HOW TO GET 4000 YOUTUBE WATCH HOURS FAST

So, you want to join the YouTube Partner Program to monetize your YouTube channel and make money with your YouTube channel?

As you probably know, you have to meet two requirements before you can apply.

• Get 1,000 YouTube subscribers for your channel.
• Gain 4,000 hours of watch time within the last 365 days. That's what we're going to focus on today.

Getting your first one thousand subscribers is the easy part! There are over 10.1 million YouTube channels with more than 1,000 subs, but only 2 million channels have joined the YouTube Partner Program. You can learn more about this in my article on How many YouTube channels are there?

Today, we will look at how we can get you to 4,000 hours of watch time as quickly as possible. First, we are going to look at your watch time from three different angles:

• What’s the minimum number of videos that you should make to get there?
• How many views does each of your videos have to get?
• How long should your video be?

Then we explore different strategies and tactics on how to maximize your watch time to trigger the YouTube algorithm to quickly grow your channel.

Sounds good? Great!

Then let's get started...

WHAT DOES 4,000 HOURS OF YOUTUBE WATCH TIME MEAN?

4000 HOURS IN MINUTES

When we look at big numbers, it's sometimes difficult to imagine what those numbers really mean. So let's break down 4000 hours of YouTube watch time into minutes.

The math is simple. One hour equals 60 minutes, so all we have to do is multiply both numbers.

4000 hours x 60 minutes = 240,000 minutes!

To get to 4000 hours of YouTube watch time, you have to generate 240,000 minutes of YouTube watch time.

4000 HOURS IN DAYS

How many days of continuous watching does it take to get to 4000 hours of watch time?

Let's see...

One day has 24 hours. That means we can just divide 4000 hours of watch time by 24 to get our answer.

4000 hours / 24 hours = 166 days and 16 hours

To get 100% of your YouTube watch time from one person, they would have to play your videos on loop for 166 days and 16 hours non-stop.

Of course, that number will become much smaller if you have more subscribers.

HOW DOES YOUTUBE CALCULATE THE NUMBER OF HOURS WATCHED?

There are two things that you have to understand about watch time.

WHAT COUNTS AS VIDEO WATCH TIME?

The first thing that you have to understand is what qualifies as watch time?

Not all content is equal. YouTube only considers PUBLIC watch time as watch time.

That means if you set the privacy of one of your videos as unlisted or private. You could get a million hours of watch time, and it wouldn't count!

Keep that in mind when you upload your videos onto YouTube!

IF YOU HAD A VIRAL VIDEO TWO YEARS AGO, WOULD IT COUNT TOWARDS YOUR WATCH TIME?

Unfortunately not!

4,000 hours of watch time is not about the total number of watch time people watched during the lifetime of your channel.

It's a moving time frame, and will always look at the last 365 days from whatever date it is today.

Imagine this: If you had accumulated 1,000 hours of watch time exactly 500 days before today and then generated another 3,000 hours within the last 365 days.

How many hours of watch time would you have?

Hint: It's not 4,000...

If you guessed 3,000, you're right on the money!

The 1,000 hours that you collected 500 days ago are out of the 365 days date range.

Now the good news is that you just have to get 4,000 hours once.

Once you qualify for monetization, you can apply for monetization. And once you're approved, you're approved. No matter how many hours of watch time you accumulate afterward.

Example: If you got monetized one year ago but only had 1,000 hours of watch time within the last 365 days doesn't matter.

You still stay monetized.

WHAT'S THE BEST STRATEGY TO GET TO 4000 HOURS OF PUBLIC WATCH TIME?

What’s the minimum number of videos that you should make? How many views should each of your YouTube videos get? What's the ideal length of your videos?

To answer these questions, we have to do a bit of math first.

1 X 1-MINUTE VIDEO

Imagine that you just created a brand-new YouTube channel.

Day 0. You have 0 subscribers and 0 videos.

What if you created just one 1-minute video. How many times would people have to watch this one video to gain 4,000 hours of watch time?

The answer is pretty simple.

We just have to convert 4,000 hours into minutes. 4,000 hours x 60 minutes = 240,000 minutes.

One 1-minute long video would have to be watched 240,000 times.

Wow, that's a big number!

It gets even bigger if we assume that not everybody will watch your video all the way till the end.

