YouTube & Streaming: way more work than just switching the camera 'on'

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > YouTube & Streaming: way more work than just switching the camera 'on'

Gaspy Conana: Aug 1, 2004; this clown loves you

howdy thread! after a bit of severe burnout working on my game I've decided to start a streaming sideproject using a program I threw together in a game engine. here's the first experimental stream. I'd love any feedback or ideas as I'm pretty darned new to streaming, especially regarding interacting with chat. thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pbYBu99Llo

# ¿ Oct 14, 2023 23:16

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 10:15

Gaspy Conana: Aug 1, 2004; this clown loves you

Anyone have experience doing Kids content on YouTube? I'm working on a little animated series and I'm wondrin' how to go about doing it. YouTube's guides offer very little practical information.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2023 12:56

Gaspy Conana: Aug 1, 2004; this clown loves you

Leng posted:

I have a channel that does kids content. What specifically were you after? In my experience, there's a few extra restrictions you have (no comments etc) but by and large, the same principles apply.

For an animated series, make sure to organize in playlists. You could consider trying the podcast playlist feature which is new-ish (https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12751636) but I haven't personally tried these. The main feature seems to be discoverability via YouTube Music?

Thanks for the information! I guess I was looking for ways to make sure the stuff doesn't immediately tank because of an accidental violation of the algorithm's preferences. Terrified of investing so much effort and then being deprioritized because of mysterious algorithm stuff. Also things like short vs long videos, etc. The thing I'll be making is patterned after Mr. Rogers structurally, albeit more concise and with more of a song focus.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2023 12:43

Gaspy Conana: Aug 1, 2004; this clown loves you

Leng posted:

Ok so I see this a lot and it's the worst mindset to have going into YouTube or any other type of content creation for that matter.

The algorithm is not some whimsical chaotic entity bent on suppressing creators. The algorithm is a like-for-like recommendation engine with one purpose and one purpose only: to recommend videos that viewers will watch for as long as possible.

Every time you find yourself thinking about "the algorithm" force yourself to replace it with "my target audience".

No one's clicking? Your thumbnail/title doesn't appeal to your target audience. Could be that the thumbnail/title is crap, could be that you've made a video that nobody in your target audience wants to watch.

Retention tanking in the first 30 seconds? Your opening isn't resonating with your target audience. Could be your hook, could be how you've framed it, could be because the editing is off, could be because you take too long to get to the point, could be because your thumbnail/title paired with your opening makes it seem like bad clickbait, etc.

You can do this thought exercise for every single aspect.

Kids' series can do really really well if you nail your target audience and what they want. There is an animated YT series called "Donut and Ah Meow" that I binge watch with my daughter because it ticks all the boxes for me: it's fun for her, each episode is educational, and the whole thing is in Cantonese, which is great when I'm trying to reinforce speaking our native language at home.

TL;DR - so you can get some data, analyze it, then adjust and adapt and repeat all over again, instead of worrying about "the algorithm". 95% of the time someone complains about being suppressed by the algorithm, I go to look at their channel and there's like 10 glaring, basic mistakes they're making causing the issue of no views.

Maybe I should've been clearer with my language but everything you listed is exactly what I meant by 'the algorithm' and was more-or-less the kind of advice I was asking for. I'm no stranger to producing things with target audiences in mind that have been successful at reaching them. On Steam there are seemingly innocuous decisions you can make with how you structure your store page that'll hurt your visibility, so it follows that YouTube could work the same way. On Twitter as well, misspelling a word or including an off-site link will absolutely tank the visibility of a tweet.

Not being cocky but I have no doubts regarding the quality and appeal of what I'm producing. I've been researching and developing the process and tech of what I'm making for years. It's super high quality visually/sonically. There's very little in the way of 2 to 6-year-old music education available so if I'm smart with my word/tag choices I'll probably come up first for relevant searches. This still may only appeal to a limited audience, but it's something that I wished existed for my own kids that I haven't been able to find.

_{Also my son has been pretty into the early test versions which is a decent litmus because it's hard to break him away from familiar things.} :angel:

I just want the people who'd be interested in it to find it. I wasn't planning on monetizing or even running a Patreon but as per the advice of the other poster that seems pretty important for visibility so I'll have to figure it out.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2023 13:12

Gaspy Conana: Aug 1, 2004; this clown loves you

Leng posted:

Ok this context is more helpful. You're a little different because you're basically producing a web kids serial so you kind of have to work with the dictates of that format and I wouldn't suggest you allow YT to dictate how you produce those.

That said: YT algorithm likes watch time. It really, really, really likes long watch sessions. Now that it has started showing auto play muted footage, the first 30 seconds are even more important.

Kids content is a bit weirder in that the kids aren't the ones browsing for stuff, it's usually the adult in charge of the watch session. Mostly I find stuff either via search or word of mouth.

If your content is good, I'd focus on title/thumbnail, ranking for search and finding your target audience off site, like a parents Facebook group or wherever, and launching it there. There's a Cantonese cooking channel called Made By Lau that's closing in on 1.5m subs that I remember first seeing the guy post recipes in a Cantonese parents Facebook group that people LOVED, and then he did a video, and fast forward like a year and the channel had found its audience and it had become a full on family business.

There are multiple ways of monetizing but they all require an audience. Build your audience first.

Ah this is all great stuff, thank you! I hadn't even considered Facebook but skipping that seems really stupid now that you mention it.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2023 13:13

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > YouTube & Streaming: way more work than just switching the camera 'on'