I don’t know about you, but I find it SO frustrating to work incredibly hard on a video, upload it and get the same amount of views over and over and over. Today we are going to talk about how to get unstuck and grow your channel to get more views and reach more people.

Zoom Out

It can be really easy to get so focused on a specific analytic or aspect of your channel that you begin to miss the forest for the trees. So the first step that we suggest is to just zoom out. Ask yourself: Who am I trying to reach? What do they like? What do they not like? What do they need? What do they not need? Do I have a direction with my channel? Where are we going with this? What is the purpose? What value am I trying to bring to my audience?

Then look ahead. Where are we now and what is the goal? What is my big vision and where does this video fit in this bigger vision? Don’t look at what everyone else is doing and get yourself sidetracked. Focus on YOUR goal and reassess what is best for YOUR channel.

After you do this, it can be really healthy to look at your analytics. Is there a pattern that you notice? Does everyone abandon your video at the same point? Could it be a title/thumbnail problem? To make this easier, take screenshots and put your retention graphs all on one page. Patterns will start to jump out.

Pro Tip: Give yourself 30 days after you publish your video before you start looking at these analytics. You can’t jump in 24-48 hrs after you publish and expect to be able to see a clear picture and to be subjective on what needs to be cut out. You are still too emotionally attached before this point. Take a full 30 days and then try to see what changes need to be made. This will help you clearly make data-driven decisions, which is always the goal.

Getting Unstuck

The most important thing to focus on first is discoverable content. Make a video that is going to appeal to a broad audience. Don’t take too long to get to the content. Jump right in and keep their attention. Experiment with these and check out those analytics. What can you switch up? Check out those titles and thumbnails. If you aren’t getting views it’s because no one is clicking. These need to change. Go to the videos page, zoom your screen out and see what it looks small.

Another helpful tip is to be a student of YouTube. Look through your home page. What do you want to click on? Why are you choosing that video? If you click out of a video, why? If you stick around, why are you staying? What is keeping you intrigued? Write it all down and apply these principles to your own videos, titles and thumbnails.

A huge resource is constructive criticism from your friends! Make friends with other creators and ask them to critique your video. Your loved ones are just going to tell you it’s great. But getting help from those who know YouTube well is vital.

Once those people are in the door, focus on how you be relatable. Don’t be a teacher. Be a person. Don’t turn into “presenter mode” when you turn your camera on. Stop thinking about how you look, but instead think about you who are talking to. Don’t just speak. Speak with purpose to a single person.

Experiment

So now it’s time to experiment. Try some of these changes out and see what happens! Now, an experiment doesn’t mean trying something once. You need to do it in 8-10 videos. Then, wait 30 days after your last one and compare all of those retention graphs. Don’t look at your analytics on a channel level. Instead, go to advanced analytics and group these videos together or look at the last 30 days. This will give you a real picture of how you’re doing. Are you on your way to your goal that you wrote down earlier? If not what can you do to tweak it?

Don’t be scared. You aren’t going to break your channel by changing things. YouTube doesn’t look at your channel as a whole. It looks at each video individually. Just try to get 1% better each time.

Power Tip

Starting in early 2023 there are two ways to apply for monetization. For traditional videos, it’s still 1000 subs & 4000 hours/last 12 month period. But now, shorts-focused creators can be monetized with 1000 subs & 10 million views/last 90 days. but if you’re a small channel there will be a third way called “Fan Funding.” Creators earlier in their YouTube journey will have lower requirements that offer earlier access to Fan Funding features like Super Thanks, Super Chat, Super Stickers and Channel Memberships. There will be more on this new tier in 2023 for how long-form, shorts & live creators can join.

More details on this announcement and two more (including copyright music) can be found .

Have comments, reactions, questions about all of this or just want to say hi? for us and we may use it in an upcoming podcast episode. Until then…

Keep Changing Lives!

Tim Schmoyer

​ . . . .