- So, you wanna get more views on YouTube?
Well, I have a couple of ideas about that.
There are probably three main things holding you back
and it actually doesn't matter whether you're
a small YouTuber or a big YouTuber,
these challenges are pretty much the same
for each and every one of us.
You have to create value upfront for your viewers,
which means you have to make videos
that they're interested in,
or impact them in some very clear way.
You have to make quality content,
both in terms of your performance and your production
and then you have to make quantity as well,
because you have to have frequency and consistency
in order to scale your YouTube channel,
have more opportunities, and grow.
So if you wanna get more views on YouTube,
these are the three things that are holding you back.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk,
you can go ahead and stop watching the video.
I'm just kidding we have to actually get into
some real details about how you can actually make this work
on your YouTube channel.
And at the end of the video I'm gonna show you two channels
that are blowing up right now,
and how they are focusing on just these three things.
Let's jump into the video.
Hey, everybody, this is Roberto Blake,
helping you create something awesome today.
Welcome back to the channel.
So today we're talking about how to grow on YouTube,
and like I said, there are three main things
holding you back.
And I know how to get views on YouTube is a big topic
and I know we've covered it before.
I also wanna let you know that my friends,
Brian G. Johnson and Nick Nimmin,
have some great videos on this same topic.
I'm gonna link to them in the description down below,
'cause I definitely think you should check those out.
I teased earlier that my take on this
is to focus on three things, value, quality, and quantity.
And I think that it sounds good when I say that,
but what do I actually mean?
Let's start with value.
My friend, Nick Nimmin, is always saying, "Add value,"
and what's valuable to me is different
than what's valuable to you.
We have to focus on what somebody as a individual
is interested in and what impacts them,
what is meaningful to them.
So, for me, I actually love things like personal finance,
which means I will watch pretty much anything
that Graham Stephan puts out, okay?
But that is because that will have an impact on me
and my financial future.
I'm interested in Casey Neistat as a personality
and I will watch anything personally for Casey,
even if it's not something I plan to ever do
in my life, okay?
Now these are two completely different types of channels,
two different types of creators,
but they get massive views and they are successful.
And so that really shows you that value
and understand who your audience is
and how to give them what they want
is the most important thing,
and that's what's gonna get people to click on a video.
You and I both know that when we look in YouTube Analytics,
that click through rate, click through rate is the key
to getting more views on YouTube, at least initially.
So if you want more people when you upload a video
to click on it, you have to cater to their interests.
There are videos I make on this channel
purely because it's what I want to make.
I know that a broader audience is not interested in it,
but if my goal was to get as many views on YouTube,
then I would be making videos based on topics
that might be trending, I might have made videos
on the Stimulus Package, for example.
That has been killing it for a lot of YouTubers,
or I might be reacting to things
that are happening right now,
like the new deal that Joe Rogan got for $100 million
to leave YouTube for Spotify,
and it's not like I might not make a video about that,
I might cover that topic,
'cause I actually am interested in that,
but you get my point.
If you want people to watch your content,
you have to give them something that they're interested in.
One day I might make a dedicated video
just about improving your click through rates
and five things you can do for that.
You might wanna subscribe in case I decided to drop
that video some time next week, just hint, hint,
but moving on to the idea of quality content.
Quality content is this nebulous concept
that you will hear about in every single YouTube tips video.
I actually talked about this at length
and why also quality content doesn't get more views.
I made a video about that a while back
and I kinda wanna revisit that topic,
because quality content is important
and I give context to that in that video.
I hate the argument between quality over quantity,
value sits above both of those and now you know why,
but quality is about two really specific things,
your performance on camera, which is, again,
the personality, it's how you communicate,
it's how you connect emotionally with the audience,
and it's also really about confidence and charisma.
The thing that most of us suck at
when we first get started on YouTube,
at least it was my biggest problem
when I first got on YouTube and like my grind
in that first year to 10,000 subscribers in 2013,
I mean, that was the biggest challenge.
It was just the confidence on camera issue, okay?
But beyond the personality and the performance,
you need the production and editing to be on point
because that has to be in service of the story
that you're telling and the content that you're making.
And the thing is, no amount of over-the-top production
and editing and effects and music and all of those things,
none of that makes up for a crappy on-camera performance,
none of that makes up for crappy delivery,
and none of it makes up for a bad personality
and so you need to have those two things balanced out
and you can see that in a lot of different creators.
Where do you need to improve?
Do you need to improve your
on-camera performance and confidence?
I made a video about that, if you're like me
and you know, that is one of your biggest struggles,
I made a video about how I overcame that.
I'm gonna link to it in the description
and I'm gonna link to it in the info card for you guys
up here so that you can watch that video
if you're struggling with it.
