What I've learned over the last year...

Steve0192

I've Got It
I've just noticed that I've been on YouTube making videos for over a year now so I thought it would be fun to list my experiences so far.

1. Everything happens much slower that I realised!
For some reason I thought I'd get a few thousand subscribers in the first few weeks, then things would snowball from there. Boy was I ever wrong! It's a slow steady journey, definitely more of a marathon than a sprint, but progress is steadily in the right direction.

2. Its impossible to second guess what my strongest video's will be.
I constantly get this wrong. I make a video and almost don't put it up because I think it's so weak and it becomes a hit (my highest ranked video was hacked together because I couldn't think of anything else to do that week!). Then there are the videos that take hour and hours of practice and preparation and they barely get viewed.

3. Spend some time and think about your longer term direction - What themes are you going to develop?
This gives your channel direction, but also helps if you ever find yourself with "writers block" trying to think of a subject for this weeks video. It also help you to decide how you're going to put together play lists.

4. Put time and effort into Promotion
Work out how to use social media and go for it. Stumble upon generates occasional traffic. For me Twitter is less useful. Reddit has by far generated the most traffic. Google plus seems to have the best guitar communities.

What have you learned over the period since you joined.

Steve
 
I've just noticed that I've been on YouTube making videos for over a year now so I thought it would be fun to list my experiences so far.

1. Everything happens much slower that I realised!
For some reason I thought I'd get a few thousand subscribers in the first few weeks, then things would snowball from there. Boy was I ever wrong! It's a slow steady journey, definitely more of a marathon than a sprint, but progress is steadily in the right direction.

2. Its impossible to second guess what my strongest video's will be.
I constantly get this wrong. I make a video and almost don't put it up because I think it's so weak and it becomes a hit (my highest ranked video was hacked together because I couldn't think of anything else to do that week!). Then there are the videos that take hour and hours of practice and preparation and they barely get viewed.

3. Spend some time and think about your longer term direction - What themes are you going to develop?
This gives your channel direction, but also helps if you ever find yourself with "writers block" trying to think of a subject for this weeks video. It also help you to decide how you're going to put together play lists.

4. Put time and effort into Promotion
Work out how to use social media and go for it. Stumble upon generates occasional traffic. For me Twitter is less useful. Reddit has by far generated the most traffic. Google plus seems to have the best guitar communities.

What have you learned over the period since you joined.

Steve
2 and 4 are things I can directly agree with. My 4th most watched video (likely to soon be me 3rd and then 2nd most watched video at the pace it's going) is not even what I consider my greatest video. It's cute, but not to the point I expected it to be getting over 1,000 views per hour cute! At this pace it will become my 3rd most watched video in about 3 days if it keeps it this up! SO that's my experience with 2, and the same video is a result of 4. It took one strategic post to somebody to get this chain reaction started, they put up an article and multiple sites started sharing it. Social media sharing is how I generate tons of traffic. I always post strategies in here if you haven't noticed, I haven't really seen many people have success following them though probably because of the different content. Dog videos are VERY easy to share and spread.
 
#2 is sooo real, dude. My most viewed video I filmed hung over, barely duct-taped together and released thinking 'meh, it's content I guess'. It almost didn't come out. The videos where I take extra time and care and really appreciate, most are sitting around ~200 views or less. It's sad lol

I also naively thought it would be a lot easier to get subscribers. I didn't think I'd get thousands or anything, but I figured I would've broken 100 by now. I am absolutely horrific at promoting myself, though...
 
I'm coming up on a year as well, and 1 and 2 are both so relatable for me! I definitely thought things happened more quickly on YouTube subscriber and views-wise, and for bigger YouTubers they do, but it's hard starting out! And oh my gosh it's so difficult trying to predict what your most popular video will be. The same thing has definitely happened with some of my videos - the ones I don't spend as much time on or that I don't think will be very popular are my most liked and viewed, yet the ones I put a lot in to don't get as much love! YouTube is so unpredictable, but it's so worth it at the end of the day.
 
The only thing I can relate to is #2.

I posted a mustang crash video, and within a week it had more views than my 05 Mustang GT review. A video shot by blind luck overtakes a video that I poured my heart and soul in. Hours of filming, hours of editing. But the mustang crash vid soon blew it's wad and is now the #2 video on my channel. After the Mustang review. And deservedly so.
 
Number 2 is sooooo true! We do toys review and the one that we thought was so awesome and spent a lot of money on barely got any views and the toy we thought was kinda crappy and spent like 6 dollars gets wayyyyyyy more views! Lol
 
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