How to increase chance of being in related video of popular channel

[KiddieToysReview]

What are some of the things we can do to maximize the chances that our video will be suggested as a related video on a bigger and more popular channel?

Let's take it as given in this scenario that our videos are good quality, all meta-data filled in correctly, good thumbnails, etc, etc. Let's take regular uploads as a given requirement and some active subs as well.

What are some other specific strategies that can be used to maximize the chances?

Let's have an example:

Very popular kids channel, lets' say Ryan or DCTC, has 5 science experiment videos for kids (like lava lamps, soda and vinegar, etc).

We have filmed 7 science experiments along the same lines. All meta-data filled in, description fully maxed out at 5000 characters with all relevant and long tails, title has all the keywords. Thumbnails are bright, vibrant, happy, etc. Video is tight with all the fat trimmed off.

We put it up. Our subscribers are nice and we get a 10% view rate, so about 100 views in the first day. Engagement is good at about 35-40%. We continue to put all 7 up over the next week.

Youtube algorithm scans all our 7 videos meta-data and takes in the initial analytics. It already has the other popular channel's data in its database, including all other toy channels and other channels that do science experiments (let's say there are several thousands).
The algorithm then does a meta-data match to see which of the other channels videos our meta-data matches the closest (since YT can't analyze the visual content).
It puts our 7 videos in a queue of other science experiment videos from all other toy channels that also may be featured on this popular channel's videos. It's a big stack of thousand of videos. Those the algorithm judges more relevant (based on channel type, authority, meta-data) rise to the top of the stack.
The algorithm continually looks at analytics (since the meta-data is now fixed) to see how our 7 videos stack up against all other channel's videos, and allocates a related video slot in the popular channel to whichever of the thousands of science videos is getting the best retention, views, etc.
The algorithm leave the video there for awhile and checks analytics to see how it is performing in terms of view count and retention. If it's not good, it drops it off the stack and allocates another video.

Some ideas

Running through this analysis, I think the following would be some of the factors to maximize chances of getting featured as a related video:

• develop authority in the category by having several videos.
• make many videos in the category to increase chance of one of those rising to the top of the stack.
• match with variations all meta-data (not verbatim copy though) not only with the target channel but other channels in the specific video category - make your video as meta-data perfect as possible for what it is about.
• Try to get more views for that video, as the higher the views, the more popular it is (assuming retention stays the same)
• Pray, hope, sleep-on-it...

Any other ideas?
Thanks!!

 

[Political Junkie News]

Another little trick is to check the statistics tab under the video you would like to be suggested from.
By looking here and examining the videos daily views/growth, you can see if the video still has momentum.
By targeting a video that is still accelerating in daily views, you can be assured that YouTube is still looking for more relevant content to feed to viewers.

I heard this trick just a week ago or so, but it sounded like a solid plan.

The guy also mentioned that in his experience, specifically aiming to 'leech' off a popular video is only successful like 1/30 times, so it can be hit or miss.
But when it does catch, it is of course worth all the effort
Good luck. Bring us results if you get them.

 

[KiddieToysReview]

Another little trick is to check the statistics tab under the video you would like to be suggested from.
By looking here and examining the videos daily views/growth, you can see if the video still has momentum.

Is that the statistics tab in TubeBuddy or someplace else? I can't see any place to find acceleration/deceleration for specific videos?

With respect to the 1/30 success rate, I think that makes sense as popular videos would be targeted by those wanting to be featured on them. The queue would be very long. The more videos you have, the more places in the queue you could occupy perhaps?
Thanks!

 

[FamilyToyReview]

Hey how did your adwords test go by the way. Were you able to gain any earned views or subsribers?

the suggested videos are a bit more complicated. If you open a bunch of videos and look at the suggested, youll notice the first video could possibly be yours, and then the next 5? are videos from a top youtuber with possibly similar content or not. And then after that are some other videos with usually similar content to whatever is in your description.

If you read around there are posts confirming that the top section is usually reserved for big channels. Although not all the time. And sometimes the suggested videos are not like i mentioned above and i have no idea why there are videos in there.

For example for some of my videos ive seen that my other videos occupy the top section and im not a big channel. I only did my research once though, and it was not super in depth. So i didnt follow up day by day to see if my suggested changed. This woukd have been important to do though because i have noticed randomly that the suggested videos do change. Especially after you upload a new video. For new videos, the videos in there are different from when you check back maybe a week or two later.

Anyways because the top section is usually reserved for big guys, so i think its pretty tough to get into any of their suggested videos because theres so many other channels making the same video keywords who have higher ranking. So i wouldnt hope for this too much because its hard.

