Clickbait Really is Unreasonably Effective! A Recap of 2022
The Art of Creating Engaging YouTube Videos: An Exclusive Look Behind the Scenes
As we take a sneak peek behind the curtains of my YouTube channel, I'm excited to share with you the secrets to creating engaging videos that resonate with my audience. From experimenting with different formats to collaborating with fellow creators, I'll take you through the highs and lows of producing content that's both informative and entertaining.
One of the most significant challenges I face is switching between small and big projects. While smaller projects like electronics tutorials are a breeze to produce, bigger projects require more time and effort. To overcome this, I focus on breaking down larger projects into smaller, manageable chunks. This approach allows me to maintain a smooth upload schedule while still delivering high-quality content.
To give you an idea of my workflow, consider this: I spend around three months preparing for each video. From conceptualizing the project to finalizing the edit, it's a labor-intensive process that requires patience and dedication. However, when it all comes together, the end result is well worth the effort. As I put it, "it's definitely worth it" and I'm confident that my audience will appreciate the extra time and attention to detail.
Another aspect of creating engaging YouTube videos is experimenting with different formats. While I've had success with traditional electronics tutorials, I'm always on the lookout for new ideas and approaches. In fact, one of my favorite projects from 2022 was a series of drone-related videos that showcased my creative side. Although they didn't perform exceptionally well in terms of viewership, I loved the process of designing and building the drones, and I believe it helped me grow as a creator.
Collaborating with fellow creators is another exciting aspect of my YouTube journey. While I've had opportunities to collaborate on projects, there's one notable exception that comes to mind – a collaboration with Bit Looney, whom I met at Electronica this year. We discussed the possibility of working together on an oscilloscope project, but unfortunately, our schedules didn't align, and it hasn't happened yet. However, I'm always open to collaborating with like-minded creators, and I encourage my audience to reach out if they're interested in working together.
As for my favorite projects from 2022, I have to say that the drone-related videos were a close second to my smart outlet/smart socket project. While these projects didn't perform exceptionally well in terms of viewership, I learned so much from them and had an absolute blast creating them. One of the highlights of these projects was discovering tiny transformers that can safely sense mains voltage – it's amazing stuff!
Looking ahead, I have to admit that I'm a bit hesitant to expand my content beyond YouTube videos. While I love making web videos and enjoy having all the creative control, I also appreciate the flexibility and autonomy that comes with working independently. That being said, if there's enough demand for something new, I might consider exploring other formats or platforms.
For those interested in learning about PCB design, I have to admit that I'm still a bit of a noob when it comes to this topic. However, I've found some excellent resources online, including Altium and Phil's Lab – an awesome YouTube channel that offers valuable tips and insights on PCB design. If you're new to PCB design or looking to improve your skills, I highly recommend checking out these resources.
As we wrap up our exclusive look behind the scenes, I want to leave you with a final thought: stay creative, and I'll see you in the next video!
WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enanother year came to an end and that of course means it was time for me to declutter my electronics lab to make it look all nice and clean do some electrical work at the new house and also sit down on this chair right now and do a small recap of what happened in 2022 the main topics will like always be my video production and how things will move forward the house project about which I told you about one year ago and ultimately I selected some spicy questions from patreon Twitter Instagram and Facebook that I would love to answer of course like always you can check the timeline below to skip to the parts that interest you and with that being said let's get started with the video production segment now last year I said I would put more effort into creating more enticing thumbnails and titles for upcoming videos and that is exactly what I did and I think pretty easy to spot if we compare current thumbnails to thumbnails from for example 2020 here of course going into full clickbait territory was never my intention because I'm not a fan of clickbait either but with this kind of curiosity clickbait I was hoping that my average views would stop going down and a bit up again and all I can say is that after going this route for more than a year now is that it is really true that clickbait is unreasonably effective on YouTube for example in 2022 I got 32 million views while in 2021 it was only 28 million views which does not seem like a big difference to many out there but let me tell you that I really notice a difference when it comes to the video engagement there are also quite a few videos that gained over 1 million views in a rather short time periods which is also not normal for my videos especially the AliExpress Hidden Gem video series performed exceptionally well and the first part was actually the reason for the biggest Spike on my YouTube channel yet so needless to say the AliExpress Hidden Gem video series will continue even though I think it's a bit sad that such easy to create content gets more attention than for example a big Electronics project I plan for weeks or maybe months but then again this is how YouTube works and it's not like I have no fun while testing AliExpress items it just feels a bit like cheating but anyway during the videos of 2022 I also tried out new intro Styles more jokes and lots of other things while of course staying true to electrical engineering and detailed technical aspects and I think for my videos I actually found a sweet spot this year which I will continue to fine tune in the future so in a nutshell everything is going pretty good and I will continue doing what I did in 2022 the only big change this year was changing up my release schedule which I did right after my summer vacation before that my usual release schedule was three videos in three weeks then a one week break and then I repeat the cycle over and over again but after summer I only released one video every other week and there are basically two big reasons for that the first reason is that my videos just got bigger and bigger and yes if you as a viewer