Why is it hard to keep active subs?

Most subscribers aren't "active," per se. Most channels are pretty on-trend if 10-20% of their subscribers watch any one of their videos. Most people (viewers, not YouTube creators) are on YouTube fairly infrequently, and they'll subscribe because they've been asked to do so, but otherwise, they don't really care one way or the other about being "active" or "supportive" on a channel. For them, subscribing just means bookmarking a channel to come back and see what's on it when they're next inclined to visit YouTube.
 
People only have a finite amount of time in a day to watch videos. So even though they sub to lots of channels, they can't watch them all. They'll watch the channels that they consider to be the best or whatever YT is promoting on the front page that day.
 
I see it like this. If you have more views on a majority of videos than you have subscribers then your channel is doing well. For example if you have 1000 subscribers and you have multiple videos that get 2000 or more views in just a few days, then that's good and you're being watched. If you only have 100-200 then the video was not a success. It was not interesting enough or not searchable, or so,ethign happened..

I don't know why some channels have 5000 subs and only 100 views on each video. They may have done giveaways which short term in benefit or they did sub for sub. Or they took a long break and everyone forgot about them. If I had 10 videos in a row that didn't get more views than subs in a week or so, I'd seriously quit as it's just not working anymore.[DOUBLEPOST=1494809584,1494809475][/DOUBLEPOST]
xingcat said:
Most subscribers aren't "active," per se. Most channels are pretty on-trend if 10-20% of their subscribers watch any one of their videos. Most people (viewers, not YouTube creators) are on YouTube fairly infrequently, and they'll subscribe because they've been asked to do so, but otherwise, they don't really care one way or the other about being "active" or "supportive" on a channel. For them, subscribing just means bookmarking a channel to come back and see what's on it when they're next inclined to visit YouTube.
Click to expand...
This is a great answer. I'd also add that subscribing just sends you a message when's new video I sent up, if you have it turned on.. it does not in anyway promise you'll get views nor force someone to watch either
 
I lost a lot of active viewers when I changed what I primarily uploaded.
If I still uploaded mainly Minecraft, I would probably still have an active userbase.
 
Gaijillionaire said:
If I had 10 videos in a row that didn't get more views than subs in a week or so, I'd seriously quit as it's just not working anymore.
Click to expand...
PewDiePie's never gotten more views on a video than his current sub count before. When will that guy just give up already and accept that his channel's just never gonna work out? xD
 
It all comes down to content.
  • Are you uploading the same type of content? Switching your style of content will usually heavily cut your sub:view ratio.
  • Is the type of videos you upload still have relevancy? If you're channel prioritizes on a certain product, that products popularity will directly impact your channel (ex. when Minecraft loses popularity, your Minecraft channel will lose popularity).
  • Is your channel keeping up with the times? The biggest killer for channels with a lot of subscribers is they usually don't adapt with everything around them, which inevitably leads them to decline
There's a lot of different variables like upload rate, quality, etc. but those are probably the top 3.
 
Dewmonic Abyss said:
PewDiePie's never gotten more views on a video than his current sub count before. When will that guy just give up already and accept that his channel's just never gonna work out? xD
Click to expand...
I guess you're talking about someone famous? Well if you have a million subs, getting a million views every time might be hard to do. But I'm talking about us at the bottom where if you can't get 1000 views eventually, then that's a problem.
 
Damn.

The responses on this post are amazing. Thank you guys for really opening my eyes. I definitely agree with all the points you are making, especially the one about subscribers hoping for a certain "niche" after watching one video & being too lazy to unsub. That makes a lot of sense. I know a lot of people say "look at analytics, that will tell you why people are unsubscribing" but I just feel like that's rubbish because it confuses me.

Also the whole "stand-out" to get noticed can be difficult. It's hard to find something that hasn't already been done.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top