But.. There is a way.. Its happened to me. And its very short lived. But maybe you can make it happen enough times to matter. I was on the receiving end of a ryanstoyreview video for a few hours maybe half a day. When anyone uploads their video, youtube uses different sorting rules in suggested. I think fresh videos are first sorted by content and tags like i think they should be and not by channel popularity. So the top section is not reserved for big guys. Or maybe the uploader first uploaded video and made it public before refining their tags and description? I dunno. But theres a window where the suggested video section is more democratic and you have the chance to have one of your videos show up in there. Probably if the two videos happen to share content that isnt too saturated. Like the combination of keywords match. I think it was my paw patrol colors video or dinotrux pie face whipped cream.

I dont know how long that window is. I only experienced a few hours on a big toy channel. On the other hand ive seen my new videos take a week or two to change its suggested. And ive been on the suggested for a popular video on a small channel. And my video was before any of the big channels.

So i dunno, the rules for suggested are not always uniform. Which is why i also think that perhaps the suggested will also resort based on what other videos the viewers might have watched. Ive seen a popular dinotrux video drop most of the other dinotrux videos in the suggested section(even from big channels) and replace them with some peppa pig and kid nursery rhymes videos. It was very peculiar.

Anyways i agree with all your ideas above especially about making more videos of similar content so youve got a bigger catalog that might be relevant to some other channel at least momentarily.

 

[KiddieToysReview]

Hey how did your adwords test go by the way. Were you able to gain any earned views or subsribers?

Yep, 40 earned views and 1 sub. Not much! I opened another thread on that as I would like input from everyone on how to improve it and lower the CPV.

When you look at suggested videos, are you doing it from a browser with cache cleared and logged out of your YT account? Do you also need to logout of all Google services, otherwise it pulls in your previous browsing history. That's why I am never sure when I look at suggested videos, is it tailored to me, my IP address, my country and city, and how to get an absolute suggested video list, if that makes sense. Could explain the variations in what is seen.

Based on what you said, it may be prudent to target the second tier channels. So for us with 1000-1500 subs, it may be wise to target channels with 100k-250k subs and their related video spots. There may be a greater chance for us smaller channels to get featured, or alternatively, YT may still promote bigger channels on the smaller ones to get people to watch a sure thing as opposed to take a risk on a 1k sub channel and have the viewer leave in disgust to - god forbid - Facebook videos.

Interesting point about new videos. I can see the algorithm giving someone a chance for a few hours once in a while, make it big sort of thing, go viral. If it doesn't catch on fire in that time, take it off the list. Now, how to think of ways to capitalize on that? Let's say big channel X does a "Thomas and Friends Hide and Seek Around the House" video. It gets posted at 12pm. You see it in your feed. You dig through the large plastic container of Thomas toys scattered around your house, pick relevant toys, and do a similar video. Takes 30 minutes. An hour of processing, 2-3 hours rendering and 2-3 upload. By 6pm you have a very similar video. You enhance their meta-data and description, similar and good thumbnail, and post it up. You have from 6pm-9pm to be featured on big channel X according to the algorithm recognizing the relevance and giving you a chance. Kids watch their video, then click to your one as it's similar. Might work!! Have to be agile and think fast, but it might work.

 

[McCoob]

I checked my channel once. It appeared on literally every (ok, almost every) page of the channel similar to mine. I think that it's because my videos became popular and are top #1 for many keywords (so Youtube stared to like me).

 

[Political Junkie News]

Is that the statistics tab in TubeBuddy or someplace else? I can't see any place to find acceleration/deceleration for specific videos?

With respect to the 1/30 success rate, I think that makes sense as popular videos would be targeted by those wanting to be featured on them. The queue would be very long. The more videos you have, the more places in the queue you could occupy perhaps?
Thanks!

It's under 'More' and 'statistics' above the description. The 'more' tab is always there, with or without tubebuddy. But maybe the 'statistics' portion is tube buddy related. I'm not sure.
http://imgur.com/8EPp8fz look here for screenshot of what I mean

 

[FamilyToyReview]

Yep, 40 earned views and 1 sub. Not much! I opened another thread on that as I would like input from everyone on how to improve it and lower the CPV.

When you look at suggested videos, are you doing it from a browser with cache cleared and logged out of your YT account? Do you also need to logout of all Google services, otherwise it pulls in your previous browsing history. That's why I am never sure when I look at suggested videos, is it tailored to me, my IP address, my country and city, and how to get an absolute suggested video list, if that makes sense. Could explain the variations in what is seen.

