Any Useful Takeaways from VidCon?

The main things I learned from larger creators:
  • Engagement seems to be less of a factor for YouTube these days than watch time. (I have heard this from other sources as well, such as YouTube events and live streams). So asking for likes and subscribers isn't as important as getting people to watch your videos for as long as possible, and as many videos of yours in a row as possible.
  • Having a single focus is also important. YouTube's algorithm seems to be punishing (or at least not rewarding) channels that have huge dips and spikes in their viewership. So if you have a gaming channel with vlogs, and the game playthroughs get tons of views and the vlogs significantly less, drop the vlogs or put them on another channel, because your game videos will be less likely to be promoted because they're lost in a sea of changing analytics.
  • The YouTube audience is super-young. I knew this, but seeing that many kids all with their parents at this space all at once really drove that point home.
  • Don't count on YouTube as your only platform. The algorithm can and will change without notice, AdSense is no longer a reliable source of income, and anyone who exclusively stays on YouTube could wind up as happy as people who stayed on Blip.tv exclusively a few years ago.
  • There are many, many, MANY companies out there vying for your attention to try to "promote" you, but they don't seem to have much beyond building up a group of creators to skim off of. Be wary of companies offering you to put your videos on their platform to get revenue, seemingly for nothing, because they're most likely doing the same thing that MCNs were doing a few years ago, and will probably be just about as good for small and medium sized creators as MCNs are/were.
 
xingcat said:
The main things I learned from larger creators:
  • Engagement seems to be less of a factor for YouTube these days than watch time. (I have heard this from other sources as well, such as YouTube events and live streams). So asking for likes and subscribers isn't as important as getting people to watch your videos for as long as possible, and as many videos of yours in a row as possible.
  • Having a single focus is also important. YouTube's algorithm seems to be punishing (or at least not rewarding) channels that have huge dips and spikes in their viewership. So if you have a gaming channel with vlogs, and the game playthroughs get tons of views and the vlogs significantly less, drop the vlogs or put them on another channel, because your game videos will be less likely to be promoted because they're lost in a sea of changing analytics.
  • The YouTube audience is super-young. I knew this, but seeing that many kids all with their parents at this space all at once really drove that point home.
  • Don't count on YouTube as your only platform. The algorithm can and will change without notice, AdSense is no longer a reliable source of income, and anyone who exclusively stays on YouTube could wind up as happy as people who stayed on Blip.tv exclusively a few years ago.
  • There are many, many, MANY companies out there vying for your attention to try to "promote" you, but they don't seem to have much beyond building up a group of creators to skim off of. Be wary of companies offering you to put your videos on their platform to get revenue, seemingly for nothing, because they're most likely doing the same thing that MCNs were doing a few years ago, and will probably be just about as good for small and medium sized creators as MCNs are/were.
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Thanks xingcat, some good info there.

Explains why some new channels can explode and grow so quickly. They have a new take and angle, young kids like the content and binge watch, which is algo gold.

The single focus is key going forward. We did some livestreams a month or two ago that seem to have screwed the channel. This was after being assured by our Yt rep that bad performing/experimental livestreams would have no negative influence on the channel. No more livestreams.

I have been getting a couple of the emails from what I assume are new MCNs that all seem to have an app and website where people can watch your videos, I do wonder how many views they get. Yep, just another middleman that wants a bit of the froth off the cappuccino.
 
I wonder what the single focus means? Like kids content or is it deeper.. like thomas the train kids content? We did great with thomas the train for awhile, but our other videos that arent pertaining to thomas the train arent doing so great.. I just wonder if its deeper.. like one subject for content.[DOUBLEPOST=1498735630,1498735536][/DOUBLEPOST]
xingcat said:
The main things I learned from larger creators:
  • Engagement seems to be less of a factor for YouTube these days than watch time. (I have heard this from other sources as well, such as YouTube events and live streams). So asking for likes and subscribers isn't as important as getting people to watch your videos for as long as possible, and as many videos of yours in a row as possible.
  • Having a single focus is also important. YouTube's algorithm seems to be punishing (or at least not rewarding) channels that have huge dips and spikes in their viewership. So if you have a gaming channel with vlogs, and the game playthroughs get tons of views and the vlogs significantly less, drop the vlogs or put them on another channel, because your game videos will be less likely to be promoted because they're lost in a sea of changing analytics.
  • The YouTube audience is super-young. I knew this, but seeing that many kids all with their parents at this space all at once really drove that point home.
  • Don't count on YouTube as your only platform. The algorithm can and will change without notice, AdSense is no longer a reliable source of income, and anyone who exclusively stays on YouTube could wind up as happy as people who stayed on Blip.tv exclusively a few years ago.
  • There are many, many, MANY companies out there vying for your attention to try to "promote" you, but they don't seem to have much beyond building up a group of creators to skim off of. Be wary of companies offering you to put your videos on their platform to get revenue, seemingly for nothing, because they're most likely doing the same thing that MCNs were doing a few years ago, and will probably be just about as good for small and medium sized creators as MCNs are/were.
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I wonder what the single focus means? Like kids content or is it deeper.. like thomas the train kids content? We did great with thomas the train for awhile, but our other videos that arent pertaining to thomas the train arent doing so great.. I just wonder if its deeper.. like one subject for content.

