Workshop Companion reaches a million subs!

[shafiq]

Just seen this and thought to share. What a wonderful and down to earth teacher and always very nice in his method of passing on knowledge. Well done that man...

 

[HdV]

That shows you don't have to pull funny faces or have the weirdest titles in all caps to have a wonderful channel. I like his style too. Well deserved in my opinion.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Yes, he's very good. Now what do I get for having just tripped 30k after 20 years? Sigh.
S

 

[Steve Maskery]

I don't mean to hijack the thread for a good moan. More power to his elbow, really. I'm glad that there is woody channel being so successful.

But I have pretty much decided to stop making videos. I admire people like Peter Millard who can produce stuff every week. I can't do that. I film when I have something that I think is good. But the last film I made was part 3 of my bed build, and the last time I looked it still had fewer than 1K views. After 208 days. Not 1M, not 100K, not 10K. Not even, yet, 1K How does that work? I have 31K subscribers and when I release a new video only 972 of them bother to view. In fact, not even that many as some of that will be me. Why? I don't understand.
I've packed my video kit away. Maybe I'll do something again in the future, but at the mo it feels like it's not worth the candle.
S

 

[Mike]

II have 31K subscribers and when I release a new video only 972 of them bother to view. In fact, not even that many as some of that will be me. Why? I don't understand.

What I don't know about how YouTube works would fill volumes, but I think the reason for the low number of views is marketing. For example, here is a screenshot from the Workshop Companion YouTube description:



It appears the Workshop Companion staff push content the across several social media outlets that likely funnel back to YouTube. I don't have a Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok account, but I assume the marketing works.

 

[shafiq]

That shows you don't have to pull funny faces or have the weirdest titles in all caps to have a wonderful channel. I like his style too. Well deserved in my opinion.

Straight to the point and seems such a nice person too. I tried what he did (quality channel, build it slowly, portray only information and items that really are useful to humanity) but it take a long long time to achieve more than 50 inserted parties - lol.

I look forward to watch the future holds for him another similar story in the car world is someone with a channel called Car Care Nut. His wife encouraged him to start sharing his expertise and now he had a lot of people that learn lots from him. I think alof of how I maintain my 25 year old Lexus is from what he teaches.

 

[shafiq]

Yes, he's very good. Now what do I get for having just tripped 30k after 20 years? Sigh.
S

30k is very very good Steve. The amount they invest into these videos is probably more than what's actually healthy. Keep it up (I'm still going through your Square of Theseus vid and will eventually make one .

 

[shafiq]

I don't mean to hijack the thread for a good moan. More power to his elbow, really. I'm glad that there is woody channel being so successful.

But I have pretty much decided to stop making videos. I admire people like Peter Millard who can produce stuff every week. I can't do that. I film when I have something that I think is good. But the last film I made was part 3 of my bed build, and the last time I looked it still had fewer than 1K views. After 208 days. Not 1M, not 100K, not 10K. Not even, yet, 1K How does that work? I have 31K subscribers and when I release a new video only 972 of them bother to view. In fact, not even that many as some of that will be me. Why? I don't understand.
I've packed my video kit away. Maybe I'll do something again in the future, but at the mo it feels like it's not worth the candle.
S

I agree and found this after just 5 videos . You did amazing keeping it going for so long sir. You'll also be surprised at how many people you actually meaningfully inspired. Remember, we don't want them death-scrolling folks.

 

[HdV]

I don't think it is you. It is the way Youtube works nowadays. It is less and less about good content and more and more about clicks. To me it has come to a point where I consider Youtube almost unusable. I never watch it directly anymore, if at all. I prefer to grab the video first with some tool and watch it with a standard video player. I realise that makes it even harder for proper content creators like you, but that is what it has come to (at least that is how I feel).

I see many content creators either following the lead of a few very successful people (not necessarily the best content, think Jonas Winkler and such) causing all content to become more and more alike. Or they give up on Youtube and, sometimes, continue on another platform for themselves (Heiko Rech come to mind). I can fully understand that the amount of time needed to produce something good is not balanced anymore by the pleasure of getting people to learn something from you, or getting inspired by your ideas. I am glad fora like this one are still around to be inspired by and learn from. They might be old-fashioned according to some, but they maintain to be valuable in my opinion.

 

[Spectric]

I've packed my video kit away. Maybe I'll do something again in the future, but at the mo it feels like it's not worth the candle.

Why not do a video about how to do a video for people around here, might bring more topic's if people have an idea how to approach the subject.

 

[Spectric]

I don't think it is you. It is the way Youtube works nowadays.

If you had some big stick on eyelashes and plenty of pig fat injected into your lips I believe that helps today as people don't see much past the person and the content becomes secondary, it is all about there misbelief that they are "influencers" but who is influenced by anyone with no credability ?

