If you’re a YouTube creator who wants to make money through the YouTube Partner Program, YouTube requires 1,000 subscribers, have three valid public uploads in the last 90 days and either 4,000 hours of watch time in the last year or 3 million Shorts views in the last 90 days.
We covered subscriber growth in-depth in a separate post, but for now, let’s focus on watch time and the importance of building it through your content.
4,000 hours watch time = 240,000 minutes.
That’s a lot of minutes, but we’re going to give you some solid advice on how to get your videos watched by more people and get you to that goal faster. We’ll also let you know which TubeBuddy tools will help you.
Need a visual tutorial? Watch our video to make sure you’re doing everything correctly when it comes to watch time:
#1 Video Length and YouTube Watch Time
You may think that the longer your video, the higher the watch time hours.
That’s just not true. It may even backfire if your analytics are reporting that viewers are dropping out before the end of the video. YouTube is looking at those metrics, and the more viewers who abandon your content, the less likely YouTube is to serve it up to more people on the platform.
It may be a much more successful strategy to create shorter videos that people watch longer than making a long video where people click out only 20% of the way through.
brHow long do your videos need to be? The answer is as long as they need to be to get the point across. Being able to condense and package up your videos in the shortest amount of time possible will significantly benefit you.
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#2 What’s the Deal With YouTube Shorts and Watch Time?
If we’re suggesting that you make your videos as concise as possible, should you be creating Shorts content instead of longer-form videos? Not necessarily.
Any subscribers you gain from your Shorts will count towards your goal of reaching 500 (the other metric you need to qualify to join the YouTube Partner Program and become eligible for monetization).
BUT the watch time generated by YouTube Shorts, especially if they’re served to viewers via the Shorts shelf, will not count towards your 4,000 hours needed. So keep creating Shorts if that’s the kind of content you love to do, but remember that you’ll need to reach 3M Shorts views in 90 days to check that box in the YouTube Partner Program requirements.
#3 Audience Retention Metrics are Your Friend
If you have been publishing videos to your channel, you’ll have some performance data to work with, giving you feedback on how your content resonates with viewers.
There are several tools that both YouTube and have that can help you with things like audience retention and drop-off rate.
On YouTube, you can access your audience retention analytics via YouTube Studio. Just click on a published video and click ‘Analytics.’ From the new dashboard, click on ‘Engagement’ to access the data you need. Look out for ‘Typical Audience Retention’ and ‘Key Moments for Audience Retention‘ metrics. We’ll be taking a deeper dive into these reports in a future post.
If you have a Legend or Enterprise account, you have access to our ‘Retention Analyzer’ report, which will tell you how many people are still watching your video at various time intervals, e.g., 30 seconds or 60 seconds in.
If you see a dramatic cutoff in retention, you should address that in your content strategy. Think about the types of videos you’re making or how long the videos are. Keep a very close eye on audience retention after you’ve published a video to see where improvements can be made.
#4 Publish Your Videos When Your Audience is Online
When you publish a video, you want to ensure that as many viewers see it as possible. One metric that will be invaluable for you is knowing when your viewers are online and where most of your viewers are watching.
For instance, if you’re based in the United States, but most of your viewers are based in Japan, you should publish in Japan Standard Time to leverage those potential viewers and subscribers.
If you want to know when the best time to publish has a tool that can help you with this exact metric, and it’s available to anyone with a license.
Go to your YouTube Studio and open the icon at the top right, then scroll down to ‘Extension Tools’ and click on ‘Best Time To Publish.’ You’ll be redirected to the ‘Audience’ tab of YouTube Studio Analytics. On this dashboard, scroll down to the ‘When your viewers are on YouTube’ section.
Just below YouTube’s graph, you can see recommendations from about when to publish your next video. It even tells you the best time to live stream!
Here's a simple breakdown of the 6 ways to get 4,000 hours of YouTube watch time faster:
1. Video Length Matters
- Shorter videos can work better: It's not about making your video long, but about making sure people watch it all. If your video is too long and people leave halfway through, YouTube might not show it to others. So, make your videos just long enough to get your point across, but keep them engaging so viewers stay until the end.
2. YouTube Shorts and Watch Time
- Shorts don't count for watch time: Shorts are great for getting new subscribers, but they won’t count toward the 4,000 hours of watch time you need. So, if you're doing Shorts, keep making them, but focus on longer videos to get your watch time.
3. Audience Retention is Key
- Check where people drop off: Use YouTube's tools to see where people stop watching your video. If many people leave early, figure out why (maybe the intro is too long or the topic is boring). Fix those issues and make your videos more engaging to keep viewers watching.
4. Post When Your Viewers Are Online
- Timing is everything: Publish your videos when most of your viewers are online. You can find this out using TubeBuddy's Best Time to Publish tool. If your viewers are from different countries, try to post during their local time to get more views right after uploading.
5. Promote Your Videos
- Share your videos: Don't just upload and wait. Share your videos on social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Reddit to get more people to watch. You can also ask viewers to watch more videos on your channel, or use playlists to keep people watching for longer.
6. Create Playlists
- Make playlists: Put your videos into thematic playlists so people can watch several videos in a row. Playlists help get more watch time because once one video ends, the next one automatically starts, keeping viewers engaged.
By focusing on these tips—especially making engaging videos, posting at the right times, and using playlists—you can hit 4,000 hours of watch time much faster.