1000 YouTube Subscribers

My Long Colourful Journey

Long before I started my Medium journey, I created a YouTube Channel.

Nobel Soul is what I called it. I have changed my channel name a few times over the years, but have always come back to Nobel Soul.

Nobel is my Surname.

Soul signifies that I aim to come from a soulful place, in all of my endeavours.

How it All Began

I joined YouTube while I was studying a small business course. I was dabbling around with creative business ideas at the time.

I partook in a small public speaking and presenting course the year prior.

I thought that filming and uploading videos to YouTube would be a fun way to continue improving my public speaking skills.

To Niche or Not to Niche?

My YouTube journey has been colourful, to say the least! I have dabbled in many different niches: Makeup Artistry, Mandala & Geometry Tutorials, Dating, Yoga, Health and Wellness, Sustainability, Personal Development and Spirituality to name a few!

My First Makeup Tutorial

I released my first Makeup Tutorial on October 8th, 2018.

I had barely watched a YouTube video in my life. I had no idea what I was doing, nor what I was in for!

If I had known then, how long it would take me to gain my first one thousand subscribers, I don’t think I would have signed up for it 😄

Not knowing about the steep, rocky climb that lies ahead, can be a good thing sometimes!

Starting Two New Channels

A few years ago I started learning how to play the guitar. I decided to create a second channel called: Nobel Soul Covers

I later changed the name to Life in Song.

That channel fizzled out before it truly began!

I gained approximately 30 subscribers.

Enter Channel #3

Nobel Soul still wasn’t growing much.

I decided to make a separate niche-focused channel, to make things clearer for the algorithm.

This channel would be focused on Mandala Art.

At least, that was the initial plan!

It wasn’t long before I turned this channel into a Hula Hooping/Roller Skating Channel!

Shorts were the new thing, so I created a lot of them on TikTok, which I then downloaded and uploaded onto YouTube.

After 6 months, I managed to gain approximately 274 new subscribers.

Nothing to frown about where YouTube is concerned.

Still, this new niche channel wasn’t growing as fast as I hoped it would!

Returning to Where it All Began

Forget about this niche idea, I thought.

I threw caution to the wind!

In July 2022, I spent three solid weeks sitting in my late mother's laundry room (which stunk like paint!) to connect to my sister’s Wi-Fi, who lives out the back (As of yesterday, I have an office room in my mother's home, which connects to my sisters WiFi 😀 Will save that story for another day!)

Transfering TikTok Videos

I downloaded hundreds of TikTok videos which I created over the years!

First, my hula hooping videos.

Yep! I downloaded them all over again and edited them to improve their visual/audio quality.

I then scheduled them for daily release for six months (three per day, starting August 2022) on my original channel: Nobel Soul.

Raising Channel from the Dead

By this stage, Nobel Soul had been abandoned for a year or two (this wasn’t doing me any favours where the algorithm was concerned!)

It still had approximately 334 subscribers, however, thanks to a geometry tutorial that did well a few years back (that video is still gaining me subscribers! Too bad I don’t do geometry tutorials anymore. Sorry folks!)

I figured it was best to return to it, as it had the highest number of subscribers. Hardly I know! 😄 But every subscriber was so hard to come by back then! Every subscriber counted (they still do of course!)

YouTube Short Explosion

Following my Hula Hooping Shorts, came my Creative Mandala Shorts. Then my Dancing, Acting and Singing Shorts.

I decided to scrap the Roller-Skating Shorts - They bombed on my Hula Heidi Channel (Lesson learnt!)

The Results

I can’t remember how many new subscribers I gained over six months of releasing daily Shorts. It wasn’t more than a couple hundred.

February 2023: I took a break from Shorts and focused on releasing 1-2 full-length Vlogs per week.

July 2023: I released over 200 Karaoke Shorts in that month alone! They were part of my 30 Day Singing Challenge which I filmed the month prior.

You Give Me Fever

Unfortunately, I caught a fever due to singing daily and editing so many Shorts!

I had more than enough Shorts to schedule for daily release over July and some of August, however.

I shared how many new subscribers I gained during this Short stint, here.

Trending Video

Around the end of August, I noticed a video on YouTube which gained a lot of traction. It was titled: I know you just shifted.

A week or two later I saw another video with a similar title and subject matter, also of a man walking through the forest.

I’ve never been one to jump on trends before.

Truth is, I had no idea if it was a trend, but I felt like a bit of a clever cookie for making this discovery 🍪

I decided to jump in on the trend! (If it was one 😋 )

It related to my niche (one of them anyway! 😄) which was about spirituality/conscious awakening (no longer my niche).

Video Takes Flight!

Bingo! Jackpot! 🤩🎰

Finally, a non-art-related video took flight! ✈

All up the video gained me 2.8k views, many comments and 87 subscribers. It was so exciting to finally see one of my videos do well, after all of those painful years of trying, yet seeing little results! 🦗🦗

I was glued to my phone all day🤳 It was a beautiful sight! 😍

Finally Gained 1000 Subscribers

On September 11th 2023, 1 month before my 5th YouTube Anniversary, I finally gained 1000 YouTube subscribers! 🎉

All thanks to trying something new 🙂

I’m not going to lie, I shed a little tear.

“I wish I could share this with you mum, you would be so proud. You know how long and hard I have been working for this”.

I also did a little jolly dance!

I congratulated and thanked my 1000th subscriber!

(He commented right after I reached 1000 subscribers, so I assume he was my 1000th!) I gave him a shout-out in my celebratory video.

Then What?

Well,

Things went quiet again.

Bit of an anti-climax 😄

Good News!

My channel gained more traction this year after I released a video titled:

“37-Year-Old Female Starts a YouTube Channel and I Feel Like a Bit of a Failure”

To date, this video has gained me 4k views, and 77 subscribers!

I tried to emulate the success of this video by creating a 2-Part follow-up Vlog, which you can read all about here.

These videos weren’t as successful.

But hey, you don’t know if you don’t try right!?