Thank you
I appreciate your advice
Ive gained nearly 3k subs in 15months so I hope thats a good growth rate? Did you get any "bang" moments? How long did it take you to build your following?
note - im not in it for money or fame im in it as a hobby but I do love it and try hard like all hobbies
I stumbled into this thing, I was already making these videos not even knowing about monetization, just for fun with my boys. One of our videos started getting quite a few views (I think it was around 100,000 views) and it almost made me make my channel private, who were these people watching my kids videos? ha ha! YouTube emailed me several times if I wanted to monetize the video (this was in the summer of 2012, before they had open-monetization), but I never responded thinking it wouldn't even be worth it. But I did on a whim and it made me about $10 a day for that video, which isn't a ton of money but got my attention because it was every day, weekends, holidays, etc. So by Jan 2013 I decided to crank it and do it full time, based on so little $$ but big on concept. $10/day is now a low performing video, some go up to $400/day, crazy! We're well into the four figures a day now. We had footage shown on Nightline, ABC World News Tonight With Diane Sawyer, the CMT Channel, etc., so we got some good exposure. But mostly we've had a strategy of getting on suggested video lists to get our huge views. The more views you get, the more views you get, especially with evergreen type content. Once you hit a certain threshold, not sure what that is, it snowballs and grows exponentially. I want to give YouTube a big kiss! You have to be in a niche that supports monster views otherwise you'll have to create the demand, and I'd hate to be trying to do that. Find a statistically strong niche that you enjoy that isn't ridiculously over-saturated and you're halfway there. Don't reinvent things, just make a better sail to catch the winds. Just make stuff you'd love to watch yourself. Make each video as if it were to be watched by millions (it might be), so make it as perfect to your standards as you can. This is all fun, but it's also big business, treat your productions like you're a multi-million dollar company. Then you might be. And when you do start making good money, enjoy the time freedom, don't burn out, always have a reason/dream to take it to the next level. Don't let people with 427 views and 7 subs tell you it can't be done. Study the words on here from those who are doing it. Those who aren't might have good advice, but I've always listened to those who are doing what I want to do, not just those talking about it who aren't even close. I'd take one sentence from someone doing it over 1,000 pages from those who aren't but talk like they are. That's not to slam those who aren't, but puts emphasis on those who are. What they say they've done, they've been where you want to go.
FreeWillRev, my advice for YouTube is always to follow your heart and statistics and where they merge, that's your ticket.
