Hi! Starting Kids channel Need Advice :)

[Derrick Toys]

So glad I joined this community! Great tips to focus on. We all start somewhere and Im happy to get support from great creators. Derrick and Coco love Ryan! I salute you on your work ethic seriously! Any tips how to upload daily with toddlers LOL I adapted a style of editing that takes
2-3 hours but organic SEO is the tricky part as a new channel.

 

[Ryan ToysReview]

This forum is super amazing with wonderful helpful people! Gosh I wouldn't know how to manage two toddlers while recording. While it's way more fun to watch two kids playing instead of one, It's probably twice as hard to record! While we guide my son to say certain things like tell the kids "let's open it", but during the actually playing part we let him guide us. Kids can come up with far more creative ways to play with toys than adult can. After all they are the toys "expert" and they'll have more fun being in charge. Not gonna lie, it's a challenge still to manage daily upload because we do everything ourselves and most recording session last 1-1:30hr but we usually trim the video down during editing to about 5-7mins. We are trying to increase our video length for better watch time buts it's still a struggle trying to increase video length and keeping it interesting and engaging for kids. We are also not the best at recording/editing since I'm still just using my iPhone and IMovies. We try to be better at time management by having a calendar of what to record what day and make sure everything is ready before that day. We didn't start out with daily uploads because we were both working full time, so we started with once a week, then twice a week...etc until we got better with time management. Of course it also help because my son loves making videos! He still ask everyday when are we filming because he's excited to show the kids this and that! People things it's easy to record and play with toys but it's a lot of work behind the scene. Of course we have lots of fun doing so and it's the best job in the world to be able to spend time with your kids and being paid to do so so we are saving all we can for the children colleges and their future. Its probably best to stick with a certain niche that you and your kids enjoy to gain credibility with YouTube algorithms and at the same time do some " trendy" videos (after all they are trendy because most people like watching them) from that niche to have a higher chance to be suggested by YouTube and be placed on bigger channel suggested videos. Of course you can do different type of videos to see how your audience react to them but I wouldn't try so many different type at the same time. One of the channel my son loves to watch is The Axel Show ( they deserve way more subscribers than what they have) and kids loves watching their videos because they focus on using their imagination to have fun and I'm pretty sure they will never do the giant egg type videos you see on YouTube because people subscribed for certain type of content. Of course they could make the most amazing and interesting giant egg video in the whole world but if the first burst of people click off or don't like it,( which most likely are subscribers) YouTube thinks it's not a very good video and stop promoting it! The most important thing is to have fun with your kids because it's such an amazing bonding experience! Everything I'm saying is not ground breaking and I'm sorry it's turned out to be so long and probably not very helpful. I'm also trying to type using my phone while holding two three month old babies in each arm lol...[DOUBLEPOST=1478489517,1478489292][/DOUBLEPOST]Also SEO is totally a learning curve, I still look back at the old videos and wonder why I used a certain tag or put that in the video title. You will get better with time! Just don't give up if this is something you're passionate about! It took us 1.5 months to get our first 100sub and over 3months before we even got our first check (it was not that much, just barely enough over the minimum to get paid) ! All it takes is one "gateway" video to drive traffic to your channel. Ours came out of no where and the views just jumped up for that one video randomly one day...

 

[HaleysKidsToys]

