Coder Coder
Practical tips for the beginner web developer.
So far in 2020, YouTube growth has been doing really well! From March through July I published one video per week, nearly every single week.
This consistency seemed to help with growth rate-- I went from gaining 30-40 new subs per day in March, to a couple hundred subs per day in June and July. Between that same period my total subscribers grew from ~3,000 to finally breaking 10,000 subs in mid-July.
This is when things started really taking off.
I'm not sure if it was due to passing the 10k mark, but soon after that point, YouTube decided to show one of my older videos from 2019 to a wider audience. (It was actually the video I talked about in my previous milestone).
This video had been slowly inching up to 1,000 daily views which I was psyched about already. But on July 25-26, it suddenly skyrocketed to 25,000 views on each of those two days. And my subscriber count went from 10k in July to now 35k just a month later.
Obviously I'm on the tail end of that spike in traffic, but I'm currently getting a few thousand views per day, and a few hundred new subscribers on my channel.
So the real question is, what led to this spike, and what can be learned from what happened?
In my opinion, it was a combination of consistency and quality (yes, we've all heard that before). Both are necessary, and here's what I think it means for YouTube land.
Consistency: I do think YouTube likes consistency. My steady growth started picking up about a month after I started uploading every week. Higher frequency can lead to more growth, but it's also very dependent on the quality.
Quality: This is the other factor in the equation. YouTube won't recommend your videos unless people are watching them. Without getting lost in stats, this boils down to creating videos that either entertain or educate your viewer.
Here are a couple of tips on what quality means for YouTube:
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Give your viewers a reason to watch. The video has to be about something, whether it's something funny, educational, problem-solving, etc. Having a good thumbnail and title that explain what it's about and can hook viewers will lead to more clicks.
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Respect your viewer's time and attention. If your video drags or is full of um's and ah's, people will stop watching your video very quickly. Editing is a drag, but imo spending those extra hours making the video flow better will pay off in the end.
My stretch goal is to hit 100k subs before 2021. We'll see if I get there! 😄
One of my goals for Coder Coder was to work together with my husband, a professional video editor/animator, to create high quality coding tutorial videos. We finally published our first video, a roadmap for beginners to web development! The making of it from writing the script to hitting publish on YouTube was probably 3-4 weeks, and it involved lights, green screens, and lots of animations in After Effect.
The reception to this video has been awesome! I posted about it on my Instagram and Twitter accounts, and people have loved it. I was around 2,000 subs on YouTube before this, but after uploading I'm almost to 3,000 subs, and the video has gotten nearly 2,000 views (which is huge for my channel esp after just a couple days).
The hope is to rinse and repeat this, and create more coding videos consistently in the future. Growing on YouTube is going to be a big focus for 2020.
(If you'd like to check out the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysEN5RaKOlA)
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Good work!
I see you are self-taught!
Would you like to do an interview for my product on here: www.nocsdegree.com ?
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Oh, loving this. Makes me want to learn to code! :)
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Thank you!! Feel free to ask me any questions if you ever dip your toes into coding 👍
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You guys did an excellent job!
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Thanks so much!!
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For the first video, it's pretty good, but the quality should be slightly improved. A video editor from movavi https://www.movavi.com/videoeditor/ could help you with this. You can download it to your computer or mount it online. I recommend to everyone.
I created a Twitter account when I started the blog back in 2017, but didn't do very much on it aside from auto-posting from Instagram (which is not a great strategy). All the same, I had a couple hundred followers on Twitter after 2 years.
Recently, I've started trying to post more content on Twitter to expand my audience from just Instagram. I'm posting mini-tips and sometimes reposting my Instagram post content (tweaked to be more Twtitter-friendly). Also posting when I do live coding on YouTube. Was getting some steady slow growth which was great.
Having an interview on the Indie Hackers podcast this week, as well as publishing an article on freeCodeCamp News that is getting widely shared, has helped bump me over that 1,000 mark.
Looking forward to continuing to experiment and see what kind of content does well on the Twitter community!
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Hey Jessica, I just wanted to say that I love the clean and organized look of your website. It's friendly as in "I'm here to learn something" but not childish. The text is very well readable and the site's layout makes it immediately obvious where to find everything. If I was starting out in web development today, I would be happy to stumble over your Coder Coder!
