Maybe I should just Tik-Tok!

[lonerockz]

Well I'm starting to think my dream of getting to a 1,000 subs on YouTube was the wrong dream.

As I mentioned in the thread on my encounter with the YouTube algorithm, I've been creating shorts to see if I can drive traffic to my long from content.

On Monday I posted my "7 Mistakes Newbies make when planning a moto trip" on YouTube. I also created 6 shorts of tips 2-7 (Not tip 1 as I want people to go to YouTube to find that). The shorts are event cut down from my full content.

I post the shorts to YouTube, but also Instgram and Tik-Tok. I've spent some time on Instagram liking other peoples stuff and cultivating followers. But Tik-Tok I've done nothing. Followed about 150 people. But barely done any work. No comments, a few likes here and there. I think I had about 20 followers.

Here is the data on the 2 shorts:

Service	Views	Likes	Subscribers
YouTube	3,589	90	+6
Tik-Tok	42,000ish	1,996	+150 (Approximately)

I'm really lucky I turned off notifications for Tik-Tok!

The YouTube videos got plays for about 30 minutes and then they go dormant. My Tik-Tok's are still growing like crazy, about 300 likes and 20 subs an hour.

I'm going to re-cut the next 4 tips videos to explicitly say full video on my YouTube and hope that drives more traffic.

The experiment continues!

 

[Edu_BR]

Well I'm starting to think my dream of getting to a 1,000 subs on YouTube was the wrong dream.

As I mentioned in the thread on my encounter with the YouTube algorithm, I've been creating shorts to see if I can drive traffic to my long from content.

On Monday I posted my "7 Mistakes Newbies make when planning a moto trip" on YouTube. I also created 6 shorts of tips 2-7 (Not tip 1 as I want people to go to YouTube to find that). The shorts are event cut down from my full content.

I post the shorts to YouTube, but also Instgram and Tik-Tok. I've spent some time on Instagram liking other peoples stuff and cultivating followers. But Tik-Tok I've done nothing. Followed about 150 people. But barely done any work. No comments, a few likes here and there. I think I had about 20 followers.

Here is the data on the 2 shorts:

Service	Views	Likes	Subscribers
YouTube	3,589	90	+6
Tik-Tok	42,000ish	1,996	+150 (Approximately)

I'm really lucky I turned off notifications for Tik-Tok!

The YouTube videos got plays for about 30 minutes and then they go dormant. My Tik-Tok's are still growing like crazy, about 300 likes and 20 subs an hour.

I'm going to re-cut the next 4 tips videos to explicitly say full video on my YouTube and hope that drives more traffic.

The experiment continues!

if you add some dances to the content it will perform even better

 

[lonerockz]

if you add some dances to the content it will perform even better

Not with my dancing!

 

[TallADVer]

All depends what you're aiming for. My daughter went through a tiktok art phase where she had tens of thousands of followers and hundreds of thousands of likes. But no way to monetize any of it. Other people were bundling her tiktok videos and publishing them on youtube for monetization.

It really is a different audience as well. When I think "adventure and/or touring motorcycle travel videos", I am generally thinking of a more, uh... mature (?) audience than the tiktok crowd Speaking as a member of the latter group, and therefore probably more in your target demographic, I never view tiktok videos unless I stumble on them via another platform. But I do like the idea of using tiktok as a teaser/trailer to drive views to your youtube channel.

 

[Southpaw78]

I was just thinking of doing this yesterday. I create YouTube shorts, and it has helped with my subscribers, but not to the extent I would like. I take those same shorts and post them to Fb reels and get thousands of views. I don't have TikTok but I might go that route.

 

[MotoWolfUK]

Yeah my TikTok I had about 10x the followers of YouTube. But I really prefer YouTube and longer content and getting to know the creators a bit more and feel TikTok doesn’t allow that so I’m sticking with my(2 subs a day) YouTube and have TikTok as a way to try and funnel more people to it personally.

 

[lonerockz]

Well, my experiment so far is not yielding much in the way of results. Yes, I have many more Instagram and TikTok followers, but not yielding subscribers. My best results so far have been posting my videos on motorcycle Web Forums. I should probably look for more of those.

 

[Southpaw78]

Well, my experiment so far is not yielding much in the way of results. Yes, I have many more Instagram and TikTok followers, but not yielding subscribers. My best results so far have been posting my videos on motorcycle Web Forums. I should probably look for more of those.

Yeah, I post quite a bit of my videos on the motorcycle forums also.

 

[Moto Mengy]

I'm not a TikTok person. In fact I really don't enjoy "shorts" types videos in general. I don't watch Instagram shorts, I don't watch YT shorts, I don't use Tiktok, and I don't watch those short FB things either. I like watching long form videos so that's what I make and will continue to make, because I feel it's important to make the kinds of videos I enjoy and care about.

That's not to say people can't have success with the short form stuff, it's just not content I'm interested in, and whenever I try to dip my toe into creating shorts I always stop it quickly out of disgust and lack of interest on my part.

