- Is YouTube success just luck?
Like all those big content creators
that you see all over the platform,
did the algorithm just pick them
and pretty much decide like,
"Hey, I'm gonna make this person famous,"
or, "I'm gonna make their channel do good."
Like, what's actually going on?
We're gonna talk about it, and we're starting right now.
So I was on Reddit the other day and I noticed this thread.
It was like a YouTube tips thread over on Reddit.
And I was like, "Hey, this is something interesting.
"So, let me click into this
"and see the tips that this person is giving."
And man, I was not ready for what I saw
when I clicked on that link.
As advice, this person was saying,
stop asking how many videos you should have,
stop asking what your CPM should be,
stop asking what your CTR, your monthly view should be.
They mentioned that there's no standard
for what you should be doing on YouTube.
Those are just a few of the first things that I saw.
And as I'm reading through this, I'm thinking like,
"Wow, this person's like given advice,
like what's going on here, let's keep reading."
And then I saw this.
They said, "The things that will truly elevate your channel
are entirely out of your hand.
Yes, you need hard work, but it's luck after that."
And I'll be honest, that one triggered me.
And the reason that it triggered me
is because I'm thinking to myself,
this person is posting this in a subreddit
for new content creators.
And what he's doing is he's basically telling you,
new content creators,
he's saying that there's nothing you can do essentially
except for make videos.
And then from there, everything else is up to luck,
that everything is completely out of your control
and that you have no say or no effort that you put into it
is gonna make any difference whatsoever
in terms of how lucky you get.
It bothered me.
And the reason for that is because he's misleading people
that don't know how this stuff works yet.
And because of that, I asked him a question.
I said, "Hey, what things on YouTube are luck?"
Because I wanted to see like, hey,
what is this person gonna say
in terms of what items can he define
on what on YouTube is actually luck?
His reply was the algorithm.
In other words,
this person believes that the YouTube algorithm
is basically picking people to make famous on YouTube,
that they're picking videos to perform well on YouTube.
And it doesn't really matter
how people respond to your content.
It doesn't matter how much they enjoy your content,
how much they even click on it.
The algorithm is deciding what the videos do well
and what channels do well, per his perspective.
And look, here's something that I wanna make extremely clear
because I know a lot of new content creators watch my stuff.
So I wanna make this extremely clear.
The YouTube algorithm cannot decide
if somebody's going to click on something.
The system is only predicting who is going to be likely
to click on something and enjoy the content
that you're making.
And I'm gonna put a big emphasis on enjoy the content
that you are making.
And here's where the luck side of things
really starts to dissolve when it comes to YouTube.
If you're somebody that has experience already,
you already know this,
but for people that are new to YouTube,
one thing that is really important
when it comes to getting views on your videos
is learning how to get people
to click on your thumbnails and titles
and coming up with good topic ideas.
That's not luck.
If you don't believe me, go find your best performing video.
And I really don't recommend you do this
because it's gonna end up hurting your video performance
most likely.
But if you don't believe me,
go take your best performing video
and just completely remove the thumbnail.
And as a matter of fact, while you're at it,
go ahead and change the title
to something that isn't really clear
for what the video is about,
or doesn't really suggest what that viewer might be getting.
And you're gonna quickly see
that that video is gonna start dropping off
in terms of YouTube recommendations
as soon as people stop responding to it.
The person I was having that conversation with on Reddit,
they also mentioned that if they publish a video,
that you can't personally guarantee
that somebody's gonna click on a video.
And because of that,
that if someone decides to click on your video,
that it's luck.
That couldn't be further from the truth.
And it's a shame that this person believes this way
because all they're doing
is they're putting a wall in front of themselves
in terms of the results
that they could be getting on YouTube
if they're a little bit more intentional
or maybe a lot more intentional
in this case about what it is that they're doing
on their YouTube channel.
Here's the thing that's really important to understand
when it comes to YouTube and luck, right?
Is when it comes to YouTube systems,
when it comes to their recommendation systems,
they are recommending content
that performs well on the platform,
but they also recommend content when you publish it.
And they test that content against people on the platform
that the system is predicting
based on how that user interacts with the platform,
they're predicting if somebody might be interested
in the content that you published or not,
that's where you get impressions from
when you first publish a video
regardless of your channel size.
The YouTube algorithm isn't about luck.
It's about their system seeing your content,
figuring out who would be a good fit for that content
and then showing your content to those people, right?
From there, it comes down to your ability
as a YouTube content creator, to learn how to get the people
that you are trying to reach with your content
how to get them to click on what it is that you're doing,
and how to get them to you enjoy the content
that you're putting together.
As part of that, it's important to know
that YouTube is a pull system, not a push system.
And what that means is we think as content creators
that YouTube is trying to push our videos out to people
and trying to kind of force our content onto people.
But it doesn't actually work that way.
How it works is YouTube actually prioritizes the viewers
because they're the ones that make everything happen, right?
So because of that, since they're prioritizing the viewers
what happens is when you publish a video,
their system is trying to figure out
who on the platform at that moment in time
is a great fit for your content
based on how they are using YouTube.
But once they actually show up there,
then you have to be able to get people
to click on what it is that you're doing,
or else everything comes to a screeching halt
on your YouTube channel.