This forum is super amazing with wonderful helpful people! Gosh I wouldn't know how to manage two toddlers while recording. While it's way more fun to watch two kids playing instead of one, It's probably twice as hard to record! While we guide my son to say certain things like tell the kids "let's open it", but during the actually playing part we let him guide us. Kids can come up with far more creative ways to play with toys than adult can. After all they are the toys "expert" and they'll have more fun being in charge. Not gonna lie, it's a challenge still to manage daily upload because we do everything ourselves and most recording session last 1-1:30hr but we usually trim the video down during editing to about 5-7mins. We are trying to increase our video length for better watch time buts it's still a struggle trying to increase video length and keeping it interesting and engaging for kids. We are also not the best at recording/editing since I'm still just using my iPhone and IMovies. We try to be better at time management by having a calendar of what to record what day and make sure everything is ready before that day. We didn't start out with daily uploads because we were both working full time, so we started with once a week, then twice a week...etc until we got better with time management. Of course it also help because my son loves making videos! He still ask everyday when are we filming because he's excited to show the kids this and that! People things it's easy to record and play with toys but it's a lot of work behind the scene. Of course we have lots of fun doing so and it's the best job in the world to be able to spend time with your kids and being paid to do so so we are saving all we can for the children colleges and their future. Its probably best to stick with a certain niche that you and your kids enjoy to gain credibility with YouTube algorithms and at the same time do some " trendy" videos (after all they are trendy because most people like watching them) from that niche to have a higher chance to be suggested by YouTube and be placed on bigger channel suggested videos. Of course you can do different type of videos to see how your audience react to them but I wouldn't try so many different type at the same time. One of the channel my son loves to watch is The Axel Show ( they deserve way more subscribers than what they have) and kids loves watching their videos because they focus on using their imagination to have fun and I'm pretty sure they will never do the giant egg type videos you see on YouTube because people subscribed for certain type of content. Of course they could make the most amazing and interesting giant egg video in the whole world but if the first burst of people click off or don't like it,( which most likely are subscribers) YouTube thinks it's not a very good video and stop promoting it! The most important thing is to have fun with your kids because it's such an amazing bonding experience! Everything I'm saying is not ground breaking and I'm sorry it's turned out to be so long and probably not very helpful. I'm also trying to type using my phone while holding two three month old babies in each arm lol...[DOUBLEPOST=1478489517,1478489292][/DOUBLEPOST]Also SEO is totally a learning curve, I still look back at the old videos and wonder why I used a certain tag or put that in the video title. You will get better with time! Just don't give up if this is something you're passionate about! It took us 1.5 months to get our first 100sub and over 3months before we even got our first check! All it takes is one "gateway" video to drive traffic to your channel. Ours came out of no where and the views just jumped up for that one video randomly one day...

Thank you very much Ryan ToysReview! your message is so motivating and inspiring! For a Huge channel like you i did not expect that you are here right now talking to us lol! My 3 yrs old daughter is a big fan of your channel. Thank you for sharing this i can relate so much and you made me realize that i am on the right path. I really dont know if i am doing things right when i created this channel but i have experienced most of the things you said. Have learned so much on your post. Thank you again!

 

[Derrick Toys]

Ryan Toys Review You're amazing to take the time and help another parent out! Thank you so much I totally agree with everything you mentioned and feel the same way. Congrats on your twin babies!! Can I call you Supermom LOL Amazing... this is so much work behind the scenes I can only imagine with two tiny ones! With time and passion and creative content on YT hopefully I can make this dream a career for our family too. It's a blessing to be able to spend time with your kids for a living! Time to focus our channel on our own niches rather than vlogs since it does make sense to be known for a certain niche. I always tell my kids Ryan is a very lucky boy. Watching your channel inspired me to "give it a shot" Although it's been challenging from scratch, it's much more reassuring you experienced what we are as a growing channel. Your advice assures me we're on the right path organically growing just need to keep going. Thank you again!! YT has been a lot of fun & who knows in the future Ryan and Derrick can collaborate videos!

 

[FamilyToyReview]

I totally agree with this! We didn't add in vlog style videos until recently and even then we weren't sure how they would perform. Also "Family Toy Review,just want to say my son enjoy watching your videos, especially your Thomas & Friends videos!

Awesome thank you! feels pretty good to know there's a real audience. the vlogs are a good idea. our channel revolves around spending time with our son and our content will probably change as he grows out of kid toys. i think similar to how your channel has been evolving. pretty funny this started two years ago, i was pretending to be blucollection while at toysrus and having a good laugh. now here i am!

and we use our iphone too! i can't tell people enough how much easier it is to just use your phone and imovie. just the tag stuff we do on computer.[DOUBLEPOST=1478530515,1478529238][/DOUBLEPOST]

Thanks for your advice on finding a niche I completely agree. What is your opinion on the niche of my channel? I think our niche is of my 2 & 3 year old lives having fun being kids. They love toys and we have weekly family outings so that's the direction Im going. How do I find a niche when my kids love EVERYTHING! Our current videos are my kids playing with their outdoor toys and visiting kids places like we normally do every week. I work with kids as a career so I'll put my creative hat on and focus on a niche for each video.

