[ YOUTUBE ] Journey to 100k subscribers, starting from scratch.

[SamiMM]

I have started this Youtube journey a month or so ago, and I am starting to doubt myself so I decided to start a journey thread here, to keep track of my progress, to get some help from you guys, but also so I can get the ideas off my head by writing them down instead of leaving everything on my mind.

Background :
I have gotten into IM more than 10 years ago, tried different things while studying. I graduated as a civil engineer in 2016, and dropshipping was the trend back then, so I started dropshipping and done that for a couple of years. Then right before covid I moved to Sweden, used the covid time to study the language and get a different degree as a Machine Learning engineer. I am working as an ML engineer/Data Scientist now. About time to get back to do something online !

The Plan :
I want to grow a youtube channel in the storytelling niche, horror stories and all that stuff. I want to try different topics until I find something that feels good. I have started publishing on this channel about a month ago. My plan is to share stories, until I grow an audience that likes my storytelling style.

For the stories I do get most of them from Reddit or from I ask ChatGPT to suggest some interesting controversial real stories. I use my own voice, I try to keep everything human when it comes to sound. I use music from Artlist.io and for the video content I used some royalty free footage from pexels on the first 10 videos, but I started experimenting with other kinds of content for the last videos and shorts now.

I have published 11 long form videos + 4 shorts so far. My goal is to get this channel monetized then invest back everything I make into it by outsourcing as much as I can so I can make a lot more and better content.

I got inspired by some story channels in different languages that I follow ( mainly in french ), and I expected to get the same growth as they did, but to my disappointment, after 11 videos and 4 shorts, I have 7 subscribers only, 5 of which is 1 friend who decided to subscribe through his 5 channels, so I basically got 2 subscribers. It probably means that this niche is saturated, or that my content sucks, or both.

Here are the stats from the first 11 videos :

• Video 1 ( 10 min ) : 14 views
• Video 2 ( 10 min ) : 18 views
• Video 3 ( 12 min ) : 91 views <== got my hopes up like crazy
• Video 4 ( 11 min ) : 42 views
• Video 5 ( 16 min ) : 3 views <== got me depressed
• Video 6 ( 17 min ) : 1 views
• Video 7 ( 9 min ) : 3 views
• Video 8 ( 10 min ) : 62 views
• Video 9 ( 8 min ) : 0 views
• Video 10( 9 min ) : 35 views
• Video 11( 14 min ) : 21 views

The shorts on the other hand are getting 300-500 views

I am planning on putting 3 hours of work every morning into the channel. What takes a lot of time for me is getting the scripts ready. I want to get to a point where I don't need a script, but it will take some practice as I am not a native english speaker ( english is my 3rd language, and I speak 5 ).

What I could use some help with is tips on how to speed up this whole process ? Promote the channel ? Maybe the cash cow techniques if they are still working ? Or growing AI influencer IGs and using that to promote the channel on IG ? Or is all of this too much work and putting that effort into the content and improving its quality is a better way of investing my time and $$$ ?

I could use all the help I can get ! And I will keep this thread updated.

I will try to update you guys everytime I publish a new video.

 

[arab]

I have started this Youtube journey a month or so ago, and I am starting to doubt myself so I decided to start a journey thread here, to keep track of my progress, to get some help from you guys, but also so I can get the ideas off my head by writing them down instead of leaving everything on my mind.

Background :
I have gotten into IM more than 10 years ago, tried different things while studying. I graduated as a civil engineer in 2016, and dropshipping was the trend back then, so I started dropshipping and done that for a couple of years. Then right before covid I moved to Sweden, used the covid time to study the language and get a different degree as a Machine Learning engineer. I am working as an ML engineer/Data Scientist now. About time to get back to do something online !

The Plan :
I want to grow a youtube channel in the storytelling niche, horror stories and all that stuff. I want to try different topics until I find something that feels good. I have started publishing on this channel about a month ago. My plan is to share stories, until I grow an audience that likes my storytelling style.

For the stories I do get most of them from Reddit or from I ask ChatGPT to suggest some interesting controversial real stories. I use my own voice, I try to keep everything human when it comes to sound. I use music from Artlist.io and for the video content I used some royalty free footage from pexels on the first 10 videos, but I started experimenting with other kinds of content for the last videos and shorts now.

I have published 11 long form videos + 4 shorts so far. My goal is to get this channel monetized then invest back everything I make into it by outsourcing as much as I can so I can make a lot more and better content.

I got inspired by some story channels in different languages that I follow ( mainly in french ), and I expected to get the same growth as they did, but to my disappointment, after 11 videos and 4 shorts, I have 7 subscribers only, 5 of which is 1 friend who decided to subscribe through his 5 channels, so I basically got 2 subscribers. It probably means that this niche is saturated, or that my content sucks, or both.

