I have no experience with vlogs so please excuse if I am rambling here. I'm guessing the growth rate with vlogs will be gradual. I think the problem with vlogs is they can be very diverse and not as easy to coalesce into neat little content categories like toys can be.
I see you guys did a few hot wheels at first and now vlogs. I bet you got tired of making hot wheels videos or ran out of ideas. I have that problem. So I end up doing other videos because it's more interesting for me.
You should decide on who your audience is going to be and cater to that. Kids probably won't watch the video on French press coffee and burr grinder. I suspect YouTube's job is easier when you consistently serve a particular audience. If one video is appealing to mostly boys, or another is appealing to a certain segment of adults, or another appeals to girls, then in my experience it probably doesn't help your channel. I'm in the camp where we think it helps to pick a niche. I think niches are synonymous to having a particular audience. Too many niches or too many disparate audience demographics probably results in confusion and inefficient channel growth.
Keep up the vlogs if you guys are having fun though. That is probably what matters the most. So Enjoying the process is #1. A close #2 would be how satisfied you are with your growth rate. And I think "efficiency" is key to improving growth rate. Do I want to make 5 completely random topic videos, or do I want to make 5 videos that target a niche or trend. Random is more fun. Targeted is more efficient.
One of our fav vlogs is axel show. I remember last year they were surprisingly not big. I forgot how many subscribers. Anyways theyre doing a lot better now. I think they should be in the millions but their current sub count is a lot higher than I last remember. So there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Most videos are watched on mobile. I would avoid using smaller text in my thumbnails. Thumbnails are an art I think. They need to be just right. Also depends on your audience. What works for kids might not be appealing for adults. But with mobile in mind, I usually try to use close-up pictures that can be seen more easily from cell phone.
Sorry if I don't respond to comments on my videos by the way. I appreciate people leaving nice comments. But I'm not much of a commenter. My mouse gets heavy and slow and I get comment paralysis.
Thanks, appreciate the feedback. I do find Vlogs harder to pull in traffic as their isn't usually something specific in a Vlog that you key in on where is a Toy video you pretty much know what your dealing with so titles and tags are right there in front of you. I actually find Vlogs harder to do as well as you really have to create something out of nothing and be entertaining. In a Toy video your subject is right there in front of you.
As for thumbnails I totally hear you and my last 2 videos thumbnails have no text at all. I don't know why I thought you needed to say something on your thumbnail but I am thinking just a good picture will speak for itself.
As for the coffee video, I thought maybe doing a video outside the box can bring in additional people that otherwise would never find our channel. Our target audience is really families. I want a channel that kids and parents can both enjoy but I think that is really challenging. Also, I did a video on saltwater fish tanks and that video happens to be one of my fastest growing videos and is watched consistently by people every day so figured how can that be hurting my channel? Who knows what YouTube thinks about that. LOL
We started out with Hot Wheels videos because that is the type of stuff my son liked to watch and at the time really had no vision of a real channel. Our target audience was just boys or even older people who love cool Hot Wheels stuff but as I got more serious I thought we needed more substance on our channel. I wanted to branch out but also still keep it about the kids as the whole reason for starting up was for my son to have a fun, of course now I take it a little more series then that.
I definitely think we can get a larger audience if we targeted girls as well but my son would have absolutely no interest in doing anything with a girl toy, LOL. Us as adults would do whatever and be fine with it, I still think my son has to have some interest in it and I need him to be doing it because he enjoys it and has fun. Maybe he will have some fun doing Shopkins stuff one day, who knows. I have often asked him if he wanted to stop because I felt like wasn't enjoying himself, like making videos were becoming a chore but he would always tell me he wants to still make them. I have slowed down though and don't do as many a week as I used to do.
So where do I see us going forward, our last 2 videos used a new lighting kit and backdrop that I got I am really happy with the outcome of the video we produced. I think I might stick close to that feel and do some family stuff here and there and see how it goes.
Thanks again for taking the time out to give me your thoughts, appreciate it.
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