Do YouTube subscribers still matter?

0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.

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1:15It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. Should YouTube get rid of subscribers completely? That's the first question that we answer on today's episode of Creator Support. We also talk about Emma Chamberlain being on the cover of Rolling Stone. Then we answer the question, how do you get someone to watch a video more than once? And then we talk about whether or not you should start a second channel and when is the right time. Welcome to Creator Support, the show where we answer your questions about the business of being a creator. If you make it to the deep end, you're in for a surprise today.

1:49All right, we're kicking off with a question that I've been thinking about quite a bit. Happy it was asked in the subreddit. I think a lot of creators that I've been talking to are curious about this. So this comes from Feasible Creative says, should subscribers be removed as a YouTube metric altogether? The classic YouTube vanity metric with the rise of shorts, the validity of a creator's credibility based on subscriber count is almost zero. I have 6 ,000 subscribers, but over 50 % stemmed from one semi-viral long form video, which isn't my main niche focus anymore. As such, my new videos are less likely to be clicked on by these individuals.

2:25It would be interesting to have ghost subscribers cleared once per quarter. Perhaps users who haven't clicked on a creator's video in a while would be prompted to unsubscribe or opt in to stay subscribed. This could cause a lot of variability in subscriber count, though. What are your thoughts? Wow. It's hard for me to think about getting rid of subscribers after 12 years of really trying to hit 1 million subscribers. Sure, yeah. Different channels, by the way. Different channel. Didn't take us 12 years on this channel. On this channel, on YouTube, if you're watching, we have almost 20 ,000 subscribers on the Creator Support channel.

2:58On our main channel, 1.2 million subscribers. And for me, hitting 1 million was so important. It was like this North Star that it was one of the only ways I could understand if I was even progressing as a YouTube creator over time. But now that we've surpassed it, I do understand, especially with shorts, how it feels kind of gamified. there were times last year when we gained you know a hundred thousand subscribers off of a single short are those people really tuning in i don't know yeah i think we saw a correlation between that and increased viewership across the whole channel um but that was just like also increased visibility of our brand and we were keeping things on the same track but i think this question is really interesting and the second half of it i want to start there of what if you could clear out and have people opt in, that suggests like that's something that we do on our newsletter.

3:53So like pretty regularly, if people aren't opening the newsletter, we will, you know, either send them an opt-in link or, you know, remove them if they aren't reacting to anything. Because what we want on the newsletter is very active subscribers. What we want is that when we send you an email, you want that email. That's a very different scenario from YouTube because right now the sub box is not really that active, at least for me as a consumer. I'm not going to the subscriptions tab to find a new video. I'm looking at the home feed because it's more interesting. Like there's more variability in what shows up there.

4:27And I kind of know when a new creator that, or a creator that I enjoy uploads a video. I just know. So I think the reality is that like the subscription notification is what's become devalued. Like views from subscribers is becoming less and less because there's no real function. There was a time a long time ago where you would get an email that said, like, Colin and Samir just uploaded a video. Remember that? It used to really mean something. It used to really mean something. And as it became less valued, creators did speak up. And they were like, wait, why have I been trying to gain subscribers if it's not actually translating to actual viewership?

5:05And there is a reality here where YouTube subscribers, they're not paying if you subscribe to someone's YouTube channel, right? That's a different type of relationship of like, sure, I'll subscribe or I won't subscribe. But YouTube's going to serve me the video anyway if that's what I want, if that matches my viewing behavior. Right, exactly. I think a more interesting metric to put on someone's channel would be how many returning viewers are watching the channel. And that's a metric we have in the back end. Yeah, a metric of community. In our dashboard, which is like how many people watched more than one video in that month.

5:38Yeah, I think one of the most interesting things about launching the creator support YouTube channel has been the views from subscribers. like you know we have around 20 ,000 subscribers on this channel and each episode you know hovers between 15 and 20 ,000 views and the majority of those are from subscribers that's a really special thing that I think is pretty unique right now that we're experiencing different from our main channel way different right our main channel has 1.2 million subscribers subscribers who have come along for the journey across the last six years of varying types of content or varying formats and you know we also are a lot of times with our videos hitting recommended hitting you know browse features a lot of viewership from from different parts of youtube um so we have a lot less viewership from from subscribers there some months it's in you know could be we could do you know 15 million views in a month with 10 being from subscribers with 1.5 million being from subscribers yeah i I do think that's interesting to bring up that for us, this show, Creator Support, is a community-based show.

