Ask any YouTuber and they will tell you that generating significant views and subscribers isn't easy. But with the right strategy and tools, any video creator can build an engaged subscriber base when they understand what those subscribers want to watch.

Appealing to an audience to watch content you are passionate about making is just the first step, you need to know how to reach them and get your videos discovered. Our guides to how to guide more views on YouTube will give you the best tips to succeed on the platform.

How To Get More Views on YouTube

Do you want to make money on YouTube? Millions of creators are earning a very good living from the platform by uploading content that drives huge views and engagements. Whether that income is from advertising revenue, merch sales, or brand deals, we keep you updated with best practises and ideas.

How To Make Money on YouTube

Do you know how to do keyword research so you understand what videos people are actually searching for on YouTube? Do you know how to create a custom YouTube thumbnail? Do you know how to create a Playlist on YouTube?

vidIQ has a ton of tips that will help every creator maximise their video content. We publish content every week to keep you up to date with all the best practices.

YouTube Tips & Tricks

If you’ve put off creating your own YouTube channel because you’re overwhelmed with the choices you need to make or are panicking because you feel you lack the right skills to succeed, worry no more and welcome to the only resource you’ll need to fulfill your video creator dreams.

If this is your first time here, we have a 

 that aims to educate you on your YouTube journey. And if it is your plan to grow your channel, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and click on our notification bell so you don't miss any of our latest tips, tricks, advice, and news.

How to Start Your YouTube Channel: 10 Top Tips

We promised 20 tips to kickstart your YouTube channel, so let's start delivering on that promise with 10 tips in this post and 10 tips in the 

. All the tips are covered in this video too:

So amazingly, there are still some people out there who are thinking of starting a YouTube channel and have been for months, possibly even years. My advice to you is, ready or not, start now. And I'm not telling you this as a New Year's resolution. Every moment you hesitate or procrastinate, there are thousands of video creators starting their YouTube channel today, and gobbling up all your potential audience. You don't want that.

Feel the fear, do it anyway. Start, press record. Record whatever you want today. It doesn't matter if it doesn't end up on YouTube. You need to gain experience in getting in front of the camera, getting behind the camera, using your editing program. You need to start creating content to find out whether or not you enjoy making videos before you know whether or not you enjoy being a YouTuber.

Tip #2 Learn How YouTube Works, No Seriously:

The chances are, that the first video you make is going to absolutely suck. Fantastic, you've made a video. You've made the first step, and in six months’ time, you'll look back at that first video and think yeah, that really was terrible, but you've gotta start the journey somewhere. And with that, you've gotta start your YouTube channel somewhere as well, even if you're not ready. Create a YouTube account, upload a video to YouTube. You don't have to publish it, that's the important thing.

You need to gain experience going through the workflow of uploading videos. The last thing you want is having a brilliant video ready to upload, but you don't know how the YouTube system works. Again, experience is going to trump any advice any of us can give you, so record a video, upload it to YouTube. You don't have to publish it.

Tip #3 Develop a Strategy you Will Actually Follow:

While getting some practical experience behind you is obviously a good thing, you also want some form of strategy. So, answer these questions:

What do you want your channel to achieve on YouTube

, and when you're answering this, try and answer it from a viewer's perspective, not your perspective. So I don't want to hear about hitting 10,000 subscribers, a million views, or whatever. If your viewers know that you're in it for your own self-gain, they will see through it and immediately switch off. Viewers want to know what they can gain from the content, and you want to sell that as much as possible in your videos.

 Again, try and be as specific as possible. What age range? What gender, if you are going to a particular gender? What type of demographic? What are they interested in? You need to know who's going to watch your content.

 There are millions of gaming channels out there, hundreds of thousands of Fortnite channels out there. How are you going to distinguish your content from everybody else who's already on YouTube making content? You need to disrupt the status quo, not join it, because you'll never be seen.

how are you going to deliver this content?

 Is it going to be every day, once a week, at a particular time of the day? Think about when your audience is most likely to watch YouTube, and how much YouTube they can watch per week, and then tailor your content to those watching habits, and think about whether you're going to do video on demand, live streams, what's going to be best for you and your audience?

Tip #4 Find Your Niche and Build the Hell Out of It:

live streams, you'll know this one off by heart. Niche down. Let me give you a quick example. What's your channel about? If you're giving an answer such as, "My channel's about beauty, and it's about travel, "and it's about vlogging," then it's about too many things. 

. It should be about one specific topic, when you start your channel, because you need to appeal to a very specific audience.

Once you've grown your channel, and you've got millions of subscribers who fall in love with you, you can take them on a journey wherever you want, but to begin with, the audience is only interested in the content. They have no investment in you. Try and remember that. It's a cruel lesson to understand, but it will help you when you first start out on YouTube.

