Summary: This article is for people who upload videos but don’t get enough audience organically. Actually it’s a problem for all marketers , who are doing the tough task of creating the videos but still not getting enough audience. This article explains you the way to grow audience and engagement on YouTube channels. It will help you to understand the basics of advertising a video and increasing the reach of these advertisements.
Tactic #1: Identify the category of your video
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world which accounts for more than 3 trillion views in a year. Video Promotions on YouTube happen with two types of videos:
- Entertainment Videos – These are the videos through which the marketers promote and propagate their brand by entertaining the audience. Their chances of getting viral are higher simply because of the nature of the videos which as the name suggests are entertaining.
Informative Videos – These are the videos which teach the people different aspects of day to day life. This might range from learning how to play a guitar or taking care of a cancer patient at home. People surf these videos as and when they require but it makes a long term engagement too. If the video is fruitful for the viewer, obviously he will always look forward to the same channel for other stuff also.
Tactic #2: Measure Your Audience
Once you have categorized you advertisement, now it is time for you to measure the audience viewing it and the most important part, for how long it is being viewed. This attention score helps you throughout your campaign to amend your campaigns and help in reaching to a wider audience. The following are the tips which can make you understand the basics of reaching out to the masses with your video commercials.
- Entertainment Videos
- Always remember to have your video as short as possible. Generally a small video commercial which is made to entertain the audience does not exceed beyond 30 seconds.
- 5 Second Rule – Do always remember the 5 second rule. This means that the initial 5 seconds of the videos have to be very powerful and persuasive which can compel the audience to watch the complete videos.
- Plot of the video – You should always have a plot of the video even if it is of 30 seconds. A storytelling is all what you need when planning something creative. To assemble creative stuff in the minimum screen time is actually what you need to make nice entertainment videos which can go viral and publicize your products or services.
- Informative Videos
- Audience Attention Score – In these videos, the early attention score of the audience is generally low. This is because most of the people whenever switch to these kinds of videos, if they like it, they will view the whole video in order to understand the steps and if not, then they will skip it in the initial few seconds only.
- Length of the Video – The informative video must be as long as it is required to be. All the steps must be shown with suitable description so that the audience understands it and do not skip to another channel for a different kind of pedagogy.
- Pedagogy – The steps of the guides should be properly described so that the viewer is able to understand it. This creates engagement and regularity of the audience as followers of the YouTube channel.
Tactic #3: Add Annotations
Annotations are the notes which are added on your YouTube video while it is being played. Annotations are specially very effective whenever you are showcasing an informative video .
Annotations help the promotions of the video in many ways:
- Links – Videos with annotations of other video links are very useful as it creates a path for the user to go to another video. This option also increases the number of views of the video and subscribers for the YouTube channel. In other words, it helps making the video go viral.
- Subscribe – The annotation of subscribing the channel gives an option to the user to subscribe to the video from the player itself. In a lot of cases, when the user is watching a video and likes it, he generally tends to subscribe it from the annotation only.
- URL – The annotation with direct URL links to your own website increases the number of visitors on your website. It diverts the traffic towards your website, if the user finds it worthy to visit it for some more stuff or information.
Tactic #4: Planning and Executing your Video
While making your channel and promotion campaign, you must remember that your video must be planned in a way that it hits the right place at the right time.
- Engagement with other media – Always remember to share your videos on other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter etc. This will result in more people viewing and sharing the video.
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- Video Metadata – Video Meta data is one of the most important elements of YouTube SEO. Your videos must have a good description, tagline and headline. This all helps the people to choose your video among the millions of videos available on YouTube.
- Blogs – Always remember to create a tag on your blog for all of your YouTube videos. This enables the user to use your blog as a platform to view your videos and subscribe to your channel from there only.
- Personalized Videos – Create and upload more of personalized videos for instance create videos where you or some of your employees are welcoming the audience and showcasing the organization; or it might be some of your own experience in the industry which you think would be interesting for the audience to watch. These videos create more engagement as it gives a realistic effect to the audience and creates a trust in your institution/organization.
Tactic #5: Two-Way Communication
On YouTube, there are many videos which are just uploaded and then there is no one to even have a look on its performance or the views/likes it has got; all you need is to have a two way communication with the viewers and the subscribers of your channel. What you need to do is
- Engage with others – If you want people to view, share and comment on your videos, you should do it for others also. When you will start following other people, then only people will start recognizing you. Therefore, you need to sit down for some time in a day and surf through other videos, comment and share your views on those videos and like them. This will gradually start your engagement on YouTube which will bring more views and subscribers on your channel and videos respectively.
- Ask questions – You should always ask your users various things about themselves. Don’t just start talking about your product/institution; rather than that just talk to them on very general issues, discuss various topics and then gradually show them the path of your videos or channels.
- Encourage replies – You should always reply to the queries of your viewers. Whether they are good or bad, you need to tackle them in such a way that it should not be offensive. This practice makes you alive in the virtual world and encourages more engagement on your YouTube channel.
Audience and Engagement only increases with your own consistent appearance on the platform. Whether it be new videos, commercials or any other audio visuals. You have to be available for your audience. You need to have an idea what the audience likes. You just have to follow them in order to make them follow you.