One of the best ways to build an audience for your channel is by creating playlists, a quick and easy way to make a collection of videos you can share with your friends or the world.
Many of you have told us that when making playlists, you sometimes want to include just a clip and not the whole video — like starting the video right at the dramatic moment or the crazy trick play. So, you can now choose start and end times for each video in your playlist using a trimmer in the same way you can with YouTube Editor. When you choose start/end times, your playlist viewers will only see your selected portion of the video, unless they choose to watch the video in its entirety.
We also updated the look of the playlist editing page to make editing easier and faster, with description, privacy and other settings on the right. Here’s what you’ll see:
These updates will be rolling out over the next day or so. For more information, visit our help guide.
Congratulations to Jack Scalfani of Jakatak69! Jack is YouTube’s featured “On The Rise” partner for May and takes the stage in the “Spotlight” section of our homepage today.
Jack is just a regular guy who fell into his cooking career without any formal training. He worked for awhile as a DJ for a radio station, after which he decided to move into talent management. Among his clients was a chef who eventually moved on and left Jack with a couple hundred pounds of spices. Jack decided to make his own barbeque sauce from what he had, and in 2000 launched “The Best BBQ Sauce You’ll Ever Taste.” He started producing simple “How To” videos on YouTube to promote his sauce. Since then, he’s expanded into easy-to-make recipes, cooking tips, and honest product reviews. Check out his channel to see what he thinks about the Big Top Cupcake or learn how to make Lazy Man’s Pulled Pork Sandwiches and Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits.
Here are a few words from Jack:
I want to first say thanks to YouTube... I am grateful for all the tools you have provided to help me grow my channel to what it is today. There are training videos, playbook videos, creator hangouts, city wide meetups, partnership support, video editing tools, bulletin systems to reach all your subscribers in just one click and so much more. The best part is that all of these YouTube tools are free. I am excited to be apart of a food category that is just about to explode on YouTube. You have inspired me to reach out and collaborate with other YouTube artists. Working together is more important than you think. So reach out to someone, build good content and broadcast yourself. And always remember YouTube is the new TV. God Bless and please subscribe to the COOKING WITH JACK SHOW.
If you’ve enjoyed this monthly On The Rise blog series and want to see more rising YouTube partners, check out our On The Rise Channel. Keep an eye out for next month’s blog post, as your channel may be the next one On The Rise!
This is part of an ongoing series sharing tips from the YouTube Creator Playbook, a resource of best practices and tips you can start using on your channel and videos right away.
Understanding the data behind your YouTube channel can mean the difference between a good channel and a great one, and we’re working to make it easy for you with YouTube Analytics. Since launching video analytics features in 2008, we’ve worked to build a powerful tool that can help you understand your channel, content, and audience on YouTube.
Here are three things that you should do today with YouTube Analytics:
Find out what keeps people watching: Wonder which specific points in your videos are most interesting to your audience, or, where their interest is falling off? The two types of Audience Retention graphs - Absolute Retention and Relative Retention - analyze audience retention on a per video basis.
Absolute Retention shows viewer retention as a percentage of total views. Remember, rewinding and re-watching can result in values higher than 100%, while fast-forwarding or abandoning the video will push the graph downwards. (Check out the YouTube Analytics graph for Barely Political’s “Avengers Therapy! Session #15” video below. Six seconds in, absolute retention is 92%, and it stays fairly consistent throughout the video. It’s typical to see drop offs at the end of videos during credits, or other footage when the main content ends. As always, try to keep viewer engagement up as long as possible.)
Relative Retention shows how your video compares to videos of a similar length. You should always strive to create engaging content for your viewers, since watch time is a key indicator for suggested and recommended videos. Try to understand why certain videos keep your audience engaged and why others are poor performers, then make programming and creative decisions based on your assessments.
Learn how people find you: How do your viewers ultimately find your YouTube videos, playlists, or channel? YouTube Analytics’ Traffic Sources provides a detailed look at how your viewers discover your content on a channel and per-video level. It shows you the top traffic sources that contributed to the largest percentage of total views. If you’re trying out a new metadata strategy, thumbnail optimization, or blog outreach initiative, track how Traffic Sources change over time. For example, if you notice that Annotations within a specific video cause a big spike in views, you should take a closer look and try to replicate those best practices in other videos.
Figure out what makes people subscribe: The Subscription report shows which videos drive the most subscriptions, showing what resonates with your most loyal followers. Building up your subscriber base is crucial to audience development on YouTube, so understanding this metric is really important. Examine the dates or videos where there was a high gain or loss of subscribers, and look into why this is happening. Identify key content trends that drive up your subscriptions, and then apply those success strategies elsewhere.
Check out the Creator Playbook for lots of additional information about YouTube Analytics.
On Wednesday, we reminded you that we’ve been removing closed accounts from YouTube over the last several months, which has caused many of you to see decreases in your subscriber counts. We’re doing this because these accounts do not drive views to your channel.
