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The Think Media Podcast
407: YouTube Employee Breaks Down The Latest Algorithm Changes (2025 Update)
00:46:47
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- [00:00]
Sean Cannell
If you've been trying to grow your YouTube channel on your own, you might be frustrated because it's kind of like trying to get in shape without a coach. Slow, frustrating, and full of trial and error. That's why we created the Think Media one on one coaching program where you.
- [00:14]
Renee Ritchie
Will get a dedicated expert to walk.
- [00:16]
Sean Cannell
You through your next steps, to hold you accountable and to teach you advanced growth strategies. Plus, you get connected with the right expert in specific areas from our Think Media team for whatever challenge you're facing. But here's the deal. The annual fee is going up soon, so if you've been on the fence, now's the time to lock in your spot. Just go to YTCoaching.com to apply before the price increases.
- [00:45]
Unknown Creator
My content is not performing the same. The algorithm must have changed. It's like a blanket statement. That's not always true.
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Renee Ritchie
I have the privilege of sitting with a YouTube employee today back on the podcast, Renee Richie I think people underestimate.
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Unknown Creator
The power of viewer journeys. You want to think of like, someone found my channel through this video. What's the next video? That's just no brainer for them to click on and watch.
- [01:06]
Renee Ritchie
When it comes to getting views, what's the best way to think about it in the context of understanding how the YouTube algorithm works? What has changed in terms of how YouTube shorts work and how views on YouTube shorts work? What is the fastest way to grow a YouTube channel to a thousand subscribers? So what are the latest updates to the YouTube algorithm and what are the best ways to get views and subscribers on YouTube in 2025? I have the privilege of sitting with a YouTub employee today back on the podcast, Renee Ritchie. And Renee, the algorithm always evolves. Yes, changes. Change is a big word because foundationally a lot of things are the same. But there's some new updates that creators need to know about. What are those?
- [01:46]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, well, just to go back for like a short second, like, the algorithm tries to get better and better every day, tries to learn more and more every day. And as content evolves, the algorithm evolves. Sometimes you see creators say like my content is not performing the same. The algorithm must have changed as like a blanket statement. That's not always true. What I think is happening is people see ecosystem wide change. Like they see changes on their content. Like maybe someone stumbles on them. They watch a lot of back catalog. The YouTube algorithm understands that this is the type of viewer that's interested in it. They find people who also watch the similar things, they recommend it to them and that sort of pocket grows of like, yeah, we found a new audience and that that audience pool depletes and they don't get those views anymore. Oh, the algorithm changed again and it went away. But really, like, I think of it like weather systems, but really it's just like strange attractors. It keeps finding new audiences, Those audiences consume or choose not to, and then it goes back to searching for more audiences.
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Renee Ritchie
And one of the things you mentioned was there was kind of like the full recipe or just that. What's that Update? Yeah.
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Unknown Creator
So YouTube is using LLMs, large language models, and a lot of people think about genai, but they're also very good at holding large sets of parameters. So, for example, we can now understand more parts of a video. So an analogy a good friend of ours, Todd Beaupre uses is before, like, maybe YouTube knew how to follow a recipe and now it's better learning how to cook. So if you watch a video, that video might have a bunch of different nuanced topics and just serving you videos that are somewhat similar, you may not like them, they may not be what's interesting to you. So you might skip those. And those creators would see that in lower CTRs. So what this is doing is letting us more precisely recommend videos to the right viewer. So maybe you're watching something and we think you like this kind of food, but really you like these specific ingredients. And once we can understand this is what you want, we can give you much more specific videos to suit your taste. So that's a better experience for you and better audience fit for the creator.
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Renee Ritchie
And basically, does the creator need to do anything different in their strategy or you're just saying essentially using large language models, which. Am I right to call that AI?
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Unknown Creator
Yeah, I mean, everything. AI is like a blanket term for everything. Like there's machine learning, there's like neural networks, all these things. So, yeah.
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Renee Ritchie
And so kind of like ChatGPT is a large language model. YouTube is more precisely looking at scripts.
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Unknown Creator
Yeah.
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Renee Ritchie
And looking at all the details that are in a video. So always fighting for better discoverability, getting the right information to viewers. How should the creator think about that strategically, so they can get more views?
- [04:15]
Unknown Creator
I think this one is more on the viewer side. It's more precision. So, like, do you like dance videos or do you like salsa? Because maybe we're recommending generic dance videos and you're not interested in those. Now we understand you like salsa, we're giving you salsa videos. So, like, the creator is not going to like an audience that's not interested in them, and the viewer is getting exactly what they want.
- [04:32]
Renee Ritchie
I got you. So ultimately, when it comes to getting views, because you talk all about the algorithm, but everybody listening to this, like, I want to get discovered. I want to get more views. What's the best way to think about it in the context of understanding how the YouTube algorithm works?
- [04:47]
Unknown Creator
Yeah. So I think it depends what stage of creator you are, like, in this. In the beginning, like, if you experiment, you can start to try, like, first, of course, find what's passionate to you, or you won't be able to do it long term. But, like, once you find your passions, experiment, and you can go into the audience tab and see what kind of videos are resonating with your audience, and then you can make more of those videos, but also videos that continue. I think people underestimate the power of viewer journeys. There are going to be some videos that acquire an audience, whether through search or through recommendations or through suggested traffic. There'll be videos that nurture your audience and giving them more of what they want. There'll be videos that sell products for you. But you want to think of like, someone found my channel through this video. What's the next video? That's just no brainer for them to click on and watch, and what's the video after that? And so when you're building out your strategy, think about, this is a video that's going to get a lot of interest, but immediately at the end, and I want to say, like, go watch this video for the big picture, or go watch this video for the details, and you want to give them something to relate to. The more somebody who loved the current video will love the next video, the more likely they'll click on and watch that next video. I know some people think that's constraining, like, the algorithm is forcing me into something. But it's the audience. You create an audience, and it's a total cliche. But, like, if you look at Mr. Beast, if you want a Mr. Beast video, and you see that thumbnail and you click, you know exactly what you're going to get. You will be satisfied with that video. There's no risk. But if there's a channel that sort of makes random videos, it's like a restaurant that makes random food. Like, do I really want to go there tonight? I don't know. It's a bit of a risk. Do I want to click, oh, I'm going to go click on this other video where I know where I'm going to get. So you start to look at retention not just in a video, but across videos.