The first person might watch for 1 minute, the second person might watch 30 seconds, and the third person might click away immediately.

What's the average watch time? (60 seconds + 30 seconds + 0 seconds) / 3 people = 90 seconds / 3 people = 30 seconds / person.

In other words, 50% of the total video length.

In reality, 50% would be a pretty good result for any video shorter than 10 minutes.

For longer videos, 30% or more is more realistic.

With our 1-minute video, 50% average watch time would double the number of required views.

240,000 1-minute views / 50% = 480,000 views!

Yeah, we are not going to do that.

We need something way more achievable!

365 X 1-MINUTE VIDEOS

Ok, so what if we made one 1-minute video every day instead?

How many views would we need?

Let's take our previous number of 480,000 views and divide it by 365 days.

And yes, I am simplifying a little here: The first video you upload on day one has 365 days left to gain more views. While the last video that you upload on day 364 only has 1 day left to gain more views and should therefore get a much smaller number of views. In my examples, we just pretend that all videos are the same.

What's the result?

480,000 views / 365 videos = 1,315 views / video

Now that's way more achievable, wouldn't you say?

1,315 people to view a video vs. 480,000 people to view a video...

But, we can do even better.

365 X 10-MINUTE VIDEOS

What if we just made longer videos?

10-minute long videos instead of 1-minute videos?

Well, in this case, we can divide everything by 10.

1,315 views per video / 10 = 132 views per video

Let's check the number and see if we're right.

365 video x 10 minutes x 132 views per video x 50% average watch length = 240,900 minutes = 4,015 hours

Boo-ya! Take that algebra! 😜

LET'S BE REAL

Now all of these numbers make sense on paper, but they might not work in practice.

For once, coming up with good video ideas takes time and requires mental energy to be creative.

If you want to make 365 unique videos that are all equally good, you might burn out pretty quickly.

And not just because you drain your creativity daily (unless you live stream video games on Twitch), but also because of the time spent on production, editing, and promotion, which can easily take up a few hours per video if you want to do a good job.

What's a more realistic option that would work for most people?

Here is what I recommend:

• Create 1, 2 or 3 videos per week. Each 10 to 15 minutes long.
• Create either a weekly or monthly livestream of 60 minutes.
• Focus on content quality and promotion.

Let's have a look at how these numbers play out.

For this example, I will calculate the total number of unique content first and then combine it with our live stream minutes.

• 1 x weekly video of 15 minutes: 52 weeks x 1 x 15 minutes = 780 minutes of video content.
• 2 x weekly video of 15 minutes: 52 weeks x 2 x 15 minutes = 1,560 minutes of video content.
• 3 x weekly video of 15 minutes: 52 weeks x 3 x 15 minutes = 2,340 minutes of video content.

Now, let's calculate our live stream minutes.

• 1 x weekly video of 60 minutes: 52 weeks x 1 x 60 minutes = 3,120 minutes of live stream content.
• 1 x monthly video of 60 minutes: 12 months x 1 x 60 minutes = 720 minutes of live stream content.

Now, all you have to do is combine these two numbers. If you don't want to do live-streaming, just skip it.

For example, if I want to create 3 weekly videos and do 1 monthly live stream: 2,340 minutes of video content + 720 minutes of live stream content = 3,060 minutes of unique video content or 51 hours.

In this case, I would need to get 78 views per video or live stream to reach 4,000 hours of watch time. Here is the math: 4,000 hours / 51 hours of unique video content.

You'll never have the same number of views for each of your videos or live streams. Some videos will have a few hundred views; others will have less than 50.

What's important is that those numbers average out in the long run.

And this is what this article will focus on.

Taking the best possible actions to ensure that each video has the best chance of success to get as many video views and watch time as possible.

HOW TO GET TO 4,000 HOURS OF YOUTUBE WATCH TIME FAST

If you want to join the YouTube partner program, you have to get a lot of watch time fast. Let's look at some of the best YouTube watch time hacks that will help you grow your channel exponentially.

CREATE LONGER YOUTUBE VIDEOS

Let me show you a real-world example from my YouTube channel. Here are two of my top-performing videos at the time of writing.

• How to get 500 connections on LinkedIn. 7 minutes and 31 seconds long. 1,490 views created 69.2 hours of watch time.
• How to get your first 10,000 followers on LinkedIn. 47 minutes and 6 seconds long. 456 views created 50.2 hours of watch time.

