How to Improve Your YouTube Channel

I’m going to blast through some of the best advice I can give to you in a few (thirty) minutes. In 2019 I did 0-46,000 in 8 months, 3M+ views and $16,000.00 from scratch. I’ve commented on hundreds of threads, but wanted to go off the deep end and type for a bit. Aiming for 150,000 subscribers by the end of 2020, and a full-time years pay. I want everyone to have that same opportunity! Wont be plugging a link to my channel, because that’s NOT the goal of this thread.

BE YOURSELF : In my niche (carpentry & building industry), so many people hop into it thinking it’s a cake walk. Record a few things, post a video or two, make bank, easy… right? The difference between successful creators in our niche, including myself, is that we’re open on camera. No different in person than on YouTube, people feel they can truly connect with us. It creates a bond that isn’t easy to break! I love my viewers, and can name 50+ of my loyal commenters off the top of my head. Open up, be yourself. If you’re doing commentaries, don’t try to fake conversation. Have a list of subjects you can talk about!
CREATE, CREATE, CHANGE IT UP, CREATE : Every idea I’ve had, I’ve brought to life, whether it took me a week or three months. You will NEVER predict your viral videos, therefore, don’t try to create viral content. Just focus on creating content, let YouTube do it’s thing. Funny story.. One of my biggest videos was in collaboration w/ a company I’d worked with in the past. They gave me $500.00 for use of the video on their social media pages, prior to the video being made. I lagged on getting it done, hate myself for that, but let me tell you.. That video went crazy, QUICK. It’s responsible for bringing in over 10,000 of my subscribers. This video was outside of my typical range of videos, so I pushed it aside. Nowadays, I make these odd videos priority! Change it up, if your current content isn’t bringing growth, change it up a bit.
THUMBNAILS, TITLES, TAGS : This is important, VERY important. Tags.. Often times content creators lack in this department. Are you using the right tags? Want to find the best to use? Download SocialBlades chrome attachment and go to a big YouTuber in your niche, find a good video and it’ll show you all the tags they used. Take ones that apply to your own content, and use them! That’s simple. Thumbnails.. You want catchy, not clickbait. When you create these, you want to look at it from an outsiders perspective. Look at your thumbnail, does it leave questions? “What’s this possibly about?” “How did they do this?” “Did it work?” These are the kinds of questions that’ll make your viewers click that video! Titles.. The title and the thumbnail should collaborate in a sense, complimenting one another. My best advice with titles, it’s just like a book.. “Capitalize Words Like This” but don’t use all [CAPS] too often! While this works for famous folks like David Dobrik, it doesn’t work for 95% of content creators that try it during growing stages. I will note that on my channel, I do one special video every 3 months or so.. This video is always in all [CAPS], e.g. “BUILDING A HOUSE IN 9 MINUTES! (A Construction Timelapse)” – this video did 150,000+ views in a month. The title can be a bit click bait style, but it worked well! Experiment, see what catches traction.
DON’T TRY TO PROMOTE LIKE MOST : A thread here on r/NewTubers today was uplifting and helpful, talking about success on a channel.. On every comment, they plugged their YT link and asked for a subscribe. This is thirsty, very thirsty. If you want to promote, consider cross-promoting on Instagram, FaceBook, Twitch or Mixer. Don’t go spam-linking forums and pages, this will NEVER work. It will actually have a negative effect, as most views you get will be 0:20-1:30, and your audience retention will go through the floor. You don’t want that! Note: I had 20,000+ Instagram Followers when I started on YouTube, and I don’t think but a few hundred subscribe to my YouTube channel. Cross-promoting doesn’t always work well! Organic growth is far superior unless you’re VERY well established on another platform.
1080P IS PLENTY : I often see people asking if they export 1080P in 4K, if it’ll show [4K] on their video. While your export times in 4K are going to take forever, 1080P is plenty fine for almost all content creators. Don’t stress over this! If you’re shooting 480P or 720P? I’d suggest working up to 1080P, but don’t worry about trying to pull [4K]. It isn’t going to make or break your channel! I’ve uploaded in 1080P since day one, no plans on [4K] just due to export times and processing times.. Not to mention the camera gear for 4K is through the roof on prices! I shot on a GoPro Hero 7 Black and GoPro Hero 8, along w/ Canon T6I’s + audio. Less than $1,000.00 in cameras..
NICHE COMMENTS (USE CAUTIOUSLY) : The title of this one speaks for itself. Everyone knows the big YouTubers in your niche. Go to their recent upload, drop a comment related to the video. 9/10 if you’re known much in your niche, you’ll get a few likes, maybe a [heart] from the OP. It’ll put your comment up top and everyone who scrolls the comments will see your name. It’s just free impressions! What better, right? Don’t over-do this, or it might get a bit obvious. Once a week? A nice comment goes a long way.
AUDIO – IT’S IMPORTANT : Audio is something everyone wants to be clear, while video can be shaky here and there. If audio is bad, people will leave with a quickness. Often times, when critiquing channels here, I see bad audio. Here’s a link to a $49.99 lavalier microphone. Plug it into your iPhone or Android, download a recording app. Record your audio and sync it with your videos audio from your camera. Pro-Tip: Clap loudly in the beginning of the video, match the highs. Most of these apps allow you to add that file to Dropbox, allowing easy transfer to your PC! It really doesn’t take much to have good audio. This microphone is perfect for sit-down, scripted videos! Don’t want a Lav Mic? Use a shotgun.
BABY STEPS, SMALL GOALS : Big goals are great, 100,000 Subscribers! What happens when you have a slow month? You wont be motivated. Set small goals! 1,000 Subscribers, 5,000 Subscribers, 10,000 Subscribers, 15,000 Subscribers.. I set goals for myself, with deadlines. Hoping I’d crush them. Sometimes I hit them, other times I failed. I wanted 50,000 by New Years, I fell 4,000 short! Smashing through 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 15,000, etc.. Gave me so much motivation to push on, even during the times where I wanted to quit. Baby steps, you’ll get there.
TREAT IT LIKE A FULL-TIME JOB : I put out a thread a while back to coach a few people, and got quite a few different responses. I noticed a few said they wanted growth, but were having a hard time staying on track w/ content as they had other things to focus on. If you want it, get it. Treat it like a full-time job and it’ll become one! If you just allow yourself to push things off until the next day, you’ll never get things done. Do your best to treat it like a full-time job, but don’t overwork yourself. I’ve missed an event or two due to editing to do, don’t sleep often either, but it’s all worth it in the end!
KEEP IT FUN : December 2019, I uploaded 23 times, almost all of those uploads were shot the day before and edited that night, uploaded next day. 23 days straight. I was ready to quit by the end of the month. I’m back on my schedule now, 3 days a week, and it’s fun again! We have such an awesome opportunity to make a living creating content on YouTube, don’t let it be a negative thing in your life! Only do what you’re capable of doing, anything more and you’ll burn out in no time. Push yourself, but keep it fun!