- [06:19]
Renee Ritchie
So is that kind of like thinking about building your brand and reputation? Because people have a certain experience with a creator. You might have a one off hit, but like with MrBeast, you know what you're going to get. If you go to In N Out Burger, you, you know what you're gonna get. And so if people are going to, you might get discovered because someone takes a risk with you. But you want to be thinking about how do I build a brand and follow up with a consistent experience in my videos? Do I have it right?
- [06:40]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, absolutely. You don't have to feel trapped because like you can grow over time. Like restaurants change their menus and experiment with things and you can totally do that, but you want to sort of let the audience come with you. If you start giving them a bunch of things that don't really relate to them. It's like if you imagine a TV show like that doesn't have like consistent episodes, it's always a different show. It's hard to get people to watch week after week after week. And if you do want to do more variety content, think of an overarching framework that people can attach to. So you look at like Dr. Mike or legal Eagle. They do movies, they do interviews, they do reactions, they do news. But all of it is like for lawyers or for doctors. So those people can always relate to that channel, even if the type of content changes.
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Renee Ritchie
So if you want to get more views this year on YouTube, you say one of the things you want to understand is psychology. How do you make something a big topic when someone doesn't think about, well, I never went to school for psychology. I don't talk about psychology with my family at dinner. But it's a big deal. If you want to be a successful creator, what are the ways to think about understanding viewer psychology to get more views?
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Unknown Creator
Yeah, so like start, like start just looking at the audience tab and analytics and see what is growing your audience. It'll show you like high, moderate, low. And those videos are telling you something. You can go in and look at the comments and see what people are reacting to. You want to figure out what they like about you, what they love about you, what is distinct about you that they're getting that they're not getting from any other channel. Because attention is hugely competitive. There's almost infinite content and very finite attention. People have to make a lot of choices. So why did they choose you? Once you understand why they're choosing you, you can start giving them more of that love. And it's not sort of like people don't always remember exactly what every video is about, but they remember how you made them feel. And so you want to figure out like, what feeling am I giving my audience that'll even lets you shift around and topic more. But you're still giving them that same feeling.
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Renee Ritchie
You're a creator yourself. What is your routine when you're planning a video and shooting a video? You grow multiple channels to hundreds of thousands of subscribers. If there was a practical for creators getting in the right mindset to create a feeling or how some of this stuff goes into their planning so that their video ends up being a better product that ends up getting more views and creating a better view experience.
- [08:47]
Unknown Creator
Yeah. So mine, I mostly cover technology. So my, my content strategy was driven by the news. And so there's different ways that you can play YouTube and if you're topical, then your. Your videos have a shorter shelf life. Like there's interest when the news is high and then over time it dissipates because people move on to the next news story. So that's a very different path. That's like you have to start making more videos because there's new news every day, every week. It's a little bit of a grind. And I would just try to think like, what is the most interesting story of the day or of the week and what is the most interesting angle? And then I would try to do deep analysis because there was a lot of people covering it superficially. And I thought like my differentiator was going deeper and giving people like more explanation. Not the what, but the why. Like I think it's what is kind of easy. But why is a lot more hard, like more difficult. So I would sort of focus on that. But you can, like some people do really well with evergreen videos videos that maybe they do them once every week, two weeks, a month, but that video accrues views and adsense for months and years and you know, several years sometimes. So you have to pick sort of what your what your strategy is going to be going in.
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Renee Ritchie
Now some people say subscribers don't matter or subscribers are dead. Is that true?
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Unknown Creator
So I get like, what is your goal? Like, I think one of the things that's really helpful on YouTube is to figure out what your goal is. Like there are some people with low views and low subscribers who convert on product and make a fortune. So like if money is your goal, maybe you don't care. But for some people, subs really matter whether it's A vanity metric. Whether they want plaques, whether they want to like be the biggest like quote unquote creator in there, like there's something that's offending to them. Subscribe. If someone subscribes to your channel immediately, it's a strong signal that they're interested. If someone subscribed 10 years ago, they may not have watched you in five years. So it's really a relative indicator. I have a friend, Dave Whiskes, who says like the subscriber number is all the money you've ever had in the bank, which is an interesting number, but it's not as interesting as how much money do you have in the bank right now, which is your monthly unique viewers or your like your returning viewers. So I think like in terms of channel health, looking at your current viewership is way more beneficial.
- [10:41]
Renee Ritchie
Got it. And that's something that if you're listening to this, you could go into your YouTube analytics. Not just look at your total subscriber count, but look at your monthly unique viewers. That's the actual impact of your channel. This month you're saying that's a much better health metric.
- [10:55]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, for like just your channel. But like there are vanity metrics and sometimes sponsors care about the subscriber number, sometimes industry events care about your subscriber number. So growing it isn't bad. It's like having the box office record, you know, like you're the highest paid actor. So those value metrics are important, but I wouldn't like plan your channel strategy around them.
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Renee Ritchie
A lot of people really want to hit that 1000 subscriber mark on YouTube. In your opinion, what is the fastest way to grow a YouTube channel to a thousand subscribers?
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Unknown Creator
Yeah. So if you just want like max, max subs going up right on the angle, be consistent. Like again like plan store like journeys for your viewers. Someone comes in to watch a video, they should be able to watch 2, 3, 4 videos immediately after that should be able to binge you. Binging is probably the fastest way to grow a channel. So instead of just jumping around and we talked, I don't know if we talked about this before, but like you take a channel that's help based and if you do how to fix your washing machine one day and how to fix your refrigerator the next week, it's very unlikely people are going to have those two problems back to back. So you're limiting. Like someone who clicked on that will be recommended the next video. Like I don't have a fridge problem. But if it's like how to fix your Dishwasher best parts to fix your dishwasher how to make sure you don't need to fix your dishwasher. Then people who watch those videos are going to have three, four videos to keep watching.
