Is my content just bad?

Agufish

Agufish

Liking YTtalk
Hi YTTalk community!

I have been making one of these acoustic instrumental cover videos every week. It is a very long process to figure out the chords/melody, arrange, film, master the audio and edit together the video. Now I haven't been getting many views, which is to be expected for a new channel, but one of my videos was featured by the band themselves (Black Stone Cherry: awesome Kentucky rock band if you haven't heard of them) on their Facebook to their 422k followers. I got over 1.5k views on it, and good feedback in the comments, but only 2 subscribers. Very disappointing for the amount of time I put in.

What is going on? Is my marketing bad? Am I not convincing enough? Or does my content just suck? YTTalk community, help me figure out why I cannot convert views to subscribers. I'll return the favor the best I can.

Thanks![DOUBLEPOST=1434047061,1434046971][/DOUBLEPOST]
 
Where is that video that was promoted by the band? I don't see any videos on your channel with more than about 1,000 views.
 
I have two channels. The one in my signature is my high-gain guitar one. The one in the first post is from my acoustic channel. Here's the one that was promoted:

 
Ah, I see. Well sorry, I can't really speak for why people don't want to subscribe. Based on that video I don't see anything wrong with it. I like it quite a bit. It kind of reminds me of Chrono Cross music:

I would like to see an Angel Vivaldi cover, though. That would be impressive.
 
@Sdawkminn: Woah. I'd never heard of Angel Vivaldi but he is incredible. Thanks for turning me on to him! I'm not much of a shredder normally, I prefer playing rhythm and riffs, it's just more fun for me, but I'll see what I can do haha.

See, this is kind of the problem I have. I show people my stuff and while they like it, I have a very tough time convincing people to subscribe haha. Any other suggestions?
 
Agufish said:
See, this is kind of the problem I have. I show people my stuff and while they like it, I have a very tough time convincing people to subscribe haha. Any other suggestions?
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Well, I'll tell you what I told someone else. People want something different than what they already know about. Cover bands do well mainly because people can go see them for free at places the actual band would never play at and they are like the next best thing. On YouTube, there is no benefit to listening to a cover version unless you already like the band doing the cover or if they change it in a significant way. Otherwise you can just as easily go watch the original.
 
I don't do a whole lot of feedback on people's channels because most people's content isn't that good and I don't like to be discouraging. I do read a lot of these posts though. The reason I'm commenting on yours is because with one minor tweak you could absolutely blow up on YouTube. Your content is fantastic.

Overall look and feel of the videos: First off - everything looks very professional. Your editing is slick, the way you shoot stuff looks good.

Your personally: Very talented musician. Cool personality.

Your YouTube SEO: Really good. Titles, descriptions, tags, etc. All great.

I did a bunch of searches and you're coming up first page on almost everything I'd want you to be. On a lot of stuff you're coming up number 1.

The one area that if you tweaked I think could make you huge is probably something you're not going to want to change but I think you HAVE to change if you want to blow up.

Very few people on YouTube are into the type of music you're into. You could absolutely dominate the cover niche for metal core, horror core, etc and you'll never have a huge channel. It's just two niche. Let me give you an analogy. Let's say Stephen Spielberg decided he wanted to start a YouTube channel. His hobby is antique sewing machines. He makes great videos. All shot beautifully, professional editing, great sound, etc. His channel wouldn't get to 1/10th the size of the average 15 year old girl doing makeup tutorials because nobody is searching for "antique sewing machine reviews".

No one is searching for Near Ruin. According to the Google Keyword Planner Near Ruin get's around 80 searches a month. That's not a typo. To give you an idea of how niche it is the search term antique sewing machines get 40 times more searches at around 4K per month.

Katy Perry: 10.5 Million Searches
Taylor Swift 12 Million Searches
Michael Jackson 5 Million Searches

The list goes on and on. I know you probably don't want to do Katy Perry and Taylor Swift covers. If you did you'd probably be a huge YouTuber based on the quality of the videos you make. I'm guessing you don't want to sacrifice your "artistic credibility" in order to become YouTube famous. Fair enough.

But at least move towards that direction. I really liked the videos you did where you looped yourself playing over your own recording. Why not try this. Do a cover of "Firework". Do it in your style. Give it a more metal sound. Have a channel where you "metal" popular songs. I'd be shocked if you didn't become huge. Don't make it to crazy headbanging metal. Just make "Firework" sound cool to you. Humor me and just do that one video on Katy's perry's firework and see what type of views it's gets.

(just as an fyi Blackstone Cherry gets about the same amount of searches as antique sewing machines:)
 
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Great advice. "Metal" popular songs. Like I said, change the music somehow from the original.

I need to check out that keyword planner thing. I've been meaning to.
 
I think ur energy level is great
Nice music :D
Your editing is cool
Your thumbnail is cool too
I think u need to add intro and outro in ur videos so that they sub to u fast :D
Well I don't need any feedback on my channel :P
All the best
 
@Jawad Soomro: Thanks. That's the kind of pick-me-up that encourages me to keep going. I'll check out your channel anyways first thing when I get the time!


@Idec Sdawkminn: I appreciate the advice. I'll continue to try to make songs my own rather than doing a straight copy of the original. Generally when I do a straight cover of a song, it's because I know the guys in the band and since they're small-time it's cool for them to show their fans. You're absolutely right though, after it's done being promoted by the band, there is no reason for people to watch my content, so I'll stray away from doing that in the future.

BY THE WAY: I just checked your channel out. I had no idea you were the guy that did the horror version of Let It Go. I love that video. I sent that to sooo many people before I joined YTTalk and it freaked them out hahaha.


@YouTuber1978: Wow. I really appreciate you taking the time to dig in deep, do all that research and write up all that just to help me out. Really, above and beyond. I do have a few questions for you:

1. How do I access the Google Keywords Planner to get these analytics? When I google it, it asks me to sign up for an Adsense account and to start a campaign. It'd be great to have those numbers to find out if a particular song is worth doing, etc.

2. The way I figure is, as long as I enjoy the music, why can't it be a cover of a Katy Perry/Taylor Swift song? I just don't know any because I generally avoid the radio and listen to Lamb of God, Trivium etc. I heard Carly Rae Jepsen's "I Really Like You" for the first time a couple of weeks ago, loved the melody and that's why I did an acoustic cover of that song. So I'm more than willing to embark on this "Firework" experiment! Just to clarify, though, which video are you talking about where I looped myself? Once I know, I can have a clearer idea of where to take the song, because there are just so many options.

3. "Antique sowing machines". lol.
 
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