Stop Chasing the Algorithm (Do THIS Instead) transcript

You don't grow on YouTube by chasing the algorithm. You grow by serving humans. The algorithm is a mirror. It is nothing more. It reflects back the clarity of your topic and the strength of your promise and the ability of your video to hold one person's attention to the end and then into another video. So the goal here is to replace superstition with systems and by the end of this you will have a creator operating system you can run weekly to choose topics and spark demand to craft promises people must click on to structure videos that people have to finish and to build session depth so YouTube can't help but recommend your channel.

So generally there are six main levers that you can actually control. Lever number one is topic market fit. We have title and thumbnail promise. The first 30 seconds which is the hook and the setup. The retention architectural which is the beats and the value transfer. What they get and then session depth. What video do they watch next? So luck is what people call these six levers that are done consistently. To start off with you have to define your north star which is your orientation.

A channel without a north star becomes a graveyard of random uploads. This is something I've seen time and time again. And the algorithm can't route randomness. Direction is your north star in one sentence when it combines your who you serve, what you help them do, and how your format delivers it. So the template I like to use on this, and there's a few versions that I use is I help who achieve outcome with format. A couple examples of this might be, I help busy dads build profitable YouTube side hustles with 10-minute step-by-step playbooks.

I help beginners become financially independent using minimalism money systems with weekly challenges. There's different versions of this. Some of these work for YouTube. There's more in-depth ones that I use when it comes to building a sales page and an offer. But generally with YouTube, you need this who outcome and format. You also need a metric north star. You need to pick one behavior metric and one business metric that you can start tracking if you ever want to make money on YouTube.

So, a behavior metric might mean the average view duration or the average view percentage, how long people are watching your videos. And a business metric might mean uh email opt-ins per 1,000 views or product clicks per 1,000 views. It was doing this system that allowed me to make $2,900 on 3,400 views on a brand new channel. is because uh really optimizing everything for the clicks in the outcome that I wanted to achieve.

And this is where we come into the ABTH. This is where you need to figure out where are your views, your CTR, your AVD, and your weekly output. Now, how many videos you posting? What are all the stats? Then you need to become what do those look like when you're actually winning on your top performing videos throughout the process? What are the metrics of the wellperforming ones? And then by when when does that happen? and then what weekly uh actions lead make that inevitable.

So for my main channel, if I have over a 10% CTR within uh the first 30 minutes of a video, I know that that video is doing well. And then later on in the video, I will check uh the view duration and see where people are falling off and all that type of stuff. And I can tell what I am doing wrong by tracking all of those metrics. And then what action make making more videos inevitable. So quick question here. What is your one viewer?

I would love you to give that one viewer a name that you're making this for. What problem do they open YouTube in order to solve? How are you helping them? And then what behavioral metric will you watch for the next 90 days? That is the beginning of making progress on your channel. Next up, we have to construct a high signal creator identity. So this is the foundation. The algorithm isn't confused. You are confused. And I know because I was confused for literally years.

And when your identity is scattered all over the place, your topics are scattered all over the place. And your audience is scattered all over the place. When your audience is scattered, the algorithm has no cluster it can recommend to and get good results from because you have a clustered audience. So this is where you have to make a decision. You have to choose a character your viewer can recognize within 5 seconds.

So, this is where you take your archetype. Are you going to be the coach? Are you going to be the scientist, the guinea pig? This guy's like, "Oh, I'm out here doing challenges." Are you going to be the builder, the somebody that you're you're following along in their journey? Are you the contrarian? Are you the pastor, the teacher? Uh, on this channel, I I kind of look at myself more as the coach. I've built multiple six-figure channels, and now I just show other people how to do that.

What is your tone? Are you warm, playful, uh, you know, are you sarcastic? What is it that makes you different? And then of course you have your edge. What belief do you oppose that your viewer is tired of? What makes it an us versus them? What makes you contrarian and different than everybody else? So this is where you want to have a clear promise for everybody watching. This is the watch me if you want to X without Y.

Watch me if you want to blow up on YouTube without stumbling around trying to figure it out. Watch me if you want to save money without tracking every penny. Watch me if you want to X without Y, right? And then the words that you use and avoid. You want your pacing. You want your visual grammar, your B-roll, your boards, all that type of stuff. You want to have rules that you follow in every single video that make you you.

And then you want to have some non-negotiables. You want to have some publishing days. You need to say, "Every Saturday 10:00 a.m. for the past 7 years, I've uploaded on my main channel." You need an opening beat. You need a call to next video pattern. You need to build systems to make people watch your videos, to make them intrigued, and to make them watch through to more videos because you are providing value. So, this is where you want your identity loop.

