Where are vanity metrics important?
Everybody says vanity metrics are not important, and I get that. You shouldn’t focus on clicks or views or likes or shares, unless it’d translate into real results. But here’s where vanity metrics are important and where I should focus more on them than anything else. That’s when you’re building a channel and a presence on YouTube, because it takes time. It’s a slow build. Then suddenly it’s a hockey stick of performance.
When you’re posting your videos regularly once or twice a week, you start seeing some views trickle in, but not that much. You may be disappointed. After six months, you’re getting maybe 50 or 100 views. That’s not enough. But, organically, it shows that you are getting traction.
The YouTube algorithm, the way it works is that it needs to see a long period of consistent posting to figure out that you are a sophisticated creator in order to start promoting you at the top of their organic lists. Consistency and persistence are super important, but you won’t see results right away so you shouldn’t focus on them. Instead…
Make up your own vanity metrics
The one I like is how many videos are you posting in how many days. You may say one video per week. Stick to that. As long as you’re doing that, you know you’re delivering on your promise and eventually you will see results. It may take six months, it may take a year, but the slow build will go like this for one year, and then suddenly it will grow exponentially.
When does YouTube start tracking you and sends you traffic?
I’m interviewing business YouTubers who say, “The first year maybe I got a thousand subscribers. The second year I got 10,000 subscribers. Then in the third year, in three months, I got another 15,000 subscribers.” That shows you the potential of YouTube when it starts tracking you and then sees that you’re sticking with it and you’re consistent. Then it can send you a lot of traffic and views.
This is something that certainly goes against the grain. A lot of gurus are saying stop focusing on vanity metrics, and you may be feeling like this is fake productivity. Am I really doing anything for my business? Really you are. It’s just you’re building a long-term asset. It’s a long game, and when it works, you will see phenomenal results.
The good news is that if you do stick with it, you know how difficult it is to stick with it, so your competitors are much less likely to copy you and have an asset like that. It’s a unique asset that you will be leveraging year in and year out.
Upload your videos frequently and consistently. Start building your YouTube channel now, in 2019
Don’t worry about views or subscribers or clicks to your website or conversions on your website. Just worry on how many videos you’re posting every month. As long as you do that, you should know that it will work. I’ve talked to many people, and that’s exactly how they did it. They became super frustrated with the results.
Don’t focus on them, figure out what’s the vanity metric that will keep you consistent, and just do that. Maybe it’s one video a month. Start with that, as little as that. But then you have to grow. The higher the frequency, the sooner you will start seeing results from YouTube. You will accelerate your performance. The sooner you start seeing results, it will be much easier to stick with it.
There is a benefit to doing more videos more frequently, so I would recommend at least once a week. For the month of May, actually I’m running a challenge, 30 videos in 30 days. Having a big goal, a stretch goal like that can help you because you can figure out your processes, what’s working.
You will be better the more videos you do
If you do them very closely with each other, you will become much better, much faster. You will see the difference, you will see the results much faster. You will be better, you will look better on camera and be more comfortable. It’s going to be phenomenal, it’s going to work wonders for your business. Get started now and you’ll thank me later.