Feedback on my first video

[BobbyLane]

If lots of people watch a video til the end that will really boost it, but if they dont its exposure might suffer in the YT algorithm. if folks watch til the end and like the video and hit sub after watching that will boost it.
Chans videos always have lots of comments too, that will boost them quickly along with the other metrics.
Some vids just may not be a topic people gravitate to, so might not be clicked on or watched til the end or commented on.
it also takes time, similar to how long it takes to build a following on IG.
Just keep putting out engaging content, maybe you could find interesting ways to encourage people to hit the like button.

I follow this channel called Mr Ballen, he has over 6m subs, in just 2 days his vids can amass over 2m views, he covers the dark and mysterious, unsolved crimes, unexplained disappearances etc. But he has a unique story telling ability which draws people in, I myself was hooked ever since the first vid and began binge watching, that rakes up his views.

But he also has a fun and unique way of getting people to hit the like button, that works and people discuss that in the comments. Another thing he does is hides hidden pictures in the videos, again this encourages engagement and more discussion.

 

[Kadebe]

Of course I did. That being said.. It still does not explain the massive differences in responses. Especially if I sometimes watch some of the other channels and see some videos getting 100K or more views seemingly without effort. I really try to understand what these big channels do that makes them get 5K views in one hour, to push into 50K in a few days, where I am struggling to get a consistent 1K views on my videos.

I just do not understand how this works

Time....
The more subscribers you'll have, the more visibility and linked your channel gets.
The advantage you have.... somebody here on BN or in the comment of your video asks a question and you make a video. It's like a tutorial on demand. In my opinion that's your strength. +... your explanation is simple to understand.

Keep on filming... you'll get there

 

[Ply]

It's a simple algorithm really. Or well, the YouTube algorithm is actually very complex and Google is notorious for changing algorithms on it's sites specifically so companies won't become too good at understanding it and being able to exploit it .

But the fundamentals are rather simple. Your videos will initially get recommended to people who are subscribed, have watched, liked, commented or shared your videos in the past. The more succes (views, comments, likes, shares) a video gets within a certain time frame, especially in the first short period after posting, the higher the chances are YouTube's algorithm will recommend the video to more users, and also start to recommend it to users who are comletely new to your channel. The bigger your channel is, more subs, more viewers you've had in the past, the more potential people who the video will get recommended to initially.

You're really not doing bad, in fact I'd say you're actually doing very well. 4k subscribers is a lot in such a niche market in such a short amount of time. Your views/subscriber ratio is good as well. Most of your recent vids get about ~2k views. At 4k subscribers that means 50% which is pretty good. Compare that to PeterChan/HeronsBonsai who gets roughly 20k views on his recent videos at 400k subscribers (although at bigger channels this ratio always drops of a bit).

Like @Kadebe said, it just takes time. Keep posting and you'll gain more subs, more people who liked your videos, commented or merely watched them, and as a result more people will get your videos in their recommended. It's an exponential proces.

 

[BobbyLane]

I think if you do a vid about wiring a tree for example, and youre maybe layering or ground layering a section of that tree in the video. Maybe include that in the video. if its a video about layering but you have fully wired the tree beforehand, one could still mention briefly that the tree was also recently styled. Just a suggestion. or I guess if people are interested theyll just ask, what is that, or maybe they wont.

 

[ShadyStump]

I think if you do a vid about wiring a tree for example, and youre maybe layering or ground layering a section of that tree in the video. Maybe include that in the video. if its a video about layering but you have fully wired the tree beforehand, one could still mention briefly that the tree was also recently styled. Just a suggestion. or I guess if people are interested theyll just ask, what is that, or maybe they wont.

Don't leave it for the audience to do the work. Video is a cooler medium, ie it requires the audience to interact with it more minimally than warmer media like comic books. The extremes on the spectrum would be things like reading book as the hottest medium requiring action on the part of the audience to engage with it, vs audio as the coldest requiring no direct attention from the audience.
Anyway, video is toward the cooler end of the spectrum, so the audience expects a certain amount of the leg work to be done for them.

So, mention everything about the tree you're featuring, especially if you already have or will soon have another video about that aspect of it, and then you should absolutely mention that. You don't have to go into detail about it if it's not germaine to that video's topic, but say something.
In this case, the audience is there to learn, and if they feel like their teacher isn't forthcoming with information, or at least where to find it, they get turned off quickly.

 

[leatherback]

Interesting comments on how youtube works. So.. example time. Below a graph of my channel views per day. Not great, but about 2K views per day for the channel is not bad I think. However, check what happens in August. 2 days without views. not a single view, according to YT. I just do not understand these sort of things.

Similarly, I have videos that people watch longer than average, have a higher click-through rate than usual. Get more likes than usual. Yet YT stops showing it to people and they stall gathering no more views... Absolutely no logic in the relation between the views and the rest of the video statistics that I have been able to detect.

 

[leatherback]

Lol.. Just received an email from YT.
They have placed my channel under review, and are looking into problems with the analytics and are reprocessing the data for August
Guess my intuition is better than I thought.

 

[ShadyStump]

I'm going to guess that those empty 2 days are what they're looking into.

Can I ask if your channel is monetized? It's possible that the algorithm differentiates monetized and non-monetized channels.
I'm also curious about viewer location, and language settings. Which brings up viewing method: desktop vs mobile vs TV.

Jumping down these analytics rabbit holes is enough to drive one mad.


PS: it's 4:30 AM and I don't know why I'm awake.

 

[leatherback]

PS: it's 4:30 AM and I don't know why I'm awake.

because there is still beer in your glass?
There is epic stuff happening on the internet?
You want to finish wiring your yesterday dug Yamadori?

 

[ShadyStump]

I did go for a hike with the dog the other day and ALMOST came home with a scraggly little juniper just because it was easy. Looked like hell, though, so I thought better.

 

[leatherback]

Can I ask if your channel is monetized? It's possible that the algorithm differentiates monetized and non-monetized channels.
I'm also curious about viewer location, and language settings. Which brings up viewing method: desktop vs mobile vs TV

It is monetized for videos watched often. I seem to find that videos with adds are proposed more often than those without
Viewers.. Global aucience, and all videos are in English.ost watch on their phone.

 

[leatherback]

But the fundamentals are rather simple. Your videos will initially get recommended to people who are subscribed, have watched, liked, commented or shared your videos in the past. The more succes (views, comments, likes, shares) a video gets within a certain time frame, especially in the first short period after posting, the higher the chances are YouTube's algorithm will recommend the video to more users, and also start to recommend it to users who are comletely new to your channel. The bigger your channel is, more subs, more viewers you've had in the past, the more potential people who the video will get recommended to initially.

So.. How do you get patterns like this? Each bar represents the number of views per hour
I cannot get my finger behind these statistics, which is annoying, because "understanding the reason behind patterns in numbers is one of the things I do"

 

[Kadebe]

So.. How do you get patterns like this? Each bar represents the number of views per hour
I cannot get my finger behind these statistics, which is annoying, because "understanding the reason behind patterns in numbers is one of the things I do"

View attachment 454637

If these are the stats you pulled this morning....
Sunday... everybody has much time... Monday everybody is working

 

[ShadyStump]

In the US we just had a long holiday weekend - Labor Day - so many people were outdoors and active the past 3 days. Culturally, it marks the end of summer here because it's the last holiday before the weather starts turning cold, so is considered a last chance to be outdoors.
That means you temporarily lost a good chunk of regular viewers, including myself.

 

[leatherback]

If these are the stats you pulled this morning....
Sunday... everybody has much time... Monday everybody is working

In the US we just had a long holiday weekend - Labor Day - so many people were outdoors and active the past 3 days. Culturally, it marks the end of summer here because it's the last holiday before the weather starts turning cold, so is considered a last chance to be outdoors.
That means you temporarily lost a good chunk of regular viewers, including myself.

Thank you but.. No luck there. This is 1 video showing this. The rest does not have this jump. I see videos do this every once in a while. As if YT closes a tap. And not slowly but sort of an "we are suggesting this video" tsjakka "we are not suggesting this video". But the same with stats on time watched, percentage click through, comments, likes: None of them seems to be a predictor for a video doing well or not. I am seriously tempted to start pulling all these stats out for all my videos to try and understand what triggers these things.

This is cumulative number of views for that video over time:

 

[ShadyStump]

I just went through your channel on YT. I've not yet caught up on watching all your videos, but I can say that when I finally subscribed it was because your videos kept popping up in my suggestions. So you are certainly out there.
I also noticed that your first few videos were time lapses of you working on trees. Have you compared your stats from the first 72 hours after launching those to the first 72 hours of more recent videos? It could simply be that people enjoyed the time lapse work more. But don't forget the number of views you got from the likes of us supporting you when you first started. That can artificially inflate your numbers sometimes.

I suggest you focus on click through rate as your key indicator of channel growth. It would also be worthwhile to do another time lapse video if you have some footage available, just to see if the video style itself is a factor.

I'll also dig up some of my old notes on lighting for you. It can make a huge difference in video quality, and is very simple.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Youtube, and many other media channels love filtering out views that they think are bots, or clickfarms, or fake people.
Clickfarms and bots need training, and those trainings are usually done on minor channels with a couple probe-bots at first. Then if they're proven to be effective, the stuff is scaled up and you can buy half a million views for a couple dollars. This tricks the algorithm into thinking you're super popular and loved, and the algorithm then broadens the viewers interests, making videos pop up everywhere.
A lot of social media heroes have become great like that; push a couple hundred dollars towards a clickfarm and suddenly everyone is served your video because they watched a cat sneeze on youtube 3 years ago and the algorithm has been made to think that those people love bonsai.

Steve Aoki, or whatever that DJ is called, was one of the first to do this. He applied a script on myspace that invited basically the entire myspace public to be his friend. Not everyone accepted, but I remember the guy going from a couple hundred to a couple million listeners in less than 24 hours. He made himself famous, not with good music but with good use of a crappy algorithm.

If youtube thinks you're using a clickfarm, they set the views to zero. My account is considered a bot, because I never post and rarely view something on youtube when logged in. I also never like or share anything, so it's considered a non-viewer in the statistics. I'm betting a lot of bonsai enthusiasts are flagged like that.

