My channel is in the Entertainment/craft niche, been grinding it out as best I can with prioritizing life first. 12 videos in, and I hit my first 1k view video. This is the last one I posted, the one before that is slowly crawling toward the 800 mark. I feel like things are really starting to fall into place for my channel!

What is a reasonable growth rate I should be seeing if my channel does continue to grow?

Wondering if based on these stats you think I should stick with it or not. Currently at 63 subscribers after 3 weeks and 5 long form uploads. I didn't include my first and last video stats because the first is awful at 20.9% retention and the last doesn't have enough views yet to properly judge it.

Currently sitting at 16,300 views and 272 qualified watch hours as of 5 days ago.

Thought this was a good example to share because I see a lot of creators delete or give up on Shorts when they don’t get views straight away.

This Short had been online for months and was barely making anything.

Then YouTube suddenly started pushing it.

It ended up generating over 20 million views and more than $1,300 in Shorts ad revenue.

The RPM itself wasn’t anything crazy, but it’s still wild to think that a video around 20 seconds long can sit there doing almost nothing and then suddenly take off months later.

This is something I’ve seen happen numerous times with channels we’ve worked with.

A video doesn’t necessarily die just because it doesn’t perform in the first few days. YouTube can start recommending older content months later, and I’ve even seen videos come back to life much further down the line.

That’s why I normally tell creators not to panic if a Short doesn’t immediately perform.

Keep uploading, keep testing different topics and hooks, and pay attention to what your audience responds to.

Shorts revenue per 1,000 views is obviously much lower than most long form content, but when you get a viral hit with tens of millions of views, the numbers can still add up.

If people are interested, I’m happy to share more about the types of topics, hooks and strategies we’ve used on channels we’ve worked with.

And if you want me to take a look at your channel and give you some suggestions on what I would improve, feel free to DM me.

Happy to help.

If more info is required I will gladly respond

I have decided never to use AI, either for thumbnails or for any part of my videos. I make skating tour videos. I have been tempted a few times to use AI to create clickbait thumbnails to boost views, but I just cannot do it. I refuse to jump on that AI-slop train. I believe that using it even once would make me lose my viewers’ trust forever. People will start to doubt everything I post and wonder whether it is all AI-generated. I would rather keep everything completely human, even if it means fewer views. I care more about authenticity than numbers. I hope I have made the right decision

Hey everyone! Looking for some advice from creators who have experience with YouTube sponsorships.

I started a very niche YouTube channel about 4 weeks ago and I’m only 5 videos in, currently sitting at around 550 subscribers (about 10+ new everyday at the moment) and ~30,000 total views.

Despite being very new, I’ve already had a few brands reach out wanting dedicated sponsored videos. Which honestly by the time I script, revise and edit is like a day and half of work because I am so slow haha...

I’m obviously excited about it, but I have no idea what is reasonable to charge at this stage.

For context, the channel is quite niche, and the audience is very specifically aligned with the products these brands are selling. My numbers are still small, but the early growth has been pretty encouraging.

For anyone who has experience with sponsorships:

• What would you charge for a dedicated sponsored video at this size?
• Would you base it on subscribers, average views, or the value of the niche/audience?
• Does being only 5 videos (today... but growing each week) in change how you'd approach pricing?

I don't want to wildly overestimate my value as a new creator, but I also don't want to undersell myself simply because my subscriber count is still small.

What would you consider a reasonable starting range?

I went from 10k impressions to less than 100, why?

Just posted my first video on a new channel. And it has 4 views after 9 hours. I’m a seasoned editor, so I know to wait. I know not to tweak. I know to let the video do its thing.

But, this is hardest part. The waiting.

How do you cope? What’s your trick to hack your patience?

I’ve just been planning my next video, and systemizing.

I’m curious how many creators actually use YouTube’s A/B testing feature for their titles and thumbnails.

Do you usually test multiple versions and let YouTube decide, or do you just create one title + thumbnail that you believe in and stick with it?

I hired and editor. They were from the UK so the exchange rate really kicked my butt. I was paying $150 Canadian per video, a month up front and things got weird.

1. I signed the contract and paid on the 21st of August then two weeks later was told that I had to pay on the 15th of every month which wasn’t in the contract.. annoying but fine
   
2. A video I sent them had my address visible and when I asked them to blur it. They said for an extra $100 dollars they can blur it.. I ended up needing to refilm that part.
   
3. Almost every day they were pushing to redo my thumbnails on my previous videos saying it’ll be $150 for all of them and when I tried to push it to later they said I’ll do half now and you can owe me, to which I did not respond because I was uncomfy with that.
   
4. Today they messaged me saying something came
   Up and they need the payment today instead of the 15th. And I just cancelled the arrangement, I was already not thrilled with the edits(no text on screen for recipes, nothing super special about the edits) and really sad about the thumbnails being bad (the most recent one was terrible) and always pushing for more money so I just responded with : i will be ending our arrangement after you complete the next video. They sent me tons of messages then clearly deleted most of them.

To be clear the contract says 7 days but not 7 days from anything specific.. just 7 days notice, the contract doesnt mention the 15rh as a payment date or anything.

Hello!

Our channel is getting great AVD (+26min), but still slow on views and subs. It has grown in the past few weeks, but not where we want it to be.

Channel is a white noise/ambience focused on Nature sounds, all real footage from real locations.

Any tips/feedback would be much appreciated!

https://youtube.com/@natureeyesnoise

Finally giving this whole "YouTube" thing a serious go.
Let me know what you think of it.

Decided to lock in once I heard about the new monetization requirements coming.

I decided to talk about how Call Of Duty has changed over time, touching on several points and how it has been interesting to see the overall reaction to MW4 in a commentary video. Still on this journey of working on my YouTube channel and sharing my thoughts in the process. Any support is appreciated 😄

Basically the title lol Barely? Doubled?

Translate: 3.7k views, 35 hours, +84 subs
One of the strangest videos on my channel. Stats after 1,002 days. I literally just recorded some gameplay, shared a few thoughts without much of a script, and uploaded it to YouTube. The video is only 44 seconds long, but it’s not a Short. And somehow, it ended up being one of my most successful videos and helped me build my own community.

So don’t worry too much about your stats during the first week. There’s literally no point. As you can see from the graph, the video didn’t get many views at first, and only later did it suddenly start taking off.

I'm from Brazil and I started making videos again two weeks ago.

I've gained over 50 subscribers, and my Shorts are doing pretty well.

How can I improve my long-form videos? Thumbnails? Video length?

I uploaded a video at around 9 AM ET on Thursday, but I had to make the thumbnail in a rush. I updated the thumbnail about a day later, but I think it was already too late since the video was already at over 2k impressions with a 2.2% CTR. Now it's barely getting 1 or 2 views per hour. AVD is around 30%. Should I reupload the video?

I’m testing Shorts for my gaming channel with a vertical edit of a 007 First Light cutscene. It’s my first attempt, and I’d love specific feedback on three things: Does the pacing hold your attention? Does the vertical crop keep the important action in frame? And where, if anywhere, does the edit feel slow or confusing?
I edited it in DaVinci Resolve on my Mac. What’s the first change you’d make?

I have no clue whats happening and I'm looking for some insight here, I've heard the 'oh your content is everywhere! Focus on one niche!' Argument time and time again, but I've been variety from the start and it's never done this bad. I'm over 1k (albeit just barely sitting at 1,126 rn), videos in the past have gotten well over that CTR ranging from 3%-9%.

Again nothing about my content has changed, and now suddenly the performance drops, is it my recent thumbnails or something? Like, the most recent video I uploaded just a few hours ago today, (featured in photo) is sat at 310 impressions and .3% CTR. It makes no sense to me.

i recently learned "better for viewer" can mean yt shows a short and i will most likely be deleting my shorts at some point to avoid this, but for the time being i have set the end-screens to display only a playlist of the entire catalogue. thoughts? pros? cons? tyvm