- [12:07]
Renee Ritchie
Yeah, these are a lot of deep, strategic thoughts. And if you're getting value smash like and if you listen on audio to the Think Media podcast, rate, review, share wherever you watch or listen and super grateful for this community. There's some new updates to YouTube shorts view count has changed mid roll ad placement and there's some other algorithm misunderstandings and even talking about shadow banning that we'll do a little bit later. But let's cover some of these new updates. Shorts view count revision has happened recently. What has changed in terms of how YouTube shorts work and how views on YouTube shorts work?
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Unknown Creator
Sure. So the metric previously defined as views was intentful. So like if you click on something you have an intent to watch it. But if something autoplays or something shows up in a feed, it's harder to gauge. Like did you really intend to watch that? So previously to count as a view you'd have to watch that for a short period of time. That period of time could change depending on the context. And we never want anybody to game the system. So we didn't give exact numbers. But you'd have to like basically click on it with your intention by watching it for a short amount of time.
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Renee Ritchie
One, two, three seconds. You didn't ever clarify the actual number, but it hit the feed, someone watched it for a few moments. That became a shorts view.
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Unknown Creator
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But that was sort of not the usual way that it was done and it wasn't what a lot of creators expected. And we kept getting feedback saying it's really hard for me to judge performance of my short form videos across various platforms. Because you're counting views differently. Because a lot of places count views as impressions. So what we're doing now is if your video shows up in the feed that counts as a view. We're keeping the old view metric now and we're calling them engaged views. So you'll be able to look in YouTube studio and see like the raw view count, which is how often you appeared in the feed. Because for some people that's hugely important in terms of their reach. And then you'll be able to see engaged views, which is what we still calculate like ad rev sharing or YouTube Partner Program eligibility from.
- [13:56]
Renee Ritchie
Do 100% of creators have sight to that right now?
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Unknown Creator
They should. Like I'm not sure how long it's going to take to actually roll out all the updates in YouTube Studio. But we started rolling that out earlier.
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Renee Ritchie
Got it. So basically there will be two view count numbers in the back end of your YouTube studio that you can analyze when it comes to YouTube shorts to kind of have a better understanding of. Better understanding of performance of your YouTube short.
- [14:20]
Unknown Creator
Yeah. So you can look at views to see how often it showed up in the feed compared to other platforms and you could look at engaged views to see how many people. And also we have viewed versus swiped away. So you can see how many people actually stayed around to watch it versus just swiped away immediately, which is like CTR for shorts.
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Renee Ritchie
One of the questions on people's minds is it was announced that YouTube was going to three minute shorts.
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Unknown Creator
Yeah.
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Renee Ritchie
And that has been officially rolled out. But yet I think some creators are experiencing. Is it really rolled out? Is it as the algorithm really recommending, is this thing dialed in yet? Where would you say the progress of that is?
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Unknown Creator
So, yeah, we did make the change so you can create and we have the creation tools updated now so anyone can go in and create up to a three minutes short. I think it's going to take time just as people create more and more of them because the algorithms are learning and they're understanding better. And I think some people are going to get into like I want really quick shorts and other people are going to be like, I want to learn more, I want to dive deeper and they'll have longer shorts. And I think it's important to be able to serve people, both of them, so that nobody like you should be able to go deeper or you should be able to change the channel is like the way that it's thought of. But I think like just over time we're going to get better and better at recommending both.
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Renee Ritchie
So it'll be a process.
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Unknown Creator
Yeah.
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Renee Ritchie
Now is it true? My experience, when I connect music natively and I Open up my YouTube shorts creation on my phone and I up and I film or upload video that I shot somewhere else that when I attach a popular song, I feel like I'm still limited to maybe 15 or 30 seconds.
- [15:43]
Unknown Creator
Yeah. The music hasn't changed yet.
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Renee Ritchie
The music hasn't changed. Whereas there YouTube has a licensing agreement. Right. With different music. So you can integrate properly. Properly connecting a popular song on a YouTube short. But I do feel like on Instagram you can go longer if you're creating a reel. Is that an ongoing evolution? I'm sure as it is with every platform. Do you think that'll Catch up.
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Unknown Creator
Yeah, we haven't announced anything about that yet. But if you do want to go longer, like there's a variety of music that you can license to make longer shorts with.
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Renee Ritchie
So you could, I mean if you just do your own music or if you select songs that aren't popular songs.
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Unknown Creator
Yeah. Or like people use a variety of services, some of them also offer popular songs them.
- [16:21]
Renee Ritchie
I got you too like maybe like a licked or of course epidemic sound for you know, other type of royalty free music. I gotcha. Another update and kind of a new change to YouTube is mid roll ad placement. And there's been a lot of buzz over this. People are kind of, they were, they maybe were a little bit concerned previously or people were trying to game the system adding endless mid roll ads that might interrupt the viewer experience. Sometimes if you let YouTube do it it seems like of course that's an algorithm, that's an AI, that's a. And and sometimes it only be a few ads, maybe not that strategically placed or I've seen that maybe the way you do time codes or how long the content is sometimes it's pretty excessive. But the big idea too was there's no guarantee the ad will play.
- [17:05]
Unknown Creator
Yes.
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Renee Ritchie
Because YouTube doesn't want, they want to have a great viewer experience. So that's kind of what it was previously. You could either auto do mid roll ads or you can manually do them. What was the change?
