Slowly the top 100 YouTube “most subscribed” channels are professional content providers. But sxephil (a YouTube amateur who blogs about daily news) maintains that the amateurs “are the future” and YouTube should pay more attention to them, rather than become a Hulu.
I explore this debate in my video today… Also note a new trick I’m experimenting with at the end of the video. I run a few seconds of black and then add some links to other videos that are related or that I want to promote. You won’t see those unless you have “annotations” turned on.
A few of the links at the end of this video aren’t mine. But this technique is a smart way to keep people viewing your content, rather than selecting the random video that might appear over the player as “related.” One of the easiest things to do when you’re lost in a YouTube binge is select the next video it recommends.
So whatya think? Amateurs versus Pros. What’s ahead?
Someone once said that a new blogger stays on his/her own blog, while a seasoned one comments and reads others. The same is true for video — appearing on other people’s videos is as important as making your own. Especially if that creator is more popular, more talented (which is mostly the case for me), or gets featured.
I was poking around via TubeMogul and was pleased to see the episode of “Retarded Policeman” in which I appeared has a 4.79 rating (out of 5), making this YouTube’s top-rated comedy of the week (and among the top of the month). It was also featured in YouTube’s comedy section (thanks YouTube).
This rating is surprisingly higher than The Retarded Policeman’s debut episode, according to TubeMogul, and tied with the recent episode with Michael Buckley (WhatTheBuck). See full honors below in “more.”
I think this tells us that the initial 24-hour period is most vital because it’s when the majority of the comments come in- and mostly from loyalists so they’re positive. Over time, other people find the content and rate the video down (although comment/rate far less frequently). I saw this with Mall Pranks, which has a fairly low rating now that it’s been paraded around on other sites. I’ve often wondered if it would help to turn off comments after the first several hours, although I suspect that would be penalized since the honor/rating is probably a function of views x rating (with an emphasis on the latter).
So what’s this mean? The power of collaborations and cameoss can grow your audience. In the past few days I’ve gone from 96 on the “most subscribed” to 90th, and added several thousand new subscribers (up to nearly 52K). This is due in part to MediocreFilms, part to MrSafety for his cheesy boob shout out. And the appearance in Matt Koval’s YouTube-homepage-featured video (YouTube in 1985) helped too.
I just shot two clips for collabs last evening. Me laughing and pointing for Spricket24 (I have no idea) and another short clip for Brett the Intern. Hey- forget my own videos. I just want to be like ShayCarl and pop up in everyone else’s like Michael Caine in 1970s movies.
Parenthetically, ratings don’t always translate to views. My recent video impersonating Sarah Palin is the top rated comedy of the day (TubeMogul says it’s a 4.62 rating), but received <20K views (I kinda thought the pro Obama folks would viralinate this one). Comments were mostly kind — except for those that assumed I’m a flaming liberal just because I wanted an excuse to dress up in drag.
Oh now I’m getting obsessed with stats again. I think I’ll go immerse myself back in Gustav coverage.
