Announcing YouTube Analytics - the next generation in Insight

Video can transcend language and cultural barriers. It can showcase real human moments all across the globe, even the silly ones. Take the video of the talking twin babies. That video was shot in Brooklyn, and has been viewed more than 10M times in the US and 30M times outside the U.S. 5% of its views came from Brazil, another 5% from Russia. Turns out, 1 out of 100 people in the Philippines watched these two babies from New York. One of the great joys of a global platform is finding out that people from afar can relate, connect, and appreciate your videos.

You’ve been able to discover who is watching your videos and where they’re coming from for awhile now on YouTube, through Insight. Now we want to make it even easier to learn about your audience, so we’ve replaced Insight with YouTube Analytics. Analytics will be released to everyone on a modern browser over the course of the day.

Check out some of the latest features in Analytics:

• A Quick Overview: A new overview provides all of the information that you care about quickly, while also enabling you to easily access more detailed information.
• More Detailed Reports: Analytics now includes more detailed statistics so that you can have a more precise understanding of your content and audiences.
• Audience Builders: Discover which videos are driving the most views and subscriptions.
• Audience Retention: See how far viewers are watching through your video in the new audience retention report.

The Creator Playbook has also been updated to show you how to use your new Analytics to build and engage with bigger audiences, earn more money, and make better videos.

In the meantime, visit the Help Center for more information on Analytics.

Ted Hamilton, Product Manager, recently watched, "British Animal Voiceovers."

Become a YouTube star in Europe

Thousands of online video creators across Europe are taking their creative talents to YouTube, generating big followings and earning money as part of the YouTube Partner Program. We want more people from across Europe to join in!

That’s why we’re hosting the first ever European YouTube Partner events dedicated to the producers, directors, writers, artists, video and media professionals of the future. The events will take place in six cities across Europe between March 31 and April.

At 'Becoming YouTube Stars', online video creators will:

• Learn how to create and promote their content on YouTube
• Find out about how to become a YouTube Partner and generate revenue
• Get a sneak peak at upcoming product releases and partner dedicated features
• Hear from a panel of successful YouTube Partners about how they’ve built their channels

Details of all the events are below:

• Madrid - March 31, 2011, at Hotel Silken Puerta América Madrid - RSVP here.
• Paris - April 4, 2011, at Les Docks de Paris - Dock Eiffel - RSVP here.
• Berlin - April 6, 2011, at Postbahnhof - RSVP here.
• Amsterdam - April 8, 2011, at Amsterdam Convention Factory - RSVP here.
• Rome - April 11, 2011, at Salone delle Fontane - RSVP here.
• London - April 14, 2011, at Ravensbourne Design College - RSVP here.

Spaces are limited, so register now to secure your seat.

Sara Mormino, Head of YouTube Online Content Partnerships EMEA, recently watched “Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie.”

5 Questions for Jack Conte and Natalie Dawn, Pomplamoose

What you hear is what you get with YouTube Partners Pomplamoose. Every sound you hear in their music videos is produced by an instrument you see played in their music videos. It’s a novel idea they call the “videosong”. And, in a world with so many artificial, over-produced sounds, Pomplamoose provides refreshing covers and original music. Brands are taking notice of this authenticity, too. If you've been living in a hole for the past few months, you might have missed their Hyundai commercials over the holidays.

Continuing on their quest to make music (and musicians) more accessible, we asked Jack Conte and Natalie Dawn about how they got their start, what it’s like working with brands, and buying Etsy chandeliers to create your very own mysterious aura.



You should also tune into their live webshows on Tuesdays at 6:30pm PT at www.pomplamoose.com.

Shenaz Zack, Product Manager, recently watched, “Pomplamoose - If You Think You Need Some Lovin”

Tips for partners: LockerGnome reveals how he built his brand and audience

In our Tips for Partners series over the last month, we have certainly covered a lot! Beyond our suggestions, our partners have given their own tips on these topics as well. Specifically,

• Bettyskitchen discussed metadata
• ZackScott talked about annotations and playlists
• LinusTechTips gave tips on how to find your niche

Hold on to your seats. For our last post in this series about engaging with your audience, we’re bringing you (drum roll please...) LockerGnome (a.k.a Chris Pirillo) who’s well versed in how to make a hit channel, get more subscribers, and interact with his audience through social media.