Once you've thought about and answered all of these questions, I want you to wrap it all up in a nice little present, called your value proposition. This is your elevator pitch. Try and tell your audience who you are, and why they should watch you, in around about six words.

. It tells you the who, YouTubers, video creators, and why they should watch, because they will learn how to grow their channels. But we've managed to do that in four words. Now it's your turn.

Tip #6 Invest in the Right Audio Equipment:

If you've just started out on YouTube, and you're wondering what your first tech upgrade should be, it is 100% audio, and here's why. Bad audio is so much more distracting than bad video, and everybody hates onboard microphones. 

So if you can, get yourself a dedicated microphone for your camera,

 and if you're recording from a computer, you can't go far wrong with a Blue Yeti.

Tip #7 Create a Formula with Template Videos:

Videos need structure, so when you make your next video, try to think of how you will develop a show formula, that you can use as a template for your future videos. Remember at the beginning of this video, I literally gave you a hook. An introduction, a teaser to what's going to be going on for the rest of this video. Then we have the branded intro, followed by an introduction to who we are for new viewers, a call to action to subscribe to our channel, and then we jumped into the meat of the content where we are right now, and at the end of this video, you'll see how we round this all up.

Your show formula will take time to structure, and it will evolve over the course of your YouTube journey. Try and keep an eye out for this when you watch your favorite YouTubers. As rough and as random as they might appear, there is always structure and story behind each video, and that's why you watch them.

Some people love analytics, others hate them, but there are a couple that are crucial to keep an eye on, whether or not you want to look at that analytics. The first is 

This represents how enticing your titles are, and how clickable your thumbnails are. Check the click-through rate for your channel as a whole, and on individual videos as you test. I'm not going to give you all of the same target to reach. Check what your current click-through rate is, and whether it's two, four, six, or eight percent. I want you to try and improve that by two to three percent this year. It will bring in so many more views.

The other metric, as it always has been, is 

. Generally speaking, the more watch time you get, the more YouTube is going to promote your content. But if you make shorter videos, that doesn't necessarily mean you must make longer videos, because your audience might not react very well to those longer videos.

What I will say is maximize the value of your watch time in the videos that you have. That's by looking at relative audience retention. How does your video stack up to similar videos, in terms of whether people are still watching or not, and try and improve the relative audience retention. Having said that, if your average view duration is 60, 70, 80%, you're doing really well, and it gives you a license to try testing longer videos.

Verify your YouTube account. That will give you access to the most important tool on YouTube, which is custom thumbnails. We've got a video here on how to do it.

Tip #10 Create an Engaging, Interesting Channel Banner:

If I see another generic cityscape, or rolling hills in the channel banner when we do channel audits, I'm going to rip out my hair.

10 more tips or creating and growing your YouTube channel

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Members of the vidIQ family that have upgraded to our Boost and Pro packages get immediate access to the Academy 

 so you can kickstart your YouTube success today! Access to the exclusive vidIQ academy will give you a huge advantage over your competitors from the get-go. 

Kick off your YouTube dreams with the tools you need to launch YOUR channel. We've got the top tips just for you!

How to Start a YouTube Channel: 10 Brilliant Tips

At vidIQ we receive a lot of questions regarding click through rate (CTR) including “I have X% click through rate, is that any good”? It's a reasonable question if you’re new to YouTube analytics and one creators should certainly ask themselves. For instance, would you prefer a click through rate of 7.8% with 106 views or a click through rate of 2.8% with over 100,000 views? And what exactly is the difference?

, we’ve focused on the essentials of how to create thumbnails that people will click on, but what is the end result? That is the click through rate. It is one of the newest and most powerful analytics on YouTube, but it can be downright confusing and detrimental to the growth of your channel if not understood properly. Lots of creators get fixated on the CTR number and often compare themselves to other channels or to what YouTube is telling them is a good number. So when is click through important and when isn’t it?

In simple terms, click through rate is the number of clicks, divided by the number of thumbnail impressions, or how many times your thumbnail is seen on YouTube.

For example, if your thumbnail is seen 1,000 times on YouTube and 100 people click on it, that's a click through rate of 10%. Now that all sounds simple, but it gets pretty messy pretty quickly because it's quite complex to count all of these impressions. YouTube themselves admit they don't count every time a thumbnail is seen - for example, when it appears on an external website, through an email, or a push notification, of if less than 50% of a thumbnail is seen on screen.

So, when it comes to YouTube analytics, your click through rate, and your views, the math will never add up. This is, of course, beyond your control. If the numbers don't add up, just be aware that there is a margin of error.

