Rene’s Top Five on YouTube: November 30, 2023 Edition
Nov 30, 2023 – minute read
Once again, I’m take a quick break from helping YouTube’s product and policy teams better empathize with creators, and creators better understand YouTube, so that I can scour YouTube, X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads and all the Slacks and Discords betwixt and between to blog up the most interesting and impactful news of the week! And this week…
📊 The always amazing YouTube Analytics team has just unleashed a fresh new slew of tools to help creators that use Memberships better understand their performance. That includes recurring members, so we can see who’s signed up on a monthly basis, where members joined from, so we can figure out which of our content is driving the most new members, and exit survey results, to track not just where the dips but why the dips, so we can adjust and improve retention. Go to Conor’s latest NewsFlash on Creator Insider for the details, and stay for his heartfelt ending!
❤️Find a time and place where a bunch of creators are collecting themselves together, and help them throw an amazing, community-building, inspiration-sparking party before or after. I call it genius, but the team calls it #YouTubeCreatorCollective. I was privileged to join the first couple in New York with Jacklyn Dallas in September, and in Dallas with CHEFPK back in October, and there have been a ton more since! Huge shout out to all the creators who’ve taken the time to host and attend, and the teams who helped turn the dream into a reality. Can’t wait for more!
🥯 Speaking of amazing creators and phenomenal teams at YouTube, I was lucky enough to hang out with some of the best of both last week — and in my home town of Montréal! It was for a panel on the future of creators and content, featuring Gurky, Marianne Plaisance, and Lubalin, and it focused on everything from monetization and creator products to workflows and, of course, AI. Hanging with everyone before and after, from fresh new channels to some of the biggest brands in the business, it was incredible to see the energy and excitement from everyone in the room. And because of how Suggested Videos work — how even people who cover the same or similar topics can end up recommended in each other’s sidebars — everyone is always so generous and giving with their advice and experience. YouTube really is such a vibe!
💬 We’ve brewed up another piping hot batch of Creator Advice! This set includes Sam from Wendover on when to start a new channel, Jenny Hoyos on how to Shorts, Paddy Galloway’s hidden analytics gem, Lila’s deepest editing cut, and Hudson Matter’s ideas before thumbs! These were all filmed during VidSummit 2023 in Dallas Texas. Special thanks to my colleague, Julia Lee Harter for helping out with Hudson, and there are a bunch more from both of us to come. So, yeah — make sure you catch them all!
📈 Tip of the Week: Why aren’t my subscribers getting notified about my videos? It’s something I get asked quite a lot and the answer may surprise you — if they set the notification to ‘all’ they probably are, but they might not realize it. Why? A couple of reasons. First, creators often think the biggest challenge is getting subs to turn on notifications for their channel. It’s not. It’s keeping them from turning off notifications for the whole entire YouTube app. Second, creators often think subs are waiting around to pounce the instant that notification comes in. They aren’t. They’re doing any number of a million different things that may or may not afford them the attention, time, and opportunity to tap when that pop up pops. In other words, people are busy, notifications are endless, operating systems stack and deliver them quietly, and people get annoyed and flip them off. If you’re curious about notifications for your channel, YouTube Studio > Analytics > Audience will tell you the percentage of subs that have the bell set to ‘All’ (mine is 14%), the percentage of subs that have notifications enabled for the YouTube app (mine is 8% — which means 6% turned them off at some point and now never get them for any channel), and Analytics > Content > Traffic sources will tell you how many actually click on the notification when it comes in (mine is just over 1% — which means the other 7% just watch later when they open the app and load up their Home screen). I’m not saying don’t pay attention to notifications, I’m just saying pay attention to them in proportion to how many views they actually drive for you. Personally, I stopped asking viewers to hit the bell and started asking them to watch another, related video and it did wonders for both my channel and my anxiety levels!