Setting up to launch a adword campaign - and consulting?

[FamilyToyReview]

Very well said and summarised, and spoken with experience. They've turned off my ads anyway this morning, the Visa card is maxed out and auto-payment failed. Take a few days to clear up. Let's see what happens traffic wise the next few days.

Your comment above is what i wanted to ask about - you do agree that a targeted campaign can build new associations quicker than letting things run their course. Of course I'm assuming playlist strategies, seo, etc would be redirected to build new associations in addition to adwords. My understanding of how "the whole thing" works now is it's focussed on viewer behaviour, the more you can guide and influence that behaviour, the more association you can build between you and another channel. As you say a 1k channel building association with RTR is highly unlikely, but certainly a 1k can build that association with a growing 10k?[DOUBLEPOST=1500413449,1500413236][/DOUBLEPOST]


Recently, as in the last few month, I have noticed a distinct difference. Videos die much quicker. Before our backlog got a good trickle of several hundred an hour, now it's 0 to 100 an hour, mostly 0 to 10/hour. It seems the focus in on explosive growth (that 3 week channel in colors vertical that got 40M views on a playground video identical to thousands of playground nursery rhyme videos). It's much much more spikey now, and the drops are drastic and fast. Backlog, unless it's very strong/trendy, is dead much more quickly. It seems higher upload frequency with higher quality is required, in order to have a higher chance of hitting the AI sweet spot.

Hahaha about the options - my previous "hobby". Out of the money expiry is perfect when writing calls! Makes me think of the good 'ol trading days, perhaps get that Ameritrade account opened again!

Man there is so much variety in this youtube thing. I have noticed the die off and i wasnt sure if this was a youtube or normal thing cuz my channel was spitting out so many new vids.
What is the name of that color channel? Id like to check them out, im planning on doing one of those channels soon. The ones with colorful toys and white background.
Thumbnails are so crucial. I end up doing ab test sometimes after an hour or 2 of upload if i Think vid should be performin better. Sometimes it helps.
Man optioons trading was a learning curve for me. I quit when i think i figured out how it actually works. And i lost some money [DOUBLEPOST=1500416346][/DOUBLEPOST]

[QUOTE="KiddieToysReview, post: works now is it's focussed on viewer behaviour, the more you can guide and influence that behaviour, the more association you can build between you and another channel. As you say a 1k channel building association with RTR is highly unlikely, but certainly a 1k can build that association with a growing 10k?[DOUBLEPOST=1500413449,1500413236][/DOUBLEPOST]

So it is like we need to create artistic style subject and technique similar to the big channel to get the algorythm to associate as with large channel

Algorithm wont associate us with big channels for the most part. Too many of us too few of them.

 

[KTP]

After advocating use of adwords and finding some results with it. I now advocate against it because in the long run it probably delays more than it helps. In other words i think it hurts you more than it helps.
You can definitely grow with it and find some success. But it will be a very meager growth with high dollar cost. The time you spend trying to figure out and test adwords is better spent working on improving your channel. It can take over a month to do mutiple adword tests and figure things out. At same time i have an uneducated guess that it probably takes about 3 months of "doing things right" on your channel to have a very good growth rate.
I see plenty of channels who were smaller than me and are now bigger or are increasing at a fast rate and its because theyre producing videos on only 1 or 2 toys, uploading regularly, the toys they upload are very popular, the thumbnails are great, and im sure they do other good things too.
I think i was at around 13k subs in march and i started to focus on disney cars 3 because of the upcoming movie and the toy fits my channel audience. After a little over 3 months im about to hit 25k.
The problem with adwords is it masks your real value as a channel. Its like using cheat codes on a game, you can do better with cheat codes but your real skill or value as a player is still not that great. All it does is hide the fact that maybe your thumbnails are unclickable, or content is unwatchable, or there is no interest or demand in the video topic. Its harder to see and work on channel problems if you are inflating it with paid views. Because maybe these increased views look like success but really its not. And again all that time is better spent improving your channel. No matter how much views you will pay for, it will shy incomparison to the loads of views youtube will give you for free after some time spent making the right choices. Adwords views = ants and youtube suggested views = elephants.
With all that said, if you really know what youre doing and your channel is on a righteous path, then it wouldnt hurt to do adwords.