You want to be a constant character who talks about constant topics for a constant viewer with constant recommendations. So, you want to continue being the same person talking about topics that this person is interested in so that they keep getting recommended more of your stuff. So, a quick question for you. What archetype are you choosing to be for the next 90 days? Which one of those people are you be? And what belief are you going to be publicly rejecting?

Just as important about what you're talking about is what you are not talking about. Like for me in this video particularly, I'm telling you that the algorithm is not real. Obviously, the algorithm is real, but most people's belief of what the algorithm is is not real. The algorithm is people. It represents people. All it does is try to serve people. And yet, people treat it like it is something else. So, what is it that is public that you are rejecting that will make an us and then type of thing.

Next up, you have to control your daily inputs. Your ideas are downstream from your inputs. If you feed in generic content, you will ship out generic videos. When I consume a ton of Peter McKennon videos, my videos start looking like Peter McKennon. When I consume a lot of Sam Sulic videos, I start making and thinking about and doing workout stuff, right? What you consume will change what you output because it's what's in your mind.

It'll change the story of your videos. You need to subscribe to only channels in your viewers headsp space and outside of your niche and upgrade your storytelling. You need to surround yourself with YouTube and podcasts and books that give you that are consuming people and ideas of where your audience wants to go. You need to be one step ahead of them continually learning and growing and forging this path that they can follow.

And then you need data. You need to check your YouTube studio twice daily max and then replace Doom refreshing with scheduled reviews. In fact, I honestly recommend that most people take YouTube Studio off their phone. You don't really need it. What you need is to get fresh ideas and make videos. You do not need uh to continue to check if you got one more subscriber and you need to upgrade your stack. So books, $100 million offer, uh, deep work, made to stick.

You need to bring in good, high quality content into your life. You need to make a watch list. I like to do this by saving videos and thumbnails and titles that I think are cool and saving those so that I have a database of cool ideas and inspiration to pull from. And then maybe make a swipe file or a database somewhere of like a 100 irresistible titles and reverse engineer the promise, not topics. I'm not saying steal all those.

I'm saying build a large database of ideas that are proving to work or you can adapt from a different niche. Then you need some rituals if you want to make this a consistent thing. So in the morning for 10 minutes idea mine from your comments from Reddit from core from books whatever it is take some time every single day and you should have time dedicated to come up with ideas in a reliable place not just staring at a wall but how are you actively searching valuable ideas that are different from everybody else at night you can add one idea to your swipe file and one beat you'll try in your next upload.

What is one thing you're going to change? One way that you can get better every single day. So quick questions. What three channels will you get your structure mentors from? What channels are working well in your niche, in your area that you want to emulate and be like? If you're vlogging for entrepreneurs, there are certain channels that are better than other ones that you should emulate and be like because they are proven for success.

And then what time will you do your 10 minutes of idea mining per day? This is very important to add to your daily routine as a creator if you want to have long-term success and enough original highquality ideas. So remove internal distractions that kill retention. So the mechanism here is a distracted creator makes distracted videos. Your content noise becomes your audience drop off. So you need to purge things that are holding you back from focusing on what you're doing.

So production-wise, phone in the other room, one tab when writing, no music with lyrics rule while you're scripting. This is something that is huge. I actually have I have this little thing called scrolly where it locks it. So I have no social media. I have no email. I can't do anything on my phone while I am making content. And then I listen to like some study music with lowfi beats. And that's why I script every single time.

For editing, make a template that works for you, that's proven to work in your space. So, an example of this might be a hook, payoff, one, pattern break, payoff two, CTA, and then on to the next. And notifications, off during, 48 hours postpublishing video. Let the video breathe. You do not need notifications on your phone about when people comment, whatever. Again, go back in, check twice daily. You don't need to be spamchecking everything.

So, another thing that really helps purging some of these ideas. So, again, you can have high quality thought going into videos is to have focus blocks. 90 minutes of writing. 15-minute rest, 90 minutes of edit, 15 minutes rest, 90 minutes of polish. Honestly, scripting should only take about uh 15 to 30 minutes depending on what you're doing. Editing should take 1 to two hours. Uh this is for another video. This is something that we teach inside the 5H hour YouTuber of how to run a YouTube channel in five hours a week obviously, but it doesn't need to take forever, but what you need to have is focus blocks because a 15minute scripting session when done correctly can give you a whole video idea in 15 minutes.

