A new year, a new decade and new changes to stand out on YouTube! But HOW? How can you stand out from all those other YouTubers, viral videos & cool formats? How can you reach the right target audience on YouTube with your brand, organisation or company? There’s only one answer: hack the YouTube algorithm! Let us explain: We want you to gain the results you wanted to achieve on YouTube in 2019 but didn’t. You struggled, got some views and subscribers, but far from what you wanted to reach. We are here to help you! If you need 100.000 subscribers or to double your current revenue, we want you to succeed. So read carefully and study this document, we are sure it will help you understand the algorithm of YouTube and what they value most.

1. HOW TO
HACK THE YOUTUBE
ALGORITHM IN 2020
By

2. A new year, a new decade and new changes to stand out on
YouTube! But HOW? How can you stand out from all those other
YouTubers, viral videos & cool formats? How can you reach the right
target audience on YouTube with your brand, organisation or
company? There’s only one answer: hack the YouTube algorithm!
Let us explain: We want you to gain the results you wanted to
achieve on YouTube in 2019 but didn’t. You struggled, got some views
and subscribers, but far from what you wanted to reach.
We are here to help you! If you need 100.000 subscribers or to
double your current revenue, we want you to succeed. So read
carefully and study this document, we are sure it will help you
understand the algorithm of YouTube and what they value most.
Hack? YouTube?

3. The YouTube Algorithm
The YouTube algorithm is based on audience retention: this is the
average view duration of your video. The longer people watch your video
(till the end) the more the algorithm will see this as a good performing
video. We’ll dive into this more on the next page.
Besides audience retention, the success of your video is influenced by:
CTR - what is the percentage of clicks on your video based on the
amount of impressions (page 5)
Engagement on the video (especially comments) - how is your audience
engaging & interacting with your video? What are they commenting?
(page 6)
Metadata - how are you uploading your video? (page 7)
Closed or manual captions - is your metadata aligned with the sounds &
voices in your video? (Yes YouTube listens to everything) (page 9)
Audience Retention
CTR
Engagement
Metadata
Captions

4. Audience retention
To optimise your audience retention you
need to focus on your content. If you
already have a channel, analyse your
current videos to see where your current
audience is leaving your videos. You can
see this data in YouTube Studio (Beta) ->
video analytics -> Audience retention.
If you see a decline in your audience
retention graph (see examples) it means
that people are leaving your video. So in
this example, the biggest moment of exit
is at the beginning of the video & at 4.11

5. Here some extra tips to improve your audience retention:
• Know your audience & create content with/for them. Interact with them to find out what
they like to watch, what they miss in your videos or even better: create content with them. A
human centric approach is the best way to optimise your audience retention.
• Give your audience a reason to watch the video until the end. For example finding out who’s
the winner of a challenge or a give - away. Another great way is to create video series with
cliffhangers.
• Pay attention to the length of your videos. We always try to aim for 12 till 15 minutes unless
the video is really valuable and fun to watch. Depending on your channel, content and
audience you should determine the length of your videos.
Don’t know how to set your video length? Test your videos in advance, ask for feedback from
your audience and analyse the results!
• Create magic in the production & edit of your videos. Make sure the video quality is good (we
always shoot in 4K), use multiple angles so you can create clean cuts and produce b-rolls to
edit transitions which fit your video.
Audience retention

6. Click Through Rate (CTR)
Two words: title & thumbnail. Those are the two factors which determine your Click Through Rate.
Thumbnail
Your thumbnail is the most important and needs
to; stand out, appealing to click on and show the
concept. One of the most important things in a
thumbnail is facial expressions.
Title
The title of your video needs to be YouTube SEO
prove but more importantly, appealing to click on.
A combination of both is the best way to get
recommended or suggested by YouTube.

7. Click Through Rate (CTR)
“WE LOVE THUMBNAIL TESTING”
From today you will be creating at least 2 thumbnails for every video you want to upload. You’ll
test those within your own network and on YouTube. After a couple of videos you’ll know which
thumbnail is generating the most clicks. Based on that data you can create your own thumbnail
template for your upcoming videos.
If you see a decrease in CTR, start changing the thumbnails right away so you won’t lose
momentum.
We love to test our thumbnails, optimise the clicks and our views with our thumbnail designs.

8. Uploading
Uploading a video on YouTube is the biggest underrated aspect of YouTube. A lot of YouTubers/content
creators don’t pay enough attention to this part and leave a lot of new subscribers & views on the table.
We want to make sure you don’t so we create a YouTube Upload Checklist (FOR FREE) so you know
what you NEED to do when you upload a video on YouTube.
LEAVE A COMMENT TO
RECEIVE OUR CHECKLIST

9. Closed & manual captions
Besides the metadata, the engagement on your video and average view duration
(audience retention) YouTube also adds automatic closed captions to your video.
This is another factor for YouTube to determine what your video is about so they
can suggest or recommend it to the right audience.
Easy right? Just automatically added closed captions! Unfortunately not…
This system of YouTube isn’t really optimise and can translate the spoken voice(s)
in your video(s) into a weird language with grammar mistakes.
So please invest time to add closed captions to give YouTube another source
what your video is about.
An even better way to add captions to your videos is through your audience:
YouTube Studio -> Subtitles -> Community (tab). This way you can copy a link
which you can place in your video description. When clicked, your audience can
help you translate the video for you!
WIN - WIN: you’ll get free captions and your audience retention + engagement
rate goes up!

10. We at NMS Productions started to figure out how
YouTube really worked 2 years ago: what the
platform valued most, how the algorithm works and
how you can optimise your content to gain more
results. In the meantime we’ve managed to get the
following results:
• We helped generating over 20 million organic
views (no advertising) worldwide on YouTube.
• We got nominated the for best branded video
2019 in the Netherlands.
• We have been on popular Dutch media platforms
with our content multiple times.
WHO WE ARE
Senna kost
Creative Director
Oscar Mooy
Director
NMSPRODUCTIONS.COM
om@newmediaservices.com.au
+31634343341

11. How can we help you?
Content creation
We create content and formats/
concepts that build relationships
with your (potential) customers.
Organic YouTube Marketing
Analyse your YouTube channel
(Content & data) and translate our
conclusions into a brand new
strategy.
Organic TikTok Marketing
We’ll create a TikTok strategy from
scratch.
Underpriced Attention
We help you spread your message
as much as possible for the least
amount of money.
Influencer Marketing
We connect brands and
influencers at an underpriced rate.
Consult & Training
Explain YouTube and answer all
your questions or/and train your
employees to understand
YouTube in & out.
Content Distribution
We distribute content so it will
grow organically on the most
effective platforms.
Channel Management
A combination of all.