I rarely encounter marketers who have YouTube retargeting on their digital marketing plan. People try this once and usually 'aren't ready' to waste their money for an existing audience. Why is that? Lack of knowledge or curiosity? In this post I'd like to fight this unwillingness to try new features and explain the this remarketing feature for everyone (a pretty tough task knowing the difference in backgrounds and goals in our professional lives).
Adwords for YouTube: Remarketing Strategy
Let's begin with the basics. Retargeting can help to re-engage your audience and assist every stage of the conversion funnel. It's as simple as that. When creating campaigns in Google AdWords for YouTube, you can use the standard audiences (provided by Google) and custom tailored to target on YouTube. What's an audience? People with similar behaviors, similar watching history or simply the visitors of your webpage. For this post, we'll concentrate on the audience segments provided by YouTube, which are:
Users who shared your videos
Users who liked your videos
Users who subscribed
Users who commented on your videos
Users who watched one exact video
Users who watched one exact video as an ad
and combinations of this lists (can be altered and created manually)
Sequential retargeting, one type of remarketing, allows you to segment your audience into different categories, and also include, and of course exclude, different sections of that audience based on the previous actions they have taken. For instance, a user who clicks on the ad may be shown one version, while another user who not only clicked on the ad but also went on to add a product to the shopping cart may be shown another version.
5 Ways to Use Sequential Retargeting on YouTube
Let's assume you run a small local company - you and one of your college pals run a car converting business taking old garbage on wheels and making it electro. Simple idea - you start filming the process and publishing these episodes on your channel. People like it. People share it. After some time you are able to buy the garbage, convert it and finally sell as your own inventory. You have a place to store these little VW bugs and they really make your storefront alive. How to sell these cars? That's where your growing channel can help.
If people like something - they share it. A shared video gets additional views, and, the content is good, subsequent video content from the channel gets a bigger chunk of coverage because of growing amount of subscribers. But the process can take years to bring a substantial support for your business. To make it faster and more creative we have to use retargeting for our YouTube audience. Let's think how:
1) We can publish a series of episodes about the new project you build gradually revealing the details about it in every next episode. Using the so-called 'sequential' retargeting you can show every new episode to the viewers of the previous episode only. This will urge viewers to watch all of them but you won't be sure that they won't miss an episode making them frustrated and unmotivated to follow the sequence further.
2) You can announce the secret project and target your preroll video ads to the subscribers only forcing everyone to follow your channel in order to keep up with your updates. This makes people feel themselves special and 'chosen'. Good tactics. And you can make these videos public and available for everyone after you publish the last episode of the series.
3) You can create an interactive game and spend some money running the first video in the sequence as a preroll ad for your subscribers.
4) You can target likers, video viewers and commenters and mix these lists together (it makes sense for you of course)
5) You can negatively target the existing viewers of your channel in your new YouTube advertising campaign if you try to reach new people (potential customers, subscribers, viewers etc). For example you want to gain more subscribers and you run a campaign targeted to technofiles in Austin (you know from your YouTube Analytics that this city doesn't really know about your business) and you exclude people from the targeting who already watched your videos. Does it make sense?
Sequential Retargeting Tips
Sequential retargeting is an enormous video advertising opportunity that many brands aren't picking up on. If you are part of a marketing team here are some thing to seriously consider if you decide to test this approach:
Set up your frequency cap, and limit ad impressions per user. There really is such a thing as overkill.
Target your campaigns locally. I don't think your ecar will be interesting for your friends in Somali. Not this year at least.
Think about your audience and try to group videos into groups to create 'look-alike' audiences
Consider negative retargeting when your budget is limited and you really don't have much money to show the ad to everyone
Stay relevant. Your VR (View rate) has to be your king (in case that's your KPI but that's another story)
The value of retargeting is so underestimated so it's difficult for me to start pitching it to my clients. Customer education is the worst task we have in our professional life but if you get it done properly...dude, everyone is hooked then.
Do more video now. That was the message of Social Media Marketing World in San Diego. From the opening keynote to Gary Vaynerchuck’s closing remarks, video and live video were on everyone’s lips. We're a long way from the days when social media marketers viewed video and YouTube as a small piece of the content marketing pie, at #SMMW16 video took its place as king of online content.
Live video streaming, Facebook video ads, YouTube influencer marketing, and Snapchat all received ample stage time from credible sources. Some presenters showed huge results from using video with traditional Facebook marketing techniques. It was the first time in my career that I’ve seen social media thought leaders and video marketing experts share the stage harmoniously.
Top Video Takeaways from Social Media Marketing World
Those of us positioned in video as Creators or Marketers have a lot to gain with this new momentum. I’ve listed below the top takeaways from the Video Track at #SMMW16 and how they might apply to a video creator or a video marketer. If you’re in video whether growing a channel or video marketing, I’d bookmark this article.
#1 Live Video Will Rule 2016
Michael Stelzner is the president of Social Media Examiner who hosts the event. In his opening keynote, The Stelz jumped right into some very important numbers:
50% of marketers plan to use live video
50% want to learn more about live video
14% of marketers already using live
For Creators: Add more live video into your mix. Whether to build community, increase subscribers, or sell product, use your favorite trending platform (Hint: Instagram and Vine may not be your starting point). Consider YouTube live, Facebook live, and Snapchat.
For Marketers: Start testing live stream videos in your Facebook timeline and with your YouTube audiences. Discover which formats do well for which industries and create packages for your clients to start purchasing. Here’s an example of white board video that we recorded live.
#2 Marketers Must Take Notice of Facebook Video
Everyone is on Facebook and the rest are lying. Combined with their extremely sophisticated targeting platform, Facebook is going to be the #1 place for short videos and other formats (Link to my piece about top performing formats). While I’m not convinced vloggers or tutorial channels (like mine) will do well on Facebook video, I’m extremely confident in using worksafe videos, blog trailers, and other shorter form content to convert my Facebook audience over to YouTube.
More subscribers means more revenue potential. Here are some exciting stats:
73% of marketers are increases their use of video
21% claim it's the most important form of content marketing
58% want to improve their knowledge of YouTube
67% Will increase their Facebook marketing in 2016
For Creators: As more brands and companies want to use video on Facebook, they will naturally seek out YouTube and other video personalities. If you’re an influencer channel or a video production specialist, you’ll quickly find yourself getting more phone calls. Put together some pricing (if you haven’t already) for speaking with brands and TV producers.
For Marketers: Start networking with bigger channels. Create synergy and collaborations with Creators across different platforms. Interview them on your blog and create those relationships now. Find Influencers that you can connect to your client base. The video marketer who can creatively bring together companies and Creators will do phenomenally well.
