Latest / Gimbal Podcast / Ex-YouTube Employee Explains the Algorithm

Transcript

Ex-YouTube Employee Explains the Algorithm · Gimbal Podcast

0:00
I want to talk about your time as a YouTube partner manager.
0:03
The algorithm is designed to read your mind.
0:05
Is the community post underused?
0:08
People will get freaked out, but this is true.
0:10
This is the absolutely worst way to promote anything.
0:12
Just don't do it ever.
0:13
Hi, I'm Nastia.
0:15
I'm a content strategist,
0:16
and the place I learned it was YouTube headquarters
0:19
because I worked at YouTube,
0:21
working with largest YouTube channels and companies
0:23
on the platform and helping them grow.
0:25
Okay, quick disclaimer with this episode.
0:27
we get really deep into inside baseball and how to win with YouTube.
0:31
So if you're new here,
0:32
it might be a little bit overwhelming.
0:34
But if you've been in the game for a while,
0:36
you might find it very, very fruitful because I definitely did.
0:39
Nastia, one thing that really drives me crazy is when I upload a video thinking it's going to
0:44
perform well, and it doesn't.
0:45
My head always goes to why didn't this perform?
0:49
What do you do when
0:50
you hear that from one of your clients?
0:53
So what I do, like first calm people down,
0:56
it's stressful i acknowledge it and it also happened to me it's like a very very bad feeling
1:01
i would actually go into youtube analytics and i would do a few things thing number one and people
1:05
gonna hate me saying this i will not be checking 24 hour performance of the video and i will not
1:10
be checking 48 hour performance of the video so i will not be looking at real time data some people
1:15
do that we all want to check real time because we've just published and we care but i'm not sure
1:21
everyone knows that like the real time data is there but even youtube officially says this is
1:25
the estimate.
1:26
Okay.
1:27
So it's not completely accurate.
1:28
Yes.
1:29
So, okay.
1:29
This is a bit technical,
1:30
but there is basically a data pipeline.
1:32
So the calculating views on YouTube is a technical
1:35
miracle.
1:35
We all do not know, but like technically calculating views is like, it's a very complex
1:40
technical challenge.
1:41
So whenever a creator calls me, like tell us the video is not performing,
1:43
unless it's news, you know, unless it's something that you know, going to die in like an hour or
1:48
like tomorrow, I try to not look at it like for the first two days, I'm like, let's just let it
1:52
head secondly i would look into data the retention how it is is it lower is it higher do people click
1:57
on it more often do people click on it less often so for example using my mom's channel so my mom
2:02
my mom like we've built a channel she runs a channel that is close to 700 000 subscribers
2:07
so she's watched by women like mostly 50 plus and imagine you know you have no idea about face yoga
2:13
but you came in onto the channel and you see two videos one is doing great the other is doing bad
2:17
the impressions are like instead of 10 million it's like maybe a million this is a problem that
2:22
I run into all the time.
2:23
I'm looking at my impressions saying, why am I not getting the
2:26
impressions I think I deserve?
2:28
So backstory, YouTube is a system.
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It's a very smart AI.
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Now I can say this, but trust me, when I was saying this four years ago, people will get
2:35
freaked out.
2:36
But this is true.
2:37
Like Google created one of the oldest AIs in the world.
2:39
Like a lot of
2:40
tech that we all use now was actually created by Google.
2:42
And YouTube is a place that is basically
2:45
the algorithm is designed to read your mind, know what you love the most and like pull the videos
2:50
that you want to watch.
2:51
The reason the algorithm is there is because YouTube is a commercial company.
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The main reason Google makes money is because it has ecosystem.
2:57
So it just has a bunch of products
2:59
that everyone uses every day.
3:00
And then because so many people use it, you can like squeeze a bit of
3:04
money from like different parts, different products.
3:07
If people stop liking like YouTube or YouTube
3:09
videos, they would leave to watch Netflix and TikTok and like Reels and everything.
3:13
And YouTube
3:14
will be like in deep, deep trouble.
3:15
So with that, when they, you know, when people like the engineers,
3:19
they would sit into the room and think about the ways to improve the algorithm,
3:23
they would ultimately try to improve it to the way that Devin likes it the most.
3:27
So the impressions is basically when YouTube was accomplishing this task
3:30
of pulling specific videos for Devin to love and like watch at 11 p.m.
