Organic views with no promo

[Ocean Chan]

Hey everyone,
Has anyone ever experimented with uploading a video and doing absolutely zero promo on it (no social media, no email lists, not even texting your friends to watch your video) to see how many organic views it would get?

Would be interesting to see what views you would get compared to with promo.

All my videos are uploaded in advance for scheduled release. I had a few hectic days at work and a video upload occurred in which i did nothing on it for 24 hrs. One average my vids get 100 views after the first day but this latest one only got around 50

 

[Wreckless Eating]

We've been around long enough where there would be no difference. During the seven plus years that we've been around, we've trained our audience when to expect videos, so they'll watch them even if we don't blast them out on social media the most social media has been responsible for is around 3000 views out of a few million in a given month so while social media is a useful tool, it's a rather overrated one

 

[Dutchie Abroad]

so while social media is a useful tool, it's a rather overrated one

Well, for small channels it is definitely important to use social media. I only use FB, but it generates the most views for me. I publish sceduled, because I have to work a lot, so my last video came out when I was working. It got 3 views in an hours xD Then I shared it and the views shot up to like 30 in under 2 hours. But this also may be because of my audience, which consist mostly of friends and family.

 

[EVO]

Hey everyone,
Has anyone ever experimented with uploading a video and doing absolutely zero promo on it (no social media, no email lists, not even texting your friends to watch your video) to see how many organic views it would get?

This is all I have ever done.

 

[KatyAdelson]

I've never promoted my stuff to my friends and family, either. I told my parents about my channel a few weeks in, but that's pretty much it. A few people I know have discovered it over time, which always makes for an awkward conversation lol. I don't know how complete strangers initially found my videos when they were sitting on the last pages of search results, but they somehow did! YouTube is kind of magical.

 

[Crown]

In the short term, it will result in slightly fewer views than if you promote like mad. Those fewer views will however be considered "better quality" because typically they will have better audience retention. Consequently, in the longer term (the time it takes the algorithm to gather enough of a sample), the daily views on those videos will increase over time.

The problem is that most new Youtubers are too impatient and just blast their videos all over the place. That results in very low retention and that results in very little chance of climbing the search results and/or getting suggested.

 

[hayleyharp]

I think it depends on how many of your subscribers have followed you to other platforms or have come to your channel from other platforms. Your organic views, especially if you're a small channel, will mostly come from people who either have you on notifs or see your videos in their sub box. But I know I follow a lot of people (and even subscribe to them) and only see their videos when they tweet them, so I think it's worth it to keep posting updates about new videos on places like twitter, tumblr, facebook, etc. so all of your audience is sure to see them! If you're looking for an organic audience who will keep up with you without promo though, then I'd suggest consistent upload times so everyone knows when you're going to upload and will get used to checking at that time and also encouraging your audience to turn notifications on for your channel. If you're just posting videos at random (lol @ me) then your organic views probably won't be very impressive tbh unless you have a large audience.

 

[Gaijillionaire]

I did for one. I only did it because the search numbers were high and videos relating were low. Still got 6k views after a few weeks.

 

[TheDutchTexan]

I've done it, and the funny thing was that with or without promo's it roughly does the same, a little edge on the promo naturally, more exposure is more exposure. If it is something people are watching it gets views, if not it doesn't.

 

[Idec Sdawkminn]

I used to visit many related Facebook and Google+ groups and post my videos whenever I uploaded. I've posted several on Reddit as well. Now all I do is the automatic Twitter post that happens as a result of me linking the accounts.

Out of all my lifetime views, 0.8% came from External. Of that 0.8%, 46.6% came from Google search, 5.2% from Facebook, 1.3% from Reddit, 0.4% from Google+, and 0.1% from Twitter.