Why big youtubers do not want to collaborate with small ones?

[chottom]

I recently did a collab with one of the few other UK-based YouTubers who makes Disney videos. I had about 1.5 K subscribers, she had nearly 7 K subscribers. We had been in contact through Twitter for a few months beforehand and had actually met each other once (by chance) too! Funnily enough, SHE was the one who suggested we do a collab and seemed keener than I was!

When the day came, we went for lunch and hung out a bit before we actually filmed our videos. And the whole thing was so much fun - you can tell if you watch the videos... We didn't just film because we felt we had to, we filmed together because it was fun!

Both our videos got a great response and I think we both gained new viewers and subscribers, though I'm pretty sure I gained more than her because she has more subscribers. I remember I was a bit surprised at first that someone who has about 5 K more subscribers than me wanted to do a collab with me, but it shows that 1) she's awesome and isn't just focused on views and 2) as long as you like each other's content, you can collab regardless of the number of subscribers!

Very, very good point! The collab must come naturally and you really should enjoy each others content and company. We did once a collab (we received an invitation from smaller but still several K channel) but during the filming it turned out this is an outlet of commercial/media company. It was not so much fun. Moreover I had "to oblige" them to clean their collab video of all suggestive (18+) tags - even less fun. We are much more careful now with whom we collab (if anybody).

 

[Sam4God]

Very, very good point! The collab must come naturally and you really should enjoy each others content and company. We did once a collab (we received an invitation from smaller but still several K channel) but during the filming it turned out this is an outlet of commercial/media company. It was not so much fun. Moreover I had "to oblige" them to clean their collab video of all suggestive (18+) tags - even less fun. We are much more careful now with whom we collab (if anybody).

Yikes that's a bad experience. I guess you have to know the other person to an extent and genuinely enjoy their content and personality before you agree to collab. And trust them too!

 

[chottom]

If a guy wants to collaborate, I'll always take a look at his channel even if he's brand spanking new, just in case he has ridiculous potential.

Excellent point. The small channel (60 subs) we'll collaborate with will be within an year in the tens of thousands subs range (unless they stop making videos). When you see a potential you just see it.

 

[WilliamRayWalters]

1) she's awesome and isn't just focused on views and 2) as long as you like each other's content, you can collab regardless of the number of subscribers!

3) She very possibly thinks very highly of your content and/or sees a lot of potential in your channel. After all, she was keener on it than you were, right? That tells you something right there.

Totally agree

I have a bad habit of typing things out before I read through the entirety of everyone's posts lol. But yes, good point. I don't think I'd collaborate with a friend ever though. It just seems like it could cause too many problems.

 

[chottom]

Yikes that's a bad experience. I guess you have to know the other person to an extent and genuinely enjoy their content and personality before you agree to collab. And trust them too!

Exactly - now I check not just the videos but also the metadata and social media (as far as I can). In anyway now we have so much more experience and knowledge about how YouTube operates and we are much more careful with the collaborations.

 

[Brinkbabe91]

I never see big youtubers collaborating with smaller yters. Why? It makes no sense for bigger ones because smaller ones can not give them views? or not worth their time?

It really comes down to it wouldn't benefit the bigger youtuber honestly. I have seen one big youtuber collab with muuuuch smaller channels but their content was on par with his quality before they started collabing. And he is just a very nice person who likes to help out anyone he can. But I think some of it is also time constraints. If they said yes to collab with everyone they wouldn't have time to do their own thing.

 

[YouTuber1978]

I'm not convinced that collabs works. When you look at the volume of traffic that comes from links, annotations, etc it's just such a small % of where views come from. I can see if a really big channel were to shout out a tiny channel it would make a difference for the small channel but not even that much. I think collabs make sense if you know the person, or like the person, and think you'd have a good time making a video with them. I don't know that I would focus on it as a way of growing a channel.

 

[Crown]

I'm not convinced that collabs works. When you look at the volume of traffic that comes from links, annotations, etc it's just such a small % of where views come from. I can see if a really big channel were to shout out a tiny channel it would make a difference for the small channel but not even that much. I think collabs make sense if you know the person, or like the person, and think you'd have a good time making a video with them. I don't know that I would focus on it as a way of growing a channel.

If my memory serves me right, there have been a couple of examples of "small" YouTubers collaborating with very big YouTubers right here on YTtalk and the results weren't life-changing at all. One YTtalker in fact did a collab with Uberdanger and then also a few months later got a collab with WrecklessEating. Apart from an initial peak in daily subs, views and comments which lasted about 2-3 days, the buzz very quickly died away and within less than a week, the smaller channel went back to their usual level of daily activity and didn't go on to become a "big" channel. The reason seems to be that subs on a "big" channel are very loyal and very fickle. They might check out someone else fleetingly, but they will always come back to the channel that they have been subbed to and watching for all that time. The content on that smaller channel needs to be absolutely amazing, probably better than the bigger channel if it is to pull subs away from it.

A good analogy is huge national news sites like the BBC (or CBS etc). Sometimes, they will quote a source from a smaller news site with a link. But people don't suddenly stop reading the BBC (or CBS) and convert to the other one. The next day, they will return to the BBC / CBS. There are only x number of hours in a day to read news and to watch YT videos and people will tend to stay loyal.

 

[Charlie Jacoby]

My channel is middlesized - 80k subscribers - and I have done collabs with YouTubers from KSI downwards. Two things to say here: it's always worth me doing collabs with anyone. You never know who is going to be big in the future. And I don't think of any other YouTuber as competition. I come from the press where people in a shop will only buy one mag or newspaper. People will watch dozens of YouTube films back to back. There is room for all of us.

 

[EmilyJM]

Jenna Marbles talking about this in one of the podcasts she did a while back. If you're not friends there is no point as far as I'm concerned. I'm not in it for the numbers and I don't want to just meet up with someone for the purpose of two videos and never see them again. I don't like the idea of forced friendships and looking all chummy on camera when you barely know a person.
IF you know someone as a friend or you get to know someone as a friend and they have more subscribers than you. There will come a time when a collab is mentioned and it will happen. I did a collab recently with my friend Lydia who I've been skyping since May and I met her at Summer In The City, is it the best video I'll ever do? No. Was it a lot of fun? Yes.