I will be honest upkeeping our channel is being tested with the hours of hard work, SEO research, and doing everything organically (not paying for adwords/views) I'm doing everything by the book and barely hit views/subs. I do work full-time but I enjoy this sooo much more. Who wouldn't want to make a living playing with their kids during their happiest moments! Maybe I'm just hitting the new channel bumps? Not sure where to improve would love feedback. Consistent uploading is what I will work on. How did you find your niche?

im not really an expert so i cant tell you what niche you should do. plus depends on what you want to do with your kids. but there are channels who do mostly play doh. ive seen some channels with a lot of ride-on vehicles do well (so expensive). channels with mostly shopkins. or toy trucks. there's a lot of thomas videos.

and you can do multiple toys. it just helps to develop your catalog and not mix it up too much. when we started we were completely aimless and did anything. doing anything without direction did no good. once we had some videos up of mostly toys for boys, it did us no favors when we started doing shopkins. i discovered there are a lot of channels with feminine toys or masculine toys. but usually not both. probably to do with audience demographics. we even did a video with shopkins and a hot wheel toy together and it generated no interest. so that was a bad idea. and then we focused on dinotrux last year which was cool and we started to see some growth. did a lot of dinotrux videos and we were usually the first to get a new dinotrux toy. but no one seemed to care. i think it was a good niche but probably not popular enough since its only on netflix. we've found our most success with thomas and friends videos. huge audience and huge network of small thomas related channels.

i have a hard time keeping ourselves within a niche. its torture to do the same toys over and over so i mix it up. but i can say doing a lot of videos on a good niche has really helped. there are channels finding success with paw patrol or octonauts. pj masks seems popular. theres a lot out there. you can have videos on more than one toy but you should develop a good catalog of videos on the niche. and not mix things up too much until you have a built in audience.

 

[Derrick Toys]

Thanks for great tips!

 

[CelyD87]

This forum is super amazing with wonderful helpful people! Gosh I wouldn't know how to manage two toddlers while recording. While it's way more fun to watch two kids playing instead of one, It's probably twice as hard to record! While we guide my son to say certain things like tell the kids "let's open it", but during the actually playing part we let him guide us. Kids can come up with far more creative ways to play with toys than adult can. After all they are the toys "expert" and they'll have more fun being in charge. Not gonna lie, it's a challenge still to manage daily upload because we do everything ourselves and most recording session last 1-1:30hr but we usually trim the video down during editing to about 5-7mins. We are trying to increase our video length for better watch time buts it's still a struggle trying to increase video length and keeping it interesting and engaging for kids. We are also not the best at recording/editing since I'm still just using my iPhone and IMovies. We try to be better at time management by having a calendar of what to record what day and make sure everything is ready before that day. We didn't start out with daily uploads because we were both working full time, so we started with once a week, then twice a week...etc until we got better with time management. Of course it also help because my son loves making videos! He still ask everyday when are we filming because he's excited to show the kids this and that! People things it's easy to record and play with toys but it's a lot of work behind the scene. Of course we have lots of fun doing so and it's the best job in the world to be able to spend time with your kids and being paid to do so so we are saving all we can for the children colleges and their future. Its probably best to stick with a certain niche that you and your kids enjoy to gain credibility with YouTube algorithms and at the same time do some " trendy" videos (after all they are trendy because most people like watching them) from that niche to have a higher chance to be suggested by YouTube and be placed on bigger channel suggested videos. Of course you can do different type of videos to see how your audience react to them but I wouldn't try so many different type at the same time. One of the channel my son loves to watch is The Axel Show ( they deserve way more subscribers than what they have) and kids loves watching their videos because they focus on using their imagination to have fun and I'm pretty sure they will never do the giant egg type videos you see on YouTube because people subscribed for certain type of content. Of course they could make the most amazing and interesting giant egg video in the whole world but if the first burst of people click off or don't like it,( which most likely are subscribers) YouTube thinks it's not a very good video and stop promoting it! The most important thing is to have fun with your kids because it's such an amazing bonding experience! Everything I'm saying is not ground breaking and I'm sorry it's turned out to be so long and probably not very helpful. I'm also trying to type using my phone while holding two three month old babies in each arm lol...[DOUBLEPOST=1478489517,1478489292][/DOUBLEPOST]Also SEO is totally a learning curve, I still look back at the old videos and wonder why I used a certain tag or put that in the video title. You will get better with time! Just don't give up if this is something you're passionate about! It took us 1.5 months to get our first 100sub and over 3months before we even got our first check (it was not that much, just barely enough over the minimum to get paid) ! All it takes is one "gateway" video to drive traffic to your channel. Ours came out of no where and the views just jumped up for that one video randomly one day...

