According to statistics, YouTube is the second-largest, only to Google, search engine. It is important to note that Google does own the platform. However, with size comes problems and many channels struggle to get the engagements they need to make a success on YouTube.
If your brand is looking for ways and strategies to increase comments, likes, shares, etc., on YouTube, read our tips below.
In This Article
Hint In The Video
Increase engagement by asking viewers to complete specific actions while watching your vids. Make it obvious what you want audiences to do. There are several options for asking when you are creating new content.
The first is to make a request at both the beginning and end of your vids. You want to add it to the beginning so those who don’t finish still get the hint to comment, like, or share. You might also want to use animations on the screen that direct viewers to make a comment, hit the like button, or share your content.
Promote Your Channel
Use traditional promotional methods for your channel and increase engagement. Some promotional avenues include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others using paid advertising. Facebook and Instagram advertising is highly effective if you target the audience correctly.
Though if you don’t know how to segment an audience, it can become expensive without achieving real traction. You could buy YouTube views using Videosgrow – cheap views services are available here.
Ask A Question
Asking the audience questions encourages people to interact with your YouTube content. You could ask them about their opinion about the content, your channel in general, or something else. Ask for their opinion on something by leaving their opinion in the comments.
Polls Build Traction
Polls are great for engagement. Add new polls to your community page and ask fans to vote and comment. There are numerous types of polls you can build, including:
- What the audience thinks of a title screen/introduction.
- What are their opinions on a certain topic?
- The type of content they would like to watch next.
- Food YouTubers can ask what dish viewers want.
Respond To Comments
Running a YouTube channel takes a lot of time, and some of the best YouTubers sometimes fail to engage their audience in one critical option: responding to comments. However, responding to comments creates a positive vibe on your channel and will encourage audiences to communicate more in the future.
And this doesn’t stop on YouTube either. When you promote your content on other platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, etc., ensure that you respond to comments on those networks.
Ensure Videos Are The Right Length
Vids need to be of the right length. The ones between seven and fifteen minutes perform better on views, engagements, and other metrics. However, think about your end goal too. YouTube doesn’t like content to be shorter than 10 minutes for advertising, and you can sometimes be penalized if you go below this time limit.
Also, the longer your videos, the higher the chance audiences will switch to a new one. Therefore, aim for videos that are about 11-12 minutes long.
Video Cards
Don’t forget to use cards within to direct audiences to where they need to go next. When you want visits to a specific video, mention it in your dialogue and point to the card in the top right corner.
Share Content On Other Channels Like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
You’re likely to be on other social channels in addition to YouTube. Share new videos and content on those channels as well. Many audiences will follow you on numerous channels but only get notifications from one or two. Regularly re-share relevant vids on Twitter as the lifespan of a tweet is just 10 minutes, so many of your followers might miss old videos.
Embed Pillar/Important Videos On Your Website
Improve the SEO potential of your website while getting more engagement by adding videos directly onto your website’s pages/blog posts. Use a YouTube gallery plugin/app/software or automatically embed videos using the software that YouTube already has available.
Audiences might also watch the video on the blog/page and then go to your channel to make a comment. Or they can like it directly on the website.
Create Email Newsletters With Video
Emails have one of the highest ROIs of any digital channel. Adding a video to an email blast can make them more engaging. So, add videos to newsletters to get more of your content read and viewed by audiences. Emails with vids see a 300% increase in click-throughs.
Create A Competition
Nothing creates engagement better than competition. Competitions can include elements such as liking the video, sharing it on social media, and making a comment below it. Be sure you’re giving something away that is valuable.
Good options could be merchandise, gift vouchers, or a personal experience. When creating a competition, give a deadline to create urgency and get more people to enter your contest.
Create A Community
Create a branded community on the YouTube platform to help build a fan spirit. There are platforms like Patreon and BuyMeACoffee that include tools to help build communities and revenue.
Or create a membership area on your website. Make it worthwhile for your fans; give them earlier access to videos, extra content, mentions, and other benefits that general viewers can’t get.
Improve Video/Audio Quality
When you have good video and audio quality, you will improve engagement. You can improve quality by buying the best equipment, better software, or hiring an expert. These experts can then support you by adding new sound effects, animations, and more.
Create Collaboration Videos With Influencers
Collaborations are perfect for improving engagement with audiences. Not only will you get your audience excited, but you will also market your channel to a large, new audience that will likely follow you. Therefore, the long-term benefits can be much higher than other options on the list.
Improve SEO
Your video’s SEO is key. Better rankings on the YouTube search feature allow you to be discovered by more potential viewers and help you to get more relevant audiences. Several elements are there to improve the SEO of vids.
The first thing you need is a keyword finder to discover the more relevant keywords for the topic you want. This should be something with a lot of search volume but not a lot of competition. Then you will need to:
- Optimize the title, so it includes the keyword.
- Optimize the description so they include a keyword and long-tailed key phrases.
- Add manual subtitles, YouTube does offer subtitles, but they can be very inaccurate.
Produce Videos More Regularly
Most content producers state to improve the engagement of your vids you need to be publishing more regularly. Research has shown that content creators need to create three or more videos a week and be on the platform every day to get the best engagement and growth.
This is a lot of content to produce. Some brands find it easier to record four videos a week. They then keep some back to ensure when there is a problem with production (equipment failure, power cuts, illness), content can be released regardless.
