Creating a successful YouTube channel is something that anyone can do. If you are interested in growing your YouTube channel, check out these tips that can help you to do it!

 
YouTube has been the largest video sharing site for a long time now. Video marketing is now also the most effective form of content marketing. Whether you have ambitions to become a full-time YouTuber. Or, you are marketing a product or service. Creating a successful YouTube channel is something that anyone can do. You do, though, need to understand social video analytics. You also need to know a few video marketing tricks. It could help your YouTube channel become the next big thing on YouTube.

1. Know Your Target Audience

The first thing you need to do to grow your YouTube channel is research your audience. Decide who your target audience is, the type of people they are, and the topics that they are interested in. Video marketing is very much like blogging in this respect. The more well defined you niche is, the more often people will visit your channel to view the content that they want to see.

2. Post Videos Regularly

People subscribe to YouTube Channels they know will provide regular content. If you can, you should aim to post two or three videos a week. If you can’t do that, at least post to a regular schedule and keep all the videos focussed on your niche.

3. Keep Up the Quality

Posting content often will gain you more views. But, posting poor-quality content will soon have people pressing the unsubscribe button. Even though anyone can post videos on YouTube, the quality of the videos on the platform is surprisingly high. Remember, you will always be in competition with other, similar channels. So, the quality and relevance of your content will always be important.

4. Get Inspiration from Your Competitors

The core topic of your videos will have been defined by your chosen niche. Then, you need to come up with new, novel ways of making videos that your target audience will appreciate. Coming up with unique ideas can be difficult, but you need to make your videos stand out from the rest. One way to find what is popular in your niche is to use ViralStat to study the social video analytics of your competitors. Look at what is popular on competitors’ channels, and then think of your own unique twist on those topics.

5. Keep Opening Sequences Short and Sweet

You can make some amazing animated graphics for the opening sequence of your videos. But, if they go on for too long, people will switch to another channel. Your opening titles and credits should be no longer than 5 seconds. Much more than that and people won’t hang around to watch the important content.

6. Ask People to Like and Subscribe

If you don’t ask, you don’t get! Don’t be afraid to ask viewers to like the video and subscribe to your channel. Sometimes, all they need is a little prompting to do this. You can do this by mentioning it in the voice-over at the end of the video, or you can add annotations to your content.

7. Use Hashtags to Get More Views

You can now use hashtags in YouTube video titles and descriptions. Make use of this this functionality so that users can find your videos based on popular search terms. Don’t forget to make full use of the description of the video and the tags. All these features are important for making your videos more visible on the platform.

8. Monitor the Popularity of Your Own Videos

Monitoring the analytics of your YouTube channel will help you in your task of growing your YouTube channel. It will allow you to identify which types of videos are popular. To further aid your video marketing campaigns, look at the social video analytics of your competitors as well. See what’s popular on their channels. Look at what types of videos generate the highest levels of engagement. Monitoring YouTube stats involves more than looking at the number likes and subscribers. You also need to look at user engagement with your channel, such as comments and shares.

9. Add a Watermark to Your Videos

Under the branding page of your YouTube settings, you can add a watermark to all your videos. This makes your videos look more professional. And, it provides another way that users can subscribe to your channel.

10. Optimize Your Video Titles for SEO

Don’t forget that your videos can be discovered through search engines as well as on YouTube. So, think about search engine optimization (SEO) when you are deciding on your video titles and descriptions. You can use the keywords tool in Google AdWords to find the most searched for terms relating to your niche. Then, make sure the keyword you choose is included in the title and mentioned in the description. Make your video titles descriptive and enticing, but not too long. Your titles are what will make a user click on your video rather than someone else’s.

11. Make Good Use of Your Channel Trailer

Your YouTube trailer is the first thing that a visitor to your channel sees. They may judge the quality and usefulness of your channel on that alone. It’s important to spend time creating a catchy and entertaining trailer. It needs to grab people’s attention and tell them why they need to subscribe. Track the social video analytics to make sure your trailer is doing its job. If retention rates are low, you may need to revisit it and make it more informative and, perhaps, shorter.

12. Create Custom Thumbnails

It is much better to create custom thumbnails than it is to let YouTube create random thumbnails. The first goal of video marketing is to get people to click on your videos. The thumbnail is an important part of what will make them do that. Create custom thumbnails that look good and that give users a good idea of what is in the video. Use the annotations in your thumbnails to add an enticing description.

13. Optimize the Length of Your Videos

The length of the videos will depend on the topic and the target audience. It is worth noting, though, that most YouTube videos are under 5 minutes long. When you are first setting up a YouTube channel, it is recommend that you keep your videos short. At least while you are growing your YouTube Channel. When you have built up an audience, you can then experiment with longer videos. Then, you can track the social video analytics of the longer videos to judge their success.

14. Hook Your Viewers with an Engaging Opening Sequence

It is as important to hook viewers early in video marketing as it is any other form marketing. In other words, get them wanting to know what comes next. Make sure that the opening sequence of your videos is engaging and related to the subject matter. Give the viewer a reason to carry on watching.

15. Use Both Intros and Outros

High-quality intros and outros make videos look more professional. They also provide an opportunity to reinforce branding and put across calls to action. If you are using your YouTube channel to sell products or services, the outro is where to tell viewers what to do next. That might be to visit your websites or buy the product. It’s also another opportunity to encourage users to like, share and subscribe.

16. Promote Your YouTube Videos on Other Channels

Promote your YouTube videos on other social media platforms and on your website. The methods of driving traffic to a YouTube channel are no different to those for a website or a blog. Tweet your videos, post links to them on Facebook, and share them on social bookmarks sites. Every good quality external link that you have pointing at your videos will increase their ranking in the search engine results.

17. Keep Videos Fast Paced and Entertaining

Be tough when you edit your videos. Cut anything out that detracts from the main topic of the video or doesn’t add anything to the value of the video. Attention spans are very short on the internet. If you give viewers any reason at all to exit your video, they will.

18. Study Your Social Video Analytics

Study your analytics to discover your most popular content. Find out which videos created the most conversions, likes and subscribers. If certain topics or types of video are very popular, don’t be afraid to rehash the idea into something new.

19. Collaborate with Other Channels

Collaboration with other YouTube channels will expose your content to a new audience. Reach out to channels that cover similar or related topics to your own, but that don’t compete directly with you. In time, you may be able to develop a team of YouTubers who you can work with to help you grow your YouTube channel.

20. Create Playlists

If you have one very popular topic in your niche, think about creating a series of interrelated videos on that topic. If you link a series of videos together in a playlist, that will encourage binge watching. That will be good for video marketing. It will help with you with growing your YouTube channel. And, it will boost your social video analytics.

Conclusion

When you are growing a YouTube channel, you do need to think about SEO and the Google Algorithms. But, the most important thing to think about is the viewers. Make sure that your titles and thumbnails are attention grabbing. Make sure that the content delivers on what was promised in the thumbnail and title. Make sure that your content is informative, engaging, and entertaining. Every type of channel needs a different approach to make it successful. The best way to find the winning formula for your YouTube channel is to study the social video analytics of your own videos and those of your competitors. Ditch ideas that don’t work and follow the trend of those that do. Then, you’ll soon start growing your YouTube channel and reaping the rewards of your video marketing efforts.