My first video on YouTube got 50K views, gained me 1250+ subs

[Anon3x156]

So I started a YouTube channel recently.
My channel is in the entertainment category. I might reveal the niche in the future if the channel gets bigger.

But I didn't start this thread to talk about my channel nor my niche.

I just want to give some advice, share my experiences and destroy some bs you were told, like: "ReTenTiOn aNd cTr iS KiNg"



When I uploaded this video, I had 40 subscribers.
This proves that you don't need even need to have an audience to get a video suggested by YouTube's algorithm.
I don't have any other channel, and nobody (including me) has promoted this video on any other social media platfrom.
Views are %100 organic and %100 from YouTube.

What made YouTube promote this video?

Trend-jacking:
The video is about ChatGPT, in this video, I'm making an exciting & interesting thing using ChatGPT.
I uploaded the video right when ChatGPT just came out.

Stealing viewers:
This is the other part of Trend-jacking. Sometimes, the topic of your video being hot is not enough to get views.
YouTube has a video recommendation system. It looks at people's watch history and recommends videos based on that.
There needs to be other similar videos, so YouTube can recommend your video to those people.
Remember, you don't have any subscribers, the only thing YouTube can do at that point is to look at the meta-data of your video and try to recommend your video based on that.

TL;DR: Find hot video(s) in your niche, and make similar videos with similar meta-data (idea, title and desc.) to get your video suggested right next to them. I'm not telling you to go out and copy other people's videos or ideas, just make similar videos with your own style.

CTR and Retention:
You don't need to have 15% retention and 85% CTR to get your video suggested.





And no, the video doesn't have to be at least 10 minute long.
This video is 4:47.

CTR decreases as you get more impressions. CTR data is so blurry and YouTube doesn't provide us enough context so we can understand it.
YouTube will show your video to a lot of people, and not everyone has to be interested in your video. People have different interests and tastes.

The number 1 metric to look at is VIEWS.

Would you rather have a video with 100K views that has 3% CTR and %50 Retention or a video with 254 views that has 15% CTR and 84% Retention?

And I think the best way to see if people liked your video or not, is to look at your viewer to subscriber conversion rate, look at your likes and look at comments. Retention should come last.



The video got 150+ comments just like these.

WHAT GETS VIEWS IS NOT CTR / RETENTION NOR A WELL DESIGNED THUMBNAIL



A well designed bag of poo is still a bag of poo.

What you need to have is not a high paced editing with cuts every 1.245645 seconds, nor a thumbnail which you spent 999 hours designing.
What you need to have is REMARKABLE IDEAS. INTERESTING IDEAS. EXCITING IDEAS.

After having a great idea, then you can start worrying about these things.
The reason that your videos doesn't get views is not because you didn't have enough contrast in your thumbnail or your color palette selection was wrong.

It's because your idea was boring and people didn't want to watch it.

DON'T CHASE VIRALITY, CHASE AUDIENCE BUILDING, COLLECT PEOPLE THAT F*CK WITH YOU AND YOUR SH1T



P.S: This was my first video for this channel, I could actually make this video 5 times better, and I could make it longer and It would probably get more views that way.
Lesson to be learned: Don't get lazy with your first video because you don't think it's even going to get any views.

 

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[Andy Black]

So I started a YouTube channel recently.
My channel is in the entertainment category. I might reveal the niche in the future if the channel gets bigger.

But I didn't start this thread to talk about my channel nor my niche.

I just want to give some advice, share my experiences and destroy some bs you were told, like: "ReTenTiOn aNd cTr iS KiNg"

View attachment 47185

When I uploaded this video, I had 40 subscribers.
This proves that you don't need even need to have an audience to get a video suggested by YouTube's algorithm.
I don't have any other channel, and nobody (including me) has promoted this video on any other social media platfrom.
Views are %100 organic and %100 from YouTube.

What made YouTube promote this video?

Trend-jacking:
The video is about ChatGPT, in this video, I'm making an exciting & interesting thing using ChatGPT.
I uploaded the video right when ChatGPT just came out.

Stealing viewers:
This is the other part of Trend-jacking. Sometimes, the topic of your video being hot is not enough to get views.
YouTube has a video recommendation system. It looks at people's watch history and recommends videos based on that.
There needs to be other similar videos, so YouTube can recommend your video to those people.
Remember, you don't have any subscribers, the only thing YouTube can do at that point is to look at the meta-data of your video and try to recommend your video based on that.

TL;DR: Find hot video(s) in your niche, and make similar videos with similar meta-data (idea, title and desc.) to get your video suggested right next to them. I'm not telling you to go out and copy other people's videos or ideas, just make similar videos with your own style.

CTR and Retention:
You don't need to have 15% retention and 85% CTR to get your video suggested.

View attachment 47186

View attachment 47187

And no, the video doesn't have to be at least 10 minute long.
This video is 4:47.

