For years I told friends trying to make it on YouTube, “Just post every day.”
It was only recently that I had a brand with which I could take my own advice.
I started my TikTok on November 1st, 2022. A day later I set up a YouTube channel with the same name and an automation so all my TikToks are simultaneously released to YouTube Shorts with no TikTok watermark.
I had an opportunity.
The opportunity: to take the advice I had so enthusiastically issued to friends for years.
I told my friends, “If you post daily, eventually the YouTube algorithm will reward you for it. Trust me, this is how it works.”
It’s May 4th as I write this from a comfy European café and I have not missed a day of posting since starting the TikTok and YouTube channels. No days missed. Hot streak.
And let me tell you – it didn’t work like I planned.
Well, it did, but it’s taken longer than expected. A lot longer.
Let me show you what I mean:
BOOM!
It’s as if the algorithm started feeling bad for me or something.
Pity or praise, I don’t care. I’m getting new subscribers daily.
Here are my counts at the time of writing:
TikTok: 32,400 Followers
Instagram: 1,263 Followers
Twitter: 183 Followers
YouTube: 120 Subscribers
Facebook: 75 Followers
YouTube is 2nd to last, but if it continues to increase on a percentage basis like it has been, it will be #1 in no time.
So why the sudden increase?
Quality vs. quantity
YouTube started rewarding me with more views on April 7. A week later my quality increased when I started shooting my face with my front facing phone camera (with higher resolution).
Since the increase in views started a week before the increase in production value, I mostly attribute what’s happening to my consistency.
Perhaps YouTube just needed time to figure out who would be most likely to resonate with my content.
Still, there are plenty of criticisms that can be thrown at me, so I want to address them.
I made the below video about this, so the criticisms I will share are comments on this video across various platforms.
Criticism
“Sorry but when you described 10 subs to be skyrocketing you got me.”
My response
The increase I’ve gotten is on a percentage basis. On April 6, after posting daily since November 2, I had 32 subscribers. Now, May 4, I have 120. In 28 days, I’ve nearly 4X’d the subscriber count I accrued in the prior 156 days.
Increasing by 375% over the last month while maintaining a day over day increase is noteworthy, in my humble opinion.
If I can keep up a trajectory like this, I’ll be in the thousands and tens of thousands of subscribers in no time.
Running simple math, if this was to keep up, which I’m sure it will not, in two months I could be at 1,687.5 subscribers. 2 months after that… 23,730.5. 2 months after that (6 months from now), 333,710.1 subscribers.
Crazier things have happened.
Criticism
“No. The secret is having actually unique high quality videos people remember so when they see another video of the same person they can look forward to it.”
My response
There’s a famous study where two groups of photography students are assigned different tasks.
Group one is told to focus on quality and take the best photos they can; really hone in on quality. Group one can only turn in one photo – their best photo.
Meanwhile, group two was graded on the amount of photos they turned in, with 100 photos getting the student a score of 100.
Which group turned out the best quality photos? Well, it wasn’t the group assigned to do it. It was the group assigned to take a lot of photos. Why? The old adage: practice makes perfect.
I think YouTube builds this effect into its algorithm. It weights accounts by consistency because it knows that this yields quality. Then after around half a year (5 months in my case), it shows videos to more people to test engagement.
This is different than TikTok which tests videos from new accounts right from account creation.
So this would explain why the increase in views started (April 7) before I dramatically increased product value (April 14).
Criticism & response
One more.
Conclusion
Look. At the time of writing, I only have 120 subscribers. I’m fully aware it’s not a lot.
However, I’ve been looking at the YouTube Studio dashboard every day for the last six months so I’ve become hyper tuned in to any changes in the viewing habits of my content.
This last month has been different and if this continues, the effects will be materially tangible. Life changing.
I will do my best with both quantity and quality to ensure it does.
