Thousands of Views on YouTube

Something special happened over the past week with my YouTube channel: I started getting over a thousand views a day on my skiing videos. I was happy to get tens of views and the rise from that number to the thousands only took about five days. I wish I could tell you what happened but I can only guess.

My first guess is based on what happens with sports video games. When the regular season comes to an end, people still want to get their sports fix. In video games they will go back to playing a football game like Madden once the Super Bowl is over. As most of the ski areas in North America have closed down for the season, skiers and snowboarders are left wanting more. They resort to watching ski videos on YouTube. Again, it is just a guess.

Another guess is that I met a popular YouTube personality with around two thousand subscribers. He subscribed to my channel and a lot of his followers might also like my content and so they are viewing my videos based on him subscribing. Again, it is just a guess.

Finally I have spent a lot of time responding to every comment to each of my videos. I am guessing that lots of comments translates into YouTube recommending my content more. As each comment results in my response, the algorithm may see two comments for every user leaving a message. This would indicate that creators responding to viewers helps drive more traffic and it makes sense. All I know is that I am spending about an hour or so each day responding. It can be flattering but I have to find time to get back to everyone. I also discovered that not everyone likes my videos. While I expected people to disagree with ski areas that I list as favorites, I didn't anticipate avalanche nazis telling me I am promoting unsafe backcountry skiing. Don't worry, I'm not. They just want disclaimers all over the place.

Ultimately I am happy with the overwhelmingly positive response and requests of locals to show me around the next time I am at their ski area. Unfortunately I am still a long ways away from being able to quit my job and become a full-time YouTuber. I still need about 650 more subscribers before I can even monetize the channel. Once I hit that mark I expect my monthly income to be somewhere between being able to afford a gumball or a can of soda. In other words, I am not quitting my day job.