- 13 YouTube secrets from the Creator's Track
at VidCon 2018.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions.
I do travel guides that are fun,
informative, and entertaining.
I just finished up a weekend at VidCon.
It's wrappin' up today.
Today's the last day and I wanted
to share with you some of the YouTube secrets
that I learned attending this year.
Starting with YouTube secret number one.
YouTube secret number one is about thumbnails,
and that is that yellow is the best color
to use in a YouTube thumbnail.
Why yellow?
Well, because yellow catches the eye more,
and people are more likely to click on a thumbnail
that features yellow prominently in it,
and that thumbnail that you clicked on,
there was a lot of yellow in it.
Also, you'll notice that face was featured prominently,
another YouTube secret.
This ties into thumbnails is that a face is important.
People are more likely to click on thumbnails
that have a face featured prominently,
particularly one that's looking at the camera,
and that you can see the whites of their eyes.
The second YouTube secret from VidCon is about video titles.
Video titles are the second most
important thing for a video,
and one of the secrets is that the top YouTube creators,
before they make a video,
they'll come up with the title.
Yes, that's right.
People like me, when we first started,
maybe even now, we'll shoot a video
and then afterwards think about what should we title this?
But the pro-YouTubers,
they say they come up with the title first.
And some words you'll see in titles,
because people click on them more,
are titles that create an emotional need in the viewer.
Something like the end of the world is coming,
things you need to know.
Right, you'll read that and you'll say,
I need to click into that if the end of the world is coming.
Also, buzzy type words, things like secret.
I've got some secrets to share with you.
That's why this video has secrets in the title.
A lot of the top YouTubers creators,
they say the way they decide
to come up with what videos to produce,
are looking at Google trends
and YouTube trends, using trending words.
Right now, Fortnite the video game, spinners,
and of course slime is really popular.
YouTube secret number three.
The most watched category of videos
regardless of title or thumbnail
are howto in videos or instructables,
but particularly those that have the keyword howto in them.
Why?
Howto videos are often syndicated over to Google.
The top two search results in the area
for howto will often appear
in the Google search results for the exact same thing.
So if you really wanna make your videos rank,
make them howto videos that also show up on Google searches.
YouTube secret number four.
A lot of people obsess
about comments, like, things like that.
The most important metric to YouTube,
and about the only one worth worrying
about is watch time, overall watch time.
YouTube's goal overall as a platform is
to maximize the amount of time people
spend watching videos, the time they spend on the platform,
and how often they come back to the platform.
So if you are uploading videos,
the most important thing
for the success of them is watch time,
and YouTube makes its first measurement
at about 24 hours and then 48 hours.
Those are the places where it's important
to have the most watch time because
if you YouTube sees a lot of people
watching a video within the first 24 hours,
it means people must like it.
Again, at 48 hours, that's how it gets referred
to more and more people.
Now, something a lot of people don't know also,
is watch time can also have
a negative effect on future videos.
So for example, if I upload a video to my channel
and nobody watches it, well that's gonna have
a negative effect on the next videos
that I upload because YouTube will be less likely
to share those videos to my subscribers first.
And so if you're uploading videos,
it's important that each one of your videos
is better than the next one,
and that's what YouTube looks for.
Do more people watch it?
Is it better?
Is the next one getting better?
If they start getting worse, then YouTube says,
well we're not gonna show that to anybody.
YouTube secret number five.
Authenticity is important on YouTube.
People watch videos that they consider the creator,
the person on camera, is more authentic.
This was one I probably didn't understand
when I first started YouTubing.
If you look at me in the beginning,
I think I'm putting on a little bit more
of an act, but not as I do this,
I treat it as more of a conversation,
so I'm literally talk to you,
except you happen to be where this piece of glass is
that I'm looking at right now.
Also, people have a tendency to really like rant videos.
That's why you see a lot of rants,
a lot of political commentary,
because those are ones where people
are being particularly authentic.
They're speaking from the heart
about how they feel about something.
So as this video goes on, you might hear me ranting
about a few things coming up,
particularly when it comes to ad revenue on YouTube.
YouTube secret number six.
Nobody subscribes to a channel after watching one video.
Most people, it takes on average three to five videos
for them to become a subscriber.
I'm curious, for those of you who subscribe
to Yellow Productions, how many videos did it take
for you to watch before you decided to subscribe?
YouTube secret number seven.
The most watched videos on YouTube are those on average
that are between 7 to 16 minutes of lengths,
with the sweet spot being about 10 to 12 minutes.
