YouTube Content Creators

I had some news which was good, from Chargertech the company with the supercharger kit - they said sorry for the delay, they can provide the kit, will give me a discount and send it over. But it's quiet again since then... but that's OK as I need to pay for that, which will be probably end of the month anyway! Would be good to have it all lined up though.
My plan was to get the wheels vid out on monday as everyone is asking for Aygo vids, which is good, but Fedex couldn't find my address lol so they're arriving monday. Tyres are already here.

I am going to do the engine mounts today on the Volvo and see if that fixes the juddering issues. That'll be a massive win if it does. That's monday's video sorted, and then I can get the wheels video out the way mon / tues and finishing the interior of the volvo probably filmed next week too as I should have all the bits.

I think I have about 8-9 weeks already planned out of content without new stuff coming for the supercharger kit. I would love to do it all in 1 video etc. but it's not possible getting parts and waiting for them to come in etc.

Anyway, I'm currently enjoying it and views aren't doing too bad as a constant baseline now. Let's see if I can get to 1k for each vid would be a great start!

Work gave me some more work to do because I think they're like... we should really make him work... even if we're firing him... but I should still be able to dick about on cars :D
 
dirtychinchilla said:
I enjoyed the new video, man. Looking forward to seeing what happens with the Volvo (how much you spend on it)
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*loses all receipts by accident

Thanks man!

I am hoping most is also just maintenance... but you know! I think a big chunk will be the 400EUR on the car play integrated head unit but that's more a nice to have than anything else haha
If I take that off I reckon it'll be about 750EUR getting it nice, which would take me to about 1850EUR for it.

I hope! Will see... I have a way to go. I'm planning an Aygo update but Fedex seem to have their own ideas for my content scheduling.
 
Martynt74 said:
You checked out Aliexpress?
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Yea, I actually got one for my Aygo for 80EUR shipped lol it's a bit slow to load first time but it's amazing for the money. Problem with the volvo though, it's a pain for how it connects to everything. The can bus system is a ***** and if you don't have it all proper, everything throws errors... I have found a place in taiwan that builds them specifically for the XC90 that combats all steering controls, built in amp/speakers which all runs on optical system! So it's a bit of a pain!!
 
Martynt74 said:
Ah that's a pain. Maybe the completely external device then i linked? Cheap but just needs to connect via AUX/Bluetooth. Although i admit it's not ideal if you want it to look decent. Especially if the Volvo already has a media screen.
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I don't mind forking out the money - I am going to work on seeing if there is some kickback that can be made as my XC90 stuff does OK on tiktok so will see what i can work out with the guy! Always some way to make a bit back haha
 
Martynt74 said:
Man, i should've got you to do a video on repairing my Jeep. Could've saved me a fortune!
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haha exactly :D

I mean, it doesn't always work and I never want anything for nothing, so I am happy to hammer my side to make sure there is value both sides, but still!

Posted a tiktok last night thinking nothing of it and it went a bit mad... I haven't even looked at any of the comments yet as there are far too many!

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7348122798922943776

I'm tempted to use my redundancy pay to yolo into buying an FD RX7 from Japan and driving it home... haha I think this means I really should do that tbf
 
Would definitely be a poor mans trip by the sounds of it... but seems like it's on the cars. I think I can do that next year tbf.

I'd use my redundancy money wisely and chuck it straight into something utterly ******* ridiculous and sensible like this trip. Can always live in an RX7...
 
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That titkok seemed to go off a little bit, which kinda means that stupid road trips in stupid cars are a stupid but wonderful idea (the way I look at it!) so yea... I've contacted the Russian VISA agency to look at how the hell I can get the paperwork I need and if it's even possible?!

I did a follow up tiktok and said if you want to follow any of my adventures, check out my YT and that was this morning. Since then (and I posted the same roadtrip video as a short, too, which currently has like 6k views there) I have gained like 23 subs which is a nice little boost!
 
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dirtychinchilla said:
@randomshenans did you lose a tooth??
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Erm... yes! I actually did that back home! It's a cap on my tooth that came off again (first time in 8yrs mind) and so need to get it stuck back on! I slipped doing pressups and smacked my mouth off a dumbbell on the floor in front of me :cry::cry::cry:

Still need to find a dentist to fix it! Going to attempt it in the morning.

Shockingly hard to find someone to just stick me back on. Might end up with Gorilla glue at this point :D
 
Slight update...
Firstly this weather is total balls over here at the moment and I'm under the weather, but have to get stuff done this week for Monday!

That aside, I've been pushing a lot more tiktok and reels (I put them as shorts but it's far less community feel with shorts and they do waaaay worse) to grow out instagram and tiktok as much as possible.

YouTube though, I'm currently sitting on 52,110 subs. Which is mad and for many reasons. The max subs I reached was 54,017 back on 26th Jan 2022 after the viral ice skating short I posted hit 96m views - nothing to do with the channel and pointless to have those people as I'd rather people who watched the videos. This slowly dropped to 51,855 on 24th Jan 2024 this year and then when I started posting again... it started to rise again. The ones who are leaving (which is good) is being outweighed by the new ones arriving and that is really cool to see.

YT-stats.jpg


This is the last 12 months. In Jan since starting to post again I have gained 495 subs. In that time I've also removed all videos that were not car related (I had a few that kept bringing in views but were not tied to the channel). So lost out on the searchability of those, but for long term betterment of the channel I think. I probably should have just started a whole new channel if I'm honest... would have been an easier task.
Alas, I'll keep plugging away at it all on YouTube.

Tiktok has been a real funny one.

