My frustration with the recommendations is that 99% of them are videos with many thousands of views. This prohibits me from discovering small channels which I may find more interesting. There seems to be a bias toward large established channels which in my opinion makes the platform become stale and uninteresting. I wish there were a way to find some of the millions of worthwhile channels that remain undiscovered. Many of the channels that I find most interesting have a small subscriber base and I only found them by hearing about them from other creators. It would be great if You Tube had a page dedicated to smaller channels. I realize that You Tube is a business and needs ad revenue to operate, but even if such a page were restricted to premium members, it would be a huge game changer as well as an extra incentive to continue my premium membership.

Instead of an algorithm guessing what viewers want, why not allow viewers to tell KZfaq directly? There are some options similar to this now such as selecting not to recommend a channel but I'd like to have a page or a survey where I can manually select what is recommended. You could choose from a list of gaming, cats, reaction videos, videos from under 25s, videos with swearing etc. and not only would this filter out content you don't want but also allow you to find relevant new content. There could be a section where you type a list of keywords for content you want to watch and don't want to watch, as well as select if you want to see Shorts, podcasts etc. Why doesn't this exist?

What we find is if we upload our content to Facebook it gets a lot more reach and growth, also Facebook gives you ad revenue. For example one video on KZfaq gets 3.9k same video on Facebook 420k. We have found shorts also hit the CPM, so looks like we may have to do a separate channel for shorts.

When we have a video get 1.5k views and then 2 videos later have a video veg 75 views, it can be frustrating. Both videos have similar thumb nails. Content is in line with each other. Titles are different as one is more searchable. But what isn’t happening is our videos aren’t being pushed into the community. Everytime we get a chance we will get 1k plus views. Trying to figure this out is one of life’s greatest mystery’s.

I really wish that we could customize our interests like "Music," "Gaming," "Videos from smaller channels," etc. so that we primarily get recommendations from topics we are most likely to watch and enjoy rather than the algorithm guessing what we're interested in, because the system is not always correct and often only suggests videos that already have lots of views.

1. Variety is the spice of life. A channel shouldn't be forced into making videos on one subject. 2. I like to watch a very wide variety of topics. It really seems like the algorithm that is controlling my suggesting is getting more narrow in what it will show me. And doing a search doesn't always help. It seems like it only wants to pull videos that have gotten tens of thousands to millions of views and has an over-achiever thumbnail picture. I know there has to be other people out there making videos but I can't get to them. 3. My suggested videos really gets caught up on channels I have watched recently.

Hi. Thanks for this informative video. KZfaq Studio recommended it to me in its weekly summary. You guys were talking about how to improve the “suggested videos” section, I wonder it might be an idea to allow views to create their “top 5 or 10 categories” in the Home recommendation area. To be honest with you, as a viewer, I am often lost and cannot find the videos that I feel like watching at the time. And I often wish that I had a section where I can only see the videos related to a certain field, like English learning, News, Make-up, Meditation, Yoga… This way I would be able to find the right videos more easily depending on the mood that I am in. And maybe viewers can also set some keywords into each section (like for English learning, English Listening, English Pronunciation, English Vocabulary…). This way, KZfaq no longer need to “guess” what we want to see. We KNOW what we want and when. Like, for me, before going to bed, I want to see some Travel related videos or Meditation related videos and would hate to see Latest News coming into my feed (because I won’t be able to sleep well….) Anyway, it would be great if KZfaq could look into the possibility of letting viewers create their own preferred “reception boxes” so that they can find the desired videos easily and less distracted by other irrelevant ones at the time of the day. At the moment, me as a creator, I am trying to reach some English learners who are keen to learn the language through News stories. But I am finding it very difficult to achieve good SEO for it… I feel if there is a function on YT to target the audience more effectively, it would help me too.