6:45Right. It's consistent. It's every Thursday. Yeah. And it's about building a routine with all of you who are listening and watching. Yeah. It's not necessarily about the title, about the thumbnail. Yeah. And that's similar to, again, our newsletter. It's like a routine-based and what we call a permission-based environment where, like, you subscribe and you give us permission to send an email to your inbox because you want that. when you subscribe to, you know, a YouTube channel, again, nothing. Yes. Maybe you can turn notifications on and you can get a notification when someone uploads, but it's like, it's not really that relationship of like, I'm giving you permission to every time you upload, notify me and let me know and put it in my sub box.

7:24That does happen, but it doesn't feel like that's the relationship. You still, no matter what, as a creator have to figure out how to stand out to your viewers and make sure they click, even if they've subscribed, like you still have to do the additional step unless you're the type of, you know, creator that no matter what people click on your video. Should new creators still ask audiences to subscribe? Yes, because I think we have not moved past the point where subscribers have lost their social currency and their business currency. So I think the reality is if you're in the business of being a creator, you know, if, if we ask someone to come on our show, our podcast, and they look and we have 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube, that's going to mean, that's going to signal something to them immediately, right?

8:09Versus if we have 3000 subscribers and that social currency, I think still, still matters. Um, whether or not it should, it does. And additionally, when it comes to like sponsorship or, you know, advertising, all of that, everything about like the industry currency, it still has to do with subscribers that might change. I would urge creators to focus on views per video as like the metric that you're tracking retention. Like, are you making videos that people want to watch and are they coming back? Like, are they returning to watch? But the industry still focuses on subscribers. So like you probably still need to care about it.

8:44Yeah. Something that we track more so is comments, especially on engagements, greater support on these episodes. We're really looking at the YouTube channel to say, did this episode actually drive people to comment and say something? Yeah. We're, we're at a point in our career right now where we're looking for active viewers, not passive viewers. We're not looking for, you know, someone who's going to subscribe because they liked something we did, but then never engage again. Yeah. We're looking for people who are engaging on a regular basis. And that's, that's the work that we're doing across all of our different media platforms, right?

9:16Whether it's newsletter, Instagram, YouTube. And I think that's also why we're like building in the direction of, of community and something that we've talked about, but is now coming very soon. is our discord. Whoa. Discord server. We've just signed on some mods. We're going deep right now. The mod squad. The mod squad. We have a discord chat with the mods prepping for some great channels based on all of your guys' suggestions. But that's going to be an environment that, again, it's like even more active. So it's kind of like funneling through like, okay, here's like the broadest sense of people who are interested in being educated about the creator economy, hearing stories about other creators.

9:56then we go okay what about people who want to go every week and have their questions answers here's creator support what about people who want to chat with each other and go deeper from a community perspective okay there's the discord so it's like we we kind of are continuously now exploring where are the most active subscribers where are the most active viewers for us yeah and part of the reason of that is because algorithmic growth is fleeting many times totally a great way to find new people but it's not a great way always to retain people. Yeah. I think a creator who has built a mass audience on YouTube and seems to be the type of creator who can upload anything and people will watch, Emma Chamberlain.

10:36True. Grace the cover of the Rolling Stone creators issue. Yes, she is the second creator to grace the cover. Mr. Beast was first. Yeah. And I asked you this morning, I said, did you know it was going to be Emma Chamberlain? Yeah. And you said to me, could it have been anyone else? Yeah. And I would ask everyone who's listening and watching right now, like, could it have been anyone else? Where people wouldn't have said, who? Yeah. Or why? Yeah. Or someone who potentially, you know, has some level of controversy surrounding them or has some type of backlash connected to them. Like, I don't know that it could have been anyone else.

