How Mark Rober is beating the YouTube Algorithm (Genius Strategy)

mark rober has quickly become one of my favorite youtubers his content is both entertaining and educational so when i procrastinate and watch his videos i can at least say to myself that i'm learning something new three two one [Laughter] however what i find most fascinating about him is his growth here on youtube he averages a ridiculous 27 million views per video and even when he's not uploading he still has a consistent stream of viewers coming in i mean in the last 30 days he hasn't uploaded a single video but he has brought in 36 million views that's in the region of a hundred thousand dollars in ad revenue how come one guy who uploads just 12 videos a year be growing so fast and dominating our recommended feeds maybe mark robert knows something that we don't about youtube in this video we're going to break down how he is beating the algorithm to reach new people every day if you're a smaller creator who wants to grow your own channel get out your notebook and get ready for a mark rover youtube masterclass on this channel i like to analyze the biggest and fastest growing youtubers and get to the bottom of how they have built their audiences now if you were to ask mark himself about the secret to his success he would probably give you a very humble answer like this your videos get 27 million views on average is this true this is true it's actually the most on all of youtube what is the secret i do like wholesome stuff i like doing things that are big and crazy you know world's largest nerf gun world's largest super soaker but let's be real for a minute top youtubers understand how the algorithm works they know what sort of content to make and what tactics to use to bring in millions of views do you think a guy who helped for the robot on mars just makes wholesome content and hopes for the best we know you're smarter than that mark through my research i've broken down the three steps mark rober uses with every video to give it the best chance of going viral and i don't even want to hype this up too much but some of the things that he is doing will make you realize just how much thought goes into every upload the best part is these are steps that anyone can learn from to make better videos and get more views let's get straight into things so now what i'm using the phrase beating the algorithm but really when it comes to what mark rober is doing it's about giving the algorithm exactly what it wants youtube uses their algorithm to help surface videos that people will click on and watch because at the end of the day they want people to stay on their site using this graph we can understand how content goes viral let's take this video here as an example when it was first uploaded it was shown to a certain number of people let's call this group of people the early audience these are viewers who have recently watched mark's videos before and a high percentage will be subscribers if the video performs well in the data here it'll be shown to more of this group the viral moment comes when youtube starts to show this video to a wider audience and it still performs really well this tells youtube that the video appeals to a lot of people not only fans of matt rober so they start to recommend it to more and more people who they feel will enjoy the content this is often called the algorithm picking up a video it keeps being recommended until it eventually begins to plateau and decline now obviously a youtuber like mark robert has the head start of having a big subscriber base but it's pretty much the same idea no matter how small the channel is the important question is how do youtube decide if a video is performing well what data do they actually look at and if you've watched this channel before you already know what i'm going to say are the three most important metrics click-through rate watch time and audience retention when it comes to viral videos this is the holy trinity and you can bet your ass that mark robert is dominating these metrics it varies a lot but if you can get over 4 minutes of watch time with a 50 or above audience retention and a 10 to 20 ctr you have a really good chance of going viral the last time i hit those figures myself this happened so what is mark doing to make sure that every video he makes smashes each of these metrics now obviously making videos on fascinating ideas and having a big budget helps but lots of people try and copy this and never see a fraction of the results let's first look at step one how he structures his videos using retention tactics has anyone ever noticed that when you click on a mark rover video 10 minutes goes by in the blink of an eye you might just think it's because he makes awesome videos which is true but he also uses techniques which makes it so hard for you to click off there's actually a science to making someone feel fully immersed in your video let's investigate the tactics mark is using to keep you watching at the start of all mark's videos he gives you a hook context and setup i like to look at this as the what why and how section of a video mark explains very quickly what the video is about gives context to why he is doing it and then tells you how it's going to go down this means that the viewer has a clear understanding of what they're going to experience with the video let's look at this in action this is a bird feeder and everything to my left is my attempt at making it squirrel proof if they want the birdseed they will first need to pass through what is basically an eight-part ninja warrior obstacle course for squirrels this course is extremely challenging it is not for the timid of heart but out of the gate i will admit that in hindsight that i completely underestimated my adversary now if you're wondering why i would go through all this trouble when did you go back eight weeks ago when i found myself stuck at home and very bored next is the fact that mark's videos have great pacing i genuinely think this is what separates good youtubers from great youtubers you need to realize the attention span of a youtube viewer is pretty low no offense so macro relieves no dull moments in his videos for example he could have spent ages showing everyone how he built the obstacle course but he instead made a really quick build montage many youtubers would have just kept this part in but do people really need to see it we are here to see the squirrel version of total wipeout not a carpentry lesson and finally mark makes us wait for the result you need to carry people along for a reward at the end of the video which in mark's case is seeing whether the squirrels beat his course or not the magic is in pacing the video correctly so the climax builds as you near the end keeping people watching from the first second until the conclusion smart rick was the first one to enter the course so in the end after about a week of effort it was fitting he was the one to make it to the jackpot first and he's so stoked he apparently wants to run the whole course in reverse in hindsight we probably should have made the jackpot a little quieter so when mark combines these retention tactics with a good video idea and storytelling the viewer has no choice but to stick around and watch the video the result is retention graphs that look like this and let me tell you youtube loves nothing more than a straight retention curve alright so that's how mark makes people stay on his videos to give him great watch time and retention but he of course needs people to actually click on them in the first place which brings us on to step number two mark uses killer metadata metadata on youtube is essentially everything you use to describe your video the main four types are titles thumbnails tags and descriptions now a few years ago your description and tags were very important but in 2020 they're pretty irrelevant i still like to fill them up with keywords and search terms but using my youtube tool tubebuddy i can see that neither mark rober or mrbeast used any tags in the last upload and they both keep their descriptions pretty short i think this is a good sign not to pay too much attention to them anymore with one exception try use your first line in your video description as a teaser to your video because this is displayed in search so as for mark's titles there are a few things worth noting first of all they are often under 50 characters this means that when viewed on mobile in your recommended feed none of it is cut off this also leads to his titles being super pragmatic they're kind of hilariously casual yep just testing if sharks can smell a drop of blood nothing much being straight to the point gets rewarded on youtube if you confuse someone with your title they're not going to click but it's mark's thumbnails that really make him stand out now from looking at them you might think they look a little amateurish but this is the point i talked about this in my first mr beast video people love youtube for the homemade feel of it it's why we watch our favorite creators instead of tv polished thumbnails with great graphic design might look more aesthetic but that doesn't always mean it's better whenever mark does use text it's kept to four or less words and the most important part of the thumbnail is always the demonstration of what is actually happening sometimes it's completely staged such as this shark one but he finds the balance between clickbait and then actually delivering on his promise thumbnails can make or break a youtube video for example i first used this thumbnail with my david dobrik video and it got 10k views in a week i then changed it to this one and it blew up to 200k views there's very little difference between them but people just found this option much more interesting one little change made me an extra six hundred dollars and brought him 1 900 subscribers while mark's thomas might look simple i guarantee you he spends ages trying to get them just right i recommend making multiple thumbnails and comparing them if you are really trying to invest in your youtube channel you can use a tool like tubebuddy which has a feature called a b testing you basically can load two different thumbnails into their software and they will rotate them automatically on your video and measure the ctr for each one you can easily see which is best and go with that one you can install the software using my link below so this is how mark robert dominates the most important youtube metrics it all seems pretty simple right but the beauty is in executing it to perfection don't go anywhere just yet though because there is one more step he is taking that i think is so important to keep in mind he gives his videos breathing room mark uploads just once per month or even less at the moment although i have heard he's got a pretty cool video with dude perfect coming soon so watch out for that you see youtube is no longer a place that rewards sheer quantity right now to stand out you need to provide ten times the quality you did five years ago if mark uploaded weekly videos i'm sure they would be good but if he takes all that effort and puts it into one video a month it's going to be an insane video from an algorithm perspective creating banger video after banger video means each upload continues to ride the wave of success of the previous video keeping his momentum alive now uploading less might seem like pretty terrible advice and of course it varies channel to channel but the truth is right now you might have a quality problem and not a quantity problem i really enjoyed making this video on mark and i hope you learned as much from him as i did myself please smash the subscribe and turn the notifications on 99 of you aren't subscribed which is definitely a record also give me a follow on instagram i post a lot of youtube related content over there including how much i'm making on youtube and what my analytics look like for now though i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Paddy Galloway

