You started a YouTube channel, published one or maybe two episodes and…. nothing actually happened. The videos have only a couple or a hundred views and not many comments. But you thought your YouTube channel would immediately have a huge reach. Well… that’s not how it works anymore, unfortunately. So, how do you currently develop a YouTube channel? Continue reading….
Growing a YouTube channel is like growing a tree.
Imagine that you want to have some special kind of tree in your garden. You must first buy the seeds, arrange a pot, soil and whatever this tree needs. Your YouTube channel is such a tree. First you come up with a name, add a YouTube banner and a logo – you get ready to have a channel.
When you plant a seed, you don’t expect that it will grow into a tree with fruits in just a few days. That’s impossible. Especially if this type of tree is unique, and you need to take special care of it. Just like about your channel. A channel also requires you to work at it, namely to publish videos, to be active, so that over time this channel can grow and bring you some profit. It’s impossible to make money on YouTube, where a potential sponsor doesn’t yet know exactly what will happen on the channel and how engaged your audience is.
Just as you regularly take care of your plant, you need to regularly take care of your YouTube channel and, most importantly, your audience.
What do you need to take care of to make your channel start growing?
First, you should think about who your target audience is, what kind of people you want to reach with your episodes. When you speak to the camera, you are really speaking to those people, so keep that in mind. It would also be good to know what you want to talk about on this channel and have a list of what kind of episodes you want to make.
Plus, it’s a good idea to publish a few episodes in different styles to see what will interest your target audience the most. Try different versions of thumbnails for your episodes, because this also has an impact on whether someone clicks on your episode. So treat the publication of the first episodes as tests to find what people want to watch, but also what you want to create and how you want to do it.
The first stage of development of your channel is to test, analyze, implement changes, improve.
Examples of episodes we have produced for our clients
![Videoproductie voor YouTube - Johnny Gaat Vintage Kanaal](https://www.multiflow.media/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Videoproductie-voor-YouTube-Johnny-Gaat-Vintage-Kanaal-.png)
![YouTube aflevering gemaakt voor Bonapi - Video portfolio](https://www.multiflow.media/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/YouTube-aflevering-gemaakt-voor-Bonapi-Video-portfolio.png)
![YouTube aflevering - videoproductie voor Otovo Nederland (1)](https://www.multiflow.media/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/YouTube-aflevering-videoproductie-voor-Otovo-Nederland-1.png)
Keywords also matter.
Do research on keywords related to the topics you discuss in your episodes and implement them into the titles and descriptions of the episodes. If you want people to come across your episodes, you need to understand how they search for this type of content, what words they use.
You already have a plan for your YouTube channel - what's next?
Publish regularly. This is the key to success. And yes, it takes a lot of work and time in the beginning. But you can’t have a big YouTube channel without putting work into it. If you get people interested in the first episodes, and then you don’t publish anything for the next months, people will quickly forget your channel.
Record several episodes in advance. Prepare everything for the next month or two, and then schedule the publication of at least 1 episode per week. Preferably at the same time and on the same day. So that people start associating when they can expect a new episode from you.
Start promoting your channel. Just adding an episode to YouTube may not be enough to get people to know about your channel. To support your channel’s growth, you can create short videos of your episodes and publish them on other social media or on YouTube Shorts.
Stand out. Taking inspiration from other creators is ok, but you can’t copy and create the exact same content and hope that your channel will be as big as other creators. They too had to go through this process of development before their channel started to achieve such big results. They also worked for several hours at a time on a single episode.
Be yourself, be real, but also be some kind, stand out in some way. Make people associate you with something: a form of content, a color, an element in a video, the way you say hello, your clothes… After some time, there will be a group of people who will like your content and what kind of person you are, what you have to offer.
Respond to comments and interact with your audience. Encourage them to act; leave those comments, leave likes, recommend your episode. People will ask you various questions in the comments. You can then record a Q&A episode. Your audience will also give you ideas for future episodes.
To grow a YouTube channel, you need PATIENCE. Just like to grow beautiful flowers on a tree.
It is impossible to magically speed up the process of blooming a tree. In the same way, there are no magic tricks that will make your channel very big in the first months after its establishment. Of course, there are exceptions, but…. if someone’s channel is growing very fast in a short period of time, it is likely that its owner has already built a community on Instagram or TikTok. And then this community switched also to the YouTube channel of this creator.
That’s why it’s so important to build a community, because it’s the people who then generate views or likes. Various companies want to cooperate and advertise on channels that have their own community. And this is the way by which many creators make money.
Since you decide to open a channel on YouTube, it means that you want to create something for others = viewers. If you respect them and are honest with them, they will help you develop your channel and grow.
You have to be patient, that’s the truth. Every big YouTube creator needed several years to get to this point. Also remember that you don’t have to do everything by yourself. There is a team behind the big channels, and not just one person.
If you already have too much work on the channel, it may be worth thinking about an extra person to help you, such as a camera operator, editor, SEO person or graphic designer for thumbnails.
We can support you...
… in the whole process of creating and developing your YouTube channel