How To Grow on YouTube after your Growth Slows Down

Sometimes after a period of growth your channel may taper off and grow more slowly than it did before, or even maybe not even grow at all for a period of time. While this is normal for many channels, there are some things you can do to evaluate why it's happening and some changes to make going forward that will spark new growth into your YouTube channel again. In this video several creators talk about how they do that and give you tips for how to do it yourself, too.

YouTubers in this video

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Tim Schmoyer

MY FAMILY'S VLOGGING CHANNEL

[VideoCreators]

If your YouTube growth is slowing down and people are unsubscribing, here's 3 reasons why, and 3 ways to fix it.

[JTBear]

As a gardening channel, I wait for spring ...

[NerdSyncProductions]

Yeah, simply changing the video name and thumbnail has helped me significantly. There's a video I have that's two years old that is still getting thousands of views everyday. All that happened was that I changed the title to something more searchable, and now people are finding it easier. You tend to learn more and more the longer you do something, and YouTube is no exception. 

And I also think there's a difference between persevering and stubbornly pushing something that's not working. In order to persevere, you need to be willing to change and adapt in order to keep moving forward. Don't just make a video series that obviously not working and continue to push that out wondering why it's not working. You have to be willing to make changes to your content according to who your audience is and what the analytics say.

[Recabilly]

I've mentioned it before and you did just in this video that searchable content is extremely helpful.

If you notice your channel growth slow down, stop, or even go negative it's best to look at your stats and see what you have done recently that is different from while you were growing constantly. Take that information and adjust your videos and schedule to match what seemed to work before.

I am in a weird situation right now where my subscriber count is growing about 20 each day but my views are going down and it's because I have videos from a long time ago still getting people interested in my channel but those videos aren't the bulk of my channel. I'm kinda in a writers block when it comes to that type of video so there is nothing I can do but keep thinking of ideas and waiting for inspiration to hit. As long as I keep content coming out then everything seems to be fine and my channel still grows

I've also noticed through friends that if you don't post consistently, even if all your videos are high quality, you will lose subscribers.
I know someone who was growing very quickly then stopped posting videos, he didn't lose and subscribers until he posted his next video nearly 3 months later... It's almost as if they realized they were still subscribed to him and decided to unsubscribe.

So to sum it up...
Post searchable content, be consistent, check your stats during slow times, and always try to improve your channel... Just think to yourself "how can I make this even better?"

[instagamrr]

One thing I've noticed is plateaus can depend on *how* you grew. If you grow organically through search, your plateau is likely to look different than someone who advertised and then stopped advertising. In the former, your traffic usually just trails off and you grow slower. When you stop advertising on the other hand, your subscriber count can actually go negative far easier. I'm personally not sure how to overcome the latter.

[EvanCarmichael]

I try a new series... just like you have a regular tues, wed, thurs with the same themes... the structure is wonderful but can also lead to stagnation just doing the same things over and over and over again. So I'll try a new series as a test for a few weeks and see if it sticks. Variety is the spice of life :)

[nickackermanchannel]

How do you know whats highly searchable content? Never seems like I get quite the right content?

[RobertoBlake]

I've found that having a content strategy and planning in advance and shifting to daily content has spurred my growth considerably. Having searchable content is definitely key but you have to have a certain level of diverse content, not just in terms of the subject matter, but also the lengths. by mixing short form and medium for and long form content a I've seen a lot more traction as well as engagement. I'm up to over 3.5K new subs a month and 25K subs total.

[RonandMel]

Thanks for your channel Tim. Thanks for all the tips :)
Need to talk about how to avoid people who are unhealthy fans. Maybe like Stalker status. Im sure popular youtubers deal with this often.

[SliceOfSabby]

I 'like' Tim's vidoes even before they start while loading

[Silentwisher]

I can honestly say that the most important thing, from my experiences is, consistency. I used to upload 1-2 videos a day for almost 5 months straight! I was getting so much attention, I have hit a massive writers block/content dryness block lately, and it shows. So if I was to pick one thing, I would say upload as much as possible.

[SbgamingTv]

I'm at the start of my growth process (two weeks in), so I've not had the growth to experienced a slow down, but it is something I think about.  I did get sick last week which caused me to lose 4 or 5 potential days to do recording, and while I'm not 100% I just had to get back into recording to not lose too much momentum from my first week.

