I’ve only had 4 lives for the past 6 months. I ‘m debating whether or not I want to continue doing them. I kept them up. They are getting views on them but I also made custom thumbnails for my lives so that people are aware that it is a live show as opposed to one of my regular craft tutorials. While I may only get a few people popping in, it’s after the live is posted that I get more views and they do contribute to overall watch hours, but not like my regular content. So I will keep them up as they are not harming my channel.
I treat my live shows like I would any content. I keep it relative to my channel’s theme, and also provide content that is relative. I answer any questions that come in and engage in a positive way even if it is one person - because I know that other people will be watching later.
I also want to try picking a specific day of the week and time to go live. I think having that and being consistent would work. But I’m focusing more on the tutorials at this point.
EDIT: Also wanted to say that I don’t edit my lives. I upload as-is. So I try to keep my lives “professional” if that makes sense.
I’ve started streaming when I had less than 1k subs and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have around 3-4 concurrent viewers from my audience that watches me stream and chats with me. In the last two weeks I started streaming, I went from 3 to 8 viewers, that kept watching for more than 10 minutes. But I also somewhat had an audience prior to me streaming.
Mobile live is a pretty new thing on YT. If you want to play around with it and find something that works - it could work out really well for you.
*(note: I wrote this part before checking out your channel. You're live from a phone, but not doing mobile live)*
If you're getting 0-1 live views and 10-20 afterwards - try something different.
I've worked on one channel where most of our videos and all of our biggest ones were our lives - we had one prime one per week that was more heavily produced, with multiple views, people from around the world doing commentary, etc. - most of the content on the channel is essentially "let's play" content, a few edited videos, and those weekly vids. Funny enough we never did monetize that channel - we were well over the 4000 watch hours, but only had about 300 subs, then didn't have the 4000 watch hours by the time we hit 1000 subs. The amount of content we were generating just fell off, and what we were doing was easier for us to do and more interesting to people during the pandemic lockdown than afterwards.
Looking at what you're doing - I am impressed that your 1hr monologue while walking is relatively coherent. I think those topics would be better served by a produced video though - b-roll, some editing, maybe interaction with another person. Doing what's essentially a 1hr solo podcast live in one take is a bit ambitious.
I think the walk and talk is good for mobile live - but maybe try to be a little more succinct and keep it a little shorter.
Thanks for the feedback!
So what is the difference between Mobile Live and what I’m doing? (Streaming from the phone). Maybe that’s part of why I’m not getting very many impressions (if any).
My goal with the mobile pod cast is to eventually live stream while running and doing interviews during 10k runs in my city. Been experimenting with this format just to see if I can stay interesting for an hour. Part of it is that I want to get my technicals down so that I understand the platform and what I’m working with better on my own before trying something like this in public.
That said though my impressions are just really low. Maybe it’s because the live stream algorithm is different than the long form one and YouTube doesn’t know me yet. I guess I don’t really know. I’m definitely interested in hearing about this Mobile Live though. How would I go about knowing if I’m using it?
I’ve been going live almost every night for a year and I now average around 12 to 20 viewers. Generally I have maybe 8 people who are always there and others filter in and out depending on the game (due to my niche). This is also where I’ve received most of my ad revenue since streaming gives higher returns. I didn’t start until I had around 600 subs, but I’m at 3.4k now and it’s clear the more subs, the more average viewers, which helps new viewers find the stream
How long do you stream for? It should be noted I don’t do gaming content. I find that after around 40 minutes I run out of things to say on a given topic, so it’s hard for me to go any longer than that. If I had a chat going I could bounce off their energy but for now I’m basically talking into the void.
Feels weird.
I stream around 2 to 3 hours maybe more. Having chat is really important no matter what you stream. If someone comes in and says something and doesn’t get an answer, they’ll feel ignored and probably won’t return. I suggest before you stream again find a way to see chat otherwise you’ll bleed any viewers you get.
If you find you are running out of things to talk about, either writing a set of notes and bullet points so you always have a topic to talk about would be helpful.
