Transcription
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 Rober 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 Rober 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 Mark 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 Rober 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 Rober 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 10-20% 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 Rober 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, Mark 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 nor MrBeast used any tags in their 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 MrBeast 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 $600 and brought me 1,900 subscribers.
While Mark's thumbnails 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 Rober 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.