- Does taking a break from YouTube
actually hurt your YouTube channel?
Can you upload less and still grow more?
Well, that's what I wanna talk about today
because YouTube's official stance
is that taking a break from YouTube
will not negatively impact your channel.
They say it doesn't hurt your YouTube channel.
So why is it that that doesn't match up
to the experience that myself
and other content creators have
whenever we take long breaks from YouTube?
Why is it that we see our channel growth
drastically slow down
and why is it so much harder
when we finally do come back to YouTube
to start growing and build momentum again?
Today I wanna talk about that
I wanna show you my own YouTube analytics
across a couple of different channels that I have
and I wanna talk to what you
might be going through as a creator
and break down the truth about whether uploading
more to YouTube helps you grow
or whether you can get away with uploading less.
And how does that impact not only your views
and your subscribers,
how does that affect things like ad revenue,
and also what's the mental health cost
of being consistent on YouTube?
Now, according to my analytics,
almost half of you probably have not watched me before
or subscribe to the YouTube channel
so my name is Roberto Blake.
I'm a creative entrepreneur, public speaker,
and I'm probably by this point
well-known as a YouTube educator.
I've made over 1,500 pieces of content on YouTube.
I've been doing this for almost a decade
and I have over 500,000 subscribers.
I have a crap ton of data when it comes to YouTube.
I've also had massive things impact my channel
because over these last few years,
there have been multiple times when I've had to take
more than a 30-day break from YouTube
which can drastically slow down
the momentum of your channel.
I also am one of the rare creators who has more
than two years of experience
of being a daily content creator,
uploading videos to YouTube every single day
or pretty close to it.
I definitely don't recommend it without a doctor's note.
But all joking aside,
being consistent as a YouTube content creator
is really hard.
It's really challenging
and it's really hard early on
when you aren't making a lot of money
on YouTube from the start.
At the same time, if you're a full-time content creator
or you're trying to be a full-time content creator,
it can have its own different challenges.
Recently, I as a full-time content creator
just became a homeowner.
Actually I did a podcast episode about this
over my podcast channel.
I'm gonna link to it down in the description below.
It's a really great video where I talk about
some of the realities of that
but the reason I bring it up is because
moving into this house and doing all of that
and getting set up and getting the internet and everything
the way I need it to be to start making content again,
that is something that took a long time
and it was really rough and it meant
I couldn't make consistent YouTube videos
and also handle all of that.
So it's been about roughly 50 days
as of the making this video
since I've done a regular YouTube channel up.
The only thing I've really done on this main channel
is keep up with the community tab post,
reply to comments,
and I've done maybe two live streams
during that 50-day window and that's it.
And I can tell you straight up
that when you take more than 30 days
off from uploading to YouTube for most content creators,
you will see an impact to your channel.
You will see less impressions.
You will see views slow down
even if you have a back catalog of content.
You will see this impact your ad revenue.
There are consequences to taking a break from YouTube
in the same way that there would be consequences
if you shut down your business for 30 days
and didn't serve customers.
And see this is the relationship between YouTube
and entrepreneurship that a lot of people miss
because most content creators on YouTube,
even full-time content creators,
they become accidental entrepreneurs.
And many still don't treat this like a business
and in the world, it's not respected as a real career.
You'll constantly hear people say, "Get a real job."
If you're trying to be a full-time content creator,
a streamer, a YouTuber,
you're doing TikTok, whatever,
the work that you do is not respected
and valued the same way as a traditional job
even though for you it might be just as challenging,
difficult, more challenging,
while also sometimes being more rewarding
and might even be making you more money
than whenever you were doing that traditional job
that everybody seems to respect.
With that in mind,
this could take a toll on your mental health.
Unlike in a regular job,
you might be subjected to a lot more criticism
due to the nature of the internet being the internet.
You also might feel because you have your own deadlines
that you're opposing your own standards of quality,
you can be putting more pressure on yourself
than even a bad boss.
You might actually be the worst boss that you've ever had
if you're a content creator.
Speaking a little bit from personal experience on that one.
In the past, I've done videos where I've shown you
my own analytics and my own data
and one of them actually showed you the benefits
of consistency in uploading YouTube more
by showing what happened when I uploaded
like six or seven days in a row back to back
regardless of how the videos performed.
And one of the things we saw was that YouTube was
compounding not only my views
but I was getting more opportunities.
I was getting more impressions and more reach
and more exposure to people who are not subscribed
to my channel.
One of the biggest myths that I keep having to debunk
when it comes to YouTube
is this idea of view to subscriber ratios.
This is something that the YouTube community
and culture made up
to decide whether a channel is thriving
or whether a channel is dying.