Views: 1,854,510

Rating: 4.9407616 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Rober, squirrel obstacle course, Mark rober, How much money does mark Rober make, How Mark Rober is beating the youtube algorithm, why mr beast is a genius, mr beast, paddy galloway, youtube breakdown, how to beat the algorithm, Mark Rober new video

Id: 6Wuse0RBRiE

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/KiyanTV]

Hey

This is great!

If you could give any advice and support to grow my channel it would be much appreciated 🌠

https://youtu.be/51AAfw58u54

[u/boogie5va5]

good shit!
NOW riddle me this!
I've made it as hard as possible on myself by covering an extremely niche subject matter, Mil-Sims/Tactical/Realistic Shooters made by Indie Studios so no Call of Duties or Battlefields lol..
ANY TIPS would be greatly appreciated!
here is my channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_uQOnImib8

[u/Future77Gaming]

Hey! I am really trying to beat my old record of 26 subscribers in a single day, and would really appreciate it if you could check out my channel. I make mostly ridiculous gaming challenges and upload 3 times a week! I hope to see you there! Current count: 1.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCibvzmeJEWMnz9Wn5slPxLg

[u/Monkey_Adventures]

wow someone with 140k subs posting here? nice to know we're on the same level in that regards

[u/MysticKrewe]

I love how you're like, "One of the most important things to make your videos successful is keeping people watching longer.... and stay tuned for another hint at the end of my video.." lol

I'm curious how I can apply some of these techniques to a different type of channel/format? For example, we are doing live concerts to help local artists that are unable to play out during the pandemic.

Here's our channel:

https://youtube.com/pinchurch

Any help, support, subscribers and advice is appreciated!

[u/snffali]

this is good info great work

[u/anastaci3]

This was an awesome video, good job!

[u/alexis2098]

I don't know who that is

[u/LadyCNote]

This is very informative. Thank you for sharing your video.