Views > Subscribers

[WilliamRayWalters]

The views are coming from associated videos not from subs.

Yes, but how is that happening? Help me walk through the process here. The content is good and the retention of the video is high so the algorithm recognizes that and ranks the video accordingly, right? So where are those early high retention views coming from? Search? Maybe a few views there. Your other videos? Possibly. Why would you disregard your built-in set of high retention views (assuming you have quality content) when it takes almost no effort to do the things that will keep them from unsubscribing? Is it such hard work to push other subject videos to another channel? Yes, subscribers only ever account for a small percentage of your overall views (for me across all my channels it's less than 1/10th of 1%), but I believe they do have value and can play a part in obtaining those millions of views. Every video (since the viewing-session algorithm change, and discounting ones that went viral) with over a million views got there mostly because of high retention views early on. I think you're underestimating that aspect of it.

And again, let me reiterate, I do not believe anyone should focus on getting subs. I 100% agree with you there, content should be everyone's primary focus by far. I do not agree that subs can't be useful and can be disregarded though. Vlogging channels with 300k subs might get 100k of them to watch their new videos on day one. That's 100k high retention views (very high actually. That's a nice head start to getting ranked by the algorithm, no?

You don't start with some crazy fans and end up with a ton of views.

Unless you are PewDiePie or one of the other Youtubers who didn't really have one standout breakout video that jump-started their success, yet built up their channel into view-generating machines through consistency and catering to their subscriber base. I realize these are the exceptions to the rule though.

 

[YouTuber1978]

Why would you disregard your built-in set of high retention views

You're not disregarding them. Think of suggested videos as a channel source. Each channel source sort of stands alone. YouTube will feed you some views from suggested based nothing to do with subs but from "associated videos'" e.g. meta data - tags, titles descriptions. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes I talk in absolutes but I don't really mean it. Feed what's working. If you're doing top ten video and they're killing it. Keep doing top ten videos. Don't necessarily switch to a daily vlog. It's just if you do switch to a daily vlog it will probably be fine. YouTube is not going to send you views after a few days from your top ten videos, it's going to send them to you from other daily vlogs.[DOUBLEPOST=1443170199,1443169861][/DOUBLEPOST]

This is great news to hear because I have a question I been meaning to ask. My channel manly have little boys subscribers because I have a son so we play with boys toys. If I would have a girl toy in one of the video instead and I'm sure most of the subscribers will not watch or worst click out of it after 10sec...will that harm that video's chance of being picked up and suggested by YouTube because they think it must be a bad video if my subscribers are clicking out of that video so fast even thou it might be a good video, just not for the fan base that I have?

Hmmm..... You're kind of in a different situation than most because you're getting so many views right now so I'd tend to recommend a lower risk strategy. What I'd do is keep 80% of the tags the same as your current videos. But then add in some more general tags that are girl specific. If you want private message me with the subject of the video you're thinking about doing and I'll take a look at your current tags and suggest some new tags that will work for you. I wouldn't move away from the disney car stuff you've been doing completely but I would try to broaden the audience. Let's take this conversation to private message. Do you have a daughter? What are you thinking of doing to capture the girl audience and I'll share my thoughts on how you can do that in the best way possible.[DOUBLEPOST=1443170477][/DOUBLEPOST]@Ryan ToysReview I also have some general tags I'd start adding to your new videos. There are a couple of kids review channels that are also getting hundreds of millions of views a month. PM me and I'll give you a handful of "generic" tags you should add to your new videos that will pop you into their suggested views. Pretty sure you can double your daily views with a few new tags. Don't want to post publicly because then everyone will use them

 

[Lightsen]

I guess people relate better to subscribers because anyone can view your work and think its a pile of rubbish, but if they sub, not only do they like it, but they want to see more of your work, its a good indication of at least some quality.

what I don't understand what you are getting at, is how is there a difference in who to cater for? I'll take my own channel as an example.
I work hard on a video, make it funny, put little things in there that only the people that saw the previous video might notice (but dont distract from the video at all) and release it.
I get some subs, I get some views,
So what would I change to just go for views? would I not be taking content out? making it more of a click bait animation thats only a few seconds long with a catchy thumbnail? I would imagine that would hurt a channel

 

[WilliamRayWalters]

You're not disregarding them.

I meant with regard to you saying that you shouldn't worry about holding onto them. If a vlogger starts posting videos about cooking they're going to lose some of their subscribers. It's not hard to put those videos on their own channel for the sake of your subscriber base.

