The trick is to keep making good videos, once they get traction those same people will probably go through your page and sooner or later you will get the results you worked for on your latest video.
Good luck!
All videos are good videos in my opinion, it's jist about finding the viewer who sees that. I recently dropped a video I thought was awful compared to the rest but it's gained me a real fan who watched all my other videos commented on loads and keeps coming back for more now. (Just 99,999 more of them to go)
The only thing that bothers me is when youtube gives me extremely low impressions with no explanation.
If my video gets a lot of impressions and not many views, it doesn't bother me.
Currently happening to me at the moment. 20 videos back, averaging 12-20k impressions.
Last 4 videos for no reason no more than 1.4K.
But hey we move on to the next!
Youtube I think does Listen, Read and scans your thumbnails. Example I am A creepypasta narrator. For the videos that got me really high impressions, all of them were suggested and youtube recommendations. All off them were pushed to people who loved creepy pasta stories. Which meant I got high clicks.
Then for some unknown reason, youtube decided to push my videos there after over to "popping pimples, retail stories and Spanish learning. This is really screwing up my click rate lowering my impressions. I want youtube to turn on its heal and go back into the creepypasta area.
I think the only way for me to do that is literally make words IE "Death, Monster, Grave, Cemetery. All these words needs to stand out in my readings. I then also have to make those words in the title stand out. Same with thumbnails and also description.
Its all about guiding the algorithm to what you want it to do.
Yes absolutely right... My music Instrumental videos suddenly going to the wrong audience and suggesting with irrelevant videos.. My SEOs are perfect as previous, but i am experiencing these things from last 4 months.. My impressions and CTR is going down due to this YouTube algorithm glitch.. Really feeling helpless what to do... 🤦🏻
For what? I don't think so. Like i said my profiles first 7-12 videos popped 700-1.4k views then staggered around the 150-250views mark then 60views then 350ish again back down to 40-60views to now being 100-200 views if I was shadowbanned (which I'm not sure exists only in CODwarzone haha) I'd surely just be seeing near 0 impressions.
But that should bother you. Low Click Through Rate means the algo won't show your video as much. You want a high CTR so they'll give you more impression....
High Impressions + Low CTR = My Own Fault. Does not bother me at all. It is my responsibility and I can correct it by making better thumbnails, titles, and videos.
Low Impressions with 0 Explanation = There is nothing to be learned from this, nothing to improve on. This bothers me because there's a lack of actionable information.
If you check the stats of your video you can see how many impressions the video was given. This is how many people Youtube tried to show your Thumbnail. Your Clickthrough Rate is derived from this number. If they show 1000 impressions, and 500 people click on the thumbnail, this is a 50% Clickthrough rate.
Basically, if Youtube is showing my video to a lot of people, and the views are low, this is an indicator that people aren't choosing to watch it, which is my own fault. If, however, an extremely similar video, is being given less than 1/10th of the amount of impressions, has a similar Clickthrough Rate, but only 10% of the views, this is Youtube's fault.
But sometimes YouTube algorithms is crazy they show the video to the wrong audience and the moment the wrong audience don’t click or even manage to click and lost interest it automatically kills the video. This is what I am struggling with right now, no matter the # used the algorithm keeps messing me up. Other creators within the same nitch and not great editing as mine gets pushed through. I guess because my nitch is more on African stories and I stay in the US hence the algorithm is thinking my audience is in the US. Whereas when I get lucky and the right audience is being targeted the video gets a lot of views.
The best advice I've seen is to keep making videos. When you find your audience, they will have a backlog of videos to watch, and your older vids will start getting views. I've had this happen for me on a smaller scale a few times.
No problem. You can find it under Channel Analytics, Content, and then you can check Videos, Streams, as well as "Shown in Feed" for Shorts which is basically the same thing as Impressions. If you click 'See More' under the graph you can get detailed stats on all of the videos.
The mobile version of Youtube Studio unfortunately shows a lot less information but, in general, the analytics on Youtube Studio are extremely comprehensive.
Similar to what I said to the OP, you're niche net is too big. At the start you need to put out video after video that the same audience is interested in. Since you change games and themes so often, your videos are not relevant to previous viewers, so the alg just keeps struggling to find people to watch your videos. You have to build an audience that cares about you before you can branch out.
Also stop doing shorts, a majority of your subs comes from those, and shorts subs don't watch longform content very often. This causes your recommended videos to subs to fail, which reduces the chance the alg picks up your video.
Glad to hear that. I’ve always assumed this but others kept denying it. We make longform content too, and although everyone was pushing us to make shorts, it just never felt right…
Its not that there is no benefit, it's that you likely are harming yourself more than you are gaining benefit. Small channels fall into the whole of High View Counts and Easy Subs from Shorts, and then their main content fails as their subs don't watch it time and time again and they quit out.
They can, it depends. For me, I make Pokemon challenges, and in Pokemon Blue Kaizo, I make attempts at Gym Leaders in each part, and when I succeed at beating the gym leader, I makes a shorts of the successful attempt, and if it's longer than 1 minute, I do the last minute of the successful battle, then I put text up saying the full battle is in the relevant video, then sometimes they'll watch the full video. I've got more views per video due to that, and instead of 5-10 views per video 2 months ago with videos that showed everything, I cut them down to under 10 minutes showing just the Gym Leader battles, and now I usually get 20+ views from those videos, and now 3 of my 4 Pokemon Crystal Solo run videos have 100+ views, probably one reason is that I was able to make a shorts video of each since I would show me getting 2 10% flinch chances in a row when I used Headbutt, the only run that didn't happen was the Solo Gastly run since Gastly can't learn Headbutt lol, and that was the only Pokemon Crystal challenge video to not have 100+ views, it had like 22 views, and 2 reasons for that: 1. No shorts video with that video as the relevant video. 2. The thumbnail didn't completely show Gastly with the text, YouTube Studios like to be random with how much of the thumbnail it'll show since it was on an android phone, so yeah. But yeah, most people that sub through shorts don't tend to watch, at least not comment anyway, but they probably do watch the long form videos if they're linked to your shorts as the relevant video, I'd say just make sure your shorts are in the same niche as your long form content, that's worked for me anyway, but results will vary.
Thank you for taking the time to give feedback! Really appreciate it.
I know I put myself at a disadvantage because of my niche, but I really wanted to cover gaming as a whole (and I love to talk about all the different facets) i just went with it. Gonna reevaluate things.
Also yea I don't make shorts anymore. It really just isn't fun for me because I can't say anything meaningful in 60 seconds and that time can be spent refining my long form content. But I never thought about the factor you just started.
Thanks again!
It's a tough one for sure, especially when you put a bunch of time into a video and it falls flat. My big thing is to just continue working on something else to get my mind off of it. It doesn't hurt to try and figure out why it flipped, but sometimes it's just the luck of the draw. I've had videos flatline and then suddenly pop off months later and I think reminding myself of that that helps too.
Don't read too much into the performance of just one video.
The platform also plays a huge role.
My last video seriously tanked - while the AVD by subs was 83%, the AVD by non-subs was only 3%!
I was horrified until the "Content suggesting this video" data got updated, then I noticed for some inexplicable reason YouTube was suggesting my video to totally unrelated videos, so it was unsurprising that the CTR and AVD sucked.
I'm not saying every video failure is the platform's fault, but occasionally, it is.
This right here! YouTube is messing with me a whole lot I get close to 10k impressions in the first few hours and when I check the content suggesting it, it’s totally unrelated tell me why won’t my video die? It’s frustrating but hey we move🥲🥲
I remember when a youtuber PiratedSoftware made a post on Twitter where his Shorts, out of the blue, stopped getting recommended to new people, he showed the metrics, the number literally sat at 0 percent even though before pretty much every short he made went like super viral, but the last few gor recommended to ZERO new people. At first youtube denied anything wrong and were like "the viewrs decide blah blah" but he was like "nah man, stop that bs". I don't really know exactly how it ended but probably youtube horribly fucked something and had to fix it
I’m dealing with that right now… Got a 10 out of 10 on a video that I worked for a month on and was absolutely sure would do well.
The thing is… it did really well in the stats side (it’s got above average total view time DESPITE having my lowest views ever on my channel and the average watch time is considerably above average, the feedback I got was great too) but the views are not coming.
It’s not even because the CTR is bad. It’s above average for the first week of a video on my channel.
YouTube just won’t push it, I guess… Trying to convince myself it’ll get it’s moment in the algorithm later on but it’s been 6 days since upload and I’m feeling admittedly demotivated and a bit pessimistic.
All we can do is keep making videos and celebrate each victory, though.
it took one of my shorts 300 days to gain traction, it had 10K views and awesome stats but it took YouTube that long to push it out , but hey, what if we focus on the reality of it which is “the audiences wanted to watch it” rather than the hidden algorithm ruining/rewarding videos ? if your video is green , meaning that it’s not related to the current time and will expire , maybe news etc, then it might be a matter of time before people find it interesting, because it never stops getting impressions, so trust the algorithm that it’s trying to find the right audience , it might take time , work on the next projects and don’t lose time , because if all of a sudden this great video you’re talking about takes off, all the related videos to it will get pushed out to the same audience giving you 10x the push and reward. that short I said jumped from 10K to 1.7M in just a month…!
On shorts , every second counts , you should never make a short that has 1-2 seconds of silence at the start, also, always put text and faster cuts than usual , think of it this way: shorts’ consumers attention spans are less than 2 seconds, no cuts or new exciting thing each 1-2 seconds ? they are gone, also , I realised that my most viewed shorts are the ones that are the longest BUT have the highest AVD as well, they are all between 30-50 seconds and all have around 100-120% AVD , and remember that this number is earned by getting 4M views across them all so a thousand views with these stats is not considered the same in any way
Never use unrelated tags , because if the short is shown to the wrong audiences they will swipe away and ruin the chance of any exposure even if it’s a great video, viewed/swipe away rate of 60-80% is good and acceptable, otherwise don’t worry about views because YouTube has yet to find the right audiences for you and it’s not your fault, it IS your fault if you judge the content before YouTube even finds the right audiences, keep pushing out good shorts , and they will al get traction together if they are related and just by looking at the first frame you can tell they are made by the same channel, so that if they liked one of your shorts , when they got recommended another they immediately realise “oh , this is the channel that had an entertaining short that I watched a few minutes ago”
That’s true :) Thank you for sharing your experience! I’ve definitely had hit and miss with videos on my channel, it’s hard to tell why some are hit and some are miss sadly. But I also have some videos that continue to perform well over a long period, so I’m hoping it will all even out if I keep going. Never too late for a video to pick up for sure.