When done incorrectly, you can spend an entire day working on a script and still not be happy with it. And I know that you have been there. The same thing with editing. You can come up with a video idea and shoot it in a way that allows you to edit a video in an hour, hour and a half, or you can do what I used to do and edit for eight to 10 hours per video and still not be happy with it, right? And so it really all depends on you and the systems that you have in place.

So then of course you need to have a daily shutdown. No analytics after 8:00 p.m. tomorrow's brain can see patterns. Tonight brains sees emotions. Once you post your video, check on it for the first like 30 minutes to an hour. Let it go. Check in and again it tomorrow. You don't have to obsess about the analytics constantly. This is how you end up making mistakes and screwing things up. Quick question. What two distractions will you hardb for the next three video uploads?

Let me know down in the comments what your distractions are. Next up, you want to install powerful publishing haddocks. This is where output creates insight and insight creates improvement and improvement creates growth. So here is your weekly OS that you can repeat every 7 days. If this is the pattern that you want to go with, I would say this is the more in-depth version. If you want to, you can do all of this in one day.

You can do this in under an hour a day. But this is a kind of general idea. Day number one, if you don't have a lot of time, pick a topic. Once you have the idea mind set up, you shouldn't need this day. It should eliminate this. Uh, day number two, title and thumbnail sprint. Come up with 20 titles, top three. Uh, sketch out three thumbnails, pick one. All this can be optimized and brought down a lot faster as well.

Uh, beat sheet. You can write out 8 to 12 beats, each of them with a payoff your viewer would screenshot. This is something that I love to put in videos, either stats or quotes or things that people want to pause the video on. Then of course your scripting dock. You can write out your script that you'll read to camera like this or you can do what I do on most my videos on my other channel um where I come up with an outline.

And I think that is the fastest way. If your goal is again to kind of get in that like 5 hours a week framework, then this is the long version and the short version would be uh anything where you're literally not reading an entire paper. But this way I I think it's a lot more in depth. So it depends on what you're going for. Um and then you can have your scripting dock where you're doing that. you can record. Uh recording shouldn't take more than 20 to 30 minutes if you're doing it correctly.

Uh unless you're doing extreme amounts of B-roll and stuff and even uh your B-roll can be really uh systematized. Then editing your cutting out uh add only meaningful motion. Make sure that every shot serves a purpose. Editing can take anywhere from 3 to 5 hours or once you systematize anywhere from 1 to two hours generally. end card, some type of system to get people to finish watching this video and to move to another video by being very conscious again, which you can do when you have a clear mind to get them to the next point.

And then a post-publish review. It should only take about 20 minutes where after 30 minutes, 24 hours, 48 hours, and 72 hours, you can uh get some review on how things are going, when people are leaving the video, uh how the stats are doing, and adjust accordingly. tracking. Things that you should be tracking are CTR, uh, AVD, views for one hour, 24 hours, and seven days, end screen CTR. If people aren't clicking through from one video to another, maybe you need to improve something.

Uh, next video, uh, look for trends, not for perfection. It's not going to work every single time. Uh, most likely. So, quick questions. What days are you going to publish? What is your publishing day? and what single video will you push for the next three uploads to push your viewing loop. So now we get into how the actual algorithm works translated for humans. The truth is the algorithm serves viewers not creators.

It is not built for us. It is built for them. It optimizes for session satisfaction. Did this video cause this person to keep watching YouTube and be happy that they are on the platform so the platform can make lots of money? That's all they care about. Your controllables equal their outcomes. So topic market fit is initial interest. Impressions worth serving. Uh title and thumbnail promise equal click-through rate. Do they care?

Are they intrigued about this? The hook and setup equal early retention. Do they regret that they just clicked on your video or are they happy and they're going to continue to watch? Uh retention architecture, average view duration and satisfaction. Is their payoff density? Are they still happy? Are they staying to the end to make sure that they get what they clicked on the video for? And then session depth, which is suggested traffic.

Do they watch another video ideally of yours because they had a good time on this platform and they are happy? So, a couple benchmarks you can look out for is CTR. Aim for that 7 uh to 10% plus. It's going to vary drastically based on channel size, uh, and based on niche and impressions. So, like once you get like a million views, it'll probably drop down to, you know, a couple percent, maybe 3%, 2%. Uh, but at the beginning, you could be up by 10, 12, 15% depending on your video.

APV 40 to 55% on like roughly, you know, an 8 to 15 minute video. Again, this varies a lot. Uh, end card CTR, uh, 3 to 10% would be ideal. Other things that you can track is, are people clicking on links in your video? Are they going and checking out your offers, your lead magnets, your affiliate links, whatever you have in the description? How many people are clicking per thousand views? You need to figure that out.

