Open Letter to support YT presenters

jblock

Robert Fripp/King Crimson embrace the 1,000 true fans dictum:

https://www.dgmlive.com/1000-club

Jamie_Mallender

Here’s an example for you - all my free time for 2 weeks went into making this video. It has now been on YouTube for over 24 hours. It has achieved a measly 124 views. It’s definitely one of my best so, this is pretty heartbreaking. I’m left pondering, is it because of the time of day I made it live and spammed the Facebook groups? Is it because it has been a few weeks since my last upload and so the algorithm has slammed me? Is it because it’s about guitar apps and most iOS folks don’t dig real guitars? Maybe it’s because I decided not to promote this video with a giveaway but to just give the freebies to the people who actually give something back to my channel? Have people just gone off what I do on YouTube? Usually other YouTubers help to give me a little push - but this time virtually no help at all - have I pissed everyone off in some way? Is the thumbnail pants? Do people hate Nembrini? Do people hate guitars? Do people hate me? It’s pretty soul destroying and this is why so many people give up on YouTube. I just don’t have it in me to be a quitter though.

To celebrate the release of this video and my new “Relentless” track. I’m giving away Nembrini plugins/apps to a few lucky winners on my Patreon account this week. Check out my demo/walkthrough of these 2 classic guitar pre-amp emulations in this video.

dspguy

As I said in the other thread:

This is the most coherent, professional video I ever saw in the iOS landscape (not that we can't enjoy more freeform and wacky stuff). It sits in the absolute sweet spot between a dry factual showcase and one that's filled with personal insights. It weaves the two seamlessly.

I wonder whether most people who are interested in these pre-amps are mostly active in the desktop space, and your current following might be predominantly from the iOS community (where interest in other instruments may outweigh that in electric guitars and related tools)? So maybe it's just the inertia of transitioning from more iOS-focused content, and it will take either more time or something clever to speed up the expansion into desktop audiences.

Simon

@Jamie_Mallender said:
Do people hate me? It’s pretty soul destroying and this is why so many people give up on YouTube. I just don’t have it in me to be a quitter though.

No, people don't hate you.

I wouldn't worry about being "a quitter".

You try something and it works the way you wanted and so you keep doing it. Or, it doesn't and you decide it is not worth doing it again.

Sometimes, quitting is the sensible thing to do. Especially if you are not enjoying what you are doing or the outcome is not what you want.

Sidenote: I didn't watch it because the subject didn't interest me. But your recent "Cubasis 1 minute tips" videos were right up my alley. You can't please everyone all the time.

Gavinski

I was going to say this - sometimes the best thing to do is move on. It can be difficult because of the attachment to something you put a lot of energy into, but sometimes we have to face facts that something isn't working the way we wanted it to and reassess what we're doing. It's the kind of sunk cost fallacy. Trust me, I'm struggling with these questions myself. As they say, the definition of madness is doing the same thing again and again and expecting to get different results.

Jamie_Mallender

@dspguy said:
As I said in the other thread:

This is the most coherent, professional video I ever saw in the iOS landscape (not that we can't enjoy more freeform and wacky stuff). It sits in the absolute sweet spot between a dry factual showcase and one that's filled with personal insights. It weaves the two seamlessly.

I wonder whether most people who are interested in these pre-amps are mostly active in the desktop space, and your current following might be predominantly from the iOS community (where interest in other instruments may outweigh that in electric guitars and related tools)? So maybe it's just the inertia of transitioning from more iOS-focused content, and it will take either more time or something clever to speed up the expansion into desktop audiences.

I think you’re absolutely right. That’s just a totally sensible response to my immature little tantrum feeling sorry for myself. I have to move more towards an audience that is right for what I do best.

Jamie_Mallender

@Simon said:

@Jamie_Mallender said:
Do people hate me? It’s pretty soul destroying and this is why so many people give up on YouTube. I just don’t have it in me to be a quitter though.

No, people don't hate you.

I wouldn't worry about being "a quitter".

You try something and it works the way you wanted and so you keep doing it. Or, it doesn't and you decide it is not worth doing it again.

Sometimes, quitting is the sensible thing to do. Especially if you are not enjoying what you are doing or the outcome is not what you want.

Sidenote: I didn't watch it because the subject didn't interest me. But your recent "Cubasis 1 minute tips" videos were right up my alley. You can't please everyone all the time.

Thank you. That makes total sense to me. I’ve got the kids off school for a couple of weeks now so I’ll have very little free time to make videos. I think that the 1 minute video format will be my focus for a little while because I can plan those and execute them in the little bits of time I get

Jamie_Mallender

@Gavinski said:
I was going to say this - sometimes the best thing to do is move on. It can be difficult because of the attachment to something you put a lot of energy into, but sometimes we have to face facts that something isn't working the way we wanted it to and reassess what we're doing. It's the kind of sunk cost fallacy. Trust me, I'm struggling with these questions myself. As they say, the definition of madness is doing the same thing again and again and expecting to get different results.

