 A couple months back I put out a video talking about some of the struggles some of the trials and tribulations I've been having on the channel and most of them were self-inflicted wounds So today I want to give you a very useful video on how things have been going these last couple months how you can Implement them into your own channel if you have one or if you're just a fan of me or hate me and want to see How things are going for the better or the worse you can celebrate afterwards. I'm here to tell you today First I want to say this Things are going great on the channel if you've been following me for a while You know that hasn't been the case in the last couple years I've been hemorrhaging subscribers every time I'd upload a video I would lose like six to ten on average never gaining a sub there was a Probably like a year or so back where I was at I don't know 58,000 subscribers. I dropped down to 56 I've eaked my way back into the 57 range now Subscribers in general don't really matter much the number is very Inflated especially if you've been on YouTube for over a decade or around that time or if you've just been off and on Over the course of ten years like I have the number has value initially But when you stretch it out a lot of people grow up and change their tastes or did they just move on and they Don't have any interest in you also your content changes and it pushes people away I had both things going on. I'm not gonna go into a whole woe was me thing about the channel and all the mistakes I've made I think I've probably done that enough in the past And I also want people to get value out of this take some advice and and implement it into whatever they're doing All right, so to do this quickly and simply I'm gonna give you the cons list number one I was losing subscribers Adam. You said that doesn't really matter subscribers don't matter Well, they do and they don't like I said over time that number seems to matter less But when you're losing subscribers on upload and you're not gaining additional ones That's a problem. That means that I'm turning off the people that were here and I'm not pulling anybody new into the fray So my videos aren't going out to the mass public They're staying within my community and my community is not liking what I'm doing It's normal to lose subscribers especially when you upload a video you might lose two or three or even five or six However, you should be gaining more than you're losing to make up the difference So if little Johnny and little Timmy aren't a fan of you, you know uploading another Marvel review They might bounce they might be DC guys and for some reason you can't just like both I guess online But then more people will come in, you know, maybe there's a Rebecca and a Sally I don't think I don't think women watch my show actually Hey, if you're a woman comment and then let me know because my analytics say otherwise It's a it's a sausage fest up in this thing. Anyway, I think you get what I'm saying if two leave two should come actually Three or four or five should come you need to make up that difference Second problem the views were horrendously bad when I was uploading videos for a while there for like a six-month period I was getting like 500 views maybe 700 if I was lucky It was rare when I had any sort of consistency on occasion I'd upload a video that would do well and it would get you know a couple thousand views, but there was no steady Consistency which meant again the subscribers are just randomly watching They're not they're not being referred to by YouTube to check out the new video because they haven't watched in a long time So because of how YouTube's algorithm works, it's not gonna feed you stuff. You have no interest in Especially over time. That's where it really gets bad So if you slack for months and months or years even like I did You're gonna your subscribers aren't even gonna know you're putting videos out Because if you go a month or two in between videos and they're not actively checking for you and they have a lot of different people in their feed YouTube's not gonna recommend them. Why would they let me come off my list for a second and say this I don't blame YouTube for what happened to my channel I blame myself and I think that's the responsible thing to do for the most part does YouTube screw up Oh, God. Yeah Google screws up all the time. Do they recommend things that are kind of toxic and awful for people to watch? You better believe it Buster. Are there secret little games probably being played over there? Yeah, I would guess so But for the most part, I don't think YouTube and the staff really gives a shit about people like me So they're just gonna let their algorithms and all their bots and stuff take care of it So back to my list. We have loss of subs loss of views Loss of revenue is number three Thankfully Thankfully, I don't rely on this as a source of income or at least I didn't for a long time now is a different story Because I have a full-time job. So this was just a passion. This was a hobby of mine now I had a gig with screen rant that was pretty profitable. I was doing a show called real rivalries It went for I think eight months and 31 episodes plus I was doing some documentary episodes for them and some shorts the all that stuff's gone Some of it my choice some of it theirs. They canceled real rivalries. It wasn't bringing in the numbers. They wanted It wasn't doing you know Which sucks because they did tell me before I told my wife that she could quit her job and stay home with our kids Like she wanted to they did tell me that the show was looking really good And they didn't see it getting canceled and then your future and then a month and a half later They did after my wife quit her job. It was a miserable job. It wasn't she wasn't making much money anyways So it's it's not all bad, but that really killed us financially. So Instead of her finding another dead-end job. She said Adam just put your time into this just really focus Treat this as a