By Sunil Saxena
I had read about new YouTubers posting videos on YouTube and getting no views. This used to surprise me till I set up my own channel and started posting videos on YouTube.
The experience was frustrating to say the least. My videos, which I thought were good, fared poorly on YouTube. The views were invariably in single digits. Very rarely, they went into double digits.
I reached out to my friends and relatives in a desperate bid to promote the videos. A few of them subscribed to my Fables and Riddles channel; a few even commented or shared the videos. But they were only being nice.
The videos remained unseen, unnoticed, as if they did not exist.
It was then that I decided to change my strategy. I decided to use the Promotions feature on YouTube.
I had noticed the Promotions button whenever I went to the YouTube Studio to upload a video. Initially I had avoided it. Like all new YouTubers, I wanted the growth to be organic, the traffic to come from viewers who found my videos on their home page or on the search page and returned again and again because they liked them.
Since this was not happening, I finally clicked on the YouTube Promotions button. YouTube asked me to state my goal. Did I want audience growth, more views or website visits?
I checked audience growth since that was my goal. Next, I was asked to select the video to promote and the countries where I wanted the video to be seen. Finally, I was asked to choose my promotion budget.
I went with Rs 3,500 budget that YouTube had suggested and a duration of ten days to run the campaign. I didn’t stand to lose much, I reasoned. I paid the money online, and Google after checking the video began the promotions.
Something magical happened
What happened next was nothing short of magical. In less than 24 hours I had 100 subscribers, and close to 600 views. This can’t be true, I thought, and would log in every three to four hours to track the video’s crazy growth.
In ten days, the video had clocked 6,388 views and given me 814 subscribers. I was over the moon.
I posted my next video and waited for subscribers to click. Nothing happened. The views stayed in single digits. I posted the next video. Again, it was the same story.
After a couple of weeks, I decided to promote my next video. The promotion did the trick. The views as well as the subscription counter went crazy.
By the time, the third promotion ended, my channel, Fables and Riddles, had amassed a huge number of subscribers.
But that was all. The traffic evaporated once the YouTube promotions ended.
I decided to do a reality check. Why was YouTube not showing my new videos to the subscribers?
A Bitter Pill
What I learnt shocked me and would certainly shock you.
YouTube Help page on promotions was a bitter pill. YouTube may have taken the money to promote my videos, but it was clear about one thing:
I wish I had read this before sinking my money into YouTube promotions. What is the point of getting views and subscribers if they are not counted by YouTube when it decides your eligibility to become a YouTube Partner.
So, all the numbers that I had accumulated were meaningless in YouTube’s eyes. Despite clocking 20,00 views on three promotions, my admin screen showed a measly 36 watch hours. The watch time that happened on account of the promotions was ignored by YouTube.
As it is, the threshold for YouTube Partner programme or YPP as it is called is very high. To become a partner your channel should have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours.
Clearly, if you are a small channel, YouTube Promotions is not the way. It is money down the YouTube hole.
Think of content and great videos. YouTube respects organic growth only.
But somebody needs to ask YouTube: Why does it take money to promote videos when it does not count those numbers?
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