Very sensible words Gav, and I appreciate it. I have made iOS videos that have been very successful for a small channel. But that was in lockdown when I had a lot of time and an audience that had more free time too. I feel like I need to focus on my skills rather than just doing popular apps because they’ll get a lot of views. I need to find the right audience and that may take some time. I’m bound to have some quieter videos whilst I make that change.

Gavinski

@Jamie_Mallender said:

@Gavinski said:
I was going to say this - sometimes the best thing to do is move on. It can be difficult because of the attachment to something you put a lot of energy into, but sometimes we have to face facts that something isn't working the way we wanted it to and reassess what we're doing. It's the kind of sunk cost fallacy. Trust me, I'm struggling with these questions myself. As they say, the definition of madness is doing the same thing again and again and expecting to get different results.

Very sensible words Gav, and I appreciate it. I have made iOS videos that have been very successful for a small channel. But that was in lockdown when I had a lot of time and an audience that had more free time too. I feel like I need to focus on my skills rather than just doing popular apps because they’ll get a lot of views. I need to find the right audience and that may take some time. I’m bound to have some quieter videos whilst I make that change.

Definitely Jamie, coming out of lock down has made a difference. And who can blame people for wanting to spend a bit more time offline. I also think you're right that we need to be a bit more adventurous and take the focus away from tutorials perhaps. Everyone has to play to their strengths - of which you have many, my friend!

Branching into desktop might work, but it's also risky. I've noticed one iOS youtuber doing more desktop vids which get extremely poor viewing figures. There's a case maybe for making a separate channel for iOS vids and desktop ones. The YouTube algo doesn't care that much any more about how many subs you have. It shows the video on the home page to a small number of your subs first, as well as on the subscriptions page. If many watch it, and watch a decent percentage of it, it will show your vid to more, and if that also does well, it will start showing your vid to people who aren't subbed.

If your audience is mainly interested in ios apps there's a big chance that they won't click on your desktop-related vid and YouTube will therefore mark it as irrelevant and won't push it on anyone's home page. Also, if one of your vids is a dud, in terms of attracting viewers, YouTube will likely show next your vid to fewer people on their home screen next time you release one. It will be more cautious. YouTube wants to fill people's home screens with things they think people will click on.

YouTube values consistency because it only wants to push things it thinks will make revenue for YouTube. So YouTube loves 'content creators' who consistently outperform others.

But building up a whole new desktop channel from scratch comes with its own pitfalls - that's a very crowded market! It's a bigger market, for sure, if you can crack it. But that takes a lot of luck, skill, hard work, good production quality, etc. It didn't in the old days. A lot of the people who are big on youtube - I'm not talking about ios music, I'm speaking generally - are pretty shite, or at least they were in the early days! But they got in very early and got enough momentum going that it is fairly easy for them to still do well with the algo. Even if your vids are crap, as long as they have decent viewership, YouTube will likely push them more than smaller content creators' vids. The algorithm doesn't have taste. It just cares about the numbers. That's why many of the best videos you made in your early days will generally still have small viewing figures years later. I'd cite my video on Stria by apesoft as an example.

It's like TEDTalks' page of most popular videos. That page was started at a particular time. The videos that were most popular at that time made it onto the list. Then, people clicked on that list and watched the top ones. They therefore easily kept their status as most popular videos, despite not necessarily being any better than more recent videos (or older ones that, for whatever random reason hadn't had many views). Once those vids get that top viewed status, they're almost certainly there for life. It's extremely hard for newer and better things to break through. Unless a) your content has mass appeal b) your content is very clickbaity c) your market audience is not tech savvy and don't use adblockers d) you somehow manage to get promoted by another bigger influencer.

Simon

@Jamie_Mallender said:
Very sensible words Gav, and I appreciate it. I have made iOS videos that have been very successful for a small channel. But that was in lockdown when I had a lot of time and an audience that had more free time too. I feel like I need to focus on my skills rather than just doing popular apps because they’ll get a lot of views. I need to find the right audience and that may take some time. I’m bound to have some quieter videos whilst I make that change.

Also, remember that you are a musician not a TV producer.

Just because everyone has been handed a HD video camera in their phone doen't make them a content creation expert. Even the people in "real TV" have difficulty making shows that are popular.

Jamie_Mallender

Watching Jades livestream whilst playing my Zombie game. Another cool thing about having a YouTube subscription.

scrape

Yeah. The sound doesn’t cut out when you switch the screen off too.