If anyone has questions, aside from the typical “I’m not growing, what do I do?”, feel free to ask below and I’ll get to everyone! Sorry for the long read, hopefully you can take something away from it.

Best of luck w/ your success in 2020, let’s make it a good year.. If you have anything to add, feel free to chime in below:

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewTubers/comments/en3w9o/my_best_advice_allinone_post/

My lessons learned so far, from a viral video, in my first 6 months.

I understand that my channel might be an exception vs. a rule so take my lessons learned with a grain of salt. In fact, take any advice you ever receive with a grain of salt and weigh it against your own knowledge, and the knowledge of others.

1- QUALITY OVER QUANTITY.

I find personally that if I put more effort into a video, EVENTUALLY it will be rewarded with higher views and more engagement. The lazier it is, the worse. Don’t put out content just for the sake of putting out content. It needs to have a punch. Medicore won’t do, you have to stand out in some way. Cut aggressively. Put out only your best. I’m personally sitting on about 10 videos/songs/ideas that just aren’t quite there yet.

2- ENGAGE VIEWERS.

Talk to them. Like/heart their comments. treat them the way you wish your favorite Youtuber would treat you. Build that audience. Let them know they’re valued. Not by spamming “THANKS SO MUCH” in your video, but by taking the time to actually communicate. They want to talk to you, so talk back.

3- CURATE COMMENTS.

