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

We recently published a video and a post around 

starting a YouTube gaming channel in 2020

, and in that video, I discussed playing just one game. But what if you don't know what game to play? What if you don't know which is the one game for you? This method could help you find out exactly what that could be.

Wait. I just spent all that time telling you to play one game, and now I'm telling you maybe there's another way. Just hold on. I still think sticking to one game is a good strategy, but what if you play lots of different games? What if you play games that have to be kind of similar?

The Benefits of Sticking to One Genre on Your YouTube Gaming Channel

Let's first discuss why it's important to play one game in a lot of cases. And, mainly it's because YouTube is going to understand what your channel is about. That will lead to the platform suggesting your videos among creators who make kind of the same stuff, and among search results for people who are looking for that content.

So, if you play Stardew Valley, then you want YouTube to recommend your videos when someone types in "Stardew Valley." But if you play Stardew Valley and a hundred other games, YouTube doesn't really know where you're at, and it's going to be a little bit harder for the service to put your videos out there for people searching for Stardew Valley.

Now if that sounds like something you're doing right now, let's talk about narrowing down your content a little bit. Let's not dive right into one game so fast. What if we at least dive into a genre? What is Stardew Valley? Stardew Valley is a couple of things. I consider it a farming game, or an RPG.

For hypothetical purposes, let's focus on farming. I like farming games! I like Stardew Valley, I like Farming Simulator, I like games that feature farming. So let's just say that my channel is going to be a farming game channel. Now, that's pretty specific, right? There's probably not a lot of channels that just focus on that one type of game.

Even if you don't play Stardew Valley, you might be thinking to yourself, "Okay, I don't like farming games at all, "but I do like to play a lot of Call of Duty, "so what does a strategy for that look like for me?"

COD is a first-person shooter game, so, now that we know that, now that you have your genre, here's what I suggest doing: Take that game that you like, take that genre that you like, pick one of the games out of it, and go in, and make five videos on it. Make ten videos. Make as many as you're comfortable making.

After you publish ten videos on one game, you're probably going to come away with some pretty decent stats, which is good. Data is always good for testing purposes like we're about to, you know, theoretically do.

So for me, that game happened to be Stardew Valley. Let's say I make ten Stardew Valley videos, and I'm like "Okay, I finished the Community Center, "and I got a bunch of money, "and I'm pretty happy with my progress in Stardew, "I'm kind of tired of it right now. "I'm going to swap over. "I'm going to make ten videos on Farming Simulator."

Now, after every Farming Simulator video I post, I'm going to be looking to see what my numbers are doing, and how my audience is responding to that content. In the comments, are they saying, "Aw man, I really miss Stardew Valley"? Hey, it's still good that they showed up, right? They like you, they're watching your Farming Simulator video and they came in to say, "Yeah, I kinda liked Stardew better," but at least they came in! Maybe they'll stick around, maybe they enjoy the farming games as much as you do. Or maybe you notice a whole bunch of people commenting on your video that weren't there before! Hey, okay! People really like this Farming Simulator game.

I know I'm just using two games as an example, I'd probably recommend trying this with a wider spread of farming games in this case, but I just happen to really like these two farming games, and if I'm being honest, there's not a lot of farming games that I really play. So, maybe not a perfect example. But, play as many games as you need to play in your genre.

If it's MMORPGs, then play the various MMOs that you like to play. If it happens to be first-person shooters, play those. If it happens to be games like Minecraft, survival games, building games, play as many as you can get your hands on that you'll enjoy. The most important thing is to upload these videos regularly. So, I want to stick to a schedule, and I want to upload games that are at least similar to one another.

Know Your Gaming Genre and Find New Opportunities

So I've hypothetically made my videos about Stardew Valley, I got tired of it, I made my videos about Farming Simulator, and I'm noticing some trends. Let's take a look at this.

Now obviously I didn't record any Stardew Valley or Farming Simulator videos, these are all kind of hypotheticals to get you thinking. But let's just say I did. What I want to know is what's going on in Farming Simulator? All right, so if you were to record farming simulator videos you'll see that your volume and competition look pretty good. This is actually a pretty decent search term - but is it though?

There's a lot of people playing Farming Simulator on YouTube, what if playing Farming Simulator won’t get me discovered? What if it's the word "simulator" that’s the key?

As somebody who plays a lot of games, I know that the simulator genre is actually really popular. Competition is pretty high, but there's a high search volume for people looking for the word "simulator".