It’s maddening that regardless of how large your channel is or how you try to reach out for assistance, all you get is ghosted. I don’t matter. My channel is chugging along. 140k. And I’m not really upset with KZfaq. It’s been a great door opener. I’ve been in a Netflix special and I’m the main cast member of a reality show on Hulu and Disney+ right now and despite all that I can’t get anybody at KZfaq to give me the time of day, even when I really need help. Pretty discouraging.

The algorithm is basically a popularity contest because its interactions based. Ppl with a larger following get shown favoritism as far as their content being shown to potential viewers. It really puts smaller channels that are trying to get theirselves out there at a disadvantage. Sometimes I wish every social media site would just go back to being chronological instead of algorithm based

The only algorithm you should have is one that looks for keywords of a search and returns the best results unfiltered. Thats it, just like the old days.

Thank you for the info. I just noticed this in KZfaq Studio. I’m a new creator and all these insights are so helpful. Thank you!😊

My question is if the analytics say that the thumbnail CTR is 10% Average view duration is 45% (9:20 secs) give or take out of a 20 min video why is the impression so low? Why is youtube not serving my video? That is what I’m trying to understand..

I wish you guys would address the issue of impressions when it comes to newer channels. I can understand having to make changes to my content to fit more in line with what my audience wants but that's hard to do when the algorithm is refusing to give videos enough impressions to actually attract an audience. It sucks that I have to spend more time finding out how to trick the algorithm into giving my videos impressions than actually engaging with viewers.

I found that it does make a difference what time and what days you upload, look at your audience guide it helps. when you up load it takes a few hours to get into the system so if your audience are on youtube at around 4PM up load at around 11am. play around with upload times see what works best. Then again you can't get all your content 100% some are good and some are not, just like watching a film, not all movies are great 🙃

I have a suggestion! How about adding a filter option where I can filter out videos with “under 10k views/ over 10k views” filters that you can choose how long ago it was uploaded! Filters that allow me to find channels with low subscribers, filter out regions, filter out likes etc! If it’s for premium members only that would be an assentive to become a premium member as well!

interest knowledge ❤❤ 7:08

It's taking KZfaq a while to notice that I never play a generated mix, that I never ever watch shorts. It would be useful to be able to filter recommendations so I can filter out my undesirables - the shorts and mixes, but also too-long videos.

Ill say it for the millionth time, change personalized notifications so KZfaq doesn't try to figure out what content people want to watch but offers options, long form, short form, shorts, streams so the viewers can turn each one on or off. I don't get why KZfaq won't do that. I think that restricts many from turning on all notifs as they don't want to be bombarded with content they don't want but at times people could miss something they do since KZfaq is trying to figure out what the viewer wants instead of the viewer deciding.

الطرحه اعجبني ممتاز ومنصف وملهم ايضا ولا شك في انكم تفكرون دوما على الاخذ بيد القنوات الصغيره وبالتالي لابد ان تتواتر الافكار لديكم وتنجذب تدريجيا وشيئا فشيئا شكرا جزيلا لكم🎉❤ ملحوظه اخيره لامست انكم تهتمون بالبث المباشر على غرار البث لدى تيك توك وهذا شيء رائع ومشجع اتمنى مواصله الجهود للارتقاء بالبث المباشر ليصبح منافسا على ساحه السوشيال ميديا

worth it to watch for this gem 0:18 Think audience, not algorithm. a waste time worrying about when to upload

My biggest issue with the algorithm is that it's too accurate. On the home page it gives me a perfect representation of the type of videos I've watched over the past month. And that's where I have my problem. The video choices I get have no diversity of content. It's all the same all the time and it gets stale fast. I would love to see a few random videos tossed in the mix on the home page to keep things exciting. Also would be cool if 20% of the videos featured would be from video topics I searched for in the past. There are a ton of creators out there that I love to watch but since their videos aren't in line with what I typically search for the algorithm never shows me their content. What if viewers had a way to favorite a creator's channel so that every time that creator posted new content it would automatically be featured on our home page for us to discover. Or maybe a favorites-homepage that just displays videos from channels that we favorite in chronological order of publication. That would be amazing. That way I would never miss a new video from someone I want to keep up with.

