How do you stop feeling like you're yelling in the void?

Lanah Tyra 1/18/2025, 12:11:55 PM

It's always hard to get started and your first few videos are not going to get much attention, simply because Youtube doesn't know yet who to show them to. And the work you put the most work into will get the least attention, it happened to me and to many others I know and no idea why. I have a video I spent a week making it got like 60 views while something I made in a couple of hours and is not even scripted got over 2k.

And dislikes I can't even explain. I make guides and got dislikes on them while other people comment on it how useful it was. Often the dislike if not for you, but for example someone simply didn't like the topic itself and no matter how good or true your video is they will dislike it. I wish you could switch off this feature as I don't want to see that counter either, it's very disheartening and makes you doubt yourself. Probably the best you can do is to not look at statistics at the beginning.

As for screaming into the void... A good idea is to "post it and leave it". You made that video because it made you happy to make it. Embrace that feeling and don't look back on it. Eventually it will find itself an audience who resonates with it.

If you do want to look at statistics and grow your channel, if the numbers are important, then you need to learn how to read them and how to make the next video do better. Few tips like thumbnails, what tags to use, when to post the video, how long it is, using end cards, encouraging people to subscribe and like during the video etc.

One thing for sure: don't give up! There was a recent change to the Youtube algorithm and they are featuring more small channels on the home page, so this is a good time to get started and get discovered, just need to give it a little time.

If you want, share your channel link here, so we can have a look and might be able to give a few quick and easy advise on what you could do to make the next video get more views.

dianthus 1/18/2025, 1:36:31 PM

Lanah Tyra

Thank you so much for taking the time to type all this! I really appreciate it. I'm sorry that you've had to deal with dislikes too. I wish I could just ignore it at all, but even if I avoid the "analytics" tab I still have to deal with the view numbers and the like/dislike ratio on the "channel content" page (which is really useful to get direct links to my videos).

I'm worried that if I try to "grow" my channel, then 1) I will never be satisfied anyway, so I will keep on feeling sad 2) I will worry that whatever I do isn't good enough yet and never upload another video because it isn't "perfect".

I also don't have the budget to buy a better microphone, things like that... I'm worried that this means I have to stay very small anyway.

Anyway, here's my channel if you'd like to have a look:

https://www.youtube.com/@diandianthus

Things that I'm hoping to improve in the future:

an actual animated PNG and not a static one;
adding an endcard (something like "if you enjoyed this, like and subscribe")

These two are a bit locked until I can get more art made of my character (a friend is making the art for me for free and so I don't want to be always nagging them about it) although now that I think about it I can probably cobble something up already for the end card.

I used to have REALLY bad sound quality but now that I've find out how to do "sound ducking" in OBS I feel better about my sound quality.

I have no idea about tags, YouTube told me they weren't very important. I don't know about when to post either.

Things that I don't really want to change:

the "little creature shows you" part of the title (I don't want to do clickbaity titles is what I mean);
the length of the videos (I like to do whatever length feels right for me)
the lack of scripts (if I have to write up a script and then read it I will just wait until it's "perfect" and never do anything)

I don't know how much of that leaves room for improvement... I feel like I'm such a difficult person to talk to! Thank you for your time!

Lanah Tyra 1/18/2025, 2:44:48 PM

dianthus

Had a quick look and at first glance I love what I see, you got a new subscriber ;)

No need to change the title of the video, I think it is something unique and will help your content to stand out on the long run. And you have them all in a playlist which is great!

I think the sound quality is perfectly fine for someone who just started, there is no annoying background noise, the only thing to pay attention to is to make sure your voice is aways the loudest and doesn't get lost in the background music. I think you mostly got this right, there were just a few parts where you were talking a little bit quietly.

The thumbnails look great, if I look at the videos page it's very clear what type of games / content I can expect to see. You might want to make the letters a little bigger to make sure they are readable on small thumbnails as they show up on the homepage or mobile.

Varying length is perfectly fine, these are mostly gameplay videos so indeed it will be different length each time depending what you want to show in that session. Maybe the one about the latte art since it's under 1 minute would work better as a short? Worth giving it a try to make a vertical version of it and upload it that way. Or next time if you do something similar, you could try it.

And for such videos you don't need scripts, it's charm is the free talking as you go. There is constant narration which is good. If you don't do already, maybe one thing to try is to write down for yourself a few key points you want to talk about so if you suddenly don't know what to say, you can look at your list and grab an idea from there.

