To self promote or not

[Tea for TwoTube]

Hay guys,

The other day someone on Twitter was bitching and moaning about people who ask for subscribers and was saying to “Let the channel grow naturally”.

So my question to you is simple, is it at all possible for a YouTube channel say under 2000 subs to grow naturally without promotion or is self-promoting a needs be to be able to grow?

I would really appreciate any replies

 

[evoloz]

I'm always a bit controversial on this subject but in my opinion (and its only my opinion not fact) self promotion is (in general) bad for your channel.

This is because in the youtube algorithm watch time and retention are hugely important so when you use generic twitter, facebook etc posts you will get a very poor watch time as most people who click through won't be interested in your content and will just click straight off again.

Compare that to say someone who has specifically searched in youtube for a video and found yours. They are much more likely to stay around and watch a good part of the video since its on the subject they actually searched for (rather than a generic twitter post) and thus you'll achieve a much better watch time/ retention/ interaction ratio etc and youtube will automatically suggest and promote your video to others who are likely to be interested in it.

So I have always felt that generic social media advertising tends to do more harm than good by lowering your youtube metrics. Possible exceptions to this would be very targeted posts. Such as specific sub reddits/ getting retweets by companies & other youtubers in your niche etc.

But i'm sure there are others who will disagree and have found advertising to be very helpful for them

 

[PlagueTv X]

I'm always a bit controversial on this subject but in my opinion (and its only my opinion not fact) self promotion is (in general) bad for your channel.

This is because in the youtube algorithm watch time and retention are hugely important so when you use generic twitter, facebook etc posts you will get a very poor watch time as most people who click through won't be interested in your content and will just click straight off again.

Compare that to say someone who has specifically searched in youtube for a video and found yours. They are much more likely to stay around and watch a good part of the video since its on the subject they actually searched for (rather than a generic twitter post) and thus you'll achieve a much better watch time/ retention/ interaction ratio etc and youtube will automatically suggest and promote your video to others who are likely to be interested in it.

So I have always felt that generic social media advertising tends to do more harm than good by lowering your youtube metrics. Possible exceptions to this would be very targeted posts. Such as specific sub reddits/ getting retweets by companies & other youtubers in your niche etc.

But i'm sure there are others who will disagree and have found advertising to be very helpful for them

I actually agree with this. ''Promoting'' ( even in a relevant forum) and in a non obnoxious way, in the past for me at least has just attracted hate and insta-dislikes from a few trolls and ''competitives''. While I did get a LITTLE bit of a view spike, that is where it pretty much all ended. However, the 3 most successful videos I have on any of my channels were all completely un-promoted and the 3 videos themselves were all of very different genres.

 

[KudoJin]

I beg to differ slightly on this, as I do believe it is important to get the word out regarding your channel.

However, I do think you do need to be careful when self-promoting. I don't think you should just go around randomly posting your link anywhere, that will have most of the previously mentioned negative effects, and will probably get you a bad rap.

Aside from my generic Twitter and dA post (which are aimed at reaching my followers on those platforms more than reaching a new audience, at least for me), I go to specific subreddits related to my channel, as well as Discord servers and Amino communities.

Not sure how successful that would be though, lol. I'm at 137 subs right now, not sure if I'll make my goal of 200 by the end of the year.

 

[adrianquihuis]

Yes to self promote! You better be self promoting yourself!

 

[NervousLatte]

Everyone is going to have a varying opinion on this, but I say yes to self-promote. You have to be smart about it though, and rather than do it blatant, I like the covert approach. Replying to people on youtube, leaving comments on smaller channels, interacting with people on this forum, chatting in live streams... not with "look at my channel" but with actual conversation. It might get people interested enough to click, and it does work.

 

[xingcat]

If you don't promote yourself, nobody else is going to do it for you. Right now, with the amount of channels that are on the platform, if you just uploaded your videos and did nothing else, there's very little chance you'd get any viewership at all.

 

[Ezrider92356]

as far as asking for subscribers, iv tried a lot of different ways of asking for subscribers in my video's in the begging of the video in the end of the video not at all. and so far from my observation how popular a video is has more to do with how many subscribers you gain from it than how or when you ask for subscribers.

as far as self promoting out side of youtube. it can be beneficial but you have to be careful how you do it. posting your own video somewhere tends to be less well received as someone else posting your video somewhere. but done properly can be beneficial.

 

[Courtney Candice]

If you don't promote yourself, nobody else is going to do it for you. Right now, with the amount of channels that are on the platform, if you just uploaded your videos and did nothing else, there's very little chance you'd get any viewership at all.

Yeah I agree with you, but it also depends on how you do it. Look at most businesses they almost all have ads for their business. For example a a new restaurant opened up the street from me, no one has ever heard of them before so they sent flyers in the mail along with coupons. It helped them grow a lot more than usual.

 

[Ida Skye]

Promotion is absolutely necessary to grow your channel. Should businesses stop with commercials etc? No. Promotion is important.