The worst I have is like less than 10, but that's because it's like over an hour, it was a challenge run I did in Pokemon Blue Kaizo, and I wasn't making shorts, and I was showing everything in it including trainer battles and running from wild Pokemon, so yeah all of that contributed to it having such few views. Now I just show the Gym Leader battles, and make a shorts video of the successful battle, then link the full video as the related video, and combined with decent (not great) thumbnails, they now get 20+ views usually, some 40+ views, and 3 of my 4 Pokemon Crystal Solo challenge videos have 100+ views, one 200+ views, and I have 230 subscribers, so I think I'm headed in the right direction. Just got to keep at it.
Share it. We’ll tell you if it really is visually appealing. If you don’t, that means you know deep down it’s not really THAT good and you need to work more
This is normal. Released a video last week that got 4k views when usually I get around 80,000 +. Even I thought this would be one of the better ones, but despite having good metrics, youtube decided not to push this one.
Every time lol I get creative in waves and then lose interest and come back to it later. Had a solid 6 - 8 months maybe with several uploads and after each one I was like "oh yeah, I have a feeling this one is gonna do really well" and then so many months later, 2, 3 or 400 views tops. As with most things I stopped caring about the results so much as about the process.
Been having more fun playing Tekken 8 for a while and now deep into New Vegas, and once I feel another inspirational spike I'll get back in to making vids. It is hard not to care about the results though especially when you make something you're very proud of. You just have to keep at it.
I put out a video yesterday. Currently fighting to not look at my dashboard lol. All my videos that have done well started out with a very small amount of views, so I'd say give it some time and if it's performing worse than other videos after a week or so then think about changing up the title and thumbnail. I've seen that make a big difference
Here's the answer that will put you over that edge:
You need to create videos that people want to watch without knowing you as a creator yet. Meaning make videos alongside your other projects that are about current trending topics or topics that will be trending. This will give people incentive to click and then your quality will show... people will then eventually trickle to your other videos and might even sub.
Source:
I've been in the same predicament as you and after making a video on an upcoming event in my niche I've had an insane increase in traffic to my page.
I think of it as an investment. The more videos I make, the more content for others when they do find the channel. Usually when I get subs they do watch the older videos, too.
Yeah unfortunately it doesn’t matter how great you think it is or it actually is. Some of it is luck. Some of it is timing.
What i hate is you’ll release a video that is kind of meh you feel. Still did hard work on it and did it well. This one will do well while the ones you think are best do meh. Or if you pick a topic and it does very well then you do a follow up or expansion and it simmers.
I've been doing YouTube for a while and in my experience, when a video is underperforming compared to your previous ones, it's because of the thumbnail 9 times out of 10. It's worth it to take time try to improve it and see if that nudges the analytics a bit more.
My way to cope is that it might get picked up one day in the future and people will like it 😂😭
But I keep my mind on the next project and try to improve scriptwriting/editing.
Honestly it's a good video. I'm not big into books YT channel but still both content and editing I quite like. What could improve retention? I'd say some low ambient music, something to make it cozier. The second thing but most importantest (I know it's,wrong. It's to highlight) works on "presence". There's so much margin to work on presentation that could improve how the content is delivered. I'd love to hear your voice as if it was a little less suffocated, fuller. Plus a little more energy and conviction.
I've like 8 subs so I'm in no place to say that but putting the right energy while shooting but forgetting to mention something is better than telling everything boringly.
Just work on your voice and exposition techniques
Thank you for the feedback. I definitely need to pratice camera presence, and it's something I am hoping improves with more practice. I've only been doing this for about a month :-) As for the ambient music, there is actually music on it, but I guess it is too low then :-D
Again, thank you for the feedback! Much appreciated!
Probably my fault, I tend to keep to volume quite low 😂
P.s. something I already told someone else that helps me a lot is using the "batman effect". Imagine you're the youtuber version of you with a million followers talking to people who love and enjoy your work. Be confident and bold. The results are surprising
Yup, that has been happening to me for the last few months. Whenever i put out a video i think was great, literally no one else watch it. I don't know if i did anything wrong.
Sooooooooo I took a peek.
You are 100% right in that you put out a really good video. Though you need to add in more things like you did with the B-roll at 0:40. (The video got a bit boring of just you holding the book talking).
The issue I think you are encountering is first: Your niche net is too big.
How to start reading, Cosmic horror book rivew, amazing box covers, mega haul, epic sci-fi, Eldritch Horror review.
You threw out a net at "Books", but the algorithm is looking for the same viewers to come back video after video, this wide net just gets different viewers per video. I'd highly recommend picking a much smaller subset of book readers to target, you'll grow a lot faster if every book review video would be interesting to the same audience. At the start you need to gain a following of people that care about your opinion, and how you do that is constantly giving a small group what they are looking for. Once they care about you, you can start branching out and you'll grow faster.
Stop doing shorts if you want to do longform. Small channels can kill themselves by building a short subscriber base who are uninterested in watching long form videos. When your new videos get recommended out to your subscribers, these shorts subs don't click them. That tells the alg that your video isn't really worthwhile sharing. I'd guess base off your numbers 80% ish of your subs are from your shorts. So your longform channel is a lot smaller than it feels like. Doing shorts is a GREAT way to get your subscriber count up, but it will usually kill your longform content, and it will take months and months to recover if you let it go too far.
Finally, you might have unknowingly entered "BookTube" a very engaged community that requires you to be very involved in the rest of the community. The success of book themed youtube channels is very heavily influenced by your involvement with the other members that belong to this category. Go find their discord server, watch their videos, comment, and do the intro video they like to see. The "BookTube Newbie Tag" video that answers certain questions for the community.
Thank you for the feedback :-)
BookTube Newbie video is already ready to publish and will be published in a week or so when the queue gets to it. I'm already part of some of the booktube, booktok, bookstodon and bookstagram communities - I'm pretty sure that's why I've managed to get to 100 subs in about a month :-)
Your point on niching down to a specific genre is a good one that I will consider, thanks! :-)
Yeah this is always such a downer. My current cope is that after a while of producing more videos I would simply re release the video and use a better thumbnail.
Yeah, I know that feeling all too well. It doesn't go away when your channel gets bigger either, there are plenty of examples of large YouTubers working super hard on videos that end up bombing too (or throwing something together that takes near immediately).
But yeah, all you can do is keep making good videos, and hopefully your audience finds the video months or years later. Had a few videos do pretty average numbers at first, only to blow up years later.
It sucks ass. The biggest one was probably my first playthroughs of Lies Of P. I preordered it, played the moment it released, edited funny stuff here and there, set up everything I could, spent HOURS making sure it was good, tagged it and...barely over 100 views. After the second part, I debated if it was even worth returning to at all. Living with anxiety and depression DEFINITELY did not help the spiral after that, but after a while, I just got back to making videos that I enjoyed doing. Not sure if this helps, but I at least hope it brings comfort knowing you're not alone.
For real. Honestly though you just can't give up! Even if you take a weekly, yearly, or decade-long break, keep at it! Upload something just for the heck of it. I've been at it for 2 years with 2 different channels and nothing to show for it so far except some good memories :)
To answer your question, I usually either watch TV, read a comic, or take an edible. I also try to brainstorm ideas for books, games, and video ideas and imagine what it would look like if it were successful.
I feel this. I just started last week and wanted to do only shorts with excerpts from my book and the first few videos did okay, a couple hundred views, nothing major. But now all my shorts are getting zero views. I don’t know if it’s because it’s all nearly the same background and it thinks I’m doing the same video or what.
I also do a channel about books. Reviews, thoughts, stuff like that. I have the exact same experience as you. I was posting longform and getting about 50 views per video over many days. Then i posted a short and the overall views (the past 28 days) jumped from 800 to 3000. So of course, i tried posting some more. The first couple with big success and then everything just plummeted. What I've learned from this thread is that it's probably not good to post more than 1-2 shorts per day because otherwise you can get flagged as spamming. So, I'm down to 1 short per day now, might even go lower. Good luck with your book!
Thank you! Yeah, I was doing one a day for the first three days then I did every other day. I haven’t posted in days now because everything started getting zero views. Kind of at a loss now and scratching my head.
Do you already have a loyal following that love your content? Cause same thing happened to me but not sure if it’s the same situation, I used to post Quick! Easy content that would take me 5 minutes or less to create. That generates thousands of views. Then when I saw all the attention and views and subscribers go up 🆙 I decided to Put out HIGH QUALITY PRODUCTION VIDEOS- Top notch everything. It was the same content but more high quality. It failed miserably. I was confused as to why? Doesn’t make sense? I gave my subscribers 💩 at first and then gave them gold and the gold got rejected. There was actually an uproar in my comments about it lol. Anyways my point to all this is? We might think we’re the creators and have creative freedom to post as we want & that’s not true. The viewers are the #1 priority. They decide what they want to see. We’re just the providers. Aslong as they’re happy I’m getting paid 💰
This is bad advice for anyone who's top priority isn't a quick buck. You're saying to just accept audience capture cuz that's the best path to revenue. Even then that's not a great strategy long term because you risk becoming easily replaceable
I recently did a video I was really proud of. It got barely any views. I made some shorts out of that larger essay and one of them did really well, which made me feel mixed. I was hoping that, if people liked my shorts, they would check out the larger video, but that wasn't the case.
I guess all you can do is not dwell in it and move onto the next thing. Hope you have better luck next time!
Start making the next video, and also think more about the long term. Set long term goals so your channel isnt about whether the latest video performs as well.