And it makes no sense because the problem with this is
it makes the assumption that YouTube
is putting your videos in front of your subscribers
in the first place.
Now, technically it is.
In the YouTube subscriptions feed
your audience most likely could find
the most recent video that you uploaded.
However, some YouTube content creators
and I believe small YouTubers and large YouTubers
when they tell me this,
sometimes channels that they're subscribed to
don't show up in the subscribe feed
when they click over to that on YouTube,
on desktop or on mobile.
So they aren't always 100% getting the videos
that they subscribe to
even when they go to the subscription feed.
The place that most YouTube viewers get their content
is from the YouTube homepage or another recommended video,
either in the next up queue autoplay
or the suggested videos on the sidebar
on desktop and laptop,
or on the bottom when you scroll down on your mobile phone.
For the most part, the far majority of traffic
on the entire website of YouTube
comes through the YouTube homepage.
So if your videos are not showing up
on someone's YouTube homepage
or something else is more
prominently displayed on the homepage,
then your videos are most likely
not even reaching your subscribers.
And this is what's so frustrating about comments.
When a YouTuber is growing their channel,
they get subscribers
and people comment on their view to subscriber ratio,
it ignores the way that YouTube actually works,
and that subscribers don't necessarily
help you get more views.
More views would help you get more subscribers
but the opposite is not true.
And if you're experiencing that,
let me know in the comment section of this video,
are you finding that your videos
are not reaching your subscribers?
Let me know in the comments.
Long breaks from YouTube hurt your channel
in a very specific way.
It slows down momentum and that's not YouTube's fault
or the fault of the YouTube algorithm,
it's just an actual natural consequence of basically
taking energy away and not adding any back.
And so that's why once we
come back to our channels after a break
we have to rebuild momentum pretty much from nothing.
Get the ball rolling again and stay consistent.
And if we take a break,
things will slow down again and again
and depending on how long your break is,
it can take time to build back up that momentum
that you had going by being consistent.
It's no different than if you were to take
a couple weeks off from working out.
Once you start up again, you're gonna be feeling it,
it's gonna hurt.
Same thing with your YouTube content.
Now people will say, well, Roberto,
this YouTuber or that YouTuber
can take long breaks from YouTube.
Let me ask you, the content creator that you're saying
can take long breaks from YouTube,
are they uploading viral spectacle content
that is larger than life?
And do they have a fan base
that is waiting desperately for their return?
Are they someone that people constantly talk about?
Are they someone that people binge watch videos from?
Yeah then that's probably someone that's in the top 10%
or top 1% of YouTube.
I would imagine that the rules are gonna work out
just slightly differently
for somebody at the top 10% or top 1%
of anything that they can probably do things
just a little bit different than mere mortals.
Now, all joking aside,
one of the things that content creators like that
have in their favor is the fact that
their viral content may not run out of momentum
in the same way that a normal uploader
might run out of momentum
on something that's not a big event
or a big topic or a controversy or anything like that.
And so, since they have just something
in terms of their content generating more interest,
generating more energy,
and they're a content creator
that's always being talked about,
it's going to mean that they can go longer
in between uploads.
That's just how it is.
And most YouTubers are not financially
capable of doing that
and a big part of that is also the fact
that when you're not uploading to YouTube,
this could slow down not only the momentum
of how many views you're getting,
but that relationship with how much money you're earning
from your YouTube AdSense if that's your primary income,
or if those views are funneled to your merchandise
or your other digital products
or anything else that makes money for you,
or your opportunity to work with brands or sponsors.
The average person probably can't take off from 30 days
and take a financial hit like that in most cases.
Now, in my case,
thankfully I was in that position with this move.
I can't imagine moving in a pandemic
if I had a traditional job because the impact
that that would have had for me economically.
But with being a YouTube content creator
that makes evergreen content,
I had some buffer there,
making money from affiliate marketing gives me some buffer.
Having wonderful relationships with sponsors
and long-term relationships with brands
also gives me some buffer.
Not to mention my other business Awesome Creator Academy
because well, I took a break from creating content
I did not slow down on my coaching.
I kept up with that because by doing those coaching calls
it still meant, felt like I was still connected
to the community in a way
and it also meant that I had something that I could focus on
outside of the stress of this move the entire time
and a way to keep earning money.
So it's very practical to diversify on YouTube
and the more diversity of income that a content creator has,
it might mean that they can take a break if they need to,
to do something like a life-changing event like moving,
or if you're, you have a growing family
and you need to take paternity leave.
Or if you just need a break for your mental health,
you might be able to do that
and then you still would have some level of income
that's coming in regardless of whether you're hustling
and putting out your content.
