How to Start a Youtube Channel From Scratch and Get Instant Traffic / Viewers
How to start a youtube channel from scratch and get instant traction the moment you upload without spending a dime.
I will share my proof, mistakes that cost me valuable time, and why the odds weren't in my favor but still prevailed. I will also set your expectations right. No excuse, you will succeed.
Hello my fellow future millionaires.
I'd like to share my marketing strategy for my new youtube channel. which has been active for only 2 months+. I am gonna assume you will not be spending on ads (or atleast not much) and that you have little to no social following (twitter, medium, etc.). Also, you won't need one. There is a way to get many viewers on your new channel even if you almost have no online presence.
I noticed that a lot of youtube channels Michael Vestil included usually share their strategies once they get 10s of thousands of subscribers already more. I get that, social proof first.
Also, the youtube algorithm is always changing, so a good marketing strategy proven by a youtuber who started out at 2015 even if they are sharing it in 2018. Therefore I want to share a very recent journey.
I believe that this will give clarity to some of you who are curious what its like to start a youtube channel but no marketing budget and would like to see a real-time real life example of someone who is just starting out but has figured out how to get consistent growth.
I spend no money in this.
Steps:
Pick a niche (duh!)
Learn video editing
*Its easy guys just do it step by step. Don't fall for the trap of perfection, it will not come fast and rushing it will only make you frustrated and burnt out. Instead try to make your first video semi decent and upload consistently learning a few new things in every video you create.
*If it's any consolation my first video wasn't really half decent but got a ton of views.
*I recommend using both Adobe premier and after effects (there are free version but these 2 are top of the line. They cost though. I got mine by downloading it at a torrent website. I don't promote piracy and would plan to purchase an original license once I get enough money from youtube.)
- Create your youtube account and design your channel
*Don't be fancy here. Just make it decent. No one expects your channel to be glamorous at zero views.
*Again. Don't be too fancy. Nobody expects you to be glamorous at 0 views and 0 subs.
- Share all your videos to these platforms especially:
a. Facebook Groups with 20k or more members (10-15 groups)
*A trick to avoid being flagged as spam by facebook is to use slightly different description in each group post. I'm not saying you shouldn't copy paste but atleast edit it a little maybe change 3 words in your description for each group you post
b. Reddit (10-15 subreddits or more depending on your niche)
*The line between promotion and spam is a bit blurry from my perspective. The key is to always be sure that you are giving value to the platform or community you are sharing to. Like if you're niche is agriculture don't share it on a gaming subreddit unless of course there is something that you know they want to see.
c. A very active forum/forums
*Not all forums have as much as engagement and discussion but there is certain to be a forum or atleast a thread in your niche that has the a lot of people active.
*Understand that promoting on forums requires a different strategy and at first may seem to not bring much traffic. The trick is to simply reply to your posts everyday. Everytime someone comments your post will get to the top of the list so you will have a recurring traffic source as opposed to Facebook and Reddit's one time thing. That's basically how you leverage a forum community.
*Make sure you reply to messages everyday consistently. A strategy of mine is to reply to one comment on each post everyday. That way, if that someone doesn't reply right away to you, you could reply to another comment thereby getting your post back on top every single day, but that's just me. I can only create one video a week due to my dayjob so its important to maximize my daily engagement in forums.
*The more you can engage the community in each video post the bigger the community you can leverage.
Important:
Consistently, Facebook Groups bring me the most traffic, while Reddit is a close second. Seriously, these platforms are so underrated. Almost like divine intervention (haha kidding). But seriously Reddit is a place where you can immediately get free traffic with a brand new account as a lot of subreddits don't require karma to post. Most aspiring youtubers already have a facebook account and a Reddit account is very easy to create.
Share and distribute your video the second it gets uploaded/live. Youtube's algorithm has been observed to favor those that get views right away so the sooner you get viewers the better youtube will share it. I actually tested this by only promoting the video the day after I published it on youtube. I got less than 1/3 my usual views. It could have been the video too but I didn't think so.
*It goes w/o saying that if you do have social media accounts that have a decent following or not much following as long as its not near zero. It's common sense.
No excuses! If you have a dream of financial freedom you will do what it takes. Plus by the time your done reading this you are very likely to grow way way faster than I did since you won't be making these mistakes.
In order for you to understand
Mistakes I've made that cost me valuable time
Fearing that you will not get anywhere. Your efforts might be wasted.
- Stop thinking that! You are wrong. When it comes to youtube in 2018 you have nothing to worry about as it is still easy to get traction right now. YouTube is still growing its users, the online video market is still growing (many countries in the world still don't have access to internet; it is expected to increase in the next 5-10 years. There is still room for way more. Your channel will grow if you have put enough effort in it. I have more practical reasons why youtube is not going away even with the unlikely event that another video platform will arise youtube will still have a big chunk of the traffic for online videos for the very reason that Google owns it. Also, even if I'm wrong, it would still be better to have started a channel now than later. You could simply funnel your subscribers to other video channels in case. That would be way better than starting your channel from scratch in a new platform. Nothing will go to waste as long as you don't stop.
-just know that fear of my efforts being wasted delayed me from starting a youtube channel. I was already planning to start a crypto channel ever since early 2017 but this fear kept me from doing. Only when I took a leap and decided to just do this that I realized the probability of failing is very very low on the condition that you always put your heart into it and give something that is truly valuable to your audience. Always think of their well-being. They will be grateful, not all of them obviously, but some will.
