Rene’s Top Five on YouTube: May 23, 2024 edition
May 23, 2024 – [[read-time]] minute read
Last week it was Brandcast in New York City, this week it’s another event in another city — no spoilers yet! — and that’s a pattern that’s fixing to repeat for the next month or so. And I love it. Nothing better in the world than meeting with creators, hearing their stories, successes, challenges, and feedback, and busting myths, sharing best practices, and just making sure they’re armed with the very best info possible! More to share soon!
⚠️Time Coded! Incredible news from the Advertiser Friendly Guidelines (AFG) team! Over the coming weeks, they’ll be rolling out time stamps. In other words, they’ll provide the point in a video where any AFG issues were found. The time stamps will accompany appeal decisions, and will be available when you self-certify during desktop uploads. Once you get the time codes back, you won’t be able to edit and submit for a re-review though the team is looking into adding that at some point in the future. But…
🧠 The more you learn! Unlike the music or traditional media industries, where new talent has generations of experience to pull from in navigating things like radio friendly vs explicit lyrics in songs, or R vs PG ratings for movies and the box-office implications, almost every creator, if they hit AFG, hit it pretty much from scratch. So, these timestamps will be incredibly meaningful and valuable for creators to help us better understand AFG, not just in the moment, but to inform our monetization vs. artistic expression decisions going forward. For all the details and best practices, check out Conor’s video on Creator Insider
🔥Newsflash! Also coming creators’ way this week, there’s an experiment for Super Chat replies. Viewers will be able to start choosing Shorts playback quality on mobile, from high to data-saver, and Minecraft all up in Shorts. Also an update on Multi-Language Audio, which has been on a slow roll due to how much effort it takes to adopt it right now, but should start spreading faster as Aloud AI dubbing gets integrated into YouTube Studio and the process becomes easier and more accessible for everyone! Check out Creator Insider for more! Oh, and Super Chat likes!
🙋Q&A: “My views are down, is the algorithm punishing me?!” The algorithm doesn’t have any sense of punishment. It’s in everyone’s best interest for every video to reach its full potential. If your views are down, there are a few common explanations, including the after-effects of a viral video. A simple way to check is to go to YouTube Analytics and look at your traffic sources. If a significant percentage of your views are coming from the Home page, then that’s not the algorithm punishing you — that’s the algorithm seeing the audience loving you. Check out the Analytics > Audience tab for insight on which videos the audience is loving, and make more for them to love!
📈 Tip of the Week: There are several types of policy actions you can appeal on YouTube. When you make an appeal, no matter how frustrated, angry, or tempted you are, try to avoid appeals that don’t provide any specific information. In other words “You’re wrong, fix it!!!!” may feel satisfying but it won’t give a reviewer anything tangible to work with. Instead, triple check the guidelines and make a strong argument for why you think the policy action was incorrect or why you think there should be an exception to it. Nobody knows your videos as well as you do, so explain everything possible about them to give them the best chance at appeal!