Читать книгу The YouTube Formula - Derral Eves - Страница 30

YouTube's Homepage has changed over time. Users no longer have to type a query in Search or to put in the work to navigate. The Homepage used to be where users saw only video recommendations of channels they had subscribed to. Now the Homepage has a personalized recommendation feed based on that user's history over time.

As long as a user is logged in when using YouTube, the algorithms can keep track of what videos that particular user has watched in the past so it can make better suggestions for videos that user is likely to watch, even if they haven't watched those videos in the past. This seems counterintuitive. It seems like the algorithm could be more successful suggesting videos it knows a user has already watched and liked, but actually the opposite is true. Keeping suggestions fresh actually gets users to stick around on the platform longer because they aren't getting bored with the same old stuff.

How YouTube does this is by breaking down the Homepage into two categories: familiar and discovered. It shows users familiar content from places the viewer has gone to before. These suggestions could include trending or recent videos from a channel a viewer has already watched. The discovery side includes videos or channels that users with similar viewing patterns have watched and liked. YouTube has found that these combined strategies are keeping viewers better engaged. If you want to get on the Homepage—and this definitely should be your goal—learn the triggers that get videos there. Try to improve your click‐through rate and audience retention, because these will help you get pushed out to a more general audience.