And so, you lot want to join the YouTube Partner Program to monetize your YouTube aqueduct to finally make money with your YouTube channel?

As yous probably know, you lot have to run into two requirements before you can apply.

  • Get 1,000 YouTube subscribers for your channel.
  • Gain 4,000 hours of watch time inside the final 365 days. That'south what we're going to focus on today.

Getting your first yard subscribers is the piece of cake part! At that place are over ten.one million YouTube channels with more than 1,000 subs, but just 2 million channels have joined the YouTube Partner Program. You tin can acquire more than about this in my article on How many YouTube channels are there?

Today, we will wait at how nosotros can become you to 4,000 hours of sentry time as quickly every bit possible. First, we are going to look at your watch fourth dimension from iii unlike angles:

  • What'due south the minimum number of videos that you should make to get in that location?
  • How many views does each of your videos have to get?
  • How long should your video be?

So we explore different strategies and tactics on how to maximize your spotter time to trigger the YouTube algorithm to quickly grow your channel.

Sounds good? Bully!

So let's get started...

What Does 4,000 Hours of YouTube Watch Time Mean?

4000 hours in minutes

When we look at big numbers, it's sometimes difficult to imagine what those numbers really mean. So permit's break down 4000 hours of YouTube watch time into minutes.

The math is simple. One hr equals hour, so all we have to do is multiply both numbers.

4000 hours x lx minutes = 240,000 minutes!

To become to 4000 hours of YouTube watch time, you have to generate 240,000 minutes of YouTube spotter time.

4000 hours in days

How many days of continuous watching does it take to become to 4000 hours of sentinel time?

Let's meet...

I day has 24 hours. That ways we can just split 4000 hours of watch time by 24 to get our answer.

4000 hours / 24 hours = 166 days and sixteen hours

To get 100% of your YouTube scout time from i person, they would accept to play your videos on loop for 166 days and 16 hours non-stop.

Of form, that number will become much smaller if you take more subscribers.

How Does YouTube Calculate the Number of Hours Watched?

There are two things that you have to empathise about watch time.

What counts equally video lookout man time?

The first thing that you take to understand is what qualifies every bit watch time?

Not all content is equal. YouTube merely considers PUBLIC watch fourth dimension as watch time.

That means if y'all set the privacy of 1 of your videos as unlisted or private. Yous could get a million hours of watch fourth dimension, and it wouldn't count!

Go on that in mind when yous upload your videos onto YouTube!

If you had a viral video 2 years ago, would it count towards your watch time?

Unfortunately non!

iv,000 hours of sentinel time is non almost the total number of spotter time people watched during the lifetime of your aqueduct.

Information technology's a moving time frame, and will e'er wait at the last 365 days from whatever date it is today.

Imagine this: If you had accumulated 1,000 hours of watch time exactly 500 days earlier today and then generated some other three,000 hours within the final 365 days.

How many hours of lookout time would you accept?

Hint: It'due south not 4,000...

If you guessed 3,000, you're right on the money!

The 1,000 hours that you collected 500 days agone are out of the 365 days date range.

Now the expert news is that you just have to get 4,000 hours once.

Once y'all qualify for monetization, you can apply for monetization. And once you're approved, yous're canonical. No matter how many hours of watch time you accumulate later.

Example: If you got monetized one year ago simply only had 1,000 hours of watch time inside the concluding 365 days doesn't matter.

Yous still stay monetized.

What'due south the Best Strategy to Become To 4000 Hours of Public Watch Fourth dimension?

What'south the minimum number of videos that you should make? How many views should each of your YouTube videos become? What's the ideal length of your videos?

To respond these questions, we have to do a bit of math start.

1 Ten one-minute video

Imagine that you just created a make-new YouTube channel.

Day 0. You have 0 subscribers and 0 videos.

What if yous created just 1 1-minute video. How many times would people accept to watch this ane video to gain four,000 hours of watch time?

The answer is pretty simple.

We just have to catechumen 4,000 hours into minutes. 4,000 hours 10 hr = 240,000 minutes.

One one-minute long video would have to be watched 240,000 times.

Wow, that's a big number!

It gets fifty-fifty bigger if we assume that not everybody will picket your video all the way till the end.

The get-go person might picket for ane minute, the second person might watch 30 seconds, and the third person might click away immediately.

What'southward the average lookout man fourth dimension? (lx seconds + xxx seconds + 0 seconds) / 3 people = xc seconds / 3 people = xxx seconds / person.

