This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What do you do to get someone to like you? What do you do to get somebody to like you? Well, I guess, you know, the usual. You send flowers, you text a hundred times a day, you ignore the restraining order because obviously they want you to be persistent. They want you to work for it.
Wait, I'm getting carried away. This is now reminding me of last week's question about getting ghosted by a client. Obviously, I'm still not over that. I've just been working through some issues. Perhaps a better question here, that's what we're gonna talk about in this episode.
How do you get an algorithm to like you? You know an algorithm, right? It's that thing that determines which TikTok videos are shown to you, which Instagram reels you see, which Facebook posts. It's also what gives you your Google search results or your Amazon search results. Come to think of it, this algorithm is pretty involved in your life.
I guess there's more than one of them, but the algorithm, broadly speaking, collectively speaking, is pretty involved in your life. And so our caller here is making a YouTube series, but he's not getting the traction he'd like. The traction, the attention, the views, that's what it's about. Of course, at least on YouTube. So with YouTube, like all of these web two services, the algorithm is really important.
Is there anything he can do to have his videos seen by more people? That's today's question, the detailed question, and my answer coming right up. [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Thomas, and I've been following your work for a while. I've been making a weekly YouTube series, and every week I get a couple of hundred views. It's not usually much less than that, but also usually not much more.
So in other words, growth is slow. I know that so much of what happens on YouTube is determined by the videos that are recommended to people, but it's unclear how this process works. How can I get the algorithm to like me? Thanks. [Music]
Thomas, what's up, man?
Congratulations on the YouTube series. So much of this does have to do with just consistency and continuing to improve along the way, just showing up. I do think that's the first thing to say, but when we're actually looking at the algorithm and such, like there is a bit of an art and science to it, it's something that a lot of people study in great detail. Nobody knows exactly how it works because the algorithm is secret. Google, which owns YouTube, they don't wanna say here's exactly how you do it.
And they're also frequently changing it and updating it. So from time to time, a creator's videos, all of a sudden get this huge boost. And they think, well, what did I do? And they may not have done anything. It may actually have been YouTube, or the opposite could occur, and they think, oh, all of a sudden I'm not doing a good job or I've made some really big mistake.
And maybe that's not the case, right? 'Cause some of this is outside your control. Now, there are a couple of things you can do. None of them are really groundbreaking. It's just like if you watch a bunch of videos on YouTube, especially from professional content creators, the ones who are really good at their jobs, they always encourage viewers to like and subscribe and get notifications.
It might seem annoying as a viewer, but they try to do it in just kind of a quick way right at the beginning. Hey, be sure to like, hit that subscribe button. And they do that because it's so important. It affects the algorithm. It affects the algorithm to show engagement, to show that people are wanting more content from this creator.
Another thing you can do is make your videos snackable, like encourage repeat viewing. Just think as you outline your videos and you begin to work on the process, the calendar for them, what's gonna encourage somebody to watch this video and then immediately want to watch another one from you? And YouTube makes this easy because they want people to watch more videos. So in the editing process for your video, there's a way to put two suggestions for what to watch next, essentially. Now, those are a couple of basic things, but the reality is we don't know.
And at some point, the benefit of the algorithm just kicks in. It can be a marvelous thing when it works 'cause it really can take those plateaued numbers and skyrocket them. But also just to be completely truthful, sometimes it doesn't, you know? So you should definitely work for it, but you should also ask yourself, would I make this if, you know, growth continue to be somewhat slow? Would I make this if the algorithm never liked me, no matter what I did?
Even if I sent flowers or emojis or cat gifs, would you keep making this content even if a large number of people never discovered it? That's for you to answer, but I think it's worth thinking about. Okay, that's my two cents. Listeners, if you've got a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Let me know what you're working on.
Also, let me know what the project is so we can share that with our listeners as well. I always love doing that. And I hope you will subscribe, follow, come back tomorrow. That's it for now. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
