Tips to Successfully Build/Grow Your YouTube Community:
YouTube leads in the online video space with one billion unique global users spending 6 billion hours watching YouTube each month, on hundreds of millions of devices. The most important thing to take away from YouTube creators is to actively listen to your audience and to include viewers in creative decision making. Cisco predicts online video will account for 72% of all internet use by 2019. The projected digital video advertising industry in 2019 is $14.38 billion with budgets for mobile video ads to increase by 70%. I was inspired to start making YouTube videos to be funny and build my personal brand. It started with a wakeboard face plant video blooper and then became sharing my marketing knowledge, love for live music, and traveling. I’m currently expanding the content into training videos. The mission statement of my YouTube channel is to entertain, inspire, and educate as a leader.
Stick to a schedule!
Develop rituals of communicating the upload schedule, video formats, and special events. Adopt special lingo for code words or specific language on your channel (eg: wave spell, instantly, the unquestionable supremacy of nature, just gonna send it, family, let’s get cheesy, reindeer gang, bash brothers, hula crew, etc.)
Ask yourself this question: What are you inspired by or trying to accomplish in your video(s)?
One way to grow your YouTube community is by producing a channel trailer that tells the story of your journey leading up to YouTube. What moments during your videos does your community anticipate? Repeat a similar greeting in each video to establish a ritual. Try to be the first to comment on each video you upload. Make a habit of responding to comments in the first few hours after uploading a new video. Share links to relevant videos and photos to boost engagement. If you’re not in front of a desktop computer, you can use the YouTube Studio App.
Conversation, comments, and care!
Select what your audience sees first to help set the tone of the conversation by pinning comments at the top of the feed. Viewers will also be notified if you pin their comment (and they opt into notifications). This can encourage fan contributions. Highlight the answer to a common question or add a heart that will send a notification to the viewer who wrote the comment. Viewers who have received a heart on their comments are three times more likely to click on the notification (than with other types of notifications), potentially leading more viewers back to your channel. Hearts are different from ‘Likes’. Only YouTube creators have access to hearts, whereas, viewers and creators can click like or dislike next to a comment. With highlighted usernames, it’s easier than ever to see your replies because the channel creator’s username will be highlighted. Viewers see you’re present and care!
Plug your community into initiatives, projects, or topics you’re interested in and promote them with hashtags!
Share hashtags(#) in your videos and consider asking your audience to create content around these topics. Make videos about your community. Fans love to see when a channel they’re dedicated to makes a video for them. Consider producing a thank you video for your audience or to celebrate milestones. Recognize your most loyal viewers, and show them how much you appreciate them! If you ask your viewers to submit comments or answer questions, consider featuring their replies in your next video. Seeing their comments or usernames can inspire your community to interact even more. Hosting live streams to reward top community members is a great way to interact as well.
Watch time is important!
Watch time measures how engaged viewers are with what they’re watching and growing with your channel. Why is this metric so important? Your content benefits when it leads viewers to spend more time watching videos. Not just on your channel, but anywhere on YouTube. Watch time is measured in cumulative minutes watched, and each video uploaded. Every channel on YouTube is “ranked” by watch time. Channels and videos with higher watch times are likely to show up higher in search results and recommendations. The average length of the top ads that made YouTube’s 2015 year-end leaderboard was about three minutes. Watch time benefits don’t evaporate when viewers stop watching your content. The total amount of time a viewer spends on YouTube in a single visit is called a watch session. If a video on your brand’s channel drives them to watch more videos, the channel earns some watch time credits for the cumulative minutes accrued.
Use “Related Videos” to your advantage!
What videos, YouTubers, Brands, or Personalities would you want to be associated with? One huge way to get traffic on YouTube is by showing up in the related videos. Create videos with similar titles and keywords to the videos you want to be associated with. Quote the person or brand and use their name in the title and keywords. Consider interviewing or collaborating with them to increase the association in YouTube’s eyes. Thoughts and questions to ask after you have posted a video:
- How can I creatively promote this video on my other social networks?
- Who can I contact to help me promote this video?
- What blogs could I submit this video to that might post it?
- How can I make my future videos more attention-grabbing?
- How can I make my future videos more professional?
Remember, study your YouTube analytics to evaluate your channel and make necessary adjustments! Keep up with the trends, likes, comments, and most importantly, your viewers. Stay active and stay busy. It’s a tough job, growing your YouTube community, but if it’s important you will succeed! If you have any other questions please comment below. We’d also like to hear your success stories!