I started a month ago and am really proud of being monetized in a month, however, it is frustrating to know that a lot of videos wont even get shown in the shorts feed. I wont give up, just feel frustrated when I know that similar content from established creators get eaten up hahaha. In saying all that, I am truly grateful!!

I just watch this video and it gave me so much insight as how I might need to move. Going forward being a new contact creator information like this is very helpful and knowledgeable. Thanks for the support and Intel.

Terus berkembang , konsisten.

For me, I have been working on KZfaq since 2015, and unfortunately, until today, I did not understand how the algorithm works, nor the actual factors that cause the success of a video or the failure of another video.

I would love to know how you measure similar channels that began at the same time, specifically when one creator lightening speeds past 1K with 30 videos and another creator has created hundreds of videos and can barely get past 500. I've noticed this and really would love to understand how KZfaq addresses this.

Thank you for recommending this video to me KZfaq! More channel growth all 2024🎉🥳

Terimakasih sudah berbagi,,,semoga tambah maju dan memudahkan kita dapat rekomondasi sebagai youtuber pemula🙏👍👍

Thanks guys, great stuff! I just learned multi language audio tracks are enabled. I despised the idea of condensing helpful details into short subtitles, so this is going to be wonderful for me.

I believe many creators, in right or wrong, always wonder if the algorithm really understands what their content is about and who is it for. It would be great to have a tool in which we can input information about our content, not for the audience but for the system. Impressions seems to vary a lot video by video even if in within they same style and niche, sometimes it’s very hard for the creators to identify why some videos performed better than others

Trying to learn it all, do it all, perfect it all, its a demanding job. Just presenting the best that I can , where I am. Appreciate this video, it helps alot to show where I can improve!

Thankyou so much for this great information, I’ve never really understood the algorithm but I do know I have an amazing loyal true authentic returning audience, and that’s who I aim to please👌🏼🥰

It's great advice, but if your audience don't get to see an impression of your thumbnail then they're not going to watch your videos. Impressions are the key and there is no way to control that as a creator. I've had videos with a lot of watch time, tens of thousands of views, lots of likes 96% positive and lots of comments and then the next video which was similar and purposely targeted in the same way gets 5% the number of impressions and 5-10% of the views.

Believe in yourselves and each other and never give up on your dreams and aspirations and remember to be kind and uplifting to each other and open minded and genuine and respectful and humble. 💯❤️

As much as it's important to focus on the audience, we need to appeal to KZfaq about what kind of audience we are. I think that will lead to improved algorithms. Ways to appeal to KZfaq include organizing your feed, searching for direct access to the videos you want to watch, and organizing your watch history.

Appreciate so much your advice!

My biggest concern is that YT now focuses too much on subscriber response when deciding whether to push new videos more widely. I accept that this may work for many channels where there is a common theme. But it is often terrible for mine. I deal with international politics. Not all my videos attract a similar audience. Those interested in the Middle East are unlikely to choose a video on the South Pacific. So the response from my subscribers stops the video from getting wider circulation. I understand that this doesn’t affect all channels. But for many, the current system does have a profoundly negative effect. As important as they are, it would be good to look beyond current subscribers.