I do see your point - but I'm not sure how to build viewership without using ads. First, for my demographic (in my mind it is 1-4ish? year olds) I'm guessing that parent's behavior is key - because babies/young toddlers don't search. They may select what gets on the recommended side bar but ultimately it's probably the parents that look for videos. And I think parents search and pick whatever comes on top for terms like "video for toddlers" "video for babies" "educational video for babies", those terms. At least that is what I did. And those terms I'll never make it on top. So somehow I need to get our videos to be picked. Also for this age range, I'm not sure that the newest toy is what is important. I think the educational toys may be more popular - at least this is what I've seen in the channels that I aspire to. But I might be totally off, I don't know.

I want to improve on my channel in terms of content, quality etc etc. but at the moment I get no feedback. The lack of views may in and of itself be feedback but I don't know in what direction to change. From my study of other channels, video quality seems to improve after the channels gain popularity. I figured this is because once they get certain amount of success they decide to invest in better equipment. Mostly I find that there is better lighting and the background gets more simple once the channel gets popular. The views I get now are from people who want to build their channels - some do actually watch but mostly not. And i'm sure most of the people watching now are not my intended target audience.

I was speaking with another channel owner that is started a couple of months before us, and they felt that the quality of the videos don't matter but the frequency of upload does. I am unable to upload more than I am now, but after watching Derrels video, I have started to make playlists.

I wish I could be an apprentice for a channel - that would be nice![DOUBLEPOST=1500435760,1500435332][/DOUBLEPOST]

But I really advocate focusing on limited keyword topics so that with the repetition of the same keyword youtube will eventually brand you as that keyword.

I do really like this idea though. I think i will try this and focus on one genre of toys for a while. thanks for the idea.

 

[Pierce's Mom]

After advocating use of adwords and finding some results with it. I now advocate against it because in the long run it probably delays more than it helps. In other words i think it hurts you more than it helps.
You can definitely grow with it and find some success. But it will be a very meager growth with high dollar cost. The time you spend trying to figure out and test adwords is better spent working on improving your channel. It can take over a month to do mutiple adword tests and figure things out. At same time i have an uneducated guess that it probably takes about 3 months of "doing things right" on your channel to have a very good growth rate.
I see plenty of channels who were smaller than me and are now bigger or are increasing at a fast rate and its because theyre producing videos on only 1 or 2 toys, uploading regularly, the toys they upload are very popular, the thumbnails are great, and im sure they do other good things too.
I think i was at around 13k subs in march and i started to focus on disney cars 3 because of the upcoming movie and the toy fits my channel audience. After a little over 3 months im about to hit 25k.
The problem with adwords is it masks your real value as a channel. Its like using cheat codes on a game, you can do better with cheat codes but your real skill or value as a player is still not that great. All it does is hide the fact that maybe your thumbnails are unclickable, or content is unwatchable, or there is no interest or demand in the video topic. Its harder to see and work on channel problems if you are inflating it with paid views. Because maybe these increased views look like success but really its not. And again all that time is better spent improving your channel. No matter how much views you will pay for, it will shy incomparison to the loads of views youtube will give you for free after some time spent making the right choices. Adwords views = ants and youtube suggested views = elephants.
With all that said, if you really know what youre doing and your channel is on a righteous path, then it wouldnt hurt to do adwords.[DOUBLEPOST=1500410923,1500409557][/DOUBLEPOST]
Thats tough. I commend you guys for trying new things. You should do more research on where you videos show up in suggested. Because if you look at your homepage there are a bunch of happy meal channels in the related section. I dont know how accurate my assumption is, but i use that section to see what channel category youtube associates you with. So all your new topic videos might not be getting much traction in suggested if youtube still associating your channel with happy meal channels. It may take some time for your rebranding to take effect so theres goin to be a month or two ahead of trying to get associated with nonhappy meal videos. I guess in your case adwords would be beneficial.
But I really advocate focusing on limited keyword topics so that with the repetition of the same keyword youtube will eventually brand you as that keyword. So when i do fidget spinners or lava i am still having it disney cars 3 related so i have stronger prescence with any other cars 3 video. Smaller channels do not have the luxury of copying big channels like ryan toy review and expecting the same kind of success. Because any video they make will generate good views for only them and their established base. If you dig into ryan toy review channel further you will see they only started with limited toy topics too. Most of their early videos before they grew were thomas train and disney cars. If they did additinal keywrods like science project slime or giant eggs it was incombination with those repeating thomas or disney cars topics. And eventually they grew with transformers and paw patrol. So it probably hurts right now if youre doing too much variety of topics without a recurring theme/keyword. You have to make mutiple videos on one keywrod to get youtubes attention to associate your videos with that keyword in suggested. The goal is to show up in suggested.

