13 Killer Ways to Promote Your YouTube Channel Like a Pro

YouTube has gained widespread popularity, with 2 billion logged-in monthly users. On top of this, 1 billion hours of video are consumed on the platform daily, and almost 15 percent of YouTube’s total site traffic comes from the United States alone. That’s huge!

YouTube’s main attraction is that it gives users a virtually endless amount of entertaining video content. With a level of popularity this extreme, it’s harder than ever for marketers to ignore this major video marketing channel.

It should also be remembered that high popularity means high competition, so you’ll need to create effective strategies that increase your brand value and get you noticed in a sea of competitors.

Let me introduce you to this little-known fact: With YouTube views alone, you can’t make enough money to survive.

If you are hesitant to dedicate time and resources to a channel that doesn’t generate a direct return on investment (ROI), you’re not alone. Several marketers meet short-term targets and give up on YouTube, shifting their focus on paid search and paid social. It’s a bitter truth.

The need of the hour is to acknowledge this fact and create content that spreads awareness and builds your brand’s affinity. After more than 13 years of experience in this industry, I can say this: To make your mark on YouTube, focus on the top-of-the-funnel prospect pool – the people who are only just becoming aware of your brand.

Do you wish to rack up millions of views on YouTube? Let me introduce you to some easy and proven ways to generate more views on YouTube, get people to watch your content and promote your YouTube channel.

13 Proven Tips to Help You Get More YouTube Views This Year:

1. Declutter Your YouTube Channel

Before posting anything on your YouTube channel, be sure to do some housekeeping. You may think that your channel is perfect, but this isn’t the case. Organize all your videos in one place for a professional look.

Move away from yourself and step into the shoes of your target audience, and think hard about what they would like to watch on your channel. You should also check into your competitor’s channel to see what they have created and come up with something even more creative and exciting.

Take a hard look at your channel and get rid of old content, something that was poorly produced or a flop video. These can turn off leads and make you sound less trustworthy.

2. Create Eye-Catching Titles

I’m pretty sure you are well aware that YouTube is all about presentation. Your titles should be compelling and engaging to positively impact your video performance. Before posting your content, ask yourself if your content is must-see, or just okay.

These days, people are hungry to watch content that’s entertaining and relatable. Work on crafting killer titles that force them to watch and perform an action. If you need ideas, go through the playbooks of YouTube giants like BuzzFeed and get inspired.

In a nutshell, you put time into mulling over engaging titles – and don’t forget to stay between 41 and 70 characters. Experts claim that videos within this character count receive 64 percent more views than videos with more than 70 characters. The takeaway? Make your title catchy and concise. Don’t hesitate to take the help of free tools like CoSchedule’s headline analyzer or SEMrush’s title generator.

3. Post Highly Watchable Content Only

If you think that you can get away with posting sub-par content, you’re absolutely wrong! Let me give you a few ways to amp up your YouTube game:

Research thoroughly

It’s important to learn from your competitors. Yes! Watch your competitors’ videos, note down things you’ve learned from them and present it creatively. Remember: Your end product has to bring out powerful emotions.

Have a script ready

Even the most famous content creator has to plan out a script, do a table read, rewrite it, table read and rewrite it again. It’s obviously a tiring process, but it makes your script more powerful and engaging. Mastering this art can take your videos to an entirely different level.

Invest in equipment

When shooting in-house, the most basic pieces of equipment needed are your background set, studio lights and a tripod.

As for your camera, an iPhone has better camera quality than a DSLR. If you’re a full-time content creator, you may have to create in an in-house studio with few other props for better video creation. How about a DIY studio set-up? You can easily do it – I have!

4. Engage Your Audience in the First 10 Seconds

With decreasing attention spans, it becomes difficult to get more people to stick around on your videos. A user spends an average of 20 seconds on a website, and 20 percent of viewers drop off within the first 10 seconds of your video, according to the Statistic Brain Research Institute.

Never start your video with a cliche introduction; instead, reveal the climax at the outset.

5. Create YouTube Thumbnails

You need perfect YouTube thumbnails that make users click right away. All your thumbnails should be relevant and significant to the video’s content and title. Try to tell a story using your thumbnails to catch your audience’s attention.

The video title and thumbnail should convey a complementary story together. Try to follow these tips for custom thumbnails:

• Opt for standard video sizes, i.e. 1280×720 or 1920×1080 pixels.
• High-quality images are mandatory.
• Use the video title based on your thumbnail to grab eyeballs.
• Image formats should be JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP or TIF.
• Choose a 16:9 aspect ratio to appease your YouTube players.
• Have a consistent look across all your thumbnails.
• Use emotions and focus more on the eyes.

6. Focus on YouTube SEO

YouTube is a search engine that uses several ranking signals to organize its search results. It’s essential to understand the major ranking signals and work hard to get more views and traffic.