do not immediately notice that because the runtime is always about the same but for me I was just pouring more and more hours into one video to get it done and since I have such a tight release schedule it was one project then the next one the next one without any breaks and as you can already guess without any breaks that is definitely not a healthy work environment and I really felt that so I said okay I have to put an effort here do an effort here and just slow down the video release schedule so that I do not go crazy and the second reason is that I just had big projects on my bucket list for way too long that I wanted to do those projects include the Drone project the smart socket project and also my garage electrical installation video and without breaking up the release schedule the tight one I would have never had the chance to do them so I had to do it but the big question is now what now that those projects are over will I switch back to my old release schedule and the answer is I already kind of did in December and I actually released three videos so that's the old release schedule will this continue in 2023 though not sure I think I will say there will no longer be a fixed release schedule meaning that if I'm working on bigger stuff there will be fewer videos and if I'm working on smaller stuff like Basics videos AliExpress videos there will be more videos I think that's the simplest solution that will hopefully work for you and also importantly for me okay with that being said I think I talked enough about my video production so let's move on to the house projects and here I think the big question on everyone's mind is why am I still sitting in my apartment because as some of you might know I signed the contract for the house Construction in August of 2021 and now at the beginning of 2023 it is still not done the reason is simply that I underestimated how long it would take to plan the house get the permits and of course the house Construction Company also had to prepare quite a few things so long story short the construction actually only started at the beginning of August 2022 so one year after the contract was signed on the positive side though I cannot complain at all about the guys who built my house and that is saying something because we Germans love to complain at the moment the shell of the house is done and a bit more which basically includes the main structure the roof we got windows and a door and the electrical wires are also all in place what comes next are the water pipes bathroom insulation heating the floors painting and some other things along the way in theory the house should be done by the beginning of May 2023 and I hope to move in around July or August so basically two and a half years after I bought the plots crazy if you want to see more you can of course check out the new garage video and I think there will also be project videos about the house so look forward to that and with that being said let's move on to the last part of this recap which are some questions I hand-picked and let's start off with patreon questions before that though let me firstly thank my Patron supporters for their continued support thanks to you guys I can work on electronics videos without having to worry about my finances too much so yeah big thanks for that and if someone is out there who is interested in supporting me through patreon as well then check out the video description but in a nutshell you only have to donate one dollar per month to get early access to my videos and through patreon is also the easiest way to get in contact with me okay first question is whether making videos is still fun for me to do and luckily the answer to that is definitely yes of course it can be a bit tiresome sometimes to do voice overs write scripts or edit videos but then again it is so much fun just playing around with electronics new electronics learning stuff discovering stuff building stuff I love it and I think it's a very enjoyable job overall next someone asks how I stay motivated when things don't work out or take longer to complete and how this affects my upload schedule My secret is basically here doing big stuff behind the scenes so basically I have smaller videos on the front basic ones smaller projects where I know I can get them done in a smaller time periods and I do those regularly and the big stuff is behind the scenes I work on those when I got free time time in between smaller projects and basically when I see at a point okay there are no more big trials and arrows involved with the big projects I put them on the front I'm like okay I can get them done in a week or two then I finish them up they go online and all in all they maybe take around three months in total time but definitely worth it I would say and just this switching around from small stuff to Big Stuff is definitely my secret here to not get too frustrated with the big stuff because like I said there will be errors there will be a problems with that and so that you can always switch around I get a smooth upload schedule I get big and small projects combined I think it's a win-win situation here next someone asks if there will be more home renovation slash Improvement videos and all I can say about that at the moment is that the first video in the new house will be about setting up an Electronics lab like this one um because after 10 years of making videos about Electronics I think I have a good idea of what you need what you need to organize how you do it and that is why I can start fresh with the new house and I hope you're looking forward to that because all the details will be included there next someone asks why there is no electric car charger in your garage and the answer to that is pretty simple and it is that the charger will be positioned elsewhere and now I already pulled the big and heavy cable for the charger into the garage but the cable will be later extended to the car porch and that is exactly where the EV charger will also be installed next question is are there any YouTube Traders you would like to collaborate with and what kind of project would you do I think the closest I got to a collaboration was with bit Looney who I actually met on Electronica this year and we talked about a collaboration maybe one or two years ago the project was and still is an oscilloscope where I basically design and make the hardware and then bit Louis does the software Magic the big problem though like I teased it already with my release schedule change I have too much work on my hand I go from one video to the next and don't really have time for such a collaboration so far at least and that was that is why it didn't work out so far and maybe that will change who knows but please don't blame bit Looney blame me what's the project you're most proud of um to make it easy for me I will only include the projects of 2022 and here