YouTube will feed you some views from suggested based nothing to do with subs but from "associated videos'" e.g. meta data - tags, titles descriptions.

I think your experience in your niche with this is skewing your idea about how the algorithm works. I've seen so many videos with good titles and meta data sit for weeks, even months with hardly any views. Maybe with top 10 type channels it's different (more meta data to match than, say, vlogging video meta data), but relying on suggested videos to provide those early views is pretty hit and miss depending on niche. The high retention views from even a small subscriber base would, in most cases, trump the views one might get from suggested video sources early on.

 

[YouTuber1978]

The high retention views from even a small subscriber base would, in most cases, trump the views one might get from suggested video sources early on.

You might be right. It's not the case with me though. Over the last 28 days on my biggest channel I had an average view percent of 38% from subscribers and 42% from non-subscribers. I would be surprised if this wan't pretty universal on the bigger channels.

Would be really interested in some others shared what they see in audience retention between subs and non-subs.

 

[WilliamRayWalters]

Over the last 28 days on my biggest channel I had an average view percent of 38% from subscribers and 42% from non-subscribers.

Yes, but since you're taking that entire channel into account, many of those non-subscribed views came after the algorithm has had a chance to take into consideration a ton of data and rank your videos on presumably the most relevant suggested video sections, which would not necessarily happen based solely on meta data for the first few weeks of any one of those video's life. A better measure would be drilling down on the first 2-4 weeks of a video's life and comparing the subscribed vs non-subscribed rates. I tried this with 3 videos on two completely different niches and in all of those cases the subscribers resulted in higher retention than non-subscribers. Length of video obviously is another variable that could skew results (something we should consider if others chime in with their findings).

I guess it depends largely on niche. Those vlogging channels, for example? A couple of vloggers I've discussed this with achieve ridiculously high retention on their videos, consistently 60-70% or better. Many of their videos don't really relate easily to anything that would necessarily result in high suggested video ranking, but the ones that do likely benefit greatly from that high retention. The whole vlogging thing is fascinating to me. Many of their followers seem to form what they believe are genuine and personal relationships with the vloggers. They will defend their vloggers as if they were their own family, because they feel like part of their family. It's like a cult almost, and that's why their retention is so high compared to other niches.

 

[YouTuber1978]

Yes, but since you're taking that entire channel into account, many of those non-subscribed views came after the algorithm has had a chance to take into consideration a ton of data and rank your videos on presumably the most relevant suggested video sections, which would not necessarily happen based solely on meta data for the first few weeks of any one of those video's life.

It's hard to say. I looked at my last video over the first 12 days. They're pretty close but non subs are actually higher by 2% for that date range on average view time. Either way it's pretty close. I don't know that 2% makes much differences one way or the other. Even if my subs were giving me say 5% higher average view time I'd probably still feel the same way.[DOUBLEPOST=1443237896][/DOUBLEPOST]

I guess it depends largely on niche.

I think this is a really good point. I can't speak for anything other than my own niche.

 

[FartingOnThings]

Well, I have a small channel, and I do share my videos on reddit, so perhaps I may not be the best person to chime in, but I will.

I get around 2% of views from subs, the rest are coming from me sharing. I do however also get views from suggested videos and search results. At this point, I have roughly equal views from subs and from suggested videos, but I get loads of views from search results. I am actually curios to see how many views the bigger channels get from search.

My thinking is that not everyone who likes your channel will subscribe to it. I myself subscribe only to a few select channels. If I'm in the mood for watching some particular channel like CinemaSins, or OwnagePranks, etc, I can just search them up. So I think your fan base is actually significantly bigger than your subscriber count. Even for my channel, I already notice people are searching up my exact video titles, sometimes with my channel name included.

So I think the subscriber count isn't important, but building a fan base is important. How do the big channels get millions of views in the first place? The views may come from suggested videos, but how do they end up there? It probably has to do with the initial boost in views and retention they get from their fans, after that the suggested videos take over.

 

[YouTuber1978]

Well, I have a small channel, and I do share my videos on reddit, so perhaps I may not be the best person to chime in, but I will.

Lol, I looked at your channel. Just out of sheer curiosity are you actually farting? Or just adding sound effects. Your channel made me laugh

 

[KWKBOX]

Your channel must be a guilty pleasure if people are not confident enough to subscribe and you are getting views. I do not want somebody to see me subbed to something that I will never live down like cat singing videos so I just check them out and never sub to avoid humiliation.