Chris publishes a personal blog and lifecast and joined the partner program in 2007. Technology enthusiast and self proclaimed geek extraordinaire, you can’t help but be impressed when Chris gives tips on how to make a good PowerPoint or discusses USB Hub problems. Also, in case you are in need of some pet costume ideas for Halloween, Chris can help you out.



You can also check this video out on his Watch Page. Let us know in the comments section of Chris’ video if you have great tips to share on how to build your brand and audience or if you have feedback for Chris. We’d also love to hear how your videos have been impacted once you have used some of these tips to better engage with your audience.

This post concludes our Tips for Partners series. We have covered many important topics to help you leverage and build your own hit channel and encourage you to utilize all of YouTube’s tools and features to build the best channel possible.

We enjoyed hearing from our partners to find out their optimization tips, so we will be moving this initiative to the Partner Communications Hub and posting a Partner Education Spotlight on a regular basis. If you have a great optimization tip you want to share, let us know and we would love to spotlight your video as well as your channel!

Thanks for tuning in and providing great feedback. Here on the YouTube Partnerships team, our goal is to support and educate our partners on how to use various tools to better create and share content. That, in turn, gives you the power to do what you do best: creating videos that represent the Zeitgeist of our world. So if that means funny cat videos or how to make your house more energy efficient, go forth and prosper!


Julie Kikla and Mahin Ibrahim, Account Managers, YouTube Partnerships recently watched “Wedding Thriller”.

Tips for partners: Ask and you shall receive

Over the last few weeks in our 'Tips for partners" series, we’ve shown you tips on:

• metadata 
• annotations and playlists 
• finding your niche and using Insights

Our partners have given their own tips on these topics: Bettyskitchen discussed metadata, ZackScott talked about annotations and playlists, and LinusTechTips gave tips on how to find your niche. Now that you are ready for fame and fortune, for our last topic in this series, we want to focus on the YouTube community and how to build your brand and audience.

Help Them Help You

Think of YouTube as your big, extended family; a large community who wants to engage with you, share their opinion, and help you be successful. So help them help you. Use social media such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Google Buzz to engage with your audience and let them know how to keep track of your different YouTube channels, social media outlets, and ways to contact you.

Use your referral headers to see what specific sites are your top referrals. You can see your referral headers through our Insight tool by going to ‘My Videos’ and clicking on ‘Insight’ under one video. Next, click on “Discovery” and then “External Links”, and set the date range. You can only see a breakdown of external links on an individual video, so make sure to review your top videos to see if your referrals are consistent or different.

An example of referrals for a video:

Customize your interaction with your audience based on your top referrals. If your top referrals are Facebook, Twitter, or Buzz, make sure to let your audience know via those mediums when your next video is live. If your top referrals are YouTube subscribers, post a bulletin to your subscribers letting them know you’d love for them to share your video with one new person.

To Do:

• Don’t be shy, push your content out there. Engage with your audience through YouTube, Twitter, Buzz, Facebook, MySpace and other social media through links to your channel and videos.
• Widen your reach. A huge amount of view counts come from embedded playbacks so take advantage of this and embed your videos. Share your video with blogs/sites aimed at your audience. They may embed your video because it reaches their target audience.
• Ask for subscribers! Subscribers can be the best marketers to push your content to different blogs and social media. Ask for subscribers on your channel, through your videos, or through annotations, and then ask them to share your video.
• It’s free to ask for feedback (just keep a thick skin). Make a video where you ask your viewers what they liked or didn’t like or what types of videos they would like to see.
• Look at your comments, see what your viewers are saying and feel free to respond. Also, through ‘Insight’ you can see the words most commonly used in comments of your videos. 
• Run Promoted Videos to get more eyeballs on your videos and drive community engagement. 
• Add your YouTube Channel to your email signature so your contacts are aware of your ongoing online presence and can easily access your channel.
• Two minds really are better than one. Collaborate and network with other YouTubers and amaze us with what you can create together.

