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41 Comments

Is youtube still worth it?

Does anyone have experience putting content up on youtube? Is it still worth it in 2022?

  1. 4

    Depends what you mean by worth it. I had a channel for fun with about 7k subs, and it was the most fun I'd ever had. It's great to have a community around you that gives you support. One of the best things I've ever done. ROI - $0 and a lot of happiness.

  2. 4

    if you have fun doing vids then yes...

    1. 2

      no one else mentioned the "fun" angle! I like it...thats how I landed on working on ucona.io, even tho it probably wasn't as lucrative as some of my other ideas. probably not the greatest mindset to make decisions off of, but can't really change that about myself 😆

      1. 3

        i mean you can become rich from anything. there are so many e.g. project management tools or to-do lists ... some of them are doing really well. if you can endure the stress of not being successful right away and work really closely to your audience than its okay to pick something apart from property or payments .. or whatever is making a large turnover at the moment.

        ucona looks nice, but i would not use it if you want my feedback :)

        edit: looks pretty cool to be honest. i would use it but really rarely i guess, because i am using heroicons mainly and i have like 20 icon packs bought back in the days with thousands of icons.

        1. 1

          appreciate the feedback! :) What I found in my experience was that there were tons of icon search tools out there (nounproject, icons8, iconfinder etc.) but they had no context to make them match your existing set so you would spend hours hunting for the perfect icon that matched...and then there were tons of icon sets out there but I would always end up needing something that they didn't have and would end up back at the searching apps. So was trying to create something in the middle that would merge both of those problems...on one hand there are tons of these sets / search tools out there (paid and free), so theres clearly a demand...but like you said its not on the forefront of your mind so I have the challenge of educating people and making it so simple that its a no brainer. Hence the youtube questions above 😂...its been fun to build at least tho!

          1. 1

            interesting. just showed it to my girlfriend since she is a ux designer and from now and then she is making her own icons since sometimes its hard to find something that fits perfectly. i think you can build a bit of a story around it and maybe pump up the landingpage (even though the explaination video thing is pretty much saying it all)

            1. 1

              appreciate that insight 🙏

  3. 2

    I think so. I recently just started a channel and I’m hoping to go all in. I think it’s more long lasting and evergreen than other “in the moment” social platforms. It’s more consistently used to build a long term audience and community.

  4. 2

    In my experience at the day job, very much yes.

    It's basically a massive video search engine. I take the same approach and now it's our 2nd biggest organic channel.

    For my indie project (an interview show). We'll see.

    Interestingly I put out one video, did a little promotion, and got 48 views. Not much in the big scheme of things but for a podcast, having more than 25 listens is actually 'better than average' >_>".

  5. 2

    We've been working with YouTubers under our agency https://twitter.com/9_by_16 and can tell you that it's definitely worth it if you're playing a long-term game.

    The hack right now is to repurpose your content on TikTok and other short-form video platforms and redirect traffic to your YouTube channel.

    TikTok will give you the quick boost you need and some of those viewers will become your long-form video viewers too.

    This hack will give you the best of both (Short and long-term) worlds.

  6. 2

    Two reasons I think it is:

    1. There is always going to be a niche to capture, and a niche within that niche. Even for things like coding/design/etc where there are tons of tutorials already, scour the comments and find gaps in the existing content. Since people are already asking for it, there's an audience (and communication channel) already built in

    2. Probably more importantly, teaching consistently proves the best way to learn new things. By teaching others, you may unlock ideas in yourself that you would've otherwise missed

    1. 1

      I agree with you that there is always going to be a niche to capture, and a niche within that niche. I think this is especially true for things like coding/design/etc because there are already so many tutorials out there. By teaching others, you can help them fill in the gaps in the existing content and learn new things yourself.

  7. 2

    If you are making videos/ how-to's, I would say yes! Why not use them to how people who you are?

  8. 2

    I think it depends on what 'worth it' means to you.

    If you're looking for a quick influx of views/attention or clicks I'd say definitely don't try youtube.

    Youtube is a long, slow, heavy time cost grind. With the possible reward of having a sustainable channel with decent revenue streams (given you grow large enough).

    I've been studying the best traction channels for long term growth (5yr+) and have selected youtube for that very reason. I've just kicked off a new indie dev focused channel if you're interested

    1. 1

      Ya that makes sense, and I'll definitely check it out 👍

  9. 2

    Yes, but it probably won't result in sales unless you have a ton of traffic to your website from it. As a way to build brand trust definitely, people will see that you are a real person.

    It takes a lot of time to make quality content, so you have to take that into account too. If you have the budget to run ads, you should try creating some educational content to YT, and then use that in ads as a top of funnel/awareness type of thing. Afterall, they say people need to see you a couple of times before they actually take some kind of action.

  10. 2

    I do content marketing through YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RPGPlayground

    In another post you compared it against TikTok and Twitter. So let me tell you how I see the difference: TikTok and Twitter posts last for a few hours, YouTube videos last for years. In that sense it's evergreen content, just like normal SEO content marketing.

