What I did for Week 12:
This is my last blog for Genius Hour. I screwed up majorly this week. I had a track meet on Monday and homework the rest of the week so I could not go out to the shop and film a video until Thursday. I went out on Thursday night with the idea that I could film and edit the entire video. I was wrong in thinking that. The plan was to install a window regulator. For those of you who do not know, a window regulator allows the window to be rolled up or down. My windows are manual, so it is more difficult to install. The first step in the installation was to remove the door panel. The door panels that are on the car were a custom set that DD Speed Shop made. They were very ugly and I did not like them. I removed a few screws and thought it would just pop off, but I forgot to remove the door handle. This is where things started to go wrong. The door handle would not come off. While I was trying to remove the handle, the panel started to get torn up. Tried for 45 minutes to get off the handle. Then, I decided the only way to get it off was to cut off the door panel. I cut the door panel off, but in the process, I sliced my thumb open. I bandaged it up and kept working. I found out that I was missing four bolts to hold the window regulator inside the door. Conclusion: I didn’t have a video to post last Friday. This is the first time I have missed posting a video. I will post one sometime next week. I completed part of my Genius Hour goal. I wanted to learn how to run a YouTube Channel and how to grow it. I did not reach my goal of 3000 subscribers. I did learn some valuable lessons through Genius Hour. I found what works best for me. I learned that I need to manage my time better if I want to post videos every other Friday. I ended with 2,165 Subscribers and 65.5k views.
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What I did for Week 11:
This week, I reaped the rewards of working so hard on last week's video. I have not started filming my video for next week because I have had too much homework. I also had to finish up some non-car projects at my house before I could start working on the Biscayne again. I am hoping to start filming this weekend. I completely changed how I did my videos, again. This time, I filmed the entire video myself. I did not know how it would look, but I enjoyed the final product. I think I have finally found my groove. I made my best thumbnail yet! It was visually appealing and I think that helped me out. Conclusion: This was one of my most productive weeks of Genius Hours. My video hit 3k views for the first time without mentioning DD Speed Shop or using a key term like “Will it Run?”. I also gained new subscribers, which is exciting. I now have 2,166 subscribers. I know that is not a lot but this is the first time that the amount of subscribers has gone up in weeks. I have a crazy idea for next week's video and I am hoping to get it finished because that would be an epic end to Genius Hour. The plan is to attempt to remove the 350 SBC and put the 454 BBC in before Thursday of next week. I think I can get the majority of it done this weekend and button up the last few things at the beginning of next week. I am hoping to get the Biscayne running and driving. The Biscayne may not have a full exhaust system or a comfortable interior, but it will be driving once again. Once I get it out on the road, I am going to rip one nasty, loud, and smokey burnout. The sad part about the burnout is that the Biscayne has a peg-leg rear end and will only spin one tire. I need to work on my Genius Hour final presentation. Maybe I will put together a short, funny video of my bloopers and a few driving stunts. What I did for Week 10:
This is a video posting week. I have a crazy video for those of you who want to watch. As hinted by the title, I did start my first automotive fire and got part of it on video. It was a simple wiring mishap. Two connectors on the starter were touching and I had no idea. For those of you who do not know about electricity, it takes the path of least resistance. In this case, instead of putting power to the starter, it created a circuit that ran continuously through the ignition system until it found the weak point. The weak point just happened to be an original electrical connector from 1966 that was right next to my leg. It started to burn like a filament in a light bulb, then the next thing I knew, it was on fire. After I put out the fire, I had to find where the problem occurred. I found out what happened and I was able to rewire the starter. Finally, after weeks, I was able to get the engine to run, but only for 20 seconds before it died. The starter then broke, again. The clutch mechanism went out inside the starter and would not allow the Bendix gear to extend again. Conclusion: It broke, again. I did not hear back from anyone that I asked for help, except for my good friend Cale from Cam Racing. He is a small-time YouTube, but he is well known in the car community. He gave me contact information for a racing suspension company, so I can get parts for my car. The video has been 3 hours since I posted the video and it has 296 views. It does not bother me that it is so low because according to my analytics, the majority of my viewers watch between 6 pm and 12 pm. What I did for Week 9:
This week I reaped the rewards of my most recent video. I had 2.4k views on the most recent video. I am pretty excited about that, even though it does not seem like a lot. I added a new title portion to the beginning of the video which looks really cool. I made it using Canva. There are still a few things I hate about my videos. The first part that I hate is the Thumbnails. I have been recycling some old pictures that I have and I am tired of doing that. I need to do a new photo for every new thumbnail. I also hate how I have been placing the photos on the thumbnails. I have the parts to put the Biscayne back together. I hope that I can finally get it to work and finally be able to drive it out of the garage. The reason that I titled the blog this was because I wanted to unlock the secrets of running a successful YouTube channel, so I asked some of the people that I know. I was first taught how to run a YouTube channel by Dan at DD Speed Shop. He taught me that I needed to make content that I wanted to see. He said it didn’t matter what anyone else thought, he said to do what I thought was right, which is something that I have begun to go away from and need to come back to. I have asked one of my favorite YouTubers of all time, Tom’s Refurb, what he would recommend doing. I am also going to ask Polebarn Garage, Dylan McCool, VGG, and Junkyard Digs. I will also ask two of my personal friends HH Wheels, and Cam Racing, to see what they would do. (These two are smaller YouTubers, but they could still have helpful insight.) Conclusion: I am happy with how the latest video turned out. There are still a few things that need to be improved, but it is a solid start. I hope I can learn the way of the YouTubers from these other channels. I also need to start putting up YouTube shorts on a regular basis. What I Did For Week 8:
This was a video filming week. I started filming last Sunday night and finished that night. The reason this video was filmed so fast was because I found out I screwed up. There are two different flywheel styles on a small block Chevy. There is a 153-tooth flywheel and a 168-tooth flywheel. Both flywheel styles have a special starter. I forgot that I had both types of starters and switched them around. The 168-tooth flywheel will start a 153-tooth flywheel engine about 3 times before it grinds on the flywheel and makes a terrible noise. I bought the parts to fix the old starter and hopefully make it run again, but they were not going to come in time to finish the video. Then there is the problem of the engine itself. I was recently informed that this engine never ran properly and that was the reason it was pulled out of Dan’s 1971 Nova. This engine needs a rebuild, but I do not have the time or money to fix it so I can probably rig it up to where it can run and drive. On Saturday, I attended a cancer-benefit car show to promote the channel. I am starting to get the name out, but I do not think that anyone has subscribed yet due to promotion, but I am trying. I did promote the most reason video on Instagram and Facebook. I think that this helped me. Conclusion: The latest video has done pretty well so far. It has been up for 26 hours and it has 1.5k views. I know this may not seem like a lot, but just having one thousand views makes me excited. I am not sure if I am going to get the Biscayne running by the end of Genius Hour, but I hope I will. I am only sitting a 2,164 subscribers. I have a few ideas that I am going to attempt to see if I can make that number grow quickly. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but I am having fun doing it, and that is what matters. Link to the latest video here What I did for Week 7:
I did some investigative work this week. I was wondering why I was losing so many subscribers since that is part of my Genius Hour goal. I would understand if 1 or 2 people unsubscribed, but when 10 to 20 are “unsubscribing” at a time, I decided something was up. After some research, I found that bots can subscribe to channels, but YouTube finds them and deletes them. I also found that bots only seem to subscribe to channels that are just starting (like mine). The good news is that the bots should be gone for now. The bad news is that I have “lost” subscribers. I am now down to 2,169 subscribers. During class, I have been gathering data on how to make my channel better through a select audience (AJ, Josh, and Gage). AJ has good input on things that could improve the channel, such as camera work, editing, and a hook at the beginning of the video. I have not promoted the newest video as I should have, so I am going to make a reel for Instagram after this. Track season started this week, so I am now getting home later and still trying to do the same amount of stuff after homework as I normally would do. I need to film a video to post next week. I am looking forward to this week's video because hopefully, I will be able to drive the Biscayne down the road for the first time since Canada. Conclusion: I did not do what I should have done to promote the video this week. I did find critical information that helped me to understand more about running a YouTube Channel. For those of you keeping tabs, I had 2.1k views on last week's video. I need to do something really cool (or stupid) a few times to help boost the channel. If you have any ideas on what this could be, please comment or DM me @lucky_jack_racing on Instagram. What I did for Week 6:
This was a video posting week. I decided to video the most-viewed car, the Biscayne. I started filming on Tuesday night, finished on Wednesday morning, and edited on Thursday night. I need to stop editing the night before the video needs to be posted. This week's video was about finally fixing the starter on the Biscayne so that it would run. It still needs to be tuned to be driven, but this was a step in the right direction. I have a list a mile long of things that need to be done before it can be called complete, but I want to get the bare minimum done so that I can drive it. A famous man once said, “Don’t get it right, just get it running” and that is what I have lived my life by. I did follow the rules that I wrote last week about making videos and it worked. I have had more views in the last 24 hours on this week's video than my last video which has been up for two weeks. The plan for next week is to start working on tuning the Biscayne, putting a new driver's seat in it, and finishing out orders. The orders are for handmade Christmas ornaments that I make. Orders are starting to come in and pile up and I only have a few made. I will need to work fast so I can finish orders and make money to fund the channel. Conclusion: It was another successful week of working. I have been trying to expand my channel, but it has not been going as well as I would have liked. I knew it was going to be hard to reach this goal, but I think that if I try hard enough I can come close to achieving it. I was given some advice by my peers, and I may use some of it. The best thing they gave me was that my videos and shorts need a hook at the beginning that will keep people interested enough to watch. This is something that I have struggled with. Link to the week's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW-Xg8m-M9A What I did for Week 5:
It’s been a long week. I had a lot of homework and projects that had to be finished. I did get to work on some things. First off, I made my first Short on YouTube. I am not technically advanced in any way, so it took me about 45 minutes to finally be able to upload the Short to YouTube on Wednesday night. The short as of now has 862 views after two days. It is now time for me to admit my failures in the latest video. To start off with, it was WAY too long. No one is going to watch a 32-minute video of some kid racing his Camaro no matter how cool it is. Secondly, I did not promote this video at all. I completely forgot to do it. My biggest failure of the week was not making my thumbnail. I did not have time to make a thumbnail, so I let my Mom do it. I love my Mom to death, but she is a landscape/people photographer. The thumbnail that she ended up making had nothing to do with the Camaro and everything to do with the mullet wing I was wearing. Don’t ask, we have fun here at Lucky Jack Racing. After all this transpired, I decided that there needs to be a set of guidelines that I follow when making a YouTube video. Here are the new rules for making a YouTube video.