Now is a great time to log into your account and check out your top referrals and make sure viewers know how to connect with you through social media. Tune in this Thursday (our last post in this series) to hear from one of our partners who’ll discuss first-hand how he engages with his YouTube audience and uses social media to increase his audience and build loyalty.

Julie Kikla and Mahin Ibrahim, Account Managers, YouTube Partnerships recently watched "Dude Perfect™ (Amazing Basketball Shots) - HD."

Tips for partners: LinusTechTips shares how he found his niche

In our series of partner optimization tips, we covered metadata with Betty from BettysKitchen, how to use playlists and annotations with Zack from ZackScott, and how to find your niche and analyze the performance of your videos. Now, we’re excited to have Linus from LinusTechTips show us how he found his niche with videos on unboxing tech products and how he uses YouTube Insight to track the performance of his videos.

It took Linus some time and multiple attempts before he found his niche as a “Professional Unboxer.” When Linus started his channel, he began to use YouTube Insight to figure out which of his videos were most popular. He realized he had found his specialty when he got thousands of views on his unboxing of the Radeon 5770 Direct X11 video card, which to this day remains one of his highest viewed videos. Since Linus joined the partner program in 2009, his focus has been making videos on product unboxings and reviews. He specializes in unboxing video cards, like the GeForce GTS 450 and the Radeon 5750. He also has a great line of custom t-shirts for the unboxing enthusiast. This one is a crowd favorite.



You can also check this video out on his Watch Page. Let us know in the comments section of Linus’ video if you have great tips to share on using YouTube Insight or if you have feedback for Linus. We’d also love to hear how your videos have been impacted once you have used some of these tips to analyze the performance of your videos.

Julie Kikla and Mahin Ibrahim, Account Managers, YouTube Partnerships recently watched “Movie Trailer Proposal.”

Tips for partners: Gimme content (and then analyze it!)

As promised, we’re excited to feature a series of blog posts with advice and actionable suggestions regarding what has helped partners be successful on YouTube. By now, all your videos should have lots of metadata, and you should have added annotations to at least one video, or grouped a series of videos through a playlist. Up next, our third post is on the importance of finding a niche with your videos and then analyzing data to determine how viewers are finding your content.

As always, we want your feedback. If there are things we are missing, or other optimization tips you want us to cover, let us know via the comments section in this post.

Find Your Mojo
It is easy for us to say, “make great content!” We know that is ultimately what you are are trying to do with your videos. When you first start out, experiment with different approaches and topics until you find your niche. It could be vlogging, beauty tutorials, a character sketch...really wherever your passion takes you. YouTube gets over 100 million views a day, so the world truly is your oyster. Find your mojo and then cultivate your content.

Once you create and publish your great content, are you paying attention to your Hot Spots? Are you maintaining a schedule so viewers know when to check back for more? There is actionable data you can use in your account to tweak your videos to keep your audience coming back.

To do:

• Use Insight Hotspots to see if your video is hot or not. Do you see a full red thermometer in the top red corner of your Hot Spot video report? If so, great! If not and your video hovers on or below the “Average” line on the graph, you are not keeping your viewers’ attention.
• Edit your videos to keep your audience engaged. See where viewers are leaving your video, and determine why (and consider using annotations to keep users engaged).
• Use Insight to figure out how people are finding your content. Is it through search or related videos? To find out, go to ‘My Videos’ and click on ‘Insight’ for one video. Then click on ‘Discovery’ and under ‘Links Followed to this video,’ you’ll see top referrals. You can click on ‘YouTube Search’ to find tags viewers queried to get to your video, and then add these tags to your video to boost your ranking in the search index. 