Thanks so much for your very thorough review of my channel. Yes, I totally believe the algo/AI is confused as to what our channel is all about. I focused a lot on kids meal toys since my son liked it and also because they were fairly simple concept when it comes to showcasing and editing. I was somehow hoping that jumping on some band wagon of a trendy topic would give me a gateway video to then recreate more of it. Hence all the constant changing of what I thought to be trendy topics. KTR gave me very much needed insight to the failures of my channel. Though it seems that the videos are keyword optimized, thumbnails and video quality were decent and maybe even better than many kids channel, my vids weren't being found simply because my video topics were not trending... at least since I don't have channel authority. I then took on the advice of Kids Corner, who braved completely changing their channel into skits and now are flying exponentially fast, and I am trying to revamp my channel into anything that's popular right now. I run ads since though I have 5K+ subs, my views are down to the times when I had 1K subs... not being suggested as you know. Also considering I've confused the heck out of the algo/AI maybe the ads will assist it figuring out the direction I'm taking. I would consider keeping up with Happy Meal toys, but to be honest, those videos are on a down low as well. They were my best videos at some point and now, can't even get those onto suggested. So, I guess long story short, I'm taking in all the advice of my gurus (KTR, KC, and FTR) and trying to somehow heed their advice into a cohesive plan through sweat, tears, exhaustion, frustration...[DOUBLEPOST=1500438610][/DOUBLEPOST]

Im not really sure how quick. My guess was 3 months and im basing that off of a couple of things. One is deral eves? video where he says youtube analyzes your channel every 3 months or something. Where if you do well and grow for 90 days then you should get a bump. Also a disney cars channel keivon toys review told me he started focusing more on cars during a certain month. His channel had less subscribers than mine but after about 3 months his subscriber growth eclpised mine. Also it probably took me about 3 months of solid cars 3 before i started getting higher volume from other cars videos. And my related channel list changed. I think the true test of how long it takes youtube to analyze or asssociate channel would be from timing the changes in related channel list. I dont remember how long it took, but definitely longer than a month. Maybe 2-3 months. Thats with steady targeted uploads. Also i started before cars 3 was trending so maybe take longer than 3 months for smaller channels.
Im beginning to think that your base of subscribers is crucial in propelling your video with their viewing habits if they are interested in your video. So each topic is like a different demographic. Theres def a difference between older kids viewers and baby viewers. Which is why i think i would have to do those young kid learning stuff in another channel. I think those simple toy videos for babies have higher growth rate but would probably hurt my channel if i tried to do it.
Right now im trying to finesse my base to watch other keyword topics like paw patrol to earn some associations in paw patrol. right now i dont get views for paw patrol unless i combine with cars 3. Maybe after a couple months of paw patrol ill have associations with that.

My question is How do you get YT to associate your channel with certain keywords when people do skits on their channel for example? I suppose when I look at KC, I see that they did a lot of "Bad Baby" "Doc McStuffins" "steal goes to jail" is it a mixing of these combinations of words over a few months on several videos, how the people do it with skits?[DOUBLEPOST=1500438985][/DOUBLEPOST]

Very well said and summarised, and spoken with experience. They've turned off my ads anyway this morning, the Visa card is maxed out and auto-payment failed. Take a few days to clear up. Let's see what happens traffic wise the next few days.

Your comment above is what i wanted to ask about - you do agree that a targeted campaign can build new associations quicker than letting things run their course. Of course I'm assuming playlist strategies, seo, etc would be redirected to build new associations in addition to adwords. My understanding of how "the whole thing" works now is it's focussed on viewer behaviour, the more you can guide and influence that behaviour, the more association you can build between you and another channel. As you say a 1k channel building association with RTR is highly unlikely, but certainly a 1k can build that association with a growing 10k?[DOUBLEPOST=1500413449,1500413236][/DOUBLEPOST]


Recently, as in the last few month, I have noticed a distinct difference. Videos die much quicker. Before our backlog got a good trickle of several hundred an hour, now it's 0 to 100 an hour, mostly 0 to 10/hour. It seems the focus in on explosive growth (that 3 week channel in colors vertical that got 40M views on a playground video identical to thousands of playground nursery rhyme videos). It's much much more spikey now, and the drops are drastic and fast. Backlog, unless it's very strong/trendy, is dead much more quickly. It seems higher upload frequency with higher quality is required, in order to have a higher chance of hitting the AI sweet spot.