#3 TV Producers are Looking at Online Video
NBC’s hit show The Amazing Race was in trouble. Down to only 7 million viewers the producers wanted to cancel. Then something brilliant happened - the show launched it’s next season with video influencers from YouTube and Vine. Tyler Oakley, Burnie Burns, Matt Stefanina, Erin Robinson, Blair Fowler, Brodie Smith, Cole LaBrant, Zach King, and Cam Benson each joined the ranks (along with a couple others). In total, they brought a combined audience of 33 million people to the table. The show is doing phenomenally well and many good people kept their jobs… Because of online video.
For Creators: Make yourself available for sponsorship even at the 10k or 20k subscriber range. Even less if your view counts are high. You should be very confident in your audience at this point. This might include getting your feet wet with Grapevine or Famebit but should really focus more on higher level sponsorships directly with a brand.
For Marketers: Start learning the language of brands and MCNs so that you can better represent a video influencer. Know how to talk about CPM and use Socialbluebook.com as a starting point to negotiate an influencer’s worth. By learning this new language you’ll be better positioned to work with influencers and agencies.
#4 You Must Get to Know Video Analytics
The deep insights provided by the Facebook and YouTube video platforms allow you to understand your audience unlike ever before. Having an intimate knowledge of who is watching your video content will better prepare you to deliver content attracting more of that audience. This is how you’ll grow your subscriber base.
Additionally, video entrepreneurs and influencers and being treated more like personal brands. As you engage with MCNs, Consultants like me, and other potential business allies, it pays to know your numbers like you’re in the Shark Tank. This includes:
Your demographic
Avg view duration
10 second views
Sound on
Sound off
Clicked YouTube Cards
Clicked Annotations
For Creators: Understand the numbers that determine your value in working on an influencer campaign. Many influencers find this part of the job boring and choose therefore to work with a consultant or MCN. Not a bad idea. Travis Chambers is a viral video creator. Speaking at CVX Live in Utah he said, “Working with a MCN can get you up to 30% more per brand deal.”
For Marketers: Know how to present analytic numbers in a presentation. Gone are the days of fluffy sales presentations. Instead, you’ve got to present your numbers in a meaningful way and focus in on the value of your unique channel. For one channel, their watchtime might be the selling point. For another, their view count might be the hook.
#5 Snapchat is a Major Player
This awkward little app is making waves and causing dissention between traditional ROI marketers and Social Media Marketers. Perhaps the “YouTube” of portrait video, the financial success of video artists Shaun Ayala and Shaunduras proves that Snapchat audiences can deliver a return (both are sponsored by brands). Carlos Gil’s presentation on Snapchat was honest and every seat was packed. Opening the event with his trademark, “Hey Snapchat family!” he delivered these key takeaways:
Takeaway 1: Snapchat isn't for everyone or every business, Marketer's should only be looking at Snapchat if they're willing to invest in the long term play of growing a channel from the ground up and create native content. There's no instant ROI on Snapchat
Takeaway 2: Snapchat is intended to be original and unique, it's not Facebook or Twitter. Brands using it are looking at Snapchat as a medium to drive awareness amongst Millennials and not as a channel to drive sales -- not yet at least. Marketers need not look at Snapchat as a clone to other social networks b/c it's not. It's however a great tool to create mobile, video content and build loyalty with younger audiences. Need more info on how to get started with Snapchat - here's a video we did earlier.
#6 Win the click
Tim Schmoyer of Video Creators delivered an outstanding presentation on “winning the click” - a marketing expression that refers to a user clicking on a video based on the thumbnail and title. However, this same term might apply equally well to Facebook video which plays silently until the video is clicked. He emphasized the importance of choosing titles that are both accurate to the video content and outlandish enough to be noticed. Combined with a similarly designed video thumbnail, Tim suggests a thumbnail should be planned before the video editing is even finalized. In a post session interview, Amy Schmittauer recaps the presentation with Schmoyer here:
For Creators: Think about your Thumbnails first. Far from being an optimization afterthought, your thumbnails should be more than just a DVD cover for your video. For your next project, plan your thumbnail before you shoot and finalize it in Photoshop at 85px tall - approximately how big they appear in the Related Videos section.
For Marketers: Experiment with different thumbnail designs. From Rainbow Barf (thanks Jeremy Vest for that phrase!) to more professional designs. Test at least 2 thumbnails per video using Display Ads and experiment with user engagement on Facebook to increase the amount of “sound on” video views.
#7 Use Remarketing Lists in AdWords
In perhaps the #2 presentation of the event, Derral Eves dropped a load of impressive date from his success with the Harmon Brothers on the Squatty Potty video. Entitled Unicorn Poop, Derrals presentation explained the use of remarketing lists for targeting highly qualified traffic to your videos.
Found in adwords, remarketing lists enable Creators to push videos to viewers of previously watched videos. You can also target viewers based on their behavior toward your videos. Adwords also allows for custom combinations of remarketing lists to create super qualified targets such as “viewers who have viewed a video but have not subscribed.” When combined with the Google Display Network, remarketing lists are a powerful tool.
For Creators: If your audience is large and growing, seek out a consultant or YouTube marketing specialist for help in setting up these campaign. By segmenting your audience you’ll be able to more accurately capture brand deals and sponsorship opportunities.
For Marketers: Start creating your lists now. The larger your remarketing lists are, the more valuable you become to your clients and to marketing partners. Create playlists based on interest and target user groups IE: Women interested in fitness or 18+ who watch gaming on YouTube. These lists may become your income.
Social Media Marketing World: Conclusion
Largely an event for Social Media Marketers, the Social Media Marketing World Conference this year was almost identical to a video marketing conference. From the opening keynote to the closing, speakers spoke on video, live video, video ads, and video marketing. Video Creators and video marketers alike are well positioned to capitalize on the growth of video on social media but should also be prepared to speak with traditional TV producers as well. I’m certainly excited to be a consultant in the field because our phone is already starting to ring off the hook.
Video marketers don’t want to risk losing the support of some senior executives or potential clients who still believe the world of online video is as flat as the world of network television. Am I right? That’s why I secretly celebrated when I recently read that, “Next year will mark a major milestone for ad spending, as total digital surpasses TV for the first time". In fact, while TV ad spend will total $7B in the US, digital ad spend is predicted to equal $77B. Now, YouTube reaches more 18 to 49 year olds than any cable TV, or broadcast network in the US, but should 'reach' be the only metric that continues to matter to the industry?
