Hey, Boss!
We are starting a brand new series here on my channel where I'm going to be talking directly
to you and I'm so excited about this.
So we've gotten some questions submitted to me on Instagram and I have been checking through
all of them and this is officially the first answer I'm going to give out.
So I have no idea we're going to call this.
But if you have some ideas for the name, let me know.
But today I'm going to be answering a question from one of you.
So I'm going to dive in and open it up and let's dive into the answer.
Hi Sunny.
Huge fan here.
My question for you that I have is I am a new YouTuber.
I just started YouTube a couple months ago and the advice that I always get is to not
focus on the numbers and I just find it really hard to not focus on numbers because I'm the
type of person I like to check on my channel every day to see how many subscribers I gained
or how many views I got and I just wanted to hear your advice on how to really stop
focusing on your numbers and just wait for it to happen.
It'll happen when it happens.
Such a good question.
Thank you Tiff.
So, that is Tiff from The Tiff Tube.
So thank you so much for submitting your question and I'm so excited to answer this.
If you guys want to know the answer to this, give this video a like, subscribe, hit the
bell to be notified every single time I post a new video and if you want to be featured
in one of these videos, make sure that you submit your question to me on Instagram.
Hit that follow button on Instagram @sunnylenarduzzi and submit your question to me and upload
a video into our DM chat and that way I can save it and we can do another video like this.
So such a good question and I find it really interesting that the advice you feel like
you're getting is to not focus on the numbers because I would totally disagree.
I would say if I were starting with 100 subscribers and if I had 100 subscribers right now I will
be really focused on the numbers and I think that's human nature and I think it's actually
the best way to grow is to pay attention to the numbers.
Now having said that, are you paying attention to all of the numbers and just hitting that
refresh button?
I know you do it.
I used to do it too, just hit that refresh button hoping one more subscriber will get
there.
If you can relate to this, let me know in the comments.
But I know that you're sitting there hitting refresh hoping your subscribers go up and
your views go up.
But those are metrics that matter.
But they're not the metrics that matter the most.
So the metrics that you really want to be focused on to grow fast as a new Youtuber
are your CTR, your click through rate, your retention on your videos, how long are people
actually watching your videos, your watch time on your channel because the more watch
time you have, the more authority you build inside of the YouTube algorithm and the more
your videos get seen, then your subscribers, your views and really, really important, your
velocity.
So I wanted to show you all of this behind the scenes and I also made this video on this
topic about the analytics and how to use them to grow your channel.
You can check that out afterwards.
But I wanted to do a quick overview of things you should be paying attention to and Tiff,
I did take a look at your channel and I wanted to do a little breakdown of some of the things
that I would change and some other numbers that I really think you should be paying attention
to because you're on the right track.
You just need to do a few things to up your game.
So if you are around 100 subscriber mark or no matter where you are on your YouTube channel,
this is going to be really, really helpful for you.
So let's dive into how to actually pay attention to the right numbers to grow your channel
and then I have some extra tips for you once we finish this up for what I would do if I
was starting with 100 subscribers right now.
So let's get into it.
So if I were starting my channel with 100 subscribers or I was at Tiff's channel number,
which is 132 subscribers and I really wanted to gain more momentum and get seen by more
people, this is what I would focus on.
So I disagree.
I think you should be looking at numbers.
But you shouldn't be obsessing over vanity metrics.
You should be looking at the numbers that actually are going to help grow your channel.
So that means going to your channel, go on the top right, going to YouTube Studio and
this is going to become your home base.
So I'm going to go into an individual video to show you the metrics that matter and the
metrics that I pay attention to and that we work with with our clients on.
So if I'm looking at this particular video here, I'm going to look at everything I mentioned
before, so your click through rate, which would be under reach, which is basically out
of all the impressions, how many people actually click through to watch the video and if you
don't have a high click through rate, it means that you're killing your video before you
even have a chance for people to watch it.
So you want to have your click through rate between 2 and 10%.
That's kind of the average.
Obviously the higher the better.
So this click through rate, it was a little higher when the video first came out because
people were super excited about it and you can see that in a second with the velocity.
But the click through rate's pretty good.
So it's 5.1%.
So you want to pay attention to this number and whatever videos you get a higher click
through rate on pay attention to what's different about them.
Is your face in it?
Is your font different?
What kind of expression are you making?
