CS:GO Quick Tips T-Side Dust_2 Best Smokes

Some tips for getting the T-Side CS:GO smokes on Dust_2 down!

Part of the YouTube backlink case-study:

• YouTube Gaming Link
• GamerClips Link
• Reddit LetsPlay Link
• YouTube Gaming Shooters Post
• YouTube Gaming Another Post
• Facebook Page Link
• Twitter Post Link

Goals For The New Year

2014 was an amazing year for the channel.

We broke the 1000 subscribers mark, got one of my videos to nearly 30,000 views, and I played with subs more than I did the year before.

However, with a New Year, come new goals, so this is here to keep me on track for the next year.

Channel Goals

It would be absolutely amazing if we could reach 5000 subscribers this year. This is almost 4,000 more subscribers than what the channel has now, but I think we can do it! 

I also want to post at least 3 videos a week. This might not seem like a lot, but my summer is going to be incredibly busy with work, internships, and writing college essays, so I won't have as much time to record and play video games.

Another goal that goes along with the previous one is taking as few long breaks as possible (preferably none). I've taken a couple of 2 week and 1 month breaks this year, and it really hurt my channel. Hopefully this won't happen this year...

The last, and the most important goal is having fun and playing with my subs as often as possible!

Gaming Goals

My number one goal on the list is reaching at least a Gold Nova 4 rank in CS:GO (hopefully even higher), and improving my crosshair placement and getting better game sense when I play.

I've been practicing a lot during break, but when school comes, I can only play around 7 hours a week max, which isn't nearly enough practice to improve quickly.

Life And Monetary Goals

One of my goals is to be able to make at least $100 per month because that would allow me to finally buy a good laptop, and would give me a good starting point for increasing my monetary growth and helping me get through college.

As of right now, I could say I "meet" this goal because PerkTV brings in $90 per month, YouTube brings in around $7, and I get around $5-$10 from MXWRK, but Perk, MXWRK, and other money-making sites could go down, and then I will be back to making $10 a month tops.

Another goal of mine is to get my websites (BeatDaBest and OnlineMoneyz) to start paying for themselves because right now I have to pay the domain and hosting costs out of pocket, and that extra 80 bucks a year isn't very pleasant.

If I could get at least 22 cents a day from both of the sites combined, I would be able to break even, which in my opinion is a pretty good goal for two websites that were created only 4 months ago.

I also need to keep working hard in school and get into a good college and stuff like that, but I also want to play around with Android Development, and keep running track, so I don't know where I'm going to find the time to do all of that...

Anyway, what are your guys' plans for the upcoming year? 

Comment below!

Christmas 2015 Steam Giveaway Update (Added Payday 2 and Don't Starve)

Some of you might know that I'm doing a holiday giveaway of a Fallout: New Vegas Steam Key.

I decided since it's a holiday giveaway, I might as well add a couple more games because of Holiday Spirit and whatnot! ;)

Anyway, if the giveaway gets 250+ entries, I will add a copy of Payday 2, and if it gets to 500+ entries, I will add a copy of Don't Starve also!

It's one prize per winner, so ultimately there can be 3 winners total! It all depends on the number of entries.

Good luck, and happy holidays!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

The YouTube GIF Update And What It Means For YouTube Gamers

For those lucky enough to sign up for the YouTube GIF beta test, you should receive an email in the next couple days that looks like this:

If you receive this email, you and your fans can now create GIF highlights of your videos and share them on social media sites and in the comments!

To share your GIFS all you have to do is :

• Go to the video you want to create the GIF for
• Click on the Share button
• Choose the part of the video you want the GIF to have
• Add text
• Click Create GIF
• And voila!

On the right you can see what the editor looks right, and right next to that you can see what it looks like after you created the GIF. 

As you can see, you can share the picture using a direct link (like IMGUR). Or you can embed the picture into your blog post/website using an iFrame. The opportunities are endless!