3:35
And then if YouTube does not give you impressions,
3:37
not because it doesn't want to,
3:39
it's because this is where it thinks a reasonable amount to give
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and for some reason it does not have a signal to get to move further.
3:45
This is something that feels out of our control.
3:48
but now think about my mom's video you know imagine there is a video like youtube shows it to
3:52
a bunch of people and everyone clicks everyone is happy so youtube is like okay we can get riskier
3:57
we can throw it to the people who like maybe care about the belly fat but do not know my mom
4:01
and all the people click youtube is like that's fun so it's like let's give it even riskier
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so like imagine waves it tries to get as risk risk risk risk riskier and riskier getting this
4:11
video to a lot more people but as much as like it gets to a lot more people it comes to a lot
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less loyal people, right?
4:18
So at some point, it will run out of people who know my mom.
4:20
At some
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point, it may run out of people who are actually trying to lose belly fat.
4:24
So if I have a piece of
4:26
content, and the impressions are underperforming my expectations, are you saying, Oh, well,
4:30
actually, YouTube thinks your video sucks when you think it's great.
4:34
Is that the crux of it?
4:35
So as long as YouTube pushes it further, and as long as like the next person loves it,
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it will push it further.
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So what it means if it does not get as many impressions, it means that
4:43
like pushed it to a certain point, and then the people actually stopped reacting to it.
4:47
It's interesting, though, because there's a specific case study that I'm thinking of with
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a client of mine where we're seeing a CTR of, you know, 7% or so, which I would deem is pretty good
4:58
for educational content.
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Like, I'm pleased with that.
5:00
I mean, but the impressions are quite low.
5:02
So it's not surprising that the CTR is higher, right?
5:05
The core audience is reacting more
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positively.
5:07
So then the average view duration for, say, a 15 to 20 minute video is roughly
5:11
seven minutes, which I would deem is also pretty good.
5:14
I'm looking at those two core metrics saying,
5:16
okay, these meet my expectations.
5:18
This is a good video for the existing audiences that loves this
5:21
content.
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Then I look at the impressions and it's like, well, 10,000 impressions.
5:25
And I'm like, no,
5:26
no, no.
5:26
The average view duration in the CTR are suggesting this is worthy of many, many more than
5:31
10,000 impressions.
5:32
So why is it not doing it?
5:34
That's a great question.
5:34
That's a great question.
5:35
Now we say a few things.
5:37
Look at the new viewers on the video and the returning and like casual.
5:40
So basically YouTube allows you to break down viewers into like few groups, right?
5:45
New and like old viewers.
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And when I was at YouTube, we had like this feature available before it was in the analytics.
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So we had a few like, you know, metrics available.
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The only later came to analytics.
5:55
And I could like have a look at those and you would have, in these cases, you would
6:01
have a very different, like just a lot smaller velocity among non-loyal audience.
6:06
In other words, the video can get great, but YouTube just found, like, great traction,
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like, very, very loyal people and, like, close to zero, or, like, very small traction and,
6:14
like, very new people.
6:15
And I think the best way to check it on the analytics would be just to show the breakdown
6:19
of new and returning people on per video.
6:21
And if it's, like, a very, very small number of new, it would just mean, like, there was
6:25
no traction there.
6:26
And if you ask me, it could be one of the reasons you just do not have this traction
6:29
beyond the score people.
6:30
But then, you know, like, there are a few other things you could do.
6:33
But first, I would still try to assess if anything can be done.
6:36
Like, you know, the video is great, but maybe we did not do the best job with the packaging.
6:40
Maybe we can change it and give it a try.
6:41
I would try to go and compare it not only to the channel average, but to a similar video
6:46
on your channel.
6:47
So imagine you have like a few content pillars.
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One of your content pillar is like reviewing mascara.
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So when your mascara video doesn't work, find another mascara video that you've done and
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try to compare those.
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And what's important, YouTube allows you to manually set the time frame.
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So set the timeframe of comparing both of these videos
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for each like first week of their life,
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which will help me understand
7:08
how is the velocity of this video.
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Bottom line, quite often,
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I would find out they're just like
7:12
not as bad as creator things.
7:14
I like that you use the word velocity.
7:15
That's a word that I haven't really heard on YouTube a lot,
7:18
but it's a good way of measuring performance, I think.
7:21
Like how much velocity does it have
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in a certain window of time?
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That's really interesting to me.