Hahaha about the options - my previous "hobby". Out of the money expiry is perfect when writing calls! Makes me think of the good 'ol trading days, perhaps get that Ameritrade account opened again!

ive noticed even my older successful videos are dying, too! Agh!!
The advice you gave me on trying new topics, to failing quickly, and moving on the next thing. Since I'm gathering that all my recent changes are confusing the AI, how do I know if I've given a new topic enough time to see if I need to move on? (Does my question make sense?). To rephrase, how do I know to differentiate whether 1. Ive give the AI enough time to try to understand the new concept I'm moving my channel or 2. That it's a fail and that I need to move onto the next concept.

 

[FamilyToyReview]

I do see your point - but I'm not sure how to build viewership without using ads. First, for my demographic (in my mind it is 1-4ish? year olds) I'm guessing that parent's behavior is key - because babies/young toddlers don't search. They may select what gets on the recommended side bar but ultimately it's probably the parents that look for videos. And I think parents search and pick whatever comes on top for terms like "video for toddlers" "video for babies" "educational video for babies", those terms. At least that is what I did. And those terms I'll never make it on top. So somehow I need to get our videos to be picked. Also for this age range, I'm not sure that the newest toy is what is important. I think the educational toys may be more popular - at least this is what I've seen in the channels that I aspire to. But I might be totally off, I don't know.

I want to improve on my channel in terms of content, quality etc etc. but at the moment I get no feedback. The lack of views may in and of itself be feedback but I don't know in what direction to change. From my study of other channels, video quality seems to improve after the channels gain popularity. I figured this is because once they get certain amount of success they decide to invest in better equipment. Mostly I find that there is better lighting and the background gets more simple once the channel gets popular. The views I get now are from people who want to build their channels - some do actually watch but mostly not. And i'm sure most of the people watching now are not my intended target audience.

I was speaking with another channel owner that is started a couple of months before us, and they felt that the quality of the videos don't matter but the frequency of upload does. I am unable to upload more than I am now, but after watching Derrels video, I have started to make playlists.

I wish I could be an apprentice for a channel - that would be nice![DOUBLEPOST=1500435760,1500435332][/DOUBLEPOST]

I do really like this idea though. I think i will try this and focus on one genre of toys for a while. thanks for the idea.

you should turn on the related channels list on your homepage. would be nice to know what channels youtube is associating you with. hopefully its with other baby learning channels. those kind of channels seem to do very well. i actually dont know how to grow without targeting pretrending keywords. personally when i try to get associated with a keyword like "toy cars for kids" i would dedicate as many videos as i can to that term, and i would include it at the beginning of the title, description and tags. same thing for "learning etc" you have quite a few learning keywords. but ive noticed that the first couple letters of the title seem to have the most important real estate. so all my videos have cars 3 or disney cars or dinotrux toys as the first couple words in the title. i dont put those keywords in the middle of the title because i suspect youtube adds more weight to just the first couple of words in the title. i think there are some videos or articles or posting about this. ive read about it and ive seen it when i look up videos. i think repetition helps.. frequently uploading a variety of different keyword combinations probably doesnt help as much as frequently uploading similar set of keywords. i wasn't a disney cars channel at the beginning of the year. but i think by now ive pounded it in to youtube to associate me with disney cars 3 content.[DOUBLEPOST=1500447639][/DOUBLEPOST]

I do see your point - but I'm not sure how to build viewership without using ads. First, for my demographic (in my mind it is 1-4ish? year olds) I'm guessing that parent's behavior is key - because babies/young toddlers don't search. They may select what gets on the recommended side bar but ultimately it's probably the parents that look for videos. And I think parents search and pick whatever comes on top for terms like "video for toddlers" "video for babies" "educational video for babies", those terms. At least that is what I did. And those terms I'll never make it on top. So somehow I need to get our videos to be picked. Also for this age range, I'm not sure that the newest toy is what is important. I think the educational toys may be more popular - at least this is what I've seen in the channels that I aspire to. But I might be totally off, I don't know.

