Thread by @marcuslejeune

These kids just "broke" the YouTube algorithm.

Gaining 58 million subs in just 5 months.

–– They're MrBeast's only rival.

Here's their genius strategy:

1. Their Growth Engine

Half of their growth is coming from one place:

YouTube Shorts.

YouTube Shorts generated more views its very first month than TikTok.

It hasn't lost the lead since.

The Stoke Twins are taking advantage of this.

They post mega-viral shorts by leveraging short form trends.

In this one short, I counted 4 trends that have gone viral on social media.

Currently, the Stoke Twins are gaining 711 million shorts views a month.

Compared to MrBeast's 1.1 billion.

Awfully close.

They're also using a trick that gains subscribers at a ridiculous rate.

Mark Rober used the same technique to double his sub count.

(breakdown linked at bottom of thread)

In the last 5 months:

> The Stoke Twins' sub count has grown 67%.
> Compared to MrBeast's 21%.

Going from 26 million subs to 84 million.

2. Audience

MrBeast hasn't been able to crack 1 billion views on a video yet.

But check out these kids videos.

Billions of views each.

Why do kids' videos pull so many views?

If you have kids, you know the answer 👇

For some reason, kids ADORE watching the same thing over and over again.

My siblings drove me nuts watching the same Barney episode 56 times.

(yep, I counted)

But the psychology behind this is wild...

Young kids watch videos repeatedly because they learn in 3 steps:

A. Process
B. Understand
C. Digest

This means each Stoke Twins video is wildly re-watchable.

Also, kids have A LOT of time on their hands.

When they're not at school, they're at home and parents need to keep them busy.

This is where the rise of "iPad kids" came from.

So...

A. kids watch the same thing over and over
B. they have lots of free time

Sounds like a winning audience!

But there's a lot more to the Stoke Twins' success 👇

3. Thumbnails

Compare MrBeast's latest thumbnail to the Stoke Twins.

Which is a kid clicking?

4. Niche

MrBeast targets everyone (broad).

The Stoke twins target kids (niche).

But their superpower is that the kid's niche is HUGE.

In fact, YouTube has an entire APP made just for kids.

This is the power of targeting big niches.

MrBeast targets everyone, so naturally his content is watered down for certain audiences.

The Stoke Twins can make the strongest packaging possible for ONE audience and still hit massive views.

That's a deadly combination ...

AND it lines up with the next part of the Stoke Twins' strategy:

5. Crack Cocaine Videos

Watch 30 seconds of this video, It feels like crack.

A kid won't be able to put their iPad down.

This leads to high watch time which YouTube's algorithm LOVES.

Now, is it ethical?

That's a whole 'nother conversation.

6. Their Big Problem

To be clear, MrBeast is still gaining WAY more subs.

130 million subs in the last 12 months compared to their 62 million.

It's not even close.

So here's the question:

Can the twins maintain their growth?

This is MrBeast's real secret weapon.

His growth is consistent.

While upstart creators have massive explosions but quickly die down.

We'll have to see what happens.

Follow @marcuslejeune for more threads like this.

I help YouTubers go viral, so studying this stuff is all I do!

If you liked this thread, you'll like this one too 👇