CTR decreases as you get more impressions. CTR data is so blurry and YouTube doesn't provide us enough context so we can understand it.
YouTube will show your video to a lot of people, and not everyone has to be interested in your video. People have different interests and tastes.

The number 1 metric to look at is VIEWS.

Would you rather have a video with 100K views that has 3% CTR and %50 Retention or a video with 254 views that has 15% CTR and 84% Retention?

And I think the best way to see if people liked your video or not, is to look at your viewer to subscriber conversion rate, look at your likes and look at comments. Retention should come last.

View attachment 47191

The video got 150+ comments just like these.

WHAT GETS VIEWS IS NOT CTR / RETENTION NOR A WELL DESIGNED THUMBNAIL

View attachment 47189

A well designed bag of poo is still a bag of poo.

What you need to have is not a high paced editing with cuts every 1.245645 seconds, nor a thumbnail which you spent 999 hours designing.
What you need to have is REMARKABLE IDEAS. INTERESTING IDEAS. EXCITING IDEAS.

After having a great idea, then you can start worrying about these things.
The reason that your videos doesn't get views is not because you didn't have enough contrast in your thumbnail or your color palette selection was wrong.

It's because your idea was boring and people didn't want to watch it.

DON'T CHASE VIRALITY, CHASE AUDIENCE BUILDING, COLLECT PEOPLE THAT F*CK WITH YOU AND YOUR SH1T

View attachment 47190

P.S: This was my first video for this channel, I could actually make this video 5 times better, and I could make it longer and It would probably get more views that way.
Lesson to be learned: Don't get lazy with your first video because you don't think it's even going to get any views.

Good for you.

I like Mr Beast advice to grow a YouTube channel: "Make better videos." To do so he spends a LOT of time on the idea.

This was my first video for this channel, I could actually make this video 5 times better, and I could make it longer and It would probably get more views that way.

Make another version 5 times better then? The market has shown what it likes.

 

[Anon3x156]

Make another version 5 times better then? The market has shown what it likes.

I'm not so sure about making the same video twice, even the new video is 5 times better.
I think I should slightly change the idea but keep the concept.

Edit: When I think about it, I actually seen a youtuber who made the same video twice. The first version had 100k views, the second had 1.2m lol

 

[Andy Black]

I'm not so sure about making the same video twice, even the new video is 5 times better.
I think I should slightly change the idea but keep the concept.

Edit: When I think about it, I actually seen a youtuber who made the same video twice. The first version had 100k views, the second had 1.2m lol

I look at the Dreamcloud channel and swear he repeats the same few videos every few weeks.

 

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[Matt Lee]

Good work man. I do have 1 question after reading your post.

Did you copy the layout of the keywords and hashtags too?

I've seen channels copy word for word: 1) the title & description 2) hashtags 3) even the first 10-30 seconds of a video. I see that their videos perform relatively well too. For example, say the trend starting video brings in 1-1.5M on a channel that does 50-100k per video on average. A channel averaging 10-20k views per video that jump on the trend will bring in around 100k-500k and still counting.

 

[Anon3x156]

Good work man. I do have 1 question after reading your post.

Did you copy the layout of the keywords and hashtags too?

I've seen channels copy word for word: 1) the title & description 2) hashtags 3) even the first 10-30 seconds of a video. I see that their videos perform relatively well too. For example, say the trend starting video brings in 1-1.5M on a channel that does 50-100k per video on average. A channel averaging 10-20k views per video that jump on the trend will bring in around 100k-500k and still counting.

I honestly didn't copy anyone's video.

I came up with the video idea myself, and when I searched the idea, there was only 1 YouTuber
who made the same video.

I took a look at it to see what he has done, but I didn't even watch it until the end.

So I made my video anyways.
I wasn't sure if my video was going to do well, but I knew there was a chance.

Hashtags are not important. At least that's what I heard from experienced creators and YouTube staff. YouTube only uses them if there is any typo in the title / description.

But title and description plays a vital role when it comes to meta-data, because that's the only thing YouTube algorithm has when it tries to find the right audience for the video. Especially if you don't have any viewer history and subscribers.

About the hook, I think that's a myth.
I don't know if YouTube scans the words you say in your videos, and use them as meta-data.

Your video doesn't have to be a copycat of another existing video, just try to use similar meta-data.

My video got suggested under videos that are not even in the same niche, but YouTube recommended my video just because they had similar vibes.

YouTube's algorithm is smarter than you think.
There is no hacks.

Just make good videos, and if you're just starting, make use of trends to get a momentum quicker.

But please don't forget that trend-jacking is not the only way to grow.

Shorts are also a great option to grow your channel quickly and improve your video production skills.

I uploaded around 6 shorts before I uploaded my first long-form video.

My shorts got around 28k views in total and they only got me 40 subs, I bet you can do it better than me.

My shorts was kinda bad quality.

 

[datagod]

Great tips! Are you showing your face in video?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Great tips! Are you showing your face in video?

He won't answer you, he has deleted his account, hence the ANON username.