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Unknown Creator
So over time people started watching longer content and also watching on television which means previously for example if you watched five minute videos, you could get six of them in half an hour and that's like six pre rolls. But if you're watching one like two 15 minute videos or 1:30 or like 45 minute video, you're only getting one pre roll. So mid rolls are becoming more and more important for those videos and those creators that want to monetize those videos. But to your point, they weren't always being placed in great areas or areas that were interruptive or would cause a viewer to dip and just they weren't performing well in Those slots and YouTube never gave creators information about that. So people would put like every minute or more than that and they had no idea whether an ad was likely or unlikely to serve there. Because we are optimizing for the viewer experience when a creator places an ad. I think a lot of creators thought wherever I place a slot an ad is absolutely going to serve there. Which has never been the case. It means that those are the only places YouTube is allowed to serve an ad because like we want creators to have that choice. Like, and if you have like a sponsor segment, you don't want any ads to play during that, or if you have like a specific like speech you're giving, you may not want someone to have an ad there. So we limit where we can place ads to those slots. So if you place a bunch of slots, there's no guarantee an ad is going to play there. YouTube's going to look at the entire experience of that viewer and determine where the ads should play. So even if you and I watch the same videos, we could get very different ad slots. The ads serve, depending on what we watched previously, how long we've been watching, a variety of factors. So essentially it's like in the old days there was no retention. So you could do a 10 second really cringe intro and never know like you were crashing your views and then you got in retention graphs and now you can see, oh, maybe I shouldn't do that 10 second intro. So now you can actually see whether a slot is likely or unlikely to serve an ad. You can still choose to put those slots anywhere you want. There's always a chance an ad might play. It's just unlikely if we mark those segments. So we allow you to like, we want you to just fine tune those so you can move them a few seconds, you can move them like a few minutes. Try to find like a natural breaking point which might be like a pause, it might be a change in scene, it might be like a chapter, whatever feels natural to you and then that'll be a better audience experience. We're also making it so you can use manual and automatic mid rolls because we realize some creators have like thousands of videos in their back catalog and it's just not practical to go back and like tweak videos. So what I'm doing is I'm sorting by watch time or revenue, taking my top 20 to 50 highest performing videos and I'm manually tweaking those and I'm just leaving automatic on for the other ones. And the automatic system is going to be better in May when we switch on this new process. I think May 12th is the date and it's going to be much better at finding those breakpoints than it currently is.
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Renee Ritchie
So May 12, 2025 is the date where this new process will be switched on.
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Unknown Creator
The new automatic ads.
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Renee Ritchie
The new automatic ads. Well, if you've already clicked auto, will it just change automatically of your back videos?
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Unknown Creator
Yeah. So the new system is going to learn and is going to improve and if you don't like them, you can still like for example, let's say auto put it in the middle of a sponsored spot. You can still go in there and delete that segment.
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Renee Ritchie
So there is for creators listening to this that are monetized, that have a library, what would you say? You mentioned a few next steps, but if you give us some next steps, there's an opportunity to make more money, increase, increase viewer experience and spend some time optimizing back catalog. What's the ROI for people listening to this and what would that process look like for them?
- [20:33]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, I think again like do that sorting because there's probably like if you have a thousand videos, a lot of them probably aren't pulling views, aren't pulling revenue for you. So leaving on auto is an okay way to just like get incremental revenue because maybe across a thousand videos it's still enough money that you want it, but not enough that you're going to go in and then just focus on those 20 to 50, maybe some big channels. It's 100 videos that are still pulling significant like their evergreen videos pulling significant views and revenue. And you want to make sure that you're getting as many opportunities. But like as you know, like YouTube makes money when creators make money, it's a rev share. So YouTube, like YouTube, doesn't want to tank revenue for anybody. We want to make sure that everyone has a better opportunity to earn.
- [21:07]
Renee Ritchie
Yes, that's awesome. Update. Okay, there's a lot of algorithm misunderstandings and a lot of creators feel like the algorithm is against them. I do want to talk about some algorithm myths, but first of all is YouTube want to help small creators grow.
- [21:25]
Sean Cannell
Every day you want to start your YouTube channel is another day of missed opportunities and untapped potential. Here's the truth. YouTube reaches more 18 to 49 year olds than all the cable networks combined. The opportunity is massive and the Think media team and I want to help you seize it. I'm excited to announce our YouTube 1K Challenge, a free five day event that will give you the exact blueprint to start and grow your YouTube channel in 2025. Whether you're an entrepreneur, business owner, or somebody ready to grow their personal brand, this challenge is your roadmap to success. To register, just go to tube1k challenge.
- [22:03]
Renee Ritchie
Com.
- [22:03]
Sean Cannell
We're going to be doing one training session a day for five days and you're going to learn how to get your first 1,000 subscribers and start earning real income. Insider strategies that make viewers want to click on your videos and keep watching multiple different ways to earn money from your YouTube channel, even if you have a small audience. And how to build an authentic personal brand that truly connects with people. But it gets even better. We are giving away prizes every single day of the challenge. You could win professional microphones, lighting kits, and premium content creation software. And during this challenge, you're getting access to the exact training that we offer in our $4,000 coaching program. But you're getting it completely for free. And you can start with just your smartphone. So if you're Ready to turn 2025 into your YouTube breakthrough year, go to tube1kchallenge.com to register. That's tube1kchallenge.com or click the link in the show notes or YouTube description to register for our upcoming challenge.
- [23:05]
Renee Ritchie
Is YouTube. Want to help small creators grow?
- [23:09]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, everyone started as a small creator. Everyone literally started as Subscriber Zero. Even the biggest creators on the platform started at Subscriber zero and they went from there. And you never know who's going to be the next biggest creator on the planet. So it's in nobody's best interests to, like, artificially limit or do anything but support creators. We try to let the audience decide everything. So there's no artificial boosting of anything. I think sometimes people think certain features or certain things are promoted. It's very rare. Mostly there's like, sometimes there's not a lot of supply of something and interest peaks. And so if you're making those videos, you see a huge upswing just because there's few people making it. But then more people rush in to make it and it sort of goes back to normal. So it can look like there's boosts and slots, but generally the audience. YouTube wants the audience to decide, like, what they want to watch. Part of the experiments that we are running, though, the discovery and growth team is taking one or two slots at the top of recommendations and finding channels that we think the viewer will be interested in that are either like low views and low subscriber channels just to sort of help them find an audience faster. We want to still make sure they're good recommendations. There's not as much data, they may not always be, but we want them to sort of find more data, find more audience and help them grow.