Uh, if you have a low CTR, uh, you can figure out that the pro it's a promise problem. If you have a high CTR, but an early drop, you have a hook setup problem. If you have a midv video dip, you have a beat and pacing or payoff density problem. If you have no suggested views, your session depth problem, and you should fix your end card or your series designed, or you do have a series that people are binging. All right, so next up, we have the six levers that if you do this, you will win.

So number one is the topic market bit. This is a great question that you should be asking when you're making your videos. Would my viewer share this because it solves or it signals? Are is there a reason that they would share your content? And a couple tests you could see if there is a topic market fit is you uh YouTube search, Google trends, uh comment pane, forum threads, and your own DMs. Now, number two is the title and thumbnail promise.

The rule here is that you want to have one promise, one emotion, and one visual idea. So the pattern here is that outcome without pain or pain without complexity. Generally what you're solving for. So the variations would be I tried X for 30 days or don't do X until you see this. It's what I use a lot in my sauna and cold plunge reviews. They're like don't buy this sauna until you watch this video. Uh and then this is the blueprint behind X.

It's kind of um what we're doing if you're trying to teach people. So the exercise would be write 20 titles before you script and sketch out three thumbnails before you film. Those are always two things that you want to do ahead of time. So number three is the first 30 seconds. So the job here is to confirm the promise and deliver a micro payoff in the opening loop. So this might look like uh you know the first beginning of the video is the promise and then you have the proof uh clip of stats why somebody should listen to you as opposed to everybody else and then 20 seconds in you set some some stakes some things that they're going to learn and then 25 you give the road map.

You explain what the video is going to happen, what they're going to get uh and and exactly what the payoff's going to be so that they watch through the whole goal of the first 30 seconds is just to sell the video. Then you have the retention uh architecture. So the beats here is to deliver a payoff every 20 to 40 seconds. So an alternative could be teaching, you know, story, visuals, just kind of breaking things up as you're going throughout.

And so a couple pattern breaks that you can do to keep people watching your videos are to zoom boards, props, cutaways, location changes, um, loom charts, Google Docs, uh, docs to screenshot stats, anything like that that breaks up the pattern, which is what you're trying to do. And so the question is, what screenshot worthy payoff am I giving every 30 seconds? Not every video is going to have this, but there should be some takeaway that you have every 30 seconds, every minute of your video that keeps the video progressing, that doesn't just keep you in one arc the entire video.

So then you have the value transfer. So people click out of novelty, but they stay for usefulness that they can feel. So this might be checklists, numbers, scripts, rules, decisions that you make. Again, ideally here, you're getting people to click just because of curiosity and then you're getting them to stay because you're giving them a bunch of things that they didn't even realize that they needed when they clicked on the video.

And then of course we have session depth. So the system here is that every video points to one next video that continues the same story problem. Ideally, what they would watch next is how I saved my first $100,000. Um, going down that that rabbit hole. Um, so this might be start here, beginner system, advanced system. Um, end card would be if you're serious about X, watch this next video where I will show you why. This is something that you think about ahead of time, much like the intro of your video, you think about this end card line.

So, your north star here is going to be one viewer, one mission, one behavior, and one business metric. Your identity is to choose a recognizable archetype, publish as that person for 90 days, and then you want to curate what you consume. You want to build a title swipe file uh and idea mine every single day till you have over a hundred of them. You want distractions. You want to ban the two that break your flow so you can make highquality content that is not distracted.

And then habits. You need to run the eightstep weekly iOS. And that is a little bit intensive. I'm not going to lie. It can be done faster than that, but if you're beginning, it it's probably going to take that long. Uh, and then you have your levers. You have your topic, your promise, your hook, your beats, your value, and your session. And the algorithm follows channels that follow people. If you build for people, the systems follow.

So, some actions here are to clarify, write your northstar sentence, and pick your two core metrics that you were going to focus on. Choose a publishing day, which is incredibly important. I'd say that's one of the most important things on this entire video. And then for your next three uploads, focus on a single end card target to build session depth. I feel like this only scratched the surface of what goes into YouTube, especially to making money on YouTube.

If you want to learn the exact system that I use to run three channels in 5 hours a week and how I was able to start this channel as a test that made $34,000 with only 700 subscribers, you can click the link in the description and check out the 5H hour YouTuber. And if you want to take things to the next level, I made a list of things that I learned after making 500 long form YouTube videos. I think you'll really find it valuable.

Thank you for watching.