Social Media Marketing: December 2023

What are some marketer-approved, must-use tools for creating content? Ask social media managers to name some of their favorite and you’ll undoubtedly hear Canva and Grammarly mentioned a lot.

With more than 30 million people and 70,000 teams using this tool daily, Grammarly has become the number one writing assistant, improving the way people communicate through more accurate grammar and expressions.

But what does Grammarly stand for beyond the app?

More info about the brand’s identity, social strategy, successful campaigns, and more will be revealed going forward.

Let’s jump in!

Marketing tactics to learn from Grammarly's marketing strategy

What is Grammarly's marketing strategy on TikTok?
What is Grammarly's marketing strategy on Instagram?
What is Grammarly's marketing strategy on Facebook?
Grammarly’s marketing campaigns
Grammarly marketing strategy - key stats and takeaways

1. What is Grammarly’s marketing strategy on TikTok?

Grammarly launched its TikTok channel back in 2020 and since then has gained over 111K followers.

According to Parisa Pourhabib, Social Media and Community Lead at Grammarly:

“TikTok is the first destination for what will go viral”

So, to make sure the brand doesn’t miss out on any trend, Grammarly has launched its TikTok account at the best timing possible - during the COVID19 pandemic. With people so focused on staying connected with everyone and everything, Grammarly’s TikTok account bloomed over this time.

On this platform, Grammarly uses a content mix - sharing both informational and funny videos.

If we take a look of their most engaging hashtags over the past year, we can also easily discover what niches they’re targeting on this TikTok:

Some of the most popular niches for them are:

#genai
#corporatetok
#productivity
#studenttok
#corporatehumor

In terms of posting frequency on TikTok, Grammarly is not too consistent. There are times when they post daily or every 2 days, other times they take a week off from posting.

Most videos are human-centric, meaning they feature one or more social media team members who are either lip-syncing a popular meme or talking about one of Grammarly’s products. They also share popular meme templates, which they adapt to their own TikTok strategy:

2. What is Grammarly’s marketing strategy on Instagram?

Grammarly’s Instagram strategy can be summed up in three words: education, comedy and inspiration.

Most of Grammarly’s Instagram posts are memes or motivational sayings written down on a simple and colorful background. This makes their content extremely relatable and shareable.

Through its humoristic and motivational approach, Grammarly is actually one of the most humanized brands on social media.

Our social media industry benchmarks study has shown that most brands have a Reel-first content strategy, and Grammarly is no exception. Reels are the most frequently posted, as well as the most engaging post type for this brand.

Their post captions are on the shorter side (usually one phrase), with the exception of product posts which tend to run a tad longer.

3. What is Grammarly’s marketing strategy on Facebook?

Facebook is Grammarly’s most active channel, with the largest audience and largest number of posts shared in the past 2 years.

On Facebook, Grammarly shares mostly educational posts like applicable tips, mixing them with inspirational photos every now and then, while the brand’s visual identity consists of fun and playful visuals.

In terms of posting frequency, posts are going out almost daily, sometimes multiple times a day. No wonder this channel is at the top of the list.

4. Grammarly's marketing campaigns

Parisa revealed to us, in an episode of our podcast, that for Grammarly’s social media campaigns, they take inspiration from what other brands do - on social media, in their paid ads campaigns, on their websites, and so on.

Through its marketing campaigns and initiatives, Grammarly aims primarily to build and nurture relationships between the brand and its consumers, rather than to push sales.

To do so, in elaborating its marketing campaigns, Grammarly makes sure to check every aspect of this six steps strategy the brand elaborated, that Parisa shared with us:

establishing objectives;
defining the target audience: demographics, habits, and devices used;
using insights gained through past campaigns;
setting KPIs;
creating a timeline;
planning the creatives and deliverables.

Mental Health Awareness

One Grammarly campaign Parisa is particularly proud of is the Mental Health Awareness one.

This campaign was launched back in 2019, across all channels, and it’s been revived each year since.

Using Socialinsider, I looked at Grammarly campaign data dating back 2 years, and it looks like this campaign is still earning the brand quite a lot of visibility and engagement.