So, what is a good click through rate? YouTube's official Help Center answer is this: 

half of all channels and videos on YouTube have an impressions click through rate that can range between 2% and 10%

. However, you need to be very careful about how you interpret these numbers. First of all, the smaller the channel or video, the smaller the numbers, the smaller sample size, which means that you can get bigger spikes, whether it be 30% click through rates or 1% click through rates.

Secondly, the age of a video can affect its click through rates. When you first release a video, it's hitting all of your subscribers and its getting an extra boost from YouTube, so you may get a higher click through rate. But what if your video starts off with a high click through rate and then all of a sudden you get a boost from YouTube, get lots of extra views, and the click through rate goes down? Is that what you want? Quite simply: Yes. As YouTube explains, if a video gets a lot of impressions, for example if it gets promoted on a Home Page or Watch Next, it's natural for the click through rate to be lower than for videos where most of the impressions are from sources like your channel page.

I mean, what would you prefer? YouTube to share your content amongst your friends, your family, your subscribers, your close-knit community who are more likely to click on your content or for YouTube to share your content amongst the entire platform's audience where they might be less invested in your content, but you're bound to get a lot more clicks. I know which I would prefer.

Also, another thing that video creators tend to do is panic when they see one analytical number and YouTube is suggesting they should have a completely different one. This is why magic numbers can be so dangerous. Imagine if YouTube revealed what the ideal, average watch-time for a video should be or the ideal audience retention percentage should be. Once there is an official benchmark out there in the world, everybody strides towards that number. And it doesn't matter where you are in your journey or how far you've got to leap to reach that number, if you don't meet it, you feel unfulfilled. You feel like a failure, so let's stop for a second. Take a step back and work out how we can set some realistic goals to improve click through rate.

Realistic CTR Goals for Your YouTube Channel

Let's start with this question: when it comes to YouTube analytics, who are you competing against? Is it the big YouTubers who inspired you to start your own channel? Is it channels who make similar content to you and that are of a similar size? Or are you competing against numbers that YouTube have recommended you should be hitting? If you said yes to any of these, I'm afraid you've got this all wrong.

The ONLY analytics you should be comparing against are your own because, put very simply, those are the only numbers you have complete control over. Now, just in case you don't know where the click through rate analytics are, let me show you. In the new Creator Studio, click on the Analytics section and from here, you want to click on the reach viewers tab at the top and then from these boxes, you can click on impressions click through rate and this will show you what it is for the last 28 days.

As you can see, our current click through rate is 4.8%, which according to YouTube, is below average. However, what they doesn't take into account was where we were this time last year. Back then, the click through rate on our channel was in a much worse state, averaging between just two and three percent. That's when we really started to focus on our thumbnail game - by assessing where we were and improving that number.

Getting potential viewers to look at your impactful thumbnails and reading your intriguing titles is so important. When it comes to CTR and 

, more is better, YouTube rewards you when you improve these two numbers.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

How do YouTube custom thumbnails impact your click through rate? And when is click through rate important and when isn’t it?

What Every YouTube Creator Needs to Know About Custom Thumbnails and Click Through Rate

 and best practices, we spoke to one of the very best thumbnail artists in the business, 

 are the creators behind the wildly popular 

 series. Creating stand-out custom thumbnails for their content is an integral part of the process, and Vy gave us a sneak peek into what works across their YouTube channels.

Over the past few years, Vy and her team have been testing and refining the type of thumbnails that drive viewers to click through to watch. It’s a strategy that’s worked to generate a combined 

 across the five YouTube channels Vy manages. She gives us some exclusive insights into the use of color, graphics and text to create the perfect image.

#1Use Color to Make Custom Thumbnails Pop

Take a look at any of Vy and Chad’s YouTube channels and the first thing that hits you about the custom thumbnails is the extraordinary use of color. As experts in the game this is absolutely intentional.

Vy explains that the content they create appeals to a younger demographic who respond really well to bright and vibrant colors. In order to maximise the appeal of the thumbnails, Vy and her team play with, enhance, and even radically change the colors on the image until the get the results they know will work.

Using just Photoshop, colors are saturated, backgrounds are blurred to make the foreground objects stand out, and drop shadows and outer glows are used to further make those objects or text pop. Vy will also separate out the background and foreground on different layers for added image clarity and depth. To break this process down further, let’s take a look at the thumbnail Vy and her team created for ‘

You can see the image-editing expertise fully in action on this thumbnail. Vy has used a fairly blurred 2 color background on one layer, with herself and the hacker on another layer. The two figures have been outlined using the outer glow tool so they stand out, drawing the viewer's attention to Vy’s bright jacket and the white mask of the hacker.

