How long (in videos/time) before things start moving?

Yorkshire Gamer

Yorkshire Gamer

Cities: Skylines (The City of Shoreline)
Hi all,

New YouTuber here. Got 6 gaming videos (Cities: Skylines) online since Sunday, and aiming to upload 4-5 a week without damaging the quality of the things. I'm thankful that I have 1-2 hours a day I can devote to filming, editing and uploading.

17 subscribers after 5 days, and 550+ views, which I think is very impressive given the short time. Much thanks must go to a link I posted on Reddit for that though, which I think has brought in 55-60% of viewers.

Anyway, my question. How long, in your experience, does it take until you have 'made it'? By that, I don't mean making £1,000s a month, or having 1m subscribers, but when is the time you feel your channel has gained a decent fanbase with frequent comments etc?

I'm hoping that by 50 episodes of my series, I will have around 2-300 subscribers and a frequent dialogue with them, but I know that might not be the case. In timescales, by Christmas I'd like things to be moving along.

Is it a case of built good content and they will come?

What are your experiences?
 
Yorkshire Gamer said:
Hi all,

New YouTuber here. Got 6 gaming videos (Cities: Skylines) online since Sunday, and aiming to upload 4-5 a week without damaging the quality of the things. I'm thankful that I have 1-2 hours a day I can devote to filming, editing and uploading.

17 subscribers after 5 days, and 550+ views, which I think is very impressive given the short time. Much thanks must go to a link I posted on Reddit for that though, which I think has brought in 55-60% of viewers.

Anyway, my question. How long, in your experience, does it take until you have 'made it'? By that, I don't mean making £1,000s a month, or having 1m subscribers, but when is the time you feel your channel has gained a decent fanbase with frequent comments etc?

I'm hoping that by 50 episodes of my series, I will have around 2-300 subscribers and a frequent dialogue with them, but I know that might not be the case. In timescales, by Christmas I'd like things to be moving along.

Is it a case of built good content and they will come?

What are your experiences?
Click to expand...
I have had a channel since 2008 and still don't have 1,000 subscribers. You will probably reach 1,000 before I do
 
It's a good question! I've had my channel 4 months now and I'll hopefully hit 200 soon. I've made some great friends via Facebook groups (and more recently, this forum!) who subscribed and tune in to my videos regularly. And I'm incredibly grateful for that. I have every intention of committing to this channel - it's given me better focus and confidence, so I have no plans to give up quite yet!

It's also tricky because even if I do have people who actively follow my work (some even said I'm one of their fave YouTubers, like whaaaaaat?!), it just feels egotistical of me to say I have a "fanbase" at any point, whether I have a million subs or ten! Haha.
 
You want 2K subscribers by Christmas!? Good luck with that one.

I've been making video relatively consistently for over a year now and I'm nearing the 2000 mark a little more each day, which is exciting! However I've put a lot of work into promoting and making friends and going to conventions. I have people who comment on every video I make, I get over 100 views in less than 12 hours and that makes me feel pretty awesome but I would suggest lowering your goals considering this all took time and effort and when I say time and effort I mean I had a gap year to literally spend all my time on YouTube...
 
Yorkshire Gamer said:
Hi all,

New YouTuber here. Got 6 gaming videos (Cities: Skylines) online since Sunday, and aiming to upload 4-5 a week without damaging the quality of the things. I'm thankful that I have 1-2 hours a day I can devote to filming, editing and uploading.

17 subscribers after 5 days, and 550+ views, which I think is very impressive given the short time. Much thanks must go to a link I posted on Reddit for that though, which I think has brought in 55-60% of viewers.

Anyway, my question. How long, in your experience, does it take until you have 'made it'? By that, I don't mean making £1,000s a month, or having 1m subscribers, but when is the time you feel your channel has gained a decent fanbase with frequent comments etc?

I'm hoping that by 50 episodes of my series, I will have around 2-300 subscribers and a frequent dialogue with them, but I know that might not be the case. In timescales, by Christmas I'd like things to be moving along.

Is it a case of built good content and they will come?

What are your experiences?
Click to expand...

For me, I went from under 500 subscribers on my gaming channel to over 3,000 in one year. This was due to a tutorial I uploaded that went viral and took the top spot on the YouTube listings for a specific search term. 2,000 Subscribers is a reachable target.
In my experience, they key to building a fan base and growing your channel is consistent uploads and unique, quality content people enjoy watching.
Promotion is also vital. Get involved with Google+ groups (yes, people actually use Google+) as well as Facebook groups, Twitter pages, Reddit forums and other forums such as Votable.
Create posts that promote people to respond. Perhaps have a running game with your audience or have competitions on your channel from time to time. Be sure to make use of your tags, descriptions and titles effectively to get your video within the first five pages (or try to).

My main advice would be to stick to what you are doing and stick to what you love. The fans will find you.
 
EmilyJM said:
You want 2K subscribers by Christmas!? Good luck with that one.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply! Did you misread my original post though, as I didn't mention wanting X amount of subscribers?

Was asking how long it takes to get 2-300 generally, and how to keep growing. :)
 
That's pretty impressive. I think it took me like 3 months to get 17 subs lol

Obviously the stuff I do isn't nearly as popular as gaming though, so it's to be expected. I think if you stay consistent like that you can definitely accomplish your goals. Be careful of posting too much on reddit, though, the community can turn on you in a second, and you can get banned for spamming by the admins if you're only sharing links of your own stuff. Make sure you read the rules about that and be wary.

To answer your other question, I'll feel like I 'made it' when my videos start breaking even and I'm spending less on making them than I'm getting. I've calculated this to be around 30-50,000 subs, but I doubt that will ever happen honestly.
 
Thanks Kaleido.

Yes, Reddit is a strange old place. I feel like I'm constantly treading on egg shells over there. I will use it VERY infrequently.

In terms of breaking even, I'm fairly lucky doing gaming. It costs nothing!
 
it takes different times for everyone. It took me 5+ years to get to 1,000 subs, another few years to get to 10,000, and in the last year ive gained about 30,000 subs, so its taken a lot of time but it does get faster once you start to hit milestones. The first 1k seems to take the longest
 
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