I have to say that my favorite ones slash most proud of projects were the Drone projects and the smart outlet slash socket projects um funny thing is though they didn't perform exceptionally well but for me they were just my favorites because I learned so much new stuff and I think that was the best thing for me and another best thing that happened to me during one of those projects was finding these tiny Transformers here that can safely sense Mains voltage awesome stuff next someone asked whether I have any plans to expand and here I clearly have to say that I love making web videos I think I'm good at it and that is why I will stick to that and not Branch out and the workloads like I said before is quite big but I still want to work by myself just because I love having all the creative control doing the videos the way I want them and second of all I can work at my own pace so because of those two reasons I will basically continue doing videos like I did them before with that being said we come to the last question which is about how to learn PCB design and here I have to say that I'm definitely kind of still a noob when it comes to PCB design if you want to learn new stuff you can search the internet Altium also offers lots of tips and recently I discovered the YouTube channel um Phil's lab I think I'll link it down below definitely check that out if you want to learn about PCB design awesome stuff okay I think with these eight questions I answered the most interesting ones I could find but of course if you got more then write them in the comment section below yeah and with the recap complete I think you should now be up to date on what is going on in my life with the video production and how things will move forward and as always I hope you're looking forward to the new videos in 2023 now there's only one thing left to say and that is stay creative and I will see you next timeanother year came to an end and that of course means it was time for me to declutter my electronics lab to make it look all nice and clean do some electrical work at the new house and also sit down on this chair right now and do a small recap of what happened in 2022 the main topics will like always be my video production and how things will move forward the house project about which I told you about one year ago and ultimately I selected some spicy questions from patreon Twitter Instagram and Facebook that I would love to answer of course like always you can check the timeline below to skip to the parts that interest you and with that being said let's get started with the video production segment now last year I said I would put more effort into creating more enticing thumbnails and titles for upcoming videos and that is exactly what I did and I think pretty easy to spot if we compare current thumbnails to thumbnails from for example 2020 here of course going into full clickbait territory was never my intention because I'm not a fan of clickbait either but with this kind of curiosity clickbait I was hoping that my average views would stop going down and a bit up again and all I can say is that after going this route for more than a year now is that it is really true that clickbait is unreasonably effective on YouTube for example in 2022 I got 32 million views while in 2021 it was only 28 million views which does not seem like a big difference to many out there but let me tell you that I really notice a difference when it comes to the video engagement there are also quite a few videos that gained over 1 million views in a rather short time periods which is also not normal for my videos especially the AliExpress Hidden Gem video series performed exceptionally well and the first part was actually the reason for the biggest Spike on my YouTube channel yet so needless to say the AliExpress Hidden Gem video series will continue even though I think it's a bit sad that such easy to create content gets more attention than for example a big Electronics project I plan for weeks or maybe months but then again this is how YouTube works and it's not like I have no fun while testing AliExpress items it just feels a bit like cheating but anyway during the videos of 2022 I also tried out new intro Styles more jokes and lots of other things while of course staying true to electrical engineering and detailed technical aspects and I think for my videos I actually found a sweet spot this year which I will continue to fine tune in the future so in a nutshell everything is going pretty good and I will continue doing what I did in 2022 the only big change this year was changing up my release schedule which I did right after my summer vacation before that my usual release schedule was three videos in three weeks then a one week break and then I repeat the cycle over and over again but after summer I only released one video every other week and there are basically two big reasons for that the first reason is that my videos just got bigger and bigger and yes if you as a viewer do not immediately notice that because the runtime is always about the same but for me I was just pouring more and more hours into one video to get it done and since I have such a tight release schedule it was one project then the next one the next one without any breaks and as you can already guess without any breaks that is definitely not a healthy work environment and I really felt that so I said okay I have to put an effort here do an effort here and just slow down the video release schedule so that I do not go crazy and the second reason is that I just had big projects on my bucket list for way too long that I wanted to do those projects include the Drone project the smart socket project and also my garage electrical installation video and without breaking up the release schedule the tight one I would have never had the chance to do them so I had to do it but the big question is now what now that those projects are over will I switch back to my old release schedule and the answer is I already kind of did in December and I actually released three videos so that's the old release schedule will this continue in 2023 though not sure I think I will say there will no longer be a fixed release schedule meaning that if I'm working on bigger stuff there will be fewer videos and if I'm working on smaller stuff like Basics videos AliExpress videos there will be more videos I think that's the simplest solution that will hopefully work for you and also importantly for me okay with that being said I think I talked enough about my video production so let's move on to the house projects and here I think the big question on everyone's mind is why am I still sitting in my apartment because as some of you might know I signed the contract for the house Construction in August of 2021 and now at the beginning of 2023 it is still not done the reason is simply that I underestimated how long it would