 

[Accipiter]

After I joined here and put up my intro post I realised I'd slipped up in NOT attempting to do a lot of videos of my 'shop (as then), making the units for the tablesaw and then working out how to do the fliptop units for the other machines... far too late, too concentrated on the making of units rather than the various stages... If I'd made videos I'd have probably caught it on camera of almost killing my self when the lathe support slipped while trying to find the balance point!

I looked into getting a channel going (folk like the likes of Kevin Koble (sp?) and such) but you've got to have a fair bit of time to put it all together - I decided that I didn't/don't have the time available...

I'm subscribed to a fair few channels... bonsai as well as woodworking related. I find I don't ALWAYS get every notification of new stuff uploaded even though I've clicked the "🛎" for all. There's also times I'll get a notification of new content BUT it's not viewable as such - and can't be found!

I'm somewhat surprised that this particular channel for "Workshop Companion" has NEVER come up in my stream of *suggestions*... never heard of it before now.

 

[AJB Temple]

My significantly better half is getting quite whizzed up on generating social media traffic (for business). Apparently there are a lot of factors all of which come down to understanding the ever changing algos. Things like time of posting, speed of response to comments, use of key words, interlinks across platforms are all crucial. AI helps. You can't just stick content up and hope people will see it.

Most subscribers / followers will only go on a channel if it is delivered to them. YT shorts are critically important it seems.

 

[Accipiter]

I dislike the "shorts" and avoid them... if there was a setting to turn these off I'd use it

 

[AndyT]

I dislike the "shorts" and avoid them... if there was a setting to turn these off I'd use it

If you watch YouTube in a decent browser (not an app) there are plenty of extensions available to hide or block shorts.
Extra benefit: you can also choose to block the ads.

 

[Accipiter]

Thanks Andy . I'm now so used to watching on the tablet because the laptops are upstairs in another room and difficult to get to. Once a week I check for updates... other than that it's the tablet.

 

[Eric the Viking]

Every year I promise myself I'll do bandsawn reindeer for Christmas. Haven't yet, but still intend to.
Well done the team, especially Bella!

 

[Cabinetman]

He comes up regularly on FB but I must say I don’t watch as I found him to be a bit Folksy, but on the recommendation of you all I shall give him a go.
Certainly a million is an achievement.

 

[shafiq]

He comes up regularly on FB but I must say I don’t watch as I found him to be a bit Folksy, but on the recommendation of you all I shall give him a go.
Certainly a million is an achievement.

Yes, IMO he is really good. Doesn't tend to be long winded slow explanation and IMO he gets straight to the point in an easy way. Even sets up simple tests to get his points across and it sits in my brain.

I'd say my current 'lots of jointing' probably helped by him alot.

 

[TrimTheKing]

If you had some big stick on eyelashes and plenty of pig fat injected into your lips I believe that helps today as people don't see much past the person and the content becomes secondary, it is all about there misbelief that they are "influencers" but who is influenced by anyone with no credability ?

You'd be surprised...

 

[Steve Maskery]

...I'm still going through your Square of Theseus vid and will eventually make one .

I'm sure that Theseus would be delighted but Thales would be quite offended!
S

 

[shafiq]

Sorry.

 

[Phil]

Thanks for posting, not come across them before.
Their website is 'also good'.

 

[Trevanion]

I don't mean to hijack the thread for a good moan. More power to his elbow, really. I'm glad that there is woody channel being so successful.

But I have pretty much decided to stop making videos. I admire people like Peter Millard who can produce stuff every week. I can't do that. I film when I have something that I think is good. But the last film I made was part 3 of my bed build, and the last time I looked it still had fewer than 1K views. After 208 days. Not 1M, not 100K, not 10K. Not even, yet, 1K How does that work? I have 31K subscribers and when I release a new video only 972 of them bother to view. In fact, not even that many as some of that will be me. Why? I don't understand.
I've packed my video kit away. Maybe I'll do something again in the future, but at the mo it feels like it's not worth the candle.
S

Trouble is, long-format video is essentially dead on YouTube. Very few people are making long videos anymore because they just don't get the views, and there is so much effort that goes into producing them, as you well know.

Workshop Companion is actually an excellent example of this, look at the long-format videos they produce and their view counts, nothing spectacular. The last eight videos span to August 2024 and have a combined viewership of around 933,000.



Contrast that to their shorts, which almost each short has over one million views, one even has 12m views!



It's no wonder that people aren't bothering with long-format content anymore. It just doesn't make economic sense to make a 10+ minute video with all the setting up and editing involved, when you can make a quick video under three minutes in length and get significantly more traffic, less effort, higher reward.

