Youtube Marketing Tips

[mohdanas]

I have uploaded my first video on youtube. 

I was wondering, what are the platform or strategies where I can cross promote it.

I have read the usual google search but looking for any tips from a real youtuber here probably. 
 

 

[dude]

http://yttalk.com/forums/youtube-video-marketing-strategy-seo.88/

Here is a good resource.

These two posts on that forum helped me the most.

Quote

You can break this guide up into 3 segments, 0-100 subscribers, 100-1000, and 1000-selfsustainable stage
One thing that should be noted, is that luck IS a factor on Youtube, no matter what anyone says. For fast growth you need good original content which is widely appealing, however for the fastest growth you also need luck.

0-100 subscribers.
Now this is truthfully one of the hardest barriers to pass as a Youtuber, don't be fooled. My first 100 subscribers took more time than the next 1000. It's very hard to generate traffic to your channel. At this stage you can't even use Reddit to promote your videos, Reddit folk generally tend to upvote less when they see it's a video with no likes/comments/views. Also it's nice to have subscribers upvoting for you, regardless of how big the subreddit is.

Some people say you should share it on your personal facebook and so on, however to make this guide user-friendly towards everyone, let's go from the assumption that you don't wanna share your Youtube channel with your personal friends and so on. Where do you get traffic?

First off we have social media, and by that I don't mean your personal Facebook, but more so Facebook pages and Twitter users. Try to find a demographic, specifically for the type of content you make. For us gamers especially it's very easy, there's always theese very niche Fb/Twitter pages for just the type of content you make. You can Tweet at people/pages, and that's a very solid way of achieving traffic to your channel. I know for a fact that many Facebook pages also accept submissions.

Now why do I only mention Facebook/Twitter, well when it comes to social media there's no denying that they're the biggest, and the best. Networking extends far beyond this, and joining a Youtube community like yttalk is a great way to meet people and grow your channel. But I'm just mentioning theese as examples.

What else can factor into the super early growth? Well I HATE to say this, however how fast you grow also depends a lot on luck. Take 2 channels who both have great similar content, one of them may just have a video that ends up in many suggested video boxes, and in tern gives them more traffic. You can't always know which tags will be best for your video, however if you keep at it you should get there eventually.

I don't suggest promoting yourself in Youtube comment section, it drives more trolls and haters to your channel than actual followers.

100-1000 subscribers
Alright, if you're reading this it means you've made it past 100, good job buddy! you've effectively scaled past 87% of all Youtube channels. Let's forget about the fact that a lot of them are inactive or without videos, and celebrate. And I mean that in the most literal fashion, you need to make a video thanking everyone for 100 subscribers. Why? Because this will show your core subscribers how much you appreciate them, this actually also drives surprisingly many people to your channel, I don't know what it is about "thanks for ___ subscribers", but people just tend to watch them.

Now it's time to start your growth-train, and to start you off you need something big, something better, you NEED gateway video(s). Now what is a gateway video? I've mentioned them several times before, basically they are widely appealing, short, entertaining videos, that give people an insentive to subscribe. I'll use myself as an example, my "full ad/ap" series, is a SERIES of videos, which guarantee subscribers more content of the same style.

Now is the time when the smug commenter thinks to himself "well if we knew how to just make gateway videos, we would all be rolling in the dough sniffing crack off hookers in some foreign exotic country", however it's actually fairly simple. A gateway video, can be ANYTHING you make, as long as you make sure it fullfills theese 3 requirements:

1: Your video MUST be entertaining, there's no other way to put it. If people watch a video and they don't like it, well then they're just moving on. I can't give any more advice to this step, since entertainment has so many forms, and how you want to embody that in your videos is your choice.

2: Your video must give people an insentive to subscribe, but fret not, this DOESN'T mean you have to make a series of videos that are super similar. If you can manage to give people a reason to subscribe, other than asking them to do so, then you are on your way to gateway growth.

3: keep it short, now this isn't a requirement as much as it is a guideline. There are plenty of longer gateway videos out there, however being straight to the point and not dragging things out, will generally please a larger audience.

Now this is the segment where I ask you to read my ultimate reddit guide before moving on, sorry I pulled one on you, however it is a necessity if you want to get growth on Reddit. Yes the easiest way to reach 1000 subscribers is naturally to generate more traffic, and from personal experience Reddit is one of the best places to do this. Read my guide, if you have any other questions to Reddit, feel free to post below.

When you think your gateway video(s) are ready, you throw thoose ******* on Reddit, and then make sure to link your subscribers to the Reddit thread. Most subreddits are ok with this, as long as you don't ask them to upvote. I usually type it in a comment, and make sure to mention that "for people who don't have g+, you can comment on Reddit, I'll be replying to comments both here and there". Eventually your subscribers will know that this sentence actually means "upvote this I love you all".

