You're never going to grow on YouTube if you're not doing these six things. I know because on my first channel, I posted 65 different videos and wasted an entire year of my life just to get a whopping 150 subscribers. I was following all the guru advice, but no matter what I did, it felt like the algorithm was just [ __ ] me and not in a loving consensual way. But then, everything changed. I went from getting 15 subs a month to 1,500 subscribers every single month.

And this transformation had nothing to do with being consistent, being lucky, or sacrificing a libido to the algorithm gods. The only difference between here and here, aside from not crying myself to sleep every night, was I started focusing all of my time into just six tactics. And fast forward to now, this is the same strategy that's helped me blow up my own channels, other people's channels generating billions of views.

So, I dare you to commit to this video. Watch it on repeat until all six of these tactics are burned into your neocortex, and then lock the [ __ ] in. Ignore the gurus, ignore that one Reddit gremlin who claims to have cracked the algorithm cuz his last short got 500 views, and just take focused action because I've never seen a channel doing all six of these things that isn't getting millions of views. So, let's get into this starting with our sixth most important tactic and working our way up to the number one most important, most juicy tactic cuz I want to milk as much watch time out of you as I possibly can.

Okay, first, I want to teach you about the power of a very special number, 77. And no, this is not some TikTok angel numbers [ __ ] There was actually a book called Art & Fear. And in that book is a famous experiment. There was this teacher and she taught pottery and she decided to split her pottery class into two groups. And she went to the first group and she's like, "Hey, you guys, you need to create as many clay pots as possible by the end of semester." And they're like, "Yep." And she went to the other group and she's like, "You guys, your job is to create the perfect clay pot by the end of semester." And they're all like, "Yep." So, both of the groups, they go away and they get to work.

The quality group meticulously sculpting every square millimeter of clay while whispering positive affirmations to it. And the quantity group churning out pots. There's clay everywhere, health and safety violations, child labor, all those good things. But something interesting happened. See, when the end of semester rolled around, the teacher reviewed all of the students' work and she found that the best quality clay pot actually came from the quantity group, the group tasked with creating as many clay pots as possible, not the quality group.

How does this happen? Well, when you think about it, the way you get better at something is practice, putting in the reps. And the quantity group put in so many reps, did so much practice creating clay pots that eventually they were creating near perfect clay pots. Now, bring this back to YouTube. Quality does beat quantity, but quality comes from quantity. The more videos you create, the more practice you get at making thumbnails, writing titles, coming up with ideas, writing scripts, presenting on camera.

And posting a high volume of content doesn't just help you practice your skills, it also gives you more opportunities to be discovered. It's simple math. If you post one video a month for 12 months, over the course of that year, you have essentially 12 opportunities to be discovered. But if you post two videos a week, you now have 104 opportunities to be discovered over the course of that year. And so, all of this brings us back to that number I mentioned at the beginning of this point, 77.

I did a study of 4,470 random YouTube channels to see how long it took each of them to reach a thousand subscribers. And what I found was, on average, it took these channels 77 videos to reach their first 1K subs. Now, if those channels knew the six tactics I'm going to show you in this video, they probably would have done it much sooner. I've seen multiple channels who do the six things we're about to talk about literally reach a thousand subs in their first five videos.

But I still share this 77 videos number because even though uploading videos frequently sounds a bit fork-found-in-kitchen-esque, it's clearly a non-negotiable, which is why it's the sixth tactic on this method. But how frequently should you upload videos? Well, there are some edge cases, but in general, I usually recommend one to two times per week if you're uploading long-form videos, bare minimum once every two weeks.

If you're creating shorts, I'd recommend three times per week, ideally once per day. And I know that sounds like a lot. I once had this animation channel come to me and he's like, "Marcus, it takes me two, three months to create a single animation for my channel. He's like, I physically can't create videos faster than that." And I'm like, "Okay, I get that, but you understand that posting once every three months isn't an upload schedule, that's a lunar cycle.

