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Growing a successful YouTube animation channel

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

High Living

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
186%
Jan 26, 2019
7
13
Hello Fastlaners,
After years of (occasionally, I must say) reading this forum, I am excited to start my execution thread, and share my journey on creating and scaling a successful YouTube channel: I have in fact just started “High Living”, which offers animated videos on a variety of topics revolving around personal development.

Now, this isn’t how I planned on getting my feet wet into entrepreneurship. I always thought I’d start in e-commerce or lead generation/Google Ads. But the fact that through YouTube I can potentially reach millions of people with useful and engaging content, is something that I find extremely exciting. I know absolutely nothing about social media and content creation: I am learning the basics as I go, while also working 50+ hours a week, so I don’t expect this to be an overnight success.

Also, the formula of my channel is not new: there’s plenty of personal development channels out there. But while most channels focus on a specific niche -often repeating the same concepts again and again- I want to help people living a happier and successful life in many different areas (social skills & relationships, money & finance, mindset, entrepreneurship and more). I am starting with some light-hearted/basic content, but I will also throw out the occasional video that gives my audience a kick in the gut, when needed. In my view, there are very few channels that do this in an engaging yet honest way.

In this thread, I am planning to post updates, and use it as a place of exchange: I will have plenty of questions, and hopefully I will also be able to help some of you interested in starting the same journey.

Current status
Subs: 9
Views: 92

Here is the first video released: feel free to take a look, and share feedback on the channel if you wish

Watch on YouTube
Link to channel
 
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Private Witt

Gold Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
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Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
220%
Feb 20, 2018
984
2,168
Oklahoma
Good luck with the channel, I for sure need to dopamine fast, things have gotten out-of-control once I became a smart phone addict the past 5 years.

Saw in the comments that the 1st 100 subscribers get a badge of honor, did not know about this. Do you have to activate this as the channel creator or does this happen on own. I have a few channels I'd like to use this for.
 

High Living

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
186%
Jan 26, 2019
7
13
Good luck with the channel, I for sure need to dopamine fast, things have gotten out-of-control once I became a smart phone addict the past 5 years.

Saw in the comments that the 1st 100 subscribers get a badge of honor, did not know about this. Do you have to activate this as the channel creator or does this happen on own. I have a few channels I'd like to use this for.

Thanks Private Witt!
Dopamine fasting is actually a somewhat controversial topic, with its popularized name itself being misleading (the brain will always produce dopamine) however there are still great benefits in adopting the habit of not chasing the next hit of dopamine, for a period of time.

On the badge of honor: this functionality does not exist unfortunately, that comment was intended for fun only
 
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Last edited:

Private Witt

Gold Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
220%
Feb 20, 2018
984
2,168
Oklahoma
Thanks Private Witt!
Dopamine fasting is actually a somewhat controversial topic, with its popularized name itself being misleading (the brain will always produce dopamine) however there are still great benefits in adopting the habit of not chasing the next hit of dopamine, for a period of time.

On the badge of honor: this functionality does not exist unfortunately, that comment was intended for fun only

Interesting on the dopamine, Im actually a recovering hard core mid-stakes gambler who now is involved with highly speculative cannabis and music industry doings which for the majority of the time has been chasing something, but now things are more calmer with success but the risk is always there. Since I quit gambling I feel the phone has taken over as my biggest addiction next to food, but I have successfully detoxed from Instagram so there is hope.

Bummers man you got me excited on the badge of honor, that would be dope, but gave me a good laugh, so thanks :).
 

Fastlane Liam

Silver Contributor
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Feb 10, 2018
407
604
27
United Kingdom
Honestly, if you're not sure what to do this is a great start. Build a following and chose a product later down the line. Now that could be powerful
 
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High Living

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
186%
Jan 26, 2019
7
13
Honestly, if you're not sure what to do this is a great start. Build a following and chose a product later down the line. Now that could be powerful

Thanks Fastlane Liam, that is good to hear. Agree, for now I am focusing on producing content and getting some traction in terms of views and subscribers, then monetization will follow.

As of now, I am still undecided on the best strategy to push the channel a bit, and in the next days I will be experimenting a bit with LinkedIn, FaceBook business pages, and Google Ads.
 

High Living

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
186%
Jan 26, 2019
7
13
Back for an update, as I have just published the 8th video on the channel:

Current status
Subs: 33
Views: 1,261

The number of subscribers is still very low: pushing the channel to my network of friends/family/colleagues/other contacts would help getting some more tractions, but I chose not to – it’s a long-term game.

For now, I have been experimenting with Google ads to promote the videos, and paid traffic generated 70% of the views. First learning: I’ve calculated that, had I not run Ads, my avg. view time would have been 36% higher, but this seems to be due to a misconfiguration on all but one campaigns, so I’ll try and fix that.

Now, it’s well known that one of the best ways to increase the chance that YouTube will suggest videos, is to increase CTR and avg. watch time. CTR isn't terrible, so for now I will focus on optimizing the avg. view time, which is pretty low at the moment (the first videos published are all very short, <5:30mins on average).

