articles

Home / DeveloperSection / Articles / How You Can Get More Watch Time on your YouTube channel

How You Can Get More Watch Time on your YouTube channel

Karen Anthony1269 23-Nov-2018

YouTube has incorporated a few upgrades in their platform with the attempt of making it a better site for advertisers. However that also means that a lot of small content creators and meager business to YouTube have little option to monetize their channel. The upgrade in monetization is the increase of certain prerequisites to become a YouTube partner. Then they can gain entry and features of the Partner but mostly the monetization. The latest prerequisite is to have 1,000 subscribers and at least 4,000 hours of watch time in a continuous 12-month period. So let’s have a look at the ways how you can reach and maintain 4,000 hours of watch time for your content.

A Few Calculations:

To start of let’s have a look at some statistics. 4,000 hours may seem like a whole lot of time but ideally in a site like YouTube it isn’t. When you look closer, 4,000 hours is equivalent to 240,000 minutes. When you divide it by month, it indicates that you must maintain 20,000 minutes of watch time per month on aggregate. It can be achieved with one high-quality video that spreads everywhere while some other average quality videos get the normal amount of videos. And you can maintain the average viewership with it.

20,000 minutes per month may initially seem like a lot of time. But wait, if you post a high-quality video worth 2 minutes, shouldn’t that be able to get you 10,000 views on the video each month? For a lot of people with YouTube channels with videos averaging 100 views total, that can be a lot, but hang on just a bit. It’s obvious that you won’t have to get all of these views from one video only. A five-minute video that is viewed completely by each user would require 4,000 views. And two 5 minute videos will require 2,000 views each. Do you get where this is heading?

If the videos get 100 views on an aggregate each, but the individuals watch the entire 5-minute video, then that will be 500 minutes per video. At such a level, you will have to post eight videos in a month and two each week to attain the goal. To be exact, there is much more to it than that. Many users will not have the patience to watch through the entire video. In such a case, you will probably need 200 views for each video if you want to achieve the desired amount of watch time. And so, just a few videos that perform better than the usual will help make the cut. Of course, don’t forget that your older videos can still get views and watch time. Each video that you will post will add to the rolling total and even if the older videos may drop off they are not completely useless. Even if the number crunching sounds a bit confusing to you, you don’t have to fret over it. Just try implementing a range of techniques that increase the watch time on each of your videos.

Increasing the number of subscribers:

First off, this aspect is important in one way and not so important in the other. You may ask, what does this exactly mean? Let’s keep in mind that the subscriber's count is very important to begin with. This is a particular fact that can cause you some headache in the early going if you are below the 1,000-subscriber mark. You just have to reach that benchmark and you need a lot more subscribers, right?

Then again, while you use YouTube, what is the number of videos that you watch and have already subscribed to? In many cases, users tend to watch a lot of content from a particular channel before they decide to subscribe to the channel. But sometimes subscribing to a channel with the kind of content you prefer may prove to be mundane. The reason for this is that, many of these videos automatically get recommended to you due to your preferences. To get more subscribers can be set as a goal. However, it may not necessarily solve all your issues on your YouTube channel. You will obviously have to invest time and effort while making these videos, which is what we will discuss next.

Posting More Content:

While this has already been mentioned, let’s go over it again shall we? The more content you create and publish, the less amount of views your channel will require to achieve the monthly goal. While that can be an extreme take on the matter, it is indeed technically correct. So, what is the most important take-away from it? You will have to be consistent just as Google wants you to publish a minimum of one video each week. This will keep the channel timely and incredibly organic.

Organizing Videos for Playlists:

Playlists will give you a huge benefit: autoplay. When an user clicks to watch a video as a part of the playlist, when the video ends, some seconds will pass before it loads the next video from the list. If the viewers are not offended or bored in any way by the videos on the playlist, then you will get the users to easily watch three to four videos at a stretch. Even in some cases, the user can leave the seat during the middle of the video without pausing it to do some other activity. And guess what, that counts as well.

Experimenting With the Length of the Videos:

There’s a lot of advice saying that you should definitely make longer videos. But the thing is, those videos will provide diminishing returns. Videos that are two minutes long will can excite the consumer for the entire time but can leave the consumer wanting for some more content. On the other hand, ten minute long videos can at times drive away consumers who are watching it through a mobile device. And the ones that are hour long can drive away a lot of people in the early going but those who stick around- provide a lot to the overall watch time. This all can seem very confusing, so just go with your gut feeling and create your own style and your own unique content.

These are just some of the ways to increase the watch time on your YouTube channel.I’m really sorry if you are bored, but I have something to make this up. Visit celebrity oops and celebrity oops moments for entertainment.



Updated 23-Oct-2019
Karen is a Business Tech Analyst. She is very responsible towards her job. She loves to share her knowledge and experience with her friends and colleagues.

Leave Comment

Comments

Liked By