Getting an Independent Artist's First EP Past 10,000 Views

A first music video release from a channel with no watch history had almost no chance of being recommended by YouTube regardless of production quality — the algorithm simply had no signal to go on. Streams from Spotify were trickling in from the artist's personal network, but the YouTube video (the primary discovery surface for the release) was stalled under 300 views after the first week.

An initial views and subscriber push was applied directly to the release video and the channel, concentrated in the first 10 days post-launch to coincide with the promotional window the artist was already running on social media. This was paired with watch-hour support so early view sessions reflected real engagement duration rather than instant drop-off, which matters more to YouTube's recommendation system than raw view count alone.