How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos

How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos

Awesome marketing guide and resource for Notes show and YouTubers on how to promote your YouTube videos and get more views. If you want to promote your YouTube videos, you have literally hundreds of avenues open to you – some of which, let’s face it, work a lot better than others. If you really want to grow your channel, get more views, more subscribers, and more engagement, and to really make your content reach more people, check out these marketing strategies to help promote your YouTube videos and channel.

How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos

Make a Collab Video Together

For a joint video collaboration, you and another YouTuber will agree upon a topic and create a script together. You’ll then either get together – if locations and timing allow – to film and edit the video, or you’ll each film your segments and then share them and agree on who does the editing or you’ll share this duty, as well.

Collaborate with Separate Videos 

In this instance, you would again agree on a topic, but rather than collaborating on the making of a single video, you would each create your own takes on the subject. You would then upload and share your own videos to your respective channels, and you would each give the other an in-video shout-out as well as link to the other collaborator’s YouTube channel.

How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos

Guest Appearance

For a guest appearance, you can either appear in another YouTuber’s video or have them make a guest appearance in one of your videos. If you appear on their video – for an interview, as one example – they will not only introduce you and your channel to their audience, but they’ll also give a link to your YouTube channel in the video description.

If you have a guest appearance from another YouTuber, they’ll be very likely to promote that appearance on their channel before you release the video. Then their audience will come over to your channel to see the video, and some of them are very likely to watch more of your videos and to subscribe to your YouTube channel.

Whoever you decide to collaborate with on a video, the more you get involved with YouTube’s wide community of creators, the more views and subscriptions you can get. When searching for YouTubers to collaborate with, look for channels similar to yours and those who create content that’s related to your own. Subscribe to them, get involved in the conversations on their channels, and then reach out to them and suggest a mutually beneficial collaboration.

How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos

Using Keywords and Phrases

Google and YouTube both have pretty complex algorithms for choosing search results and ordering them by relevance. You don’t have to understand everything there is to know about those algorithms, though. You just have to know your properly placed keywords and increased views will boost your videos’ relevance in searches.

To boost your placement on Google searches, first understand how to use keywords and phrases. What phrases will your audience use to find you? Common searches today include, “How to _____” and “What is a _____?” Which means it is a good idea to incorporate them into your video’s keywords.

So, for the beauty Notes Show example we used earlier, your keywords for a flat iron tutorial could be things like, “How to flat iron your hair,” “flat iron,” “straightening hair,” and, “Hair styling.” Be sure to fit these words and phrases naturally into your title and the description of your video.

Google has been working hard to make sure that their search engines skip or put very low relevance on sites and videos that do too much keyword stuffing. As a rule of thumb, try to keep your keyword density low or it will seem unnatural.

Where should you include these words and phrases in your YouTube video? First of all, make sure that your primary keyword or phrase appears in your title. Then write a long description that gives you plenty of chances to naturally fit your primary and secondary keywords and phrases into the text. Finally, use the video tags box to add more relevant keywords.

Promote Your YouTube Videos with SEO

When potential viewers search for content like the videos that you create, you want your channel and your videos to be the first results to pop up.

You could have the very best video content online, but if it doesn’t show up in the first few results on a Google or YouTube search, you’re not going to get very many views from search engines.

For example, there are a lot of beauty vlogs out there, and a lot of them cover similar material in their tutorials. Because women looking for these tutorials know this, they’ll search either Google or YouTube for things like, “How to flat iron curly hair.”

If you have a video that shows how to easily flat iron curly hair, you want it to be the first in the list because viewers searching for that kind of tutorial are likely to click on the first video they see.

If that YouTube video doesn’t play, is too long, or seems confusing, they’ll move on to the next, but not all viewers will scroll through page after page of tutorials to find the “perfect” video, especially when they don’t even know they should be looking for yours. Fortunately, you can make your videos much more visible and relevant to search engines by paying attention to a few details and adding the right keywords in the right places.

How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos

Start a Blog for Your YouTube Channel

The more opportunities you give people to see your videos, the more views and subscriptions you’ll get. Creating a blog is a great way to increase your audience and promote your YouTube videos by adding another online presence.

YouTube makes it incredibly simple and easy to embed your videos into almost any website or social media platform. Just copy and paste a little bit of code from your YouTube video’s page to your blog, and your audience now has twice the opportunity to see your content.

But that’s not all a blog can do for you. Regular posts will keep your audience engaged with you between video releases. Some Notes show can put out videos every day, but most are limited to once a week or once every two weeks. That gives your audience a long time to get distracted and forget to come back for more.

However, if you’re posting teasers and other entertaining, related material to your blog on a daily basis (or even every other day), then you can keep your audience engaged, even when you’re not ready to release new video content.

Blogging Gives You the Power of SEO

And there’s more! Even if you always write long, keyword-rich descriptions for your videos, and you always make sure that your keywords and phrases are included in your videos’ titles and tags, you still only have so much room for written content on your YouTube channel.

Search engines can’t watch your videos to see if they’re relevant to users’ interests or not, but they can pick up on keywords and key phrases. If you have a blog full of the kinds of keywords and phrases that your audience searches for, they may not directly find your YouTube channel in a Google search, but they’re highly likely to find your blog. If you have your videos embedded in your blog posts or on your sidebar, they’ll then be able to view your videos, follow the link back to your channel, and subscribe.

