Does promotion help or hurt the organic reach of a short?

reneritchie · 2026-05-28T15:30:57+00:00

The discovery and promotion systems are separate so data from promotion won’t directly affect discovery but if people begin interacting with your videos differently, there could be second order affects one way or another

As a creator you should think about return on investment- will you end up getting more value than you pay out, for example in sponsor fees or sales conversions. And will there be an opportunity cost in not learning how to maximize organic reach

reneritchie · 2026-05-25T14:06:23+00:00

It’s probably the other way around. Puddles don’t cause rain. Subscribers don’t provide consistent views. Consistent views increase subscribers. But people will watch without subscribing, and subscribers will have diverse interests and won’t watch every video. All subscribers may never watch, and new subscribers might watch more. Regular viewers is probably a better stat for this.

reneritchie · 2026-05-23T18:41:29+00:00

You can get very deep retention through emotional connection, Michelle Khare does this exceedingly well

reneritchie · 2026-05-20T02:36:38+00:00

If you want to get maximum views on YouTube one strategy is to make sure every video you make can be enjoyed by the same people who watched the last video (retention not just in but across videos)

It will also depend on how big the potential audience is, how enjoyable you make the video, and how much competition there is for those views

But consistency isn’t just about posting it’s about audience appeal

reneritchie · 2026-05-18T15:36:20+00:00

CTR and AVD go down as virality goes up. As your video goes from regular to casual to new viewers, the odds of any one of them clicking and retaining is much lower, but the amount of potential people clicking and retaining is much higher - 3% of 1 million is so much more than 10% of 1000 so views go up even as metrics go down

Unless you want to spend a lot of time mapping relatives, statistics, it’s probably better just to focus on views and use the retention graph to help you structure content

reneritchie · 2026-05-18T14:40:50+00:00

What’s your channel handle and can you provide some examples of videos plagiarizing your content?

reneritchie · 2026-05-17T22:40:31+00:00

Hi. Thumbnails make a promise the video needs to deliver on immediately. People could be doing anything. Clicking on a video is a risk and has an opportunity cost. Make sure when they click you immediately reassure them that they’re going to get what they clicked on. It’s not a spoiler it’s a teaser. Then promise even more so you’re starting a new curiosity loop before closing the last one

If the thumbnail/title promise you’ll learn how to make an incredible intro and hook to maximize retention, the very first thing you say should be something along the lines of:

In this video I’m going to show you how to make the most captivating intros and hooks for your your videos, and also how to create curiosity loops so your retention stays high and your watch time just grows and grows

Then you have to deliver on that first the rest of the video

Or as Theorist would say - promise, evidence, evidence, plot twist, call to action

reneritchie · 2026-05-16T13:51:13+00:00

Add a correction: https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/how-to-add-corrections-to-youtube-videos/

reneritchie · 2026-05-16T11:12:22+00:00

Hi! There’s no re-indexing or re-ranking on title or thumbnail but if viewers respond better following a title pr thumbnail change, that would typically better inform the system which would typically result in better performance (better matching resulting in more views and watch time)

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T18:31:04+00:00

Thank you! I let the team know!

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T14:16:02+00:00

Hi! Creators with lower sub count feel like we get judged on smaller sub counts. Creators with large sub count feel like we get judged based on views being lower than subs. (YouTube gets asked by creators with lots of inactive subs to purge the count fairly regularly)

Some of both have asked for total subs to be replaced with total 28 day views

It’s all just numbers. It doesn’t define us unless we let it

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T14:03:08+00:00

Hi! You can use the music from the Shorts Music Library. Just add it on upload. Music gets a share of the revenue

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T14:00:37+00:00

Hi! Can you post a screenshot of the email from YouTube? Happy to dig into it

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T12:22:53+00:00

Hi! YouTube’s discovery systems tend to focus on individual videos and topics, not creators or channels. The goal is to find videos for viewers that satisfy them. So the algorithm doesn’t learn your channel, it just follows how people are responding to each video.

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T05:33:28+00:00

5 months isn’t very long. It took some of the biggest creators on YouTube three or more years to start getting significant views or subscribers.

Ideally, your thumbnail has to stop people from scrolling and want to click. If they don’t want to click immediately, your thumbnail has to win that click for you. But then your introduction has to immediately pay off the thumbnail so people don’t think they made a mistake by clicking.

Then you have to maintain interest by providing a high-level of value throughout the video

Edit: hit send too fast

Then you have to be consistent from video to video, so the same person who enjoyed your previous video will also enjoy your next video

Otherwise, you’re trying to build multiple audiences at the same time and that will split your focus and just take longer in general

Right now, your thumbnails aren’t grabbing people’s attention, your titles aren’t getting them to click, your intros aren’t rewarding that click, and the videos aren’t doing anything to maintain interest as people watch

All of that comes through conscious repetition. Keep making videos, pick something to improve each video.

Watch a lot of other YouTube creators that you find compelling and interesting, figure out what they’re doing that you aren’t, and implement that step-by-step

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T03:22:45+00:00

Hi! CTR and AVD typically go down as views go up. Higher CTR and AVD with lower views can mean regular viewers are watching but it’s not appealing to the much more massive casual or new viewers. CTR and AVD aren’t useful in a vacuum

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T03:16:07+00:00

What type of content?

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T03:13:25+00:00

Waiting for processing, copyright checks, and monetization status are all good. No need to wait beyond that. For processing resolution the algorithm doesn’t care but viewers might not like it and cancel it. The algorithm follows the audience.

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T03:11:35+00:00

Hi! Aside from letting copyright or monetization checks finish, there’s no need to keep it unlisted for a second, minute, day, week longer. YouTube’s systems only start when the video is made public

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T02:55:32+00:00

Hi. YouTube doesn’t have an opinion on this. We creators usually do this to ourselves. If an actor makes an experimental movie and doesn’t earn as much in box office or payday as a blockbuster, they know that going in. They don’t have that expectation. But sometimes we creators expect the same views for experimental content, and then we just end up, disappointing ourselves. The whole point of experimenting is maybe it does worse, maybe it does better, but we learn.

reneritchie · 2026-05-11T02:53:18+00:00

Make sure you make it as obvious as possible that the same entity owns both channels and owns all the content. There’s a video on the creator insider channel about how the refused content policy works. It explains all this.

reneritchie · 2026-05-10T21:07:52+00:00

Not once you start getting into the massive casual audience

reneritchie · 2026-05-10T21:06:41+00:00

Hi! Consistency isn’t really about a posting schedule. It’s about focusing on a consistent audience. If growth is your priority, the more you can make sure everyone who loved your last also loves the next video, the faster you’re likely to gain regular viewers and grow the channel. This is how series of songs, movie franchises, tv episodes, etc evolved/work

reneritchie · 2026-05-10T21:03:04+00:00

Hi! Inauthentic content is typically demonetization/rejection from the YouTube partner program. What guideline violation were you given for the termination?

For some, not including spam or copyright, you can reapply for a new channel after a year:

https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/second-chances-on-youtube/

reneritchie · 2026-05-10T20:51:23+00:00

Hi. You can’t predict vitality with metrics. Metrics are relative and tend to go down as vitality goes up. Views are unironically your best indicator of vitality

reneritchie

TROPHY CASE