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So, the last 2 months I've been working on a project inspired by my co-worker's troubles. Now I'm thinking about scrapping it again.
My co-worker started a Let's Play channel 3-4 months ago, and during the time we noticed that starting Let's Players actually have a lot of disadvantages, compared to some of the established channels. The most important road block for new Let's Players is probably the Youtube search, which orders it's results by views, so anyone searching for a Let's Play of a game first finds all the channels that already have millions of subscribers and new channels appear somewhere on page 20. Then there is the whole thing with SEO optimization, which for many is something that they just don't understand or aren't good at, so they are even further down on the list if they don't spend weeks learning about SEO and/or spam tags. Add to it Let's Players that are more focused on niche stuff and you have a recipe for a channel with <100 subscribers.
I've known since a few years that there are hundreds or thousands of small channels, some of them very high quality, that just can't break out, because everything is focused on the top and the top are all channels created in the Let's Play Boom a few years back or friends of people that became popular in the Let's Play Boom. After I've seen my co-worker struggle, I decided that I can do something about it. I decided to create a database where Let's Players can enter themselves and write what they do, and people can search for them and find some they like, and so the site would drive traffic to the good Let's Players, even if they just started out.
Of course the success of such a site depends on two factors.
1. It needs a good amount of Let's Players, because if people have a too small selection to search through, they won't bother.
2. It needs a good amount of potential viewers using the site, because otherwise it's of no use to Let's Players.
A few weeks ago I've essentially completed the site and started trying to market it. The first reddit post in /r/letsplay was fairly successful, people liked the idea and a few signed up. Then things instantly ground to a halt and I just didn't manage to get any more Let's Players or viewers and I just don't know why or how I could change that.
I've done:
SEO: It's the third/fourth link when searching for "Let's Play(er) Database", right after a very outdated archive thingy.
Facebook ads: 100 Euro spent, 80000 ad impressions, 200 clicks, 40 facebook page likes, 0 users.
Bought traffic: Had very low expectations, 100 Euro spent, 10000 clicks, 100% of them bots, got 50 Euro refund.
Contacted big and small Let's Players directly: No response. Probably discarded as spam immediately.
Made posts in various let's play forums: Most were deleted as advertising, even though the site is non-commercial and I was asking for feedback on something that would benefit the users of the site. Other posts no response.
At this point I have no idea how to get Let's Players or viewers to use the site, which essentially means that another of my projects is dead. I think the idea is viable, I'm just too bad at marketing to get it off the ground, especially on my private budget. Maybe my site just looks bad or is missing something, but without users, I can't know. I think it's mostly my lack of contacts in the scene. Either way, I have no idea what I'm doing wrong or what I should be doing.
If I don't have a brilliant idea in the next week or two, I'm going to scrap that project, which makes me sad, because I thought this time I had the idea that could actually become useful and beneficial to many people. No, I know that the idea can become a useful and beneficial product, it just needs someone better at promotion than me.
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Youtube doesn't order by views but by Views * % of the video watched + some hidden stuff
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On February 09 2016 23:56 Railgan wrote:
Youtube doesn't order by views but by Views * % of the video watched + some hidden stuff
While views is not the sole influencing factor, it is a major influencing factor. You won't find videos with a hundred views at the top of the list unless your search terms are very specific.
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It's probably because the vast majority of people find the youtube search sufficient, I mean lots people have to find them entertaining for them to accrue millions of subscribers.
What I want to know is why you'd put 200 Euro into advertising for something that's non-commerical (not intended to make profit)
Was this a learning exercise for another project?
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On February 10 2016 00:06 Ovid wrote:
It's probably because the vast majority of people find the youtube search sufficient, I mean lots people have to find them entertaining for them to accrue millions of subscribers.
What I want to know is why you'd put 200 Euro into advertising for something that's non-commerical (not intended to make profit)
Was this a learning exercise for another project?
I have enough money to spare from my actual job to not worry about 200 Euro, especially considering that I don't actually spend a lot of money outside of the occasional steam game. Trying to make an idea work was easily worth that for me, I'm just sad that it didn't work out. I was considering upping the amount, but I don't think that would change anything.
I need to reach the Let's Players themselves first, but the only option I see for that is spamming the domain in every single forum even remotely related to Let's Plays and every comment section below any Let's Play video and hoping it doesn't get deleted in some places, but I'm too... honest to do that.
The thing with the established Let's Players is that most of them came with the LP-Boom maybe 6-7 years ago where there weren't a lot of people doing Let's Plays. That meant that it was relatively easy to get subscribers if you were half-way decent. Now the market is very saturated, but people will usually stick with the first one they find and like, so anyone further down the list gets ignored, even if the viewers might also like them. Since the first one will always be the established channels, that is where the viewers will end up, which I consider inherently unfair to those just starting out.
Maybe my idea wasn't viable after all, I don't know.
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Is your idea helpful? Yes
Will your idea get traction? Depends on the user's perceived value.
These are two very different questions. And (unfortunately) having a successful product often is more about the second question.
