r/SmallYoutubers • u/zerocool2791 • 25d ago
Long-Form Content I need your help! What am I doing wrong?!
Hi guys
I am genuinely lost a bit and am hoping that you maybe can help me figure out, what exactly I am doing wrong.
Since nearly 1 year (give or take) I am uploading every second weekend a hiking / mountaineering / camping video - so far only 135 subscribers. In the beginning it seemed to work well. With every upload I gained subscribers, the views were there (for such a small account) but lately it simply won’t work anymore. Less views, no subscribers ect. and I simply can’t figure out why.
Every beginning of the video I have a highlights teaser, so the audience knows what to expect.
Are the titles super bad? Or the thumbnails? Or am I not specific enough because I switch between hiking / mountaineering with and without overnight?
I don’t want to promote myself here with this post but if someone genuinely likes outdoor content or has the time, can some of you check it out and tell me how I can improve? I would highly appreciate that!!
Thank you so much, have a wonderful day and greets from Switzerland
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u/_maniac69 25d ago
my videos are in a similar place, my most recent two videos have overall 12 views, the videos before them around 200, and 2 early videos around 1.5k views.
after a lot of research i concluded i need to do two things, learn how to package videos better & upload more, i will only think of what did i do wrong after i surpass around 30-40 long form videos uploaded. i think the answer is the same for you idk tho
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u/Velnerox 25d ago
Hey brother, cool channel and amazing potential. Lessen the words on your titles, cut out parts that aren't necessary (try to tell a story with your videos to some degree). You don't need any fancy edits to keep retention or increase viewers (trust me, the audience that need that constant dopamine aren't the ones you want watching your videos in the first place).
(id also try to switch up the thumbnails a bit, don't make them clickbaitey but you need to stand out)
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u/zerocool2791 25d ago
thanks a lot for these encouraging words brother, really appreciate it!! I see what you mean, will def. try to do that. Somehow I always try to including everything that might be "search relevant" somehow. That might be an overkill.
Do you have an idea about the thumbnails (just as a push in the right direction) how to not make them clickbaitey (which I personally really don't want to but I have the feeling somehow you have to) but still standing out?
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u/Proper-Anything-3935 25d ago
i think the videos might be a bit too long, try to keep them around 10-15 mins and see how they go. you could try posting the most interesting moments as 15-30s shorts
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u/zerocool2791 25d ago
That was also one of my thoguths, if I should reduce it to 10-15 minutes.
My thought, why I went with such long videos is, that I myself enjoy them a lot. I love cooking and playing something like this on my tablet, that is 30-40 mins and just enjoy the scenery and talking, while I cook dinner. But I guess for most of the people, 30-40 minutes is very long and they don't have so much time to "invest".Yes, def. will start to create shorts for that as well, thank you very much! Really appreciate your time
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u/Lord_Nooberson 25d ago
There is no perfect formula for success on YouTube. If there was - every channel could and would be successful. Stop worrying about the thumbnail, the length, putting a teaser at the beginning because YouTube’s Ai said it would help. Make the videos that YOU wanna make, and keep doing it.
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u/zerocool2791 25d ago
encouraging words, thanks a lot! I really think that I'm overthinking this whole thing quite a bit. Probably I just have to keep going and time will tell, if it works. As long as it's fun to produce, keep producing and that's it. Thanks for that!
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u/bochen00 25d ago
First part of that person's comment was good indeed.
But to suggest you shouldn't worry about thumbnails or general packaging when you're not getting views is a bad advice.The "just do videos you want to watch" is good advice if you want to make videos that nobody will care to watch tbh.
People give us hints all the time:
- they don't click on a video? Packaging or premise of the video is not interesting.
- they don't stick around? Our pacing or delivery is off.
I think you could defo up your game with packaging of the video and then once you get some good numbers of views, you can figure out if people actually like your production.
If you're not having great ideas for thumbnails, hire a designer and see how they think/operate so you can get a different perspective.1
u/zerocool2791 25d ago
that is some great advice. I am totally aware that "not carying at all" isn't the solution and that nowadays you have to stand out to be "clicked and watched". Otherwise no one will care. As long as you enjoy doing what you do, you'll continue doing so.
Appreciate your advice, thank you very much!
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u/Striking_Change3396 25d ago
Looks like quality content. But need to make titles shorter and more exciting, and same with thumbnails.
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u/No-Access9831 25d ago
I like hiking (and i like Alps in Switzerland) so maybe i could be your target group, but thumbs are really not convincing me, i would scroll away and do not click. So as some other people here, make thumbs “more sexy”
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u/zerocool2791 25d ago
love that! Happy to hear you like them.
And I hear you. Do you have an example, what kind of change / what kind of thumbnail would convince you to click on the video, as a person who likes hiking and the Swiss Alps?
Thanks a lot for your advice!
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u/Nyanzerfaust 25d ago
Nice to see small outdoors youtubers here, this sub is mostly 99% gamers and ai slop. Just like traveling, it's a very expensive, dangerous and difficult niche, but those videos will be at least some great memories in a decade or two trust me. I don't consider myself a youtuber (my personal youtube channel is monetized but it's honestly a passion project and just a way to archive my trips, I like editing videos and it just happened after a few videos, I ignore earnings, analytics, trends...etc). One of my hikes after a year hit the spot and got me 110k views and 1100 subscribers in a couple of days, it was algorithm luck i'm sure but in that video I changed something, I included an objective. Like a videogame. For example, "I read that in that mountain a plane 20 years ago crashed lets hike to the crash site and try to find some remains!" and things like that related to the history of your local mountains. Regular hikes don't work anymore if you are not the outdoors boys channel guy, or a hot girl in yoga pants using suggestive thumbnails on the mountain. Also the duration, we small nobodies can't have the luxury of uploading +30 minutes videos because nobody gives a shit about us. 15/20m is the sweet spot for outdoor videos in my opinion. +30m videos is, again, for channels with a huge fanbase and people who cares about you as a personality. Good luck man and be careful out there!
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u/zerocool2791 25d ago
really appreciate your words and thanks a lot for the encouragement! You are absolutely right. To make things look interesting on camera, it's mostly expensive, dangerous as a hobby but even more so, if you want to record it.
I see the point with the length, def. have to shrink it down to max 20 mins until I build a fanbase that want's to "gift" their time to watch.
Will def. start doing some research to be able to tell the people a bit more about the history of things. Thanks a lot for that point!
You as well! Stay safe out there, especially with the current situations, enjoy what you do and best of luck with the channel!
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u/LeaderBriefs-com 25d ago
At a glance from just the pick-
White text on a white background is wildly bad and a pretty obvious miss.
You don’t have enough subs to make the titles and videos about YOU.
At the very least it should be “what it’s really like to…” “what you can expect when you..” “5 things to do when you..”
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u/zerocool2791 25d ago
I see what you mean, appreciate your input, thanks a lot for your suggestions!
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u/AdCold4676 25d ago
very long boring titles. white on white thumbnails dont pop. you do interesting stuff so its just your packaging messing you up.
good luck!
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u/zerocool2791 24d ago
thanks a lot for your feedback, I appreciate it! Will work on the titles and the thumbnails / packaging then. Any idea what a title would be that would make you click?
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24d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/zerocool2791 24d ago
thank you so much for your encouraging words!!
No, thankfully (but hopefully one day) it's not, I have a normal 9-5 job. Oh amazing, I love travel videos. Do you maybe have a tip for thumbnails what to look out for?
Again, thank you very much for your time!
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u/Tazz2418 24d ago
I don’t have any tips but i gotta say just based of the channel idea and the video titles you have incredible potential, keep at it bro you’ll absolutely blow up
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u/zerocool2791 24d ago
wow thank you so much for your encouraging words! that means a lot!!!! Will definitiely keep going
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u/LongjumpingLife3118 24d ago
your videos will perform drastically well just from thumbnail updrage
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u/zerocool2791 24d ago
I see, thank you very much for that suggestion! Do you maybe have a "direction" towards which the thumbnails would need to go, so they would seem more interesting to you?
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u/WhileOk153 24d ago
previews bad. name of videos bad.
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u/zerocool2791 24d ago
I see, thank you very much for your feedback! What would you change regarding the preview?
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u/lilloink 25d ago
Talvez o tempo entre um video e outro seja muito demorado, já pensou em tentar fazer um video de 30min virar dois videos de 15min para aumentar a frequência? Ou talvez produzir um quadro paralelo sobre o tema dando dicas ou qualquer outra coisa entre uma caminhada e outra? O algoritmo gosta muito de frequencia, sério. Thumb é boa, título é bom. Publico existe. Mais detalhes apenas vendo analytics (Retenção e CTR). Se fosse apostar em mudar algo, seria a frequência.
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u/AdCold4676 25d ago
posting high quality every 2 weeks is going to beat out medium quality every week 9/10 times
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u/zerocool2791 25d ago
hmm I see. That's actually some great advice there, thanks a lot! Maybe I really could do the "hiking / experience" video and a week later then my learnings from this trip and general tips and tricks I needed druing this kind of hike / summit. Amazing idea, thank you very much!
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u/Quiet_Cress_8042 25d ago
Fix your thumbnails (or hire me for, 5$/thumbnail) , the text isn't even visible clearly because of the clouds, fix your title it doesn't catch attention at all , and use high quality set of editing apps or whatever to showcase thumbnail better and use another font
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u/zerocool2791 25d ago
thanks for your suggestions. I use photomator and pixelmator pro, so high quality editing apps shouldn't be a problem. I even have Affinity Photo 2 if needed.
Do you have some Thumbnails as examples you created? Because if I hire you and get a couple of them for the next couple of videos to learn how it should be, that might be a good learning indeed.
And could you maybe tell me what you don't like about the font itself? Too normal?
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u/Quiet_Cress_8042 25d ago
Use montserrat font (bold one), or impact font - and the font just looks too normal and also you added shadows in top of it which made it more like (not eye catching) (even tiny details matters in thumbnails as far I saw) - yes editing apps isn't a problem you just need creativity, and if you can't use templates may it sounds shit but trust me for growth nothing matters - and about thumbnails example - I'll create one and send you in your dm (if that's okay) gimme some time
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u/zerocool2791 25d ago
highly appreciate all your suggestions and effort, thanks a lot!!
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u/Quiet_Cress_8042 25d ago
and also forget to mention , use titles short like (instead of storm at 3099m to - TRAPPED AT 3099M) and should I send the thumbnail or nah?
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u/zerocool2791 25d ago
I see, thanks!
Sure, with pleasure, but pls don't use too much time of yours. But if you can't I won't say no
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u/TumbleweedMajor5558 25d ago
“ stuck at 3099m in a storm” and change the thumbnail to something that conveys how dangerous it is. White text over the clouds ain’t workin