And I know you don't want your channel
to come to a screeching halt.
So here's what I want you to think about
when it comes to YouTube and luck.
Veritasium, huge YouTube channel,
they put out a video recently
showing the impact of click through rate on your thumbnails.
I'm gonna put a link to them down to the description below.
Mr. Beast, who is an extreme example
of YouTube not being luck has figured out his system
on how he gets videos to pop every single time
that he puts one together.
And he even shares some of that information publicly
at conferences like VidSummit for example,
to where he goes in and he's like, look, this is what I do.
These are the things that I focus on.
These are the metrics I pay attention to,
so that he can demonstrate to other content creators
like, hey, these are the things you gotta be looking at
in order to get results on YouTube.
But both of those channels are in like another stratosphere
when it comes to YouTube and YouTube growth
and the audiences they've developed and all that stuff.
But what I want you think about
is I just had a friend of mine.
They have a singing channel called Songs From A Suitcase.
They just crossed 100,000 subscribers
on their YouTube channel,
high five and fist bump to you by the way.
But that was by design.
They were making one type of content.
They switched it to another type of content.
And then because of that,
they ended up just thriving on the platform in a major way.
And they're going awesome.
Roger Wakefield, who hangs out my live streams
on Saturdays from time to time, he did the same exact thing
to where he was going a certain way with his content.
He was getting results
but he's being extremely intentional about it.
And he experimented with some stuff
and he found that his audience
and the people that he was reaching
really enjoyed that experimental content.
So he leaned into that and started designing his channel
around that type of content.
And his channel is thriving in a major way because of it.
And here's another thing that I want you to understand
especially if you're a new content creator
and you're just getting into all this stuff.
When it comes to YouTube,
it's very clear the steps that you need to take
in order to get results.
That's why there's channels like mine
that help you do this stuff.
And I don't care if you're watching my content
or somebody else that makes this kind of stuff,
but you need to be watching this type of content,
especially if you're new
so that you can get an understanding
of those things that remove the luck
and make your success more predictable.
In fact, YouTube is such a system and such a process
that people are able to write books about it, right?
Like this one right here from Brian G. Johnson,
how to get 5,000 subscribers on your YouTube channel
teaches you all the best practices and stuff,
because it's a system, right?
You can teach it because it's a system.
"YouTube Secrets", another system,
they teach you how to grow on YouTube
and how to make money from YouTube.
Because it's a system.
Derral Eves' "YouTube Formula" book, same exact thing.
He's figured out the formula to where he keeps growing
and growing and growing and growing
all of these different channels
and helping tons of content creators grow,
because it's a formula.
There's courses out there
that tell you do this, this, this and this
in order to get results on your YouTube channel.
There's channels like mine like I mentioned before,
to where we're just sharing a bunch of information for free
to help you grow as well.
And when people take this information
and they apply it, again, they bypass luck
and they start getting actionable results
because they are not being dependent on luck,
because they're being intentional and mindful
about what it is that they're doing.
Another thing people will say when it comes to luck
on YouTube is that, hey, if this person watches your video
and then they offer you some opportunity,
well, you just got lucky.
No, you didn't. You were making awesome content.
And that's why you were able to get that opportunity.
It's not luck, it's because you made awesome content
because you were being intentional
about what it was that you were doing.
When it comes to luck on YouTube, people will say, hey,
this person got a shout out from this big YouTube channel,
and that's why they're doing as good as they are.
Well, the reason they got a shout out
from that big YouTube channel
is because they were making good content
that that bigger YouTube channel enjoyed.
It's not luck.
The thing is, is that that person enjoyed it.
So because of that, if the person,
the content creator that was making the content,
if they made garbage,
they wouldn't have gotten the shout out
because the big content creator that gave them the shout out
wouldn't have been enjoying the content
in order to even give them the shout out in the first place.
Gonna have to compose myself here a little bit,
but when it comes to luck on YouTube,
now of course there are some factors that are luck.
Like for example if you're born in a country
to where you can get money from YouTube advertising,
then in that case, of course you were lucky
to be born in that country
because now you can get YouTube ads,
the way another countries,
some just don't have that option.
So because of that, they can't monetize
like a lot of us can, unfortunately.
So that would be luck.
But in terms of channel performance, video performance,
your performance, that all comes down
to just being intentional about what it is that you're doing
and learning the things that you need to learn
and doing the things that other people are not willing to do
in order to get the results that you're after.
And it doesn't matter if those results are a view count.
It doesn't matter if those results are a subscriber count.
It doesn't matter if it's a monetary amount.
It doesn't matter if it's an impact
that you're wanting to make.
Whatever it is that you're after with your YouTube channel,
the way that you're going to get it
and be able to sustain it,
which is a really big factor in this,
the way that you're gonna be able to get it
and sustain it is by being intentional
about what it is that you're doing.
So please do not be dependent on luck
when it comes to your YouTube channel.
And hey, if you're new to YouTube
and you're trying to figure all this stuff out
because you know that it's not luck
that's gonna get you there,
if you're trying to get that first 1000 subscribers
on your YouTube channel, I made a video
that's actually gonna help you figure out how to do that.
You can click into that right here right now.
So go ahead and do that.
Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you next time.
By the way, how I just ended that video,
that was intentional.