How To Maximize Video Views On Youtube

Helena Richard
Statistical Analysis
How To Maximize Video Views On
Fall 2012
Bus Adm 799 - Independent Study and Research

Table of Contents
Section 1 - Introduction ......................................................................................... 4

I. Description of the Marketing Problem .......................................................................... 4
II. Defining And Developing Exact Metrics For Success And Failure Of YouTube
Campaigns ......................................................................................................................... 4
Section 2 - Model Statement ................................................................................ 6

I. Data Collection ............................................................................................................... 6
II. Types Of Models Used .................................................................................................6
III. Specifications Of The Model ....................................................................................... 6
(1) Overall Model .................................................................................................. 6
(2) Music Category Model ..................................................................................... 7
(3) All But Music Model ........................................................................................ 7
IV. Discussion Of The Model Specifications .....................................................................7
V. Data Transformation ..................................................................................................... 7
VI. Hypotheses.................................................................................................................... 8
a) Hypotheses For The Overall Model And The Non-Music Model ..................... 8
b) Hypotheses For The Music Category Model ..................................................... 9
Section 3 - Description Of The Data .................................................................. 11
Section 4 - Interpretation Of The Findings ....................................................... 12

I. Model 1 - Overall Model ............................................................................................. 12
a) Model Summary ............................................................................................. 12
b) Interpretations ................................................................................................. 13
c) Statistics About The Referrals ........................................................................ 17
d) Take Away for Marketing ...............................................................................18
II. Model 2 - Music Category Model ...............................................................................19
a) Model Summary .............................................................................................. 19
b) Interpretations .................................................................................................. 20
c) Statistics About The Referrals ......................................................................... 22
d) Take Away for Marketing ............................................................................... 23
III. Model 3 - All But Music Model..................................................................................24
a) Model Summary ...............................................................................................24
b)Interpretations .................................................................................................. 25
c) Statistics About The Referrals ......................................................................... 28
d) Take Away for Marketing ............................................................................... 28
2
Section 5 - Summary and Conclusions .............................................................. 30
I. Hypothesis Verification ............................................................................................... 30
a) Overall Model And Non-Music Model Hypotheses Verification .................. 30
b) Music Category Model Hypotheses Verification ........................................... 31
II. General Conclusions .................................................................................................. 32
III. Further Research Suggestions ................................................................................... 33
Section 6 – Implementing and Testing of The Findings ……………………. 34

I. Scott Dangerfield and Crash County Model ………………………………………..34
a) Biography ………………………………………………………………….34
b) Model Statement ………………………………………………………….. 35
c) Interpretations …………………………………………………………….. 36
d) Recommendations …………………………………………………………36
e) Tracking Methods ………………………………………………………… 37
II. Nayah Model …………………………………………………………………….. 37
a. Biography ………………………………………………………………….37
b. Model Statement ………………………………………………………….. 37
c. Interpretations …………………………………………………………….. 38
d. Recommendations …………………………………………………………39
e. Tracking Methods ………………………………………………………… 40
Appendix .............................................................................................................. 41
Variable Descriptions ...................................................................................................... 41
Overall Model Descriptive Statistics .............................................................................. 45
Music Model Descriptive Statistics ................................................................................ 47
Non-Music Model Descriptive Statistics ........................................................................ 50
Crash County Model Descriptive Statistics …………………………………………… 53
Nayah Model Descriptive Statistics …………………………………………………… 55
References ...................................................................................................................... 57
Section 1
3
Introduction
I. Description Of The Marketing Problem
Founded in February 2005, YouTube is a fast growing social

media outlet with over three billion views a day and 48 hours of
video uploaded every minute in 2011. It has therefore become a
very affordable marketing platform for businesses. As it is said,
"a picture is worth a thousand words" and videos are dynamic
and attractive to viewers.
This analysis will therefore try to understand which elements

make a video a success or a failure.
Source: Visual Loop Tumblr

http://visualoop.tumblr.com/post/12958663395/over-
48-hours-of-video-is-uploaded-to-youtube-every
II. Defining And Developing Exact Metrics For Success And Failure Of
YouTube Campaigns
For this part of the project, readings and personal experience about YouTube were the two major
sources of information used to develop the exact metrics for the measure of success or failure of
YouTube videos. The YouTube Marketing Handbook written by Marc Bullard gave insight on
which variables would be good indicators of success as well as the links to find that information.
The table below summarizes the suggested tools in the handbook that were used to collect the
data. In addition, some variables such as the date of publication were added during the data
collection steps.
NAME USE URL
4
Provides a numbered list of
the top videos in certain
YouTube Charts categories (based on # of YouTube Charts
views and likes).
Button on the right of the number of

Basic analytics: lifetime
views
YouTube Insight views, likes, dislikes,
referrals, etc.
Google Keyword Tool Keyword popularity Google Keyword Tool
YouTube Keyword Tool Keyword popularity YouTube Keyword Tool
All the explanatory variables used in the research are detailed in the appendix. The chosen
dependent variable was the number of views, as it seems to be the best way to measure whether a
video is successful or not.
5
Section 2
Model statement
I. Data Collection
The data was collected through YouTube's website called YouTube Charts which shows the
most popular videos of the moment in each of YouTube's categories. One category at a time, data
was collected on every video on the YouTube charts' list. The result was a dataset of 439 cases
collected over a period of six days. The period of time when the data was collected should be
considered because the number of views change every second, and so do the rankings
accordingly. In addition, the YouTube and Google keyword tools were used to find global
monthly searches for keyword groups based on the video title.
II. Type Of Models Used
For the research, linear models were run because they were most appropriate for the data used.
Descriptive statistics were also used in order to analyze the sources of referrals of the videos as
they had too many missing cases and could not be included to the regression models.
A total of three models were run:

(1) Prediction of the number of views using the entire dataset
(2) Prediction of the number of views using only data in the music category
(3) Prediction of the number of views using all the data but the music category cases.
The music category was expected to have a very different viewership behavior and therefore
have other sources of views. For that reason, a specific model was developed for music as well
as one without. The overall model would be used as a reference for the other two models.
III. Specifications Of The Model
Below are the mathematical equations for the three models developed.
(1) Overall Model (r2 = .798)
Views = - 57,698,026 + 164 Likes + 410 Dislikes + 14,984 Video Responses + 107,163,727
Year_2006 + 108,712,720 Year _ 2007 + 111,743,095 Year_2008 + 100,506,886 Year_2009 +
107,315,764 Year_2010 + 92,629,422 Year_2001 – 27,505,813 Auto & Vehicle – 25,930,193
Gaming – 24,518,221 How to & Style + 48,046,936 Music – 29,880,848 Pets & Animals –
34,528,638 Sports – 16 Number subscribers channel + .050 Total video views channel –
6
(1.643E-008)(Total number subscribers to channel * total number of video views channel) –
0.000234 (Likes * Dislike)
(2) Music Category Model (r2 = .920)
Views = -85,670,095 + 26,224,002 No_Transcript + 103 Likes + 100 Dislikes – 462,035

Ranking on date of collection + 174,285,248 January_Published + 139,264,475
February_Published + 228,021,272 March_Published + 136,190,996 April_Published +
110,094,871 May_Published + 95,664,251 June_Published + 127,124,484 July_Published +
96,424,672 August_Published + 57,259,695 September_Published + 69,271,369
October_Published + 122,591,388 Year_2009 + 285,231,109 Year_2010 + 180,988,963
Year_2011
(3) All But Music Model (r2 = .726)
Views = 49,928,085 + 9,174,273 No_Transcript + 10,651,653 Annotation + 185 Dislikes –

2,743,026 Ranking on date of Collection – 9,184 Video Responses + 11,181,592
April_Published + 11,496,630 May_Published + 92,475,561 Comedy + 35,949,986 Education
+ 73,372,566 Entertainment + 51,904,547 Film & Animation + 23,385,580 How to & Style +
15,721,112 News & Politics + 4,187,500 People & Blogs + 25,941,012 Pets & Animals - 14
Subscribers to channel + 0.24 Video views channel + .001 (Likes * Dislikes)
IV. Discussion Of The Model Specification
In the models, the variable "views" was used as the dependent variable. The independent
variables comprised information about the number of likes, dislikes, comments, ratings,
categories where the video was posted, channel statistics, etc. In other words, any statistic that
could be found about the video was considered to have a possible effect on the number of views.
V. Data Transformations
The data required a few data transformations. First of all, categorical variables were recoded into
binary variables in order to be able to include them in the models. In addition, some data hygiene
was required before running the models because of the presence of missing cases. Once the
models were ran and calibrated, interaction variables were created in order to try to improve the
fit of the regression and to better explain the variability in the number of video views.
VI. Hypotheses
7
Prior to calibrating the models, a few hypotheses were made about the three different models. In
general, the relationship between the number of video views and the popularity of the video's
title keywords on Google's search engines was expected to be positive and significant. However,
during the calibration, the variable for Google's keyword searches got dropped from the models
due to insignificance.
It was then thought that viewers might just go directly to