- [24:16]
Renee Ritchie
One of the things I've noticed in my subscriber feed, and you could give me feedback on this because it also might be based on my behavior, it's based on what I click on. It's certainly topical. I watch creator economy, entrepreneurship, business marketing. I will get big creator, big Creator, big creator, and I will get small creator. And it might be under a thousand subs, under a hundred subs. View count might be only 50, 55, but I've seen view count three.
- [24:42]
Unknown Creator
Yeah.
- [24:43]
Renee Ritchie
Showing up in my feed. What's happening there and what is the insight for the opportunity for someone that wants to start a new YouTube channel this year?
- [24:49]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, I think, like, impression. Like, you want to get impressions and the way you get impressions in making videos, but, like, you have to. If we have an opportunity to put you in front of what we think is like the right fit viewer, that's a faster, better way for you to get those impressions and get data on that channel. So I think the more we can do to sort of surface those things again. We don't want to give people bad recommendations because then you don't click, you'll find something to watch. So you still want to be in the realm of what we think you're going to enjoy to watch, but we want to give those channels a chance to find their audience faster if we can.
- [25:18]
Renee Ritchie
So what's actually happening there? That's. It's usually me, if I'm showing topical interest. The algorithm works also off of personal viewer history and watch history and co watching.
- [25:28]
Unknown Creator
Like, what if people who've watched the things that you've watched have also watched, but you haven't?
- [25:31]
Renee Ritchie
Okay. And so that video is getting some kind of interaction and people that have preferences similar to Sean.
- [25:40]
Unknown Creator
Yeah.
- [25:41]
Renee Ritchie
Might also be interested. And this is how anybody can start a new channel and get discovered.
- [25:46]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, absolutely. And you see, like, one of the strategies people sometimes do is go after suggested traffic, which is making videos that would be a great video to watch after, like a very popular video or a very popular topic that's come up.
- [25:57]
Renee Ritchie
Yes, that's. That's a great strategy. Now, what were some of the biggest myths you hear about the algorithm?
- [26:02]
Unknown Creator
I think, like, the biggest one is always, like, the algorithm is out to punish me. Like, if I make, like, this video didn't get as many views or subscribers as I wanted it to, or if I take a break, YouTube is going to hate me. If I make one bad video, they're not going to show my video anymore. And it's the same thing as before. Like, YouTube wants everyone to succeed. There's no way to know what the next biggest video on the platform will be. And if we artificially limited any one video, it hurts everybody. Like, it's not in the advertiser's interest, the viewer's interest, the creator's interest. YouTube's interest. So we want to give every video its maximum potential. But, like, at the same time, you can't force people to watch videos. So as a creator, it's our job to give, like, to sort of like, sell ourselves because there's huge competition. Your thumbnail is going to appear there next to a Mr. Beast video or a Marques Brownlee video, or like any call her Daddy video, like any big creator. And if someone's scanning that page, you want them to see your thumbnail, you want to grab their attention, you want to make a topic that is interesting enough for them to click on. So I think, like, when you just blame the algorithm, you take away your creator power. And it's the creator power that lets everybody succeed. It's our ability to, like, just connect with and vibe with an audience.
- [27:04]
Renee Ritchie
What would you say to creators that feel like YouTube shadow bans channels?
- [27:10]
Unknown Creator
Yeah. So, like, again, like, you can go into your analytics and look like the vast majority of people who say that, when you ask them, they'll go in and they'll show, like, look at how many views I'm getting from. They're not getting them from subscribers, they're getting them from the algorithm, from the homepage. The vast amount of views happen from the homepage. And that's regardless if someone subscribes or not, they never have to subscribe to you. As long as they watch and engage your content, they're always where they're gonna keep getting your content on the homepage. I didn't want to say always because it's competitive and someone new could come on and serve that audience better than you. And you might have to adapt and change. But theoretically, as long as they keep watching you, they're going to keep seeing your content. And that's almost like a superpower.
- [27:45]
Renee Ritchie
So YouTube doesn't shadow ban channels?
- [27:47]
Unknown Creator
No. Like, there's like, some people will say, like, the shadow ban me, and it'll ask them what it is and they'll be like, it's age gated, and it's just because it's a mature topic. And if it's a mature topic, YouTube wants to be able to recommend things to a wide audience. Like if you're sitting with your kid in the living room on the homepage, want to make sure it's something that everyone there can watch. So there are videos that will trip things like age gating and stuff like that. Or there might be videos that get copyright claimed and removed. So there's a vast majority of things where people might say, hey, my video is not performing up to my expectations. But we have like community guidelines and we have ad friendly guidelines. We have all these things that you can go and look and see, you know what's happening and we'll almost always send you an email too.
- [28:24]
Renee Ritchie
I've heard that if you are somebody that's going to curse in your videos, you should not do it at the beginning.
- [28:30]
Unknown Creator
Yeah. So cursing is not like a one glove fits all thing. Like basically if you're going to drop an F bomb, wait six seconds. Like wait six or seven seconds. I think one of the things that's important to realize is advertisers have agency. Like YouTube works because it carefully balances viewer, creator and advertiser interest. And maybe like an advertiser doesn't want their ad to play and then immediately you drop an F bomb and there's like, doesn't really work for me.
- [28:52]
Renee Ritchie
Yeah.
- [28:52]
Unknown Creator
And the thing about YouTube is that it's still relatively new. Like if you were making a musical album, you might be told, hey, if you make an explicit version, you're not gonna get the same radio play. You have to choose about maybe making a clean version. If you want radio play, you don't have to take it. Or like a director, like you're making this movie, if you choose to make it R rated, you'll get half the opening box office that like a PG13 movie will make. You can make that choice. And I think it's the same like with YouTube. You can do anything you want. If you want ads, there's guidelines to follow. But you can do memberships, you can get sponsors. So if you really want to make something that you think is going to like affect. Get you a yellow icon, you can figure out alternative monetizations.
- [29:32]
Renee Ritchie
Yeah, that's a great insight. And picking and choosing. And there's plenty of creators. I think there's always examples with somebody or say a particular type of content's being shadow banned. A lot of times you'll find somebody else that's doing just fine with that content.
