So, I’ve been doing LP’s for a couple of years now, with a few projects under my belt. And I posted a few days ago my first post on the LP side, with links to my current LP of FFVII. I was hoping to ask, what are some good tips on getting my name out there, and making people know about my videos, and wanting to watch them? Has anyone else felt the same with their videos?
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This is gonna sound funny, but thumbnails are SUPER important, even for lps. When somebody randomly gets your video in their suggestions, a screenshot of gameplay with nothing else attached to a not super well known name will probably be glossed over.
This is also something I’ve been working on, but don’t be afraid to self promote. Don’t stick your videos into peoples faces, obviously, but if the topic turns to hobbies don’t be embarrassed to bring up your videos and show them to people. Most of the pewdiepies and IHateEverythings out there started out making videos that only them and their parents watched.
Thumbnails that look interesting enough, content that people are interested in looking at the time, shorter videos, a good venue to promote yourself, a lot of time, a lot of luck.
What I’m basing this off at least:
- Videos I have with cool thumbnails that I don’t promote get more exposure than just a random YT-generated screenshot
- My most viewed video was a stream recording of an Overwatch match where I played Attack Symmetra. 0 effort, exported from Twitch, didn’t even realize it was popular until I checked it randomly one day Also, my Furi LP was my most popular thread on the SA forums because it was the new hotness at the time. By comparison, other LPs I felt I put more work into had less views because they were old or obscure games.
- Sub-20 minute videos are more likely to be seen if they’re edited. If it’s a random funny video, sub-5 minutes seems to get more exposure. Most of my LPs that go over 20 minutes per episode aren’t really watched. And I have a few random videos that got a few hundred views but are random funny game things that were popular at the time.
- My videos get a massive boost whenever they’re posted on the LP Archive. I also saw people get a nice influx of stream viewers when they had popular guests or just popular people RTing their stream. You basically need to let people know that you are streaming/making videos if you want the word out there. Social media, this forum, etc. But if you’re doing this, don’t just use these places as a dump. Interact with them and be part of those communities.
- I’ve been following smaller channels that got no exposure for 3 or so years of regular updates until one spark just made their subscriber count snowball into the thousands. If you check out some popular channels now, and look at their old videos, you’ll see how their views are low for the longest time until it just starts rising consistently after a certain point.
- You can make videos for a month and explode, or 10 years and be obscure. (Incidently, this is what I use to comfort myself after more than 2 years of active streaming. Still 8 more years to go!)
At the end of the day, try and do what you like and look to improve with each video. Obviously, as a creator, you want your stuff out there and for people to see, but don’t let it impact the actual quality of your work. If you stop having fun doing this, you’ll just hate it even if you do get exposure.
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Can I ask, what is “The LP Archive”?
I do plan on putting in my own two cents later (should be working now) but thought I’d get one question in in the meantime.
Honestly, I think out of everything posted and out of everything that COULD be posted this one sentence is what implies the real answer. How do you get your name out there in any field*? Networking and advertising, but the former especially. That’s part of why fora are so important; they give you an avenue to start these things.
You certainly can try and get lucky with just throwing videos up, giving them thumbnails with photoshops of Donald Trump and Sans from Undertale that are eye-catching but also eye-rolling and hope that works out. Even that’s not a requirement or anything, but it probably helps if you want to go the Gambling Route and pray you get lucky. It’s really not worth it though considering things like market saturation and all; the chance of getting a snowball is minuscule regardless of length of time - if anything, the longer you just wait and pray the odds will just get worse as more people start and there is more content to compete with.
By having other avenues to use outside of YT, even if it just something like “ask internet comic book reviewer man Linkara to retweet a link to a video,” can at the very least shift those odds to be less awful. Really, knowing folks that are already popular is the biggest and easiest thing that will help, which can be a problem in itself, yeah. But if you have a quality product and a good means of advertising, even if that is effectively just really potent word of mouth, that can at least light some kind of fuse.
Asterisk: I know it feels weird to think of “this hobby that involves talking about video games” as a field of some kind, but a lot of its skills are highly transferable depending on how you go about it. Video/Audio editing, brand creation, audience retention, script-writing, comedic timing, advertising, etc. etc. are all things you can use in plenty of ways.
Indeed OP, I have this feeling just about every time I post an update to one my LPs; but if you really want to ‘get your name out there’, then I personally think that the first step to doing that is being an active member of a community, like this one. Like no joke, if you want the LPzone to be good to you and provide you a platform where you can form an audience, then you have to be good to it back by being active and participate in other threads, not just LP but in general. ‘Share the love’ or however that saying goes. You’d be surprised how often I check out LPs based solely on the fact I saw the OP posting in another thread and think, “Huh, I wonder what they have to say about this game.” And this isn’t directed at you specifically, but to anybody that is hoping for folks to check out their stuff. The best way for you to grow is to do your part and help the site grow by being active.
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I’d suggest participating in podcasts, working on your ability to improvise and to hold an audience’s attention. I don’t watch anyone unless I’ve seen ample proof that they can string a few sentences together without being annoying.