With your clever and unique videos, your superior knowledge on gateway videos, and your absolute fantastic Reddit skillz, you should be on your way to 1000!.

1000-selfsustainable stage
now most of thoose who read "the small stay small, the big get bigger" are carving their eyes out and asking "why did we skip the medium stage", but fret not, cause we won't. Your goal from 1000 subscribers, is basically to reach a point where your channel will grow on it's own without you promoting it. And by grow, I mean visible growth in between each video.

In my other guide I wrote about the medium stage, however from this point on there's really only so much advice I can give you. Make sure you brand your channel so it looks sweet and unique, make sure to do your best when making videos. Don't change your content too much too quickly, this can cause people to lose interest.

And the most powerful sentence, that has helped me, and I'm sure it will help any Youtuber out there:
"Make everything better than the previous". It's honestly the best advice I think one can give, and even if you try and fail, that doesn't matter. Everyone has their high's and their lows, and even though I'd like to think that I've followed this, I have plenty of old videos which are better than my latest videos. But if you constantly use this sentence to see what you can improve, you WILL improve, and that will help your growth.

The smug Youtuber will look at a channel that's bigger than his/hers, and say "My content is better, this guy/gal is so lucky that he/she is so big".

The smart Youtuber will look at a channel that's bigger than his/hers, and say "Wow this channel sure has a lot of followers, instead of looking at what I do better than them, let me look at what they do better than me, and learn from that"

That concludes my guide on early growth on Youtube, if you have any questions or comments I'd love to hear them.

&

Quote

Something that I notice a lot on this forum are people that are complaining that they don’t get any views. Some have done sub4sub in the past, others have only been around for a few weeks and some have been doing this for ages. But I can tell you, the number one reason that you are not getting any views, is because nobody can FIND your video!

Let me take you on a little thought experiment. Imagine a large forest, full of lush trees, but also filled with low growth, such as bushes and weeds. This forest is called Youtube. In this forest there are a lot of little clearings in the trees and everyone is free to start their own little cinema (channel) in one of these clearings. Awesome, right?

So, you head off to one of the clearings and start building a little cabin to house your cinema. It’s not much yet, just one screen, a few chairs. You pour a lot of effort into making your film posters (thumbnails) and making a beautiful nameplate (banner) to place on top of the building. Everything is set for the big release! The evening comes. And nobody shows up. What happened?

Take a good look around your little clearing. You are surrounded by trees and bushes, blocked from all sides. There are a lot of people in the forest, you can hear them walk by, laughing and chattering to each other. But they only walk on the paved roads. Only very few venture through the bushes. What can you do? Pave some roads of course.

On the biggest clearing in Youtube forest stands the Youtube cinema. It’s in the centre of the forest and they cleared away a lot of bushes and trees to accommodate buildings for their workers. You have a good sense of where this clearing is, so you take your tools (SEO) and start clearing a path towards the Youtube cinema. You can only remove the bushes and weeds, winding around the trees and rocks. This first path might not be straight, or the prettiest, but you manage to connect your little clearing to the Youtube clearing. Good job! But there are many, many paths connected to the clearing of the Youtube cinema. Some big cinema’s even have huge, paved roads with streetlights and signs! Your one, little road won’t be enough.

You now know what to do. You pick up your tools again and start clearing paths to other big clearings. The Twitter cinema, the Facebook cinema, a wobbly little path to the Reddit cinema. Not all paths connect, not all paths can be maintained. But slowly but surely, you little clearing gets more and more paths that connect to clearings of others. You might even get to know other people who have a little cinema of their own, paving paths between your clearings.

Now that your clearing has paths to reach it with, people will walk down them. Some people are randomly straying over small paths, others are lost, but some have a destination in mind and are happy to find you! Over time a few of these paths will become broader, straighter and more used. You will be able to chop down some trees and allow more and more people to use your road. Congratulations, your audience can now find you!

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Thank you for joining me on this little adventure. What I would like to tell you is: No, you’re not per definition doing something wrong when you don’t get any views. You could have the best videos in the world. But as long as you don’t reach out and pave some paths, nobody will be able to find you.

Another very import thing that this story tells you is: It takes time! You paths will often start out wonky and small, but if you take time to involve yourself in other communities, the path will broaden and more people will find the way that leads to your content.

Thank you for reading and I hope I have shed some light on the monster that is called: Networking!

 

[Arman]

Check this out - a really cool way to create multiple streams of content types. Be sure to check out Miles' other videos on content marketing. 

 

btw, want to share your youtube? 

Edited April 24, 2018 by Arman

[Arman]

here's another video I think you will find highly valuable: