“The great thing about YouTube is there is no gatekeeper. No one is waiting to tell you if you’re good enough, it’s just your audience.” – Lindsey Stirling
I don’t think I am presumptive when I say that you are here for either one of the two reasons. You have either taken a stern decision to start a YouTube channel but are confused about where to begin from. Or, you already have a channel that is not growing the way you expected. Either way, this is where your search ends, and your edification begins.
Just like every other business in the world, YouTube has, contrary to its past, become extremely competitive to the point that it is cutthroat today. Just putting out content regularly does not guarantee your survival on this platform; growing is a whole different ball game. The foundation of a successful YouTube channel revolves around its promotion and viewership, which is not always related to the quality of the content you are putting out. So, let us understand how a YouTube channel should be promoted and how views can be gained through it and vice versa.
What is YouTube, and how it works?
Expression of one’s ideas has always been of utmost importance to the community. With the rise in technology, the concept of sharing ideas creatively has constantly evolved. When it comes to the audio-visual platform of any kind, YouTube has undeniably made its mark. With an ever-increasing library of videos that one can watch, even his full capabilities cannot get through it all. It has been crowned as one of the best audio-visual platforms.
It has been statistically analyzed that about 50 million Youtubers on the platform, with about 2 billion people consuming the content they put out, which adds up to 1 billion videos watched every day, which when segregated is about 500 hours’ worth of content uploaded every minute. Yes, let that sink in!
You must be wondering, if the videos are freely available to the world, then how do the YouTubers earn? Well, it all comes down to advertisement. YouTube on its own is just a medium that curates the content that has been uploaded upon it. This content works as an advertisement for YouTube since more people come to this platform to consume it.
Monetization of the media is done through the advertisements that are run on the platform. Brands and companies run their ads alongside the monetized YouTube channels since they know that a certain audience will come across it. The more views your video gains while being completely clean, the more your video earns. More brands would like to associate themselves with channels that cater to the general public. YouTubers do not have a fixed salary. It that all depends upon the advertising.
What is the algorithm, and how does it work?
To gain more views and truly grow on any platform, one needs to know how YouTube’s system and algorithm function. About 70% of what people watch on YouTube is not search-based, but the algorithm clocks those recommendations. This proves that it will only take one search from your side to jump into this endless spiral of videos.
YouTube algorithm helps users watch videos continuously without searching for them individually. This is how newer content is recommended to the audience, and smaller channels grow. Suppose someone is watching videos about the history of rap music, and your channel also focuses on a similar path. In that case, it might get recommended to that user at some point.
Every category has tons of videos in its pockets, and therefore algorithm tailors these recommendations accordingly. The recommendation completely depends upon the following:
Views –
Views on any video state how many people clicked and watched the video. The higher the view count, the more chances of it being helpful and useful to the potential viewers. You will always see that when you search for a particular topic, mostly the videos that come on the result page are in ascending order. The video with the highest number of views is mostly displayed first.
Like to dislike ratio –
A video can have thousands of views and still not get promoted if the like to dislike ratio is bad. Suppose the number of dislikes on your video is greater than the number of likes. In that case, the algorithm will identify that your video is not turning out to be useful. Therefore it will stop promoting and recommending it.
Comments –
Comments are something that many YouTubers do not pay attention to. However, they matter a lot, especially for channels that are still growing to find their audience. More comments on a video prove that the audience is reacting to the video and even offering feedback. This helps the algorithm.
Subscribers and other videos’ performance –
Subscribers are the people who are interested in watching the content you put out. The more the subscribers, the higher the view count your videos obtain. A channel with more subscribers proves to the algorithm that the audience is truly enjoying the videos you upload. This being the reason your videos would show the above videos from channels with a lower sub count. The same goes for the performance of the videos on your channel.
Suppose all the videos are doing well on their own. In that case, the algorithm will recognize that you are constantly putting out good content that the audience is reciprocating with. Thus, it will promote it further.
Guidelines –
YouTube is very strict with its community guidelines. While any video that violates that does get removed, there are certain topics that YouTube does not promote in its entirety.
