Hey guys! New member here.
So I started YouTube this year and am currently sitting at 774 subs off of 10 videos (I started as a gaming channel and then pivoted to coding/startup content). The algorithm hasn’t really picked up any of my videos, and most of the views are actually from me sharing the videos on subreddits and FB groups (After uploading, I’ll find and share the video to a dozen or so communities if I think the video is good).
I noticed that everyone is talking about riding the algorithm to grow your channel, as opposed to actually trying to reach out to your target audience yourself. I guess this isn’t surprising since it’s unlikely that your own efforts can ever give you the boost that the YouTube gods can. But this leads me to two big questions:
#1: Will sharing your own videos have a negative effect on the algorithm, if the communities you share it in are less engaged than your YouTube subscribers? E.g. if the average watch time for the first 48 hours is reduced because of the external viewers, will that have a negative effect even though it resulted in a lot more views?
#2: A more subjective question, but is mindset of waiting for YouTube to funnel in viewers self-defeating? Since you aren’t doing the research to find relevant communities and looking at the kind of content that your target audience regularly consumes.
I’m very curious to hear what more experienced YouTubers have to say on this subject. I’d also like to do a bit of experimenting. If you want to drop a link of a video you’d like me to help promote, I’ll go and find a few promising communities that you could share it in. I’m very interested in seeing how this changes your video analytics compared to the videos you didn’t promote, both in the short-term (external viewers watching the video) and long-term (effect on the algorithm). A bunch of YouTubers on Reddit appreciated my effort (and I discovered a few video genres I've never seen before lol), so I figured I would try helping out fellow YouTubers on YTtalk as well!
I think it would be really interesting if you guys could post screenshots of your video analytics before/after sharing a video to several communities! Though if you prefer, I can also help you research communities via DM here or Twitter (@_juicedev).
So I started YouTube this year and am currently sitting at 774 subs off of 10 videos (I started as a gaming channel and then pivoted to coding/startup content). The algorithm hasn’t really picked up any of my videos, and most of the views are actually from me sharing the videos on subreddits and FB groups (After uploading, I’ll find and share the video to a dozen or so communities if I think the video is good).
I noticed that everyone is talking about riding the algorithm to grow your channel, as opposed to actually trying to reach out to your target audience yourself. I guess this isn’t surprising since it’s unlikely that your own efforts can ever give you the boost that the YouTube gods can. But this leads me to two big questions:
#1: Will sharing your own videos have a negative effect on the algorithm, if the communities you share it in are less engaged than your YouTube subscribers? E.g. if the average watch time for the first 48 hours is reduced because of the external viewers, will that have a negative effect even though it resulted in a lot more views?
#2: A more subjective question, but is mindset of waiting for YouTube to funnel in viewers self-defeating? Since you aren’t doing the research to find relevant communities and looking at the kind of content that your target audience regularly consumes.
I’m very curious to hear what more experienced YouTubers have to say on this subject. I’d also like to do a bit of experimenting. If you want to drop a link of a video you’d like me to help promote, I’ll go and find a few promising communities that you could share it in. I’m very interested in seeing how this changes your video analytics compared to the videos you didn’t promote, both in the short-term (external viewers watching the video) and long-term (effect on the algorithm). A bunch of YouTubers on Reddit appreciated my effort (and I discovered a few video genres I've never seen before lol), so I figured I would try helping out fellow YouTubers on YTtalk as well!
I think it would be really interesting if you guys could post screenshots of your video analytics before/after sharing a video to several communities! Though if you prefer, I can also help you research communities via DM here or Twitter (@_juicedev).