Growing your video audience requires a strategy.
The language of images has a greater effect on our brain than words: it directly addresses emotions, memories and the way it works real engagements. Big advertising companies know this. For this reason, advertising campaigns are mostly based on images. A maxim that we should incorporate into our personal promotion.
In other articles on the RedMusix blog we have already explained how important it is to take care of the personal image that we offer abroad . It is the first thing that others see in us: we transmit information without saying a word . This is why the videos that identify us are so important, as well as the artistic photography that precedes them.
In this post, we want to explain some tactics so that you can grow your audience on YouTube , given that it is the most popular platform worldwide with which to promote your video work. Growing your audience on this platform doesn’t happen by accident . It must be managed daily and made a mandatory routine to promote yourself in a world with a very high rate of competition.
The first step: create a YouTube channel
In order to upload videos to the YouTube platform you must create a channel . Since it is part of Google, you first need a Google account to then set up your YouTube channel. You can use an existing account or create a specific one to manage your professional profile. Once you have a Google account, you must enter YouTube and create a brand account and a channel.
Managing your YouTube channel with a Brand Account is better than managing it with your personal account. The Brand Account allows you to manage permissions between different people in the company as well as update the YouTube channel . Additionally, it can be expanded by adding additional YouTube channels .
It is important that you fill out all the fields. So you will have to add :
Your “About” information.
Your cover and profile image.
Links to your social networks and websites.
Keep in mind that from your account you have different options to advertise your video . That is, there are different tabs that allow you to upload the video and make it hidden, private or public.
Hidden : It is on YouTube, it does not appear in searches, but if you have the link to the video you can view it.
Private : only you can see it and it does not appear in searches (it is very useful to check it before publishing it)
Public : open to the entire web
Twenty recommendations to promote the videos of your YouTube channel and increase their impact
YouTube is the second most visited site on the web . Statistics claim that we spend up to six hours a day consuming videos. A new way of consuming content, another language for communication.
As a performer, as a composer, appearing successfully on YouTube requires a series of promotional tactics . Above all, if what it is about is maximizing the audience.
- Write attractive titles
YouTube marketing is all about presentation . The titles are decisive. Ask yourself: are you giving it the importance it requires? It is important that you present your content as something essential.
The key to creating eye-catching titles is to capture the attention of your audience without having to resort to clickbait headlines (translated into Spanish as “cyberbait”: a technique, mainly writing, that aims to get visits to a website to increase advertising revenue. The term has a pejorative component since often there is no content behind the headline). We hope this is not your case.
The audience is looking for interesting content that is entertaining , at the same time they will surely want to know what your video offers them at the same moment they press Play. Some recommendations:
Get inspired by titles based on questions or hyperbole (a literary stylistic device that consists of the exaggeration of quantities, qualities and characteristics.)
Think of relevant keywords that give the appearance of conversation.
“Best of” lists and “How to” titles have also proven to be a safe bet.
- Optimize your videos for more visibility
You should know that YouTube videos appear in 70% of the top 100 Google search results . In fact, YouTube results sometimes even appear before blog posts or traditional websites.
YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine . They are the famous: “How to do…”
So, think of your videos like any other piece of content that needs to be optimized in terms of keywords, tags, categories, etc.
To increase your chances of appearing in the top positions, you can follow some of the recommendations to improve the ranking of your videos in Youtube SEO . Between them:
Titles and Description – Include target keywords in titles and descriptions. You can use a Key word tool , which helps you find ideas to better select keywords. The resource is multilingual.
Mention keywords in your video – This practice helps YouTube better understand what the video is about.
Engagement (likes, comments, views) – YouTube uses engagement to help determine how your videos are ranked in search results.
Categories – Use categories to help YouTube better understand who to show your videos to.
Tags – In addition to categories, you can also add tags to your videos to give YouTube more context about your content. You can use quite a few tags, so select them correctly and add as many as you can think of.
- Find out what your audience wants
If you want to be visible online, another recommendation is that you study well who your audience is and align yourself with them . To do this you have to find out what type of content they are looking for about you.
If you’re just starting to promote your YouTube channel, take a look at what other video creators are doing. Study which ones get the most visits. It is a way to see what topics the audience wants from the video you are consulting, what styles they prefer and what procedures are the most successful.
If you already have videos uploaded to YouTube you can use the YouTube Analytics tool. Your channel analytics gives you detailed information about your audience demographics, location, likes, and other useful statistics that allow you to study your audience’s behavior.
- Interact with the YouTube community
You should consider YouTube as a social network , with an increasingly thriving community. Users interact with it through the content, with their own profile and using “likes” or even comments . Remember, in any case, that YouTube also has the option of clicking “I don’t like it”. Always remember to reply to comments.
