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If you’ve poked your head into your YouTube analytics, then you know that it can be an overwhelming place to spend your time. On top of that, you’ve got a bunch of YouTube experts telling you what matters the most to YouTube. Maybe you’ve heard that all YouTube cares about is watch time, or maybe you’ve heard that you need to get more people like & subscribe from your video in order to grow faster, OR maybe you’ve even heard that your title & thumbnail make or break your channel so ALL you need to pay attention to is your impressions click-through rate to grow more. So, let’s help you narrow down what metrics you can totally disregard (and what to pay attention to instead), despite what the rumors may say.
CHAPTERS
0:00 | Welcome to the Podcast!
0:48 | Intro — meet D’Laina
4:14 | Creator Spotlight
19:16 | Why speaking to one is more effective than to everyone
21:13 | Metrics you shouldn’t glorify
23:29 | Metric 1: Watch time
29:36 | What to look at instead of JUST watch time
32:52 | Metric 2: When your viewers are on YouTube
35:42 | What to do instead
36:28 | Metric 3: Your video’s overall performance
45:16 | What we’ve seen & what we recommend focusing on instead
48:59 |Power Tip ⚡️
CREATOR SPOTLIGHT
Jessica’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JessicaFreeman818
Book a 1 hour video call with us: https://videocreators.com/consulting/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=popular_youtube_metrics&utm_campaign=description_text
Video D’Laina mentions about thumbnails & clickbait: https://youtu.be/S2xHZPH5Sng
POWER TIP
Using the Trim tool to improve your audience retention after posting the video.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9057455?hl=en&ref_topic=9257785
LOVE VIDEO CREATORS AND WANT TO GROW ON YOUTUBE? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS!
1) SUBSCRIBE to learn how to grow your YouTube channel!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcB3bcWy0_QK7uPQvTD0LwQ?sub_confirmation=1
2) FREE GUIDE: "The Secret to Building your YouTube Audience"
3) BECOME A MEMBER: Access special community perks on our channel and support our trainings by clicking that Join button! Or, click here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcB3bcWy0_QK7uPQvTD0LwQ/join
4) LET’S CONNECT!
— https://www.facebook.com/videocreators
— https:// twitter.com/timschmoyer
— https://instagram.com/timschmoyer
— https://instagram.com/videocreators
5) SUBSCRIBE TO THE VIDEO CREATORS PODCAST
— iTunes: http://go.vcreators.co/vcTViTunes
— Soundcloud: http://go.vcreators.co/vcTVSoundCloud
— Stitcher: http://go.vcreators.co/vcTVStitcher
— Google Play: http://go.vcreators.co/vcTVGooglePlay
— Spotify: https://go.vcreators.co/vcTVSpotify
6) LET’S REVIEW YOUR CHANNEL: Book a private one-on-one YouTube channel consultation with Tim or someone on his team: https://videocreators.com/youtube-certified-consultant/
=================== text video ====================
[Music]
welcome to the video creators podcast we
help youtube creators grow their
audience and business with next level
tactics and strategies want to
accelerate your channel’s momentum be
more profitable and change the lives of
more people than ever before you’re in
the right place the video creators team
has over a decade of experience
providing youtube strategy for brands
like disney warner brothers hbo and even
youtube themselves so far our team is
responsible for helping clients generate
over 17 billion views on youtube and now
to help you here’s tim lennon and delena
hello creators how are you guys welcome
back to another video creators podcast
episode where we are here to give you
next level tactics so that you can grow
your youtube audience and your business
so that you can reach more people and
change their lives now if you poked your
head into youtube analytics at all then
you know fairly well that it can be a
pretty overwhelming place to be
on top of even just looking at your
youtube analytics and trying to learn
what everything means you’ve got all of
these youtube experts telling you oh you
need to just increase watch time focus
on watch time focus on watch time or
you’ve got somebody telling you that
audience retention is the
all or maybe you’re hearing experts say
that you need more people to like and
subscribe from your videos because
that’s what’s going to tell the
algorithm that they like your videos and
they need to show it to more people
there’s all of these different levels
and opinions of what is going to take
your video to the next level and through
all that there comes a lot of focus in
the wrong places
and i’m not here to knock other experts
in this field because i know that where
their heart is is that they want to help
you guys but i don’t think that they
realize the impression that they may be
leaving by telling you some of these
things and um the mindset that they’re
putting you in whenever they tell you
what you need to focus on so i want to
help you narrow down and really kind of
disregard some of the metrics and and so
that you can narrow in on your focus and
you don’t feel so scattered and confused
and so i’m just going to tell you what
you should not focus on so much despite
what all of the rumors say i am in a new
setting if you’re watching this podcast
episode on youtube i am in a new setting
thought i’d try something out you know
got a little studio setup going on so i
figured i would
bring you guys into it i mean i got a
little bit jealous of tim’s setup to be
honest and his like cool studio
background so i was like you know what i
can make a cool background too not quite
there yet but
um
i i’m just trying to you know
try and bring it up a notch so
if you’re watching on youtube you get to
see a little bit of my little background
that i’ve started setting up here so i
have a creator spotlight for you today
and her name is jessica freeman we want
to highlight her because tim and her had
a conversation about her youtube channel
she’s been on youtube for six years and
she had kind of a rough start she was
making youtube videos in order to
attract more for clients was her initial
intent um she was not trying to have the
biggest channel not trying to be mr
beast you know she just
wanted to
build her business through her youtube
channel but then she started attracting
kind of an unexpected audience and
decided to actually begin pivoting her
channel to serve that audience more
which can often be kind of a sticky
thing to navigate whenever you are like
okay i’ve been focusing on this one
angle of my channel or this one person
within my audience you know primarily
just trying to serve this one person but
now i’m attracting this other person
over here do i press more into that like
what it can kind of be a sticky
situation to find yourself in and it’s
not an uncommon one either even though
it is sticky though sometimes that pivot
is exactly what you need to do to take
your channel to the next level so here
is exactly how she is approaching that
pivot
jessica how long have you been on
youtube you’ve been doing this for a
while right i have i have been on
youtube since 2016.
