There was once a time when posting videos on Youtube was considered nothing more than a hobby. But in this content thirsty generation where creativity, storytelling, and originality are some of the most highly prized assets, being a Youtube content creator has turned into a full-fledged business. According to Youtube, the number of channels earning six figures has been increasing by 50% year on year.
If you are reading this, then we can safely guess that getting more views and a higher subscriber count is on your mind. This is great because the sea of content creators is only getting crowded by the day. To join the ranks of big shots of Youtube, channel growth and promotion should be your number one priority, not merely an afterthought.
Want to know 7 power tricks that will help you reach the league of awesome? Read on:-)
1. Cross-promote
Collaboration is a really powerful strategy to promote your channel in front of fresh audience. Now, it might be hard to collaborate with a highly popular channel right when you are barely starting out, but you can still join forces with channels that have medium size followers and build up from there.
There are several ways to collaborate with another Youtuber. You can make a guest appearance in their videos. You can film videos with two parts, one for their channel and one for yours. At the end of both videos, you can encourage the viewers to view the other parts, and subscribe to the channel.
An even easier way to collaborate is through shout outs and mentions. Having another Youtuber with a reasonable sized audience mention your channel name in their video, asking their audience to check out your channel is an easy strategy to get some of that traffic your way.
Before you approach a Youtuber with a collaboration proposal, make sure that their audience is similar to yours. For example, if you have a beauty channel, it wouldn’t make sense to partner up with a gaming channel unless you plan on uploading gaming related videos too.
2. Get Active in the YouTube Community
There are so many sub-communities within Youtube. Whatever niche your channel is in, you can be rest assured that there is a community around it. Do you do book reviews? Well, your audience might be subscribed to a whole sleuth of book reviewers who produce content similar to yours.
If your motto is to build it and they will come, you are setting yourself for failure or an extremely slow growth. Ain’t nobody got time to wait. Right?
Solution? Engage with other creators in your niche, and talk to your subscribers by proactively asking them to comment, ask for their opinions, and talk to them on social media. Add your two cents, because you are an influencer and your opinion matters.
You can even ask your audience for feedback on what kind of videos they want to see more on your channel, actively ask for them to share. One of the things many high growth channels do now is make a little game of increasing engagement by setting goals for their channel community. They would say something like, “If we can get 1000 likes on this videos, then I’ll do ____ for you.” It’s a fantastic way to incentivize the challenge of getting your audience actively involved in your channels’ growth.
Doing tag videos is another fantastic option to get involved in your community. They hold the power to really get your audience to meet the real you. It will help them learn about you on a personal level, and will let your personality shine, which is after all the biggest reason behind a follower’s loyalty to your brand. If you can get them to like you, you can count on their viewership for life!
3. Give stuff away
No, no, no….no need to give away a car like Tai Lopez, but contests and giveaways can really keep things exciting. It might seem a bit shady to bribe your viewers into becoming a subscriber by making it a requirement to enter the giveaway. But if your channel contains high-quality content, then it is a really good way to get them to stay on your channel.
For giveaways, keep your prize related to the brand of your channel; this will help prevent freebie seekers from participating. For a bigger giveaway, you can make your rules more stringent with adding a requirement for them to follow you on all your social media along with hitting that subscribe button.
Track the results of every giveaway before hosting another one. You want to make sure that there is a significant bump in subscriber count, and you also want to ensure that the majority of your new subscribers don’t leave once the contest is over. If they do, then you know you are attracting a bunch of freebie seekers and that you need to change your strategy. Tracking the results will save you time, energy and money.
4. Promote your channel with AdWords
If you have some capital to invest into the marketing of your videos, why not try AdWords? These are ads that you see before, during or after watching a video, or on websites in the Google Display network. There are several formats available that you can learn more about by going here.
But coming up with an exciting advert is not enough. To gain the maximum traction out of every view, make sure that your channel is all spruced up with a nice trailer and several other videos in the bank. That way the viewer will have the option to consume more of your content, which will massively increase their likelihood of subscribing to your channel.
If you are several videos in, and want to promote the brand new video you are just about to upload through AdWords, this will help you get a surge of views, comments, shares and likes, which are all positive signals to denote viewer engagement to Youtube. All of this combined will help your video rank higher in the search engine rankings since its showing the search engines that people actually like their videos.
5. Use search keywords that show mostly video results
While Youtube might just be the second largest search engine, Google is still the place most people prefer entering their search keywords into. Keywords are like little phrases like, “how to use a drone” or “How to paint a tree”, that people enter into a search box. So for the maximum benefits, you should try to rank your video for keywords that people are more likely to search.
And not just any keywords, mind you, you have to make sure that you are picking video keywords. These are keywords that bring out video results on Google, rather than only web page results. Some types of keywords that Google tends to reserve space for video results include “How to” types videos, product reviews, tutorials, workouts, or funny videos.
By optimizing your video around video keywords, you will make sure that you get traffic from both Youtube and Google, rather than just one.
When picking keywords, make sure it has a reasonable amount of search volume before committing to making a video around it. You can simply use Google keyword planner to find this information. Make sure to include the targeted keyword in your video file name, video title and video description.
6. Give YouTube Live a Chance
Live video streaming is here to stay. It has crossed the path from being just a trend to a consistent content output strategy. This is why the major social platforms are encouraging, and heavily promoting their live features. Facebook Live, Periscope are all examples of that. While Youtube Live has been available for a few years now, it is still underused but recently gaining popularity.
The Live Broadcast of April The Giraffe drew in 14 Million Youtube Views, so if you have any doubt that this tactic will be a fantastic channel promotion strategy, this kind of viewership count should clear that off.
If you are intimidated by the concept about doing a Live video, because…umm… what if you mess up? Well, that’s the excitement of watching someone live. People love watching real personalities letting their quirks shine. They are okay with seeing creators make mistakes because after all, if they only want heavily edited polished perfection they could just watch TV. There is nothing that highlights your authenticity, and helps you create a personal relationship with viewers than a Live video. Don’t worry about running out of things to say. You can have Live Q and A sessions where the audience constantly tweets you questions and you answer them, or you could do a live unboxing, product demonstration, tutorial or just talk about your day!
7. Engage with viewers through contests
Make your mark on the Youtube landscape by coming up with new tags or a new Youtube content series, that brings a new format to the platform which your audience can only find on your channel. You can come out with new episodes every other day or even once a week. It will bring in a consistent stream of new subscribers while keeping the old ones returning to view your fresh content.
Make a playlist out of these content series, to make it easier for your audience to access all the parts. You can recycle old content structure too, for example, do a story time video every Wednesday where you share a personal experience with your audience. People LOVE stories, so they will eagerly look forward to it every week. You can even make a series of mail time videos, where you open your fan’s letters or packages sent to you on camera. These are just ideas, but use your talent and creativity to find one that resonates with you and your audience.
These 7 power tips, when used together, will accelerate your channel growth. But all that said, never forget to provide value to your viewers. We live in a world where the amount of choices we have has shortened our attention span and patience for waiting. So give them value in every second of the video. Attention is costly, so don’t underestimate its power to get you to the top. If you need personalized insights on how to grow your channel check out our Nerdic App, that’s specifically designed to give you step-by-step recommendations based on your channel data. In one app you’ll have everything you need to improve your channel and monitor the progress in real time. Good Luck!