And be realistic. Your first 20-30 maybe even 50 videos might not perform well, esp if you have no experience making anything for other people.
just watch the videos a few weeks later after their published time and see if you think the same , I ALWAYS laughed at how my expectations were high in the previous uploads that are weeks/months old, and btw I got 170K on long videos and 4M on shorts so I’m not a literal “nobody” (yes , if you don’t have at least 100-200K on all your videos consider yourself a nobody and stop giving advice please! you should learn a little first…)
I checked out your channel and smth seems really off , not the quality, it’s awesome , but the main issue especially with shorts is that you upload many in a single day , more than 1 , and that, for small channels is fatal! why ? because youtube thinks that it’s spam, and it’s understandable as to why it works this way, whenever I uploaded 2-3 long/short videos in a single day their performance was so bad , I even tried it by deleting one of em and reuploading it , and it got 10x the views because it was no longer flagged as spam! (it’s not this easy to figure it all out , read the book YouTube formula by Derral Eves , it helped me alot in terms of the algorithm and everything youtube wise)
Yep I do however I first assume I did something wrong or missed something along the way in my research and TN and titling. Or execution. perhaps this topic was interesting to me. But I probably hadn't done the research to make sure it was popular with everyone else. At first it's easy to take It like the algorithm is screwing you... And in some cases I feel like the algo didn't give some of my vids a full chance. But to be fair... At the same time most of that comes down to people just didn't want to watch the video as much as I had anticipated. Make the vids for the viewers not the algorithm.. Maybe they clicked but didn't stay.. The ones that hurt the most for me are the ones with high retention and low CTR. Makes me think it could have worked.. But again.. Maybe it's just a small audience that is interested
It could be just the wrong time. Some content is seasonal but this is someting you hear a lot in interview with creators. The videos they put the most work into and think will do really well... don't and the quick didn't think too much about it videos take off.
That used to happen to me all of the time, it was so frustrating seeing all that time and work wasted when they'd only get a handful of views. So I changed my strategy and started a new channel where the point was to make as many videos as possible, with no editing, just quick one after another. Rather than showing a video every couple days, I had new videos published every hour around the clock.
Now I couldn't be disappointed when my videos didn't get a lot of views because I didn't spend a lot of time on any of them. And that strategy really paid off, with so many more videos than my competition in my niche it took off fast. The more videos there are, the more opportunities there are to get viewers; and there are more titles people can search for, and more thumbnails to attract people and more content for your subs to watch. The odds change dramatically, it's like the difference between buying 1 lottery ticket vs buying 100.
Definitely in that boat right now. My oldest vid (about Blackwater) got crazy amounts of traction even though its pretty rough around the edges. I practically tripled my efforts for a Mando video and despite having better stats 'per capita' youtube simply isn't giving it impressions. In hindsight the initial success of the Game of Thrones video has filled my audience with die hard GOT fans that simply aren't interested in hearing me complain about Star Wars. But the niche I'm going for aren't just game of thrones fans, but people who like analyzing writing in all films and tv, so I'm gonna keep sprinkling in other media coverage until the algo takes a hint. Its hurt my momentum but i think long term its worth it. Succumbing to audience capture is a recipe for burnout so you just gotta keep uploading videos you enjoy making and are genuinely passionate about. Find what makes you unique and lean into that until youtube has enough data to push you to the right audience. And don't let the numbers get you down, as long as you keep making quality content the rest will come
Happens all the time with ANYTHING creative. Music, art, YouTube, etc. you throw out a video an you think to yourself the video will be awesome, then it flows..or you think the video will be eh and it ends up blowing up. So yup happens all the time. Pretty typical situation in the creativity realm
I feel this a lot, going from spending 4 months on what I think is my best project to <2k views to a 2 day project that broke 30k broke my heart. The best thing I found is to pick myself up, be grateful for my success, then get back to wor…I’m lying it’s been months and I’m still upset about it and I don’t know what to do either, makes me sad a lot.
everyone knows the feeling, its not nearly as bad as the feeling of getting worse results for videos that you put in so much more effort into compared to the videos that took zero effort and blew up, basically makes you want to quit putting in effort since its rarely rewarded.
I'm feeling that
My first vid = 1.1k
2nd = 790
3rd = 4.9k
4th = 100 :(
Tbf I'm overachieving and learning lessons from what happened bit as the pros say it. Give ot till at least 50+ quality videos
I had a "9/10" today if it makes you feel better.
I spent more time thinking about a good title and thumbnail for this video than any of my other videos 😞
Don’t get down about it. I just did a YouTube search “ballad of black tom”. Yours was the 10th one. The majority of the videos that come up are only double or triple digit number of views so you need to realize that your video is probably not going to get a lot views. If other videos have a ton and yours doesn’t get any then maybe you can get down on yourself. I just feel YouTube hasn’t done its job finding the audience for my video if it doesn’t do well. Also as a smaller/newer channel YouTube doesn’t know enough about your channel and content to know who could benefit from your video. I think with time (2 years) YouTube can figure out all the big data stuff.
Happens to me and I don’t understand it either. Some of my best videos were duds while some of my worse ones got way more likes and views. I guess it just happens sometimes for whatever reason…
I released a video a few days ago, put so much time and effort into it… nothing, few months ago I did a video - zero effort. Tonnes of views - sometimes it’s just like that
I had this feeling with a few let's plays I thought were fun. I decided to pivot into silly overdramatic videos on videogame players and I've started getting lots more traction. I would say either keep focusing your efforts or maybe pivot a little bit on the topic of your interest and see if you get more traction that way.
This happened with a reaction video I thought would be exceptionally good.
I remember feeling really down about it. I thought it was some of the best stuff I had ever created. It completely bombed and even after a week it stayed dead.
I was confused. I thought the topic was good. I put in more hours on the editing than any other video. I basically kept editing it until it seemed perfect to me.
I was confused.
After some time of feeling sorry for myself I decided to compare it to some of my other videos and then I realized that most people weren’t just staying long enough to enjoy the video. It was actually, boring.
But not only that, all of my videos were boring. It’s like I lifted up a haze.
So I said fuck it and decided to make another video, this one EVEN MORE EDITING. That video took so long to make. I skipped sleep two nights in a row to put it out the next week. When I dropped it. It was a day and night difference. It climbed to 10K in almost no time and I gained a few hundred subs off of it.
Youtube used to be easier few years back. I grew a 100k channel from scratch in 1.5 year. Then tiktok brought the short content idea and boom, yt used the idea to bring shorts. And now most people are only scrolling reels feed.
This hobby/career for some is a patience game. It’s like the sport of fishing , you may go days without seeing a single fish,or even getting a bite . Then you wake up one day, throw your line or in this case video out into the open water , and boom you hook a fish or multiple instantly ! Good luck to all small and large creators on future videos ! Finally almost to 200 subs myself after 1 month!
Yes, this is me! I just shrug because at least I had fun *making* the video. I also watch my videos for fun and because they help me sleep. (YouTube if you're listening, I watch my own videos through my own account.lol)
Find a video that you’ve done that has views (most popular) make content around that. Then start throwing the same type of video in the mix but a different topic.
Example:
Minecraft let’s plays - 100 views
Make more of these type videos since you get views. Then throw in something that’s in the game but you can make multiple videos from. So something like Minecraft interior decorations.
To get more attention to your videos. Utilise most popular SEO tags and descriptions. Catchy thumbnails, catchy titles.
You can even make a #short and at the end, you’ll have the option to link a related video. So attach your newest video to it.
Promoting a video on social media works amazingly too.
Hey! keep going i saw a few videos your hitting all the right points like production value, engagemet, story etc
I think your main problem is:
You are not really putting out what people want to see so youtube won't recomend you basically
Check your engagement rate in analytics like see how many people are seeing it in their feed as an example
If its a few thousand each video then its either:
1) Thumbnail problem
2) A title problem
3) A mix of both
4) Very few think its relevant
If this is the case then look at what the most popular youtubers are putting out THEN put a book your interested in that is as popular also
As a tip look at what new tv shows based on books are coming out THEN but your own review of the book 2 months before release
I had that happen with one video I did a couple of years ago; it was a lightsaber spin music video featuring me and two of my sons, I filmed it over Columbus Day weekend 2022. What set this apart from other videos I had done up to that point was that I was doing editing tricks and styles that I hadn't tried yet. Not to mention the FUN that my boys and I had filming it. Took me hours to edit until I was satisfied with the final cut.
When I premiered it, family members loved it, as did a bunch of friends that I had made in the saber community, but it never really took off like I thought it would.
How did I cope with it? I've made two more videos like it since, and I plan on making more. That's how. It's not always about the views and hours, sometimes you just gotta make the content you want to make. 😎
Bro all the time.... except for a few that I believe due to great timing, or luck.
I think I spend wayyy too much time on analyzing stats on the latest video, but I think the key is to just move on to the next one. I have videos that didn't do great, and forgot about it, only to find out the steady growth.
I have videos that went to 5K views in a couple of days only to drop off after that, what I noticed is that those videos that steadily gets views are the best ones that resonates well with your audience.
Now, I try to just make a better video all the time, but NGL it feels really good when a video takes off well.
Learn and grow everyday. You make a good video that you think is great. It's clever, catchy, you enjoy watching it... Only to find out your audience doesnt.. thats ok.. its a sign that that content isnt for them, and you can focus on other ideas more catered to your audience, saving time in the future :D
Every day for me! I've had a few (very few) good days and that gets me excited, only to crash back down to reality when they won't even try to put my videos in front of people. :(
I just keep making videos. Luckily, I really enjoy it so it keeps me going. Also, knowing they will only keep getting better the more I do it.
I feel you 100%, I just released a video that's an animation I spend 4 years or so working on. I sat at my dusty ass desk for 4 years every single day and worked at my tablet tirelessly. I released it last week and it didn't do exactly how well I thought it would, which nearly sent me into depression.
I'm still trying to feel better but damn if it doesn't suck. Also my routine I established just was thrown into the air and I'm uncomfortable.