I want to improve on my channel in terms of content, quality etc etc. but at the moment I get no feedback. The lack of views may in and of itself be feedback but I don't know in what direction to change. From my study of other channels, video quality seems to improve after the channels gain popularity. I figured this is because once they get certain amount of success they decide to invest in better equipment. Mostly I find that there is better lighting and the background gets more simple once the channel gets popular. The views I get now are from people who want to build their channels - some do actually watch but mostly not. And i'm sure most of the people watching now are not my intended target audience.

I was speaking with another channel owner that is started a couple of months before us, and they felt that the quality of the videos don't matter but the frequency of upload does. I am unable to upload more than I am now, but after watching Derrels video, I have started to make playlists.

I wish I could be an apprentice for a channel - that would be nice![DOUBLEPOST=1500435760,1500435332][/DOUBLEPOST]

I do really like this idea though. I think i will try this and focus on one genre of toys for a while. thanks for the idea.

its not necessarily about doing one toy.. more about repeating one keyword combination. most of the time that keyword for cahnnels like mine will be toy keyword so just doing one or two toys. but maybe for you instead of a single toy, it will be some combination of "learning" in the title. or you can focus on a toy/brand if you like. but its more about the keyword. so you can focus on "learning" if you want. i mention learning because i think ive seen a few similar channels to yours with learning in the title. and learning is too saturated so you want to expand with a larger keyword combination. thats why instead of focusing on disney cars, i expanded the keyword to disney cars 3. you should look at those other learning channels and see what keyword combinations they're corralling around. smaller yet successful channels are great to study.[DOUBLEPOST=1500451851][/DOUBLEPOST]

Thanks so much for your very thorough review of my channel. Yes, I totally believe the algo/AI is confused as to what our channel is all about. I focused a lot on kids meal toys since my son liked it and also because they were fairly simple concept when it comes to showcasing and editing. I was somehow hoping that jumping on some band wagon of a trendy topic would give me a gateway video to then recreate more of it. Hence all the constant changing of what I thought to be trendy topics. KTR gave me very much needed insight to the failures of my channel. Though it seems that the videos are keyword optimized, thumbnails and video quality were decent and maybe even better than many kids channel, my vids weren't being found simply because my video topics were not trending... at least since I don't have channel authority. I then took on the advice of Kids Corner, who braved completely changing their channel into skits and now are flying exponentially fast, and I am trying to revamp my channel into anything that's popular right now. I run ads since though I have 5K+ subs, my views are down to the times when I had 1K subs... not being suggested as you know. Also considering I've confused the heck out of the algo/AI maybe the ads will assist it figuring out the direction I'm taking. I would consider keeping up with Happy Meal toys, but to be honest, those videos are on a down low as well. They were my best videos at some point and now, can't even get those onto suggested. So, I guess long story short, I'm taking in all the advice of my gurus (KTR, KC, and FTR) and trying to somehow heed their advice into a cohesive plan through sweat, tears, exhaustion, frustration...[DOUBLEPOST=1500438610][/DOUBLEPOST]

My question is How do you get YT to associate your channel with certain keywords when people do skits on their channel for example? I suppose when I look at KC, I see that they did a lot of "Bad Baby" "Doc McStuffins" "steal goes to jail" is it a mixing of these combinations of words over a few months on several videos, how the people do it with skits?[DOUBLEPOST=1500438985][/DOUBLEPOST]


ive noticed even my older successful videos are dying, too! Agh!!
The advice you gave me on trying new topics, to failing quickly, and moving on the next thing. Since I'm gathering that all my recent changes are confusing the AI, how do I know if I've given a new topic enough time to see if I need to move on? (Does my question make sense?). To rephrase, how do I know to differentiate whether 1. Ive give the AI enough time to try to understand the new concept I'm moving my channel or 2. That it's a fail and that I need to move onto the next concept.

