How to be the next Ryan Toys Review?

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WilliamRayWalters

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Thank you for your suggestion. I will look up gateway video and make one
Really, a gateway video (the way I've seen that term used) is simply a video with great content that gets a ton of exposure compared to some of your other videos, which in turn leads people to look at other videos on your channel. The only way to set out to make one is to do what I tell all aspiring Youtubers to do, and that is to concentrate on coming up with compelling video content. A great idea goes a long way. Focus on coming up with great ideas for videos.
 

TalkFandomToMe

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Really, a gateway video (the way I've seen that term used) is simply a video with great content that gets a ton of exposure compared to some of your other videos, which in turn leads people to look at other videos on your channel. The only way to set out to make one is to do what I tell all aspiring Youtubers to do, and that is to concentrate on coming up with compelling video content. A great idea goes a long way. Focus on coming up with great ideas for videos.
Yeah, I definitely have a gateway video. It has over 230k video views so far in a month, so gateway videos definitely help you out with growing your channel and so on. But thumbnails and titles help too.
 

Uncivilized Elk

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Ditto on the gateway videos. I primarily enjoy and want to do reviews, but theorizing-type videos tend to gain far more attention, which do help push traffic toward my review videos. If I purely wanted $, it would probably be wise to drop doing reviews altogether but I like to do them so I will continue to (also review videos tend to do a better job at building a dedicated following/community, which I find more important and fun than simply the view number).
 

toywithtoys

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The only way to set out to make one is to do what I tell all aspiring Youtubers to do, and that is to concentrate on coming up with compelling video content.
To us all the videos that we've made are gateway because they hold such sentimental value.
 

toywithtoys

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That's not what gateway video means.
To someone the meaning of gateway video could be a semi viral video, but to us all the videos that we've made are gateway because they are so sentimental and virulent.
 

Fun with Sarah

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Ryan Toys Review posted here on YTTalk a while back that they had a video suggested as a related video to a very popular one on another channel and that gave them a major boost and as others have mentioned became their first big gateway video. It seemed to take them by surprise and their views and subs just skyrocketed from there. They were even worried at the time that their surge might not last if they lost their position in the suggested videos list.

We had a small taste of this when one of our videos received 200+ views in one day and before that we had only received 10 or so at most on that video. When we looked at analytics we saw the views were from being suggested next to a newly uploaded video on a very big channel. We were excited but after a day or 2 our video dropped too low and was crowded out by much larger channels. It gave us a small taste of how powerful the suggested videos feature can be. If we were able to remain in that list and even rise higher in it we would potentially have had a gateway video to build on.

Unfortunately for us, the video we were suggested alongside was a toy character skit with Elsa and Anna from Frozen and our video was for Glitzy Globes so not really related at all. The only keywords that matched in our title and description were "ferris wheel" and I think we mentioned one of the Frozen characters because we had opened a surprise egg in the video with one of them. If our video was suggested alongside a well matched video we could have had better success.

Oh well... better luck next time. :biggrin:
 

Uncivilized Elk

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What tends to happen if you get good amount of watch time from the suggested videos source, is that YT will also start to feature your video on the YT homepage (I assume in the suggested tab on the homepage itself rather than from suggested videos on another video's side-bar).

Getting latched onto a popular video often ends up being a double whammy, because you get promoted by YT in two ways rather than one.

It can increase growth at a ludicrous rate if you want to capitalize it, because if your video gets a few dozen thousand views in this manner, it will often splash some views over into your other videos, perhaps even your very next video, which could then itself get snagged onto the homepage by YT's promoting algorithms.


Of course if you make varied content or don't want to try to purposefully coast off your popular video at the moment, the momentum can come back down to a halt. If you're into YT for the $ you wanna do everything you can to get as much traction going as possible. If you do YT mostly for fun, you can just look at such events as pleasant surprises and keep doing what you always do.
 

Fun with Sarah

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Of course if you make varied content or don't want to try to purposefully coast off your popular video at the moment, the momentum can come back down to a halt. If you're into YT for the $ you wanna do everything you can to get as much traction going as possible. If you do YT mostly for fun, you can just look at such events as pleasant surprises and keep doing what you always do.
Good advice thanks, but what would you say is the best way to get the most traction from something like this? On another channel of mine, 2 of my most popular videos receive most of their views through being suggested in this way (for several months so looks stable... never more than a few hundred views per day each though) but I've never known how to use this to boost growth other than hoping viewers will subscribe and explore my channel. Are "subscribe" annotations still effective or are they seen as an annoyance these days? Have you ever used cards to suggest videos or playlists? Not sure if viewers actually use these... I've never used them to navigate on anyone's channel so don't know how effective they are. Might just be me though...

I guess an end card with more video choices could be very effective but can only be inserted before uploading. I can see that as being a very good way to prepare each video in case it ever becomes popular (to lead people to more content on your channel). What do you think is best or are there methods you use that I haven't thought of?
 
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