YouTube comments section can be straight up cancerous. It sucks to get some scathing criticism or get trolled. As you grow, it’ll happen more and more. First- Unless you’re Onison, or publishing controversial viewpoints, know that it probably isn’t you. The internet is full of trolls. Thing is, this is YOUR comment section. Trolls can troll where the fuck ever, but your comment section is yours. If there’s a post in there that’s obviously inflammatory, hurtful, or downright shitty, delete that ish. Constructive criticism? Fine. Asshattery? Nope.

4- LET YOUR SUBSCRIBERS/FANS HELP.

They subscribed. They like you. Encourage them to share your work with their friends. They likely run in a social circle that likes the same things they like. So encourage them to pass it on. Sharing is caring. Whether that be on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or (shudder) 9gag.

5- DON’T GIVE UP.

Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Do new things that are related to your niche. Try new things. Combine your niche with something new or interesting. Mash stuff together. Mix it up, baby, you’ve got a stew going. Make it funny, fresh, new, interesting. Keep creating.

6- LUCK

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Just like any other aspect of show business, luck plays a very large part.

Most importantly- if you do manage to somehow capture lightning in a bottle? Don’t hold yourself to that. Don’t compare every video against the one. Let them stand on their own. You can compare what works and what doesn’t, but don’t go “HOW COME MY OTHER VIDEOS DON’T HAVE AS MANY VIEWS AS THIS ONE?” Let that go. It’s the nature of the beast.

Enjoy yourself.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewTubers/comments/emu4fx/my_lessons_learned_so_far_from_a_viral_video_in/

Reading is for rich people, you’re failing because you read too much, not because you don’t read enough..

I guess I’ve done pretty well for myself over the last 15 years, and one thing that stands out to me more than anything in the divide between those of us that build successful businesses, employ people to help us scale, etc and those that always spin their wheels is this absolutely bullshit idea that reading is the key to wealth.

Everything you could ever need to know about business, wealth, life, love etc is probably in a total of 20 books, and if we just focus on business and wealth creation, let’s call it 10 and that’s being generous.

What 10? that’s up to you really since most books that are decent say the exact same fucking thing in a different way or with different characters.

What billionaires read, or how they start their morning has absolutely NOTHING to do with you. NOTHING.

Do you know why?

Because their ability to read a book a day, meditate twice, do yoga, write in their vision journal, ALL THAT BULLSHIT came AFTER they were wealthy.

While they built their companies, they worked 7 days a week 18+ hours a day, eating shitty fast food or whatever was available, barely showering let alone meditating for two hours.

I succeeded the same way everyone else did, working like an insane person towards my goals each day. Testing, failing, learning, testing.

Sure, read Think and grow rich, read how to win friends and influence people, read the millionaire next door, read the bible or any other religious text with most of life’s lessons told as stories, even read the secret if you want some metaphysical bullshit, because whether it’s real or placebo, if you believe it, it’s real.

But then, GET. TO. FUCKING. WORK.

Stop watching bullshit artist Gary V, or Warren Buffet Talks, or running to Amazon to buy Bill Gates top 10 touching books of the year.

Bill Gates was a fucking savage for decades. There was no Gates reading list 30 years ago, I doubt he read anything that wasn’t market reports.

After 15 years I thankfully have some breathing room to read some books, post bullshit on reddit, laugh hysterically at a Gary V videos and even consider stuff like hot yoga and flotation tanks and what super-food smoothie might make my dick 10% harder and perhaps give me back a few years that I burnt off of my life building a 20 person company.

Early on I got my hands on some Jim Rohn videos at the library, your best year ever seminar or something, probably on youtube now. It was like 5 hours and it was enough to change my life. It all just made perfect sense to me.

If you can read something like think and grow rich and feel the need to consume 500 other books on the subject, you probably won’t be getting anywhere in this lifetime.

STOP READING SHIT. STOP WATCHING SHIT. Downtime is for rich people.

I get that you think a 4 hour Joe Rogan podcast talking about sending your blood and spit and shit to 50 different labs to get a full breakdown of your perfect diet, vitamin and mineral supplementation and optimal workouts and sleep time is what’s going to make you a millionaire, but I assure you it won’t.

It will just make you a really healthy person with insurmountable credit card debt.