The jacket is actually blue denim but Vy changes the color for every thumbnail she wears it for based on the other colors she's using. The team mix and match complementary colors based on the background and the objects in the thumbnail, and Vy will often change the color of the jacket so it’s the opposite to what anyone else in the thumbnail is wearing. So while it looks like Vy owns 30 denim jackets of the same design, it’s actually just the one clothing item that’s been manipulated to bring out the very best in the custom thumbnail.

Vy and the team also use colors to create a sense of consistency across their thumbnails with splashes of the same color popping up across different images. This creates a motif that runs through their thumbnails and reinforces the branding and familiarity of the channels.

#2 Keep Text on Custom Thumbnails to an Absolute Minimum

Another thing you’ll notice from the thumbnails created across Vy’s, Chad’s and the Project Hacker YouTube channels is that text is kept to an absolute minimum, or not used at all.

Obviously this creates extra pressure on the designer who has to get the focus of the content over without spelling it out for the viewer. Vy and her team are world-class experts at this and know exactly when to use text only when necessary. When they do, it’s big and bright and it counts.

Vy confirms that a lot of rookie mistakes she sees with custom thumbnails on YouTube is trying to cram in as much text as possible. Unfortunately, it becomes almost impossible to read when you shrink the thumbnail down. When the graphic becomes too busy the viewer is going to have a hard time understanding what your video is about and they may not even click through to find out.

Vy’s team have solid rules for text use: use three words or less for any thumbnail, keep that text precise, and only ever use if it makes the story complete. Also, think about the colors you use for the text to make it stand out. And don’t repeat the title in the thumbnail - ever!

Another vital component of the successful custom thumbnails that Vy and her team create is the use of emotion to draw viewers in. If just one person is in the thumbnail, they will use the face that shows the stronger emotion, and if there are two or more people, each will have a slightly different emotion to foster attention. This is incredibly important for capturing the eyeballs of the younger audiences scrolling through the YouTube feed on their mobile devices.

Another very effective way of conveying a strong emotion in a person is to actually show the whites of their eyes. Vy spends a lot of time on faces and knows how to make the most out of them. In the thumbnail for ‘

’ Vy accentuated Chad’s green iris and the whites of his eyes with Photoshop’s Saturation tool to make them really come alive. This really helps when it comes to the human connection.

But Vy goes even further to create a sense of emotion with viewers. Not only does she want to attract viewers with facial expressions, but also with a sense of action and purpose from the people featured in the image. As this is rarely achieved from someone just standing still, she makes sure that Chad, herself, or the Hacker are in some kind of motion - like running or fighting back. The aim is to create a need for the audience to find out what happens next.

#4 Don’t Make the Custom Thumbnail an Afterthought

The art of the thumbnail is something Vy’s team considers before shooting even begins. The topic of the video, and the story around it is a critical starting point for the graphic. The base image isn’t taken from a screenshot, it’s shot separately and taken from one of many images created during the photoshoot.

Vy will take multiple shots from multiple angles so she has a wide range of creative assets to work from. Thumbnails are never an afterthought for the team, and are as important as creating the main video content.

#5 Keep on Testing Thumbnails - and Replace if You Need To

Vy will monitor click through rate very closely after uploading a video, and is quick to respond if she feels a thumbnail it isn’t working as well as she expects. She tracks the click through rates of all of their custom thumbnails in a spreadsheet and analyses the data for performance insights. But as an expert, she’ll use her experience and instinct to change up a thumbnail within the first 48 hours if the video isn’t getting the views - even before she can confirm the CTR. Talking of 

Huge thanks to Vy for letting vidIQ in on her insights and process around creating the best custom thumbnails on YouTube. As you can see, creators who are pulling in millions of views never leave their thumbnail to chance. And you shouldn't either. For a recap of this expert's guide to creating stunning YouTube custom thumbnails, check out our video below:

Want To Get More YouTube Views & Subscribers?

We give you 5 expert tips on why creating the best YouTube custom thumbnails should NEVER be an afterthought if you want to grow views and subscribers fast.

Why YouTube Custom Thumbnails Should NEVER Be an Afterthought: 5 Expert Tips

At Brandcast, Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, said “the new primetime is personal.” She added, “Most people say the content they watched on YouTube is related to something that they are passionate about. And according to our joint research with Omnicom, relating to a passion is three times more important than whether or not there’s a big Hollywood name attached.”

Now, we should have seen this trend coming months before Brandcast was held. At the beginning of March, Think with Google published “

Forget about primetime. To attract viewers, follow their passions

.” And in April, that was followed by “

6 industry leaders on the changing nature of primetime.

