In this top ten guide I'll show you how to promote your YouTube channel with some free methods and some paid ones too. how to promote your youtube channel (10 top ways by a real youtuber) So, you probably landed here because you want to know how to promote your YouTube channel. That was me a few years ago. My name's Sean and I've been a YouTuber for 4 years now and with over 10,000,000+ views, you can be sure I know what I'm talking about. Promoting your YouTube channel is not as difficult as you might think. However, it's whether you're willing to put in the time which will determine how successful you are at getting new eyeballs to your channel. There are tons of ways to promote your YouTube channel but here are my top 10 ways. 1. have great keywords I've talked about this in-depth in my post here but I feel like it needs repeating and I think it's a sure way to promote your YouTube channel. It's kind of the basics when it comes to promoting your channel as it's how people on YouTube are going to find you. I like to think of this method as the home-ground promo. This is all done on your videos and channel. So, we need to be writing titles,, descriptions and tags which use the words people are searching for. So for example, if your video is called 'how to make cupcakes' you need to make sure you're using this tag in your description, title and tags. When it comes to YouTube's tags, you need to be thinking of the search terms people will use to find your video. So, use terms relating to the tile of your video and add several different variations. Example; make cupcakes for kids, make cupcakes easy You get the idea. So, don't skip this method and don't over-look it. For new videos and channels, it'll take a while maybe a week, for your video to be indexed properly. As your video gets more views it should creep up the rankings for that search term. 2. youtube's paid promotion Although my channel grew fast due to great keywords placements, I also used YouTube's paid promotion tool to start getting eyes on my videos. It's super easy to use and it's well worth the money. You need to first set up a free Google Adwords account. Don't be put off by this you'll be dealing with it through YT and they keep it really simple. When you've published a video, you have a drop down box next to it and you can scroll down to 'promote'. When you've clicked this you're taken to a page where you can set your budget. You can set a campaign amount for a set time (I recommend 2 weeks) so you'll never over spend. You'll stop after 2 weeks and wont be charged anymore. You can set any amount you want from 5$. I recommend setting $10 for 2 weeks. This normally gets you 50-100 views a day. This is super simple easy way to get the ball rolling. Along the way you'll more than likely get some new subscribers and comments adding to the momentum of your channel. This method can be rinsed and repeated for each video you release when ever you've got a free dollars spare top spend. After all you are investing in the life of your channel and it's well worth it in my opinion. 3. go to reddit and forums The third method involves going to places where people hang out. I like to use the cake making/cooking example a lot! So, if you've just made your channel and you have a few videos, you'll want to promote it in front of people who will want to watch it. There's no point putting it in front of someone who has no interest cooking. So, running with the cooking example, find a forum where budding cooks and those interested in baking hangout. The great thing about forums is you can leave a signature and this can be a URL for your blog of YouTube channel. Here's what you want to do; Browse the threads of the forum, look for people talking about or asking for advice about something your videos relate to. Leave a really useful answer and make sure it's fairly detailed. If someone likes your reply, they'll more than likely see your signature URL link and may even click on it. To speed things up, you can even include in your answer something like 'I've got a good video on my channel if you want to see me do it!' You just have to leave replies that look natural and not spammy. Once you become more of a contributor to the forum, you'll be seen as an authority in your niche and people will more and more click on your link. If you've got and entertainment or shock channel, Reddit might be your answer. Reddit can be an odd place but a little advertising on the website can send huge traffic to your channel. So, don't be afraid to get involved in a forum where you want to set out to help people and contribute. 4. use your social accounts Facebook video is becoming more popular. Still, it can't compete with YouTube but it allows you to connect with fans on a deeper level. Set up your page on Facebook which is a really simple process, and start posting. Make sure you use your logo from your channel to keep your branding fluent. Everyday 100's of videos go viral on Facebook. The cooking example I use is so relevant to Facebook right now. You may have noticed the videos of 5. speak to youtubers in your field Promoting your YouTube channel can easily be done using this method. I've seen this method grow subscribers in less than one hour to an extremely high extent. I have personally used this before. The idea is, you want to send a message to a 'big' YouTuber in your field or niche and ask them for a shout-out, usually for a fee. This