My experience as a content creator on YT severely improved when I stopped paying attention to the analytics altogether. They were demoralizing and had been sending me in the wrong direction in what I created because "analysis" is the exact opposite energy of what I provide to my audience which is more "woo woo" space, if you will. The more I paid attention to the analytics, the less my content connected with my core audience. When I left studio analytics alone, yes, at first I saw a steep drop in viewership but I also saw an increase in engagement through likes and comments. I THEN noticed that I'd also begun to see longer retention times and higher impressions click through rate. So I still try to not focus too much on what creator studio is telling me to do and create based on the inspiration I get as an artist and a person providing content in what some consider to be the spiritual space. I've also noticed that my same videos, while they get lower views here on YT, do AMAZINGLY well on TikTok - even those with 16:9 aspect ratio and are longer than 5 minutes. So these guys can say "algorithm doesn't matter; audience is what you should focus on," all they want but from my experience, on YT, not as many people who would enjoy my kind of content see it on YT as they do on other platforms. It's not just TikTok. I do better on IG - long and short, FB - reels mostly, and even my newly created Twitter account is being very well-received and my brand new Pinterest pins are sending people to YT to watch my vids. So, I def do agree that focusing on your audience is the most important thing. But there's something about how YT works that doesn't always allow for my audience and potential audience to even see what I've put out there for them. Hey, even as a viewer, there are channels that I love that all of a sudden YT stops highlighting on my homepage. I'll notice because weeks will pass and I haven't seen a video from someone and I'm like, "Hey...where's such and such?," and I go and look on their channel and they've dropped several videos since I last viewed one. It's just that these didn't display on my homepage b/c YT's algorithm noticed that I found a new interest and just started offering me a ton of stuff on that topic from a ton of different channels as opposed to continuing to show me work from creators I love. And I didn't see the notifications about new content from those creators I love and am subscribed to - despite having the bells on their channels set to "all" - because, when you're subscribed to a lot of channels, which most of us are, when you log onto KZfaq and see your notification icon says 10 or 20 or 50 or whatever, you don't click to see what those 10 to 20 to 50 notifications individually are. AND, I also have mobile notifications enabled, but, again, when so many come through, you just ignore them - particularly if you're a busy creator or business owner like myself.

About channels in 2 languages. I think that no automatic translator will ever replace a living person and live speech, even with an accent. I also came across the fact that when the same audience is from different countries, it is difficult for youtube to give the right recommendations for videos. I remember one of my videos literally "stuck" because of this. And although my channel was at the beginning of development, I decided to divide it into 2 audiences - Spanish-speaking and Russian-speaking.

Content should be recommended based on quality of the content not by no of views or misleading thumbnails. For example if we search for highlights of match or a live match the KZfaq recommend commentary's of people, video created just adding some photos or analysis by some people. That should be resolved 🙏🙏

Thank you! Our focus has always been to share our knowledge with our audience and the world-everything else is second. This is refreshing to hear. Focus on your audience!

A feature I think would help fitness channels is to add a health and fitness category. I feel like if there's a category for that I feel new creators can find an audience.

If KZfaq cared about "Why" we gave a video a thumbs down, it would help the content creator more. As a creator myself, if I don't like a video and I give it a thumbs down, all the creator knows is that some people didn't like it. Instead of KZfaq having a pop up stating "we will let them know" turn that pop up into six check boxes and when you check one box the pop goes away. Make the check boxes, content/subject matter, the people in the video, the quality of video photography, length of video, other [ ]. Other should have a fill-in box.

يسعد أوقاتكم دايما بالخير. كل الحب والاحترام والتقدير لك والقناتك وافكار رائعة جدا بالتوفيق والاستمرار دايما.

Love the focus on audience rather than algorithms!

I do enjoy those occasional opportunities when KZfaq recommends my video and I watch the views climb to 6,000 or so. For a new creator that’s very exciting!

Interessante ❤

Thanks for the info!! 😊

Does KZfaq use the algorithm to "punish" channels? I almost always have a handful of videos that consistently perform very well - not viral, but just good steady performance. It seems every time I make critical comments here (or have issues the "help" team fails to correct), the bottom drops out of all my good videos. I say this tongue in cheek, but lately I'm not so sure. I noticed this a little while ago, and sort of joked about the coincidences in my head, but then I kept noticing. I have no other social media and I do no advertising or promotion of my videos anywhere. I'm 100% at the mercy of the algorithm. It seems odd how my channel - including all my top videos- can just drop to 2009 levels at a whim. It's almost as if my channel, and all it's videos, gets blacklisted (or at least put into a lesser tier) for some reason other than the individual videos themselves. Like I'm being punished or something..... I'm curious to hear your opinion, and I hope it's more in depth than, "No, we don't".

