Jack Decker
YTtalk Mad
1) I think you need to decide what you are. People subscribe to SINGLE-topic channels. If people get too many videos that are not of interest to them (the reason why they initially subscribed to you), they will unsubscribe. Don't give them a reason to unsubscribe. Looking over your video archive, that is very likely why you're seeing people unsubscribe. Sorry, but you need to decide if you're a gaming channel or a vlog channel. By what's in your video archive, you seem to be FAR more of vlogger than a gamer. So drop the gaming and go with vlogging. Thankfully, your channel name is just fine for a vlog.
The rest of the advice I give below is for you as a vlogger.
2) Stick out by claiming a niche. The easiest niche for a vlogger to claim is their local area. Take viewers on a tour of your region. Title it "Tour of [your region's name]: [landmark name]". Make these videos short and sweet. Try to be funny yet informative. Do one video for every landmark in your region as well as unique places in your region.
3) Go to your local museums and the historical archives of your local libraries and dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, and, oh yeah, dig some more. Every historical event that has happened in your region, do a video about it. Take the viewer to the spot where it happened and weave us an interesting story about what happened there. Include as many photographs, paintings, and newspaper headlines as possible to visually spice it up. One historical event per video.
4) You appear to be going to a university. Make TONS of videos about your university. Take people on a five-minute tour of it. Big overview. Name it "Five-Minute Tour of [your university's name]". Then do separate videos about everything about your university. My bet is all your academic buildings are named after someone. Show the building and then tell about the person it is name after while showing photographs and/or paintings of them. Interview all the professors on your campus. Interview the chairs, deans, and the chancellor and vice chancellor. Interview all the coaches, team captains, and star athletes. Interview all the presidents of all the student organizations.
5) Interview local politicians, radio talk show hosts, TV newscast anchors, newspaper editors, and any other local celebrities.
6) After you've done a lot of the above, email your local media (newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations) by sending them a press release about your channel and you. Stress that you're a local boy who has made their local area his YouTube beat. Newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations are ALWAYS on the look out for "local color". If you get on a radio talk show, try to be funny on it. The more funny you are, the more likely they'll ask you to come back again.
7) After you appear in a local newspaper, clip out the article and approach all the hotels, motels, and Bed & Breakfasts in your region. Show them the article and bring along a PC tablet (or laptop) and show them your channel. Offer to do a video about their place IF they are willing to have their maids put cardboard table tents (google it) about your YouTube channel in each of their rooms so their guests can become aware of it. You provide the tents. Make up a tent to show them what it will looks like. Have a big starburst on it in the upper left corner that says something along the lines of "This establishment has been featured on this YouTube channel!". They get advertising on your channel and you get advertising to their guests.
8) At your university, start up a YouTuber club. A club for all students there who have or want to have their own YouTube channel. Meet weekly. Every meeting, show all the videos that all the members did over the last week. Applaud and comment. Encourage. Collaborate with each other. Appear in each other's videos. Do skits. Have a group discussion video. Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm. But most importantly of all, have fun. Alway always ALWAYS make sure you're having fun. Nothing kills a student organization faster than no fun.
9) Make an intro video for your homepage that is 30 second to a minute long. First talk about what kind of things you talk about on your channel ... then who you are (people subscribe to people, not channel) ... then tell your release schedule ... and then do ONE call-to-action and that is for them to subscribe. Don't monetize your intro video. The intro video is an ad for your channel. Don't have another's ad hurt your ad.
10) Increase your release schedule to daily. You're a vlog channel. You are trying to develop a relationship with your viewers. That takes being part of their daily life. It is also what you need to do to be competitive.
11) If you are monetized, you can use the scheduler to regularly release videos. Always always ALWAYS build up a backlog of videos sitting in your scheduler. Do this not just for vacation time but in case you get sick, your computer crashes, your internet connection goes down, you get writer's block, etc. It also gives you breathing space. If you release a video everyday, fourteen videos in your scheduler represents two weeks of episodes before you have to produce another video.
12) Work on your thumbnails and video titles. Do a YouTube search on how to do thumbnails and video titles. There's a lot of good videos out there about both topics.
13) Subscribe to Tim Schmoyer's "Video Creators" and mine its archive. You can and should spend days in its archive.
14) Make up a flyer. Use yellow paper to draw the eye. Have tear-off tabs at its bottom that has your channel's name and its YouTube URL. Post it everywhere you can within reasonable driving distance. By "reasonable" I mean as far as you are willing go to promote your channel. Laundry mats, bus stops, supermarket bulletin boards, and telephone poles at intersections are good places to post. Get a map of your city and mark on it where you've posted them. Once a week, revisit those locations and replace missing, all tear-off tabs gone, torn, etc. posters. Always keep a box of these flyers in your car so when you travel, you have them right there with you and you can post them wherever you go. If you go on a trip, put a stack of posters into one of your suitcases and take a half day and post everywhere there.
15) Lastly but most importantly, collaborate, collaborate, and collaborate. You're a very small channel right now but everyone has to start from somewhere. Your best bet is to contact local YouTube channels. As you grow, contact larger and larger gaming channels that match your new size. Always propose an activity for the collaboration and never just that you want to do one. After you release a collaboration video, send links to it to other local YouTubers to show them how you do collaborations and invite them again to do one with you. Go to ALL YouTube conventions that you can afford to go to. Find out who's going and suggest you meet up for at least an interview of them. Doing it while you're at a friendly restaurant gives it a good backdrop. Don't worry about the sound.
