Are you eager to boost your YouTube viewership and grow your channel? Now is the perfect time to learn effective tactics for promoting your YouTube channel. After all, YouTube is the second most-visited website, and with people spending hours watching videos every day, it’s clear that taking advantage of promotional strategies is essential to stand out.

In this article, we will explore various techniques to help you maximize your YouTube channel’s growth and increase your viewership. Whether you’re a beginner or already have a following but want to expand it further, these tips are all fair game.

What Defines a View on YouTube?

Before we delve into the tips and tricks of getting more views on YouTube, let’s first understand what counts as a view. A view refers to the total number of times your video or channel has been watched. YouTube considers a view whenever a viewer plays a video and watches it for at least 30 seconds. Each time someone watches your video, it is counted as a new view, even if they watch it multiple times. This view count applies to all devices, be it smartphones or desktops. Embedding videos or sharing them on social media platforms like Facebook also count as views.

Additionally, whenever someone visits your channel page, it contributes to your total views. YouTube Analytics provides a comprehensive overview of your channel’s view count within the last 28 days.

The Importance of Views on YouTube

Views play a crucial role in influencing the YouTube algorithm. When your videos receive more views, the algorithm promotes them to a wider audience. Moreover, views are integral to monetizing your YouTube channel and generating revenue. As creators, we all strive for a return on investment, and increased viewership is key to achieving that goal.

Beyond financial benefits, views are vital for enhancing brand awareness and building a loyal following. While reaching your desired viewership may take time, connecting with top-of-funnel prospects is essential for long-term success.

17 Tips and Tricks to Get More Views on YouTube

Now that we’ve grasped the importance of views on YouTube, let’s explore 17 proven strategies to attract more viewers and subscribers to your channel. In this video, Jamia shares ten effective ways to promote your YouTube channel and increase viewership.

1. Craft Engaging and Captivating Titles

The art of YouTube marketing lies in presentation, and crafting captivating titles is key. Ask yourself: are you presenting your content as “must-see” material or mediocre? Killer titles grab your audience’s attention without resorting to clickbait tactics. Your audience craves entertaining content and wants to know what your video is about from the get-go.

To illustrate, take a page out of the playbooks of YouTube giants like BuzzFeed and WhatCulture. These channels often employ listicles, question-based titles, and hyperbolic phrases such as “insane” or “best of all time” to generate views.

Another great example is Athlean X’s fitness videos, which integrate relevant keywords naturally into their titles, maintaining a conversational tone.

“Best-of” lists and “how-to” titles are also reliable options. Tasty, a food channel, employs click-worthy titles effectively:

Spend time brainstorming engaging titles rather than settling for the first idea that pops into your head. Optimal YouTube video titles tend to be around 70 characters long, and using tools like CoSchedule’s headline analyzer, which recommends 55 characters, can give you an extra edge in creating engaging titles.

2. Optimize Your Videos for Visibility

Consider this: YouTube videos appear in 70% of the top 100 Google search results. A simple Google search for any product or “how-to” query will often yield YouTube videos before traditional blog posts or websites. YouTube itself is the second-largest search engine, attracting users searching for products and solutions, just like Google.

Treat your YouTube videos like any other form of content that requires keyword optimization. To enhance your chances of appearing in search results, embrace the best practices of YouTube SEO:

• Titles and descriptions: Incorporate target keywords into your titles and descriptions. Utilize tools like Keywordtool.io for keyword ideas.
• Mention keywords in your video: According to Brian Dean of Backlinko, saying your target keywords in your video helps YouTube understand its content better.
• Engagement: Likes, comments, and views are key engagement metrics that influence YouTube’s search result rankings.
• Categories and tags: Maximize YouTube’s understanding of your content by using relevant categories and tags. Don’t shy away from using multiple tags to provide more context.

Remember not to saturate your content with keywords haphazardly. Use them only when they make sense naturally, rather than adding them for the sake of it.

3. Understand Your Audience’s Preferences

To ensure your content resonates with your audience, you must align it with their preferences. Whether you’re writing a blog post or creating a video, start by getting to know your audience and the type of content they want. Study your competitors or other creators in your niche to identify which of their videos gather the most views and engagement. This research will give you insights into the topics your audience wants to learn about and the video style they prefer.

