Sometimes after a period of growth your channel may taper off and grow more slowly than it did before, or even maybe not even grow at all for a period of time. While this is normal for many channels, there are some things you can do to evaluate why it’s happening and some changes to make going forward that will spark new growth into your YouTube channel again. In this video several creators talk about how they do that and give you tips for how to do it yourself, too.
YouTubers in this video
I talked to a bunch of different creators and I asked them, how do you breathe new life into your channel when it feels like the direction that you’ve been going with with your videos and your content just feels like it’s just not working out as well for you anymore? Here’s what some of those creators had to say.
Shift With Your Audience
One of the things I noticed about my channel was that certain videos were picking up steam while others were falling off. One of the categories I used to do videos for was the philosophy category where I discussed a bunch of different philosophical issues. And what I noticed was that my audience started to shift more towards the self-help and dating videos and not the philosophy.
And even though philosophy was something I was passionate about talking about, it didn’t really fit with my audience. So I needed to find a way to curb those out, and if anything, work them into some self-help or dating category. So merging the topics into what the audience wanted rather than just keeping them off on their side, I think ended up doing very well for me.
Attend Conferences for New Ideas
Coming to VidCon today has helped me really think about different directions that I might want to take and has given me some ideas about places that I might be a little bit stale on my channel. And so I’m feeling really inspired seeing what other people are doing.
And it’s nice to step out of just looking at what people are doing online, and meet people in real life and get some ideas from them. So I think definitely coming to events like this is a great way to learn new ideas so your channel doesn’t get stagnant. And you can move on to new things.
Curate New Content
Whenever my channel gets stagnant, usually, I think of something new to do. Whether it’s another show for my channel and I just test something out with my audience to see if they like it. Or I’ll take something from the vlog that I find interesting, and I’ll put it up on my main channel and see how people react to that, to see if they like it. And if so, I’ll try and make some kind of series out of that.
Connect With Your Audience on Other Platforms
What we found really works is start playing with smaller platforms that are out there. There’s always something new that’s coming out. I wouldn’t suggest using Yo or anything like that because that’s a little too simple. But there’s always a new place where people are hanging out. And if you can connect on a smaller platform when it’s hot and people are just really starting to learn and create, it’s like being on YouTube in 2006.
Evaluate Tags, Thumbnails, and Titles
I’m a daily vlogger, so I can’t really say my channel ever gets stagnant. But obviously, some videos perform better than others. And I think I try to really dissect those videos that do really well and try to figure out what made that video successful. Was it the thumbnail? The title? Did it get picked up in some random search result? And try to duplicate that but without blatantly duplicating it.
And just keep the momentum of whatever growth I’m seeing at the time. And try to make more of those types of videos whether that means going to more places and do those fun things that were popular in that one time.
Don’t Repeat What is Not Working
One of the things that I do is I look at my channel, for example, and I look at what was going well. When things were great, what content performed the best, even if it’s not anymore? And I don’t try to repeat that because it’s not working anymore. Instead, I look at what’s the principle behind why this is working well for my channel and my content. And then I try to extract that principle and repurpose it for going forward with my content.
So for example, right now on Video Creators in March, 2015, this channel has been growing, growing, growing, growing at a great rate for a long time. And now it’s just kind of plateaued. And part of that is just due to the normal process of growing on YouTube. It will go up, and it’s not– not typically, anyway– just a straight upward line over time.
But one of the things that I’ve already learned is looking back at some of my videos that were performing really well, that were sending me a lot of views, a lot of new subscribers, a lot of new traffic, and those were my videos that I crafted to be highly searchable.
But the problem here on YouTube is that it’s always changing, always evolving. And some of the information I gave on some of my best performing videos is now irrelevant and is out-of-date. So based on the signals and the data that Google is getting about my videos from viewers who are actually watching it, Google learns that and now starts ranking other videos higher and giving preference to other videos that are more current.
Make Highly Searchable Content
So the principle that I have learned is that I need to keep making highly searchable content and continue to do that in the future, and maybe pick some topics that won’t become obsolete in a year or two if Google changes their layout of their page, or switches things around, or just changes their algorithms. So I looked at what worked, why it worked, and then how I can repeat that principle going forward in the future so my channel continues to stay fresh and continues to grow.
But I would love to hear from you guys in the comments below– what do you do when your channel just seems to plateau and it seems to become stagnant or stale after a little while? And if this is something that you are currently experiencing on your channel, I highly recommend that you check out the comments that people are leaving down there. I know I will definitely be reading all of them and learning from every one.