YouTube to look for videos and not go through Google.
This idea was confirmed in the YouTube Marketing
Handbook where Marc Bullard said: "It's just another point
to hammer home the fact that people are now turning to
YouTube to search for information more than they are
typing in to Google to read about certain topics". In
addition, according to Alexa.com, YouTube has now
become the second largest search engine after Google (see
infographic on the right). For that reason, the global
monthly searches for keyword groups related to the video
title on YouTube were added to the model and expected to
be positive and significant.
Source: Visual Loop Tumblr
http://visualoop.tumblr.com/post/29130226957/youtu
In addition, the ranking of the video in its category on the be-the-secret-ingredient-for-job-recruitment
date of collection was expected to have a negative and
significant effect on views in all the models. As the ranking of a video goes down, the less likely
viewers are to watch it and the less likely it is going get views.
The month and year of publication were at first expected to have an effect on the number of
views. Nevertheless, as the time goes by, the more time the video has to get more views.
Therefore it might offset the result about the effect of the month of publication on the number of
views.
The models included all the variables that were expected to have a significant effect on the
number of video views. Of course all the variables could not be significant, therefore, part of the
project engaged in discovery search.
a) Hypotheses For The Overall Model And The Non-Music Model
The overall and the non-music model were expected to have a similar behavior for the following
variables:
 Number of comments and likes were expected to have a positive and significant effect on
video views.
 The number of video responses was expected to be insignificant in the models.
8
 Dislikes were expected to be positive and significant as YouTube has a lot of explicit video
titles coupled with a misleading thumbnail picture which leads people to watch the video
when in reality it has nothing explicit in it. This means that the most dislikes a video will get
the more views it will get as well.
 The number of subscribers is expected to be low and therefore to have a negative and
significant effect on the number of views. Channels in very diverse categories often tend to
not have many very popular videos on their channels. The table below shows the descriptive
statistics about the total number of videos posted to a channel. The median number of views
is 42 which means that 50 percent of the channels have less than 42 videos. Even more
revealing is the mode, the most frequent number of videos on a channel, is only one which so
far confirms our expectations.
Statistics: Total number of videos posted on the channel
N Mean Median Mode Std . Deviation Min. Max.