Now, what have I just discovered about my content? So far as I can tell, this is not a bad idea! What if people like simulator games as much as they like farming games? What I've just done is given myself an opportunity to explore a whole genre of games that I didn't even think of at first!

Now don't get me wrong, I know this is a very specific example. We're talking about farming games, now we're talking about simulator games, and if this isn't anywhere near your genre, just know that there's a lot of different ways we can categorize games.

Games are cool because they have more than one genre, they're more than one thing a lot of times. Take Fallout, for example. Fallout 4, you could argue it's a first-person shooter game, but you could also argue, because it has a currency system built in it, and quests, it's actually an RPG. So as you're playing Fallout 4 on your channel and you're starting to get kind of tired of it, what if you played another RPG?

What if you were tired of first-person shooters at that point, but you thought, "Man, I could really go for some "Stardew Valley!" Well, Stardew Valley isn't just a farming game, it's an RPG. It has a currency system, it has quests you can do, and in some ways, Stardew Valley is similar to Fallout 4, believe it or not.

So by now, I assume you kind of get it, right? You don't have to play just one game on your channel, you could be playing all these random games. And people might ask you, "Why do you play so many random games?" And you can go, "I don't play random games. "I play simulator games! "I play Farming Simulator, I play Truck Simulator, "I play Thief Simulator." These are now your genre. Now you are the authority on simulator games.

But for those of you sitting there going, "Okay, but I actually kind of like playing just one game, "I was on board with your last plan, "what are you doing to me, you're driving me crazy!" And to those of you who are thinking that, I want to say, there is always an opportunity to niche down your content and be just the Truck Simulator person.

Or, let's say you feel like Farming Simulator has so much more depth than all the other simulator games, and that's all you want to play from now on, that's probably a smart move if your audience has really been taking to it very well. Maybe, if you're lucky, Farming Simulator has some of the best views on your channel and that's more of a reason to just stick to that one game.

The point is, there's no wrong way to do this, and every channel is going to be different, and there's never one secret sauce that I can give you that's going to work for everybody watching. I just want to get you thinking. I just want you to think about games in terms of genre.

Maybe that is a way for you to play multiple games, or at the very least test to see which one game happens to be the best for you. We talk a lot here on this channel about getting discovered, a lot of our videos and advice is to that end. You want to be discovered by people out there on YouTube, looking for things.

But when we're talking about video games, it's even more important to stress this one thing: Please play games you actually enjoy. The most important thing that you can do on a gaming channel is to play games that you enjoy, because your audience is going to sense when you're not invested in the game, and in turn, they won't be invested in your video.

So to those of you out there playing games and trying to find yourselves on YouTube, I hope this was helpful. I hope I managed to kind of enlighten you to a new strategy or two for finding not only your game but your audience.

And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the 

 and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.

If you're thinking of starting a gaming channel on YouTube make sure you have the right content strategy from the get-go.

How to Start a Gaming Channel On YouTube The RIGHT Way!

If you've got a YouTube kids' channel, you must be freaking out right about now. Yes, YouTube has released a new update to their policies, and how they will be handling kids' content starting in January 2020. But what's actually going on? How will this affect your videos? How will this affect your revenue? How will this affect basically everything you do on YouTube? If you've got a kids' channel and you want answers, this is the episode of TubeTalk for you.

Today we're dealing with something new, something bigger than the ad apocalypse where people lost some revenue from their ads. Today we're talking about kids' channels, and the complete change to the way YouTube handles that kind of content. YouTube was recently fined by the FTC $170 million for collecting data on young viewers and then targeting them with ads, something that the Child Online Privacy Protection Act clearly doesn't allow you to do. In turn, 

YouTube has released new policies, new documentation, and new processes of how they're going to handle kids' content.

However, the new direction YouTube is taking is still a little vague so we still need real answers. We are fortunate enough to be able to speak to our good friend Shaun McKnight, who has spoken to the people at YouTube to understand what the changes are, and how they will affect kids' content channel. Now to be clear, Shaun does not speak on behalf of YouTube. This is purely his interpretation of the conversation and what he has been told, and the questions that he has asked, and he's just sharing the conversation with us. Shaun does not represent YouTube, just want to be clear.

Sean, and his wife Mindy are the team behind the highly-successful 

 YouTube channel one year later. Their family of channels, which include 

, now has over 15.5 Million subscribers and more than 2.6 Billion video views.

Subscribe to TubeTalk: The Video Marketing Podcast!