Write The Future

Grammarly’s marketing strategy is primarily focused on showcasing how people’s lives can be improved through improved communication.

In line with this direction, Grammarly’s social media campaign - “Write the future” highlights how Grammarly’s products support written communication in daily life, being a most helpful ally in important or pressing moments.

The brand's campaign features a series of video ads that deliver a loud and clear message - whenever you need help writing a flawless piece of content - whether it's a best man's speech, a term paper, a work e-mail, or whatever, Grammarly’s got your back.

With every video, Grammarly added one more example on the list of how, by using the brand's app, anyone can make their writing more straightforward and more effective and, as a result, find greater satisfaction and success in their life.

5. Grammarly marketing strategy - key stats and takeaways

Overall, I’d say Grammarly is a brand that knows how to create and preserve its social media identity, how to be human and appeal to the needs and preferences of our audience.

Launched back in 2009, Grammarly devoted its first years of existence to creating a solid selling strategy first-hand oriented towards universities.

Afterward, the brand focused on expanding the consumer market, looking for new business opportunities, and evolving towards the freemium program that is today.

Grammarly’s amazing success and growth over the years is due to two main factors: unquestionably - its user-friendly interface and its powerful 360 marketing strategy. There are a lot of marketing tactics that Grammarly has successfully integrated into its growth strategy over the years.

So let’s go over some of the key stats and takeaways from Grammarly’s marketing strategy:

💡

With its blog being an important resource for visibility being responsible for almost half of the traffic that comes to the website, Grammarly’s traffic stats indicate over 26M monthly organic visitors.

💡

When it comes to social media, Facebook is their top performing channel by number of followers, while Instagram wins by total engagement.

💡

TikTok, their most recently opened channel, their engagement rate is skyrocketing.

💡

Their social media identity is that of a humanized brand, that shares helpful tips, funny content and useful product updates, without ever being over the top. Their bright-colored visuals help support this lively, youthful and overall human brand identity.

💡

For the sake of competitive analysis and benchmarks, I tried to find some of Grammarly’s competitors on social media, however none of their competitors have a strong enough social media presence to compare with Grammarly’s.

Final thoughts

Besides its great SEO strategy, Grammarly has also turned to one of the most efficient ways of gaining brand awareness - having a remarkable social media presence.

So they jumped in and launched accounts on all the major social platforms out there.So, it’s worked wonders for them - and their numbers are still going up.

Hopefully, these insights about Grammarly's marketing strategy were the source of inspiration you needed to start experimenting more with your social media accounts and campaigns.

* This article was originally published here

Thursday, December 7, 2023

How to Get on the FYP (For You Page) on TikTok: 15 Hacks

In a way, this blog post is also a For You Page: it was carefully created just for you, and the more you scroll, the more you’ll find content that you’re likely to care about. Except it was written by a human with bones and blood, and not determined by a series of TikTok algorithms.

Getting on the TikTok FYP, or For You Page, is extremely important when it comes to success on the platform: the FYP is where a billion global active users find new content, new accounts to follow and new brands to care about.

Here’s everything you need to know about getting on the FYP, straight from the human’s mouth.

What is the FYP (For You page) on TikTok?

The Tiktok FYP (For You Page) is a feed of content created for a specific user based on an algorithm. The FYP shows a mix of videos from accounts that the user follows and other videos that the platform believes the user will enjoy—in other words, the FYP makes predictions about what content you’ll find most engaging.

According to TikTok, each individual’s For You Page stream of videos is decided according to three main rankings:

User interactions (this includes the TikToks you like, comment on, and share, including accounts you follow and content you make yourself).
Video information (details like sounds, hashtags and captions)
Device and account settings (for example, your language preference, location setting and type of device—but TikTok says this is the least important of the three)

How to get on the FYP: 15 tips

Use trending songs

Ever had a TikTok song stuck in your head? That’s because your FYP is often full of trending music—meaning that lots of creators are using the same songs in their videos. TikTok knows what music is trending and is more likely to put your video on the FYP if you hop on the trend.

Irish dance group Cairde often uses trending songs in their content—they’ve built an impressive follower base of 3.3 million, but their videos typically have engagement numbers that double, triple, or even 20x that number. That’s because their videos show up on FYP of users who don’t follow them, in part because they hop on (literally) music trends.