439 436 42 1 1750 1 17,941
 The number of views on the channel is expected to have a positive and significant effect on
views as one video will get a vast majority of the views.
 Categories were expected to have positive, negative, and insignificant effects on the number
of video views compared to the chosen base category. Some videos were expected to bring
more views than the "Travel and Event" category (base category), some the same number of
views, and some less. To be more specific, entertainment categories (Music, Entertainment,
and Comedy) could probably be expected to be positive and significant. For the remaining
categories, it will be a discovery search.
b) Hypotheses For The Music Category Model
 Number of subscribers to the channel was expected to be positive and significant because if a
viewer likes an artist, he/she is most likely to like most of the songs from that artist and is
therefore more likely to subscribe.
 For the same reason, the total number of views on a channel is expected to be insignificant
because all the videos would get about the same number of views and no matter how many
videos an artist has, they will still watch them (at least the most popular ones).
 Likes and dislikes: the hypotheses would be that likes would increase with an artist's
popularity and so would the number of views. On the other hand, dislikes were expected to
be insignificant.
9
 Comments were expected to be either positive and significant or just insignificant because
most viewers look for a music video to listen to it and do not comment. Nevertheless, the fan
base might have a different attitude and tend to comment more.
 The number of videos suggested by the same user could be positive for fairly independent
artists, but as most of the famous artists with the most video views are sponsored by VEVO,
the variable was expected to be insignificant as most of the videos that would be suggested
would probably not be from the same user but instead be from other VEVO sponsored artists.
 Transcripts were expected to be positive and significant as viewers probably enjoy having the
lyrics along with the song. In addition, many users tend to search for the lyrics of a song they
do not know in an attempt to find the title and listen to the song. Therefore, transcripts would
help videos' ranking in the search results.
 The month of publication of the video in this model could be expected to be positive and
significant for some specific months. It would prove that there is some seasonality in the
music industry.
 The hypothesis for the number of video responses was that the variable would be positive
and significant. When collecting the data and looking quickly through the video responses, it
seemed that a lot of them were fan's interpretations of the music.
 Last but not least, YouTube keyword searches were expected to have a positive and
significant effect on views as people are probably most likely to go directly to YouTube
when looking for specific videos.
10
Section 3
Description of the Data
To calibrate the models, the variables with a Variation Inflation Factor (VIF) were first analyzed
in order to identify and solve the multicolinearity problems. To delete any highly correlated
variables, the threshold for the VIF was set to 5.0. Each of the high VIF variables were dropped
one at a time until no independent variable had a VIF higher than 5 in the model.
Then, the insignificance of the variables was looked at. The process consisted of deleting the
most insignificant variable from the model, and to rerun the regression until all the variables
included in the model were significant. In the last model, one insignificant variable was included
because removing it caused a significant decrease in the r-square.
The statistics in the table below describe the dependent variable (number of views) in terms of
number of cases, mean, median, mode, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum across the
three models. The complete tables with the descriptive statistics for all the independent variables
can be found in the appendix.
Std.
Model N Mean Median Mode Min. Max.
Deviation
Overall model 301 79,118,061 48,287,102 1,168,747a 99,288,211 1,168,747 792,756,815
Music model 89 125,122,399 64,643,706 1,168,747a 157,710,969 1,168,747 792,756,815
Non-Music model 212 59804919 45662254 20,518,388a 48,737,992 20,518,388 490,110,821
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Section 4
Interpretation of the findings
I. Model 1 - Overall Model
a) Model Summary
Views = - 57,698,026 + 164 Likes + 410 Dislikes + 14,984 Video Responses + 107,163,727
Year_2006 + 108,712,720 Year _ 2007 + 111,743,095 Year_2008 + 100,506,886 Year_2009 +
107,315,764 Year_2010 + 92,629,422 Year_2001 – 27,505,813 Auto & Vehicle – 25,930,193
Gaming – 24,518,221 How to & Style + 48,046,936 Music – 29,880,848 Pets & Animals –
34,528,638 Sports – 16 Number subscribers channel + .050 Total video views channel –
(1.643E-008)(Total number subscribers to channel * total number of video views channel) –
0.000234 (Likes * Dislikes)
Model Summary
Model R R Square Adjusted R Std. Error of the
Square Estimate
1 .893a
.798 .784 46,162,334.385
ANOVA
Model Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.
2358644558744 19 1241391873023 58.255 .000b
Regression
309800.000 32096.000
5988000735562 281 2130961115858
1 Residual
13120.000 409.000
2957444632300 300
Total
523000.000
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Coefficients
Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized t Sig.
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta
(Constant) -57698025.932 10514005.948 -5.488 .000
Number of likes 164.076 11.776 .632 13.933 .000
number of dislikes 410.382 99.398 .748 4.129 .000
How many people responded 14984.248 4646.400 .169 3.225 .001
with a video
Year_2006 107163727.116 14562140.173 .275 7.359 .000
Year_2007 108712720.207 12271649.965 .418 8.859 .000
Year_2008 111743095.202 12923381.113 .357 8.647 .000
Year_2009 100506886.020 11717693.489 .358 8.577 .000
Year_2010 107315764.426 12610410.783 .314 8.510 .000
Year_2011 92629422.282 10286731.875 .345 9.005 .000
Auto_Vehicle -27505813.275 12811452.373 -.060 -2.147 .033
1
Gaming -25930193.207 13834045.911 -.053 -1.874 .062
Howto_Style -24518221.125 12513348.648 -.057 -1.959 .051
Music 48046935.853 10961547.103 .221 4.383 .000
Pets_Animals -29880847.958 10553075.880 -.082 -2.831 .005
Sports -34528638.464 13718743.396 -.071 -2.517 .012
Total number of suscribers to -15.992 8.085 -.111 -1.978 .049
the channel
Total number of video views .050 .012 .290 4.206 .000
on the channel
totalsuscriberchannel_videos -1.643E-008 .000 -.220 -3.094 .002
viewschannel
Likes_Dislikes -.000234 .000 -.602 -3.435 .001
a. Dependent Variable: number of views
b) Interpretations
Thirty-one variables were dropped from the model either because they were highly correlated
with other variables or insignificant in explaining the variability in video views. The resulting r-
square of 79.8% means that the model is able to explain about 80 percent of the variability in
video views.
13
The negative sign in front of the constant in the equation means that without any of the
parameters in the model the number of views would decrease. In other words, a video with likes,
dislikes, comments and so forth gets more views than one without.
Likes, dislikes, and comments
The number of likes, dislikes, and video responses all have a positive and significant impact on
video views. In other words, as those numbers increase, the more views a video will get. It is
quite surprising that as the number of dislikes increases, so does the number of video views. It is
a surprising result, but it can be explained by the fact that one needs to view a video before being
able to make a judgment on whether he/she likes it or not. It should also be noted that the weight
put on dislikes is higher than on likes. One reason could be that people who highly dislike a
video and have strong negative feelings about it are more likely to dislike it than someone who
likes a video. The variable "video responses" is significant and positive which seems to mean
that successful videos should have a high number of video responses. Also, the results show that
the number of comments a video gets has no effect on video views. From the data collection
steps, it seemed that most of the people did video comments mostly to promote themselves and it
was not related to the video, therefore, people promoting themselves are more likely to do it on
popular videos with the highest number of views.
In addition to the likes and dislikes variables, an interaction variable was created to show that the
effect of the two together was stronger on the number of video views than their separate effects.
When added to the regression, the r-square increased quite significantly. Nevertheless, the
parameter is negative and significant which means that there is a negative synergy between likes
and dislikes. In other words, coupled together likes and dislikes have a negative effect on the
number of views. It can probably be expected that when looking at likes and dislikes at the same
time, one of the two (most likely dislikes) has a negative effect on video views.
Time of publication
Regarding the month when the video was posted to YouTube, no month was significant.
December was the month of comparison, which means that all the other months of the year get
the same number of views. In other words, there is no specific month when a video should be
published in order to get more views. On the other hand, the year of publication has an effect on
the number of views. This current year (2012) was chosen as our year of comparison and the
year 2005 was not included in the analysis due to a lack of videos for that year. Except the year
of YouTube's creation (2005), the other years in the model bring higher views than in 2012.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that there were two months left in 2012 when the data was
collected, which might offset a little bit the results. It can probably be expected that 2012 will
14
join the same levels of views as the previous years. In addition, the videos published in the
previous years had more time to get more views than the ones published in 2012.
Categories
The different categories where a video can be posted on YouTube have different effects on the
number of video views. The chosen reference category was "Travel and Events." In addition, the
category "Non-Profit and Activism" was not included to the analysis due to the lack of videos in
that category. Music videos significantly brought more views than "Travel and Event" videos.
The categories dropped from the model (Comedy, Entertainment, Science and Technology, Film
and Animation, Education, People and Blogs, News and Politics) bring the same number of
views as videos classified in the category "Travel and Events" because of their insignificance. On
the other hand, the categories included in the model with a negative and significant parameter
(Auto and Vehicle, Gaming, How to and Style, Pets and Animals, and Sports) bring less video
views than videos posted in the "Travel and Event" category. In a nutshell, to get the highest
number of video views, it is recommended to post music related videos as well as Entertainment,
Science and Technology, Film and Animation, Education, People and Blogs, News and Politics,
or Travel and Events videos.
Channel statistics
When looking at statistics about YouTube channels, three parameters were taken into
consideration: the number of videos posted to the channel, the total number of video views for a
channel, and the number of subscribers to the channel. Each of these parameters have different
effects on the number of video views. The total number of subscribers to the channel has a
negative and significant effect on the number of video views. As the number of subscribers to a
channel increases, the number of videos views for one specific video on the channel will
decrease. An explanation to these results is that if one wants an extremely popular video with
millions of views, they will probably not get many subscribers as subscriptions are designed for
channels having content rather than one video that attract a lot of views (except for music). The
total number of video views on a channel has a positive and significant effect on the number of
video views for a specific video being posted on that channel. This means that as the number of
views on the channel increases, so will the number of views for that specific video. This can be
related to the findings about the negative and significant effect of the total number of subscribers
to a channel as the majority of videos with millions of views have very few subscribers. As
mentioned earlier, this is because most of the channels only have one popular video so no one is
going to subscribe to the channel. In other words, the total number of video views on the channel
is almost identical to the number of views for one specific video. For instance, the video Charlie
bit my finger- Again!, got about 500 million views, has the channel has a total of 46 videos, has
15
only 166,585 subscribers to their channel, and has a total of 600 million video views across all
the videos posted on the channel. This shows that one video with millions of views comprises a
very large percentage of views on the channel.
One interaction variable helped improve the prediction ability of the model. The combined
effects of the number of subscribers to a channel and the total number of video views on a
channel better explain video views than their separate effects. This interaction variable has a
negative a significant which means that there is a negative synergy between the two variables
which is not surprising as the number of subscribers to a channel has a negative parameter. This
also confirms what was said previously about the link between the number of subscribers and the
total number of views.
Insignificant independent variables
A further analysis of the dropped variables also gives some insight on which variables have no
effect on video views. For instance, the number of videos suggested by the same user on the right
side of the video has no effect on views. One could think that the more videos from the same
user appearing in the suggested videos, the more likely it is to increase the number of views.
Nevertheless, the opposite results probably suggest that more information is needed to explain
why the number of videos suggested by the same user has a positive effect on the number of
views.
Whether the video includes a transcript (captioning) or annotations (encrypted into the video)
also have no effect on the number of video views. One could think that videos adapted for
hearing impaired or people speaking another language who prefer to have subtitles in order to
better understand what is being said could bring more views. It could also be thought that
annotations could bring the number of views down because they could be considered as
annoying by the users. Nevertheless, none of these hypotheses are right. In addition, whether the
video was posted by a company or an individual also has no effect on the number of video views.
Another surprising finding is that neither the number of global monthly searches for keywords
related to the video title both on Google or YouTube have any effect on the number of video
views. At first, when only having Google keyword searches in the model, it turned out to be
insignificant. So the second hypothesis was that people tend to search for videos directly on
YouTube. Nevertheless, once the YouTube keyword searches were added to the model, this
hypothesis turned out to be incorrect. It seems that the popularity of the keywords have no
relation or influence on the number of views a video gets.
16
c) Statistics About The Referrals
The source of referrals for the videos were not included in the model because of too many
missing cases. Referrals refer to the different sources of views for a video. Because the referrals
have important information on which source brought the most views, they will be analyzed in
terms of descriptive statistics. The median and mode were dropped from the statistical summary
in the table below as half of the cases were missing, the mean and mode were 9 (which is the
value given to missing cases).
The first source of referrals in terms of which one brings the highest number of views, is
YouTube searches (1). This seems to be in contradiction with results from the model where
YouTube keyword searches had no effect on the number of views. One reason could be that the
keyword groups did not correctly reflect the viewers' searches. Another reason could be that the
numbers for keyword searches are for paid keywords, whereas referrals from YouTube search
probably includes both paid and non-paid keywords. The two other important sources of views
are "first view from a mobile device" (2) and "first referral from a related video" (4). This means
that the marketing strategies used to increase the number of views of a video should include
mobile device marketing, especially in these times where smartphone use is growing at an
exponential rate. In addition, as Ryan Keeton mentioned in the eBook YouTube Marketing for
Small Businesses, traffic from mobile devices has tripled since 2011. In addition, more than 10%
of global YouTube views come from mobile devices.
Referrals from related videos seem to also be in contradiction with the findings of the model
where the number of videos suggested from the same user was insignificant. This referral
suggests that related videos can be any type of video in the same category, about the same
subject, or having the same tags. Therefore, it would be recommended to use marketing
strategies to increase the number of views coming from related videos.
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d) Take Away For Marketing Strategies
 The developed marketing strategies to push a specific video on YouTube should incite
people to say whether they like or dislike the video such as a call to action at the end of the
video asking for feedback.
 The digital marketer should also find strategies to encourage viewers to respond back with a
video rather than a simple written comment.
 No specific attention needs to be given to the month of publication of the video.
 Music videos are recommended to maximize the number of views. Nevertheless, other
categories such as Entertainment, Science and Technology, Film and Animation, Education,
People and Blogs, News and Politics, or Travel and Events also bring more views than the
categories not listed above.
 Subscription to the channel should not be encouraged as it decreases the number of views for
the most popular videos on YouTube.
 No particular effort should be given to search engine marketing as there seems to be no link
between the number of views and the popularity of a keyword group.
 A trick would be recommended to improve the referrals from similar videos as well as from
YouTube searches. Marc Bullard in his YouTube Marketing Handbook suggests to "create a
nonsense word, like 'Jamstickerees', 'fleeblinghouse', 'wangchunginton' [...] and put it in with
your other tags." Having the same nonsense tag in all videos from the same user will trick the
search engine and recommend videos from the same user.
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II. Model 2 – Music Category Model
a) Model Summary
Views = -85,670,095 + 26,224,002 No_Transcript + 103 Likes + 100 Dislikes – 462,035