TubeTalk has been informing video creators and marketers since 2014, and is one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode! You can find vidIQ's TubeTalk at:

New YouTube Policy on Children's Content: Full Transcript

Liron Segev: Without further ado, let's dive in. Shaun, welcome to TubeTalk.

Shaun McKnight: Hey, thanks for having me.

Liron Segev:	So, fun and games today as news is breaking and sweeping the world. Lots of changes with kids' content. Before we dive into what's going on, do you want to give us a quick overview of the kind of channels that you manage and that you own?

Shaun McKnight: Yeah, we have three family channels. The first channel we started 10 years ago, called Cute Girls Hairstyles. My wife teaches moms and single dads, or basically mom and dads everywhere, how to do their young daughter's hair in less than five minutes, so it's kind of a time saver channel. We upload two vlogs a month on that channel. My twin daughters, Brooklyn and Bailey, have been on YouTube for six years now. They're very, very popular, some of the top influencers on YouTube. They create lifestyle content and they're now in college, so they're aging up their content from what used to be high school to now college-aged content.

And then we have another daughter, Kamri Noel, who is in high school, and she does photography and some lifestyle content on her channel. We have three additional channels that we own, but do not actually create content for as a family. We have independent contractors who upload to those channels, and one of those three is actually a kids' channel that is affected by this new policy. Four of the channels are over 1 million total. We're at 15 and a half million subscribers and about 2.6 billion views.

Liron Segev:	Now YouTube says, "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, if you are making content to do with kids, we have to talk." Tell me what's happening, what's going on?

Shaun McKnight: Well, before we can really identify what's going on, and who should really be angry and so forth, we have to think of YouTube for what it actually was. The intent of the platform. It's not an entertainment company. We as creators are the "entertainment company". YouTube is a software platform that hosts that content, right? And it has always been an age 13 and over platform, so in order to create an account or a YouTube channel, you have to certify and state that, "I'm over the age of 13."

So it was never intended to be a place where kids were going to consume content, right? So this new issue has kind of arisen over the past eight years. Toy unboxing channels were kind of the first real foray into kids' content on YouTube, and they really took off and everybody was, "Me too. I want one, I want one." And then there was the superhero genre, and there was the Frozen, Elsa, Spider-Man genre, and then a plethora of family bloggers mixed in throughout those eight years, right?

But I think that that content type that was never intended to be hosted on YouTube and consumed on YouTube grew to probably ... my guess, my estimate is about 33% of views were coming from younger kids under the age of 13 consuming content on the main YouTube platform. And then YouTube's attempt to try and create YouTube Kids as an off, standalone app was great. It's not a perfect solution, but it just seems easier for parents to just hand over their phone to a YouTube that they're currently logged in on using their profile. And kids were watching videos, and because of the suggestion algorithm that YouTube puts in place, kids were being deviated from Peppa the Pig to content that wasn't necessarily appropriate for children of that age.

Liron Segev: Those who don't know, there is a YouTube Kids app that's highly curated. The criteria as a creator to fit into that is so specific, in fact, most people actually don't qualify. Now things have changed. I mean, we've seen live streams of Peppa Pig being streamed for 24 hours. Is this who the intended audience that YouTube is kind of saying, "Look, we need to talk"?

Shaun McKnight: Yes, I believe so. Some of the advertiser issues we've had in the past that have been in the press, yes, that's fair because bad actors have been in there manipulating the algorithm, and creating content that wasn't intended to be for children. This has to do with data collection through cookies and viewer behavior. The FTC has an issue with YouTube collecting that data, presuming that it is an adult because it was created by an adult. They have to certify that they're over the age of 13.

I think it was pretty clear to a lot of people that there were children using parents' accounts. And that's where the FTC had a problem was knowing that children were consuming content on the platform, and then YouTube was using that viewer behavior to serve targeted ads. That's what the system does, right? It's not something someone's consciously doing. It's programmed to do that.

And so there was a sharing of data from kids under the age of 13 happening, where advertisers and ads were being served based on targeted data that were provided by kids under the age of 13. That's why we're in this situation.

Liron Segev:	And that's the crux of this matter. It's just, it's all to do with tracking and ads.

Shaun McKnight: Yes. Because there's pretty staunch laws, COPPA laws, to protect children from advertisements. And you know, kids are delicate. This is more of a parent issue than it really is a YouTube issue or even a government issue. We're in this situation because of parents.

