hers my view point: If you make videos that are entertaining, and you accurately hit your niche, you DONT need anything else but your camera and your youtube account. If you make videos that are worth watching, you WILL get views, there is not magic, there is no luck, it literally has to do with skill. If you make a video and people like it.....people will watch it, its simple as that. If your not getting the views and subs that you think you should be getting, your doing it wrong, there's something about your videos that you need to change. be it the production quality, the acting, the effects, the quality of the commentary. There are lots of factors that play into this. You don't need to pay for subs, in my opinion thats cheating the system, and won't really boost your credit on youtube. What will end up happening is you'll get those fake subs, and then you won't get that exponential gain that you see big youtube channels getting, or even the exponential growth from that channel with only 1k subs. I'm not saying that I'm doing everything correctly either. BUT when i make i video i do several things.
1. Watch it 10 times really analyze everything i made, and ask myself, is this worth watching?
2. i make my friends watch it and ask them the same question.
3. I think of 3 things that I could have done better on, and try to apply those to the next video (in my case, it's story design, shot framing, and unique effects)
4. I try to make sure I'm hitting my niche. Im a vfxer, so I try to make sure my videos continually follow that trend.
5. I tag my video in ways that will make it viewable to others. I tag what camera i used, and anything relevant to the video itself. When I'm tagging my video i make sure that correct passages are in quotes, such as "after effects" instead of just: after effects. When people search for more specific terms your more likely to turn up in the feed.
6. i plaster my videos EVERYWHERE i can think of: this website, my own website, reddit, stumble upon, digg, craigslist, Facebook, twitter, and many others.
7. After my video has been up for a few days i analyze the data that youtube so graciously gives me. I look at the audience retention rates, and see where people tended to click out of my video and make sure that what ever it was that made them close my video, that i do my best to not let that happen again. I look at my demographic, what age group am i most appealing to? (mine is 10-30 ish) so i make sure that my videos retain a quality that would be more entertaining to mostly young adults.
8. I stay active in the community. You would be surprised how many subs you can gain just by replying with a comment and just saying something simple like "Glad you liked it, consider subscribing!
9. I make sure all my uploads are in a playlist, so that way there is the potential to have that one person watch more than 1 of your videos
10. I make sure that my featured video on my channel is ALWAYS being auto played. Don't give them the option to watch your video or not MAKE them watch your video.
11. You want your channel to have a good sub/view ratio: Im sorry but if you have a channel where you have 700 videos, and each one is getting 20 views....your doing it wrong. On my channel i have 128 subs, and 17k channel views giving me a whopping 132.05 sub to view ration. That means for every 1 subscriber i gain, on average I'm gaining 132 views.
If you follow THESE EXACT steps, there is no reason that with dedication and handwork YOUR channel will be popular too. No need for bots, no need for fake subs. Every big name you tuber makes quality videos. It's the reason they are watched, and its the reason their subscriber base continues to grow. If a VIRAL VIDEO on a random channel can get millions of views, then there is NO reason that you would need sub bots and view bots to get your video seen. Thats just outlandish and frankly it IS cheating the system for the rest of us that honestly do this for the love of doing it, and not just to be popular on a website.
Youtube is a learning process, it takes time, it takes dedication, it has a learning curve that not many are aware of. BUT if you treat it well and create quality entertainment, the people will watch you.
TL;DR?
I only have 128 subscriber, but the ones i do have, like my channel and are not fake. I know how the youtube system works and I'm just trying to share some knowledge.
my 2 cents....
