Starting a YouTube channel and earning through videos is one of my goals this year. I have read a lot of good journeys here on YouTube shorts, which inspired me to work on my YouTube channel.
I created my YouTube channel in May last year. It was a time when getting some views of Canva-created videos was easy. Though the max I got was just almost 3k views on one day.
I restarted my channel this month and got excited as I got almost 10k views (9.3k) on one video I created yesterday.
I decided to start this journey to track my progress as well as learn and discuss with fellow bhw’ers who are interested in earning money on Youtube. I also want to add value to this beautiful forum by listing everything I learned from time to time through this journey.
The plan
While researching how to earn money on YouTube as a creator, the best thing that came up was to create high-quality, either shorts or long-form videos. I plan to keep improving my videos based on the key metrics that Mr Beast and vidIq always mention to get higher retention and to have the best hook so people choose to view instead of swiping away.
I will start by creating shorts and do it until I reach ad monetization on YouTube. Since YouTube shorts are less than a minute, this is the best way to learn and improve my skills in creating a high-quality video in the least amount of time.
What I learned so far
High retention views seem to be very important. I got 80%+ retention views on my best-performing video at one point, and it went down to 64%, and the reach went down after it dropped. Also, my other videos had a very poor retention rate at 47%, and the others, at 30%, stopped getting views. The 47% stopped at 3.1k views, 37% got 412 views, and the other 44% only got 449 views.
I have also tried the commentary video, but it doesn’t seem to work for me. I have uploaded 2 videos. I promoted the first video on Reddit to get traction, and it seems to be working fine. But it doesn’t get pushed much on the shorts feed. It even has very good stats for retention and chose to view. This is a very short video of 17 seconds, and it got an audience retention of 108.9%, and how many chose to view is 80.3%. This video only got 61 views, and more than half of the views came from Reddit. The second video only got 2 views.
The current stats
Almost 1 year YouTube channel
currently at 31 subscribers
views total: 14k, not including today’s current high
highest viewed video: 9.3k
Total videos: 7
I removed the Canva-created videos. It was like a hundred.
I hope to get better at creating videos and master the art of hooking and engaging viewers to get better retention rates, eventually get viral videos in the next couple of weeks, and hopefully earn good money soon.
My best-viewed video has already hit 10k. The views are still coming in, but slowly. I hope it will pump up soon. If my feeling is right, it will go up soon and might update you in the next few days. I think it will be better to have a naming convention for the videos. Let’s call it “Vid-008”.
As for the stats of this video.
reach: 23.2k
views: 10.3k
how many chose to view: 44.5%
retention: 67%
I have also published a new short (Vid-009), and I hope it will do well. It is 48 seconds long. I hope I get good retention on this one.
I also plan to revise my old video (“Vid-004”) to make it more engaging. I hope it works, and I will publish it by tomorrow.
I uploaded a new short last night, Vid-009. This is a revised version of my previous short that got 3k views but has a low retention rate. Upon publishing the video, it spiked up to 52 views in the first hour and got a total of 265 views of this time (9hrs after). It has a better “chose to view” rate at 62.9%. I hope it gets better retention and gets pushed later today.
As for the Vid-008 stats.
views: 7.1k
reached: 14.6k
Chose to view ration : 48.9%
retention (apv) : 52.9%
As for Vid-007. This video still gets some views and is currently at 11k views. I hope it gets even better in the next few days. This has the best retention (apv) so far at 67.4%.
What I learned so far.
Hooks are very important but creating an engaging content that resonates with the audience is the number priority. Vid-008. My goal is to create better story that engaged with my audience and add multiple hooks on the shorts.
As for now, I got here a list of hooks from VidIq. This might help someone here.
- Have You Heard About..?
- They Don’t Want You to Know This Secret…
- You’ve Never Seen Anything Like This…
- I Never Do THIS, and Here’s Why…
- This Is the Best Product I’ve Ever Used…
- I Was ‘Today Years Old’ When I Found This Out…
- Questions I Get Asked a Lot…
- I Asked Google…
- Three Things I Do Before…
- Try This to [Accomplish Goal]…
- Did You Know That..?
- X vs. Y…
- How to Create…
- I’m Trying This So You Don’t Have To…
- The Top 3 [Items/Ideas]…
- How to Become a…
- How to Have the Best [Activity/Idea] of Your Life…
- A Simple Hack to…
I will be researching more to get a better story for my next video and implement engaging tricks to have better retention.