You're giving yourself four to six opportunities to be discovered every year. Unless you've done this before and you're certain that one of those videos is bound to go viral and make everything worthwhile, I don't like those odds. So, in a case like this, what I suggested to him is think about types of content you can create more frequently. Is it behind the scenes videos of your animations? Is it tutorial videos on how you create your animations?

Is it animation challenges like 24-hour animation challenge that is, by definition, time-bound. Now, as you grow and get experience, you can afford to start posting less frequently, but in the beginning, embrace your inner Bonnie Blue, just churn through a bunch of them. But let's take a step back for a minute because posting videos frequently is kind of like flour when you're baking a cake. Yes, it's an important step, but it's boring as [ __ ] and no one wants to eat just a bowl of flour.

So, the magic doesn't come from one individual ingredient, it comes from combining all of them. And so, if you actually want to get more views, let's talk about some of those other ingredients now. Cuz here's the thing, there are 20 million videos uploaded on YouTube every single day. YouTube has 20 billion videos on the platform. Not to mention, 21 to 33% of content is apparently now AI slop. So, the problem is, even if you're posting videos frequently, there's a lot of other videos out there, a lot of competition.

Not to mention, as soon as something starts working, everyone starts copying it. So, how do you make sure people come to your videos and not your competitors? Well, the secret is branding. And in a moment, I'll prove it to you, but first, we need to talk about what branding actually is because most people hear branding and they think, "Oh, my logo, my music, my color scheme, plastering my face on every thumbnail I make." No, your branding is the flavor you bring to the type of content you create.

And I know that sounds about as specific as a tarot card reading, so let me give you a more concrete way of looking at this. So, imagine your brand is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle, lots of different pieces, and on their own, each individual piece doesn't really mean much until it's combined with all the others and comes together to create sort of like a holistic image. For example, the Mr. Beast brand, if we were to break it down into different puzzle pieces, I like to call these X-factors.

It could be his philanthropic efforts. It could be the extreme stakes, money items he gives away. The extreme scale of his videos, including hundreds of participants or running over very lengthy time periods. The novelty of the spectacles he creates. Or even little things like the casual, unprofessional vibe he's managed to keep within such a large-scale production. And there are a bunch of other things that all come together to create Jimmy's jigsaw puzzle brand, to create his flavor.

And obviously, the Mr. Beast brand is going to be different to yours, but you can use this same methodology to build your brand consciously. And when you do that properly, like I'll show you in a second, that's when you start getting loyal viewers. And even if you don't have many of them, a loyal, cult-like fan base is going to send really positive signals to the YouTube algorithm and make it so much more likely that your content's going to get pushed out to other, wider audiences.

So, let me show you how to do this. Basically, you can go grab a piece of paper and we're going to create two lists. Now, the first list is the kind of obvious one. You want to think about the value that your videos actually provides. Like, why would anyone watch your videos? And don't just say, "Oh, to be entertained, to be educated." Be specific here. Is it to laugh from relatable dark humor? To see novel spectacles they've never seen before?

To be a virtual BFF? To get the very best advice on how to go deeper and longer in Minecraft? So, list out all the things and then take the most important ones, the ones that jump out at you as being the things that make you the most unique and that viewers would care about the most. And then think about, how can you exaggerate them? How can you do more of that within your content? For example, one of mine is I really make a conscious effort to give you guys data and actually give you guys real case studies on why the things I'm telling you are actually important.

Surprisingly, it's not commonplace in the YouTube education space. The most commonly cited source in the YouTube education space is, "Trust me, bro." The other thing I try to not be boring as hell for you guys. YouTube is hard enough as it is without having to sit through some 20-minute guru with a personality of a wet towel lecture you about YouTube analytics. Now, I don't do this anywhere near as well as I should, but you kind of get the idea.

Get specific about what value you bring to your viewers, and then consciously focus on that, exaggerate it, level it up in your videos. Now, the second thing, the second list you want to make is more about flavor. Think about the unique quirks or qualities you have as a person, the seasonings. Now, be careful cuz these X-factors can end up being like farts. You force them and they end up being [ __ ] But ideally, just find the things that make you you and make sure those things show up in your videos, even if they're not traits that are super impressive or that you're proud of.

