31 YouTube Videos in 31 Days: Here’s What I Learned…

In early July, I made the crazy decision to participate in VEDA (Videos Every Day in August) on YouTube. Like every other goal I set, I just knew I wouldn’t make it to the end. I’ve been in Consistency Challenges where I agree to a blog post every day or posting on Instagram every day and I’ve failed miserably…

BUT… this time, I succeeded. I posted 31 videos in 31 days and I’m not going to lie, I cried on camera at the end of my last upload. Knowing that I was able to accomplish this challenging goal had me so emotional. After about two weeks, it wasn’t just my goal, it was OUR goal. My subscribers were invested in meeting my goal and so were my friends and family. This meant so much to me, especially on days where I just wanted to come home and go to bed.

SO… let’s get into the numbers. In order to monetize your YouTube channel (which means run ads on your videos and make money on views) you need 1K subscribers and 240K watch time minutes of 4000 hours of watch time. Anyone trying to grow a YouTube channel will tell you it can take a LONG while to get there! My original goal was to hopefully be able to monetize by the end of 2020.

THEN, VEDA HAPPENED…

I started my YouTube Channel in June and published my first video (a Target Haul) on June 9th. I posted about 4 videos in June (once per week), gained 68 subscribers and had 4,846 watch time minutes. In July, I posted 4 more videos (once per week), gained 385 subscribers and had 19,652 watch time minutes. A bulk of these subscribers came from my Instagram page because I announced my YouTube channel on my feed.

At the end of July, I had 453 subscribers, 8 videos up and just under 25K watch time minutes.

Here’s what happened in August:

In August, I posted 31 videos, I gained 881 subscribers and had 198,749 watch time minutes. I also gained 1,034 followers on Instagram (compared to only 336 in July). My subscribers on YouTube started looking for me on Instagram which was amazing! The growth was unbelievable and although I was tired quite a few of those days, I definitely don’t regret it.

Of course the numbers make me feel really good! At 231,597 watch time minutes, I am just a day or two away from being able to monetize my account! I grew an amazing community of 1.3K subscribers and can’t wait to create more videos and grow even more!

The downside to creating a goal like this was definitely the loss of time. I was exhausted some night, but still had to show up. I work a full-time job and didn’t take any time off. I also failed to prepare. I as never “ahead” with videos, I was always shooting the day of, for the night of video. And lastly, I was unable to respond to all the comments because I was putting up content every single day. Although they performed well, the videos weren’t my proudest work.

Would I do it again? ABSOLUTELY (not for this month though). While it was tough!! I forced myself to find ways to be more creative and think on my toes.

So now what… I’m taking this week off and working on a schedule to create videos going forward. It’s looking like Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.

Here are my THREE BIGGEST TIPS to growing your YouTube Channel.

(1) If YouTube isn’t your primary social media platform, wait until you’re already successful somewhere else before jumping to YouTube. Having 17K followers on Instagram (with good engagement) allowed me to push that traffic to my YouTube channel. I normally tried on clothes in my IG stories, but instead I showed them on YouTube. While still keeping my IG community engaged, I was able to quickly build a platform on YouTube by enticing my IG audience to watch my videos.

With a small following on Instagram, it would have been hard for me to grow both at the same time.

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(2) Don’t create videos on what YOU want to see, create for your audience. This page isn’t for YOU, it’s for your subscribers. When creating, think about them and how they will enjoy and benefit from watching your page. Don’t think about going viral. In fact, stop trying to go viral and focus on the work.

(3) Consistently create quality content. That means clean background, attractive thumbnail, non-blurry videos, organized posting routine and much more… It’s important that you show up, when people are expecting you to.

Leave Any Questions That You Have In The Comment Section Below. My 120 Day YouTube Update is coming up next month and I’ll be sure to answer them.

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Thank you so much for reading!