Additionally, YouTube Analytics is a powerful tool that provides detailed information on audience demographics, engagement, and other useful statistics. Use this information to refine your strategy. Sprout Social’s YouTube reporting can take your analysis further by comparing your content’s performance with other social videos you’ve produced.

For a better understanding of your YouTube metrics, download our video metrics cheat sheet. It will acquaint you with the most important metrics to track and provide ideas for video content tailored to your marketing goals.

4. Engage with the YouTube Community

While YouTube may not be traditionally viewed as a social network, it fosters a thriving community where users engage through content, profile interactions, likes, and comments. Actively engaging with your viewers on YouTube has a positive impact on the algorithm. Furthermore, engaging with your subscribers helps you establish a stronger connection with your audience. Liking comments and pinning top comments takes minimal effort but has a significant impact.

For example, Artists Of Morality, a music channel, often likes and responds to comments on its recent videos. The channel creator fosters engagement by showing appreciation, answering questions, and even posting calls-to-action or challenges in pinned comments.

Remember to respond to comments and engage with your followers just as you would on any other social network.

5. Create Custom Thumbnails

Creating custom thumbnails is a simple yet effective strategy to promote your YouTube channel. Think of your title and thumbnail as a one-two punch to grab your viewer’s attention. By default, YouTube extracts a random screenshot from your video to use as the thumbnail. Unfortunately, this often results in blurry or unappealing images, which isn’t ideal.

Designing your own thumbnails not only makes your videos visually appealing at first glance but also projects professionalism. Thumbnails need not be complicated, and using a consistent template with a specific font and style can enhance branding. Tools like Canva make creating thumbnails even easier.

If you’re looking for simple social media templates to get started with, check out our free YouTube banners for download.

6. Cross-Promote Your Videos

Chances are, some of your YouTube videos cover similar topics that overlap with each other. To maximize the impact of your older content, strategically cross-promote your videos when appropriate. You can include links in the description of a video, encouraging viewers to check out related content in a call-to-action. Although YouTube’s annotation system has been removed, incorporating links in your description encourages viewers to watch your videos through to the end without clicking away.

7. Target Google Search Results

As mentioned earlier, YouTube excels in search engine optimization. While creating content solely for search engines is not recommended, promoting your YouTube channel with SEO in mind is crucial. Product reviews, how-to’s, and long-form videos (over 10 minutes) covering specific keyword-driven topics tend to rank well in search engine result pages. If you’re seeking content ideas or exploiting a trending buzzword in your industry, strategize your YouTube channel marketing accordingly.

8. Run Contests or Giveaways

YouTube users love giveaways. Organize contests or giveaways on your channel to encourage people to subscribe and engage. To keep things simple, ask participants to like your video, leave a comment, and subscribe to enter the contest. Follow best practices for running social media contests, such as ensuring compliance with YouTube’s policies and offering prizes related to your brand to attract engaged viewers. Incorporating user-generated content and unique entry requirements adds creativity to your promotions.

Be cautious not to run contests too frequently without seeing tangible results. Analyze your subscriber retention and engagement rates after each contest to ensure you are attracting engaged subscribers rather than participants solely interested in prizes.

9. Encourage Viewers to Follow Your Series

Create a specific video series revolving around a particular theme or topic to promote your YouTube channel effectively. Sprout Social’s YouTube channel, for instance, boasts various series that contribute to its strong online presence, such as the informative “Always On” videos.

Series satisfy both creators and viewers. As a creator, you commit to producing fresh YouTube content consistently, eliminating the need for constant brainstorming. For viewers, series offer anticipation, providing a reason to return to your channel regularly.

10. Embed Your YouTube Videos

Expanding your promotional efforts beyond YouTube itself can yield excellent results. Video content has proven to increase conversion rates and reduce bounce rates on websites. Embedding a video on product pages or blog posts encourages visitors to stay longer, enhancing their overall experience. Every opportunity to direct your on-site or social media traffic to YouTube contributes to your channel’s growth.

