Youtube Channel strategy - I read Help files

Goal: generate a Youtube channel strategy that propels my videos forward, at least 20%

I will analyze the status of the channel, based on its 1 month life, write thoughts ideas and conclusions and establish a plan. All while writing this article.

Current Status:

1. My most watched video is Publii end-to-end video. 
   seems that it covers the topic in a way that helps people.
   Observation: this overview is related to everyday user or at least non-corporate demographic. Another one is mRemoteNg which hits a pretty similar demographic.
2. I have next to nothin' subscribers. Half of them are from Corporate videos and the other half from normal videos. The pace is not great but weirdly enough, the subscribers from non-corporate videos are not related to LinkedIn sharing. They, in fact, come from no sharing at all.
   Thought: The generic products are hitting a wider demographic when it comes to search results.
3. Video quality:
   1. End to End videos seems to be a good idea. All videos of all kinds are sort of live stream setting. I just record myself talking with a short preroll that is part of the overall video.
   2. The sound of the videos is normalized but I think that there is more to be done there with compressor or limiter.
   3. The videos barely have an intro section.
   4. The video thumbnails are very sporadic. There is a pattern that I use but I'm not sure if its working. Judging by bigger channels, seems that I go the right direction but the overall quality is very poor.
      Here is an image of the analytics. I'm currently unable to determine if adding a cut out face of myself really adds to the clicks on those videos. Maybe it is. Seems that I will need to switch couple of times to see how the effect works.
      
   5. Each video pre-roll is part of the original recording. In terms of marketing (sort of) its not a very good strategy since the viewers need to understand what they are about to get if they keep watching. I might be missing views because of this since less than 30 seconds does not count as a view

Challenges:

1. I record the videos while I work my day job (mostly). I do stretch the hours but still - this is me working on my daily tasks and taking to myself. No day job work hours are spent on the videos, recording or not. The quality in this case can improve only gradually as I gain experience.
2. I edit my videos in my free time, same goes for uploading and inserting the data in Youtube. 
3. I record the narration into a high quality headset. It is a telecom headset which narrows down the frequencies of my voice to certain sharpness and noiseless quality BUT changes my voice quite a lot. Not sure that this part requires any fixing but probably a blue Yeti might be a solution that I need in the long run.
4. Time
   1. Editing takes time.
   2. Thumbnails take time
   3. Extra recordings for quality takes time
   4. youtube upload feilds take a lot of time
5. I record what I like, without basing the videos on trends or keyword reasearch

Solutions:
Let's see what can be done without increasing the production time too much and at the cost of what

1. Marketing - basically anything that brings the watchtime up in the videos via Youtube itself.
   1. Thumbnails. 
      I swtiched from plain colorful text to text + image of myself overlapping the screen. This seems to conform to current trends but i'm not sure how appealing it is. I will continue this approach for another 20 videos but seems that a more professional look, or more intrigue is required. 
      I need to remember that this is what people see before they decide to click on the video
   2. Thumbnails #2 - After observing the way the big boys do it, I think that adding your face to thumbnail is valuable only if the face is recongnisable (meaning - community driven content) or if the channel is personality based which is not at all what's mine is about.
      Comclusion - need to switch to graphical thumbnails. No screenshots, no faces.
   3. Titles.
      Here its a bit complicated. I cover the topics on very specific items and until the channel gains tracktion with subscribers search is my best friend. So no clickbait. I will use the space for maximum relevant keywords for now
   4. VIdeo preroll. I record the introductions to the whole video before I start the work but this is very low quality stuff and the first few seconds are wasted on low quality. If I record teh work and then record the prerols separately this will make it a bit easier to record and with just a bit of planning I can raise the quality a lot.  
2. Editing
   1. I have lots of tracks from bensound. instead of draggin them one by one i could just create several long mashups and use them randomly. This saves only few minutes but still its nicer than draggin them one by one and then figuring out the track volume
   2. Sound - need to sit on a quiet evening and figure out a preset for compressor and EQ which will boost the volume to a better level and allow me to reuse it instead of relying on autoleveling
   3. Searching for content to cut out takes time. I tried clapping to bring my attention to those places but still it's hard to find those locations in videos longer than 5 minutes. Seems that I have two options here.
      1. Smooth those places with talking
      2. keep quiet when I screw up, the low volume spaces are easier to spot visually.
      3. 3rd option just came up - oCam recording can be paused on demand, seems that it is more convenient than OBS and it allows to record only the essential parts. Not sure if I want to deal with web cam in the corner. It seems that webcam on screen might not be a best way to present videos.
         Conclusion: switch from OBS to oCam for all videos and see if it works better for a month.
   4. Rendering and common tasks
      I already do this but wanted to put it in writing.
      I record at least 4 videos and edit them in bulk - adudio, text intros, music, export - all is done in paralel. Maybe the number of vidoes should be done in even bigger chunks, like 7 videos or something.
   5. Text intros - those take time to create even with templates that I use. I'm not sure that they bring anyting in terms of quality, I will stop using them entirely.

MISC items that might save time + add the possibility of more views

1. Descriptions - those seem to be complicated, I do have a copy-paste template and I invest in writing only the part that appears under the searched video
   
   The problem is - less content in this area is basically skipping an opportunity for SEO. Writing content there takes time too.
   It's a dilemma  - I think that I'll invest time in writing 2 more lines of text for each video for now
2. Video outro - this is also one of those areas which suffer during the recoring. They are completely unrelated to the captured technical footage and thus look like ebagging or show that I don't care.
   Solution: Record a good outro during a weekend and add it to video props so I'll be able to drag and drop it into each video and be done with it
3. Text at the beginning of the video - same deal, add the "Like, Subscribe and Share" text to a template and just reuse it via drag and drop.
4. Thumbnails
   Using the tubebuddy theumbnail generator, seems that I'll be able to create thumbnails of this kind:
   

Conclusing of this brainstorm:

• I can alter the content creation process in a way that can save me some time and boost up the production quality up a notch. 
• 
  Overall such brainstorms can be very beneficial  - I could not come with those plans in a way that allows me to see and solve the issue without writing this article.
• Another outcome - seems that some of the video quality issues do not rely in hard work but in process design. interesting!