What to Do When Your Channel Just. Isn't. Growing.

howdy howdy everyone nate here this is going to be a fire hose of feedback or a channel roast if you will you see there's three levels of direction i'm going to be giving during this video and i want you to compare it with your own channel based on recent feedback i've been getting a lot of you are feeling like your channel is just not growing the way that you want it to so i decided to get down and look at a real channel the channel we're going to be looking at today is called improve with jules and give my best actionable feedback especially if you're in a similar situation now obviously not all of the advice i give during this video is going to be directly applicable to you watching this but more of it will be applicable than you might think all right so here is the channel this is improved with jules now jules first started publishing on this channel about a year ago and the topics were generally around community college testing out of things clep exams and it's evolved to more of the recent topics being more productivity how to get over your task list what to do when you're feeling burnt out and testing some morning routines and other solutions provided by other productivity experts now as of recording if i look at the most popular video on the channel it's gotten just over 3 000 views 227 subscribers and the average or the baseline of views on more recent videos is about 25 views now when i reached out to jules to see if i could review her channel she was very open to this so this is all done with permission i am going to be roasting and being very direct with my feedback but i wanted you to see something when i look at this channel when i say this channel is just not growing it is literally in terms of views it is just not growing i'm gonna go back uh six months ago 30 views six months ago 22 views the views have been pretty much flatlined for months okay so the first level this is the high level the entry-level pointers i'm gonna give to this channel for the thumbnails the first thing that stands out to me is there is an odd mixture of uh kind of graphics that don't quite make sense in the case of this one stop falling off okay there's a ladder on a wagon i'm not really sure what that means the other thing that stands out to me about these thumbnails is the lighting on jules's face appears a bit random maybe just whatever was in the video and because the lighting is inconsistent it comes across as amateur or unprofessional so we need some sort of standardized filter applied to each thumbnail image next thing i'm going to suggest is that we get some sort of banner image it could just be joules studying something at the top the main reason for that is it's kind of the baseline expectation in not every channel it's none of these things i've mentioned thus far will make or break a channel but it's just something that's nice to have because it makes it feel like yeah this person this creator cares about the channel and the other high level or entry level thing i'm gonna say is i looked at the several of these more recent videos and for some reason let's see if you can spot what i'm seeing the image quality if i go down here even to settings quality it's auto 380p it's 360p it's because this video is literally only 360p for some reason the quality on the most recent videos has been way down and it definitely shows again not a total make or break but it will be something that factors into people's perception of your professionalism and if you're doing a channel that's about productivity and you know getting better at your life it's the small details that matter now i do need to note here that not all of the videos are like that in fact some of the older ones are just fine at 1080p if your videos are 1080p that is just fine for most of youtube it's just some of these more recent ones for some reason the quality has been way off all right that's first level let's go next level what i'm looking at here is on the thumbnails i want to see ways for you to demonstrate what you are showing in your video what you're talking about visually now this is perhaps one of the biggest challenges that i see skills based channels having especially if you're not doing gaming or some sort of outdoors or crafts or something where your thumbnail is an image of what you're doing right in many cases skills-based channels have the biggest struggle with this and i want to see jules doing this ask yourself this question how can i show this visually that should be your answer all and this happens when you're ideating your video before you even record the video what am i going to put in the thumbnail and how can i show what i'm doing visually to create intrigue next thing i'm going to suggest is i'm going to look at the most popular videos on this channel and we have a variety of more recent and some older ones and i know jules has said that she's kind of evolved the channel into more of general productivity and testing out routines and that kind of thing more recently so what we're going to look at is the more recent videos that have more views than normal and look into pursuing those threads further because what that tells me is an audience the algorithm somehow was able to associate the audience with the content on my channel and so if i'm pursuing the videos that did get a bit more views i have an advantage in those videos future videos on a similar theme doing better in terms of views and also jules is part of my program project 24 and she let me know before recording this that she has not yet even started the new youtube system and so i'm going to suggest that do the new youtube system especially phase one because it's gonna make so much of the rest of these processes make more sense next pointer i'm going to give here is let me see if you can spot it while watching a few seconds of this video holiday known as quitter's day because it's the most likely day of the year for people to give up on their new year's resolutions so happy not quitters day looking at the lens now this comes from watching several of the older videos on jules's channel improve rituals channel often i would see her looking like this now a slight looking back at you and then looking at here to the side this will often be because we're recording on a phone or something and we see ourselves a reflection or a mirrored image of ourselves while we're recording and we're looking at that to see how we look while we're recording but as you can tell and in fact it feels so weird to me right now i am not looking directly at you i'm looking to the side and it just feels so bizarre it feels weird to you who are watching this because youtube is about eye contact it's about connection and so jules is has been getting better at this so i'm super happy about that to see that in this video but in the case that you find yourself doing that in your own videos it's a small thing but it makes a big difference i'm gonna play a few more seconds of this clip and see if you can pick up on this next thing not in like an encouraging way it's just actually a week later the audio quality could be improved a bit now i see we've got a curtain behind us here this is good i've done a significant amount of work here in this recording space if i could show you i've i have sound dampening panels these images all behind me have foam behind them i have curtains there's a whole bunch of things i've done but the number one thing that i recommend for everybody i'm going to show you is you get one of these if you don't yet have one of these it's a little bit of an investment but this is the tascam dr-10l if you go to channelmakers.comtools i think i have all my recommendations there but this one device i kid you not has solved 80 or more percent of all the audio issues that i've ever had all right next pointer i'm going to give is on the again on the thumbnails actually and this is if i look at similar channels now jules let me know that there were other channels she was trying to model her channel