YouTube Marketing

How To Promote and Grow Your YouTube Channel

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We are currently witnessing a demand for video content on an unprecedented scale. Every day, over 1 billion hours of video content is consumed. In the race to get videos to consumers, YouTube is leading on all fronts outperforming Netflix and Facebook. For content makers focused on video content, a major concern in marketing video content remains how to increase reach and get as many eyeballs to their content.

Being able to create a dedicated community that interacts with your content as a YouTube channel owner is an uphill task as it involves creating content that generates constant engagement. As an individual wearing the hats of a YouTube channel owner and video producer, the challenge is to balance continuous growth and expenses in your bid to satisfy your audience.   

Achieving Growth –  The Usual Strategy for YouTube Channels.  

Every brand or individual with a channel on YouTube has one goal; get a slice of the giant 2 billion audience cake that gets delivered every month. If you are doing it right, you would already know the inner workings of growing your audience using YouTube tools.  For good measure, here’s a refresher course to jig your memory.  

YouTube SEO is undefeated with a wide variety of tools to get your videos in front of people surfing through YouTube (and Google) for a specific topic. To make sure your video is YouTube search optimized, make sure all these items are checked off your list.

Title and Keywords match–  Pick a title that fits into high ranking queries and ensure that the most popular keywords are reflected. Your descriptions for your videos should also be made up of keywords arranged so that they fit the context and achieve proper language use.  Hashtags are also a crucial part combining with cards and ends screens to promote your videos efficiently. Remember to ask viewers to subscribe to your channel so they never miss out on new content.

These tips are common knowledge for anyone looking to grow a channel but there is an unusual strategy that a few outliers are using to power the growth of their YouTube channels. In this post, we would be covering this unusual strategy and how to get started.

The Unusual Strategy for Growing Your YouTube Channel.

The race for likes, views, shares and comments is controlled by rankings from the duo of YouTube and Google. In the face of a constantly modified algorithm, you are trying to carve your niche and find your audience. If you have an established following across other platforms, it is smart to harness it to drive the growth of your YouTube channel. The initial wave of support from your followers who identify with your brand or content will impact your search ranking positively on YouTube or Google.

This is just one way and it can be limited, so how do you use your acquired audience on a greater scale?   

Amplify your message

Harness your following on other social networks to drive attention to your video. It is a clear case of using what you already have (a solid audience on other platforms) to grow what you need (a YouTube Channel with a high engagement rate)

From Twitter to Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, find a way to adapt your video across these platforms to effect a distribution strategy that maximizes all your available channels

Each social media platform has specific tips that can drive growth to your YouTube channel. Before we get into the unique characteristics of each, here is a hack for aspect ratios that always comes in handy when you want to repurpose content across platforms.   

For square videos (1080px by 1080 px) also applicable for feeds or content users scroll using the thumb. Vertical videos (1080px by 1920px) work best for Stories and IGTV. Twitter optimizes for landscape videos (1920px by 1080 px) For LinkedIn, landscape format is the way to go particularly if you use scheduling tools.

Video sharing tips for Twitter

For Twitter, the key is to be consistent without being repetitive. Because tweets have a short lifespan (estimated to be 18 minutes), Twitter expert Ann Smarty suggests releasing 3 different tweets at a minimum. These tweets are released throughout the week at different times to present the content as fresh and exciting.

Twitter has several peculiarities and if you want to get the most out of it, you have to be ready to go the extra mile as simply uploading your video won’t cut it anymore. To get the best out of Twitter, keep this in mind when working on your video for promotion.  

Serve appetizers! (and send them for the main course) – The objective of your Twitter promotion strategy is to generate traffic for your YouTube by getting your Twitter audience to make the move from your tweets to your video. To achieve this, make a teaser from the video featuring the most controversial or exciting part of the video. Finish it off with a great description and a link to where they can watch the full video.    

Use GIFs to your advantage-  Gifs have the potential to power viral content and create endless conversations. Creating a GIF from your video or even the behind the scenes makes your audience feel like they are part of the process and increases your chances of them clicking the link to your YouTube channel.

Thumbnails matter too –  Static visuals are underrated but they can also be very effective. Simply putting out a tweet with a video thumbnail and a link to your full video will contribute to your promotion efforts.

Sharing on Facebook-  Facebook is a tricky customer for adjusting and sharing videos because the platform is designed to encourage in-platform interaction with content as much as possible. This means you might get a limited reach from using Facebook. The hack is to create short videos without embed links. Instead, add your call to action under the post as a first comment.

Repurposing for Instagram (Stories & In-Feed- For Instagram, remember that the attention of your audience is usually divided between stories and feed often unequally so be ready to optimize your content for both. Prepare your video teaser for both keeping the time limits (a 1-minute limit for in-feed videos and a 15-second limit for Stories) in mind.

The lessons learnt from other platforms will come in handy but Instagram has a few secrets of its own.

Visual first –  Looks matter a lot when it comes to Instagram. This means that aesthetics has to be a major consideration when creating your thumbnail so that it can attract and retain attention. Also, remember to add a call-to-action. Drive traffic to your YouTube channel by adding a call-to-action like “Watch the full video – link in bio” or “Visit our YouTube channel for more awesome content”.

Incorporate hashtags-  Hashtags are essential on Instagram. They help to attract niche communities and tie into larger ones. This allows you to introduce your YouTube channel to a new audience. When it comes to hashtags, you must be strategic and creative. Also, remember to share the posts on your feed to Stories to capture a potential audience that may check stories exclusively. If you passed the 10,000 followers count, you can send followers from your Story to your YouTube channel by using the “swipe up” option.

Explore email marketing-  Email marketing helps you to build a relationship directly with your subscribers with such relationships often evolving into deeply personal ones. Your email lists are a great resource when you are looking to grow your audience for your YouTube channel. This portion of your audience is often very invested in your person or brand and are more likely to click your links and watch your videos. Create exciting snippets that direct them to your YouTube channel where they can watch the full video. The general sentiment when it comes to sharing videos via emails is measured caution as advised by a majority of email providers who warn against embedding videos directly in your mail.

If you are looking to drive growth for your YouTube channel using email, here are some tried and trusted tips.  

GIFs are gifts that never stop giving-  Use a GIF that captures an exciting part of your video and a link that directs them to the video. Integrating videos as part of your strategy for email marketing can be the difference between poor open rates and rates that are off the chart including click through rates.  

From Blog to Video-  It is possible to use your best-performing blog posts as vehicles for growth for your YouTube channel. Simply select your posts with the highest numbers whether from organic traffic or through targeted marketing (either search or social). Put these numbers to work by embedding short snippets of your videos into your highest-ranking videos. Don’t forget to add a call to action that directs them to the video alongside a very short, catchy description. Throughout this process, you have to keep an eye on your backend to ensure that the addition of video content does not reduce your site’s load time which can put off-site visitors. When done right, the video should make your site by making it more interesting and increasing time spent on the site, increasing click-through rates and even conversions. 

Last Words

Once you set your mind to it, you will find yourself exploring and discovering new ways to use videos to promote and grow your YouTube channel. As you become more experienced, you would require a bigger skillset and access to more options that suit your brand. With our collection of tools, the growth and numbers you desire are no longer out of your reach. By providing a full option toolkit with exciting tools for video promotion and YouTube SEO, you can get results without making a huge dent in your marketing budget.   

Available resources to help you grow your channel.

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