Many TikTok sounds also have their own built-in trends, which makes the content even easier to create. This chihuahua, for example, managed to edit this video in exactly the way that thousands of Gen Zers did. Old dog, new Tiks.

Use trending audio

Similar to the above — it’s not just songs that go viral on TikTok, it’s sounds. A sound byte from a TV show or movie or just the isolated audio from another TikTok can go viral, too. Put your own spin on trending audio clips to boost your wow factor and set you apart from other users with familar but unique content.

Then this dramatic audio began trending, and thousands of users found their own interpretations for the sound—time to work on your lip-synching skills.

Participate in trends

Sorry, one more reference to trends (hey, in the online world, trends are always tops): there’s an infinite opportunity for dance trends, prank trends, challenge trends and more on TikTok.

Not only will participating in trends make you more likely to get on the FYP… trends are also a no-brainer when it comes to content brainstorming. Rather than coming up with something that’s completely fresh, take a look at what others are doing (and do it better).

For example, when it felt like everyone (yes, chef, everyone) was binge-watching The Bear, many TikTok users decided to recreate the omelet featured on the show.

@smithschipsaus
An omelette so good “I could cry” #TheBear with @eatnikfood
♬ original sound – SmithsChipsAUS

Potato chip brand Smith’s Chips posted their own how-to—appropriate, since the omelet in the television series has sour cream and onion chips sprinkled on top. This is an awesome example of using a trend to market your brand.

Be timely

The TikTok FYP is all about what is hot now… which often actually means predicting the future. When planning out your content calendar, think about holidays, occasions and seasons, and consider what you can do to make your TikToks matter at the time that they are posted.

Being timely might also mean that your TikTok is more useful (for example, no one wants pumpkin-carving tips on November 1).

Kelly Clarkson posted this TikTok at the perfect time—her cover of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” was relevant because the song is trending, plus the video went live right around Halloween. Freaky, festive and fabulous.

Post at the right time

Speaking of time: scheduling your TikToks to post at the optimal time will help more users take notice of your video, leading to more engagement, a higher ranking in the algorithm and making your video more likely to appear on TikTok For You Pages.

Hootsuite has experimented and drawn conclusions about the best time to post on TikTok in general (short answer? Thursday at 7:00 p.m.), but more accurate “best time” stats will change from user to user.

The good news is that Hootsuite also has built-in, personalized tech that will tell you when your best time to post on TikTok is. You can also use TikTok analytics to see when most of your followers are online, and pay attention to stats from videos you’ve already posted to find correlations between views and timing.

Encourage people to engage

Engagement is one of the biggest factors that leads to success on TikTok. There’s plenty of ways to boost your engagement rate on the platform (here are 5 ways to make yours higher), but there’s also a very simple engagement-boosting hack: just ask. Encourage viewers to comment, like, save and send your video to friends.

This speed reading challenge is an excellent example. The video challenges you from the very start, prompting you to pay attention and not scroll away. Viewers are encouraged to comment on the video if they can complete the reading challenge and to send it to a friend who might like a speed-reading test, too.

By asking folks to comment and share this video and by appealing to their sense of competition, the creator is getting more engagement — which leads to a higher ranking on the algorithm and a higher chance of ending up on a FYP.

Use the right hashtags

Trending hashtags are one element that helps TikTok figure out what your video is about — and we’re not talking about the ultra-basic #fyp. To figure out which TikTok hashtags to use, look to the experts: find your competitors (or, to use more positive language, other folks who are succeeding in your industry) and see which popular hashtags they are using.

It’s hard to go wrong creating #Swiftok content lately, and football social media managers have been working overtime on Taylor Swift-related videos. The delightful TikTok above tags #taylorswift, #erastour and #swifttok, so TikTok knows to share it on the For You Pages of her fans.

Tag your location

A user’s FYP will incorporate viral and not-so-viral videos from all over the world, but the TikTok algorithm also takes into account location when curating the For You Page. The platform assumes — usually correctly — that TikTok users will care about videos that were created in the same city, country or continent that they live in.