And also as creators, we have a responsibility to know what the playing field is, to not put the software company that is hosting our content in jeopardy. Since we're the media creators, we're the media companies, it's not YouTube's fault per se. Yes, there's some things they could have done earlier, but this really is a parent issue. We should not be handing an iPad logged into YouTube proper to our children just because there's a Peppa Pig video there, assuming that all they're going to watch is Peppa Pig or Snoopy, or Looney Tunes or whatever it may be. That's not the way the program was intended. That's not the way the algorithm works.

Liron Segev:	So now let's put a creator hat on. I have a kids channel, I've put lots of quality and educational videos up, I spent lots of time with my animators. What's going to happen to my channel as it’s targeted specifically at under-13s?

Shaun McKnight: It's really sad because, yeah, this has affected me. Fortunately, I didn't put a lot of money and resources and time into our kids' channel, so having lost the monetization on that and the engagement ability through that channel isn't really affecting me. If I had invested a lot more time and money, it would be really, really hard for me. I would struggle with this decision, particularly because I know the content I create is safe for kids.

But I also kind of have to look at it as, okay, that content was never really meant to be on YouTube proper. It's almost like for the past seven years, every time I do the laundry, I've been finding money in the pocket of those pants, right? It was never really supposed to be there, but it was a benefit to me and I'm grateful to it. But to the point that I become expectant that every week when I do my laundry there's going to be money in that pocket, and then all of a sudden it isn't. I can't be mad at the washer. I can't be mad at the pants.

I was lucky to have that money all that time. I mean, that's an oversimplified way of saying it really stinks to be in this situation, and you should be grateful for what you had during that time. But the platform was never meant to host that kind of content, because of the target audience. So it was almost like we played with house money. Now the system is correcting itself, the pendulum is coming back to where it should have been originally. Now as creators we have to find out where do we put it now where we can get the maximum monetization? Because the option on YouTube proper is not going to be there.

I believe, from what I understand, YouTube negotiated pretty heavily with the government who wanted to implement an immediate implementation of this policy. YouTube was able to get that negotiated to four months, which allows the partner managers and basically the community of creators to work together to figure out, "What are we doing with this content type?" There will be, I think, a more concerted effort on YouTube Kids. YouTube has created their own version of YouTube on desktop, like a YouTube proper but only for kids, where this content can be hosted. I think the problem for a lot of creators are that the monetization will not be there immediately like it has been on YouTube proper.

Liron Segev:	We're not talking about little bits of money. I mean, some people have made entire businesses out of this, entire companies. They've got staff, they've got offices, they've got multiple channels, bringing in multiple six-figure income per month from these kids' channels. This is going to go from that, I would assume, to probably virtually zero in a couple of months.

Shaun McKnight: It is, and so that's the other thing. I think it's important for people to understand. It's easy to think, okay, YouTube's the big bad bully here because the government said, "Oh, you're doing this," and YouTube is like, "Well, we're just going to make the creators pay for this."

But think about if what I'm saying is true and roughly 33% of views on YouTube are coming from children under the age of 13 consuming gaming content and kids content and toy unboxing and so forth, YouTube has a split with the creators of 55/45. They're losing 45% of that huge chunk of views per month, so their revenue is being hit too. This wasn't an easy decision by YouTube to do this.

Liron Segev:	That's a good point because not only the creators get a hit because YouTube is not paying them as much anymore, but YouTube isn't being paid either. Everybody takes a hit. It's good for the kids. I mean, we want to be clear. You have to protect the kids. That's non-negotiable.

Liron Segev: This is just basically systems put in place to help do that. The question is, how do we now deal with the situation that we find ourselves in? I like your example of, we've been living on borrowed time anyway. If you have kids channels, you know that you were playing with fire when you started this.

Liron Segev:	Did YouTube tell you what the implications will be? Is there a new processing you have to self-select your content when you upload it in the future?

Shaun McKnight: Yeah, that will be happening in the next coming months. Obviously before January 1st, I think they'll be putting that in place. Currently, there's a beta for channels that have to self-certify against vulgarity, violence, sexual content, and so forth. More for safety for children, but also to make sure YouTube understands what is this video about?

So they know how to rate it. That was self-certification and there's a trust algorithm that goes against that. Meaning, I can certify that my content is safe for all audiences. Then YouTube has its own algorithm that goes in and it knows what's in my video. It's using Google Vision. It can tell whether that matches how I certified and so forth. Over time, I can earn trust in the algorithm, which also helps me in my growth.

