You want to know YouTube's secret
formula to success let's do this.
Hello folks welcome back to vidIQ, my
name is Rob. If this is your first time
here, we are the youtube tool and channel
that aims help you get more views in
less time, grow your channel, and make an
impact with your audience.
Now this secret formula, we knew nothing
about it until around about March of
this year, and then YouTube released some
new analytics and we've been looking
over these over the last couple of
months and we now think we've got some
useful suggestions to help you grow your
channel by using these analytics. Let's
take a look at what they are. To access
these new numbers, go to YouTube
analytics as normal and then you'll see
a new link at the top on the left hand
side. It's called the creator beta
studio. This has been at the bottom of a
list for almost a year now
but YouTube wants to bring the screen
front and center, presumably for an
eventual change to these analytics.
Don't worry, nothing's changing
immediately, but in order to access these
new numbers you will need to go there. So
once you're in this new set of screens
that look a little bit intimidating, go
to analytics, you'll see some tabs at the
top and you want to click on reach
viewers and this is what we're going to
look at impressions and click-through
rate. Now we've already done a thorough,
and dare I say, exceptional run-through
of what these analytics mean. You can
click on the card now to watch that
video, but to paraphrase. Impressions is
the number of times a thumbnail from one
of your videos is see on YouTube,
click-through rate is the number of
times that somebody clicks on one of
those thumbnails or titles and watches
one of your videos. To give you a basic
example, let's say you have a video with
10,000 views but it was seen 100,000
times on YouTube with impressions. That's
10% click-through rate and that
would actually be very high, but what
does this actually mean in terms of your
YouTube channel? How can you use these
analytics to better help you grow your
channel? Well what we want to do is look
at this funnel analytic to the right
hand side. What does this mean? At the top
here then we can see impressions and
click-through rates and that leads to
views but what do views lead to...
Yeah you can see where this is going:
watchtime. If people are watching videos
on YouTube that means YouTube can sell
more advertisements to you as viewers so
if your videos are generating a lot of
watchtime what do you think YouTube
wants to do with those videos? Promote
them more. Therefore you'll get more
impressions. You'll get
more click-through, you'll get
more views and you'll get more watch
time. It's a feedback loop and you want
to create a massive ball of watchtime
goodness. Now I think you're going to
have a very legitimate question at this
point: how can we prove that YouTube is
helping to share content that's doing
well in terms of watchtime? The
answer comes from YouTube in this funnel
graph. At the very top where it shows
impressions it actually shows you how
much YouTube is recommending your
content versus how much your audience
has to put work in to find your content.
If you draw your mouse over the
information icon at the top you will see
in orange where YouTube is actively
recommending your content, whether that
be on a watch page as suggested videos,
or on home pages where people are
not subscribed to you. Maybe they're not even
aware of your content but because it's
doing so well and YouTube thinks that
this particular person may be interested
in your content it's pushing your videos
to them. In grey we see where the videos
appear when people are actively
searching for your content so they're
having to put more work in. If YouTube is
promoting your content you have a better
chance of it been seen by a lot more
people which leads to an interesting
contrast when it comes to click-through
rates. When your videos become more
successful, and I say when, not if, because
you produce awesome content, you may
actually find that your click-through
rate on your videos goes down. This is
because when you're sharing your content
effectively with your core audience, your
community when its first released, it
goes out to subscribers first, they're
more likely to click on the video
because they're invested in you as a
channel, but when the videos get more
successful YouTube wants to share it
with more people they're less invested
and so your thumbnails have to do more
of a work and they may not click on your
click on your videos.
But what would you prefer? YouTube to share
your video with a hundred people and
everybody watch it or YouTube to share
your content with a million people and
10% of those people watch it? I'll let
you decide on that one. All right let's
try and summarize this secret YouTube
formula, and personal request. If you do
have a heart please do give this video a
thumbs up because following graphics
took hours to build and they're only
onscreen for seconds let's take a look.
Your video is released and it's shared
with a YouTube audience. Those are your
impressions, people click on that video
and you get some views. Now the important
part: how good is that video? Let's say
it's awesome and you get massive watch
time, YouTube wants to share it with more
people, that feeds back into more
impressions, you get more views, yes
click-through rate may go down, the view
duration may even go down a little bit,
but your watchtime will increase
exponentially. You get it?
Phew, that's a relief. Just a sec, I need a rest
Man that is hard work. I know I'm
just getting some more watch time out of
these gullible viewers.
So that's YouTube's secret formula to
grow your channel but how do you drink
from this magic potion, how do you
increase the watch time of your videos
so that YouTube shares your content more
often, and when it does, convince people
who are not invested in your content to
click on those thumbnails? Let's look at
watchtime first. The first and most
obvious solution to more watchtime is
to literally make longer videos. Now bear
with us on this one, we understand that
that's quite a rudimentary suggestion.
Yeah I'll just make videos that are twice as
long and people are gonna watch for
twice as much time. Hang on, making longer
videos is much harder to do for me
because of the way I edit my videos. My
videos are strictly about giving
information as quickly and succinctly as
possible. This is
where you have to challenge yourself as
a video creator. To do something
completely new and unexpected, to find
out if experimenting with your videos
gives you new ideas and new strategies.
So for the next video or next couple of
videos try making it twice as long as
you usually would or 50% longer than you
usually would. The idea behind this
challenge is to not necessarily get
twice as much watch time, it's to make
you think about how you would approach
making longer videos. It's to take you
out of your comfort zone and think about
how I will be able to tell a story when
I've got twice as much time to do it.
