As my journey on Youtube steadily (very) steadily moves forward and grows something interesting has started to happen. As the BOTG Adventure channel reached 5k subs, I gave up. Mentally I was drained, everybody else was growing, even channels with 500 subs and poor camera work and bad audio were getting more views than me, I had reached a point where I thought is this the end..
Yes I gave up.
I no longer cared about subscribers joining, I didn’t care about views. This was liberating it set me free to make any content I wanted, video too long? Video too short? Video not in keeping with others.. I was done.
But then..
Something interesting happened, after I reviewed some Pantufla barefoot shoes, more and more companies reached out to me and asked if I wanted to review their products, I asked Pantufla not the other way around.
Even now as I write this, I still do not understand why people contact me, I only get around 500 views (if I’m lucky) these days, so a company sending me a product will get very small viewing and potential sales figures, I simply don’t get it.
There has never been any financial gain, I have made nothing, I do get to keep the product which I guess is kind of a payment, but most are not a product I would buy otherwise. Youtube videos on BOTG Adventures brings me less than £20 a month currently. It's never been about money, all I have ever wanted is to leave work and make content full time, to travel and have freedom.
GIZ A LOOK.
A head torch, x2 barefoot hiking shoes, x2 barefoot adventure socks, power pack and solar panel, insect repellent, mini pump, tree tent x 2, a random night vision googles (no joke).
The only new product has been Flextail and a commission for the Flextail repellent S where I get 15% commission on any sales, I have to date of writing this made £15.
So that’s a whole lot of film work, grading, editing, colouring, music, fx, graphics and time for £15.
Cheating.
So depressing can YouTube be I decided to pay £75 and try Youtube ads, why not.. worth a punt, what this resulted in was 700 new subscribers and 2000 new views on the chosen wild camping video. W..t…f…
I tried sprizzy in the past, paid £15 for a 100 subs, it does work, but they are fake subs and mean nothing, and YouTube does not approve of this, but using YouTube ads… time will tell if it has helped my channel get some exposure, I see people with same quality as mine and they get 10x more views and engagement.
I did say I am not bothered but deep down Iv been on YouTube with BOTG Adventure channel and my other channels for over 12 years and got nowhere, over 1000+ videos. People either don’t like me, or the quality is not good enough.
With a recent comment on my video along the lines of “stop buying fake subscribers you are harming your channel, it can grow on its own” I felt I needed to clarify how I got the new valid interest. I paid for some YouTube ads and not from the horrid paid fake subscriber companies out there.
I hope that clarifies and helps the pondering, a little financial injection to keep my enthusiasm up. As much as I deny it, Youtube is really all I have in my life, so when the chips are up, it does feel good. Thanks for you support, if you want to buy me a Coffee or a small Patron It would certainly put a smile on my face.
Andy.
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