YouTube Creator Blog

Cut to the chase with improved YouTube playlists

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

One of the best ways to build an audience for your channel is by creating playlists, a quick and easy way to make a collection of videos you can share with your friends or the world.

Many of you have told us that when making playlists, you sometimes want to include just a clip and not the whole video — like starting the video right at the dramatic moment or the crazy trick play. So, you can now choose start and end times for each video in your playlist using a trimmer in the same way you can with YouTube Editor. When you choose start/end times, your playlist viewers will only see your selected portion of the video, unless they choose to watch the video in its entirety.

We also updated the look of the playlist editing page to make editing easier and faster, with description, privacy and other settings on the right. Here’s what you’ll see:

These updates will be rolling out over the next day or so. For more information, visit our help guide.

Molly Nix, User Interface Designer, recently watched “Shot-for-shot remake of the lobby scene from The Matrix but except with toys.”

Jakatak69 is May’s On The Rise YouTube partner

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Jakatak69On The Riseour homepageThe Best BBQ Sauce You’ll Ever TasteBig Top CupcakeLazy Man’s Pulled Pork SandwichesRed Lobster Cheddar Biscuits

I want to first say thanks to YouTube... I am grateful for all the tools you have provided to help me grow my channel to what it is today. There are training videos, playbook videos, creator hangouts, city wide meetups, partnership support, video editing tools, bulletin systems to reach all your subscribers in just one click and so much more. The best part is that all of these YouTube tools are free. I am excited to be apart of a food category that is just about to explode on YouTube. You have inspired me to reach out and collaborate with other YouTube artists. Working together is more important than you think. So reach out to someone, build good content and broadcast yourself. And always remember YouTube is the new TV. God Bless and please subscribe to the COOKING WITH JACK SHOW. On The Rise ChannelChristine Wang and Devon Storbeck, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “Call Me Maybe parody - Aussie blokes version.”

How to master your data with YouTube Analytics

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

This is part of an ongoing series sharing tips from the YouTube Creator Playbook, a resource of best practices and tips you can start using on your channel and videos right away.launchingFind out what keeps people watchingAudience Retention

Absolute Retention shows viewer retention as a percentage of total views. Remember, rewinding and re-watching can result in values higher than 100%, while fast-forwarding or abandoning the video will push the graph downwards. (Check out the YouTube Analytics graph for Barely Political’s “Avengers Therapy! Session #15” video below. Six seconds in, absolute retention is 92%, and it stays fairly consistent throughout the video. It’s typical to see drop offs at the end of videos during credits, or other footage when the main content ends. As always, try to keep viewer engagement up as long as possible.)

Relative Retention shows how your video compares to videos of a similar length. You should always strive to create engaging content for your viewers, since watch time is a key indicator for suggested and recommended videos. Try to understand why certain videos keep your audience engaged and why others are poor performers, then make programming and creative decisions based on your assessments.

Learn how people find youtraffic sourcesFigure out what makes people subscribeSubscriptionCreator PlaybookLauren Vilders, Audience Development Coordinator, recently watched “NYC Ballet’s Ashley Laracey on George Balanchine’s CONCERTO BAROCCO”

Closed account removal concludes today. You may see drop in subscription count.

Friday, May 25, 2012

On Wednesday, we reminded you that we’ve been removing closed accounts from YouTube over the last several months, which has caused many of you to see decreases in your subscriber counts. We’re doing this because these accounts do not drive views to your channel.
Today, the last of these accounts will be removed, meaning you can expect to see additional decreases in your subscriber counts throughout the day. This will conclude the removal process, so starting tomorrow your subscriber counts will reflect actual changes in your subscriptions.
We also realize that the public subscriber count on your channels and that in Analytics have not been consistent. Moving forward, changes in your subscriber counts will be accurately reflected in YouTube Analytics, and Analytics will also show you newly closed accounts that have been removed:

You’ve worked hard to build loyal audiences, so we understand it’s jarring to have seen your subscriber counts decrease as we’ve removed closed accounts. It’s important that you have the most accurate data regarding your audience composition and engagement, which is why we’ve removed these accounts. Thank you for your patience throughout this process.

The YouTube Team