    So it all depends on what you want to achieve. YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine, so if you have content that people search for, go for YouTube. YouTube search is also the easiest way to get your video's and channel noticed.

    I haven't cracked the code on Twitter or TikTok myself, but it seems you really need 'viral' content for that. For Twitter, I think it's even possible that you already got to have a following to be successful. YouTube and TikTok have celebrities that those platforms created, Twitter not. On Twitter, the most popular accounts are famous for other reasons.

    1. 2

      Ya thats a great point about the evergreen aspect of it. I was thinking about some content I wanted to put out, and as I only have 3 followers on twitter lol, that content would go unseen even if I gained a huge following down the line. probably better to put it out on youtube and just cross post to twitter or something. Appreciate the insights!

      1. 2

        Wait, I almost forgot: I made a video with 9 tips for starting your YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/h65LM0kUmTE?t=106

        Now I'm not the biggest YouTuber myself, but at least my tips seem to work :D. A user WeebyCraft commented on my video that it helped start his channel. He started 4 months ago and now has 11.7k subscribers with 18 videos, which is incredible!

      2. 2

        Yes indeed. And really try to target keywords that people search for.

  11. 2

    I think it definitely can be if your videos are solid. I'm still discovering "newer" youtubers that the algorithm is recommending me.

    Even my inactive channel still pulls in some views for content I made over a year ago.

    1. 1

      That's really good to know! I'm glad the algorithm is still recommending newer YouTubers, that means it's still possible to grow a channel on the platform.

  12. 2

    In my opinion it is a great platform and everything depends on how you are using it :)

  13. 2

    Once I heard the story of Mr. Beast I got pretty convinced that yes, it is still very much worth it. There are new creators coming up all the time. It's not too late.

    The Mr. Beast Story:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8VcUnz3nVc&ab_channel=ColinandSamir

  14. 2

    Can you elaborate on your goals?

    1. 1

      Mostly as a form of content marketing. I feel like I heard more about it a couple years ago, and now it seems to be mostly tik tok, twitter etc. Was curious if people are finding it to not be a great ROI anymore

      1. 2

        I absolutely think it's still viable. YT drove tons of traffic and conversions to my last company. motionarray.com

        We were making tutorials for video editors and motion graphics artists.

        I think having a presence in all platforms is the way to go.

        1. 1

          Ya appreciate that! I was envisioning similar types of content (tutorials etc.) so that sounds like the way to go. Did you find a specific brand account was important or were you just posting on personal accounts?

        2. 1

          wow you co-founded motion array! That's awesome! I actually started something similar and with that same strategy. Although at the time I don't think any of the big marketplaces were doing it for DaVinci, but now they have started too.

          I guess the main difference would be that my aim was never subscription based. But I guess if one has a team of people developing elements constantly then it makes sense.

          Was youtube a direct sales channel? Or did most sales come from the Ads, and Youtube was a way to add brand trust?

  15. 1

    It can be a very good way of bringing people to your page or product if you use the right hashtags and share in the right spaces. It may take a while to start getting shown to viewers by YouTube, but eventually you could be surprised by how many people reach your website from your YouTube page.

  16. 1

    Yea but it is a long term play. You have to be patient and consistent with the content creation

  17. 1

    Yes, it is 100%. If utilized well with proper strategy based on your niche, it may give tremendous results. Moreover, paid campaigns on YouTube also do wonders in helping you get genuine leads for your business.

  18. 1

    Yes, YouTube is still worth it in 2022. YouTube #shorts can be amazing. As it's new they are promoting smaller channels so it can give you crazy good social reach.

    We use our own tool (https://vidon.ai) to repurpose all our blog posts into short form videos to use on YouTube + Tiktok.

  19. 1

    YouTube has a very large user base, which is perfect for video marketing. In addition, if the video you put on YouTube is indexed by Google, a portion of your potential customers can also find your video when using Google's search engine, and its exposure is very substantial. But no matter what platform you publish your content on, it requires your patience and interesting creativity.

  20. 1

    It really is. It is one of the only platforms that will get you views even over time. Your old content will still be viewed at scale.

  21. 1

    1000% don't expect results in less than a year of grinding through. It takes time on YT

  22. 1

    In my opinion, I think it is as world is moving towards digitisation it's one of major source of income in this digital era where a person can earn a handsome amount through this yes absolutely no doubt YouTube is still worth it. Check that you can also feel the difference https://bbnerd.com/

  23. 1

    I would think so. I have consistent traffic from videos I haven't even created, from youtubers who mention my app. If I created my own vids I'm sure it'd be worth it.

  24. 1

    I think it's still a great platform if you have a good plan on how you want to proceed with your content and your target audience. With the competition, you have to think of videos that are unique, too, so viewers will get excited to the things you're gonna upload next.

    1. 1

      Ya thats a great point, appreciate it!

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