As you can see, even though the 10,000 followers video only had about 23% of the combined views, it almost had 42% of the combined watch time.

That's why longer videos are so powerful!

Even though the average watch time percentage is lower than shorter videos, longer videos make more than up for it when dedicated viewers watch them all the way till the end!

Longer videos get shared more frequently than shorter videos.

OPTIMIZE YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEOS

When you're starting a new YouTube channel, the odds are stacked against you.

YouTube will – initially – not recommend your videos to new people, and your channel will not grow organically because it doesn't know enough about you, your channel, your videos, and who would be interested in watching them.

The good news is, you can get around this by optimizing your videos for YouTube search.

You have to find video topics that many people are searching for on YouTube, with very few competing videos in the search results.

Create a targeted video for this topic once you found a high search volume and low competition keyword. Then optimize your video title, description, and keywords for YouTube SEO.

YouTube SEO is one of the most powerful tools to optimize the click-through rate of your YouTube videos.

If there are only 5 videos about topic X, including yours, then your video will show up on page one of YouTube's search results for your targeted keyword.

So, how do you find these keywords?

By using a software called TubeBuddy! I use it for all of my videos. It connects directly to YouTube's API and pulls up the number of searches for any keyword I type in. And it also tells me how many competitor videos show up.

Based on these two numbers TubeBuddy will calculate a score between 0 and 100 points. The higher, the better.

I then use these keywords to find ideas for new video titles and optimize my videos to get more organic reach.

CREATE CUSTOM THUMBNAILS FOR YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEOS

Want to know an incredible hack to increase your YouTube watch time?

Optimize your video thumbnails for clicks!

You could have the best video in the world, but if nobody clicks on it, your watch time will be zero.

Together with your video title, YouTube thumbnails are the most important success factors for high video click-through rates.

A great thumbnail communicates the value of watching your video to viewers when they browse their YouTube newsfeed.

By default, YouTube will select three freeze-frames from your video as thumbnail suggestions during the upload of your video.

But you should always design and upload your own unique video thumbnail to stand out from other videos.

You will get the best results if you plan for the thumbnail before writing your video script. I wrote an in-depth article on how to plan, design, and optimize your YouTube thumbnails. Make sure to check it out!

ADD VIDEO CARDS TO YOUR VIDEOS

You also have to get more people to watch more of your videos to get more watch time. One of the easiest ways is by recommending someone one of your related videos via video cards.

Those are the little info icons that appear in the top right corner of your videos. You can recommend up to 5 videos per video, and I highly recommend incorporating this strategy for all of your videos.

When you're just starting, you might not have enough videos to recommend. But don't worry. You can always go back and add cards later once you have enough material.

CREATE END SCREENS FOR YOUR VIDEOS

If your video is fun and entertaining to watch and someone stays all the way till the end, ask them to watch some of your other videos via your video end screens.

You can add up to 4 videos and video playlists to the last 20 seconds of your videos that viewers can watch with the click of a button.

I recommend using TubeBuddy to replace all of your video end screens with your most popular videos in bulk.

RECOMMEND RELATED VIDEOS IN YOUR VIDEO DESCRIPTION AND COMMENTS

Another awesome way to promote your videos to new viewers is by sharing links to some of your videos and playlists in the description of your videos.

For my videos, I frequently review my top-performing videos in terms of watch time, views, and engagement. I copy all video links in a text file and add the video title in front or above each link.

Next, I add links to my website, social media accounts, and products and then use TubeBuddy to replace the description in all of my videos with the click of a button.

Sometimes, especially if I want to recommend very specific videos, I follow a slightly different approach.

Instead of sharing the video URL that I mentioned in my video in the description, I share them in a comment and then pin the comment to the top.

ADD YOUR VIDEOS TO PLAYLISTS

Every YouTube channel should have at least one playlist!

You can start by creating one for all of your videos and then, wait for it... add all of your public videos to it! Genius!

The idea of why you should create playlists is that it creates a very convenient way for viewers to bulk-watch your content.

I also create several topic-specific playlists for all of my LinkedIn and YouTube training videos on my channel.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SERIES-PLAYLISTS

If you want to turbo-charge your YouTube playlists, you must take advantage of a little-known yet super-powerful feature called series playlists.

Think of it like this.

