ANNOUNCEMENT: We’re excited to relaunch The Spot as a biweekly publication to keep you updated on the latest news from the Spotter community and beyond! If this landed in your spam folder, please be sure to whitelist us and mark this email as “not spam,” so future editions will go directly to your inbox.

Hi There! With YouTube’s recent announcement that it’s rolling out new AI tools for creators by early next year, it’s clear that AI has the potential to change the way creators make content. At Spotter, we’ve developed AI tools to help creators streamline pre-production processes and empower them with top-notch ideation capabilities. (You might have heard about it in this recent episode of Colin and Samir.) What are your thoughts on using AI in the creative process? Hit reply and let us know what you think!

—The Spotter Community Team

We’ve all been there. You follow YouTube’s suggestions from one creator’s video to another creator’s video to another creator’s video, and suddenly there goes the afternoon.

But what earns a video top billing in those suggestions? How do you find your own content on the receiving end of a suggestion that could introduce a new audience to your content?

It’s certainly not luck alone—we dug into the data (read: sifted through stats on 1,500+ channels) to figure it out:

Learning #1: Most suggested traffic comes from videos of a similar length.

• Translation: Your video is most likely to be suggested on or referred from another video of a similar length.

• In fact, we found that 63% of referring videos were +/- 20% of the receiving video’s length for 3–5-minute videos. And for 8–10-minute receiving videos, it was 67%.

Learning #2: Videos that send viewers to your content via suggestions tend to have similar average view duration (AVD).

• Translation: The referring videos that might send consumers your way are similar to yours in average view duration—people are sticking around for a similar amount of time.

• Run the numbers: For 3–5-minute videos, 73% of referring videos have +/- 20% of the receiving video’s AVD. And for 8–10-minute videos, it’s 64%.

Bottom Line:

Suggestions from referring videos (whether they’re from other creators or your own back catalog) to your content can be a game changer in boosting traffic. But to get the most out of the suggestions system, keep in mind both video length and AVD.

Because it turns out that the videos most likely to send people your way are the videos that are the most like your own content. Want to show up as a suggestion following your favorite creator’s content? Consider how you might make your videos slightly more similar to theirs in length and AVD.

As always: Questions? Reach out to us.

• We are partnering with YouTube to provide creators with resources to dub content into new languages. This move will support YouTube’s new multi-track audio feature and make language dubbing accessible to more creators.

• Dude Perfect and A Parent Media Co. Inc. launched a new streaming service.

• UK-based kids’ entertainment company Cake has partnered with Mainframe Studios and Studio 71 to handle international distribution of the comedy adventure series The Guava Juice Show.

• MrBeast became the first individual YouTuber to hit 200M subscribers on the platform.

• Episode 1 of Sam and Colby’s series “A Week at The Conjuring” premiered in 50+ Cinemark theaters across the US on October 19th. Catch the full episode on YouTube now.

• We were excited to see our funded creators Jordan Matter, MrBeast, Preston, and Zealous deliver keynotes at VidSummit in Dallas! We also had the opportunity to meet with our local creators Dude Perfect and Preston at their offices while we were in town. It was great to connect with so many members of the Spotter community in person! (See photos below.)

Jobs

• TBNR is hiring a Director of Creative | IRL Content, Creative Strategist | IRL Content, Full-Time Thumbnail Designer, and more (Opportunities based in Dallas, TX).

• MrBeast is hiring an Assistant Editor/ DIT, Producer, Thumbnail Designer and more (Opportunities based in Greensboro, NC).

YouTube

• In addition to its new AI tools for creators, YouTube announced the release of a new video editing app called YouTube Create to make video production easier. Featuring precision editing and trimming, voiceover capabilities, automatic captioning, filters, music, and more, the app is currently available on Android in select markets.

• YouTube ad controls are getting simpler. In November, YouTube is removing individual ad controls—so creators can shift their focus from choosing ad formats to raking in revenue.

• Retrogaming is having a moment on YouTube. The team at YouTube Trends dives into it.

• YouTube is testing a new feature that automatically makes the “Subscribe” button glow when creators say “subscribe” in their videos.

“Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing.”

―Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

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