We’ve had tons of YouTube success with our own channels, so today we’ll be sharing essential tips on how to position your content effectively for maximum engagement and recognition.
Crafting YouTube content is an art, and knowing how to “activate” your content so it’s perceived as high quality by YouTube’s algorithm is a significant part of this journey.
Now let’s unlock the secrets to YouTube stardom!
We can count on them to bring new ideas to the table consistently
Why YouTube?
YouTube is the largest video-sharing website in the world.
So it makes complete sense that we, as advertisers, can look at it as an applicable placement for video ads, promotional content, and simply just a location to share your brand messaging:
Here are some of the key reasons why YouTube is the best space for sharing content that’s relative to your brand:
- Massive audience: YouTube has an enormous user base, with over 2.1 billion active users monthly. This vast audience provides a tremendous opportunity to reach a diverse range of potential customers worldwide.
- Video as a compelling format: Video content is highly engaging and captivating, allowing brands to convey their messaging in a visually appealing and interactive manner. This medium enables emotional storytelling, which can forge strong connections between brands and their audiences.
- SEO benefits: YouTube is the second-largest search engine after Google, and it is owned by Google itself. Optimizing your YouTube content can improve your overall search engine rankings, making it easier for users to discover your brand and content through Google searches.
- Shareability and virality: YouTube videos have the potential to go viral, spreading your brand messaging rapidly across social media platforms and the internet. This organic sharing can significantly boost brand visibility and reach.
- Community engagement: YouTube fosters a vibrant community of content creators and viewers. Users on the platform are very interactive, and the commotion that forms around videos is one of the factors that YouTube’s algorithm considers when prioritizing the exposure of the video.
- Analytics and insights: YouTube provides robust analytics tools that offer valuable insights into the performance of your videos and audience demographics. This data helps you understand what resonates with your audience, allowing you to refine your brand messaging over time.
- Monetization opportunities: If your brand’s YouTube channel gains a significant following, you can explore monetization options such as YouTube’s Partner Program, brand partnerships, and sponsored content. This can create an additional revenue stream for your brand.
- Long-term content value: Unlike social media posts that have a relatively short lifespan, YouTube videos can continue to drive traffic and engagement for an extended period. Evergreen content that remains relevant over time can continually reinforce your brand messaging.
- Brand personality and authenticity: YouTube allows brands to showcase their personality, culture and behind-the-scenes content.
- Cross-channel integration: YouTube videos can be easily shared and embedded on other platforms, such as websites, blogs, and social media channels. This enables seamless cross-channel integration, further amplifying your brand messaging.
Pushing Your Video Content in the First 24 Hours
The important thing is to prioritize new video content immediately after it’s posted.
From a broad perspective, there are several components of helping your video content perform well on YouTube, such as:
- Incorporating relevant keywords into your content
- Creating content around popular search terms
- Optimizing your video titles and descriptions
- Designing and A/B testing thumbnails
While these tactics are essential and valuable, our focus with this article is on one specific factor you ought to prioritize over anything else if you want to grow your YouTube channel: Promoting the video as much as possible in the first 24 hours.
The way YouTube’s algorithm works is this:
The videos that perform well within the first 24 hours tend to continue thriving throughout the video’s lifespan.
Use push notifications, send out email blasts, and even consider SMS blasts to notify your audience about the new video. If appropriate, you can also invest in paid advertising to give your video an extra boost.
Sure, the basics matter, as we’ve included above. But the real game-changer lies in how aggressively you promote your video in those initial 24 hours. By doing so, you set the stage for long-term success on YouTube.
It’s a straightforward concept, yet it can make all the difference between thriving and merely surviving on the platform.
Focus on a Niche
Consistency is key on YouTube. Concentrate on a specific niche that aligns with your expertise and interests. Avoid the mistake of jumping between unrelated topics, as it can confuse your audience and reduce overall session time.
Take the example of YouTube channels like Neil Patel. His channel doesn’t deviate from the core material, which is content related to digital marketing and growing your brand’s identity:
The lesson here is straightforward but often overlooked — focus on one thing, one type of content.
By honing in on a single topic, your viewers are more likely to remain engaged throughout their YouTube session, leading to increased watch time for your channel. As YouTube aims to keep users on the platform for as long as possible, delivering consistent content on one topic can significantly improve your channel’s visibility and success.
It’s vital that you resist the temptation to diversify your content prematurely. Avoid the trap of switching between different topics haphazardly, as it can confuse your audience. It can also dilute your potential of leading your audience into cascading chains of watching different videos on your channel. Instead, focus on creating valuable, informative, and engaging content around your chosen subject.
YouTube’s algorithm is designed to promote more of what is already successful, so by mastering your niche and delivering content that resonates with your audience, you can steadily grow your channel.
In a word, just be consistent.
Leveraging Audience Insights: VidIQ and TubeBuddy
Understanding your audience is vital for creating content that resonates with them.
Two invaluable tools for gaining deeper insights into your audience’s preferences and optimizing your content strategy are:
TubeBuddy offers excellent A/B testing features, allowing you to fine-tune your content for maximum impact. It can help you generate ideas for content and ways to vary your content for testing purposes:
VidIQ excels in content planning, providing competitive insights and AI-driven title suggestions. It can also be integrated with generative AI tools like ChatGPT to develop titles, descriptions, and even scripts for your video content.
Using both tools can give you a well-rounded approach to understanding your audience and optimizing your content.
Last Word on YouTube Success
Well, there you have it. Simple enough, right?
Focus on pushing your content harder in the first 24 hours after posting, and do not deviate from your main content. If you do both of these things, you’ll set yourself on a much quicker path to YouTube virality.
Make sure that you’re still preserving strong content quality and paying attention to technical best practices with your content. It’s all of these details combined that make the best YouTubers what they are.
Good luck!
If you’re ready to expand your YouTube channel, Single Grain’s YouTube experts can help!👇
Repurposed from our Marketing School podcast.
