More than 1 billion people use YouTube, and some of power users manage videos with millions of views and channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers—how can your business compete with that level of competition?
YouTube entrepreneur Roberto Blake faced exactly that when he started sharing videos on YouTube. Since then, he has built a strategy to maximize his exposure to get millions of views on his videos and build a six-figure following on his YouTube channel. Here are a few tips from the YouTube power user that you can use to maximize your exposure on YouTube.
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Engage with your YouTube audience.
When you upload a video to YouTube, your work is just beginning. You need to engage with your YouTube audience just like you do with your social media followers. In your video, invite people to comment and share your videos and subscribe to your channel. Don’t forget to respond to questions in your video’s comments section.
Another important factor in audience engagement is your video’s thumbnail. People use visual cues to decide whether or not to view your video, which makes your thumbnail a vital factor in whether or not you get video views. Blake recommends video thumbnails that represent your brand, engage your audience, and immediately identify what your video will be about.
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Create playlists of related videos.
Playlists are a great yet underused feature of your YouTube channel. Playlists allow you to group related videos together around a theme. By automatically advancing to the next video in the list, they keep users on your content and build your reputation as an authority with the YouTube algorithm.
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Don’t forget that YouTube is a search engine.
In fact, it’s the second-largest search engine on the web. Only Google is used more often, and it owns YouTube. What does that mean for you and your YouTube channel? You need to create engaging content with specific titles, descriptions, and keywords.
Choose topics that are specific and address a specific challenge or pain point your audience faces. Use keyword phrases in your video titles and descriptions that use the words your audience will use to find your video. In other words, put yourself in the mind of your audience and be specific as possible with the words you use in your titles and descriptions.
Blake recommends using long titles that repeat key terms and phrases and repeating your title (or a variation of it) in the first line of your video’s description. Choose five to ten specific keywords to tag your video with, and use tools such as Google Keywords Ad Planner, TubeBuddy, and keyword.io to track how well your keywords perform.
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Analyze the performance of individual videos and your channel as a whole.
Sometimes, YouTube users forget to see the forest for the trees. Views of individual videos and how individual videos rank in YouTube search are important, but so is the overall SEO performance and engagement with your channel.
To make sure you’re getting the complete picture of your YouTube exposure, Blake recommends a balance between short-term strategy (individual videos) and long-term strategy (growing your list of subscribers). Create a long-term content plan and use platforms such as Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule the release of individual videos.
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Refresh old YouTube content.
Have a bunch of old videos on your YouTube channel, including some on the longer end? Blake recommends refreshing old content to reach a broader audience. Update titles, descriptions, and keywords to make them relevant to current users. Add old videos to new playlists and consider breaking up longer videos into shorter, individual ones. Don’t forget to share the refreshed videos on social media!
Don’t let your competition on YouTube scare you away from using this valuable platform. The Origin Solutionistas can help you come up with a YouTube strategy and create beautiful, engaging videos to share on your channel. Shoot us an email or give us a call at (763) 498-9168.
