What should you check 48 hours after posting a YouTube video?

Watch time. If people are watching past 30 seconds, and past one minute, they are getting value. Then the whole game is to stretch that out by answering the question better.

Quick Answer

• Package the video first: thumbnail, SRT transcript, chapter markers, end-screen suggestions.
• After about 48 hours, look at how it performed. Past 30 seconds and past one minute of watch time means viewers are getting value.
• Stretch it out: better thumbnails and titles get the click, better answers get the watch time. Then prioritize the questions you have not answered well yet.

This fits inside a bigger picture. If you want the full view first, here's the bigger picture.

Package it so it can be found

Before the analytics mean anything, the video has to be packaged. That means a thumbnail, and a YouTube page optimized with the transcript in SRT file format, which is better for AI engines crawling. Add chapter markers. Put suggestions on the end screen. Then post it and put all of that together.

Read the data at 48 hours

After about 48 hours you start to see data about how the video performed. The number I look at is watch time.

"If we look and we see, okay, people are watching for over 30 seconds, over one minute, that means they're getting some value." Dane Frederiksen

Then the game is to stretch that out. Make people click on your thumbnails, click on your titles and descriptions, and make them watch longer by answering the questions better. That is the whole game.

Prioritize from what you learned

Use the analytics to decide what to make next. Are there unanswered questions you have not done a good job of answering yet? Those are the next videos.

In the full video I walk through all 10 steps of the flywheel, from sales transcripts to packaging to the analytics loop.

Doing the thing is the easy part. The hard part is knowing where you're already winning and where you're invisible. That's exactly what our free AI Visibility Snapshot shows you, before you spend a dollar.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good watch time for a B2B YouTube video?

Past 30 seconds and past one minute is the signal that viewers are getting value. The goal from there is to stretch it out.

What does packaging a YouTube video mean?

A custom thumbnail, the transcript uploaded as an SRT file so AI engines can crawl it, chapter markers, and end-screen suggestions.

How long after posting should you check YouTube analytics?

About 48 hours. That is when you start to see enough data about how the video performed.

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Want the full breakdown? Watch the full video, or read the full article.

Most teams don't get this right on the first try. Here's how we approached it for a real team. Curious what it'd look like for you? Let's talk it through.

Full Clip Transcript

We're gonna make thumbnails. We're gonna optimize the YouTube page with transcripts in an SRT file format, which is better for AI engines crawling. We're gonna put chapter markers. We're gonna go do things like put suggestions at the end screen at the end. We're gonna post the video and put that all together. We're gonna then do some analytics after 48 hours or so. We're gonna start to see some data about how it performed. And if we look and we see, okay, people are watching for over 30 seconds, over one minute, that means they're getting some value. And then the game is to just stretch that out, make people click on your thumbnails and click on your descriptions and titles and make them watch longer by answering the questions better. That's the whole game. Then we're gonna prioritize based on what we learned in our analytics. Are there unanswered questions that we haven't done a good job of answering just yet? Then we can go.

Full Transcript

This is how to build a video creation flywheel system that sells. There's 10 steps and I'm going to walk you through each one now. The goal is to drive inbound leads by answering your buyer's questions with video content. The reason this works is because video is very helpful for buyers as they self-educate and YouTube gets pushed into AI Overviews at an increasing rate. If you don't show up in those results, you're out of the buyer's evaluation set and you won't sell. Basically, you're invisible.

Step one, we're going to start with our transcripts from our buyers. These are sales calls where they're asking real questions. Then we're going to take those and we're going to build some graphics on a platform like Miro, which is what I use. And then you're going to, anything you want to script in the beginning to hook them, you can write that out and you're going to create some graphics of what to show as you walk them through and answer their questions.

Step three, we record the video. Step four, edit the video, taking out maybe just the beginning and the very end. Any mistakes, but keep it largely unedited so it seems more real and authentic because we're trying to build trust.

So then packaging, we're going to make thumbnails. We're going to optimize the YouTube page with transcripts in an SRT file format, which is better for AI engines crawling. We're going to put chapter markers. We're going to do things like put suggestions at the end screen at the end. We're going to post the video and put that all together.

We're going to then do some analytics after 48 hours or so. We're going to start to see some data about how it performed. And if we look and we see, okay, people are watching for over 30 seconds, over one minute, that means they're getting some value. And then the game is to just stretch that out, make people click on your thumbnails and click on your descriptions and titles and make them watch longer by answering the questions better. That's the whole game.

Then we're going to prioritize based on what we learned in our analytics. Are there unanswered questions that we haven't done a good job of answering just yet? Then we can go and make that content for. Ideally, after answering all their questions in individual videos, at some point we'll have a library that answers all the questions and gets them to 80% where they're willing to take a sales call. So this is the end state we're approaching is to fill up all those questions. I call it content bingo.

So then we just iterate and we keep doing this over and over again as we repeat. And every time we get some analysis, we get some data, things begin to improve. So we get better at this. And ideally the buyers will stop asking the questions that were answered and they won't come up as often. You might get new questions as the market changes, but we're going to get those questions from the transcripts and just repeat the process. And then you will be able to measure sales leads and you'll know that it's working because you're going to see people are watching this stuff, getting their questions answered. I know this is complicated. If you want some help, just reach out. This is what I do and how I can help you.