Based on what you said, it may be prudent to target the second tier channels. So for us with 1000-1500 subs, it may be wise to target channels with 100k-250k subs and their related video spots. There may be a greater chance for us smaller channels to get featured, or alternatively, YT may still promote bigger channels on the smaller ones to get people to watch a sure thing as opposed to take a risk on a 1k sub channel and have the viewer leave in disgust to - god forbid - Facebook videos.

Interesting point about new videos. I can see the algorithm giving someone a chance for a few hours once in a while, make it big sort of thing, go viral. If it doesn't catch on fire in that time, take it off the list. Now, how to think of ways to capitalize on that? Let's say big channel X does a "Thomas and Friends Hide and Seek Around the House" video. It gets posted at 12pm. You see it in your feed. You dig through the large plastic container of Thomas toys scattered around your house, pick relevant toys, and do a similar video. Takes 30 minutes. An hour of processing, 2-3 hours rendering and 2-3 upload. By 6pm you have a very similar video. You enhance their meta-data and description, similar and good thumbnail, and post it up. You have from 6pm-9pm to be featured on big channel X according to the algorithm recognizing the relevance and giving you a chance. Kids watch their video, then click to your one as it's similar. Might work!! Have to be agile and think fast, but it might work.

I did that twice and honestly it was a little crazy. I realized i couldnt do that too much. And both times i had to neglect family and do my thing for a few hours. But thats because i tried to make it an intersting video. But again its a little crazy.
So instead of that im just trying to diversify into other more popular stuff and create more videos on each toy that a big channel might do and maybe somedays ill get lucky.and show up in their list or not.

About browser thats tricky too. I havent tried all the possible methods. But i have a few browsers installed and i usually open one in incognito mode or private tab. And i do not log in to any google account. Maybe i set thr browser to delete cache and stuff too, not sure but thsts usually good enough. For sure it removes all the "recommended" videos from the suggested. But The stuff i posted earlier had to do with suggested before any recommended videos.

Anyways the tricky thing about the browser is that i think most people use the app instead. Youtube app on the ipad. And the app displays a little differently. Also a lot of kids use the kids yt app and that looks diff too. Like i think the apps mostly show the top 10 videos of suggested or somethjng and not all 20 ( these numbers are estimates)

 

[KiddieToysReview]

It's under 'More' and 'statistics' above the description. The 'more' tab is always there, with or without tubebuddy. But maybe the 'statistics' portion is tube buddy related. I'm not sure.
look here for screenshot of what I mean

Thank you I found it! I never knew that data was there! There you go, 3 months on YT and not knowing vital information. :-([DOUBLEPOST=1458508016,1458506097][/DOUBLEPOST]

I did that twice and honestly it was a little crazy. I realized i couldnt do that too much. And both times i had to neglect family and do my thing for a few hours. But thats because i tried to make it an intersting video. But again its a little crazy.
So instead of that im just trying to diversify into other more popular stuff and create more videos on each toy that a big channel might do and maybe somedays ill get lucky.and show up in their list or not.

Yes definitely it's not a sustainable strategy, with wife, kids and all the other things going on. I am doing your second point, foccusing on 6-8 core areas at the moment and building video inventory in those to I guess get authority with the search algorithm in that area and I guess hope to be featured on bigger channels as a recommended.

About browser thats tricky too. I havent tried all the possible methods. But i have a few browsers installed and i usually open one in incognito mode or private tab. And i do not log in to any google account. Maybe i set thr browser to delete cache and stuff too, not sure but thsts usually good enough. For sure it removes all the "recommended" videos from the suggested. But The stuff i posted earlier had to do with suggested before any recommended videos.

Anyways the tricky thing about the browser is that i think most people use the app instead. Youtube app on the ipad. And the app displays a little differently. Also a lot of kids use the kids yt app and that looks diff too. Like i think the apps mostly show the top 10 videos of suggested or somethjng and not all 20 ( these numbers are estimates)

Hmmm have to try to get an old ipad and play with this, we only have android devices at home, except the wife, she's into iphone.

 

[Irahs]

Another little trick is to check the statistics tab under the video you would like to be suggested from.
By looking here and examining the videos daily views/growth, you can see if the video still has momentum.
By targeting a video that is still accelerating in daily views, you can be assured that YouTube is still looking for more relevant content to feed to viewers.

I heard this trick just a week ago or so, but it sounded like a solid plan.

The guy also mentioned that in his experience, specifically aiming to 'leech' off a popular video is only successful like 1/30 times, so it can be hit or miss.
But when it does catch, it is of course worth all the effort
Good luck. Bring us results if you get them.

very good tip, thanks so much for this!