Will I use different editing strategies?
Will I use different filming equipment
or record in a different way? It's to get
you thinking of a new approach maybe if
you're stuck in a plateau with the way
you make your content. You should always
be learning as a video editor and a
creator and that's something we've been
doing here at vidIQ. I don't know if
you've noticed this over the last couple
of months but we've been doing more deep
dives and making a concerted effort to
give you more information over a longer
period of time and you've been reacting
very positively to it so thank you very
much for that. If you make longer videos
and they are successful, then you think:
wow, yeah, I'm spending a lot longer
making this longer video but I'm getting
so much back from the audience in terms
of watchtime and engagements, maybe I
can start to make longer videos. So
that's the first suggestion but we've
got plenty more. Now if you're
uncomfortable with the idea
of lengthening your videos purely for
the sake of trying to get more watch
time we completely understand that so
what you need to do is think about how
you can get your audience to watch your
current length of videos for longer. For
example if you make a video that's five
minutes long and people usually watch it
for two minutes that's 40% average
audience retention but if you can get
that watch time up to four minutes for
every five minute video that's 80%
audience retention and it's significant
improvement for the same amount of
effort, but you do have to mess around
with how you present your videos. How
can you find out whether the changes to your
videos are making an impact? You look at
the audience retention of your videos.
Here's how to do it. On the classic
YouTube creator studio, so we're not
talking about the beta edition here,
there should be a graph which is average
view duration. If you click on that it
will show you the average view duration
for your entire channel but at the
bottom there will be a list of all of
your videos that are performing well that
give you an average view duration. Click on
one of them and it takes you to a
separate page where that video will auto
play and it will show you how your
audience retention fluctuates throughout
this video. Now here are some things to
check out when you're following along
with the graph and what it means. If the
graph stays relatively high and flat
that means the audience are engaged
with the video and you're doing an awesome
job. Anywhere above 50% is usually a good
standard-bearer for audience retention.
It may dip off towards the end but that
always tends to happen as people leave
as you're saying your goodbyes.
If, however, there is a sharp decline in
your graph right at the start of a video
that usually means that whatever your
title and thumbnail said it wasn't
delivered in the first 10, 20, 30 seconds
of a video and people are immediately
dropping off so if you are having
problems at the very beginning of your
video you may want to think about the
content that you're making and how you
present it in your thumbnails and your
titles. If you're getting weird spikes
and dips that means that the viewers are
skipping around your content. They're
either missing something out that's
boring and they're not interested in it,
maybe jumping 30 seconds forward, or
you've done something so spectacular in
a certain part of their video that
they're having to replay it,
just like we did then. Ah, did you see
that? You're probably going to have to
rewind. One more thing about watch time.
People. Get. Very. Bored. Very. Quickly.
Unless you use strategies such as at
pattern interrupt. If you're wondering
what pattern interrupt is, you're seeing
it right now with the camera zooming in
and zooming out, or a graphic appearing
or a sound effect. Every time we do
something on the video it is to try and
keep your attention without diverting,
distracting or annoying you from the
content. Look at it on other people's
videos I'm sure you'll see it straight
away, the change in the format every
couple of seconds just to keep you
interested. Okay let's say you're
producing awesome content with high
watchtime, YouTube loves you, it wants to
share your content with more people.
You've got to get those people invested
in your content even if they don't know
who you are. How do you do that? With very
enticing thumbnails. Here's a couple of
strategies to improve them. This is the
title and thumbnail that we intend to
use for this video. The final product may
vary slightly but here are the general
strategies we use when making this thumbnail.
First of all the thumbnail
complements the title, it doesn't try to
copy it. The use of of the classified
document image is a tease to the secret
formula. Book readers judge books by
their covers, YouTube viewers judge
videos by their thumbnails. There is a
certain artistic license you might say
it needs that wow factor and this
classified document along with my
shocking reaction to it gives you that
effect. Seeing a physical person within
the thumbnail adds a human connection,
even better if you can see the whites of
their eyes. If you can tell an emotion in
your thumbnail that will add to the tease
effect of your content. A couple of
technical changes that we've made to the
image. We've added a sharpen effect to
the human which of course is me that
gives me more detail and makes my eyes
pop even more and we've upped the
saturation and color of the whole image
which gives it more vibrancy, especially
when it's competing against other
thumbnails on suggestive videos and on
home pages. We've also ensured that we
maintain consistency and branding on
the content. The same color scheme that
we usually use, the vidIQ logo in
the bottom left-hand corner. The idea
should be that you can put all of your
thumbnails together and be able to pick
them out against other thumbnails from
other YouTube channels. One last thing
about thumbnails: keep them simple. Apply
the 25% rule once you finish the thumbnail,
shrink it down to a quarter of
its size and see if it's still as
effective. The reason you should do this
is because most of your audience will
see your thumbnail at 25% of its size,
whether it's on a mobile device, or in
the suggested video column on a desktop.
So much detail is lost in the
thumbnails when people actually see them
so make sure it tells an effective
story in the simplest way possible. So
there you have it folks. A couple of drops of the
magic potion to help you unlock YouTubes
secret formula. If you've got any
strategies that you would like to add to
these tips, let us know in the comments
below and let us know how you feel about
making longer videos or how to change
your thumbnails to make them more
enticing. We'd love to know your thoughts
and share with the vid IQ community.
Enjoy the rest of your video making day
and we'll see you all again soon bye for
now.