The rest of the advice I give below is for you as a vlogger.
2) Stick out by claiming a niche. The easiest niche for a vlogger to claim is their local area. Take viewers on a tour of your region. Title it "Tour of [your region's name]: [landmark name]". Make these videos short and sweet. Try to be funny yet informative. Do one video for every landmark in your region as well as unique places in your region.
3) Go to your local museums and the historical archives of your local libraries and dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, and, oh yeah, dig some more. Every historical event that has happened in your region, do a video about it. Take the viewer to the spot where it happened and weave us an interesting story about what happened there. Include as many photographs, paintings, and newspaper headlines as possible to visually spice it up. One historical event per video.
4) You appear to be going to a university. Make TONS of videos about your university. Take people on a five-minute tour of it. Big overview. Name it "Five-Minute Tour of [your university's name]". Then do separate videos about everything about your university. My bet is all your academic buildings are named after someone. Show the building and then tell about the person it is name after while showing photographs and/or paintings of them. Interview all the professors on your campus. Interview the chairs, deans, and the chancellor and vice chancellor. Interview all the coaches, team captains, and star athletes. Interview all the presidents of all the student organizations.
5) Interview local politicians, radio talk show hosts, TV newscast anchors, newspaper editors, and any other local celebrities.
6) After you've done a lot of the above, email your local media (newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations) by sending them a press release about your channel and you. Stress that you're a local boy who has made their local area his YouTube beat. Newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations are ALWAYS on the look out for "local color". If you get on a radio talk show, try to be funny on it. The more funny you are, the more likely they'll ask you to come back again.
7) After you appear in a local newspaper, clip out the article and approach all the hotels, motels, and Bed & Breakfasts in your region. Show them the article and bring along a PC tablet (or laptop) and show them your channel. Offer to do a video about their place IF they are willing to have their maids put cardboard table tents (google it) about your YouTube channel in each of their rooms so their guests can become aware of it. You provide the tents. Make up a tent to show them what it will looks like. Have a big starburst on it in the upper left corner that says something along the lines of "This establishment has been featured on this YouTube channel!". They get advertising on your channel and you get advertising to their guests.
8) At your university, start up a YouTuber club. A club for all students there who have or want to have their own YouTube channel. Meet weekly. Every meeting, show all the videos that all the members did over the last week. Applaud and comment. Encourage. Collaborate with each other. Appear in each other's videos. Do skits. Have a group discussion video. Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm. But most importantly of all, have fun. Alway always ALWAYS make sure you're having fun. Nothing kills a student organization faster than no fun.
9) Make an intro video for your homepage that is 30 second to a minute long. First talk about what kind of things you talk about on your channel ... then who you are (people subscribe to people, not channel) ... then tell your release schedule ... and then do ONE call-to-action and that is for them to subscribe. Don't monetize your intro video. The intro video is an ad for your channel. Don't have another's ad hurt your ad.
10) Increase your release schedule to daily. You're a vlog channel. You are trying to develop a relationship with your viewers. That takes being part of their daily life. It is also what you need to do to be competitive.
11) If you are monetized, you can use the scheduler to regularly release videos. Always always ALWAYS build up a backlog of videos sitting in your scheduler. Do this not just for vacation time but in case you get sick, your computer crashes, your internet connection goes down, you get writer's block, etc. It also gives you breathing space. If you release a video everyday, fourteen videos in your scheduler represents two weeks of episodes before you have to produce another video.
12) Work on your thumbnails and video titles. Do a YouTube search on how to do thumbnails and video titles. There's a lot of good videos out there about both topics.
13) Subscribe to Tim Schmoyer's "Video Creators" and mine its archive. You can and should spend days in its archive.
14) Make up a flyer. Use yellow paper to draw the eye. Have tear-off tabs at its bottom that has your channel's name and its YouTube URL. Post it everywhere you can within reasonable driving distance. By "reasonable" I mean as far as you are willing go to promote your channel. Laundry mats, bus stops, supermarket bulletin boards, and telephone poles at intersections are good places to post. Get a map of your city and mark on it where you've posted them. Once a week, revisit those locations and replace missing, all tear-off tabs gone, torn, etc. posters. Always keep a box of these flyers in your car so when you travel, you have them right there with you and you can post them wherever you go. If you go on a trip, put a stack of posters into one of your suitcases and take a half day and post everywhere there.
15) Lastly but most importantly, collaborate, collaborate, and collaborate. You're a very small channel right now but everyone has to start from somewhere. Your best bet is to contact local YouTube channels. As you grow, contact larger and larger gaming channels that match your new size. Always propose an activity for the collaboration and never just that you want to do one. After you release a collaboration video, send links to it to other local YouTubers to show them how you do collaborations and invite them again to do one with you. Go to ALL YouTube conventions that you can afford to go to. Find out who's going and suggest you meet up for at least an interview of them. Doing it while you're at a friendly restaurant gives it a good backdrop. Don't worry about the sound.
