Herman Drost: 25 million subscribers, five billion video views, over 14 million views
for the last 18 videos. Every video in the past year got over 10 million views. Known
for giving away money. MrBeast: We have 10 grand and some really
hot peppers. Let's see who wants the 10 grand. Herman: One of the best ways to grow your
own YouTube channel is to study other channels that are growing rapidly. A great example
of rapid channel growth is MrBeast YouTube channel.
MrBeast: We are about to go through this drive-thru 1000 times in a row. If we don't complete
the lapse before the end of the day-- Herman: In this video I'll reveal the secrets
behind his rapid channel growth. Hi, my name is Herman Drost. If you want to grow your
audience on YouTube and generate traffic, leads and sales and autopilot, hit the Subscribe
button and click the bell notification icon so you've been notified immediately when I
upload new videos. As you can see he got over 14 million views for his last 18 videos. What
does YouTube want? It wants you to click on a video and watch it.
Here are our top three metrics he focuses on to grow his channel. Number one is the
click-through rate. Number two is average view duration. Number three is average view
percentage. I'll discuss each of these more deeply as I proceed. Click-through rate measures
how often viewers watch a video after seen and impression. When a viewer sees your thumbnail
and clicks on it, that's going to be the click-through rate.
The more people that click on your thumbnail, the higher the click-through rate. How can
you improve the click-through rate? This depends on your titles, your thumbnails and the content.
Keep in mind that the click-through rate drops when the video is promoted a lot. This can
occur when your video is first published because your subscribers are the ones most invested
in your video. After 24 or 48 hours your click-through rate might drop because non-subscribers are
going to be watching your video. What makes a great title? MrBeast emphasizes
keeping your titles under 50 characters because the title will be cut off when watched from
a phone in suggestive videos. Also, you want to start your title with a good punch line.
As you can see in the title of the thumbnail Surviving 24 Hours On A Desert Island. It's
much better than if you had Three Guys Hanging Out At The Beach.
Another point is to study other viral videos to see what they click. A stronger opinion
in your title makes it more interesting as of just illustrated. For example, if the title
is Why I Don't Like Bananas, that's not as strong as a title Why Bananas Are The Worst
Food To Eat. Before you decide on a title for your video, you might want to think about
getting a second opinion. Maybe you can ask your wife, your kids or a friend.
Here are some points about what makes a great thumbnail. Number one, create multiple versions.
When you create multiple versions of your thumbnail, you can always ask for a second
opinion about which one might work best for your content. Later on, you can split test
your thumbnails using Tube Buddy's A/B split testing feature. Another suggestion from MRBeast
is to test your thumbnail before you upload it. You want to do this because suggested
thumbnails on your phone look really small. You certainly take a screenshot of the home
page on your phone that shows suggested videos. Then you photoshop your thumbnail over someone
else's thumbnail. If your thumbnail doesn't look good at a tiny size, then people aren't
going to click on up when viewing it from their phone. Your goal should be to double
your click-through rate in suggested videos. Another point is that your title and your
thumbnail should match and show as much emotion as possible.
If you show your face in your thumbnail, add some expressions such as a smile, curious,
bold, et cetera. Another point is to recognize patterns. Visit YouTube Analytics, YouTube
Studio beta and look at the videos that get a high click-through rate. Use the videos
that get a high click-through rate, attract a lot of traffic. Ask yourself what is about
the thumbnail or the title that caused viewers to click on it.
Another point is to blur a relevant space in your thumbnail. If you want to help viewers
to focus on what's more important, you might want to blur the background and make your
foreground stand out more. You can do this by cutting out the image of yourself and placing
it in the foreground. This will make you stand out from the rest of the image. Another point
is to use text only where necessary. Ask yourself the question, does it add a clickable factor
if you're adding it. If you do add text to your thumbnail, only
use a few words and don't repeat the title and the thumbnail. The less text, the better.
Your thumbnail should visually explain the title. Audience retention helps you see how
often each moment of your video is being watched as percentage of total views. Rewinding and
re-watching can result in values higher than 100%.
Here's a good audience retention graph. You can see that almost 50% of the people watching
the video watch it all the way through. Damage view duration is 46%. Almost 50% of the people
kept watching the video all the way through. Here's a bad retention graph which you don't
want to have. It shows that most people left the video within the first few seconds of
watching it. As the video continued, more and more people left the video. The big question
is, do viewers enjoy my videos? Here are four images that show the different types of audience
retention. In the first image, the audience begins at 100% and remains flat throughout
the video. This means that the video successfully hook the viewers in the beginning and they
stayed watching to the end. The second image is really bad audience retention.
Mostly audience dropped off within the first 10 to 15 seconds. This wasn't what your viewers
expected, therefore you need to revisit the title, thumbnail and description to see how
it benefits your video content. The third image shows bumps on the graph where people
are re-watching the video. Dips on the graph means that people are skipping that section
or leaving the video. The question you should ask is did the image
or title promise something the video didn't seem to deliver or did the video take too
long to start or get to the point or was there a card that took them away from the video.
The fourth image is close to normal where you see a gradual decline in your audience
engagement. A gradual decline means you're losing a little bit of the attention of your
viewers over time. Sharp declines means that something in your video causes the audience
to stop watching at a specific point. Relative audience retention shows your video's ability
to retain viewers during playback by comparing it to all the YouTube videos of a similar
length. Keep in mind this is across all niches, so
it may not be specific to your image. The graph shows that you want to keep above average
all the way through your video. Ideally, you want 50% of the people watching your video,
to watch it all the way through. The golden ticket is to make sure your viewers want to
watch all the way through your video, as measured by average view duration and watch time. Think
about how your audience can engage more frequently with your content. This will help increase
promotion and exposure on YouTube. The other two factors that MrBeast looks for
besides click-through rate is average view duration, an average view percentage or average
percentage viewed. Average view duration is the estimated average minutes watched per
view for the selected content, date range, region and other filters. Average view percentage
is the percent of each video the average viewer watched. It measures your video's ability
to hold viewers' attention for its entirety. When YouTube realizes your videos can hold
people's attention, they'll reward it with higher search and recommendation rankings.
The key is to fulfill viewers' expectations. Average view duration starts with a great
thumbnail and title. Initial drop off kills the attention rate and it'll be impossible
for your video to go viral. Therefore we need to give viewers what they expect from your
title and your thumbnail. Make sure you stay on topic throughout your video and don't have
any dull moments. Give payouts at the end of your video by including an incentive. You
can do this at the beginning of your video by telling your audience what to expect if
they watch it all the way through. Keep in mind that everyone is different and everyone
may have a different niche. Here are some thumbnail examples from MrBeast.
In this thumbnail he combined a few different images. For example, the window of his car
was too small to see the girl in the drive-thru. Therefore, he removed the background and made
the window larger so you could see the girl in the drive-thru. In this thumbnail the background
was too busy, so he just added the sign to represent the content
in his video.