Ranking on date of collection + 174,285,248 January_Published + 139,264,475
February_Published + 228,021,272 March_Published + 136,190,996 April_Published +
110,094,871 May_Published + 95,664,251 June_Published + 127,124,484 July_Published +
96,424,672 August_Published + 57,259,695 September_Published + 69,271,369
October_Published + 122,591,388 Year_2009 + 285,231,109 Year_2010 + 180,988,963
Year_2011
Model Summary
Category Model R R Square Adjusted R Std. Error of the
Square Estimate
Music 1 .959 .920 .901 49,589,926.400
ANOVA
Category Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
2014201560116 17 1184824447127 48.180 .000
Regression
616190.000 42096.000
1746004168238 71 2459160800335
Music 1 Residual
30688.000 644.000
2188801976940 88
Total
446980.000
19
Coefficients
Category Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized t Sig.
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta
(Constant) -85670095.278 29252826.882 -2.929 .005
No_transcript 26224002.455 14316884.404 .064 1.832 .071
Number of likes 102.637 11.649 .378 8.810 .000
Ranking on date of collection -462035.072 217638.764 -.083 -2.123 .037
Jan_published 174285248.371 37446027.465 .201 4.654 .000
Feb_published 139264474.834 42746817.023 .160 3.258 .002
March_published 228021272.360 31107008.311 .335 7.330 .000
April_published 136190995.671 32480146.214 .200 4.193 .000
Music 1
May_published 110094871.244 27130837.516 .222 4.058 .000
June_published 95664250.957 28963370.137 .164 3.303 .002
July_published 127124484.132 26429203.165 .277 4.810 .000
Aug_published 96424672.177 26437774.954 .210 3.647 .001
Sept_published 57259695.305 28109311.413 .104 2.037 .045
Oct_published 69271368.993 25086313.160 .174 2.761 .007
Year_2009 122591388.554 31959356.049 .141 3.836 .000
Year_2010 285231109.143 24084282.073 .490 11.843 .000
Year_2011 180988962.821 16884000.422 .443 10.720 .000
b) Interpretations
Thirteen variables were dropped from the model either because they were highly correlated with
other variables or insignificant in explaining the variability in video views. The resulting r-square
of 92.0% means that the model is able to explain over 90 percent of the variability in video
views.
The negative sign in front of the constant in the equation means that without any of the
parameters in the model the number of views would decrease. In other words, a video with likes,
dislikes, and so forth gets more views than one without.
20
Time of publication
In the overall model, the month of publication had no effect on views; however, the situation is
different for music. The month of publication seems to have a positive and significant effect on
video views regardless of the month. Every month seems to bring more views than in November
(insignificant) and December which was set as the reference month. March has the highest
coefficient which means that it brings the most views, closely followed by all the other months.
The year 2005 was not used in the analysis because of a lack of videos for that year. The years
2006, 2007, and 2008 were dropped from the model automatically by the software because they
didn't include any videos in those years. This might be because the music category was only
created a few years after YouTube's launch. Nevertheless, the years 2009, 2010, and 2011
brought significantly more views than videos published in 2012. 2010 brought twice as much
views as videos posted in 2009 or 2011.
Likes, dislikes, ranking
It is not surprising that the ranking of the video on the date of collection has a negative and
significant effect on video views. In other words, as the ranking descends (e.g. 1 is the highest
rank), the number of views will decrease. When looking at one category only where the videos
are ranked based on their number of views, the negative sign in front of this coefficient makes
perfect sense. Nevertheless, it is more surprising that it was insignificant for the overall model
with more than one category. One reason could be that the number one video for music will have
many more views than the number one videos in all the other categories.
Likes and dislikes had a positive and significant effect as they did in the overall model. The more
people that watch a video, the more people will like or dislike it, which explains the variables'
positive effect. Nevertheless, the introduction of the interaction variable (likes times dislikes)
didn't improve the model which means that the separate effects of both variables are doing better
at explaining the number of views than the product of the two together. Therefore, there is no
synergy between likes and dislikes.
Transcripts and annotations
In this model, the binary variable "no transcript" is the only variable in the transcript and
annotation category to be positive and significant. This means that videos with no transcript will
bring more views than videos with both annotations and transcripts (base category). Annotations
and transcripts by themselves have the same effects as videos with both annotations and
transcripts. It is therefore recommended to not include transcripts in a video. This finding is quite
surprising as one could expect that music with transcripts (lyrics) would bring more views.
21
Insignificant variables
The global monthly searches for keywords on Google or YouTube have no effect on the number
of views. In other words, there is no relation between the popularity of some keyword groups and
the number of views a video gets. In addition, the channel statistics have no effect on the video
views. This means that the number of views a video gets has no link with the number of
subscribers a channel has. This probably suggests that people tend to watch specific videos, or
add a music video to their playlist without going to a specific channel and subscribing to it. Last
but not least, the number of comments, video responses, and videos suggested by the same user
on the right side of the video are not significant in explaining video views.
Similar to the overall model, music related videos' referrals from "YouTube searches" (1) and
from "first view from a mobile device" (2) are on average an important source of views. These
two sources of referrals bring significantly more views on average (the medians are also the
highest) than the other sources of views. After referrals 1 and 2, the next three highest sources of
referrals for music videos are "first referral from a related video" (4), "first referral from a
subscriber module" (5), and "first referral from Facebook.com" (6). When combining referrals 4,
5, and 6, they bring four times less views than the first two combined. Nonetheless, they should
not be ignored in the marketing campaigns.
In this model, the number of subscribers to a channel has no effect on the number of videos
views. However, according to the referrals statistics, subscribers are an important source of
views. Subscriptions should be encouraged for that reason. In addition, when publishing a new
music video, it should be also published on the company/artist's Facebook page as it also brings a
large amount of views.
22
 The digital marketer should include in his/her marketing plan ways to encourage viewers to
like or dislike the video.
 Transcripts should not be included to videos. Annotations can be included as they will have
no influence on the number of views.
 Videos should be published any other month than November or December to maximize the
number of views.
 Bidding for keyword groups related to the video's title on Google or YouTube doesn't seem
necessary as it doesn't help improve the number of views.
 Strategies to increase the number of views should be considered as it will result in higher
ranking, and therefore more views.
 As mentioned previously, a nonsense tag should be included in the video in order to improve
the ranking on Youtube searches as well as the referrals from related videos.
 In addition to launching the video on Youtube, it should also be targeted to mobile users as
well as Facebook users.
 Subscribers to the channel should also be encouraged as they act as a source of referrals.
23
III. Model 3 – All But Music Model
a) Model Summary
Views = 49,928,085 + 9,174,273 No_Transcript + 10,651,653 Annotation + 185 Dislikes –