Editing is important, but remember,
it is there to serve the purpose of taking away distractions
and enhancing the video, and it can't really save
a godawful performance, but it can help you fix
some minor mistakes, so I do think that polishing
your editing chops can be important
and it shows the viewers that you care enough
to put in that effort and put in that work.
Here's why that matters though.
My friend, Brian G. Johnson, has talked about this before
and so have other content creators like Vanessa Lau
and and Sunny Lenarduzzi.
All of us in the YouTube educator community
really do talk about quality content,
but I wanna give you something specific.
It is the barrier to retention rate and watch time.
If the interest and value for the topic
for the individual viewer is the barrier to entry
for click through rates, which generate the views,
then the watch time and average view duration
and retention rates that you need for YouTube
to recommend your videos, all of you wanna know,
"How to get suggested by YouTube?
"How to blow up with the YouTube algorithm?
"How to get YouTube to promote my content?
"How do I get YouTube to suggest me?
"Suggested traffic is 70% of the traffic on YouTube,
"screw search," all these things.
Well, the thing is, it's not just down to things
like your SEO and your tags, those things do matter,
but the performance of the video
with regard to genuine engagement, measured in watch time
and average view duration, is so ridiculously important
and that's where good quality content,
both in terms of performance that can keep us
watching the video and can carry it with energy,
kind of like my style of video,
or the editing being something that is energetic
and it moves us through and cuts out all of the fluff
and gets us minute to minute action.
That is powerful enough and that is the strategy
for keeping people on YouTube longer,
and the longer you keep people on YouTube,
the more YouTube promotes you.
I think that that's obvious by now.
YouTube has come out and said it.
And if you don't believe me, Mr. Beast said it
in his presentation at VidSummit
and he said it in almost every single podcast interview
he's ever been on.
In fact, this three-part strategy of what's holding you back
is literally pretty much the only three things
Mr. Beast focuses on and it's why right now
he's the most relevant and successful YouTuber,
not by subscriber count, but by views,
and this video is about how you get more views.
It's not about going out and copying Mr. Beast,
it's about understanding what creators like him do well.
Last but not least, let's talk about quantity.
Quantity, how often should I upload to YouTube?
How many videos do I need to put out a week?
It's different for everybody.
The thing that got me from zero to 100,000 subscribers,
I actually probably do need to make a video about this,
the thing that got me from zero to 100,000 subscribers,
the first year I was doing weekly uploads.
It got me from zero to 10,000.
Okay, great, so that's 2013 to 2014.
Fast forward to February 2015,
I have 20,000 subscribers in February 2015
and it's because I was doing maybe
two to three videos a week at that point
and I'd gotten more confidence.
What took me to, in summer of 2016,
going from that 20,000 subscribers in February of 2015
to, I think I'm gonna say April of 2016
to another 100,000 subscribers,
well, it was the fact that I (murmurs) daily pretty much
on YouTube and by that point I'd made 500 videos
on the channel, so I had to make 500 videos
to get 100,000 subscribers.
That's literally what I did.
Now, I'm not saying you have to go daily.
I'm not even saying it's a good idea
in the current algorithm in 2020,
what I am saying is that frequency of uploads can matter,
and the things is, how often you have to upload
comes down to how narrow your focus is,
or how attractive your personality is.
If you have a very strong
on-camera presence and personality,
you might be able to get almost every single person
who watches a video of yours to subscribe to you,
that's something I'm not capable of.
So if that's you, then good for you, but for me,
I had to use search-friendly content and go deep
and make playlists that were 20 and 30 videos deep
on single topics, but I was doing multiple topics,
and so I went that tactic, but that was what worked for me.
I'm not saying that that's what you do,
what I am telling you is that
if people subscribe for something
and it's something specific, they want that content,
so consistency matters, but frequency matters too
because they don't want fly-by-night creators.
Now, if you're doing video essays
or you're doing massive, huge challenges
that are hard to film, people are much more understanding,
but those videos are more interesting
and they have spectacle or a brand behind them
and so that can carry it
and you may not need to upload as frequently,
but if you're not someone who's doing that,
you might have to upload a little bit more often
because maybe you can't compete
and make the highest quality videos in your niche,
but you could show up and be very relevant, very topical,
or you could be the dictionary of, the encyclopedia of,
or the daily news of a specific topic
and so that could make you valuable
to those viewers in that way.
And the thing is, your personality might grow over time
and you might be able to pull back the frequency,
or you might start small, like I did,
one video a week at a time,
'cause that's what you're capable of doing.
I did a whole video about not having time
and not having money and still being able
to grow on YouTube.
That was one of my more recent videos.