i think toy channels and family skit channels are not equal. so some of the things i described might not apply to what you're trying to do. i dont have much experience with family skit channels. also some of those videos other family skits are doing, you kind of want to do them early when they're starting to trend. i click on notification for channels i want to follow. helps to visit channels to get a pulse of what might be trending. you wont get same results if you're a late adopter.
maybe will help your channel if you do more frequent uploads. ryan toy review uploads everyday. toystosee uploads more frequently. frequent uploads seem to help.
its hard making videos. but you could try doing live stream. they're kind of easy because you're just talking. ive done quite a few livestreams. there is some prepartion involved, but they're so easy to film.
you're rebranding from a happy meal channel to family skit. i would avoid rebranding too much since need to give youtube time to keep up. also there's that crisis of faith when you're in your 2nd month and you dont see much progress. i definitely had doubts with my cars strategy during the 2nd or 3rd month when I didn't get much results. but it was easier to have faith because i know the cars brand is tremendous, i was an early adopter for cars 3, i know my audience and demographic of thomas trains and dinotrux is similar to disney cars audience. all the pieces were there and now its starting to produce some results. i woudnt have that same faith to carry me through if i did any other kind of rebranding. ive got a whole bunch of channels i created for different brands. for future rebranding you should probably invest in a new channel.
did you guys make any mcdonalds drive thru videos? that would have been a perfect transition. i see a couple when i search for "happy meal". some of them even say mcdonalds happy meal drive thru. woulda been one way to leverage your strength with a trending term. although its not really a new trend anymore. but if you're making these family skit videos, how can you not make a mcdonalds one!

 

[JackJack]

Great discussion!

We have a slightly different strategy in that we concentrate on an evergreen, but more generic vertical - toy trucks (construction, garbage, etc). The majority of our views come off of a list of 5-10 videos that consistently get the same views per hour. We've also noticed the quick dying off of new videos.... it's very frustrating!

An interesting phenomenon that we've noticed-and this is completely anecdotal-is that when we occasionally have a video that becomes evergreen, it seems to replace another video that was a high performer. Perhaps your channel authority regulates how many regular performers you can sustain. It's certainly not your audience retention. Our average audience retention has grown massively over the last 6-8 months, yet this seems to mean nothing.

We don't use advertising for JackJackPlays, but currently do on our second, comedy-focused channel. As KTR has talked about before, our goal is to build subs faster. We'll let you know whether this pans out for us.

 

[Stearmans Toy Review]

So, pretty much, focus on one or two key subjects and go with that, maybe then after 2-3 months we would be able to get into the suggested slots? And take those two subjects and tie them into what is trending?

 

[Gamayun]

So, pretty much, focus on one or two key subjects and go with that, maybe then after 2-3 months we would be able to get into the suggested slots? And take those two subjects and tie them into what is trending?

I guess if we stick to specific repertuar on our channel that way you will be more likely recommended by Al in that category + it will be easy for subs to remember where to find videos about apples or oranges. If imagine YT system like a Walmart store where everything sorted by goods and needs for the customer convinience that will make more sence why it is so benificial to focus on one or two key subjects

 

[Pierce's Mom]

you should turn on the related channels list on your homepage. would be nice to know what channels youtube is associating you with. hopefully its with other baby learning channels. those kind of channels seem to do very well. i actually dont know how to grow without targeting pretrending keywords. personally when i try to get associated with a keyword like "toy cars for kids" i would dedicate as many videos as i can to that term, and i would include it at the beginning of the title, description and tags. same thing for "learning etc" you have quite a few learning keywords. but ive noticed that the first couple letters of the title seem to have the most important real estate. so all my videos have cars 3 or disney cars or dinotrux toys as the first couple words in the title. i dont put those keywords in the middle of the title because i suspect youtube adds more weight to just the first couple of words in the title. i think there are some videos or articles or posting about this. ive read about it and ive seen it when i look up videos. i think repetition helps.. frequently uploading a variety of different keyword combinations probably doesnt help as much as frequently uploading similar set of keywords. i wasn't a disney cars channel at the beginning of the year. but i think by now ive pounded it in to youtube to associate me with disney cars 3 content.[DOUBLEPOST=1500447639][/DOUBLEPOST]
its not necessarily about doing one toy.. more about repeating one keyword combination. most of the time that keyword for cahnnels like mine will be toy keyword so just doing one or two toys. but maybe for you instead of a single toy, it will be some combination of "learning" in the title. or you can focus on a toy/brand if you like. but its more about the keyword. so you can focus on "learning" if you want. i mention learning because i think ive seen a few similar channels to yours with learning in the title. and learning is too saturated so you want to expand with a larger keyword combination. thats why instead of focusing on disney cars, i expanded the keyword to disney cars 3. you should look at those other learning channels and see what keyword combinations they're corralling around. smaller yet successful channels are great to study.[DOUBLEPOST=1500451851][/DOUBLEPOST]
i think toy channels and family skit channels are not equal. so some of the things i described might not apply to what you're trying to do. i dont have much experience with family skit channels. also some of those videos other family skits are doing, you kind of want to do them early when they're starting to trend. i click on notification for channels i want to follow. helps to visit channels to get a pulse of what might be trending. you wont get same results if you're a late adopter.
maybe will help your channel if you do more frequent uploads. ryan toy review uploads everyday. toystosee uploads more frequently. frequent uploads seem to help.
its hard making videos. but you could try doing live stream. they're kind of easy because you're just talking. ive done quite a few livestreams. there is some prepartion involved, but they're so easy to film.
you're rebranding from a happy meal channel to family skit. i would avoid rebranding too much since need to give youtube time to keep up. also there's that crisis of faith when you're in your 2nd month and you dont see much progress. i definitely had doubts with my cars strategy during the 2nd or 3rd month when I didn't get much results. but it was easier to have faith because i know the cars brand is tremendous, i was an early adopter for cars 3, i know my audience and demographic of thomas trains and dinotrux is similar to disney cars audience. all the pieces were there and now its starting to produce some results. i woudnt have that same faith to carry me through if i did any other kind of rebranding. ive got a whole bunch of channels i created for different brands. for future rebranding you should probably invest in a new channel.
did you guys make any mcdonalds drive thru videos? that would have been a perfect transition. i see a couple when i search for "happy meal". some of them even say mcdonalds happy meal drive thru. woulda been one way to leverage your strength with a trending term. although its not really a new trend anymore. but if you're making these family skit videos, how can you not make a mcdonalds one!