2,743,026 Ranking on date of Collection – 9,184 Video Responses + 11,181,592
April_Published + 11,496,630 May_Published + 92,475,561 Comedy + 35,949,986 Education
+ 73,372,566 Entertainment + 51,904,547 Film & Animation + 23,385,580 How to & Style +
15,721,112 News & Politics + 4,187,500 People & Blogs + 25,941,012 Pets & Animals - 14
Subscribers to channel + 0.24 Video views channel + .001 (Likes * Dislikes)
Model Summary
Square Estimate
1 .852 .726 .700 26,691,743.620
ANOVAa
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
3637049853675 18 2020583252042 28.361 .000
Regression
76190.000 0900.000
1375026912477 193 7124491774492
1 Residual
02992.000 38.800
5012076766152 211
Total
79230.000
24
Coefficients
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta
(Constant) 49928084.622 5914451.723 8.442 .000
No_transcript 9174273.060 5377429.866 .085 1.706 .090
Annotation 10651652.837 4946661.920 .109 2.153 .033
Ranking on date of collection -2743025.837 242611.900 -.471 -11.306 .000
How many people -9184.415 6325.409 -.060 -1.452 .148
responded with a video
April_published 11181592.311 5863055.673 .074 1.907 .058
May_published 11496629.982 6083661.123 .074 1.890 .060
Comedy 92475561.536 8012031.186 .543 11.542 .000
Education 35949985.599 7337638.232 .211 4.899 .000
1
Entertainment 73372565.603 7553322.023 .421 9.714 .000
Film_Animation 51904546.787 7537141.350 .298 6.887 .000
Howto_Style 23385579.683 8138071.626 .131 2.874 .005
News_Politics 15721111.712 7570489.628 .088 2.077 .039
People_Blogs 41871499.891 6953796.852 .257 6.021 .000
Pets_Animals 25941012.043 6704204.949 .169 3.869 .000
Total number of suscribers to -13.868 5.314 -.139 -2.610 .010
the channel
Total number of video views .024 .009 .135 2.634 .009
on the channel
Likes_Dislikes .001 .000 .219 4.596 .000
b) Interpretations
Twenty-eight variables were dropped from the model either because they were highly correlated
with other variables or insignificant in explaining the variability in video views. The resulting r-
square of 72.6% means that the model is able to explain about 73 percent of the variability in
video views. Only one insignificant variable (video responses) was included in the model
because of its impact in explaining the variability in video views.
Transcript and annotations
25
When comparing the effects on views of transcripts and annotations separately to videos that
have both, videos with no transcripts and videos with annotations seem to lead to a higher
number of views. As surprising as it is, annotations lead to significantly higher views. One
usually thinks of annotations as something purely promotional, but they can just be comments
encrypted onto the video. This could explain the positive and significant effect of annotations on
the number of views. This also suggests that viewers prefer annotations over transcripts as the
binary variable "no transcript" has a positive and significant impact on the number of views.
Likes, dislikes, ranking, and comments
The results in this section are quite different from what could be expected. The number of
dislikes is positive and significant when the number of likes is insignificant. In other words, for
non-music videos, the number of dislikes has a positive and significant effect on the number of
views and likes have no effect on the number of views. An explanation would be that for non-
music videos, people are more likely to express stronger feelings about a certain video in
comparison to music videos. In addition, there is a variety of video titles that are explicit
(probably also the thumbnail picture) which might lead people to watch it until they discover that
there is nothing explicit about it, and therefore dislike it because it doesn't meet their
expectations. It should be noted that the introduction of the interaction variable (likes times
dislikes) significantly improved the r-square. In other words, the combination of the effect of
both likes and dislikes is doing better at explaining video views than their separate effects.
Both video responses and the number of comments are both insignificant in explaining video
views. When launching a non-music video, no particular attention should be given to comments
and video responses as they neither increase nor decrease the number of video views.
Similar to the music only model, the ranking of the video on the date of collection has a negative
and very significant impact on video views. Therefore, lower the ranking (number one having the
highest ranking) equates to lower views. This means that when striving to get more views,
getting higher in the ranking positions will significantly increase the number of views.
Time of publication
The year when the video was published has no effect on the number of views. On the other hand,
the model showed some interesting results regarding the month of publication of non-music
videos. Compared to videos published in December, videos published in April and May brought
significantly more video views. The remaining months of the year brought the same amount of
views as December. It can probably be explained by the fact that a lot of videos become popular
over the summer when people have more time for entertainment, especially students. The months
26
are not significant in summer but right before so that they have time to get popular and to create
the buzz about them.
Categories
The category “Travel and Events” was chosen as the reference category in the model. Compared
to “Travel and Events”, the categories Auto & Vehicle, Science & Technology, Gaming, and
Sports bring the same amount of views as videos posted in that category. On the other hand, the
remaining categories (Education, Entertainment, Film & Animation, How to & Style, News &
Politics, People & Blogs, and Pets & Animals) bring significantly more views than videos posted
in the categories listed first. When looking more closely at the results, the coefficients show that
Comedy, Entertainment, Film & Animation seem to be the top three categories that bring the
most views. It would therefore be recommended that when looking at non-music videos, to post
videos that correspond to one of these three categories in order to maximize the number of
views.
Channel statistics
Similar to the first model, the total number of video views on the channel has a positive and
significant impact on video views while the total number of subscribers to a channel has a
negative and significant effect on the number of views for a specific video. This goes back to the
question of the popularity of one specific video on a channel and how it will cannibalize all the
remaining videos views as well as not lead to a higher subscriber base. Adding an interaction
variable multiplying the two variables did not improve the prediction ability of the model
significantly which suggest that their separate effects better explain the number of views. The
total number of videos posted to the channel is insignificant which means that it doesn’t have any
effect on video views.
Insignificant variables
As in the other two models, the popularity of a keyword group related to the title of the video
doesn’t have an effect on the number of views both on Google and YouTube. The number of
videos suggested by the same user has no effect on the number of views.
27
For non-music related videos, on average the highest source of video referrals comes from "first
view from a mobile device" (2). Following are referrals from "YouTube search" (1), "first
featured video view" (3), "first referral from related video" (4). One of the referrals is new in the
analysis "first featured video view" which means that it was featured on YouTube's home page.
It can probably be assumed that YouTube either features paid videos or videos with millions of
views. This should be another area of focus of the digital marketer when launching a new video.
 Videos should include annotations (probably not promotional ones) but should not include
transcripts.
 Feedback should be encouraged such as likes/dislikes.
 It is recommended to publish non-music related videos in April or May.
 When looking for a high number of views, videos should primarily be posted in the Comedy,
Entertainment, and Film & Animation categories and have a related content. They can also
be posted in the Education, How to & Style, News & Politics, People & Blogs, Pets &
Animals categories.
 Subscription to the channel should also not be particularly emphasized as it seems to bring
the number of views down.
 No particular effort should be given to search engine marketing as there seem to be no link
between the number of views and the popularity of a keyword group.
28
 The total number of videos posted to the channel does not matter which suggests that a
particular attention should be given to a few videos in order to attract the highest number of
viewers rather than a small number of viewers across many different videos.
 Similar to the previous models, a special attention should be given to mobile marketing and
to improve the search ability of the video being promoted.
29
Section 5
Summary and Conclusions
I. Hypothesis Verification
The general hypotheses stated that the global monthly keyword searches on YouTube and
Google were expected to have a positive and significant impact on views. The models all proved
that hypothesis to be wrong. A closer analysis of the keywords should probably be conducted to
fully understand the relationship between keyword searches and the number of views. Instead of
using the keywords from the title, video tags (if accessible) and their popularity could be
included in the model to test their effects on video views and to see if they are able to better
predict the number of views than keywords from the title.
The ranking on the date of collection was expected to be negative and significant which it was in
two out of three models. The ranking had no effect in the overall model which means that other
variables were better able to explain the variability in video views.
Surprisingly, the month and year of publication turned out to have some effect in predicting
video views. The reasons for those positive and significant effects on the views were explained
in the previous sections. As expected, music had two very significant months in the model
which suggests there is some seasonality in the music industry.
a) Overall Model And Non-Music Model Hypotheses Verification
 The hypotheses expected likes and comments to be positive and significant. The two models
showed that comments are insignificant in predicting views and that likes had a positive and
significant impact on views for the overall model. For the non-music model, likes were
insignificant but the combined effect of likes and dislikes better explained the variability in
views than their separate effects.
 The number of video responses was expected to be insignificant in the two models. The
opposite turned out to be true, it was positive in the overall model and negative in non-music
one.
 As expected, dislikes have a positive and significant effect on views. It can either be because
people actually need to watch the video to either like or dislike a video. Or because they were
disappointed that the explicit video title didn't match their expectations.
 The number of subscribers was expected to be negative and significant, and the models
confirmed that hypothesis. This is probably linked to the fact that one popular video on the
channel will cannibalize all the views and therefore not ultimately lead to subscriptions.
30
 The number of views on the channel was also expected to have a positive and significant
effect on views. This hypothesis was confirmed by both models.
 Last but not least, the hypothesis about the categories was mostly discovery search and
showed some interesting results in the overall model clearly showing that some categories
brought fewer views than others. Nevertheless, music was the only positive and significant
category in the overall model as expected. In addition, the categories Entertainment and
Comedy were significant in the non-music model. Therefore, the hypothesis was half true.
b) Music Category Model Hypotheses Verification
 The first hypothesis for the music model expected the number of subscribers to a channel to
be positive and significant. The model showed that the variable was insignificant and did not
help explain the variability in the number of views.
 The total number of views on a channel was expected to be insignificant because all the
videos on the channel would get about the same number of views if it is a popular artist. In
this case, other variables are better explaining views than the channel ones as the model
confirmed the hypothesis.
 Likes were expected to be positive and significant whereas dislikes were expected to be
insignificant. The model confirmed the hypothesis about the likes, but showed that dislikes
also have a positive effect on views.
 Comments turned out to be insignificant in predicting views for music videos which
confirmed the hypothesis. This could suggest that people only view the videos and do not
comment.
 The number of videos suggested by the same users was thought to be either positive and
significant or just insignificant. The model showed that for music videos that variable was
insignificant which could be explained by the fact that many artists with millions of views
are sponsored by VEVO and therefore, the suggested videos tend to be from other VEVO
related artists. Therefore, the number of videos suggested by the same user has no effect on
views, as the same artist's video will appear as a suggestion on another artist's video.
 Transcripts were thought to be positive and significant in explaining the number of views as
people would probably look for videos with lyrics. Nevertheless, the model showed that "no
transcripts" has a positive and significant effect. It suggests that people probably do a
different search when looking for music videos with lyrics. Viewers watching these most
popular videos probably search for an "official" or "vevo" video and didn't expect them to
have transcripts. This explains why videos with transcripts are insignificant in explaining
video views.
 The next hypothesis expected the number of video responses to have a positive and
significant impact on video views. The model showed that the variable was insignificant and
this probably suggests that fans posting their own interpretation of a song only represents a
small fraction of the viewers and therefore are not significant in explaining views.
31
 Last, YouTube keyword searches were expected a have a positive and significant effect on
views. The idea was that people probably search for a specific song on YouTube. The model
made that variable insignificant which suggests that people do not search for on specific song
but might just be browsing for music or listening to a playlist they created.
II. General Conclusions
The table below summarizes the different r-squares across the three models. The percentage
decrease from the full model and the final reduced model is relatively small compared to the
number of variables deleted in each model. The r-squares are quite strong as they are able to
explain between 73 percent and 92 percent of the variability in the number of video views.
R2 before Reducing Percent Change in

Model R2 of Final Model
Model R2
Overall Model .805 .798 -0.87%
Music Category Model .931 .920 -1.18%
All But Music Model .754 .726 -3.71%
It would be recommended to use the overall model as a reference. Music accounts for one third
of the cases in the overall model and can therefore offset the results a little, because the different
variables explain views for that category. Thus the following analysis will focus on comparing
the results for the music category model and for the model including all the other categories.
Dislikes and videos with no transcript seem to have a positive and significant effect on views.
The month of publication of the video also has a positive effect on views. Videos should be
planned and posted accordingly. Feedback in the form of likes or dislikes should be encouraged.
In terms of referrals, mobile marketing should be a priority as it is an important source of views.