In other words, 50% of the total video length.

In reality, 50% would be a pretty skillful result for any video shorter than ten minutes.

For longer videos, 30% or more is more than realistic.

With our ane-minute video, 50% boilerplate watch fourth dimension would double the number of required views.

240,000 one-minute views / 50% = 480,000 views!

Yes, we are not going to do that.

We need something way more achievable!

365 X 1-minute videos

Ok, so what if we fabricated one 1-minute video every twenty-four hour period instead?

How many views would we need?

Let's take our previous number of 480,000 views and carve up information technology by 365 days.

And yes, I am simplifying a picayune here: The get-go video you upload on day 1 has 365 days left to gain more views. While the concluding video that you upload on day 364 merely has 1 twenty-four hour period left to gain more views and should therefore get a much smaller number of views. In my examples, we just pretend that all videos are the same.

What'due south the result?

480,000 views / 365 videos = 1,315 views / video

Now that'due south way more doable, wouldn't you say?

1,315 people to view a video vs. 480,000 people to view a video...

Simply, we can do even better.

365 X x-infinitesimal videos

What if nosotros just made longer videos?

10-infinitesimal long videos instead of one-minute videos?

Well, in this example, we can divide everything by ten.

i,315 views per video / 10 = 132 views per video

Let's check the number and encounter if we're right.

365 video x 10 minutes 10 132 views per video x 50% average spotter length = 240,900 minutes = 4,015 hours

Boo-ya! Accept that algebra! 😜

Allow's exist real

Now all of these numbers make sense on paper, but they might not piece of work in practise.

For once, coming upwards with skillful video ideas takes time and requires mental energy to exist artistic.

If you lot want to make 365 unique videos that are all every bit good, you might burn out pretty chop-chop.

And not just because y'all drain your creativity daily (unless you live stream video games on Twitch), but also because of the fourth dimension spent on production, editing, and promotion, which can hands take up a few hours per video if you desire to do a good job.

What'due south a more realistic option that would work for about people?

Here is what I recommend:

  • Create 1, 2 or 3 videos per week. Each 10 to fifteen minutes long.
  • Create either a weekly or monthly livestream of threescore minutes.
  • Focus on content quality and promotion.

Permit's have a look at how these numbers play out.

For this instance, I will summate the total number of unique content offset and then combine it with our live stream minutes.

  • one x weekly video of 15 minutes: 52 weeks 10 ane x 15 minutes = 780 minutes of video content.
  • 2 x weekly video of 15 minutes: 52 weeks x ii x 15 minutes = 1,560 minutes of video content.
  • three ten weekly video of 15 minutes: 52 weeks ten three x xv minutes = 2,340 minutes of video content.

Now, let'southward calculate our live stream minutes.

  • 1 x weekly video of lx minutes: 52 weeks 10 1 x 60 minutes = 3,120 minutes of live stream content.
  • 1 ten monthly video of 60 minutes: 12 months 10 1 ten hour = 720 minutes of live stream content.

Now, all you take to do is combine these two numbers. If you don't want to do alive-streaming, just skip it.

For case, if I want to create 3 weekly videos and exercise one monthly alive stream: 2,340 minutes of video content + 720 minutes of live stream content = 3,060 minutes of unique video content or 51 hours.

In this case, I would demand to go 78 views per video or live stream to attain 4,000 hours of watch time. Here is the math: 4,000 hours / 51 hours of unique video content.

You'll never have the same number of views for each of your videos or live streams. Some videos will have a few hundred views; others will have less than 50.

What's important is that those numbers average out in the long run.

And this is what this article volition focus on.

Taking the all-time possible actions to ensure that each video has the best adventure of success to get as many video views and watch fourth dimension as possible.

How to Get To 4,000 Hours of YouTube Watch Time Fast

If yous want to join the YouTube partner plan, y'all take to get a lot of watch time fast. Permit's look at some of the best YouTube watch time hacks that will help you grow your channel exponentially.

Create longer YouTube videos

Let me show yous a real-world example from my YouTube channel. Here are two of my acme-performing videos at the time of writing.

  • How to become 500 connections on LinkedIn. seven minutes and 31 seconds long. ane,490 views created 69.2 hours of watch time.
  • How to get your commencement ten,000 followers on LinkedIn. 47 minutes and half-dozen seconds long. 456 views created 50.ii hours of watch fourth dimension.

As you can see, even though the x,000 followers video simply had virtually 23% of the combined views, it almost had 42% of the combined watch fourth dimension.