There was a psychologist who, I can't remember her name, but said something like humans are attracted to other people's rough edges. And so, in a nutshell, creating a magnetic brand is about just breaking down the puzzle pieces, the X-factors, and figuring out what's the value that viewers are coming to your videos for, and then what are the unique personality quirks and characteristics you have, and then intentionally leaning into those.

I'm going to show you exactly what I mean in a second, but before we get to that, I need to thank today's sponsor, GenSpark AI. And I know what you're thinking, here we go, another ChatGPT wrapper. But GenSpark actually did something kind of crazy. They went from zero to 200 million in annual revenue in just 11 months. And when a company grows that fast, usually there's something pretty interesting about their product.

GenSpark's basically an all-in-one AI workspace. So, instead of having to jump between tools like ChatGPT or Claude and so on, everything's just all under one roof. And now with the AI workspace 3.0, they've added a bunch of new features. The main one is GenSpark Claude agent. And this doesn't just chat with you, it actually does things. Like you can ask it to research something, then turn that research into a full presentation, then create an email to send about the presentation, and so on.

So, it's less of a chatbot and more of a virtual assistant handling things for you. And it all runs on their cloud setup, so everything works in one click, so you don't have to set anything up like and your [clears throat] data stays private. They also added a workflows feature that lets you automate repetitive tasks like automatically turning your daily notes into a formatted report or generating content from the same structure every time.

And there's now even a meeting bot which can join your calls, record everything, and send you clean, organized notes afterwards. So you don't have to take notes or rewatch meetings ever again. Plus you've got the existing tools like AI slides, AI designer, and even AI developer. So you can go from idea to execution all in one place. And if you sign up now, you get unlimited AI chat and image generation for the rest of 2026.

So big thanks to GenSpark for sponsoring. Link is below. But now, back to the video. But the obvious question people ask here is, "Okay, that's cool, makes sense. But if I'm not getting views, how do people even get exposed to my brand?" Well, sadly the answer is not buy moldavite and manifest harder. See, to start answering that question, we actually need to introduce you to a man named Todd. Now, Todd has worked at YouTube for over a decade.

He basically leads the YouTube algorithm team, who or they call it like the recommendation system team, and he's friends with Mr. Beast. Just kind of cool. And in a recent interview, he said this. >> The recommendation system, sometimes we describe it as automating word of mouth. Did you catch that? Automating word of mouth. It sounds like a casual throwaway concept, but if you really understand this, you'll know more about the algorithm than 95% of people.

So think about how videos went viral back in the good old days, you know, when Scaveus was rampant and algorithms didn't exist. So you find a great video, you love it, and then you send it to a friend who you think would also love it. That's word of mouth. What Todd and his team are trying to do is automate word of mouth. Do that at scale. So you find a video, you love it, but instead of you then needing to manually send that video to a friend you might think enjoyed, the algorithm is creepily watching you like some stalker ex.

It notices that you love that video, and it goes and recommends that video now to other people like your friend, but also other people you don't even know who have similar viewing habits, similar interests to you, who it thinks, "Hey, they might also enjoy this video, too." And almost just as importantly, this process works in reverse. So for example, if I'm promoted a video and I see it and I'm like, "No, thank you." the algorithm is like, "Noted.

We're going to be less likely to send videos like that to Marcus again, or other people who are similar to Marcus." Now, so far what I've said is kind of common knowledge, but here's the part that screws small creators. So imagine I click on one of your videos, I'm hooked, I love it. And so at the end of that video, I go and click to your channel and try and find more videos like the one I just watched, and none of your other videos look anything like the one I just watched or anything like anything that would interest me.

And so I leave your channel. Now, remember throughout this, the algorithm has been watching me Big Brother style. And when it notices my disappointment with the rest of your content, it's like, "Okay, I'm going to be less likely to promote that type of content to Marcus again." But not only that, I'm going to be less likely to promote that content to people who are similar to Marcus. And if this process happens enough times, it starts getting really hard to grow your channel.

