Why Your YouTube Videos Aren't Going Viral (Amateur vs. Exceptional Channels)

The real reason your YouTube videos aren't going viral is usually that every upload is a different format made for a different audience, so the channel ends up being for nobody. Exceptional channels look almost boring. They iterate on two, three, maybe five content formats and plug a new topic into the same proven formula. I run about 80% proven and 20% testing. As a beginner, take one format that already works in your niche, change only the subject, and repeat it until you have an audience.

The Amateur Problem: Every Video Is a Different Format

This is a concept I've been developing from working with a lot of beginners. There's a very clear difference between an amateur and someone exceptional on YouTube, and it shows up in the content strategy before anything else.

Picture a channel where each upload is its own box. A content format is something like:

• Top 10 moments
• How Michael Jordan spends his billions
• Michael Jordan versus Larry Bird
• 10 things you didn't know about Michael Jordan
• A Michael Jordan documentary

I'm using Michael Jordan as the vehicle, but each of those is a different content bucket. And this applies to keywords and to the whole production style too, not only the title.

What I see with an amateur is that they feel like they need to be creative. They change what they're doing all the time, because they fear their ideas are getting stale and nobody wants to watch.

The issue is that each of those videos is made for almost an entirely different audience. When you're making so many different videos for so many different audiences, your channel is kind of a channel for nobody.

There are channels that upload five videos a day across multiple audiences, and the output makes up for it. If you don't have that kind of production, you need to be very intentional. The consequence of being all over the place is simple: it takes longer for your channel to blow up.

What Exceptional Channels Do Instead

When you look at someone exceptional, the first thing you notice is that it's simpler. They go for the frictionless option, which a lot of times is just the most simple idea.

It's typically an iteration of two, three, maybe five content formats. They still try new things, but they're strategic about it, and they give a new idea a lot of runway before they scratch it.

Say all their videos get 10,000 views, and the new format gets 500. They don't act emotional. They know that's expected, and they'll upload a few more until it has a real chance of blowing up, or until they've done five or 10 over a few months and none of them hit.

You move fast on output and execution. On ideas, you're hesitant until you have a strong foundation.

A really good YouTuber is almost on the side of boring, in the sense that they keep producing what's already been proven.

Your Audience Gets Bored Slower Than You Do

Something to understand about marketers and creators:

Take my X account. There's a style of post I've done something like a hundred times at this point. People love them. I might feel like it's "whatever" by now, but I don't dictate what people love, so I keep doing it.

It's one of my core strategies because it gives me a fairly predictable result. Then I sprinkle in the things I'm more passionate about.

Example 1: A Commentary Channel Running One Title

The first channel that came to mind when I recorded this was a commentary channel that was blowing up. They'd started two months earlier, had around 200,000 subscribers, and had done around 12 million views in the previous 20 days.

If you look at the channel, it's the same videos over and over:

• "[Person]'s situation just got worse." At that point they'd already run it at least four times, including one on MrBeast and one on JoJo Siwa.
• A "went too far" title. I counted seven.
• Then "[blank] is..." (is done, is crumbling, is weird), which looked like the next test.

Same with thumbnails. Two strategies, repeated. One is the person's face with text next to it. The other is the person's face with a tweet. When I looked, they were just starting to test a third.

And they do the exact same thing with the hook, the sound effects, the music, the voiceover and the transitions. They're limiting the variables. They found something that works and they plug different ideas into that formula. The MrBeast one worked, so they did it again.

Example 2: The "Dark Side Of" Series

The second channel is in a different niche, more on the geopolitical side (Explained with Dom).

When they first got started, they were doing different angles: how China got stuck, Sri Lanka falling apart, Sweden and Finland not being in NATO, how Thailand escaped colonialism.

Then they did a video on the dark side of South Korea's economic success, and it went bonkers. So they did another one. It got 6 million views. The next one didn't do as well, but it did pretty good.

Here's the pattern from there:

1. They tried a different format. It didn't do as good.
2. They went back to the dark side. It did so-so.
3. They tried another format and drifted away from the series for a bit.
4. They went back to the dark side and it crushed. Then it crushed again.
5. They tried two different strategies, went back to the dark side, and it crushed again.

Later they started playing with the thumbnail and title combo while keeping basically the same idea (another 2 million views): the dark secret of, the dark truth of, the dark side of, then a country, then their commentary on that country's situation.

If you sort by their popular videos, basically all of the top ones are that format. My advice to them would be to keep doing those because it's working, and keep iterating new formats on the side until one crushes. They had one "deep trouble, here's why" video that did well and, as far as I could see, they'd only tried it once. That's proven. Run it a few more times.

Because he has an audience and momentum now, he can try new stuff and people will watch regardless. But you can see that when he tries new stuff, it typically isn't the million-view video.

Creativity Is Expensive

Being boring here is a good thing. Whenever you're creative, it requires a lot of effort to come up with things.

Creativity is incredible too. I view it like evolution and genetic mutations. When a species lands on the right mutation, it develops a new trait and can outlast the others. But it's dangerous. The chance of any one mutation being a great one is pretty low.

Same thing with content. When you try new stuff and go against the norm, your chances of success are dramatically lower, and when you're a smaller creator they're even lower.

That gets you progress and builds momentum. Once you're seeing success from it, you can start creating your own tests and variations.

If you need a process for finding the proven idea in the first place, read how to find viral YouTube video ideas.

Each Format Needs a Different Production Skill

One more layer on this. Those different formats aren't only different audiences. Each one requires a different style of production.

If you're a complete amateur, every one of those needs different emotions, different formatting and a different frame of mind. Try new formats all the time and you're learning production from scratch each time, on top of talking to a new audience.

So the best thing you can do as an amateur is the most simple production, over and over. If you're doing news content, that's it. You plug in a new person.

On YouTube you're competing with other people's content for attention. The only way to get good in a reasonable time frame is to simplify the variables, so you're getting good at a few simple things.

How I'd Limit the Variables on a New Channel

I'm not saying do this specifically, but here's how I'd approach it. Take a video like "Ryan's World is crumbling."

1. Plug in another kid YouTuber who's just as big.
2. Put their face in the same spot, money in the background, "[blank] is crumbling."
3. Watch the original and do everything just like they did.
4. Keep switching the person the video is about.
5. Then try one of their other formats the same way.

The only variable I change is the person. Obviously that doesn't mean downloading and re-uploading someone's video, or doing the same topic. It means taking the format that's already proven, plugging a new keyword into it, and making that go viral.

Once you have an audience and momentum, you can try other formats, because now you'll know whether something is good. With no audience, you could make the most beautiful masterpiece known to mankind and it would take a long time to get any reach. I go through that diagnosis in why you're not getting views on YouTube.

Even at the pinnacle, look at MrBeast. He does the same five or so videos over and over. "I spent 24 hours buried alive." "I spent 24 hours in ice." "I spent 24 hours in a circle." Then "last to [blank]," then "would you rather." If it's working, why fix it. I cover how we pick and reuse formats on our own channel in my faceless channel playbook.

Video Chapters

• 0:00Intro
• 0:35The amateur problem: too many formats
• 2:37What an exceptional channel does instead
• 4:43Why good YouTubers look boring
• 5:45The 80/20 split between proven and new
• 6:48Example 1: a commentary channel repeating one title
• 9:19Example 2: the "dark side of" series
• 11:57Advanced creators are intentional
• 12:22Creativity is expensive
• 14:35Each format needs a different production style
• 17:13How I'd limit the variables
• 19:15MrBeast does the same five videos

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