11. Create Playlists for Organizing Your Content

The more videos you produce, the more challenging it becomes for viewers to navigate your channel. Playlists are a valuable tool for grouping your videos into categories, effectively organizing your channel. Playlists also cater to viewers’ desire for binge-watching. Beardbrand, a grooming channel, masterfully employs playlists to guide subscribers to relevant content without them having to search extensively.

12. Increase Engagement with Calls to Action

Sometimes, the most effective way to gain attention for your videos is to ask for engagement explicitly. Videos have an immediate and personal connection with viewers, making it easy to encourage likes, comments, and subscriptions by including reminders in the description or in the video itself. Consider asking your viewers questions, directing them to check out similar videos, or incorporating a call-to-action that leads to your website or landing page.

13. Try Live Streaming

Live video is a major social media trend that continues to grow. Platforms like Facebook, Periscope, and Instagram have made streaming live content more accessible, and YouTube is no exception. Check out popular YouTube Live videos to see how other brands are utilizing the platform effectively.

Experiment with live streaming to host webinars, tutorials, Q&A sessions, or product demonstrations. Embrace the spontaneous and unpolished nature of live video. Unforeseen occurrences can create organic and compelling content. For more tips on YouTube Live, consult Google’s introduction to live streaming.

14. Collaborate with Other Creators and Brands

Collaborating with other users is a tactic employed by some of the most successful YouTube stars. Each collaboration exposes you to a new audience. Viewers who are already familiar with and trust the content creator you collaborate with are more likely to subscribe to your channel. The key to successful collaborations lies in finding partners who share similar interests with your brand. Authentic collaborations that shun overt promotion resonate best with audiences. The collaboration between BuzzFeed and Purina shown below is a prime example.

15. Run Paid YouTube Ad Campaigns

With marketing trends favoring paid advertising, YouTube offers various ad formats to increase visibility. Display ads, overlay ads, skippable and non-skippable video ads, bumper ads, and sponsored cards all provide opportunities to promote your content. You can use existing videos or create new content specifically for your ad campaigns. Existing videos with proven engagement can amplify results when promoted through paid ads. Alternatively, creating new videos allows you to craft targeted content with a specific call-to-action, driving viewers to a landing page or another video.

16. Regularly Share Your YouTube Content on Social Media

Video content excels on social media, garnering high engagement and performance. Regularly promote your YouTube channel to your social media followers, encouraging them to subscribe. As soon as a video goes live, notify your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn followers. Create snippets or previews for each platform, linking them to your latest production. Sprout Social’s features can help you seamlessly schedule and publish content across platforms, ensuring your content reaches your social audience when they’re most engaged.

17. Implement Pre-Production Best Practices

Streamline your content production by adopting pre-production best practices. Careful planning yields more efficient video creation. Establish contingency plans to handle location changes or talent unavailability. Plan your video concept from start to finish, and utilize storyboards to outline each scene, noting visual jokes, animations, and calls-to-action. A shot list will help you consider essential aspects such as lighting, camera angles, and locations.

A well-organized content production process enables you to create more videos in less time, providing consistent quality that resonates with viewers. By creating relevant and valuable videos consistently, your viewership will naturally grow over time.

Dive Deeper into YouTube with These Resources

In addition to the 17 tips mentioned above, make sure to continually educate yourself about YouTube practices. To maximize your impact, consider these guides:

• How to create a YouTube channel for business: Simplify the setup and optimization of your YouTube business channel.
• 11 Tips for writing YouTube descriptions: Learn how to differentiate your videos and make them more discoverable with optimized descriptions.
• YouTube SEO: How to boost your videos’ rankings: Understand YouTube’s role as one of the world’s biggest search engines and learn strategies to meet audience needs.
• YouTube hashtags: How to use hashtags to increase video views: Demystify how hashtags work on YouTube and gain more visibility for your videos.

With this comprehensive guide, you are now equipped with strategies to promote your YouTube channel effectively and increase your viewership. Growing your YouTube audience requires deliberate effort, and incorporating these tactics will bring you closer to your goals. Sprout Social’s YouTube integration provides features to seamlessly schedule and publish content, while in-depth analytics improve your video strategy. Get ready to expand your YouTube presence and witness tangible business results!