More than 1.9 billion people use YouTube every month, making it the second most popular site on the web. Every digital marketer should master it.
Is it possible to take full advantage of this rapidly growing platform? While advertising offers many options for promoting your channel, it isn’t your only option.
You can optimize your YouTube content with some of these tricks. Despite being simple, effective, and free, each of these suggestions offers significant results.
Is Promoting Your YouTube Channel Worth It?
As far as engagement and performance are concerned, video content rules social media. To encourage your social followers to subscribe to your YouTube channel, you should regularly promote it to them.
The more promotion tactics you employ, the more likely you are to stand out on YouTube.
15 Tips To Promote Your YouTube Channel
If you want to promote your YouTube channel, there are a lot of tactics you can employ. These tactics include:
1. Use Captivating Headlines
Marketing on YouTube is largely about presentation.
Your video’s performance depends on its title. Ask yourself: do you present your content as something that must be seen or something that is OK?”
Writing an attention-grabbing headline is key to crafting killer titles. Besides wanting entertaining content, your video viewers want to know from the beginning what the video is about.
To write a powerful YouTube title, follow these tips:
Include your keyword(s) in the first half of the title to avoid losing valuable information: The majority of online readers read only the first part of the sentence.
To be engaging, a headline must offer a clear benefit or be emotionally appealing. It’s tempting to use clickbait, but it can detract from the reputation of your channel over time.
Keep it short and sweet: YouTube videos with the shortest titles tend to be the most popular. You may lose some of your titles when it is displayed if you use more than 60 characters.
2. Create custom thumbnails
Thumbnails matter more than titles. Visuals are first noticed by our minds since they are hard-wired to do so. A recent MIT study suggests that they are processed in less than 13 milliseconds.
All YouTube videos are automatically tagged with thumbnails that are blurry or out of focus. Create attractive custom thumbnails for your videos to increase views.
3. Figure out what your audience wants
No matter what kind of content you produce, your goal should be to align it with the interests of your audience. Start by learning about your audience and what type of content they are looking for before you write a blog post or create a video.
Start by researching your competitors or other video creators in your industry if you are just marketing your YouTube channel. See which videos get the most engagement and views. Knowing what topics your audience wants to know about and what style of videos they enjoy will help you create videos that they will enjoy.
Alternatively, if you’ve uploaded videos already, you can check your YouTube Analytics. On YouTube, you can view detailed demographic data, location, and engagement stats.
4. Fill out your profile
Many YouTubers skip the profile section as they get right to creating content. But creating a compelling profile is one of the simplest ways to get more YouTube subscribers – and boost your search engine rankings.
A YouTube profile should follow these best practices:
Be consistent: Keep the colours, style, and layout of your social media channels the same as you do on your website.
Optimize your YouTube channel description: You should include keywords here. “Tag stuffing” can be penalized on YouTube, but adding a few keywords can boost your ranking.
Keeping viewers interested: How often will you post new content? Your schedule should be known to fans, then abide by it.
Provide contact information: You can never tell who might need your help. You could land some great partnerships if you make it easy for them.
5. Engage with the YouTube community
YouTube might not be considered a social network per se, but it does represent a thriving community where content is shared via profiles, “likes,” and comments.
If you ask, that seems pretty social.
YouTube sees every interaction with its viewers as a positive signal. You can cultivate your audience’s loyalty and engage with them if nothing else. Adding a pin to a top comment is a way to convey a kind of personal note to your subscribers. “Liking” comments only take a few seconds.
6. Don’t forget about metadata
In terms of keywords, YouTube emphasizes two things:
- Honesty is the best policy.
- Quality is more important than quantity.
Tags and categories are also subject to these rules. Your video description should only contain tags in the “tags” section. Make sure YouTube knows who your video is for by putting it in one or two categories.
7. Create high-quality videos
Even the best content can be undermined by the poor video quality. Before you post your content, make sure it looks professional. Learn some editing skills by using an appropriate camera and doing a soundcheck.