I would too love to go to vidcon! Maybe next year :)
 
Stearmans Toy Review said:
I wonder what the single focus means? Like kids content or is it deeper.. like thomas the train kids content? We did great with thomas the train for awhile, but our other videos that arent pertaining to thomas the train arent doing so great.. I just wonder if its deeper.. like one subject for content.[DOUBLEPOST=1498735630,1498735536][/DOUBLEPOST]

I wonder what the single focus means? Like kids content or is it deeper.. like thomas the train kids content? We did great with thomas the train for awhile, but our other videos that arent pertaining to thomas the train arent doing so great.. I just wonder if its deeper.. like one subject for content.

I would too love to go to vidcon! Maybe next year :)
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Yeah I've also been in the zoom in or zoom out boat with different games vs variety. I've had games I zoom in on that people really like but the problem is that the niche I fill isn't large enough to support my long term channel goals and then I end up having to zoom back out and try something else hoping the growth will be larger. Sticking to one subject can be fantastic if you get your foot in the door of a market that has a medium to large audience but if the audience is small or goes away it can be frustrating to transition out of if that's all people expect and it isn't performing well enough.

So on the subject of VidCon, possibly the most interesting event that I went to was "Video Topics and Techniques: From Research to Upload" which had 3 people from Fine Brothers Entertainment including Rafi Fine. They gave a lot of super detailed information about their entire process researching trending topics and then how they look at the analytics to decide how well a video did and how that impacts future videos they make. Unfortunately they had a lot of small detailed slides and my phone couldn't get the pictures to come out right so they said they might upload them to their website and I'm hoping that will happen. Anyways one of the things they talked about after a video has been uploaded was how they keep track of analytics from previous videos in some spreadsheet or database and then compare the realtime views immediately after they upload against previous videos. If they don't like the way the numbers are looking they will actually consider changing the Title/description/thumbnail after they've already uploaded the video. They showed a screenshot showing how their realtime views improved by a fair bit after doing a thumbnail change to something more exciting. I'd never really considered ever doing this so immediately after uploading until they mentioned it. The key thing is to have an idea of what your videos usually get in terms of immediate response and then think why this one is doing worse than the others. They also showed how they planned out their entire week on google calendars, and I've actually started trying this since I got back. They also had a list of websites they use to research trending topics but my picture was so blurry I'm still trying to edit it so I can read them...

Rhett and Link also talked about the importance of scheduling time during their week at their creative process panel and Rhett said their time was "extremely scheduled". lol In particular they mentioned how much time and effort they've put into scripting out their content. They talked about how they would often get together and spend long amounts of time working on ideas and how important it was that they took that time seriously. To me that panel helped highlight that having creative/research/brainstorming time every week is very key to being able to bring value and originality to your viewers.

One panel I'm sad I missed was the Key Lessons from Rooster Teeth, so if anyone did go to that I'd love to know what they shared. I went to a copyright panel but it was downright confusing. Hmm... lets see what else... the Internet Creators Guild got mentioned a ton, I still need to check them out.
 
KiddieToysReview said:
This was after being assured by our Yt rep that bad performing/experimental livestreams would have no negative influence on the channel. No more livestreams.
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While it is just speculation and not something I am trying to pass of as a fact, I have often heard that the live stream algorithm is different than the video algorithm so I wouldn't let that scare you away from doing live streams unless more info comes out.
 
KiddieToysReview said:
Thanks xingcat, some good info there.

Explains why some new channels can explode and grow so quickly. They have a new take and angle, young kids like the content and binge watch, which is algo gold.

The single focus is key going forward. We did some livestreams a month or two ago that seem to have screwed the channel. This was after being assured by our Yt rep that bad performing/experimental livestreams would have no negative influence on the channel. No more livestreams.

I have been getting a couple of the emails from what I assume are new MCNs that all seem to have an app and website where people can watch your videos, I do wonder how many views they get. Yep, just another middleman that wants a bit of the froth off the cappuccino.
Click to expand...

I see now why you all stopped live streaming. Really living through the motto of trying new things, failing often, and changing it up quickly. Thanks for sharing. It's a shame that YT brand reps can't be completely trusted either for knowing the details of the algo.
 
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