YouTube channel about Google Sheets / Apps - Script - Progress thread

[FastNAwesome]

Hey Cybom, just wanted to say best of luck with your channel,
and videos are really good quality.

Really like your tutorial style, getting right into it,
and with helpful graphics and sounds along the way.

Makes it so easy to follow, and I don't even know French,
but with your videos I learn it too

 

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[Andy Black]

Hey Cybom, just wanted to say best of luck with your channel,
and videos are really good quality.

Really like your tutorial style, getting right into it,
and with helpful graphics and sounds along the way.

Makes it so easy to follow, and I don't even know French,
but with your videos I learn it too

You know what I'm thinking right? Create rows in a client dashboard Google Sheet and it automatically creates a Google Drive folder per client and drops in various templates.

 

[Cybom]

Yes, that's a very familiar pattern. Have you tried checking your traffic source for the past 28 days of the popular videos? It gives a better indication of how people are finding your best performing videos. The initial watch figures in the week after launch will skew your analytics and are misleading.

In my own case, my popular videos are the ones that are found on either Google or YouTube Search. I've recently been trying to get videos to rank on Google. When that happens you see the video build and pull more viewers in to watch other videos. My channel will never take off but I have around 4k views every 48 hours and it's consistent when I don't publish. If I publish a video it can lift to between 6k and 10k views for 48 hours but then falls back gradually over the week to the 4k level.

I just did and there are actually quite big differences between the videos:

1st video - quite old and just about to be catch up by the 2nd best video (more recent):
- YT search: 91%
- External search (Google...): 4%

2nd best video:
- YT search: 39%
- Suggestions: 37%
- Navigation: 11%
- External search (Google ...): 5%

3rd best video:
- YT search: 81%
- Navigation: 8%
- External search (Google ...): 1%

4th best video:
- External search (Google ...): 61%
- YT search: 31%

So it looks like I don't have consistently the same figures from one source to another but it also looks like most of the traffic is coming either from YT search or external source. I am actually surprised it changes so much from one video to another but I guess it does not hurt to bring traffic from various sources.

As for my website, I just checked last month's figures and I had 103 people click the link to visit my newsletter signup page from YouTube. Unfortunately, the signup tracking for that page has stopped working for some reason. What I do know is that I had 154 subscribers over the same period of which 60% came via popup. Most of the remaining 40% probably came from the YouTube signup page. It probably works out at around 40-60 subscribers a month from YouTube.

Thanks for the figures, that does not sound bad at all, I was expecting a lower conversion number!

Great video by the way. I don't speak French but I could follow quite a bit. It was well-paced and had good sound quality making it easy to watch. Have you considered adding English subtitles?

What does success with this channel look like for you?

Thank you very much!

I was also thinking about trying English subtitles after the comments from @Andy Black. I need to see whether it is possible to create them on videos that have already been published. It looks feasible but otherwise I'll try it on new videos.

Regarding the success of the channel, I actually have only set up this target of 1000 subscribers within a year that I mentioned earlier but have not really planned longer term so far. I think this is still challenging but still believe it is feasible.

If I get there, I have a few ideas like write an eBook for beginner or also create a long formation on Udemy (or similar) but I want to focus first on growing the channel. I have in mind that a 10k subscribers channel could bring some interesting traffic to that type of product but this is not really based on facts, only that 10k sounds already like a significant channel to me.

I was also recently reading this thread: GOLD! - EXECUTION - How to Create a $2k+/mo Passive Income Website in 30 Days (or Less) ... It was really interesting and gave me another idea about another product that could be sold, simply Google Sheets templates...

Hey Cybom, just wanted to say best of luck with your channel,
and videos are really good quality.

Really like your tutorial style, getting right into it,
and with helpful graphics and sounds along the way.

Makes it so easy to follow, and I don't even know French,
but with your videos I learn it too

Thanks a lot @FastNAwesome !
Ahah that was not the primary goal but that's also good if you can learn French with it

 

[Cameraman]

I was also thinking about trying English subtitles after the comments from @Andy Black. I need to see whether it is possible to create them on videos that have already been published. It looks feasible but otherwise I'll try it on new videos.