@AJB Temple is quite right, it's almost entirely down to "gaming the algorithm" these days to get your videos recommended to new people, and it's almost become an entire profession in itself to work these out in your favour, people run courses on the subject and some companies even hire professionals to help their social media presence in this way. I personally can't make head nor tail of the algorithms, I post ocassionally on Instagram, and one video I think is quite good does poorly, then another that I just mash together for a bit of fun does really well.

Take this one I made for example, I put a fair bit of effort into it and it shows some quite technical cutter grinding work that you don't see often online, 3500 views, 139 likes, 6 comments, and 3 shares.

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

Then this one where I'm just messing about by putting wedges in between the saw plate and the spindle shaft to make a "drunken saw" as they did a century ago, 333,000 views, 5000 likes, 178 comments, and 5000 shares.

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

 

[Spectric]

It sounds pretty sad if youtube just boils down to traffic and likes, that also says a lot about who is watching this stuff as they might now only have the attention span of a goldfish which does not bode well for the future of skilled people.

 

[HdV]

I am afraid you might be close to the truth there. My friend's daughter really is quite smart and does very well in university. But I don't think she has ever read a full book that she didn't have to for school in her whole life. When I asked why, her answer was "boring" and "takes too long". Indeed, to me that does not bode well for the future. I must be getting old...

 

[Steve Maskery]

All the above is, so very sadly, true, and I recognise that. But I've never done YouTube for the money, I've genuinely wanted to share what little I know about woodwork and share the way I work, for anyone who may find it interesting.
I get the occasional blip in viewership, and consequential revenues, but typically it is about 100€ per month give or take 20.. But for years and years it was zero.
I published my first video on Oct 26 2006 and since then, in total, YT have paid me €9.5K. It's not exactly a get-rich-quick venture.
I know I must suffer for my art, dahhhlings.
S

 

[Steve Maskery]

BTW, that 9.5k is taxable income. Fortunately it is very easy to show that it has cost me more to make those videos than the revenues they produce. Just who is making money here? It sure aint me!
I think that if you do really want to succeed at this online stuff, it has to be a full-time business. With strategy and focus. I have neither the energy nor the desire to spend that sort of time churning out Stuff for the sake of it. I've done my stint, I think. I think that most of it has been worthy. Others may or may not agree, of course. But it's time to hang up my apron, I think, at least film-wise.
If I sound a bit sanguine...
S

 

[Dr.Al]

I watch very little youtube; I'd generally much rather read a book than watch a video. Occasionally there are youtubers who I'll follow but it's not very often at all. At the moment it's pretty much Clickspring (who's skills I'm always blown away by) and Tally Ho (which my other half & I watch together on the big screen). Both of those two I support on Patreon, although Tally Ho is getting less interesting to me now that it's more about sailing and all the made-up-words boat people like to use and less about making boats so I don't know how long I'll keep it up.

I recall one youtuber (can't remember who) saying that the only way they'd managed to make a living from youtube was by selling tools. Without the youtube videos no-one would buy the tools but without the tool sales they'd never make enough money from youtube to get by.

 

[AJB Temple]

It is very clear that You Tube is heavily focussed on shorts. They are competing with Tik Tok so the have no choice. You can click on "show fewer shorts" but this lasts only a few days before it reverts.

I watch hardly any wood related stuff on you tube as it is generally far too long and tedious. But I already know how to make stuff so I may not be typical. I do watch a fair bit of professional cooking material on You Tube though and would say the very best ones:

• crack through quickly
• have clear links to recipes and equipment
• have some form of sell such as restaurant bookings or membership for exclusive content
• have good lighting and framing
• have a very engaging presenter who has clear skills and is relate-able
• usually there is some engaging humour and none of them are showing off

All of the good ones have someone handling the camera and the edits are professional.
Without exception all of the good ones that do longish vids, have well thought out sections of them that can be delivered as shorts - I think this is fundamental as it means the same content can be delivered in multiple ways
All of them spread content into TT, FB, Insta, LinkedIn etc.
All of them have a clear target audience and introduce what they are doing straight away - good initial capture.
On YT the best ones have at least some acknowledgement on every or most comments BTL. This may be just a like but makes users feel relevant.

Old fashioned YT use is dead. Totally.

On YT Adam Byatt of Trinity restaurant has excellent content and is growing fast. Very professional. On a different business model (Michelin Star skills) is Jules Cooking who is a prime example of top skills and really getting on with it without waffle. His subscription for members is cheap so I do subscribe.

Fallow is another with good content, but I baulked at the cost of their membership.

 

[Frank]

The first video I opened by this supposed teacher showed him using a table saw with neither riving knife or crown guard to my mind this is not the actions of a teacher but someone with insufficient knowledge to be teaching
Very dangerous