It is amazing all the work you do without help! It is definitely motivating to hear your story. My 2 year old son discovered your videos and he's been hooked since then. Ryan is actually the reason why we started our YouTube channel. My son started imitating Ryan so I had to film him hehe! I thought it would be a great idea to help him with his speech delay. It encourages him to talk!

We started 3 months ago and reached 300subs so far. However, I'm still trying to figure out how everything works with tags, SEO, titles, video ideas etc would love it if you could actually mentor us hehe which I know is impossible since you have so much going on already.[DOUBLEPOST=1478814009][/DOUBLEPOST]

Hi YouTube! I just created a kids channel for my 3 yr old son Derrick with his little sister Collette. A few videos uploaded so far about what he loves like playing with toys, vlogging our weekly fun adventures, etc. Any advice how to get better with vlogging?

That's awesome that you started a channel for your son! I'm curious to see what responses you get on here. I just started 3 months ago with only 3k overall channel views. I see some growing faster than others while starting around the same time. I know content matters but I'm sure SEO and other things play a role in it too. Would love to hear any advice

 

[Action Toys Fun]

Also SEO is totally a learning curve, I still look back at the old videos and wonder why I used a certain tag or put that in the video title. You will get better with time! Just don't give up if this is something you're passionate about! It took us 1.5 months to get our first 100sub and over 3months before we even got our first check (it was not that much, just barely enough over the minimum to get paid) ! All it takes is one "gateway" video to drive traffic to your channel. Ours came out of no where and the views just jumped up for that one video randomly one day...

I just checked Socialblade and RyanToysReview is #1 in the top 100, in just over 1 year you guys really cranked it out! AMAZING!!! I treat your advice like GOLD!

 

[FunWithTheBugs]

This forum is super amazing with wonderful helpful people! Gosh I wouldn't know how to manage two toddlers while recording. While it's way more fun to watch two kids playing instead of one, It's probably twice as hard to record! While we guide my son to say certain things like tell the kids "let's open it", but during the actually playing part we let him guide us. Kids can come up with far more creative ways to play with toys than adult can. After all they are the toys "expert" and they'll have more fun being in charge. Not gonna lie, it's a challenge still to manage daily upload because we do everything ourselves and most recording session last 1-1:30hr but we usually trim the video down during editing to about 5-7mins. We are trying to increase our video length for better watch time buts it's still a struggle trying to increase video length and keeping it interesting and engaging for kids. We are also not the best at recording/editing since I'm still just using my iPhone and IMovies. We try to be better at time management by having a calendar of what to record what day and make sure everything is ready before that day. We didn't start out with daily uploads because we were both working full time, so we started with once a week, then twice a week...etc until we got better with time management. Of course it also help because my son loves making videos! He still ask everyday when are we filming because he's excited to show the kids this and that! People things it's easy to record and play with toys but it's a lot of work behind the scene. Of course we have lots of fun doing so and it's the best job in the world to be able to spend time with your kids and being paid to do so so we are saving all we can for the children colleges and their future. Its probably best to stick with a certain niche that you and your kids enjoy to gain credibility with YouTube algorithms and at the same time do some " trendy" videos (after all they are trendy because most people like watching them) from that niche to have a higher chance to be suggested by YouTube and be placed on bigger channel suggested videos. Of course you can do different type of videos to see how your audience react to them but I wouldn't try so many different type at the same time. One of the channel my son loves to watch is The Axel Show ( they deserve way more subscribers than what they have) and kids loves watching their videos because they focus on using their imagination to have fun and I'm pretty sure they will never do the giant egg type videos you see on YouTube because people subscribed for certain type of content. Of course they could make the most amazing and interesting giant egg video in the whole world but if the first burst of people click off or don't like it,( which most likely are subscribers) YouTube thinks it's not a very good video and stop promoting it! The most important thing is to have fun with your kids because it's such an amazing bonding experience! Everything I'm saying is not ground breaking and I'm sorry it's turned out to be so long and probably not very helpful. I'm also trying to type using my phone while holding two three month old babies in each arm lol...[DOUBLEPOST=1478489517,1478489292][/DOUBLEPOST]Also SEO is totally a learning curve, I still look back at the old videos and wonder why I used a certain tag or put that in the video title. You will get better with time! Just don't give up if this is something you're passionate about! It took us 1.5 months to get our first 100sub and over 3months before we even got our first check (it was not that much, just barely enough over the minimum to get paid) ! All it takes is one "gateway" video to drive traffic to your channel. Ours came out of no where and the views just jumped up for that one video randomly one day...

