Do THIS to Grow on YouTube

Unknown hacks to grow your subscribers and views on YouTube.

Introduction

Hello there, My name is Kris and I use to maintain a YouTube channel with over 900,000 subscribers. I’ve also taught video courses on social media growth on both Udemy and Skillshare teaching my decade of experience to over 15,000 students, having one goal in mind; to help people grow on social media.

Before we begin, there is one important thing you need to know. The way in which YouTube spreads content on their platform is done through an algorithm. What this means is that there is a bunch of statistics that YouTube uses to decide which content it wants to promote and to who it wants to promote it to. Unfortunately, YouTube is pretty quiet when it comes to sharing these secrets but there are a few important things that we do know about it;

Focus on Minutes Watched

YouTube favors minutes watched. Say for instance, you release a 10 minute long video and your viewers sit through about 9 minutes of that video. That means that your viewers watched a whopping 90% of that video. This statistic is pretty impressive in the eyes of YouTube, it now knows that this video is watchable and they have proof of that. The longer the person watches, the more advertisements that YouTube can show that person, so it’s essentially how YouTube makes money on their platform.

But there is more to making a lengthy video, you must make it engaging or people will fall off and essentially turn off the channel. If you retain your viewers through a high percentage of your video, YouTube will reward you. It’s your job to get people to not click on another video but instead watch the entirety of yours. Doing some quick math, if for instance 2,000 people watched 90% of your 10 minute video that equates to ~18,000 minutes watched, now you can see the value in this stat. Now lets do some other math, say for instance if 6,000 people watched 3 minutes of a 4 minute long video that would equate ~18,000 minutes watched. So essentially a video with 66% less views equals out to the same amount of minutes watched. Pretty crazy, right?

Be Consistent with Your Uploads

Next up in importance: consistency. You need to have a regular upload schedule. If you go weeks or months without uploading, YouTube will assume that your channel is inactive. You must post content regularly in order for YouTube to find value in your channel. If they see that you upload weekly, or daily even, it will add a nice little boost to your overall views. There is a crux to this though, you can upload too much. If you post 2–3 videos a day, YouTube can essentially put your videos in something equivalent to a spam folder.

There is a nice healthy balance between these two extremes, posting 2–3 times a week is what I would suggest. Daily could work but you risk burnout on your end, posting everyday is exhausting and can cause you to turn your daily upload schedule into a weekly one if you tire yourself out.

Work on Your Clickbait Game

Lastly, lets talk clickbait. It’s a loathsome aspect of content consumption on the internet but let’s be real for a minute, it does work. YouTube is no exception, in fact it may be the most useful on YouTube as it gives your videos a way to stand out from the crowd. When we talk clickbait on YouTube we’re mainly talking about thumbnails and titles. You want to make thumbnails that draw people into clicking or ‘bait’ them into doing so. Try different things and experiment on your content to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Arrows, circles, bright colors/borders, all work to make your thumbnails stick out. Try not to exaggerate too much as people who click on your content only to find the thumbnail misleading will quickly downvote your video and move on.

Titles such as “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED!” or “WATCH THIS VIDEO AND IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE” are obviously a bit dramatic but that is what works on YouTube nowadays. Again, sticking to what we talked about previously, try not to mislead as it threatens the trust you’ve built with your audience. All caps are all the rage in todays YouTube, try it out, see if it works better for your content, if not adjust and try again.

There is a fine line to walk with clickbait, do not deceive your potential viewers, you’re making a first impression so try not to tarnish it. Be truthful while also putting forth something enticing, a challenge for sure but practice does make perfect.

In conclusion

With YouTube, you need to be fluid. Adjust your content and channel based on algorithm changes. Now it’s minutes watched but back when I started on the platform it was more view based. Meaning, views were the end all, be all, and the more views you got on the content, the more YouTube would push it out. While views do play some part in the modern day YouTube algorithm, the above outweigh them 10 times over. Try to stay trendy while also staying true to yourself, you don’t want to find yourself making content you’re not interested in. It’s also important to note, these are things that I myself (and many others) have found beneficial to focus on.

One final note, while the above are definitely important, the most important variable to being successful on YouTube is quality content. Sure you can get people to click on your videos using the above methods, but if you’re providing a lackluster content viewing experience, people will go elsewhere. Making quality content should be priority one. Once you’re satisfied with the quality of your content then you can fine tune your overall discoverability.

Thanks for checking out my scribblings! If you enjoyed my content, why don’t ya hang around for a while? You can support me and my Medium journey by signing up for a premium membership here or by interacting with this article.