TheWillofDC, Our Newest Columnist Answers: How Do I Get Big on YouTube?

By 03/26/2010
TheWillofDC, Our Newest Columnist Answers: How Do I Get Big on YouTube?

TheWillofDC[Meet TheWillofDC, Tubefilter’s newest columnist, who brings his mastery of the inner workings of YouTube’s movers and shakers from his popular YouTube channel to you, our fine readers in a weekly dish every Friday. Will has two weekly web shows—’YouTube News’ and ‘YouTube Winners and Losers’—that appear on his YouTube channel and of course right here on Tubefilter News every Friday. Questions for Will? Leave a comment below.]

How Do I Get Big on YouTube?

YouTube - PianoChatImprovThe first question asked on YouTube by its content creators is, “how do I get big on YouTube?” Apart from time traveling back to 2006-07 and starting your vlogging career then, the universal answer is SLOWLY. Everyone starts out trying to put out the best content they can, networking and collaborating with as many YouTubers (especially big ones) as they can. An eternity of time is spent thinking about the best day/time to upload the video and what category to use in order to minimize the competition with other content creators.

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Then one supremely talented musician (PianoChatImprov) comes along (see below), takes the internet’s dirtiest and gluiest pleasure (Chatroulette), makes it family friendly with a viral hit skyrocketing him to within striking distance of the top 100 most subscribed users of all time, all within 1 week. Thus effectively adding a new answer to the ‘how to get big on YouTube’ question: Have a viral hit so powerful that people want to see more of the exact same.

Viral videos are a dime a dozen these days and while each can garner their millions of views, the owner never sees any real channel success in the way of subscribers. CopperCab had an amazing viral hit and he only stands at 60 thousand subscribers even after releasing a handful of other videos. This is because by nature viral videos are videos people want to see once (or a half ton times) but then move on, totally uninterested in what else the user has to offer.

PianoChatImprov has turned the concept of viral videos on its head this week by proving that if a video has enough creative talent and originality the audience which normally moves on to the find the next laughing baby or dancing cat will be hooked into having the patience to wait around for the next release. Chris Crocker accomplished something similar with his “leave Brittany alone” video. Yet unlike PianoChatImprov, Chris had many videos already uploaded before that hit came out and already had decent exposure. Also Wafflepwn could easily be credited with paving the way for pianochatimprov in the way wafflepwn took their immensely successful viral hit which immediately had people wanting to see more and in turn offered it consistently. Although it took wafflepwn much longer to reach the top 100 and subsequently had more than 1 video out when they accomplished it.

By the end of this weekend PianoChatImprov will be in the top 100 and the only other user to get there faster was TheStation, which had almost every big name youtuber promoting it and held the community on the edge of its seat waiting to find out more.

The big question for PianoChatImprov is, will he be able to sustain this? With wafflepwn, evidence suggests he will. Yet he must make sure his videos (like wafflepwn) are not stylishly any different that his first or he loses the entire reason people subscribed. YouTubers are a fickle crowd and right now they CRAVE more of his work so he shouldn’t keep them waiting much longer but how long, if ever, will it last until the videos get over played like a top 40 hit and people can no longer stand to see it. In my opinion he has at least a year to work with where every video will be a major hit. To give some context wafflepwn’s viral hit came out 10 months ago and right now their past 24 hour sub gain is about 300 less than their average daily sub gain from the past 30 days.

Other Movers & Shakers This Week

A new top Asian female! The standard bearer for the beauty/make up guru community Michelle Phan has passed the Australian comedienne Natalie Tran (Community Channel). It was only a little over a year ago that YouTube as a whole was discovering the talent and enormity of the guru community and now more than a handful of gurus have broke onto the top 100 and Michelle looks poised to overtake VenetianPrincess to become the most subscribed female on YouTube. So much of YouTube is a personality game and the gurus have perfected this with a hypnotizing style of talking softly and directly to the user making it feel like a very intimate experience. This is how the most successful gurus have been able to, with their base audience of knowledgeable make-up loving girls and guys, expand to find community wide success with users who would have never thought they’d watch a 10 minute video about make up (myself included).

A big concern for current YouTubers trying to find exposure is the power of collab videos, do they still have the ability to bring in the views and subscribers? This week ShaneDawsonTV and makemebad35 answered that question. Damian (makemebad35) averages any given week between 3-5 thousand subscribers. This past Saturday he teamed up with shane to make a hilarious video about what “pisses them off” which at almost 2 million views was able to score Damian almost 30 thousand subscribers. Need exposure? Start messaging Shane Dawson the best ideas you have.

Another example from this week is SwiftKarateChop and Onision. Swifty has been rather stagnant on the top 100 recently hovering around the mid 80’s and Onision recently cracked into the 200k sub club and looks to break into the top 100 very quickly. They collabed on a video on Wednesday (above) and swifty’s sub gain for Thursday was 870 while the same day last week had 370. Not as drastic as the Shane/Damian example but on youtube every bump helps. As for Onision his Thursday was 1800 compared to 1000 last week. A big part of YouTube is starting a wave for yourself and riding it as long as you can, which u can bet these two hilarious guys will be doing.

That was the big news with the movers and shakers of YouTube this week. Yet the beauty of YouTube is nothing is every secure, anything can happen. Return next week and every Friday to get your weekly dose of the biggest news in YouTube including the movers and shakers for that week.

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