Now with my podcast channel,
I actually have done seven podcasts back to back,
went daily and I saw a dramatic increase
in the impressions that YouTube was giving me
in terms of exposure to more viewership
because I was being consistent,
and it's not even close.
We're talking about over 1,000% difference in impressions.
So keep in mind, impressions are opportunity.
If you don't have impressions,
people are not getting the opportunity
to even click on your videos, title, and thumbnail.
So without that opportunity, without impressions,
nothing else really matters when it comes to YouTube.
And then out of that opportunity, out of those impressions,
you have to get the clicks
and get that click through rate up.
So that is what results in the views on YouTube.
Beyond that you have to keep people engaged and entertained
and that's where your retention rates
and your average view duration comes in.
So all of this is how YouTube works
but it basically begins and ends
with impression and click through rate.
And so, if we know that the more videos we upload,
the more impressions,
the more exposure to an audience we get,
even not from our main subscribers,
but in this case, especially with the podcast,
I was able to find since this is a smaller YouTube channel
that I have, it's really good data,
for those of you who are small YouTubers.
I was getting exposure much more
to people who are not returning viewers
and who were not subscribers
than I was from the dedicated audience.
And that was the value of the momentum
that I'm getting from doing constant podcast episodes.
So in this case, these are live streams
rather than just directly uploading
but it still proves the point that I can get more exposure.
And if that's true for live streams,
I can tell you from experience
and from the other video that we did about this
when I was doing uploads to this main YouTube channel,
that you do get more impressions
the more content you're uploading
and the more content that you're making
than if you go a long period of time without uploading,
and that's just the truth.
And the exception is if one of your previous old videos
gets traction and starts going viral
or starts getting suggested or recommended
because maybe the topic is important again in the niche,
like how at the beginning of the pandemic
Zoom tutorials blew up on the internet because of that.
So you end up seeing a lot of YouTubers
who had made some tutorials the year before
or even multiple years before start gaining traction again
because this topic became relevant again.
The same thing happens in commentary
if a public figure has a new controversy or a new scandal,
you could see a revival of older content
starting to get resurgent
and starting to get pushed out more again.
So these are things we have to look at
is our traffic sources really do matter
when we're analyzing our YouTube data.
Now, Roberto, YouTube said that you could take a break
and it doesn't hurt your channel.
What the heck guy?
Well, in YouTube defense,
they never said how long of a break that you can take
and what I found at least anecdotally
for channels that I've worked with and consulted,
people who have given me access to YouTube analytics
and data through my coaching,
talking to other content creators, large and small.
What we came up with was that it's probably more than fine
to take two weeks away from YouTube
without seeing a significant impact on your channel
and things start to get a little bit harder
if you take more than 30 days, more than a month off
which is pretty realistic in terms
of what we would expect in any scenario.
Two weeks is usually the longest vacation
that most people take outside of an event
like paternity leave.
So, I think that having the reasonable expectation
that you can step away for two weeks
is probably fine in terms of your YouTube content.
And again, the exception is people
who make spectacle content, viral videos, and so on.
Now my future plan is to avoid long breaks
by making more batch content,
things that are evergreen, things that won't be dated,
like some of my top 15 videos.
It doesn't matter when I filmed those and then release them
as long as it's not too long in advance.
So by being at least a couple of weeks ahead
with that kind of thing,
I can stay on top of this
and not miss any uploads going forward
as far as not taking more than maybe a week off
in terms of being completely gone from uploading to YouTube.
And so I think that that's practical to do
depending on the content that you're making.
The more difficult and challenging your content is to make,
the harder it is to be consistent at it.
But overwhelmingly we see more and more evidence
that consistency is the thing that YouTube rewards
in addition to quality, quantity, value.
Consistency is ultimately the key to success in YouTube
which shouldn't be as surprising
because it's just compounding your effort
and your outcomes like anything else in life.
Good habits.
If you're consistent in working out, eating healthy,
learning new things your life probably improves.
And that's also probably true
when it comes to your YouTube journey
is that the more positive habits,
the more momentum, the more consistency you have
over a long period of time,
the more success you're gonna see.
Question of the day.
What is your biggest challenge
in being consistent on YouTube?
And also what is a YouTube myth
that you still want debunked?
Let me know in the comment section.
I'll try and reply to as many of you as I can.
If you enjoyed this video,
you might wanna check out my YouTube Growth playlist
with tips that actually work
if you're trying to grow a YouTube channel.
I'll link to that in the description down below.
Also, if you wanna know more about my home buyer journey
in becoming a YouTuber, watch this episode in the podcast.
I'll also link to that in the description.
As always, thank you so much for watching
and don't forget, go out there
and create something awesome today.
Take care.