How to Promote Your YouTube Channel

How to Promote Your YouTube Channel

YouTube is the 2nd most visited website in the world. 1.9 billion users log in every month and watch about a billion hours of video.

1.9 billion people is half the internet.

Even so, older generations are often still of the mindset that YouTube is a platform for home videos and low quality content. When I tell people my videos are on Amazon they congratulate me. When I say YouTube, they shrug unimpressed, even though it’s almost as easy to get your videos on both platforms.

Amazon might provide a facade of success, but in my experience you can earn more money and reach a far greater audience on YouTube. My 2 feature length videos have racked up over 1.5 million views on YouTube, with very little promotion.

YouTube is especially important if you want to reach younger generations. The stats say 96% of 18 to 24 year-old American internet users use YouTube. At the same time, weekly watch time of traditional TV dropped 12 percent among 18 to 34 year-olds in 2018 (13 percent in 2017).

So how do you run a successful YouTube channel?

It has become understood that to grow your channel’s subscribers and views, you need to produce regular content. Say 2 videos a week, minimum. Some people vlog every day. The belief is that the content quality and polish is less important than the regularity of the posting.

This is certainly a tried and tested strategy and it does work. However, it is not the only way to achieve success.

Recently, YouTube recommended I watch an educational video called WW2 Oversimplified (part 1). Even though I consider myself quite well read on historical matters, I found I learned something from the video and it was fun too.

Then I was astonished by the number of views. Currently this video has almost 25 million views. So I presumed it had been around on YouTube for years and the maker had been posting thousands of videos.

But on checking his channel I found he only had 12 videos. The oldest was posted 2 years ago. Yet his videos had huge viewing numbers and he had 2 million subscribers.

So what is the secret behind the success of these videos? Has YouTube found ways to better push good content?

Changing algorithms

Since YouTube changed their recommend method to focus more on the length of time a video is watch over simple views (which was easily gamed by cynical YouTubers), this has helped reward videos which engage the viewer longer.

But look at the videos themselves and you will see that’s where the real secret of success lies.

Choose Google-friendly keywords

As we have learned, the huge majority of younger age groups are on YouTube every day. So what kind of things are they searching for?

Well, history lessons to help with those history exams, perhaps. But these videos are presented in an entertaining way, with a touch of South Park style animation – well tuned for a younger viewer.

They are edited to maintain a relentless speed, so our young viewers never get a second to get bored and switch away. Remember, YouTube rewards viewer retention.

What about the subject? You’ll notice that the videos are focused on history subjects which are almost certain to appear in the English-speaking school pupil’s curriculum. World War One, World War Two and the Cold War are going to be taught around the world. American school kids will more likely learn about the American Revolution. UK kids might hear about the Falklands War and so on.

The appeal isn’t limited to these counties, but I’m sure the main viewing figures will show those countries at the top.

Of course, these subjects will have a very high number of Google searches, which will continue as long as kids are learning history at school. ie: forever.

Note: YouTube’s autocomplete feature is a great way to find strong keywords. Search for a particular theme or topic, and see what title YouTube suggests.

It doesn’t have to be a grind

What this shows is that it’s possible to have a highly successful YouTube channel while at the same time producing a limited number of videos – as long as they are perfectly crafted for their intended market and that market is big (being long term doesn’t hurt either).

Design your titles well

The title of your video is the first thing potential viewers will see. Does it match the exact thing they are looking for?

The way the internet works has driven blog writers and video makers to be a lot more literal when creating titles for their work.

If you want to catch all those kids looking for World War Two videos, make sure your title has World War Two (or WW2) at the start. In the example above, the video maker simply adds “OverSimplified” as the 2nd part of the title.

See how well that works? The first part means the potential viewer knows instantly the video will contain the information they’re looking for. The second part indicates 3 things: it’s simple (tick), it probably has a comical element (tick) and combined with brand/channel name (tick).

So not only is the naming of the video key, but the naming of the channel also ties in. With the OverSimplified channel, the naming of the videos and the channel combine to communicate very directly and simply the content contained within the videos.

Create custom thumbnails

You can’t rely on the auto generated thumbnails. They’re quicker but they are far less effective than a thumbnail you have designed specifically to communicate your content and channel.

Are you struggling to work out what the above image is communicating? No, again it’s as direct as the title. If you were in any doubt the video will be fun (funny) as well as educational, the image sets you straight. The cartoonish nature of the thumbnail will appeal to those kids looking for help with their history homework.

Avoid clickbait thumbnails. As I mentioned, YouTube rewards viewer retention. The worst way to achieve viewer retention is to trick them into clicking on your video with a misleading title and/or thumbnail. It also leads to a loss of trust in your channel, which in turn leads to viewers not returning and not subscribing.

Work on your descriptions

In search results, the first few lines of your video description show. So make sure the most important stuff is at the beginning. Namely, the information which will tell a potential viewer whether the video contains the subject they are looking for.

Don’t attempt to abuse the YouTube’s keyword search function. YouTube’s metadata guidelines say to be honest and choose quality of quantity.

Only include tags in the “tags section” of your upload and not the video description. You can add one or two categories to help YouTube understand who to recommend your video to.

What is THE most important thing to run a successful YouTube channel?

The answer is: the quality of the content, of course.

OK, that’s a somewhat murky answer which could mean different things to different people. So what does “quality” actually mean? To determine something’s quality, you first need to decide what that thing is ultimately trying to achieve. Then you can assess how well it performs that task.

We can break down the task of an aspiring YouTuber into 2 goals:

1. to get the attention of potential viewers
2. to retain their attention once you have it

I’m sure there are videos on WW2 which have far more educational information, but which have a tiny fraction of the views. YouTube is full of useful videos which have gone unnoticed.

This is usually down to what I’ve described above. These videos are a bit lacklustre, maybe slow and old fashioned, and the channel identity itself has not been developed to the same level.

How do you compete for the attention of viewers who form the main demographic of YouTube users? OverSimplified has answered that question by being… well… simple, informative and entertaining, whilst having a strong brand.

Ask yourself key questions

To help you create better YouTube videos you might want to ask yourself these questions:

• what is my subject?
• who does this subject appeal to?
• how do I develop my content to connect with these people?
• what size is the potential audience?
• how do I retain the attention of this audience once they start viewing my video?

Here’s a list of other things you can do to help get the word out. However, depending on how many views you are looking for, you really can’t compete with a YouTube recommend, and you can really only get those via the above methods.

• Interact with your fans
• Try a Q&A
• Run contests
• Be active in the community
• Work with brands
• Make playlists
• Go live
• Cross-promote your channel
• Blogging
• Email marketing
• Promote the channel (not just videos)

Ultimately though, the methods you use will depend on what you love doing and what you are good at. The OverSimplified YouTuber has chosen not to appear in front of camera, but instead relies on his animation skills. If you hate sitting at a computer tinkering with animations, this is not the way forward for your channel – no matter how successful it is for others.

Find what works for you. Successful YouTubers are often the ones who stand out somehow. They use their unique skill, trait, sense of humour, or on camera personality to create more engaging videos.

What do you have that nobody else has? Remember, we are all unique – so use what you have and be a little different from the 100s of other vloggers and YouTubers out there.

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