There are 3 main groups of users for your database: People searching for LP channels, small LP channels, and popular LP channels.
For popular LP channels, they will have no value in your tool (and may even not want it to be successful) because the current youtube search function heavily favors their channels.
For small LP channels, they will sign up but only if they see that there are viewers using it to search for LPs.
For people searching, they will only use it if they 1) know it exists 2) think its better than the youtube search.
Unfortunately, as you said, it has been hard to raise awareness among the small LP channels and people searching because your forum posts get deleted etc. And often a large number of those who are watching LP videos may not be active participants in the LP community (LP forums/reddit). They may simply be viewers who found the popular channel on youtube and subscribe there. So without the endorsement of one or a few popular LP channels promoting your website, it is difficult to let your target audience know your database exists.
Thus (again unfortunately) proving that in business - "networking is everything"
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Despite whether this succeeds or fails, I think you're doing great! You perceived a gap in the needs of a community and developed a tool to addresses that need.... Every initiative always needs a tiny bit of luck. Sooner or later if you keep it up you'll have something.
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I think you might need to tweak your ad. I don't know too much about it but I read about doing A/B split testing. Try running multiple ads and seeing which one works the best. I think you should get more clicks if you target your audience right and have a good ad.
Make sure its only displayed to relevant users too.
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I dont know how easy this would be to do or if it's possible at all, but how about you write a firefox/chrome addon that manipulates search results on youtube when your search term includes "lets play". Your site would then be the place where people can comment and rate on lets play videos on youtube to change their search priorities and have a nice lets play community.
Pros:
+ Streamers don't need to switch to your site. In fact, nothing would change for any streamer
+ Smaller streamers can still promote their youtube videos on your page
Cons:
- People still need to know about it
- People need to install an addon. But I think thats actually not too bad of a deal, considering your audience
- Maybe less traffic on your page
Albeit, I have no idea about marketing and such :D
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I doubt people actually google for "lets play database". I'd expect that "lets play <name of a new and/or popular game>" would get you a lot more clicks.
Also maybe you can reach more lets players if you start with some streamers from TL (who obviously are reasonable people and will hear you out) and ask them to spread the word to their fellow streamers. I might be wrong here, but I think that many streamers have connections to other streamers.
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Spending PPC money on Let's Play is stupid, come on 
What's the return you expect? A few pennies from YouTube ads?
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Just a comment on YouTube's ranking system. (and I myself has been really bad / lazy at doing what I should be doing if i were to focus on marketing more) One of the biggest complaints on YouTube is that of course, bigger gets bigger and more and more people are watching fewer and fewer channels. Google tried a number of strategies to mitigate this but of course given the true currency on YouTube, which is people's attention, is limited. The advantages of big channels make starting new channels these days tough indeed. But let me point out a few things and misconceptions:
Youtube rank each video similar to how it ranks each website, extremely complicated and crap tons of variables are considered, but the most influential and important one is actually NOT directly view numbers. Here are a few top variables considered by YouTube to determine your video ranking:
1) Retention rate - if your video is 10min long and most people watch your video to 8min, this is far above average and YouTube is gonna think your video is amazing and will try to place it at front of the list, even in front of those with higher view number but much less retention %. If your video is 10min long and most ppl leave at 2min, it's gonna ranked crap and be on page 35.
2) User behavior. During and after watching your video. First of all, more interaction is good. Thumb up / down (samething to youtube), comments, shares...each interaction adds points. Secondly, most ppl don't know this but YouTube tracks not just what user does on your video, it looks at what user immediately do during and after watching one of your videos. If the user watches another one of your video immediately after, that's the best outcome. If the user watches another video on YouTube, maybe a related one by click on the side, not ideal but not bad still. If user leaves your video 10sec in (relating back to retention rate)...bad bad. if a lot of user often leaves YouTube site after watching 1 of your videos, really bad.
3) total watch time, now this really is just retention rate * view number, so yes view number does matter. But YouTube no longer looks purely at it and put so much weight on it. Generally when you take care of point 1 and 2, the view number will be taken care of, and if you were to do seo or spend ads money, make sure you 1 and 2 is sound. Each will reinforce each other. So view number # does affect ranking, but it doesn't affect it directly nearly as much anymore, so there is hope in that. You can point out examples of this and that video ranked so high and has million of views, but remember the views are a result of high retention rate, people sharing etc.. it is now the by product.
Basically their whole algorithm is geared on keeping users on their site, watching stuff, longer, they don't care if you like it or not, they want your eye balls on their content, that's all. If your video is designed to do that and the user behavior confirms it, it will rise even if you start small. If you make quality content that has a super high retention rate, it's gonna get ranked high fast, which will draw more views, which boosts it's total watch time + # of views, combined with the retention rate it's just gonna keep soaring in this self reinforcing cycle. This is really important for people that start new channels these days. Not just get people to watch your videos, but to STAY watching your videos, once you can do that, the rest will follow suit.
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amateur creators need/want this service to get more viewers and attention.
do viewers need/want to actually go through amateur channels and provide what the creators are looking for?
this is why we have viewbots
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EPT