 

[ShadyStump]

I'm betting a lot of bonsai enthusiasts are flagged like that.

It's such a niche market, I wouldn't be surprised if many decent content producers go missing because of an over protective algorithm.
Do you know of any ways to break through if that's the situation, besides just waiting for the computer overlord to catch on?

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

It's such a niche market, I wouldn't be surprised if many decent content producers go missing because of an over protective algorithm.
Do you know of any ways to break through if that's the situation, besides just waiting for the computer overlord to catch on?

Unfortunately, there are just a few ways. One of which is to become a youtube viewer tailored to what youtube wants: someone who actively engages, posts comments that make sense (see any google play store review page for examples of millions of bot comments: "This app is great and it works very well on all of my devices! I can't go a day without this app, it is amazing! I recommend this to my mom and she loves it too!" - it never mentions which app, the commenter also has no downsides, never talks about what the app actually does or what it should do, how it helped or anything.)
Use youtube like you're an aunty supporting their cousin would, basically.
The other option is youtube premium. But that sucks.

As for content creators or however you'd like to call it.. A bot farm on twitter might help you get your account unlocked on youtube. If they shout loud enough and make big enough waves, youtube will view you as a real person and will listen to the comments on twitter and other social media. Lawsuits would work as well, if you have the time and money. Or being picked up and mentioned by other youtubers that are officially recognized.
If your content is somewhat generic and uses wrong keywords, the website might also block you because they know you're trying to trick the system, even if you're not. A buddy of mine is one of those internet savvy dudes who deals with this daily for a big brand (but not big enough to avoid being locked out sometimes). He said it's about engagement too; if you answer a couple comments every time you post a video, it's less likely to be flagged as fake. Then again, if the big guys want you out.. They'll get you out.
If some dude with a lot of followers tells them to report a channel, chances are pretty high that it'll be locked and nothing can be done.

I just parrot things I've heard and seen on the internet for quite some time. I'm not that big of a fan of youtube as a creator. There might be more ways, or other ways.. But in essence, it's the power of the masses, whether they're real or not.
I'm absolutely a hundred percent sure that some youtube channels are as big as they are because they shoved a lil bit of money towards the Philippines or Russia to get some click farming done. If those same fake accounts start viewing your channel - to not look too obviously fake - because it contains the keyword bonsai.. AND they're found out.. Youtube might just decide to lock everything related. To get a good view of those kind of things you'd have to monitor a lot of channels.
I remember joining instagram and liking a couple things like bonsai mirai and eisei-en. Within minutes I received a hundred follow requests from all over the world; obviously bots trying to act natural.

 

[leatherback]

Unfortunately, there are just a few ways. One of which is to become a youtube viewer tailored to what youtube wants: someone who actively engages, posts comments that make sense (see any google play store review page for examples of millions of bot comments: "This app is great and it works very well on all of my devices! I can't go a day without this app, it is amazing! I recommend this to my mom and she loves it too!" - it never mentions which app, the commenter also has no downsides, never talks about what the app actually does or what it should do, how it helped or anything.)
Use youtube like you're an aunty supporting their cousin would, basically.
The other option is youtube premium. But that sucks.

As for content creators or however you'd like to call it.. A bot farm on twitter might help you get your account unlocked on youtube. If they shout loud enough and make big enough waves, youtube will view you as a real person and will listen to the comments on twitter and other social media. Lawsuits would work as well, if you have the time and money. Or being picked up and mentioned by other youtubers that are officially recognized.
If your content is somewhat generic and uses wrong keywords, the website might also block you because they know you're trying to trick the system, even if you're not. A buddy of mine is one of those internet savvy dudes who deals with this daily for a big brand (but not big enough to avoid being locked out sometimes). He said it's about engagement too; if you answer a couple comments every time you post a video, it's less likely to be flagged as fake. Then again, if the big guys want you out.. They'll get you out.
If some dude with a lot of followers tells them to report a channel, chances are pretty high that it'll be locked and nothing can be done.

I just parrot things I've heard and seen on the internet for quite some time. I'm not that big of a fan of youtube as a creator. There might be more ways, or other ways.. But in essence, it's the power of the masses, whether they're real or not.
I'm absolutely a hundred percent sure that some youtube channels are as big as they are because they shoved a lil bit of money towards the Philippines or Russia to get some click farming done. If those same fake accounts start viewing your channel - to not look too obviously fake - because it contains the keyword bonsai.. AND they're found out.. Youtube might just decide to lock everything related. To get a good view of those kind of things you'd have to monitor a lot of channels.
I remember joining instagram and liking a couple things like bonsai mirai and eisei-en. Within minutes I received a hundred follow requests from all over the world; obviously bots trying to act natural.

wow.. That is a bit of a negative spinn on things. I think it is time you and I find a bar together and have a beer.. I think we will be best enimies, or best friends very quickly. I guess I am as sarcastic as you when it comes to social media.

On one level I am kicking myself for ever starting YT. On a whole different level I hate myself for not being able to figure out how the algorythm decides what is worth it, and what not.