The problem I have with the algorithm being designed around the viewer is that is really bad actually understanding what the target audience of a video is (i.e. it doesn't have a way to understand what the video is about). If a channel typically uploads videos that are based around "sewing" but then they upload a video about "travel," the algorithm tests this video against the viewers the channel typically gets. Because it doesn't really understand that it should be "targeted" towards a different set of viewers that the channel currently doesn't reach. You even mention this problem saying people should consider creating additional channels for different content. As a smaller channel trying to gain traction, this is just way too frustrating to have to try and build multiple channels to cover a variety of different content you make and is a really bad solution. As a viewer, I find it frustrating how bad the suggestions are at trying to suggest new content/interests, relying too heavily on suggesting more content that too closely matches what you are watching. It takes too much work to "curate" a good viewing feed and it takes just clicking 1 or 2 of the wrong videos to skew your suggestions completely. Again, the user now has to create multiple channels if they want to have a well curated algorithm because it gets too confused if you try to watch certain content together and will just push one out of your feed entirely.

My channel is new, going pretty well monetized and 4k subs in under 4 months. I do travel content, but so far my Vegas content is the only content that is “blowing up” frustrating as I’ve traveled around the world. I don’t really understand because all my analytics in terms of retention and click through rate is pretty much the same. It just seems like if it isn’t Vegas, it isn’t being pushed

I feel like I'm being cheated out of the watch time hours seams to be broken. I been doing ytube videos for 3 years now its so frustrating you just don't give people a break

Maybe KZfaq can create a new section on the landing page to promote new channels, specifically for promoting new channels without directly competing with established channels. This could be similar to how KZfaq currently promotes shorts, where there is a separate section dedicated to shorts.

Why not make playlist subscription a reality? That would solve the problem of many channels from the same creator

Thank you for the information ❤

Tetap semangat berkarya semua kreator di KZfaq

Love to hear interviews about the algorithm... especially revisiting it periodically so we can learn about changes. Thanks!

The audience is not the perfect measure, in the history of art the audiences gave wrong appraisals countless times. You should consider improving beyond the audience, it is a very complex and challenging task but worth it. Anyway, thank you so much for your efforts to improve KZfaq, it has been a long way and the positive results are visible for any period of time! ❤

Thank you 🙏 for good knowledge

Thank you so much for all information❤

Focusing on long term trust instead of short term temporary gains is great advice, not only for KZfaq but for life

Thanks for the great interview and excellent information. Obviously different audiences like different things, a new channel shouldn't have to created to serve those audiences. Say a viewer enjoys funny videos then those videos and or playlists of such videos should be recommended to them instead of pigeonholing channels to one topic or theme. This will prevent creative burnout for the creator and will still give viewers what they want to watch.

Thank you for the idea 🤗🤗🤗

THANK YOU FOR GIVING VALUABLE INFORMATION

I did premieres for 6 months straight 5 days a week with the same audience every night because no matter what I did I wasn't seen and it didn't make a darn bit of difference. All it did was help me get my adsense back that I waited for 3 years to reset and that fell through the cracks. I still have the same people every Saturday night and hang out for 2 hours and they stick around the whole. It still doesn't matter. It stays around 100 views on VODs and 150 for lives. And I tested it. I created a different channel with a video with the same title, description, thumbnail, and video. What happened? It got 2000 views as opposed to 100. WTH is going on?

I think that algorithm should not stop showing your video if it's not watched and continue showing it forever, because there are people somewhere who are looking for YOU! I personally struggle with situations when my video that has not gone well just STOPS being showed to people by algorithm COMPLETELY! It's definitely frustrating, just give more previews to that.