Today, the last of these accounts will be removed, meaning you can expect to see additional decreases in your subscriber counts throughout the day. This will conclude the removal process, so starting tomorrow your subscriber counts will reflect actual changes in your subscriptions. We also realize that the public subscriber count on your channels and that in Analytics have not been consistent. Moving forward, changes in your subscriber counts will be accurately reflected in YouTube Analytics, and Analytics will also show you newly closed accounts that have been removed:
You’ve worked hard to build loyal audiences, so we understand it’s jarring to have seen your subscriber counts decrease as we’ve removed closed accounts. It’s important that you have the most accurate data regarding your audience composition and engagement, which is why we’ve removed these accounts. Thank you for your patience throughout this process. The YouTube Team
There’s always a lot going on here at YouTube, and we’re constantly making changes to improve the experience for the entire community. In the last seven years there have been no fewer than 100 changes to the suggested and recommended video algorithms to provide viewers with the most relevant videos to watch. We also make changes to improve the experience for partners. Recently, we’ve made changes to provide you with more accurate data about your audience, which in turn helps inform the decisions you make about your content. In the short term, however, the impact for some creators can be a bit of a shock. Let’s outline what we’ve done, and what’s in it for you.
Subscriber counts:
In the past few months we have been scrubbing YouTube of inactive and closed accounts. Why? Because these accounts had been inactive for years, were not linked to our more up-to-date and secure systems, and, well, nobody uses them. This had the knock-on effect of some creators seeing a drop in subscribers. However, this change benefits partners in the long term by giving you a better understanding of who is engaging with your channel. Accurate data is key, and as such, we will now be removing accounts from subscriber counts as they are closed. As the accounts are inactive, these changes won’t affect viewership.
Starting this Saturday, your subscriber counts on your channel and in Analytics will be consistent, and Analytics will show you closed accounts that have been removed:
We’ve also heard some viewers are concerned that they’ve been unsubscribed from channels. This isn’t happening. You can see all your channel subscriptions by selecting and saving ‘Everything’ from the view drop-down:
View count changes:
Back in March, we announced changes to the algorithm that serves up suggested and recommended videos, giving greater weight to a viewer’s time spent on a video, rather than to their click. We did this because flipping through channels to find something to watch is different than actually watching, and view counts that accurately reflect engagement are more useful. What does this mean for you? Well, if people are clicking on your videos, but not sticking around to watch, your videos won't get shown as often in suggested and recommended videos and growth in new views may slow. The best way to prevent this is to create compelling videos that people stick around for. Also check out the the Analytics Audience Retention Report and these optimization tips for how to drive engaged views to your videos.
While transitions can be hard, the data directly resulting from these changes is really encouraging: net daily subscriptions are up 50% since January and watch time has been increasing in the past 2 months. We’re investing to grow this this even more over the next year as we spend more than $200 million to promote our partners’ content. YouTube creators comprise the most passionate, diverse and talented community in the world. Our mission is to give you the tools and data you need to be successful.
What: A gaming workshop for partners looking to gain views by building an audience with quality content, branding, and marketing. When: May 23rd at 7pm Where: Los Angeles Who: YouTube Partners Why: To improve your Audience Development!
This is a workshop for gaming partners looking to increase views and subscribers focused on gaming-specific best practices, audience development, optimization and collaboration.
Please fill out this form below if you want to attend. Space is limited to 20 people, so please only apply if you actually plan on attending. Thanks!
We chock YouTube full of features to help turn your YouTube channel into your dream job, and there’s lots of other good folks out there who have similar goals. Last year we launched the Merch Store, teaming up with Amazon, iTunes, Topspin, Songkick and Google Play to help indie musicians on YouTube promote licensed merchandise, music downloads, and concert tickets on their channels.
Selling merch isn’t just for musicians, so starting today the Merch Store will become available to all YouTube partners in good standing around the world. We’ve also added another friend from the web for even more great merch—CafePress.
Over the next few months, you’ll see a new tab on their channel called “Store,” where you can choose your merch to showcase to fans. You’ll need to have an account with each company to list products on your channel, and clicking on the product will take you to the site where it’s for sale. Here’s what it looks like:
For Merch Store inspiration check out partners like Pomplamoose, Geek & Sundry and DeStorm, and for more information check out our Help Center.
Christian Weitenberner, product manager, recently watched “The Flog.”
Over the past couple weeks, we’ve heard from creators who have seen decreases in their public subscriber counts, so we wanted to keep you in the loop about what to expect on your channel.
This February, we began a process to improve the accuracy of your subscriber counts, to give you the best data possible on your channel. Recently, we’ve extended this process by removing additional closed and inactive accounts from our system, which means these closed accounts are being deducted from subscriber counts. None of the accounts we’re removing from our system are active, so these changes to subscriber counts will not cause any change in viewership. The number of accounts removed varies from day to day, so you may notice unusual declines in subscriber counts on one day followed by a return to normal performance the next day.
We plan to complete the account removals process over the coming weeks, with a significant number of closed accounts being removed on one day. We will update this blog when we have an expected date of completion, and on that date it’s possible to see a drop in your public subscriber counts as well as in YouTube Analytics. How much this will affect your channel will vary, but the longer you’ve been on YouTube the more likely it is you have inactive subscribers.
These account removals have already started to take effect in public counts and API counts (through sites like Vidstatsx), but we will not be able to update the counts in YouTube Analytics until we have completed the account removals. For the time being, YouTube Analytics only captures subscribes and unsubscribes from active users, which is a more meaningful metric for tracking engagement with your channel than the public counts.
We want your subscriber counts and all other analytics to be consistent and accurate, so thanks for bearing with us as we make these improvements.
Each month, we identify four YouTube partners whose channels have recently experienced significant growth but haven’t yet reached the 100,000 subscriber count for our On The Rise program. This month’s featured partners still have a ways to go to hit that mark, but we’re excited about how they’re exploring their passions on YouTube. Our May 2012 nominees have each tailored their channel to provide instruction to their viewers, so you can learn how to play blues guitar, about astronomy concepts, how to cook new recipes, or about gardening and sustainable living.
And not only can you learn from these partners, but you can help them grow their YouTube presence, starting with the opportunity for one of these partners to be featured on the YouTube homepage. Check out the videos below and vote for your favorite in the top right corner of the Official YouTube blog. In addition to your votes, each channel will be evaluated (by YouTube) on criteria such as viewer engagement and channel optimization techniques to decide which partner will be featured on the homepage, Google+, Facebook and Twitter at the end of the month.
In past months On The Rise nominees, partners like AnyoneButMeWebSeries and STRskillschool have gained many subscribers thanks to your support. The poll will be open until May 17 at 5pm PT, so don’t forget to vote for your favorite channel. Check back to see who secured the homepage feature on May 29th.
gr8bluesgtr
Anthony Stauffer has made a full-time job out of his music hobby: he was inspired by the music of Stevie Ray Vaughan, and now provides his own Texas-style blues guitar lessons online. Check out Anthony’s channel for free tutorials, premium tutorial previews, and gear reviews, and start learning how to play the blues!
tdarnell
Are you interested in astronomy concepts and news, or do you wonder how astronomy impacts our lives on a daily basis? Whether you have specific questions or are just curious, Tony Darnell’s Deep Astronomy channel will give you insight to and appreciation for the cosmos.
jakatak69
Jack Scalfani prefers “food guy” over the word “chef.” With no formal training, he fell into cooking and focuses his videos on no-fuss, easy-to-make recipes. Check out his Cooking with Jack channel which hosts a library of recipes, cooking tips, and honest product reviews.
GardenGirlTV
Patty Moreno, the Garden Girl, has a variety of videos on sustainable living, cooking, and gardening. Check out her channel to learn everything from pruning a tree and growing your own organic vegetable garden to making a rosemary infused martini and homemade jam.
If you’re interested in checking out more rising YouTube Partners, visit our On The Rise Channel, which features nominees, trending partners and monthly blog winners.
Come listen and learn from Brian Robbins and Joe Davola. They have produced an amazing number of films and tv shows (to name a few: FRED: THE SHOW, ONE TREE HILL, SMALLVILLE, ALL THAT, VARSITY BLUES, THE PERFECT SCORE, TWINS, THE NICK CANNON SHOW). Brian and Joe have now teamed up to launch a new channel on YouTube called AWESOMENESSTV. Come learn about the Do's and Don'ts of making content for theatrical distribution as well as on YouTube!
Sarah Penna (Big Frame) will moderate this discussion!
Since launching, YouTube Next Creator has helped chefs cook up better videos, trainers get more people into shape and non-profits extend the reach of their causes. So figuring out which category to tackle, well, next, was a bit of a challenge. Rather than deciding ourselves, we asked you to make the tough decision for us. With a resounding cry, you told us, “BRING US NEXT VLOGGER!”
Not only is vlogging one of the most popular forms of expression on YouTube, but selecting Next Vlogger also resulted in more applications than we’ve received for any previous Next Creator program. Bravo! Although, that still left us with some tough decisions...
After much debate and many sleepless nights, we’re excited to introduce you to the 16 Next Vloggers:
From sports recaps to music parodies, book reviews to space lions, gaming tips to Smurf collecting, advice and self-empowerment to Pokemon mastery, and even some stuff that can’t be categorized, these vloggers--like the art of vlogging--literally touch on every content category.
Fun bunch, huh? In total, they’ve racked up more than 125 million views. Not a shabby start, but like most YouTube creators, they’re eager to reach even more people. To help them get there, the Next Vloggers will participate in three months of trainings via Google+ Hangouts, including mentoring from top YouTube vloggers and content creators, iJustine and Natalie Tran from communitychannel, and receive $5,000 worth of video equipment and $10,000 worth of promotion on and off YouTube. Subscribe to their channels to follow them on their journey over the next few months and beyond.
Not a vlogger but still want to gain some skills to help you go from zero to hero...views? You’re in luck because we’re kicking off some rad YouTube Creator Workshops that cover a wide range of topics from “Introduction to Cinematography” to “Improving Your Channel with YouTube Analytics.” You can check out the YouTube Creator Events site to see the calendar of workshops that you can attend via Google+ Hangouts on Air from the YouTube Creators page.
Vlog on!
Austin Lau & Bing Chen, Global YouTube Creator program managers, recently watched “YouTube's Next Vlogger!”.