I'd definitely recommend you guys check that out
if that's your situation.
But we do know that binge watching sessions
are the key to growing a YouTube channel,
because we all know, as viewers, and you can test this,
you can do it with my videos if you want,
when you watch back to back videos from a creator,
YouTube promotes that video creator more to you
in the suggested algorithm and on the home page.
So you'll show up more on the sidebar,
you'll show up more on the homepage
if you're watching a video more frequently
that creator shows up more.
So if you get people to binge watch your content,
it's going to really matter.
And if you're more narrow in your subject matter,
that's a little bit easier.
And if you're not gonna be narrower in your subject matter,
you better have a very strong personality
or something very unique and hard to duplicate and copy
and get somewhere else with your content.
A lot of you struggle because you can't get that, you know,
binge watching content, you can't get high average
view durations 'cause you're making generic content
that is not competitive enough yet.
And again, if you're just beginning,
that's all you're capable of, that's fine,
but now you need to take your expectations down
from how many views you're gonna get
and how many subs you're gonna get
and how fast you're gonna grow,
because now you understand what matters to a viewer.
And that's kind of the whole point of this video.
This is why this can't be a short video
if we're gonna give you the real answers here
on these three things that are holding you back.
Now, at the beginning of the video I promised
to tell you about two small YouTubers that blew up
by focusing on these things.
I have one that is a very interesting case
because it's a how to and DIY channel,
pretty much for life advice and home improvement.
And then I have a gaming channel
that's focused on "Pokemon".
So let's start with the more interesting story here.
Dad, how do I?,
this channel is exploding and I'm pretty sure
that by the time you're watching this video
it's about to cross one million subscribers on YouTube,
mostly just off of the last 30 days.
I think this channel technically would have grown faster
than Jennelle Eliana, and I can't for everybody
to call this dude an industry plant.
And I'm making a joke at all the people
who said Jennelle was a industry plant,
and I probably will make a video about that,
but I'm not calling this guy an industry plant.
This is all sarcasm, 'cause I know that this is
a legit channel.
The other thing that's interesting about this channel
is it blew up mostly on the back of about a dozen videos.
That is not normal, no one should expect that,
but it's timing, my friends,
because with the current situation and chaos in the world,
with a global pandemic, a lot of people are at home
and a lot of people all started trying to fix things
around the house and they're trying to save money
and you know what?
This is actually the right content for the right time.
The other channel that's blowing up
is a channel called Enter The Unknown,
and it's a "Pokemon" YouTube channel.
And when I first saw this channel maybe about a month
or two ago, it had 7,000 subscribers
and it caught my attention because with 7,000 subscribers
it had a video that went massively viral
in the "Pokemon" community.
And that video today has well over a million views
and what I want to show you guys is that
when you focus on what's working for your channel,
you will grow.
This creator was able to tap into nostalgia
and interest in the wider "Pokemon" community
because he started doing these challenge videos
and kind of became the Mr. Beast of "Pokemon"
with doing these videos where he tried to recreate
the scenarios and the teams that Ash
from the "Pokemon" anime fought his gym battles
within the anime and see if he could beat the game
using Ash's actual teams, and doing everything he can
and making this challenge more and more absurd and extreme,
because he tried to really play it exactly
the way that plays out in the anime.
So he had fans of the anime,
he had the general "Pokemon" community,
he had the gaming community,
he had the casual "Pokemon" fans
and it's a nostalgia franchise
that spans generations, so there's a lot of interest in it
and there's a lot of curiosity factor here.
It's quality content and it had an interesting premise
and he has nothing but "Pokemon" content, so it's bingeable.
And whenever he does a video in this series,
it seems to perform very well for him.
So that's the consistency factor in the quantity as well.
So you can see how these two channels are blowing up
because of the three things that we talked about here
and because frankly, they're doing an amazing job
and they're putting in all the work.
And so that is what I have for you today.
If you want to get more views on YouTube,
analyze how you can apply these three things to your content
and just learn how to become a better creator
by focusing on delivering value to your viewers,
making quality content that keeps them watching
to the end of a video and keeps them watching
as long as possible, and then quantity content
that they can binge watch over and over
so that they can see you on the homepage and in suggested.
Question of the day, what is holding you back the most?
Also, please go and check out my second channel,
Real Talk with Roberto Blake,
if you're a fan of my rants
and you wanna hear me talk about something
other than business, other than YouTube,
please go ahead and check it out.
I think I have like almost 10 videos over there now.
So there's just enough for you to binge watch.
Like this video if you like it.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Check out the other awesome stuff here on the channel.
As always, you guys, thanks so much for watching
and don't forget,
go out there and create something awesome today.
Take care.
(mellow music)