full-time second job instead of a part-time second job Which is a recommendation I'll give to you when we get to the pros list I get I mean, I guess it's not a pro or a con. It's just a recommendation. So yeah treat this like a full-time job If you want to make if you want to be really successful, you have to the lightning in a bottle flash in the pan Quick results are so rare now and yes It's possible to post two or three videos and somehow you just hit perfectly and you get like a million views That is not something you should rely on though revenue was coming in here. I didn't pay attention to it I had the gig over at ScreenRant, you know fueling what we were missing from my wife's job now that that's gone Now that the wife's job's gone. I had to turn back to my channel and say all right It's time to put the big kid pants on. What can we do to make this channel profitable and still maintain quality? Number four and the final point here is the pathetic use of other income streams that can jump off of YouTube I'm still not very good at this one. I'm working on it But these are things like the YouTube join membership button, which I highly suggest you you join or Patreon at patreon.com slash Adam does movies which I suggest you you join if you like me in the channel These are just a couple ways, but there's also, you know a merch store that I have but don't really use that's not updated I got it. I got to work on that There's tick tock that I have to be posting more regularly to just to pull in traffic to this channel You know Twitter Facebook, which I just can't see myself using I just that place sucks so bad So to summarize one more time on the cons lack of subs lack of views lack of revenue Lack of using any of the tools available to grow the channel. That's the bad stuff now Let's talk about the good news. It's been a little over two months since I implemented my new changes to the channel I'm gonna bullet point those for you as well I'm gonna talk about how things have been working out because of it number one and also the most crucial to the success here Focusing on one or two specific shows that are related to movies and are my actual voice This was big and this was very tough for me to do It's like giving up some of your children because they're not a success in your eyes or really in the eyes of anyone I have done Probably a dozen or more shows on this channel and they've seen various levels of success With movie feuds of course being the primary that I have I have a few videos that have over a million views I have you know a bunch of videos that have half a million views or more so that show isn't just Accidentally doing well people were drawn to it for many years now Lately recently in the last few I'd say that it's definitely tapered off and those interests have moved elsewhere That is where I think the algorithm does come into play and where people's interests Maybe have just changed away from that style. I don't know. I'm still focusing on them They're still doing okay, but I'm not too thrilled with how they're doing overall because they do take longer to make The biggest thing that really hurt me was getting rid of the cringe It was a satirical show. I did where I played a character named Khaleesi Grimes 82 He was a corporate shill. He loved everything He got paid to review videos and and basically just gush over anything and everything that came to him Or hate everything that was popular to hate by the majority that was the it was satirical It was I thought pretty obvious, but there was a lot of people There was a lot of people that thought that was me being me Especially new viewers that came in and then they would get confused by other forms of content And people that were here that didn't see my videos often would get randomly recommended a video and it'd be the cringe And they'd be like, what the hell is this? I didn't sign up for this guy Although I thought it was obvious and plenty of my viewers did It just wasn't smart to keep the show around on the main channel So then I pulled them and moved them to the second channel. That was a disaster. They lost all their views They weren't getting thrown into the stream of uh, you know the youtube videos because I think they saw duplicates in there Even though I pulled the other ones just a nightmare just a bad idea Now I still do the cringe once or twice a month and it's exclusive to youtube join members and patreon members It was One way that I could think of giving them something that was only for them and showing my thanks for for joining me there I mean, I don't do a whole lot else and I think they don't care They just they just want to show support But I wanted to give back somehow and that was the perfect way for me to do it So the cringe is exclusive. It's been exclusive for a few months It'll continue to be exclusive because otherwise. They just don't do it That's the other option Or I put it on a third channel, which I don't have time and I don't want to get you know I don't have to work up the subs again And it doesn't make sense to have so many random videos on the secondary channel I just yeah, it has to be where it's at So I cut all the fat essentially all the skit based videos anything where I'm being You know more playful and satirical I can still do that in my regular adam rance movies videos And I have started to incorporate some of those different flavors into it while retaining my true voice So people aren't confused So the main focus is just adam rance movies. It's on movie reviews You know reactions to popular things in the the movie stratosphere And then there's the movie feuds videos and that's it Those are the two shows and I even kind of blended the format so that they're more cohesive I'm not in front of a brick wall with a tv monitor now It has that kind of you know consistent blue background that people are familiar with You know what you're gonna get now. There's no surprises people don't like surprises for the most part And that's another piece of advice. I'll