You should also know that any type of interaction with viewers is considered a positive signal for YouTube . If this happens, it is considered that you have a strong connection with your audience. To make your audience feel more involved, you always have the possibility of pinning a top comment as a kind of personal note for your subscribers . It is a way to show gratitude and/or answer questions.
- Customize your thumbnails
YouTube lets you choose a cover for your video. This is what is called a miniature. One of the simplest but most effective tactics to promote your videos is to create custom thumbnails .
To do this, you have to think of the title and the thumbnail as a double whammy that captures attention.
YouTube takes a screenshot of each video by default and uses it as a thumbnail with generally unsatisfactory results.
The best recommendation is that you create your thumbnails yourself . Not only will you get the effect you want, but you will be seen in a more professional way.
Making a thumbnail of your video is not too complicated. One possibility is that you create a template with a specific, personal typography and style that identifies you as an artist, in line with your brand. For this task, it is easy if you help yourself with design tools like Canva.
- Use timestamps
Once you have uploaded your video, if it is long, you have the possibility of using timestamps on YouTube , which are used to divide it into chapters . This allows viewers to go directly to the sections that interest them most . This increases the chance that they will watch more of your video. For musicians, if you upload a concert, you can split between the songs. - Cross-promote your own videos on YouTube
It is common for your videos uploaded to YouTube to involve topics that are similar , which can lead to overlapping content. In these cases, we recommend that you use the cross-promotion strategy, so that you can take advantage of previous content . To explain it graphically, it is about drawing a path so that your audience can easily follow it.
Cross promotion should be practiced when it makes sense . You can do it in two ways.
In the description of a video you can include links to other videos that you want the viewer to continue watching.
You can embed buttons to access other videos in the last few seconds of the current video to ensure that they are visited next.
- Rule Google Search Results
It is a good recommendation that when putting titles, labels, descriptions, etc., you think about creating that content for your best positioning in networks and not thinking exclusively about the protagonists or readers or the artistic result that you want to print on your work. That is, it is about positioning your thinking and, therefore, your writing in SEO mode.
Generally, product reviews, tutorials, and long videos of more than ten minutes with specific topics and keywords tend to rank well in SERP search engine results.
- Hold a contest or giveaway
On social networks, for the moment, it works well to carry out promotions through gifts or giveaways . It is about organizing a contest or a giveaway, through YouTube, that encourages people to subscribe to your channel and participate.
An easy way to do this is to make it so that people who like your video have to leave a comment and subscribe to the channel.
How to create successful contests on social networks :
Consider proposing a gift that is related to your brand . The idea is that you want to attract a potential audience interested in your music and not just professional gift seekers.
Be creative . Incorporate content generated by yourself.
When creating contests to be successful on social networks, be careful not to abuse this formula . That is, don’t do it always.
After running a contest, it is a good recommendation to wait a while and look at the amount of engagement gained, as well as the subscriber churn rate . If you are not attracting somewhat committed subscribers you could be achieving the opposite effect : that is, attracting only professional prize seekers , who just want free stuff.
Measure your strength carefully because you could be wasting time, money and resources.
- Encourage viewers to follow your series of posts
A smart way to promote your YouTube channel is to create a series of specific videos that cover a recurring topic or topics.
Series are beneficial for both creators and viewers .
For creators , you are responsible for creating new content. It is in your hand.
For your audience , this strategy is good: having a series of videos means that there is always something to look forward to , as well as being a reason to keep coming back to your channel.
- Embed your YouTube videos
Some of the best places to promote your YouTube channel go beyond YouTube.
It has been proven that having content in video format improves participation rates on your website and reduces site abandonment . If what you want is for visitors to stay longer on your page, on your blog, etc., insert a video.
- Create playlists to organize your YouTube content
The more videos you create, the harder it will be for people to navigate your channel.
This is why playlists are so important .
Playlists not only allow you to group your videos into categories to organize your channel, but they also appeal to the desire to provide continuous viewing among your viewers.
For example, there are channels that are uploaded daily and accumulate hundreds of videos covering a large number of topics. The various playlists help guide the subscriber to relevant content without having to go searching for it. It’s a way to facilitate convenience for your recurring user.
- Increase your likes with calls to action
Everyone knows that the consumption of videos on the Internet is often subject to the circumstance of immediacy , that is, it is extremely easy for the user to jump to another type of content, harming the performance that you can obtain with your work. .
To increase users’ time and attention, sometimes simply asking for participation is the best way to make your videos take center stage .
It’s about giving importance to that small period of time that elapses between the moment a user views your video and “likes” it.
