I’ve been super busy, so I haven’t been able to write a blog lately, so here’s the first one in a couple months …
10k subscribers
The channel has continued to grow steadily, and it cruised past 10,000 subscribers a couple weeks ago. I thought there might be a dip in growth, but it’s just been very consistent with slight ups and downs since December.
December was the best month the channel has ever had. How good was it?
In the month of December alone, Travel with a Wiseguy had 2,063 subscribers, 339,244 views, and 37,287 watch hours.
In January those numbers were slightly lower. 1,672 subscribers, 303,721 views, and 33,309 watch hours. Still really good, but not quite what December was.
I think the growth of YouTube channels vary widely depending on what kind of channel it is. Mine seems to have found an older audience that stumbles upon it gradually over time. It’s been very interesting and continues to be a humbling experience that so many people are watching me talk about these obscure places.
Recent videos and their ups and downs
Since my last blog on December 11, I’ve released 17 videos to varying levels of success. Obviously, I love when a new video finds a wide audience, but I don’t make videos trying to get views. I make videos that I personally find interesting, and I know some won’t get as many eyeballs as others – and I’m totally good with that.
Another one that did well was Missouri Ghost Towns Part 7 (around 10k views). Almost anything I put out there about Missouri does pretty well, because I’ve gained so many followers from the “Missouri Top-10 Smallest Towns” and “Missouri Route 66 Ghost Towns” videos. Those are the two most popular videos on my channel with both over 180k views.
On the other end of the spectrum are two videos, that only have around 1400 views each: “New Year’s in Luckenbach, Texas” and my walkthrough of an abandoned school in Gray Horse, Oklahoma. I thought the Luckenbach one might do better, but oh well it was still a very cool place and I had a blast that night! The school tour was an experiment where I released it on a random day without any announcements to see what would happen.
But to be honest, I had no idea if the Loving County video or Luckenbach video would be more popular. Interesting stuff.
I’m a week away from releasing my next “big video”, which will be the Top-10 Smallest Towns in Texas. The previous four versions of this (Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska) all rank in the top-5 most popular videos I have published. Will Texas follow the same pattern? I would think so. But maybe this time YouTube won’t like it. My bet is that it will do pretty well. I’m currently working on it, and I think it should be an interesting video. We’ll see what happens!
Juggling coaching track and YouTube
If you follow my YouTube channel, you might think I spend a majority of my time traveling around the country and editing videos. That’s actually the opposite of how I spend my days. I’d say 90% of my time and effort is put into my full-time job as a track and field coach at Wichita State University – where I’ve been since 2006. And from January until June it’s probably more like 98% of my time. In fact, I’m writing this as we travel back on a bus from a meet we just had in South Dakota.
For the first couple years of my channel, I tried to release one video per week. I could travel some in the summer and over the winter holidays filming for a couple weeks and have tons of footage available to edit over the course of the busy track and field months. The philosophy right now is the same, except I’m trying to do two videos per week. I’ve been able to keep up that pace since August, and we’ll see if I can keep it up until this summer.
Currently, I have shot enough video to get through about the end of March. Most of those were things I did in late December and early January when I was on vacation during the holidays. If I’m going to be able to continue with two videos per week, I’ll have to get on the road when I have a rare off weekend. Looking ahead at my schedule I do have a few of those weekends available. Being able to have a productive video shoot mainly depends on being at the mercy of mother nature. And if you’ve ever lived in Kansas in the Spring, you’ll chuckle at how unpredictable the weather can be for the next few months.
I definitely don’t want this to come off as complaining. Not at all! And keeping up with posting two videos isn’t that difficult – except for just being able to get out and shoot videos. I’ve gotten good at editing quickly and I rarely spend more than 5 hours per week on that process.
I’m very lucky to have two things (coaching and traveling) that I am able to do. There’s just not quite enough hours in the day to do both fully. So, track and field gets the nod – as that’s my full-time gig. And a great one at that!
Future videos (for the diehards)
I always like to reward anyone who is interested enough to have continued reading this far haha.
Here’s what I have coming up on the channel (subject to change of course – it always does) …
Sun, Feb 5 (today) – small town, USA – Moline, KS
Thu,
Feb 9 – Arkansas Ghost Towns #2 – Rush, Newtown, McIntosh
Sun,
Feb 12 – Top-10 Smallest Towns in Texas
Thu,
Feb 16 – Kentucky Ghost Towns #2 - Paradise
Sun,
Feb 19 – TBA
Thu,
Feb 23 – Texas Ghost Towns #3 – Tarzan, Penwell, Langtry
Sun,
Feb 26 – small town, USA – LaCenter, KY
Thu,
Mar 2 – Nebraska Ghost Towns #5 – Venus, Wee Town, Ames
Sun,
Mar 5 – small town, USA – Coldspring, TX
I’ve got some other stuff I’m thinking about, so this might change. And if I am able to get out and explore for a day or two, I might add some stuff to this as well. That’s why Feb 19 is TBA. I’m hoping to film something next weekend for that slot.
Thanks again for all the support! Hopefully this is interesting for some of you as I continue to navigate this path of growing a YouTube channel.
Until next time, safe travels!