11:11Now, I also want to acknowledge, I think Emma deserves to be on the cover. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's another reason why it couldn't have been anyone else is because I think Emma deserves to be on the cover. I think Emma is, the reason why I think Emma deserves to be on the cover is because she has shown us the roadmap of evolution. where someone who started on YouTube vlogging and kind of innovating in a way and showing us a different side of YouTube and then building into saying, where does that fit today? Where do my interests fit today? And exploring what that means in fashion, in entrepreneurship with Chamberlain Coffee, back on YouTube, completely new style.

11:50And then with a Spotify exclusive show, essentially taking her vlog and subject matter that was in her vlog and converting that into a solo podcast. And I was watching that this morning and showing my wife the podcast. She was like, she asked the question. She said, doesn't she not make videos anymore when she saw her on the cover? And I was like, well. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID, and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info. And if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft.

12:28LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it. Guaranteed. Or your money back. Save up to 40 % your first year at lifelock.com slash podcast. Terms apply. It's a valid question from her that like she's not really uploading YouTube videos anymore. But I was like, but she's absolutely still a massive creator. Like a weekly podcast episode on Spotify that's in both video and audio form. I don't know how many people that's reaching, but I'd have to assume quite a bit. It's the third most listened to podcast on Spotify. Yeah. So like that's massive amounts of reach and arguably even deeper connection with an audience than a vlog.

13:10Yeah. And I'm sure Rolling Stone is still trying to figure out what the criteria is to put a creator on the cover. But in my opinion, if you're in the offices of Rolling Stone, it's about finding someone who dictated culture on the internet stylistically, from a format perspective, tonally. When she started vlogging on YouTube, the environment on Instagram and YouTube was very prim, proper, overdone. She broke that down. Then she defined an editing style. So not only is she talking about vulnerable things like pimples on her face, she defines a new edit style that then gets like taken by the platform.

13:53Everyone starts replicating it. Then she's like, wait, this is kind of boring now. Yeah. Shifts and does something entirely new. I was watching her podcast because it's in video form on Spotify as well. Yeah. And it's, you know, relatively innovative in the way that she's sitting on her bed. She's talking into a mic, but it's jump cut and it's just her for like 45 minutes. Call Her Daddy does this sometimes and has done it really well in the past. but I don't know how many single person podcasts there are that are in the top 10, top 100 pods. Like that's just Emma. It's not an interview show. It's not a chat show.

14:29One person every week. Staring you in the face for an hour. Pretty impressive. So yeah, congratulations to Emma to being on the cover. Also for the second year in a row, we were in conversation with Rolling Stone. I don't know what our feature looks like. We were not on the cover, maybe one year, you know, Not featured on the cover, but one of the names on the cover. Sure. Because there's a list of names on the cover. I looked. You looked for us. Nope. Okay. Nope. Definitely not. All right. About 15 creators there. Nope. Not us. Not us. Yeah. I will say the last thing I want to say about the write-up, the article about Emma, there was something really interesting in there.

15:00It talks about when she goes on stage with Spotify, with the executives to talk about anything goes. And she was talking about how she doesn't use any scripts. Now, in those situations, they're generally scripted. when you have like an executive from a tech platform, a creator there. We've been in some scenarios like that where you're given scripts and you kind of adjust them and work them out. And it was really interesting that, you know, she said, I'm not going to use any scripts. And then after, there's a quote in the article about after she gets on stage with Spotify. And she goes, I didn't nail it.

15:32Probably one of my worst performances. But she goes, at least it came from a real place. And I think that's really interesting. I remember saying to you, uh, after doing an onstage appearance, similar to this and being like, I feel like I'm failing at being a version that's not entirely me. And I would rather fail being a hundred percent me than fail at a version that's not me. Yeah, I agree. And I really resonated with that and respected her for being like, I don't use any scripts. However this goes, it's going to go. But no matter what, at least I'm being my truest, most authentic self. I think there's also a level, I really like that, but I think there's also a level of acceptance as a creative person that I don't think I had when we were, you know, kind of in the thick of growth.

