- So then what happens
when YouTube moves this bright red subscriber button
from the middle of the screen to the very bottom of a screen
and grays it out on YouTube Shorts?
(poop dropping)
Man, we just got screwed.
(upbeat music)
YouTube, am I just a joke to you?
Now then, hey folks, I'm Rob.
Welcome back to vidIQ, educating you
on your YouTube journey.
And today's lesson is all about
how I still haven't got access to the YouTube Shorts camera.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
On a more serious note,
today's lesson is all about a relatively new tool,
less than six months old,
YouTube Shorts versus a feature and an analytic
that's been on the platform since its inception,
subscribers.
Now some of you may know that I have my own personal crusade
about the irrelevancy of subscribers these days.
And in YouTube's latest update to Shorts,
it's almost as if they have the same opinion.
Take a look at this.
For the first couple of months of 2021,
the Shorts player looked like this.
Everything was at the bottom of the screen,
likes, comments, shares, and so on.
That pushed the classic red subscribe button
towards the middle of the screen next to the channel name,
which makes complete sense.
Fast forward to today, however,
and things have somewhat changed. The engagement controls
have been shifted to the right-hand side of the screen,
and the subscribe button has been moved
all the way to the bottom. And it's been grayed out.
With this in mind, let me ask you this.
These two subscribe buttons, instinctively,
which you more likely to tap on?
Let us know in the comments below.
My assumption is that most of you will say
the one on the left, because it's brighter,
and it has a more prominent position on screen.
It's the one I would tap after all.
But that one no longer exists.
YouTube have opted for a much more subtle approach.
And the big question is, does this actually impact
how many people tap on the subscribe button?
Well, to help us answer that,
we're gonna need some huge numbers,
a big sample size of data.
And I've got just the creator who can help us out.
(claps)
(upbeat music)
That's right, folks.
YouTube Shorts' greatest success story, Jake Fellman.
Over 4 million subscribers. Over 3 billion video views.
Yada, yada, yada.
You can learn a lot more about his journey on YouTube
from our other videos.
But Jake today, once again, has graciously shared
some really interesting YouTube data with us.
What you see here are the flow of views and subscribers
as Jake's channel explodes into life.
Tens of millions of views, tens of thousands of subscribers
every single day.
And they both pretty much match each other.
As you would generally expect, more views, more subscribers.
But then we reach the middle of March
when two significant changes occur
in the YouTube Shorts landscape.
The first being the slow rollout of the Shorts camera,
which still not everybody has access to.
And the switch in style of the subscriber button,
which seemed to be rolled out to everybody
pretty much at exactly the same time.
And this is the somewhat scary big data aftermath.
While views that begin to skyrocket thanks to Jake's shift
in Among Us content to Minecraft. The subscriber counts
has not rebounded with the same elasticity.
Let's just remind you of the big picture
of Jake Fellman's channel here over the last six months.
Up until that point in the middle of March,
the view and subscriber flow
would run pretty much in sync with each other.
(swooshing sound)
Clearly not anymore. Hang on, hang on, hang on.
That was quite a technical way of explaining all of this.
So, in summary, what am I trying to tell you all?
YouTube is sabotaging the Shorts subscriber button.
Well, that does seem to be the pattern.
As I confirmed this
with a second albeit much smaller Shorts channel.
A change to something in the middle of March
caused the views and subscribe accounts
to unsync themselves.
And the only change that makes any sense
are the switch in subscriber buttons.
It's only fair, at this point,
that I pass this question over to you.
Are you predominantly a YouTube Shorts channel?
Have you noticed a discrepancy
in the number of views and subscribers you're getting
since around about the middle of March.
Let us know in the comments below.
Now to play devil's advocate, as I always try to do,
we have to remember that YouTube is still testing
YouTube Shorts.
It is the biggest beta test I think the world has ever seen.
And so we have to accept that YouTube are gonna do
weird and wonderful things to get the best experience
for both the viewer and, to a lesser extent, the creator.
But another question is, so what?
Subscribers are indeed one thing.
But do we actually lead to YouTube Shorts views?
Well, not really.
You see this graph from Jake Fellman's channel.
Yeah. Well, subscriber views are that pathetic green line
running along the bottom of it.
Less than 5% of Jake Fellman's views
come directly from subscribers.
Now don't get me wrong here, folks.
At the scale Jake Fellman's channel operates out,
150 million views aren't too shabby.
And the data here does prove once again
that subscribers tend to like content more often,
share content more often
and watch for longer than the plus 100% audience retention
Jake Fellman already has. I mean, that's just ridiculous.
And now then, regular viewers here at vidIQ
will be fully aware
of my well-reasoned case for not giving two hoots
about subscribers.
What I'm much more interested in these days
are return viewers.
These are people who've watched your content previously
and have returned to watch more of your content
regardless of whether they press a red button.
In my opinion, returning viewers are active subscribers
in all but name. And as you can see from this graph,
the changed to be subscriber button,
which did impact the number of subscribers
Jake Fellman was gaining, had no impact
on whether viewers returned to watch more videos
as and when Jake publishes them.
Let me explain a little bit why that is.
Virtually, no YouTube user
relies exclusively on their subscription feed.
Today,
they're subconscious slaves
to YouTube's recommendation system.
Have you ever had that experience
where you've been having a conversation with somebody
in the real world about, let's say marriage.
And then for the next month, the internet follows you around
with nothing but adverts for wedding rings.
It's kind of what YouTube's doing.
It's designed to help the viewer find content
they want to watch and keep them satisfied
over a long period of time. So even if you watch a video,
but don't subscribe to the channel,
YouTube will know whether or not you enjoyed the content
by analyzing tons of data points.
It will then know to surface more content from that creator
in Home and suggested recommendations
regardless of your subscription status.
In short, as with every creepy
and scary thing on the internet,
YouTube knows more about your viewing habits
and watching preferences than you do.
So I think we've proven two things here.
Yes. The change to be YouTube Shorts player does mean
that you may earn less subscribers
from your YouTube Shorts content.
But what we've also proved from the available data
is that subscribers contribute
such a minuscule amount to your channel.
It's not really worth worrying about.
But we're not done just yet.
That's because while the subscribe button has suffered
at the hands of this YouTube Shorts redesign,
some of the other engagement features
have benefited from the change.
Let's take another look at Jake's channel for some data.
This graph that shows the relationship
between views and likes, which for the last few months,
have followed a certain pattern.
But once YouTube moved the likes
to be right side of the screen in the Shorts player,
clearly more viewers are starting to engage with it.
This could be significant.
Because YouTube have been trialing
Shorts performance report cards
in the YouTube Studio mobile app
that highlight likes as one of the three metrics
you should be following.
All of which leads to one very curious conundrum
I never thought I ask your opinion on.
When it comes to YouTube Shorts,
would you prefer likes
or would you prefer subscribers?
(upbeat music)
(explosion sound)