YouTube Creator Blog [UK]: September 2012

Meet Beautygloss, September’s Partner Success Story!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

We have loads of partners across Europe that are taking advantage of the YouTube Partner Program, and becoming highly successful on YouTube. We've asked some of these partners to share their experience on YouTube and within the program, and shed light on how to best utilize the platform. This month featured partner is Beautygloss, please read on for her story and best practices!

Introduction
Please tell us a bit about yourself. What is your name, your channel name? Where are you from, your fan base?

Hi! My name is Mascha Feoktistova, I run the channel beautygloss. I am from Holland and make beauty video's in Dutch. I started this channel because there were no other Dutch beauty gurus yet and I just knew there would be more women out there who would be interested in beauty.

History
Please tell us how it all started. How and when did you start creating videos? When did you decide to be active on YouTube and become a partner? What was your first video on YouTube?

I started in the summer of 2007. I just finished my first college degree and was about to start the next. I was searching for Dutch beauty video's and there weren't any. I decided to start a website and make videos for it. The first one was about doing my hair I believe.

Channel
Please explain your channel. What's the story behind your channel? How did you come up with your channel concept?

I am basically someone who loves beauty products and makes tutorials, shares tips and tricks and everything in Dutch.

YouTube Partnership
Please share your experience of being a YouTube partner. How has being a YouTube partner helped/changed your business and personal life? Were there any surprises? What are your plans for the future of your channel and YouTube partnership?

I started making videos not knowing I could make money off of it. When I became a partner suddenly I realized I could make a living from doing what I love. I had my own tv show and I was the director. How cool is that? I went from hobby blogger/guru to doing it full-time. By the time I finished college I could live off of the earnings I made. Now I have my own company and here in Holland even won an award for businesswoman of the year. Who would have thought that?

Success
How do you define success? How did you become successful on YouTube? What were your goals for your channel, and how did you achieve them? What would you recommend to newbie partners to be successful on YouTube?

I think it's very important to always keep in mind that you need your viewers. In order to get viewers, you need to make video's they want to see. What would YOU want to see if you were the perfect viewer? Why would YOU subscribe to someone? Think about it. Be your own biggest fan. Also, never change. The more viewers you get, the more compliments, just never forget where you came from and always stay thankful.

Creative Inspiration
Please tell us what inspires you. Do you have a particular creative aesthetic? Are there other YouTube channels you watch, creators you admire?

I love watching American make-up gurus! Back in the day there weren't so many so I didn't really have someone that inspired me, but now I love to watch others and learn some tricks.

Key Takeaways
Anything you want the YouTube audience to know about you, your channel, or being a YouTube Partner?

It's absolutely wonderful to be a partner and it's so much fun! I'm a total youtube addict myself - while I make beauty videos I love to watch vlogs other people make. I also love comedians, communitychannel and jennamarbles being my favorite.

Beautygloss, YouTube Partner, recently watched “Everyday make-up juli 2012”

Connecting with your viewers on the new YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch

Monday, September 24, 2012

We’re launching a new app for iPhone and iPod that helps viewers find your channel, and gives them more ways to enjoy and share your videos. The new YouTube app helps iPhone users:

·       Watch your channel instantly: We’ve integrated a swipe-out guide so your subscribers can now instantly access your channel.
·       Find videos faster: We’ve bulked up search tools, like auto-suggesting videos and searching specifically for channels.
·       Share with others: Viewers can now share directly on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, email, or text message from within the app.

You can use the app on your iPad too, but stay tuned for a made-for-iPad experience in the coming months.

To help your audience get the best experience on iOS, download the app, and encourage your audience to do the same by annotating this link: http://itunes.apple.com/app/youtube/id544007664

Eric Meyerson, Head of Content Creator Communications, recently watched “Sifl & Olly Episode 1: Kinetic Demo.”

Expanding custom thumbnails to more partners

Friday, September 21, 2012

Over the past few months, we’ve been testing the impact of custom thumbnails on viewer watch time and engagement. Today, we’re expanding access to custom thumbnails for more YouTube partners, and over time, we aim to make them available to all partners in good standing.

Why not just give custom thumbnails to everyone?

As we’ve mentioned before, we focus on watch time when suggesting videos because it improves overall audience engagement on YouTube, and opens up more revenue opportunities for you. We’ll continue to recommend videos whose thumbnails help drive viewers to actually watch them, over videos that are clicked and then quickly abandoned.

When custom thumbnails do not accurately reflect the content they represent, they can annoy and disappoint viewers. These videos perform poorly on watch time, so they will become less prominent on YouTube. We’re continuing to test how partners use this feature to see how they better drive viewership on YouTube.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be granting access in weekly batches to partners. Partners need to have been active for 30 days and in good standing. When you get access, you should only upload images that are representative of your video, ideally featuring prominent stills from your video. Thumbnails must comply with our Community Guidelines, so abuse of this feature can result in strikes against your account and account termination.

Displaying thumbnails that accurately and appealingly represent your content is the best way to ensure long-term growth for your channel.

Andy Stack, YouTube Product Manager, recently watched “Written By A Kid: Scary Smash.”

Ride to Success with 63fixedtv, September’s Rising Partner

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Since YouTube announced that we were giving more creators the opportunity to become partners, we have seen a flurry of creativity from our new partners. We’ve asked some of you to share your experiences of using our platform, and the resources you use to grow your audience, increase views and take your channel to new heights.