Thank you FTR, for your advice. Seems that it makes total sense to do McDonald's skits! Or something to do with Happy Meals just so I can keep my channel association as I try to implement other trending keywords. Currently, we upload at least once a week. I'm trying to move to 2 consistently. But, 3 seems to be insane unless I quite my day job. Lol, but that would be the dream goal. I will have to have faith in what my videos are about and keep it up for a few months not expecting to see results immediately. Thanks for sharing you experiences![DOUBLEPOST=1500482803,1500482576][/DOUBLEPOST]

So, pretty much, focus on one or two key subjects and go with that, maybe then after 2-3 months we would be able to get into the suggested slots? And take those two subjects and tie them into what is trending?

Yup, this seems to be spot on what FTR and even KTR is suggesting. The having faith and PATIENCE is the hard part for me. It seems that I keep hopping onto different trending bandwagons in hopes of striking gold. But, unfortunately, to do this the "smarter, better" way is to just keep cranking out this videos of similar/same topics for several months to get channel association. It's already difficult for me to do 2 vids a week. But, I'm going to start to try to do more playlists as suggested by Derral Eves.

 

[Stearmans Toy Review]

Yup, this seems to be spot on what FTR and even KTR is suggesting. The having faith and PATIENCE is the hard part for me. It seems that I keep hopping onto different trending bandwagons in hopes of striking gold. But, unfortunately, to do this the "smarter, better" way is to just keep cranking out this videos of similar/same topics for several months to get channel association. It's already difficult for me to do 2 vids a week. But, I'm going to start to try to do more playlists as suggested by Derral Eves.

Us too, I feel like we keep on trying to do everything trending, makes sense to stick with just a few key subjects, while mixing in some trending as well, just have to find out what that is! Yes, we try every other day and that's super hard already.

 

[KTP]

you should turn on the related channels list on your homepage. would be nice to know what channels youtube is associating you with. hopefully its with other baby learning channels. those kind of channels seem to do very well. i actually dont know how to grow without targeting pretrending keywords. personally when i try to get associated with a keyword like "toy cars for kids" i would dedicate as many videos as i can to that term, and i would include it at the beginning of the title, description and tags. same thing for "learning etc" you have quite a few learning keywords. but ive noticed that the first couple letters of the title seem to have the most important real estate. so all my videos have cars 3 or disney cars or dinotrux toys as the first couple words in the title. i dont put those keywords in the middle of the title because i suspect youtube adds more weight to just the first couple of words in the title. i think there are some videos or articles or posting about this. ive read about it and ive seen it when i look up videos. i think repetition helps.. frequently uploading a variety of different keyword combinations probably doesnt help as much as frequently uploading similar set of keywords. i wasn't a disney cars channel at the beginning of the year. but i think by now ive pounded it in to youtube to associate me with disney cars 3 content.