Stem cell injections won’t make you Joe Rogan and reading Bill Gates book list won’t make you a billionaire.

Self education is mostly used as an excuse for procrastination. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you are getting better by constantly trying to absorb information, not to mention the completely conflicting points of view you encounter when you choose to absorb content from an endless amount of sources.

If you want to learn sales, sell something. Reading 30 books on selling is going to give you 30 conflicting points of view, mostly by people that failed as salesman so they wrote a book talking about all the shit they never did that probably should work if someone actually had the discipline that they don’t.

….but at least they wrote a book which is worth something to them, what’s it worth to you besides a dozen hours you could have been building your business?

Source:  https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/emhr0n/reading_is_for_rich_people_youre_failing_because/

7 Tips to get better at playing support in DOTA 2

A few things I’ve learnt from playing as a Support:

1. Don’t feed by showing in lane and greedily farming multiple waves of creeps

(unless you’re creating space worth your death). If it feels like you’re “pushing the lane” you actually could just be a just a greedy pig.

2.If you find an enemy sentry on a high-ground ward spot, don’t kill it: place an observer ward there and beg your team to leave the enemy sentry alone.

3. Full mana during laning stage = major pussy alert.

4. Buy sentries as starting items especially if invis heroes on map.

5. Use observer vision in mid lane to scout out mid lane obs wards.

6. After dying, TP back to lane for XP, but also bear in mind that TP may be needed to save your mid / other lane from GANK.

7. My own: as a support in the offlane, if the enemy messes up their lane and a big push comes down early, it can be a good time to leave the lane and GANK mid. This helps win mid and also gives your offlane core some high XP while the enemy is trying to pull their lane and recover balance.

What you should know about making Thumbnails for YouTube

Thumbnails are the very first thing a potential viewer sees when they’re scrolling through YouTube — and making a good first impression is crucial, or else your video will get scrolled right past.

Why am I saying this?

Because someone asked me to review THIS thumbnail today:

I mean, sure… Content must always be king. It doesn’t matter how good your titles and thumbnails are if your videos suck.

But thumbnails must be perfect. Otherwise, your awesome content won’t be seen.

Let’s take a deep dive into thumbnails:

BAD THUMBNAIL linked above is horrid because it just simply doesn’t work.

It uses too much text to describe the video
Doesn’t have image assets
Black text on a colored background doesn’t create enough contrast to stand out

On the other hand, you have the IM-A-PRO-YOUTUBER-AND-I-THINK-I-KNOW-HOW-TO-MAKE-A-GOOD-THUMBNAIL thumbnail, but guess what? he/she actually doesn’t.

I’m talking about these kind of thumbnails (I just jumped into this one):

Why is it terrible?

First of all, this kind of “thumbnail style” is all over the F**KING FEED. These thumbnails just happened to be “the new meta” or “the new industry standard” that they just don’t stand out anymore.

Take a quick look at it. And I mean like a REALLY QUICK LOOK (as if you were scrolling through the feed).

What happens is that this kind of thumbnail style uses too many visual elements that picture gets lost.

I mean, I had to look at it like 8 secs to understand that there are 4 people but they are the same 2 persons in different positions; I still don’t know where they are becuase of the white clothes and the white background; it’s good to have an emoji accompanying the picture, but it’s completely unnecesary when having already too many visual saturation and when you already have like 3 faces making expressions.

Ok… hope you get the point: sometimes less is more.

Try to keep it simple (but not TOO simple as the first example I showed you). It’s all about finding balance.

So, what is a good thumbnail then?

Well, take this one for example:

It just does a lot of things right:

it uses faces that show emotions
it asks a leading question
it uses bright colors to add contrast
it has an harmonic background

If you are one of those who prefer to go more like the IM-A-PRO-YOUTUBER-AND-I-THINK-I-KNOW-HOW-TO-MAKE-A-GOOD-THUMBNAIL kind of style… it’s ok, but remember to find the perfect balance.

You can walk that path and have a perfect thumbnail. Just look at this example:

To sum up:

Make sure your thumbnail reflects accurately what’s actually in your video
Grab attention. Remember that anyone browsing on YouTube has an almost endless amount of content options.
Focus on faces. Close up shots, especially if the faces you are using convey emotion.
Keep text to the minimum so it’s easy to read at a glance.