so 16. so i got to do some math here six
years now six years six six years which
is bananas to think about uh that have
been on youtube that long
and
you i’ve already told this to you in
other other private conversations but i
think it’s worth repeating publicly you
are like the most consistent
person on youtube that i have met
in a really long time you know like you
even went on three months of maternity
leave and got three months of content
scheduled and ready to publish
during your was it maternity leave sorry
yeah uh yeah yeah
and people like didn’t even know you
missed like you didn’t miss a beat you
know i didn’t oh my goodness
yeah
so yeah so tell us about your channel
first of all before we dive into some of
the stuff that you’re doing now with
pivoting and figuring out new direction
but yeah tell us how did you get started
what did that channel look like for you
originally so i kind of walked into
youtube blindly i didn’t take any
courses i didn’t have any like strategy
calls
i saw my business i’m a web designer
for other business owners and back in
2016 i was really feeling like i was
just getting lost in the noise i was not
really standing out
and so finally i was like i’m gonna
start a youtube channel
to try and like educate my clients and
help them learn just online tech things
website design etc and so i
started youtube and
it was kind of a rough start
but i started very i made it super easy
i was like i’m gonna do
one minute videos
uh and that was like the first like
three months of my channel was just one
minute videos which you can imagine
they weren’t super valuable because
there’s not a lot you can squeeze into
one minute
well it turns out you were just ahead of
your time because now there’s a thing
called youtube shorts
you’re pioneering and didn’t know it
yeah youtube noticed and they were like
we should do something just run
something here
so um so yeah i jumped in i really
wanted to try and attract more clients
especially
i liked the idea of kind of this
evergreen content hub and not just oh
here’s an instagram post that a week
from now no one will see
or three months from now like people
have completely forgotten
uh and that kind of thing and so i like
the idea of
being able to be found
uh at any point at any time three months
from now the video can still pop up
and i also liked the video i knew that
video was better for connecting with
people like we like to
hear people see people and so that can
connect with your potential clients
easier than just
here’s a little graphic on instagram or
something sure
and so
yeah so i have been doing for the last
six years lots of
tutorials not just design but
here’s some apps that are helpful in
business uh here’s some things you
should think about in your website
getting more clients
all that kind of stuff uh and that
has kind of led me to here to today yeah
and your website is help or your website
your business is helping people build
their websites
doing it for them or yeah describe the
business real quick yeah so i’m i do a
lot of done for you that’s basically 100
not 100 like 95 of my business is
done for you so people come to me and
say
my website is a hot mess it’s out of
date it doesn’t reflect who i am as a
professional or i’m pivoting i’m
starting over any of those things
and i will completely revamp the website
uh but sometimes also people are like
i’m starting a business and i don’t want
to waste time with websites text scares
me
um like can you set me up something so
yeah i work with a lot of online
business owners coaches
um online entrepreneurs that’s kind of
my my main audience okay cool so you’re
making youtube videos in order to
attract more those types of clients so
describe what that content looked like
and how it was performing for you if you
don’t mind yeah so i was like i said i
was doing a lot of
tutorials and like hey you should think
about this on your website and you
should think about this
and
uh
it has done
okay
um that type of content but i realized
i’m attracting a lot of diyers people
who are like
i’m not i’m not
ready to hire a designer or i like to do
this myself also attracting some other
designers which is completely not my
ideal audience like they’re never going
to hire me the diyers potentially may
hire me down the road but
so
i
have decided in the last few months that
i really
need to pivot the focus of my channel
and be more specific about who i’m
targeting and
not trying to attract those diy-ers love
them but
yeah they’re not my ideal people right
so the customer you’re going after isn’t
someone who wants to do it on their own
you’re and so they don’t really care
which plugins you’re using for this
versus that on the website they don’t
care elementor versus divi you know
which theme should i use or any of that
kind of stuff they’re just like i just
seen someone freaking do this for me
right
and uh and so yeah it makes sense your
content um you had a good value prop you
had a good target audience and uh but
you’re attracting the wrong audience so
what how does how do you go about making
a pivot like that like how do you go
about like
yeah tell me what the next steps are now
that you are thinking like okay i gotta
do something different with my content
in order to attract the right customer
to my business yeah so
i think instead of i up until now i
think i’ve really thought okay i’m i’m
talking to business owners every
business owner needs a website
cool
now i’m having to think a lot more
specifically in terms of okay these are
people who
probably already have a website
they have a team of some sort
they are making
more money and they have the means to
hand this off and they are
good at delegating they’re like
they don’t care about the little itty
bitty details about plugins and themes
they’re like i could care less like
just do this so approaching
going to be switching my content to more
kind of thought leadership
um
things to think about in business
just how you can approach things on your
website
um but not hey here’s this plugin you
should try
so um yeah so still kind of nailing down
the exact content strategy but i know
that’s the direction i’m headed in yeah
yeah and i think in terms of like a
process that maybe other people could
take from your example here and apply to
their own situation if they’re
experiencing something similar
is to like you had a defined target
audience
but like what you’re well you realize
like audience doesn’t need
the content i’m creating so we just went
back you went back to the drawing board
you’re like all right this is the