How to find more tags through the ‘Insight’ tool:

More tags to add:

• Review YouTube charts to check out the most viewed videos, and how you stack up.
• Use Google Analytics to understand the source of your YouTube traffic. The better you understand your audience and how they find you, the better you will be able to produce new content, promote the discovery of your videos, engage with your audience and build your brand.
• Keeping a video upload schedule is important, and we encourage you to upload consistently. When you are starting out, a technique that has worked well for many successful partners is maintaining a schedule that your subscribers will remember.

Now is a great time to log into your account and analyze your data to make sure your tags are fully updated, and your top referrals are either increasing or changing for the better. Tune in this Thursday to hear from one of our partners who found his niche, and will discuss first-hand how he uses ‘Insight’ to make smart decisions.


Julie Kikla and Mahin Ibrahim, Account Managers, YouTube Partnerships recently watched “The Unseen Sea.”

Tips for partners: ZackScott tells it like it is

YouTube loves random weirdness, comedy bits, and cute pets. We also love when our partners make it really easy for us to watch one video after another through playlists, and when they catch our attention with witty annotations. In our series of partner optimization tips, we covered metadata with Betty from BettysKitchen and then we covered how to use playlists and annotations to easily direct viewers to your other videos. You can search the whole series under the label, 'tips for partners'.

Zack from ZackScott, does a great job creating playlists and also using annotations to call out interesting things in his videos, or to ask for subscribers and comments. Zack joined the partner program in 2008 and he tries to capture and show off real things he finds interesting or funny. He caught our eye with his clever videos about his cats such as “Kitten still loves Puppy” or his surreal spider videos like “Giant Kitchen Spider”.

We asked Zack to tell us how he uses playlists to group his wide array of videos and to shed some light on his best tips for annotations. We think you will find Zack’s tips as entertaining and enlightening as his video on, “Amazing Nintendo Facts”.

Let us know in the comments section of Zack’s video if you have other great tips to share on using playlists or annotations or if you have any questions for Zack. We’d also love to hear how you arranged your videos through playlists after watching Zack’s video, or share some interesting use of annotations that you have found!

Julie Kikla and Mahin Ibrahim, Account Managers, YouTube Partnerships recently watched “Shark Surfer.”

Tips for partners: Never leave me wanting more

As promised, over the next few weeks, we’re excited to feature a series of blog posts with advice and actionable suggestions regarding what has helped partners be successful on YouTube. You can search the 'tips for partners' label to find the full series. As always, we want your feedback. If there are things we are missing, or other optimization tips you want us to cover, let us know via the comments section in this post.

We kicked off our series with information on everyone’s favorite topic: metadata. Our second post is on how to use playlists and annotations to easily direct viewers to your other videos.

Make it Easy to Watch More
Keep in mind this isn’t a first date. If users liked your video, they most likely want to see more, but they may not know where to go or what to do next. Keep them on the right path by making it easy for them to watch more of your videos without having to do any work.

To do:

• Annotations are notes, or call-outs you can use to direct viewers to take a specific action. Use them to link your videos together or create a menu so users can easily watch your videos without having to move to another tab. 
• Annotations also give you the freedom to be creative and interact with your viewers on a deeper level. Let viewers “choose their own adventure”, ask for subscribers, tell users what to watch next, or encourage feedback at the end of a video. 
• Create playlists. Playlists allow you to group your videos and they provide a simple way for users to be introduced to your content and re-watch classic videos. Playlists will also increase discoverability because they are indexed separately from search.

An example of an indexed playlist

• When you create playlists, organize them by specific themes to help viewers find the videos they are most interested in watching. Also, keep in mind that you can embed your playlists on a web page to further capture (and keep) viewers' attention. 
• Finally, if you remember our metadata post, when creating or editing a playlist, make sure to add appropriate tags and use all of the character limits as this will help users find your content. 

To avoid:

• Though annotations are a great way to link your videos and make call to action statements, don’t go too crazy. You can add as many annotations as you like, but when starting out, 3-5 annotations per video is a good rule of thumb to follow. 
• Avoid being spammy. For example, if a user expects to be taken to an official music video, don’t take them to your second channel instead. Don’t mislead the viewer. 