You made a travel documentary about your last vacation and split it into three movies. Yet, it would make sense to watch them in sequential order.

In this case, you create a regular playlist. Add all three videos in the right order. And then switch it from "normal" to "series".

With a "normal" or no playlist at all, there was no way of knowing if YouTube would suggest part 2 as the next recommended video if someone were watching part 1. Frequently random videos would be recommended. Often from other channels.

With a "series" playlist, this is different. Now, the probability that part 2 will be suggested is almost guaranteed.

Why is this so powerful?

Because YouTube will auto-play videos after each video by default.

And if you can sneak in more of your videos at the end, that means extra watch time, and you get to 4,000 hours much faster!

SHARE PLAYLISTS INSTEAD OF VIDEOS

Another way you can take advantage of video playlists is by sharing playlists instead of individual video links.

First, find a playlist of your choice that contains the video that you want to share.

Open it and then select the video you want to share. You'll notice that the URL changes into a long, convoluted address.

Select it, copy it, and paste it into a new tab in your browser.

It should play your video AND then continue with other videos from your playlist.

If it works, share this far and wide.

Not everybody will continue to watch your entire playlist.

But some will, and that's all that matters! More watch time for your channel.

PROMOTE YOUR VIDEOS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

You must drive as much traffic to your own videos as possible!

Don't rely on YouTube. This is a win-win partnership.

YouTube will reward those who help themselves.

When you send viewers to your videos, a couple of things will happen.

1. You bring fresh users to the YouTube platform. This allows YouTube to show them ads which translates into extra revenue for YouTube. Result? YouTube will reward you with organic impressions.
2. You know your audience best. By recommending your videos to people you know are interested in the content, you allow YouTube to create lookalike audiences. It works similar to Amazon's "people who bought this also bought these" feature. Once YouTube is able to see patterns among viewers, it will be able to make educated guesses what other YouTube videos and creators you might be interested in.
3. You make your own luck. Or in this case your own watch time. The more that you promote your own videos, the quicker you'll get to 4,000 hours of watch time.
4. You also make it convenient for others to share your video on social media. (If you want to dig deep to learn why people share content online and how you can motivate your audience to share more, here's the article.) It's quite a big step to take, to motivate someone who is already on YouTube, to open their Twitter account, to write a tweet and then to link one of your videos. But if you're the one sharing the video on Twitter and someone on Twitter watches your YouTube video, it's another matter. Now, all it takes is the click to retweet your video to their followers, and boom! New potential viewers that didn't know anything about you before clicking right to your video.

GO LIVE ON YOUTUBE

We talked about the importance of longer videos before. With longer videos, you need a much smaller number of viewers to get to the same number of watch hours.

Since you don't have your first 1,000 subscribers yet, that's generally a good thing.

I recommend recording longer videos of 10-15 minutes. But if you really want to amp up your watch time, you'll need significantly longer videos.

Now, unless you have the talent to produce hour-long movies every week without burning out, there is a much easier way to get your watch time up to speed.

Going Live on YouTube.

I recommend having a regular schedule, for example, every Monday evening, so your audience can form a habit of attending your live streams.

START VIDEO PREMIERES

A cool method to increase the number of initial views for new videos is to publish them as a video premiere.

It's like a watch party for your new video. Just select a date and time, and YouTube will live-stream your new video at your specified time. Viewers can join the live chat and interact with you.

Afterward, it will turn into a regular video that people can watch whenever they want.

The benefit of premieres is that it's a unique experience. You can only ever watch it for the first time, and then it's over.

Because of this novelty factor, you'll get a lot more people to watch your premieres in comparison to publishing videos the regular way.

USE YOUTUBE TO LIVE-STREAM YOUR WEBINARS

If you do webinars for your business, why not live-stream them on YouTube. I use two tools for all of my webinars that allow me to live stream to YouTube: WebinarJam and Restream.

Why should you do this?

Because webinars are usually last from 30 minutes to 2-3 hours. And that means a massive boost in watch time every time you have a new webinar.

Make sure that you set your live stream to the public. Otherwise, YouTube won't count it towards your 4,000 hours of watch time.

CREATE AN ONLINE COURSE AND HOST YOUR VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE

Have you ever thought about creating an online course as a lead magnet? I use Thrivecart to host my online courses.

But you can keep it super simple. Just create a hidden page on your website and add all course videos as embedded YouTube videos.