Thank you very much...🙏👍

I don’t know. Personally think the algorithm has changed recently as I’ve seen well over 50% drop in views in 2023 despite making the same content as always. 6 years on the platform now and never seen such a drop.

As a new creator, it's really helpful to hear these discussions. Thanks.

Nice learning for myself as a creator, Thank you Sir

Thanks, and for share it 👍🏻

The video gets into the recommendations, and this is when you are lucky, and when you are not lucky, the algorithm does not work yet, but we hope it will improve over time as the neural network improves❤

While it's great to think about the audience instead of the algorithm, how do you build your audience without it? Both are equally important, especially for a channel trying to reach that level of growth to reach monetization.

Thank you for the explanation

Thank you so much for sharing this. It's really awesome 👌. In my opinion people should also explore and watch small channels which are not recommended by KZfaq that has great content 👍

I have no faith in the YT algorithm. I watch WAY too much KZfaq, yet my feed is always the same dozen videos I do not want to watch. When I click "something new"... it is stuff I ignored before. YT has absolutely no idea what to show me... even though I watch hours of videos every day. I suspect that my interest are simply what YT does not want to promote. Ad revenue is king, after all. 😎

Thank you for caring about the success of small, new creators and for the advice of focusing on building audience relationships for the LONG HAUL.....

Yes I will try to study and do it. Thank

Helpful. Thank you.

As an educational channel that uploads math tutorials, I now have over 1000 videos. Even with playlists for organization, it's still very hard to find specific content since my channel deals with a variety of different math topics (algebra, geometry, trig, pre-calc, calculus etc). So I have been seriously thinking about starting another channel that just focuses on Calculus (since that is my biggest following). I realize it's the "same content", so it should be the "same channel" based on what was said in the video. But if you want all the same content on the same channel, then YT needs to figure out a way for educational channels to better organize their content which makes it easier for people to find it.

Yes, this is more valuable information for all creator like small or big. Too much learning and yes audience is important. Build up long term relationship with audience

Now I understand. Thank you.

Obrigado pela dica , eid me esforçar muito pra colocar em prática as vossas recomendações , para meu canal crescer na plataforma.

Always fantastic to hear Todd. Thanks!

I am not following the trends, just making my own stuff and sharing. So many people are around who have the same point of view.

Thank you for your input

Useful info...Thanks

It's been very very hard to find my brand on KZfaq this past year. As a video game streamer, I am up against a lot of hurdles due to the nature of being a variety streamer, and because I am a dude that streams with a catgirl vtuber model (no voice changer), I find it double hard to break into an audience. Most will watch for the train-wreck, but many click away when they see (hear) that I'm just a guy and not some fantasy girl.

The biggest issue I see with this is the assumption that people want similar content. Sometimes people may only like content because of a specific creator. For example I'm not that into the game dead by daylight as much these days but I am a big fan of the youtuber/streamer skerms despite my overall lack of interest with other creators in that games space.

Thank You for this knowledge

Thanks for your video yesterday 😊😊

Very insightful! Thanks for sharing this, I hope to see more of this type of discussion.

This video does not line up with reality, I have videos that have a higher rater of people choosing to watch it than pass it bye, and they watch most of the video if not all, and click like, then the video drops off the algorithm and gets no views. I can release the same video at a different time and get completely different results.

Thats very informative thank you sir

Nice video for recommendation help Thxx for this video ❤

How do you expect us to think about "why my audience didn't like my video" when the video was never recommended to them?

The watch time should be the king - not some short and very limited surveys and guessing what actually viewer feel when watching. It also sounds like youtube is making subjective decision what videos have more values in future...

Nice ideas🎉🎉thank you so much 🎉🎉

Good information ❤❤Thank you

After some months of working on my channel I am finally understanding some important things about content creating. Many new channels hear that you should have patience and consistency. This is true but creators must know about their content quality and important factors that set them to higher ranks and focus on them.