Rene’s Top Five on YouTube: April 11, 2024 edition
Apr 11, 2024 – minute read
The moon is this tiny, rocky, reflective speck in the night sky and yet, every once in a while, through the relativistic miracle of time and space, can block out the light and fire of the sun. There’s a lesson in there for creators. Doesn’t matter how small we may feel or how enormous the stage may seem, when the moment comes, we can all have an astronomical impact. Or something like that! To the YouTube, X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads feeds!
🛍️Get your shop on! YouTube Shopping is flinging into spring with some brand new feature things, including 1) Shopping Collections, “a new way for creators to curate products from their favorite brands - or even their own line! Pick a selection of products for any theme from your current everyday makeup look to the ultimate capsule wardrobe,” 2) Affiliate Hub, where “creators can find the latest list of Shopping partners, competitive commission rates, promo codes, and even request samples from top brands,” 3) Product Tagging across videos, for “all Shopping creators, so they can tag their own products and merch across their video library!” and 4) Fourthwall, “to make it easier for creators to create and manage their stories directly in YouTube Studio”. One of the best parts of YouTube for me is the multiple ways creators can earn revenue, which of course includes rev-share on ads, but also fan funding, shopping, and more. It just opens up the platform to so many more channels and creators that have communities eager for the opportunity to support them directly. Get all the details from The YouTube Blog!
🎶 Coachella Live on YouTube! Starting tomorrow, April 12 at 4pm PT/ 7pm ET, YouTube — and YouTube Creators! — will be back at Coachella! YouTube will have 6 live stream stages and an all-new, all multiview experience. Here’s how to watch!
👀 Creator Economics: From YouTube’s CEO, Neal Mohan, on Twitter/X: Cool to see creatorsGohar Khan, House of Adanna, Jacob Beautemps, and Cleo Abram highlighting important issues at WEF this year. Check out the interviews on their channels - Gohar's video just dropped!
🙋Q&A: What’s the difference between the YouTube Shorts and long-form algorithms? We’re covering everything Shorts algorithm this week in our mythbuster series, so make sure you’re following along! The gist is, at the core, both the Shorts and long-form algorithms are the same and focus on viewer satisfaction. With Shorts, you might get more variety in your recommendations. That’s because of the shorter length. In the time it takes you to watch two long-form videos you might go through two dozen Shorts, so variety becomes more important. You might also get broader discovery. Because swiping away is so easy, if the system tries something a little different, and you love it, great! If not, you swipe away, no worries! And yes, it’s better to think “Shorts audience” than “Shorts algorithm” as well — most of the time, using that framing will get you a far better answer to any question you may have about how the system works!
📈 Tip of the Week: The absolute best time to post your video on YouTube is when it best fits your schedule and your wellbeing, and that’s the truth. When we’ve looked at performance over time, after a couple of weeks or a month, videos tend to end up in the same place regardless of what exact hour of the day or night they were posted. But, all other things being equal, if you’re posting news, trends, or other content with a short shelf-life, your audience is going to appreciate getting it as quickly as possible, regardless of time of day, but will also lose interest more quickly, so post as soon as you can. If you’re going live, then you’ll want as many of your regular viewers to be awake and around to watch you live, so check your analytics and see when that is. If you’re posting more evergreen content, then the audience can watch at any time, meaning you can post at any time. Just be aware that if you post at off-hours, views might accumulate more slowly at first, so adjust your expectations accordingly. Again, after a couple of weeks or a month, they’ll typically end up in the same place regardless!