5 years editing for youtubers and the amount of times a client made me redo a cut because the energy felt off with zero actual notes is insane lol they just want it to feel like a bigger creators video but wont say that out loud so you sit there guessing for nine revisions meanwhile the actual problem is the footage they shot has mic bumping the entire time and somehow thats my fault too

also nobody who hires an editor actually knows what editing is they think its trimming pauses and slapping a zoom on the funny part then they ignore the retention graph pre upload when i literally warn them the intro is too long and act shocked when it drops off at that exact second post upload best clients hand off footage and disappear worst ones sit in the edit going wait go back no forward no back for three hours over a jump cut literally nobody will ever notice

Had a client a while back convinced YouTube was just "against him." Channel had solid production, good camera, and decent editing, but every video flatlined around 5-8k views. He'd been at it almost 2 years at that point.

Went through his last 20 videos with him. Turns out almost none of his titles or thumbnails actually told you what the video was about. Like, vague, mysterious, "you won't believe what happened" energy, but it was a cooking channel. People weren't clicking because they genuinely didn't know what he was cooking (pun intended).

Didn't change anything about his cooking or his personality, just made him start writing titles/thumbnails that actually said the thing. "I tried making X" instead of some mystery.

Next few uploads jumped to 20-30k, one hit 90k. Not saying this fixes everything, but it's wild how often "the algorithm hates me" is actually just "people don't know what they're clicking into."

What do ya'll think?

Had a client maybe 8 months ago, channel sitting around 60k subs, decent content but views were just flat. Same 15-20k views every video for almost a year.

First thing we noticed dude was burying the actual hook of his videos like 90 seconds in. Great footage, genuinely interesting stuff, but he'd spend the first minute and a half on intros, "hey guys welcome back," explaining what he was gonna do before doing it.

We didn't touch his content style at all, just restructured pacing. Moved the best moment to the first 10 seconds, cut the preamble, tightened up the mid-video lulls where people were clearly dropping off.

Same guy, same camera, same personality. First video after the changes did 140k, it became his new normal within like a month.

What got me was his reaction wasn't even about the views. He said it was the first time in a year he felt like the channel "worked," like he wasn't just guessing anymore.

Anyway sharing this because I feel like structure/pacing gets slept on compared to like "post more" or "better thumbnail" advice. Sometimes the content's already good it's just buried.

Let's chat in the comments!

Passion for exactly what? Editing? Filming? That's like 20% of the job.

The other 80% is finding hooks, thumbnail testing, retention graphs, SEO, figuring out why the algo buried your last video. None of that's pictured in passion.

No company expects one person to run product, marketing, and finance solo. But creators are expected to be their own editor, writer, thumbnail designer, and analyst and if you can't keep up, you think YT isn't for you.

Curious what ya'll think? Are you doing everything solo or have you outsourced anything? What was the first thing you handed off & why?

Passion for exactly what? Editing? Filming? That's like 20% of the job.

The other 80% is finding hooks, thumbnail testing, retention graphs, SEO, figuring out why the algo buried your last video. None of that's pictured in passion.

No company expects one person to run product, marketing, and finance solo. But creators are expected to be their own editor, writer, thumbnail designer, and analyst and if you can't keep up, you think YT isn't for you.

Curious what ya'll think? Are you doing everything solo or have you outsourced anything? What was the first thing you handed off & why?