The small stay small, the big get bigger.

uberdanger said:
Introduction. (Yo mods, sticky pliz!)
Quickly before you get into this thread I wanna explain what it is, first of all I've had success on Youtube, and I've tried to analyze the way to getting a larger Youtube channel. I will in this guide try to focus on every step of the way, and give you my 2 cents on how to do Youtube.

The small stay small.
The first topic I wanna round up is the fact, that a lot of smaller channels stay small, even though they have great content, and they put a lot of work into their channels.
From my experience, there are 3 ways of growing your channel, and 3 stages of growth.
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The three methods of growing.
The first method of growing: Gateway video(s).
Now this method isn't something you can just "aim" for and get, since it requires you to get a semi-viral video, which appeals to a large consumer base. However I thought I'd mention it since it has helped me grow.

The second method of growing: Sharing.
This one you know all too well, showing your videos to friends or sharing it on great forus like yttalk. You CANNOT grow a smaller channel without one or both of the first 2 methods.

The third method of growing: Natural growth.
This is the kind of growth you want your channel to have, the one you can't get when you're a small channel. The point where your channel grows on it's own, and you get hundreds of new subscribers each day. Don't be mistaken though, noone got to this, without going through at least one of the above.
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The three stages of your channel.
The very beginning:
Here we're talking about a channel that has little to no viewers, they can only utilize 2 out of the 3 growth methods. Usually only the second, since none of his/her videos get to be semi-viral, seeing as they get little to no views. Even sites such as Reddit will cast your videos aside, seeing as they're not already sprouting at least a little bit.


Middle stage:
I like to recognize this tier as the point where you don't need to ***** yourself out everywhere, however your growth is still very slow. You may have a few hundred subscribers, and you gain a few here and there, however your growth is very slow. This is the point where you wanna aim for gateway videos.

Think about it like this, someone who sees a channel they've never seen before, which doesn't get alot of views, usually don't watch a 20 minute vlog. However a 30 second funny video of sorts, that's more like it! Keep gateway videos between 20 seconds and 2-3 minutes.

The selfsustainable stage: As I talked about previously, this is the point where your channel will grow on it's own, this is the stage you ideally wanna get to. The rest of this guide will be on how to optimize your channel from this point on, so if your channel isn't this big, try focusing on my previous points.
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Going from a medium channel, to a large channel:
Content expansion:
This is where you're gonna wanna look at what you're doing, and expand on that without ruining what you have going. If you have any popular series that your audience likes, keep doing that, however don't restrict yourself.

As a gamer I can give an example, I'm lying around 8500 subscribers, however I decided a long time ago that I wanted at least 10.000 before moving on to doing Let's plays. This is because when your channel reaches this size, you will have more freedom, since many are subscribed for your content, not a single type of your videos.

If you're a vlogger you might also start doing other stuff at this point, but the reason I advice people to wait for this, is because you could put so much effort into something, but if your channel isn't big enough, the videos simply won't get the attention they deserve. Taking example in myself again, if I recorded 100 Let's play episode *20 minutes, and I didn't have an engaged audience, I would have spent 33+ hours (that's just recording, not even editing) with little to no reward.

Collaborations:
This sounds simple, and it also sounds stupid to first get collaborations in at this point. However collaborating with other Youtubers who also have big channels, gives both parts a much higher reward than 2 smaller channels working together. Share your audiences, and learn from each other.

Finalizing:
This is gonna be my final point, but I wanna point out all the little things that you need to have optimized at this point of a channels growth.

Thumbnails and channel art:
Whether you're with the One Channel layout or not, we can all agree that some thumbnails lead people into clicking way more then others. Putting your text sideways allows for larger and longer texts, try Impact with black outline. Oh and having boobs and/or other sexual attractions is a great help too even though it is looked down upon.

As for your channel art, make it something that really makes people look at it, it should make your page look sleek and well-polished.

Video and audio quality:
At this point in time you're gonna wanna have both a good microphone, and good video regardless of whether you record real-life videos, or a machine created cinema (and that is the original word of the word "Machinima", it's meaning has been misconstruded over the years though)

Audience interaction:
At this point (and actually at any point) you wanna reply to as many comments as possible, of course it won't show all comments anymore, but look through your notifications several times a day. If you're a vlogger try bringing your audience into your videos, whether that be by live interaction or comments being highlighted. If you're a gamer play with them, and upload it, if they're your fan they would love it.

I'm not saying you should reply to every comment, or play with every subscribers. However the general gist is to give something back.

Social media:
You want either a Facebook, or a Twitter, if not both at this point.
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Final words:If you're still with me, it means you read my entire guide, I will be answering questions as much as I can on this thread. If you disagree feel free to let me know, I hoped this helped you in some way, and as always: have a nice day! :)
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Good thread, sticky this please.
 
I found this topic very useful, really good amounts of detail into the subject. I will be looking at this often and hopefully it assists me in the future! Thank you :)
 
I have a question for you Uberdanger.