And so the way to solve this problem, it's actually the fourth point on this method. I call it serial consistency. See, most people get consistency wrong. They think, "Oh, it just means uploading lots of videos." That is called frequency, not consistency. But the literal definition of consistency is always behaving or performing in a similar way. In other words, it's about keeping things like your X factors, your production style, your characters, your topics, not exactly the same every single time cuz that gets boring, but generally quite coherent.

And so here's what you need to do. Every time you create a video, ask yourself, "Is this video going to attract the kind of viewer who would then go and want to watch all my other recent videos?" If the answer is no, you're being inconsistent and the chances of you attracting a very diversified audience and confusing the algorithm gets quite high. Now, this is not an excuse to be dumb and do the same thing over and over and over again for months.

That's clearly not working. But that's where the serial part of serial consistency comes in. See, when you create content consistently to the point that you feel like you've pretty much done everything you can possibly do reasonably to make that content work. Depending on your skill level, it's commonly four to 10 videos for most people. And then if it's not working, try something else and then be consistent in doing that other thing for a while until that doesn't work.

And then you just keep repeating that process until you find that thing that works. But how do you know what has a higher likelihood of working and getting views for your niche? Well, to answer that, we need to go to the next point on the method. A lot of people talk about this. Make a core video and make better videos. Make better videos. Everything you want as a creator comes from making the best videos possible. Cool, but what does good content actually mean?

See, most people think good content means great lighting, an amazing microphone, professional studio. But I want to show you something. So this video was filmed using a webcam. The lighting consists of a small LED panel and an LED strip panel on the back from AliExpress, less than 100 bucks for both. We're using the mighty 9-year-old Blue Yeti. And if there was an Olympic award for the boringest, most lazy YouTube studio ever, I'm pretty sure this one would take home the gold.

See, by pretty much every objective standard, this is a low-quality video. But it got over 5 million views. Oh my god. And it's not the only one. See, right now is a bit of an exception cuz I'm traveling, wanted to try something different. But 90% of the videos on my channel, I intentionally shoot with a really shitty setup. And yet I currently have the second largest YouTube education channel in the world based on long-form monthly views.

Soon to be first. Look out, VidIQ. And this probably seems like I'm trying to brag or dunk on my competitors here. But I intentionally blow up videos with a shitty setup to show you guys great content isn't about 4K lighting, studios, any of that stuff. Now, that stuff can be useful. It can help a little. But the best definition of good content is content that retains viewers, regardless of what it looks like. So the question is then, how do you retain viewers?

Well, you probably know the basics. You need a good hook. Don't be boring and have long silent patches. Make sure your audio is understandable, people know what you're saying, etc., etc. And those things are important. But I do want to talk about some lesser-known, like less cliché things to hopefully help take your videos really to the next level. So what I like to do is create what I call a database of all of the competitor channels in my niche.

You can use a tool like My Tool Valuer to do this. Basically, Valuer will go out there and track all the different channels in your niche. And then once it does that, you want to go down here to filters. You got to click on filters, add a last 3 years filter, then come hit apply. And then after that, we go to this sort button and sort by I'm just going to go outlier score for now, but you can also do views as well. And what you're going to see now is across your niche the top videos in the last 3 years.

And what you want to do is watch these videos, read their transcripts, and break down their structure. And so you can take that structure and use it for your own next video. Now, I'm not saying you should copy. Don't copy what they're saying. Don't copy their stories. But just look at it as like an overarching framework that you can insert your own stories, your own tips, your own tricks, your own lessons and learnings into.

Now, when you're doing that, when you're following the general beats of these top-performing videos, here are some things you also want to keep in mind. First, open curiosity loops. Think about it like there should always be some sort of unresolved question or story or something that makes the viewer feel like they're going to miss out if they click off your video. They want to see who wins. They want to see if you complete the challenge.

They want to see what all six of the magical YouTube tactics are that you're teaching. And also, when you're consciously opening these FOMO loops, make sure you don't spoil the ending. So many people do this. So consciously open loops. There should always be a tangible reason why someone would want to continue watching your video, why they shouldn't just click off the video right now. And then don't spoil that reason.