All they're going to be doing is adding one more line in there that says, "Is this piece of content targeted to children under the age of 13?" Whether or not we click that box determines, alongside the verifications through the algorithm, how much trust we're gaining. Also, I read yesterday through all of this, there's a lot of press going on.

The FTC has actually made a statement that by YouTube implementing this self-certification and if a creator goes out and intentionally creates content for younger kids and certifies that it is not for children under the age of 13 just simply to bypass the policy and make the higher CPMs on YouTube proper, that that opens up that content creator for exposure to the FTC that they can call out full force on that content creator. That's actually scary to me to hear that. Because YouTube has put enough in place now to protect those children that I, myself as "the media company" uses the software platform to target children under 13 when it wasn't meant to be, the FTC can now come against me directly.

Liron Segev:	Wow. Well, you shouldn't be doing it. At the end of the day, facing the FTC is very different than getting a community strike against your channel.

Shaun McKnight: Correct. Or even losing your own monetization on that channel. You're talking penalties and fines and potential prison and court and legal. I mean it's not something to play with.

Liron Segev:	Now, it's all about the under 13, so it's all about the intention of the content creator as well. Like Brooklyn and Bailey, when they make their content, their intent is to talk to other teenagers, to other college going kids. Their intention isn't to target little kids.

Liron Segev:	Now, what happens if little kids do watch your channels because they love them and they're awesome? What happens then? Is it still your responsibility?

Shaun McKnight:	Well, as a content creator you can't really control who watches your content, but the theme and the dialogue and how you age it up or down can actually lead to what your intent really is with a piece of content. If I'm creating a skit and it's aged down and kind of nursery rhyme-ish, even though I have my teenagers on screen doing it, that is likely going to be consumed more by kids who can relate or like that which will be under the age of 13 then those that are over 13, right?

That poses an issue because it's not like I have minors under the age of 13 on screen, but the content type pretty clearly suggests that I'm trying to entertain that demographic. That would technically fall under the new policy.

Liron Segev:	PewDiePie is playing Minecraft exclusively now. But nobody can say PewDiePie is a kids channel. His intention isn't to go after the kids audience. Which I suppose leads me to the family vlogger situations where we know lots of family vloggers who've got all the kids in the videos. The fact that the kids are in the video doesn't make it 13 and below.

Shaun McKnight: Correct. Yeah. Going back to the first part of that question with PewDiePie and Minecraft, I actually asked that question specifically when I talked to YouTube yesterday and I'm talking very early in the morning. I was one of the first creators they had spoken to just because of the connections that I have with other large channels and they knew that I could probably help communicate and help give some advice to them.

I mentioned, so where is that line really drawn there when it comes to, if I'm over the age of 13, but my content ages down or if I'm ageing content down, but the primary viewer is over the age of 13. How does that work? I mentioned specifically DIY Slime and Minecraft because those are the two in the female and male demographic to I think, bridge that somewhere. How do you draw the line there? It's not as clear cut as I think even what Susan put out in her blog post or the letter. They have to look at that on a deeper level. For example, slime videos made by many adults and a lot of teenagers, makes slime, but it seems like the younger generation are the ones that really grabbed a hold of it. Right?

I think they're looking at, okay, what was the intent of the creator? Are they clearly targeting kids? Then what percentage of their overall audience clearly is under the age of 13? Then somehow there’s this whole calculation there and they try and verify whether or not that is a channel or a piece of content that puts kids at risk.

It wasn't as clear cut when it came to trying to draw a line in the sand. That's something I'm glad I don't have to do. YouTube has to do that.

Liron Segev:	Yeah, because if you extend it to things like skits or you extended to DIY, like ‘Five Minutes Crafts’, you could argue that they're aimed at kids who are going to do crafts at home during the school vacation, but they have to do it with an adult to supervise. It's not black and white. This is a very gray area.

Shaun McKnight: Yeah. The areas that were very specifically called out, at least when I was talking to them were skits where kids are in role play costumes, animated cartoons clearly directed at children, toy unboxing. Stuff like that, that's very clear cut is going to fall under this new policy. The stuff like Minecraft and DIY and vloggers is different, right? Because it can go either way and so those have to be looked at more and there's a lot of criteria.

YouTube look at some classifiers that they put in place to try and determine if a channel falls above or below that line. Obviously, one of the first classifiers is what type of content is created and who does it target.That tells a lot, right? I can say I target teenagers, but if I'm making a video of Peppa Pig, teenagers aren't watching Peppa Pig, right?

