Good content strategy on YouTube isn’t about hacks and tricks. It’s all about learning to think about your content the way YouTube thinks about it. When we align our content strategy with what YouTube wants to surface, it increases the likelihood that our content gets surfaced.

One of the ways we can learn how YouTube thinks is to understand their story, both how and why they made certain decisions along the way.

In Mark Bergen’s new book, “Like Comment, Subscriber: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination,” Mark goes into great detail about how YouTube got started and what it means for us as creators as we build our audience on this platform and what the future of YouTube might look like.

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Mark is a reporter in Bloomberg news. (Who actually made ) His job became being the expert on what Google is doing. – from the business/creator/advertising/financial perspectives.

Times, They are a Changing

As I read this book, the opening chapters on the history was so fun to read about. It was such a good throwback to how the platform used to be.

In the beginning there wasn’t any differentiation between creators and users. Everyone was considered a user because anyone on there was basically a creator as well. The home page used to be handpicked by a team, which gave them the power to turn creators into stars overnight. They set rules simply because it was a reflection on their close-knit community.

In the beginning days, YouTube thought that getting network TV on YouTube was the ticket to success. They didn’t realize at first that individual creators were going to be the future of the platform. Instead, a big part of their strategy was attempting to get music videos and the hit TV show Lost on YouTube. Because of this, they didn’t really have a real focus on creators and MCNs developed to try to fill that void. Not until 2014, did that focus shift.

Now, YouTube has multiple ways of monetization. They want creators to diversify revenue and build lasting careers. Also, short form content has become a huge focus right now and they are rewarding those who are using it.

But YouTube isn’t looking to make great sweeping changes anytime soon. There are too many people involved and innovation is becoming harder and harder to do. But there have been some pivots along the way that have been game-changers on how creators approach their strategy.

Pivots & Strategy

The switch to watch time in 2012 made a huge change to our content strategy. YouTube made this change in attempts to avoid the clickbait problem and instead encourage creators to really get viewers engaged in their content.

The switch to changing the threshold into the partner program made a change as well. This was an attempt to avoid the drama they were dealing with at that time. They want to treat everyone equally, yet they recognize that there are different gradients of content. Not every video is monetized and that’s on purpose. The threshold was supposed to calculate what you can make a living wage on, yet the Adsense still fluctuates greatly depending on how niche your content is.

The kids niche definitely took a hit when they got hit with lawsuits on targeting kids for ads. This made a huge change in monetization for kids creators.

YouTube is now monetizing shorts. They are claiming to be the first people to pay people for short term content “at scale.” We will see what that means for the future of long-form content.

The Future of YouTube

When YouTube began, they thought they would be more like SNL. YouTube would be the starting place to get discovered and move onto Hollywood. But, that’s not the way it has really worked. Big YouTube creators are pretty set on being on YouTube. It doesn’t naturally translate for them to turn into an actor, reading a script without the personal connection involved.

We’ve actually discovered that many smaller creators actually make more money than some bigger creators. This is because there is more personal connection and the conversion rate to their personal businesses, etc is higher. YouTube doesn’t get a cut of things off the platform so we think that’s why they’re trying to promote their merch stores and ecommerce to tap into that revenue.

Our advice to you is to not depend on YouTube for anything. It’s a huge platform and they aren’t necessarily looking out for you. Building a business off the platform is ideal. If things turn on you (like it did for many kids creators), you won’t be completely lost.

YouTube TV is a priority for YouTube right now. I originally thought that they’d be suggesting YouTube videos after their network tv shows. – You’re watching HGTV on remodeling a kitchen and then the next suggested video would be a video on how to do that. Or you’d be watching reality tv and then the next video would be a reaction video to that episode. That hasn’t been the case thus far. But, it might be a direction it goes in the future. If that is the case, it’s definitely going to have huge impacts on our content strategy.

Also, having YouTube on smart TVs has changed things. YouTube on mobile seems to have a higher abandonment rate because people are more focused on the content they’re viewing; However, on a big screen people are more passive in their watching and the abandonment rate is much lower. How do you optimize for both of those viewers?? That’s a tricky one. My only advice is to tell amazing stories that make people feel something because the screen size doesn’t matter if people are sucked into your content.

Have comments, reactions, questions about all of this or just want to say hi? for us and we may use it in an upcoming podcast episode. Until then…

Keep Changing Lives!

Tim Schmoyer

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