u/TypicalTeenager_

33 videos, 81 subs, ~10.8K views. 2 videos = ~40% of all views. The other 31 average ~200 views each.

Quick background: my channel makes MS Paint-style animated explainers on animal behavior/predator psychology — mostly "predator paradox" videos (why an animal capable of killing you chooses not to). Started in the ancient-humans/prehistory niche, pivoted a couple months ago after this niche clearly outperformed it in the data.

What I ruled out with actual data:

• CTR — correlation with impressions: -0.01. My best-CTR video gets barely any impressions.
• Retention — correlation: ~0.07. Same story, best-retention video is my worst performer.
• Repeating the same topic — did 4 more videos in the same lane as my top video. Views collapsed after the first one. (yes i did differentiate between each one)
• Thumbnails — no visual pattern separates my 2 winners from the rest. (all vids follows similar thumbnail pattern)

What I did find: my 2 winners got pushed hard into "Suggested" within 48 hours of publishing. My underperformers got almost nothing in that same window. So whatever decides this happens early before CTR/retention data would even matter.

Also: 99%+ non-subscribed traffic, and Studio flags "returning viewers: Low" on almost every video, winners included.

So the question is ?:

1. Why am i not growing?
2. Doing more of what gets views does not work
3. Doing less of what get views (vids on different topic) does not work
4. 2 videos worked are similar to rest of the vids on the channel, so no way of knowing what works.

it almost feels like playing slot machine with every new video. Please help.

Not looking for "make more/better content" — trying to figure out what's left to actually test to figure out what am i doing wrong.

33 videos, 81 subs, ~10.8K views. 2 videos = ~40% of all views. The other 31 average ~200 views each.

Quick background: my channel makes MS Paint-style animated explainers on animal behavior/predator psychology — mostly "predator paradox" videos (why an animal capable of killing you chooses not to). Started in the ancient-humans/prehistory niche, pivoted a couple months ago after this niche clearly outperformed it in the data.

What I ruled out with actual data:

• CTR — correlation with impressions: -0.01. My best-CTR video gets barely any impressions.
• Retention — correlation: ~0.07. Same story, best-retention video is my worst performer.
• Repeating the same topic — did 4 more videos in the same lane as my top video. Views collapsed after the first one. (yes i did differentiate between each one)
• Thumbnails — no visual pattern separates my 2 winners from the rest. (all vids follows similar thumbnail pattern)

What I did find: my 2 winners got pushed hard into "Suggested" within 48 hours of publishing. My underperformers got almost nothing in that same window. So whatever decides this happens early before CTR/retention data would even matter.

Also: 99%+ non-subscribed traffic, and Studio flags "returning viewers: Low" on almost every video, winners included.

So the question is ?:

1. Why am i not growing?
2. Doing more of what gets views does not work
3. Doing less of what get views (vids on different topic) does not work
4. 2 videos worked are similar to rest of the vids on the channel, so no way of knowing what works.

it almost feels like playing slot machine with every new video. Please help.

Not looking for "make more/better content" — trying to figure out what's left to actually test to figure out what am i doing wrong.

33 videos, 81 subs, ~10.8K views. 2 videos = ~40% of all views. The other 31 average ~200 views each.

Quick background: my channel makes MS Paint-style animated explainers on animal behavior/predator psychology — mostly "predator paradox" videos (why an animal capable of killing you chooses not to). Started in the ancient-humans/prehistory niche, pivoted a couple months ago after this niche clearly outperformed it in the data.

What I ruled out with actual data:

• CTR — correlation with impressions: -0.01. My best-CTR video gets barely any impressions.
• Retention — correlation: ~0.07. Same story, best-retention video is my worst performer.
• Repeating the same topic — did 4 more videos in the same lane as my top video. Views collapsed after the first one. (yes i did differentiate between each one)
• Thumbnails — no visual pattern separates my 2 winners from the rest. (all vids follows similar thumbnail pattern)

What I did find: my 2 winners got pushed hard into "Suggested" within 48 hours of publishing. My underperformers got almost nothing in that same window. So whatever decides this happens early before CTR/retention data would even matter.

