I’m trying to do this on the first Sunday of each month as a recap of the previous month. So, if you enjoy reading these, you’ll know when to look for them.
February Recap – the all-time best month yet!
In the previous blog, I was feeling pretty good about how December and January went, and then February came along and blew it out of the water. Even though there were only 28 days, the channel had 540k views and added over 2200 subscribers (both all-time bests).
I had kind of bragged how the “Loving County, TX” video was doing well at 30k views the first week. Then it skyrocketed to be the most viewed video on the channel and now sits at 321k. Wow! On top of that I released the “10 SmallestTowns in Texas”, and it has steadily chugged along to 60k views so far. I’m assuming it will continue to grow, because it kind of got lost behind the Loving County video for a while. Needless to say, I gained a lot more followers from Texas in February!
As a total accumulation, we’re now up to 12,450 subscribers and 2.1 million views. That’s crazy.
How the channel is growing
What I’ve noticed is that there is an increasing “foundation” of viewers as the subscriber count increases. This seems obvious but isn’t always the case on some channels. At this point it seems that whatever video I put up, it will immediately get at least 3000 views in the first day, and then from there it varies depending on how well it’s received. A few months ago, that foundational number of views was probably around 750-1000 in the first day.
The good news is that the channel seems to have some very dedicated followers who watch every time a new video is released, no matter what/where it’s about. The success of the video after that seems to be 1) geographical and 2) randomness.
For example, because I’ve done “10 Smallest Towns” videos in five states (KS, OK, MO, NE, TX), and all those videos are popular, I have a good number of subscribers from all those states because of those videos. So the geographical part I mentioned above means that if I release a video from one of those 5 states, it will probably do fairly well. If I release one from a state not on that list like Arkansas, it probably won’t do as well – as evidenced by the Feb 9 video about Rush, Arkansas, that only has about 2500 views so far.
The 2nd reason for success (randomness) … I have no idea how to predict that. I did that Loving County video and thought it have an average reception, and it has become the most viewed video in the history of the channel. That totally surprised me.
Future trips
I’ve been super busy with my full-time job as a track coach at Wichita State, so I haven’t been able to do very much in the way of “YouTube” travel lately. Although I was able to sneak in a couple days in Oklahoma a few weeks ago. I’ve been thinking about the next “10 Smallest Towns” video so I put the question out to subscribers on YouTube to see what they thought. There were 438 votes, and the results were: Arkansas 33%, Colorado 24%, Arizona & Iowa 17%, Ohio 8%.
So, I guess I should start planning a trip to Arkansas haha. It makes a lot of sense, because I’ve already released two videos about Arkansas and plan to release a third one in April.
Actually, I’ve already looked at it. The 10 towns range from a population of 50 down to 20. They are pretty spread out and would require four days to visit them all. I doubt I will have four consecutive days free until the summer, unless I can get creative later this month and do it in two different weekend trips. I’d prefer to do it all at once, but I just don’t have the free time during track season. Stay tuned.
I do plan on doing some more local trips around Kansas that I can get “there and back” on a weekend.
Back to Loving County …
No, I’m not going to travel back to Loving County, Texas (the least populated county in the USA), although I would if I could so I could eat at The Stop. But the success of that video got me thinking … Would a series called “Least Populated County in (insert state here)” be interesting? I think it might be.
So, I looked it up and the least populated counties in KS and OK are Greeley County, KS (population 1,284) and Cimarron County, OK (population 2,296). Those are huge compared to Loving County’s population of 64, but I still think it would be interesting to explore and try to show others what those counties are like. I did something similar when I explored Greenwood County, KS, and released it in two parts, looking for all the ghost towns I could find. Those videos were well received and I’m planning to do the same for Linn County, KS, later this month.
What do you think?
March video releases (for the diehards)
I always like to reward anyone who is interested enough to have continued reading this far :)
Here’s what I have coming up on the channel (subject to change of course – it always does) …
Thu, Mar 2 – Trading Post, KS (released this past Thursday)
Sun,
Mar 5 – small town, USA – Coldspring, TX (released today)
Thu,
Mar 9 – Nebraska Ghost Towns #5 – Venus, Wee Town, Ames
Sun,
Mar 12 – small town, USA – Oxford, KS
Thu,
Mar 16 – Kentucky Ghost Towns #3 – Wisdom, Knob Lick, Sulfur Well, Alone
Sun,
Mar 19 – small town, USA – Arcadia, OK
Thu,
Mar 23 – Linn County, KS, Ghost Towns Part 1
Sun,
Mar 26 – TBA
Thu,
Mar 30 – Linn County, KS, Ghost Towns Part 2
I think this is a pretty interesting list of videos. The Trading Post video was a lot of fun because I was able to get a tour from the local historian.
Thanks again for all the support! Until next time, safe travels!
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