YouTube Experiment

TriviaDuck

Hello all.  I'm a MSE veteran but have have registered a new account for this... I wanted to see if it's possible to supplement my income with revenue from a having a popular YouTube channel. One problem... I don't have a popular YouTube channel (yet!).  I intend to keep a diary here of my progress if that's something people might be interested in?

Browntoa

Normal forum rules need to be adhered to , no mention of the channel or linking to it.

But it may well be useful if you make a success of it

dave2319

Yes, I think it would be interesting - if you're still interested in posting about it despite the forum rules.

Seemingly it can be very lucrative and a great source of passive income further down the line, but of course a key part is the promoting of it to get enough subscribers and views. Would be interesting to hear how easy or difficult that is from someone here, rather than a YouTuber who says they make millions from their channel so that you'll watch the video!

TriviaDuck

Ok, I’ll stick to the rules - but if it looks like I’m flirting with the boundaries, somebody please let me know and I’ll amend/delete posts as required.  I certainly won’t be posting any links or anything like that. I exchanged DMs with browntoa to make sure my understanding of the forum rules is correct.

I’ll draft a post that goes into a bit more detail on what I’ve done so far and post it here tomorrow!

TriviaDuck

OK, so here's the intro...

For some years now I've been a big fan of quizzing/trivia (hence my username here!). I've helped run several charity quiz events and taken part in others. Friends seem to really enjoy the quizzes I set and during the Coronavirus lockdown we're all currently in, there's been demand from them for quizzes over WhatsApp, Zoom etc.

I've seen that there are several channels in YouTube that publish General Knowledge (or more subject specific) quizzes. This is by no means anything new.  Some of these YouTube channels get hundreds of thousands or even million of views. So the demand is there - my thinking is... why can't I take a slice of it?  There is the question of whether YouTube is a suitable medium for quizzes as there are other sites like Sporcle and Playbuzz where you can make your own interactive quizzes, but there does seem to be a market for video-based quizzes.

I watched the offerings from a few of the existing quiz-based channels out there and thought that I could possibly do the same or better in terms of design and the style of question, and take a slice of the pie in the process, so I decided to give it a go! 

So my aim:
1. Create a quiz based YouTube channel from scratch.
2. See if I can make it popular enough to derive revenue.
3. Have fun and learn something new in the process regardless!

My rules:
1. This mustn't interfere with my day job.
2. Spend nothing, or as little as possible (other than my time).

What I have done so far:
1. Thought of a name for the channel.
2. Registered this name on YouTube and across all other social networks (to use to promote the channel further down the line)
3. Watched a few 'how to' videos.
4. Created an initial batch of videos.

In my next post I'll talk more about No. 4 above and how I've gone about this!

TriviaDuck

I mentioned in the last post that I've now made a few videos and uploaded them to the YouTube channel I created.

Whilst I have limited experience with video editing software (I once offered to film a friend's wedding and took a crash course in Adobe Premier - and the results weren't terrible...).  I no longer have access to that software, but (at this early stage anyway), it doesn't matter too much. The nature of the videos I'm creating (quiz/trivia based) mean that no actual filming is required. Whilst I did have a play around with some free video editing options (Shotcut was the best in my opinion), but in the end I opted to use good old Microsoft PowerPoint. There's a couple of reasons for this:

1. It's effectively free as already installed on my laptop.
2. I use it regularly for work and am pretty comfortable using the advanced features, animations, transitions, audio etc.
3. It can export videos that are instantly ready to upload to YouTube.

So effectively my videos are more like slideshows, but without having to wait for somebody to click to get to the next slide...

The ultimate goal is to make something people enjoy watching. As mentioned in a previous post, there does seem to be a market for these types of videos.  I've used socialblade.com to have a look at the popularity and estimated earnings from similar channels.  Whilst these figures must be taken with a huge pinch of salt, it still gives me something to go on.  I took a look at a few different quiz/trivia based channels to see what the differences were between those that are popular and those not so much. 

