I posted a new video today and I tried to incorporate a couple different things. 1. All of the feedback I received from the last video about adding more commentary throughout the video to explain/remind the viewer of the end goal for the video. 2. More explanation/detail in the intro to make it feel like part of the story and less "youtube fast paced." and 3. I wanted to try something a little new to my channel. I've been struggling a little getting content out because the recording process and editing takes so long with over 24 hours of footage to get through. So I split it up into two parts and built in a little teaser at the end of this one for next weeks post. Let me know any thoughts you have throughout the video or thumbnail. But also share any opinions you have on the 2 part video.

I posted part 2 of the video I posted a week ago. I tried to incorporate a lot of the same stuff as the first one but after looking at some of the retention drop offs in this one I found a couple of things to adjust. If you guys have anything you see let me know and I'll make sure to make some changes for the next vid. Thank you for all the helpful video back from the last one!

Hello! Checking in with some stats about how things are going with my seasonal game mode related vids/plans... Safe to say, it's going well lol. Just had a MASSIVE vid last night. Was really tough to throw together quickly but that thing took off really hard and will likely continue to tick up in the coming weeks. 27k views! That is wild for such a short time -- it is now my most viewed vid on the channel. Really cool to see. I had my first real experience of waking up to like 300 comments and that was overwhelming. I did manage to get through them all, but I can understand now why larger creators don't. Think it took me roughly 4 hours to knock them all out. Eek! lol I also want to add a quick note since I was talking with @Gemma Ferguson the other day about this. Something that has been really helpful for me in this process is very clearly defining why I'm doing this experiment, and then further defining the scope of the experiment/videos. To elaborate a bit: I have made seasonal content before. Every time it does better than my other videos, generally takes less time to produce, and has helped in growing the channel past milestones plus highlighted areas to improve in my production process. All of these things are really great, so to boil it down a bit; I do these stress tests for massive channel growth and process improvement. In this particular stint I also wanted to see if I could front load my content and then essentially relax once the game mode started (imagine actually playing and enjoying the game you make videos on lol). This is where I was coming from when I started this. Now, on the scoping out of the experiment/videos -- one thing I learned in previously stints like this is that making content quickly sucks. I work full time, so I often don't have that much time day to day. The way I get around this is by defining the space I have for making videos during the entire season plus each day and then deciding what I think I can fit within that. I am not always perfect at this but it does give me a much better success rate. Only have 2 hours to work on a Wednesday? Ok. What tasks or smaller videos could I fit into that time frame to keep with this seasonal game mode? I essentially work backwards from what time I know I'll have available and then decide what can slot in there. What I ended up with this time was essentially 2 months of content planned. The first 3-4 weeks would be at a pace of 2-3 vids a week. I had space in the following 3-4 weeks for daily videos (this is the phase I am in currently) and then a bit of space on the end for a few larger daily videos as the game mode kicks off. I'll be trailing with 2-3 follow up videos after the fact, but the main goal is to allow myself space to enjoy the game mode.

I posted a video about a week ago with the first thumbnail below. It ended up not doing well at all, I was worried that the video I had worked hours and hours on wasn’t interesting enough for any given viewer to click on. However, usually before I post videos I create 2-3 thumbnails to have and this definitely saved my video. The second thumbnail, although it still can be improved, increased the CTR by almost 5% and the views went from around 200 to 2.7k. I decided to share this because I think a lot of people, me included, get so wrapped up in creating this “masterpiece” of content with long hours of work just to see it flop. If you believe in a piece of content you posted, like truly believe you gave it everything you had, don’t give up on it after it doesn’t do well right away. Change the title, change the thumbnail, post a short and link the video to it and most importantly prepare for one thumbnail to not be received well early on in the process and make multiple thumbnails!

It seems like it is my year, after several decades of never winning any awards, I have won Country ACt of the Year for the New England Music Awards. I thought I would share. Keep pushing, pace yourself. That's what I tell myself. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCO5m8FxxPW/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==