Yes, it is, or at least it used to be. I've done it in the past and I'm sure that you still can.

Regarding the success of the channel, I actually have only set up this target of 1000 subscribers within a year that I mentioned earlier but have not really planned longer term so far. I think this is still challenging but still believe it is feasible.

What benefit will having 1,000 subscribers bring you?

I don't want to sound down on subscriber numbers but it means very little on its own. Having subscribers doesn't bring anything other than lots of offers to promote cheap tat products. Think in terms of how you can create and connect with true fans and then use that to turn views into money.

I'm probably going to hit 34k subscribers in the next couple of weeks but my growth rate is currently 120-140 new subs a week. Compare that to someone who launched 6 months ago and already has 34k subs. The growth rate in subs tells us a lot about what might be possible for each channel in the future.

If I get there, I have a few ideas like write an eBook for beginner or also create a long formation on Udemy (or similar) but I want to focus first on growing the channel. I have in mind that a 10k subscribers channel could bring some interesting traffic to that type of product but this is not really based on facts, only that 10k sounds already like a significant channel to me.

I was also recently reading this thread: GOLD! - EXECUTION - How to Create a $2k+/mo Passive Income Website in 30 Days (or Less) ... It was really interesting and gave me another idea about another product that could be sold, simply Google Sheets templates...

Turning views and followers into cash is important.

I started doing YouTube to solve a problem. How can I explain difficult topics without writing long articles? I then realised that I could use it to help sell more books and build my mailing list. I'm sure you've heard it before, but the gold is on the mailing list, and it's certainly true for me. Most of my books now hit the Amazon Best Seller list within 30 days because my newsletter subscribers immediately buy them. This gives them greater visibility to non-followers and I sell even more.

Don't just focus on building a YouTube channel. Work out how to connect with those people and capture their contact details. If YouTube decides to shut down your channel you still need a way to communicate with them. Build that alongside your channel as a priority. You can figure out what to sell them later.

 

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[Timmy C]

Rate of clicks:
The rate of clicks does not look so bad, the channel is on 3.3% on average and although it is not an impressive result, I think this is still fair from what I could read on that topic. I am also using TubeBuddy to optimize titles.



Retention of the audience:
I think this is my main issue, videos are usually around 25% (or even lower) and the best is only going up to 50%. I think I should focus more on this part for the upcoming videos and I am trying to put a plan in place to improve this side:

• Improving my speaking: it is actually also a reason why I started a YouTube channel and I can hear that I am already improving but I still need to learn more to better keep the focus of the viewers
• Improve my video editing and especially the creation of animations / specials effects to compensate for the lack of transitions from this type of video
• Make shorter and more impacting introduction

A few programs that really has helped my CTR is as follows:
express.adobe.com completely free
Easy Promotional Graphics, Videos and Email Campaigns completely free

Both have great templates you can use and they have more than doubled my CTR.

This website Thumbs Up – Standard allows you to see how your thumbnail will look across youtube before committing to a design.

Your retention isn't that bad, what helps is trying to tell a story, and try focus on that, and you should see a bit of an improvement in retention.

Your retention will go up as you get a base of loyal viewers.

I am in the beginning stages aswell, but enjoying it so far.

 

[Cybom]

What benefit will having 1,000 subscribers bring you?

I don't want to sound down on subscriber numbers but it means very little on its own. Having subscribers doesn't bring anything other than lots of offers to promote cheap tat products. Think in terms of how you can create and connect with true fans and then use that to turn views into money.

I'm probably going to hit 34k subscribers in the next couple of weeks but my growth rate is currently 120-140 new subs a week. Compare that to someone who launched 6 months ago and already has 34k subs. The growth rate in subs tells us a lot about what might be possible for each channel in the future.

That's true, actually the 1000 subs target was not really supposed to give me any other benefit than a "yes, I can do it!". Since the beginning I'm aware the monetization itself is not something that is gonna bring a lot to me and that I would need to develop something else but I am so focused on the growing of the channel itself that I didn't think about doing anything else so far.

120-140 subs / week sounds like a really long term goal for me but I can picture that

Turning views and followers into cash is important.