So, how does this impact you? Well, there’s still a lot of idle chatter these days that video viewers have shorter attention spans than goldfish. People scrolling through their Facebook News Feed may watch videos autoplay for only a couple of seconds, but the average viewing session on YouTube lasts more than 40 minutes. And viewers aren’t “snacking” on a random assortment of 300 videos for an average of eight seconds each during the typical 40-minute session. So, what are they doing?

People are delving deeply into topics that they truly care about for long stretches of time and skipping content that isn’t relevant or interesting after eight seconds. And, in a world where viewers have total control and a seemingly endless amount of content to choose from, this means traditional primetime has been replaced by highly engaged personal primetimes. Personal relevance and passion are now the key drivers of engagement, with over 60% of consumers who’ve watched something on YouTube in the past 24 hours saying it was related to something they’re passionate about. And, as viewer passion takes center stage, marketers must rethink their approach to video from creating “snackable” content to building long watch-time sessions that maximize viewer engagement and satisfaction.

2.	YouTube is Taking Responsibility Seriously

At Brandcast, Wojcicki said, “Let me be very clear, living up to our responsibility is my number one priority. And we are making significant progress. My leadership team and I – along with thousands of people at YouTube – are laser-focused on this.”

For additional context, you can read her recent post in the 

, which says, “We’re always balancing maintaining an open platform with managing our community guidelines. But to combat a number of concerning incidents we’ve seen in the last few months, we’ve had to take more aggressive action.” In February, YouTube announced the suspension of comments on most YouTube videos that feature minors. And in March, YouTube took unprecedented action in the wake of the Christchurch tragedy.

And if you haven’t already, you should also read Daisuke Wakabayashi’s recent article in The New York Times, which is entitled, “

The Most Measured Person in Tech Is Running the Most Chaotic Place on the Internet

.” The article concludes, “After a long conversation, Ms. Wojcicki became introspective. She said she joined Google because she wanted to do something meaningful with her life, and saw the company’s mission of helping people find the right information as inspiring. But now she recognizes that her ultimate legacy will be whether YouTube can get a handle on its problems.”

3.	YouTube TV Lineup Available in Google Preferred

YouTube TV’s 70 broadcast and cable channels will now be available as its own lineup in the Google Preferred reservation program during this upfront season. This change, along with audience guarantees and show-level exclusions, allows advertisers to zero in on live and on-demand inventory. And most importantly, brands can go beyond demographics to reach audiences based on their interests – just like with the core Google Preferred offerings.

What does this mean? Well, it depends. If this pulls more ad dollars out of TV budgets and shifts them to YouTube, then a rising tide may lift all boats – including your channel(s). If it doesn’t, then the giant sucking sound that you will hear is live sports, news, and shows on 70 broadcast and cable channels taking a bigger piece of the video advertising pie chart.

4.	Karate-chopping the Paywall for “Originals”

At Brandcast, YouTube also announced that all of its forthcoming original series and specials will soon be available for fans around the world to watch for free with ads - just like they enjoy everything else on the platform. In addition, YouTube also unveiled a new and returning slate of original series and specials focused on music, learning and personalities that will all be free with ads, including seasons 1 and 2 of “Cobra Kai” beginning this fall.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, “Cobra Kai”, which stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, is a critically-acclaimed scripted series that picks up the Karate Kid storyline decades after the original film. In its rookie season, “Cobra Kai” received an Emmy nomination, the Golden Tomato Award for Best TV Drama, and a 100-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes – making it the highest-reviewed reboot of all time. And just after its season two premiere last month, which reached 20 million views in six days, Parrot Analytics confirmed Cobra Kai is the most in-demand digital original series in the world right now. And you can binge-watch season 1 for free from August 29 to September 11 and then binge-watch season 2 for free starting on September 11.

5.	Celebrating Creator and Influencer Success Stories

At Brandcast, Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s Chief Business Officer, said, “Creators are driving record audiences to YouTube.” He added, “

200 million people come to YouTube every single day just to watch gaming videos. That’s twice the audience of this year’s Super Bowl.

” And he reveal that, “Over the last three years, the number of channels with over 1 billion views has grown by 400 percent.”

Kyncl concluded, “But creators aren’t just driving big numbers...they’re also redefining culture. They are using YouTube to break through to a generation of early adopters; the same way that 20th century media icons did through television and print.”

And several YouTube creators and influencers spoke at this year’s Brandcast, including Coby Cotton of Dude Perfect and Tiffany Haddish. Cotton said, “Ten years ago, we were just 5 college roommates at Texas A&M trying our best to balance studying with, what always seemed like, one too many intramural sports. Today, we’ve turned our passion into a career, and we’re grateful to now be one of the most watched creators on all of YouTube with 41 million subscribers and 7.7 billion views.” And Haddish added, “I’m a mechanic now, because of YouTube. I’m a therapist. I’m an ordained minister. I’m a reiki healer now. I can also make Red Bottom shoes, but you can’t walk that far, because they turn into brown bottoms. I can build a house from the ground up. I’m a carpenter now. I can do hair. I can do anything because of YouTube. I think it’s the most awesome thing in the world.”

