You have built your YouTube space, created a URL, and made videos, but in order for people to see your channel, you will need to know how to promote your YouTube videos. This may seem like an easy feat with an estimated 73% of adults in the U.S. using YouTube, but it can be difficult with YouTube’s algorithm, competition with other channels, and over-saturation of content on the platform. If you want to build a business on YouTube, you will need subscribers and viewership in order to receive sponsors and AdSense. Fear not, though, we have compiled a list of tips that can help you promote your YouTube videos through social media and digital marketing tactics.
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How to Promote YouTube Videos
What are your goals with your YouTube videos? For instance, are you trying to gain views? Are you wondering how many views is a good amount for your video? Generally the ratio of subscribers to views is 14:1. So for example, if you have 100,000 YouTube subscribers, then you can expect between 12,000 and 15,000 views per video.
Promoting YouTube videos is an effective and necessary way to bring awareness to a YouTube channel and begin to grow a business. YouTube is a fantastic place to market content, so taking advantage of it by creating content is great.
When you are first starting out on YouTube, it’s important to find a niche for your content; are they tutorials, informational videos, comedy? The reason this is so important is because in order to promote your videos, your niche will essentially tell you where and how. You will have to do some research to determine who is watching your videos and where they spend their free time. This information is vital in determining your next steps: promotion.
What does this simply mean? Advertising your content. And, no, you don’t have to pay for this. When you’re starting out with a channel, sponsorships may not be available for you yet, so below we have compiled a list of free marketing strategies to help assist in the promotion of your YouTube videos.
Marketing Strategies
What do marketing strategies have to do with video promotion? A lot. You have to become a strategic marketer in order to get people to want to watch your videos. For example, did you know that people on average spend 11 minutes and 42 seconds per day on YouTube?
It’s important to know and understand what time people log on the most frequently because that’s a great time for you to schedule your video uploads. For example, some experts say weekday afternoon are the best time to post on YouTube. You can also ask your subscribers to be notified when your video goes live, but we’ll get into that more in a bit.
Here are the four top marketing strategies for increasing the promotion of your YouTube videos.
SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the best way to know what people want to see. Since Google owns YouTube, Google will promote YouTube videos that people are searching for through keywords. This means, when making a video, choosing correct, simple, and to-the-point keywords are instrumental in the promotion of video content.
Below the video, in the description box, you will also want to add keywords that you may have not wanted to put in the title. For example, if your title is: How To Bake An Apple Pie, the keywords you might want to include may be: Thanksgiving, 30 minute meals, baking, dough. With the help of these separate words, people who are searching for “30 minute baking apple pie” will be sent to your video.
Trending Content
This type of marketing strategy you may not think is super strategic, but it is. Finding out what content is popular will make your life as a video promoter so much easier. YouTube makes this easy for you with their trending page. If you decide the trending videos aren’t for you, don’t worry. It’s likely the videos you want to do are already a part of a niche. Typing that niche in, analyzing the content, and determining what is the most popular will help you figure out what content sells.
Collaborate
A great and free way to promote your YouTube videos and channel is to collaborate with other content creators. Collaborating with other YouTube content creators in the same video niche as you can be incredibly beneficial as it gets your channel name out there to subscribers who haven’t seen you yet. Another added benefit is ROI measurement. With this strategy, you are very easily able to track the return based on the number of subscribers you received after the collaboration.
Word of Mouth Advertising
Still, in this digital age, one of the oldest and most effective ways to market a product, service, or video is through word of mouth advertising. How it’s done, though, has changed. If you are a content creator on YouTube, word of mouth advertising will look differently than if you are selling a physical product. Word of mouth advertising can be done through subscribers. First, in order to reap the benefits of subscriber sharing, you’ll want to learn how to get more YouTube subscribers. After you have garnered a following, you’ll need to encourage them to share your content. This is a great, free way to expand your network. How subscribers can use word of mouth advertising can include:
- Sharing video on social media
- Sharing a link to video on their video
- Collaborating for prizes (including giveaways, promotions, and video chat with creator)
Before and after each video, encourage your subscribers to share your content. This will not only help your channel, but it will build loyalty within your subscriber base and increase engagement. According to YouTube’s algorithm, increased engagement is one of the important dictators in how frequently videos are promoted, so don’t skip this step; it’s a win-win for both you and your subscribers.
How To Promote Your YouTube Channel
Along with promoting your YouTube videos, promoting your channel is also a big part in building your brand. This can be trickier than you think because sometimes you can promote a video without encouraging people to subscribe to your channel or, in the opposite, encourage people to view your channel without giving them specific content to watch. It can be a fine balance, so we are going to break down how to promote your channel while promoting your YouTube videos as well because consistent, continual growth in YouTube means designing a marketing strategy that promotes YouTube content as well as YouTube channel promotion. An effective way to do this is through social media marketing.
How Social Media Can Be Utilized
Remember how we discussed research and its importance on content marketing? That same strategy applies to marketing your YouTube videos and YouTube channel through social media. Who are you trying to reach with your content? You have to know that before you can properly utilize social media’s marketing advantages.
90.4% of millennials use social media, so they can be a great place to start, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are the best target audience. Gen X and Baby Boomers tend to use Facebook more than millennials, so making sure you know what audience is using what platform will be super helpful when promoting your YouTube content.
Below, we’ve broken down the most popular social media platforms and included tips on how to promote your YouTube videos and YouTube channel on them.
Instagram, a millennial’s preferred space, is a key spot to market your YouTube content if you are into graphic design, pictures, and are targeting the millennial demographic. This platform makes sharing content extremely easy with their story feature and swipe-up link capability. Promoting on Instagram can look like:
- Giveaways (redirecting back to your YouTube channel)
- Short video clip of your YouTube video
- IGTV feature that is linked with your Instagram account
TikTok
TikTok, formerly Music.ly, is a rather new platform that has taken Gen Z by storm. If this is your target audience, TikTok is a great place to promote your YouTube content. Keep in mind, however, when choosing this platform, because while it is popular, TikTok closely resembles YouTube with its video style content, but in short form. Consider doing fun, short videos opposite long YouTube videos to diversify your content. You can also take shorter clips on your YouTube video and add them to your TikTok as a sneak peek of what your original YouTube video is.
This is a great platform to use if you want your target audience to be older millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers. Facebook is so popular and widely used by multiple generations that it, overall, is a successful place to promote YouTube videos. Not to mention, ease of use. You can simply post your video link to your page and write a description about the video encouraging people to watch it.
Twitter may not have as many features as the former platforms, but it shouldn’t be discounted. If you want to attract people with quick interests and word-lovers, this platform is fantastic! Like Facebook, it’s easy to use. Simply post your video URL onto your Twitter page or in a tweet. You can pin your new videos to the top so your followers can easily find new content.
Blog
Having an adjoining blog to your YouTube channel is a great way to promote! Blogs are a great marketing strategy because they offer a way to add detail through long-form writing. A lot of people like to read about promotions, information, content so incorporating a blog that links a YouTube video or YouTube channel can be an effective way to reach a wider audience.
FAQs about How to Promote YouTube Videos:
- How do I promote my YouTube video for free?
- What is the best time of day to post on YouTube?
- How can I use social media to promote my YouTube videos?
- How do I promote my YouTube channel?
- What is a good amount of views on YouTube?
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