YouTube is sporadic and irregular - a case study

[YouTuber1978]

Hmmm.... Interesting post. I don't think it's really luck though. That graph that you just showed is exactly what most videos look like that finally pop. Future videos that pop will have the same sort of spike but as your channel authority grows it takes less and less time for the spike to occur and the spikes will get higher and higher. On my second channel here's the graph of the first video that popped and the graph of my last video. First video took three months. Now most videos start to pop within a week. I've got three channels and they all followed the same sort of growth curve.

It seems like luck, but really you're just accumulating enough watch time that YouTube "trusts" your videos.

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

This is the only video I have had that this happened to so far, and I've had videos that performed better in a myriad of areas than the one that ended up getting latched onto another growing video.

At the small scale (to throw a random number out there, under 1000 subs), I'm still calling it luck. Like I said though, if you have more videos and more time during which they existed, there's a better chance at YT eventually having its algorithms grant you exposure in some way like this.

Now your point about "channel authority" though, I do think that's important and accurate. With time you can get this "channel authority" by attaining enough exposure and having that exposure be converted into actual interest in your channel by viewers. So yeah, the luck does go away to a large extent and so does the sporadic nature - instead you get far more predictability.

But I think this rarely happens outside of channels that have already stepped out of the "small" bounds. I still think it's accurate to describe YT as sporadic and irregular in terms of typical growth for small channels.

Because let us be honest, there's countless channels out there where videos have never popped, even after existing for years and sometimes even having decent retention stats and whatnot. The "pop" is a thing you can often expect after your channel is well-established, but when it's not, I think it's largely a case of (something that is pretty much) randomness.

 

[Sabrina]

The "pop" is a thing you can often expect after your channel is well-established, but when it's not, I think it's largely a case of (something that is pretty much) randomness.

Tell me about it. I only have 12 videos up so far and the only one that got a 'suggested' spot was #4, the minute I uploaded it! I have no idea why this one, and actually I wish it hadn't happened because it got suggested on videos with similar titles/tags yet entirely different content which resulted in a horrible retention. I hope this hasn't permanently damaged my chances.

I'm curious now whether there's a specific amount of watch time at which the algorithm takes a closer look at your video's statistics and considers to promote it. Not that it tells us much, but I'd love to know what your video's analytics looked like shortly before it "popped". I guess you could get the views, watch time, (avg) retention by narrowing the date range?

 

[kami]

I've only ever had something like this happen once, almost two years ago. I wish I knew what it was from or what caused it. :/



The video received almost zero interaction from it and gained me zero subs. It has no comments, and the only ones it ever gets are spam. Currently 4 likes to 5 dislikes, haha.

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

Not that it tells us much, but I'd love to know what your video's analytics looked like shortly before it "popped". I guess you could get the views, watch time, (avg) retention by narrowing the date range?

Basically the analytics didn't change for nearly 3 months, as you saw in my original image. The views had more or less stabilized, and I don't wanna dig the data up but take my word that the retention/rate of time watched remained pretty much the same during its first 3 months as well. Then I got those small few bumps you see by getting in the suggested video sidebar on a couple of other people's videos (relatively low viewed, but way more viewed than mine at the time). Then that huge spike corresponded directly to getting latched on to a video gaining a lot of views.

So the TLDR is: no rates of any analytics changed through time. Time was the only variable.

I may as well update on the video, still climbing at the same rate as before; it's up to 30,000 views now. Most are still from that one video I got latched to.

The video received almost zero interaction from it and gained me zero subs. It has no comments, and the only ones it ever gets are spam. Currently 4 likes to 5 dislikes, haha.

A sad example of a channel having a "pop" that results in nothing but a short-lived increase in views.
My condolences: I hope you have a "meaningful pop" in the near future.

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

So I got an update on this topic.

I'm still getting a lot of views from suggested videos, but they're slowly starting to trickle down and decrease with time.
However, the algorithms of YT decided they like me, and now are featuring my video a lot in browser features, predominantly (95%+) on the home page (I would assume as a recommended video on the home page).
As the suggested views start to slowly decrease in number, the browser views seem to increase at a similar pace, with browser views currently making up around 25% of the daily views I'm accumulating. I want to stress I was getting practically no browser views before when I first made this topic.

So yeah, fancy that. If you get featured as a suggested video and it works out well for you, you can then start being featured on the home page when the video you got latched onto starts waning. Neat.


So I'd say my original point still stands. Are you a small channel? Eventual luck from sticking it out can sometimes make a snowball for you that rolls downhill and kills thousands in its path. OK, wait, that may not be the proper metaphor, but you get the point.