6.	YouTube is Updating its Algorithm for Google Preferred

YouTube announced it is updating its P-score algorithm to include more of the content that is frequently watched on the TV screen and content that exhibits higher production value. How significant is this going to be? Well, Wojcicki said watch time of YouTube on television screens alone tops 250 million hours per day. Now, more than 70% of YouTube watch time still comes from mobile devices. So, the smartphone is still your first screen. But, the connected TV is going to be a significant screen, too.

So, when creating content, here’s what you need to know: Google Preferred preference score combs through YouTube’s vast video troves to select among the top 5% of engaging and popular channels on YouTube “taking into consideration, the popularity of the channel and the passion of the audience and a higher bar for brand suitability.” So, if that’s the kind of content that you’re creating, then you should benefit very nicely from the Google Preferred Update.

7.	Sales Lift Studies for Google Preferred Campaigns

At Brandcast, YouTube also announced that Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) will be available for Google Preferred campaigns before the end of 2019. The tool will measure lift in offline sales for U.S. consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, and provide deeper performance insights across audiences and creative.

Now, this is a big deal. Looking at the Nielsen Matched Panel Analysis (MPA) studies that YouTube has run to date, more than 70 percent of YouTube campaigns drove a significant lift in offline sales. So, document sales lift could act as a giant magnet that attracts even more CPG advertising to YouTube. If you create content in the food & recipes category, then drinks are on you tonight.

At Brandcast, YouTube shared some new research that revealed:

YouTube has the highest share in reach and watch time among all ad supported OTT platforms, according to Comscore OTT Intelligence and Custom Reporting.)

And more than half of 18- to 49-year-olds in the US are either light viewers of TV or do not subscribe, but over 90% of these people watch YouTube, according to a study commissioned by Google and conducted by Nielsen study.

Now, TV once made fun of the little video sharing site that featured funny cat videos, which is the equivalent of kicking sand in the face of a 97-pound weakling. But, the platform has built an audience the way that bodybuilders develop a powerful physique. So, no one is making fun of YouTube anymore.

YouTube also shared new research about the impact of advertising on the platform: Across all Marketing Mix Modeling studies that YouTube has commissioned with Nielsen in the past 2 years, Google Preferred had greater sales per impression than TV in all of them.

Across the Total Audience Ratings (TAR) studies that YouTube has commissioned with Nielsen, YouTube has consistently driven incremental reach at a much more balanced frequency vs. TV. On average, over 50% of the target audience reached by YouTube was incremental to TV. TV required on average 5X the frequency of YouTube to hit reach goals.

YouTube’s Google Preferred ads on TV screens drove a significant lift in Ad Recall and Purchase Intent, with an average lift of 112% and 53% respectively.

This is great news for most YouTube creators. The only exceptions might be ones like the Green brothers, who revealed in 2015 that less than 20% of their company’s revenue comes from advertising.

10.	Showcasing Advertiser Success Stories

Finally, YouTube showcased an advertiser success story at Brandcast. Alison Lewis, the Global CMO of Johnson & Johnson, said, “YouTube also gives us a direct line to our audience, allowing us to engage with them on their passions. And YouTube helps us to reach audiences we can’t with TV.”

Lewis added, “We can reach the health-conscious person at the gym; the frequent flyer on the go; the young professional commuting to work and many more. Not only that, we’re able to customize our messages on the fly, evolving as fast as the weather changes.” She continued, “Using data-inspired creativity, we increased our sales. We engaged with a previously untapped audience. And, we converted them into customers. Throughout it all, we relied on YouTube’s insights to adapt again and again. The launch of the campaign was only the beginning.”

Lewis concluded, “Today, we no longer look at digital as an add-on. We know it works and we know it delivers a better return on our investment. That’s why we’ve increased our YouTube spend 250% since 2015.”

The 2019 YouTube Brandcast featured a ton of announcements that concern creators and advertisers. Here are the top 10 takeaways you should know.

Top 10 Takeaways from YouTube's 2019 Brandcast

Video creators using Facebook as a distribution channel face a different set of opportunities and challenges than YouTube. Fortunately, Facebook wants to support creators and publishers who navigate the platform and have 

announced a change to their video algorithm

 “to help talented video creators find their audience and build profitable video businesses on Facebook.” The changes, which will be rolled out over the next few months, will impact video content in the News Feed, the 'More Videos' feature, and also on Facebook Watch.

