Did anyone break through without promoting? If so, how?

kevsup

kevsup

I've Got It
After finding this forum and seeing tons of successful people who mastered the art of promoting, it got me wondering: are any of you out there rather famous on YouTube and did so without promoting on social media and such? If so, how did you do it? I'm curious, since it seems like any newcomer to YouTube would have a difficult time gaining traction
 
currently i'm at 590subs and I don't think I could've ever gotten this far w/o promoting, i don't think anyone can tbh. rather it be from personally promoting or someone else, promoting has to be involved.
 
You want to grow and people to find your stuff, but don't plan on ever sharing it for people to find it?

Promoting is such a broad term you should refine your question. I've never commented "check my channel out" or any other stuff. I post on Reddit occasionally, tweet and use fb some. Is that promotion? Yes technically.
 
I don't really Know why you wouldn't promote, you're just working against yourself, but if you were not going to promote, I would say optimizing YouTube Seo (Titles, Tags, Description) would be your only hope.... and hope that your content was being searched for on the regular. Only way, Or a big YouTuber saw you and shouted you out.... but again, if they can't find you, they wouldn't shout you out ;)
 
Every video I have that has >1000 views is because I promoted it. I could get a few 100 by using a popularly searched video and use the right tags, but that's it.
If you want to make it without promotion you need 1 thing and that is LUCK.
 
Promotion is such an essential part of growing an audience. I hate Twitter, but I use it to tweet every time I upload a new video. Same with Facebook hahah
 
Think of it like this: which one would have a better chance getting noticed?
1. a band that only plays music in their own garage
2. a band that plays their music in the streets or even in bars or restaurants

Same principles when you're just starting out. No one would find you if you don't put yourself out there. Unless, your SEO is exceptional, you hit the right trend and your video is 100% shareable. Then and only then is when you don't need to promote when you have little or no subscribers.

Of course, once you hit a certain number of active subscribers, then it would be easier to get views with every video you publish. By that stage, promotion wouldn't be as useful as before because they are bound to have lower retention and you would get almost the same amount of views anyways from subs with better retention.
 
You must promote one way or another but social media is only one way to do that. I picked up a good portion of my subscribers promoting my channel through business cards, attending social events, community centers, etc. With that said, social media is the easiest and cheapest way to promote. It depends on what type of brand you have but I have a baking channel so I do a lot of baking demonstrations at churches, charity events, fairs, etc. The followers I pick up during local community events are more dedicated and more likely to tell their friends and family about my channel. It's easier to build rapport with someone you personally meet then someone thousands of miles away. Think outside of the box and try all different ways and don't limit yourself to any one way. I promote via social media sites as well.
 
I was about 20k subs before I made a fb page and twitter account, and Tumblr.
i just post my videos to my channel's social pages now and the odd WIP now and then.

although i didn't promote i would actually reccomend it, in the basic form. Do not go around using popular videos to comment about your channel. But don't shy away from submitting your video to places that would appreciate it.

I posted my "you don't have enough money to train me" video to a Pokemon website and it made the front page. That helped the video to go viral, so in that instance it worked!

there's certainly nothing stopping you growing naturally, but let me tell you my channel is nearly 10 years old now, so that should show how long it takes with little to no promotion.
 
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