If you are a content creator or a publisher, you cannot ignore the growing reach of YouTube. Google’s video platform has become one of the biggest worldwide, with the most popular YouTube channels having accumulated over 100 million subscribers.
With such a large reach, it is difficult for publishers to avoid YouTube for audience development. And video content is garnering eyeballs these days with people’s dwindling attention span. It is relatively easy to start a YouTube channel, but what is more difficult is to get subscribers and establish your position where the competition is absolutely cut-throat.
If you are a publisher, looking to grow their YouTube audience, here are 8 tips to do it the right way.
Millions of videos already on YouTube cover almost every possible topic. Now, the differentiator for your videos has to be the content. Well researched in-depth content will not increase the shelf life of your video but also help reach a larger audience. These kinds of videos are time-consuming, but are completely worth the effort. Hence, before you hit the record button, dedicate a sizable amount of time in doing your research. See what is already out there and how you can bring a niche to the subject which may not have been covered that extensively before.
Now that you have worked hard on creating good in-depth content, the next step is to optimize it. This is crucial as YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. People seek all kinds of answers. Therefore, optimizing your content becomes critical. Here are some of the ways in which you can do that.
Also Read: How to Build an in-house Video Team for a Newsroom
After you’ve followed the steps above and published your video, it’s time to start building a community. Similar to how we put effort in our offline life to create meaningful connections, we have to do the same and more online. You can use YouTube tools to create a good, loyal community. These are subscribers who will engage with you and form a loyal base of fans for your channel. Here are some of the ways in which you can achieve this:
Videos published on YouTube can be promoted on other social media apps. For example, you can provide a link to the video on Instagram stories. You can share the video on Facebook. One can also post small snippets of the video on other social media and websites to create some excitement about the video. Latest videos along with the links and descriptions can be shared via the newsletters too.
It is being reported that channels who post more than once per week are performing much better. Furthermore, be consistent with your publishing schedule. Have a fixed time and day of week when you will publish the video. This will also help your users in looking out for your videos.
YouTube's analytics help you to take a closer look at the data. This aids you in improving your channel and to take the right kind of decisions while creating content. YouTube's analytics will help you identify trends for specific content, and help you know if shorter or longer form videos perform better. Audience analytics can also tell you things like what time of the day your viewers are on YouTube. You can also know whether they are new or returning fans, among many other things.
Also Read: The Best Content Syndication Platforms for News and Media Publishers
Research creators who are similar to you. You can then find a common topic and collaborate with them. Collaborating with your fellow creators helps both your channels gain subscribers. You can host a live stream together or create a video by collaborating.
According to YouTube, videos with captions have higher watch time. Through YouTube’s caption editor, you can add captions to your videos. Adding captions will increase the reach of your videos. It will also help people who are hard of hearing, deaf or speak another language.
Growing a YouTube channel requires a lot of focus and dedication but the results are well worth it. These key steps should help you grow your YouTube channel to its fullest potential.