Keeping score as I reach 300 YouTube Subscribers! – End of the Day for April 24, 2014

No matter what we do in life, one way that humans motivate themselves to do more inline, in career and even hobbies, is keeping score. No matter what the endeavor, we will find some way of gauging our progress towards a goal — what ever that might be.

For myself, I reached a significant milestone in my online world today, so I felt a need to share that in today’s essay. I have been working very hard on my YouTube Channel for the last year and today I reached 300 total subscribers for that channel. Subscribers are an important number–an important way of keeping score — for any YouTube creator, as these are people who have decided to receive notification whenever you post a new video. These are typically your best viewers. Not only do they follow you, they also tend to click Like more often and post useful and friendly comments. These are the people I work for each and every day, even if I might never meet them in person.

Beyond this, though, what does it really mean. Nothing much in the overall meaning of life, but as a way of keeping score it can give you some sense that your work is being seen and appreciated. A low subscriber number (and 300 is high for me, but dramatically low for other YouTubers) or a falling subscriber number can mean something is awry with your channel. Perhaps you are posting enough videos. Perhaps you aren’t posting what people are really interested in. It can be hard to tell sometimes, though Changes at YouTube and search engines online can dramatically effect views and other metrics so even with this scoreboard, you are really just guessing sometimes. That said, I will continue to use my overall subscriber as a gross indicator of how I am doing. There are more detailed stats at YouTube, that let me really dig into what is happening when people visit, but sometimes a good overall number is what you need as a starting point.

You may have noticed another statistic listed above — a number that boggles my mind. I am rapidly approaching 200,000 views of my videos on YouTube. Yes, this has taken me years to accomplish, not days as with some YouTubers, but it is still an amazing number to my mind. I never would have thought that my videos would attract this amount of attention. Sure, I hoped for this — and more — but achieving it is an entirely different feeling.

Thanks to everyone who watches and subscribes to the channel. It is a bit of an eclectic mix — combining all my topic area such as garden, careers, technology and new media, but YouTube makes it relatively easy to pick and choose which videos you would like to watch.

It is typical for YouTubers to make a special video upon reaching milestones like this and I want to do the same. Towards that end, I am asking you to send in the questions you have always wanted to ask me. You can ask about any of my topics areas or just something you would like to know about me. I may not answer every question I receive, but I will certainly think about it. My hope to make not just 1 300 Subscriber special, but one special each of the topic areas. This is going to take a lot of questions, though, so please send in yours today!

Thanks again to everyone who subscribes, every one who watches, every one who reads the blogs and listens to the podcasts. Your attention is greatly appreciated and I am flattered that you “invite me into your (digital) home” on a regular basis. Please tell you friends, family and coworkers about all of my work if you think they might be interested. The more the merrier! I hope to see my “scoreboard” continue upwards with each passing day!

You can subscribe, too!

Previously on End of the Day: