YouTube is a growing platform that has mainstream credibility. Its strong branding and popularity have made it one of the top search engines even above the very well-known Facebook platform. And with 2.38 billion monthly logged-in users on average - worldwide, you can see why this influential website is one of the most important platforms to use to grow your business.
Now if you’re a savvy business owner who has decided to jump on the YouTube bandwagon and you’ve begun creating videos for your business, great stuff!
You’ve definitely made the right decision.
Now if you’ve created your videos on YouTube, but you’re struggling to increase views and engagement for your videos…
Here are 5 essential things you need to do:
1. Be the first to comment on your video. By doing this, you are encouraging your viewers to also do the same. Something you could do is to mention in your comment what you’re discussing in the video and then actually tell your viewers to please comment below. You could also simply make a funny statement about the video and follow it up with a question for your viewers based on the topic of your video. Your viewers will always be excited to see that you are actively commenting, and they’ll most likely want to comment right after you do. It makes them feels more connected to you and a part of your online community!
2. Encourage viewers to leave a comment on your video. As stated in the above point, when you first upload your video to YouTube and create the first comment on your video, this automatically shows that you are active in the comments section. However, if you actually ask your audience to leave a comment below the video, this adds that extra push, to make your viewers eager to follow-up your comment with a response. It’s a great way to add more engagement to your videos as this is something YouTube loves. And more comments and engagement shows YouTube that your video is resonating well with your audience whereby helping to shoot your video to the top of the YouTube search results for your topic area. Of course your title keywords and descriptions play a role too, but viewer engagement is a key role in how YouTube ranks your video.
3. Reply to viewer comments. If you want your viewers to comment more on your videos, you should comment by adding a response to their comments. By responding to your viewers comments, they will see you as a real person who truly cares about and appreciates them. This helps to build your community and one of the best ways to grow a loyal following.
4. Tell your viewers to subscribe to your channel. Sometimes it’s easy for people to forget to subscribe to a channel. They may watch your video and then see related videos on the side of your video, which can easily distract them. So, if you give your audience the clear instruction to subscribe to your channel by clicking the link below your video, it can help to improve your subscriber base as well as help to boost your channel further up in popularity within your niche. (Be sure to tell your viewers where the subscribe link is located to make it as easy as possible for them to subscribe, especially if they are not accustomed to doing so). As you know, YouTube is growing and evolving daily and there are always new viewers joining the pipeline. Clarity is key!
5. Tell your viewers to click the bell icon for notification of new videos & share your new uploads on your social networks. YouTube continuously makes changes to their platform. It’s important to keep up-to-date with all of their new additions. Now viewers must click the bell icon to receive notifications of new videos. This feature did not exist in the past, but once YouTube implemented it, YouTube creators had to share this information with their audience to ensure that their videos continued to gain traction with viewership.
Although most people who watch YouTube videos know this, it’s important to be extremely clear and proactive in your communications by telling your viewers exactly what you want them to do. Oh, and also share you new uploads to your social networks as well. Consider this your must-do YouTube call-to-action. Not only will you gain more subscribers by doing so, but you’ll also improve the amount of views you’ll get on your videos. After all, this is what everyone wants because it leads to more opportunities in terms of ads, but it also encourages more collaborations and ultimately exposure for your channel. And we all know, many lives have changed just because a video was seen by more people.
Don’t forget your keywords!
Of course you need to also be sure that the main keywords your audience is searching for is placed first in your video title along with your tags and video description. You can use keyword tools like Google Planner, Moz.com or Ubersuggest to help you in your keyword research. As long as you are using terms that are highly searched for and there are not enough sites overusing that keyword, you have a good chance of making it on the first page of Google. But thorough research is key.
So, now it’s your turn. Go out there and get your video created. And if you already have some videos created, be sure you’ve followed the points above for greater reach within your market. By doing so, you’d be surprised by what opportunities may come your way. This may be just what your business needed to gain greater recognition in your industry.