Because that's going to help you figure out what kind of thumbnail style works best for
you.
So your click through rate is really, really important.
Now the next thing that I mentioned is your watch time.
So how much watch time has this video accumulated on the channel and again, you want to pay
attention to this, so then you can compare it with other videos on your channel.
The more watch time you accumulate, the more authority you accumulate.
Now the next thing is your retention, which I think is the most important part because
with lower retention, it's harder to get good watch time.
So anything above 40% retention I find pretty good.
So this is under the same thing.
So, I went to my channel analytics.
I clicked on a very specific video and then I'm just going through this specific video's
analytics metrics, which I would do and I still do for every single video.
So no matter what phase you're at in YouTube, you should be doing this.
So audience retention is ... Quick pause for a very important message.
If you're stuck on your YouTube channel and you just can't seem to grow, join thousands
of other bosses just like you who learned the fast track to growing their YouTube channel,
like Stephanie who just celebrated 5,000 subscribers or Artricia who just keeps growing and growing.
You can learn more and join the club at bossyoutubestrategy.com.
Now back to the video.
Anywhere above 40% it is good and it should just look fairly flat, like a flat line here
and this one does.
So it's okay and especially with the amount of views this video has, I'm actually fairly
happy because with viral videos, sometimes you can see that the views drop off a lot
faster because you're reaching this mass audience, but maybe not everyone's interested.
So it's a pretty steady line here and then usually where it starts to drop off is where
you have some sort of call to action.
So that makes sense.
So your audience retention, let's try and keep that above 40%.
Now, the other things that I know everybody focuses on but they come last for me are the
views.
So how many of views has this video accumulated and the subscribers that this individual video
has accumulated?
So if you notice one video is getting a lot more subscribers than another, oh my gosh,
pay attention to that because that topic is a topic that's attracting a lot of eyeballs
and subscribers for your channel.
So you want to make more around that topic.
So this video alone has attracted 7,000 subscribers to my channel, almost 8,000 and 200,000 views.
So I would compare this to other videos on my channel.
Now the really interesting thing about this, the final metric do you want to measure is
velocity.
So you can see this blue line is the velocity of this video.
This gray line is the average velocity of a video on my channel, which is still good.
But this is way above what is the norm of for my channel.
So that's really, really interesting to look at because if you see a video that gets a
blue line that's way above your channel average here in the gray line, this video is taking
off.
This is going to be a big breakthrough video for your channel.
So on that note, the next thing that I pay attention to is if I go to my channel and
I see videos that take off in comparison to others, so let's say these videos.
So 15K views, 13K views, 28K views, 14K views and then 166, 100, those are what we call
breakthrough videos.
So you'll notice that I make Instagram content because I know that it's a breakthrough topic
on my channel because my audience is very interested in it and I've made more passive
income videos recently because this video was a breakthrough video because it got more
views and velocity than normal on my channel.
So those are the videos you really, really want to pay attention to.
So Tiff, if I'm looking at your channel, I'm paying attention to the videos that have more
views and velocity.
Day in the Life of a Small YouTuber.
That's a good little topic for you because you got 82 views versus 61 or 36.
So that took off more than the average and I also would be looking at your most popular
videos because those are also a good indication of the kind of topics that you should be picking.
Now if I were you and I was in your shoes and if you're a small Youtuber, really important
to understand your numbers when it comes to picking topics.
So like I said, this is a breakthrough video for you.
So that's good.
Your topics right now are still really broad.
So you need to narrow it down and I harp on this a lot because you have to think about
YouTube as an ocean.
So if you're talking about motivation, the real secret to motivation, you're competing
with massive channels with millions of subscribers and massive amounts of competition.
That's why we always teach in my methodology of the Sunny System is based around starting
in the shallow end.
So you want to get your videos to rank for topics that are in the shallow end, meaning
that they have between 100 and 1,000 in the search volume for the topic or the keyword
and there are less than 100,000 results in the search pool so you're not competing against
this massive audience.
That's why our clients are able to grow really, really fast because they're starting in the
shallow end.
They're showing YouTube, look, I can rank number one for this keyword and YouTube doesn't
care how competitive it is.
They just go, "Oh, they must know what they're talking about because they're ranked number
one for that topic.
So we should push them further when they talk about that topic."
