- Ugh, this video was brilliant,
and it's got 17 views.
The algorithm is punishing me again!
Interesting.
I'm curious to know,
did anybody subscribe from the video?
Well, no, actually.
Really, well, how about likes?
Someone gave you a thumbs up, yeah?
No.
Huh.
And what about any comments?
Oh yeah, yeah.
My mom commented.
She didn't watch the video
but it's the thought that counts, right?
Hmm.
You can increase the chance
of YouTube suggesting your content
by increasing your click-through rates
and your video watch time.
This line of text found deep in the analytics
is one of those rare glimpses
into how the YouTube algorithm might actually work.
And when I saw this new, sneaked under the radar, data point
in the YouTube Studio,
I thought it might be a further insight
into the YouTube algorithm.
You can find it in the audience retention data
of any video under the dropdown labeled "Detailed activity".
This will display a second graph
telling you exactly how many people joined
or left the video at any point.
It's the sort of data you first look at and say,
"Ooh, this is interesting."
And then the more you look at it,
you start to ask yourself, what's this actually telling me?
I think that for the vast majority of creators,
it's going to have a huge spike at the beginning of a video
and a huge drop at the end of it,
with barely any noticeable stuff in the middle.
I don't think we need a new graph to tell us that.
No. So why have you just told me
about a new useless analytic
that's not gonna help me break the algorithm?
That, Mr. Small YouTube Channel,
is actually a really good question.
Maybe for you, the data is completely different and useful.
If it is, let us know your experiences
in the comments below.
For me, it's just another way
of looking at the same data we already have;
average view duration.
But what if YouTube were to do something like this?
(fingers snap)
(playful music and chimes)
Imagine a timeline that showed you
exactly when viewers liked the video,
hit the subscribe button, or posted a comment?
I think it would be an awesome tool,
and I'm gonna call it the Audience Satisfaction Heat Map.
This is another rare glimpse into the algorithm,
which you'll find in YouTube's support pages.
YouTube's search and discovery system
helps viewers find the videos they're most likely to watch
and maximize long-term viewer satisfaction.
Ah, Rob, methinks you should have called this
the Viewer Satisfaction Heat Map.
Probably right, actually.
But the question is, what is viewer satisfaction?
Well, it's all of these things,
including one of the engagement metrics
we've already mentioned; likes and dislikes.
And so just imagine for a moment
if you were able to test different forms of engagement.
For example, if I were to say to you
if this video gets more than 2000 likes
then you might see Mr. Small YouTube Channel Man
in future videos.
Would that spike the engagement on this video?
(gentle chime)
Probably not because nobody cares
about Mr. Small YouTube Channel Man.
Given that YouTube can record exactly how long
a viewer spends on a video, up to the second,
it's not not a stretch to imagine
that they can record exactly when
a viewer engages with a video,
with a like, subscribe button or a comment.
So YouTube, make it happen.
And if you can't,
I've got some data that might interest you.
Here's a question for you.
Go to your most popular video and divide views by likes.
What number do you come up with?
In our case, if we divide 1.9 million views by 72,000 likes
we come up with a views-to-like ratio of 26.1.
Now of course in isolation, the views-to-like ratio
on one video on one channel doesn't mean very much.
But what about when you compare it against 10,000 channels?
Well in the end, we were actually able to get
17,000 responses from our community.
And the general consensus seems to be
that if you're averaging less than 10 views per like,
your content is likely to be quite engaging.
Now we need to be clear
that there are a lot of caveats about this data.
It doesn't take into account
whether it's a long-form piece of content or a short,
or how many total views of video has.
But the distribution of percentages is remarkably balanced.
Now, nobody outside of YouTube,
and probably YouTube themselves,
know just how much likes influence the discovery of content.
But it stands to reason that if you can turn your video
from a passive experience into an interactive one
through likes and potentially comments,
then the video's more likely to be shared
with a wider audience.
And so obviously, the only natural thing to do next
was to ask the vidIQ community
how many views per comment they get.
Unfortunately,
I don't think I got the balance quite right here.
A comment every 100 views is about average or better.
What did surprise me though,
is that over a quarter of creators
simply don't get any comments at all.
I've got two explanations for this,
both of which could be wrong.
They could be viral shorts
where the comments just can't keep up with the views,
or, more likely, external traffic to these YouTube videos
where it's impossible to comment on the video.
Although it doesn't strictly mention comments
as a influencing factor on the discovery of content,
in my opinion, I can't think of a higher honor for a video
to get a comment from somebody who's watching the video.
To make a viewer care enough about the content
to spend time writing a comment,
with no guarantee of a response,
If that's not an excellent example
of viewer engagement and possible satisfaction,
I don't know what is.
I guess from the algorithm's perspective,
it is harder to evaluate a comment.
Is it positive, is it negative,
or is it just another one of those bots?
But ignoring for a second
whether or not comments are exploitable,
when it works it is one of the truest forms
of a human-triggered response.
Which is why you should be trying to engage
with your audience throughout the video.
And then once it goes live, jump into the comments
so that you can respond to some of your loyal audience.
I have tried everything you've suggested
and none of it's working.
I didn't mean you, you poor excuse for a YouTube channel.
Well, why am I not getting any more subs?
Oh, that's actually a good question.
Yeah. What is a good views-to-sub ratio?
This was a simple one to do.
Divide total channel views by subscribers
and you'll get an answer of under 50 views per subscriber
if you're doing a fairly decent job.
If subscribers really matter to you, of course.
And the simplest way to get more subscribers is to ask.
(gentle chime)
But there's a right way to do it,
and if you watch this video,
you'll learn how to double your subscribers
with just five minutes of work.
I like the sound of that.