As we trudge forward into yet another hiatus, I figured it was a good time to get another one of these going similar to last year. Lets talk about EQD and THE FUTURE!
After six years of largely living off of word of mouth, we've decided to try some actual advertising out. Our buddies over at WeimTime LLC (Whom you may recognize for all those Synthesia piano videos we post) got their team together to do something we truthfully didn't have the expertise to pull off on our end. As he puts it:
WeimTime: I believe in a strong community for the best content aggregation, so I took the bill of creating this as a gesture of showing how I believe it's up to content creators to help bring back some life into the site that gave them life from the get-go.Equestria Daily now has a video ad with Caitbug as the voice of Spotlight!
We need the fandom's help to get it out there though. So, why are we doing this and what can you do to get the word out? I'll explain it all below!
Why a Youtube ad?
On top of that, for whatever reason it has become commonplace to just screencap what we report instead of giving a link, usually on Facebook where a cropped image of an EQD post can get hundreds of thousands of views and no one knows where it came from. Similar to the Youtubers who have their videos re-uploaded (freebooted) there. This make it hard for people to discover the site.
The very design of EQD has always been essentially suicidal. Unlike other sites that will upload people's content themselves, we typically embed a preview. Our comic and video posts are a good example. We embed and send you away to go sub or follow on the creators page. This helps them build up a following that incentivizes them to make more, but there is always a bit of attrition when it comes to people returning to us.
EQD right now is primarily loyal long-term members. Many have grown bored of our everyday posts and unwilling to give new people a shot. Big news and big releases do bring out the hibernating people, but they quickly return to the shadows. This has had the side effect of harming sections of the fandom's creative side, with less people looking at their stuff, they find less incentive to make it. This Luna animation from a week ago is a good example. It's absolutely incredible and really deserves way more views. I hate seeing it not at at least 100,000 by now. While older creators have dedicated subscriber bases to draw eyes from thanks to their success in the 2012-2014 era, New people are struggling more than anyone.
The Youtube algorithm a lot of the times just requires a kick to get something going outside of luck, and that's what we have always done. 15,000 video views from EQD in 2013 would push someone into the "recommended" sections, and they would get 100,000 to a million views from it. If they released consistently, they built subscribers.
So Where Do We Find New People? Fresh Eyes?
It turns out an insane amount of kids are growing into MLP just like we all did. Six years ago, many of us discovered the new show through websites and forums. These days it's all happening on phones and tablets, via apps, social networks, and Youtube. Quite a few brony video makers have discovered the flood of kids via luck of the draw with the algorithm. They love the stuff many veteran bronies are bored of, but have no idea a site like EQD exists to show it all off!
I don't want to say EQD is the only way to become well known in pony, but I still think having a strong centralized quality controlled place like this has always been a huge boon for people who get lost in the flood of Youtube, Deviant Art, and Tumblr. Some of the biggest names in pony grew out of us spotlighting their things on here. We just need to get some fresh eyes to flood people with so new creators can get similar treatment.
TL;DR HOW DO I HELP?
If you have any time at all to spare, please take the video and share it wherever you possibly can, or even just toss it a like. Even places you assume we are already known. You'd be surprised at how many people don't know they can get all this stuff in one easy to view spot. Even a highly upvoted Youtube comment can help with how rabid the fanbase is becoming over there. They just have 0 ways to find us!
We have a few video makers on board to show it off on their channels in the coming weeks, and hopefully more if any are willing, but nothing beats the power of all of you! Take it to forums, comments, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, or wherever else you frequent with pony fans and help spread the word. Even just tossing the video a like will help it win the algorithm war! If we can get even a few new regular people it would help tremendously on getting both EQD and new creators some love.
Anyway, that's about it on my front. You can get the video on our Youtube channel over here, and embedded below. Please share it if you can!
And thanks again to WeimTime LLC and Caitbug for helping us craft this thing. They did an incredible job on it and you all should definitely go sub to them for awesome pianofied and animated pony stuff if you haven't already!