I started doing YouTube to solve a problem. How can I explain difficult topics without writing long articles? I then realised that I could use it to help sell more books and build my mailing list. I'm sure you've heard it before, but the gold is on the mailing list, and it's certainly true for me. Most of my books now hit the Amazon Best Seller list within 30 days because my newsletter subscribers immediately buy them. This gives them greater visibility to non-followers and I sell even more.

Don't just focus on building a YouTube channel. Work out how to connect with those people and capture their contact details. If YouTube decides to shut down your channel you still need a way to communicate with them. Build that alongside your channel as a priority. You can figure out what to sell them later.

I have read an heard a few times about this mailing list but didn't know that it would be so important to build it so early in the process. That's a step higher for me and I need to learn a bit more how to put that in place in the coming weeks. I also don't plan to sell anything for now anyway as I don't have a status yet to be able to sell too much...

Thanks a lot for your advice, that's really helping me seeing more perpectives!

A few programs that really has helped my CTR is as follows:
express.adobe.com completely free
Easy Promotional Graphics, Videos and Email Campaigns completely free

Both have great templates you can use and they have more than doubled my CTR.

This website Thumbs Up – Standard allows you to see how your thumbnail will look across youtube before committing to a design.

Your retention isn't that bad, what helps is trying to tell a story, and try focus on that, and you should see a bit of an improvement in retention.

Your retention will go up as you get a base of loyal viewers.

I am in the beginning stages aswell, but enjoying it so far.

Hi Timmy,

Thanks a lot for your comments and thanks for the links, that will be helpful for the upcoming videos!
I have already seen and read your thread on the forum, you seem to progress really quickly!
I'll make sure to follow it!

 

[Cameraman]

I have read an heard a few times about this mailing list but didn't know that it would be so important to build it so early in the process. That's a step higher for me and I need to learn a bit more how to put that in place in the coming weeks. I also don't plan to sell anything for now anyway as I don't have a status yet to be able to sell too much...

I didn't sell anything on my website for the first 5 years. I just spent time building a mailing list and goodwill by publishing a free and useful (hopefully) newsletter. When I did start selling products directly the list was pure gold. Don't leave it until you think you are ready - you will never feel ready. Just get on and do the best you can with what you know and have.

Now is always the best time to start unless you have access to a DeLorean fitted with a Flux Capacitor.

 

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[Cybom]

Hi all,

Hope you are all doing great, here are the latest figures:



No need to spend too much time on the figures, the increases are quite similar to previous month for views and viewing time. A few goals completed, not really meaningful but still good to see:

- Over 10k views
- Over 100 subscribers
- 1 video over 1000 views (and taking more and more inertia)

I have cleaned French subtitles (before that, it was only with the automatic translation) and added English subtitles for the last 12 videos. I didn't do it for the older ones considering there is not a lot of editing on these videos so most likely less easy to follow for non-French speaker.

I have added the subtitles in English a couple of weeks ago and haven't seen a clear change ... I will try publishing one video directly in English (the video about Google Drive App as we discussed). I am still wondering whether it is a good idea or not to publish a video with different language on the same channel but I am now looking for a clearer step forward and will not know it without a try so let's go for it and we'll see.

I didn't sell anything on my website for the first 5 years. I just spent time building a mailing list and goodwill by publishing a free and useful (hopefully) newsletter. When I did start selling products directly the list was pure gold. Don't leave it until you think you are ready - you will never feel ready. Just get on and do the best you can with what you know and have.

Now is always the best time to start unless you have access to a DeLorean fitted with a Flux Capacitor.

I didn't have take the time to look into this so much but I have started to look into options with Wordpress. I have quite a few bases with HTML / CSS but I think it would be more convenient to start with Wordpress from the start to make updates easier later if when the channel have more success

A few programs that really has helped my CTR is as follows:
express.adobe.com completely free
Easy Promotional Graphics, Videos and Email Campaigns completely free

Both have great templates you can use and they have more than doubled my CTR.

This website Thumbs Up – Standard allows you to see how your thumbnail will look across youtube before committing to a design.

Your retention isn't that bad, what helps is trying to tell a story, and try focus on that, and you should see a bit of an improvement in retention.