(The crappy bit to all this for me personally though is the types of videos that get lots of views are not the sorts of videos I'm particularly interested in making. And the sorts of videos I am more interested in making only got a tiny boost from two (when I made the thread it was one, now it's two) of my videos blowing up. And since making cash isn't near the top reasons why I make YT videos, it's not like I'm gonna start making more of the videos that are being successful. Instead, I'll just shake my fist at my screen and act like a crotchety old man.)

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

An update from a couple weeks into the future.
This video getting snagged the way it did and accumulating a ton of traffic allowed it to feed views to another one of my videos in the same featured playlist. This second video grew big enough this way to get thrown into other suggested videos, and the cycle repeated for a third video I released later. Mild views trickled into some other related videos as well outside the playlist. Overall, most of my views currently come from suggested videos, but when I check my analytics for further information on which suggested videos specifically, most of the suggested video views are coming from my own videos.

I'm now close to hitting 2k subs (that may happen today, but very likely it will by tomorrow if not). And the moment I posted about in my opening post is what I would attribute it all to. Overall, this actually makes me hate how YT does things even more than before. Rich get richer and all that.

 

[hcetiny]

I agree with most of your points. I think life is much more arbitrary than we think. Our minds try to find causality in most of the things that happen to us. "I did X, therefore Y happened. If you do this, you will get that."

It is not so straightforward as people think. There is lots of randomness in life and success can be pure luck. We always look at the successful people and try to find patterns in their behaviours so that we can copy and be successful as well. This is hindsight. But noone can look at a person today and guarantee that he will be a big success in 5 years. I watched one of the first videos of PewDiePie today. He was no different than most of today's average YouTubers. But he made it to the top. Is he good? Yes. Did he deserve it? Yes. But it could as well have been that some other gamer would be the hype and not him. Who can tell? All the people copying him today are not nearly successful.

I believe that a small YouTube channel is like a start-up. There is a high probability that it will not become a big success. All YouTubers should know this fact. The competition is high and success formula is not very clear. A YouTube channel is a very good training ground on entrepreneurship. You can see it as a business and people surfing the web are potential customers. Your videos are your products. You can have occasional customers who view your videos and loyal customers who are your subs. You are charging each customer around 0.001 $ per view. Your goal is to increase the number of customers and have more loyal ones. A YouTube channel as an entrepreneurship training is extremely valuable. It is not costing you much except your time and the downside is nearly zero. What if you fail? You start another channel or pursue another hobby. What's the big deal?

The success of a start-up is as well mostly random. Why did Facebook become popular? There were lots of other friendship sites at the time. Why did AirBnB become a big business but not Couchsurfing? How come Google beat the giants Yahoo and Microsoft in the search business? Why was the Gangnam style so popular and not some other horrible music? People can find reasons in retrospect, but it doesn't mean that the reasons were the real success drivers. We can't prove it with an experiment. Maybe it was totally by chance.

Back to success on YouTube. Yes, there are some patterns, tips and tricks. These are already mentioned several times in this forum. If you work hard and follow these recommendations, you will get a decent number of viewers and subs. But it won't guarantee that your videos will be viral and you'll be the next PewDiePie. But the more you try, the higher your chances are. I think it is worth a try to get several tickets for this lottery.

Regarding the rich get richer. Yes, it is true in YouTube as well as in real life. The rich on YouTube are the creators with trusted content and YouTube plays it safe not to lose the viewers. They make money out of that, YouTube is not a non-profit organization. YouTube also needs the small channels to keep its community and offer interesting, original content. The small channels made YouTube what it is today. So, it gives us some chances but not much. You will not be ranked #1 immediately despite several SEO tactics.

Whether we like it or not, these are the rules of the game. We either play it accordingly or sit at the bench. A friend of mine hated girls, because he wasn't successful in his attempts to date them. He said: "Girls prefer a**holes to nice guys". I suggested him to stop being a nice guy then. If this is the game, learn the rules. At least pretend.

I see lots of energy and enthusiasm on this forum. There are people who are creating content instead if just consuming it. People who want to learn, improve and share. This is a great community. All of us are buying the tickets and hopefully some of us will win the jackpot. Good luck!

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

He said: "Girls prefer a**holes to nice guys". I suggested him to stop being a nice guy then.

I agree with everything you included in your reply except that, haha.
Anybody who non-ironically calls themselves a nice guy and complains how they can't get dates is not an actual nice person.