- [29:43]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, yeah, that's good too. And we have like some people who just don't like, they make the kind of videos that they don't feel comfortable putting ads on. But they have huge memberships.
- [29:50]
Renee Ritchie
Yeah.
- [29:51]
Unknown Creator
That just support them and that way they can, they can get direct support from their community and they can make these videos without them having to make like the ethical choice of do I want to put ads on? Like something that's, that's like problematic.
- [30:01]
Renee Ritchie
So let's talk about shorts versus long Form. And one of individuals biggest question is, so let's talk about shorts versus long form. And a lot of people wonder how do I actually get my shorts viewership transitioning over to long form? Yeah, A while back, YouTube created, I believe it's called related video.
- [30:19]
Unknown Creator
Yeah.
- [30:19]
Renee Ritchie
That connects to a short. So you can link a YouTube short with a clickable link to a long form video on your channel. But has anything else changed or is there any ways creators should be thinking about getting shorts viewership over to their long form YouTube videos?
- [30:34]
Unknown Creator
So I think it goes back to goals too. Like is all you want to do, drive to long form. Because there are some people who only watch shorts. So if you don't make shorts, they will just never know that you exist. So for some people, making shorts is more about brand awareness, general reach. It's why a lot of podcasts do clips or a lot of like big creators will like have a bunch of clips out because they just want to be better known. And they figure that like awareness of brand marketing basically is good for them. So some people just do that. There are other people who only watch certain topics and shorts, so maybe they'll watch 30, 60 seconds of dancing or food or cooking. They wouldn't watch 15 or 30 minutes of it. So again, it's like, do you care about that audience? And you may not, but if you do, like you want to maximize your reach, they're a good thing to do if you want to bring things over to your long form. The most important thing is people won't click through because you want them to. Same way they won't click your thumbnail because you want them to. You have to make them want to. And that's a subtle difference, but it's everything. So there are some creators who have incredible amounts of conversion rate, but they'll do things like similar to a thumbnail. It's about how you make the audience feel. And if the audience loves you, they're in the shorts feed, they're happy, they're swiping. It's a big deal for them to move. So you have to make it worth it. So you do a video, you give them the vibe that they love. Some people throw a thumbnail on top of the button, point at it and say, hey, if you want more of this, you want to see how this ends. Like I was watching an engineering video and it's like, this is how the solar sail works on the satellite. If you want to see how the whole satellite works, click here. And I'm like, I do want to know how it all works. So I click through, but they make me want to. And then as soon as you click through, they reward that the same way, like a great intro rewards the click on the thumbnail and de risks the experience because people can click out real fast. Like, if you don't reward that experience when they click through, make it a good thing for them, they might not stay. So you want to make sure you get their attention, same as the thumbnail. Get the click, same as the thumbnail. Reward it in the video, same as the thumbnail.
- [32:21]
Renee Ritchie
It does feel like to do shorts to long form. Well, my experience, it's been storytelling.
- [32:27]
Unknown Creator
Yeah.
- [32:27]
Renee Ritchie
It's a good short that story tells to open loop to the expanded story in a future video. And so that's architected, I would imagine, creators, you can maybe do it later. But if you think about it, like, as you're listening to this podcast. Okay, that's in our program, we talk about, like, Reverse Engineer, Always starting with the end in mind, because the more you're thinking about, okay, if this makes it all the way to shorts, what's the narrative, the packaging, title, thumbnail, what's the long form, what's the short form? What's the story arc? And then, of course, once you're in editing, or you could do some tweaks later, but the sooner you start with the end in mind, usually the better your results.
- [33:02]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, yeah. And it's a little careful balance. Because the short has to be standalone, too. Yes. Because it has to be a great experience. If it's not, people are going to feel like the short won't become popular, which means there won't be as many people to potentially click through. So you want to be able. Like in the loop theory, you want to be able to open and close the loop for the short, but open up a bigger loop. That can only be answered if they click through. And you want both those things sort of working like an ab plot.
- [33:23]
Renee Ritchie
Yeah, that's really good. The loop theory. Okay, as we land the plane, I do want to talk about tactics for what everybody wants, you know, more views and subscribers. But one of the frustrations that I hear a lot of people talking about is, oh, YouTube is saturated now.
- [33:40]
Unknown Creator
Yeah.
- [33:40]
Renee Ritchie
What would you say to the claim that YouTube's too saturated? It's not worth trying.
- [33:44]
Unknown Creator
I think, like, there's always opportunity. Like, you could have said, like, movies are saturated or television is saturated, but there's always, like, new. Like, there's always a new medical drama, always a new law drama, always a New. There's a new way to reinvent those things. I think that's the same thing on YouTube. Like, what makes you different? What makes you interesting? Like, if you're just going to copy what somebody else does, unless you can do it so significantly better that people will just rush to you, it's probably gonna be really hard. But if you can figure out what makes you uniquely your own, I think there's just unlimited possibilities. I think the discovery systems are way better now. I think you can learn from the experience of people like you. Like, when I started, I started in 2008, there was no one like you to learn from, so you had to make all your own mistakes. You had to reinvent the wheel over and over again. And now, yes, there's more competition, but there's also so much more information to learn from. So you get like a boost into that pie. And I think just start iterating and seeing what makes you you, and you'll stand out from a crowd.
- [34:35]
Renee Ritchie
Okay, so if you were to give. It's 20, 25, the landscape does change. Competition goes up, down. There's more opportunity. There's AI now, there's more tools, there's more education. There's also more competition. So you have to play the current environment. If you were coaching a friend that wanted to start and grow a YouTube channel, what would be kind of like your 1, 2, 3 for YouTube success?
- [35:00]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, so I would start by, like making 5 to 10 videos that are on the subject that you're passionate about. So you'll continue making them and try like a variety of different formats. Be a viewer. I think that the most valuable thing creator can do is be a viewer, go out on YouTube, see what interests you, see what's working, what formats. Like, there are formats like 1 to like 1 million and you can do 1 to 100. Like, that's like. Or like, I tried. There's a lot of formats.
- [35:22]
Renee Ritchie
Explain what you mean by what a format is.
