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Praise for The YouTube Formula “Only one or two other people in the entire world understand YouTube on the level that Derral does. I have one of the top three most-watched channels on YouTube, and I still talk about YouTube data and strategy with Derral because nobody is on the same wavelength as he is. Whether you have 5 subscribers or 5 million, you can learn how to be successful on YouTube by reading Derral’s book.” —Jimmy Donaldson, MrBeast “Study it . understand it . dream it . Derral Eves just wrote the bible to You- Tube success.” —Jordi van den Bussche, Kwebbelkop Derral has the rare experience of being successful on YouTube as a creator, a marketer, an advertiser, and an entrepreneur. This book teaches you how to understand You- Tube from the big picture all the way down to the important details. —Chad Wild Clay and Vy Qwaint, Cocreators of Spy Ninjas “When you talk about the ‘brains behind the throne’ among top YouTube stars, you’re talking about Derral Eves. His unique understanding of the inner workings of YouTube, coupled with an insatiable appetite to find out why certain videos perform and others languish has placed him at the forefront of online video experts. Derral understands not only WHAT you need to do to build a bigger audience, but WHY you need to do it. Whether you’re looking to build a big business on YouTube or just build a community of passionate fans, this book packs more inside than you’d get from months of expensive consulting and painstaking trial and error. Find out why so many top YouTubers call Derral both a friend and a confidant by buying this book right now—and you’ll be taking the first step to making all your YouTube dreams come true! —Jim Louderback, GM VidCon “Derral Eves has a YouTube super power. He can spend five minutes looking at a YouTube channel’s analytics and give a handful of actionable suggestions. Not just helpful tips, but algorithmic game changers. The fingerprints of Derral’s strategic brain are on most of my largest successes.” —Jeffrey Harmon, Cofounder at Harmon Brothers and VidAngel “Derral is the preeminent expert authority on video marketing in the modern era of digital and social platforms. He has consulted the top YouTube creators and plat- forms and built his own content channels generating millions of followers. The You- Tube Formula is a must read for anyone interested in gaining prominence in or simply learning about YouTube content creation, the mysterious algorithm, or optimizing audience growth.” —Ricky Ray Butler, CEO BEN Group “Derral has been analyzing the YouTube algorithm longer than anyone I know. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to reach ten million subscribers, Derral’s book contains specific ideas that can help you do much better than you would on your own.” —Mark Rober, NASA Engineer turned YouTube Creator THE YOUTUBE FORMULA DERRAL EVES THE YOUTUBE FORMULA HOW ANYONE CAN UNLOCK THE ALGORITHM TO DRIVE VIEWS, BUILD AN AUDIENCE, AND GROW REVENUE Copyright © 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/ permissions. 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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available: ISBN 9781119716020 (Hardcover) ISBN 9781119716044 (ePDF) ISBN 9781119716037 (ePub) Cover Design: Derral Eves Cover Image: Doodles: Derral Eves Ripped paper: © stockcam/iStockphoto 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To my wife Carolyn: No goal or accomplishment would mean anything without you by my side. You are my everything . for eternity! CONTENTS Dedication vii Foreword xiii Introduction xix Part I The Platform 1 Try, Fail, Analyze, Adjust: A YouTube History Lesson 3 2 The YouTube Ecosystem 9 3 The YouTube AI: A Deep Learning Machine 21 4 The Algorithm Breakdown 27 Part II The Opportunity 5 Why Most YouTube Channels Fail to Succeed 41 6 Make Money Partnering with YouTube 57 ix x CONTENTS 7 Use Your Influence to Generate Big Money 75 8 The Real Power of Your Influence: Making a Difference 87 9 How Businesses Extend Their Reach and Drive Revenue 95 Part III The YouTube Formula 10 The Data-Driven, Human-Centered Formula 115 11 Identify Your Audience 127 12 Recon and Research 143 13 Content Is King 153 14 Feedback Is Queen 169 15 Title and Thumbnail: Success Starts with a Click 183 16 Engaging Viewers’ Attention So They Watch More 211 17 Creating a YouTube Content Strategy 223 18 Building a Community around Your Content 251 19 Optimizing, Launching, and Promoting Your Video 269 Contents xi 20 Tweaking Your Content 283 21 Try, Fail, Analyze, Adjust: Your YouTube Success 295 Appendix: Free YouTube Formula Bonus Companion Course 301 About the Author 303 This Is Not Your Normal Acknowledgement 305 Index 307 FOREWORD veryone should have a YouTube channel. Literally everyone, but Eespecially brands. When I see brands that don’t have a presence on YouTube, I think they’re insane. It’s unfathomable that anyone isn’t capitalizing on the opportunity there. It’s the most coveted job in America, and with good reason. It is quite literally a gold mine. When I was a kid, I watched YouTube all the time. It was always my dream job. I didn’t want to be an astronaut or a doctor—I couldn’t envision a world where I wasn’t a YouTuber. I started my channel in 2012 and only got 40 subscribers my first year. Now I have one of the fastest growing channels in the world. I gained more than 15 million subscribers in 2019 alone with just over 4 billion video views. And it’s still growing every day. If you are just getting started on YouTube, do not expect to pull any type of viewership in your first year. If this isn’t something you can accept, don’t start. But if you can, then you need to do this: make 100 videos. It doesn’t matter what they are because they will be ter- rible, but do something you like doing. Your first 10 videos will be garbage. Then make 10 more. These will also be garbage, and so will the next 10. But eventually, things will start to improve. You’ll get better little by little. The best way to improve your content is to make content and see what people like. Then you’ll notice something with your 101st video. It will be in a whole different league from your first video. You will still be a long way from good content, but it will be better than your first video was. xiii xiv FOREWORD It took me hundreds of videos over several years before I got good at it. I had been making YouTube videos for two years and still didn’t make good quality videos, even though I thought they were good at the time. I was like so many creators: I thought the algorithm hated me because I wasn’t getting subscribers and views. But in reality, my content wasn’t good enough. In fact, my videos were horrible, like most YouTube videos are. Most YouTubers have their priorities back- ward. They spend all their time thinking about the algorithm in their first hundred videos when they should really be thinking about how to make better content geared toward the viewer. Unless you’re the rare YouTuber who has created content profes- sionally, you’re probably average (at best) at making content.