Given the recent announcements regarding Ramping up WordPress on YouTube and Anne McCarthy’s efforts to unite WordPress YouTubers, I recently put together this timeline for the official WordPress YouTube channel. While my personal involvement only goes back to late 2021, the channel has actually existed since 2014. This timeline includes data, public posts, and milestones that I’ve discovered, but there may be more, so feel free to comment with additional details. I’ve included additional context for 2021-2024 based on my experience.
| Date | Published Videos | New Subscribers | Views | Watch time (hours) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 0 | 46 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 206 | 589 | 7,520 | 863 |
| 2017 | 76 | 2,322 | 48,329 | 5,223 |
| 2018 | 801 | 2,361 | 119,555 | 7,688 |
| 2019 | 1,815 | 2,932 | 198,606 | 15,907 |
| 2020 | 257 | 3,499 | 183,106 | 17,072 |
| 2021 | 10 | 2,819 | 595,394 | 15,074 |
| 2022 | 369 | 4,825 | 630,722 | 14,168 |
| 2023 | 1,262 | 7,946 | 540,720 | 33,183 |
| 2024 (incomplete) | 826 | 9,179 | 527,456 | 33,751 |
2014
- The WordPress YouTube channel is created.
2015
- September: WPTV on YouTube – Initial discussions take place within the WordPress TV (WPTV) team regarding the use of YouTube to expand the reach of existing content.
- October: Designing WordPress.tv – Functional requirements recap
- December: Auto post published videos to YouTube channel – A Trac ticket is created to request auto-posting of WPTV videos to YouTube.
2016
- May: YouTube Proposal – A proposal is made to use YouTube as the main location for video uploading, modding, editing, and subtitling.
- June: Contributor Day at WCEU 2016 – WordPress TV Team Recap – Discussions held regarding the use of YouTube and possibly moving off WPTV.
2017
- September: Translation Day livestreamed.
2018
- Discussions continue.
2019
- March: Auto post published videos to YouTube channel – Scripted batch uploading of WPTV WordCamp content from 2018 or later begins. The script ran locally on a WPTV moderator’s laptop (download from WPTV, upload to YouTube). Uploads to YouTube contained video and title only.
- November: WCUS 2019 livestreamed.
2020
- February: WordPress.tv vs YouTube – Brainstorming 1 and Embracing YouTube – Meeting 1 – WPTV team discussions revisited difficulties syncing content to YouTube.
- May: Uploading to YouTube stops.
- November: YouTube begins serving ads on non-partner channels (I.e. even non-monetized videos have ads). This was rolled out slowly, so not every video had ads, and the entirety of the ad controls (example) were/are locked in menus available only to those in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP).
- December: First time State of the Word is livestreamed as a standalone event and promoted on-channel.
2021
In July of 2021, Automattic added 3 new contributors (myself included) to their Five for the Future pledge to WordPress marketing. At the time, my focus was on marketing operations. This meant selecting social media tooling, tracking down access to official WordPress accounts (long story for another post), and updating our branding across social channels.
- November: YouTube is added to Sprout social, and the avatar and banner are updated.
- November: Identified issues with competitors targeting WordPress videos with their ads. This was a result of the aforementioned YouTube ad rollout.
- December: We apply and are accepted into the YouTube Nonprofit Partner Program and monetization of videos is disabled (i.e. no more ads on WordPress channel videos).
- December: State of the Word 2021 livestreamed and promoted across social platforms.
The 2021 jump in views is obvious, and it shows that even a little bit of consistent love and care can be enough to get a channel going. Updating the channel art, organizing the page, sharing a few videos, and removing ads were all it took to get things going. Promoting the livestream of State of the Word was a re-awakening of the channel audience and sparked the growth of our subscriber count.
2022
The increase in views seen in late 2021 and early 2022 demonstrated an interest in WordPress video content, but there was very little new content being posted. Sharing of WPTV content stopped in 2020, which highlighted the importance of establishing a more robust system/process to get those videos on YouTube. In September, I had the opportunity to tackle the 7-year-old Trac ticket, building an automation using WPTV’s RSS feed (though I had also explored using the JSON API output) and Zapier. After pitching the proof-of-concept and sharing estimated costs, Automattic agreed to sponsor the automation.
- September: Comprehensive update of social profiles, including avatars, banners, and bios. This brought about consistent branding across all of the official WordPress social media accounts.
- September: Proposal: Connecting WordPress.tv to YouTube via Zapier – Proof-of-concept shared for uploading WPTV videos to YouTube using the WPTV RSS feed and Zapier.
- August: A New WordPress.org Homepage and Download Page – New WordPress.org site footer launches with YouTube favicon.
- October: WordPress.tv now publishes to YouTube – Zap enabled for uploading videos and process put in place for moderating and enriching those uploads. WPTV to YT Publication Process documentation shared.
- December: State of the Word 2022 livestreamed and promoted.
The technical aspect of the WPTV to YT Publication Process was by far the easiest piece, and such an approach had even been discussed previously. I believe this effort was finally able to move forward because I included an outline of exactly how the entire process would work, the costs associated, and a plan for filling in the gaps for moderation. Brett McSherry took on the weekly moderation of the YT video queue (i.e. reviewing and publishing the imported video drafts) while I continued to support and iterate on the Zap. The impact on channel views was nearly immediate.
2023
With clear indicators that YouTube was an opportunity to grow WordPress brand awareness, it was easy to convince others to join in. Contributors to Learn and the Developer Blog began posting video content to WPTV, which was then posted to dedicated playlists on YouTube. The success of the State of the Word livestream also resulted in similar streams for WCEU and WCUS.
- April: Based on promising results, videos were organized into topical playlists and cross-promoted on other social platforms.
- June: WCEU 2023 livestreamed and promoted.
- August: WCUS 2023 livestreamed and promoted.
- November: The main channel page was updated to feature the Designed with WordPress video, and the Featured playlists area was updated to show the WordPress Briefing Podcast, State of the Word recordings, Learn/Developer content, and playlists from the flagship WordCamps. These selections were made based on both the quality of content in these playlists and the popularity of videos. The Created playlists section, which primarily showed recent local WordCamp playlists, remained.
- December: State of the Word 2023 livestreamed and promoted.
I often say that 2023 was the first year that WordPress YouTube was taken seriously. Work from previous years was paying off in terms of new subscribers, views, and watch time. Other teams started paying attention and were excited by the prospect of their content being shared on YouTube (a much larger potential audience than WPTV).
2024
The channel goals at the outset of 2024 were to stream all 3 flagship WordCamps, and State of the Word, and to work with Design to improve thumbnails for all incoming content.
- March: WCA 2024 livestreamed and promoted.
- June: WCEU 2024 livestreamed and promoted.
- August: The channel page was again updated, this time to feature the new Learn WordPress playlists in their own dedicated section.
- August: Ramping up WordPress on YouTube introduced Jamie Marsland as Head of WordPress YouTube.
- …
Beyond
Now that we have a Head of WordPress YouTube, I’m excited to see this channel’s continued growth. Long-term, in my opinion, I’d like to see us completely replace WordPress.tv with this channel. In many cases, we’re already using the YouTube player where accessibility is important, and YouTube allows us to reach a much larger audience of potential users. In a relatively short period of time, the WordPress YouTube channel has already overtaken WPTV in monthly views despite being a secondary posting location. I imagine that this gap will only continue to widen.
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