This is a very good idea and what I am leaning towards - I agree that there are some channels that have just video after video with titles "Best learning video for.." and now I know why. I was wondering why so many channels had repetitive titles. I think I will look for some combination.[DOUBLEPOST=1500493547,1500493416][/DOUBLEPOST]

its not necessarily about doing one toy.. more about repeating one keyword combination. most of the time that keyword for cahnnels like mine will be toy keyword so just doing one or two toys. but maybe for you instead of a single toy, it will be some combination of "learning" in the title. or you can focus on a toy/brand if you like. but its more about the keyword. so you can focus on "learning" if you want. i mention learning because i think ive seen a few similar channels to yours with learning in the title. and learning is too saturated so you want to expand with a larger keyword combination. thats why instead of focusing on disney cars, i expanded the keyword to disney cars 3. you should look at those other learning channels and see what keyword combinations they're corralling around. smaller yet successful channels are great to study.

Actually had a question about this. Are you allowed to use company/brand names in title or text, thumbnails etc? I was wondering if there would be some copyright issue. If not, I know exactly what I would focus on but I felt a little reluctant to go with just one company or brand.[DOUBLEPOST=1500494174][/DOUBLEPOST]

We have a slightly different strategy in that we concentrate on an evergreen, but more generic vertical - toy trucks (construction, garbage, etc). The majority of our views come off of a list of 5-10 videos that consistently get the same views per hour. We've also noticed the quick dying off of new videos.... it's very frustrating!

An interesting phenomenon that we've noticed-and this is completely anecdotal-is that when we occasionally have a video that becomes evergreen, it seems to replace another video that was a high performer. Perhaps your channel authority regulates how many regular performers you can sustain. It's certainly not your audience retention. Our average audience retention has grown massively over the last 6-8 months, yet this seems to mean nothing.

We don't use advertising for JackJackPlays, but currently do on our second, comedy-focused channel. As KTR has talked about before, our goal is to build subs faster. We'll let you know whether this pans out for us.

Hi - you have a great channel, I like it. what does "concentrate on an evergreen" mean - do you mean toys that have persistent popularity? I think that is what I am going to aim for. if you don't mind me asking, did you channel take off quickly from the very beginning or did it take some time to build. And was the growth gradual or did you have one video take off and the rest followed. - thanks![DOUBLEPOST=1500494381][/DOUBLEPOST]

Yup, this seems to be spot on what FTR and even KTR is suggesting. The having faith and PATIENCE is the hard part for me. It seems that I keep hopping onto different trending bandwagons in hopes of striking gold. But, unfortunately, to do this the "smarter, better" way is to just keep cranking out this videos of similar/same topics for several months to get channel association. It's already difficult for me to do 2 vids a week. But, I'm going to start to try to do more playlists as suggested by Derral Eves.

I was also inspired by Derrel Eves' suggestion on creating playlist. I wasn't clear if you had to make a new playlist or if adding a video to your playlist was enough to leave the digital mark. His presentation was quite eye-opening actually.[DOUBLEPOST=1500494569][/DOUBLEPOST]

Yup, this seems to be spot on what FTR and even KTR is suggesting. The having faith and PATIENCE is the hard part for me. It seems that I keep hopping onto different trending bandwagons in hopes of striking gold. But, unfortunately, to do this the "smarter, better" way is to just keep cranking out this videos of similar/same topics for several months to get channel association. It's already difficult for me to do 2 vids a week. But, I'm going to start to try to do more playlists as suggested by Derral Eves.

I agree with you. I have patience, but not as much faith. After starting, I started to find the MILLIOn other channels trying to do what we are doing. I didn't find them in my search when I began because they didn't show up in my search. Some are not good but there are some that make really great videos and get no views. That makes me lose faith. But this forum is making me feel like it is possible to succeed. For me too, 2-3 videos is the absolute max. I don't want to quit my day job, but I would like to have the option to if I wanted! Hopefully one day![DOUBLEPOST=1500494776][/DOUBLEPOST]

So, pretty much, focus on one or two key subjects and go with that, maybe then after 2-3 months we would be able to get into the suggested slots? And take those two subjects and tie them into what is trending?

I actually feel good that there seems to be a consensus around this idea. I'm getting a little bit more optimistic! At least my boys will be happy if I focused on toy vehicles and parking garages!