Using competitor name as tag

[XXLRay]

I made a a collaboration video with another channel some time ago. Just recently I put their channel name into the tag section and this is the result for that video:

It's forbidden to do this with unrelated channel names but as this is a collaboration video I guess the tag is still relevant.
Note that not only the traffic from suggested videos did pick up but also the one from cards and annotations. I have no idea why the latter one is the case.
Their video has 700k+ views by the way. I somehow got lucky as their next most watched video has "only" 30k+ views.
So if I learned something from this then it is that linking each other in annotations and cards isn't necessarily sufficient to get into the recommendation section but that tags can be the break through.

 

[chottom]

Yes popular channel names as tags are sometimes very powerfull tool. Not only for YT but also for podcasts, world wide web sites etc.
PS. Congratulations for the traffic spike. Let's hope it is sustainable!

 

[TwoTakes]

Could somebody eleborate on the rules for this? Is it ok to tag a channel name which has similar content but is not collaborating in anyway with your channel?

 

[XXLRay]

@TwoTakes there's a grey zone. In my interpretation you would at least have to mention and reference the other channel somehow in your video.

 

[Talooka]

WOW! I did NOT expect tags to have such an impact on the video. I have to learn more about this.

 

[XXLRay]

@Talooka note that tags are only taken into consideration for a first placement. If the video then doesn't reach a good audience retention it's kicked out of the suggestions again.
Furthermore tags always work together with title, description and captions. They may not work well when they are only used for themselves.
Finally the result is only that extreme because the collaboration video went kind of viral. Tags are no silver bullet!

 

[NothingToDoCrew]

WOW! I did NOT expect tags to have such an impact on the video. I have to learn more about this.

I tried this a while back and it had no impact. When i made my popular slip and slide kickball video i had tagged "Dude Perfect" and "Devin Supertramp" (two of the biggest youtubers) and my views did not grow at all. A few weeks later i removed them since i was just seeing if it would work.
Months later it finally popped up on reddit and went from 1k to 1 mil (so it's not like it wasn't getting views because it was terrible, it just wasn't getting the traffic and the tags appeared to have no impact)

But that could just be how it is for my types of videos..might work for vlogs if you tagged that casey guy or video games if you tagged _____________

 

[XXLRay]

@NothingToDoCrew I see two problems with your attempt. First there may simply be too much competition for the tags you tried. It may take ages once YouTube reaches your video in the suggestion queue.
Second like I mentioned above tags alone may not do much. My video mentions the other channel, I link to them in my description, have them in my closed captions, added annotations to them and inserted an icard in addition to the tag. Furthermore they linked back to my video.

 

[NothingToDoCrew]

@NothingToDoCrew I see two problems with your attempt. First there may simply be too much competition for the tags you tried. It may take ages once YouTube reaches your video in the suggestion queue.
Second like I mentioned above tags alone may not do much. My video mentions the other channel, I link to them in my description, have them in my closed captions, added annotations to them and inserted an icard in addition to the tag. Furthermore they linked back to my video.

That makes a lot more sense..Driving people to your channel is the biggest problem with small youtubers. My go to has been reddit, so far it has helped me make 2 videos go viral (and to be honest, i only have those 2 videos that are worth going viral)

 

[subversiveasset]

Thanks for posting on this! With respect to your conclusion that makes sense -- I did not even think that YouTube considered annotations or cards as part of the metadata it uses to determine Suggested Videos, so it makes sense that tags would have more of an effect. If I'm collaborating with someone else, then I will usually include their channel name in the title (e.g., "ft. [Other YouTuber]"), tags, and description so that those things are well-reinforced. And I agree that it makes sense to do this when you actually have a collaboration.