Hey Insiders!
This week I've got Todd from Search and Discovery back on the show.
- Welcome back, Todd. - Thank you.
You know, your previous two videos about the algorithm
were the best performing videos that the channel has ever had.
So we couldn't help but ask you to come back and talk some more.
I swear. I didn't juice anything.
Well, you know what? If you did I wouldn't complain
but I know you're an honest man, and you wouldn't do that.
However, we also did promise the Insider viewers
to leave comments in the previous two videos
And then we would try and review them and get back to the most popular ones.
- So I have four questions for you - Alright.
from the comments and in the spirit of keeping it real
- should we just go through them? - Let's jump right in.
Alright, let's get it on! First question: if you're a new creator
is it pretty much impossible to break through because it's so competitive
and starting from zero, like should I even try?
No, it's not impossible.
This is something—
you know, I work on the discovery team and so a big thing that we try to do
is help people discover new channels, and so if there's a new channel out there
that's producing great content
we really want to do a good job of getting it out there to people.
In terms of like, are there new channels that are actually breaking through
anymore on YouTube, given all the competition?
This is something I actually looked into and my team looked into specifically
and we've been tracking over several years
And there's two things that we've looked at
to try to understand how creators are breaking through.
The first one is looking at how many creators are crossing
you know, sort of a breakthrough milestone.
And one one that we often look at
is how many creators hit a hundred thousand subs for the first time.
Mm-hmm.
And a hundred thousand daily hours of watch time
and the good news is what we've seen is
that the number of channels that are crossing that milestone
is four times what it was just two years ago.
- Wow -There's a lot more channels breaking through
and the other thing that we've been looking at is, well
how long does it take to break through because you know you hear stories about
how some channels are, like, going at it
for many years. You know, you're just growing slowly.
The other metric we look at is how many days does it take from the first upload
from a channel until they hit that big milestone,
and that number has also been improving.
And it's taking those channels 40% less time than it did two years ago to break through.
So overall
there's a lot more channels breaking through and they're doing it faster than ever before
that we've seen and so I would encourage, you know, keep at it.
You know, it's not something that always happens immediately.
But it is happening faster for a lot of channels.
Awesome, okay, so more people are breaking through.
There's also more people starting channels, too, though. Is that fair or—
I think that's true. I haven't been monitoring those stats as closely
so there may be more competition and the actual likelihood of you breaking through
may be going up or down as that competition increases.
So yeah that that is one of the things to keep in mind
but what I would recommend is thinking about like well, what do you have?
What do you want to offer to the audience that isn't already out there?
Where's the opportunity to make videos that YouTube already doesn't have?
Mm-hm.
So that you know there's gonna be less competition in those areas
or what are the areas that there might be some videos
- but they're just not great. - Okay.
So I think that's where I would recommend new creators.
Not to just kind of, like, chase all the same content that's doing well already
because there's, you know, a lot of competition there.
Okay, next question.
A lot of creators find that sometimes I need to take a break, you know.
Making the channel ain't easy sometimes, right?
Mm-hm.
if they take a break and they want to just like, unplug for a few weeks
or maybe like the whole summer
will the algorithm basically kill the channel and say well, that channel's out of it
and then when you upload again you kind of have to start all over
as if you're brand new and all of the good work you've done
is kind of thrown out?
So the short answer, the good answer
is no, the algorithm's not going to kill anyone's channel
because they stopped uploading for a while.
So I had the chance to see Swoozie. He's a successful creator.
He was speaking about what made his channel successful.
I think he has five million subs, hundreds of millions of views.
And he said something—he really gets it and he said something
that really stayed with me— and he said the audience is the boss.
Mm-hm.
And that's true when it comes to vacations too—the algorithm is not the boss.
The algorithm doesn't set vacation policies at YouTube, fortunately.
Thank God.
And if you have an audience that really cares about your content
You know, you take some time off, you come back.
They're gonna be there looking for your next video as well.
I can say that, but I also looked at the data.
I actually analyzed hundreds of channels that took a break of at least two weeks
over the summer and the typical one took about four weeks off.
Mm-hm.
And I looked at what their watch time was the week before they took a break
and then what was their watch time the week that they came back
and the majority of channels that took a break
had more watch time when they came back than when they left.
Now, it's not a guarantee.
Maybe there's something about taking some time off
that really helps get your creative juices refreshed.
But yeah, the majority of channels that took a break came back stronger than ever
so it's definitely possible to take a vacation and come back
as strong or stronger than before.