The Best Ways to Measure the Impact of Video Marketing
With the Digital Content NewsFronts kicking off in New York City this week, I think it’s time to stand up and publicly declare: The advertiser isn’t always right! But, he or she is still the one who pays you, right? So, if some brands and agencies are still spending too large a share of their total ad budgets on TV, then calling them “stupid” isn’t the smartest way to get these “Mad Men” and Women to spend even bigger bucks on digital video. A safer and savvier strategy is to quietly share some new ways of measuring the impact of video on their future success.
So, where can you find some of these strategic insights on where they can get their hands on certain critical data? Well, it turns out that some new ways of measuring the impact of video recently have emerged, so let's take a look. First, Yahoo recently partnered with Nielsen & Hunter Qualitative to find out exactly what makes video ads effective, and their report yielded some strategic insights for video marketers:
Mobile alignment: According to Yahoo’s research, video ads must be optimized for screen alignment. In other words, viewing a landscape ad horizontally or a portrait ad vertically, compared to viewing a landscape ad vertically, can increase brand affinity 20% and 80% respectively. It can also lift purchase intent 33% and 100% respectively.
Align ad tone with KPI’s to reach Millennials: Comedic ads drove a 50% lift in brand familiarity with Millennials, compared to viewers overall. Dramatic/emotional ads drove a 33% lift in brand affinity with Millennials. And informational ads drove a 31% lift in purchase intent comparatively. So, employ different ad tones to drive Millennials down the purchase funnel.
Auto-start native video ads: Compared to user-initiated video, this new research shows auto-start video ads in native environments achieve 51% higher aided recall, 10% higher brand familiarity, and 4% higher affinity. So if you aren’t testing native video, this year might be the time to start.
ALSO ►Why BuzzFeed's Video Distribution Strategy Demands New Industry Metrics
Facebook: Driving Business Objectives via Video
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO confirmed that “People are sharing and creating nearly 3X more video on Facebook than they were a year ago". Also, the amount of time people spend watching video content on Instagram has risen by 40% over the past 6 months. Last year, Facebook introduced a metric called Conversion Lift to measure how Facebook and Instagram campaigns drive business objectives like sales. So, has anyone used Conversion Lift to measure and improve their return on ad investments? Brands like Chase Bank have used the feature to measure campaigns.
'Sales Lift' Metric via YouTube TrueView
Now, if sharing all this critical data doesn’t help you win friends and influence people during the Digital Content NewsFronts, then it’s time to up your game and master the fine art of schmooze optimization. That’s when you whisper the following into the ear of a senior executive or potential client while you’re both waiting in line to get into YouTube Brandcast: “Do you want to see online video drive offline sales?” Let's take a a look Inside AdWords to see how Google is helping brands with video metrics.
A certain brand measurement product manager at Google just put the word on the street that consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, brands, advertisers, whatever, can get their hands on sales lift studies in the US – for free – if they just happen to be using TrueView video ads. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. According to my sources, 78% of the TrueView campaigns that they studied on YouTube showed an increase in offline sales. How much of an increase? Well, 61% drove a “statistically significant” lift in sales of the advertised brand, according to people who oughta know.
Now, according to some wise guys and gals, one campaign they measured – I think it was Gatorade’s “We Love Sweat” – earned $13.50 sales in return for every dollar spent on TrueView. Now, that’s a hell of a return on ad spend, or ROAS, as they’d say on Madison Avenue. Also, Mars tested a video that opened with some very strong corporate branding, against one that used branding at the end, and confirmed that using branding at the beginning drove nearly 7x greater sales lift.
You might say that this new sales lift offering drops the last piece into place for full funnel measurement of CPG campaigns on YouTube. So, we just might want to talk with some of the Google people who most certainly will be hanging around YouTube Brandcast. I understand that they plan to scale these studies. So, it won’t hurt to see if they’ll cut us in on the action. Who know, we might pick up some strategic insights into how online video can drive offline sales for our brand.
If brands are looking for deeper ways to measure video engagement, Tubular Labs has recently launched Tubular Video Ratings, which provides you with a standardized metric that rates every digital video, publisher, and influencer according to views and engagement. This seems to be the first time that engagement and views for video content (not ads) have been benchmarked across the entire video ecosystem, which new way to measure the success of branded entertainment, media sales, and influencer marketing.
The Tubular Video Rating now scores 100 Million videos as well as 5 Million brands and influencers. And it covers videos uploaded to YouTube, Facebook, and Vine, and enables video marketers to rate their video content against competitors, categories, and peers to see how they stack up in terms of views and engagement. To learn more about these new Tubular Video Ratings, just click here.
According to The Economist, the world’s largest airlines as of June 2015 were Delta Airlines with 129.4 million passengers, and Southwest Airlines with 129.1 million passengers. But, according to Tubular Labs, Turkish Airlines is the #1 brand in the travel and events category, with 36.9 million views across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Vine in March 2016.
When it comes to video marketing, Turkish Airlines is flying circles around the world’s largest airlines. And so are TAM Airlines, Emirates, and LAN. Which begs the question: What do a lot of the smaller airlines know about video marketing that most of the bigger airlines don’t?
Turkish Airlines: Viral Video Strategy
Well, to put it bluntly, it appears that video marketers for several of the smaller brands know that Millennials turn to video when making purchase decisions, while the traditional marketers at a bunch of the bigger brands mistakenly believe that the only content this key demographic group could be watching online is funny cat videos. We've already addressed how safety videos are the new video marketing for airline brands, but if you are part of a video marketing team for an airline brands, start by taking a closer look at how Turkish Airlines is flying circles around the world’s largest airlines by creating content that appeals to that particular audience.
Turkish Airlines is the Turkish flag carrier and a leading European airline. It flies to 284 cities in 113 countries, making it the airline that flies to the most countries in the world. It’s also worth noting that Turkish Airlines has won the Skytrax “Best Airline in Europe Award” five years in a row. There are 284 videos with 587 million views on the Turkish Airlines YouTube channel, which means each video is getting an average of 1.9 million views. By comparison, there are 311 videos with 29.2 million views on the Delta Airlines YouTube channel, which means each video is getting an average of 93,700 views. So, what is Turkish Airlines smoking?
Well, the most watched video on the Turkish Airlines YouTube channel is “Kobe vs. Messi: The Selfie Shootout,” which was published Dec. 3, 2013, and now has 144 million views. This video also has 22,700 comments, making it the video with the most comments on the channel.
By comparison, the most watched and most commented on video on the Delta Airlines YouTube channel is “The Internetest safety video on the Internet,” which has 9.7 million views and 8,537 comments. So, you can’t jump to the conclusion that Turkish Airlines got lucky when one of its videos went viral. So, let’s dig a little deeper. On Feb. 7, 2016, “Fly to Gotham City with Turkish Airlines!” was published on YouTube. This video for flights to a fictional city now has 27.3 million views and 1,715 comments.