You can take a look at a couple of the example GIFs at the end of the post, but now lets discuss how you can use them to help your channel, and what this update means for you.

How Does This Update Affect You?

The GIF update makes it easier for you and your fans to share the funniest, weirdest, and craziest parts of your video.

You should expect to have some GIFs in the comments where you look incredibly awkward, but you should also have some GIFs with highlights of your amazing gameplay.

This also makes the sharing of your videos easier and less intrusive. (Instead of sharing the whole video, you now can share the best parts of it instead.)

You can also run contests with your users to find the craziest/best GIF out of your video, thus improving retention and getting you higher in the search rankings.

How will you use this update to help your YouTube gaming channel?

Leave a response in the comments below!

A Couple Of Example GIFs

Fallout: New Vegas Steam Key Giveaway!

Hey everyone! I recently reached 1,000 subs and it's winter Holidays time so I decided to do a little giveaway!

Enter to win a Fallout: New Vegas Steam key below!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mistakes We Made When Starting A Gaming Channel (And What We Can Learn From Them)

We've all made mistakes during the first phase of running our YouTube channel, and to prevent others from making the same mistakes, I asked for the ones others committed on the /r/letsplay sub.

Here's what they said!

The Quotes

My biggest mistake was uploading too much too often, early on in my channel I would upload 5 - 6 videos daily, all of different games, and a few co-op games, I over loaded my channel with too much content too quickly. (We now upload 3 videos daily, 1 main, 1 co=op and 1 secondary) -- Cadacis (TheCatalyst)

This isn't the most common mistake amongst beginners, but it still happens sometimes.

The problem is usually the fact that as you post that many videos per day, the quality of your videos will often degrade. And even if you're able to record and post that many videos every day, it's bound to get tedious sooner or later...

It wasn't when I was starting out, but I did fuck up pretty badly. I started making Let's Plays in August of 2013. Until about late December, I was gaining a few subscribers each week, usually like 3 or 4. In January that tripled. I was getting like 15 per week. It went up to around 20 per day for a few days in February. I was getting as many views per video as I had subscribers. Then, for whatever reason, I lost all will to record and edit and do all of that stuff. I took what I thought was going to be a 1 week break. That turned into 3 months. I started making videos again in late May. It took until early November to get back to where I was in January.
Moral of the story; Unplanned Breaks can seriously fuck up your channel. -- iAmMitten1 (MittenSquad)

If your channel starts experiencing growth, not posting videos for a week or more can really hurt you.

People might not unsub, but once you come back, your view count will drop and it will be harder to get back the momentum that you might've had going before.

If you do have to take a break, you can explain it to your subs and pre-record one or two videos and schedule them to go up once a week while you're taking your break.

My biggest mistake was my attitude at the beginning. I treated this like something I needed to stress over and succeed with. I did make sure I had fun, but there was too much focus on "gotta get noticed!" and "have to upload NOW!" -- HookedOnAnAnchor

The mindset with which you start out YouTubing is very important.

Focusing on money or becoming famous is bound to demotivate you because unless you get extremely lucky or you have something truly different to offer, your channel won't grow very fast.

Hooked later said, "I realized I was thinking this all wrong. Having fun is the number one thing. Stressing about getting noticed and growing my channel isn't something I need to aim for. I need to aim for making fun videos, and hope I can brighten someone's day." 
This is one of the best mindsets you can have when just starting out on YouTube. Having fun and not focusing too much on the numbers is the best thing you can do.

WORST MISTAKE: Tried to specialize in one game (Warframe) from the beginning of the channel. It was fine and gained a fair amount of subs because of it, but as I moved on I stopped playing warframe and the channel has taken a different direction. Because of this, I do lose subs fairly regularly because many of them came from my warframe videos (which I dont produce any more), but luckily my gains from my newer videos still out weight the lose. -- Aldershot8800

This seems to be a mistake that many gamers make when just starting their YouTube channel. (I actually made the same exact mistake with Alliance Of Valiant Arms).