take to plan the house get the permits and of course the house Construction Company also had to prepare quite a few things so long story short the construction actually only started at the beginning of August 2022 so one year after the contract was signed on the positive side though I cannot complain at all about the guys who built my house and that is saying something because we Germans love to complain at the moment the shell of the house is done and a bit more which basically includes the main structure the roof we got windows and a door and the electrical wires are also all in place what comes next are the water pipes bathroom insulation heating the floors painting and some other things along the way in theory the house should be done by the beginning of May 2023 and I hope to move in around July or August so basically two and a half years after I bought the plots crazy if you want to see more you can of course check out the new garage video and I think there will also be project videos about the house so look forward to that and with that being said let's move on to the last part of this recap which are some questions I hand-picked and let's start off with patreon questions before that though let me firstly thank my Patron supporters for their continued support thanks to you guys I can work on electronics videos without having to worry about my finances too much so yeah big thanks for that and if someone is out there who is interested in supporting me through patreon as well then check out the video description but in a nutshell you only have to donate one dollar per month to get early access to my videos and through patreon is also the easiest way to get in contact with me okay first question is whether making videos is still fun for me to do and luckily the answer to that is definitely yes of course it can be a bit tiresome sometimes to do voice overs write scripts or edit videos but then again it is so much fun just playing around with electronics new electronics learning stuff discovering stuff building stuff I love it and I think it's a very enjoyable job overall next someone asks how I stay motivated when things don't work out or take longer to complete and how this affects my upload schedule My secret is basically here doing big stuff behind the scenes so basically I have smaller videos on the front basic ones smaller projects where I know I can get them done in a smaller time periods and I do those regularly and the big stuff is behind the scenes I work on those when I got free time time in between smaller projects and basically when I see at a point okay there are no more big trials and arrows involved with the big projects I put them on the front I'm like okay I can get them done in a week or two then I finish them up they go online and all in all they maybe take around three months in total time but definitely worth it I would say and just this switching around from small stuff to Big Stuff is definitely my secret here to not get too frustrated with the big stuff because like I said there will be errors there will be a problems with that and so that you can always switch around I get a smooth upload schedule I get big and small projects combined I think it's a win-win situation here next someone asks if there will be more home renovation slash Improvement videos and all I can say about that at the moment is that the first video in the new house will be about setting up an Electronics lab like this one um because after 10 years of making videos about Electronics I think I have a good idea of what you need what you need to organize how you do it and that is why I can start fresh with the new house and I hope you're looking forward to that because all the details will be included there next someone asks why there is no electric car charger in your garage and the answer to that is pretty simple and it is that the charger will be positioned elsewhere and now I already pulled the big and heavy cable for the charger into the garage but the cable will be later extended to the car porch and that is exactly where the EV charger will also be installed next question is are there any YouTube Traders you would like to collaborate with and what kind of project would you do I think the closest I got to a collaboration was with bit Looney who I actually met on Electronica this year and we talked about a collaboration maybe one or two years ago the project was and still is an oscilloscope where I basically design and make the hardware and then bit Louis does the software Magic the big problem though like I teased it already with my release schedule change I have too much work on my hand I go from one video to the next and don't really have time for such a collaboration so far at least and that was that is why it didn't work out so far and maybe that will change who knows but please don't blame bit Looney blame me what's the project you're most proud of um to make it easy for me I will only include the projects of 2022 and here I have to say that my favorite ones slash most proud of projects were the Drone projects and the smart outlet slash socket projects um funny thing is though they didn't perform exceptionally well but for me they were just my favorites because I learned so much new stuff and I think that was the best thing for me and another best thing that happened to me during one of those projects was finding these tiny Transformers here that can safely sense Mains voltage awesome stuff next someone asked whether I have any plans to expand and here I clearly have to say that I love making web videos I think I'm good at it and that is why I will stick to that and not Branch out and the workloads like I said before is quite big but I still want to work by myself just because I love having all the creative control doing the videos the way I want them and second of all I can work at my own pace so because of those two reasons I will basically continue doing videos like I did them before with that being said we come to the last question which is about how to learn PCB design and here I have to say that I'm definitely kind of still a noob when it comes to PCB design if you want to learn new stuff you can search the internet Altium also offers lots of tips and recently I discovered the YouTube channel um Phil's lab I think I'll link it down below definitely check that out if you want to learn about PCB design awesome stuff okay I think with these eight questions I answered the most interesting ones I could find but of course if you got more then write them in the comment section below yeah and with the recap complete I think you should now be up to date on what is going on in my life with the video production and how things will move forward and as always I hope you're looking forward to the new videos in 2023 now there's only one thing left to say and that is stay creative and I will see you next time