Sorry for people who like to make one hour long-form videos,
or 30 second videos of cats falling off televisions.
That sweet spot of 10 minutes on average
is what's getting the most watch time on YouTube.
People, that's about the attention span
and the commitment that people will have.
If you have a video that's over an hour,
obviously I run into this with my live streams
and archives, people look at that and go,
oh, I'm not sure that I'm really ready
for that time commitment.
And if it's 30 seconds, well I'm not sure
that I'm gonna gain that much out of it,
particularly if I'm starting with a 10 to 15 second
pre-roll ad before that video.
YouTube secret number eight is
to only ask for one call to action in a video.
You'll hear people do it, including me,
things like hey, if you like this video,
please give it a thumbs-up, please subscribe,
please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+.
When you overload people with that many things,
people end up doing nothing.
So think about what is the one thing you want them to do,
and if what it is is you really want them to subscribe,
then the most important thing for someone to do
after watching your video, well it's not subscribe,
'cause if that's the first one they've watched,
they won't chances are,
but the most important thing is
for them to watch other videos.
You'll probably see my videos change at the end,
including this one.
I'm not gonna ask you to subscribe.
I'm just gonna ask you to watch one other video
that I'll point to up here, but it's not the end yet.
I've still got a few more secrets to go.
Oh, and I've apparently been doing it all wrong
when I tell to click on a video.
Research shows that when you use another word,
like smash or punch the video,
that people are more likely to actually click on it.
YouTube secret number nine.
This is about ads, and how ads are sold.
Everybody always wants to know,
as a YouTuber how do you make money?
How does YouTube pay you, all those sorts of things.
Well the way that ads are sold on YouTube,
the way YouTube sells them to advertisers,
is basically via two different things.
One, based on a key word and users' demographics,
and they're sold at auctions, so if you wanna get
into some popular key words and popular countries,
well then the advertisers bid those up,
and so this also explains
why my Las Vegas videos do very well,
'cause Las Vegas is a term
that people search on a lot,
people go to, and so advertisers place ads
against Las Vegas videos and also against viewers in the US.
It also explains why my videos
in Japan don't do all that well,
because people don't place ads against Kamakura
and from viewers in Japan unfortunately.
So what this has taught me,
and again this is a bit of my rant,
is that apparently I should only be making videos
about Las Vegas that are between 7 to 16 minutes in length.
I don't know, what do you guys think?
Should I only be making videos on Las Vegas,
'cause that is one of the things I learned here at VidCon,
or I should be making them about Fortnite the video game,
fidget spinners, and slime.
But seriously, my rant here is that there's
a lot of creators around the world,
including by the name of Jesus from Taiwan,
that because he posts in Chinese,
and his viewership is mostly in Taiwan,
his AdSense revenue is basically pennies per month.
It's pretty sad and so the wealth
isn't really be spreading equally,
and they mentioned it here at VidCon too,
that there can be channels in Brazil
that have 30 million subscribers,
but barely make $100 a month
from that Google AdSense revenue.
YouTube secret number 10.
Most pro YouTubers don't make the majority
of their money from ads,
but they make it from merchandise,
subscriptions, or other things,
which is why at VidCon you will see a ton
of creators like this one back here,
and then also like Zoey G back here,
standing around at a booth selling T-shirts,
because frankly, that's how they're making money.
YouTube secret number 11.
There's a whole thing about demonetization going around,
where videos get demonetized
because YouTube deems them inappropriate.
Some words to avoid for demonetization,
avoid the word death, avoid the word kill,
also avoid things that are graphic in the thumbnails.
YouTube actually looks at the video thumbnails
and analyzes them to see if there can be something graphic.
One of the things that often gets videos demonetized
is if there's fire in the thumbnail.
YouTube secret number 12.
This secret intentionally left blank,
so that I can get to the next secret.
YouTube secret number 13.
The best numbers to use in YouTube titles are prime numbers.
Why?
People are more likely to click on titles
that contain prime numbers than non-prime numbers.
What's a prime number?
It's a number that's only divisible by itself,
like 1, 7, 13, which is why this video is titled 13 secrets,
and that is the last one.
Well, if you enjoyed this video,
you might enjoy watching one of my other videos right here.
I'm not gonna tell you to click on it,
but I'll tell you to punch it.
I'll tell you to uppercut it.
I'll tell you to tickle it?
I'll tell you to lick.
I don't know, do whatever you want to that video.
Just watch it, and I won't say goodbye,
'cause I'm gonna see you over there.