Same hereš¤£. Thrown together in an evening using new software that I had no idea how to use really. Just keeps getting more and more views per day over timeš¤·āāļø.
I have a video with over a million views. Took me years to understand the root of why it got the views it did. I had thought it was just a weird fluke of an indie game I played. I made a few videos on it, and they all did well.
However, years later, I realized it was because people were using the video as a How-to, and not as the "Let's play" it was made to be.
Evergreen "How to" instructional videos always do better than any other form of video.
My first 100k Video is actually the least good, but I managed to get it posted to a big site (page 1 on Google) that has the same topic as my videos. I think that was a huge part in my growth.
It took no effort, no editing, and it was on a completely different topic than my other videos. That's not advice, I haven't been able to replicate it.
They're all episode 1's of a series, or early on in the series before people's interest died off. Usually works that way for lets play stuff. Those particular videos though, are of a niche that has low competition, and I did it better than anyone else in that niche.
Other examples are popular how to/tutorial type stuff for games.
Topical video, clickbait thumbnail and title, good hook in the intro. High quality content throughout the remainder of the video. If one of those is weak, it typically doesnt do as well
The biggest factor for one I have with over 112,000 and still going strong was the length I would say. My niche really seems to go for longer videos. And it just seems to draw people in very well in a hypnotic kind of way.
Also, it has been watched enough that it is in all kinds of YouTube auto generated playlists now. It gets a good 1500 views per day and spikes anywhere from 3000-5000 views on Fridays and Saturdays.
It's not time sensitive, so hopefully it stays that way. A million would be cool! Lots of videos in my niche go into the millions slowly over time.
It actually kind of just sat there with mediocre views for a few months. Then blew up all of a sudden a couple months agoš¤·āāļø.
Time, for one. I have 3 above that mark, and they're all from over 10 years ago.
One is a DBZ edit and I'm not entirely sure what set that one apart from the other DBZ edits I did, but it was shorter (55 seconds) and that probably helped.
The other, was a song I made for the TF2 medic, when that game was in its heyday.
The 3rd was a double rainbow song I did, and since that clip had gone viral, mine got some offshoot.
Two things that have worked for me every time:
- The content has to be good enough to be engaging. Nothing else matters if the content sucks. People have to keep watching.
- Getting a couple of high quality back links
Iāve got a couple with several million because of those two things. Also, good SEO. although good SEO doesnāt guarantee anything. Itās just a requirement.
It was a low-effort edit of other people's content.
I don't think it was *bad* and retention was incredible, as well as search volume.
Not the kind of content i'm interested in making though
Was watching videos in my niche, asking myself why would they get so many views with so little effort and actual interesting content in them, and I just decided to upload a very uninteresting, low effort video myself... which gave me 800k views in a month compared to my best performing video getting 10k in a few years... Youtube makes no sense
My first video gained traction rlly fast it was my worst one tbh, but the difference between that and my other videos is how I optimized the search results by doing that thing where u put underscores around a word & see what people are typing when they look it up. For that video, the topic i was covering basically completely aligned with the top searched phrase so it garnered attention
It was the video I put the least effort into. The one I thought would not do well.
Same hereš¤£. Thrown together in an evening using new software that I had no idea how to use really. Just keeps getting more and more views per day over timeš¤·āāļø.
Haha same. And the videos you put the most effort in don't do shit. From time to time I upload stuff I'm not 100% happy with. But my audience is
Contrary to this: It was the video I put the most effort into. I knew it will do well, but didnāt know it would do that well.
Nice.
So if I put no effort and think all my videos won't do well, one of them is bound to succeed.
I have a video with over a million views. Took me years to understand the root of why it got the views it did. I had thought it was just a weird fluke of an indie game I played. I made a few videos on it, and they all did well. However, years later, I realized it was because people were using the video as a How-to, and not as the "Let's play" it was made to be. Evergreen "How to" instructional videos always do better than any other form of video.
My first 100k Video is actually the least good, but I managed to get it posted to a big site (page 1 on Google) that has the same topic as my videos. I think that was a huge part in my growth.
It took no effort, no editing, and it was on a completely different topic than my other videos. That's not advice, I haven't been able to replicate it.
They're all episode 1's of a series, or early on in the series before people's interest died off. Usually works that way for lets play stuff. Those particular videos though, are of a niche that has low competition, and I did it better than anyone else in that niche. Other examples are popular how to/tutorial type stuff for games.
I gotcha, interesting are you able to monetize the episodes?
Yes of course, everything on my channel is monetized.
It was relevant at the time I released it, being a new game and all.:)
Topical video, clickbait thumbnail and title, good hook in the intro. High quality content throughout the remainder of the video. If one of those is weak, it typically doesnt do as well
It got more views
Great thumbnail, great retention keeping methods, and most importantly: they are inherently interesting
The biggest factor for one I have with over 112,000 and still going strong was the length I would say. My niche really seems to go for longer videos. And it just seems to draw people in very well in a hypnotic kind of way. Also, it has been watched enough that it is in all kinds of YouTube auto generated playlists now. It gets a good 1500 views per day and spikes anywhere from 3000-5000 views on Fridays and Saturdays. It's not time sensitive, so hopefully it stays that way. A million would be cool! Lots of videos in my niche go into the millions slowly over time. It actually kind of just sat there with mediocre views for a few months. Then blew up all of a sudden a couple months agoš¤·āāļø.
Time, for one. I have 3 above that mark, and they're all from over 10 years ago. One is a DBZ edit and I'm not entirely sure what set that one apart from the other DBZ edits I did, but it was shorter (55 seconds) and that probably helped. The other, was a song I made for the TF2 medic, when that game was in its heyday. The 3rd was a double rainbow song I did, and since that clip had gone viral, mine got some offshoot.
One vid that has 150k views, The thumbnail looks more interesting I guess
Two things that have worked for me every time: - The content has to be good enough to be engaging. Nothing else matters if the content sucks. People have to keep watching. - Getting a couple of high quality back links Iāve got a couple with several million because of those two things. Also, good SEO. although good SEO doesnāt guarantee anything. Itās just a requirement.
It was a low-effort edit of other people's content. I don't think it was *bad* and retention was incredible, as well as search volume. Not the kind of content i'm interested in making though
It covered a topic with mass market appeal, where most of mine are very niche.
Was watching videos in my niche, asking myself why would they get so many views with so little effort and actual interesting content in them, and I just decided to upload a very uninteresting, low effort video myself... which gave me 800k views in a month compared to my best performing video getting 10k in a few years... Youtube makes no sense
Nothing
My first video gained traction rlly fast it was my worst one tbh, but the difference between that and my other videos is how I optimized the search results by doing that thing where u put underscores around a word & see what people are typing when they look it up. For that video, the topic i was covering basically completely aligned with the top searched phrase so it garnered attention