Should small businesses use YouTube?

There is a huge audience for you on YouTube, but many companies opt out of using it because they don’t think their audience is on the platform. By using it you can gain an upper hand where people spend a lot of their time. Small businesses can gain a greater reach.

7 Tips to Gain More Subscribers on YouTube

If you are wanting to gain more subscribers on YouTube, you will need to know how to maximize your channel. Having subscribers on YouTube isn’t just another metric, but a great way to truly measure the audience you are reaching. Your brand can get paid for being on YouTube if you have enough subscribers and participate in partnerships. If you aren’t trying to become YouTube famous but you want another platform for your business, gaining subscribers is still important.

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How to Gain YouTube Subscribers

Getting YouTube subscribers is all about knowing the platform. On YouTube, the algorithm is set up to try to get the user to stay on the platform longer. This allows the person viewing the videos more opportunities to click on the ads they see.

Ads on YouTube

YouTube allows ads to be shown every 2.5 minutes. Using ads can be a way to bring brand awareness to your business. Although the user might not act on the ad, your business is in their mind for later, when they might have a greater want or need for your product or service. YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google, so it makes sense to advertise on YouTube as well. There are a variety of different ways to advertise to fit your company’s needs. Don’t worry if your company isn’t savvy with taking photos or creating a video to market. Hiring professional photo/videographers can help make your company stand out. This is a way to reach out to your target audience to subscribe to your channel or purchase your product.

Having a YouTube Account

While ads can be a way to bring about brand awareness, gaining subscribers is about creating content. Creating a YouTube account is a free way to put your business on another social media platform where people spend a lot of time. With 1.5 billion users every month and the average user spending 40 minutes per day on YouTube, there is a great audience to be reached. Having your account and posting on it can get you subscribers but learning how to best optimize the account will expand your reach even more.

Why Care About YouTube Subscribers?

YouTube can offer your business a variety of perks. This platform of short and long-form videos can be a great way for people to visually see your brand.

YouTube isn’t just used to reach consumers. Business to business (B2B) can use YouTube to market as well. In 2020, 50.9% of B2B businesses used YouTube to make decisions on what they purchased.
There is a huge audience for you on YouTube, but many companies opt out of using it because they don’t think their audience is on the platform. By using it you can gain an upper hand where people spend a lot of their time. Small businesses can gain a greater reach.
If you are a product-based company, you can give tutorials or product displays for people to see your products up close. This can help your customer support by having these videos. Most people try to figure out the issues with a product by looking up videos, before going to customer service. It can give overall satisfaction to your employees and customers.
You can use this platform as a way to talk about products, services, or upcoming events. It is a free way to tell your audience about what is going on in your business. This is a way that can also feel more personable to your customer, which can lead to action.

Get Subscribers Through SEO

You might be using search engine optimization (SEO) for your website but using it for your YouTube channel is just as important. Using keywords is a crucial part of SEO. You can use it in a variety of places throughout your channel.

Starting with SEO

You will want to first start by adding keywords that are most relevant to your business and the channels you are producing. This is added through your channel settings. It allows exposure to your channel whenever someone searches one of your keywords. Keywords can also help your business appear in general searches on Google for when someone has a question or look up something in your industry expertise. It is a win for your YouTube and Google SEO.

Learning to Use SEO

After you have added keywords to your channel, you can start to add keywords to your videos. This helps narrow the search engine’s search algorithm on your channel and your videos. You can use this by adding keywords in tags and making sure the first sentence in your description is giving an overall view of the video. Make sure your titles are optimized. You can use keywords that let the user know what they are clicking on. Don’t use clickbait. It hurts the viewer’s relationship with you and how they see your brand if you only care about getting clicks on your videos.

Becoming A Pro With SEO

Once you get the basic idea of SEO, you can start to dive into how to best use it. Using SEO in other areas of your business’s YouTube will enhance how users interact with your content. You can create your own closed captions. This is writing out the words in your video. YouTube does this but makes common mistakes. To go a step further you can translate your video captions into another language.

How to Get More Subscribers on YouTube Organically

There are several ways to gain more subscribers rather than buy them. If you are looking for an easy way to get subscribers, buying them comes with a lot of problems. Most people want engagement with their subscribers and buying them just increases your subscription number. It won’t get you far. You want to be authentic with your real subscribers. Buying subscribers might seem like an easy way to enhance your following, but instead, hurt your channel more. Think about the top YouTubers, they don’t buy their subscribers because they create great content.

Create Engaging Content

Producing content that is true to your business will attract like-minded people. This will organically increase your subscribers, especially if you create great content consistently. When creating engaging content, you also need to find the “sweet spot” for how long your videos should be. Many YouTubers edit their videos. Some people prefer videos that are short and to the point. Others want long explanations in their videos. Finding the right balance for your audience will help keep them engaged.

Stay Consistent

Having a time of day and week that you post will help the loyal fans look forward to when you post. Everyone loves consistency. Finding a time when your audience is already on will help boost the engagement with your video as well.

Create Visuals

First impressions are everything, especially when it comes to YouTube. Make sure your YouTube banner matches your brand style. Another nice feature you can use YouTube for is making a channel trailer. This will show potential subscribers what your business’s channel will provide them. It should be visually appealing and make users want to subscribe. Don’t forget about the thumbnail visual! This will determine if users decide to click on your video or scroll right past.

Add Playlists

Making a playlist for your videos is a way to create a place for your viewers to binge watch a series of videos that go together. Let’s say your business is in the insurance industry, you can create videos about different types of insurance and then combine them into one playlist.

Link Videos on Social Media

Don’t just leave the video on YouTube. Embed the video on your website and other social media platforms! This can make viewers that might follow your other social sites aware that you have a YouTube channel. You can also use social media to tease content and gain traction across multiple platforms for your brand.

Reach Out to Your Community

Give your video more engagement by putting a call to action in your videos. Ask your viewers to comment on what your video is about. You can also ask questions to better get to know who is watching. After they interact with your channel make sure to respond. This can help build a great relationship with your audience and your business’s channel.

Adding Descriptions

There are many places on YouTube where you can add captions to help viewers find your videos. By optimizing this, you can see your channel grow. The algorithm sorts through videos to help users find topics that interest them. You can use keywords to help the algorithm understand what your channel and videos have to offer.

Add a description for your channel so people can see what your channel is all about.
Create descriptive text below your video and know the first sentence is the most important.
Add video tags so people searching for your service or product will be able to find your business.
Link your social media below your videos for different platforms audiences to overlap.

Using these tips can help your channel gain subscribers. Although building up your subscribers can take time, it gives your brand another place to engage and market to another community.

Want More Subscribers on YouTube?

YouTube is a great way to expand your business’s reach and create better brand awareness. If you are having a hard time coming up with video ideas, executing the video process, or getting into YouTube ads, don’t be concerned. Although building your YouTube channel can take time, this process will be a great platform for your business. SEO Design Chicago has experts to help your business at any step of your YouTube marketing journey.