On the same day, “Fly to Metropolis with Turkish Airlines!” was also published on YouTube. This video for air travel to an imaginary city now has 25.3 million views and 1,135 comments. So, Turkish Airlines knows how to leverage sports stars and fictional superheroes when it sets out to create great content. But, are these the only plays in their playbook?
ALSO ►Why Safety Videos are the New Video Marketing for Airline Brands
Paid Promotion Boots Viral Reach
Well, over the years, I’ve noticed that Turkish Airlines also leverages paid video advertising to put its content in front of the right audience. Yes, one of the keys to success on YouTube is to produce great, relevant videos, but you also have to make sure your target audience sees them. So, how do I know that Turkish Airlines has been using paid advertising on YouTube to ignite sharing and accelerate audience building? Well, its YouTube channel only has 131,600 subscribers, although this has increased from 108,200 on Jan. 24, 2016. Still, this isn’t enough to seed new content when it launches. Besides, you can find videos from Turkish Airlines on several YouTube Ads Leaderboards. For example,
“Kobe vs Messi: Legends on Board” ranked #2 on the YouTube Ads Leaderboard for Cannes in June 2013.
“Kobe vs. Messi: The Selfie Shootout” ranked #1 on the YouTube Ads Leaderboard for Cannes in June 2014.
“Drogba vs. Messi: #EpicFood” ranked #1 on the YouTube Ads Leaderboard for November 2014.
“Drogba vs. Messi: #EpicFood” also ranked #3 on the YouTube Ads Leaderboard for Cannes in June 2015.
Oh, and just in case there is any doubt, Think with Google published a case study in June 2014 that is entitled, “How Turkish Airlines Reached 100+ Million Traveler Prospects with Selfies.” The case study refers to the video as “a new YouTube ad called ‘Kobe vs. Messi: The Selfie Shootout’”, “one of the fastest spreading commercials on YouTube”, and “one of the most popular ads of 2013”. Get it? Got it? Good.
So, is it cheating to leverage YouTube’s advertising tools to reach a wider global audience? Well, even the YouTube Creator Playbook for Brands says, “Given the abundance of videos on the web, it's risky to assume that your content will be organically discovered by a large audience. It is key to design a solid plan to promote your content and ensure it’s viewed by your target audience.” Besides, just look at the results:
“Kobe vs. Messi: The Selfie Shootout” got 77 million views in one week, making it YouTube’s fastest spreading commercial.
This promoted video tripled brand searches on YouTube for Turkish Airlines and achieved a 16% increase in global brand searches on Google.
Finally, “Kobe vs. Messi: The Selfie Shootout” generated a 9% increase in global brand recall.
It’s also worth noting that total passengers on Turkish Airlines have increased from 38.3 million in 2013, to 54.8 million in 2014, to 61.2 million in 2015. This indicates that we’re likely to see the Turkish flag carrier in The Economist’s list of the world’s largest airlines when it is updated in June 2016.
And as regular readers of ReelSEO, you’ll know how Turkish Airlines got there. So, you will ready to provide strategic insights to discombobulated traditional marketers and top marketing executives if they come looking for help. Just tell them, “You’re leaving money on the table if you aren’t leveraging videos to reach Millennials when they’re thinking about taking a trip, choosing a destination, and looking for an airline that can get them there – even if ‘there’ is Gotham or Metropolis.”
Why Video Marketing to Millennials is Essential
According to the 2015 Online and Mobile Video Study from Animoto, “video is no longer optional for brands and businesses looking to market to millennials.” Their survey of a representative sample of 1,051 U.S. consumers revealed 70% of millennials were likely to watch a video when shopping online and 80% of millennials found video helpful when conducting online research for a purchase decision. So, how much money are a bunch of bigger brands and businesses leaving on the table if they aren’t targeting this demographic group? Well, Millennials are the generation born between 1980 and 2000. They’re also called Generation Y. There are 80 million of them in the U.S. alone. And they will spend more than $200 billion annually starting in 2017, and $10 trillion in their lifetimes. This is a target audience that is too big to ignore.
And according to the Animoto study, Millennials are 264% more likely than Baby Boomers to share videos about a product, service or company while shopping online. But, if you aren’t uploading very compelling video content very often, then your videos aren’t likely to “go viral,” are they? The Animoto survey also found 62% of Millennials prefer to watch a video from a company instead of reading text. Now, that’s going to discombobulate many of the traditional marketers to who spent their formative years learning how to write travel brochures or travel magazine articles that made the cash register ring. This means they have to go out and find someone who can teach them how to master visual storytelling.
Finally, the 2015 research found:
84% of millennials follow companies or brands on Facebook.
76% of millennials follow companies or brands on YouTube.
47% of millennials follow companies or brands on Twitter.
42% of millennials follow companies or brands on Instagram.
And video -- especially YouTube video -- can do that. According to “The 2015 Travelers Road to Decision,” a Google/Ipsos MediaCT survey of 3,500 leisure travelers and 1,500 business travelers that was conducted in August 2015, about 106 million of YouTube’s monthly unique visitors in the US are travelers. And among these travelers, 64% watched travel-related videos when thinking about taking a trip and 37% watched them when deciding which web site to book their trip on. It's also worth noting that 80% of YouTube's views are from outside of the US, so the number of global travelers watching YouTube videos each month may exceed 500 million.
Around 14 million creators publish video content to the major social video platforms every month, and we can confirm the top video talent across those sites to show you who is generating the most views, engagement, followers and buzz.
Using data from Tubular, we can track and measure the most watched online video creators on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Vine. In this post, we take a specific look at March 2016 Video Creator Rankings for Vine, and which Vine stars generated the most views and engagement on the site last month.
As you can see from the March leaderboard, eight out of the top 10 most watched Viners are still independent creators, and appear in the comedy category. For the sixth month in a row, Vine superstar Thomas Sanders was the most watched non-branded Vine creator, with an incredible 267 million views, or loops as they are known on the site. His most looped Vine, with 16 million views, was this 6-second clip. 195K viewers enjoyed it so much they chose to share, comment, and like it too. Another Vine megastar, Lele Pons, was the first Vine star to reach 1 billion, and then 6 billion loops. The teenage sensation has over 10.9 million followers on her Vine account, and picked up 175K new followers last month alone. Her Vine content generated an impressive 173M loops on her channel in March.
