Promoting videos vs video quantity?

[Henrypiano6888]

Hey fellow YTTalkers, so I've been discussing some video ideas with one of my IRL friends and me and him discussed about promotion vs. constant videos on a consistent schedule. In my opinion I think the main drive of views and getting audience is content and promotion, quality over quantity. (Promotion being about 70-75%, along with good content to get good reviews and comments, then 25-30% being active and constantly providing new content.) However, he seems to tell me that it's staying active (I agree with this point) and making videos constantly regardless of the amount of views or people that watch it (I disagree right here).

I disagree because I have experienced that quantity and just churning out videos didn't get me anywhere, plus I was very active during the entire 200+ videos or so. In fact, I regret wasting so much time and effort to do that and with almost no returns. This was back in about 2009 or something, where I once had a gaming channel and I did an ENTIRE Let's Play of a semi-popular game, and that turned out disastrous. (Just stating this for the record.)

Now, what he said "may" work if the video was early 2007-2008 before YouTube became saturated with many new YouTubers and multitudes more of content, but sadly, after 2011, being heard is exponentially more difficult unless you already have a foothold (a noticable following and a reputation). Back in the days, I remember that people didn't have to try very hard, promote in many different places, and had a few friends, then they easily rack up hundreds, if not thousands of hits with minimal effort. Nowadays, it is just difficult unless you already have a following, are already established elsewhere, have lots of friends and people helping IRL/outside of YouTube.

I understand the idea of keeping your current audience and then growing there, which is
very important as well, but I also strongly believe in growing the numbers with fresh audience.

So what are your thoughts about this? Is promotion more important than just churning out good videos?

 

[Shewquet]

this is a hard questions because most stuff i see on yt the quaility is web cam and looks bad and not even edited and hey have like 24k subs and lots of views and get paid out the you now what. i am in the same boat as youi think quaility videos should get lots of views but promoting your videos is a good thing as well thats one way of getting your video and channel out there. so keep doing both.

 

[Zero Man]

You have to make content if you want to be discovered. Making a multitude of diverse videos will allow you to have more chances of being discovered by different types of people around the internet. Let's say you make one really detailed video about a movie or something, like Iron Man or something. Sure, Iron Man fans will like it, but what about the people that don't like Iron Man? You need to keep making content you're satisfied with, content you believe that others will want to watch, and sooner or later your subscriber base will grow.

 

[Henrypiano6888]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I will think of some other kinds of content to put out there in addition to just piano covers on various music. In fact, I was thinking along the lines of making a series related to the piano, but more instructional based. (Yeah there are already videos of people giving tutorials and video lessons, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to have my own knowledge/approach of the same topic.. Who knows, maybe some people might like different tutorials. )

Therefore, I think I'll branch out and expand a little bit, in addition to my promotion and spreading the word on other Internet mediums out there. Though since this is a piano related channel, if I do make other content, I don't want it to be 50% of the channel itself, but rather maybe no more than 10% or so, since my main focus is still the piano.