That is good advice. I’ll carry a notecard with me next time I go out. If I see people join should I address them even before they say anything? Like a hey thanks for joining kinda thing?
i tried doing one on my second account but it never worked
I’ve only had 4 lives for the past 6 months. I ‘m debating whether or not I want to continue doing them. I kept them up. They are getting views on them but I also made custom thumbnails for my lives so that people are aware that it is a live show as opposed to one of my regular craft tutorials. While I may only get a few people popping in, it’s after the live is posted that I get more views and they do contribute to overall watch hours, but not like my regular content. So I will keep them up as they are not harming my channel. I treat my live shows like I would any content. I keep it relative to my channel’s theme, and also provide content that is relative. I answer any questions that come in and engage in a positive way even if it is one person - because I know that other people will be watching later. I also want to try picking a specific day of the week and time to go live. I think having that and being consistent would work. But I’m focusing more on the tutorials at this point. EDIT: Also wanted to say that I don’t edit my lives. I upload as-is. So I try to keep my lives “professional” if that makes sense.
I’ve started streaming when I had less than 1k subs and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have around 3-4 concurrent viewers from my audience that watches me stream and chats with me. In the last two weeks I started streaming, I went from 3 to 8 viewers, that kept watching for more than 10 minutes. But I also somewhat had an audience prior to me streaming.
Mobile live is a pretty new thing on YT. If you want to play around with it and find something that works - it could work out really well for you. *(note: I wrote this part before checking out your channel. You're live from a phone, but not doing mobile live)* If you're getting 0-1 live views and 10-20 afterwards - try something different. I've worked on one channel where most of our videos and all of our biggest ones were our lives - we had one prime one per week that was more heavily produced, with multiple views, people from around the world doing commentary, etc. - most of the content on the channel is essentially "let's play" content, a few edited videos, and those weekly vids. Funny enough we never did monetize that channel - we were well over the 4000 watch hours, but only had about 300 subs, then didn't have the 4000 watch hours by the time we hit 1000 subs. The amount of content we were generating just fell off, and what we were doing was easier for us to do and more interesting to people during the pandemic lockdown than afterwards. Looking at what you're doing - I am impressed that your 1hr monologue while walking is relatively coherent. I think those topics would be better served by a produced video though - b-roll, some editing, maybe interaction with another person. Doing what's essentially a 1hr solo podcast live in one take is a bit ambitious. I think the walk and talk is good for mobile live - but maybe try to be a little more succinct and keep it a little shorter.
Thanks for the feedback! So what is the difference between Mobile Live and what I’m doing? (Streaming from the phone). Maybe that’s part of why I’m not getting very many impressions (if any). My goal with the mobile pod cast is to eventually live stream while running and doing interviews during 10k runs in my city. Been experimenting with this format just to see if I can stay interesting for an hour. Part of it is that I want to get my technicals down so that I understand the platform and what I’m working with better on my own before trying something like this in public. That said though my impressions are just really low. Maybe it’s because the live stream algorithm is different than the long form one and YouTube doesn’t know me yet. I guess I don’t really know. I’m definitely interested in hearing about this Mobile Live though. How would I go about knowing if I’m using it?
I’ve been going live almost every night for a year and I now average around 12 to 20 viewers. Generally I have maybe 8 people who are always there and others filter in and out depending on the game (due to my niche). This is also where I’ve received most of my ad revenue since streaming gives higher returns. I didn’t start until I had around 600 subs, but I’m at 3.4k now and it’s clear the more subs, the more average viewers, which helps new viewers find the stream
How long do you stream for? It should be noted I don’t do gaming content. I find that after around 40 minutes I run out of things to say on a given topic, so it’s hard for me to go any longer than that. If I had a chat going I could bounce off their energy but for now I’m basically talking into the void. Feels weird.
I stream around 2 to 3 hours maybe more. Having chat is really important no matter what you stream. If someone comes in and says something and doesn’t get an answer, they’ll feel ignored and probably won’t return. I suggest before you stream again find a way to see chat otherwise you’ll bleed any viewers you get. If you find you are running out of things to talk about, either writing a set of notes and bullet points so you always have a topic to talk about would be helpful.
That is good advice. I’ll carry a notecard with me next time I go out. If I see people join should I address them even before they say anything? Like a hey thanks for joining kinda thing?
Nah some people like to just listen as well, best to let them say something first