Some people aren’t naturally talented filmmakers. Get familiar with these social video best practices if you’re rusty.
8. Target Google search results
The SEO power of YouTube is undeniable, as noted.
However, you ought to promote your YouTube channel with SEO in mind, even if you shouldn’t make content solely for search engines.
Search engine results pages (SERPs) tend to rank well for product reviews, how-to’s, and long-form (10+ minute) videos addressing keyword-specific topics. You can leverage the trending buzzwords in your industry through YouTube channel marketing if you’re lacking content ideas.
9. Interact with your fans
Content creation is not enough to generate real engagement. Influential YouTubers monitor their fans and interact with them constantly.
Don’t just ignore negative comments; respond to them and “heart” your favourites. Video responses are welcome. Make sure you show extra love to your top fans using analytics.
This will increase your viewership and subscriber count.
10. Run a contest or giveaway
YouTube users love giveaways if there’s one thing they love. Make your YouTube channel more engaging by hosting a contest or giveaway.
Your contests should consist of four easy steps: liking your video, leaving a comment, and subscribing to your channel.
To run a successful social media contest, follow these best practices:
- Keep YouTube’s policies in mind.
- If you want your giveaway to be more than just a freebie, choose a gift that relates to your brand.
- Make entry requirements unique by incorporating user-generated content.
- Host frequent competitions on YouTube, but be careful.
To avoid losing money, time and resources, you need to make sure your efforts are yielding results. Take a look at your subscribers after you’ve done one contest. Identify the drop-off rate and engagement numbers. If you aren’t bringing in engaged subscribers, you could just be attracting people who want free prizes.
11. Be active in the community
Your YouTube following will grow if you can find and position yourself within a niche.
Subscribing to channels that have similar audiences to yours is a good idea. Take a look at their content and share it. Consider leaving thoughtful comments or mentioning them in your videos.
The information you gain from this will not only help you stay on top of your competition but may also open up new audiences.
12. Work with brands
Another method of reaching a wider audience is to form partnerships with brands. If you run out of ideas, they can also help you come up with new content.
But for any partnership to succeed, being authentic is crucial.
Your brand should reflect your personality and the needs of your audience. Is it worthwhile to partner up with them? Are the viewers going to find it valuable?
Keep looking if you can’t find what you want. Videos that are not authentic can cause more harm than good.
13. Give live streaming a try
Social media trends like live video are here to stay and will not diminish anytime soon.
Brands are streaming live video more than ever thanks to apps like Facebook, Periscope, and Instagram.
Live video has been available on YouTube for a few years now, but only recently has its popularity increased. To gain an understanding of how other brands are using the platform, look at some popular YouTube Live videos.
Some examples of how you can use YouTube Live are:
- Webinars
- Live tutorials
- Q&A sessions
- Product demonstrations
No matter how rough your streams may seem, don’t worry. There’s a certain amount of risk (and excitement) involved with live video. What makes live video compelling is its unpolished, organic nature.
14. Embed your YouTube videos
YouTube itself may not be the best place to promote your YouTube channel, but there are other places.
Video content has been proven to increase conversion rates and lower bounce rates on websites. Use embedded videos on product pages and blog posts to keep website visitors interested.
It’s a plus if you can direct traffic from your site (or from social!) to YouTube.
15. Try a Q&A
Community building can be achieved most effectively through audience Q&As. Subscribers can email or tweet questions to you. Make a video that addresses these concerns.
The more you let your fans feel important, the more watch time, views, and engagement you’ll receive. When you’re out of original content ideas, Q&As come in handy.
Conclusion
To grow a YouTube audience, you must put in time and effort. However, you should never fail to promote your YouTube channel at all times.
Competition can feel like a grind when you compete with so many people in your space.
It is vital to employ different promotional strategies because they can have a big effect. While new subscribers and more eyes on your channel will result from some of these tips more than others, each one will increase your subscriptions.
You can book a free consultation with our team by clicking “I want a Free Consultation Session” so we can help you promote your YouTube channel.