Your retention will go up as you get a base of loyal viewers.

I am in the beginning stages aswell, but enjoying it so far.

I have been thinking recently about your comment regarding the story. At first I was thinking telling a story with the topic of my channel must be quite difficult. But I recently had a few days of travel and there is a service in Google Apps Script to import some Google Map info so perhaps I can build a story around my travel or a fictive travel. Something I need to investigate a bit more !

 

[Andy Black]

I have been thinking recently about your comment regarding the story. At first I was thinking telling a story with the topic of my channel must be quite difficult. But I recently had a few days of travel and there is a service in Google Apps Script to import some Google Map info so perhaps I can build a story around my travel or a fictive travel. Something I need to investigate a bit more !

You could do stories where you're working on something for your projects or for your clients.

I had to figure something out with Google Sheets today for a client and it could easily be a short video explaining the use case, why I wanted to do it the way I did, the formulae i used, and how I planned on moving things forward.

 

[Andy Black]

By the way, why don't you create a Google Sheets chat thread and maybe we can all learn from each other?

 

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[Cameraman]

It's nice to see the growth and more importantly that you are taking action. I notice at the start you say

No need to spend too much time on the figures, the increases are quite similar to previous month for views and viewing time.

It has reminded me of something important that I must share. Most of the hype and "experts" around YouTube will have you believe that you will be able to see explosive growth. Usually, this comes when you buy into their method or follow their approach (usually quite costly). This may be the case for some but I suspect it isn't for most people.

Be careful about following these people and hoping for some miracle breakout success. It probably won't come. Also don't expect your videos to show breakout success after you've poured your heart and soul into them. That's a recipe for disappointment and failure.

Most people in the "How To" space are probably better off building a solid foundation of videos that have long-term appeal. Publish consistently over several years but try to improve one thing in each video be that adding captions, better thumbnails, sound quality, scripts etc... Aim for quality and show the people watching that you value their time. I think you will be amazed by how much you can achieve in 12 months.

 

[Cybom]

You could do stories where you're working on something for your projects or for your clients.

I had to figure something out with Google Sheets today for a client and it could easily be a short video explaining the use case, why I wanted to do it the way I did, the formulae i used, and how I planned on moving things forward.

True, I may lack a bit of imagination on that point... Or I may also search too far for a big story where a simple short story would be sufficient.

By the way, why don't you create a Google Sheets chat thread and maybe we can all learn from each other?

That could be a great idea and might even give me more ideas. I need to think how to introduce that but it's on my todo list!

It has reminded me of something important that I must share. Most of the hype and "experts" around YouTube will have you believe that you will be able to see explosive growth. Usually, this comes when you buy into their method or follow their approach (usually quite costly). This may be the case for some but I suspect it isn't for most people.

Be careful about following these people and hoping for some miracle breakout success. It probably won't come. Also don't expect your videos to show breakout success after you've poured your heart and soul into them. That's a recipe for disappointment and failure.

Most people in the "How To" space are probably better off building a solid foundation of videos that have long-term appeal. Publish consistently over several years but try to improve one thing in each video be that adding captions, better thumbnails, sound quality, scripts etc... Aim for quality and show the people watching that you value their time. I think you will be amazed by how much you can achieve in 12 months.

Yes indeed. I never really hoped for a huge success from one day to another with this channel but I can't say I am not a bit disappointed to see the figures not really evolving anymore for the last 3 months ... I still have plenty of things to try and improve but more and more doubting to reach my intial target by the first 12 months of existence of the channel.

But so far still not enough to discourage me trying new things that we discuss here to continue improving. Thanks a lot guys!

 

[Cameraman]

But so far still not enough to discourage me trying new things that we discuss here to continue improving.

I love someone who tries. If you run out of ideas I'm always happy to try to help out. My channel isn't huge, but I get business off the back of it - and sometimes surprising offers.

 

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[Cybom]

Hello all,

I've almost missed my monthly review!
So here is the latest status:



Finally seeing a bit of evolution in the channel (first time hitting 10h viewing time in 1 day) !