This is my biggest fear…
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I think it’s a big fear for everyone. No one wants to be considered not entertaining. But this is the internet, no matter what someone out there will enjoy what you do.
My best piece of advice as someone who is also still technically starting out, just literally be yourself. People enjoying listening to someone who is genuine. If you enjoy what you do it’ll come across and people will more likely enjoy watching it.
I’ll take this one step further - the best way to get the exposure you want is to decrease your expectations until you’re happy with the audience you have. It’s not easy, but you have more control over your own desires than you do over who watches your videos. I like to believe that I’d enjoy doing let’s plays even if nobody ever watched them, although that’s fortunately never been tested. My threads sometimes have no response to a particular video and only get much traffic if I’m playing a well-known game, compared to some of the really popular people. So I just concentrate on enjoying the game in a way that I normally wouldn’t and getting to put videos out there just in case anyone ever sees them.
But having guests helps, whether they’re well-known or not. People tend to promote things they’re in, even in other people’s channels. That alone will build your potential audience.
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Lowering expectations has helped me a lot. And honestly, it’s just cool to me that even a dozen people would watch my stuff. Plus when your audience starts small you can have some core viewers who might share your work with others.
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^^^^^
This all the way.
Keep in mind the best way to gain more viewership is by interacting with others. Becoming a part of the community and just branch out. It’s already been said that people check out the threads and videos of someone they see commenting. We’re all a big community that enjoys Video Games. We all want to talk about them and have fun.
I lied actually, my biggest fear would be to get as popular as a videogamedunky or a gamegrumps. I’m already agoraphobic, so being an internet nobody is really good for my mental health, I think.
I really appreciate all the responses I’ve gotten, and how helpful you all are. I really hope to be a part of this community, I feel like I’ve done this on my own for so long. One thing I was curious about is whether I’m posting on the forums properly. I put up my current LP a few days ago, and I haven’t gotten any traffic on it. I admit, I haven’t been here a week even, so I maybe shouldn’t be expecting much. Just wanna know if it was due to poor advertising, bad timing, or both.
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I think on that front it’s just more about consistency or repeated exposure. There are people checking these threads all the time, so just keep posting up videos each time you release one and it’ll keep getting bumped up on the “New” list for another chance at fresh eyeballs. This doesn’t seem like the type of place where you want to go around pointing at your new series link in every thread.
I’ve only got 2 responses in pokemon and none in shantae, but they’re still new threads. Neither are going anywhere anytime soon. :3
Speaking of Shantae, I wonder if I should make a new thread for my Risky’s Revenge series, even though I only have a handful of episodes left on it. Dunno if that goes against the “completed LP” rule.
You can always message the moods and ask if it’s alright.
I’ve gotten some traffic on mine and I’ve been trying to spread the love. Sometimes people watch and don’t post anything but that’s fine too. Also fun thread titles can help with bringing attention to your LP’s, I often find nice joke titles pretty inviting myself.
Plus a cool thing to think about is if you do eventually get more people watching your stuff they may wanna see your old stuff, it’s kind of like building a portfolio.
People also seem to really like doing polls. For my Rainbow Six Siege let’s play I’ve been doing polls n what operators to show off and people seem to find picking pretty fun and it feels like they’re more a part of the project. And as the let’s player I’ve been really enjoying people’s responses to polls as well.
I mean, I was able to post my Dark Souls III LP that is very far in. But there’s a new rule where you have to ask mods before posting an LP in progress.
As for getting your name out there: I’m not super popular and stuff, but I noticed that simply being the first to do something does wonders. Back when Dark Souls II came out I was the first to start an LP of it after the three month rule (because I originally started it on a different forum with a two month rule).
That LP consistently got a lot more attention than my Dark Souls III LP.
Then again, doing something novel can also help to get people acquainted with your work. When I did LPFWA (an “LP” of a wrestling game with custom wrestlers representing forumites, using the games built-in machinima mode to create storyline cutscenes) that got even more attention than my Dark Souls II LP. Even though LPFWA was kind of garbage, to be honest. It’s a fun thing to experience live but kinda hard to watch after the fact. But people enjoyed it so much that one viewer offered to buy me the sequel of the game to do another round and I get asked every now and again whether there’ll be a sequel. The trick here was that I involved the audience in a big way.
I’m not saying you should desperately try to go for that Day 1 glory or to force something new because that will most likely lead to bad content. But if you happen to have a cool idea don’t be afraid to go with it, or ask some of us about whether it seems like a good plan.
Yeah I was noticing that as well when you do something others haven’t done already people are far more interested. While Dark Souls 3(Btw check out Iggy’s LP its pretty good) is a more broadly known and liked game my Rainbow Six Siege LP has gotten far more attention because I think people have never had any experience with it. In some ways it stinks but it’s also neat because it helps to gear me I think towards trying out some new things and introducing people to stuff they missed out on. Which always seemed to be a very core part of LP to me.