- YouTube's algorithm does not care about your keywords.
In fact, if you are focused on the YouTube algorithm
as your main strategy
for trying to grow your YouTube channel,
you are focused on the wrong thing.
Today, in this video, I wanna prove it to you
by taking you behind the scenes
and showing you exactly how YouTube's algorithm works
so that you can focus on the right thing
and grow your channel regardless of how small
or big it might be.
Welcome, my name is Tim Schmoyer
welcoming you to Video Creators
where we are all about helping those of you
who are established YouTube creators with next step tactics
to further grow your audience
and the business that surrounds that audience
starting today with YouTube's algorithm.
The main thing you need to know is that YouTube's algorithm
is way more advanced than you think it is.
It is way smarter than most creators even realize.
Let me give you a little demo here
of how Google Video's artificial intelligence works
and what it's doing to your video
while your video is still uploading and processing.
They are scanning the video
and they are figuring out a lot of things on their own
of what's happening in this video
because they've learned that a lot of creators
are going to use misleading metadata.
They're going to use keywords and tags
that aren't really about this video
but it has less competition, higher search volumes.
YouTube's like no, we can't really depend on that data.
So here we can see at a video level
that YouTube's identifying with like 91% confident
we think this video overall is about nature,
we think that there's 83% confidence this is about animals
and that there's trees and vegetation
and 68% confidence that this is like forestation
but they also know on a shot by shot level basis
what's happening in each shot
like you see in this shot,
91% confident this is about nature.
There's 84% confident there's an animal.
31% confident this is an ape.
Oh, next shot, yes.
Now we are more confident, 65% confident
that there is an ape in this video image right here,
there's animals and they know shot by shot
they can see here's shot 20 of the 35.
There's a waterfall.
94% confidence there's an insect, there's an animal.
They can see exactly what's going on frame by frame by frame
inside of our video.
They are scanning for explicit content
and the likelihood of there being pornography
in this video is very unlikely
and so they're trying to figure that out too
because a lot of people use misleading data.
They will go through your entire video
and they will figure out exactly what your video's about
even if you don't put any metadata or tags or keywords
in your content at all.
YouTube and Google is that smart.
So what kind of things can their AI detect?
Well, they've told us that their AI can detect scene changes
in different segments which we've already seen.
They can detect and track objects so they can see what this,
oh, this is a pair of sunglasses.
They can track it as it moves across the frame
or different part of the video.
They can detect and extract text from the image.
They can see exactly if there's explicit content
going on here or they can see, they can recognize speech
and like, this is person A, person B and person C
and they can extrapolate each person's audio
and say that now this person's talking.
They can recognize different people in there
whether it be celebrities or if there's different faces
of like, oh, we can see that this must be Tim in this image.
They can even identify someone's fashion
that they're wearing.
It goes really in depth.
They can see the emotional expression on someone's face.
They can see that there's a person here
and she's holding a camera.
69% confident that this is a woman.
You can see the hair, the camera, the photography.
They're even 75% sure
this is a mirrorless interchangeable camera.
Now, this is interesting 'cause the top keyword so to speak
that they're coming up here is food photography
but there's no food in this image
but they've recognized this is Joanie from The Bite Shot
and they recognize
that this lady represents food photography.
That's what her whole brand is about.
They're picking up the text of the camera shot
that says EOS on there, the Canon.
There's the dominant colors.
They're looking at like how safe is this?
It's very unlikely it's got anything in it.
So guys, YouTube's AI is smart.
So your attempts to trick or hack this thing
are likely not working very well.
So we need to focus on the same thing
that the algorithm is focused on.
How can we have the algorithm meet its goals?
And so the goal of the algorithm
is to deliver the right video
to the right person at the right time
and the way it measures if it's done that well or not
is by looking at viewer signals.
How does the viewer respond to this content
when we say surface this video to them?
Do they click, did they watch,
did they get good amount of watch time, session time?
YouTube's doing a lot now
to measure viewer satisfaction ratings.
Not just did they watch
but how did this video make them feel at the end of it
and how likely is this person gonna come back to YouTube
tomorrow or two days from now when we surface this video
versus that video?
They are focused 100% on the viewer
and so if we want our content to perform well
in YouTube's search and discovery systems
then we also need to focus primarily on viewer.
As we say a lot around here at Video Creators,
we need to optimize for humans, not for robots.
So how do you do that?
What does that even look like?
Well, it includes a lot of different things.
We talk a lot about primal branding around here
which are the signals that you give to the viewer
that make it easy for them to fall in love with you
and your content and what you're all about
and wanna watch more.
We also talk about storytelling
and how do you engage the viewer and pique their interest
and create some tension that keeps them interested
and watching all the way to the end
and it's also very important
that you have a clear target audience
that you are crafting this content
specifically for that person
so that when they find your content, they're like,
yes, this is what I've been looking for my whole life
like I am so glad I found your content
and it resonates with them.
It also means that your brand is very clear.
You have a clear value proposition
and those first time viewers can quickly and easily catch up
and pick up on what that is and be like,
this is a value that I want to consume
and I feel like this content is exactly for me, I'm in
and you get them to watch more and start engaging.
If you wanna learn more how to do that,
I put together a short playlist.
You can click right here to get into that
and it's going to take you through several videos
that will show you exactly how to make it easy
for your viewers to fall in love with you
and your brand and your content,
want to keep watching and watch more.
So click there and I'll see you over in that next video.