Are Longer Videos the Secret to Solving the YouTube Algorithm?

 

Credit to https://www.tubefilter.com/2017/04/04/four-strategies-for-the-freshest-content-on-youtube/

I have been uploading on YouTube lately, sticking to an upload of posting a horror video once a week. From my personal experience, I have learned something new, and while it doesn’t work with every video, I have noticed three videos have gotten quite a bit of views. All because these three videos had one thing in common: they were all a bit longer than most of my other videos!

Another thing that I think led to the videos getting more views, are the topics that I decided to go over for these videos. I also focused on something else this time around, going for analysis or theories when it comes to horror movies or the characters that appear in these films. 

The first video that I did was over one character from the Godfather, who went through his downfall, going from a good man to a monster during the film. It was an analysis video going over the character’s transformation. 

This video received a total of 361 views. 

It also got about 3.6 public watch hours. (I honestly don’t remember, but I think that was the around the range).

Screenshot of my YouTube channel. 

My second video was based on the ending to John Carpenter’s The Thing, and this video went over a huge theory. There has always been a huge mystery surrounding Childs, one of the last survivors in the film that horror fans believed he had become a monster toward the ending of the movie, and I really wanted to go over all of the clues on this theory. 

This video got about 237 views. 

This video has received about 7.7 public watch hours. 

The third video was my most recent one, that got the most views so far on my YouTube channel. This video was similar to the second video, that was going over another ending that disturbed me. This film is not exactly horror, but the ending and the dark events that take place are so insane, that I had to do a theory video on this film. 

Eyes Wide Shut has been one video I have been wanting to go over for a long time, and I was surprised by how many views this video got!

This video got about 735 views!

It has received a total of 40.2 public watch hours.

Screenshot of my YouTube channel.

Compared to my short videos, they barely got any views compared to the longer videos. Sure, some of them did decent, kind of like one video that got about 700ish views, but I think that one was just luck. From the research I have done online, many people claim that working on longer videos is possible to get more views. Apparently, the YouTube algorithm loves to suggest longer videos for people to check out, and I’m glad that I decided to go down this route with my channel!

It definitely does take longer to make a video, but in my opinion, working on longer videos is ten times more fun compared to the short ones. I feel that I dedicate more editing time to these videos, and it feels like I’m really putting an effort! On the plus side, it’s so damn fun, and I enjoy it! 

The only downside, and I’m glad I have already learned about this obstacle with YouTube, it’s not exactly a good idea to post actual footage from the films or TV shows you want to include in the video. I have gotten two copyright strikes, and while this does not affect the video from getting views, people have claimed that YouTube can sometimes come back to bite you in the ass with these copyright strikes. So, from now on, I’m going to avoid using real footage, and stick to only images, which seems to be working pretty well for me!

Do you have a YouTube channel? What kind of videos work for you?