after so channels like thomas frank and ali abdal so what i would do if i were in jules's position as i would go okay here's thomas frank's thumbnails here's my thumbnails here's ali abdoll's thumbnails here's my thumbnails what am i going to tweak based on what i am seeing next pointer i'm going to give to this channel and potentially to your channel this is not going to apply to everybody it's consider publishing fewer videos more quality now hold on i get that most of the time i say look we got to get as many videos out as possible but this comes because of feedback that i got from jules i asked her what was her least favorite part about producing her channel and she said my least favorite part is feeling rushed i often want to be a guinea pig for weird ideas or challenges film more b-roll or learn more about editing but i feel so rushed to get my two videos out of week that those more in-depth videos never happen so in this case i'm going to give the advice of fewer videos more quality because i think that this channel will benefit from it and if you are more excited about a certain type of video that is maybe going to take a bit more time especially at the beginning it'd be great if you could automate it and get it in less time in the future but at the beginning if it's going to take a bit more time i'm going to say yes go for it again that's not advice i would give everyone but based on what i'm seeing and jules's feedback that's what i'm going to say okay we've made it thus far we've got our first level now we've got our next level now it's time for next next level but before i do that i'd love if you'd boop the like button if this video is being helpful to you thank you that's awesome it's time for next next level here is what i genuinely think is going on i think that this channel is not growing primarily because one jules isn't sure what the channel should be and two the algorithm is reflecting that so the big question on my mind right now is what is jules going to be known for first in fact i did a recent youtube podcast episode all about building topic authority and how it's actually more vitally important than most channel makers realize and so building on the advice i gave in the previous next level i'm going to look at the videos that got a bit more exposure even just slightly more exposure i'm going to look at that plus the types of videos that jules wants to do more of or wants to be known at those two i'm going to combine and say we need more videos on fewer topics because what i'm seeing when i look at this channel is it's it's testing things it's testing productivity it's doing morning routine of a monk it's doing a lot of different things but i think it's so all over the place that it's literally the algorithm isn't quite sure how to classify this channel so we need more videos about fewer topics and more recurring themes and that is going to help in a huge measure with this next pointer i'm going to play a few seconds of this video so you can kind of see what it starts out like sup i'm jules and i unfortunately procrastinate a lot if you do too let's try to improve that so first i want you to think of a task that you have been putting off for a while or maybe once okay i'm gonna stop there we've got the the casual introduction this is great trying to you know relate with the audience but what's the topic of this video the cure for procrastination my main issue with that intro was there was no real reason why i should listen to jewels there are a lot of experts in this space and many of them have written books have been featured on tv shows or interviewed all the time why should i listen to jewels over everyone else if you're in a position where your channel relies on a certain amount of expertise for people to trust you as an expert they're looking to you for some forms of advice often you need a little bit of reasons why they should listen to you and you need that in almost every video until your channel starts to gain a bit more momentum and that starts to speak for itself so i happen to know based on past interactions with jules she's done some awesome things like testing out of college in a quarter of the time and saved a ton of money on college and aced all sorts of productivity things and yet i didn't get any of this if this was the first video that i watched of jules i didn't get any of that so what's the solution here you need some sort of reason to listen to you and your advice over everyone else's advice it could be as simple as look i'm not a total professional at this i don't do this full-time but what i have done is this this and this and my goal is to help you do this this and this so here's the best that i found you see the point here is not that you have to be an expert with 20 years of experience to be listened to on youtube it's you need to be transparent with what you have done and put in more work than other people or just be slightly ahead of where your audience is because here's the next thing what's going to happen is the algorithm will classify your channel with the right audience then as the channel grows we'll be able to broaden the niche a bit and in fact i'm obviously biased on this but i know of no better way to do that quickly and efficiently than what is in phase one of my youtube system because what you're doing during this process is you're picking an audience you're picking an associated audience and then you are forcing the youtube algorithm to associate the two audiences as one so that this audience is also the same audience that you are attracting and you're doing that quickly also there's one other thing that i'm gonna say for this channel that is very applicable to your own audience and that is people often want more of you so i'm going to play a few seconds of another video so you can see what i'm talking about as you can see i'm looking a bit rough this evening because i went to the beach with some friends this morning i had to leave pretty early but before i left i did a simple routine by arlen moore so i like the direction that jules is going with this like hey i was just at the beach this morning i was with some friends i think this channel needs more of that i think it needs some more real person behind all of the tests and all of the productivity tips it needs the real jewels and i know many times we have fears of being our real self on youtube but the thing is youtube is about authenticity i was talking about that that's why we talk directly into the lens all of those things it's about authenticity and i can think of very few channels that wouldn't be benefited greatly from feeling that greater connection with the audience between the channel maker you and your audience and of course i'm gonna say it if you're having trouble because the algorithm doesn't know who your audience is then you can check out project 24 i have a whole process step by step for how to do that the links in the description and the other thing is if you are unsure about the topic of your channel i created an entire video about my best picks for your channel topic this year it's based off of everything that i have been seeing and i go through and explain why each of them might be a good pick for your channel it's a pretty darn good video so i'm gonna put that here for you to watch next and we'll see you there okay and actually one more thing if you're still watching the video at this point congratulations this is the feedback ask time i would love if you'd put in the comments what are your questions about your channel what are the things that you wish you knew about youtube because i'm gonna do my best to read through those comments and create future videos based on what i'm seeing from you guys so thank you for doing that and we'll see in the comments

Channel: Channel Makers

Views: 138,654

Keywords: youtube for beginners, youtube success, channel makers, how to grow a youtube channel, making money on youtube

Id: TmZIN29qg1Y

Length: 13min 34sec (814 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 17 2022