So these last 30 days I finally published one video in English (the tutorial how to create a folder in Google Drive from Apps Script). The number of views was finally quite around the average of the channel. But considering the other videos of the channel are in French, maybe the algorithm has not showed it to the more optimized audience. Nevertheless 2 additional subscribers came thanks to this video so I'm going to extend the experiment and alternate between French and English videos.

The most positive event of the month is the fact that one video is really taking some inertia and is really pulling the channel. It was the first one to reach 1000 views at the last review, and it is now over 2000 views so around 1000 views in 1 month which is well above the second best video:



I am trying to understand better why this video is performing so well and here are my first notes:

1) It is a longer video, around 25 min and it looks like those long videos are more likely to be "chosen" by YouTube. The first video that I have done on the channel was also quite long (30 min) and a while after publication it also started to bring more views to reach a bit over 500 views today. And I can tell you the quality of this video was much much worse than the quality of the videos that I have more recently published.

2) It explains how to create a specific file (in this case Gantt chart) from A to Z

3) The thumbnail is showing a large overview of the final result

So right now I am busy with two things
1) Update some thumbnails according to these observations to see whether this can pull more traffic
2) Create another longer video (around 30 min) explaining how to create another file from A to Z

The consequence is that I am publishing less frequently (once every 2-3 weeks) but I couldn't see any big impact to the channel so far (if I'm 100% honest, I could publish more often but I have also been busy with other stuff on the side as I am trying to buy a small appartment currently).

Regarding the website, I am continuying with the tutorial that I am following to create Wordpress site but I didn't go really far yet.

Thank you!

 

[Cameraman]

Hello all,

I've almost missed my monthly review!
So here is the latest status:

View attachment 49552

Finally seeing a bit of evolution in the channel (first time hitting 10h viewing time in 1 day) !

So these last 30 days I finally published one video in English (the tutorial how to create a folder in Google Drive from Apps Script). The number of views was finally quite around the average of the channel. But considering the other videos of the channel are in French, maybe the algorithm has not showed it to the more optimized audience. Nevertheless 2 additional subscribers came thanks to this video so I'm going to extend the experiment and alternate between French and English videos.

The most positive event of the month is the fact that one video is really taking some inertia and is really pulling the channel. It was the first one to reach 1000 views at the last review, and it is now over 2000 views so around 1000 views in 1 month which is well above the second best video:

View attachment 49554

I am trying to understand better why this video is performing so well and here are my first notes:

1) It is a longer video, around 25 min and it looks like those long videos are more likely to be "chosen" by YouTube. The first video that I have done on the channel was also quite long (30 min) and a while after publication it also started to bring more views to reach a bit over 500 views today. And I can tell you the quality of this video was much much worse than the quality of the videos that I have more recently published.

2) It explains how to create a specific file (in this case Gantt chart) from A to Z

3) The thumbnail is showing a large overview of the final result

So right now I am busy with two things
1) Update some thumbnails according to these observations to see whether this can pull more traffic
2) Create another longer video (around 30 min) explaining how to create another file from A to Z

The consequence is that I am publishing less frequently (once every 2-3 weeks) but I couldn't see any big impact to the channel so far (if I'm 100% honest, I could publish more often but I have also been busy with other stuff on the side as I am trying to buy a small appartment currently).

Regarding the website, I am continuying with the tutorial that I am following to create Wordpress site but I didn't go really far yet.

Thank you!

Great progress.
Have you checked where the views are coming from in the past 28 days? My guess having experienced similar upturns is that Google has picked up the vide and is now showing it in response to a search term. Unless you are looking at the recent split of traffic it’s easy to miss this.

 

[Cybom]

Great progress.
Have you checked where the views are coming from in the past 28 days? My guess having experienced similar upturns is that Google has picked up the vide and is now showing it in response to a search term. Unless you are looking at the recent split of traffic it’s easy to miss this.

Hey @Cameraman,

Thanks a lot!
Actually for this one most of the views seem to come still directly from YouTube:



The main part in blue is the video suggestions directly by YouTube.
There are other videos where external source is the main factor but not for this one.

 

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[Cameraman]

Hey @Cameraman,

Thanks a lot!
Actually for this one most of the views seem to come still directly from YouTube:

View attachment 49677

The main part in blue is the video suggestions directly by YouTube.
There are other videos where external source is the main factor but not for this one.

