Transcription
What if I told you that everything that you think that you know about growing on YouTube is actually wrong? That while you're out here chasing algorithm hacks and viral trends, you have the CEO of YouTube who's been giving away the actual secrets in plain sight and almost nobody's listening. Welcome to YouTube.
Mohan was one of the pioneers of internet advertising. Really kind of from me at the zoo to what it's become today. Creators that take their eye off that ball, that's where the problem starts. Listen, I've spent hours and hours digging through interviews with Neil Mohan. I think that's how you pronounce his name. He's the CEO of YouTube, and what I found will completely change how you think about growing on this platform. This isn't just like another 10 tips to go viral kind of video. This is straight from the man who literally controls the platform. And the crazy part of this is there are thousands and thousands of YouTube experts out there telling you how to grow. And I mean, I guess I'm technically one of them, but how many of them have actually talked to the person who runs YouTube?
Now, I'm also in that boat because I haven't spoken with the YouTube CEO either, but I went through every major interview and even smaller interviews that Neil has done in the past year, and I found insights that completely contradict what a lot of these YouTube growth creators are doing and saying. So, by the end of this video, you'll know exactly what the CEO of YouTube says actually works on YouTube, what doesn't, and why your current strategy might be sabotaging your growth.
"The goal is the same, which is to make our creators successful on our platform." So, let's start with the biggest lie in the YouTube space, that you need to hack the algorithm. Listen, everybody's obsessing over this mysterious black box called the YouTube algorithm, trying to reverse engineer it. But here's what the CEO of YouTube actually says about it.
"The simplest way to think about um the recommendations that they that you see in your feed, whether it's the home feed or on the watch page, is it is really a reflection of your interests as a viewer. And so when it's changing, it's changing in the sense of reflecting back your interests or your personalized history of what you were watching on our platform."
Did you catch that? The algorithm is not some mystical force that you need to outsmart. When people say the algorithms changed, Neil says, well, because um you know, our interest as viewers continues to change. This changes everything. You're not fighting the algorithm. You're working with it. By creating content that genuinely serves your audience's interest, we should be replacing the word algorithm for audience.
Which brings us to the real secret here. See, when the YouTube CEO Neil was directly asked, "What is the secret to being a successful creator on YouTube?" His answer wasn't about thumbnails or titles or posting schedules, which kind of shocked me.
"The first and probably the most salient thing, and this is actually advice I give to people who ask me like what is the secret sauce of being a successful creator on the platform, is it really is to be true to yourself. And that is um sounds sort of very cliche, but I wish somebody had given me that advice early in my career because nothing rings more true."
Okay, but wait, it gets even better. He explains why this actually works. And I can tell you for a fact that it's not the algorithm. It's all the other people that are on the other side of that glass when they're watching your video, if you're a creator, that can tell instantaneously whether that is actually truly your authentic self or if you're trying to basically put yourself in another person's shoes. Think about that. The CEO of YouTube just told you that authenticity beats the algorithm optimization every single time. And I think the reason is because I mean, just think about your own viewing patterns. Think about content like the psychology of content from a macro perspective. Like I can guarantee you feel the same way. Your audience can sense when you're not being real, like when you're being fake. And they'll click away so fast, way faster than you can even say, "Hey, smash that subscribe button." Like they'll just they'll leave so quickly.
But what's interesting is this kind of completely flips the script on a lot of things that you've been told or taught about when it comes to YouTube growth. And here's where it gets really interesting. Most creators think that YouTube controls their success like some puppet master. that the platform decides who wins and who loses. But the CEO of YouTube, Neil, by the way, I'm just going to start referring to him as Neil at this point. You know that Neil is the CEO of YouTube. I don't need to say that every time. So, as I was saying, Neil has a completely different view of YouTube's role.
"The analogy that I use that I think I think sort of works best is most of the people at YouTube uh are software engineers or technologists and our job is to build the stage. We are really someone who built the theater, right? We don't um I don't tell you when to post or what you should say. You have exercise that creative control."