This month, we are looking at Dan Locke from Southampton UK. His channel 63fixedtv is dedicated to his favorite hobby, riding bikes!
“I learnt about fixing bikes, so I wanted to share my information with others. The main purpose of the videos is helping other people.”
Dan has been riding bikes all his life. After watching videos like ‘Macaframa’ he became inspired to ride the same style of bikes as they did in San Francisco, and so in 2008 he took the plunge and finally bought his first ‘Fixed Gear’ bike. But riding bikes was just the beginning. Quickly after learning to ride the bikes, he soon discovered the joy of the maintenance, repairs, and tricks he could apply to his bikes.

The idea for his YouTube channel came up when Dan realised he wanted to share his tricks and expertise on bikes with others. He then started creating a few “How To” videos showing people how to do certain things on their own fixed gear bikes and it escalated from there. The concept for his channel is simple, yet effective, and has drawn a growing number of biking enthusiasts to his channel.

“I post tutorials on maintaining fixed gear bikes. I also film myself and other members of my team when we go on outings with our bikes”. The main purpose of the channel is to provide help to people who are fixing their bikes or want to learn new tricks. They also get sent products to review from companies such as KNOG and Continental Tyres. According to Dan, the secret is teaching people how to fix their bikes, while having a good time. “We have a laugh. it's always good to film us all having a good time, not only for others to watch but for ourselves so we can look back on memories.”

Dan is very keen on posting helpful videos on a regular basis and keep his channel up to date. The YouTube partnership not only helped Dan make the most out of the YouTube experience by optimizing his channel but has also contributed to his making a business out of his hobby. Dan has now his own website, www.63fixed.co.uk, where he sells his own T-shirts and stickers and he is currently working on another feature film that he will be uploading to YouTube soon.

To become a YouTube Partner now, visit: www.youtube.com/partners, and get ready to take your channel to the next step! For more information on optimising, visit: www.youtube.com/creators

The YouTube Team

YouTube Now: Why We Focus on Watch Time

Thursday, September 6, 2012

This is the first of a series called “YouTube Now,” which we’ll use to explain how we’re evolving the site, and why. Would you like to suggest a topic of interest to creators for a future YouTube Now? Please drop it in the comments below.

Today’s topic: why we surface videos that drive watch time.

YouTube viewers watch a lot of video -- over 4 billion hours a month at last count. But the average household also watches several hours of video per day on their TVs. So for YouTube to become the most important media in more people's lives, we've got a lot of growing to do.

Over the past few months we have made some changes to YouTube to encourage people to spend more time watching, interacting, and sharing with the community.

To support this, we’ve updated what we call video discovery features, meaning how our viewers find videos to watch via search and suggested videos. These changes better surface the videos that viewers actually watch, over those that they click on and then abandon.

Why this shift? Our video discovery features were previously designed to drive views. This rewarded videos that were successful at attracting clicks, rather than the videos that actually kept viewers engaged. (Cleavage thumbnails, anyone?)

Now when we suggest videos, we focus on those that increase the amount of time that the viewer will spend watching videos on YouTube, not only on the next view, but also successive views thereafter.

If viewers are watching more YouTube, it signals to us that they’re happier with the content they’ve found. It means that creators are attracting more engaged audiences. It also opens up more opportunities to generate revenue for our partners.

These changes have so far proved very positive -- primarily less clicking, more watching. We saw the amount of time viewers spend watching videos across the site increase immediately, and this positive trend has continued as we’ve made additional tweaks to our suggestions. Improvements in the stats we measure, such as average view duration, provide a solid indication that the videos we are recommending throughout the site are even more engaging.

How can creators thrive in this new world?

The best thing creators can do to be successful on YouTube is make videos that people want to watch. Simple, isn’t it? Unfortunately, many of the tactics we’ve heard from creators to optimize for YouTube’s discovery features may in fact backfire.

For example, we’ve heard from some creators who intentionally made their videos shorter in an attempt to get a higher retention rate. Unfortunately, this won’t help. While high retention on your videos is a good indication of engagement, we are actually optimizing for how a video contributes to a longer viewing session on YouTube. So your video isn’t more likely to be seen just because it’s shorter.

Conversely, we’ve also heard from some creators who intentionally made their videos longer, assuming that longer videos lead to more watch time. This also isn’t necessarily true, because it can be more challenging to keep viewers engaged through a longer video. (Think of a comedy sketch that drags on... just... a little... too long.)

As a result, our primary recommendation is to simply continue making the great videos your audience loves, and stay away from questionable optimization strategies.

Watch your data
And here’s how we’re about to make this easier for you: In the next few weeks we will provide enhanced watch time information in YouTube Analytics. In sum, we aim to give you as much information about watch time as we do about views today.You'll start to see this in YouTube Analytics in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, we currently offer a downloadable report available with time watched data. You can use this data to better understand what your audience wants to watch. More time watching your content means a more engaged audience and more revenue for you. That’s what our focus on watch time is all about.

Eric Meyerson, Head of Creator Marketing Communications, recently watched Is Dubstep Avant Garde Musical Genius?

Creator Blog

Meet Beautygloss, September’s Partner Success Story!

Connecting with your viewers on the new YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch

Expanding custom thumbnails to more partners

Ride to Success with 63fixedtv, September’s Rising Partner

YouTube Now: Why We Focus on Watch Time

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