customer i’m trying to attract that
hasn’t changed but the question i’m
asking now if i remember is like what
does this person actually want like they
don’t want to know what plugin to use or
whatever what they do want is like how
do i get this off my hands and then in
our conversation you even identified
some other things that you’re like oh no
they need this they need this they only
want they want that and uh you know and
whether or not that’s the thing you land
on in the future going forward at least
like you’re asking the right questions
now which is like like does this person
really want to know about like the
technical side of design and
managing a website and things no oh what
do they actually want instead and
and so and i think you understand this
as a business owner a lot of creators
don’t understand this which is like
is it better for you as a business owner
to be in front of 10 of the right people
than like a hundred of the wrong people
right so you could go and a lot we’ve
seen this happen a lot of people grow
really successful channels on youtube
but their business doesn’t grow because
they’ve if they went for this broad
appeal they’re going after views and
subscribers instead of going after
customers and what i like from what
you’re saying is like no tim i’m going
after customers i’m not trying to go the
biggest baddest you know
channel to compete with mr beast type of
thing i am like trying to get this type
of person and you’re bringing more
clarity to what that person wants and
then you’re going to deliver that in
your content all right i’ll sound kind
of yes
spot on
yeah so what do you think your channel
is going to look like now going forward
and i know like you’re kind of in the
middle of the pivot right now so i’m not
asking you to commit to it just kind of
curious where your thought process is
with it right now yeah so i’m glad
you’re not making me to commit to it
you know you’re not gonna follow up in
six months and be like um sorry no it’s
just like that
the process of hearing you think out
loud i think is what’s valuable to to me
and to other people just like how does
this work in in jessica’s head to kind
of figure this out yeah so
um i think definitely stepping away from
tutorials which i had moved away from
largely after doing video labs and so i
was like okay we definitely need to get
away from tutorials like this is not
this is not helping so
um i’ve largely stepped away from that i
think i’ve done maybe one or two here
there but
stepping away from that and more going
into mindset and strategy and
um
maybe like highlighting other businesses
interviews that kind of stuff just to
help business owners kind of learn from
each other and
definitely keeping in mind
like i said not just quote unquote any
business owner which i mean i obviously
had my target market more defined than
that but not just business owners but
keeping in mind
these people do not care about the
plugins
they are working with teams and that
kind of thing so just keeping that in
mind and potentially even talking to
that specifically like
easier ways to work with your team and
handing off tasks and that kind of thing
yeah cool yeah so you’re leaning hard
into like really understanding what this
person’s struggles are and what they
would be looking for online and then
you’re like hey if you are struggling
with your team or you’re struggling with
communication or you’re struggling with
knowing how to generate more sales like
turns out your website is like a key
part of all of that you know generating
sales communicating and if you want us
to help you take that off your plate you
know we we are the experts at that and
so
yeah justcreatives.com is that what it
is yes yes jesscraters.com is my website
and then my channel is also just just
creatives so i’m super easy to find
yeah yeah cool well thank you for
sharing part of your story here with us
jessica and um
if you’re going to leave people here
with a a final like thought from jess
we’ll call it um in terms of pivoting
what what would you leave them with
whether it’s something that they should
do or think or consider or how it feels
even like
yeah
what would you leave that i would say
i mean it sounds kind of obvious but
don’t be afraid to pivot don’t be afraid
to try something new
i mean in six years i have tried
so many different things just in terms
of
like how often i post type of content
thumbnails
different strategies different like
posting the podcast not posting the
podcast on my youtube channel doing
longer videos shorter video like i’ve
tried so many things
and
i just you know figuring out what works
for you and your channel and thinking
strategically about that um i think
sometimes we get too scared to like
change it up
and
i think sometimes that can be the most
beneficial it absolutely is i know
because i feel that exact same way
for the longest time like when i started
doing this uh youtube coaching and
training stuff back in
2008
is that what it was um something like
that uh like there was no one else doing
it so it was kind of like there was no
competition it was it was only me
and then as industry grew you know the
people popped up and so
last year i started making a pivot
myself and it is scary because you’re
like well at least i know how this works
at least i know what
results i should expect from this way
and i think there’s
there’s i can serve people better and do
a better job this way but i don’t know
if i can but to find out i have to like
turn this other thing off kind of yeah
and that’s really scary when your
livelihood depends on this so we’ve
pivoted from just being like generic
youtube strategy to being like no if you
we are for people who are trying to grow
a business trying to make money on
around their content they have
around 10 000 plus sometimes like 100
000 subscribers and they’re making you
know a healthy full-time living off that
and they’re like how do i get to a
million subscribers and a million
dollars in annual revenue like that’s
that’s like we’re not we’re no longer
like your first 10 000 subscriber people
we’re now like your next million
subscriber people
so
um really focusing on that has been
you’re right totally scary and very much
like a
like
type of thing like how’s this gonna go
um so i feel ya i mean yeah it’s uh
but i will tell you and anyone else
who’s listening that like what she said
is absolutely right it feels really
scary but my experience doing this for
myself and coaching some other people
through it has been like every time you
narrow the audience and get more