Facebook confirmed it has 2.4B monthly active users so the potential audience for your videos is huge, but it's no secret that the platform has been under severe scrutiny over problems with spammy or questionable content. To ensure only the most relevant video content is surfaced, Facebook has issued new guidelines to reward creators who publish original video content, attract repeat views, and upload videos over three minutes long.

So what do creators and publishers need to know about the new changes? Let's take a look at the three ranking factors Facebook announced on 6th May 2019:

 Facebook is clamping down hard on any video content that's been repurposed and is going to hugely restrict the visibility and the monetization opportunities for unoriginal content.

Over the past few years we've seen millions of Facebook Pages built around aggregated content thrive. But a huge number of these Pages have grown followers by using content that's either been licensed from other creators, or re-uploaded without credit. In the land grab for Facebook views, many publishers have also participated in 

 (large-scale distribution of third party video content) but this approach is about to become even more unsustainable as the platform “will more strongly limit distribution and monetization for this kind of content".

 The platform is looking to boost the ranking signal of video content that users search out, and return to, on a regular basis. Repeat views for the videos you upload should be one of the main goals for any Facebook video creator going forward, as videos that get users to return will be surfaced more often across Facebook.

 Videos that keep viewers engaged for an extended period of time also get a ranking signals boost. The platform confirmed that videos that last longer than three minutes will benefit the most, so creators and publishers need to build this new metric into their video marketing strategy as of right now.

Facebook has announced an update to the way it is going to rank videos - and creators and publishers need to take note.

Facebook is Changing its Video Algorithm to Reward Original Content and Loyal Viewers

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, and users flock to the site in their billions to find answers to questions on all sorts of topics. The challenge for YouTubers is not only to create the content they are most passionate about, but to find the gaps in the YouTube space where the competition is less fierce for that content.

Take Mother's Day for instance. The short-tail term "Mother's Day' is the most searched for term around the celebration in 2019. No massive surprise there - and neither is the volume of content that's published around that keyword phrase. If you have an established channel with a loyal and engaged subscriber base that has been uploading content around lifetsyle and family for years, then YouTube may return your videos pretty high up in the search results for that term. But if you are a new channel, you may struggle to gain any visibility outside of your own audience, due to the sheer volume of uploaded content around this major tentpole event.

If you plan on creating a Mother's Day's video then you will want to fully understand what keywords people are searching for and when they are searching so your video has the best chance of being seen during this very competitive U.S. holiday.

Luckily, viewers are searching for all sorts of terms around Mother's Day that you can take advantage of to drive views and subscribers to your channel. Here are the top 20 search terms for 2019:

YouTube: Top 20 Mother’s Day Keywords To Use

Are any of the keywords listed above a surprise to you as a YouTube creator? Are there any ideas that you can think of around some of the topics? These terms are being actively searched for right now so you have the opportunity to rank in the results if you can create an engaging and entertaining video using these keywords as a kick-off point. But remember to OPTIMIZE your custom thumbnails, titles, tags, and descriptions accordingly so YouTube knows exactly what your video is all about.

When are Viewers Searching for Mother's Day Content on YouTube?

In 2018, most of the interest for Mother’s Day keywords happened between April 9th and May 27th according to 

. We suggest getting your content out around the 1st of May and expect it to start losing steam around the end of May.

However, even though this is a once-a-year event, your video has the opportunity of becoming evergreen content that will attract views and engagements year after year.

We've listed the most searched for Mother's Day keywords on YouTube. Now let's show you some examples of content that's driving those terms. At #2 is a keyphrase I'd never thought I'd see but "

" is proving popular with viewers as they tune in to watch this hilarious promotion from KFC's on-point marketing campaign. Featuring the Chickendales, the video has generated over 551K views since being uploaded on the 25th of April.

While the KFC video might have a short shelf life (see what we did there), the following upload from HGTV Handmade is a fantastic example of combining the tent pole event with another YouTube favorite - DIY. Uploaded on April 29th, the '9 DIY Mother’s Day Gift Ideas' has already generated 1.3M views.

Sticking with the DIY theme, 'Fix This Build That' created a video that showed off 6 different gift projects for Mom's special day. What's so interesting about this content is that while the channel's focus is squarely on a range of DIY projects, they saw an opportunity to create a video around this tentpole event that fits right in with their genre. That means it's not confusing the subscriber base but offers an opportunity for the video to rank well for Mother's Day terms.

If you want to discover your own keyword opportunities, and take your YouTube channel to the next level then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Mother's Day content is huge on YouTube - and here are the top 20 most searched keywords around this major tentpole event.

