explaining the suspension mods rather than just a stationary shot of the tires. you could have started there for 3-5 seconds, dropped the audio track down or could even do it in voice over and cut in some pan shots of what your describing. keep the visual constantly changing. when you were describing the engine build even cutting in some stationary pictures say 2-3 seconds at a time from the engine build. so you can keep triggering the viewers brain......oh something new oh something new.

I know this was unsolicited advice but I think your car is awesome.

really not trying to put you down. I made the very same mistakes when I did my overview video on my engine swapped jaguar project. and these were observations iv made threw my learning process.
 
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the_drifting_dad

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I watched your over view video. very cool project. I think there are some improvements that would make a big difference in retention though. your intro to the video was good. then if you would have cut in a action shot of the car drifting right after you say "today were going to do a quick overview of my 1987 mazda rx7." then when you were explaining the suspension mods rather than just a stationary shot of the tires. you could have started there for 3-5 seconds, dropped the audio track down or could even do it in voice over and cut in some pan shots of what your describing. keep the visual constantly changing. when you were describing the engine build even cutting in some stationary pictures say 2-3 seconds at a time from the engine build. so you can keep triggering the viewers brain......oh something new oh something new.

I know this was unsolicited advice but I think your car is awesome.

really not trying to put you down. I made the very same mistakes when I did my overview video on my engine swapped jaguar project. and these were observations iv made threw my learning process.
Thank you so much for the comments! I appreciate any and all comments about my work. I really like those ideas and will definitely incorporate them into my next videos. I know I need to get to that next level of editing on my videos
 

Ezrider92356

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Thank you so much for the comments! I appreciate any and all comments about my work. I really like those ideas and will definitely incorporate them into my next videos. I know I need to get to that next level of editing on my videos
your further along with your editing than I was on my first few video's, im not very computer savy though so sometimes it takes me a while to figure out how to implement my idea's I think your do well.
 
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