The Journey of a YouTube Veteran

Over the past 8 years, Matt has uploaded over 636 videos to his YouTube channel. With a passion for creating content and a dream of going viral, he has relentlessly produced videos in hopes of finding that magical combination that leads to millions of views. His goal with every new video is to exceed his subscriber count in views—what is commonly known as achieving viral status on YouTube.

Through experimentation and persistence, Matt has had 24 videos reach over 1.7 million views each—officially going viral by his standards. Now with over 100,000 subscribers, he shares his insights on what factors seem to contribute to videos spreading widely and garnering massive viewership outside of one’s subscribed audience.

Starting a YouTube Channel

When Matt started his channel in 2014, he was mainly making videos as a hobby and creative outlet. Like many early YouTubers, he had no real strategy or goals beyond uploading whatever interested him. Over time, he gained a small but loyal following as his passion and skills improved with practice. While growing steadily, it was far from being a lucrative or mainstream success in those early years.

Definition of a Viral Hit

To Matt, a video achieving viral status means surpassing his subscriber count in total views. Though arbitrary, this provided a clear benchmark for when a video truly broke out of his normal reach. His subscriber figures have grown over the years, so this definition has evolved, but videos cracking 2 million views are undoubtedly viral sensations on his channel.

Analyzing Viral Videos for Common Traits

To better understand what makes some videos spread exponentially while most get modest viewership, Matt examined key characteristics of his 24 biggest viral hits. Several patterns emerged from his data.

Varied Lengths But Not Too Long

The lengths of his viral videos ranged from just over 2 minutes to nearly 13 minutes, with an average runtime of around 8 minutes. Videos strayed outside of 5-10 minutes far less frequently went viral. Short videos struggle to retain attention while very long ones deter casual viewers.

Surprisingly, only 4 of the 24 videos capitalized on internet memes or hype topics trending at the time of publishing. The rest presented original angles and information rather than following viral fads or React-style commentary videos. This suggests uniqueness is valuable for sustained spread versus short-lived trend-chasing.

Novel Content Works Best

None of the viral hits were sequel or follow up videos—they all introduced completely new ideas or experiments to his audience. Rehashing past concepts, no matter how popular originally, failed to recapture lightning in a bottle. Fresh takes keep viewers engaged rather than feeling like repeats.

The Power of Authenticity

While production values continue improving over the years, Matt’s most shareworthy videos achieved viral fame with a distinctly homemade, DIY spirit. Charming faults and rawness seemed to enhance authenticity rather than detract from it. Videos with polished perfection felt overly slick and transparently commercial.

Titillating Titles Grab Attention

Videos using extreme or superlative language like “Craziest”, “Most Insane” or “Only Person to Ever…” in the title consistently outperformed plain descriptions in initial click-throughs. Mundane wording like “Making Slime at Home” fell flat versus “I Made 100 POUNDS of DIY Slime!”

Thumbnails Sell the Video

Getting a viewer to actually press play relied on thumbnail visuals that intrigued or confused them enough to take a chance. Thumbnails solely featuring Matt’s face performing mundane actions saw fewer clicks versus thumbnails showing bizarre or astonishing scenes from the video itself.

Recommendations Drive the Bulk of Views

Breaking down traffic sources for his most viral hit revealed an astounding 98% of overall views came via the “Home” recommendations section of YouTube. Personalization algorithms select videos similar to each user’s watch history—getting selected here meant massive exposure to many different audiences.

Expanding the Recommendation Net

To boost the chances of YouTube featuring a video on “Home” pages, similar topics to trending videos or channels seemed most likely to be selected algorithmically. Collaboration videos also benefited from exposure to new subscribers of the partner channel. Piggybacking off existing trends and popular creators expanded the potential for recommendations.

Blogging, sharing sneak peeks on forums and subreddits, and engaging followings on other platforms also brought in huge caches of views for some videos. External traffic sources provided a doorway for recommendations to ultimately take over massive viewership over time. Quality off-platform promotion served as an entry point YouTube’s algorithms amplified.

Continuous Experimentation

Despite achieving viral success repeatedly, Matt acknowledges no true formula exists for guaranteed popularity. Even refining elements that worked before provides no assurance—magic cannot be reliably repeated. His advice has been to continue experimenting with new topics and perspectives, collaborating across communities, engaging subscribers, and learning from each video’s performance data.

The quest continues, as unlocking the full “secret” remains elusive. Yet through constant testing, analysis, and applying past lessons, his channel demonstrates persistence and creativity pave the road to viral opportunities some videos capitalize on in unexpected ways. Patience and joy in the process fuels ongoing pursuit of ever-bigger online breakthroughs.

Lessons for Aspiring Creators

While not fully in control of a video’s fate, Matt’s experience offers some guiding principles for those starting out:

  • Authenticity, passion for the craft, and joy in making content seem paramount for long term YouTube success. “Forcing” videos for views rarely sustains engagement.

  • Focus outward on topics with broad appeal beyond niche interests. Videos people share from recommendations greatly increases chances of discovery.

  • Thorough planning of hooking titles, enticing thumbnails, and ideal lengths optimize visibility. But don’t be afraid to experiment outside formulas.

  • Promoting actively both on and off YouTube aids algorithms in finding a video’s perfect audiences. Engagement breeds engagement.

  • Analytics provide invaluable data, not destiny. There are usually multiple legitimate paths to popularity—trust the journey wherever it leads.

With patience, continuous refinement, innovation over repetition, and abundant experimentation, viral successes become more likely over the long run—even if full mastery remains out of reach. The true reward lies in the passion, skills gained, and community built along the way to YouTube stardom.