Source:  https://www.reddit.com/r/SmallYTChannel/comments/emilf5/something_you_dont_get_about_thumbnails/

The Right Way To Promote Your Videos on YouTube (that actually gets results)

Context: Not claiming to be ‘the expert’, but I gained ~1000 genuine subscribers in under 3 months, and thought this may help a few others here who are just getting started.

“Build it and they will come” – NOPE! ❌

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐞 it and they will come. ✅

If you upload a new video and wait for our almighty overlord – the YouTube algorithm – to make your video go viral, you’re gonna be waiting a long, long time.

Unless you have thousands of subscribers already, we have to get the initial ball rolling ourselves because we have to PROVE to YouTube the video is good by giving it some data (i.e. people clicking on the video, watching it, and engaging).

Firstly, you need to be advertising each video on your other social media channels, but that does NOT mean just sharing the video link. (I used to do that – big mistake).

For platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, they reallyyyy don’t like you sending their users over to YouTube, so instead write a normal text post that ‘sells’ your video, and attach the video’s thumbnail as an image. As for the actual link, drop that in the comments instead so the algorithm doesn’t restrict your post’s organic reach.

For platforms like Instagram and TikTok, your best bet is giving people a short preview of your video – and in particular, the best / most enticing part of your video! Simply cut ~30 seconds of your YouTube video into a new video file, and upload that natively to the platform you’re on. Make sure you include a call to action that the full video is in your bio link.

But, don’t stop there…

The people who will LOVE your videos have conveniently already got themselves into groups. You just have to go tell them about your content in a non-spammy way.

By this I mean, you join a relevant group/community, provide some real value (without any links) and then eventually share your video with some context of why it may be helpful/interesting for them.

Yes, this takes longer. But it’s 100% worth it.

So where are these groups filled with your ideal viewers?

Forums (search variations of your niche + the word ‘forum’ on google)
Facebook groups
Sub-reddits

And you can no doubt find other communities too with a little searching, but those 3 tend to have some of the best results.

Finally, don’t forget about promoting on YouTube itself. And I don’t mean ads…

If you’re not commenting on other channels in your niche every single day, you’re missing out. I don’t mean commenting ‘sub for sub’ or ‘come check out my videos’ – that’s obviously spam and against the rules. Instead, provide a genuinely useful or funny comment – not only will the creator appreciate that much more, in my experience those generally lead people to check out your channel much more often.

These things are fairly simple, but absolutely make a difference. Best of luck with your channel – you’ve got this!

Source:  https://www.reddit.com/r/NewTubers/comments/emcut8/the_right_way_to_promote_your_videos_that/

YouTube Trap That You Don’t Want to Fall Into

So I fell in the trap of promoting my actual link on Instagram, Facebook and some sub-reddits. It wasn’t spam, it was always relevant to the topic, but unfortunately things like that backfire. What do I mean by backfire? Yes – I might have gotten some subscribers and nice comments, but I also had the other 90% of people click on my video link, watch 30 seconds to 1 minute, and then get off the video – which really lowered my audience retention and average view time, meaning the YouTube algorithm want even consider me in its selection.

By all means, I’m starting to recover from that with my latest uploads. I feel like I deliver interesting content for those who are interested in tech/programming or learning about the life of a Software Engineer – but obviously that’s not everyone niche and fun concept. I could add on top of that, that recently I’ve altered the style of my videos a little bit more towards the cinematography side, and even non-coders and non-tech people told me they enjoyed my content.

Now, someone in the comments mentioned about instead of a link posting your YouTube channel name. It’s a good idea, but only for those that have a distinct channel name. In my case my channel name is “Filip” but you can never find it by typing that in because there are other YouTubers called “Filip” that are more successful than me. In my case you have to type “FilipGrebowski” to find me.