If your video consists of nudity, foul language, harassment, hate speech, then it will shortly get removed; however, even if your video talks about these issues, there are chances that your video will get demonetized, and it won’t be promoted to the masses regardless of the subscribers. Following these guidelines is essential since a video that violates them is certainly not brand and advisement-friendly.
You have to know their importance since they will all come into play later.
How to promote your YouTube channel and gain more views?
And now to answer the big question. Promotion of the YouTube channel and supplementation of more views are two different yet connected things. They go hand in hand; however, they can be dealt with separately. Let us focus on promoting your channel to gain views and gaining views to grow your channel.
How to promote your YouTube channel?
There are two ways you can promote your channel. The free way and the paid way. We will discuss both.
Sharing –
It is very important to generate traffic on your channel through other platforms. This means that you need to share your channel with your friends and family and ask them to do the same. This is a time-consuming process but will bring in newer audiences to your channel. Apart from this, you can even promote your channel on various social sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Channel keywords –
Based on what your channel focuses on and under what category does the content of the channel fall, type in the keywords related to that category under the “Advanced” option in your settings. These will help YouTube understand better what your channel’s target audience would be. Accordingly, it will promote the content and the channel.
Advertisements –
This is a paid method but is likely to pull in a lot of newer audiences. Running advertisements on YouTube itself is a very common way to gain more subscribers. This could be done by either making a separate video that would run as the ad or using your best video and turning your content into your ad. This is not limited to YouTube itself; platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit allow advertisements and attract audiences.
Engaging with the already existing audience –
It is very important that you build a community through your channel. It should be more of a conversation than a monologue; by this, we mean that the viewers’ comments and feedback should be considered while plotting your future videos. Engaging in the comment section with them helps bring in that intimacy. This will connect you to the viewers on a human level, thus striking a positive note. This emotion will subconsciously urge them to share the content further.
How to gain more views?
Sharing your videos
As stated above, sharing your videos with your friends and family will obviously increase the number of views. The same applies to sharing it on social pages. If you keep sharing your content, people will eventually come across it through mutual contacts.
Advertisements
Whether the advertisements pull in subscribers or not, they will certainly pull in many views on that video. This is why we recommend that rather than making a separate video for the ad, use the channel’s content to increase the views. People can know how good your content is from the first time they see your name.
Engaging with the audience
Engaging with the audience will result in a domino effect. That means, if ten people comment on your video and you reply to 7 of those, many others will comment the next time you upload, expecting a reply from your side. This will help your video work with the algorithm.
Now that these points are summarized. Let us know all the other ways through which you can increase your views. There are paid and free methods here as well.
Thumbnails
The most important thing that you need to work on is your thumbnails. They need to be of high quality and should not look cheap. Before coming across any of your content or gaining their approval, the thumbnail convinces people to click on the video and watch it. It has to be attractive and aesthetically suit the video.
The title should be in the thumbnail as well or something in relation to it, as long as it catches the viewer’s eye. Do not clickbait the audience by showing high-quality thumbnails while the video is not par with that. Make a thumbnail that matches the video quality, concept, and aesthetic. Remember, a high-quality video can fail, and a low-quality video can succeed, and it all depends on the thumbnail. A striking thumbnail could break ground and make way to newer audiences, leading to gaining more views and growing your channel.
Titles
Your title is also what works as the eye grabber for the potential viewer. You might not have clicked on this article if it was not for the title. This is why titles are important. They will help the audience know what exactly the video is going to cover and help the algorithm cater your video to the right audiences.
Keep the title short and catchy while maintaining a certain level of curiosity, making the person click on it. Do not put false titles to gain more views. When the viewer realizes that the video does not talk about what is mentioned in the title, they will dislike the video and refrain from checking any of your content ever again.
This can have a negative domino effect, leading to people not watching or sharing your content, thus stunting your growth, so be careful and honest with your viewers. A good and mysterious title can work wonders for you and garden views in a number you never expected.
Tags –
Tags are certainly a very underrated feature that many YouTubers do not understand the full potential of. Smaller channels can actually take the help of the tags and get their video in the top search results. Tags are nothing but words that dictate to the algorithm the concepts and topics around which your video revolves. For example, suppose you are uploading a makeup tutorial.