7:26
It's like sometimes, you know, we would, I don't know,
7:28
it's like very commonly that you would look
7:30
at someone else's channel oh they have 700 700 000 like a million views in each episode and my
7:36
episode is like i don't know 50k but then like maybe they had like a year to get to this million
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views or maybe they publish once a quarter and you publish daily so i just like also want to make
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sure all the metrics are in the place to compare and then i would compare and i would just dive in
7:50
like what actually lagged and quite often you would find what was there the audience maybe
7:55
reacted as not as much as you wanted it them to react to maybe you want to do a few community
7:59
post oh interesting to promote the video not to don't promote it don't promote it so the way you
8:04
should be doing community posts is not to promote it in the sense like here is my video watch it
8:09
like this is the absolutely worst way to promote anything just don't do it ever because a viewer
8:12
will be like i saw it anyways don't don't like throw the video at me in two places but usually
8:17
what happens you know your video is like you said seven minute retention so probably was like i
8:22
don't know 10-14 minutes so there is a ton of value in this video that you were unable to put
8:26
in a thumbnail because the thumbnail has that much real estate but this video probably has
8:30
something else so just try to get this extra content in like a carousel i think a really
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smart way is to make like an instagram like carousel about the subject is the community post
8:40
underused or not really worth a lot of energy so underused and like you get him you're getting me
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in a very fresh position literally today i send a message to the client that out of let's say there
8:53
is like a time frame of certain time frame we have 10 million impressions on the channel one
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million comes from uh community posts really 10 yeah i think this is the most underused real estate
9:07
on all youtube this is something i'm learning really recently i'm fascinated by community posts
9:13
it's something that i think is definitely worth doing there is a term that has become commonplace
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in youtube education called water falling and it's when you take an existing piece of long-form media
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and you take portions of it
9:25
and you turn them into carousels
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and Twitter posts and LinkedIn posts.
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And suddenly this one piece of work
9:30
that you've put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into
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has become 15 different assets.
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And the team that I work with,
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we've gotten to the point of turning them into carousels
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and posting them on Instagram,
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but we forget about YouTube community posts.
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So it's a shame not to just simply move it there.
9:45
I agree.
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Yes, a community post is like the unit of content in itself.
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YouTube does promote it.
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you just see it on your homepage so basically youtube distributes it and this is something
9:56
very new because i discovered it like one hour ago i was going through my feed and i found a
10:01
bunch of community posts that are literally viral they had a few million replies to um quiz so i
10:08
think one we should scope it to people who watch us on the home page and like maybe random as well
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second yes like making a car is also basically getting value out of the post you know if the
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post is about this is the finance of AI.
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So this is the example.
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Did you know that like Entropic
10:24
will cost $1 trillion once it's on IPO, which is basically close to Google.
10:29
A bunch of things,
10:30
maybe something simpler to put it out as like a carousel, as like a post.
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What worked really
10:34
great, which is really simple, it's not really a carousel, but just one slide.
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So photo and text.
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This is like super basic thing.
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We'll just try not to crowd the text as much as like have a photo,
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like a hook on it.
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What kind of conversion is it bringing though?
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Is it bringing subscribers?
10:50
Is it bringing views?
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It does.
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So it all depends on subscribers.
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So it does bring and I saw a
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channel, though I have to make a disclaimer, it was a news channel.
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So I think if you're a news
11:00
channel, this is literally a separate news feed like Reuters.
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And they say news channel that would
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get like 30 million impressions in like a month from there, which was sometimes close to their
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actual content.
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One thing that I've been thinking about lately has been what kind of subscriber do
11:14
I want for my clients?
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People who subscribe because of your shorts.
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I don't know if they
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would cross over and watch your long forms as religiously as someone who subscribed watching
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your long forms.
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And so when we're talking about community posts, my question now becomes, okay,
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let's say someone actually does like your community posts and they subscribe.
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Are they going to
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actually watch the long forms or are they really just looking for more community posts?
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My hot take
11:38
is it did not like splitting the subscribers into good and bad ones into something I want and someone
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I don't want.
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I want a subscriber.
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No matter what.
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And I'll tell you why.
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So on YouTube,
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a subscriber who is here but doesn't watch you costs nothing.
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It does not harm your channel.
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So I think there is like a myth that comes from Instagram and more like from feed.
11:59
You know,
11:59
if you have like people who don't watch, it kind of harms you.
12:01
Not the case.
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It's like,
12:02
why not have them?