- [35:23]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, so there are ways that people put together a video. It's almost like on television, there's like a procedural which is like two detectives investigating something, and every episode is like that. Right now, very popular on YouTube is like, I tried every hamburger. I tried every French fry. I tried every airplane. I tried it. Like, I tried every video game. It's like someone who has some expertise in that topic tries a variety of things and rates them. There's also like the one to a million or like one to a hundred, where somebody, again, who has some knowledge of the thing where it's just an exciting thing. Tries a variety of escalating versions of that thing from like super cheap to like really lux experience. And you like this versus that, like amateur versus professional. There's a variety of popular formats and you see those by like just looking at popular videos on YouTube. See if any of those relate to you. Like, don't copy them, but see what inspiration you can give. Like, there's talking head videos, explainers. I sit there and explain a topic that I'm an expert in. Find people who are doing that really well. Find a few of them, see what's similar to them and what's really resonating with you. Make like five to 10 videos, post those, see what's resonating like again, see what video's getting the most views, the best comments, lean into those, make videos that the person who just watched that video would love to watch, and then keep making those videos. Very few people blow up immediately. It's very rare. So take that time and like figure out every video. What I can learn from this video. Don't just post and move on. It's not just repetition, it's conscious repetition. Where I used to journal every video, I would write down the things I didn't like. I would pick one of them and I would iterate until I thought I got like diminishing returns. Then I'd pick the next thing. And you keep watching other people and see like, what are they doing? That's interesting. And you see how you can incorporate that. And then just keep iterating. If it stops, if it stops working, figure out what's wrong, go back, try again. Like working your way through a maze. If it is working, just keep doubling down on it and get better every day. Every video.
- [37:10]
Renee Ritchie
So step one, do five to 10 videos. Step two, see which of those five to 10 videos resonated the most. Comments, views, and then be consistent. Double down on that, but continue to iterate. Yes, I've noticed creators seem to get stuck. I have a lot of people that will come in our community and they'll say, one year ago, two years ago, my views were here and. And they've dropped. What's wrong? Yeah, what do you think? Without even knowing the specific situation, what's typically wrong?
- [37:42]
Unknown Creator
So there's like, there's three things that identify quickly. One is that a lot of people just go to analytics and they see the month view and they don't change it. So change that to three months. See if you had like a viral video. Because if you're only seeing the Tail end of that, your views are dropping. But really what happened is you had an outlier performance and your views have gone back to hopefully above normal, but pretty much normal. And you're taking that as a diploma. Also look at like three years and see if there's seasonality because it could be like when sports season start or stop when school starts or stops when the holidays start or stop. You always go down or up. And you can make plans to bulk record or take vacations around those times, but you won't think like, my views are just dropping. And then the third thing is go to the tab. You can either go to trends and look at YouTube trends, or you can go to the audience tab, look at what other videos and other channels your audience is watching. Because there could be new competition who are doing things in a fresh and interesting way. Like the audience never stops, so you can't stop either. It's not meant like in a grind way, it's meant like a creativity way. Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, but also doing the same thing over and over again, expecting the same results doesn't work either. So you have to keep asking yourself, what are other people doing? And don't copy them again. But like, think of like, how can I be even a step ahead of them?
- [38:50]
Renee Ritchie
That's the number one thing I notice is that the expectation that two years ago you were getting a certain result, you're still doing the same thing today and you're still expecting your views to be that. You gotta reinvent yourself. You gotta stay on that cutting edge. Well, I do have one final question.
- [39:04]
Unknown Creator
I'll just kinda add, like, that's not a YouTube thing. Like it's very like bands to get multiple hit albums, to have multiple seasons of a hit tv, like most TV shows start pattering out after a few seasons. Movie franchises, like, it's hard to keep reinventing yourself. And sometimes you have that dip, which is what forces you to do the reinvention.
- [39:19]
Renee Ritchie
It's rare for a musician. There's lots of one hit wonders.
- [39:22]
Unknown Creator
Yes.
- [39:22]
Renee Ritchie
Or they have one hit album, they maybe have a sophomore that does all right. But those that reinvent themselves over five decades, multiple decades, and continue to find relevance and perhaps actually drift into maybe not obscurity, but just core fan base. Yeah, the majority feel like they disappeared for a while, but they survive, they maintain core fan base, but then they might come back. And if they can recreate multiple arcs of success, it comes back to this idea of reinvention. Staying creative. I do want to talk about probably some inside YouTube tools and analytic tools at the end on our final kind of section. But if anybody wants to follow you, connect with you, where can they follow you? We'll link it up in the show notes.
- [40:03]
Unknown Creator
TubeInsider on all the social platforms and YouTubeInsider, that's you.
- [40:07]
Renee Ritchie
And then the YouTube channel people should be Creator Insider.
- [40:11]
Unknown Creator
We have creator insider and YouTube insider and YouTube creators. It's not confusing at all.
- [40:14]
Renee Ritchie
There's three different channels.
- [40:15]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, yeah. Mostly my videos are on Creator Insider or YouTube Insider.
- [40:19]
Renee Ritchie
Why is there three channels?
- [40:20]
Unknown Creator
It depends on the audience. Like Creator Insider is really run by the product team and they want to give you all the updates on product. But with YouTube Insider I want to go a little bit more into content strategy.
- [40:28]
Renee Ritchie
Okay, awesome. So we'll have a full stack in the show notes. And also if you got value out of this episode, if you want to head to the YouTube version and you're not on the YouTube version, leave us a comment. Leave us a question because Renee and I connect every three to six months and would love to answer your questions about algorithm, about YouTube and then also if you got value today like rate, share, review wherever you watch or listen. I actually do want to unpack. In the back end of YouTube you mentioned one feature. Similar audiences watch channels, similar audiences watch videos. And I want to talk about the research feature which is now called inspiration.
- [41:05]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, I think we have both now because like research will give you more search based and inspiration will give you more AI based.
- [41:10]
Renee Ritchie
Okay, so let's break it down. So these are some powerful tools on the back end of YouTube that any creator can use to get more views. One is similar audience watched in regards to channel and videos. How should creators be using this?