specific and bring more clarity to what
you do
i have only ever seen that ultimately
make someone more money and grow their
business more and grow their channel
with the right people i’ve never seen it
have the opposite effect
it does temporarily for a little while
while some of your existing audience
figures out you’re not for them anymore
and they leave and you see some negative
numbers for a while but in the long run
it’s always worked out so i’m banking on
that again for myself and i know that’s
going to be the case for you too so yeah
well thank you jessica it’s been good
talking with you here yeah thanks for
having me
[Music]
if you find yourself thinking man maybe
i really need to narrow down my audience
even more because i’ve started
attracting this other type of audience
that i didn’t really expect or kind of
like the set subcategory in my audience
that i didn’t really expect maybe i just
need to like go 100 towards that
audience and
oftentimes 9 times out of 10 even though
it feels like the opposite would happen
nine times out of ten you get more
growth from doing that because now
you’ve made it really clear to the
viewer themselves
who you are what you’re all about why
they should be a part of your channel
why they would come to your channel
apart from somebody else’s and the
clearer that you can get with that the
clearer it is for youtube to decipher
who your videos should be for and thus
is able to surface your content better
and more often to those people because
it’s super clear to the viewers and thus
it’s super clear to youtube so if you
are facing a similar issue with your
channel right now where you’re kind of
in like a sticky situation whether it’s
this exact situation or maybe it’s
something that just feels super super
specific to you and your business and
how your youtube and your business kind
of
play together and you’re just quite
not quite sure where you should go with
it or what to do about it we would love
to get into a one-on-one call with you
because we know that sometimes these
situations can be super super specific
um you know giving
although albeit good you know general
advice on youtube and not being able to
speak super specifically to your
situation can only go so far and so if
you are feeling any of these types of
ways um we are happy to jump into a call
with you you can find the link for that
at
down in the show notes but it’s just
video creators.com consulting you can
book a one hour call with us we’d be
happy to kind of decipher some of that
with you and see what your next steps
need to be also you can find jessica
freeman’s channel linked in the show
notes or the description of this video
now i want to get into talking about
these three metrics that i think that
you should ignore but i want to preface
by saying that these metrics are
really there’s nothing within youtube
that you fully actually need to ignore
everything has a purpose and everything
is telling you more about your channel
right so there’s nothing that we ever
really need to like completely disregard
but
whenever i mean ignore in this context
what i’m really saying and seeing is
creator is the need to obsess over these
certain metrics and the purpose as to
why they’re obsessing over those certain
metrics um and even glory glorifying
these metrics like like a click-through
rate being the end-all be-all if you
don’t have your click-through rate your
impressions click-through rate all
squared away and down pat and it’s
performing really well then
um
then that is the only thing that matters
to youtube and that’s where i think a
lot of this conversation um and these
rumors kind of start to go around and
catch fire is because we all want
something really tangible to hold to
right and so we tend to hear something
like oh watch time is really important
so i just need to focus on watch time uh
it’s not i wish it was that simple but
unfortunately it is more complicated in
good ways but the only way that it is
bad is that it feels less tangible
whenever there’s not just like one thing
that we need to focus on but it’s it’s
good in the sense that we have a lot
more flexibility than you probably feel
like you actually do
and so i want you to as you’re listening
to these next three metrics that i’m
going to talk about
to find freedom in this that it’s like
oh okay like i
don’t have to be stuck to some
algorithmic robot if you will you know
in the way that you might be used to
thinking about it because an important
an important reminder is that the
algorithm responds to people so if we
get people to respond to it if we know
that this is engaging and interesting to
people then we don’t got to worry about
the algorithm because the algorithm is
going to respond to what people respond
to but as i talk about these metrics i
also want to let you know that i will be
telling you what you should focus on
instead for these next three metrics so
the first one is going to be watch time
i you probably heard that coming because
of how many times i’ve referenced watch
time throughout the
setup of this and there’s probably a lot
of you guys that are like what what do
you mean like even youtube you have to
have 4 000 hours of watch time before
you can even get monetized you know what
do you mean it doesn’t matter watch time
does matter but what it doesn’t matter
in in probably the way that you’re
thinking about it youtube does value
watch time highly but it does not
just value the
individual watch time that your one
video is creating and that’s where i
think so many creators go wrong in this
mentality of we need to build watch time
you need to build watch time we need to
make longer videos you know we need to
keep people on our videos for longer and
stuff like that because youtube is
playing a way bigger game than that they
do care about the individual watch time
that that one video is contributing but
they are
more so measuring the entire viewing
session of whenever a
a viewer comes onto youtube and first of
all what videos start a good watching
session so they’re coming on to youtube
they’re signing in they see the youtube
home page is the first thing they see
whenever they open their youtube app or
pull up youtube on their computer right
and so all the videos that you see there
are videos that have proven themselves
to be good at starting a viewing session
so whenever we’re talking about a
viewing session we’re not just talking
about how much watch time an individual
video contributes we’re talking about
how the entire viewing session behaves
from what starts it to what continues it