This is even better news because it means that YouTube understands your audience and recommends the video to them. It's also a good idea to check how your CTR has changed over the life of the video. If you see that improving as well then it's a good sign that YouTube is putting the video in front of the right people.

 

[Hassassin]

This is even better news because it means that YouTube understands your audience and recommends the video to them. It's also a good idea to check how your CTR has changed over the life of the video. If you see that improving as well then it's a good sign that YouTube is putting the video in front of the right people.

Congrats on your journey! I started YT, made a couple of videos, and then stopped lol. I enjoyed creating but the editing and the thumbnail design require a massive time investment - tough with a full-time job and other projects.

 

[Cybom]

This is even better news because it means that YouTube understands your audience and recommends the video to them. It's also a good idea to check how your CTR has changed over the life of the video. If you see that improving as well then it's a good sign that YouTube is putting the video in front of the right people.

Actually the CTR has decreased quite a bit this latest month:



It was really poor at the beginning then increased afterwards and dropped again.

The number of views is actually quite aligned with the number of impressions, meaning YouTube is proposing this video much more often for some reason (maybe because the CTR reached quite high values after the first 20 days but that's only a guess):

Congrats on your journey! I started YT, made a couple of videos, and then stopped lol. I enjoyed creating but the editing and the thumbnail design require a massive time investment - tough with a full-time job and other projects.

Thank you Hassan!
Indeed not easy to get back on the laptop after the end of the working day. But seeing progress (even really small) and focusing on implementing new features/improvements (thanks to the discussion on this thread and the pieces of advice shared by @Cameraman, @Andy Black, @Timmy C and other members from the forum) really helps to stay motivated!

 

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[Cameraman]

Actually the CTR has decreased quite a bit this latest month:

View attachment 49718

It was really poor at the beginning then increased afterwards and dropped again.

The number of views is actually quite aligned with the number of impressions, meaning YouTube is proposing this video much more often for some reason (maybe because the CTR reached quite high values after the first 20 days but that's only a guess):

View attachment 49719



Thank you Hassan!
Indeed not easy to get back on the laptop after the end of the working day. But seeing progress (even really small) and focusing on implementing new features/improvements (thanks to the discussion on this thread and the pieces of advice shared by @Cameraman, @Andy Black, @Timmy C and other members from the forum) really helps to stay motivated!

It's great to see the sudden increase in impressions is causing a fall in the CTR and that it seems to be a sustained increase. It does appear that something has triggered the increase and you may never find out what it is (unless you changed your thumbnail and/or title at that point).

Something that I've recently seen with several of my videos is that when the subscriber count on a video increases, YouTube tends to promote that video more. At one time I was doubtful this was happening but I have seen a few videos like this now.

Keep going. I would love to see your channel blow up.

 

[Cybom]

It's great to see the sudden increase in impressions is causing a fall in the CTR and that it seems to be a sustained increase. It does appear that something has triggered the increase and you may never find out what it is (unless you changed your thumbnail and/or title at that point).

Something that I've recently seen with several of my videos is that when the subscriber count on a video increases, YouTube tends to promote that video more. At one time I was doubtful this was happening but I have seen a few videos like this now.

Keep going. I would love to see your channel blow up.

Yes quite good to see indeed and I actually didn't change anything to this video so not really easy to understand. It's good to see it growing (again today +6 subs and 5 only with this video) but somehow a bit frustrating to not fully understand and apply it to the other videos.

I'm still doing experiments with changes to other videos to see whether I can find what's working for this one. I'll keep you updated if I find something.

Thanks a lot for the encouragement too!

 

[Cybom]

Hello everybody !

A quick update this evening, the channel just hit 200 subscribers today:



The video we talked about just before in the discussion is still continuing at the same pace, reaching now around 3600 views. By itself, it brought more than 1/4 of the total viewing time of the channel ... out of 58 videos in total!

This is just crazy how one single video can really push the channel one step forward.

