Hi Upview fam,

Last week, we talked about YouTube’s Culture & Trends Report 2023.

Many of you liked the creator examples curated from the report.

Along similar lines, I want to share the story of a spiritual movement named Ananda. Upview helped them revive their YouTube channel: Ananda Sangha Worldwide.

Before we dive into it, I hope you have registered your interest in getting Upview’s early access. It’s free and will be helpful to us to tailor it for you.

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If you remember, I had promised to share not only YouTube strategies but also my experience of using those strategies for different YouTube channels.

If you haven’t read Azul’s story or Stef’s story, check them out.

Unlike Azul and Stef, today’s story talks about a global organization and how, we at Upview, could help them.

​Ananda Sangha Worldwide​

Ananda is a global spiritual movement, based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, who showed how everyone can realize God in their daily lives as a tangible, loving reality.

They have 160+ teaching centers and meditation groups across the globe.

Unlike other YouTube channels we have worked with, Ananda’s ideal audience base is quite diverse.

But that’s an ideal scenario.

The demographics

Though the organization’s reach is diverse, the YouTube channel’s demographics tell a different story.

Approximately 84% of the channel subscribers are males. And 74% of the subscribers hail from India.

One of the main reasons behind this unexpected subscriber distribution is Paramhansa Yogananda’s appeal to the Indian male YouTube audience inclined towards spirituality.

The Plateau

Despite achieving content-driven growth in August 2019, Ananda’s channel experienced stagnation at 88k subscribers for nearly four years.

Prior to collaborating with Upview in the early 2023, the channel’s metrics were as follows:

• Total Views: 11 Million
• Subscribers: 87.6k
• Average Monthly Views: 129k
• Average Monthly Subscriber Growth: 730

After Upview's support, this was the state:

• Total Views: 31+ Million
• Subscribers: 183k
• Average Monthly Views: 6 Million
• Average Monthly Subscriber Growth: 23k

The diagnosis

We found that most of the existing content lacked variety in their format offering. If you remember, I covered this in my last newsletter with YouTube’s 2023 report too.

Another shortcoming was a lack of SEO awareness in writing titles and descriptions.

Strategies in action

Content Revitalization

The primary content type was long-form speeches and interviews.

For any channel, there are four types of content options: long-form, Shorts, Live, and podcast.

We suggested using other forms of content on the channel, for example, Shorts.

Keyword Optimization

We noticed that the channel was ranking for the keyword ‘Yogananda’.

We advised creating a diverse format of content around this keyword to dominate the search results.

Momentum Retention

Once the momentum was regained, we emphasized making sure the content was SEO-friendly.

Apart from using keywords, SEO-friendly video titles and descriptions.

This allowed the channel to retain its newly-held position.

The result

Viral Success

The creation of Shorts with the keyword ‘Yogananda’ in the title led to a whopping 22 million channel views!

Enhanced Visibility

After getting traction using Shorts, other SEO-optimized content also started to gain visibility, which reinstated the channel’s presence on the YouTube Browse Feature.

Content Repurposing

We also helped create 10 short videos from popular older content, which upon upload, gained between 20k - 40k views each in a short period of time.

This is the power of repurposing existing content. You don't need to create fresh content every time.

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And that’s how, yet again, we did it!

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By now you would have realized that Upview’s analytics platform is built over our years of expertise and tried-and-tested statistical models.

Don’t miss out on getting invited for free early access from us.

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See you!

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Bhavik Muni

CEO & Co-founder