How to gain from scratch?

[Cyntheon]

Hey guys!
I'd like to start off by saying that I have gained a lot of useful insight through YTtalk and try to apply the advice I find here, but my biggest problem right now is gaining exposure.

I have read through tons of threads here, actives and stickys, and much of the information has been useful. I've improved my editing, thumbnails, audience engagement etc. It's very hard to promote your channel when you first start because people interpret almost any form of self promotion as spam. People (including myself tbh) also tend to click on videos with more views. Some of my videos (eg top 10 lists) have been done by other people as well, and if someone searches for it and sees a video with hundreds of thousands of views versus a dozen views, they'd be more likely to watch the one that has a lot of views.

I think my videos are getting better - audience retention and average watch time are going up, but average views are not and I'm not gaining subscribers either. I had a two-week break which maybe wasn't the smartest idea, but I was busy with school and I figured I generate so little traffic anyway that I didn't need to make an announcement video about my break. Also, I didn't expect to not upload anything, but sometimes life just happens.
I've only had my channel for roughly a month and have about 10 videos and 15 subscribers. I know I can't expect magic to happen when I'm just starting a channel, but more exposure would definitely help.

This forum is full of great advice about branding and consistency and many other things that'll help you break the 1000 subscriber mark / eventually become self sustaining, but how do you get the ball rolling in the first place? How do you get those first 100 subscribers? What are ways you gain exposure when you only have a handful of views and subs?

I could also put it this way: If any YouTube channel is made up of different ingredients (eg SEO, content, branding, upload frequency, social media, audience interaction, etc), which ingredients should you start with to get the best end result?

Maybe you could even share your personal story of how you got the ball rolling when you started out, or if you're in the same position as me - what do you do / focus on?

 

[xingcat]

My biggest advice is to be consistent and keep at it. A month is absolutely nothing in terms of YouTube longevity (it takes a long time for people to start seeing new channels and for your content to start making its way up the search results). So just get a schedule you can stick with, stick with it, improve your content incrementally as you go, and promote, tag, describe, and thumbnail away.

Channels aren't anything without consistent content. That should always be priority #1.

 

[GamingRack]

I've only had my channel for roughly a month and have about 10 videos

lol you dont really just gain subs at the click of a finger it takes alot longer than a month with consistency both in uploads and the quality of content within to start to have people watch and stay its always a long slog in the beggining so dont even worry about it.

 

[Cyntheon]

lol you dont really just gain subs at the click of a finger it takes alot longer than a month

I'm aware of that, which is why I was asking what I CAN do at this stage. I just mentioned how old my channel is for context. I know I need to put in a lot of work, but it'd be nice to know what I should focus on.

My biggest advice is to be consistent and keep at it. A month is absolutely nothing in terms of YouTube longevity (it takes a long time for people to start seeing new channels and for your content to start making its way up the search results). So just get a schedule you can stick with, stick with it, improve your content incrementally as you go, and promote, tag, describe, and thumbnail away.

Channels aren't anything without consistent content. That should always be priority #1.

I know a month is virtually nothing, but I feel like a lot of advice is targeted at channels that have been around a bit longer so I was just wondering what I should focus on first. As to what consistency would mean for my channel - I have a Pokemon channel so they're all related, but I upload different kinds of videos - battles, unboxings, top 10 lists. Would uploading anything two-three times a week be consistent enough, or would it help my channel grow if I set certain days for certain types of videos eg battles on Saturdays? Thanks for your input!









In general, I know patience is a big part of getting started. I'm not expecting to find a secret weapon, but I'd like to do as much as I can to help my channel along

 

[darkstarmedia]

My biggest advice is to be consistent and keep at it. A month is absolutely nothing in terms of YouTube longevity (it takes a long time for people to start seeing new channels and for your content to start making its way up the search results). So just get a schedule you can stick with, stick with it, improve your content incrementally as you go, and promote, tag, describe, and thumbnail away.

Channels aren't anything without consistent content. That should always be priority #1.

@xingcat is right. The main struggle with YouTube is that it takes forever and goes nowhere for roughly a century. That's what weeds out a lot of aspiring creators in the very beginning - patience, faith and determination are what you need if you want to get anywhere.

Heck, I know it sounds like such a cop-out of an answer, but it's honestly the best I can offer right now. Believe me, if the formula for success on YouTube was a million times simpler, we'd all be polishing our diamond play buttons by now, ya feel me?

It's great that you've taken a lot of what this forum has to offer on board! 90% of people more than likely skim read the bulk of it, so good on you for taking the time to work on your channel. You'll get there eventually!

 

[GamingRack]

it'd be nice to know what I should focus on.

sod thinking about what otheres would call ''spam'' once a video goes out share it wherever you can but dont overdo it in the sence of like more than one post about the same video in the same place. other than that just keep working

 

[xingcat]

Would uploading anything two-three times a week be consistent enough, or would it help my channel grow if I set certain days for certain types of videos eg battles on Saturdays?

All your content doesn't have to be the same, but knowing what kinds of content to expect would be great! So if you said, "I do battles on Saturdays," would definitely help your viewers know if they wanted to tune in on those days, for sure. I think that's an excellent plan.

The number of times you upload per week isn't (in my opinion) as important as the fact that you do it on a predictable schedule, and that you're always trying to improve in each video. The most important thing to me is being able to set a schedule that can be achieved not just in the first few weeks when you're flush with excitement, but for a good year or two, or beyond.

Remember that if your channel gets really popular, you're going to be expected to do even more on it, so being able to know what you can produce every week is a really helpful thing.

 

[PositivelyBrainwashed]

Just by browsing your thumbnails I can tell you they look great. But I don't seem to find any logo or style that unifies all of them. I imagine there's millions of pokemon thumbnails. Ranking high on youtube searches is not the only way to get views. Appearing in other people's suggested video at the side helps a lot. So it helps a lot when a user looks to the right and sees by looking the thumbnails, wow, this person has like 6 videos on this subject.

 

[Cyntheon]

The number of times you upload per week isn't (in my opinion) as important as the fact that you do it on a predictable schedule, and that you're always trying to improve in each video. The most important thing to me is being able to set a schedule that can be achieved not just in the first few weeks when you're flush with excitement, but for a good year or two, or beyond.

But I don't seem to find any logo or style that unifies all of them.(...). Appearing in other people's suggested video at the side helps a lot. So it helps a lot when a user looks to the right and sees by looking the thumbnails, wow, this person has like 6 videos on this subject.

Great points, thanks!

@xingcat is right. The main struggle with YouTube is that it takes forever and goes nowhere for roughly a century. That's what weeds out a lot of aspiring creators in the very beginning - patience, faith and determination are what you need if you want to get anywhere.

Heck, I know it sounds like such a cop-out of an answer, but it's honestly the best I can offer right now. Believe me, if the formula for success on YouTube was a million times simpler, we'd all be polishing our diamond play buttons by now, ya feel me?

It's great that you've taken a lot of what this forum has to offer on board! 90% of people more than likely skim read the bulk of it, so good on you for taking the time to work on your channel. You'll get there eventually!

Thanks for your reply! While I know there's no magic formula and luck is part of it and patience and determination are even bigger parts of it, some channels gain their from-scratch-views (like first 100 subscribers) significantly faster than others. Of course this also depends on the type of channel/videos, but I believe a big part of it is the work they do or don't put into it at the beginning, and since I do want to put in the work, I want to make sure I'm spending time on the right things.

 

[PumpkinJunk]

Yeah, I definitely think that some channels grow faster from scratch than others, and there must be reasons for it. Figuring out these reasons is a big part of why I'm here, and I assume many of you as well.