About the future of my YouTube channel , part 2
Following on from this article I wrote yesterday on my website, I have been doing some more thinking about what I want my YouTube channel to be. Sharing this second part of the blog here on Medium to see if gets more views than part-1 did on my website, and also to publicise the fact I write on multiple platforms!
I started a YouTube channel originally back in 2010 as a way to share a short (unlisted) Christmas video I made for friends and family that year. 60 people saw it. The following August I made a Jazz’d up version of Basket Case by Green Day and put it out on my channel publicly, it got 430 views, my second most viewed video to date! (also since unlisted!) After that I used my channel for Family vlogs, they stayed unlisted and got anywhere from 30 to 60 views each. This continued up to May 2017 and I still hadn’t gone public with my videos, apart from that Green Day one that is.
In August 2017 I decided I wanted to start making public YouTube videos on a regular basis. I had no idea what they would be about, but I felt a desire to share my thoughts and stories with a public audience who didn’t know me, purely for the sake of expressing myself and connecting with people. I had just started working from home and so sharing my VLogs on YouTube was a way for me to connect with people, virtually at least, if not in person from time to time.
I started off with a few random videos on various different topics, ranging from hipster beards to football match reviews, even tour de france stage reviews. None of them really got more than 25 views, and their format didn’t work for me, or anyone else judging from the numbers! They didn’t feel like the type of thing I was supposed to be talking about, I didn’t have much passion for the content and hence this came across in the videos. They have all since been unlisted.
In September 2018 I released a video about making a retropie arcade machine, that got 308 views and is one I enjoyed making quite a lot. I didn’t follow up on that though because I couldn’t see where that theme was going to go in the long term. This also has been unlisted, and this is the key for me. None of the things I start seem to go anywhere. There doesn’t seem to be a big picture, nothing I do thus far has been substantial enough or scalable enough to explode my channel and get me one of the illusive silver play buttons for hitting 100k subscribers.
At the back of my mind I know I am capable of achieving 100k subs, one day.
Then in October 2017 I made a 4 minute video about moving from the UK to live in France. This one got over 500 views and is my most viewed video to date (also now unlisted). Could I follow up on it though with another video which appealed to as many people? No, of course not!! Part-2 did ok with 187 views, but it didn’t exactly set the world on fire with its presence! The videos which followed saw me moving away from tech, away from Francophile content and onto music. With a few exceptions where I vlogged about cycling or the movies, that music theme is still with me today, specifically focused around a Jazz niche.
The problem is though, none of the content I make is reaching an audience much outside some close friends, family, and virtual friends I have made through a couple of communities I have become part of on social media. The contacts I have made are great, but none of this is helping me to get the silver play button I want on my wall.
There is something I am missing in the way I make my content.
So we come back to the beginning again. What is this channel about. Do I want to grow this channel and try to make some money from it one day, or do I just want to keep creating and ignore any possible future financial reward.
The answer to this is in how I view my channel. Do I create for my own pleasure and sod the numbers. Or do I do as Levi Allen suggests and find a market that I can best serve and specifically make videos targeting that audience. Honestly I am on the fence here. Of the videos I made so far the 3 which got several hundred views each were about Rasberry Pi Arcade machines, Green Day covers, and being an expat and moving from the UK to live in France.
Content about raspberry pi machines and green day covers is not anything I could see myself making a load of content about. Talking about life in France as an expat however, is very much something I could talk a lot about. I live it every day, I have a tonne of stories and tips to share with anyone who is looking for that different path in life, so maybe that is the audience that needs serving? Perhaps I should change my niche and make videos aimed at people who are looking to live a different life outside the norm. Show them vlogs about what it is really like living in rural south west France. Share images of French markets, vin yards and French country life. Give tips and recommendations, make ‘how-to’ videos on all manner of topics. You get the idea anyway I’m sure! It certainly is a deep topic that interests me, so perhaps I will make a switch to this niche. Or maybe start a new channel, keep my jazz channel going separately and see which does best?
At the time of writing this I don’t have an answer to that yet. But I’m working on it!
Keep an eye on my youtube channel, twitter feed, insta feed and my website for new content coming soon. Thanks for reading this far! Feel free to leave me a comment down below.
Foggy