In that case, your tags will include everything related to makeup, especially covered in the video. The audience cannot see these tags, but they help the algorithm recognize what the video is about and under what categories it can fall.
So, even if someone searches for eyeliner because you have it in your tags, there are chances that your video might also show up in the results. Keep the tags related to the video only, as the rules by YouTube clearly state that false and unnecessary tags should not be used because it messes up the algorithm and its functions. Here, instead of the viewers, YouTube will take action against your video. Straight forward and necessary tags can turn out to be much more beneficial than you can imagine.
Regular uploads –
How will you convince a big company like YouTube and its loyal, widespread users that you are dedicated and that your content should be acknowledged? By being consistent. Regular uploads will show YouTube and the viewers that you take serious efforts to grow your channel. It also means that the probability of your video reaching a distant crowd is high. When a viewer comes across your video, there are times when he watches it and then goes back to his search for a new one.
In this case, regular uploads will make your videos pop into his recommendation more often since he has already watched one of your videos, and now the algorithm will recommend him the content from the same channel again. Even if a person comes across your video and does not click on it for some reason, there are chances that they will do that in the future as they will see you uploading regularly. This way, you will prove to be a worthy contender in this competitive market.
Quality over quantity –
Now that we have discussed regular uploads, we have to address the quality of your content. 20% of users will leave a video if it hasn’t hooked them in the first 10 seconds. Do not lose yourself regularly uploading that you compromise on the quality, disappoint the existing viewers, and lose those potential subscribers.
Make sure that you give your best in every video since you never know which algorithm the algorithm promotes. Putting out a good video every time makes the probability of you gaining more audience higher. In contrast, one bad video can get many people not to visit your channel again. This is tough, but always put quality over quantity. You would notice that your number game, in the long run, would be tremendously strong.
Remind the audience –
A very simple trick that you would know yourself. You need to remind the audience that if they like, comment and share your video, and it would help you in a big way. Since YouTube is a free platform, you have to remind them that it takes nothing from their side to like and subscribe but helps you greatly. Tell them about how algorithms work and make them realize it is crucially important for any creator to have more likes, comments, and shares to grow and survive in this merciless wilderness. Do not hammer it into their heads; rather, add it to the flow of the video.
Either put it before starting the video or after the video ends. Putting it in the middle of the video has turned out to be distracting for viewers. This will connect you to the audience personally, and their reaction to the video through likes and comments would help your video get pushed further by the algorithm.
Keep it clean –
It is extremely important to note that whichever video you put out should come under all the YouTube community guidelines and policies. Violating them could make you lose your entire channel, as you might be aware of the 3-strike system. Not limiting your creative space but any video that is family friendly and can appeal to major audiences is likely to perform better than a video with adult content in it, even if you are talking about something serious.
YouTube runs through other brands and companies running their adverts on the platform, so it needs to ensure that none of these brands are associated with content that is not appropriate and cannot harbor to the masses.
Buy views and likes –
Now we come to the paid method. If you try the above methods and still somehow do not reach the desired goal, you can certainly buy views and likes. Note that this should only be done for a short amount of time to get that push from the algorithm. Buying views and likes will let your video get recognized by the algorithm, and it will then be pushed by the system further.
It is not illegal, and there are genuine websites that offer you likes and views from real accounts, not bots. Bots could endanger your channel because if YouTube recognizes it, it will delete those views and likes and shadow ban you, and not push any of your videos. However, buying real views and likes will help you achieve that spot on the recommendation and search result page. Your channel would eventually get noticed.
Conclusion
Promoting your channel and gaining more views can be done through paid and unpaid methods, and both are completely fine and legal. You need to decide which one suits you the best or if you want to combine them both and get the best of both worlds. It is difficult for a small channel to grow on YouTube.
Still, if you target longevity and content above everything, nothing will stop you. There is no set way through which you can increase your views and grow your channel instantly. You need to follow the basics to the core and then use additional methods like paid promotions and advertisements. Always remember that if your content is not good enough, even the adverts cannot do much for you. These are some of the ways through which you can promote your channel and gain more views. Wishing you all the very best!