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I mean, why do you want to close the door?
12:05
I mean, that's fair.
12:06
That's fair.
12:07
I do see some channels that have like 750,000 subscribers.
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And then you look at their latest
12:13
long form video and it's like 5000 views.
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And you're like, Oh, this person is a shorts creator
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or Oh, this person, and maybe it's more of a social thing.
12:21
You know, maybe it's just like
12:22
social judgment than anything that's actually important.
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Or, you know, how many channels you
12:27
roughly subscribe on YouTube?
12:29
I don't know.
12:30
Probably 500.
12:32
Yeah, same.
12:32
Do you watch all of
12:33
those?
12:34
No, no, no, of course not.
12:35
So I think this is where it's like absolutely okay when YouTube
12:38
says does it's just like the nature of how youtube built the subscription function youtube is great
12:43
for like helping you subscribe and it's quite bad which is good for us for helping you unsubscribe
12:49
okay so with that it's like a very natural feature of the platform to accumulate subscribers who
12:54
don't watch you if you think of it i don't think there was a goal of the platform i just think it's
12:57
just like you know then the consequence so every channel would have like a ton of subscribers who
13:02
don't watch it and if you think about the age of youtube you know it's like old yeah channels that
13:06
have been around for 20 years may have a million inactive subscribers which is crazy but also
13:12
validly so you know maybe they became big doing i know they were teenagers they were doing pranks
13:17
and like today they're like serious people i know like i saw such a person like recently they do
13:23
very absolutely funny hilarious videos like 20 years ago this was like super big channel but
13:27
not this person like very serious crazy director for an eye company you know they do certain things
13:32
but just like they grew and their content grew and they don't necessarily want to be that person
13:37
back in time and actually met a lot of creators at youtube like those ogs you know who just grew
13:42
and developed and they want to do something different what do you think about people who
13:46
are hot swapping packaging in the first day in the first few hours what's the best practice
13:52
if your content is super high stakes like super expensive you know you publish once a month you
13:56
put like a ton of money in there i do think it actually can make sense because like every second
14:01
is there.
14:02
Given that you like have the data and like the intuition, and I think every listener of
14:06
you would have it.
14:07
So I don't say no, I actually love it.
14:09
And like some people working in my team,
14:11
they do it.
14:12
At the same time, if you're like publishing more frequently, you basically do
14:16
it like weekly and it's like lower stakes.
14:18
It's not like the big movie.
14:19
It's a bit of like lower
14:20
stake.
14:21
I think it's also hot, like a very hot take.
14:24
People won't like it.
14:25
I would rather analyze
14:26
and focus on my next episode.
14:28
I agree with that, actually.
14:29
Yeah, yeah.
14:30
I actually became more flexible
14:31
when I left YouTube on this.
14:33
But when I was at YouTube,
14:35
those were like the only,
14:35
just focus on the next episode,
14:36
just focus on the next.
14:37
So I think we'd always,
14:38
as partner managers,
14:39
we'll look at like a catalog.
14:40
This is what we learned.
14:42
So now we take this learning
14:43
and apply it further
14:44
instead of like trying to obsessively
14:46
rescue the past stuff.
14:48
I think there is amount of money
14:49
I would put into the episode
14:50
and then I would obsessively
14:51
change the thumbnail every minute.
14:52
I do think that such amount of money exists.
14:54
Yeah, I hear you.
14:56
I want to talk about your time as a YouTube partner manager.
14:59
And I want to get kind of like the inside scoop on how you were trained.
15:04
What were the things that YouTube said are really important to you as a YouTube partner manager?
15:09
Good question.
15:09
So first of all, my training was mostly going through actual cases and speaking to colleagues.
15:13
And like, just I was hired.
15:15
I did not really have a content strategy expertise.
15:17
And I do have a finance background.
15:19
I'm a finance and a content person.
15:20
But I just love YouTube.
15:21
So they asked me a few questions and like, you don't have to be content strategist to
15:25
get this job, at least when I was getting it.
15:27
Then I got like a ton of docs to read.
15:29
This is the month to read.
15:30
And there are your creators and you talk to them.
15:32
That's it.
15:33
Very scary because normally I would receive a question from a creator like yours.
15:37
Hey, why the C doesn't work?
15:38
And it could be like a very simple question, but I was like, you know what?
15:41
This is a very hard question.
15:42
I'll get back to you.