One of the next classifiers is the onscreen talent under the age of 13. If the primary talent on screen is under the age of 13, it's very likely other kids that age or younger are going to identify with them as opposed to an older teenager, somebody in their 20s or an adult. Right? Those are two of the classifiers. I don't know what all the others are. They all go together to sift through the channels to try and verify who has maximum exposure, to minimal, to no exposure when it comes to putting this policy in place.

*Liron Segev:	Yikes. Recently kids channels have already had things like comments disabled. All of that will continue. Do you think things like the community tab and live streaming and live streaming comments, are those going to follow suit as well? *

Shaun McKnight: Yes. Yes, they will. I mean, primarily those were done in the past because of child safety and predators. Not wanting to contribute to conversations on the channel to pedophilia and things like that. If a channel falls under this category then any engagement interaction ability on that video or channel will be turned off.

There won't be an ability to playlist. Notifications will not go out. Their community tab will disappear. Comments will remain turned off. Those types of things will not be allowed principally because the algorithm looks at those things to determine whether or not it's going to suggest to more people and they don't want children's content on there. The algorithm can't really be promoting it.

Liron Segev:	Essentially no velocity. You're going to have a really hard time getting those views, especially without the ads and not going to be suggested. Those kids' channels are really, really going to struggle, not just financially because there's not enough ad revenue, but even those views that they were expecting to get, they're also going to take a large hit it seems.

Shaun McKnight: I would imagine. YouTube didn't tell me that they're going to turn off suggested or stop the browse feature. The only way you can see a video would be if you directly type in the channel or specific keyword terms. They didn't say that to me. I can only assume when they were telling me that these engagement aspects would be turned off for those videos or channels, that that would then affect its ability to be promoted through the search and discovery.

Liron Segev:	Yikes. Should a channel be pivoting? I mean, they've got four months because this is going live on January I believe. Right?

Shaun McKnight: Yeah. I did talk to them and that was part of the reason why they negotiated hard for the four months. Actually, there were various aspects of it too. I believe some of it may have been they've got contracts they've got to fulfill with advertisers through the holidays. I think that may have been part of it. They have shareholders they have to hold and regard, but I also believe they were doing it for the creators because they know these creators have teams. They have employees who have families. This is their job. Turning that off overnight would just not work. YouTube was going to bat for the creators. I think primarily it was for the creators to allow four month's time to evaluate the channels.

Because there are channels that will be able to pivot, their content is on that line, but not clearly under that line. I think a younger kids channel may have a harder time pivoting just because the audience that they've accumulated are likely those younger kids. So, creating different content for that audience probably isn't going to be as successful, but I can't say that for sure.

But I also believe in that four month period YouTube is trying to figure out, "Okay. We're going to push this content to YouTube Kids desktop and YouTube Kids app. So now parents, hand your iPad your kid, just do it through the YouTube Kids app." While that's not a perfect solution, YouTube Kids app has had its issues, but it's a much more controlled environment than what YouTube proper was, right?

So, I think these four months are going to be a lot of solutions trying to be put in play. And I think YouTube would have rather had more like six months or a year to do this, but they didn't have that luxury. So, it's trying to figure out, "Where do we put this content and how can we help monetize it in a way that can help these creators who have built businesses on this and have employees?" They've implemented a $100 million fund for some of these larger creators that have been affected that have high production quality and so forth to build their own version of YouTube originals for YouTube Kids.

But in my opinion, $100M doesn't really go a long way when you look at some of the sizes of these channels. I think it was something that YouTube could quickly pull out and it was going to help and there's been no guidelines on really how that's going to be administered. It was just announced really over the weekend, but YouTube is trying the best way to figure out how it can help creators monetize their content as target-based ads, interest-based ads, on YouTube proper for content aimed at children under the age of 13 will be going away.

And I estimate just on my own calculations, that can be up to 85% of a channel's ad sets because you can still have Google preferred or somebody who specifically wants to advertise on that channel. Those will still happen, but it's the interest-based ads that we'll be going away.

Liron Segev: So if you're starting out a kid's channel or you were thinking of jumping in on this kid's channel of bandwagon, you should be rethinking your entire strategy at this stage.

Shaun McKnight: Absolutely. I think there's a place for kids' content online. It just grew on the part of the platform it was never intended to grow on and there's an auto correction happening now based on what's been in the press and what's happened with kids in the past and the content, and the bad actors and so forth. There's not a perfect solution right now. YouTube is trying to make YouTube Kids that perfect solution.