Also: 99%+ non-subscribed traffic, and Studio flags "returning viewers: Low" on almost every video, winners included.

So the question is ?:

1. Why am i not growing?
2. Doing more of what gets views does not work
3. Doing less of what get views (vids on different topic) does not work
4. 2 videos worked are similar to rest of the vids on the channel, so no way of knowing what works.

it almost feels like playing slot machine with every new video. Please help.

Not looking for "make more/better content" trying to figure out what's left to actually test to figure out what am i doing wrong.

33 videos, 81 subs, ~10.8K views. 2 videos = ~40% of all views. The other 31 average ~200 views each.

Quick background: my channel makes MS Paint-style animated explainers on animal behavior/predator psychology — mostly "predator paradox" videos (why an animal capable of killing you chooses not to). Started in the ancient-humans/prehistory niche, pivoted a couple months ago after this niche clearly outperformed it in the data.

What I ruled out with actual data:

• CTR — correlation with impressions: -0.01. My best-CTR video gets barely any impressions.
• Retention — correlation: ~0.07. Same story, best-retention video is my worst performer.
• Repeating the same topic — did 4 more videos in the same lane as my top video. Views collapsed after the first one. (yes i did differentiate between each one)
• Thumbnails — no visual pattern separates my 2 winners from the rest. (all vids follows similar thumbnail pattern)

What I did find: my 2 winners got pushed hard into "Suggested" within 48 hours of publishing. My underperformers got almost nothing in that same window. So whatever decides this happens early before CTR/retention data would even matter.

Also: 99%+ non-subscribed traffic, and Studio flags "returning viewers: Low" on almost every video, winners included.

So the question is ?:

1. Why am i not growing?
2. Doing more of what gets views does not work
3. Doing less of what get views (vids on different topic) does not work
4. 2 videos worked are similar to rest of the vids on the channel, so no way of knowing what works.

it almost feels like playing slot machine with every new video. Please help.

Not looking for "make more/better content" — trying to figure out what's left to actually test to figure out what am i doing wrong.

I’m a small channel (low double-digit subs, wildlife/animal behavior niche)

I’ve mostly ignored the Community tab because I couldn’t find a clear signal on whether it does anything for discovery.

The pitch I keep hearing is that Community posts “keep the algorithm warm” between uploads and give you a low-effort way to test titles/thumbnails before committing to a full video.

Any factual data on community posts tied to channel growth?

I’ve been running into a contradiction that I think a lot of small channels hit, and I haven’t seen it named clearly anywhere, so here’s my attempt.

Horn 1: Stay similar. If I make several videos on a closely related topic (say, “why apex predator X avoids humans”), the audience and the algorithm both start treating it as repetition. Even if each video has new information, it reads as “milking a topic” — diminishing curiosity, diminishing CTR, diminishing views.

Horn 2: Go different. If I switch to a genuinely different topic, YouTube’s suggestion system has no signal for who to show it to. No topical cluster, no viewer history to match against, no “if you liked X you’ll like Y” pathway. Result: no impressions, because the algorithm doesn’t know where to place it.

So similarity kills curiosity, and difference kills discoverability. Both paths lead to the same outcome — flat views — just via different mechanisms.

So how do you micro niche without milking a topic?

I make videos in animal behaviour niche

Option 1: Stay similar. If I make several videos on a closely related topic (say, “why apex predator avoids humans”), the audience and the algorithm both start treating it as repetition. Even if each video has new information, it reads as “milking a topic” diminishing curiosity, diminishing CTR, diminishing views.

Option 2: Go different. If I switch to a genuinely different topic, YouTube’s suggestion system has no signal for who to show it to. No topical cluster, no viewer history to match against, no “if you liked X you’ll like Y” pathway. Result: no impressions, because the algorithm doesn’t know where to place it.

So similarity kills curiosity, and difference kills discoverability. Both paths lead to the same outcome- flat views - just via different mechanisms.

So how do you micro niche without milking a topic or YouTube to think you are making same videos and not promote it?