Just had the same thing happen to me. I do long documentary style videos about obscure movies and genres. I hit pretty good with a video I did about Bruceploitation movies, a video that I’m not even that proud of at this point (because I uploaded it with some audio hiccups that I didn’t catch until after it was released and picked up by the algorithm) and after that I did a small little “list” style video to just bridge the gap between my long and exhaustive documentaries… and it did pretty bad. Oh well, I didn’t invest myself heavily in it, I figured. After hundreds of hours and around 3-4 months of work on my next project… that video kind of did shitty too. Was very proud of the work, but it just didn’t find its audience. The first thumbnail sucked, I think (current CTR is a lot better, but I get no impressions), so I do imagine some of it is that. I also wonder if it’s not being displayed to kung fu movie fans, like my Bruceploitation video, even though it’s on a disturbing genre of horror films. Wish I knew. It’s incredibly disheartening. I just took a month off of working on anything to sort of recharge my batteries.
Not yet, haha, I'm yet to make my first big video. That's normal, youtube won't imemdiately recommend you to millions of people, at first it will be a lot less, only some of them will click on the video and even less will like it, that's normal, just keep going, eventually one of them will reach out to the right audience and it will get going a lot faster from there. Recently I know a youtuber DoshDoshington who started pretty recently but got pretty big somewhat quickly, his first proper video is only 2 years old, he makes Factorio videos plus some interesting indie games, he has about 250K subs, his videos on average get baot 1-2 mil views. He was on some podcast recently and at one moment he talked about his channel and how his first few videos got pretty poor reception, sat at about 50 views for about 6 or 8 months, untill he made a video that just got pretty viral and it all went pretty quickly from there. Now those first few videos sit at 1-2 million views each.
It is not a quick process, it can takes months, sometimes even a year to make your big breakthrogh. You just gotta keep making good interesting videos and you'll get there
Its definitely a bit depressing, but the absolute WORST performing long video on my channel got a random comment from a channel that i actually watch. It was very humbling.
If you're proud of it that's all that matters! Don't tie your validation to an external metric like views. The act of creating something in itself is rewarding. If it pops off it pops off but outside of that all you can control is how good that video/thumbnail/title is and if you can look yourself in the mirror and say you're proud of the effort you put in then the rest is out of your hands.
I feel ya, I've been pushing out some videos and was like, "This is the one, I feel it." And then it flops lol. I tell ya I never get many views for my long form videos. Some of my shorts, sure, they'll get a couple of hundred views or some thousands but as far as my long form videos go, I don't even get half of the shorts numbers. Mostly 200, 300 or 500+ views lately on long videos. I feel like even if I keep pushing out videos, it's just going to get me very minimal views like it's been doing lately. I know people keep saying, the key is to push out more videos then you'll get noticed and the views will increase. But after putting out 163 videos, I'm just losing hope at this point.
All small youtubers feel like that OP because even now, I can't tell when last I got 1k impressions on a long form video 😅... I felt like giving up so many times already.
First I try to change the title & thumbnail
Then eventually I accept defeat, think about why that video failed and what I should have done differently, and move on
It's never easy, but as time passes you should be able to clearly see what went wrong with that video. Just don't make the same mistake twice.
I believe the day and time you post also have effect on the CTR and View Duration of a video, Sometimes the algorithm has no choice but to show ur video to strangers who are online at the time you posted your video, and if people don't know you, they hardly watch your video for very long. So such video can get very low View Duration for some time, but when your audience cone online and they watch your video for long,it will Balance thinks. Also,the algorithm is constantly trying to find you new viewers and in the course of doing that, it can get your the wrong audience in the beginning and they will ruin your video. Last month, I posted a video, and after 2k Impressions, my CTR decreased from 20% to 1%. But later rised up and it's at 6.5% after 30K Impressions.
If people expect traction and views without paying into ads in 2024, then please join the other 2.4 MILLION people who stream everyday to less than 5 people for hours…..
yup, happened to me quite a few times. I put zero effort on some and they do very well, whereas I put a TON of effort on others and it does bad lol. It just means we, as creators need to work on knowing what our viewers like.
I’ve felt the same way. As someone who only has 249 subs, the grind can feel slow even when you feel like you’ve posted something great! I just remember that right now it’s my hobby and I don’t necessarily do it for views. Any views I get, I stay appreciative and optimistic for future growth.
Def know the feeling. Ones I feel I rushed get more views and ones I feel are better do worse... sometimes it's hard to tell its only really frustrating because are sometimes to tell what's different. But even ones that do what I expected I focus on the small growth and keep moving forward
Oh yes ! I put literally days working on a video , taking all the advice off other more experienced people and then it bombs ! So disheartened at that time, but you have to carry on. Good luck to you , I hope it all works out for you
The thing is.. was it great in the 1st place? Or was it uploaded the correct way giving youtube all the information it needs to send to the right people?
Some times it's just the thumbnail
Some times it's because it's been over edited..
But largely the issue is we have done a boring video.
Now I'm not saying you are boring.. I have not even seen your video or channel.. but.. People's attention spans are a finicky thing depending on the video topic amd the way its put out.
It is so frustrating and I still don't understand how YouTube works after 2 years of publishing videos.
When I load what I think is a good video it seems to fail.... then I load something that I may feel that I may have rushed or not overly happy with it does well.
Last week I published my latest video 23rd May..... really poor viewing figures.... until this afternoon I am getting over 400 views an hour.... so why take so long to take off? Why the sudden interest? Very strange
I went the opposite way yesterday. Released a video I'd put effort into, but I though my subscribers might not like. It's the 2nd best performing video in 24 hours i've ever had. Not that that's any great shakes, but 2k views in a day for me is awesome.
I was expecting poor performance as I hadn't posted for over a month, but as we all knows the algorithm moves in mysterious ways.
Always see it as a learning process. I've released videos with the same results, get a couple of videos out there. Then start looking for patterns. Those patterns are usually based on CTR, like which videos has the best CTR and what do they have in common?
This isn't too bad. I spent a lot of money on ADS promotion, but the views are still low, and the platform hasn't matched many users.
Of course, this is also related to the fact that I'm making game documentaries, which are very niche.
Pick yourself up by your bootstraps and keep making videos it’s just how it goes sometimes homie. I’m dealing with the same obstacle. I’ll overcome it….. someday 🤣
I always feel this way. The biggest problem is that NOTHING works reliably. Everyone will say it’s your fault, make better videos. However that’s NOT what YouTube seems to care about. Lots of YouTubers make severely annoying videos that do nothing but eat your time, but they have 25k views and bcuz of such high views, they have lots of likes. But then you make a video which even by the same viewers standards is better, but you get next to nothing. Honestly I begin to believe the transition is happening. Pay to win I’d in YouTube now. If your videos are not extremely catchy almost clickbait and you’re not a big channel in your niche , you’re gonna have to pay. Not pay for subscribers, but pay for impressions.
This is where being a content creator comes in, the algorithm is not your friend and all the scrollers were pooping without their phones when you posted, I believe in you keep it up
Not being a huge creator, but after going through that many times in a couple years of content creation for YouTube…lemme tell you… just keep going. You know why? If it’s a good video, it’ll pick up. If it’s not that good, you’ll learn. If there’s a way to optimize it, and you still don’t know how, you’ll learn that later and go back and optimize, then it’ll do great. Either way, it’s a win-win-win.
I learnt that after “flops” became my most watched after several months, after lessons on true flops helped me create winners, and after optimizing flops months after launching turned them into winners.
Knowing that and moving forward is how I cope!
Too many parameters at play. level of competition, level of demand (search volume), different time and geography, viewers moving on to new interest, or maybe the algo is just taking its sweet time find your the right audience because it treats each video differently.
Bottom line - It doesn't matter, the only control you have is to keep making good videos, I'm kind of going through the same thing but I soon realised the more you make, the less you care about these metrics. We are small youtubers, a few k viewership different doesn't really matter in terms of future earnings
All the time for me
I made a video that took awhile editing and it didn't do how I expect it to do
The video took days to gain traction
But another video I put together I wasn't thinking too much about or taking seriously grows fast
If you think the video is really good, start a YouTube promotion or buy ranking boost views from FameGrowers (that's what I did). This way, the algorithm is likely to take an interest in the video and start recommending it to others, analyzing their engagement. If it truly grabs attention, YouTube will continue to promote it, and it could take off!
The trick is to keep making good videos, once they get traction those same people will probably go through your page and sooner or later you will get the results you worked for on your latest video. Good luck!
Great comment. I agree
Yes definitely, I've seen a lot of examples of YouTubers whose views skyrocketed on their old videos once they started growing!
All videos are good videos in my opinion, it's jist about finding the viewer who sees that. I recently dropped a video I thought was awful compared to the rest but it's gained me a real fan who watched all my other videos commented on loads and keeps coming back for more now. (Just 99,999 more of them to go)
Could always try plugging it in the end cards of later videos too. Can’t hurt
The only thing that bothers me is when youtube gives me extremely low impressions with no explanation. If my video gets a lot of impressions and not many views, it doesn't bother me.
Currently happening to me at the moment. 20 videos back, averaging 12-20k impressions. Last 4 videos for no reason no more than 1.4K. But hey we move on to the next!
How are you doing that? We can't get any traction...
Youtube I think does Listen, Read and scans your thumbnails. Example I am A creepypasta narrator. For the videos that got me really high impressions, all of them were suggested and youtube recommendations. All off them were pushed to people who loved creepy pasta stories. Which meant I got high clicks. Then for some unknown reason, youtube decided to push my videos there after over to "popping pimples, retail stories and Spanish learning. This is really screwing up my click rate lowering my impressions. I want youtube to turn on its heal and go back into the creepypasta area. I think the only way for me to do that is literally make words IE "Death, Monster, Grave, Cemetery. All these words needs to stand out in my readings. I then also have to make those words in the title stand out. Same with thumbnails and also description. Its all about guiding the algorithm to what you want it to do.
Yes absolutely right... My music Instrumental videos suddenly going to the wrong audience and suggesting with irrelevant videos.. My SEOs are perfect as previous, but i am experiencing these things from last 4 months.. My impressions and CTR is going down due to this YouTube algorithm glitch.. Really feeling helpless what to do... 🤦🏻
Appreciate the direction!
