Are you looking to get 4,000 YouTube Watch Hours to monetize your channel? YouTube launched the YouTube Partner Program in December 2007. This program allowed creators to share in the ad revenue and gave access to various features. YPP opened endless opportunities for YouTubers by turning their passion into a profession.
According to the YouTube Partner Program eligibility criteria, a YouTube creator will need 4000 hours of YouTube watch time, more than 1,000 subscribers, and have your channel linked to your AdSense account. When your channel hits the criteria, YouTube will send you an email notifying you of your channel’s status.
This blog will help you get 4,000 YouTube watch hours, how to track it, why it is important for a YouTube creator, and how you can get more watch time and views on YouTube.
What does 4000 hours of YouTube watch time mean?
To get 4000 hours of YouTube watch time that can count, you need to turn your video visibility to public. So don’t let your live streams go unlisted, delete your old videos or set them to private. YouTube will only count your watch hours if they are public. You need to aim at gaining 4000 houses within a period of 12 months. This means your videos, however long, need to be watched in the last 52 weeks.
How to track 4000 hours of YouTube watch time?
Now, let’s look at how you can track your YouTube watch hours. First, go to your YouTube Studio account and click on the Monetization option. It will show you your subscriber count and watch time. You can use YouTube Studio to access other additional data as well through the Analytics section.
Here’s our guide to understanding how YouTube Studio works.
Why are 4000 hours of YouTube watch time important?
While monetizing your YouTube channel should be your goal, you shouldn’t make that your only goal as a creator. For example, don’t start a channel with the sole purpose of getting 4000 hours of YouTube watch time and 1000 subscribers.
Start small and then build towards achieving this goal. First, figure out what you want your channel to represent, then identify your target audience and then go from there. For example, if we convert 4000 hours to minutes, that makes it 240,000 minutes. This target is hard to achieve because YouTube has set a high standard for channels that want to get monetized. So trust your content and audience to take you there.
How to get more watch time & views on YouTube?
Evergreen content
Creating evergreen content is understanding what’s unique and trending on YouTube. Evergreen YouTube content is content that is relevant for an extended period of time. For example, videos like “how to fix a tube light,” “how to change a car’s tire,” etc., will be watched over the years by different people no matter when it was uploaded. People watch such helpful videos repeatedly; this will help you boost your watch time within 12 months.
Here’s a guide on “How To Create Evergreen Content On YouTube,” which will help you increase your watch hours.
Live stream
Youtube live stream is another great way to increase your videos’ watch time. In the beginning, you might get only 20 to 50 users, but with time and patience, you will see an average of 700 to 800 people watching your streams.
Imagine having 500 people watching your 2-hour live stream. That means you’ve got 1000 hours of watch time from one stream. If you continue this journey, you can quickly achieve the 4000 hours of YouTube watch time goal. Now, remember that these numbers are hypothetical but achievable with high-quality content.
Check out our guide on “How to Live Stream on YouTube” to get you started.
VeeFly
Another way to increase your watch time and get more views on your videos is through online promotional platforms. Veefly is one of the best way to promote video on YouTube. Over 10k YouTube creators have used it to grow their views and subscribers. So head over to VeeFly to start your new campaign and explore their monetization packages that fit your budget.
VeeFly also has various tools in its folds for a lot of creators to explore, such as AI YouTube Title Generator and AI YouTube Description Generator.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Do video tags or SEO play a role in increasing watch hours?
Yes! Tags help guide YouTube algorithms on what any particular video covers. They increase the chances of your videos appearing on the relevant keywords or hashtags, eventually contributing towards high rank.
If you want to find the right tags for your videos, then use this AI YouTube Tag extractor to extract tags from the ranking videos have the same niche or genre as you.
Q2. What’s the difference between views and watch hours?
Here’s the difference
- Video views on YouTube indicate the number of times your videos were clicked, but that, by default, doesn’t mean that the users were there on your videos for hours.
- YouTube watch hours indicate the amount of time people watch your videos; they add up to watch hours over a longer duration.
Q3. Do collaborations with other YouTubers help increase watch hours?
Definitely a yes for this answer. Here’s how collaborations can increase your watch hours:
- Collaborations can increase your exposure to more audiences – As you get to tap into other creators’ bases, too.
- It creates excitement, thus compelling even inactive subscribers to click on your videos.
- This opens the door for more networking opportunities within the YouTube sphere, which add to your channel exposure.
- All these factors combined increase the watch hours on your videos.
- You can also buy YouTube views if collaborations seem out of your reach at this point in time.
Q4. What are the best ways to promote my videos to increase watch hours?
Here are tips to promote video on YouTube and increase watch hours:
- Creating customized thumbnails and titles for all videos can help grab the attention of the targeted audience, thus increasing clicks, which eventually add up in watch hours.
- Compile all videos into a specific playlist depending on the similarity of themes and genres. This will ensure that your playlist appears on all keywords used in your videos, thus increasing exposure, which would become a click and even watch hour.
- You can use YouTube shorts to promote your longer, full-length videos more often. Thus increasing viewers for your watch hours.
- Use an omnichannel approach to promote all your videos on multiple platforms, such as newsletters, video embedding on guest pages, and social media forums.
- Get shoutouts from other creators for your videos, or plan a collab with them.