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Thanks so much for the feedback! I definitely did a lot of tinkering to make the site UX and beginner-friendly :)
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Congrats @thecodercoder
Curious question: Any idea what your twitter follower count was at prior to those two things happening?
The reason I ask is that I've had my counts shifted by several hundred based on the right article coming across or video being shared.
If those followers are highly engaged, even better!
Hats off to you and your success! 🎉
-- Jimmy
I've been making tutorial videos every so often, but recently I've started doing YouTube live videos where I live code, building a website from scratch w/ HTML/CSS.
The response has been pretty good so far! Most of my viewers have come from Instagram, but I think I'm also slowly building a following on YouTube. I'm experimenting with different times and days, and generally have at least 5 viewers up to 10-15 at any given moment through the stream. It's encouraging to see that some people stick around the whole way to the end (1-2 hrs!)
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Congrats! Also, you are a great teacher by the way!
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Thanks so much!
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Nice job, Jessica! I remember when I crossed 1k subs and it was beyond euphoric! Here's to the next 1,000!
(Fellow Austin Indie Hacker here as well! Hope to see you and a lot of other great people at upcoming IH meetups in Austin)
-- Jimmy
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Thanks so much!
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Congrats, this is the first big step!
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Thank you!!
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That's great. I find it fascinating seeing the trend of 'live coding' growing. :)
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It's been really cool that even with my small following on YouTube, I already have some "regulars" that show up to my live streams.
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This comment was deleted 3 years ago
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Yes, exactly! I think it's a niche that is really valuable for the people who are looking for that kind of info.
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Halfway to 50k! I've been experimenting with different types of Instagram content to see what resonates with my audience. In the past I've mostly posted computer setup shots. However I'm trying to focus on more educational content, particularly nicely designed mini-tutorials that I've seen others post as gallery slides.
I also try to post stories that ask and answer questions by others. And am thinking about taking requests for website feedback, and possibly making a YouTube video out of them.
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Congrats, I can give you a story shoutout on my UI Instagram account @uidesignpatterns, it has over 378,000. Should help you hit that 50K sooner :)
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Done, hopefully, that helps :D
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Thanks man, appreciate it! I notice that you are selling courses on your website (something I plan on doing soon). How is Instagram at driving traffic to your site? IG takes up less than 1% of my traffic, which I was bit bummed about when I first checked it in GA, but I'm curious if you have a larger following, if it gets better much?
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Instagram is my number 1 channel for sales. I'd be lost without it :)
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Hi,
thanks for sharing your achievement!
I would like to ask you, what it gives you practically. More customers? More visitors? Better experience? Or something else?
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There are a few benefits that I get out of Instagram-- the main one is I can interact with potential customers and answer their questions. This allows me to understand their pain points, which will ultimately help me make better courses (eventually!).
The traffic I get from Instagram to my website is less than 1%. The vast majority comes from Google. However, I have a hunch that because I am a trusted "authority" in that space on IG, I may get a disproportionately large numbers of customers from IG. It'll be really interesting to see how that plays out!
In addition, some perks of being a larger IG account are getting free stuff from brands. I don't want to litter my feed with sponsored posts and ads, so I can be selective and only partner with companies who share the same values and aren't just spammers.
Lastly, it's fun and rewarding! I genuinely love helping people and answering questions, and feeling like I'm a pat of a greater community. And I've made friends over IG all around the world.
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How does growth on insta happen, do you know how people are discovering your account? From personal use I've only tried following people I know from real life, and possibly fallen for following back some that use autofollow bots.
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Generally to grow on IG you need to figure out who your target audience is and post content that they would like, using hashtags. And following and leaving genuine comments on other people in your niche is good.
There's no quick way to get a big organic following. It's a long process of farming away every day or almost every day, and posting good, original content. I hit 10k after 3 months of posting every day, for example.
Also, stay away from anything related to bots or automation. IG is cracking down on that stuff right now.
Hope this helps!
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Where does one start if he/she has little to no following?