I know I just saw last week, because somebody sent me something about another creator.
She decided to take all of October off and she didn't even tell her audience
how long she was going to be gone.
She just said I'm gonna take a break and she came back a month later
and her sort of comeback video is one of the strongest ones she's had this year, so
those are just some examples I've seen, and the data shows to me that
taking a break can actually be a good thing, and I know it's got to be hard
for a lot of creators that really put a lot of energy
into every video and upload really frequently.
I'd encourage you to take the time you need, I think it's important.
Okay, and just so we're clear, the opposite is also not true
that if you take a break the algorithm doesn't give you any special benefits
- from like, "welcome home" kind of— - No, there's no special logic in there
that then knows about vacations or breaks.
It's just taking the video and trying to find
who's gonna be interested in watching it
and if your audience is still using YouTube
and we show them your video, and they're engaging it
then we're back to normal.
Yeah, so most likely, I guess, one theory would be
when they took the break, they recharged
and then the next video had a little more oomph.
Yeah, maybe there was some pent-up demand
and everybody was really excited to have him back
So it is okay from time to time to take a break if you need to.
- Yeah. - Great, alright, next question.
If you have a channel and you're uploading regularly
and then you have a video that just does not resonate with the audience
doesn't do well, people don't watch it
they don't like it as much, they don't watch as much of it.
The concern is like, "oh no."
"Now the algorithm thinks that my whole channel is
reflected in the performance of this last video. I'm kind of hosed."
What's what's your take on that?
Yes, well my take is that, you know, like I said earlier
the algorithm is not the boss here.
It's the audience and what primarily drives who sees your video
and how many views you get is how the audience is responding to that video.
So, you know, people have dead videos all the time.
I see it happen on even the best channels.
But then their next video is just—if it's a great video
then it comes back. I actually haven't seen this, I'd love to see if anybody has examples
and wants to post them in the comments, I'd love to see an example of a channel
that was doing great, had one bad video and then was dead forever.
I haven't seen that. I don't think that's typically how the audience works.
I mean, I imagine there could be something— you could really upset your audience
so that they all left, but typically, everyone sees some unsubscribe activity
when they upload a video, but for the most part, I think people will—
if they're not interested in the video— they just won't watch it.
But as far as how we look at it, we're gonna test that next video
and see if the audience is interested in that one.
If they are, it doesn't really matter that much what happened previously.
Yeah, that's something that you had mentioned to me in the past
that in a way, every new video is kind of a new chance.
Yeah.
And that there isn't this long sort of historical record
that kind of heavily influences
whether the next video is going to be given a chance or not.
It's really kind of a meritocracy for each video.
- That's right. - Awesome.
Okay, last question.
If my video is demonetized because maybe it was considered
not brand suitable, does the algorithm then decide
"Oh, well, then we won't promote you anymore."
Like, how are those things connected?
So the the search and discovery systems that decide sort of which videos to recommend
they don't have any knowledge about what's going on in the advertising system.
So if you get that yellow icon that you see that says
it may not be suitable for all advertisers
the information about that doesn't even flow into our system
so they're completely different systems, different teams manage them.
Now, there are cases where these things can overlap in terms of
something that advertisers care about running their ads around
might be profanity or violence or certain controversial topics.
They may decide they just don't want to be associated with that type of content.
Similarly, we may find that audiences have similar preferences.
So we might find that a profane video, for example, may not be something that
everyone on YouTube is going to be interested in and so
if you ever see these things kind of happening around the same time
it's not because we're looking at well, what did the advertisers say
let's do that for the user. That's not how we do it.
We're trying to give the viewer what the viewer wants to watch
independent of what the advertiser does and so there's separate systems
We don't use that monetization information in search and discovery.
So, last thing is the viewers of this channel are super helpful with input.
Are there any things that you want to say to them or ask them about
for the next one?
I just say bring it, bring on more questions.
I want to know what you want to know, and so just post your questions in the comments
and maybe we'll do another follow-up soon.
Awesome, and I should let everyone know
if you notice that this is a much nicer set that we're on today
we are at YouTube headquarters in one of the studios that is being lent to us
by the folks at Creator Academy.
Link below if you want to check that channel out, super awesome.
So we want to thank them for hosting us and would love input on what you guys think
of this layout and sort of set. I know the last one I did was
In my home office behind some IKEA furniture.
People weren't too impressed by that.
But maybe they'll like this a little more. Keep it real.