YouTube Formula?

Cinnamon Sweet Shoppe said:
Likeability and charisma. I watch videos from a guy who makes over hour long videos which he calls his Weekend Vlogs. He pretty much films himself at his house and parents house doing nothing but eating, gaming, and some tech talk. Sounds boring but he has a lot of personality and is very likeable and his videos get thousands of views within the first 24 hours they are released.
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My boyfriend subscribed to this guy whose videos are about him going camping and he loved watching it. The videos are at least 20 mins long too!
 
forever4 said:
My boyfriend subscribed to this guy whose videos are about him going camping and he loved watching it. The videos are at least 20 mins long too!
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Is it David DiFranco's vlog? Because that's who I'm talking about and he does have some camping videos. Most of his weekend vlog videos are over an hour long.
 
You need quality for the luck to work if you feel me? You need the luck to go viral, but unless the video isn't quality, then the video isn't going to bring the right attention.
 
It's like the dawn of cinema - the early trick films of Melies. There were hundreds of short, nonsensical, films being produced at an alarming rate and audiences went wild for them. However, there were many others that didn't get the same sort of momentum. I've always though that YouTube is the 21st century equivalent.

I think luck must factor into it, as there's always a chance the stars will align and your channel could take off. On the other hand, success on YT can be defined by views and fanbases. A dedicated fanbase against less than 5,000 views per video speaks a lot more than the other way round. I think its an uphill climb but worth trying at.
 
YouTube is a computer program. It's just a robot - a mathematical algorithm that looks at how engaging content is and promotes the more engaging content over the less engaging content. The only way to consistently be successful on YouTube is to produce great content. Someone might get "lucky" in the sense that they happen to film some great content but the algorithm can not be fooled or tricked and it does not play favorites. It has nothing to do with luck. It's just math. Attempting to fool or trick the algorithm will lower your score and make it less likely to promote you. Make good content and write accurate descriptions and tags. That's all you have to do. The algorithm re-calibrates every 24 hours and does a major recalibration every 30 days so even if you get "lucky" by getting a shoutout or something you will be getting almost zero residual traffic from that shout out after 30 days if your video is less engaging than other videos with similar content. That's why it's a total waste of time to promote your videos. Make great content so the algorithm promotes it for you. If you look at a video that's got great content in a popular category like gaming it can get 30-50 thousand views a day. None of it from subs, none of it from "social media". All of it from the YouTube robot suggesting it to people and displaying it in search. "Social Media" accounts for less than 10% of the YouTube weighted scorecard (the type of algorithm they use). Unless you get over 100 facebook shares, tweets, ect - the algorithm doesn't even take it into account.

The only thing the algorithm really cares about is audience retention. Over simplifying the explanation to illustrate a point - if I make a sixty second video on "How to cook a rabbit" and the average person watches it for 49 seconds and you make a sixty second video on "How to cook a rabbit" and the average person watches it for 50 seconds YouTube will promote your video over mine every time. You'll end up with millions of views and I'll end up with none. You've got to focus on audience retention. I look at my "relative audience retention" in analytics every day. You have to see that chart above the average line they show. If you do that wether a video is 10 seconds long or 10 hours long, wether it's on a popular video game or a local news story, YouTube will always be promoting it over other videos that are below average audience retention.
 
Matt Beck said:
Helllo fellow YTtalkers!

What is the main formula to being successful on YouTube?
Is it luck?
Is it quality?

Let me know your thoughts down below!
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What do you consider successful? A lot of people consider my channel successful but I don't.
I consider success to be a certain level of daily views. No other factor matters to me. 250k daily views to me would be pretty successful.

In my case there is no luck.
I've purposefully chosen quantity over quality. if you look at the vast majority of channels who get a lot of daily views they have produced hundreds if not thousands of videos. In order to produce that many videos you typically need to focus on quantity over quality.

However, you must have a certain level of quality. Your vids have to be good enough. I know how crappy a video I can make and still get views. I stay at or slightly above that level and focus on producing as many videos as possible. Or I focus on increasing my quality with the minimal amount of effort or time while still keeping quantity the most important factor. To reach that 'successful' milestone to me of 250k daily views I know I need to produce and upload many hundred more videos.[DOUBLEPOST=1434090636,1434090282][/DOUBLEPOST]
YouTuber1978 said:
YouTube is a computer program. It's just a robot - a mathematical algorithm that looks at how engaging content is and promotes the more engaging content over the less engaging content. The only way to consistently be successful on YouTube is to produce great content. Someone might get "lucky" in the sense that they happen to film some great content but the algorithm can not be fooled or tricked and it does not play favorites. It has nothing to do with luck. It's just math. Attempting to fool or trick the algorithm will lower your score and make it less likely to promote you. Make good content and write accurate descriptions and tags. That's all you have to do. The algorithm re-calibrates every 24 hours and does a major recalibration every 30 days so even if you get "lucky" by getting a shoutout or something you will be getting almost zero residual traffic from that shout out after 30 days if your video is less engaging than other videos with similar content. That's why it's a total waste of time to promote your videos. Make great content so the algorithm promotes it for you. If you look at a video that's got great content in a popular category like gaming it can get 30-50 thousand views a day. None of it from subs, none of it from "social media". All of it from the YouTube robot suggesting it to people and displaying it in search. "Social Media" accounts for less than 10% of the YouTube weighted scorecard (the type of algorithm they use). Unless you get over 100 facebook shares, tweets, ect - the algorithm doesn't even take it into account.

The only thing the algorithm really cares about is audience retention. Over simplifying the explanation to illustrate a point - if I make a sixty second video on "How to cook a rabbit" and the average person watches it for 49 seconds and you make a sixty second video on "How to cook a rabbit" and the average person watches it for 50 seconds YouTube will promote your video over mine every time. You'll end up with millions of views and I'll end up with none. You've got to focus on audience retention. I look at my "relative audience retention" in analytics every day. You have to see that chart above the average line they show. If you do that wether a video is 10 seconds long or 10 hours long, wether it's on a popular video game or a local news story, YouTube will always be promoting it over other videos that are below average audience retention.
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This is pretty much it. I tell people I play youtube like they play world of warcraft. Youtube IS a video game to me. I spend all my extra time researching SEO and the latest youtube updates. I've watched every video uploaded by all the youtube guru's. I listen to my friends who have successful channels. I do what they do and do what all the gurus say. and bam my channel takes off too. makes perfect sense to me.[DOUBLEPOST=1434090753][/DOUBLEPOST]
TrainerLight said:
Formula to success on YouTube (or anywhere):
- Hard Work
- Quality Work
- Persistency
- Love what you do

- Don't give up.
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I honestly think that understanding the youtube algorithms and playing youtube like it's a video game is the number one factor. And that's what noobs who think about 'luck' can't wrap their heads around.
 
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