I mentioned before that I've tried to apply some features from this video (the style of the title, the way I designed the thumbnail etc) to some of the more recent videos. Some of them are showing some sign of acceleration in the number of views but it is still too early to say for sure. I also need to accept to stop touching the videos too often and leave some time to the algorithm to "digest" the video. But definitely I wouldn't mind if one or two other videos would follow the same trend

Right now I am busy editing a new video that I want to release by the end of this WE. I haven't worked so much on videos this month but also because I have started to create a website for the channel.

I've taken a web hosting subscription for Wordpress on Ionos (no specific reason, I just made some comparison and found out it was well-known, seems reliable and is still quite cheap). I am busy building the site but still moving quite slowly as I'm learning WP in parallel (with a tutorial). I enjoy learning while building my own site but I would like to have it ready to be released with minimum features (basic site with welcome page + page to subscribe to a mail list) by the end of this month.

And for the next video in August, I have already an idea of a free product (pdf file) I could offer to pull people to subscribe to the mail list but that will be the next step.

That's it for this evening, let me know if you have some comments or questions.
I'd appreciate any feedback as usual

 

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[FastNAwesome]

Congrats @Cybom!

I think this podcast would be inspiring to you:

 

[Cybom]

Hi @FastNAwesome ,

Thank you!
Indeed the first minutes are quite interesting. I keep the rest for later when I drive to work, that should be more interesting than radio

 

[Cybom]

Hello all,

Here's the update since last time:



Still some progression with 1000h of viewing time reached even though I haven't published any video since the last update. I was actually busy building the website with minimum features:

- Landing page with links to the channel
- Functional contact form with the option to subscribe to a newsletter and receive exclusive content (TBD)
- A page with legal information
- A page with privacy policy

I actually spend waaaaayyy to much time over-thinking with the last two items and ended-up taking more time than initially planned to release the site. After reading many different sources of information, I finally followed those few steps:

1) Give a description of the site to Chat-GPT and ask him to write the page
2) Read different sources of information and ask Chat-GPT to add what is missing
3) Read legal info/privacy policy of other (similar) websites and ask Chat-GPT to again add what is missing
4) Check and correct sentences that I want written in a different way

At the end I think I managed to get not a perfect but quite solid base ... Especially if I compare it to some other websites that often show succinct or inexistant information.

So that's the result I managed to get, it would be great if you let me know if you have any comment or suggestion (even though it's only in french for now): Produplification

Now it's time I come back to the channel to create new videos so I put the website a bit aside but afterwards there are still a few updates to be scheduled:

- Create a PDF (in combination with a video) to offer people and have them subscribe to the newsletter instead of only a thickbox in the contact form
- Implement the possibility to switch to English on the website
- Link Google Analytics -> for now there is a cookie notice message on the site but it is currently linked to nothing (so in any case you won't have cookies) as I haven't linked Google Analytics yet
- Create an "articles" pages to give more credibility to the site and publish short tips

And short terms goals are:

- Create and publish the next video on YouTube
- Figure out how to make shorts faster for Tik Tok and Instagram. I gave up a bit on these two platforms but I'd like to give it another try with many videos in short terms (3-4 / week)

Congrats @Cybom!

I think this podcast would be inspiring to you:

I think I finally listened to this about 10 times in my car at the end ! The "you're crazy until you're a genius part" resonates quite a lot. I don't know if this will have just a bit of success but I'm definitely crazy in the eyes of quite a few people around me right now

 

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[Cybom]

Quick update:



I have published one new video since the last update and I am working on the next one. The latest video launch was quite good but I was expecting it since it's a topic that is generally ranking at the top on other channels (basically any video explaining how to manipulate color cell in Google Sheets - conditional formatting).

As I mentioned in previous post, I released the website with a simple contact form ... And I was not expecting it so early but someone actually contacted me. He wrote quite a big message:

- Half of it was to tell me that he liked my channel which is of course really nice
- The other half was to give feedback about my speaking skills, espacially a word that I repeat a bit too often and some pronunciation that is not good (he's right but I think it's a quite common "shortcut" at least in my area)

So I have just replied to him, thanking him for the feedback and the nice words. I find the feedback really valuable in any case and will pay attention to his comments for the future. For me the only fact that he took time to go to the site and write this feedback is a good sign and bonus: a thicked the subscription box so that's officially a first contact for the mail list

In 2 weeks, it will be 1 year since I published my first video. Obviously I won't hit my original target. I'll write a longer message on the forum with the one year summary and the thinking that goes through my mind right now.

