What I learned in 5 months, 100,000 views, and 1,200 subscribers – How I found viewers on YouTube

Original Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/PartneredYoutube/comments/ace44e/what_i_learned_in_5_months_100000_views_and_1200/

I’m seeing a lot of newbie (even newer than me) asking some very repetitive and generic questions. Hopefully these tips I’ve found through my first 5 months on the platform will help out some of these even newer than me creators with getting eyeballs on your videos.

The biggest issue I see with people is taking a scattershot approach to producing content and optimizing for the algorithm. These tips are focused towards working on YouTube in a deliberate manner rather than taking a scattershot approach to producing content. These tips are geared towards new/intermediate creators, and I’m in no way an expert on YouTube. This is just what I’ve learned in the few months I’ve been doing it, and have found a moderate amount of success with.

Your niche and your competitors:

First, find a niche. You should have a plan as to how you can do something better than everyone else on the platform. If you don’t have this you need to take a long and hard look at why you’re on youtube, if it’s just for fun then awesome keep doing you. If you’re looking to grow without a niche you’re looking at a long uphill battle.
Identify your competitors: When I was creating my channel I found and studied my two competitors. One was entertaining in narration but simplistic in animation the other created incredibly complex animations but was simplistic in narration, as well as storytelling and slow to produce videos. This let me identify my niche, I could produce content that was more entertaining in narration then one and more complex in animation then the other.
Simply put if you’re not doing something better then others then why the hell would anyone watch you over the others? This doesn’t mean you have to be totally unique, there are a shit ton of DOTA players on YT for example, but if you’re in the top 1% of DOTA players then congratulations, you’ve found a niche.

Optimizing for the algorithm (SEO):

There are two routes to getting your content noticed, the first is through optimizing for video / search recommendations on youtube. The second is through external promotion, which I will discuss in the next section.
I recommend using either tubebuddy or vidiq, both are free and super useful for search engine optimization. I use vidiq and love it. I also recommend ‘keywords everywhere’, an extension that gives and ranks both youtube and google keywords. I’ll be referencing these two plugins throughout this section.
First choose a keyword you want to compete in. This keyword should be chosen based upon how big your channel is, don’t choose something with a huge competition score if you’re not a big youtuber who can compete with the search results within. Try to find mid/low competition scores if you’re new. Also look at the competition itself, is anyone competing in your niche already there? Can you make a better video than them? Each rank you go up in the ranking seems to be worth an order of magnitude more views, so ranking highly can get you a lot of views passively. Optimizing for search results is awesome, because it creates a constant stream of views rather then the single release burst you get without doing so.
Choose keywords to compete in and craft your videos around them. Some of my most watched videos were created using this technique. When looking for inspiration for a new video simply analyze the competition scores, volumes, and CPMs of the keywords. A super competitive primary keyword might mean you should create a different video.
In terms of actual SEO you should have the main keyword in both title, description, and tags. Follow all of vidiqs tips for crafting tags, it’s super helpful.
Include common misspellings in your tags, and check to see what the volume of these misspellings are on google and youtube. The higher the volume, the more you should include it as a tag.

Self-promotion

Ok first of all some people seem to have this stigma on promoting yourself. Say it with me: ‘smart self-promotion is fine, spamming is not.’ When promoting you need to ask address a few things first:

Venue selection.
Content selection.
Appropriate posting habits.

Addressing #1):

first of all you need to make sure you’re promoting in the appropriate places this subreddit for example is not for self promotion, it would be wildly inappropriate to link dump here, so don’t. View forums and subreddits as a tool for boosting your channel, if you abuse that tool you’ll quickly be banned. Which removes a tool for your channel to grow, for example by no longer being able to get advice from here.
Good choices of venue can include niche subreddits, such as the sub for the game you play or general subs like subreddits for gaming in general.
A quick note on posting on subs that are specifically for self-promotion: don’t bother. Everyone just goes there to link dump and very few people actually view other creators links.

Addressing #2)

Make sure you’re Optimizing the content you’re posting for where you’re posting it. Reddit for example loves pictures and .gifs but hates long videos. So don’t post long videos to reddit, instead convert the highlight of your video into a .gif and post it with a comment saying ‘taken from this video: [ULR]. In short make the content as consumable as possible for your chosen medium.
It’s also entirely possible to double dip through this method. Post the video to the appropriate sub, then make a .gif highlight and post it a month later, then post a single picture if appropriate a month after. Doing this you can get your content in more forms being viewed by more people without reposting it.

Addressing #3)

This one really boils down to ‘don’t spam’. Post the appropriate number of times in the appropriate places. Generally follow the rules of the subs / forums your posting to.

‘Grappling hook’ technique:

This last way of getting views onto your videos is similar to optimizing for the algorithm.
First find a video that is doing well and related in some way to your video. This could be a competitors video, or something related in topic but different from your video.
Don’t choose an identical video, as people don’t want to watch the same thing twice so won’t click onto your video.
Once you’ve identified the video, use some elements from it’s tags and description in your tags and description. Don’t use non pertinent tags (against TOS), but any that would fit both videos should be used. This will help get your video highly ranked in their recommended video bar, which should net you a bunch of views from their video.
A good example of this is a competitor did a video on the campaign that had a certain battle in it, I then made a video about the battle itself and grappling hooked it. This got me a ton of views off the recommended video section of my competitors video.

Cross promoting

Why post on only one platform when there are so many out there? Posting your content on Bitchute, daily motion, and new grounds are all great places to post your content if it’s appropriate for those venues. Be sure to link back to your youtube channel since it should be your focus.
Collaborate with others in your niche. Reach out to both bigger and smaller youtubers and see if they want to collaborate with you. A rising tide buoys all ships, and I guarantee you they have subscribers that are interested in you as well. Even if it’s with a smaller youtuber, getting in front of their subs with a video you would have made anyway is always going to be worth it. I could dedicate an entire guide to collaborations, so for now I’ll just touch on this.

Let me know what you think of these short tips.