give you don't constantly shift up things It's okay when you first start out to try to find your footing and try to find what people are resonating with But don't do this five or six years in and keep throwing out new shows and confusing people That that's what I've been doing wrong for very many years and it's so sad It's so pathetic that it took me this long to realize it Because even me as a viewer works this way when I subscribe to a youtube channel I expect to see the one video I subscribe to I don't want 14 different shows thrown at me all that are Kind of different from each other. I want a familiar voice and someone that I can say you know what I get this guy He gets me. I want to hear from him I don't want to hear from khalisi grimes 82 that guy sucks. Wow. That was a very long first bullet number two putting out content constantly consistently getting out new videos My goal is to get out three to four to five videos every single week Monday through friday having a video queued up taking two days off on the weekend But pre-planning getting shit typed out Saying okay on monday. I got this coming Tuesday. I got this and actually filming the majority of it in one sitting So I don't go back every single day to the camera Have to make sure the lights are set up the audio set up all that stuff is a pain in the ass I just want to focus on Doing a set of videos and then get to editing. I know I'm gonna see a new movie on thursdays So it makes sense to film fridays and then get everything ready for the next week So get a get a few days ahead You know stay ahead of it for once instead of days behind like I always was doing in the past I know i'm gonna put out a movie for you every week or try to that's the goal So what popular videos are coming out that I can put head to head? Usually something's remade every week. So it's not too hard to figure that out But it's good to stay ahead of the game when I was losing subscribers and views. I looked back There were some years I think last year I put out one video a month on average. It was pathetic Like 12 videos over the year the year before that wasn't much better I was maybe getting out three videos a month at the best That's really sad and that's why I wasn't seeing that growth on the channel Having a game plan is essential if you want to make your channel grow If you want to see some form of viewership, you need to have consistent videos put out What's even more challenging about that is you can't let the quality dip So you film a bunch of stuff and you quickly try to edit it and spit it out That's not gonna work because you want your engagement up for my third bullet point, which is revenue Yeah, we just we just did a very beautiful segue into the revenue bullet point And then I slipped up on saying the word revenue So this whole thing is a wash polish needs to be there as I just demonstrated with me tripping over myself And then not redoing it and editing a beautiful cut together. I just left the garbage version in You have to keep people engaged if your retention rate isn't there your revenue is not there youtube sees Oh, these people are averaging like 20 seconds on your video and they're bouncing and you think we we should pay you for that This happens in a few ways one getting lively or in front of the camera There was many years where I look back and I think man, I am Really going through the motions here. This is not the most exciting thing to be watching to Having other things to look at besides my ugly mug putting in more video clips And I know it's tough on this video because it's probably just gonna be me talking most of the time This is for you get value otherwise You don't have to have you don't have to be looking at me, right? You can just have this on in the background while you're you know playing a video game or something Or maybe working on your youtube channel if you have one having the retention rate high is crucial And this is one of many things I actually learned while working for screen ran Not only did I get value from them from a revenue standpoint, but also just a learning standpoint You can always learn more about this shit Always the third thing I did to capture viewers and to make sure people that were subscribed Were watching and seeing me was to put myself on the thumbnails I've been doing this for a while But just having a more templated consistent look throwing review in the bottom left I know it's cliche so many people do it, but they do it because it works Again, I've said this so many times, but I'm my own worst enemy and part of me is just so Pathetically against the norm that I refuse to look at what works and do the same thing I want to be different I want to think outside the box and not just sit down in front of a shelf of videos And talk for eight minutes with with no video clips and somehow think that's gonna work Even though it doesn't work for anyone else. It's gonna work for me No had to put the ego down Take a look at what works elsewhere and start doing it But still having my own voice and that's a major thing that I can tell you The last thing was the social piece and I'm still like I said a little rough on that because time is still kind of a factor for me With two full-time jobs now plus being a father being a husband It's hard to keep it all going. But if you have the passion the drive and the energy Anything you can do it you can do it. I've been trying to post to tiktok a few times a week It's basically just splicing up the reviews. I've already done on youtube getting into that 60 second format I've also been putting those same videos on youtube via the youtube shorts They have to be under 60 seconds And that that works nice because it potentially goes out to new people And it brings them here to my channel and that's the goal at the end of the day It's not to make revenue on tiktok. I don't actually even know how that works. I haven't looked into it Although I am going to be doing a more exclusive tiktok slash youtube short Coming up where I'm