@felixcartal
text train to the if youre in #vancouver and wanna roll
♬ Get What You Give – Felix Cartal

Take this invitation for a pop-up rave in Vancouver, for example. The creator tagged the location and used the hashtag #Vancouver in their description, indicating to the TikTok algorithm that users in Vancouver would likely care about the video.

The pop-up skytrain rave was apparently a success, likely in no small part due to the invite showing up on local user’s FYPs.

Collaborate with a creator

TikTok creators know all about how to get on the FYP. It’s how they gained their following: by creating engaging, entertaining content that users want more of. Collaborating with a successful creator on TikTok can expand your audience significantly, as you’ll automatically be more likely to be seen on the For You Pages of all the creator’s followers.

Hot tip: When collaborating with a creator, make sure that their niche aligns with yours in some way (in other words, the collaboration should “make sense,” for example, an athletic wear brand collaborating with an athlete or a kitchen retailer collaborating with a chef). The best partnership should be authentic and beneficial for both parties… actually, that’s good relationship advice, too.

Here’s a celeb example. Walmart collaborated with Mean Girls stars almost 20 years after the original release of the movie to create this viral advertisement (it has over two million views, hundreds of thousands of likes and tens of thousands of saves).

@lindsaylohan
Get in, besties. We’re going shopping. #BlackFridayDeals go live next week. #BlackFriday #Sponsored
♬ original sound – lindsaylohan

And on Lindsay Lohan’s account, the exact same video has over 20 million views, almost four million likes and 300,000 saves. Walmart significantly expanded its reach with this collaboration — get in losers, we’re posting TikTok collabs.

Collaborate with another brand

It’s not just creators that you can collaborate with: consider partnering with another brand to widen your reach and develop meaningful relationships with others in your industry. Just like a creator partnership, a brand partnership will expose you to the other brand’s followers (and their bank accounts) and vice versa.

And, also like a creator partnership, a brand partnership should be a genuine collaboration between two parties with similar values. Think a hot sauce brand partnering with a chicken wing restaurant, or a shoe company partnering with a sock company.

Post consistently

TikTok recommends posting 1 to 4 times per day… yes, per DAY. If that’s within reach for you as a social media manager, by all means, go absolutely buckwild with content. But for many, that’s not a realistic goal — and that’s totally okay.

At Hootsuite, we recommend posting 3 to 5 times per week. It’s a manageable goal to set, and also is consistent enough that you should be regularly appearing on your follower’s feeds. What’s most important is that you are repeatedly showing up on the app, and taking every opportunity you can get to get on the FYP.

(Plus, with Hootsuite, you can schedule your TikToks in advance — so 3-5 new videos a week might only mean a couple of hours of work one day a week.)

This TikTokker posts videos of dancing chickens— sometimes in costume — several times a day, and while all of them are eggcellent (sorry), they don’t all end up going viral.

@ilgallinaio_special
#perte
♬ The Ketchup Song (Aserejé) – Spanish Version – Las Ketchup

Then again, there’a quite a few with millions of views. Sometimes, ending up on the FYP is a bit of a numbers game: you miss 100% of the Toks you don’t Tik.

Find your niche

This tip is true for every platform out there: when your content is geared towards a specific community, you’re more likely to find engaged followers who will stick with you. TikTok is unique in that niches can be almost unbelievably specific (I, for example, am consistently fed TikTok videos about ex-theatre kids working in corporate jobs) and that’s a great opportunity to narrow down your content and really focus on what matters.

@vitakari
#performanceart
♬ mr take ya btch jersey club – Ali Beats

The above video is just one of the hundreds of TikToks that performance artist Vita Kari has made. Their content almost always follows the same formula, and they’ve found a hyper-specific niche that is super engaging—their TikToks are like a guessing game, prompting viewers to comment and share.

Post before-and-after content

One of the metrics that the TikTok algorithm uses to rank videos is the time that viewers spend watching before they scroll away. And because TikTok is so rich with content, you’ll want to grab an audience’s attention in the first precious seconds: give them a reason to keep watching.

