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I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This Is What Happened

alexhyett.com

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Re: I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This Is What Happened

#81

I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency. This is because there’s a nonlinear relationship between views & quality. For example a video that is twice as good might be capable of getting 10 times as many views. If that’s true it implies that (within reason) spending more time to make a better video is the best strategy. Intuitively this makes sense: would it be better to make 1 m…

As a consumer of YouTube videos, I couldn't agree with you more.

I think the consistency of popping out videos on the regular is about working the algorithm and grinding out content for views, and with those views: ad dollars. I've seen too many channels just turn into churning really awful, boring, long videos with little in the way of direction in the hopes you'll just mindlessly watch it. But I think the math just works out better (marginally) to pump out low-effort, low-value content more often than for example, what you are creating. And like I said: blame the algorithm.

Re: I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This Is What Happened

#82

I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency. This is because there’s a nonlinear relationship between views & quality. For example a video that is twice as good might be capable of getting 10 times as many views. If that’s true it implies that (within reason) spending more time to make a better video is the best strategy. Intuitively this makes sense: would it be better to make 1 m…

> I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency.

I know "The Algorithm" gets a lot of hate, but surfacing quality-over-quantity content is one place where recommendation algorithms excel over pure chronological feeds.

When I switched Twitter to chronological mode, I had to unfollow several people because they posted all day long. The most valuable Tweets I wanted to see were buried in the noise. The algorithmic feed is far from perfect, but it does a good job of highlighting posts I've missed from people I've interacted with previously. It takes some time to see the algorithm with enough likes and interactions, and it won't work if you never click the like button, but it's actually not half bad once it's up and running.

Reddit is another platform where quantity over quality prevails. If you click through to the post history of people who get content to the front page, it's basically a firehose of posts using recycled content and slightly altered headlines to as many subreddits as they can get away with. Eventually one of them clicks and rises to the top, but by that point the headline is often so mangled into clickbait that it doesn't accurately reflect the content of the article. Redditors don't really read articles, though, so it doesn't matter. Spam away.

Re: I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This Is What Happened

#83

I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency. This is because there’s a nonlinear relationship between views & quality. For example a video that is twice as good might be capable of getting 10 times as many views. If that’s true it implies that (within reason) spending more time to make a better video is the best strategy. Intuitively this makes sense: would it be better to make 1 m…

Your videos are awesome. I've watched every one of them multiple times. I love when you go deep into the technical details of the problems / solutions you run into (especially with your code) -- especially in _integration hell_.

I'm sure not-your-entire audience is interested in these things. Have you ever considered making a second channel where you go into more detail about the details of the technical problems / solutions you run into? The videos could be a lot less well produced, I'm just desperate for the info.

Thanks for all you do!

Re: I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This Is What Happened

#84
I've done a number of these kinds of experiments across a variety of platforms, and over the 1-month period, the numbers looked very similar.

The problem is that it doesn't scale. After that first month honeymoon period, the numbers don't grow as fast. After 3 months, they basically stop growing. "Just consistently post" is not a sufficient recipe for "success".

Re: I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This Is What Happened

#86

I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency. This is because there’s a nonlinear relationship between views & quality. For example a video that is twice as good might be capable of getting 10 times as many views. If that’s true it implies that (within reason) spending more time to make a better video is the best strategy. Intuitively this makes sense: would it be better to make 1 m…

> I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency. I know "The Algorithm" gets a lot of hate, but surfacing quality-over-quantity content is one place where recommendation algorithms excel over pure chronological feeds. When I switched Twitter to chronological mode, I had to unfollow several people because they posted all day long. The most valuable Tweets I wanted to see were buried i…

> If you click through to the post history of people who get content to the front page, it's basically a firehose of posts using recycled content and slightly altered headlines to as many subreddits as they can get away with.

I’ve seen this too. It seems like a lot of work and I’m unclear what the reward is. It isn’t like most of that content is pimping some brand of burger or something…

Re: I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This Is What Happened

#87
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all channels, even the ones technically focused, are now using clickbait thumbnails to the point that I installed a firefox add-on to replace the original thumbnail by a random thumbnail from the video. Not always at the advantage of the youtuber... > "To become the Mr. Beast of X" Not knowing Mr Beast this sentence sounds more like a pornhub advice :D

I think Mr. Beast is a billion-dollar brand now, I'm surprised his name hasn't crossed ways with you before.

The announcement that he was the highest-paid YouTuber was literally the first time I had heard of him as a YouTuber. I had occasionally heard reference to his name on some other social media platforms, but never in any context that made me curious enough to find out what was going on.

I'm not a huge YouTube user. But I'm not a complete neophyte. I probably only go on about once a week. I've been on the site for... 14 YEARS?!

WHAT THE HELL?!

Anyway. YouTube is well known for keeping people in very, very specific bubbles. Those bubbles are so strong, you will have a very hard time to get out of them even if you don't want to be in them!

Still trying to figure out how to get YouTube to stop suggesting videos of people streaming their crappy Call of Duty sessions. I don't want to watch any game streaming, let alone CoD, and YouTube keeps sending me videos of people acting like they're gods when really they were just lucky this one time, or obscuring what really happened, or straight up cheating. It's maddening. Downvotes do nothing. Editing my history does nothing. I'm stuck in this incredibly stupid bubble.

Re: I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This Is What Happened

#88

I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency. This is because there’s a nonlinear relationship between views & quality. For example a video that is twice as good might be capable of getting 10 times as many views. If that’s true it implies that (within reason) spending more time to make a better video is the best strategy. Intuitively this makes sense: would it be better to make 1 m…

Brother you literally are the definition of quality over quantity. I've never seen anyone else rise so fast in the youtube world as yourself, especially on the back of only a handful of videos. Really incredible work from a truly inspiring engineer. Keep it up.

Re: I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This Is What Happened

#90

I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency. This is because there’s a nonlinear relationship between views & quality. For example a video that is twice as good might be capable of getting 10 times as many views. If that’s true it implies that (within reason) spending more time to make a better video is the best strategy. Intuitively this makes sense: would it be better to make 1 m…

> I’ve found that content quality is much more important than posting consistency

If anyone is giving you any kind of marketing or content distribution advice, and at no point do they mention product-market fit, or content quality, then they are selling you a dream.

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