ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Why My YouTube Video Went (Kinda) Viral
And how I plan to do it again.
One of my YouTube channels is a companion to a hobby-related niche site I built. And a couple months ago, one video became a smash hit with the algorithm.
It got recommended like crazy. We’re talking hockey-stick growth, out of literally nowhere. Not exactly Mr. Beast numbers here, but compared to my usual 500–5,000 views per video, this was shocking in the best possible way.
That’s almost three times the views of my other ten videos combined!
It shot me from 100-something subscribers well past the 1,000-subscriber mark (so I could monetize the channel), and is on track to be the main source of $200 in ad revenue this month.
So how did it happen?
I don’t know any better than you do what’s inside the black box of the YouTube algorithm. Otherwise all my videos would’ve done this well!
But I can take an educate guess about what worked, which I hope will help you produce more YouTube hits of your own.
It presented an unconventional take
There’s some standard advice in this hobby that’s prudent if you’re a hardcore enthusiast. It’s impractical and even an obstacle for the rest of us…yet it’s broadly recommended and rarely disputed.
So, I challenged it in a levelheaded way that spoke to people’s “pain points” caused by the conventional advice.
This way, it tied into a popular topic in the hobby (which the algorithm could pick up from viewers’ history) without rehashing what folks have already seen.
The title was accidentally great copywriting
I’m not exactly a copywriting guru, but I can get a click or two when I put my mind to it.
In this case, the title implies you’ve been told wrong and that you’ll benefit from what you’re about to see. In other words, what you’ve taken for granted isn’t the best approach after all. It’s a mild, non-scammy version of the “everything you’ve been told is a lie…” angle.
But it did this without being melodramatic and without triggering the yeah right reflex that those “one weird trick” headline elicit. It’s the sort of thing any enthusiast (or even casual participant) would just have to click when it comes up in their feed.
It applies to (almost) everyone who does this hobby
I’ve published a couple other videos addressing misconceptions in this hobby, but they didn’t too well. In hindsight, they were too niche.
But this one spoke to a universal aspect of the hobby. It’s like the difference between “the truth about how to do squats” and “the truth about how to do squats at 24 Hour Fitness.” They’re basically the same concept, but the number of people who can relate to the latter is minuscule (or so I assume).
Can I replicate this? Can you?
Done right, challenging convention has a lot of upside because it taps into a curiosity factor and even a very mild sort of fear. What might be in the average viewer’s history and recommendation feed right now? What would shed new light on the same topics? How can I promise more enjoyment/less unease in the headline?
I’m confident that planning videos around those questions will lead to better results as I continue building this channel.
This unexpected success will also help indirectly. It increased my subscriber base, meaning more exposure, quicker testing and results, and therefore faster iteration and improvement for future videos.
Time will tell, but I’m grateful for this glimpse of what kind of videos are big hits in my channel’s niche. It’s also a terrific confidence boost and motivation to stick with video production — something I’m very much a newbie at.
Have you ever had a random smash hit on YouTube? Please leave a comment, because I’d love to hear what you learned from it!
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