What I am going to do differently:
  • Only promote videos that already have a very good organic avg. view rate (just one, at the moment)
  • Try to reduce the CPV of this particular video (narrowing down the targeting on the best performing and cost effective keywords, demographics, geographies)
  • Adding some new countries, to partially compensate the loss of impressions, and generate further learnings
Pretty basic stuff , but let’s see how the CPV (of the video) and avg. watch (of the channel) move from the current €0.14 and 0.57mins.

Latest video here

Watch on YouTube*
*If linking to channel annoys you just let me know, I am not here to get an extra handful of views
 
Last edited:

High Living

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
186%
Jan 26, 2019
7
13
Hey guys, after nearly one month since last update, here I am:
Current status
Subs: 192
Views: 2.6k views

Not much of a breakthrough as you can see. I've stopped paid ads because there was no conversion into subscribers.
Pushing the right vids made me significantly increase the avg. watch time of the channel, although I learned that's pretty irrelevant, as YT evaluates which video to push on an individual basis, largely depending on their CTR and Avg. watch time.

What's positive:
  • I've found a decent strategy for growing subs in the short term (~90 in the last 7 days, but growing fast). However, it's really small numbers and cannot be scaled much.
  • "Underrated" is the most common word across the video comments, so I believe people like my content
Next actions:
  • start promoting the channel on Social media, instead than running paid ads
  • level up the Thumbnails quality (started)
If you're curious, latest video released here:


Watch on YouTube
 
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Last edited:

dandy2902

New Contributor
May 12, 2021
22
7
Hello Fastlaners,
After years of (occasionally, I must say) reading this forum, I am excited to start my execution thread, and share my journey on creating and scaling a successful YouTube channel: I have in fact just started “High Living”, which offers animated videos on a variety of topics revolving around personal development.

Now, this isn’t how I planned on getting my feet wet into entrepreneurship. I always thought I’d start in e-commerce or lead generation/Google Ads. But the fact that through YouTube I can potentially reach millions of people with useful and engaging content, is something that I find extremely exciting. I know absolutely nothing about social media and content creation: I am learning the basics as I go, while also working 50+ hours a week, so I don’t expect this to be an overnight success.

Also, the formula of my channel is not new: there’s plenty of personal development channels out there. But while most channels focus on a specific niche -often repeating the same concepts again and again- I want to help people living a happier and successful life in many different areas (social skills & relationships, money & finance, mindset, entrepreneurship and more). I am starting with some light-hearted/basic content, but I will also throw out the occasional video that gives my audience a kick in the gut, when needed. In my view, there are very few channels that do this in an engaging yet honest way.

In this thread, I am planning to post updates, and use it as a place of exchange: I will have plenty of questions, and hopefully I will also be able to help some of you interested in starting the same journey.

Current status
Subs: 9
Views: 92

Here is the first video released: feel free to take a look, and share feedback on the channel if you wish

Watch on YouTube
Link to channel
Good luck to your channel. Looking forwards your update.
 

DebtFreeDr

Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
140%
Jul 13, 2021
35
49
Louisiana
Hey guys, after nearly one month since last update, here I am:
Current status
Subs: 192
Views: 2.6k views

Not much of a breakthrough as you can see. I've stopped paid ads because there was no conversion into subscribers.
Pushing the right vids made me significantly increase the avg. watch time of the channel, although I learned that's pretty irrelevant, as YT evaluates which video to push on an individual basis, largely depending on their CTR and Avg. watch time.

What's positive:
  • I've found a decent strategy for growing subs in the short term (~90 in the last 7 days, but growing fast). However, it's really small numbers and cannot be scaled much.
  • "Underrated" is the most common word across the video comments, so I believe people like my content
Next actions:
  • start promoting the channel on Social media, instead than running paid ads
  • level up the Thumbnails quality (started)
If you're curious, latest video released here:


Watch on YouTube
 

DebtFreeDr

Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
140%
Jul 13, 2021
35
49
Louisiana
I've also just started a new YT channel a few months ago.

I'm working with someone that has 2.5M subs, so needless to say....he knows what he's doing.

A few pearls he's taught me:

Go for the LONGER videos. If possible >10 minutes as WATCH TIME is MORE important to the Tube vs subscribers.

Even better, the BIGGEST growth is coming from videos that are one hour long or longer. Imagine that.

But if you think about it, it makes sense. Not many people will click on a video that's over an hour long if they're NOT serious about learning about the topic.

Go for the BEST hook in the beginning as possible. I've learned that you want to shoot for at least 70% of viewers are still engaged with your video at the one minute mark.

If possible, find videos with HIGH views yet their number of subscribers are on the low end.

For instance, you'll rank better for Video A with 100K views from a channel with 5K subscribers vs Video B with 200K views and 1M subscribers.

That's all I've got for you now.

Here's my latest video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8a9foV54zA
 
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