Now onto the best way of promotion I have found so far – INTERACTION. Yes, comment on peoples YouTube videos in your niche, and add valuable feedback to their video. It’s great to get your channel out there and allow others to organically find it, check your content out and and most probably subscribe. There is a but, and it’s a BIG BUT. If you won’t be one of the first few people to comment when the video gets released, it highly lowers your chances for someone to actually see your comment and check your channel out, so commenting on smaller channels is something that’s usually better. I’ve created my YouTube channel not even 2 months ago, and I’m already at 550 subscribers. I try to interact a lot on the platform, and make interesting and engaging content. You have to film with an idea up ahead, how and what will make your users stay on your video and watch it till the end. I’m in the process of refining and altering my style, video editing etc. and its so far working. I already have a 220% increase in user interaction in my latest video.

9 YouTube Channels That Blew Up Last Year

In 2019 these 9 YouTuber’s blew up and here’s how they did it.

Graham Stephan

‘Graham Stephan’: As a finance YouTuber, he is one of the biggest. Probably number 3 after Dave Ramsey and Dan lok, but if you add Graham’s second channel into the mix, I would say he is bigger on YouTube than Dave Ramsey.

Unlike most of the other finance channels, his is so much more real, transparent and just plain interesting. He makes things like home loans and credit cards sound interesting and fun.

Andrei Jihk

‘Andrei Jihk’, is growing fast in the finance YouTuber world and made over $100k from YouTube in his first year, 2019. He is similar to Graham in how he does his videos, plus he used to be a professional Editor, so his video quality is really good.

Summoning Salt

‘Summoning Salt’ makes long 40 minute videos that go in insane detail of Speedrunning in different games over the decades. He is almost at 1 million subs in a year. He only posts once a month, but every video is an amazing documentary that you want to watch in its entirety even if you don’t play video games or even care about Speedrunning.

Nakey Jakey

‘Nakey jakey’ blew up in 2019. He isn’t the only one to do nostalgic videos, but he does it in a funny way with amazing personality.

I did a thing

A smaller YouTuber, ‘I did a thing’ has gotten over 700k subs in less than year. He makes high quality videos, great jokes, and is like the beautiful child mix of William Osman and You Suck at Cooking.

‘Code bullet’ and ‘Dani’

‘Code bullet’ and ‘Dani’ are both programming YouTubers that make programming games, simulations and AI funny, interesting, and just plain great to watch. They both blew up this last year.

Boffy

Another smaller YouTuber, ‘Boffy’ went from 0 to 300k subs in 2 months. He’s at like 500k now. He has quick editing, a nice voice, and some good reactions. He makes Minecraft videos. A supposedly difficult video type to crack, but he did with his unique way of doing it.

Out of Sight

One guy called “Out of Sight” has only one video with almost half a million views and I think 10K subs now. The video is not perfect by any means but people seem to enjoy and watch it. So since it already has a lot of views and comments it gets more views and comments. The guy has not released another video in I think half a year.

The thing that is the same across all these channels is that you want to finish the videos all the way through. You want to watch every video. That is what makes these channels grow. Content and engagement is king – everything else is not.

Obviously there are many more, but I don’t feel like writing all day.

How to Up Your YouTube Game and Gain Subscribers

Here’s some handy tips on how to gain more subscribers. It won’t be easy but after some hard work you’ll get there.

Follow these tips to get 1000 subscribers on YouTube.

∆ use compelling titles

how to …
the secret of/to
don’t…. until…
outcome driven (the most powerful animal)

∆ create a trailer

∆ tell the viewer to subscribe…

∆ fall in love with your fans (create what they need)

∆ interact with your audience

∆ long term consistency: keep working hard and the rest will follow through.

Here are some articles that will help:

All the best on your YouTube journey.

Here’s how I got 1000 subs in under 6 months

Recently I hit 1000 subs so I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve learned along the way.

First let’s go over the basics:

1.) Quality Over Quantity. Your viewers don’t care about upload frequency as much as the entertainment value you provide. That doesn’t mean upload once every 3 months.

2.) Have A Schedule. You need to be consistent with uploads to remain relevant. You don’t have to upload videos every day, at the same hour but aim for once a week.

3.) Don’t Stress Deadlines. It’s ok to not meet your deadlines. If you’re a day or two late nobody will care. It’s important to communicate though.

4.) Have Social Media. This by far the most important piece to growth and I’ll explain why later.

5.) Use Custom Thumbnails. This is pretty obvious but something that I see a lot of people forgetting. Even if your content is a shit sandwich the viewer should at least think it’s a turkey sandwich until they bit into it.