There's a few other free resources I used to make my videos that I will list here. Some of these I've used for quite some time for other reasons, but some I've discovered through this experiment:

Inkscape (free graphics editor)
pixabay.com (royalty free images)
zapsplat.com (free sound effects)
flaticon.com (free icons/images)

So far I've created 18 videos (of varying degrees of length, content and quality).  These range from straightforward General Knowledge quiz questions to more specific quizzes (e.g. Boxing, Football etc).  I've also made a couple of different types of quizzes - one is a memory test and one is a rip-off of the conveyor belt game from 'The Generation Game' - for those old enough to remember! I think the look and feel of the videos is getting better as I'm learning what works and doesn't work (particularly with the thumbnails - the preview image that users see when browsing on YouTube or when you share videos on other platforms).

I'm not a huge social media user and so didn't really have a large network to help drive traffic to these videos, but I have built a small following on Twitter and have published links to some of the videos on relevant Reddit subreddits.  I've also been active in commenting, liking and subscribing to similar channels to try and boost my presence and profile.

In order to join YouTube's Partner Program (and earn advertising income), you need a minimum of 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of views across your channel.  Here's my current stats which I hope will improve as this diary continues!

Videos Uploaded: 18
Subscribers: 17
Total Watch Time: 51 hours
Most Popular Video: 403 views
Twitter Followers: 39

So a long way to go! But I don't think this is too bad considering I've started from scratch! Onwards and upwards!

TriviaDuck

A small update, I received this message from one of the more established quiz/trivia based people on Twitter:

Hi I can promote you quiz service on my active twitter and popular quiz blog. I have worked with similar services in the past and boosted the numbers dramatically. Message back if you are keen

I've messaged back and expressed interest, hopefully this is just a kind offer with zero cost...

QuackQuackOops

Im not sure if you know...but Youtube changed the way they monetise videos and you now need to have a minimum of 1000 subscribers and over 10000 viewing hours in a year, and that moves month on month.

TriviaDuck

QuackQuackOops said:

Im not sure if you know...but Youtube changed the way they monetise videos and you now need to have a minimum of 1000 subscribers and over 10000 viewing hours in a year, and that moves month on month.

Yep, I've a way to go, but picked up another Subscriber yesterday and am growing a following on other platforms which I hope will convert into more traffic eventually.   It'll be a long road, but keeping me busy whilst on lockdown anyway!

dave2319

I think this is just a genuine documenting of the process of building up a YouTube channel, and is interesting and informative, with the only links being to useful resources for people who might want to create their own.

Nice start, particularly with not already having a lot of followers on social media. Do you think most people found you through the promoting you've done though, or just by coming across your videos while searching at YouTube?   

TriviaDuck

dave2319 said:

I think this is just a genuine documenting of the process of building up a YouTube channel, and is interesting and informative, with the only links being to useful resources for people who might want to create their own.

Nice start, particularly with not already having a lot of followers on social media. Do you think most people found you through the promoting you've done though, or just by coming across your videos while searching at YouTube?   

Thanks for the above. For avoidance of any doubt, I've asked MSE to change my username to something else, to which they have agreed.  They reiterated that I shouldn't do anything that could be considered advertising, so I thought it best to.

In terms of the subscribers and views I am seeing, only one is a friend and one is a Twitter follower.  The other 18 are genuine 'strangers'.  I suspect they have found the videos through a number of avenues.  I've done a couple of things that have helped: Firstly, I've been actively commenting on other videos in the same niche. Secondly, I've posted a Tweet each time I upload a new video and for some of them I've also put a note on a trivia subreddit. Thirdly, whilst I have no real social media presence (other than the Twitter account I've set up alongside the YouTube channel), I created a TikTok account and posted a few quiz/trivia related videos there.  In my TikTok bio there's a link to the YouTube channel. I've 26 'followers' on TikTok and the hope is some of those would be redirected to the YouTube channel.

Stats currently are:

Subscribers: 20
Views: 2.5K

I've watched a few 'how to build your channel' videos today which have offered a few good tips. These included:

- Keeping to a regular upload schedule
- Engage with the audience (already doing this by responding to comments people are leaving on the videos)
- Download a Chrome extension called TubeBuddy which offers some additional tools and analysis options.

Also on my list is to improve the quality of my videos.  As I mentioned in my first post, I'm knocking these together in PowerPoint at the moment and perhaps the long term goal should be to use something more professional!