Now that you're earning subscribers and making friends, what comes next? Where's your "big break"? On YouTube, your big break comes in the form of being featured.
The granddaddy of features is the YouTube front page. There are 12 slots available for featured videos on the front page, and YouTube updates this, on average, twice a day. During the 6 days you're on the front page, your video will receive anywhere from about 250,000 to more than 1 million views. The views will depend on your video's title, description, and thumbnail. An attractive or mysterious thumbnail, along with a solid title, will gain you more click-throughs than a blurry or muddy thumbnail image and uninteresting title.
I was featured on the front page of YouTube in July 2007. It comes with no warning, no notice. That morning I woke up, logged in, and could barely catch my breath when my latest video's thumbnail popped up at the top of the front page. YouTube featured an animated music video I had made a few weeks prior for my friend's independent band, imadethismistake. Here's the video:
| www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8yQ0T7fNtw (URL 7.1) |
That video went on to almost 800,000 views and gave me my first big jump in subscribers, but most users are never featured on the front page. It's all up to the mysterious editors and their mysterious selection process.
YouTube also features videos in each of the video categories. These category features, or Spotlights as YouTube now refers to them, don't generate as many views as a front page feature, but they are rewarding nonetheless. Most of the active users on the site still check the video categories a few times a day and will see your video. The categories include Music, Comedy, People & Blogs, Entertainment, News & Politics, and more. Michael's D.I.Y or DIE was featured by the music editor and received more than 31,000 views. Here's the video:
| www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtX09q9SCXw&feature=related (URL 7.2) |
Category features are selected by the editor for each category. Each category has at least one editor. Some of these editors make themselves known to the community, while others do not. The editors watch and comment on videos. Editors also welcome suggestions for videos to feature, which can be emailed or private messaged to their YouTube profiles. The editors are more likely to look at something from someone who doesn't send a lot of suggestions, especially if that person has sent things the editors have featured before.
Most of the videos featured on the front page were featured in the video categories first.
Unfortunately, there's not much you can do to make sure you "get featured." Editors don't fall for compliments or email bombing campaigns.
Email bombing campaigns consist of users asking their subscribers and viewers to email their video's link to a specific editor in an attempt to overwhelm or impress that editor. Most users do this with the hope that the editor will feature their video after being linked to it numerous times. This tactic does not work.