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I would first define the purpose of having an IG account and what your measurable goal is. Do you want to have a large follower count to add authority to your brand? Do you want to drive traffic to your website?
Secondly, define your target audience. For example mine is beginners to web development. Also, verify that people in your audience use Instagram at all.
Lastly, if your audience is on IG, post high quality photos and write high quality captions frequently. There's a theory that IG will rank your posts higher to your followers if you post every day. This isn't proven but I believe it to be true, at least for now.
Use relevant hashtags for what your post is about (but don't spam irrelevant tags).
Interact with your audience and peers also on IG. Leave high quality comments and be good about answeing any questions people may DM you about.
Don't leave low effort comments like "Great pic!" or just emoji comments. Also stay away from bots or any kind of automation, as they annoy people and IG is cracking down on these practices anyway.
Like most things, it's not incredibly difficult to figure out, but it takes a whole lot of work.
Good luck!
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Thank you!
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Posting mini tutorials is a great idea, all the best Jessica!! Also I believe a quiz would be a good idea too.
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Great idea, I've seen a few people do quizzes on their stories. Haven't done one yet myself, but I can see that matching w/ my niche pretty well! Thanks for the suggestion!
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Hey Jessica thanks for sharing this. I really know NOTHING about insta so this thread is very interesting.
I was wondering - I built a tool for creating photo-comics. I use them for tutorials and storytelling on my blog and twitter. I have a feeling they'd work ok on Instagram but I'm not really sure. Wondering what your 2c would be. You can see what one looks like on https://storytool.co
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That's quite cool-- I do know there are a lot of web comics and other art accounts on IG. I haven't seen any accounts that do photo + comic bubbles. But I could see it being used on stories.
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Do you mind if I ask how you're currently creating your carousel and story posts? Are you doing it on your desktop or a tablet?
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I've been creating the carousel posts on my desktop, using Adobe XD. The stories I just create in the Instagram app, but I have some custom background images that I've saved to my phone, just to look different from the standard IG backgrounds :)
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If you're using AdobeXD do you have to email yourself the finished designs to get them onto your phone? I was trying to post from my computer yesterday and didn't find a good solution.
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Yeah exactly. Unfortunately I haven't found anything better than emailing the images to myself on my phone and posting from there :P
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Siiick!
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Hi Jessica,
How do you find your images to share? I feel like this is one of the bigger hurdles people have.
Thanks,
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Oof yeah, that's one of the ongoing struggles I have with IG. For most of my time on IG, I've just done computer setup shots, because they get a lot of likes. Lately, tho, I'm trying to mix it up a bit more and take other photos, not just of my computer.
I'm also just starting to do gallery images w/ multiple slides, for mini tutorials-- those are super popular, and being educational, they align a lot more with my brand identity.
Also I do 100% original content, not reposts or stock images. Just trying to keep it real :) Hope this helps!
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Yeah, totally get that. Thanks 😀
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Hey you have great content with are almost blog post. I think people really resonate with your honesty. I would do more pics of you, give people a chance to learn what you also do outside of just coding. Last, most of your pictures are just of your setup, maybe mix it up a bit with some shots at a coffee place, co-working space, events you attend etc.
Anyway, I only have 2k followers, so take my advice with a grain of salt lol.
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Awesome - what is your Instagram? I'd love to have a browse.
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Thanks! :) You can find me at https://www.instagram.com/thecodercoder
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I noticed you had giveaways. Did you find them effective in increasing your follower count?
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I have done a few giveaways, but they don't really increase follower count too much. I was disappointed at the beginning, but I realize that any followers that you get thru a giveaway aren't necessarily going to be your target audience anyway. They're still fun though, so I plan to do giveaways from time to time :)
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This comment was deleted 7 years ago
I had been on Instagram for about a year, and had built up a small following of a bit more than 1,000 followers. In July of 2018 I decided to try an experiment and post every day and see how far I get. I started gaining 600-800 followers per week, and finally hit the coveted 10k in November.
Started my YouTube channel and posted my first video
Wrote and published my first blog post on https://coder-coder.com
First started posting on Instagram. At the beginning it was mostly desk and computer shots, as those tend to be quite popular. But I also eventually branched out in to making mini tutorials that were multi-slide galleries.
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