The Compounding Effect: Unleashing the Power of Consistency on YouTube ??

Watching motivational content and taking action on it are two different things. It was on the 27th of April 2022 when I heard Sharan Hegde (a.k.a Finance With Sharan) talk about sticking to your strengths and uploading shorts on YouTube if long format videos are not working for you. The moment I heard that I immediately uploaded Birdie's first YouTube short , back then Birdie had 333 subscribers. Birdie already had success on Instagram with 100k+ followers and we always wanted to step into the YouTube world and grow our channel further.

Reaching the first milestone (1000 subscribers)

The one thing which we learnt from Instagram which led to enormous growth and reach was just posting consistently and we implemented the same on YouTube, we started uploading shorts on a consistent basis and on 5th July 2022 (after 2 months of consistent uploading) we reached 500 subscribers. We didn't stop there and started uploading more and more shorts onto the platform and on 4th December 2022 (after 6 months of uploading shorts) we reached 1000 subscribers. That was quite an accomplishment given the fact that we reached 1000 subscribers faster on YouTube than on Instagram.

Never did we know back then that Birdie would cross 100k subscribers on YouTube in less than a year.

Power of compounding

According to Malcom Gladwell (author of Tipping Point): “The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behaviour crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.”

The tipping point is not a question of if, but when. And when you keep doing those daily, boring habits (in my case uploading videos on a consistent basis) you just reach that tipping point somewhere in the future. To reach tipping point you need to have enormous faith in the process and detach yourself from uncontrollable factors like subscriber growth and just focus on what you can control and keep going. You just never know when you might hit that milestone or when a particular video might just become viral.

We were even more motivated in January 2023 to grow YouTube further. We posted more quality content with consistency and on 19th February 2023 we hit 10k subscribers. After 6 months, on 8th August 2023 we scored a half century and crossed 50k subscribers. We calculated that if we kept going at this pace we might reach 100k Subscribers in January or February of 2024.

The beauty of compounding is that it grows at an exponential pace and to my surprise we hit 100k on 13th November 2023, just 3 months after hitting 50k subscribers!

This taught me a very important lesson that quite often you reach your desired milestones well before any predicted date if you just stick with the process and keep going.

This one quote speaks volumes about the same:

"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before." – Jacob Riis

It's sometimes hard to know to what degree what you're doing right now is contributing to what you'll be doing in the future. And the second visual above depicts the same because it reflects a truth that many of us have either experienced, or are hoping is the case when we're toiling away without a payoff in sight.

Why YouTube?

The reason why Birdie chose to grow on YouTube is that it offers the best financial support for creators who are successful on the platform. A lot of subscribers have shown support for the channel by becoming a channel member and YouTube pays Birdie via ads from Shorts and Watch Page ads.

I never knew that I would be making money just by uploading videos on YouTube (which has always been my dream as a content creator). And as Abhishek Asthana mentions in one of his podcasts:

"If you fail to monetise your hobby/passion, it fades away"

I am lucky that at the right time we saw sufficient amount of results which motivated Birdie to continue uploading badminton content which has now become another stream of revenue.

Thanks for reading this article till the end. If you liked this article do share it to the ones who are struggling on growing their social media page and feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions related to social media growth.

Stay tuned for more articles like these!

Link to Birdie's YouTube Channel: Birdie