There is a common misconception about success that seems to be especially prevalent on YouTube. The notion is that as long as you create a good product, success will eventually find you. Having heard of (and read) dozens of stories of success and failure, I've learned that this is only a half-truth. Yes, a quality product is a necessary ingredient in success, whether it comes in the form of videos, hamburgers, massages, anything. If it doesn't satisfy the needs of the consumer, then no one will want it. But there is more to success than a good product. You can direct the best movie in the world, but if you only play it in your basement, you will not become a successful filmmaker.
The other main ingredient is exposure. People need to know that you exist in order for them to like your product. But exposure can get complicated... How do you want people to see you? Where do you want them to see you at? What mood should they be in when they see you? Classically, this is called advertising. In small businesses (and YouTube channels) the goal is to project your image to someone who has never heard of you, and hope that they get a good enough feel for "what you do" that they are motivated enough to seek you out on their own.
Most YouTube channels grow by 3 means. 1) Word of mouth, 2) Video tags/search terms/related videos, and 3) Reddit. The simple truth is that LPs are terrible for channel growth. For the most part, any individual episode is not worth sharing with friends, and the market is already saturated with key terms/tags. This is why so many people starting their channels have trouble growing. Lets Plays are fun, but they are not useful. YouTubers just starting out see famous YouTubers making Lets Plays, and they make it look so easy, that they become disillusioned when they don't see any growth of their own.
The simple truth is that every famous YouTuber has something "extra" that they offer, or have offered. On my old channel, TheMinecraftMuse, I labeled my tutorials "Idea Videos". This was not an accident. I knew that "minecraft ideas" was a common search term that was not being capitalized on by any one individual, so I wanted to create a monopoly on it. I got a large amount of my traffic because of those search terms. But it's not just the terms itself that made that channel grow so fast, it's the fact that I gave people exactly what they were looking for when they searched for those terms. People gave me lots of reasons why they liked my videos, but no one realized that it was my strategic search term planning that led them to my videos in the first place.
Even then, growth was too slow, and offered no potential. Vanilla Minecraft was getting boring, and had no future. The fact of the matter is that Minecraft is a game, and like all games, it has a finite lifespan. Eventually, people will get bored of it. I love making videos, and I love telling stories, but my biggest regret was naming my channel after a video game, because it meant I would always be tethered to this product. So I changed my name and adopted a new image.
But the assets that grew my first channel would no longer apply in the new one. I rarely played vanilla Minecraft, so I had little to teach on the subject. Despite my efforts, I have found no search terms that really produce as much traffic as I had gotten before. I still make videos, but without any traffic-producing assets, my channel is neither growing nor shrinking.
So I started doing some homework. I looked to all of the most successful YouTubers to find other ways in which I could increase exposure, and as it turns out, everyone has a story.
Davidr64yt got popular because he did the very first decent Minecraft Lets play, so he was the first thing that came up in search results. He got to the top because he got traffic, and the traffic ensured he stayed at the top. But he's fallen into relative obscurity because he got (understandably) tired of Minecraft. While his first MC video has almost 5 million views, his newer videos get just shy of 30k.
What to take away: He succeeded because of search algorithms.
SeaNanners originally created the Annoying Orange, a series of videos that went viral in the early days of the YouTubes. He started playing videogames, and now is able to produce a ton of content that maintains his internet fame.
What to take away: He succeeded because he created viral videos
CaptainSparklez first got famous under his alias ProsDontTalkShit, where he played Call of Duty videos. After seeing a slight increase in traffic when he started MC videos, he switched to a more family-friendly name (He actually named himself CaptainSparklez basically on a dare). He stayed at a few dozen thousand subscribers until he made his first viral video, "Revenge". This skyrocketed him to fame. Furthermore, I don't know if he has always been friends with SeaNanners, or if it occurred after he became big on YouTube, but SeaNanners is always "Liking" and sharing CS's videos, which increases exposure drastically.
What to take away: He succeeded because of viral videos and collaborations
The YogsCast were the first people to get an official YouTube show called "Minecraft". They were podcasting before MC, but they got a majority of their fame because of it.
What to take away: They succeeded because of search algorithms.
Guudeboulderfist started the first "server for famous people". MindCrack got a lot of success because so many big names were able to collaborate with each other.
What to take away: He succeeded because of collaborations
I could go on, but I think the pattern is obvious. YouTube success is all about viral videos, key terms, and collaborations. I have experimented with all 3: During my Black Mesa series, I immorally gave my videos unrelated tags to experiment. Over many dozen videos, I saw little changes in traffic. So they key terms failed.
During my Terra Firma series, I experimented with collaboration. Many big names agreed to join, but never did. Of the few people that did join, few made sufficient videos to justify the amount of effort that went into maintaining the server. Additionally, the game started to get incredibly tedious, which I felt was making my own videos worse, so I stopped playing. I'm glad I did, too. I would rather it end while it was still a good series, rather than be something that devolved into boring bullshit. So the collaboration failed.
When I heard "Dumb Ways to Die" I couldn't get it out of my head. Then one night at 2 in the morning, I woke up realizing that I could make an amazing Minecraft cover out of that song, and no one else had done it yet. I busted my ass for the next week filming and recording, only to have my hard drive crash and lose half my work. The day after the crash, online periodicals like Kotaku did articles on how so many covers of the song were popping up on YouTube, which drove traffic to these videos into the millions. I was able to re-record and release my version a week later, but I missed my window of "official recognition". I'm still bitter about that.
Still, the video reached 100k views the first month, and is currently just above 300k as I write this. And frankly, I'm not that happy with how it turned out. Maybe I'm my own worst critic, but the dance scenes were crap, and there was no custom audio track (it was just the stock version that the original singers provided). Melanie's voice was breathtaking, and I believe that her voice is the only reason the video did as well as it did.
So I started taking steps to improve the visuals in future music videos. I've been learning Blender for the last 8 months, and my production of Facepalm has slowed down because I am so damn close to finishing the next music video that it's all I can focus on. It has easily been my largest project to date, with most of my free time from the last 4 months going into this one video. It is lightyears better than my previous animations, and I am hoping to get a very big name on board to do the vocals. I've already enlisted a talented musician to cover the music track, and it sounds great. It looks like it's still about a month away from being finished, but the bulk of the animation is done. It has been an absolute ton of work, and I have never been more proud of any of my creations before. I do hope that it gives me a little e-fame boost.
Here's some shots from the video that I think turned out pretty good :)
Anyways, the moral of the story is that even though the fans seem to regard Facepalm as their favorite thing on my channel, I need to focus on something that will actually provide growth, otherwise I'll have to get a real job, at which point, production of videos would decrease drastically.
Before I go, I'd like to finish by saying that I admit, it comes off as though I'm approaching this entire YouTube process like a cold-hearted business deal. The fact is, this is what I do full time. I have fun playing videogames, editing, animating and interacting with fans, but in order to be successful at anything, you need to set aside time to take it seriously. I absolutely love making YouTube videos, and will do so with or without internet fame. However, given the choice, I would rather be successful and make money. Though it gets stressful at times, I quite enjoy unraveling the mystery that is "YouTube" success, and I hope that after I have quantified it, I'll be able to share my secrets with others.
In the immortal words of Sen Dog, from Cypress Hill, "It's a fun job, but it's still a job."