to what ends the viewing session
and watch time is the factor within that
right like how much watch time is being
garnered between this entire viewing
session but youtube doesn’t care
if you’re watching
a thousand
10 second videos or you’re watching one
or two 10 minute videos or one or a 30
minute video or something like that they
they don’t care how
much the individual video is
contributing to
watch time and how much that individual
video garners watch time it’s measuring
does this video do viewers like this
video like do they
like to watch it because they say on the
video and maybe they watch most of the
video or the whole video you know is it
something that is interesting to them
and then
because of that does it keep them on our
platform for longer not necessarily does
it just keep them on this video for
longer but does do they go from your
video to watching another video and then
another video and then another video how
is your video contributing to an entire
viewing session and and extending an
entire viewing session and we see that
more and more you know there were so
many theories coming out about you know
oh youtube is valuing 30 minute videos
and longer videos and stuff like that
when we have seen right in front of our
eyes youtube split in two different
directions because it doesn’t care it
just cares about um it doesn’t care how
much that individual video
how much watch time that individual
video is contributing it just cares
about how long the viewing session is
how long do people stay on the platform
in an entirety and how your video
contributes to that
in extending the viewing session time so
uh when i’m saying we’re seeing this
natural split we’re seeing hello here
i’m hi it’s me the podcast on youtube
we’re seeing youtube focus more on
podcast content at the same time
focusing more on very very short form
content tick tock style content and so
that’s clear as day that it’s not just
watch time watch time watch time youtube
values watch time but whenever we’re
talking about watch time we’re actually
talking about a viewing session and so
youtube yes values watch time because
that’s what’s within the viewing session
but really if we want to put what they
actually care about they care about um
the entire viewing session how the
viewer behaves within that session and
how that session uh how long it keeps
them on their platform so on that note
um a lot of creators you know within
this kind of
idea that watch time is the most
important which is important i want to
stress that i’m not saying that it’s not
important i’m just saying that it’s
probably not the metric that you need to
look at to be like okay what do i need
to do next do i need to make my videos
longer so that each video gets more
watch time
no because think about it this way if
you have so there’s a metric within
youtube called your audience retention
or average percentage viewed uh your
audience retention is like an uh a graph
of an average
of your average percentage viewed so how
viewers actually interacted with the
video itself where they dropped off
where they re-watched stuff like that
that’s what your audience retention
graph is
but
um kind of an overview of your audience
retention would be the metric average
percentage viewed so let’s say that you
have a on on regular you upload 15
minute videos but then you hear oh my
gosh youtube values watch time i need to
make my videos longer so you decide to
start pushing it to 20 minutes 25 30
minutes sometimes to gain more watch
time so that youtube will push your
videos more but
your average percent but your average
percentage viewed on each video doesn’t
really change um
or maybe even gets lower because you
made your videos longer and on average
on the 15 minute videos
viewers watched about three to five
minutes of it and then you extend your
videos to 30 minutes long 25 30 minutes
long and they’re still watching
three to five minutes of the video
because not much has changed the videos
just longer um but you haven’t done
anything else to really engage them to
keep them on that video longer then um
that then there’s no point in making a
longer video just to gain more watch
time because it’s not actually helping
you gain more watch time uh because
you’re not engaging the viewers enough
so instead of focusing on just watch
time and looking at watch time and how
can i gain more watch time and longer
videos
instead look at
your average percentage view and your
audience retention graph and see how
much of the video are viewers actually
consuming because we just talked about
how youtube is actually measuring the
entire viewing session and part of how
they’re measuring that is they’re
gauging like do viewers like your video
and part of how they’re gauging down
viewers like your video is how much of
your video that viewer actually consumes
do they consume only 20 of the video do
they consume um only 10 do they consume
on average 50
60 70 of the video usually the higher
your average percentage viewed gets the
more that youtube sees oh this is this
is content that viewers really like
they’re engaged by it they’re watching
the video all the way through and if you
focus on your audience retention and
your average percentage viewed way more
than you focus on watch time then your
watch time will increase as a byproduct
and that’s where i think all of this
kind of gets twisted is that um people
focus on the metrics like watch time
that are byproducts rather than focusing
on the thing that will actually bring
that thing
so
audience retention and average
percentage viewed will 100 help increase
your watch time if you really focus on
how do i get more of the viewers that
are watching my videos to watch more of
that video
because the more that they watch that
means that your content is more
bingeable to them they like watching the
content and so
that means that they’re more likely to
click on more videos they’re more likely
to click on more of your videos but just
more likely to stay on youtube because
they are engaged by what is on the
platform meaning your video and so
pay attention to your audience retention
graph try to break that down start with
just like hey can i get viewers past the
the first 30 seconds of my video how
many more viewers can i get past the
first 30 seconds of my video then from
there um how do i get more people past
uh the first 30 seconds to the end of
the video how do i kind of tweak each
part of my video to engage them longer
there one other thing is how do i get
more of my viewers to click on more of
my end screens so those little clickable
