Learning about Youtube

This week I dove into reading online blogs to see if there was anything they could teach me about how to improve a YouTube channel I run with my friends. The channel in question is a gaming channel in which we do "Let's Plays" and "Walkthroughs." This market has many players and YouTube personalities that even non-gamers have heard of, so it is very important to be able to stand out.

Some interesting points that Mr. Shalwick made int he blog/interview pertain directly to growing a YouTube following. The first interesting point that he made was that having more subscribers is important in one direct and one indirect way. The direct effect is that if two videos are identical in their content and time, the channel with more subscribers will be ranked higher by YouTube's algorithms than the other video. This is obviously very important as most searches don't make it past the first page or scroll of the mouse wheel.

The second effect is less direct. The more people are subscribed to you, the more visible your video is since subscribers have all their subscribed content run across their dash. Any visibility is good.

One other thing Mr. Shalwick pointed out about YouTube optimization is that thumbnails need to be interesting as most people look at the picture before they read the titles of the videos. This is important because, according to the interview, hundreds of hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every hour. This is an extremely competitive but really effective place to promote yourself and your brand.

See you next week for more learning adventures!

Sources:
https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-create-a-successful-youtube-channel/