How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos

Add a Subscribe Widget Directly to Your Blog

If you want to get even more YouTube subscribers using your blog, add the YouTube Subscribe widget to your blog posts. You can find the code for this convenient widget at the Google Developers Page. Just copy and paste the code into your blog, and your readers won’t even have to leave your blog to subscribe to your YouTube channel.

Convenience is key with views and subscriptions. Instead of just linking to your YouTube page, you can embed a video. Instead of saying, “For more fun videos, go to my YouTube channel and hit Subscribe!” you can have a button right there that your audience members can click to automatically subscribe them to your YouTube channel.

Promote Your YouTube Videos on Social Media

How well do you know your audience? Do you know where they hang out online? Are they more active on Facebook or Twitter? Are they always sharing pictures and videos on Google Plus? Social media is perhaps the most powerful marketing tool you have to promote your YouTube channel.

We’ll get into how to effectively use a few specific platforms shortly, but you can use the same basic rules for all social networks. First, be aware of how often your audience uses the platform. On Facebook, a single or few posts in a day is sufficient, and more can be seen as annoying to some users. On Twitter, multiple tweets in a single day will be par for the course.

Whatever platform you use, remember that hashtags are your friends. Twitter started the hashtag revolution, and Instagram, Facebook, and Google+ have all since picked it up. Basically, when you use hashtags – for example, #Travel Tips – you just increased your post’s exposure significantly. Adding a hashtag includes your post with all other posts that use that hashtag. Instantly, people who don’t follow you but have similar interests will see your content, and you’ll get more views, followers, and subscriptions.

Overall, across platforms and networks, having a social media presence means getting more exposure to a wider audience. Every time one of your fans likes, comments on, or responds to a post or tweet, their friends and followers will see that activity. As more of their friends and friends of friends see your content, you’ll get more likes and views, resulting in a major increase in audience engagement.

How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos

Create a Facebook Fan Page 

For the best Facebook engagement, constrain yourself to a few posts per day. Any more than that, and your audience will get annoyed and feel like they have to scroll past your posts to get to the ones from their friends and groups that they really want to see. You want to be one of those posts that they really want to see, not an annoyance that they scroll past or unlike when they get too annoyed.

Create a Facebook fan page that has the same tone and style as your YouTube channel. When you post links to your YouTube videos, your audience will be able to follow the links to your YouTube channel or watch the videos directly on Facebook, so be sure to always cross-post your videos to Facebook as well as Twitter, your blog, and other social media platforms.

Avoid using Facebook to only promote your YouTube videos. As we mentioned earlier, you may not have video content to post every day. However, you can post related news, behind-the-scenes pics, exclusive content, and links to YouTubers whom you collaborate with.

As with Twitter, don’t hesitate to enter the conversation. When your audience starts commenting on your posts, get involved with the conversation. Doing this makes you appear more human and approachable, a quality that viewers love in their favorite YouTubers and Notes Show.

How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos

Don’t Sleep on Google+

Google+ is an underrated social media platform for marketing. It is not as big as Facebook or Twitter, but more and more people are using it every day. As with Facebook and Twitter, make sure that you promote your videos on Google+.

The frequency for posts should mirror that of Facebook posts, but make sure that you add some variation in your Facebook and Google+ posts. As Google+ grows, more and more of your Facebook audience members will also be on Google+ and will be more likely to see your posts multiple times. Just adding a little bit of variation can keep them from getting bored or annoyed with the repetition.

One great feature that Google+ provides is the ability to send a notification every time you create a post to those who have added you in their circles. This is just one of many reasons for using Google Plus as a part of your marketing strategy.

Promote Your YouTube Videos with Great Titles

You already know that search engines will rank your YouTube videos higher in their results if you have the proper keyword density and placement. You know that you need to include your primary keyword or key phrase in your title if you want people to see your video at the top of the list, but just adding keywords will not get you more views.

Remember, search engines help people find you, but you shouldn’t be marketing to them; you should be marketing your content to your viewers. So, be descriptive and use natural language. Also, keep in mind that Google will truncate long titles. So, while you want to be descriptive, make sure that the important information fits within your video title.

How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos

Organize and Participate in Twitter Chats

Twitter chats (or Tweetchats) give you an opportunity to directly engage with your audience and create a promotional buzz around your YouTube channel.

All you need is a hashtag and a little bit of promotion. Let your viewers know ahead of time – using your channel and all of your social media accounts – that you’re going to have a live Twitter chat on X day at X:XX time. Be sure to let them know which hashtag to follow so they can get in on the chat, and then have fun answering questions and talking with your audience members.

You can focus your Twitter chat on trending topics related to your channel, how you make your videos, your own background, or anything else that your audience would be interested in. Be prepared for your chat to take a few minutes to get rolling, as all conversations take a little bit of time to get started. If the conversation seems to lull in the middle, encourage more chat by asking questions and making sure that you’ve responded to everyone’s tweets so far.

Start an Email Newsletter

Especially if you only post YouTube videos once every few weeks, you can keep your audience’s attention with an email newsletter.

Include relevant articles, new video news, behind-the-scenes pieces, and guest blog posts to grab your audience’s attention and bring them back for more videos on your channel.

Be sure to always include links to videos on your channel in your newsletters. One newsletter with a few of your videos can lead to a lot of extra views with just one email especially if your subscribers forward the newsletter to their friends. Remember, don’t just make your newsletter seem like an advert to promote your YouTube videos. Instead, provide value by including exclusive content that’s of interest to your audience.

How to Promote YouTube Channel and Videos