Along with Thomas Sanders and other Vine superstars who are fast becoming are the new Influencers for millennials, Pons can command a good fee for any product or service endorsed. She has used her Vine channel to collaborate with or promote Ritz Crackers, HP, and Kotex, and belongs to a stable of Viners represented by Gary Vaynerchuk's Grapestory, a company dedicated to matching Vine personalities to brands such as Virgin Mobile, and GE. Influencer marketing has such widespread benefit for brands, that Vines owner Twitter, invested a rumored $30 million in February this year to acquire Niche, a site that also helps brands and advertisers find Vine Influencers to work them on endorsement deals. So, although Vine doesn't carry paid advertising, it's creators like those featured in the most-watched Leaderboard that can offer brands the visibility they need to access their target audience on the platform.
Two sports brands have made the top 10: Bleacher Report with 283M views, and NBA with 148M video views.The NBA is crushing other sports leagues on social video, and after Facebook, Vine was the top channel in terms of video views for brand in March. The most viewed Vine was this clip of the late singer Prince. It generated 3.5 million loops in March, but after the news of his tragic death, it may generate even more loops in April.
Tune in Every Month for the Most Up-to-Date Stats!
Each month ReelSEO will publish the most up-to-date leaderboard charts from Tubular, so stay tuned! In the meantime, if you'd like to check out the Top 25, please fill out the form below:
Did you know there were nearly 329 billion video views generated across the 4 major social video platforms in March 2016? Or that BuzzFeed, Justin Bieber, the WWE, and Tastemade were some of the most-watched brands and superstar creators across any of those social networking sites?
Each month, we will highlight the most watched video creators across YouTube, Facebook, Vine, and Instagram, and confirm the viewing figures for the top channels and accounts via Tubular's ranking leaderboards. The data will shine a spotlight onto the brands and independent creators who are generating the most video views across some of the world's biggest social video networking sites. This month, take a look at not just who is on top of the charts, but what type of content they are making. Based on this list, there is a noticeable trend for what type of content works best on which platform right now.
Top Video Cross Platform Rankings: March 2016
While most of our readers have become accustomed to BuzzFeed dominating this chart, it’s important to note how they are doing it. BuzzFeed Tasty is making their way through food videos and recipes, primarily on Facebook. They have mastered the ability to create eye-popping visuals that grab viewers’ attention and draw them in to each video. They keep their clips short, to the point, and also link it back to their main site to drive even more traffic to other content they own.
Top 10 Most Watched Video Creators March 2016 (Data via Tubular). Rankings include only those creators and brands which publish primarily original content.
BuzzFeed Video is a perfect example of content that works well on both Facebook and YouTube. The more traditional-style of video features catchy titles, well-edited sequences, and background music. Videos from BuzzFeed video tend to get to the point quickly and are under 4 minutes most of the time. This allows them to tell their story and still get you moving on to the next piece of content. They earned a fairly even split in march with just shy of 300 million views coming from YouTube and another 390 million coming from Facebook.
Tastemade is doing something similar with Facebook, also relying on large thumbnail images that highlight the food in the video. Thumbnails like this are key on Facebook and thrive in the feed whether it’s on mobile or desktop. Between Tastemade and Buzzfeed Tasty, there were over 3 billion video views generated on Facebook in March. Tastemade's most viewed video on Facebook last month was this walk-through for potato pizza which generated over 87M views, and 1.7M engagements.
While certain types of content are branching out to other platforms, YouTube remains a very safe bet when it comes to music. Bieber hasn’t even released a new video on his VEVO channel or his personal channel in over 4 weeks and yet here he is, gaining views from the long-tail performance of his videos. Meanwhile, the WWE continues to use YouTube as a storage place for exclusive clips following all of their events. They have built a community that enjoys and looks forward to the release of this exclusive footage and it keeps fans engaged through the WWE and not a random fan posting stolen footage.
The last YouTube standout in the top 10 is from Ryan ToysReview. As buyers increase their spending from online retailers, video product reviews become increasingly important, especially for toys. Buyers need to be able to feel like what they are purchasing is exactly what they expect and want.
Top Ten Most-Watched Cross-Platform Creators March 2016
With around 400 million active monthly users, 75% of which are based outside the U.S., Instagram continues to be one of the most important social platforms for video publication and distribution. In this post, we highlight the big success stories in the March 2016 Tubular Video Creator Rankings for Instagram, and confirm the most watched brands and creators on the micro-video platform last month.
Most Watched: Top Instagram Video Creators March 2016
Instagram has been making a noticeable push to attract marketers and other video creators in the past couple months. Most notably they started to roll out the ability to post 60 second video clips and modified the way in which the feed is displayed. Looking at our top 10 list for this month, it appears that those changes are doing their job.
Top 10 Most Watched Instagram Video Creators March 2016 (Data via Tubular)
Ariana Grande moved up to #5 on the list this month with a strong presence fueled by the release of her new single Dangerous Woman, which she performed on SNL.
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Ariana pulled in nearly 47 million views on the platform in March with nearly all of her videos having something to do with her new single or her appearance on SNL. While Instagram has always been great for engaging fans, this just goes to show that tent pole events and launches are magnified when you engage in the right way and funnel your fans towards those events.
Thanks to all of the recent changes, Instagram entered the list at #3. They capitalized on the recent changes to go from 50.9M views in February to over 66M in March. The Instagram page routinely features the best content from throughout the site and while I’m sure that a good bit of their traffic is generated because they are in charge, it’s important to note the value of curating content. They are featuring some of the best videos they have seen on the site and make it easier for users to discover great content they will enjoy.
After a relative hiatus from her normally dominant presence on Instagram, Taylor Swift returned in March with renewed focus to the tune of over 32M video views. Apparently all she needed to do was take a vacation.
Lele Pons is a newcomer to the Instagram top 10 this week, but not to video. She is routinely at the top of our list for Viners, but it appears she is shifting some of her efforts to Instgram. If you are a fan of hers, don’t worry, she’s still putting the majority of her effort into Vine, where she gained over 173M loops last month, but she was able to bring in nearly 30M more from Instagram as well. While it is important to make specific content for each platform’s audience, there is also something to be said for expanding your reach by repurposing content, with a slight change, to also bring in new fans and views from another platform.
Despite all of the jockeying for position on the leaderboard this week, the NBA still remains on top. It helps that the NBA was heading into the playoffs and had remarkable storylines to follow with the retirement of Kobe Bryant and the Warriors chasing the regular season wins record, but there is one reason that they held on to the title above all others. The NBA delivered 312 videos on the month, generating over 110M views. If you are going to use Instagram, the NBA is the model for how consistency leads to engaged viewers.