15:43
I would leave the call, get to my colleague, Olga, Vadim.
15:47
Most of my training came through this.
15:49
however we did have a few kind of moments and ideas one of those was like data so i think you
15:55
saw like approach this call i know like a lot of like youtube is a creative place and i would say
15:59
as much as a creative place we were looking at data it's like a creator comes to me they like
16:03
the episode like you mentioned you put this episode seven percent ctr but like to me the
16:07
data shows there are no impressions so it's like i know you care but it's just like it was not
16:12
audience didn't like it so i would be trained to look at like pure data and i think this is
16:18
really kind of helpful to just analyze video more adequately.
16:22
I think most of my job finding
16:24
patterns on this channel.
16:26
So instead of like, this is the blueprint for everyone, you don't have this
16:29
blueprint.
16:30
So YouTube was not trying to find the blueprint.
16:32
Instead, YouTube, you know, has teams
16:34
who like obsessively study what already happened on YouTube in the past, and they're just synthesizing
16:38
data.
16:39
And I think this is the only way to learn internally as well.
16:41
So if I would work with an
16:43
individual channel, I would go into the channel like, this worked for you, this does not.
16:46
So
16:46
basically what worked do more which is like sure it's such a simple formula but you know you can
16:51
branch it out into so many approaches but if you ask me which is one formula you're just like always
16:55
trying to find this Pareto principle of content that does the most job and just doubling down on
17:00
it on your channel and other channels and if something doesn't work well let's see do we want
17:05
to fix it or maybe we just don't want to like spend time and money there and just let's cut it
17:09
out and just reinvest the energy and I would say that most of my job was like actually trying just
17:14
to find the spot, this area to invest the energy into.
17:17
Yeah, I mean, that's a great point
17:18
because you do have limited energy.
17:20
And so you can spend your energy,
17:22
you know, improving your back catalog
17:24
by updating the thumbnail every 24 hours,
17:26
or you can focus on the next video.
17:28
And I do think it's helpful to have somebody
17:30
who is third party stepping in,
17:32
analyzing the channel as a whole
17:33
and kind of making that guidance.
17:35
I do find that to be pretty valuable.
17:37
What can a partner manager actually do for a channel?
17:40
And what is off limits?
17:42
What a partner manager does for a channel
17:43
it's like first of all it's your poc at youtube so it's basically its job to make you a happy
17:47
creator who is loved by its platform so this is what i would say so i think that's number one
17:52
you're basically here like a real human face which i think a really big strength of youtube
17:56
compared to other platforms not sure how much change but i think it's still like it had it
18:00
has like that probably like really good human touch second um when i was at the team the focus
18:06
of my team i would always say like you're a mckinsey for youtube channels i was saying about
18:10
this like a consulting company so basically the channel doesn't work or the revenue doesn't work
18:14
for a creator so my job was like to make views and revenues for them and like tell them what to
18:19
improve to make it better so this is what we were focused on our job however like you don't have
18:24
like a target like i did not have like to make you make more money or like to make you make more
18:28
views or like actually to like you know because it depends on so many factors i could advise but i
18:33
could not enforce this is one thing off limits also what's off limits is to get in too much into
18:37
your production process because I think as YouTube, you want to remain a platform.
18:42
With this, like a
18:43
partner manager is a part of this platform.
18:45
It just wants you to use the platform the best, explain how
18:47
it works, but they will not necessarily go into a creative process or change your content and give
18:52
you creative ideation because this is something that creators do, not like the partner managers.
18:56
So we'd give you data-driven hints.
18:58
We would give you data-driven hints.
18:59
We would tell you
19:00
what works on the platform for other people.
19:02
Is there any incentive on YouTube's end to
19:05
encourage people to try new features.
19:09
I do think this is another pillar of partner manager job is
19:12
because YouTube is a product.
19:14
So they want you to know about features.
19:17
And when a feature they
19:18
think suits you, they want you to use it to try it.
19:21
But then like, of course, like something you
19:23
mentioned, I think I just want to clarify for everyone is that if you use a feature, people
19:27
think like YouTube, like any other platform will kind of give you impressions is like almost if
19:32
people use it we'll like kind of prioritize them which is not true right because if we get back
19:38
if we get back to this people you know in the deck like todd and everyone who give you impressions
19:44
ultimately they are incentivized to like just make youtube a lot more watchable and fun place
19:49
for you as a viewer so naturally you know they would not want to be in a position where like
19:53
there is like content that is like not really good but uses all the features they would not
19:57
really want to promote it additionally because they would like it would be detrimental to the
20:01
platform.