Getting custom art is very nice and certainly improves any channel but you don't need that for end cards! Youtube has a feature to insert your profile pic clickable as a subscribe button and one or two playlists / videos you select, so people can click on it. This way if someone is watching things full-screen don't have to click out of it, can just navigate to the next video or subscribe. Check the end of my video, for how it looks:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lx7kLFd6byY?feature=oembed

For new uploads it's in the last step of the upload process, or you can set this up for already uploaded videos, it's the "End screen" section when you go to edit the details of your video. If you want to take it further, you can create a static image like for example your Spirit City room with a text on it saying "Thank you for watching" and arrange it that the subscribe icon and videos will not cover out important parts. It's free and it's already a lot more than a lot of creators do (I've been on Youtube for years and only started doing it now because no one told me before what this was useful for....)

dianthus 1/18/2025, 3:39:49 PM

Lanah Tyra

Waaah thank you thank you thank you! You spent a lot of time helping me again, and I really appreciate that you took the time to even watch and comment some of them! Thank you again!

It's so reassuring to know that not everything is terrible. And you've given me some really concrete tips which I appreciate. I was already making a list "in my head" of what I wanted to say, but now I can try writing it down instead, maybe that can help. I will also look into those end cards!

All the Critter Café videos are Just About reward submissions, and so I never knew how to present them on the channel XD But now I realize, they deserve their own thumbnail and endcards too! I will add that to them, since YouTube allows to do it after the upload.

I have a question!! I struggle with the subtitles (transcript). For some reason, it's always really big and takes so much space on the screen. I uploaded it to a Notion and linked to it in the description, but I still worry that people won't find that nice to do and it will push some viewers away. Do you have any advice on that?

Lanah Tyra 1/18/2025, 4:59:30 PM

dianthus

Unfortunately I haven't done any transcript yet so don't know what to do with that one :(

dianthus 1/18/2025, 10:06:59 PM

Lanah Tyra

No worries! Thank you again for your hard work today! It means a lot!!

Makster 1/18/2025, 1:05:54 PM

By being content that you will find your people and it takes time+ comparison is the thief of joy

dianthus 1/18/2025, 1:24:42 PM

Makster

Thank you!

CMDR Henckes 1/18/2025, 1:13:33 PM

One advice is just keep it as a hobby, and post there to some people to see, like I do with gameplay, but try to win against the algorithm can make it exhaustive. So have fun making videos, and keep posting, some times it will have success and some times won't, and this will happen mainly because of the algorithms, and over time you will learn to deal with it, take your time and have fun.

As personal experience, I have similar experience in doing content creation, already had some tentative in doing but the Just About Rewards was my main motivation, and I noticed that I had so much success in Reddit sharing some creations of mine, in Twitter, Bluesky and Youtube I don't have the same notoriety, not even close. It because the Reddit is well focused in communities, so you can try to share your videos in there in related communities.

And remember it had to be fun to you, it is a hobby, let things that aren't fun for your job!

dianthus 1/18/2025, 1:25:20 PM

CMDR Henckes

Thank you! I did try posting on Reddit but apparently my account was too young or something like that and the post was removed. I will try again.

MURRRAAAAY 1/18/2025, 1:45:36 PM

I think you are being harsh on yourself my friend, also Remeber what you just said as you have kind of answered your own question -

“I'm not looking into monetizing them or anything, as I don't have the budget to acquire the right hardware or the time to learn video editing and make them "good".

I also kinda like that they're a bit crunchy, a bit DIY, a bit bad. That way, they're more "me".

And I really love making them!! I find that process super energizing. I usually make them in the evening, and then go to bed super happy.”

This is it. That’s all you need to do or concern yourself with is having fun in the process of making the content as it brings you so much joy and you are not looking to monetise / grow so worrying about what others think doesn’t matter.

And i mean you are being harsh as even if you do want to grow and monetise you are so new to doing this that i bet you are doing great, it takes a VERY long time to grow and build a community on any online platform so be kind to yourself.

Think of it this way, 20 people watching each one of your videos is like a classroom full of people watching stuff you have made just for fun because you enjoy it?! That’s incredible! Pat yourself on the back and don’t get yourself down.

Also if you love the community on here at just about why not share some of your content in relevant channels or discussions or posts and you may find some likeminded viewers?

Anyways hope this helps, just quickly typed this up on my phone anfter doing a workout lol and any questions I am always happy to help my fellow content creators if I can.

Also what Lanah Tyra said is spot on! 👍

dianthus 1/18/2025, 3:42:29 PM

MURRRAAAAY

Ahah, you are so right though, I do struggle with being too harsh on myself! I need to cut myself some slack.

Thank you for taking the time to type all this right after your workout, I appreciate it!

I was worried that sharing my videos here outside of rewards would feel like undue self-promotion but maybe not!

Horror and Cats 1/19/2025, 12:38:10 PM

Keep yelling as long as it's still fun and eventually the abyss will yell back. They more voices start yelling and before you know it, you've got a few dozen abyss walkers crawling out of the depths of the internet to join the community you kicked off

dianthus 1/19/2025, 1:24:19 PM

Horror and Cats

That is the dream, isn't it? I'd really love that! Thank you for encouraging me!