So now that the basic stuff is out of the way let’s go over a little more advance stuff:

1.) Research Your Niche This will help you understand what kind of content your viewers will like.

2.) Improve Your Content This could be upgrading equipment, better editing, better story telling etc. What worked today might not work tomorrow.

3.) Research Marketing/Business If you want to improve faster, look at YouTube as a business. Your Channel is the business and your videos are the product. Business/Marketing strategies translate nicely into YouTube.

4.) Understand Social Media Marketing When you post to your social media accounts, don’t look at it as: Here’s a photo of behind the scenes, this is how my day is going, new video. Instead look at each post as quality content that has an ulterior motive. Posting generic photos with the caption “new video!” aren’t engaging. Instead post a clip of your new video and say something like “I can’t believe this happened 😂🤦‍♂️ Watch the full video on YouTube.” This will create much more engagement thus tricking the algorithm into promoting your content. But social media shouldn’t only be used to promote

5.) Build A Community Social media is a multi-use tool. You can not only promote your YouTube content but it can be a place for your viewers to engage with you. Post behind the scenes photos with captions to spark conversation, show your followers what kind of things you’re into outside of YouTube etc. This is where they can get to know you better.

6.) Network With Other YouTubers It doesn’t even need to be YouTubers, it can be Instagramers or anyone else, but part of building a community is know people who can help you/you can help. This isn’t exclusive to “shoutout for shoutout” but you can help each other improve your content through honest discussions or talk about different ideas to gain subscribers/viewers, maybe even improve your gameplay if that’s your niche, just create a symbiotic relationship with that person.

7.) Research How Others Became Successful Who’s the most successful person/channel in your niche? How did they get to where they are today? It’s important to know the history. It’s not only great inspiration but it will give you an idea on what it takes to become that person/channel.

My personal journey started a year ago. I originally wanted to be a Twitch Streamer. After doing lots of research, I came to the conclusion that Twitch wasn’t going to promote my stream so I had to promote it myself. That’s when I started learning about social media marketing. I had some experience with this but not nearly the level I needed. Before I even started streaming I spent a month growing my Instagram account. I posted content related to what my stream would be. Once I gained some followers I had my first stream. It was nice because a few people from my Instagram showed up and we had a good time. After a couple of months of streaming I hit Twitch Affiliate and realized this wasn’t for me. I continued to grow my social media accounts (Instagram and TikTok).

It was at this point I gained a decent amount of followers on TikTok. I realized that TikTok has a younger audience and my videos (Fortnite content) attract younger people. This is when I decided to capitalize on it. Making videos for Instagram and TikTok made me realize that YouTube would be a perfect fit for me. So when I posted my first official YouTube I had a decent amount of viewers. I used the same philosophy for my Twitch stream: YouTube won’t promote my videos so I have to do it myself.

Reddit has also been a good way to gain viewers but you need to be in the right subreddit. As much as I love this subreddit, a lot of people only want lambda. I get much more engagement for Fortnite related subreddits. So if you want to use Reddit, find the right subreddit.

I’m slowly transitioning into YouTube. I’ve become less active on social media as I shift my focus. I am and will always be active on my socials but there’s less stress on posting videos everyday. My attention is on making more YouTube videos. I grew my channel in less than 6 months but it took a year to build the platforms necessary to get to where I’m at today. I hope this helps you and feel free to ask any questions you may have. I’m sure I’ve left out something but these have been the main things that helped me.

If 6 months down the line you’re not at 1000 subs don’t give up. You got to remind that there’s a million other factors that come into play. Things like knowledge of marketing or editing skills or more importantly your content. All these thing and more will determine your success. Some people will catch on quick others will take some time. We all learn at different rates so don’t be discouraged if you’re not ahead of the curve. Be patient and be focused

Mastering the Game of DOTA – All you need to know about how I hit Immortal

Have you ever felt stuck in your gaming life? Have you been playing the game for years and be static with no improvement? Do you play without a game plan, walking around the map clueless of what you should do? Do you feel your team does not execute to their fullest potential and you lose most of the games because of them?