20:02
I think I felt guilty of that.
20:03
I fell victim of that when I had a partner manager.
20:06
I
20:06
really truly thought it was like, oh, great.
20:09
YouTube is acknowledging that we're doing really
20:11
well.
20:11
And as a result, they've now given us an advisor.
20:14
I thought it was like, okay, if I try
20:15
all these new features, if I listen to what they say, that's good.
20:18
But it's actually just someone
20:19
advising you based on the data.
20:20
You know, YouTube tests features.
20:23
There is a feature and before it
20:24
comes to like very wide use, like to everyone, YouTube would test it out.
20:28
For example, it would
20:28
roll it out to like tiny tiny bit of creators it may roll it out to you and like usually if you
20:33
have a partner manager a partner manager will be like your bridge to have it rolled out for you
20:37
quicker because of this they can collect feedback from you so i do think there is a piece of some a
20:42
bit of like exclusive access that you have but on the other hand i think what's important because
20:46
so many people don't have partner managers and they cannot control it because you cannot like
20:50
apply for a partner manager and as a partner manager i'm like i don't have any decision rights
20:55
Yeah, how do you get selected?
20:57
Or how do you, like, what if your team wants one?
20:59
So as a partner manager, I did not have any, like, you just receive.
21:02
You know, usually these are larger channels than smaller channels,
21:05
but YouTube does not really disclose all the parameters.
21:08
But I think with that, like, my important message,
21:10
and I truly think it's important because I've been on both sides,
21:13
having a partner manager does not make you grow faster.
21:16
What does it do?
21:18
I think just people think that if you know a person at YouTube,
21:20
like, suddenly, like, they unlock for growth.
21:22
You know, it's just not like something, you know, like super secretive, something inaccessible, something you cannot get yours.
21:29
It's just helpful.
21:30
But I don't want to say there's like a parameter that decides if you go faster or not.
21:34
I've met so many big creators who do not speak to their partner managers.
21:37
I mean, I've heard that also.
21:38
At the end of the day, it just sounds like you're just there as a third party advisor based on the data in your YouTube studio.
21:44
What is your sentiment around YouTube in the year 2026?
21:49
I started eight years ago.
21:50
it's in a very different world eight years ago youtube was having these goals we want to be this
21:55
like you know we want to be it would not say it explicitly but we wanted like youtube wanted to
22:00
be like a place where every major advertiser come youtube wanted to be the place where like you know
22:04
all the people come all the main events come and like gosh this company got everything it wanted
22:09
bottom line now when i see youtube sets a goal i'm a lot more i'm a lot i'm listening to this
22:15
goal a lot more intensively because i do have belief it does have resources to achieve it
22:19
So I'm excited, but I think it's an adult, like it's a very grown up platform with all the media.
22:24
And like, of course, in the marketing, it wants to like replace your TV.
22:28
You know, we have all the events, we have all the big creators, we have all the big shows.
22:31
If you ask me where I'm really thinking hard, there's been an announcement of like Ask YouTube feature.
22:37
This is the AI tool that you can now engage with across the platform.
22:40
Yeah.
22:41
Yeah.
22:41
So I think there was like content and AI is like a big pot of boiling water.
22:46
Like everyone is uncertain.
22:47
so one thing everyone was uncertain like youtube locked a ton of ai channels ai slops i think like
22:52
one youtube fights ai slope and we've seen it before with different channels i think it's gonna
22:56
be like a lot more human driven and want quality content so i don't think ai slope will be an issue
23:01
but what my thoughts are and i don't know what's gonna happen is like ask ai basically you know
23:05
makes people talk to youtube you know they have like this interesting reel like show reel where
23:11
they're like how to teach my three-year-old ride a bike and then it gets you taxed and like a few
23:16
time codes and that's it and i'm like there are so many channels who like rely on search
23:21
well so watch time is important and but also you want people just to stay there like watch for long
23:26
and like basically this feature it's not yet there it'll come in summer but i do think it breaks
23:32
so many patterns you and me are used to i don't know how much traffic it's gonna have i don't
23:37
know what's gonna be the parameters i will be paying lots of attention to it because i don't
23:41
know where it's gonna go yeah there's some serious disruption happening and about to happen
23:46
on our little platform.
