These days, it seems like everyone has a theory on what it takes to get views on YouTube, and some people have offered very valuable advice. The problem I have with this quest to crack the YouTube Algorithm Code, though, is that no one truly knows how it works, no matter how well they do on their own channels. I sat down the other day and thought about why I feel as though I struggle with YouTube views, and I realized that I’ve been approaching this problem from the viewpoint of the creator and not the watcher. So, I started thinking about my own patterns on YouTube—how I have two patterns of behavior on the platform: 1) mindlessly scroll through my feed until I find something, or 2) search for something specific and click on a video that looks like it’ll satisfy me.
I’m sure there are thousands of other viewers who are just like me: bored, or looking for something specific. So, when it comes to “creating content your viewers want to see,” this advice is sometimes lazy at best because, well, most viewers don’t know what they want to watch until they see something they think they’ll enjoy. The only people who know what they want to see from YOU in particular are those who have subscribed to you from a previous video. For example, if I subscribe to someone because of their vlogs, I know that when I go to that person’s channel, I want to see if there’s a new vlog to watch. The only problem with relying on subscribers to determine what content you make is that majority of us—or at least in my case—receive most of our views from people who aren’t subscribed. My statistics, in particular, tell me that only 9 PERCENT of my watch time come from subscribers, and the rest come from people who were either looking for something specific, or came across one of my videos while they were mindlessly scrolling.
My favorite thing to hear (and by “favorite” I mean the most annoying thing) when I watch success stories on YouTube is “I had this one video from like a year ago randomly blow up…” because it is in that moment that I realize that every other piece of advice they offer me in that video had nothing to do with their success, at least not the bulk of it. When you are fortunate enough to have a video go viral on YouTube, and by viral, I mean breaking 100,000 views (but “viral” is subjective to each channel), that momentum brings enough visibility to your channel to get the ball rolling, and there was nothing “you” technically did to achieve it. I firmly believe that the YouTube algorithm is designed to simply keep people on the platform so they can make money. There’s not a magic keyword, a description box word-count requirement, or anything else that will guarantee you the success of “blowing up.” The videos that do blow up, or start to gain more traction than usual, however, send signals to YouTube that this video is going to keep people on our platform, even if only for a minute longer. And then before you know it, BAM. You’re viral.
I want to be careful to not discredit the advice that most YouTube gurus offer, because they do offer some excellent tips, but I don’t think these tips are the key to your videos taking off the way that “random video” on their channel did. Rather, I believe their advice helps you maintain your success if you happen to blow up, or it helps you to grow at a steady pace (sometimes a painfully slow pace). Two common tips I see on YouTube are to “be consistent” and “find a niche,” and that makes sense (though I must say, I hate the idea of being confined to a niche). For example, if I “blow up” because of a video about UTA, I’m likely to see a surplus in views and subscribers if I have other videos on my channel about UTA. People are creatures of habit, if they subscribe to you for one thing, they likely want more of that one thing. If they’re loyal or interested enough, they’ll start to watch your other content as well.
So, where does all of that leave us? I wish I had this big, grand finale message with a solution, but I’m still figuring this out for myself. There’s a strategy on YouTube about “making searchable content,” and that’s actually one of the most logical forms of advice I’ve seen. The problem that I face, though, is that I’m genuinely just a creative person who makes videos and puts them on the internet, I don’t always have a video idea that’s “searchable.” Lately, I’ve just been hoping that my videos look interesting enough for someone to click on or that a subscriber watches my video. I can, however, let you know a couple mistakes I’ve made on this 7-year YouTube journey thus far. But, I’ll save that for another post since this one is already pretty long.