If the answer to the above questions is YES, you came to the right place. This is my personal story of how I managed to improve, make my time more valuable and hopefully you can learn from my mistakes. I know what it feels like to be static for years, without improvement, game plan, playing more and more and be the same player without any change. I’ve been the guy above, and truth be told most of the players act this way. I can’t recall how many years I was stuck between 4 and 5k MMR. Frankly, it’s not about the number, it’s about improving.

This is going to be a long post. But honestly, I don’t want to start back from 2005 2006 when we used to be kids and nobody really knew what was going on. So, this story starts in 2013 2014 when the game was quite complex, tournaments more challenging and fun to watch and players started to have somewhat of an understanding of what was really going on in terms of what and how you should play the game.

About me: Like the rest of the community, I was a casual gamer playing a few gamers daily, some days more some days less. And like the rest of the community, my MMR was like a rollercoaster. That means, they were time I would be in a huge win streak and they were times I would lose over 500 to 600 MMR. Overall, I was stuck between 4,4 to 4,8 MMR. Like anyone else, I watched casual youtube videos and followed the scene, having more understanding of what was going on but the end result was no improvement. Unfortunately, we have to admit that MMR represents our skills overall. That includes everything from communication to mechanics(not 100% accurate, but truth be told if someone is around 4k he plays pretty much for 4k, etc).
After getting a little older, got into university (currently working) and having less time (still played my few games daily) I realized I needed to improve.

But Jeff why would you improve since you have a life going on? :
Imagine you play guitar for years daily 2-3 hours. How would you feel if after 6 years of playing you were not able to play a single song and be static?
Imagine you are going to the gym, constantly working out daily and haven’t lost any significant weight or gained no muscle

Obviously, you want to play guitar or a body that functions well. And we can all agree that if you are going to the gym for years and see no improvement, or have been playing guitar for years and not be able to play more difficult songs in the long term run it’s quite frustrating.

But jeff I don’t want to go pro in Dota :

It is not about become a rockstar, a bodybuilder or a pro player.
It’s about making our time more valuable. Since we invest the time playing, we should improve

If you are Herald/guardian you should gradually want to reach Archon/legend over the long run. if you are Ancient/Divine you should try hit immortal, etc…

How I improved and currently being Immortal :

I analyzed my own replays. The whole youtube is about how CCnC stomps lane and how Miracle Rampages. Nobody really talks about what Archon, Crusader and Legend players do. Watching the wrong mistake and realizing it is way more important than watching the right play

By watching the correct play, you usually cannot identify it and apply it into your games

2) Does youtube videos help? Yes, it does but please don’t overdo it though. What I mean is that most youtube channels ou there provides the same value and recycle the videos (get more cs by 10minute, watch the map). They provide no new information because there are not. I am not ditching them, they need to make content. Keep it simple, watching your replays and you will surprise how much you will improve in no time
Jeff do I need to watch every replay? No. Generally, try to watch a little bit of your laning stage, your farming pattern and your big blunders (diving towers with no actual purpose, etc)
Most Commoned question: How to watch replays: Check your laning stage(0-7min), your farming pattern(7-21min) and your TP scrolls(when you fought, when you reacted to a situation/fight)

3) Think about the games consciously and do NOT play on autopilot (SUPER IMPORTANT)
Example: Offlane doom vs Tree lifestealer. All the damage you are going to receive is physical
Solution: Double ring of protection(which is basically way better than extra regen) -> You get a buckler later on and most likely you are going to have a really comfortable lane( don’t forget quelling blade and regen if they focus you too much!)

This is a simple thought process to make my point. People play on autopilot and do not think anything about the game. I know, I used to do that. This tip can literally win you countless games. DotA is a simple game, but easier said than done

4) Nothing changes if nothing changes. That means you should apply the simple things I mentioned above and see if you have somewhat of progress. I would love to hear someone getting improved and messaging me back in a few weeks. Generally, if add or remove something from your playstyle, you cannot expect to gain MMR. All you do longterm is getting new bad habits and become worse slowly but steadily.

This post is for every single one struggling to gain MMR for a long period of time.
I know that people who work and play DotA as a hobby will understand what I am talking about.
I would love to read comments down below about your current time issues, situation, and experience from the game.
Choose who you want to be. The guy who steadily improves or the guy who wastes his time?
It’s up to you!

Jeff (u/dotarollercoaster)