I'm sitting at 4880 followers at the moment, but it's still pretty quickly rising. I bet it'll pass 5000 in the next day or so. That's nearly 4k followers in the last couple of months. You need 10k to monetize, which is the short term goal really but 100k would be a great aim! I have noticed it is a great way to create a level of community there too. Which is really cool. I have no idea how people manage it past 10k though as the comments and engagement is way higher there than any other platform.

I also found decent traction on insta, although the payouts from FB/Insta/ Meta are ******** compared to tiktok so it's really not worth it for the ad rev, but the community buy in and the conversion possibility to either YT views / subs / merch whatever it might be is why I am focusing on this too. I've gained over 1k followers on there and now on 2262!


So yea. Need to get out and **** about with some cars tomorrow. I am feeling the Audi because I want to get the correct wheels on and it's a loud fast V8!

Peace xx


EDIT: In that time it took to write, tiktok passed 5038. Let's get it!
 
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Raymond Lin said:
50k subs is amazing on YouTube! well done!
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Like I said, it's not real... like, it is... they're real people, but they're not all focused on what I do now because they followed off the back of a video that wasn't to do with my content if that makes sense? I couldn't tell you how many were there and want my car level content, but hoping soon enough it won't matter and it'll just be a case of the ones who wanted to leave have and they have been replaced with ones who want to stay. Just a matter of time I suppose.
I make $25 a month from YT AdRev so you know. That ain't the way! This is why building audiences across tiktok and instagram/fb is important for me. Looking at different ways to make it work more long term.
 
I have a day of filming and a night of editing to get out the way today as I was out this weekend and I'm going to give capcut a go for editing on the PC... will see how that comes out!

Then I've taken some time off this week to dig into a ton of the volvo work that I have to do. And maybe even an aygo update filmed if I can. Lets see what a week of solid YT work can get me out
 
I've been having some fun with short form lately. It's my mission at the moment to build those up as much as possible. My link to YT is there as well, which can trickle over, but audience is audience.

I had been slowly growing on tiktok over the year and went from 3 followers to about 8200 until last week and I had a massive surge. I've had over 400k views in the last week and gained over 11k followers. I'm at 19.9k now, will probably tick over to 20k this week.
Same with instagram but not at all as aggressive :p I'm up to over 7500 on there now from about 6700.

I'm heading off on my arctic trek adventure in a couple of weeks, which I'm looking forward to doing, and now I have a larger audience I'm having more people reach out to meet along the way! Which I love.

I've now got sponsors for my biltong through Runder, lights for the volvo through Valo Store, roof tent from young hunter, a company is potentially sending me tyres for the volvo as well and tbf I haven't really been concentrating a lot at all on company outreach.

My RX7 is on it's way to me at the moment, will arrive in the country first week of November which will be some more lovely content to do. I've been chatting with Mazda EU social team about collaborating on content as they'd like to share some of my stuff, which will be nice. HKS are providing me with top of the range coilovers, exhaust, filters and plugs for the RX7 and I'm currently chatting with other companies along the way for the road to rotary next year. That will start to come together more in the new year.

Passing the 10k mark on tiktok means I'm monetized now, but it's a low RPM, but it's something! More than nothing haha but for me I'll look at other ways to try and monetize to be able to support some of my stupid builds and adventures with a larger audience. Hitting that 100k will be a nice next goal on tiktok... then the milly! I know I can do it.

I have some absolute banger ideas for adventures. One with the taxi, one with some mates and minis, one across the US, one down to Bosnia, another one to Russia which leads to another mental collaboration with a company. Another one with the volvo, after beefing it up a bit more!

Also have a couple of build ideas for cars I want to add to the collection, which I'm working on at the moment. One involves a bit of a road trip!

I would LOVE to have it so I could pay someone to film and edit long form for me. I can manage the short form, but long form is such an extra commitment when I'm working on stuff. You have to really plan it and it's far less organic than short form.

Let's see how I can manage to do it for Arctic Trek and manage the both at the same time! That'll be a good test anyway.

It's honestly been a bit of a mad time, with all of this and working on some of the other things I'm building product wise I don't think I've ever been so busy... now it's nearing that time to start to try and get it to pay for itself :cry: I committed a lot investing in the road to rotary, so lets see if I can also drive my new audience to that content too.

Learnt a lot. Having a lot of fun. Met some amazing people! The journey is fun :D
 
NickK said:
The financial model with short form is that you constant engagement, favours the quick buck RoI market products that won't be hear in a year's time. Longform, people will wait or pick it up far later hence appeals to more established long term products.
Shortform for Christmas, Longform for a decade. Different sponsors and engagement I'd expect.
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Not really the case tbf.
Might have been, but I have videos from the beginning of the year that people watch now. I also have playlists of my content on my profile that people go through. It's far from where it used to be. Although it's called short form, I have some videos 2,3,5, 8 and one over 10mins talking about some things. It's changed a lot.
Instagram and tiktok have the bonus of the reach. You have the potential ability to reach a new audience every single video. Which is great for new people and growing your audience. YouTube is where people keep coming back as they want more from you in that way.

Filming them is very different as well. Tiktok/insta is far more casual, can be quickly done, answering questions with videos, giving updates, showing people stuff, taking them along a longer journey with many videos. It used to all be about over-edited videos, but now it's far more about the person and a more authentic view point than crazy edits.
YouTube is more like a TV show. You want to take people along in each episode, which takes more work to do over something like that, than a shorter video.

It is a forever changing landscape really, it's changed since I started and no doubt will continue to do so. I see tiktok and instagram as channels to draw people in who want to sit down and watch a tv show about your adventures etc. with the added ability for them to then know a bit more about you and feel they have a bit more of a connection with it and you.
 
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