- [41:21]
Unknown Creator
I think it's a way to see if there are any blind spots because you might have a bunch of ideas. But your audience is also watching these other videos and maybe they're a topic you haven't done before. And again you put your own spin on it. But it's just an opportunity. Might be the packaging that seems attractive to you. You always think we know stuff, but the best way to actually know something is to keep testing it. Like keep holding yourself honest, you know, because like, maybe your thumbnails have gone stale, maybe you've missed something big and like that your audience really enjoys. And that's a great way to see what they're actually clicking on and watching.
- [41:51]
Renee Ritchie
So these are free tools. It's just right in your analytics. The key is to go in now, do you know how big your channel needs to be to even get these metrics?
- [41:59]
Unknown Creator
It varies because it depends. Like, so you can have like smaller subscribers but more views. More views. So it just like it needs a certain amount of data and then it starts showing you those things.
- [42:07]
Renee Ritchie
So if you're a brand new channel, you might not be seeing this feature, but if your channel's established, you could go into your YouTube studio. What's powerful here is what would you recommend? Set aside some time on your calendar to go look at it and expose yourself to other channels your audience is watching. That's gonna give you a lot of insight.
- [42:25]
Unknown Creator
Yeah.
- [42:25]
Renee Ritchie
But also to look at the videos and the channels, like you said. What are they doing? What are their topics, how's their storytelling, editing, how's their thumbnails? You could do a surface level look into this. But if you actually take some time to analyze, like what would you do if you were to set aside, make a cup of coffee, set aside a few hours on a Saturday and really do like a methodical research process, what would you do?
- [42:47]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, so the first thing I do is I try to watch YouTube. Not like what I like, but just like YouTube is a job. Like I go in there and I spend an hour. I try to do that every day. Some days it's hard and just see what's popular on YouTube and it doesn't mean like the biggest creators, but there's all sorts of like really interesting trends. Like there was cozy comfort where people were watching, like long form leatherworking and woodworking and camping and just I want to see what's interesting on YouTube because there's maybe something I can learn and apply to myself, maybe not. But like I want to see what's successful because there's different genres, there's different ways creators are doing it. What's like Ryan Trahan doing? That's really interesting to me as a tech YouTuber for example. Then I also try to look at what you were talking about. Like look at, see what other videos people are making, what blind spots I might be like, might be having. One way to think about it is it's not going to be great, it's going to spark ideas. But one of the worst things for a creator is the blank page. I have no idea what to do. I don't know what title to use, I know what thumbnail to use. So if you go into research, you can see what queries are people asking that are similar to what's on my channel, but nobody's really serving them yet. Maybe it's not a great opportunity for me. It would sometimes be, oh, there's not enough content about the 5 year old iPhone. And I'd be like, well, I won't make that video. I totally understand that it's a search gap. It's not for me. But, oh, maybe I could do like, is it the right time to upgrade? So like it sparks those ideas. The research tab is similar. Like you can start going through there and exploring, like, what videos could I make? Like, I'm a travel creator, I've done these. What's another place I could go to? And maybe it gives you three or four ideas. Maybe one of them like vibes with you. Maybe none of them do. But you're like, oh, that's not a right fit. But I just realized if I went to the like the next country over, that would be great. So a lot of it is just meant to be sort of like your jamming partner that you can just go back and forth with because not everybody has like, you know, like you on speed dial. But they can go in there and get like a bunch of information to be more, more or less helpful to them.
- [44:32]
Renee Ritchie
So then to be clear, you have. These are free tools as well that YouTube has added. Research has been there for a while that's kind of SEO, keyword based.
- [44:39]
Unknown Creator
Yeah.
- [44:40]
Renee Ritchie
Search terms, topics, trending things. Inspiration's newer.
- [44:44]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, Inspiration is basically understanding like the data that YouTube has and being able to sort of have a conversation with it. So it'll recommend titles for you, it'll recommend thumbnails. It'll do like if you want it to draft up like a script for you, it'll give you like bullet points for a script. And again, probably not great, but probably a starting point. If you're looking at a blank page, you're like, oh, now I know what I want to do with my thoughts.
- [45:07]
Renee Ritchie
I've also seen it has a view predictor that says likely to get a lot of views on your channel, kind of like a high, medium or low. And so you can sort of validate the idea before you invest energy into it.
- [45:18]
Unknown Creator
Yeah. And again like maybe your gut's telling you something different, but it'll give you like a good shot on what to invest in. And maybe sometimes like again, goals, the smaller audience is super important and you know they're gonna convert better. So like I'm not, I don't wanna make this big thing gets a lot of views. I wanna make this small thing that sells a lot of product. So like you can, you can balance all those interests off each other.
- [45:37]
Renee Ritchie
Yeah. So these are some cool tools. To be clear. Go into your YouTube analytics. You've got similar. Your audience also watches these channels. Your audience also watches these videos. You've got the research tool and the inspiration tool. And this is a good reminder for every listener to update your YouTube app and to make sure you've downloaded the YouTube Studio app or updated it because there's always new features and some of those it's a little bit different on desktop. Sometimes there's more nuance on desktop in terms of how those tools work.
- [46:04]
Unknown Creator
Advanced analytics.
- [46:05]
Renee Ritchie
Advanced analytics is on desktop, but on the app is the inspiration tab as well.
- [46:09]
Unknown Creator
Yeah.
- [46:09]
Renee Ritchie
And I've noticed the experiences sometimes different. Actually seems the inspiration tab on my YouTube Studio app kind of leans shorts versus the desktop version of the inspiration app.
- [46:20]
Unknown Creator
Yeah, I think it's trying to meet work creators where they are. And like a lot of shorts creators are mobile first, sometimes even main app first. They don't even look at studio totally. So we want to make sure the tools are where the creators who use them most are most going to find them. At least at first. We want to eventually get everything to parody, but there's always like trade offs to be made.
- [46:35]
Renee Ritchie
Well, Rene, thank you for adding so much value to our podcast and our community and think media podcast like rate, share, review wherever you watch or listen. Name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel. And I can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.