Sharing before-and-after content, behind-the-scenes or process videos is an excellent hack for grabbing attention—the instant gratification that a viewer gets from seeing results prompts them to pay attention. This photoshoot behind-the-scenes is an awesome example… once you see the first before-and-after, you’re tempted to watch the rest.

Stitch other videos

Stitching trending videos is another way to hop on a trend—often, videos asking a question or prompting a story will go viral because of their stitchability. Just like song trends and sound trends, stitch trends are favoured by TikTok’s algorithm.

This video proves that stitches lead to success: there are hundreds of stitches, some with millions of views.

@literallyjohngreen
#stitch with @Wake Moody same guy
♬ original sound – John Green

Also: don’t forget to embrace serendipity. Okay, that advice sounds a little like something you’d read in a fortune cookie—but serendipitous coincidences and can’t-believe-it’s-true circumstances do super well on TikTok.

For example, when one TikTok user remarked “Y’all remember the days when going viral got you on Ellen?”, ex-child singer (and current adult singer) Greyson Chance took the opportunity to stitch it—after all, he went viral and got on Ellen in 2010.

@greyson_chance
#stitch with @DASILVA
♬ original sound – Greyson Chance

Be yourself

In the end, trends and hacks can’t really top straight-up authenticity: it’s a quality that TikTok claims to champion, and often, the For You Page proves it.

The virality of this video proves it: who wouldn’t love seeing a daughter trying to save her family’s business on their feed? Being yourself and creating genuine, authentic content won’t just get you on the FYP, it will help convert some of those lucky views to real follows.

Grow your TikTok presence alongside your other social channels using Hootsuite. Schedule and publish posts for the best times, engage your audience, and measure performance — all from one easy-to-use dashboard. Try it free today.

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The post How to Get on the FYP (For You Page) on TikTok: 15 Hacks appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.

* This article was originally published here

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

2024 Guide to YouTube Analytics: Metrics, Tools, and Tips

If you’re using YouTube, you need to keep an eye on your YouTube analytics. Understanding what’s happening under the hood of your YouTube channel is the only way to grow.

But what do you need to track, and what tools can help you find that data? We’re glad you asked.

What is YouTube analytics?

YouTube analytics is a term collectively used to refer to the tracking and reporting of key metrics that help you understand the performance of your YouTube channel, as well as individual videos.

YouTube analytics allow you to see what’s working on your channel, as well as which content is falling flat. This can help guide your strategy so you can grow your channel more effectively over time.

YouTube analytics also include demographic information about your YouTube audience, so you can understand who your subscribers are and produce content that speaks directly to their wants and needs.

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20 key YouTube analytics metrics

YouTube channel analytics

If you’re using YouTube Studio, click Analytics in the left menu to get started. In Hootsuite, click Analytics in the left sidebar, then choose New Report > YouTube.

Channel views: The number of views your entire channel amassed over the selected time period.
Channel watch time: The total amount of time, in hours, people spent watching all the videos on your channel over a given period.
Subscribers: The total number of subscribers to your YouTube channel.
Subscriber growth: The number of new subscribers you’ve gained minus any you lost.
Realtime: A real time performance report for the last 48 hours or 60 minutes. This is a good way to get an early impression of how newly uploaded videos perform immediately after they launch. You can also find out when your YouTube channel views peak, giving you insight into your best time to post.

Realtime live count of subscribers and views

Source: YouTube Studio

Top posts: A snapshot of your top performing content based on views, over a given period. By adjusting the timeframe to Lifetime, you can identify your all-time best performing videos.
Impressions: The number of times thumbnails for your videos were shown to YouTube viewers. This does not include external impressions like website embeds or social shares.
Impressions click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of people who clicked on a thumbnail on YouTube to view your videos.
Average view duration: How long the average viewer watches your videos before clicking away.
Top remixed: Your content most remixed or used in Shorts and the number of remix views. Remixes can help to improve your channel visibility and video views since they include tags that drive traffic back to your channel.
Videos added to/removed from playlists: Similar to remixed, playlists extend your content to a wider audience.