It is known that not everyone who enjoys one of your videos will internalize the practice of leaving a “Like” or will become subscribers. Forget the shame, and if, especially, you are a professional with a career ahead of you, ask for some love directly . Among the useful strategies for this field, you can use:
Put a reminder to request a “like” or subscribe to the channel in the description, or even in the video itself.
Ask your visitors questions , which you can answer with the suggestion to watch another video. A way to keep the commitment going.
You can also link your video to other videos or include an external link to your site . This gesture can be understood as a CTA. Call to Action is called CTA , an important tool to promote your marketing offers.
- Try live streaming
Live video is one of the biggest trends on social media and it doesn’t look like there are going to be any big changes too soon.
With apps like Facebook, Periscope and Instagram making it easier than ever to stream live videos, more and more brands are getting on board.
YouTube has been offering live videos for years, but only recently has this practice started to gain traction.
Some examples of how you can use YouTube Live are :
Live concerts
Live rehearsals
Collaborations with other channels
Webinars
Live tutorials
Question and answer sessions
Product demonstrations (records, vinyl, master classes…)
Don’t worry if your streams aren’t working as well as you’d like . Part of the fun (and risk) of live video is that you never know what’s going to happen. The organic, unpolished nature of live video is exactly what makes it appealing .
- Collaborate with other creators and brands
One tactic that some of YouTube’s biggest stars use to grow their followers is to collaborate with other users . Each collaboration offers you the possibility of exposing yourself to a new audience . Those new viewers are likely to subscribe to your channel since you’re working with a content creator they already know, like, and trust.
The key to a successful collaboration on YouTube is finding the right partner . If you want to collaborate with content creators who share similar passions with your activity to make their video appear authentic, collaborate. Do not hesitate. It is not a gesture that is understood as too promotional. Quite the contrary, it is understood as a natural action.
- Run a paid advertising campaign on YouTube
It is clear that paid ads on YouTube allow you to obtain more visibility . On this platform you have:
Display ads – Appear in the right sidebar of videos and are only available on desktop.
Overlay Ads – These are semi-transparent ads that display at the bottom of a video. They are only available on the desktop.
Skippable and non-skippable video ads : Appear before, during, or after a video. Skippable ads can be skipped after five seconds, but non-skippable ads must be viewed completely before the viewer can watch your video.
Bumper Ads – They cannot be skipped and must be viewed before the viewer can view your video. They can be a maximum of six seconds.
Sponsored Cards – Featured in relevant videos. You can use them to promote your content.
- Improve your ad creative with another video
To improve the creativity of your ad you can use an existing video or create a new video. The idea is that you symbolize a specific campaign.
The advantage of using an existing video is that you can choose a clip that you know has been effective in the past . If a video has already gotten a lot of views and organic engagement, running paid ads on it can amplify your results.
On the other hand, creating a new video for your ads will allow you to create a more specific piece of content that you can have more control over as it launches.
- Regularly post your YouTube content on social media
For some time now, it has been shown that videos are very successful on social networks.
The conclusion is that it is advisable to have regular audiovisual promotion on your social channels . As soon as you publish a video on YouTube, make sure that followers on all your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn…) know about it.
Another option to promote it is that you can create fragments or previews for each social platform , and that this delivery can be linked directly to the video of which it is a reference.
- Boost your YouTube strategy
In addition to everything we’ve discussed above, make sure you’re up to speed on all things YouTube to maximize your efforts with these guides:
How to create a YouTube channel for businesses. Simplify the setup and refinement of your commercial channel.
How to make YouTube descriptions: Tips and examples . Differentiate your videos and make sure they are easy to find, with optimized descriptions.
YouTube SEO – How to Increase Your Video Rankings: Make sure you meet the needs of your audience.
How to Use Hashtags on YouTube to Increase Video Views . Demystify how hashtags work on YouTube and get more attention on your videos.
How to use YouTube Analytics to optimize your video performance . Make sure all your efforts are successful and find out where you can still improve your strategies with effective analytics.
Basic concepts of YouTube Statistics
YouTube advertising formats
Google’s introduction to live streaming
- How to request the removal of a YouTube video
In addition to everything we have explained above, it may happen to you that throughout your entire professional career you have done things that you do not want to show or that harm your most current profile. There is a possibility that other people have uploaded a video about you (a performance, a recital, etc.) that you don’t like how it looks (bad sound, bad image, etc.).
The procedure to make that video disappear and not tarnish the most up-to-date professional profile is to report the video in question . If your image appears in that video, you can request its removal.
With the video in front of you, you must press the three dots on the right:
The “Inform” tab appears.
In it, you can choose the option: “It infringes my rights (privacy, copyright, trademark rights, among others)”.
You must select the corresponding option
Once the complaint is issued, the YouTube team should act on it.