Top Ten Most-Watched Instagram Video Creators March 2016
Stay-Tuned! More Instagram Goodness Coming in May! ReelSEO will confirm the most watched video creators across the major social video sites each month, so stay tuned for that data. In the meantime, if you'd like to check out the Top 25, please fill out the form below:
Get the Full-List of Top 25 Instagram Video Creators
With an estimated 500 hours worth of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute, keeping track of the brands and creators who are generating real engagement on the platform month by month is vital to those in the online video marketing space. In March 2016 alone, videos uploaded to YouTube generated over 78 billion views, both organic and paid. In the 'Most Watched Creators on YouTube' leaderboard from Tubular, we bring you exclusive data into the channels generating the most views on the world's biggest video site.
Most Watched: Top YouTube Channels March 2016
Top 10 Most Watched YouTube Video Creators March 2016 (Data via Tubular) Rankings include only those creators and brands which publish primarily original content.
Kid's Content is a Huge Success on YouTube
Some of the most popular YouTube Channels last month were creating content around small children, with family entertainment creators Little Baby Bum, Family Fun Pack, Ryan's Toy Review, Toy Monster,and Маша и Медведь all finding success reaching a younger audience. They are channels aimed squarely at pre-school children, and offer a range of cute unboxing videos and tutorials, and nursery rhyme singalongs.
Little Baby Bum's YouTube channel generated 492M views in March, with its most popular video, 'Ice Cream Song', a 1 hour 11 minute long nursery rhyme and lullaby extravaganza, generating 22.2million views (but only 1.7K engagements).
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Little Baby Bum, a London-based channel, was founded in 2011 to entertain the creator's own children (one of whom had the nickname Little Baby Bum) and has since grown to 6.1 million subscribers who have generated over 7.4 billion views to date. It's all original content, with the success of the uploads leading to more professional production values over the years. The creator's most successful video is a 54 minute compilation of nursery rhyme, 'Wheels on the Bus' which has attracted a staggering 1.3 billion YouTube views. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their target audience, the channel didn't generate a great deal of engagement last month, but I guess those 2 year olds were too busy having fun singing along to unboxing videos to comment or share across their social networks, right?
Music's Domination of YouTube
Music is one of YouTube's most popular categories, and between them, Justin Bieber,T-Series, and Netd Muzik, generated around 1.6billion views in March. With Playlists and watch time, music keeps viewers engaged and coming back for more, something highly rewarded by the site’s algorithms. Even though Justin Bieber didn't even upload a new video to YouTube last month, his VEVO channel still generated 646million views. He currently has over 20.8 million subscribers, and his videos have generated a total of 10.4 billion views since September 2009.
Talking of music, the most-watched video on YouTube last month was uploaded by the MeghanTrainorVEVO Channel, and it generated 83.3M views, and 1.4M engagements. Of course, it will have some way to go before it beats one of the first handful of videos to reach over 1 billion views, that's Meghan's own first megahit 'All About That Bass'.
Tune in Every Month for the Most Up-to-Date Stats!
Each month ReelSEO will publish the most up-to-date leaderboard charts from Tubular, so stay tuned! In the meantime, if you'd like to check out the Top 25 most popular YouTube channels, please fill out the form below:
There were over 5.5 million videos uploaded directly to Facebook in March 2016, generating over 218 billion views for around 861K different creators. But which Facebook video publishers were the most popular? The 'Most Watched Publishers on Facebook' leaderboard gives an exclusive look into the brands and social media stars who are generating the most video views on the world's biggest social networking site.
Most Popular: Top Facebook Publishers March 2016
Once again, the BuzzFeed brand dominated the Facebook video rankings with five of its pages featuring in the top 25 most viewed Facebook video publishers chart. With a staggering 2.2 billion video views on Facebook last month, BuzzFeed Tasty, was the most watched branded page for the publishing giant in March 2016. Outside the top 10, BuzzFeed Video (#13), BuzzFeed Food (#14), BuzzFeed Nifty (#19), and BuzzFeed Proper Tasty (#22), added another 1.4 billion video views on Facebook. That's 3.6 billion views just on Facebook alone last month.
Top 10 Most Watched Facebook Video Publishers March 2016 (Data via Tubular) Rankings include only those creators and brands which publish primarily original content.
Over 780 videos were uploaded to Facebook under the BuzzFeed umbrella in March. The most viewed video for BuzzFeed Tasty was this walk-through recipe for some super healthy 'Broccoli Tots', which generated 82.6million views, and 2.2 million engagements. BuzzFeed Nifty's most popular Facebook video was 'DIY Cat Tent' which generated 60.3 million views, and 1.8 million engagements.
Buzzfeed and Food seems to have found its natural home on Facebook; the brand posts food videos very infrequently to YouTube, and has only briefly dipped its toe in the water as far as Vine is concerned. In fact, food and drink itself seems to one of the most engaged topics that Buzzfeed creates video content around. 22 of the top 30 most-watched videos under the BuzzFeed brand uploaded to Facebook last month were food related!
As well as foodie topics, news and current affairs content always does well on Facebook, as users turn to social media to get the latest updates on breaking events. At #6 in the rankings for the most watched video publishers on Facebook, is NowThisNews which calls itself "mobile news for a social generation". The news publisher is active on YouTube, and Instagram as well as Facebook, and in March 2016, it generated 826 million video views on Facebook alone. Although it uploaded footage regarding Pope Francis, animal rescue stories, and the US Election race, it was this intriguing video about the manufacture of edible eating utensils that was its most successful, with 72.4 million views and 1.9 million Facebook likes, shares, and comments:
Facebook Video and Original Content
Tubular's leaderboard of the top 10 most watched Facebook video publishers of March 2016 is a curated list that includes pages and brands that primarily upload original content. We feel that is a good representation of the type of creators that are using Facebook as a hub to publish authority content. However, it's fair to say that aggregators of video on Facebook are producing the kind of views and community engagement that even the top brands can only dream of.
Tune in Every Month for the Most Up-to-Date Stats!
Each month ReelSEO will publish the most up-to-date leaderboard charts from Tubular, so stay tuned! In the meantime, if you'd like to check out the Top 25, please fill out the form below:
Get the Full-List of Top 25 Video Publishers on Facebook
A couple of weeks ago, I shared some of the information sources that I use on a frequent and consistent basis to keep on top of video marketing news and insights. One is Think with Google. And video marketers are going to want to visit that not-so-secret previously disclosed location today to read a brand new case study about Microsoft Xbox’s launch of Halo 5: Guardians. Back in October 2015, Xbox hosted a six-hour live event that was streamed on YouTube for the launch of Halo 5: Guardians. This YouTube livestream helped Halo 5 break sales records. Here are the key results:
700,000 people watched the complete live event.
8 million people watched some portion of the show.
Halo 5: Guardians pushed the franchise to over $5 billion in sales.
24M views of TrueView promo videos across all assets for the Halo 5 campaign.
The game became the #1 fastest-ever selling Xbox digital game in its opening week.