Source: Hootsuite Analytics

Top referral sources: Monitor where and how people find your videos, both on and off YouTube.
Unique viewers: An estimate of the total number of people who watched your videos over a given period. Note: If one person watches the same video three times, it will only count once for unique viewers, but three times for channel views.
When your viewers are on YouTube: This one is self-explanatory. Use this info to schedule uploads at optimal times.
Watch time from subscribers: How much of your total watch time comes from viewers who are subscribed to your channel.
Audience demographics: The age, gender, location, and language statistics for the people who watch your videos on YouTube. Tip: This information can help you plan content geared toward your specific audience. We’ve got a whole blog post on how to find and speak to your target market that can help you figure this out.

YouTube video analytics

All the metrics we’ve covered so far apply to your overall channel. But you also need to track metrics for specific videos, so you can drill down to see what’s really working.

Within the YouTube Studio app, click any video from the Analytics overview screen to see the stats for that specific video. Using the Reach, Engagement, and Audience tabs for each video, you can see these specific metrics for the video in question, rather than for the entire channel.

Views: The number of times your video has been watched, including repeat views from the same person.
Subscribers: The number of people who subscribed after watching this particular video. This metric provides one of the strongest indications that a video connected with viewers. On the flip side, you can also see the number of subscribers lost with a certain video.
Watch time: The cumulative amount of time people have spent watching this specific video.
Average view duration: The estimated amount of time in minutes watched for each view of the selected video.
New viewers: Videos with the highest number of new vs. returning viewers are actively growing your audience.
Key moments for audience retention: This metric shows you which moments grabbed (or lost) your audience’s attention. If you have issues with your average view duration, review this to see what is working. If you notice any big dips, take a look at the video itself to see what might be driving people away.

Key moments for audience retention average view duration chart

Source: YouTube Studio

How to see YouTube analytics for other channels

You cannot see YouTube analytics for other channels through YouTube Studio. However, you can get information about the content from other channels that your audience is watching.

On your channel’s Audience tab, check the following two YouTube video analytics metrics:

Content your audience watches: What your audience is watching when they’re not on your channel. Use this report to find inspiration for your own channel, collaboration opportunities, or ideas for your thumbnails. Then, compile that information with these 30 YouTube promotional tactics.
Channels your audience watches: This report shows you the channels your audience is most interested in. The same strategy as above applies here.

You need third-party software to compare multiple accounts of your own or to give you a peek into your competitors’ analytics.

Want to compare analytics for other YouTube channels you own? You can add all of your channels to Hootsuite and compare them within Hootsuite Analytics.

Source: Hootsuite Analytics

YouTube analytics tools like SocialBlade (see below) allow you to compare your performance against any other public YouTube channel.

4 YouTube analytics tools for 2024

1. YouTube Studio

Source: YouTube Studio

YouTube Studio is the home of the native analytics in YouTube. It’s the most robust YouTube analytics tool available. It’s especially useful for those who are primarily focused on growing their YouTube channel. (As opposed to viewing YouTube efforts in the context of a larger social strategy.)

A particularly useful set of analytics reporting features are found within YouTube Studio’s Advanced Mode. It offers the ability to drill down into data, compare content performance, and export data. Sophisticated marketing teams will find this mode a veritable treasure trove of information.

There are tons of features in Advanced Mode that you don’t want to sleep on. Google Support created a very useful map of the available features; check it out to ensure you’re not missing anything.

YouTube Studio Advanced Mode expanded report

Source: Google Support

Some of the most useful reporting options include:

Groups: Group similar videos to compare themes, styles, and lengths. Look for larger themes and potential series opportunities.
New viewers who returned: This highlights new viewers who returned to your channel to watch another video. Says Paige Cooper, Hootsuite’s Inbound Marketing Lead (Web & Video): “I think of it as a list of videos that have some kind of magic sparkle dust that turns viewers into fans.”

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite Analytics YouTube overview page video views

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Hootsuite is a valuable social analytics tool for those who want to analyze YouTube in the context of their overall social performance. You can break out YouTube into its own report. But you can also view key performance metrics alongside those for your social accounts on other networks.

This is especially useful for social marketers who need to produce reporting for senior stakeholders. They usually want to review the success of the team’s social efforts at a high level.

Hootsuite also offers the advantage of being simple to use and understand. All the key metrics are on one screen.

