Greenwood County likes the Wiseguy, and do I have a YouTube strategy?

Greenwood County likes the Wiseguy

Last month when I posted on this blog, I was about to release a couple videos of traveling all around Greenwood County, Kansas (population 6,016). That proved successful as this rural county and their ghost towns received over 35,000 views in a couple weeks.

While I continue to learn about how YouTube and its algorithm works, I never really know what will happen with a video. Generally, a lot of my followers are from Kansas, so those videos usually do well. But some of these videos are in such isolated and remote places it has to have some word of mouth for them to ultimately be successful. I received so many nice comments and emails from people who either currently live in Greenwood County, used to live there, or has family there. I think I got lucky by choosing a county that has so many ghost towns. Are there other Kansas counties that would be good to visit? I’m thinking “by county” might be a good way for some future videos.

Other videos released in the past month

I also released a couple of “small town, USA” videos from Nebraska and Iowa, and as expected they didn’t get as much traction as the earlier ones from Kansas. This doesn’t bother me (I’ll explain why below). I published a video about Nicodemus, Kansas, that I’m proud of. It’s not monetized because I used some copyrighted music, but I really loved how it complimented the last half of the video and I decided to keep it in there. It might cause me to not make a couple bucks, but at this point of my channel’s life that isn’t a priority. I received a nice message from the people who run their historic site about how thankful they were to get some positive attention for Nicodemus. Hopefully it motivates people to visit if they are ever heading out towards NW Kansas.

The longest video I released in the past month was the “Top-10 smallest towns in Nebraska”. This is the fourth video of this type I’ve released, and the first three (KS, OK, MO) are the three most popular videos on my channel. It has started out solidly and I’ve heard from a lot of appreciative Nebraskans. In terms of quality, I think it’s one of the best videos I’ve done (except for the darn audio in the final town).

Do I have a strategy for releasing videos?

As this YouTube thing is still a hobby, I don’t put a ton of thought as to how to grow the channel, but over time I have tweaked things to experiment with it. I can’t believe I now have over 6,000 subscribers and am approaching a million views since this started back in the summer of 2020. A lot of the success has been totally random, while some of it has been planned. I’d give it a 75%/25% random/planned ratio.

The first significant change I made was in the summer of 2021, where I decided to mostly focus on small towns, ghost towns, and the occasional road trip (which also focused on small towns). I noticed videos that strayed from these topics weren’t very popular (RIP slushie reviews), and my interest in the small town genre was what I wanted to focus on anyways.

The other significant “strategy” I’ve developed was totally by luck. I had released three of these “top-10 smallest towns” videos that did well, but nothing spectacular. They were all floating around 10,000 views, then they took off and one at a time got up to over 80,000 views in a couple months. The first one (Kansas) had been out for over a year before it took off. But not only did these videos go viral (at least for a small channel like mine), it raised up all the other videos that were geographically related. For example, when the Missouri top-10 video got all these views, all the Missouri ghost town videos I had previously released got way more views than normal. Same for Oklahoma and Kansas.

It makes sense now that I think about it, because why wouldn’t someone who's interested in the “popular” video click on similar ones about their home state?

So, if you’ve noticed recently, I’ve tried to release several videos about Nebraska ghost towns, small towns, and The Oregon Trail in Nebraska, as a ramp up to the Top-10 smallest towns in Nebraska video. I’m also working on a few other Nebraska ghost town videos in the coming weeks/months so there is a “library” of videos for people from the Cornhusker State. The hope is if the Top-10 video goes the same route as the previous ones that it’s a “rising tide lifts all boats” deal. It seems to already be working as the Nebraska Oregon Trail videos have become the most popular ones of that entire series.

Will it continue to work? Who knows. But it kind of makes sense, right?

Upcoming release schedule and travel plans - for the diehards

I really appreciate the growing number of people who are interested in what I’m doing, so I’m happy to share what I’ve got coming up with those who are really into it.  Here’s my plan for the next few weeks or so …

Sun, Nov 20 (tomorrow) – small town, USA – Yale, Oklahoma

Thu, Nov 24 – Wyoming Ghost Towns #2 – Miner’s Delight, Atlantic City, South Pass City

Sun, Nov 27 – small town, USA – Scribner, Nebraska

Thu, Dec 1 – Idaho Ghost Towns #2 – Chesterfield, Silver City

Sun, Dec 4 – ?????

Thu, Dec 8 – Nebraska Ghost Towns #3 – Kronborg, Nysted, Dannevirke

Sun, Dec 11 – ?????

I’ve filmed two videos for these Sunday releases that I put “?????” above, but I’m not sure if I want to publish them yet. I’m going to explore a little bit over Thanksgiving break (see below), and I might want to move something in there from where I’m going. I also have two more Nebraska ghost towns videos besides the one listed above, but I want to try and spread those out and sprinkle in other states in the coming weeks. Two other videos I’m thinking about is a “Favorite Ghost Towns of 2022” video at the end of the year (everyone loves end of year lists right?), and I’ve got footage from my 2019 trip to Bolivia that I’ve been holding onto forever. I previously released videos about Easter Island and Peru, and this would be the final video from that trip. Don’t know when I might do that one, but it’s there ready to begin editing.

I’ve got a few trips planned between now and January. The first one (later this week) is still a work in progress. I’ve been very busy with my full-time job coaching track at Wichita State, so I haven’t been able to plan much. But I’m hoping to take a few days and possibly explore into Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Not sure how much I will be able to do because I gotta get back to Wichita Saturday to see my buddy Cole Davis (Workin for the Wild on YouTube)!

I’ll be in Denver, Colorado, from Dec 12-17 for our national coaches convention. I don’t think I’ll be able to make any videos during that time, but it’ll be a nice trip.

Once I get back from Denver, I’ve got a big trip in the works. My current idea is to take a few days to drive to Ohio to see my family for the holidays. I haven’t figured out my route between Kansas and Ohio yet, but Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Indiana, and Kentucky are all possibilities. Once I get to Ohio I’ll be there for several days, so maybe I’ll film something while I’m “home”. I’d like to do a small town, USA video of Russellville, Ohio – the current home of my brother and where I went to junior high (the old school is still there).

Then on December 27 I’ll be flying to Houston, Texas, to spend a week exploring all around The Lone Star State. I plan to visit the smallest 10 towns and film several ghost town and small town videos along the way. Texas is a HUGE state, so we’ll see if I can get to all those places in a week. Should be fun to try!

Then I’ll be back in Wichita on January 3 to get ready for the indoor track and field season.

The best place to keep up with where I’m currently at is Instagram travel_wiseguy.

Ok I think that’s enough for now. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! Thank you for the continued support of Travel with a Wiseguy!