FIND OUT how many views your YouTube videos will get

Two scientists have recently collected and researched many months worth of statistics on millions of YouTube videos. They've discovered any video belongs to one of four categories based on the number of views. The two categories you're interested in are viral and quality.

Once you understand how these categories work you can use this knowledge to your advantage and become a YouTube super star.

Videos on YouTube become popular because they get a lot of views. The total amount of views can be traced back to views per day. If you look at how these views per day evolve starting from the day you've posted your video you can estimate whether you video is viral or quality.

Once you get the hang of it you'll be able to hone in to the viral or quality 'effect' and actually trigger it for all your future videos.

YouTube has the perfect tool for tracking the daily number of views your video gets. It's hidden behind the 'Insight' button on youtube.com/my_videos.

Open the Insight panel of your most viewed video now. What you'll see is a graph showing a history of daily views. You'll work with this graph in the next steps.

Look at the graph that shows the history of views per day (or just 'views') and try to determine the peak day. This is the day that has gotten the most views since the day your video was posted.

You may find there are multiple peak days. If this is the case your video is neither viral nor quality. Check out the graph for you second most popular video.

Now that you've found peak day and you're sure there's only one you can determine the category your video belongs to. There are two important categories (I'm ignoring the two others because they tend not to generate a lot of views).

These two categories are:

• Viral or exogenous critical (EX-C): in this category videos rise to peak day very quickly. They rise anywhere from a few days to two week (rising in one day is not viral!).


• Quality or endogenous critical (EN-C): in this category videos rise to peak day slowly. They rise over the course of multiple weeks to months.

Rising refers to the period starting with the day traffic starts to pick up to peak day. In this period each day or week gets more views than the day or week before up until peak day.

Note: if your video is still fresh peak day may not have happened yet! If your video has been posted more than one week ago and views are still rising you most likely have a quality or EN-C on your hands. Congrats! However, in that case you won't be able to accurately predict how many views you'll gets. You can do the calculation but you have to remember that the actual number of views will be higher, probably much higher!

Now that you know if you video is viral or quality you're almost ready to calculated how many views you video will get starting from peak day.

You only need to look up one more detail: the approximate number of views on peak day. You can find this on the Insight graph of your video. Try to be as specific as possible but don't hurt yourself.

Now click on this link and enter these variables:

• Peak day


• The number of views on peak day


• viral or quality

Click 'Calculate' and you'll know how many views your video will get starting from peak day. The number is an approximation, it can be off by as much as 20% in either direction. Still, it will give you an idea.

If you find this lens useful leave a comment to share your experience.

If you think your friends might enjoy this lens then you should consider sharing it.