Now is a great time to log into your account and optimize your playlists if you already have them and create your first 3 annotations for your latest video. Tune in this Thursday to hear from one of our partners who’ll discuss first-hand how he uses playlists and annotations to increase views.

Julie Kikla and Mahin Ibrahim, Account Managers, YouTube Partnerships recently watched “Valentine - Kina Graniis (Official Music Video)"

Tips for partners: Betty's recipe for metadata

Our partners teach us something new everyday, whether it’s about science, art or cooking. Sometimes they even teach our team YouTube optimization tips and how to better promote a channel. In a series of monthly videos, we’re asking partners to talk about their top optimization tips for channels and are kicking this off with Betty from bettyskitchen. Betty joined the partner program last year and makes cooking videos with simple recipes ranging from cheddar jack whipped potatoes to healthy and natural granola bars, which all have one thing in common: they are incredibly delicious.

We asked Betty to show us how she uses metadata to increase her discoverability, choose her tags wisely, and come up with the perfect title. We hope you’ll find her recipe for metadata just as enjoyable as her steps to make buttercream frosting.

Let us know in the comments section of Betty’s video if you have great tips to share on using metadata or any other questions for Betty. We’d also love to hear how your videos have been impacted once you have used some of these tips to optimize your metadata.

Julie Kikla and Mahin Ibrahim, Account Managers, YouTube Partnerships recently watched “Baby Eating Watermelon.”

Tips for partners: Words, Words, Words!!

As a partner, you have probably asked yourself, “How can I make my videos more discoverable?” “Is it kosher to ask for subscribers?” and “What’s the most effective way to use annotations?” Well, after almost three years since the Partner Program launched, we want to answer some of your questions and offer tips on how you can use YouTube’s arsenal of tools to become a truly great partner.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll feature a series of blog posts with advice and actionable suggestions regarding what has helped partners be successful on YouTube. You can search the 'tips for partners' label to find the full series. As always, we want your feedback. If there are things we are missing, or other optimization tips you want us to cover, let us know via the comments section in this post.

To kick off our series, we will be covering the first and most important step to increasing awareness of your videos: metadata, which is near and dear to all of our hearts. Find out what YouTube defines as metadata and read on for ways to come up with new tags and descriptions.

Words, Words, Words

YouTube is the second largest search engine, so don’t get lost in the mix, let people find you. Our algorithms are good, but they can only read, they can’t watch your videos. So in order to properly classify your video and index it for search, we need your help.

To do:

• Have a basic understanding of how we index our search results so you know how we crawl and index your video. Use our tools to your videos’ advantage. 
• Titles, tags and rich descriptions (all categorized as metadata) will help your discoverability and increase CPMs. Descriptions can include up to 5,000 characters, tags can be 120 characters. Make a goal to use every one of these limits for each of your videos.
• The more words you include in your description, the higher your chances of being discovered by searchers, which means the larger your audience can grow, and the more potential revenue you can earn.

What YouTube defines as metadata:

• Use our Keyword Tool to expand on or update your tags. It will give you good suggestions for related queries. You can also check out the Google Insights for Search tool built for online advertisers. 
• Don’t just include tags upon video upload. If you have a popular video that continues to get views over time, update your tags regularly to take advantage of new searches. Online search behavior is always changing, so your tags should change along with it. 
• If you have a transcript available, make sure to upload it and turn on captions. This can help your discoverability as it will give us more data points to index your video.

To avoid:

• Users hate spam. Google hates spam. Spammy tags and thumbnails may help increase views in the very short term, but our algorithm will catch on and punish you for spam. Long term, you want your users searching for videos to find what they are looking for and to associate your channel with accurate information.
• Don’t repeat words in your description or title, this will not help you. Rather use different words and variations that users might search on to find your video.

Now is a great time to log into your account and check out what your metadata looks like and add some more tags. Tune in this Thursday to hear from one of our partners who’ll discuss first-hand how she uses metadata to increase views. 

Julie Kikla and Mahin Ibrahim, Account Managers, YouTube Partnerships recently watched “Triple Backflip - 60 foot Rope Swing!”