Active Promotion vs Organic Growth

[Steve0192]

On thing I've noticed over the time is the difference behaviour I see when I actively promote a video vs when I just let it develop itself (with all the usual SEO, Keywords etc.).

By "Active Promotion" I mean posting on relevant forums, Reddit, Google Plus etc. When I do that, I get a spike of interest on that post for a day or so, maybe get 200-300 views and a few new subscribers, but the volume of views drop off very quickly back to the usual background level. Also when I look at Audience Retention, I see about a 50% drop off rate over the first few seconds. I guess because people who are not really interested have a quick look and then move away.

By "Organic Growth" I mean I create the video, add a description and keywords etc. but then let it evolve itself. In this case the initial video growth is slower but it comes primarily from Subscribers, YouTube Search, and Suggested Videos. The take up of the video is much slower, without the same spike, but the Audience Retention is much better and sustained across the duration of the video.

Recently I've been thinking that while I get that initial spike of interest with Active Promotion, it may be hurting the longer term performance of the video. Whereas if I let it grow organically I don't get that initial spike but I do get more of a longer tail of views, especially from Search.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Steve

 

[Kirgle]

Personally I believe in the beginning active promotion is essential. Unless you get a random viral hit, you really need to put yourself out there.

Make it easy for people to find you.

Why? Because this doubles as your advertising. Every person that subscribes to you from reddit or Twitter ect. Did so because they like what you do.

But sure, when your dedicated subscriber base is large enough it will push your videos for you without you promoting them.

 

[Steve0192]

Personally I believe in the beginning active promotion is essential. Unless you get a random viral hit, you really need to put yourself out there.

Make it easy for people to find you.

Why? Because this doubles as your advertising. Every person that subscribes to you from reddit or Twitter ect. Did so because they like what you do.

But sure, when your dedicated subscriber base is large enough it will push your videos for you without you promoting them.

Yes I agree that you need to actively promote in the beginning, and that definitely helped me get myself out there.

Now I'm at 1000+ Subscribers, 7000+ Twitter Followers and it's feeling like the rules are changing...

It's not just that actively promoting the videos creates less of an impact now, I'm wondering whether the hit on my "Audience Retention" negatively affects my Search Performance etc. and so negatively affects the long term performance of the video.

Have any of the bigger guys experienced this effect too?

 

[Sabrina]

Have any of the bigger guys experienced this effect too?

I'm not one of those "bigger guys" but heard them say that promotion hurts their retention and therefore the chances of showing up in suggested videos, which is essential for growth.
So basically, as soon as you get a good amount of views from search/suggested, stop promoting.

Personally I believe in the beginning active promotion is essential.

I would agree. I've tracked where my last 100 subs came from, and 95 of them found my channel because I did some form of promotion. Without it, nothing moves.

 

[EVIL Humor]

I've been having the exact same feeling lately!

I heavily promoted a new video during it's first few days, resulting in a low audience retention (19%) because I received a large percentage of viewers who have no relation to my kind of content. Now it's getting no views from search results or suggested videos at all even though I think the video has big potential. It has 68% audience retention from search results (it's 9 minutes long) yet Youtube decided to stop ranking it in search results 3 days after upload because of it's low overall audience retention.

I feel like you shouldn't over-promote and instead choose sites that are related to your content, e.g. if it's a guitar playing video promote it in guitar forums but not in the off topic section of random music forums. Same for Reddit, I won't post in /r/videos again and stick to specific subreddits.

 

[Infinite Paths]

I guess if you get a lot of views from people searching for something specific it would possibly hurt your watch time compared to a large amount of promotion, with most visitors only watching for a short time then moving on, but you have to get that established status first or it will take longer to get any large amount of views at all.

 

[Jawad Soomro]

New YouTubers are encouraged to promote their videos and make their word out. Audience retention is only cared when we already have active subscribers who are watching and commenting our videos. If we are big channel, then we dont need to promote either. So promoting is necessary only when we start a new channel.

 

[Painter]

Organic growth is always the best route if you want your channel to become successful. It takes a while, but your patience will be rewarded.

 

[hcetiny]

It has 68% audience retention from search results (it's 9 minutes long) yet Youtube decided to stop ranking it in search results 3 days after upload because of it's low overall audience retention.

As far as I know, YouTube gives a bonus in the first days to show up higher in the search results. After that, the watch time and other ranking factors start playing a role. So, I'm not sure the low audience retention was the reason for this. But definitely it is not a good thing.

 

[Kirgle]

I've been having the exact same feeling lately!

I heavily promoted a new video during it's first few days, resulting in a low audience retention (19%) because I received a large percentage of viewers who have no relation to my kind of content. Now it's getting no views from search results or suggested videos at all even though I think the video has big potential. It has 68% audience retention from search results (it's 9 minutes long) yet Youtube decided to stop ranking it in search results 3 days after upload because of it's low overall audience retention.

I feel like you shouldn't over-promote and instead choose sites that are related to your content, e.g. if it's a guitar playing video promote it in guitar forums but not in the off topic section of random music forums. Same for Reddit, I won't post in /r/videos again and stick to specific subreddits.

How do you know if your video is ranked or not?? I am unfamiliar with this?!?