Competent Advice for Youtube Partners Who Want More Views

I am not a psychologist. I feel I should put this disclaimer at the start so folks don't get the wrong impression.

I am not a psychologist but I am interested in the subject. I took a class in it during high school, and I've tried to keep up with journals and whatnot, but lately I haven't had much time with all this Youtube stuff to focus on.

Anyway there is a psychological model written by Noel Burch called, 'Four stages of competence'.  It's something that has stuck with me for a long time and I'd like to share it with you, because I think it is very relevant to what I'm going to talk about today.

As posted on Wikipedia,

The four stages

1. Unconscious incompetence

   The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit. They may deny the usefulness of the skill. The individual must recognize their own incompetence, and the value of the new skill, before moving on to the next stage. The length of time an individual spends in this stage depends on the strength of the stimulus to learn.

2. Conscious incompetence

   Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. The making of mistakes can be integral to the learning process at this stage.

3. Conscious competence

   The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in executing the new skill.

4. Unconscious competence

   The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task. The individual may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.

   
   

   
   

When I look at this model and think about myself as a marketer of Youtube videos, I think I am in the second stage, Conscious incompetence. I am aware that I suck at marketing, I'm trying to get better and I'm making a lot of mistakes as I try new things out.

I believe that if I keep at it I can eventually advance to the higher stages but only if I'm willing to keep putting myself out there.

Here is the thing though; I think, for our purposes of discussion, #3 and #4 should be switched. Conscious competence should be ranked higher than unconscious competence.

Here is why.

There are many highly successful Youtube Partners who give the same tired advice, usually in some kind of webinar or video blog which is promoted on Youtube Creator space. It usually goes like this.

-Post videos every day on some kind of schedule. (Even though many big Partners are like The Angry Video Game Nerd, who only ever released two videos a month at their most productive period and has often missed a release date. Constantly releasing a stream of content on a steady schedule might be helpful but can't be necessary for success, because not every big Partner does it. )

-Share it on Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else (even though only a small portion of people you know will share your videos, and among their friends even less will share it-- and you might get banned from forums for sharing your own videos)

-Buy ads (even though it isn't cost effective to do so)

-Put annotations in your videos (even though only a small portion of users will even see them, let alone click on them).

-Engage with your audience and respond to comments and PMs (which I have always done and while it helps maintain subscribers it doesn't really help you recruit new viewers)

So why do the big Partners give this kind of advice when these things don't actually do much to improve your views?

My thinking is that these Partners are unconsciously competent. They know what they do to maintain their subscribers and build from them, but they don't actually know how to gain a lot of views and subscribers because other than make the videos that went viral, they weren't directly part of the marketing process that developed their fanbase.

They are people like HDCYT. If 'Charlie Bit My Finger' had never been posted onto CollegeHumor.com then we probably wouldn't be talking about it right now. It'd be just one more home movie someone randomly posted onto Youtube to share with a relative.

For many big Youtubers, they got super lucky with the related video algorithms, which made it very easy to gain awareness.  The honest truth is that regardless of what you made, so long as it was slightly interesting and had relevant keywords in the title and description, it would get promoted on youtube in the Related Videos feed. I experienced this myself with my videos during 2007-2009.

The "quality" of the videos had very little to do with it, and I think still has little to do with it. I think people who tell you to make "quality" videos are incredibly misinformed about what is required to make a video go viral; "quality" is a highly subjective thing.

What isn't subjective is posting a video onto the front page of a website that has 100k+ views a day and telling people to go look at it, or assembling an army of people with vast social network reach to plug videos for you. That stuff works.

Don't believe me? This video has 60k views and it is paint drying! Why does it have so many views? Because someone paid a marketing firm to get it 60k views by plugging it into vast personal social networks of the marketing firm's employees.



Advice #1 : Cross-promote with other Partners

The people who become successful on Youtube in recent years are doing so because they are tapping into audiences outside of Youtube, or someone with an already established Youtube audience is pimping them.

But even with a plug from a Youtube superstar you are not guaranteed to get that many views; for example, my interview with egoraptor was pimped on his Youtube feed, his Facebook Fan page and his Twitter and it still only has 17,045 views as of this writing.

egoraptor has about five hundred thousand subscribers, and his videos get over a million views each within a few days of uploading. So what is the problem? Why doesn't my video that he pimped get even a few hundred thousand views?

Well, I don't know for sure, but here is my best guess:

Today I noticed egoraptor favorited a JonTron video......

...and JonTron has egoraptor in his recommended channel list on his feed and front page.

Egoraptor also has JonTron in his recommended channel list, too.

The top Partners who are consciously competent at using Youtube realize networking with other Partners is the best way to expand awareness of their videos. You can't just upload videos into the vast sea of Youtube and hope they float to the top of the charts. You have to market them, and networking with other partners who have audiences similar to the ones you want to attract can be a very effective way to expand.

Here is another thing to consider.

Let's say that I am a big Youtube Partner who makes videogame reviews, but only about roleplaying games (not too much of a stretch, I guess?).

The people who search for my content using Youtube's search bar and who see my videos in Related Video feeds are most likely doing a search relevant to the particular game that I uploaded a review for. For example, I might have a review for Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and people might come across my channel while doing a search for "Final Fantasy Mystic Quest", but if they are searching for something like Minecraft or The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim,  my videos will never come up because I have no reviews for those games.

That means the overwhelming majority of people who search for videogame related content are never going to see my videos, because they aren't searching for the specific reviews I've uploaded. And just because I put generic keywords like "rpgs" and "video game" into my description and tag area doesn't mean jack! That isn't enough to make my videos appear in generic search results for "rpgs" or "videogames"-- not when millions of millions of other videos are also using those same tags.

There are legions of people who would be interested in my videos but they will never find my videos by doing a search, unless they are specifically looking for one of my videos.



So what do you do if you want to tap into audiences on Youtube who might be interested in your content?


Answer: You network with someone else who has a fanbase similar to the one you want or already have, and you share audiences by helping plug one another.

And not just once, or twice, or merely sticking them into your "recommended channels" sidebar to gather dust.

You need to constantly be liking, favoriting and commenting on their videos so that they get seen in the subscription feeds of users--- and they must do the same thing for you!

After all, many Youtube users are subscribed to hundreds of channels -- many of whom post several vblogs a day. There is A LOT of stuff that goes into your subscription feed that you never see unless you sit on Youtube all day long (and even then....but we'll get to that later).

You also need to expand your plugging efforts outside of Youtube. You have to promote one another on your Twitter and Facebook Fan pages, too.

Here is an example, again using egoraptor's Facebook Fan Page.

If you expand the image you'll see egoraptor has plugged one of Nathan Barnatt's videos.

Then if you look at Nathan Barnatt's channel....

...you clearly see egoraptor sitting in his recommended channels listing.

It's not a coincidence. It's marketing and it's obviously highly effective.



Here is one thing that some people get short-sighted about: You don't need to only network with big channels.

As an example, I have 2,793 subs on my 'jfreedan' channel, and 1,639 on TheRPGFanatic channel. My friend 8-Bit Eric has 2,513 on his channel. If Eric and I both like, favorite and comment on our mutual friend Wootstick's latest video using our channels, that is potentially 6,945 people who might view Wootstick's video.

Imagine if Eric and I each have 20k subscribers on our channels. That's 40k potential views we could drive to Wootstick just from our own subscriber bases alone.

Now, I must point out that these numbers are the best possible outcome; it's the potential views.

Realistically each plug you do may only get 20%-40% of the potential views obtainable -- which is why you continually like, favorite and comment on each other's videos! Eventually you will get a very high portion of the subscribers of one channel to have gone and seen the videos on everyone else's channel.

This is not a brand new tactic. Way back when the internet was young and "Bert Is Evil" memes were all the rage, we called this forming a 'web ring'. Everyone would embed links into our website leading to other websites who were part of the group, and we often had banner exchanges that rotated each member's banner every time someone loaded the page. Our news pages would have links to something that had been posted to another person's website. Webcomics still promote each other this way, and that is relevant because just like videos, a webcomic primarily consists of content that cannot be crawled by search engines.

The problem is this: when trying to network you come across a lot of people who aren't committed to the cause. They put you into their recommended channel space, do a little bit of promotion, and then forget to do it later on. Sometimes they even watch your videos and don't comment, favorite or like them, because, "I forgot".

They have a million excuses for why they can't keep the promotion up, ranging from, "I don't want to upset my subscribers" to "I am too busy with school".