Top 20 Mother's Day Keywords on YouTube

YouTube has a system in place that alerts you to any other video that may be using all, or part of your content. Here's our 3 minute guide to using the Copyright Matching Tool

How to Access the YouTube Copyright Matching Tool

When you are logged into YouTube, you should see your channel logo in the top right-hand corner of most YouTube screens. If you click on that, you have the option to go to YouTube Studio. This is currently in beta, but will become the standard as 2019 progresses. This is the new creator studio dashboard and from here, you want to click on the Copyright section down the left-hand side.

When you first visit this screen, you will need to read the guidelines and agree you understand how to use the copyright matching tool. This tool should be available to all creators in the YouTube Partner Program.

Once you have access to the tool, the main screen will show you if there are any content matches. YouTube uses the earliest upload of the original content to know who to match it to. Duplicates uploaded after are displayed and show you the video details such as the number of views, upload date, and the channel with the matching content, the percentage match of a video against your original, and the three actionable steps you can take to protect your content.

How to Take Actionable steps to Protect Your Content

The first action is to simply archive the match. This means that you have taken no action, but have acknowledged the content ID match. There is an archive tab at the top, which you can click to take you to all of the previously archived matches. You can click on the three dots to the right here to take a new action, if you want to.

The second action you can take is the strongest one and that is to request that the content be removed. First, click on the warning sign and then, confirm the request to remove the video. Once you've confirmed this action, a lengthy form will pop up that you need to complete in full. This action should not be taken lightly, as you are claiming ownership of the content, which, in extreme cases, you may need to defend legally.

Because of this, there are three legal agreements you need to check before you submit your request. Also, consider the impact on the channel you are claiming against. If you request a removal now, this will instantly serve a copyright strike against a creator. If you schedule a seven day notice, this at least give the creator a chance to remove the video and protect their channel. Of course, this decision is entirely up to you. Once you've submitted the video removal, you can track it's progress from the removal request tab. Do note that you may need to take further action to get a video removed.

If you think all of this is a little too drastic, you can take the nicely, nicely approach and simply contact the creator using your content. This will automatically generate an email template that will be sent to the creator warning them of what they are doing and what could happen. All you need to do is add an email, so that you can have a conversation, if required.

YouTube's Copyright Matching Tool alerts you to any other videos that may be using all, or part of your content. Here's our quick guide to using it.

How to Use The YouTube Copyright Matching Tool

Many new YouTube creators have serious concerns like: it's too late to start a channel in 2019, my topic on YouTube is too saturated, I'll never be able to compete with the big boys, or my channel’s too small it'll never get shared on YouTube. All of this is absolute rubbish and I've been waiting for an opportunity to show you how it is still possible to start a channel in 2019 and be successful.

This video is all sparked from something that we do on a regular basis here at VidIQ. We audit channels on YouTube for free 11 a.m. PST every single week (

). One of the channels we listed recently made me go wow, this is what I've been trying to tell video creators for years and it still works.

How a New Tech Channel Generates More YouTube Views

’ is a YouTube tech channel like many that have come before it. and the channel description tells us that it reviews smartphones, tablets and overheard tech. Now if you're a regular visitor to VidIQ especially the 

, I know what you're about to say. That's all very well, smartphones, tablets, home tech, but where is the focus, where's the niche?

If you think that the channel’s focus is not specific enough, you’re absolutely right. If your first video is about a Lava Lamp and your ninth video is about a wireless doorbell and your 17th video is about a Black & Decker Multipro two in one cordless vacuum cleaner, you are going to get a confused audience not knowing what to expect next. Now for a new channel this is perfectly acceptable, the video creator is trying to find their feet on a platform. Learn how to make videos and publish them and they're in the hustle stage. They're trying to find out what content they like making which resonates with an audience.

And in the early stages of this channel, they had some success. Incredibly, their second video on a gas meter got 5,000 views. But what did they do next? A video about Google Home Hub which does nothing. Then a video about a thermostat that did well. Then a video about a tablet that does even better. A follow-up video to that tablet that doubles of views again. Then a video about a light bulb that somehow does even better. Another video about a smart meter that doesn't do as well, followed by a video on a smart Samsung device that completely tanks.

So I was curious - here’s a new channel making videos about fairly different tech products and it’s getting good views. That leads me to two conclusions; either the video creator was playing around with Google AdWords, just to artificially inflate the viewing figures a little bit but legitimately of course, or the video creator was strategically targeting a couple of very niche areas such as a specific tablet or smart energy thermostats and working out which one would be most successful for that channel. I think it was probably a combination of a two. But let's continue to see where this video creator goes on their journey.

How does a relatively new channel on YouTube get an impressive number of views in just a couple of weeks? Well it comes from a very simple strategy that we explain in detail.

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