YouTube: Preferred Platform of Gamers
Now, that’s a case study that you’ll want to read – especially if you compete in the gaming category. According to a recent survey by Google, YouTube is the "preferred platform of gamers", and is the top destination for gaming consumers to research content that may influence the games, and consoles they purchase. By the way, it’s worth noting that the survey found that 30% of YouTube gamers are female and over a third of them are actually above the 34-year-old millennial threshold. That’s why I asked a couple of months ago, “Are video advertisers targeting the right audience on YouTube?”
And even if you don’t compete in the gaming category, you’ll want to understand how to host a live streaming event on YouTube – especially at a time when video marketers are trying to figure out when and how to use Facebook Live, Periscope, and Meerkat, while also reading rumors about YouTube Connect. Yes, livestreaming apps are the new-new things. But, do you know the best practices for holding a live broadcast? YouTube Live was launched back in April 2011. And although a number of concerts, sporting events, and interviews have been live streamed since then, very few brands have attempted anything like Microsoft Xbox’s six-hour live launch event on YouTube.
The one that many video marketers will remember watching is the much-anticipated wedding of Britain's Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton on Friday, April 29, 2011. The Royal Wedding was live streamed 72 million times around the world to 188 countries. Those who didn’t see it live could don their fascinators and catch up with the re-broadcasts later in the day. When it was all said and done, the total streams that day reached 101 million as romantics around the globe watched the fairytale ceremony, the procession, and the final balcony kiss.
Now, the launch of Halo 5: Guardians was also much-anticipated, although by a much smaller number of fans. So, it’s worth noting that Xbox used a series of TrueView ads and YouTube desktop and mobile homepage mastheads to drive viewers to the live broadcast. Halo 5: Guardians and game-related hardware grossed over $400 million in its first 24 hours and $500 million in its first week. So, that appears to be a pretty good return on advertising spending (ROAS), (unless Microsoft had to pay a king’s ransom for the media campaign, which I don’t believe it did, although the amount spent is not disclosed).
ALSO ►15% of ALL YouTube Videos Relate to Gaming: Minecraft & PewDiePie FTW
Best Practice for YouTube Live Streaming
So, what other lessons can video marketers learn from the live event that was streamed on YouTube for the launch of Halo 5: Guardians? Well, here are some YouTube live best practices that you won’t find in the case study, but you will find in YouTube Help:
Test, and test again, at least 14 days before the event. You need to be prepared for any technical difficulties.
At least 1 day before the event you need to do a start to finish test, essentially a complete run-through of your live event.
YouTube recommends always encoding on a dedicated machine with a fast dual core or greater CPU.
Always test your event using the exact same ISPs and networks you will be using on the day. On the day itself, make sure you have an open connection to the Internet.
Okay, so maybe these long lists of “best practices” and “tips” also make live streaming look like it’s hard to do. Well, I’ve done it – and I learned one other lesson that isn’t listed above: Don’t broadcast anywhere that has a lot of background noise. But, I’ve also learned that you can use live streaming to create compelling content – especially if you provide your best customers or key influencers with:
Behind the scenes looks at major industry events.
Q&As with your top executives or industry experts.
How-tos that are valuable and beyond the obvious.
Products demos by experts or enthusiastic users.
Breaking news from your company or in your industry.
In these cases, live streaming is worth the candle – especially with the cost for broadcasting a live event continuing to drop with the use of smartphones and free apps.
I’ve been told that the majority of viewership on YouTube is driven through the suggested videos column on watch pages. It’s certainly true for my the company that I work for, Frederator Networks, which receives 40% or more of its viewership from YouTube suggested videos. Dominating this section on your own videos and others’ has the ability to drive massive viewership and ensure your audience is not whisked away to someone else’s videos. In this post we'll take a look at 7 ways you can dominate the suggested videos column on YouTube.
7 Ways to Appear in YouTube Suggested Videos
The YouTube suggested videos column is made up of three sets of videos:
Suggested videos are the 4 videos featured from the creator (algorithmically selected)
Related videos are videos that are similar to yours
Recommended videos are based on the viewer
To determine which video the algorithm will place, YouTube uses metrics such as “watch time”, relevancy, viewership history, engagements, and more. There are many ways to influence these metrics, and thus dominate the suggested videos column. Here’s what we do at Frederator Networks to secure our own suggested videos column for our owned and operated channels Cartoon Hangover, Channel Frederator, The Leaderboard and Cinematica; and to drive millions of views from the suggested videos columns throughout all of YouTube.
We have 7 primary things that directly impact our suggested videos performance. We make “engaging” videos, encourage “engagement actions”, optimize our titles, optimize our metadata, interlink our videos, make great thumbnails and start YouTube Sessions.
#1 Make “Engaging” Video Content
At Frederator Networks when we say “engaging” we mean videos that keep the viewer watching for a long period of time, roughly 7+ minutes or more. An example of this is our '107 Facts' video series, which is specifically designed to generate long watch times.
The average watch time for this series is over 9 minutes. This is great for our suggested videos performance because YouTube’s algorithms, especially the suggested videos algorithm, are highly optimized to promote videos that keep people on the YouTube platform for extended periods of time both on an individual video and viewing session level. There are a plethora of resources out there to help you shape the content that will be most engaging to your audience. Be sure to check any implemented learnings against YouTube analytics, which provides top of the line metrics in the form of audience retention graphs and average view durations across your entire channel so you can see what is and what is not working.
#2 Encourage “Engagement Actions”
A second way to dominate the suggested videos column is to focus on engagement actions. A report recently released by Philip Zeplin at Novel Concept, suggests that the algorithm (in this case the search results algorithm) may give weight to videos with lots of likes, dislikes, and comments. He does admit that “videos that are generally good enough to receive a high watch time and viewer retention, are also naturally videos that engage people.” So take the data he presents for what it is: a limited window into the black box of the YouTube search algorithm.
Data aside, from a theoretical and historical standpoint, it does stand to reason that YouTube’s algorithms look favorably upon videos with lots of likes, dislikes and comments as it has in the past. When a viewer has an emotional reaction to a video as expressed in a like, dislike or comment, it could likely lead to a longer watch session. In YouTube parlance it could look like this:
You watch a video and your brain releases a ton of chemicals (endorphins, etc.).
You click “like” and comment about how great it was.
The punch of these chemicals recedes as the video ends and you want more of those chemicals.
You click on another video.
And that’s how you ended up in that part of YouTube again... 1 hour later.
