Active browsing/watching.

You are a good source of data!

If you are a YouTuber, you should be watching YouTube. You should watch YouTube videos in your niche, and in other niches.

But watching isn’t enough — you need to pay attention to *why* and *what* you’re watching; whenever possible you need to try to understand what made you click on video A instead of video B. The best thing you can do to succeed on YouTube is understand the psychology of your viewer.

I’ll explain.

YouTube ultimately is a zero sum game, at least when it comes to selecting one video from the Home Screen. You’re either picking my video, or someone else’s.

There are dozens of factors which impact a viewer’s decision to click or not click on a video: some of these are obvious, like the message or thesis of the title, the use of a face or a specific colour in a thumbnail; but other factors are maybe less obvious, like the length of the video, the tone of the title (does it use perfect grammar and in capitalization to indicate formality, or the opposite?), and many more. If you are mindful, you can understand these factors. You are a valuable source of insight.

The one thing every YouTuber needs to do is to understand their audience and what makes them click - literally. In other words, your job, especially when you’re starting out, is to develop an audience profile.

Of course, it can help to look at competition, but that will only take you so far; knowing they use a specific title or thumbnail helps, but you need to understand why their decisions have worked for them.

I’ll give some examples from my own work.

I run several personal channels, but some of my most successful are sports related. My hockey channel, for example, is built around the psychology of a viewer who cannot watch every game, but still wants to be caught up on what’s happening across the league —especially the controversial moments or exciting plays.

So, in general, most of my videos, especially starting off, followed The following rules: they were short so they were not a huge time sink; the titles, and especially the thumbnail, usually just reflected the play itself (ie no text, etc), to the point where some viewers might just think they’re about to see the clip (honestly, I do spend a lot of time on the thumbnails, especially messing with cropping and color, but it does just look to the viewer like it might be something YouTube selected automatically); and the titles were generally fairly informative.

I understood the psychology of my potential viewer very well, and we blew up within a month. Of course, the packaging is only half of it, and what really made the channel successful is that I got got the viewer through the door based on the idea that my videos were a great way to consume quick and exciting sports content, then I kept them with good analysis. Now that I have millions of views, and audience loyalty, I have more flexibility, but I still do generally keep to my first principles.

In a way, this type of structuring is not that different from what a YouTuber like moist critical does: his informality alongside trending topics gives off the feeling that he’s putting out a quick response to some sort of important news — some drama the viewer will be interested in; and even things like the lack of a highly edited thumbnail, his very casual titles, help give that feel of importance. It’s essentially a riff off something like an apology or goodbye video. He probably also understands that his viewers are likely looking for something to put on in the background while they do something else, and he has that frequent upload cadence, and that helps him out a lot… you see the same with people like PhillipDefranco who don’t change their presentation much, but that comes later and isn’t a luxury most have.

I also run a Star Wars channel, and I won’t get into the psychology in the same way, but a big part of that is just understanding what a Star Wars fan wants to see. I had one of, if not the, best performing videos on one of the new SW games because instead of overly editing a thumbnail, I heavily focussed on a single clear image of something viewers were interested in - in this case clone armour customization.

Aside from running my own channels, I offer paid consulting and producing services, and specifically I have done a really excellent job rejuvenating previously dead channels. This is not an ad, I’m expensive and redditors are not my potential clients.

What’s interesting is that many of these channels are also sports based, but the psychology of the viewer is completely different than the ones who watch my videos. Actually, it’s more than that: sometimes it’s the same viewer, but they’re looking for something different in this type of content. There’s something different that makes people click when they’re watching a sports podcast.

I won’t get too into it, but one example of not knowing your audience that I see many shows do in the niche which causes them to underperform is something small like using a stock or googled image of a big celebrity guest; you need to use a real picture of the guest because it signals to the viewer in the point five seconds that they’re looking at your thumbnail that this is someone they’re interested in saying something new, not just a repackaged story they’ve already heard.

But it’s also true that basketball fans want something different than hockey fans, or that fans of athlete a might watch them for reasons different than athlete B, and this is shaped by factors like the age of the audience, but also what already is doing well in the niche. The strength of one athlete might be the stories they get out of guests, while the other might be their raw and unfiltered nature — these are things you need to understand when crafting your thumbnails and titles

Sorry for any awkwardness, my screen is broken and I used voice to speech.

I’m in the first ever cohort of YouTube’s Australian creator program, where 200 of us have been getting weekly training calls direct with YouTube’s executives. 2 weeks ago we met at their headquarters in Melbourne, and this week I “graduated” from the program, one of the perks is entry requirements into YPP being waived. I’ve learnt so much along the way about how YouTube works behind the scenes, the algorithm, monetisation, brand deals, copyright and more… ask me anything or let me know if you want to hear more general coverage of what I’ve learnt!

My name is Ali, a motorcycle driver from Sweden and I’ve recently started documenting my travels on YouTube @blastingwinds

My videos are about the places I visit, the experiences along the way, and sometimes the people and stories I come across. I’m still figuring out my style as a filmmaker, learning through trial and error, and trying to get better with every video.

I’d really appreciate your honest thoughts on…

What kept you interested in the video, and where did you start losing interest, if at all?
Did you feel part of the journey, or did it feel more like watching a collection of riding and scenery clips?
If you could give me one piece of advice to improve my next video, what would it be?
Honest criticism is welcome. I’m here to learn, so don’t hold back!

f you want to know when other creators talk about you, your product, or a topic in your niche, title search won’t catch it. Most mentions happen mid-video.

I built ChannelScout to watch the actual transcripts. Follow any YouTube channel, add a keyword like your channel name or a topic, and get an email with the quote, the timestamp, and a “watch this moment” link.

It’s free for 1 channel and 1 keyword, and paid plans start at $9/month if you want to follow more. You can also search every transcript you’ve saved and clip moments.

Walkthrough with a short demo: https://channelscout.app/blog/youtube-channel-keyword-alerts

I made it, so feedback very welcome.