Don't give them the payoff until they get to the end. If you're talking about something, show that thing on screen. If you're getting excited about something, don't play chill music. I had a travel creator the other day and at a certain point in their video, they were talking about how much money they spent on their holiday and they were just showing random clips. If you're talking about spending money, show yourself spending money.

If you're talking about blowing up YouTube channels, show analytics of YouTube channels being blown up. And the other thing is satisfying people. Now, we've all been there. We've all watched a video. We've been retained by a video for a long period of time, but for whatever reason, we got to the end and the payoff wasn't what we expected it to be. You watched the video, but you're dissatisfied with it by the end. The algorithm is actually not bad at detecting that.

So when you're structuring your video and you're using the techniques we're talking about, do it ethically. You can't cheat your way into getting a ton of views multiple times. Yes, you want to open loops and create FOMO, but then make sure you actually deliver on that FOMO and satisfy people at the end. And speaking of end, let's talk about finishing quickly, which I know is a phrase that would have triggered a lot of you men watching this.

But once you've opened and closed all the loops, there is no reason for a viewer to continue sticking around other than listening to your, "Well, thanks for watching, guys. Na, na, na." No, just end the video. End it quickly. If you just think about your structure, do these things we talked about while also doing the basic obvious stuff everyone talks about like, "Oh, have a good hook and make sure people can understand what you're saying." Again, you'll be creating content better than 95% of people out there.

But this still doesn't answer the question, see, open loop, of what do you do if you have good content, you are being consistent, you're posting frequently, you have a brand, but nobody is being exposed to you in the first place. You're not getting views. Well, that is exactly where the next two points on this method are game-changing. Let's do this. So if you come to your analytics tab on YouTube here, and you come across to reach, reach basically shows you how many people the algorithm actually pushed your video out to.

So some of you are like, "The algorithm isn't sharing my video." And while it might not be sharing your video to the scale at which you would like, usually it is sharing your video to an extent. Now, sometimes it genuinely isn't sharing your video. And if that is the case, the next point that we'll talk about will fix that. But for a lot of you, if you're doing that thing, you will be getting some impressions, which impressions is basically how you can count whether the algorithm has promoted your video.

So what a lot of creators see is they get some impressions, but not many of those impressions click. In other words, their videos aren't very clickable. And the main aspects of making your video clickable, your video packaging, uh your title and thumbnail. And yes, everyone talks about it. It's cliché as hell. But it is important. It's cliché because it's true. And then you've probably heard all the make your thumbnail bright, have like eye-catching colors, and make sure you don't have too much text in it, and all this all that stuff, right?

So let's again, like we did with the last point, let's just talk about the lesser-known things that can actually have a really big difference. So the first one is your title and thumbnail actually need to collaborate, work together with each other to create a holistic package. That's why it's called packaging. For example, you see this thumbnail on screen, you have no idea what it's about. And then you see the title, it all makes sense.

Now, these are exaggerated examples, but you get the point. Too many creators treat their title and thumbnails as completely separate entities. For example, they might put the same text in their title as they do in their thumbnail. That's wasted real estate. When your title and thumbnail work together as a team, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So, for example, if you're creating a gaming video, like this is one of my gaming channels.

It was a funny moments video, and I could have put funny moments in the thumbnail and funny moments in the title, which is what I used to do when I was stupid. But then when I became mildly less stupid, I put funny moments in the title and then showed visually a funny moment in the thumbnail. Now, the other thing you want to do, this is probably the most important thing, is think about viewer psychology. So, what I want you to do is think about the deeper meaning, or what's often called the narrative tension within your thumbnail.

Not just what pretty colors and shapes the pixels are physically creating within your thumbnail, but the story behind it, the meaning it implies. For example, on that same gaming channel, I have this thumbnail that performed really well. For those who don't know, this guy over here is Obi-Wan, and he's stabbing his apprentice, which sounds a lot like a sexual harassment lawsuit when I say it like that. The story that made this thumbnail interesting is the deeper meaning behind this specific character, Obi-Wan, stabbing his own apprentice.