Or if you have an email list. Send them a sequence of daily emails, each with the link to a different YouTube video.

People love structure and are more willing to consume larger amounts of content if presented and structured the right way.

And what does that mean for you?

You guessed it! More watch time!

CREATE A VIDEO AD CAMPAIGN ON GOOGLE ADS

If you don't have the patience, there is another way that you can think of...

Creating a video ad campaign on Google Ads.

Here is how this works.

Find a video on your YouTube channel that's reasonably long. So no shorter than 10 minutes, ideal half an hour to an hour. Webinar replays work amazingly.

Then you create a Google Ads account and set up a new campaign.

You select "brand awareness and reach" as the campaign goal and then "video campaign" on the next page.

Give your campaign a name.

Then select a CPC bidding strategy. I recommend manually setting a low bid cap so you don't accidentally burn your campaign budget too quickly.

Set a campaign budget as well as a start and end date. I recommend starting with $10-20 and a time frame of 1-2 days to familiarize yourself with how everything works.

In the networks section, select "YouTube videos".

As for targeting options, there are two. Either tailor your campaign to your ideal audience. Or just go for cheap and everyone.

I recommend option two to get as many watch hours as possible at the lowest possible price. And option one, if you not only want to amp up your watch time but also gain subscribers with your video ads.

Now it's time to create your video ad. Select a video of your choice from your YouTube channel and design your ad.

I recommend promoting your own YouTube channel in your ad copy and then linking to your channel URL.

Pro-tip: If you add "?sub_confirmation=1" to the end of your channel URL, people will see a popup that asks them if they want to subscribe.

In the end, click save and continue. Once your video ad campaign has been reviewed, it's ready to go.

I recommend logging into your YouTube Creator Studio and keeping an eye on the real-time views. This is what it'll look like on a daily basis once you have many more subscribers! 🙂

WATCH YOUR OWN VIDEOS ON YOUR FRIEND'S PHONE

That's a bit of a hack. Next time you meet your friend, tell them that you want to show them your new YouTube channel on THEIR phone.

Then let them watch one of your videos. And while you're at it, why not subscribe to them at the same time... 😜

Every bit helps, and who knows, maybe they'll turn into one of your most loyal subscribers who watch all of your videos.

CONCLUSION

In summary, for you to start a successful YouTube channel, you've to create a video strategy that works for you.

I recommend publishing three videos of 10-15 minutes per week and one hour-long live stream per month.

Optimize all of your YouTube videos for SEO with TubeBuddy to generate organic traffic on YouTube. TubeBuddy is an incredible tool and allowed me to grow my channel from zero to 3000 subscribers.

Add up to five video cards to each of your videos to promote related videos from your channel to encourage viewers to watch more of your content.

Create a pinned comment and recommend the same videos you recommended in your video cards.

Add end screen for your videos and promote at least one of your videos and your playlists. Make sure they're either your most popular videos or playlists and/or closely related to the video someone just watched.

Add a list of your most popular, recommended, and related videos in the video description of each of your videos.

Organize all of your videos into topic-specific playlists. This allows viewers who are interested in a specific topic to watch all of your content in bulk.

Take advantage of Series Playlists to improve the likelihood that one of your videos will be recommended as "next video to watch".

Instead of sharing the direct link, add your videos to playlists and then share the playlist with your video of choice as the currently selected video instead. This will boost your watch time tremendously!

Make sure that you always promote all of your videos on social media. I use SocialBee to do this on autopilot.Promote your videos on social media

Frequently go LIVE on YouTube and use the Premiere function to create a more immersive experience with your audience and boost watch time.

I use WebinarJam and Restream to live-stream your webinars.

Since webinars usually tend to be between one and two hours long and the audience retention is high, these are an incredible watch time booster.

You can also create an online course and host your videos on YouTube to increase the watch time on your channel.

If you want to get results even faster, create a video ad campaign on Google Ads.

And if all of these are not enough, bug your friends and force them to watch your videos on their smartphone 😉

If you want to learn more about YouTube, make sure that you check out my YouTube articles on how to get more views on YouTube, get YouTube subscribers fast, improve your video click-through rate, and design awesome video thumbnails.

If you want to learn how I grew my YouTube channel from 0 to 3,000 subscribers with TubeBuddy, check out my TubeBuddy review here.