Is there anyway to continue getting views for our new short film

C

Cstein15

Hey everybody,

My friends and I recently released a short film, "Stranger with a Gun," which we posted on our youtube channel. In the first couple weeks it's gotten about 500 views, and is currently getting about 10 views a day. Does anyone have any suggestions on ways to continue promoting and getting views for our film. Interestingly we released another short film "The Reading Room," about 10 months ago which has about 13,000 views and we're not sure why. If you could check out either one and see if you have any suggestions on what we can do to get similar or better results with this film it would be greatly appreciated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNNP6ANRhnc


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yd0HCoq76E
 
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There isn't one way to get more views, there's a thousand! And you have to employ as many of them as possible to get any sort of response. It's important to figure out why certain content does well on your channel whereas other content lags. More so, it's important to strongly tie your content in with your base - social networking, having a website, a newsletter, etc. When I started my weekly newsletter, all my videos began to get way more hits because I was putting new content in people's inbox each week.

Also check how you're tagging your Youtube content - make sure you have plenty of tags that will direct people looking for similar things to you.
 
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It's all about "buzz;" something that peaks the interest(s) of the general public at large, or at least a specific target audience.

The original Star Trek series featured the first interracial kiss on TV, although it was not enough to save the series.

In the early 1990s a new show came out called "NYPD Blue." There was a lot of buzz/uproar/controversy because, in one of the early episodes of the first season, there would be nudity. It turned out to be a medium shot of the big, fat, cottage cheese ass of Det. Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) walking away from the camera to the showers. It was actually kind of gross. (In 1993 a 20" TV was about as big as most folks could afford, so you didn't really see all that much anyway). But all of the buzz got a lot of people to tune in to what was a fairly decent cop show, and the less than average ratings went up.

Not having names or a recognized brand means that you need something really special/unusual/different/weird/whatever to be buzz-worthy - or you need to be incredibly networked (as BF1225 mentioned), and even then your "product" must be exceptional to hold onto the viewers you managed to grab and to get them talking/texting/blogging/Tweeting/FaceBooking/whatever-ing to attract more views. You have 10,000 times more competition than you would have had even 10 years ago (not including all of the "viral' videos), so it's getting harder and harder.


I keep saying that someone is going to get rich with a series that has three (3) to five (5) minute episodes a few days a week (a two [2] minute episode everyday Monday through Friday?) - formatted to small screens and small sound - smart phones, tablets, laptops, earbuds/headphones, etc. - something that you can watch waiting for the bus or train, catch an episode during lunch or a coffee break, and the like. We've become a portable technology, sound-bite world - even faster than the "MTV" generation of the four (4) minute music video - instant gratification, and hungry for the next fix.
 
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Alcove Audio said:
I keep saying that someone is going to get rich with a series that has three (3) to five (5) minute episodes a few days a week (a two [2] minute episode everyday Monday through Friday?) - formatted to small screens and small sound - smart phones, tablets, laptops, earbuds/headphones, etc. - something that you can watch waiting for the bus or train, catch an episode during lunch or a coffee break, and the like. We've become a portable technology, sound-bite world - even faster than the "MTV" generation of the four (4) minute music video - instant gratification, and hungry for the next fix.
Click to expand...


I'd say CollegeHumor's 'Jake & Amir' is probably pretty close to this format. I had the good fortune to interview them when they were the cover story in the magazine I was the Editor & Chief of a couple years ago - They run a high quality web-show that is published very regularly and has a massive fan base that seems to be growing pretty heavily.
 
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I'm not big yet, but I would say that making content on a regular basis definitely helps. They say the first few thousand subscribers is the hardest and after that it tends to multiply at a rapid rate.

Starting in January this year I began making a new comedy short every week and I went from like 300-something subscribers to currently 510 subscribers.


Check out my channel if you're interested; www.youtube.com/mussonman


Edit: Also, making short videos is important, at least at first. Not a lot of people would be willing to give a 20 minute video a chance unless they were familiar with the artist
 
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I got a notification today on my phone that one of my videos had passed 1,000 views. Turns out it's nearly 3,000.

But no.. it was just a damn clip from beverly hills cop I uploaded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D8Cz4lsR5w

I can't stay mad at serge, he is too awesome :lol:
 
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If you want to spend some money you could give youtube's promoted videos a try. Run them at 1 cent/view and you can pick up quite a few views for only a little money - if your film is of interest to people this will usually multiply into a lot more views as it gets in front of people who will share it. Also, as the views go up you'll start to rank higher in organic search rankings for the keywords on your video. If your film doesn't start getting more views on it's own after running the ads a little while it's a cheap way to figure out that you need something else to engage people.
 
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mussonman said:
I'm not big yet, but I would say that making content on a regular basis definitely helps. They say the first few thousand subscribers is the hardest and after that it tends to multiply at a rapid rate.
Click to expand...

I passed 1,000 over the weekend, so I'm hoping to test this theory out. On average now, I seem to be getting about 30-50 a month, more on the months I make more content - that number has been growing exponentially. I don't think I'd call it 'rapid' - but it's growing quicker. My goal is 10,000 two years from now.
 
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There is one video I was in that has 33,000 views lol
I had no idea it was up that high now.

Uploaded 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB0BzBrJy3g
 
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There's a few things you could do:

Whenever you upload a new short film always provide a link in the description to a short film that is the most viewed.

Provide a link to the new short film you upload in the description of a short film that is viewed the least.

Remind people to subscribe to your channel.

Every so often change the image that's displayed as a thumbnail on your videos to keep it fresh because sometimes it's the thumbnail image that draws attention to people when they're looking for videos to watch.

Find channels that you like and subscribe to them because the tags you put for your video may correspond with the tags the channels you like have associated with their videos.

Make sure you have put relevant tags associated with your video, especially don't forget to include your channel's name in the tag section. Sometimes there's official tags that appear when you begin typing in a certain word - if this happens, and they're relevant, make sure you use the official tag offered.
 
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Also - the title of your video is the most important thing in terms of search results. Tags and keywords in the description are good, but making sure you have your most relevant keywords in the title will go much farther.
 
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Little known fact: tags are actually the least important part of the search engine. If your tags were in your description, they'd be a little more useful. But it also depends on how many views and subscribers you have already
 
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You could google SEO for youtube or with similar search words,

also it is really important that you have a good thumbnail for your youtube video. If you activate your account you can select the image by yourself.

Then most important is that you have a good title for the film.

For instance I have :

500 Grammaa [500 Grams] feature film [video] from Finland. HD. English subtitles.

I did mention Finland because if someone looks video from Finland they might find mine. Also important to mention subtitles or subs in the description if you have those. For description, instead of synopsis I think I would use a tagline.
 
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sfoster said:
There is one video I was in that has 33,000 views lol
I had no idea it was up that high now.

Uploaded 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB0BzBrJy3g
Click to expand...

DEAR GOD! has no one told this entire state about the elbow behind the table rule?!? that guy in the tap out shirt was basically laying on the table
 
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