Context: Not claiming to be ‘the expert’, but I gained ~1000 genuine subscribers in under 3 months, and thought this may help a few others here who are just getting started.
“Build it and they will come” – NOPE! ❌
𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐞 it and they will come. ✅
If you upload a new video and wait for our almighty overlord – the YouTube algorithm – to make your video go viral, you’re gonna be waiting a long, long time.
Unless you have thousands of subscribers already, we have to get the initial ball rolling ourselves because we have to PROVE to YouTube the video is good by giving it some data (i.e. people clicking on the video, watching it, and engaging).
Firstly, you need to be advertising each video on your other social media channels, but that does NOT mean just sharing the video link. (I used to do that – big mistake).
For platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, they reallyyyy don’t like you sending their users over to YouTube, so instead write a normal text post that ‘sells’ your video, and attach the video’s thumbnail as an image. As for the actual link, drop that in the comments instead so the algorithm doesn’t restrict your post’s organic reach.
For platforms like Instagram and TikTok, your best bet is giving people a short preview of your video – and in particular, the best / most enticing part of your video! Simply cut ~30 seconds of your YouTube video into a new video file, and upload that natively to the platform you’re on. Make sure you include a call to action that the full video is in your bio link.
But, don’t stop there…
The people who will LOVE your videos have conveniently already got themselves into groups. You just have to go tell them about your content in a non-spammy way.
By this I mean, you join a relevant group/community, provide some real value (without any links) and then eventually share your video with some context of why it may be helpful/interesting for them.
Yes, this takes longer. But it’s 100% worth it.
So where are these groups filled with your ideal viewers?
- Forums (search variations of your niche + the word ‘forum’ on google)
- Facebook groups
- Sub-reddits
And you can no doubt find other communities too with a little searching, but those 3 tend to have some of the best results.
Finally, don’t forget about promoting on YouTube itself. And I don’t mean ads…
If you’re not commenting on other channels in your niche every single day, you’re missing out. I don’t mean commenting ‘sub for sub’ or ‘come check out my videos’ – that’s obviously spam and against the rules. Instead, provide a genuinely useful or funny comment – not only will the creator appreciate that much more, in my experience those generally lead people to check out your channel much more often.
These things are fairly simple, but absolutely make a difference. Best of luck with your channel – you’ve got this!
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewTubers/comments/emcut8/the_right_way_to_promote_your_videos_that/
YouTube Trap That You Don’t Want to Fall Into
So I fell in the trap of promoting my actual link on Instagram, Facebook and some sub-reddits. It wasn’t spam, it was always relevant to the topic, but unfortunately things like that backfire. What do I mean by backfire? Yes – I might have gotten some subscribers and nice comments, but I also had the other 90% of people click on my video link, watch 30 seconds to 1 minute, and then get off the video – which really lowered my audience retention and average view time, meaning the YouTube algorithm want even consider me in its selection.
By all means, I’m starting to recover from that with my latest uploads. I feel like I deliver interesting content for those who are interested in tech/programming or learning about the life of a Software Engineer – but obviously that’s not everyone niche and fun concept. I could add on top of that, that recently I’ve altered the style of my videos a little bit more towards the cinematography side, and even non-coders and non-tech people told me they enjoyed my content.
Now, someone in the comments mentioned about instead of a link posting your YouTube channel name. It’s a good idea, but only for those that have a distinct channel name. In my case my channel name is “Filip” but you can never find it by typing that in because there are other YouTubers called “Filip” that are more successful than me. In my case you have to type “FilipGrebowski” to find me.
Now onto the best way of promotion I have found so far – INTERACTION. Yes, comment on peoples YouTube videos in your niche, and add valuable feedback to their video. It’s great to get your channel out there and allow others to organically find it, check your content out and and most probably subscribe. There is a but, and it’s a BIG BUT. If you won’t be one of the first few people to comment when the video gets released, it highly lowers your chances for someone to actually see your comment and check your channel out, so commenting on smaller channels is something that’s usually better. I’ve created my YouTube channel not even 2 months ago, and I’m already at 550 subscribers. I try to interact a lot on the platform, and make interesting and engaging content. You have to film with an idea up ahead, how and what will make your users stay on your video and watch it till the end. I’m in the process of refining and altering my style, video editing etc. and its so far working. I already have a 220% increase in user interaction in my latest video.
F(AWXM) 