end screens that you put on the end of
your videos really really utilize those
and give those a really good pitch at
the end like like don’t only give them
one thing to click on and tell them what
exact video of yours they should watch
next not necessarily what video you’re
gonna upload next um but what video of
yours that already exists on your
channel that would perfectly tie in or
compliment the video that they just
watched and then pitch that video to
them at the end hey guys if you want to
see blank blank and blank then i cover
that here in this video or if you want
to see what happened whenever we blank
blank and blank uh you got to see it
click right here to watch that video you
can
verbally and visually pitch it to them
at the end of each video so that you can
continue that viewing session which
inadvertently contributes to more watch
time on your channel more watch time on
the platform everything in between see
this is why i only have three of these
because i knew that each one of these
was going to be a little bit of a
conversation so number two is going to
be the metric when your viewers are on
youtube so this is i get the question
all of the time whenever a
creator discovers this metric there’s
this metric it’s literally called when
your viewers are on youtube and it’s on
your audience tab so if you go into your
youtube analytics and click over to the
audience tab it’s like the second box
underneath the main box and
what it tells you is it basically has
this gradient of light purple to dark
purple and the darker the purple is uh
the more of your audience is on youtube
and a lot of creators whenever they
discover this metric they immediately
jump on like oh hey i know exactly what
time i should post now um
and they think that if they posted the
perfect time then their video is going
to get more attention right off the bat
unless youtube is going to immediately
see that this is a video that viewers
like and thus they are it’s going to
perform way way better to your credit
you know to all of the creators that
i’ve talked to that have had this
mentality to your credit it is seem that
is seemingly the first thing that you
would take away from that is like oh i
can see when my viewers are on youtube
perfect i’ll post then but look a little
bit closer and
first of all i want you to see it
does it correspond does do those colors
those dark purple spots um those hot
audience if you will uh spots
do those correspond closely to whenever
you post your videos because
if they do
then that’s quite a common thing in that
your audience is just kind of hot on
youtube whenever
uh you’re posting videos because it’s
your audience that it’s measuring right
and so if they’re coming from other
places um or they just know whenever you
upload and they come to youtube during
those times then
there’s then they’re just following
you’re the leader there they’re just
following what you
whatever your posting schedule is which
means that you hold the power and that’s
a great thing there’s a lot of areas
within youtube that creators start to
feel like they don’t hold the power and
you hold the power in that post whenever
it is good for
you youtube says specifically on that
metric that your posting time is not
known to
increase
the
performance of your video whether that’s
right off the bat or long term and so
i have seen it may increase like very
very short term like whenever i’m saying
very short term i mean within the first
few hours it may increase how many views
you get within the first few hours but
not necessarily how many views you get
in total because if it’s the same
audience watching
during that time then you may get those
views a little bit faster but you’re
probably not going to get
you’re not going to start averaging
higher views because you’ve changed your
posting time so for this one there’s not
a metric to follow instead you the only
thing that you need to follow is what is
going to work with you what schedule
what posting
time is appropriate for your schedule
and allows for you to be the most
consistent on the platform in terms of
quality the value that you offer
how often everything in between now
i will say that this metric though the
when your viewers is on youtube would is
actually a great metric for whenever
you’re planning to live stream so if you
do live streams or if you’re thinking
about doing live streams then when your
viewers are on youtube is a great metric
to follow for that specific
very specific reason outside of that
that’s not really it’s not really a
metric to pay mind to number three and
i bet i am going to get some pushback on
this one but i’m okay with that i’m here
to be honest with you guys
so
number three is actually not a specific
metric it’s kind of more
but but i’m putting it in the same
category because it seems that creators
kind of treat this like it’s its own
metric like it’s its own thing
and so i feel like this had to be
addressed within this context because
it’s very very important
so uh i was watching a docu-series a
while back by nikkietutorials she had
done a docu-series on herself kind of
telling a lot of her story and in that
series she talked about how whenever she
uploads a video she will watch the
performance of it within the first few
hours
and she will
she basically says she
actually says in the docu-series she’s
like if the video is performing well if
it’s doing average or above average it’s
a good day if it’s not performing well
if it’s doing below average it’s a bad
day and that
sunk my heart i was like man that has
got to be
so emotionally exhausting i mean i
unfortunately i cannot take away
the
the kind of care and effort and
emotional attachment that you have to
your videos
it’s your work you know it’s personal to
you and so that is something that i’m
definitely not saying that you even need
to take away from it but
what i am saying is that
you do not need to worry about your
performance within the first 24 to 48
hours and see it as a make or break time
or almost like a make or break metric it
seems seems to be how we treat it um
like it is that is what’s gonna make or
break our your channel and i have just
seen way too many times me working
personally with creators where where
i see the videos that they upload and i
see the back end of their channel and i
see that whenever they uploaded that
video
tank it tanked you know
and then because maybe we were trying
something new this happens quite
frequently actually uh especially if the
channel has a long history on youtube
like they’ve been on they’ve been on