3. Socialblade

Social Blade Maker Studio subscriber and video view count

Source: Social Blade on the Chrome Web Store

Socialblade allows you to see metrics like views, subscribers, subscriber growth rate, and estimated revenue for any public YouTube channel. Of course, that includes your own channel too, as long as it’s public.

They offer browser extensions that show you these statistics within your browser for any YouTube video, as you watch it.

4. VidIQ

VidIQ views per hour top devices and countries

Source: VidIQ

VidIQ is a third-party tool that scrapes data to get metrics you can’t get natively. This app will let you see views per hour and pull analytics data from your competitors, so you can access YouTube analytics for other channels. VidIQ has plenty of features that can better your channel, like recommendations to improve your YouTube SEO in areas such as your title and description.

How to use YouTube analytics tools for best results

Check in on a regular basis

To make the most of the data you find in your chosen YouTube analytics tool, you need to check in regularly. Things can change fast, and you can’t assume that the content strategies that have worked in the past will work in the future.

For example, if there’s a significant change in subscriber growth from the average, you should dig for the cause right away. Did you post more videos than usual? Fewer? Did one video in particular do particularly well or poorly?

Tip: Subscribers generally watch twice as much video as non-subscribers. If your subscribers are not making up the bulk of your watch time, you may not be making the most of your subscriber base. Try creating a more consistent posting schedule so your subscribers know when they should expect new content and make it a habit to watch your new videos when they go live.

Hootsuite Analytics makes it easier to stay on top of your YouTube metrics with the ability to schedule automatic reports, so the data comes right to your inbox.

Look for patterns

While each of the metrics above reveals its own useful data, the information picture as a whole gets more detailed when you look for patterns to emerge.

For example, look for similarities between videos that have high or low click-through rates. Over time, this will help you understand what approach works best to persuade your particular viewers to click.

Likewise, keeping an eye on view duration can help you understand if viewers get what they expected once they click. A lower-than-average view duration may indicate a mismatch between what you promise and what you deliver. You may need to revise your thumbnail and description strategy, especially if it has recently changed.

Since watch time is a key ranking factor in the YouTube algorithm, this is another important one to watch for changes. Videos with higher watch time are more likely to appear in search results and recommendations, bringing new eyeballs to your channel. Can you find a pattern to what makes viewers stick around, or causes them to leave?

Finally, watch for changing patterns in when your viewers are online and adjust your posting schedule as needed. (Tip: Check out Hootsuite Analytics for a detailed heatmap.) If you have an active Community Tab, make sure an admin is available to create posts and respond to comments when your viewers are most likely to be online.

Make the most of your best content

YouTube analytics offer useful insights to help you maximize the effect of your best content.

For example, if a video is often reached through search, consider adding it to a playlist to help people discover your related content. Visitors who find your content through search are likely to be new to your channel. So, videos that rank well for your search terms can be a useful entry point, as long as you structure your content effectively to keep people watching.

Likewise, try reshuffling the order of your playlists to put popular videos with the highest average view duration at the top. People are more likely to make it all the way through these top videos and continue watching your playlist. The more the watch, the more likely they are to subscribe.

Watch for potential collaborators – and competitors

Understanding where your YouTube views come from can help you spot prime collaboration opportunities, as well as potential competitors who may be nipping at your heels.

First, under How viewers find your videos, click on Suggested Videos. This shows you videos for which your content is appearing in the suggested sidebar. That means YouTube thinks your content is related.

Since these videos are already sending viewers your way, they may be great collaborators. But remember that they are not sending you that traffic by choice – suggestions are based on the YouTube algorithm. So, they may actually be competitors. Have a look at their content and use some of the competitor analysis tools above to get a better sense of whether they are likely to be friend or foe.

You can also find potential collaborators by looking at External sources. This lists websites that are driving embedded views as well linking to your content. Also look at playlists on which you’re included. These sites and channels clearly love your content, since they’re already featuring it. These could be good candidates for a creator partnership or other collaboration efforts.

Finally, take a look at the Content your audience watches reports. This shows content your audience watches that may or may not be directly related to your niche. If you have a shared audience and don’t compete, there may be a chance for a unique collaboration.

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