Spending time to promote my videos on platforms that do not really bring much traffic.
-Like I said, not all media sites and social platforms are created equal. I spent countless hours on distributing my videos to different sites. What I have found is that to spend your time effectively you have to choose platforms that give the most ROI. If you don't have a big number of following like me, the best places to promote your videos for free in my experience are Facebook Groups and Reddit, as well as forums.
-You might be tempted to think that why shouldn't I post to as many outlets as I can? Two reasons. Time is a valuable asset to waste, and there is huge dropoff in traffic you can gain from other websites compared to these two. If you know a site that helps you promote your youtube as much or atleast comparable to Facebook Groups and Reddit that don't require you to amass a huge following first, please tell me I'd like to know.
I'll have you know that there are some factors that have hindered my progress. I'll list them down so that you'll feel better about your chances:
My niche is cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies boomed in early 2017. The problem is during that time the number of cryptocurrency youtubers exploded and made this niche saturated really fast. Another problem is I started working on my channel in late 2018, at the heat of the bear market. If you don't what I'm talking about google "Crypto Bear Market 2018". Basically the user interest in this niche rapidly declined as a result. I don't like to say "if only" but if only I started in 2017 when I had the chance I would not even be in this country by now. I'd be traveling the world. And you know what I thought that time? "There's too many youtubers in this niche, I'll only be adding noise I had no chance to compete." Yet here I am doing fine.
I didn't want to admit this at first. I was ashamed. I am the only crypto youtuber who has no crypto fortune. Majority of crypto youtubers have hundreds of thousands and a few who has millions. And they don't shy from sharing their portfolio and I understand why. It validates their expertise to their audience or atleast gives them the appearance of a succedssful crypto trader. I am not a bad investor. That's not the reason why I don't compare much to the others. The reason simply is I didn't have much money to invest in the first place. But I am not ashamed of that anymore because I invested as much as I could. You see, I live in a small province in the Philippines and never got to finish college. But I am a dreamer and a hustler and I was able to find a decent paying job, or atleast $550/month is decent where I come from; actually, that's probably more than anyone can ask for in my small city (you see the difference in purchasing power?) I am a decent investor. More into FA but I also swing trade every now and then. I know that I am atleast decent because I still have more gains than losses despite the market recession this year. Honestly I could only afford to spend $100-$200 a month since I was also sending money to my grandmother. Right now, my portfolio is still in the thousands (in dollars) and I continue to accumulate more every month although I don't have the same salary anymore. I cashed out a thousand last December as well 3 times this year already. Not much relative to what others in my niche have true, but not bad for a year of trading considering I barely had much in the first place.
I can only produce one video per week, sometimes two. This is due to my dayjob (I'm a crypto marketing analyst) and the level of effort I put into my videos (Ofcourse the first few videos were really bad). You better upload everyday if you could. That would be a major difference
Nobody in my city has heard much about my niche. I live in the southern part of the country and technology is not as advanced as our capital. It's sad but
I don't have the budget for a nice camera so I use my Samsung J7 phone when I wanted to film myself. I found a way to make it work still. If you could afford to include a $300 vlogging camera in your budget I envy you.
PROOF
I created my youtube account in 2013 but never used it until very recently. Verify it if need be.
My channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEzs8vsncstg6Ch-zge6OHg
Verify it on socialblade https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCEzs8vsncstg6Ch-zge6OHg
-don't believe the future forecasts. I have found it to be inaccurate after comparing with the other accounts. Socialblade algorithm doesn't consider the fact the users actually get better therefore the video quality will get better over time. Even if not, they really seem low compared to historic data.
By the way I am not expecting anyone to subscribe to me. I would be delighted if you are interested but I understand that this is a group for aspiring internet entrepreneurs and my channel is for crypto enthusiasts. Don't feel bad about anyting. I have 8 good friends who subscribed to me just for friendship's sake but they never watched a single video. It's basically useless to have subs who arent interested at this point, unless you still have 0 subs and want to make up for it. I just want this to be clear.
More importantly, I do hope that by now I have convinced you dear reader to pursue your youtube dreams. The main point of this video is that if a 24 year old guy from a small city with humble beginnings can create a youtube channel from scratch with 0 budget and make good progress against all odds, you have no excuses left. Don't tell me you were never in interested, you wouldn't have read this far if that was the case.
Come on man, you can do it.
Bonus Tips
If you have friends and family that are supportive leverage it. Let them be your first subscribers. Depending on your social circle you could get instant 20 subscribers. But don't think this is gonna help you much besides not looking 0 subs unless your friends are really truly interested.
Don't be addicted to watching your Analytics. I personally enjoy the positive feedback loop it gives me when I look at the YouTube Analytics(something about seeing the growing views and subscribers just stimulates me) and I have found that I was spending too much time on it so try to be more productive and be sure you only study your analytics when you need to.
Spending money for ads does make it grow a lot faster and I would have done it if it were possible back then. I needed to invest in crypto regularly afterall so there's not much cash left for me. Combining this strategy as well as paid promotion would definitely be better than just paid promotion.
PS: By the way, I am planning to finally spend money on promotion in the next month or so. If anyone knows the most cost effective way to get traffic on youtube channel I would appreciate a tip. I was thinking facebook ads and google adwords. Thank you for your time