payment can be made over Paypal easily. You want to write something like; "Hello, my name is, xxxxx, I noticed you have a big following who I think might benefit from my videos too. Of course I'd be willing to make a payment if you would mention my channel in your next video? thanks, xxxx" Just one quick email can get you 100's of subs overnight. Obviously, someone is not going to want to promote a channel on their channel unless they think that you are pretty cool and are a right fit for their audience. That's why before doing this you need to make sure that your channel looks awesome and you have a few videos on your channel so when people visit they can start being entertained right away. This is a first class way to promote your YouTube channel for guaranteed subs. 6. submit submit submit There are plenty of ways for people to discover you on YouTube. Consider using social bookmarking sites like stumbleupon and digg.com. These sites are free to use and they allow you to submit links including videos which will get your channel into circulation when people search for relating terms. 7. allow your videos to be embedded I think this point gets over-looked a lot. YouTube allows it's videos to be embedded into websites which ultimately benefits them because they still get views outside of YouTube. Use this to your advantage. A great strategy is to find a website owner in your field and look around their website. Could they use a video to make their content more engaging? Most of the time the answer is yes. Although many website owners will scour YouTube to pinch videos they can use, a lot still don't. This gives you a great opportunity to approach such owners and send them a message like; "Hey I was looking through your site and I noticed you don't have many videos on this topic. I was wondering if you'd be interested in including my video, 'xxxx', in your article 'xxxx' . This is a win-win for both of your. The website owner gets free content to boost their articles engagement and you get your video in-front of an audience who is already established. This is a free and easy way to promote your YouTube channel. 8. leave comments on related channels Again, if you want people who are already consuming similar content, you gotta go where they are already. Go to similar channels and leave comments. Not just any old comments but helpful ones. Don't say; "come see my videos, they are better." people will call you out. Instead opt to leave something that compliments the video and don't directly say come and see my videos. The more and more you do this, you'll be seen as someone who's very involved in the community and people will start clicking on your avatar to see who you are. This is a quick and easy way to promote your YouTube channel that you can take advantage of right now. So, spend 30 minutes a day, commenting, liking and responding to the people who you want to watch your videos. I think people forget YouTube is a social media like any other and starting conversations is what it's all about. 9. add in a contest every now and again Running a contest on YouTube is a free (sometimes) way to promote your channel. This method of promotion really is something that you can do right away but it'll be useful when you have a few subscribers. You'll need something that you'll give to the winner of the contest first. When running a contest make sure you tell your audience they need to like, share and subscribe for a chance to win. It's up to you how long you run your contest for but a week is long enough. To re-inforce the offer consider creating a Facebook ad campaign on your FB page. This is a great way to promote your channel to people on Facebook not just YouTube. You'll only need to spend $10 for the week running the ad but it can draw in a lot of attention if the item or product you're giving away is of value to them. 10. create a shock video Creating a 'shock video' as I like to call it is a great way to get attention on YouTube. This method of promoting your YouTube channel is one that is slightly harder to achieve and involves clickbaiting to a degree. You'll want to use the skill you learned in my article about creating killer thumbnails.
Shock videos or click bait videos can land you on the front page of YT and can help promote your channel for free. They also have the ability to generate millions of views fast. One example of a shock or click bait video is PewDiePie's video titled- 'I'm deleting my channel'. This obviously got his fans in a stir to click on his video to find out what was going on. He in fact was not deleting it but it definitely got him a lot of views and is one of his most viewed videos. Some example of shock videos that are working ; - 1000 degree knife vs - The most satisfying video in the world - 99% of people will fail this test Obviously, these are the type of titles that people find hard to resist and therefore click on them. If you don't have a pre-existing audience to get into a stir, you can create a video, give it an epic thumbnail and then use YouTube's promote video feature to start the ball rolling. Once you get a few 100 views, your views should start to trickle in naturally. There are tons of ways to promote your YouTube channel paid and free, you just need to be creative and try and be different from the crowd.
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Sean Michael
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