It would also be recommended to use a nonsense tag in order to improve the rankings in terms of
the search engines. A certain amount of time should also be devoted to finding the right tags in
order to improve the search engine ranking. It would be recommended to look at other similar
videos and at the tags they use to find the ones that would best fit the video being promoted. For
music videos, a special plan should be developed to promote the video on Facebook as it also a
source of referrals.
32
III. Further Research Suggestions
The analysis of the project was limited by two factors. First the limited number of cases in each
category prevented a further analysis for each category. It would be recommended in the future
to find a way to collect more data to have more accurate results. In addition, there were too many
missing cases for the referrals which probably took away some additional information about
what brings views to a video. Collecting more data and analyzing the descriptive statistics for the
referrals can probably help cope with that issue. Data could also be collected about the worst
videos, in order to see what makes a video a failure. YouTube Trends could also be used to find
the most viewed videos of the moment.
In addition, other variables such as tags could have been included in the model. The tags were
not available on the video's YouTube page, but they can be found in the source of the page
(coding behind the website). The screenshot below is an example of the tags used for the video
Charlie bit my finger - again! Each of those keywords could be entered separately in the Google
and YouTube keyword tools. Then the global monthly search results for each keyword could be
added up together and also averaged. The total and the average could then be used as variables in
the model.
The social media following base of the channel’s owner

could also have been added to the analysis. As the info-
graphics on the right suggest, the “top 1,000 Channels
have a broad social following” which suggests that they
work hand in hand to bring more video views.
In addition, if the study had to be redone the binary

variables for annotations and transcripts would not be
added to the models. Annotations and transcripts could
have been added after the video got popular and viewers
cannot specifically search for videos with those options.
Thus, they cannot really explain the number of views.
Whether a video included a URL to a website in the
video descriptions doesn’t seem to explain video views, Source: Visual Loop
http://visualoop.tumblr.com/post/33220942208/the-top-1000-
but rather it drives traffic to a website and not to the youtube-channels
video.
The next section will attempt to implement the findings from this research.
33
Section 6
Implementation and Testing
Of the Findings
The previous sections analyzed the variables that brought views to the most popular videos on
YouTube. This section will show how those results can be adapted to some of Shine
Management Group’s artists’ videos in order to increase their views. The music model
developed previously will be used as a reference for the elements that make a video popular and
that the chosen artists may or may not have. The band “Scott Dangerfield and Crash County” and
the singer “Nayah” will be used for this implementation and testing section.
Data was collected on all the videos from the same artist based on the variables chosen as
possibly having an effect on video views in the previous models (i.e. views, likes, dislikes,
comments, etc). Models were then developed following the same steps as previously for the two
artists’ channels in order to see what the most important sources of views were. The models
developed for Crash County and Nayah were then compared to the music model. The differences
would then show what the artists need to improve in order to get more views.
I. Scott Dangerfield and Crash County Model
a. Biography
The band was created in the summer of 2009 and includes singer Scott Dangerfield, drummer
Patrick Gonyo, guitarist Jacob Brenwall, and bassist Chris Bartel. The band does both covers and
writes their own music. The description in the “About Us” section on their website confirms that
they are an independent band far different from the mainstream music industry. “They would
write the music that they wanted to hear instead of succumbing to outside pressure to conform to
34
the scene of the day. In an industry full of copycats and manufactured superstars, the members of
Crash County were determined to remain true to their own musical style.” They received a boost
in their views when singer Scott Dangerfield appeared on the American Idol show. The band
released their first album Home in June 2012. In addition, they do “Monday Night Jams” where
they publish one new music video every Monday so there is no need to worry about seasonality,
unlike the music only model in the previous sections.
b. Model Statement
Views = -277 + 0.000449 YouTube Searches +87 Number of videos suggested by the same user
+ 1027 Annotation + 615 Dislikes + 5 YouTube Search Referrals (1) + 1 Related Referrals (4)
Model Summary
Square Estimate
1 .992 a
.985 .981 855.617
ANOVA
1081754771.86 6 180292461.977 246.274 .000
Regression
5
1 Residual 16837869.602 23 732081.287
1098592641.46 29
Total
7
Coefficients
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta
(Constant) -277.078 548.089 -.506 .618
Youtube_searches 0.000449 .000 .102 3.097 .005
Number of videos suggested 87.207 38.458 .066 2.268 .033
by the same user
1
Annotation 1027.478 411.626 .078 2.496 .020
YT_search_referral_1 4.779 .275 .682 17.370 .000
related_referal4 1.013 .172 .262 5.881 .000
c. Interpretations
35
The calibrated model has an r-square of 98.5% which means that over 98 percent of the
variability in video views can be explained by the six variables included in the model.
YouTube keyword searches did not have any effect on video views in all the previous models.
The reason for YouTube searches and YouTube search referrals (1) to be positive and significant
in the Crash County's model is probably because most of their views come from their fans who
know what to search for. Another reason is that the most used keyword searches (“Crash county
music,” Scott Dangerfield,” “Crash County,” “cover,” “artist cover,” “American idol”) are also
used in the tags in all the videos which helps with the search results. The fan base also explains
the positive and significant sign in front of the number of videos suggested by the same user.
Fans are more likely to browse through the band's videos and maybe listen to their playlist. If
they like one video, they will listen to the other ones as well, because Crash County is not a
mainstream band with “hit songs”. So, the fan base is composed of people who like the band
rather than people who like individual songs. This is also linked with the positive and
significance of the referrals from related videos (4) as most of the related referrals came from
Crash County's videos. This shows that Crash County is using successful strategies to improve
their search result ranking.
Annotations are also positive and significant because all of Crash County's older videos included
annotations and they had more time to get more views. Last, the number of
dislikes is positive and significant because videos with more views will have
more dislikes than the other videos, because those videos have had much more
time to gain dislikes.
d. Recommendations
Even though it seems that Crash County is doing everything right, they are not getting as many
views as desired. When comparing the music model with Crash County's model, the only
variable that they seem to be missing in the model is “likes.” It would therefore be recommended
to add a call to action at the end of their video such as: “Like this video!” in order to improve
referrals in general but also from subscriber modules (5). The band should also add a call to
action for subscribing to their channel as well as for sharing their video.
The music model also underlined the importance of Facebook referrals; however, Facebook
referrals bring about five times fewer views than mobile and related referrals. Posting videos to
Facebook won't make the difference if the band does not have too many likes on their Facebook
page. To increase the number of likes, they could add a Facebook “like us” picture to their album
cover or to any promotional material such as flyers. They could also ask their current followers
to share some of their posts to increase their audience. They should also make sure to write their
posts and publish their songs on the days and times when people are most receptive and most
likely to see them. According to the infographics below, it would be recommended for Crash
County to change their “Monday Night Jams” to Saturday Jams to increase their shares and their
likelihood of getting more likes on their Facebook page. It would also be recommended for them
to post more often on their page (about every other day according to the infographics) in order to
36
increase their likes. They could for instance poll their fans about the songs they would like to
hear, their favorite song from them, etc. They could also raffle some of their CDs in order to
have an incentive that would lead more people to their Facebook page.
Source: Social Times http://socialtimes.com/infographic-

reveals-the-best-times-to-post-to-twitter-facebook_b67570
e. Tracking methods
37
Two methods should be implemented in order to track the results of the Facebook referrals as
well as the results for the video likes. The number of likes on Facebook should be noted before
the start of the social media marketing strategies in order to have a reference point. Then the
number of new likes should be tracked as well as any increase in the number of Facebook
referrals. To track likes for the videos, newly posted videos should be compared with older
videos in terms of likes.
II. Nayah Model
a. Biography
Shine Management signed with the singer Nayah very recently. Currently a senior in high
school, she is dedicated to living her dream for the future. As she stated on her “biography”
section of her website: “I will be heard! I will change the world with my voice, and I will be
iconic”. Before being noticed as a young singer, she also started a modeling career.
b. Model Statement
Views = 558 + 0.000157 YouTube Keyword Searches + 5 Twitter Referral (17)
Model Summary
Square Estimate
1 .987 .974 .967 715.403
ANOVA
Regression 151051952.576 2 75525976.288 147.569 .000
1 Residual 4094417.060 8 511802.132
Total 155146369.636 10
Coefficients
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) 557.659 415.401 1.342 .216
Youtube_searches 0.000157 .000 .121 2.093 .070
38
twitter_referral_17 4.737 .276 .993 17.178 .000
c. Interpretations
Nayah's model doesn't include many variables, because she is an artist starting her career. She
also only created her channel in September 2012. The model developed for Nayah is able to
explain over 97 percent of the variability in video views. The two positive and significant
variables in her model are YouTube Keyword searches as well as referrals from Twitter.
It is not surprising at all that most of Nayah's views come from Twitter as she has over 25,000
followers. YouTube keyword searches also have a positive effect on views probably because her
fans know what to search for. In addition, she also has the keyword people are searching for
included in her video tags.
d. Recommendations
Despite the fact that Nayah's channel was only created in September of this year, she already has
about one third of Crash County's total channel views. The small number of variables in her
model suggests that some improvements can be made. Comparing the model with the music
model gives some insight on which elements Nayah should improve in order to get more views.
To gain more views, the videos should look more professional. Currently, you can only see her
listening to music playing on her phone and singing over it when she actually has professionally
recorded songs. A professional look will also bring credibility. For that reason, it would also be
recommended to have two different channels for her two different careers (modeling and
singing) as they probably target two different segments of viewers.
Despite many calls to actions, likes and dislikes are not sufficient enough to explain the number
of video views. As recommended for Crash County, she should include a call to action at the
beginning of the video description as well as in the video (annotations or spoken). Surprisingly,
even though the descriptive statistics show that Facebook brings more views than Twitter,
Facebook referrals don’t appear in the model. Therefore, the same social media strategies are
recommended for Nayah as they are for Crash County.
Nayah should also include in her videos a call to action asking viewers to subscribe to her
channel, because related video views are an important source of views. It would also be
recommended to include a nonsense tag into all the videos in order to improve the search engine
rankings as well as the number of videos suggested by the same user. Another solution to
improve the search engine rankings is to use less broad keywords and tags. When looking for
“cover songs”, “new singles”, “photoshoot”, the chances of getting to videos of an artist with a
maximum of 13,000 views are quite low.
39
e. Tracking methods
The same tracking methods for Facebook referrals as well as for likes and dislikes should be
used; similar to the Crash County model. In addition, the referrals for new videos should be
examined closely to see if referrals from Nayah’s own videos have increased. The insight section
with all the sources of referrals and the number of views associated with them should be closely
monitored to see if any special event triggered a jump in views. The number of subscribers
should also be tracked.
III. Conclusions
Running new models for the artists/band showed that the viewership of independent artists
behaves very differently from the mainstream ones. The most important source of views seems to
come from fans who know what to search for and how to find the artists’ videos. In addition, all
the videos get about the same number of views when compared to the time they were posted (e.g.
the oldest video has the most views, the second oldest video has the second most views, etc).
This is unlike mainstream music where an artist usually has one or two extremely popular songs
that will cannibalize all the views.
The strategies recommended cannot bring results immediately. They are strategies and are
therefore planned in the long term. For instance, if an artist wants to improve their referrals from
Facebook, they need to first implement strategies to increase their likes before implementing
other strategies to lead the Facebook viewers to their YouTube channel. The recommendations
also underlined the importance of posting videos across different social media platforms in order
to reach a larger audience.
In addition, these independent artists have not yet reached a level where they can live only of
their music revenues and have busy lives which also slows down the process of implementation
of these strategies. However, Chris Bartel from Crash County who takes care of most of the viral
marketing of the band showed positive feedback to these suggestions as he said in an email: “I'll
work on those suggestions over Christmas when I have a little free time.”
The implementation part of the findings also showed that these methods could be applied to any
other artist in order to assess their current most important sources of views well as defining
strategies to improve the number of views coming from those sources.
40
Appendix
41
VARIABLE
VARIABLE NAME VARIABLE VALUES
DESCRIPTION
Full name of the
Name -
video
Is there a URL in the 0 = "no, URL doesn't appear in the description"

