Dutchie Abroad
Exploring the world one video at a time!
Everyone has been there. You look at your subscriber amount and it just won't budge. But you really want to reach that 100, 500, 1000 subscriber count! And then the notification comes in. "Hey cool channel, I'll sub to you if you sub me back." And you think "Cool. Another sub, just what I wanted!" And slowly your channel descends into a deep hole of despair it most likely will never get out of.
Why is this hurtful? Doesn't Youtube favor channel with more subscribers? Well, not exactly. Aside from all the current internal politics of Youtube very much pushing traditional media channels instead of their original creators, Youtube wants only one thing: To keep people watching. They want people to spend as much time on their platform as possible. Because that way they can show more ads to this person and claim more money from those advertisers. Youtube is a business, never forget this.
Now, what tells Youtube that people keep watching? Watch time and retention time. Is there a video with over 50% overal retention time? Seems like people like this video! And that is when they start recommending it. Is that video getting thousands of views within the first 24 hours of its lifetime? Time to push it even more! Youtube wants people to watch videos, preferably for a long time.
Let's link this back to the practice of sub for sub (sub4sub for short). When you just sub to a channel to get a sub back, most likely you won't actually be interested in the content this creator makes. You might love beauty channels, but you're subbing to a motor sports channel. Will you be watching those videos? Most likely not. And the same thing happens the other way around.
So let's say you hit the great 100 subs mark! But your videos are only getting 10 or 15 views. This tells Youtube that 90% of your audience isn't interested in your content. Even worse is when people only watch the first few seconds and click off again. Your retention time will plummet. So you might have subs, but they are not watching, effectively butchering your watch time and retention time, plus your sub to view ratio.
Now Youtube has a lot more factors that they take into consideration, such as likes and comments (interactions) and much more, but they've said multiple times in official update videos that watch and retention time are extremely important.
Don't kill your channel just to see your sub count rise. Make consistent content and gather subscribers in an organic way. It will be slow, but Youtube isn't a race. It's a marathon. So just keep on running and don't give up!
Why is this hurtful? Doesn't Youtube favor channel with more subscribers? Well, not exactly. Aside from all the current internal politics of Youtube very much pushing traditional media channels instead of their original creators, Youtube wants only one thing: To keep people watching. They want people to spend as much time on their platform as possible. Because that way they can show more ads to this person and claim more money from those advertisers. Youtube is a business, never forget this.
Now, what tells Youtube that people keep watching? Watch time and retention time. Is there a video with over 50% overal retention time? Seems like people like this video! And that is when they start recommending it. Is that video getting thousands of views within the first 24 hours of its lifetime? Time to push it even more! Youtube wants people to watch videos, preferably for a long time.
Let's link this back to the practice of sub for sub (sub4sub for short). When you just sub to a channel to get a sub back, most likely you won't actually be interested in the content this creator makes. You might love beauty channels, but you're subbing to a motor sports channel. Will you be watching those videos? Most likely not. And the same thing happens the other way around.
So let's say you hit the great 100 subs mark! But your videos are only getting 10 or 15 views. This tells Youtube that 90% of your audience isn't interested in your content. Even worse is when people only watch the first few seconds and click off again. Your retention time will plummet. So you might have subs, but they are not watching, effectively butchering your watch time and retention time, plus your sub to view ratio.
Now Youtube has a lot more factors that they take into consideration, such as likes and comments (interactions) and much more, but they've said multiple times in official update videos that watch and retention time are extremely important.
Don't kill your channel just to see your sub count rise. Make consistent content and gather subscribers in an organic way. It will be slow, but Youtube isn't a race. It's a marathon. So just keep on running and don't give up!