It is interesting to see your results though, I really thought it would have done more for your channel honestly.

 

[TallADVer]

I'm not a TikTok person. In fact I really don't enjoy "shorts" types videos in general. I don't watch Instagram shorts, I don't watch YT shorts, I don't use Tiktok, and I don't watch those short FB things either. I like watching long form videos so that's what I make and will continue to make, because I feel it's important to make the kinds of videos I enjoy and care about.

That's not to say people can't have success with the short form stuff, it's just not content I'm interested in, and whenever I try to dip my toe into creating shorts I always stop it quickly out of disgust and lack of interest on my part.

It is interesting to see your results though, I really thought it would have done more for your channel honestly.

Completely agree as a content consumer, I have no interest in the short form stuff. I was curious to see if you midsized channel guys had success bringing in subscribers from those short platforms (and I kind of consider YT Shorts to be its own platform). From what I'm seeing here, there doesn't seem to be much of a relationship between the two.

Also interested to learn about how you guys are engaging with other platforms (other forums, Reddit, etc), but that has probably already been beaten to death on other threads, will check

 

[Hippo-Drones]

Completely agree as a content consumer, I have no interest in the short form stuff. I was curious to see if you midsized channel guys had success bringing in subscribers from those short platforms (and I kind of consider YT Shorts to be its own platform). From what I'm seeing here, there doesn't seem to be much of a relationship between the two.

Also interested to learn about how you guys are engaging with other platforms (other forums, Reddit, etc), but that has probably already been beaten to death on other threads, will check

I've only made a few "shorts", they didn't do much, although a smaller channel I follow made one which went viral with millions of views and that gave his channel a boost. On my second channel, I am probably gonna make the content on there primarily "shorts", as the content fits that form better, but I have no idea if the channel will take off or not... it won't be bike related.
I had some success at driving viewers to my YouTube through Reddit, but it was very short lived and I found as a whole, it just wasn't worth my time on there. I don't get a whole amount of new traffic from Twitter either, but a lot of my current subs use Twitter and not Facebook, so I stick with it for those subscribers more than my own enjoyment of the platform. Facebook is my main traffic for getting new people to see my YouTube, with forums being second. I do try not to post videos to forums very often though, and only really post videos that will appeal to those groups rather than my regular vlogs... so reviews of the bike, or kit I use on the bike mainly.

 

[lonerockz]

TikTok, how I hate you so! Yeah, I hate short-form content. Hate spending time on TikTok! But, sadly, I have a great formula for it and can not crack YouTube. My Instagram is also growing like crazy. I don't hate insta quite as much as I loathe TikTok.

I thought I'd update my numbers. I'm gaining about 80 followers a day on TikTok. My top clip has 126k views and 6500 likes. My content is also great at driving people to my TikTok profile. People see one of my clips for a single tip and come to my profile to watch the others. I've changed my profile a little to make it easier to get to my YouTube, but it has not had any impact that I can tell on my YouTube.

I am having a little better luck via Instagram. My growth there is slower, with about 30 followers a day; the top video has 12k views and 225 likes. On insta you can put a link directly on the video if you post it to your story. 9% of my external views are from Insta.

YouTube shorts sucks the worst. Unlike the other two platforms, YouTube retires shorts from rotation quickly. They blast it out for a brief stint, it gets some views, and then they put it on a shelf. Probably because they don't have enough shorts viewers. The only positive thing is that I am getting subscribers on Shorts. I get one or two subs with each short, about the same as my long-form stuff. So currently, I'm getting 2 subs a day or so. From what I've read, that's not bad.

It is really nice to get validation on TikTok that my content is good and people like it. But, of course, that's not the content that I really want to make. But it's so easy to make it that I'll keep it up for a while.

Maybe I need to experiment with my travel stuff and see if I can make 20-30 second clips that I find interesting.

The struggle continues.

 

[Moto Mengy]

Out of all the social platform stuff I've played with (external to YT) Instagram is the one I've had the most success with. It's also the one I've enjoyed using the most, as it seems to have a very strong and active motovlogging community there.

 

[TallADVer]

I've only made a few "shorts", they didn't do much, although a smaller channel I follow made one which went viral with millions of views and that gave his channel a boost. On my second channel, I am probably gonna make the content on there primarily "shorts", as the content fits that form better, but I have no idea if the channel will take off or not... it won't be bike related.
I had some success at driving viewers to my YouTube through Reddit, but it was very short lived and I found as a whole, it just wasn't worth my time on there. I don't get a whole amount of new traffic from Twitter either, but a lot of my current subs use Twitter and not Facebook, so I stick with it for those subscribers more than my own enjoyment of the platform. Facebook is my main traffic for getting new people to see my YouTube, with forums being second. I do try not to post videos to forums very often though, and only really post videos that will appeal to those groups rather than my regular vlogs... so reviews of the bike, or kit I use on the bike mainly.