I only recently posted on one of the gaming forums I'm a member of announcing my channel and I believe I have already see a few new subscribers as a result of it.  I waited until I had about two dozen videos posted so that new viewers can get an idea where I'm heading with the channel.  It's too easy to post a few videos and then disappear.  Now I'm getting close to 31 videos posted, though some have been strategically scheduled so that subscribers get regular videos in their feeds every day, rather than being bombarded by a chunk of videos and then nothing for a few days.

As a gaming channel, my initial strategy has been relatively simple.

1. Do a variety of regular content that will appeal to a broad segment of the potential gamers who might be interested in watching.  I kicked off my channel with a First Person Shooter game, a Driving/Racing game, a management/tycoon game, and a real-time strategy/builder game, and will eventually be getting into a city builder.

What I didn't want to happen was to become known for doing one particular type of game and building an audience around that, which would make it hard to branch out into other areas of the gaming world without potentially losing a chunk of my core audience.  While I may only have viewers who watch my channel for one or two of my series, they shouldn't expect me to devote all my time to just one or two games, and will then expect that I may do random or otherwise off the wall series.

2. My channel isn't just about my gameplay, but getting the viewers involved as well.  This is a variation of the usual collaboration with established Youtubers suggestion that is made, and is a method I hope to engage and draw out audience participation, by getting them involved and invested.  I setup a Group "SB Gaming Online Play" group on Steam where those who are interested in being in an episode can join and if they have a reasonable quality microphone for voice chat purposes, they can participate.

Whether it is to drive around the island of Ibiza in Test Drive Unlimited 2, or shoot hordes of monsters in Serious Sam, if they want to be in an episode, they can be.


I know that there will be a point where growth will slow down.  Fortunately there are plenty of games I can play and lots of potential opportunities to draw in new viewers.

[Fantastiverse]

Video Creators  In the early stages of developing a channel (I'm a YouTube newbie) and determining which videos contribute to the greatest level of engagement or even basic growth, I try to apply a similar strategy or logic to my own channel as I would to a client's advertising/marketing campaign (which is grind out an assortment of content, analyze, reapply what works, and then keep expanding)

[Zephyrianst]

Being a Small Channel, we continuely strive to get better at what we do, going to our channel and going back in time you can see the shift between then and now, and how hard we aork to bring the best we can everytime, eventually we hope to reach a number of people and have a good usual following :) i dont really wanna be "Youtube Famous" just happy on youtube

[Doublepulse]

One thing very interesting I have noticed with my channel recently is my audience comes from several different genres people look for. Like my Let's plays videos on different video games tend to not do as well as when I do a news story which does better. But it gets interesting because I have non gaming videos that are actually Fan made trailers I make using other Youtuber's content. I would get permission on Twitter and it would help expose their channels more as well. Those usually do well because the audience that likes those videos come check me out as well. I network and build a fanbase with the audience that enjoys the same kind of stuff I do. I help others on other social platforms as well. But what makes me wonder is how many are sticking around for everything I do or are just for a certain thing?

[TechBlown]

Tim, you should make another video on the titles and tags etc !

[DawnLewisImagery]

I started watching videos about how to improve my videos (and found your channel along the way, instantly subscribed!).  I've increased subscribers since I made some changes to my channel, and to the way I shoot and edit and generally present my videos.  But I'm still a tiny fish with big dreams, and keen to learn!

[BingeWatchers]

I'm still at the point where I'm experimenting and trying stuff, but posting consistently definitely seems to be doing the trick. I can already clearly see which type of videos do better on my channel, and hope I can keep them fresh and fun in the future. I can't give advice from the creator side yet, but from the viewer side, small changes make a huge different. I can be bored with a channel and then for some reason when the host starts making video standing up instead if sitting down I'm somehow rekindled. It's weird but it makes a difference (not specifically the standing up thing) 

[Mysticsword]

Thanks for the tips and sharing. As usual, I get some good insight and ideas from watching your vids along with reading some of the associated comments from other YouTubers as well. Keep up the good work.

[KnightsoftheDrunkWatch]

As a NewTuber I am working on making "evergreen" videos. Right now it seems like internet challenges are my best viewed. I am still working on finding my audience and what type of videos I am good at.