- So, what is the secret to a brand new YouTube channel
getting over 50 million views and a million subscribers,
with two videos in less than a month?
Well, it's pretty simple.
Buy a van and stick a snake on your head.
(ding)
- [Male Voiceover] VidIQ. - [Female Voiceover] VidIQ.
- [Whispering Voiceover] VidIQ.com.
(glamorous music)
- Welcome back to vidIQ, folks.
I'm Rob, and today I'm going to take you on Jennelle's
exceedingly brief yet astonishing YouTube journey.
Now I don't want to start this case study
by saying "I told you so," but--
Right now, somebody's going to start
their YouTube channel today, and by the end of the year,
they're going to have a million subscribers.
I can guarantee that.
Now I didn't expect that was gonna have
such a perfect example at six months into the year,
but I thank the YouTube universe
for putting my faith in you.
All right, who on earth are we talking about,
and I think that's the key question,
because YouTube has seemingly plucked this person
from total obscurity.
At the beginning of June,
this channel had pretty much no presence on YouTube.
It started in April 2018, but with no content,
they had virtually no subscribers,
and up until very recently, Jennelle's Instagram presence
was a fairly modest 10 thousand followers.
So this is not one of those celebrity paradoxes,
where Will Smith or Jack Black can jump onto YouTube
and gain millions of subscribers.
This is all to do with organic growth on YouTube,
and these are the five reasons
why that's happened so quickly.
Van life, van tour, living out of a van,
whatever you want to call it,
this topic and lifestyle choice is trending right now.
How do we know this?
Well, first of all, if you search for a YouTube,
pretty much every single van lifestyle video is very new,
a few days, a couple of weeks, a month old,
YouTube is receiving a lot of content
on this subject right now,
and recycling the most popular videos very frequently.
Secondly, using vidIQ's keyword research tools,
we can see the van life keyword is juicy right now.
High search volume, but less competition equals a window
of opportunity, albeit a small one.
And if we click on the tag, van life,
to launch our keyword inspector, we can see
that van life is starting to surge as a search term.
Now, no one is saying that this lifestyle
or search term is brand new to the universe,
but through a combination of the time of year
and an influx of content, the subject van life is trending.
Just like the Avengers trended in April,
and Star Wars will trend in December,
you have the opportunity as a video creator
to ride the wave of that trend.
Take Different Media as an example,
a channel that focuses on alternative living documentaries,
that just so happens to have published a video
about van life, right in the middle of this trend.
And it just so happens we can use another vidIQ tool
to analyze it.
The pink graph represents the average expected number
of views for the channel, but this video, after seven days,
already far exceeds that.
Yeah, that compare views tool is pretty awesome,
it's worth downloading vidIQ just for that,
link in the description, and full tutorial onscreen now.
Something important to say at this point
is that you shouldn't jump on the van life idea
for topic's sake or views' sake.
But, if you can merge this trending wave
with the content that you produce,
you've got an opportunity to break into the area.
I mean, what are we doing with this video right now?
We are taking our expertise, and our passion,
and we're jumping onto that surfboard.
"Sup dude and dudettes,
"I made this channel to document my life living
"and traveling in a 1995 GMC Vandura Explorer
"with my pet Alfredo.
"I hope to inspire you guys to get out there
"and do what makes you happy.
"Hugs and kisses, Jennelle and Alfredo."
Yeah, dude and dudettes is never quite gonna have
the same ring to it with a British accent,
but what a perfect way to introduce yourself,
and more importantly, appeal to your audience,
through a channel About section.
It introduces character, creates a collective name
for the community, defines the genres,
creates two heroes of a channel,
and it tells you, the viewer,
what you will get out of the channel.
So many video creators miss this opportunity
in their channel About section.
Although we only have two videos to work with,
the titles match search intent, van life,
with clickability.
"A solo female traveler with a snake?
"Hmm, I need to find out more.
"And oh yeah, how do you shower if you live in a van?"
Oh, and as for whether or not capitalized titles
penalize your videos, yeah, I think Jennelle's
just answered that question.
Do whatever you want.
How on earth do you quantify this, the it factor
or the X factor?
Some people just have it, and in her first video,
Jennelle has this in abundance.
You probably just best watching the video
to understand what I'm talking about.
Every critic is going to describe Jennelle's content
in a different way, but here's my interpretation:
The videos have an innocent charm to them,
while the editing is exceptional.
It's occasionally a little rough,
but always adds something to the scene.
Jennelle is incredibly, how do I put this,
authentic and genuine in front of camera,
but at the same time supremely confident.
