Custom-made “Bronze Play Button” after reaching 10K subscribers
It’s been over 900 days since the creation of the TRIZE YouTube channel. On October 11, 2023, I have reached a major milestone of reaching 10,000 subscribers! It was a difficult and long-lasting journey to get to this point after being a content creator for over 12 years. Throughout my time of uploading random videos on the previous channel to “rebranding” and getting serious on the new channel, I’ve learned many things to become as successful as I am at this point. On top of that, I had to commit to a time schedule while I was at school, so I didn’t lag behind in terms of my channel’s growth, as I did this many years ago. Despite this, I managed to balance out my education and channel so they wouldn’t be in the way.
Being a channel with 10,000 subscribers is a small step for what’s to come in the future. It may not be that much on the YouTube ecosystem, where there are millions of other channels of this size or even greater than mine. Because of my experience, I came up with many different ways to stand out from the competition. Ranging from my content to my thumbnails, they were one of the reasons why I’ve amassed over 10,000 subscribers in almost 3 years. In the next paragraph, I’ll explain in detail what I changed over the years to become a better content creator.
What I’ve changed the most in my videos is my commentary skills. About a year ago, I changed up my video intros from the “Hey guys, it’s TRIZE here. Back with (game name) and (insert what I plan to do here).” This intro on my older videos dragged out for over 30 seconds to a minute, which caused users to either skip ahead or click out of my video, harming my average view duration and retention rate. These two stats are very important to how YouTube considers recommending those videos to the front page or in the search results. Now, I add a synopsis and hook to draw the viewer into what the video is about in roughly 15-20 seconds, and I get right into the video from there. This doesn’t try to bore the viewer from becoming disinterested in the video because I talk too much without getting to the point, which seems like the current generation of viewers. (I apologize if that got personal.)
Another thing I’ve gotten better at are my video thumbnails. Before, I didn’t have access to Adobe Photoshop, and I had to use GIMP to edit my thumbnails. What I did to make one was, that I took a still frame from a video and added the game’s logo and text to describe what the video is about. They were bland and too distracting to make out what was really going on. By the time I got Photoshop, things had gotten better for making thumbnails. What I do for every thumbnail in Photoshop is, that I take a screenshot of a car or an object in question. Second, I highlight the important object in the foreground using the quick selection tool. After that, I copy that selection to the clipboard, followed by adding a solid black color to the selection. Next, I use a black-to-white gradient, which serves as a way to gradually blur the background. Then, I add the depth map to define the filled foreground and the created gradient to blur the background. After adding the blur effect, I paste the foreground selection and add the shadow and white outline effect to make the object more intriguing, along with improving the image’s saturation, brightness, and contrast. Finally, I add the text on top of the image and add the game’s logo on the bottom left of the thumbnail. Comparing the difference between my old thumbnails and my current ones, there’s a stark difference in how much I’ve changed over time. Here is an example below of one of my old thumbnails versus my newer ones.
To wrap this up, I want to thank every single one of you who has subscribed and contributed to my channel since its founding! Whether you’ve recently found me or stuck with me after my last channel ban, this milestone means a lot to me! It was a LONG fight to get to this point! I’ll definitely let this settle in and continue to grow and improve as time goes on. Again, I really thank you for your continued support of my channel!
TRIZE 