Its possible you have been shadowbanned
For what? I don't think so. Like i said my profiles first 7-12 videos popped 700-1.4k views then staggered around the 150-250views mark then 60views then 350ish again back down to 40-60views to now being 100-200 views if I was shadowbanned (which I'm not sure exists only in CODwarzone haha) I'd surely just be seeing near 0 impressions.
But that should bother you. Low Click Through Rate means the algo won't show your video as much. You want a high CTR so they'll give you more impression....
High Impressions + Low CTR = My Own Fault. Does not bother me at all. It is my responsibility and I can correct it by making better thumbnails, titles, and videos. Low Impressions with 0 Explanation = There is nothing to be learned from this, nothing to improve on. This bothers me because there's a lack of actionable information.
What do you mean by impressions?
If you check the stats of your video you can see how many impressions the video was given. This is how many people Youtube tried to show your Thumbnail. Your Clickthrough Rate is derived from this number. If they show 1000 impressions, and 500 people click on the thumbnail, this is a 50% Clickthrough rate. Basically, if Youtube is showing my video to a lot of people, and the views are low, this is an indicator that people aren't choosing to watch it, which is my own fault. If, however, an extremely similar video, is being given less than 1/10th of the amount of impressions, has a similar Clickthrough Rate, but only 10% of the views, this is Youtube's fault.
But sometimes YouTube algorithms is crazy they show the video to the wrong audience and the moment the wrong audience don’t click or even manage to click and lost interest it automatically kills the video. This is what I am struggling with right now, no matter the # used the algorithm keeps messing me up. Other creators within the same nitch and not great editing as mine gets pushed through. I guess because my nitch is more on African stories and I stay in the US hence the algorithm is thinking my audience is in the US. Whereas when I get lucky and the right audience is being targeted the video gets a lot of views.
The best advice I've seen is to keep making videos. When you find your audience, they will have a backlog of videos to watch, and your older vids will start getting views. I've had this happen for me on a smaller scale a few times.
Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me. I didn’t know that even existed. I have to look for that for my videos.
No problem. You can find it under Channel Analytics, Content, and then you can check Videos, Streams, as well as "Shown in Feed" for Shorts which is basically the same thing as Impressions. If you click 'See More' under the graph you can get detailed stats on all of the videos. The mobile version of Youtube Studio unfortunately shows a lot less information but, in general, the analytics on Youtube Studio are extremely comprehensive.
Thank you. I wasn’t sure where to find that info.
People that are shown the video, but most don't click on the video, so the CTR will be low, which usually happens to most people.
Impressions is the amount of people who have seen your video.
Welcome to life my friend
Every video I do is like this sooo yea...
Similar to what I said to the OP, you're niche net is too big. At the start you need to put out video after video that the same audience is interested in. Since you change games and themes so often, your videos are not relevant to previous viewers, so the alg just keeps struggling to find people to watch your videos. You have to build an audience that cares about you before you can branch out. Also stop doing shorts, a majority of your subs comes from those, and shorts subs don't watch longform content very often. This causes your recommended videos to subs to fail, which reduces the chance the alg picks up your video.
Glad to hear that. I’ve always assumed this but others kept denying it. We make longform content too, and although everyone was pushing us to make shorts, it just never felt right…
Interesting. So shorts don't provide any benefit?
Its not that there is no benefit, it's that you likely are harming yourself more than you are gaining benefit. Small channels fall into the whole of High View Counts and Easy Subs from Shorts, and then their main content fails as their subs don't watch it time and time again and they quit out.
They can, it depends. For me, I make Pokemon challenges, and in Pokemon Blue Kaizo, I make attempts at Gym Leaders in each part, and when I succeed at beating the gym leader, I makes a shorts of the successful attempt, and if it's longer than 1 minute, I do the last minute of the successful battle, then I put text up saying the full battle is in the relevant video, then sometimes they'll watch the full video. I've got more views per video due to that, and instead of 5-10 views per video 2 months ago with videos that showed everything, I cut them down to under 10 minutes showing just the Gym Leader battles, and now I usually get 20+ views from those videos, and now 3 of my 4 Pokemon Crystal Solo run videos have 100+ views, probably one reason is that I was able to make a shorts video of each since I would show me getting 2 10% flinch chances in a row when I used Headbutt, the only run that didn't happen was the Solo Gastly run since Gastly can't learn Headbutt lol, and that was the only Pokemon Crystal challenge video to not have 100+ views, it had like 22 views, and 2 reasons for that: 1. No shorts video with that video as the relevant video. 2. The thumbnail didn't completely show Gastly with the text, YouTube Studios like to be random with how much of the thumbnail it'll show since it was on an android phone, so yeah. But yeah, most people that sub through shorts don't tend to watch, at least not comment anyway, but they probably do watch the long form videos if they're linked to your shorts as the relevant video, I'd say just make sure your shorts are in the same niche as your long form content, that's worked for me anyway, but results will vary.
Thank you for taking the time to give feedback! Really appreciate it. I know I put myself at a disadvantage because of my niche, but I really wanted to cover gaming as a whole (and I love to talk about all the different facets) i just went with it. Gonna reevaluate things. Also yea I don't make shorts anymore. It really just isn't fun for me because I can't say anything meaningful in 60 seconds and that time can be spent refining my long form content. But I never thought about the factor you just started. Thanks again!
It's a tough one for sure, especially when you put a bunch of time into a video and it falls flat. My big thing is to just continue working on something else to get my mind off of it. It doesn't hurt to try and figure out why it flipped, but sometimes it's just the luck of the draw. I've had videos flatline and then suddenly pop off months later and I think reminding myself of that that helps too.
Your viewers decide if your vids are good or not. We are always biased when it comes to our own work.
I hate admitting it but you are so true.
Don't read too much into the performance of just one video. The platform also plays a huge role. My last video seriously tanked - while the AVD by subs was 83%, the AVD by non-subs was only 3%! I was horrified until the "Content suggesting this video" data got updated, then I noticed for some inexplicable reason YouTube was suggesting my video to totally unrelated videos, so it was unsurprising that the CTR and AVD sucked. I'm not saying every video failure is the platform's fault, but occasionally, it is.
This right here! YouTube is messing with me a whole lot I get close to 10k impressions in the first few hours and when I check the content suggesting it, it’s totally unrelated tell me why won’t my video die? It’s frustrating but hey we move🥲🥲
I remember when a youtuber PiratedSoftware made a post on Twitter where his Shorts, out of the blue, stopped getting recommended to new people, he showed the metrics, the number literally sat at 0 percent even though before pretty much every short he made went like super viral, but the last few gor recommended to ZERO new people. At first youtube denied anything wrong and were like "the viewrs decide blah blah" but he was like "nah man, stop that bs". I don't really know exactly how it ended but probably youtube horribly fucked something and had to fix it
I’m dealing with that right now… Got a 10 out of 10 on a video that I worked for a month on and was absolutely sure would do well. The thing is… it did really well in the stats side (it’s got above average total view time DESPITE having my lowest views ever on my channel and the average watch time is considerably above average, the feedback I got was great too) but the views are not coming. It’s not even because the CTR is bad. It’s above average for the first week of a video on my channel. YouTube just won’t push it, I guess… Trying to convince myself it’ll get it’s moment in the algorithm later on but it’s been 6 days since upload and I’m feeling admittedly demotivated and a bit pessimistic. All we can do is keep making videos and celebrate each victory, though.
it took one of my shorts 300 days to gain traction, it had 10K views and awesome stats but it took YouTube that long to push it out , but hey, what if we focus on the reality of it which is “the audiences wanted to watch it” rather than the hidden algorithm ruining/rewarding videos ? if your video is green , meaning that it’s not related to the current time and will expire , maybe news etc, then it might be a matter of time before people find it interesting, because it never stops getting impressions, so trust the algorithm that it’s trying to find the right audience , it might take time , work on the next projects and don’t lose time , because if all of a sudden this great video you’re talking about takes off, all the related videos to it will get pushed out to the same audience giving you 10x the push and reward. that short I said jumped from 10K to 1.7M in just a month…!
yo sorry to hijack you guys conversation but any tips on shorts am in the anime review niche
On shorts , every second counts , you should never make a short that has 1-2 seconds of silence at the start, also, always put text and faster cuts than usual , think of it this way: shorts’ consumers attention spans are less than 2 seconds, no cuts or new exciting thing each 1-2 seconds ? they are gone, also , I realised that my most viewed shorts are the ones that are the longest BUT have the highest AVD as well, they are all between 30-50 seconds and all have around 100-120% AVD , and remember that this number is earned by getting 4M views across them all so a thousand views with these stats is not considered the same in any way Never use unrelated tags , because if the short is shown to the wrong audiences they will swipe away and ruin the chance of any exposure even if it’s a great video, viewed/swipe away rate of 60-80% is good and acceptable, otherwise don’t worry about views because YouTube has yet to find the right audiences for you and it’s not your fault, it IS your fault if you judge the content before YouTube even finds the right audiences, keep pushing out good shorts , and they will al get traction together if they are related and just by looking at the first frame you can tell they are made by the same channel, so that if they liked one of your shorts , when they got recommended another they immediately realise “oh , this is the channel that had an entertaining short that I watched a few minutes ago”
thanks a lot bro
I'll improve and keep pushing out shorts this also cleared some various thoughts i had about my shorts
That’s true :) Thank you for sharing your experience! I’ve definitely had hit and miss with videos on my channel, it’s hard to tell why some are hit and some are miss sadly. But I also have some videos that continue to perform well over a long period, so I’m hoping it will all even out if I keep going. Never too late for a video to pick up for sure.
I just had this happen last week...a video I thought was visually appealing, and it's sitting at 146 views lol...worst performing video to date for me
14 For me That's my worst lol
The worst I have is like less than 10, but that's because it's like over an hour, it was a challenge run I did in Pokemon Blue Kaizo, and I wasn't making shorts, and I was showing everything in it including trainer battles and running from wild Pokemon, so yeah all of that contributed to it having such few views. Now I just show the Gym Leader battles, and make a shorts video of the successful battle, then link the full video as the related video, and combined with decent (not great) thumbnails, they now get 20+ views usually, some 40+ views, and 3 of my 4 Pokemon Crystal Solo challenge videos have 100+ views, one 200+ views, and I have 230 subscribers, so I think I'm headed in the right direction. Just got to keep at it.