Liron Segev:	And assuming that they'll now focus a lot of time and effort and money into making it much better than just a little spinoff because of how popular it actually has been.

Shaun McKnight: I absolutely believe that. I mean, you look at kid's programming on TV, on Disney and Nickelodeon, there's a lot of advertisements going on there, but those are controlled environments. So, the media companies have legal teams that are reviewing every piece of content that goes on air to make sure they're complying with all the rules and regulations when it comes to minors in terms of advertising and viewership and the actors on set, right? We as content creators who are the media companies on YouTube have not been under that standard before.

So within YouTube Kids, I think YouTube is going to make that a safer platform for kids to be able to watch and consume content. And I think they want to try and make it somewhat palatable or bring advertisers in that specifically want to advertise, Kellogg's, Honey Crisp or whatever it may be, Nesquik or Lego or Mattel, right? I don't know if the CPMs will reach the levels they have on YouTube proper just because YouTube proper was meant for an adult audience. It's different when you're advertising to kids, so CPMs tend to be lower. But I think YouTube is going to make an effort within their Google ad sales team to try and boost monetization within that kid sector.

Liron Segev: Cool. Hard pill to swallow but it has to be done and I think for those that are venting their frustration, which is understandable, this is one thing we just have to accept as going to happen.

Shaun McKnight: Correct. I think some of the bigger creators that, after the first ad-pocalypse and some of the ad issues that have happened in children's safety, have seen a little bit of the writing on the wall. Like I myself had seen it after that first ad-pocalypse. I'm like, "I don't know if I want to invest a ton in here because it could go away so quickly like it did for many people back then." And so, we pulled back the reins on our kids' channel and I know a lot of big creators were looking for other venues to place that content.

Some of them created their own standalone apps where a parent can pull up in this nursery rhyme channels and just hand that to their child and it's a completely controlled environment. Only their content can be viewed there and that child just watches over and over. There may be some subscription model to that. So, there's plenty of people that have pivoted in that aspect of, "Where can I put my content that doesn't put me at risk?" But unfortunately, some really good friends of mine, big, popular kids channels are being affected by this and it's sad. I mean, it's sad. I really hurt for them.

Liron Segev: And now, they have to make other arrangements because they are not just supporting themselves in this, but these other families involved, these are real people. Any business can not take a hit of 80 to 90% of their revenue in such a small period of time.

Shaun McKnight: One more thing I wanted to bring up just because it's in the press, I thought it was really interesting that the fine was only $170M for something like data collection against children who are under the age of 13. And the only reason why I can think it was low ( Facebook's fine was around $5B) because this just seems like a drop in the bucket for Google, is intent. YouTube's platform was built for a plus 13 age audience and you have to certify that when you create an account. So clearly, we know kids are consuming content there, but why is it YouTube's responsibility at that point to say, "Oh, no. This is a kid watching this." When there was a certification stating that "I'm over the age of 13."

It wasn't clear cut that they were collecting data on under 13 year old kids on purpose and making a profit. You know what I mean? Because based upon their roster, they're looking at that, I would assume, at least 85% of all those kids viewing accounts were created by adults who were just letting their teens use their account, right?

So, I think that's the reason why it wasn't much larger because it was hard to really say. And actually, they're asking YouTube now to look at the data of viewing patterns to determine whether or not that adult-created account really is a kid. And by virtue, the government's asking YouTube to collect data from that 13 year old to determine whether or not a under 13 year old was actually watching. I think that's really funny that that's where we're at.

Liron Segev:	We've gone in a complete circle.

Shaun McKnight: Yeah. The government is asking you to collect data on these users to determine whether or not they're actually under the age of 13, even though the original creator of that account certified they were over 13.

Liron Segev:	And were they actually allowed therefore to collect data on this person.

Liron Segev:	Yeah. Fantastic. Well, it's never a dull moment on YouTube. Let's put it that way. Shaun, people want to check out some of your channels. For those who don't know, where can people check you guys out?

Shaun McKnight: You bet. We have our main channel, Cute Girls Hairstyles, and our daughters, Brooklyn and Bailey and our third daughter, Kamri Noel. Those are the names of their channels, all three of them, just type them in. You can find them. We do not target children under the age of 13, for which I'm really grateful that we never did, but my thoughts and prayers and all the vibes that I have in me are going towards those people that are affected and their teams to find a way to work through this and continue just in a different way.