To start, you need to prepare your target keywords and type them individually to generate a list of suggested search queries. These suggestions have been repeatedly searched by top-notch YouTubers, which means it’s an ideal candidate for a target keyword.

Some keywords are more competitive and may be challenging to rank. Also, research into some of these competitive keywords to get a sense of your audience’s needs.

After getting your keywords, it’s time to optimize it. Make sure you also get familiar with the following:

• SEO for YouTube video titles: Start the title with your target keyword. You don’t need to break your head with something complex; choose a simple and concise one.
• SEO for YouTube video descriptions: Use your target keyword at least once. You should know that your description is considered when search results are organized. Avoid keyword stuffing.
• SEO for YouTube video tags: Your tags are invisible to YouTube users (except for the ones using a special Chrome extension). You should tag your videos to demonstrate your relevance to YouTube’s algorithms.

Try all the possible ways to target your primary and secondary keywords to help you rank for search queries.

7. Keep an Eye on Your Video Duration

The average video length is about five minutes. Over the last few years, making longer YouTube videos has become a trend to increase audience retention in order to rank higher. These days, marketers prefer keeping videos to eight minutes or longer, as they can place mid-roll ads in the video.

YouTubers are also creating longer videos because they provide more time to understand the story and build a strong connection to the brand. You can easily experiment with video length to determine what works best for maximum engagement.

These are a few tips I can share based on my experience:

• High-quality content is required in every video.
  
• Optimize all your videos to be under five minutes.
  
• Keep your videos short, informative and interesting.

8. Collaborate With Other Content Creators

Your relationship with your content creator should not be adversarial. I prefer having a symbiotic relationship with other content creators.

You should remember that the ultimate goal of YouTube content marketing is to create genuine content and increase your top-of-the-funnel prospects pool. Your competitor’s presence shouldn’t ebb your capacity to accomplish a certain goal.

Creating a piece together is a win-win situation. How? You appear as a guest star in one of your competitor’s videos and benefit from your competitor’s viewers. Now, you both benefit from additional traffic while your YouTube users enjoy a stellar piece of content. It’s like killing two birds with one stone.

9. Offer Live Streaming Regularly

Live video is the latest fad that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. YouTube has been providing live videos for years, even launching the now-defunct YouTube Live back in 2008. Social media apps like Facebook and Instagram offer live video features, and YouTube is on board with its own live and pre-recorded features. 

You can also use it to create webinars, live tutorials, product demonstrations and Q&A sessions. When I started with this feature, my streams didn’t go as smoothly as I thought, but I realized that the raw nature of live videos makes it look more natural and compelling.

10. Host a YouTube Contest or Giveaway

Your users have been waiting for a contest and giveaway. It encourages people to subscribe to your channel and engage. In return for the giveaway, ask your visitors to like, comment and subscribe to your channel. Just follow these tips for a smooth social media contest:

• Adhere to YouTube’s policies.
  
• Make sure your giveaway is anything related to your brand.
  
• Add creativity by leveraging user-generated content and other non-traditional entry requirements.

 After conducting one contest, try to be patient and closely study your subscriber drop-off rate and engagement numbers. This way, next time you’ll know what to prepare to woo your audience without wasting time, effort and money.

11. Connect With Your Online Community

This platform is known to have a thriving community where users engage with each other through likes and comments. It’s great to have a social and transparent relationship with your viewers to foster a stronger relationship. Whenever you get the time, try to like or pin your customers’ comments or simply acknowledge them.

Also, make sure you respond to them or address their questions to stay aware of what they want from you.

12. Prepare Your Own Bingeworthy Playlist

If you have a set of webinars or series around the same theme, consider turning it into a playlist set. Grouping all your videos into a YouTube playlist will help your viewers find everything in one place without manually searching or clicking into the next video.

It’s a great alternative for subscription growth and will keep people hooked on your channel. As an added bonus, you’ll have highly organized video content.

For example, Netflix helps users find TV shows and movies using the “collections” feature. Here, the titles are curated by experts and organized into these collections based on similar factors like genre, tone, storyline and character traits.

13. Spice It Up With Relevant CTAs

Calls-to-action (CTAs) are an interactive element that helps drive clicks, sales and lead generations. Try not to come across as an annoyance, and use CTAs in the right way. Be clear and concise in conveying what actions people need to take.

Make things easy for your target audience by adding your website link at the end to help people understand the next step. Speak about your goal and infuse it smartly in your video. Believe me – your efforts will be rewarded in the long run.

Summing It Up

Growing your YouTube audience doesn’t happen by accident. You need to incorporate a variety of promotional tactics, time and effort to get more eyes on your channel.

Are you struggling to promote your YouTube channel? Do you need any advice or help? Let us know in the comments below!