16:20And even like only now in my maturity have I gotten to the point where I can accept that there's going to be on days and off days and I'm not going to nail it every time. Yeah. And that's an accepted reality, whether it's like showing up to an interview with another creator, um, you know, doing this show being live. Yep. There's just going to be days. I'm not going to nail it. I remember when we recorded how I built this with Guy Raz, I felt like that was an off day for me. I was so disappointed. Yeah. Personally. I just felt like I was off and that was like deflating because it was a show I always wanted to be on, but I just felt off, you know?

16:58And like, that's just gonna happen. And it's, it's a really interesting, uh, thing as you start getting into the consistency of creating on a regular basis and showing up every day as like the craft being yourself being present on camera or yourself being present on mic, there's just going to be days you're not on. It's just going to happen. Yeah. Okay. All right, let's get to the next question. Uh, this comes from route seven, six, five on the subreddit. Hey Colin and Samir, I've got a question. So it's related to last week's guest who did exercise videos. So I used to watch exercise videos myself and I found that I could re-watch that same video maybe five, ten, even a hundred times over if I really like that exercise routine.

17:46And the only other type of media that I would consume that much would be a music video or like just music in general. So I'm wondering, is it possible to create an entertainment based video with the same amount of replay value as those exercise videos or music? It's a good question. Yeah, that is an interesting question. So what he's referring to is our episode we did with Cassie Ho, otherwise known as Blogilates, who started on YouTube by making fitness videos, grew a big community, and then from there, you know, has branched out and launched two very impressive clothing brands. But the question surrounds the replayability of videos.

18:22We've talked about this a lot. There's one yoga with Adrian video that I've done hundreds of times. It's a great yoga sequence. I feel good when I do it. I've done it hundreds of times and I watch an ad every time. That video has millions of views. There's a lot of videos on YouTube that have a lot of replayability. Fitness videos have that because again, you can come back to a workout. It's also like a transformation of self. You feel better afterwards. You start the video in one place, you end the video, you feel better. Yeah. So you want to do it again. Music is the same way. You can watch a music video over and over again, probably less than fitness, but are there any other types of videos that you can replay at that scale?

19:02At that scale, I would say no. Because even like a cooking video, a recipe, right? You'll watch it to a point and then you'll probably kind of know how to follow along. Markiplier does gamified videos where you can choose a path to go down at the end. But at some point, you're going to have seen every path. Very viral videos I've watched multiple times. Like many times over. One of them being Casey Neistat's Make It Count. I've watched that video. I can't count how many times I've watched that video. I would say Scott Galloway's The Algebra of Happiness. I've watched many times. But what is many times?

19:38Five? Yeah. Five to ten max. So I think like videos that inspire you. Oh, there's another video I've watched a couple times. Cody Cohen, Noel Miller reacting to Mark McGrath. Yes. Yeah. That's cringe. That video makes me laugh. So I think there has to be, for something to be able to be replayed at that scale, there has to be a transformation. You have to start the video one way and then end it in another way. Like if we think about The Office, I can rewatch the dinner party episode of The Office an infinite amount of times and laugh every time. But I'm watching it because of the transformation I know it's going to create in me.

20:19I know I'm going to laugh. And when I want a laugh or to feel comfortable, then I look for that video or that type of video that I want to replay. So you have to leave such a profound transformation or profound impact on the audience that they want to experience it again. I think that's what you have to think about when you're creating videos that you want to be replayed It's like is this impact so profound? Did I make them cry laugh smile? You know, what did I make them feel to the point that they want to feel that again? Because that's what's happening in a workout video You're experiencing something that you want to feel again.

20:52Okay. I came up with another one. Okay Monologues for award shows. I'll watch monologues for the oscars That's gotta just be you and occasionally accepting speeds that one's other people. Come on. They're funny. They're great Dave Chappelle's monologue for SNL. Because I guess the question is, I'm not going to, I don't know why. Again, there's a cap to it. There's a cap to it. Nothing is going to be like fitness or like music. Sure. So that's the answer. Yeah. Nothing. But there are some videos that move you enough that you want to watch them again. Yes. I'd urge you, if you're listening or if you're watching, you know, drop a comment.

