A worldwide lockdown due to the deadly pandemic has resulted in a lot of people sitting at home with nowhere else to go and nothing much to do. The digital world that people are mostly resorting to, has been a life saviour in times like these. People have been spending their time by watching something on various video and entertainment platforms that are available on their smartphones. While all the other sectors have been hit badly because of the economic collapse, the web world has surprisingly witnessed a boom like never before.
YouTube, being one of the most popular video makers and sharing platforms, is running ahead of all its other competitor channels. The biggest reason for its popularity is the fact that most of the content is available to the followers for free. It has also attracted a lot of traffic from people of all generations because of its varied range of content. Therefore, as a YouTuber, this is the best time to make your YouTube channel or videos reach the maximum number of people. Though YouTube has recently also launched its premium streaming service, this article declines more towards discussing ways of promoting the free channels to their target audiences. In the pointers below, we are going to learn about seven important techniques of promoting videos on the channel.
- Video Title
Just like any other content title, a YouTube video title is of utmost importance. Specific keywords that are most relevant to the topic must be used in the title to attract more traffic. There are some tools available online that can help you search trending keywords for specific topics. Some other details that needs to be kept in mind while crafting a title are that it should be
- crisp and to the point
- attention grabbing
- self-explanatory
- keyword stuffed
- relatable and emotionally triggering
Another very important tip is to mention the current year somewhere in the title (For eg: Most
dance videos in 2020) as current year is usually the most searched keyword.
- Video Tags
Video tags on YouTube are somewhat similar to what hashtags are to Instagram. There are certain protocols that need to be maintained while tagging videos on YouTube. Not tagging your videos correctly might delay the organic ranking of the video. A few must-follow rules of tagging are given below.
- Unique branded tags must be used so that the video features in related video tabs
- Trending keywords must be used as video tags
- Tags used by high ranking videos must be used to make your videos search engine optimized.
- Custom Thumbnail
Other than the video title, the thumbnail is what makes us want to click on a video link the most. The imagery that is portrayed on the thumbnail gives us an idea about the tonality of the video. Therefore, it is very important to create a thumbnail that resonates with the concept of the video. Some technicalities must also be followed to make a thumbnail look aesthetically pleasing. The tips are that a thumbnail must
- have a 1280 X 720 resolution
- be under 2 MB
- be in the JPG, PNG, GIF and BMP format
- have a 16:9 aspect ratio
Thumbmaker is a very popular tool that is used to create thumbnails for YouTube.
- Social Media Sharing
Any other platform that is more popular than the video entertainment platform is the social media platform. So posting YouTube vlogs on social networking sites will help direct the social media traffic towards the channel. Some of the most used sites are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Tools like SocialPilot or Hootsuite can be used to schedule videos to be shared on all the social media platforms at the same time.
- Intro/Outro Videos
Intro and outro videos are necessary because they help subscribers warm up to your brand. The idea is to create sentiments through intro tracks which, if popularised, would later be endured by the subscribers. Topmost YouTube channels have famous intro videos that overwhelm their audiences every time they are played. If you are looking for an intro video maker then go for the best intro maker tool in the market, Camtasia.
Similarly, do not forget to put up the outro video in order to display all your other related videos.
- Make Use of YouTube Playlist
Youtube playlist helps you list out all of your videos in a loop and present it to your viewers. One can always add a new one along with the existing ones and direct its viewer to view the videos over and over again as there is no denying the fact that more the number of views, the merrier. Again, there are specific rules that needs to be followed while creating the playlist which is listed below:
- A meaningful and keyword stuffed title must be created
- Detailed keyword stuffed descriptions must be added to the playlist as well
- Similar videos must be grouped in one playlist
- Call to Action
Last but not least, call to actions are very important steps that cannot be missed. People visit the channel mostly for entertainment and move on to other important things as soon as the video is over. Therefore they need to be constantly reminded about the actions that you require them to take, in this case, like share and subscribe to your channel. Also, do not forget to ask them to share the videos amongst their friends and family for more reach. You can also mention all the related and necessary links that you might have attached in your description so that they can view all your other videos too.
Follow these simple strategies and increase your followers and subscribers by leaps and bounds sitting at home.