URL
description? 1 = " yes, URL appears in the description.
Number of videos
suggested by the Suggested_user value
same user
No transcript is
No_transcript Binary variable (0 or 1)
available
A transcript is
Transcript_Available Binary variable (0 or 1)
available
Annotations are
Annotations Binary variable (0 or 1)
available
Both annotations and

transcripts are Annotations_Transcripts Binary variable (0 or 1)
available
Number of views Views value
Number of likes Likes value
Number of dislikes Dislikes value
Ranking on date of
collection in the Ranking_on_date value
category
Number of comments Comments value
Number of video
Video_responses value
responses
Referral from
YT_search_referral_1 According number of views
YouTube Search
First view from a

mobile_referal_2 According number of views
mobile device
First featured video

featured_referal3 According number of views
view
First referral from

related_referal4 According number of views
related video
First referral from a

Suscriber_module_referral5 According number of views
subscriber module
42
First referral from
Facebook_referral6 According number of views
Facebook.com
First referral from

YT_referral7 According number of views
Overall Model Descriptive Statistics
43
Std.
Variable N Mean Median Mode Min. Max.
Deviation
Global monthly
301 9,699,218 246,000 673,000 61,220,282 0 755,000,000
Searches Google
a. Multiple
YouTube Globalmodes exist. The smallest value is shown.
301 976,281 110,300 107,000 3,519,612 5,800 36,921,000
monthly searches
URL 301 .67 1.00 1 .469 0 1
Videos suggested by the

301 3.08 4.00 4 2.962 0 20
same user
No_Transcript 301 .45 0 0 .498 0 1
Trancript_Available 301 .09 0 0 .482 0 1
Annotation 301 .37 0 0 .482 0 1
Annotation_Transcript 301 .10 0 0 .300 0 1
Likes 301 204,328 63,851 0 382,740 0 4,525,049
Dislikes 301 28,894 5,635 0 180,913 0 3,081,732
Ranking on date of
301 24.39 18 18 23.206 1 96
collection
Number of comments 301 126,983 27,750 0 534,180 0 8,573,574
Video responses 301 423 2 0 1,120 0 11,800
Jan_Published 301 .07 0 0 .249 0 1
Feb_Published 301 .08 0 0 .266 0 1
March_Published 301 .07 0 0 .261 0 1
April_Published 301 .10 0 0 .300 0 1
May_Published 301 .11 0 0 .313 0 1
June_Published 301 .08 0 0 .266 0 1
July_Published 301 .10 0 0 .304 0 1
Aug_Published 301 .08 0 0 .276 0 1
Sept_Published 301 .09 0 0 .286 0 1
Oct_Published 301 .10 0 0 .304 0 1
Nov_Published 301 .04 0 0 .204 0 1
Year_2005 301 0 0 0 .058 0 1
Year_2006 301 .07 0 0 .255 0 1
Year_2007 301 .18 0 0 .382 0 1
Year_2008 301 .11 0 0 .317 0 1
Year_2009 301 .15 0 0 .354 0 1

44
Year_2010 301 .09 0 0 .291 0 1
Year_2011 301 .16 0 0 .370 0 1

45
Music Model Descriptive Statistics
46
Std.
Deviation
Global monthly
89 11,912,402 1,500,000 7,480,000 43,531,909 22,200 350,000,000
Searches Google
a. Multiple
YouTube modes exist. The smallest value is shown.
Global
89 2,172,384 970,000 2,064,500a 4,301,093 5,900 23,133,000
monthly searches
URL 89 .81 1 1 .395 0 1

89 4.43 4.00 4 1.196 0 8
same user
No_Transcript 89 .82 1 1 .386 0 1
Annotation 89 .15 0 0 .355 0 1
Likes 89 455,633 274,809 0 581,011 0 4,525,049
Dislikes 89 65,863 13,344 0 328,145 0 3,081,732
Ranking on date of
89 49 49 N/A 28.273 1 96
collection
Number of comments 89 298,799 87,035 1,953a 950,531 1,953 8,573,574
Video responses 89 1,197 502 0 1,782 0 11,800
Jan_Published 89 .03 0 0 .181 0 1
Feb_Published 89 .03 0 0 .181 0 1
March_Published 89 .06 0 0 .232 0 1
April_Published 89 .06 0 0 .232 0 1
May_Published 89 .11 0 0 .318 0 1
June_Published 89 .08 0 0 .271 0 1
July_Published 89 .13 0 0 ..343 0 1
Aug_Published 89 .13 0 0 .343 0 1
Sept_Published 89 .09 0 0 .288 0 1
Oct_Published 89 .19 0 0 .395 0 1
Nov_Published 89 .01 0 0 .106 0 1
Year_2005 89 .00 0 0 .000 0 1
Year_2006 89 .00 0 0 .000 0 1
Year_2007 89 .00 0 0 .000 0 1
Year_2008 89 .00 0 0 .000 0 1
Year_2009 89 .03 0 0 .181 0 1

47
Year_2010 89 .08 0 0 .271 0 1
Year_2011 89 .18 0 0 .386 0 1

48
Non-Music Model Descriptive Statistics
49
Std.
Deviation
Global monthly
212 8,770,098 60,500 60,500 67,346,299 0 755,000,000
Searches Google
a. Multiple
YouTube modes exist. The smallest value is shown.
Global
212 474,144 42,550 107,000 3,006,762 5,800 36,921,000
monthly searches
URL 212 .62 1 1 .487 0 1

212 2.51 3.00 0 3.284 0 20
same user
No_Transcript 212 .29 0 0 .454 0 1
Annotation 212 .46 0 0 .499 0 1
Likes 212 98,827 32,514 0 172,247 0 1,378,731
Dislikes 212 13,374 4,700 0 28,422 0 222,387
Ranking on date of
212 14.06 14 18 8.372 1 30
collection
Number of comments 212 54,861 19,795 0 105,899 0 780,935
Video responses 212 97.7 0 0 316.360 0 2,668
Jan_Published 212 .08 0 0 .272 0 1
Feb_Published 212 .09 0 0 .293 0 1
March_Published 212 .08 0 0 .272 0 1
April_Published 212 .12 0 0 .323 0 1
May_Published 212 .11 0 0 .312 0 1
June_Published 212 .08 0 0 .265 0 1
July_Published 212 .09 0 0 .286 0 1
Aug_Published 212 .06 0 0 .240 0 1
Sept_Published 212 .09 0 0 .286 0 1
Oct_Published 212 .07 0 0 .249 0 1
Nov_Published 212 .06 0 0 .232 0 1
Year_2005 212 0 0 0 .069 0 1
Year_2006 212 .10 0 0 .299 0 1
Year_2007 212 .25 0 0 .434 0 1
Year_2008 212 .16 0 0 .368 0 1
Year_2009 212 .19 0 0 .396 0 1