If this had been Obi-Wan just stabbing a random player, could have been the exact same thumbnail, colors, design, layout, text, all that stuff, and it would have got 10 times less views. Now, not every thumbnail necessarily has lore this deep, but I want to encourage you to think about the deeper meaning behind what your thumbnail is actually saying to people, the psychology. And when you start thinking on this new level, you'll unlock a whole new world of clickability.

But all of this, not just this point, but everything we've talked about today, would be a complete waste of time without this next point. It's the thing I enjoy talking about the most cuz I think it is the most impactful thing on YouTube. So, let's get into this. One of my favorite analogies for life and YouTube is you cannot polish a turd. So, [clears throat] think about a movie. A movie can have the best actors, the best editors, the best cinematographers, the best director, but if the plot, the core storyline of the movie sucks, it is unsaveable, as has been demonstrated many times.

And with YouTube, you could have the best thumbnail designer, you could have the best video editor, you could have the best YouTube strategist, but you will still fail every time if you have an uninteresting video idea. But what actually is a video idea? Well, I like to break it down as a topic that meets a format. Now, a topic is essentially the answer to what is this video about? For example, video about tying your shoes, what's the video about?

Tying your shoes. That's the topic. Now, the format is the way in which that video is presented. Is it a shoe tying challenge video? Is it a shoe tying tutorial video? Is it a shoe tying unboxing video? So, that's how an idea is formed, but what makes for an interesting video idea? Well, Alex Hormozi talks about an inverse frame. So, when you want to figure out what to do, sometimes it's easier to look at what not to do.

And so, let's do that for video ideas. What makes for a bad, uninteresting video idea is one, it is boring. It's not novel, unique, extreme, quirky enough to be interesting. If I made a video about what I had for lunch today, nobody cares. It's boring. But that's not all. You also need to think about the next thing, which is timing. Sometimes things are interesting at a certain point in time, and then no longer interesting at a different point in time.

For example, in the gaming space, you see this all the time. New game releases or new update releases. But if you were to then take those ideas and try to recreate them again in 6, 12 months time, they completely flop. Even though the ideas are exactly the same, the timing is off. And then the last thing, which I think is probably the most important of all of them, is supply and demand, which is not 67, it's an economic term.

Essentially, think of supply as the amount of videos being made on a certain topic, the amount of people coming up with that idea, i.e., competition, and demand, the amount of viewers who want to watch or interested in that type of video. So, particularly, I want to talk about supply here. If you come up with an idea that's great, but there are 100 other people who've also come up with the exact same idea and executed on it.

Even though your idea in a vacuum, in isolation, is cool, it's not going to do well on YouTube. Unless there is an extremely clear reason why people should watch your video instead of the other 100 out there that are doing well. Now, on the demand front, you can have a video that's really interesting to a certain number of people, but that number of people is very small. I can make a really interesting video about the camping survival filter that's highly interesting to a very small segment of people who are interested in water surviving camping water filters, but not to a much broader segment of the market, right?

People often call this TAM, or your total addressable market. So, what you ideally want is like low supply, low competition, and high demand. Lots of people want to watch, lots of viewers want to watch this type of video. And I know that's a little complex, so let me show you some examples that will hopefully help really bring this why you need great ideas concept home. There are two videos on screen right now. Which one would you rather click on?

Thumbnails very similar, titles identical, but one of them much more novel. Approaching one girl, you see that on every wannabe pickup artist Instagram page. Or how about this one? World's largest explosion versus big explosion. Titles almost the same, thumbnails almost the same, but one of them far more novel. Or how about this one? Easiest way to make $10 a month on TikTok versus easiest way to make $10,000 a month on TikTok.

I know we're really oversimplifying things here, but if you could literally take one thing away from this video, it should just be this. Like hopefully you can see how exact same title, exact same thumbnail, could be almost the exact same content, exact same structure, exact same everything, but if the idea is how to make