People are real sticklers sometimes for not wanting to give away their detailed tips or ideas. I appreciate the thread first of all.

I feel like I'm at the point where we've locked down our Web Series content and I'm releasing 20 second to 1 minute highlight videos every day as well as 1 or 2, parts to a full gameplay vid. Our primary goal is to get our web series popular.
I think I'm on the sharing part still. It is SOOO hard to get people to actually LOOK at our web series. I think web series are THE hardest thing to promote unless they're silly/short and full of slapstick. Our Pilot episode is basically 4, 3 to 5 minutes long episodes. If you don't watch them all, you can't even understand what's up in Season 2 that comes out tomorrow.

How to we promote this stuff? I feel like if I could get people to actually WATCH the thing, we would start gaining some real traction. WHERE do I share stuff? I'm too self-conscious about promoting myself in different places. It's hard to allow myself to do that even in places where people say it's ok to do so. It seems to generally be frowned on to promote yourself 99% of the places you can anyway.

How do you do it and WHERE do you do it?
 
TheRomanticsWB said:
I have a question for you Uberdanger.

People are real sticklers sometimes for not wanting to give away their detailed tips or ideas. I appreciate the thread first of all.

I feel like I'm at the point where we've locked down our Web Series content and I'm releasing 20 second to 1 minute highlight videos every day as well as 1 or 2, parts to a full gameplay vid. Our primary goal is to get our web series popular.
I think I'm on the sharing part still. It is SOOO hard to get people to actually LOOK at our web series. I think web series are THE hardest thing to promote unless they're silly/short and full of slapstick. Our Pilot episode is basically 4, 3 to 5 minutes long episodes. If you don't watch them all, you can't even understand what's up in Season 2 that comes out tomorrow.

How to we promote this stuff? I feel like if I could get people to actually WATCH the thing, we would start gaining some real traction. WHERE do I share stuff? I'm too self-conscious about promoting myself in different places. It's hard to allow myself to do that even in places where people say it's ok to do so. It seems to generally be frowned on to promote yourself 99% of the places you can anyway.

How do you do it and WHERE do you do it?
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Excellent question, and that's pretty much the point of this thread. YOU CAN'T, unless you already have a decent following, back in the day smaller companys like Roosterteeth could get their webseries popular, because they were some of the first to make webseries, now the market is so large that the only way is to allready have a following.

I've wanted to do longer videos for so long, but theres no audience retention if you don't catch them with toilet humor and pornography and keep that up for a good 20 minutes. I wouldn't wanna make a Let's play like that, so I waited for 10k subs. If you're getting little to no views on your webseries, I would take the episodes down, and relaunch it when you have a bigger following.

Your best content doesn't have to be the gateway videos to your channel, the 1-2 minute things you were talking about that's absolutely perfect for attracting people. Even though I hate this myself, I made the thread because it's the truth, you can have LITERALLY the best content in the world, and you wouldn't get noticed if you don't have a following.
 
uberdanger said:
Excellent question, and that's pretty much the point of this thread. YOU CAN'T, unless you already have a decent following, back in the day smaller companys like Roosterteeth could get their webseries popular, because they were some of the first to make webseries, now the market is so large that the only way is to allready have a following.

I've wanted to do longer videos for so long, but theres no audience retention if you don't catch them with toilet humor and pornography and keep that up for a good 20 minutes. I wouldn't wanna make a Let's play like that, so I waited for 10k subs. If you're getting little to no views on your webseries, I would take the episodes down, and relaunch it when you have a bigger following.

Your best content doesn't have to be the gateway videos to your channel, the 1-2 minute things you were talking about that's absolutely perfect for attracting people. Even though I hate this myself, I made the thread because it's the truth, you can have LITERALLY the best content in the world, and you wouldn't get noticed if you don't have a following.
Click to expand...

It's pathetic really... knowing that to get big you have to post ridiculous, silly, slapstick junk. We've realized for a while now that YouTube is not the place to get famous over your hard work with some indie film type projects...
I estimate with our 2nd series that comes out today, we'll get several thousand views on it but it's driven traffic by me. We have a LARGE network of friends through facebook and stuff that WILL watch it. We even rank first page for the keyword The Romantics on youtube whilst competing with the band AND the movie. But of course when someone types in The Romantics, that doesn't know us, they aren't looking for a web series. It's really hard to find a keyword to get in with for this type of web series.

I have struggled with this since day 1. We want to get people in there to see it but I absolutely refuse to start making silly crap just to get people to look at my channel. The short, silly, gameplay videos are 100% genuine and just happen while I'm playing on Twitch. Those DO work but that's about as far as I'm willing to go. I'm not going to start dressing up like Mario and running around a green screen yelling ridiculous stuff to get all the kiddos to look at me.

Our 30 minute tv show style series comes out this year and we're going to shop it around the Indie film circuit instead. We may kickstart it if we can find an avenue to promote it.

Anyway thanks for confirming my worst nightmare! lol.
 
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