youtube for 10
years or so
then this definitely tends to happen i
seemingly tends to happen more with
their content where they’ve been
producing a certain kind of content for
a long time right and then they come
they work with us and we start to pull
them out of what they’re used to
creating and trying something new and
oftentimes whenever they first post a
new kind of video that their audience
has not seen before i’m not saying that
this happens every time it definitely
doesn’t happen every time um but it does
happen often where we’re trying
something new we post that video it’s
new to our audience they’re not used to
responding to it some audience members
that would have typically responded to
our usual content don’t respond to that
video and thus
because it’s not necessarily meant for
them anymore it’s meant for
them maybe a part of them depends on the
channel situation and what their goals
are whenever we’re working with them but
oftentimes it’s it’s meant to reach
people
past them people that um we’ve never
reached before and to reach people that
we’ve never reached before we have to do
something new right we have to do
something that we’ve never done before
and thus
whenever we post that video oftentimes
it will tank right at the beginning and
um i try to warn creators like hey
whenever we’re doing something new often
what happens is that it’s gonna go one
of two ways it can
take off quote-unquote right away that
can absolutely happen if the audience
like immediate if there’s a lot of
people in your audience that receive it
really well right off the bat um but it
can also go the other way whenever we’re
trying to reach a new audience sometimes
um youtube has to find
who that video is for and um and we have
less of our usual audience responding to
it right off the bat and so thus it
looks like it tanks right off the bat
and so there tends to be a lot of
unnecessary heartache that kind of
happens i think that it’s unrealistic to
say that you can ever fully remove that
of like you have the excitement of
posting a video you post the video
doesn’t perform as expected
right off the bat and it i think there’s
always going to be a kind of a little
bit of a unless you start to really get
honest with yourself and uh choose like
i’m not gonna believe that anymore that
my video success is
made
during this time
during just the first 24 to 48 hours now
what i will say is that the only metric
that kind of matters within the first 24
to 48 hours and even then it
it doesn’t
there it’s still not a make or breaker
even close to a make or break situation
would be the only metric that matters a
little bit more
a little bit more during the first 24 to
48 hours is going to be the thumbnail
your title and your thumbnail especially
your thumbnail so uh if you’re gonna
look at something within the first 24 to
48 hours um i would have i would plan to
have a backup thumbnail from the one
that you’ve chosen to create for your uh
for your upload and always have a backup
one so that
if you kind of crafted this title and
this thumbnail together and you put it
on your video and then it didn’t perform
as perspective as as expected then you
have a backup to kind of quickly swap
out within that first 24 to 48 hours but
even then guys i have seen creators
they’ll change the thumbnail months
later and then
people start responding to it from there
because it now has something that is
enticing to them in fact that just made
me think of a video that i’m actually
going to link in the show notes here
that breaks down kind of the whole idea
of clickbait and it is so cohesive and
so well done
i want to link it for you guys on this
note of like titles and thumbnails
because this creator actually broke down
you know the whole idea of clickbait
what’s appropriate clickbait stuff like
that but he shows within his videos when
he had
bad
thumbnails or not great titles and
thumbnails on his content and then
months later changing that thumbnail and
then seeing the video take off because
of it he has actual screenshots of
all of that happening which is stuff
that i see all of the time and so i want
you guys to see
that
um for yourself so i’m gonna link that
video down below um
and that way you can watch it on your
own time or even just listen to it on
your own time it is
such a good uh educational video so this
whole idea of of this 24 to 48 hour rule
is just
we don’t have to stress about it any
more in fact i am working with a creator
who we have found
that
her content especially whenever she’s
trying something really new that it is
quite common for
just for some of her regular educational
videos but also for new things that
we’re trying is that it’s quite common
for those videos to not really gain
traction like the earliest they gain
good traction would be about five to
seven days later that is a far way from
24 to 48 hours and those videos have
done very very well for her over half a
million views um some of them getting
close to a million views and so
i
just the whole idea that the first 24 to
48 hours is is
a make or break situation i just want
you guys to take that as another token
of freedom this is something that you do
not have to stress about
and just try to get it out of your head
and out of your system that the first 24
to 48 hours is is it the only caveat
that i will put with this is
that if you are
a channel say like you’re a daily news
reporting channel
then yeah the 24 to 48 hours really
matters because that that information
may only be good for 24 to 48 hours
depending on what the information you’re
delivering is and so if you are like a
daily news channel then that’s a totally
different situation there are some
exceptions like that you really want to
watch the performance because you’ve
only got 24 or 48 hours to get people to
see it before that information isn’t
relevant anymore right and so those are
the only caveat that’s really the only
caveat that i would put with it so what
do we do instead if we’re not watching
our if we’re not keeping an eye on our
content for the first 24 to 48 hours um
what do we do how do we even recognize
those patterns to know something like oh
my videos typically take a week to take
off like i have
figured out with this one creator that
i’m working with and so what you’re want
to do is you are going to use the
advanced mode in your analytics and
um so if you go into your youtube
analytics at the top right corner there
is a button called advanced mode and
within that you can see
you can track all of your
content your like your individual