That's why longer videos are so powerful!

Even though the boilerplate watch fourth dimension percentage is lower than shorter videos, longer videos make more than up for it when dedicated viewers watch them all the way till the cease!

Longer videos get shared more than frequently than shorter videos.

Optimize your YouTube videos

When you're starting a new YouTube aqueduct, the odds are stacked against you.

YouTube will – initially – not recommend your videos to new people, and your channel will non grow organically because information technology doesn't know enough about you, your aqueduct, your videos, and who would be interested in watching them.

The good news is, you tin get effectually this past optimizing your videos for YouTube search.

Yous accept to find video topics that many people are searching for on YouTube, with very few competing videos in the search results.

Create a targeted video for this topic once you lot found a loftier search volume and low competition keyword. Then optimize your video title, description, and keywords for YouTube SEO.

YouTube SEO is one of the near powerful tools to optimize the click-through rate of your YouTube videos.

If there are only 5 videos about topic X, including yours, then your video will show upwardly on folio ane of YouTube's search results for your targeted keyword.

So, how practise yous find these keywords?

By using a software chosen TubeBuddy! I use information technology for all of my videos. It connects directly to YouTube'southward API and pulls up the number of searches for any keyword I type in. And information technology as well tells me how many competitor videos show up.

Based on these two numbers TubeBuddy volition summate a score between 0 and 100 points. The higher, the better.

I then utilise these keywords to find ideas for new video titles and optimize my videos to become more than organic accomplish.

Create custom thumbnails for your YouTube videos

Want to know an incredible hack to increment your YouTube scout time?

Optimize your video thumbnails for clicks!

You could have the all-time video in the world, but if nobody clicks on it, your lookout time will be zero.

Together with your video title, YouTube thumbnails are the most important success factors for high video click-through rates.

A great thumbnail communicates the value of watching your video to viewers when they browse their YouTube newsfeed.

By default, YouTube will select three freeze-frames from your video as thumbnail suggestions during the upload of your video.

Simply you should always design and upload your ain unique video thumbnail to stand out from other videos.

You will go the best results if you plan for the thumbnail before writing your video script. I wrote an in-depth article on how to plan, pattern, and optimize your YouTube thumbnails. Brand sure to cheque it out!

Add together video cards to your videos

You also have to get more people to watch more of your videos to get more lookout man time. Ane of the easiest ways is by recommending someone ane of your related videos via video cards.

Those are the niggling info icons that appear in the meridian correct corner of your videos. You lot can recommend upwardly to 5 videos per video, and I highly recommend incorporating this strategy for all of your videos.

When you're simply starting, yous might not take enough videos to recommend. Merely don't worry. Y'all can always go dorsum and add cards subsequently once yous have plenty material.

Create end screens for your videos

If your video is fun and entertaining to watch and someone stays all the way till the end, ask them to watch some of your other videos via your video cease screens.

You tin can add upward to iv videos and video playlists to the last 20 seconds of your videos that viewers tin picket with the click of a button.

I recommend using TubeBuddy to replace all of your video end screens with your most popular videos in bulk.

Recommend related videos in your video description and comments

Another awesome style to promote your videos to new viewers is by sharing links to some of your videos and playlists in the description of your videos.

For my videos, I frequently review my acme-performing videos in terms of lookout man fourth dimension, views, and engagement. I re-create all video links in a text file and add the video title in front or above each link.

Next, I add links to my website, social media accounts, and products and so utilise TubeBuddy to supersede the description in all of my videos with the click of a push.

Sometimes, especially if I want to recommend very specific videos, I follow a slightly different arroyo.

Instead of sharing the video URL that I mentioned in my video in the description, I share them in a comment and so pin the comment to the top.

Add your videos to playlists

Every YouTube channel should have at least one playlist!

You can commencement by creating 1 for all of your videos and and then, wait for it... add together all of your public videos to it! Genius!

The idea of why you lot should create playlists is that it creates a very convenient style for viewers to bulk-watch your content.

I also create several topic-specific playlists for all of my LinkedIn and YouTube training videos on my channel.

Take advantage of series-playlists

If you lot want to turbo-charge your YouTube playlists, you must take advantage of a trivial-known yet super-powerful feature called serial playlists.

Think of it like this.

You fabricated a travel documentary about your terminal vacation and split it into three movies. Yet, information technology would make sense to watch them in sequential lodge.

In this case, you create a regular playlist. Add together all 3 videos in the right order. And so switch it from "normal" to "series".