Liron Segev: YouTube is a very close knit community and when something like this happens, it really, really does affect everyone else, but this is a big one. This isn't a an ad-pocalypse where you've lost a little bit of revenue, this is literally life changing. So yes, I definitely echo that sentiment. We know a lot of these creators personally and we know that it's good wholesome content, like they're in the same boat as everybody else and they just have to deal.

All right, thank you for spending some time with us. Really kind of getting to the heart of this since you've had it firsthand from YouTube. This should be a red flag on any other platform too, because this could just be the precedent for other platforms to follow suit as well.

Shaun McKnight: Totally agree. I don't think there's a place online that these creators can flee to where they're going to make money without this same issue coming to light.

Liron Segev:	Absolutely. So, be smart. Make smart choices, and let's protect our kids at all costs. That's the bottom line.

Liron Segev:	And if you guys know of anyone who's potentially might be affected by the self certifications, maybe YouTube hasn't reached out to them, maybe they're not a big channel, but they're looking to go in this direction, please share this episode with them.

On this special episode of TubeTalk, we discuss the bombshell changes YouTube are making to the way kid's content is promoted on the platform and the implication that has for creators. It's a must-listen to!

What the New Changes to YouTube Mean for Kid's Content: TubeTalk 177 with Shaun McKnight

When you look at the big YouTube channels, there's one thing that they all have in common. They all have an amazing community or fan base. That means that as soon as a new video is launched their fans are the first to comment or the first to watch or the first to share. You have to focus on building up your community if you stand any chance of success on YouTube.

The mistake that a lot of us make is that we only use the tools that YouTube provides. In other words, we use the 

, or we reply to comments, and that's pretty much it. So today we're going to focus on using multiple tools to build a communication channel between you and your audience because that is how you grow your own YouTube channel.

So, how do you build that one on one relationship and engagement with your audience? I put that question to 

, Growth Marketer at for Mark Cuban’s group of companies. Now you all know Mark Cuban - he’s a venture capitalist, and he's also one of the sharks on an amazing show called ‘Shark Tank’, where he invests in certain companies that he believes in. But once the show is over, once the due diligence has been done, and once Mark and his team really get to grips with that company to help them grow, QuHarrison steps in and helps with those communications, helps with their strategy, helps with their growth.

Now QuHarrison himself has been a founder of several companies, especially in the high tech space, from an advertising agency, specializing in marketing to millennials, to a healthcare data exchange platform, the world's first digital art marketplace powered by blockchain, so plenty of experience in growth and community building. In this episode you will learn:

How to treat YouTube as a serious business so you get that return on investment

Why creators need to think of themselves as a brand

How to reach your audience where they are

The best tools to use to reach your YouTube community

How to Build an Engaged & Loyal YouTube Community: Full Transcript

Liron Segev:	QuHarrison, thank you for taking the time to be on Tube Talk.

Liron Segev: As content creators, we are out there, we're delivering our content, we're getting views, we're getting likes, we're getting subscribes, we're getting comments. Surely that's enough, no?

QuHarrison Terry:	I think it's enough for some, but if you're serious about this and you want to make this a full time job or a serious stream of revenue, you have to kind of treat it like a business. And in that regard, what business do you know that succeeds that doesn't serve their customers? And in serving your customers, you can't serve them if you don't talk to them, right? You have to talk and listen to them and then modify your product ideally, and now you have a business.

Liron Segev:	So, the two way communication. We're looking at it saying, "Okay, well we're behind the camera, we press record, we upload onto the platform, we're pretty much done. Maybe we'll do a bit of social media, but technically we're done." You're saying then, we're going about this the wrong way around?

QuHarrison Terry:	Yes, yes, yes. I'm thinking you created a product, but you only get a portion of what's really out there if you only look at the metrics that are given to you from a platform like YouTube, right?

A lot of those metrics are great for YouTube, and they could be great for you in certain situations, but in most situations they're not telling you the full picture. Like if someone came to your video and watched it just because they did a simple search, that doesn't mean they know your brand. That doesn't mean they know you, but it is an opportunity for them to get to know you. And how do you continue that conversation after they've watched or received the information they had?

Liron Segev:	Okay, so you've hit on a couple of very important key points here. So, first of all you mentioned they don't know your brand. Do you think that YouTubers, content creators as a whole, are maybe not thinking of themselves as being a brand?

Building up your YouTube community is hard work, but totally worth it for any serious content creator. Find out why on this week's episode of TubeTalk.

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