See, YouTube isn't the director of your show. They're the theater builder, right? They create the stage, but you're the performer. This means that you have way more control than you think you do. YouTube isn't working against you. They're literally building the infrastructure for you to succeed. and take this next part with a big grain of salt, but that's why generally speaking, chasing viral YouTube strategies kind of misses the point. The platform wants you to succeed because your success quite literally is their success.
And if you're anything like me, then here's something that will probably blow your mind a little bit. When Neil talks about successful creators, he doesn't just call them creators.
"The other thing that I think people don't recognize as much is that not only are they amazing creative people, they are true entrepreneurs. like they build amazing businesses."
Entrepreneurs, not influencers, not content creators, entrepreneurs. This is a fundamental shift in how you should think about your channel. You're not just making videos. You're building an actual business.
And here's YouTube's actual mission for you. "And our creators are looking to do two things. They're looking to build an audience. You know, I I often describe YouTube as the world's most efficient dis, you know, connector of a creative person with their audience no matter where they are in the world. And so, that's the first thing that we do as part of the creator economy. The second thing is economy. Ultimately, it's about be finding a way for these creators to earn a sustainable living on our platform."
See, it's audience first, then it's monetization, not the other way around. Which brings me to something really, really crucial that I feel like we have to talk about here. If authenticity matters more than algorithm hacks, what should you actually be focusing on as your main thing? It's exactly what you guys said. It's about producing that content that's going to be the most engaging and most relevant for your audience. And that's ultimately what matters.
Notice he didn't say content that performs well or content that gets views. He said content that's engaging and relevant to your audience. And what's super interesting is when asked what he'd focus on if he were actually running a creator's channel, he says it really comes back to uh connecting with your audience, doing what you really find to be the most fulfilling way to do that. So I'm honestly repeating back some of what you said, which is like that depth of audience, like really building that establishing that home base is the basis of where all the opportunities come from. Depth over width. I love that sentence so much. See, connection over numbers. This is the opposite of what most YouTube advice tells you to do.
But what's so interesting is that when you open your eyes and you look, as I said, at the macro psychology of content in itself, fundamentally speaking, and you listen to what other successful creators say, you hear something extremely similar.
"Yeah, I think uh people undervalue depth quite a bit, right? And they overvalue width. And so I think I think you're you're absolutely right. I think even a 100,000 like 100,000 views on like a personality vlog or even like I was telling Colin this morning that you have a video after your cheeseball man fight that's just titled I fought him and it has almost 600,000 views. Mhm. Those are very powerful views. Mhm. Because that title thumbnail is not algorithmic by any means. That is not for like a random passerby view. Yeah. Right. That is for a core community. Mh. And we we always talked about like this one Emma Chamberlain video that's called You Totally Caught Me Making Soup. That's a great title. That's bang. That's actually really funny. Yeah. And it's like that has like millions of views and it's just emblematic of like how massive her community is."
But here's what's really crazy is while everyone's chasing the same tired trying to go viral strategies, there's a massive opportunity hiding in plain sight. And Neil revealed this when he talked about the scale of YouTube.
"There are 500 hours of content uploaded to our platform every single day. Every niche interest, every uh um learning pursuit that you want to have, every musical genre. So, in terms of being able to find, you know, the particular niche that you're interested in in that moment that you're interested in, I'm never worried about it being, you know, homogeneous across all of YouTube."
500 hours uploaded every minute. That means there's room for every single niche, every perspective, every authentic voice, everything. The CEO isn't worried about oversaturation like so many people I talked to. He's actually encouraging more more people, more diversity, and he revealed where creators are actually seeing explosive growth.
"Our top creators have grown their uh watch time on living room screens by something on the order of 400% in the last uh uh year or a couple years or so. We just surpassed a billion hours of watch time on living room screens."