content over time you can select
specific videos you can
see from their entire lifetime like when
they took off
you can group certain videos together if
you use the groups feature
so whenever you go to like select a
certain video within the advanced mode
you’ll see a tab uh called groups uh in
the little search so search bar at the
top left click on that then you’ll see a
tab that says groups you can create
groups within your analytics you can
group certain types of content together
to see
what
like okay all of these videos together
and you can see kind of like the pattern
of each video over time
so you’ll just want to make sure that
whenever you’re doing that you that you
have the publish date from if let’s say
that we grouped three videos together
one was published in july on july 2nd
and then all of the other ones were
published after july 2nd if you want to
get the entire pattern for everything
then you’ll want to go back from july
7th or 2nd all the way up until the most
recent date and you can see a line for
each one of those videos to see kind of
the pattern of the views
watch time whatever you’re trying to
measure there and get an idea of how
your videos actually perform and which
types of videos tend to have which kind
of performance
do these types of videos typically take
off between the first 24 to 48 hours and
so those 24 to 48 hours are something
that i should pay attention to or do
these videos tend to oh it looks like
over time like about the seven day or
two week or one month mark is whenever
they start to gain their traction so i
don’t even have to think about this
video or its performance after i upload
it until at least a week to one month
later it saves you so much stress and so
much heartache especially if you have
like a lot of emotional attachment to
your content which is quite common for a
lot of creators so
i would
definitely start utilizing that and
looking at your content more big picture
and over time rather than just letting
that first 24 to 48 hours dictate how
you feel about your channel and how you
feel about that content in particular
and let in informing you to make
decisions in the future of like oh my
gosh i’m never gonna post another video
like that ever again because it tanked
whenever you go and you look look at it
a month later and you’re like oh that
video is actually doing better than some
of my other content that stuff happens
all of the time i’ve gotten into
meetings with creators where they only
looked at a video that they had uploaded
that month
within the first 24 to 48 hours or maybe
a week and then i pull their analytics
three weeks later and that video is
doing well and they have no idea and so
i bring that up to them like hey this
video is doing really well here’s what
we should consider next
that’s frequent that happens as well so
um don’t let that 24 to 48 hours
tell you what to do it’s not your boss
um and it doesn’t matter in the way that
it feels like it matters
[Music]
every week we want to give you a power
tip that is something small and tangible
bite size action step that you can take
or information that you can consider in
order to help you grow your reach on the
platform grow your business and change
more lives and for today’s power tip i
have i’m going to bring up the trim tool
now the trim tool within youtube is not
really a new thing but i’ve had so many
crea so many conversations with creators
over the past few months where i talk
about the trim tool we’ll be talking
about something i’ll be like oh yeah
just just use the trim tool you can trim
that out of your video really quick and
they’re like
what do you mean they’re not even fully
aware of um
the
advantage that they have with the trim
tool so if you have never used the trim
tool before and especially if during the
conversation my point
number
one you know talking about watch time
and audience retention and viewing
session time and everything so if you
are going to go and work on your
audience retention then this trim tool
will be your best friend sometimes so if
you’ve never used it before here’s how i
want you to consider it so we’re gonna
access the trim tool is to go first into
the details of your video and then
you’re gonna click down to editor and
this is where you can find the trim tool
which basically acts like just a video
editor you can cut certain things you
can’t add things to your videos but you
can do exactly what it says which is you
can trim things down whether that’s
taking out a chunk in the middle of the
content or trimming off something at the
beginning or the end it doesn’t matter
you can remove things from your content
so say that you have maybe a copy there
was a copyrighted song in the that
played in the background at a grocery
store whenever you were filming and that
part got copyrighted and you want to be
able to cut that out you can do that
with the trim tool but where this is
especially helpful is you know i gave
the example earlier of
working on just like the first 30
seconds of your video and this has
happened many times i’ve come to
creators in our calls many times being
like hey your audience retention within
this first 30 seconds does really poorly
like within the first 10 seconds and
then um once it hits that 10 second mark
it starts to flatline a little bit so
let’s just cut out that first 10 seconds
because clearly people aren’t
engaged by that first 10 seconds and the
hook would be way better if it started
right here so you can just go and trim
that down and have a way better start to
your video you’re continuing that
viewing viewing session time
contributing more watch time to the
platform and
thus
a better performance in your content so
definitely consider using the trim tool
moving forward
in terms of improving your audience
retention and especially within that
hook that hook is really important that
first 30 seconds of your videos can uh
can make a big difference so pay
attention to your audience retention
graphs and use the trim tool wisely if
there’s something that just didn’t work
out the way that you thought it would
during the editing process thank you for
joining me for another week on the video
creators podcast i hope that this was
helpful and and educational and edifying
and that it encourages you to go out and
do more with your content and this is
gonna be the last episode that i’m alone
for a while tim is gonna rejoin me next
week so i know that you guys have
probably missed him actually he’s posted
a couple of times in between here so
yeah we’ll be back together next week so
i will see you then bye