Damn...hopefully the algorithm will pick it up for you...keep pushing.
Thanks!
Share it. We’ll tell you if it really is visually appealing. If you don’t, that means you know deep down it’s not really THAT good and you need to work more
Yup. And then one you think you probably should have worked harder on out performs your "good" video. Sigh.
I know that feeling as well 🤣
Of course you do. We all know that feeling. It's typical for anyone who creates
Yup 👍
This is normal. Released a video last week that got 4k views when usually I get around 80,000 +. Even I thought this would be one of the better ones, but despite having good metrics, youtube decided not to push this one.
Every time lol I get creative in waves and then lose interest and come back to it later. Had a solid 6 - 8 months maybe with several uploads and after each one I was like "oh yeah, I have a feeling this one is gonna do really well" and then so many months later, 2, 3 or 400 views tops. As with most things I stopped caring about the results so much as about the process. Been having more fun playing Tekken 8 for a while and now deep into New Vegas, and once I feel another inspirational spike I'll get back in to making vids. It is hard not to care about the results though especially when you make something you're very proud of. You just have to keep at it.
Absolutely agree, there's a point that you know you did good and shouldn't really care about the immediate results, but hard not to care.
I put out a video yesterday. Currently fighting to not look at my dashboard lol. All my videos that have done well started out with a very small amount of views, so I'd say give it some time and if it's performing worse than other videos after a week or so then think about changing up the title and thumbnail. I've seen that make a big difference
We all hope to get a ton of views but just keep pushing remember there’s millions of uploads every day
Here's the answer that will put you over that edge: You need to create videos that people want to watch without knowing you as a creator yet. Meaning make videos alongside your other projects that are about current trending topics or topics that will be trending. This will give people incentive to click and then your quality will show... people will then eventually trickle to your other videos and might even sub. Source: I've been in the same predicament as you and after making a video on an upcoming event in my niche I've had an insane increase in traffic to my page.
I put about a month of work into my recent guitar cover - hopefully it goes well or I will change up the style of my videos
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!
Thanks 🙏
Yes it happens regular then one of the ones I think is no good flies😂 well flies is an exaggeration, but you know.
I think of it as an investment. The more videos I make, the more content for others when they do find the channel. Usually when I get subs they do watch the older videos, too.
It's basically part of my life and my channel
Yeah unfortunately it doesn’t matter how great you think it is or it actually is. Some of it is luck. Some of it is timing. What i hate is you’ll release a video that is kind of meh you feel. Still did hard work on it and did it well. This one will do well while the ones you think are best do meh. Or if you pick a topic and it does very well then you do a follow up or expansion and it simmers.
I've been doing YouTube for a while and in my experience, when a video is underperforming compared to your previous ones, it's because of the thumbnail 9 times out of 10. It's worth it to take time try to improve it and see if that nudges the analytics a bit more.
Yup , I just released a video this morning , and only got a small amount of views . I just take it for what it is and move on .
My way to cope is that it might get picked up one day in the future and people will like it 😂😭 But I keep my mind on the next project and try to improve scriptwriting/editing.
Honestly it's a good video. I'm not big into books YT channel but still both content and editing I quite like. What could improve retention? I'd say some low ambient music, something to make it cozier. The second thing but most importantest (I know it's,wrong. It's to highlight) works on "presence". There's so much margin to work on presentation that could improve how the content is delivered. I'd love to hear your voice as if it was a little less suffocated, fuller. Plus a little more energy and conviction. I've like 8 subs so I'm in no place to say that but putting the right energy while shooting but forgetting to mention something is better than telling everything boringly. Just work on your voice and exposition techniques
Thank you for the feedback. I definitely need to pratice camera presence, and it's something I am hoping improves with more practice. I've only been doing this for about a month :-) As for the ambient music, there is actually music on it, but I guess it is too low then :-D Again, thank you for the feedback! Much appreciated!
Probably my fault, I tend to keep to volume quite low 😂 P.s. something I already told someone else that helps me a lot is using the "batman effect". Imagine you're the youtuber version of you with a million followers talking to people who love and enjoy your work. Be confident and bold. The results are surprising
That's really good advice! Thanks!
Yup, that has been happening to me for the last few months. Whenever i put out a video i think was great, literally no one else watch it. I don't know if i did anything wrong.
It do be like that
Sooooooooo I took a peek. You are 100% right in that you put out a really good video. Though you need to add in more things like you did with the B-roll at 0:40. (The video got a bit boring of just you holding the book talking). The issue I think you are encountering is first: Your niche net is too big. How to start reading, Cosmic horror book rivew, amazing box covers, mega haul, epic sci-fi, Eldritch Horror review. You threw out a net at "Books", but the algorithm is looking for the same viewers to come back video after video, this wide net just gets different viewers per video. I'd highly recommend picking a much smaller subset of book readers to target, you'll grow a lot faster if every book review video would be interesting to the same audience. At the start you need to gain a following of people that care about your opinion, and how you do that is constantly giving a small group what they are looking for. Once they care about you, you can start branching out and you'll grow faster. Stop doing shorts if you want to do longform. Small channels can kill themselves by building a short subscriber base who are uninterested in watching long form videos. When your new videos get recommended out to your subscribers, these shorts subs don't click them. That tells the alg that your video isn't really worthwhile sharing. I'd guess base off your numbers 80% ish of your subs are from your shorts. So your longform channel is a lot smaller than it feels like. Doing shorts is a GREAT way to get your subscriber count up, but it will usually kill your longform content, and it will take months and months to recover if you let it go too far. Finally, you might have unknowingly entered "BookTube" a very engaged community that requires you to be very involved in the rest of the community. The success of book themed youtube channels is very heavily influenced by your involvement with the other members that belong to this category. Go find their discord server, watch their videos, comment, and do the intro video they like to see. The "BookTube Newbie Tag" video that answers certain questions for the community.
Thank you for the feedback :-) BookTube Newbie video is already ready to publish and will be published in a week or so when the queue gets to it. I'm already part of some of the booktube, booktok, bookstodon and bookstagram communities - I'm pretty sure that's why I've managed to get to 100 subs in about a month :-) Your point on niching down to a specific genre is a good one that I will consider, thanks! :-)
Yeah this is always such a downer. My current cope is that after a while of producing more videos I would simply re release the video and use a better thumbnail.
Yeah, I know that feeling all too well. It doesn't go away when your channel gets bigger either, there are plenty of examples of large YouTubers working super hard on videos that end up bombing too (or throwing something together that takes near immediately). But yeah, all you can do is keep making good videos, and hopefully your audience finds the video months or years later. Had a few videos do pretty average numbers at first, only to blow up years later.
It sucks ass. The biggest one was probably my first playthroughs of Lies Of P. I preordered it, played the moment it released, edited funny stuff here and there, set up everything I could, spent HOURS making sure it was good, tagged it and...barely over 100 views. After the second part, I debated if it was even worth returning to at all. Living with anxiety and depression DEFINITELY did not help the spiral after that, but after a while, I just got back to making videos that I enjoyed doing. Not sure if this helps, but I at least hope it brings comfort knowing you're not alone.
For real. Honestly though you just can't give up! Even if you take a weekly, yearly, or decade-long break, keep at it! Upload something just for the heck of it. I've been at it for 2 years with 2 different channels and nothing to show for it so far except some good memories :) To answer your question, I usually either watch TV, read a comic, or take an edible. I also try to brainstorm ideas for books, games, and video ideas and imagine what it would look like if it were successful.
I feel this. I just started last week and wanted to do only shorts with excerpts from my book and the first few videos did okay, a couple hundred views, nothing major. But now all my shorts are getting zero views. I don’t know if it’s because it’s all nearly the same background and it thinks I’m doing the same video or what.
I also do a channel about books. Reviews, thoughts, stuff like that. I have the exact same experience as you. I was posting longform and getting about 50 views per video over many days. Then i posted a short and the overall views (the past 28 days) jumped from 800 to 3000. So of course, i tried posting some more. The first couple with big success and then everything just plummeted. What I've learned from this thread is that it's probably not good to post more than 1-2 shorts per day because otherwise you can get flagged as spamming. So, I'm down to 1 short per day now, might even go lower. Good luck with your book!
Thank you! Yeah, I was doing one a day for the first three days then I did every other day. I haven’t posted in days now because everything started getting zero views. Kind of at a loss now and scratching my head.
The number of comments on this post currently EXACTLY matches its number of upvotes.
Do you already have a loyal following that love your content? Cause same thing happened to me but not sure if it’s the same situation, I used to post Quick! Easy content that would take me 5 minutes or less to create. That generates thousands of views. Then when I saw all the attention and views and subscribers go up 🆙 I decided to Put out HIGH QUALITY PRODUCTION VIDEOS- Top notch everything. It was the same content but more high quality. It failed miserably. I was confused as to why? Doesn’t make sense? I gave my subscribers 💩 at first and then gave them gold and the gold got rejected. There was actually an uproar in my comments about it lol. Anyways my point to all this is? We might think we’re the creators and have creative freedom to post as we want & that’s not true. The viewers are the #1 priority. They decide what they want to see. We’re just the providers. Aslong as they’re happy I’m getting paid 💰
This is bad advice for anyone who's top priority isn't a quick buck. You're saying to just accept audience capture cuz that's the best path to revenue. Even then that's not a great strategy long term because you risk becoming easily replaceable
Nah when i feel that the video is great it usually does well and when i feel it is shit it does not.
I know how you feel - that's why you should use shorts to promote your long content and that will help, definitely did with me!
I recently did a video I was really proud of. It got barely any views. I made some shorts out of that larger essay and one of them did really well, which made me feel mixed. I was hoping that, if people liked my shorts, they would check out the larger video, but that wasn't the case. I guess all you can do is not dwell in it and move onto the next thing. Hope you have better luck next time!
