Why the YouTube algorithm HATES your videos (and loves Graham Stephan)

Before he was a creator, Graham Stephan was a high-performing real estate professional, ultimately landing him the title of “millionaire” by age 26. 

Around this time, he launched his first YouTube channel, and his following since has blown up to 4.73M subscribers on his main channel alone. 

With four channels on YouTube, a successful newsletter, and a live course, Graham has found his creator career more lucrative than real estate (and this dude’s sold to Orlando Bloom, Suki Waterhouse and LaVar Arrington). 

While Graham has done a lot of things right, we’re going to cover one strategy he uses that most don’t quite understand…

Paige here, back with another creator deep dive 💦

When Graham first jumped into the creator world, his first move was YouTube. He’s quite honest that he was just making (high-quality) shots in the dark. 

Once he did understand his audience and started adapting his content to that audience, the next big unlock came for Graham:

Multiple channels, each tailored with a unique, related strategy for maximum, long-term growth.

Here are two harsh truths: 

1. The algorithm matters.

2. No matter how good your content is, you might not be appeasing the algo. 

But Graham has the solution: 

Tightly knit, separate channels that each target their own audience spread across broad and niche topics. 

It sounds a little complicated, so let’s break it down a step further. 

These are Graham’s channels, their subscriber count, and who exactly the content is tailored to: 

One thing Graham emphasizes is creating content that he enjoys. But, being the businessman he is, he understands that leaning only into what he loves is going to leave him with jumbled, unorganized content that confuses algorithms and viewers subconsciously steer away from.

On his largest channel, you’ll find the broadest audience. He touches on topics in investing and real estate for people across all levels of the industry. 

This is a discoverability play — Graham wants to reach (and help) the most people here. Best part, he’ll increase the likelihood that his ideal audience will also view the content and make their way over to his other channels, his newsletter, or join a cohort/class he offers. 

But one broad channel isn’t quite enough to close the gap. This is where he leans into his next happy-algorithm channel that taps into the power of big names —The Iced Coffee Hour. 

This channel puts more fuel to the fire, helping tap into audiences outside his own. 

Finally, we’ve got two slightly different personality channels. One, the After Hours channel, shows behind-the-scenes and exploratory content that doesn’t quite fit into the other channels. Graham uses this one for experimentation and trust-building. 

The other, The Graham Stephen Show, is another channel with a broad audience. He covers topics from personal finance to random news. The bio on this channel says it all: 

In simple terms, Graham Stephan uses a strategy that: 

• Breaks up his audience across different channels

• Targets them within their niche

• Establishes trust with experimental and personality-driven content

And this is the part many businesses miss:

• He keeps each separate and distinct. Connected, but distinct. 

Your content could be the highest-quality, highest value in the market. But if you’re saturating your channel with all of your diverse content in a single feed… you’re repelling audiences in both the broad and niche audiences. 

Your content shouldn’t be treated like a library. It needs to be categorized and organized into channels or playlists (video and audio), distinct channels (social media) or carefully curated pages (written content). 

When your audience (and the algorithm) see the regularity in your content, they’re more likely to commit to subscribing and engaging regularly. 

So what does this mean for you? 

While ideally, we break apart content into separate channels entirely (does your podcast content really belong right next to your company’s testimonials?), you can also start smaller. 

Establish which content is targeted at who. Define styles, strategies and ideal outcomes. 

Separate your content into buckets based on these points. 

Then, if you’ve got the bandwidth, create separate and distinct channels (don’t forget to cross-link though). 

No bandwidth? Start with playlists or categories, depending on your chosen medium. 

The algorithm matters — but this doesn’t mean you have to tailor each piece of content to it. 

Safeguard your audience, your trust and the value of your content. 

Break them into separate channels and the inherent value of each multiplies exponentially.

The takeaway: If you treat your content like a library, it immediately loses value. Content with different purposes and audiences needs to be housed in separate, distinct channels with intentional cross-promotion. 

That’s it, ya’ll. Happy Creating!

Paige Peterson
Newsletter Aficionado, Sweet Fish

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