50
Year_2010 212 .10 0 0 .299 0 1
Year_2011 212 .16 0 0 .363 0 1

51
Crash County Model Descriptive Statistics
N Mean Median Mode Std. Min. Max.

Variable Deviation
Global Monthly Searches 30 2,551,270 450,000 450,000 5,074,295 12,100 20,400,000
Google
YouTube searches 30 618,297 83,050 7,400 13,95,865 6,500 5,697,400
URL 30 1 1 1 0 1 1
Suggested by same user 30 14.6 17 18 4.643 2 18
No_Transcript 30 .87 1 1 .346 0 1
Annotation 30 .70 1 1 .466 0 1
Likes 30 117 101 59 80 14 301
Dislikes 30 .53 0 0 .973 0 3
Comments 30 44 35 16 29 6 109
Jan_Published 30 .03 0 0 .183 0 1
Feb_Published 30 .10 0 0 .305 0 1
March_Published 30 .13 0 0 .346 0 1
April_Published 30 .20 0 0 .346 0 1
May_Published 30 .13 0 0 .346 0 1
June_Published 30 .10 0 0 .305 0 1
July_Published 30 .07 0 0 .254 0 1
Aug_Published 30 .10 0 0 .305 0 1
Sept_Published 30 .03 0 0 .183 0 1
Oct_Published 30 .07 0 0 .254 0 1
Nov_Published 30 .03 0 0 .183 0 1
Year_2011 30 .67 1 1 .479 0 1
YT_search_referral_1 30 688 354 7a 878 7 3,421
Mobile_referral_2 30 1,174 746 101a 1,071 101 3755
Related_referral_4 30 1,218 609 26 a 1,594 26 7,202
Subscriber_module_referral_5 30 230 212 0 137 0 702
Facebook_referral_6 30 242 181 0 211 0 914
YT_referral_7 30 31 0 0 64 0 289
Other_referral_15 30 20 0 0 67 0 268
Views 30 6,841 5,076 528 a 6,155 528 20,791
a. Multiple modes exist. The smallest value is shown.
Channel Statistics:
 Total number of subscribers: 1,382
 Total number of views: 351,323
 Total number of videos: 37
52
Social Media Statistics
 Facebook likes: 1,357

 Twitter followers: 120
53
Nayah Model Descriptive Statistics
Variable N Mean Median Mode Std. Min. Max.

Deviation
Global Monthly Searches 1 8,096,76 2,285,00 27,100 14156745 27,10 45,500,000
a
Google 0 0 0 0
YouTube searches 1 1,745,99 2,285,10 18,900 15,005,49 18,90 4,382,400
a
0 0 0 2 0
URL 1 1 1 1 0 1 1
0
Suggested by same user 1 3 2 2 4 0 13
0
Transcript Available 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0
Annotation 1 1 1 1 0 1 1
0
Annotation_Transcript 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0
Likes 1 18 13 4 15 4 47
0
Dislikes 1 .5 0 0 .972 0 3
0
Comments 1 6 3 2 6 0 17
0
Nov_Published 1 .9 1 1 3.16 0 1
0
YT_search_referral_1 1 6 4 0 7 0 22
0
Mobile_referral_2 1 218 161 90 a 214 90 816
0
Related_referral_4 1 33 22 28 43 0 149
0
Subscriber_module_referra 1 .9 0 0 2.025 0 6
l_5 0
Facebook_referral_6 1 3,056 2,636 0a 2,504 0 7,258
0
YT_referral_7 1 3 3 0 4 0 11
0
Reddit_referral_8 1 805 650 0 796 0 2,553
0
Other_referral_15 1 3 0 0 10 0 31
0
54
Google_referral_16 1 .2 0 0 .632 0 2
0
Twitter_referral_17 1 978 835 0 814 0 2,515
0
Views 1 5,497 4,644 444 a 4,065 444 12,673
0
a. Multiple modes exist. The smallest value is shown.
Channel Statistics:
 Total number of subscribers: 257
 Total number of views: 187892
 Total number of videos: 18
Social Media Statistics:

 Facebook fans: 3,605
 Twitter followers: 24,819
55
References
Texts
Bullard, Marc. YouTube Marketing Handbook. N.p.: Kindle Edition, 2011.

Macarthy, Andrew. 50 Social Media Marketing Tips. N.p.: Kindle Edition, 2012.
Keeton, Ryan. YouTube Marketing for Small Business. N.p.: Kindle Edition, 2012.
Jarboe, Greg. YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day. 1st ed. N.p.: Sybex, 2009. Print.
Burgess, Jean. YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture (Digital Media and Society).
1st ed. N.p.: n.p., 2009. Print.
Michaels, Mick. More Views Please - 21 Secrets For Getting Any YouTube Video To Rank #1.
N.p.: Kindle Edition, 2012.
Articles
Miller, Michael. YouTube for Business: Online Video Marketing for Any Business. 2nd ed.
Indianapolis, IN: Que, 2011. Print.
Schwerdtfeger, Patrick. Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-employed: Leverage Resources,
Establish Online Credibility, and Crush Your Competition. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. Print.
Elliott, Amy-Mae. "Top 10 YouTube Tips for Small Businesses." Mashable. N.p., 23 Apr. 2010.
Web. <http://mashable.com/2010/04/23/youtube-small-business/>.
Brooks, Rich. "How To Make YouTube Part Of Your Social Media Marketing." Fast Company.
N.p., 20 June 2011. Web. <http://www.fastcompany.com/1761504/how-make-youtube-part-
your-social-media-marketing>.
Oricchio, Renee. "Marketing Your Business on YouTube." Inc. Technology. N.p., 01 Aug. 2008.
Web. <http://technology.inc.com/2008/08/01/marketing-your-business-on-youtube/>.
Ramel, David. "YouTube for Your Business." PCWorld. N.p., 23 June 2007. Web.
<http://www.pcworld.com/article/133278/youtube_for_your_business.html>.
Wasserman, Todd. "Trending Stories." Mashable. N.p., 05 Nov. 2011. Web.
<http://mashable.com/2011/11/05/youtube-small-biz-tips/>.
Elliott, Amy-Mae. "Top 5 YouTube Marketing Mistakes Committed by Small Businesses."
Mashable. N.p., 27 Mar. 2011. Web. <http://mashable.com/2011/03/27/youtube-marketing-
mistakes/>.
Reynolds, Sue. "How To Use YouTube For Effective Marketing." Business Insider. N.p., 04
Apr. 2011. Web. <http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-04-04/strategy/29991843_1_youtube-
video-jawed-karim-chad-hurley>.
56
Evans, Meryl K. "34 Ways to Use YouTube for Business€” Online Collaboration." GigaOM.
N.p., 28 July 2009. Web. <http://gigaom.com/collaboration/34-ways-to-use-youtube-for-
business/>.
Admin. "Small Business YouTube Marketing Strategies." Small Business YouTube Marketing
Strategies. N.p., 17 Apr. 2012. Web. <http://www.virtualsocialmedia.com/small-business-
youtube-marketing-strategies/>.
57

How To Maximize Video Views On Youtube

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How To Maximize Video Views On Youtube

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Bus Adm 799 - Independent Study and Research

Section 1 - Introduction ......................................................................................... 4

Section 2 - Model Statement ................................................................................ 6

Section 3 - Description Of The Data .................................................................. 11

Section 4 - Interpretation Of The Findings ....................................................... 12

Section 6 – Implementing and Testing of The Findings ……………………. 34

I. Description Of The Marketing Problem

Founded in February 2005, YouTube is a fast growing social

This analysis will therefore try to understand which elements

Source: Visual Loop Tumblr

NAME USE URL

Button on the right of the number of

Google Keyword Tool Keyword popularity Google Keyword Tool

YouTube Keyword Tool Keyword popularity YouTube Keyword Tool

II. Type Of Models Used

A total of three models were run:

III. Specifications Of The Model

(1) Overall Model (r2 = .798)

(2) Music Category Model (r2 = .920)

Views = -85,670,095 + 26,224,002 No_Transcript + 103 Likes + 100 Dislikes – 462,035

(3) All But Music Model (r2 = .726)

Views = 49,928,085 + 9,174,273 No_Transcript + 10,651,653 Annotation + 185 Dislikes –

IV. Discussion Of The Model Specification

It was then thought that viewers might just go directly to

a) Hypotheses For The Overall Model And The Non-Music Model

Statistics: Total number of videos posted on the channel

N Mean Median Mode Std . Deviation Min. Max.

b) Hypotheses For The Music Category Model

I. Model 1 - Overall Model

Likes, dislikes, and comments

Insignificant independent variables

 No specific attention needs to be given to the month of publication of the video.

Views = -85,670,095 + 26,224,002 No_Transcript + 103 Likes + 100 Dislikes – 462,035

Likes, dislikes, ranking

Transcripts and annotations

c) Statistics About The Referrals

Views = 49,928,085 + 9,174,273 No_Transcript + 10,651,653 Annotation + 185 Dislikes –

Transcript and annotations

Likes, dislikes, ranking, and comments

c) Statistics About The Referrals

d) Take Away For Marketing Strategies

 Feedback should be encouraged such as likes/dislikes.

 It is recommended to publish non-music related videos in April or May.

a) Overall Model And Non-Music Model Hypotheses Verification

b) Music Category Model Hypotheses Verification

II. General Conclusions

R2 before Reducing Percent Change in

In terms of referrals, mobile marketing should be a priority as it is an important source of views.

The social media following base of the channel’s owner

In addition, if the study had to be redone the binary

I. Scott Dangerfield and Crash County Model

Source: Social Times http://socialtimes.com/infographic-

II. Nayah Model

Is there a URL in the 0 = "no, URL doesn't appear in the description"

Both annotations and

Number of views Views value

Number of likes Likes value

Number of dislikes Dislikes value

Number of comments Comments value

First view from a

First featured video