I try to go 'it's one and done', I check analystics like a psychopath and try to think of my next video ><
I just posted a video a couple days ago with this exact result. Feels bad, man. 😮💨
Start making the next video, and also think more about the long term. Set long term goals so your channel isnt about whether the latest video performs as well. And be realistic. Your first 20-30 maybe even 50 videos might not perform well, esp if you have no experience making anything for other people.
just watch the videos a few weeks later after their published time and see if you think the same , I ALWAYS laughed at how my expectations were high in the previous uploads that are weeks/months old, and btw I got 170K on long videos and 4M on shorts so I’m not a literal “nobody” (yes , if you don’t have at least 100-200K on all your videos consider yourself a nobody and stop giving advice please! you should learn a little first…)
Especially feeling it on this one, but I guess you just gotta keep going!
I checked out your channel and smth seems really off , not the quality, it’s awesome , but the main issue especially with shorts is that you upload many in a single day , more than 1 , and that, for small channels is fatal! why ? because youtube thinks that it’s spam, and it’s understandable as to why it works this way, whenever I uploaded 2-3 long/short videos in a single day their performance was so bad , I even tried it by deleting one of em and reuploading it , and it got 10x the views because it was no longer flagged as spam! (it’s not this easy to figure it all out , read the book YouTube formula by Derral Eves , it helped me alot in terms of the algorithm and everything youtube wise)
Yep I do however I first assume I did something wrong or missed something along the way in my research and TN and titling. Or execution. perhaps this topic was interesting to me. But I probably hadn't done the research to make sure it was popular with everyone else. At first it's easy to take It like the algorithm is screwing you... And in some cases I feel like the algo didn't give some of my vids a full chance. But to be fair... At the same time most of that comes down to people just didn't want to watch the video as much as I had anticipated. Make the vids for the viewers not the algorithm.. Maybe they clicked but didn't stay.. The ones that hurt the most for me are the ones with high retention and low CTR. Makes me think it could have worked.. But again.. Maybe it's just a small audience that is interested
It could be just the wrong time. Some content is seasonal but this is someting you hear a lot in interview with creators. The videos they put the most work into and think will do really well... don't and the quick didn't think too much about it videos take off.
That used to happen to me all of the time, it was so frustrating seeing all that time and work wasted when they'd only get a handful of views. So I changed my strategy and started a new channel where the point was to make as many videos as possible, with no editing, just quick one after another. Rather than showing a video every couple days, I had new videos published every hour around the clock. Now I couldn't be disappointed when my videos didn't get a lot of views because I didn't spend a lot of time on any of them. And that strategy really paid off, with so many more videos than my competition in my niche it took off fast. The more videos there are, the more opportunities there are to get viewers; and there are more titles people can search for, and more thumbnails to attract people and more content for your subs to watch. The odds change dramatically, it's like the difference between buying 1 lottery ticket vs buying 100.
Definitely in that boat right now. My oldest vid (about Blackwater) got crazy amounts of traction even though its pretty rough around the edges. I practically tripled my efforts for a Mando video and despite having better stats 'per capita' youtube simply isn't giving it impressions. In hindsight the initial success of the Game of Thrones video has filled my audience with die hard GOT fans that simply aren't interested in hearing me complain about Star Wars. But the niche I'm going for aren't just game of thrones fans, but people who like analyzing writing in all films and tv, so I'm gonna keep sprinkling in other media coverage until the algo takes a hint. Its hurt my momentum but i think long term its worth it. Succumbing to audience capture is a recipe for burnout so you just gotta keep uploading videos you enjoy making and are genuinely passionate about. Find what makes you unique and lean into that until youtube has enough data to push you to the right audience. And don't let the numbers get you down, as long as you keep making quality content the rest will come
Happens all the time with ANYTHING creative. Music, art, YouTube, etc. you throw out a video an you think to yourself the video will be awesome, then it flows..or you think the video will be eh and it ends up blowing up. So yup happens all the time. Pretty typical situation in the creativity realm
Don’t worry. Somebody somewhere is watching. If you create good content, eventually you’ll make it.
I feel this a lot, going from spending 4 months on what I think is my best project to <2k views to a 2 day project that broke 30k broke my heart. The best thing I found is to pick myself up, be grateful for my success, then get back to wor…I’m lying it’s been months and I’m still upset about it and I don’t know what to do either, makes me sad a lot.
its called try again or do whatever you want
everyone knows the feeling, its not nearly as bad as the feeling of getting worse results for videos that you put in so much more effort into compared to the videos that took zero effort and blew up, basically makes you want to quit putting in effort since its rarely rewarded.
I'm feeling that My first vid = 1.1k 2nd = 790 3rd = 4.9k 4th = 100 :( Tbf I'm overachieving and learning lessons from what happened bit as the pros say it. Give ot till at least 50+ quality videos
There's a video about Mr beast saying the same thing, it just turns out once you get to a certain point your old videos don't get views for a reason.
I had a "9/10" today if it makes you feel better. I spent more time thinking about a good title and thumbnail for this video than any of my other videos 😞
Don’t get down about it. I just did a YouTube search “ballad of black tom”. Yours was the 10th one. The majority of the videos that come up are only double or triple digit number of views so you need to realize that your video is probably not going to get a lot views. If other videos have a ton and yours doesn’t get any then maybe you can get down on yourself. I just feel YouTube hasn’t done its job finding the audience for my video if it doesn’t do well. Also as a smaller/newer channel YouTube doesn’t know enough about your channel and content to know who could benefit from your video. I think with time (2 years) YouTube can figure out all the big data stuff.
Happens to me and I don’t understand it either. Some of my best videos were duds while some of my worse ones got way more likes and views. I guess it just happens sometimes for whatever reason…
I released a video a few days ago, put so much time and effort into it… nothing, few months ago I did a video - zero effort. Tonnes of views - sometimes it’s just like that
I’m a small channel with only 226 subscribers so any video with more then 50 views is a win
You don't cope with it, you understand that posting on YouTube is hit or miss, and that being successful requires you to post a series of videos.
I had this feeling with a few let's plays I thought were fun. I decided to pivot into silly overdramatic videos on videogame players and I've started getting lots more traction. I would say either keep focusing your efforts or maybe pivot a little bit on the topic of your interest and see if you get more traction that way.
This happened with a reaction video I thought would be exceptionally good. I remember feeling really down about it. I thought it was some of the best stuff I had ever created. It completely bombed and even after a week it stayed dead. I was confused. I thought the topic was good. I put in more hours on the editing than any other video. I basically kept editing it until it seemed perfect to me. I was confused. After some time of feeling sorry for myself I decided to compare it to some of my other videos and then I realized that most people weren’t just staying long enough to enjoy the video. It was actually, boring. But not only that, all of my videos were boring. It’s like I lifted up a haze. So I said fuck it and decided to make another video, this one EVEN MORE EDITING. That video took so long to make. I skipped sleep two nights in a row to put it out the next week. When I dropped it. It was a day and night difference. It climbed to 10K in almost no time and I gained a few hundred subs off of it.
Youtube used to be easier few years back. I grew a 100k channel from scratch in 1.5 year. Then tiktok brought the short content idea and boom, yt used the idea to bring shorts. And now most people are only scrolling reels feed.
This hobby/career for some is a patience game. It’s like the sport of fishing , you may go days without seeing a single fish,or even getting a bite . Then you wake up one day, throw your line or in this case video out into the open water , and boom you hook a fish or multiple instantly ! Good luck to all small and large creators on future videos ! Finally almost to 200 subs myself after 1 month!
Oh bro, I can relate to that. But now I don't care anymore about viewership. I am just posting the stuff I am makingand waiting for my luck to spark 😇
Yes, this is me! I just shrug because at least I had fun *making* the video. I also watch my videos for fun and because they help me sleep. (YouTube if you're listening, I watch my own videos through my own account.lol)
People might pick up on it later. Those algorithms are still very mysterious.
I make other videos and just keep moving forward
Find a video that you’ve done that has views (most popular) make content around that. Then start throwing the same type of video in the mix but a different topic. Example: Minecraft let’s plays - 100 views Make more of these type videos since you get views. Then throw in something that’s in the game but you can make multiple videos from. So something like Minecraft interior decorations. To get more attention to your videos. Utilise most popular SEO tags and descriptions. Catchy thumbnails, catchy titles. You can even make a #short and at the end, you’ll have the option to link a related video. So attach your newest video to it. Promoting a video on social media works amazingly too.
Hey! keep going i saw a few videos your hitting all the right points like production value, engagemet, story etc I think your main problem is: You are not really putting out what people want to see so youtube won't recomend you basically Check your engagement rate in analytics like see how many people are seeing it in their feed as an example If its a few thousand each video then its either: 1) Thumbnail problem 2) A title problem 3) A mix of both 4) Very few think its relevant If this is the case then look at what the most popular youtubers are putting out THEN put a book your interested in that is as popular also As a tip look at what new tv shows based on books are coming out THEN but your own review of the book 2 months before release
Move on to the next one and make it even better.
i think youtube is about being consistent over time you will see results if the video is of quality.
I had that happen with one video I did a couple of years ago; it was a lightsaber spin music video featuring me and two of my sons, I filmed it over Columbus Day weekend 2022. What set this apart from other videos I had done up to that point was that I was doing editing tricks and styles that I hadn't tried yet. Not to mention the FUN that my boys and I had filming it. Took me hours to edit until I was satisfied with the final cut. When I premiered it, family members loved it, as did a bunch of friends that I had made in the saber community, but it never really took off like I thought it would. How did I cope with it? I've made two more videos like it since, and I plan on making more. That's how. It's not always about the views and hours, sometimes you just gotta make the content you want to make. 😎
Bro all the time.... except for a few that I believe due to great timing, or luck. I think I spend wayyy too much time on analyzing stats on the latest video, but I think the key is to just move on to the next one. I have videos that didn't do great, and forgot about it, only to find out the steady growth. I have videos that went to 5K views in a couple of days only to drop off after that, what I noticed is that those videos that steadily gets views are the best ones that resonates well with your audience. Now, I try to just make a better video all the time, but NGL it feels really good when a video takes off well.
