YouTube is testing a video ideation tool with two important features: (1) it shows creators successful videos’ outlier multipliers, and (2) it shows them what videos and creators their own viewers are watching.
Called Research, this new tab within YouTube Studio is an experiment that’s being tested with “a small number of users,” a YouTube spokesperson tells Tubefilter.
We first heard about the Research tab from Mario Joos, who describes himself as a Retention Director for YouTubers with over 100 million subscribers, including MrBeast, the Stokes Twins, and Alan Chikin Chow.
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In a LinkedIn post, he noted that creators have had to rely on third-party tools for content ideation and gauging audience interest in certain video ideas or niches. YouTube does have its own “Inspiration” tab that (of course) uses Google’s AI to recommend video ideas, but Joos says he and his creators haven’t found it very useful.
When a creator clicks into the new Research tab, they’ll see a collection of videos from other creators across YouTube, along with public data like those creators’ subscriber counts, when videos were uploaded, and how many views they’ve racked up to date.
“At first, this may just seem like the same generic inspiration tab we had before,” Joos wrote. “However, this one is different.”
And those differences lie in the two features we mentioned above. First, the outlier multiplier–a number that rates how well a video performed compared to a creator’s other content. In the examples shown in Joos’ screenshot of the Research tab, we can see videos with 4x multipliers all the way up to 132x multipliers.
This means YouTube is surfacing videos that are doing unusually well. If creators narrow their search to a very recent publication window (which you’re able to do with Research’s filters), they can use multipliers to potentially see things like burgeoning trends, hot discussion topics, or up-and-coming video formats. These could also just simply be well-made videos that can give creators a chance to study their craft.
But even if videos are well-made and drawing in significant viewership, they might not be in a specific creator’s wheelhouse.
That’s where the second intriguing feature comes in. One of Research’s filters is called “Watched by my viewers”–and, as you may expect, it only displays videos that see significant viewership from a creator’s established audience.
Joos said this one filter “is where YouTube wins over any other tool,” and that it is a “massive” opportunity for creators, especially when paired with outlier multiplier data.
“You can find outlier data and understand what your viewers are actually watching,” he wrote.
We’re keen to see the usership pickup of this tab and would like to see more creators talk about their experiences actually utilizing its data. This might take some time; a YouTube spokesperson told us there’s currently no information available about a potential wider rollout for Research.
We’re also hoping this tool will be informative for creators, but won’t result in an even more homogenized atmosphere where creators feel like they need to mirror what top-performing videos are doing in order to retain viewers. YouTubers’ individual creative perspectives and voices are more important now than ever. We want to see them stay intact.