With a "normal" or no playlist at all, at that place was no way of knowing if YouTube would suggest part two equally the next recommended video if someone were watching part one. Frequently random videos would exist recommended. Often from other channels.

With a "series" playlist, this is different. Now, the probability that part 2 will be suggested is almost guaranteed.

Why is this so powerful?

Considering YouTube will motorcar-play videos afterward each video by default.

And if you can sneak in more of your videos at the cease, that means extra watch time, and you lot get to 4,000 hours much faster!

Another way you lot can take advantage of video playlists is by sharing playlists instead of individual video links.

First, observe a playlist of your choice that contains the video that yous desire to share.

Open it and so select the video you want to share. You'll notice that the URL changes into a long, convoluted address.

Select it, re-create it, and paste information technology into a new tab in your browser.

It should play your video AND and so proceed with other videos from your playlist.

If information technology works, share this far and broad.

Not everybody volition proceed to watch your entire playlist.

But some volition, and that'south all that matters! More than scout fourth dimension for your channel.

Promote your videos on social media

You lot must bulldoze as much traffic to your own videos every bit possible!

Don't rely on YouTube. This is a win-win partnership.

YouTube will reward those who assistance themselves.

When you send viewers to your videos, a couple of things will happen.

  1. You bring fresh users to the YouTube platform. This allows YouTube to show them ads which translates into extra revenue for YouTube. Outcome? YouTube volition advantage you with organic impressions.
  2. You lot know your audience all-time. By recommending your videos to people you know are interested in the content, you allow YouTube to create lookalike audiences. It works like to Amazon'due south "people who bought this also bought these" feature. In one case YouTube is able to see patterns amid viewers, it volition be able to make educated guesses what other YouTube videos and creators y'all might be interested in.
  3. You make your own luck. Or in this example your own watch time. The more that you promote your own videos, the quicker yous'll get to 4,000 hours of watch fourth dimension.
  4. You also make it user-friendly for others to share your video on social media. (If you want to dig deep to learn why people share content online and how you can motivate your audience to share more, here'southward the article.) It's quite a large step to have, to motivate someone who is already on YouTube, to open their Twitter account, to write a tweet and so to link one of your videos. Simply if yous're the one sharing the video on Twitter and someone on Twitter watches your YouTube video, it's another affair. Now, all it takes is the click to retweet your video to their followers, and smash! New potential viewers that didn't know anything about you lot earlier clicking right to your video.

Go live on YouTube

Nosotros talked about the importance of longer videos earlier. With longer videos, you need a much smaller number of viewers to become to the same number of watch hours.

Since you don't have your outset one,000 subscribers yet, that's more often than not a good thing.

I recommend recording longer videos of x-fifteen minutes. But if you actually desire to amp up your lookout man time, yous'll demand significantly longer videos.

Now, unless you have the talent to produce hour-long movies every week without burning out, there is a much easier way to go your scout time up to speed.

Going Live on YouTube.

I recommend having a regular schedule, for example, every Mon evening, and so your audience can form a habit of attending your alive streams.

Start video premieres

A cool method to increase the number of initial views for new videos is to publish them every bit a video premiere.

It's like a lookout man party for your new video. But select a date and fourth dimension, and YouTube volition live-stream your new video at your specified time. Viewers can join the live conversation and interact with you.

Later, information technology volition plough into a regular video that people can spotter whenever they want.

The benefit of premieres is that it'due south a unique experience. You tin only ever watch it for the first time, and and then information technology'due south over.

Considering of this novelty factor, you'll become a lot more people to spotter your premieres in comparing to publishing videos the regular way.

Use YouTube to live-stream your webinars

If you do webinars for your business, why not live-stream them on YouTube. I use two tools for all of my webinars that allow me to live stream to YouTube: WebinarJam and Restream.

Why should you do this?

Because webinars are usually terminal from 30 minutes to 2-three hours. And that means a massive heave in watch time every fourth dimension you lot have a new webinar.

Make sure that you set your live stream to the public. Otherwise, YouTube won't count it towards your 4,000 hours of watch time.

Create an online course and host your videos on YouTube

Take you ever thought almost creating an online grade as a lead magnet? I utilize Thrivecart to host my online courses.

But you tin can go on it super simple. Only create a hidden page on your website and add together all grade videos as embedded YouTube videos.

Or if y'all have an email list. Transport them a sequence of daily emails, each with the link to a different YouTube video.