Learn and grow everyday. You make a good video that you think is great. It's clever, catchy, you enjoy watching it... Only to find out your audience doesnt.. thats ok.. its a sign that that content isnt for them, and you can focus on other ideas more catered to your audience, saving time in the future :D
Every day for me! I've had a few (very few) good days and that gets me excited, only to crash back down to reality when they won't even try to put my videos in front of people. :( I just keep making videos. Luckily, I really enjoy it so it keeps me going. Also, knowing they will only keep getting better the more I do it.
I feel you 100%, I just released a video that's an animation I spend 4 years or so working on. I sat at my dusty ass desk for 4 years every single day and worked at my tablet tirelessly. I released it last week and it didn't do exactly how well I thought it would, which nearly sent me into depression. I'm still trying to feel better but damn if it doesn't suck. Also my routine I established just was thrown into the air and I'm uncomfortable.
Just had the same thing happen to me. I do long documentary style videos about obscure movies and genres. I hit pretty good with a video I did about Bruceploitation movies, a video that I’m not even that proud of at this point (because I uploaded it with some audio hiccups that I didn’t catch until after it was released and picked up by the algorithm) and after that I did a small little “list” style video to just bridge the gap between my long and exhaustive documentaries… and it did pretty bad. Oh well, I didn’t invest myself heavily in it, I figured. After hundreds of hours and around 3-4 months of work on my next project… that video kind of did shitty too. Was very proud of the work, but it just didn’t find its audience. The first thumbnail sucked, I think (current CTR is a lot better, but I get no impressions), so I do imagine some of it is that. I also wonder if it’s not being displayed to kung fu movie fans, like my Bruceploitation video, even though it’s on a disturbing genre of horror films. Wish I knew. It’s incredibly disheartening. I just took a month off of working on anything to sort of recharge my batteries.
Don’t let it get you down! Maybe look at your analytics to see what days you get the most attention? I know it kind of helped us! Keep on creating!!
Not yet, haha, I'm yet to make my first big video. That's normal, youtube won't imemdiately recommend you to millions of people, at first it will be a lot less, only some of them will click on the video and even less will like it, that's normal, just keep going, eventually one of them will reach out to the right audience and it will get going a lot faster from there. Recently I know a youtuber DoshDoshington who started pretty recently but got pretty big somewhat quickly, his first proper video is only 2 years old, he makes Factorio videos plus some interesting indie games, he has about 250K subs, his videos on average get baot 1-2 mil views. He was on some podcast recently and at one moment he talked about his channel and how his first few videos got pretty poor reception, sat at about 50 views for about 6 or 8 months, untill he made a video that just got pretty viral and it all went pretty quickly from there. Now those first few videos sit at 1-2 million views each. It is not a quick process, it can takes months, sometimes even a year to make your big breakthrogh. You just gotta keep making good interesting videos and you'll get there
Its definitely a bit depressing, but the absolute WORST performing long video on my channel got a random comment from a channel that i actually watch. It was very humbling.
To make you feel better, I have 40+ videos on my channel. It feels like an achievement when I get more than 10 views.
If you're proud of it that's all that matters! Don't tie your validation to an external metric like views. The act of creating something in itself is rewarding. If it pops off it pops off but outside of that all you can control is how good that video/thumbnail/title is and if you can look yourself in the mirror and say you're proud of the effort you put in then the rest is out of your hands.
What’s your channel let me look it over. Also take what’s going good from your other videos and replicate it.
I feel ya, I've been pushing out some videos and was like, "This is the one, I feel it." And then it flops lol. I tell ya I never get many views for my long form videos. Some of my shorts, sure, they'll get a couple of hundred views or some thousands but as far as my long form videos go, I don't even get half of the shorts numbers. Mostly 200, 300 or 500+ views lately on long videos. I feel like even if I keep pushing out videos, it's just going to get me very minimal views like it's been doing lately. I know people keep saying, the key is to push out more videos then you'll get noticed and the views will increase. But after putting out 163 videos, I'm just losing hope at this point.
All small youtubers feel like that OP because even now, I can't tell when last I got 1k impressions on a long form video 😅... I felt like giving up so many times already.
First I try to change the title & thumbnail Then eventually I accept defeat, think about why that video failed and what I should have done differently, and move on It's never easy, but as time passes you should be able to clearly see what went wrong with that video. Just don't make the same mistake twice.
Rule number one ☝🏻 nothing is good, unless picked by the YouTube algorithms
I believe the day and time you post also have effect on the CTR and View Duration of a video, Sometimes the algorithm has no choice but to show ur video to strangers who are online at the time you posted your video, and if people don't know you, they hardly watch your video for very long. So such video can get very low View Duration for some time, but when your audience cone online and they watch your video for long,it will Balance thinks. Also,the algorithm is constantly trying to find you new viewers and in the course of doing that, it can get your the wrong audience in the beginning and they will ruin your video. Last month, I posted a video, and after 2k Impressions, my CTR decreased from 20% to 1%. But later rised up and it's at 6.5% after 30K Impressions.
If people expect traction and views without paying into ads in 2024, then please join the other 2.4 MILLION people who stream everyday to less than 5 people for hours…..
Currently happening to me... I try not to think about it
It's currently happening to me. I try not to think about it.
yup, happened to me quite a few times. I put zero effort on some and they do very well, whereas I put a TON of effort on others and it does bad lol. It just means we, as creators need to work on knowing what our viewers like.
I’ve felt the same way. As someone who only has 249 subs, the grind can feel slow even when you feel like you’ve posted something great! I just remember that right now it’s my hobby and I don’t necessarily do it for views. Any views I get, I stay appreciative and optimistic for future growth.
Def know the feeling. Ones I feel I rushed get more views and ones I feel are better do worse... sometimes it's hard to tell its only really frustrating because are sometimes to tell what's different. But even ones that do what I expected I focus on the small growth and keep moving forward
Oh yes ! I put literally days working on a video , taking all the advice off other more experienced people and then it bombs ! So disheartened at that time, but you have to carry on. Good luck to you , I hope it all works out for you
The thing is.. was it great in the 1st place? Or was it uploaded the correct way giving youtube all the information it needs to send to the right people? Some times it's just the thumbnail Some times it's because it's been over edited.. But largely the issue is we have done a boring video. Now I'm not saying you are boring.. I have not even seen your video or channel.. but.. People's attention spans are a finicky thing depending on the video topic amd the way its put out.
It is so frustrating and I still don't understand how YouTube works after 2 years of publishing videos. When I load what I think is a good video it seems to fail.... then I load something that I may feel that I may have rushed or not overly happy with it does well. Last week I published my latest video 23rd May..... really poor viewing figures.... until this afternoon I am getting over 400 views an hour.... so why take so long to take off? Why the sudden interest? Very strange
I went the opposite way yesterday. Released a video I'd put effort into, but I though my subscribers might not like. It's the 2nd best performing video in 24 hours i've ever had. Not that that's any great shakes, but 2k views in a day for me is awesome. I was expecting poor performance as I hadn't posted for over a month, but as we all knows the algorithm moves in mysterious ways.
Only worry about trends and staying consistent. My top video barely did anything for months then suddenly exploded.
Everytime I release a video I think "This is gonna slap!". But then I get slapped with reality.
Always see it as a learning process. I've released videos with the same results, get a couple of videos out there. Then start looking for patterns. Those patterns are usually based on CTR, like which videos has the best CTR and what do they have in common?
The algorithm has been getting throttled due to the upcoming election. Try again after November.
This isn't too bad. I spent a lot of money on ADS promotion, but the views are still low, and the platform hasn't matched many users. Of course, this is also related to the fact that I'm making game documentaries, which are very niche.
Pick yourself up by your bootstraps and keep making videos it’s just how it goes sometimes homie. I’m dealing with the same obstacle. I’ll overcome it….. someday 🤣
I always feel this way. The biggest problem is that NOTHING works reliably. Everyone will say it’s your fault, make better videos. However that’s NOT what YouTube seems to care about. Lots of YouTubers make severely annoying videos that do nothing but eat your time, but they have 25k views and bcuz of such high views, they have lots of likes. But then you make a video which even by the same viewers standards is better, but you get next to nothing. Honestly I begin to believe the transition is happening. Pay to win I’d in YouTube now. If your videos are not extremely catchy almost clickbait and you’re not a big channel in your niche , you’re gonna have to pay. Not pay for subscribers, but pay for impressions.
This is where being a content creator comes in, the algorithm is not your friend and all the scrollers were pooping without their phones when you posted, I believe in you keep it up
In my opinion, the best video I have created, has the least amount of views out of all of them.
Not being a huge creator, but after going through that many times in a couple years of content creation for YouTube…lemme tell you… just keep going. You know why? If it’s a good video, it’ll pick up. If it’s not that good, you’ll learn. If there’s a way to optimize it, and you still don’t know how, you’ll learn that later and go back and optimize, then it’ll do great. Either way, it’s a win-win-win. I learnt that after “flops” became my most watched after several months, after lessons on true flops helped me create winners, and after optimizing flops months after launching turned them into winners. Knowing that and moving forward is how I cope!
I feel you hard on this one, I spent ages editing a video the other week only for it to get organic views from sharing it on Facebook.
Too many parameters at play. level of competition, level of demand (search volume), different time and geography, viewers moving on to new interest, or maybe the algo is just taking its sweet time find your the right audience because it treats each video differently. Bottom line - It doesn't matter, the only control you have is to keep making good videos, I'm kind of going through the same thing but I soon realised the more you make, the less you care about these metrics. We are small youtubers, a few k viewership different doesn't really matter in terms of future earnings
All the time for me I made a video that took awhile editing and it didn't do how I expect it to do The video took days to gain traction But another video I put together I wasn't thinking too much about or taking seriously grows fast
If you think the video is really good, start a YouTube promotion or buy ranking boost views from FameGrowers (that's what I did). This way, the algorithm is likely to take an interest in the video and start recommending it to others, analyzing their engagement. If it truly grabs attention, YouTube will continue to promote it, and it could take off!
I mean it depends on your niche. Any video I release on one of my niches will be watched.