Don't get discouraged and depressed by low view counts, followers and likes!
Filmmakers, artists, and creators, I know the struggle. You upload a video onto the internet and you are excited to finally see all that hard work pay as people react and watch it. Then you log in to see how it's doing, and you see it's gotten 7 views within a few days. You then search for other videos and short films getting 250,000 views easily. Then you start feeling down and a bit sad from the social media blues. Welcome to the ‘compare and despair’ attitude friends.
Come on man, only two views!
Social media is a vital tool for filmmakers and does offer benefits. As much as it would be nice to "Shut it all Down" and forgot it, us filmmakers need social media to help promote, market, and share the work we do. But at the same time, Social media can also set unrealistic expectations and create feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Seeing friends and artists constantly on holiday or being on set everyday can make you feel like you are missing out while others enjoy life. It's quite the double edged sword. Social media isn’t going away anytime soon, so as artists we have to learn to work it and adapt to it's mental health effects.
The first important factor is that you should limit your time on social media. You are a artist after all, most of your time should be focusing on that. Check in on and post on social media every now and then, but don't get sucked in for hours. If you start to fall into the trap of comparing your followers or view counts to other posts or videos, think of a bright red stop sign. Stop right Now!
Thank you very much! Like the Spice Girls say, stop those negative thoughts and step away for a bit. That will help you to get your mind off it and focusing on more important things in your life.
Stop looking at social media and go outside. Your mind will thank you for it.
The second lesson is the amount of views has nothing to do with the quality of your content. That is another easy trap to get your foot stuck in. It's easy to think that the view counter or like counter is a measure of the quality. But this is simply not true. Do I need to remind you of the era of Fred Videos? That guy who would talk in that very annoying high pitched voice and got lots of views just for screaming randomly. You're not going to find anyone claiming that FRED: The Movie is an cinematic masterpiece, but it was a popular movie because of the Youtubers fame. The point is, a videos view count has nothing to do with the quality,
For some reason this was a popular video series back in the day, and I still don’t understand why?
Another aspect of why new videos get so little views on youtube is how youtube is programmed now a days. Youtube's algorithm is designed to promote videos that are monetized. It wants to make money from its advertisers, so it's not going to be recommending videos that are not making money from ads. The only issue is that a channel needs a lot of watch time and subscriber count of 1000 before you can even monetized your videos. So now your in this catch-22 that your videos need to be monetized to get recommend but you can't get monetized because Youtube isn't pushing your videos. So all of the promotion has to come from you, which can be hard job in itself.
Another aspect to remember is that some youtube channels pay for their views to inflate their numbers. There is a whole seedy business that is all about this. You've most likely gotten messages on Instagram asking you to buy likes and followers. It's never a good idea to buy Youtube views or Instagram followers. The purchased followers are likely bots or inactive accounts, so they won't engage with your posts or offer your much benefit. It will also make it hard to measure metrics as your won't be able to tell the actual views from the fake ones. You can ruin your reputation, alienate your real followers, and even lose your account. The bragging rights are not worth it! Keep true to yourself my friends!
Maybe we’ll hit 10,000 views. this year, maybe we won’t. But I can’t let it stress me out.
If you want to have people watch your videos, connect with your fans, and generate a return on investment from your social media strategy, then there are better ways to spend your time and money. At the end of the day, all of social media are just random numbers in a weird swallow popularity contest. If you keep on making interesting content and work on improving your self and your craft, that's all can do. Focus on relationships, investing in adverting (not views or followers) and stay focused on your art.
