Exploring YouTube Analytics

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YouTube.com has been for some time the leading social video exchange site. It is also a very important site to promote your music. From the recent viral video and dance craze of Gangnam Style to talent discovery (Bieber), YouTube has the potential of propelling an artist’s career. But first you need to understand how to create content that will attract fans and go viral. While there is no true answer to this question as viral videos are subjective the basics is create as high of quality and dig into the analytics of your channel. YouTube being owned by Google has a tab for Analytics in your Channel Manager and just like Google Analytics a very detailed report can help you determine what works and does not work for your viewership.

  While researching I generated a report for the Asura Records channel on YouTube, I found the demographic information to be inline with past marketing research. The engagement aspect is a very worthwhile metric as it shows top viewed videos for your channel. Breaking down total minutes viewed per video and average time viewed with a average percentage compared to the length of the video. I went on to dig up further articles on the subject of YouTube Analytics and found two worth noting here.

How to master your data with YouTube Analytics is a blog article that breaks down how to interpret data on your analytics page.  This article focuses on the retention metric used in the report, specifically Absolute Retention and Relative Retention. Absolute is a measurement comparing watch time versus the length of the video being watched. Relative is a comparison to other videos of same type and length. Bottom line add this blog to your reader as many tips and news about YouTube are posted through this medium.

While figuring out how to attract and retain fans is the goal of analytics, for some the fast road of paid visits to build perception of popularity is also present with YouTube as with other sites like ReverbNation. I found an article by Brian Hazard that describes the tool and “Dirty Little Secret”. This article describes a site and service by Vagex that users can purchase hits to their YouTube channel. Further Brian himself uses the service in an experiment on one of his own recently posted videos to determine the quality of hits. While the service gives the impression of popularity through increase hits the retention metric is thrown off by using these types of services. If your metric is based on false hits then how can one determine the true effectiveness of a posted video? Therein lies the danger, do not delude ones self through bloated metrics. Figure out what really works then repeat!

References

Hazard, Brian (January 11, 2013). YouTube’s Dirty Little Secret. Music Think Tank. Retrieved from: http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/youtubes-dirty-little-secret.html

Image 1. (2011). googleanalyticsyoutube.jpg [digital image]. Hudson Horizons. Retrieved from: http://blog.hudsonhorizons.com/Article/YouTube-Rolls-Out-YouTube-Analytics.htm

n.a. (May 29, 2012). How to master your data with YouTube Analytics. YouTube Creator Blog, YouTube.com, Google, Inc. Retrieved from: http://youtubecreator.blogspot.com/2012/05/this-is-part-of-ongoing-series-sharing.html