I might be wrong about this,
but Jennelle feels like the type of video creator
who will take the time to plan the shot and scene,
but is able to turn on a camera, forget it's there,
and shoot it in one take.
Both of these skills I'm very envious of,
and would like to develop myself as a video creator.
Her talent as a videographer is obvious,
but at the same time, she's a perfect storyteller.
Whilst her van tour is about her van and her life,
it's also about the shared culture of alternative living,
and as much as she reveals about herself in the first video,
it's done in such a way that it creates
a dozen more questions that I need answering as a viewer.
She ages herself as a young traveler,
and does hint at the sustainable lifestyle
she wants to lead, but doesn't reveal,
at least in this video, how she got here.
She has a job, she never cooks in the van,
drives around with her cat's ashes,
and has a huge bear occupying the passenger seat.
In her very first video, she has the confidence to be open
and vulnerable with her audience, introduce a dozen strands
of her life, all of which lead us to ask
and want to know more, and the only way to find that out
would be to watch her future videos.
As part of doing research for this case study,
obviously I needed to watch Jennelle's videos,
but I decided to do this in the company of my girlfriend.
Now, as you might expect,
our interests on YouTube are polar opposites.
I'm into gaming, wrestling,
channel growth for YouTube creators,
and she's interested in beauty and vlogging.
But when we sat down to watch her first video, the van tour,
we both enjoyed it so much, it was such an easy watch,
that we smashed through with 27 minutes of a video,
and immediately watched the second one.
Now, let's just appreciate that microcosm of an example
for a second.
Two viewers, with extremely diverse viewing habits,
both enjoying the same content,
now expand that onto the whole YouTube audience.
Boom.
Watch time, watch time, watch time.
Oh, and I've just realized that's gonna raise
a dozen questions about my girlfriend.
Her name is Sarah, and this is what she looks like:
(snaps) (background music pauses)
She's gonna kill me for that.
No one has access to Jennelle's audience retention stats
except for her, but I reckon they look something like this.
60 to 80% retention rate with watch time
well over 15 minutes for her first video.
Jennelle's videos have the same magnetism
as a Casey Neistat, or Peter McKinnon, Shane Dawson,
or a Jenna Marbles.
Yes, there's always gonna be a certain element
of the audience that switch off very quickly,
but those who watch, watch until the end,
and want to watch more.
Now, why does time have anything to do with this?
I mean, Jennelle's channel has launched
into the stratosphere within a month.
Well, while it's true, it still did take a little bit
of time for YouTube to recognize the content
and start sharing it out to a much wider audience.
And once again, our views comparison tool shows this.
Her very first video, on its very first day, got 350 views,
but the velocity remained steady, and after seven days,
we can just start to see YouTube experimenting
with the value of this video and sharing it
with a much wider audience.
And remember, this is not being driven by a subscriber base
or a core audience already well-established.
This is YouTube's algorithm: search and discovery,
experimenting with audiences just like myself
and my girlfriend, who immediately connected
with the content.
By the time Jennelle's second video is released,
the first one is already driving 50 thousand views a day.
This video continues with upward momentum,
and with the two videos now working in tandem,
it drives her content into space.
The videos are hitting on a trend,
the creator is both an excellent filmmaker
and storyteller, the videos are being watched
by all kinds of audiences,
and, I forgot to mention this earlier,
it appeals to all demographics, and the content
would appear to be very safe, advertiser-friendly.
And the thumbnails have a simplicity that still teases
an intriguing, clickable story.
But does all that still make a channel get
a million subscribers and 50 million views in a month?
Well, I'm not gonna insult you and be naive enough to say,
"yes, that's all it takes," because there are probably
dozens, hundreds, if not thousands of video creators
whose first videos have been as good as Jennelle's
and have not got that YouTube lift.
At the end of the day, you're always at the whim
of this, the YouTube algorithm.
Now I do think Jennelle struck gold.
Her first two videos were lucky to get so many views
and subscribers; but, I think eventually,
whether or not it would have been 10 videos, 50 videos,
100 videos, she would have hit the YouTube jackpot.
All she has to do is monetize her channel,
if she hasn't already done so,
and create more content, because I wouldn't be surprised
if she hits three, four, even five million subscribers
by the end of the year.
If you enjoyed this case study,
we've got plenty more over there in our playlist,
and if you want to know more about vidIQ
and what it can do to help your channel,
we've got another playlist down there.
Enjoy the rest of your video-making day,
we'll see you on those videos right now.