I’d add to this that encouraging these actions could potentially create a heightened emotional experience in the viewer that wasn’t necessarily there before. If a call to action spurs a viewer to engage, it could have a similar effect as the psychological concept that body actions like smiling can influence our emotions. Therefore, by giving a call to action to engage with a video we are potentially creating a heightened emotional connection for the viewer where there was none before, which could lead to a longer session and more suggested video algorithm love for our videos.
There’s another, less theoretical, reason to encourage commenting. At Frederator Networks we encourage commenting heavily because YouTube has stated that it utilizes comments as a form of meta data around a video. We promote commenting by replying to a lot of comments, but also posting our own comment questions with each video. We typically post a question in the comment section when we release a video that pertains to the property being discussed. This serves two purposes. First, it generates more comments. Second, it helps condition the algorithm for keywords surrounding that property. For example, on SpongeBob we might ask the question: “Who’s Your Favorite SpongeBob Character?”. People then reply with the names of the characters from the show, thus telling YouTube this video has a lot to do with that show.
#3 Optimize YouTube Video Titles
A main source of creator entered metadata comes from the title of a video. We use our titles to do three things, which have an impact on the suggested videos algorithm:
Get people to click on our videos - The first step in generating watch time is to get someone to start our videos! Titles (and thumbnails) are the two most important components to getting that click in our view.
To tell the algorithm many of our videos are relevant to each other - We indicate this relation to the algorithm by always including the name of the show, the episode number and the name of the channel in the title. For example, for '107 SpongeBob SquarePants Facts You Should Know (ToonedUp #37) @ChannelFrederator' For this video we manage to secure 18 of 19 of the suggested video spots for our 107 Facts videos.
To try to secure high ranks for a particular Keyword for our video - This is actually most important for securing placements in the suggested videos column for other people’s videos. To this day, 107 SpongeBob regularly receives 60,000+ monthly views (~20% of its total monthly views) from suggested videos on other people’s watch pages and this video was released in August of 2015. I should add that the majority of these videos are about SpongeBob, which demonstrates the importance of “relevancy” to the suggested videos algorithm.
# 4 Optimize YouTube Video Meta Data
Descriptions, Tags and Closed Captions are all important aspects of our meta data. There are far smarter people than me in this form of SEO right here on ReelSEO (editor note: thanks Matt!), so I’ll leave the best practices to them. That said, many if not all of the principles around SEO apply to the suggested videos algorithm as well. At Frederator Networks our guidelines for these forms of metadata are:
Your video descriptions should be a minimum of 3 sentences and placed at the top of the description section before everything else such as links.
Always include a generic 3 - 5 sentence description of the show and channel at the bottom of the description (use the defaults tool on YouTube!)
Descriptions & Tags should focus on one primary keyword
Limit tags to 10 - 12 focusing on the primary keyword*
Always include the same 4 - 6 “generic tags” about the show and channel**
NOTE: *For '107 More SpongedBob Facts' we used these specific keywords: SpongeBob, SpongeBob SquarePants, facts about SpongeBob, 107 facts about SpongeBob, top SpongeBob facts, 107 facts about SpongeBob SquarePants, best spongebob facts, nickelodeon, patrick star, sandy cheeks, squidward tentacles. (**For ToonedUp & Channel Frederator we always include: “Channel Frederator” “ToonedUp” “107 Facts” “Frederator” “Tooned Up” “Cartoon”).
#5 Interlink Videos via Annotations, Playlists
A fifth way we utilize the tools available to us to dominate the suggested videos algorithm is through interlinking of our videos in annotations, InVideo programming, playlists, links in descriptions and commenting on older videos with links to our newer videos. I’ll be honest and tell you we have 0 data or evidence, other than anecdotal, that indicates the suggested videos algorithm is directly influenced by any of these actions. For example, we do not know if we put two videos in a playlist together whether or not that is a signal the suggested videos algorithm picks up on, or how strong that signal is if it does.
However, we do have a lot of data that indicates these actions lead to longer session and view durations. We know the suggested videos algorithm is highly optimized for view and session duration and therefore we can say that these actions at least have an indirect impact on the suggested videos algorithm and are very much worth the minimal time and effort it takes to do them.
#6 Upload Compelling Custom Thumbnails
In our view, custom thumbnails are generally the single most important element in getting someone to actually click on our videos (besides our brand!). The more people who click on our videos, the more watch time we’re able to rack up.
Now, there’s a pitfall here, which is that if we make a misleading thumbnail (or title), people will click away from our video quickly, harming our average view duration and harming our suggested video algorithm performance. This has been confirmed many times over by YouTube, but is laid out quite well in this Computerphile interview with YouTube executive Cristos Goodrow. There are lots of resources available about how to make great thumbnails. My free ebook and an article I wrote about thumbnails are a great start.
#7 Start YouTube Sessions
The final key factor across all of YouTube’s algorithms, and arguably the one with the least amount of data available about it, is whether or not a video starts a viewing session on YouTube, and how often does a channel start those viewing sessions.
YouTube features videos and channels that frequently start sessions because they have data that shows session time and views increase exponentially the more frequently a viewer comes back to YouTube. For example, if someone comes to YouTube once a week, they may watch 20 minutes of videos. If they come twice a week that increases to 50 minutes of videos. 4 visits a week generates 150 minutes watched and so on.** This means that the more videos we post, which cause people to come to YouTube, the more likely it is our videos will be featured in suggested videos.
An extra step we take is building touchpoints with our audience outside of YouTube. These are our social profiles, media connections for embeds, email lists, websites, connections to other YouTubers and so on. These profiles, connections and lists, even if they’re small, help act as a catalysts for starting sessions and thus growing our audience through suggested videos viewership. In addition to this, we communicate our schedule. If our audience knows when they should come back to our channels to see a new video, they will come and find our videos when they are set to go live. (**Keep in mind these are not actual figures just an example).
Potential Road Bumps
There can be a few road bumps along the way to dominating the suggested videos column. First and foremost is the “Up Next” feature. This unit is in the first position of the suggested videos column and autoplays (if enabled) when a video ends. This unit is algorithmically programmed, and is not necessarily another video from the same channel.
The second road bump to dominating suggested videos is the “Recommended” slots in the suggested video column. This placement is highly dependent upon the unique viewer. Keeping our audience watching our videos through annotations, calls to action, etc. is the way we secure these spots for our own videos.
The final road bump is whether or not our videos act as an “Exit Page.” An exit page is essentially the last page a viewer hits before leaving a site. In the YouTube ecosystem, if one of our video pages causes sessions to terminate, that video, and potentially other videos from our channel, will not be served as frequently or at all.
CONCLUSION:
Dominating the suggested videos column is not easy. It starts with great content and is accelerated by brilliant programming and an engaged audience. What is outlined in this document is just a part (an extremely important part!) of our overall programming and audience development strategy.
