How YouTube works
YouTube is a librarian
The algorithm isn't a boss you have to beat. It's a librarian trying to point people to the right shelf, and your job is to be easy to shelve.
When I was working out how to help the creators in our club get discovered, I kept coming back to the library. I worked in one in middle school, and the job was simple. Someone walks up to the desk and says they're looking for something, and you point them to the right section.
If we look at the algorithm as a librarian… person comes into the library, and they're like, I'm looking for something.
Marielou, on a Video Creator Club call
The librarian wants people to find what they came for
It helps to stop thinking of YouTube as something you're fighting. The librarian has one goal, which is to send each person to the video they'll be happy with. If your video is that video, it wants to hand it over. The work on your side is making it obvious that your video belongs on that shelf.
Are you a section?
This is the question I ask about every channel: are you clearly in a section of the library? If your uploads jump between five unrelated topics, the librarian can't tell where you belong, so it has nowhere to send anyone. A channel where each video makes sense next to the last one is much easier to recommend.
How you get shelved
Two things do most of the work.
- Titles with the words people type. Your title should use the words someone would say to the librarian when they walk in, not a clever name only you would recognize.
- Videos that belong together. Each new upload should sit comfortably on the same shelf as the one before it, so the librarian learns where you live.
If you want help working out which section you're in, that's the kind of thing we work through together in the club.
By Marielou Mandl, founder of Video Creator Club. This post started as a carousel on @videocreator.club.