Today, the 6th September 2020, is our four year anniversary on youTube, so we wanted to reflect on what we have achieved so far. In order to see our progress we had to have a little think back to what it felt like in the beginning...
When we started our channel we felt like we knew nothing - because we knew nothing! We were stumbling around in the dark.
Our son, James was in to online gaming, Team Fortress 2 comes to mind and, with one of his friends built a new computer, gifting his old one to us - one we had bought for him when he started secondary school some 5 or 6 years earlier.
At this time there was a plethora of review videos on YouTube, toys, films, makeup products etc, and James suggested that we should review the walks from the numerous walk books in our collection. Initially, with my old iPhone 4, I went out with my Mum or Milly or Andrew, not sure how or what I was doing. For this reason we kept quiet about the channel, we didn't tell friends, work colleagues or anyone. I think we just didn't want the flack!
I started to get my head around the editing suite; I used iMovie, simply because it is free and it was on the old computer! I enjoy learning new things and although the challenge at times seemed daunting, I started to find my way.
"Pep it up a bit!"
After every attempt, I would proudly show James and all he would say is "Mum! You need to pep it up a bit!" Then he would show me the stuff he was watching on YouTube and I would sit there feeling so deflated as I watched these confident young Americans, articulate, looking straight down the camera, and I would feel so intimidated. Andrew was feeling the same and really didn't participate to start with, held back, kept really quiet until... we went to Men-an-Tol. I do not know what happened that day, but he blossomed, like he just didn't care.
And the channel started to attract an audience...
In one of our early videos, I went to St Agnes Head with my mum and we stumbled across the Poldark film crew. It was so exciting and at a time when you could actually get close without the crew shooing you away. The video attracted a few views. To our surprise the subs started to grow too. I still have the sheet of paper that I used to record our view figures and after a month the channel had 258 views. We struck lucky again when we spotted the film crew for a second time and after 6 months and a video nearly every week, we had 268 views a day! This felt like progress so we carried on.
The channel today is all-consuming! We now have Instagram, Facebook, a website to manage on top of producing a video every week! This year we have continued to publish every week despite COVID -19 and subsequent lockdown. We have been Creator on the Rise - that felt amazing!! And we have continued to grow with over 1.4 million views and 7.5K subscribers! There are now hours in the day where we get more that 258 views across the channel. We must be doing something right!
As part of looking back, we stumbled across a Murdoch day video, one that we have never published. I was too slow editing and the moment passed but we felt that it might be appropriate to release it today. We published our 'monumental' walk from Redruth to Carn Brea this week and it feels fitting to publish it today. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/12uruvTtwtE
We would like to thank everyone who has found and enjoyed our channel over the last four years, we feel that we have lots of virtual friends who we speak to every week in our videos. We genuinely feel that you are with us on our walks, and we are thrilled to get your comments and messages. We know this year has been incredible difficult for everyone and we have had so many messages about your holidays being cancelled or rescheduled, with this in mind we have felt a duty this year to try to share a little bit of Cornwall with you each week through our lens, and hopefully this has brought you a little bit of Cornish joy!
And now that we are "Bona fide YouTubers!" in true YouTube tradition, remember "Please subscribe, give a thumbs up, share, hit the bell, and leave a comment."
Thanks for watching Sarah & Andrew :)
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