People love structure and are more willing to consume larger amounts of content if presented and structured the right manner.

And what does that hateful for you?

You lot guessed information technology! More spotter fourth dimension!

Create a video advertising campaign on google ads

If you don't have the patience, in that location is another way that y'all tin can recall of...

Creating a video advertisement campaign on Google Ads.

Here is how this works.

Notice a video on your YouTube aqueduct that's reasonably long. So no shorter than x minutes, platonic one-half an hour to an hour. Webinar replays work amazingly.

Then yous create a Google Ads business relationship and fix a new entrada.

Yous select "brand awareness and accomplish" equally the campaign goal and so "video campaign" on the adjacent page.

Give your campaign a name.

Then select a CPC bidding strategy. I recommend manually setting a low bid cap and then yous don't accidentally burn your campaign budget also quickly.

Set a campaign upkeep as well every bit a start and finish appointment. I recommend starting with $ten-20 and a time frame of ane-2 days to familiarize yourself with how everything works.

In the networks section, select "YouTube videos".

As for targeting options, in that location are ii. Either tailor your campaign to your ideal audience. Or but go for cheap and everyone.

I recommend option two to become every bit many watch hours as possible at the lowest possible toll. And pick one, if y'all not only want to amp up your scout time just likewise proceeds subscribers with your video ads.

Now information technology'due south time to create your video ad. Select a video of your choice from your YouTube channel and pattern your advertisement.

I recommend promoting your own YouTube aqueduct in your ad copy and and so linking to your channel URL.

Pro-tip: If y'all add "?sub_confirmation=1" to the end of your channel URL, people will encounter a popup that asks them if they want to subscribe.

In the end, click salve and continue. Once your video ad campaign has been reviewed, information technology's ready to get.

I recommend logging into your YouTube Creator Studio and keeping an center on the existent-time views. This is what it'll look like on a daily footing once you have many more than subscribers! 🙂

Watch your ain videos on your friend's telephone

That's a bit of a hack. Adjacent time you encounter your friend, tell them that you desire to show them your new YouTube channel on THEIR phone.

Then let them watch one of your videos. And while you're at information technology, why non subscribe to them at the aforementioned fourth dimension... 😜

Every bit helps, and who knows, maybe they'll plough into one of your most loyal subscribers who watch all of your videos.

Determination

In summary, for you to start a successful YouTube channel, you've to create a video strategy that works for you.

I recommend publishing 3 videos of 10-15 minutes per week and one hr-long alive stream per month.

Optimize all of your YouTube videos for SEO with TubeBuddy to generate organic traffic on YouTube. TubeBuddy is an incredible tool and allowed me to grow my channel from zippo to 3000 subscribers.

Add together upwardly to five video cards to each of your videos to promote related videos from your aqueduct to encourage viewers to watch more of your content.

Create a pinned annotate and recommend the same videos you recommended in your video cards.

Add together end screen for your videos and promote at least ane of your videos and your playlists. Brand sure they're either your virtually pop videos or playlists and/or closely related to the video someone but watched.

Add a listing of your nearly popular, recommended, and related videos in the video clarification of each of your videos.

Organize all of your videos into topic-specific playlists. This allows viewers who are interested in a specific topic to spotter all of your content in bulk.

Take advantage of Serial Playlists to amend the likelihood that one of your videos will be recommended every bit "next video to sentry".

Instead of sharing the direct link, add your videos to playlists and then share the playlist with your video of pick as the currently selected video instead. This will boost your watch time tremendously!

Make certain that you lot always promote all of your videos on social media. I use SocialBee to do this on autopilot.
Promote your videos on social media

Frequently become LIVE on YouTube and use the Premiere function to create a more immersive feel with your audience and boost sentinel time.

I use WebinarJam and Restream to alive-stream your webinars.

Since webinars unremarkably tend to be between one and two hours long and the audition retention is loftier, these are an incredible watch time booster.

You can also create an online course and host your videos on YouTube to increment the picket fourth dimension on your channel.

If you desire to go results even faster, create a video ad campaign on Google Ads.

And if all of these are non enough, bug your friends and forcefulness them to watch your videos on their smartphone 😉

If you desire to learn more than about YouTube, make certain that you check out my YouTube articles on how to become more views on YouTube, get YouTube subscribers fast, improve your video click-through rate, and design crawly video thumbnails.

If you desire to learn how I grew my YouTube channel from 0 to 3,000 subscribers with TubeBuddy, cheque out my TubeBuddy review hither.