Also could a moderator change the subject of the thread? Now I don't think including the word "trying" is the best appealer ... Could you change it to "YouTube channel about Google Sheets / Apps - Script - Progress thread" ?
Maybe @Andy Black ?

Thank you!

 

[buscus.stan]

Congrats on your progress, the first contact and on making it for one year. That is impressive! Looking forward to seeing the one year summary. Keep on kicking!

 

[Andy Black]

Also could a moderator change the subject of the thread? Now I don't think including the word "trying" is the best appealer ... Could you change it to "YouTube channel about Google Sheets / Apps - Script - Progress thread" ?
Maybe @Andy Black ?

Done!

 

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[Cybom]

Hi, I hope each one of you is doing well!

So here we are!
Today, that was exactly one year ago that I have released the first video of this journey on YouTube.

And that's how it looks now:



As you may know from my previous messages, I initially hoped to reach around 1000 subs by now (1 year of existence) and I can only observe that I am not quite there yet ... around 1/3 of it.

Nevertheless when I look back to my previous monthly summaries, I can also notice that there is actually non-linear progress and I keep hope to achieve higher goals:

Number of views:
- After 6 months: 6.1k
- After 12 months: 27.6k

Viewing time:
- After 6 months: 248 h
- After 12 months: 1343 h

It also seems, to me, that the algorithm does anyway not release the full potential of the channel from the start but more by stages or plateaux. From example on my side, I stagnated for a couple of months at ~30 subs/months and all of a sudden it increased to ~60 subs/months ... and stagnates again until now (and I can see similar trend with the viewing time which follows the same trend with around 1 sub/4h viewing time - strangely coinciding with the needs for monetization i.e. 1000 subs & 4000h).

So in one year into the "business":

- 61 videos published
- Instagram and Tik-Tok accounts created (just a few shorts published so far)
- Website created with a contact form (I had to learn WordPress from scratch)
- 2 contacts via the contact form of the website (I was actually expecting 0 now since I released it 1 month ago)
- Many hours in front of the microphone to improve my speaking video after video (this is not really my #1 strenght)
- Many hours spent on video editing with DaVinci Resolve ... still improving and getting faster at it with each new video
- Many hours spent on improving my knowledge about Google Sheets and all the Google suite

So all in all a lot experience and knowledge gained.

With this one year milestone, I am also wondering whether I should continue with this project or switch to something else. The problem is I want to continue because I see there still some growth possible (and I think a lot) but I am also wary of myself because I am more the type of person who can pushes something again and again even when it is hopeless.

I am definitely aware since the beginning that starting with a YouTube channel is not the really the best way to have the full control. And also that the subject I chose is also far to be one of the most attractive subjects. However I really want to continue but on the other hand I'd also like to try other things on the side (I have already released an app before this YouTube channel project, without big success).

I'd really like to know your thoughts about this. How do you know when it is time to stop and switch to something else? And do you think it's a good idea to explore other projects in parallel?

Although I have this question in mind, I don't really feel stuck since I still see many ways of improvement for the future of the channel:

- Improve my storytelling
- Adjust the subjects of the videos to better match customer searches (beginner full tutorial etc)
- Add a free pdf with a subscription to the newsletter
- Add a blogging page on the website with tips
- Better effects for the videos
- Etc

So that's it for this one year anniversary summary! If you have some questions about this journey, let me know!
Thanks for reading me!

 

[FastNAwesome]

Congrats on your success so far!

I'd really like to know your thoughts about this. How do you know when it is time to stop and switch to something else?

I don't know, so I can't give any advice

Just my thought...it seems you got this going in good direction,
and have enough inspiration to continue and so many ways to improve.

So if you decide to pursue something else, you could still keep this going too, at least for a while, why not?
Or set some date and some goals, and then revisit and reconsider.

Btw.have you thought about how you'd earn from this?

@Cybom Try integrating your content with a trending topic,

Great suggestion, worth highlighting!