I am going to start filming for next week's video. It will be out on Friday at 12 p.m. as always. I am going to go back to work on a fan favorite, Bisquick. I am going to use this exact set of rules and see how using these will change the number of exposure my video gets. Background:
I have been drag racing cars since I was 13 years old. I found my 1991 Z28 over two years ago. It has had quite a bit of work done since the day I bought it. I raced the Camaro stock for one race season. I placed 4th overall that season. My second race season was great. It began terribly. The first 2 races were canceled. Actually every race except one was canceled. In the one race that happened, I ended up winning and becoming the class champion for that season. Right now, we are in the off-season. This is when I will test and tune the Camaro will various new parts and setups. What I did for Week 4: I will be honest, this week has been crazy and I did not have much free time to work. I began by going to the track on Thursday and filming for this week’s video. Then I went to Street Outlaws NPK the next day and Homecoming on Saturday. On Sunday, I had to work one of my jobs that actually pays. This took up almost all of Sunday. Then, as soon as I got back to school on Monday, I was bombarded with end-of-the-quarter projects in all of my classes. The reason I am calling this week “Throwing a Wrench into my Project” is that I am going to change what vehicle I am working on in hopes of reaching a new demographic of viewers in addition to my current one. I have been working as quickly as I can to get those done and to get my video edited for my Friday deadline. At this moment in time, I still need to film an intro and outro and do a final edit for the video. I also have decided to try something new for my channel. I am going to start posting a YouTube short on Wednesday every week. The first idea that came to mind, which I am going to film and post next week, is the evolution of owning a Camaro. I will start out looking normally dressed and by the end of the short, I will have a mullet and wear a wife-beater with jean shorts. Conclusion: Overall it was a great week for expansion. I hit over 5.4 thousand views on a video for the first time without piggybacking off DD Speed Shop. That was a big deal. Also, I just got my PIN from Google for Ad Sense. So now I am a paid YouTuber. I now have 2,197 subscribers. I need to really start doing shorts and YouTube because I think that could help me get some more subscribers. I will get some free time this weekend to start experimenting with shorts. I will also be able to put more time into the channel next week. It’s going to be a rough road but I will make it. (At the time of writing this, I did not have my video finished.) Link to Newest Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io1MKa-chWI What I did for Week 3:
I began to work on the promotion of the YouTube Channel. I will be honest, I had no idea where I was going to start. I decided to do some research and see what other YouTubers did to promote their videos. The first thing that I came across was the most typical type of promotion. These are posts on Instagram where the YouTubers would put up a picture of the Thumbnail with a caption that says uploading now. The other type of post was the countdown that would count until the video came out on YouTube. I need to get better at this. I always put up a post after I release the video. I am still trying to understand how social media can be used in conjunction with YouTube. I am better at doing promotions in person. I am doing two promotional events in the coming weeks. I am doing a truck-or-treat with the Camaro at a local church. I am also signed up to attend a car show at Farmington drag strip. The car show is for two local kids with cancer. The proceeds go to the kids and their families to help pay for their treatments. I also borrowed a note sheet on how to grow a following on any media platform. In terms of what I am filming this week, I am very excited about the video I’m working on. This video will be the first appearance of the Camaro on the Lucky Jack Racing channel. This is also exciting to me not as a content creator but as a racer. This is the first time I will be running a brand-new tune in the Camaro. This tune took some time to get right, but I squeezed every bit of performance out of that engine. Conclusion: This week, I may have not done as much as I should have. I was reaping the benefits of my most recent video, which did alright. In less than a week it got 4.6k, which is more than I had when I began writing this post. I have gained some more subscribers. I am now at 2.19k. I also received my statistics on my performance in the month of September. I had 839 new subscribers, 24.8k views, and 114.9k minutes watched. I need to start figuring out how to boost my subscribers if I want to meet my goal. Time to start getting a better game plan, or at least some clickbait. Link to most recent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVEkHEesOWE&t=2s |
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