Then there are the people who don't want to make a Facebook Fan page, even though it's the MOST effective way to ensure your subscribers see your latest videos (the subscriber feed has too much spam and shows only 'highlights' by default, not everything).

Look at that bullshit. Yes, I'm going to curse here. THAT.IS.BULLSHIT!

Most of your Youtube subs are not seeing your content. They are seeing 'highlights', which are determined by some stupid algorithm. I don't know what that stupid algorithm is using as criteria, but I have all three of my Partner channels subscribed to one another and I do not always see my latest videos appear. That should tell you something.

If I didn't have a Facebook Fan Page I would have no views. The very first thing I do is plug my video into my Facebook Fan Page and the first people I see comment on the video are people who belong to my Facebook Fan page. I am hardly an expert here but I think I know enough to say that if you don't have a Facebook Fan page and want to be successful on Youtube, then you are not trying hard enough. There is no excuse to not have one, they are completely free and easy to manage.

However, even Facebook implemented 'highlights' filters to pages, so not even that is sacred anymore. And just like Youtube it does NOT save your settings.

Facebook isn't only limited to your Fan Page though; you can form super secret groups with all the members of your network. If you want a video promoted, post it into the group so all the other members can retweet / favorite / whatever the video. Facebook groups make it EASY to find the content you want others in your network to promote, because trying to keep tabs on everyone's subscription feed on Youtube is an enormous waste of time given how much content is posted these days (and the new 'highlights' filter nonsense).

Another thing to consider is that if you help build up someone who doesn't have a lot of views you are ultimately helping create a new audience for your own work.

Does that sound weird? Let me explain.

Let's suppose I have 500 of my subscribers become followers of Wootstick's channel. Of those 500, about 50 of them actually share all of Wootstick's videos on their Facebook pages. Of those 50 about 10 more people check out Wootstick's page and subscribe. A handful of them actually share some of Wootstick's videos on a big forum like one at The Escapist, bringing Wootstick several hundred more subscribers.

All these new subscribers from The Escapist who came to look at Wootstick's videos probably have never heard of my content before-- but they will as Wootstick plugs my video in his Youtube, Twitter and Facebook feeds.

So there is actually a lot of benefit to people with larger fanbases to help small channels grow. A lot of people just get tunnel vision and want to go the quick and easy route of getting someone like egoraptor to pimp their stuff constantly.

Now you might say to yourself, "You don't have a lot of views. Why are you telling me to do this? How do you know for sure it will work?"

The answer is simple: I don't know for sure it will work. It hasn't so far. I'm simply looking at what the top Youtube Partners are doing and noticing that it is working well for them, since they often get hundreds of thousands of views more than the number of people subscribed to their channels

However, my network is also very small. My new website is the hub for my network and as of this writing the new website has existed for a whopping month. And I have only recruited a few individuals into my network because I'm being selective. I'm recruiting featured contributors who have been making videos for awhile, who have been doing it on a somewhat religious basis, and that I believe will mesh well with the other contributors in the network.

So we haven't had much time to see results yet, but I am confident that view counts will increase for all members in the coming months, so long as everyone is committed to the cause.

What I do know for sure is that this is one strategy I have not tried yet and I think it is going to be the one that is most effective.

Do you have any experience trying this networking thing out on Youtube? Leave a comment and let me know!

Advice #2 : Embed your videos into blogs

Youtube Search sucks. It really, really does.

And Google Search doesn't display many Youtube videos anymore, instead just a handful of high traffic ones it has deemed "relevant".

If you want your Youtube videos to be discovered by people using search engines you need to embed your videos into blogs and make those blogs filled with content rich keywords.

Here is an example of one of my blogs, my RPG Video Reviews blog on Tumblr. A quick look will show you that I also include a good portion of the video scripts in my blog article so that search engines will pick up on the blog.

Another thing I do is use websites like Squidoo to create a "farm" of articles with my videos embedded into them. Because sites like Squidoo have very high PageRanks, search engines like Google Search will occasionally display your articles and introduce people to your video content in that way.

When you get into writing blogs you need to research how to Search Engine Optimize (SEO) them. I've written a little about that process, so if you're interested check one of my other articles.


These two pieces of advice-- networking with other Partners and embedding your videos into blogs-- are the only two things which have brought me any real results. Every other tactic I've tried has not been so successful.

I hope you've gotten something out of this.