Dude, this is crazy. 400% 400% growth on YouTube screens. While everyone's here optimizing for mobile, the smart creators are thinking bigger. Now, of course, you should be optimized for mobile. The point here is to be optimized for all screen types, TV, iPad, laptop, and mobile.
But on the topic of optimization, there's no better way to maintain a career on YouTube better than making money with it. So, I want to share with you five really non-obvious insights that Neil gave to entrepreneurs that most creators I feel like completely miss.
First is that places like YouTube but other platforms also um have really eliminated the need or the like the just the the fact of a barrier between you and your audience or your customer or however you think about it. The second thing is that feedback on a place like YouTube is instantaneously you see you literally see it in the comments within minutes of you seconds minutes within you posting the video. Thirdly is that content tends to be global. Story lines do translate. And the fourth insight is in the US the majority of content is actually consumed on television screens. Fifth and finally be um creative and flexible about the monetization models. Uh but be very rock solid in terms of the content that you're that's true to you.
See these five insights alone could completely transform your approach to YouTube. And here's something else that's kind of huge. While creators are stuck thinking that they need to choose between long form or short form content. Well, listen to this.
"Living up to that mission of being truly multiiformat. You are creative people. You have a way of connecting with your audience. And what my job is to provide you with the tool set, the stage if you will, to do that in whatever format works for you."
Multiformat, not long form or shorts, but both. The most successful creators aren't limiting themselves. They're using every single tool in the toolbox to connect with their audience. And the results really speak for themselves. I mean, Neil revealed that YouTube has paid out. I think in the last 3 years, we've paid out over $50 billion to this creator economy um generated through all of these various sort of business models that I talk about. 50 billion in 3 years. This isn't a side hustle anymore. This is a legitimate business opportunity.
And here's the most personal piece of advice that Neil gives in this entire video beyond YouTube. "Truly be uh true to yourself. Like really try to again it sounds cliched but really think hard about setting your own course. think about it in terms of longer term like not I'm not saying over plan but just try to really really answer the question about like on the margin how is this going to be truly about what I want as opposed to what other people's expectations are of me."
This isn't just about YouTube. This is about building a career and a life on your own terms. Stop chasing what you think will work and start creating what genuinely excites you and lights you up.
Now, I keep going through all of the insights that I found for hours, but here's the thing. Knowing this information and actually implementing it are two completely different things. And that's why to help you implement, I created a completely free AI assistant that's trained on all of this research, plus hundreds of other YouTube growth strategies. It's like having the CEO's advice available 24/7, plus practical steps to actually implement it. You can access that free custom GPT, again, completely for free. The link is in the description below. It's called Launchpad and it will help you take everything we just covered and turn it into an actual growth plan for your channel.
And if you want to go even deeper, I've got a community called the YouTube Launchpad on school where we break down strategies just like this every single week. We analyze what's working right now and help each other implement these insights together. In fact, one of the students in there followed the recent thumbnail advice that I gave him on one of our Q&A calls on an underperforming video that he had. And in 3 days time after implementing what I taught him in there, the video again in only 3 days has over 50,000 views now. So if you guys want to join that community, it would be super amazing to have you guys. If you just want to check it out and you're curious, the link to that will also be in the description below.
But here's what I want you to do right now. Take one insight from this video, just one, and implement it in your next video. Don't try to change everything all at once. Pick the one that resonates the most with you. Maybe it's being more authentic. Maybe it's thinking like an entrepreneur instead of just a creator. Maybe it's actually embracing the multi-format approach. Whatever it is, commit to trying it because here's the truth. The CEO just gave you the playbook. The question is, are you going to use it?
If you guys like this video and you feel like you learned a lot, then you'll love this video where I break down Ryan Tran's newest series and what we can learn from his approach to YouTube. You can click right here to watch that next. Now, before I leave you, just remember one thing. Theory like this it stays just that theory without implementation.