23:47
And it's scary to think that the platform itself is making such dramatic
23:53
changes to impact search in the way that you just described.
23:57
You know, there are millions of
23:58
channels probably or hundreds of thousands of channels that depend on search.
24:02
I don't know if
24:02
they've been wiped out or if they're going to seriously need to modify their strategy because,
24:07
you know, YouTube has just decided, hey, this is what we're going to do.
24:10
So it can be daunting.
24:11
Maybe they're going to be elevated.
24:12
We don't know.
24:13
Like, you know, I would imagine,
24:14
I would imagine like you would have like a strategy,
24:17
you know, have a strategy of like search optimized channel,
24:19
you know, there's like show optimized channel.
24:21
Maybe you have a certain strategy
24:22
of like geo-optimized channel
24:23
where we will find a pattern.
24:25
I'm sure people will find a way to like use it
24:28
for their benefit.
24:29
But if there were times like I would be last,
24:32
least relaxed as a content strategist,
24:35
I think they are today and coming.
24:41
Fair enough.
24:42
Yeah, I feel very uncertain as well.
24:44
And, you know, I think the last couple of years as a strategist myself, I have a certain degree of confidence that I know what's going on.
24:51
And that has really been flipped on its head this year.
24:53
So I am kind of uneasy about it and very curious to see what happens.
24:57
But the one takeaway that I learned from your most recent response was you've seen YouTube eight years ago forecast what it wants to be today.
25:04
And because of that, you have confidence that when they say they're going to do something, they're going to achieve it.
25:09
and so I am also going to adopt that mentality because if they say something the likelihood of
25:14
them achieving it sounds very very high and it just means we have to change with it I guess
25:18
I think one last takeaway that I really want people to understand and I think there was a
25:22
pain for me inside YouTube is I don't want to like sometimes as a creator we want to see ourselves
25:29
like we are the creator here is the YouTube we are like oh we are not enemies but we would disagree
25:33
on things and sometimes we would have an argument which would sometimes make you feel like you are
25:38
against YouTube because YouTube doesn't get you impressions or something.
25:41
Like we've all been in
25:42
this emotional, at least for at least a minute, everyone felt it.
25:45
But I think my perspective as
25:47
a partner manager and when I seen you, this was also happening with shorts.
25:50
When shorts were
25:51
introduced, a few people were happy, but so many long-form creators were unhappy because they felt
25:56
like, you know, YouTube is taking.
25:58
This was ours.
25:59
We've put so much work into it.
26:01
Now you want us
26:02
to stop doing this?
26:02
But if you think of it from the business perspective, think what would happen
26:05
to YouTube if they would not introduce shorts.
26:07
They would be eaten.
26:08
So as a big business, as a
26:10
big tech, as Google, you're always in this position where you want to make creators happy because
26:15
they're like the most important part of your ecosystem, but you do have like what's called
26:18
market pressure.
26:19
So if people were like using AI, even now already had creators, I'll tell you,
26:23
who lost all their traffic because they were like, their videos were based on like very simple
26:28
questions.
26:29
If you're like, what to do if I today have a high fever?
26:32
Like YouTube has this way to
26:34
like health but you would go to your gpt now so i've already seen the wave of typical problem
26:39
solving videos to have like no traffic because like you would go away so with that what i want
26:43
to say like sometimes youtube has to make this unpopular decisions but because like it forecasts
26:47
what's happening on the market if it doesn't do it it would just like lose it i know it's very hard
26:51
to have empathy for like a big company but at least from this perspective i truly seen that
26:56
people who make features and all of the product managers they put a lot of thought into like
27:00
creators but also how that's gonna impact the market you know the world is changing like youtube
27:05
is trying to catch up and to become to be still like this big rich platform that gives us an
27:10
opportunity and like gives us monetization maybe just like what it has to do that perspective kind
27:15
of gets forgotten about when youtube changes and impacts your entire livelihood so it's refreshing
27:22
to hear it but it's it's very aware like managers are very aware it's impacting the livelihood of
27:26
people like yeah okay that's a tough decision then it's a tough call to be making such such
27:31
impactful changes to a platform that has provided money lifestyle for people so i'm glad i'm not
27:38
one of those developers that's it for this episode thank you so much for watching or listening if
27:43
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27:55
Please reach out.
27:56
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27:56
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27:58
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28:00
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28:00
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28:01
Thank you so much for joining.