So when you start in the shallow end and you start to dominate topics in the shallow end,
you can slowly start going into the deep end and that's how you start competing with the
big boys and you start gaining even more views and velocity on your channel.
So making sure that you understand the numbers right off the bat is really, really important
and picking topics that are actually going to give you a chance of being seen rather
than sinking to the bottom of the ocean on YouTube and not getting seen by anybody.
Now I wanted to show you another little trick here because we talked about breakthrough
videos.
But let's talk about something called gateway videos.
So if I've got a photography channel, let's just say, and I want to build my channel around
photography, which is really, really competitive.
I'm just going to look up a really broad topic.
How to become a photographer.
Way too competitive, 6,600 search volume.
The search pool is probably insane.
I'm not even going to look because I know what it is and I'm going to look through here
and see is there a small channel that happened to rank for this really massive topic?
So 1.6 million subscribers, 208,000 subscribers, 115,000 subscribers, 4,600 subscribers.
This is what I like to call a gateway topic.
So five tips for becoming a successful freelance photographer.
It's not the exact same topic you have up here.
But it's a gateway video because it was able to rank for a really competitive topic by
creating a title that's slightly different and more niched down.
This is what I mean by using topics that are starting in the shallow end to build your
authority and they can also get placed in bigger, more competitive spaces by using the
right tags and keywords and all of those things.
So if you look on this channel, Black Prints, which I love the channel.
I don't know who this person is.
But if you watch this, cool and maybe let them know.
So you can see that one of her most popular videos is that video.
It's actually the second most popular video on her channel.
But you can also see that recently she's had a few breakthrough videos or gateway videos.
So you can take this as inspiration.
So What's in My Camera Bag - Music, Lifestyle and Travel.
Interesting.
That topic got 5,000 views versus 1.4, 1,000, 1,000.
So that tells you there's demand for that kind of a topic or title on YouTube as well
and you can play around with that.
Those are the metrics and the numbers that I would actually pay attention to.
So here's what I also want to say.
If you're at a small number of subscribers on your channel, the thing you really should
be caring about is the people that are already subscribed to you.
If you have one person subscribed to your channel, that is one real human being and
you have to value that person.
You have to nurture that relationship because I think we often forget when we're striving
for all of these subscribers and views and all these things that if one person is watching
everybody, that's one person in this world who's taking time out of their day to do that
and if you don't care about them in the beginning, it's going to be really hard to grow because
you then get a reputation of someone who only cares about views and only cares about numbers
and people get bored of that really quickly.
So if you can nurture your first one, two, three, 10, 100, 1,000 subscribers like they
are your family, you're going to grow beyond your wildest dreams.
So when you care what the number is, care about them in that way too.
Now the next thing I will say is I always talk about the fact that your first one to
eight videos that you create on your channel or if you're maybe just trying new strategy,
the first one to eight videos, that's what I like to call the experimentation phase and
when you have a smaller subscriber count on your channel, oh my gosh, the freedom you
have to experiment because if a bigger channel experiments and it flops, there's so many
more eyeballs on it and it doesn't really matter.
But your ego takes a hit.
So if I were starting my channel from scratch or at 100 subscribers right now or even 1,000
subscribers right now, if my channel was just smaller than it is right now, oh my gosh,
the freedom to experiment would be so great.
So try different things.
Experiment with all different aspects of your videos because you have the freedom to do
so.
So don't take that for granted.
So try different styles of videos.
Try different styles of shooting.
Try doing longer videos.
Try doing shorter videos.
See what works and then always tie it back to those metrics because those metrics are
your Bible when it comes to YouTube and when it comes to actually growing your channel.
So that's what I would care about if I was starting my channel over from 100 subscribers.
So I hope this was helpful for you and let me know in the comments below what your big
takeaway was.
Give it a like if you liked it.
Subscribe and hit the bell to be notified every single time I post a new video on this
channel and share this with somebody who is really trying to grow on YouTube and like
I said, follow me on Instagram @sunnylenarduzzi and submit your question by uploading your
video into our DM chat so I can actually save it.
Don't just send me a video on Instagram stories cause then it just disappears.
So upload your video and then I can actually save it and I hope to feature you in one of
these videos.
Let me know if you liked this and I'll keep doing them.
Lots of love.
Make sure you check out these videos next on even more YouTube info and tricks and all
the things you need and I can't wait to see you in the next one.
Bye guys.
Have a great day.