21:21What's a video that you can watch multiple times? Yeah. I just wonder, is it like, are any of Jimmy's, like Mr. Beast's video, are those like to be watched again? Or are those to be watched once? I think those are to be watched. Once, right? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if I've re-watched any of his videos. Even Emma Chamberlain. I think her videos are mainly to be watched once. Once, yeah. Okay, I wanted to bring up this question because I think it's an important subject matter for us to talk about, and a lot of people in our community have talked about it this week. This comes on YouTube from Time Warp Trio 11.

21:57It says, can you talk about the situation with Mr. Beast and Chris and the impact on the business? that last part of it is interesting the impact on the business yeah i feel like that is sort of neither here nor there like the the business implications of someone choosing to be themselves and having the courage to be themselves yeah is not really the discussion yeah i don't think that's the question um you know i don't think that matters like i i think that that is uh there's been some creators that i would urge everyone to watch uh their reactions um ludwig Hassan Piker and D 'Angelo Wallace, three creators that I think have made fantastic videos about this situation and really encouraging the community to kind of be accepting and be open and be encouraging of someone to be themselves or if you are against it and discouraging just to kind of relax a little bit and allow someone to be themselves When I see this situation going on, like the thing that I get excited about is that Chris is very open and like in the conversation and not shying away from being in videos and very like upfront about pursuing a way of life that, you know, he or they want to pursue.

23:20Like I think that is just – it's not easy to do that in front of that many people. Yeah, I think the byproduct of this will be younger kids who perhaps grow up now more accepting or are maybe dealing with a situation similar where they're trying to figure out identity. Yeah. And they see this on a really grand scale and someone's sticking up for themselves and his friend's sticking up for him and going, oh, okay, this is something that I will be fine. Like there's a roadmap for people like me. I was happy that in Jimmy's response to some of the commentary on Twitter, but really disappointed in Sonny V2's video.

24:06Yeah, I was very surprised that he was even like comfortable putting that out. Yeah, Sonny V2 put out a video that said like how Chris will soon become a nightmare for Mr. Beast, something like that. Yeah. and Jimmy responded and was like Chris is not my nightmare he's my friend you know like just like relax yeah I was surprised that Sunny V2 put out that video and again like the whole situation like I think it's really hard there's hundreds of millions of people watching and you know there's people looking at Jimmy as a strategist and being like so what's the strategy here it's almost like succession like what's the play what are you going to do now

24:50just keep on going like i don't know like what is what do you what do you want what do you want the answer to this question to be of like what's the impact on the business you know like i'm just going to continue yeah it's a human being yeah you know like i don't know i think it's like i think at some point we have to just look at it stop analyzing it and just be open and accepting. Yeah. You know, so that's my piece on it. I wanted to just acknowledge it and I acknowledge this question because obviously we've been getting a lot of questions about it, but like, you know. Okay. This was something that you brought up to me and that I saw Sarah Dietschy tweet about and that I can't believe.

25:32Yeah. Which is Netflix tweet about the Love is Blind reunion. So they said, to everyone who stayed up late, woke up early, gave up their Sunday afternoon. We are incredibly sorry that Love is Blind live reunion did not turn out as we had planned. We're filming it right now and we'll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible. Again, thank you and sorry. This is so similar to a YouTube tweet of like, we couldn't get the episode out guys. So sorry. It'll be out this week. Yeah. I just love that we're now all on the same playing field. Like once Netflix can do that, you know, we're all really just creators.

26:07But what happened? I mean, you know, it's a live special. How did they not get it done? It's live. Production is difficult. You know, Frank Ocean was live at Coachella over the weekend. He went on an hour late. How did that turn out? It's a difficult production. You know what I mean? Like it's all production. It's just difficult. We're hearing from Jesse. It was only their second time doing a live thing. But yeah, it was just. But it's Netflix. Yeah, it was just so interesting. That's a YouTube creator response of sorts. Like, it's my second time. Sorry, guys. Like, figure it out next time. Yeah.