Thanks for that perspective! Personally, I've long resisted much of social media (other than Youtube, which I see as being kind of its own thing in many ways). I just don't trust Facebook, though I may possibly consider Instagram despite it being owned by FB. Twitter... well, we'll see what Elon's replacement does with that dumpster fire. While Reddit is okay for some topics, but it doesn't seem to be a place to build an audience so much as get quick, short-lived exposure for things like TikToks and Shorts. It just doesn't seem conducive to longer form presentation.

I suppose maybe I'm just too anti-social for social media

 

[Hippo-Drones]

I don't get this mis-trust people have for social media? We can trust that they will data mine everything you tell it... Even a loyalty card in a supermarket does that!
With that in mind, if you want to keep your real life private, just don't tell Facebook anything you aren't happy for "it" to know about you.
You can easily adjust privacy settings to stop other people seeing more of your life than you want. On Facebook, I have my personal profile, which I mostly only use for real friends, although have had some incursion from the motovlogging community that I don't "know", but the majority of people (including motovloggers) that I have as "friends" are people I have a friendship with.
What I do to keep the real me and my internet me appart, is I have a Hippo-Drones page, and use that to interact with groups etc. There are a few groups that don't allow pages to join, so I have joined them as the real me when it has been beneficial for me to do so, but I leave any old groups that stop being useful.
Although I still use my Facebook profile, I use it a lot less than I use my Facebook page now... which means my non biker friends don't get spammed by all my bike stuff each week when I share a new video on all the relevant groups I am a member of.

 

[TallADVer]

My mistrust for things like FB are for using it as a personal catalog for all of my social relationships, given FB's business model of packaging and reselling those relationships to data brokers for advertising and online profile building. As consumers, we have no ability to manage what info is sold about us on the market, so I choose not to voluntarily provide that kind of personal information to those brokers.

But your points are very valid. There's nothing preventing me from creating social media "personas" on FB and other sites in the same sort of way that I already do on Youtube. It's something I'll need to consider if/when I eventually work out how I'm going to up my Youtube game.

 

[Hippo-Drones]

Aye, if you don't add any "friends" to your real FB profile, or any likes or interact with it in anyway other than to create a page for your channel, then any interactions on your page will only relate to your channel, where any data gathering at worst won't matter a bit as it isn't your data, and at best, it could drive people to your YouTube channel. Like it or not, social media is here and is a MUST in my opinion for people wanting to grow a channel, especially one which the backbone of growth is interactions with other people like motovlogging.
Itchy Boots, 44Teeth, Million Dollar BOGAN... all big channels have a social media presence. My channel will always be just a hobby channel, but I still want it to grow and do well, so I have to spend a lot of time on the social medias. The bonus is, that it helps you get to know other channels, and make new friendships around the world.... just like this forum does, but bigger and a far larger audience!

 

[scooterwuf]

I don’t think there’s a magic bullet, or a get rich (subscribers) scheme. There could be, but it’s probably like winning the lottery. Some people will have advantages based on their bike, looks or on screen personality, but I think it just comes down to work. Not specifically hard work (if it was, we’d lose interest), but work we love, but work nonetheless.

I’m close to having 600 subscribers - 24 to go, and my goal is to get 100 subscribers a year. My channel is a niche channel, so I have to reach out for my audience. I do this by posting my video links on a number of FB pages, and on other forum websites. I also visit other motovlogger pages, which I hope to jump into a lot more now that my teaching semester is over.

I could probably have more subs if I was present on social media, but I’m not. I have an Instagram page, but it’s a pain in the a$$ to post anything there, and I never really found it to be interesting. I’ve no interest in Tweeter, and I’m not a fan of Tik Tok, but that’s because I’m a filmmaker, and I’ll be damned if I work to normalize vertical video syndrome. I hate it when my students shoot their footage that way.

I think it’s about making good content, and promoting it as best we can. YT, and social media, allows us to pursue our hobbie, and if we’re lucky we can make money from it. But that can mean our hobbie can turn into a job. I’m okay with that, but just not a full time one. A good side hustle works for me.

- Wolf

 

[motonomad]

Interesting case study! I will give tiktok a try, too. Did you try linking your YouTube from your tiktok? Did you notice an increase in YouTube volume if so?

Cheers!

 

[lonerockz]

Interesting case study! I will give tiktok a try, too. Did you try linking your YouTube from your tiktok? Did you notice an increase in YouTube volume if so?

Bottom line, I think my posts on Insta and TikTok are helping my YouTube channel.

Obviously its hard for me to know if things are working as I don't have any previous experience with trying to start a YouTube channel.

I'm at 63 subscribers at this point. My first video was 16 days ago, so about 4 subs a day (I had a few family/friends so the math doesn't really work out exactly). From what I've read that is a fine number.

I think the biggest thing that is helping my channel is to adjust to the content that people want to watch. I like my travel videos, but there is a much bigger appetite to my how-to stuff. My week old how-to vid is at 305 views, vs my 2-week old travel video is at 261.

But the forum posting is the best source of drivers to the channel. I just don't want to spam post too much.