Here are the stats from the first 11 videos :

• Video 1 ( 10 min ) : 14 views
• Video 2 ( 10 min ) : 18 views
• Video 3 ( 12 min ) : 91 views <== got my hopes up like crazy
• Video 4 ( 11 min ) : 42 views
• Video 5 ( 16 min ) : 3 views <== got me depressed
• Video 6 ( 17 min ) : 1 views
• Video 7 ( 9 min ) : 3 views
• Video 8 ( 10 min ) : 62 views
• Video 9 ( 8 min ) : 0 views
• Video 10( 9 min ) : 35 views
• Video 11( 14 min ) : 21 views

The shorts on the other hand are getting 300-500 views

I am planning on putting 3 hours of work every morning into the channel. What takes a lot of time for me is getting the scripts ready. I want to get to a point where I don't need a script, but it will take some practice as I am not a native english speaker ( english is my 3rd language, and I speak 5 ).

What I could use some help with is tips on how to speed up this whole process ? Promote the channel ? Maybe the cash cow techniques if they are still working ? Or growing AI influencer IGs and using that to promote the channel on IG ? Or is all of this too much work and putting that effort into the content and improving its quality is a better way of investing my time and $$$ ?

I could use all the help I can get ! And I will keep this thread updated.

I will try to update you guys everytime I publish a new video.

Good luck with your journey .

 

[MrZeem]

Good luck with your journey Bro

 

[shipsocker]

I think for such a channel where the auditory part is so important your voice is the key. I would play with it in some digital audio workstation(fl studio, audacity). lower the pitch play with the eq, add some reverb, etc. make it sound as cool and unique as possible to stand out from the competition. good luck and hope you reach your goal!

 

[Baton]

Good luck with your journey.

Have you checked your competitors' videos?

 

[Drainers]

GL with your journey. The start is always the heavy part.

 

[SamiMM]

Good luck with your journey .

Thanks mate !

Good luck with your journey Bro

Thanks bro !

I think for such a channel where the auditory part is so important your voice is the key. I would play with it in some digital audio workstation(fl studio, audacity). lower the pitch play with the eq, add some reverb, etc. make it sound as cool and unique as possible to stand out from the competition. good luck and hope you reach your goal!

Yes, and I think i am struggling with my voice being extremely monotonous ( if that’s even a word), i don’t have that much energy in my voice, but I am following a couple of channels with almost the same style, they have 300k and 600k followers, so i bet there is an audience for my voice somewhere too.

I am testing now with voice only vs voice and SFX and music and so on.

Thanks for the tips !

Good luck with your journey.

Have you checked your competitors' videos?

Yes I have spotted a couple of competitors, 1 guy grew to 140k in 7 months only, with AI voice ..

I will try @blackbeans method for commenting on posts, i am waiting until i have 20 videos or so.

Currently at 8 subscribers, 11 long form and 4 shorts. 5 long form videos in the making now, they will all be posted in the next week. I avoid posting in the weekend, the videos i posted during the weekends never got pushed by Youtube.

 

[Hunk]

It's achievable whish you all the best jn your journey

 

[howw]

how do you go with video editing man ?? edit yourself or someone else does it ?

 

[SamiMM]

It's achievable whish you all the best jn your journey

I believe so, have seen other channels do it in under a year ! But they seem to have figured out everything already, best thumbnail format and titles and they are using AI voice overs. Thanks !

how do you go with video editing man ?? edit yourself or someone else does it ?

I do that on my own, i try to keep it as little editing as possible though. Some channels i follow actually tell scary stories without any video content, a black screen only, but they all started with video content. I think they had video content in the beginning to get the channel monetized somewhat.

Did you have any ideas for video editing ?

 

[bhedigital]

Can I get the details via private message? I'm interested.

 

[SamiMM]

Can I get the details via private message? I'm interested.

Interested in what exactly ?

 

[cooperloo]

how many subs so far?

 

[SamiMM]

Good luck with your journey
Following

Thanks !

how many subs so far?

8 so far

 

[Teressa Ledoux]

Following Buddy!
Wish You Good Luck With This Journey.
Keep Share Your Great Working Experience.

 

[SamiMM]

Following Buddy!
Wish You Good Luck With This Journey.
Keep Share Your Great Working Experience.

Thanks buddy !


Since the last updated, I prepared 5 videos, scheduled over the next 2 weeks, one of the videos was published last night, it still didn't get pushed yet, it has like 5 impressions so far and 0 views.

Next video today, then one on Thursday, and Sunday, then next Thursday again.

My plan is to prepare content for the upcoming month, and only then I can increase the number of videos per week, for now I will stick to 2 videos per week and schedule them for Sunday and Thursday.

Let's see how the 2 videos from yesterday and today will perform !

 

[kamelbendaliLG]

any update

 

[ContentJoh]

Focus on shorts to grow your subscribers. This has worked for me. Grew from 16 subscribers to presently 800+ subscribers. Consistency also played a role.