basically inside of videos. I used to do them all the time They seem popular on tiktok. So you know why not? That's one of the things I did in the past here that not many other people were doing at the time So if if there's something that's being done that I had done already Hell, yeah, I'll jump in on that at the end of each video now I talked directly to the viewer more and I and I pushed my patreon I pushed the youtube join membership So that's another way that i'm trying to leverage those platforms further without being obnoxious about it I figure if you make it to the end of the video, you liked me enough, right? I'm not going to push it right away 10 seconds in which I am told is the smarter play But there's still that part of me that you know, I still want to have A quality show without the ads all over the place with all the changes implemented How is my channel going? It's going excellent and thankfully youtube has a nice little snapshot of the last 30 days of the channel To let me know how things are doing in 28 days It got almost 84 000 views across the channel Which is up just a tad from the average 24 000 to 32 000 it was doing prior That's that's incredible impressions went up 101 percent at 1.6 million impressions watch time improved It went up 34 percent to five minutes and 25 seconds on average Absolutely awesome. That's great results. This is the most insane number My subscribers went up 999 percent in the last 28 days The best part is the subscriber addition was only 183 Plus 183 subscribers. That's a gain of 999 percent. That's how bad I was doing on youtube So again, I increased 183. I'm still losing a ton of subscribers You know just just people that has subscribed years and years ago That are maybe starting to see new videos show up in their feed and like oh this asshole No hard pass That's all that means but i'm gaining enough new people to make up for that and those are the people that matter Those are the ones that are they're like, yes I like this stuff more of it and they're gonna get more of it because i'm not doing all the other stuff There's no new show. There's no movie boss showing up. There's no cringe. There's no Trailer trash. There's no car side reviews all these different random shows that I did in the past. They're gone And it's sad, but also I have to do it and it makes sense and clearly it's working. I'm not going to tell you what I'm making on youtube Believe me. It's it's not going to turn any heads But when I look back five months ago I would I looked at the number and I said, okay I want to double that number in the next month and I did and then I looked at that number and said I want to double that one in the next month And I did and now when I look at the new number I say, okay I need to bring this up a lot more How can I continue to grow it and so I look at what i'm doing and what's working? And i'm just gonna keep hitting it harder keep getting videos out that people want to see Keep the watch time up keep people invested keep people engaged and most importantly keep having fun with it When you put in the work and you see the numbers actually working in your favor It is such a beautiful thing Let me tell you after years of struggling because I just didn't want to go all in because I couldn't I had kids to raise I had a wife working Constant things juggling, but now with the extra freedom. I'm not going to waste it And I'm getting old I'm getting up there if you're a teen if you're just if you're just starting out Really take advantage of the time You might not have a lot going on. Maybe you have some college classes or maybe you're in high school But you have our believe me. I was in high school back in the day. I know how much time I had I made I made amateur videos all the time with my buddies. We had so much screwing around time It was remarkable. So take it if you're passionate and just put it to use Because in the future that's just gonna keep growing I had it and I lost it. I dropped the ball Goddamn kids goddamn family But now I'm picking it up and now I'm running again and I see I see the goals way down there Many years from now and I'm just gonna keep on running for it Sappy analogy aside. I want to thank you truly. Thank you for continuing to watch the show Continuing to support the show any way you can. I hope this was somewhat valuable I'm sure it ended up being very long I tend to ramble and talk a lot when I don't script out my stuff But I think it's more natural and people seem to enjoy it more than Than me constantly trying to come up with one-liners and jokes that may or may not land Anyway, I gave you a list of ideas things to try Stay consistent. Say true. Don't do a bunch of random one-off stuff. Don't experiment 24-7 It's okay to try new things But know what works. Look what other channels are doing Don't copy, but it's okay to take inspiration It's so it's okay to look over there and say, you know what this guy's continuing to grow I should probably pay a little bit more attention to what's working for him And see how I can take it and make it my own. As you probably know, I have plenty of more content coming out So stick around the channel. If you're new, please subscribe Like the video if you had some fun learn something maybe possibly and I'll see you around Thanks again for watching. This is one of those bumpers I was talking about where I promote some of my stuff. So again, I'm on patreon at patreon.com Slash adam does movies or you can hit the join right here on youtube If you just want to do a dollar though patreon has that ability whereas I think youtube starts at 4.99 Which is for that's a big roller, right? Or you could go to patreon and give me like 20 bucks a month That would be amazing. I'm on tiktok at adam does movies. You can find me on twitter at adam does movies You can find me around look for that handle or check me out on my second channel adam olinger that That's also a disaster that I probably should fix at some point, but Baby steps nothing grows overnight