Retention rates is something we are struggling with although not sure what a good retention rate is for a children's channel which I would think is much less then other types of content. Do you think shorter videos are the answer to that or a kid is going to watch 3 minutes of a video whether it's a 5 minute video or 10 minute video which the result of 3 minutes watched would really be the same. Do you think keeping it short would improve view times. Right now most of our videos are over 10 minutes. Also, as a smaller channel our retention rate gets killed by other channels self promoting themselves in our comment section and I know they are not watching any of the video and we usually don't get enough real views to overcome that which is frustrating.

Also, we branched out to family vlogs and in truth don't know if that has helped or hurt us. Still going through the battle if we should stick to the kids stuff or keep both things going.

 

[Ryan ToysReview]

Retention rates is something we are struggling with although not sure what a good retention rate is for a children's channel which I would think is much less then other types of content. Do you think shorter videos are the answer to that or a kid is going to watch 3 minutes of a video whether it's a 5 minute video or 10 minute video which the result of 3 minutes watched would really be the same. Do you think keeping it short would improve view times. Right now most of our videos are over 10 minutes. Also, as a smaller channel our retention rate gets killed by other channels self promoting themselves in our comment section and I know they are not watching any of the video and we usually don't get enough real views to overcome that which is frustrating.

Also, we branched out to family vlogs and in truth don't know if that has helped or hurt us. Still going through the battle if we should stick to the kids stuff or keep both things going.

For us the retention rate is pretty low, I'm not sure at the moment since we are not home but I will look up the analysis once I have access to a computer. When we first started the video length are pretty short around 3-7 mins. It was not intentional, just that it was hard for us to make it long and kept it interesting at the same time. Even now most of our top view videos are around 5-7 mins. We been trying to stretch our videos out a bit longer because we notice our longer videos seems to get better pay rate.If you look at Toys Freak, their videos are super short and sweet and gets millions of views within days! At the end of the day it's all about Watch Time, keep people watching YouTube the longest you can lol! Have you read this article from tubefilter about reverse engineering YouTube algorithm?http://www.tubefilter.com/2016/06/23/reverse-engineering-youtube-algorithm/
It might answer your question about the length of the videos because we are still experiencing with different lengths ourself.

I agree about other channel trying to promote their channel in the comment section and not really watching it so it hurts retention rate. Unfortunately there's no way around it unless you disable comments.

What's your target audience? I think as a new channel it might be more beneficial to be niche specific. Looking at your channel you have hot wheels, Starbucks pumpkin latte, then French press coffee, and some fun family vlog type videos. The people who liked to watch your French Press Coffee (adult mostly I'm assuming) might not be into Hotwheels( kid mostly and some adult I'm sure ) Even vlog is too broad. Who's the target audience on your vlog? Parents? Kids? Most successful channel is niche specific and have a separate channel for their vlog. Even Toys channel is too broad! Age of target audience? Of course you can totally keep doing what your doing as long as you guys having fun and that's what matter the most! You don't wanna burn out and feel like you have to make videos instead of wanting to make videos. Like I mention in the post before, we didn't do vlog videos until much later, and those type of videos for us should really belong on a different channel which we are planing to start soon. Once you built a fan base and people start caring about your daily life, then vlog type contain will do just as well if not more! Our number one priority is to make sure our son is having fun so we will do some trendy videos once in a while ( of course as long as he wants too also) and more videos with him playing with whatever toys he pick or places he wants to go even thou we know those videos won't get as much views, it doesn't matter as long as he's having fun! He's at the point where he wants me to record him do everything because he thinks those people watching his videos are his friends! We also tried some "girls type toys" they don't do very well even for us so we tried to stick with a target boy audience from 3-5 years old. ( Some girls do watch but it's a small percentage I'm assuming compare to boys) It's just hard for YouTube to suggest your videos to other bigger channel if YouTube don't know what's your channel is about, so niche specific is important. Also try to do some videos that follow the trend in that niche while adding your own twist to it!

Again for the Vlog it's really up to you, if those are the type of videos you guys like doing then keep doing them! ( that's what's important) It might be a longer road to build an audience base, but those fan will be loyal to you once it happen!

I will try to let you know our analysis next time I'm on my computer! We are on a road trip this whole week. Take care and good luck on your channel! Please forgive all the mistyped, it's hard on my cell.