Daily uploading isn't always the answer: a case study

babyteeth4

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Hey guys,

Thought I'd share my experiences here, maybe it can save someone some aggravation!

At some point last November we started doing daily uploads to our main channel. We always did daily uploads in December anyway, so it wasn't a big deal to keep doing it. More uploads is always better, right? At least that's what we've always been told.

However, after 8 months of daily uploading, our per day views were actually LOWER than ever. Almost no impact was made by uploading daily.

In fact, what we saw was surprising: any time we had a video that performed well, the next day's upload tended to HURT the hit video. Several times we saw a hot video streak ended precisely when the new day's video was uploaded.

In other words, instead of keeping the ball rolling, the new video was killing the hot streak.

This may not be true on all channels. I believe one of the reasons this was happening was due to the VARIETY of content that we produce. Some of our viewers only like our fictional content. Some only like our candy reviews. What was becoming evident was that a very small portion of our viewers were actually watching EVERY TYPE of video that we do.

So, when one video was doing well, when the new video came out the next day, the algorithm was suggesting it, but because it was a different TYPE of video, many viewers were skipping it. It doesn't take long for the algorithm to realize that when people are not clicking, it stops suggesting that video. Unfortunately it seems to also stop suggesting the "hot" video as well.

So in the past week we did an experiment: we abandoned our schedule format.

Tuesday used to be Toys Day. Thursday was always Candy Day. Friday was always Japanese (Kawaii). Monday was vlogs. Etc.

We threw all that out the window and concentrated on what was doing strongest: our fictional content (Sunday). For the other days, we'd either do a proven trending type of video, or no video at all.

It was sort of scary just skipping whole days at a time. Instead of 7 videos a week, we did just 4. But, lo and behold, the strategy worked, and quickly. Every video we uploaded over the past week got to 6 figures (100k+) of views. This hadn't happened before. EVER. Normally just the Sunday video would have hit six figures, then the rest would hit 25k-45k views.

So yeah, we're sticking with the new strategy.

I'll keep you updated and see if this keeps working in the long run. Hope this helps someone out there, doing more videos doesn't always lead to more views!
 

terror569

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God damn I'm pretty sure I have already heard about this! That someone was doing daily videos and the first upload (as a first upload I mean for instance Monday) was doing good, the second was worse, the next one was good again, etc... That is actually very interesting.
 
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Idec Sdawkminn

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That's really interesting. I upload daily and there is indeed that initial spike that drops off the next day, but sometimes it is after a couple days. And I had that spike and drop when I was uploading every other day or every 3 days as well. However, I also didn't see any increase when I started uploading daily, but I did so to get through my request list faster. What seems to have helped me grow faster lately is that I've switched to doing my requests in the order of the ones that get requested the most instead of just what order I got them in.

I really wish you could sort the videos on the overall views chart by upload date.
 

odabaco

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God damn I'm pretty sure I have already heard about this! That someone was doing daily videos and the first upload (as a first upload I mean for instance Monday) was doing good, the second was worse, the next one was good again, etc... That is actually very interesting.
Yes, me too! This info rings a STRONG bell. Was it Derral Eves' vidcon session I wonder? I'm not sure. But it makes a lot of sense.

The algo is supposedly AI, so learns, but right now is dumb, so can't see your upload schedule for what it is.

It's like when the Zombie apocalypse hits. Just create a big maze to your front door. Sit back, profit ;)

Kidding, but yeah, this is great info, thank you Babyteeth4. I will be interested to hear updates :)
 

Idec Sdawkminn

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Okay, so I was looking at my view and subscriber Daily rolling 28 day totals for my channel's history and labeled certain events, such as my upload frequency. It looks like I was wrong about the daily uploads. My views and subs started climbing shortly after switching to that. But there are other factors as well.

 

Dutchie Abroad

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Thank you for sharing, babyteeth! Very useful information :)

@Idec: Did you change your content when you started uploading daily? You mentioned doing requests, so maybe that just really resonated with your audience?
 
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Idec Sdawkminn

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@Idec: Did you change your content when you started uploading daily? You mentioned doing requests, so maybe that just really resonated with your audience?
I had been doing requests here and there since the initial "Let It Go" spike, but I switched to doing requests almost exclusively around that little spiky part after the initial "Let It Go" spike (Mid June 2015) and it has been that way since. My content has had very little change during that whole graph. I did switch to a different editing method, as well as changing my thumbnail appearance, about the midway point of that graph, but there is no visible change on the graph for that. I'll look for other indicators, like other videos that maybe boosted the views and subs around that time.
 
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EVO

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I switched to dailies throughout Feb/March and my videos suffered lower views. I receive the same number of overall views now whilst uploading bi-daily. Half the effort for the same result.
Im sure I read somewhere in the past about giving subs 48 hours to watch your uploads.